HOW THE SCOTS
INVENTED THE MODERN WORLD:
The True Story of How Western Europe’s Poorest Nation Created
Our World & Everything in It.
Arthur Herman, Broadway Books, New York, 2001, paperback
472 pages.
(Also known as The Scottish Enlightenment: The Scots’
Invention of the Modern World.)
Introduction
This book is a must-read for all Scots,
nay, it's a must-read for all Scots wannabes and whoever is left!
The title may suggest satire, but it is a
serious and very educational book. It covers the years of the Scottish
Enlightenment so-called. Indeed, it is also sold under the more descriptive title
of The Scottish Enlightenment, which runs through and takes place during the 18th
and 19th centuries.
Having lived in Scotland, Canada and
Australia I was interested in the sections that dealt with the Scots and their
influence in these countries. However, I was most intrigued by the Scottish
influence on founding and success of America. The Scots during the Enlightenment
years were able to take an idea, whether theoretical or practical and develop
it to the nth degree. From medicine to economics, from treatises to novels,
from industry to politics the Scots were innovators and inventors.
The following is somewhat of a summary
of the book’s contents:
The Scots did not
invent technology, any more than they invented science – or capitalism or the
ideas of progress and liberty. But just as in these other cases, the version of
technology we live with most closely resembles the one that Scots such as James
Watt organized and perfected. It rests on certain basic principles that the
Scottish Enlightenment enshrined: common sense, experience as our best source
of knowledge, and arriving at scientific laws by testing general hypotheses
through individual experiment and trial and error. Science and technology give
civilization its dynamic movement, like the ceaselessly moving pistons of
Watt’s steam engine. To the Scots, they were the key to modern life, just as
they are for us. A rapid succession of Scottish inventors, engineers, doctors,
and scientists proved their point to the rest of the world.” P. 321-22.
General Comments
I am quite confident that most of the book’s
readers will find some things to disagree with, whether about the Highland
Clearances, the Gaelic and/or Scots languages, Whigs and Tories or whatever. However,
don’t let that put you off purchasing this excellent book!
The following is this
Calvinist/Presbyterian minister’s own mildly satirical take on the book.
It was only after purchasing this book
that I learned that it is also sold under another title: The Scottish Enlightenment. That would help explain some of the
author’s biases (as I perceived them to be) that immediately become apparent.
He seems to caricature the Scottish Church at the time of John Knox, and far beyond,
as if it, and not the Civil Magistrates, ran the justice system in Scotland, running
around hanging folk and burning others at the stake. To be sure, certain persons
or bodies may hold a corrupting influence on matters of justice, but even back
then the Church held the Keys of the Kingdom and not the Sword of Justice,
which was of course the domain of the State! With suchlike misrepresentations
of the Scottish Kirk Herman looks like he clearly holds an anti-Calvinist bias.
‘Yet in 1696 this old order was already on its last legs. The execution of
Aitkenhead was the last hurrah of Scotland’s Calvinist ayatollahs.’ p. 10. ‘Calvinist
ayatollahs’? At this point this Presbyterian minister felt like giving up on
reading this book. That said, I soldiered on. Historical context is always a
good place to begin whenever trying to get a handle on Christian influence. “Daddy
Auld” and “Holy Willie” both belonged to the same Presbyterian Kirk that Robert
Burns attended. Burns loved the former but detested the latter. Guess which one
was the true Calvinist and which one wasn’t.
Herman was getting me a wee bit offside, then
I read these words: “Yet the same fundamentalist Calvinist Kirk had actually
laid the foundations for modern Scotland, in surprising and striking ways. In
fact, without an appreciation of Scotland’s Presbyterian legacy, the story of
the Scots’ place in modern civilization would be incomplete.” p. 12. With these
words the author won me back, (and here, tongue-in-cheek, began our love/hate
relationship for the rest of the book’s journey!).
For the record, John Knox brought the
Reformation to Scotland. The Reformation was not just the Reformation of the
Church in Scotland, but was the reforming of the whole of Scottish society. Set
free from papal rule by Knox and the Reformation, Scotland was now at liberty
to develop culturally. Sure, when any society is in a state of flux there may
be certain extremes. However, the Reformation brought with it the freedom-ideal
(i.e., from popes to princes, from tyrants to taxes) which, through time,
developed into the so-called Scottish Enlightenment, the subject of this book.
Easy Reading
Herman’s style of writing and anecdotal
illustrations lends itself to enjoyable and educational reading. He sets a good
pace. After the rocky start I found myself agreeing with the author as we
travelled in tandem (picture a bicycle built for two!) over the hillsides of
history taking in the glorious Scottish vistas. Then we dismounted and walked
the streets, closes and wynds of Glasgow and Edinburgh together while visiting
pubs and clubs, interacting with knowledgeable patrons along the way. We
visited Culloden Battlefield and others as Herman visually described the
directional change of Scottish culture in its bloodbath aftermath.
Enlightenment Proper
We (almost) became the proverbial two peas
in a pod when he wrote,
At its [i.e., The
Scottish Enlightenment’s] core was a group of erudite and believing clergymen
(unlike the various abbés of the French
Enlightenment, who were by and large skeptics, and clerics only as a matter of
convenience and income). They resolutely believed that a free and open
sophisticated culture was compatible with, even predicated on, a solid moral
and religious foundation. Robertson and the rest saw the doctrines of
Christianity as the very heart of what it meant to be modern.” p. 193.
Here, the healthy tension between the
author and this Calvinist/Presbyterian/Reformed Evangelical reviewer returned.
However, I started to give Herman the “silent treatment” when I went on to read
his mention about “bringing the Kirk into the modern world, even in the teeth
of bitter opposition from Presbyterian hard-liners.” p. 194. Aaargh! Actually,
regardless of any “Presbyterian hard-liners”, it is the Kirk with its Law and
its Gospel from Knox onwards that brought us into the modern world of which The
Scottish Enlightenment was but a by-product. No Reformation, no Enlightenment. Herman
has hitched the cart to the wrong end of the horse! Okay, I feel better now
after that little rant! Yes, the Scottish Enlightenment may be a movement in
its own right, but it would still be chained to a post if it wasn’t for the
Reformation.
The “bromance” was back on between me and
Herman when I read Chapter 9. “That Great Design”: Scots in America. This
chapter begins with an anonymous quote, “Call this war whatever name you may,
only call it not an American rebellion; it is nothing more than a Scotch Irish
Presbyterian rebellion.” – Anonymous
Hessian officer, 1778. Among other things, this chapter dealt not only with
the war for independence, but the after effects of The Great Awakening which began with the Calvinist preacher George
Whitefield in 1740. Another Calvinist, Jonathan Edwards is discussed as is the
founding of Princeton, the Calvinist University. These Calvinists were well-educated
and therefore were well-read, interacting with the likes of the writings of Thomas
Reid, Adam Smith and David Hume and other members of the so-called Scottish
Enlightenment. Indeed, most of America’s Founding Fathers were Calvinistic. Hence
the American War of Independence, Declaration and Constitution etc.
Begone with the image of “Calvinist
ayatollahs” as conjured up by Herman in the opening chapters of his book. Calvinism
isn’t a vacuum seeking to be filled, but rather is a movement seeking to
glorify God in all things, including influencing The Enlightenment with the clear teachings of the Bible, from
morals to economics to nation building to individual freedoms. All truth
belongs to God. Therefore, whether found in the penmanship of Smith, Hume,
Witherspoon, Jefferson, Hamilton, Montesquieu, et al, all ideas must be tested against Scripture. “Prove all
things; hold fast that which is good.” 1 Thessalonians 5:21. (This is what Christians
mean when they apply the verse “Plunder the Egyptians”, see e.g., Exodus 3:22
where God promises His people silver, gold and fine clothing from their
Egyptian captors when they leave their slavery.)
Christian Influence
Note
the following:
The Edinburgh
editors of the Scots Magazine … concluded that “the unhappy commotions in our
American colonies” were due almost entirely to “clerical influence,” and that
“none … had a greater share … than Doctor Witherspoon.” Horace Walpole, son of
the former prime minister, rose in parliament to speak. “There is no use crying
about it,” he said. “Cousin America has run off with a Presbyterian parson, and
that is the end of it.” On June 28, 1776, Whitherspoon was in Philadelphia as
part of the New Jersey delegation to the Continental Congress. They were there
to draw up a declaration of American independence.”
Thus America is the product of the Bible. The
Calvinist Witherspoon’s middle name was Knox, yes, after John Knox. He was the only "clergyman" (a Presbyterian minister) to sign the Declaration.
Did The
Scottish Enlightenment have any bearing on the founding of the United States
of America? Were John Witherspoon, Thomas Jefferson et al well-versed in it? Of course they were. They lived during
those times. However, they came under the influence of Scripture against which
they tested all ideas.
Conclusion
How were the Scots able to invent the
modern world?
[Robert] Burns …
understood how important education can be in shaping the character of the inner
self. And here, too, Scottish Presbyterianism managed to achieve something that
had profound consequences for the future. In 1696 … Scotland’s Parliament
passed its “Act for Setting Schools,” establishing a school in every parish in
Scotland not already equipped with one… The reason behind this was obvious to
any Presbyterian: boys and girls must know how to read Scripture. Knox’s
original 1560 Book of Discipline had called for a national system of education.
Eighty years later Parliament passed the first statute to this effect. The 1696
act renewed and enforced it.
Arthur Herman’s How the Scots Invented the Modern World is well worth taking the
time to read. The Scottish Enlightenment
certainly made a great impact on the world. But don’t forget to learn, like
every Scottish boy and girl back then, to read Scripture. That way, like them,
you will learn discernment and maybe you will contribute meaningfully to the
modern world.
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