Strains of the Enlightenment: Making Belief in American Secularism and African Difference in The Book of Mormon

Through an examination of the extensive papers, manuscripts and correspondence of American physician Benjamin Rush and his friends, this article argues that it is possible to map a network of Scottish-trained physicians in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Atlantic world. These physicians, whose members included Benjamin Rush, John Redman, John Morgan, Adam Kuhn, and others, not only brought the Edinburgh model for medical pedagogy across the Atlantic, but also disseminated Scottish stadial theories of development, which they applied to their study of the natural history and medical practices of Native Americans and slaves. In doing so, these physicians developed theories about the relationship between civilization, historical progress and the practice of medicine. Exploring this network deepens our understanding of the transnational intellectual geography of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century British World. This article develops, in relation to Scotland, a current strand of scholarship that maps the colonial and global contexts of Enlightenment thought.

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TAYLOR, K. L. The earth sciences in the Enlightenment: studies on the early development of geology. Ashgate Variorum, Aldershot: 2008. Pp 332; illustrated. Price £ 65 (hardback). ISBN 978-0754659303.

Archives of Natural History ◽

10.3366/e026095410800079x ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 36 (1) ◽

pp. 172-173 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

MATTHEW D. EDDY

Keyword(s):

Earth Sciences ◽

Early Development ◽

The Enlightenment ◽

The Earth

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Conclusion

10.3366/edinburgh/9781474430104.003.0009 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

David Randall

Keyword(s):

Public Opinion ◽

Early Modern ◽

Intellectual History ◽

Fine Arts ◽

James Madison ◽

Modern Conception ◽

Political World ◽

The Enlightenment ◽

History Of ◽

Constitutional Thought

The changed conception of conversation that emerged by c.1700 was about to expand its scope enormously – to the broad culture of Enlightenment Europe, to the fine arts, to philosophy and into the broad political world, both via the conception of public opinion and via the constitutional thought of James Madison (1751–1836). In the Enlightenment, the early modern conception of conversation would expand into a whole wing of Enlightenment thought. The intellectual history of the heirs of Cicero and Petrarch would become the practice of millions and the constitutional architecture of a great republic....

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