History 11: 20 “Enlightenment”
The thought of the day for most uneducated humans in the seventeenth century were dominated by two almost unchallenged sources; scripture and the classics. Each in it’s own way perpetuated the idea that civilization had degenerated from a “Golden Era” or the Golden Age. (1) The Renaissance and the Reformation had reinforced this above attitude and enhanced the authority of the sacred texts. The Renaissance and the Humanists of the Educational movement had been largely based on a Greek and…