Thomas Blackwell (scholar)

[12] Blackwell's works, including An Enquiry into the Life and Writings of Homer (1735),[13] Letters Concerning Mythology (1748),[14] and Memoirs of the Court of Augustus (3 vols., 1753–63),[15] established him as one of the premier figures in the Scottish Enlightenment.

[20] Enquiry had a high reputation with Blackwell's contemporaries[21] (Gibbon praised as "an effort of genius";[22] Herder called a "key" to Homer[23]) and he his credited as having revived the study of Greek literature in the North of Scotland.

[26] He drew on a wide range of evidence from a variety of sources including not only the literary myths in Greek and Latin and the Orphic Hymns, but French, Spanish, Italian, Hebrew and Arabic[27] texts, attempting to isolate the surviving original mythic strain from layers of later accretions.

Blackwell compared the early Jewish world view with contemporary Near Eastern cosmographies, analysing the account of creation in the Book of Genesis along with ancient Phoenician texts transmitted through Sanchuniathon to trace the transformation of Chaldean monotheism into polytheism as the stars began to be worshiped as lesser deities.

A balanced constitution was therefore essential to enduring political success, a lesson reinforced by his comparative studies of later great powers including France, Venice and the Spanish Empire.

The ability of power to mould behaviour patterns fascinated Blackwell, and his study of Virgil and Horace demonstrated the responsiveness of the arts to their political context and explored how they might influence it in turn.

[28] In a set of articles, published in 1897 by distinguished Brazilian scholar Tristão de Alencar Araripe Júnior,[29] Blackwell was credited with being a precursor of Taine's ideas concerning the contextual study of works of art.

Blackwell does not speak of mesology; but, as the book goes on, we see that none of the factors identified by the French critic escaped his observation and analysis.Blackwell's theory of the formative effects of climate[32] on our character and culture[33] greatly impressed and influenced Johann Gottfried Herder,[34] and it's well known today how Taine drew heavily on the German philosopher's ideas.