Reid, THOMAS, head of the Scottish school of Philosophy, was born on the 26th April 1710, at Strachan, a country parish in Kincardineshire, where his father was minister. His mother belonged to the well-known family of the Gregorys (q.v.). Reid began his education at the parish school of Kincardine, and at the age of twelve he became a student of Marischal College in Aberdeen. He took his degree of M.A. in 1726, and continued to reside in Aberdeen as college librarian, his chief studies being mathematics and the natural philosophy of Newton. In 1736 he left Aberdeen, and went to England, where he was introduced to the most distinguished men in Oxford, Cambridge, and London. In the following year he was presented by the senatus of King's College to the parish church of New Machar in Aberdeenshire. The parishioners were bitterly opposed to his appointment, but his conduct and manner gradually won them over. It is said that, from distrust of his powers, instead of composing for the pulpit himself, he preached the sermons of Tillotson and other English divines. In 1739 Hume's Treatise on Human Nature appeared, the perusal of which gave the impulse that determined Reid's future philosophical career. He had fully adopted the idealism of Berkeley, but was now revolted by the conclusions drawn from it by Hume, and in consequence was led to seek a new foundation for the common notions as to a material world. In 1748 he contributed to the Royal Society of London a short essay on Quantity. In 1752 he was appointed one of the professors of Philosophy in King's College, Aberdeen, the senatus being the patrons of the chair. Here he followed the established course of teaching in three successive years to the same students mathematics, natural philosophy, and moral philosophy. He was the founder of a Literary Society in Aberdeen, which enrolled among its members Campbell, Beattie, and other men of ability; to this society he submitted his first draft of the Inquiry into the Human Mind. In 1763 he was chosen to succeed Adam Smith as professor of Moral Philosophy in the university of Glasgow. In 1764 he published his Inquiry. His thirst for general science never left him; at the age of fifty-five he attended Black's lectures on Heat. He continued in the duties of his chair till 1780, when he retired to devote his remaining strength to the publication of his works on the mind. In 1785 the Philosophy of the Intellectual Powers appeared, and in 1788 the Active Powers—together forming a systematic work on the science of the human mind. In 1774 he had contributed his account of Aristotle's logic to Lord Kames's Sketches. The publication of the Active Powers was the close of his career as an author, although to the end of his life he kept up his bodily and mental vigour and his interest in science. He was taken ill suddenly in the autumn of 1796, and died on the 7th October.
Like Kant, Reid was roused to metaphysical research by Hume, and became the chief of a school whose aim was to deliver philosophy from scepticism, and to do so by resting finally on principles of intuitive or a priori origin. The Scottish philosophy, dominant till Sir W. Hamilton's time in Scotland, and influential in France (see ROYER-
COLLARD), found a zealous defender in M'Cosh (q.v.).
See COMMON SENSE, SCOTTISH PHILOSOPHY; the Life by Dugald Stewart prefixed to Reid's works (4 vols. 1803); the edition by Sir W. Hamilton (1853); M'Cosh's Scottish Philosophy; and Campbell Fraser's monograph (1898).