... utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham. Historical writing gained secular detachment in the work of Edward Gibbon. 5 In Germany the universities became centers of the Enlightenment (Ger. Aufklãrung). Moses Mendelssohn set forth a doctrine of rational progress; G. E. Lessing advanced a natural religion of morality; Johann Herder developed a philosophy of cultural nationalism. The supreme importance of the individual formed the basis of the ethics of ... Immanuel Kant. Italian representatives of the age included Cesare Beccaria and Giambattista Vico. From America, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferso...

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