Explain The Key Ideas Of The Enlightenment

Before the Enlightenment, europe ruled by an absolute monarch, which ruled by divine right (The idea that God gave them all their power and authority.) There was no freedom of religion or separation of state. The peasants, which made up the majority of the population being between seventy to ninety percent, had little to no money and had no concern about politics. Around the late seventeenth and eighteenth century the Enlightenment began also known as the age of reason. The Enlightenment was the time of applying reason to the human and natural world. The key ideas of the enlightenment were separation of powers,freedom of religion, women’s rights, and the spread of ideas.
The Idea of separation of powers was one of the key ideas in the enlightenment. During the French revolution, the third estate which was made up of peasants, later renamed themselves the National Assembly, made a tennis court oath saying they would not stop meeting until the French constitution was established. In this constitution, it would state that there would be separation of powers so one man could not control everyone and everything. Montesquieu, was a French noble famous for the work of The

Thomas Hobbes an English writer of Leviathan agreed to this political idea. Although in his writing of the Leviathan he says “ for powers divided mutually destroy each other.” Which means that when the power is divided then the people in charge will fight over and destroy each other about how much power they each have. He also says “... that making profession of the laws, endeavour to make them depend upon their own learning, and not upon the legislative power.” (Leviathan, 1651) saying that the people should have a say in the laws that are set for them and try to let them use their own knowledge and not the legislative