苏格兰启蒙运动是一场长期被忽视但却极具考察价值的思想运动，是一场由18世纪苏格兰特殊的国内环境所孕育的文化思潮，其间涌现出了诸如休谟、斯密、里德、弗格森等杰出的思想家，在道德哲学、历史学和政治经济学领域取得了令人瞩目的成就。苏格兰启蒙思想家热切关注外部世界，他们为法国大革命提供了一个与众不同且具说服力的解释框架。在休谟和斯密的思想熏染下，大部分苏格兰启蒙思想家对大革命抱持着温和审慎的立场。他们关注社会进步的特征和社会习俗的变革，观察大革命期间法国出现的民族情绪、商业贸易等关系的变革，驳斥法国启蒙思想家所鼓吹的理性和原始契约理论，否定具有颠覆性的理性和建立在推测基础上的社会契约，并以权威原则和效用原则作为政府权威合法性的主要来源，视大革命为破坏社会进步进程的事件。然而，对大革命的观察也有特例：以米勒为代表的少数苏格兰思想家认为，大革命体现了社会进步和效用原则的胜利，是社会长期演进的产物。这两种评述为考察法国大革命提供了各具价值的分析理路。

The Scottish Enlightenment, which has been left neglected in a long term, is not only an intellectual movement worthy of serious observations and studies, but also a cultural movement originated from the special eighteenth-century Scottish domestic environment. A plenty of outstanding ideologists, such as David Hume, Adam Smith, Thomas Reid and Adam Ferguson emerged from the Scottish Enlightenment and made remarkable achievements in the fields of moral philosophy, history and political economy. Scottish philosophers devoted earnest concern for the outside world. Influenced by the domestic trend of radical thought, they provided a distinguished and persuasive interpretative framework for the French Revolution. Most of these philosophers stood a moderate and prudent ground towards the Revolution under the impact of David Hume and Adam Smith. Focusing on the features of social progress and the transformation of social customs, they observed the changes of French national emotions, commercial trade during the Revolution. They refuted the ration and original contract theory advocated by the French philosophers and denied the subversive ration and the speculative social contract. The Scottish philosophers argued that the legitimacy of government authority mainly came from the principle of authority and the principle of utility. The Revolution has destroyed the social progress in the view of most Scottish philosophers. However, there were still other Scottish ideologists, such as Millar, who regarded the Revolution as the result of long-term social evolution, and also as the victory of social progress and the principle of utility. These two different kinds of comments both provided valuable analytical perspectives for observing the French Revolution.