The Enlightenment’s conception of knowledge was the power to free the minds from the customs enforced by Kings and Church. As John Locke stressed in his Second treatise of government “ Men being, as been said, by nature, all free, equal and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent”. In this statement, Locke empathized the battle of the thinkers: helping human to realize their worth, to free themselves from all constraints. For the philosophes, the monarchy was to respect people’s fundamental rights. It would be wrong to assume that all thinkers were against Monarchy. In fact, Jean-jacques Rousseau did not believe in democracy, but in a « lighting absolutism» …show more content…
The first mean of transmission was traditional, with books, pamphlets or essays. The Encyclopédie or Encyclopedia of Arts and Science was written by Denis Diderot and Jean d’Alembert. This gathering of knowledge was aimed at gathering as much information as it could, in order to educate the next generation, to raise awareness to the world. The second mean of transmission was through salons. As defined by Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, Salons became important institutions for the enlightenment in the development of ideas where wealthy noble, members of the clergy, but also philosophes, artists and scientists gathered to debate ideas, and could hence belong to « the Republic of Letters » . The word of mouth was the safest way for beliefs to be spread around. As stated by Mary E. Wiesner-Hanks, many European states journals and books that were too critical towards the King or the Church were either banned or censored. However, in order to attract people, writers or journalist of the time used any means ( journals, newpapers…) and managed to have them printed in Amsterdam or Switzerland, and then bring them in France for readers. Because despite the salons, reading was at the time, as argued by Dorinda Outram “ Books and pamphlets could be easily sold in large numbers, were relatively portable, and could cross language, cultural and geographical boundaries more easily”. The perfect means for transmission of ideas,