An appreciation by Phillip Taylor MBE and Elizabeth Taylor of Richmond Green Chambers

This book by Andreas Rahmatian of the University of Glasgow should be read by all lawyers with a jurisprudential bent -- and indeed by any reader interested in the eighteenth century Enlightenment, the Scottish Enlightenment in particular (which lasted from about 1740 to 1790).

In this case, the works of one of its most influential thinkers, Lord Kames are examined, discussed and analysed against the backdrop of a golden age of intellectual exploration and enquiry.

The Scottish jurist and philosopher Henry Home (pronounced ‘Hume’) took the title Lord Kames when he was elevated to the bench of the Scottish Court of Session in 1752. ‘Influential’ is probably an understatement when describing this distinguished legal and social theorist, jurist, moral philosopher, reformer and polymath.

A mentor of younger thinkers such as Adam Smith and a friend of David Hume, he was ‘listened to’ by Voltaire, (note the references in the bibliography) who criticized him and also by such luminaries as Mendelssohn and American founding fathers, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, who interestingly, was a personal friend. (Chapter eleven of the book discusses in detail his influence on ‘some of the founders of the United States’.) Another of his students was none other than James Boswell, who found fame not in the law, but in letters as the biographer of Dr. Johnson.

‘As a lawyer, Kames was unique,’ says the author, in that ‘he combined the law with history, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, and aesthetics and embedded it in these partly, only emerging disciplines.’ Kames’s lasting legacy is that he made the law ‘a living body of mankind and not a cold structure of rules with a moderately logical framework….’

Rahmatian is of the opinion that probably no Enlightenment thinker other than Kames truly espoused the clarion call of the Enlightenment: ‘think for yourself’ -- which is as much a challenge now as in the eighteenth century. Nevertheless, the author largely dismisses the notion that Kames was specifically a ‘radical’ thinker, remarking that ‘logical, rational argument makes people more immune against intellectual corruption than radical conviction,’ and that ‘logical argument can convince more than a conviction.’

For example, one of Lord Kames’s key convictions, from which we quote only partially, is that ‘difference in opinion …is the very salt of conversation. Why then should we be offended at those who think differently from us?’

The author is careful to point out here that this book is not a biography. It is less about Kames’s life than about his work, which survives in his writings, which were, yes, influential and widely read in his time. Originally self-made and self-taught, like a number of his fellow Scots, his rise to prominence -- including his eventual success at the Bar -- was not achieved without struggle. If anything he exemplifies what Robert Burns referred to as ‘the man of independent mind.’

Published recently by the Edinburgh University Press, this consummately well researched and important book will certainly do much to acquaint, or re-acquaint contemporary readers with the extraordinary intellectual output and the fiercely logical, often controversial, yet engaging arguments put forward by this distinguished legal theorist whose key works have much to say to us today.

Lawyers, academics and students who love jurisprudence -- and even those who don’t -- will find this book fascinating, as will researchers and general readers keen on enriching their understanding of the history of ideas.

The publication date is cited as at 2015.