The Age of Enlightenment was revolutionary period for mankind;fresh, new ideas emerged that sought to better both

the individual's understanding of the world around him, and consequently, civilisation as a whole.The philosophes, a wave of incredibly influential thinkers that rose to prominence during this 18th century epoch, believed that a fully functional, lucrative society was attainable via a rational, logical mindset. They had to inquire into what was preventing this utopian society from prevailing-some identified innate human nature as the culprit, while others placed the blame on either arrogant despots or lack of a written code of laws. However, the political systems put forth by Jean Jacques Rousseau, John Locke, and Charles De Secondat Baron De Montesquieu respectively all carried great gravitas-this triumvirates resounding theories wound up influencing both governments and political phenomenons that define the Western political experience in the modern era. The liberalist approach of unity put forth by Jean Jacques Rousseau(1712-1778) can be found in Communist ideals. What's more, it greatly influenced the French Revolution (1789-1799). Rousseau, a native of Geneva, had a cacoethes for society to be as uniform and singular as possible. He identified the perfect community as one wherein all men submit their rights and desires unequivocally to the state; they should "freely surrender all property rightsindividual rights" (Halsall, par. 6). Rousseau believed that this political motion would indubitably guarantee state-wide equality ("the conditions are the same for all" (Halsall, par.6)). Furthermore, since the citizenry unanimously

make up the government , the possibility of the government carrying out decisions against the populace's will is virtually vanquished at once. In other words, this newly-formed government would be "subsumed with the shared common or general will of the whole community" (Cranston). Anomalously, Rousseau was one of the few philosophes whom opposed the supremacy of the individual. His suggestions "rejected that desirable societies could be founded on traditional concepts of [individual's] natural law" (Reill, par.9) One could argue that this viewpoint counters those typically found within the Enlightenment period . The aforementioned ideas, preached through the pages of Rousseau's magnum opus, The Social Contract (1762), were plangent enough to leave its domestic mark on the French Revolution. This event, in which the people overhauled the power of the-then godly absolute monarchy and, in doing so, transmogrified the order of French society, demonstrated a duo of Rousseau's key points. Primarily, it proved that, in crisis-stricken times, man truly does have a tendency to "become social" (Cranston), or unite. Man is cognisant that he alone cannot play the role of the iconoclast; it is his fellow compatriots upon whom the "satisfaction of his inclination now depends".(Cranston). Likewise, Rousseau argued that men must converge into a formidable entity to obtain what they wish-and rightly doing so would result in a " new, collective freedom in return" (Blackwood, 15). Moreover, Rousseau was a firm believer that no individual should rise to overcome or disagree with the state, since, transitively speaking, this individual would be challenging the people. Thus, Rousseau asserted that doing so should be

met with harsh consequences. This mindset was already instilled within Louis XVI' (1754-1793)'s monarchy: none of this petty populace should even dare challenge the monarchy. Alas, this dual bellicosity was the impetus for the "brutality of the mass executions" (Cranston). Though French society underwent drastic alteration, Rousseau's ideas lived on, and didn't morph. In fact, these ideals imprinted themselves into the foundations of Communist and totalitarian thought. Despite the promise of Rousseau's overarching idea of unity, his ruminations "manifested itself in the ideologies of communism and fascism" (Williams). The haunting Marxist roar of "Workers, unite!" clearly resonated with Rousseau's state of mind (Blackwood, 15). Amusingly enough, when The Social Contract was first published, it was met with alarming controversy and was immediately banned within France, due to the fact that it focussed on "curing political ills" (Reill, par.3). The corybantic, absolutist idea of draining the rights of the people into the state combined with Marxist ideology would consequently inspire "the Soviet Union"(1922-1991), (Cranston). Following the Russian Revolution (1917), which saw the expiry of the anterior rule of the Tsars and the gradual uprising of the domineering Communist party, the beliefs of the latter were implemented into the national identity. However, ideal communism wasn't practiced as Rousseau had intended for it to be- Russia was much too vast for it to affect the nation in a positive fashion, and Rousseau's image of communism had a better chance of operating well within "smallercommunities" (Siaflas) else suffering and impoverishment ("oppression" (Siaflas)) would become deep-rooted within

the state. Therefore, one can affirm that although Rousseau's ideas were culpable for planting the ideological seeds for the Soviet Union's 20th century government (the U.S.S.R. is dissolved in 1991), the daunting Russians didn't enact Rousseau's ideals as he had intended for them to . A spooky mutuality between the triumvirate of Rousseau, Marx, and the Soviet Union, is that all these entities championed "social cooperation, patriotism, and sacrifice" (Cranston). These can only be regarded as three principal ingredients of warmongering propaganda. Following the Glorious Revolution of 1688, John Locke (1632-1704), an English philosophe, believed that the perfect society was tangible via means of eliminating overruling powers, instituting universal rights, and handing citizens the capability to establish and dissolve their government-all under the sovereignty of a Constitution. The Glorious Revolution, named so due to its remarkably peaceful nature, saw King James II forcibly abdicate the English throne due to chronic misuse of power, and averred Parliament-the true formidability of the peopleas a just force. Locke saw some verity in the aftermath of this event. Galvanised by the instillment of the Bill of Rights (1688), which essentially clarifies the rights of Parliament and curtails the power of the monarch, he wrote and published The Two Treatises of Government (1690) as a response, a mere two years later. Locke plays out his logistics in an almost mathematical manner. First off, civilisations should enforce a rejection of "the commonly held divine right theory of kings" (Kohn). The removal of a piously fuelled ruler should be replaced by a state of

simple clarity, a land "of equality, wherein all power and jurisdiction is reciprocal" (Halsall, par.1) for the benefit of each and every individual. On the note of importance of the individual, Locke concluded that all men are born neutral, and are subject to alteration depending on the environment around them. Locke was quick to encourage the introduction of formal proprietary rights: Locke utters that man should be "endowed with propertyby law of reason" (Armitage, 604). Combined with his invigorating argument for natural rights ("Man hath a right tobe executioner of the law of nature" (Halsall, para. 8)), Locke is hailed as the de facto Father of Liberalism. Locke surmises that these natural rights cannot be assigned-they naturally (hence the eponym, "nature") are bestowed upon the shoulders of all upon birth. Moreover, Locke's corollary to this was that the rights cannot be taken away. He was pragmatic in the sense that he was sure to address the fraudulence that could emerge from his political propositions, making it clear that the individual's rights are reserved for the beholder only; these rights serve as a form of insurance until they clash with another citizen's rights. To be frank, a clash of rights would be deemed as a violation of each belligerent's rights. Sure enough, natural rights should be exercised and granted to all, Locke argued, but they can't be "invaded" .(Halsall, para 8.). He decreed that the best method of preservation for the code of rights would be in the form of a written doctrine also known as a Constitution. This Constitution would unequivocally be the supreme law of the state, and its superlative authority should not be challenged. Locke premonished that government should be kept fairly simple,

else complications would arise. In his Two Treatises of Government, Locke decrees that since all humans are prone to error, they may very well have "devised a remedyincrease the sore, which it should have cured"(301). In this longueur, he states that, in the case of ineffective government, the people have the undoubted "right to dismiss it"(Kohn), and this is rightly so- if the people have consciously erected this government to better their society, then they have perfect grounds to remove it if it is growing to be a reckless actuality. If this automatic right isn't granted, the people shall carry out retaliatory measures by means of violence- "presently in the voice of faction and rebellion" (Halsall, par.1), which can lead to catastrophic consequences, as erstwhile revolts have proved (i.e., the French Revolution). These notions introduce the concept of government with consent of the governed; one that encompasses such great truth that it found its way into the Declaration of Independence(1776): Thomas Jefferson scribes that, on the note of government, "it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it" (U.S. 1776).The duality of Locke's concepts-natural rights embedded in a Constitution- would successfully synthesise to form the backbone of the Constitution of the United States (1787) , the incumbent, omnipotent law of the nation. His ideas were visualised as a "moral utility" (Kohn) for the entire notion of American independence and establishment of a common law. In fact, it was John Locke's whom first uttered the words "life, liberty and the pursuit of property" in his work An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)-the very same words paraphrased and slyly inserted into the Declaration of

Independence, which effectively fuelled the creation of the United State's autonomous government. In due course, the expository statements regarding natural rights and equality in the Declaration of Independence also mirror Locke's ideas: it states that "all men are created equal", and enforces a system of: "unalienable rights" (U.S. 1776). The American populace, whom patriotically believe in the elements of equality via natural rights and their Constitution (the former of which is preached in the Declaration of Independence) to this day, are indebted to the enlightening inferences of John Locke. A fellow philosophe, Charles De Secondat Baron De Montesquieu (1689-1755), sought to limit the power of government only rather than formulate a hybrid relationship between government and the people (in the manner of his compatriot Rousseau). Montesquieu, stimulated by the English political system at the time, proposed the trilateral government nexus-thereby laying down the foundation for several governments in the Western world, including that of the United States. Montesquieu, a pioneering political scientist , identified the underlying "evils" as "enslaving others, intolerance, and extreme despotism" (Shackleton & Loy, par.7). In his 1748 work The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu instated that equality and natural law were the way to go for the individual's benefit, a la Locke. Scrutinising the pre-revolutionary aristocratic behaviour, Montesquieu believed that they should do their utmost to "level themselves in appearance with the people" (15). Furthermore, Montesquieu agreed that "the Law ought to give each man only what is necessary for nature (94)-which allies him

with his English contemporary, John Locke. Montesquieu, a French native, openly antagonised and "mocked the reign of Louis XIV"( Shackleton & Loy, par.6). In The Spirit of the Laws, This philosophe affirmed his alleigance- he simply couldn't invest his faith in a ruler, since he had asserted that each and every man, morals aside, was "like all finite intelligences..[prone to]ignorance and error"(3). He found that the preeminent example of a superlative government (in comparison to France's, at least) was just abreast: the political system in England. He generously labelled the English as having "political liberty for the direct object of its constitution" (Krause, 115), and that, due to the presence of the Bill of Rights, incidentally enacted in his year of birth, the populace of England had an "opinion of security" (Krause, 116). Certainly, England did not possess the perfect, multidimensional government, but the Bill of Rights had a domineering force over the prospect of a despot rising. If anything, the power-retrenching measures of the English, which boasted both the Magna Carta (1215) and its spiritual successor, the newly formed Bill of Rights(1688), needed to be emulated by the French. Alas, Montesqueieu knew that there was little possibility of this occurring. Nonetheless, Montesquieu soon set to work and proposed a nostrum in The Spirit of the Laws. Alas, Montesquieu whisked up the separation of powers theory, in which governments were fragmented into departments, each dedicated to enforcing a specific purpose. In addition to his Anglophillic incentive, the separation of powers formula was partially derived from Calvinism, whose stalwarts were taught to withhold a phobia of

"tyrannical use of power" (Sheldon) during the Protestant Reformation (15171648) .The repercussions of Montesquieu's findings evidently struck a chord with the Founding Fathers of the U.S., whom decided to install this system into their nascent government. The Spirit of the Laws provided the impetus for "Americans to employ this science of politics""(Sheldon). In other words, Montesquieu's finest work spurred the paterfamilial folk of the U.S. to apply a simple, logical directorates to its emergent nation. What's more, with the dynamic addend of the "checks and balances" system assuaged fears that one branch of government would "monopolise political power" (Sheldon), or override its siblings.. Each branch (judicatory, executive, and legislative) would be in a "balance"with each other. In this balance, certain powers granted to each branch may curtail the power of its two cousins (i.e., executive branch may veto a bill drafted by the legislative branch). This logistical, effective gubernatorial system seemed so lucrative that it has been incorporated into "German French and Australian republicsthe newly formed Eastern European states"(Krause, 116), proving its global appeal. That being said, these multidimensional governments, the brainchildren of Montesquieu, are still in praxis today. The political systems put forth during the Enlightenment by philosophes either side of the Atlantic were great leaps forward in the eternal quest for political perfection and ebullience. Rousseau's concept of submitting rights into the state's vacuum proved to be pivotal in Communist trains of thought, and embedded itself into their 20th century government . Locke's expressed that a cordial aftermath that may rise if

natural rights are set-in-stone within a physical Constitution- and, as justification, Montesquieu, diving down a similar passage as his English nemesis, was a flag-bearer for rights and concluded that a written doctrine had greatly aided the English, though he's immortalised for his trilateral government nexus-the exoskeleton for numerous governments in the Western world. None of these luminaries managed to give birth to the flawless political system, though the contributions of Montesquieu and Locke aided the construction of the blueprint for the government of the United States, which, since its formal birth on July 4th, 1776, has successfully adhered to the constraints of its Constitution (which dutifully followed shortly after in 1787) and trilateral government. Nonetheless, the audacity in the philosophies' actions to both confront the problems of society headfirst and enhance the quality of life for their sons and daughters is truly admirable. In their efforts, they arrived at their enlightening conclusions via means of rationality, unarguably the most significant theme of the Enlightenment. Rousseau himself, a philosophe whom ranks highly in the echelons of history, explicitly declared that "There is universal justice emanating from reason alone"(Williams). The prototypic political models of the philosophes were subsumed by Western governments and are the very same models we live and prosper under today. These philosophes have inspired us to believe the culture of peace, profit, and equality is one that is tangible-and it may very well be awaiting us in the future. BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Armitage, David. Political Theory. 5th ed. Vol. 32. Sage Publications. JSTOR. Web. 26 May 2011. Armitage, David. The Declaration of Independence and International Law.3rd ed. Vol.59, No.1. Web. 1 June 2011. Baron De Montesquieu, Charles De Secondat. The Spirit of Laws. Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2002. Print. Great Books in Philosophy. Blackwood, Alan. "2: The Philosophers." Spotlight on The Age of Enlightenment. East Sussex: Wayland, 1987. Print. Cranston, M. Jean-Jacques: the Early Life and Work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 17121754. New York: Norton, 1983.Modern World History Online. Facts On File, Inc. Durant, Ariel, and William Durant. The Age of Voltaire: A History of Civilization in Western Europe from 1715 to 1756, with Special Emphasis on the Conflict between Religion and Philosophy. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1965. Print. The Story of Civilization: Part IX Halsall, Paul. "Modern History Sourcebook: Jean Jacques Rosseau." Internet Modern History Sourcebook. Fordham University, July 1998. Web. 15 Apr. 2011. Hinnant, C.H."Thomas Hobbes." EBSCO Student Research Center. 7 Jan. 2010. Web. 25 Apr. 2011. Krause, Sharon. "The Spirit of Seperate Powers." MAS Ultra. EBSCO, 30 Apr. 2003. Web. 26 May 2011. Shackleton, R., and J. R. Loy. "Charles Louis De Secondat Montesquieu, Baron De La Brde Et De." EBSCO. 1 July 2009. Web. 19 Apr. 2011.

Sheldon, Garrett Ward. "separation of powers" Encyclopaedia of Political Thought. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2001. Modern World History Online. Facts On File, Inc. Siaflas, A. Class Lecture. Western Civilisation. The American School in London. 31 May 2011. Williams, David L. ""Rousseau Had His Reasons"" The Washington Times [Washington, D.C.] 29 Dec. 2009: 16. EBSCO. Web. 26 May 2011.