Expression

If one thinker stands behind the American founding, it is John Locke (1632-1704), the English philosopher and physician whose ideas the colonists would soon turn into a nation. In his 'Two Treatises of Government' (1689), Locke argued against the 'divine right of kings.' He taught that all people are born free and equal, possessing natural rights to life, liberty, and property. In a 'state of nature' — life before organized government — people are free, but their rights are insecure. So they agree to form a government, a 'social contract,' surrendering some freedom in exchange for protection of their rights. Crucially, government holds its power only by the consent of the governed and only to serve the common good. If a government becomes tyrannical and tramples the very rights it was made to protect, the people have the right to alter or replace it.

You can hear how revolutionary that was. Thomas Jefferson echoed Locke almost word for word in 1776: 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,' governments 'deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.' Locke also wrote on toleration and on how the mind learns through experience. A Catholic reader can affirm much in Locke — human equality and dignity, limited government, the duty of rulers to serve — while noting where his thought is thin: he grounds rights in reason and contract more than in God's creating love, and his religious tolerance had limits. Still, no single Enlightenment thinker shaped the free societies of the modern West more.

As painting traded Rococo frills for Neoclassical clarity, music underwent the same change. The dense, ornate Baroque of Bach gave way around 1750 to the Classical style: clear, balanced, elegant, and graceful — music that 'breathes' with tuneful melodies over simple accompaniment. The Enlightenment loved order and reason, and Classical music sounds like order made beautiful.

Two giants defined the era. Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), called the 'Father of the Symphony' and the 'Father of the String Quartet,' wrote over a hundred symphonies while serving the wealthy Esterházy family. Genial and inventive, he perfected the multi-movement symphony and standardized the form that would carry music for the next century. His pupil and friend Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) was the astonishing child prodigy who toured Europe playing for kings before he was ten. Mozart poured out symphonies, concertos, operas, and sacred music of effortless perfection — including, at the very end of his short life, his unfinished 'Requiem.'

At the heart of the era is sonata form, the architecture of a typical first movement: EXPOSITION (two contrasting themes are stated), DEVELOPMENT (the themes are explored, broken apart, and combined in new keys), and RECAPITULATION (the themes return, now resolved). It is a musical argument — statement, exploration, return — the Enlightenment's love of reasoned structure turned into sound.

This week's assignment introduces literary analysis of a primary text — a skill you will use whenever you read closely. Unlike a summary (which says WHAT a text says), analysis asks HOW it works: how the author's word choices, sentence shapes, and appeals make you believe and feel. (See the full assignment, prompt, target length, and rubric in this week's writingAssignment.)

Today, take the first three steps. FIRST, choose your text: the opening of the Declaration of Independence ('When in the Course of human events...'), a paragraph from Locke's 'Second Treatise,' or a short Federalist passage. SECOND, annotate it. Read it aloud, then mark every place the author repeats a word, balances two ideas against each other, appeals to reason ('self-evident truths'), or stirs emotion. Circle strong words. THIRD, draft a one-sentence claim that names HOW the passage persuades — for example: 'Jefferson persuades by stating his principles as self-evident truths, so that to disagree feels like denying the obvious.' That claim becomes your essay's thesis. Bring your annotated text and your draft claim to next week's continued work.

Return to St. Alphonsus Liguori, who lived through this very Age of Reason. He met its cold rationalism not by fearing reason but by ordering it under love — a perfect model of this week's virtue, discernment. Close the week by reflecting: the Enlightenment got many things right (rights, tolerance, limited government) and some things wrong (reason set against faith, man assumed naturally good). The discerning Christian, like Alphonsus, keeps what is true and refuses what is false. Report on your discernment challenge: name one idea you 'tested' this week.