Over the course of the semester, you will write three 2-3 page interpretive
essays based
on documents from your book, Modern Empires: A Reader and Online
Documents. Essay questions will be provided.
Follow these instructions:
1) Introduction. Your introductory paragraph must include a clear thesis = your
basic answers to the essay questions. A thesis states an argument that will be
explained and defended in the body of your paper. You can read an
explanation of thesis statements at
http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/thesis-statements. Your
introduction should also describe the topic of your paper and the regions of
the world your sources come from.
2) Quotes. Include ONE brief quote from EACH primary source document that
supports your thesis. Quote should be no longer than one sentence. Explain
each quote in your own words. DO NOT quote from the editor’s introduction to
the
primary source. (In the book, this is the section in italics after the title)
3) Citations. When first discussing a document, state the document title (NOT
number) and author (if given). At the end of each quote, include the page
number the quote is from like so: (p. 24). No bibliography is needed.
4) Historical context. When discussing each primary source, you should briefly
provide relevant historical background using information given in lecture and
in the introduction to that primary source.
Format:
• Length:
Minimum: 2 complete pages of writing (measured from the start of your first
paragraph to end of your last paragraph)
Maximum: approximately 3 pages of writing (3.5 pages is okay)
• Double-Spaced
• 12 Times Roman Font
• 1” margins (all around)
• Only give your name and question number answered at the top corner
Question:
Analyze ideas of the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment using
documents:
Module 5: OD1, OD2, OD3, OD4. How did the authors challenge traditional
authority and promote the use of reason? Do you think their ideas are
followed in America today? Why or why not?
1. Galileo Galilei, Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany, 1615
Galileo was an Italian physicist, mathematician, and astronomer. His public support of
Copernicus’ theory of a sun-centered universe disturbed the Catholic Church, which officially
condemned Copernicus’ theory in 1616 and forced Galileo to renounce many of his ideas in
1632. In the following letter, Galileo, a devout Catholic, defended his scientific ideas.
To the Most Serene Grand Duchess Mother:
Some years ago, as Your Serene Highness well knows, I discovered in the heavens many things
that had not been seen before our own age. The novelty of these things, as well as some
consequences which followed from them in contradiction to the physical notions commonly held
among academic philosophers, stirred up against me no small number of professors-as if I had
placed these things in the sky with my own hands in order to upset nature and overturn the
sciences. They seemed to forget that the increase of known truths stimulates the investigation,
establishment, and growth of the arts; not their diminution or destruction.
Showing a greater fondness for their own opinions than for truth they sought to deny and
disprove the new things which, if they had cared to look for themselves, their own senses would
have demonstrated to them. To this end they hurled various charges and published numerous
writings filled with vain arguments, and they made the grave mistake of sprinkling these with
passages taken from places in the Bible which they had failed to understand properly, and which
were ill-suited to their purposes…
Persisting in their original resolve to destroy me and everything mine by any means they can
think of, these men are aware of my views in astronomy and philosophy. They know that as to
the arrangement of the parts of the universe, I hold the sun to be situated motionless in the center
of the revolution of the celestial orbs while the earth revolves about the sun. They know also that
I support this position not only by refuting the arguments of Ptolemy and Aristotle, but by
producing many counter-arguments; in particular, some which relate to physical effects whose
causes can perhaps be assigned in no other way. In addition there are astronomical arguments
derived from many things in my new celestial discoveries that plainly confute the Ptolemaic
system while admirably agreeing with and confirming the contrary hypothesis. Possibly because
they are disturbed by the known truth of other propositions of mine which differ from those
commonly held, and therefore mistrusting their defense so long as they confine themselves to the
field of philosophy, these men have resolved to fabricate a shield for their fallacies out of the
mantle of pretended religion and the authority of the Bible. These they apply with little
judgement to the refutation of arguments that they do not understand and have not even listened
to.
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First they have endeavored to spread the opinion that such propositions in general are contrary to
the Bible and are consequently damnable and heretical. They know that it is human nature to
take up causes whereby a man may oppress his neighbor, no matter how unjustly, rather than
those from which a man may receive some just encouragement. Hence they have had no trouble
in finding men who would preach the damnability and heresy of the new doctrine from their very
pulpits with unwonted confidence, thus doing impious and inconsiderate injury not only to that
doctrine and its followers but to all mathematics and mathematicians in general. Next, becoming
bolder, and hoping (though vainly) that this seed which first took root in their hypocritical minds
would send out branches and ascend to heaven, they began scattering rumors among the people
that before long this doctrine would be condemned by the supreme authority. They know, too,
that official condemnation would not only suppress the two propositions which I have
mentioned, but would render damnable all other astronomical and physical statements and
observations that have any necessary relation or connection with these…
Now as to the false aspersions which they so unjustly seek to cast upon me, I have thought it
necessary to justify myself in the eyes of all men, whose judgment in matters of` religion and of
reputation I must hold in great esteem. I shall therefore discourse of the particulars which these
men produce to make this opinion detested and to have it condemned not merely as false but as
heretical. To this end they make a shield of their hypocritical zeal for religion. They go about
invoking the Bible, which they would have minister to their deceitful purposes. Contrary to the
sense of the Bible and the intention of the holy Fathers, if I am not mistaken, they would extend
such authorities until even purely physical matters – where faith is not involved – they would
have us altogether abandon reason and the evidence of our senses in favor of some biblical
passage, though under the surface meaning of its words this passage may contain a different
sense…
The reason produced for condemning the opinion that the earth moves and the sun stands still in
many places in the Bible one may read that the sun moves and the earth stands still. Since the
Bible cannot err; it follows as a necessary consequence that anyone takes an erroneous and
heretical position who maintains that the sun is inherently motionless and the earth movable.
With regard to this argument, I think in the first place that it is very pious to say and prudent to
affirm that the holy Bible can never speak untruth-whenever its true meaning is understood. But I
believe nobody will deny that it is often very abstruse, and may say things which are quite
different from what its bare words signify. Hence in expounding the Bible if one were always to
confine oneself to the unadorned grammatical meaning, one might; fall into error. Not only
contradictions and propositions far from true might thus be made to appear in the Bible, but even
grave heresies and follies. Thus it would be necessary to assign to God feet, hands and eyes, as
well as corporeal and human affections, such as anger, repentance, hatred, and sometimes even
the forgetting of things past and ignorance of those to come. These propositions uttered by the
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Holy Ghost were set down in that manner by the sacred scribes in order to accommodate them to
the capacities of the common people, who are rude and unlearned. For the sake of those who
deserve to be separated from the herd, it is necessary that wise expositors should produce the true
senses of such passages, together with the special reasons for which they were set down in these
words. This doctrine is so widespread and so definite with all theologians that it would be
superfluous to adduce evidence for it.
Hence I think that I may reasonably conclude that whenever the Bible has occasion to speak of
any physical conclusion (especially those which are very abstruse and hard to understand), the
rule has been observed of avoiding confusion in the minds of the common people which would
render them contumacious toward the higher mysteries. Now the Bible, merely to condescend to
popular capacity, has not hesitated to obscure some very important pronouncements, attributing
to God himself some qualities extremely remote from (and even contrary to) His essence. Who,
then, would positively declare that this principle has been set aside, and the Bible has confined
itself rigorously to the bare and restricted sense of its words, when speaking but casually of the
earth, of water, of the sun, or of any other created thing? Especially in view of the fact that these
things in no way concern the primary purpose of the sacred writings, which is the service of God
and the salvation of souls – matters infinitely beyond the comprehension of the common people.
This being granted, I think that in discussions of physical problems we ought to begin not from
the authority of scriptural passages but from sense -experiences and necessary demonstrations;
for the holy Bible and the phenomena of nature proceed alike from the divine Word the former
as the dictate of the Holy Ghost and the latter as the observant executrix of God’s commands. It
is necessary for the Bible, in order to be accommodated to the understanding of every man, to
speak many things which appear to differ from the absolute truth so far as the bare meaning of
the words is concerned. But Nature, on the other hand, is inexorable and immutable; she never
transgresses the laws imposed upon her, or cares a whit whether her abstruse reasons and
methods of operation are understandable to men. For that reason it appears that nothing physical
which sense- experience sets before our eyes, or which necessary demonstrations prove to us,
ought to be called in question (much less condemned) upon the testimony of biblical passages
which may have some different meaning beneath their words. For the Bible is not chained in
every expression to conditions as strict as those which govern all physical effects; nor is God any
less excellently revealed in Nature’s actions than in the sacred statements of the Bible. Perhaps
this is what Tertullian meant by these words:
“We conclude that God is known first through Nature, and then again, more particularly, by
doctrine, by Nature in His works, and by doctrine in His revealed word.”
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2. Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary (1764)
Voltaire (1694-1778) was a French Enlightenment writer famous across Europe.
PREJUDICE is an opinion without judgment. Thus all over the world do people inspire children
with all the opinions they desire, before the children can judge.
There are some universal, necessary prejudices, which even make virtue. In all countries children
are taught to recognize a rewarding and revenging God; to respect and love their father and their
mother; to look on theft as a crime, selfish lying as a vice, before they can guess what is a vice
and what a virtue.
There are then some very good prejudices; they are those which are ratified by judgment when
one reasons.
Sentiment is not a simple prejudice; it is something much stronger. A mother does not love her
son because she has been told she must love him; she cherishes him happily in spite of herself. It
is not through prejudice that you run to the help of an unknown child about to fall into a
precipice, or be eaten by a beast.
But it is through prejudice that you will respect a man clad in certain clothes, walking gravely,
speaking likewise. Your parents have told you that you should bow before this man; you respect
him before knowing whether he merits your respect: you grow in years and in knowledge; you
perceive that this man is a charlatan steeped in arrogance, self-interest and artifice; you despise
what you revered, and the prejudice cedes to judgment. Through prejudice you have believed the
fables with which your childhood was cradled; you have been told that the Titans made war on
the gods, and Venus was amorous of Adonis; when you are twelve you accept these fables as
truths; when you are twenty you look on them as ingenious allegories.
Let us examine briefly the different sorts of prejudices, so as to set our affairs in order. We shall
be perhaps like those who, at the time of Law’s system, perceived that they had calculated
imaginary riches.
PREJUDICES OF THE SENSES
Is it not strange that our eyes always deceive us, even when we have very good sight, and that on
the contrary our ears do not deceive us? Let your well-informed ear hear ” You are beautiful, I
love you”; it is quite certain that someone has not said ” I hate you, you are ugly “: but you see a
smooth mirror; it is demonstrated that you are mistaken, it has a very uneven surface. You see
the sun as about two feet in diameter; it is demonstrated that it is a million times bigger than the
earth.
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It seems that God has put truth in your ears, and error in your eyes; but study optics, and you will
see that God has not deceived you, and that it is impossible for objects to appear to you
otherwise than you see them in the present state of things.
PHYSICAL PREJUDICES
The sun rises, the moon also, the earth is motionless : these are natural physical prejudices. But
that lobsters are good for the blood, because when cooked they are red; that eels cure paralysis
because they wriggle; that the moon affects our maladies because one day someone observed that
a sick man had an increase of fever during the waning of the moon; these ideas and a thousand
others are the errors of ancient charlatans who judged without reasoning, and who, being
deceived, deceived others.
HISTORICAL PREJUDICES
Most historical stories have been believed without examination, and this belief is a prejudice.
Fabius Pictor relates that many centuries before him, a vestal of the town of Alba, going to draw
water in her pitcher, was ravished, that she gave birth to Romulus and Remus, that they were fed
by a she-wolf, etc. The Roman people believed this fable; they did not examine whether at that
time there were vestals in Latium, whether it were probable that a king’s daughter would leave
her convent with her pitcher, whether it were likely that a she-wolf would suckle two children
instead of eating them; the prejudice established itself…
RELIGIOUS PREJUDICES
If your nurse has told you that Ceres rules over the crops, or that Vishnou and Xaca made
themselves men several times, or that Sammonocodom came to cut down a forest, or that Odin
awaits you in his hall near Jutland, or that Mohammed or somebody else made a journey into the
sky; if lastly your tutor comes to drive into your brain what your nurse has imprinted on it, you
keep it for life. If your judgment wishes to rise against these prejudices, your neighbours and,
above all, your neighbours’ wives cry out ” Impious reprobate,” and dismay you; your dervish
[monk], fearing to see his income diminish, accuses you to the cadi [judge], and this cadi has you
impaled if he can, because he likes ruling over fools, and thinks that fools obey better than
others: and that will last until your neighbours and the dervish and the cadi begin to understand
that foolishness is good for nothing, and that persecution is abominable.
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3. Baron d’Holbach, Common Sense (1772)
Baron d’Holbach (1723-1789) was a German aristocrat who supported the writings of French
Enlightenment philosophers. His own writings promoted scientific knowledge and opposed
religion.
Savage and furious nations, perpetually at war, adore, under diverse names, some God,
conformable to their ideas, that is to say, cruel, carnivorous, selfish, blood-thirsty. We find, in all
the religions, “a God of armies,” a “jealous God,” an “avenging God,” a “destroying God,” a
“God,” who is pleased with carnage, and whom his worshippers consider it a duty to serve.
Lambs, bulls, children, men, and women, are sacrificed to him. Zealous servants of this
barbarous God think themselves obliged even to offer up themselves as a sacrifice to him.
Madmen may everywhere be seen, who, after meditating upon their terrible God, imagine that to
please him they must inflict on themselves, the most exquisite torments. The gloomy ideas
formed of the deity, far from consoling them, have everywhere disquieted their minds, and
prejudiced follies destructive to happiness.
How could the human mind progress, while tormented with frightful phantoms, and guided by
men, interested in perpetuating its ignorance and fears? Man has been forced to vegetate in his
primitive stupidity: he has been taught stories about invisible powers upon whom his happiness
was supposed to depend. Occupied solely by his fears, and by unintelligible reveries, he has
always been at the mercy of priests, who have reserved to themselves the right of thinking for
him, and of directing his actions.
Thus, man has remained a slave without courage, fearing to reason, and unable to extricate
himself from the labyrinth, in which he has been wandering. He believes himself forced under
the yoke of his gods, known to him only by the fabulous accounts given by his ministers, who,
after binding each unhappy mortal in the chains of prejudice, remain his masters, or else abandon
him defenceless to the absolute power of tyrants, no less terrible than the gods, of whom they are
the representatives.
Oppressed by the double yoke of spiritual and temporal power, it has been impossible for the
people to be happy. Religion became sacred, and men have had no other Morality, than what
their legislators and priests brought from the unknown regions of heaven. The human mind,
confused by theological opinions, ceased to know its own powers, mistrusted experience, feared
truth and disdained reason, in order to follow authority. Man has been a mere machine in the
hands of tyrants and priests. Always treated as a slave, man has contracted the vices of slavery.
Such are the true causes of the corruption of morals. Ignorance and servitude are calculated to
make men wicked and unhappy. Knowledge, Reason, and Liberty, can alone reform and make
men happier. But everything conspires to blind them, and to confirm their errors. Priests cheat
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them, tyrants corrupt and enslave them. Tyranny ever was, and ever will be, the true cause of
man’s depravity, and also of his calamities. Almost always fascinated by religious fiction, poor
mortals turn not their eyes to the natural and obvious causes of their misery; but attribute their
vices to the imperfection of their natures, and their unhappiness to the anger of the gods. They
offer to heaven vows, sacrifices, and presents, to obtain the end of sufferings, which in reality,
are attributable only to the negligence, ignorance, and perversity of their guides, to the folly of
their customs, and above all, to the general want of knowledge. Let men’s minds be filled with
true ideas; let their reason be cultivated; and there will be no need of opposing to the passions,
such a feeble barrier, as the fear of gods. Men will be good, when they are well instructed; and
when they are despised for evil, or justly rewarded for good, which they do to their fellow
citizens.
In vain should we attempt to cure men of their vices, unless we begin by curing them of their
prejudices. It is only by showing them the truth, that they will perceive their true interests, and
the real motives that ought to incline them to do good. Instructors have long enough fixed men’s
eyes upon heaven; let them now turn them upon earth. An incomprehensible theology, ridiculous
fables, impenetrable mysteries, puerile ceremonies, are to be no longer endured. Let the human
mind apply itself to what is natural, to intelligible objects, truth, and useful knowledge.
Does it not suffice to annihilate religious prejudice to show that what is inconceivable to man,
cannot be good for him? Does it require any thing, but plain common sense, to perceive, that a
being, incompatible with the most evident notions—that a cause continually opposed to the
effects which we attribute to it—that a being, of whom we can say nothing, without falling into
contradiction—that a being, who, far from explaining the enigmas of the universe, only makes
them more inexplicable—that a being, whom for so many ages men have vainly addressed to
obtain their happiness, and the end of sufferings—does it require, I say, anything but plain,
common sense, to perceive—that the idea of such a being is an idea without model, and that he
himself is merely a phantom of the imagination? Is any thing necessary but common sense to
perceive, at least, that it is folly and madness for men to hate and damn one another about
unintelligible opinions concerning a being of this kind? In short, does not everything prove, that
Morality and Virtue are totally incompatible with the notions of a God, whom his ministers and
interpreters have described, in every country, as the most capricious, unjust, and cruel of tyrants,
whose pretended will, however, must serve as law and rule the inhabitants of the earth?
To discover the true principles of Morality, men have no need of theology, of revelation, or of
gods: They have need only of common sense. They have only to commune with themselves, to
reflect upon their own nature, to consider the objects of society, and of the individuals, who
compose it; and they will easily perceive, that virtue is advantageous, and vice disadvantageous
to themselves. Let us persuade men to be just, beneficent, moderate, sociable; not because such
conduct is demanded by the gods, but, because it is pleasant to men. Let us advise them to
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abstain from vice and crime; not because they will be punished in another world, but because
they will suffer for it in this.—These are, says Montesquieu, means to prevent crimes—these are
punishments; these reform manners—these are good examples.
The way of truth is straight; that of imposture is crooked and dark. Truth, ever necessary to man,
must necessarily be felt by all upright minds; the lessons of reason are to be followed by all
honest men. Men are unhappy, only because they are ignorant; they are ignorant, only because
everything conspires to prevent their being enlightened; they are wicked only because their
reason is not sufficiently developed…
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4. Immanuel Kant, What Is Enlightenment? (1784)
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was a German philosopher.
Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability
to use one’s own understanding without another’s guidance. This immaturity is self-imposed if its
cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one’s own
mind without another’s guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) “Have the courage to use your
own understanding,” is therefore the motto of the enlightenment.
Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large part of mankind gladly remain minors
all their lives, long after nature has freed them from external guidance. They are the reasons why
it is so easy for others to set themselves up as guardians. It is so comfortable to be a minor. If I
have a book that thinks for me, a pastor who acts as my conscience, a physician who prescribes
my diet, and so on–then I have no need to exert myself. I have no need to think, if only I can
pay; others will take care of that disagreeable business for me. Those guardians who have kindly
taken supervision upon themselves see to it that the overwhelming majority of mankind–among
them the entire fair sex–should consider the step to maturity, not only as hard, but as extremely
dangerous. First, these guardians make their domestic cattle stupid and carefully prevent the
docile creatures from taking a single step without the leading-strings to which they have fastened
them. Then they show them the danger that would threaten them if they should try to walk by
themselves. Now this danger is really not very great; after stumbling a few times they would, at
last, learn to walk. However, examples of such failures intimidate and generally discourage all
further attempts.
Thus it is very difficult for the individual to work himself out of the immaturity which has
become almost second nature to him. He has even grown to like it, and is at first really incapable
of using his own understanding because he has never been permitted to try it. Dogmas and
formulas, these mechanical tools designed for reasonable use–or rather abuse–of his natural
gifts, are the fetters of an everlasting immaturity. The man who casts them off would make an
uncertain leap over the narrowest ditch, because he is not used to such free movement. That is
why there are only a few men who walk firmly, and who have emerged from immaturity by
cultivating their own minds.
It is more nearly possible, however, for the public to enlighten itself; indeed, if it is only given
freedom, enlightenment is almost inevitable. There will always be a few independent thinkers,
even among the self-appointed guardians of the multitude. Once such men have thrown off the
yoke of immaturity, they will spread about them the spirit of a reasonable appreciation of man’s
value and of his duty to think for himself. It is especially to be noted that the public which was
earlier brought under the yoke by these men afterwards forces these very guardians to remain in
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submission, if it is so incited by some of its guardians who are themselves incapable of any
enlightenment. That shows how pernicious it is to implant prejudices: they will eventually
revenge themselves upon their authors or their authors’ descendants. Therefore, a public can
achieve enlightenment only slowly. A revolution may bring about the end of a personal
despotism or of avaricious tyrannical oppression, but never a true reform of modes of thought.
New prejudices will serve, in place of the old, as guidelines for the unthinking multitude.
This enlightenment requires nothing but freedom–and the most innocent of all that may be called
“freedom”: freedom to make public use of one’s reason in all matters. Now I hear the cry from all
sides: “Do not argue!” The officer says: “Do not argue–drill!” The tax collector: “Do not argue-pay!” The pastor: “Do not argue–believe!” Only one ruler in the world says: “Argue as much as
you please, but obey!” We find restrictions on freedom everywhere. But which restriction is
harmful to enlightenment? Which restriction is innocent, and which advances enlightenment? I
reply: the public use of one’s reason must be free at all times, and this alone can bring
enlightenment to mankind…
When we ask, Are we now living in an enlightened age? the answer is, No, but we live in an age
of enlightenment. As matters now stand it is still far from true that men are already capable of
using their own reason in religious matters confidently and correctly without external guidance.
Still, we have some obvious indications that the field of working toward the goal [of religious
truth] is now opened. What is more, the hindrances against general enlightenment or the
emergence from self-imposed immaturity are gradually diminishing. In this respect this is the age
of the enlightenment and the century of Frederick [the Great]…
But only the man who is himself enlightened, who is not afraid of shadows, and who commands
at the same time a well disciplined and numerous army as guarantor of public peace–only he can
say what [the sovereign of] a free state cannot dare to say: “Argue as much as you like, and about
what you like, but obey!” Thus we observe here as elsewhere in human affairs, in which almost
everything is paradoxical, a surprising and unexpected course of events: a large degree of civic
freedom appears to be of advantage to the intellectual freedom of the people, yet at the same time
it establishes insurmountable barriers. A lesser degree of civic freedom, however, creates room
to let that free spirit expand to the limits of its capacity. Nature, then, has carefully cultivated the
seed within the hard core–namely the urge for and the vocation of free thought. And this free
thought gradually reacts back on the modes of thought of the people, and men become more and
more capable of acting in freedom. At last free thought acts even on the fundamentals of
government and the state finds it agreeable to treat man, who is now more than a machine, in
accord with his dignity.
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5. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (August 26, 1789)
The representatives of the French people, organized as a National Assembly, believing that
the ignorance, neglect, or contempt of the rights of man are the sole cause of public calamities
and of the corruption of governments, have determined to set forth in a solemn declaration the
natural, unalienable, and sacred rights of man, in order that this declaration, being constantly
before all the members of the Social body, shall remind them continually of their rights and
duties; in order that the acts of the legislative power, as well as those of the executive power,
may be compared at any moment with the objects and purposes of all political institutions and
may thus be more respected, and, lastly, in order that the grievances of the citizens, based
hereafter upon simple and incontestable principles, shall tend to the maintenance of the
constitution and redound to the happiness of all. Therefore the National Assembly recognizes
and proclaims, in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following rights
of man and of the citizen:
Articles:
1. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only
upon the general good.
2. The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible
rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.
3. The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual
may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.
4. Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the
exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other
members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by
law.
5. Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society. Nothing may be prevented
which is not forbidden by law, and no one may be forced to do anything not provided for by law.
6. Law is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has a right to participate
personally, or through his representative, in its foundation. It must be the same for all, whether it
protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, are equally eligible to all
dignities and to all public positions and occupations, according to their abilities, and without
distinction except that of their virtues and talents.
7. No person shall be accused, arrested, or imprisoned except in the cases and according to
the forms prescribed by law. Anyone soliciting, transmitting, executing, or causing to be
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executed, any arbitrary order, shall be punished. But any citizen summoned or arrested in virtue
of the law shall submit without delay, as resistance constitutes an offense.
8. The law shall provide for such punishments only as are strictly and obviously necessary,
and no one shall suffer punishment except it be legally inflicted in virtue of a law passed and
promulgated before the commission of the offense.
9. As all persons are held innocent until they shall have been declared guilty, if arrest shall be
deemed indispensable, all harshness not essential to the securing of the prisoner’s person shall be
severely repressed by law.
10. No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views,
provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law.
11. The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of
man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be
responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law.
12. The security of the rights of man and of the citizen requires public military forces. These
forces are, therefore, established for the good of all and not for the personal advantage of those to
whom they shall be entrusted.
13. A common contribution is essential for the maintenance of the public forces and for the
cost of administration. This should be equitably distributed among all the citizens in proportion
to their means.
14. All the citizens have a right to decide, either personally or by their representatives, as to
the necessity of the public contribution; to grant this freely; to know to what uses it is put; and to
fix the proportion, the mode of assessment and of collection and the duration of the taxes.
15. Society has the right to require of every public agent an account of his administration.
16. A society in which the observance of the law is not assured, nor the separation of powers
defined, has no constitution at all.
17. Since property is an inviolable and sacred right, no one shall be deprived thereof except
where public necessity, legally determined, shall clearly demand it, and then only on condition
that the owner shall have been previously and equitably indemnified.
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6. Olympe de Gouges, The Declaration of Rights of Woman (1791)
Olympe de Gouges (1748-1793) was a self-educated French woman who demanded women’s
equality during the French Revolution.
Mothers, daughters, sisters, female representatives of the nation ask to be constituted as a
national assembly. Considering that ignorance, neglect, or contempt for the rights of woman are
the sole causes of public misfortunes and governmental corruption, they have resolved to set
forth in a solemn declaration the natural, inalienable, and sacred rights of woman: so that by
being constantly present to all the members of the social body this declaration may always
remind them of their rights and duties; so that by being liable at every moment to comparison
with the aim of any and all political institutions the acts of women’s and men’s powers may be
the more fully respected; and so that by being founded henceforward on simple and incontestable
principles the demands of the citizenesses may always tend toward maintaining the constitution,
good morals, and the general welfare.
In consequence, the sex that is superior in beauty as in courage, needed in maternal sufferings,
recognizes and declares, in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the
following rights of woman and the citizeness.
1. Woman is born free and remains equal to man in rights. Social distinctions may be based only
on common utility.
2. The purpose of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible
rights of woman and man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and especially resistance to
oppression.
3. The principle of all sovereignty rests essentially in the nation, which is but the reuniting of
woman and man. No body and no individual may exercise authority which does not emanate
expressly from the nation.
4. Liberty and justice consist in restoring all that belongs to another; hence the exercise of the
natural rights of woman has no other limits than those that the perpetual tyranny of man opposes
to them; these limits must be reformed according to the laws of nature and reason.
5. The laws of nature and reason prohibit all actions which are injurious to society. No hindrance
should be put in the way of anything not prohibited by these wise and divine laws, nor may
anyone be forced to do what they do not require.
6. The law should be the expression of the general will. All citizenesses and citizens should take
part, in person or by their representatives, in its formation. It must be the same for everyone. All
citizenesses and citizens, being equal in its eyes, should be equally admissible to all public
dignities, offices and employments, according to their ability, and with no other distinction than
that of their virtues and talents.
7. No woman is exempted; she is indicted, arrested, and detained in the cases determined by the
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law. Women like men obey this rigorous law.
8. Only strictly and obviously necessary punishments should be established by the law, and no
one may be punished except by virtue of a law established and promulgated before the time of
the offense, and legally applied to women.
9. Any woman being declared guilty, all rigor is exercised by the law.
10. No one should be disturbed for his fundamental opinions; woman has the right to mount the
scaffold, so she should have the right equally to mount the rostrum, provided that these
manifestations do not trouble public order as established by law.
11. The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of
woman, since this liberty assures the recognition of children by their fathers. Every citizeness
may therefore say freely, I am the mother of your child; a barbarous prejudice [against unmarried
women having children] should not force her to hide the truth, so long as responsibility is
accepted for any abuse of this liberty in cases determined by the law [women are not allowed to
lie about the paternity of their children].
12. The safeguard of the rights of woman and the citizeness requires public powers. These
powers are instituted for the advantage of all and not for the private benefit of those to whom
they are entrusted.
13. For maintenance of public authority and for expenses of administration, taxation of women
and men is equal; she takes part in all forced labor service, in all painful tasks; she must therefore
have the same proportion in the distribution of places, employments, offices, dignities, and in
industry.
14. The citizenesses and citizens have the right, by themselves or through their representatives,
to have demonstrated to them the necessity of public taxes. The citizenesses can only agree to
them upon admission of an equal division, not only in wealth, but also in the public
administration, and to determine the means of apportionment, assessment, and collection, and the
duration of the taxes.
15. The mass of women, joining with men in paying taxes, have the right to hold accountable
every public agent of the administration.
16. Any society in which the guarantee of rights is not assured or the separation of powers not
settled has no constitution. The constitution is null and void if the majority of individuals
composing the nation has not cooperated in its drafting.
17. Property belongs to both sexes whether united or separated; it is for each of them an
inviolable and sacred right, and no one may be deprived of it as a true patrimony of nature,
except when public necessity, certified by law, obviously requires it, and then on condition of a
just compensation in advance.
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Postscript
Women, wake up; the tocsin of reason sounds throughout the universe; recognize your rights.
The powerful empire of nature is no longer surrounded by prejudice, fanaticism, superstition, and
lies. The torch of truth has dispersed all the clouds of folly and usurpation. Enslaved man has
multiplied his force and needs yours to break his chains. Having become free, he has become
unjust toward his companion. Oh women! Women, when will you cease to be blind? What
advantages have you gathered in the Revolution? A scorn more marked, a disdain more
conspicuous. During the centuries of corruption you only reigned over the weakness of men.
Your empire is destroyed; what is left to you then? Firm belief in the injustices of men. The
reclaiming of your patrimony founded on the wise decrees of nature; why should you fear such a
beautiful enterprise? . . . Whatever the barriers set up against you, it is in your power to
overcome them; you only have to want it. Let us pass now to the appalling account of what you
have been in society; and since national education is an issue at this moment, let us see if our
wise legislators will think sanely about the education of women…
A young woman without experience, seduced by the man she loves, abandons her parents to
follow him; the ingrate leaves her after a few years and the older she will have grown with him,
the more his inconstancy will be inhuman. If she has children, he will still abandon her. If he is
rich, he will believe himself excused from sharing his fortune with his noble victims. If some
engagement ties him to his duties, he will violate it while counting on support from the law. If he
is married, every other obligation loses its force. What laws then remain to be passed that would
eradicate vice down to its roots? That of equally dividing [family] fortunes between men and
women and of public administration of their goods. It is easy to imagine that a woman born of a
rich family would gain much from the equal division of property [between children]. But what
about the woman born in a poor family with merit and virtues; what is her lot? Poverty and
opprobrium. If she does not excel in music or painting, she cannot be admitted to any public
function, even if she is fully qualified. . . .
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7. Maximilien Robespierre, “On the Moral and Political Principles of
Domestic Policy” (1794)
Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) was the leader of the Committee of Public Safety elected
by the National Convention, which governed France at the height of the radical phase of the
revolution.
Now, what is the fundamental principle of the democratic or popular government – that is, the
essential spring which makes it move? It is virtue; I am speaking of the public virtue which
affected so many prodigies in Greece and Rome and which ought to produce much more
surprising ones in republican France; of that virtue which is nothing other than the love of
country and of its laws.
But as the essence of the republic or of democracy is equality, it follows that the love of country
necessarily includes the love of equality.
It is also true that this sublime sentiment assumes a preference for the public interest over every
particular interest; hence the love of country presupposes or produces all the virtues: for what are
they other than that spiritual strength which renders one capable of those sacrifices? And how
could the slave of avarice or ambition, for example, sacrifice his idol to his country? Not only is
virtue the soul of democracy; it can exist only in that government ….
Republican virtue can be considered in relation to the people and in relation to the government; it
is necessary in both. When only the government lacks virtue, there remains a resource in the
people’s virtue; but when the people itself is corrupted, liberty is already lost.
Fortunately virtue is natural to the people, notwithstanding aristocratic prejudices. A nation is
truly corrupted when, having by degrees lost its character and its liberty, it passes from
democracy to aristocracy or to monarchy; that is the decrepitude and death of the body politic….
But when, by prodigious efforts of courage and reason, a people breaks the chains of despotism
to make them into trophies of liberty; when by the force of its moral temperament it comes, as it
were, out of the arms of the death, to recapture all the vigor of youth; when by turns it is
sensitive and proud, intrepid and docile, and can be stopped neither by impregnable ramparts nor
by the innumerable armies of the tyrants armed against it, but stops of itself upon confronting the
law’s image; then if it does not climb rapidly to the summit of its destinies, this can only be the
fault of those who govern it…
From all this let us deduce a great truth: the characteristic of popular government is confidence in
the people and severity towards itself. The whole development of our theory would end here if
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you had only to pilot the vessel of the Republic through calm waters; but the tempest roars, and
the revolution imposes on you another task.
This great purity of the French revolution’s basis, the very sublimity of its objective, is precisely
what causes both our strength and our weakness. Our strength, because it gives to us truth’s
ascendancy over imposture, and the rights of the public interest over private interests; our
weakness, because it rallies all vicious men against us, all those who in their hearts contemplated
despoiling the people and all those who intend to let it be despoiled with impunity, both those
who have rejected freedom as a personal calamity and those who have embraced the revolution
as a career and the Republic as prey. Hence the defection of so many ambitious or greedy men
who since the point of departure have abandoned us along the way because they did not begin
the journey with the same destination in view. The two opposing spirits that have been
represented in a struggle to rule nature might be said to be fighting in this great period of human
history to fix irrevocably the world’s destinies, and France is the scene of this fearful combat.
Without, all the tyrants encircle you; within, all tyranny’s friends conspire; they will conspire
until hope is wrested from crime. We must smother the internal and external enemies of the
Republic or perish with it; now in this situation, the first maxim of your policy ought to be to
lead the people by reason and the people’s enemies by terror.
If the spring of popular government in time of peace is virtue, the springs of popular government
in revolution are at once virtue and terror: virtue, without which terror is fatal; terror, without
which virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is
therefore an emanation of virtue; it is not so much a special principle as it is a consequence of the
general principle of democracy applied to our country’s most urgent needs.
It has been said that terror is the principle of despotic government. Does your government
therefore resemble despotism? Yes, as the sword that gleams in the hands of the heroes of liberty
resembles that with which the henchmen of tyranny are armed. Let the despot govern by terror
his brutalized subjects; he is right, as a despot. Subdue by terror the enemies of liberty, and you
will be right, as founders of the Republic. The government of the revolution is liberty’s
despotism against tyranny. Is force made only to protect crime? And is the thunderbolt not
destined to strike the heads of the proud?
. . . Indulgence for the royalists, cry certain men, mercy for the villains! No! mercy for the
innocent, mercy for the weak, mercy for the unfortunate, mercy for humanity.
Society owes protection only to peaceable citizens; the only citizens in the Republic are the
republicans. For it, the royalists, the conspirators are only strangers or, rather, enemies. This
terrible war waged by liberty against tyranny- is it not indivisible? Are the enemies within not
the allies of the enemies without? The assassins who tear our country apart, the intriguers who
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buy the consciences that hold the people’s mandate; the traitors who sell them; the mercenary
pamphleteers hired to dishonor the people’s cause, to kill public virtue, to stir up the fire of civil
discord, and to prepare political counterrevolution by moral counterrevolution-are all those men
less guilty or less dangerous than the tyrants whom they serve?
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