The Natural History of Man in the Scottish Enlightenment

Allen David Elliston , The naturalist in Britain: A social history (Harmondsworth, 1978), chs i and ii; the quotation from the Critical review appears on p. 45. See also the pioneering study by Jones W. P. , “The vogue for natural history in England, 1750–1770”, Annals of science, ii (1937), 345–52, and Baesel D. R. , “Natural history and the British periodicals in the eighteenth century” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State University, 1974).

On Trembley's discoveries see Vartanian Aram , “Trembley's polyp, La Mettrie, and eighteenth-century French materialism”, Journal of the history of ideas, xi (1950), 259–86, pp. 262–3. The popularity of Pluche's Spectacle de la nature and Buffon's Histoire naturelle is documented in Daniel Mornet, Les sciences de la nature en France, au XVIII^e siècle (Paris, 1911); see especially Mornet's statistics based on a survey of eighteenth century library catalogues, pp. 9, 248–9.

One way of tracing the rise of natural history in the Scottish Enlightenment is by studying the career and influence of Sir Robert Sibbald, as in Emerson Roger , “Sir Robert Sibbald, Kt, the Royal Society of Scotland and the origins of the Scottish Enlightenment”, Annals of science, xlv (1988), 41–72. The popularity of natural history books is documented in Kaufman Paul , “A unique record of people's reading”, Libri, xiv (1964), 227–42 (see p. 238 for the high borrowing rate of Buffon), and idem, “The rise of community libraries in Scotland”, The papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, lix (1965), 233–94. See also Allen , op. cit. (ref. 1), 11–12, 45.

See, for example, some of the contributions to the section devoted to the eighteenth century in Forerunners of Darwin: 1745–1859 , ed. by Glass Bentley Temkin Owsei Straus William L. Jr (Baltimore, 1959). A conspicuous exception to this type of approach is Duchet Michèle , Anthropologie et histoire au siècle des lumières: Buffon, Voltaire, Rousseau, Helvétius, Diderot (Paris, 1971). For a useful discussion of the historiographical issues involved see Bowler Peter J. , “Evolutionism in the Enlightenment”, History of science, xii (1974), 159–83, pp. 172–9.

Bryson Gladys , Man and society: The Scottish inquiry of the eighteenth century (Princeton, 1945), chs ii and iii; compare, for example, Skinner Andrew , “Natural history in the age of Adam Smith”, Political studies, xv (1967), 32–48.

Fordyce David , “A brief account of the nature, [origin], and [progress] of philosophy delivered by the late M^r. David Fordyce P. P. Marish. Col: Ab^dn. to his scholars, before they begun [sic] their philosophical course. Anno 1743/4”, Aberdeen University Library (AUL), MS M 184, section 33.

Carlyle Alexander , Anecdotes and characters of the times , ed. by Kinsley James (Oxford, 1973), 25; Turnbull George , De scientiae naturalis cum philosophia morali conjunctione (Aberdeen, 1723), 3. In so far as Turnbull mentioned Bacon in this graduation thesis, there is little doubt that he discussed the Lord Chancellor's ideas in his lectures. On Pringle see also “A short account of the University of Edinburgh, the present professors in it, and the several parts of learning taught by them”, Scots magazine, iii (1741), 371–4, p. 373.

The philosophical works of Francis Bacon, ed. by Robertson John M. (London, 1905), 141–8, 410–11, 563, 571–8.

Gregory John , “A proposall for a Medicall Society. Written a° 1743”, AUL MS 2206–45, 1, 4, 6, 7, 8. In transcribing the manuscripts quoted in this paper I have adopted the following conventions: Editorial insertions are enclosed thus, “[…]”, authorial insertions or additions are enclosed thus, “{…}”, and authorial deletions are enclosed thus, “<…>“.

Bacon , op. cit. (ref. 8), 479, 480–2, 483–92.

Gregory John , A comparative view of the state and faculties of man with those of the animal world , 7th edn (London, 1777), 8–9. Gregory's notion of the “states and manner of life” may have owed something to Buffon's discussion of what should be included in the history of a particular species of animal, for which see From natural history to the history of nature: Readings from Buffon and his critics, ed. and trans. by Lyon John Sloan Phillip R. (Notre Dame and London, 1981), 111.

Gregory , op. cit. (ref. 11), 14–20.

Ibid., 9–10, 82.

Ibid., 5–7.

According to his son James, John Gregory also drew theoretical inspiration from the works of Friedrich Hoffman; see Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (RCPE), MS Ha 15.2, 28–29.

Gregory John , Lectures on the duties and qualifications of a physician , new edn (London, 1772), 75–77, 109–10; see also 165-[6]. It should be noted that Gregory warned his students that the history of the mind was “apt to lead us insensibly into a labyrinth of metaphysics”, which he said was liable to render one “incapable of a patient and severe investigation of Nature” (p. 77).

Ibid., 79.

Ibid., 110–11.

Ibid., 218.

[ Gerard Alexander ], [A] plan of education in the Marischal College and University of Aberdeen, with the reasons of it. Drawn up by order of the Faculty (Aberdeen, 1755), 9, 10–12, 18, 34.

[ Gerard] Alexander , “Notes of lectures on moral philosophy. Taken by Robert Morgan [1758–59]”, Edinburgh University Library (EUL) MS Dc. 5. 61, 2; idem, “Lectures on moral philosophy”, EUL MS De. 5. 116, 1–6.

Turnbull George , The principles of moral philosophy (2 vols, London, 1740), i, 9; for similar remarks see also the preface, ii.

In his highly influential Cyclopaedia, Ephraim Chambers did not bracket together natural and civil history in his tree of knowledge, yet the two are associated in the article on history; see Chambers Ephraim , Cyclopaedia: Or, an universal dictionary of arts and sciences , 5th edn (2 vols, London, 1741), s.v. “History”.

Bacon , op. cit. (ref. 8), 427–39. On the interest of the virtuosi in civil and natural history see Shapiro Barbara , Probability and certainty in seventeenth-century England: A study of the relationships between natural science, religion, history, law, and literature (Princeton, 1983), ch. 4; Levine Joseph M. , Dr. Woodward's shield: History, science, and satire in Augustan England (Berkeley, 1977); Piggott Stuart , “The ancestors of Jonathan Oldbuck”, in Ruins in a landscape: Essays in antiquarianism (Edinburgh, 1976), 133–59; idem, William Stukeley: An eighteenth-century antiquarian , rev. edn (London, 1985); Emerson , op. cit. (ref. 3). This topic deserves further examination, particularly with regard to the later eighteenth century.

For the revised curricula see Gerard , op. cit. (ref. 20), 28–31, and the Abstract of some statutes and orders of King's College in Old Aberdeen. M.DCC.LIII. With additions M.DCC.LIV. ([Aberdeen], [1754]), 13.

Locke John , An essay concerning human understanding, in The works of John Locke Esq, 3rd edn (3 vols, London, 1727), i, 1, 38, 60–61.

Ibid., i, 53–54, 57, 58–60.

Ibid., i, 61, 181–2.

de Voltaire Francois Marie Arouet , Philosophical letters, trans. by Dilworth Ernest (Indianapolis, 1961), 53–54.

For D'Alembert's view of Locke see Le Rond D'Alembert Jean , Preliminary discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot , trans. by Schwab Richard N. Rex Walter E. (Indianapolis, 1963), 84. D'Alembert's notion of an “experimental physics” of the soul is very close to that of the natural history of the mind. Bentham's remarks are quoted in Yolton John , “Schoolmen, logic and philosophy”, in The history of the University of Oxford, v: The eighteenth century , ed. by Sutherland L. S. Mitchell L. G. (Oxford, 1986), 565–91, p. 573.

Duncan W[illiam] , The elements of logick. In four books (London, 1748), 4. Duncan's Elements gained a wide audience by being published in Dodsley's Preceptor as well. A highly condensed version of Duncan's text later appeared as the article on logic in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (3 vols, Edinburgh, 1771), ii, 984–1003, which defines logic as “the science or history of the human mind”, p. 984.

AUL MS 2131/8/V/1, fol 2^r; Reid Thomas , An inquiry into the human mind, on the principles of common sense (Edinburgh, 1764), 5–14, pp. 10, 12. For Reid's use of the phrase “the furniture of the human understanding” see the Inquiry, 528–35. Reid derived this phrase from George Turnbull; see Norton David Fate , “George Turnbull and the furniture of the mind”, Journal of the history of ideas, xxxv (1975), 701–16.

Butler Joseph , Fifteen sermons preached at the Rolls Chapel and a dissertation upon the nature of virtue (London, 1914), 34–35. Dugald Stewart first drew attention to Reid's careful study of Butler; see Stewart Dugald , Account of the life and writings of Thomas Reid, D.D. F.R.S. Edin. late Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow (Edinburgh, 1803), 188–9. Reid's meticulous reading notes from Butler's Analogy of religion, dating from November 1738, still survive; see AUL MS 3061/10, 3r-12v.

Reid Thomas , Essays on the active powers of man (Edinburgh, 1788; New York and London, 1977), 98, 101–2; Butler , op. cit. (ref. 33), 12–14.

Reid , op. cit. (ref. 34), 103–17; compare Butler, op. cit. (ref. 33), 12–13.

Reid , op. cit. (ref. 34), 113–17.

See especially Hume's discussion of the anatomy of the mind in his letter to Francis Hutcheson, 17 September 1739, in The letters of David Hume , ed. by Grieg J. Y. T. (2 vols, Oxford, 1969), i, 32–35, pp. 32–33. See also Hume David , A treatise of human nature , ed. by Selby-Bigge L. A. (Oxford, 1968), 620–1; idem, Enquiries concerning human understanding and concerning the principles of morals, ed. by Selby-Bigge L. A. , rev. by P. H. Nidditch, 3rd edn (Oxford, 1978), 5–16.

Hume , Enquiries (ref. 37), 13. Although Hume was dismissive of the natural historical enterprise in this passage, he later displayed some interest in the subject, in so far as he purchased at least two volumes of Buffon's Histoire naturelle; see Hume to Adam Smith, [August, 1766], in Greig , op. cit. (ref. 37), ii, 82–83, p. 82.

Smith Adam , “Letter to the Edinburgh review”, in Essays on philosophical subjects , ed. by Wightman W. P. D. Bryce J. C. Ross I. S. (Oxford, 1980), 248–9, p. 248. Compare the unqualified praise of Buffon later given by John Gregory; Gregory , op. cit. (ref. 11), 95.

Wood P. B. , “Buffon's reception in Scotland: The Aberdeen connection”, Annals of science, xliv (1987), 169–90.

Gregory , op. cit. (ref. 11), 50, 53; Dunbar James , Essays on the history of mankind in rude and cultivated ages (London and Edinburgh, 1780), 12, 305–6. For a discussion of Dunbar and his indebtedness to Buffon see Glacken Clarence J. , Traces on the Rhodian shore: Nature and culture in Western thought from ancient times to the end of the eighteenth century (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1976), 596–601.

Ferguson Adam , Institutes of moral philosophy: For the use of students in the College of Edinburgh, 2nd edn, rev. (Edinburgh, 1773), 15, 20.

[ Home Henry Kames Lord ], Sketches of the history of man , 2nd edn (4 vols, Edinburgh, 1778), especially i, 11–18, 20–79, and ii, 98–108, and i, 18–20, for a brief attack on Linnaeus's system of classification; [ Burnett James Monboddo Lord ], Of the progress and origins of language , 2nd edn (6 vols, Edinburgh, 1774–92; New York, 1970), i, 259–313. For an important recent discussion of Kames and Monboddo as natural historians of man see Wokler Robert , “Apes and races in the Scottish Enlightenment: Monboddo and Kames on the nature of man”, in Philosophy and science in the Scottish Enlightenment, ed. by Jones Peter (Edinburgh, 1989), 145–68.

Smith , op. cit. (ref. 39), 161–6.

Ferguson , op. cit. (ref. 42), 11.

Ibid., 15–16, 46.

Ferguson Adam , An essay on the history of civil society , ed. by Forbes Duncan (Edinburgh, 1966), 2–5, 16, 32, p. 2. Of course, there was more to Ferguson's Essay than simply the natural history of man. For an account which emphasizes the ambivalent role played by natural history in the Essay see Kettler David , “History and theory in Ferguson's Essay on the history of civil society”, Political theory, v (1977), 437–60, pp. 455–6.

Ferguson Adam , Principles of moral and political science; Being chiefly a retrospect of lectures delivered in the College of Edinburgh (2 vols, Edinburgh, 1792), i, 1–2, 5, p. 5.

Ibid., i, 49.

Ibid., i, 64.

For Sher's analysis of Ferguson's pedagogical and intellectual style see Sher Richard B. , Church and university in the Scottish Enlightenment: The moderate literati of Edinburgh (Princeton and Edinburgh, 1985), 166–74, and idem, “Professors of virtue: The road to Adam Ferguson in the Edinburgh moral philosophy chair”, in Studies in the philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment, ed. by Stewart M. A. (Oxford Studies in the History of Philosophy, i; Oxford, 1989).

Dunbar , op. cit. (ref. 41), [i]; see also 1–6, 186, 191–2.

Kames , op. cit. (ref. 43), i, vii, 1.

As a natural historian of man, Kames typically drew on natural history and travel accounts, as well as a wide array of historical sources, see, for example, ibid., i, 3–84, ii, 9–10, 98, 108, 155–71. For similarly broad views of the scope of the history of the species see Ferguson , op. cit. (ref. 42), 15–16, and Smellie William , The philosophy of natural history (2 vols, Edinburgh, 1790–99), ii, 240. Smellie, who was a protégé of Kames's, adopted a comparative approach in this work, and integrated his analysis of man with his discussion of the rest of the animate creation.

Kames , op. cit., i, 86–88n, 91–93, 120, ii, 98–108, 109, 171, 191–219, 220–1. Compare [Henry Home, Lord Kames], Essays on the principles of morality and natural religion (Edinburgh, 1751; New York and London, 1983), especially pp. 379–94; Reid , op. cit. (ref. 32), 1–2, 39, 90–91, 93–94, 169–70; Ferguson , op. cit. (ref. 42), 121–6, and op. cit. (ref. 48), i, 172–87. The natural theological message of natural history was, for the Scots, reinforced by the moral philosophy of Lord Shaftesbury, who likewise stressed the benevolent design inherent in man's constitution. The one major Scottish thinker who dissented from this consensus was, of course, David Hume.

However, as we have seen, Bacon did call for the compilation of natural histories of the mind in the Parasceve.

AUL MS 480, 3.

AUL MS 475, 38–39, 47, 62–63. Skene's project of ascertaining character types may have been inspired by Bacon's comments in the De augmentis alluded to above.

AUL MS 475, 41, 353.

AUL MS 37, fol. 118^r.

AUL MS 37, fol. 118^r. It should be noted that Skene displayed little interest in tracing character differences to physical or physiological causes, and focused almost entirely upon moral causes.

On Skene as an inveterate classifier see Lenman B. P. Kenworthy J. B. , “Dr. David Skene, Linnaeus, and the applied geology of the Scottish Enlightenment”, Aberdeen University review, xlvii (1977–78), 32–44, p. 36.

Trevor-Roper Hugh , “The Scottish Enlightenment”, Studies on Voltaire and the eighteenth century, lviii (1967), 1635–58, pp. 1639, 1655–6; idem, “The Scottish Enlightenment”, Blackwood's magazine, cccxxii (1977), 371–88, p. 387–8. In the first article, Lord Dacre also included Francis Hutcheson in his core group of Enlightened Scots.

For Millar's tribute to Montesquieu see Trevor-Roper , op. cit. (ref. 63, 1977), 388; compare, for example, Kames , op. cit. (ref. 43), i, 315; Ferguson , op. cit. (ref. 47), 65; and Reid Thomas , Philosophical orations of Thomas Reid. Delivered at graduation ceremonies in King's College, Aberdeen, 1753, 1756, 1759, 1762, ed. by Humphries Walter Robson (Aberdeen, 1937), 14, 17.

Smith , op. cit. (ref. 39), 250–4. Smith also takes up a problem posed in Rousseau's Discourse in his “Considerations concerning the first formation of languages, and the different genius of original and compounded languages”, in Lectures on rhetoric and belles lettres , ed. by Bryce J. C. (Oxford, 1983), 201–26, p. 205. For a useful analysis of other aspects of Smith's response to Rousseau see Ignatieff Michael , “Smith, Rousseau and the republic of needs”, in Scotland and Europe 1200–1850 , ed. by Smout T. C. (Edinburgh, 1986), 187–206. On 12 April 1758 Robert Traill delivered a discourse before the Aberdeen Philosophical Society entitled “An abstract of a discourse of M. Rousseau on the sourse [sic] of the inequality among mankind; with some observations upon it”; see the “Original minutes of the Philosophical Society of Aberdeen”, AUL MS 539, fols 5^v, 8^r.

Rousseau Jean-Jacques , The first and second discourses, ed. by Masters Roger D. , trans. by Roger D. Masters Judith R. (New York, 1964), 92, 116–17; see also p. 103, where Rousseau states that his account is conjectural, and compares it to the cosmogonies of the physicists. However, in this passage Rousseau makes this assertion in order to reconcile his historical reconstruction with the very different claims of Scripture.

Ibid., 103–4.

Ibid. , 104–13, 182–92, 203–13, 225–6. On Rousseau as anthropologist see inter alia the classic article by Lovejoy Arthur O. , “The supposed primitivism of Rousseau's Discourse on inequality” in his Essays in the history of ideas (Baltimore, 1948), 14–37; Duchet , op. cit. (ref. 4), 265–313; Wokler Robert , “Perfectible apes in decadent cultures: Rousseau's anthropology revisited”, Daedalus, cvii (1978), 107–34; idem, “The ape debates in Enlightenment anthropology”, Studies on Voltaire and the eighteenth century, cxcii (1980), 1164–75; Horowitz Asher , Rousseau, nature, and history (Toronto, 1987), 50–134.

Monboddo praised Rousseau as “an author of so much genius, and original thought, as well as learning”; see Monboddo , op. cit. (ref. 43), i, 152. On Monboddo's intellectual affiliations with Rousseau see Lovejoy Arthur O. , “Monboddo and Rousseau”, in Lovejoy , op. cit. (ref. 68), 38–61, to which Cloyd's E. L. James Burnett, Lord Monboddo (Oxford, 1972), adds little.

Monboddo , op, cit. (ref. 43), i, 215–16, 415–27. Monboddo agreed with Rousseau that men form primitive societies because of a lack of food produced by overpopulation, though Monboddo also thought that social formations satisfied the need for self-defence; ibid., i, 382–414.

Ibid., i, 1–2, 216, 396–8, 447 n., 451–5, p. 2. As early as 1769 Monboddo remarked that “I think I have already collected materials from which a very good history of the human mind might be formed”, and said that this history “would make part of a much greater work which I project, viz. a History of Man”. Monboddo's Origin formed another part of his projected history of man, which he went on to complete in three volumes of his Antient metaphysics. See Monboddo to Harris James , 26 March 1766, in Knight William , Lord Monboddo and some of his contemporaries (London, 1900), 48–50; Monboddo to Harris, 31 December 1772, ibid., 71–74; and [James Burnett, Lord Monboddo], Antient metaphysics: Or, the science of universals (6 vols, Edinburgh, 1779–99), iii, iv, v, especially iii, pp. ii–iii, and iv, pp. i–iii. It should be noted that in the Antient metaphysics Monboddo used the history of man to illustrate God's benevolent design.

Monboddo , op. cit. (ref. 43), i, 222–4.

Ibid. , 1, 175–84, 187–9, 236–313; however Monboddo denied (p. 311) that man is related to monkeys or other apes. Monboddo revised his argument concerning the orang-outang following the publication of the first volume of the Origin, but he continued to defend his original position and mobilized additional evidence to support his case; see Monboddo to Pringle Sir John , 16 June 1773, in Knight , op. cit. (ref. 71), 82–88, pp. 84–85, and Monboddo , op. cit. (ref. 71), iii, 40–68, 359–78. On Monboddo on the orang-outang see Wokler , op. cit. (ref. 43), 148–52, 156–8.

Monboddo , op. cit. (ref. 43), i, 444; compare Monboddo, op. cit. (ref. 71), iii, 68.

Gregory , op. cit. (ref. 11), 69–70.

Ibid., 23–81; Gregory cites Rousseau pp. 47, 50, and 65.

Ibid., p. iv.

Ibid., pp. v–x, see p. x.

Ibid., pp. xi–xii, xiv–xvi, see pp. xi–xii. Gregory thus follows Rousseau in seeing the creation of artificial needs as resulting in moral corruption.

Ibid., pp. xii–xiii.

Ibid., pp. xvi–xvii.

Ibid. , 121; see also Gregory , op. cit. (ref. 16), 78–79, where Gregory notes the effects of “age, sex, climate, and manner of living” on the human constitution.

Gregory , op. cit. (ref. 11), 70, 71. Gregory also invoked the sensibility and irritability of the nervous system at various junctures in his medical lectures; see Gregory John , “Course of lectures on the practice of physic 1768–9”, 4 vols, RCPE, MS M 9/51–54, iii, 409, 417, 419, iv, 536, and John Gregory, “Lectures on the practice of physick”, RCPE, MS ADD 209, 44, 77, 121, 143, 310. Montesquieu's most extended discussion of the mediating role of the nervous system is to be found in “An essay on causes affecting minds and characters”, in The spirit of laws by Montesquieu: A compendium of the first English edition, ed. by Carrithers David W. (Berkeley, 1977), 417–54.

The ideological dimension of eighteenth century Scottish physiology has been explored in Christopher Lawrence, “The nervous system and society in the Scottish Enlightenment”, in Natural order: Historical studies of scientific culture , ed. by Barnes B. Shapin S. (Berkeley and London, 1979), 19–40, and idem, “Medicine as culture: Edinburgh and the Scottish Enlightenment” (unpublished Ph.D dissertation, University of London, 1984).

Reid , op. cit. (ref. 32), 7–8, 495–500. Reid remarks (p. 498) that “the education of Nature could never of itself produce a Rousseau”. For the notion of there being powers in the mind nurtured by culture see Gregory , op. cit. (ref. 11), 132.

Thanks to the patronage of Lord Kames (among others), Reid was elected to succeed Adam Smith in the Glasgow Chair of Moral Philosophy in May 1764. For a preliminary discussion of Reid's reaction to Rousseau see Stewart-Robertson J. C. , “Reid's anatomy of culture: A Scottish response to the eloquent Jean-Jacques”, Studies on Voltaire and the eighteenth century, ccv (1982), 141–63.

Reid seems not to have registered the fact that Rousseau considered man to be happiest in his most primitive social state, prior to the invention of the arts of metallurgy and agriculture, and the establishment of private property; Rousseau, op. cit. (ref. 66), 150–2.

Reid's discussion appears in the lecture headed “2 Lecture”, which is the second paginated lecture included in AUL MS 2131/4/I/30, 1–10, p. 10.

Ibid., 10–12.

Thus Reid was careful to follow Rousseau's classification of the different states of human existence. Reid's savages were hunters and fishermen.

AUL MS 2131/4/I/30, “3 Lecture”, 1–3. In this part of his lecture Reid drew on ethnographic sources for his information about “Canadians and Eskimaux” and other savage tribes.

Ibid., “3 Lecture”, 4–6; Reid , op. cit. (ref. 32), 484–94.

AUL MS 2131/4/I/30, “3 Lecture”, 6–8. Reid may have been alluding here to Hume's account of the origins of primitive religions in The natural history of religion; see Hume David , The natural history of religion and Dialogues concerning natural religion, ed. by Colver A. Wayne Price John Valdimir (Oxford, 1976), 32, 36.

AUL MS 2131/4/I/30, “3 Lecture”, 12–15. Rousseau argued that notions of excellence produced vanity, contempt, shame, and envy; Rousseau , op. cit. (ref. 66), 148–9.

AUL MS 2131/4/I/30, “3 Lecture”, 8–11. Reid also took issue with Rousseau's belief that in the state of nature, man “would alwise easily procure his food and other necessaries from the fertility of the Earth” (p. 11). Reid argued that this assumption “has no foundation either in Reason or in Experience”, though it must be said that the accounts of Tahiti published by Cook and others made Rousseau's claim seem eminently plausible.

Cf. Phillipson Nicholas , “The Scottish Enlightenment”, in The Enlightenment in national context , ed. by Porter Roy Teich Mikuláš (Cambridge, 1981), 19–40, pp. 20–21. The distinction which Phillipson draws here between Reid and moralists like Ferguson is a false one. For another example of the correlation of the state of society and the development of the mind see Robertson William , The progress of society in Europe: A historical outline from the subversion of the Roman Empire to the beginning of the sixteenth century, ed. by Gilbert Felix (Chicago and London, 1972), 60–61, 154.

For sensitive analyses of Ferguson's Christian Stoicism see Sher , op. cit. (ref. 51, 1985), ch. 5, and Kettler David , The social and political thought of Adam Ferguson ([Columbus], 1965), ch. vi.

On the Scots' assimilation of information about the native peoples of North America see Emerson Roger L. , “American Indians, Frenchmen, and Scots philosophers”, in Studies in eighteenth century culture, ed. by Runte Roseann , ix (1979), 211–36.

Phillipson Nicholas , “Adam Smith as civic moralist”, in Wealth & virtue: The shaping of political economy in the Scottish Enlightenment, ed. by Hont Istvan Ignatieff Michael (Cambridge, 1983), 179–202, p. 180.

I have developed this point at greater length in “Science and the pursuit of virtue in the Aberdeen Enlightenment”, in Stewart , op. cit. (ref. 51), 127–49.

Sher , op. cit. (ref. 51, 1985), 166–8; compare Kettler, op. cit. (ref. 97), 117–28, whose argument is closer to the one presented here.

Skinner , op. cit. (ref. 5), 45; passages in Smith's Wealth of nations support Skinner's characterisation, but it is less plausible when applied to the writings of other Scots. For Smith on the ‘natural’ course of economic development see Smith Adam , The wealth of nations , ed. by Skinner Andrew (Harmondsworth, 1970), 480–4. Even here, Smith acknowledges that because of the disturbing effects of “human institutions” such as “manners and customs” this ‘natural’ order is not instantiated in history.

Millar John , The origin of the distinction of ranks, in Lehmann William C. , John Millar of Glasgow 1735–1801: His life and thought and his contributions to sociological analysis (Cambridge, 1960), 181.

Compare here James Dunbar, who stressed both man's freedom to create his own history and the role of fortune in historical development, and Adam Ferguson; Dunbar , op. cit. (ref. 41), 175, 335; Ferguson , op. cit. (ref. 48), i, 194.

Stewart Dugald , “Account of the life and writings of Adam Smith, LL.D.”, in Smith , op. cit. (ref. 39), 269–351, p. 293.

Smith was perhaps more sensitive to the limitations of the historical record than was Stewart; for an indication of his circumspection see “The principles which lead and direct philosophical inquiries; illustrated by the history of astronomy”, in Smith , op. cit. (ref. 39), 51, 53.

Stewart , op. cit. (ref. 105), 293–4. The tension between rational reconstructions and historical narrative are manifest in D'Alembert's Preliminary discourse, where he sketches both the genealogy of knowledge and the history of learning from the medieval period to the Enlightenment. The former corresponds to what D'Alembert called the “encyclopaedic approach”, and the latter to that of a “reasoned dictionary”; see D'Alembert , op. cit. (ref. 30), 4–5.

As is done, for example, in Hopfl H. M. , “From savage to Scotsman: Conjectural history in the Scottish Enlightenment”, Journal of British studies, xvii (1978), 19–40, and Emerson Roger L. , “Conjectural history and Scottish philosophers”, in Canadian historical papers/Communications historiques, ed. by Johnson Dana Ouellete Louise (Ottawa, 1984), 63–90.

Reid Like Thomas , Ferguson was opposed to the use of hypotheses; see Ferguson , op. cit. (ref. 42), 7–8, and op. cit. (ref. 48), i, 115, 279. William Robertson was likewise careful to observe the limits of the historical record; see Robertson , op. cit. (ref. 96), 9, 149, and 152–4, where he compares the barbarians who subverted the Roman Empire to the Indians of North America in order to confirm his reconstruction of the social structure of the barbarous nations. Millar too was conscious of the problem of finding evidence to substantiate his view of the progress of society; see Millar , op. cit. (ref. 103), 180–1. James Dunbar was also acutely aware of the limitations of the available evidence, and insisted that conjectures about the past had to be based on tradition, history, “the genius of language, or of arts”, and “the declarations of external monuments”; Dunbar , op. cit. (ref. 41), 1–2, 182. For a related critique of Stewart's historiography and its subsequent historical influence see Meek Ronald , Social science and the ignoble savage (Cambridge, 1976), 230–40.

McCosh James , The Scottish philosophy. Biographical, expository, critical, from Hutcheson to Hamilton (London, 1875), 2–4.

In the articles cited above in ref. 63, Lord Dacre asserts that what made the Scottish Enlightenment unique was the Scots' preoccupation with the study of man in society. Nicholas Phillipson similarly sees the Scottish Enlightenment primarily in terms of the science of man; see Phillipson , op. cit. (ref. 96), 20–21. Richard Sher argues that the growth in the popularity of science, and the related “Common Sense revolution” in philosophy, mark the decline of the High Enlightenment in Scotland; Sher , op. cit. (ref. 51, 1985), 308–15. I have criticized this historiographical approach in “Science and the Aberdeen Enlightenment”, in Jones, op. cit. (ref. 43), 39–66. For further criticisms see the important articles by Emerson Roger , “Natural philosophy and the problem of the Scottish Enlightenment”, Studies on Voltaire and the eighteenth century, ccxlii (1986), 243–91, and “Science and the origins and concerns of the Scottish Enlightenment”, History of science, xxvi (1988), 333–66.