9. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE DYNASTIC STATE

EUROPE DURING THE SECOND HALF OF THE 1600s

As the 1500s was clearly the age of Habsburg Spanish domination (under Charles and his son Philip) in Europe, by the end of the 1600s it was clear that Bourbon France under Louis XIV was the dominant power in Europe.  Not only did Louis's armies manage to hold off European grand alliances formed against his growing power, but his court with all its particular French refinements became the model that virtually every other European monarch attempted to emulate in one fashion or another.    Louis got off to a very rough start.  He was only four in 1643 when his father Louis XIII died, leaving France in the hands of a regency under Queen Anne, who was aided greatly by another politically skilled clergyman, Cardinal Mazarin.  With the king so young there was always political intrigue going on by various noblemen attempting to take advantage of the situation.  Twice Louis and his mother had to flee Paris and once both of them were even put under something like house arrest in their Paris palace (the Louvre).   Cardinal Mazarin had his hands full trying to keep Louis and his mother from falling victim to all the political intrigue that swirled around the two of them. The Fronde and royal absolutism A big part of the problem arose from the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia to which Mazarin had been a major contributor.  The Treaty contained an agreement among European powers assigning rather absolute religious (and thus political) powers to the ruling royal families of the various states involved in the treaty, empowering the sovereign rulers alone to determine which religion – Catholicism or Protestantism – would be practiced in their lands. The noblemen of France realized that in assigning such an important power to the sovereign kings (and other heads of state) this took away traditional feudal rights of the lesser nobility.  Thus there was a general revolt (the Fronde) of the French noblemen (including even close relatives of the young king) against French royal authority, authority promoted and protected by Mazarin.  In theory the revolt was aimed at Mazarin, not the king.  But with the formal crowning of the young king in 1654, that excuse no longer could be justified, as Louis stood strongly with the terms of the Treaty.  Thus the revolt lost its justification and soon died away.  From 1654 until he died in 1661, Mazarin held off further attacks on the king's powers ... adding to those powers here and there as he went along.   Then with Mazarin's death, Louis was ready to take control of the affairs of state entirely on his own.  He would make all the decisions, large and small.  He made it clear that noblemen and other court officials existed only to carry out his orders.  And thus Louis XIV began his rule of royal absolutism. Life at the Palace of Versailles Louis moved his court out of a dangerous Paris to the nearby suburb of Versailles – and then required the entire French nobility to move there with him to his new, enormous palace ... so that he could keep a close eye on them.  He lavished his "guests" with endless banquets, balls, musical recitals, plays, etc. – to gloss over the reality that they were in fact something like prisoners there.  But since there was little they could do to escape their situation, they made the most of it.  In fact the proceedings at the Versailles Palace were so elaborate (and the logic behind it so very clear) that other sovereigns began to copy closely the political and cultural style of Versailles.  And thus it was that French culture (and politics) came to be the standard for the ruling classes in virtually all of Europe. The endless round of dynastic wars over European land rights While other sovereigns honored Louis by mimicking him culturally, they fought him fiercely politically or militarily.  It was always about land: who won it, who lost it.  Land could change hands among Europe's sovereigns peacefully, such as in marriage where the exchange of lands accompanied the exchange of wedding vows.  But most land holdings changed hands simply through fights over it ... territorial title changing back and forth from one sovereign to another as the fortunes of war shifted back and forth.  Louis and the other kings were constantly involved in wars, great and small, in an attempt to expand their territorial holdings.  It was a confusing and draining process that occupied Louis until his death in 1715. The revoking of the Edict of Nantes (1685) and the flight of Huguenots out of France The ongoing existence of communities of Protestants in his Catholic France was a major irritant to Louis.  And thus he set out to bring religious uniformity (as per the Treaty of Westphalia) to France.   He began the process almost immediately after assuming full royal powers in 1661.  He harassed the Protestant Huguenots in every way possible, banning worship, destroying churches, closing schools, and placing his rough-edged troops in Protestant homes in order to break their spirit.  And hundreds of thousands of Huguenots did break, finding it prudent to convert to Catholicism.1 Finally in 1685 he made a full move against Protestantism, issuing the Edict of Fontainebleau – declaring any further toleration to have come to an end.  Although it was also very illegal to leave his realm without royal permission, perhaps as many as 200,000 Huguenots fled France for Protestant lands in Europe and elsewhere ... taking with them the valuable entrepreneurial and professional skills that naturally arose from their Calvinist mindset.  Other sovereigns (notably the Protestant variety) were shocked by Louis's behavior.  But they did little to counter it.  They were in fact quite glad to receive these talented refugees.  Nonetheless, even as cruel as it was, expelling the Protestants finally brought religious harmony to France. Louis's legacy  Louis came to the throne with the royal treasury virtually empty, then under the direction of his economic advisor Colbert had it restored ... then Louis bled it dry again over the years with his countless wars.  He refashioned French politics so tightly around his personal will that if future kings were not made of the same grit as he was, they would have big troubles maintaining control.  And that is exactly what happened. On the positive side, he made French language, learning and culture the European standard for many future generations.  He also advanced the boundaries of France all the way up to the Rhine River in Germany and incorporated Flanders into the French kingdom, along with a number of other smaller acquisitions.  And he sponsored further French exploration in America:  through Jesuit missionaries and explorers such as La Salle he was able to lay claim to vast amounts of American territory from Canada in the north to the Gulf of Mexico in the South, from the Appalachian Mountains in the East, across the Mississippi River to its far sources in the West.  The vast area below French Canada was in fact named after him, Louisiana. 1A group of Huguenots were able to hid themselves in the isolated mountains of Auvergne in Southern France … and maintain their Protestant faith in doing so.  They were also the community that was able to help over 3,000 Jews hide in their town (Chambon) and thus avoid the Nazi deportation of French Jews (some 80,000 were deported) during World War Two … these brave Huguenots (brave because the penalty for helping Jews escape deportation was death) having themselves learned how to avoid detection by the French authorities all those years! Louis XIV - by Hyacinth Rigaud (1701) Louvre Museum - Paris Cardinal Jules Mazarin - by Pierre Mignard (c. 1658) Colbert was Queen Anne's advisor  during Louis's regency (1643-1651) and then during Louis' XIV's early years as king (1651-1661) Musée Condé - Chantilly Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1665) by Philippe de Champagne Colbert was Louis's advisor (1661-1683) after Mazarin died in 1661 Metropolitan Museum of Art - New York City The Fronde rebellion (1648-1653) ... of the nobility, courts and many commoners against the Bourbon royalty ... because of the absolute power (political, economic as well as religious) assigned to Europe's kings in the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia 300 Huguenot families leaving La Rochelle under Louis's persecution - November 1662 La Salle claiming the lands at the mouth of the Mississippi (Louisiana) for France - 1682 CONTINUING TURMOIL IN ENGLAND The Puritan Commonwealth (1649-1653) With the beheading of Charles I in 1649, the Rump Parliament declared England, Scotland and Ireland to be no longer royal territories but instead parts of a new Republic ... or in Anglo-Saxon terms, a "Commonwealth."   The House of Lords was abolished as part of Parliament and a Council of State took over the executive responsibilities of the new government.  But actually relations between the members of the Rump Parliament running the new government and the army (at the time engaged heavily in putting down royalist resistance) was not an easy one.  It was, after all, the army that had put the Rump Parliament into power in the first place ... and the army – especially under Cromwell – seemed to take a great interest in directing English (and Scottish and Irish) politics according to its own interests. Also political interests varied widely within the Rump Parliament ... some MPs wanting a government of a most definite republican nature and others still believing monarchy to be the most appropriate form of government for England.  But in moral and spiritual terms the Rump Parliament was more united in wanting to see the country reformed under Puritan ideals ... especially in the matter of closing down theaters (considered the source of lewdness) and the requirement of Sunday church attendance (although a variety of religious denominations was nonetheless permitted).  Neither of these moral "cleansings" of English society however were designed to win the hearts of most Englishmen – who enjoyed a rather looser moral life! Domestic reforms Actually, true political reforms proved to be few once the king had been eliminated.  It was mostly lesser gentry that stood behind the Commonwealth ... and they were not interested in serious economic reform, especially of the variety demanded by the "Levelers" who wanted full equality for all, economically and politically. Mostly the changes that could be felt through England under the Commonwealth were in the form of the rigid moral order which descended on England, such as the closing theaters (considered dens of lewdness by the Puritans) and the requiring of strict Sunday observance.  This was something not likely to endear most Englishmen, who enjoyed a rather looser moral life.  Worse, heavy taxes had to be imposed on the citizenry to pay for the wars which went on constantly during this brief time period. The Irish Rebellion Most importantly, Cromwell faced challenges to the Commonwealth in both very Catholic Ireland and very Presbyterian Scotland.  He set about the task of reducing the resistance of Ireland, brutally vengeful against Drogheda and Wexford (as revenge for the massacre of Protestant settlers who had earlier come from Scotland in Northern Ireland) ... though for the most part of the rest of his conquest of Ireland (and in the context of the times of the Religious Wars) he was fairly merciful to the towns that did not offer opposition.  Nonetheless when he was called back to England to take on the Scottish problem the next year (1650), his subordinate officers continued the campaign – on a much less merciful level2 – earning Cromwell the eternal hatred of the Irish. The Scottish Rebellion Meanwhile in Scotland things underwent confusion as at first the Royalists tried to raise the Catholic Highland clans against the Lowland Covenanters (Presbyterians) ... but failed miserably in the effort.  Then the Royalists joined the Covenanters under the renewed Royalist promise of instituting Presbyterianism generally within the royal realm. At this point Cromwell left Ireland to deal with the Scots.  Here too he was as determined a foe ... though conducting his campaigns so that the ravages of war there were greatly reduced.  Scottish resistance was thus less intense ... and he soon succeeded in crippling the Royalist threat there. But Charles II in the meantime (1651) had moved his army south from Scotland to England.  Thus Cromwell went in pursuit of Charles, leaving George Monck to clean up the last of the Scottish resistance... which collapsed fully in 1652.   In September of 1651 Charles's Royalist forces and Cromwell's Puritan forces met at Worcester ... where Charles's forces were completely routed – forcing Charles to flee to France. Cromwell's Protectorate (1653-1659) In 1653 Cromwell simply dismissed the Rump Parliament and took direct control of English politics ... supported by a small "Barebones Parliament" (composed of representatives elected by local congregations) which he expected would come up with specific reforms – but possessed very little political expertise and subsequently was dismissed by Cromwell after only a few months of service. It was at this point that a Cromwellian Constitution was put into force, making Cromwell "Lord Protector" for life (thus something like a king), and restoring the role of Parliament and the executive Council of State.  But the real power in England remained Cromwell's loyal army ... and the military governors he appointed to preside over Scotland and Ireland. At this point peace returned to the land (though anguish in Ireland continued ... and the Scots were always on the edge of rebellion ... which Charles II from his exile in France was watching closely).  One of the big events of the time was in fact a commercial war with the Dutch ... fellow Protestants, but fellow competitors in the important world of international commerce. Richard Cromwell ... and the demise of the Commonwealth (1659) In September of 1658 Cromwell suddenly became quite sick and died (urinary infection most likely) ... and – in royalist fashion – his office as Lord Protector was directly taken up by his son Richard.  But Richard enjoyed no power base of his own (as his father had with the army) and thus he had no leverage by which to control the many political factions that constantly vied for power in Parliament.  Richard was soon (May of 1659) driven from power by one of the faction leaders. Monck takes command With the political situation deteriorating rapidly, General George Monck left his position as Scottish Governor and marched with his army on London (January-February 1660) and placed the original Long Parliament back in power.  And Monck and the MPs then took up the work of negotiating with the exiled Charles II concerning the restoration of the English monarchy, by this time desired by most of the English. Terms of pardon and compensation were agreed on and in May a newly reconvened Parliament invited Charles to retake the throne of England. The Stuart "Restoration" (1660) By the end of May Charles was back in England, the following April (1661) he was formally crowned King (though in effect he had been governing the country since his return the previous year), and in May the Cavalier Parliament that would rule England for the next 17 years was fully in power.  The Puritan experiment was over ... as well as England's only attempt at Republican government.  Indeed, England – like the war-weary European continent after the long period of the Thirty Years' War – was ready to enter a new era of peace. 2Tens of thousands of Irish were subsequently shipped off to Bermuda and the Caribbean islands to live in servitude there; and possibly as much as nearly half of the Irish population ultimately died of exposure, hunger and disease because of the intentional ravaging of the Irish countryside by Cromwell's generals (designed to break the will of the Irish) in the years after Cromwell's departure for England. Oliver Cromwell - by Samuel Cooper Head of the English Puritan Commonwealth (1649-1659) National Portrait Gallery, London Cromwell's New Model Army defeats a Scottish army twice the size of his force at the Battle of   Dunbar (September 3, 1650) General George Monck - Cromwwell's Governor of Scotland - negotiates the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy under Charles II in 1660 The Dutch and the English These two societies at this point are discussed together because during the latter part of the 1600s their destinies seemed so intertwined ... in peace and in war.  Both being rising sea-powers, their disputes were largely commercial.  Both being a mix of Protestant and Catholic the dynastic disputes that focused on the matter of religion required them to be very flexible in their handling of these disputes.  In general, they moved cautiously through the thicket of religious-dynastic feuds.  But when they did not, the results were calamitous. England during the "Restoration" The grand experiment in Puritan republicanism had died a quiet death, with few seeming to mourn its passing.  However, Charles's situation as "restored" king was still precarious.  He had the support of the aristocratic "High-Church" or Episcopalian Cavaliers in Parliament ... but had to work with the Presbyterians who occupied an equally strong position in Parliament. Political intrigue swirled around him all his days ... in part brought on by his wanton ways.  He kept a seemingly endless string of mistresses – who bore him numerous illegitimate children (who would become nobles of the realm nonetheless) – in contrast to his Portuguese wife, by whom he gained valuable Portuguese territory ... but no living offspring. Advisors rose and fell at the rate that they succeeded or failed in public policy, which was frequent given all of the dynastic wars going on that invited Charles" participation.  All this confusion merely encouraged the court intrigue which Charles seemed unable to control.  He dissolved Parliament again and again to try to gain increased support for his rule, but to no particular avail.  Parliament remained divided between Tories and Whigs3 over a piece of legislation making it illegal for a Catholic (such as Charles" brother James) to inherit the throne of England. Finally during the last years of his life he attempted to rule without Parliamentary support (a difficult matter since it was from Parliament that he received his "supply" in the form of approved taxes). William III of Orange and the Dutch Republic William was the son of William II, the Dutch Prince of Orange, and Mary, the eldest daughter of Charles I King of England.  Charles II had taken refuge in the Netherlands with his cousin William II during the years of Cromwell's Commonwealth, and William supported him strongly in his exile.  But William II died in 1650 after only a few years of service as Stadtholder (something like "President") of the Dutch Republic ... one week before the birth of his son William III.   During William III's youth, the Dutch and the English engaged in commercial conflicts4 as they both attempted to extend their commercial privileges to various places around the globe.  They also found themselves involved in the competing dynastic alliances formed across Europe. William found his rise to the position of his father as Dutch stadtholder blocked by a number of political opponents in the Holland province, and William appealed to his English uncle Charles II for assistance in advancing his cause.  But he did not know that his uncle had secretly agreed to an alliance with France ... directed at the Dutch Republic.  Charles actually believed that defeating the Dutch in war was also the proper way to force the Dutch to accept William.  William would have none of it when he figured out what was going on. In any case, the Franco-Dutch and Third Anglo-Dutch War broke out in 1672.  The Dutch were at first devastated by this French-English combination.  William was finally appointed stadtholder of key Dutch provinces, and refused to surrender to the English, even when the offer of dynastic rule over the Netherlands was offered in compensation.  The Dutch flooded their low-lying fields ... and with that the French overland invasion came to a halt.  The English then quickly lost interest in continuing the conflict.  Thus the war ended in 1674. But it had been very hard economically on the Dutch society. Then William moved to marry his young English cousin Mary, daughter of James of York, Charles II's brother (1677).5  He did so in the hope of improving relations with the English ... and strengthening his own claim on the English throne as Charles I's grandson.   The Glorious Revolution (1688-1689) This question of who would inherit the throne of the childless Charles II at his death troubled England greatly.  Next in line was his brother, James, Duke of York, an avowed Catholic.  The effort to pass an Exclusion Act had been aimed at him ... in order to prevent him from inheriting the throne.  Nonetheless when in 1685 Charles died, his Catholic brother James became King of England as James II (and Scotland as James VII).   It was also the year that Louis XIV revoked the edict of Nantes, driving hundreds of thousands of Huguenots from France. Much of Protestant Europe was up in arms about this revoking of the Edict of Nantes – reactively forming something of a Grand Alliance under Dutch Protestant William of Orange's leadership.  When in the spring of 1688 James II concluded a naval agreement with Louis XIV, suspicions mounted quickly in England that this was the prelude to a formal pro-Catholic English-French military alliance.  Then when James's Italian-Catholic wife, Mary of Modena, delivered a baby boy in June of that year, it appeared that England was in line eventually to inherit a Catholic successor to the throne.  A group of English Protestants agreed with William that it was time to act.  Soon a coalition was formed against James II and his close ally Louis XIV, which included, at least indirectly, the strongly anti-French Holy Roman (Austrian) Emperor and the Pope!  Louis took the first action – which then erupted into full scale war.   Now it was the turn of William to act.  He quickly gathered a huge Dutch naval invasion force – to which James responded rather feebly.  With William's landing in England, noblemen began declaring themselves as "Whigs" for William.  James began to loose courage quickly, fearing even the loyalty of his own "Tory" army.  Defeat in small skirmishes and growing anti-royalist or Whig rioting in England's cities decided him to flee to France in mid-December.  But he was caught before he could complete his escape and was returned to London.  However William did not want the responsibility of taking personal action against his father-in-law James.  Clearly, the best strategy was to allow James to again "escape" to France.  And so at the end of December James slipped off to France to become an exile living there as the guest of Louis XIV. William and Mary Parliament quickly (February 1689) empowered William and his wife Mary to rule as joint sovereigns – under the authority of Parliament.  It also passed a Bill of Rights (December 1689) clarifying the rights and powers of Englishmen and their government.  England still had a monarchy (which it does even to this day) but it was in fact under Parliament's unquestioned sovereignty.  Thus to the Protestant point of view, this was indeed a "Glorious Revolution." Only five years later (1694) Mary died childless ... and William continued as both King of England and stadtholder of the Netherlands until his death in 1702. The followers of the exiled James (the "Jacobites"), encouraged by the active support of Louis XIV, refused to accept William's title and undertook rebellions in Scotland and Ireland – and an assassination attempt – all of which failed ... but which nonetheless constantly troubled the first ten years of William's reign.  Along with this was an ongoing war with France that occupied much of William's time, keeping him abroad in Europe on military campaigns.  But he succeeded importantly in blocking much of the limitless ambition of Louis XIV which had the rest of Europe constantly up in arms. William III Mary II 3These were terms of contempt that one party assigned to the other:  Tories, the name for Irish Catholic bandits, assigned to those who were opposed to anti-Catholic "Exclusion,” and Whigs, the name first for Scottish horse thieves and then later for Scottish Presbyterian rebels, assigned to those favoring Exclusion! 4The First Anglo-Dutch War (1652-1654) occurred during the time of the Puritan Commonwealth.  The Dutch lost over a thousand of their merchant ships and thus sued for peace.  But Dutch power was by no means broken.  The Second Anglo-Dutch War broke out in 1665 during the early years of Charles II's reign.  It was a more balanced conflict, with the English gaining New Netherland (New York), but losing a major naval battle, bringing the war to an end in 1667. 5Although her father James was a Catholic, Mary and her sister Anne had been carefully brought up under their grandfather Charles I's orders as Protestants. Charles II - King of England, Scotland and Ireland (1660-1685) Battle of Texel (August 21, 1673) during the Third Anglo-Dutch War (1672-1674) James II of England, Scotland and Ireland (1685-1688) William of Orange - English King as William III  1689-1702 portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller National Galleries of Scotland Mary II Stuart - by Peter Lely (1677) The arrival of William's Dutch navy begins the "Glorious Revolution" - 1688 SECULAR PHILOSOPHY CONTINUES TO DEVELOP The Refinement of the Mechanistic/Materialistic Vision of Life Meanwhile, the work of studying the physical structure and behavior of the surrounding physical world continued to move ahead – especially in England which led the way in the new "empirical" or scientific study of our world.   It was the age of mechanical clocks, precision telescopes and sextants, mechanical war-machines, and other such useful instruments.  It was the age which reduced the movement of the heavenlies to a precise mathematical formulation.  It was the age which began to look at life as a precise "natural" composite of various material elements – physical and chemical.  It was an age which was thrilled by the idea of unlocking all the mysteries of "natural" life by bringing such life (seen more and more in mechanical/materialist terms) under precise intellectual formulation.  It was an age of heady "natural philosophy" and "natural philosophers" (the name given to the scientists of the 17th century). This was particularly the case in England which led the way in the new "empirical" or scientific study of our world – such study eventually termed "positivism. " In 1660 the Royal Society was founded, bringing this new breed of "natural-philosophers" (as they saw themselves) together to encourage each other in their work. Isaac Newton (1642-1726) In the latter part of the 1600s one of these English naturalists, Isaac Newton, picked up on Descartes' theories of motion and completed the mechanistic vision of the universe that Descartes had laid out.  In Newton's Principia (1687) he so thoroughly pulled the mechanistic/materialistic vision together that it became the single most important foundation piece for the modern world-view.   Following the ancient thinking of Democritus and the atomists, he "demonstrated" that all things within the universe were made up of minute bits of matter.  There was something absolute or eternal about the existence of these particles:  once created by God, they remained in permanent being.  They did, however, combine and recombine into different elements, which in turn combined into different physical forms of matter.  But Newton asserted that while the larger forms of life changed, the atoms themselves did not.  They were unchangeable, possibly even eternal in their being.    These tiny particles were held together in their shape and movement to take the forms we see before us through the force of natural attraction or gravity (the gravitational attraction of two bodies is equal to the product of their mass divided by the square of the distance between them). This theory appeared to explain quite fully everything from the movement of the planets through the skies, to the movements of the tides, to the velocity of falling objects – and more. Just as importantly – the completeness of the theory left no possibility of seeing creation as a "living" thing.  Creation was without life of its own; it was instead mere "matter" responding mechanically to a set of fixed mathematical laws.   Newton depicted God in such a way that God actually lost "personality" and the realm of sovereign action.  God was left a role in nature largely as "First Mover" or original architect of this mechanistic universe, with no further significant intervention in life.  God became identified with the eternity or infinity of the universe.   Deism was being born. For More Information on Newton Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) Leibniz was a German mathematician and rationalist philosopher – who, simultaneously with Newton, invented the differential and integral calculus.  He was a widely talented and traveled individual – and kept up friendships and correspondences with a wide range of scientists, philosophers and political figures of the day. Leibniz was born and educated in Leipzig, eventually studying law at the University of Leipzig.  From 1667 to 1672, he worked for the Elector of Mainz as a lawyer and diplomat. He traveled widely coming into close contact with a number of political and scientific luminaries of his day.  In 1672 he traveled to Paris where he came into contact with Huygens and Malebranche.  His travels also took him to England (1673, 1676) and to Amsterdam (1673), where he spent time with Spinoza.  During these days he began his work on calculus. In 1676 he went to work as a librarian to the Duke of Brunswick, and took up work on a number of mechanical devices that utilized his mathematical and technical talents.  But he also turned his attention to philosophy, completing works on metaphysics and systematic philosophy during the 1680s and 1690s. For more information on Leibniz John Locke (1632-1704) Very shortly after Newton's Principia was published, another Englishman, John Locke, published his Essay on Human Understanding (1690).   Locke's psychology.  Locke brought the human mind into this mechanical world by positing a theory of knowledge in which the mind at birth is simply a blank receptacle, possessing no "innate" ideas.  Over the years the mind has data added to it from the outside world. This comes in the form of "sensations" that strike this blank mind through the sensory devices of sight, hearing, feeling, taste, and smell.  These data in turn are developed into full ideas by the mechanism of the mind, which sifts this imported information in the search for the agreement or disagreement of two thoughts or ideas.  From this mental process develops a well-articulated vision of the world around us – and its causes and effects. As far as "moral" ideas were concerned, Locke felt that prudence and long-term self-interest would serve the rational mind as the determiner of human action. This theory of human knowledge stood in strong distinction to the traditional understanding that the mind possessed fully – even at birth – a vast store of innate understanding that was vitally a part of its soul quality.  The old theory accounted for "learning" by seeing the task not one of inserting information from the outside (as per Locke – and almost every Western educator since), but instead one of drawing out (thus the ancient word "education" which means "draw out") the wealth of innate understanding already present in the human soul.  One didn't make discoveries about things "out there."  A person made discoveries about things already located deep down inside oneself.   Though Locke's theory could offer no hard evidence that what he hypothesized was indeed true – the time was ripe for such a theory.  "Science" was rapidly stripping life of the sense of "soul" or "sacredness" to it.  The wars of religion had also helped immeasurably.  So Locke's theory "made sense."  That was all that was needed to leave a lasting impression on the rapidly shifting world-view of the West. Locke's social science.  Furthermore ... Locke employed his scientific methodology not only in the explanation of workings of human thought and action, he employed the same methodology in the explanation of what might be termed "social dynamics."  Locke was pleased to discover that societies too worked according to a number of basic principles ... which careful study revealed quite clearly to be behind all social action.  And these principles, once understood, could be used scientifically to improve dramatically the mechanics of social behavior.  In other words, society itself could be – in fact, should be – reformed through the rising principles of science ... obviously a process that should be directed by those with the knowledge of just those principles (such as Locke himself)! Thus "social reform" by enlightened individuals came to be understood as making much more sense than waiting patiently for God to intervene to put troubled societies back on the road to health and progress. Locke's "Grand Model" for the Carolina colony.  So it was that Locke was called on by his personal patron (and Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer – the second most important political position in the King's cabinet) Baron Anthony Ashley to put together a structural plan for the new Carolina colony in America.  This new colony offered the perfect opportunity to construct a society that actually worked according to the laws of social science. Thus it was that in 1670 Locke came up with what was termed "The Grand Model."  This plan included not only The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina but also the physical designs for the actual settlement of the colony.  Thus were detailed some 120 principles designed to make the colony indeed a "Grand Model." Basically, it followed English principles of social structuring in terms of class, property allotments, and the political rights accorded each level of society ... ranging from Black slaves and property-less Whites – all the way up to the largest landowners (who were naturally the eight Lords Proprietors themselves).   The problem was that Locke knew very little about the actual lay of the land in the new colony, the social traits of those who would actually be taking up residence in that colony, and the matter of the Indians and their own sense of property rights.  Needless to say, the Model proved to be beautiful on paper ... but of limited use in actually moving the Carolina settlement forward.  Consequently, although the Grand Model would remain in place, it would have to be amended or updated numerous times.6 Social design for England.  But Locke would be given yet another opportunity to put forward his views on the shaping of a more enlightened society ... when England's Glorious Revolution broke forth in 1688.  In 1689 Locke published (anonymously at the time) his Two Treatises of Government, the first treatise critiquing the social science of Sir Robert Filmer, the second treatise being Locke's own "Essay Concerning the True Original, Extent, and End of Civil Government." Of course events in England were taking their own political course at the time.  But Locke's work would be used frequently to justify "scientifically"  some of the developments of the day.  And it would serve as something of a Bible for future "social reformers" – such as Thomas Jefferson in his drafting of America's Declaration of Independence. For more on Locke Benedict (Baruch) de Spinoza (1632-1677) Spinoza was born of Jewish parents who had escaped the Inquisition in Portugal by coming to Amsterdam where Baruch (Latin:  Benedictus) was born.  Spinoza was a very unorthodox thinker--and his ideas eventually got him expelled from the Jewish community (1656).  Because he saw God as present in everything – as the source and essence of all substance – he was viewed variously as a pantheist, a materialist, an atheist. He was a moral relativist, who did not believe in some set of transcending religious or civil laws that we ought to conform ourselves to, but who instead believed in following out our own natural personal imperatives – ones that no one else had a right to pass judgment on. This was not a philosophy designed to make the religiously conservative community around him very happy.  But it certainly spoke to those souls who were tiring rapidly of the mean spiritedness of the religiously orthodox – a growing number of youthful minds who hoped to rise to truths which were vastly higher than the traditional variety that had brought Europeans to war against each other mercilessly. For more information on Spinoza The Mechanization/Materialization of the Soul Naural Religion or Deism.  Despite the rapid secularization of Western culture, most philosophers were not willing to give up on the all-important idea of God – not yet.  It was too soon to make an abrupt departure from the traditional world-view in which a providential God was all-important to the Western sense of order, predictability, security, hope. Indeed, Newton thought of himself as being religiously quite devout.  His theory of the universe – so he thought – was intended as a powerful tribute to the Grand Architect who designed such a wonderfully complex yet beautiful creation. However, the observation was unavoidable that, having created such a masterful work, the Grand Architect was really no longer necessary to the functioning of creation.  Indeed, the view was inescapable that, from the time of creation eons ago, creation had been completely self-running according to God's own laws of nature.  It did not need further "intervention" from God.  Truly, since that time, God had been entirely redundant to the workings of the universe. Reforming Christianity along more Secular lines.  In fact, from this standpoint one would have to say that there was no need to hear further from God – for God to be involved in the course of the world's affairs.  Accordingly, there was also no need to pray to him – even to acknowledge him really – though few were yet willing to jump to this next step in their line of logic. Thus the feeling was growing among the "enlightened" philosophers that those that continued to insist on the life of piety were self-deluded – and possibly dangerous.  Still fresh were the memories of the great slaughter undertaken in the name of Protestant and Catholic piety.   So the Enlightenment was not a matter of just leaving religion alone – and going on without it.  This matter of religion too had to be addressed.   Now the intention of the Enlightenment philosophers was not to destroy Christianity, but to take its "best" features, particularly the high moral-ethical character of Jesus, and focus in on that instead.  The rest, the miracle stories and the divine "revelations," all that could be/should be carefully removed from Christianity. Thus the West saw the publication of a mass of works at the end of the 1600s in the order of John Ray's The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of Creation (1691); Locke's The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695); and John Toland's Christianity Not Mysterious (1696). But by the 1720s and 1730s, the Deist voice was now become one of intense criticism of traditional Christianity.  Take for instance the work of Matthew Tindal, Christianity as Old as the Creation (1730) – which became something of the official Deist "Bible" in his time.  Here Tindal laid out the argument that all that was valuable in Christianity was that which universal reason alone would hold true. All else (i.e., revelation) was superstition – the most evil form of subjugation of the human mind.   Or consider the work of Thomas Woolston, an English Deist.  In his Discourse on the Miracles of Our Savior, he debunked the miracle stories of Jesus and the resurrection accounts in Scripture – on the basis of rationalist arguments. These were not just voices "outside" the church.  In fact they were essentially voices "inside" the church, clamoring for its "enlightenment."  Even the English Archbishop Tillotson joined in the chorus of those calling for a "natural religion," a Christianity brought up-to-date with enlightenment thinking. 6Tragically, there would be more than just this Ashley-Locke disappointment arising from the effort to find the right utopian formula in the face of life’s ever-developing challenges.  In fact, failure rather than success – and often very brutal failure at that – would be the normal outcome of such ventures ... over and over again.  But there would always be the strong temptation to try again anyway – especially on the part of those who made such armchair social design their main work in life, social philosophers, social critics, journalists, progressive politicians, government technocrats, etc.  Despite the miserable historical record of failure of such social ventures, that record would be completely disregarded, so certain were such intellectuals that their newest formula would finally be the one that would bring grand social success (also making them therefore the social geniuses of their day). John Tillotson - Archbishop of Canterbury (1691-1694) He portrayed Jesus as not a savior of unworthy sinners, but instead as an instructor in good (rational) moral living ... the heart of Unitarianism (even Deism) PROBLEMS ACCOMPANYING THE "MATURING" OF COLONIAL AMERICA Social stress in Virginia A major problem was developing in Virginia as the prime real estate along the shores of the various rivers (James, York, Rappahannock, Potomac Rivers) of the rich Tidewater region of coastal Virginia was largely claimed by the earliest of settlers.  Within a couple of generations manor homes overseeing thousands of river front acres began to be built and the "first families" began to take their place at the head of Virginia society.  A Virginia aristocracy was beginning to take shape.   At that point, newcomers (after working off their time of indenture) were forced to head to the mountainous interior to find land for themselves.  Besides the fact that the soil was rocky and the distance to the ports that would ship their products back to England great (whereas the wealthy plantations could load their products on ocean-going ships right at the plantations docks along the river), the "poor whites" of the interior were always faced with the problem of very bloody Indian attacks.  The lives of these later Virginians were very hard ... their earnings marginal at best. Bacon's Rebellion (1676) In 1676 the frustration felt by those later arrivals exploded in a major uprising by Virginia's Western frontier farmers and also by some of the English indentured workers in the East ... led by a young aristocrat Nathaniel Bacon (and thus termed "Bacon's Rebellion").  A number of grievances motivated this rebellion.  Their world stood in such stark contrast to the privileges of Governor Berkeley and the handful of wealthy Virginians with which he surrounded himself. The rebels were particularly furious about what they felt was the indifference to their problems characteristic of the Jamestown government ... and especially the lack of protection against the Indians by that government. Bacon's Rebellion was put down by Governor Berkeley only with much difficulty – and only after the rebels, worked up to intense anger, succeeded in marching on the Virginia capital Jamestown and burning it to the ground.  Then in the midst of events Bacon became sick and died.  Leaderless, the rebellion quickly collapsed. The growth of slavery The net result of the revolt was a deepening of the social gap between the Virginia aristocracy and the Virginia frontiersman.  But also the aristocrats were so unnerved by the anger of the rebels at this point that the Virginia wealthy lost interest in white indenture – and moved to use fully slave African labor in its stead. Slavery as an institution had been recognized as a permissible institution only in 1654.  But as slavery extended its place in the Virginia economy, the laws regulating and controlling slavery advanced in accompaniment.  By 1705 the Virginia Slave codes defined the institution fairly much as it would be practiced in Virginia for the next 160 years. Human "Enlightenment" and witchcraft in New England Meanwhile a serious problem would gradually develop in New England because of the very success of the colonies there.  The strong dedication arising from royal persecution that had so greatly focused the early work of the New England colonists would soon fade away.  As it became clear that the King was far away, preoccupied with major problems of his own brewing back in England (problems which the New Englanders carefully stayed out of), the sense of religious-social urgency which had originally inspired the heroic activity of the New England colonies gradually got lost.  The generations which followed became complacent about the life that had been passed on to them by the founding generation.  Ritual and routine replaced spirit and bravery.  Human (or "secular') logic – termed at the times as human "Enlightenment" – seemed to offer better answers to life's ongoing issues ... much better than merely "waiting on the Lord" (who to the original settlers had always been the moral and spiritual guarantor of their success).   And right along with a rising trust in purely human logic grew the illogic of a growing acceptance of witchcraft and sorcery as a supplemental understanding of life's dynamics ... a measure of the distance New Englanders were beginning to put between themselves and the disciplines of Biblical spirituality.  The political-moral authorities of the Massachusetts colony attempted to keep some degree of control over this development.   But in the late 1600s this new mood got away from them.   Unexplained diseases, sudden Indian attacks, and quarrels over property-rights among the English settlers themselves deeply rattled the peace. Finally, in February of 1692 in Salem Village, Massachusetts, an accusation of witchcraft aimed at one individual quickly led to an explosive claim of such practices aimed at others (tragically, the fear of witches was common across all the Western world in the 1600s).  Some 200 individuals were accused of the crime, 30 found guilty in trial, and ultimately 19 hanged … before the colony’s authorities could get sentences overturned and things finally brought to a halt (April 1693).  The impact of this event would forever bring deep shame to the Puritans and their legacy … though the event itself actually had little to do with Puritanism. What was happening to America's covenant with God ... to make the American settlement a "Light to the Nations," a "City on a Hill"?  As the 1600s came to a close in America, it looked as if America had indeed fallen into the ways of Ancient Israel ... wandering from God when life had finally become so successful that the idea of God and his sovereignty again got lost in the process.  What then would the future hold for America ... and for the Western or Christian world in general – which was going through a similar cooling of its Christian spirit? Bacon's rebels burn Jamestown to the ground - 1676 The 1692 Salem Witch Trials by Thomkins H. Matteson - 1853 Peabody-Essex Museum Go on to the next section:  Europe during the First Half of the 1700s   Miles H. Hodges