Why Scotland? The Roots of the Scottish Enlightenment

In the mid-1700s, a small, relatively poor nation produced an astonishing cluster of thinkers, including David Hume, Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson, James Hutton and Joseph Black. Historians point to several causes; the 1707 Union with England ended Scotland's separate parliament but opened access to English and colonial markets, prompting debate about how a poorer society could 'improve'. Scotland had four long-established universities, in St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh, which reformed their teaching and were relatively cheap and open.

The Church of Scotland's moderate wing, led by figures such as William Robertson, accepted much new learning. Clubs such as the Select Society, founded in Edinburgh in 1754, brought lawyers, clergy, professors and landowners together. Scottish thinkers focused less on attacking the church than on studying human nature, society and economic progress. The result was a practical, empirical Enlightenment that shaped modern economics, sociology, history and geology.