Deck 18: The Promise of Enlightenment, 1750-1789

Question 1

Who was Madame Marie-Thérèse Geoffrin, and why was she so important to the spread of the French Enlightenment?

Answer 1

Answer would ideally include the following. Madame Geoffrin was a wealthy middle-class French widow who corresponded with many of Europe's leading rulers and intellectuals. Madame Geoffrin wanted to educate herself further and to participate directly in the movements for reform, so she began holding informal conversational gatherings at her home, to which she invited the most exciting intellectuals and artists of her time. Other women in France and across Europe also hosted such gatherings, which came to be called salons after the rooms in which they were held. This development was vital to the Enlightenment because ideas that might face censorship if they were published could be discussed and spread among the intellectual elite at the salons. Madame Geoffrin herself directly helped to spread Enlightenment ideas through her extensive correspondence.

Question 2

How do the visions of Adam Smith and Jean-Jacques Rousseau on the proper relationship between individual self-interest and social good differ?

Answer 2

Answer would ideally include the following. Smith believed that individuals acting in their own interest in a free marketplace would produce maximum benefit for themselves and, by extension, the most prosperity for society as a whole. While Smith believed in economic cooperation and the value of a shared marketplace, he saw governments as best serving the public interest when they left individuals and marketplaces alone and refrained from interfering, except to protect and preserve economic freedom. Rousseau attacked private property and suggested that individual self-interest was less useful than a social contract among citizens, freely arrived at, that would lead to a government that operated in relation to the "general will," the best means of effectively promoting equality and freedom for all.

Question 3

How did some people of this era demonstrate their rejection of the Enlightenment's contention that reason alone ought to govern social systems and individual action?

Answer 3

Answer would ideally include the following. The artistic movement of romanticism was rooted in a critique of reason's ability to explain many significant aspects of life. Nature and human emotion were powerful themes in romanticism, as exemplified by the work of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Religious revivals such as Hasidism and the Great Awakening also underlined the limits of reason. These revivals flourished on both sides of the Atlantic.

Question 4

Why did social conservatives and the Catholic church view Freemasonry as a threat to the social order?

Question 5

In the eighteenth century, a time when European economies were expanding dramatically, why were so many people living on the edge of dire poverty?

Question 6

What were the major changes in sexual behavior during this period, and what were the various reactions to those changes?

Question 7

How and why did the Seven Years' War become a global conflict?

Question 8

Who were the physiocrats, what were their proposed reforms, and why was Louis XVI unable to implement these reforms?

Question 9

Explain how the concept of "Wilkes and Liberty" shaped popular discontent in Britain and the American colonies.

Question 10

Why was the Constitution of the United States of America unique at the time it was approved, and how does it reflect Enlightenment ideals-but only in a limited way?

Question 11

Discuss the philosophes' focus on the individual as the vital component of progress and social reform. Using examples drawn from specific Enlightenment authors, explain how this influenced their approach to religion, economics, and education. Are there tensions between the Enlightenment's focus on the individual and its aspirations toward social/cultural change?

Question 12

What brought about the romanticism and Methodism movements in the eighteenth century? Define each of these movements as well as their foundational values.

Question 13

Although expanding commercialism and laissez-faire capitalism increased wealth in eighteenth-century Europe, the traditional noble landowners on the continent were often hurt rather than helped by these developments. Why were the nobles unable to increase their incomes during a period of economic expansion? What did they do in an effort to alleviate their problems, and how did some monarchs attempt to assist them? How did the spread of the Enlightenment affect the European nobility?

Question 14

What was "enlightened" about the reforms put into place by the so-called enlightened absolutists (or enlightened despots) of the eighteenth century? How did they draw on Enlightenment ideals in their conception of rule and governance? What principles remained "absolutist" under their reign?

Question 15

Some historians have argued that a crisis of rising expectations caused some of the riots and rebellions of the late eighteenth century. Because governments raised expectations through talk of reform, the public turned to direct action when they did not see conditions improve as much as they had expected. To what extent does this model accurately sum up each of two direct actions: the so-called Flour War in France in 1775 and the Pugachev rebellion in Russia in 1773? Make sure you consider the extent to which reforms were discussed and implemented in each case. Also consider the effect on the rebels of changes made by the French or Russian governments that were not in keeping with Enlightenment ideals.

Question 16

What did the writers of the Enlightenment call themselves?

A) Sapere audes
B) Philosophes
C) Bibliophiles
D) Intellectuals

Question 17

What was the opinion of Enlightenment writers on the role of religion in society?

A) They believed that religion was the key to social and political reform and within its teachings could be found the tenets of reason.
B) They disdained the practices of hierarchical churches such as the Roman Catholic church and the Church of England but supported the tenets of Protestantism.
C) They did not necessarily oppose organized religion, but they strenuously objected to religious intolerance.
D) They disdained all forms of religion and religious belief, arguing that religiosity caused superstition, bigotry, and mass stupidity.

Question 18

How did the Encyclopedia contribute to Enlightenment goals of social reform?

A) It promoted the spread of knowledge that could be used to make informed decisions about social problems.
B) The proceeds from its sales funded charitable schools set up jointly by Diderot and Voltaire.
C) It provided systematic plans for social reform that could be used by anyone who was able to read.
D) It proved that a state-run system of education could turn out scholars capable of contributing to sophisticated intellectual projects like the Encyclopedia.

Question 19

In 1784, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant used which of the following phrases to represent what he felt the Enlightenment stood for?

A) Sapere aude ("Dare to know")
B) Écrasez l'infâme ("Crush the infamous thing")
C) Ratio est radius divini luminis ("Reason is a ray of divine light")
D) Libertas in legibus ("Liberty in the laws")

Question 20

What role did eighteenth-century Parisian salons play in the spread of Enlightenment ideas?

A) They allowed university professors to connect with the masses and share their philosophies and ideas for reform.
B) They encouraged church leaders to become involved in the movement by introducing them to philosophers and members of the aristocracy.
C) They forced men to accept women in positions of power and intellectual life and spurred a lively feminist movement.
D) They gave intellectual life an anchor outside the royal court and church-controlled universities by providing a forum for philosophes to discuss ideas.

Question 21

In his 1755 book The Natural History of Religion, the Scottish philosopher David Hume made what argument about religion?

A) That there was a god who was caring and concerned with humanity
B) That religion was useful for promoting science
C) That belief in God was rooted in fear and superstition
D) That churches needed to recognize the importance of more emotional forms of worship

Question 22

Which of the following refers to eighteenth-century believers who believed in God but gave him no active role in earthly affairs?

A) Pietists
B) Jansenists
C) Atheists
D) Deists

Question 23

What main critique of organized Christianity did Voltaire include in his influential Philosophical Dictionary (1764)?

A) That Christianity had been the prime source of fanaticism and brutality among humans
B) That Protestants and Catholics were intolerant toward Jews and Black people
C) That leaders of Protestant and Catholic churches had too much influence over European governments
D) That priests and pastors had too much influence over women and were inhibiting the spread of Enlightenment ideas

Question 24

What new texts did abolitionists use in their petitions and campaigns to end the slave trade and slavery in the New World?

A) Biblical criticism that traced the end of Old Testament slavery
B) Enlightenment travel narratives that highlighted the value of foreign cultures
C) Firsthand accounts of slavery written by freed slaves
D) Philosophical treatises on the value of laissez-faire economics

Question 25

Why do many historians and philosophers consider the Enlightenment to be the origin of modernity?

A) It represented the first time that philosophy and natural sciences were taken seriously as pursuits of true intellectual value.
B) It was the first time that governments began to take the work of humanistic scholars seriously and apply philosophy to social and political reform.
C) It demonstrated that political and religious leaders could not ignore or simply repress the intellectual and social movements around them.
D) It advanced the secularization of European society and the idea that human reason, rather than theological doctrine, should govern social and political life.

Question 26

The Scottish philosopher Adam Smith (1723-1790) made what contention about individual self-interest?

A) That it contributed ultimately to the general welfare of society
B) That it had to be kept in check by the strong arm of a powerful, centralized government
C) That it served as the source of all earthly woes, which only true Christian piety, as defined by the church, could alleviate
D) That it could be transformed into compassion and concern for the general welfare through the exercise of human reason

Question 27

Adam Smith's concept of laissez-faire economics argued that

A) in order to maximize the effect of market forces and the division of labor, the economy should be free of government intervention and control.
B) since humans are naturally self-interested and greedy, the government must regulate the economy to counteract this self-interest.
C) the general welfare of society was best served if governments closely controlled international trade and currency markets.
D) the best way to increase a nation's wealth was through direct investment in manufacturing and heavy industry.

Question 28

How did Jean-Jacques Rousseau first become well-known?

A) He wrote a prize-winning essay about the corruption of public morality.
B) He prevailed in a public debate against Voltaire.
C) He wrote The Philosophical Dictionary.
D) He was arrested by the state for criticizing the king.

Question 29

Why did Jean-Jacques Rousseau's theory of "the social contract" pose a direct threat to the perceived legitimacy of eighteenth-century governments?

A) It flatly rejected all governments based on divine right.
B) It presented a system in which the ruler was chosen on the basis of merit rather than tradition or lineage.
C) It offered a form of social-scientific analysis that governments found unnerving.
D) It implied that people would be most free and moral in republican or democratic societies.

Question 30

Why did the Enlightenment flourish in France?

A) Paris was a geographically convenient point on the continent for European intellectuals to gather.
B) French was a common language for aristocrats, artists, scientists, and intellectuals in eighteenth-century Europe, so France became the epicenter of the movement.
C) The political atmosphere in France was ripe, as the French monarchy alternated between encouraging ideas for reform and harshly censuring criticisms.
D) France was a more secular country than most others in Europe, so French society was more tolerant of Enlightenment ideas.

Question 31

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), the most influential German thinker of the Enlightenment, established the doctrine of idealism, which was based on

A) instinct, an attribute with which, Kant argued, all human beings were endowed.
B) divine revelation, because reason could not provide answers to the ultimate questions of existence.
C) ideas of sensations and a theory of mental processes later referred to as associationism.
D) the belief that true understanding can only come from examining the ways in which ideas are formed in the mind.

Question 32

What new artistic movement developed in the eighteenth century in reaction to what some saw as the Enlightenment's excessive reliance on the authority of human reason?

A) Neorealism
B) Romanticism
C) Rococo
D) Impressionism

Question 33

The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), by the German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), is considered to be a reaction against the Enlightenment because its hero

A) criticizes Rousseau's ideas about individual rights and democracy.
B) marries the Catholic Thérèse instead of the deist Jeanne.
C) is driven insane by his obsessive quest for knowledge.
D) indulges in intense love, intense melancholy, and suicide.

Question 34

Oxford-educated John Wesley (1703-1791) was the founder of which of the following reform movements?

A) Methodism
B) Pietism
C) Congregationalism
D) Idealism

Question 35

The common link among Princeton University, the Hasidim, and John Wesley is that they all

A) played an important role in shaping Thomas Jefferson's political thinking.
B) were persecuted by their respective governments for unorthodox thinking.
C) flourished because of religious revivalism in the eighteenth century.
D) shared a bequest from the great Quaker philanthropist William Penn.

Question 36

One way in which nobles and the landed gentry in Britain protected their social status and reasserted their privilege in the face of financial and political challenges was that

A) they required peasants to pay dues on their land and to pay for the use of certain services such as the mill or the winepress.
B) they forced their tenants to work a certain number of days on their land without pay.
C) they defended their exclusive right to hunt game and severely punished poachers, who could even be sentenced to death.
D) they passed laws exempting themselves from paying taxes or participating in civil or military service.

Question 37

Why was the nobility of western Europe more open to the new ideas of the Enlightenment than the nobility of eastern and southern Europe?

A) Western European nobles had sometimes married into middle-class families and formed with them a new elite, united by common interests in reform and new cultural tastes.
B) Nobles in western Europe tended to be wealthier and had more free time to indulge in intellectual and artistic pursuits than did their counterparts in eastern and southern Europe.
C) The nobles of western Europe were almost entirely Protestant, which made them more open to the ideas of the Enlightenment.
D) Governments in western Europe gave more support to the Enlightenment, which in turn encouraged the nobility to participate.

Question 38

In the eighteenth century, the ranks of what social class grew steadily in western Europe as the result of economic expansion?

A) The peasants
B) The working class
C) The middle class
D) The aristocracy

Question 39

The artistic and architectural style known as neoclassicism gained popularity in the eighteenth century thanks to what cultural phenomenon?

A) The reemergence of the toga as a fashionable clothing style
B) A new emphasis in universities on the importance of classical education
C) A restaging of the works of Homer at theaters in Paris, London, and Amsterdam
D) The rise of "grand tours," in which upper-class youths traveled to Greek and Roman ruins

Question 40

How were the spread of Enlightenment ideals and the emergence of a more prosperous middle class in Europe reflected in music?

A) In the founding of music academies and scholarships, which for the first time enabled the young sons of the middle classes to pursue musical careers
B) In the transition from commissioned works to larger professional orchestras playing more popular older music in concert halls
C) In the establishment of open-air concerts for paying audiences, which freed musicians from financial concerns and thus from dependency on royal patronage
D) In a rejection of the baroque and all older styles of musical composition in favor of continuous innovation and experimentation

Question 41

In the late eighteenth century, European women greatly benefited from the expanding interest in

A) reading and books.
B) physical exercise.
C) child-care practices.
D) marriage law.

Question 42

How did local governments respond to the growing numbers of urban poor in the eighteenth century?

A) They attempted to round up beggars and the unemployed and send them to rural areas to work on farms and other agricultural projects.
B) They relied almost entirely on religious charities and hospitals to house and feed the growing urban poor.
C) They created institutions called beggar houses or workhouses that were part workshop, part hospital, and part prison.
D) They locked all beggars, vagrants, and loiterers in prison in the belief that they were criminals and had no place in open society.

Question 43

While the spread of salons, concerts, and exhibitions took place among the middle and upper classes, what forms of entertainment demonstrated the persistence of traditional forms of popular culture among the lower classes?

A) Peasants continued to enjoy fairs and festivals, while the urban lower classes went to taverns and cabarets and attended forms of entertainment that included organized gambling.
B) In both the countryside and the cities, lower-class entertainment revolved primarily around religious festivals and holidays.
C) Since the majority of the lower classes were now literate, social gatherings featured recitations of popular poetry and bawdy theater.
D) The rural and urban working classes continued to engage in sporting activities such as cricket and polo, which were perceived as violent and crass by the upper classes.

Question 44

Over the course of the eighteenth century, what was the trend in the number of out-of-wedlock births?

A) They slowly declined as the working classes became better educated.
B) They increased slowly, because living conditions for the urban poor kept birthrates low.
C) They doubled, as sexual mores began to shift in European society.
D) They quadrupled, as more women began to move to cities and out of the control of their families.

Question 45

What label have historians given to eighteenth-century rulers who aimed to promote Enlightenment reforms without giving up their absolutist powers?

A) Absolutist monarchs
B) Enlightened despots
C) Benevolent dictators
D) Philosopher-kings

Question 46

Which of the following statements regarding the Seven Years' War is supported by this map?
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A) Russia allied with Prussia and Portugal during the war.
B) The British lost a considerable amount of territory following the war.
C) France and Great Britain were on the same side during the war.
D) Most of the fighting happened in Prussia, Austria, and Hungary.

Question 47

By 1763, which nation controlled territory in the eastern region of North America?
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A) France
B) Great Britain
C) Spain
D) Portugal

Question 48

Which event dramatically changed the outcome of the Seven Years' War?

A) George II's death in 1760, which left Hanover vulnerable to attack by Prussia and brought Great Britain into the war
B) The Turks' unexpected entry into the war on the side of Prussia, through which they hoped to regain territory lost to their joint enemy, Austria
C) The death of Empress Elizabeth of Russia, after which her successor immediately reversed her anti-Prussian policy, allowing Frederick the Great to escape a crushing defeat
D) The great Lisbon earthquake of 1755, which so devastated the French and Spanish economies that those countries were unable to fully pursue the war

Question 49

In the Treaty of Paris of 1763, France officially acknowledged its defeat overseas, ceding which of its territories to Great Britain?

A) Its West Indian islands
B) Canada
C) Its territory in North Africa, including modern-day Algeria
D) Eastern Louisiana

Question 50

The militarization of Prussian society in the late eighteenth century led to which of the following effects?

A) It kept the peasants enserfed to their lords and blocked the middle classes from access to estates or high government positions.
B) It endowed the peasants and the middle classes with greater social mobility, as they could rise through the ranks of the military, something they could not do in normal society.
C) Many fewer children were born in these decades, as Prussian men stayed away from home on campaign for years on end.
D) It inadvertently led to the growth of local militias and grassroots movements that organized against the authority of Prussian leader Frederick II.

Question 51

In 1772, the territory of Poland-Lithuania was divided among Prussia, Russia, and which other European nation?

A) France
B) Britain
C) The Ottoman Empire
D) Austria

Question 52

Which nation expanded their position along the Baltic Sea as a result of the First Partition of Poland in 1772?
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A) Austria
B) Hungary
C) Prussia
D) Russia

Question 53

In order to make tax increases more palatable, how did the "enlightened absolutists" of Europe actively modernize government?

A) By increasing the equitability of taxes
B) By enacting administrative and legal reforms
C) By reforming their political systems to be accessible to more citizens
D) By expanding access to education and religious toleration

Question 54

Which enlightened absolutist, whose reforms and accomplishments included the abolition of torture and the support of religious toleration, boasted, "I am the first servant of the state"?

A) Frederick the Great of Prussia
B) Joseph II of Austria
C) Catherine the Great of Russia
D) Louis XVI of France

Question 55

Monarchs in many Catholic states used the spread of Enlightenment thought to

A) increase their control over the church by suppressing the influential Jesuit order.
B) reject religious toleration on the grounds that it would lead to the spread of Protestantism.
C) strengthen their own power by rejecting all "atheistic" reform.
D) form closer diplomatic alliances with the pope in order to limit the influence of reform.

Question 56

Although most intellectuals of the Enlightenment publicly embraced the doctrine of religious toleration, many of them were still intolerant of which group?

A) Atheists
B) Jews
C) Muslims
D) Calvinists

Question 57

Who among the following leaders was the only enlightened ruler to end the personal aspects of serfdom?

A) Catherine the Great of Russia
B) Joseph II of Austria
C) Frederick the Great of Prussia
D) George III of England

Question 58

Some of the more influential economic reforms of the eighteenth century were suggested by a group of economists in France called the physiocrats. What reforms did they support?

A) They pushed for full government regulation of all aspects of the economy, especially agricultural production and international trade.
B) They believed the government should subsidize agricultural production in times of famine and provide a social welfare system for the urban poor.
C) They argued in favor of the complete abolition of taxation on commercial enterprises and trade, with the tax burden falling on peasants and the middle class.
D) They urged the government to deregulate the grain trade, make the tax system more equitable, and abolish urban guilds that prevented free entry into the trades.

Question 59

Although eighteenth-century food riots were a direct response to the lack of available food, they were also a reaction to

A) the frustrations of the lower classes with their inability to change career paths or gain better access to education.
B) the lower classes' lack of access to the political system and their desire for government regulation of the price of grain.
C) government-mandated military service for lower-class men for years on end, which left their families without economic resources.
D) new agricultural and land-development policies such as the enclosure acts, which kicked peasants off their land and forced many into a homeless, itinerant existence.

Question 60

What was Empress Catherine II's response to the Pugachev rebellion, a massive uprising by the long-oppressed serfs of Russia in 1773?

A) She increased the nobles' power over their serfs and harshly punished anyone who criticized serfdom.
B) She promulgated laws easing the legal restrictions that had prevented serfs from leaving family plots, earning independent livelihoods, and marrying without their feudal lords' permission.
C) She declared war on Prussia as a way of diverting attention away from social problems at home.
D) She repealed the tax increases of the midcentury and shifted some of the tax burden to the heretofore tax-exempt nobility.

Question 61

How did the rise of public opinion as a force independent of court society influence European politics in the eighteenth century?

A) It pushed European leaders to solicit advice from the general public on a wide range of issues, from economics to social policy.
B) It led directly to a separation of church and state, as more people spoke out against religious influence in politics.
C) It forced leaders, including monarchs, to engage with their citizens and take reform and opposition to reform seriously.
D) It caused European leaders, especially those in France and Britain, to begin censoring newspapers and printed materials that spoke out against the government.

Question 62

The Gordon riots that devastated much of London in 1780 demonstrated the fact that

A) class issues still played a large role in ordinary people's lives.
B) eighteenth-century governments, though aspiring to modern state management, were still far from their espoused goals.
C) Enlightenment ideas such as individual rights and equality before the law had finally taken hold of and emboldened working-class men and women.
D) popular demonstrations did not always support reform or religious toleration.

Question 63

Why did the Seven Years' War have such a significant impact on American-British relations?

A) The colonists resented the British government's decision to begin treating the native Americans as full citizens and decided to revolt against the British.
B) The Americans had sided with the French during the war, and they resisted resuming their allegiance to Britain in the 1760s.
C) The war dramatically expanded the borders of British America, and American colonists became angry when the British encouraged them to leave the East Coast to become settlers in the wilderness of the Ohio River valley.
D) The costs incurred by the British during the war raised taxes in the colonies, which the colonists first resisted by protest and then by outright rebellion.

Question 64

Which of the following territories was under Spanish control by about 1780?
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A) The United States
B) Canada
C) Louisiana
D) Egypt

Question 65

As a result of the Seven Years' War, territory in the Americas changed hands. Which of the following statements describes these changes?
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A) France acquired the Louisiana territory, New Spain, and the West Indies as a result of winning the war.
B) Louisiana was ceded to the United States by Spain due to the defeat of the Spanish by American troops during the war.
C) Most of the Ottoman Empire was overtaken by Russia, whereas the Empire had been independent before.
D) Canada is indicated as being a British possession, whereas it was a French possession before the war.