utter freedom of God, the importance of the Bible, scepticism of earthly authority. It might be more surprising that Major preferred to follow his friend Erasmus's example and remain within the Roman Catholic Church (though he did envisage a national church for Scotland). Major also filled with enthusiasm other Scottish Reformers including the Protestant martyr Patrick Hamilton and the Latin stylist George Buchanan, whose enthusiasm for witty Latinisms had him waspishly suggesting that the only thing major about his ex-teacher was his surname – typical Renaissance disdain for the Schoolmen. Empiricism Major and his circle were interested in the structures of language – spoken, written and 'mental'. This latter was the language which underlies the thoughts that are expressed in natural languages, like Scots, English or Latin. He attacks a whole range of questions from a generally 'nominalist' perspective – a form of philosophical discourse whose tradition derives from the high Middle Ages and was to continue into that of the Scottish and other European empiricists. According to Alexander Broadie, Major's influence on this latter tradition reached as far as the 18th and 19th century Scottish School of Common Sense initiated by Thomas Reid. The highly logical and technical approach of Medieval philosophy – perhaps added to by Major's poor written style as well as his adherence to the Catholic party at the time of the Reformation – explain in some part why this influence is still somewhat occluded. Human rights More obviously influential was his moral philosophy, not primarily because of his casuistry – an approach acknowledging the complexity of individual cases. This was later so strong in Jesuit teaching, possibly related to the Major's renown in Spain mentioned above. His legal views were also influential. His Commentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard was most certainly studied and quoted in the debates at Burgos in 1512, by Frày Anton Montesino, a graduate of Salamanca. This "debate unique in the history of empires", as Hugh Thomas calls it, resulted in the recognition in Spanish law of the indigenous populations of America as being free human beings with all the rights (to liberty and property, for example) attached to them. This pronouncement was hedged in with many subtle qualifications, and the Spanish crown was never efficient at enforcing it, but it can be regarded as the fount of human rights law. See also Jean Buridan John Cantius Empiricism Henry of