PHILOSOPHICALLY speaking the unenlightened of Edinburgh have let Scotland down. What would David Hume make of it all?

Precisely two and a half centuries after the champion of the Enlightenment died it is his home city of Edinburgh that is keeping us in the dark ages.

Not least because the final verdict on Hillsborough had been passed only a month earlier, the scenes that spoiled Hibs’ great day at Hampden were beyond shocking, evoking memories of close to 40 years earlier of Scotland supporters hanging off crossbars and digging up the Wembley turf while, worse still, there were echoes of the ‘shame game’ between Celtic and Rangers in 1980 as the cavalry was called in the shape of the police mounted division after players were assaulted and opposing fans taunted into fights on the national stadium’s turf.

All very ugly, and it seemed strange at the time that the police took so long to intervene as a tiny minority of Hibs supporters headed up to goad their Rangers counterparts and draw some of them into battle, to the extent that some journalistic colleagues reported having seen a policeman walking past a group that was engaged in physical confrontation making no apparent attempt to break things up while videoing the scene.

Read more: Scottish Cup Final: Fans face up to 27 months in jail if found guilty of Hampden violence​

While that may have left us laymen wondering whether the job of the average bobby has switched to some sort of CSI role rather than being employed to restore order, the police have explained their tactics in terms of having sought to ensure that the trouble was not escalated and are now in the process of doing the follow-up work for which they should, on that basis, have plenty of relevant footage to sift through before rounding up the offenders.

When that happens tomes as weighty as anything Mr Hume and his Enlightenment team-mates ever generated must be thrown at the clowns who marred a wonderful day, leaving Hibs players disappointed that they were not allowed to undertake the traditional lap of honour while Rangers received their runners-up medals in the sanctuary of their dressing room.

Yet that was by no means the capital’s only reason to feel profoundly embarrassed last week, since one of the most inappropriately named organisations ever to have staged a public event, the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers at Muirfield Golf Club, had already disgraced itself yet again.

Read more: Police say their response to Scottish Cup final fan trouble was 'proportionate and professional'

As polite as their resistance to the most fundamental principles of equality that we pursue as we evolve may have been, with the pen on ballot sheets of those seeking to defend their right to prejudice proving mightier than the fists of thuggish football supporters who have only really harmed themselves, the vote by the owners of one of the world’s finest golf courses was a far greater indictment on society in their part of the world.

For that very reason, though, they are so much worse than the ignorant, doubtless largely drink-fuelled yobs who tore it up at Hampden because in most cases these are the products of some of our most esteemed educational establishments, so they have no excuse.

If one good thing has come of it in that regard it is evidence that the R&A, itself so recently reformed, is now ready to take action with zeal of the righteously converted.

Oh, there will be those who still seek to insist that the HCEG should have been left in peace, continuing to benefit from the kudos of staging Open Championships in spite of the vileness of the attitudes of the members who constitute an appropriately substantial rump. Indeed this is written in the expectation of a message from one particular correspondent who gets hopping mad any time this subject is broached as it has been hereabouts many times down the years.

He never gets in touch any other time so would appear to be part of another sorry tendency that seems particularly prevalent in Scotland these days, namely those who spend much time trawling through media seeking to find cause to be offended.

On something of a tangent there was something of that in a message from a Dundee United fan recently who wrote an angry email, alluding to my admitted preference for the city’s other team, in suggesting that was why he had read a piece reflecting on the final match of the regular Premiership season which made little or no reference to the team that had won, namely his favourites.

He was sent a reply containing an accompanying link to my article of pretty much identical length, centred upon the performance of 17-year-old United up-and-comer Harry Souttar and submitted at the same time, which outlined just why there is reason for hope that they will recover quickly from their relegation under Ray McKinnon, their new boss.

As yet there has been no response, but then he also described himself as, strangely enough, the ‘Hon Life Chair of the Gullane Arabs’.

It really can be an odd wee corner of the world that does strange things to the outlook.