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Voltaire's most famous novel that made fun of old religious ideas and debunked the philosophy of optimism.

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Core Enlightenment ideas were used throughout the Declaration of Independence like the belief that a government's main purpose is to protect the rights of its people.

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The Enlightenment influenced the Constitution in many ways like Montesquieu's separation of power and Rosseau's concept of direct democracy.

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Enlightenment thinkers believed that independence meant that all people are entitled to certain rights just by being a human being.

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Freedom to enlightenment thinkers was a natural human right. They argued that reason was responsible for human knowledge.

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A book published in 1651 by Thomas Hobbes. This book was about Hobbes idea that people are driven by a restless desire for power.

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A social contract is the concept that a society as a whole agrees to be governed by its general will.

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Rousseau believed that a good government is one that achieves general will.

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An English writer who believed that education was the key for equality and freedom for women.

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Tolerance is the acceptance of different beliefs and customs.

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A philosopher who believed in religious tolerance and free speech.

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The division of government responsibilities into certain branches to stop any one branch from becoming more powerful than another.

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Montesquieu was a philosopher who believed in the separations of powers. He thought that if the government was separated into groups, no one person would grow to have too much power.

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John Locke was a philosopher who believed the purpose of government was to protect people's natural rights.

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Thomas Hobbes was a philosopher who believed that governments were made to protect people from their own selfishness, cruelness, and greediness.

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A religious philosophy in the 18th century that was based on reason that recognizes a higher power (not living by a specific holy book or church).

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A medieval idea that God chose a country's king and said king got his power from God. Many Enlightenment thinkers went against this accepted idea.

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Organized by women, salons were meetings that Philosophers had to discuss and debate their ideas.

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Philosophers during the Enlightenment questioned traditions and embraced the thought of changing these traditional ways of thinking through rational change.

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The Enlightenment or the Age of Reason was a philosophical movement in 18th century Europe that was centered around the idea that reason is the primary source of authority.