The Home-Drummond grave, Kincardine-in-Menteith

Henry Home, Lord Kames (169627 December 1782) was a Scottish writer, philosopher,

advocate An advocate is a professional in the field of law. Different countries' legal systems use the term with somewhat differing meanings. The broad equivalent in many English law–based jurisdictions could be a barrister or a solicitor. However ...

, judge, and

agricultural improver Agronomy is the science and technology of producing and using plants by agriculture for food, fuel, fiber, chemicals, recreation, or land conservation. Agronomy has come to include research of plant genetics, plant physiology, meteorology, a ...

. A central figure of the

Scottish Enlightenment The Scottish Enlightenment ( sco, Scots Enlichtenment, gd, Soillseachadh na h-Alba) was the period in 18th- and early-19th-century Scotland characterised by an outpouring of intellectual and scientific accomplishments. By the eighteenth century ...

, a founding member of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, and active in the Select Society, he acted as patron to some of the most influential thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment, including the philosopher

David Hume David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" '' Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment ph ...

, the economist

Adam Smith Adam Smith (baptized 1723 – 17 July 1790) was a Scottish economist and philosopher who was a pioneer in the thinking of political economy and key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment. Seen by some as "The Father of Economics"——� ...

, the writer

James Boswell James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck (; 29 October 1740 ( N.S.) – 19 May 1795), was a Scottish biographer, diarist, and lawyer, born in Edinburgh. He is best known for his biography of his friend and older contemporary the English writer ...

, the chemical philosopher

William Cullen William Cullen FRS FRSE FRCPE FPSG (; 15 April 17105 February 1790) was a Scottish physician, chemist and agriculturalist, and professor at the Edinburgh Medical School. Cullen was a central figure in the Scottish Enlightenment: He was ...

, and the naturalist John Walker.

Biography

He was born at Kames House, between Eccles and Birgham,

Berwickshire Berwickshire ( gd, Siorrachd Bhearaig) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area in south-eastern Scotland, on the English border. Berwickshire County Council existed from 1890 until 1975, when the area became part of th ...

, son of George

Home A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or many humans, and sometimes various companion animals. It is a fully or semi sheltered space and can have both interior and exterior aspects to it. ...

of Kames House. He was educated at home by a private tutor until the age of 16. In 1712 he was apprenticed as a lawyer under a Writer to the Signet in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

, was called to the

Scottish bar The Faculty of Advocates is an independent body of lawyers who have been admitted to practise as advocates before the courts of Scotland, especially the Court of Session and the High Court of Justiciary. The Faculty of Advocates is a constitu ...

as an

advocate bar An advocate is a professional in the field of law. Different countries' legal systems use the term with somewhat differing meanings. The broad equivalent in many English law–based jurisdictions could be a barrister or a solicitor. However, ...

in 1724. He soon acquired reputation by a number of publications on the civil and Scottish law, and was one of the leaders of the

. In 1752, he was "raised to the bench", thus acquiring the title of Lord Kames. Kames held a primary interest in the production of

linen Linen () is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant. Linen is very strong, absorbent, and dries faster than cotton. Because of these properties, linen is comfortable to wear in hot weather and is valued for use in garments. It also ...

in Scotland and encouraged the development of linen manufacture. Kames was one of the original proprietors of the British Linen Company, and a director between 1754–1756. Kames was on the panel of judges in the Joseph Knight case which ruled that there could be no slavery in

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

. His address in 1775 is shown as New Street on the

Canongate The Canongate is a street and associated district in central Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland. The street forms the main eastern length of the Royal Mile while the district is the main eastern section of Old Town, Edinburgh, Edinburgh's ...

. Cassell's clarifies that this was a very fine mansion at the head of the street, on its east side, facing onto the

. He is buried in the Home-Drummond plot at Kincardine-in-Menteith just west of

Blair Drummond Blair Drummond is a small rural community northwest of Stirling in the Stirling district of Scotland, predominantly located along the A84 road. Lying to the north of the River Forth, the community is within the registration county of Perthshire ...

Writings

Home wrote much about the importance of property to society. In his ''Essay Upon Several Subjects Concerning British Antiquities'', written just after the

Jacobite rising of 1745 The Jacobite rising of 1745, also known as the Forty-five Rebellion or simply the '45 ( gd, Bliadhna Theàrlaich, , ), was an attempt by Charles Edward Stuart to regain the British throne for his father, James Francis Edward Stuart. It took ...

, he showed that the

politics of Scotland The politics of Scotland operate within the constitution of the United Kingdom, of which Scotland is a home nation. Scotland is a democracy, being represented in both the Scottish Parliament and the Parliament of the United Kingdom since the Sco ...

were based not on loyalty to Kings, as the Jacobites had said, but on the royal land grants that lay at the base of feudalism, the system whereby the sovereign maintained "an immediate hold of the persons and property of his subjects". In ''Historical Law Tracts'' Home described a four-stage model of social evolution that became "a way of organizing the history of Western civilization". The first stage was that of the

hunter-gatherer A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fung ...

, wherein families avoided each other as competitors for the same food. The second was that of the

herder A herder is a pastoral worker responsible for the care and management of a herd or flock of domestic animals, usually on open pasture. It is particularly associated with nomadic or transhumant management of stock, or with common land grazi ...

of domestic animals, which encouraged the formation of larger groups but did not result in what Home considered a true society. No laws were needed at these early stages except those given by the head of the family, clan, or tribe.

Agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people ...

was the third stage, wherein new occupations such as "plowman, carpenter, blacksmith, stonemason" made "the industry of individuals profitable to others as well as to themselves", and a new complexity of relationships, rights, and obligations required laws and law enforcers. A fourth stage evolved with the development of market towns and seaports, "commercial society", bringing yet more laws and complexity but also providing more benefit. Lord Kames could see these stages within Scotland itself, with the pastoral Highlands, the agricultural Lowlands, the "polite" commercial towns of Glasgow and Edinburgh, and in the Western Isles a remaining culture of rude huts where fishermen and gatherers of seaweed eked out their subsistence living. Home was a

polygenist Polygenism is a theory of human origins which posits the view that the human races are of different origins (''polygenesis''). This view is opposite to the idea of monogenism, which posits a single origin of humanity. Modern scientific views no ...

, he believed God had created different races on earth in separate regions. In his book ''Sketches of the History of Man'', in 1774, Home claimed that the environment, climate, or state of society could not account for racial differences, so that the races must have come from distinct, separate stocks. The above studies created the genre of the story of civilization and defined the fields of

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...

and

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...

and therefore the modern study of history for two hundred years. In the popular book ''Elements of Criticism'' (1762) Home interrogated the notion of fixed or arbitrary rules of literary composition, and endeavoured to establish a new theory based on the principles of human nature. The late eighteenth-century tradition of sentimental writing was associated with his notion that 'the genuine rules of criticism are all of them derived from the human heart. Prof Neil Rhodes has argued that Lord Kames played a significant role in the development of English as an academic discipline in the Scottish Universities.

Social milieu

He enjoyed intelligent conversation and cultivated a large number of intellectual associates, among them

John Home Rev John Home FRSE (13 September 1722 – 4 September 1808) was a Scottish minister, soldier and author. His play ''Douglas'' was a standard Scottish school text until the Second World War, but his work is now largely neglected. In 1783 he w ...

and

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Lord Monboddo was also a frequent debater of Kames, although these two usually had a fiercely competitive and adversarial relationship.

Family

He was married to Agatha Drummond of

. Their children included George Drummond-Home.

Major works

*''Remarkable Decisions of the Court of Session'' (1728) *''Essays upon Several Subjects in Law'' (1732) *''Essay Upon Several Subjects Concerning British Antiquities'' (c. 1745) *''Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion'' (1751) He advocates the doctrine of philosophical necessity. *''Historical Law-Tracts'' (1758) *''Principles of Equity'' (1760) *''Introduction to the Art of Thinking'' (1761) *''Elements of Criticism'' (1762) Published by two Scottish booksellers,

Andrew Millar Andrew Millar (17058 June 1768) was a British publisher in the eighteenth century. Biography In 1725, as a twenty-year-old bookseller apprentice, he evaded Edinburgh city printing restrictions by going to Leith to print, which was considered b ...

and Alexander Kincaid. *''Elucidations Respecting the Common and Statute Law of Scotland'' (1777) *''Sketches of the History of Man'' (1774) *''Gentleman Farmer'' (1776) *''Loose Thoughts on Education'' (1781)

Literature

* * * * * * * * * * *

References

External links

*
Henry Home, Lord Kames
at James Boswell – a Guide {{DEFAULTSORT:Home, Henry, Lord Kames 1696 births 1782 deaths 18th-century philosophers 18th-century Scottish historians People from Berwickshire Members of the Faculty of Advocates Enlightenment philosophers Members of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh Scottish rhetoricians People of the Scottish Enlightenment Scottish philosophers

Kames Kames may refer to: ;People * Henry Home, Lord Kames, Scottish philosopher * Abdesalam Kames, Libyan footballer * Bob Kames, American organist * Kambūjia, otherwise Cambyses of Persia * Kamose, last Egyptian pharaoh of the Seventeenth dynasty ...

Scottish legal writers Scottish agronomists Scottish literary critics Scottish anthropologists Scottish sociologists Moral philosophers Alumni of the University of Edinburgh