9. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE DYNASTIC STATE

EUROPE DURING THE FIRST HALF OF THE 1600s

King Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu  The first half of 1600s France belongs largely to Louis XIII (reigned 1610 to 1643) ... and his capable (and shrewd) advisor, Cardinal Richelieu. Louis was only nine years old when his father Henry IV was assassinated – thus the monarchy came immediately under a regency ... of his manipulating mother, Marie de Medici and her corrupt Italian entourage.1   At age 16 Louis took full control, soon sending his mother into exile ... and executing her Italian friends.  She was eventually restored to privilege ... but continued to intrigue against her son and her son's trusted advisor, Armand Jean du Plessis, the Cardinal-Duke of Richelieu.   King Louis XIII Cardinal Richelieu

Against the French nobility Louis had other problems at home (besides his mother and his rebellious younger brother Gaston!): the independent-minded French nobility and the Protestant Huguenots.  Richelieu convinced Louis to order the destruction of all the castles of the nobility, sparing only those of clear strategic worth to the monarchy.  This not only deprived the nobility of their prestige, but also of their real power.  It was the beginning of the French monarchy as a Absolutist institution (all power to the king ... and to him alone!).  Thus he was widely hated by the French nobility.  But Richelieu was not one to be contended with. Against the Protestant Huguenots Richelieu also stood at the center of the decision to bring to an end the power and influence of the French Protestant Huguenots.  Early efforts at seizing their various strongholds located around France (mostly in the South) met with mixed results.  Finally in 1628 the major Huguenot fortress of La Rochelle was overrun by Louis's army ... led personally by Richelieu.  The defeated Huguenots however were still permitted to practice their religion as per Henry IV's Edict of Nantes (which had promised certain religious freedoms to the Huguenots).  But in losing La Rochelle, the Huguenots no longer had any muscle of their own to protect themselves against any further attacks on their religious freedoms in France. In the New World (New France) Since the early 1500s France had been involved in exploring the lands to the north of the Spanish Habsburg holdings in Central and South America.   Francis I had sent (1520s) first the Florentine navigator Verrazzano to explore these coastal regions (the first European to discover what is today New York) then Cartier (1530s) to explore even further north along the St. Lawrence River (which they hoped was a river route which would cross the Americas and permit them to continue to sail West to Asia) laying claim to New France in the process. But French settlements there at first failed to take hold.  Later (1564) Huguenots escaping troubles in France settled in the area of what is today northern Florida (Jacksonville) – though the Spanish quickly reacted and sacked the French settlement there.  Not until the early 1600s would the French under Champlain try again to establish settlements in the New World ... at Quebec (1608) on commanding heights above the St. Lawrence River and here and there along the islands lying to the South of the entrance to the River ... what would eventually become French Acadia.  French settlers were encouraged to befriend the Indians ... whom the French considered as fully French in accepting Catholicism and learning the French language.  French fur hunters and traders took Indian wives and soon informally extended French influence deep into Canada. But until Richelieu took a strong interest in the American project, French settlement itself remained thin ... particularly in comparison to New England, just to the south of New France (where by 1630 thousands of English were beginning to settle).  Huguenots were not permitted to settle in New France ... and thus just as New England was devoutly Protestant, New France by careful design was devoutly Catholic.  Extending feudal rights to French lords or seigneurs willing to organize and oversee communities of settlers, New France finally began to grow (only in the second half of the 1600s however ... and slowly at that). Against Spain A continuous problem, inherited from Louis's predecessors, was Habsburg Spain.  Despite efforts to forge a friendship with Spain through marriage (Louis was married to Anne of Austria, daughter of Philip III of Spain), and despite both kingdoms being staunchly Catholic, the Spanish and French kings (Louis and Philip IV) were natural contenders for dominance in continental Europe ... especially as Spanish holdings surrounded French holdings on virtually every front: Spain itself, Belgium, Luxembourg, Western Germany, and Northern Italy.  Thus it was that the Catholic Cardinal Richelieu advised Louis to ally with the Protestant Netherlands in the on-going Spanish-Dutch war which raged during the Thirty-Years' War.  But similarly, Catholic Spain sent aid to the rebellious French Huguenots to keep Louis occupied at home in France while the Spanish strengthened their position in Northern Italy! Louis did not live long enough to see the massive French victory over the Spanish at Rocroi in 1643 (he died in Paris of tuberculosis just days before the battle).  But he left to his 4-year-old son Louis XIV a monarchy well on the way to being the major player in the European dynastic game. 1She had a reputation as a schemer.   It was believed by many at the time (and by some still today) that she was somehow involved in Henry IV's death. THE ONSET OF THE DUTCH "GOLDEN AGE" Cruel adversity toughens the Dutch spirit The Dutch North or Netherlands, though tiny in size on the European map, had turned itself into a powerful commercial center ... complete with vast commercial empire, soon reaching around the world.  Cruel adversity had steeled the wills of the Dutch and, along with their work ethic, had transformed them into the most industrial-minded people of Europe.  They were very creative in their industriousness, setting up in Amsterdam the first multinational bank, doing business with interested investors across all sorts of political boundaries.   Also at Amsterdam the first stock exchange was established, where investors (or "adventurers') could put their money in a new enterprise ... with the hope of making a huge profit when the enterprise met its industrial or commercial goal.  Of course there were risks of failure.  But the strong-willed Dutch were willing to take those risks. Dutch commercial expansion While they made much of their money in manufacture, the greatest portion came through commerce or trade.  The Dutch were superior tradesmen, purchasing the goods of distant lands and returning those goods by sea to Europe ... making huge profits in the process.  They thus developed a vast merchant fleet (the Dutch possessed more merchant ships than all other European powers combined) protected by a very able navy.  They quickly outpaced the Portuguese in terms of their commercial reach.  Indeed, the Dutch East Indies Company soon became the largest commercial enterprise connecting Europe with Asia. The Dutch-Portuguese War (1598-1663) This process of Dutch expansion – largely at the cost of the Portuguese – did not happen overnight, but took decades to achieve.  The contest between these two commercial empires was global, from the Americas in the West to the Indies in the East ... though the East Indies portion of the war would prove to be the more important engagement of the Dutch.  Success in overrunning most of the Portuguese positions there turned out to be very profitable for the Dutch ... as the demand for the spices nutmeg, mace and cloves found in the Spice Islands was running very high at the time. Dutch South Africa Although the Dutch did not succeed in displacing the Portuguese in coastal southern Africa, when it came to the vital position at  Africa's southern-most tip at the Cape of Good Hope, the Dutch were most focused.  From that strategic point they could then proceed directly east to the Spice Islands of the East Indies.  But they secured the area not only militarily, but also demographically ... establishing a large Dutch settlement at what would come to be known as Cape Town. Local resistance from the native African population was rather light.  The San (Bushmen or Hottentots) were a very primitive hunting society, thinly spread across the region.  The more dangerous Bantu African tribesmen had not yet reached the area in their own expansion southward along the  East African coast.  In fact, both groups, Dutch White and Bantu Black were very surprised to run into each other a century later (1779) when the two groups, the Dutch spreading northeastward and the Bantu (Xhosa  tribesmen) spreading southwestward, met at the Great Fish River (about halfway across today's South Africa).   In short, the Dutch were doing in South Africa what the English were doing at that same time in North America:  extending their population deeply into overseas lands.  And – just as the English of America were beginning to identify themselves primarily as "Americans" – so too the Dutch of South Africa were calling themselves "Afrikaners"!  And like the English-American frontiersmen who were largely self-sufficient Protestant farmers, so too were the Afrikaners – identifying themselves as such also with the name "Boer" (Dutch simply for "farmer) – and quite proud of that identity ... as these Boer families spread themselves ever-deeper into the South African interior. Dutch America Also, like the Spanish, Portuguese and French (and soon the English) the Dutch, through their West Indies Company, got deeply involved in opening up commerce and settlement across the Atlantic in the Americas.  They established a "New Netherlands" in the middle reaches of North America, ranging from what is today Connecticut in the north to Delaware in the South – with New Amsterdam (today's New York City) as its capital.  They particularly focused on the "North River" (Hudson River) ... hoping it was the waterway that led across the American continent to the Pacific.  Eventually finding this hope groundless, they nonetheless placed Dutch forts and numerous Dutch settlers along the fertile shoreline of this mighty river, and opened up trade in furs with the Indians.  Here too, the Dutch population began to grow. Dutch independence Meanwhile, the Habsburg Spanish were refusing to give up in their effort to retake their ancestral northern Dutch or Habsburg lands ... as they had so successfully retaken the southern Dutch lands (Flemish lands actually).  But besides the fact that the entrepreneurial Dutch were quite capable at self-defense, both the English and the French tended to ally with the Dutch against powerful Habsburg Spain.  Finally, in 1648 the Spanish had had enough of the effort and in the Treaty of Westphalia acknowledged the independence of the Dutch Republic. The highly sophisticated Dutch culture But the Dutch were not just about business.  Art and architecture flourished, with Dutch artists being some of Europe's finest (Rembrandt and Vermeer, for instance ... among many others).  Education and science took a huge lead in the Netherlands, with the establishment of a number of outstanding universities ... and excellent scholarship.  The practical Dutch were fascinated by the physical world around them and studied it closely, Huygens and Leuwenhoek being among the leading scientists of their times.  But the Dutch could also lead in the world of scholarly philosophy, Spinoza –  a Dutch Jew of Amsterdam – being an example.  So free (relatively speaking anyway) was the academic atmosphere for study and writing that other Europeans relocated there ... such as the famous French philosopher Descartes (from 1628 to just before his death in 1650).  The Courtyard of the Exchange at Amsterdam Dutch East Indies capital at Batavia (Dutch Indonesia) Rembrandt van Rijn – The Night Watch (1642) Amsterdam Museum Jan (or Johannes) Vermeer  – The Milkmaid (1658) Rijksmuseum - Amsterdam Jan (or Johannes) Vermeer  – The Little Street (1657-1658) Rijksmuseum - Amsterdam SOME OF THE OTHER PLAYERS OF THE DAY Gustavus Adolphus's Sweden Under the kingship (1611 to 1632) of this exceptionally talented military commander,2 Gustavus Adolphus, Sweden in short order grew in status from being merely a regional power to being one of the major powers of early 1600s Europe.  Pressing the Protestant cause in the Thirty Years' War or Wars of Religion, he took on most notably the very Catholic Eastern Habsburg Empire (the Holy Roman or Austrian Empire) ... and his Catholic cousin, Sigismund, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania.  Much of the Thirty Years" War centered on this competition between Sweden and the two huge Eastern European states of Austria and Poland-Lithuania.  Spain, Prussia and France also weighed in big in the War.  But Gustav Adolphus" Sweden seemed to be at the heart of things. Interestingly, when Gustav Adolphus was killed in battle in 1632, his five-year old daughter (his only surviving child) Christina took over the Swedish throne ... focusing as much on learning and culture as her father had on warfare.  Meanwhile the business of state, as well as the excellent Swedish military, was handed over to Christina's Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna.  He effectively governed Sweden until his death in 1654.  He not only maintained the strong military tradition of Sweden, but worked hard at developing a modern bureaucracy by which to govern the holdings of the Swedish Vasa dynasty. Unfortunately at this point (1654), when Christina abdicated, Sweden fell into the hands of a less able king, Charles X Gustav, who continued to involve Sweden in a constant round of battles in North-central Europe (Germany and Poland) which ravaged the cities and countryside of the region.  However, he lived only a half-dozen years before passing on the throne to his son Charles XI, who was largely a man of peace during the next four decades.. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth  In the mid-1600s the Commonwealth was assaulted from all directions, but principally from the East by the Russians who overran the eastern half of the Commonwealth and from the north by the Swedes who overran almost all of the western half of the Commonwealth (the "Swedish Deluge") ... the latter invaders creating such mayhem that nearly a third of the Commonwealth's population died from military action, hunger or disease.  Worst hit were the cities (Warsaw lost about 90% of its population), hundreds of which were totally destroyed by the invading Swedes.  This began the rapid decline of the once-great Poland-Lithuania, until both societies disappeared completely in the late 1700s, absorbed by their neighbors Russia, Austria and Prussia. Germany We mention Germany at this point only to make the point that Germany really did not exist as a political player in the 1600s.  Instead Germany was a collection of a vast number of kingdoms, duchies, cities ... in theory all under the authority of the Holy Roman Emperor ... that is, the Habsburg Emperor of Austria.  The reality was however that the Habsburg Austrian Emperor governed effectively less than a third of Germany (in the East and South of the German region).  The rest of Germany was made up of small mini-states under one or another local ruler. This made for such weakness that Germany typically served as the battleground for the various contending parties during the Wars of Religion of the first half of the 1600s.   Germany was devastated by these ongoing wars ... losing over a third of its population (in some areas far worse than that figure) ... through the battles, the devastation of the land (again, in great part by the Swedes) and the resultant hunger, and the diseases which accompanied all of that.  Unfortunately for Germany, it would remain a victim-territory until well into the 1800s ... when finally (1870) the Prussians (led by the skillful Chancellor Bismarck) would succeed in uniting most of Germany as the Second German Empire. 2Many – such as the Prussian Clausewitz, the Frenchman Napoleon and even the American Patton – considered Gustavus Adolphus a military genius, and studied carefully his use of heavy artillery, smaller but very mobile infantry units, and speed rather than mass in the employment of his troops. Axel Oxenstierna Sigmund III Vasa Charles X Gustav ENGLAND OF THE STUARTS AND PURITANS James I Stuart and the Divine Rights Theory During the reign of Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603) there had been a moderately tolerant working relationship between the Queen and the Protestant (Calvinist) reformers.  The burghers of London and other English cities were for her an invaluable source of financial and other support for her rule – which was continually on the defensive against the likes of the "Catholic" defender Philip II of Spain. Lacking an heir of her own, it became apparent that Tudor rule would eventually pass into the hands of the Stuarts of Scotland.  Though Mary Stuart had been an ardent Catholic, her son James had been raised in Protestant (Calvinist) circles.  In 1603 when Elizabeth died and indeed James came to the English throne as James I, it might have appeared that the going would henceforth be better for the Protestants in England. In many ways James played to the Protestant reformers.  He sponsored a new English translation of the Bible (the venerable King James version!), which pleased the reformers greatly (though the Puritans seemed to continue to rely mostly on their beloved English-language Geneva Bibles).  He also was himself strongly opposed to the re-opening of England to Catholicism – though mostly for political reasons than for reasons of religious conscience. But he also was a thorough royalist, strongly supportive of the "divine rights" theory of monarchy by which the claim was put forth that kings were responsible to God alone – and not to any human agency (such as Parliament).  Unfortunately, he would soon discover that Parliament had a mind of its own and expected the king to share rule with Parliament.  Little by little tensions began to mount as the King and Parliament came into conflict. Part of his difficulty would be over the matter of religion.  He had during his earlier days as King of Scotland tired of the "upstart" behavior of the Scottish Calvinists.  He was now prepared to rule directly over the Christian community in England – through an episcopal system (a hierarchy of archbishops and bishops) that linked all the Church of England to his personal rule as Head of the Church of England.  Thus was he much opposed to the idea of Presbyterian government (the Calvinist idea of rule by "elders" or leaders from among the commoner or burgher class) at the local level.  During his rule he actively discouraged the growth of independent or "separatist" communities and congregations – that is, local communities and churches that tried to work independently outside of the episcopal system. Overall, this was not a position all that different from Elizabeth's – except that he lacked her political insights and thus found himself in trouble on a number of fronts at the same time. The development of Puritan power Cambridge University was at this time a hot-bed of Calvinist religious thinking.  Sons of prosperous English burghers came to this venerable institution to explore a world of widening economic, intellectual and spiritual opportunities.  Here at Cambridge young men began to fashion a purist or "Puritan" vision of a newly emerging society, one operating directly under the sovereignty of God ... making the place of the sovereign king a bit problematic.  They supported what was sort of a theory of "divine rights" of burghers – in opposition to the "divine rights" theory of the monarchy.  These independent-minded scions of the burgher class came to see themselves not as essentially subjects of the English crown, but as subjects of God.  According to their Calvinist or Puritan mindset, individuals were to be led in living out their lives guided or governed only by their own scripturally-disciplined minds and their own prayerfully-cultivated Christian consciences.  Nothing was to stand between themselves and their beloved God.  Not even an English king. Separatists and Puritans It was not long before there was a clash between Royalist and Puritan views – especially Separatist views.  Unlike the fellow-Calvinist Puritans, Separatists had given up on the project of trying to reform the Church of England.  They concluded that the King was so adamantly opposed to serious reform that there was no point in continuing to try to reform the Church of England.  Separatists were Puritans who simply were ready finally to "separate" from the mother Church.   The other Puritans were not pleased with Separatism, considering the Separatists as being something like traitors to the reform cause.  Puritans were not ready to give up the reform fight.  Separatists were. One such group of Separatists, led by a Cambridge-trained pastor, John Robinson, finally decided early on to leave England entirely and resettle themselves in Holland (1608) where they could live in a Christian community that operated in accordance with their Puritan principles.  Some of this same group would later (1620) make yet a second move as "pilgrims" in pursuit of their dream, this time to the new world – to Plymouth, Massachusetts.  James Stuart - King of Scotland (1567-1625), and England and Ireland (1603-1625) King James's "Authorized Version" (actually most Puritans tended to hold on to thir beloved Geneva Bibles) The London Royal Exchange (early 1600s) – where commercial fortunes were made (or lost) Pastor John Robinson leading the Pilgrims in prayer prior to their departure for America -1620 Charles I (1625 – 1649)  When James died in 1625, his son Charles I came to power. Generally, policies continued much as they had under James – except that the debate over royal power was now widening and deepening in intensity.  On the continent the doctrine of royal absolutism (all power rightly belongs to the king) was being aggressively put forward in the French (Louis XIII) and Spanish (Philip IV) courts.  Inevitably the issue came to England. Charles immediately upon his accession to power brought an even more aggressively royalist and aristocratic (or "cavalier") mood into English politics.  Charles favored the old landed families (many of whom had Catholic sympathies) over the new independent minded burgher (urban middle class) families in his appointments to the royal court.  In particular, he allowed himself to come under the dominating influence of Buckingham, one of his father's advisors.  Buckingham was very much a royal absolutist – one who was inclined to make no compromises with the burgher interests of Parliament. Charles also stirred considerable political resentment by immediately putting aside all the laws that had blocked Catholicism from English politics.  Likewise, his diplomacy of befriending Catholic kings on the continent (even marrying his son to a Spanish princess) was interpreted as the precursor of even reestablishing Catholicism in England.  This was not something that the Puritan majority in the House of Commons would take lying down.  The stage for violent confrontation was thus being set even from the outset of Charles' rule. Charles tried for 11 years to rule without Parliament – which meant also ruling without the financial support of this powerful group of English merchants.  This forced him to take very contrived and largely unsuccessful measures to raise his own monies in order to maintain his royal courts and armies.  Charles simultaneously tried to engage in foreign ventures he hoped would rally the English to his side.  But tensions only mounted with the gentry who would not play into his programs. Rapidly Deteriorating Political Conditions Charles eventually turned more and more to William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, for ideological support.  The appointment of Laud, a self professed Arminian,3 as Archbishop of Canterbury angered the Calvinist Puritans enormously – who saw this as a move against their own position (which it was!).  Further, Laud's efforts to put the entire Christian community in England under episcopal rule and in total conformity to the Prayer Book only drove the wedge deeper between the royal court and the Puritans in Parliament. When a rebellion in Ireland flared up, the issue of who should control the army came to the fore.  Pym, leader of the more reformist members of Parliament, narrowly succeeded in a vote to place the army under Parliamentary authority.  But Charles refused to yield.  With this, England found itself in a state of deep political division between King and Parliament.  It now had two armies: the King's and Parliament's.  Things were heading towards a show-down. But it was his Scottish subjects who would actually start the open rebellion against Charles ... when he attempted to unite the heavily Calvinist Church of Scotland with his Church of England. Specifically, when Laud tried to impose the Prayer Book on the Scottish church, an explosion in Scotland, Charles' home country, occurred.  In 1639 Charles sent  his ill paid royal army into Scotland to force acceptance of this decree ... only to find himself met strongly by Scottish forces..  A truce was agreed on, which Charles soon broke in a second attack on Scotland the following year.  Parliament takes the initiative Again, things went poorly for Charles in Scotland ... and desperate for funding for his army, he called Parliament back into session in late 1640.  But when Parliament put forth its own demands for the undoing of Laud's episcopalian reforms in exchange for its cooperation – the King dissolved Parliament (the Short Parliament) immediately.   But the king's situation only deteriorated and soon he had to call Parliament (the "Long Parliament') back into session.  This Parliament would not be dissolved until 20 years later.  It was about to become the effective ruler of England. Parliament now took action ... to remove (and subsequently execute) Laud, to greatly restrict the King's ability to raise revenues, and to make it impossible for the King to dissolve Parliament without its own consent.   Charles at first complied ... hoping to avoid what was clearly becoming a drift toward war in England itself. But the King fought back, especially when he saw division setting in among the ranks of Parliament as to how to proceed, whether moderately or radically.  In early 1642 Charles moved to have five of Parliament's leaders arrested ... but warned ahead, the five had already fled when Charles showed up with an armed guard.  This event proved to be politically disastrous for Charles, now driving the Parliamentary moderates into the arms of the radicals. Fearing what might happen next, Charles immediately headed north.  But then in mid-1642 he decided to return to London.  Some of the country was coming out in support of him (basically the conservative countryside) and he was hoping to force his way back into supremacy.  But urban England (and the navy) supported Parliament.  And thus the two sides gathered armed forces in direct opposition to each other.  The English Civil War was now underway, initially taking the form of local battles here and there around England. The Civil War (1642 – 1649) At first the war seemed that it should go in favor of Charles and his "Cavaliers."  But by 1643 the fortunes of war seemed to be turning in favor of the Parliamentary troops and their army of "Roundheads" (identified by their short haircuts ... in distinction to the long curls of the Cavaliers, which was the fashion at the time in the royal courts of Europe).  Charles's army, though superior in size, proved timid ... and gave the Parliamentary army an opportunity to organize itself.  Also, the Scottish army in 1643 came into the struggle on the side of the English Parliamentary forces.   Finally, in 1644 the very capable Oliver Cromwell began to make his way forward as a military leader.  He mixed Puritan spiritual discipline with incredible military discipline to produce a "New Model Army" – which proved itself to be a powerful fighting instrument on behalf of Parliament.  In 1645, the entire Parliamentary Army, reorganized along Cromwell's lines, met and crushed the royalist forces at Naseby and Langport.  The King escaped to Scotland, surrendering himself to Scottish authorities, only to have them in the following year (1646) – after receiving a huge payment from the English – turn him over to the English Parliamentary authorities.  With Charles in prison the Civil War (at least its first phase) simply came to a close. Disagreement within the Protestant ranks of Parliament At this point a split occurred within the ranks of the Parliamentary coalition.  Most of the Protestant members of Parliament were "Presbyterian" in persuasion and were willing to free the King in exchange for the establishment of the Presbyterian form of church government throughout England.  But many of the English Protestants, numerous in the Parliamentary army, were "independents" or "congregationalists" and wanted local congregations to have the right to organize themselves as they saw fit.4    This division led Charles to undertake from prison secret negotiations with the very Presbyterian Scots, promising the very Presbyterian Scots to institute Presbyterianism in England in exchange for support by the Scottish army.  Thus the character of the Civil War now shifted into something of a nationalist struggle – an English Parliamentary Army under Cromwell and a Scottish Presbyterian Army supporting Charles.   But again, in this second phase of the civil war (1648-1642) things did not go well for Charles ... or the Scottish Presbyterian army.  Also Charles had been counting on his former supporters in England to retake arms.  But most refused (having previously promised under oath not to do so).   Those that did were quickly seized ... and beheaded (for breaking their oath).    The Rump Parliament This led to the question of what to do about the King.  The matter was quickly decided by the army itself when it marched on Parliament ("Pride's Purge") and arrested the MPs who had been willing to work out a compromise with the King and blocked the entrance of most of the rest.  The small number of MPs remaining (only 75 of the original 470 members of the Long Parliament)5 were ordered to set up a High Court of Justice to try the King on charges of high treason. The King is beheaded (1649) Fearing that the King and the Presbyterians might work together to create a new pro-royalist Presbyterian Parliamentary army, there was only one verdict likely to be forthcoming from just such a court.  Thus in January of 1649 the court found Charles guilty as charged ... and at the end of the month the King was beheaded.   The nation was shocked – but subdued by this show of power.  In any case, this effectively removed the rallying cause for opponents of Cromwell and his army of Independents. Charles II is proclaimed King ... but flees to France Nonetheless, his eighteen-year-old son (also "Charles') was immediately proclaimed by the Royalists as King of England, Scotland and Ireland.  Royalists in all three countries attempted to take power in the name of the new king.  But all this did was to return all three lands to violent civil war.   Reacting to the announcement of Charles II's assumption of royal rights in Scotland, the Rump Parliament now moved to abolish the monarchy and the House of Lords, declaring England under a newly drafted Constitution to be a Commonwealth directed by a Council of State.  Actually it was Cromwell and his army which were in effective control of England at this point. 3The Dutch Reformer Jakob Arminius (1560-1609) questioned the strict Calvinist (Pauline) understanding that salvation was by grace extended by God alone … not by human good intentions or good works.  His supporters, the Remonstrants, insisted that salvation was at least in part a matter of the free choosing of the individual.  A Dutch synod held at Dort in 1618-1619 – attended by Calvinists from other parts of Europe – opposed strongly the Remonstrants and their "Arminianism." 4As previously explained, Presbyterians supported the idea of a system of church unions, all the churches at the local or regional level constituting a Presbytery, a number of Presbyteries joined together to constitute at a higher level a Synod (Senate), and the Synods united into a General Assembly.  Positions of membership and leadership in these bodies were entirely elective on a regular (even annual) basis by church members ... to ensure a democratic character of the whole (unlike the episcopal system of church appointments from the King on down to the archbishops to the bishops).  The independents or "Congregationalists" wanted to have no part of any higher union above the local churches, each of which was supposed to be entirely self-running.  The difference between the Presbyterian and Congregationalists was thus political, not religious, because both groups were strong Calvinists theologically. 5Actually the Rump Parliament would see the gradual return of almost half of the original Members of Parliament ... most of whom considered the other half to be still fully Members of Parliament – and hoped to see some kind of compromise able to bring about their return. Charles I The Trial of Archbishop Laud - 1644 (he is beheaded on January 10, 1645) Cromwell – having captured Charles's personal baggage and correspondence at the Battle of Naseby (June 14, 1645) Pride's Purge of Parliamentary members - December 6, 1648 Charles I is beheaded (1649) ENGLISH AMERICA Spain had not appeared as interested in North America in its efforts to bring the Western Hemisphere under Spanish control and therefore that area seemed to offer the best possibilities for others to get in on the act.  By the beginning of the 1600s it seems that the time was right for others to do exactly that – particularly after the Spanish army and navy had experienced a string of disastrous setbacks trying to keep both their Dutch subjects from breaking away from Habsburg authority and the English privateers (actually merely pirates officially authorized by English Queen Elizabeth) from harassing the Spanish fleets bringing gold from America.  Thus (as we have already seen) the French sent traders to Canada to take advantage of its great wealth in animal furs – and sent priests to Canada to bring Indian souls to Christ.  Also the commercially minded Dutch set up a merchant  orporation to bring back the wealth of the central shores of North America – and to find passage through America to Asia, hopefully up the Hudson River where they positioned some Dutch settlements. The Virginia Company A strictly commercial venture.  Likewise the English formed a similar merchant corporation, the Virginia Company, to do the same for the area along the shores of the Chesapeake Bay.  In 1607 a small fleet set out to site a colony named Jamestown along the James River – both named after the English King, James I.  The motif of the venture was the same as it had been for the Spanish: for the adventurers to find Indian gold and thus secure their positions as rising noblemen ... or at least as something like "gentlemen." However gentlemen did not perform manual labor – which presented a problem for the Virginia Company, as most of the participants in this venture were attempting to establish for themselves ratings as "gentlemen."  John Smith succeeded in making himself unpopular by commanding his fellow merchant adventurers to take up necessary labor if they hoped to eat.  Some had brought along indentured workers to do the work for them. But most of the adventurers attempted to avoid the responsibility of manual labor.  As a consequence the new plantation at Jamestown suffered tremendously from the lack of food.  This, plus not taking the time to properly site the new colony (they put it alongside a mosquito-laden swamp) caused the adventurers to sicken and then die in droves.  More workers were brought in, but the venture had enormous difficulty trying to function as a successful settled community. Tobacco to the rescue.  No gold of any significance was to be found in Virginia.  But an entrepreneurial individual, John Rolf, picked up some tobacco seed when at first stranded in Bermuda and then was able to bring his discovery along with him to Virginia ... and start up what became a very thriving tobacco industry.  Others caught on, and soon tobacco farming and shipping back to England became the economic mainstay of Virginia. A Virginia aristocracy develops on the European model.  However the colony began slowly to settle in ... and develop a degree of social order.  In 1619 a governing Assembly (the House of Burgesses) representing all male landowners in Virginia gathered in Jamestown as the first elected government in English America.  However it was understood that the representatives themselves to the House of Burgesses were naturally to be drawn from the class of local Virginia aristocrats or gentlemen owners of the major Virginia plantations.  Virginians held the social or cultural understanding that it was the proper thing to do in deferring to one's social betters – just as one did back in England.   Then in 1622 a major Indian attack which resulted in the death of some 300-400 colonists – and rumors of the deputy governor's mismanagement of the colony – caused King James to end the Virginia Company's charter in 1624, converting it into a royal colony directly under the King himself (but governed by a royal Governor appointed by the King.)  The House of Burgesses continued to meet, though its power was reduced somewhat.  But the real power of the royal colony was now located in the Governor's Council consisting of the Governor and a small group of advisors drawn from the wealthiest Virginia plantations (the Virginia aristocracy). Servitude and Slavery Despite the emphasis placed on the event of 1619 when some 20 Angolan Africans were brought to Virginia as slaves, slavery was hardly a novel institution in the New World.  It had been going on, particularly in the nearby Caribbean Islands, for a century.  And it simply fit right into the idea that there were two classes of people at the time, property-owners, and those who worked that property.  Indenture and slavery had much in common, in that those who fit the category as either indentured worker or slave had no particular rights of his or her own under that category.  Even indentured workers were considered the "property" of the person ("master") possessing their indenture ... an indenture that could be bought and sold to other wealthy owners if need be.  But there were some key differences.  A person usually chose to accept indenture in order to receive funding to cover the cost of the trip to America ... and with the understanding that at the end of the tenure of the indenture (usually seven years) that individual would receive not only the training developed during the indenture but also land rights and tools to allow himself (or herself) then to set himself up independently in the New World.  Slavery had no such options ... but involved a lifetime of service ... and a similar servitude passed on to any offspring of such slaves. Actually at first, slavery in Virginia was not a tightly defined institution ... some Africans actually being classed as indentured workers – presuming that upon attaining personal freedom, they would be able to take on indentured workers of their own.  But with time (the later 1600s and certainly by the beginning of the 1700s) slavery became a fully-legalized part of the Virginia social scene ... and identified most closely with those of African origin. Virginia's God Despite this rather "un-Christian" picture of the very rich lording it over the poor, both black and white – Virginia was not Godless.  Attendance at church (the Church of England directed by the King and the bishops he appointed) was required of everyone.  But there were few pastors that accompanied the early settlers to Virginia and, as in England, attendance at worship was viewed more as a duty than as a right or privilege.  Ultimately Virginia was no more or less religious than most of "Christian" Europe of those days. The Arrival at the future Jamestown The Fort at Jamestown Africans (Angolans) for sale at Jamestown – 1619 A meeting of the Burgesses at Jamestown The Indian attack on the Virginians - 1622 New England Meanwhile to the north of the Virginia colony in an area that would come to be known as "New England" an English settlement of quite a different character was taking shape.  Whereas the Virginia colony was from the very outset an experiment in social improvement through the acquiring of wealth and thus status in a largely feudal cultural setting, New England was a definite religious experiment based on the strong religious feelings stirred by the Protestant Reformation in England.  New England was an experiment in building a "reformed" society, from the ground up, according to strict Biblical principles.  It was an experiment in building a "New Jerusalem," a "city on a hill," able to shed Christian light to the rest of the world. The Separatist "Pilgrims" The first to make the move to New England in this matter would be a group of Separatists ... who would gain for themselves the title of Pilgrims, for their world was indeed a world of pilgrimage – religious pilgrimage. Under the threat of imprisonment for their religious "treason," a small community of Separatists escaped to the Netherlands to live among fellow Calvinists like themselves.  But it was a bad time to be looking for help in the Netherlands, as the Dutch were fully occupied at trying to keep themselves from being destroyed by the Spanish troops that had invaded their country.  Thus economic hard times – plus watching their children abandon their English heritage as they began to take up Dutch culture – decided a number of these English Separatists to make yet another move: to America.   After political and economic complications with English investors and with royal authority, plus missteps in getting themselves across the Atlantic so late in the season (November 1620), these Pilgrims were able to set up a new community just opposite Cape Cod in the area known as Massachusetts.  Here with the help of friendly Indians they were able to found the colony of "Plymouth" ... and begin to live out the religious experiment they had long been seeking. The Puritans join them With so much persecution back in England after Charles took the throne as English King in 1625 ... the Puritans who had looked down on the Separatists as traitors to the Reformed cause now themselves realized that "separation" was the only option available to them ... short of civil war.  Thus in 1630 and for the next ten years after that, some 20,000 Puritans left England and sailed to America to found and develop there the Massachusetts Bay Colony, just to the north of the Plymouth Colony.  John Winthrop.  Organizing, leading, and serving as the spiritual mentor to this venturesome group of Puritans, was Winthrop.  He led the first group of 1000 Puritans to the Boston area, was quick to link up with the Plymouth Pilgrims, and thus was to learn from them some of the secrets of survival in this strange new world. These Puritans were not economic refugees or social climbing adventurers.  They came from stable Middle Class English stock which (unlike the Virginians) had developed the Calvinist attitude toward hard work as not only the way to please God but also the way to build for themselves and their families fairly prosperous lives.7  They were literate (the ability to read the Bible was an absolute requirement) ... indeed, well-educated in the three "R's" (Reading, wRiting and aRithmatic), and well led by university-educated (usually Cambridge University) clergy, with usually just such a pastor assigned to each of the many New England villages.8  The Massachusetts Bay Company, which sponsored this mass movement of Puritans, carefully laid out each new village with a certain size of population and a specific allotment of farmland, complete with a "meeting house" at the center of each village – serving as a church on Sundays, a school for children during the daytime on weekdays, and a hall for town meetings as needed in the evenings. A deep sense of the equality of all (reflective of their understanding that all are esteemed as equals in the eyes of God) stood at the heart of the social agenda of New England.  These Puritan/Separatist New Englanders worked together as equals, studied together, and defended themselves together (such as the "minute men" who were trained to assemble from their fields or homes in a moment's notice if the village were threatened ... usually by an Indian attack).   Being able to work as a community, except for the Pilgrim's very first winter when the Pilgrims lost half their number due to winter exposure, there would be no "dying time" such as the Virginia Colony experienced repeatedly.  Thus the New England colony prospered well beyond the level of the Virginia colony ... and grew accordingly. 7This was the origins of the famous "Yankee work ethic" for which Americans would become world famous. 8Thus it was that Harvard College was founded (1636) in Boston shortly after their arrival to America, primarily to educate just such pastors.  The heavily Episcopalian Virginia would not do the same (College of William and Mary) until almost the end of that same century (1693). The first Thanksgiving of the Separatist Pilgrims - 1621 Winthrop and his Puritans depart for America - 1630 Puritan worship in Massachusetts Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson This is not to say that New England did not have its problems.  People brought their personal issues with them to New England, such asthe pastor Roger Williams ... for whom the Puritan settlements were never religiously "pure" enough and who finally was invited in 1636 to take his purity elsewhere ... though in establishing his own colony of Providence (Rhode Island) he quickly ran into many of the same problems himself and soon restored a close friendship with Massachusetts' leader Winthrop.  And there was Anne Hutchinson who believed herself to be more "spiritual" than the colony's pastors – except for the pastor John Cotton, whose favor she cultivated with breathtaking flattery.  Eventually, in 1638, she was forced to leave the colony ... before her "prophetic pronouncements" shattered the social foundations on which the struggling new community was built.9 9Anne Hutchinson would become a major hero of the American feminist movement for the way she stood up to the male authorities of the colony, attempting merely to "exercise the right of free speech."  The fact that she created a circle of individuals who were deliberately attacking the legitimacy of the colony's leadership with their claims that all the pastors but Cotton were serving the Anti-Christ or Devil is a most critical social matter conveniently overlooked in the extolling of Hutchinson's "bravery." The Trial of Anne Hutchinson - 1638 A MAJOR INTELLECTUAL SHIFT Religious Fatigue It is impossible to overstress the importance of two factors that played heavily in the lives of Westerners by the year 1650.  One of these was a growing sense of relativism about revealed or divine truth.  Watching Protestants and Catholics slaughter each other in the name of revealed truth did nothing beneficial for cause of either "revealed truth" in the long run.  Instead it tended to scatter the seeds of religious skepticism around the land.  People were tired of the fiercely combative religious claims on people's sense of truth. Consequently, the simple straightforwardness of truth built merely on human observation and reason seemed to be a much more useful – not to mention safer – approach to truth.  The European was thus very receptive to a worldview which grew up from the foundations of "natural philosophy" – one that proceeded not from tradition, or scripture, or divine revelation, but one which seemed to stand simply on observed "fact."  This was truth enough.  This could even be, as in the example of the theory of the heavens, a greater truth.  The European was thus beginning to be very open to what such natural philosophy (the forerunner of modern science) might now be having to say about life ... anywhere, everywhere – even in the heavens above. The development of the secular-scientific mindset The second factor playing a very big role in the development of Western culture in those days was the growing interest in the immediate world around us – the physical, secular world. Somehow there was a growing sense that it was not a mere transient place – merely a staging area for eternal life.  Rather – it had value, great value, in and of itself. True, this kind of thinking had its roots as far back as the 1300s, with its love of physical beauty found in the human form and the natural world around us; and it developed rapidly in the 1400s during the Renaissance in Italy and Northern Europe with the rise of the spirit of entrepreneurship and the accumulation of personal fortunes.   But what is particularly notable about this intellectual movement of the 1500s and 1600s was how our interest in the world around us came to have a value in and of itself – apart from how it might help us in our relationship with God.  Not that this implied a diminished regard for God.  It's just that a new mindset was growing up – that could consider the study of anything apart from some implicit religious significance. The "dethronement" of the earth Despite the concern about the cruelty of the religious debate between Protestantism and Catholicism, none of these new free-thinkers had any desire to disestablish the larger matter of the Christian faith and its general worldview. But ultimately, what they would discover in their free-wheeling inquiry into their newly expanding universe would throw the whole moral-intellectual-spiritual paradigm of the West into further confusion. The earliest upheaval came in a new view about the heavens and the earth. But this story goes back well before 1600.  Let's therefore go back a bit and see how things evolved. Since time immemorial it had been assumed that the earth was the fixed center of the universe – and that the "heavenlies" (sun, moon and stars) circled the earth – in accordance with divine law. True – there were "fluctuations" in the heavenly movements of these supposedly divine and thus "perfect" celestial bodies. But these fluctuations ("imperfections") had been accounted for in numerous sub-theories that seemed to preserve intact the original doctrine. But these sub-theories were so complicated that it made for an almost incomprehensible vision of the precise movements of the heavens. Nicolas Copernicus (1473-1543) In the mid-1500s Copernicus had come up with an alternative theory:  the sun, not the earth, is the center of the universe (he apparently was not aware that almost 2000 years before him, Aristarchus had also come up with such a theory). His purpose – so his publisher states – was not to challenge the obvious truth of the earth's centrality to the universe – but rather to make "astrological" calculations (for the purpose of fortune-telling) less complicated.  His heliocentric (sun-centered) theory was simply to be viewed as a hypothetical system designed to simplify astrology.  He did not intend to posit this theory as a new theory of Truth or Reality. It was simply a device of convenience.  This anyway is what his publisher wrote in the preface, possibly to protect Copernicus.  Whether Copernicus himself thought that his theories were or were not matters of mere convenience is much less certain. Indeed, though his theory seemed to work, it still had many flaws – and needed a lot of further working out before it might be significantly better than Ptolemy's theory.  As long as the motion of the planets around the sun was seen to be perfectly circular – rather than as was later discovered to be elliptical – Copernicus himself would need theories and formulas and sub-theories and sub-formulas to make his astrological calculations useful. In his own days there seemed to be nothing particularly revolutionary about his theories.  They were interesting ... perhaps even useful.  But actually, he had put out in front of the European mind the suggestion that the sun, not the earth, might be a better starting point in computing the movements of the heavens.  His ideas were not forgotten. Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) At the turn of that century (late 1500s/early 1600s) Tycho Brahe made an enormous contribution to the growing field of inquiry about the universe and the place of our world in it.  He was astrologer and mathematician for the Holy Roman Emperor.  In pursuit of astrology, he carefully collected observations about the movement of the heavens.  Though these were not intended at the time to serve the interest of science, they would prove very useful for later advances in the rising science of astronomy, studying the planets and stars in order to acquire knowledge of their movements in and of themselves – quite apart from their "fortune-telling" qualities. Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) But still the matter was not given much weight at the time – until in the early 1600s when it came into the hands of the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei.  Galileo announced loudly and long that from his direct observations of the stars, it was clear to him that the heliocentric theory was not just a conjecture but was in fact the Truth.  Beyond a shadow of doubt, the sun – not the earth – was the center of things.   His impact did not stop there.  Galileo had been armed with a new-fangled instrument we know as a telescope (even claiming its invention – though it seems he fudged a bit on this truth).  With this telescope he was able to make many unprecedented observations of the heavens beyond even the all-important fact of the earth's loss of central position in the scheme of things.  He observed the pock-marked surface of the moon and the solar flares of the sun – discounting the ancient Greek religious doctrine that these heavenly bodies were the epitome of perfection (actual Platonic Ideals or Forms). He also observed the moons of Jupiter in their regular orbit as together they all moved about the sun – giving rise to an explanation of how our moon could be similarly held in orbit around the earth as it makes its way around the sun. Also, his telescope revealed considerable mass on the part of some of the heavenly bodies (the planets) which had appeared to the naked eye only as points of light in the sky, demonstrating their existence as substantial material entities: neighbors of the earth.  But oddly, even under the powerful scrutiny of the telescope, other lights in the heavens (the stars) still remained as only points of light – giving indication that their distance from our earth must be vastly greater than had been previously imagined! At first his announcement was met with much interest from the Italian Catholic hierarchy ... which initially seemed to be quite supportive of his studies.  But Galileo was a bit of a theatrical publicity-hound who found that his celebrity status could be greatly enhanced by clobbering the church with the metaphysical implications of his discoveries.  In case people had not understood the metaphysical implications of his findings, he was glad to make them clear.  Thus he was loud in his announcement that both tradition and Scripture – hitherto considered the bedrock of all truth – seemed to be very wrong on their placement of the earth at the center of the universal scheme of things.  Indeed, he seemed to be eager to demonstrate every point he could find where his studies challenged traditional authority.   But this was not a good time to insult the Church and its truths.   Europe was in the midst of the violent Protestant-Catholic religious wars, and the Protestants were delighting in another excuse to verbally attack the Catholic Church.  As they picked up on Galileo's threat to the traditional Christian worldview, they attacked the Pope fiercely for his tolerance of this vile theory.  To the Protestants this was another example of how far the leadership of the Church was willing to stray from the Truth. As Protestant criticisms grew sharper, the Pope became increasingly frustrated by the way Galileo's grandstanding was stirring up even more controversy within a disintegrating Christendom.  Galileo really didn't need to press this point so much.  Also the Church was getting tired of Galileo's criticisms of its traditional authority.  A show-down between Galileo and the Church thus became inevitable – given Galileo's personality and the Church's highly defensive position.   Eventually the Pope threatened excommunication if Galileo persisted.  For Galileo, grandstanding was one thing, excommunication was quite another.  So Galileo yielded.  But he also succeeded in letting it be known that, whatever the Church might force him to say or do, the fact remained that the sun, not the earth, was the center of things.   However, because he built his sun-centered theory on the notion of circular paths of the planets around the sun (the paths are in fact elliptical, not circular) his calculations were flawed – a fact that many were quick to jump on as proof of the basic falseness of his theory. Nonetheless, in this struggle between Galileo and the Medieval Christian worldview, Galileo struck a hard blow on behalf of Secularism's view that Christianity was hopelessly lost in ignorance, and was willing to enforce that ignorance in order to preserve itself.  Galileo was a major contributor to the idea that there was another truth, another reality than the one put forth by Christianity. For more on Galileo Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) But very soon after Galileo's grand splash upon the European stage, his work (also the early 1600s) was backed up by further studies by Johannes Kepler.  Kepler succeeded Brahe as astrologer and mathematician for the Emperor.  As such, he had studied the heavens in search for a more rationally "beautiful" explanation of the movement of the heavens. However, Kepler came at this work from a quite different angle than Galileo.  To Kepler, his work was an almost mystical (Pythagorean) enterprise.  Unlike Galileo, who sought (in the vein of the modern mindset) to exalt himself as the heroic intellectual explorer, Kepler sought to glorify God with his work.  To him science was there to validate God – not man. Kepler employed Brahe's data to refine Copernicus' heliocentric theory.  In an amazing departure from long-held conventional thinking, he put the circular theory of the movements of the planets aside.  In its place he substituted the amazing theory that the planets move in elliptical orbits around the sun, in precise and mathematically simple relations to the sun.  In doing so, he cleared away all the unresolved details of Galileo's (or Copernicus's) heliocentric theory. The simplicity and accuracy of Kepler's theory was now too compelling to be put aside by any religious authority:  He was clearly giving accurate description to a physical reality – and not just a "useful" theory for making astrological calculations.  The Christian world was going to have to come to terms with Kepler's science.  It was no longer going to suffice simply to point to the authority of Scripture on the subject.  Science was moving into a position of authority all its own.  It was now going to be up to Christianity to figure out how to handle this newly emerging intellectual authority. The development of "natural philosophy" (modern science) Francis Bacon (1561-1626) In this regard, Bacon is often considered the first expounder of this new "scientific" method of arriving at Truth – giving the method a legitimacy as an alternative to religious truth. Bacon's approach was empirical – collecting bodies of actual observations or data and then bringing them under the careful study of a community of scholars.  He led scholarship away not only from the Platonist schools but also the Aristotelian schools that had long been prevalent in Europe.  He, like Aristotle, felt that Truth was found in direct observation of things and their behavior.  But he was opposed to the quickness by which the human mind likes to jump "deductively" to develop grand generalities (both Aristotelians and Platonists).  Instead he proposed to work "inductively" from the hard facts and let them carefully suggest their own theoretical order – at the same time attacking such theories with doubts and constant testing, to see at what point they might not hold.  In this he was laying the foundations of empiricism – which would take a strong hold over the English scholarly mind. Bacon was a major bridge between the traditional religious worldview and the newly-arising secularist worldview.  He acknowledged the importance of both, proposing that science and theology were two separate enterprises because of two different systems of proof required by each: direct observation and divine revelation.  Furthermore, to Bacon, theology still remained the primary enterprise of the two René Descartes (1596-1650) Taking this idea of Truth being found not from some ancient or higher religious source – but instead from the principles of life active all around us – was the French philosopher, René Descartes.  His own understanding of this new approach to Truth would have a huge impact on Western philosophy. In some ways Descartes was still a medieval rationalist – who believed (in keeping with Plato) that all things in the world around us are merely "extensions" of some variety of mathematical or geometric abstractions.  The underlying truth about our world "out there" was discoverable really only through careful mathematical meditations on that world – which could be done at home or in one's closet. But in any case, what he came up with in his musings was the idea that the world "out there" was essentially a mechanical device that worked according to fixed rules of motion.  Events occurred as the result of impacts among the various material bodies that are in constant motion within this "machine."   The machine itself is devoid of soul or vitality of its own. It simply responds to the "laws" of motion in a mathematical way.   Impressed by those recent discoveries of Galileo and Kepler concerning the mathematical formulations that described simply and elegantly the movements of the heavens (permitting the world to set aside the horribly cumbersome formulations of the Ptolemaic tradition) Descartes jumped easily to the belief that all of life was undergirded by such pure or clear mathematical formulations.  Just as pure reason had discovered those celestial formulas, pure reason would surely also unlock the formulations for life here on earth. Believing this to be so, Descartes set about to begin just that task – to start to lay out the fundamental or foundational truths on which a mathematical edifice of formulas describing earthly life could subsequently be built, his Discourse on Method (1637). This Method was to go to the most fundamental of propositions that could be demonstrated through logic to be absolutely true – which for him had to be the reality of his own consciousness, the mind that posed the question in the first place.  It was also a natural starting point for him, given his underlying faith in the human mind's ability to embrace the mathematical undergirding of the universe.  The cogito.  Thus his theories all began from the starting point of the "natural philosopher" (scientist) himself:  the famous cogito ergo sum – "I think, therefore I am."  This was the only "certainty" in the world of ideas, thoughts, or "truths" that lay beyond all doubt. From that point he moves forward logically in a rather Platonic manner.  Even though he cannot say with any certainty that things outside him exist – he can be certain that he is having thoughts about them!  Furthermore, these thoughts can easily embrace the idea of the existence of things in their perfect form – as for instance a perfect circle.  His thoughts also embrace the idea of the existence of a perfect God.  Where do such ideas come from?  He concludes that there has to be something beyond himself, "out there," something that sets such thoughts into motion.  And that reality out there cannot be less perfect than what his own thoughts can formulate – for how could he conceive of something as being more perfect than it actually is?  It could not come from his own mind – for his own mind is itself imperfect, given to doubt.  No ... the Perfect then must exist beyond himself, giving rise to his present thoughts about such Perfection. From this he jumps (and it is a jump indeed) that the very Perfection of God is such that God could not deceive him.  Therefore, the thoughts he was having about a Perfect God had to be true.  [Ingenious, but not very compelling logic!]  Further, being God by nature, God would not allow deceptive thoughts to come among us – that God would allow only real or true thoughts to come to Descartes' mind [Descartes does not allow for the existence of a Deceiver – other than his own flawed doubts].   Probing the Question of Physical Existence or "Physics."  Now he moves in his thoughts (outlined in particular in his 1649 book Passions of the Soul) to probe more deeply the matter of his own existence – both body and soul.  His body he treats as a physical extension beyond his conscious mind or soul.  But the two, body and soul (or mind) are closely linked so that they affect each other directly – supposedly through the pineal gland, located at the base of the brain!   Nonetheless, it is only the body, as an actual extension, that is guided by the mathematical laws of physics.  The soul, not being an extension of any kind, does not exist on the basis of these same laws.  It is of a different order of being. Qualities such as color, sound, smell, temperature, flavor, etc. are also not extensions themselves but are "secondary" qualities – as opposed to the primary qualities such as mass and velocity or movement.  Only these primary qualities point to real existence.  Only these primary qualities respond to the laws of physics – mathematical laws describing the physical machinery called reality.  Descartes was very unclear in his thinking about how then these secondary qualities actually existed. Descartes' Contribution to Western Thought.  It was Descartes' thinking on this matter of the surrounding physical world – its substance, its physical "extension," as the only true base of existence – that got the Englishman Newton to thinking ... ultimately to refute Descartes' notions of mass and motion.  The fellow Englishman Locke also would reflect on Descartes' theories – and adopt some of his thinking about the differences between primary and secondary qualities of being. Of course, physics has developed in such a way that many of Descartes' ideas have been put aside.  But overall, he was very persuasive in his effort to apply rational theories to the existence of physical matter here on earth.  He was very influential in getting natural philosophers/scientists to begin to probe the nature of material-being here on earth – as a matter now open to human enquiry. The purpose was no longer to apply human inquiry to physical life in order to discover the magical formula for turning base elements into gold – but to explore physical reality simply for knowledge of such reality in and of itself. But some unanswered questions.  However, that left the question of the human soul and will – and the divine soul and will.  Where do we fit in?  Are we merely elements of this mechanical/material world?  Is God merely an element of the mechanical/material world?   To Descartes the answer was clearly a "no" to both questions.  But in affirming our own vitality – and God's – Descartes was forced to separate the human soul (and God's) from that soul-less mechanical/material creation "out there."  Fine.  But how then were we connected to that world – except as removed observers?  Where was our ancient sense of unity with all creation?  Where in fact did that leave us in relation to God – and to each other?   Those questions were never adequately answered.  The human soul now seemed to be left cut adrift by what was considered to be a very compelling philosophical statement – one which swept powerfully through the philosophical circles of Europe in those days. For more on Descartes Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) Another person who made a great contribution to the development of this new mindset was the Dutchman, Hugo de Groot (Grotius).  In his 1625 work, De jure belli ac pacis (On the Law of War and Peace), dedicated to the Bourbon King Louis XIII of France, he appealed to the European conscience to seek a new spirit of openness or tolerance about matters of Truth, a broad-mindedness about inquiry concerning Truth. To further buttress this appeal he set out to try to systematically collect a listing of rules and legal norms that might in the future become the underpinning of a new cooperative international order.  He scanned history for laws that had found use in guiding nations toward peace – and laid them out as a new system of international law.  By basing these laws on proven behavior, he hoped to be establishing a natural (i.e., scientific) basis for founding peaceful international behavior.  He is thus considered the "Father" of modern international law. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) he religious fatigue exhausting the Christian West in those days also had the effect of developing a political viewpoint that was both cynical and utilitarian (much in the vein of Machiavelli).  Thomas Hobbes, in his book Leviathan (1651), called for an all-powerful sovereign who would serve the interests of the larger political community (i.e., England) by holding it tightly together under his sovereign authority – in order to curb the kind of human wantonness experienced in the Wars of Religion.  For Hobbes, such powerful rule was not to be founded on the ancient rule of the "divine rights" of monarchs – but on the basis of the needs, even rights, of the community to be served by such an all-powerful ruler.  In justifying this utilitarian approach to state-building, he used "natural" theory or logic rather than scripture or tradition, putting forth the first efforts to establish a modern "political science." However, his arguments were not greeted warmly by the English monarchy, which found "divine rights" – rather than society-serving utilitarian rights as the foundation of its power – much more to its liking! For More Information on Hobbes Go on to the next section:  Europe during the Second Half of the 1600s   Miles H. Hodges;