The Enlightenment

Imagine living in a world where others are questioning everything around you. Imagine someone telling you that the facts about the government and social culture around you that you believed were facts were just ideas that were actually questionable. Picture living during a time where political and cultural lives were not stable or constant because as different people analyzed their world, new ideas were being developed and people were believing it. In this time, curiosity about the world spread, which led to further innovation. Even the Church initially encouraged such investigations, out of the belief that studying the world was a form of piety and constituted an admiration of God’s work. The enlightenment took a major role in the development and construction of modern Europe. During the enlightenment, many inventions were created, new philosophical ideas were being discussed in massive forums by massive crowds, and now by the average citizen instead of scholars and philosophers. Many revolutions took place, politically, geographically, religiously, and demographically shifting the face of Europe. Literature and art became important and sources of power for the wealthy. Art took new form, being viewed with different perceptions and perspectives. Writers started to speak their mind, even if it meant going against their government's or even church's ideas. The enlightenment shaped the Europe we know today in four distinct and important ways. The Enlightenment encouraged several revolutions and helped governments. It influenced the American Revolution and then the French revolutions. The Enlightenment was an 18th century European movement in which thinkers attempted to apply the principals of reason and scientific method to all aspects of society. It influenced the Declaration of Independence and the
Declaration of the rights of man and of the Citizen. These political, economic, and social changes from the