Perhaps we could use the classification of society in the middle ages to explain the transition in thought process at each level. We start with land. Lefebvre writes, "Land was virtually the only source of income in an aristocratic world where priests and nobles were royal subjects. The state had all the sovereign powers. The Lords had authority over their own peasants. Serfdom existed in regions of western Europe. Its subjects were bound to the land, which was strictly limited to rights of inheritance. The economy was stagnant. Production was limited by scarcity, rules, and war. People sough assistance and protection of family and communities, and parish. Competition in the market was restricted with controls. Extra work or pro-activeness fetched no reward because the system shackled it. Advertisements were useless, people waited for clients to approach them, and so they sold very little for high prices. Taxes, hierarchy, and authority remained in the society. Along with this the lower classes continued to hold superstitious beliefs in magic, sorcery, astrology, and alchemy."

The bourgeoisie didn't see much hope in this static society. So, they ventured beyond their land.

After the barbarian conquests, Europeans forayed into invasion mode. They travelled far and wide to different continents and brought back all kinds of treasures. The contagious example of material success encouraged all those who judged themselves capable of enjoying rewards offered during this life itself. They returned home rich. Money bought them privileges, and eventually power, and changes followed.

• Each child started to demand their rightful inheritance
• Disintegration of family and traditional groups
• life in a city started sprouting
• members classified based on their residence
• personal mobility
• expanding industry
• improved communication
• adventure, risk and rewards
• A dynamic and unstable society in which power was based on money

It added glamour to this life and obscured the after life.

When science arrived at the scene, the hitherto magical explanation of the universe started to wane, for science's intention was to condense the whole universe to a series of equations, and scientists were becoming increasingly successful at this.

"One of the important innovations in this era" writes Lefebvre, "was the ability to fix positions geographically, which was essential for navigation as well as to the measurement of globe and cartography(that is the art of making maps or charts). New nautical instruments such as the compass, the sextant were invented, and Borda's circle determined latitudes. Construction of the chronometer and maritime clocks and basic establishment of astronomical charts meant that longitudes could be calculated rather than simply estimated. These were revolutionary advances." Science enabled the discovery and control of natural forces.

The scientific worldview drastically changed when the Polish astronomer Nicolas Copernicus claimed that is sun is the centre of the universe, not earth. Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei carried the baton forward. Kepler accepted the Copernican view and improved it by claiming the planetary bodies revolved in ellipses than in circles. He also calculated the speed of this motion. Galileo pointed his telescope at heavens and found interesting phenomena. He also argued against the Aristotelian theory that heavier objects falls faster than lighter ones, saying all bodies will fall towards earth at the same rate if not for the air resistance they feel. He used the language of Mathematics to explain physical things. He also emphasised testing out hypothesis experimentally. The scientific revolution continued with Rene Descartes's in the 17th century with his mechanical philosophy where he explained the physical world in terms of particles interacting and colliding with one another. After Descartes, Issac Newton published the Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy in the late 17th century which improved Cartesian theory with great accuracy. His three laws seemed to explain all observable phenomena in the world. He also invented the mathematical technique called Calculus to explain the theory. He was able to prove Kepler's laws of planetary motion, and Galileo's law of free fall using his theory. Differential and integral Calculus was developed by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in parallel to Newton.

We cannot escape the topic of philosophy when we are trying to answer the question, 'Why'. With Philosophy comes its philosophers, and we are going to have a tryst with some of the philosophers of the age of enlightenment, and dance our way through the major thoughts and ideas of the age. But first, let's address the elephant in the room, God. Omnipotent is the claim, and omnipresent is this mammoth in the history books of philosophy. Pray, we shall dare to seek an explanation of the societal transformation by starting God on the bench. It is thus, with utmost convenience, that we discard the divine intervention in our search for the answer. You see, most of our philosophers were believers and theologians, but please remember that they arrived and departed before Charles Darwin. Fair play to them, there has had been a Galapagos sized gap in their head that had to be filled, which they did, with god, with questions about body and mind, liberty, equality, justice, morality, ethics, social contract, natural rights, happiness, scientific rationalism, physics, metaphysics, economic prosperity, free markets and so on and so forth.

We had a brief brushing with physics in the previous section, and now, to metaphysics. It seems meta in ancient Greek meant ‘after’. So ‘metaphysics’, yes…, after physics. Physics is about things that change; the metaphysics is about things that don’t change. So, natural science investigates things in this world or universe which tend to change or move or transform, which can be sensed, observed, experimented upon, or experienced, whereas, metaphysics transcends experience. It concerns mind where physics is concerned with body. And that is philosophy.

The two dominant branches of western philosophy during the age of enlightenment are called the Empiricism and Rationalism. Interestingly, there is an intersection of these two schools of thought and further advancement of western philosophy from that point. Empiricism comes from empeiria meaning "experience; mere experience or practice without knowledge. Rationalism, on the other hand comes from reason. Either way, the two questions that really matters in political philosophy are: 'Who gets what', and 'says who'? The first is about the distribution of goods, and of rights and liberties. The second question concerns the distribution of Political power. One task for the political philosopher is to determine the correct balance between autonomy and authority.

Of the two major factions or western philosophy, Empiricism began with Francis Bacon(1561-1626). 'Knowledge is power', is his famous dictum. He emphasised on the need for seeking evidence to prove things. A methodical approach to the investigation of the nature and limits of human mind and then to draw consequences for how we should regulate our beliefs and actions. Empiricists believed that an idea in the mind that can be traced back to some particular experience. Ideas come from senses or sense-impressions of the past.

Rene Descartes(1596-1650), is believed to be the originator of rationalism. 'I think, therefore I am', is his famous dictum. Rationalists believed that ideas are innate, it came from within. They used deductive reasoning to explain things using axioms as the premise, and deduction as the method to derive conclusions.

Before we go any further, a friendly reminder on why people had to think about these things. We have already touched upon the way of life in the ancien regime, of religious dogmas, of superstitious beliefs in magic, sorcery, astrology, and alchemy. The intellectual exercises of the age of enlightenment were not merely a departure from the status quo, but a discontinuity in the way of life itself. There was a break in the continuity of thoughts and debates from the medieval ages. Ernst Cassirer has some interesting observations in his book 'The myth of the state' where he says "All the progress made by the Renaissance and the Reformation were counterbalanced by the loss of unity and inner harmony of the medieval culture, especially ethical foundation of the medieval civilization was seriously affected. The heliocentric system deprived man of his privileged condition. He became, as it were, an exile in the infinite universe. The cracks formed in Christianity were irreparable. Only Reason, which is autonomous and self-dependent could bring back the ethics and harmony."

Cassirer also writes that political theories of the age of enlightenment was a rejuvenation of Stoic ideas. Stoicism is from the Greek and Roman period which is capsuled in the phrase 'Virtue is its own reward'. Morality and happiness is derived from following virtues like wisdom, courage, controlling emotions, justice, and living in accordance with nature. All these political theories have a common metaphysical background than a theological one. This is backed by mathematics and reasoning.

In a way, writes Milan Zafirovski in his book The Enlightenment and Its Effects on Modern Society, "the Enlightenment operates as the composite process of intellectual destruction and deconstruction of the values and institutions of the ancien regime as a total social system and of creation or projection of those of a new society. The inner logic, essential process, and ultimate outcome of the Enlightenment are the destruction of old oppressive, theocratic, irrational, and inhumane social values and institutions, and the creation of new democratic, secular, rational, and humane ones through human reason or, as Immanuel Kant put it, “dare to think.”

The famous words from American Declaration of Independence: "All men are created equal with certain unalienable rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness". To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed", are the effects of these ideas. That was the noticeable change; Ideas started to have consequences. Revolutions are the prime examples of that. I think with the formation of parliaments, and republics in Europe and North America, and the social revolution of France, we witnessed a reciprocity of thoughts and actions. Most of these ideas were repeated from the past, but now these ideas were forged into weapons. The attack became direct. Their is no veiled disguise or use of abstract terms anymore. Straight to the point. Ecrasez l'infâme, said Voltaire, "Crush the loathsome thing", and he was referring to the Roman Catholic Church.

With that we move on to Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. Thomas Hobbes(1588-1679) is most famous for his book Leviathan, in which he invites the reader to travel to a hypothetical world where there is no civilisation or societies. It is called the state of nature. In the state of nature there are no rules, or morals, or ethics attached to the people. The question is then to ask how and why did that change? It is a thought experiment similar to parents reprimanding children for wasting food by saying, 'you will understand the value of it in its absence'.

Hobbes was rather pessimistic about life of human in the state of nature. He was inspired by Galileo's principle of conservation of motion, that is things will remain in motion unless acted upon by a force. Hobbes used this premise in a social context and put forth the idea of life is always in motion, and never without felicity. Felicity means the continuous success in achieving the objects of desire. Felicity, when combined with the scarcity of resources in the world would cause conflicts, which will eventually turn into war. He further argues that when people acquire possessions, they acquire fear as well. They will try to protect their possessions from thieves and invaders, and thus are constantly on guard. Either that, or they are just afraid of a preemptive, unprovoked attack. Hobbes also assumes that human beings are equal by nature. So he says, any human being can kill another either by brute strength, or by technique or weapons, or forming a team against another. In his explanation, the power that someone possesses today is a means to obtain some future good for themselves. In other words, power today helps to achieve desires of the future, so people will always seek power over others. Hence, in the state of nature nothing can be unjust, every person has the liberty to act as they think fit to preserve their 'right of nature', so there is no place or reason for morality. Hobbes's solution is to have a sovereign who would put laws in place and punish people who wouldn't obey those.

Paraphrasing his famous paragraph from Leviathan,

"Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them with all. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continue all in fear, and danger of violent death; And the life of man…, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

John Locke(1632-1704) disagreed with Hobbes's idea in many parts, but Locke's counter arguments had God factor in it as the reason why no one has natural right to harm another in his life. Interestingly, Locke says that in the state of nature, there will be a natural right held by each to punish those who harm another person's life, liberty or property. Right to punish is seen different from the right to self defence, which is claimed as a right by Hobbes. Locke thinks that moral law-abiding citizens will come together with the victim to bring the villain to justice. One key difference is that Locke thinks there will be no deep scarcity of goods in the world.

Locke assumes that human beings are naturally free, equal, and independent. This means that they are not naturally under the authority of any other person. Accordingly, Locke concluded that the only way of coming under another person's authority was to give that person your consent punishment. This holds, for Locke, whether the person claiming authority is another private individual or the sovereign. Thus the sovereign, who claims authority over you, has no right to that authority unless you have voluntarily put yourself in this position through your own consent.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau(1712-1778) agrees with Locke about Hobbes being wrong of extreme scarcity in the state of nature, but disagrees about the ideas of morality as the motivation for goodness in the state of nature. Instead he proposes natural pity or compassion as the element that will rescue humanity from killing each other.

Essentially, for the social contract theorists after Hobbes, the state is justified if, but only if, every individual over which it claims authority has consented. Consent, that is keyword. That's probably what caused the discontinuity in the hitherto way of life. Well, I would like to leave you with few questions:

• Can you think of life in the state of nature if you were in it?
• What are your natural rights?
• What are you thoughts on possessions?
• What binds an individual to a state?
• Do you give consent?

The intention of this episode is to introduce the alternate thoughts before the French Revolution which could have been its possible causation. We have mentioned a few names, and omitted many more. But names are not interesting to us, it's the ideas and stories that enthral us. There is more to cover from this part of history, but an episode's space is rather constrained. It's perhaps a travesty to omit The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli(1469-1527) while discussing alternate thoughts and ideas. Enlightened despotism or absolutism was also skipped. The idea where monarch agrees that royal power does not come from divine right but from a social contract whereby a despot was entrusted with the power to govern through a social contract in lieu of any other governments. We didn't speak much about collection of knowledge in Encyclopedia, which happened in this era. The original feminist Mary Wollstonecraft lived in this era. Much, much more.

In the next episode we discuss the terminologies in Political Ideologies, but for now, I must leave you and this episode with the following quote by the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant, about the French Revolution:

"Such an event," he said, does not consist in important deeds or misdeeds of men, whereby, what had been great, became little among men, or what had been little, became great, and . . . old glorious political edifices disappeared, whereas, in their stead, other ones grew out of the ground. No; nothing of the kind! … The revolution of an ingenious people which we have lived to see, may succeed or fail. It may be filled with such calamities and atrocities that a righteous man, even if he could be sure to carry it out luckily, never would decide to repeat the experiment at such a high price. In spite of all this such a revolution finds, in the minds of all spectators, a sympathy very near to enthusiasm. . . . Such a phenomenon in the history of mankind can never be forgotten; because it proves that in human nature there exists an inclination and disposition to the better which no politician ever could have been able to predict by summing up the course of former events."