Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/370

Rh 352 R E I K E I Hume's sceptical dissolution of knowledge. Reid's theory of sensation, indeed, deserves more attention than has been generally bestowed upon it According to this theory, sensations are not the objects of our perception, not even, as Kant maintained, the " matter " of our perceptions on which the " form " is superinduced ; they are merely the "signs" which introduce us to the knowledge of real objects. The latter "are presented to the mind" by means of, or on occasion of, certain corresponding sensa- tions ; but the sensation and the perception " appear upon accurate reflexion not only to be different things, but as unlike as pain is to the point of a sword" (Hamilton's Reid, 122). Sensation, it might be expressed, is the condition of perception, but there is no sort of community between the two. They are distinct in kind, and therefore the possibility of deriving the one from the other of melting down the real world into subjective sensations is once for all shut out. Reid's position here enables him to escape also from the phenomenalism of the Kantian theory. Inasmuch as the permanent objects presented to us in perception are not in any sense a manipulation of subjective sensations, there is not even an apparent warrant for branding them as " merely " phenomenal. They are real in the full sense of the word ; we know the world as it really exists. The relativism or phenomenalism which Hamilton afterwards adopted from Kant and sought to engraft upon Scottish philosophy is thus wholly absent from the original Scottish doctrine. One or two passages may certainly be quoted from Reid in which he asserts that we know only properties of things and are ignorant of their essence. But the exact meaning which he attaches to such expressions is not quite clear; and they occur, moreover, only incidentally and with the air of current phrases mechanically repeated. In Dugald Stewart, however, the merely qualitative nature of our knowledge is consciously emphasized, and made the foundation of philosophical arguments ; so that Stewart in this respect paves the way for the more thoroughgoing philosophy of nescience elaborated by Hamilton. But since Hamilton's time the most typical Scottish thinkers have repudiated his relativistic doctrine, and returned to the original tradition of the school. Authorities. For the life, the Memoir by Dugald Stewart, prefixed to Hamilton's edition of Reid's works, may be consulted, along with the account given by Dr M'Cosh in his Scottish Philo- sophy (1875). The complete edition of the works by Sir William Hamilton, published in two volumes with notes and supplement- ary dissertations by the editor (6th ed. 1863), has superseded all others. (A. SE.) REID, SIR WILLIAM (1797-1858), administrator and man of science, was born in 1797 at the manse of Kin- glassie, Fifeshire, Scotland, and entered the army in 1809 as a lieutenant of royal engineers. He saw active service in the Peninsula under Wellington, and afterwards took part in the bombardment of Algiers in 1816. It was while governor of Bermuda that in 1838 he published the work by which he is now known, T/ie Law of Storms, which obtained a wide popularity and did good service in furthering the progress of this department of meteorology. In 1851 he was chairman of the executive committee of the Gr3at Exhibition ; on the completion of the work he was made a K.C.B. and appointed governor of Malta. He died in October 1858, shortly after his return to England. REIGATE, a market town and municipal borough of Surrey, is situated at the head of the long valley of Holms- dale Hollow, on three railway lines, 23 miles south of London. It consists principally of one long street, with surrounding houses and villas inhabited chiefly by persons having their occupations in London. Of the old castle, supposed to have been built before the Conquest, to com- mand the pass through the valley, there only remains the entrance to a cave beneath, 150 feet long and from 10 to 12 feet high, excavated in the sand, which the barons used as a guardroom. The grounds have been laid out as a public garden. Near the market house is the site of an ancient chapel dedicated to Thomas a Becket. In the chancel of the parish church of St Mary, a building rang- ing from Transition Norman to Perpendicular, which dates from the beginning of the reign of Henry VII., were buried Archbishop Ussher and Lord Howard, the commander of the English navy against the Spanish Armada. Above the vestry there is a library containing some choice manu- scripts and rare books. The grammar school was founded in 1675. Among the other public buildings are the town- hall, the public hall, the market-hall, and the working men's institute. The town has some agricultural trade, and in the neighbourhood are quarries for freestone, hearth- stone, and white sand. The area of the municipal borough is 6015 acres, with a population in 1871 of 15,916, and in 1881 of 18,662. In Domesday the town was called " Churchfelle," or " the church in the field," and afterwards it was called Churchfield in Reigate, the earlier reading of the latter name being "Ridgegate." The castle was taken by Louis the Dauphin in the reign of John. In the time of the Confessor the manor belonged to his queen Edith. A market was granted by Edward III. The town returned two members to parliament from the reign of Edward I. to the reign of William IV., and one from 1832 to 1867, when it was disfranchised for corrupt practices. REIMARUS, HERMANN SAMUEL (1694-1768), known to history chiefly as the author of the WolferibiMel Fragments, was born at Hamburg, December 22, 1694. His father, the son of a clergyman and married into a patrician family of that city, was one of the masters in the Johanneum college, a good scholar and excellent teacher. Until his twelfth year the son received his education almost entirely from his father. He passed from his father's tuition into the class of the famous scholar Johann Albrecht Fabricius, whose son-in-law he subsequently became. In his twentieth year he entered the university of Jena, where he studied theology, ancient languages, and philosophy. After making a tour in Holland and England (1720), he became privat-docent in the university of Wittenberg ; and in 1723 he accepted the post of rector of the high, school at Wismar in Mecklen- burg, which he exchanged four years afterwards for that of professor of Hebrew and Oriental languages in the high school of his native city. This post he held till his death, though offers of more lucrative and distinguished positions were at various times made to him. His professional duties were but light, and he employed his ample leisure in the study of philology, mathematics, philosophy, history, political economy, natural science, and natural history, for which he made expensive collections. Philo- sophy and theology, however, became with his advancing years the chief subjects of pursuit. From 1744 to 1768 he had in hand the theological work from which Lessing published the notorious Fragments in 1774-78. Reimarus was held by his contemporaries in the highest esteem as a scholar, a thinker, an author, and a man. His house was the centre of the highest culture of Hamburg, and a monument of his influence in that city still remains in the Haus der patriotischen Gesettschaft, where the learned and artistic societies partly founded by him still meet. His wife bore him seven children, three only of whom lived to grow up, namely his only surviving son the distinguished physician Johann Albrecht Heinrich and two daughters, one of them being Elise, Lessing's friend and correspondent. Ten days before his death he invited a select number of friends to dine with him, and, with his wonted cheerfulness and amiability, declared to them solemnly that this was his