Religion and Precursors to the Scottish ‘Science of Man’
2. Religion and the Start of the Science of Human Nature: Campbell, Turnbull and Hume.
George Turnbull on Religion and the ‘Moral Anatomy’ of the Mind
Archibald Campbell on Mythography and the Science of Man
David Hume’s Treatise and the ‘Science of Man’.
3. David Hume and the Emptiness of Natural Religion
Religion, Imagination and the Passions
The Psychology of Miracles
Religion’s Relationship with Philosophy: Past and Future
The Practical Consequences of Hume’s Study of Religion
4. Adam Smith on Religious Psychology in Society
The Histories of Philosophy and of Physics
The Psychology of Religion in the Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)
Religious Sects and Social Stability in the Wealth of Nations
The Decline and Fall of Medieval Catholicism
5. Henry Home, Lord Kames on Mechanistic Human Nature
Kames’s Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion (1751)
The Sketches of the History of Man (1774) and the ‘Sense of Deity’
Kames on the Improvement of Theology
On the Character of Religious Worship
Religion and Morality
Allegory and Myth as Childish Fictions
6. David Hume’s ‘Natural History of Religion’ (1757)
Human Nature and the Lack of Universality
The ‘Natural Progress’ of Religion?
7. William Robertson on Revelation and the Limits of Progress
Robertson’s Necessity of Revelation at the Time of Christ’s Mission
True Religion and the Necessity of Social Progress
Superstition’s Role in Limiting of Progress: The History of America (1777)
The Natural Progress of Religion and the Necessity of Revelation
8. Adam Ferguson, Stoicism and the Individual Alone
Ferguson and the Naturalness of Religion
Ferguson on the Link between Religion, Happiness and Society
The Primacy of Polytheism and the Power of Superstition
9. George Campbell on Miracles and the Weakness of Hume’s ‘Science of Man’
Speculative Theology and Effective Affective Preaching
Anti-Scepticism
10. John Gregory on Human Nature, Happiness and Religious Devotion
11. James Dunbar on Climate and Civil Religion.
12. James Burnett, Lord Monboddo on Egyptian Daemons
Monboddo’s Curious ‘History of Man’.
Monboddo’s Two Accounts of Religion
13. The Radicalism of James Hutton
Philosophers and the Science of Religion
Hutton on the Natural Progress of Religion
14. Dugald Stewart, Religion and the End of the ‘Science of Human Nature’
15 Conclusion.
16 Appendix 1: Two and a Half ‘Four Stage’ Theories of Religion
Appendix 2: Alexander Gerard and the Inadequacies of Progressive Histories of Religion
Index.
R. J. W. Mills is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Institute of Intellectual History, University of St Andrews, UK.
R. J. W. Mills is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Institute of Intellectual History, University of St Andrews, UK.
This book examines how enlightened Scottish social theorists c.1740 to c.1800 understood the origin and development of religion. Challenging scholarly disregard for the topic, it shows how most prominent thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment thought deeply about the relationship between religion, human nature and historical change. The Scots viewed this relationship as an important strand within the study of the 'science of human nature' and the 'history of man.' The fruits of this investigation were a sophisticated and innovative account of religious change that is characterized by a striking modernity and naturalism, even by the more devout theorists. The views of the literati surveyed here need to be incorporated into our larger histories of the 'science of religion' as much as they do into our understanding of the social theory of the Scottish Enlightenment.
There has been a lot of scholarly interest in the Scottish Enlightenment’s thinking on religion, but surprisingly little has been written on the links between this writing and the Scots’ famous ‘Science of Man’. In this excellent volume Robin Mills sets out to remedy this by offering a survey of the social scientific examination of religion by a range of key Scottish thinkers of the time. Clear, concise, and elegantly written, it is a welcome addition to the literature.
Craig Smith, Professor of the History of Political Thought, The University of Glasgow, UK