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Enlightenment Period Essay

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The enlightenment era swept west Europe during the 18th century paving the way for new ideas and creating challenges among beliefs. The scientific revolution gave people new knowledge that allowed them to articulate their own views and not just what the church believed. During the scientific revolution scientists challenged the church and gave way to the enlightenment period. the enlightenment period people used reason to support theories and ideas. It created movements for evolutions in human beings rights and evolved the level of equality among races, classes, and genders.
The scientific revolution was tearing down the all existing concepts of scientific knowledge from the medieval time period. The main goal was to replace existing knowledge …show more content…

It was known as the child of the scientific revolution . The enlightenment period gave way into the French revolution. French societies were composed of three estates. The first estate was known as clergy; the second known as nobility, and the third was composed of everyone else. When voting there would be one representative from each estate. However, the 1st and 2nd estates would always out vote the 3rd estate. The 3rd estate got fed up with reoccurring out coming and broke off from the estate system and formed a national assembly. They drafted their own constitution called “the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen”. This constitution included the idea introduced by Locke, every man or citizen has the right to life, liberty, and property . It also stated that the government was required to protect the natural rights of human beings, as well as, the political power in the government must be derived from the people . Olympia de Gouges, a writer, whose particular interest was on citizenship, government, and women’s equal rights, was also a supporter of liberty and equality among people . Another supporter of the liberty and equality among human beings was Maximilien Robespierre. His family was considered in the third estate, but grew up to practice law. Robespierre was known for defending the underprivileged and was a contributor and supporter of social reform

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