How the Scots... continued again

Sister Cities of the Enlightenment

It was after the Jacobite Revolution (Catholic, pro-Stuart monarchy, mostly composed of Highland clans) that Scotland would see and explosion of cultural and economic activity. The epicentres for this explosion were primarily in two locations: the big cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh. Under the eye of leading economist Adam Smith, Glasgow was home to an enormous tobacco industry (trading with the colonies in America in the 1750’s and 60’s. Along side commerce, institutions of higher education were flourishing. It was this “intermingling of practical and intellectual” that was keynote to Glasgow’s enlightenment. The city nearly tripled in size between 1740 and 1780 to 42,000 people.


Meanwhile, in Edinburgh, its population would grow from 30,000 to 60,000 during the first 50 years of the 18th century. The city was poised to undergo a major facelift as it was planning a huge expansion into what is now called New Town. This massive growth would change the definition of class from being vertical (in the old buildings of old town—servants living at the top, aristocrats in the middle, and artisans on the street level) to horizontal; the commercial and intellectual class would live and prosper in this new edition.
Structural changes necessitated by the growth in both these cities allowed for influential people of the time to demonstrate their genius and innovation: architect Robert Adam designed New Town and would be the first great influence on Western Architecture and Robert Foulis would open up Britain’s first school of design.

With the fantastic structural changes came philosophical changes. The great scholars of the time were forming select societies and clubs and having intellectual dialogues and writing papers that would forever impact the political and literary world. One such society enjoyed the participation of minds belonging to: David Hume, Adam Smith, William Robertson, John Home, Adam Ferguson and Lord Kames—philosophers, historians, economists and lawyers. It was in here that these would make “complex connections of commercial societies… ...the mind acquires new vigour [and] enlarges its powers and faculties.” This “Moderate Party” made an attempt to be unique from both ends of the theological spectrum; it did not fall into the religious extremism of the kirks (hard line Calvinist thinkers) or the religious scepticism of the English deists and the likes of David Hume.