In order to fully understand the Enlightenment and what the thinkers were searching

for, previous events and social ways should be considered. Still in swing when the

Enlightenment began, the Scientific Revolution was aimed towards exploring all of the nooks

of the brain and understanding nature to the fullest ability. It was the break away from the

church’s techniques toward an exercise of using reason to justify life. The Scientific

Revolution was very limited to the upper class and those who were exposed to the

knowledge. The Enlightenment had a domino effect and started with the intellectuals, most

specifically, John Locke whose ideas on the best fit government, though debatable, molded

the following years of philosophical and economical realizations. The Enlightenment created

“a manner of thinking, devoted to constant analysis, to separation into component parts, to

the reconstruction of those parts into a whole, and to the expression of this whole in terms of

law” (Wade, 87). Newspapers and magazines and journalists became more common in the

general public and the ideas from the philosophes spread like wildfire through the salons

because the men as well as women wanted to hear. This new access to knowledge within the

population was revolutionary in that people began realize their rights as members of the

government.

The three big philosophes, Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rousseau were all French

writers, whose three different backgrounds from differing social classes show different takes

on the same movement, ultimately displaying what the Enlightenment is all about. They all

wrote about different ideas, so what was the Enlightenment really about? All of their writings

appraise the government using the newfound tools of reason from the Scientific Revolution,

diagnosing, and stating ways to fix the government. The most important discovery during the

Enlightenment was that people had the right to influence the laws—a new sense of equality.

Seasoned by the reason of the preceding Scientific Revolution, the thinkers and publicist of

the Enlightenment from the mid 1600s to the late 1700s wanted to use their newfound reason
and self awareness –a “connection between knowledge and action”—to make the government

better suit for the needs of the people (Wade, 89).

Each philosophe, singed by their limited views on their own social class, has a

different personal take on what needed to be done to the government. Montesquieu displays

in The Spirit of Laws his search towards justifying the roles of the legislative and executive

powers of the government in addition to defining the people’s roles underneath the

government. “In France he believed that power should be divided between the king and a

great many ‘intermediate bodies’” including parlements, provincial estates, and organized

nobility— things that all apply to himself (Palmer, 304). Montesquieu wrote about allocating

the government between legislative, judiciary, and executive, and only a few paragraphs later

does he suggest that the judiciary power should be “taken from the body of the people, at

certain times of the year, and consistently with a form and manner prescribed by law”

(Weber, 220) With a progressive view, Montesquieu, a judge in the parlement, wrote about

having his job switched out. Most importantly, he proves that he understands that it is

important that people are not afraid of the person in office, but of the actual job. The people

in office only stand to enforce the laws already written down. Montesquieu’s writing seems

to be less of a personal reflection as he speaks mostly of the government and what needs to be

done to make the offices fair, but his personal tie is actually very strong as he is a noble, more

specifically, a parlement judge. Because Montesquieu’s view is closed in on the government

and what he knows from personal experience, he only proves the thesis more. He doesn’t

speak too deeply on the other members of the French population simply because they don’t

affect him, and like the other philosophes, he, during the Enlightenment, was searching for a

personal anecdote of himself in terms of the government, using his logic and reason, as

twisted as it may be, to justify his stance.

 Voltaire, contrastingly, was from the bourgeois class, and his criticisms of the French

government are colored by his social class. An admirer of England, he wrote about the

excelling economy of the English while the French nobles were too snooty to even do trading

—Montesquieu probably wouldn’t agree. Voltaire’s social class shows when he comes out

and ridicules the French nobles saying that they “just come out from the obscurity of some

remote province, with money in his pocket in his pocket, and a name that ends in ‘ac’ or

‘ille’” (Weber, 223). Voltaire says that the English nobles are more productive because they

actually do something for the economy for their country. Voltaire continues in this pamphlet

to criticize France’s lack of religious toleration. Voltaire displays perfectly the new mindset

of the Enlightenment. Voltaire was individual in that he was easy to read, logical, and he was

funny. Additionally, thanks to the new forms of publicity during his time filtered down into

the popular society. His humorous takes on the French nobles failing to make a difference

were interesting to read or to hear about were interesting to read for the society and therefore

he made a difference on how the Enlightenment spread throughout the people. Voltaire

comes off as less limited than Montesquieu because he recognizes the failures of the nobles

in the government and his diversity in his writing.

Rousseau represents the third French class of people during the Enlightenment.

Neglected as a child, Rousseau ran away from home at 16 years old, and was generally from

the lower-class. His writings on the government reflected his own life as he was an outsider

as “he came to feel that he could trust no one” (Palmer, 306). However, Palmer points out

that Rousseau perspective from the Origin of Inequality Among Men contradicted with his

ideas in The Social Contract. In the Origin of Inequality Among Men Palmer states that

Rousseau argued that civilization was the source of evil and that the actual “state of nature”

would be better without the pressing effects of the government. However, The Social

Contract took a Hobbes-like stance as Rousseau believed that “if any rights were left to
individuals . . . the state of nature would still subsist, and the association would necessarily

become tyrannical or useless” (Weber, 227). Rousseau’s ideas on the state of nature aren’t

important; what is important is that his views changed in correlation to his life proving that

during the Enlightenment, the philosophes weren’t looking for the same end nor were they

looking to prove what they already knew. Rousseau’s take on the people and the government

changed with his view on life. Rousseau’s experience in the lower class as an outsider gave

him insight that Montesquieu and Voltaire had not seen. He was described as a man of

feeling, an early romanticist, and his writings were fueled by his emotions. At times his

writings reflected his feelings to be accepted as he urged for a world where everyone could

feel as if they belonged.

So is there a major change in philosophy during the Enlightenment? Were there any

new thoughts, or is this just an extension of the Renaissance? The Renaissance was the

realization of personal understanding outside faith, an awakening of forms of art including

crafts and writing. The Enlightenment is very similar as the government acts as the church,

monopolizing people’s lives. During the Age of Enlightenment, the people realized that they

had the right to be important in the government, their ideas were important. Like the

Renaissance was triggered by capitalism, the Enlightenment was triggered by literacy.

Additionally, both events created a new sense of individuality in the popular society. While

the Renaissance and Enlightenment are similar in terms of timeline and simple cause and

effect, they had different incentives and ends. Yes, there is a change in the philosophies. With

the Renaissance came new ideologies while the ideologies of the Enlightenment worked to

refine what already existed. Locke, Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rousseau were looking to

find the best way, in accordance to reason, to live their lives in congruence with the

government. The spread of literacy within the urban areas caused a realization in the people
that they were all, generally, the same. The bourgeois, the peasants, the nobles were all

human, and they were equal.

The thinkers of the Enlightenment were not looking for reasons to create a revolution,

though they arguably played a large hand in triggering the French Revolution. The thinkers of

the Enlightenment were searching to fix their homes. They used logic and appraised society,

attempting to find the best way to organize the government in terms with the state of nature

for man. This period was an eye-opening period for all of the classes of people as the lower

class realized that they were something more—hence the later abolitions of serfdom. The

bourgeois push for better governments and actual representation, displayed in the French

Revolution, and the nobles realize that their privileged seats weren’t as safe as they’d

originally thought. The Enlightenment was when the light bulb turned on for many men and

women as they just began to realize that they were all the same.