A period in the 1600s–1700s when people began using reason and science to question government and society.
What is the Enlightenment?
his religious movement challenged the authority of the Catholic Church and encouraged people to think independently.
What is the Reformation?
This philosopher believed people had natural rights including life, liberty, and property.
Who is John Locke?
Rights that all humans are born with and cannot be taken away.
What are natural rights?
Enlightenment ideas inspired major revolutions in America and this European country in 1789.
What is France?
The Enlightenment emphasized this way of thinking instead of relying only on tradition or authority.
What is reason (logic)?
his invention helped spread new Enlightenment ideas quickly across Europe.
What is the printing press?
This philosopher argued that government should be based on a social contract between rulers and the people.
Who is Jean-Jacques Rousseau?
The agreement in which people give up some freedoms in exchange for government protection.
What is the social contract?
Some Enlightenment thinkers argued against this system of forced labor based on race.
What is slavery?
Enlightenment thinkers believed people had these basic rights that governments must protect.
What are natural rights?
This movement used observation and experimentation to understand the natural world and influenced Enlightenment thinking.
What is the Scientific Revolution?
This Enlightenment thinker believed government power should be divided into different branches.
Who is Montesquieu?
This system divides government into branches to prevent any one branch from becoming too powerful.
What is separation of powers?
Enlightenment ideas encouraged rulers to adopt reforms; rulers who did this were known as this.
What are enlightened despots?
This idea says government power should come from the people it governs.
What is popular sovereignty?
The success of scientists like Isaac Newton encouraged Enlightenment thinkers to apply scientific thinking to this area.
What is government or society?
This writer strongly supported freedom of speech and religion and criticized the French government.
Who is Voltaire?
This principle ensures each branch of government can limit the power of the others.
What are checks and balances?
Enlightenment thinking helped promote the idea that women should have greater rights and access to this.
What is education?
Enlightenment thinkers believed societies could improve through this idea of progress and rational thinking.
What is the belief in human progress?
The questioning of traditional authority in religion, science, and politics helped lead to this intellectual movement.
What is the Enlightenment?
This female Enlightenment thinker argued that women should receive the same education as men.
Who is Mary Wollstonecraft?
Enlightenment ideas often challenged this traditional form of government where kings ruled with absolute power.
What is absolute monarchy?
Enlightenment ideas influenced documents such as the United States Constitution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
What are Enlightenment political ideas?