50 Fun Facts About Age of Enlightenment

Which French writer, born François-Marie Arouet, took his pen name after a spell in the Bastille?

Voltaire is known to have used at least 178 pen names. A second spell in the Bastille ended in exile to England, whose freedom of speech and religion impressed him.

Which English philosopher's Two Treatises of Government defended the right to overthrow a tyrant?

John Locke published the work anonymously. Most scholars trace the American phrase 'Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness' to his theory of rights.

Which 1776 document drew on Enlightenment natural rights and listed 27 grievances against George III?

The Declaration of Independence turned theory into an act of state: governments, it says, derive 'their just powers from the consent of the governed'.

Which Scottish 'father of economics' said an 'invisible hand' turns self-interest to public benefit?

Adam Smith used the phrase only once in The Wealth of Nations. His earlier Theory of Moral Sentiments argued that people naturally take an interest in the fortunes of others.

Which English scientist, a hero to Enlightenment thinkers, set out laws of motion and gravity in the Principia?

Isaac Newton spent some 30 years running the Royal Mint, pursuing counterfeiters whose crime was punished as high treason.

Which French thinker, often called the father of modern Western philosophy, wrote 'I think, therefore I am'?

René Descartes died, reportedly of pneumonia, within weeks of starting 5 a.m. lessons for Queen Christina in her cold, draughty castle.

Which American, the first US ambassador to France, invented the lightning rod and bifocal glasses?

Benjamin Franklin never patented his inventions, writing that people should share them 'freely and generously'.

Which German-born Russian empress had herself inoculated against smallpox as an example to her subjects?

Catherine the Great also wrote the Nakaz, a guide for a new law code that she admitted pillaging from the philosophers of Western Europe.

Which London meeting places were nicknamed 'penny universities' after their one-penny entry fee?

Coffeehouses also launched whole industries: Lloyd's Coffee House, a haunt of merchants and sailors, grew into the insurer Lloyd's of London.

Which Geneva-born author of The Social Contract wrote 'Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains'?

Jean-Jacques Rousseau saw the book burned in his home city and banned in Paris. He was also a composer who wrote seven operas.

Which Bordeaux judge argued in The Spirit of the Laws for splitting power among separate branches?

Montesquieu first won fame with Persian Letters, a satire that mocked French society through the eyes of two Persian visitors to Paris.

Which English author of Leviathan called life without government 'nasty, brutish and short'?

Thomas Hobbes said he was born early when his mother heard the Spanish Armada was coming: 'my mother gave birth to twins: myself and fear.'

Which English author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman said women lacked only education?

Mary Wollstonecraft died 11 days after giving birth to a daughter, Mary Shelley, who grew up to write Frankenstein.

Which earlier movement, often dated from Copernicus's 1543 book, gave the Enlightenment its methods?

The Scientific Revolution is also dated from the anatomy book of Andreas Vesalius, On the Workings of the Human Body, which was printed in that same year.

Which Caribbean nation, inspired by French ideals of the rights of man, was founded by a slave revolt?

Haiti is the only country in history established by a slave revolt, and it was the first in the Americas to abolish slavery officially.

Which Paris gatherings, run by hostesses such as Madame Geoffrin, became an Enlightenment institution?

Salons gave their hostesses real power over the talk: the salonnière was expected to run and moderate the conversation among her guests.

Which English-born writer's pamphlet Common Sense urged the American colonies to break from Britain?

Thomas Paine was later jailed in France and narrowly escaped execution when a jailer chalked the death mark on the wrong side of his cell door.

Which flute-playing king of the Enlightenment called the ruler 'the first servant of the state'?

Frederick II of Prussia was nicknamed the Potato King for pushing the new crop on his farmers, and visitors often leave potatoes on his grave.

Which European capital was wrecked by the All Saints' Day earthquake that Enlightenment thinkers debated?

Lisbon's disaster was the first earthquake studied scientifically for its effects over a large area, which led to the birth of modern seismology.

Which Königsberg philosopher answered 'What Is Enlightenment?' in 1784 with the motto 'Dare to know'?

Immanuel Kant borrowed the motto from the Roman poet Horace. His daily walks were said to be so regular that neighbours set their watches by them.

Which French writer, jailed at Vincennes in 1749, edited the Encyclopédie through years of censorship?

Denis Diderot was rescued from money troubles when Russia's empress bought his 3,000-volume library and paid him a yearly salary to look after it for life.

Which Enlightenment-era belief accepts a creator God but rejects revelation and religious texts?

Deism takes its name from the Latin deus, meaning 'god'. Many of its followers held that the creator simply stopped intervening once the universe was made.

Which French name is given to the Enlightenment's public intellectuals, who applied reason to every field?

Philosophes were rarely philosophers by profession: they wrote on history, science, politics, economics and social issues for a wide public.

Which doctrine, preached to Louis XIV by Bishop Bossuet, put a monarch beyond any parliament or pope?

Divine right of kings meant that only God could judge a monarch, so any attempt to depose, resist or limit one could be treated as sacrilege.

Which artistic movement arose in response to the Enlightenment, prizing emotion and imagination?

Romanticism grew out of an earlier German movement known as Sturm und Drang, meaning 'Storm and Stress'.

Which Venezuelan general, shaped by Enlightenment philosophy during his years in Europe, was hailed as El Libertador?

Simón Bolívar led what are now six countries to independence from Spain, and the last of them to break free, Bolivia, was named after him.

Which 1759 satire follows a naive young man taught by his tutor Pangloss that all is for the best?

Candide ends by trading that optimism for a practical rule, 'we must cultivate our garden'. The book was widely banned for blasphemy and sedition as soon as it appeared.

Which city, nicknamed the 'Athens of the North', was at the heart of the Scottish Enlightenment?

Edinburgh's thinkers argued over new books daily at clubs such as the Poker Club, named for its aim to 'poke up' opinion on the militia issue.

Which lodge-based fraternity of the Enlightenment counted Mozart and George Washington as members?

Freemasons numbered between 50,000 and 100,000 in France by 1789, which made theirs the most popular of all Enlightenment associations.

Which economic doctrine is said to take its name from a merchant's reply to French finance minister Colbert?

Laissez-faire echoes the reply 'Laissez-nous faire', or 'leave it to us', given when Colbert asked how the state could help trade. The story first reached print in 1751, some seventy years later.

Which Milan-born author of On Crimes and Punishments condemned torture and the death penalty in 1764?

Cesare Beccaria supplied the argument Tuscany followed when it became the first state in the world to abolish the death penalty. His grandson was the novelist Alessandro Manzoni.

Which Scottish sceptic, denied professorships as a suspected atheist, wrote a bestselling History of England?

David Hume said his debut, A Treatise of Human Nature, 'fell dead-born from the press'. He later took a barely paid librarian's post for the command of its books.

Which English Lord Chancellor, a pioneer of scientific method, fell in 1621 on corruption charges?

Francis Bacon is said to have caught his fatal pneumonia while stuffing a hen with snow, to test whether cold would preserve meat as salt does.

Which Amsterdam lens grinder, expelled by his Jewish community in 1656, equated God with nature?

Baruch Spinoza was only 23 when community leaders issued the writ against him. He went on to build microscopes and telescopes for a living.

Which Uppsala botanist, author of Systema Naturae, fixed the two-part Latin names given to every species?

Carl Linnaeus classed humans among the primates and named them Homo sapiens. He is himself designated as the type specimen for the species.

Which French chemist named oxygen and overturned phlogiston theory before he was guillotined in 1794?

Antoine Lavoisier was guillotined on the afternoon of his trial. The mathematician Lagrange said it took a moment to make that head fall and a hundred years would not produce its like.

Which Latin term names the claim in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding that newborn minds hold no ideas?

Tabula rasa comes from the Roman wax tablet, which was wiped blank by warming and smoothing the wax. The essay itself used another image, 'white paper'.

Which style of rule is summed up by the motto 'Everything for the people, nothing by the people'?

Enlightened despotism describes absolute monarchs who took up the era's ideas partly to enhance their own power. One reigning king even wrote an essay defending the system.

Which economic system, attacked by Enlightenment free traders, measured national wealth in gold and silver?

Mercantilism was named by its critics: the writers now labelled mercantilists never used the word themselves.

Which 1688 overthrow put James II's daughter Mary and her Dutch husband William on the English throne?

The Glorious Revolution began with a landing that some historians call the last successful invasion of England, and it led to the Bill of Rights of 1689.

Which Irish-born MP who backed the American colonists wrote Reflections on the Revolution in France?

Edmund Burke's book, an attack on the upheaval of 1789, became a manifesto for conservative thinking. Many historians call him the father of modern British conservatism.

Which Habsburg emperor, a son of Maria Theresa, abolished serfdom and issued an Edict of Toleration?

Joseph II was the brother of Marie Antoinette and a patron of the composers Mozart and Salieri. His edict gave Lutherans, Calvinists and Greek Orthodox Christians the legal right to worship.

Which French playwright answered the Rights of Man in 1791 with her Declaration of the Rights of Woman?

Olympe de Gouges wrote that a woman 'has the right to mount the scaffold', and in 1793 she was guillotined for her attacks on the revolutionary government.

Which French marquise, a teenage gambler with a gift for maths, translated the Principia into French?

Émilie du Châtelet finished the work in 1749, the year of her death, adding a commentary of her own. It became the standard French translation.

Which French nobleman wrote his Sketch on human progress while hiding from revolutionary authorities?

Marquis de Condorcet argued for votes for women and denounced slavery. He died in prison, and his wife, Sophie de Grouchy, published the Sketch the following year.

Which French economists, led by the physician François Quesnay, held that all wealth comes from land?

Physiocrats took their name from the Greek for 'government of nature'. Quesnay is thought to have drawn on his medical training in likening the circulation of wealth to the flow of blood.

Which Catholic order, expelled from Portugal, France and Spain, was dissolved by Pope Clement XIV in 1773?

The Jesuits survived because two non-Catholic monarchs, in Berlin and Saint Petersburg, refused to let the pope's decree be distributed in their lands.

Which country adopted Europe's first modern constitution in 1791, then vanished from the map by 1795?

Poland's charter was the second modern codified constitution in the world, after that of the United States, and it reflected Enlightenment ideas of balanced government.

Which country's Freedom of the Press Act of 1766 is regarded as the world's first law of its kind?

Sweden owed the law largely to Anders Chydenius, a priest sitting in parliament. Attacks on the king and the state church remained punishable.

Which French mathematician, named after the Paris church where he was abandoned, co-edited the Encyclopédie?

Jean le Rond d'Alembert was traced by his father and placed with a glazier's wife, with whom he went on living for nearly 50 years.