Kames, HENRY HOME, LORD, a Scotch philosopher, was born in Berwickshire in 1696, called to the bar in 1723, and by his merits fought his way upwards to a leading position there, being raised to the bench as Lord Kames in 1752, and made lord of justiciary in 1763. He divided his energies between law and philosophy, and was no less noted for his amiability, his conversational powers, his public spirit, and his agricultural enterprise at Blair-Drummond in Perthshire. He died at Edinburgh, 27th December 1782. Besides books on Scotch law he published a series of works more ingenious and interesting than well written: Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural
Religion (1751), a defence of the doctrine of innate ideas at the expense of the freedom of the will; An Introduction to the Art of Thinking (1761), and Elements of Criticism (1762), two works much less satisfactory than ingenious; and Sketches of the History of Man (1774), a miscellaneous and curious collection of speculations on all manner of subjects.