Excerpt from Benjamin Franklin: a Biography by Benjamin Franklin
Excerpt from Benjamin Franklin: A Biography
in His Own Words
Reprinted in In Their Own Words: The Colonizers
Published in 1998
". . . I found myself in New York, near 300 miles from home, a boy of but 17, without the least recommendation to or knowledge of any person in the place, and with very little money in my pocket. . . ."
In the eighteenth century the Enlightenment (a movement that stressed rational analysis and observation) was sweeping Europe, and influential thinkers were looking at the world in a different way. The Enlightenment had an impact on science, religion, philosophy, politics, and the arts, as traditional views were being questioned and replaced with radically new theories. One of the most important changes was the idea that God was not an all-powerful force that controlled every aspect of human life. This insight was introduced by scientists and then adopted by theologians (religious philosophers), who began to teach that God had given humans the ability to understand their environment through reason.
Upper-class, educated American colonists were especially intrigued by the latest innovations coming from Europe. Full of enthusiasm, they welcomed these theories, which ideally suited their own social experiment in the New World (the European term for North America and South America).
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