This essay is considering the question ‘Which movement, the Industrial Revolution, or the Enlightenment, was more influential in shaping the world as it exists today?’. Whilst the Industrial Revolution was influential because it brought with it the ability to produce goods in great quantities and supply working class people with jobs, the Enlightenment was when humans discovered rational thought and realised the value of freedom of all sorts. This philosophy was ultimately more influential than the Industrial Revolution because it altered the human brain and the way people thought.
The Enlightenment was the time of illumination and was when the human ability to reason was glorified. Tremendous improvements in the understanding of mathematics and science occurred during the Enlightenment. Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes, ‘The Fathers of the Enlightenment’, were both philosophers and scientists. Rene Descartes wrote The Discourse on Method which
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The industrial revolution brought greater wealth to society through mechanisation by increasing the amount of production and thereby creating greater wealth but it didn’t change the distribution of that wealth. The changes to society came through the Enlightenment movement. The Enlightenment brought about changes in societies beliefs, the distribution of power, and advancements in the integrity of scientific process. Without the Enlightenment movement, all the advantages created by the Industrial Revolution would have simply made the Church and the monarchy richer and more powerful but the common man would still have been oppressed into a life of service to these masters. The Enlightenment gave people more of the rights to a share in whatever wealth was created and released the common man to contribute to labour and ideas for the benefit of mankind which included the evolution of religious