DBQ: THE ENLIGHTENMENT

DOCUMENT A
“Enlightenment is man’s leaving his self-caused immaturity. Immaturity is the incapacity to use one’s intelligence
without the guidance of another. …it is not caused by lack of intelligence, but by lack of determination and courage to
use one’s intelligence without being guided by another…. Through laziness and cowardice a large part of mankind, even
after nature has freed them from alien guidance, gladly remain immature….All that is required for this enlightenment is
freedom; and particularly… the freedom for man to make public use of his reason in all matters.”

-- Immanuel Kant, “What is Enlightenment?” [Essay excerpt], 1784. Marvin Perry, et al, Eds. Sources of the Western
Tradition, 3rd Ed., Vol. II: From the Renaissance to the Present. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1995.

1. According to Kant, what is Enlightenment? Why aren’t people enlightened?

DOCUMENT B
“NATURE hath made men so equal in the faculties of body and mind as that, though there be found one man sometimes manifestly
stronger in body or of quicker mind than another, yet when all is reckoned together the difference between man and man is not so
considerable as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit to which another may not pretend as well as he. Hereby it is
manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition
which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man. The only way to erect…a Common Power, as
may be able to defend them from the invasion of [foreigners] and the injuries of one another, and thereby to secure
them,… is to conferre all their power and strength upon one Man, or upon one Assembly of men, that may reduce all
their Wills, unto one Will...and therein to submit their Wills… and their Judgements, to his Judgement. This is … made by
Covenant …and he that carryeth this Person, is called SOVERAIGNE [Monarch] … and therefore, they that are subjects to
a Monarch [soveraigne], cannot without his leave cast off Monarchy, and return to the confusion of a disunited
Multitude…” –
Thomas Hobbes, “Leviathan” (1651), Marvin Perry, et al, Eds. Sources of the Western Tradition, 3rd Ed., Vol. II: From the
Renaissance to the Present. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1995.

2. According to Hobbes, what is the character or nature of man? What is the purpose of government, according to
Hobbes? What type of government does he propose? Is it enlightened?

DOCUMENT C

... .Political power is that power, which every man having in the state of nature, has given up into the hands of the
society, and therein to the governors, whom the society hath set over itself, with this express or tacit trust, that it shall
be employed for their good, and the preservation of their property: now this power, which every man has in the state of
nature, and which he parts with to the society…is to use such means, for the preserving of his own property…; and to
punish the breach of the law of nature in others… this power…can have no other end or measure,…when in the hands of
the magistrate, but to preserve the members of that society in their lives, liberties, and possessions; and so cannot be an
absolute, arbitrary power over their lives and fortunes… but a power to make laws, and annex such penalties to them…
And this power has its original only from compact, and agreement, and the mutual consent of those who make up the
community….
These are the bounds…set to the legislative power: first, they are to govern by promulgated established laws…secondly,
these laws also ought to be designed for no other end ultimately, but the good the people. Thirdly, They must not raise
taxes on the property of the people, without the consent of the people, given by themselves, or their deputies…Fourthly,
The legislative neither must nor can transfer the power of making laws to anybody else,…but where the people have…
Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away, and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery
under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people… Whensover therefore the legislative
shall transgress this fundamental rule of society; and …endeavor to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other,
an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people; by this breach of trust they forfeit the power the
people had put into their hands…and it devolves to the people, who have a right to resume their original liberty, and, by
the establishment of a new legislative, provide for their own safety and security, which is the end for which they are in
society.”
-- John Locke, “Second Treatise on Government.” Marvin Perry, et al, Eds. Sources of the Western Tradition, 3rd Ed.,
Vol. II: From the Renaissance to the Present. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1995.

3A. According to Locke, what rights do men possess? What is the purpose of government? What type of government
does he propose?
3B. In what ways is Locke’s view fundamentally different from that of Hobbes?

DOCUMENT D

“What is tolerance?...We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon our follies. This is the last law of
nature….Of all religions, the Christian ought doubtless to inspire the most tolerance, although hitherto the Christians
have been the most intolerant of all men. Tolerance has never brought civil war; intolerance has covered the earth with
carnage…Fanaticism is to superstition what delirium is to fever, what rage is to anger. What is a persecutor? He whose
wounded pride and furious fanaticism arouse princes and magistrates against innocent men, whose only crime is that of
being of a different opinion.”

-- Voltaire, “Treatise on Tolerance” (1763) Marvin Perry, et al, Eds. Sources of the Western Tradition, 3rd Ed., Vol. II:
From the Renaissance to the Present. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1995.
4. Why does Voltaire view intolerance as such a problem? Why would his ideas be viewed by some as a threat?

DOCUMENT E

“Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains…The problem is to find a form of association which will defend and
protect with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate, and in which each, while uniting himself
with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free as before.” This is the fundamental problem of which the Social
Contract provides the solution. The clauses of this contract…properly understood, may be reduced to one – the total
alienation of each associate, together with all his rights, to the whole community; for… “each of us puts his person and
all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each
member as an indivisible part of the whole…” In order then that the social compact may not be an empty formula, it
tacitly includes the undertaking, which alone can give force to the rest, that whoever refuses to obey the general will
shall be compelled to do so by the whole body. .. the general will alone can direct the State according to the object for
which it was instituted, i.e., the common good….”

Jean Jacques Rousseau, “The Social Contract” (1762) Marvin Perry, et al, Eds. Sources of the Western Tradition, 3rd Ed.,
Vol. II: From the Renaissance to the Present. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1995.

5. What does Rousseau mean by the “general will”? Why would some consider Rousseau a “champion of democracy”
while others as a precursor to totalitarianism (dictatorship)?

6. In your opinion: To what extent were the ideas of the Enlightenment philosophes “revolutionary”? (3-5 sentences)