D., LL.D. Professor of Philosophy, Cornell
University
The Enlightenment of the eighteenth century had implicit faith in
the powers of human reason to reach the truth. With its
logical-mathematical method it endeavored to illuminate every nook and
corner of knowledge, to remove all obscurity, mystery, bigotry, and
superstition, to find a reason for everything under the sun. Nature,
religion, the State, law, morality, language, and art were brought
under the searchlight of reason and reduced to simple and self-evident
principles. Human institutions were measured according to their
reasonableness; whatever was not rational had no _raison d'etre_;
to demolish the natural and historical in order to make room for
the rational became the practical ideal of the day. Enlightenment
emphasized the worth and dignity of the human individual, it sought to
deliver him from the slavery of authority and tradition, to make him
self-reliant in thought and action, to obtain for him his natural
rights, to secure his happiness and perfection in a world expressly
made for him, and to guarantee the continuance of his personal
existence in the life to come. In Germany this great movement found
expression in a popular commonsense philosophy which proved the
existence of God, freedom, and immortality, and conceived the universe
as a rational order designed by an all-wise and all-good Creator for
the benefit of man, his highest product; while other thinkers regarded
Spinozism as the only rational system, indeed as the last word of all
speculative metaphysics; for them logical thought necessarily led to
pantheism and determinism.
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