Deck 17: The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment,1550-1790

Question 1

What was revolutionary about Copernicus's theory in On the Revolution of the Heavenly Bodies?

A) He argued that there were other planets outside our solar system.
B) He argued that it was possible there was life on other planets.
C) He argued that the Earth was part of a larger system orbiting the sun.
D) He argued that gravity held all the planets in line with the sun.
E) He argued that God had not created the universe but that it just existed.

Answer 1

He argued that the Earth was part of a larger system orbiting the sun.

Question 2

What was alchemy?

A) The belief that powers of nature could be revealed through observation of and experimentation with chemicals
B) A belief that chemistry could transform natural materials
C) A scientific process of application of chemicals to determine the physical universe
D) A science to discover the physical properties of liquids
E) The belief that all material properties were held together with chemical bonds

Answer 2

The belief that powers of nature could be revealed through observation of and experimentation with chemicals

Question 3

All of the following ideas are associated with John Locke except

A) the chief purpose of government was to protect private property rights.
B) people are born without innate ideas.
C) absolutism is the best form of government.
D) human understanding comes through our experiences.
E) the concept of a social contract.

Answer 3

absolutism is the best form of government.

Question 4

René Descartes is famous for

A) bridging the Scientific Revolution and philosophy.
B) presenting a theory of gravity.
C) observing that orbits in planetary motion are elliptical rather than circular.
D) measuring the spectrum of visible light.
E) publishing Essays on Human Understanding.

Question 5

Blaise Pascal tried to reconcile religion and science by arguing that

A) innate ideas allowed humans to conceive of God.
B) the laws of motion implied that something or someone had to initiate motion to start with; hence, God existed.
C) the heart drew on intuition as the mind drew on logic, but the heart provided a deeper view.
D) deism would not explain miracles; hence, science and religion had to be compatible.
E) God gave humans the knowledge and reason to analyze the workings of the universe, but not the ability to create one.

Question 6

Who were the participants in the scientific societies such as the Royal Society?

A) Men
B) People of financial means
C) University-educated students of science
D) People who believed they were a new class to interpret the natural world
E) All of these

Question 7

John Locke argued that

A) government was a contract between the state and its people.
B) people were required to submit to authority rather than look after their own interests.
C) people were inherently evil and required a strong government to keep them in line.
D) science diverted people's attention from solving social issues.
E) none of these are true.

Question 8

Which philosopher endorsed the idea of political absolutism?

A) Thomas Hobbes
B) John Locke
C) Blaise Pascal
D) René Descartes
E) Immanuel Kant

Question 9

Sir Francis Bacon is notable for

A) being lord chancellor under James I.
B) being a proponent of the inductive method.
C) contributing to Newton's scientific method.
D) believing that authority of knowledge came from the world itself, not the ancient scientific writings.
E) all of these.

Question 10

Johannes Kepler is credited with which discovery?

A) He discovered that bodies orbited the sun in an elliptical motion.
B) He discovered that there was no such thing as retrograde motion in planetary orbits.
C) He invented the telescope.
D) He discovered a new star and he proved that the universe was constantly changing.
E) He discovered that the earth was smaller than Jupiter.

Question 11

The blending of religion and science in terms of explaining the creation of the universe was found in the belief of

A) scholasticism
B) argument from design
C) materialism
D) pragmatic creation
E) naturalism

Question 12

Descartes believed all of the following except

A) skepticism was the origin of rational inquiry.
B) inductive reasoning was the best approach to analysis.
C) introspection could provide sufficient authority for knowledge.
D) that the universe was made up of particles.
E) the adage, "I think, therefore I am."

Question 13

Much of the new work done during the Scientific Revolution was by

A) astronomers.
B) mathematicians.
C) philosophers.
D) physiologists.
E) physicists.

Question 14

René Descartes used a deductive method,which was based on ____.

A) self-awareness.
B) geometry
C) calculus
D) elementary physics.
E) logical analysis.

Question 15

The idea that human history was the story of intellectual progress was espoused by

A) New Scientists.
B) deists.
C) moderns.
D) freemasons.
E) the Royal Society.

Question 16

At the start of the Scientific Revolution,the predominant astronomic theories were derived from which Greek thinker?

A) Aristotle.
B) Plato
C) Galen.
D) Ptolemy
E) Euclid

Question 17

Copernicus's theories were expanded on by all of the following except

A) Tycho Brahe.
B) Johannes Kepler.
C) Galileo Galilei.
D) Isaac Newton.
E) Immanual Kant.

Question 18

The scientist who conducted his own dissection of corpses during anatomy lectures was

A) Andreas Vesalius.
B) Galen.
C) William Harvey.
D) Ptolemy.
E) Leonardo Da Vinci.

Question 19

The scientist given credit for a complete theory of the universe was

A) René Descartes.
B) Ptolemy.
C) Galileo.
D) Isaac Newton.
E) Sir Francis Bacon.

Question 20

Which of the following scientific discoveries is not attributed to Galileo?

A) that the sun had spots
B) invention of the telescope
C) that matter is continually in motion
D) that the sun is fixed in the universe and the earth rotates on an axis
E) All of these were attributed to Galileo.

Question 21

One of Voltaire's greatest supporters was

A) Cosimo II de' Medici.
B) Alexander Pope.
C) Catherine II.
D) King Louis XVI of France.
E) King George III of England.

Question 22

The new venues for disseminating science and enlightenment works included all of the following except

A) salons.
B) coffeehouses.
C) novels.
D) Masonic lodges.
E) guilds.

Question 23

Whose motto was "Dare to know"?

A) Kant
B) Rousseau
C) Descartes
D) Voltaire
E) Diderot

Question 24

Deism embraced which philosophy?

A) Christianity
B) Christian humanism.
C) atheism
D) naturalism
E) agnosticism.

Question 25

In his pivotal work The Social Contract,Rousseau posed what political argument?

A) Absolutism was justified in certain conditions.
B) The best system of government was a constitutional monarchy.
C) Democracy was the best form of government because it relied on the general will.
D) Each society had different needs determined by their individual and economic history.
E) The oppressed worker would soon rise up and overthrow his feudal overlords.

Question 26

The policy of enriching a nation's wealth through direct management of people and resources was known as

A) mercantilism
B) capitalism
C) enlightened despotism
D) cameralism
E) chartism

Question 27

The underlying debate in the Calas affair was

A) how much power a government should have.
B) how corrupt religion was in France.
C) whether it was appropriate for torture to be used in legal proceedings.
D) whether people should have the right to switch religions.
E) the necessity of the government to remain separate from religious concerns in the area of legal justice.

Question 28

Which of the following philosophers was not a deist?

A) Benjamin Franklin
B) René Descartes
C) Voltaire
D) Thomas Jefferson
E) Jean Jacques Rousseau

Question 29

With the change in reading habits of the eighteenth century,all of the following were newly popular forms of reading except

A) novels.
B) newspapers
C) political tracts.
D) scientific papers.
E) religious materials.

Question 30

Which of the following is not the correct author-to-title match?

A) Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws
B) Rousseau, The Social Contract
C) Hobbes, Essays on Human Understanding
D) Voltaire, Philosophical Letters on the English
E) Locke, Two Treatises on Government

Question 31

A support for the removal of religion from science was found in the ideas of

A) deism.
B) the Scientific Method.
C) materialism
D) heliocentrism
E) pure gospel in the Reformation.

Question 32

What was the main purpose for the meeting of freemasons?

A) To discuss scientific progress and publications
B) To subvert Catholicism through intellectual debate
C) To form a network for the financial interests of guild members
D) To create a fraternity for social interaction
E) To conspire to overthrow the government

Question 33

Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws proposed that

A) people must be ruled by enlightened kings.
B) the best government for France would be a republic.
C) there is no one form of government that is universally preferable.
D) a government can serve the needs of the people only through the establishment of a mutually understood constitution.
E) a social contract cannot be understood by people without an education.

Question 34

One of the clearest signs of the rise of literacy in eighteenth-century Europe was

A) the spread of lending libraries.
B) increased circulation of newspapers.
C) growth of the printing profession.
D) women working as writers.
E) None of these indicates rising literacy rates.

Question 35

Moses Mendelssohn brought Jewish philosophy into the Enlightenment with his ideas that

A) Judaism should be stripped of miracles and supernatural references to reflect the natural world.
B) all religion was fraudulent.
C) Jews should embrace their unique beliefs as the foundation of monotheism.
D) Yiddish should be the universal vernacular language of the Hebrew people.
E) None of these.

Question 36

The person who best embodied the Enlightenment was

A) Diderot.
B) Montesquieu.
C) Newton.
D) Voltaire.
E) Rousseau.

Question 37

The places where women could participate in the reading revolution on an equal footing were

A) salons.
B) coffeehouses.
C) universities.
D) businesses.
E) royal circles.

Question 38

Jean Jacques Rousseau's religion was ultimately

A) Catholic.
B) Calvinist.
C) deist.
D) Lutheran.
E) atheist.

Question 39

The venues where men could interact socially in a more inclusive environment were

A) taverns.
B) Masonic lodges.
C) gentlemen's clubs.
D) athletic events.
E) coffeehouses.

Question 40

Which of the following fields are referenced in Diderot's Encyclopèdie?

A) Religion
B) Philosophy
C) Artisanal crafts
D) Politics
E) All of these.

Question 41

The idea of public opinion as influencing state politics was seen most in which countries?

A) England and France.
B) France and Spain.
C) The Netherlands.
D) Prussia and Russia
E) Prussia and Austria.

Question 42

The person who undermined Raynal's argument of the brutishness of indigenous peoples by example was

A) Thomas Jefferson
B) Benjamin Franklin
C) Bartolome de las Casas
D) John Winthrop
E) John Adams

Question 43

Most philosophes supported the idea that women

A) were intellectually equal to men.
B) were not prepared to be rulers.
C) should focus on motherhood.
D) were weaker in body and therefore weaker in mind.
E) should be admitted to universities.

Question 44

How did the philosophes reconcile their ideas about human equality with institutions such as slavery and the disruption of indigenous peoples?

Question 45

Under cameralism,in what way were kings were seen?

A) as divinely ordained rulers
B) as unlimited authority figures
C) as supreme political managers
D) as directors of the people's will
E) as expendable

Question 46

Why was the effect of Rousseau's Social Contract so profoundly different from that of other philosophes?

Question 47

Why is Voltaire felt to be emblematic of the Enlightenment movement?

Question 48

How did literacy change in the eighteenth century? What audiences were targeted and why?

Question 49

How did Montesquieu suggest that the ideal form of government could be achieved?

Question 50

The major debates on human similarity and difference focused on all of the following except

A) the institution of slavery.
B) the relationship between men and women.
C) the relationship between Europeans and non-Europeans.
D) the essence of human rights and whether these were universal.
E) elements of universality.

Question 51

Which philosopher argued against slavery?

A) Hobbes
B) Locke
C) Montesquieu
D) Rousseau
E) Jefferson

Question 52

What factors contributed to the new way of thinking about the universe during the Scientific Age?

Question 53

Analyze the debate over women's participation in the Enlightenment and in the intellectual community.

Question 54

How did Hobbes and Locke contradict each other with respect to their ideas of human nature? How did this extend into the political philosophy of the time?

Question 55

Why was New Science considered revolutionary and how did it constitute a new shift in intellectual thinking?

Question 56

How would you define and compare the Scientific Revolution to the Enlightenment?

Question 57

The philosopher who proposed that Americans were degenerate as an example of Eurocentrism was

A) Thomas Jefferson.
B) Abbé Raynal.
C) Thomas Cooke.
D) Thomas Hobbes.
E) Voltaire.

Question 58

Cartesian dualism argued that

A) the body and mind were inextricably linked.
B) the body was material and the mind was not.
C) an intertwined relationship existed between reason and emotion.
D) men and women were not equal by virtue of physical differences.
E) none of these were true.

Question 59

The writer of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was

A) Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun.
B) Aphra Behn.
C) Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.
D) Madame du Chatelet.
E) Mary Wollstonecraft.

Question 60

In addition to Americans,Europeans debated the civilized qualities of whom?

A) Canadians
B) the people of the South Pacific
C) Chinese
D) Africans
E) Latin Americans

Question 61

Descartes and Locke argued that,via Cartesian dualism,men and women were of equal intellectual potential.

Question 62

"Moderns" argued that human history was the story of intellectual progress.

Question 63

The coffeehouse phenomenon began in Paris.

Question 64

Abbé Raynal believed that Europeans were manifesting God's destiny in colonizing North America.

Question 65

Sir Isaac Newton embraced Baconian methodology as the standard for scientific empiricism.

Question 66

How did the evolution of the coffee house and the salon advance ideas of the Enlightenment?

Question 67

The idea of cameralism argued that Kings were not divine beings,but supreme political managers.

Question 68

In his battles against the Catholic Church,Voltaire argued vehemently for atheism.

Question 69

How were the ideas of Abbé Raynal regarding the New World inhabitants perceived and refuted?

Question 70

Denis Diderot believed that all human knowledge could be compiled and catalogued into an encyclopedia.

Question 71

Immanuel Kant argued that the enlightened mind would logically choose democracy as a political reform.

Question 72

Most of the early scientists in the Scientific Revolution refused any royal patronage for fear of losing their autonomy in discoveries.