| | List of illustrations | |
| | Preface | |
| | Acknowledgements | |
| | A note on the texts | |
| Pt. 1 | Sources | 1 |
| 1 | Human nature | 3 |
| | Leviathan (1651) / Thomas Hobbes | 8 |
| | An Essay on Man (1733-34) / Alexander Pope | 11 |
| | Man a Machine (1747) / Julien Offray de La Mettrie | 14 |
| | Discourse on Inequality (1755) / Jean-Jacques Rousseau | 17 |
| | 'Colour of the Inhabitants' and 'Wretched Condition of the Slaves in America' from Raynal's History of the Settlements ([1722], 1780) / Denis Diderot | 20 |
| | Sketch of a Historical Picture of the Human Mind (1795) / Marquis de Condorcet | 27 |
| 2 | The search for knowledge | 33 |
| | Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1687) / Isaac Newton | 37 |
| | An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) / John Locke | 40 |
| | A Treatise of Human Nature (1739) / David Hume | 45 |
| | 'Preliminary Discourse' to the Encyclopedie (1751) / Jean d'Alembert | 49 |
| | 'What is Enlightenment?' (1784) / Immanuel Kant | 53 |
| 3 | Religion and belief | 59 |
| | Christianity not Mysterious (1696) / John Toland | 64 |
| | Essays on Theodicy (1710) / Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz | 68 |
| | 'Of Miracles' from An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) / David Hume | 71 |
| | Poem on the Lisbon Disaster (1756); 'Theist' from Philosophical Dictionary (1764) / Voltaire | 75 |
| | 'The Profession of Faith of a Savoyard Priest' from Emile (1762) / Jean-Jacques Rousseau | 83 |
| | Common Sense (1772) / Baron d'Holbach | 87 |
| 4 | The natural world | 91 |
| | Vegetable Statics (1727) / Stephen Hales | 95 |
| | System of Nature (1735) / Carolus Linnaeus | 102 |
| | History of Man and the Quadrupeds (1753) / Comte de Buffon | 107 |
| | Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature (1753) / Denis Diderot | 111 |
| | Reveries of the Solitary Walker (1782) / Jean-Jacques Rousseau | 117 |
| 5 | Science and invention | 122 |
| | Letters Concerning the English Nation (1733) / Voltaire | 126 |
| | History and Theory of the Earth (1749) / Comte de Buffon | 131 |
| | 'Invention' from the Encyclopedie (1765) / Louis Jaucourt | 134 |
| | Engravings of Technology from the Encyclopedie (1751-72) | 138 |
| | Zoonomia (1794-96) / Erasmus Darwin | 140 |
| 6 | Political rights and responsibilities | 148 |
| | Two Treatises of Government (1690) / John Locke | 153 |
| | The Spirit of the Laws (1748) / Baron de Montesquieu | 162 |
| | Instruction (1767) / Catherine II | 171 |
| | Essay on the Forms of Government (1777) / Frederick II | 173 |
| 7 | The development of civil society | 176 |
| | New Science ([1725], 1744) / Giambattista Vico | 182 |
| | An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767) / Adam Ferguson | 188 |
| | The Wealth of Nations (1776) / Adam Smith | 192 |
| | The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-88) / Edward Gibbon | 201 |
| 8 | Moral principles and punishments | 209 |
| | An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751) / David Hume | 213 |
| | On Crimes and Punishments (1764) / Marchese di Beccaria | 216 |
| | Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals (1785) / Immanuel Kant | 220 |
| | The Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789) / Jeremy Bentham | 223 |
| | Philosophy in the Boudoir (1795) / Marquis de Sade | 228 |
| 9 | Gender and society | 233 |
| | A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (1694) / Mary Astell | 237 |
| | Tatler, no. 149 (1710); Spectator, no. 66 (1711); Englishman, no. 9 (1713) / Richard Steele | 241 |
| | Letters on Education (1790) / Catharine Macaulay | 246 |
| | The Rights of Woman (1791) / Olympe de Gouges | 249 |
| | A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) / Mary Wollstonecraft | 253 |
| 10 | Art, architecture and nature | 259 |
| | Discourse on the Arts and Sciences (1750) / Jean-Jacques Rousseau | 261 |
| | Essay on Architecture (1753) / Marc-Antoine Laugier | 264 |
| | Treatise on Civil Architecture ([1759], 1791) / William Chambers | 266 |
| | La Raie (1725-26); Le Benedicite (1740) / Jean-Simeon Chardin | 270 |
| | 'Chardin' from Salons (1759-69) / Denis Diderot | 271 |
| | Beer Street (1751); Gin Lane (1751) / William Hogarth | 275 |
| | 'William Hogarth' and 'On Modern Gardening' from Anecdotes of Painting in England (1762-71) / Horace Walpole | 278 |
| | Mr. and Mrs. Robert Andrews (1748-50); Girl with Pigs (1782) / Thomas Gainsborough | 286 |
| | 'The Grand Style of Painting' from Johnson's Idler, no. 79 (1759); 'Gainsborough' from Discourse XIV (1788) / Joshua Reynolds | 289 |
| | An Experiment on a Bird in an Air Pump (1768) / Joseph Wright | 294 |
| 11 | Europeans and the wider world | 296 |
| | Embassy Letters (1763) / Mary Wortley Montagu | 299 |
| | A Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements ([1772], 1780) / Abbe Raynal | 304 |
| | A Voyage towards the South Pole and Round the World (1777) / James Cook | 309 |
| | Supplement to the Voyage of Bougainville (1796) / Denis Diderot | 319 |
| 12 | Radicalism and revolution | 328 |
| | A Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774); Notes on the State of Virginia (1787) / Thomas Jefferson | 331 |
| | The Rights of Man (1791-92) / Thomas Paine | 341 |
| | An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793) / William Godwin | 347 |
| 13 | Autobiographical reflections | 352 |
| | Confessions (1781) / Jean-Jacques Rousseau | 355 |
| | Autobiography (1791) / Benjamin Franklin | 360 |
| | An Appeal to Impartial Posterity (1795) / Madame de Roland | 369 |
| Pt. 2 | Reader | 375 |
| 14 | Modern critical reflections | 377 |
| | The Philosophy of the Enlightenment (1932) / Ernst Cassirer | 380 |
| | The Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947) / Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer | 383 |
| | The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962) / Jurgen Habermas | 386 |
| | The Enlightenment: An Interpretation (1969) / Peter Gay | 389 |
| | The Business of Enlightenment (1979) / Robert Darnton | 392 |
| | The Postmodern Condition (1979) / Jean-Francois Lyotard | 396 |
| | 'What is Enlightenment?' (1984) / Michel Foucault | 398 |
| | 'The Enlightenment Debate on Women' (1985) / Sylvana Tomaselli | 400 |
| | 'French Feminists and the Rights of "Man"' (1989) / Joan Wallach Scott | 405 |
| Pt. 3 | Chronology and further reading | 411 |
| | Chronology | 413 |
| | Further reading | 419 |
| | Index | 453 |
