The historical debate on the Enlightenment is wide-ranging on its origin, purpose, success or
failure, and is fundamentally considered today as a vital historical phenomenon in our past.2
As an intellectual philosophical movement from 1688 to 1789, the Enlightenment is understood
to have begun in England, and spread to France and the rest of Europe and the Americas,
becoming what is now understood as the Age of Reason.3 The German Philosopher, Immanuel
Kant. (1724-1804), argued in his 1784 essay, ‘Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment’,
the long 18th century was not an Enlightened age, but an Age of Enlightenment, whereby
society was on its way to being Enlightened.4 This largely determined the historical approach
of study towards assessing the English Enlightenment, within the period of the long 18th
century. Hence, the English Enlightenment is universally understood to have been during the
period 1688 to around the 1830s, because the Enlightenment in Europe was understood to have
occurred in the period of 1688 to 1789, and the Georgian Period is from 1714 to 1837, thus
enforcing the use of the long 18th century in this project to be focused on 1688 to 1837, as the
most effective period for assessing the English Enlightenment,5