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However, despite all the high minded philosophy, impassioned thinking and rhetoric about enlightenment in the eighteenth century, the spread of factual knowledge during this period remained surprisingly slow for a number of reasons. To begin with, European universities had been founded not to discover the new but to transmit the old to the next generation, and this tradition remained a strong element in academics throughout the eighteenth century. Those who possessed ideas or facts tried to keep them secret and even labored to prevent others from learning them. In addition, the Royal Society and similar organizations allegedly devoted to advancing science and supposedly designed to promote the discovery and dissemination of knowledge became institutions which furthered the careers of their members. With emphasis in academics placed heavily on priority of discovery, many scientists came to be more concerned with claiming credit for the discoveries they had made than they were in making new ones. Thus, scientists and scholars became increasingly obsessed with disputes among themselves and more and more wrote books on impractical theoretical issues for each other and shelves. Unfortunately, they thereby established the standard for pettiness which remains endemic in academics to this day.
In this regard, Newton was one of the worst examples of the new scientist. He became a virtual dictator of the Royal Society—an unenlightened despot who became increasingly powerful and difficult as his prestige increased from 1703, when he became president, until his death in 1727. As leader of the first scientific "Establishment", he set the regrettable precedent of blocking the development of any advances in math or science which might have undermined his position of authority or diminished his prestige. For example, he maliciously deprived astronomer John Flamsteed of the satisfaction of having his works published in his lifetime. Sadder still was the monumental pettiness he exhibited in his dispute with Leibnitz over credit for inventing the calculus: In a shocking display of academic overkill, he continued his unprincipled campaign in a one-sided battle well after the death of his opponent. Meanwhile, the common man of the eighteenth century remained remarkably unenlightened, and in the commercial world itself, tradesmen and artisans did not help themselves much in this regard. They were usually narrowly suspicious of novelty and resisted innovations as threats to their established positions. Likewise, sailors, whose very lives often depended upon them knowing their whereabouts, were surprisingly slow to give up hand-drawn charts for printed maps and better methods of navigation, reluctant to acknowledge the existence of newly discovered lands and unwilling to abandon their traditional illusions about geography.
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