Article By Florimond Krins posted by UK, February 28, 2026 In our digital and information age, it is hard to imagine a time when knowledge was not so easy to access and only the most privileged had a right to a decent education. In the pre-industrial times of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, there had been many scholars and ‘natural philosophers’ who created great works that attempted to compile some of the knowledge of the time, a knowledge that was mostly confined within the walls of monasteries and the few universities. By the end of the 17th century, the concept of sciences had become more mainstream and other non-religious institutions had been created such as the Royal Academy of Science (1660 in Great Britain, 1666 in France). An idea of a universal knowledge accessible to all was starting to bud in the minds of the natural philosophers of England and, by the beginning of the 18th century, the first universal dictionary of...