‘Witches and Warlocks’ Age of Reason and Rise of Scientific thought
Introduction
With respect to the “Witches and Warlocks” Age of Reason and Rise of Scientific Thought, the history of the western community examines the lives of not only the historical figures but also that of the ordinary people (Viault, 1990). This is to say that through the analysis of the cultural and traditional political development, there is the provision of deep insight of the western community in balanced as well as well-rounded views of its history as a whole.
Basically, the 15th century had produced diverse intellectual milestones in the history of the western society. This comprises of things like renaissance, scientific or industrial revolution, political and social revolutions and other reformations. As the time went by, the western society transformed their mind set from issues relating to witchcraft, religious folklore, and sorcery to that which dealt with logic, reason, evidence, as well as empirical science. In connection to that there were a lot of forces or factors which led to all these transitions as discussed below;
To begin with, according to McKay et al, (2006) the renaissance was one of the forces was had a great contribution to this trend. This used to be a distinct period in which emphasis on man’s ability, secularism, as well as socioeconomic changes flourished extensively through diverse religious sentiments which maintained a presence. As the Europe continued to recover from the Black Death as well as other calamities which had befell the 24th century, interest in the Graeco-Roman (Classical) world also increased considerably. Before spreading to the entire of Europe, the origin of renaissance was Italy.
The significance of renaissance is that it came as the continuation of the societal mechanisms of the middle ages. Regardless of that, it can be differentiated by divergent beliefs of human capabilities, potential and through a series of intellectual and artistic accomplishments which were achieved in this period. Additionally, social philosophy started evolving during this period.
With the introduction of agriculture, at least 80% of the western European counties started to obtain their livelihood from agriculture. Despite that, it should be noted that in the late 1700, the kid of agricultural activities which was practiced in Europe was much more ancient as well as mediaeval. This is because the yield that used to be obtained was inadequate to feed the growing population. Whenever a crisis befell the people or when flood or drought ruined the crops, people were forced to use substitutes (the famine foods). As a means of escaping starvation, people were forced to stripe barks of some edible trees in the forest, gathering chestnuts, as well as cutting dandelion and grass. Because of this unbalanced and inadequate supply of food during the years of famine, people become much weak as well as susceptible to ailments for instance intestinal problems, smallpox, dysentery, and influenza (McKay et al, 2006).
Contrary to that, harvest remained to be real king in the preindustrial Europe because of open-field system. Thus this system which was developed by the European peasant was with time perceived as the greatest accomplishment of the middle age agriculture. The reason for this is because in the early middle age alternating crop and idle was the only method which was used allow the land to regain its fertility. In connection to that, during the period of nobility and absolutism, state as well as landlords started and continued to tax the peasants heavily as well as charging high rents. This stripped them much of their meager returns.
In addition to that, this is to say that through agricultural revolution, the peasants had the possibility of improving their position through acquiring tracks of land from those who were ready to the sell them. The peasants also replaced their idle fallow with various crops which had the ability of increasing the acreage of land under cultivation by at least 50%. This is to imply that newer patterns of organization enabled a large percentage of the peasants to increasingly develop sophisticated patterns of crop rotations so as to suit the growth of variety of crops in different kinds of soils (McKay et al, 2006).
Nonetheless, the significant role that agriculture played in the 18th century was basically the enhancement of industrial revolution. Earlier in the late 1700, the Dutch were the ones known as being specialized in this field but with time the English farmers too started adopting new farming methods. The expansion of the Atlantic economy during the 18th century served mercantilist England efficiently and in return the colonial empire, assisted by strong opposition which was witnessed in America and Latin America slave trade, offered a growing marker for surplus English manufactured commodities. Moreover, still it was relatively cheaper to ship such commodities by water since huge percentage of England markets were more than 20 miles from any navigable water. As a means of easing the trade, canal building boon of the 1770s not only fostered this advantage but also offered easy and quick movement of enormous deposits of coal and iron from England and critical raw materials for early industrial age in Europe (Viault, 1990).
With respect to political revolution of the western history, liberty and equality were some of the ideas which ultimately fueled the revolutionary era in the world. Often, desire for liberty was first of all the demand for human rights. Therefore, the liberals of the revolutionary period had started and still continued to protest the way those who were termed as the most enlightened monarchs kept on regulating all that what individuals believed and wrote. Their desire was the end of censorship, spoken and written. Such people kept on calling for new government because of the believe that community members were more sovereign. Thus, it then meant that they had the power to make laws or rules which limited individuals’ freedom of action.
Despite of such limitations, liberals continued to believe that each and every ethnic group, each nation had the right of self-determination hence the right of forming a free nation. In their theory, the liberals argued that all citizens ought to be given similar rights as well as civil liberties and above all, the nobility should not be given any right or powers to special privileges based on birth. In the 18th century, men were the majority liberals and because of that they shared with other men the belief which stated that equality amongst men and women was neither desirable nor practical (Viault, 1990).
Similarly, during the French Revolution, men restricted formal rights of the women i.e. the voting rights, right of participating in government matters or the rights to run for office. Furthermore, the liberal never believed that every individual had to be equal economically. The point of interest here was that every citizen ought to be legally given an equal chance. Generally, the economic inequality which was largely based on the artificial legal distinctions of that time was the one which was criticized by the liberals and not the economic inequality itself.
In accordance to that, the ideas of equality and liberty had its roots in western history. This is to say that the Judeo-Christian and the Greeks tradition had already affirmed for years the purity and value of individual in human being. For instance, classical liberalism first crystallized the end of the 17th century and equally prior to the enlightenment of the 18th century to the extent of reflecting the stress on human dignity or just the human happiness on earth- that is rationality, faith in science and progress. The writers of enlightenment continued to preach religious toleration, fair and equal treatment and freedom of press and speech before the law.
According to Viault, (1990) the belief that representative institutions could have had the ability of defending their interests and liberty in return appealed powerfully to not only the well educated and prosperous individuals but also on liberal ideas regarding political freedom and individual rights. Similarly, for them the representative governments did not mean any form of democracy that they intended to frown upon. Because of that they envisioned voting for the representatives as being limited to those who had amassed and owned property. At the end liberalism found diverse support amongst the elites in the western history and this became the roots of liberalism.
On the other hand, in the 18th century, the Age of Reason was also regarded as being the movement which evolved significantly after the end of superstition, religion, and mysticism of the mediaeval era. This then means that it remained as the representation of the origin in the way mankind used to view themselves, their reaction to knowledge, as well as their thoughts about the universe. Within this period, the concepts and thoughts which were initially held by man was ultimately challenged through written and verbal means. Typically, the fears related to an individual being burned at the stake or being labeled a heretic was greatly done away with (Viault, 1990).
Nevertheless, it remained to be the beginning of an open community in which its members were free or had the freedom of pursuing individual liberty and happiness. From political and social perspective, people started abandoning the forms of empirical thoughts and concepts of the medieval era. Other shorter time period that remained to be described as being the age of enlightenment was also included in the age of reason. This is to say that during this period, extensive changes come into existence in both scientific thought and exploration. As much as new ideas ended up filling the horizon, man continued to be eager in exploring theses ideas more freely.
McKay et al, (2006) further explains that enlightenment period was typically the liberation of society from its initial forms of self-caused state of minority. This is because the state of minority was viewed as being the inability of using another person’s understanding without necessarily relying on another person’s direction. Therefore, whenever its sources kept on enhancing it, not because of the absence of understanding but due to the absence of determination, this state continued then to be self-caused. This is to say that it was not necessary to view the Age of reason as a high point in the human history.
The reason for this is because mankind started embracing some exaggerated beliefs for the purpose of perfecting humanity which was also based on clear thinking and reason, that is the loss of fear of God or the abandonment of the reliance on biblical truth. By leaving the extremes of superstition and mysticism of the medieval period, they swung other forms of extremes for instance reason and rationality. This then at the end made man’s society to overlook the restrained shades of grey which existed in between the two forces.
Reference
McKay, J. P., Hill, B. D., & Buckler, J. (2006). A history of Western society: Volume II. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Viault, B. S. (1990). Modern European history. New York: McGraw-Hill.
