Through the reading, we can see that the enlightenment was one thing that impacted people’s lives during the eighteenth century. As it is mentioned in the text, “The quarrel between “ancients” and “moderns” those who believed, respectively, that old ideas,or new ones were likely to prove superior to any alternatives. During the enlightenment, both sides of the ancient/modern divide, thinkers be lived in reason as a dependable guide. For others, reason provided a means for discovering fresh solutions to scientific, philosophical, and political questions. In addition, Thinkers tried to explained what it is to be human. Human beings, enlightenment thinkers argued , could rely on their own authority -rather than looking to priests or princes- to decide how to act well in the world.

Society also played an important role during the enlightenment period. In this era, many thinkers concluded that kings and Queens were ordinary people like everybody else. Thomas hobbes,a seventeenth century philosopher believed that human life before the formation of societies was not as people thought. For him, men and women stay together just for the sake of preservation and progress.

Furthermore, we can say that before the enlightenment,  men had many opportunities than women such as for education, for service in government or diplomacy and economic power. The only occupation women were known for was household. Sor Juana Ines de la cruz, a Mexican nun, proved her own passion for thought and reading, and became advocate of the right of women to education and a life of the mind. Finally, reason showed that if God had given all human beings reason, then women were also able as entitled to develop and exercise their minds as men. Even after all this, society did not accept the full intellectual and moral capacities of women, individual woman has to ask for themselves more rights than these of motherhood.

In conclusion, the enlightenment was one the best thing that happened in humanity and it plays an enormous role in today’s world. The enlightenment made people more realistic. For example, the equality between men and women.

Aminata Toure