Lord Kames

Henry Home, Lord Kames (1696–27 December 1782) was a Scottish writer, philosopher, and judge who played a major role in Scotland's Agricultural Revolution. A central figure of the Scottish Enlightenment, he was a founding member of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh and active in The Select Society. Home acted as patron to some of the most influential thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment, including philosopher David Hume, economist Adam Smith, writer James Boswell, philosopher William Cullen, and naturalist John Walker. He was born in 1696 at Kames House in Berwickshire and was homeschooled. He was apprenticed as a lawyer in Edinburgh and was called to the Scottish bar in 1724. He gained a reputation for his publications on civil and Scottish law. In 1752, he became a judge, taking the title Lord Kames. Kames was interested in the development of linen production in Scotland and was a director of the British Linen Company. He was part of the judicial panel in the *Knight v. Wedderburn* case, which declared slavery illegal in Scotland. In his writings, Home discussed the importance of property to society and developed a four-stage model of social evolution. He also explored literary criticism, grounding it in human nature. He was a polygenist, believing that different races originated from separate stocks. He died of old age in 1782 and is buried at Kincardine-in-Menteith.