At the climax of the modern transition we see the appearance of Kant who performs an operation of major surgery on the inherited metaphysics of the great religions. In the process he produces on classic essay whose title is a question, What is enlightenment? An ironic question given the legacy of, say, Buddhism. But his gesture is a significant text in the period of the emergence of modern freedoms, and establishes, strangely, the real foundation for a religion of the future, human autonomy. 

For too long man has been subjected to spiritual authorities who have constricted his development, and the right beginning point appears with Kant's question. 

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