Henry Home, Lord Kames, was the completeEnlightenment man, concerned with the fullspectrum of human knowledge and its social use. However,as a lawyer and, after 1752, as a judge on the Court ofSession in Edinburgh, he made many of his most distinctivecontributions through his works on the nature of law andlegal development. Principles of Equity, firstpublished in 1760, is considered his most lastingcontribution to jurisprudence and is still cited.In his jurisprudence, Kames specifically sought toexplain the distinction between the nature of equity andcommon law and to address related questions, such aswhether equity should be bound by rules and whetherthere should be separate courts of law and equity.Beginning with a general introduction on the rise andnature of equity, Principles of Equity is divided intothree books. The first two, theoretical, books examinethe powers of a court of equity as derived from justiceand from utility, the two great principles Kames feltgoverned equity. The third book aims to be morepractical, showing the application of these powers toseveral subjects, such as bankrupts.Principles of Equity is significant as an exampleof the approach of an Enlightenment thinker to practicallegal questions and as an early attempt to reduce law toprinciples. There is evidence that this book was wellknown in the formative years of the United States and thatboth Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson werefamiliar with Kamess treatise.Henry Home, Lord Kames (16961782), one of the leaders of the Scottish Enlightenment, was a judge in the supremecourts of Scotland and wrote extensively on morals, religion, education, aesthetics, history,political economy, and law, including natural law. His most distinctive contribution came throughhis works on the nature of law, where he sought to combine a philosophical approach with anempirical history of legal evolution.Michael Lobban is Professor of Legal History at Queen Mary, University of London.Knud Haakonssen is Professor of Intellectual History and Director of the Centre for Intellectual History at the University of Sussex, England.