Sir Robert circulated some "General Queries" to parish ministers, but again this was the unsettled time of the Glorious Revolution and, though progress was made, the results provided a very incomplete picture of the nation.

The General Assembly proposed a "Geographical Description of Scotland" and took some action on this between 1720 and 1744, again during troubled times for the country, latterly involving the Jacobite rebellion under Bonnie Prince Charlie.

Nonetheless, during 1743, the Moderator of the General Assembly, the Rev Robert Wallace organised the distribution of questionnaires, aimed at finding out how to devise a scheme for the support of the widows and orphans of clergy.

Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster had studied German state surveys and wished to use what he called for the first time these "statistical" methods to measure the quantum of happiness that existed in the nation and find ways of improving this.

He stressed the empirical ideal of that age by lauding its anxious attention to the facts and he set about completing the work left unachieved by the previous attempt mentioned above.

Some are excellently written by ministers who were themselves meticulous Enlightenment scholars (see for example the response by the Rev Dr James Meek for the Parish of Cambuslang in Lanarkshire).

[2] As mentioned above, early attempts at producing an accurate statistical account of Scotland were related to schemes to support the widows and orphans of the clergy.

In 1832 the Committee for the Society for the Sons and Daughters of the Clergy, with the blessing of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, took Sir John's work further.

The tone of the comments in the 'Way of Life' often appear surprisingly judgmental to a modern reader, and there can be ill-concealed exasperation with the behaviour of working-class parishioners.