1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Reid, Thomas

Author:Thomas Reid (1710-1796) (1710-1796), Scottish philosopher, was born at Strachan in Kincardineshire, on the 26th of April 1710. His father was minister of the place for fifty years, and traced his descent from a long line of Presbyterian ministers on Deeside. His mother belonged to the brilliant Gregory family (q.v.), which, in the 18th century, gave so many representatives to literature and science in Scotland. Reid graduated at Aberdeen in 1726, and remained there as librarian to the university for ten years, a period which he devoted largely to mathematical reading. In 1737 he was presented to the living of Newmachar near Aberdeen. The parishioners, violently excited at the time about the law of patronage, received him with open hostility; and tradition asserts that his uncle defended him on the pulpit stair with a drawn sword. Though not distinguished as a preacher, he was successful in winning the affections of his people. The publication of Hume's treatise turned his attention to philosophy, and in particular to the theory of external perception. His first publication, however, dealt with a question of philosophical method suggested by the reading of Hutcheson. The &ldquo;Essay on Quantity, occasioned by reading a Treatise in which Simple and Compound Ratios are applied to Virtue and Merit,&rdquo; denies the possibility of a mathematical treatment of moral subjects. The essay appeared in the Transactions of the Royal Society (1748). In 1740 Reid married a cousin, the daughter of a London physician. In 1752 the professors of King's College, Aberdeen, elected him to the chair of philosophy, which he held for twelve years. The foundation of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society (the &ldquo;Wise Club&rdquo;), which numbered among its members Campbell, Beattie, Gerard and Dr John Gregory, was mainly owing to the exertions of Reid, who was secretary for the first year (1758). Many of the subjects of discussion were drawn from Hume's speculations; and during the last years of his stay in Aberdeen Reid propounded his new point of view in several papers read before the society. The results of these papers were embodied in the Enquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense (1764). The Enquiry does not go beyond an analysis of sense perception, and is therefore more limited in scope than the later Essays; but if the latter are more mature, there is more freshness about the earlier work. In this year, Reid succeeded Adam Smith as professor of moral philosophy in the university of Glasgow. After seventeen years of active teaching, he retired in order to complete his philosophical system. As a lecturer, he was inferior in charm and eloquence to Brown and Stewart; the latter says that &ldquo;silent and respectful attention&rdquo; was accorded to the &ldquo;simplicity and perspicuity of his style&rdquo; and &ldquo;the gravity and authority of his character.&rdquo; His philosophical influence was exerted largely through the writings of Dugald Stewart and Sir William Hamilton. The Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man appeared in 1785, and their ethical complement, the Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind, in 1788. These, with an account of Aristotle's Logic appended to Lord Kames's Sketches of the History of Man (1774), conclude the list of works published in Reid's lifetime. Hamilton's edition of Reid also contains an account of the university of Glasgow and a selection of Reid's letters, chiefly. addressed to his Aberdeen friends the Skenes, to Lord Kames, and to Dr James Gregory. With the two last named he discussed the materialism of Priestley and

the theory of necessitarianism. He reverted in his old age to the mathematical pursuits of his earlier years, and his ardour for knowledge of every kind remained fresh to the last. He died of paralysis on the 7th of October 1796, his wife and all his children save one having predeceased him. His portrait by Raeburn is the property of Glasgow University, and in the National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, there is a good medallion by Tassie, taken in his eighty-first year. His character was marked by independence, economy and generosity.


 * (A. S. P.-P.; X.)