John Locke's Accomplishments

It’s a New Age
Throughout European civilization, many ages and revolutions occurred; some lasted months, most lasted years. Revolutions and ages instituted science revelations, emergence of philosophers, or radical movements. One age in particular was inducted as the most revolutionary age in history. Five words: reason, nature, happiness, liberty, and progress formed an age known as The Enlightenment.
Les Lumière, the French term for The Enlightenment, created a new age of reason and knowledge. As knowledge and understanding set the main pursuit, great philosophes sought after discovering the new concept of human nature. John Locke, one of the most consequential philosophes of the the age, based his understanding of human nature on empiricism

more than reason. Empiricism is the philosophical theory that “all knowledge is derived from experience” (Burns 2). Although Locke had a good understanding of reason he quoted: “Experience must teach me what Reason cannot” (33). Agreeing with Locke was a man named Isaac Newton, the highest figure in science, even today. Newton based his understanding of physics on the experimentation and observation on empiricism, much like Locke.
Unlike Newton, some philosophes did not agree with Locke’s beliefs. One in particular disagreed completely; his name was Francois Marie Arouet, also known as Voltaire. By publishing a famous work, Philosophical Letters to England, Voltaire contrasted the main principles of Locke and Newton and set the tone for the Enlightenment propaganda (Chardorow 545). To Voltaire, metaphysics (a philosophical term for explaining the nature of humans) was of little use to him. Instead, he used his letters of propaganda to “reflect on the facts of human existence and attempt to discover their meaning and search for general principles useful to humanity” (545).
Following Voltaire is a man named Baron Charles Louis de Secondat de Montesquieu. Using natural sciences and the study of society to create a social science was the main goal of this philosophe. In his famous work, The Spirit of Laws, Montesquieu suggested that the climate and other environmental factors helped to determine the form of government (546). Though his work was not perceived as a scientific piece, it was the “first serious attempt since the Greeks at tracing relationships between systems of government and the environment” (546). Each philosophe theorized their own beliefs of human nature and how it derived: Voltaire focused on human existence, and Montesquieu concentrated on environmental factors to determine government. One philosophe, however, emphasized his opinions on science and technology.
Denis Diderot is the third most influential philosophical figure of the Enlightenment. Diderot, like the others, was famous for a piece of work; his co-edition of the Encylopedie was designed to sum up the immense human knowledge (Chardorow 546). Rather than nature and the envoriment, Diderot presented how the use of machinery and industrial processes effected human behavior.
A main notion of the Enlightenment was the pursuit of understanding and knowledge. A new concept of human nature, society, and religion formed during this age. It was also a time of religious (and anti-religious) innovation, as Christians sought to reposition their faith, and deists and materialists argued that the universe seemed to determine its own course without God’s intervention.
Like every age throughout civilization, new religions arose; at this time, the idea of Diesm became apparent to those in France. Diesm is defined as the “belief in God who is Creator but not Redeemer” (548). Diests, Voltaire included, believed that God did not concern himself with humanity. Though otherwise thought, Diests were adament that God did not act in or through human history. Christians disagreed. Disputes and arguments filled the church, but religion did not give way to Diesm. After years, a compromise between the Christian and Diesm faith was settled. “Natural law” was still the moral guide to all of mankind. The philosophes used the Christian idea of spiritual progression of humanity and secularized it. They believed that civilization was in the hands of humanity and that the nature laws would guide them.
Although the philosophes knew men needed government, discovering new forms was not a high priority. “Reason” provided the so-called law that all men required. A “natural law” replaced religious belief that failed to provide for knowledge (Chardorow 542-543). The Age of Enlightenment was prized for the new religion and was predicted to create the “perfection of humanity” (Burns 25).
In order to create a perfect world, the perfection of three ideas was important. Individualism was first. The fashion was to start with the individual and broaden to a more generalized sense. Thinkers sought to discover the explanations of societies and justify them. John Locke, one of those thinkers, composed works of individualism. In theory, the natural independence of the individual came before society (Barzun 540). They believed the body of each individual were members of a society. They called that “individualism”.
Relativism followed. Relativism and humanity parallel one another; giving more detail into civilization that furthered science. Philosophers, through relativism, learned that other societies existed in other times. They were educated in the fact that these cultures had values, beliefs, and institutions different from their own. That recognition formed the concept of “relativism” (Chardorow 542).
Reason stood as the object of worship, law, and nature. Empiricism was an undercurrent of reason that further introduced rationalism. Rationalism was the final step to human perfection. Locke reiterated that ideas came from experience and no innate ideas existed. Locke believed in a clean slate, but also believed that man's state of nature occurred even before societies formed. These two assumptions created many contradictions that lasted throughout The Enlightenment period.
A man named Rene Descartes completely denied John Locke.

Descartes became the “master of enlightenment” (Burns 15) with his ideas of the individual mind. Unlike Locke, Descartes was convinced that math and science could explain everything in nature. He thought inherent ideas was absurd. One night, he dreamt three dreams: he first, a nightmare of phantoms, the second, a thunderclap that woke him. The third dream featured the an encyclopedia of poetry and one question: “Quod vitae sectabor iter- What path in life should I follow?” (17). The first two dreams interpreted Descartes past life, where the third predicted the future. They proved the realization that humans were not slaves of the past or present and that their future is theirs to

create.
Five words sum all of the Enlightenment; reason, for various reasons, was the most important. Reason was relied upon and ultimately a weapon for skepticism. Voltaire and Descartes both depended on reason, though Descartes was also a counterpart on mathematics. To those in the civilization of reason, it stood as a strict wall to abandon prejudice and superstition. Along with being the object of worship, reason built principles that governed humanity. Many were brainwashed to believe that reason prevailed in all things good. If reason did not exist, neither did humanity.
“To the enlightened, the road to happiness lay in conforming to nature and nature's laws” (Chardorow 547). As vast as it may seem, that was true. Nature, the second favorite word, never had a clear meaning, but to most, the word “natural” was used to describe God and civilization. Natural law was defined by Voltaire when he stated:
“The regular and constant order of facts by which God rules the universe;
the order which his wisdom presents to the sense and reason of men,
to serve them as as an equal and common rule of conduct,
and to guide them, without distinction of race or sect,
towards perfection and happiness.” (547)
Nature would be nothing with out the use of reason, however. Those who disrupted or disobeyed the natural law was looked upon as a rebel, those who followed were happy.
Happiness, in so many definitions, was a famous word to the philosophes during The Enlightenment. It was not defined as rejoicing so much as a term for, what the philosophes called, the end. An abolishment of slavery, cruelty, and torture was the establishment of happiness. Voltaire and other philosophes demanded to learn the Christian ideals in order to create such a thing.
Though Christian faith and happiness were important, the word “progress” was more essential. After using the Christian idea of “spiritual progression” (Burns 45) and happiness, it was believed that civilization was now in the hands of humanity rather than God. Because of this, progress was “independent of any power that might wish to halt it and will never be reversed” (Chardorow 548).
The final of the five words during The Enlightenment was “liberty”. Philosophes used progress and happiness to secure their liberty by not using violence to achieve it. Of all, this was the most important.
The Enlightenment originated in the human mind. Lasting more than three centuries, many philosophers uprooted their ideas of the human mind and settled the idea that humans were the measure of all things. The Enlightenment was a secular movement in the areas of art and humanity, an intellectual revolution that changed the lives of millions. Along with essays, novels, and letters, the age of reason was also an age of art and music.
The quantity and diversity of artistic works during the period do not fit easily into categories for interpretation, but some loose generalizations maybe drawn. At the opening of the century, baroque forms were still popular, as they would be at the end. This was followed, after the middle of the century, by the “formalism and balance of neoclassicism, another word for radical movements, with its resurrection of Greek and Roman models”(Barzun 100). Although the end of the century saw a slight romantic turn, the era's characteristic accent on reason found its best expression in neoclassicism.
In painting, rococo emphasized the airy grace and refined pleasures of the salon and the boudoir, of delicate jewelry and porcelains, of wooded scenes, artful dances, and women, particularly women in the nude. Rococo painters also specialized in portraiture, showing aristocratic subjects in their idealized self on canvas.
Rather than traditional, religious paintings of God, artists favored portraits during this time. Women were portrayed as feminine and well-groomed, while men were aristocratically illustrated with hard, arrogant faces (Chardorow 552). Stories became more narrative than imaginative to appeal to the middle-class. Newspapers were invented for a wide, educated audience.
The literature works of the The Enlightenment reflected the ideas philosophers had about science and rationality (551). Literature celebrated emotion and defied traditional notions. The narrative stories featured suffering heroins mistreated by characters. Authors doused the readers minds with emotions like anger, pity, and love. Transitioning from the writings of science and philosophy, this new form of literature, capturing the emotions of readers, became successful. Poets also flourished, one being Alexander Pope.
Pope preached his worship of reason when he said:
“All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body nature is, and God the soul …
All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou cannot see.
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good
And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear: Whatever is, is right.” (Burns 80)

Next came the age of music, one of the biggest achievements.

Composers like Johann Sebastian Bach and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart arose as two of the most prized musicians. Musical forms known as sonatas and symphonies developed, followed by string quartets, masses, and concertos (553).
Though the Enlightenment delivered music, philosophers, and new ideas of the human mind, the age proved to be limited. Reason, even the most prevalent of all things, was questioned. Some believed that experiences “kept the mind informed” about external reality, while others understood that a “sense-experience was a sequence of disjointed impressions on which the mind-and mind alone-imposed connections” (Barzun 237). Some philosophers were determined to replace God with reason, but others resolved the issue and continued their worship.
Throughout history, mankind was desperate for new innovations and new ideas. Men sought out new forms of government like that of reason, and figured out how to create happiness and liberty with out the use of slavery and hate. When five words (reason,nature, happiness, liberty and progress) were introduced, the most revolutionary ideas were revealed. The Age of Enlightenment was not only one of the most revolutionary in history, but

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