By Alex Robertson After the ’45 Rising, and the ethnic cleansing
that took place in the Highlands and Islands thereafter, a
remarkable phenomenon took place in Scotland. In the aftermath
of all the strife that had marked the previous century in
religious and philosophical turmoil. For a short period of
around 30 years, the Scottish Enlightenment pulsed through
Edinburgh and the old Universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen.
Throughout Europe a similar event had started earlier and
transformed the culture and thoughts, particularly in France. In
Scotland, the Enlightenment was characterised by a thoroughgoing
practicality where the chief virtues were held to be improvement
and practical benefit for both the individual and society as a
whole. The thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment asserted the
fundamental importance of human reason combined with a rejection
of any authority which could not be justified by reason. And the
effects of the Scottish Enlightenment spread far afield and many
scholars trace its effects