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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 1, The Character of the Enlightenment.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What area of science included astronomy, optics, statics, hydraulics, gnomonics, geography, horology, navigation, surveying, and fortification?
(a) Botany.
(b) Mixed mathematics.
(c) Geology.
(d) Meteorology.

2. According to Chapter 1, ________, in 1747, attributed the cause of a "great revolution in physics" to Newton's "Principia."
(a) Malebranche.
(b) Maupertuis.
(c) Descartes.
(d) Alexis-Claude Clairaut.

3. Who coined the expression "Scientific Revolution," according to the narrator in Chapter 1?
(a) Malebranche.
(b) Newton.
(c) Descartes.
(d) Jean Lerond d'Alembert.

4. In the hands of ________, history led not to an understanding of God's will but rather to an understanding of human nature.
(a) Boyle.
(b) Kant.
(c) D'Alembert.
(d) David Hume.

5. According to Chapter 1, who made Newton into a supreme rationalist whose laws of motion were a priori deductions of pure thought?
(a) Maupertuis.
(b) Roberts.
(c) Fontenelle.
(d) Marquis de l'Hopital.

Short Answer Questions

1. In Chapter 1, who claimed that his "principle of least action" proved the existence of God?

2. According to the narrator in Chapter 1, what was the key to a correct method whose model was mathematics?

3. The eighteenth century was called by the French the ________ because of its emphasis on reason as a path to knowledge.

4. Chapter 1 states that the "geometric spirit" noted by ________ ensured that the same progress would occur in our knowledge about nature.

5. In the preface to his "Histoire" of the Paris Academy of Science, who argued in 1699 that the new "geometric spirit" could also improve works on politics, morals, literary criticism, and even public speaking?

(see the answer key)

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