"The Age of Enlightenment"
© Meg Greene Malvasi
The most important intellectual movement of the eighteenth century was called the Enlightenment. So powerful was the dedication of eighteenth-century thinkers and writers to reason that historians often characterize the entire period as the "Age of Reason," or the "Age of Enlightenment". Three basic ideas shaped the attitudes of educated Europeans during this time. The first was a rejection of the absolute power of the monarchy and the clergy, that is, of kings and churches. The second was an effort to do away with censorship and emphasize the freedom of religion, speech, and the press. The last was a growing interest in the laws that governed nature, the universe, and society.
The German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) gave the most concise definition of the Enlightenment. Kant wrote that the Enlightenment brought "light into the dark corners of [the] mind," dispelling ignorance, prejudice, and superstition. He went to the heart of one important aspect of the Enlightenment: the idea that individuals should think for themselves.
The thinkers of the eighteenth century found inspiration in the thought of seventeenth-century figures such as the British philosopher John Locke (1632-1704). Locke developed the important idea of government by consent. He imagined that human beings had once lived in a state of nature, which had existed before society. In this state of nature Locke believed that human beings possessed certain inalienable rights (that is, rights that could not be taken from them). Among these were the rights to life, liberty, and property. Since there was no fair judge in the state of nature, however, people found it difficult to protect their rights. Consequently, they agreed to live together in society and to obey certain rules for the mutual benefit of all.
Locke believed that when people gave their consent to a ruler, they expected him to govern justly, to protect their lives and their property, and to ensure certain liberties for them as citizens. Anyone who broke the rules of society, Locke argued, ought to be punished, even if it was the king himself. In The Second Treatise of Government, published in 1690, Locke described the relation of the ruler to his subjects in terms of a contract that entailed obligations and responsibilities from both parties. Should the ruler violate that contract by assuming unlawful authority or by ignoring or violating the rights of the people, the citizens, whom Locke defined as those who owned property, had not only the right but the obligation to depose the ruler, by revolution if necessary. In his Essay on Civil Government, Locke stated his political creed: "The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it which obliges everyone. And reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind who will but consult it that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, and possessions."
The German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) gave the most concise definition of the Enlightenment. Kant wrote that the Enlightenment brought "light into the dark corners of [the] mind," dispelling ignorance, prejudice, and superstition. He went to the heart of one important aspect of the Enlightenment: the idea that individuals should think for themselves.
The thinkers of the eighteenth century found inspiration in the thought of seventeenth-century figures such as the British philosopher John Locke (1632-1704). Locke developed the important idea of government by consent. He imagined that human beings had once lived in a state of nature, which had existed before society. In this state of nature Locke believed that human beings possessed certain inalienable rights (that is, rights that could not be taken from them). Among these were the rights to life, liberty, and property. Since there was no fair judge in the state of nature, however, people found it difficult to protect their rights. Consequently, they agreed to live together in society and to obey certain rules for the mutual benefit of all.
Locke believed that when people gave their consent to a ruler, they expected him to govern justly, to protect their lives and their property, and to ensure certain liberties for them as citizens. Anyone who broke the rules of society, Locke argued, ought to be punished, even if it was the king himself. In The Second Treatise of Government, published in 1690, Locke described the relation of the ruler to his subjects in terms of a contract that entailed obligations and responsibilities from both parties. Should the ruler violate that contract by assuming unlawful authority or by ignoring or violating the rights of the people, the citizens, whom Locke defined as those who owned property, had not only the right but the obligation to depose the ruler, by revolution if necessary. In his Essay on Civil Government, Locke stated his political creed: "The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it which obliges everyone. And reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind who will but consult it that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, and possessions."
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