Edina Salihovic
Professor A. Pell
History 101
20 March 2015
The Enlightenment: Discoveries, Revolutions, and the Ideas The Enlightenment was a period during the seventeenth through eighteenth century that lead to many philosophical, scientific, intellectual and cultural thinking. This period is also said to be called “The Age of Reason” because it was a time in medieval Europe that emphasized logistics and challenged religion with science. It soon began to create a new, more modernized Europe. Some Important figures of the Enlightenment were John Locke, Francis Bacon, Renee Descartes, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Isaac Newton, Galileo, and Charles-Louis Montesquieu. However, these are not the only precursors during this era, there are actually many more. This important age in history would serve to later influence and impact the world on a variety of scales. From John Locke’s influence on the US Declaration of Independence to his influence on the French
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He is also the founding father of modern political philosophy. He believed that reason is what distinguished men from beasts. That the ability for a man to be able to reason was the greatest sense of control one can hold. Hobbes also believed that to allow men a voice in their own government would only lead to conflict. He believed that humans were selfish creatures who craved power and wealth and that forms of governments were created to protect people from their own evil desires. He did not believe in a democracy instead he thought a country needed a king to lead. However, he did believe that electing a group of diverse representatives would prevent the king from his desires. He keyed the phrase “voice of the people”. His most famous work, Leviathan, theorized that the perfect form of government started with a “social contract”, giving away your rights to a sovereign. He argued that this would provide civil peace and social unity in a