European Enlightenment

The Enlightenment was the intellectual movement in the western world during the 18th century. The age of enlightenment saw many great changes in Western Europe. It was an age of reason and philosophies. The spirit of the enlightenment was one change; specifically changes which went against the previous teaching of the Catholic Church. Such changes were apparent in the ideas, questions and philosophies of the time, in the study of science, and throughout the monarchial …

…made them unique. The enlightenment ended in the west after the upheavals of the French revolution and the Napoleonic era. The skepticism of the philosophies was swept away in the religious revival of the 1790’s and the early 1800’s. Its lasting heritage has been its contribution to the literature of human freedom and some institutions in which its values have become personified. Included in the latter are many facets of modern government, education, and philanthropy.