Post-Reformation European thinkers thus felt more able to pursue their own individual quests for understanding. This, coupled with a strong reaction against the religious dogmatism which had caused so much bloodshed in the wars of religion, led to a new spirt of rationalism, apparent from the later 17th century onwards. Everything - religion, society, government, the material world - was scrutinised in a new way: cause and consequence rooted in the material world were sought, and traditionally accepted notions of divine providence were relegated to the margins.
This was the Age of Reason, the Enlightenment. Nowhere was its effects more clear felt than in politics - first, in political thought, and then in the practice of government. More rational foundations for governing were sought, and, once this thinking had penetrated the courts of Europe, more rational ways of governing countries were put into practice. The reforms of such “enlightened despots” as Louis XIV in France Peter the Great and Catherine the Great in Russia, Frederick the Great in Germany, and other monarchs, were the fruits of this thinking. They created more efficient governing machines by giving more power to bureaucrats appointed on merit instead of hereditary aristocrats, and applying rational thinking to the problems of administration.