VIII. Enlightened Stupidity

The Enlightenment began with the application of secular rationalism to human affairs and ended with a revolution. At the turn of the eighteenth century, the expectation was that reason would lead to scientific knowledge which would lead to progress. Although this supposition seems naive now, it seemed justified then by Newton's overwhelming success in revealing the divine laws of the cosmos: If reasonable people but set their minds to understanding the natural laws of civil behavior that presumably guided social interaction, certainly peace, harmony and happiness would reign on earth as they did in Heaven. Of course, the culmination of the Enlightenment was not a utopia but a levée en masse and Napoleon's imperial despotism. This dual tragedy of France was due only partly, however, to the simplistic optimism which characterized the new religion of reason. It was also partly due to the unenlightened intractablity of French royalty which drove critics to extremes and rebels to excesses.

When and where enlightened minds enjoyed their modest successes, they did so by reducing human affairs to those elements which could be analyzed by science and reason (while blithely ignoring the rest—i.e., spiritual values, emotions, etc.). Invariably, the results of a logical analysis of society challenged many of the entrenched beliefs which defined the prevailing schema of the age. Such time-honored prejudices had to be modified or give way before the dawning of the new factual knowledge could provide its limited light. Although the Enlightenment was basically a secular movement which necessarily entailed a revamping of sacred tenets of intellectual, political and social life, theology was revised as well.

First, Christianity tended to become a deist rather than a theist religion. As a theist, God had been rather personable and listened to prayers. However, Newton had converted the universe into a realm in which natural law replaced divine whim. As a deist, God was still the Great Creator, but having invented the machinery of the cosmos, He had to stand aside like a grand clock maker and admire His handiwork—including the wretched little creatures on earth. The universe would run forever according to Newton's (not His) laws without further intervention.

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