Ideas
This was the Age of Enlightenment, an 18th-century phenomenon which changed Man's view of the natural world and his place in it. The pragmatic ideas propounded by thinkers and scientists during this momentous development in Western thought laid foundations which significantly influenced the course of modern society.
Neo-classicism was inextricably bound up with the ‘pure' ideals of classical political thought. Patriotism, the nature of the state, republicanism and revolution - all issues at the heart of Enlightenment thinking - were closely associated with the integrity of antique style. During the second half of the 18th century, when neo-classicism was at its height, Britain fought one revolution – with its American colonies – and observed another - in France.
Just as baroque and rococo art and design were now considered degenerate, so the profligacy of court life and the excesses of the aristocracy were being questioned. In Britain, where commerce was burgeoning, there was an inherent fear of luxury - the fall of Rome was seen as the result of too much indulgence. ‘Enlighteners' seemed to counter-balance this, as these rational men sought to question established ideas and offer possibilities. Believing that humans were capable of comprehending the universe, they knew this knowledge would enable them to master it.
In the Midlands the search for scientific explanations drew together a group of intellectuals - scientists and engineers, industrialists and thinkers - calling themselves the Lunar Society. The manufacturers amongst them, including Josiah Wedgwood, applied their principals to the progress of industry. Wedgwood's name is traditionally linked with the Industrial Revolution, but Josiah was one of the few who also played an active part in the Enlightenment.
Dissenters were those who did not conform to the established Church of England - Presbyterians, Baptists, Quakers and others. By Josiah Wedgwood's time they were no longer persecuted, as they had been a century before. However, they were not allowed to hold public office or attend university. Men like Josiah, a Unitarian and therefore a dissenter, found much support in the ideas of the Enlightenment. And organizations such as the Lunar Society, which sprang from it, drew like-minded men together to disseminate ideas, knowledge and inspiration.
