1. The universe is fundamentally rational, that is, it can be understood through the use of reason alone.
Truth can be arrived at through empirical observation, the use of reason, and systematic doubt.
Human experience is the foundation of human understanding of truth; authority is not to be preferred over experience;
All human life, both social and individual, can be understood in the same way the natural world can be understood; once understood, human life, both social and individual, can be manipulated or engineered in the same way the natural world can be manipulated or engineered;
Human history is largely a history of progress;
Human beings can be improved through education and the development of their rational facilities;
Religious doctrines have no place in the understanding of the physical and human worlds.

2. The effects of the revolution took full swing when the revolutionaries managed to overthrow the monarchy in total as an addition to the suppression of the church. In the years to come the world and particularly France was to realize the far reaching consequences that this bloody revolution had. The middle men known as the bourgeois and the land owning class were now in the most dominant social class in France. With the death of feudalism and the implementation of ‘Code Napoleon’ the country had consolidated its contracts and managed to attain some social order. Although under an ungodly regime France now stood as a unified nation which gave it more power and authority to influence world affairs. In the years of the Napoleonic wars the idea of