Enlightenment, the both Rousseau and Diderot defined general will as representing the nature of the nation or community as opposed to the selfish needs of the individual The law should secure each person’s freedom but only up to the point that it does not threaten others In this way, they prefigured the utilitarian philosophy of Jeremy Bentham, which stressed the goal of human happiness as long as it did no harm to others REACTIONS AGAINST ENLIGHTENMENT In the latter 18th century, there was a reaction against the overuse of reason and science in securing human potential Religious, philosophical, and humanitarian movements put new emphasis on idealism and emotionalism when it came to religious, philosophical, and social reforms Philosophically, the Newtonian vision of God as the great scientist in the sky and Locke’s equation of knowledge to the mind’s organization of sensory experiences along with the rise of atheism provoked a reaction IMMANUEL KANT The foremost philosopher of the later Enlightenment was Immanuel Kant, whose Critique of Pure Reason argued that innate ideas exist before sensory experiences Taking a page from Plato, Kant argued that certain inner concepts such as depth, beauty, cause, and especially God existed independently of the senses Some ideas were derived from reason, not the senses Kant went beyond pure reason Reason was based on intuition as well as interpretation of sensory experiences The conscious mind was integral to a person’s thinking nature Therefore, abstract reason could have moral and religious overtones This came to be called new idealism, as opposed to classical idealism Another reaction to this scientific perspective on religion was a movement in favor of a feeling, emotional deity everpresent in daily life Known as Pietism in Europe and in America variously as evangelism and charismatic Christianity, the movement known as the Great Awakening swept the Americas and Europe in the 1740s and 1780s Preachers such as George Whitefield and the Wesley brothers gave stirring sermons with overtones of fire and brimstone in response to excessive rationality in church doctrine Their style of preaching appealed to the masses, whereas the intellectualized religion of the Enlightenment too often seemed like a creation for the educated upper classes By the end of the century, the movement coalesced into the Methodist movement 123 A new movement from Germany that stressed Bible study and hymn singing as well as preaching—the Moravians—earned a following in both Europe and America Similar movements occurred among Lutherans and Catholics The Great Awakening in the United States led to the formation of new individual-centered denominations such as the Unitarians and Universalists Both aspects of the religious side of the Enlightenment—rationalist and Pietist—were concerned with human worth This desire for the improvement of human conditions led to humanitarian impulses The antislavery movement gained momentum in the later 18th century Other movements, such as the push for prison reform, universal elementary education, Sunday school, and church schools, were all evident by 1800 Whether rationalist or Christian evangelical, reformers supported these movements Even absolute sovereigns such as Frederick the Great and Catherine the Great promoted reforms Frederick abolished torture and established national compulsory education, while Catherine established orphanages for foundlings and founded hospitals For reforms such as these, certainly not for their beliefs in human rights, they and other monarchs were termed enlightened despots Enlightenment thinkers sought human betterment and the movement took many forms Political figures sought to deliver people from arbitrary use of power Deists questioned the use of power by established churches Economic thinkers argued for liberation from state control of the economy All believed in an implicit social contract and national human rights whether political, economic, religious, or moral Separate currents of rationalism, idealism, and Pietism all contributed to the humanitarian and revolutionary movements that emerged at the end of the period See also enlightened despotism in Europe; Freemasonry in North and Spanish America; French Revolution Further reading: Anchor, Robert The Enlightenment Tradition Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987; Brewer, Daniel The Discourse of Enlightenment in Eighteenth Century France Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993; Dowley, Tim Through Wesley’s England Abingdon, PA: Abingdon Press, 1988; Gay, Peter Voltaire’s Politics New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988; Yolton, John Philosophies, Religion, and Sciences in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 1990 Norman C Rothman