The Enlightenment

The Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment introduced the idea of having natural rights that the government has to protect. It also brings to their attention that man is born either bad but, men cannot survive without the direction of others. In the courts it is now said that a person is innocent unless the evidence proves it otherwise. Now man believes that they need a virtuous democratic government.

The writer of The Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, said "All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness....that whenever any for government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.(Document E)." This statement changed the way people thought about not only them but others as well. It made them realize that everyone had the same rights as them, to live, to be free or independent, and to be happy. If the government became destructive of these terms the people had the ability to abolish the old government and to institute an new one.

In the Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes writes, "That during the time men live without a common power to keep them in awe, they are in that condition which is called war....and the life of man , solitary, poor, nasty, brutish , and short, (Document B)." He is saying the before the Enlightenment man was brutal. One man would kill another man until they got what they needed or wanted, so essentially it was just a war where every man was for himself. Then the Enlightenment came around which kept everybody in admiration. "Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man's inability to make use of his understanding without the direction of others.(Document F). This is the thoughts of Immanuel Kant, who had the same thought of Hobbes.

The French Revolution changed the way people looked