ABSTRACT
The intellectual elite, with a prominent exception in David Hume, were overwhelmingly either churchmen, lawyers or professors. The contribution of churchmen to the Scottish Enlightenment, which was so productive of works on social philosophy, was well founded and in a sound tradition. A Church career could pave the way to a university chair which, once attained, made possible an exclusive involvement in secular philosophy and affairs. Church-going played an important part in times which contained relatively few opportunities for recreational pursuits and other means of social contact. In the heyday of the Enlightenment the Church of Scotland was clearly divided into two parties, the Moderates and the Evangelicals. If the Moderates regarded the good order of society as essential, and saw for the Church a crucial part in the maintenance of that order, then they saw good order in the Church as equally fundamental.
