Page "History of Scotland" Paragraph 87

Economic growth and the intellectual benefits of a highly developed university system, together with Scotland's traditional connections to France, then in the throes of the Enlightenment, led Scots intellectuals to develop a uniquely practical branch of humanism to the extent that Voltaire said " we look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilization ".

The first major philosopher of the Scottish Enlightenment was Francis Hutcheson, who held the Chair of Philosophy at the University of Glasgow from 1729 to 1746.

A moral philosopher who produced alternatives to the ideas of Thomas Hobbes, one of his major contributions to world thought was the utilitarian and consequentialist principle that virtue is that which provides, in his words, " the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers ".

Much of what is incorporated in the scientific method ( the nature of knowledge, evidence, experience, and causation ) and some modern attitudes towards the relationship between science and religion were developed by his protégés David Hume and Adam Smith.

Hume became a major figure in the skeptical philosophical and empiricist traditions of philosophy.

He and other Scottish Enlightenment thinkers developed what he called a ' science of man ', which was expressed historically in works by authors including James Burnett, Adam Ferguson, John Millar and William Robertson, all of whom merged a scientific study of how humans behave in ancient and primitive cultures with a strong awareness of the determining forces of modernity.

Modern sociology largely originated from this movement and Hume's philosophical concepts that directly influenced James Madison ( and thus the U. S. Constitution ) and when popularised by Dugald Stewart, would be the basis of classical liberalism.

Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations, often considered the first work on modern economics.

It had an immediate impact on British economic policy and in the 21st century still framed discussions on globalisation and tariffs.

The focus of the Scottish Enlightenment ranged from intellectual and economic matters to the specifically scientific as in the work of William Cullen, physician and chemist, James Anderson, an agronomist, Joseph Black, physicist and chemist, and James Hutton, the first modern geologist.