【正文】 g public came into existence because of increasing literacy and people began to rid themselves of the bans placed by church and state, question the inequality of society, express their ideas through every possible channel, and learn to analyze problems by reason. This is the background of the 18th Europe. Europeans were changing, but Europe’s institutions were not keeping pace with that change. Eventually, the impulse of natural science alchemized into the Enlightenment. This is one of those rare historical movements which in effect named itself. Certain thinkers and writers, primarily in London and Paris, believed that they were more enlightened than their patriots and set out to enlighten them. Essence of the Enlightenment and the PhilosophesOriginating in the 17th century Britain, the Enlightenment was primarily a French movement because at that time French culture dominated Europe and because its core values were put forth in the environment of Parisian salons. Although its backbone was the middle class, its main purpose was for man in general, for humanity. It was after the Peace of Utrecht (1713) that the Enlightenment was in a large degree a French phenomenon. Its leading proponents were known as the philosophes, a term which cannot be literally interpreted as “philosophers”. The philosophes were mostly writers and intellectuals who saw through social maladies and sought reforms under the guidance of the principles of reason. Therefore, the Enlightenment had another name “the Age of Reason” (called by Thomas Paine). By reason it signified man’s thought and judgment and by reason great emphasis was attached to the notion that everything should be judged by sense, rather than by the will of God, to secure the natural rights of humans.With its appeal to rationalism and perfectibility and progress, the Enlightenment was labeled as the second mindemancipating movement led by European bourgeoisie against despotism, clericalism and feudal privilege. The word “enlightenment” means bright and wisdom in French. The philosophes called for the sunlight of reason to dispel the darkness of reality and to usher in democracy, freedom and equality. They turned rationalism to a banner of antifeudalism. The main figures of the Enlightenment are fairly well known: Descartes, Issac Newton, Pascal, Bayle, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, Hobbes and Locke. Among them, Hobbes and Locke are the earliest philosophes in Britain and their political thought has made tremendous impact on the shaping of American culture.At the right beginning of the Enlightenment, British thinker Hobbes claimed that the state of nature knows no government, and government is instituted by people. Before the birth of government, men in a state of nature were in a war of all against all in which life and subsistence were hardly protected. To find a way out of this desperate state, men were willing to make a social contract and transfer their rights to a ruler or rulers to establish the state to keep peace and order. Thus government came into being and men entered a state of society. the Leviathan by Thomas HobbesWhile sovereignty was conferred by people, people must absolutely obey the monarch. Such philosophy of social contract posed a threat to the Divine Right of King theory, which, as it was called, asserted that God chose some people to rule on earth in his will and whatever the monarch decided was the will of God. However, far from being an antiauthoritarian, Hobbes regarded absolute monarchy as the best government pattern. As a matter of fact, he just converted the divine right of King to that given by people under social contract.Another important person who carried forward and further developed the theory of the social contract was John Locke. But contradicting Hobbes, Locke maintained that the original state of nature was happy and characterized by reason and tolerance。 the relationship between humans was peaceful and kind, quite other than the disordered state as described by Hobbes。 all human beings were equal and free to pursue “l(fā)ife, health, liberty and possessions”. In his The Second Treatise of Government ，Locke wrote:In a state of nature all men are free a