Enlightenment

The Enlightenment was a philosophical movement in the 1700s characterized by rationalism, or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification". This view often rejected traditional social, political and religious views.

Writers during the Enlightenment assumed that science, beginning in the late 1600s with Isaac Newton, could be duplicated in other fields through a systematic and logical approach. Some of the "enlightened" authors of the period even rejected and criticized Christianity. Many were deists. Enlightenment philosophy took root in England, France and even the American colonies.