The Eighteenth Century in Europe was one of the most exciting periods in the history of Western intellectual and scientific development. It is generally referred to as the European Enlightenment, born in the salons of France and spreading to other countries, most notably Germany, Great Britain and Italy. There was no uniform modus operandi in this burst of new knowledge based on rigid intellectual procedures and scientific progress that we can recognise by our standards. Even in France the Enlightenment manifested itself in a number of ways as different groups of intellectuals, called philosophes, met in different drawing rooms or salons to feast and push the boundaries of thinking to…