ABSTRACT
From Elements of Criticism (1762); this text from The Sixth Edition. With the Author’s Last Corrections and Additions. 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1785).
Henry Home, Lord Kames (1696-1782), trained as a lawyer and was a judge in Edinburgh for more than thirty years. In addition to over a dozen legal works he wrote books on natural religion, the history of man, flax-husbandry, farming, and the culture of the heart. His Elements of Criticism was one of the most popular works of criticism of its period: praised by Boswell and Dugald Stewart (but criticised by Johnson and Goldsmith), it had seven editions between 1762 and 1788, and was translated into German between 1763-6. At least twenty-five editions and abridgments appeared in England and America between 1716 and 1883, while many chapters gained enormous currency through being reprinted in theEncyclopaedia Britannica from 1771 on. Kames’s theories were influenced by the associationist principles of Locke, Hartley, and Hume.
