Adam Smith

The Scottish Enlightenment was a period of intellectual ferment in Scotland, running from approximately 1740 to 1800. In the period following the Act of Union 1707 Scotland's place in the world altered radically. Following the Reformation, many Scottish academics were teaching in great cities of mainland Europe but 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, it was now able to turn its attentions to the wider world without the opposition of England. Scotland reaped the economic benefits of free trade within the British Empire together with the intellectual benefits of having established Europe's first public education system since classical times. Under these twin stimuli, 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 civilisation."
David Hume himself is arguably the most important thinker in the Scottish Enlightenment. Hume was largely responsible for giving the Scottish Enlightenment its practical hue, for he was concerned with the nature of knowledge, and developed ideas related to evidence, experience, and causation. Much of that is incorporated in the scientific method, and many modern attitudes towards the relationship between science and religion, were developed by him. If Hume was primarily concerned with philosophy and worked less in economics, his ideas nevertheless led to important work in the latter field. Following Hume's impassioned defense of free trade, Adam Smith developed the concept and in 1776 published what is arguably the first work of modern economics - The Wealth of Nations. This famous study had an immediate impact on British economic policy, and it still informs 21st century discussions on globalization and tariffs.
 

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