Certain broad features can, however, be painted into the picture of the Republic of Letters. The existence of communal standards highlights the first of these: that the scholarly world considered itself to be in some ways separate from the rest of society. Contemporary scholars of the 17th and 18th-centuries felt that, at least in the academic realm, they were not subject to the norms and values of the wider society. Unlike their non-scholarly counterparts, they thought they lived in an essentially egalitarian community, in which all members had equal rights to criticize the work and conduct of others. Moreover, the Republic of Letters in theory ignored distinctions of nationality and religion.