The Moral Culture of the Scottish Enlightenment: 1690–1805 PDF
Preview The Moral Culture of the Scottish Enlightenment: 1690–1805
The Moral Culture of the Scottish Enlightenment, 1690 1805 – (cid:2) the lewis walpole series in eighteenth- century culture and history The Lewis Walpole Series, published by Yale University Press with the aid of the Annie Burr Lewis Fund, is dedicated to the culture and history of the long eighteenth century (from the Glorious Revolution to the accession of Queen Victoria). It welcomes work in a variety of fields, including literature and history, the visual arts, political philosophy, music, legal history, and the history of science. In addition to original scholarly work, the series publishes new editions and translations of writing from the period, as well as reprints of major books that are currently unavailable. Though the majority of books in the series will probably concentrate on Great Britain and the Continent, the range of our geographical interests is as wide as Horace Walpole’s. (cid:2) The Moral Culture of the Scottish Enlightenment, 1690 1805 – Thomas Ahnert new haven and london Published with assistance from the Annie Burr Lewis Fund. Copyright © 2014 by Yale University. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational, business, or promotional use. For infor- mation, please e-mail [email protected] (U.S. office) or [email protected] (U.K. office). Set in Fournier type by IDS Infotech, Ltd. Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ahnert, Thomas. The moral culture of the Scottish Enlightenment, 1690–1805 / Thomas Ahnert. pages cm.— (The Lewis Walpole series in eighteenth-century culture and history) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN978-0-300-15380-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Enlightenment—Scotland. 2. Scotland—Moral conditions. I. Title. B1302.E65A362015 941.106—dc23 2014021377 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper). 10987654321 Contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction: Religion, Morality, and Enlightenment 1 1. Presbyterianism in Scotland After 1690 17 2. Conduct and Doctrine 34 3. Moderatism 66 4. Orthodoxy 94 Conclusion: Moderates in the Late Enlightenment 122 Notes 141 Bibliography 183 Index 205 v This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments This is a short book that has taken longer to write than I had hoped or expected. I am very grateful for the support I have received over the past few years. One of my greatest debts is to the late Susan Manning and to Nicholas Phillipson, who appointed me to the postdoctoral fellowship attached to a research project on the “Science of Man in the Scottish Enlightenment.” The project, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, ran from 2002 until 2006. Many of the ideas in this book have their origin in discussions that took place at the seminars and workshops related to the project. Susan also commented on early drafts of parts of the book. She is deeply missed. I should like to express my gratitude to the now dissolved Max-Planck-Institut für Geschichte in Göttingen, where I was a visiting fellow in 2005 and 2006. I should also like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council, which awarded me a grant for research leave in 2008. I am also most grateful to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where I was the Rosanna and Charles Jaffin Founders’ Circle Member in 2010–2011. At the Institute I profited from conversations with many scholars, in particular Jonathan Israel. I also learned much from discussions with Simon Grote, then at Princeton University. I should also like to thank the School of History, Classics, and Archaeology at Edinburgh for granting me research leave on two occasions. I owe a great debt to the late Istvan Hont, whose encouragement and help over many years have been extremely important. I have also benefited greatly from Knud Haakonssen’s support and advice for more than a decade. With Hans-Erich Bödeker, Alexander Broadie, James Harris, Colin Heydt, Colin Kidd, Tony LaVopa, Jim Moore, John Robertson, Silvia Sebastiani, Richard Sher, M. A. Stewart, Paul Wood, and Bill Zachs, I have had many stimulating conversa- tions on various aspects of the eighteenth century. James Harris also read and vii viii acknowledgments commented on several draft chapters. Tony LaVopa, Hannah Dawson, Brad Bow, and Bridget Ahnert read the entire typescript, which has been notice- ably improved by their suggestions. The comments by the two anonymous readers for Yale University Press were most helpful. Chris Rogers at Yale University Press has been a very patient editor. My greatest debt is to my family. The book is dedicated to my parents. Introduction: Religion, Morality, and Enlightenment In recent years there has been a growing body of secondary literature concerned with elucidating the relationship of European Enlightenment thought to religion, from the second half of the seventeenth century to the early nineteenth. There were a few well-known atheists during that period, such as the Franco-German Baron d’Holbach or the physician Julien Offray de La Mettrie, and many less famous thinkers whose writings were some- times so inflammatory that they went unpublished and circulated only as clandestine manuscripts.1 In general, however, the intellectual elites of eighteenth-century Europe were committed to religious beliefs that were at least broadly Christian. The term “religious” or “clerical Enlightenment” is now firmly established in the historiography. There is still some debate over the precise meaning of this term, but it is generally agreed that eighteenth-century Scotland, or “North Britain,” as it was often known, represents a good example of such a “religious Enlightenment.”2 There were very few Scots thinkers whose ideas could be regarded as irreligious or atheistic. The skeptical philosopher David Hume is probably the most prominent of them, but it is doubtful that he was a genuine atheist, even if some of his contemporaries accused him of being one.3 Adam Smith’s moral theory and economic thought implied no religious beliefs, but he never directly questioned the usefulness and truth of religion, either, and 1
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