ABSTRACT
During this vibrant period in Western history, all aspects of traditional life were subject to intense scrutiny. Enlightenment thinkers rejected or questioned the systems of belief that had prevailed in Christian Europe during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, particularly the idea that God was the chief authority over human life. During the Renaissance, the growth of humanism placed a new emphasis on human experience, although many thinkers were able to reconcile their religious faiths with humanistic values. After
the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, the Catholic Church ceased to constitute the absolute authority for many Europeans. New advances in mathematics and sciences such as anatomy, physics, chemistry, and astronomy, including the discoveries of such thinkers as the English scientist Isaac Newton, made it seem possible that all the mysteries of nature could be explained by rational laws. The scientific method, based on principles of observation and experimentation, was applied to all fields of knowledge. Philosophers throughout Europe called this
