Introduction: 1700–1799
The Age of Enlightenment Carries the Scientific Revolution Forward
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the way educated people viewed the natural world and their relationship to it underwent a radical transformation. Known as the Scientific Revolution, this change was based on the work of such scientists and philosophers as Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle, Nicolas Copernicus, René Descartes, Galileo Galilei, William Harvey, Johannes Kepler, Gottfried Leibniz, and John Locke. It reached its crowning achievement with the publication of Isaac Newton's laws of motion in 1687.
As a result of the Scientific Revolution, by the beginning of the eighteenth century people had great confidence in the ability of reason to explain the natural world. They believed that scientific methods (such as those that had led to Newton's achievements in physics) could give rational explanations for all phenomena. Not only were Newton, Leibniz, and Locke still alive as the new century began, but Newton and Leibniz subsequently published major new works. They were joined by others who shared their faith in rational explanations, and who were attracted by the continuing success of this new empirical approach. Devoting themselves systematically to problems in science and technology, they critiqued, applied, and expanded this new way of thinking about the world and humanity's place in it.
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