Sense, Sensibility, Sensitivity, or, Why Was the Eighteenth Century More Sentimental Than the Seventeenth Century?

This short essay attempts to answer the question posed in the title. Answers to it tend to circularity; they refer to tender-hearted seventeenth century texts that prefigure, or cite other examples of eighteenth century texts that express the newly emotional and tearful mood. Stephen Gaukroger’s work suggests to the present author a new approach. Thanks to Descartes, philosophers were forced to and able to reconceive something in the world—the bodily machine and its conscious feelings—as divinely constituted, important, and good.