¶ … middle ages, scholastic thinking was structurally limited by the Catholic Church, which considered itself the arbiter of such matters. However, thanks to changes in the sciences and in the methodologies used to approach them, the sheer weight of evidence was able to defeat some of the old dogmas that restricted thinking. Changes in science took on mathematical, experimental, and political dimensions and eventually gave enlightenment thinkers the objectivity needed to approach almost every subject from a rational angle, including political theory. In the history of European culture and perhaps even for humanity as a whole, the emergence of the enlightenment was one of the most divisive turns of events to ever occur, and ultimately one of the most rewarding. The development of modern mathematics was spearheaded by Newton in England and DesCartes in continental Europe, but was inspired by astronomy. Some place the start of the Scientific Revolution was the publication of 'De revolutionibus orbium coelestium' by Nicolaus Copernicus in 1543, while others wish to extend it into the 18th century. What is evident, however, is that a series of new discoveries began with the technology of the Renaissance, was stoked by the revolutionary anti-Catholic movements in northern Europe, and culminated with the 'Age of Reason.' The Polish prelate Nicolaus Copernicus was among the first men to question the nature of the world as classical Greek scholars had defined it. Copernicus developed a comprehensive heliocentric theory of the universe, and worked closely with Rheticus, who developed the science of trigonometry. Until the middle of the sixteenth century no scholar in the Latin West had systematically questioned the system of Claudius Ptolemy (ca. A.D. 100-170) that placed an immobile earth at the center of the universe, with the planets, as well as the moon and the sun, orbiting around it. This theory was backed by the force of the Catholic Church and reflected many presumptions derived...

The Catholic church at the time could not be brought to accept the idea of countless beings on countless planets, because it was antithetical to the idea of a Christian salvation. This belief became popular with religious scholars after Galileo became commonly accepted.
Johannes Kepler, one of the first to focus mostly on the physical and mathematical applications of heliocentric astronomy, was the first to stand up to the church. This was probably due to the fact that he was in Germany and held the post of Imperial Mathematician to the Hapsburg Emperor. The Hapsburgs were perhaps the only political power in the Catholic world superior to that of the Vatican itself, and controlled the Austria-Hungarian Empire, Belgium, southern Germany, and the part of the Low Countries that was to become Belgium. An analysis of his life leads us to believe that Kepler stayed close to the establishment in order to gain more intellectual freedoms. This was evidenced by his close relationship with Tycho Brahe, who had convinced the Catholic church to modify their heliocentric theory to allow for planets revolving around the sun.

In the following century, Amsterdam was to replace Paris and Northern Italy as the center of scientific thought on the continent. This was because the city was immune to the threats of the Vatican. The United Republic of the Netherlands had, in the late 16th century, pre-empted the United States by seceding from the Hapsburg empire. The Spanish, which controlled the Low Countries, were only able to retain the southern half, where they effectively purged all of the Protestants. Other cities that…