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Hello in 1696 the Edinburgh student Thomas Aikenhead, aged 18, claimed

that theology was, quote, a rhapsody of feigned and ill-invented nonsense, unquote.

He was hanged. Just one victim of a repressive religious society called

the Scottish Kirk, yet within 50 years Scotland was transformed by the ideas sweeping the

continent in what we call the Enlightenment.

This Scottish Enlightenment emerged on a broad front,

from philosophy to farming, it championed empiricism,

question religion and debated reason.

It was crowned by the philosophical brilliance of David Hume

and by Adam Smith, the father of modern economics. But what led to this Scottish miracle,

was it an indigenous phenomenon or did it depend on influence from abroad?

It profoundly influenced the American Revolutionaries and the British Empire, but what legacy

does it have for Scotland today?

With me to discuss the Scottish Enlightenment a professor Tom Devine, director of the on Nation, Karen O'Brien, Reader in English and American Literature at the University of Warwick,

and Alexander Brody, Professor of Logic and Rhetrick at the University of Glasgow, and author

of the Scottish Enlightenment.

Tom Devine, can you give us a broad definition of the Scottish Enlightenment?

I think the markers of the Enlightenment were the extraordinary range of achievement.

I mean as you've indicated yourself, Melvin already already you know everything from geology through to

philosophy everything from poetry through to painting and also the fact that it's aligned with the

...