[f. as prec. + -MENT.]
1. The action of enlightening; the state of being enlightened. Only in fig. sense (see ENLIGHTEN v. 5). The imparting or receiving mental or spiritual light.
1669. Le Blanc, in Spurgeon, Treas. Dav., Ps. lxxxiv. 13. His lightnings, that is his divine enlightenments, are best seen.
1798. Month. Mag., VI. 554. A truth … the power of comprehending which implies a high degree of enlightenment.
1846. W. H. Mill, Five Sermons (1848), 5. The highest spiritual enlightenment.
1855. Dickens, Lett. (1880), II. 398. I should be ready to receive enlightenment from any source.
1860. Froude, Hist. Eng., V. 3. He imagined … that an age of enlightenment was at hand.
1881. W. Collins, Bl. Robe, I. ii. 16. I needed no further enlightenment.
2. Sometimes used [after Ger. Aufklärung, Aufklärerei] to designate the spirit and aims of the French philosophers of the 18th c., or of others whom it is intended to associate with them in the implied charge of shallow and pretentious intellectualism, unreasonable contempt for tradition and authority, etc.
1865. J. H. Stirling, Secret of Hegel, p. xxvii. Deism, Atheism, Pantheism, and all manner of isms due to Enlightenment, but hateful to Prejudice—(or vice versâ). Ibid., p. xxviii. Shallow Enlightenment which, supported on such semi-information, on such weak personal vanity, [etc.].
1889. E. Caird, Philos. Kant, I. 69. The individualistic tendencies of the age of Enlightenment.
