Sacred and Secular Revolutions: The Political and Spiritual Legacies of the Atlantic Enlightenment in the American Founding

A Collaborative Research Program Between the Huntington Library and the Jack Miller Center

"Bacon, Locke and Newton, I consider them as the three greatest men that have ever lived, without any exception, and as having laid the foundation of those superstructures which have been raised in the Physical and Moral sciences”. Thomas Jefferson

Call for Proposals: The Jack Miller Center in partnership with the Huntington Library announces a two­year research project to consider the relationships between new science and new religion in the Atlantic Enlightenment, with particular focus on the impact of these innovations on the American Founding. The project will support twelve one­month research fellowships tenable at the Huntington Library. To be appointed in tandem, six of these fellowships will be offered through the Huntington Library’s Dibner Program in the History of Science and Technology; and six will be supported by the Jack Miller Center’s initiative in the history of “Religion and Innovation in Human Affairs”. The project will also facilitate an initial workshop for the twelve fellows in February 2013, and will culminate in a conference for the presentation and dissemination of papers in March 2014. Both these events will take place at the Huntington Library, and travel expenses and accommodation costs will be reimbursed in each case. It is envisaged that the research findings of the project will be disseminated by the publication of the conference papers as an edited volume of essays.

Rationale Scholars seeking to understand the intellectual roots of the American Founding have often been drawn to one of two meta­narratives, the first associated with the rise of science and reason; the second associated with the legacy of Puritanism. The first, and for many scholars the dominant, narrative stakes a claim for the novel and exceptional nature of the American Founding, emphasizing its innovative and experimental nature. Experiment, conceived not only as novelty but also as method, was the defining principle of Enlightenment Science; whether as a science of nature or a science of government. In this account, the revolutionary nature of the new republic extends far beyond its origins in political and military contest. From this perspective, American independence and its aftermath represented, as Jefferson and others would have it, nothing less than the establishment of a new political and moral “order of the ages”. America is represented as the concrete expression of the Enlightenment drive to first principles in politics as much as in philosophy: its skepticism and practicality, its common sense and prudence, are from this perspective grounded in modern and enlightened conceptions of the science of politics as an extension of the science of nature. The spirit and substance of law—scientific, social, political and moral—therefore came to the framers not only as an extension of the debate on nature, but also as an expression of the new and empirical ground of the modern scientific method. The second narrative of the American Founding is essentially bound up in the idea of the Puritan inheritance. The defining markers of the “new American order” could be traced through the language of covenant rather than that of contract, in communities of saints rather than of strangers, themselves illuminated by the shining light emanating from the city on the hill. In this account, the formation of a revolutionary consensus was rooted not in a scientific or rationalist recourse to the doctrine of natural rights, but in a cultural and sociological ground steeped in the traditions of New England Protestantism. Yet for all the emphasis on communitarian traditionalism which has characterized many of the “Puritan Founding” narratives, it may be argued that the religio­political account implies developments that were radically innovative, and presented profound challenges both to the authority of the state and the harmony of the local community. These innovations, far from representing an oppositional break with the modern and secularizing tendencies of the new scientific and philosophical assumptions of the enlightenment, were themselves extensions and refinements of that changing worldview. The scientific and religious adaptations of the long eighteenth century therefore suggest interdependent rather than separate narratives of Enlightenment. From this interdisciplinary perspective, we will consider the degree to which the American Experiment both challenged and refined the Baconian project. Jefferson, Franklin, Rush and other framers of the constitution were preoccupied with the relationships between scientific enquiry, commercial innovation, the expansion of civil contract and education. The constitutional provision for the advancement of the arts and sciences, while addressing the immediate needs of a new commercial republic, was also an extension of enlightenment ideas about nature and the providence of second causes. From Newton, Boyle and the ingenious and learned gentlemen of the Royal Society and on through Locke, to Jefferson and to Franklin, the consequences of the new science suggested more than an exclusively secular ambition. This project will consider the deep intellectual roots of the American Founding as consequence of a longer narrative shaped by the underlying maxim of the Baconian method: that is, that science, in its truest sense, is grounded in the double truth of reason and revelation. Modified both by experiment and by experience, religion (in the multiple senses of piety, of polity, and of cultural tradition) would be reconceived in uniquely innovative American forms. New American religion developed in tension with new American Science, producing more conservative and tradition­bearing understandings of local community, while simultaneously constituting radical challenges to state authority.

Eligibility Applications are welcome from advanced doctoral candidates and faculty members in any discipline, though preference may be given to those who have expertise in the history of science and/or the history of religion. Participants in the program should be prepared to plan, research and write up projects which speak to the ambiguous relationship between science and religion in the eighteenth century Atlantic world. Proposals for the Dibner Program fellowships in the History of Science and technology should make explicit the political and theological implications of the particular branch of scientific innovation under discussion. Proposals for the Jack Miller Center fellowships in the history of religion should make explicit the legacies of the new science for the emergence of new notions of faith and politics. In either case, proposals should explore the deep roots and consequent impact of scientific and religious innovation for the American Founding. Each fellowship carries a stipend $3000 for one month’s residency at the Huntington Library and will be tenable between 1 December 2012 and 31 January 2014.

Application Procedure: Candidates should: 1) Submit a 1000­1500 word abstract, outlining the research agenda, and in particular detailing both its relation to the ‘Sacred and Secular Revolutions’ project and its use of the rare book and manuscript collections held at the Huntington Library. 2) Submit a one page cv. 3) Arrange for two letters of reference to be sent in support of the application.

All materials should be sent electronically to Carolyn Powell, Assistant to the Director of Research at the Huntington Library, using the e­mail address [email protected] with the phrase ‘Sacred and Secular Revolutions’ in the subject line and are to be received no later than September 1 2012. Additional inquiries may be addressed to Dr. Steve Hindle, W.M. Keck Foundation Director of Research at the Huntington Library ([email protected]); or to Dr. Pamela Edwards, Director of Academic Initiatives, The Jack Miller Center ( [email protected]).