An educated public absorbed revised orientalist knowledge within decades.

Evidence

For the rapid absorption of new knowledge by a discriminating public, compare the article Mahomet in Bayle’s first edition (1697) with that of the revised third edition (1720). The latter refers to the contemporary criticism of Pére Simon, for whose views see chapter xv of his Histoire critique. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 2457

Categorization

• QUESTION: Bayle’s revisions to the Mahomet article across editions could be studied as a measure of how fast critical orientalist scholarship spread.