philosophy? 5.What were the major differences between Locke's concept of “social contract'"and Hobbes's？ 6.How did Locke justify rebellion against government? DIVISION SIX 7.What is the theme of John Milton's Paradise Lost? 8.What is Descartes's method of Cartesian doubt?What is its THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT significance？ 9.Who was the most well-known writer in the 17th century French literature?Say something about one of his major I.General Introduction works. 10.What are some of the characteristics of Baroque art? 1.Enlightenment The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement originating in France,which attracted widespread support among the ruling and intellectural classes of Europe and North America in the second half of the 18th century.It characterizes the efforts by certain European writers to use critical reason to free minds from prejudice, unexamined authority and oppression by Church or State.Therefore the Enlightenment is sometimes called the Age of Reason. Although the Enlightenment was a movement that gained momentum in the second half of the 18th century,its intellectual origin could be traced back to the previous century.The most important forerunners of the Enlightenment were two 17th century Englishmen John Locke and Isaac Newton.Locke's materialist theory attributed the origin of ideas to sensations inscribed on the blank slate of mind.Newton's theory of gravitation further demonstrated to the world that the universe is governed by laws that could be understood by the human mind.Their theories fostered the belief in natural law and universal order and established confidence in human reason. 230 231 “法划路重
The major force of the Enlightenment was,however,the interference did violence to the law of nature.They favoured laissez. French philosophes.Among them were such well-known men of faire policies for the reason that the natural order harmonized conflicts letters as Montesquieu,Voltaire and Rousseau.Diederot,who edited of self-interest. the famous Encyclopedie,was also an important French Enlightenment figure.All these people popularized and propagated 2.Historical Context new ideas for the general reading public. The first half of the 18th century was an age of relative peace, As a movement,the Enlightenment developed many security and optimism.But the 1750s saw the world turning toward a ramifications period of turbulence,full of ideological,political,social and economic In their attempt to rationalize government and law,the revolutions. Enlightenment thinkers regarded government as the political The American War of Independence of 1776 ended British expression of law.And law itself was defined as the "necessary colonial rule over that country.The spirit of this revolution is relationships which derive from the nature of things." crystalized in a powerful statement written in The Declaration of (Montesquieu)According to them,the law of all lands is valid only Independence: when it conforms to the law which reason perceives in nature. As regards religion,the Enlightenment was completely secular "We hold these truths to be self-evident,that all men are in outlook,but not to the point of Atheism.The tendency was rather created equal,that they are endowed by their Creator with toward Deism:the universe is set in motion by a God as a self- certain unalienable rights,that among these are life,liberty and regulating mechanism;everything operated according to natural the pursuit of happiness.That to secure these rights, laws,which could be understood by the human mind. governments are instituted among men,deriving their just In art and literature,what coincided with the Age of Reason powers from the consent of the governed,That whenever any was a period called neo-classicism.The most prominent figures of this form of government becomes destructive of these ends,it is the period were Dryden,Pope,Corneille,Racine,Goethe,Schiller right of the people to alter or to abolish it,and to institute a new Haydn,Mozart,David and Ingres.These people were on the whol government..." traditionalists;they had a great respect for the classical artists an authors,and for the rules of their art.They thought that reason an The American victory was followed in 1789 by an even more judgment were the most admirable faculties,and that decorum wa violent political upheaval on the European continent-the French essential.In their work,therefore,the most desirable qualities were Revolution.The seizure of the Bastille marked the end of the French harmony,proportion,balance and restraint. monarchy,and the First French Republic was born in 1792.Guiding In economic thought,the rationalists believed that state this revolution is a document called Declaration of the Rights of 232 233 列百环语酒网减
Man.It proclaims: "Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else;hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the II.French Philosophy and Literature society the same rights.These limits can only be determined by law ..Law is the expression of the general will.Every citizen has a 1.Baron de la Brede et de Montesquieu (1689-1755) right to participate personally,or through his representative,in its Montesquieu,the jurist,satirist,and political and social formation.It must be the same for all,whether it protects or philosopher,was the first of the great French men of letters punishes.All citizens,being equal in the eyes of the law,are equally associated with the Enlightenment. eligible...to all public positions...according to their abilities... Wroks: No person shall be accused,arrested,or imprisoned except in the cases...prescribed by law...The free communication of ideas and a.Persian Letters (1721) opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man..." It is a satire in which Montesquieu joins philosophy,politics and While the Americans and the French were totally preoccupied ethics to tales in the guise of letters exchanged by Persians visiting with their domestic political revolutions,a quieter though not less France with Persians at home and with each other.Wrapped in the important revolution was set in motion in England.The Industrial 150-odd letters are scathing denunciations of every type of despotism Revolution (1760-1840),beginning with the invention of the steam over body and soul. engine,rapidly changed the face of the world,and ushered in a completely new age.This revolution is marked by the following b.The Spirit of the Laws (1748) developments:(1)the introduction of machines which reduced the It is one of the great works in the history of political theory and need for hand labour in making goods;(2)the substitution of steam in the history of jurisprudence.It is an investigation of the power for water,wind,and animal power;(3)the change from environmental and social relationships that lie behind the laws of manufacturing in the home to the factory system;(4)new and faster civilized society.Combining the traditions of customary law with method of transportation on land and on water;(5)the growth of those of the modern theories of natural,Montesquieu redefined law as modern capitalism and the working class. "the necessary relationships which derive from the nature of things". Laws,and their most basic political expression,government,thus became a relative.relationship between a people's physical environment and their social needs and traditions.Laws,"must be adapted to each people".In this book,he also touched on the theory 234 235
of the separation of powers by examining the British form of Christian:for,not to mention getting covered in mud from head government.He believed that the legislative,executive and judicial to foot,I cannot forgive being regularly and systematically powers must be confided to different individuals or bodies,acting elbowed.A man coming up behind me turns me right round as independently.The book was well accepted by the philosophers of he overtakes me;another,passing in the opposite direction, the Enlightenment and his theories had a great influence in the abruptly puts me back where the first one got me;and before I Western world even to this day.Particularly,his doctrines of the have gone a hundred yards I am in a worse state than if I had separation of powers became one of the most important principles of done ten leagues. the U.S.constitution. Do not expect me to be able to give you a thorough Here are some examples from his Persian Letters: description of European ways and customs.I have only a superficial idea of them myself,and have had barely enough time Letter 24 to do anything except be astonished. Rica to Ibben,at Smyrna The King of France is the most powerful ruler in Europe. We have been in Paris for a month,and we have been in a He has no goldmines like the King of Spain,his neighbour,but continual whirl all the time.There is so much to be done before his riches are greater,because he extracts them from his one can get lodgings,find the people to whom one has subjects'vanity,which is more inexhaustible than mines.He introductions,and obtain the necessities of life,all of which one has been known to undertake or sustain major wars with no needs simultaneously. other funds but what he gets from selling honorific titles,and by Paris is as big as Ispahan.The houses here are so high that a miracle of human vanity,his troops are paid,his fortresses you would swear that only astrologers would live in them.As supplied,and his fleets equipped. you will realize,a town built in the air,with six or seven houses Moreover,this king is a great magician.He exerts all on top of each other,is exceedingly full of people,and when authority even over the minds of his subjects;he makes them everyone comes out into the street it makes a splendid muddle. think what he wants.If there are only a million crowns in the Perhaps you will not believe this,but during the month exchequer,and he needs two million,all he has to do is that I have been here I haven't yet seen anyone walk.No people persuade them that one crown is worth two,and they believe it. in the world make their bodies work harder for them than If he is involved in a difficult war without any money,all he has Frenchmen:they run;they fly.The slow vehicles of Asia,the to do is to get it into their heads that a piece of paper will do for measured step of our camels,would give them apoplexy.As for money,and they are immediately convinced of it.He even me,who am not used to such a rush,and who often go on foot succeeds in making them believe that he can cure them of all sorts of diseases by touching them,such is the force and power without changing my pace,I sometimes get as cross as a 237 236 可牙容9静利串不發网得所绿环配
that he has over their minds. the way to Paradise: You must not be amazed at what I tell you about this I have heard things about the.king that border on the prince:there is another magician,stronger than he,who miraculous,and I have no doubt that you will hesitate to believe controls his mind as completely as he controls other people's. them. This magician is called the Pope.He will make the king believe They say that while he was at war with his neighbours, that three are only one,or else that the bread one eats is not who were all in league against him,he had an innumerable bread,or that the wine one drinks not wine,and a thousand number of invisible enemies in his kingdom,surrounding him. other things of the same kind. They also say that he has searched for them for more than thirty And in order to keep him in training,so that he will not get years,and that,despite the indefatigable efforts of certain out of the habit of believing,he gives him certain articles of dervishes who are in his confidence,he has been unable to find a belief as an exercise from time to time.Two years ago he sent single one.They live with him;they are at his court,in his him a long document called the Constitution,and tried to make capital city,among his troops,in his lawcourts.Yet they say he this king and his subjects believe everything in it,on pain of will have the vexation of dying without being able to find them. severe penalties.He succeeded with the king,who submitted at It is as if they existed in general,and were nothing in once,setting an example to his subjects.But some of them particular:they are a class without any members.No doubt rebelled,and said that they refused to believe anything in the Heaven wants to punish this prince for not being sufficiently document.The instigators of this revolt,which has split the restrained towards his conquered enemies,since it gives him court,the whole kingdom,and every family,are women.The enemies who are invisible,and who are superior to him in their constitution forbids them to read a book which all the Christians methods and in what they achieve. say was brought down to them from Heaven:it is really their I shall continue to write to you,and what I tell you will be Koran.The women,indignant at this insult to their sex,have far removed from the Persian character and way of doing things. started a whole movement against the Constitution.They have The same earth carries us both;but the men in the country put the men,who in this case do not want to be privileged,on where I am living,and those in the country where you are,are their side.You have to admit,all the same,that this Mufti men of very different sorts. argues perfectly reasonably;it must be,by the great prophet From Paris,the 4th of the Ali!That he is acquainted with the principles of our Holy Law. Second Moon of Rabia,1712. For,since women are created inferior to us,and our prophets say that they will not go to Paradise,why is it necessary for 2.Voltaire (pseudonym of Jean Francois Arouet,1694-1778) them to bother to read a book which is intended only to show Voltaire,the French poet,dramatist,historian,and 238 239 一/一图
philosopher,was an outspoken and aggressive enemy of every one's garden." injustice such as tyranny,bigotry,cruelty,but especially of religious Voltaire said some memnorable things,for example: intolerance.He was noted for his characteristic wit,satire and "Whatever you do,crush the infamous thing (superstition), critical capacity.His works are an outstanding embodiment of the and love those who love you. principles of the French Enlightenment. "Love truth,but pardon error." Of all his writings,two books must be mentioned here: “Liberty of thought is the life of the soul.” "I disapprove of what you say,but I will defend to the death a.Lettres Anglaise (also circulated as Lettres Philosophiques) your right to say it." (1739) "If God did not exist,it would be necessary to invent him." A product of the author's years of exile in England has been called "the first bomb dropped on the Old Regime".Written in the 3.Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) style of letters to friends in France,the 24 "letters"try to show a Rousseau,the Swiss-born philosopher,author,political theorist contrast between English liberty and toleration and French arbitrary and composer,ranks as one of the greatest figures of the French government,and call for political,religious and philosophic freedom; Enlightenement.His writings had a great influence on the leaders of for the betterment of earthly life;for employing the method of Sir the French Revolution as well as the Romantic generation. Francis Bacon,Locke and Newton;and for exploiting the intellect He glorified human nature and attacked social inequality.His toward social progress. most famous words are:"Man is born free,and everywhere he is in chains."He favoured a theory of social contract as the key to human b.Candide (1758) freedom. It is the most famous of Voltaire's novels.It is a satire on the Major Works: previous adventure novels of the age,an attack upon the claims of unlimited optimism.It is the story of a naive and innocent young a.The Origin of Human Inequality (1755) man who becomes gradually disillusioned.Young Candide was In it Rousseau argues that the social order of civilized society brought up in the castle of a baron together with the latter's son and introduces inequality and unhappiness.This social order rests upon daughter.The family teacher was always telling him that the world private property.Man's greatest ills are not nautral but made by man they lived in was the best of all possible worlds.But he was turned himself;the remedy lies also within man's power. out of the castle for falling in love with the baron's daughter. Through misfortunes and hardships in this world,Candide became b.The New Heloise (1761) disillusioned.He realized that the secret of happiness is to"cultivate A novel attempted to portray the sufferings and tragedy that 240 241 衣疑泽深财每缘宾漏
foolish education and arbitrary social conventions work among and remain...free." sensitive creatures. 4.Denis Diderot(1713-1784) c.Emile,or On Education (1762) Diderot,the 18th century French philosopher and man of It undertook the task of constructing an education and social letters,is best known as the editor of the Encyclopedie.He made order that would enable men to be natural and free. many contributions in the fields of philosophy and ethics,dramatic and aesthetic theory,literary criticism,diction,scientific speculation d.The Social Contract (1762) and politics. It was his most important work.It proposed a society able to Major Works: cultivate the individual's moral stature without injuring his freedom. Rousseau believed that a social contract was established when each a.Philosophical Thoughts (1746) individual gave his rights to a general will-as an equal participant It was concerned with the question'of the relationship between in the political life.Then he was as free after this contract as he had nature and religion.He viewed life as self-sufficient and held that been in the state of nature.He sacrificed his natural freedom for a virtue could be sustained without religious beliefs. civil freedom.The book ended with a claim for social democracy. b.Letters on the Blind (1749) e.The Confessions (1764-1770) It showed Diderot's turning to atheism.Religion became a It is famous as a literary expression of a writer's rememberance central theme in his writings. of things past,more revealing through its signs of passion than through its recording of the facts of his experience. c.Encyclopedie(1751） As a social philosopher,Rousseau said many things that It was published in 17 volumes of text and 11 volumes of contribute to the history of ideas: engravings. "The thirst after happiness is never extinguished in the heart of man.” d.Elements of Physiology (1774-1780) "Nature made men happy and good,but society makes him evil In this book he developed his materialist philosophy and fore- and miserable..” shad-owed the doctrine of evolution as later proposed by Charles "The problem is to find a form of association which will defend Darwin. and protect...the person and goods of each associate and in which each,while uniting himself with all,may still obey himself alone, 242 243
e.Rameau's Nephew (1761-1774) turns up.The youth drops one and picks up another,pursuing In the guise of a dialogue between Diderot and a hanger-on of all and clinging to none:my ideas are my trollops. society,exposes the follies and vices,not merely of the time,but of If the weather is too cold or rainy,I take shelter in the human nature itself. Regency Cafe,where I entertain myself by watching chess being His most famous quotations are: played.Paris is the world centre,and this cafe is the Paris The aim of the Encyclopedie was "to assemble the centre,for the finest skill at this game.It is there that one sees knowledge scattered over the face of the earth;to explain its the clash of the profound Legal,the subtle Philidor,the staunch general plan to the men with whom we love...so that we may Mayot;that one sees the most surprising strokes and that one not die without having desearved well of the human race." hears the stupidest remarks.For although one may be a wit and The work was intended "to change the general way of a great chess player,like Legal,one may also be a great chess thinking and to bring about a revolution in men's minds. player and a fool,like Foubert and Mayot. If you impose silence on me about religion and One day I was there after dinner,looking hard,saying government,I shall have nothing to talk about." little,and listening the least amount possible,when I was "The first step toward philosophy is incredulity." accosted by one of the oddest characters in this country,where The following paragraphs are selected from the very God has not stinted us.The fellow is a compound of elevation beginning of his book Rameau's Nephew: and abjectness,of good sense and lunacy.The ideas of decency and depravity must be strangely scrambled in his head,for he RAMEAU'S NEPHEW shows without ostentation the good qualities that nature has Vertumnis,quotquot sunt,natus iniquis. bestowed upon him,just as he does the bad ones without (Born under all the changeful stars there are.) shame.Apart from this,he is endowed with a strong Horace constitution,a special warmth of imagination,and an unusual Rain or shine,it is my regular habit every day about five to power of lung.If you ever meet him and are not put off by his go and take a walk around the Palais-Royal.I can be seen,all originality,you will either stuff your fingers into your ears or by myself,dreaming on D'Argenson's bench.I discuss with run away.Lord,what lungs! myself questions of politics,love,taste,or philosophy.I let my He has no greater opposite than himself.Sometimes he is mind rove wantonly,give it free rein to follow any idea,wise or thin and wan like a patient in the last stages of consumption; mad,that may come uppermost;I chase it as do our young you could count his teeth through his skin;he looks as if he had libertines along Foy's Walk,when they are on the track of a been days without food or had just come out of a Trappist courtesan whose mien is giddy and face smiling,whose nose monastery.The next month,he is sleek and fat as if he ate 244 245 9两阿科福
regularly at a banker's or had shut himself up in a Bernardine he is like a grain of yeast that ferments and restores to each of us convent.Today his linen is filthy,his clothes torn to rags,he is a part of his native individuality.He shakes and stirs us up, virtually barefoot,and he hangs his head furtively;one is makes us praise or blume,smokes out the truth,discloses the tempted to hail him and toss him a coin.Tomorrow he is worthy and unmasks the rascals.It is then that the sensible man powdered,curled,well dressed;he holds his head high,shows keeps his ears open and sorts out his company. himself off-you would almost take him for a man of quality. I knew my man from quite a while back.He used to He lives from day to day,sad or cheerful according to luck.His frequent a house to which his talent had given him entree. first care on arising in the morning is to ascertain where he will There was an only daughter;he swore to the father and mother dine;after dinner he ponders supper.Night brings its own that he would marry her.They shrugged it off,laughed in his worries-whether to return on foot to the garret where he face,told him he was crazy.But I lived to see it happen.He sleeps unless the landlady has taken back the key from asked me for a little money,which I gave him.He had impatience at receiving no rent);or whether to repair to a somehow made his way into a few good families,where he could suburban tavern and await the dawn over a crust of bread and a always dine provided he would not speak without asking mug of beer.When he hasn't as much as sixpence in his pocket, permission first.He kept quiet and ate with fury.He was as sometimes happens,he falls back on a cab-driving friend of remarkable to see under that restraint.If he had the inclination his,or the coachman of a noble lord,who gives him a to break the treaty and open his mouth,at the first word all the shakedown in a stable,alongside the horses.The next morning guests would shout "Why,Rameau!"Then rage would blaze in he still has bits of his mattress in his hair.If the weather is his eyes and he fell to eating with greater fury still.You wanted mild,he perambulates all night up and down the Cours-la-reine to know his name and now you know it.He is the nephew of or the Champs-Elysees.Daybreak sees him back in town,all the famous musician who delivered us from the plain song of dressed from yesterday for today and from today perhaps for the Lully that we had intoned for over a century,and who wrote so remainder of the week. much visionary gibberish and spocalyptic truth about the theory I have no great esteem for such eccentrics.Some people of music -writings that neither he nor anyone else ever take them on as regular acquaintances or even friends.But for understood.We have from him a number of operas in which one my part it is only once a year that I stop and fall in with them, finds harmony,snatches of song,disconnected ideas,clatter, largely because their character stands out from the rest and flights,triumphal processions,spears,apotheoses, breaks that tedious uniformity which our education,our social murmurings,endless victories,and dance tunes that will last for conventions,and our customary good manners have brought all time.Having eliminated "the Florentine"in public favor,he about.If such a character makes his appearance in some circle, will be eliminated by the Italian virtuosos-as he himself 246 247 了”1
foresaw with grief,rancor,and depression of spirits.For no Shakespeare. one,not even a pretty woman who wakes up to find a pimple on her nose,feels so vexed as an author who threatens to survive c.Dunciad (1728) his own reputation-witness Marivaux and the younger It begins his career as major verse satirist. Crebillon. d.Essay on Man (1733-1734) A philosophical poem gives memorable expression to ideas about Ⅲ.English Literature the nature and man's place in it. Here are some examples of his poems: 1.Alexander Pope(1688-1744) A little learning is a dangerous thing; Pope was the great poet and verse satirist of the 18th century. Drink deep,or taste not the Pierian spring. This so-called "Augustan Age"in English literature produced no There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, greater satirical poetry than that of Alexander Pope,and no other And drinking largely sobers us again. poet in the history of English literature has handled the heroic couplet (An Essay on Criticism) with comparable flexibility and brilliance.Pope became renowned for his translations of Homer and for his biting counterattacks on the Some to conceit alone their taste confine, criticisms of his literary enemies.He represented the rationalistic And glittering thoughts struck out at every line; neoclassical tendency in literature and has often been called the Pleased with a work where nothing's just or fit, spokesman in verse of the Age of Reason. One glaring chaos and wild heap of wit. He wrote many works,but he is chiefly remembered for the following titles: True wit is Nature to advantage dressed, What oft was thought,but ne'er so well expressed; a.Essay on Criticism (1711) Something whose truth convinced at sight we find, It establishes him as a master of didactic poetry. That gives us back the image of our mind. (An Essay on Criticism) b.The Rape of the Lock (1712-1714) It is a mock-heroic epic ridiculing the society of his time. Say first,of God above,or man below, From 1713 to 1726 he translated Homer and edited What can we reason,but from what we know? 248 249
