ABSTRACT
It is almost an axiom in contemporary political and historical literature that our freedom has its roots in the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. So general is this belief, so complete its acceptance, that the descendants of the eighteenth-century rationalists have preempted for themselves the very name of Liberty in their designation as Liberals. It cannot be denied that the Enlightenment and the French Revolution contributed to the freedom of the nineteenth century. But their contribution was entirely negative; they were the dynamite that blew away the debris of the old structure. And every totalitarian movement during the last two hundred years of Western history has grown out of the Liberalism of its time. The great discovery of the Enlightenment was that human reason is absolute. On this discovery were based not only all subsequent liberal creeds but also all subsequent totalitarian creeds from Rousseau on.
