John Locke and The Declaration

The Enlightenment philosophers of the 18th CE articulated basic principles of the modern outlook including the belief that individuals possess natural rights that governments shouldn't violate from which a desire arose to reform society according to such principles.  One such philosopher, John Locke's, focused on these natural rights in his "Second Treatise on Government."  In this document, Locke said that in establishing a government, human beings had never agreed to surrender their natural rights to any sort of state authority.  Therefore, the power that exercised by government leaders cannot be absolute or arbitrary.

The preamble of Thomas Jefferson's, Declaration of Independence, clearly borrowed John Locke's philosophy of natural rights.  Locke viewed life, liberty and property as the individual's essential natural rights.  Instead of property, Jefferson substituted pursuit of happiness.  

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness..."

another aspect that Jefferson adopted of Locke's philosophy was the right of rebellion: "That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it..."  Locke also expresses in his second treatise that if the government fails to fulfill the end for which it was established (the preservation of the individual's right to life, liberty and property) the people have a right to dissolve the government.

Equiano and Zong

As a leading abolitionist in English society, Equiano was famous for his expose on the infamous slave ship Zong. Equiano exposed the cruel event of when 133 slaves were thrown overboard in mid-ocean for insurance purposes. To me, this event is sickening but also displays the inhumanity of the slave trade and that slaves really were perceived as an economic commodity rather than people. The picture to the left is a replica of the Zong at tower bridge at the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the abolition. Also, the resulting court case, brought not by the authorities as a mass-murder charge against the ship-owners, but as a civil action by the ship-owners seeking compensation from the insurers for the slave-traders' lost "cargo," was a landmark in the battle against the African slave trade of the eighteenth century.
Before, in class I posed the question of whether Equiano' literary contributions were successful in a monetary sense and I found out that this travel narrative made Equiano a fortune, which then gave Equiano freedom from his benefactors and independently focus on what he wanted in life, like his desire to improve economic and educational conditions in Africa, especially Sierra Leone.

Enlightenment Influence

Philosophically, the declaration discussed two crucial aspects from Locke's Enlightenment thinking: individual (life, liberty etc.) and the right of revolution.  In addition Locke's concept of the Social Contract had an impact on the drafting of the Declaration.  This concept asserted that people would have to give up some right to government in order to receive and preserve a social peace and order.  While maintaining individual rights, the writers in sense establish a social contract with the people of the states that is no longer tied to Britain.  The declaration established the states as legitimate authorities and the people consented.  

Also interesting is the profound influence both Enlightenment thought and the American revolution had upon the French and their revolution.  Like the Americans they believed that if the government is corrupt they had the right to overthrow it.  However initially, Enlightenment belief of the equality of all men led to many in France to critique the lavish lifestyle's of the monarchy and seek to improve their conditions under the monarchy.  For example, the Third Estate which consisted of anyone who wasn't of the nobility and clergy sought to obtain more authority and power in making political decisions in France.  This eventually led to a revolution and a complete break with the monarchy.  This just shows how influential Enlightenment thinkers were on politics during the second half of the 18th CE in both France and America.  

Lisbon Earthquake

Some 90,000 people died in Lisbon-more than one third of its population.The earthquake also pounded Europe's political and cultural thinking.  Lisbon lessened either God's beneficence or his power. The quake also lessened their estimation of human reason and a reasonable world.   Voltaire published a Poem on the Lisbon Disaster:

Unhappy mortals! Dark and mourning earth!
Affrighted gathering of human kind!
Eternal lingering of useless pain!

Voltaire reveals, from those opening lines, the despair of a thinker who's inspired by the intellectual consequences of this event. Voltaire also inserted the earthquake into Candide's absurdly catastrophic life. From a ship in Lisbon harbor, Candide watched helplessly as the good drown and the wicked survive. His friend Martin concludes that if the world has any purpose at all, it is to drive us mad.

Reflection on Passion and Reason

"Placed on the Isthmus (land between two bodies of water) of a middle state,

A being darkly wise and, rudely great: 

With too much knowledge for the sceptic side,

With too much weakness for the stoic's pride,

He hangs between; in doubt to act or rest;

In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast;

In doubt his mind or body to prefer;" Epistle II, very beginning 

I thought this was an interesting quote and decided, in my own way, to sketch it above.  I think when Pope says too much to knowledge for a skeptic refers to the fact that humans possess enough proof of God existence to ever question its validity.  While on the other hand, Stoicism emphasizes the use of reason to attain Logos or cosmic wisdom which Pope says humans cannot attain because of their weakness to correctly use reason for this purpose.  The Stoic ideal was to absolve oneself from passions in order to attain a state of harmony with nature and the universe by showing no emotion  to pleasure, pain or personal gain and loss.  Pope emphasizes in his second epistle the need for both reason and self-love seen as passion in man.  

Pope explains a need for passions at the end of the epistle: "To these we owe true friendship, love sincere, Each home-felt joy that life inherits here;"

The Fall Due to Disturbance of Reason

In Paradise Lost, Milton displays a personal concern to discover the answers tot he political and religious turmoil of his time and the Fall of Man was one of those hotly debated issues.  Paradise Lost is in a way a new Bible containing answers to the debated theological and political issues during this time.  The previous Puritan ideas concerning the Fall of Man saw the reason for original sin as purely sexual for which Milton offered a different explanation.  Milton determines that the split of reason in Adam and Eve led to the Fall.  It is through reason that man achieves a heavenly love transcending carnal love (VIII. 590-93).  Satan rather disturbs human's reason in order to enact The Fall.  Satan utilizes the need for true knowledge due to a feeling of insecurity to disturb the reason and therefore lead to The Fall.  

Parallels with Aeneid and Odyssey

I found it interesting in the introduction that Milton invoked recognizable epic scenes and conventions from other epics like Virgil's Aeneid and Homer's, The Odyssey not to claim his place in such a long-standing tradition, but rather proclaim his superiority over it.  Even the first line of Milton's epic echoes the opening lines of the Odyssey and Aeneid.  

"Of man's first disobedience and the fruit" (1.1)

"Arms and the man I sing" Aeneid (1.1)

Both emphasize the poem's major subject in their opening lines.  Instead of a heroism like that of Aeneas in the Aeneid, Milton's focus is on the disobedience suggesting that the Adam and Eve's first disobedience with the fruit will be followed with numerous other instances of disobedience.  

In the first couple line's Milton invokes a muse similarly again to the traditional muses invoked in The Odyssey and Aeneid.  Yet, Milton ambitiously claims a superiority since his Muse is God 

"Sing Heavenly Muse" (1.6)

"Invoke they aid to my adventurous song" (1.13)

Interesting and helpful website:

www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/pl/book_1/index.shtml - 2k