Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 4.djvu/329

Rh continuation of his Remarkable Decisions from 1730 to 1752. He now began to approach that age which has been marked out as a period reached by a small proportion of the human race, but though stricken in years, and pressed upon by official duties, he did not flinch from a new and elaborate undertaking on a subject of many diversified branches, some of which were totally disconnected with his previous literary labours. Lord Kames appears to have had his mind perpetually filled with the matter he was preparing to discuss, and to have constantly kept open to the world the engrossing matter of his thoughts; it is thus that, for some time previously to the publication of his "Sketches of the History of Man," (which appeared in 1774,) we find an ample correspondence with his literary friends,—with Dr Walker, Sir James Nasmith, Dr Reid, and Dr Black, affording some most interesting speculations on the gradations of the human race, and the analogy between plants and animal subjects—which had long been speculated upon by our author. On these branches of philosophy, he has bestowed considerable attention in the Sketches of the History of Man, to little satisfaction. In reasoning a priori from the history of man in the world, and the various aspects of his tribe, the author erects a system in opposition to that of revelation, to which however he afterwards yields, as to the authority of the court, allowing it to be true, not by any means from the superiority of the system to his own, but because holy writ has told it. But if the work be hereafter perused, to gratify an idle hour with its amusing details, few will search in it for much information on a subject which has received so much better illustration from Blumenbach, Pritchard, and Lawrence. But the subjects of these sketches are multifarious; Ossian's poems are ingeniously introduced as part of the history of man, constituting a sort of barbaro-civilized period, when probably the same amount of polish and of rudeness which still exists, held sway, though without neutralizing each other, and both displayed in the extreme; government is also discussed, and finances. The political economy is old and narrow, looking upon national means too much in the light of an engine to be wielded, rather than as a self-acting power, which only requires freedom and room to enable it to act; nevertheless it is sprinkled with enlightened views such as the following: "It appears to be the intention of Providence, that all nations should benefit by commerce, as by sunshine; and it is so ordered, that an unequal balance is prejudicial to the gainers, as well as to the losers : the latter are immediate sufferers; but not less so ultimately are the former."

In his latter days, the subject of our memoir produced four more extensive works, of which we shall only mention the names and dates: "The Gentleman Farmer," in 1776,—"Elucidations respecting the Common Law of Scotland," in 1777,—"Select Decisions of the Court of Session from 1752 to 1768," published in 1780,—"Loose Hints on Education." The last of his works, was published in 1781, in the 85th year of the author's age, a period when the weakness of the body cannot fail to communicate itself to the thoughts. The green old age of lord Kames seems to have been imbittered by no disease but that of general decay. He continued his usual attention to the agricultural and manufacturing projects of the country; gratified his few leisure hours in the society of his select literary friends, attended the court of session, and even performed the arduous duty of travelling on the circuits he was indeed a singular specimen of a mind whose activity age could not impede. His correspondence continues till within a short time of his death, and before leaving the world, he could spare some consideration for assisting in the establishment of an institution, the pleasures and profits of which could not be reaped by him, The Royal Society of Scotland. During his short and last illness, he expressed no dread except that he might outlive the faculties of his mind; to the usual solicitations, which