During the Enlightenment period, many philosophers strongly emphasized that the basis of an enlightened society depended upon the existence of two essential ideas. One was the equality for all people no matter what their social status, and the understanding that every man was born with the same rights; beliefs that were expressed in Locke's "Second Treatise", and Hobbes work "Leviathan." Other views spoken by some logicians through political essays and other writings, such as Descartes, Kant and Locke, felt that along with equality came the idea that every individual has identical personal freedoms in the "State of Nature" that permit people to think for themselves and to be in charge of their own choices which ultimately determine their destiny.

It was some of the first Enlightenment thinkers who began to reject strict social hierarchy and began to think beyond the narrow-minded visions of the Renaissance people. They instead...