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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e1e080f --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #60399 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60399) diff --git a/old/60399-0.txt b/old/60399-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index afcefdf..0000000 --- a/old/60399-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5066 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Thomas Reid, by A. Campbell Fraser - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Thomas Reid - -Author: A. Campbell Fraser - -Release Date: September 30, 2019 [EBook #60399] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THOMAS REID *** - - - - -Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images -generously made available by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - -THOMAS REID - - - - -FAMOUS SCOTS SERIES - -_The following Volumes are now ready_:— - - - THOMAS CARLYLE. By HECTOR C. MACPHERSON. - ALLAN RAMSAY. By OLIPHANT SMEATON. - HUGH MILLER. By W. KEITH LEASK. - JOHN KNOX. By A. TAYLOR INNES. - ROBERT BURNS. By GABRIEL SETOUN. - THE BALLADISTS. By JOHN GEDDIE. - RICHARD CAMERON. By Professor HERKLESS. - SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON. By EVE BLANTYRE SIMPSON. - THOMAS CHALMERS. By Professor W. GARDEN BLAIKIE. - JAMES BOSWELL. By W. KEITH LEASK. - TOBIAS SMOLLETT. By OLIPHANT SMEATON. - FLETCHER OF SALTOUN. By G. W. T. OMOND. - THE BLACKWOOD GROUP. By Sir GEORGE DOUGLAS. - NORMAN MACLEOD. By JOHN WELLWOOD. - SIR WALTER SCOTT. By Professor SAINTSBURY. - KIRKCALDY OF GRANGE. By LOUIS A. BARBÉ. - ROBERT FERGUSSON. By A. B. GROSART. - JAMES THOMSON. By WILLIAM BAYNE. - MUNGO PARK. By T. BANKS MACLACHLAN. - DAVID HUME. By Professor CALDERWOOD. - THOMAS REID. By Professor CAMPBELL FRASER. - - - - -[Illustration: - - THOMAS - REID - - BY - A:CAMPBELL - FRASER :: - - FAMOUS - SCOTS: - SERIES - - PUBLISHED BY - OLIPHANT ANDERSON - & FERRIER · EDINBVRGH - AND LONDON -] - - - - -The designs and ornaments of this volume are by Mr. Joseph Brown, and the -printing from the press of Messrs. T. and A. Constable, Edinburgh. - - - - -PREFACE - - -This little book is an attempt to present Reid in a fresh light, and in -his relations to present-day thought. It deals with the Scottish chapter -in that enduring alternation between agnostic despair and endeavour -after perfect insight which seems to be a law of the philosophic -progress of mankind. Thomas Reid, home-bred and self-contained, is the -national representative, in the eighteenth century, of the _via media_ -between these extremes. In the concluding chapter I have looked at the -philosophical appeal to inspired data of Common Sense, in the wider light -of the theistic philosophy of the universe, and not merely as part of an -inductive science of the human mind. This connects the theistic postulate -of spiritual reason, as the foundation of human experience, with Reid’s -appeal to the ultimate but often dormant necessities of human nature, a -subject treated more fully in my _Philosophy of Theism_ (1896). - -For valuable unpublished material—more indeed than I could avail -myself of within narrow limits—I am indebted to Miss Hilda Paterson, -the guardian of manuscript remains and other relics of her ancestor, -preserved at Birkwood, in Reid’s native country of the Dee. I also owe -much to Mr. R. S. Rait, now of New College, Oxford, the historian of the -Universities of Aberdeen, whose research has done much to illustrate -his _alma mater_ in the North. And I am indebted to Dr. Davidson, the -Professor of Logic, and to Mr. Anderson, the Librarian, of the University -of Aberdeen, for documents to which the space at my disposal forbids more -than an occasional reference. - -Those who desire to study further the chapter in the history of European -philosophy in which Reid’s name is prominent, may be referred to -Cousin’s critical appreciation in his _Philosophie Écossaise_ (1857), -and to Professor Andrew Seth’s Balfour Lectures on ‘Scottish Philosophy’ -(1885), in which the Scottish and German answers to Hume are compared. -The industry of the late Dr. M’Cosh has collected, in his _Scottish -Philosophy_ (1875), interesting particulars regarding our national -philosophers from Hutcheson to Hamilton. - - A. C. F. - -UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, _21st February 1898_. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - - CHAPTER I - - BOYHOOD AND ANCESTRY: STRACHAN AND THE VALLEY OF THE DEE, 1710-1722 9 - - CHAPTER II - - AT MARISCHAL COLLEGE, 1722-1737 18 - - CHAPTER III - - NEW MACHAR AND DAVID HUME, 1737-1751 30 - - CHAPTER IV - - OLD ABERDEEN: A REGENT IN KING’S COLLEGE, 1751-1764 43 - - CHAPTER V - - UNIVERSAL SCEPTICISM VERSUS INSPIRED COMMON SENSE: AN ‘INQUIRY - INTO THE HUMAN MIND ON THE PRINCIPLES OF COMMON SENSE,’ 1764 56 - - CHAPTER VI - - GLASGOW COLLEGE: THE PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY, 1764-1780 72 - - CHAPTER VII - - IN PHILOSOPHICAL RETIREMENT: AUTHORSHIP IN OLD AGE, 1780-1795 103 - - CHAPTER VIII - - INSPIRED COMMON SENSE AND CAUSATION: ACTIVE OR MORAL POWER IN MAN 118 - - CHAPTER IX - - THE END, 1796 126 - - CHAPTER X - - RETROSPECTIVE AND CRITICAL 133 - - CHAPTER XI - - REID IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: DEVELOPMENT OF THE COMMON SENSE - PHILOSOPHY: REID IN FRANCE: REID AND HAMILTON: REID AND - SCOTO-HEGELIAN IDEALISM: ETHICAL OR THEISTIC FINAL FAITH 144 - - - - -THOMAS REID - - - - -CHAPTER I - -BOYHOOD AND ANCESTRY: STRACHAN AND THE VALLEY OF THE DEE - -1710-1722 - - -Thomas Reid makes his first appearance as a boy in the manse of Strachan -in Kincardineshire, where he entered this world of sense on the 26th of -April 1710. His father, the Rev. Lewis Reid, was minister of the parish -for fifty-eight years, from 1704 until his death in 1762. The mother, -Margaret Gregory, was the eldest daughter, by his second marriage, of -David Gregory, laird of Kinairdy in Banffshire. An elder son, David, -born in 1705, and two daughters, Isobel and Jane, with Thomas, formed -the family at the manse when Thomas was a boy. David was twice married, -and died about 1780, without issue; the elder daughter, Isobel, died -unmarried, in her stepmother’s house at Aberdeen, in 1770; and the -younger, Jane, after a _mésalliance_, died without issue after the middle -of the century. Their mother, Margaret Gregory, died in 1732, when the -manse was still the home of Thomas. In 1735, Mr. Lewis Reid married his -second wife, Janet, daughter of Fraser of Phopachy in the county of -Inverness. Two sons and five daughters were the issue of the second -marriage. The eldest son died when a student at Marischal College, in -1758, and the younger, who studied medicine, died in London about ten -years later. Of the daughters, one died in infancy, and two others, -Elizabeth and Mary, died unmarried—the former in Edinburgh in 1772, -and the latter in Aberdeen in 1771. Of the other two, Margaret became -in 1763 the wife of the Rev. Alexander Leslie, minister of Fordoun in -Kincardineshire, and Grace married the Rev. John Rose, minister of Udny -in Aberdeenshire. Mrs. Rose died in 1793, and Mrs. Leslie in 1829, the -last survivor of the Reid family circle at Strachan.[1] - -It is recorded of the father of this large family that he was respected -for piety, prudence, and benevolence, inheriting from his ancestors -simplicity of manners, and literary tastes which, without attracting the -notice of the world, engaged his leisure and dignified his rural life. Of -the two wives, the second survived her stepson, the philosopher. - -The remote parish of Strachan is formed by the romantic valley -through which the Feugh finds its way from the Grampians to the Dee -at Banchory-Ternan—a breezy upland region, redolent of heather and -bog-myrtle, apt in its solitude to educate reflective individuality in -one so disposed. In those days the road to the south over the Cairn o’ -Mount passed through Glen Dye, under the shadow of Clochnaben, a road -two centuries ago frequented by robbers, and invested with a halo of -romance by tales of marvellous adventures. But Glen Dye has an interest -of another kind. Centuries ago it was the home and property of the family -of Cant, from whom Andrew Cant, the noted Covenanting preacher, was -descended,[2] and with whom the more widely celebrated Immanuel Kant, -chief factor in the philosophical thought of modern Europe, claimed -connection. Strachan is thus associated in imagination with two of -the most illustrious thinkers of the eighteenth century. Thomas Reid -is in this way connected locally with his famous German philosophical -contemporary, as well as by parallels in their lives which appear in the -sequel, and by spiritual analogies in their philosophy. They are moreover -united by their common antagonism to the scepticism of David Hume, who -also through them is associated with the moorland valley of the Feugh, -making it suggest to fancy three memorable intellectual figures. In -Scotland David Hume and Thomas Reid are the two greatest names of their -century in philosophy. - -Imagination is our only guide when we try to picture the boyhood of -Thomas Reid in the homely surroundings at Strachan. The one recorded fact -about him is, that in his tenth year the home education of the manse -was followed by two years spent in the neighbouring parish school of -Kincardine O’Neil. Thus far no signal signs of future eminence appeared. -He was, it seems, an unprecocious youth, remarked for modesty and patient -industry. The insight of the schoolmaster is said to have found in him -the rudiments of a man of ‘good and well-wearing parts.’ I wish that some -further record could be found of this sagacious prophet of his pupil’s -steady mental concentration, and I have not discovered why the boy was -placed in the Kincardine school. This dim picture is our only one in the -first twelve years of his life. - -The lack of personal incident in those years is in a manner compensated -by the interest of an illustrious ancestry—Reids and Gregories. He -inherited mind through his father, but much more through his mother, -with whom he shared the unique celebrity of a family which in successive -generations shed lustre on the valley of the Dee—a memorable example of -inherited intellect. - - * * * * * - -In the end of the fourteenth century certain lands of Pitfodels, -between the bridge of Dee at Aberdeen and the Den of Cults, became the -property of William Reid, a kinsman of the former owner, Alexander -Moray, ‘lord of Culboyne.’ The lands remained in the Reid family -until the beginning of the sixteenth century, when Marion, heiress -of Alexander, the last Reid of Pitfodels, married Thomas, the eldest -son of Gilbert Menzies, a burgess of Aberdeen, whose family was known -thereafter for three centuries as Menzies of Pitfodels. James Reid, -the first minister of Banchory-Ternan after the Reformation, was, it -seems, grandson of a younger brother of this Alexander of Pitfodels; -and Lewis Reid, the minister of Strachan, was in direct descent from -the minister of Banchory. It is told of James Reid that he was ‘a man -of notable head-piece for witte, and the most of his children were men -of extraordinary qualifications.’ His eldest son, Robert, noted for -good sense, succeeded him at Banchory. The second son, Thomas, was one -of the numerous Scots famed for learning, who migrated to the Continent -in the end of the fifteenth century and after. He was educated partly -at Marischal College, Aberdeen, where he was made regent about 1602. -He was afterwards in residence at Oxford and abroad: he defended a -thesis ‘_De objecto Metaphysicæ_’ at Rostock in 1610. After his return -to Britain he became Greek and Latin Secretary to King James, some of -whose works he translated into Latin. Verses of his may be found in the -‘_Delitiæ Poetarum Scotorum_.’ Alexander, the next brother, was physician -to Charles I., and author of works in physiology well considered at -that time. John, a brother of the minister of Banchory, translated -into ‘the Scottishe tunge’ Buchanan’s _History of Scotland_, and this -unpublished version is in the College of Glasgow. A second Robert, -grandson of the eldest of these four sons, became minister of Banchory -at the Restoration; he was a member of the first Episcopal Synod at -Aberdeen in the restored Establishment (the Covenanting Alexander Cant -was his immediate predecessor); he died in 1682. Thomas, the second son, -‘wadsetter of Eslie in Banchorie,’ was father of the Rev. Lewis Reid of -Strachan, by his wife, Jane, a niece of Sir Thomas Burnett of Leys; and -thus young Thomas Reid at Strachan was related to the family from which -the historian Bishop Burnet was descended. These Reids of Banchory rest -in the old burial-ground there, ‘not farre from the banke of the river -Dee, expecting the general resurrection, and the glorious appearing of -Jesus Christ there Redemier.’ - -But the Gregory connection of Thomas Reid through his mother is, as I -have said, more significant than the Reid succession. During the Civil -Wars of the seventeenth century, the minister of the rural parish of -Drumoak, on the north side of the Dee, between Banchory and Pitfodels, -was the Rev. John Gregory, son of an Aberdeen merchant, whose father was -a M’Gregor from Glenlyon. The Gregories of Deeside were thus descendants -of the clan Gregor of Glenlyon and Glenstrae, a circumstance referred -to by Sir Walter Scott in the Introduction to _Rob Roy_. The minister -of Drumoak married a lady named Anderson, one of a family reputed for -mathematical ability in successive generations. She inherited the genius -of her family, and transmitted it to her sons. Her husband at Drumoak -seems to have steered his cause skilfully in that troubled time, for he -bought the good estate of Kinairdy, part of the heritage of the lordly -house of Creighton Viscount Frendraught. Alexander, the eldest son of the -Rev. John Gregory of Kinairdy, was killed by one of the Creightons in a -fray in 1663, and the homicide was the occasion of a _cause célèbre_. -David, the second son, succeeded his murdered brother in the lands of -Kinairdy, and shared in the mathematical inheritance of the Gregories. -For some reason he sold Kinairdy and became an energetic merchant, -spending part of his life in Holland. This David of Kinairdy was twice -married, and father of twenty-nine children, which perhaps explains the -sale. The wife of the Rev. Lewis Reid of Strachan was a daughter of -the second marriage. Three of her brothers were eminent Professors of -Mathematics in British Universities—namely, David, first at Edinburgh, -and then at Oxford, the friend of Newton; James, the successor of David -in Edinburgh; and Charles, who professed mathematics at St. Andrews. -David’s son was Professor of History at Oxford from 1724 till 1767, and -Dean of Christ Church; and his cousin David succeeded to the chair of -Mathematics at St. Andrews. Two other Professors were sons of two of -‘Kinairdy’s’ daughters—namely, our Thomas Reid, and Alexander Innes, -who professed Philosophy in Marischal College. These all traced their -birth to the minister of Drumoak and his mathematical wife—through -their son David. But James, the third son of the Drumoak manse, was not -less illustrious in himself and in his descendants. He was Professor -of Mathematics, first at St. Andrews and then at Edinburgh, inventor -of the reflecting telescope, also Newton’s friend and correspondent, -who introduced the science of Newton into the Universities of Scotland. -It is of him that Whiston writes from Cambridge:—‘He had already -caused several of his students to keep acts upon several branches of -the Newtonian philosophy; while we at Cambridge, poor wretches, were -ignominiously studying the fictitious hypotheses of the Cartesian.’ -His son James became in 1725 Professor of Medicine in King’s College, -Aberdeen, a considerable local figure. He had two sons: James, who -succeeded his father, and John, a regent of philosophy in his father’s -college, afterwards Professor of Medicine in Edinburgh, and remembered -as the author of _A Comparative View of Man and the Animal World_, and -_A Father’s Legacy_, books full of good sense. Dr. John Gregory’s son, -James, was Professor of Medicine in Edinburgh from 1776 till 1821, a -physician and a metaphysician—in the sequel, the intimate friend and -correspondent of Thomas Reid, and the patron of Thomas Brown. Of his -family, one son held the Chair of Chemistry in King’s College, and -afterwards in Edinburgh till his death in 1858; another, Donald, was an -eminent archæologist, author of the _History of the Western Highlands -and Islands_; a third died in high mathematical repute at Cambridge, -returning to the original bent of this extraordinary family, in which -the disposition to mathematics had latterly been overborne by medicine -and moral philosophy. Even this long list of names omits scientific -celebrities who were descended from the minister of Drumoak and his wife, -Margaret Anderson, more remotely still from the wild clan Gregor of -Glenlyon and Glenorchy. - -But the life of romantic adventure did not descend to young Thomas -Reid at Strachan. A disposition to look at the world on its moral and -religious side, perhaps inherited from the Reids, with a strong bent -to mathematics and the scientific side of things, inherited from the -Gregories, along with his own patient, concentrated reflection, was the -inheritance of the boy ‘of good and well-wearing parts’ who left the -Kincardine school in 1722. The long life that followed presents none -of the outward incidents that readily touch the popular fancy; but to -those awake to the higher problems of human life it touches thought -and imagination in another fashion. It has been said that a human life -should resemble a well-ordered poem: the exordium should be simple and -should promise little. This condition is fulfilled in the life of Thomas -Reid, which, to the end, was modestly spent in learned retirement, -indifferent to vulgar fame. Its chief interest lies in the spectacle -of penetrating sagacity, independent and sincere, steadily devoted to -the invisible world of thought and belief, in quest of the ultimate -foundations and guarantees of human knowledge. It should attract those -who, in an age of sceptical criticism, seek to assure themselves of -the final trustworthiness of the experience into which, at birth, they -were admitted as strangers, ignorant of what the whole means, like the -agnostic in Pascal. Who has sent me into this life, I know not; what -the world around me is, I know not; nor what I am myself. I find myself -chained to one little planet, but without understanding why I am here -rather than there; and why this period of time was given me to live in -rather than any other in the unbeginning and endless duration. Life with -its memories and forecasts looks like a blind venture. The sum of my -knowledge seems to be that I must die; but what I am most ignorant of -is the meaning of death. One is drawn to Reid by an interest in final -questions like these, which the agnostic spirit is now forcing upon -us. It was the sceptical disintegration of human knowledge and belief -that was going on in his own time that led Reid, with the patience and -persistency revealed in his boyhood, to devote a long life to testing -in his own sincere fashion man’s intellectual and moral footing in that -world of sense which, all strange to it, he entered in the valley of the -Feugh. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -AT MARISCHAL COLLEGE - -1722-1737 - - -At the age of twelve Reid emerges out of the obscurity in which his -boyhood lies concealed from us. In one of his letters to his cousin, -Dr. James Gregory, written in his old age, he mentions ‘April 1722’ -as the date of his first visit to Aberdeen, then a town of some eight -thousand inhabitants, and twenty miles distant from the moorland valley -in which he was born. He tells how he was taken to see his grandmother, -who was living in Aberdeen, the second wife and widow of David Gregory -of Kinairdy. ‘I found her,’ he says, ‘old and bedridden, but I never -saw a more ladylike woman. I was now and then called into her room, -when she sat upon her bed, or entertained me with sweetmeats and grave -advices. Her daughters that assisted her often, as well as one who lived -with her, treated her as if she had been of a superior rank; and indeed -her appearance and manner commanded respect. She and all her children -were zealous Presbyterians: the first wife’s children were Tories and -Episcopalians.’ This picture of the boy in Aberdeen we owe to his -movement from the country school in the valley of the Dee to the higher -sphere of the Aberdeen Grammar School, which he seems to have entered -in that April, encouraged perhaps by the prognostic of the Kincardine -schoolmaster. The Grammar School Register tells that in ‘October 1722’ -Thomas Reid left it to enter Marischal College, where his name appears -in the list of those matriculated that autumn. It was an early age for -University life according to later ideas, but not at variance with the -custom of Scotland in those days. Burnet, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, -another eminent Aberdonian, entered Marischal College when he was only -nine, and graduated when he was thirteen; and Burnet’s contemporary, -Reid’s granduncle, James Gregory, graduated when he was not older than -Burnet. - -The uncouth and dilapidated structure in which the University of the -Earls Marischal was housed when young Reid was spending his undergraduate -years in it, bore no resemblance to the stately College on the same site -which now adorns the prosperous city of Bon Accord. The process of decay -was so rapid, and the case was so urgent, that a few years later the -regents suspended their official claim to a part of the scanty funds of -the College, and also asked help from the community, ‘to preserve from -ruin an university from whence so many accomplished men have gone forth -as ornaments of their country in every age since its foundation.’ The -troubles of 1715 had further reduced its resources. Its Chancellor, the -tenth Earl Marischal, concerned in the rising of Mar, then forfeited -his title and the official connection of his family with the academical -foundation of his ancestor. The Principal and most of the authorities had -been removed or suspended by a commission of visitation in 1717. During -the two years which followed the adventure of Mar the doors of Marischal -College were closed, so that, when public instruction was resumed in -1717, a new race of teachers was in possession, and, as it happened, an -era of intellectual activity was inaugurated. - -Notwithstanding the humble accommodation which it offered, and the -social revolution through which it had lately passed, Marischal College -could then boast of at least three eminent teachers, imbued with the -spirit of the ‘new philosophy,’ and of the reviving literary taste in -Scotland. The Professor of Mathematics was Colin M’Laurin, brother of the -eloquent Presbyterian preacher, himself among the foremost of British -mathematicians, a friend and correspondent of the aged Newton, who, -along with Reid’s inherited disposition, attracted the young student to -the study in which the teacher was a master. And about the time when -Reid entered College, Thomas Blackwell, a critic of Homer, and author of -_Memoirs of the Court of Augustus_, prominent among his countrymen who -were anxious to write good English, became Professor of Greek, and for a -generation encouraged classical taste and love of literature in the north -of Scotland. But the teacher who chiefly influenced Reid’s undergraduate -life was George Turnbull, a copious author, though his books are little -remembered now. He was Reid’s guide for three years; for the College was -then under a system of ‘regents’ which intrusted the student to the same -teacher in all the three years given to ‘philosophy’—natural as well as -moral. - -Reid was fortunate in entering Marischal College when it was inspired by -M’Laurin, Blackwell, and Turnbull, each a leader in the scientific and -literary awakening of the time. The Aberdeen of 1725 was no longer the -Aberdeen of the ministers of whom Gordon in his _Scots Affairs_ tells -that they shrieked, ‘downe with learning and up with Christ.’ Their -religion was in alliance with culture and progressive intelligence, -anticipating in the North the intellectual enlargement associated in the -West with the University of Glasgow under Hutcheson, Leechman, and Adam -Smith. - -George Turnbull is little known now, but he is too important a factor in -the making of Thomas Reid to be lightly passed over. He was an Edinburgh -graduate, born in 1698, and like Reid a son of the manse. He became a -regent of philosophy in Marischal College at the age of twenty-three. The -College record informs us that on the 14th of April 1726 he presented -for graduation a band of thirty-nine students: the name of Thomas Reid -appears last in the list. Turnbull’s lectures when he was regent were -in 1740 embodied in his _Principles of Moral Philosophy_. His leading -arguments are illustrated and vindicated by quotations from Berkeley’s -_Theory of Vision_ and _Principles of Human Knowledge_, also by the -_Inquiry_ of Francis Hutcheson and the _Sermons_ of Bishop Butler. The -influence of Berkeley is evident. - -The mottoes on the title-page of Turnbull’s book express his method -of inquiry. One of them is the precept of Pope—‘Account for moral as -for natural things’; the other expresses in the words of Newton the -consequence which may be expected to follow—‘If Natural Philosophy, in -all its parts, by pursuing this method, shall at length be perfected, the -bounds of Moral Philosophy will also be enlarged.’ Turnbull was among -the first in Scotland to substitute, in mental philosophy, tentative -study of the facts of human nature for logical deduction from abstract -dogmas. ‘If a fact be actually found, either in the outer world of -sensible things, or in the inner and invisible world of mind, there is -no room for reasoning against it. Every reasoning, however subtle, if -it be repugnant in its conclusion to the actual fact of the case, must -be sophistical.’ Turnbull is fond of repeating that facts presented to -the senses are not the only, nor yet the most important, facts which the -universe contains. The invisible facts which take the form of beliefs -and feelings and volitions are the deepest facts of all: spirit and not -matter at last regulates life. Then he refers to what he calls ‘common -sense’ as the final arbiter in all questions. ‘Common sense is sufficient -to teach those who think of the matter with seriousness and attention all -the duties of common life; all our obligations to God and our fellow-men; -all that is morally fit and binding.’ In a word, spiritual facts of mind -are not to be crushed out of existence by tangible and visible facts of -matter. That mind in the form of will is the only known active power is -another prominent lesson in Turnbull’s teaching. ‘It is will alone that -manifests power or productive energy. To speak of any other active power -in the universe is to speak without meaning; because experience, the -source of all the materials of our knowledge, does not lead us to any -other conception of power.’ Turnbull’s conception of the material world -is very like Berkeley’s. Matter is the established or natural order in -which sense ideas present themselves. ‘Properly speaking, what we call -matter and space are only sensible ideas, produced in us, according to an -established or natural order, by some external cause; for when we speak -of material things, we can only mean certain sensible perceptions that -arise in our minds, according to a fixed order, but which are experienced -to be absolutely inert or passive, having in themselves no productive -force.’ It was in this philosophy that Turnbull’s most famous pupil was -educated at Marischal College. - -Turnbull’s official connection with the College lasted only six years. -After inaugurating moral philosophy in the modern spirit in Scotland, he -resigned in the spring of 1727, and, after some residence abroad, lived -in London, producing books in excess of the demand for them. He ended by -taking orders in the Irish branch of the Anglican Church, finding the -communion of Jeremy Taylor and Berkeley more suited to his temper than -the fervid Presbyterianism to which he was accustomed in his youth. In -search of health, he died at the Hague in 1749. - -I have enlarged on Turnbull, because by him Reid was first attracted -to the study of the human mind. But Blackwell, the Professor of Greek, -must not be forgotten. Blackwell, as well as Turnbull, was connected -with Berkeley. It was when Reid was at Marischal College that Berkeley -was engaged in the most romantic missionary enterprise of that age, for -spreading Christian civilisation in America by a College in the Bermudas. -Curiously, Blackwell was one of those whom he asked to join the little -party of missionaries who embarked with him at Gravesend in September -1728, after he had surrendered high preferment in Ireland in order -to devote his life to a more cosmopolitan philanthropy. The Aberdeen -regent was not prepared for the sacrifice. He refers thus to Berkeley’s -adventure:— - - ‘In this respect I would with pleasure do justice to the - memory of a very great though singular sort of man, known as - a philosopher, and intended founder of a University in the - Bermudas or Summer Islands. An inclination to carry me out - with him on that expedition, as one of the young professors - on his new foundation, having brought us often together, I - scarce remember to have conversed with him on that art, liberal - or mechanic, of which he knew not more than the ordinary - practitioners. With the widest views, he descended to the most - minute detail, and begrudged neither pains nor expense for - the means of information. I enter not into his peculiarities, - either religious or personal, but admire the extensive genius - of the man, and think it a loss to the Western world that - his noble and exalted plan of an American University was not - carried into execution.’—_Memoirs of the Court of Augustus._ - -The fact that Berkeley was so much in evidence at Marischal College in -those days, through Turnbull and Blackwell, is significant of much in the -life of Reid. - -If Reid recorded his thoughts when he was a student at Marischal College, -the record has been lost. A commonplace book like Berkeley’s, when -Berkeley was an undergraduate in Dublin, would have cast welcome light on -this part of his mental history. The only extant revelation of his inner -life in these years is contained in a letter written half a century after -to his kinsman William Gregory at Oxford. It relates to the period when -his year was divided between town and country—the winters at Aberdeen and -the long summer days at the manse of Strachan:— - - ‘About the age of fourteen I was,’ he says, ‘almost every - night unhappy in my sleep from frightful dreams: sometimes - hanging over a dreadful precipice, and just ready to drop down; - sometimes pursued for my life and stopped by a wall, or by a - sudden loss of strength; sometimes ready to be devoured by a - wild beast. How long I was plagued with such dreams I do not - recollect. I believe it was for a year or two at least; and I - think they had left me before I was fifteen. In those days I - was much given to what Mr. Addison in one of his “Spectators” - calls _castle-building_; and in my evening solitary walk (which - was generally all the exercise I took), my thoughts would hurry - me into some active scene, where I generally acquitted myself - much to my own satisfaction, and in those scenes of imagination - I performed many a gallant exploit. At the same time, in my - dreams I found myself the most arrant coward. Not only my - courage but my strength failed me in every danger; and I often - rose from my bed in the morning in such a panic that it took - some time to get the better of it. I wished much to get free of - these uneasy dreams, which not only made me unhappy in sleep, - but left a disagreeable impression on my mind for some part of - the following day. I thought it was worth trying whether it - was possible to recollect while I was dreaming that it _was_ - all a dream, and that I was in no danger. Accordingly, I often - went to sleep with my mind as strongly impressed as I could - with this thought—that I never in my lifetime had been in any - real danger, and that every fright I had was a dream. After - many fruitless endeavours to recollect this when the danger - appeared, I effected it at last, and have often, when I was - sliding down a precipice into the abyss, recollected that it - was all a dream, and boldly jumped down. The effect of this - commonly was that I immediately awoke; but I awoke calm and - intrepid, which I thought a great acquisition. After this my - dreams were never very uneasy; and in a short time I dreamed - not at all. During all this time I was in perfect health; but - whether my ceasing to dream was the effect of the recollection - above mentioned, or of any change in the habit of my body, - which is usual about that period of life, I cannot tell. I - think it may more probably be imputed to the last. However, the - fact was that for at least forty years after I dreamt none, - to the best of my remembrance; and finding from the testimony - of others that this is somewhat uncommon, I have often as I - awoke endeavoured to recollect, without being able to recollect - anything that passed in my sleep. The only distinct dream I - ever had since I was about sixteen, as far as I remember, was - about two years ago (1777). I had got my head blistered for a - fall. A plaster which was put upon it after the blister pained - me excessively for a whole night. In the morning I slept a - little, and dreamed very distinctly that I had fallen into the - hands of a party of Indians and was scalped. I am apt to think - that, as there is a state of sleep and a state wherein we are - awake, so there is an intermediate state which partakes of the - other two. I have slept on horseback, but so as to preserve my - balance; and if the horse stumbled, I could make the exertion - necessary to save me from a fall, as if I was awake.’ - -In all this one detects the disposition to sober introspection, which -ripened as life advanced. - - * * * * * - -During the ten years that followed the graduation in April 1726 we have -only faint traces of Reid. In the following winter he began to study -theology, and in 1731 he had completed the course required by the Church, -under the direction of Professor James Chalmers, father of the founder of -the _Aberdeen Journal_. This is another parallel between Reid and Kant: -both, it seems, were theologically trained. - -Reid’s name first appears in the books of the Presbytery of Kincardine -O’Neil when he was in his nineteenth year. Extracts from the minutes with -which I have been favoured record his progress with a quaint simplicity -not without interest, as part of the history of a philosopher:— - - ‘On the 17th of July, 1728, James Lumsden, John Beaton, Thomas - Reid, and David Ross, students in divinity, residing within the - bounds of the presbytery, being now present, the presbytery - thought fit to appoint each of them to be in readiness to - deliver a homily against the next meeting, and accordingly - appointed Mr. Reid to deliver a homily on John i. 29.—18 - September 1728. This day Mr. Thomas Reid delivered his homily, - with which the presbytery being satisfied, the moderator - encouraged him to go on with his studies.—8th June 1731. The - presbytery considering that Mr. Thomas Reid had been allowed by - the Synod to enter upon tryal, and he, being upon the place, - did undergo questioning tryal, wherein he was approved, and - the presbytery appointed him to be in readyness to deliver a - lecture on Ps. ii., and an exegesis on that common head. _Num - detur peccatum originale inherens._—22nd September 1731. This - day Mr. Thomas Reid underwent a questioning tryal and was - approved. And the presbytery taking into consideration that he, - having passed his course in Arts at the College, and thereafter - having studied Divinity for the space of [3] years, as also - having resided for the whole of this time within the bounds - of this presbytery; and they looking upon him as a person fit - to be entered upon tryals, and also having had sufficient - testimonials from the professors of divinity with whom he - studied as to his proficiency in his studys and good behaviour, - he was admitted to the usual tryals appointed by the Acts of - the General Assembly of this Church, and having passed through - all the parts thereof, he was licensed by the said presbytery - to preach the Gospel of Christ, and exercise his gifts as a - probationer for the holy ministry.’ - -On the 2nd of August 1732, ‘the Presbytery chose Mr. Thomas Reid to be -their Clerk.’ On the 5th of October in the same year, ‘the Presbytery -appointed Mr. Thomas Reid to supply at Lumphanan the second Sabbath after -Mr. Gordon’s removal.’ On the 8th of November, ‘Mr. Thomas Reid was -continued Clerk till the next meeting of the provincial Synod,’ in April -1733. - -In July 1733 Reid re-appears, this time not engaged in ecclesiastical -ministration, but as the librarian of Marischal College. It was an office -with which he had a family connection. ‘The most outstanding name in -the history of Marischal College Library,’ says Mr. Rait, ‘is that of -Thomas Reid, Latin secretary to James vi., son of James Reid, minister of -Banchory-Ternan. In 1624 he left to Marischal College his own library, -6000 merks to be invested in land, and a sum of money to provide a salary -for a librarian.’ The secretary’s brother, Alexander, also bequeathed -books of philosophy and divinity. And David Gregory of Kinairdy was for -some time librarian. It was an acceptable retreat for research, and a -mark of esteem from the College. Mr. Rose, Reid’s brother-in-law, says -that he then studied Newton’s _Principia_ and Locke’s _Essay_.[4] Again -a parallel between Reid and Kant. Some time after Kant had taken his -degree he was made librarian in the Schloss Library, with a yearly -stipend of about £10. This was nominally in excess of Reid’s modest -honorarium of £9 at Aberdeen, a pittance which was for a time suspended -by threatened litigation. He was in active service as librarian till -1736, and for two years more in possession, ‘on leave of absence, with a -substitute.’ - -The need for a ‘substitute’ in 1736 can be explained. In that year, for -the first time, Reid is found outside Scotland. He is making a tour -in England, with Stewart, the friend of his undergraduate years, and -now Professor of Mathematics in Marischal College. The record of their -movements in the South is scanty. Reid’s uncle, Dr. George Reid, then a -physician in London, provided a home for them in the metropolis; and as -David Gregory, Reid’s cousin, was Professor of History at Oxford, they -found another home on the Isis, with an easy introduction to the colleges -and social life of the great English University. The Gregory connection -also opened the way to interesting things and persons at Cambridge as -well as at Oxford and London. Reid, it seems, saw Bentley at Cambridge, -‘who delighted him with his learning and amused him with his vanity’: -here, too, he enjoyed the conversation of the blind mathematician -Saunderson, whose experience he afterwards turned to good account in -his inquiries regarding the sense of seeing. One would like to have had -Reid’s first impressions of England, its metropolis, its social and -church life, and its ancient colleges. It does not appear that the scenes -through which he moved awakened in him much historic sentiment; that, -like his contemporary Berkeley, Oxford would be the ideal home of his old -age; or that he was greatly moved by its academic splendour, associated -with what is noblest in English history, and by the soft repose of the -surrounding rural scenes. In one of his letters to Dr. James Gregory, -he speaks of the first time he was in ‘Dean Gregory’s house at Oxford,’ -when the Dean told ‘the story of the watch very well to a large company -of Oxonians’; so we may infer that other visits followed in later life. -And the Oxford of his first visit was the degenerate Oxford described -by Adam Smith and Gibbon, who were in residence a few years after. Reid -is seldom again found out of Scotland. There is no sign that he ever -visited Ireland or the Continent in his retired, sedate, and methodical -life. In this, too, he was like Kant, who in all his eighty years is said -never to have travelled more than forty miles from his native Königsberg. -The stay-at-home disposition common to both is not unlike the character -reflected in their books. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -NEW MACHAR AND DAVID HUME - -1737-1751 - - -Soon after Reid’s return to Marischal College from his English tour, -the young librarian was presented, by the professors of King’s College, -to the pastoral charge of New Machar, a parish some ten miles to the -north-west of Aberdeen. The fact that his kinsman, James Gregory, was -professor in King’s may perhaps explain this unwonted exercise of -patronage in favour of a graduate of the rival College. - -The presentation, at any rate, raised a storm of opposition among the -parishioners. It was the occasion of one of those conflicts of Church -parties to which the law of patronage gave rise in Scotland in those -days. The incidents of Reid’s introduction to ecclesiastical office -form a characteristic picture. Rural prejudice was due in this case to -various circumstances. It was partly influenced by a sermon, preached -in the church of New Machar, on February 10, 1737, at the moderation of -the call, by the Rev. John Bisset, one of the ministers of Aberdeen. Mr. -Bisset had himself been minister of the parish ten years before. He was -now a noted preacher in the North, and one with whom express concurrence -of the congregation in an ecclesiastical settlement was a high article -of doctrine.[5] In his sermon he denounced aristocratic interference, -insinuated undue outside influence and personal favour, claimed a right -to a vote in the election of his minister for every Christian, the poor -man as much as the rich, and concluded with an appeal to his audience to -quit themselves like men, and to trust in God. The recent history of the -parish strengthened this appeal. The last presentation to New Machar was -inauspicious. In 1729 a ‘riding committee’ had introduced Mr. Bisset’s -successor. Soon after, the new minister was accused of ‘powdering his wig -on the Sabbath.’ Absolved by the Church courts, he was in 1736 deposed -for a graver offence. It was a time of ecclesiastical anarchy in New -Machar. The record of the parish is blank between the minute which tells -of the departure of Mr. Bisset in 1728, and that which registers ‘the -ordination of Mr. Thomas Reid’ in May 1737. - -Reid was the innocent victim of the sermon and the scandal when he came -to be ordained on May 12, 1737. He had been violently attacked and -maltreated by persons in disguise, who, according to tradition, ducked -him in a horse-pond. It is also told that when he officiated for the -first time in the parish church, he was guarded in the pulpit by a drawn -sword. - -For fifteen years New Machar manse was Reid’s home. Popular prejudice was -overcome by his mild, beneficent activity. Those who had been carried -into outrage by hasty judgment at the beginning, followed him on his -departure with blessings and tears. ‘We fought against Mr. Reid when -he came,’ they are reported as saying, ‘and we would have fought for -him when he went away.’ His marriage, in August 1740, to his cousin -Elizabeth, a daughter of his London uncle, Dr. George Reid, promoted -this change. The gracious manner and constant goodness of this companion -of his life for more than fifty years was long remembered in the -Aberdeenshire parish. Six daughters and three sons were the issue of the -marriage. Five daughters were born at New Machar, and one died there. -Reid’s family bible at Birkwood contains the following interesting record -in his handwriting:— - - ‘Mr. Thomas Reid was born at Strachan, April 26, 1710; married - to Elizabeth Reid, August 12, 1740. The said Elizabeth was - born August 3, 1724. Their children:—(1) Jean, born July 21, - 1741, died February 27, 1772, buried in College Churchyard, - Glasgow; (2) Margaret, born October 20, 1742, died 1772, - buried as above; (3) Martha, born August 22, 1744, married Dr. - Patrick Carmichael; (4) Elizabeth, born February 21, 1746, died - of smallpox in August 1746, buried in the Churchyard of New - Machar; (5) Anna, born July 10, 1751, died of chin-cough May - 21, 1753, buried in the Isle of Old Machar; (6) George, born - February 11, 1755, died at St. John’s, Newfoundland, February - 1780; (7) Lewis, born December 13, 1756, died of teething July - 19, 1758, buried in the Isle of Old Machar; (8) David, born - February 26, 1762, died at Edinburgh August 30, 1782; (9) - Elizabeth, born May 8, 1766, died June 1, 1767, of smallpox by - inoculation, buried in the College Churchyard, Glasgow.’ - -The story of the fifteen years at New Machar, as we have it, is almost -empty of incidents, a dim picture. The scene does not warmly touch the -imagination. Undulating hills of moderate size, chill and tame; land -monotonously fertile, with scanty timber; yet pleasant prospects in the -distance of the valley of the Don, with Benachie and remoter Grampians in -the background; a population mostly agricultural; two or three country -mansions; the highroad from Aberdeen to Banff traversing the parish. New -Machar was wanting, on the whole, in the breezy highland charm of the -early home at Strachan. The social life was simple but intellectually -stagnant. Among the infrequent visitors at the manse I find incidental -mention in Reid’s letters of one. He tells that he made the acquaintance -of the well-known Jacobite, Mr. Hepburn of Keith, ‘by his lodging a night -in my house at New Machar,’ when he was in the Prince’s army, on his -way to Culloden; perhaps when he was in Lord George Murray’s division, -which retreated through Aberdeenshire in February 1746, or in one of -the detachments which were in motion around New Machar in the preceding -December. - -The Thomas Reid who is revealed to us in his books does not promise -pulpit eloquence likely to interest this rustic population. Like Bishop -Butler when he was in his remote rectory at Stanhope a few years -before, he was pondering the chief intellectual work of his life in -exile from intellectual society. None of Reid’s sermons are found among -his manuscripts. Indeed, it appears that his characteristic modesty -and diffidence, combined, it is said, with some neglect of literary -culture in his early education, induced him at first to read to his -rustic audience the sermons of eminent Anglican preachers, instead of -compositions of his own—thus adopting a practice afterwards recommended -by Paley, by which, with fit selection, many audiences might benefit -in this age of social pressure. ‘As to preaching,’ says Paley, ‘if -your situation requires a sermon every Sunday, make one and find -five.’ Tillotson and the Nonconformist Evans are mentioned as Reid’s -favourites, and something is said about Samuel Clarke. The luminous good -sense of Tillotson, and the reverential temper of Evans, and the lucid -reasoning of Clarke, would naturally attract Reid. But emotion as well -as moral ideal was not wanting in his religious life. It is said that -in a Communion Service tears fell from his eyes when he enlarged on the -divine beauty of the character of Jesus. The following expression of -religious feeling during an illness of his young wife appears among his -manuscripts, dated March 30, 1746:— - - ‘O God, I desire humbly to supplicate Thy Divine Majesty in - behalf of my distressed wife, who is by Thy hand brought very - low, and in imminent danger of death, if Thou, who alone doest - wonders, do not in mercy interpose Thy almighty arm, and bring - her back from the gate of death. I deserve justly, O Lord, - that Thou shouldst deprive me of the greatest comfort of my - life, because I have not been so thankful to Thee as I ought - for giving me such a kind and affectionate wife. I have forgot - Thy goodness in bringing us happily together by an unforeseen - and undesigned train of events, and blessing us with so much - love and harmony of affection, and so many of the comforts and - conveniences of life. I have not been so careful as I ought - to have been to stir her up to piety and Christian virtues. - I have not taken that pains with my children and servants - and relatives as I ought. Alas! I have been too negligent of - my pastoral duty and my private devotions, too much given to - the pleasures and satisfactions of this world, and too little - influenced by the promises and the hope of a future state. I - have employed my studies, reading, and conversation rather to - please myself than to edify myself and others. I have sinned - greatly in neglecting many opportunities of making private - applications to my flock and family in the affairs of their - souls, and in using too slight preparation for my public - exercises. I have thrown away too much of my time in sloth and - sleep, and have not done so much for the relief of the poor and - destitute as I might have done. The means that Providence has - afforded me of correcting my evil inclinations I have abused to - pamper and feed them in various instances. For these and many - other sins which have escaped my memory Thou mightst justly - inflict so great a chastisement on me, as to make my children - motherless and deprive me of my dear wife. O Lord, accept of - my humble and penitent confession of these my offences, which - I desire to acknowledge with shame and sorrow, and am resolved - by Thy grace to amend. If Thou art pleased to hearken to the - voice of my supplications, and grant my request on behalf of my - dear wife in restoring her to health, I do promise and covenant - through grace to turn from these backslidings, to express my - thankfulness by a vigorous discharge of my duty as a Christian, - a minister, and master of a family, and by an alms of ten - pounds sterling to the poor in meat and money. Lord, pardon - if there is anything in this presumptuous, or unbecoming a - humble penitent sinner; and, Lord, accept of what is sincerely - designed as a new bond upon my soul to my duty, through Jesus - Christ, my Lord and Saviour.’ - -This fervid expression of devotion reveals an intensity of purpose which -worked beneath the outwardly placid and discreet life. Mrs. Reid survived -this critical illness for nearly half a century. - -Much of Reid’s time at New Machar, according to his brother-in-law -Mr. Rose, was spent in meditative thought, with an attention to the -activities of his own mind of which few men are capable. Traditions of -solitary walks immersed in study were long in circulation. He found -his chief recreation, we are told, in the manse garden or in botanical -observations. His society attracted his neighbours. With Sir Archibald -Grant of Monymusk he maintained a lifelong intimacy. He never forgot New -Machar, and long after, in times of distress, anonymous gifts were traced -to his thoughtful but modest beneficence. - -Three years before Reid left New Machar, when he was in his thirty-eighth -year, he made his first appearance in print, in a short paper contributed -to the Royal Society, which appeared in their _Transactions_ in October -1748. It is called ‘An Essay on Quantity.’ It was occasioned by a book -published more than twenty years before, the _Inquiry into the Original -of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue_, by Francis Hutcheson, afterwards the -celebrated Professor of Moral Philosophy in Glasgow. In this tract simple -and compound ratios are applied, in forms of mathematical reasoning, -to solve problems of moral philosophy. It illustrates in some degree -the bent of Reid’s thoughts at this time, and his inherited interest in -mathematical reasonings. But it also shows bent of thought in another -direction, and recognition of other scientific methods than mathematical -demonstration, which had been favoured as of universal application by -philosophers like Descartes and Spinoza. Reid argued, in the spirit of -his master Turnbull, that genuine ethical inquiry is concerned with a -class of facts which are under a higher category, and refuse to submit to -geometrical measurement. - -It is a curious circumstance in the evolution of philosophy in Scotland -that Reid’s first publication should thus be adverse criticism of -Hutcheson, the father of Modern Philosophy in Scotland. It is also -curious that this juvenile performance presents another of the parallels -between Reid and Kant. For it happened that in the preceding year Kant -had made his first appearance, on a question concerned with mathematics, -and, like Reid’s, in an argument against conclusions maintained by -Leibnitz. - -But this mathematical _brochure_ imperfectly represents the ‘intense -study’ at New Machar. For an event happened soon after Reid’s settlement -there which determined the direction of his thoughts for the remainder of -his life. In January 1739, a book made an almost unnoticed appearance in -London, which in the end became the chief factor in shaping the course of -European thought. Its author was David Hume, then a young man, unknown -to fame, not thirty years of age, the younger son of a Berwickshire -laird. Hume was younger than Reid by one year: both were born on the -26th of April. His name is popularly connected with the _History of -England_; but this _Treatise of Human Nature_, which somehow found its -way into the manse of New Machar, represents his most significant work. -It has contributed perhaps as much as any single book to the subsequent -progress of philosophy in Europe. Hume indeed penetrates into regions -which the ordinary reader fails to connect with everyday interests of -life, or with the hopes and fears of human beings. Accordingly, as he -tells, the _Treatise_ ‘fell dead-born from the press, without attaining -such distinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots.’ In a -letter to his friend Henry Home, afterwards Lord Kames, written soon -after this explosive mixture had been applied, its author announces that -the issue was ‘but indifferent, if I may judge by the sale of the book, -and if I may believe my bookseller. I am now out of humour with myself; -but doubt not in a little time to be out of humour with the world, like -other unsuccessful authors. After all, I am sensible of my folly in -entertaining any discontent, much more despair, on this account, since -I could not expect any better from such abstract reasoning.’ This book, -which professes to explain ‘human nature’ as a fact in the universe, -conducts to a final paralysis of human intelligence in universal doubt. - -This threatened paralysis awoke Reid into his characteristic intellectual -life. He was among the first in Europe to see the far-reaching meaning of -Hume’s account of man’s condition. He found in it the deep-lying seeds -of modern agnosticism. Its rashness was confessed by its author. ‘I -acknowledge a very great mistake in conduct in publishing my _Treatise -of Human Nature_, a book which pretended to innovate in all the sublimest -parts of philosophy, and which I composed before I was five-and-twenty. -But what success the same doctrines better illustrated and expressed -may meet with _adhuc sub judice lis est_. I wish I had always confined -myself to the more easy parts of erudition.’ Accordingly, about ten -years after, Hume presented his ‘sceptical doubts’ in a milder form, and -accompanied by a ‘sceptical solution’ of them, in an _Inquiry Concerning -Human Understanding_; but it was Hume in the original _Treatise_, not as -recast in the _Inquiry_, that moved Reid. Kant, like Reid, was awakened -from what he calls his ‘dogmatic slumber’ by David Hume; but it was -the _Inquiry_, not the _Treatise_, of which last he appears ignorant, -that roused Kant. Reid grappled with the more open and all-pervading -uncertainties of the earlier work. - -Let us look into the book which appalled the young minister of New Machar -by the spectre of a meaningless universe and illusory human nature. -Its author seemed to be indulging in ‘a peculiar strain of humour when -he set out in his introduction by promising with a grave face no less -than a complete system of the sciences upon a foundation entirely new, -namely, human nature, while the intention of the whole work is to show -that there is neither human nature nor science in the world. He surely -believed, against his principles, that he should be read, and that he -should retain his personal identity till he reaped the reputation justly -due to his metaphysical acumen.’ Reid found him taking for granted as his -fundamental maxim, that nothing can be admitted as true which cannot be -logically deduced from impressions of sense. Hume found the impressions -of sense to be transitory, and distinguished in their succession by -degrees of intensity,—sensations when in their highest intensity, -memories when in an abated degree, and mere fancies when the intensity -is at a minimum. His maxim forbade recognition of more reality in the -universe than a momentary reality of isolated perceptions, in their -different degrees of intensity, but without any reasonable retrospective -memory, or any reasonable expectation with its hopes or fears. What -we call ‘existence’ was resolved into an unintelligible chaos of felt -impressions—a purposeless procession, in which the percipient loses his -very selfhood and all besides. The Past, the Distant, the Future, are -all illusions. ‘Things’ and ‘persons’ are only unconnected transitory -feelings, without any permanent person to feel them. The word ‘identity’ -is meaningless. A person cannot be more than a momentary idea. ‘I never -catch _self_ except in the form of a passing feeling.’ Present feeling -alone exists. - -It is impossible without contradiction to express a philosophy which -destroys intelligible expression; virtually dismissing as absurdities -all personal pronouns, all substantive nouns, and all verbs; leaving -abstract adjectives as the only parts of speech;—and, as such adjectives -are really unintelligible, leaving us the speechless and motionless -victims of philosophical suicide. When I start with the preliminary maxim -of Hume, I literally lose ‘myself’ at last in a radically untrustworthy -universe, or I find myself suspended over a bottomless abyss. Here are -the last words of this intellectual suicide at the end of his destructive -analysis:— - - ‘I am affrighted and confounded with the forlorn solitude in - which I am placed by my philosophy. When we trace up the human - understanding to its first principles, we find it to lead us - into such sentiments as seem to turn into ridicule all our - past pains and industry, and to discourage us from all future - inquiries. Nothing is more curiously inquired after by the - mind of man than the _causes_ of phenomena; nor are we content - with knowing the immediate causes, but push on our inquiries - till we arrive at the original and ultimate principle. This - is our aim in all our studies and reflections. And now we - must be disappointed when we learn that this tie lies merely - in ourselves, and is nothing but that determination which is - acquired by custom. Such a discovery not only cuts off all - hope of ever attaining satisfaction, but even prevents our - very wishes; since it appears that when we desire to know the - ultimate and operating principle or something which resides - in the external object, we only contradict ourselves, or talk - without a meaning.... The intense view of these manifold - contradictions and imperfections in human reason has so wrought - upon me and heated my brain, that I am ready to reject all - belief and reasoning, and can look at no opinion even as more - probable or likely than another. All who believe anything, on - any subject, with certainty, must be fools.’ - -This is the issue of the _Treatise of Human Nature_ when the logical -understanding is finally resolved into transitory and isolated feelings, -without permitted final postulates of reason, in the form of faith or in -any other form, to connect and interpret them. - -It was this issue that Reid took seriously. He set himself, at first for -his own satisfaction only, to consider the ground he had for trusting -experience, when Hume reported that experience dissolved into sensational -atoms. Accordingly he spent much of his time at New Machar in reflecting -first of all on his perceptions through the senses. He began with these, -because it seemed that even as the foundations of abstract mathematics -lie in the mathematical axioms and definitions, so the foundations of -all concrete reasoning are to be found in the rational constitution of -perception through the five senses. ‘In the tree of human knowledge, -perception is the root, common understanding is the trunk, and the -sciences are the branches.’ Here is his own account of his state of mind -when he was engaged in these New Machar wrestlings:— - - ‘If my mind is indeed what the _Treatise of Human Nature_ makes - it, I find that I have been only in an enchanted castle, when - I seemed to be living in a well-ordered universe. I have been - imposed upon by spectres and apparitions. I blush inwardly - to think how I have been deluded. I am ashamed of my frame, - and can hardly forbear expostulating with my destiny. I see - myself, and the whole frame of Nature, shrink into fleeting - ideas, which, like Epicurus’s atoms, dance about in emptiness. - Descartes no sooner began to dig in this mine than scepticism - was ready to break in upon him. He did what he could to keep - it out. Malebranche and Locke, who dug deeper, found the - difficulty of keeping out the enemy still to increase; but they - laboured honestly in the design. Then Berkeley, who carried on - the work, despairing of securing all, bethought himself of an - expedient. By giving up the material world, which he thought - might be spared without loss, and even with advantage, he hoped - by an impregnable position to secure the world of spirits. - But, alas! the _Treatise of Human Nature_ wantonly sapped the - foundation of this partition, and drowned all in one universal - deluge.’ - -Nearly forty years after he left New Machar, Reid says[6] that in early -life he ‘believed the whole of Berkeley’s system’—till Hume opened his -eyes to ‘consequences’ that follow from the philosophy of Descartes -and his successors, ‘which gave me more uneasiness than the want of a -material world. So it came into my mind more than forty years ago’ to -question its foundation. Hume accordingly made Reid revise critically the -philosophy in which he had been educated by George Turnbull. The issue -appeared after he left New Machar. - -Reid was now to be placed in a condition more favourable to intense and -persistent thought. On November 22, 1751, he was admitted to King’s -College, Aberdeen, as one of its regent masters, in succession to Mr. -Alexander Rait. The patronage was vested in the College, and the minute -which records his election suggests the reputation which the rural pastor -had now secured among the cultured few, notwithstanding his modest and -retired life. - -It was not without reluctance that Reid left New Machar. Ramsay of -Ochtertyre, who knew him well, tells that when the deputation from King’s -College came to invite him to become a regent, ‘he at first declined, -explaining that he desired to live in retirement till he should complete -some literary projects which engaged him. Mrs. Reid, however, having -discovered the errand of the visitors, urged her husband to accept the -offer, being less fond of retirement, and having no objection to a -better income and better society. When her learned guests repeated their -proposal after dinner, she seconded them with such cogent arguments that -Mr. Reid was beat out of all his objections.’—_Scotland and Scotsmen._ - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -OLD ABERDEEN: A REGENT IN KING’S COLLEGE - -1751-1764 - - -Reid’s movement from New Machar to the academic home opened for him in -Old Aberdeen placed him and his young family amidst surroundings that -touch imagination by their natural beauty and historic associations. -For centuries the College, founded by Bishop Elphinstone, and at first -presided over by Hector Boece, with its chapel and crowned tower, in the - - old university town, - Between the Don and the Dee, - Looking over the grey sand dunes, - Looking out on the cold North Sea, - -has shed intellectual light over the North of Scotland, especially among -the Celts in the Highlands. At King’s College one sees a miniature Oxford -almost under the shadow of the Grampians. Perhaps Reid’s temperament was -too prosaic to contemplate his new surroundings with the sentiment which -the city at the mouth of the Don afterwards called forth in Thackeray, -who, in ‘a delightful tour in the north, was charmed with Inverness, and -fell in love with Old Aberdeen—an elderly decayed mouldering old beauty -who lives quietly on the seashore, near her grand new granite sister of -a city.’ The affectionate recollection with which Sir James Mackintosh -recalled his student days at King’s College, and the companionship -there of Robert Hall, is another testimony to its charms. The arena in -which these two, called by their fellow-students ‘Plato and Herodotus,’ -encountered one another most frequently was in morals and metaphysics. -‘After having sharpened their weapons by reading, they often repaired to -the spacious sands upon the seashore, and still more to the picturesque -scenery on the banks of the Don above the old town and the Brig of -Balgownie, to discuss with eagerness the problems of existence. There was -scarcely an important position in Berkeley’s _Minute Philosopher_, in -Butler’s _Analogy_, or in _Edwards on the Will_, over which they did not -debate with the utmost intensity.’ From these discussions in the environs -of the ‘old university town,’ Mackintosh was wont to say that he ‘learned -more than from all the books he ever read.’ - -It was in the canonist’s manse, pleasantly placed nearly in front of the -College, immediately north of the Snow Church, at the entrance to Powis -House, that Reid found himself in the winter of 1751.[7] It was rented -by him from the University. The quaint manse, nestled among trees, with -its low thatched roof,[8] has disappeared, and with it other picturesque -old houses, which added charm to the neighbourhood when Reid taught in -King’s College nearly a hundred and fifty years ago. The crown tower -of the College chapel rose almost in front of the manse, the rival of -St. Giles’s at Edinburgh and of St. Nicholas’s at Newcastle, unique in -Scottish academical architecture. Eastwards in the quadrangle was the -Hall in which the students dined, a memorial of Bishop Elphinstone, and -the dormitories of the students, which were of later date. General Monk’s -tower stood in the eastern corner; behind the Hall was the kitchen, and -near it the College well, whence the links stretched to the shore, ‘the -grey sand dunes’ in those days unbroken by tame streets and modern villas. - - * * * * * - -The professorial system of divided work, which assigns special -departments of learning to supposed experts, had not superseded in King’s -College the method of regency which prevailed in the early history of all -the universities of Scotland. The regent was intrusted with the education -of his pupils from the first matriculation to graduation; or when Latin, -Greek, and pure mathematics were each provided for professorially, -regents in philosophy each taught in successive sessions the various -branches of natural and physical science, and of moral and metaphysical -philosophy. This system was followed in all the Scottish universities -until last century. It was modified by the Commission of 1690, which -ordained that, besides a separate professor of Latin, one of the four -regents should profess Greek only, and take charge of undergraduates in -their first year. By about the middle of the century ‘regenting’ was -wholly abolished in four of the five Universities—in Edinburgh in 1708, -in Glasgow in 1727, in St. Andrews in 1747, and in Marischal College -and University in 1753. But in King’s College the various branches of -Philosophy, natural and moral, were still regented when Reid began to -teach. He was thus required to teach mathematics and the sciences of -matter, as well as psychology and moral philosophy. He thus gave lectures -on the philosophy of mind only every third year. One of the other two -years was given to natural history and the easier parts of physical -science; the second to mathematics and natural philosophy. - -During 1751-52, which was his first session, Reid as regent taught -natural philosophy to undergraduates of the third year; in the following -winter the same students, in their fourth year, were still in his -charge. His full sequence, accordingly, did not commence till 1753-54, -when for the first time he took the second class, consisting of those -beginning philosophical studies. So his successive three years courses -ran thus:—1753-56, 1756-59, 1759-62. In the last year of each course, -as ‘promoter,’ he presented his undergraduates to receive the Master’s -degree, and also delivered a graduation thesis. His theses (still extant -in manuscript at Birkwood) were in Latin; they deal chiefly with the -methods and human conditions of philosophical inquiry. - -Two-thirds of Reid’s lectures at King’s College were in this way -concerned with natural history and applied mathematics: only one-third -was given to the central object of his intellectual interest at New -Machar. I have examined a manuscript volume of notes of the lectures in -‘Natural Philosophy’ which he gave in 1757-58. They comprehend, after an -introductory exposition of the province and methods of physics, the laws -of motion, astronomy, optics, electricity, and hydrostatics. The notes -show that Reid was well abreast of the physical science of his time. - -At the time of Reid’s appointment as a regent of philosophy in King’s -College, the alternative of regency or professoriate was discussed in -the University. He entered readily into this and other questions of -University reform, and prevailed on his colleagues to make some important -changes. Largely through his influence the teaching session was extended -from five to seven months; the Humanity or Latin class was better -organised; the bursary endowments were redistributed for competition; -and in the order of undergraduate study, the sciences concerned with the -outward world were made to precede psychology and ethics, which were -reserved for the last year, as more consistent with the development -of the human mind in its natural ascent from external observation to -reflection. An account of the changes was published in 1754. - -It is curious that it was through Reid’s influence that the regency -system was retained in King’s College, in preference to the professorial, -which, in order to secure division of labour among the teachers, -under the growth of knowledge, had been already adopted in the other -Universities. His hand may be traced in the following statement of -reasons for this conservative policy:—‘Every professor of philosophy -in this University is also tutor to those who study under him; and it -seems to be generally agreed that it must be detrimental to a student to -change his every session. And though it be allowed that a professor who -has only one branch of philosophy for his province may have more leisure -to make improvements in it for the benefit of the learned world, yet it -does not seem extravagant to suppose that a [regent] professor ought -to be sufficiently qualified to teach all that his pupils can learn in -philosophy [natural and moral] in the course of three sessions.’ Half -a century later the higher academical ideal implied in a professoriate -prevailed, according to which the professor is responsible for promoting -his branch of human knowledge, as well as for the instruction of youth—in -educating influence more powerful, when he incites to study by the -vitality which original research is apt to communicate to his lectures. -The development of a university, it has been remarked, is prompt and -easy when each department of its cyclopædia is separately taught by -an able professor; whereas a university which abandons instruction to -regent-tutors must be content not only to teach little, and that little -ill, but to continue to teach what is elsewhere obsolete and exploded. - -In a letter of Reid’s in 1755, an account is given of the reformed, if -somewhat officious, academical discipline which then prevailed:— - - ‘The students here,’ he says, ‘have lately been compelled to - live within the College. We need but look out at our windows to - see when they rise and when they go to bed. They are seen nine - or ten times throughout the day statedly, by one or other of - the Masters—at public prayers, school-hours, meals, in their - rooms, besides occasional visits which we can make with little - trouble to ourselves. They are shut up within walls at nine - at night. This discipline hath indeed taken some pains and - resolution, as well as some expense, to establish it. The board - of the first table is 50 marks per quarter, _i.e._ 54s. 2d., - and the second 40. The rent of a room is from 7 shillings to 20 - shillings in the session. There is no furniture in their rooms - but a bedstead, tables, chimney-grate, and fender; the rest - they must buy for themselves. All other perquisites from 12 to - 17 shillings.’ - -This discipline was more or less in vogue during the remainder of last -century. Nearly twenty years after the date of Reid’s letter, when -Johnson and Boswell visited Aberdeen, Johnson says that ‘in King’s -College there is kept a public table, but the scholars in the Marischal -College are boarded in the town.’ ‘The abandonment of this custom,’ -Mr. Rait tells us, ‘seems to have been a gradual process, and to have -taken place during the first quarter of the nineteenth century. The -restraint of collegiate residence had become exceedingly irksome.’ With -the increasing age of entrants, schoolboy discipline might seem less -expedient. - -Instruction in the art of dancing was, it seems, provided by the -University under the reformed regulations, to add manly grace to the rude -bodily vigour of the Scottish undergraduate. Reid in advocating this may -have remembered Locke’s advice in his _Thoughts on Education_: ‘Dancing -being that which gives graceful motions all the life, and above all -things manliness and a becoming confidence, I think it cannot be learned -too early. But you must be sure to have a good master, that knows and can -teach what is graceful and becoming, and that gives a freedom and ease to -all the motions of the body. One that teaches not this is worse than none -at all.’ How long this civilising art was cultivated in Reid’s College I -have not discovered. - -In Aberdeen Reid found himself in the society of persons of more than -provincial eminence, destined, indeed, to leave their mark on the thought -and literature of Scotland. The Chair of Medicine in his College was -occupied by his cousin, Dr. John Gregory, a successful observer of -external nature and man. In Marischal College, Thomas Blackwell, the -Professor of Greek when Reid was an undergraduate, was now Principal; -soon followed by George Campbell, who became the philosophical theologian -of the Church of Scotland, by his criticism of Hume’s reasoning about -miracles, and a master in literary, biblical, and ecclesiastical -criticism,—in his _Philosophy of Rhetoric_, his Translation of the -Gospels, and his History of the development of the Christian Church. -Campbell was nine years younger than Reid, like him an alumnus of -Marischal College; he had been minister of Banchory-Ternan for nine -years before he was called to Aberdeen. He rivalled Reid himself in -analytic power and calm, candid, luminous reasoning. Alexander Gerard, -like Reid, a University reformer, and author of essays on ‘Taste’ and on -‘Genius,’ was Professor of Philosophy in Marischal College, and then of -Divinity there, and afterwards at King’s. There was William Duncan, too, -whose _Logic_ was for a time in vogue in Scottish Universities—a regent -in Marischal College when Reid began to teach philosophy at King’s; and -Reid’s lifelong friend Stewart was still in the Chair of Mathematics. -Perhaps the most widely known Aberdonian when he lived was James Beattie, -poet more than philosopher, Professor of Logic and Moral Philosophy -in Marischal College, whose essay on ‘Truth’ gave him a name in the -intellectual world, while the grace and pathos of the ‘Minstrel’ and the -‘Hermit’ appealed to a wider class, and secured a popular reputation. -Aberdeen and its neighbourhood were then the home also of accomplished -physicians and naturalists and scholars—Skenes and Ogilvies, Dunbars and -Gordons. - -As I have said, Reid’s first years at King’s College were much given -to academical reform. His later years there were distinguished by his -connection with a Society for philosophical inquiry, then quickened in -Scotland by the fashionable scepticism of David Hume. Reid and Gregory -originated this ‘Aberdeen Philosophical Society,’ or ‘Wise Club,’ as it -was called. It was the parent of some of the most remarkable books in -Scottish philosophical literature in the latter part of last century. -The first meeting was on January 12, 1758, and the last was in February -1773. The original members were Dr. John Gregory, Dr. David Skene, -Professor John Stewart, Mr. Robert Trail, the Rev. George Campbell, and -Mr. Thomas Reid; to whom in the same year were added the Rev. Alexander -Gerard, the Rev. John Farquhar, Mr. Charles Gordon, and Mr. John Kerr. -James Beattie joined them in 1760, Dr. George Skene and Mr. William -Ogilvie in 1763, Mr. James Dunbar in 1765, and Mr. William Trail in 1766. -Reid was secretary of the Society, and the minutes for many years are -in his handwriting. It met once a fortnight on the second and fourth -Wednesdays of each month. ‘The members,’ Sir W. Forbes tells us in his -_Life of Beattie_, ‘met at five o’clock in the evening—for in those days -at Aberdeen it was the custom to dine early—when one of the members, -as president, took the chair, and left it at half an hour after eight, -when they partook of a slight and inexpensive collation, and at ten -o’clock they separated.’ At these meetings it appears that part of the -evening’s entertainment was the reading of a short essay, composed by -one of the members in his turn. Besides these discourses, a literary or -philosophical question was proposed each night, for discussion at the -next meeting. And it was the duty of the proposer of the question to open -the discussion; by him, also, the opinions of the members who took a part -in it were digested into an abstract, which was engrossed in the album -of the Society. I am told that the _Lion Inn_, on the Spital Hill near -Reid’s manse, and sometimes the _Lemon Tree Inn_, in the new town, were -the usual places of meeting. The common attendance was five or six. One -of the rules enjoined moderation and forbade toasts. - -The meetings were given partly to essays by the members, and partly to -oral discussions of proposed questions. ‘Philosophy,’ according to the -rules, ‘comprehends every principle of science which may be deduced by -just or lawful induction from the phenomena either of the human mind or -of the material world.’ Perhaps no society of the kind in this country -has fulfilled its end so well. The ‘Rankenian Club’ and the ‘Select -Society’ in Edinburgh lasted longer, or enrolled more members, but -neither of them was the parent of so much good literature. The ‘Inquiry’ -of Reid, Beattie’s essay on ‘Truth,’ Gerard on ‘Taste’ and on ‘Genius,’ -and Campbell’s books on ‘Miracles’ and on ‘Rhetoric’ appear in fragments -or in germ in the minutes of the ‘Wise Club’ of Aberdeen. Its vitality -was sustained and stimulated by the sceptical speculations of Hume, which -were much in touch with educated opinion in the third quarter of last -century, when spiritual philosophy was languid in Britain and throughout -the world. The tone of those engaged in the philosophical vindication of -belief appears in one of Reid’s letters, who writes thus to David Hume in -1763:— - - ‘Your friendly adversaries, Drs. Campbell and Gerard, as well - as Dr. Gregory, return their compliments to you respectfully. - A little Philosophical Society here, of which all three are - members, is much indebted to you for its entertainment. Your - company, although we are all good Christians, would be more - acceptable than that of Athanasius; and since we cannot have - you upon the bench, you are brought oftener than any other man - to the bar; accused and defended with great zeal, but without - bitterness. If you write no more in morals, politics, and - metaphysics, I am afraid we shall be at a loss for subjects.’ - -It is interesting to find in the records of the Society the subjects of -the dissertations contributed by Reid during the six years in which he -was its mainspring,[9] as well as the questions which he proposed for -debate. They signally illustrate the course of his thoughts in these -years. On May 24, 1758, ‘Mr. Reid intimat that he designed as the subject -of his discourse some Observations on the Philosophy of the Mind, and -particularly on the Perceptions we have by Sight.’ On June 17, 1758, he -read a paper ‘On the Difficulty of a just Philosophy of the Human Mind; -General Prejudices against D——d (_sic_) Hume’s System of the Mind; and -some Observations on the Perceptions we have by Sight.’ On March 14, -1759, he presented an ‘Analysis of the Sensations of Smell and Taste.’ -On 26th February 1760 ‘Mr. Reid intimat that in his discourse he was -to continue his Analysis of the Senses’; and accordingly, on the 20th -of August in the same year, he gave notice of his intention of ‘taking -Dr. Gregory’s place and reading a paper on the Sense of Touch.’ In July -1761 he appears with a paper on the ‘Transit of Venus’ in that year; -and on the 26th January 1762 he gives a ‘Valedictory Address,’ as first -annual president of the Society (the members having previously taken the -chair by rotation)—on ‘Euclid’s Definitions and Axioms,’ in which he -returns to the favourite studies of his youth. In 1761 he had resumed -his investigation of the Senses, for in September he is credited with -another paper on the ‘Sense of Seeing.’ His last contribution, in October -1762, was on ‘Perception,’ which summed up his characteristic work in the -Society. And after reading this paper, ‘Mr. Reid declined to give it for -insertion in the Records, in regard that he proposed soon to send it to -the press, along with some other discourses which he had read before the -Society.’ A minute on 28th October 1764 announces that, ‘as Dr. Reid has -left this country, no discourse is to be expected from him.’ - -The following Questions for debate were proposed by Reid during the -six years of his membership:—1758, 13th and 26th July, ‘Are the Objects -of the Human Mind properly divided into Impressions and Ideas; and must -every Idea be a copy of a preceding Impression?’ This closely touches the -fundamental assumption of the sceptical philosophy. Those which follow -suggest a disposition to ethical and social discussion. 12th June 1759, -‘Whether Mankind with regard to Morals always was and is the same?’ 1st -April 1760, ‘Whether it is proper to educate Children without instilling -Principles into them of any kind whatever?’ (Beattie’s celebrated -experiment in the education of his son may be connected with this.) 15th -April 1761, ‘Whether Moral Character consists in Affections in which the -Will is not concerned, or in fixed, habitual, and constant Purposes?’ 8th -January 1762, ‘Whether by the encouragement of proper Laws the Number -of Births in Great Britain might be nearly doubled, or at least greatly -increased?’ Here we have a sort of inverted Malthusianism suggested. 22nd -November 1763, ‘Whether every Action deserving Moral Approbation must be -done from a persuasion of its being morally good?’ - -Beattie, in one of his letters to Sir W. Forbes, thus refers to the -Society and to his own philosophical relation to Reid:— - - ‘I have of late been much engaged in metaphysics; at least, - I have been labouring with all my might to overturn that - visionary science. I am a member of a club in this town who - style themselves the Philosophical Society. I hope you will not - think the worse of this Society when I tell you, that to it - the world is indebted for a _Comparative View of the Faculties - of Man_, and an _Inquiry into Human Nature on the Principles - of Common Sense_. I have shown that all genuine reasoning does - ultimately terminate in principles which it is impossible to - disbelieve, and as impossible to prove; that, therefore, the - ultimate standard of truth to us is Common Sense, or that - instinctive conviction into which all true reasoning does - resolve itself; that therefore what contradicts Common Sense is - in itself absurd, however subtle the arguments which support - it. My principles in the main are not essentially different - from Dr. Reid’s; but they seem to offer a more compendious - method of destroying scepticism. I intend to show (and have - already in part shown) that all sophistical reasoning is - marked by certain characters which distinguish it from true - investigation; and thus I flatter myself I shall be able to - discover a method of detecting sophistry, even when one is not - able to give a logical confutation of its arguments.’ - -Beattie argued more in the temper of a partisan than Reid, who criticised -Hume in the spirit of a free and candid inquirer after truth. - -On the 18th of January 1762 the honorary Doctorate of Divinity was -conferred on Reid by Marischal College. - -His fame was now more than local. In December 1763 he accepted the -invitation of the University of Glasgow to fill the Chair of Moral -Philosophy which Adam Smith had resigned. Before he entered on this new -career he had given to the world an _Inquiry into the Human Mind on -the Principles of Common Sense_. This classic work embodies the result -of twenty years of steady reflection at New Machar and Aberdeen, in -quest of the actual foundation of human knowledge. Before we follow -him to Glasgow, we must examine this issue of his intellectual life in -Aberdeenshire—due to the challenge of modern agnosticism in the person of -David Hume. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -UNIVERSAL SCEPTICISM VERSUS INSPIRED COMMON SENSE: AN ‘INQUIRY INTO THE -HUMAN MIND ON THE PRINCIPLES OF COMMON SENSE’ - -1764 - - -As early as October 1762, as we have seen, Reid had given signs of an -intention to offer the world some results of his meditations regarding -the foundations of belief. Accordingly, in the end of the following -year, he produced his first book, _An Inquiry into the Human Mind -on the Principles of Common Sense_. Its motto expresses its leading -argument—‘The inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding.’ -For it was to the inspirations, or revelations, of what he called the -‘common sense’ or ‘common judgment,’ regarded as the root of any human -understanding of man and his environment, that he made his final appeal -against the all-embracing doubt of Hume. This was the rock on which he -took his stand in the universal deluge. - -Reid was now in his fifty-fourth year. Hitherto his modesty had concealed -his strength from all but a few friends. His book was concerned with -questions that were not likely to withdraw him rapidly from ‘the -obscurity of a learned retirement.’ The _Inquiry_, with its appeal to -the final reason latent in human nature, is not to be interpreted as an -appeal to popular opinion against theories of philosophers. In fact, its -implied argument is not obvious to popular intelligence, although it is -profoundly connected with all the chief interests of human life. Great -books of this sort attract only the few who think. His brother-in-law, -Mr. Rose, mentions that ‘Alexander Millar, the London bookseller, being -in Aberdeen at this time, and in company with Dr. Reid, protested against -books in metaphysics as bad bargains for publishers; by which he said he -had himself lost money, but never gained any. Notwithstanding, Dr. Reid, -having his _Inquiry_ ready for publication, sold it to Mr. Millar for -£50. When his friends bantered him upon the small sum he had received -for so valuable a performance, he jocosely replied, “I think it is well -sold.”’[10] - -Another parallel here occurs between Reid and Kant. The _Kritik of Pure -Reason_, Kant’s first great work, appeared in 1781, when he was in his -fifty-seventh year. So, too, with Locke, who inaugurated the era of -modern thought in which Reid and Kant are chief figures. His _Essay_, -like Reid’s _Inquiry_, was the first fruit of twenty years of reflective -thought, and it too made its appearance when its author was in his -fifty-seventh year. It is curious to contrast the balanced caution and -moderation of these long pondered treatises with the more paradoxical -productions of others, whose intellectual ardour and impatience speedily -committed them to all-comprehensive systems. Descartes, at forty, with -his provisional doubt and reconstruction on a slender foundation; -Spinoza, younger still, with his rational evolution of the universe from -a single substance; Berkeley with his analysis of the material world -into significant ideas, delivered at the age of twenty-five with the -impetuous enthusiasm of Irish juvenile genius; and David Hume with his -universal disintegration of human knowledge and belief, planned before -he was one-and-twenty, composed before he was twenty-five, and eagerly -given to the world in his twenty-eighth year. Reid, with his ‘good -and well-wearing parts,’ characteristically represents the restrained -authorship of those who treat our short life on this planet as short -enough for well-weighed answers to the final questions about life and the -universe. - -As Reid’s _Inquiry_ was really an appeal to human nature in arrest of -Hume’s intellectual suicide, he desired, before presenting it to the -world, to submit the argument privately to the Edinburgh sceptic. This -was done through their common friend Dr. Blair. After Hume had read -portions of the manuscript, he wrote this courteous letter to Reid on -Feb. 25, 1763:— - - ‘By Dr. Blair’s means I have been favoured with the perusal of - your performance, which I have read with great pleasure and - attention. It is certainly very rare that a piece so deeply - philosophical is wrote with so much spirit, and affords so - much entertainment to the reader, though I must still regret - the disadvantages under which I read it, as I never had the - whole performance at once before me, and could not be able - to compare one part with another. To this reason chiefly I - ascribe some obscurities which, in spite of your short analysis - and abstract, seem to hang over your system; for I must do - you the justice to own that when I enter into your ideas, no - man appears to express himself with greater perspicuity than - you do, a talent which above all others is requisite in that - species of literature which you have cultivated. There are - some objections which I would willingly propose to the chapter - “Of Sight,” did I not suspect that they arise from my not - sufficiently understanding it. I shall therefore forbear till - the whole can lie before me, and shall not at present propose - any further difficulties to your reasonings. I shall only say - that if you have been able to clear up these abstruse and - important subjects, instead of being mortified, I shall be so - vain as to pretend to a share of the praise; and shall think - that my errors, by having at least some coherence, have led you - to make a more strict review of my principles, which were the - common ones, and to perceive their futility.’ - -In his reply to this letter Reid recognises the debt which philosophy -owes to the sceptical criticism of Hume. He writes thus to Hume:— - - ‘KING’S COLLEGE, _18th March 1763_. - - ‘SIR,—On Monday last Mr. John Farquhar brought me your letter - of February 25th, enclosed in one from Dr. Blair. I thought - myself very happy in having the means of obtaining, at second - hand, through the friendship of Dr. Blair, your opinion of - my performance; and you have been pleased to communicate it - directly in so polite and friendly a manner as merits great - acknowledgments on my part. - - ‘In attempting to throw some light on these abstruse subjects, - I wish to preserve the due mean between confidence and despair. - But whether I have any success in this attempt or not, I shall - always avow myself your disciple in metaphysics. I have learned - more from your writings in this kind than from all others put - together. Your system appears to me not only coherent in all - its parts, but likewise justly deduced from principles commonly - received among philosophers,—principles which I never thought - of calling in question, until the conclusions you draw from - them in the _Treatise of Human Nature_ made me suspect them. - If these principles are solid your system must stand; and - whether they are or not can better be judged after you have - brought to light the whole system that grows out of them, - than when the greater part of it was wrapped up in clouds and - darkness. I agree with you therefore, that if this system shall - ever be demolished, you have a just claim to a great share - of the praise, both because you have made it a distinct and - determinate mark to be aimed at, and have furnished proper - artillery for the purpose. When you have seen the whole of my - performance, I shall take it as a very great favour to have - your opinion upon it, from which I make no doubt of receiving - light, whether I receive conviction or no.’ - -Hume’s philosophy being the suicide of intelligence, can hardly be -spoken of as a ‘system.’ It is not constructive, but wholly destructive, -and therefore a negation of system, philosophic or other, in a finally -speechless and motionless agnostic doubt. - -Hume’s letter to Reid was his only rejoinder to the _Inquiry_. In 1763 -he had ceased to produce philosophical books. His recognition of the -‘deeply philosophical’ nature of Reid’s argument is a testimony to the -worth of the work on which Reid’s literary reputation chiefly rests. -The ‘share of the praise’ which Hume claims, Reid was ready to concede. -‘I hope,’ he says in the Dedication of the _Inquiry_, ‘I hope that the -author of this sceptical system wrote it in the belief that it would be -useful to mankind. And perhaps it may prove so at last. For I conceive -the sceptical writers to be a set of men whose business it is to pick -holes in the fabric of knowledge wherever it is weak and faulty; and -when those places are properly repaired, the whole building becomes more -firm and solid than it was formerly’. And, in fact, the intellectual -progress of mankind has been sustained by an alternation of sceptical and -conservative philosophies. - -After prolonged cogitation, the ‘weak and faulty’ place in the ‘fabric’ -of modern philosophy seemed to Reid to lie in an unproved assumption with -which modern philosophers set out in their speculations. For they took -for granted that only the sensations and ideas within each mind could be -perceived: yet we naturally ‘believe that we are seeing and handling the -very outward things themselves’ that make what is called the material -world. If the philosophers are right, we have no immediate revelation of -the qualities of outward things, and no evidence of their existence, -except the succession of changing sensations and ideas of sensations -which alone are presented to us. I can never directly encounter an -external object. What I suppose to be outward is all in my mind. With -a world thus imprisoned within me, is there any legitimate way through -which I can assure myself of realities outside my mind, including other -living persons who have their own sensations and ideas as much as I have -mine, but numerically different from my private stock? If not, grave -consequences seemed to follow: faith and hope must die out of human life. -So Reid argued. - -The _Treatise of Human Nature_ was the scarecrow that warned Reid of the -destructive consequences of this assumption, that we are shut up among -our own ideas; as he had himself in youth been taught to believe, and -by which he had been led on to Berkeley’s conception of a wholly ideal -material world. He now began to see this ideal material world of Berkeley -in a new light. It seemed to leave him _alone_ in the universe of his -own mind. The ideal matter of Berkeley cannot, he argued, inform me of -the existence of other living persons: what I have supposed to be other -persons must be, like the rest, only some of my own ideas. If I allow -that my own sensations and ideas are my only possible original data, I -cannot from such transitory phantoms infer the real existence of other -persons. With this starting-point as my only one, the whole universe -naturally supposed to surround me—bodies and spirits, friends and -relations, all dead things and all living persons—acknowledged by common -judgment to have a permanent existence, whether I am having ideas of them -or not—vanish at once. My _private_ sensations and ideas can never really -signify to me the existence of other conscious beings; only what might -be called _public ideas_, common to other minds and to me, could do this. -And such objects are not properly called ‘ideas’—public or private; they -are dead things and living persons; they exist whether I individually -have sensations and ideas or not. In short, Reid could find nothing in -Berkeley’s philosophical theory—as he interpreted it[11]—which afforded -even probable ground for concluding that there were in existence other -intelligent beings—fathers, brothers, friends, or fellow-citizens. ‘I am -left alone,’ the only creature of God, in that forlorn state of egoism -into which it was said some of the disciples of Descartes were brought by -this same preliminary assumption of their master—a sufficient _reductio -ad absurdum_ of the favourite postulate which leads to it. To act upon -it would argue insanity in the agent; it must therefore be empty verbal -speculation. So Reid further argued. - -But even this solitude is not the last issue of Reid’s _bête noire_. -The system in which I have been educated, he said, not only leaves me -absolutely alone; _it extinguishes me_, along with the external universe -of things and persons; it is at last literally suicidal. It transforms -persistent personal existence into a mere succession of unconnected -sensations and ideas. If the magic circle of sensations and ideas, within -a self that persists amidst perpetual changes, cannot be broken through, -then even this supposed ‘self’ must be an illusion, and the word self -must be meaningless. The personal pronoun ‘I,’ as well as the personal -pronoun ‘you,’ are both alike unmeaning. The universe resolves at last, -not merely into sensations that are all referable to myself, but into -sensations without any self—into isolated sensations—which seem indeed to -follow one another in an orderly way, but without any guarantee that the -seeming order is more than transitory, or that the illusory cosmos may -not at any moment become chaos. - -Is there nothing within the resources of reason to arrest this -intellectual suicide? Has reason got anything to show in justification -of this preliminary sacrifice of a conviction on which men have to -act, whatever their theories may be? Must I surrender the conviction, -that when I am seeing or touching I am actually having revealed to me -something that is extended and solid, and that, _as such, must_ be more -and other than the private sensations and ideas of the person that is -seeing and touching? Must this conviction, and others like it, on which -human experience practically depends, be all sacrificed on the altar of -authority and conjecture? - -This had been the question around which Reid’s thoughts were revolving -in the twenty years preceding the publication of his book. ‘For my own -satisfaction,’ he tells us, ‘I entered into a serious examination of -the principles upon which this sceptical system is built; and was not -a little surprised to find that it leans with its whole weight upon a -hypothesis which is ancient indeed, and hath been very generally received -by philosophers, but of which I could find no solid proof. The hypothesis -I mean is—that we do not really perceive things that are external, but -only certain images and pictures of them imprinted upon the mind, which -are called “impressions” and “ideas.” I thought it unreasonable, upon the -authority of philosophers, to admit an hypothesis which, in my opinion, -overturns all philosophy; all religion and virtue, and all common sense; -and I resolved to inquire into this subject anew, without regard to any -hypothesis.’ - -To _accept_ as a spiritual fact the judgment of human nature, which -assures me that when I am seeing or touching I am ‘face to face’ with a -reality that exists independently of my changing sensations or ideas, -instead of trying in vain by reasoning to _prove_ the existence of this -reality by means of intervening sensations and ideas,—this was the -alternative he adopted. I dismiss the unwarranted supposition that only -my own mind and its invisible contents can be immediately manifested -to me; and I fall back on the perception I have of something solid and -extended, and therefore more and other than a mere sensation or idea, -as what is present to me when I see and touch. Recognition of the fact -that our five senses somehow bring us into a consciousness of what is -neither a transitory sensation nor an idea of a sensation, but something -independent of me, and that would continue to exist after I individually -had ceased to exist—this recognition of external realities is Reid’s -key to sound philosophy. It is a displacement of the so-called ‘ideas’ -of the philosophers, and of fallacious inferences founded upon them, -and a substitution of the common reasonable sense, or common judgment -of reason, which neither requires nor admits of logical proof. Reid -might say that what is most worth proving cannot be logically proved. -We all have a direct perception of external reality which cannot be -eradicated by reasoning. Abolition of the prejudice which interposed -_reasonings founded on unreal ideas_ between our perception and the solid -and extended reality, seemed to Reid, in virtue of its far-reaching -consequences, to be the chief good he had as a philosopher secured to -mankind. In his old age he writes thus to Dr. Gregory:— - - ‘The merit of what you are pleased to call _my philosophy_ - lies, I think, chiefly in having called in question the common - theory of ideas, or images of things in the mind, being the - only objects of thought—a theory founded on natural prejudices, - and so universally received as to be interwoven with the - structure of language. Yet, were I to give you a detail of what - led me to call in question this theory, after I had long held - it as self-evident and unquestionable, you would think, as I - do, that there was much of chance in the matter. The discovery - was the birth of time, not of genius; and Berkeley and Hume - did more to bring it to light than the man that hit upon it. - I think there is hardly anything that can be called _mine_ in - the philosophy of mind which does not follow with ease from the - detection of this prejudice.’ - -Yet Reid’s _Inquiry_ has been condemned as an unphilosophical appeal -from the thoughtful to vulgar intelligence, making the unreflecting many -supreme judges in questions intelligible only to the reflecting few. His -employment of ‘common sense’ to express the regulative principle of his -philosophy would put his book outside philosophical literature, if this -term were taken as a synonym for unreasoned opinion—the average judgments -of the man in the street. Reid’s own account of what he means by common -sense, not to speak of Hume’s recognition of the ‘deeply philosophical’ -character of the argument in the _Inquiry_, should protect him against -this imputation. He describes the common sense to which he constantly -appeals as ‘the first degree of reason,’ and as having for its office ‘to -judge of things self-evident.’ As such, he contrasts it with reasoning, -or ‘the second degree of reason, which draws conclusions that are not -self-evident from the self-evident judgments of the common sense.’ This -distinction between the common rational sense, on which a knowledge -of the universe, like the human, which falls short of omniscience, -_must_ ultimately turn, and those judgments that are reached by logical -reasoning, corresponds to what the Greeks distinguished as noetic and -dianoetic power of reason in man. Reid’s genuine judgments of the common -sense may be regarded as the divinely inspired response to questions -which can be determined for man only by this ideal man latent in us -all—judgments verified by the insanity that is implied in resisting them -in our actions. - -As obtrusive examples of judgments of the common sense, Reid takes -the logically undemonstrable convictions (1) of the existence of -things external to and independent of me and my perceptions; (2) of my -individual personal existence, and continuous personal identity; and (3) -of the uniformity, and therefore interpretability, of nature, implying -that I may form conclusions about what I have not experienced by what I -have experienced. I cannot demonstrate the truth of these judgments: I -can only justify them in reason by showing that human nature responds -to them, and forbids me to reject them in my actions, on pain of being -judged a lunatic, whatever I may say in my speculative theories. ‘Such -original and natural judgments,’ he says, ‘are part of the furniture -which _nature_ hath given to the human understanding. They are the -inspiration of the Almighty. They serve to direct us in the common -affairs of life, when our reasoning faculty would leave us in the dark; -they are part of our constitution; all the discoveries of our reason -are grounded upon them; they make up what is called _the common sense_ -of mankind. A remarkable deviation from them, arising from a disorder -in the constitution, is what we call _lunacy_, as when a man believes -that he is made of glass. When a man suffers himself to be reasoned out -of the principles of common sense by metaphysical arguments, we call -it _metaphysical lunacy_, which differs from the other species of the -distemper in this, that it is not continued, but intermittent; it is apt -to seize the patient in solitary and speculative moments; but when he -enters into sanity, Common Sense recovers her authority.’ - -It is the first of these three examples of the common sense that is -the subject of the _Inquiry_—intended as preliminary to others which -may follow. ‘A clear enumeration and explication of the principles of -common sense’ was henceforward Reid’s ultimate aim; but thus far he -took those involved in our experience when we are tasting, or smelling, -or hearing, or touching, or seeing. As axioms and definitions are the -preliminaries of abstract mathematical reasonings, so our sensuous -perceptions through the five senses are the preliminaries to reasonings -about concrete realities in the world of change. The leading principle -of the _Inquiry_ is, that something extended, solid, and movable is -directly manifested in our sensuous experiences, equally with the direct -manifestations of our own sensations and other feelings when we are -conscious of them; and also that we are obliged by common sense to regard -extended, solid, and movable things as _other_ than mere transitory -sensation or idea. Extended things, large or small, refuse to be melted -down into sensations or states of one’s private consciousness. Take this -specimen of philosophical argument for accepting perceptions which cannot -be logically demonstrated, but which the common sense of human nature -refuses to reject:— - - ‘Suppose I am pricked with a pin, I ask, is the _pain_ I feel - a sensation? Undoubtedly it is. There can be nothing that - resembles pain in an inanimate thing: the pain must be in me, - a living being. But I ask again, is the _pin_ a sensation? To - this question I feel myself under a necessity of answering that - the pin is not a sensation, nor can have the least resemblance - to any sensation. The pin has length and thickness, figure and - weight. A sensation can have none of these qualities. I am - not more certain that the pain I feel _is_ a sensation than - that the pin _is not_ a sensation. Yet the pin is an object - of sense; and I am as certain that I perceive its figure and - hardness by my senses as that I feel pain when I am pricked by - it.’ - -This is to say that if, with the philosophers, I _call_ the pin as well -as the pain a sensation or an idea, I must mean by ‘sensation’ and -‘idea,’ when I apply those words to the pin, not a private self-contained -feeling or a fancy, in which I am only manifesting my conscious self, -but (so to speak) a _public_ sensation or idea—perceivable by other -persons as well as by me—a manifestation, in short, of what is _outside -my mind_—of something that exists permanently in _space_ and not -transitorily in _me_—and that is thus fit to be a medium of communication -between me and other living persons, informing me of their existence and -in some measure of their thoughts—all which (Reid takes for granted) -each person’s private feelings and fancies could not do. But to employ -the words ‘sensation’ and ‘idea’ in this new meaning, and to speak of -an idea as public or external, would be an abuse of language. We must -mark, always by appropriate words, distinctions which we are obliged to -acknowledge in fact. The inspirations or revelations of the common sense, -in and through which the Almighty Power gives us an understanding of the -life and world in which we find ourselves, inspirations in which all men -are believed more or less to participate, require us to distinguish the -solid and extended pin, as something public or outward, in contrast -to the private feeling of pain, of which no one except the person who -feels it is conscious. I am thus obliged to recognise more in existence -than my own sensations and ideas—as much obliged as I am to recognise -my sensations and ideas themselves when I am conscious of them. Only so -can I find myself living in an environment that is capable of signifying -the contemporaneous life, and some of the thoughts and feelings of other -persons. In all this I am only falling back on the divine revelations of -the common sense. They make me reject in conduct what is inconsistent -with them; although this natural obligation is all the reason I can give -in justification of my obedience. - -It is thus that Reid recognises his right in reason to grasp realities -that are independent of his individual self; and he thinks that he -is doing this philosophically by getting rid of the unphilosophical -supposition, that he needs to work his way to them by logical reasoning, -founded on wholly inward impressions. The true philosophy of perception -with him is to discharge the medium, and at once take the bull by the -horns. - -Some may think that the _Inquiry_ represents wasted labour—that the -‘metaphysical lunacy’ which abolishes personal pronouns as meaningless -words, and inconsistently reasons that all who reason must be fools, is -at the best the idle intellectual pastime of persons who pretend to be -universal sceptics—all which Reid has taken too seriously, and which -at any rate by its self-contradiction refutes itself. For it asserts -that assertion is impossible. It is an argument that concludes for the -rejection of the postulates without which it is impossible for human -beings to reason at all. It is a philosophy that destroys itself in -destroying all philosophy. The suicide does not need to be put to death. - -Yet the suicide, doubly slain in the _Inquiry_, may be used as a warning -of the consequence of doing violence to the genuine common sense, or -ideal man that is latent in each man; especially on subjects in which -doubt is easier than in the case of outward things and persons. The -‘metaphysical lunacy’ of doubt about the existence of other persons -may be acknowledged, while the common sense, unawake in its moral -or spiritual elements, fails to protest against ethical atheism or -agnosticism. What Reid calls the common sense is alive consciously -in various degrees, in different persons, in different countries and -periods. A common sense of the existence of outward things and persons is -practically awake in all sane minds. But the spiritual convictions, of -which some are hardly conscious, may be rejected even practically without -obvious lunacy. And something is gained for those convictions, if it can -be shown, as a _reductio ad absurdum_, that their rejection involves -the moral sceptic too in the ‘lunacy’ of universal doubt and pessimist -despair. - -That Reid lays much stress on ‘calling in question the common theory of -ideas or images in perception’ is explained by his assumption, that this -theory involves perversion of the common sense even in its preliminary -contact with outward things in sense, thus obviously discrediting it as -the final court of appeal in every other instance. It may in this way be -taken as a plea for a more faithful adherence on the part of philosophers -to the genuine common-sense judgments, which can be made to respond to an -adequate appeal, however dormant they may be in individuals. This final -appeal to human nature must, in short, be to human nature _as it is in -fact_, not to human nature _as distorted in hypothesis_. - -For, after all, the root of the agnosticism which is found in history -alternating with the final faith of the common sense, lies deeper than -in mistaken hypotheses of philosophers about our perceptions in sense. -Reid’s substitution in philosophy of immediate for mediate perception of -matter is therefore an inadequate cure. The periodically returning doubt -concerns, not the outness or inwardness of what is revealed to sense, -but the meaning and character of the Power that is at work within the -universe of matter and mind, and with which we first come into contact -and collision in sense. Is it, in its final and pervading Power, a bad -or a good sort of universe that we open our eyes upon, when we begin to -exercise our senses? What are its final relations to me, and my final -relations to it? Nobody doubts the existence of things and persons, so -far as they are revealed to the senses. But what is our implied Common -Sense of the final meaning of the Whole? Am I to put an optimist or a -pessimist ultimate interpretation upon it all? The lurid mixture of pain -and pleasure, evil and good, presented by the animated world, combined -with spiritually dormant common sense in individual men,—is surely a more -potent factor of agnostic doubt than an erroneous account of perception -in circulation among persons who speculate. - -Reid’s course of thought amidst new surroundings in Glasgow brought him -nearer to the source and corrective of the scepticism that is aroused by -the suspicious-looking universe of mingled good and evil, to which our -sense perceptions introduce us. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -GLASGOW COLLEGE: THE PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY - -1764-1780 - - -In November 1764 we find Reid, now almost fifty-five years of age, in -the Chair of Moral Philosophy in the Old College in the High Street of -Glasgow. The Reid family lived then, and for two years after, not in the -Professors’ Court within the College, but a quarter of a mile away, in an -old-fashioned street called the Drygate.[12] The manuscript in the family -bible records that Reid was admitted to the Glasgow professorship on the -12th of June. He carried with him from the quaint manse in Aberdeen to -his new home in the Drygate, his wife, three daughters, all above twenty -years of age, and two boys; they left three infant children buried in -Aberdeenshire. The Glasgow Chair supplied an income, including fees, -somewhat in advance of the Aberdeen regency; and its duties required -concentrated study of intellectual and moral agency in man, instead of -the dispersion over a wide range of the phenomena and laws of matter -and mind which was necessary in King’s College. Yet it was ‘not without -reluctance,’ we are told, that he consented to tear himself from a spot -where he had so long been fastening his roots; and much as he loved the -society in which he passed the remainder of his days, the advantages of -the change hardly compensated for the sacrifice of feeling caused by the -break in his early habits and associations. - -Glasgow in 1898 is even more changed from Glasgow in 1764 than Aberdeen -when Reid lived in it from Aberdeen as it is now. To-day Glasgow is the -second city in Britain, with nearly a million of people, the industrial -metropolis of the north, with all the stir of industrial life. It was -then a provincial town with hardly thirty thousand inhabitants, almost -inaccessible from the sea, surrounded by the cornfields and hedgerows and -orchards of Lanarkshire, its few streets converging on the Cathedral and -the College with their historic associations. ‘Glasgow,’ according to -_Humphrey Clinker_, ‘is the pride of Scotland. It is one of the prettiest -towns in Europe.’ Pennant describes it as ‘the best built of any -second-rate city I ever saw. The view from the Cross has an air of vast -magnificence.’ In 1764 it was only laying the foundations of its present -commercial fame. The tobacco trade with the American plantations, and -the sugar trade with the West Indies, had hardly altered its character -as an ancient Church and University town. ‘Jupiter Carlyle,’ referring -to Glasgow before the middle of last century, speaks of ‘a few families -of ancient citizens who pretended to be gentlemen; and a few others, -recently settled, who had obtained wealth and consideration in trade. -The rest were shopkeepers and mechanics, who occupied large warerooms to -furnish cargoes to Virginia. It was then usual for the sons of merchants -to attend the College for one or two years, and a few of them completed -their academical education.’ - -The College in the High Street, erected early in the seventeenth century, -seemed to Samuel Johnson in 1773 ‘without a sufficient share in the -magnificence of the place.’ Nevertheless he found ‘learning an object -of wide importance, and the habit of application much more general than -in the neighbouring University of Edinburgh.’ The two College squares, -connected with memories of many generations in the west of Scotland, have -been likened to those of Lincoln College in Oxford. About the middle -of last century from three to four hundred students gathered in those -curious old courts, almost all living in apartments in the town, a few -boarded in the houses of professors. They wore scarlet gowns, ‘most of -which,’ when Wesley visited Glasgow, ‘were very dirty, some very ragged, -and all of very coarse cloth.’ The houses of the professors formed a -square on the north side of the College, built early in the eighteenth -century. Eastward were the College gardens and the park, through which -the classic Molendinar found its way to the Clyde. It was a quaint and -curious old-world life that was then lived in the College, and in the -High Street, passing from the College to the Cathedral at one end and -from the College to the Cross at the other. - -In the half-century before Reid was admitted to his Glasgow Chair, the -University had professors of more than Scottish reputation. Glasgow is -in fact associated with almost all the names that adorn the literature -of Philosophy in Scotland in the last century and in this. Adam Smith -was Reid’s immediate predecessor in the Chair of Morals. His _Theory -of Moral Sentiments_ had been for five years before the world when -he resigned his professorship to give to literature what Sir James -Mackintosh describes as ‘perhaps the only book which produced an -immediate, general, and irrevocable change in some of the most important -parts of the legislation of all civilised states’—fit to be ranked with -the classic works of Grotius, Locke, and Montesquieu—its author ‘the -first economical philosopher, and perhaps the most eloquent theoretical -moralist, of modern times.’ Smith’s predecessor was Francis Hutcheson, -author of that _Inquiry into our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue_ which gave -rise to Reid’s New Machar essay on ‘Quantity’ in 1748, the reputed father -of modern philosophy in Scotland;—and in the second quarter of last -century the most potent agent and pioneer of the liberal culture and -literary taste which made the intellectual moderation of the eighteenth -century in Scotland so remarkable a contrast to the less tolerant -spiritual fervour of the seventeenth. This influence was continued by -his friend and biographer, William Leechman, the Principal of Glasgow -College in 1764, still remembered as one of the philosophical theologians -of the Church of Scotland. ‘It was owing to Hutcheson and Leechman,’ -says Carlyle, ‘that a new school was formed in the western provinces of -Scotland, where the clergy till that period were narrow and bigoted, -and had never ventured to range their minds beyond the bounds of strict -orthodoxy. For though neither of these professors taught any heresy, -yet they opened and enlarged the minds of the students, which soon gave -them a turn for inquiry; the result of which was candour and liberality -of sentiment. From experience this freedom of thought was not found so -dangerous as might at first be apprehended; for though the more daring -youth at first made excursions into the unbounded regions of metaphysical -perplexity, yet all the more judicious soon returned to the lower sphere -of long-established truths, which they found not only more subservient to -the good order of society, but necessary to fix their own minds in some -degree of stability.’ Gershom Carmichael, too, is not to be forgotten. -He was Hutcheson’s predecessor, with an intellectual and religious -influence not inconsiderable in the opening years of last century, author -of a Latin manual of logic which appeared in 1720, and a _Synopsis -Theologiæ Naturalis_, published shortly before his death in 1729, but -best known perhaps as editor of Puffendorff. - -Reid thus entered Glasgow College when it was the centre of the reviving -philosophical and literary activity of Scotland in the modern spirit. -He met colleagues and fellow-citizens who were in sympathy with his own -sincere and independent scientific temper. The aged Simpson, restorer of -ancient geometry, who had lately retired from the mathematical chair, -which he had adorned for half a century, was a congenial mathematician of -European fame. Joseph Black, the most celebrated British chemist of his -generation, was illustrating his own discoveries in his College lectures, -and drawing the attention of the world to the phenomena of latent heat. -The vigour and acuteness of Millar were educating a new generation -in jurisprudence and statesmanship. Moore, the author of _Zeluco_, -an eminent Glasgow physician, was adding to its literary name. The -grandfather, and afterwards the father, of Sir William Hamilton held in -succession the Chair of Anatomy, both colleagues of Reid, who might have -been seen in the College Courts when his future editor and commentator -was there in his infancy. - -Reid’s inaugural lecture as Professor of Moral Philosophy, delivered -on the 10th of October 1764, is among his unpublished manuscripts at -Birkwood. The opening sentences (deleted as irrelevant in after years) -are not without interest in the characteristic modesty and candour of the -reference to Adam Smith, his predecessor:— - - ‘Before entering upon the subject of my prelections, there - are some things which I think proper to lay before you, and - to which I beg your attention. I doubt not that you are - all sensible of the loss which the University, and you in - particular, sustain by the resignation of the learned and - ingenious gentleman who last filled this chair. Those who - knew him most and had most access to attend his prelections, - and especially those who most profited by them, will be most - sensible of their loss. I had not the happiness of his personal - acquaintance, for want of opportunity; though I wished for it, - and now wish for it far more than ever. But I could not be a - stranger to his fame and reputation, nor to the respect with - which his lectures from this chair were heard by a very crowded - audience. I am much a stranger to his system, unless so far as - he hath published it to the world. But a man of so great genius - and penetration must have struck new light to the subjects - which he treated, as well as have handled them in an excellent - and instructive manner. I shall be much obliged to any of - you, gentlemen, or to any others, who can furnish me with - notes of his prelections, whether in morals, jurisprudence, - politics, or rhetorick. I shall always be desirous to borrow - light from every quarter, and to adopt what appears to me sound - and solid in every system, and ready to change my opinions - upon conviction, or to change my method and materials where I - can do it to advantage. I desire to live no longer than this - candour and ingenuity, this openness of mind to education and - information, live with me.’ - -An apology follows for the imperfect preparation of a first course, -inadequately provided for by the miscellaneous lectures in physics and -metaphysics at Aberdeen. The past performance of Adam Smith, and the -high expectation associated with the new professor, the author of the -_Inquiry_, were doubtless fresh in the minds of the crowded audience -that met on that October morning in the faint light of the Old College -class-room. The audience, the new professor, and his predecessor, have -all now receded into the dim distance, and are seen under the cold -light of history. The lectures delivered in the years that followed -are preserved at Birkwood, in Reid’s valley of the Dee—lectures on -Pneumatology, Ethics, Jurisprudence, and Political Philosophy—for the -most part embodied in substance in the published _Essays_ of his old age. - -Reid’s placid temperament and restrained imagination suggest sober -unadorned statement, and cautious inference founded on fact, not fervid -eloquence, as the character of his prelections. He was more likely slowly -to influence opinion by his books than to startle a youthful audience by -spoken words. This conjecture is confirmed by the account of Reid in the -Glasgow class-room given by Dugald Stewart, who was among his students -in 1772-73. ‘In his elocution and mode of instruction,’ Stewart says, -‘there was nothing peculiarly attractive. He seldom if ever indulged -in the warmth of extempore discourse; nor was his manner of reading -calculated to increase the effect of what he had committed to writing. -Such, however, was the simplicity and perspicuity of his style, such the -gravity and authority of his character, and such the general interest of -his young hearers in the doctrines which he taught, that by the numerous -audiences to which his instructions were addressed he was heard uniformly -with the most silent and respectful attention.’ And this delivery of deep -and patient thought, regarding the duties and relations of man, and the -foundation of his beliefs, was continued in the class-room for sixteen -years. - -As we might expect from their mental affinities, Reid greatly esteemed -the works of Bishop Butler. Among the manuscripts at Birkwood is an -abstract of the _Analogy_; and Butler’s ethical writings were recommended -to his students as the best in the literature of moral philosophy, with -regret to see them superseded in England by the productions of inferior -moralists. In tone and method of inquiry Reid is the Butler of Scotland. -And Butler, too, is the Reid of England in his trustful appeals to what -Reid would call the common sense. When Butler asks himself whether we -may not be deceived in our natural sense of our continuous personal -identity, he replies, that ‘this question may be asked at the end of -any demonstration; because it is a question concerning the truth of -perception by memory. And he who can doubt whether perception by memory -can in this case be depended on, may doubt also whether perception, by -reasoning, or indeed whether any intuitive perception, can. Here then we -can go no further. For it is ridiculous to attempt to _prove_ the truth -of those perceptions, whose truth we can no otherwise prove than by other -perceptions which there is just the same ground to suspect; or to attempt -to prove the truth of our faculties, which can no otherwise be proved -than by these very suspected faculties themselves.’ This is the substance -of the argument that rests on the data of the sense or reason with which -human nature is inspired. - -Reid’s homely letters to his Aberdeen friends, Andrew and David Skene, -give some interesting pictures of the details of the family’s life, in -the years which immediately followed the settlement in Glasgow. The -extracts that follow may help the reader to form the pictures. - -In a letter to Dr. Andrew Skene, dated November 15, 1764, we see the -Moral Philosophy class-room on a winter morning a hundred and thirty -years ago, and life in the Drygate home a few weeks after the family -entered it:— - - ‘I must launch forth in the morning, so as to be at the College - (which is a walk of eight minutes) half an hour after seven, - when I speak for an hour without interruption to an audience - of about a hundred. At eleven I examine for an hour upon my - morning prelection; but my audience is a little more than a - third part of what it was in the morning. In a week or two I - must, for three days in the week, have a second prelection at - twelve, upon a different subject, where my audience will be - made up of those who hear me in the morning but do not attend - at eleven. My hearers commonly attend my class two years at - least. They pay fees for the first two years, and then they - are _cives_ of the class, and may attend gratis as many years - as they please. Many attend the moral philosophy class four - or five years; so that I have many preachers and students - of divinity and law of considerable standing, before whom I - stand in awe to speak without more preparation than I have - leisure for. I have a great inclination to attend some of the - professors here, several of whom are very eminent in their way; - but I cannot find leisure. Much time is consumed in our college - meetings about business, of which we have commonly four or five - in the week. We have a Literary Society once a week, consisting - of the Masters and two or three more; where each of the members - has a discourse once in the session.... Near a third part of - our students are Irish. Thirty came over lately in one ship, - besides three that went to Edinburgh. We have a good many - English, and some foreigners. Many of the Irish, as well as - Scotch, are poor, and come up late to save money; so that we - are not yet fully convened, although I have been teaching ever - since the 10th of October. Those who pretend to know, say that - the number of students this year, when fully convened, will - amount to 300.... By this time I am sure you have enough of - the College; for you know as much as I can tell you of the - fine houses of the Masters, of the Astronomical Observatory, - of Robin Foulis’ collection of pictures and painting college, - and of the foundry for types and printing-house. Therefore - I will carry you home to my own house, which lyes among the - middle of the weavers, like the back-wynd in Aberdeen. You - go through a long, dark, abominably nasty entry, which leads - you into a clean little close. You walk upstairs to a neat - little dining-room, and find as many other little rooms as - just accommodate my family; so scantily that my apartment is - a closet of six feet by eight or nine off the dining-room. To - balance these little inconveniences, the house is new and free - of buggs; it has the best air and finest prospect in Glasgow; - the privilege of a large garden, very airy, to walk in, which - is not so nicely kept, but one may use freedom with it. A five - minutes’ walk leads us up a rocky precipice into a large park, - partly planted with firs, and partly open, which overlooks - the town and all the country round, and gives a view of the - windings of the Clyde for a great way. The ancient Cathedral - stands at the foot of the rock, half of its height below you, - and half above you; and indeed it is a very magnificent pile. - When we came here, the street we live in (which is called the - Drygate) was infested with the small-pox, which were very - mortal. Two families in our neighbourhood lost all their - children, being three each. Little David was seized with the - infection, and had a very great eruption both on his face and - over his whole body, which you will believe would discompose - his mother.... Although my salary here be the same as Aberdeen, - yet if the class does not fall off, nor my health, so as to - disable me from teaching, I believe I shall be able to live as - easily as at Aberdeen, notwithstanding the differences in the - expense of living at the two places. I have touched about £70 - of fees, and may possibly make out the £100 this session.... - The common people here have a gloom in their countenance, which - I am at a loss whether to ascribe to their religion or to the - air and climate. There is certainly more of religion among the - common people in this town than in Aberdeen; and although it - has a gloomy enthusiastical cast, yet I think it makes them - tame and sober. I have not heard either of a house or of a head - broke, or of a pocket picked, or of any flagrant crime, since - I came here. I have not heard any swearing in the streets, nor - seen a man drunk (excepting, _inter nos_, one Prof—r) since - I came here.... If this scroll tire you, impute it to this, - that to-morrow is to be employed in choosing a Rector, and I - can sleep till ten o’clock, which I shall not do again for six - weeks.’ - -After the first winter, and when he had gained some experience of -Glasgow, he writes to Dr. David Skene, on 13th July 1765:— - - ‘I have a strong inclination to attend the chymical lecture - the next winter; but am afraid I shall not have time. I have - had but very imperfect hints of Dr. Black’s theory of fire.... - Chemistry seems to be the only branch of philosophy that can be - said to be in a progressive state here, although other branches - are neither ill taught nor ill studied. I never considered - Dolland’s telescopes till I came here. I think they open a - new field in optics which may greatly enrich that part of - philosophy.... I find a variety of things here to amuse me in - the literary world, and want nothing so much as my old friends, - whose place I cannot expect at my time of life to supply. I - think the common people here and in the neighbourhood greatly - inferior to the common people with you. They are Bœotian - in their understandings, fanatical in their religion, and - clownish in their dress and manners. The clergy encourage this - fanaticism too much, and find it the only way to popularity. I - often hear a gospel here which you know nothing about; for you - neither hear it from the pulpit nor will you find it in the - Bible. What is your Philosophical Society doing? Still battling - about D. Hume? or have you time to look in?... I believe you - do not like to be charged with compliments, otherwise I would - desire of you to remember me respectfully to Sir Archibald - Grant, Sir Arthur and Lady Forbes, and others of my country - acquaintances, when you have occasion to see them.’ - -In another letter to Dr. David, written about Christmas in his second -winter, we find that— - - ‘Mr. Watt has made two small improvements in the - steam-engine.[13] [These are minutely described.] ... I have - attended Dr. Black’s lectures. His doctrine of latent heat is - the only thing I have yet heard that is altogether new. And - indeed I look upon it as a very great discovery.... I have - not met with any botanists here. Our College is considerably - more crowded than it was last session. My class indeed is much - the same as last year, but all the rest are better. I believe - the number of our students of one kind or another may be - between four and five hundred. But the College at Edinburgh is - increased this year much more than we are. The Moral Philosophy - class there is more than double ours. The Professor, Ferguson, - is indeed, as far as I can judge, a man of a noble spirit, of - very elegant manners, and has an uncommon flow of eloquence. I - hear he is about to publish, I don’t know under what title, a - natural history of man; exhibiting a view of him in the savage - state, and in the several successive states of pasturage, - agriculture, and commerce. Our Society [Senate] is not so - harmonious as I wish. Schemes of interest, pushed by some and - opposed by others, are like to divide us into parties, and - perhaps engage us in law suits. Mrs. Reid, Pegie, and I, have - all had a severe cold and cough. I have been keeping the house - these two days in order to get the better of it.’ - -On ‘December 30th, 1765,’ a less sanguine view appears, in a letter to -Andrew Skene:— - - ‘I assure you I can rarely find an hour which I am at liberty - to dispose of as I please. The most disagreeable thing in - the teaching part is to have a great number of stupid Irish - teagues, who attend classes for two or three years to qualify - them for teaching schools or being dissenting teachers. I - preach to them as St. Francis did to the fishes. I don’t know - what pleasure he had in his audience; but I should have none - in mine, if there were not in it a mixture of reasonable - creatures. I confess I think there is a smaller proportion of - these in my class this year than there was the last. I have - long been of the opinion that, in a right constituted College, - there ought to be two professors for each class—one for the - dunces, and another for those who have parts. The province of - the former would not be the most agreeable, but perhaps it - would require the greatest talents, and therefore ought to - be accounted the post of honour. There is no part of my time - more disagreeably spent than that which is spent in college - meetings; and I should have been attending one at this moment - if a bad cold I have got had not furnished me with an excuse. - These meetings are become more disagreeable by an evil spirit - of party that seems to put us in a ferment, and I am afraid - will produce bad consequences. The temper of our northern - Colonies makes mercantile people here look very grave. It is - said that the effects in these colonies belonging to this town - amount to above £400,000.[14] The mercantile people are for - suspending the Stamp-act, and redressing the grievances of the - colonists.... In what light the House of Commons will view - this matter I don’t know, but it seems to me one of the most - important matters that have come before them. I wish often an - evening with you, such as we have enjoyed in the days of former - times, to settle the important affairs of Church and State, of - Colleges and Corporations. I have found this the best expedient - to think of them without melancholy and chagrin. And I think - all that a man has to do in the world is to keep his temper and - to do his duty. Mrs. Reid is tolerably well just now, but is - often ailing.’ - -In a letter to Dr. David, in March 1766, he refers to the death of his -early friend, John Stewart, the Mathematical Professor in Marischal -College, and his companion in the English tour thirty years before:— - - ‘Mr. Stewart’s death affects me deeply. A sincere friendship, - begun at twelve years of age, and continued to my time of life, - without any interruption, cannot but give some pangs. You know - his worth; yet it was shaded ever since you knew him by too - great abstraction from the world. The former part of his life - was more amiable and more social; but the whole was of a piece - in virtue, candour, and humanity.... I have always regarded - him as my best tutor, though of the same age with me. If the - giddy part of my life was in any degree spent innocently and - virtuously, I owe it to him more than to any human creature; - for I could not but be virtuous in his company, and I could - not be so happy in any other. But I must leave this pleasing - melancholy subject. He is happy; and I shall often be happy in - the remembrance of our friendship; and I hope we shall meet - again.’ - -A minute account of Black’s theory of latent heat follows. - -Later in the same year, Black was called to the Chair of Chemistry in -Edinburgh, which he filled for nearly thirty years, and in Reid’s -letters to the Skenes there is much about candidates for the vacant -office in Glasgow, with a suggestion that David Skene should himself -enter the lists. ‘There is a great spirit of inquiry among the young -people here. Literary merit is much regarded; and I conceive the -opportunities a man has of improving himself are much greater here than -at Aberdeen. The communication with Edinburgh is easy. One goes in the -stage coach to Edinburgh before dinner; has all the afternoon there, and -returns to dinner at Glasgow next day; so that if you have any ambition -to get into the College of Edinburgh (which I think you ought to have), I -conceive Glasgow would be a good step.’ - -The appeal was ineffectual. Meantime his own appointment, as an -‘examinator’ of candidates for the vacant Mathematical Chair in Marischal -College, made a visit to Aberdeen necessary, as anticipated in a letter -on ‘May 8th’:— - - ‘My class will be over in less than a month, and by that time - I shall be glad to have some respite. I hope to have the - pleasure of seeing my friends in Aberdeen in August, if not - sooner. We have had a stronger College this year than ever - before. We have been remarkably free from riots and disorders - among the students; and I did not indeed expect that 350 young - fellows could have keen kept quiet for so many months with so - little trouble.... You’ll say to all this that cadgers are aye - speaking of crooksaddles. I think so they ought; besides, I - have nothing else to say to you, and have had no time to think - of anything but my crooksaddles for seven months past. When - the session’s over, I must rub up my mathematics against the - month of August. There is one candidate for your profession - of mathematics to go from this College; and if your College - get a better man, or a better mathematician, they will be very - lucky.[15] I am so sensible of the honour the Magistrates have - done me in naming me to be one of the examinators, that I will - not decline it, though I confess I like the honour better than - the office.’ - -In the autumn of 1766 Reid exchanged the house in the Drygate for an -official residence in the Professors’ Court of the Old College. This -appears in a letter to Dr. Andrew Skene on December 17th:— - - ‘I live now in the College, and have no distance to walk to my - class in dark mornings, as I had before. I enjoy this ease, - though I am not sure whether the necessity of walking up and - down a steep hill[16] three or four times a day was not of - use. I have of late had a little of your distemper, finding a - giddiness in my head when I lie down, or rise, or turn myself - in my bed. Our College is very well peopled this session. My - public class is above three score, besides the private class. - Dr. Smith never had so many in one year. There is nothing so - uneasy to me here as our factions in the College.’ - -In February 1767, along with other local news, we find this in a letter -to David Skene:— - - ‘We are now resolved to have a canal from Carron to this place, - if the Parliament allows it. £40,000 was subscribed last week - by the merchants of the Carron Company for this purpose.[17] - Our medical college has fallen off greatly this session, most - of the students of medicine having followed Dr. Black to - Edinburgh. The natural and moral philosophy classes are more - numerous than they have ever been; but I expect a great falling - off, if I see another session. I was just now seeing your - furnace along with Dr. Irvine.... If I could find a machine - as proper for analysing ideas, moral sentiments, and other - materials belonging to the fourth kingdom, I believe I should - find in my heart to bestow the money first. I have the more use - for a machine of this kind, because my alembic for performing - these operations—I mean my cranium—has been a little out of - order this winter, by a vertigo, which has made my studies go - on heavily, though it has not hitherto interrupted my teaching. - I have found air and exercise and a clean stomach the best - remedies; but I cannot command the two former as often as I - could wish. I am sensible that the air of a crowded class is - bad, and often thought of carrying my class to the Common Hall; - but I was afraid it might have been construed as a piece of - ostentation.’ - -Reid’s letter of condolence to Dr. David Skene on the death of his -father, in September 1767, mentions the loss of his own infant daughter, -‘my sweet little Bess,’ and also refers to an excursion to Hamilton ‘with -Mr. Beattie’—the only occasion on which, for more than three months, he -had been more than three miles from Glasgow. ‘Having time at command,’ -he had been tempted ‘to fall to the tumbling over books; as we have a -vast number here which I had not access to see at Aberdeen. But this is -a _mare magnum_, wherein one is tempted by hopes of discoveries to make -a tedious voyage, which seldom repays the labour. I have long ago found -my memory to be like a vessel that is full: if you pour in more, you lose -as much as you gain; and on this account I have a thousand times resolved -to give up all pretence to what is called learning, being satisfied that -it is more profitable to ruminate on the little I have laid up than -to add to the indigested heap. I have had little society, the College -people being out of town, and have almost lost the faculty of speaking by -disuse. I blame myself for having corresponded so little with my friends -at Aberdeen. I wished to try Lumsden’s experiment which you was so good -as to communicate to me.... A nasty custom I have of chewing tobacco has -been the reason of my observing a species of as nasty little animals. I -spit in a basin of sawdust, which, when it comes to be drenched, produces -a vast number of animals, three or four times as large as a louse, -and not very different in shape; but armed with four or five rows of -prickles like a hedgehog, which seem to serve it as feet. Its motion is -very sluggish. It lies drenched in the aforesaid mass, which swarms with -these animals of all ages from top to bottom.... I have gone over Sir -James Stewart’s great book of political economy, wherein I think there -is a great deal of good material—carelessly put together indeed; but I -think it contains more sound principles concerning commerce and police -than any book we have yet had. We had the favour of a visit from Sir -Archibald Grant. It gave me much pleasure to see him retain his spirits -and vigour.’ A letter in October mentions that Reid had ‘passed eight -days lately with Lord Kames at Blair-Drummond,’ and that his lordship -is preparing a fourth edition of his _Elements_. He adds, ‘I have been -labouring at _Barbara Celarent_ for three weeks bygone.’ A new friend, -Lord Kames, here comes in sight. - -The last of the Skene letters is dated three years later, in 1770. After -pressing David Skene to visit him in Glasgow, he ends thus:—‘As to -myself, the immaterial world has swallowed up all my thoughts since I -came here; but I meet with few that have travelled far in that region, -and am often left to pursue my dreary way in a more solitary manner than -when we used to meet at the Club.’ - -The homely simplicity of Reid’s character is shown in those letters. They -differ from the letters we have after the Skenes disappear. These are -almost all on questions in philosophy, and show a slow but steady advance -in reflection upon the ‘common sense’ constitution of man’s knowledge of -the universe of matter and mind. - -In 1772 there was sorrow in the Reid household. The two eldest -daughters, Jane and Margaret, both died, in the bloom of youth, leaving -only the third daughter, Martha, who not long after married Dr. Patrick -Carmichael, a Glasgow physician, and youngest son of Professor Gershom -Carmichael. This marriage added much to the comfort of Reid’s later years. - -We have a passing glimpse of Reid in 1773, when he was entertained -in Glasgow by Johnson and Boswell, at the _Saracen’s Head Inn_, in -the Gallowgate, ‘that paragon of inns in the eyes of the Scotch, but -wretchedly managed.’ The travellers arrived there on the 28th of October, -on their return from their romantic excursion to the Western Highlands. -At the _Saracen’s Head_, on the following morning, as Boswell tells us, -‘Dr. Reid, the philosopher, and two other Glasgow professors, breakfasted -with us,’ and they met them afterwards at supper. ‘I was not much pleased -with any of them,’ the sage wrote to Mrs. Thrale. ‘The general impression -upon my memory,’ Boswell says, ‘is, that we had not much conversation at -Glasgow, where the professors, like their brethren at Aberdeen, did not -venture to expose themselves much to the battery of cannon which they -knew might play upon them.’ It is a pity that Boswell’s indifference, or -indolence, on this occasion has deprived us of talk at the _Saracen’s -Head_ and in the College Court, as dramatic in its way as the pictures -of Rasay or Inch Kenneth. Notwithstanding Reid’s cautious and modest -silence, or want of vivacity, he surely said and heard something at those -Glasgow breakfasts and suppers. - - * * * * * - -Before death had put an end to the letters to the Skenes, Reid had become -intimate with one of the most notable men of the time in Scotland. I -do not know how the intimacy began, but as early as 1767 we have found -him referring to a visit to Lord Kames at Blair-Drummond, and to the -mysteries of _Barbara Celarent_. This means that he was at work on the -_Brief Account of Aristotle’s Logic, with Remarks_, published seven years -afterwards as an Appendix to one of Lord Kames’ _Sketches of the History -of Man_. The _Sketches_ appeared in two quarto volumes, in 1774, and -the _Brief Account_ fills about seventy pages in the second volume. It -was Reid’s only appearance in print in the sixteen years of his public -professorship in Glasgow. This, along with the essay on Quantity, given -to the Royal Society in 1748, and the _Inquiry_, in 1764, made up his -work as an author, until after he had ceased to be an oral teacher. - -In Henry Home, Lord Kames, notwithstanding a temperament very different -from his own, Reid found congenial companionship—a strong disposition to -metaphysical speculation, a ready and accomplished if not deeply learned -lawyer, and a considerable author. Kames was fourteen years his senior. -Curiously, Henry Home’s closest early friendship was with David Hume. -Thirty years before his friendship with Reid, he advised Hume about the -_Treatise of Human Nature_, and had given the youth an introduction to -Bishop Butler. ‘My opinions,’ David writes in 1737, ‘are so new, and even -some terms I am obliged to make use of, that I could not propose, by -any abridgment, to give my system an air of likelihood, or even to make -it intelligible. I have had a greater desire of communicating to you a -plan of the whole, that I believe it will not appear in public before -the beginning of next winter. I am at present castrating my work, that -is, cutting off its nobler parts, that is, endeavouring it shall give -as little offence as possible. This is a piece of cowardice for which I -blame myself. But I resolved not to be an enthusiast in philosophy while -I was blaming other enthusiasms.’ It was thus that Hume wrote about the -book which, even in its ‘castrated’ form, startled Reid in the manse at -New Machar, and determined his whole intellectual life. In 1751 Home -published _Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion_, -on which Jonathan Edwards congratulated him in a letter to Dr. Erskine. -Yet his speculations, and his association with the sceptic, raised a -suspicion of his orthodoxy in the General Assembly. - -According to Lord Woodhouselee, his biographer, ‘the intercourse of -Lord Kames was frequent with his much-valued friend Dr. Reid, and they -corresponded on various topics of philosophy—a correspondence which, -notwithstanding the dissimilarity of character in many respects between -these two eminent men, subsisted for a long period of years, with the -most perfect cordiality and mutual esteem.’ Dr. Reid, Dugald Stewart -tells us, lived in the most cordial and affectionate friendship with -Lord Kames, notwithstanding the avowed opposition of their sentiments on -some moral questions to which he attached the highest importance. Both -of them, however, were the friends of virtue and of mankind; and both -were able to temper the warmth of free discussion with the forbearance -and good humour founded on mutual esteem. ‘No two men,’ Stewart adds, -‘ever exhibited a more striking contrast in their conversation or in -their constitutional tempers—the one slow and cautious in his decisions, -even on those topics which he had most diligently studied; reserved and -silent in promiscuous society, and retaining, after all his literary -eminence, the same simple and unassuming manners which he had brought -from his country residence; the other, lively, rapid, and communicative; -accustomed by his professional pursuits to wield with address the -weapons of controversy, and not averse to a trial of his powers on -questions the most foreign to his ordinary habits of inquiry. But -these characteristical differences, while to their common friends they -lent an additional charm to the distinguishing merits of each, served -only to enliven their social intercourse, and to cement their mutual -attachment.’ From 1767 till the death of Lord Kames in December 1782, -their intercourse was unbroken.[18] - -Lord Kames thus explains Reid’s contribution to the _Sketches_:—‘In -reviewing the foregoing Sketch, it occurred to me that a fair analysis of -Aristotle’s logic would be a valuable addition to the historical branch. -A distinct and candid account of a system that for so many ages governed -the reasoning part of mankind cannot but be acceptable to the public. -Curiosity will be gratified in seeing a phantom delineated that so long -fascinated the learned world; a phantom which, like the pyramids of -Egypt, or hanging gardens of Babylon, is a structure of infinite genius, -but absolutely useless, unless for raising wonder. Dr. Reid, Professor -of Moral Philosophy in the College of Glasgow, relished the thought, -and his friendship to me prevailed on him, after much solicitation, -to undertake the laborious task. No man is better acquainted with -Aristotle’s writings; and (without any enthusiastic attachment) he holds -that philosopher to be a first-rate genius.’ - -Measured by the present standard of Aristotelian criticism, Reid’s -exposition of the Organon, and estimate of its place in the development -of human understanding, may seem meagre and inadequate; especially as the -issue of seven years of preparation, and as his solitary contribution to -philosophy in these sixteen years. But when we remember that Aristotelian -logic was then under an eclipse, especially in Scotland, and that Reid’s -‘Brief Account’ was an attempt to draw the Organon out of the obscurity -to which it had been condemned by leaders of modern thought, the merit -of his sober and sagacious commentary may be more recognised. It is as -a signal monument of abstracted intellectual activity, rather than as -a philosophical instrument for advancing or organising our knowledge, -that Reid regards the syllogistic logic. He concludes that the art of -syllogism is better fitted to promote scholastic litigation than real -improvement in the sciences; he sees in it only ‘a venerable piece of -antiquity and a great effort of human genius.’ When he contrasts the -utility of Bacon’s _Organum_, as a factor in the progressive intelligence -of mankind, he fails to see that each Organon may consistently supplement -the other. - -Reid characteristically ends his account of the old Organon by suggesting -an Organon, different from either the old or the new, as still wanting. -This should neither, like Aristotle’s, unfold only abstract forms of -deductive reasoning, nor, like Bacon’s, only methods for verifying -inductive generalisations. It should be concerned with the rational -principles which compose the Common Sense of mankind. ‘All the real -knowledge of mankind may be divided into two parts: the first consists of -self-evident propositions, the second of those which are deduced by just -reasoning from self-evident propositions. The line that divides these -two ought to be marked as distinctly as possible, and principles that are -really self-evident reduced to general axioms. Although first principles -do not admit of direct proof, yet there must be certain marks by which -those that are truly such may be distinguished from counterfeits. These -marks ought to be described and applied to distinguish the genuine from -the spurious.... This is a subject of such importance that if inquisitive -men can be brought to the same unanimity in the first principles of -the other sciences as in those of mathematics and natural philosophy, -this might be considered as a third grand era in the progress of human -reason.’ Thus in 1774 Reid’s thought still converges on the subject which -had engaged him since the _Treatise of Human Nature_ found its way into -the manse of New Machar. Perhaps he was unduly sanguine in expecting -unanimity regarding the ingredients of the final reason of mankind—so -imperfectly developed in the individual consciousness, in its higher -elements, as long as men are disposed to resist the final venture of the -heart and conscience in their interpretation of the world and of human -life. - -It was in 1774 that Reid’s appeal in 1764 to the common reason of human -nature aroused hostile criticism. He had been seconded by others in -his response to the sceptics. The resort to a ‘sense’ of self-evident -truth, in his _Inquiry_ in 1764, which itself looked like a reply to -argument by feeling, was followed in 1766 by _An Appeal to Common Sense -on behalf of Religion_, by Dr. James Oswald, minister of Methven in -Perthshire. In 1770 Beattie’s _Essay on the Nature and Immutability of -Truth, in opposition to Sophistry and Scepticism_, followed. Oswald -and Beattie were not deep and patient thinkers like Reid;[19] but the -rising literary and social reputation of Beattie, secured for the _Essay -on Truth_ more rapid and widespread admiration than was given to the -_Inquiry_. Beattie often visited London, was there one of the lions of -the day, was made a D.C.L. of Oxford, and had interviews with George the -Third, who admired his book, conferred a pension on Beattie, and rallied -Mr. Dundas about ‘Scotch Philosophy.’ Reid, Beattie, and Oswald thus -became known as a triumvirate of ‘Scottish Philosophers’; and the appeal -to common sense, in which they were at least verbally agreed, began to be -spoken about as ‘the Scottish Philosophy,’ a term which has since been -adopted in this country and abroad. - -This Scottish triumvirate, helped into vogue by Beattie, roused Joseph -Priestley, an English dissenter. Priestley had abandoned the Calvinism -of his early creed for materialism, philosophical necessity, and free -thought, and, after serving for some years as pastor of a nonconformist -chapel in Cheshire, and next as a schoolmaster much devoted to -experiments in the natural sciences, was already known as an author in -natural science. In 1774, when he was living with Lord Shelburne, as -librarian and literary companion, he appeared for the first time as a -metaphysical critic, in _An Examination of Reid’s Inquiry, Beattie’s -Essay, and Oswald’s Appeal to Common Sense_. He played upon the term -‘common sense,’ and took for granted that the aim of the triumvirate -was to substitute mere feeling and authority for reason,—the authority -of the multitude for that of the philosophical elect,—alleging blind -instinct when unable to produce argument, and multiplying instincts to -suit each controversial emergency. ‘As men have imagined innate ideas, -because they had forgot how they came by their ideas, the Scottish -philosophers set up almost as many distinct instincts as there are -acquired principles of acting.’ He ridiculed Reid for his supposed -discovery of the root of scepticism in the ideal hypothesis; charging -him with innocently mistaking a metaphor for a scientific theory, and -for overlooking the leading part which mental association plays, as the -cause of those convictions which Reid mistook for infallible constituents -of common sense. ‘If we consider the general tenor of the writings of -these philosophers,’ Dr. Priestley said, ‘it will appear that they -are saying one thing and doing another—talking plausibly about the -necessity for admitting axioms as the foundation of all reasoning, but -meaning to recommend particular assumptions of their own as axioms—not -as being founded on perception of the agreement of ideas, which is the -great doctrine of Mr. Locke, and which makes truth to depend upon the -necessary nature of things, to be therefore absolute, unchangeable, and -everlasting, but merely on some unaccountable instinctive persuasions, -depending upon the arbitrary constitution of our nature—which makes all -truth be relative to ourselves only, and consequently to be infinitely -vague and precarious. This system admits of no final appeal to reason -properly considered, which any person might be at liberty to examine and -discuss; on the contrary every man is taught to think himself authorised -to pronounce dogmatically upon every question, according to his present -feeling and persuasion, under the notion of its being something original, -instructive, and incontrovertible; although, stoutly analysed, it may -appear to be mere prejudice.’ Thus, as opposed to the man of straw he -set up under the name of Reid, Priestley postulated a materialistic -conception of man, as only an organism, the so-called mental and -moral power of which was the natural issue of physical structure; -his perceptions the effects of their own objects; and on the whole a -necessitated system of the universe, which excluded morally responsible -agency. - -Reid made no reply at the time to this argumentative discharge. In an -unpublished letter to Dr. Price he gives a reason for his silence. ‘I -will not answer Dr. Priestley,’ he says, ‘because he is very lame in -abstract reasoning. I have got no light from him. And indeed what light -with respect to the powers of the mind can one expect from a man who has -not yet learned to distinguish ideas from vibrations, nor motion from -sensation, nor simple apprehension from judgment, nor simple ideas from -complex ideas, nor necessary truths from contingent truths?’[20] In 1775 -Reid writes to Lord Kames:— - - ‘Dr. Priestley in his last book thinks that the power of - perception, as much as the other powers that are termed mental, - is the natural result of an organic structure such as that of - the human brain. Consequently, the whole man becomes extinct - at death; and we have no hope of surviving the grave but what - is derived from the Christian revelation. I would be glad to - know your lordship’s opinion, whether, when my brain has lost - its original structure, and when some hundred years after, the - same materials are again fabricated so curiously as to become - an intelligent being—whether, I say, that being will be _me_; - or if two or three such beings should be formed out of my - brain, whether they will all be _me_, and consequently be all - one and the same intelligent being. This seems to me a great - mystery; but Dr. Priestley denies all mysteries.... I am not - surprised that your lordship has found little entertainment - in a late French writer on human nature. From what I learn - the French philosophers are become rank Epicureans. I detest - all systems that depreciate human nature. If it be a delusion - that there is something in the constitution of man that is - venerable and worthy of its author, let me live and die in this - delusion rather than have my eyes opened to see my species in - a disgusting light. Every good man feels his indignation rise - against those who disparage his kindred or country; why should - it not rise against those who disparage his kind? Were it not - that we sometimes see extremes meet, I should think it very - strange to see atheists and high-shod divines contending who - should most blacken and degenerate human nature. Yet I think - the atheist acts the most consistent part of the two; for - surely such views of human nature tend more to promote atheism - than to promote religion and virtue.’ - -This allusion to contemporary French philosophers is almost the only -one I find in Reid. The chief works of Condillac appeared before the -_Inquiry_, but it does not seem that they, or Diderot and the French -Encyclopedists, were known to him. That Kant is not referred to, nor even -known by name, is less surprising. This ignorance is characteristic of -Reid’s home-bred, self-contained philosophy. - -Inquiry into our conception of Power or Causation becomes prominent -in Reid’s letters to Lord Kames throughout ‘the seventies,’ along -with experimental investigations in physics and physiology which show -continued interest in natural causes. A letter, written in 1775, contains -a curious conjecture with regard to the generation of plants and animals, -more speculative than was his habit. He is ‘apt to conjecture,’ he tells -his friend, ‘that both plants and animals are at first organised atoms, -having all the parts of the animal or plant, but so slender, and folded -up in such a manner, as to be reduced to a particle far beyond the reach -of our senses, and perhaps as small as the constituent parts of water. -The earth, the water, and the air may, for anything I know, be full of -such organised atoms.’ He then goes on to consider the relation of this -hypothesis to the idea of active design in nature, and expresses doubt -about the possibility of the atoms being endowed with power to form -themselves into an organised body like the human. ‘I cannot help thinking -that such a work as the Iliad, and much more an animal or vegetable body, -must have been made by express design. It seems to me as easy to contrive -a machine which should compose a variety of epic poems and tragedies, -as to contrive laws of motion by which unthinking particles of matter -should coalesce into a variety of organised bodies.’ He suggests that -the organisation is the issue of constant and uniform divine activity. -‘Can we,’ he asks, ‘show by any good reason that the Almighty finished -his work at a stroke, and has continued ever since an inactive spectator? -And if His continued operation be necessary, it is no miracle, while it -is uniform, and according to fixed laws. Though we should suppose the -gravitation of matter to be the immediate operation of the Deity, it -would be no miracle while it is constant and uniform; but if it should -cease for a moment, only by His withholding His hand, _this_ would be a -miracle.’ This is to say that all natural changes are immediate effects -of divine action, proceeding according to natural law or rule. - -The suggestion illustrates the bent of Reid’s thought in later life. If -our common sense of the continuous independent existence of sensible -things, and of their manifestation in Perception as directly as states -of our own minds are manifested to us when we are conscious of them—if -_this_ was the factor of the Common Sense that engaged him in New Machar -and King’s College days, the Power or Causality which all changes in the -universe presuppose now becomes prominent, alike in his correspondence -and in his books. What is meant by Power, and where is the Power centred -that is implied in the changes that are always going on, in ourselves and -in our surroundings? Priestley’s assumption that matter explains all the -phenomena of a human mind; the theory of universal necessity advocated by -Kames; and the duties of his Glasgow professorship, all tended to carry -his reflections onward from the merely physical to the ethical judgments -of the common sense, and so upward from the merely natural to the -spiritual interpretation of the universe. ‘First that which is natural, -then that which is spiritual.’ - -This runs through his correspondence with Lord Kames. That there is -no absolute necessity for men being bad; that their immoral acts are -centred and originate in themselves and not in God; that it would be -unjust to exact as a duty what it is not in a person’s power to do; that -what a man does voluntarily or with deliberate intention, it is also in -his power not to do; that what is done without his will is not really -done by _him_ at all; and that real power is moral agency,—these are -ultimate judgments, reached ‘not by logical reasoning,’ but in ‘the more -trustworthy way of immediate perception and feeling,’ to which Reid so -often appeals. ‘If I could suppose God to make a devil a devil, I cannot -suppose that He would condemn him for being a devil,’ is in a letter to -Lord Kames.[21] The impotence of matter rather than its independence is -now insisted on; with the inference that at any rate _it_ cannot cause -our perceptions, as Priestley supposed. He begins to see that power -must be referred to mind or spirit alone, and that matter is powerless. -‘Efficient causes are not within the sphere of natural philosophy, which -is concerned only with the laws or methods according to which Power -operates. It exhibits the grand machine of the material world, analysed, -as it were, and taken to pieces. It belongs to metaphysics and natural -theology to show the Power that continues and gives motion to the whole; -according to laws which the naturalist discovers, and perhaps according -to laws still more general.’ - - * * * * * - -It was thus that Reid’s uneventful life of thought—deep, steady, -unobtrusive—was sustained for sixteen years, when he was educating -the rising generation in the old class-room at the College; unfolding -philosophy in correspondence with a sympathetic friend; contributing -essays to the Literary Society which met monthly at the College; and -preparing his ‘Brief Account’ of Aristotle—all until he had reached his -seventieth year. On the 19th of May 1780 he wrote to Lord Kames of a -change that had occurred the day before:— - - ‘I find myself growing old; and I have no right lo plead - exemption from the infirmities of that stage of life. For - that reason I have made choice of an Assistant in my office. - Yesterday the College at my desire made choice of Mr. Archibald - Arthur, preacher, to be my assistant and successor. I think I - have done good service to the College by this, and procured - some leisure to myself, though with reduction of my finances.’ - -It was Reid’s desire, while his faculties were yet vigorous, to devote -his strength to further philosophical authorship. During the remaining -sixteen years of his life his lectures were delivered to the students -by Mr. Arthur, to whom the professorial work in the class-room was -transferred. Arthur, then thirty-six years of age, was a native of -Renfrewshire, a distinguished alumnus of Glasgow, as it seems from a -posthumous volume of his Essays, and a man not unlike Reid in mind and -character, but in inferior form; at this time chaplain and librarian -of the University, and a member of the Literary Society. After one of -Arthur’s Sunday services in the College chapel, Reid had whispered to -one of his colleagues on the professorial bench—‘This is a very sensible -fellow, and in my opinion would make a good professor of morals.’[22] He -is described by a contemporary as ‘a man of unprepossessing exterior, of -invincible bashfulness, which continued to clog his manner and impede -his exertions during the whole course of his life; but of a thoughtful, -grave, silent habit, which led him to a due estimate of what he was -individually adapted to.’ He survived Reid, as his successor, a little -more than a year, when he was followed in the Chair by James Mylne, a -strong man unknown in philosophical literature, whose professorial career -of forty years made him a familiar figure to generations of Glasgow -students. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -PHILOSOPHICAL RETIREMENT: AUTHORSHIP IN OLD AGE - -1780-1795 - - -Dugald Stewart, when illustrating the changes in human memory that -are connected with disease and old age, refers thus to Reid:—‘One old -man I have myself had the good fortune to know, who, after a long, an -active, and an honourable life, having begun to feel some of the usual -effects of advanced years, has been able to find resources in his own -sagacity against most of the inconveniences with which they are commonly -attended; and who, by watching his gradual decline with the courage -of an indifferent observer, and employing his ingenuity to retard its -progress, has converted even the infirmities of old age into a source of -philosophical amusement.’ For sixteen years Reid had been discharging -that part of the duties of a professor which belongs to the class-room: -the remaining sixteen years of his life, devoted to original research -and authorship, illustrate the words of Stewart. He continued, after the -appointment of Arthur, to live as before in the Professors’ Court in -old Glasgow College—a placid, methodical life, steadily industrious, a -sagacious interpreter of nature and of man, still active in the academic -senate—with occasional recreation in visits to the country. The year 1780 -was saddened by another of those domestic sorrows which formed the chief -interruption to the tranquil happiness of his life; for his eldest son, -George, died in Newfoundland in February, at the age of twenty-five. -Two years later the only remaining son, David, was taken away; after -which his daughter, Mrs. Carmichael, alone survived of the nine sons and -daughters. - -Very soon after he had been released from the public work of the -professorship, letters to his cousin, Dr. James Gregory, then an -Edinburgh Professor of Medicine, speak of activity in transforming the -lectures into the form of philosophical essays for publication. This -enterprise was indeed Reid’s principal employment for the next eight -years. The _Essays_ appeared in two instalments, in 1785 and 1788. The -first instalment was a matter-of-fact inquiry into the intellectual power -of man; the second was a matter-of-fact inquiry into man’s moral power: -the ‘facts’ inquired about and appealed to were the invisible ones of -which men are conscious, not those that can be seen and touched—above -all, the final convictions of which the Common Sense consists. Both -instalments appeared in the same decade of last century in which Kant’s -‘_Kritiks_’ of Pure and Practical Reason were given to the world. - -Reid’s _Essays_ form, as it were, the inner court of the temple of which -the Aberdonian _Inquiry_ is the vestibule. But the vestibule is a more -finished work of constructive skill than the inner court, for the aged -architect appears at last as if embarrassed by accumulated material. The -_Essays_, greater in bulk, perhaps less deserve a place among modern -philosophical classics than the _Inquiry_, notwithstanding its narrower -scope, confined as it is to man’s perception of the extended world, as -an object-lesson in the method of appeal to the common sense. In the -_Essays_ an advance is made towards a finally ethical interpretation of -man and the universe. - -We have no longer the light of letters to Lord Kames in this closing -stage of Reid’s life; for Kames died in 1782. Reid’s retiring -modesty deprived him of that large literary intercourse to which his -philosophical position might otherwise have led. His correspondence -with men eminent in letters or philosophy seems almost confined to -Kames, the Gregories, Dugald Stewart, and Dr. Price. I find no trace of -correspondence with his Aberdeen friends Campbell and Beattie, whose -pursuits had so much in common with his own. But letters to Dr. James -Gregory take the place in the ‘eighties’ which those to Lord Kames -took in the ‘seventies’; they reveal an old age given to proof-sheets, -scientific experiments, and benignant interest in social progress. One -dated ‘Glasgow College, April 7, 1783,’ tells of the _Essays on the -Intellectual Powers_ in the press:—‘I shall be much obliged if you will -continue to favour me with your observations; therefore I have put -off examining those you have sent until the manuscripts be returned, -which I expect about the end of this month, along with Dugald Stewart’s -observations.’ Again he writes in June:—‘I cannot get more copied of my -papers till next winter, and indeed have not much more ready. This parcel -goes to page 658. I believe what you have got before may be one-half -of all I intend. The materials of what is not yet ready for the copier -are partly discourses read in our Literary Society, partly notes of my -lectures. Your judgment of what you have seen flatters me very much, -and adds greatly to my own opinion of it; though authors seldom are -deficient in a good opinion of their works. I am at a loss to express my -obligations to you for the pains you have taken.’ He refers in another -letter to what he regards as the source of the fashionable agnosticism -against which his life was a continued philosophical protest:—‘I have -often thought of what you propose—to give a History of the Ideal System -and what I have to say against it, _by itself_; and I am far from being -satisfied that it stands in the most proper place [in the _Essays_]. I -have endeavoured to put it in separate chapters [_e.g._ Essay ii. ch. -7-15], whose titles may direct those who have no taste for it to pass -over them. I observe that Bayle and others, who at the reformation of -Natural Philosophy gave new light, found it necessary to contrast their -own discoveries with the Aristotelian notions which then prevailed. We -may now wish their works purged of this controversial part; but perhaps -it was necessary at the time they wrote, when men’s minds were full of -the old system, and prepossessed in its favour. What I take to be the -genuine Philosophy of the Human Mind is in so low a state, and has so -many enemies, that I apprehend those who would make any improvement in -it must, for some time at least, build with one hand, and hold a weapon -with the other.’ So Reid claimed the office of modern reformer of the -philosophy of human mind, as Bacon and others had been the reformers of -the sciences which interpret external nature. - -On ‘March 14, 1784,’ he mentions the progress of the book:—‘I send -you now the remainder of what I propose to print with respect to the -Intellectual Powers of the Mind. It may perhaps be a year before what -relates to the Active Powers be ready; and therefore I think the former -might be published by itself, as it is very uncertain whether I shall -live to publish the latter. I think the title may be _Essays on the -Intellectual Powers of the Human Mind_. It will easily divide into eight -Essays; but with regard to this, as well as whether the two parts may -be published separately, I wish to have your advice and Mr. Stewart’s. -I apprehend that the Second Part—I mean what relates to the Active -Powers—will not be near so large as the First.’ On ‘2nd May 1785’ he -announces that the _Essays on the Intellectual Powers_ are ready for -publication, dedicated to Dr. Gregory and to Dugald Stewart:—‘I send you -enclosed what I propose as the title of my _Essays_, with an Epistle -which I hope you and Mr. Stewart will allow me to prefix to them. Whether -your name should go first, on account of your doctor’s degree, or Mr. -Stewart’s, I leave you to adjust between yourselves. I know not how to -express my obligations to you both, for the aid you have given me.’ - -The book thus ushered into the world in 1785 treats of those constituents -of the common sense that are implied, not only in perception of things -through the five senses and memory, but also in imagination and in the -experimental sciences that deal with the past, the distant, and the -future. One of them contains the rudiments of a criticism of the common -sense principles that finally regulate all abstract reasonings, and -above all, those that determine our judgments of truths contingent upon -Will—human and divine; in all of which what philosophers called ‘ideas’ -seemed to him to spoil the genuine common sense and its inspirations. -The fifth Essay deals with the office and relations of our abstract -conceptions. Of this Essay Schopenhauer remarks that ‘the best and most -intelligent exposition of the nature and essence of conceptions which -I have been able anywhere to find is in Thomas Reid’s _Essays on the -Powers of the Human Mind_. This was afterwards condemned by Dugald -Stewart in his _Philosophy of the Human Mind_. Not to waste paper, I -will briefly remark with regard to Stewart, that he belongs to that -large class who have obtained an undeserved reputation through favour -and friends, and therefore I can only advise that not an hour should be -wasted over the scribbling of this shallow writer.’[23] This unworthy -criticism of Stewart is far removed from the calm judgment of Reid. - -That our perceptions are not related to their objects as effects are -related to their causes, is insisted on in the _Essays_, in opposition -to Priestley, who treats cognitive acts as the issue of power which -belongs to matter. ‘Men,’ Reid says, ‘have been prone to imagine that, -as bodies are put in motion by some impulse or impression made upon them -by contiguous bodies, so the mind is made to think and perceive by some -impression made upon it by contiguous objects. But to say that an object -which I see with perfect indifference _makes an impression_ upon my mind -is not good English. It is evident from the manner in which this phrase -is used by modern philosophers that they mean, not barely to express by -it my perceiving an object, but to explain the manner of perception. They -think that the object perceived acts upon the mind in some way similar to -that in which one body acts upon another. The impression upon the mind -is conceived to be something wherein the mind is altogether passive. -But this is a hypothesis which contradicts the common sense of mankind. -When I look upon the wall of my room, the wall does not act at all, -nor is capable of acting: the perceiving it is an act or operation in -me.’ In short, the relation between perceptions and their objects is a -unique relation, not to be confounded with the causal, the only causality -involved being the percipient power that is in me. - -Those _Essays_ of Reid which treat of the constituents of the common -sense that are implied in the Intellect power of man, appeared in the -early summer of 1785. In September he informed Dr. Gregory of the opinion -of Dr. Price, the most eminent contemporary English metaphysician:—‘I had -a letter from Dr. Price lately, thanking me for a copy of the _Essays_ -I ordered to be presented to him; which he has read, and calls a work -of the first value; commends me particularly for treating Dr. Priestley -so gently, who, he says, had been unhappily led to use me ill.’ He then -refers to his own health, which seems to have suffered from the mental -strain, now relieved by the issue of his book:—‘As you are so kind as -to ask me about my distemper, I think it is almost quite gone, so as to -give me no uneasiness. I abstain from fruit and malt liquor, and take a -little port wine, mostly noon and night, not above two bottles a week -when alone. The more I walk or ride, or even talk or read audibly, I am -the better.’ - -Dr. Beattie writes thus to the Bishop of Chester in October:— - - ‘Has your lordship read Dr. Reid’s _Essays on the Intellectual - Powers of Man_? Those readers who have been conversant in - the modern philosophy of mind, as it appears in the writings - of Descartes, Malebranche, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, will - be much entertained with this work, which does great honour - to the sagacity and patience of the author. It contains the - principles of his _Inquiry_, laid down on a larger scale, and - applied to a greater variety of subjects. Dr. Reid treats his - opponents and their tenets with a respect and a solemnity that - sometimes tempt me to smile. His style is clear and simple; and - his aversion to the word _idea_ is so great, that I think he - never once uses it in delivering his own opinions. It was not - without reason that Stillingfleet took the alarm at Mr. Locke’s - indiscreet use of that word. It was indeed an _ignis fatuus_ - that decoyed him in spite of his excellent understanding into a - thousand pits and quagmires. Berkeley it bewildered still more. - And it reduced David Hume to the condition of a certain old - gentleman of whom we read, that— - - Fluttering his pinions vain, - Plumb down he dropped, ten thousand fathoms deep.’ - -Whether our power of conceiving is so far a test of possibility, as that -what is distinctly conceived must be concluded to be possible, and what -cannot be conceived impossible, was a question which interested Reid. -It is discussed in the _Essays on the Intellectual Powers_, and also in -the draft of a letter to Dr. Price, preserved among the manuscripts at -Birkwood; in which it is argued that our power of conception cannot be a -criterion of what is possible. The argument turns much on the meanings of -‘conception,’ ‘possibility,’ and ‘impossibility.’ He thus addresses Dr. -Price:— - - ‘I would willingly suggest some subject on which I might have - the favour of your thoughts when you have leisure and are - disposed for such correspondence. What occurs to my thoughts - just now is a metaphysical axiom very generally adopted, and, - I think, occasionally adopted by you in your _Review of the - Principal Questions in Morals_—That what we distinctly conceive - is possible. From this axiom D. Hume infers that it is possible - that an universe may start into existence without a cause, - and other like extravagancies. The use he makes of it led me - to consider it a good many years ago, and I have a strong - suspicion that there is some fallacy in it, which has imposed - on men’s understandings, owing to the ambiguity of the word - _conceive_. - - ‘As to the history of this axiom, I suspect it to have taken - its rise from what Descartes laid down as the criterion - of truth, which he maintained to be clear and distinct - conception. _Quidquid clare et distincte concipio esse verum, - id est verum._ Cudworth seems to have followed him in this, - making the criterion of verity to be clear, self-consistent - intelligibility. Those who came after, judging it difficult to - maintain that everything is _true_ which is clearly conceivable - or intelligible, have maintained that everything that can be - clearly conceived is at least _possible_. This seemed to be the - proper correction of Descartes’ maxim, and it has passed from - one hand to another without strict examination. - - ‘Whatever is true or false, whatever is possible or impossible, - may be expressed by a proposition. Now, what do we mean when we - say that we conceive a proposition? I think no more is meant, - if we speak properly, than that we understand what is meant by - that proposition. If this be so, it must surely be granted that - we may understand the meaning of a proposition which expresses - what is impossible. He who understands the meaning of this - proposition, “Two and two make four,” must equally understand - the meaning of this other, “Two and two do not make four.” - Both are equally understood; that is, the conception of both - is equally clear; yet the first is necessarily true, and the - second impossible. - - ‘Perhaps it will be said, that we may not merely conceive the - _meaning_ of a proposition, but we may conceive it to be a - _true_ proposition, and that it is our being able to conceive - it to be true that gives us ground to think it possible. In - answer to this, I beg you would attend very carefully to the - meaning of these words—“Conceiving a proposition to be true.” I - can put no other meaning upon them but judging it to be true, - that is, giving some degree of assent to it. Judgment or assent - admits of various degrees, from the slightest suspicion to the - most deliberate conviction; from the most modest and diffident - assent to the most pertinacious and dogmatical. I conceive - there maybe inhabitants in the moon; that is, my judgment leans - a little that way. I would not use that expression unless the - probability, however small, seemed to be on that side of the - question. - - ‘If this be the meaning of conceiving a proposition to be true, - then the meaning of the axiom will be, that a proposition - which appears to us to have any degree of probability, however - small, must at least be possible. But the axiom, taken in - this sense, is surely false. It would be superfluous to give - instances of this to a mathematician. - - ‘If it should be said that conceiving a proposition to be - true means, neither barely to understand the meaning of the - proposition, nor the giving any degree of assent to it, I would - be glad to know what it really does mean. For I am at a loss to - know what power of the understanding we mean by the conceiving - a proposition to be true, if it is neither simple apprehension, - by which we barely understand the meaning of a proposition, - nor judgment, by which we assent to the proposition or dissent - from it. I know of no power of the understanding intermediate - between these two. And if there is none, I think the axiom must - be false. - - ‘There are many propositions which, by the faculties God has - given us, we perceive to be not only true, but necessarily - true; and the contradictions of these must be impossible. So - that our knowledge of what is impossible keeps pace with our - knowledge of necessary truth. - - ‘By our senses and our memory, by testimony and other means, - we have the certain knowledge of many truths which we do not - perceive to be necessary; their contraries therefore may be - possible for aught we know. But we know that whatever is true, - whether necessary or not, is possible. Our knowledge therefore - of what is possible keeps pace with our knowledge of truth, - whether contingent or necessary. Beyond this, I am afraid our - knowledge of what is possible is conjectural. And although - we are apt to think everything to be possible which we do - not perceive to be impossible, yet in this we may be greatly - deceived. You know well, sir, that mathematics affords many - instances of impossibilities _in the nature of things_, which - no man would have dreamed of or believed, until they were - discovered by accurate and subtle reasoning. Perhaps if we were - able to reason demonstratively to as great an extent in other - subjects as in mathematics, we might discover many things to - be impossible which we now take to be possible. We are apt - to think it possible that God might have made an universe of - sensible and rational creatures, into which neither natural - nor moral Evil should ever enter. It may be so for what I - know. But how are you certain that this is possible? I can - distinctly conceive it, say you; therefore it is possible. I do - not admit this argument. May not a man who is a mathematician - as distinctly conceive that in the infinite variety of numbers - gradually ascending, there is no ratio whatsoever which is not - equal to the ratio of some one whole number to some other whole - number? Yet the mathematician can demonstrate that there are - innumerable ratios which are not equal to the ratio of some one - number to another. Many mathematicians, taking it for granted - that it was possible to square the circle, have spent their - lives in a fruitless pursuit. May not our taking things to be - possible, in matters of higher moment, when we can show no good - reason that they are so, lead us into unnecessary disputes and - vain theories? Ought we to admit that as a just argument in - reasoning, or even as a pressing difficulty, which is grounded - on the supposition that such a thing is possible, when in - reality we have no good evidence of its being possible, and for - anything we can show to the contrary, it may be impossible?’ - -A letter to Dr. Gregory in March 1786 shows the _Essays on the Active or -Moral Powers_ in the press:—‘I am proud of the approbation you express of -the _Essays_. I have made some corrections and additions, but such as I -hope will not make it necessary to write the book over again. But I wish, -if I find health and leisure in summer, to add some Essays to go before -that on “Liberty of the Will,” in order to give some further elucidation -of the principles of morals. I expect your remarks and D. Stewart’s on -what is in hand. It will be no inconvenience to wait two, three, or -even four months.’ Two years later, early in 1788, when he was in his -seventy-eighth year, the five _Essays on the Active Powers of Man_ were -published. This was Reid’s last appearance as a philosophical author. The -eight Essays of 1785, and the five Essays of 1788, all relate to human -Power—power immanent or intellectual, and power overtly operative or -moral. - -In March, a few weeks after the book appeared, Beattie writes to Sir W. -Forbes:— - - ‘I have been looking into Dr. Reid’s book on _The Active - Powers of Man_. It is written with his usual perspicuity and - acuteness; is in some parts very entertaining; and to me, who - have been obliged to think much on those subjects, is very - interesting throughout. The question concerning Liberty and - Necessity [of the Will] is very fully discussed, and very ably, - and I think nothing more need be said about it. I could have - wished that he had given a fuller examination of the passions, - and been a little more practical in illustrating the duties of - morality. But his manner in all his writings more turned to - speculative than to practical philosophy; which may be owing - to his having employed himself so much in the study of Locke, - Hume, Berkeley, and other theorists; and partly, no doubt, - to the habits of study and modes of conversation which were - fashionable in this country in his younger days. If I were not - personally acquainted with the Doctor, I should conclude from - his books that he was rather too warm an admirer of Mr. Hume. - He confutes, it is true, some of his opinions; but pays them - much more respect than they are entitled to.’ - -To Beattie’s less profound intelligence, indignant sentiment was more -acceptable, in defence of fundamental faith, than the calm inquiry and -sympathetic criticism of Reid. - -The Literary Society which met monthly in the College was occasionally -a channel for his thoughts through all the years of the Glasgow -professorship, as the more famous ‘Wise Club’ had been at Aberdeen. -Principal Leechman, Black, Moor, Arthur, and Dr. Thomas Hamilton were -also members. Some of Reid’s contributions before 1788 seem to have -been incorporated in the _Essays_. After that he still found vent for -his thoughts in papers for the Society, and in letters to Dr. Gregory, -chiefly about Power and Causation. Among the most important of those -submitted to the Society in his last years, I find ‘Some Observations -on the Modern System of Materialism,’ in which the impotence of matter -is maintained; as also in another, entitled ‘Miscellaneous Reflections -on Priestley’s account of Hartley’s Theory of the Human Mind.’ Then we -have ‘Observations on the Utopia of Sir Thomas More.’ A short essay ‘On -Power,’[24] in March 1792, was his last metaphysical performance: it sums -up his conclusions regarding our conception of causation, as regulated by -the Common Sense. ‘Observations on the Danger of Political Innovation,’ -suggested by the Revolution in France, were read in the Society on -November 1794. - -This last Essay is characteristic. It presses a distinction between two -political attitudes that are apt to be confounded—the one speculative, -dealing with abstractions, treating the facts of the case and history as -irrelevant; the other practical, taking account of the actual conditions, -therefore disposed to modify its ideals by a due regard to what has -been and now is. The first asks what that organisation of society is, -which, abstractly considered, is most favourable to progress: the -other cautiously considers how the inherited political organism may -with least friction be adapted to the changed conditions of the social -evolution. Reid assumes this last as his attitude, arguing that the -British Constitution encourages continuous orderly evolution, not sudden -revolution, and that this is illustrated in its history since 1688. -At first, he had looked with sanguine hope to the French Revolution, -but, like Edmund Burke, who shortly before had been Rector of Glasgow -University, his hope gave place to fear. It is interesting that it was -the _Vindiciæ Gallicæ_ of Sir James Mackintosh that had inspired him with -the hope; for, according to his daughter, Mrs. Carmichael, he was struck -with admiration on reading the book, and used often to speak of it as one -of the most ingenious essays in political philosophy he had ever met with. - -Jeremy Bentham as well as Mackintosh was known to Reid by his writings, -as appears in this letter to Dr. Gregory, in September 1788, which refers -to Bentham’s _Defence of Usury_, published the year before:— - - ‘I am much pleased with the tract you sent me on Usury. I think - the reasoning unanswerable, and have long been of the author’s - opinion, though I suspect that the general principle—that - bargains ought to be left to the judgment of the parties, may - admit of some exceptions; when the buyers are the many, the - poor, the simple, and the sellers few, rich, and cunning. - The former may need the aid of the magistrate to prevent - their being oppressed by the latter. It seems to be upon - this principle that postage, freight, the hire of chairs and - coaches, and the price of bread, are regulated in most great - towns. But with regard to the loan of money in a commercial - state, the exception can have no place—the borrowers and - lenders are upon an equal footing, and each may be left to take - care of his own interest.’ - -Three years before his death Reid is found preparing the _Account of the -University of Glasgow_, which appeared three years after his death, in -the _Statistical Account of Scotland_ published by Sir John Sinclair. It -was not communicated by him to Sir John, but transmitted by Professor -Jardine, in name of the Principal and Professors, at whose request Reid -seems to have engaged in this work. It was an anonymous publication, but -it has been attributed to him, and it bears internal evidence of his -hand. His colleague, Professor Richardson, in his biographical account -of Professor Arthur, Reid’s successor, published in 1803, mentions that -‘the Statistical Account of the University was all written by Dr. Reid, -except the statements respecting the business of particular classes.’ It -shows intelligence then uncommon in Scotland of the mediæval constitution -of Universities, and appreciation of the true academical ideal. The life -begun at King’s College forty years before in projects of University -reform, was fitly closed by this account of the great western seat of -learning. - -Mrs. Reid died early in 1792. His feelings were thus expressed in a -letter to Dugald Stewart:— - - ‘By the loss of my bosom friend, with whom I lived fifty-two - years, I am brought into a kind of new world, at a time of life - when old habits are not easily forgot, or new ones acquired. - But every world is God’s world, and I am thankful for the - comforts He has left me. Mrs. Carmichael has now the care of - two deaf old men, and does everything in her power to please - them; and both are very sensible of her goodness. I have more - health than at my time of life [82] I had any reason to expect. - I walk about; entertain myself with reading what I soon forget; - I can converse with one person if he articulates distinctly - and within ten inches of my left ear; I go to church without - hearing a word of what is said. You know I had never any - pretensions to vivacity, but I am still free from languor and - _ennui_.’ - -After this sorrow, his daughter, Mrs. Carmichael, lived much in his house -in the Professors’ Court. She became a widow in the same year, for her -husband died a few months after Mrs. Reid. Elizabeth Leslie, daughter of -his stepsister Margaret, was also an inmate, and added to the comfort of -the closing years. Soon after her father’s death Mrs. Carmichael went to -live at Aberdeen. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -INSPIRED COMMON SENSE AND CAUSATION: ACTIVE OR MORAL POWER IN MAN - - -Philosophical recognition of the genuine Common Sense or natural judgment -of mankind, especially in two of its factors, which seemed to Reid -obscured if not suppressed by dogmatic hypothesis, gave its character -to his whole intellectual life. He found, in the first place, that ‘all -philosophers; from Plato to Mr. Hume, agree in this, that we do not -perceive external objects immediately, and that the immediate object of -perception must be some image present to the mind.’ To rid philosophy -of this hypothesis, as a mere prejudice, inconsistent with the absolute -trustworthiness, and therefore with the supreme and final rational -authority of our natural judgment, was the chief aim of his Aberdonian -life—culminating in the _Inquiry_ in 1764. He found, in the second place, -that ‘to confound the notion of agent or efficient cause with that of -physical cause has been a common error of philosophers, from the days of -Plato to our own’; and it seemed to him as subversive of moral relations -in the universe as the other was of physical relations. Accordingly, our -conception of Power or Causation chiefly engaged him in Glasgow. This -appears in his ‘Essays’ on moral Power in man; in his correspondence with -Kames and Gregory in the last twenty years of his life; as well as in the -unpublished fragment on ‘Power,’ in 1792, which was his last expression -of reflective thought. The Philosophy of Perception and the Philosophy of -Causation—our common sense of extended reality in our first intercourse -with it in the senses, and our common sense conception of ‘power’ and -‘cause’ which arises in the presence of the changes amidst which we live -and have our being—these were the two poles of Reid’s philosophical -life. His whole life was a war against two common errors of philosophers -regarding these, from the days of Plato to our own, in each of which the -seeds of speculative and practical scepticism seemed to lie thickly. -If these two fundamental convictions were untrustworthy, then faith in -anything must lose its sustaining strength. For our perceptions through -the five senses are the first principles of all our reasonings about the -actual universe, and our causal judgments are the means of interpreting -the realities to which those perceptions only introduce us. - -We find ourselves continually in contact and collision with Power that -is external to ourselves individually; and we seem, too, to be exerting -powers of our own: on the Power latent in the universe, our happiness -or misery, our whole destiny, depends. What does all this mean? What is -meant by the judgment that all changes in the universe are ‘caused’; and -what is the origin of this judgment, or of the conception of ‘cause’ that -is involved in it? Are the powers which we recognise in us and around -us to be referred only to inanimate things as their centres; or only to -living and self-conscious persons; or to both? - -Priestley, as an advocate of the claim of matter to account sufficiently -for self-conscious life in man, and Kames and Priestley by their -universal necessity, confirmed Reid’s disposition to inquire further into -the nature and origin of the conception of power, and the judgment that -every change presupposes what we ambiguously call a cause. His cousin -Gregory, too, inquired about causation, and gave the results to the world -in an _Essay on the Difference between the Relation of Motive and Action, -and that of Cause and Effect in Physics_, which appeared in 1792. - -That every change must be caused, Reid regarded as a postulate of which -the contradictory was absolutely inconceivable: it was necessarily -implied in the common rational sense of Man, and, while incapable of -logical proof, was that without which nothing else could be proved. That -the things presented to our senses are themselves powerless; that all -power is spiritual, referable only to Will; and that this is the common -sense implicate of our physical and moral experience of changes, was the -proposition which Reid now set himself to justify. Our experience of our -own voluntary exertion is the only experience which directs us to the -quarter in which power, properly so called, resides. A voluntary agent is -our only example of a cause, or of that to which change must be finally -referred as its responsible source. We can find no productive power in -any inanimate thing. Matter, instead of being the universal cause, is -in itself powerless, and can account for nothing. The material universe -is virtually an external system of interpretable signs, regulated by -non-material power. - -Take the following extracts from various letters of Reid’s to Gregory, -from 1785 onwards,[25] in the unpublished paper on Power:— - - ‘Power to produce an effect supposes power not to produce it; - otherwise it is not power but necessity, which is incompatible - with power taken in a strict sense.... I am not able to form - a conception how power (in the strict sense) can be exerted - without will; nor can there be will without some degree of - understanding. Therefore nothing can be an efficient cause in - the proper sense but an intelligent being [_i.e._ a person]. - Hence the only notion we can form of Almighty Power is, that - God can do whatever He wills. Matter cannot be the cause of - anything: it can only be an instrument in the hands of a real - cause.... In physics the word cause has another meaning, - which, though I think it an improper one, yet is distinct, - and therefore may be reasoned upon. When a phenomenon is - produced according to a certain law of nature, we call the law - [or rule] the _cause_ of that phenomenon; and to the laws or - rules of nature we accordingly ascribe power or efficiency. - The whole business of physics is to discover, by observation - and experiment, the laws of nature, and to apply them to - the solution of phenomena. Now a law of nature is a purpose - or resolution of the Author of nature to act according to - a certain rule. There must be a real agent to produce the - phenomenon according to the law. A malefactor is not hanged by - the law, but by the executioner according to the law.’ - - Again:—‘A cause in the proper and strict sense signifies a - _mind_ that has power and will to produce the effect. A cause - in the physical sense means only something which, by the laws - of nature, the effect always follows; as when we say that - heat is the cause that turns water into vapour.... Between a - physical cause and its effect the conjunction must be constant; - unless in the case of a miracle. What D. Hume says of causes - in general is very just when applied to physical causes—that - a constant conjunction with the effect is essential to such - causes, and implied in the very conception of them.’ Again:—‘I - wish that the same general name—cause—had not been given to - both. They differ _toto genere_. For a physical cause is not an - agent. It does not act, but is acted upon. _You_ accordingly - give them different names; calling the one the agent and - not the cause, the other the cause and not the agent. But - I think this too bold an innovation in language. Men have - been so much accustomed to call the Deity the First Cause of - things, that to maintain that He is no cause at all would be - too shocking. To say that the world exists _without a cause_ - would be accounted atheism, in spite of all explanations.... - The words agent and action are less ambiguous. We say one - _body_ acts upon another; and in vain would one attempt to - abolish this language. To remedy this ambiguity of “cause” and - “agent,” I say that each of these words has two meanings—a - lax or popular and a philosophical.... It is remarkable that - the philosophical meaning must have been the first, and the - popular a corruption introduced by time.... Power is first - conceived from being conscious of it in ourselves. Conceiving - of inanimate beings from what we are conscious of in ourselves, - we at first ascribed to them such power as we are conscious - of, till experience informs us that inanimate things have not - the same powers as we have; but language was formed before - this discovery was made.... It is a curious question how we - come by the cognition of power and cause, so that we ascribe - them to things that have no will nor intelligence. I am apt - to think that savages, whenever they see motion which they - cannot account for, there they suppose a soul. In this period - of society language is formed. At length the more acute and - speculative few discover that some of the things which the - vulgar believe to be animated are inanimate. What use must - wise men make of this discovery? Will they affirm that the sun - does not shine nor give heat? that the sea never rages nor the - winds blow? nor the earth bring forth grass and corn? The wiser - part will speak the common language, and suit it to their new - notions as well as they can; just as philosophers still say - with the vulgar, that the sun “rises” and “sets.”’ - -That morally responsible intending Will is our ultimate conception -of Power or Cause, properly so called, is not less the lesson of the -Birkwood manuscript ‘On Power’ of 1792. Thus:— - - ‘Will is necessarily implied in the notion of Power. Volition - and what naturally follows upon our volitions, is all that we - conceive to be in our own power. What a man never willed can - never be imputed to him as his action. A being that has no - will can have no power. When we impute powers to dead matter, - it must be in some popular or analogical sense, but not in the - proper sense. There can be no productive power in an inanimate - object.... A cause is that which has power to produce an - effect. When we ascribe power to things inanimate as causes, - we mean nothing more than a constant conjunction by the laws or - rules of nature, which experience discovers. Thus we say that - the sun has power to retain the planets in their orbits, and - that heat has power to melt lead. If the ignorant be led by the - ambiguity of the word to conceive power in the sun or in heat - to produce the effects attributed to them, this is a vulgar - error which philosophy [_i.e._ of common sense] corrects. By - what agents these effects are [immediately] produced we know - not; but we have good reason to believe that they cannot be - produced by inanimate matter.’ - -Reid also allows that, for anything we can tell, things which have no -proper power of their own may be terms in a sequence that is subject to -an _absolute_ necessity of being the sequence that it is. But however -this may be, it transcends our knowledge; we must be satisfied with the -common sense conviction of persistent uniformities in fact pervading the -universe of change, whether this fact is the result of a divine necessity -or of arbitrary divine will. Natural uniformities are presupposed in -all our reasoning about our natural surroundings, and without this -presupposition things could not be reasoned about or formed into science. -All our knowledge of natural events, beyond original perceptions of -sense, consists in interpretation of the phenomena of which the senses -make us aware. Upon this judgment of the common sense our inductions are -all grounded, so that it may be called the inductive principle. Withdraw -trust from it and experience becomes blind as a mole. We may _feel_ what -is present at the moment, but the distant and the future are wholly hid -in darkness. - -Power or intelligent agency is thus the exclusive characteristic of -conscious persons: interpretable order is the characteristic of inanimate -things. These are two correlative judgments or inspirations of our -natural common sense upon which human reasonings turn. Reid finds -when he reflects patiently that he is obliged, by a rational instinct -as it were, to recognise himself and other persons as the centres of -responsible power, the only sort of power or causality in existence that -can be supposed by us; and also to recognise in the impersonal world -without, something that in itself is passive and impotent, but which, -as a system of interpretable sense signs, may be said metaphorically to -form the _language_ of nature, of which the natural sciences are (so far) -the interpretation. The universe is thus a material order directed by -spiritual power, in a measure corresponding to the body and the spirit -in man, as man now is. But this larger conception carries us beyond the -modest philosophy to which Reid confined himself; although he more than -once approached it, perhaps through some unconscious reminiscence of the -Berkeleyism of his youth, of which, I think, he failed to see the real -drift, as it was unfolded in _Alciphron_ and especially in _Siris_. - -Yet the following scrap, which I find among unpublished manuscripts of -his later life, shows that such thoughts were not quite absent from his -mind:— - - ‘The ancient philosophers called God the Soul of the World. - This, considered as a figurative expression, is destitute - neither of beauty nor of truth. What the soul of man is to his - body, that God is to the universe, in several respects; but not - in all. There are many respects in which the metaphor fails: - (1) The human soul did not make its own body, but God made - the world; (2) the human soul is ignorant of the nice texture - and mechanism of its body, but God knows the whole mechanism - of the universe, because He conceived and made it; (3) the - human soul receives much of its information by bodily organs: - God’s knowledge of all things is immediate and not dependent - on bodily organs; (4) our power over our own bodies is - limited: the power of God over the universe is unlimited; (5) - our bodies are wholly made up of inert and soulless matter: - the universe is stored with various orders of living beings - and free agents, subject to the Divine Power as their moral - governor and capable of paying back the service of rational - subjects.’ - -But the philosophy of the Common Sense, as represented by Reid, did not -rise to the conciliation of the natural order of the material with the -originative freedom of the spiritual world, in which operating law in -outward nature is recognised as immediate divine agency, or a part of -a revelation of perfectly reasonable Will in and through a universe of -things and persons. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -THE END—1796 - - -In the last winter of his life Reid read an interesting discourse on -‘Muscular Motion,’ in the Literary Society, of which he so long had -been a member. After describing articulately the progressive changes -in the human muscles which mark the advance of age, and proposing an -explanation, he thus concludes his last public discourse:— - - ‘May I be permitted to mention that it was my own experience - of some of these effects of old age on the muscular motions - that led my thoughts to this explanation, which, as it is - owing to the infirmities of age, will, I hope, be treated - with the greater indulgence. It is both pleasant and useful - to contemplate with gratitude the wisdom and goodness of the - Author of our being, in fitting this machine of our body to the - various employments and enjoyments of life. The structure is - admirable as far as we are permitted to see it in this infancy - of our being. And the internal structure which is behind the - veil that limits our understanding, and which gives motion to - the whole, is, in a manner most wonderful, though unknown to - us, made subservient to our volition and efforts. This grand - work of nature, like the fruits of the earth, has its maturity, - its decay, and its dissolution. Like those also, in all its - decay it nourishes a principle within which is to be the seed - of a future existence. Were the fruit conscious of this, it - would drop into the earth with pleasure, in the hope of a happy - Resurrection. This hope, by the mercy of God, is given to all - good men. It is the consolation of old age, and more than - sufficient to make its infirmities sit light.’ - -The dissolution of the material organism which for eighty-six years -had served the writer of these words was now near. Of his few early -philosophical associates, Campbell and Beattie only were alive at the -beginning of 1796, and in April of that year Campbell died. Reid followed -him six months later. Dugald Stewart, then Professor of Moral Philosophy -in Edinburgh, gives the following account of the months before the end:— - - ‘In the summer of 1796, about two years after the death of - his wife, he was prevailed on by Dr. Gregory to pass a few - weeks at Edinburgh. He was accompanied by Mrs. Carmichael, - who lived with him in Dr. Gregory’s house, a situation which - united under the same roof every advantage of medical care, of - tender attachment, and of philosophical intercourse. As Dr. - Gregory’s professional engagements necessarily interfered with - his attentions to his guests, I enjoyed more of Dr. Reid’s - society than might otherwise have fallen to my share. I had - the pleasure, accordingly, of spending some hours with him - daily, and of attending him in his walking excursions, which - frequently extended to the distance of three or four miles. - His faculties (excepting his memory, which was considerably - impaired) appeared as vigorous as ever; and, although his - deafness prevented him from taking any share in general - conversation, he was still able to enjoy the company of a - friend. Mr. Playfair and myself were both witnesses of the - acuteness which he displayed on one occasion, in detecting a - mistake, by no means obvious, in a manuscript of his kinsman, - David Gregory, on the subject of “Prime and Ultimate Ratios.” - In apparent soundness and activity of body, he resembled more - a man of sixty than of eighty-seven. He returned to Glasgow - in his usual health and spirits; and continued for some weeks - to devote as formerly a regular portion of his time to the - exercise both of body and mind. It appears from a letter of - Dr. Cleghorn’s to Dr. Gregory, that he was still able to work - with his own hands in his garden; and he was found by Dr. - Brown occupied in the solution of an algebraical problem of - considerable difficulty, in which, after the labour of a day or - two, he at last succeeded.’ - -It was thus in summer. In September he was attacked by a violent -disorder, and after a severe struggle, attended with repeated strokes of -palsy, he passed away on the 7th of October. Thus ended the tranquil life -of deep and patient thought, which opened at Strachan and almost spanned -the eighteenth century, morally and intellectually the representative of -Scottish philosophical restoration under the conditions of the time. His -ashes were laid in the College Church burial-ground, within the shadow of -the College of which he had so long been the chief ornament, and under a -tombstone bearing this inscription:— - - ‘Memoriæ sacrum THOMÆ REID, S.T.D., quondam in Schola Regia - Aberdonensi Philosophiæ Professoris; nuper vero in Universitate - Glasguensi, ab anno 1764 usque ad annum 1796, Philosophiæ - Moralis Professoris; qui in Scientia Mentis Humanæ, ut olim in - Philosophia Naturali illustris ille Baconius Verulamius, omnia - instauravit; qui ingenii acumine doctrinæque omnigenæ, summam - morum gravitatem, simul atque comitatem, adjuvavit; qui obiit - 7° October, 1796, annos natus 86. Cujusque ossa cum cineribus - ELIZEBETHÆ REID, conjugis carissimæ, triumque filiarum morte - prematura abrepturam, sepulchro condita sunt. Hoc Monumentum - poni jussit filia piissima, unica superstes, Martha Carmichael.’ - -After the University of Glasgow had in 1872 exchanged the College in the -High Street, with its touching memories, for its new and stately home on -the bank of the Kelvin, Reid’s remains were carried to the Necropolis -which overlooks his old home in the Drygate, and the tombstone was -removed to the College on Gilmore Hill. - -I find Reid’s will, dated 7th May 1792, recorded in the Sheriff-Court -Books of Lanarkshire. Dr. and Mrs. Carmichael are executors, with Mr. -Leslie and Mr. Rose conjoined. Furniture, books, and papers are left to -Mrs. Carmichael, except a few books for the University Library. Of the -rest of the property, personal and real—after payment of debts, including -£300 to Dr. Carmichael, ‘payable in full of my daughter’s tocher,’ and -‘£300 to John Sargent, London, cousin-german of the dearest Elizabeth -Reid, my wife’—one half is assigned to Mrs. Carmichael, and the other -half, in equal portions, to ‘my sisters, Mrs. Leslie and Mrs. Rose,’ -burdened with ‘a liferent annuity of £10, to my stepmother, Janet Fraser, -widow of Mr. Lewis Reid.’ The real property is described as consisting of -‘eleven and a half falls of ground, with the whole houses thereon, and -the well therein, bounded on the west by William Street, on the north by -the property of Dr. Carmichael, on the south by the property of Joseph -Crombie, and on the east by the property of John Duguid and Wm. Risk, all -in the Barony parish.’ This property appears to have been bought about -1780, the year in which Reid ceased to teach in the College. - - * * * * * - -That this life, much withdrawn from the public eye in the interest of -philosophic reflection, was not unappreciated when it ended, is shown by -the recognition which immediately followed. On the day after he died the -event was thus announced in the _Glasgow Courier_:— - - ‘Thomas Reid, D.D., Professor of Moral Philosophy in the - University of Glasgow, died on the seventh day of October. His - ingenious and elaborate works, especially his _Inquiry into the - Human Mind_, and his _Essays on the Intellectual and the Active - Powers of Man_, are noble and lasting monuments of his eminent - abilities, his deep penetration, and his extensive learning. - By unravelling sceptical perplexities, overturning ill-founded - hypotheses, and resting every conclusion on evident principles, - he has brought about a memorable revolution in the Philosophy - of Human Nature. His character through life was distinguished - by an ardent love of truth, and an assiduous pursuit of it in - various sciences; by the most amiable simplicity of manners, - gentleness of temper, strength of affection, candour, and - liberality of sentiments, which displayed themselves in the - habitual exercise of all the social virtues; and by steadiness, - fortitude, and rational piety.’ - -A few days later a more elaborate study of his character appeared in the -_Courier_:— - - ‘Dr. Reid was unquestionably one of the profoundest - philosophers of the age; and although some who think it a - proof of weakness to differ from Mr. Hume have slighted the - speculations of Dr. Reid, and undervalued the precision which - he laboured to introduce, his Inquiry into the Senses will - probably be coeval with our language. It is founded on facts - which must continue to interest men while their constitution - continues unchanged. In his pursuit of new knowledge he studied - the late improvements in chemistry; he observed the great - political events which have happened, and contemplated that - with which the time seems pregnant with the keen interest of - one entering on life. He venerated religion—not the noisy, - contentious systems which lead men to hate and persecute each - other, but the sublime principle which regulates the conduct, - by controuling the selfish and animating the benevolent - affections. When vilified by intemperate philosophers [_e.g._ - Priestley], he made no reply, being satisfied with having - stated what he thought the truth; and when outraged by zealots - who falsely call themselves Christians, he bore the outrage - meekly, using no terms of complaint or reproach. He was to - the last moment free from that morose querulous temper which - has been deemed inseparable from age. Instead of repining - at the prosperity and enjoyments of the young, he delighted - in promoting them; and after having lost all his own family - except one daughter, he continued to treat children with such - condescension and benignity that some very young ones noticed - the peculiar kindness of his eye. His end accorded with the - wisdom and goodness of his life. He used sometimes to say, - “I am ashamed of having lived so long after having ceased to - be useful,” though at that very time he was acquiring and - communicating useful knowledge. During his last illness, which - was severe, he complained of nothing but the trouble that he - gave his affectionate family, and he looked to the grave as a - place not of rest merely but of triumph.’ - -The affectionate judgment of his contemporaries, in the first days of -sorrow, instead of exceeding, fall short of the deliberate judgment -of leaders of European thought in a later generation. The rise of his -reputation was slow. As there are too many who make themselves appear -more wise than they are, it was the more uncommon fault of Reid to -appear less a philosopher than he really was. Extreme caution made him -suspicious of ingenious conjecture in matter-of-fact inquiry, and perhaps -blinded him to the large part which imagination as well as reason has -to play in progress. ‘It is genius, and not the want of it,’ he says, -‘that adulterates philosophy, and fills it with error and false theory’; -and in the spirit of this warning, as well as by temperament, he was -intellectually conservative more than progressive or adventurous. - -In outward appearance he was somewhat under the middle size, with a -bodily constitution of uncommon strength and tenacity, maintained by a -methodically regulated life and habitual serenity of temper. Raeburn’s -picture, now in Fyvie Castle, for which he sat during his last visit to -Edinburgh, expresses the deep and persistent thought, as well as the -reposeful and benevolent temper, which gave unity to his long life. -Copies of this picture are preserved at Birkwood, in the College of -Glasgow, and in the National Portrait Gallery at Edinburgh, as well as in -the great window of the Mitchell Hall of Marischal College. There is also -an excellent medallion by Tassie, done six years before Reid’s death. - -After the death of Mrs. Carmichael, in February 1805, all who were -descended of the Rev. Lewis Reid of Strachan, by his wife Margaret -Gregory, had passed away. His second wife and widow died at Aberdeen -in 1798, like her stepson, in her eighty-seventh year, having survived -him about eighteen months. The great-granddaughter of Mrs. Leslie his -half-sister, Grace Anna Leslie, now of Birkwood, married Dr. Ross -Paterson in 1864. Their youngest daughter has charge of the Reid family -papers, to which I owe many facts first published in these pages. A son -of his other half-sister, Mrs. Rose, a medical officer in the Indian -army, was introduced in 1805 to Sir James Mackintosh, then Recorder of -Bombay, by Professor Ogilvie of Aberdeen, as a relative of the advocate -of the final philosophical appeal to the Common Sense; and Mackintosh -in a letter to Mr. Ogilvie expresses the deep interest with which he -saw ‘the nephew of Dr. Reid, whose philosophy, like you, I do not -embrace, but whose character and talents every cultivator of science must -venerate.’ Sir James’s later judgments of the philosophy, after a more -attentive study of its scope, were more favourable. - - - - -CHAPTER X - -RETROSPECTIVE AND CRITICAL - - -We find truth, as Pascal says, not only by logical reasoning but by -an act of immediate reason, not to be effaced by all the subtleties -of the speculative sceptic, who is thus confounded by the resistance -of rational human nature. This is a general expression of Reid’s more -elaborate reply to sceptical distrust in all human knowledge and -belief. That genuine human nature, when awakened into conscious life, -is practically irresistible, is what Reid insists on; for no sane man -acts in contradiction to the common sense of which he is conscious, -although he can speculate sceptically in an abstract way, and may even -serve truth in doing so. For this scepticism may amend philosophical -systems in which the constituent principles of human nature are not -theoretically recognised in their integrity; and it may also stimulate -the unphilosophical to a deeper and truer insight of what the natural -principles are on which men must proceed in their actions. But the -principles themselves are not reached by reasoning: they are the -inspiration of God; and it is this divine inspiration that makes -experience and reasoning at all possible for men. - -That I am an individual self-conscious person, to whom something other -than, and independent of, my individual self is presented in my senses—so -independent of me individually that it can inform me of the existence of -other persons whose conscious life is numerically different from mine; -that the free agency of a person is the only sort of power that we are -obliged to recognise, persons being revealed as responsible powers in -and through our moral nature; and that the powerless things of sense, -of which we are immediately percipient in our sense perceptions, are -interpretable for purposes of common life and science, inasmuch as their -changes must be determined by natural laws, all reasoning being otherwise -impossible—_these_ I think are the chief ‘inspirations’ or ‘revelations’ -of the Common Sense on which Reid enlarges. This account of those -inspirations is not offered as complete; only as results, more or less -fragmentary, reached by the deep and steady reflection of a long life. - -Reid’s philosophical appeal to the divine inspirations of the common -sense, without which nothing can be proved, on behalf of truths which do -not admit of direct logical proof, but only of a sort of philosophical -justification, has been disparaged as an ignoble retreat from the -standpoint of the philosopher, in the interest of popular prejudices and -blind authority. It has been spoken of as an appeal from the reasoned -judgments of the reflecting minority to the unreasoned opinions of the -unreflecting majority, an opening for arbitrary dogmas to enter and crush -free inquiry. This is the drift of the criticism of Priestley in last -century, and of Ferrier in this, while Kantian critics complain of Reid’s -lazy arrest of philosophy at the level of ordinary beliefs. Besides -this, what Reid claims as ‘the chief merit of his philosophy’—that of -questioning the common assumption that external things cannot present -themselves in our perceptions, but only unauthenticated representations -of them—proceeds, according to Priestley, on a misinterpretation of the -metaphorical language of philosophers: to refute it is an idle waste of -controversial labour, taking figures of speech for serious science. - -If ‘common sense’ in this philosophy means only unintelligent opinion, -as opposed to the judgments of thinkers, Reid’s response to the sceptic -may well be regarded as an arrest of intelligence,—blind dogmatism -instead of philosophy. But candid critics interpret words in the meaning -intended by those who use them. This appeal to the judgments named those -of the common sense, is intended as an appeal to reason itself—reason, -that is to say, in its final form in a finite intelligence, whose -experience of the universe is incomplete, and working under conditions -imposed upon its exercise in intelligent beings who are not omniscient. -Reid’s Common Sense is the final perception of a being who can know the -universe of reality only in part, and is therefore needed by man in that -intermediate position in which an absolute beginning or end of things -must be to him incomprehensible. It is an appeal to that which must in -reason be final, in an intelligence that only partly shares in divine -omniscient reason. Although its judgments are not evolved from premises, -they are nevertheless what all men, except infants and lunatics, more -or less distinctly acknowledge in their individual actions, although -they may misconstrue them in their uneducated opinions, or spoil them -by indulgence in purely speculative systems. The divine inspiration of -the common sense is therefore man’s final support, amidst the so-called -‘contingencies’ of temporal change in himself and his surroundings. A -philosophical appeal to it is of practical importance in reference -to what, at the human point of view, are contingent truths of moral -reasoning: the necessary truths of abstract thought, it has been well -said, ‘sufficiently guard themselves.’ - -Accordingly the judgments of the common sense which chiefly interested -Reid are what he calls first principles of ‘contingent’ truths, as -distinguished from abstract necessities the opposites of which are -self-contradictory or unthinkable. Contingent truths, on the other hand, -may be rejected in thought; but those who reject them speculatively -must proceed upon them in their actions and reasonings, including even -sceptical reasonings. The man whose scepticism involves a practical -surrender of the common judgment, that what we call the outward world -is independent enough of _his_ individual existence to make it a -trustworthy medium of intercourse for him with other living persons; -and who acts accordingly on the belief that ‘other persons’ are only -conscious states of his own individual mind, would be pronounced a -lunatic. Again, the fatalist, who rejects practically the moral judgment -that refers the issues of a deliberate voluntary determination to the -voluntary or personal agent as its responsible centre, insanely sits -still in the midst of danger, and refrains from exerting a power which he -denies. And he who refuses to proceed upon the logically undemonstrable -postulate of universal natural order, by ceasing to reason about wholly -uninterpretable chaos, is inevitably crushed by the Universal Power that -he ignores. - -It is thus that practical disregard of inspired final reason appears to -Reid to be ‘destructive at once of the science of the philosopher, the -prudence of the man of the world, and the faith of the Christian.’ The -unjust as well as the just, so far as they live at all, must, he sees, -live by faith in what cannot be either proved or disproved by direct -demonstration. And if all those final judgments of practical reason were -contradicted in daily action, as well as in academic theory, ‘piety, -patriotism, parental affection, and private virtue would appear as -ridiculous as knight-errantry: the pursuits of pleasure, ambition, and -avarice must be grounded upon this sort of belief as well as those that -are honourable and virtuous.’ - -On the other hand there are common prejudices which, while they last, -are popularly dignified as ‘common sense.’ Some now universally admitted -truths of science at first shocked men, although afterwards found -to be in harmony with the general common sense to which philosophy -appeals. That we are living on a material ball that revolves in space; -that the revolving ball revolves also on its axis; that the sun does -not rise and set, but is at rest; the existence of the antipodes; the -invisibility of the distances of things—are a few examples. Instead -of contradicting the common sense, the common sense, in the light of -further experimental evidence, finally imposes them upon us. At any -rate _their_ contradictories cannot be justified by the universal -intellectual paralysis which is the alternative to the rejection of a -_genuine_ judgment of the common sense. The assertion that the earth is -in motion and the sun relatively at rest does not contradict sane human -nature: that changes in nature are all wholly chaotic, and therefore -wholly uninterpretable, can never become a scientific discovery, because -it implies subversion of all science and makes scientific reasoning -impossible. The invisibility of the distances of things, rightly -understood in the light of its evidence, draws no protest from genuine -human nature. Human nature or final reason protests, on the other hand, -when the material world is believed to be so unreal that I cannot by -means of it find that there are other human beings. The impotence of all -things presented to the senses does not contradict reason in the common -sense in the way the impotence, and consequent irresponsibility, of man -does. - -But Reid, I think, makes too little of the service of philosophical -reflection, in quickening into conscious life in the individual the -postulates on which human knowledge and conduct finally turn, and in -developing their meaning. Such primary assumptions as the real existence -of outward things; our own individual personal existence; and the -existence of God, are held with very different degrees of intelligence, -by the indolent and thoughtless and by those who reflect. Advance in -philosophy is advance in interpreting the meaning of each of these -three postulates, and of their mutual relations, as seen in an improved -conception of what ‘matter’ means, what ‘self’ means, and what ‘God’ -means. The common sense or final reason of man is developed in different -degrees in different persons, in different places, at different periods -of human history, and in the same person at different times in his life. -It is not individually independent of evolutionary law; although its -genuine constituents are latent in each man and may be made to respond to -an adequate appeal. The practical reason of the common sense, while not -founded on but presupposed in philosophy, may nevertheless be deepened -and enlightened in each man by reflection and criticism. Its final action -is therefore far from superseding the philosopher, who has to systematise -man’s advancing experience of the universe in the light of an idealised -common sense, or the common sense in the ideal man, which the philosopher -tries to approach more nearly. In this intellectual progress the cruder -conceptions of ‘matter’ and ‘self’ and ‘God,’ as well as of the final -physical and the moral relations of the three postulated existences, are -purified and expanded; but always without disparagement to the primary -roots. Improvement of human knowledge, in harmony with the awakened -common sense inspirations, is our intellectual ideal. - -It may perhaps be said that Reid makes his appeal to the root principles -of practical reason—the essential sanity of mankind—only on behalf of -what no one seriously calls in question; and moreover that he attributes -the scepticism with which he struggled to a speculative theory of -philosophers, instead of to facts in nature and in man, which suggest -distrust in the ‘inspirations’ on which human understanding depends, in -its lack of omniscience. What need, it may be asked, for a prolonged -endeavour to justify belief in the existence of the house in which we -live, the planet on which it stands, or the human beings among whom we -seem to play our parts? Only insane persons—really insane—can be found -to doubt realities like these. Insanity cannot be cured by an elaborate -disproof of the ‘ideal system’; and as for the sane, such common sense -sanities as these are safe enough without this philosophical appeal to -human sanity. As regards those beliefs—_si non rogas intelligo_. I know -all that I need to know, as long as I am not asked to justify and explain -my knowledge, logically or otherwise, and remain contented to enjoy the -things that unpractical thinkers vainly try to understand. - -That sceptical distrust in our original faculties, and in Power or -Providence that is finally operative in the universe in which we have our -being, lies deeper than the ‘ideal system’ which was Reid’s bugbear; and -also that it arises mostly in connection with less obtrusive elements -in the common sense than our perceptions through the five senses, is in -harmony with the gradual development of Reid’s own thought which I have -tried to trace. For he advanced, as we saw, from reflection upon those -‘inspirations’ of the common sense that are implied in our physical -perceptions, to reflection upon those other data of the common sense -that are implied in our perceptions of personal and morally responsible -agency. It is in touching and seeing the material world that the common -sense is first awakened; and thus the material world is the most -obtrusive object in human experience, its perceptions affording the -fittest preliminary object-lesson on the office of this final reason -in the whole rational economy of man. External perceptions are the -beginnings of all reasonings about concrete existence. They are the -obvious examples of those original judgments, which are ‘the inspiration -of the Almighty,’ more obvious than the often dormant ones that are -moral and spiritual. All the discoveries of our reason are grounded on -them. A remarkable deviation from them, arising from a disorder in the -constitution, is called _lunacy_ by all; as when a man believes that he -is made of glass: but when a man suffers himself to be reasoned out of -them by metaphysical arguments he would call this _metaphysical lunacy_; -which differs from the other species of the distemper in this, that it -is not continued, but intermittent. He thus tests reason in its final -authority, as distinguished from reason in its innumerable inferential -exercises: the authority may be logically vindicated as reasonable, but -its judgments are not conclusions originally deduced from premises. - -It must also be remembered that the Reidian protest on behalf of a -philosophical recognition of the blended judgment and feeling which makes -this common reason that is more or less consciously alive in all men, -is a protest on behalf of the regulative authority of this reason in -its genuine integrity. All philosophical systems, so far, proceed upon -and acknowledge its judgments; but, as it seemed to Reid, often only -after spoiling them. He made it his particular mission to restore them -in their genuine integrity to philosophy as the prime factors of all -true theories. In perception does the outward reality actually appear, -extended as it really is, without any unextended medium interposed, -exactly as the internal reality of a pain or a pleasure appears without -a medium, when I am conscious of being pained or pleased? If so, let us -then, Reid would say, accept this fact as final, even although we cannot -account for it; instead of perverting it by supposing that the external -reality is one thing, and the immediately perceived object of which alone -we are curious a different thing;—dreaming that this supposed internal -object, as its copy, explains our perception of the external object that -is imperceptible. Again, according to genuine common sense, the ‘self’ -which I am obliged to presuppose is invisible; my body or my brain is -external to _it_, as much so as the sun and moon are; for they are all -parts of the material world—all objects of my senses—unlike my proper -personality, which is approached only through the inner consciousness, -and not at all through perception of the senses. Here, too, Reid protests -on behalf of the genuine common sense, and against the scientifically -perverted common sense offered to him by Priestley. For the distinctive -feature of Reidism is not vague acknowledgment of the common sense, but -acknowledgment of it as it is found to be when steadfast reflection is -applied to the final mental experience of man. - -A modern critic may complain that Reid’s point of view is too narrow and -special, and his method too matter-of-fact to entitle the result to be -called philosophy. It looks unlike philosophy proper, which is concerned -with the universe and universals, and is like a special science of human -mind, having human mind for its finite object or province, as other -special sciences have their limited provinces. For instance, astronomy -has the stellar bodies; chemistry, the elementary constitution of bodies; -geology, the phenomena in the strata of the earth’s crust; and so on. Now -the final problem of universal reality, or at least universal reality in -ultimate relation to man, is the proper business of the philosopher, who -contemplates the all-comprehensive synthesis which sustains or explains -each special science, and even the universe of nature and man; while, as -human philosophy, it still recognises the inherent infinity that makes -realities overleap the special sciences. For philosophy is the supreme -speculation, concerned with Matter or outward Nature, Self or Spirit, and -God or the final all-determining Power—and of this final inquiry Reid had -hardly a conception. Yet we must allow that when Reid’s method is called -‘inductive,’ it is more than inductive in the ordinary meaning of the -word induction in the natural sciences. He does not reach the several -principles of the common sense by the way of probable generalisation from -observed facts; rather as truths which arise out of latency into more -or less distinct consciousness, in response to steadfast meditation. -They are philosophically recognised ‘inspirations,’ or ‘revelations’—not -tentative generalisations; and their justification must not be confounded -with the ordinary verification with which we are familiar in sciences of -outward nature. The common sense provides material to the philosopher, -not ready made, but still not mere issue of empirical generalisation. - -How far a philosophy akin to that of Reid admits of philosophical -expansion, or of being brought up to date at the end of the nineteenth -century, when the fundamental questions of religious thought are at the -root of our doubts and perplexities, may be considered on a review of -the fortunes of Reid’s appeal to the inspirations of final reason in the -century which has passed since he died. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -REID IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: DEVELOPMENT OF THE COMMON SENSE -PHILOSOPHY: REID IN FRANCE: REID AND HAMILTON: REID AND SCOTO-HEGELIAN -IDEALISM: ETHICAL OR THEISTIC FINAL FAITH - - -How has Reid’s protest of reason in the name of common sense—a -protest against sceptical paralysis of human intelligence, physical -and moral—fared in the nineteenth century? Has Reid by this protest -established what is of lasting value either to human happiness or to -philosophical theory? What has modern thought, as developed at the end of -the nineteenth century, to say to a Scottish eighteenth century inquiry -into human mind that finds its root in a postulated sense of reality, -which must be taken as finally authoritative when it is recognised in -its genuine integrity? How do faith and doubt now stand finally related, -as compared with their relations when Reid opposed Hume? Is there still -room for philosophical argument founded on the divine inspirations of -the Common Sense, under, for instance, our transformed conception of the -universe as an evolution? - -Expansion rather than subversion of the philosophy which ultimately -argues from the common sense, has, I think, been going on. Matter-of-fact -study of human mind, as engaged in perception of the material world, -and in the moral exercise of voluntary agency, which with Reid makes -this perception of matter, and moral consciousness of free agency its -prominent spiritual facts, has now risen to criticism of our conception -of the Supreme Power that is finally at work in the universe in which we -live and move and have our being. And a less purely academic scepticism -than that against which Reid summoned the common sense now confronts -us. If Reid’s mission was to call attention to our direct mental grasp -of outward realities, by exploding a theory which seemed to paralyse -that grasp, it would have been his corresponding mission now to justify, -in name of the moral and spiritual elements of the common sense, the -religious interpretation of the universe, which finds in the facts of -matter and man a continuous self-revelation of omnipotent love and -mercy—and this in the face of a world which repels our more philanthropic -civilisation, by its abundant suffering and sin. Instead of philosophy -at war with common sense, common sense is now alleged as at war with -the finally moral and religious conception of the universe, which Reid -accepted as conclusive under the premises of an old-fashioned natural -theology. Now universal natural law is supposed to exclude God, and -sentient misery to make theistic faith in the goodness, and therefore -trustworthiness, of the Supreme Power an anachronism, which must give -place to universal pessimist doubt and despair. How can we rest with -trust in those practical principles of human nature to which Reid -appealed, when they and we are found in a universe so full of evil as -this in which we find ourselves? Are we not navigating the ocean of life -in a vessel that is not seaworthy? These are questions now expressed or -felt. - -For forty years after Reid’s death the higher thought of Scotland, -represented by its leaders, remained well within the old lines. It was -still careful analysis of what is presented in human consciousness, with -a gradual decline of interest in the metaphysical and moral problems -which Hume’s agnostic distrust had introduced even into Reid’s modest -treatment of the common sense. Scottish philosophy became a search for -natural sequences and co-existences among phenomena, instead of search -for firm intellectual and moral footing in a universe to which we are -introduced by being percipient of an infinitesimal part through our five -senses. For a quarter of a century Dugald Stewart was Reid’s acknowledged -successor, less original, and even less adventurous, than his master, -but unrecognisable in the ill-tempered criticism of Schopenhauer. With -dignified eloquence, wider intimacy with society than Reid’s, and more -learning, he applied inductive methods to find the laws that determine -intellectual character and the education of the human mind, also to solve -social questions, in graceful language—all which touched the popular -imagination more than his somewhat prosaic predecessor. - - * * * * * - -Early in the nineteenth century, Thomas Brown, the young Edinburgh -Professor of Moral Philosophy, and colleague of Stewart, raised a revolt -against Reid and Stewart in some of their characteristic philosophy. -This brilliant youth, minor poet as well as philosopher, had practised -medicine in Edinburgh before his appointment, in 1810, at the age of -thirty-two, to the chair of Stewart. In medical practice he had been the -colleague of Dr. Gregory, Reid’s cousin, and so long his correspondent. -Brown, unlike Reid, was one of the precocious philosophers. At the age -of twenty he appeared as a critic of the _Zoonomia_ of Darwin, and a few -years later as author of an _Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and -Effect_, which contains the essence of the philosophy that was afterwards -expanded and applied in his _Lectures_. He died at the age of forty-two, -leaving works undistinguished by the deep and patient thought of Reid, -and diffuse in style, but abounding in ingenious analysis—an interesting -contribution to the logic of physical inquiry, instead of appeals to -carefully considered judgments of the Common Sense in Perception and in -Causation. Brown recognised instinctive belief in natural constancies of -co-existence and sequence among phenomena, and treated associations among -mental states as the chief explanation of the phenomena of mind. The -originative moral agency of intending and intelligent Will, so prominent -latterly in Reid, disappears in Brown. And Brown, like Priestley, -disparaged Reid’s claim to merit for reversing the philosophical -prejudice that ‘ideas’ are the only objects of human cognition, regarding -it as a metaphor mistaken for a dogma. Indeed, the empirical laws of -association tend with Brown, as with Priestley, to be the sole ultimate -laws of mind: perhaps this tendency was restrained in expression as much -by personal respect for Reid and Stewart as by conviction. - -After Brown, philosophy in Scotland was for a time dormant—superseded -by Combe and phrenology. But contemporaneously, in ‘the twenties,’ -a philosophy more akin to Reid than to Brown made its appearance -in England; although the analogy is not on the surface, and has -not, I think, been observed. Coleridge, especially in his _Aids to -Reflection_, published in 1825, insists with eloquent emphasis upon -the difference between ‘the Reason,’ which is divine or inspired, and -mere ‘Understanding,’ which generalises the phenomena that emerge in -experience: he also presses the distinction between free agency, as -implied in morally responsible causation, and the mechanical order of -nature with which physical sciences are exclusively concerned. ‘The -Reason,’ to which Coleridge appeals, corresponds in function to ‘the -Common Sense’ of Reid. It is described as fixed and final; as in all its -decisions appealing to itself; and as ‘much nearer to sense than the -understanding,’ for it is direct insight of truth, whereas understanding -must refer all its judgments to premises. That man, because he is morally -responsible, must originate, within his individual personality as their -final centre, all acts for which he is responsible, is with Coleridge a -postulate, ‘the proof of which no man can give to another, yet every man -_may_ find for himself,’ and so see the true meaning of the words power -and causality. In short, this postulate is among the inspired revelations -of the Common Sense that are contained in our share of Divine Reason. -We may speak of understanding as ‘human,’ with its often discordant -generalisations; but there can be no merely ‘human’ Reason. There neither -is nor can be but one and the same Reason; the light without which the -individual understanding would be darkness. - - * * * * * - -The philosophy that carefully measures its conclusions by the Common -Sense found its way from Scotland into France early in this century, -in arrest of the materialism and scepticism which had taken the place -of the spiritual philosophy of Descartes and Pascal. In 1811 Royer -Collard, eminent as a philosopher and a statesman, was made Professor of -Philosophy in Paris. In that year, when he was preparing his lectures, -he accidentally found a copy of Reid’s _Inquiry_ at a book-stall near -the Seine. He was charmed with its contents, which thereafter inspired -his teaching.[26] Through Royer Collard, Reid’s philosophy became -the dominant philosophy of France, and it still retains an elevating -spiritual influence in the national schools.[27] In 1828 Reid’s works -were translated and discussed by Jouffroy, a leading thinker in his -generation, who thus leavened thinking minds among contemporaries. But -Victor Cousin was Reid’s most eloquent and famous missionary. He had -been educated by Royer Collard in Reid’s principles. His ardent and -comprehensive genius, however, became dissatisfied with what he called -a ‘sage but timid doctrine,’ and treated it as a vigorous but hardly -philosophical protest against the sceptic in the name of uncritical -common sense. In his enthusiasm, Cousin turned to Germany for ‘a -philosophy so masculine and brilliant that it could command the attention -of Europe.’ At first he thought he found in Kant the profound refutation -of the sceptic, and the grand constructive philosophy he wanted. But soon -Kant’s mode of expelling the ‘mortal poison’ seemed as unsatisfactory as -Reid’s, and he parted company with him so far as to join first Schelling -and then Hegel in an eclectic or all-reconciling system. But in the end -the fascination of Hegelian thought abated. There might, after all, be -deeper meaning, and more capacity for development, in Reid’s appeal than -he had supposed. So in his later years Cousin returned to his first love. -His _Philosophie Écossaise_, which appeared in its latest form in 1857, -is an eloquent appreciation of Hutcheson, Adam Smith, Reid, and Beattie, -with Reid as the chief figure in the centre. - -Meantime a formidable intellectual force had appeared in Scotland, in -argumentative collision with those Germans by whom Cousin had been -fascinated, and also with Cousin’s own eclectic assimilation of all -philosophies. Sir William Hamilton was warning his contemporaries against -the ‘masculine and brilliant’ Continental philosophy, and energetically -recalling them to Reid, by two essays in the _Edinburgh Review_—one in -October 1829, destructive of the ‘Philosophy of the Unconditioned,’ -the other in October 1830, constructive, on Reid’s ‘Philosophy of -Perception.’ The reconstruction of the philosophy of the Common -Sense, contained by implication in these famous essays, was, in 1846, -elaborated in commentaries which embrace the literature of philosophy, -in Hamilton’s _Reid_. The Glasgow professor re-appeared in the company -of the most learned of all Scottish philosophers, educated especially -by Aristotle and his commentators, by Kant, and by Reid himself, whose -modest enterprise was now measured by the profoundest problems and -most comprehensive conceptions of ancient and modern speculation. The -magnificent intellect of Hamilton raised deep questions among us that lay -dormant in Reid. - -Hamilton in Scotland is so far in parallel with Cousin in France, -that—moving in opposite directions—they both helped to _germanise_ -the philosophy which makes its last appeal to the common sense. -Cousin, dissatisfied with the ‘timidity’ of Reid, tried to reconcile -a philosophy that should comprehend the Infinite with the philosophy -that is confined to experience. Hamilton’s mission was to clip the -wings of the speculative adventurers. This made him put the emphasis -on the inadequacy of a human understanding for fully coping with the -eternal reality. While he praised Reid for making the Common Sense in -its integrity the necessary criterion of philosophy, he claimed for -himself the special credit of distinguishing its necessities as of two -sorts—the one a positive power, the other the impotence implied in -finite intelligence. Hence human experience rests on a conditioned, or -(so far) paralysed intelligence; and if omniscience only can be called -‘knowledge,’ while to know ‘in part,’ therefore with involved mysteries, -must be called ignorance—it follows that man knows nothing. Ignorance is -then the consummation of human philosophy, and its highest attainment is -this discovery. ‘Our dream of knowledge is a little light rounded with -darkness.’ ‘The highest reach of science and philosophy is the scientific -recognition of human ignorance.’ ‘Doubt is the beginning and the end of -all our efforts to know.’ ‘The last and highest consecration of all true -religion is an altar to the unknown and unknowable God.’ Man’s knowledge -of existence must be relative to his limited experience and intelligence. - -The missionary of a neglected truth is apt to be one-sided and even -paradoxical, and strenuous expression was natural to Hamilton. From -his first essay in 1829 to his last in 1855 he sought to show the -inconsistency of infinite knowledge with our limited share of inspiration -in the Common Sense. Accordingly, the negative and incomplete, or what -Bacon calls ‘broken’ character of man’s knowledge, rather than its -positive victories, is ever supreme in the _Hamiltonianised_ Reid, along -with a recast of Reid’s account of the Common Sense as involved in -perception of the outward things of sense. - -The respective offices of Reid and Hamilton might be compared in this -aphorism of Pascal—‘_La Nature soutient la Raison impuissante_.’ Need -for the common sense with which human nature is charged, illustrates the -impotence of man’s unomniscient understanding and limited share of the -Divine Reason. Taking those words of Pascal, Reid puts emphasis on ‘_la -nature_’; Hamilton on ‘_impuissance_.’ But both are recognised by each: -it is a difference of emphasis. Neither Hamilton nor Mansel excludes -the conservative influence of ‘_la nature_,’ taken in its integrity, -in the way Mr. Herbert Spencer does, when he rests philosophy only on -the strongly emphasised part of Hamiltonian philosophy. In Hamilton the -‘_raison impuissante_’ is insisted on really in order to make room for -‘_la nature_’; on the ground that the logical understanding, here ‘_la -raison_,’ is too impotent to be able to _disprove_ the genuine judgments -of the Common Sense. - -Brown’s rebellion against Reid early in the century, in the interest -of a universal physical causation or association, has its parallel in -Ferrier’s revolt, in the middle of the century, against the Hamiltonian -Reid, in the interest of abstract metaphysics as opposed to uncriticised -common sense. In the name of philosophy he excludes from philosophy -all except necessary truths of abstract reason; neglecting, as beneath -its regard, the world of change, in which Reid’s mixed and practical -reason, or Common Sense, had been offered as final guide. The office of -philosophy, according to Ferrier, is among the eternal truths, which -alone can be absolutely demonstrated, and which relieve philosophy -from ‘the oversight of popular opinion and the errors of psychological -science,’ which had been unworthily dignified as the final test of -truth. The natural beliefs of mankind, instead of being worshipped as -divine, are banished in Ferrier’s philosophy, on the ground that their -self-contradictoriness is demonstrable: the business of the philosopher, -accordingly, is to substitute ‘reasonable thinking’ for ‘common sense.’ -The ‘_raison impuissante_,’ emphasised by Hamilton—the ignorance in -which Hamilton revels—is not allowed by Ferrier to be ignorance at all; -for ‘man cannot be said to be ignorant of self-contradictions that can -be knowledge for no mind, human or divine.’ Independent or unperceived -matter is not merely hid from man’s knowledge on account of his ‘_raison -impuissante_’; it is hid from all intelligence, because inconsistent with -the _necessarily_ mind-dependent essence of Being. Pure reason does not -need to be finally supplemented by practical principles of common sense. -It is able to shift for itself without this surrender. The conciliation -of common sense thinking and philosophy is accomplished by the submission -of common sense to universal compulsory reason. Opinion must submit to -demonstration, instead of demonstration, intelligible only by the few, -having to make way for the undemonstrable dogmas of the unreflecting. - -Reid, I suspect, could hardly recognise, in the stuffed figure thus put -up by Ferrier to be knocked down, either the ‘common sense’ in which -_he_ found the root of a human knowledge of the realities revealed in -place and time throughout the long experience of man, or the ‘perception’ -in which things external to the individual mind make their appearance -‘in part.’ The practical impassibility of disbelieving the existence -of other living beings, of discarding memory as wholly delusion, of -treating man as irresponsible, and our surroundings as chaotic or wholly -uninterpretable, alike for science and in common life—these were alleged -constituents of the common sense with which Reid concerned himself. They -all lie outside the demonstrations of Ferrier, in which he unfolds his -theory in forms of artistic beauty and easy grace, which make him the -most picturesque figure in the succession of Scottish philosophers. Yet -Brown and Ferrier in the end helped on the expansion of Reid. - - * * * * * - -Before Ferrier passed away in 1864, a revolution in the conception of -the universe was in progress in Britain. The idea of continuous physical -evolution of external nature and of man, promulgated biologically by -Darwin, and by Mr. Herbert Spencer as the all-comprehensive generalised -law of a universe that was supposed to be the outcome of unknowable -Power, has become a popular creed within the last forty years. -Simultaneously, methods of development akin to Hegel were introduced -by Dr. Hutcheson Stirling in his _Secret of Hegel_, and afterwards -in Glasgow by Dr. Caird, who adorned Reid’s chair for nearly thirty -years—methods for making explicit latent Divine Reason as what explains -and sustains the universe. Reid’s appeal in a practical temper, to the -mixed and moral reason in man, as that with which man is inspired—an -appeal widened and prolific of deeper questions in Hamilton—was still too -cautious to attempt to formulate the mysteries of existence, in fully -intelligible principles, which should remove the darkness around the -‘little light’ with which Reid was satisfied. He would have looked with -distrust at the more ambitious intellectual constructions which seemed to -be superseding the common sense of human nature, as the human response -to the sceptic or agnostic, whose philosophical knowledge turned all -knowledge into ignorance at the last. Reid was too human to be satisfied -with merely physical generalisations of sequences and co-existences -of phenomena, finally unintelligible, and therefore unworthy of trust; -and he would have been too cautious to accept a network of abstract -intellectual necessities, latent in the universe, as the last and best -human account of nature and man as actually found in place and time. -To rest satisfied with the evolutionary generalisation he would have -regarded as involving the ‘common error of philosophers since the days -of Plato,’ in confounding moral agency with physical causation. Of the -magnificent Hegelian constructions he would probably have said, what -he says of Samuel Clarke’s theological demonstration—‘These are the -speculations of men of superior genius. But whether they be as solid as -they are sublime, or whether they be the wanderings of imagination in a -region beyond the limit of human understanding, I am unable to determine.’ - -The alternatives presented to this generation—either agnostic pessimist -despair or universal science in which man is in some sense identified -with God—final nescience _versus_ final omniscience—ultimate and -universal problem of existence taking the place of a Reid’s science of -human mind—represent the unending struggle between sceptical distrust of -the Universal Power, ignorantly worshipped, and reasonable ethical faith -in the Universal Power, with consequent hope for men. It is in Scotland -a new form of the war with David Hume to which Reid’s life was given. -It has been going on since Socrates argued with the Sophists at Athens, -and since Job justified the morality of Providence among the Eastern -emirs. The eighteenth-century question, ‘What is Matter?’ has risen -in the nineteenth to the question, ‘What is God?’ The inspired Common -Sense or Common Reason of Reid seems to be sublimated in universally -necessitating dialectical Reason, in this Scoto-German way of resisting -the agnostic. To fill the place of the ‘unknown and unknowable God’ -of the Hamiltonian emphasis, human knowledge appears identified and -co-extensive with the Divine, in an absolute idealism, presumed to be -the only adequate refutation of all subverting doubt. The ‘_raison -impuissante_,’ sustained by and culminating in ‘_la nature_,’ or inspired -common sense, is exchanged for what looks like a pantheistic necessity -that leaves no room for moral agency in man or God, and which scorns the -incomplete knowledge that cannot dispense with a faith venture at its -root. - -Yet Reid, if he were now among us, might find the common sense not -superseded but idealised, in the more articulate response of reason -in man to the all-pervading active Reason which the later philosopher -identifies with his own. That the common sense latent in man is the -inspiration of God is an assumption with which he started in his -_Inquiry_. ‘The inspiration of the Almighty giveth man understanding.’ -‘The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord.’ So the common sense moral -trust in God, or universal moral venture, is at the root of all human -life and human knowledge, giving unity and vitality to the whole. It is -the ‘little light’—a ray from the perfect divine light,—and the universe -is interpretable for all human purposes only in and through it. It is -that in each of us through which the inspirations in the ideal man, -when dormant in individuals, can nevertheless be made to respond, in an -ethical or religious common sense of the infinite love and mercy of the -all-sustaining Power that is always waiting to be gracious—to respond to -the inspirations of Hebrew prophets and Christian apostles. - -If ‘knowledge’ means only what is reached by the logical understanding -elaborating materials given by sense; and if the name is denied to -the inspirations of the Common Sense, what those inspirations should -be called becomes a question about the meaning of a word. God is then -‘unknowable’ by man, only inasmuch as faith in the perfect reason and -goodness of the Universal Power is more than an ordinary scientific -generalisation. But if we recognise in the Common Sense, and in its -underlying Theistic Faith, that without which all our knowledge must -dissolve in ignorance, then the faith must be accepted as in reason the -final ground of the knowledge; and therefore as in us the last form of -the universal reason, in and through which what is divine in us protests -against limitation to an intelligence that becomes paralysed in the -absence of this its indispensable factor. If knowledge means omniscient -physical science of the universe of reality, then the universe of -reality _is_ finally unknown and unknowable. But if man _can_ live in -intelligible relations to what transcends natural science,—call this -which enables him so to live, ‘knowledge,’ ‘science,’ ‘common sense,’ -‘faith,’ ‘inspiration,’ ‘revelation,’ ‘feeling,’ or ‘reason,’—it is -treasure found for the philosopher. - -Can Reid’s ‘common sense’ be sublimated into the universal consciousness -of Hegelian dialectic, and does this translation of faith into absolute -science constitute the true ideal of Scottish common sense philosophy at -the end of the nineteenth century? Is common knowledge, and scientific -knowledge in special sciences, only knowledge ‘in part,’ while the true -philosopher may aspire to know even as God knows? Must man thus claim -omniscience as the only fit ground of his protest against sceptical -nescience? Or, must his interpretation of the experience through which -he is passing be, even in the end, only an inspired faith-venture, -instead of the omniscience which elevates the common sense into itself? -Rather, must not the supposed omniscience, which is dissatisfied with -faith-ventures, because faith is supposed to be blind, be itself only the -common sense under another name—but with its intellectual constitution -more articulately explicated? - -Surely only omniscience and omnipotence can dispense with the moral and -religious venture of our inspired common sense and its implied theistic -faith, as the root of reason in man—in his intermediate place and office, -between perfect knowledge and total ignorance. So understood, Reid’s -philosophy is _virtually_ the philosophy that makes its final appeal to -the divine in man, latent in each individual man, in and through whom -the universe is gradually interpreted as a revelation of perfect reason -or perfect goodness. True philosophy is then the moral and religious -venture which accepts and applies the principles of common sense, in the -assurance that, in genuine submission to their inspired authority, we -cannot finally be put to intellectual or moral confusion. Faith in God is -latent even in the perceptions of external sense, in which Reid found the -first example of the operation of this inspiration. Alike in the outer -world of the senses, and in free or responsible agency in man, filial -faith, ethical or theistic, may be justified by reasoning, although it -Cannot be reached by logic as a direct conclusion from premises. It is -our primary postulate, and not an object of logical proof; therefore -credible in reason while it is not demonstrable. - -In this way a humanised Hegelianism, which seeks to restore or retain -the often dormant faith in the perfectly good God, and thus in the -future of man, may even be taken as in line with Reid, under the altered -intellectual conditions at the end of the nineteenth century. It -virtually appeals at last to moral faith.[28] - - * * * * * - -Poetry in another way than philosophy expresses and interprets for man -the inspired experience that transcends physical science and its logical -understanding. And we find in the great poets of the Victorian era an -appeal through the imagination to those elements in human nature, to -which Reid made argumentative appeal as a philosopher. In this lies -Wordsworth’s ‘healing power.’ His ‘Intimations of Immortality’ express -divine inspirations, through which man learns to understand himself and -his surroundings—inspirations that, dormant, ‘fade into the light of -common day,’ yet, recovered by reflection, ‘in a season of calm weather, -though inland far we be, our souls have sight of that immortal sea which -brought us hither.’ And ‘In Memoriam’ is Tennyson’s protest against the -doubting spirit of the age, on behalf of the final and life-determining -principles, which underlie creeds, belong to our earliest childhood, -and on which the wisest and best have rested with a more or less -intelligent consciousness through the ages—God revealed in the ideal man -latent in all men. The human office of inspired common sense or ethical -reason, final for beings whose ‘knowledge’ must be intermediate between -omniscience and blind ignorance of mere sense and feeling, is its tacit -philosophy— - - ‘Our wills are _ours_, we know not how, - Our wills are ours, to make them Thine. - - We have but _faith_: we cannot _know_; - For knowledge is of things we see; - And yet we trust it comes from _Thee_, - A beam in darkness: let it _grow_. - - Let knowledge grow from more to more, - But more of reverence in us dwell; - That mind and soul, according well, - May make one music as before, - - But vaster.’ - -Our scientific interpretation of the ever-changing universe at last rests -on ethical theistic faith, and the Christian revelation of divine love is -responded to by the divine inspiration of God in Man, in the form of the -spiritual Common Sense. If this be not so, we cannot rely on the Common -Sense, for it then belongs to a morally untrustworthy universe. - -Established on this faith, philosophy or theology, in Scotland and -throughout the world, awaits the sceptical criticism and the spiritual -healing power of the masters of thought in the twentieth century, for its -further development, and application to human affairs. - - -THE END - - - - -FOOTNOTES - - -[1] The above from data at Birkwood. - -[2] _Scottish Notes and Queries_, iii. 84-88; 128. - -[3] The number is, unfortunately, unrecorded. - -[4] Birkwood MSS. - -[5] In _Scotland and Scotsmen of the Eighteenth Century_, by Ramsay of -Ochtertyre, there is an interesting account of this Mr. Bisset. - -[6] _Essays on the Intellectual Powers_, II. ch. 10. - -[7] While he lived here, he seems to have retained the incumbency of New -Machar till May 1752. - -[8] Long ago removed. I have an engraving of it. - -[9] These MS. dissertations have been lately recovered, and I have thus -been able to compare them with the _Inquiry_, in which I find them mostly -embodied. - -[10] Birkwood MS. - -[11] I have elsewhere discussed the true meaning of Berkeley’s philosophy. - -[12] Between the College and the Cathedral, diverging to the east. - -[13] Watt began those experiments in Glasgow about 1763. - -[14] The American revolt was a severe stroke to Glasgow at the time, -though it led to a great development of manufactures in the city -afterwards. See Colville’s _By-Ways of History_ (1897), pp. 281-314. - -[15] William Traill, a Glasgow graduate, was elected. Playfair (of St. -Andrews), afterwards Professor John Playfair of Edinburgh, was also a -candidate, then only eighteen. - -[16] The Bell of the Brae. - -[17] The Forth and Clyde Canal was commenced in 1768 and opened from sea -to sea in 1790. - -[18] Ramsay of Ochtertyre, who often met him at Blair Drummond, mentions -that ‘for more than fifteen years Reid spent great part of the College -vacation there with Lord Kames.’ - -[19] Kant’s uncritical identification of Reid’s philosophical appeal -to the common rational sense with the popular appeal and declamation -of Oswald and even Beattie, is exposed by Professor Sidgwick in _Mind_ -(April 1895). - -[20] Birkwood MSS. - -[21] Birkwood MSS. - -[22] Professor Richardson’s Memoir of Arthur. - -[23] _The World as Will and Idea_, translated by Mr. Haldane and Mr. -Kemp, ii. 240. Schopenhauer makes other interesting references to Reid. - -[24] Birkwood MSS. - -[25] See also Reid’s _Essays on the Active Powers_, I. 1-6, and _passim_. - -[26] M. Boutroux, in _Revue Française d’Edimbourg_, No. 4. - -[27] Reid’s philosophy was Renan’s ‘ideal’ in his early life, according -to his biographer. - -[28] So in the ‘Preliminary Notice,’ in the new edition of Dr. Stirling’s -_Secret of Hegel_—last paragraph. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Thomas Reid, by A. 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Campbell Fraser - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Thomas Reid - -Author: A. Campbell Fraser - -Release Date: September 30, 2019 [EBook #60399] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THOMAS REID *** - - - - -Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images -generously made available by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> - -<p class="titlepage larger">THOMAS REID</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="500" height="750" alt="Cover image" /> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span></p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 35em;"> - -<p class="center">FAMOUS SCOTS SERIES</p> - -<p class="center smaller"><i>The following Volumes are now ready</i>:—</p> - -<ul> -<li>THOMAS CARLYLE. By <span class="smcap">Hector C. Macpherson</span>.</li> -<li>ALLAN RAMSAY. By <span class="smcap">Oliphant Smeaton</span>.</li> -<li>HUGH MILLER. By <span class="smcap">W. Keith Leask</span>.</li> -<li>JOHN KNOX. By <span class="smcap">A. Taylor Innes</span>.</li> -<li>ROBERT BURNS. By <span class="smcap">Gabriel Setoun</span>.</li> -<li>THE BALLADISTS. By <span class="smcap">John Geddie</span>.</li> -<li>RICHARD CAMERON. By Professor <span class="smcap">Herkless</span>.</li> -<li>SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON. By <span class="smcap">Eve Blantyre Simpson</span>.</li> -<li>THOMAS CHALMERS. By Professor <span class="smcap">W. Garden Blaikie</span>.</li> -<li>JAMES BOSWELL. By <span class="smcap">W. Keith Leask</span>.</li> -<li>TOBIAS SMOLLETT. By <span class="smcap">Oliphant Smeaton</span>.</li> -<li>FLETCHER OF SALTOUN. By <span class="smcap">G. W. T. Omond</span>.</li> -<li>THE BLACKWOOD GROUP. By Sir <span class="smcap">George Douglas</span>.</li> -<li>NORMAN MACLEOD. By <span class="smcap">John Wellwood</span>.</li> -<li>SIR WALTER SCOTT. By Professor <span class="smcap">Saintsbury</span>.</li> -<li>KIRKCALDY OF GRANGE. By <span class="smcap">Louis A. Barbé</span>.</li> -<li>ROBERT FERGUSSON. By <span class="smcap">A. B. Grosart</span>.</li> -<li>JAMES THOMSON. By <span class="smcap">William Bayne</span>.</li> -<li>MUNGO PARK. By <span class="smcap">T. Banks Maclachlan</span>.</li> -<li>DAVID HUME. By Professor <span class="smcap">Calderwood</span>.</li> -<li>THOMAS REID. By Professor <span class="smcap">Campbell Fraser</span>.</li> -</ul> - -</div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> - -<img src="images/titlepage.jpg" width="400" height="700" alt="Illustrated title page" /> - -<p class="caption red">THOMAS<br /> -REID</p> - -<p class="caption">BY<br /> -A:CAMPBELL<br /> -FRASER ::</p> - -<p class="caption">FAMOUS<br /> -SCOTS:<br /> -SERIES</p> - -<p class="caption">PUBLISHED BY<br /> -OLIPHANT ANDERSON<br /> -& FERRIER · EDINBVRGH<br /> -AND LONDON</p> - -</div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span></p> - -<p class="noindent">The designs and ornaments of this -volume are by Mr. Joseph Brown, -and the printing from the press of -Messrs. T. and A. Constable, Edinburgh.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p> - -<h2>PREFACE</h2> - -<p>This little book is an attempt to present Reid in a fresh -light, and in his relations to present-day thought. It deals -with the Scottish chapter in that enduring alternation between -agnostic despair and endeavour after perfect insight -which seems to be a law of the philosophic progress of -mankind. Thomas Reid, home-bred and self-contained, -is the national representative, in the eighteenth century, of -the <i lang="la">via media</i> between these extremes. In the concluding -chapter I have looked at the philosophical appeal to inspired -data of Common Sense, in the wider light of the theistic -philosophy of the universe, and not merely as part of an -inductive science of the human mind. This connects the -theistic postulate of spiritual reason, as the foundation of -human experience, with Reid’s appeal to the ultimate but -often dormant necessities of human nature, a subject -treated more fully in my <cite>Philosophy of Theism</cite> (1896).</p> - -<p>For valuable unpublished material—more indeed than I -could avail myself of within narrow limits—I am indebted -to Miss Hilda Paterson, the guardian of manuscript remains -and other relics of her ancestor, preserved at Birkwood, in -Reid’s native country of the Dee. I also owe much to -Mr. R. S. Rait, now of New College, Oxford, the historian -of the Universities of Aberdeen, whose research has done -much to illustrate his <i lang="la">alma mater</i> in the North. And I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> -am indebted to Dr. Davidson, the Professor of Logic, -and to Mr. Anderson, the Librarian, of the University of -Aberdeen, for documents to which the space at my disposal -forbids more than an occasional reference.</p> - -<p>Those who desire to study further the chapter in the -history of European philosophy in which Reid’s name is -prominent, may be referred to Cousin’s critical appreciation -in his <cite>Philosophie Écossaise</cite> (1857), and to Professor -Andrew Seth’s Balfour Lectures on ‘Scottish Philosophy’ -(1885), in which the Scottish and German answers to -Hume are compared. The industry of the late Dr. -M’Cosh has collected, in his <cite>Scottish Philosophy</cite> (1875), -interesting particulars regarding our national philosophers -from Hutcheson to Hamilton.</p> - -<p class="right">A. C. F.</p> - -<p class="smaller"><span class="smcap">University of Edinburgh</span>, -<i>21st February 1898</i>.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CONTENTS</h2> - -<table summary="Contents"> - <tr> - <td></td> - <td class="tdpg smaller">PAGE</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdc">CHAPTER I</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><span class="smcap">Boyhood and Ancestry: Strachan and the Valley of - the Dee, 1710-1722</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">9</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdc">CHAPTER II</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><span class="smcap">At Marischal College, 1722-1737</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">18</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdc">CHAPTER III</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><span class="smcap">New Machar and David Hume, 1737-1751</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">30</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdc">CHAPTER IV</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><span class="smcap">Old Aberdeen: A Regent in King’s College, 1751-1764</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">43</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdc">CHAPTER V</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><span class="smcap">Universal Scepticism versus Inspired Common Sense: - An ‘Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles - of Common Sense,’ 1764</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">56</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdc">CHAPTER VI</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><span class="smcap">Glasgow College: The Professor of Moral Philosophy, - 1764-1780</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">72</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdc">CHAPTER VII</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><span class="smcap">In Philosophical Retirement: Authorship in Old - Age, 1780-1795</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">103</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdc">CHAPTER VIII</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><span class="smcap">Inspired Common Sense and Causation: Active or - Moral Power in Man</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">118</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdc">CHAPTER IX</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><span class="smcap">The End, 1796</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">126</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdc">CHAPTER X</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><span class="smcap">Retrospective and Critical</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">133</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdc">CHAPTER XI</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><span class="smcap">Reid in the Nineteenth Century: Development of - the Common Sense Philosophy: Reid in France: - Reid and Hamilton: Reid and Scoto-Hegelian - Idealism: Ethical or Theistic Final Faith</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">144</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></p> - -<h1>THOMAS REID</h1> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I<br /> -<span class="smaller">BOYHOOD AND ANCESTRY: STRACHAN AND THE -VALLEY OF THE DEE<br />1710-1722</span></h2> - -<p>Thomas Reid makes his first appearance as a boy in -the manse of Strachan in Kincardineshire, where he -entered this world of sense on the 26th of April 1710. -His father, the Rev. Lewis Reid, was minister of the parish -for fifty-eight years, from 1704 until his death in 1762. -The mother, Margaret Gregory, was the eldest daughter, by -his second marriage, of David Gregory, laird of Kinairdy -in Banffshire. An elder son, David, born in 1705, and -two daughters, Isobel and Jane, with Thomas, formed the -family at the manse when Thomas was a boy. David was -twice married, and died about 1780, without issue; the -elder daughter, Isobel, died unmarried, in her stepmother’s -house at Aberdeen, in 1770; and the younger, Jane, after -a <i lang="fr">mésalliance</i>, died without issue after the middle of the -century. Their mother, Margaret Gregory, died in 1732, -when the manse was still the home of Thomas. In 1735, -Mr. Lewis Reid married his second wife, Janet, daughter -of Fraser of Phopachy in the county of Inverness. Two -sons and five daughters were the issue of the second<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> -marriage. The eldest son died when a student at Marischal -College, in 1758, and the younger, who studied medicine, -died in London about ten years later. Of the daughters, -one died in infancy, and two others, Elizabeth and Mary, -died unmarried—the former in Edinburgh in 1772, and the -latter in Aberdeen in 1771. Of the other two, Margaret -became in 1763 the wife of the Rev. Alexander Leslie, -minister of Fordoun in Kincardineshire, and Grace married -the Rev. John Rose, minister of Udny in Aberdeenshire. -Mrs. Rose died in 1793, and Mrs. Leslie in 1829, the last -survivor of the Reid family circle at Strachan.<a name="FNanchor_1" id="FNanchor_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> - -<p>It is recorded of the father of this large family that he -was respected for piety, prudence, and benevolence, inheriting -from his ancestors simplicity of manners, and literary -tastes which, without attracting the notice of the world, engaged -his leisure and dignified his rural life. Of the two -wives, the second survived her stepson, the philosopher.</p> - -<p>The remote parish of Strachan is formed by the romantic -valley through which the Feugh finds its way from the -Grampians to the Dee at Banchory-Ternan—a breezy -upland region, redolent of heather and bog-myrtle, apt in -its solitude to educate reflective individuality in one so -disposed. In those days the road to the south over the -Cairn o’ Mount passed through Glen Dye, under the -shadow of Clochnaben, a road two centuries ago frequented -by robbers, and invested with a halo of romance by tales -of marvellous adventures. But Glen Dye has an interest -of another kind. Centuries ago it was the home and property -of the family of Cant, from whom Andrew Cant, -the noted Covenanting preacher, was descended,<a name="FNanchor_2" id="FNanchor_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> -with whom the more widely celebrated Immanuel Kant, -chief factor in the philosophical thought of modern Europe, -claimed connection. Strachan is thus associated in imagination -with two of the most illustrious thinkers of the -eighteenth century. Thomas Reid is in this way connected -locally with his famous German philosophical contemporary, -as well as by parallels in their lives which appear in the -sequel, and by spiritual analogies in their philosophy. -They are moreover united by their common antagonism to -the scepticism of David Hume, who also through them is -associated with the moorland valley of the Feugh, making -it suggest to fancy three memorable intellectual figures. -In Scotland David Hume and Thomas Reid are the two -greatest names of their century in philosophy.</p> - -<p>Imagination is our only guide when we try to picture the -boyhood of Thomas Reid in the homely surroundings at -Strachan. The one recorded fact about him is, that in his -tenth year the home education of the manse was followed -by two years spent in the neighbouring parish school of -Kincardine O’Neil. Thus far no signal signs of future -eminence appeared. He was, it seems, an unprecocious -youth, remarked for modesty and patient industry. The -insight of the schoolmaster is said to have found in him -the rudiments of a man of ‘good and well-wearing parts.’ -I wish that some further record could be found of this -sagacious prophet of his pupil’s steady mental concentration, -and I have not discovered why the boy was placed -in the Kincardine school. This dim picture is our only -one in the first twelve years of his life.</p> - -<p>The lack of personal incident in those years is in a -manner compensated by the interest of an illustrious -ancestry—Reids and Gregories. He inherited mind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> -through his father, but much more through his mother, -with whom he shared the unique celebrity of a family -which in successive generations shed lustre on the valley -of the Dee—a memorable example of inherited intellect.</p> - -<p class="tb">In the end of the fourteenth century certain lands of -Pitfodels, between the bridge of Dee at Aberdeen and the -Den of Cults, became the property of William Reid, a -kinsman of the former owner, Alexander Moray, ‘lord of -Culboyne.’ The lands remained in the Reid family until -the beginning of the sixteenth century, when Marion, -heiress of Alexander, the last Reid of Pitfodels, married -Thomas, the eldest son of Gilbert Menzies, a burgess of -Aberdeen, whose family was known thereafter for three -centuries as Menzies of Pitfodels. James Reid, the first -minister of Banchory-Ternan after the Reformation, was, it -seems, grandson of a younger brother of this Alexander of -Pitfodels; and Lewis Reid, the minister of Strachan, was in -direct descent from the minister of Banchory. It is told -of James Reid that he was ‘a man of notable head-piece -for witte, and the most of his children were men of extraordinary -qualifications.’ His eldest son, Robert, noted for -good sense, succeeded him at Banchory. The second son, -Thomas, was one of the numerous Scots famed for learning, -who migrated to the Continent in the end of the fifteenth -century and after. He was educated partly at Marischal -College, Aberdeen, where he was made regent about 1602. -He was afterwards in residence at Oxford and abroad: -he defended a thesis ‘<cite>De objecto Metaphysicæ</cite>’ at Rostock -in 1610. After his return to Britain he became Greek -and Latin Secretary to King James, some of whose works -he translated into Latin. Verses of his may be found<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> -in the ‘<cite>Delitiæ Poetarum Scotorum</cite>.’ Alexander, the next -brother, was physician to Charles I., and author of works -in physiology well considered at that time. John, a -brother of the minister of Banchory, translated into ‘the -Scottishe tunge’ Buchanan’s <cite>History of Scotland</cite>, and this -unpublished version is in the College of Glasgow. A -second Robert, grandson of the eldest of these four sons, -became minister of Banchory at the Restoration; he was a -member of the first Episcopal Synod at Aberdeen in the -restored Establishment (the Covenanting Alexander Cant -was his immediate predecessor); he died in 1682. Thomas, -the second son, ‘wadsetter of Eslie in Banchorie,’ was -father of the Rev. Lewis Reid of Strachan, by his wife, -Jane, a niece of Sir Thomas Burnett of Leys; and thus -young Thomas Reid at Strachan was related to the family -from which the historian Bishop Burnet was descended. -These Reids of Banchory rest in the old burial-ground -there, ‘not farre from the banke of the river Dee, expecting -the general resurrection, and the glorious appearing of -Jesus Christ there Redemier.’</p> - -<p>But the Gregory connection of Thomas Reid through -his mother is, as I have said, more significant than the -Reid succession. During the Civil Wars of the seventeenth -century, the minister of the rural parish of Drumoak, -on the north side of the Dee, between Banchory and -Pitfodels, was the Rev. John Gregory, son of an Aberdeen -merchant, whose father was a M’Gregor from Glenlyon. -The Gregories of Deeside were thus descendants of the -clan Gregor of Glenlyon and Glenstrae, a circumstance -referred to by Sir Walter Scott in the Introduction to -<cite>Rob Roy</cite>. The minister of Drumoak married a lady -named Anderson, one of a family reputed for mathematical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> -ability in successive generations. She inherited the genius -of her family, and transmitted it to her sons. Her -husband at Drumoak seems to have steered his cause -skilfully in that troubled time, for he bought the good -estate of Kinairdy, part of the heritage of the lordly -house of Creighton Viscount Frendraught. Alexander, -the eldest son of the Rev. John Gregory of Kinairdy, was -killed by one of the Creightons in a fray in 1663, and the -homicide was the occasion of a <i lang="fr">cause célèbre</i>. David, the -second son, succeeded his murdered brother in the lands -of Kinairdy, and shared in the mathematical inheritance -of the Gregories. For some reason he sold Kinairdy and -became an energetic merchant, spending part of his life -in Holland. This David of Kinairdy was twice married, -and father of twenty-nine children, which perhaps explains -the sale. The wife of the Rev. Lewis Reid of Strachan was -a daughter of the second marriage. Three of her brothers -were eminent Professors of Mathematics in British Universities—namely, -David, first at Edinburgh, and then at -Oxford, the friend of Newton; James, the successor of -David in Edinburgh; and Charles, who professed mathematics -at St. Andrews. David’s son was Professor of -History at Oxford from 1724 till 1767, and Dean of Christ -Church; and his cousin David succeeded to the chair -of Mathematics at St. Andrews. Two other Professors -were sons of two of ‘Kinairdy’s’ daughters—namely, our -Thomas Reid, and Alexander Innes, who professed Philosophy -in Marischal College. These all traced their birth -to the minister of Drumoak and his mathematical wife—through -their son David. But James, the third son of -the Drumoak manse, was not less illustrious in himself -and in his descendants. He was Professor of Mathematics,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> -first at St. Andrews and then at Edinburgh, -inventor of the reflecting telescope, also Newton’s friend -and correspondent, who introduced the science of Newton -into the Universities of Scotland. It is of him that Whiston -writes from Cambridge:—‘He had already caused several -of his students to keep acts upon several branches of the -Newtonian philosophy; while we at Cambridge, poor -wretches, were ignominiously studying the fictitious hypotheses -of the Cartesian.’ His son James became in 1725 -Professor of Medicine in King’s College, Aberdeen, a -considerable local figure. He had two sons: James, who -succeeded his father, and John, a regent of philosophy -in his father’s college, afterwards Professor of Medicine -in Edinburgh, and remembered as the author of <cite>A -Comparative View of Man and the Animal World</cite>, and -<cite>A Father’s Legacy</cite>, books full of good sense. Dr. John -Gregory’s son, James, was Professor of Medicine in Edinburgh -from 1776 till 1821, a physician and a metaphysician—in -the sequel, the intimate friend and correspondent of -Thomas Reid, and the patron of Thomas Brown. Of -his family, one son held the Chair of Chemistry in King’s -College, and afterwards in Edinburgh till his death in -1858; another, Donald, was an eminent archæologist, -author of the <cite>History of the Western Highlands and -Islands</cite>; a third died in high mathematical repute at -Cambridge, returning to the original bent of this extraordinary -family, in which the disposition to mathematics -had latterly been overborne by medicine and moral philosophy. -Even this long list of names omits scientific -celebrities who were descended from the minister of -Drumoak and his wife, Margaret Anderson, more remotely -still from the wild clan Gregor of Glenlyon and Glenorchy.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span></p> - -<p>But the life of romantic adventure did not descend to -young Thomas Reid at Strachan. A disposition to look -at the world on its moral and religious side, perhaps -inherited from the Reids, with a strong bent to mathematics -and the scientific side of things, inherited from the -Gregories, along with his own patient, concentrated reflection, -was the inheritance of the boy ‘of good and well-wearing -parts’ who left the Kincardine school in 1722. -The long life that followed presents none of the outward -incidents that readily touch the popular fancy; but to those -awake to the higher problems of human life it touches -thought and imagination in another fashion. It has been -said that a human life should resemble a well-ordered -poem: the exordium should be simple and should -promise little. This condition is fulfilled in the life of -Thomas Reid, which, to the end, was modestly spent in -learned retirement, indifferent to vulgar fame. Its chief -interest lies in the spectacle of penetrating sagacity, independent -and sincere, steadily devoted to the invisible -world of thought and belief, in quest of the ultimate -foundations and guarantees of human knowledge. It -should attract those who, in an age of sceptical criticism, -seek to assure themselves of the final trustworthiness of -the experience into which, at birth, they were admitted as -strangers, ignorant of what the whole means, like the -agnostic in Pascal. Who has sent me into this life, I -know not; what the world around me is, I know not; nor -what I am myself. I find myself chained to one little -planet, but without understanding why I am here rather -than there; and why this period of time was given me to -live in rather than any other in the unbeginning and -endless duration. Life with its memories and forecasts<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> -looks like a blind venture. The sum of my knowledge -seems to be that I must die; but what I am most -ignorant of is the meaning of death. One is drawn to -Reid by an interest in final questions like these, which -the agnostic spirit is now forcing upon us. It was the -sceptical disintegration of human knowledge and belief -that was going on in his own time that led Reid, with the -patience and persistency revealed in his boyhood, to devote -a long life to testing in his own sincere fashion man’s -intellectual and moral footing in that world of sense which, -all strange to it, he entered in the valley of the Feugh.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II<br /> -<span class="smaller">AT MARISCHAL COLLEGE<br />1722-1737</span></h2> - -<p>At the age of twelve Reid emerges out of the obscurity -in which his boyhood lies concealed from us. In one -of his letters to his cousin, Dr. James Gregory, written -in his old age, he mentions ‘April 1722’ as the date -of his first visit to Aberdeen, then a town of some eight -thousand inhabitants, and twenty miles distant from the -moorland valley in which he was born. He tells how -he was taken to see his grandmother, who was living -in Aberdeen, the second wife and widow of David -Gregory of Kinairdy. ‘I found her,’ he says, ‘old and -bedridden, but I never saw a more ladylike woman. I -was now and then called into her room, when she sat upon -her bed, or entertained me with sweetmeats and grave -advices. Her daughters that assisted her often, as well as -one who lived with her, treated her as if she had been of -a superior rank; and indeed her appearance and manner -commanded respect. She and all her children were zealous -Presbyterians: the first wife’s children were Tories and -Episcopalians.’ This picture of the boy in Aberdeen we -owe to his movement from the country school in the -valley of the Dee to the higher sphere of the Aberdeen -Grammar School, which he seems to have entered in -that April, encouraged perhaps by the prognostic of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> -Kincardine schoolmaster. The Grammar School Register -tells that in ‘October 1722’ Thomas Reid left it to enter -Marischal College, where his name appears in the list -of those matriculated that autumn. It was an early age -for University life according to later ideas, but not at -variance with the custom of Scotland in those days. -Burnet, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, another eminent -Aberdonian, entered Marischal College when he was only -nine, and graduated when he was thirteen; and Burnet’s -contemporary, Reid’s granduncle, James Gregory, graduated -when he was not older than Burnet.</p> - -<p>The uncouth and dilapidated structure in which the -University of the Earls Marischal was housed when young -Reid was spending his undergraduate years in it, bore no -resemblance to the stately College on the same site which -now adorns the prosperous city of Bon Accord. The -process of decay was so rapid, and the case was so urgent, -that a few years later the regents suspended their official -claim to a part of the scanty funds of the College, and -also asked help from the community, ‘to preserve from -ruin an university from whence so many accomplished -men have gone forth as ornaments of their country in -every age since its foundation.’ The troubles of 1715 had -further reduced its resources. Its Chancellor, the tenth -Earl Marischal, concerned in the rising of Mar, then forfeited -his title and the official connection of his family -with the academical foundation of his ancestor. The -Principal and most of the authorities had been removed -or suspended by a commission of visitation in 1717. -During the two years which followed the adventure of -Mar the doors of Marischal College were closed, so that, -when public instruction was resumed in 1717, a new race<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> -of teachers was in possession, and, as it happened, an era -of intellectual activity was inaugurated.</p> - -<p>Notwithstanding the humble accommodation which it -offered, and the social revolution through which it had -lately passed, Marischal College could then boast of at -least three eminent teachers, imbued with the spirit of -the ‘new philosophy,’ and of the reviving literary taste -in Scotland. The Professor of Mathematics was Colin -M’Laurin, brother of the eloquent Presbyterian preacher, -himself among the foremost of British mathematicians, a -friend and correspondent of the aged Newton, who, along -with Reid’s inherited disposition, attracted the young -student to the study in which the teacher was a master. -And about the time when Reid entered College, Thomas -Blackwell, a critic of Homer, and author of <cite>Memoirs of -the Court of Augustus</cite>, prominent among his countrymen -who were anxious to write good English, became Professor -of Greek, and for a generation encouraged classical taste -and love of literature in the north of Scotland. But the -teacher who chiefly influenced Reid’s undergraduate life was -George Turnbull, a copious author, though his books are -little remembered now. He was Reid’s guide for three -years; for the College was then under a system of ‘regents’ -which intrusted the student to the same teacher in all the -three years given to ‘philosophy’—natural as well as moral.</p> - -<p>Reid was fortunate in entering Marischal College when -it was inspired by M’Laurin, Blackwell, and Turnbull, each -a leader in the scientific and literary awakening of the time. -The Aberdeen of 1725 was no longer the Aberdeen of the -ministers of whom Gordon in his <cite>Scots Affairs</cite> tells that -they shrieked, ‘downe with learning and up with Christ.’ -Their religion was in alliance with culture and progressive<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> -intelligence, anticipating in the North the intellectual -enlargement associated in the West with the University of -Glasgow under Hutcheson, Leechman, and Adam Smith.</p> - -<p>George Turnbull is little known now, but he is too -important a factor in the making of Thomas Reid to be -lightly passed over. He was an Edinburgh graduate, born -in 1698, and like Reid a son of the manse. He became -a regent of philosophy in Marischal College at the age of -twenty-three. The College record informs us that on the -14th of April 1726 he presented for graduation a band -of thirty-nine students: the name of Thomas Reid appears -last in the list. Turnbull’s lectures when he was regent -were in 1740 embodied in his <cite>Principles of Moral Philosophy</cite>. -His leading arguments are illustrated and vindicated -by quotations from Berkeley’s <cite>Theory of Vision</cite> and <cite>Principles -of Human Knowledge</cite>, also by the <cite>Inquiry</cite> of Francis -Hutcheson and the <cite>Sermons</cite> of Bishop Butler. The influence -of Berkeley is evident.</p> - -<p>The mottoes on the title-page of Turnbull’s book express -his method of inquiry. One of them is the precept of -Pope—‘Account for moral as for natural things’; the other -expresses in the words of Newton the consequence which -may be expected to follow—‘If Natural Philosophy, in all -its parts, by pursuing this method, shall at length be perfected, -the bounds of Moral Philosophy will also be -enlarged.’ Turnbull was among the first in Scotland to -substitute, in mental philosophy, tentative study of the -facts of human nature for logical deduction from abstract -dogmas. ‘If a fact be actually found, either in the outer -world of sensible things, or in the inner and invisible world -of mind, there is no room for reasoning against it. Every -reasoning, however subtle, if it be repugnant in its conclusion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> -to the actual fact of the case, must be sophistical.’ -Turnbull is fond of repeating that facts presented to the -senses are not the only, nor yet the most important, facts -which the universe contains. The invisible facts which -take the form of beliefs and feelings and volitions are the -deepest facts of all: spirit and not matter at last regulates -life. Then he refers to what he calls ‘common sense’ as the -final arbiter in all questions. ‘Common sense is sufficient -to teach those who think of the matter with seriousness -and attention all the duties of common life; all our obligations -to God and our fellow-men; all that is morally fit and -binding.’ In a word, spiritual facts of mind are not to be -crushed out of existence by tangible and visible facts of -matter. That mind in the form of will is the only known -active power is another prominent lesson in Turnbull’s -teaching. ‘It is will alone that manifests power or productive -energy. To speak of any other active power in -the universe is to speak without meaning; because experience, -the source of all the materials of our knowledge, -does not lead us to any other conception of power.’ -Turnbull’s conception of the material world is very like -Berkeley’s. Matter is the established or natural order in -which sense ideas present themselves. ‘Properly speaking, -what we call matter and space are only sensible ideas, -produced in us, according to an established or natural -order, by some external cause; for when we speak of -material things, we can only mean certain sensible perceptions -that arise in our minds, according to a fixed -order, but which are experienced to be absolutely inert or -passive, having in themselves no productive force.’ It -was in this philosophy that Turnbull’s most famous pupil -was educated at Marischal College.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span></p> - -<p>Turnbull’s official connection with the College lasted only -six years. After inaugurating moral philosophy in the -modern spirit in Scotland, he resigned in the spring of -1727, and, after some residence abroad, lived in London, -producing books in excess of the demand for them. He -ended by taking orders in the Irish branch of the Anglican -Church, finding the communion of Jeremy Taylor and -Berkeley more suited to his temper than the fervid Presbyterianism -to which he was accustomed in his youth. In -search of health, he died at the Hague in 1749.</p> - -<p>I have enlarged on Turnbull, because by him Reid was -first attracted to the study of the human mind. But Blackwell, -the Professor of Greek, must not be forgotten. Blackwell, -as well as Turnbull, was connected with Berkeley. It -was when Reid was at Marischal College that Berkeley was -engaged in the most romantic missionary enterprise of that -age, for spreading Christian civilisation in America by -a College in the Bermudas. Curiously, Blackwell was -one of those whom he asked to join the little party of -missionaries who embarked with him at Gravesend in -September 1728, after he had surrendered high preferment -in Ireland in order to devote his life to a more cosmopolitan -philanthropy. The Aberdeen regent was not -prepared for the sacrifice. He refers thus to Berkeley’s -adventure:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘In this respect I would with pleasure do justice to the -memory of a very great though singular sort of man, known as -a philosopher, and intended founder of a University in the -Bermudas or Summer Islands. An inclination to carry me out -with him on that expedition, as one of the young professors on -his new foundation, having brought us often together, I scarce -remember to have conversed with him on that art, liberal or -mechanic, of which he knew not more than the ordinary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> -practitioners. With the widest views, he descended to the -most minute detail, and begrudged neither pains nor expense -for the means of information. I enter not into his peculiarities, -either religious or personal, but admire the extensive genius of -the man, and think it a loss to the Western world that his -noble and exalted plan of an American University was not -carried into execution.’—<cite>Memoirs of the Court of Augustus.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>The fact that Berkeley was so much in evidence at -Marischal College in those days, through Turnbull and -Blackwell, is significant of much in the life of Reid.</p> - -<p>If Reid recorded his thoughts when he was a student at -Marischal College, the record has been lost. A commonplace -book like Berkeley’s, when Berkeley was an undergraduate -in Dublin, would have cast welcome light on -this part of his mental history. The only extant revelation -of his inner life in these years is contained in a letter -written half a century after to his kinsman William -Gregory at Oxford. It relates to the period when his -year was divided between town and country—the winters -at Aberdeen and the long summer days at the manse of -Strachan:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘About the age of fourteen I was,’ he says, ‘almost every -night unhappy in my sleep from frightful dreams: sometimes -hanging over a dreadful precipice, and just ready to drop -down; sometimes pursued for my life and stopped by a wall, -or by a sudden loss of strength; sometimes ready to be -devoured by a wild beast. How long I was plagued with such -dreams I do not recollect. I believe it was for a year or two -at least; and I think they had left me before I was fifteen. In -those days I was much given to what Mr. Addison in one of -his “Spectators” calls <em>castle-building</em>; and in my evening -solitary walk (which was generally all the exercise I took), my -thoughts would hurry me into some active scene, where I -generally acquitted myself much to my own satisfaction, and -in those scenes of imagination I performed many a gallant -exploit. At the same time, in my dreams I found myself the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> -most arrant coward. Not only my courage but my strength -failed me in every danger; and I often rose from my bed in -the morning in such a panic that it took some time to get -the better of it. I wished much to get free of these uneasy -dreams, which not only made me unhappy in sleep, but left a -disagreeable impression on my mind for some part of the -following day. I thought it was worth trying whether it was -possible to recollect while I was dreaming that it <em>was</em> all a -dream, and that I was in no danger. Accordingly, I often went -to sleep with my mind as strongly impressed as I could with this -thought—that I never in my lifetime had been in any real -danger, and that every fright I had was a dream. After many -fruitless endeavours to recollect this when the danger appeared, -I effected it at last, and have often, when I was sliding down a -precipice into the abyss, recollected that it was all a dream, -and boldly jumped down. The effect of this commonly was -that I immediately awoke; but I awoke calm and intrepid, which -I thought a great acquisition. After this my dreams were never -very uneasy; and in a short time I dreamed not at all. During -all this time I was in perfect health; but whether my -ceasing to dream was the effect of the recollection above -mentioned, or of any change in the habit of my body, which is -usual about that period of life, I cannot tell. I think it may -more probably be imputed to the last. However, the fact was -that for at least forty years after I dreamt none, to the best of -my remembrance; and finding from the testimony of others -that this is somewhat uncommon, I have often as I awoke -endeavoured to recollect, without being able to recollect anything -that passed in my sleep. The only distinct dream I ever -had since I was about sixteen, as far as I remember, was about -two years ago (1777). I had got my head blistered for a fall. -A plaster which was put upon it after the blister pained me -excessively for a whole night. In the morning I slept a little, -and dreamed very distinctly that I had fallen into the hands of -a party of Indians and was scalped. I am apt to think that, as -there is a state of sleep and a state wherein we are awake, so -there is an intermediate state which partakes of the other two. -I have slept on horseback, but so as to preserve my balance; -and if the horse stumbled, I could make the exertion necessary -to save me from a fall, as if I was awake.’</p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span></p> - -<p>In all this one detects the disposition to sober introspection, -which ripened as life advanced.</p> - -<p class="tb">During the ten years that followed the graduation in -April 1726 we have only faint traces of Reid. In the -following winter he began to study theology, and in 1731 he -had completed the course required by the Church, under the -direction of Professor James Chalmers, father of the founder -of the <cite>Aberdeen Journal</cite>. This is another parallel between -Reid and Kant: both, it seems, were theologically trained.</p> - -<p>Reid’s name first appears in the books of the Presbytery -of Kincardine O’Neil when he was in his nineteenth year. -Extracts from the minutes with which I have been favoured -record his progress with a quaint simplicity not without -interest, as part of the history of a philosopher:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘On the 17th of July, 1728, James Lumsden, John Beaton, -Thomas Reid, and David Ross, students in divinity, residing -within the bounds of the presbytery, being now present, the -presbytery thought fit to appoint each of them to be in readiness -to deliver a homily against the next meeting, and accordingly -appointed Mr. Reid to deliver a homily on John i. 29.—18 -September 1728. This day Mr. Thomas Reid delivered -his homily, with which the presbytery being satisfied, the -moderator encouraged him to go on with his studies.—8th June -1731. The presbytery considering that Mr. Thomas Reid had -been allowed by the Synod to enter upon tryal, and he, being -upon the place, did undergo questioning tryal, wherein he was -approved, and the presbytery appointed him to be in readyness -to deliver a lecture on Ps. ii., and an exegesis on that common -head. <i lang="la">Num detur peccatum originale inherens.</i>—22nd September -1731. This day Mr. Thomas Reid underwent a questioning -tryal and was approved. And the presbytery taking into -consideration that he, having passed his course in Arts at the -College, and thereafter having studied Divinity for the space -of <a name="FNanchor_3" id="FNanchor_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> years, as also having resided for the whole of this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> -time within the bounds of this presbytery; and they looking -upon him as a person fit to be entered upon tryals, and also -having had sufficient testimonials from the professors of -divinity with whom he studied as to his proficiency in his -studys and good behaviour, he was admitted to the usual tryals -appointed by the Acts of the General Assembly of this Church, -and having passed through all the parts thereof, he was licensed -by the said presbytery to preach the Gospel of Christ, and -exercise his gifts as a probationer for the holy ministry.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>On the 2nd of August 1732, ‘the Presbytery chose Mr. -Thomas Reid to be their Clerk.’ On the 5th of October -in the same year, ‘the Presbytery appointed Mr. Thomas -Reid to supply at Lumphanan the second Sabbath after -Mr. Gordon’s removal.’ On the 8th of November, ‘Mr. -Thomas Reid was continued Clerk till the next meeting -of the provincial Synod,’ in April 1733.</p> - -<p>In July 1733 Reid re-appears, this time not engaged in -ecclesiastical ministration, but as the librarian of Marischal -College. It was an office with which he had a family -connection. ‘The most outstanding name in the history -of Marischal College Library,’ says Mr. Rait, ‘is that of -Thomas Reid, Latin secretary to James vi., son of James -Reid, minister of Banchory-Ternan. In 1624 he left to -Marischal College his own library, 6000 merks to be invested -in land, and a sum of money to provide a salary -for a librarian.’ The secretary’s brother, Alexander, also -bequeathed books of philosophy and divinity. And David -Gregory of Kinairdy was for some time librarian. It -was an acceptable retreat for research, and a mark of -esteem from the College. Mr. Rose, Reid’s brother-in-law, -says that he then studied Newton’s <cite>Principia</cite> and Locke’s -<cite>Essay</cite>.<a name="FNanchor_4" id="FNanchor_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> Again a parallel between Reid and Kant. Some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> -time after Kant had taken his degree he was made librarian -in the Schloss Library, with a yearly stipend of about £10. -This was nominally in excess of Reid’s modest honorarium -of £9 at Aberdeen, a pittance which was for a time -suspended by threatened litigation. He was in active -service as librarian till 1736, and for two years more in -possession, ‘on leave of absence, with a substitute.’</p> - -<p>The need for a ‘substitute’ in 1736 can be explained. -In that year, for the first time, Reid is found outside Scotland. -He is making a tour in England, with Stewart, the -friend of his undergraduate years, and now Professor of -Mathematics in Marischal College. The record of their -movements in the South is scanty. Reid’s uncle, Dr. -George Reid, then a physician in London, provided a -home for them in the metropolis; and as David Gregory, -Reid’s cousin, was Professor of History at Oxford, they -found another home on the Isis, with an easy introduction -to the colleges and social life of the great -English University. The Gregory connection also opened -the way to interesting things and persons at Cambridge -as well as at Oxford and London. Reid, it seems, saw -Bentley at Cambridge, ‘who delighted him with his -learning and amused him with his vanity’: here, too, he -enjoyed the conversation of the blind mathematician -Saunderson, whose experience he afterwards turned to good -account in his inquiries regarding the sense of seeing. One -would like to have had Reid’s first impressions of England, -its metropolis, its social and church life, and its ancient -colleges. It does not appear that the scenes through -which he moved awakened in him much historic sentiment; -that, like his contemporary Berkeley, Oxford would -be the ideal home of his old age; or that he was greatly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> -moved by its academic splendour, associated with what is -noblest in English history, and by the soft repose of the -surrounding rural scenes. In one of his letters to Dr. -James Gregory, he speaks of the first time he was in -‘Dean Gregory’s house at Oxford,’ when the Dean told -‘the story of the watch very well to a large company of -Oxonians’; so we may infer that other visits followed in -later life. And the Oxford of his first visit was the -degenerate Oxford described by Adam Smith and Gibbon, -who were in residence a few years after. Reid is seldom -again found out of Scotland. There is no sign that he ever -visited Ireland or the Continent in his retired, sedate, -and methodical life. In this, too, he was like Kant, -who in all his eighty years is said never to have travelled -more than forty miles from his native Königsberg. The -stay-at-home disposition common to both is not unlike -the character reflected in their books.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III<br /> -<span class="smaller">NEW MACHAR AND DAVID HUME<br />1737-1751</span></h2> - -<p>Soon after Reid’s return to Marischal College from his -English tour, the young librarian was presented, by the -professors of King’s College, to the pastoral charge of -New Machar, a parish some ten miles to the north-west -of Aberdeen. The fact that his kinsman, James Gregory, -was professor in King’s may perhaps explain this unwonted -exercise of patronage in favour of a graduate of the rival -College.</p> - -<p>The presentation, at any rate, raised a storm of opposition -among the parishioners. It was the occasion of one of -those conflicts of Church parties to which the law of patronage -gave rise in Scotland in those days. The incidents of -Reid’s introduction to ecclesiastical office form a characteristic -picture. Rural prejudice was due in this case -to various circumstances. It was partly influenced by a -sermon, preached in the church of New Machar, on -February 10, 1737, at the moderation of the call, by -the Rev. John Bisset, one of the ministers of Aberdeen. -Mr. Bisset had himself been minister of the parish ten -years before. He was now a noted preacher in the North, -and one with whom express concurrence of the congregation -in an ecclesiastical settlement was a high article of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> -doctrine.<a name="FNanchor_5" id="FNanchor_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> In his sermon he denounced aristocratic interference, -insinuated undue outside influence and personal -favour, claimed a right to a vote in the election of his -minister for every Christian, the poor man as much as -the rich, and concluded with an appeal to his audience -to quit themselves like men, and to trust in God. The -recent history of the parish strengthened this appeal. The -last presentation to New Machar was inauspicious. In -1729 a ‘riding committee’ had introduced Mr. Bisset’s -successor. Soon after, the new minister was accused of -‘powdering his wig on the Sabbath.’ Absolved by the -Church courts, he was in 1736 deposed for a graver offence. -It was a time of ecclesiastical anarchy in New Machar. -The record of the parish is blank between the minute -which tells of the departure of Mr. Bisset in 1728, and -that which registers ‘the ordination of Mr. Thomas Reid’ -in May 1737.</p> - -<p>Reid was the innocent victim of the sermon and the -scandal when he came to be ordained on May 12, 1737. -He had been violently attacked and maltreated by persons -in disguise, who, according to tradition, ducked him in a -horse-pond. It is also told that when he officiated for -the first time in the parish church, he was guarded in the -pulpit by a drawn sword.</p> - -<p>For fifteen years New Machar manse was Reid’s -home. Popular prejudice was overcome by his mild, -beneficent activity. Those who had been carried into -outrage by hasty judgment at the beginning, followed -him on his departure with blessings and tears. ‘We -fought against Mr. Reid when he came,’ they are reported<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> -as saying, ‘and we would have fought for him when he -went away.’ His marriage, in August 1740, to his cousin -Elizabeth, a daughter of his London uncle, Dr. George -Reid, promoted this change. The gracious manner and -constant goodness of this companion of his life for more -than fifty years was long remembered in the Aberdeenshire -parish. Six daughters and three sons were the issue of the -marriage. Five daughters were born at New Machar, and -one died there. Reid’s family bible at Birkwood contains -the following interesting record in his handwriting:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘Mr. Thomas Reid was born at Strachan, April 26, 1710; -married to Elizabeth Reid, August 12, 1740. The said Elizabeth -was born August 3, 1724. Their children:—(1) Jean, -born July 21, 1741, died February 27, 1772, buried in College -Churchyard, Glasgow; (2) Margaret, born October 20, 1742, -died 1772, buried as above; (3) Martha, born August 22, -1744, married Dr. Patrick Carmichael; (4) Elizabeth, born -February 21, 1746, died of smallpox in August 1746, buried in the -Churchyard of New Machar; (5) Anna, born July 10, 1751, -died of chin-cough May 21, 1753, buried in the Isle of Old -Machar; (6) George, born February 11, 1755, died at St. -John’s, Newfoundland, February 1780; (7) Lewis, born December -13, 1756, died of teething July 19, 1758, buried in the -Isle of Old Machar; (8) David, born February 26, 1762, died -at Edinburgh August 30, 1782; (9) Elizabeth, born May 8, -1766, died June 1, 1767, of smallpox by inoculation, buried -in the College Churchyard, Glasgow.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>The story of the fifteen years at New Machar, as we -have it, is almost empty of incidents, a dim picture. -The scene does not warmly touch the imagination. Undulating -hills of moderate size, chill and tame; land monotonously -fertile, with scanty timber; yet pleasant prospects -in the distance of the valley of the Don, with Benachie -and remoter Grampians in the background; a population -mostly agricultural; two or three country mansions; the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> -highroad from Aberdeen to Banff traversing the parish. -New Machar was wanting, on the whole, in the breezy -highland charm of the early home at Strachan. The -social life was simple but intellectually stagnant. Among -the infrequent visitors at the manse I find incidental -mention in Reid’s letters of one. He tells that he made the -acquaintance of the well-known Jacobite, Mr. Hepburn of -Keith, ‘by his lodging a night in my house at New Machar,’ -when he was in the Prince’s army, on his way to Culloden; -perhaps when he was in Lord George Murray’s division, -which retreated through Aberdeenshire in February 1746, -or in one of the detachments which were in motion -around New Machar in the preceding December.</p> - -<p>The Thomas Reid who is revealed to us in his books -does not promise pulpit eloquence likely to interest this -rustic population. Like Bishop Butler when he was in -his remote rectory at Stanhope a few years before, he -was pondering the chief intellectual work of his life in -exile from intellectual society. None of Reid’s sermons -are found among his manuscripts. Indeed, it appears that -his characteristic modesty and diffidence, combined, it is -said, with some neglect of literary culture in his early -education, induced him at first to read to his rustic audience -the sermons of eminent Anglican preachers, instead of compositions -of his own—thus adopting a practice afterwards -recommended by Paley, by which, with fit selection, many -audiences might benefit in this age of social pressure. ‘As -to preaching,’ says Paley, ‘if your situation requires a sermon -every Sunday, make one and find five.’ Tillotson and the -Nonconformist Evans are mentioned as Reid’s favourites, -and something is said about Samuel Clarke. The luminous -good sense of Tillotson, and the reverential temper of Evans,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> -and the lucid reasoning of Clarke, would naturally attract -Reid. But emotion as well as moral ideal was not wanting -in his religious life. It is said that in a Communion Service -tears fell from his eyes when he enlarged on the divine -beauty of the character of Jesus. The following expression -of religious feeling during an illness of his young wife -appears among his manuscripts, dated March 30, 1746:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘O God, I desire humbly to supplicate Thy Divine Majesty -in behalf of my distressed wife, who is by Thy hand brought -very low, and in imminent danger of death, if Thou, who alone -doest wonders, do not in mercy interpose Thy almighty arm, -and bring her back from the gate of death. I deserve justly, -O Lord, that Thou shouldst deprive me of the greatest comfort -of my life, because I have not been so thankful to Thee as I -ought for giving me such a kind and affectionate wife. I have -forgot Thy goodness in bringing us happily together by an -unforeseen and undesigned train of events, and blessing us with -so much love and harmony of affection, and so many of the -comforts and conveniences of life. I have not been so careful -as I ought to have been to stir her up to piety and Christian -virtues. I have not taken that pains with my children and -servants and relatives as I ought. Alas! I have been too -negligent of my pastoral duty and my private devotions, too -much given to the pleasures and satisfactions of this world, and -too little influenced by the promises and the hope of a future -state. I have employed my studies, reading, and conversation -rather to please myself than to edify myself and others. I have -sinned greatly in neglecting many opportunities of making -private applications to my flock and family in the affairs of their -souls, and in using too slight preparation for my public exercises. -I have thrown away too much of my time in sloth and sleep, -and have not done so much for the relief of the poor and -destitute as I might have done. The means that Providence -has afforded me of correcting my evil inclinations I have abused -to pamper and feed them in various instances. For these and -many other sins which have escaped my memory Thou mightst -justly inflict so great a chastisement on me, as to make my -children motherless and deprive me of my dear wife. O Lord,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> -accept of my humble and penitent confession of these my -offences, which I desire to acknowledge with shame and sorrow, -and am resolved by Thy grace to amend. If Thou art pleased -to hearken to the voice of my supplications, and grant my -request on behalf of my dear wife in restoring her to health, I -do promise and covenant through grace to turn from these -backslidings, to express my thankfulness by a vigorous discharge -of my duty as a Christian, a minister, and master of a -family, and by an alms of ten pounds sterling to the poor in -meat and money. Lord, pardon if there is anything in this -presumptuous, or unbecoming a humble penitent sinner; and, -Lord, accept of what is sincerely designed as a new bond upon -my soul to my duty, through Jesus Christ, my Lord and Saviour.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>This fervid expression of devotion reveals an intensity -of purpose which worked beneath the outwardly placid and -discreet life. Mrs. Reid survived this critical illness for -nearly half a century.</p> - -<p>Much of Reid’s time at New Machar, according to his -brother-in-law Mr. Rose, was spent in meditative thought, -with an attention to the activities of his own mind of which -few men are capable. Traditions of solitary walks immersed -in study were long in circulation. He found his -chief recreation, we are told, in the manse garden or in -botanical observations. His society attracted his neighbours. -With Sir Archibald Grant of Monymusk he maintained -a lifelong intimacy. He never forgot New Machar, and -long after, in times of distress, anonymous gifts were traced -to his thoughtful but modest beneficence.</p> - -<p>Three years before Reid left New Machar, when he was -in his thirty-eighth year, he made his first appearance in -print, in a short paper contributed to the Royal Society, -which appeared in their <cite>Transactions</cite> in October 1748. It -is called ‘An Essay on Quantity.’ It was occasioned by a -book published more than twenty years before, the <cite>Inquiry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> -into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue</cite>, by -Francis Hutcheson, afterwards the celebrated Professor of -Moral Philosophy in Glasgow. In this tract simple and -compound ratios are applied, in forms of mathematical -reasoning, to solve problems of moral philosophy. It -illustrates in some degree the bent of Reid’s thoughts -at this time, and his inherited interest in mathematical -reasonings. But it also shows bent of thought in another -direction, and recognition of other scientific methods than -mathematical demonstration, which had been favoured as -of universal application by philosophers like Descartes -and Spinoza. Reid argued, in the spirit of his master -Turnbull, that genuine ethical inquiry is concerned with -a class of facts which are under a higher category, and -refuse to submit to geometrical measurement.</p> - -<p>It is a curious circumstance in the evolution of philosophy -in Scotland that Reid’s first publication should thus -be adverse criticism of Hutcheson, the father of Modern -Philosophy in Scotland. It is also curious that this juvenile -performance presents another of the parallels between Reid -and Kant. For it happened that in the preceding year -Kant had made his first appearance, on a question concerned -with mathematics, and, like Reid’s, in an argument -against conclusions maintained by Leibnitz.</p> - -<p>But this mathematical <i lang="fr">brochure</i> imperfectly represents the -‘intense study’ at New Machar. For an event happened soon -after Reid’s settlement there which determined the direction -of his thoughts for the remainder of his life. In January -1739, a book made an almost unnoticed appearance in -London, which in the end became the chief factor in -shaping the course of European thought. Its author was -David Hume, then a young man, unknown to fame, not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> -thirty years of age, the younger son of a Berwickshire laird. -Hume was younger than Reid by one year: both were born -on the 26th of April. His name is popularly connected -with the <cite>History of England</cite>; but this <cite>Treatise of Human -Nature</cite>, which somehow found its way into the manse of -New Machar, represents his most significant work. It has -contributed perhaps as much as any single book to the -subsequent progress of philosophy in Europe. Hume -indeed penetrates into regions which the ordinary reader -fails to connect with everyday interests of life, or with the -hopes and fears of human beings. Accordingly, as he tells, -the <cite>Treatise</cite> ‘fell dead-born from the press, without attaining -such distinction as even to excite a murmur among the -zealots.’ In a letter to his friend Henry Home, afterwards -Lord Kames, written soon after this explosive mixture had -been applied, its author announces that the issue was ‘but -indifferent, if I may judge by the sale of the book, and if I -may believe my bookseller. I am now out of humour with -myself; but doubt not in a little time to be out of humour -with the world, like other unsuccessful authors. After all, I -am sensible of my folly in entertaining any discontent, much -more despair, on this account, since I could not expect any -better from such abstract reasoning.’ This book, which -professes to explain ‘human nature’ as a fact in the universe, -conducts to a final paralysis of human intelligence in -universal doubt.</p> - -<p>This threatened paralysis awoke Reid into his characteristic -intellectual life. He was among the first in Europe -to see the far-reaching meaning of Hume’s account of man’s -condition. He found in it the deep-lying seeds of modern -agnosticism. Its rashness was confessed by its author. ‘I -acknowledge a very great mistake in conduct in publishing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> -my <cite>Treatise of Human Nature</cite>, a book which pretended to -innovate in all the sublimest parts of philosophy, and which -I composed before I was five-and-twenty. But what success -the same doctrines better illustrated and expressed may meet -with <i lang="la">adhuc sub judice lis est</i>. I wish I had always confined -myself to the more easy parts of erudition.’ Accordingly, -about ten years after, Hume presented his ‘sceptical doubts’ -in a milder form, and accompanied by a ‘sceptical solution’ -of them, in an <cite>Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding</cite>; -but it was Hume in the original <cite>Treatise</cite>, not as recast -in the <cite>Inquiry</cite>, that moved Reid. Kant, like Reid, was -awakened from what he calls his ‘dogmatic slumber’ by -David Hume; but it was the <cite>Inquiry</cite>, not the <cite>Treatise</cite>, of -which last he appears ignorant, that roused Kant. Reid -grappled with the more open and all-pervading uncertainties -of the earlier work.</p> - -<p>Let us look into the book which appalled the young -minister of New Machar by the spectre of a meaningless -universe and illusory human nature. Its author seemed -to be indulging in ‘a peculiar strain of humour when he -set out in his introduction by promising with a grave face -no less than a complete system of the sciences upon a -foundation entirely new, namely, human nature, while the -intention of the whole work is to show that there is neither -human nature nor science in the world. He surely believed, -against his principles, that he should be read, and that -he should retain his personal identity till he reaped the -reputation justly due to his metaphysical acumen.’ Reid -found him taking for granted as his fundamental maxim, -that nothing can be admitted as true which cannot be -logically deduced from impressions of sense. Hume found -the impressions of sense to be transitory, and distinguished<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> -in their succession by degrees of intensity,—sensations -when in their highest intensity, memories when in an -abated degree, and mere fancies when the intensity is -at a minimum. His maxim forbade recognition of more -reality in the universe than a momentary reality of isolated -perceptions, in their different degrees of intensity, but -without any reasonable retrospective memory, or any -reasonable expectation with its hopes or fears. What we -call ‘existence’ was resolved into an unintelligible chaos -of felt impressions—a purposeless procession, in which the -percipient loses his very selfhood and all besides. The -Past, the Distant, the Future, are all illusions. ‘Things’ -and ‘persons’ are only unconnected transitory feelings, -without any permanent person to feel them. The word -‘identity’ is meaningless. A person cannot be more than -a momentary idea. ‘I never catch <em>self</em> except in the form -of a passing feeling.’ Present feeling alone exists.</p> - -<p>It is impossible without contradiction to express a -philosophy which destroys intelligible expression; virtually -dismissing as absurdities all personal pronouns, all substantive -nouns, and all verbs; leaving abstract adjectives -as the only parts of speech;—and, as such adjectives are -really unintelligible, leaving us the speechless and motionless -victims of philosophical suicide. When I start with -the preliminary maxim of Hume, I literally lose ‘myself’ -at last in a radically untrustworthy universe, or I find -myself suspended over a bottomless abyss. Here are the -last words of this intellectual suicide at the end of his -destructive analysis:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘I am affrighted and confounded with the forlorn solitude in -which I am placed by my philosophy. When we trace up the -human understanding to its first principles, we find it to lead<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> -us into such sentiments as seem to turn into ridicule all our -past pains and industry, and to discourage us from all future -inquiries. Nothing is more curiously inquired after by the -mind of man than the <em>causes</em> of phenomena; nor are we content -with knowing the immediate causes, but push on our inquiries -till we arrive at the original and ultimate principle. This is -our aim in all our studies and reflections. And now we must -be disappointed when we learn that this tie lies merely in ourselves, -and is nothing but that determination which is acquired -by custom. Such a discovery not only cuts off all hope of ever -attaining satisfaction, but even prevents our very wishes; since -it appears that when we desire to know the ultimate and -operating principle or something which resides in the external -object, we only contradict ourselves, or talk without a meaning.... -The intense view of these manifold contradictions and -imperfections in human reason has so wrought upon me and -heated my brain, that I am ready to reject all belief and reasoning, -and can look at no opinion even as more probable or likely -than another. All who believe anything, on any subject, with -certainty, must be fools.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>This is the issue of the <cite>Treatise of Human Nature</cite> -when the logical understanding is finally resolved into -transitory and isolated feelings, without permitted final -postulates of reason, in the form of faith or in any other -form, to connect and interpret them.</p> - -<p>It was this issue that Reid took seriously. He set himself, -at first for his own satisfaction only, to consider the ground -he had for trusting experience, when Hume reported that -experience dissolved into sensational atoms. Accordingly -he spent much of his time at New Machar in reflecting -first of all on his perceptions through the senses. He -began with these, because it seemed that even as the -foundations of abstract mathematics lie in the mathematical -axioms and definitions, so the foundations of all -concrete reasoning are to be found in the rational constitution -of perception through the five senses. ‘In the tree<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> -of human knowledge, perception is the root, common -understanding is the trunk, and the sciences are the -branches.’ Here is his own account of his state of -mind when he was engaged in these New Machar wrestlings:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘If my mind is indeed what the <cite>Treatise of Human Nature</cite> -makes it, I find that I have been only in an enchanted castle, -when I seemed to be living in a well-ordered universe. I have -been imposed upon by spectres and apparitions. I blush -inwardly to think how I have been deluded. I am ashamed -of my frame, and can hardly forbear expostulating with my -destiny. I see myself, and the whole frame of Nature, shrink -into fleeting ideas, which, like Epicurus’s atoms, dance about -in emptiness. Descartes no sooner began to dig in this mine -than scepticism was ready to break in upon him. He did what -he could to keep it out. Malebranche and Locke, who dug -deeper, found the difficulty of keeping out the enemy still to -increase; but they laboured honestly in the design. Then -Berkeley, who carried on the work, despairing of securing all, -bethought himself of an expedient. By giving up the material -world, which he thought might be spared without loss, and even -with advantage, he hoped by an impregnable position to secure -the world of spirits. But, alas! the <cite>Treatise of Human -Nature</cite> wantonly sapped the foundation of this partition, and -drowned all in one universal deluge.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>Nearly forty years after he left New Machar, Reid says<a name="FNanchor_6" id="FNanchor_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> -that in early life he ‘believed the whole of Berkeley’s -system’—till Hume opened his eyes to ‘consequences’ -that follow from the philosophy of Descartes and his -successors, ‘which gave me more uneasiness than the -want of a material world. So it came into my mind more -than forty years ago’ to question its foundation. Hume -accordingly made Reid revise critically the philosophy in -which he had been educated by George Turnbull. The -issue appeared after he left New Machar.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></p> - -<p>Reid was now to be placed in a condition more favourable -to intense and persistent thought. On November 22, -1751, he was admitted to King’s College, Aberdeen, as -one of its regent masters, in succession to Mr. Alexander -Rait. The patronage was vested in the College, and the -minute which records his election suggests the reputation -which the rural pastor had now secured among the cultured -few, notwithstanding his modest and retired life.</p> - -<p>It was not without reluctance that Reid left New Machar. -Ramsay of Ochtertyre, who knew him well, tells that when -the deputation from King’s College came to invite him to -become a regent, ‘he at first declined, explaining that he -desired to live in retirement till he should complete some -literary projects which engaged him. Mrs. Reid, however, -having discovered the errand of the visitors, urged her -husband to accept the offer, being less fond of retirement, -and having no objection to a better income and better -society. When her learned guests repeated their proposal -after dinner, she seconded them with such cogent arguments -that Mr. Reid was beat out of all his objections.’—<cite>Scotland -and Scotsmen.</cite></p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV<br /> -<span class="smaller">OLD ABERDEEN: A REGENT IN KING’S COLLEGE<br />1751-1764</span></h2> - -<p>Reid’s movement from New Machar to the academic home -opened for him in Old Aberdeen placed him and his young -family amidst surroundings that touch imagination by their -natural beauty and historic associations. For centuries the -College, founded by Bishop Elphinstone, and at first presided -over by Hector Boece, with its chapel and crowned tower, -in the</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse indent8">old university town,</div> -<div class="verse">Between the Don and the Dee,</div> -<div class="verse">Looking over the grey sand dunes,</div> -<div class="verse">Looking out on the cold North Sea,</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">has shed intellectual light over the North of Scotland, -especially among the Celts in the Highlands. At King’s -College one sees a miniature Oxford almost under the -shadow of the Grampians. Perhaps Reid’s temperament -was too prosaic to contemplate his new surroundings -with the sentiment which the city at the mouth of the -Don afterwards called forth in Thackeray, who, in ‘a -delightful tour in the north, was charmed with Inverness, -and fell in love with Old Aberdeen—an elderly decayed -mouldering old beauty who lives quietly on the seashore, -near her grand new granite sister of a city.’ The affectionate -recollection with which Sir James Mackintosh recalled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> -his student days at King’s College, and the companionship -there of Robert Hall, is another testimony to its charms. -The arena in which these two, called by their fellow-students -‘Plato and Herodotus,’ encountered one another most frequently -was in morals and metaphysics. ‘After having -sharpened their weapons by reading, they often repaired to -the spacious sands upon the seashore, and still more to -the picturesque scenery on the banks of the Don above the -old town and the Brig of Balgownie, to discuss with eagerness -the problems of existence. There was scarcely an -important position in Berkeley’s <cite>Minute Philosopher</cite>, in -Butler’s <cite>Analogy</cite>, or in <cite>Edwards on the Will</cite>, over which -they did not debate with the utmost intensity.’ From these -discussions in the environs of the ‘old university town,’ -Mackintosh was wont to say that he ‘learned more than -from all the books he ever read.’</p> - -<p>It was in the canonist’s manse, pleasantly placed nearly -in front of the College, immediately north of the Snow -Church, at the entrance to Powis House, that Reid found -himself in the winter of 1751.<a name="FNanchor_7" id="FNanchor_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> It was rented by him from -the University. The quaint manse, nestled among trees, -with its low thatched roof,<a name="FNanchor_8" id="FNanchor_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> has disappeared, and with it -other picturesque old houses, which added charm to the -neighbourhood when Reid taught in King’s College nearly -a hundred and fifty years ago. The crown tower of the -College chapel rose almost in front of the manse, the rival of -St. Giles’s at Edinburgh and of St. Nicholas’s at Newcastle, -unique in Scottish academical architecture. Eastwards -in the quadrangle was the Hall in which the students<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> -dined, a memorial of Bishop Elphinstone, and the dormitories -of the students, which were of later date. General -Monk’s tower stood in the eastern corner; behind the -Hall was the kitchen, and near it the College well, whence -the links stretched to the shore, ‘the grey sand dunes’ in -those days unbroken by tame streets and modern villas.</p> - -<p class="tb">The professorial system of divided work, which assigns -special departments of learning to supposed experts, had -not superseded in King’s College the method of regency -which prevailed in the early history of all the universities of -Scotland. The regent was intrusted with the education -of his pupils from the first matriculation to graduation; or -when Latin, Greek, and pure mathematics were each provided -for professorially, regents in philosophy each taught -in successive sessions the various branches of natural and -physical science, and of moral and metaphysical philosophy. -This system was followed in all the Scottish universities -until last century. It was modified by the Commission -of 1690, which ordained that, besides a separate professor -of Latin, one of the four regents should profess Greek -only, and take charge of undergraduates in their first -year. By about the middle of the century ‘regenting’ -was wholly abolished in four of the five Universities—in -Edinburgh in 1708, in Glasgow in 1727, in St. Andrews in -1747, and in Marischal College and University in 1753. -But in King’s College the various branches of Philosophy, -natural and moral, were still regented when Reid began -to teach. He was thus required to teach mathematics -and the sciences of matter, as well as psychology and moral -philosophy. He thus gave lectures on the philosophy of -mind only every third year. One of the other two years was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> -given to natural history and the easier parts of physical -science; the second to mathematics and natural philosophy.</p> - -<p>During 1751-52, which was his first session, Reid as -regent taught natural philosophy to undergraduates of the -third year; in the following winter the same students, in -their fourth year, were still in his charge. His full sequence, -accordingly, did not commence till 1753-54, when for the -first time he took the second class, consisting of those -beginning philosophical studies. So his successive three -years courses ran thus:—1753-56, 1756-59, 1759-62. In -the last year of each course, as ‘promoter,’ he presented -his undergraduates to receive the Master’s degree, and -also delivered a graduation thesis. His theses (still extant -in manuscript at Birkwood) were in Latin; they deal -chiefly with the methods and human conditions of philosophical -inquiry.</p> - -<p>Two-thirds of Reid’s lectures at King’s College were in -this way concerned with natural history and applied mathematics: -only one-third was given to the central object of his -intellectual interest at New Machar. I have examined a -manuscript volume of notes of the lectures in ‘Natural -Philosophy’ which he gave in 1757-58. They comprehend, -after an introductory exposition of the province and -methods of physics, the laws of motion, astronomy, optics, -electricity, and hydrostatics. The notes show that Reid -was well abreast of the physical science of his time.</p> - -<p>At the time of Reid’s appointment as a regent of philosophy -in King’s College, the alternative of regency or -professoriate was discussed in the University. He entered -readily into this and other questions of University reform, -and prevailed on his colleagues to make some important -changes. Largely through his influence the teaching<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> -session was extended from five to seven months; the -Humanity or Latin class was better organised; the -bursary endowments were redistributed for competition; -and in the order of undergraduate study, the sciences -concerned with the outward world were made to precede -psychology and ethics, which were reserved for the last -year, as more consistent with the development of the -human mind in its natural ascent from external observation -to reflection. An account of the changes was -published in 1754.</p> - -<p>It is curious that it was through Reid’s influence that the -regency system was retained in King’s College, in preference -to the professorial, which, in order to secure division of -labour among the teachers, under the growth of knowledge, -had been already adopted in the other Universities. His -hand may be traced in the following statement of reasons -for this conservative policy:—‘Every professor of philosophy -in this University is also tutor to those who study under -him; and it seems to be generally agreed that it must be -detrimental to a student to change his every session. And -though it be allowed that a professor who has only one -branch of philosophy for his province may have more -leisure to make improvements in it for the benefit of the -learned world, yet it does not seem extravagant to suppose -that a [regent] professor ought to be sufficiently qualified -to teach all that his pupils can learn in philosophy -[natural and moral] in the course of three sessions.’ -Half a century later the higher academical ideal implied in -a professoriate prevailed, according to which the professor -is responsible for promoting his branch of human knowledge, -as well as for the instruction of youth—in educating -influence more powerful, when he incites to study by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> -vitality which original research is apt to communicate to -his lectures. The development of a university, it has been -remarked, is prompt and easy when each department of -its cyclopædia is separately taught by an able professor; -whereas a university which abandons instruction to regent-tutors -must be content not only to teach little, and that -little ill, but to continue to teach what is elsewhere obsolete -and exploded.</p> - -<p>In a letter of Reid’s in 1755, an account is given of -the reformed, if somewhat officious, academical discipline -which then prevailed:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘The students here,’ he says, ‘have lately been compelled to -live within the College. We need but look out at our windows -to see when they rise and when they go to bed. They are seen -nine or ten times throughout the day statedly, by one or other -of the Masters—at public prayers, school-hours, meals, in their -rooms, besides occasional visits which we can make with little -trouble to ourselves. They are shut up within walls at nine at -night. This discipline hath indeed taken some pains and -resolution, as well as some expense, to establish it. The board -of the first table is 50 marks per quarter, <i>i.e.</i> 54s. 2d., and -the second 40. The rent of a room is from 7 shillings to -20 shillings in the session. There is no furniture in their -rooms but a bedstead, tables, chimney-grate, and fender; -the rest they must buy for themselves. All other perquisites -from 12 to 17 shillings.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>This discipline was more or less in vogue during -the remainder of last century. Nearly twenty years after -the date of Reid’s letter, when Johnson and Boswell -visited Aberdeen, Johnson says that ‘in King’s College -there is kept a public table, but the scholars in the Marischal -College are boarded in the town.’ ‘The abandonment of -this custom,’ Mr. Rait tells us, ‘seems to have been a -gradual process, and to have taken place during the first<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> -quarter of the nineteenth century. The restraint of collegiate -residence had become exceedingly irksome.’ With -the increasing age of entrants, schoolboy discipline might -seem less expedient.</p> - -<p>Instruction in the art of dancing was, it seems, provided -by the University under the reformed regulations, to add -manly grace to the rude bodily vigour of the Scottish undergraduate. -Reid in advocating this may have remembered -Locke’s advice in his <cite>Thoughts on Education</cite>: ‘Dancing -being that which gives graceful motions all the life, and -above all things manliness and a becoming confidence, I -think it cannot be learned too early. But you must be -sure to have a good master, that knows and can teach what -is graceful and becoming, and that gives a freedom and ease -to all the motions of the body. One that teaches not this -is worse than none at all.’ How long this civilising art -was cultivated in Reid’s College I have not discovered.</p> - -<p>In Aberdeen Reid found himself in the society of persons -of more than provincial eminence, destined, indeed, to leave -their mark on the thought and literature of Scotland. The -Chair of Medicine in his College was occupied by his -cousin, Dr. John Gregory, a successful observer of external -nature and man. In Marischal College, Thomas Blackwell, -the Professor of Greek when Reid was an undergraduate, -was now Principal; soon followed by George Campbell, -who became the philosophical theologian of the Church of -Scotland, by his criticism of Hume’s reasoning about -miracles, and a master in literary, biblical, and ecclesiastical -criticism,—in his <cite>Philosophy of Rhetoric</cite>, his Translation of -the Gospels, and his History of the development of the -Christian Church. Campbell was nine years younger than -Reid, like him an alumnus of Marischal College; he had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> -been minister of Banchory-Ternan for nine years before he -was called to Aberdeen. He rivalled Reid himself in -analytic power and calm, candid, luminous reasoning. -Alexander Gerard, like Reid, a University reformer, and -author of essays on ‘Taste’ and on ‘Genius,’ was Professor of -Philosophy in Marischal College, and then of Divinity there, -and afterwards at King’s. There was William Duncan, too, -whose <cite>Logic</cite> was for a time in vogue in Scottish Universities—a -regent in Marischal College when Reid began to teach -philosophy at King’s; and Reid’s lifelong friend Stewart -was still in the Chair of Mathematics. Perhaps the most -widely known Aberdonian when he lived was James Beattie, -poet more than philosopher, Professor of Logic and Moral -Philosophy in Marischal College, whose essay on ‘Truth’ -gave him a name in the intellectual world, while the grace -and pathos of the ‘Minstrel’ and the ‘Hermit’ appealed -to a wider class, and secured a popular reputation. Aberdeen -and its neighbourhood were then the home also of -accomplished physicians and naturalists and scholars—Skenes -and Ogilvies, Dunbars and Gordons.</p> - -<p>As I have said, Reid’s first years at King’s College were -much given to academical reform. His later years there -were distinguished by his connection with a Society for -philosophical inquiry, then quickened in Scotland by the -fashionable scepticism of David Hume. Reid and Gregory -originated this ‘Aberdeen Philosophical Society,’ or ‘Wise -Club,’ as it was called. It was the parent of some of the -most remarkable books in Scottish philosophical literature -in the latter part of last century. The first meeting was on -January 12, 1758, and the last was in February 1773. The -original members were Dr. John Gregory, Dr. David Skene, -Professor John Stewart, Mr. Robert Trail, the Rev. George<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> -Campbell, and Mr. Thomas Reid; to whom in the same -year were added the Rev. Alexander Gerard, the Rev. -John Farquhar, Mr. Charles Gordon, and Mr. John Kerr. -James Beattie joined them in 1760, Dr. George Skene and -Mr. William Ogilvie in 1763, Mr. James Dunbar in 1765, -and Mr. William Trail in 1766. Reid was secretary of -the Society, and the minutes for many years are in his -handwriting. It met once a fortnight on the second and -fourth Wednesdays of each month. ‘The members,’ Sir -W. Forbes tells us in his <cite>Life of Beattie</cite>, ‘met at five o’clock -in the evening—for in those days at Aberdeen it was the -custom to dine early—when one of the members, as president, -took the chair, and left it at half an hour after eight, -when they partook of a slight and inexpensive collation, -and at ten o’clock they separated.’ At these meetings it -appears that part of the evening’s entertainment was the -reading of a short essay, composed by one of the members -in his turn. Besides these discourses, a literary or philosophical -question was proposed each night, for discussion at -the next meeting. And it was the duty of the proposer of -the question to open the discussion; by him, also, the -opinions of the members who took a part in it were digested -into an abstract, which was engrossed in the album of -the Society. I am told that the <i>Lion Inn</i>, on the Spital -Hill near Reid’s manse, and sometimes the <i>Lemon Tree -Inn</i>, in the new town, were the usual places of meeting. -The common attendance was five or six. One of the -rules enjoined moderation and forbade toasts.</p> - -<p>The meetings were given partly to essays by the members, -and partly to oral discussions of proposed questions. ‘Philosophy,’ -according to the rules, ‘comprehends every principle -of science which may be deduced by just or lawful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> -induction from the phenomena either of the human mind -or of the material world.’ Perhaps no society of the kind in -this country has fulfilled its end so well. The ‘Rankenian -Club’ and the ‘Select Society’ in Edinburgh lasted longer, -or enrolled more members, but neither of them was the -parent of so much good literature. The ‘Inquiry’ of Reid, -Beattie’s essay on ‘Truth,’ Gerard on ‘Taste’ and on -‘Genius,’ and Campbell’s books on ‘Miracles’ and on -‘Rhetoric’ appear in fragments or in germ in the minutes -of the ‘Wise Club’ of Aberdeen. Its vitality was sustained -and stimulated by the sceptical speculations of Hume, -which were much in touch with educated opinion in the -third quarter of last century, when spiritual philosophy was -languid in Britain and throughout the world. The tone -of those engaged in the philosophical vindication of belief -appears in one of Reid’s letters, who writes thus to David -Hume in 1763:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘Your friendly adversaries, Drs. Campbell and Gerard, as -well as Dr. Gregory, return their compliments to you respectfully. -A little Philosophical Society here, of which all three -are members, is much indebted to you for its entertainment. -Your company, although we are all good Christians, would be -more acceptable than that of Athanasius; and since we cannot -have you upon the bench, you are brought oftener than any -other man to the bar; accused and defended with great zeal, -but without bitterness. If you write no more in morals, politics, -and metaphysics, I am afraid we shall be at a loss for subjects.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>It is interesting to find in the records of the Society -the subjects of the dissertations contributed by Reid during -the six years in which he was its mainspring,<a name="FNanchor_9" id="FNanchor_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> as well as -the questions which he proposed for debate. They signally<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> -illustrate the course of his thoughts in these years. On May -24, 1758, ‘Mr. Reid intimat that he designed as the subject -of his discourse some Observations on the Philosophy of -the Mind, and particularly on the Perceptions we have by -Sight.’ On June 17, 1758, he read a paper ‘On the Difficulty -of a just Philosophy of the Human Mind; General -Prejudices against D——d (<i>sic</i>) Hume’s System of the -Mind; and some Observations on the Perceptions we have -by Sight.’ On March 14, 1759, he presented an ‘Analysis of -the Sensations of Smell and Taste.’ On 26th February 1760 -‘Mr. Reid intimat that in his discourse he was to continue -his Analysis of the Senses’; and accordingly, on the 20th of -August in the same year, he gave notice of his intention of -‘taking Dr. Gregory’s place and reading a paper on the -Sense of Touch.’ In July 1761 he appears with a paper on -the ‘Transit of Venus’ in that year; and on the 26th -January 1762 he gives a ‘Valedictory Address,’ as first -annual president of the Society (the members having -previously taken the chair by rotation)—on ‘Euclid’s Definitions -and Axioms,’ in which he returns to the favourite -studies of his youth. In 1761 he had resumed his investigation -of the Senses, for in September he is credited with -another paper on the ‘Sense of Seeing.’ His last contribution, -in October 1762, was on ‘Perception,’ which summed -up his characteristic work in the Society. And after reading -this paper, ‘Mr. Reid declined to give it for insertion in the -Records, in regard that he proposed soon to send it to the -press, along with some other discourses which he had read -before the Society.’ A minute on 28th October 1764 -announces that, ‘as Dr. Reid has left this country, no discourse -is to be expected from him.’</p> - -<p>The following Questions for debate were proposed by Reid<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> -during the six years of his membership:—1758, 13th and -26th July, ‘Are the Objects of the Human Mind properly -divided into Impressions and Ideas; and must every Idea -be a copy of a preceding Impression?’ This closely -touches the fundamental assumption of the sceptical philosophy. -Those which follow suggest a disposition to ethical -and social discussion. 12th June 1759, ‘Whether Mankind -with regard to Morals always was and is the same?’ 1st -April 1760, ‘Whether it is proper to educate Children without -instilling Principles into them of any kind whatever?’ -(Beattie’s celebrated experiment in the education of his son -may be connected with this.) 15th April 1761, ‘Whether -Moral Character consists in Affections in which the Will is -not concerned, or in fixed, habitual, and constant Purposes?’ -8th January 1762, ‘Whether by the encouragement -of proper Laws the Number of Births in Great Britain -might be nearly doubled, or at least greatly increased?’ -Here we have a sort of inverted Malthusianism suggested. -22nd November 1763, ‘Whether every Action deserving -Moral Approbation must be done from a persuasion of its -being morally good?’</p> - -<p>Beattie, in one of his letters to Sir W. Forbes, thus -refers to the Society and to his own philosophical relation -to Reid:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘I have of late been much engaged in metaphysics; at least, -I have been labouring with all my might to overturn that -visionary science. I am a member of a club in this town who -style themselves the Philosophical Society. I hope you will -not think the worse of this Society when I tell you, that to it -the world is indebted for a <cite>Comparative View of the Faculties -of Man</cite>, and an <cite>Inquiry into Human Nature on the Principles -of Common Sense</cite>. I have shown that all genuine -reasoning does ultimately terminate in principles which it is -impossible to disbelieve, and as impossible to prove; that,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> -therefore, the ultimate standard of truth to us is Common -Sense, or that instinctive conviction into which all true reasoning -does resolve itself; that therefore what contradicts Common -Sense is in itself absurd, however subtle the arguments which -support it. My principles in the main are not essentially -different from Dr. Reid’s; but they seem to offer a more compendious -method of destroying scepticism. I intend to show -(and have already in part shown) that all sophistical reasoning -is marked by certain characters which distinguish it from true -investigation; and thus I flatter myself I shall be able to -discover a method of detecting sophistry, even when one is not -able to give a logical confutation of its arguments.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>Beattie argued more in the temper of a partisan than -Reid, who criticised Hume in the spirit of a free and -candid inquirer after truth.</p> - -<p>On the 18th of January 1762 the honorary Doctorate of -Divinity was conferred on Reid by Marischal College.</p> - -<p>His fame was now more than local. In December 1763 -he accepted the invitation of the University of Glasgow -to fill the Chair of Moral Philosophy which Adam Smith -had resigned. Before he entered on this new career he -had given to the world an <cite>Inquiry into the Human Mind -on the Principles of Common Sense</cite>. This classic work -embodies the result of twenty years of steady reflection -at New Machar and Aberdeen, in quest of the actual -foundation of human knowledge. Before we follow him -to Glasgow, we must examine this issue of his intellectual -life in Aberdeenshire—due to the challenge of modern -agnosticism in the person of David Hume.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V<br /> -<span class="smaller">UNIVERSAL SCEPTICISM VERSUS INSPIRED COMMON SENSE: -AN ‘INQUIRY INTO THE HUMAN MIND ON THE -PRINCIPLES OF COMMON SENSE’<br />1764</span></h2> - -<p>As early as October 1762, as we have seen, Reid had given -signs of an intention to offer the world some results of his -meditations regarding the foundations of belief. Accordingly, -in the end of the following year, he produced his -first book, <cite>An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles -of Common Sense</cite>. Its motto expresses its leading -argument—‘The inspiration of the Almighty giveth them -understanding.’ For it was to the inspirations, or revelations, -of what he called the ‘common sense’ or ‘common -judgment,’ regarded as the root of any human understanding -of man and his environment, that he made his -final appeal against the all-embracing doubt of Hume. -This was the rock on which he took his stand in the -universal deluge.</p> - -<p>Reid was now in his fifty-fourth year. Hitherto his -modesty had concealed his strength from all but a few -friends. His book was concerned with questions that were -not likely to withdraw him rapidly from ‘the obscurity of -a learned retirement.’ The <cite>Inquiry</cite>, with its appeal to the -final reason latent in human nature, is not to be interpreted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> -as an appeal to popular opinion against theories of philosophers. -In fact, its implied argument is not obvious to -popular intelligence, although it is profoundly connected -with all the chief interests of human life. Great books of -this sort attract only the few who think. His brother-in-law, -Mr. Rose, mentions that ‘Alexander Millar, the -London bookseller, being in Aberdeen at this time, and in -company with Dr. Reid, protested against books in metaphysics -as bad bargains for publishers; by which he said he -had himself lost money, but never gained any. Notwithstanding, -Dr. Reid, having his <cite>Inquiry</cite> ready for publication, -sold it to Mr. Millar for £50. When his friends bantered -him upon the small sum he had received for so valuable a -performance, he jocosely replied, “I think it is well sold.”’<a name="FNanchor_10" id="FNanchor_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p> - -<p>Another parallel here occurs between Reid and Kant. -The <cite>Kritik of Pure Reason</cite>, Kant’s first great work, -appeared in 1781, when he was in his fifty-seventh year. -So, too, with Locke, who inaugurated the era of modern -thought in which Reid and Kant are chief figures. His -<cite>Essay</cite>, like Reid’s <cite>Inquiry</cite>, was the first fruit of twenty -years of reflective thought, and it too made its appearance -when its author was in his fifty-seventh year. It is curious -to contrast the balanced caution and moderation of these -long pondered treatises with the more paradoxical productions -of others, whose intellectual ardour and impatience -speedily committed them to all-comprehensive systems. -Descartes, at forty, with his provisional doubt and reconstruction -on a slender foundation; Spinoza, younger still, -with his rational evolution of the universe from a single -substance; Berkeley with his analysis of the material world -into significant ideas, delivered at the age of twenty-five<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> -with the impetuous enthusiasm of Irish juvenile genius; -and David Hume with his universal disintegration of -human knowledge and belief, planned before he was -one-and-twenty, composed before he was twenty-five, and -eagerly given to the world in his twenty-eighth year. Reid, -with his ‘good and well-wearing parts,’ characteristically -represents the restrained authorship of those who treat our -short life on this planet as short enough for well-weighed -answers to the final questions about life and the universe.</p> - -<p>As Reid’s <cite>Inquiry</cite> was really an appeal to human nature -in arrest of Hume’s intellectual suicide, he desired, before -presenting it to the world, to submit the argument privately -to the Edinburgh sceptic. This was done through their -common friend Dr. Blair. After Hume had read portions -of the manuscript, he wrote this courteous letter to Reid -on Feb. 25, 1763:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘By Dr. Blair’s means I have been favoured with the perusal -of your performance, which I have read with great pleasure -and attention. It is certainly very rare that a piece so deeply -philosophical is wrote with so much spirit, and affords so much -entertainment to the reader, though I must still regret the disadvantages -under which I read it, as I never had the whole -performance at once before me, and could not be able to compare -one part with another. To this reason chiefly I ascribe -some obscurities which, in spite of your short analysis and -abstract, seem to hang over your system; for I must do you -the justice to own that when I enter into your ideas, no man -appears to express himself with greater perspicuity than you do, -a talent which above all others is requisite in that species of -literature which you have cultivated. There are some objections -which I would willingly propose to the chapter “Of Sight,” -did I not suspect that they arise from my not sufficiently -understanding it. I shall therefore forbear till the whole can -lie before me, and shall not at present propose any further -difficulties to your reasonings. I shall only say that if you -have been able to clear up these abstruse and important subjects,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> -instead of being mortified, I shall be so vain as to pretend -to a share of the praise; and shall think that my errors, by -having at least some coherence, have led you to make a more -strict review of my principles, which were the common ones, -and to perceive their futility.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>In his reply to this letter Reid recognises the debt which -philosophy owes to the sceptical criticism of Hume. He -writes thus to Hume:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p class="right">‘<span class="smcap">King’s College</span>, <i>18th March 1763</i>.</p> - -<p>‘<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—On Monday last Mr. John Farquhar brought me -your letter of February 25th, enclosed in one from Dr. Blair. -I thought myself very happy in having the means of obtaining, -at second hand, through the friendship of Dr. Blair, your opinion -of my performance; and you have been pleased to communicate -it directly in so polite and friendly a manner as merits great -acknowledgments on my part.</p> - -<p>‘In attempting to throw some light on these abstruse subjects, -I wish to preserve the due mean between confidence and -despair. But whether I have any success in this attempt or -not, I shall always avow myself your disciple in metaphysics. -I have learned more from your writings in this kind than from -all others put together. Your system appears to me not only -coherent in all its parts, but likewise justly deduced from -principles commonly received among philosophers,—principles -which I never thought of calling in question, until the conclusions -you draw from them in the <cite>Treatise of Human Nature</cite> -made me suspect them. If these principles are solid your -system must stand; and whether they are or not can better be -judged after you have brought to light the whole system that -grows out of them, than when the greater part of it was wrapped -up in clouds and darkness. I agree with you therefore, that if -this system shall ever be demolished, you have a just claim -to a great share of the praise, both because you have made it -a distinct and determinate mark to be aimed at, and have -furnished proper artillery for the purpose. When you have -seen the whole of my performance, I shall take it as a very great -favour to have your opinion upon it, from which I make no -doubt of receiving light, whether I receive conviction or no.’</p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p> - -<p>Hume’s philosophy being the suicide of intelligence, can -hardly be spoken of as a ‘system.’ It is not constructive, -but wholly destructive, and therefore a negation of system, -philosophic or other, in a finally speechless and motionless -agnostic doubt.</p> - -<p>Hume’s letter to Reid was his only rejoinder to the -<cite>Inquiry</cite>. In 1763 he had ceased to produce philosophical -books. His recognition of the ‘deeply philosophical’ -nature of Reid’s argument is a testimony to the worth of -the work on which Reid’s literary reputation chiefly -rests. The ‘share of the praise’ which Hume claims, -Reid was ready to concede. ‘I hope,’ he says in the -Dedication of the <cite>Inquiry</cite>, ‘I hope that the author of -this sceptical system wrote it in the belief that it would be -useful to mankind. And perhaps it may prove so at last. -For I conceive the sceptical writers to be a set of men -whose business it is to pick holes in the fabric of knowledge -wherever it is weak and faulty; and when those -places are properly repaired, the whole building becomes -more firm and solid than it was formerly’. And, in fact, the -intellectual progress of mankind has been sustained by an -alternation of sceptical and conservative philosophies.</p> - -<p>After prolonged cogitation, the ‘weak and faulty’ place in -the ‘fabric’ of modern philosophy seemed to Reid to lie in -an unproved assumption with which modern philosophers -set out in their speculations. For they took for granted -that only the sensations and ideas within each mind could -be perceived: yet we naturally ‘believe that we are seeing -and handling the very outward things themselves’ that -make what is called the material world. If the philosophers -are right, we have no immediate revelation of -the qualities of outward things, and no evidence of their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> -existence, except the succession of changing sensations -and ideas of sensations which alone are presented to us. -I can never directly encounter an external object. What -I suppose to be outward is all in my mind. With a world -thus imprisoned within me, is there any legitimate way -through which I can assure myself of realities outside my -mind, including other living persons who have their own -sensations and ideas as much as I have mine, but numerically -different from my private stock? If not, grave consequences -seemed to follow: faith and hope must die out -of human life. So Reid argued.</p> - -<p>The <cite>Treatise of Human Nature</cite> was the scarecrow that -warned Reid of the destructive consequences of this assumption, -that we are shut up among our own ideas; as he -had himself in youth been taught to believe, and by which -he had been led on to Berkeley’s conception of a wholly ideal -material world. He now began to see this ideal material -world of Berkeley in a new light. It seemed to leave him -<em>alone</em> in the universe of his own mind. The ideal matter -of Berkeley cannot, he argued, inform me of the existence -of other living persons: what I have supposed to be other -persons must be, like the rest, only some of my own ideas. -If I allow that my own sensations and ideas are my only -possible original data, I cannot from such transitory phantoms -infer the real existence of other persons. With this -starting-point as my only one, the whole universe naturally -supposed to surround me—bodies and spirits, friends and -relations, all dead things and all living persons—acknowledged -by common judgment to have a permanent existence, -whether I am having ideas of them or not—vanish at once. -My <em>private</em> sensations and ideas can never really signify -to me the existence of other conscious beings; only what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> -might be called <em>public ideas</em>, common to other minds and -to me, could do this. And such objects are not properly -called ‘ideas’—public or private; they are dead things and -living persons; they exist whether I individually have sensations -and ideas or not. In short, Reid could find nothing in -Berkeley’s philosophical theory—as he interpreted it<a name="FNanchor_11" id="FNanchor_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a>—which -afforded even probable ground for concluding that there -were in existence other intelligent beings—fathers, brothers, -friends, or fellow-citizens. ‘I am left alone,’ the only -creature of God, in that forlorn state of egoism into which -it was said some of the disciples of Descartes were brought -by this same preliminary assumption of their master—a -sufficient <i lang="la">reductio ad absurdum</i> of the favourite postulate -which leads to it. To act upon it would argue insanity -in the agent; it must therefore be empty verbal speculation. -So Reid further argued.</p> - -<p>But even this solitude is not the last issue of Reid’s -<i lang="fr">bête noire</i>. The system in which I have been educated, -he said, not only leaves me absolutely alone; <em>it extinguishes -me</em>, along with the external universe of things and persons; -it is at last literally suicidal. It transforms persistent -personal existence into a mere succession of unconnected -sensations and ideas. If the magic circle of sensations and -ideas, within a self that persists amidst perpetual changes, -cannot be broken through, then even this supposed ‘self’ -must be an illusion, and the word self must be meaningless. -The personal pronoun ‘I,’ as well as the personal pronoun -‘you,’ are both alike unmeaning. The universe resolves at -last, not merely into sensations that are all referable to -myself, but into sensations without any self—into isolated -sensations—which seem indeed to follow one another in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> -an orderly way, but without any guarantee that the seeming -order is more than transitory, or that the illusory cosmos -may not at any moment become chaos.</p> - -<p>Is there nothing within the resources of reason to arrest -this intellectual suicide? Has reason got anything to show -in justification of this preliminary sacrifice of a conviction -on which men have to act, whatever their theories may be? -Must I surrender the conviction, that when I am seeing -or touching I am actually having revealed to me something -that is extended and solid, and that, <em>as such, must</em> be -more and other than the private sensations and ideas of -the person that is seeing and touching? Must this conviction, -and others like it, on which human experience -practically depends, be all sacrificed on the altar of authority -and conjecture?</p> - -<p>This had been the question around which Reid’s thoughts -were revolving in the twenty years preceding the publication -of his book. ‘For my own satisfaction,’ he tells us, ‘I -entered into a serious examination of the principles upon -which this sceptical system is built; and was not a little -surprised to find that it leans with its whole weight upon -a hypothesis which is ancient indeed, and hath been very -generally received by philosophers, but of which I could -find no solid proof. The hypothesis I mean is—that we -do not really perceive things that are external, but only -certain images and pictures of them imprinted upon the -mind, which are called “impressions” and “ideas.” I -thought it unreasonable, upon the authority of philosophers, -to admit an hypothesis which, in my opinion, overturns -all philosophy; all religion and virtue, and all common -sense; and I resolved to inquire into this subject anew, -without regard to any hypothesis.’</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span></p> - -<p>To <em>accept</em> as a spiritual fact the judgment of human -nature, which assures me that when I am seeing or -touching I am ‘face to face’ with a reality that exists -independently of my changing sensations or ideas, instead -of trying in vain by reasoning to <em>prove</em> the existence of this -reality by means of intervening sensations and ideas,—this -was the alternative he adopted. I dismiss the unwarranted -supposition that only my own mind and its invisible -contents can be immediately manifested to me; and -I fall back on the perception I have of something solid -and extended, and therefore more and other than a mere -sensation or idea, as what is present to me when I see -and touch. Recognition of the fact that our five senses -somehow bring us into a consciousness of what is neither a -transitory sensation nor an idea of a sensation, but something -independent of me, and that would continue to -exist after I individually had ceased to exist—this recognition -of external realities is Reid’s key to sound philosophy. -It is a displacement of the so-called ‘ideas’ of -the philosophers, and of fallacious inferences founded -upon them, and a substitution of the common reasonable -sense, or common judgment of reason, which neither -requires nor admits of logical proof. Reid might say that -what is most worth proving cannot be logically proved. -We all have a direct perception of external reality -which cannot be eradicated by reasoning. Abolition of -the prejudice which interposed <em>reasonings founded on unreal -ideas</em> between our perception and the solid and extended -reality, seemed to Reid, in virtue of its far-reaching -consequences, to be the chief good he had as a philosopher -secured to mankind. In his old age he writes thus to -Dr. Gregory:—</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘The merit of what you are pleased to call <em>my philosophy</em> -lies, I think, chiefly in having called in question the common -theory of ideas, or images of things in the mind, being the -only objects of thought—a theory founded on natural prejudices, -and so universally received as to be interwoven with the -structure of language. Yet, were I to give you a detail of -what led me to call in question this theory, after I had long -held it as self-evident and unquestionable, you would think, as -I do, that there was much of chance in the matter. The discovery -was the birth of time, not of genius; and Berkeley and -Hume did more to bring it to light than the man that hit upon -it. I think there is hardly anything that can be called <em>mine</em> -in the philosophy of mind which does not follow with ease from -the detection of this prejudice.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>Yet Reid’s <cite>Inquiry</cite> has been condemned as an unphilosophical -appeal from the thoughtful to vulgar intelligence, -making the unreflecting many supreme judges -in questions intelligible only to the reflecting few. His -employment of ‘common sense’ to express the regulative -principle of his philosophy would put his book outside -philosophical literature, if this term were taken as a -synonym for unreasoned opinion—the average judgments -of the man in the street. Reid’s own account of what -he means by common sense, not to speak of Hume’s -recognition of the ‘deeply philosophical’ character of the -argument in the <cite>Inquiry</cite>, should protect him against this -imputation. He describes the common sense to which he -constantly appeals as ‘the first degree of reason,’ and as -having for its office ‘to judge of things self-evident.’ As -such, he contrasts it with reasoning, or ‘the second degree -of reason, which draws conclusions that are not self-evident -from the self-evident judgments of the common -sense.’ This distinction between the common rational -sense, on which a knowledge of the universe, like the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> -human, which falls short of omniscience, <em>must</em> ultimately -turn, and those judgments that are reached by logical -reasoning, corresponds to what the Greeks distinguished -as noetic and dianoetic power of reason in man. Reid’s -genuine judgments of the common sense may be regarded -as the divinely inspired response to questions which can -be determined for man only by this ideal man latent in -us all—judgments verified by the insanity that is implied -in resisting them in our actions.</p> - -<p>As obtrusive examples of judgments of the common -sense, Reid takes the logically undemonstrable convictions -(1) of the existence of things external to and independent -of me and my perceptions; (2) of my individual personal -existence, and continuous personal identity; and (3) of -the uniformity, and therefore interpretability, of nature, -implying that I may form conclusions about what I have -not experienced by what I have experienced. I cannot -demonstrate the truth of these judgments: I can only -justify them in reason by showing that human nature -responds to them, and forbids me to reject them in my -actions, on pain of being judged a lunatic, whatever I may -say in my speculative theories. ‘Such original and natural -judgments,’ he says, ‘are part of the furniture which <em>nature</em> -hath given to the human understanding. They are the -inspiration of the Almighty. They serve to direct us in -the common affairs of life, when our reasoning faculty -would leave us in the dark; they are part of our constitution; -all the discoveries of our reason are grounded -upon them; they make up what is called <em>the common sense</em> -of mankind. A remarkable deviation from them, arising -from a disorder in the constitution, is what we call <em>lunacy</em>, -as when a man believes that he is made of glass. When<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> -a man suffers himself to be reasoned out of the principles -of common sense by metaphysical arguments, we call it -<em>metaphysical lunacy</em>, which differs from the other species -of the distemper in this, that it is not continued, but intermittent; -it is apt to seize the patient in solitary and -speculative moments; but when he enters into sanity, -Common Sense recovers her authority.’</p> - -<p>It is the first of these three examples of the common -sense that is the subject of the <cite>Inquiry</cite>—intended -as preliminary to others which may follow. ‘A clear -enumeration and explication of the principles of common -sense’ was henceforward Reid’s ultimate aim; but thus far -he took those involved in our experience when we are -tasting, or smelling, or hearing, or touching, or seeing. -As axioms and definitions are the preliminaries of abstract -mathematical reasonings, so our sensuous perceptions -through the five senses are the preliminaries to reasonings -about concrete realities in the world of change. The -leading principle of the <cite>Inquiry</cite> is, that something extended, -solid, and movable is directly manifested in our -sensuous experiences, equally with the direct manifestations -of our own sensations and other feelings when we are -conscious of them; and also that we are obliged by -common sense to regard extended, solid, and movable -things as <em>other</em> than mere transitory sensation or idea. -Extended things, large or small, refuse to be melted down -into sensations or states of one’s private consciousness. -Take this specimen of philosophical argument for accepting -perceptions which cannot be logically demonstrated, but -which the common sense of human nature refuses to reject:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘Suppose I am pricked with a pin, I ask, is the <em>pain</em> I feel a -sensation? Undoubtedly it is. There can be nothing that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> -resembles pain in an inanimate thing: the pain must be in me, -a living being. But I ask again, is the <em>pin</em> a sensation? To -this question I feel myself under a necessity of answering that -the pin is not a sensation, nor can have the least resemblance -to any sensation. The pin has length and thickness, figure -and weight. A sensation can have none of these qualities. I -am not more certain that the pain I feel <em>is</em> a sensation than -that the pin <em>is not</em> a sensation. Yet the pin is an object of sense; -and I am as certain that I perceive its figure and hardness by -my senses as that I feel pain when I am pricked by it.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>This is to say that if, with the philosophers, I <em>call</em> the -pin as well as the pain a sensation or an idea, I must -mean by ‘sensation’ and ‘idea,’ when I apply those words -to the pin, not a private self-contained feeling or a fancy, -in which I am only manifesting my conscious self, but (so -to speak) a <em>public</em> sensation or idea—perceivable by other -persons as well as by me—a manifestation, in short, of what -is <em>outside my mind</em>—of something that exists permanently in -<em>space</em> and not transitorily in <em>me</em>—and that is thus fit to be a -medium of communication between me and other living persons, -informing me of their existence and in some measure -of their thoughts—all which (Reid takes for granted) -each person’s private feelings and fancies could not do. -But to employ the words ‘sensation’ and ‘idea’ in this -new meaning, and to speak of an idea as public or external, -would be an abuse of language. We must mark, always -by appropriate words, distinctions which we are obliged to -acknowledge in fact. The inspirations or revelations of the -common sense, in and through which the Almighty Power -gives us an understanding of the life and world in which -we find ourselves, inspirations in which all men are believed -more or less to participate, require us to distinguish the -solid and extended pin, as something public or outward,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> -in contrast to the private feeling of pain, of which no one -except the person who feels it is conscious. I am thus -obliged to recognise more in existence than my own sensations -and ideas—as much obliged as I am to recognise my -sensations and ideas themselves when I am conscious of -them. Only so can I find myself living in an environment -that is capable of signifying the contemporaneous life, and -some of the thoughts and feelings of other persons. In -all this I am only falling back on the divine revelations of -the common sense. They make me reject in conduct what -is inconsistent with them; although this natural obligation -is all the reason I can give in justification of my obedience.</p> - -<p>It is thus that Reid recognises his right in reason to grasp -realities that are independent of his individual self; and he -thinks that he is doing this philosophically by getting rid -of the unphilosophical supposition, that he needs to work -his way to them by logical reasoning, founded on wholly -inward impressions. The true philosophy of perception -with him is to discharge the medium, and at once take -the bull by the horns.</p> - -<p>Some may think that the <cite>Inquiry</cite> represents wasted -labour—that the ‘metaphysical lunacy’ which abolishes -personal pronouns as meaningless words, and inconsistently -reasons that all who reason must be fools, is at the best -the idle intellectual pastime of persons who pretend to be -universal sceptics—all which Reid has taken too seriously, -and which at any rate by its self-contradiction refutes itself. -For it asserts that assertion is impossible. It is an argument -that concludes for the rejection of the postulates without -which it is impossible for human beings to reason at -all. It is a philosophy that destroys itself in destroying all -philosophy. The suicide does not need to be put to death.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span></p> - -<p>Yet the suicide, doubly slain in the <cite>Inquiry</cite>, may be used -as a warning of the consequence of doing violence to the -genuine common sense, or ideal man that is latent in each -man; especially on subjects in which doubt is easier than in -the case of outward things and persons. The ‘metaphysical -lunacy’ of doubt about the existence of other persons -may be acknowledged, while the common sense, unawake -in its moral or spiritual elements, fails to protest against -ethical atheism or agnosticism. What Reid calls the -common sense is alive consciously in various degrees, in -different persons, in different countries and periods. A -common sense of the existence of outward things and -persons is practically awake in all sane minds. But the -spiritual convictions, of which some are hardly conscious, -may be rejected even practically without obvious lunacy. -And something is gained for those convictions, if it can -be shown, as a <i lang="la">reductio ad absurdum</i>, that their rejection -involves the moral sceptic too in the ‘lunacy’ of universal -doubt and pessimist despair.</p> - -<p>That Reid lays much stress on ‘calling in question the -common theory of ideas or images in perception’ is explained -by his assumption, that this theory involves perversion of the -common sense even in its preliminary contact with outward -things in sense, thus obviously discrediting it as the -final court of appeal in every other instance. It may in -this way be taken as a plea for a more faithful adherence -on the part of philosophers to the genuine common-sense -judgments, which can be made to respond to an adequate -appeal, however dormant they may be in individuals. -This final appeal to human nature must, in short, be to -human nature <em>as it is in fact</em>, not to human nature <em>as -distorted in hypothesis</em>.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span></p> - -<p>For, after all, the root of the agnosticism which is found -in history alternating with the final faith of the common -sense, lies deeper than in mistaken hypotheses of philosophers -about our perceptions in sense. Reid’s substitution -in philosophy of immediate for mediate perception of -matter is therefore an inadequate cure. The periodically -returning doubt concerns, not the outness or inwardness -of what is revealed to sense, but the meaning and character -of the Power that is at work within the universe of -matter and mind, and with which we first come into -contact and collision in sense. Is it, in its final and -pervading Power, a bad or a good sort of universe that -we open our eyes upon, when we begin to exercise our -senses? What are its final relations to me, and my final -relations to it? Nobody doubts the existence of things -and persons, so far as they are revealed to the senses. But -what is our implied Common Sense of the final meaning of -the Whole? Am I to put an optimist or a pessimist ultimate -interpretation upon it all? The lurid mixture of pain and -pleasure, evil and good, presented by the animated world, -combined with spiritually dormant common sense in individual -men,—is surely a more potent factor of agnostic -doubt than an erroneous account of perception in circulation -among persons who speculate.</p> - -<p>Reid’s course of thought amidst new surroundings in -Glasgow brought him nearer to the source and corrective -of the scepticism that is aroused by the suspicious-looking -universe of mingled good and evil, to which our sense -perceptions introduce us.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI<br /> -<span class="smaller">GLASGOW COLLEGE: THE PROFESSOR OF -MORAL PHILOSOPHY<br />1764-1780</span></h2> - -<p>In November 1764 we find Reid, now almost fifty-five years -of age, in the Chair of Moral Philosophy in the Old College -in the High Street of Glasgow. The Reid family lived then, -and for two years after, not in the Professors’ Court within -the College, but a quarter of a mile away, in an old-fashioned -street called the Drygate.<a name="FNanchor_12" id="FNanchor_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> The manuscript in the family -bible records that Reid was admitted to the Glasgow professorship -on the 12th of June. He carried with him from -the quaint manse in Aberdeen to his new home in the -Drygate, his wife, three daughters, all above twenty years of -age, and two boys; they left three infant children buried -in Aberdeenshire. The Glasgow Chair supplied an income, -including fees, somewhat in advance of the Aberdeen -regency; and its duties required concentrated study of intellectual -and moral agency in man, instead of the dispersion -over a wide range of the phenomena and laws of matter -and mind which was necessary in King’s College. Yet it -was ‘not without reluctance,’ we are told, that he consented -to tear himself from a spot where he had so long been -fastening his roots; and much as he loved the society in -which he passed the remainder of his days, the advantages<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> -of the change hardly compensated for the sacrifice of feeling -caused by the break in his early habits and associations.</p> - -<p>Glasgow in 1898 is even more changed from Glasgow in -1764 than Aberdeen when Reid lived in it from Aberdeen -as it is now. To-day Glasgow is the second city in Britain, -with nearly a million of people, the industrial metropolis -of the north, with all the stir of industrial life. It was -then a provincial town with hardly thirty thousand inhabitants, -almost inaccessible from the sea, surrounded by the -cornfields and hedgerows and orchards of Lanarkshire, its -few streets converging on the Cathedral and the College -with their historic associations. ‘Glasgow,’ according to -<cite>Humphrey Clinker</cite>, ‘is the pride of Scotland. It is one of -the prettiest towns in Europe.’ Pennant describes it as ‘the -best built of any second-rate city I ever saw. The view from -the Cross has an air of vast magnificence.’ In 1764 it was -only laying the foundations of its present commercial fame. -The tobacco trade with the American plantations, and the -sugar trade with the West Indies, had hardly altered its -character as an ancient Church and University town. -‘Jupiter Carlyle,’ referring to Glasgow before the middle of -last century, speaks of ‘a few families of ancient citizens -who pretended to be gentlemen; and a few others, recently -settled, who had obtained wealth and consideration in trade. -The rest were shopkeepers and mechanics, who occupied -large warerooms to furnish cargoes to Virginia. It was then -usual for the sons of merchants to attend the College for -one or two years, and a few of them completed their -academical education.’</p> - -<p>The College in the High Street, erected early in the -seventeenth century, seemed to Samuel Johnson in 1773 -‘without a sufficient share in the magnificence of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> -place.’ Nevertheless he found ‘learning an object of wide -importance, and the habit of application much more general -than in the neighbouring University of Edinburgh.’ The -two College squares, connected with memories of many -generations in the west of Scotland, have been likened to -those of Lincoln College in Oxford. About the middle -of last century from three to four hundred students gathered -in those curious old courts, almost all living in apartments -in the town, a few boarded in the houses of professors. -They wore scarlet gowns, ‘most of which,’ when Wesley -visited Glasgow, ‘were very dirty, some very ragged, and -all of very coarse cloth.’ The houses of the professors -formed a square on the north side of the College, built -early in the eighteenth century. Eastward were the College -gardens and the park, through which the classic Molendinar -found its way to the Clyde. It was a quaint and curious -old-world life that was then lived in the College, and in the -High Street, passing from the College to the Cathedral at -one end and from the College to the Cross at the other.</p> - -<p>In the half-century before Reid was admitted to his -Glasgow Chair, the University had professors of more than -Scottish reputation. Glasgow is in fact associated with -almost all the names that adorn the literature of Philosophy -in Scotland in the last century and in this. Adam Smith -was Reid’s immediate predecessor in the Chair of Morals. -His <cite>Theory of Moral Sentiments</cite> had been for five years -before the world when he resigned his professorship to -give to literature what Sir James Mackintosh describes -as ‘perhaps the only book which produced an immediate, -general, and irrevocable change in some of the most important -parts of the legislation of all civilised states’—fit to -be ranked with the classic works of Grotius, Locke, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> -Montesquieu—its author ‘the first economical philosopher, -and perhaps the most eloquent theoretical moralist, of -modern times.’ Smith’s predecessor was Francis Hutcheson, -author of that <cite>Inquiry into our Ideas of Beauty and -Virtue</cite> which gave rise to Reid’s New Machar essay on -‘Quantity’ in 1748, the reputed father of modern philosophy -in Scotland;—and in the second quarter of last century the -most potent agent and pioneer of the liberal culture and -literary taste which made the intellectual moderation of -the eighteenth century in Scotland so remarkable a contrast -to the less tolerant spiritual fervour of the seventeenth. -This influence was continued by his friend and -biographer, William Leechman, the Principal of Glasgow -College in 1764, still remembered as one of the philosophical -theologians of the Church of Scotland. ‘It was owing to -Hutcheson and Leechman,’ says Carlyle, ‘that a new -school was formed in the western provinces of Scotland, -where the clergy till that period were narrow and bigoted, -and had never ventured to range their minds beyond the -bounds of strict orthodoxy. For though neither of these -professors taught any heresy, yet they opened and enlarged -the minds of the students, which soon gave them a turn -for inquiry; the result of which was candour and liberality -of sentiment. From experience this freedom of thought -was not found so dangerous as might at first be apprehended; -for though the more daring youth at first made -excursions into the unbounded regions of metaphysical -perplexity, yet all the more judicious soon returned to the -lower sphere of long-established truths, which they found -not only more subservient to the good order of society, -but necessary to fix their own minds in some degree of -stability.’ Gershom Carmichael, too, is not to be forgotten.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> -He was Hutcheson’s predecessor, with an intellectual and -religious influence not inconsiderable in the opening years -of last century, author of a Latin manual of logic which -appeared in 1720, and a <cite>Synopsis Theologiæ Naturalis</cite>, -published shortly before his death in 1729, but best known -perhaps as editor of Puffendorff.</p> - -<p>Reid thus entered Glasgow College when it was the -centre of the reviving philosophical and literary activity -of Scotland in the modern spirit. He met colleagues -and fellow-citizens who were in sympathy with his own -sincere and independent scientific temper. The aged -Simpson, restorer of ancient geometry, who had lately -retired from the mathematical chair, which he had adorned -for half a century, was a congenial mathematician of -European fame. Joseph Black, the most celebrated British -chemist of his generation, was illustrating his own discoveries -in his College lectures, and drawing the attention -of the world to the phenomena of latent heat. The -vigour and acuteness of Millar were educating a new generation -in jurisprudence and statesmanship. Moore, the -author of <cite>Zeluco</cite>, an eminent Glasgow physician, was adding -to its literary name. The grandfather, and afterwards the -father, of Sir William Hamilton held in succession the -Chair of Anatomy, both colleagues of Reid, who might -have been seen in the College Courts when his future -editor and commentator was there in his infancy.</p> - -<p>Reid’s inaugural lecture as Professor of Moral Philosophy, -delivered on the 10th of October 1764, is among his unpublished -manuscripts at Birkwood. The opening sentences -(deleted as irrelevant in after years) are not without interest -in the characteristic modesty and candour of the reference -to Adam Smith, his predecessor:—</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘Before entering upon the subject of my prelections, there -are some things which I think proper to lay before you, and to -which I beg your attention. I doubt not that you are all -sensible of the loss which the University, and you in particular, -sustain by the resignation of the learned and ingenious gentleman -who last filled this chair. Those who knew him most and -had most access to attend his prelections, and especially those -who most profited by them, will be most sensible of their loss. -I had not the happiness of his personal acquaintance, for want of -opportunity; though I wished for it, and now wish for it far more -than ever. But I could not be a stranger to his fame and -reputation, nor to the respect with which his lectures from this -chair were heard by a very crowded audience. I am much a -stranger to his system, unless so far as he hath published it to -the world. But a man of so great genius and penetration must -have struck new light to the subjects which he treated, as well -as have handled them in an excellent and instructive manner. -I shall be much obliged to any of you, gentlemen, or to any -others, who can furnish me with notes of his prelections, -whether in morals, jurisprudence, politics, or rhetorick. I -shall always be desirous to borrow light from every quarter, -and to adopt what appears to me sound and solid in every -system, and ready to change my opinions upon conviction, or -to change my method and materials where I can do it to -advantage. I desire to live no longer than this candour and -ingenuity, this openness of mind to education and information, -live with me.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>An apology follows for the imperfect preparation of a -first course, inadequately provided for by the miscellaneous -lectures in physics and metaphysics at Aberdeen. The -past performance of Adam Smith, and the high expectation -associated with the new professor, the author of the -<cite>Inquiry</cite>, were doubtless fresh in the minds of the crowded -audience that met on that October morning in the faint -light of the Old College class-room. The audience, the -new professor, and his predecessor, have all now receded -into the dim distance, and are seen under the cold light<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> -of history. The lectures delivered in the years that followed -are preserved at Birkwood, in Reid’s valley of the Dee—lectures -on Pneumatology, Ethics, Jurisprudence, and -Political Philosophy—for the most part embodied in substance -in the published <cite>Essays</cite> of his old age.</p> - -<p>Reid’s placid temperament and restrained imagination -suggest sober unadorned statement, and cautious inference -founded on fact, not fervid eloquence, as the character of -his prelections. He was more likely slowly to influence -opinion by his books than to startle a youthful audience -by spoken words. This conjecture is confirmed by the -account of Reid in the Glasgow class-room given by Dugald -Stewart, who was among his students in 1772-73. ‘In his -elocution and mode of instruction,’ Stewart says, ‘there -was nothing peculiarly attractive. He seldom if ever indulged -in the warmth of extempore discourse; nor was his -manner of reading calculated to increase the effect of what -he had committed to writing. Such, however, was the -simplicity and perspicuity of his style, such the gravity and -authority of his character, and such the general interest of -his young hearers in the doctrines which he taught, that -by the numerous audiences to which his instructions were -addressed he was heard uniformly with the most silent -and respectful attention.’ And this delivery of deep and -patient thought, regarding the duties and relations of man, -and the foundation of his beliefs, was continued in the -class-room for sixteen years.</p> - -<p>As we might expect from their mental affinities, Reid -greatly esteemed the works of Bishop Butler. Among the -manuscripts at Birkwood is an abstract of the <cite>Analogy</cite>; -and Butler’s ethical writings were recommended to his -students as the best in the literature of moral philosophy,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> -with regret to see them superseded in England by the productions -of inferior moralists. In tone and method of -inquiry Reid is the Butler of Scotland. And Butler, -too, is the Reid of England in his trustful appeals to what -Reid would call the common sense. When Butler asks himself -whether we may not be deceived in our natural sense -of our continuous personal identity, he replies, that ‘this -question may be asked at the end of any demonstration; -because it is a question concerning the truth of perception -by memory. And he who can doubt whether perception -by memory can in this case be depended on, may doubt -also whether perception, by reasoning, or indeed whether -any intuitive perception, can. Here then we can go no -further. For it is ridiculous to attempt to <em>prove</em> the truth -of those perceptions, whose truth we can no otherwise -prove than by other perceptions which there is just the -same ground to suspect; or to attempt to prove the truth -of our faculties, which can no otherwise be proved than by -these very suspected faculties themselves.’ This is the -substance of the argument that rests on the data of the -sense or reason with which human nature is inspired.</p> - -<p>Reid’s homely letters to his Aberdeen friends, Andrew -and David Skene, give some interesting pictures of the -details of the family’s life, in the years which immediately -followed the settlement in Glasgow. The extracts that -follow may help the reader to form the pictures.</p> - -<p>In a letter to Dr. Andrew Skene, dated November 15, -1764, we see the Moral Philosophy class-room on a winter -morning a hundred and thirty years ago, and life in the -Drygate home a few weeks after the family entered it:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘I must launch forth in the morning, so as to be at the -College (which is a walk of eight minutes) half an hour after<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> -seven, when I speak for an hour without interruption to an -audience of about a hundred. At eleven I examine for an hour -upon my morning prelection; but my audience is a little -more than a third part of what it was in the morning. In a -week or two I must, for three days in the week, have a second -prelection at twelve, upon a different subject, where my audience -will be made up of those who hear me in the morning but -do not attend at eleven. My hearers commonly attend my -class two years at least. They pay fees for the first two years, -and then they are <i lang="la">cives</i> of the class, and may attend gratis as -many years as they please. Many attend the moral philosophy -class four or five years; so that I have many preachers and -students of divinity and law of considerable standing, before -whom I stand in awe to speak without more preparation than -I have leisure for. I have a great inclination to attend some of -the professors here, several of whom are very eminent in their -way; but I cannot find leisure. Much time is consumed in our -college meetings about business, of which we have commonly -four or five in the week. We have a Literary Society once a -week, consisting of the Masters and two or three more; where -each of the members has a discourse once in the session.... -Near a third part of our students are Irish. Thirty came over -lately in one ship, besides three that went to Edinburgh. We -have a good many English, and some foreigners. Many of the -Irish, as well as Scotch, are poor, and come up late to save -money; so that we are not yet fully convened, although I have -been teaching ever since the 10th of October. Those who pretend -to know, say that the number of students this year, when fully -convened, will amount to 300.... By this time I am sure you -have enough of the College; for you know as much as I can -tell you of the fine houses of the Masters, of the Astronomical -Observatory, of Robin Foulis’ collection of pictures and painting -college, and of the foundry for types and printing-house. -Therefore I will carry you home to my own house, which lyes -among the middle of the weavers, like the back-wynd in Aberdeen. -You go through a long, dark, abominably nasty entry, -which leads you into a clean little close. You walk upstairs -to a neat little dining-room, and find as many other little rooms -as just accommodate my family; so scantily that my apartment -is a closet of six feet by eight or nine off the dining-room. -To balance these little inconveniences, the house is new and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> -free of buggs; it has the best air and finest prospect in Glasgow; -the privilege of a large garden, very airy, to walk in, -which is not so nicely kept, but one may use freedom with it. -A five minutes’ walk leads us up a rocky precipice into a large -park, partly planted with firs, and partly open, which overlooks -the town and all the country round, and gives a view of the -windings of the Clyde for a great way. The ancient Cathedral -stands at the foot of the rock, half of its height below you, and -half above you; and indeed it is a very magnificent pile. -When we came here, the street we live in (which is called the -Drygate) was infested with the small-pox, which were very -mortal. Two families in our neighbourhood lost all their -children, being three each. Little David was seized with the -infection, and had a very great eruption both on his face and -over his whole body, which you will believe would discompose -his mother.... Although my salary here be the same as -Aberdeen, yet if the class does not fall off, nor my health, so -as to disable me from teaching, I believe I shall be able to live -as easily as at Aberdeen, notwithstanding the differences in -the expense of living at the two places. I have touched about -£70 of fees, and may possibly make out the £100 this session.... -The common people here have a gloom in their countenance, -which I am at a loss whether to ascribe to their religion or to -the air and climate. There is certainly more of religion among -the common people in this town than in Aberdeen; and -although it has a gloomy enthusiastical cast, yet I think it -makes them tame and sober. I have not heard either of a -house or of a head broke, or of a pocket picked, or of any -flagrant crime, since I came here. I have not heard any -swearing in the streets, nor seen a man drunk (excepting, -<i lang="la">inter nos</i>, one Prof—r) since I came here.... If this scroll -tire you, impute it to this, that to-morrow is to be employed -in choosing a Rector, and I can sleep till ten o’clock, which I -shall not do again for six weeks.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>After the first winter, and when he had gained some experience -of Glasgow, he writes to Dr. David Skene, on 13th -July 1765:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘I have a strong inclination to attend the chymical lecture -the next winter; but am afraid I shall not have time. I have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> -had but very imperfect hints of Dr. Black’s theory of fire.... -Chemistry seems to be the only branch of philosophy that can -be said to be in a progressive state here, although other -branches are neither ill taught nor ill studied. I never considered -Dolland’s telescopes till I came here. I think they -open a new field in optics which may greatly enrich that part -of philosophy.... I find a variety of things here to amuse me -in the literary world, and want nothing so much as my old -friends, whose place I cannot expect at my time of life to -supply. I think the common people here and in the neighbourhood -greatly inferior to the common people with you. -They are Bœotian in their understandings, fanatical in their -religion, and clownish in their dress and manners. The clergy -encourage this fanaticism too much, and find it the only way -to popularity. I often hear a gospel here which you know -nothing about; for you neither hear it from the pulpit nor will -you find it in the Bible. What is your Philosophical Society -doing? Still battling about D. Hume? or have you time to -look in?... I believe you do not like to be charged with -compliments, otherwise I would desire of you to remember me -respectfully to Sir Archibald Grant, Sir Arthur and Lady -Forbes, and others of my country acquaintances, when you -have occasion to see them.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>In another letter to Dr. David, written about Christmas -in his second winter, we find that—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘Mr. Watt has made two small improvements in the steam-engine.<a name="FNanchor_13" id="FNanchor_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> -[These are minutely described.] ... I have attended -Dr. Black’s lectures. His doctrine of latent heat is the only -thing I have yet heard that is altogether new. And indeed I -look upon it as a very great discovery.... I have not met -with any botanists here. Our College is considerably more -crowded than it was last session. My class indeed is much the -same as last year, but all the rest are better. I believe the -number of our students of one kind or another may be between -four and five hundred. But the College at Edinburgh is increased -this year much more than we are. The Moral Philosophy -class there is more than double ours. The Professor,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> -Ferguson, is indeed, as far as I can judge, a man of a noble -spirit, of very elegant manners, and has an uncommon flow of -eloquence. I hear he is about to publish, I don’t know under -what title, a natural history of man; exhibiting a view of him -in the savage state, and in the several successive states of -pasturage, agriculture, and commerce. Our Society [Senate] -is not so harmonious as I wish. Schemes of interest, pushed -by some and opposed by others, are like to divide us into -parties, and perhaps engage us in law suits. Mrs. Reid, -Pegie, and I, have all had a severe cold and cough. I have -been keeping the house these two days in order to get the -better of it.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>On ‘December 30th, 1765,’ a less sanguine view appears, -in a letter to Andrew Skene:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘I assure you I can rarely find an hour which I am at liberty -to dispose of as I please. The most disagreeable thing in the -teaching part is to have a great number of stupid Irish -teagues, who attend classes for two or three years to qualify -them for teaching schools or being dissenting teachers. I -preach to them as St. Francis did to the fishes. I don’t know -what pleasure he had in his audience; but I should have none -in mine, if there were not in it a mixture of reasonable creatures. -I confess I think there is a smaller proportion of these in my -class this year than there was the last. I have long been of -the opinion that, in a right constituted College, there ought to -be two professors for each class—one for the dunces, and -another for those who have parts. The province of the former -would not be the most agreeable, but perhaps it would require -the greatest talents, and therefore ought to be accounted the -post of honour. There is no part of my time more disagreeably -spent than that which is spent in college meetings; and I -should have been attending one at this moment if a bad cold I -have got had not furnished me with an excuse. These meetings -are become more disagreeable by an evil spirit of party that -seems to put us in a ferment, and I am afraid will produce bad -consequences. The temper of our northern Colonies makes -mercantile people here look very grave. It is said that the -effects in these colonies belonging to this town amount to above<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> -£400,000.<a name="FNanchor_14" id="FNanchor_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> The mercantile people are for suspending the -Stamp-act, and redressing the grievances of the colonists.... -In what light the House of Commons will view this matter I -don’t know, but it seems to me one of the most important -matters that have come before them. I wish often an evening -with you, such as we have enjoyed in the days of former times, -to settle the important affairs of Church and State, of Colleges -and Corporations. I have found this the best expedient to -think of them without melancholy and chagrin. And I think -all that a man has to do in the world is to keep his temper and -to do his duty. Mrs. Reid is tolerably well just now, but is -often ailing.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>In a letter to Dr. David, in March 1766, he refers to the -death of his early friend, John Stewart, the Mathematical -Professor in Marischal College, and his companion in the -English tour thirty years before:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘Mr. Stewart’s death affects me deeply. A sincere friendship, -begun at twelve years of age, and continued to my time of -life, without any interruption, cannot but give some pangs. -You know his worth; yet it was shaded ever since you knew -him by too great abstraction from the world. The former part -of his life was more amiable and more social; but the whole -was of a piece in virtue, candour, and humanity.... I have -always regarded him as my best tutor, though of the same age -with me. If the giddy part of my life was in any degree spent -innocently and virtuously, I owe it to him more than to any -human creature; for I could not but be virtuous in his company, -and I could not be so happy in any other. But I must leave -this pleasing melancholy subject. He is happy; and I shall -often be happy in the remembrance of our friendship; and I -hope we shall meet again.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>A minute account of Black’s theory of latent heat follows.</p> - -<p>Later in the same year, Black was called to the Chair of -Chemistry in Edinburgh, which he filled for nearly thirty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> -years, and in Reid’s letters to the Skenes there is much -about candidates for the vacant office in Glasgow, with a -suggestion that David Skene should himself enter the lists. -‘There is a great spirit of inquiry among the young people -here. Literary merit is much regarded; and I conceive -the opportunities a man has of improving himself are much -greater here than at Aberdeen. The communication with -Edinburgh is easy. One goes in the stage coach to Edinburgh -before dinner; has all the afternoon there, and returns to -dinner at Glasgow next day; so that if you have any ambition -to get into the College of Edinburgh (which I think you -ought to have), I conceive Glasgow would be a good step.’</p> - -<p>The appeal was ineffectual. Meantime his own appointment, -as an ‘examinator’ of candidates for the vacant Mathematical -Chair in Marischal College, made a visit to Aberdeen -necessary, as anticipated in a letter on ‘May 8th’:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘My class will be over in less than a month, and by that time -I shall be glad to have some respite. I hope to have the -pleasure of seeing my friends in Aberdeen in August, if not -sooner. We have had a stronger College this year than ever -before. We have been remarkably free from riots and disorders -among the students; and I did not indeed expect that 350 -young fellows could have keen kept quiet for so many months -with so little trouble.... You’ll say to all this that cadgers -are aye speaking of crooksaddles. I think so they ought; -besides, I have nothing else to say to you, and have had no -time to think of anything but my crooksaddles for seven months -past. When the session’s over, I must rub up my mathematics -against the month of August. There is one candidate for your -profession of mathematics to go from this College; and if your -College get a better man, or a better mathematician, they will -be very lucky.<a name="FNanchor_15" id="FNanchor_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> I am so sensible of the honour the Magistrates<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> -have done me in naming me to be one of the examinators, that -I will not decline it, though I confess I like the honour better -than the office.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>In the autumn of 1766 Reid exchanged the house in the -Drygate for an official residence in the Professors’ Court -of the Old College. This appears in a letter to Dr. -Andrew Skene on December 17th:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘I live now in the College, and have no distance to walk to -my class in dark mornings, as I had before. I enjoy this ease, -though I am not sure whether the necessity of walking up and -down a steep hill<a name="FNanchor_16" id="FNanchor_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> three or four times a day was not of use. I -have of late had a little of your distemper, finding a giddiness -in my head when I lie down, or rise, or turn myself in my bed. -Our College is very well peopled this session. My public class -is above three score, besides the private class. Dr. Smith -never had so many in one year. There is nothing so uneasy -to me here as our factions in the College.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>In February 1767, along with other local news, we find -this in a letter to David Skene:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘We are now resolved to have a canal from Carron to this -place, if the Parliament allows it. £40,000 was subscribed last -week by the merchants of the Carron Company for this purpose.<a name="FNanchor_17" id="FNanchor_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> -Our medical college has fallen off greatly this session, most of -the students of medicine having followed Dr. Black to Edinburgh. -The natural and moral philosophy classes are more -numerous than they have ever been; but I expect a great -falling off, if I see another session. I was just now seeing your -furnace along with Dr. Irvine.... If I could find a machine -as proper for analysing ideas, moral sentiments, and other -materials belonging to the fourth kingdom, I believe I should -find in my heart to bestow the money first. I have the more -use for a machine of this kind, because my alembic for performing -these operations—I mean my cranium—has been a -little out of order this winter, by a vertigo, which has made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> -my studies go on heavily, though it has not hitherto interrupted -my teaching. I have found air and exercise and a clean -stomach the best remedies; but I cannot command the two -former as often as I could wish. I am sensible that the air of -a crowded class is bad, and often thought of carrying my class -to the Common Hall; but I was afraid it might have been construed -as a piece of ostentation.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>Reid’s letter of condolence to Dr. David Skene on the -death of his father, in September 1767, mentions the loss -of his own infant daughter, ‘my sweet little Bess,’ and also -refers to an excursion to Hamilton ‘with Mr. Beattie’—the -only occasion on which, for more than three months, he -had been more than three miles from Glasgow. ‘Having -time at command,’ he had been tempted ‘to fall to the -tumbling over books; as we have a vast number here -which I had not access to see at Aberdeen. But this is -a <i lang="la">mare magnum</i>, wherein one is tempted by hopes of discoveries -to make a tedious voyage, which seldom repays -the labour. I have long ago found my memory to be -like a vessel that is full: if you pour in more, you lose -as much as you gain; and on this account I have a thousand -times resolved to give up all pretence to what is called -learning, being satisfied that it is more profitable to ruminate -on the little I have laid up than to add to the indigested -heap. I have had little society, the College people being -out of town, and have almost lost the faculty of speaking by -disuse. I blame myself for having corresponded so little -with my friends at Aberdeen. I wished to try Lumsden’s -experiment which you was so good as to communicate to -me.... A nasty custom I have of chewing tobacco has -been the reason of my observing a species of as nasty little -animals. I spit in a basin of sawdust, which, when it comes -to be drenched, produces a vast number of animals, three<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> -or four times as large as a louse, and not very different in -shape; but armed with four or five rows of prickles like -a hedgehog, which seem to serve it as feet. Its motion -is very sluggish. It lies drenched in the aforesaid mass, -which swarms with these animals of all ages from top to -bottom.... I have gone over Sir James Stewart’s great -book of political economy, wherein I think there is a great -deal of good material—carelessly put together indeed; but -I think it contains more sound principles concerning commerce -and police than any book we have yet had. We had -the favour of a visit from Sir Archibald Grant. It gave -me much pleasure to see him retain his spirits and vigour.’ -A letter in October mentions that Reid had ‘passed eight -days lately with Lord Kames at Blair-Drummond,’ and that -his lordship is preparing a fourth edition of his <cite>Elements</cite>. -He adds, ‘I have been labouring at <cite>Barbara Celarent</cite> for -three weeks bygone.’ A new friend, Lord Kames, here -comes in sight.</p> - -<p>The last of the Skene letters is dated three years later, -in 1770. After pressing David Skene to visit him in -Glasgow, he ends thus:—‘As to myself, the immaterial -world has swallowed up all my thoughts since I came here; -but I meet with few that have travelled far in that region, -and am often left to pursue my dreary way in a more -solitary manner than when we used to meet at the Club.’</p> - -<p>The homely simplicity of Reid’s character is shown in -those letters. They differ from the letters we have after -the Skenes disappear. These are almost all on questions -in philosophy, and show a slow but steady advance -in reflection upon the ‘common sense’ constitution of -man’s knowledge of the universe of matter and mind.</p> - -<p>In 1772 there was sorrow in the Reid household. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> -two eldest daughters, Jane and Margaret, both died, in the -bloom of youth, leaving only the third daughter, Martha, -who not long after married Dr. Patrick Carmichael, a -Glasgow physician, and youngest son of Professor Gershom -Carmichael. This marriage added much to the comfort of -Reid’s later years.</p> - -<p>We have a passing glimpse of Reid in 1773, when he -was entertained in Glasgow by Johnson and Boswell, at the -<i>Saracen’s Head Inn</i>, in the Gallowgate, ‘that paragon of -inns in the eyes of the Scotch, but wretchedly managed.’ -The travellers arrived there on the 28th of October, on -their return from their romantic excursion to the Western -Highlands. At the <i>Saracen’s Head</i>, on the following -morning, as Boswell tells us, ‘Dr. Reid, the philosopher, -and two other Glasgow professors, breakfasted with us,’ -and they met them afterwards at supper. ‘I was not -much pleased with any of them,’ the sage wrote to Mrs. -Thrale. ‘The general impression upon my memory,’ -Boswell says, ‘is, that we had not much conversation at -Glasgow, where the professors, like their brethren at Aberdeen, -did not venture to expose themselves much to the -battery of cannon which they knew might play upon them.’ -It is a pity that Boswell’s indifference, or indolence, on -this occasion has deprived us of talk at the <i>Saracen’s Head</i> -and in the College Court, as dramatic in its way as the -pictures of Rasay or Inch Kenneth. Notwithstanding -Reid’s cautious and modest silence, or want of vivacity, -he surely said and heard something at those Glasgow -breakfasts and suppers.</p> - -<p class="tb">Before death had put an end to the letters to the Skenes, -Reid had become intimate with one of the most notable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> -men of the time in Scotland. I do not know how the -intimacy began, but as early as 1767 we have found him -referring to a visit to Lord Kames at Blair-Drummond, and -to the mysteries of <cite>Barbara Celarent</cite>. This means that he -was at work on the <cite>Brief Account of Aristotle’s Logic, with -Remarks</cite>, published seven years afterwards as an Appendix -to one of Lord Kames’ <cite>Sketches of the History of Man</cite>. -The <cite>Sketches</cite> appeared in two quarto volumes, in 1774, -and the <cite>Brief Account</cite> fills about seventy pages in the -second volume. It was Reid’s only appearance in print -in the sixteen years of his public professorship in Glasgow. -This, along with the essay on Quantity, given to the Royal -Society in 1748, and the <cite>Inquiry</cite>, in 1764, made up his -work as an author, until after he had ceased to be an oral -teacher.</p> - -<p>In Henry Home, Lord Kames, notwithstanding a temperament -very different from his own, Reid found congenial -companionship—a strong disposition to metaphysical speculation, -a ready and accomplished if not deeply learned -lawyer, and a considerable author. Kames was fourteen -years his senior. Curiously, Henry Home’s closest early -friendship was with David Hume. Thirty years before his -friendship with Reid, he advised Hume about the <cite>Treatise -of Human Nature</cite>, and had given the youth an introduction -to Bishop Butler. ‘My opinions,’ David writes in 1737, -‘are so new, and even some terms I am obliged to make -use of, that I could not propose, by any abridgment, to -give my system an air of likelihood, or even to make it -intelligible. I have had a greater desire of communicating -to you a plan of the whole, that I believe it will not appear -in public before the beginning of next winter. I am at -present castrating my work, that is, cutting off its nobler<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> -parts, that is, endeavouring it shall give as little offence as -possible. This is a piece of cowardice for which I blame -myself. But I resolved not to be an enthusiast in philosophy -while I was blaming other enthusiasms.’ It was thus -that Hume wrote about the book which, even in its ‘castrated’ -form, startled Reid in the manse at New Machar, -and determined his whole intellectual life. In 1751 Home -published <cite>Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural -Religion</cite>, on which Jonathan Edwards congratulated him -in a letter to Dr. Erskine. Yet his speculations, and his -association with the sceptic, raised a suspicion of his orthodoxy -in the General Assembly.</p> - -<p>According to Lord Woodhouselee, his biographer, ‘the -intercourse of Lord Kames was frequent with his much-valued -friend Dr. Reid, and they corresponded on various -topics of philosophy—a correspondence which, notwithstanding -the dissimilarity of character in many respects -between these two eminent men, subsisted for a long period -of years, with the most perfect cordiality and mutual esteem.’ -Dr. Reid, Dugald Stewart tells us, lived in the most cordial -and affectionate friendship with Lord Kames, notwithstanding -the avowed opposition of their sentiments on -some moral questions to which he attached the highest -importance. Both of them, however, were the friends of -virtue and of mankind; and both were able to temper the -warmth of free discussion with the forbearance and good -humour founded on mutual esteem. ‘No two men,’ -Stewart adds, ‘ever exhibited a more striking contrast in -their conversation or in their constitutional tempers—the -one slow and cautious in his decisions, even on those topics -which he had most diligently studied; reserved and silent -in promiscuous society, and retaining, after all his literary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> -eminence, the same simple and unassuming manners which -he had brought from his country residence; the other, lively, -rapid, and communicative; accustomed by his professional -pursuits to wield with address the weapons of controversy, -and not averse to a trial of his powers on questions the -most foreign to his ordinary habits of inquiry. But these -characteristical differences, while to their common friends -they lent an additional charm to the distinguishing merits -of each, served only to enliven their social intercourse, and -to cement their mutual attachment.’ From 1767 till the -death of Lord Kames in December 1782, their intercourse -was unbroken.<a name="FNanchor_18" id="FNanchor_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p> - -<p>Lord Kames thus explains Reid’s contribution to the -<cite>Sketches</cite>:—‘In reviewing the foregoing Sketch, it occurred -to me that a fair analysis of Aristotle’s logic would be a -valuable addition to the historical branch. A distinct -and candid account of a system that for so many ages -governed the reasoning part of mankind cannot but be -acceptable to the public. Curiosity will be gratified in -seeing a phantom delineated that so long fascinated the -learned world; a phantom which, like the pyramids of Egypt, -or hanging gardens of Babylon, is a structure of infinite -genius, but absolutely useless, unless for raising wonder. -Dr. Reid, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the College of -Glasgow, relished the thought, and his friendship to me -prevailed on him, after much solicitation, to undertake the -laborious task. No man is better acquainted with Aristotle’s -writings; and (without any enthusiastic attachment) he -holds that philosopher to be a first-rate genius.’</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span></p> - -<p>Measured by the present standard of Aristotelian criticism, -Reid’s exposition of the Organon, and estimate of its -place in the development of human understanding, may -seem meagre and inadequate; especially as the issue of -seven years of preparation, and as his solitary contribution -to philosophy in these sixteen years. But when we remember -that Aristotelian logic was then under an eclipse, -especially in Scotland, and that Reid’s ‘Brief Account’ was -an attempt to draw the Organon out of the obscurity to -which it had been condemned by leaders of modern thought, -the merit of his sober and sagacious commentary may be -more recognised. It is as a signal monument of abstracted -intellectual activity, rather than as a philosophical instrument -for advancing or organising our knowledge, that -Reid regards the syllogistic logic. He concludes that the -art of syllogism is better fitted to promote scholastic litigation -than real improvement in the sciences; he sees in it -only ‘a venerable piece of antiquity and a great effort of -human genius.’ When he contrasts the utility of Bacon’s -<cite>Organum</cite>, as a factor in the progressive intelligence of -mankind, he fails to see that each Organon may consistently -supplement the other.</p> - -<p>Reid characteristically ends his account of the old -Organon by suggesting an Organon, different from either the -old or the new, as still wanting. This should neither, like -Aristotle’s, unfold only abstract forms of deductive reasoning, -nor, like Bacon’s, only methods for verifying inductive -generalisations. It should be concerned with the rational -principles which compose the Common Sense of mankind. -‘All the real knowledge of mankind may be divided into -two parts: the first consists of self-evident propositions, the -second of those which are deduced by just reasoning from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> -self-evident propositions. The line that divides these two -ought to be marked as distinctly as possible, and principles -that are really self-evident reduced to general axioms. -Although first principles do not admit of direct proof, yet -there must be certain marks by which those that are truly -such may be distinguished from counterfeits. These marks -ought to be described and applied to distinguish the -genuine from the spurious.... This is a subject of such -importance that if inquisitive men can be brought to the -same unanimity in the first principles of the other sciences -as in those of mathematics and natural philosophy, this -might be considered as a third grand era in the progress of -human reason.’ Thus in 1774 Reid’s thought still converges -on the subject which had engaged him since the -<cite>Treatise of Human Nature</cite> found its way into the manse -of New Machar. Perhaps he was unduly sanguine in -expecting unanimity regarding the ingredients of the final -reason of mankind—so imperfectly developed in the individual -consciousness, in its higher elements, as long as -men are disposed to resist the final venture of the heart -and conscience in their interpretation of the world and -of human life.</p> - -<p>It was in 1774 that Reid’s appeal in 1764 to the common -reason of human nature aroused hostile criticism. He had -been seconded by others in his response to the sceptics. -The resort to a ‘sense’ of self-evident truth, in his <cite>Inquiry</cite> -in 1764, which itself looked like a reply to argument by -feeling, was followed in 1766 by <cite>An Appeal to Common -Sense on behalf of Religion</cite>, by Dr. James Oswald, minister -of Methven in Perthshire. In 1770 Beattie’s <cite>Essay on the -Nature and Immutability of Truth, in opposition to Sophistry -and Scepticism</cite>, followed. Oswald and Beattie were not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> -deep and patient thinkers like Reid;<a name="FNanchor_19" id="FNanchor_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> but the rising literary -and social reputation of Beattie, secured for the <cite>Essay on -Truth</cite> more rapid and widespread admiration than was given -to the <cite>Inquiry</cite>. Beattie often visited London, was there -one of the lions of the day, was made a D.C.L. of Oxford, -and had interviews with George the Third, who admired his -book, conferred a pension on Beattie, and rallied Mr. -Dundas about ‘Scotch Philosophy.’ Reid, Beattie, and -Oswald thus became known as a triumvirate of ‘Scottish -Philosophers’; and the appeal to common sense, in which -they were at least verbally agreed, began to be spoken about -as ‘the Scottish Philosophy,’ a term which has since been -adopted in this country and abroad.</p> - -<p>This Scottish triumvirate, helped into vogue by Beattie, -roused Joseph Priestley, an English dissenter. Priestley had -abandoned the Calvinism of his early creed for materialism, -philosophical necessity, and free thought, and, after serving -for some years as pastor of a nonconformist chapel in -Cheshire, and next as a schoolmaster much devoted to -experiments in the natural sciences, was already known as -an author in natural science. In 1774, when he was living -with Lord Shelburne, as librarian and literary companion, -he appeared for the first time as a metaphysical critic, in <cite>An -Examination of Reid’s Inquiry, Beattie’s Essay, and Oswald’s -Appeal to Common Sense</cite>. He played upon the term ‘common -sense,’ and took for granted that the aim of the -triumvirate was to substitute mere feeling and authority for -reason,—the authority of the multitude for that of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> -philosophical elect,—alleging blind instinct when unable to -produce argument, and multiplying instincts to suit each -controversial emergency. ‘As men have imagined innate -ideas, because they had forgot how they came by their -ideas, the Scottish philosophers set up almost as many distinct -instincts as there are acquired principles of acting.’ -He ridiculed Reid for his supposed discovery of the root of -scepticism in the ideal hypothesis; charging him with innocently -mistaking a metaphor for a scientific theory, and for -overlooking the leading part which mental association plays, -as the cause of those convictions which Reid mistook for -infallible constituents of common sense. ‘If we consider -the general tenor of the writings of these philosophers,’ -Dr. Priestley said, ‘it will appear that they are saying one -thing and doing another—talking plausibly about the necessity -for admitting axioms as the foundation of all reasoning, -but meaning to recommend particular assumptions of their -own as axioms—not as being founded on perception of the -agreement of ideas, which is the great doctrine of Mr. Locke, -and which makes truth to depend upon the necessary nature -of things, to be therefore absolute, unchangeable, and everlasting, -but merely on some unaccountable instinctive persuasions, -depending upon the arbitrary constitution of our -nature—which makes all truth be relative to ourselves only, -and consequently to be infinitely vague and precarious. -This system admits of no final appeal to reason properly -considered, which any person might be at liberty to examine -and discuss; on the contrary every man is taught to think -himself authorised to pronounce dogmatically upon every -question, according to his present feeling and persuasion, -under the notion of its being something original, instructive, -and incontrovertible; although, stoutly analysed, it may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> -appear to be mere prejudice.’ Thus, as opposed to the -man of straw he set up under the name of Reid, Priestley -postulated a materialistic conception of man, as only an -organism, the so-called mental and moral power of which -was the natural issue of physical structure; his perceptions -the effects of their own objects; and on the whole a -necessitated system of the universe, which excluded morally -responsible agency.</p> - -<p>Reid made no reply at the time to this argumentative -discharge. In an unpublished letter to Dr. Price he gives -a reason for his silence. ‘I will not answer Dr. Priestley,’ -he says, ‘because he is very lame in abstract reasoning. I -have got no light from him. And indeed what light with -respect to the powers of the mind can one expect from a -man who has not yet learned to distinguish ideas from -vibrations, nor motion from sensation, nor simple apprehension -from judgment, nor simple ideas from complex ideas, -nor necessary truths from contingent truths?’<a name="FNanchor_20" id="FNanchor_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> In 1775 -Reid writes to Lord Kames:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘Dr. Priestley in his last book thinks that the power of perception, -as much as the other powers that are termed mental, -is the natural result of an organic structure such as that of the -human brain. Consequently, the whole man becomes extinct -at death; and we have no hope of surviving the grave but what -is derived from the Christian revelation. I would be glad to -know your lordship’s opinion, whether, when my brain has lost -its original structure, and when some hundred years after, the -same materials are again fabricated so curiously as to become -an intelligent being—whether, I say, that being will be <em>me</em>; or -if two or three such beings should be formed out of my brain, -whether they will all be <em>me</em>, and consequently be all one and -the same intelligent being. This seems to me a great mystery; -but Dr. Priestley denies all mysteries.... I am not surprised<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> -that your lordship has found little entertainment in a late -French writer on human nature. From what I learn the -French philosophers are become rank Epicureans. I detest -all systems that depreciate human nature. If it be a delusion -that there is something in the constitution of man that is venerable -and worthy of its author, let me live and die in this -delusion rather than have my eyes opened to see my species -in a disgusting light. Every good man feels his indignation -rise against those who disparage his kindred or country; why -should it not rise against those who disparage his kind? Were -it not that we sometimes see extremes meet, I should think it -very strange to see atheists and high-shod divines contending -who should most blacken and degenerate human nature. Yet -I think the atheist acts the most consistent part of the two; -for surely such views of human nature tend more to promote -atheism than to promote religion and virtue.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>This allusion to contemporary French philosophers is -almost the only one I find in Reid. The chief works of -Condillac appeared before the <cite>Inquiry</cite>, but it does not -seem that they, or Diderot and the French Encyclopedists, -were known to him. That Kant is not referred to, nor -even known by name, is less surprising. This ignorance is -characteristic of Reid’s home-bred, self-contained philosophy.</p> - -<p>Inquiry into our conception of Power or Causation becomes -prominent in Reid’s letters to Lord Kames throughout -‘the seventies,’ along with experimental investigations -in physics and physiology which show continued interest -in natural causes. A letter, written in 1775, contains a -curious conjecture with regard to the generation of plants -and animals, more speculative than was his habit. He is -‘apt to conjecture,’ he tells his friend, ‘that both plants -and animals are at first organised atoms, having all the -parts of the animal or plant, but so slender, and folded up -in such a manner, as to be reduced to a particle far beyond<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> -the reach of our senses, and perhaps as small as the constituent -parts of water. The earth, the water, and the air -may, for anything I know, be full of such organised atoms.’ -He then goes on to consider the relation of this hypothesis -to the idea of active design in nature, and expresses doubt -about the possibility of the atoms being endowed with power -to form themselves into an organised body like the human. -‘I cannot help thinking that such a work as the Iliad, and -much more an animal or vegetable body, must have been -made by express design. It seems to me as easy to contrive -a machine which should compose a variety of epic -poems and tragedies, as to contrive laws of motion by which -unthinking particles of matter should coalesce into a variety -of organised bodies.’ He suggests that the organisation is -the issue of constant and uniform divine activity. ‘Can -we,’ he asks, ‘show by any good reason that the Almighty -finished his work at a stroke, and has continued ever since -an inactive spectator? And if His continued operation be -necessary, it is no miracle, while it is uniform, and according -to fixed laws. Though we should suppose the gravitation -of matter to be the immediate operation of the Deity, it -would be no miracle while it is constant and uniform; but -if it should cease for a moment, only by His withholding -His hand, <em>this</em> would be a miracle.’ This is to say that all -natural changes are immediate effects of divine action, -proceeding according to natural law or rule.</p> - -<p>The suggestion illustrates the bent of Reid’s thought in -later life. If our common sense of the continuous independent -existence of sensible things, and of their manifestation -in Perception as directly as states of our own -minds are manifested to us when we are conscious of -them—if <em>this</em> was the factor of the Common Sense that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> -engaged him in New Machar and King’s College days, the -Power or Causality which all changes in the universe presuppose -now becomes prominent, alike in his correspondence -and in his books. What is meant by Power, and where is -the Power centred that is implied in the changes that are -always going on, in ourselves and in our surroundings? -Priestley’s assumption that matter explains all the phenomena -of a human mind; the theory of universal necessity -advocated by Kames; and the duties of his Glasgow professorship, -all tended to carry his reflections onward from the -merely physical to the ethical judgments of the common -sense, and so upward from the merely natural to the spiritual -interpretation of the universe. ‘First that which is natural, -then that which is spiritual.’</p> - -<p>This runs through his correspondence with Lord Kames. -That there is no absolute necessity for men being bad; -that their immoral acts are centred and originate in -themselves and not in God; that it would be unjust -to exact as a duty what it is not in a person’s power to -do; that what a man does voluntarily or with deliberate -intention, it is also in his power not to do; that what -is done without his will is not really done by <em>him</em> at all; -and that real power is moral agency,—these are ultimate -judgments, reached ‘not by logical reasoning,’ but in ‘the -more trustworthy way of immediate perception and feeling,’ -to which Reid so often appeals. ‘If I could suppose God -to make a devil a devil, I cannot suppose that He would -condemn him for being a devil,’ is in a letter to Lord Kames.<a name="FNanchor_21" id="FNanchor_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> -The impotence of matter rather than its independence -is now insisted on; with the inference that at any rate -<em>it</em> cannot cause our perceptions, as Priestley supposed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> -He begins to see that power must be referred to mind -or spirit alone, and that matter is powerless. ‘Efficient -causes are not within the sphere of natural philosophy, -which is concerned only with the laws or methods according -to which Power operates. It exhibits the grand -machine of the material world, analysed, as it were, and -taken to pieces. It belongs to metaphysics and natural -theology to show the Power that continues and gives -motion to the whole; according to laws which the -naturalist discovers, and perhaps according to laws still -more general.’</p> - -<p class="tb">It was thus that Reid’s uneventful life of thought—deep, -steady, unobtrusive—was sustained for sixteen years, when -he was educating the rising generation in the old class-room -at the College; unfolding philosophy in correspondence -with a sympathetic friend; contributing essays to the -Literary Society which met monthly at the College; and -preparing his ‘Brief Account’ of Aristotle—all until he -had reached his seventieth year. On the 19th of May -1780 he wrote to Lord Kames of a change that had -occurred the day before:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘I find myself growing old; and I have no right lo plead -exemption from the infirmities of that stage of life. For that -reason I have made choice of an Assistant in my office. -Yesterday the College at my desire made choice of Mr. -Archibald Arthur, preacher, to be my assistant and successor. -I think I have done good service to the College by this, and -procured some leisure to myself, though with reduction of my -finances.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>It was Reid’s desire, while his faculties were yet vigorous, -to devote his strength to further philosophical authorship. -During the remaining sixteen years of his life his lectures<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> -were delivered to the students by Mr. Arthur, to whom -the professorial work in the class-room was transferred. -Arthur, then thirty-six years of age, was a native of Renfrewshire, -a distinguished alumnus of Glasgow, as it seems from -a posthumous volume of his Essays, and a man not unlike -Reid in mind and character, but in inferior form; at this -time chaplain and librarian of the University, and a -member of the Literary Society. After one of Arthur’s -Sunday services in the College chapel, Reid had whispered -to one of his colleagues on the professorial bench—‘This -is a very sensible fellow, and in my opinion would make -a good professor of morals.’<a name="FNanchor_22" id="FNanchor_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> He is described by a contemporary -as ‘a man of unprepossessing exterior, of -invincible bashfulness, which continued to clog his manner -and impede his exertions during the whole course of his -life; but of a thoughtful, grave, silent habit, which led -him to a due estimate of what he was individually adapted -to.’ He survived Reid, as his successor, a little more than -a year, when he was followed in the Chair by James Mylne, -a strong man unknown in philosophical literature, whose -professorial career of forty years made him a familiar figure -to generations of Glasgow students.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII<br /> -<span class="smaller">PHILOSOPHICAL RETIREMENT: AUTHORSHIP IN OLD AGE<br />1780-1795</span></h2> - -<p>Dugald Stewart, when illustrating the changes in human -memory that are connected with disease and old age, refers -thus to Reid:—‘One old man I have myself had the good -fortune to know, who, after a long, an active, and an -honourable life, having begun to feel some of the usual -effects of advanced years, has been able to find resources -in his own sagacity against most of the inconveniences with -which they are commonly attended; and who, by watching -his gradual decline with the courage of an indifferent -observer, and employing his ingenuity to retard its progress, -has converted even the infirmities of old age into a source -of philosophical amusement.’ For sixteen years Reid had -been discharging that part of the duties of a professor -which belongs to the class-room: the remaining sixteen -years of his life, devoted to original research and authorship, -illustrate the words of Stewart. He continued, after the -appointment of Arthur, to live as before in the Professors’ -Court in old Glasgow College—a placid, methodical life, -steadily industrious, a sagacious interpreter of nature and -of man, still active in the academic senate—with occasional -recreation in visits to the country. The year 1780 was -saddened by another of those domestic sorrows which -formed the chief interruption to the tranquil happiness of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> -his life; for his eldest son, George, died in Newfoundland -in February, at the age of twenty-five. Two years later -the only remaining son, David, was taken away; after -which his daughter, Mrs. Carmichael, alone survived of -the nine sons and daughters.</p> - -<p>Very soon after he had been released from the public -work of the professorship, letters to his cousin, Dr. James -Gregory, then an Edinburgh Professor of Medicine, speak -of activity in transforming the lectures into the form of -philosophical essays for publication. This enterprise was -indeed Reid’s principal employment for the next eight -years. The <cite>Essays</cite> appeared in two instalments, in 1785 -and 1788. The first instalment was a matter-of-fact inquiry -into the intellectual power of man; the second was a -matter-of-fact inquiry into man’s moral power: the ‘facts’ -inquired about and appealed to were the invisible ones -of which men are conscious, not those that can be seen -and touched—above all, the final convictions of which -the Common Sense consists. Both instalments appeared -in the same decade of last century in which Kant’s -‘<cite>Kritiks</cite>’ of Pure and Practical Reason were given to -the world.</p> - -<p>Reid’s <cite>Essays</cite> form, as it were, the inner court of the -temple of which the Aberdonian <cite>Inquiry</cite> is the vestibule. -But the vestibule is a more finished work of constructive -skill than the inner court, for the aged architect appears -at last as if embarrassed by accumulated material. The -<cite>Essays</cite>, greater in bulk, perhaps less deserve a place -among modern philosophical classics than the <cite>Inquiry</cite>, -notwithstanding its narrower scope, confined as it is to -man’s perception of the extended world, as an object-lesson -in the method of appeal to the common sense. In<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> -the <cite>Essays</cite> an advance is made towards a finally ethical -interpretation of man and the universe.</p> - -<p>We have no longer the light of letters to Lord Kames -in this closing stage of Reid’s life; for Kames died in 1782. -Reid’s retiring modesty deprived him of that large literary -intercourse to which his philosophical position might otherwise -have led. His correspondence with men eminent -in letters or philosophy seems almost confined to Kames, -the Gregories, Dugald Stewart, and Dr. Price. I find no -trace of correspondence with his Aberdeen friends Campbell -and Beattie, whose pursuits had so much in common -with his own. But letters to Dr. James Gregory take the -place in the ‘eighties’ which those to Lord Kames took -in the ‘seventies’; they reveal an old age given to proof-sheets, -scientific experiments, and benignant interest in -social progress. One dated ‘Glasgow College, April 7, -1783,’ tells of the <cite>Essays on the Intellectual Powers</cite> -in the press:—‘I shall be much obliged if you will -continue to favour me with your observations; therefore I -have put off examining those you have sent until the -manuscripts be returned, which I expect about the end of -this month, along with Dugald Stewart’s observations.’ -Again he writes in June:—‘I cannot get more copied of -my papers till next winter, and indeed have not much more -ready. This parcel goes to page 658. I believe what you -have got before may be one-half of all I intend. The -materials of what is not yet ready for the copier are partly -discourses read in our Literary Society, partly notes of my -lectures. Your judgment of what you have seen flatters -me very much, and adds greatly to my own opinion of it; -though authors seldom are deficient in a good opinion of -their works. I am at a loss to express my obligations to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> -you for the pains you have taken.’ He refers in another -letter to what he regards as the source of the fashionable -agnosticism against which his life was a continued -philosophical protest:—‘I have often thought of what you -propose—to give a History of the Ideal System and what -I have to say against it, <em>by itself</em>; and I am far from being -satisfied that it stands in the most proper place [in the -<cite>Essays</cite>]. I have endeavoured to put it in separate chapters -[<i>e.g.</i> Essay ii. ch. 7-15], whose titles may direct those who have -no taste for it to pass over them. I observe that Bayle -and others, who at the reformation of Natural Philosophy -gave new light, found it necessary to contrast their own -discoveries with the Aristotelian notions which then prevailed. -We may now wish their works purged of this -controversial part; but perhaps it was necessary at the -time they wrote, when men’s minds were full of the old -system, and prepossessed in its favour. What I take to -be the genuine Philosophy of the Human Mind is in so low -a state, and has so many enemies, that I apprehend those -who would make any improvement in it must, for some -time at least, build with one hand, and hold a weapon with -the other.’ So Reid claimed the office of modern reformer -of the philosophy of human mind, as Bacon and others had -been the reformers of the sciences which interpret external -nature.</p> - -<p>On ‘March 14, 1784,’ he mentions the progress of the -book:—‘I send you now the remainder of what I propose -to print with respect to the Intellectual Powers of the Mind. -It may perhaps be a year before what relates to the Active -Powers be ready; and therefore I think the former might -be published by itself, as it is very uncertain whether I -shall live to publish the latter. I think the title may be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> -<cite>Essays on the Intellectual Powers of the Human Mind</cite>. -It will easily divide into eight Essays; but with regard to -this, as well as whether the two parts may be published -separately, I wish to have your advice and Mr. Stewart’s. -I apprehend that the Second Part—I mean what relates -to the Active Powers—will not be near so large as the -First.’ On ‘2nd May 1785’ he announces that the -<cite>Essays on the Intellectual Powers</cite> are ready for publication, -dedicated to Dr. Gregory and to Dugald Stewart:—‘I send -you enclosed what I propose as the title of my <cite>Essays</cite>, -with an Epistle which I hope you and Mr. Stewart will -allow me to prefix to them. Whether your name should -go first, on account of your doctor’s degree, or Mr. Stewart’s, -I leave you to adjust between yourselves. I know not how -to express my obligations to you both, for the aid you have -given me.’</p> - -<p>The book thus ushered into the world in 1785 treats of -those constituents of the common sense that are implied, -not only in perception of things through the five senses -and memory, but also in imagination and in the experimental -sciences that deal with the past, the distant, -and the future. One of them contains the rudiments of -a criticism of the common sense principles that finally -regulate all abstract reasonings, and above all, those that -determine our judgments of truths contingent upon Will—human -and divine; in all of which what philosophers -called ‘ideas’ seemed to him to spoil the genuine common -sense and its inspirations. The fifth Essay deals with the -office and relations of our abstract conceptions. Of this -Essay Schopenhauer remarks that ‘the best and most intelligent -exposition of the nature and essence of conceptions -which I have been able anywhere to find is in Thomas Reid’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> -<cite>Essays on the Powers of the Human Mind</cite>. This was -afterwards condemned by Dugald Stewart in his <cite>Philosophy -of the Human Mind</cite>. Not to waste paper, I will briefly -remark with regard to Stewart, that he belongs to that -large class who have obtained an undeserved reputation -through favour and friends, and therefore I can only -advise that not an hour should be wasted over the scribbling -of this shallow writer.’<a name="FNanchor_23" id="FNanchor_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> This unworthy criticism of -Stewart is far removed from the calm judgment of Reid.</p> - -<p>That our perceptions are not related to their objects as -effects are related to their causes, is insisted on in the -<cite>Essays</cite>, in opposition to Priestley, who treats cognitive -acts as the issue of power which belongs to matter. -‘Men,’ Reid says, ‘have been prone to imagine that, as -bodies are put in motion by some impulse or impression -made upon them by contiguous bodies, so the mind is -made to think and perceive by some impression made upon -it by contiguous objects. But to say that an object which -I see with perfect indifference <em>makes an impression</em> upon -my mind is not good English. It is evident from the -manner in which this phrase is used by modern philosophers -that they mean, not barely to express by it my perceiving -an object, but to explain the manner of perception. They -think that the object perceived acts upon the mind in -some way similar to that in which one body acts upon -another. The impression upon the mind is conceived to -be something wherein the mind is altogether passive. But -this is a hypothesis which contradicts the common sense -of mankind. When I look upon the wall of my room, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> -wall does not act at all, nor is capable of acting: the -perceiving it is an act or operation in me.’ In short, the -relation between perceptions and their objects is a unique -relation, not to be confounded with the causal, the only -causality involved being the percipient power that is in me.</p> - -<p>Those <cite>Essays</cite> of Reid which treat of the constituents of -the common sense that are implied in the Intellect power of -man, appeared in the early summer of 1785. In September -he informed Dr. Gregory of the opinion of Dr. Price, -the most eminent contemporary English metaphysician:—‘I -had a letter from Dr. Price lately, thanking me for a copy -of the <cite>Essays</cite> I ordered to be presented to him; which he -has read, and calls a work of the first value; commends -me particularly for treating Dr. Priestley so gently, who, -he says, had been unhappily led to use me ill.’ He then -refers to his own health, which seems to have suffered from -the mental strain, now relieved by the issue of his book:—‘As -you are so kind as to ask me about my distemper, I -think it is almost quite gone, so as to give me no uneasiness. -I abstain from fruit and malt liquor, and take a -little port wine, mostly noon and night, not above two -bottles a week when alone. The more I walk or ride, or -even talk or read audibly, I am the better.’</p> - -<p>Dr. Beattie writes thus to the Bishop of Chester in -October:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘Has your lordship read Dr. Reid’s <cite>Essays on the Intellectual -Powers of Man</cite>? Those readers who have been conversant in -the modern philosophy of mind, as it appears in the writings -of Descartes, Malebranche, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, will -be much entertained with this work, which does great honour -to the sagacity and patience of the author. It contains the -principles of his <cite>Inquiry</cite>, laid down on a larger scale, and -applied to a greater variety of subjects. Dr. Reid treats his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> -opponents and their tenets with a respect and a solemnity that -sometimes tempt me to smile. His style is clear and simple; -and his aversion to the word <em>idea</em> is so great, that I think he -never once uses it in delivering his own opinions. It was not -without reason that Stillingfleet took the alarm at Mr. Locke’s -indiscreet use of that word. It was indeed an <i lang="la">ignis fatuus</i> -that decoyed him in spite of his excellent understanding into -a thousand pits and quagmires. Berkeley it bewildered still -more. And it reduced David Hume to the condition of a -certain old gentleman of whom we read, that—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse indent8">Fluttering his pinions vain,</div> -<div class="verse">Plumb down he dropped, ten thousand fathoms deep.’</div> -</div> -</div> - -</div> - -<p>Whether our power of conceiving is so far a test of -possibility, as that what is distinctly conceived must be -concluded to be possible, and what cannot be conceived -impossible, was a question which interested Reid. It is -discussed in the <cite>Essays on the Intellectual Powers</cite>, and also -in the draft of a letter to Dr. Price, preserved among the -manuscripts at Birkwood; in which it is argued that our -power of conception cannot be a criterion of what is -possible. The argument turns much on the meanings of -‘conception,’ ‘possibility,’ and ‘impossibility.’ He thus -addresses Dr. Price:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘I would willingly suggest some subject on which I might -have the favour of your thoughts when you have leisure and -are disposed for such correspondence. What occurs to my -thoughts just now is a metaphysical axiom very generally -adopted, and, I think, occasionally adopted by you in your -<cite>Review of the Principal Questions in Morals</cite>—That what we -distinctly conceive is possible. From this axiom D. Hume -infers that it is possible that an universe may start into existence -without a cause, and other like extravagancies. The use -he makes of it led me to consider it a good many years ago, -and I have a strong suspicion that there is some fallacy in it, -which has imposed on men’s understandings, owing to the -ambiguity of the word <em>conceive</em>.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span></p> - -<p>‘As to the history of this axiom, I suspect it to have taken -its rise from what Descartes laid down as the criterion of truth, -which he maintained to be clear and distinct conception. -<i lang="la">Quidquid clare et distincte concipio esse verum, id est verum.</i> -Cudworth seems to have followed him in this, making the -criterion of verity to be clear, self-consistent intelligibility. -Those who came after, judging it difficult to maintain that -everything is <em>true</em> which is clearly conceivable or intelligible, -have maintained that everything that can be clearly conceived -is at least <em>possible</em>. This seemed to be the proper correction -of Descartes’ maxim, and it has passed from one hand to -another without strict examination.</p> - -<p>‘Whatever is true or false, whatever is possible or impossible, -may be expressed by a proposition. Now, what do we mean -when we say that we conceive a proposition? I think no more -is meant, if we speak properly, than that we understand what -is meant by that proposition. If this be so, it must surely be -granted that we may understand the meaning of a proposition -which expresses what is impossible. He who understands the -meaning of this proposition, “Two and two make four,” must -equally understand the meaning of this other, “Two and two -do not make four.” Both are equally understood; that is, the -conception of both is equally clear; yet the first is necessarily -true, and the second impossible.</p> - -<p>‘Perhaps it will be said, that we may not merely conceive -the <em>meaning</em> of a proposition, but we may conceive it to be a -<em>true</em> proposition, and that it is our being able to conceive it to -be true that gives us ground to think it possible. In answer to -this, I beg you would attend very carefully to the meaning of -these words—“Conceiving a proposition to be true.” I can -put no other meaning upon them but judging it to be true, that -is, giving some degree of assent to it. Judgment or assent -admits of various degrees, from the slightest suspicion to the -most deliberate conviction; from the most modest and diffident -assent to the most pertinacious and dogmatical. I conceive -there maybe inhabitants in the moon; that is, my judgment -leans a little that way. I would not use that expression unless -the probability, however small, seemed to be on that side of -the question.</p> - -<p>‘If this be the meaning of conceiving a proposition to be -true, then the meaning of the axiom will be, that a proposition<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> -which appears to us to have any degree of probability, however -small, must at least be possible. But the axiom, taken in this -sense, is surely false. It would be superfluous to give instances -of this to a mathematician.</p> - -<p>‘If it should be said that conceiving a proposition to be true -means, neither barely to understand the meaning of the proposition, -nor the giving any degree of assent to it, I would be -glad to know what it really does mean. For I am at a loss -to know what power of the understanding we mean by the -conceiving a proposition to be true, if it is neither simple -apprehension, by which we barely understand the meaning of -a proposition, nor judgment, by which we assent to the proposition -or dissent from it. I know of no power of the understanding -intermediate between these two. And if there is -none, I think the axiom must be false.</p> - -<p>‘There are many propositions which, by the faculties God -has given us, we perceive to be not only true, but necessarily -true; and the contradictions of these must be impossible. So -that our knowledge of what is impossible keeps pace with our -knowledge of necessary truth.</p> - -<p>‘By our senses and our memory, by testimony and other -means, we have the certain knowledge of many truths which -we do not perceive to be necessary; their contraries therefore -may be possible for aught we know. But we know that -whatever is true, whether necessary or not, is possible. Our -knowledge therefore of what is possible keeps pace with our -knowledge of truth, whether contingent or necessary. Beyond -this, I am afraid our knowledge of what is possible is conjectural. -And although we are apt to think everything to be -possible which we do not perceive to be impossible, yet in this -we may be greatly deceived. You know well, sir, that mathematics -affords many instances of impossibilities <em>in the nature -of things</em>, which no man would have dreamed of or believed, -until they were discovered by accurate and subtle reasoning. -Perhaps if we were able to reason demonstratively to as great -an extent in other subjects as in mathematics, we might -discover many things to be impossible which we now take to -be possible. We are apt to think it possible that God might -have made an universe of sensible and rational creatures, into -which neither natural nor moral Evil should ever enter. It -may be so for what I know. But how are you certain that this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> -is possible? I can distinctly conceive it, say you; therefore it -is possible. I do not admit this argument. May not a man -who is a mathematician as distinctly conceive that in the -infinite variety of numbers gradually ascending, there is no -ratio whatsoever which is not equal to the ratio of some one -whole number to some other whole number? Yet the mathematician -can demonstrate that there are innumerable ratios -which are not equal to the ratio of some one number to another. -Many mathematicians, taking it for granted that it was possible -to square the circle, have spent their lives in a fruitless pursuit. -May not our taking things to be possible, in matters of higher -moment, when we can show no good reason that they are so, -lead us into unnecessary disputes and vain theories? Ought -we to admit that as a just argument in reasoning, or even as a -pressing difficulty, which is grounded on the supposition that -such a thing is possible, when in reality we have no good -evidence of its being possible, and for anything we can show -to the contrary, it may be impossible?’</p> - -</div> - -<p>A letter to Dr. Gregory in March 1786 shows the -<cite>Essays on the Active or Moral Powers</cite> in the press:—‘I am -proud of the approbation you express of the <cite>Essays</cite>. I -have made some corrections and additions, but such as I -hope will not make it necessary to write the book over -again. But I wish, if I find health and leisure in summer, -to add some Essays to go before that on “Liberty of the -Will,” in order to give some further elucidation of the -principles of morals. I expect your remarks and D. -Stewart’s on what is in hand. It will be no inconvenience -to wait two, three, or even four months.’ Two years later, -early in 1788, when he was in his seventy-eighth year, -the five <cite>Essays on the Active Powers of Man</cite> were published. -This was Reid’s last appearance as a philosophical -author. The eight Essays of 1785, and the five Essays of -1788, all relate to human Power—power immanent or -intellectual, and power overtly operative or moral.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span></p> - -<p>In March, a few weeks after the book appeared, Beattie -writes to Sir W. Forbes:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘I have been looking into Dr. Reid’s book on <cite>The Active -Powers of Man</cite>. It is written with his usual perspicuity and -acuteness; is in some parts very entertaining; and to me, who -have been obliged to think much on those subjects, is very -interesting throughout. The question concerning Liberty and -Necessity [of the Will] is very fully discussed, and very ably, -and I think nothing more need be said about it. I could -have wished that he had given a fuller examination of the -passions, and been a little more practical in illustrating the -duties of morality. But his manner in all his writings more -turned to speculative than to practical philosophy; which may -be owing to his having employed himself so much in the study -of Locke, Hume, Berkeley, and other theorists; and partly, no -doubt, to the habits of study and modes of conversation which -were fashionable in this country in his younger days. If I were -not personally acquainted with the Doctor, I should conclude -from his books that he was rather too warm an admirer of -Mr. Hume. He confutes, it is true, some of his opinions; but -pays them much more respect than they are entitled to.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>To Beattie’s less profound intelligence, indignant sentiment -was more acceptable, in defence of fundamental faith, -than the calm inquiry and sympathetic criticism of Reid.</p> - -<p>The Literary Society which met monthly in the College -was occasionally a channel for his thoughts through all the -years of the Glasgow professorship, as the more famous -‘Wise Club’ had been at Aberdeen. Principal Leechman, -Black, Moor, Arthur, and Dr. Thomas Hamilton were also -members. Some of Reid’s contributions before 1788 seem -to have been incorporated in the <cite>Essays</cite>. After that he -still found vent for his thoughts in papers for the Society, -and in letters to Dr. Gregory, chiefly about Power and -Causation. Among the most important of those submitted -to the Society in his last years, I find ‘Some Observations<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> -on the Modern System of Materialism,’ in which the impotence -of matter is maintained; as also in another, entitled -‘Miscellaneous Reflections on Priestley’s account of Hartley’s -Theory of the Human Mind.’ Then we have ‘Observations -on the Utopia of Sir Thomas More.’ A short essay -‘On Power,’<a name="FNanchor_24" id="FNanchor_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> in March 1792, was his last metaphysical -performance: it sums up his conclusions regarding our -conception of causation, as regulated by the Common Sense. -‘Observations on the Danger of Political Innovation,’ -suggested by the Revolution in France, were read in the -Society on November 1794.</p> - -<p>This last Essay is characteristic. It presses a distinction -between two political attitudes that are apt to be confounded—the -one speculative, dealing with abstractions, -treating the facts of the case and history as irrelevant; the -other practical, taking account of the actual conditions, -therefore disposed to modify its ideals by a due regard to -what has been and now is. The first asks what that -organisation of society is, which, abstractly considered, is -most favourable to progress: the other cautiously considers -how the inherited political organism may with least friction -be adapted to the changed conditions of the social evolution. -Reid assumes this last as his attitude, arguing that -the British Constitution encourages continuous orderly -evolution, not sudden revolution, and that this is illustrated -in its history since 1688. At first, he had looked with -sanguine hope to the French Revolution, but, like Edmund -Burke, who shortly before had been Rector of Glasgow -University, his hope gave place to fear. It is interesting that -it was the <cite>Vindiciæ Gallicæ</cite> of Sir James Mackintosh that had -inspired him with the hope; for, according to his daughter,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> -Mrs. Carmichael, he was struck with admiration on reading -the book, and used often to speak of it as one of the most -ingenious essays in political philosophy he had ever met with.</p> - -<p>Jeremy Bentham as well as Mackintosh was known to -Reid by his writings, as appears in this letter to Dr. Gregory, -in September 1788, which refers to Bentham’s <cite>Defence of -Usury</cite>, published the year before:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘I am much pleased with the tract you sent me on Usury. -I think the reasoning unanswerable, and have long been of the -author’s opinion, though I suspect that the general principle—that -bargains ought to be left to the judgment of the parties, -may admit of some exceptions; when the buyers are the many, -the poor, the simple, and the sellers few, rich, and cunning. -The former may need the aid of the magistrate to prevent their -being oppressed by the latter. It seems to be upon this principle -that postage, freight, the hire of chairs and coaches, and the -price of bread, are regulated in most great towns. But with -regard to the loan of money in a commercial state, the exception -can have no place—the borrowers and lenders are upon -an equal footing, and each may be left to take care of his -own interest.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>Three years before his death Reid is found preparing -the <cite>Account of the University of Glasgow</cite>, which appeared -three years after his death, in the <cite>Statistical Account of -Scotland</cite> published by Sir John Sinclair. It was not communicated -by him to Sir John, but transmitted by Professor -Jardine, in name of the Principal and Professors, at whose -request Reid seems to have engaged in this work. It was -an anonymous publication, but it has been attributed to -him, and it bears internal evidence of his hand. His -colleague, Professor Richardson, in his biographical account -of Professor Arthur, Reid’s successor, published in 1803, -mentions that ‘the Statistical Account of the University was -all written by Dr. Reid, except the statements respecting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> -the business of particular classes.’ It shows intelligence -then uncommon in Scotland of the mediæval constitution -of Universities, and appreciation of the true academical -ideal. The life begun at King’s College forty years before -in projects of University reform, was fitly closed by this -account of the great western seat of learning.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Reid died early in 1792. His feelings were thus -expressed in a letter to Dugald Stewart:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘By the loss of my bosom friend, with whom I lived fifty-two -years, I am brought into a kind of new world, at a time of life -when old habits are not easily forgot, or new ones acquired. -But every world is God’s world, and I am thankful for the -comforts He has left me. Mrs. Carmichael has now the care of -two deaf old men, and does everything in her power to please -them; and both are very sensible of her goodness. I have -more health than at my time of life [82] I had any reason to -expect. I walk about; entertain myself with reading what I -soon forget; I can converse with one person if he articulates -distinctly and within ten inches of my left ear; I go to church -without hearing a word of what is said. You know I had never -any pretensions to vivacity, but I am still free from languor -and <i lang="fr">ennui</i>.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>After this sorrow, his daughter, Mrs. Carmichael, lived -much in his house in the Professors’ Court. She became -a widow in the same year, for her husband died a few -months after Mrs. Reid. Elizabeth Leslie, daughter of his -stepsister Margaret, was also an inmate, and added to -the comfort of the closing years. Soon after her father’s -death Mrs. Carmichael went to live at Aberdeen.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII<br /> -<span class="smaller">INSPIRED COMMON SENSE AND CAUSATION: ACTIVE OR -MORAL POWER IN MAN</span></h2> - -<p>Philosophical recognition of the genuine Common Sense -or natural judgment of mankind, especially in two of its -factors, which seemed to Reid obscured if not suppressed -by dogmatic hypothesis, gave its character to his whole -intellectual life. He found, in the first place, that ‘all philosophers; -from Plato to Mr. Hume, agree in this, that we -do not perceive external objects immediately, and that -the immediate object of perception must be some image -present to the mind.’ To rid philosophy of this hypothesis, -as a mere prejudice, inconsistent with the absolute trustworthiness, -and therefore with the supreme and final -rational authority of our natural judgment, was the chief -aim of his Aberdonian life—culminating in the <cite>Inquiry</cite> in -1764. He found, in the second place, that ‘to confound -the notion of agent or efficient cause with that of physical -cause has been a common error of philosophers, from the -days of Plato to our own’; and it seemed to him as subversive -of moral relations in the universe as the other -was of physical relations. Accordingly, our conception of -Power or Causation chiefly engaged him in Glasgow. -This appears in his ‘Essays’ on moral Power in man; -in his correspondence with Kames and Gregory in the last -twenty years of his life; as well as in the unpublished<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> -fragment on ‘Power,’ in 1792, which was his last expression -of reflective thought. The Philosophy of Perception and -the Philosophy of Causation—our common sense of extended -reality in our first intercourse with it in the senses, -and our common sense conception of ‘power’ and ‘cause’ -which arises in the presence of the changes amidst which -we live and have our being—these were the two poles of -Reid’s philosophical life. His whole life was a war against -two common errors of philosophers regarding these, from -the days of Plato to our own, in each of which the seeds -of speculative and practical scepticism seemed to lie -thickly. If these two fundamental convictions were untrustworthy, -then faith in anything must lose its sustaining -strength. For our perceptions through the five senses are the -first principles of all our reasonings about the actual universe, -and our causal judgments are the means of interpreting the -realities to which those perceptions only introduce us.</p> - -<p>We find ourselves continually in contact and collision -with Power that is external to ourselves individually; and -we seem, too, to be exerting powers of our own: on the -Power latent in the universe, our happiness or misery, our -whole destiny, depends. What does all this mean? What -is meant by the judgment that all changes in the universe -are ‘caused’; and what is the origin of this judgment, or -of the conception of ‘cause’ that is involved in it? Are -the powers which we recognise in us and around us to be -referred only to inanimate things as their centres; or only -to living and self-conscious persons; or to both?</p> - -<p>Priestley, as an advocate of the claim of matter to -account sufficiently for self-conscious life in man, and -Kames and Priestley by their universal necessity, confirmed -Reid’s disposition to inquire further into the nature and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> -origin of the conception of power, and the judgment that -every change presupposes what we ambiguously call a -cause. His cousin Gregory, too, inquired about causation, -and gave the results to the world in an <cite>Essay on the -Difference between the Relation of Motive and Action, and -that of Cause and Effect in Physics</cite>, which appeared in 1792.</p> - -<p>That every change must be caused, Reid regarded as a -postulate of which the contradictory was absolutely inconceivable: -it was necessarily implied in the common rational -sense of Man, and, while incapable of logical proof, was -that without which nothing else could be proved. That the -things presented to our senses are themselves powerless; -that all power is spiritual, referable only to Will; and -that this is the common sense implicate of our physical -and moral experience of changes, was the proposition which -Reid now set himself to justify. Our experience of our -own voluntary exertion is the only experience which directs -us to the quarter in which power, properly so called, resides. -A voluntary agent is our only example of a cause, or of -that to which change must be finally referred as its responsible -source. We can find no productive power in -any inanimate thing. Matter, instead of being the universal -cause, is in itself powerless, and can account for nothing. -The material universe is virtually an external system of -interpretable signs, regulated by non-material power.</p> - -<p>Take the following extracts from various letters of Reid’s -to Gregory, from 1785 onwards,<a name="FNanchor_25" id="FNanchor_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> in the unpublished paper -on Power:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘Power to produce an effect supposes power not to produce -it; otherwise it is not power but necessity, which is incompatible -with power taken in a strict sense.... I am not able<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> -to form a conception how power (in the strict sense) can be -exerted without will; nor can there be will without some -degree of understanding. Therefore nothing can be an -efficient cause in the proper sense but an intelligent being -[<i>i.e.</i> a person]. Hence the only notion we can form of Almighty -Power is, that God can do whatever He wills. Matter cannot -be the cause of anything: it can only be an instrument in the -hands of a real cause.... In physics the word cause has -another meaning, which, though I think it an improper one, -yet is distinct, and therefore may be reasoned upon. When a -phenomenon is produced according to a certain law of nature, -we call the law [or rule] the <em>cause</em> of that phenomenon; and -to the laws or rules of nature we accordingly ascribe power -or efficiency. The whole business of physics is to discover, by -observation and experiment, the laws of nature, and to apply -them to the solution of phenomena. Now a law of nature is a -purpose or resolution of the Author of nature to act according -to a certain rule. There must be a real agent to produce the -phenomenon according to the law. A malefactor is not hanged -by the law, but by the executioner according to the law.’</p> - -<p>Again:—‘A cause in the proper and strict sense signifies a -<em>mind</em> that has power and will to produce the effect. A cause -in the physical sense means only something which, by the laws -of nature, the effect always follows; as when we say that heat -is the cause that turns water into vapour.... Between a -physical cause and its effect the conjunction must be constant; -unless in the case of a miracle. What D. Hume says of causes -in general is very just when applied to physical causes—that a -constant conjunction with the effect is essential to such causes, -and implied in the very conception of them.’ Again:—‘I wish -that the same general name—cause—had not been given to -both. They differ <i lang="la">toto genere</i>. For a physical cause is not an -agent. It does not act, but is acted upon. <em>You</em> accordingly -give them different names; calling the one the agent and not -the cause, the other the cause and not the agent. But I think -this too bold an innovation in language. Men have been so -much accustomed to call the Deity the First Cause of things, -that to maintain that He is no cause at all would be too -shocking. To say that the world exists <em>without a cause</em> would -be accounted atheism, in spite of all explanations.... The -words agent and action are less ambiguous. We say one <em>body</em><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> -acts upon another; and in vain would one attempt to abolish -this language. To remedy this ambiguity of “cause” and -“agent,” I say that each of these words has two meanings—a -lax or popular and a philosophical.... It is remarkable -that the philosophical meaning must have been the first, -and the popular a corruption introduced by time.... Power -is first conceived from being conscious of it in ourselves. Conceiving -of inanimate beings from what we are conscious of in -ourselves, we at first ascribed to them such power as we are -conscious of, till experience informs us that inanimate things -have not the same powers as we have; but language was formed -before this discovery was made.... It is a curious question -how we come by the cognition of power and cause, so that we -ascribe them to things that have no will nor intelligence. I am -apt to think that savages, whenever they see motion which they -cannot account for, there they suppose a soul. In this period -of society language is formed. At length the more acute and -speculative few discover that some of the things which the -vulgar believe to be animated are inanimate. What use must -wise men make of this discovery? Will they affirm that the -sun does not shine nor give heat? that the sea never rages -nor the winds blow? nor the earth bring forth grass and corn? -The wiser part will speak the common language, and suit it to -their new notions as well as they can; just as philosophers -still say with the vulgar, that the sun “rises” and “sets.”’</p> - -</div> - -<p>That morally responsible intending Will is our ultimate -conception of Power or Cause, properly so called, is not -less the lesson of the Birkwood manuscript ‘On Power’ -of 1792. Thus:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘Will is necessarily implied in the notion of Power. Volition -and what naturally follows upon our volitions, is all that we -conceive to be in our own power. What a man never willed -can never be imputed to him as his action. A being that has -no will can have no power. When we impute powers to dead -matter, it must be in some popular or analogical sense, but not -in the proper sense. There can be no productive power in an -inanimate object.... A cause is that which has power to -produce an effect. When we ascribe power to things inanimate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> -as causes, we mean nothing more than a constant conjunction -by the laws or rules of nature, which experience discovers. -Thus we say that the sun has power to retain the planets -in their orbits, and that heat has power to melt lead. If the -ignorant be led by the ambiguity of the word to conceive -power in the sun or in heat to produce the effects attributed -to them, this is a vulgar error which philosophy [<i>i.e.</i> of common -sense] corrects. By what agents these effects are [immediately] -produced we know not; but we have good reason to believe -that they cannot be produced by inanimate matter.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>Reid also allows that, for anything we can tell, things -which have no proper power of their own may be terms -in a sequence that is subject to an <em>absolute</em> necessity of -being the sequence that it is. But however this may be, -it transcends our knowledge; we must be satisfied with -the common sense conviction of persistent uniformities in -fact pervading the universe of change, whether this fact is -the result of a divine necessity or of arbitrary divine will. -Natural uniformities are presupposed in all our reasoning -about our natural surroundings, and without this presupposition -things could not be reasoned about or formed -into science. All our knowledge of natural events, beyond -original perceptions of sense, consists in interpretation of -the phenomena of which the senses make us aware. Upon -this judgment of the common sense our inductions are all -grounded, so that it may be called the inductive principle. -Withdraw trust from it and experience becomes blind as a -mole. We may <em>feel</em> what is present at the moment, but the -distant and the future are wholly hid in darkness.</p> - -<p>Power or intelligent agency is thus the exclusive characteristic -of conscious persons: interpretable order is the -characteristic of inanimate things. These are two correlative -judgments or inspirations of our natural common sense upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> -which human reasonings turn. Reid finds when he reflects -patiently that he is obliged, by a rational instinct as it -were, to recognise himself and other persons as the centres -of responsible power, the only sort of power or causality in -existence that can be supposed by us; and also to recognise -in the impersonal world without, something that in itself is -passive and impotent, but which, as a system of interpretable -sense signs, may be said metaphorically to form the <em>language</em> -of nature, of which the natural sciences are (so far) the -interpretation. The universe is thus a material order -directed by spiritual power, in a measure corresponding to -the body and the spirit in man, as man now is. But this -larger conception carries us beyond the modest philosophy -to which Reid confined himself; although he more than -once approached it, perhaps through some unconscious -reminiscence of the Berkeleyism of his youth, of which, I -think, he failed to see the real drift, as it was unfolded in -<cite>Alciphron</cite> and especially in <cite>Siris</cite>.</p> - -<p>Yet the following scrap, which I find among unpublished -manuscripts of his later life, shows that such -thoughts were not quite absent from his mind:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘The ancient philosophers called God the Soul of the World. -This, considered as a figurative expression, is destitute neither -of beauty nor of truth. What the soul of man is to his body, -that God is to the universe, in several respects; but not in all. -There are many respects in which the metaphor fails: (1) The -human soul did not make its own body, but God made the -world; (2) the human soul is ignorant of the nice texture and -mechanism of its body, but God knows the whole mechanism -of the universe, because He conceived and made it; (3) the -human soul receives much of its information by bodily organs: -God’s knowledge of all things is immediate and not dependent -on bodily organs; (4) our power over our own bodies is limited: -the power of God over the universe is unlimited; (5) our<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> -bodies are wholly made up of inert and soulless matter: the -universe is stored with various orders of living beings and free -agents, subject to the Divine Power as their moral governor -and capable of paying back the service of rational subjects.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>But the philosophy of the Common Sense, as represented -by Reid, did not rise to the conciliation of the natural -order of the material with the originative freedom of the -spiritual world, in which operating law in outward nature -is recognised as immediate divine agency, or a part of a -revelation of perfectly reasonable Will in and through a -universe of things and persons.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX<br /> -<span class="smaller">THE END—1796</span></h2> - -<p>In the last winter of his life Reid read an interesting discourse -on ‘Muscular Motion,’ in the Literary Society, of -which he so long had been a member. After describing -articulately the progressive changes in the human muscles -which mark the advance of age, and proposing an explanation, -he thus concludes his last public discourse:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘May I be permitted to mention that it was my own experience -of some of these effects of old age on the muscular -motions that led my thoughts to this explanation, which, as it -is owing to the infirmities of age, will, I hope, be treated with -the greater indulgence. It is both pleasant and useful to contemplate -with gratitude the wisdom and goodness of the Author -of our being, in fitting this machine of our body to the various -employments and enjoyments of life. The structure is admirable -as far as we are permitted to see it in this infancy of our -being. And the internal structure which is behind the veil -that limits our understanding, and which gives motion to the -whole, is, in a manner most wonderful, though unknown to us, -made subservient to our volition and efforts. This grand work -of nature, like the fruits of the earth, has its maturity, its decay, -and its dissolution. Like those also, in all its decay it -nourishes a principle within which is to be the seed of a -future existence. Were the fruit conscious of this, it would -drop into the earth with pleasure, in the hope of a happy -Resurrection. This hope, by the mercy of God, is given to all -good men. It is the consolation of old age, and more than -sufficient to make its infirmities sit light.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>The dissolution of the material organism which for eighty-six<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> -years had served the writer of these words was now near. -Of his few early philosophical associates, Campbell and -Beattie only were alive at the beginning of 1796, and in -April of that year Campbell died. Reid followed him -six months later. Dugald Stewart, then Professor of -Moral Philosophy in Edinburgh, gives the following account -of the months before the end:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘In the summer of 1796, about two years after the death of -his wife, he was prevailed on by Dr. Gregory to pass a few -weeks at Edinburgh. He was accompanied by Mrs. Carmichael, -who lived with him in Dr. Gregory’s house, a situation -which united under the same roof every advantage of medical -care, of tender attachment, and of philosophical intercourse. -As Dr. Gregory’s professional engagements necessarily interfered -with his attentions to his guests, I enjoyed more of Dr. -Reid’s society than might otherwise have fallen to my share. I -had the pleasure, accordingly, of spending some hours with -him daily, and of attending him in his walking excursions, -which frequently extended to the distance of three or four -miles. His faculties (excepting his memory, which was considerably -impaired) appeared as vigorous as ever; and, -although his deafness prevented him from taking any share in -general conversation, he was still able to enjoy the company of -a friend. Mr. Playfair and myself were both witnesses of the -acuteness which he displayed on one occasion, in detecting a -mistake, by no means obvious, in a manuscript of his kinsman, -David Gregory, on the subject of “Prime and Ultimate -Ratios.” In apparent soundness and activity of body, he -resembled more a man of sixty than of eighty-seven. He -returned to Glasgow in his usual health and spirits; and continued -for some weeks to devote as formerly a regular portion -of his time to the exercise both of body and mind. It appears -from a letter of Dr. Cleghorn’s to Dr. Gregory, that he was -still able to work with his own hands in his garden; and he -was found by Dr. Brown occupied in the solution of an -algebraical problem of considerable difficulty, in which, after -the labour of a day or two, he at last succeeded.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>It was thus in summer. In September he was attacked by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> -a violent disorder, and after a severe struggle, attended with -repeated strokes of palsy, he passed away on the 7th of -October. Thus ended the tranquil life of deep and patient -thought, which opened at Strachan and almost spanned the -eighteenth century, morally and intellectually the representative -of Scottish philosophical restoration under the -conditions of the time. His ashes were laid in the College -Church burial-ground, within the shadow of the College -of which he had so long been the chief ornament, and -under a tombstone bearing this inscription:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘Memoriæ sacrum <span class="smcap">Thomæ Reid</span>, S.T.D., quondam in -Schola Regia Aberdonensi Philosophiæ Professoris; nuper -vero in Universitate Glasguensi, ab anno 1764 usque ad -annum 1796, Philosophiæ Moralis Professoris; qui in Scientia -Mentis Humanæ, ut olim in Philosophia Naturali illustris ille -Baconius Verulamius, omnia instauravit; qui ingenii acumine -doctrinæque omnigenæ, summam morum gravitatem, simul -atque comitatem, adjuvavit; qui obiit 7° October, 1796, annos -natus 86. Cujusque ossa cum cineribus <span class="smcap">Elizebethæ Reid</span>, -conjugis carissimæ, triumque filiarum morte prematura abrepturam, -sepulchro condita sunt. Hoc Monumentum poni jussit -filia piissima, unica superstes, Martha Carmichael.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>After the University of Glasgow had in 1872 exchanged -the College in the High Street, with its touching memories, -for its new and stately home on the bank of the Kelvin, -Reid’s remains were carried to the Necropolis which overlooks -his old home in the Drygate, and the tombstone was -removed to the College on Gilmore Hill.</p> - -<p>I find Reid’s will, dated 7th May 1792, recorded in the -Sheriff-Court Books of Lanarkshire. Dr. and Mrs. Carmichael -are executors, with Mr. Leslie and Mr. Rose -conjoined. Furniture, books, and papers are left to Mrs. -Carmichael, except a few books for the University Library.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> -Of the rest of the property, personal and real—after payment -of debts, including £300 to Dr. Carmichael, ‘payable -in full of my daughter’s tocher,’ and ‘£300 to John Sargent, -London, cousin-german of the dearest Elizabeth Reid, my -wife’—one half is assigned to Mrs. Carmichael, and the -other half, in equal portions, to ‘my sisters, Mrs. Leslie -and Mrs. Rose,’ burdened with ‘a liferent annuity of £10, -to my stepmother, Janet Fraser, widow of Mr. Lewis Reid.’ -The real property is described as consisting of ‘eleven and -a half falls of ground, with the whole houses thereon, and -the well therein, bounded on the west by William Street, -on the north by the property of Dr. Carmichael, on the -south by the property of Joseph Crombie, and on the east -by the property of John Duguid and Wm. Risk, all in -the Barony parish.’ This property appears to have been -bought about 1780, the year in which Reid ceased to teach -in the College.</p> - -<p class="tb">That this life, much withdrawn from the public eye in the -interest of philosophic reflection, was not unappreciated -when it ended, is shown by the recognition which immediately -followed. On the day after he died the event -was thus announced in the <cite>Glasgow Courier</cite>:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘Thomas Reid, D.D., Professor of Moral Philosophy in the -University of Glasgow, died on the seventh day of October. -His ingenious and elaborate works, especially his <cite>Inquiry into -the Human Mind</cite>, and his <cite>Essays on the Intellectual and -the Active Powers of Man</cite>, are noble and lasting monuments -of his eminent abilities, his deep penetration, and his extensive -learning. By unravelling sceptical perplexities, overturning ill-founded -hypotheses, and resting every conclusion on evident -principles, he has brought about a memorable revolution in the -Philosophy of Human Nature. His character through life was -distinguished by an ardent love of truth, and an assiduous pursuit<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> -of it in various sciences; by the most amiable simplicity -of manners, gentleness of temper, strength of affection, candour, -and liberality of sentiments, which displayed themselves in the -habitual exercise of all the social virtues; and by steadiness, -fortitude, and rational piety.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>A few days later a more elaborate study of his character -appeared in the <cite>Courier</cite>:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>‘Dr. Reid was unquestionably one of the profoundest -philosophers of the age; and although some who think it a -proof of weakness to differ from Mr. Hume have slighted the -speculations of Dr. Reid, and undervalued the precision -which he laboured to introduce, his Inquiry into the Senses -will probably be coeval with our language. It is founded on -facts which must continue to interest men while their constitution -continues unchanged. In his pursuit of new knowledge -he studied the late improvements in chemistry; he observed -the great political events which have happened, and contemplated -that with which the time seems pregnant with the keen -interest of one entering on life. He venerated religion—not the -noisy, contentious systems which lead men to hate and persecute -each other, but the sublime principle which regulates the conduct, -by controuling the selfish and animating the benevolent -affections. When vilified by intemperate philosophers [<i>e.g.</i> -Priestley], he made no reply, being satisfied with having stated -what he thought the truth; and when outraged by zealots who -falsely call themselves Christians, he bore the outrage meekly, -using no terms of complaint or reproach. He was to the last -moment free from that morose querulous temper which has -been deemed inseparable from age. Instead of repining at -the prosperity and enjoyments of the young, he delighted in -promoting them; and after having lost all his own family except -one daughter, he continued to treat children with such condescension -and benignity that some very young ones noticed the -peculiar kindness of his eye. His end accorded with the -wisdom and goodness of his life. He used sometimes to say, -“I am ashamed of having lived so long after having ceased to -be useful,” though at that very time he was acquiring and communicating -useful knowledge. During his last illness, which -was severe, he complained of nothing but the trouble that he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> -gave his affectionate family, and he looked to the grave as a -place not of rest merely but of triumph.’</p> - -</div> - -<p>The affectionate judgment of his contemporaries, in the -first days of sorrow, instead of exceeding, fall short of the -deliberate judgment of leaders of European thought in -a later generation. The rise of his reputation was slow. -As there are too many who make themselves appear more -wise than they are, it was the more uncommon fault of -Reid to appear less a philosopher than he really was. -Extreme caution made him suspicious of ingenious conjecture -in matter-of-fact inquiry, and perhaps blinded him -to the large part which imagination as well as reason -has to play in progress. ‘It is genius, and not the want -of it,’ he says, ‘that adulterates philosophy, and fills it -with error and false theory’; and in the spirit of this -warning, as well as by temperament, he was intellectually -conservative more than progressive or adventurous.</p> - -<p>In outward appearance he was somewhat under the -middle size, with a bodily constitution of uncommon strength -and tenacity, maintained by a methodically regulated life -and habitual serenity of temper. Raeburn’s picture, now -in Fyvie Castle, for which he sat during his last visit to -Edinburgh, expresses the deep and persistent thought, as -well as the reposeful and benevolent temper, which gave -unity to his long life. Copies of this picture are preserved -at Birkwood, in the College of Glasgow, and in the -National Portrait Gallery at Edinburgh, as well as in the -great window of the Mitchell Hall of Marischal College. -There is also an excellent medallion by Tassie, done six -years before Reid’s death.</p> - -<p>After the death of Mrs. Carmichael, in February 1805, -all who were descended of the Rev. Lewis Reid of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> -Strachan, by his wife Margaret Gregory, had passed away. -His second wife and widow died at Aberdeen in 1798, like -her stepson, in her eighty-seventh year, having survived -him about eighteen months. The great-granddaughter of -Mrs. Leslie his half-sister, Grace Anna Leslie, now of -Birkwood, married Dr. Ross Paterson in 1864. Their -youngest daughter has charge of the Reid family papers, to -which I owe many facts first published in these pages. A -son of his other half-sister, Mrs. Rose, a medical officer in -the Indian army, was introduced in 1805 to Sir James -Mackintosh, then Recorder of Bombay, by Professor Ogilvie -of Aberdeen, as a relative of the advocate of the final -philosophical appeal to the Common Sense; and Mackintosh -in a letter to Mr. Ogilvie expresses the deep interest with -which he saw ‘the nephew of Dr. Reid, whose philosophy, -like you, I do not embrace, but whose character and talents -every cultivator of science must venerate.’ Sir James’s later -judgments of the philosophy, after a more attentive study -of its scope, were more favourable.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X<br /> -<span class="smaller">RETROSPECTIVE AND CRITICAL</span></h2> - -<p>We find truth, as Pascal says, not only by logical reasoning -but by an act of immediate reason, not to be effaced by -all the subtleties of the speculative sceptic, who is thus -confounded by the resistance of rational human nature. -This is a general expression of Reid’s more elaborate -reply to sceptical distrust in all human knowledge and -belief. That genuine human nature, when awakened -into conscious life, is practically irresistible, is what Reid -insists on; for no sane man acts in contradiction to the -common sense of which he is conscious, although he can -speculate sceptically in an abstract way, and may even -serve truth in doing so. For this scepticism may amend -philosophical systems in which the constituent principles -of human nature are not theoretically recognised in their -integrity; and it may also stimulate the unphilosophical to -a deeper and truer insight of what the natural principles -are on which men must proceed in their actions. But the -principles themselves are not reached by reasoning: they -are the inspiration of God; and it is this divine inspiration -that makes experience and reasoning at all possible -for men.</p> - -<p>That I am an individual self-conscious person, to whom -something other than, and independent of, my individual -self is presented in my senses—so independent of me<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> -individually that it can inform me of the existence of other -persons whose conscious life is numerically different from -mine; that the free agency of a person is the only sort of -power that we are obliged to recognise, persons being -revealed as responsible powers in and through our -moral nature; and that the powerless things of sense, of -which we are immediately percipient in our sense perceptions, -are interpretable for purposes of common life and -science, inasmuch as their changes must be determined by -natural laws, all reasoning being otherwise impossible—<em>these</em> -I think are the chief ‘inspirations’ or ‘revelations’ -of the Common Sense on which Reid enlarges. This -account of those inspirations is not offered as complete; -only as results, more or less fragmentary, reached by the -deep and steady reflection of a long life.</p> - -<p>Reid’s philosophical appeal to the divine inspirations of -the common sense, without which nothing can be proved, -on behalf of truths which do not admit of direct logical -proof, but only of a sort of philosophical justification, has -been disparaged as an ignoble retreat from the standpoint -of the philosopher, in the interest of popular prejudices -and blind authority. It has been spoken of as an appeal -from the reasoned judgments of the reflecting minority to -the unreasoned opinions of the unreflecting majority, -an opening for arbitrary dogmas to enter and crush free -inquiry. This is the drift of the criticism of Priestley -in last century, and of Ferrier in this, while Kantian -critics complain of Reid’s lazy arrest of philosophy at -the level of ordinary beliefs. Besides this, what Reid -claims as ‘the chief merit of his philosophy’—that of -questioning the common assumption that external things -cannot present themselves in our perceptions, but only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> -unauthenticated representations of them—proceeds, according -to Priestley, on a misinterpretation of the metaphorical -language of philosophers: to refute it is an idle waste of -controversial labour, taking figures of speech for serious -science.</p> - -<p>If ‘common sense’ in this philosophy means only -unintelligent opinion, as opposed to the judgments of -thinkers, Reid’s response to the sceptic may well be regarded -as an arrest of intelligence,—blind dogmatism -instead of philosophy. But candid critics interpret words -in the meaning intended by those who use them. This -appeal to the judgments named those of the common -sense, is intended as an appeal to reason itself—reason, -that is to say, in its final form in a finite intelligence, -whose experience of the universe is incomplete, and working -under conditions imposed upon its exercise in intelligent -beings who are not omniscient. Reid’s Common Sense -is the final perception of a being who can know the universe -of reality only in part, and is therefore needed by man in that -intermediate position in which an absolute beginning or end -of things must be to him incomprehensible. It is an appeal -to that which must in reason be final, in an intelligence -that only partly shares in divine omniscient reason. Although -its judgments are not evolved from premises, -they are nevertheless what all men, except infants and -lunatics, more or less distinctly acknowledge in their -individual actions, although they may misconstrue them -in their uneducated opinions, or spoil them by indulgence -in purely speculative systems. The divine inspiration of -the common sense is therefore man’s final support, amidst -the so-called ‘contingencies’ of temporal change in himself -and his surroundings. A philosophical appeal to it is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> -of practical importance in reference to what, at the human -point of view, are contingent truths of moral reasoning: -the necessary truths of abstract thought, it has been well -said, ‘sufficiently guard themselves.’</p> - -<p>Accordingly the judgments of the common sense which -chiefly interested Reid are what he calls first principles of -‘contingent’ truths, as distinguished from abstract necessities -the opposites of which are self-contradictory or unthinkable. -Contingent truths, on the other hand, may be -rejected in thought; but those who reject them speculatively -must proceed upon them in their actions and -reasonings, including even sceptical reasonings. The man -whose scepticism involves a practical surrender of the -common judgment, that what we call the outward world is -independent enough of <em>his</em> individual existence to make -it a trustworthy medium of intercourse for him with other -living persons; and who acts accordingly on the belief that -‘other persons’ are only conscious states of his own -individual mind, would be pronounced a lunatic. Again, -the fatalist, who rejects practically the moral judgment -that refers the issues of a deliberate voluntary determination -to the voluntary or personal agent as its responsible -centre, insanely sits still in the midst of danger, and refrains -from exerting a power which he denies. And he who -refuses to proceed upon the logically undemonstrable -postulate of universal natural order, by ceasing to reason -about wholly uninterpretable chaos, is inevitably crushed -by the Universal Power that he ignores.</p> - -<p>It is thus that practical disregard of inspired final reason -appears to Reid to be ‘destructive at once of the science of -the philosopher, the prudence of the man of the world, and -the faith of the Christian.’ The unjust as well as the just,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> -so far as they live at all, must, he sees, live by faith in what -cannot be either proved or disproved by direct demonstration. -And if all those final judgments of practical reason -were contradicted in daily action, as well as in academic -theory, ‘piety, patriotism, parental affection, and private -virtue would appear as ridiculous as knight-errantry: the -pursuits of pleasure, ambition, and avarice must be -grounded upon this sort of belief as well as those that -are honourable and virtuous.’</p> - -<p>On the other hand there are common prejudices which, -while they last, are popularly dignified as ‘common sense.’ -Some now universally admitted truths of science at first -shocked men, although afterwards found to be in harmony -with the general common sense to which philosophy -appeals. That we are living on a material ball that revolves -in space; that the revolving ball revolves also on its axis; -that the sun does not rise and set, but is at rest; the -existence of the antipodes; the invisibility of the distances -of things—are a few examples. Instead of contradicting the -common sense, the common sense, in the light of further -experimental evidence, finally imposes them upon us. At -any rate <em>their</em> contradictories cannot be justified by the -universal intellectual paralysis which is the alternative to -the rejection of a <em>genuine</em> judgment of the common sense. -The assertion that the earth is in motion and the sun -relatively at rest does not contradict sane human nature: -that changes in nature are all wholly chaotic, and therefore -wholly uninterpretable, can never become a scientific discovery, -because it implies subversion of all science and -makes scientific reasoning impossible. The invisibility of -the distances of things, rightly understood in the light of -its evidence, draws no protest from genuine human nature.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> -Human nature or final reason protests, on the other hand, -when the material world is believed to be so unreal that -I cannot by means of it find that there are other human -beings. The impotence of all things presented to the -senses does not contradict reason in the common sense in -the way the impotence, and consequent irresponsibility, -of man does.</p> - -<p>But Reid, I think, makes too little of the service of -philosophical reflection, in quickening into conscious life -in the individual the postulates on which human knowledge -and conduct finally turn, and in developing their meaning. -Such primary assumptions as the real existence of outward -things; our own individual personal existence; and the -existence of God, are held with very different degrees of -intelligence, by the indolent and thoughtless and by those -who reflect. Advance in philosophy is advance in interpreting -the meaning of each of these three postulates, -and of their mutual relations, as seen in an improved -conception of what ‘matter’ means, what ‘self’ means, -and what ‘God’ means. The common sense or final -reason of man is developed in different degrees in different -persons, in different places, at different periods of human -history, and in the same person at different times in his -life. It is not individually independent of evolutionary law; -although its genuine constituents are latent in each man -and may be made to respond to an adequate appeal. The -practical reason of the common sense, while not founded -on but presupposed in philosophy, may nevertheless be -deepened and enlightened in each man by reflection and -criticism. Its final action is therefore far from superseding -the philosopher, who has to systematise man’s advancing -experience of the universe in the light of an idealised<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> -common sense, or the common sense in the ideal man, -which the philosopher tries to approach more nearly. In -this intellectual progress the cruder conceptions of ‘matter’ -and ‘self’ and ‘God,’ as well as of the final physical and -the moral relations of the three postulated existences, are -purified and expanded; but always without disparagement -to the primary roots. Improvement of human knowledge, -in harmony with the awakened common sense inspirations, -is our intellectual ideal.</p> - -<p>It may perhaps be said that Reid makes his appeal -to the root principles of practical reason—the essential -sanity of mankind—only on behalf of what no one seriously -calls in question; and moreover that he attributes the -scepticism with which he struggled to a speculative theory -of philosophers, instead of to facts in nature and in -man, which suggest distrust in the ‘inspirations’ on -which human understanding depends, in its lack of -omniscience. What need, it may be asked, for a prolonged -endeavour to justify belief in the existence of the house in -which we live, the planet on which it stands, or the human -beings among whom we seem to play our parts? Only -insane persons—really insane—can be found to doubt -realities like these. Insanity cannot be cured by an -elaborate disproof of the ‘ideal system’; and as for the -sane, such common sense sanities as these are safe enough -without this philosophical appeal to human sanity. As -regards those beliefs—<i lang="la">si non rogas intelligo</i>. I know all -that I need to know, as long as I am not asked to justify -and explain my knowledge, logically or otherwise, and -remain contented to enjoy the things that unpractical -thinkers vainly try to understand.</p> - -<p>That sceptical distrust in our original faculties, and in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> -Power or Providence that is finally operative in the universe -in which we have our being, lies deeper than the ‘ideal -system’ which was Reid’s bugbear; and also that it arises -mostly in connection with less obtrusive elements in the -common sense than our perceptions through the five -senses, is in harmony with the gradual development of -Reid’s own thought which I have tried to trace. For he -advanced, as we saw, from reflection upon those ‘inspirations’ -of the common sense that are implied in our physical -perceptions, to reflection upon those other data of the -common sense that are implied in our perceptions of -personal and morally responsible agency. It is in touching -and seeing the material world that the common sense is -first awakened; and thus the material world is the most -obtrusive object in human experience, its perceptions affording -the fittest preliminary object-lesson on the office of -this final reason in the whole rational economy of man. -External perceptions are the beginnings of all reasonings -about concrete existence. They are the obvious examples -of those original judgments, which are ‘the inspiration of -the Almighty,’ more obvious than the often dormant ones -that are moral and spiritual. All the discoveries of our -reason are grounded on them. A remarkable deviation -from them, arising from a disorder in the constitution, is -called <em>lunacy</em> by all; as when a man believes that he is -made of glass: but when a man suffers himself to be -reasoned out of them by metaphysical arguments he would -call this <em>metaphysical lunacy</em>; which differs from the other -species of the distemper in this, that it is not continued, -but intermittent. He thus tests reason in its final authority, -as distinguished from reason in its innumerable inferential -exercises: the authority may be logically vindicated as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> -reasonable, but its judgments are not conclusions originally -deduced from premises.</p> - -<p>It must also be remembered that the Reidian protest on -behalf of a philosophical recognition of the blended judgment -and feeling which makes this common reason that is -more or less consciously alive in all men, is a protest on -behalf of the regulative authority of this reason in its -genuine integrity. All philosophical systems, so far, proceed -upon and acknowledge its judgments; but, as it -seemed to Reid, often only after spoiling them. He made -it his particular mission to restore them in their genuine -integrity to philosophy as the prime factors of all true -theories. In perception does the outward reality actually -appear, extended as it really is, without any unextended -medium interposed, exactly as the internal reality of a -pain or a pleasure appears without a medium, when I -am conscious of being pained or pleased? If so, let us -then, Reid would say, accept this fact as final, even although -we cannot account for it; instead of perverting it by supposing -that the external reality is one thing, and the -immediately perceived object of which alone we are curious -a different thing;—dreaming that this supposed internal -object, as its copy, explains our perception of the external -object that is imperceptible. Again, according to genuine -common sense, the ‘self’ which I am obliged to presuppose -is invisible; my body or my brain is external to <em>it</em>, as -much so as the sun and moon are; for they are all parts of -the material world—all objects of my senses—unlike my -proper personality, which is approached only through the -inner consciousness, and not at all through perception of -the senses. Here, too, Reid protests on behalf of the -genuine common sense, and against the scientifically perverted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> -common sense offered to him by Priestley. For -the distinctive feature of Reidism is not vague acknowledgment -of the common sense, but acknowledgment of it as -it is found to be when steadfast reflection is applied to -the final mental experience of man.</p> - -<p>A modern critic may complain that Reid’s point of view -is too narrow and special, and his method too matter-of-fact -to entitle the result to be called philosophy. It looks unlike -philosophy proper, which is concerned with the universe and -universals, and is like a special science of human mind, -having human mind for its finite object or province, as other -special sciences have their limited provinces. For instance, -astronomy has the stellar bodies; chemistry, the elementary -constitution of bodies; geology, the phenomena in the -strata of the earth’s crust; and so on. Now the final -problem of universal reality, or at least universal reality -in ultimate relation to man, is the proper business of the -philosopher, who contemplates the all-comprehensive synthesis -which sustains or explains each special science, and -even the universe of nature and man; while, as human -philosophy, it still recognises the inherent infinity that makes -realities overleap the special sciences. For philosophy -is the supreme speculation, concerned with Matter or -outward Nature, Self or Spirit, and God or the final -all-determining Power—and of this final inquiry Reid -had hardly a conception. Yet we must allow that when -Reid’s method is called ‘inductive,’ it is more than inductive -in the ordinary meaning of the word induction -in the natural sciences. He does not reach the several -principles of the common sense by the way of probable -generalisation from observed facts; rather as truths -which arise out of latency into more or less distinct<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> -consciousness, in response to steadfast meditation. They -are philosophically recognised ‘inspirations,’ or ‘revelations’—not -tentative generalisations; and their justification -must not be confounded with the ordinary verification -with which we are familiar in sciences of outward nature. -The common sense provides material to the philosopher, -not ready made, but still not mere issue of empirical -generalisation.</p> - -<p>How far a philosophy akin to that of Reid admits of -philosophical expansion, or of being brought up to date at -the end of the nineteenth century, when the fundamental -questions of religious thought are at the root of our doubts -and perplexities, may be considered on a review of the -fortunes of Reid’s appeal to the inspirations of final reason -in the century which has passed since he died.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI<br /> -<span class="smaller">REID IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: DEVELOPMENT OF -THE COMMON SENSE PHILOSOPHY: REID IN FRANCE: -REID AND HAMILTON: REID AND SCOTO-HEGELIAN -IDEALISM: ETHICAL OR THEISTIC FINAL FAITH</span></h2> - -<p>How has Reid’s protest of reason in the name of common -sense—a protest against sceptical paralysis of human intelligence, -physical and moral—fared in the nineteenth century? -Has Reid by this protest established what is of lasting -value either to human happiness or to philosophical theory? -What has modern thought, as developed at the end of the -nineteenth century, to say to a Scottish eighteenth century -inquiry into human mind that finds its root in a postulated -sense of reality, which must be taken as finally authoritative -when it is recognised in its genuine integrity? How do faith -and doubt now stand finally related, as compared with their -relations when Reid opposed Hume? Is there still room -for philosophical argument founded on the divine inspirations -of the Common Sense, under, for instance, our transformed -conception of the universe as an evolution?</p> - -<p>Expansion rather than subversion of the philosophy -which ultimately argues from the common sense, has, I -think, been going on. Matter-of-fact study of human -mind, as engaged in perception of the material world, and -in the moral exercise of voluntary agency, which with Reid -makes this perception of matter, and moral consciousness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> -of free agency its prominent spiritual facts, has now risen to -criticism of our conception of the Supreme Power that is -finally at work in the universe in which we live and move -and have our being. And a less purely academic scepticism -than that against which Reid summoned the common sense -now confronts us. If Reid’s mission was to call attention -to our direct mental grasp of outward realities, by exploding -a theory which seemed to paralyse that grasp, it would have -been his corresponding mission now to justify, in name of -the moral and spiritual elements of the common sense, the -religious interpretation of the universe, which finds in -the facts of matter and man a continuous self-revelation -of omnipotent love and mercy—and this in the face of a -world which repels our more philanthropic civilisation, by -its abundant suffering and sin. Instead of philosophy at -war with common sense, common sense is now alleged -as at war with the finally moral and religious conception -of the universe, which Reid accepted as conclusive under -the premises of an old-fashioned natural theology. Now -universal natural law is supposed to exclude God, and -sentient misery to make theistic faith in the goodness, and -therefore trustworthiness, of the Supreme Power an anachronism, -which must give place to universal pessimist doubt -and despair. How can we rest with trust in those practical -principles of human nature to which Reid appealed, when -they and we are found in a universe so full of evil as -this in which we find ourselves? Are we not navigating -the ocean of life in a vessel that is not seaworthy? These -are questions now expressed or felt.</p> - -<p>For forty years after Reid’s death the higher thought of -Scotland, represented by its leaders, remained well within -the old lines. It was still careful analysis of what is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> -presented in human consciousness, with a gradual decline -of interest in the metaphysical and moral problems which -Hume’s agnostic distrust had introduced even into Reid’s -modest treatment of the common sense. Scottish philosophy -became a search for natural sequences and co-existences -among phenomena, instead of search for firm -intellectual and moral footing in a universe to which we -are introduced by being percipient of an infinitesimal part -through our five senses. For a quarter of a century -Dugald Stewart was Reid’s acknowledged successor, less -original, and even less adventurous, than his master, but unrecognisable -in the ill-tempered criticism of Schopenhauer. -With dignified eloquence, wider intimacy with society than -Reid’s, and more learning, he applied inductive methods -to find the laws that determine intellectual character -and the education of the human mind, also to solve -social questions, in graceful language—all which touched -the popular imagination more than his somewhat prosaic -predecessor.</p> - -<p class="tb">Early in the nineteenth century, Thomas Brown, the young -Edinburgh Professor of Moral Philosophy, and colleague -of Stewart, raised a revolt against Reid and Stewart in -some of their characteristic philosophy. This brilliant -youth, minor poet as well as philosopher, had practised -medicine in Edinburgh before his appointment, in 1810, at -the age of thirty-two, to the chair of Stewart. In medical -practice he had been the colleague of Dr. Gregory, Reid’s -cousin, and so long his correspondent. Brown, unlike -Reid, was one of the precocious philosophers. At the -age of twenty he appeared as a critic of the <cite>Zoonomia</cite> of -Darwin, and a few years later as author of an <cite>Inquiry into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> -the Relation of Cause and Effect</cite>, which contains the essence -of the philosophy that was afterwards expanded and applied -in his <cite>Lectures</cite>. He died at the age of forty-two, leaving -works undistinguished by the deep and patient thought of -Reid, and diffuse in style, but abounding in ingenious -analysis—an interesting contribution to the logic of -physical inquiry, instead of appeals to carefully considered -judgments of the Common Sense in Perception and in -Causation. Brown recognised instinctive belief in natural -constancies of co-existence and sequence among phenomena, -and treated associations among mental states as -the chief explanation of the phenomena of mind. The -originative moral agency of intending and intelligent Will, -so prominent latterly in Reid, disappears in Brown. And -Brown, like Priestley, disparaged Reid’s claim to merit for -reversing the philosophical prejudice that ‘ideas’ are the -only objects of human cognition, regarding it as a metaphor -mistaken for a dogma. Indeed, the empirical laws of -association tend with Brown, as with Priestley, to be the -sole ultimate laws of mind: perhaps this tendency was -restrained in expression as much by personal respect for -Reid and Stewart as by conviction.</p> - -<p>After Brown, philosophy in Scotland was for a time dormant—superseded -by Combe and phrenology. But contemporaneously, -in ‘the twenties,’ a philosophy more akin -to Reid than to Brown made its appearance in England; -although the analogy is not on the surface, and has not, -I think, been observed. Coleridge, especially in his <cite>Aids to -Reflection</cite>, published in 1825, insists with eloquent emphasis -upon the difference between ‘the Reason,’ which is divine -or inspired, and mere ‘Understanding,’ which generalises -the phenomena that emerge in experience: he also presses<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> -the distinction between free agency, as implied in morally -responsible causation, and the mechanical order of nature -with which physical sciences are exclusively concerned. -‘The Reason,’ to which Coleridge appeals, corresponds -in function to ‘the Common Sense’ of Reid. It is described -as fixed and final; as in all its decisions appealing -to itself; and as ‘much nearer to sense than the understanding,’ -for it is direct insight of truth, whereas understanding -must refer all its judgments to premises. That -man, because he is morally responsible, must originate, -within his individual personality as their final centre, all acts -for which he is responsible, is with Coleridge a postulate, -‘the proof of which no man can give to another, yet every -man <em>may</em> find for himself,’ and so see the true meaning of -the words power and causality. In short, this postulate -is among the inspired revelations of the Common Sense -that are contained in our share of Divine Reason. We -may speak of understanding as ‘human,’ with its often -discordant generalisations; but there can be no merely -‘human’ Reason. There neither is nor can be but one -and the same Reason; the light without which the individual -understanding would be darkness.</p> - -<p class="tb">The philosophy that carefully measures its conclusions -by the Common Sense found its way from Scotland into -France early in this century, in arrest of the materialism -and scepticism which had taken the place of the spiritual -philosophy of Descartes and Pascal. In 1811 Royer -Collard, eminent as a philosopher and a statesman, was -made Professor of Philosophy in Paris. In that year, -when he was preparing his lectures, he accidentally found -a copy of Reid’s <cite>Inquiry</cite> at a book-stall near the Seine.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> -He was charmed with its contents, which thereafter inspired -his teaching.<a name="FNanchor_26" id="FNanchor_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> Through Royer Collard, Reid’s philosophy -became the dominant philosophy of France, and it still -retains an elevating spiritual influence in the national -schools.<a name="FNanchor_27" id="FNanchor_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> In 1828 Reid’s works were translated and discussed -by Jouffroy, a leading thinker in his generation, -who thus leavened thinking minds among contemporaries. -But Victor Cousin was Reid’s most eloquent and famous -missionary. He had been educated by Royer Collard in -Reid’s principles. His ardent and comprehensive genius, -however, became dissatisfied with what he called a ‘sage -but timid doctrine,’ and treated it as a vigorous but -hardly philosophical protest against the sceptic in the name -of uncritical common sense. In his enthusiasm, Cousin -turned to Germany for ‘a philosophy so masculine and -brilliant that it could command the attention of Europe.’ -At first he thought he found in Kant the profound refutation -of the sceptic, and the grand constructive philosophy -he wanted. But soon Kant’s mode of expelling the ‘mortal -poison’ seemed as unsatisfactory as Reid’s, and he parted -company with him so far as to join first Schelling and then -Hegel in an eclectic or all-reconciling system. But in the -end the fascination of Hegelian thought abated. There -might, after all, be deeper meaning, and more capacity for -development, in Reid’s appeal than he had supposed. So in -his later years Cousin returned to his first love. His <cite>Philosophie -Écossaise</cite>, which appeared in its latest form in 1857, is -an eloquent appreciation of Hutcheson, Adam Smith, Reid, -and Beattie, with Reid as the chief figure in the centre.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span></p> - -<p>Meantime a formidable intellectual force had appeared -in Scotland, in argumentative collision with those Germans -by whom Cousin had been fascinated, and also with -Cousin’s own eclectic assimilation of all philosophies. Sir -William Hamilton was warning his contemporaries against -the ‘masculine and brilliant’ Continental philosophy, and -energetically recalling them to Reid, by two essays in the -<cite>Edinburgh Review</cite>—one in October 1829, destructive of the -‘Philosophy of the Unconditioned,’ the other in October -1830, constructive, on Reid’s ‘Philosophy of Perception.’ -The reconstruction of the philosophy of the Common -Sense, contained by implication in these famous essays, -was, in 1846, elaborated in commentaries which embrace -the literature of philosophy, in Hamilton’s <cite>Reid</cite>. The -Glasgow professor re-appeared in the company of the most -learned of all Scottish philosophers, educated especially -by Aristotle and his commentators, by Kant, and by Reid -himself, whose modest enterprise was now measured by -the profoundest problems and most comprehensive conceptions -of ancient and modern speculation. The magnificent -intellect of Hamilton raised deep questions among us that -lay dormant in Reid.</p> - -<p>Hamilton in Scotland is so far in parallel with Cousin -in France, that—moving in opposite directions—they both -helped to <em>germanise</em> the philosophy which makes its last -appeal to the common sense. Cousin, dissatisfied with the -‘timidity’ of Reid, tried to reconcile a philosophy that -should comprehend the Infinite with the philosophy that is -confined to experience. Hamilton’s mission was to clip the -wings of the speculative adventurers. This made him put -the emphasis on the inadequacy of a human understanding -for fully coping with the eternal reality. While he praised<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> -Reid for making the Common Sense in its integrity the -necessary criterion of philosophy, he claimed for himself -the special credit of distinguishing its necessities as of two -sorts—the one a positive power, the other the impotence -implied in finite intelligence. Hence human experience -rests on a conditioned, or (so far) paralysed intelligence; -and if omniscience only can be called ‘knowledge,’ while to -know ‘in part,’ therefore with involved mysteries, must be -called ignorance—it follows that man knows nothing. -Ignorance is then the consummation of human philosophy, -and its highest attainment is this discovery. ‘Our dream -of knowledge is a little light rounded with darkness.’ ‘The -highest reach of science and philosophy is the scientific -recognition of human ignorance.’ ‘Doubt is the beginning -and the end of all our efforts to know.’ ‘The last and -highest consecration of all true religion is an altar to the -unknown and unknowable God.’ Man’s knowledge of -existence must be relative to his limited experience and -intelligence.</p> - -<p>The missionary of a neglected truth is apt to be one-sided -and even paradoxical, and strenuous expression was -natural to Hamilton. From his first essay in 1829 to his -last in 1855 he sought to show the inconsistency of infinite -knowledge with our limited share of inspiration in the -Common Sense. Accordingly, the negative and incomplete, -or what Bacon calls ‘broken’ character of man’s -knowledge, rather than its positive victories, is ever supreme -in the <em>Hamiltonianised</em> Reid, along with a recast of Reid’s -account of the Common Sense as involved in perception -of the outward things of sense.</p> - -<p>The respective offices of Reid and Hamilton might be -compared in this aphorism of Pascal—‘<i lang="fr">La Nature soutient<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> -la Raison impuissante</i>.’ Need for the common sense with -which human nature is charged, illustrates the impotence -of man’s unomniscient understanding and limited share of -the Divine Reason. Taking those words of Pascal, Reid -puts emphasis on ‘<i lang="fr">la nature</i>’; Hamilton on ‘<i lang="fr">impuissance</i>.’ -But both are recognised by each: it is a difference of -emphasis. Neither Hamilton nor Mansel excludes the -conservative influence of ‘<i lang="fr">la nature</i>,’ taken in its integrity, -in the way Mr. Herbert Spencer does, when he rests -philosophy only on the strongly emphasised part of Hamiltonian -philosophy. In Hamilton the ‘<i lang="fr">raison impuissante</i>’ -is insisted on really in order to make room for ‘<i lang="fr">la nature</i>’; -on the ground that the logical understanding, here ‘<i lang="fr">la -raison</i>,’ is too impotent to be able to <em>disprove</em> the genuine -judgments of the Common Sense.</p> - -<p>Brown’s rebellion against Reid early in the century, in -the interest of a universal physical causation or association, -has its parallel in Ferrier’s revolt, in the middle -of the century, against the Hamiltonian Reid, in the -interest of abstract metaphysics as opposed to uncriticised -common sense. In the name of philosophy he excludes -from philosophy all except necessary truths of abstract -reason; neglecting, as beneath its regard, the world of -change, in which Reid’s mixed and practical reason, or -Common Sense, had been offered as final guide. The -office of philosophy, according to Ferrier, is among the -eternal truths, which alone can be absolutely demonstrated, -and which relieve philosophy from ‘the oversight of -popular opinion and the errors of psychological science,’ -which had been unworthily dignified as the final test of -truth. The natural beliefs of mankind, instead of being -worshipped as divine, are banished in Ferrier’s philosophy,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> -on the ground that their self-contradictoriness is demonstrable: -the business of the philosopher, accordingly, is to -substitute ‘reasonable thinking’ for ‘common sense.’ The -‘<i lang="fr">raison impuissante</i>,’ emphasised by Hamilton—the ignorance -in which Hamilton revels—is not allowed by Ferrier -to be ignorance at all; for ‘man cannot be said to be -ignorant of self-contradictions that can be knowledge for -no mind, human or divine.’ Independent or unperceived -matter is not merely hid from man’s knowledge on account -of his ‘<i lang="fr">raison impuissante</i>’; it is hid from all intelligence, -because inconsistent with the <em>necessarily</em> mind-dependent -essence of Being. Pure reason does not need to be finally -supplemented by practical principles of common sense. -It is able to shift for itself without this surrender. The -conciliation of common sense thinking and philosophy is -accomplished by the submission of common sense to -universal compulsory reason. Opinion must submit to -demonstration, instead of demonstration, intelligible only -by the few, having to make way for the undemonstrable -dogmas of the unreflecting.</p> - -<p>Reid, I suspect, could hardly recognise, in the stuffed -figure thus put up by Ferrier to be knocked down, either -the ‘common sense’ in which <em>he</em> found the root of a human -knowledge of the realities revealed in place and time -throughout the long experience of man, or the ‘perception’ -in which things external to the individual mind make their -appearance ‘in part.’ The practical impassibility of disbelieving -the existence of other living beings, of discarding -memory as wholly delusion, of treating man as irresponsible, -and our surroundings as chaotic or wholly uninterpretable, -alike for science and in common life—these were -alleged constituents of the common sense with which Reid<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> -concerned himself. They all lie outside the demonstrations -of Ferrier, in which he unfolds his theory in forms of -artistic beauty and easy grace, which make him the most -picturesque figure in the succession of Scottish philosophers. -Yet Brown and Ferrier in the end helped on the expansion -of Reid.</p> - -<p class="tb">Before Ferrier passed away in 1864, a revolution in the -conception of the universe was in progress in Britain. The -idea of continuous physical evolution of external nature -and of man, promulgated biologically by Darwin, and by -Mr. Herbert Spencer as the all-comprehensive generalised -law of a universe that was supposed to be the outcome of -unknowable Power, has become a popular creed within the -last forty years. Simultaneously, methods of development -akin to Hegel were introduced by Dr. Hutcheson Stirling -in his <cite>Secret of Hegel</cite>, and afterwards in Glasgow by Dr. -Caird, who adorned Reid’s chair for nearly thirty years—methods -for making explicit latent Divine Reason as what -explains and sustains the universe. Reid’s appeal in a practical -temper, to the mixed and moral reason in man, as that -with which man is inspired—an appeal widened and prolific -of deeper questions in Hamilton—was still too cautious -to attempt to formulate the mysteries of existence, in fully -intelligible principles, which should remove the darkness -around the ‘little light’ with which Reid was satisfied. -He would have looked with distrust at the more ambitious -intellectual constructions which seemed to be superseding -the common sense of human nature, as the human response -to the sceptic or agnostic, whose philosophical knowledge -turned all knowledge into ignorance at the last. Reid was -too human to be satisfied with merely physical generalisations<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> -of sequences and co-existences of phenomena, finally -unintelligible, and therefore unworthy of trust; and he would -have been too cautious to accept a network of abstract -intellectual necessities, latent in the universe, as the last -and best human account of nature and man as actually -found in place and time. To rest satisfied with the -evolutionary generalisation he would have regarded as -involving the ‘common error of philosophers since the days -of Plato,’ in confounding moral agency with physical -causation. Of the magnificent Hegelian constructions he -would probably have said, what he says of Samuel Clarke’s -theological demonstration—‘These are the speculations -of men of superior genius. But whether they be as solid -as they are sublime, or whether they be the wanderings -of imagination in a region beyond the limit of human -understanding, I am unable to determine.’</p> - -<p>The alternatives presented to this generation—either -agnostic pessimist despair or universal science in which man -is in some sense identified with God—final nescience <i lang="la">versus</i> -final omniscience—ultimate and universal problem of existence -taking the place of a Reid’s science of human mind—represent -the unending struggle between sceptical distrust -of the Universal Power, ignorantly worshipped, and reasonable -ethical faith in the Universal Power, with consequent -hope for men. It is in Scotland a new form of the war with -David Hume to which Reid’s life was given. It has been -going on since Socrates argued with the Sophists at Athens, -and since Job justified the morality of Providence among -the Eastern emirs. The eighteenth-century question, -‘What is Matter?’ has risen in the nineteenth to the -question, ‘What is God?’ The inspired Common Sense -or Common Reason of Reid seems to be sublimated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> -in universally necessitating dialectical Reason, in this -Scoto-German way of resisting the agnostic. To fill the -place of the ‘unknown and unknowable God’ of the -Hamiltonian emphasis, human knowledge appears identified -and co-extensive with the Divine, in an absolute -idealism, presumed to be the only adequate refutation -of all subverting doubt. The ‘<i lang="fr">raison impuissante</i>,’ sustained -by and culminating in ‘<i lang="fr">la nature</i>,’ or inspired -common sense, is exchanged for what looks like a pantheistic -necessity that leaves no room for moral agency -in man or God, and which scorns the incomplete knowledge -that cannot dispense with a faith venture at its root.</p> - -<p>Yet Reid, if he were now among us, might find the -common sense not superseded but idealised, in the more -articulate response of reason in man to the all-pervading -active Reason which the later philosopher identifies with -his own. That the common sense latent in man is the -inspiration of God is an assumption with which he started -in his <cite>Inquiry</cite>. ‘The inspiration of the Almighty giveth -man understanding.’ ‘The spirit of man is the lamp of -the Lord.’ So the common sense moral trust in God, or -universal moral venture, is at the root of all human life -and human knowledge, giving unity and vitality to the -whole. It is the ‘little light’—a ray from the perfect divine -light,—and the universe is interpretable for all human -purposes only in and through it. It is that in each of -us through which the inspirations in the ideal man, when -dormant in individuals, can nevertheless be made to -respond, in an ethical or religious common sense of the -infinite love and mercy of the all-sustaining Power that is -always waiting to be gracious—to respond to the inspirations -of Hebrew prophets and Christian apostles.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span></p> - -<p>If ‘knowledge’ means only what is reached by the logical -understanding elaborating materials given by sense; and if -the name is denied to the inspirations of the Common -Sense, what those inspirations should be called becomes -a question about the meaning of a word. God is then -‘unknowable’ by man, only inasmuch as faith in the -perfect reason and goodness of the Universal Power is -more than an ordinary scientific generalisation. But if -we recognise in the Common Sense, and in its underlying -Theistic Faith, that without which all our knowledge -must dissolve in ignorance, then the faith must be accepted -as in reason the final ground of the knowledge; and -therefore as in us the last form of the universal reason, in -and through which what is divine in us protests against -limitation to an intelligence that becomes paralysed in -the absence of this its indispensable factor. If knowledge -means omniscient physical science of the universe of -reality, then the universe of reality <em>is</em> finally unknown and -unknowable. But if man <em>can</em> live in intelligible relations -to what transcends natural science,—call this which enables -him so to live, ‘knowledge,’ ‘science,’ ‘common sense,’ -‘faith,’ ‘inspiration,’ ‘revelation,’ ‘feeling,’ or ‘reason,’—it -is treasure found for the philosopher.</p> - -<p>Can Reid’s ‘common sense’ be sublimated into the -universal consciousness of Hegelian dialectic, and does -this translation of faith into absolute science constitute -the true ideal of Scottish common sense philosophy at the -end of the nineteenth century? Is common knowledge, and -scientific knowledge in special sciences, only knowledge ‘in -part,’ while the true philosopher may aspire to know even as -God knows? Must man thus claim omniscience as the -only fit ground of his protest against sceptical nescience?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> -Or, must his interpretation of the experience through which -he is passing be, even in the end, only an inspired faith-venture, -instead of the omniscience which elevates the -common sense into itself? Rather, must not the supposed -omniscience, which is dissatisfied with faith-ventures, because -faith is supposed to be blind, be itself only the common -sense under another name—but with its intellectual constitution -more articulately explicated?</p> - -<p>Surely only omniscience and omnipotence can dispense -with the moral and religious venture of our inspired -common sense and its implied theistic faith, as the root -of reason in man—in his intermediate place and office, -between perfect knowledge and total ignorance. So understood, -Reid’s philosophy is <em>virtually</em> the philosophy that -makes its final appeal to the divine in man, latent in each -individual man, in and through whom the universe is -gradually interpreted as a revelation of perfect reason or -perfect goodness. True philosophy is then the moral and -religious venture which accepts and applies the principles -of common sense, in the assurance that, in genuine submission -to their inspired authority, we cannot finally be -put to intellectual or moral confusion. Faith in God is -latent even in the perceptions of external sense, in which -Reid found the first example of the operation of this -inspiration. Alike in the outer world of the senses, and -in free or responsible agency in man, filial faith, ethical -or theistic, may be justified by reasoning, although it -Cannot be reached by logic as a direct conclusion from -premises. It is our primary postulate, and not an object -of logical proof; therefore credible in reason while it is -not demonstrable.</p> - -<p>In this way a humanised Hegelianism, which seeks to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> -restore or retain the often dormant faith in the perfectly -good God, and thus in the future of man, may even be -taken as in line with Reid, under the altered intellectual -conditions at the end of the nineteenth century. It -virtually appeals at last to moral faith.<a name="FNanchor_28" id="FNanchor_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p> - -<p class="tb">Poetry in another way than philosophy expresses and -interprets for man the inspired experience that transcends -physical science and its logical understanding. And we -find in the great poets of the Victorian era an appeal -through the imagination to those elements in human nature, -to which Reid made argumentative appeal as a philosopher. -In this lies Wordsworth’s ‘healing power.’ His ‘Intimations -of Immortality’ express divine inspirations, through which -man learns to understand himself and his surroundings—inspirations -that, dormant, ‘fade into the light of common -day,’ yet, recovered by reflection, ‘in a season of calm -weather, though inland far we be, our souls have sight of -that immortal sea which brought us hither.’ And ‘In -Memoriam’ is Tennyson’s protest against the doubting -spirit of the age, on behalf of the final and life-determining -principles, which underlie creeds, belong to our earliest -childhood, and on which the wisest and best have rested -with a more or less intelligent consciousness through the -ages—God revealed in the ideal man latent in all men. -The human office of inspired common sense or ethical -reason, final for beings whose ‘knowledge’ must be intermediate -between omniscience and blind ignorance of mere -sense and feeling, is its tacit philosophy—</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse indent1">‘Our wills are <em>ours</em>, we know not how,</div> -<div class="verse">Our wills are ours, to make them Thine.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">We have but <em>faith</em>: we cannot <em>know</em>;</div> -<div class="verse indent1">For knowledge is of things we see;</div> -<div class="verse indent1">And yet we trust it comes from <em>Thee</em>,</div> -<div class="verse">A beam in darkness: let it <em>grow</em>.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Let knowledge grow from more to more,</div> -<div class="verse indent1">But more of reverence in us dwell;</div> -<div class="verse indent1">That mind and soul, according well,</div> -<div class="verse">May make one music as before,</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">But vaster.’</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>Our scientific interpretation of the ever-changing universe -at last rests on ethical theistic faith, and the Christian -revelation of divine love is responded to by the divine -inspiration of God in Man, in the form of the spiritual -Common Sense. If this be not so, we cannot rely on the -Common Sense, for it then belongs to a morally untrustworthy -universe.</p> - -<p>Established on this faith, philosophy or theology, in -Scotland and throughout the world, awaits the sceptical -criticism and the spiritual healing power of the masters -of thought in the twentieth century, for its further development, -and application to human affairs.</p> - -<p class="titlepage">THE END</p> - -<hr /> - -<div class="footnotes"> - -<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1" id="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The above from data at Birkwood.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_2" id="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> <cite>Scottish Notes and Queries</cite>, iii. 84-88; 128.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_3" id="Footnote_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> The number is, unfortunately, unrecorded.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_4" id="Footnote_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Birkwood <span class="smcapuc">MSS.</span></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_5" id="Footnote_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> In <cite>Scotland and Scotsmen of the Eighteenth Century</cite>, by Ramsay -of Ochtertyre, there is an interesting account of this Mr. Bisset.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_6" id="Footnote_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> <cite>Essays on the Intellectual Powers</cite>, II. ch. 10.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_7" id="Footnote_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> While he lived here, he seems to have retained the incumbency -of New Machar till May 1752.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_8" id="Footnote_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Long ago removed. I have an engraving of it.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_9" id="Footnote_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> These <span class="smcapuc">MS.</span> dissertations have been lately recovered, and I have thus -been able to compare them with the <cite>Inquiry</cite>, in which I find them -mostly embodied.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_10" id="Footnote_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Birkwood <span class="smcapuc">MS.</span></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_11" id="Footnote_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> I have elsewhere discussed the true meaning of Berkeley’s philosophy.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_12" id="Footnote_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Between the College and the Cathedral, diverging to the east.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_13" id="Footnote_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Watt began those experiments in Glasgow about 1763.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_14" id="Footnote_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> The American revolt was a severe stroke to Glasgow at the time, -though it led to a great development of manufactures in the city afterwards. -See Colville’s <cite>By-Ways of History</cite> (1897), pp. 281-314.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_15" id="Footnote_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> William Traill, a Glasgow graduate, was elected. Playfair (of -St. Andrews), afterwards Professor John Playfair of Edinburgh, was -also a candidate, then only eighteen.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_16" id="Footnote_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> The Bell of the Brae.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_17" id="Footnote_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> The Forth and Clyde Canal was commenced in 1768 and opened -from sea to sea in 1790.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_18" id="Footnote_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Ramsay of Ochtertyre, who often met him at Blair Drummond, -mentions that ‘for more than fifteen years Reid spent great part of the -College vacation there with Lord Kames.’</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_19" id="Footnote_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Kant’s uncritical identification of Reid’s philosophical appeal to -the common rational sense with the popular appeal and declamation -of Oswald and even Beattie, is exposed by Professor Sidgwick in -<cite>Mind</cite> (April 1895).</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_20" id="Footnote_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Birkwood <span class="smcapuc">MSS.</span></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_21" id="Footnote_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Birkwood <span class="smcapuc">MSS.</span></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_22" id="Footnote_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Professor Richardson’s Memoir of Arthur.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_23" id="Footnote_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> <cite>The World as Will and Idea</cite>, translated by Mr. Haldane and -Mr. Kemp, ii. 240. Schopenhauer makes other interesting references -to Reid.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_24" id="Footnote_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Birkwood <span class="smcapuc">MSS.</span></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_25" id="Footnote_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> See also Reid’s <cite>Essays on the Active Powers</cite>, I. 1-6, and <i lang="la">passim</i>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_26" id="Footnote_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> M. Boutroux, in <cite>Revue Française d’Edimbourg</cite>, No. 4.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_27" id="Footnote_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Reid’s philosophy was Renan’s ‘ideal’ in his early life, according -to his biographer.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_28" id="Footnote_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> So in the ‘Preliminary Notice,’ in the new edition of Dr. Stirling’s -<cite>Secret of Hegel</cite>—last paragraph.</p> - -</div> - -</div> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Thomas Reid, by A. 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