John Millar (philosopher)
John Millar of Glasgow (22 June 1735 – 30 May 1801) was a
from 1761 to 1800.Biography
Born a
Millar's Origin of the Distinction of Ranks, published in 1778, advanced the view that
His Historical View of the English Government, published from 1787, was an important contemporary
Family
Millar lost a daughter by consumption in 1791, and his wife in 1795. His eldest son, John, a promising young man, went to the bar, and married the daughter of Dr. Cullen. He published a book, "Elements of the Law relating to Insurances", in 1787. Ill-health and the unpopularity of the Whiggism which he inherited from his father induced him to emigrate in the spring of 1795 to America, where he died soon afterwards from a sunstroke.[7]
Three sons and six daughters survived their father. Of these James became professor of mathematics at Glasgow; the second, William joined the Royal Artillery; the third was a writer to the signet. One daughter, Agnes was married to James Mylne, professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow, and another, Margaret, to Dr. John Thomson, by whom she was mother of Allan Thomson, professor of surgery at Edinburgh. He left his manuscripts to his eldest son, to Professor Mylne, and to John Craig, his nephew, by whom some were published in 1803.[7][8]
Memorials
In 1985 the John Millar Chair of Law at the University of Glasgow was established in his memory.[9]
Works
- Observations concerning the Distinction of Ranks in Society, 1771. Revised second edition, 1773.
- An Historical View of the English Government, 1787.
- An Historical View of the English Government from the Settlement of the Saxons in Britain to the Revolution in 1688. To which are subjoined some Dissertations Connected with the History of the Government from the Revolution to the Present Time, 3rd ed., ed. J. Mylne & J. Craig, 4 vols, Edinburgh, 1803
- (Anon.), Letters of Crito on the causes, objects, and consequences, of the present war, 1796
Notes
- ^ International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 1968 Millar, John. Retrieved 2011-05-04
- ^ Gateway to the Archive of Scottish Higher Education Biography, John Millar. Retrieved 2011-05-04
- ^ Haakonssen, Knud (2006), "Millar, John", in Haakonssen, Knud (ed.), The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Philosophy, vol. 2, Cambridge University Press, p. 1205
- ^ University of Glasgow. Biography, John Millar Retrieved 201-05-03
- ISBN 9781317652311.
- JSTOR 587525.
- ^ a b Stephen 1894, p. 203.
- ^ "University of Glasgow :: Story :: Biography of James Mylne".
- ^ University of Glasgow. The John Millar Chair of Law. Retrieved 2011-05-04
References
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Stephen, Leslie (1894). "Millar, John (1735-1801)". In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 37. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 401–403. Endnotes:
- Life, by John Craig, prefixed to Origin of Ranks, 1806
- Scots Mag. 1801, pp. 527–8
- A. Carlyle's Autobiog. 1860, p. 492
- Life of Lord Minto, 1879, ii. 26
- Edinburgh Review, iii. 154–81, iv. 83–92 (articles by Jeffrey upon the "History" and the "Life")
Further reading
- Haakonssen, Knud; Cairns, John W. (2004). "Millar, John (1735–1801)". doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/18716. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- Miller, Nicholas B. (2017). John Millar and the Scottish Enlightenment: Family Life and World History. Oxford. ISBN 978-0-7294-1192-9
- Lehmann, William.(1979), John Millar of Glasgow, 1735-1801: His Life and Thought and His Contributions to Sociological Analysis, Arno Press
- Ignatieff, Michael. "John Millar and individualism", in Wealth and Virtue: the Shaping of Political economy in the Scottish Enlightenment,Istvan Hont and Michael Ignatieff (eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
- Lazar, Veronica, "Saving the rules from the exceptions? John Millar, the Scottish Enlightenment and the history of the family", Global Intellectual History, vol. 4, 2019 (https://doi.org/10.1080/23801883.2019.1643114).