The Renaissance represented a rebirth of the Aristotelian spirit. The results
of that spirit are written across the next two centuries, which men describe,
properly, as the Age of Reason and the Age of Enlightenment. The results
include the rise of modern science; the rise of an individualist political
philosophy (the work of John Locke and others); the consequent spread of
freedom across the civilized world; and the birth of the freest country in
history, the United States of America. The great corollary of these results,
the product of men who were armed with the knowledge of the scientists and who
were free at last to act, was the Industrial Revolution, which turned poverty
into abundance and transformed the face of the West. The Aristotelianism
released by Aquinas and the Renaissance was sweeping away the dogmas and the
shackles of the past. Reason, freedom, and production were replacing faith,
force, and poverty. The age-old foundations of statism were being challenged
and undercut.