The Enlightenment

                The Enlightenment was an 18th century European intellectual movement.  Generally, 

        Enlightenment philosophers advocated for progress, liberty, rationality, scientific advance-

        ment, classical liberalism, education, constitutional, and sometimes republican government 

        with separation of powers, freedom of religion and political speech, separation of church and 

        state, humane warfare, ending political torture and the death penalty, laissez faire economics, 

        and rational, rule-based ethics (utilitarianism, deontology).  In 1789, during the French Revol-

        ution, the concept of universal human rights was given its first expression in the Declaration 

        of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

               Enlightenment philosophers, influenced by Isaac Newton's laws of motion and gravity, 

        were inspired to find laws to describe the "science of man."  This laid the groundwork for the 

        social sciences (e.g. sociology and cultural anthropology) beginning in the 18th century. 

               Enlightenment thought influenced the French Revolution of 1789 and subsequent Euro-

        pean revolutions for representative democratic government.   It also had great influence on 

        American founders like Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Rush, 

        and James Madison.