A Political and Social History of Modern Europe Part 43

[Sidenote: Lutheran Churches on the Continent]

In the eighteenth century, Lutheranism was the state religion of Denmark (including Norway), Sweden, and of several German states, notably Prussia, Saxony, and Brunswick. The Lutheran churches retained much of the old ritual and episcopal government. Ecclesiastical lands, however, had been secularized, and Lutheran pastors were supported by free-will offerings and state subventions. In Prussia, [Footnote: Later, in 1817, the Lutherans and Calvinists of Prussia were brought together, under royal pressure, to form the "Evangelical Church."

According to the king, this was not a fusion of the two Protestant faiths, but merely an external union.] Denmark, and Sweden the church recognized the king as its _summus episcopus_ or supreme head.

[Sidenote: Reformed Churches]

Zwinglian and Calvinistic churches were usually called "Reformed" or "Presbyterian" and represented a more radical deviation than Lutheranism from Roman Catholic theology and ritual, holding the Lord's Supper to be but a commemorative ceremony, doing away with altar- lights, crucifixes, and set prayers, and governing themselves by synods of priests or presbyters. In the eighteenth century Presbyterianism was still the established religion of Scotland, and of the Dutch Netherlands. In France the Huguenots, in Switzerland the French- speaking Calvinists and German-speaking Zwinglians, and numerous congregations in southern Germany still represented the Reformed Church of Calvin and Zwingli. [Footnote: For the Orthodox Church in Russia, see above, pp. 122, 372, 380. Some reforms in the ritual had been introduced by a certain Nikon, a patriarch of the seventeenth century.]

[Sidenote: Growth of Skepticism. Deism]

One of the most noteworthy features of the eighteenth century was the appearance of a large number of doubters of Christianity. In the comparatively long history of the Christian Church, there had often been reformers, who attacked specific doctrines or abuses, but never before, with the possible exception of Italian humanists of the fifteenth century, [Footnote: See above, pp. 124, 182 ff.] had there been such a considerable and influential number who ventured to a.s.sail the very foundations of the Christian belief. During the last quarter of the seventeenth century, a number of English philosophers, imbued with enthusiasm for the discovery of scientific laws, went on to apply the newer scientific methods to religion. They claimed that the Bible was untrustworthy, that the dogmas and ceremonies of the churches were useless if not actually harmful, and that true religion was quite natural in man and independent of miraculous revelation. G.o.d, they a.s.serted, had created the universe and established laws for it. He would not upset these laws to answer the foolish prayers of a puny human being. Men served G.o.d best by discounting miracles, discrediting "superst.i.tion," and living in accordance with natural law. Just what this law was, they left largely to the common sense of each man to determine. As a result, the positive side of Deism, as the body of the new teachings was called, was lost in vagueness, and the negative side --the mere denial of orthodox Christianity--became uppermost in men's minds.

Deism was important in several ways, especially for France, whence it was carried from England. (1) For a large part of the most intelligent and influential cla.s.ses, it _destroyed reverence_ for the Church, and prepared the way for the religious experiments of the French Revolution. (2) It gave an impetus to _philosophers_ who evolved great systems and exhibited wonderful ingenuity and confidence in formulating laws which would explain the why, what, whence, and whither of human life. (3) While casting doubt on the efficacy of particular religions, it demanded _toleration_ for all. (4) Finally, it was responsible for a great increase of _indifference_ to religion.

People too lazy or too ignorant to understand the philosophic basis of Deism, used the arguments of Deists in justification of their contempt for religion, and to many people disbelief and intelligence seemed to be synonymous. We have considered Deism here for its significant bearing on the religious situation in the eighteenth century. In the following section we shall see how it was part and parcel of the scientific and intellectual spirit of the times.

SCIENTIFIC AND INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENTS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

[Sidenote: Art]

As we have observed in an earlier chapter, both science and art flowered in the sixteenth century. The great men of the eighteenth century, however, devoted themselves almost exclusively to science; and the artists of the time were too insincere, too intent upon pleasing shallow-brained and frivolous courtiers, to produce much that was worth while. Great numbers of plays were written, it is true, but they were hopelessly dull imitations of cla.s.sic models. Imitative and uninspired likewise were statues and paintings and poems. One merit they possessed. If a French painter lacked force and originality, he could at least portray with elegance and charm a group of fine ladies angling in an artificial pool. Elegance, indeed, redeemed the eighteenth century from imitative dullness and stupid ostentation: elegance expressed more often in perfumes, laces, and mahogany than in paint or marble. The silk-stockinged courtier accompanying his exquisitely perfect bow with a nicely worded compliment was surely as much an artist as the sculptor. Nor can one help feeling that the chairs of Louis XV were made not to sit in, but to admire; for their curving mahogany legs look too slenderly delicate, their carved and gilded backs too uncomfortable, for mere use. Chairs and fine gentlemen were alike useless, and alike elegant.

[Sidenote: The New Science]

More substantial were the achievements of eighteenth-century scientists. From philosophers of an earlier century--Francis Bacon (1561-1626) and Rene Descartes (1596-1650)--they learned to question everything, to seek new knowledge by actual experiment, to think boldly. You must not blindly believe in G.o.d, they said, you must first prove His existence. Or, if you will learn how the body is made, it will not do to believe what Hippocrates or any other Greek authority said about it; you must cut rabbits open and see with your own eyes where heart and lungs are hidden beneath the coat of fur. Seeing and thinking for oneself were the twin principles of the new scientific method.

[Sidenote: Isaac Newton]

The new science found many able exponents in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and of them all Sir Isaac Newton (1646-1727) was probably the most ill.u.s.trious. Coming from a humble family in a little English village, Newton at an early age gave evidence of uncommon intelligence. At Cambridge University he astonished his professors and showed such great skill in mathematics that he was given a professor's chair when only twenty-three years old.

For Descartes, Newton conceived great admiration, and, like Descartes, he applied himself to experimentation as well as to formal mathematics.

His boyish ingenuity in the construction of windmills, kites, and water-clocks was now turned to more serious ends. Like other scientists of the day, he experimented with chemicals in his laboratory, and tried different combinations of lenses, prisms, and reflectors, until he was able to design a great telescope with which to observe the stars.

His greatest achievement was in astronomy. Galileo, Copernicus, and other investigators had already concluded that the earth is but one of many similar bodies moving around the sun, which in turn is only one of countless suns--for every star is a sun. Now Newton wondered what held these mighty spheres in their places in s.p.a.ce, for they appeared to move in definite and well-regulated orbits without any visible support or prop. It is alleged that the answer to the problem was suggested by the great philosopher's observation of a falling apple. The same invisible force that made the apple fall to the ground must, he is said to have reasoned, control the moon, sun, and stars. The earth is pulled toward the sun, as the apple to the earth, but it is also pulled toward the stars, each of which is a sun so far away that it looks to us very small. The result is that the earth neither falls to the sun nor to any one star, but moves around the sun in a regular path.

This suggestive principle by which every body in the universe is pulled towards every other body, Newton called the law of universal gravitation. Newton's law [Footnote: It was really only a shrewd guess, but it appears to work so well that we often call it a "law."] was expressed in a simple mathematical formula [Footnote: "The force increases directly in proportion to the product of the ma.s.ses, and inversely in proportion to the square of the distance."] by means of which physics and astronomy were developed as mathematical sciences.

When a modern astronomer foretells an eclipse of the sun or discusses the course of a comet, or when a physicist informs us that he has weighed the earth, he is depending directly or indirectly upon Newton's discovery.

[Sidenote: Experimental and Applied Science]

The brilliance of Sir Isaac Newton's individual achievement should not obscure the fame of a host of other justly celebrated scientists and inventors. One of Newton's contemporaries, the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibnitz (1646-1716), elaborated a new and valuable branch of mathematics, the differential calculus, [Footnote: The credit for this achievement was also claimed by Newton.] which has proved to be of immense service in modern engineering. At the same time, the first experiments were being made with the mysterious potencies of electricity: the electrical researches of Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), his discovery that flashes of lightning are merely electrical phenomena and his invention of the lightning rod are too familiar to need repeating; the work of Luigi Galvani (1737-1798) and of Count Alessandro Volta (1745-1827), two famous Italian physicists, is less well known, but their labors contributed much to the development of physical science, and their memory is perpetuated whenever the modern electrician refers to a "voltaic cell" or when the tinsmith speaks of "galvanized" iron. In this same period, the first important advances were made in the construction of balloons, and the conquest of the air was begun. In the eighteenth century, moreover, the foundations of modern chemistry were laid by Joseph Priestley (1733- 1804), Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794), and Henry Cavendish (1731-1810); oxygen was discovered, water was decomposed into its elements, and the nomenclature of modern chemistry had its inception.

In medicine and surgery, too, pioneer work was done by John Hunter (1728-1793), a noted Scotch surgeon and anatomist, and by the Swiss professor Albrecht von Haller (1708-1777), the "father of modern physiology"; the facts which eighteenth-century physicians discovered regarding the circulation of the blood made possible more intelligent and more effective methods of treating disease; and just at the close of the eighteenth century, Edward Jenner (1749-1823), an English physician, demonstrated that the dread disease of smallpox could be prevented by vaccination. Geographical knowledge was vastly extended by the voyages of scientific explorers, like the English navigator Captain James Cook [Footnote: The Captain Cook who discovered, or rediscovered, Australia. See above, P. 340.] (1728-1779) and the French sailor Louis de Bougainville (1739-1811), in the hitherto uncharted expanses of the southern Pacific. Furthermore, since these explorers frequently brought home specimens of unfamiliar tropical animals and plants, rich material was provided for zoology and botany, which, thanks to the efforts of the Frenchman Georges de Buffon (1707-1788) and of the Swede Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778), were just becoming important sciences.

[Sidenote: Popularity of the New Science]

One reason for the rapid development of natural science in the eighteenth century was the unprecedented popularity and favor enjoyed by scientists. Kings granted large pensions to scientists; British ministers bestowed remunerative offices, and petty princes showered valuable gifts upon them. Pretentious observatories with ponderous telescopes were built, often at public expense, in almost every country of Europe. Groups of learned men were everywhere banded together in "academies" or "societies." The "Royal Society" of London, founded in 1662, listened to reports of the latest achievements in mathematics, astronomy, and physics. The members of the _Academie francaise (French Academy) were granted pensions by Louis XIV and even reckoned Newton among their honorary members.

Never before had there been such interest in science, and never before had there been such opportunity to learn. Printing was now well developed; the learned societies and observatories published reports of the latest development in all branches of knowledge. Encyclopedias were gotten out professing to embody in one set of volumes the latest information relative to all the new sciences. Books were too expensive for the common person, but not so for the bourgeoisie, nor for numerous n.o.bles. Indeed, it became quite the fashion in society to be a "savant," a scientist, a philosopher, to dabble in chemistry, perhaps even to have a little laboratory or a telescope, and to dazzle one's friends with one's knowledge.

[Sidenote: The Spirit of Progress and Reform]

It seemed as if the golden age was dawning: the human mind seemed to be awakening from the slumber of centuries to con the world, to unravel the mysteries of life, and to discover the secrets of the universe.

Confident that only a little thought would be necessary to free the world from vice, ignorance, and superst.i.tion, thinkers now turned boldly to attack the vexing problems of religion and morality, to criticize state, society, and church, and to point the way to a new and earthly paradise.

This tendency--this enthusiasm--has usually been styled "rationalism"

because its champions sought to make everything _rational_ or reasonable. Its foremost representatives were to be found in Great Britain between 1675 and 1725. They wrote many books discussing abstruse problems of philosophy, which can have slight interest for us; but certain ideas they had of very practical importance, ideas which probably found their most notable expression in the writings of John Locke (1632-1704). Locke argued (1) that all government exists, or should exist, by consent of the governed--by a "social" contract, as it were; (2) that education should be more widespread; (3) that superst.i.tion and religious formalism should not be allowed to obscure "natural laws" and "natural religion"; and (4) that religious toleration should be granted to all but atheists.

The ideas of these English philosophers were destined to exercise a far greater influence upon France than upon England. They found delighted admirers among the n.o.bility, ardent disciples among the bourgeoisie, and eloquent apostles in Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau.

Without a doubt, the foremost figure in the intellectual world of the eighteenth century was Francois Marie Arouet, or, as he called himself, Francois M. A. de Voltaire (1694-1778). Even from his boyhood he had been a clever hand at turning verses, and had fully appreciated his own cleverness. His businesslike father did not enjoy the boy's poetry, especially if it was written when young Francois should have been studying law. But Francois had a mind of his own; he liked to show his cleverness in gay society and relished making witty rhymes about the foibles of public ministers or the stupidity of the prince regent of France.

His sharp tongue and sarcastic pen were a source of constant danger to Voltaire. For libel the regent had him imprisoned a year in the Bastille. Some years later he was beaten by the lackeys of an offended n.o.bleman, again sent to the Bastille, and then exiled three years in England.

At times he was the idol of Paris, applauded by _philosophes_ and petted by the court, or again he would be a refugee from the wrath of outraged authorities. For a great part of his life he resided at Cirey in Lorraine,--with his mistress, his books, his half-finished plays, and his laboratory--for Voltaire, like all _philosophes_, had to play at science. Here he lived in constant readiness to flee over the border if the king should move against him. For a time he lived in Germany as the protege of Frederick the Great, but he treated that irascible monarch with neither tact nor deference, and soon left Berlin to escape the king's ire. He visited Catherine the Great of Russia. He also lived at Geneva for a while, but even there he failed to keep peace with the magistrates.

Such conflicts with established authority only increased his fame.

Moreover, his three years' exile in England (1726-1729) had been of untold value, for they had given him a first-hand acquaintance with English rationalism. He had been brought up to discount religious "superst.i.tion" but the English thinkers provided him with a well- considered philosophy. Full of enthusiasm for the ideas of his English friends, he wrote _Letters on the English_--a triumph of deistic philosophy and sarcastic criticism of church and society.

The opinions which Voltaire henceforth never ceased to expound had long been held by English rationalists. He combined (1) admiration for experimental science with (2) an exalted opinion of his own ability to reason out the "natural laws" which were supposed to lie at the base of human nature, religion, society, the state, and the universe in general. (3) He was a typical Deist, thinking that the G.o.d who had made the myriad stars of the firmament and who had promulgated eternal laws for the universe, would hardly concern Himself with the soul of Pierre or Jean. To him all priests were impostors, and sacraments meaningless mummery, and yet he would not abolish religion entirely. Voltaire often said that he believed in a "natural religion," but never explained it fully. Indeed, he was far more interested in tearing down than in building up, and disposed rather to scoff at the priests, teachings, and practices of the Catholic Church than to convert men to a better religion. (4) Likewise in his criticism of government and of society, he confined himself mostly to bitter denunciations of contemporaneous conditions, without offering a subst.i.tute or suggesting practical reforms. His nearest approach to the practical was his admiration for English inst.i.tutions, but he never explained how the "liberties" of England were to be transplanted into France.

Voltaire was not an acutely original thinker. Nevertheless, his innumerable tragedies, comedies, histories, essays, and letters established his reputation as the most versatile and accomplished writer of his age. But all the "hundred volumes" of Voltaire are rarely read today. They are clever, to be sure, witty, graceful,--but admittedly superficial. He thought that he could understand at a glance the problems upon which more earnest men had spent their lives; he would hurriedly dash off a tragedy, or in spare moments write a pretentious history. He was not always accurate but he was always clever.

Let us remember him as, at the age of eighty-four, he pays a famous visit to Paris,--a sprightly old man with wrinkled face, and with sharp old eyes peering out from either side of the long nose, beaming with pride at the flattery of his admirers, sparkling with pleasure as he makes a witty repartee. The ladies call him a most amusing old cynic.

Cynic he is, and old. His life work has been scoffing. Yet Voltaire is unquestionably the intellectual dictator of Europe. His genius for satire and his fearless attacks on long-standing abuses have made him hated, and feared, and admired. He has given tone and character to the Old Regime.

[Sidenote: Diderot and the Encyclopedists]

Voltaire was not alone in the work of spreading discontent. Less famous but hardly less brilliant or versatile, was Denis Diderot (1713-1784).

His great achievement was the editing of the _Encyclopedia_. The gathering of all human knowledge into one set of volumes--an encyclopedia--had been for generations a favorite idea in Europe.

Diderot a.s.sociated with himself the most distinguished mathematicians, astronomers, scientists, and philosophers of the time in the compilation of a work which in seventeen volumes [Footnote: Not counting pictorial supplements.] undertook to summarize the latest findings of the scholarship of the age. Over four thousand copies had been subscribed when the _Encyclopedia_ appeared in 1765. It proved to be more than a monument of learning: it was a manifesto of radicalism. Its contributors were the apostles of rationalism and deism, [Footnote: Some went even further and practically denied the existence of G.o.d.] and their criticism of current ideas about religion, society, and science won many disciples to the new ideas.

The mission of Voltaire and the Encyclopedists (as the editors of the _Encyclopedia_ are called) was to disseminate knowledge and to destroy prejudice, especially in religion. Practical specific reforms were suggested by Montesquieu, Rousseau, Beccaria, and Adam Smith.

[Sidenote: Montesquieu]

Montesquieu (1689-1755), a French lawyer-n.o.bleman, a student of natural science, and an admirer of Newton, was the foremost writer of the eighteenth century on the practice of government. In his _Persian Letters_, and more especially in _The Spirit of the Laws_ (1748), he argued that government is a complicated matter and, to be successful, must be adapted to the peculiarities of a particular people. Theoretically he preferred a republic, and the Const.i.tution of the United States consciously embodied many of his theories.

Practically, he considered the government of Great Britain very admirable, and although it sheltered many abuses, as we shall presently see, [Footnote: See below, pp. 432 ff.] nevertheless he urged the French to pattern their political organization after it. Moderation was the motto of Montesquieu.

[Sidenote: Rousseau]

A more radical reformer was Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). In his life Rousseau was everything he should not have been. He was a failure as footman, as servant, as tutor, as secretary, as music copier, as lace maker. He wandered in Turin, Paris, Vienna, London. His immorality was notorious,--he was not faithful in love, and his children were sent to a foundling asylum. He was poverty-stricken, dishonest, discontented, and, in his last years, demented.

Yet this man, who knew so little how to live his own life, exercised a wonderful influence over the lives of others. Sordid as was his career, the man himself was not without beautiful and generous impulses. He loved nature in an age when other men simply studied nature. He liked to look at the clear blue sky, or to admire the soft green fields and shapely trees, and he was not ashamed to confess it. The emotions had been forgotten while philosophers were praising the intellect: Rousseau reminded the eighteenth century that after all it may be as sane to enjoy a sunset as to solve a problem in algebra. Rousseau possessed the soul of a poet.

To him right feeling was as important as right thinking, and in this respect he quarreled with the rationalists who claimed that common sense alone was worth while. Rousseau was a Deist--at most he believed but vaguely in a "Being, whatever He may be, Who moves the universe and orders all things." But he detested the cold reasoning of philosophers who conceived of G.o.d as too much interested in watching the countless stars obey His eternal laws, to stoop to help puny mortals with their petty affairs. "0 great philosophers!" cried Rousseau, "How much G.o.d is obliged to you for your easy methods and for sparing Him work." And again Rousseau warns us to "flee from those [Voltaire and his like]

who, under the pretense of explaining nature, sow desolating doctrines in the hearts of men, and whose apparent skepticism is a hundred times more ... dogmatic" than the teachings of priests. Rousseau was not an orthodox Christian, nor a calmly rational Deist; he simply felt that "to love G.o.d above all things, and your neighbor as yourself, is the sum of the law."

This he reproached the philosophers with not doing. Rousseau had seen and felt the bitter suffering of the poor, and he had perceived the cynical indifference with which educated men often regarded it. Science and learning seemed to have made men only more selfish. Indeed, the ignorant peasant seemed to him humbler and more virtuous than the pompous pedant. In a pa.s.sionate protest--his _Discourse on Arts and Sciences_ (1749)--Rousseau denounced learning as the badge of selfishness and corruption, for it was used to gratify the pride and childish curiosity of the rich, rather than to right the wrongs of the poor.