Intro to Humanism, Part 5: Enlightenment Precursors to Secular Humanism
in which he said that all men have the natural rights to life, liberty and "the fruits of their own labor". Voltaire argued that government is to protect those basic rights and that when it does not, it should be overthrown.
Like Voltaire, Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was also a prominent Democrat, Encylcopedist, Philosophe and Deist. He spoke out against corruption, wrote a discourse against the inequalities of society, and in another work advocated the freedom of religion. (Some of his other writings were definitely not humanistic, however. His essay Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, for instance, argued that advancements in art and science had benefited governments, but not humankind as a whole.) Rousseau also argued that certain basic freedoms should override the will of the majority in order for government to be just - an idea that was later used in the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights. Driven from France by peasant attacks, and ordered out of the territory of Berne by the local government, he accepted asylum with David Hume in England.
By this time the concepts of materialism, skepticism, human-centered ethics, social progress, freedom and democracy that are all so essential to Humanism were all coming together, although it would still be some time until the word "Humanism" was used to describe the new philosophy. Secular Humanism's precursors continued into the 19th century in the form of the Freethought movement, while Religious Humanism's 19th century forerunners were to be the Unitarian Universalists, and the Ethical Culture movement. I'll discuss 19th century Humanist precursors some more in the next installment.
A special thank you to Ed Buckner and associates of the Council for Secular Humanism for assisting me with this article.
References:
"Bacon, Francis" "Diderot" "Encyclopedists" "Hume, David" "Rousseau" The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (1996) http://www.utm.edu/research/iep
Carroll, Todd. "Holbach" Skeptic's Dictionary (1998) http://skepdic.com/holbach.html (Dec. 28, 2001)
Chew, Robin. "Jean-Jacques Rousseau" Lucid Interactive/Lucid Café (June 1996) http://www2.lucidcafe.com/lucidcafe/libr... (Dec. 26, 2001)
D'Holbach, Paul Henri Thiry, Baron. The System of Nature. Translated by H. D. Robinson. Vol. 1 (1868). Batoche Books: Kitchener (2001). http://cupid.ecom.unimelb.edu.au/het/hol... (Dec. 28, 2001)
"Frederick II (of Prussia)" "Pope, Alexander" "skepticism" "Spinoza, Baruch," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2001 http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2001 Microsoft Corporation.
"Helvétius, Claude Adrien" The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright © 2001 Columbia University Press. http://www.bartleby.com/65/.
Hooker, Richard. "The European Enlightenment: the Philosophes" Washington State University: World Civilizations (1996) http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/ENLIGHT/PHIL.HTM (Dec. 26, 2001)
Hutcheon, Pat Duffy. "Renaissance Humanism and its
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