Chapter 14 Chapter 12 Changes During the Enlightenment

The 18th century was marked by two massive political revolutions.These two revolutions established the meaning of the word "revolution" as we understand it today - a drastic social or political upheaval that resulted in a new and fundamentally different social system or form of political organization - which is what happened in 1776 The American Revolution (North American Revolutionary War) and the French Revolution of 1789.However, the emergence of the concept of revolution as radical change—as a break point or break with the past, rather than a cyclical return to better days gone by—can be traced not only to Enlightenment social and political thought and fields of action, but also finds its source in the discussions of cultural and intellectual issues of the period.

We have seen that Fontenelle applied this new meaning of the word "revolution" to mathematics as early as the beginning of the eighteenth century. In 1728, Paracelsus (1493-1541, doctor and alchemist born in Switzerland) re-generalized medicine as a revolution in medicine, and in 1747, Newton's mechanical system was also called It boils down to a "revolution in physics".But in the eighteenth century, as in the late Middle Ages or the Renaissance, the original meaning of the word "revolution" often existed alongside its new connotations, and even in writings written in the decades preceding the French Revolution, whether one It is also not always clear to use the word "revolution" explicitly in its present sense.Perhaps some serious analysis is in order to ascertain that the revolution in question is really a single event, a truly permanent change of great significance, and not just a stage in a cyclical change.Moreover, we have examples of this, through which we shall find that it is impossible to really grasp what the author means by revolution.

The Polysemy of the Word "Revolution" The most prolific writer on the subject of revolution in the eighteenth century was Abbe de Vilfein, whose historiography was continually reprinted in French and since then translated into English, Spanish, Italian, German, and Russian.Among his works, the most important are The History of the Institution of Malta (1726), The Revolution of the Roman Republic (1719), Portugal (1689) and Sweden (1695).The volume on Portugal was written by Fontenelle at the encouragement of Verdot.Apparently, this book is the most popular of all his works; the National Library (Paris) lists no fewer than thirty-five editions or editions of the book, and the British Library (London) records eight copies of the book in English. editions, the first of which was published in 1700.

In the preface to the last edition (1796) of Verdot's work on the Roman Republic, one learns the reason why his work on the history of Portugal was reprinted with such rapidity: Associated with the revolution accomplished in England at the time (1689).Virdo originally titled the book The History of the Portuguese Rebellion, but 22 years later (1711), when he published a revised and supplemented edition, Virdo changed the title to "The History of the Portuguese Revolution".The preface to the new edition of the book explains that the word "revolution" is more suitable for the new edition than "conjuration" (French for "rebellion", "conspiracy"), because many Other events ("revolutions").Moreover, the main thesis is "a cause" in which "the leaders make it their object to return the crown only to the prince whom they regard as the rightful heir to the throne", and in this sense" "Revolution" is more appropriate than "rebellion".Although the implication of this particular interpretation is to "return" the kingship from the Spanish usurpers to the rightful rulers of Portugal, elsewhere in this book and in his other histories Verdot still prefers to use " The term "revolution" is used to refer to important events that lead to major political changes.Even in the first edition of the History of Portugal, titled "Rebellion," Verdo used the term "revolution" to refer to the successful revolt in Portugal in 1640 by which Portugal recovered from the Independence from Spanish control under John IV.In the preface to the first edition of the book, Wildo said: "This is a revolution that deserves our attention."He also wrote: "Perhaps never in our history have we seen any other rebellion so worthy of the title of this one in regard to the rights of the royal family, the interests of the state, the inclinations of the people, or even the motives of most of the conspirators. is just".Moreover, we have never seen such broad participation of people "regardless of age, gender, and social status".

When we turn to Swift's essay "The Tale of a Bathtub," published in 1704 with his essay "The War of the Books," then we shall find that there is quite a bit of ambiguity in the meaning of the word "revolution." place.At the beginning of Part Four of A Tale of a Bathtub, Swift tells his readers that by now they "must expect to hear about the Great Revolution."These are clearly events of great significance, but there is little known clue to help the reader determine whether these events might have been stages in a cyclical process, events marking the rise and fall of events, or simply some unusual accident event.We might be helped a little if we understood that these revolutions were connected with the "drama god" Peter, who was often exalted.Peter needs a foundation ("a better foundation than he was born with") to "support this sublime" and, in this way, Swift may enable Peter to "finally manage to turn to designer and art connoisseur - here he So successful—so many famous discoveries, designs, and machines, which are now so popular and widely used in the world, are entirely indebted to the invention of Sir Peter” (Swift 1939, I: 65).

However, the general collapse of an existing regime or social form, rather than the sense of premeditated, drastic subversion, emerges in Swift's later paragraphs in Part IV (p. 75) on "all this chaos and revolution "in a commentary written by Swift in which she spoke of the chaos and disturbing results of the Reformation." Subsequently, in a metaphorical description of two aspects of the Reformation, Swift A comparison is made between Luther and Calvin. The latter was inevitably rash and rude, while "Martin" (Luther) - after his first act of zeal - "determined to proceed more temperately in the remainder of his enterprise. "Swift concludes with a summary of Luther's activities: "This is the closest record I have been able to gather of Luther's activities in the Revolution" (p. 85).

Swift wrote a pamphlet, Digressions Concerning Madness, Habits, and Improvements in a Nation.And the Revolution is mentioned in a somewhat different context in Part IX of this pamphlet.In Swift's view, in any survey and generalization of "the greatest act ever performed in the world under the influence of a bachelor," we find that these eminent men were simply "those whose natural Reason has received great revolutions in their diet, education, the prevalence of certain emotions, and the peculiar influence of air and climate" (p. 102).Such "great actions" can be divided into three categories: "building new empires by conquest", "creating and spreading new religions", and "development and progress of new philosophical outlines".Clearly, these revolutions are by no means cyclical or part of a boom-bust process.They are events that lead to radical change, if not a massive political revolution.Swift can draw the conclusion that madness is "the root of all those revolutions that have taken place in empires, philosophies, and religions. Here, one may understand that the word "revolution" began to resemble the word "revolution" after 1789. Perhaps even more so from Swift's assertion: "Imagination can create sublime scenes, and produce revolutions more sublime than Fortune and Creator will give." (p. 108).

Swift's compatriots and successors did not always see the emerging concept of revolution as a single event, and still spoke of revolution in an older circular sense.The Glorious Revolution of 1688 was introduced by Samuel Johnson in his Dictionary of the English Language, edited in 1755.He is in "The Rambler" (this is the twice-weekly newspaper written and published by Johnson alone in 1750-1752-Annotation) (No. 92, February 2, 1751; "Bart and Strauss", 1969), the following passage in connection with Boileau (163-1711, French poet, the leading figure in literary criticism at the time) uses this relatively ancient concept: "The time-tested, and through the human spirit in various The book that has been celebrated for all the changes it has undergone in our intellectual revolution ... deserves our respect more than any modern age can boast".In Colin McLaughlin's (1698-1746, English mathematician) On Newton's Philosophical Discoveries (1748) we see an almost identical formulation.In his book, he said: "It does not seem worthwhile to trace the history learned through various revolutions in later years" (p. 39).McLaughlin also mentions Aristotle's comparison between the "revolution in learning" and the "rising and setting of the stars" (p. 42).Here, the meaning of "revolution" is akin to McLaughlin's discussion of the revival of learning after the dark clouds over Europe--"the arts and sciences of freedom are revived, and, moreover, they derive no more from this happy revolution than natural philosophy many" (p. 41)—the meaning of the word revolution as used at the time.In this context, the revolution appears to be a stage in a cyclical restoration rather than an innovative boom-and-bust process.

Even by the middle of the eighteenth century, there was still no single clear meaning of the word "revolution."We see this in Rousseau (1762); in Book 4, Chapter 4 of that book, Rousseau speaks of "revolutions in empires" and of the "causes" of these revolutions.Here it is used in a circular way, where revolutions are seen as the rise and fall or succession of empires.Rousseau's attention to the continuation of nations or races is evident from the following qualifying clause: "Now, however, nations are no longer being formed, and we are left almost conjecturally to explain how they came to be." Forming".However, in the essay "On the People" in Chapter 8 of Volume 2 of the book, Rousseau talks about the "violent period" of revolution, and here the word revolution obviously has an acyclic meaning.Rousseau also said that "the country burned by civil war - so to speak - rises from the ashes", such an evidence makes the above explanation of "revolution" as a radical change in the political field all the more clear. .In a later passage, Rousseau predicts: "The Russian Empire wants to conquer all Europe, but it will be conquered itself. Its vassals and neighbors, the Tartars, will become the masters of its or our masters." ; in my view, this revolution is to be avoided" (p. 37).The inevitability or inevitability that Rousseau speaks of here, together with the succession of the various empires, is strongly cyclical, although the violent method in which the "subjects" of the Russian Empire "will become its masters" may also herald the post-1789 revolution. concept of possibility.In Rousseau's assertion that "a revolution in the cabinet causes a revolution in the state" (bk. 3, ch. 6), there must be a circular relational condition.Rousseau, however, attempts here at least one sense of radical change, for, paraphrasing the preceding passage, he states that "the maxim common to all ministers, and almost all kings, is to adopt in all things the same attitude as their predecessors." measure".

In a 1754 book, Rousseau used the word "revolution" when describing the transition of mankind from the first or primitive (natural) stage to the second stage of organized society.Rousseau attributed this "revolution" to the inventions of metallurgy and agriculture.In it he wrote: "The invention of two technologies, metallurgy and agriculture, brought about this great change." And, he noted, the first of these phases was "the least revolutionary or transformative." Many writers of the mid-eighteenth century invoked a cyclical view of revolution—in which revolution usually referred to the rise and fall of culture or the "revolution of empire"—the most typical representative of which was Jean-Francis Marmont, permanent secretary of the French Academy Tyre.He undertook all the entries on poetry and literature in the Encyclopedia compiled by Diderot and D'Alembert.In the "Poetry" section of his Introduction to Literature (1737), he says that historians have written about "revolutions in empires."He then poses the question, "Why has it never occurred to anyone to write about the revolution of art, and to look in nature for the material and spiritual causes of its birth, growth, splendor, and decadence?" (1787, 9:297) Philosophy The writer Condillac made a similar comparison between the development stage of human thought and the "revolution of empire", because he once said: "The revolution of belief stems from the revolution of empire" (1798, 14:17).

However, in 1755, Condillac was astute to point out: "Bacon proposed a method too perfect to be the motive force of a revolution or change; Descartes, on the contrary, may be more successful" (1947, l :776).Here, Condillac also puts forward the revolutionary discovery of acyclic theory.In economist A. R． J．In some of the early writings of Turgot (1727-178) we also find a more or less similar use of the word "revolution."In his treatise "On a General History" in the 1750s, Turgot gave a brief survey of the history of scientific thought (philosophy).He speaks of Aristotle, Bacon, and "Galileo and Kepler. It is by their investigations that the true foundations of philosophy are laid. Yet it was Descartes, more daring than they, who contemplated and A Revolution (1973, 94)".To attribute a revolution to Descartes was rather rare among writers of the eighteenth century, although French scientists and philosophers were bound to praise him for fundamental innovations.In another essay ("Philosophical Commentary on the Continuous Development of the Human Spirit") written at the Sorbonne in 1750, Turgot changed his attitude.He lamented: "Great Descartes, even if you do not always like to discover the truth, at least you have destroyed the arbitrariness and tyranny of error" (1917, 58).We will see later (&13.1) that at this time, people believed in a two-stage revolution.Descartes had accomplished only the first stage—the eradication of error—but had not yet fully developed the second stage, which was the creation of a new doctrine to replace the old one. Voltaire There are always periods of ambiguity and confusion when new concepts develop, especially when a new concept is a reworking of an old one. There were repeated instances of this phenomenon in the middle of the eighteenth century, but perhaps no more typical example than that which is so clearly shown in the work of Voltaire.Voltaire's earliest writings include his Philosophical Letters or Letters Concerning England (1733).In discussing the anti-Trinitarians there (Letter 7), Voltaire expresses the same thought that we have just met with Condillac: "You see, in public opinion, as in Empire , what a revolution has been made."An example of this cyclical revolutionary process is: "Three hundred years in the limelight, and four forgotten, the Arians revive." Again and again in these "letters" Voltaire pointed out that The greatness of 17th century science and philosophy (especially Galileo, Bacon, Newton and Locke).But he never used the term "revolution," nor did he express the greatness of the new science in terms that would more easily translate into a radical "modern" view of science. Voltaire published his The Times of Louis XIV (1751) almost exactly after the publication of the Philosophical Letters.This is a classic of historical literature, and it is also a work that has attracted widespread attention for its combination of intellectual history and political history.In the second stanza, Voltaire introduces the meaning of revolution: "Every age has produced its heroes and statesmen; every nation has had revolutions; Say, it's all the same".Perhaps the word "revolution" is here meant to mean the ups and downs which reach their culmination of a similar cycle in the "four ages of happiness" "in which art matures"; Inaugurated "an era of sublime human thought".Voltaire, on the other hand, might have endorsed a new meaning of revolution as an event in which something entirely new was produced.The latter is more in line with what he says a few paragraphs later when he discusses the question of what we call the age of Louis XIV.During this period, according to Voltaire, "the philosophy of reason arose," that is to say, "the period from the last years of C. Richelieu to the years after the death of Louis XIV. Likewise, a general revolution has taken place in our arts, spirits, and customs".In this instance, there is no real attempt to return to any previous state of affairs in France, although Voltaire may have remembered early on that this phase of great change had a similarity to the other three great epochs (Philip and Alexander, common feature at the beginning of the age of Caesar and Augustus, the age of the Italian Renaissance).So in this sentence we may understand why the two meanings of "revolution" are closely linked and why secular or acyclic ideas about innovation and change arise from ideas or ideas about cycles of boom and bust of. In his writings on the time of Louis XIV, Voltaire uses the word "revolution" to describe the Glorious Revolution in England (ch. 15, pars. 9, 20), but does not have the adjective "glorious".As a Frenchman, Voltaire could only express the opinion that in most countries of Europe William was regarded as "the rightful king of England and liberator of the nation," while "in France he was regarded as the usurper of the kingdom of his father-in-law" (1926, 140).By describing this happy age "undergoing a revolution in human thought," Voltaire introduces science—the subject of the first two chapters.In this case, I think, there is no ambiguity here about the acyclic meaning of "revolution," especially since Voltaire later introduced Galileo, Torricelli, Curic (1602-1686, German Physicists, engineers and natural philosophers) and Descartes' new creations in science.However, the discussion of Copernicus introduces a concept of revival.Voltaire did not mention him by name directly, but referred to "a troubled saint".Indeed he "resurrected the long-forgotten ancient solar system of the ancient Babylonians" (p. 352).It is worth noting that while Voltaire speaks of a "revolution of the human spirit" and "a general revolution in our arts, spirits, and customs," he never seems to use the term "scientific revolution" revolution, or "revolution in the science," he did not even introduce any connection to a single science—say, astronomy or mechanics—or to a single scientific development or individual (such as Copernicus or Newton) or the introduction of the heliocentric theory associated with the word "revolution". This is all the more worthy of our attention, because Voltaire recognized that some important pioneers like Galileo and Newton carried out in science Innovation is so important and so fundamental. In Voltaire's most ambitious historical work, the Essay on Manners, published in 1756, the concept of revolution appears frequently.The preface to the book begins with a discussion of the changes the earth itself has undergone; and he begins by saying that "our world has undergone perhaps as many changes as nations have undergone revolutions" (1792, 16:13).There seems little doubt that by "revolution" here we mean some great (or even earth-shattering) transformative event.Subsequent discussions of these "great revolutions" taking place on our planet make this explanation certain.For example, Voltaire asserted that "the greatest of all these revolutions" was perhaps "the disappearance of Atlantis (the continent), if that part of the world ever existed" (p. 15).Moreover, this apparently acyclic use of the word "revolution" appears in the summary of the whole of history in Chapter 197; this summary begins with "this great revolution [that the whole earth has experienced] since the time of Charlemagne." stage"—natural disasters and devastation—and "the massacre of millions." Revolution is discontinuity and change Aside from so many instances open to multiple interpretations, by the middle of the eighteenth century the word "revolution" had come to be used primarily to designate a great change, no longer having the necessary, specific Implicit.The Encyclopedia compiled by Diderot and D'Alembert, although a self-proclaimed "Dictionary of Science, Art and Trade", uses the term "Revolution" in the entry "Revolution" as "occurring in the regime of a country". The political implications of "important changes" come first: 1: REVOLUTION, s. f. signifie en terme de politigue un change ment considerable anive dans Le gouvernement dun etat (That is, "revolution" is a feminine word that, in political terms, signifies an "important change" "in the polity of a country") The note on the word consists of three sentences.First, "The word comes from the Latin word revolvere, which means to roll, change, cycle of the years, return"; second, "There has never been a country that has not experienced certain revolutions"; third, "Vildo has provided us with Two or three excellent histories of revolutions in various countries." The next paragraph deals with the Revolution and England.The entry states that "although Great Britain has at all times experienced many revolutions", the British use of the term refers specifically to the revolution of 1688.This entry on the Glorious Revolution is signed "D.J." (for Chevalier de Jeancourt). Following these discussions of political revolutions, three further formulations of the revolutions taking place in science are made.These three formulations do not deal exclusively with revolutions that have taken place in the development of science (see Chapter 13 below for details on this), but rather with geometry (the driving force of the revolution), astronomy (in astronomy, the demonstration of There are two forms of "revolution": one is axial rotation or circulation, and the other is orbital revolution) and revolution of technical terms in geology.Of the three representations, the longest is the description of astronomy written by "O" (D'Alembert).Articles on geology were titled "Earth's Revolution."These are supposed to be the names given by "naturalists" (naturalists) to such "natural occurrences" as: "In such natural occurrences the face of our earth has been changed in its various parts by the action of fire, air, and water." Parts have changed, and are still changing."Finally, there is a much longer entry, more than three times as long as the entries on politics and science put together, on "The Revolution 'Used' in Horology." This paper (signed For "M. Romilly") explores the gears and combinations of transmissions in clockworks. The use of the word "revolution" in geology has a special meaning. Such expressions as revolutions of the earth or earths revolutions are mainly found in Shifeng's works.For example, in the second treatise of his Treatise on the Earth, published in 1749, he wrote (Buffon 1954, io4): Tens of thousands of revolutions, upheavals, special vicissitudes and alterations have taken place on the surface of the earth due to the natural movement of sea water, rain, freezing, flowing water, wind, inner fire, earthquakes, tides, etc. .It is impossible for us to doubt that. He therefore believed that the changes taking place on the earth's surface were the result of "the continuation of the natural revolution" (p. 105).The same use of the word "revolution" occurs elsewhere in Buffon's writings, notably his Epochs of Nature (1779).The book begins with this (1954, 117): In Civil History, people pursue their own interests and rights, seek their own honor, and interpret ancient inscriptions to presume the epoch of human revolutions and establish human or civil events [spiritual events] Dates are used in the same way in natural history.It is therefore necessary to delve into the archives of the world, to obtain ancient ruins from the interior of the earth, to collect their fragments, and to bring together in a series of evidence all the clues of material changes which can bring us back to the different ages of nature. G．Cuvier in 1812 used Buffon's comparison of historians and geologists most clearly.Cuvier saw himself as a new antiquarian; he "had to simultaneously learn how to recover the relics of past revolutions and explain their meaning".Buffon deals with the changes that took place in those very remote ages, with events that were completely forgotten and "revolutions that preceded memory" (p. 118).For Buffon, revolutions are clearly continuous, but these revolutions—whether in politics or in natural history—are by no means cyclical. Buffon's use of the concept of "revolutions" later greatly influenced the German philosopher J. G．Herder.The title of Chapter 3 of Volume 1 of Herder's Outline of Philosophy of History (1784-1791) is: "Our Earth has undergone many revolutions before it became what it is today".Herder is recognized as a pioneer in the study of anthropology and the scientific study of primitive cultures.He uses an "evolutionary" view to account for lower life forms that exist for man and exhibit defects that man does not have.However, these low-level life forms are not necessarily the previous state of creatures that evolved towards humans.His theory of human evolution is not the biological development of human beings, but the cultural development of human beings.His writings interpret human history as "a purely natural history of man's powers, actions, and preferences as they vary from place to time." Human cultural development is seen as a completely natural Process is the interaction between a person and the changing material environment around him.Herder thus follows Buffon's approach (see Sauter, 1910) and treats the history of the earth in terms of revolutions due to the action of water, fire, and air (1887, 13:21).In particular, he noted that some of these revolutions contributed to the formation of the earth, and expressed his hope: "I shall live long to see the theory of the first radical revolution which first created the earth" (1887, 13:22).Shifeng, he said, was "just the Cartesian of the science," and, moreover, his postulates would eventually be refuted, just as the likes of Kepler and Newton were overtaken and replaced by Descartes' postulates.Speaking of "new discoveries concerning heat, air, fire, and their various effects on the structure, composition, and decomposition of earth-matter," and of the new "succinct fundamental principles" of electricity and magnetism, Herder One can imagine a time when the structure of the Earth will be explained "as completely and definitively as Kepler and Newton explained the structure of the solar system." Herder, quite naturally following Buffon's lead, conceived of "revolutions" as the earth-shaking events that drove the development of the earth (Genium Philosophy of Human History, Vol. 1, Ch. 3).He asserts that "today such dire changes are not as frequent "as they were at the beginning of the earth's history" because the earth has stopped its development" and that the earth is "old". Such revolutions did not come to a complete end, as the earthquake showed (1887, 13:24). Impact of the American and French Revolutions As the eighteenth century entered its third quarter, there occurred the most famous single sociopolitical event since the Glorious Revolution.Today, after the revolutions in France, Russia, and China, the American Revolution—like its forerunner, the Glorious Revolution—may not seem very radical or even a "revolutionary" event.Moreover, there is also a conservative political tendency to refer to the American Revolution as the Revolutionary War, or, to put it more eloquently, the Revolutionary War.In its own day, the American Revolution had a double image.On the one hand, it is a radical change (mainly a return to the conditions and state of the Glorious Revolution and its Act of Rights or Bill of Rights—a "revolution" in the sense that conservatives can support a movement aimed at Back to or - as B. Belling likes to say - "revolvemnt" (revolvemnt) to a century or more that all Britons were guaranteed to have but largely governed by Walpole's (1734-1742 Prime Minister) government encroaching rights. However, certain radicals, including political figures as diverse as Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, saw the establishment of something entirely new in the Revolution. This is the American National Treasure adopted shortly after the Revolution The above motto "Novusordo Seclorum" - a new order of the times, or as it was reinterpreted in the late thirties - a "New Deal" - meaning. Revolution, rather than a new return to some old state better than the present, is reflected in the bright tone of Jefferson's Declaration of Independence: "When in the midst of human affairs, it is for a people to undo their The political bondage associated with other human beings, the independent and equal place in which natural law and the gods of nature are supposed to be established among the forces of the earth, becomes necessary".This is not a backward-sighted defense of ancient rights, but a clear statement about the current state of affairs.In addition, Jefferson's "just and equal status does not need to be based on the God of Revelation, nor does it need the defense of the Christian Bible, but the revelation of the "natural domain" of the God of Nature."Rather than continuing to plead for "sacred and undeniable" truths, as he had intended to do, Jefferson still asserted that certain truths were, in a particular sense, "self-evident."It was in this sense that Newton conceived of the axioms on which his Principia Mathematica was based to be self-evident.Moreover, the revolutionary novelty is immediately asserted in the radical claim that "mankind is endowed by his Creator with certain "inalienable rights" which include "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." The French Revolution adopted earlier the name that its American predecessors had made it definitive.Its program of political and social reform was a step ahead of both the Glorious Revolution and the American Revolution.Moreover, as I pointed out earlier, after the French Revolution, the word "revolution" itself has generally lost any residual circularistic meaning, while retaining its purely astronomical meaning.Not only did the French Revolution readily endorse the new meaning of the word; events in the Revolution also influenced thinking about the Revolution in a variety of ways.First, the extremes and violence of the Revolution led to apprehension about the unhappy outcomes of revolutions of any kind, as well as their normal, beneficial consequences.Second, the French Revolution established a paradigm by which profound social change was seen as an adjunct to political action.Third, it turns out that the implication of this new concept of revolution is that revolution carries with it inevitability, just as the revolution of the planets revolving around the sun is inevitability." Although the French Revolution was forward-looking and generally not seen as a return to a previous state, there were still many important elements of bygone eras, evident in the manners and symbols.Thus, an important symbol of the Revolution was the pendulous conical "liberty hat", which can be seen on numerous engravings from the 18th century.This hat was traditionally worn by a Greek slave receiving his certificate of emancipation, and it was a distinctive sign of freedom (see illustrations 8 and 9).Another symbol is a bundle of sticks, the ancient Roman "fascist", also used this symbol in the American Revolution.Here is a symbolic expression of the close relationship between the new program of the French Revolution and the ancient tradition now infected and influenced by a new life (and perhaps a new or expanded meaning). The late Hannah Arendt noted in particular that the old conception of the astronomical revolution and its return to meaning was a feature of the French Revolution.She cites as her main example a conversation between the legendary King Louis XV and the Duke of Rocheforque-Liancourt on the night of July 14, 1789 (just after the storming of the Bartudy Prison).The king is said to have said: "It's an insurrection." And Leoncourt said: "No, sir, it's a revolution."Of course, we have no way of knowing what Leoncourt was thinking at the time, and indeed we have no way of knowing from any contemporaneous sources whether he actually said so. H．阿伦特对革命作了深入研究，而且至少我会相信她对这个问题的历史的和分析的洞察和远见。她认为，在这个传说的谈话之中，"革命"一词是"最后一次在政治上使用的，也就是说，在把它的意义从天上带到地上的旧的隐喻的意义上使用的"（197，47人在18世纪的政治出版物中，我本人发现了对H．阿伦特思想的一个独立的更进一步的证实。作为本书的插图再版的，这个同时代的出版物展示出"法国革命的天文学体系"。而且，根据利昂古尔的说法，H．阿伦特推测："重点从一个循环运动的合法性完全转向其必然性，这也许是第一次"。因此她提出，革命的政治形象仍然来自"星体的运动"，但是"现在所强调的是，人的力量是不能阻止"革命的运动的，而且，它已变成"一条自然规律"。人们传说的1789年7月14日的那些谈话指出了起义和革命的区别，这在18世纪是一个规模和目的的区别。起义被认为是叛乱或暴动，而革命则意味着国家的政治和社会体制的根本变革。在现时代的条件下，利昂古尔也许会说，的确不存在反对目前的政权领导人的暴动，而只有改变政治制度的运动。换言之，他可能会设想对既定的政权形式而不是仅仅对执政的政权的威胁。