Preceden

The Enlightenment

Main

Jean Bodin

1530 - 1596

Bodin, a French lawyer, Employed biblical precepts and long-standing tradition to defend theories of divine-right monarchy

Hugo Grotius

1583 - 1645

A Dutch statesman, proposed an all - embracing system of international law based on reason, which he identified with nature.

Thomas Hobbes

1588 - 1679

Along with John Locke, Took up the urgent question of human rights versus the sovereignty of the ruler.

John Locke

1632 - 1704

The Enlightenment

1650 - 1800

Known as "The age of Reason". occured between 1687 ( the date of principia) and 1789 ( the beginning of the French Revolution).

Leviathan published

1651

Hobbes published the treatise Leviathan

Edmund Halley observes comet

1680

English astronomer Emund Halley (1656-1742) observed the comet, calculated its orbit and predicted future appearances.

Alexander Pope

1688 - 1744

The Glorius Revolution

1688

Charles Louis de Secondat Montesquieu

1689 - 1755

Locke's first treatise, "On Government"

1689

Locke argued that individuals might attain their maximum development only in a society free from the unnatural restrictions imposed by absolute rulers.

First daily newspaper published in England

1702

Denis Diderot

1713 - 1784

Issued the Encyclopedie in seventeen volumes.

London engineer patents first know typewriter

1714

Louis XIV died

1715

Adam Smith

1723 - 1790

Contended that labor was the foundation for prosperity

Condorcet

1743 - 1794

Believed that human nature could be perfected through the application of reason

Thomas Jefferson

1743 - 1826

"The Spirit of the Laws"

1748

A treatise by Montesquieu defending liberty as the free exercise of the will

Mary Wollstonecraft

1759 - 1797

Champion for the equality of women. Mother of famed writer Marry Shelley.

Declaration of Independence

1776

U.S. Constitution signed

1787

A Vindication of the Rights of Women

1792

Authored by Wollstonecraft