Voltaire was the first of the philosophes, who advocated a new, sceptical, rational, scientific, tolerant state of mind that sought the greatest happiness for mankind and challenged blind faith and sacred monarchy. If we choose to worship God, argued Immanuel Kant, the German philosophe of Königsberg later in the century, ‘we finite creatures can never understand the infinite nature of reality’. Kant summed up the Enlightened spirit in two words: Sapere aude! – Dare to use your own intellect!
enlightenment
