Scottish Enlightenment - After The Act of Union 1707

After The Act of Union 1707

In the period following the Act of Union 1707, Scotland's place in the world was altered radically. Following the Reformation, many Scottish academics were teaching in great cities of mainland Europe, then with the birth and rapid expansion of the new British Empire came a revival of philosophical thought in Scotland and a prodigious diversity of thinkers.

Arguably the poorest country in Western Europe in 1707, Scotland was then able to turn its attentions to the wider world without opposition from England. Scotland's benefit from free trade within the Union is occasionally overstated, as little attention was paid to Scotland and the economic issues it had in the first several decades after union. Some reforms of agriculture even worsened the problems. There was a substantial amount of black market trade in avoidance of English trade tariffs. With the intellectual benefits of having established Europe's first public education system since classical antiquity Scottish thinkers began questioning assumptions previously taken for granted; and with Scotland's traditional connections to France, then in the throes of the Enlightenment, the Scots began developing a uniquely practical branch of humanism to the extent that Voltaire said, "We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilization."