The investigation spans the period from the religious civil wars to the French Revolution. The hypocritical aspects of the Enlightenment are analyzed conceptually and ideologically. In doing so, we encounter the political limits of the Enlightenment, which misses its goals as soon as it solidifies into pure utopia. Koselleck examines the relationship of the absolutist state to the Enlightenment, particularly through Hobbes, Locke, and the Freemasons. He also incorporates the critical process of the republic of scholars, as well as Diderot and the Encyclopédie, Rousseau, and the emergence of the philosophy of history in connection with the political crisis.