 Stewart was enormously highly thought of in his own day, and had a European-wide reputation. At the time of his death he was described as ‘the pride and ornament of Scotland’, and a striking monument to him was erected on Edinburgh's Calton Hill. Yet in retrospect Stewart's thought continued the framework established by the 8th century Scots, and arguably made no notably innovative contribution to the central debate in Scottish philosophy. It was Brown who took Scottish philosophy into a new phase.