What Did It Mean to be “Enlightened” in Eighteenth Century Britain?

Britain was making the greatest economic advances in the eighteenth century. Science was used for industrial progress and growth. The struggles of the seventeenth century meant that the most productively progressive classes or individuals were free to experiment or set up businesses as they wish. The Lunar Society of Birmingham was the prominent of the provincial societies that did do much to advance society scientifically, politically and economically. Members included the inventor James Watt, the chemist Priestley and the pottery maker Josiah Wedgewood.

In Britain the enlightenment was intended to mark man’s progress away from medieval superstition and ignorance, to break the power and influence of the churches. Liberty, equality and fraternity were the by words of enlightened thought and were used as the slogans of Revolutionary France, even if they seem contradicted by Napoleon’s imperial wars. The French Revolution did spread revolutionary and enlightenment ideas, although the impact in Britain was slight except for the call for Parliamentary reform. Britain was not economically affected by the abolition of the serfdom that followed in the wake of enlightenment, its serfs had gained their freedom long before. Politically there were calls for reforms after the loss of the American colonies. Britain soon recovered economically and militarily from that loss but the huge cost of helping the Americans drove the French government to bankruptcy.

Academically, the English did not produce anybody of the same caliber or influence as Bacon, Locke, Hobbes or Newton had been in the seventeenth century. This was probably due to the poor state of universities in England. On the other hand the Scots produced a handful of notable academics, besides the renowned Adam Smith and David Hume. For instance there was the moralist Francis Hutcheson, the sociologist Adam Ferguson and the historian William Robertson. Adam Smith is most famous for the book The Wealth of Nations which is a rational explanation of how capitalism works and advocates that free trade will increase the wealth of all nations. Smith can be regarded as the founder of economic studies. David Hume was an athiest philospher and historian, who could not become a professor in Scotland due to his atheism. His most influential work was A Treatise of Human Nature that carried on the empiricist work of Locke. He expounded his atheism in the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion that was published after his death.

History is an upward trend of progress not on a plateau of stagnation or of decline. Reason when fully applied could lead to a perfect society and perfect individuals. Liberalism in its classical bourgeois guise was shaped by the enlightenment, although it was a reflection of the capitalist trading system that gave Britain her wealth. Liberalism owed more to Hobbes than Voltaire or Rousseau for its emphasis on individualism and rationalism. Liberalism was more daring economically that politically: capitalism was much stronger than any bourgeois state that could be threatened by the absolutist monarchists or the proletarians such as the Paris mob.