Philosophers: Louis XIV And The Scientific Revolution

Between the 1500s and the 1700s, natural philosophers developed a new scientific worldview. A heliocentric model of the universe, the sun as the center of the universe, replaced the geocentric model, earth as the center of the universe after it had already been long-established globally. With the proof that the sun was at the center of the universe and not the earth, different methods for discovering scientific laws were developed. Scientists concluded that the universe is composed in motion that is best understood through mathematics and the conduction of experiments. The want of making knowledge more accessible to the public, made philosophers organize into societies throughout Europe. The desire of the people made it be able to conduct scientific

One of the substantial sponsors of the sciences was Louis XIV. A drawing published in 1671 illustrates that Louis XIV, during his reign, established the French Royal Academy where people who care to study came together to collaborate with one another (D10). Louis’s visit to the academy showed his pride and care for science because he wanted to get something out of it. Whether it was to be wealthier or simply to be better than another country, the more discoveries the country made, the stronger the country. In a letter written by Jean Baptiste Colbert, the French finance minister under Louis XIV, he expressed that “in displaying at home and abundance of wealth in the causing the arts and sciences to flourish, we have been persuaded for many years to establish several academies for both letters of science” (D11). Due to the support of the government, scientific thoughts, experiments, and discoveries continued to flourish and made the country

The church had a strong belief that everyone must do whatever the Bible says with nothing more and nothing less. When people started doubting and challenging traditional customs, they were losing interest in the religion and began to think of life scientifically. In 1554, John Calvin, a French Protestant theologian published Commentaries of the First Book of Moses in which he stated “all ordinary people endowed with common sense...the study should not be prohibited nor this science condemned”(D2). Calvin states that religious beliefs should not interfere with science and the people of it are only discovering the admirable wisdom of God. Also, in 1695, Gottfried Leibniz, a German philosopher in his “New Stems of Nature” said “God governs mind...these very movements of matter being produced for the happiness of the good and the punishment if the evil”(D12). Leibniz’s purpose here is to say that things happen for a reason and that good acts will be rewarded and bad would be punished. As political, social, and religious factors affected the Scientific Revolution, the political and social ones try to help and encourage people to continue doing what they are doing. On a contrary, religious factors caused many conflicts for people for the scientific revolution. The Scientific Revolution made people doubt things that were customs, thoughts and ideas that were passed on from