Les Provinces-Unies et les Lumières

Hans Bots and Jan De Vet : The united provinces and the enlightenment. The chronological limits of the Enlightenment in the U.P. are not those of England or France. «Enlightened » ideas circulated earlier, due tho the Revolt ; the bourgeois Revolution took place in the 1780s but the old structures of government were not removed until 1795. In addition, the particular charac¬ ter of the Enlightenment here is due to the fact the the optimistic faith in the perfectibility of man and society was accompanied by a belief in Christian revelation. The authors insist on the continuity of 16th-century Biblical humanism which inspired 18th-century tolerance, on the important mystical current, on the defenders of liberalism and the development of philosophy and literature ; on the role of learned societies and academies and the important part played by the U.P. in the diffusion of Enlightened ideas. The authors also emphasize the large extent to which this movement extended to all categories of society and was inspired by their rational Christian faith. The resulting hostility to materialism and free thought gave this Enlightenment its special character which is still to be studied in depth.Bots Hans, De Vet Jan. Les Provinces-Unies et les Lumières. In: Dix-huitième Siècle, n°10, 1978. Qu'est-ce que les Lumières ? pp. 101-122