The influential figureheads of the Enlightenment period are cast over vastly different areas of expertise. ... Roadblocks and doubters aside, brave actions throughout many other great philosophers, such as Martin Luther who, like Galileo, was harshly punished for their "treason" against the church. ... That feat alone, aside from the mathematical, astronomical, and scientific laws established, was the greatest factor in the overall change in Europe during the Enlightenment Period....

• Word Count: 1038
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

From the perspective of the emerging Western philosophers and human scientists; that is, humans not belonging to their known European culture. ... A growing contemplation that humans might be alike as a biological species, and that it was culture that perhaps created our differences, gave way to a freedom to explore that these 'Others' may be capable of the same moral fabric and practice lives with values that contributed to a very slow growth of acceptance for some philosophers and scientist. ... " (Pg. 14) The second precondition according to Mazlish that served in the emer...

• Word Count: 1481
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Jacob mentions that the natural philosophers "looked forward to the progressive purification of religion and a moral reformation to which science was seen as being crucial."" ... In Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenment in France, Mercier asserts that "love of the marvelous always conquers us, because, sensing confusedly how little we know of the forces of nature, we ecstatically welcome anything that leads us to discoveries about them.""8 This excerpt depicts the populace as a body that will follow anything that seems even somewhat plausible. ...

• Word Count: 1480
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate