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A portrait of Thomas Hobbes, an Enlightenment Thinker who believed that human nature was essentially corrupt

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The Enlightenment and Social Contract Theory

Enlightenment Vocabulary and Ideas

Enlightenment Thinker Quotations

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<h2>Enlightenment Vocabulary and Ideas</h2>
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th class="header" data-valign="center" data-align="center">Term</th>
<th class="header" data-valign="center" data-align="center">Definition</th>
<th class="header" data-valign="center" data-align="center">Picture or Memory Aid</th>
<th class="header" data-valign="center" data-align="center">Facts or Characteristics</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">1. Enlightenment</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">a movement of the 1600s–1700s focused on examining human nature and its characteristics, including forms of government</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">💡 Enlighten me in the Age of Reason.</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">
<ul>
<li>Use of reason</li>
<li>Thoughts on government</li>
<li>1700s</li>
<li>Influenced the American Founding</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">2. social contract</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">an agreement in which people agree to live together under certain rules for the common good</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">Accept reasonable answers for all responses in this column.</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">Accept reasonable answers for all responses in this column.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">3. sovereign</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">having legitimate power/authority that does not derive from a higher power/authority</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left"></td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">4. natural rights</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">rights that belong to all people automatically by nature of their humanity</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left"></td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left"></td>
</tr>
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<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">5. natural law</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">unchanging moral principles that define human duties</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left"></td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left"></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
&nbsp;
<h3>Enlightenment Thinkers and Their Ideas</h3>
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th class="header" data-valign="center" data-align="center">Enlightenment Thinker</th>
<th class="header" data-valign="center" data-align="center">Thoughts on Human Nature</th>
<th class="header" data-valign="center" data-align="center">Best Form of Government</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">Thomas Hobbs
&nbsp;</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">Humans are corrupt and interested in absolute power.</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">absolute monarchy</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">John Locke
&nbsp;</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">Humans are rational and equal.</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">limited government with separation of powers</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">Jean-Jacques Rousseau
&nbsp;</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">Humans are good, virtuous, and free.</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">direct citizen participation </td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
&nbsp;
<h3>Concluding Analysis</h3>
<ol>
<li>Which thinker(s) believed most strongly that people can be trusted to govern? Why? 
Hobbes favored an absolute government; Locke wanted a representative government with separation of powers and checks of various kinds to limit power; and Rousseau advocated a government based upon the general will of the people.</li>
<li>Which thinker(s) believed most strongly that people cannot be trusted to govern? Why? 
Hobbes. He believed that humans were driven by passion and a desire for power.</li>
<li>You are president of the United States. Which one of these Enlightenment thinkers would you invite to be your chief political advisor? Why? 
Answers may vary. Students should use evidence from the essay to support their answer</li>
</ol>
<h2>Enlightenment Thinker Quotations</h2>
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th class="header" colspan="3" data-valign="center" data-align="center">Thoughts on Human Nature</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th class="header2" data-valign="center" data-align="center">Quote</th>
<th class="header2" data-valign="center" data-align="center">Vocabulary </th>
<th class="header2" data-valign="center" data-align="center">In My Own Words</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">Example:
<blockquote>We must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order theiractions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or &#8230; depending upon the will of any other man.</blockquote>
—John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 1690</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">dispose: to deal with or arrange
bounds: rules
asking leave: asking permission</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">People are naturally free and in charge of themselves.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">
<blockquote>*Nature hath made men so equal in the faculties of body and mind, as that though there be found one man sometimes … 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.
&nbsp;
… [D]uring the time men live without a common power … they are in that condition which is called war, and such a war, as is of every man, against every man.</blockquote>
—Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">faculties: abilities
reckoned: considered</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">People are born equal and therefore are constantly fighting each other.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">
<blockquote>*Man being born … with a title to perfect freedom, and an uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of nature … hath by nature a power … to preserve his property, that is, his life, liberty and estate.</blockquote>
—John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 1690</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">hath: has</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">Men are born free and want to preserve their life, liberty, and property.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">
<blockquote>*No man has a natural authority over his fellow, and force creates no right.</blockquote>
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, 1762</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left"></td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">No man has power over another.</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
&nbsp;
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th class="header" colspan="3" data-valign="center" data-align="center">Thoughts on Government</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th class="header2" data-valign="center" data-align="center">Quote</th>
<th class="header2" data-valign="center" data-align="center">Vocabulary </th>
<th class="header2" data-valign="center" data-align="center">In My Own Words</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">
<blockquote>*The only way &#8230; is to confer all their power and strength upon one man, or upon one assembly of man, that may reduce all their wills, by plurality of voices, unto one will.… For by this authority, given him by every particular man in the commonwealth, he hath the use of so much power and strength conferred on him that by terror thereof, he is enabled to perform the wills of them all, to peace at home, and mutual against their enemies abroad.</blockquote>
—Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">confer: give
assembly: group
plurality: multiple, any
commonwealth: a group of citizens</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">The only way to keep order is for all people to allow one man or assembly to make all  decisions for them.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">
<blockquote>*[We have learned from] history we have reason to conclude that all peaceful beginnings of government have been laid in the consent of the people.</blockquote>
—John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 1690</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left"></td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">A government must have the consent of its people.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">
<blockquote>Every man being, as has been shewed, naturally free, and nothing being able to put him into subjection to any earthly power, but only his own consent.</blockquote>
—John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 1690</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">shewed: showed
subjection: the state of being under the power of something</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">All must consent to power for it to be legitimate.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">
<blockquote>[W]henever 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, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience.</blockquote>
—John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 1690</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">endeavor: try
arbitrary: false or illegitimate
absolved: excused</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">If a government tries to take away or destroy the property of the people, the people no longer have to listen to that government.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">
<blockquote>*In the ancient republics … the people never had representatives.… [T]he moment a people allows itself to be represented, it is no longer free: it no longer exists.</blockquote>
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, 1762</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left"></td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">A government that relies on representatives instead of the people directly is not free.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">
<blockquote>Any law which the people has not ratified in person is void; it is not law at all. The English people believes itself to be free; it is gravely mistaken; it is free only during the elections of Members of Parliament; as soon as the members are elected, the people is enslaved.</blockquote>
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, 1762</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">ratified: approved</td>
<td class="border" data-valign="top" data-align="left">If the people do not approve of a law directly, it is not a law.</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
&nbsp;
<h3>Concluding Analysis</h3>
The Declaration of Independence (1776) begins with the following Preamble (an introductory statement):
<blockquote>We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.</blockquote>
Which thinker’s influence is most evident in this passage? Explain your answer.
Locke’s influence is most clearly evident. Locke believed all men were free and “hath by nature a power … to preserve his property, that is, his life, liberty and estate.”
&nbsp;

A portrait of John Locke, an Enlightenment Thinker who believed that humans were rational beings

Background Essay: The Enlightenment and Social Contract Theory

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Educational material discussing the Enlightenment and key thinkers, including Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau.

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What were the major ideas of the Enlightenment? How did the Enlightenment influence the United States’ Founding?

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Answer Key: The Enlightenment and Social Contract Theory

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Enlightenment Vocabulary and Ideas

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