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The Enlightenment, Part 3 to blupete's Essay
"An Essay On Democracy"
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Out of the Dark Ages, in gradual awaking stirs, came the Age of Reason. The enlightenment was fully established and growing vigorously by the eighteenth century. As the shackles of oppression, so firmly clamped on during the middle ages, became loose, men sought to apply reason to religion, politics, morality, and social life. With the coming of the enlightenment men began to express their minds; no longer were most all men cowed by the great mystery of the universe, and, their minds, through ignorance, ruled by fears: The Enlightenment was a time when human beings pulled themselves out of the medieval pits of mysticism. It was a spontaneous and defused movement which fed on itself and led to the great scientific discoveries from which we all benefit today. Beliefs in natural law and universal order sprung up, which not only promoted scientific findings and advancements of a material nature; but, which, also drove the great political thinkers of the time, such as:
Francis Bacon (1561-1626),
Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733),
Charles Louis de Secondat Montesquieu (1689-1755),
Voltaire (1694-1766),
Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-88),
David Hume (1711-76) and, of course the brightest political light of all,
John Locke (1632-1704).
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