A two volume work on the “science of criticism” by one of the leading figures of the Scottish Enlightenment. Kames argues that criticism of art and literature is a rational science as well as a matter of taste. In volume 1 he explores the nature and causes of the emotions and passions. In volume 2 he explores the principles of rhetoric and literary appreciation, and discusses the formation of our standards of taste.

Perhaps Darwin’s greatest book in which he put forward the idea that all species evolve over time from common ancestors by a process which he called “natural selection.” It was based upon the evidence he had accumulated when he traveled on the H.M.S. Beagle for its 2nd voyage to survey South America between 1831-36.

A two volume work in which Hodgskin describes in great detail the economic, political, legal, and social conditions he observed in his travels across northern Germany.

The following are compilations of quotations from the OLL’s collection Quotations about Liberty and Power. We have added a new one nearly every week since the site was launched in March 2004. See the front page of this site for the latest quote of the week.

Plotinus is primarily remembered for his teachings, which were collected by Porphyry into a volume called the Enneads. This work gives Plotinus’s accounts of the religions and cults of his age. He was interested in the occult but only in a detached and speculative way. He was indifferent to traditional paganism but critical of the Gnostic Christian heretics who preached the mystical dualism of the divine, which he regarded as antiphilosophical, un-Greek, and emotional superstition. His own religious beliefs inclined toward the idea that one could achieve a spiritual union with the good (understood as the Platonic idea of a perfect realm of the ideal) through philosophic reflection.

A very detailed 2 volume history of the British efforts to abolish the Atlantic slave trade by a Quaker leader of the abolitionist movement.

Thinking she was close to death Martineau wrote her autobiography in 1855 but lived for another 20 years. She recounts her activities in various mid-19th century reform movements, her struggle to become a professional writer, and her work in popularizing the ideas of free market political economy.

Trenchard and Gordon wrote articles for this weekly journal during the period 1720-21 just before they began work on their better known periodical Cato’s Letters which appeared 1720-23. In a total of 53 essays they criticized the power and abuses of the ecclesiastical establishment in Britain. As Trenchard died in 1723, Gordon edited the essays for later publication. The second edition was published in 1741.

Written late in his life, this 3 volume work deals with the idea of human progress. Vol. 1 deals with progress in property law, commerce, the treatment of women, and luxury. Vol. 2 deals with the development of states, government, and taxation. Vol. 3 deals with the progress of science.

James Mill wrote a number of influential articles for the Encyclopedia Britannica in which he developed the Philosophic Radical view on law, government, education, colonies, and other topcis.