Beyond the North Loch, there’d be an expanse of green and harrowed fields – haystacks and animals dotted about – known locally as Bearford’s Parks. And then, of course, you’d set eyes on the iconic Firth of Forth. The Highlands
were a place far in the distance – a dangerous, backward land with cattle thieving and self-governing clans – and the more “civilised” Lowlands continued south to the Borders. In the beginning of the 18th century, this Edinburgh – and Scotland – was on the brink of unimaginable change, both material and intellectual. A change that would form the foundations of the modern world, for better and for worse.
Designed by 21-year-old James Craig, and finessed by famed architect Robert Adam, the Edinburgh New Town is a physical monument to the practical, robust and original character that so identified the unstoppable Scottish Enlightenment. Once it had begun to take shape, if you’d leave the smog of the Old Town for the open-aired streets of the New, you’d find yourself wandering in a hub of artists, writers, explorers, philosophers, inventors and scientists; individuals that came to shape their time: Adam Smith, Mary Somerville, David Hume, Thomas Reid, Sir Walter Scott and increasing droves of Europeans too.
To many, if you mention “the Enlightenment”, a blurred image of a candle-lit room comes to mind, perhaps in a city that resembles Paris; aristocratic chatter and bottles of wine. Voltaire is slumped in the corner, his wig still intact. But this is far from the truth. It is the Scottish Enlightenment that has had the most profound impact on the world we recognise today. Before the 18th century was over, Scotland would generate the basic institutions, ideas, attitudes and habits of mind that characterise the modern age, paving the way for a new era in human history.
What marks the Scottish Enlightenment as different to any other is a desire for the advancement of human understanding, coupled with a revolutionary belief that education is for all and that progress is practical – “don’t think, try”.
Ironically, the roots of this liberal, innovative approach can be traced back to the religious fundamentalist John Knox (1514-1572). Ridding Scotland of the elitist Catholic Church of the time, Knox rallied his nation into adopting an austere Calvinism.
From the 1560s, there was to be no gambling or festivals, no dancing or bagpipe playing on Sundays, and all witches and adulterers faced being punished by death. Blasphemy alone could lead you to the gallows. Knox despised political and monarchical
authority – believing solely in the “worldlie strength” of the people. This reformed, self-governing Kirk was naturally at odds with an English monarch – let alone one that claimed to rule by Divine Right (the Stuarts). James VI wisely decided not to force the issue, but his son, Charles I, did. As history reports, Scots rebelled through the drawing up of the 1638 National Covenant,
In 1638, Scottish nobles gathered to sign the second national covenant
Charles I pandered to the “Covenanters”, the English Civil War ensued, and Charles I was executed under Cromwell. But while Knox’s fanaticism was the enemy of individual liberty and thought, it was also the enemy of public tyranny.
The Kirk had triggered the beginning of the end for absolute monarchy, and the Covenanters had put forward a historic testament to democracy like never before.
As Robert Burns would later write in 1795, it was now the rights of the everyman that mattered, “a man’s a man for a’ that”. A significant extension of this democratising of society was the 1616 Act for Setting Schools. This meant that every parish – Highlands and Lowlands alike – would be required to formally educate the youth.
The transformative legislation led to innovative thinkers (men and women), renowned professors, free libraries, publishing houses and a cultivation of excellence that was to later characterise the Scottish intellectual elite. By the end of the 18th century, Scotland became Europe’s first literate society.
Despite a growing education, in 1704, Scotland was an impoverished state. Riddled with debt from a failed colonising project (the Darien Scheme), consistently blocked from international trade by the English and with crop failures and widespread famine becoming a perennial theme (the 1690s was the coldest decade in 750 years), the Scots had little choice but to concede to the Act of Union in 1707.
Scotland needed access to the trading economy and needed it fast – the British Empire was to be its ticket. Despite Jacobite resistance, it was this commercial-minded, common-sense mentality that allowed Scotland to flourish in the years to come, and there is no doubt that Scotland made the British Empire work to its own advantage. In the span of a single generation, it would transform itself from a destitute nation into a modern society, igniting a cultural and social revolution along the way.
But while the Union gave Scotland access to international opportunities otherwise inaccessible, it was the Scots themselves that facilitated their country’s emergence into the modern world.
This was helped by the refiguring of its autonomy. Keeping a separate legal system, along with sole authority over its banks, schools, universities, Kirk, Faculty of Advocates and College of Justice ensured that Scotland remained a distinct society from England throughout the 18th century. It was free to move and think like never before.
Two individuals ought to be cited here: Lord Kames (Henry Home, 1696-1782) and Francis Hutcheson (1694-1746). Widely regarded as the fathers of the Enlightenment, their philosophies replaced a harsh Presbyterian state, and a damning God at the centre of society, with the concept of the empowered, free individual.
An Ulster-Irish Scot, Hutcheson taught (in English, not Latin) that societal progress is derived from making others happy, thus fusing the gap between altruism and self-interest. And unlike their French counterparts, Hutcheson and his disciples did not see a discrepancy between Christianity and Enlightenment, in the same way as they did not regard the sciences and the humanities subjects to be pitted against each other either, but rather two halves of the same intellectual enterprise. Lord Kames differed. Instead of an innate want to be treated as you treat others, Kames argued that it was the pursuit and protection of one’s own property that encourages us to do good.
A disciple of Hutcheson and Kames, David Hume (1711-1776) developed these philosophies in A Treatise Of Human Nature, stating that it is desire alone that dictates our morality, and that all knowledge originates from experience.
Aberdonian Thomas Reid (1710-1796) rejected Hume’s scepticism and proposed that we all have an innate sense of “self-evident truths”. Reid’s work on common sense and moral reasoning went on to have a significant impact in the forming of modern America.
A major step in this evolution of thought, and the idea that all communities (and peoples) are on a journey of improvement, was put forward by Kames in his four-stage theory. Set out in Sketches On The History Of Man, the theory states that the way in which we treat each other depends on if we are hunters and gatherers (1), shepherds and nomads (2), farmers and peasants (3) or merchants and manufacturers (the fourth stage being the makers of capitalism).
At the time of his writing, England and France fitted into the final stage, and Lowland Scotland was fast on the rise. The Highland clans, however, were still in the pastoral nomadic. By their deaths, Hutcheson and Kames had created a new political and social vision that went beyond any other philosopher of its day: the vision of a “free society”. And so much that we take for granted today can be traced back to these revolutionary thinkers: Socialism; the abolishment of slavery and the death penalty; female emancipation; the NHS, and much more.
The bottom line was liberty – human beings are born free and equal. Adam Smith (1723-1790) fused this philosophy of thought into economic life, writing the founding text of modern economics, Inquiry Concerning The Wealth Of Nations. This was further echoed in practical terms with Scotland’s physicians redrawing the outdated map of medicine and the natural sciences.
Trail-blazer Mary Somerville brought maths, astronomy and the sciences together in her Mechanisms Of The Heavens (1831), giving her the title “Queen of Science”.
Three individuals will never be forgotten for their discovery of diseases – Richard Bright, Thomas Addison and Thomas Hodgkin, while geologist James Hutton wrote Theory Of The Earth (1795), a major inspiration for Darwin’s Theory Of Evolution (1859).
From the Act of Union, even in the space of just 40 years, Scotland’s prospects had completely transformed. In 1758, Horace Walpole (son of the former British prime minister) stated: “Scotland is the most accomplished nation in Europe.” And Voltaire agreed (still in his wig?): “It is to Scotland that we look for our idea of civilisation.”
As Kames theorised, the natural by-product of Scotland’s betterment was commercial opportunity. With the help of the steamship, the Scots’ profitable ventures during the Enlightenment reached every corner of the globe.
After the Jacobites’ colossal defeat at the Battle of Culloden in 1746, Scotland’s energy was channelled into rebuilding a nation. Pig-iron, linen, wool, paper, whisky, steamships – all were being exported like never before, and by the 1780s, Glasgow was a major player on the world stage.
Populations boomed – in 1740, 17,000 people lived in Glasgow and by 1780 it had risen to more than 42,000. In 1760, Edinburgh’s population stood at 50,000 and by the turn of the century it had doubled.
There were new houses and new jobs – Smith’s Wealth of Nations was being realised. From the Highlands to the streets: son of a shepherd, Thomas Telford reimagined Scotland’s road network, built the tallest bridge in the world and constructed the 60-mile Caledonian Canal (with a length larger than the Panama Canal and the model for the Suez).
George Stephenson built the railways, and James Watt’s enhanced steam engine followed (putting in place the necessities for a surging industrial revolution).
And this progressive, practical world was balanced by theatres, bookshops, music colleges, art schools, clubs, societies and vast projects for Robert Adam and his brother, James, to create.
Disciples of the Adam brothers went on to build Catherine the Great’s private palaces (Charles Cameron) and the United States Capitol (Charles Bulfinch). Everywhere you looked, the confident touch of the Scottish Enlightenment could be found.
The Capitol Building in Washington DC
From the mid-18th century onwards, Scots successfully found new opportunities across the British dominions, so much so that some historians call the Scottish diaspora the makings of the “second” Empire – the “first” lost after the American Revolution from 1765. India, Australia, Latin America, New Zealand, Canada, the far east; Scots had always been travellers, but this time it was different. Even the poorest had more skills and education than their other European counterparts.
It should not be forgotten, too, that many Scots ventured south into Westminster, changing the political landscape for good. Henry Brougham and Zachary Macaulay pushed forward the historic 1832 Great Reform Act, a piece of legislation that balanced the power from the social elite, increased the electorate, led to the Second Reform Act in 1867 and paved the way for the Liberal, Labour and Scottish National parties.
For nearly 100 years, the main cultural, social, intellectual and political current in Britain had flowed from south to north. By the 19th century, the current was in reverse.
If you find yourself standing on Arthur’s Seat today, you’ll be able to look down at the New Town and spot the 61-metre-high Scott Monument.
In many ways, Sir Walter Scott epitomised Scotland’s conflicted position from 1707 onwards. Scott’s work focused on inner cultural conflict, an underlying theme that came to haunt Scotland’s success during the Enlightenment.
The cost to this era of progress is incommensurable. Up until its complete abolition in 1833, the use of chattel slavery to provide Scotland with its immense profits can never be forgotten.
By 1771, Scottish tobacco imports from the West Indies had risen to £41 million. This wealth was developed solely through slavery.
And then there were the millions of lives ruined by the Scottish-driven opium trade. And closer to home: working-class poverty, child labour, mass emigration, the Highland Clearances and the depletion of the Scots language.
In Waverley, Ivanhoe and Redgauntlet, three of Scott’s internationally famed books, his heroes find themselves at odds with their world and the speed of change, trying to understand where they had come from and why they had got there.
What is the reason for change if the purpose has gone? As an “enlightened” society that turned its philosophy of freedom into a ruthless commercialism with slavery its engine, this question will forever shadow Scottish modern history.
And, acknowledging this, what Scott (and Burns) did so powerfully was to ignite an old flame that seemed all but lost. A flame that captured the spirit of the nation before the Union, and before it lost its way.
Amid blinding smog and the terrifying combustions of capitalist progress, this flame burns steadily, silently. Inventor of the historical novel, within his lifetime Scott became one of the most well-paid authors in the world, creating works that went on to define the romanticised version of Scotland we know today: clan honour, Jacobean courage, symbolic tartans, Highlands of heather and mist.
Along with Burns, he brought to life a living Scotland of the mind and heart, where integrity and honour still thrive within the individual. While time marched, a purity of being did not have to die nor vanish in its wake.
As it is today, the spirit of a nation – of the people that made and fell for Scotland – can live on, learn and grow, enlightening what comes next.