The Enlightenment affected people’s attitudes about government in two main ways. It changed what they thought about who should govern them and it changed what they thought about the purpose of government.
Before the Enlightenment, essentially everyone agreed that countries should be governed by monarchs. They believed that God had appointed certain people to rule over others. This seemed to them like the logical way to run a country. With the Enlightenment, however, people came to think that this did not make sense. They started to think that the people should be able to choose their own rulers. This led them towards believing in democracy.
When monarchs ruled countries, it was pretty well understood that they ruled for their own benefit first. They were the embodiment of their country and so it was right for them to do things that would benefit themselves. This changed during the Enlightenment. People started to think that the people were more important. They started to think that government was supposed to help the people, not the rulers. They came to believe that the government was supposed to protect the rights of the people.
In these ways, the Enlightenment changed many people’s beliefs about who should govern and what the purpose of the government should be.
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