In the 1600s and 1700s, most European countries were ruled by absolute monarchies who had complete control of the government and who claimed that they were given their power through natural rights . They became kings and queens because people in their families had been before them, which means that the right to rule was divine right Inspired by the Scientific Revolution, during which people challenged the catholic church by questioning what was written in the Holy Bible using observation and , started to question whether monarchy was the best form of government. This movement is now known as , or the Age of Reason. Writers during this movement asked questions like “What is the purpose of government?,” “What is the best way for a government to rule its people?,” and “Are people born with rights? If so, should they be protected by a government?” They wrote books that provided their points of view on those questions and their writing spread throughout Europe and beyond.
One of the earliest Enlightenment writers was who wrote that people are born with like those to life, liberty, and property, and that the purpose of a government should be to protect those rights. argued that a ruler and the people they rule should enter into a that clearly states the laws that the government and the citizens have to follow. wrote that having all of the power of a government in one person’s hands leads to abuse of that power, so he suggested a in which there are three branches of government: the executive, , and judicial. was another Enlightenment philosopher who, recognizing that most of the other writers did not include women in their philosophies argued that they too should be equal in society and under the law. All of these writers believed that a government should be elected through of the , in other words, permission of the people.
The Enlightenment inspired many changes in global history. For example, starting in the 1700s and continuing to today, governments write that list the powers of the government and the rights of the people in sets of laws that are designed to prevent and corruption. Some monarchs in the 1700s, like of Russia, read Enlightenment ideas and changed the way they ruled as a result. In addition, the traces its beginning to the Enlightenment and continues to push for for all today.