The Enlightenment Influence On Western Society

The Enlightenment was a crucial point in history that began in Europe during the late 17th century and continued to last a little over one hundred years when people like Francois-Marie Arouet, David Hume, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and John Locke began to question and object to previous norms such as absolute faith in the church and rule of the king. They believed that power should not be held only by one person or entity and that reason rather than religion should become the basis for action. The expansion of knowledge and the idea that all people have natural rights led to the shaping of the world today. The Age of Enlightenment influenced both the foundation and the structure of modern western society with ideas that the people should become
David Hume was another important philosopher who believed in many of the same ideas as Locke. They differed in that Locke believed that intellect should be the most important thing to humans rather than emotions. Hume disagreed and instead said that neither intellect nor emotion is more important but they are in fact equally important. Hume uses the argument that human nature is a mixture of intellect and emotion and that without emotion humans simply would not have the motivation and would not strive to achieve
In Common Sense, Thomas Paine used common speaking terms to spur the colonists’ desire for independence. He changed peoples’ minds and helped support a vote for independence by reasoning that people should rule themselves rather than be ruled by a king living across an ocean. As for the Constitution, it is a direct result of Montesquieu’s ideas as expressed in his book On the Spirit of Laws which says that in order to have an effective democracy, a careful balance of power must be maintained. This is where the idea of having multiple branches of government to limit power stems