 As Europeans were fighting in wars, revolts, conquests of 16 th and 17 th centuries, another revolution was occurring.  Intellectuals overturned classical and medieval concepts of how the universe was put together, what the basis of authority should be, how to understand the world.  18 th century- more peaceful and prosperous than Europe had seen in a long time  Authorities more tolerant.

 Scientific thought in the early 1500s was based on ancient and medieval ideas.  European notions about the universe were based on Aristotelian principles.  A chief feature of this view was the belief in a motionless, static earth at the center of the universe.  Ten crystal spheres moved around the earth.

 Copernicus overturned the medieval view of the universe.  He postulated that the earth revolved around the sun and that the sun was the center of the universe,  This heliocentric view was a departure from the medieval view endorsed by both Catholic and Protestant churchmen.

 Scholars from Brahe to Galileo refined and collected evidence in support of Copernicus’s model.  Brahe built an observatory and collected data.  Galileo discovered the laws of motion using the experimental method.

 Newton synthesized the integral parts into a whole.  Newton integrated the astronomy of Copernicus and Kepler with the physics of Galileo.  He formulated a set of mathematical principles to explain motion.  At the core of Newton’s theory was the universal law of gravitation.

 Medieval universities had provided the framework for the new view.  The Renaissance stimulated science by rediscovering ancient mathematics.  Better ways of obtaining knowledge about the world, including improved tools such as telescopes and sextants, improved the scientific method.  Bacon advocated empirical, experimental research.  Descartes emphasized the deductive reasoning and was the first to graph equations.

 The Scientific Revolution helped create the international scientific community.  As governments intervened to support and direct research, the scientific community became closely tied to the state and its agendas.  The Scientific Revolution resulted in the development of the scientific method.  The Scientific Revolution created few new opportunities for women.  The Scientific Revolution had few economic and social consequences for the masses until the eighteenth century.

 The overriding idea of the Enlightenment was that natural science and reason could explain all aspects of life.  The scientific method can explain the laws of nature.  Progress is possible if the laws are understood and followed.

 Many writers made Enlightenment thought accessible to a wide range of people.  Fontenelle stressed the idea of progress.  Skeptics such as Bayle believed that nothing could be known beyond all doubt.  Locke stressed that all ideas are derived from experience.  The French philosophes were committed to the fundamental reform of society.  Montesquieu’s theory of the separation of powers was fundamental.  Voltaire challenged traditional Catholic theology.

 Historians have identified distinctive Enlightenment movements in eighteenth- century Italy, Greece, the Balkans, Poland, Hungary, and Russia.  Different areas followed different strands of Enlightenment thinking.  David Hume ( ) was the most important figure in Scottish Enlightenment.

 The European market for books grew dramatically in the eighteenth century.  Popular titles addressed a wide range of subjects.  The illegal book trade included titles denouncing high political figures.  The nature of reading changed.  Conversation and debate also played a critical role in the Enlightenment, with Parisian salons setting the example.  Elite women exerted considerable influence on salon culture and on artistic taste in general.  The new public sphere celebrated open debated informed by critical reason.

 After 1770, a number of thinkers and writers began to attack the Enlightenment’s faith in reason, progress, and moderation.  Jean-Jacques Rousseau ( ) was devoted to individual freedom, but saw rationalism and civilization as enemies of the individual.  Rousseau believed in a rigid division of gender roles.  The Social Contract (1762) made an important contribution to political theory.  Immanuel Kent ( ) argued that serious thinkers be granted the freedom to exercise their reason publicly in print.

 Enlightenment thinkers developed new and highly influential ideas about racial difference.  A primary catalyst for new ideas about race was the urgency to classify nature.  “Race” began to be used in similar way to “species.”  Thinkers such as Hume and Kant helped popularize new ideas about race.  These ideas did not go unchallenged.

 Frederick II built on the accomplishments of his father.  He fought successfully to defend Prussia from external threats.  Frederick allowed religious freedom and promoted education and legal reform.  He was unwilling to change Prussia’s social structure and rejected calls for civil rights for Jews.

 Catherine deposed her husband Peter III and became empress of Russia.  Catherine imported Western culture to Russia, supported the philosophers, and introduced limited legal and penal reform to her adopted country.  Pugachev’s rebellion put and end to Catherine’s efforts to reform serfdom.  Under Catherine, Russia continued to expand.

 Joseph II (r ) and Maria Theresa (r ) introduced reforms in Austria.  Maria Theresa introduced measures aimed at limiting the power of the papacy in her realm, strengthening the central bureaucracy, and improving the lot of the agricultural population,  Joseph II pursued reforms aggressively when he came to the throne in  His rapid reforms sent Austria into turmoil and after Joseph’s death; his brother was forced to repeal his radical edicts.

 The leading European monarchs of the later eighteenth century all claimed that they were acting on the principles of the Enlightenment.  There is general agreement that such monarchs did spread the cultural values of the Enlightenment,  Absolute monarchs believed in change from above and tried to enact reforms.  Recent monarchs have argued that absolutists were primarily interested in strengthening the state, not in pursuing humanitarian goals for their own sake.