The Epic Interactive Encyclopedia 1997/The_Epic_Interactive_Encyclopedia_97.iso/e/enlightenment/infotext

Text File | 1992-09-02 | 545b | 15 lines

A European intellectual movement that reached
its high point in the 18th century.
Enlightenment thinkers were believers in
social progress and in the liberating
possibilities of rational and scientific
knowledge. They were often critical of
existing society and were hostile to
religion, which they saw as keeping the human
mind chained down by superstition. The
American and French revolutions were
justified by Enlightenment principles of
human natural rights. Leading representatives
of the Enlightenment were Voltaire, Lessing,
and Diderot.