Walking in Circles
The Enlightenment, that flowering of faith in reason and individual liberty was largely a reaction to the Renaissance which had looked to the past for answers. Rather, the Enlightenment looked forward with a firm believe that man, armed with reason (largely without God) was the source of progress. Kant defined the spirit of these times in his epoch defining essay Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment with its challenge to Sapere aude (Dare to Know). In many ways this faith was well placed. The scientific method, based on induction rather than deduction (much favored by the Scholastics) has extended our life spans, improved the quality and comfort of our lives piling up one achievement in process. When a man was put on the moon even the sky didn't seem to be the limit. Most enlightenment thinkers thought the realm of human affairs would follow the same happy upward slope fostering systems such as the French thinker August Comte's Positivism (1798-1857) which labored