The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, c. 1543–1789
This domain tests the transformation of natural knowledge from Copernicus (1543) to the eve of the French Revolution, and the Enlightenment's use of reason and criticism in religion, society, and government.
The new science
- Copernicus's De revolutionibus (1543) proposed a heliocentric universe. Kepler established elliptical orbits (Astronomia Nova, 1609; Harmonices Mundi, 1619). Galileo used the telescope and defended Copernicanism in the Dialogo (1632), then faced trial in 1633.
- Newton's Principia (1687) unified terrestrial and celestial motion through universal gravitation and mathematical proof. It became the emblem of a lawful, knowable universe.
- Method and institutions mattered: Bacon's inductive program, Descartes's doubt and deduction, the Royal Society (1660), the Paris Academy of Sciences (1666), instruments, journals, and correspondence networks.
Enlightenment thought
- Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) made experience the source of ideas. Montesquieu's De l'esprit des lois (1748) analyzed separation of powers and contextual laws. Voltaire championed toleration and English practice; Rousseau's Social Contract (1762) invoked the general will.
- Diderot's Encyclopédie (1751–1772) spread critical knowledge. Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1776) attacked mercantilism and argued for market exchange.
- Print, salons, coffeehouses, and censorship battles created a public sphere. Enlightened absolutists such as Frederick II, Joseph II, and Catherine II adopted selected reforms without surrendering royal power.
- Deism and natural religion flourished, but the philosophes were not uniformly atheists or democrats.
Worked example
Question: How did Newton's work support Enlightenment social thought? Reasoning: the Principia showed a universe governed by discoverable law, encouraging analogies to natural law in politics and economics. Locke supplied an empirical theory of knowledge that fit this outlook. But the connection was often loose: Montesquieu drew on British constitutional practice and comparative history, not physics. The exam wants this distinction between metaphor and direct influence.
Traps that cost marks
- The Scientific Revolution was not a single event or a purely secular triumph; religious institutions and patrons shaped it.
- Enlightenment thinkers disagreed sharply about democracy, empire, and religion.
- Do not date the Enlightenment solely to the 1780s; its central texts span roughly 1690–1780.