The ideas of the Enlightenment became popular during the American and French Revolutions. These main ideas of the Enlightenment philosophers were that every natural phenomenon had a cause and effect. They felt that truth is arrived at by reason and there is a natural law that governs the universe. In America in the mid 18th Century the consciousness of the colonists were triggered. They realized their distance from the King in Great Britain and rethought …showed first 75 words of 2466 total…

…showed last 75 words of 2466 total…that they were paying taxes to support an aristocracy, which did not contribute to the value of society. Only aristocrats could gain power and were unwilling to share it with this middle class who in reality created France’s wealth. In America the intellectual leaders of the colonies were drawn to the Enlightenment and its ideas. The revolutionist leaders such as Jefferson, Washington and Paine were forcefully influenced by the English and French Enlightened thinkers .