The Age of Reason 1687 - 1789

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The Age of Reason1687 - 1789

• The Enlightenment
• The Neoclassic Age
• Augustan Age

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The Age of Reason1687 - 1789

• FORERUNNERS
• Galileo
• Bacon
• Descartes
• Hobbes
• The Age of Reason is dated from 1687, when Issac
  Newton published his work on gravity, Principia
  Mathematica

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The Age of Reason -- The Enlightenment 1687 -
1789

• Immanuel Kant Enlightenment is mans leaving
  his self-caused immaturity. Immaturity is the
  incapacity to use ones intelligence without the
  guidance of another. Such immaturity is
  self-caused if it is not caused by lack of
  intelligence, but by lack of determination and
  courage to use ones intelligence without being
  guided by another. Sapere Aude! Dare to know!
  Have the courage to use your own intelligence!
  is therefore the motto of the enlightenment.

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The Age of Reason -- 1687 - 1789

• Through laziness and cowardice a large part of
  mankind, even after nature has freed them from
  alien guidance, gladly remain immature. . . . It
  is so comfortable to be a minor! If I have a
  book which provides meaning for me, a pastor who
  has conscience for me, a doctor who will judge my
  diet for me and so on, then I do not need to
  exert myself. . . .Therefore there are only a few
  who have pursued a firm path and have succeeded
  in escaping from immaturity by their own
  cultivation of the mind. (Immanuel Kant)

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The Age of Reason Characteristics

• Art Literature Order, Regularity, and Harmony
• Autonomy of Reason, Progress, Perfectibility
• Assaults on Authority
• Deism religion is living justly with decency and
  decorum
• Humankind -- The rejection of the doctrine of
  original sin.
• Political theory -- governments derive authority
  from people in a social contract
• Nature restrained and organized is best
  Newtonian analysis is applied everywhere.

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Baroque Art and Architecture (Late Renaissance
Early Enlightenment)

• C. 1600-c. 1770 (Part of Catholic
  Counter-Reformation Aims to build faith)
• Characteristics
• Highly ornamental
• Curved lines
• Dramatic lighting and color
• Chiaroscurodramatic light and dark contrasts
• Tenebrismmany shadows (a dark manner)
• Exaggerated dramatic gestures
• Theatricality

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Baroque -- Rubens
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Baroque -- Rembrandt
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Gerrit Honthorst The Denial of St. Peter
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Baroque -- Vermeer
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Baroque--Bernini
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Baroque--Caravaggio
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Baglione Sacred Love Versus Profane Love
Chiaroscuro and Theatricality
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Baroque Church--Vienna
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Baroque in Vienna Theatricality
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The Age of Reason Order and Harmony
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Davids Oath of the Horatii
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The Age of Reason in Literature Order and
Harmony
The Heroic Couplet Vice is a monster of so
frightful mien, As to be hated, needs but to be
seen Yet seen too oft, familiar with her
face, We first endure, then pity, then
embrace. Alexander Pope Dictionary of the
English Language, by Samuel Johnson
(1755).brought order to spelling and
definitions, the standard for 150 years. Samuel
Richardson Pamela (1740) First novel. The novel
aims at moral instruction. Literature is often
pedantic.
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The Age of Reason PROGRESS

• For the first time, we see an optimistic view
  that humans can use reason to create a new and
  better world than had existed before. In the
  field of science in particular, there was a
  clear break from the past traditions and a belief
  that the best was yet to come, that scientific
  progress was possible.

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Diderots Encyclopedie (28 volumes)
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A New Religious Perspective Deism

• Deism was a natural religion. Its adherents
  were convinced that Nature gave evidence that
  there must be a Creator-God. However, they were
  skeptical that it could be proved that Christ was
  the Son of God or that our spirits would continue
  beyond the grave. Deists tried to humanize
  religion.

God with a compass creating the world. (William
Blake)
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• I believe in one God, and no more and I hope
  for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the
  equality of man and I believe that religious
  duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy,
  and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures
  happy. . . . I do not believe in the creed
  professed by the Jewish Chuch, by the Roman
  Church, . . .by the Protestant Church, nor by any
  church that I know of. My own mind is my own
  church. . . .Thomas one of Jesus disciples did
  not believe the resurrection, and as they say,
  would not believe without having ocular and
  manual demonstration himself. So neither will I,
  and the reason is equally as good for me, and for
  every other person, as for Thomas. (Thomas
  Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794-5)

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Deism -- Thomas Jefferson

• The day will come when the mystical generation
  of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in
  the womb of a virgin will be classed with the
  fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain
  of Jupiter.

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DeismThomas Jefferson

• I have recently been examining all the known
  superstitions of the world, and do not find in
  our particular superstition Christianity one
  redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded
  upon fables and mythologies. Millions of innocent
  men, women and children, since the introduction
  of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined
  and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this
  coercion? To make one half the world fools and
  the other half hypocrites to support roguery and
  error all over the earth.

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DeismThomas Jefferson

• The establishment of the innocent and genuine
  character of this benevolent moralist Jesus,
  and the rescuing it from the imputation of
  imposture, which has resulted from artificial
  systems, invented by ultra-Christian sects,
  unauthorized by a single word ever uttered by
  him, is a most d desirable object -- e. g. The
  immaculate conception of Jesus, his deification,
  the creation of the world by him, his miraculous
  powers, his resurrection and visible ascension,
  his corporeal presence in the Eucharist, the
  Trinity original sin, atonement, regeneration,
  election, orders of Hierarchy, c. (Jefferson,
  Thomas. Letter to William Short, 31 Oct. 1819)

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Religious Duties for Deists

• As everybody likes to be honoured, so people
  imagine that God also wants to be honoured. They
  forget that the fulfilment of duty towards men is
  the only honour adequate to him. . . . .
• Apart from moral conduct, all that man thinks
  himself able to do in order to become acceptable
  to God is mere superstition and religious folly
  (Immanuel Kant).

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Jefferson, the Infidel

• During Jeffersons campaign for the presidency,
  the Gazette of the United States published the
  following . . . the only question to be asked
  by every American, laying his hand on his heart,
  is shall I continue in allegiance to GOD-AND A
  RELIGIOUS PRESIDENT John Adams or impiously
  declare for JEFFERSON--AND NO GOD!!!

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DEISM -- JOHN ADAMS

• The doctrine of the divinity of Jesus is made a
  cover for absurdity.
• The Government of the United States is not in
  any sense founded upon the Christian religion.

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DEISM -- JOHN ADAMS

• The United States of America marks the first
  example of governments erected on the simple
  principles of nature. The architects of American
  government never had interviews with the gods or
  were in any degree under the inspiration of
  Heaven more than those at work upon ships or
  houses. Government is contrived merely by the
  use of reason and the senses. . . . The
  government was founded on the natural authority
  of the people alone, without a pretense of
  miracle or mystery.

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Madison Religion and Government

• What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical
  establishments had on society? In some instances
  they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny
  on the ruins of the civil authority on many
  instances they have been seen upholding the
  thrones of political tyranny in no instance have
  they been the guardians of the liberties of the
  people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public
  liberty may have found an established clergy
  convenient auxiliaries. A just government,
  instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs
  them not. (used in the same sense as the 1st
  amendment, i.e., official, government-recognized
  and perhaps supportedreligion)

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DEISM--Benjamin Franklin

• I was scarce fifteen, when, . . . I began to
  doubt of Revelation itself. Some books against
  Deism fell into my hand . . . They wrought an
  effect on me quite contrary to what was intended
  by them for the arguments of the Deists, which
  were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me
  stronger than the refutations in short, I soon
  became a thorough Deist. (Franklin,
  Autobiography, 65)
• Lighthouses are more helpful than churches.

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United States Prized Religious Tolerance

• "They all attributed the peaceful dominion of
  religion in their country mainly to the
  separation of church and state. I do not hesitate
  to affirm that during my stay in America I did
  not meet a single individual, of the clergy or
  the laity, who was not of the same opinion on
  this point"
• . -Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America,
  1835

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Deism --- Voltaire

• Is Jesus the Word? If He be the Word, did He
  emanate from God, is He co-eternal and
  consubstantial with Him, or is He of a similar
  substance. . . .Is the Holy Ghost made? or
  begotten? or produced?. . .Assuredly, I
  understand nothing of this no one has ever
  understood any of it, and that is why we have
  slaughtered one another. The Christians tricked,
  caviled, hated, and excommunicated one another,
  for some of these dogmas inaccessible to human
  intellect. . . .The most detestable example of
  fanaticism is that exhibited on the night of St.
  Bartholomew1572, when the people of Paris
  rushed from house to house to stab, slaughter,
  throw out of the window and tear in pieces their
  fellow citizens who did not go to
  massProtestants. (Voltaire, Treatise on
  Tolerance, 1763)

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Human Worth The Rejection of the Doctrine of
Original Sin

• Christianity had long held that from Adam, humans
  had inherited a fallen state of corruptibility
  and an inclination to do evil. Catholicism and
  early Reformers both held this doctrine.
• During the Age of Reason, this doctrine was being
  challenged and rejected by many. The view of
  human possibility became more optimistic (and a
  little snobbish).

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Medieval View of Gods Power on Earth

• With the Catholic Church holding pervasive power,
  the church authorities had all religious and
  secular power. Dr Johnson describes Cardinal
  Bellarmines position the Pope is invested with
  all the authority on heaven and earth. That all
  princes are his vassals, and that he may annul
  their laws at his pleasure. That he may depose
  kings if the good of the Church requires it. . .
  .That the Pope is God upon earth.
  (Georgio de Santillana)

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Renaissance view of the Divine Right of Kings

• Renaissance view Because there are none on
  earth, after God, greater than sovereign princes,
  whom God establishes as His lieutenants to
  command the rest of mankind, . . . we must
  respect and revere their majesty in all due
  obedience, speak and think of them with all due
  honour. He who contemns his sovereign prince,
  contemns God whose image he is. . . . If the
  prince can only make law with the consent . . .
  of an inferior, whether it be a council of
  magnates or the people, it is not he who is
  sovereign (Bodin, 1576)

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New View Rational, Educated People hold the
Power Social Contract Theory

• (New ideas) all men are created equal, that
  they are endowed by their Creator with certain
  unalienable Rights, that among these are Life,
  Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to
  secure these rights, Governments are instituted
  among Men, deriving their just powers from the
  consent of the Governed. (Decl. of Ind., 1776)

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PROGRESS!