Key learning points

1. Enlightenment ideas around observation, experience and experiment helped pave the way for greater scientific thought.
2. The Enlightened thinkers believed that governments should work for the benefit of the people.
3. More people believed in the idea that people should be able to hold their governments to account.
4. Some Enlightened thinkers began to question ideas of monopolies and trade, arguing they should benefit all, not a few.
5. Some Enlightened thinkers developed racist ideas of European superiority and African inferiority.

Keywords

• Enlightenment - the Enlightenment was a movement in the 1600s and 1700s that promoted the use of reason and questioned authority

• Social contract - a social contract is an agreement that rulers should govern in a way that benefits the people in exchange for having power over them

• Monopoly - when one group has total control over an area of business or trade, this is known as a monopoly

• Paradox - a paradox is when a statement or idea appears to contradict itself

• Colonialism - colonialism involves taking control of another country and taking advantage of its resources and people

Common misconception