‘We live in an Island almost infamous for Bogs, and yet, I do not remember, that anyone has attempted much concerning them’, William King wrote as he introduced his discussion ‘Of the Bogs, and Loughs of Ireland’ to the Dublin Society. The future author of considerations on the origin of evil and free will, started out locating his work in a particular country for a reason. What he had to say might be of interest to all rational people, would draw on the observational sciences and would employ universally applicable methods of reasoning, but it would nonetheless be literally grounded in a specific experience and geography. Ireland was his country, though he was born of Scots immigrants and became the chief spokesman and authority figure of a church of the minority. He might perhaps have chosen to identify himself differently, but he aligned himself instead with those who staked their claim based upon