The Scottish Philosophy [12]
they were drawn out by the rapidly increasing dissenters, or by the evangelical minority within the Established Church. The collisions of the century took various forms. After the Union with England, dancing assemblies, theatres, and wandering players (with Allan Ramsay to patronize them), dancing on the tight-rope, cock- fighting, gambling, and horse-racing make their appearance, and receive considerable countenance and patronage from various classes, upper and lower; while {19} ineffectual attempts are made to put them down by civil penalties inflicted by burgher magistrates, and by public ecclesiastical censures, which the zealous clergy rigidly enforce, but which the new-light clergy are anxious to relax. In the turmoil of opinions which sprang up in this new state of things, there are rumors of deism, and even of atheism, being secretly entertained or openly avowed, and of the establishment here and there, in town and country, of " hell-fire clubs," where bold men met to discuss new opinions, and even, it is said, to act mock ceremonies, intended to ridicule the sacraments, and all that is awful in religion. Worse than all, and without being Much noticed, or meeting with much opposition on the part of the clergy of either party, there is the commencement of those drinking customs, which have ever since exercised so prejudicial an influence on the Scottish character.
If we look to the common people in the first quarter of the century, we find them in a state of great rudeness in respect of the comforts and elegancies of life. In the Highlands, they are scarcely removed above the lowest state of barbarism; and in the borders between the Highlands and Lowlands, the Celts are lifting cattle and exacting black- mail from the Lowlanders. Even in the more favored districts in the south of Scotland, the ground is unfenced; roads are very rare; and goods are carried on the backs of horses. The clothing of the people in the same region is of undyed black and white plaiding, and neither men nor women have shoes or stockings. Their ordinary food is oatmeal, pease, or beer, with kail groats and milk, and they rarely partake of flesh meat. The houses have only the bare ground as floors, with a fireplace in the midst, and the smoke escaping out of a hole in the roof, and with seats and the very beds of turf; even in the dwellings of the farmers there are seldom more than two apartments; not unfrequently, however, in the south-west of Scotland, there is in addition a closet, to which the head of the house would retire at set times for devotion. Superstitious beliefs are still entertained in all ranks of life, and are only beginning to disappear among the educated classes. In the Highlands and Islands, second-sight is as firmly believed by the chieftain as by the clansmen. In the Lowlands, mysterious diseases, arising from a deranged nervous {20} system, are ascribed to demoniacal possessions; and witches, supposed to have sold themselves to the Evil One, and accomplishing his purposes in inflicting direful evils on the persons and properties of neighbors, are being punished by the magistrates, who are always incited on by the people, and often by the more zealous ministers of religion. Toleration is not understood or acknowledged by any of the great parties, political or religious.
What, it may be asked, is there in the condition of this people fitted to raise any hope that they are ever to occupy a high place among the nations of the earth? I am sure that a worldly-minded traveller, or an admirer of mere refinement and art, in visiting the country at those times, and comparing it with France or Italy, would have discovered nothing in it to lead him to think that it was to have a glorious future before it. But a deeper and more spiritually-minded observer might have discovered already the seeds of its coming intelligence and love of freedom: -- in the schools and colleges planted throughout the land in the love of education instilled into the minds of the people and, above all, in their acquaintance with the Bible,
If we look to the common people in the first quarter of the century, we find them in a state of great rudeness in respect of the comforts and elegancies of life. In the Highlands, they are scarcely removed above the lowest state of barbarism; and in the borders between the Highlands and Lowlands, the Celts are lifting cattle and exacting black- mail from the Lowlanders. Even in the more favored districts in the south of Scotland, the ground is unfenced; roads are very rare; and goods are carried on the backs of horses. The clothing of the people in the same region is of undyed black and white plaiding, and neither men nor women have shoes or stockings. Their ordinary food is oatmeal, pease, or beer, with kail groats and milk, and they rarely partake of flesh meat. The houses have only the bare ground as floors, with a fireplace in the midst, and the smoke escaping out of a hole in the roof, and with seats and the very beds of turf; even in the dwellings of the farmers there are seldom more than two apartments; not unfrequently, however, in the south-west of Scotland, there is in addition a closet, to which the head of the house would retire at set times for devotion. Superstitious beliefs are still entertained in all ranks of life, and are only beginning to disappear among the educated classes. In the Highlands and Islands, second-sight is as firmly believed by the chieftain as by the clansmen. In the Lowlands, mysterious diseases, arising from a deranged nervous {20} system, are ascribed to demoniacal possessions; and witches, supposed to have sold themselves to the Evil One, and accomplishing his purposes in inflicting direful evils on the persons and properties of neighbors, are being punished by the magistrates, who are always incited on by the people, and often by the more zealous ministers of religion. Toleration is not understood or acknowledged by any of the great parties, political or religious.
What, it may be asked, is there in the condition of this people fitted to raise any hope that they are ever to occupy a high place among the nations of the earth? I am sure that a worldly-minded traveller, or an admirer of mere refinement and art, in visiting the country at those times, and comparing it with France or Italy, would have discovered nothing in it to lead him to think that it was to have a glorious future before it. But a deeper and more spiritually-minded observer might have discovered already the seeds of its coming intelligence and love of freedom: -- in the schools and colleges planted throughout the land in the love of education instilled into the minds of the people and, above all, in their acquaintance with the Bible,