Some of the major ideas that originated during the Age of Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason, were confidence in humanity's intellectual powers, a much lesser degree of trust in the older forms of traditional authority and the belief that rational and scientific thought will lead to an improved human existence. The Enlightenment thinkers viewed the natural world as one governed by mathematical and scientific laws that could be understood by humankind through its own self-empowered and unaided faculties. The philosophy of the Enlightenment was often at odds with the traditional authority wielded by established religion that sought to maintain its role in directing human thought and actions.
