Not everyone agreed with a prescribed existence, however, and history moved, gradually, to ward an age of enlightenment. The most dramatic thing about the Reformation was that it ultimately removed the absolute power to regulate humankind from the Church and placed the responsibility directly on the individual to seek out his her own salvation. At the same time a number of writers, including Copernicus, followed by Isaac Newton, moved human consciousness from subscribing to the deity as the source of all laws governing life on earth These two epic movements set the foundation for legitimate enterprise and the economic growth that followed.