ABSTRACT
The Wealth of Nations, as we have seen, served ultimately as pivot around which a whole series of idiosyncratic interpretations, fundamentally self-referential in character, were able to revolve. Similar things, however, can be said for the responses that developed when English readers came across some of those potentially troublesome ideas emanating from Scotland— especially those that appeared to place in doubt the veracity of previously unquestioned theological and ideological principles. More than sufficient evidence survives to allow us to reconstruct these reactions to some of the most characteristic intellectual achievements of the Scottish Enlightenment. Indeed, it actually makes possible a detailed analysis of how these carefully calibrated responses to different forms of scepticism emerged in practice from out of the unique personal circumstances of individual readers.
