The enlightenment is one of the most memorable periods in history. The enlightenment has made life as we know it today possible. The greatest thinkers, inventors, and scientists shared their wisdom and ingenuity with the rest of the world, and while some rejected their ideas, the majority of the world piggybacked off them and continued to innovate further. A big part of the enlightenment was letting go of the past and starting anew. Rene Descartes, one of the famous Enlightenment thinkers, discusses many extraordinary things throughout his essay. Descartes, in his own way, makes the reader doubt everything they ever believed in. As children, we are brought up to believe everything that our parents and society passed unto us. From there, we form associations and generalizations of people, places, and things. While some of the information passed down to us is correct, a great deal of it is wrong. Furthermore, many of the stereotypes and prejudices which we are brought up believe if are true, are usually both false and racist. These false ideas have become embedded into the core of our being that laying these ideas to rest have become seemingly impossible. In this case, our misconceptions of people have become a danger to those people and they suffer greatly because of it. It is seen all too often that Black children are getting killed by police officers due to the mere suspicion of they’re having a weapon. Most of them never had any sort of weaponry on them but, officers were quick to judge it as otherwise because of the prejudices they have been brought up believing about Blacks. In the secular world people should do as Descartes did because not only will it make them better people, it will help save lives.