ABSTRACT
Following the development of the theory that the internal senses allied with both aesthetic excellence, as demonstrated in the fine arts, and moral excellence, as apparent in life and conduct, the Scottish literati, among other enthusiasts of the arts, opened up a much broader discussion of virtue and morality. Hume, for instance, describes the social virtues in light of their agreeableness or usefulness to individuals and society. 1 The literati tell us that a person of ethical merit and the lover of the arts, if not the artist himself, to some degree are linked as conveyors of virtue. 2 Their discussions far exceed what were merely matters of polite learning and go to the core of what it meant to identify the moral well-being of the individual and of an enlightened society. My investigation of the subject has four points of exploration: first, how virtue struck the Scots as beautiful; second, how beauty figured into the goal of virtuous and responsible citizenship; third, how virtue was exhibited in artful ways; and finally, how religion entered into the matter of beauty.
