The period of the eighteenth century, at least the years that preceded the French Revolution of 1789, is known in historical and philosophical terms as the Age of Enlightenment. While it is certainly true that no one definition embodies the spirit of the time, the name "Enlightenment" clearly conveys the way the age was conceived by those living in it, and later historical evaluations of the era similarly convey this term as being accurate.
In a sense, then, Europeans were sensing that they were living in a new age an age in which the past was termed a time of barbarism and intellectual and philosophical darkness. There was a new sense of progress, and an idea that all things were discoverable through the intellect using the tools of science and philosophy. Similarly, the Enlightenment changed the ideas about natural law and natural rights. With this came a greater spirit of individualism, and the idea that all things were possible.1
This paper will concentrate on the period of the Enlightenment through three of its foremost writers and philosophers: John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and the Baron de Montesquieu. The paper will concentrate on Locke's
1 See the discussion on the "Age of Enlightenment" in R.R. Palmer and Joel Colton, A History of the Modern World, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984), 302 49. ideas on natural rights, Rousseau's social contract, and Montesquieu's idea of the separation of powers as a case study positing the notion that these three thinkers influenced the creation of the United States Constitution. Underlying this thesis, it will be the assumption of the paper that European Enlightenment thought influences the American political tradition.
John Locke was born in 1632 in England. He grew up during dramatic changes in the country, and during his early years witnessed c civil war, the beheading of a king, and a Puritan dictatorship. Philosophically, Locke is considered to be one of the f...