| A | B |
|---|
| "The Spirit of the Law" | a work written in 1748 by Baron de Montesquieu which is a comparative study of certain times of government and is the result of scientific critical method being applied to government issues |
| Principia | third book of Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy which was written by Newton and discussed physics |
| Conservations on the Plurality of Words | most famous work of Fontanelle. In it an aristocratic woman and her lover have a passionate discussion of astronomy that focused on the idea of progress |
| inductive reasoning | reasoning based on experience |
| deductive reasoning | reasoning based on logic |
| salons | intellectual meetings of enlightenment thinkers where ideas were shared and discussed in the comfortable environment of someone's living room |
| Candide | Voltaire's most famous work that satirizes the ideas of Leibnitz. All of the major physical conflicts in it have historical precedents. |
| Encyclopedia | compiled and edited by Denis Diderot, this great work is a collection of Enlightenment ideas about everything from politics to social structure to medicine. |
| The Social Contract | Major work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau that is a treatise on the origins and organization of government |
| Greshem College | Sir Thomas Gresham left money before his death for the construction of this college. This led to scientists being honored and have a vital role in society. The college dealt mainly with navigation and mapping so the college had many close ties to the people of the Royal Navy, merchants, and shipbuilders. This college became the main center of scientific activity in England. The ties between the common people and the scientists led to the establishment of the Royal Society of London, which published works dealing with science and sponsored scientific meetings |
| Scientific Method | the combinatino of Bacon's empirical method and Descarte's deductive reasoning in order to search for general laws that can be expressed in rigorously logical, mathematical language. |
| War of the Austrian Succession | This began when Frederick the Great of Prussia seized Silesia from Austria's Maria Theresa and became a world war that included Anglo-French conflicts in India and North America. The seizure of French territory in Canady by New England made France sue for peace in 1748 and to accept a return to the territorial situation existing in North America at the beginning of the war. Spain, an ally to France, defended itself very well and the empire remained intact. |
| empiricism | the general theory of inductive reasoning that Bacon formalized the empirical method into this |
| philosophes | group of intellectuals who proudly and effectively proclaimed that they were bringing the light of knowledge to their ignorant fellow creatures |
| "general will" | At times, this may be the authentic, long-term needs of the people as correctly interpreted by a farseeing minority. According to Rousseau, it is sacred and absolute, reflecting the common interests of all people, who have displaced the monarch as the holder of sovereign power. |
