Tag Archives: Grotius

Francis Hutcheson (1694-1746)

About Hutcheson

  • Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow, 1729-1746
  • Educated in Ireland and at Glasgow where he was a student of John Loudoun (ODNB*)

Teaching

  • Recommended reading, ‘To the Students in Universities’ in A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy includes Grotius, Cumberland, Pufendorf, Harrington, Carmichael’s commentary on de officio hominis et civis, Shaftesbury, Locke, Barbeyrac, and Bynkershoek, pp. i-iv Available from Online Library of Liberty
  • ‘renowned as a moral preacher who taught in an animated and extemporaneous fashion’ (ODNB* at entry for Thomas Reid whose ‘dry manner’ is contrasted)

Publications

  • F Hutcheson, Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections, with Illustrations on the Moral Sense (Dublin and Glasgow, 1728) Available from the Internet Archive
  • F Hutcheson, Philosophiae moralis institutio compendiaria, ethices & jurisprudentiae naturalis elementa continens (Glasgow, 1742) Available from the Internet Archive
  • F Hutcheson, A short introduction to moral philosophy, in three books; containing the elements of ethicks and the law of nature. By Francis Hutcheson, Lld. Late Professor of Philosophy in the University of Glasgow. Translated from the Latin (Glasgow: Robert Foulis, 1747) (Book II: ‘Elements of the Law of Nature’) Available from Online Library of Liberty and Google Books

NPG D4399; Francis Hutcheson by Francesco Bartolozzi, after A. Selvi

Francis Hutcheson
by Francesco Bartolozzi, after A. Selvi
stipple engraving, circa 1750-1800
NPG D4399
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Creative Commons Licence

*For references, see the Site Bibliography.

David Verner (d. 1752)

About Verner

  • Regent at Aberdeen

Teaching

  • ‘Natural jurisprudence figured in his 1731 thesis…since he there alluded to Grotius and Puffendorf, and touched on the origins of private property rights.’ (Wood, Aberdeen Enlightenment 39*)

Publications, Manuscripts and other Resources

  • Dissertatio philosophica, de passionibus sive affectibus, quam … in auditorio publico Academiae Novae Abredonensis, ad diem [ ] Aprilis, propugnabunt, David Verner praeses, et hi candidati laurea magisteriali condonandi (Abredeis : Nicol, 1721) [University of Aberdeen, Special Collections: SBL 1721 N 1 (Xerox copy)]
  • Dissertatio … philosophica … de finibus bonorum et benevolentia (Aberdeen, 1730) [University of Glasgow, Special Collections: Sp Coll BG57-k.34]

*For references, see the Site Bibliography.

 

Charles Areskine of Alva (1680-1763)

About Areskine

  • Regius Professor of the Law of Nature and Nations (Edinburgh, 1707-1734)
  • Studied in the Netherlands and Italy (1707-11)
  • Admitted advocate 1711, Solicitor General (1725-37), Lord Advocate (1737-42), Lord of Session from 1744, Lord Justice Clerk (1748-63)
  • Private library contained key natural law texts [see Baston, ‘Library’*]

Teaching

  • Natural law included in teaching he did as a regent (tutor) at Edinburgh in the early eighteenth century [see his Theses philosophicae of 1704]
  • Inaugural lecture on ‘God as the Fountain of Law’
  • Advertised class ‘on the Laws of Nature and Nations’ starting 16 Nov 1711 in the Scots Courant [Cairns, ‘First’ 12*]
  • Probably used Grotius De jure belli ac pacis as his textbook [Cairns, ‘First’ 12*]

Publications, Manuscripts and other Resources

  • Lectures on philosophy and physics delivered at Edinburgh [probably by Charles Areskine] (1703) taken by Patrick Wilkie, later minister of Haddington (Advocates Library Adv. MS 20.7.1)
  • Theses philosophicæ, quas, auspice summo numine, generosi aliquot & ingenui juvenes Universitatis Jacobi Regis Edinburgenæ alumni, hac vice cum laurea emittendi, eruditorum examini subjicient, ad 12. diem Maii, H. Lq. S. Præside Carolo Areskine (Edinburgh 1704)

*For references, please see the Site Bibliography.

George Turnbull (1698-1748)

About Turnbull

  • Regent at Aberdeen, 1721-1727
  • Tutor to Andrew Wauchope of Niddry and Thomas Watson

Teaching

  • ‘In his elaborate manual for the education of the virtuous republican citizen and dutiful office-holder in the divine corporation [Observations upon Liberal Education (London, 1742)], Turnbull includes the study of Roman law, followed by natural law, as essential. More particularly, he recommends Grotius, Pufendorf, and his own Heineccius….’ (Haakonssen, Natural law 98*)

Publications, Manuscripts, and other Resources

  • Johann Gottlieb Heineccius, A Methodical System of Universal Law: Or, the Laws of Nature and Nations, with Supplements and a Discourse by George Turnbull. Translated from the Latin by George Turnbull, edited with an Introduction by Thomas Ahnert and Peter Schröder (London 1741; repr Indianapolis: Liberty Fund 2008). Available from Online Library of Liberty.
  • G Turnbull, The Principles of Moral Philosophy (London, 1740) Available from Google Books and the Internet Archive

*For references, 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.

Francis Horner (1778-1817)

About Horner

  • Educated at Edinburgh High School (For Horner and his legal contemporaries there see Old and New Edinburgh)
  • Matriculated University of Edinburgh, 1792
  • Studied law in England but corresponded with friends in Scotland about intellectual interests including natural law (Horner, Memoirs 16-18*)
  • Advocate, 1800
  • One of the founders of the Edinburgh Review
  • MP

Natural Law in Horner’s Memoirs

  • ‘Next to law, political philosophy, history and natural jurisprudence are to be my principal objects of pursuit. To these I shall give most of my evenings for six months to come….[T]he last branch is that of natural jurisprudence, where I shall have rather to think for myself than derive much light from books. I understand from Reddie that the best he has met with is a treatise by Cocceius, published in his edition of Grotius. This I shall read, and just as I have time, the work of Grotius himself…’ (Horner, Memoirs 53*)
  • ‘When Grotius, and of course his followers, talk of the law of nature, it is evident that they stagger beween the Roman law, which they knew too familiarly, and the institutions of savage life, which they had not philosophy enough to understand. Who had that was born before Montesquieu?’ (Horner, Memoirs 65*)

NPG 485; Francis Horner by Sir Henry Raeburn

Francis Horner
by Sir Henry Raeburn
oil on canvas, 1812
NPG 485
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Creative Commons Licence

*For references, please see the Site Bibliography.

William Scott

About Scott

  • Professor of moral philosophy at Edinburgh, 1729-1734

Publications, Manuscripts, and other Resources

  • H Grotius, Hugonis Grotii De jure belli ac pacis librorum III. Compendium, annotationibus & commentariis selectis illustratum. In usum studiosae juventutis academiae Edinensis [ed William Scott] (Edinburgi: excudebant haeredes & successores Andreae Anderson, anno Dom., 1707)

*For references, see the Site Bibliography.