Intellectual Revolution Dbq Essay

Big changes requires big ideas. During the 18th century in Europe well educated people called philosophes explored ideas about, how to change the society in which they lived. Relying on reason and belief that natural laws held key to understanding human behavior, the philosophes latched onto one big idea also known as freedom. They believed that allowing individuals more freedom and reducing government control would make society better. But what was the central idea of thinkers who led the intellectual revolution of the late 17th and 18th centuries? More specifically, individual freedom was the key establishing effective government, efficient economies, religious peace, and greater equality for women.

John Locke believed that individual freedom was necessary to a good government. There was one thinker in an area of a government, it was John Locke. Locke, argued that good government begins with individual freedom. In his Second

Voltaire differentiate the benefits of religious freedom to the benefits of economic freedom. In document B it says, a society works best and most peacefully when all participants can freely sell their goods or practice their religious ideas. In document B it also says, when people can practice their own religion freely, they will get along as well as foreign traders at an economic exchange. Be restricting religious choice, bitterness arises and different sects are at each other’s throats. In addition in document B, if the government restricted religious freedom you would get people at each other’s throats. When society limits religious practice to one faith, you have bullying by the state. When you limit to two religions, you can have civil war. When all faiths are welcome, you have peace because not one group can control all the others. Again, individual freedom is the key thing, this time in religion - for a smoothly running