Category Archives: Teachers of Natural Law in Scotland

John Pringle (1707-1782)

About Pringle

  • Professor of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh, 1734-1745
  • Advertised a private class on Pufendorf (Haakonssen, ‘Natural’ 262*)
  • Career as a military physician (ODNB*)

NPG D7822; Sir John Pringle, Bt by William Henry Mote, after Sir Joshua Reynolds

 

 

 

Sir John Pringle, Bt
by William Henry Mote, after Sir Joshua Reynolds
stipple engraving, mid 19th century
NPG D7822
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Creative Commons Licence

 

*For references, please see the Site Bibliography.

George Abercromby of Tullibody (1705-1800)

About Abercromby

  • Regius Professor of the Law of Nature and Nations  at Edinburgh, 1735-1759

Teaching

  • Lectured on Grotius, De Jure Belli et Pacis [Grant, Story 315;* Cairns, ‘First’ 19-20*]
  • Private lectures on Grotius from the late 1730s to the early 1750s [Emerson, Academic 261*]

*For references, please see the Site Bibliography.

Allan Maconochie (bap. 1748, d. 1816)

About Maconochie

  • Student at Edinburgh in the 1760s where he took classes of Adam Ferguson (ODNB*)
  • Founding member, along with John Bruce, of the Speculative Society (ODNB*)
  • Admitted advocate 1770 (ODNB*)
  • Bought the Regius Chair from James Balfour for £1522:18:2  (Grant, Story 316*)
  • Regius Professor of the Law of Nature and Nations at Edinburgh, 1779-1796; advertised classes each year (ODNB*)
  • Resigned his professorship when he was called to the Bench as Lord Meadowbank in 1796 (ODNB*)

Teaching

  • General class concluded with ‘the general principles of municipal law, political oeconomy, and the law of nations’ (Arnot quoted in Cairns, ‘First’ 32*)
  • ‘It is evident that by now the nature of what was taught from the chair had changed from the rational type of natural law associated with the Dutch author and his immediate successors. Instead, Maconochie started with examination of human nature, a natural history of man’. (Cairns, ‘First’ 33-34*)
  • For his teaching see Cairns, ‘First’ 30-38*

Publications, Manuscripts and other Resources

  • Advertisement: Mr Maconochie advocate, professor of public law, proposes to open his class next winter. The intended course will treat the history and principles of universal and political law, according to the following arrangement. (Edinburgh, 1780) ESTC N61378

NPG D31949; Allan Maconochie, Lord Meadowbank by John Kay

Allan Maconochie, Lord Meadowbank
by John Kay
etching, 1799
NPG D31949
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Creative Commons Licence

*For references, see the Site Bibliography.

Adam Smith (1723-1790)

NB: This page is under construction (Sept 2013)

About Smith

  • Taught by Francis Hutcheson
  • Used Hutchson’s Philosophiae moralis institutio compendiara, ethicis & jurisprudentiae naturalis elementa continuen as his textbook when covering for the ill Thomas Craigie in 1751 (Ross, Life of Adam Smith 112*)
  • Professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow, 1752-1764

Teaching

  • Letter from A Smith, Edinburgh, 5 Sept 1751, to Dr William Cullen: ‘You mention natural jurisprudence & politics as parts of his lecture which it would be most agreeable for me to take upon…’ University of Glagsow, Special Collections MS Cullen 1157
  • Followed Hutcheson‘s curriculum (Cairns, ‘Ethics’ 166*)
  • Ethics course published as The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) (Cairns, ‘Ethics’ 166*)
  • Course on political regulation published as The Wealth of Nations (1776) (Cairns, ‘Ethics’ 166*)

Publications, Manuscripts and other Resources

  • ‘Juris Prudence or Notes from the Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue, and Arms delivered in the University of Glasgow by Adam Smith, Professor of Moral Philosophy. MDCCLXVI [1766]'(Manuscript fair copy of notes taken by an unidentified student in 1763) University of Glasgow, Special Collections MS Gen 109
  • A Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (London and Edinburgh, 1759).
  • A Smith, Lectures On Jurisprudence, ed RL Meek, DD Raphael and PG Stein, vol. V of the Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1982). [contains two reports dated 1762-63 and 1766 of Smith’s lectures on jurisprudence at Glasgow University].

Links

Brief Adam Smith biography at Northern Lights: The Scottish Enlightenment.

NPG D16843; Adam Smith by John Kay

Adam Smith
by John Kay
etching, 1790
NPG D16843
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Creative Commons Licence

*For references, see the Site Bibliography.

Archibald Arthur (1744-1797)

About Arthur

  • Taught by Adam Smith
  • Won prize at Glasgow for essay, ‘On the importance of natural philosophy’
  • Glasgow University Librarian: A Arthur, ed., Catalogus impressorum librorum in bibliotheca Universitatis Glasguensis (1791)

Teaching

  • Successor of Thomas Reid as Professor of Moral Philosophy (taught TR’s classes from 1780)
  • ‘His public classes, which owed much to Reid and Smith, covered three main areas: natural theology, ethics, and a combination of natural jurisprudence and politics.’ (ODNB*)

Publications, Manuscripts and other Resources

  • A Arthur, Discourses on theological and literary subjects by the late Rev. Archibald Arthur … ; with an account of some particulars in his life and character, by William Richardson (Glasgow 1803)
  • A Arthur, Essays, literary and theological: in fourteen discourses by the late Archibald Arthur, … With a biographical memoir of the author, by William Richardson, new edn (Glasgow 1812; repr 1817)
  • ‘Archibald Arthur’s notes on Thomas Reid’s lectures’ (1765), Glasgow, Mitchell Library MS 891086
  • A Arthur, ‘A discourse on the evidence of wisdom in nature’ [Juvenile composition, possibly a prize essay, not in his Discourses of 1803 or Essays of 1817], University of Glasgow, Special Collections, MS Gen 742
  • W Gossip, ‘Lectures on Moral Philosophy, given in the University of Glasgow, by Archibald Arthur, and taken down by William Gossip, 1787-88’, 4 vols., University of Glasgow, Special Collections, MS Gen 284-87
  • J Wilson, ‘Lectures on Moral Philosophy delivered at the College of Glasgow by Mr Arthur: written by John Wilson, Schoolmaster in Tarbolton (1790), Glasgow, Mitchell Library MS 76281-82
  • J Neilson, ‘Notes, taken by James Neilson from Mr Arthur’s lectures on Natural Jurisprudence, given in the University of Glasgow, from 10 March 1788 to […] 1788’, University of Glasgow, Special Collections, MS Gen 832

*For references, please see the Site Bibliography.

Adam Ferguson (1723-1816)

About Ferguson

  • Chair of Pneumatics and Moral Philosophy, Edinburgh
  • Tutor to the Earl of Bute’s family

Publications, Manuscripts, and other Resources

  • A Ferguson, Analysis of pneumatics and moral philosophy For the use of students in the College of Edinburgh (Edinburgh 1766)
  • A Ferguson, Institutes of Moral Philosophy for the Use of Students in the College of Edinburgh (Edinburgh 1769)

Links

Short Adam Ferguson biography at Northern Lights: The Scottish Enlightenment.

*For references, see the Site Bibliography.

James Balfour of Pilrig (1705-1795)

About Balfour

  • Regius Professor of the Law of Nature and Nations, 1764-1779
  • Professor of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh, 1754-1764 but notably unsuccessful as a teacher (ODNB*); lectured on Pufendorf (Haakonssen, ‘Natural’ 262*)

Teaching

  • Not known if he lectured as Regius Professor (Grant*); but his class was advertised in The Edinburgh Advertiser: ‘UNIVERSITY of EDINBURGH…III. LAW. The Law Classes will be opened on Tuesday the 19th of November, as follows: [ …] The Law of Nature and Nations, Mr. Balfour.’ [Vol. XXX, no 1532 (1 Sept 1778) 151 col. 2]

Publications, Manuscripts and other Resources

  • J Balfour, A delineation of the nature and obligation of morality. With reflexions upon Mr Hume’s book, intitled, An inquiry concerning the principles of morals (Edinburgh [1753]; 2nd edn, Edinburgh, 1763)

*For references, see the Site Bibliography.

John Stevenson (1695-1775)

About Stevenson

  • Chair of logic and rhetoric at Edinburgh

Teaching

  • Used Heineccius, Elementa philosophiae rationalis et moralis as a textbook when Alexander Carlyle studied there in 1735 (Haakonnsen, Natural law 89*)
  • Innovations: first in Scotland to lecture on rhetoric in English, introduced study of belles-lettres and literary style (ODNB*)

*For references, see the Site Bibliography.

George Glennie (d. 1845)

About Glennie

  • James Beattie‘s assistant, successor, and nephew-in-law
  • Chair of moral philosophy at Aberdeen, 1795-1838

Publications, Manuscripts and other Resources

  • [W Officer], ‘Lecture notes on moral philosophy, 1804-1805’ (AUL, MS 3787)

*For references, see the Site Bibliography.

James Dunbar (d. 1798)

About Dunbar

  • At King’s College, Aberdeen 1765-1795

Teaching

  • ‘Dunbar’s lectures comprised three principal elements: the philosophy of mind, in which he was greatly influenced by Thomas Reid; ethics, which saw him draw on Francis Hutcheson‘s idea of innate human sociability and a universal moral code based on natural benevolence; and political economy, a new subject at King’s and one influenced by Adam Smith‘s Wealth of Nations (1776).’ [ODNB*]

Publications, Manuscript, and other Resources

  • J Dunbar, ‘Institutes of moral philosophy’ [1789-1794], University of Aberdeen, Special Collections MS 3107/5/2/6

*For references, see the Site Bibliography.