Millar, John

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Millar, John (1735–1801) A leading figure in the Scottish Enlightenment of the late eighteenth century, who is sometimes acknowledged as an early sociologist, on the grounds that his essay on The Origin of the Distinction of Ranks (1771) offers a theory of the evolution of societies (which connects forms of property-holding to types of authority and government), and an early account of the division of labour in society (see W. C. Lehmann , John Millar of Glasgow, 1735–1801: His Life and Thoughts and his Contributions to Sociological Analysis, 1960
).

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