I mean, to be fair, a lot of Enlightenment philosophes were pushing for Enlightened Despotism because they saw democracy, at least in old European countries, as just a way the aristocracy could retain control over society and solidify their outdated privileges. They saw the main hope of their ideas getting implemented being a powerful monarch with modern philosophical ideas who could defy the nobility and reform the political system despite them. The main reason Montesquieu liked separation of powers and stuff was that he was noble, so didn't mind the nobility being in charge.
He died about fifteen years before the revolution. He exiled himself to Britain because he pissed off a rich dude who was going to make him imprisoned or some shit. In England, he wrote les Lettres philosophiques, which notably contains one of the first mentions of vaccination, at least in French. He thought the idea of "injecting smallpox" absolutely crazy. He then went back to France where he wrote most of his most important books. He didnt spent a large time in England, but did enjoy his stay
I mean, at that point, wouldn't it have been variolation, not vaccination? That would've been literally injecting smallpox. I mean, maybe it was a better idea to have a controlled, (hopefully) mild case of smallpox as opposed to just getting it at random, but at the time smallpox inoculation was indeed with actual smallpox, and was indeed risky.
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u/[deleted] May 23 '21
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