Edinburgh

İskoç Aydınlanması'nın başkenti. On sekizinci yüzyılın ortalarında burada Hume, Smith ve bir düzine başka düşünür toplandı; Edinburgh'u İngilizce konuşan dünyanın entelektüel merkezi haline getirdiler.

Edinburgh in the eighteenth century was a city of close proximity and cold air. The old town stacked its population into tenements ten stories high along the spine of a volcanic ridge, and professors, lawyers, and tradesmen shared stairwells. This density produced an unusual intellectual culture. Hume lived here, published here, and was refused a university chair here on grounds of atheism. Adam Smith lectured in Glasgow and retired to Edinburgh. Adam Ferguson, William Robertson, and Joseph Black all worked within walking distance of each other. The ideas that moved between them — on sympathy, self-interest, moral sentiment, and the nature of society — became what we call the Scottish Enlightenment. The New Town was built from 1767 onward to give the gentry room to breathe, but the ideas were already out.