Three factors were critically important in this new intellectual ferment: revulsion against monarchical

and clerical absolutism, especially as practiced by Louis XIV in France; a new freedom of publishing and,
with it, the rise of a new public and a secular culture, especially in England and the Dutch Republic; and,
not least, the impact of the Scientific Revolution, particularly the excitement generated by Newtons
Principia

When Newtons great work appeared, censorship or imprisonment for ideas disliked by church or state
was still commonplace.

In England, Oxford University routinely expelled students whose ideas were seen to be heretical or
unorthodox. In the papal territories, Jewish children were still forcibly baptized and then removed from
their homes.

Whether radical or moderate, the philosophes were united by certain key ideas. They believed in the
new science, were critical of clergy and all rigid dogma but tolerant of peoples right to worship freely,
and believed deeply in freedom of the press. They were also willing to entertain, though not necessarily
accept, new heresiessuch as pantheism, which equated Nature with God; or the belief that the earth
had gradually evolved; or the view that the Bible was a series of wise stories but not the literal word of
God.

THE FORMATION OF A PUBLIC AND SECULAR CULTURE

At the same time, relative freedom of assembly in the cities of western Europe (even in Paris, which
was too big to police) gave rise to a new public and secular sphere: a zone for social life outside the
family but not attached to churches or courts. The new public sphere, found in salons (gatherings in
private homes), coffeehouses, and Masonic lodges, as well as in academies for scientific learning such
as the Royal Society of London, provided the social space whence the Enlightenment emerged.

Men and women met at these sociable gatherings because they had a common interest in politics,
science, the new novels, or self-improvement. Members of these new clubs shared certain
characteristics: they were highly literate; they possessed some surplus wealth and leisure time; and, if
titled aristocrats, they were not opposed to mixing with bourgeois lawyers, doctors, civil servants, and
merchants. Such cosmopolitan men and women made the theories of the philosophes come alive.