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.