 A number of eighteenth century Scots, including James Burnett (Lord Monboddo), Adam Smith, Thomas Reid, Hugh Blair and James Dunbar, made significant contributions in the field of language and rhetoric. George Campbell’s The Philosophy of Rhetoric (London 1776) is a large-scale essay in which he takes a roughly Aristotelian position on the relation between logic and rhetoric, since he holds that convincing an audience, which is the province of rhetoric or eloquence, is a particular application of the logician’s art. The central insight from which Campbell is working is that the orator seeks to persuade people, and in general the best way to persuade is to produce perspicuous arguments. Good orators have to be good logicians. Their grammar also must be sound. This double requirement of orators leads Campbell to make a sharp distinction between logic and grammar, on the grounds that though both have rules, the rules of logic are universal and those of grammar particular. Though there are many natural languages there is but one set of rules of logic, and on the other hand different languages have different rules of grammar. It is against a background of discussion by prominent writers on language such as Locke and James (‘Hermes’) Harris that Campbell takes his stand with the claim that there cannot be such a thing as a universal grammar. His argument is that there cannot be a universal grammar unless there is a universal language, and there is no such thing as a universal language, just many particular languages. There are, he grants, collections of rules that some have presented under the heading ‘universal grammar’. But, protests, Campbell, “such collections convey the knowledge of no tongue whatever”. His position stands in interesting relation to Reid’s frequent appeals to universals of language in support of the claim that given beliefs are held by all humankind.