The Scientist: ‘Natural Philosophy’ in Fraser’s Scholarly Networks and Life-writing

Fraser’s intellectual contribution highlights the scholarly streams that could filter out from the north of Scotland, rather than it being simply a sponge soaking up metropolitan learning. While he could be deferential to centralising polities in both Edinburgh or London, he also shows, time and again, the viability, vitality and connected nature of north Highland and Moray intellectual culture of the time. Despite a lack of formal clubs, societies, libraries or coffee houses to encourage him, Fraser positioned himself skilfully as the key Highland spokesperson and informant for internationally-known erudites like Edward Lhwyd and Sir John Aubrey. Fraser wished to impress on his friends and readers his own place’s contribution to ‘natural philosophy’, that is, the pursuit of systematic knowledge of the physical world. It was a sphere of activity which, for Fraser, embraced cosmology, meteorology, geology and natural history, and led him, from there, towards extensive reflections on health, medicine and folklore.