Enlightenment was a European intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries in which ideas

concerning God, reason, nature, and humanity were synthesized into a worldview that gained wide
assent in the West and that instigated revolutionary developments in art, philosophy, and politics. The
roots of the Enlightenment can be found in the humanism of the Renaissance, with its emphasis on the
study of Classical literature. The Protestant Reformation, with its antipathy toward received religious
dogma, was another precursor. Perhaps the most important sources of what became the Enlightenment
were the complementary rational and empirical methods of discovering truth that were introduced by
the scientific revolution.

According to Dorinda Outram, the Enlightenment was a desire for human affairs to be guided by
rationality rather than only faith, superstition or revelation, a belief in the power of human reason to
change society and liberate the individual from the restraints of custom or arbitrary authority, all backed
up by a world view increasingly validated by science rather than by religion or tradition. The
Enlightenment philosophy stemmed from the scientific method as suggested by Francis Bacon and Rene
Descartes. This method was based on empirical observation of specific phenomenon in order to arrive at
general laws. These scientific ideas undermined traditional political ideas such as the divine right of
rulers. The goals of rational humanity were considered to be knowledge, freedom, and happiness.