Their father, Smith Kimont Seth, was the son of a farmer from the Scottish region of Fife and a bank clerk in the head office of the Commercial Bank of Scotland. Their mother, Margaret, was the daughter of Andrew Little, a farmer from Berwickshire.
Seth was born in Edinburgh and attended George Watsons College.
An elder brother died in infancy. He then went on to Divinity and ordination via a theology degree at New College, Edinburgh. In 1898, he took the Chair of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh which he occupied for 26 years.
James"s inaugural lecture on ‘The Scottish Contribution to Moral Philosophy’ was subsequently published in The Philosophical Review, the journal he had edited.
Seth was an active campaigner on temperance and education. He died in July 1925.
