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Curiosity. A typical human attribute. People were always curious, they wanted to find out basically about everything around them. The problem was, or still is, that there were or are things for which we don’t have an explanation yet or at least cannot visualise. In the past that was leading to the creation of several gods who stood for all the many different things people couldn’t explain. Thunder and lightning for example. Nowadays we know that it’s created by warm and cold air with different electric charges coming together, but about 2700 years ago the old Greek created the god Zeus and explained it in the way that when Zeus got angry he threw lightning bolts down to earth. Already about 3340 years ago the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten created some kind of monotheism, to be exact a monolatrism. It didn’t last over his death, but about 500 years later Judaism invented real monotheism. With the creation and spread of Christianity and the Islam during the first millennium AD the belief in one god became common, not yet around the world, but at least in Europe, the Middle East, and Northern Africa. But people still connected their religion to the creation of the world and believed that their god is controlling at least nearly everything. That changed during the 18th century, during an era called the Enlightenment.

Shortly before that something developed what we call science nowadays. And if we think about it, there wouldn’t be science without curiosity. People want to know more about this world, what’s around this planet, why it’s here, and how everything is working. The Enlightenment gave science more space and changed the world view of most people. It was a big step forward for the global human society. And it was a global one at that time. About 200 years earlier America was discovered and soon the colonisation of the New World began. Nevertheless the Enlightenment was mainly a European phenomenon and only later its results were spreading to other parts of the world.

One could say it all began with one man: Sir Isaac Newton. He was born in Lincolnshire, England, on Christmas morning of 1642. When he was three his mother married a man from a nearby village. He hated his stepfather. But later he enrolled at Trinity College in Cambridge, where he found a father figure who was steering him on the way to important discoveries. When Cambridge University was closed due to the plague he was forced to return home, which was the most productive time of his life. He thought that getting true knowledge is only possible by making observations rather than reading books. Scientists would notice something here: The beginnings of empirical science. He experienced with optics and changed the design of the telescope. He also dedicated himself to some radical religious and alchemistic work which helped him shaping his most important works including the theory of gravity. And legendarily that one began with Newton sitting under a tree and an apple falling on his head, although later it became clear that he invented the story. In 1686 he published his “Principia Mathematica”, which took him two years to write but was the culmination of twenty years of thinking. It could be called the foundation of modern science. Newton died in 1727. The term “scientific genius” was invented to describe him, as he laid the foundation for modern science and engineering.

So the very roots of the Enlightenment can be traced to his discoveries, his “Principia Mathematica”, as well as John Locke’s “Essay Concerning Human Understanding”. So one result of that was that English science was regarded as the most brilliant in Europe. Besides, England was a by-word for for an ideal, free and politically liberal society, where men could speak their minds.

One big impact of the Enlightenment on England was to undermine religious belief. Deism and even atheism were not forbidden, they were in fact the conclusions of some of the most admired minds of that age. And not only of that age, as it might be necessary to remark. There were assaults on Christianity from which it would never really recover in England. The English Enlightenment was a worldly age. What’s more, the indulgence of pleasure enriched national life. London, for example, was extremely relaxed about idling away in a coffee house.

There were some people who contributed to the Enlightenment about as much as Sir Isaac Newton, and they were born in Scotland. One of them was Adam Smith. He was born in the town Kirkcaldy at the eastern coast. When he was fourteen years old he entered the University of Glasgow, and in 1740 he went to Oxford. In 1759 Smith published “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”. His greatest work was published in 1776, called “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, usually shortened to “The Wealth of Nations”. By this book he became the father of modern economics. He proposed that a nation’s wealth should not be measured by the amount of gold and silver it has in store but instead by the total of its production and commerce, today known as gross domestic product. Furthermore he explored theories about the division of labour, through which specialisation would lead to a qualitative increase in productivity.

Another person who was born during the Age of Enlightenment was James Watt. He was born in 1736 in the poor Scottish seaport town of Greenock in the west of Glasgow, a town well-known for shipbuilding. When he was a child he got a tool kit from his father, and his hobby became deconstructing and reassembling his toys. A family anecdote has it that he is chided for his fascination with a steaming kettle. After he returned to Glasgow from London he couldn’t find an apprenticeship because of his specialty. It wasn’t the last time that Watt had to wait for the world to catch up with him. But then university professors employed him and he set up an own business. During that time he was befriended by Adam Smith. In 1758 he got to know John Robinson who introduced him to the science of steam. In 1763 the university asked him to repair one of their Newcomen steam engines. Watt realised it was horrendously inefficient. At that time it was only used in mines to pump out water. In 1765 he saw a solution on how to improve the steam engine. He created a separate chamber in which the steam could condensate. This meant no more need for cooling and reheating, making the engine faster and more fuel efficient. So he turned it from a machine of limited use into the one which powered the Industrial Revolution.

During that era, mostly in the century following the Enlightenment, to be precise the 19th century, large factories were built, so the work shifted from home to those workplaces. Furthermore many other inventions were made, like cable messages, the combustion engine, in 1886 the automobile was invented by Carl Benz, radio messages, and finally in 1903 the airplane, developed by the Wright Brothers. But one could say that all began in Scotland during the 18th century when the engineer James Watt improved the steam engine, and this was only possible with the help of scientific findings, which wouldn’t have been possible if the Enlightenment wouldn’t have given science more space.

What shouldn’t be forgotten are the political changes caused by this. What would be obvious to anyone who knows a little about history would be that the French Revolution happened towards the end of the Age of Enlightenment. For that it’s necessary to know that during the late 16th through the end of the 17th century France was plagued by religious wars between the Catholics and the Protestants. With the ascension of Louis XIV absolutism would be the new form of government. He made the Catholic church to the national religion of France. But there were French philosophers who had visited Britain and developed their own thoughts about the English natural sciences like the physical laws of gravitation by Sir Isaac Newton. Through the natural sciences and natural philosophy a great confidence was given to the idea of natural law, which said that people had certain natural rights. This view was backed up by another, which saw man as a rational animal. This was leading to an opposition to authority. The French Enlightenment thinkers became known as the “philosophes”. They attacked many topics like morality, politics, economics and religion to design their new world. These new thoughts brought up during the time were leading to the French Revolution. Like the American Revolution before it, the French Revolution was influenced by Enlightenment ideals, particularly the concepts of popular sovereignty and inalienable rights. The monarchy of France, however, basically ignored the needs of their citizens. There is the famous fictional quote of Marie Antoinette that the poor people “should eat cake” instead of bread. So people were so upset that they stormed the Bastille fortress in 1789. This was the beginning of the French Revolution, which at times degenerated into a chaotic bloodbath. So also in 1793 when King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were beheaded. But even if Napoleon Bonaparte declared himself Emperor years later, effectively the Enlightenment was leading to the establishment of a French Republic.

There were also developments in literature and philosophy. One of the greatest French writers was Voltaire, the pseudonym for François-Marie Arouet. He is regarded as a courageous crusader against tyranny, bigotry, and cruelty. He also believed in the efficacy of reason. His most important work was “Candide”, published 1759.

An important person of the time who shouldn’t be forgotten was the German philosopher Immanuel Kant. He said the sentence which probably best describes the Enlightenment as a whole: “Dare to use your own mind”. Furthermore he wrote about something which is fundamental for science, and that’s empirical knowledge: “That all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt. For how is it possible that the faculty of cognition should be awakened into exercise otherwise than by means of objects which affect our senses, and partly of themselves produce representations, partly rouse our powers of understanding into activity, to compare to connect, or to separate these, and so to convert the raw material of our sensuous impressions into a knowledge of objects, which is called experience? In respect of time, therefore, no knowledge of ours is antecedent to experience, but begins with it.”

The Enlightenment was also the time of Frederick the Great, the King of Prussia, a brilliant military campaigner who greatly enlarged Prussia’s territories and made Prussia the foremost military power in Europe. He also introduced the potato as a main crop for the German population.

So this era during the 18th century was shaping the world towards how we know it nowadays. It wasn’t enough anymore for the people to accept those religious fairytales, they developed the aim to find out more about reality. That was leading to science, to new discoveries, and that in turn to feats of engineering. It was leading to the Industrial Revolution which in turn made many inventions possible, like the car, the airplane, radio messages, the computer, and even the internet much later. The development of the rocket by Wernher von Braun enabled people to go beyond the limits of earth and step onto the surface of the moon and one day Mars.

The Enlightenment changed the political landscape as well as the religions. The Enlightenment was a big step forwards for the human society, but it could also be seen as one of several steps, like the Renaissance before it and the Industrial Revolution after it. And there are still steps to be done. Currently most people still believe in a god as a substitute for what they still can’t understand. Of course religions also have some moral rules in place, but they are also leading to extremism and conflict. And regarding the political situation, there is a populism ongoing which can be frightening sometimes. The EU referendum and the recent US election are two signs that people still have to learn a lot. If we want to explore space, travel to Mars or further into the universe, we have to make sure that our own planet is in a good condition, everyone has to have equal opportunities no matter where someone comes from or looks like, and we have to live with the nature and not against it, we have to protect the environment and treat other animals well. Because it is true, we are rational animals. We are a product of evolution. And we have something special, which lets us never stop exploring, and that is curiosity.