The Big Picture.

The Enlightenment was a broad and international movement in eighteenth-century Europe that aimed at placing science and knowledge derived through scientific methods of investigation at the heart of culture and civilization. It took its name from the idea that it represented: a process of bringing "the light of reason" to areas of darkness in human understanding. "Dare to know" was the banner call of the movement proclaimed by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). Contemporaries understood this call as an invitation to hunt down and root out every instance of ignorance that continued to stand in the way of human progress. In many instances, certainly in most Catholic lands, religion in general and the state church in particular were identified as the prime sources of such ignorance. As such, the Enlightenment often took on a definite anti-religious cast in these regions. In terms of...