PRELUDES TO REVOLUTION

War

• Seven Years War/French & Indian War

• Britain gains N. America & India

Cost

• Unprecedented amounts spent• Gov’ts seek new sources of

revenue

Enlightenment

• Intellectual Environment• Question the state’s methods

What are the rights of individuals?

How much power should the government have?

How can we apply the methods and questions of the Scientific Revolution study of human society?

EMERGING QUESTIONS

“Man being born, as has been proved, with a title to perfect freedom, and an uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of nature, equally with any other man, or number of men in the world, hath by nature a power, not only to preserve his property, that is, his life, liberty and estate, against the injuries and attempts of other men.”

“Political power is that power, which every man having in the state of nature, has given up into the hands of the society, and therein to the governors, whom the society hath set over itself... So that the end… it can have no other end or measure… but to preserve the member of that society in their lives, liberties, and possessions; and so cannot be absolute, arbitrary power over their lives and fortunes…”

JOHN LOCKE

Particularly attractive to the expanding middle classThe emergence of books, newspapers, and journals

Enlightenment SalonsFemale hostesses

Communication between philosophesAmerica = an uncorrupted place

Potential for quicker change

THE SPREADING OF IDEAS