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Jenny MacMichael Period 5 11/ 15/10 Toward a New-World View: Chapter 18 The Expansion of Europe in the 18th century: Chapter 19 Chapter 18 1. In the course of the 18th century, the traditional way of thinking underwent a fundamental transformation known as the scientific revolution. A new critical, scientific, and very “modern” world-view took shape. 2. Aristotle believed that a motionless earth was fixed at the center of the universe. Around it moved ten separate transparent crystal spheres: the moon, sun, the five known planets, and the fixed stars. Beyond the tenth sphere was Heaven, with the throne of God and the souls of the saved. Angels kept the spheres moving in perfect order. 3. Aristotle had distinguished between the world of the celestial spheres and that of earth. While the spheres consisted of a perfect, incorruptible fifth essence, the earth was made up if four imperfect, changeable elements. The “light” elements (air and fire) naturally moved upward, while the “heavy” elements (water and earth) naturally moved downward. These natural directions did not always prevail however because they were often mixed and could be affected by an outside force. He also believed that a uniform force moved an object at a constant speed and that the object would stop as soon as the force was removed. 4. Copernicus was uninterested in astrology and felt that Ptolemy’s cumbersome and occasionally inaccurate rules detached from the majesty of a perfect Creator. He thought that the sun, rather than the earth, was at the center of the universe. Never questioning Aristotle’s belief in crystal spheres or the idea that circular motion was most perfect and divine, Copernicus theorized that the stars and planets, including earth, moved around a fixed sun. Yet he was cautious, and did not publish On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres until the year of his death in 1543. 5. By characterizing the earth as just another planet, Copernicus destroyed the basic idea of Aristotle – that the earthly world was quite different from the heavenly one. Where, then, was the realm of perfection, or the Heaven and the throne of God? Thus the Copernican hypothesis brought sharp attacks from religious leaders, especially Protestants. For instance, Martin Luther and John Calvin condemned him, calling him a “fool” and ridiculing him. Catholic reaction was milder at first. 6. Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) was an astronomer who agreed with Copernicus. Born into a leading Danish noble family, he was impressed at an early age when a partial eclipse of the sun occurred exactly as expected, which seemed “divine” to him. He established himself as Europe’s leading astronomer with his detailed observations of the new star of 1572. He built the most sophisticated observatory of his day. 7. Brahe’s assistant, Johannes Kelper (1571-1630) developed the three famous laws of planetary motion. The three laws: First, he demonstrated in 1609 that the orbits of the planets around the sun are elliptical rather than circular. Second, he demonstrated that the planets do not have a uniform speed in their orbits, and third, in 1619 he showed that the time a planet takes to make its complete orbit is precisely related to its distance from the sun. 8. Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) challenged all the old ideas about motion. His great achievement was the elaboration and consolidation of the experimental method; rather than speculate about what might or should happen, he conducted controlled experiments to find out exactly what did happen. In his famous experiment, he showed that a uniform force, gravity, produced a uniform acceleration. He also formulated the law of inertia, and eventually applied this to astronomy. 9. In 1624 Pope Urban VIII permitted Galileo to write about different possible systems of the world as long as he did not presume to judge which one actually existed. His 1632 work, Dialogue of the Two Chief Systems of the World, openly ridiculed the traditional views of Aristotle and Ptolemy and defended those of Copernicus. The papal Inquisition therefore tried him for heresy. He was imprisoned and threatened with torture, in which he recanted. 10. Newton published Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy in 1687. This accomplishment was to integrate in a single explanatory system the astronomy of Copernicus, as corrected by Kepler’s laws, with the physics of Galileo and his predecessors. The key feature of the Newtonian synthesis was the law of universal gravitation. According to this law, every body in the universe attracts every other body in the universe in a precise mathematical relationship. 11. The first factor that caused the scientific revolution was the long-term contribution of medieval intellectual life and medieval universities. By the 13th century, permanent universities with professors and large student bodies had been established in western Europe to train the lawyers, doctors, and church leaders that society required. By 1300 philosophy had taken its place alongside law, medicine, and theology. With this framework, science was able to emerge as a minor but distinct branch of philosophy. 12. Second factor that caused the scientific revolution: the Renaissance. The Renaissance also stimulated scientific progress. The recovery of the finest works of Greek mathematics greatly improved European mathematics well into the early seventeenth century. The recovery of more texts also showed that classical mathematicians had their differences. Its pattern of patronage, especially in Italy, was often scientific as well as artistic and humanistic. 13. The navigational problems of long sea voyages in the age of overseas expansion were a third factor in the scientific revolution. Ship captains needed to be able to chart their positions as accurately as possible so that reliable maps could be drawn and the risks of international trade reduced. Latitude was easily fixed, and science was turned to in order to solve the pressing problem of finding longitude. 14. At Gresham College scientists had an important, honored role in society for the first time in history. They became the main center of scientific activity in England in early 1600s. It also led to the establishment of the Royal Society of London. 15. Better instruments (e.g. telescope, barometer, thermometer, pendulum clock, microscope, and air pump) were part of a fourth factor in the scientific revolution, the development of better ways of obtaining knowledge about the world. 16. The English politician and writer Francis Bacon was the greatest early propagandist for the new experimental method. He argued that new knowledge had to be pursued through empirical, experimental research. His contribution was to formalize the empirical method into the general theory of inductive reasoning known as empiricism. He claimed that the empirical method would result in more and highly practical, useful knowledge. 17. The French philosopher Rene Descartes came up with Cartesian dualism. His reasoning ultimately reduced all substances to “matter” and “mind,” or the physical and the spiritual. This view, which consists of two fundamental entities, is known as Cartesian dualism. 18. The Catholic church supposedly suppressed scientific theories that conflicted with its teachings and thus discouraged scientific progress. All religions (Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish) opposed the Copernican system until about 1630, by which time the scientific revolution was definitely in progress. The Catholic church was initially less hostile than the other religious leaders. 19. Protestant countries became quite “proscience,” especially if the country lacked a strong religious authority capable of imposing religious orthodoxy on scientific questions. This was especially the case with Protestant England after 1630. English religious conflicts became so intense that the authorities could not impose religious unity on anything, including science. 20. The rise of modern science has many consequences, some of which are still unfolding. First, it went hand in had with the rise of a new and expanding social group – the international scientific community. Members of this community were linked together by common interests and shared values. Science became quite competitive. Second, the scientific revolution introduced not only new knowledge about nature but also a new and revolutionary way of obtaining such knowledge – the modern scientific method. Third, the scientific revolution had few consequences for economic life and the living standards of the masses until the late 1700s. The scientific revolution of the 1600s was first and foremost an intellectual revolution – for more than 100 years its greatest impact was on how people thought and believed. 21. The scientific revolution was the single most important factor in the creation of the new world-view of the eighteenth century Enlightenment. This world-view, which had played a large role in shaping he modern mind, grew out of a rich mix of ideas. The most important and original idea of the Enlightenment was that the methods of natural science could and should be used to examine and understand all aspects of life. This is what intellects mean by reason. This rationalism brought conflicts with established churches. A second important concept was that the scientific method was capable of discovering the laws of human society as well as those of nature. Social science was thus born. Its birth led to the third key idea, that of progress. The Enlightenment was profoundly secular. 22. The most famous and influential popularizer was a versatile French man of his letters, Bernard de Fontenelle (1657-1757). He set out to make science witty and entertaining for a broad nonscientific audience – as easy to read as a novel. Though challenging, he largely succeeded. 23. A second uncertainty involved the whole question of religious truth. Some people asked if ideological conformity in religious matters was really necessary, others skeptically asked if religious truth could ever be known with absolute certainty and concluded that it could not. This was skepticism in the Enlightenment. The most famous of these skeptics was Pierre Bayle (1647-1706), a French Huguenot who despised Louise XIV. He critically examined the religious beliefs and persecutions of the past. He demonstrated that human beliefs had been extremely varied and very often mistaken, concluding that nothing can ever be known beyond all doubt. In religion as in philosophy, humanity’s best hope was open-minded toleration. Bayle’s skepticism was very influential. 24. John Locke’s Essay Concerning Hyman Understanding is considered one of the most influential books in history. It brilliantly set fourth a new theory about how human beings learn and form their ideas. In doing so, he rejected the prevailing view of Descartes, who had held that all people are born with certain basic ideas and ways of thinking. He insisted that all ideas are derived from experience. The human mind at birth is like a blank tablet (tabula rasa), on which the environment writes the individual’s understanding and beliefs. Education and social instruments therefore determine human development, for good or for evil. 25. By the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775, a large portion of western Europe’s educated elite had embraced many of the new ideas. This acceptance was the work of one of history’s most influential groups of intellectuals, the philosophes. They proudly proclaimed that they were finally bringing the light of knowledge to their ignorant fellow creatures in an Age of Enlightenment. Philosophe is the French word for “philosopher,” and it was in France that the Enlightenment reached its highest development. There were three main reasons for this. First, French was the international language of the educated classes in the 1700s, which is the class of people that Enlightenment ideas often lay in the hands of. Second, French absolutism and religious orthodoxy remained strong, but not too strong. Third, the French philosophes were indeed philosophers, asking fundamental philosophical questions about the meaning of life, God, human nature, good and evil, and cause and effect. They were determined to reach and influence all the French economic and social elites, many of which were joined together in simply “the public.” 26. The baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) was one of the greatest philosophes who had works that were very effective at transmitting ideas to the public. The Persian Letters of 1721 is an extremely influential social satire. He was inspired by the example of the physical sciences, and he set out to apply the critical method to the problem of government in the 1748 The Spirit of Laws. The result was a complex comparative study of republics, monarchies, and despotisms. Showing that forms of government were shaped by history, geography, and customs, he focused on the conditions that would promote liberty and prevent tyranny. He argued that despotism could be avoided if there were a separation of powers, with political power divided and shared by a variety of classes. His idea had a great impact on France’s elite. 27. Perhaps the finest representative of a small number of elite Frenchwomen and their scientific accomplishments during the Enlightenment, Madame de Chatelet suffered nonetheless because of her gender. She became uncertain of her ability to make important scientific discoveries, so she concentrated on spreading the ideas of others. She didn’t doubt that women’s limited scientific contributions in the past were due to limited and unequal education. She once wrote that if she were a ruler, she would reform for women’s rights. 28. Like almost all of the philosophes, Voltaire was a reformer, not a revolutionary, in social and political matters. He was eventually appointed royal historian in 1743 and he portrayed Louis XIV as the dignified leader of his age. He also began a large correspondence with Frederick the Great, and after the death of his beloved Emilie, accepted Frederick’s invitation to come brighten up the Prussian court in Berlin. They later quarreled, but he still admired Frederick as a free thinker and an enlightened monarch. 29. Though Voltaire was considered by many devout Christians to be a shallow blasphemer, his religious views were influential and quite typical of the mature Enlightenment. He clearly believed in God, but his was a distant, deistic God. He hated all forms of religious intolerance, which he believed often led to fanaticism and savage, inhuman actions. 30. The French philosophes’ greatest achievement was the seventeenth volume Encyclopedia: The rational Dictionary of the Sciences, the Arts, and the Crafts. The two men set out to find coauthors who would examine the rapidly expanding whole of human knowledge. Even more fundamentally, they set out to teach people how to think critically and objectively about all matters. They had to conquer innumerable obstacles. 31. McKay says the overall effect for the Encyclopedia was “revolutionary” because science and the industrial arts were exalted, religion and immortality questioned. Intolerance, legal injustice, and out-of-date social institutions were openly criticized. The writers showed that human beings could use the process of reasoning to expand human knowledge. They were convinced that the greater knowledge would result in greater human happiness, for knowledge was useful and made possible economic, social, and political progress. It was widely read, and was extremely influential. It summed up the new-world view of the Enlightenment. 32. Baron Paul d’Holbach argued in his works that human beings were machines completely determined by outside forces. Free will, God, and immortality of the soul were foolish myths. His aggressive atheism dealt the unity of the Enlightenment a severe blow. 33. Marie-Jean Caritat, the marquis de Condorcet (1743-1794) hypothesized and tracked nine staged of human progress that had already occurred and predicted that the tenth would bring perfection. 34. The Swiss Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) published The Social Contract in 1762. His contribution was based on two fundamental concepts: the general will and popular sovereignty. According to Rousseau, the general will is sacred and absolute, reflecting the common interests of all the people, who have displaced the monarch as the holder of sovereign power. The general will is not necessarily the will of the majority, however. At times the general will may be the authentic, long-term needs of the people as correctly interpreted by a farseeing minority. His concept of the general will appealed greatly to democrats after 1789. 35. The European market for books grew in the 1700s. The number of books printed rose greatly from roughly 600 new titles in 1700 to 2,600 in 1780. These figures understate the shift in French taste because France’s censorship caused many books to be printed abroad and then smuggled back into the country for “under-the-cloak” sale. 36. Salons were elegant private drawing rooms where a number of talented and often rich women resided over regular social gatherings. They were important because they encouraged witty and uncensored observations on literature, science, and philosophy, which brought the various French elites together and mediated the public’s freewheeling examination of Enlightenment thought. 37. Frederick II (the Great of Prussia) built on the work of his father, Frederick William I, which is surprising because he rebelled against his family’s wishes in his early years. He rejected the cruel life of the barracks and embraced culture and literature, writing poetry and prose in French, which his father detested. 38. He eventually reached reconciliation with his father and was determined to use the splendid army that his father left him when he took the throne. Therefore, Frederick II suddenly (and without warning) invaded Austria (of Maria Theresa), mainly her rich German province of Silesia. This defied solemn Prussian promises to respect the Pragmatic Sanction, which guaranteed Maria Theresa’s succession. Her army was no match for Prussian precision. Now Prussia unquestionably towered above all the other German states and stood as a European Great Power. 39. The terrible struggle of the Seven Years’ War tempered Frederick and brought him to consider how more human policies for his subjects might also strengthen the state; thus he went beyond a superficial commitment to Enlightenment culture for himself and his circle. He tolerantly allowed his subjects to believe as they wished in religious and philosophical matters. He promoted the advancement of knowledge. He tried to improve the lives of his subjects more directly. The legal system and the bureaucracy were his primary tools. He worked hard and lived modestly. He justified monarchy in terms of practical results and said nothing of the divine right of kings. 40. Catherine the Great of Russia was one of the most remarkable rulers who ever lived, and the French philosophes adored her. She was really involved with Enlightenment ideas. She set out to rule in an enlightened manner. She had three main goals. First, she worked hard to bring the sophisticated culture of Western Europe back to Russia. To do so, she imported Western architects, sculptors, musicians, and intellectuals. Her second goal was domestic reform, and she began her reign with sincere and ambitious projects. Better laws were a major concern, which she appointed during her reign. She also tried to improve education. Catherine’s third goal was territorial expansion, and in this respect she was extremely successful. Expansion helped her keep the nobility happy, for it provided her with vast new lands to give her faithful servants and many lovers. 41. Maria Theresa introduced major reforms in Austria. Maria Theresa was a remarkable but old-fashioned absolutist. She was determined to introduce reforms that would make the state stronger and more efficient. Three aspects of these reforms were most important. First, she introduced measures aimed at limiting the papacy’s political influence in her realm. Second, a whole series of administrative reforms strengthened the central bureaucracy, smoothed out provincial differences, and revamped the tax system, taxing even the lands of nobles. Third, the government sought to improve the lot of the agricultural population, cautiously reducing the power of lords over their hereditary surds and their partially free peasant tenants. 42. Joseph II (son of Maria) moved forward rapidly when he came to the throne in 1780. He controlled the established Catholic church even more closely in attempt to ensure that it produced better citizens. He granted religious toleration and civic rights to protect Protestants and Jews. He abolished serfdom in 1781, and in 1789 he decreed that all peasant labor obligation be converted into cash payments. These policies would be considered “enlightened.” 43. After the death of Louis XIV, favored by the duke of Orleans, who governed as a regent of his five-year-old great-grandson Louis XV, the nobility made a strong comeback. They restored to the high courts of France (the parliaments) the ancient right to evaluate royal decrees publically in writing before they were registered and given the force of law. This restoration of the right to evaluate was a fateful step. By the 1700s the middle-class judges became essentially private property, passed down from father to son. 44. In 1748 Louis XV appointed finance minister who decreed a 5 percent income tax on every individual regardless of social status. The result was a vigorous protest from many sides, led by the influential Parlement of Paris. The monarchy retreated; the new tax was dropped. Chapter 19 1. The world of absolutism and aristocracy was very different from the lives of the common people, which was the overwhelming majority. Life remained a struggle with poverty and uncertainty because of the landlords and the tax collectors. 2. At the end of the seventeenth century, most of the population was agrarian. At least 80 percent of the people of all western European countries (except Holland) drew their livelihoods from agriculture. In eastern Europe the percentage was even higher. People put all their effort into the land, plowing fields and sowing seed, reaping harvests and storing grain. However, in most regions in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, harvests were poor or completely failed every 8 or 9 years. 3. The greatest accomplishment of medieval agriculture was the open-field system of village farming developed by European peasants. That system divided the land to be cultivated by the peasants of a given village into several large fields, which were in turn cut up into long, narrow strips. The fields were open, and the strips were not enclosed into small plots by fences or hedges. Peasants farmed each large field as a community. Each family followed the same pattern of plowing, sowing, or harvesting in accordance with tradition and the village leaders. The problem was exhaustion of the soil. When the community planted wheat year after year in the field, the soil would deplete and crop failure was certain. Manure was limited, so they devised a three-year rotation system: a year of wheat or rye bread to be followed by a year of oats or beans to be followed by a year of fallow (crop-free). 4. In addition to rotating field crops, villages maintained open meadows for hay and natural pasture. These were called common lands, set aside primarily for the draft horses and oxen that were necessary in the fields, but open to the cows and pigs of the village community as well. 5. The peasants of eastern Europe were worst off. They were serfs bound to their lords in hereditary service. In much of eastern Europe, there were few limitations on the amount of forced labor the lord could require, and it was common for them to work five or six days of the week with no pay. Social conditions were better in western Europe. 6. Technological progress offered another possibility. If peasants and their noble landlords could replace the idle fallow with crops, they could increase the land under cultivation by 50 percent. Elimination of fallow occurred gradually throughout Europe from the middle 1800s and on, introducing an agricultural revolution. The secret of eliminating the fallow land lies in alternating grain with certain nitrogen-storing crops. New patterns of organization allowed some farmers to develop increasingly sophisticated patterns of crop rotation to suit different kinds of soils. For example, farmers in French Flanders used a tenyear rotation, alternating a number of grain, root, and hay crops in a given field on a tenyear schedule. 7. Improvements in farming had multiple effects. The new crops made ideal feed for animals. Because peasants and larger farmers had more fodder, hay, and root crops for the winter months, they could build up their small herds of cattle and sheep. More animals meant more meat and better diets for the people, and more manure for fertilizer and more grain for bread and porridge. 8. Advocates of improvement argued that innovating agriculturalists needed to enclose and consolidate their scattered holdings into compact, fenced-in fields in order to farm more efficiently. They also needed to enclose their individual shares of the natural pasture. According to the proponents of this enclosure idea, a revolution in village life and organization was the necessary price of technical progress. This was too much to ask of many poor rural people, who held small, inadequate holdings or very little land. When the small landholders and the village poor could effectively oppose the enclosure of the fields and the common pasture, they did so. 9. The new methods of the agricultural revolution originated in the Low Countries. Holland led the way. By the mid 1600s, intensive farming was well established throughout much of the Low Countries. Enclosed fields, continuous rotation, heavy manuring, and a wide variety of crops were all present. One reason for early Dutch leadership in farming was that the Low Countries was one of the most densely populated areas in Europe. The towns and cities in the Low Countries grew tremendously in the 17th century. 10. Cornelius Vermuyden was a famous Dutch engineer. He directed one large drainage project in Yorkshire and another in Cambridgeshire. In the Cambridge fens, he eventually reclaimed forty thousand acres, which were then farmed intensively in the Dutch manner. Swampy wilderness was converted into thousands of acres of some of the best land in Europe. 11. Jethro Tull was an important English innovator. He adopted a critical attitude toward accepted ideas about farming and tried to develop better methods through empirical research. He was enthusiastic about using horses, rather than slow-moving oxen, for plowing. He also advocated sowing seed with drilling equipment rather than scattering it by hand. He also suggested selective breeding of ordinary livestock, which was a marked improvement over the old pattern. 12. By the mid-eighteenth century, English agriculture was in the process of a long and radical transformation. The eventual result was that by 1870 English farmers were producing 300 percent more food than they had produced in 1700, although the number of workers only increased 14 percent. 13. Enclosure was hardly fair. Scholars agree that enclosing the fields came from the powerful ruling class, the English aristocracy, because they benefited directly from it. Some historians assert that the open fields were enclosed fairly; with both large and small owners receiving their fair share after the strips had been surveyed. Others argue that it wasn’t fair, as the large landowners controlled Parliament, which made the laws. Parliament passed hundreds of “enclosure acts” which authorized the fencing of open fields. Many peasants had to sell out their smallholdings in order to pay their share of the expenses. By 1700 a highly distinctive pattern of landownership and production existed in England. At one extreme were a few large landowners; at the other, a large mass of landless cottagers who labored mainly for wages. Tenant farmers were the key to mastering the new methods of farming. Enclosure did not force people off the land and into the towns by eliminating jobs, as has sometimes been claimed. At the same time, by eliminating common rights and greatly reducing the access of poor men and women to the land, the 18th century enclosure movement marked the completion of two major historical developments in England – the rise of market-oriented estate agriculture and the emergence of a landless rural proletariat. 14. The practice of selective breeding meant bigger livestock and more meat on the tables of English families. The picture features a “gigantic champion,” one of the new improved shorthorn breeds of the Newbus Ox. Such great and fat animals were pictured in the press and praised by poets. 15. Proletarianization was the transformation of large numbers of small peasant farmers into landless rural wage earners. 16. European population did not grow at a regular rate. In fact, a “population explosion” occurred in the 18th century. This remarkable population growth occurred in Europe until the 20th century. 17. Population growth slowed and stopped in 17th century Europe: widespread poverty was an undeniable reality; births and deaths, fertility and mortality, were in a crude but effective balance. 18. The most important advance in preventive medicine during the 18th century was inoculation against small pox. This was confined mainly to England and did little to reduce deaths throughout Europe until the later part of the century. 19. Improvements in the water supply and sewage, which were frequently promoted by strong absolutist monarchs, resulted in somewhat better health and helped reduce such diseases as typhoid and typhus in some urban areas of western Europe. It also reduced Europe’s large insect population. Early public health measures helped the decline in mortality that began with the disappearance of plague and continued into the early 19th century. 20. The 18th century was a time of canal and road building in western Europe. These advances in transportation, which were also among the more positive aspects of strong absolutist states, lessened the impact of local crop failure and famine. Emergency supplies could be brought in, and starvation became less frequent. Wars became less destructive and spread fewer diseases. New foods were introduced. 21. By the 18th century, the pressures of rural poverty and the need to employ landless proletarians were overwhelming the efforts of urban artisans to maintain their traditional control over industrial production. A new system was expanding, known by many names. Often called the cottage industry, or “domestic industry” to distinguish it form the factory industry. Sometimes referred to as “protiondustrialization.” The most appropriate phrase is commonly known as the putting-out system for the new form of industrial production. The two main participants were the merchant capitalist and the rural worker. In this system, the merchant loaned, or “put out” raw materials to several cottage workers, who processed the raw materials in their own homes and returned the finished product to the merchant. In all cases this system was a kind of capitalism. Merchants sought to make profits and increase the capital in their business. 22. The putting-out system grew because it had competitive advantages. Underemployed labor was abundant, and poor peasants and landless laborers would work for little pay. Since production in the countryside was not regulated, workers and merchants could change procedures and experiment whenever they wanted to. Because they did not need to meet the standards that maintained quality but discouraged the development of new methods, the cottage industry produced many different kinds of goods. 23. Rural manufacturing did not spread across Europe at an even rate. It first appeared in England and developed most successfully there, especially for the spinning and weaving of woolen cloth. 24. Continental countries developed rural industry more slowly. The royal government in France had come to believe that the best way to help the poor in the countryside was to encourage the growth of cottage manufacturing. Governments in Germany and the Low Countries also gradually reduced the power of guilds in the countryside. The later part of the 18th century witnessed a remarkable expansion of rural industry in certain densely populated regions of continental Europe. 25. Every one of all ages in each family involved in the cottage industry would have a task. Though ordinarily productive, there was always a serious imbalance in this family enterprise: the work of four or five spinners was needed to keep one weaver steadily employed. Therefore, they had to constantly find more thread and more spinners. The need for more thread often led to the weaver and his wife to become small capitalist employers. There were constant disputes over the weights of materials and the quality of the cloth between merchants and employers. Merchants accused workers of stealing raw materials, and weavers complained that merchants delivered underweight bales. Another problem (for the merchant capitalists) was that rural labor was cheap, scattered, and poorly organized. It was hard to control; cottage workers tended to work in spurts. 26. Monday was called “holy Monday” because inactivity was so religiously observed. It is significant because workers would often work in spurts: After they got paid Saturday afternoon, they tended to drink and relax for two to three days. Ambitious merchant capitalists intensified their search for ways to produce more efficiently and to squeeze more work out of “undisciplined” cottage workers. 27. European mercantilism was a system of economic regulations aimed at increasing the power of the state. Mercantilism aimed particularly at creating a favorable balance of foreign trade in order to increase a country’s stock of gold. 28. Early English mercantilists believed that a country’s gold holdings served as an allimportant treasure chest, to be opened periodically to pay for war in a violent age. What distinguished English mercantilism was the unusual idea that government economic regulations could and should serve the probate interests of individuals and groups as well as the public needs of the state. By contrast, France and other continental counties, 17th century mercantilists generally put the needs of the state first, and they seldom saw a possible union of public and private interests for a common good. 29. The result of the English desire to increase both military power and private wealth was he mercantile system of the Navigation Acts. Oliver Cromwell established the first of these laws in 1651.The acts required that most goods imported from Europe into England and Scotland be carried on British-owned ships with British crews or on ships of the country producing the article. These laws gave British merchants and ship-owners a monopoly on trade with British colonies. 30. The Navigation Acts were a form of economic warfare. Their initial target was the Dutch, who were far ahead of the English in shipping and foreign trade in the mid-1600s. The Acts did serious damage to the Dutch shipping and commerce. Thereafter France stood clearly as England’s most serious rival in the competition for overseas empire. From 1701 to 1763, Britain and France were locked in a series of wars to decide which nation would become the leading maritime power and claim the lion’s share of profits of European’s overseas expansion. There are three wars between the French and British, The War of the Spanish Succession, The War of the Austrian Succession, and The Seven Years’ War. Name of War and Countries 31. War of Spanish Succession 32. War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) 33. Seven Years’ War (17561763) Countries involved (who fought who) France and Spain threatened to encircle and destroy the British colonies in North America. Gradually became a world war that included AngloFrench conflicts in India and North America. Austria almost succeeded in crushing Prussia, but Prussia survived. Inconclusive in Europe, this war was the decisive round in the Franco-British competition for colonial empire. The fighting began in North America. What was the cause of the war? Started when Louis XIV declared his willingness to accept the Spanish crown willed to his grandson. Started when Frederick the Great of Prussia seized Silesia from Austria’s Mother Theresa. What treaty ended the war? What were the results of the treaty? Defeated after The Peace of 12 years of Utrecht fighting, Louis surrendered XIV was forced Newfoundland, into the Peace of Nova Scotia, and Utrecht (1713) the Hudson Bay territory to Britain. Inconclusive The war ended standoff. with no change in the territorial situation in North America. In central Europe, Austria’s Mother Theresa sought to win back Silesia and crush Prussia, thereby reestablishing the Habsburgs’ traditional leadership in German affairs. British victory on all colonial fronts was ratified in the Treaty of Paris (1763). France lost all its possessions on the mainland of North America. By 1763 British naval power, built after the passage of the Navigation Acts, had triumphed decisively. 34. According to the map on page 645 that depicts triangular trade: a. Slaves and gold came from Africa, and manufactured goods came to Africa. b. Colonial products such as silver, sugar, furs, and tobacco, came from the “New World” (North & South America). Manufactured goods and slaves came to the New World. c. Manufactured goods came from Europe. Gold from Africa and colonial products (silver, sugar, furs, tobacco) came to Europe. 35. Although the trade in African people was a worldwide phenomenon, the Atlantic slave trade became the most extensive and significant portion of it. Until 1700 and perhaps even 1750, almost all Europeans considered the African slave trade a legitimate business activity. 36. After 1775, a large campaign to abolish slavery developed in Britain. People, especially women, denounced the immortality of human bondage. These attacks put defenders of slavery on the defense. In 1807 Parliament abolished the British slave trade, although slavery continued for years in British colonies and the Americas. 37. Adam Smith (1723-1790) was a Scottish professor of philosophy; one of the Enlightenment’s most original and characteristic thinkers and was highly critical of 18th century mercantilism. Smith relied on the power of reason to unlock the secrets of the secular world, and he believed that he spoke for the truth, not for special interests. He persuasively developed the general idea of freedom of enterprise in foreign trade. His famous book Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776) established the basis for modern economics. He said that mercantilism meant a combination of government regulations and unfair privileges for state-approved monopolies and government favorites. He believed that free competition was preferable because it would best protect consumers form price gouging and give all citizens a fair and equal right to do what they did best. He argued that government should limit itself to “only three duties.” It should provide a defense against foreign invasion, maintain civil order with courts and police protection, and sponsor certain public works and institutions. 38. Though Smith applauded the modest rise in real wages of British workers in the 18th century, he did not call for more laws and more police power to force people into proper economic behavior. Instead, he made the pursuit of self-interest in a competitive market the source of an underlying and previously unrecognized harmony that would result in gradual progress. The “invisible hand” of free competition for one and for all disciplined the greed of selfish individuals and provided the most effective means of increasing the wealth of both rich and por. His provocative work had a great international impact. It quickly emerged as the classic argument for economic liberalism and unregulated capitalism.