Download age of enlightenment quotations activity

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AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT QUOTATIONS ACTIVITY DIRECTIONS: Read each quotation taken from enlightened thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Answer the following questions for each: 1) What idea is the author expressing? (Answer the specific prompt(s) that follow each quote) 2) How does that idea reflect the spirit of and/or issues related to the Enlightenment period? DOCUMENT 1:
I…therefore give the name “Republic” to every state that is governed by laws, no matter
what the form of its administration may be: for only in such cases does the public interest
govern, and the res republica rank as a reality … Laws are, properly speaking, only the
conditions of civil association. The people, being subject to the laws, ought to be their
authors: the conditions of the society ought to be regulated…by those who come together to
form it. JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU, THE SOCIAL CONTRACT
1. What natural right is being expressed in this document? Why should citizens be the authors of
society’s laws, according to Rousseau?
DOCUMENT 2:
It is true that in democracies the people seem to act as they please; but political liberty does
not consist in an unlimited freedom. … We must have continually present to our minds the
difference between independence and liberty. Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws
permit, and if a citizen could do what they [ the laws ] forbid he would be no longer be
possessed of liberty, because all his fellow citizens would have the same power. BARON
DE MONTESQUIEU, THE SPIRIT OF LAWS
2. Why does Montesquieu believe that disobeying laws leads to a loss of liberty?
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DOCUMENT 3:
“…[Women] spend many of the first years of their lives acquiring a smattering of
accomplishments; meanwhile strength of body and mind are sacrificed to [indulgent]
notions of beauty, to the desire of establishing themselves—the only way women can rise in
the world—by marriage.” MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT, A VINDICATION OF THE
RIGHTS OF WOMEN.
3. What ideas about women and education are expressed in this quote? Why might men hesitate to
give women education and equality under the law?
DOCUMENT 4:
“If absolute sovereignty [power] be not necessary in a state, how comes it to be so in a
family? … If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves?”
MARY ASTELL, A SERIOUS PROPOSAL TO THE LADIES
4. What does Mary Astell mean that women are “born slaves”? What natural rights does she imply by
her remarks?
DOCUMENT 5:
…I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it…
The best government seems to be that in which all ranks of men are equally protected by the
laws… VOLTAIRE
5. What type of government does Voltaire recommend? What specific freedom does he feel is
essential?
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Hr. ____
DOCUMENT 6:
The punishment of death is the war of a nation against a citizen whose destruction it judges
to be necessary or useful…For a punishment to be just it should consist of only such
gradations of intensity as suffice to deter men from committing crimes.
CESARE BECCARIA, ON CRIMES AND PUNISHMENT
6. How does Beccaria promote justice and appropriate punishment in this quote?
DOCUMENT 7:
Although the forms of state—monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy—were united in
English government, the powers of government were separated one another. There can be
no liberty where the executive, legislative, and judicial powers were united in one person or
body of persons, because concentration is bound to result in arbitrary despotism.
MONTESQUIEU, THE SPIRIT OF THE LAWS
7. Which type of government does Montesquieu describe and why does he believe it should be
organized in this way?
DOCUMENT 8:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed
by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the
pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
THOMAS JEFFERSON, DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
8. Summarize Thomas Jefferson’s enlightened views on government.
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Name: ______________
Hr. ____
DOCUMENT 9:
“Man is born free, and yet is universally enslaved. At the same time an individual
frequently conceives himself to be the lord and master over others, though only more
eminently deprived of liberty. JEAN-JACQUE ROUSSEAU
9. What human right is the central issue of this paragraph by JJ Rousseau?
DOCUMENT 10:
Men being … by nature all free, equal, and independent, no one can be…subjected to the
political power of another without his own consent…To protect natural rights governments
are established…Since men hope to preserve their property by establishing a government,
they will not want that government to destroy their objectives. When legislators try to
destroy or take away the property of the people, or try to reduce them to slavery, they put
themselves in to a state of war with the people who can then refuse to obey the laws.
JOHN LOCKE, TWO TREATISES ON GOVERNMENT
10. Why is government established? What natural rights does John Locke describe? Under what
circumstances is revolt permissible?
EXTENDED RESPONSE QUESTION:
Use what you have learned so far about the Enlightenment—including information from this collection
of quotes to write an extended response (2 solid paragraphs) to the prompt that follows. Support your
response with specific examples from your readings and quotes. Write on your own sheet of paper.
Prompt: What is the spirit of the Enlightenment? How is that spirit reflected in the writings of the
philosophes? How are those beliefs reflected in society and government in today’s age?
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