One of the most important claims of the Enlightenment was the insistence that every human being had equal worth, dignity, and personal integrity. However, many of the Enlightenment thinkers who formulated these radical ideas did not apply them to everyone, harboring prejudice against nonwhites, Jews, and women even as they argued for equality. Some even constructed “scientific” evidence to rationally prove a biological inequality. Some colonialists embraced one of the most radical ideals of the Enlightenment: John Locke’s concept of the separation of church and state.
