Enlightenment, Really?

Encyclopedia Definition The term also more specifically refers to an intellectual movement, "The Enlightenment," which is described as being the use of to establish an ethics, aesthetics, and knowledge. This movement's leaders viewed themselves as a courageous, body of intellectuals who were the world toward, out of a long period of irrationality, superstition, and tyranny which began during a historical period they called the "Dark Ages" Rationalityauthoritative elite leading progress

To the Ends of the Earth! Under the reign of just laws, personal liberty and property have been secure; mercantile enterprise has been allowed to reap its reward; capital has accumulated in safety; the workman has "gone forth to his work and to his labour until the evening;" and, thus protected and favoured, the manufacturing prosperity of the country has struck its roots deep, and spread forth its branches to the ends of the earth. (Edward Baines – 1835) Under the reign of just laws, personal liberty and property have been secure; mercantile enterprise has been allowed to reap its reward; capital has accumulated in safety; the workman has "gone forth to his work and to his labour until the evening;" and, thus protected and favoured, the manufacturing prosperity of the country has struck its roots deep, and spread forth its branches to the ends of the earth. (Edward Baines – 1835)