The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Home, Henry

HOME, Henry,, Scottish lawyer and author: b. Kames, Berwickshire, 1696; d. Edinburgh, 27 Dec 1782. He studied law at Edinburgh, and, called to the bar in 1724, soon acquired reputation by a number of publications on the civil and Scottish law. In 1752 he became a judge of session, and assumed the title of Lord Kames. In addition to legal works he published &lsquo;Essays on British Antiquities&rsquo;; &lsquo;Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion,&rsquo; in which he advocates the doctrine of philosophical necessity; &lsquo;Introduction to the Art of Thinking&rsquo;; and his best-known work, &lsquo;Elements of Criticism,&rsquo; in which, discarding all arbitrary rules of literary composition, he endeavors to establish a new theory on the principles of human nature. In 1776 he published the &lsquo;Gentleman Farmer&rsquo;; and in 1781 &lsquo;Loose Thoughts on Education.&rsquo;