ABSTRACT
Among thinkers of the Scottish enlightenment, no one was more prolific, in more fields, than Henry Home, Lord Kames. His wide spheres of interest included original contributions to law, philosophy, morality, religion, pedagogy, economy, and criticism. He was a practical lawyer, an ardent reformer in Scottish economic society and a pivotal figure among thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment (Lehmann 1971: 286; Tanaka 1988), and it is his contributions to law that first command the attention (Lieberman 1983). We can recognize the characteristic features of his methodology in Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion (1751), Historical Law Tracts (1759), Principles of Equity (1760), and Elements of Criticism (1762). They all stress an historical awareness (Kames 1792: 111, 429-30), and this awareness can be seen, not only in law, but in other areas of his studies. Of course, this is not his only method, and many other thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment also applied it to their studies; the historical method was virtually ubiquitous in their attitude of learning. Sketches of the History of Man (1774) can be regarded as the best document to consider ‘the historical’ in works of Lord Kames (Ross 1992: 337); it also effectively summarized his work up to that time. It will therefore be central to the discussion that follows.
