Scottish Enlightenment
The Scottish Enlightenment (Scots: Scots Enlichtenment, Scottish Gaelic: Soillseachadh na h-Alba) was the period in 18th- and early-19th-century Scotland characterised by an outpouring of intellectual and scientific accomplishments. By the eighteenth century, Scotland had a network of parish schools in the Scottish Lowlands and five universities. The Enlightenment culture was based on close readings of new books, and intense discussions which took place daily at such intellectual gathering places in Edinburgh as The Select Society and, later, The Poker Club, as well as within Scotland's ancient universities (St Andrews, Glasgow, Edinburgh, King's College, and Marischal College).[1][2]
Sharing the humanist and rational outlook of the Western Enlightenment of the same time period, the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment asserted the importance of human reason combined with a rejection of any authority that could not be justified by reason. In Scotland, the Enlightenment was characterised by a thoroughgoing empiricism and practicality where the chief values were improvement, virtue, and practical benefit for the individual and society as a whole.
Among the fields that rapidly advanced were philosophy, political economy, engineering, architecture, medicine, geology, archaeology, botany and zoology, law, agriculture, chemistry and sociology. Among the Scottish thinkers and scientists of the period were Joseph Black, James Boswell, Robert Burns, William Cullen, Adam Ferguson, David Hume, Francis Hutcheson, James Hutton, Lord Monboddo, John Playfair, Thomas Reid, Adam Smith, and Dugald Stewart.
The Scottish Enlightenment had effects far beyond Scotland, not only because of the esteem in which Scottish achievements were held outside Scotland, but also because its ideas and attitudes were carried all over Great Britain and across the Western world as part of the Scottish diaspora, and by foreign students who studied in Scotland.
(1689–1748) architect
William Adam
(1721–1792) architect
John Adam
(1728–1792) architect and artist
Robert Adam
(1732–1794) architect and designer
James Adam
(1757–1839) essayist
Archibald Alison
(1744–1796) painter and illustrator
David Allan
(1692-1770), mathematician, He discovered the Stirling approaches.
James Stirling
(1662–1728) lawyer, antiquary and historian
James Anderson
(1739–1808) agronomist, lawyer
James Anderson
(1667–1735) physician, satirist and polymath
John Arbuthnot
(1709–1779) physician, poet and satirist
John Armstrong
(1762–1851) poet and dramatist
Joanna Baillie
(1761–1840) minister, educational reformer and linguist
George Husband Baird
(1735–1803) philosopher and poet
James Beattie
(1753–1832) priest and educationalist
Andrew Bell
(1774–1842) surgeon, physiologist and neurologist
Sir Charles Bell
(1767–1830) engineer
Henry Bell
of Antermony (1691–1780) doctor and traveller
John Bell
(1728–1799) physicist and chemist, first to isolate carbon dioxide
Joseph Black
(1701–1757) classical scholar and historian
Thomas Blackwell
(1776–1834) publisher, founder of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine
William Blackwood
(1718–1800) minister, author
Hugh Blair
(1749–1834) physician
Sir Gilbert Blane of Blanefield, 1st Baronet
(1732–1812) piano manufacturer
John Broadwood
(1778–1868) Englishman born, educated and active in Edinburgh, advocate, journalist and statesman
Henry Peter Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux
(1773–1858) botanist
Robert Brown
(1778–1820) philosopher
Thomas Brown
of Kinnaird (1730–1794) African explorer
James Bruce
(1669–1735) Moscow-born Scot, Count of the Russian Empire, statesman, general, diplomat and scientist
James Daniel (Yakov) Bruce
(1736–1818) traveller and author
Patrick Brydone
(1742–1829) founder of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland
David Steuart Erskine, 11th Earl of Buchan
(1713–1792) politician, botanist, literary and artistic patron, first President of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland
John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute
(1746–1812) architect, active in Russia
Charles Cameron
(1719–1796) philosopher
George Campbell
(1777–1844) poet
Thomas Campbell
(1722–1805) church leader and autobiographer
Alexander Carlyle
(1795–1881) historian and philosopher
Thomas Carlyle
(1780–1847) minister and political economist
Thomas Chalmers
(1723–1796) architect
Sir William Chambers
(1709–1789) writer, author of Fanny Hill
John Cleland
(1676–1755) politician, lawyer, judge and antiquary
Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, 2nd Baronet
(1728–1812) artist, navalist
Sir John Clerk of Eldin
(1757–1832) advocate, judge and collector
John Clerk, Lord Eldin
(1774–1827) publisher
Archibald David Constable
(c 1740-1810/1) chemist
William Cruickshank
(1739–1795) architect, designer of the Edinburgh New Town
James Craig
(1710–1790) physician, chemist, medical researcher
William Cullen
(1739–1806) industrialist, merchant and philanthropist
David Dale
(1737–1808) geographer
Alexander Dalrymple
(1619-1695) lawyer and statesman
James Dalrymple, 1st Viscount of Stair
(1703–1785) doctor, President of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh
Sir Alexander Dick, 3rd Baronet of Prestonfield
(1694 – 1770) genealogist
Sir Robert Douglas of Glenbervie, 6th Baronet
(1735/6 – 1779) writer and Orientalist
Alexander Dow
(1688–1766) accountant-general and politician, Lord Provost of Edinburgh
George Drummond
(1721–1809) educator and linguist
James Elphinston
(1677–1718) doctor and naturalist, head and reformer of Russian medicine, compiled first herbarium in Russia and discovered mineral waters
Robert Erskine (doctor)
(1746–1817) advocate and politician
Henry Erskine
(c.1675–1739) mathematician, active in Russia where he introduced Arabic numerals and logarithms
Henry Farquharson
(1723–1816) considered the founder of sociology
Adam Ferguson
(1710–1776) astronomer and instrument maker
James Ferguson
(1750–1774) poet
Robert Fergusson
of Saltoun (1653–1716) forerunner of the Scottish Enlightenment,[98] writer, patriot, commissioner of Parliament of Scotland
Andrew Fletcher
(1736–1802) physician and chemist
George Fordyce
(1712–1775) printer
Andrew Foulis
(1707–1776) printer and publisher
Robert Foulis
(1779–1839) novelist
John Galt
(1728–1795) minister, academic and philosophical writer
Alexander Gerard
(1756–1815) caricaturist and printmaker
James Gillray
(1706?–1766) historical writer
Walter Goodall
of Auchintoul (1669/70–1752) general and memoirist
Alexander Gordon
(1692?–1755) antiquary and singer
Alexander Gordon
(c.1691–1750) writer and translator from Latin
Thomas Gordon (writer)
(1714–1797) philosopher, mathematician and antiquarian
Thomas Gordon
(1724–1773) physician, medical writer and moralist
John Gregory
(1753–1805) physician
John Grieve
(1743–1807) physician, mineralogist and traveller
Matthew Guthrie
(1726–1792) advocate, judge and historian
Sir David Dalrymple, Lord Hailes
(1761–1832) geologist, geophysicist
Sir James Hall, 4th Baronet
(1739–1802) physician
Alexander Hamilton
(1723–1798) painter and archaeologist
Gavin Hamilton
(1730–1803) diplomat, antiquarian, archaeologist and vulcanologist
Sir William Hamilton
(1755–1826) violin maker, called the 'Scottish Stradivari'
Matthew Hardie
(1770–1835) writer, author of The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner
James Hogg
(1719–1813) physician
Francis Home
(1722–1808) minister and writer, author of Douglas
John Home
(1725–1786) physician and botanist
John Hope
(1778–1817) politician, lawyer and political economist
Francis Horner
(1728–1793) surgeon
John Hunter
(1718–1783) anatomist, physician
William Hunter
(1711–1776) philosopher, historian and essayist
David Hume
(1694–1746) philosopher
Francis Hutcheson
(1759–1838) minister, philologist and antiquary
John Jamieson
(1774–1854) Scottish naturalist and mineralogist
Robert Jameson
(1773–1850) advocate, journalist and literary critic, founder of the Edinburgh Review
Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey
(1696–1782) philosopher, judge, historian and agricultural improver
Henry Home, Lord Kames
(1742–1826) caricaturist and engraver
John Kay
(1735 – 1820) chemist, geologist, industrialist and inventor
James Keir
(1732–1781) composer and virtuoso violinist
Thomas Alexander Erskine, 6th Earl of Kellie
of Lauriston (1671–1729) economist, banker, active in France
John Law
(1766–1832) mathematician, physicist
Sir John Leslie
(1716–1794) doctor, pioneer of naval hygiene
James Lind
(1736–1812) naturalist and physician
James Lind
(1767–1849) botanist and translator of Dante
Charles Lyell (botanist)
(1756–1836) engineer and road-builder
John Loudon MacAdam
(1768–1838) statistician, abolitionist
Zachary Macaulay
(1745?–1793) printer, co-founder of the Encyclopædia Britannica
Colin Macfarquhar
(1764–1820) explorer of North America
Sir Alexander Mackenzie
(1745–1831) lawyer and writer
Henry Mackenzie
(1688–1770) first Professor of History at Edinburgh University and in the British Isles
Charles Mackie
(1765–1832) jurist, politician and historian
Sir James Mackintosh
(1766–1843) chemist, inventor of waterproof fabrics
Charles Macintosh
(1698–1746) mathematician
Colin Maclaurin
(1736–1796) writer, author of Ossian
James Macpherson
(Malloch) (c.1705–1765) writer
David Mallet
(1741–1805) botanist
Francis Masson
(1705–1793) jurist, judge and politician
William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield
(1742–1811) advocate and statesman
Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville
(1719–1811) engineer and inventor
Andrew Meikle
(1749/56–1831) architect, active in Russia
Adam Menelaws
(1773–1836) philosopher
James Mill
(1705–1768) publisher
Andrew Millar
(1735–1801) philosopher, historian
John Millar
(1714–1799) judge, founder of modern comparative historical linguistics
James Burnett, Lord Monboddo
I (1697–1767) physician, founder of Edinburgh Medical School
Alexander Monro
II of Craiglockhart and Cockburn (1733–1817) anatomist, physician
Alexander Monro
(1725–1789) advocate
John Monro of Auchinbowie
(1740–1793) painter
Jacob More
(1702–1768) astronomer, patron of science, President of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh and of the Royal Society
James Douglas, 14th Earl of Morton
(1709/10–1773) physician and naturalist
James Mounsey
of Huntershill (1765–1799) political reformer
Thomas Muir
(1754–1839) engineer and inventor
William Murdoch
(1775–1813) minister and philologist
Alexander Murray
(1778–1843) publisher
John Murray
Lady Nairne, née Oliphant (1766–1845) writer and song collector
Carolina Nairne
(c.1741–1812) musician and music publisher
William Napier
(1782–1849) poet
William Nicholson
(1657-1725) lawyer, antiquarian and heraldist
Alexander Nisbet
(1736–1819) classicist, numismatist and land reformer
William Ogilvie of Pittensear
(1710–1769) composer, cellist and music publisher
James Oswald
(1771–1806) explorer of West Africa
Mungo Park
Welsh naturalist, traveller, writer and antiquarian (1726–1798), whose travel writings and collected pictorial representations of Scotland inspired the 'petit' grand tour fueling philosophical and artistic re-interpretation of landscape appreciation in Scotland.
Thomas Pennant
(1758–1826) antiquarian, cartographer and historian
John Pinkerton
(1652–1713) physician and bibliophile
Archibald Pitcairne
(1748–1819) mathematician, geologist
John Playfair
(1755–1794) architect
James Playfair
(1759–1823) engineer, political economist, founder of graphical methods of statistics
William Playfair
(1776–1850) historical novelist
Jane Porter
(1777–1842) artist, author, diplomat and traveller
Sir Robert Ker Porter
(1707–1782) physician
Sir John Pringle, 1st Baronet
(1713–1784) portrait painter
Allan Ramsay
(1686–1743) writer, based in France
Andrew Michael Ramsay
(1761–1821) civil engineer
John Rennie
(1743–1814) author and literary scholar
William Richardson
(1721–1793) historian, minister and Principal of the University of Edinburgh
William Robertson
(1739–1805) physicist, mathematician and philosopher, first General Secretary of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
John Robison
(1777–1856) Arctic explorer
Sir John Ross
(1751–1815) surgeon and botanist, founding father of Indian botany
William Roxburgh
(1674–1757) classical scholar
Thomas Ruddiman
(1736–1785) painter
Alexander Runciman
(1744–1768/9) painter
John Runciman
(1695–1779) physician
John Rutherford
(1749–1819) physician, chemist and botanist
Daniel Rutherford
(1731–1809) English Topographical and landscape painter, among the first to depict Scotland as a place of landscape appreciation in its natural state, influencing Robert Adam and John Clerk of Eldin.
Paul Sandby (artist)
(1771–1832) novelist, poet
Sir Walter Scott
(1641–1722) physician and antiquary
Sir Robert Sibbald
of Ulbster (1754–1835) writer, statistician
Sir John Sinclair
(c.1745–1796) political reformer
William Skirving
(1723–1790) philosopher and political economist
Adam Smith
(1771–1845) English writer, co-founder of Edinburgh Review
Sydney Smith
(1721–1771) writer
Tobias Smollett
(1780–1872) science writer, astronomer, polymath
Mary Somerville
(1753–1828) philosopher
Dugald Stewart
(1692–1770) mathematician
James Stirling
(1721–1792) engraver
Sir Robert Strange
(1742–1786) journalist and historian
Gilbert Stuart
(1764–1831) engineer, inventor, builder of the first practical steamboat
William Symington
(1774–1810) poet
Robert Tannahill
(1735–1799) gem engraver and modeller
James Tassie
(1757–1834) civil engineer and architect
Thomas Telford
(1700–1748) poet, author of The Seasons
James Thomson
(1757–1851) collector and publisher of the music of Scotland
George Thomson
(1760–1832) physician
Thomas Trotter
(1698–1748) theologian, philosopher and writer on education
George Turnbull
(1711–1792) lawyer and historian
William Tytler
(1747–1813) advocate, judge, writer and historian
Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee
(1750–1798) Reverend, Natural History and History, 1st Statistical Account. First to represent entrochi for Scotland and appreciate Scottish natural history in any detail in History of Rutherglen & East Kilbride, 1793.
David Ure
(died 1732) painter
Richard Waitt
(1731–1803) minister and natural historian
John Walker (naturalist)
(1736–1819) inventor of a more efficient, practical steam engine
James Watt
(1742–1798) a Founding Father of the United States, signer of United States Declaration of Independence
James Wilson
(1723–1794) a Founding Father of the United States, signer of US Declaration of Independence
John Witherspoon
Plus those who visited and corresponded with Scottish scholars:[69]
American Enlightenment
John Amyatt
Books in the "Famous Scots Series"
Industrial Revolution in Scotland
Broadie, Alexander, ed. The Scottish Enlightenment: An Anthology (1998), primary sources.
excerpt and text search
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Northern Lights: How modern life emerged from eighteenth-century Edinburgh
– an introduction (archived 26 October 2004)
Scottish Enlightenment
– Philosophical play readings of the legacy of David Hume, Adam Smith and Robert Burns
Living philosophy
– has references and links
Edinburgh Old Town Association
BBC Radio 4 discussion with Tom Devine, Karen O'Brien and Alexander Broadie (In Our Time, Dec. 5, 2002)