The Enlightenment

The Enlightenment was an eighteenth century intellectual movement associated with the belief that through the use of reason human beings can build a better world.  Enlightenment philosophers and writers questioned old ways of thinking about authority, attacked superstition, and criticized aspects of religion.  They stressed common sense and rationality.  

France – the home of Voltaire and Rousseau - was the center of the Enlightenment in Europe .  The French "philosophes" challenged the old order with their radical ideas about society,  and helped bring about the French Revolution of 1789. 

England had its own Enlightenment thinkers who were very influential in the American colonies.  Foremost among them was John Locke, who maintained that society was a contract which individuals entered into, and that government only gains legitimacy through the consent of the governed.  In his view, the purpose of laws was not to restrain people, but to enlarge their freedom.  His ideas guided the Founders as they created the American Republican and drafted the Constitution.