Enlightenment Vocabulary

A movement in the 18th century that advocated the use of reason while rejecting accepted ideas and social institutions.

• reason

• Enlightenment

• social contract

• property

Clear and ordered thinking

• reason

• liberty

• democracy

• reform

To change for the better

• government

• radical

• reform

• majority

The governing body of a nation, state, or community

• government

• absolute monarchy

• liberty

• exile

Government by the people

• natural rights

• democracy

• general will

• individual

Rights guaranteed to the average person

• reason

• natural rights

• general will

• oppression

He believed that people are selfish, self-serving, and brutal. Without monarchy, society would be chaotic.

• Hobbs

• Locke

• Voltaire

• Rousseau

An agreement between the people and their government signifying their consent to be governed.

• absolute monarchy

• social contract

• intellectual freedom

• majority

A government in which the king or queen has absolute power.

• absolute monarchy

• democracy

• philosophe

• majority

He argued that people have natural rights such as life, liberty, and property; rejected absolute monarchy.

• Locke

• Montesquieu

• Voltaire

• Hobbs