Aug 8, 2009
The Cause of the Scottish Enlightenment
Readers, I could use some help in interpreting How the Scots Invented the Modern World by Arthur Herman. This 2001 book is a personality-filled description of Scotland, before, during, and after the Scottish Enlightenment.
Herman convincingly argues that the Scottish Enlightenment thinkers such as Adam Smith, David Hume, and Adam Ferguson discovered the principles and concepts that ushered in the Industrial Revolution, forever changing the face of the world.
But how did that happen in that tiny, chilly, and rather poor country? Herman offers some hints but doesn’t quite pull it together. At the top of his list is “the Kirk.” At the end of the 17th century, the Scottish Presbyterian Church was narrow, rigid, and cruel, and Herman begins his story with the vicious execution of Thomas Aikenhead, a boy who foolishly said something blasphemous and died as a result.
But Herman also gives the Kirk, and especially John Knox, the fiery 16th-century preacher who brought Protestantism to Scotland, priority of place. Knox and his church initiated a long process of freeing men’s minds from obeisance to authority and moving toward freedom of conscience. The Kirk didn’t carry out the ideals of freedom but it seems to have embodied some habit of mind—something—that laid a foundation. It also played a role in achieving the high level of literacy that Scotland acquired.
Another contributing factor was the 1707 treaty of union, “a merger that fully absorbed Scotland into the kingdom of England,” in Herman’s words. Scotland’s submission was “drastic,” says Herman, and was expected to lead to disaster. Oddly enough, it “launched an economic boom” (probably because it opened up Britain’s overseas markets to Scottish trade). The new wealth must have made possible the leisurely contemplation that intellectuals engaged in (in Edinburgh and Glasgow, aided by large quantities of claret).
Stern Protestantism, widespread literacy, lack of political power (and thus finagling), economic growth—could these explain the Scottish Enlightenment? Maybe, if we add (as Herman does) the fact that Glasgow and Edinburgh were just a half a day apart by post coach, so that Adam Smith and his friends could share ideas, whichever city they lived in.
Herman convincingly argues that the Scottish Enlightenment thinkers such as Adam Smith, David Hume, and Adam Ferguson discovered the principles and concepts that ushered in the Industrial Revolution, forever changing the face of the world.
But how did that happen in that tiny, chilly, and rather poor country? Herman offers some hints but doesn’t quite pull it together. At the top of his list is “the Kirk.” At the end of the 17th century, the Scottish Presbyterian Church was narrow, rigid, and cruel, and Herman begins his story with the vicious execution of Thomas Aikenhead, a boy who foolishly said something blasphemous and died as a result.
But Herman also gives the Kirk, and especially John Knox, the fiery 16th-century preacher who brought Protestantism to Scotland, priority of place. Knox and his church initiated a long process of freeing men’s minds from obeisance to authority and moving toward freedom of conscience. The Kirk didn’t carry out the ideals of freedom but it seems to have embodied some habit of mind—something—that laid a foundation. It also played a role in achieving the high level of literacy that Scotland acquired.
Another contributing factor was the 1707 treaty of union, “a merger that fully absorbed Scotland into the kingdom of England,” in Herman’s words. Scotland’s submission was “drastic,” says Herman, and was expected to lead to disaster. Oddly enough, it “launched an economic boom” (probably because it opened up Britain’s overseas markets to Scottish trade). The new wealth must have made possible the leisurely contemplation that intellectuals engaged in (in Edinburgh and Glasgow, aided by large quantities of claret).
Stern Protestantism, widespread literacy, lack of political power (and thus finagling), economic growth—could these explain the Scottish Enlightenment? Maybe, if we add (as Herman does) the fact that Glasgow and Edinburgh were just a half a day apart by post coach, so that Adam Smith and his friends could share ideas, whichever city they lived in.