The Eighteenth century is often represented, applying Tom Paine's phrase, as 'The Age of Reason': an age when progressive ideals triumphed over autocracy and obscurantism, and when notions of order and balance shaped consciousness in every sphere of human knowledge. Yet the debates which surrounded the development of Eighteenth-century thought were always open to troubling doubts. Was nature itself truly an ordered entity, as Newton had argued, or was it a mass of chaotic, randomly moving atoms, as some materialist thinkers believed? This book explores the tensions and conflicts in these debates through a series of interdisciplinary essays from leading international scholars, each challenging the idea that the Eighteenth century was an age of order.

List of Illustrations Preface Notes on the Contributors Introduction: Concepts of Order in the Eighteenth Century, their Scope and their Frailties; D.Donald PART I: THE ORDERING OF THE WORLD AND OF HUMAN AFFAIRS Providence, Predestination and Progress: Or, Did the Enlightenment Fail?; J.C.D.Clark 'One is All, and All is One': The Great Chain of Being in Berkley's Siris ; C.Bradatan Ordering the Political World: The Pattern of Politics in Eighteenth-Century Britain; F.O'Gorman The Ordering of Family and Gender in the Age of Enlightenment; R.Sweet PART II: THE ORDERING OF KNOWLEDGE: BRIDGING NATURE AND CULTURE Félibien and the Circle of Colbert: A Re-Evaluation of the Hierarchy of Genres; B.Anderman The Values of the Mineral Kingdom and the French Republic; J.Simon The Système Figuré des Conaissances Humaines and the Structure of Knowledge in the Encyclopédie ; D.Adams 'Encircling the Arts and Sciences': British Encyclopaedism after the French Revolution; J.Hawley Index