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Newton’s Synthesis
Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was extremely smart, religious and was well known as being
an alchemist, which is an early medieval scientist who thought that they could change
lead into gold and silver.
He came up with so many genius ideas but failed to prove them.
In 1687 he came up with his most famous book, published in Latin, called Principia. In
his book, he used the astronomy of Copernicus, as corrected by Kepler’s laws, with the
physics of Galileo and his predecessors to basically come up with one system to explain
the entire universe and the science of the entire universe.
He did this by using a set of mathematical laws, which explained the laws of gravity.
The key synthesis was the law of universal gravitation.
According to this law, everything in the universe attracts every other thing in the universe
Newton basically took all the pieces of information that other people (Copernicus,
Galileo, and Kepler) couldn’t put together and created something that was absolutely
revolutionary to the era of the sixteenth century.
The Enlightenment
The Enlightenment came right after the scientific revolution and was caused mainly by
the scientific revolution.
It was the intellectual and cultural movement that tied together certain key ideas and was
the link between the scientific revolution and a new worldview; these ideas were:
Natural science and reason can explain all aspects of life.
The scientific method can explain the laws of human society as well as those of nature.
Progress – the theory of moving forward and the possibility that humans can create
better societies and better people.
Absolutism in France
The effect that the Enlightenment had on France was not as big as the other countries,
even though they had all the Philosophes in their country.
When Louis XIV (1638-1715) died in 1715, the absolute rule was challenged when
Louis XV (1710-1774) came to power.
Louis XV, the great grandson of Louis XIV, came to power when he was 5 years old. This
resulted in the nobles getting a lot of power from the Duke of Orleans (1674-1723), who
was their leader and governed as a regent until 1723.
Most importantly, in 1715 the duke restored power in the Parliaments who now had the
power to evaluate the king’s decisions.
The War of Austrian Succession (1740-1748) caused France to go into a financial crisis.
Louis XV appointed a finance minister who decreed that there would be a 5% income tax
on all individuals regardless of social status. The nobles were infuriated since they were
never taxed and now they were.
The Parliament of Paris decided to protest and eventually succeeded in causing the
monarchy to drop the new taxes.
The Seven Years’ War cause more financial problems. France kept on getting involved
in wars that they were not able to pay for; therefore they taxed people again. But
Parliament protested again and said that you don’t have the right to tax us if we don’t
give you permission. Once again, the government caved in and withdrew the taxes in
1764. It then asserted that the king could not levy taxes without the permission of the
people.
In 1768 Louis XV appointed Rene de Maupeou (1714-1792) as his chancellor and
ordered him to crush all oppositions.
He abolished a lot of the Parliaments in France and taxed all the nobles. People were
infuriated and called him the “royal despot”.
When Louis XV died in 1774, Louis XVI (1754-1793) took over with some really good
intentions. He dismissed Maupeou, reinstated the parliament, which resulted in a more
serious financial crisis and political upheaval.