Topic One presents an introduction to the origins of modern thought and modern political life. We begin with the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century and the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, and then examine the American and French Revolutions, the two late eighteenth-century events that mark the beginning of modern ideas about politics and society. Taken together, these topics introduce us to ways of thinking and acting characteristic of "modernity." What are the differences between "modern" and "pre-modern" societies? How do these documents illustrate modern modes of thought?

Topic I is divided into these sections:
 

The Scientific Revolution The Church Accuses Galileo(Document 1-1). Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was among the most important figures in the development of scientific knowledge. Galileo's open support for Copernican theory--the theory that the earth revolved around the sun (heliocentrism) rather than the sun revolving around the earth (geocentrism)--angered the Roman Catholic Church, which early in the seventeenth century was fighting off the challenge of the Protestant Reformation by pursuing heresy everywhere it could be found. This source takes us to 1633 and to the accusations leveled against Galileo by the Church. Why was the Church so afraid of his insistence on speaking openly about the new astronomy?

 On Crimes and Punishments (Document 1-2). During the height of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794) published this profoundly influential book in 1764. The Enlightenment era built upon the achievements of scientists like Galileo and, especially, of Isaac Newton (1642-1727), inventor of calculus and discoverer of the laws of modern physics. These natural philosophers had shown how powerful human reason could be in comprehending the natural world. In the Enlightenment era that followed writers on politics and social questions tried to extend the reach of human reason. Enlightened writers asked the question: if human reason can reveal the laws that govern nature, why can't we also use our reason to discover laws that govern ourselves and our societies? In an age when torture of the criminally accused was a common practice, Beccaria's book asked this question of the legal system. Can you recognize a form of modern thinking in his arguments? How does this document help to illustrate the goals of the Enlightenment?

The most influential political philosopher of the Enlightenment era was John Locke (1632-1704), author of Two Treatises of Government (1690) (Document 1-3). Locke's political theory drew closely upon the historical event, called "The Glorious Revolution," that transformed Britain into a constitutional monarchy in 1688. Locke's ideas about the "state of nature," his elaboration of "natural rights"of life, liberty, and property, and his argument for the right of rebellion deeply influenced the American colonists who revolted against their British rulers in 1775. Locke's ideas also influenced French Enlightenment writers like Voltaire (1694-1778), pictured at right, the prolific and influential author who admired English society and government. When Voltaire praised the British system in works like his Philosophical Dictionary (Document 1-4), his readers understood that he was simultaneously levelling harsh criticism of the French social and political systems.

The American Revolution created a democratic republic in the former colonies of British North America. The revolutionary leaders were deeply influenced by Enlightenment thought. The American republic adhered to Lockean principles. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson amended Locke's right to property into "the pursuit of happiness." In the Constitution and Bill of Rights (1787-1791), the new nation defined its legal and political framework through enduring principles of liberty and self-government. But an equally enduring dilemma clouded its founding era. Jefferson, who wrote in the Declaration that "all men are created equal," was a slaveholder, like many other landowners in Virginia. This fundamental contradiction shows us how the abomination of slavery and racism lay at the center of American history from its beginnings. This excerpt from Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia (1785) (Document 1-5) shows with remarkable clarity how racist ideas affected Jefferson's thinking. Slavery in the revolutionary era was not confined to southern states either. It took several decades--into the 1820s in fact--before slavery in northern states like New York or Massachusetts was completely eliminated. In 1774, a church congregation of African-Americans issued this Slaves' Appeal (Document 1-6) to the governor of colonial Massachusetts. It sounds an eloquent cry for freedom made by people who clearly understood the promise of the era they lived in and demanded that it apply to them no less than to whites.

Few people were neutral about the French Revolution. For some, the Revolution at first seemed like the dawn of a new age, the promise of a new and better society. Others were horrified at the "world turned upside down," with kings and aristocrats overthrown, religion banished (as the French did during Jacobin rule), and new ideas of equality being openly discussed and (sometimes) put into practice. Many contemporaries were at first inspired and later disappointed by events in Paris. Writing in 1805, the English poet William Wordsworth remembered the early years of the revolution this way:  "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven." (The complete poem was called "French Revolution as it appeared to Enthusiasts at its Commencement" [Document 1-10].) The German composer Ludwig van Beethoven, at first a supporter of Napoleon, angrily crossed out the dedication to Napoleon at the top of his Third Symphony and renamed it "Eroica" (heroic) when Napoleon named himself Emperor in 1804. In 1790, the first important 

political response to the French Revolution was published by Edmund Burke (pictured at right), an Irishman who played a major role in British politics from the 1760s through the 1790s. Burke's answer to the French, called Reflections on the Revolution in France (Document 1-11), is historically important because it is the first modern "conservative" argument. The Revolution in Paris created the first modern liberal, socialist, and communist political movements. It's only fitting, then, that the response to these new ideas created the first modern conservative theory. Burke's argument was that only tradition and actual lived experience can produce legitimate political systems. Any theory or party that begins with abstract ideas (and for Burke, the French formula "liberty, equality, and fraternity" were such abstractions) can only lead to disaster. Burke's model was the British constitutional system of Parliament and King, tied together by a long historical development, its institutions the result of British experience over centuries.

The Age of Revolution affected all parts of the Atlantic Ocean basin. In 1791, black slaves on the French Caribbean colony called Saint Domingue (now Haiti) rebelled against their overlords. The rebels were led by Francois Dominique Toussaint, the military hero and political leader known as Toussaint L'Ouverture. Toussaint was very much a man of his time, inspired by the revolution in Paris and very familiar with Enlightenment ideas. The illustration at right, taken from an admiring 1853 biography of Toussaint, pictures him surrounded by his family, reading the work of the French philosophe Raynal, author of  Histoire philosophique des deux Indes (1780), a work that strongly condemned European colonialism for destroying cultures and peoples. See pp. 41-43 in The Modern World for a biographical sketch of Toussaint and a brief discussion of the Haitian Revolution, which also involved the neighboring Spanish colony of Santo Domingo (today's Dominican Republic). The rebellion in Saint Domingue and the emergence of the independent republic of Haiti in 1804 was closely watched in the United States, where fear of a similar slave revolt turned government policy against the only other free state in the Americas. Examine this site on the Haitian Revolution (Document 1-12). It contains an excellent mixture of primary and secondary sources.

Illustration taken from an online edition of The Life of Toussaint L'Ouverture, The Negro Patriot of Hayti, by Rev. John Relly Beard (London, 1853). Courtesy of the University of North Carolina, "Documenting the American South," www.docsouth.unc.edu

Like most historical periods, the Enlightenment can be studied through the work of artists. This on-line exhibition of Enlightenment era painting called Art and the Enlightenment (Document 1-13) will deepen your understanding of the era and introduce some of its best-known art. Examine this web site before completing the following exercise. 

Having studied the Enlightenment and the late eighteenth-century revolutions, and having examined the on-line exhibition on Enlightenment-era art, now look at Jacques-Louis David's 1787 painting, The Death of Socrates (Document 1-14). Describe David's style. Is it simple? Complex? Emotional? Rational? Describe the painting's content. What kind of reaction does David want us to have about this picture? (Hint: It will probably help to do a little background research about Socrates.) How does the painting illustrate its time and place--the French Enlightenment just before the French Revolution began? Use any of the sources you've read--either from the web or from your reader and/or textbook--to describe the connections between this visual source and its historical context.