=2. The Enlightenment.=--A conflict of reason with authority went on side by side with the progress of science. Humanists and scientists had often set themselves against dogma and tradition. The Reformation was not in form an appeal to reason, but the clash of authorities stimulated men to reasoning upon the respective claims of Catholic and Protestant. And in the eighteenth century, under the favoring influence of a broad toleration and a general growth of intelligence, the conflict of reason with dogma reached its culmination. The French call the period "_l'Illumination_"--the illumination of life and experience by the light of reason. The Germans call it the _Aufklärung_, "the clearing-up." What was to be cleared up? First, ignorance, which limits the range of man's power and infects him with fear of the unknown; then superstition, which is ignorance consecrated by wont and emotion; finally, dogma, which usually embodies irrational elements and seeks to force them upon the mind by the power of authority, not of truth. Nor was it merely a question of intellectual criticism. Voltaire saw that dogma was often responsible for cruelty. Ignorance meant belief in witchcraft and magic. From the dawn of civilization this had beset man's progress and quenched many of the brightest geniuses of the past. It was time to put an end once for all to the remnants of primitive credulity; it was time to be guided by the light of reason. The movement was not all negative. Using the same appeal to "nature," which had served so well as a rallying cry in the development of political rights, the protagonists of the movement spoke of a "natural light" which God had placed in man for his guidance--"the candle of the Lord set up by himself in men's minds, which it is impossible for the breath or power of man wholly to extinguish." A natural and rational religion should take the place of supposed revelation.