Henry Home, Lord Kames
Encyclopedia
Advocate
An advocate is a term for a professional lawyer used in several different legal systems. These include Scotland, South Africa, India, Scandinavian jurisdictions, Israel, and the British Crown dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man...
, judge, philosopher, writer and agricultural improver
Scottish Agricultural Revolution
The Agricultural Revolution in Scotland began in the mid-18th century with the improvements of Scottish Lowlands farmland and the beginning of a transformation of Scottish agriculture from one of the most backward into what was to become the most modern and productive system in Europe. The...
. A central figure of the Scottish Enlightenment
Scottish Enlightenment
The Scottish Enlightenment was the period in 18th century Scotland characterised by an outpouring of intellectual and scientific accomplishments. By 1750, Scots were among the most literate citizens of Europe, with an estimated 75% level of literacy...
, a founder member of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, and active in the Select Society, his protégés included James Boswell
James Boswell
James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck was a lawyer, diarist, and author born in Edinburgh, Scotland; he is best known for the biography he wrote of one of his contemporaries, the English literary figure Samuel Johnson....
, David Hume
David Hume
David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...
and Adam Smith
Adam Smith
Adam Smith was a Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations...
.
Biography
Born at Kames House, between Eccles and Birgham, BerwickshireBerwickshire
Berwickshire or the County of Berwick is a registration county, a committee area of the Scottish Borders Council, and a lieutenancy area of Scotland, on the border with England. The town after which it is named—Berwick-upon-Tweed—was lost by Scotland to England in 1482...
, he was educated at home by a private tutor. He studied law at Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
, was called to the bar in 1724, and became an advocate
Advocate
An advocate is a term for a professional lawyer used in several different legal systems. These include Scotland, South Africa, India, Scandinavian jurisdictions, Israel, and the British Crown dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man...
. He soon acquired reputation by a number of publications on the civil and Scottish law, and was one of the leaders of the Scottish Enlightenment
Scottish Enlightenment
The Scottish Enlightenment was the period in 18th century Scotland characterised by an outpouring of intellectual and scientific accomplishments. By 1750, Scots were among the most literate citizens of Europe, with an estimated 75% level of literacy...
. In 1752, he was "raised to the bench", thus acquiring the title of Lord Kames.
Home was on the panel of judges in the Joseph Knight case which ruled that there could be no slavery in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
.
Writings
Home wrote much about the importance of property to society. In his Essay Upon Several Subjects Concerning British Antiquities, written just after the Jacobite risingJacobite rising
The Jacobite Risings were a series of uprisings, rebellions, and wars in Great Britain and Ireland occurring between 1688 and 1746. The uprisings were aimed at returning James VII of Scotland and II of England, and later his descendants of the House of Stuart, to the throne after he was deposed by...
of 1745 he described how the politics of Scotland
Politics of Scotland
The Politics of Scotland forms a distinctive part of the wider politics of Europe.Theoretically, the United Kingdom is de jure a "unitary state" with one sovereign parliament and government...
were not based on loyalty to Kings or Queens as Jacobites had said but on royal land grants given in return for loyalty.
In Historical Law Tracts and later in Sketches on the History of Man he described human history as having four distinct stages. The first was as a hunter-gatherer
Hunter-gatherer
A hunter-gatherer or forage society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were...
where people avoided each other out of competition. The second stage he described was a herder
Herder
A herder is a worker who lives a possibly semi-nomadic life, caring for various domestic animals, in places where these animals wander pasture lands....
of domestic animals which required forming larger societies. No laws were needed at these stages except those given by the head of the family or society. Agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
was the third stage requiring greater cooperation and new relationships to allow for trade or employment (or slavery). He argued that 'the intimate union among a multitude of individuals, occasioned by agriculture' required a new set of rights and obligations in society. This requires laws and law enforcers. A fourth stage moves from villages and farms to seaports and market towns
Civilization
Civilization is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally...
requiring yet more laws and complexity but also much to benefit from. Kames could see these stages within Scotland itself, with the pastoral/agricultural highlands, the agricultural/industrial lowlands and the growing commercial ("polite") towns of Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Home was a polygenist, he believed God had created different races on earth in separate regions. In his book Sketches on the History of Man in 1734 Home claimed that the environment, climate, or state of society could not account for racial differences, so that the races must have come from distinct, separate stocks.
The above studies created the genre of the story of civilization and defined the fields of anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
and sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
and therefore the modern study of history for two hundred years.
Social milieu
He enjoyed intelligent conversation and cultivated a large number of intellectual associates, among them John HomeJohn Home
John Home was a Scottish poet and dramatist.-Biography:He was born at Leith, near Edinburgh, where his father, Alexander Home, a distant relation of the earls of Home, was town clerk. John was educated at the Leith Grammar School, and at the University of Edinburgh, where he graduated MA, in 1742...
, David Hume
David Hume
David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...
and James Boswell
James Boswell
James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck was a lawyer, diarist, and author born in Edinburgh, Scotland; he is best known for the biography he wrote of one of his contemporaries, the English literary figure Samuel Johnson....
.http://www.jamesboswell.info/People/people.php?person=57. Lord Monboddo was also a frequent debater of Kames, although these two usually had a fiercely competitive and adversarial relationship.
Major works
- Remarkable Decisions of the Court of Session (1728)
- Essays upon Several Subjects in Law (1732)
- Essay Upon Several Subjects Concerning British Antiquities (c. 1745)
- Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion (1751) He advocates the doctrine of philosophical necessity.
- Principles of Equity (1760)
- Introduction to the Art of Thinking (1761)
- Elements of Criticism (1762) Discarding all arbitrary rules of literary composition, he endeavors to establish a new theory on the principles of human nature. Called his best-known work by some.
- Sketches of the History of Man (1774)
- Gentleman Farmer (1776)
- Loose Thoughts on Education (1781)
External links
- Henry Home, Lord Kames at James Boswell - a Guide
- Henry Home (Lord Kames) at The Online Library of Liberty