1. The Scientific Revolution
Spread of new technology, combined with innovative approaches to seeing knowledge.

2. New Scientific Ideas Nicolaus Copernicus: Challenging the Church:
“The earth is round and revolves around the sun”
Worked in private to avoid persecution
Based theories on hypotheses, but did not prove
Challenging the Church:
Johannes Kepler:
Able to prove Copernicus right
Proved, “planets orbit the sun on ellipses”
Galileo
Faced opposition from Church leaders
Built a telescope to study space
Reasoned, “not all heavenly bodies revolve around earth”
Forced to recant some of his teachings

3. The Scientific Method Developed by Francis Bacon
Identify the problem through observation
Develop a hypotheses
Test by experimenting (several x’s)
Take record of the results
If the hypotheses proves to be true, it becomes scientific law

4. Isaac Newton Attended Cambridge University Idea of Gravity:
Keeps things from flying off the earth
Holds the Solar System together
1687: Published Principia
Developed calculus: calculating changing forces or quantities

5. Investigating the Human Body
Andreas Vesalius:
Studied anatomy through dissection
1543: On the Structure of the Human Body
William Harvey:
Blood circulates and is pumped by the heart
Robert Hooke:
Used the microscope to discover cells

6. Chemists Robert Boyle: Joseph Priestly:
Attacked the “four basic elements”
Proved that air was a combination of several elements
Element = something that can’t be broken down into simpler parts by chemical means
Joseph Priestly:
Discovered the existence of oxygen
Studied carbon dioxide
Result: Carbonated beverages

7. The Impact of Science Natural Law: A universal moral law
English Philosophers:
Thomas Hobbes:
argued that absolutism was best; chaos w/o it
1651: Leviathan, a state w/o government
John Locke:
Believed in natural rights (life, liberty, and property)
If government failed, people had a right to overthrow it
Two Treatises of Government: govt. exists to protect the natural rights of citizens
Ideas were used by T. Jefferson in the Dec. of Ind.

8. Reason Influences Law:
Helped end unjust trials
Hugo Grotius: wanted an international law code
Believed that one body of rules would allow reason and order to determine right and wrong.
William Penn: Pacifist
Opposed violence as a means of settling disputes
Advocated an assembly of nations committed to world peace
Examining Religion:
Educated Europeans applied reason to religious beliefs; turned away from traditional practices
Deism: religious philosophy, intended to make a simpler and more natural religion based on reason and natural law.

9. Triumph of Reason Age of Enlightenment: (1600s-1700s)
People studied the world as if for the 1st time
Spreading Ideas: (French Philosophes)
Believed in Locke’s ideas/teachings
D. Diderot: edited the first Encyclopedia
Banned by the Catholic Church
Montesquieu: The Spirit of Laws (1748)
Admired the English govt.
Promoted the idea of separate branches
Power is equally divided (checks and balances)
Voltaire: French author and deist

10. Women and the Enlightenment:
1750s: began to affirm equality with men
Wollstonecraft: A Vindication of the Rights of Women
Favored equal education
Classical Movements: (calm, rationale style)
Focus on form, not content
Music – stressed balance, contrast, and emotion
Musicians: Bach, Handel, Haydn, and Mozart
Enlightenment Opponents:
Wm. Blake – “God is not a mathematical diagram!!”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: criticized the era’s excessive reliance on reason
Humans are good, civilization was corrupting
The Social Contract: Man must submit to the will of the majority

11. Enlightenment Opponents (continued):
Immanuel Kant: reason can’t answer questions dealing with metaphysics – (philosophy dealing with the existence God)
Critique of Pure Reason (1781): reality consists of separate physical and spiritual worlds
Religious Movements:
Methodism: Founded by John Wesley
Stressed the value of personal religious experience
Reaction to the cold formality of the Anglican Church

12. The Road to Revolt
1750s: American colonies were thriving and were used to self-government
British left the colonists alone other than trade
The Navigation Acts of the 1600s required colonial imports/exports to go through England
Smuggling became an issue
Colonists were governed by a crown appointed governor, but assemblies were set up
Wanted to be able to approve or reject new taxes

13. Tightening of Colonial Controls
After the 7 Years’ War ended taxes had to be raised to compensate the war debt
G. Greenville became the Lord of The Treasury
Colonists couldn’t settle west of the Appalachians
Colonists should help pay for the cost of defense
Enforced the Navigation Acts
Stamp Act (1765): direct tax to Britain

14. Colonial Protests Colonists began to boycott British goods
Stamp Act Congress (1765): 9 colonies were represented
“No taxation w/o representation”
Declaratory Acts (1766): taxed most goods
Boston Massacre (1770): 5 colonists were killed
Repealed all of the taxes except on tea
Boston Tea Party (East India Tea Co.)
Intolerable Acts were passed
First Continental Congress (Sept. 5, 1774)