Age of Reason

The Age of Reason

When science, art, literature, and philosophy are simply the manifestation of personality they are on a level where glorious and dazzling achievements are possible…

~ Denis Diderot

Illustration from the cover of Encyclopédie,
ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers.
Edited by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond D'Alembert, (c. 1751-52)

During the 18th century, Europe underwent a reawakening in philosophical thought that would transform all facets of society, from government to the arts. Known as the Enlightenment, this age of reason spanned many countries, but its base was in France among philosophes such as Voltaire, who reasoned that God was a clockmaker who had built an orderly universe that operated under the laws of science. The roots of this movement can be traced to the start of the scientific revolution more than a century earlier.

Unsurprisingly, science and its many disciplines, from botany to physics, were exalted by Enlightenment thinkers, who believed that all knowledge could be organized in a systematic and scientific manner. This core belief was the main impetus for the ambitious Encyclopédie, a 25-volume compilation of "all the world's knowledge" published between 1751 and 1772. Edited by the art critic Denis Diderot, it included contributions from 150 scientists and philosophers.