Born, at Strachan, Kincardineshire, 26 April 1710. Early education at Kincardine parish school. To Marischal College, Aberdeen, 1722; B.A., 1726. Studied for Presbyterian ministry. Licensed preacher, Sept. 1731. Librarian of Marischal Coll., 1733–36. Minister of New Machar, Aberdeen, 1737. Married Elizabeth Reid, 1740. “Regent” (afterwards Prof. of Philosophy) at King’s Coll., Aberdeen, Oct. 1751 to May 1764. Founded Philosophical Society, 1758; it existed till 1773. Hon. D.D., Marischal Coll., 18 Jan. 1762. Prof. of Moral Philosophy, Glasgow Univ., May 1764 to Oct. 1796; deputed active duties of professorship to an assistant, 1780. Died, in Glasgow, 7 Oct. 1796. Works: “An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense,” 1764; “Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man,” 1785; “Essays on the Active Powers of Man,” 1788; (He contributed: “An Essay on Quantity” to the “Philosophical Transactions” for 1748; “A Brief Account of Aristotle’s Logic” to “Kame’s Sketches of the History of Man,” vol. ii., 1774; “A Statistical Account of the University of Glasgow” to Sinclair’s “Statistical Account of Scotland,” 1799.) Collected Works: ed. by Sir W. Hamilton (2 vols.), 1846–63. Life: by Dugald Stewart, 1803.

Personal

  Reid was below the middle size, but had great athletic power. His portrait, painted by Raeburn during his last visit to Edinburgh, belongs to Glasgow University; and a medallion by Tassie, taken in his eighty-first year, in the National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, is said to be a very good likeness. Reid’s obvious characteristic was the strong and cautious “common sense” which also dictated his philosophy. He was thoroughly independent, strictly economical, and uniformly energetic in the discharge of his duties. He was amiable in his family, delighted in young children, some of whom, it is said, “noticed the peculiar kindness of his eye;” and was as charitable as his means permitted. Stewart mentions a gift to his former parishioners of New Machar, during the scarcity of 1782, which would have been out of proportion to his means had it not been for his rigid economy, and of which he endeavoured to conceal the origin. From the few letters preserved, he appears to have been remarkable for the warmth and steadiness of his friendships.

  There was a fine simplicity, a sterling honesty in the old philosophical student, who in controversy was the model of courtesy shocking thereby Dr. Beattie, who was grieved that a controversialist who professed to be a Christian should write like a gentleman. As he grew aged he became very deaf, but not less shrewd; as active at eighty-seven years as at sixty, with his short, sturdy frame, busy in his garden, keen over botany, physiology, or physics. Yet with all his energy he would plaintively say, with a kindly look on his good, plain, common-sense face, which looked like an incarnation of his own philosophy: “I am ashamed of having lived so long after having ceased to be useful.”

  His life had been a singularly calm one, and his chief characteristics had been an indomitable faculty of patient thought and a sincerity of purpose that never wavered. Such influence as he possessed was gained by quiet and persistent effort; and he did not affect his contemporaries either by any marked originality of genius, or by a striking or eccentric personality.

General

  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 so much on those subjects, is very interesting throughout. The question concerning Liberty and Necessity is very fully discussed, and very ably; and, I think, nothing more needs be said about it. I could have wished that Dr. Reid had given a fuller enumeration of the passions, and been a little more particular in illustrating the duties of morality. But his manner is, in all his writings, more turned to speculation 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 he pays them much more respect than they are entitled to.

  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 any thing that can be called mine in the philosophy of the mind, which does not follow with ease from the detection of this prejudice.

  The author of an “Inquiry into the Mind,” and of subsequent “Essays on the Intellectual and Active Powers of Man,” has great merit in the effect to which he has pursued this history. But, considering the point at which the science stood when he began his inquiries, he has perhaps no less merit in having removed the mist of hypothesis and metaphor with which the subject was enveloped, and in having taught us to state the facts of which we are conscious, not in figurative language, but in the terms which are proper to the subject. In this it will be our advantage to follow him; the more that, in former theories, so much attention had been paid to the introduction of ideas or images as the elements of knowledge, that the belief of any external existence or prototype has been left to be inferred from the mere idea or image; and this inference, indeed, is so little founded, that many who have come to examine its evidence have thought themselves warranted to deny it altogether. And hence the criticism of ingenious men, who, not seeing a proper access of knowledge through the medium of ideas, without considering whether the road they had been directed to take was the true or a false one, denied the possibility of arriving at the end.

  With respect to his character; its most prominent features were, intrepid and inflexible rectitude; a pure and devoted attachment to truth; and an entire command, acquired by the unwearied exertions of a long life, over all his passions.

  Dr. Reid’s great achievement was, undoubtedly, the subversion of the Ideal system, or the confutation of that hypothesis which represents the immediate objects of the mind in perception as certain images or pictures of external objects conveyed by the senses to the sensorium. This part of his task, it is now generally admitted that he has performed with exemplary diligence and complete success; but we are by no means so entirely satisfied with the uses he has attempted to make of his victory.

  A sincere inquirer after Truth, who maintained indeed the existence of certain principles of knowledge, independent of experience, but considered philosophy as the science of the human mind, which must be founded on the principles of Common Sense, regarding the latter as species of Intellectual Instinct.

  You can read in the translation of one of the best pupils of the Normal School, now my colleague in this faculty, the judicious Reid, with the truly superior commentary of M. Royer-Collard. The Scotch philosophy will prepare you for the German philosophy. It is to Reid and to Kant that I refer in great part the polemics which I have instituted against empiricism in the person of Locke.

  A patient, modest, and deep thinker, who in his first work (“Enquiry into the Human Mind”) deserves a commendation more descriptive of a philosopher than that bestowed by Professor Cousin, of having made a vigorous protest against scepticism on behalf of common sense. His observations on suggestion, on natural signs, on the connection between what he calls sensation and conception, though perhaps occasioned by Berkeley, whose idealism Reid had once adopted, are marked by the genuine spirit of original observation.

  Reid, who carried into the recesses of the human mind the torch of reason.

  Dr. Reid has many merits as a speculator, but the only merit which he arrogates to himself,—the principal merit accorded to him by others,—is, that he was the first philosopher, in more recent times, who dared, in his doctrine of immediate perception, to vindicate, against the unanimous authority of philosophers, the universal conviction of mankind. But this doctrine he has at best imperfectly developed, and, at the same time, has unfortunately obscured it, by errors of so singular a character, that some acute philosophers—for Dr. Brown does not stand alone—have never even suspected what his doctrine of perception actually is…. But if all he did was merely to explode the cruder hypothesis of representation, and to adopt in its place the finer,—why, in the first place, so far from depriving idealism and scepticism of all basis, he only placed them on one firmer and more secure; and, in the second, so far from originating a new opinion, he could only have added one to a class of philosophers, who, after the time of Arnauld, were continually on the increase, and who, among the contemporaries of Reid himself, certainly constituted the majority. His philosophy would thus be at once only a silly blunder; its pretence to originality only in proclamation of ignorance; and, so far from being an honour to the nation from which it arose, and by whom it was respected, it would, in fact, be a scandal and a reproach to the philosophy of any country in which it met with any milder treatment than derision…. I then detailed to you the grounds on which it ought to be held that Reid’s doctrine of Perception is one of Natural Realism, and not a form of Cosmothetic Idealism, as supposed by Brown…. Having concluded the argument by which I endeavoured to satisfy you that Reid’s doctrine is Natural Realism, I should now proceed to show that Natural Realism is a more philosophical doctrine than Hypothetical Realism.

  It may be here remarked that what Malebranche has properly called the judgment of the mind as to the cause of its sensations, is precisely what Reid denominates perception; a term less clear, and which seems to have led some of his school into important errors. The language of the Scottish philosopher appears to imply that he considered perception as a distinct and original faculty of the mind, rather than what it is, a complex operation of the judgment and memory, applying knowledge already acquired by experience. Neither he nor his disciple Stewart, though aware of the mistakes that have arisen in this province of metaphysics by selecting our instances from the phenomena of vision instead of the other senses, have avoided the same source of error.

  Reid’s philosophy made a great stir at first, but has for some years past been sinking into merited neglect. The appeal to Common Sense as arbiter in Philosophy, is now pretty well understood to be on a par with Dr. Johnson’s kicking a stone as a refutation of Berkeley.

  The great aim of Reid’s philosophy, then, was to investigate the true theory of perception; to controvert the representationalist hypothesis, as held in one sense or another by almost all preceding philosophers; and to stay the progress which scepticism, aided by this hypothesis, was so rapidly making…. That Reid has done much for the advancement of mental science, is almost universally admitted: to complain that he did not accomplish more, or follow out the track which he opened to its furthest results, is perhaps unreasonable; since we ought rather to look for the completion of his labours from the hands of his followers, than demand from himself at once the foundation and the superstructure.

  The merits of Dr. Reid, then, as a reformer of philosophy, amount in our opinion to this: he was among the first to say and to write that the representative theory of perception was false and erroneous, and was the fountainhead of scepticism and idealism. But this admission of his merits must be accompanied by the qualification that he adopted, as the basis of his philosophy, a principle which rendered nugatory all his protestations. It is of no use to disclaim a conclusion if we accept the premises which inevitably lead to it. Dr. Reid disclaimed the representative theory, but he embraced its premises, and thus he virtually ratified the conclusions of the very system which he clamorously denounced. In his language he is opposed to representationism, but in his doctrine he lends it the strongest support by accepting as the foundation of his philosophy an analysis of the perception of matter.

  The positive doctrines of Reid’s own system could not be understood without much explanation; and his own exposition of them is very imperfect. Indeed the constant occurrence of polemical matter, and the repetitions which his Essays derived from their original shape of Lectures, are the circumstances that chiefly injure the literary value of the work. He is a bald and dry, but very clear and logical writer; and never was there a more sincere lover of truth, or a more candid and honourable disputant. His slow and patient thinking, notwithstanding a strong aversion to close analysis, led him to some very striking results, out of which his whole scheme is developed. The originality of these is much greater than his own manner of expounding them would lead us to suppose; and their importance in the history of philosophy may be estimated from this fact, that Reid’s metaphysical creed does really coincide with the first and most characteristic step in that of his German contemporary Kant.

  Since the first edition of this work, Sir W. Hamilton has published an edition of Reid, illustrated and enriched by notes and dissertations of incomparable erudition and acuteness. Respecting the interpretation Sir William gives to Reid’s doctrines, I will only say that he has shown what a subtle mind can read into the philosophy of common sense; but he has not in the least produced the conviction in me of Reid’s having meant what the illustrious successor supposed him to have meant. At the same time, I will add that, the limits of my work having restricted me to the consideration of Reid’s contributions to Philosophy (in the narrow sense of the term), I have not done justice to his many excellent qualities as a teacher. His works are well worthy of diligent study, and their spirit is eminently scientific.

  Reid is a bold, dry, but very clear and logical writer, a sincere lover of truth, and a candid and honorable disputant; his system is original and important in the history of philosophy.

  Was the most eminent among the purely speculative thinkers of Scotland, after Hume and Adam Smith, though in point of merit, he must be placed far below them. For, he had neither the comprehensiveness of Smith, nor the fearlessness of Hume. The range of his knowledge was not wide enough to allow him to be comprehensive; while a timidity, almost amounting to moral cowardice, made him recoil from the views advocated by Hume, not so much on account of their being false, as on account of their being dangerous…. With Reid, the main question always is, not whether an inference is true, but what will happen if it is true. He says, that a doctrine is to be judged by its fruits; forgetting that the same doctrine will bear different fruits in different ages, and that the consequences which a theory produces in one state of society, are often diametrically opposed to those which it produces in another. He thus made his own age the standard of all future ones. He also trammelled philosophy with practical considerations; diverting thinkers from the pursuit of truth, which is their proper department, into the pursuit of expediency, which is not their department at all. Reid was constantly stopping to inquire, not whether theories were accurate, but whether it was advisable to adopt them; whether they were favourable to patriotism, or to generosity, or to friendship; in a word, whether they were comfortable, and such as we should at present like to believe. Or else, he would take other ground, still lower, and still more unworthy of a philosopher.

  The mere fact of his originating a school of philosophy, even though we allow that his conclusions were supported by popular feeling, argues a large measure of intellectual force, in one direction or another; but very different opinions have been expressed as to his capacities for mental analysis. Various particulars in his style and his favourite studies indicate a tendency to dwell by preference upon the concrete. He had no great turn for style; his composition deserves the praise of “ease, perspicuity, and purity;” it is, besides, neat and finished, and often moves with considerable spirit: but it has neither the incisive vigour of Campbell, the copiousness of Smith, nor the original freshness of Tucker.

  If he was not the founder, he is the fit representative of the Scottish philosophy. He is in every respect, a Scotchman of the genuine type: shrewd, cautious, outwardly calm, and yet with a deep well of feeling within, and capable of enthusiasm; not witty, but with a quiet vein of humour. And then he has the truly philosophic spirit seeking truth modestly, humbly, diligently; piercing beneath the surface to gaze on the true nature of things; and not to be caught by sophistry, or mislead by plausible representations. He has not the mathematical consecutiveness of Descartes, the speculative genius of Leibnitz, the sagacity of Locke, the spirituel of Berkeley, or the detective skill of Hume; but he has a quality quite as valuable as any of these, even in philosophy he has in perfection that common-sense which he so commends, and this saves him from the extreme positions into which these great men have been tempted by the soaring nature of their inexorable logic.

  Reid’s appeal to the common-sense of men, was taken without sufficient analysis, and hence bears a dogmatic character. He has left it uncertain, whether he regarded sensation itself as a direct contract with the external world, or whether it is instantly completed by an intuitive action of the mind, and the reference of effects to causes becomes the medium by which this union is effected. We suppose him to have obscurely held this last view. Hamilton ascribes to him the first.

  The ethical speculations of Reid, the most eminent writer of the Common-Sense school, are contained in his “Essays on the Active Powers,” but would scarcely justify a prolonged analysis. They may be described briefly as a combination of the views of Clarke and Shaftsbury, though most resembling those of Butler. Recognising the nugatory character of Clarke’s theory, he also thinks that to adopt Shaftesbury’s theory would be to make morality arbitrary, as dependent upon a “natural or acquired taste.” The conscience, therefore, which guides our moral judgments, is at once, in his language, an intellectual and an active power, and its supremacy is, as with Butler, an ultimate and self-evident fact. This power, which is simply common sense applied to moral questions, is, of course, capable of laying down as many first principles as may be required. Here, as elsewhere, the difficulty of finding an ultimate justification for axioms is evaded by simply declaring that no justification is needed; but there is nothing in Reid’s ethical doctrine which has not been more articulately worked out by his predecessors, except that his facility in multiplying first principles is, perhaps, more marked and his philosophy proportionally weaker.

  The principles which Reid insists upon as every where present in experience evidently correspond pretty closely to the Kantian categories and the unity of apperception.

  The works of Reid, from his “Enquiry into the Human Mind” (1763), to his “Active Powers of Man” (1788), show a great clearness of intellect and strictly logical habit, but no great enthusiasm or originality.

  The father of Scottish or common-sense philosophy.

  On the study of psychology, it is admitted by some who do not think very highly of his general philosophy, Reid had a favourable influence.