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The European Dream Of Progress And Enlightenment Author: Wallbank Date: 1992 The Reaction Against Reason The eighteenth century was primarily an "Age of Reason," but in the latter decades there was a general reaction against rationalism. One form of the reaction came in philosophy with a new idealism, in opposition to the materialism of the early Enlightenment. Another form was an emotional religious revival, which won back many wavering Protestants and Catholics. A third form of reaction replaced reason with religion as the justification for humanitarian reforms. These movements stressed emotion over reason but continued the Enlightenment's accent upon individual liberty. Idealistic Philosophy Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), a kindly and contemplative professor of philosophy at the German University of Konigsberg, was thoroughly aroused by the skeptical and materialistic extremes of the Enlightenment. While appreciating science and dedicated to reason, he determined to shift philosophy back to a more sensible position without giving up much of its newly discovered "rational" basis. His ideas, contained primarily in the Critique of Pure Reason (1781), ushered in a new age of philosophic idealism. Kant agreed with Locke on the role of the senses in acquiring knowledge but insisted that sensory experience had to be interpreted by the mind's internal patterns. This meant that certain ideas - the mind's categories for sorting and recording experience - were "a priori", that is, they existed before the sensory experience occurred. Typical innate ideas of this sort were width, depth, beauty, cause, and God; all were understood yet none were learned directly through the senses. Kant concluded, as had Descartes, that some truths were not derived from material objects through scientific study. Beyond the material world was a realm unapproachable by science. Moral and religious truths, such as God's existence, could not be proved by science yet were known to human beings as rational creatures. Reason, according to Kant, went beyond the mere interpretation of physical realities. In Kant's philosophic system, pure reason, the highest form of human endeavor, was as close to intuition as it was to sensory experience. It proceeded from certain subjective senses, built into human nature. The idea of God was derived logically from the mind's penchant for harmony. The human conscience, according to Kant, might be developed or be crippled by experience, but it originated in the person's thinking nature. Abstract reason, apart from science and its laws, was a valid source of moral judgment and religious interpretation. Thus Kant used reason to give a philosophic base back to mystical religion. ^10 [Footnote 10: See Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason (New York: Collier, 1902.)] The Religious Reaction Religious rationalism, despite its appeal to intellectuals, provoked considerable religious reaction. Part of this came from theologians such as Bishop Joseph Butler (1692-1752) and William Paley (1743-1805) in England, both of whom defended Christianity and challenged deism on its own rational grounds. Even more significant was a widespread emotional revival, stressing religion of the heart rather than the mind. The new movement, known as pietism, began in England after 1738, when the brothers John (1703-1791) and Charles (1708-1788) Wesley began a crusade of popular preaching in the Church of England. The Anglican pietists discarded traditional formalism and stilted sermons in favor of a glowing religious fervor, producing a vast upsurge of emotional faith among the English lower classes. "Methodist," at first a term of derision, came to be the respected and official name for the new movement. After John Wesley's death in 1791, the Methodists officially left the Anglican church to become a most important independent religious force in England. On the continent, Lutheran pietism, led by Philipp J. Spener (1635-1705) and Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), followed a pattern similar to Methodism. Swedenborg's movement in Sweden began as an effort to reconcile science and revelation; after Swedenborg's death it became increasingly emotional and mystical. Spener, in Germany, stressed Bible study, hymn singing, and powerful preaching. The Moravian movement sprang from his background. Under the sponsorship of Count Nicholaus von Zinzendorf (1700-1760), it spread to the frontiers of Europe and to the English colonies in America. The "Great Awakening," a tremendous emotional revival sustained by Moravians, Methodsts, Baptists, and Quakers, swept the colonial frontier areas from Georgia to New England in the late eighteenth century. Women played prominent roles in this activity, organizing meetings and providing auxiliary services, such as charities and religious instruction. Among the Quakers, women were often ministers and itinerant preachers. One was Jemima Wilkinson (1752-1819), leader of the Universal Friends; another was Ann Lee (1736-1784), who founded Shaker colonies in New York and New England. By the 1780s, religious rationalism and pietism stood in opposition to each other. Proponents of each disagreed passionately on religious principles though they agreed on the issue of religious freedom. Both rationalists and pietists were outside the state churches, both feared persecution, and both recognized the flagrant abuses of religious establishments. The two movements were therefore almost equally threatening to state churches and the old regimes. The New Humanitarianism One dominant characteristic of the early Enlightenment - the concern for individual human worth - received new impetus from religion in the reaction against reason. The demand for reform and the belief in human progress were now equated with traditional Christian principles, such as human communality and God's concern for all people. Religious humanitarianism shunned radical politics and ignored the issue of women's rights, despite the movement's strong support among women. It did, however, seek actively to relieve human suffering and ignorance among children, the urban poor, prisoners, and slaves. This combination of humanitarian objectives and Christian faith was similar in some ways to the Enlightenment but markedly different in its emotional tone and religious justifications. Notable among manifestations of the new humanitarianism was the antislavery movement in England. A court case in 1774 ended slavery within the country. From then until 1807, a determined movement sought abolition of the slave trade. It was led by William Wilberforce (1759-1833), aided by Hannah Moore and other Anglican Evangelicals, along with many Methodists and Quakers. Wilberforce repeatedly introduced bills into the House of Commons that would have eliminated the traffic in humans. His efforts were rewarded in 1807 when the trade was ended, although he and his allies had to continue to struggle for twenty-six more years, before they could achieve abolition in the British colonies. Religious humanitarians enforced other movements that originated in the Enlightenment. For example, the movements for legal reform and prison reform were both supported by religious groups before 1800. Education, extolled by rationalist thinkers, also aroused interest among the denominations. The Sunday School movement, particularly in England, was a forerunner of many private and quasi-public church schools. Finally, concern for the plight of slaves, coupled with rising missionary zeal, brought popular efforts to improve conditions for native peoples in European possessions overseas. While it was not as openly political as other aspects of the Enlightenment, the new humanitarianism played a significant part in weakening absolutism. In general, it contributed to a spirit of restlessness and discontent and encouraged independent thought, particularly as it improved education. Its successful campaign against the slave trade also struck a direct blow at the old mercantilist economies, which depended heavily on plantation agriculture overseas. In time, the missionaries would also prove to be the most consistent enemies of colonialism. A project by History World International
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