Editing Age of Enlightenment (section)

==Dissemination of ideas==
The ''philosophes''<!-- "Philosophes" is correct. --> spent a great deal of energy disseminating their ideas among educated men and women in cosmopolitan cities. They used many venues, some of them quite new.

[[File:Pierre Bayle by Louis Ferdinand Elle.jpg|thumb|upright|French philosopher [[Pierre Bayle]]]]

===Republic of Letters===
The term "[[Republic of Letters]]" was coined in 1664 by Pierre Bayle in his journal ''Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres.'' Towards the end of the 18th century, the editor of ''Histoire de la République des Lettres en France,'' a literary survey, described the Republic of Letters as being: {{blockquote|In the midst of all the governments that decide the fate of men; in the bosom of so many states, the majority of them despotic&nbsp;... there exists a certain realm which holds sway only over the mind&nbsp;... that we honor with the name Republic, because it preserves a measure of independence, and because it is almost its essence to be free. It is the realm of talent and of thought.<ref name="Outram, 21"/>}}

The Republic of Letters was the sum of a number of Enlightenment ideals: an egalitarian realm governed by knowledge that could act across political boundaries and rival state power.<ref name="Outram, 21"/> It was a forum that supported "free public examination of questions regarding religion or legislation."<ref>Chartier, 26.</ref> Kant considered written communication essential to his conception of the public sphere; once everyone was a part of the "reading public," then society could be said to be enlightened.<ref>Chartier, 26, 26. Kant, "What is Enlightenment?"</ref> The people who participated in the Republic of Letters, such as Diderot and Voltaire, are frequently known today as important Enlightenment figures. Indeed, the men who wrote Diderot's ''Encyclopédie'' arguably formed a microcosm of the larger "republic."<ref>Outram, 23.</ref>

[[File:Gentleman's Magazine 1731.JPG|thumb|Front page of ''[[The Gentleman's Magazine]],'' January 1731]]
Many women played an essential part in the French Enlightenment because of the role they played as ''salonnières'' in Parisian salons, as the contrast to the male ''philosophes<!-- "philosophes" is correct -->.'' The salon was the principal social institution of the republic<ref>Goodman, 3.</ref> and "became the civil working spaces of the project of Enlightenment." Women, as salonnières, were "the legitimate governors of [the] potentially unruly discourse" that took place within.<ref>Dena Goodman, ''The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment'' (1994), 53.</ref> While women were marginalized in the public culture of the Old Regime, the French Revolution destroyed the old cultural and economic restraints of patronage and corporatism (guilds), opening French society to female participation, particularly in the literary sphere.<ref>Carla Hesse, ''The Other Enlightenment: How French Women Became Modern'' (2001), 42.</ref>

In France, the established men of letters (''gens de lettres'') had fused with the elites (''les grands'') of French society by the mid-18th century. This led to the creation of an oppositional literary sphere, [[Grub Street]], the domain of a "multitude of versifiers and would-be authors."<ref>Crébillon fils, quoted from Darnton, ''The Literary Underground,'' 17.</ref> These men came to London to become authors only to discover that the literary market could not support large numbers of writers, who in any case were very poorly remunerated by the publishing-bookselling [[guild]]s.<ref>Darnton, ''The Literary Underground,'' 19, 20.</ref>

The writers of Grub Street, the Grub Street Hacks, were left feeling bitter about the relative success of the men of letters<ref>Darnton, "The Literary Underground," 21, 23.</ref> and found an outlet for their literature which was typified by the ''[[Libelle (literary genre)|libelle]].'' Written mostly in the form of pamphlets, the ''libelles'' "slandered the court, the Church, the aristocracy, the academies, the salons, everything elevated and respectable, including the monarchy itself."<ref>Darnton, ''The Literary Underground,'' 29</ref> ''Le Gazetier cuirassé'' by [[Charles Théveneau de Morande]] was a prototype of the genre. It was Grub Street literature that was most read by the public during the Enlightenment.<ref>Outram, 22.</ref> According to Darnton, more importantly the Grub Street hacks inherited the "revolutionary spirit" once displayed by the ''philosophes<!-- "philosophes" is correct -->'' and paved the way for the French Revolution by desacralizing figures of political, moral, and religious authority in France.<ref>Darnton, ''The Literary Underground,'' 35–40.</ref>

===Book industry===
[[File:1477-1799 ESTC titles per decade, statistics.png|thumb|[[English Short Title Catalogue|ESTC]] data 1477–1799 by decade given with a regional differentiation]]

The increased consumption of reading materials of all sorts was one of the key features of the "social" Enlightenment. Developments in the Industrial Revolution allowed consumer goods to be produced in greater quantities at lower prices, encouraging the spread of books, pamphlets, newspapers, and journals – "media of the transmission of ideas and attitudes." Commercial development likewise increased the demand for information, along with rising populations and increased urbanisation.<ref>Outram, 17, 20.</ref> However, demand for reading material extended outside of the realm of the commercial and outside the realm of the upper and middle classes, as evidenced by the [[bibliothèque bleue]]. Literacy rates are difficult to gauge, but in France the rates doubled over the course of the 18th century.<ref>Darnton, "The Literary Underground," 16.</ref> Reflecting the decreasing influence of religion, the number of books about science and art published in Paris doubled from 1720 to 1780, while the number of books about religion dropped to just one-tenth of the total.{{sfn|Petitfils|2005|pages=99–105}}

Reading underwent serious changes in the 18th century. In particular, Rolf Engelsing has argued for the existence of a ''reading revolution.'' Until 1750, reading was done intensively: people tended to own a small number of books and read them repeatedly, often to small audience. After 1750, people began to read "extensively," finding as many books as they could, increasingly reading them alone.<ref>from Outram, 19. See Rolf Engelsing, "Die Perioden der Lesergeschichte in der Neuzeit. Das statische Ausmass und die soziokulturelle Bedeutung der Lektüre," Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens, 10 (1969), cols. 944–1002 and Der Bürger als Leser: Lesergeschichte in Deutschland, 1500–1800 (Stuttgart, 1974).</ref> This is supported by increasing literacy rates, particularly among women.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/482597/history-of-publishing/28681/Developments-in-the-18th-century |title=history of publishing :: Developments in the 18th century |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |date=5 October 2023}}</ref>

The vast majority of the reading public could not afford to own a private library, and while most of the state-run "universal libraries" set up in the 17th and 18th centuries were open to the public, they were not the only sources of reading material. On one end of the spectrum was the ''bibliothèque bleue,'' a collection of cheaply produced books published in Troyes, France. Intended for a largely rural and semi-literate audience these books included almanacs, retellings of medieval romances and condensed versions of popular novels, among other things. While some historians have argued against the Enlightenment's penetration into the lower classes, the ''bibliothèque bleue'' represents at least a desire to participate in Enlightenment sociability.<ref>Outram, 27–29</ref> Moving up the classes, a variety of institutions offered readers access to material without needing to buy anything. Libraries that lent out their material for a small price started to appear, and occasionally bookstores would offer a small lending library to their patrons. Coffee houses commonly offered books, journals, and sometimes even popular novels to their customers. ''[[Tatler (1709 journal)|Tatler]]'' and ''[[The Spectator]],'' two influential periodicals sold from 1709 to 1714, were closely associated with coffee house culture in London, being both read and produced in various establishments in the city.<ref>Erin Mackie, ''The Commerce of Everyday Life: Selections from The Tatler and The Spectator'' (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1998), 16.</ref> This is an example of the triple or even quadruple function of the coffee house: reading material was often obtained, read, discussed, and even produced on the premises.<ref>See Mackie, Darnton, ''An Early Information Society''</ref>

[[File:Denis Diderot 111.PNG|thumb|upright|[[Denis Diderot]] is best known as the editor of the ''[[Encyclopédie]].'']]
It is difficult to determine what people actually read during the Enlightenment. For example, examining the catalogs of private libraries gives an image skewed in favor of the classes wealthy enough to afford libraries and also ignores censored works unlikely to be publicly acknowledged. For this reason, a study of publishing would be much more fruitful for discerning reading habits.<ref>In particular, see Chapter 6, "Reading, Writing and Publishing"</ref> Across continental Europe, but in France especially, booksellers and publishers had to negotiate censorship laws of varying strictness. For example, the ''Encyclopédie'' narrowly escaped seizure and had to be saved by [[Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes|Malesherbes]], the man in charge of the French censor. Indeed, many publishing companies were conveniently located outside France so as to avoid overzealous French censors. They would smuggle their merchandise across the border, where it would then be transported to clandestine booksellers or small-time peddlers.<ref>See Darnton, ''The Literary Underground,'' 184.</ref> The records of clandestine booksellers may give a better representation of what literate Frenchmen might have truly read, since their clandestine nature provided a less restrictive product choice.<ref name="autogenerated1">Darnton, ''The Literary Underground,'' 135–47.</ref> In one case, political books were the most popular category, primarily libels and pamphlets. Readers were more interested in sensationalist stories about criminals and political corruption than they were in political theory itself. The second most popular category, "general works" (those books "that did not have a dominant motif and that contained something to offend almost everyone in authority"), demonstrated a high demand for generally low-brow subversive literature. However, these works never became part of literary canon and are largely forgotten today as a result.<ref name="autogenerated1" />

A healthy, legal publishing industry existed throughout Europe, although established publishers and book sellers occasionally ran afoul of the law. For example, the ''Encyclopédie'', condemned by both the King and [[Pope Clement XII|Clement XII]], nevertheless found its way into print with the help of the aforementioned Malesherbes and creative use of French censorship law.<ref>Darnton, ''The Business of Enlightenment,'' 12, 13. For a more detailed description of French censorship laws, see Darnton, ''The Literary Underground''</ref> However, many works were sold without running into any legal trouble at all. Borrowing records from libraries in England, Germany, and North America indicate that more than 70% of books borrowed were novels. Less than 1% of the books were of a religious nature, indicating the general trend of declining religiosity.<ref name="Outram, 21">Outram, 21.</ref>

===Natural history===
[[File:Buffon 1707-1788.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon|Georges Buffon]] is best remembered for his {{lang|fr|Histoire naturelle}}, a 44 volume encyclopedia describing everything known about the natural world.]]
A genre that greatly rose in importance was that of scientific literature. Natural history in particular became increasingly popular among the upper classes. Works of natural history include [[René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur|René-Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur]]'s ''Histoire naturelle des insectes'' and [[Jacques Fabien Gautier d'Agoty|Jacques Gautier d'Agoty]]'s ''La Myologie complète, ou description de tous les muscles du corps humain'' (1746). Outside [[Ancien Régime]] France, natural history was an important part of medicine and industry, encompassing the fields of botany, zoology, meteorology, hydrology, and mineralogy. Students in Enlightenment universities and academies were taught these subjects to prepare them for careers as diverse as medicine and theology. As shown by Matthew Daniel Eddy, natural history in this context was a very middle class pursuit and operated as a fertile trading zone for the interdisciplinary exchange of diverse scientific ideas.<ref name="Eddy2008">{{cite book |last=Eddy |first=Matthew Daniel |title=The Language of Mineralogy: John Walker, Chemistry and the Edinburgh Medical School, 1750–1800 |year=2008 |publisher=Ashgate |location=Aldershot |url=https://www.academia.edu/1112014}}</ref>

The target audience of natural history was French upper class, evidenced more by the specific discourse of the genre than by the generally high prices of its works. Naturalists catered to upper class desire for erudition: many texts had an explicit instructive purpose. However, natural history was often a political affair. As Emma Spary writes, the classifications used by naturalists "slipped between the natural world and the social&nbsp;... to establish not only the expertise of the naturalists over the natural, but also the dominance of the natural over the social."<ref>Emma Spary, "The 'Nature' of Enlightenment" in ''The Sciences in Enlightened Europe,'' William Clark, Jan Golinski, and Steven Schaffer, eds. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 281–82.</ref> The idea of taste (''le goût'') was a social indicator: to truly be able to categorize nature, one had to have the proper taste, an ability of discretion shared by all members of the upper class. In this way, natural history spread many of the scientific developments of the time but also provided a new source of legitimacy for the dominant class.<ref>Spary, 289–93.</ref> From this basis, naturalists could then develop their own social ideals based on their scientific works.<ref>See Thomas Laqueur, ''Making sex: body and gender from the Greeks to Freud'' (1990).</ref>

===Scientific and literary journals===
[[File:1665 journal des scavans title.jpg|thumb|upright|{{Lang|fr|[[Journal des sçavans]]}} was the earliest academic journal published in Europe.]]
The first scientific and literary journals were established during the Enlightenment. The first journal, the Parisian {{Lang|fr|[[Journal des sçavans]]}}, appeared in 1665. However, it was not until 1682 that periodicals began to be more widely produced. French and Latin were the dominant languages of publication, but there was also a steady demand for material in German and Dutch. There was generally low demand for English publications on the continent, which was echoed by England's similar lack of desire for French works. Languages commanding less of an international market—such as Danish, Spanish, and Portuguese—found journal success more difficult, and a more international language was used instead. French slowly took over Latin's status as the ''[[lingua franca]]'' of learned circles. This in turn gave precedence to the publishing industry in Holland, where the vast majority of these French language periodicals were produced.{{sfn|Israel|2001|pp=143–44}}

Jonathan Israel called the journals the most influential cultural innovation of European intellectual culture.{{sfn|Israel|2001|pp=142}} They shifted the attention of the "cultivated public" away from established authorities to novelty and innovation, and instead promoted the Enlightened ideals of toleration and intellectual objectivity. Being a source of knowledge derived from science and reason, they were an implicit critique of existing notions of universal truth monopolized by monarchies, parliaments, and religious authorities. They also advanced Christian Enlightenment that upheld "the legitimacy of God-ordained authority"—the Bible—in which there had to be agreement between the biblical and natural theories.{{sfn|Israel|2001|pp=150–51}}

===Encyclopedias and dictionaries===
[[File:Encyclopedie de D'Alembert et Diderot - Premiere Page - ENC 1-NA5.jpg|thumb|upright|First page of the ''[[Encyclopédie]],'' published between 1751 and 1766]]
Although the existence of dictionaries and encyclopedias spanned into ancient times, the texts changed from defining words in a long running list to far more detailed discussions of those words in 18th-century [[encyclopedic dictionary|encyclopedic dictionaries]].<ref name="Headrick 2000 144">Headrick, (2000), p. 144.</ref> The works were part of an Enlightenment movement to systematize knowledge and provide education to a wider audience than the elite. As the 18th century progressed, the content of encyclopedias also changed according to readers' tastes. Volumes tended to focus more strongly on secular affairs, particularly science and technology, rather than matters of theology.

Along with secular matters, readers also favoured an alphabetical ordering scheme over cumbersome works arranged along thematic lines.<ref name="Headrick 2000 172">Headrick, (2000), p. 172.</ref> Commenting on alphabetization, the historian [[Charles Porset]] has said that "as the zero degree of taxonomy, alphabetical order authorizes all reading strategies; in this respect it could be considered an emblem of the Enlightenment." For Porset, the avoidance of thematic and [[Hierarchical organization|hierarchical]] systems thus allows free interpretation of the works and becomes an example of [[egalitarianism]].<ref>Porter, (2003), pp.&nbsp;249–250.</ref> Encyclopedias and dictionaries also became more popular during the Age of Enlightenment as the number of educated consumers who could afford such texts began to multiply.<ref name="Headrick 2000 144"/> In the latter half of the 18th century, the number of dictionaries and encyclopedias published by decade increased from 63 between 1760 and 1769 to approximately 148 in the decade proceeding the French Revolution.<ref>Headrick, (2000), p. 168.</ref> Along with growth in numbers, dictionaries and encyclopedias also grew in length, often having multiple print runs that sometimes included in supplemented editions.<ref name="Headrick 2000 172"/>

The first technical dictionary was drafted by [[John Harris (writer)|John Harris]] and entitled ''[[Lexicon Technicum]]: Or, An Universal English Dictionary of Arts and Sciences.'' Harris' book avoids theological and biographical entries and instead concentrates on science and technology. Published in 1704, the ''Lexicon Technicum'' was the first book to be written in English that took a methodical approach to describing mathematics and commercial [[arithmetic]] along with the physical sciences and [[navigation]]. Other technical dictionaries followed Harris' model, including [[Ephraim Chambers]]' ''[[Cyclopædia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences|Cyclopaedia]]'' (1728), which included five editions and is a substantially larger work than Harris'. The [[Bookbinding|folio]] edition of the work even included foldout engravings. The ''Cyclopaedia'' emphasized Newtonian theories, Lockean philosophy and contained thorough examinations of technologies, such as [[engraving]], brewing, and [[dyeing]].

[[File:ENC SYSTEME FIGURE.jpeg|upright|thumb|left|"[[Figurative system of human knowledge]]," the structure that the ''Encyclopédie'' organised knowledge into – it had three main branches: memory, reason, and imagination.]] In Germany, practical reference works intended for the uneducated majority became popular in the 18th century. The ''Marperger Curieuses Natur-, Kunst-, Berg-, Gewerk- und Handlungs-Lexicon'' (1712) explained terms that usefully described the trades and scientific and commercial education. ''Jablonksi Allgemeines Lexicon'' (1721) was better known than the ''Handlungs-Lexicon'' and underscored technical subjects rather than scientific theory. For example, over five columns of text were dedicated to wine while geometry and [[logic]] were allocated only twenty-two and seventeen lines, respectively. The first edition of the ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]'' (1771) was modelled along the same lines as the German lexicons.<ref>Headrick, (2000), pp.&nbsp;150–152.</ref>

However, the prime example of reference works that systematized scientific knowledge in the Age of Enlightenment were [[universal encyclopedia]]s rather than technical dictionaries. It was the goal of universal encyclopedias to record all human knowledge in a comprehensive reference work.<ref>Headrick, (2000), p. 153.</ref> The most well-known of these works is Diderot and d'Alembert's ''Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers.'' The work, which began publication in 1751, was composed of 35 volumes and over 71,000 separate entries. A great number of the entries were dedicated to describing the sciences and crafts in detail and provided intellectuals across Europe with a high-quality survey of human knowledge. In d'Alembert's ''Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot,'' the work's goal to record the extent of human knowledge in the arts and sciences is outlined:

{{blockquote|As an Encyclopédie, it is to set forth as well as possible the order and connection of the parts of human knowledge. As a Reasoned Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Trades, it is to contain the general principles that form the basis of each science and each art, liberal or mechanical, and the most essential facts that make up the body and substance of each.<ref>d'Alembert, p. 4.</ref>}}

The massive work was arranged according to a "tree of knowledge." The tree reflected the marked division between the arts and sciences, which was largely a result of the rise of empiricism. Both areas of knowledge were united by philosophy, or the trunk of the tree of knowledge. The Enlightenment's desacrilization of religion was pronounced in the tree's design, particularly where theology accounted for a peripheral branch, with black magic as a close neighbour.<ref>Darnton, (1979), p. 7.</ref> As the ''Encyclopédie'' gained popularity, it was published in [[book binding|quarto]] and octavo editions after 1777. The quarto and octavo editions were much less expensive than previous editions, making the ''Encyclopédie'' more accessible to the non-elite. Robert Darnton estimates that there were approximately 25,000 copies of the ''Encyclopédie'' in circulation throughout France and Europe before the French Revolution.<ref>Darnton, (1979), p. 37.</ref> The extensive yet affordable encyclopedia came to represent the transmission of Enlightenment and scientific education to an expanding audience.<ref>Darnton, (1979), p. 6.</ref>

===Popularization of science===
One of the most important developments that the Enlightenment era brought to the discipline of science was its popularization. An increasingly literate population seeking knowledge and education in both the arts and the sciences drove the expansion of print culture and the dissemination of scientific learning. The new literate population was precipitated by a high rise in the availability of food; this enabled many people to rise out of poverty, and instead of paying more for food, they had money for education.<ref>Jacob, (1988), p. 191; Melton, (2001), pp.&nbsp;82–83</ref> Popularization was generally part of an overarching Enlightenment ideal that endeavoured "to make information available to the greatest number of people."<ref>Headrick, (2000), p. 15</ref> As public interest in natural philosophy grew during the 18th century, public lecture courses and the publication of popular texts opened up new roads to money and fame for amateurs and scientists who remained on the periphery of universities and academies.<ref>Headrick, (2000), p. 19.</ref> More formal works included explanations of scientific theories for individuals lacking the educational background to comprehend the original scientific text. Newton's celebrated ''Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica'' was published in Latin and remained inaccessible to readers without education in the classics until Enlightenment writers began to translate and analyze the text in the vernacular.

[[File:Fontenelle.jpg|thumb|left|A portrait of [[Bernard de Fontenelle]]]]
The first significant work that expressed scientific theory and knowledge expressly for the laity, in the vernacular and with the entertainment of readers in mind, was [[Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle|Bernard de Fontenelle]]'s ''[[Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds]]'' (1686). The book was produced specifically for women with an interest in scientific writing and inspired a variety of similar works.<ref>Phillips, (1991), pp. 85, 90</ref> These popular works were written in a discursive style, which was laid out much more clearly for the reader than the complicated articles, treatises, and books published by the academies and scientists. Charles Leadbetter's ''Astronomy'' (1727) was advertised as "a Work entirely New" that would include "short and easie {{sic}} Rules and Astronomical Tables."<ref>Phillips, (1991), p. 90.</ref>

The first French introduction to Newtonianism and the ''Principia'' was ''Eléments de la philosophie de Newton,'' published by Voltaire in 1738.<ref>Porter, (2003), p. 300.</ref> [[Émilie du Châtelet]]'s translation of the ''Principia,'' published after her death in 1756, also helped to spread Newton's theories beyond scientific academies and the university.<ref>Porter, (2003), p. 101.</ref> Writing for a growing female audience, [[Francesco Algarotti]] published ''Il Newtonianism per le dame,'' which was a tremendously popular work and was translated from Italian into English by [[Elizabeth Carter]]. A similar introduction to Newtonianism for women was produced by [[Henry Pemberton]]. His ''A View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy'' was published by subscription. Extant records of subscribers show that women from a wide range of social standings purchased the book, indicating the growing number of scientifically inclined female readers among the middling class.<ref>Phillips, (1991), p. 92.</ref> During the Enlightenment, women also began producing popular scientific works. [[Sarah Trimmer]] wrote a successful natural history textbook for children titled ''The Easy Introduction to the Knowledge of Nature'' (1782), which was published for many years in eleven editions.<ref>Phillips, (1991), p. 107.</ref>

===Schools and universities===
{{Main|Education in the Age of Enlightenment}}
Most work on the Enlightenment emphasizes the ideals discussed by intellectuals, rather than the actual state of education at the time. Leading educational theorists like England's John Locke and Switzerland's Jean Jacques Rousseau both emphasized the importance of shaping young minds early. By the late Enlightenment, there was a rising demand for a more universal approach to education, particularly after the American Revolution and the French Revolution.

The predominant educational psychology from the 1750s onward, especially in northern European countries, was [[associationism]]: the notion that the mind associates or dissociates ideas through repeated routines. In addition to being conducive to Enlightenment ideologies of liberty, self-determination, and personal responsibility, it offered a practical theory of the mind that allowed teachers to transform longstanding forms of print and manuscript culture into effective graphic tools of learning for the lower and middle orders of society.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Eddy |first=Matthew Daniel |title=The Shape of Knowledge: Children and the Visual Culture of Literacy and Numeracy |journal=Science in Context |year=2013 |volume=26 |issue=2 |pages=215–245 |url=https://www.academia.edu/1817033 |doi=10.1017/s0269889713000045 |s2cid=147123263}}</ref> Children were taught to memorize facts through oral and graphic methods that originated during the Renaissance.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hotson |first=Howard |title=Commonplace Learning: Ramism and Its German Ramifications 1543–1630 |year=2007 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford}}</ref>

Many of the leading universities associated with Enlightenment progressive principles were located in northern Europe, with the most renowned being the universities of Leiden, Göttingen, Halle, Montpellier, Uppsala, and Edinburgh. These universities, especially Edinburgh, produced professors whose ideas had a significant impact on Britain's North American colonies and later the American Republic. Within the natural sciences, Edinburgh's medical school also led the way in chemistry, anatomy, and pharmacology.<ref name="Eddy2008" /> In other parts of Europe, the universities and schools of France and most of Europe were bastions of traditionalism and were not hospitable to the Enlightenment. In France, the major exception was the medical university at Montpellier.<ref>Elizabeth Williams, ''A Cultural History of Medical Vitalism in Enlightenment Montpellier'' (2003) p. 50</ref>

===Learned academies===
[[File:Sébastien Leclerc I, Louis XIV Visiting the Royal Academy of Sciences, 1671.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Louis XIV]] visiting the {{lang|fr|[[French Academy of Sciences|Académie des sciences]]}} in 1671: "It is widely accepted that 'modern science' arose in the Europe of the 17th century, introducing a new understanding of the natural world"—Peter Barrett<ref>Peter Barrett (2004), ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=fwxViwX6KuMC&pg=PA14 Science and Theology Since Copernicus: The Search for Understanding],'' p. 14, [[Continuum International Publishing Group]], {{ISBN|978-0-567-08969-4}}</ref>]] [[File:Zoom lunette ardente.jpg|thumb|[[Antoine Lavoisier]] conducting an experiment related to combustion generated by amplified sun light]]
The history of Academies in France during the Enlightenment begins with the [[French Academy of Sciences|Academy of Science]], founded in 1666 in Paris. It was closely tied to the French state, acting as an extension of a government seriously lacking in scientists. It helped promote and organize new disciplines and it trained new scientists. It also contributed to the enhancement of scientists' social status, considering them to be the "most useful of all citizens." Academies demonstrate the rising interest in science along with its increasing secularization, as evidenced by the small number of clerics who were members (13%).<ref>Daniel Roche,'' France in the Enlightenment,'' (1998), 420.</ref> The presence of the French academies in the public sphere cannot be attributed to their membership, as although the majority of their members were bourgeois, the exclusive institution was only open to elite Parisian scholars. They perceived themselves as "interpreters of the sciences for the people." For example, it was with this in mind that academicians took it upon themselves to disprove the popular pseudo-science of [[Animal magnetism|mesmerism]].<ref>Roche, 515–16.</ref>

The strongest contribution of the French Academies to the public sphere comes from the ''concours académiques'' (roughly translated as "academic contests") they sponsored throughout France. These academic contests were perhaps the most public of any institution during the Enlightenment.<ref>Caradonna JL. ''Annales,'' "Prendre part au siècle des Lumières: Le concours académique et la culture intellectuelle au XVIIIe siècle"</ref> The practice of contests dated back to the [[Middle Ages]] and was revived in the mid-17th century. The subject matter had previously been generally religious and/or monarchical, featuring essays, poetry, and painting. However, by roughly 1725 this subject matter had radically expanded and diversified, including "royal propaganda, philosophical battles, and critical ruminations on the social and political institutions of the Old Regime." Topics of public controversy were also discussed such as the theories of Newton and Descartes, the slave trade, women's education, and justice in France.<ref>Jeremy L. Caradonna, "Prendre part au siècle des Lumières: Le concours académique et la culture intellectuelle au XVIIIe siècle," ''Annales. Histoire, Sciences sociales,'' vol. 64 (mai-juin 2009), n. 3, 633–62.</ref> More importantly, the contests were open to all, and the enforced anonymity of each submission guaranteed that neither gender nor social rank would determine the judging. Indeed, although the "vast majority" of participants belonged to the wealthier strata of society ("the liberal arts, the clergy, the judiciary and the medical profession"), there were some cases of the popular classes submitting essays and even winning.<ref>Caradonna, 634–36.</ref> Similarly, a significant number of women participated—and won—the competitions. Of a total of 2,300 prize competitions offered in France, women won 49—perhaps a small number by modern standards but very significant in an age in which most women did not have any academic training. Indeed, the majority of the winning entries were for poetry competitions, a genre commonly stressed in women's education.<ref>Caradonna, 653–54.</ref>

In England, the [[Royal Society]] of London played a significant role in the public sphere and the spread of Enlightenment ideas. It was founded by a group of independent scientists and given a royal charter in 1662.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://royalsociety.org/about-us/history/royal-charters/ |title=Royal Charters |work=royalsociety.org}}</ref> The society played a large role in spreading [[Robert Boyle]]'s [[experimental philosophy]] around Europe and acted as a clearinghouse for intellectual correspondence and exchange.<ref>Steven Shapin, ''A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England,'' Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press, 1994.</ref> Boyle was "a founder of the experimental world in which scientists now live and operate" and his method based knowledge on experimentation, which had to be witnessed to provide proper empirical legitimacy. This is where the Royal Society came into play: witnessing had to be a "collective act" and the Royal Society's assembly rooms were ideal locations for relatively public demonstrations.<ref>Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer, ''Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life'' (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), 5, 56, 57. This same desire for multiple witnesses led to attempts at replication in other locations and a complex iconography and literary technology developed to provide visual and written proof of experimentation. See pp. 59–65.</ref> However, not just any witness was considered to be credible: "Oxford professors were accounted more reliable witnesses than Oxfordshire peasants." Two factors were taken into account: a witness's knowledge in the area and a witness's "moral constitution." In other words, only civil society were considered for Boyle's public.<ref>Shapin and Schaffer, 58, 59.</ref>

===Salons===
{{Main|Historiography of the salon}}
Salons were places where ''philosophes'' were reunited and discussed old, actual, or new ideas. This led to salons being the birthplace of intellectual and enlightened ideas.

===Coffeehouses===
{{Main|English coffeehouses in the 17th and 18th centuries}}

[[Coffeehouse]]s were especially important to the spread of knowledge during the Enlightenment because they created a unique environment in which people from many different walks of life gathered and shared ideas. They were frequently criticized by nobles who feared the possibility of an environment in which class and its accompanying titles and privileges were disregarded. Such an environment was especially intimidating to monarchs who derived much of their power from the disparity between classes of people. If the different classes joined together under the influence of Enlightenment thinking, they might recognize the all-encompassing oppression and abuses of their monarchs and because of the numbers of their members might be able to successfully revolt. Monarchs also resented the idea of their subjects convening as one to discuss political matters, especially matters of foreign affairs. Rulers thought political affairs were their business only, a result of their divine right to rule.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Coffeehouse Civility, 1660–1714: An Aspect of Post-Courtly Culture in England |first=Lawrence E. |journal=Huntington Library Quarterly |last=Klein |date=1 January 1996 |volume=59 |issue=1 |pages=31–51 |doi=10.2307/3817904 |jstor=3817904}}</ref>

Coffeeshops became homes away from home for many who sought to engage in discourse with their neighbors and discuss intriguing and thought-provoking matters, from philosophy to politics. Coffeehouses were essential to the Enlightenment, for they were centers of free-thinking and self-discovery. Although many coffeehouse patrons were scholars, many were not. Coffeehouses attracted a diverse set of people, including the educated wealthy and bourgeois as well as the lower classes. Patrons, being doctors, lawyers, merchants, represented almost all classes, so the coffeeshop environment sparked fear in those who wanted to preserve class distinction. One of the most popular critiques of the coffeehouse said that it "allowed promiscuous association among people from different rungs of the social ladder, from the artisan to the aristocrat" and was therefore compared to [[Noah's Ark]], receiving all types of animals, clean and unclean.<ref>Klein, 35.</ref> This unique culture served as a catalyst for journalism, when [[Joseph Addison]] and [[Richard Steele]] recognized its potential as an audience. Together, Steele and Addison published ''[[The Spectator (1711)]],'' a daily publication which aimed, through fictional narrator Mr. Spectator, to both entertain and provoke discussion on serious philosophical matters.

The first English coffeehouse opened in Oxford in 1650. Brian Cowan said that Oxford coffeehouses developed into "penny universities," offering a locus of learning that was less formal than at structured institutions. These penny universities occupied a significant position in Oxford academic life, as they were frequented by those consequently referred to as the ''virtuosi,'' who conducted their research on some of the premises. According to Cowan, "the coffeehouse was a place for like-minded scholars to congregate, to read, as well as learn from and to debate with each other, but was emphatically not a university institution, and the discourse there was of a far different order than any university tutorial."<ref>Cowan, 90, 91.</ref>

The [[Café Procope]] was established in Paris in 1686, and by the 1720s there were around 400 cafés in the city. The Café Procope in particular became a center of Enlightenment, welcoming such celebrities as Voltaire and Rousseau. The Café Procope was where Diderot and D'Alembert decided to create the ''Encyclopédie''.<ref>Colin Jones, ''Paris: Biography of a City'' (New York: Viking, 2004), 188, 189.</ref> The cafés were one of the various "nerve centers" for ''bruits publics,'' public noise or rumour. These ''bruits'' were allegedly a much better source of information than were the actual newspapers available at the time.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Robert |last=Darnton |title=An Early Information Society: News and the Media in Eighteenth-Century Paris |journal=The American Historical Review |year=2000 |volume=105#1 |issue=1 |pages=1–35 |jstor=2652433 |doi=10.2307/2652433}}</ref>

===Debating societies===
{{Main|London Debating Societies}}
The debating societies are an example of the public sphere during the Enlightenment.<ref>Donna T. Andrew, "Popular Culture and Public Debate: London 1780," ''This Historical Journal,'' Vol. 39, No. 2. (June 1996), pp. 405–423.</ref> Their origins include:
* Clubs of fifty or more men who, at the beginning of the 18th century, met in pubs to discuss religious issues and affairs of state.
* Mooting clubs, set up by law students to practice rhetoric.
* Spouting clubs, established to help actors train for theatrical roles.
* [[John Henley (preacher)|John Henley]]'s Oratory, which mixed outrageous sermons with even more absurd questions, like "Whether Scotland be anywhere in the world?"<ref>Andrew, 406. Andrew gives the name as "William Henley," which must be a lapse of writing.</ref>

In the late 1770s, popular debating societies began to move into more "genteel" rooms, a change which helped establish a new standard of sociability.<ref>Andrew, 408.</ref> The backdrop to these developments was "an explosion of interest in the theory and practice of public elocution." The debating societies were commercial enterprises that responded to this demand, sometimes very successfully. Some societies welcomed from 800 to 1,200 spectators per night.<ref>Andrew, 406–08, 411.</ref>

The debating societies discussed an extremely wide range of topics. Before the Enlightenment, most intellectual debates revolved around "confessional"—that is, Catholic, [[Lutheranism|Lutheran]], Reformed (Calvinist) or [[Anglicanism|Anglican]] issues, debated primarily to establish which bloc of faith ought to have the "monopoly of truth and a God-given title to authority."{{Sfn|Israel|2001|p=4}} After Enlightenment, everything that previously had been rooted in tradition was questioned, and often replaced by new concepts. After the second half of the 17th century and during the 18th century, a "general process of rationalization and secularization set in" and confessional disputes were reduced to a secondary status in favor of the "escalating contest between faith and incredulity."{{Sfn|Israel|2001|p=4}}

In addition to debates on religion, societies discussed issues such as politics and the role of women. However, the critical subject matter of these debates did not necessarily translate into opposition to the government; the results of the debate quite frequently upheld the ''status quo''.<ref>Andrew, 412–15.</ref> From a historical standpoint, one of the most important features of the debating society was their openness to the public, as women attended and even participated in almost every debating society, which were likewise open to all classes providing they could pay the entrance fee. Once inside, spectators were able to participate in a largely egalitarian form of sociability that helped spread Enlightenment ideas.<ref>Andrew, 422.</ref>

===Masonic lodges===
[[File:Freimaurer Initiation.jpg|thumb|Masonic initiation ceremony]]

Historians have debated the extent to which the secret network of [[Freemasonry]] was a main factor in the Enlightenment.<ref>{{cite book |author1-last=Crow |author1-first=Matthew |author2-last=Jacob |author2-first=Margaret |author2-link=Margaret Jacob |year=2014 |chapter=Freemasonry and the Enlightenment |editor1-last=Bodgan |editor1-first=Henrik |editor2-last=Snoek |editor2-first=Jan A. M. |title=Handbook of Freemasonry |location=[[Leiden]] |publisher=[[Brill Publishers]] |series=Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion |volume=8 |doi=10.1163/9789004273122_008 |pages=100–116 |isbn=978-90-04-21833-8 |issn=1874-6691}}</ref> Leaders of the Enlightenment included Freemasons such as Diderot, Montesquieu, Voltaire, [[Gotthold Ephraim Lessing|Lessing]], Pope,<ref>Maynard Mack, ''Alexander Pope: A Life,'' Yale University Press, 1985 p. 437–440. Pope, a Catholic, was a Freemason in 1730, eight years before membership was prohibited by the Catholic Church (1738). Pope's name is on the membership list of the Goat Tavern Lodge (p. 439). Pope's name appears on a 1723 list and a 1730 list.</ref> Horace Walpole, Sir Robert Walpole, Mozart, Goethe, Frederick the Great, Benjamin Franklin<ref>{{cite book |first={{nowrap|J. A.}} Leo |last=Lemay |title=The Life of Benjamin Franklin, Volume 2: Printer and Publisher, 1730–1747 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KOhKqgMD10cC&pg=PA83 |year=2013 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |pages=83–92 |isbn=978-0-8122-0929-7}}</ref> and George Washington.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bullock |first1=Steven C. |year=1996 |title=Initiating the Enlightenment?: Recent Scholarship on European Freemasonry |journal=Eighteenth-Century Life |volume=20 |issue=1 |page=81}}</ref> Norman Davies said Freemasonry was a powerful force on behalf of liberalism in Europe from about 1700 to the twentieth century. It expanded during the Enlightenment, reaching practically every country in Europe. It was especially attractive to powerful aristocrats and politicians as well as intellectuals, artists, and political activists.<ref>Norman Davies, ''Europe: A History'' (1996) pp. 634–635</ref>

During the Enlightenment, Freemasons comprised an international network of like-minded men, often meeting in secret in ritualistic programs at their lodges. They promoted the ideals of the Enlightenment and helped diffuse these values across Britain, France, and other places. Freemasonry as a systematic creed with its own myths, values, and rituals originated in Scotland {{circa|1600}} and spread to England and then across the Continent in the 18th century. They fostered new codes of conduct—including a communal understanding of liberty and equality inherited from guild sociability—"liberty, fraternity, and equality."<ref>Margaret C. Jacob's seminal work on Enlightenment freemasonry, Margaret C. Jacob, ''Living the Enlightenment: Free masonry and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Europe'' (Oxford University Press, 1991) p. 49.</ref> Scottish soldiers and Jacobite Scots brought to the Continent ideals of fraternity, which reflected not the local system of Scottish customs, but the institutions and ideals originating in the English Revolution against royal absolutism.<ref>Margaret C. Jacob, "Polite worlds of Enlightenment," in Martin Fitzpatrick and Peter Jones, eds. ''The Enlightenment World'' (Routledge, 2004) pp. 272–287.</ref> Freemasonry was particularly prevalent in France—by 1789, there were perhaps as many as 100,000 French Masons, making Freemasonry the most popular of all Enlightenment associations.<ref>Roche, 436.</ref> The Freemasons displayed a passion for secrecy and created new degrees and ceremonies. Similar societies, partially imitating Freemasonry, emerged in France, Germany, Sweden, and Russia. One example was the [[Illuminati]], founded in Bavaria in 1776, which was copied after the Freemasons, but was never part of the movement. The name itself translates to "[[wikt:illuminato#Italian|enlightened]]," chosen to reflect their [[Illuminati#Origins|original intent]] to promote the values of the movement. The Illuminati was an overtly political group, which most Masonic lodges decidedly were not.<ref>Fitzpatrick and Jones, eds. ''The Enlightenment World'' p. 281</ref>

Masonic lodges created a private model for public affairs. They "reconstituted the polity and established a constitutional form of self-government, complete with constitutions and laws, elections, and representatives." In other words, the micro-society set up within the lodges constituted a normative model for society as a whole. This was especially true on the continent: when the first lodges began to appear in the 1730s, their embodiment of British values was often seen as threatening by state authorities. For example, the Parisian lodge that met in the mid 1720s was composed of English [[Jacobitism|Jacobite]] exiles.<ref>Jacob, pp. 20, 73, 89.</ref> Furthermore, freemasons across Europe explicitly linked themselves to the Enlightenment as a whole. For example, in French lodges the line "As the means to be enlightened I search for the enlightened" was a part of their initiation rites. British lodges assigned themselves the duty to "initiate the unenlightened." This did not necessarily link lodges to the irreligious, but neither did this exclude them from the occasional heresy. In fact, many lodges praised the Grand Architect, the masonic terminology for the deistic divine being who created a scientifically ordered universe.<ref>Jacob, 145–47.</ref>

German historian Reinhart Koselleck claimed: "On the Continent there were two social structures that left a decisive imprint on the Age of Enlightenment: the Republic of Letters and the Masonic lodges."<ref>Reinhart Koselleck, ''[[Critique and Crisis]],'' p. 62, (The MIT Press, 1988)</ref> Scottish professor Thomas Munck argues that "although the Masons did promote international and cross-social contacts which were essentially non-religious and broadly in agreement with enlightened values, they can hardly be described as a major radical or reformist network in their own right."<ref>Thomas Munck, 1994, p. 70.</ref> Many of the Masons values seemed to greatly appeal to Enlightenment values and thinkers. Diderot discusses the link between Freemason ideals and the enlightenment in D'Alembert's Dream, exploring masonry as a way of spreading enlightenment beliefs.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.stmarys-ca.edu/sites/default/files/attachments/files/Dalemberts_Dream.pdf |last=Diderot |first=Denis |title=D'Alembert's Dream |year=1769 |access-date=17 November 2014 |archive-date=29 November 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141129024943/https://www.stmarys-ca.edu/sites/default/files/attachments/files/Dalemberts_Dream.pdf |url-status=dead}}</ref> Historian Margaret Jacob stresses the importance of the Masons in indirectly inspiring enlightened political thought.<ref>Margaret C. Jacob, ''Living the Enlightenment: Freemasonry and politics in eighteenth-century Europe'' (Oxford University Press, 1991.)</ref> On the negative side, [[Daniel Roche (historian)|Daniel Roche]] contests claims that Masonry promoted egalitarianism and he argues the lodges only attracted men of similar social backgrounds.<ref>Roche, 437.</ref> The presence of noble women in the French "lodges of adoption" that formed in the 1780s was largely due to the close ties shared between these lodges and aristocratic society.<ref>Jacob, 139. See also Janet M. Burke, "Freemasonry, Friendship and Noblewomen: The Role of the Secret Society in Bringing Enlightenment Thought to Pre-Revolutionary Women Elites," ''History of European Ideas'' 10 no. 3 (1989): 283–94.</ref>

The major opponent of Freemasonry was the Catholic Church so in countries with a large Catholic element, such as France, Italy, Spain, and Mexico, much of the ferocity of the political battles involve the confrontation between what Davies calls the reactionary Church and enlightened Freemasonry.<ref>Davies, ''Europe: A History'' (1996) pp. 634–635</ref><ref>Richard Weisberger et al., eds., ''Freemasonry on both sides of the Atlantic: essays concerning the craft in the British Isles, Europe, the United States, and Mexico'' (2002)</ref> Even in France, Masons did not act as a group.<ref>Robert R. Palmer, ''The Age of the Democratic Revolution: The Struggle'' (1970) p. 53</ref> American historians, while noting that Benjamin Franklin and [[George Washington]] were indeed active Masons, have downplayed the importance of Freemasonry in causing the American Revolution because the Masonic order was non-political and included both Patriots and their enemy the Loyalists.<ref>Neil L. York, "Freemasons and the American Revolution," ''The Historian'' Volume: 55. Issue: 2. 1993, pp. 315+.</ref>

===Art===
The art produced during the Enlightenment focused on a search for morality that was absent from the art in previous eras.{{Citation needed|date=May 2022}} At the same time, the [[Classical art]] of Greece and Rome became interesting to people again, since archaeological teams discovered [[Pompeii]] and [[Herculaneum]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Janson |first1=H. W. |last2=Janson |first2=Anthony |title=A Basic History of Art |url=https://archive.org/details/basichistoryofar0006jans |url-access=registration |year=2003 |publisher=Harry N. Abrams, Inc. |location=New York |pages=[https://archive.org/details/basichistoryofar0006jans/page/458 458–474]}}</ref> People took inspiration from it and revived classical art into [[neoclassicism|neo-classical art]]. This can especially be seen in early American art and architecture, which featured arches, goddesses, and other classical architectural designs.{{clarify|this may be true of American art, but I find the idea slightly startling given that rococo going on in France and Italy, that this is would be *especially* true od American art. If I have the timeline wrong or something feel free to remove the tag; if nor please a somewhat better summary here|date=October 2023}}