Influence of secularization on scientific theory in 19th century Europe

¶ … Secularization on Scientific Theory in 19th Century Europe

Precursors in the 18th Century

At the Dawn of the 19th Century

Economics

Philosophy

Rise of Secular Nationalism

Religion in the 19th Century: Distancing itself from the Populace

Increasing Urbanization in Europe and its Effect on Secularization

Other Factors Increasing Secularization

The secularization of Europe in the 19th Century was a continuation of trends which began with the Reformation and the Renaissance, and found a flowering in the development of rationalism in the 18th century amongst philosophers and economists in the UK, France and Germany. This paper covers the increasing secularization of 19th century Europe, with a particular concentration on these three countries.

The influences on secularization in Europe during this century reach far beyond philosophy and economics, although those areas of thought were deeply influenced by secularization during that period. Technological advance, in the form of logistics (transport), productivity (agricultural and industrial) and scientific all contributed to a notion that all that could be learned about man by man was possible. This marked a significant difference from earlier centuries, where much remained a mystery and was attributed to higher powers.

The association of religion and government, tenuous at the beginning of the 19th century, broke down completely during this period. The connection between religion and politics remained in name only by the end of that century, with a figurehead Queen at the head of the Anglican Church, divorce between the French government and its (no longer official) Catholicism, and the dissolution of the close ties in Germany between the church (es) and the local principalities as Germany became a united nation.

Precursors in the 18th Century

The 18th century began with a deeply religious Europe just over wars of Reformation and Counter-Reformation, in which the Kings and Princes represented God on Earth, headed their local churches, and represented single religions as official religions in each of their nations. Louis XIV, George I-III and the princes of Germany all represented post-feudal countries that were, for the most part, rural, pious and poor.

The emergence of rationalism in the 1700s showed a flowering of economics and philosophy, and paralleled an increase in agricultural wealth throughout these countries. The increase of trade and the introduction of high-yield crops contributed to an increase in agricultural production across a broad part of the United Kingdom, and to a more limited extent in France and Germany.

The 1700's marked the flowering of science, with the discovery of the elements of combustion, the foundations of modern medicine, and the great inventions that would power the 19th century, including the steam engine and electricity. The prevailing attitude of the rationalists that the world was understandable. Diderot's underlying assumption in creating his great Encyclopedie was that all on this earth was knowable and could be catalogued (Diderot 1743). This was an assumption that would have been called ridiculous at best and heretical at worst in previous centuries.

Locke and Hobbes influenced Adam Smith in his Theory of Moral Sentiments (Smith 1759), and subsequent treatise on economics, an Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Smith 1776). While Smith was not without religion, his Moral Sentiments formed the philosophical underpinnings for Wealth of Nations, which can be regarded as the precursor to the revolutionary changes wrought in the Industrial Revolutions of the 19th century.

At the Dawn of the 19th Century

The United States, informed by God by led by secularists, succeeded in separating from Anglican-led Great Britain in the 1780's. France had experienced a revolution which resulted in mass executions of heads of the Catholic Church during the 1790's, accompanied by a mass usurpation of their property (Tackett 2001)

At the turn of the new century, a reenergized Great Britain and France, while still at war, were undergoing the first flowering of the Industrial Revolution. Great Britain had a head start due to several advantages: a country less ravaged by war and revolution, trading partners in the Commonwealth and the newly-independent United States, and agricultural riches which grown faster than in France, partly due to the adoption of the potato and corn.

Europe was still a primarily rural, agricultural continent. By 1900, Europe had become primarily urban. This change was brought about partly by continued productivity improvements in the fields -- agricultural productivity doubled during the century (Clout 1987) and the lure of income and jobs in the industrializing cities.

Economics

The economic realities at the beginning of the 1800's resulted in philosophical and economic concern for the fate of man. Rapid population growth concerned Malthus and Say; the former felt that population growth would overtake limited food supplies, while Say feared that growing population would result in less wealth for citizens (Say 1997).

Building on the theories of Adam Smith in the 18th century, a group of 19th century enthusiasts for industrial progress forecast continued progress in the 1800's and beyond.

Philosophy

Their concerns were taken up by Marx and Engels in the 1840's, who wrote from exile in England that laborers were the true wealth creators, and that they would enjoy less and less of the fruits of their labors as capitalists took more (Marx 1867). Marx and Engels, while deeply sympathetic to the working man, believed that man was responsible for what was done to man -- God played no role in man's fate.

Reading the Declaration of Independence, one is persuaded that man is born of free will, whose rights are endowed directly by God (and not through the instrument of a King or government). Thus the 18th century "validation" of freedom was God, despite a focus on the differentiation between an official state religion and a belief in God. In the 19th century, Marx's validation for man's self-rule was the community itself.

Rise of Secular Nationalism

The German principalities were part of the Holy Roman Empire from about 1000 AD to 1806. At that time, Napoleon had conquered most of what is now Germany, and had broken the prior ties to the HRE. Napoleon redrew the map of principalities, cutting out part of Prussia to form Westphalia, and subsuming some formerly German city-states and principalities into greater France. These moves promoted a secular nationalism within Germany which had not been seen to that date, as German nationalists questioned the basis for their previous governments and looked to new models of democracy and republican union.

Although many of the German princes and monarchs were still tied to a specific Church -- generally Lutheran (north) and Catholic (south), the move to nationalistic ideas followed the secular trends demonstrated in the neighboring French revolution. These democratic movements were particularly strong outside Austria and Prussia, whose strong monarchs intended to bring their countries back to pre-Napoleonic times.

The subsequent treaties of 1815 restored Prussian and Austrian power, but did little to quell incipient German nationalisms. These were repressed, but resurfaced in 1848 in the year of revolution across Europe.

As in Great Britain, Germany was industrializing rapidly during this period. The creation of the Zollverein in 1834 (Bazillon 2007) then contributed to more commerce between the German states, and increased the free flow of ideas in the budding nation. 1848 brought revolution throughout Europe; starting in Sicily, it deposed the government in France and several in Germany, as well as shaking the industrial/agricultural balance. Germany's growing middle class, fueled by secular French, British and American ideas, pushed for a unified nation with secular rule.

France, which had experienced a religious revival with the accession of Napoleon III, resumed its secular progress with the rise of a new government in 1848. France's urbanization and industrialization did not proceed as quickly as its German and British neighbors, although the French government maintained a solidly secular stance during this period.

Secularism in the University

Universities were profoundly religious until the 19th century. This was true in most of Europe (except France since the revolution) and in America. Those who graduated with a Doctorate in the UK or the U.S., for example, received a Doctorate in Divinity, regardless of their specialized subject. This held true until the late 1830's.

A competing model to that of the Church developed in Scotland in the 1700's, and found favor in Germany, the UK and America after that time. Professors were 'free agents," associated with a university but paid by the lecture by their students. Thus, a well-regarded lecturer could become wealthy, as did Adam Smith, while a poorer lecturer would not fare as well.

This reliance on one's own ability to think, to publish and to teach permeates today's university, but it was not always so. Until the early 19th century, nearly all professors were also priests or preachers. The increasing secularization severed this religious association for all but those universities which continued an overt religious character.

Religion in the 19th Century: Distancing itself from the Populace

Adam Smith was quite skeptical about organized -- i.e. state-sponsored -- religion during the 1700s. He observed that the state-sponsored priests became lazy. This was also clear to those Europeans who visited the United States, and marveled at this country's continued religious fervor. The industrialist 19th-century Europeans frequently put this to the difference between private and state-sponsored religion. In 1837, an Austrian visitor to the United States observed:

In America, every clergyman may be said to do business on his own account, and under his own firm. He alone is responsible for any deficiency in the discharge of his office, as he is alone entitled to all the credit due to his exertions. He always acts as principal, and is therefore more anxious, and will make greater efforts to obtain popularity, than one who serves for wages (Powell 1967).

This should be no surprise to those who have seen populations stick to their religions despite sanctions from the state, such as in Poland. At the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Polish participation in Catholic ceremonies was quite high; after independence and the establishment of an official relationship with the state, participation went down considerably (Eberts 1998). A similar phenomenon occurred in Germany and Austria as continued state sponsorship. As demonstrated by the above traveler to America, the result was that the Church grew fat and lazy, and saw a steady decline in attendance at churches throughout the 19th century.

It is ironic that one of the causes of increasing secularization of European society during the 19th century were the churches themselves. As observed above, long state sponsorship reduces the participation of the populace. Once the rulers were separated from their religious authority, the importance of religious observance therefore declined.

Increasing Urbanization in Europe and its Effect on Secularization

Urbanization went hand-in-hand with industrialization in Europe of the 19th century. The influence of the village, where everyone knew everyone else's business and the parish priest or pastor was always nearby, led to a natural tendency to stick closer to religious observance. Cities were much less focused on individual behavior; it was therefore much easier to become 'lost' in the city.

Secularization was therefore a situation which did not take place uniformly throughout Europe in this period. Those who moved to the cities and engaged in the industrialization of society became more secular, while those who remained behind in the agricultural villages retained their religious beliefs (Lilla 2006). One way to view the increasing secularization of Europe, therefore, is to look at the change in the ratio of city- versus country-dwellers. In 1800, only 7% of the population of Europe lived in a city (Schrover 2007). By the end of the 1800's, the cities far outpaced the countryside. There were three primary reasons for this: