I feel that without the Protestant Reformation there could have never been the Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution. Until people were freed from the control of the church and allowed to explore new areas and ideas there could never be any major advance in society. The proof of this lies in the history of Europe leading up to the time of intellectual growth in comparison to the history of the Near and Far East during the same time period. In this way the Reformation freed the Western world and allowed science and thought to advance in ways that had hither to been stifled.


Now to my true answer: the Scientific Revolution made the world both small and much larger at the same time on many different scales. Many people will, and have, discussed the advances in sailing and the beginning of the Age of Exploration or Exploitation depending on which side of the landing party you stood. But the Scientific Revolution also made the world a much bigger place on a small scale. I know that sounds like a contradictory term but hear me out. With advances in agriculture and industry there came a growth of awareness among the lower and middle classes in the Western world. Always before the great lords were the only ones who had dealings with “foreign” peoples. Very few members of the lower classes ever thought of those who lived more than a day’s ride from their home as being of any import.

Now suddenly the small free-holder farmer has new technology available helping him produce more and better foods, resulting in a surplus. He now faces the question of what to do with this surplus. He hears of a weaver in the next village over who makes excellent cloth and is willing to trade cloth for food. Our poor farmer would like to wear better clothing than those he currently has so he makes a voyage out into the unknown world beyond his small village and is soon trading surplus food for finer cloth. He returns home and is considered a wealthy man because he was able to get such good materials. The next year his neighbors use the new technologies and they too have a surplus, but only our farmer knows the weaver, so he takes a small commission from everyone and sets out to trade food for cloth, getting richer along the way when he realizes he can trade for things beyond cloth. In a few years he is no longer a farmer; he is now a grocer.

In a very similar manner the weaver gets richer as well because he can trade a surplus of food for better wool or whatever else his need may be. Both of these men, and those they traded with, suddenly became part of a larger world. The Scientific Revolution expanded their small world in ways they could have never imagined.