The Enlightenment In Europe

The best source to understand how the enlightenment developed in Europe is the French Encyclopedia, subtitled Reasoned Dictionary of the sciences, arts, and trades, which appeared in 17 volumes oftexts and 11 volumes of illustrations between 1751 and 1772. Also many characters must be taken in account like John Locke, Adam Smith, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Charles Montesquieu, Denis Diderot and manymore. The bases of this enlightenment are the political, social and economic changes in Europe. The belief in progress was a very important aspect in the enlightenment, because if people weren’toptimist, we would be stuck in a society in decline. To make the progress credible, someone had to think up a way to understand evil, and explain away all the disasters and woes of the world. In this way,the number of atheists grown, in countries like England and France. Another important aspect was the new economic thought. Pessimistic thinkers tend to favor strong even repressive governments keptdestructive instincts in check. Optimists hope to liberate people to do well. Many illustrated people were concerned about political freedom, but economic freedom was very important too. To geteconomic growth and evade the impoverishment European governments hoarded bullion, trapped cash inside the realm, limited imports and exports, regulated prices, defied the laws of supply and demand andfounded empires to create markets fort their goods that they would control. The consequences were woeful, competition ofr protected markets caused wars and waste, money drained out of circulation. Economicgrowth was inhibited. In the eighteen century the French school of economic thinkers known as the physiocrats said “leave the market to itself”, David Ricardo said “wages, should be left to the fairand free competition of the market, and should never be controlled by the interference of the legislature”. Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations in 1776 that decided the shift toward economic...