The Speculative Society

The Speculative Society is a Scottish Enlightenment society dedicated to public speaking and literary composition, founded in 1764. It was mainly, but not exclusively, an Edinburgh University student organisation. The formal purpose of the Society is as a place for social interchange and for practising of professional competency in rhetoric, argument, and the presentation of papers among fellow members. While continuing to meet in its rooms in the University's Old College, it has no formal links to the University.

The founding group, in November 1764, consisted of John Bonar, the younger, John Bruce, William Creech, Henry Mackenzie, and a Mr Belches of Invermay. They were encouraged by William Robertson.

A split occurred in the Society in 1794, when Francis Jeffrey and Walter Scott urged the inclusion of contemporary politics in the scope of permitted debating topics. At this period, of political repression, the Society was a venue appreciated by young Whigs. They included Henry Brougham and Francis Horner.

The Society continues to meet in the rooms set aside for it when Edinburgh University's Old College was built. The A-listed rooms were designed by Robert Adam and fitted out by William Henry Playfair.

The Edinburgh Review (second series) was founded in 1802 by a group of essayists who knew each other first in the milieu of the Speculative Society.

The University of Cambridge had a Speculative Society in the early years of the 19th century; it was one of the clubs that merged to form the Cambridge Union Society. Around 1825 Utilitarians and Owenites in London engaged in debates, and a formal Debating Society consciously modelled on the Speculative Society of Edinburgh was set up by John Stuart Mill. It was ambitious, but proved short-lived.

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