Why did the Enlightenment cause problems for Louis

XVI?

“Man is born free, but everywhere is in chains”

• This is the opening line of Jean Jacques Rousseau’s work The Social Contract: 1763.

• What do you think he means?

Follow Rousseau's thought process…

1. What are “basic human needs”

2. What do you think life would be like if there was no government/social structure and people simply pursued their basic human needs?

3. What happens if there are not enough commodities to provide for basic Human needs to go around to all the people in a given area?

4. What does Rousseau mean by the term Social Contract?

Summary

• The central idea he dealt with most is summed up in the first sentence of his most famous work, The Social Contract: "Man is born free but everywhere is in chains." This contract of his plays on the feudal system, but places it more into a governmental role.

• Once rulers cease to protect the ruled, the social contract is broken and the governed are free to choose another set of governors or magistrates. This became the primary force behind the Declaration of Independence.

Background

• The 18th-century Enlightenment may be represented as a new way of thinking about mankind and the environment.

• The main proponents of this intellectual movement, the philosophes, were men like Voltaire, Locke, Diderot, Montesquieu and Rousseau.

• But their views stemmed from the scientific revolution of the previous century.

• The discoveries of Galileo, Kepler and Newton in physics and cosmology revealed a universe that was infinite, yet governed by universal laws that could be discovered by the human intelligence.

The Philosophes

•Summarise key points in your own words (max. 3 bullet points).•Identify main challenge to Louis XVI’s authority.•Rank the challenges in order of significance.

Baron de Montesquieu, 1689-1755

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1712-78

Denis Diderot, 1712-84, edited 35 Vol. Encyclopaedia 1752-80

Isaac Newton, 1642-1727

Voltaire, 1694-1778

“All men are equal, it is not their birth, but virtue itself that makes the difference.”

Montesquieu 1

• World is governed by laws.• Laws are generated by human

reason i.e. not by God.• Laws should be based on the needs

of the people who are bound by them.

Montesquieu 2

• Men with power will always abuse it.• Executive and legislative power

needs to be separated to avoid corruption.

Rousseau

• Men can only achieve self-preservation by working together.

• Men are accountable to themselves AND to society (= social pact).

• Men working together can control the actions of others.

Developments

• The philosophes were convinced that all creation was similarly rational, so that it was possible for man to uncover laws which regulated society, politics, the economy, and even morality.

• Once understood these laws would teach mankind not only what we are, but what we ought to be and do.

• From the evils of 'despotism, feudalism, clericalism' the main people of the Revolution adapted the watchword of 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity'.

• Many important documents of the Revolution (The Declaration of the Rights of Man, The Constitution of 1791) owe debt to Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rousseau.