Textbook Common Sense in The Scottish Enlightenment C B Bow Ebook All Chapter PDF

Common Sense in the Scottish
Enlightenment C B Bow
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://textbookfull.com/product/common-sense-in-the-scottish-enlightenment-c-b-bo
w/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...
The Rise and Fall of Scottish Common Sense Realism

First Edition. Edition Ferrier
https://textbookfull.com/product/the-rise-and-fall-of-scottish-
common-sense-realism-first-edition-edition-ferrier/
The Secular Enlightenment Margaret C. Jacob
https://textbookfull.com/product/the-secular-enlightenment-
margaret-c-jacob/
Artful Virtue The Interplay of the Beautiful and the

Good in the Scottish Enlightenment 1st Edition Leslie
Ellen Brown
https://textbookfull.com/product/artful-virtue-the-interplay-of-
the-beautiful-and-the-good-in-the-scottish-enlightenment-1st-
edition-leslie-ellen-brown/
Common Stocks and Common Sense: The Strategies,

Analyses, Decisions, and Emotions of a Particularly
Successful Value Investor Iii Wachenheim
https://textbookfull.com/product/common-stocks-and-common-sense-
the-strategies-analyses-decisions-and-emotions-of-a-particularly-
successful-value-investor-iii-wachenheim/
Isaiah Berlin and the Enlightenment 1st Edition
Laurence W. B. Brockliss
https://textbookfull.com/product/isaiah-berlin-and-the-
enlightenment-1st-edition-laurence-w-b-brockliss/
Digital Sense The Common Sense Approach to Effectively

Blending Social Business Strategy Marketing Technology
and Customer Experience 1st Edition Travis Wright
https://textbookfull.com/product/digital-sense-the-common-sense-
approach-to-effectively-blending-social-business-strategy-
marketing-technology-and-customer-experience-1st-edition-travis-
wright/
A wealth of common sense why simplicity trumps

complexity in any investment plan 1st Edition Carlson
https://textbookfull.com/product/a-wealth-of-common-sense-why-
simplicity-trumps-complexity-in-any-investment-plan-1st-edition-
carlson/
A Common Sense Guide to Data Structures and Algorithms

1st Edition Jay Wengrow
https://textbookfull.com/product/a-common-sense-guide-to-data-
structures-and-algorithms-1st-edition-jay-wengrow/
The Ministry of Common Sense How to Eliminate

Bureaucratic Red Tape Bad Excuses and Corporate BS 1st
Edition Lindstrom
https://textbookfull.com/product/the-ministry-of-common-sense-
how-to-eliminate-bureaucratic-red-tape-bad-excuses-and-corporate-
bs-1st-edition-lindstrom/
2018/10/30 Title Pages - Oxford Scholarship
Oxford Scholarship Online

Biology Linguistics Philosophy Religion
Business and Management Literature Physics Social Work
Classical Studies Mathematics Political Science Sociology
Economics and Finance Music Psychology
History Neuroscience Public Health and
Law Palliative Care Epidemiology
Go to page: Go
Common Sense in the Scottish Enlightenment

C. B. Bow
Print publication date: 2018

Print ISBN13: 9780198783909
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2018
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198783909.001.0001
Title Pages
Charles Bradford Bow
(p.i) Common Sense in the Scottish Enlightenment
(p.ii) Mind Association occasional Series
(p.iii) Common Sense in the Scottish Enlightenment
This series consists of carefully selected volumes of significant original papers on

predefined themes, normally growing out of a conference supported by a Mind
Association Major Conference Grant. The Association nominates an editor or
editors for each collection, and may cooperate with other bodies in promoting
conferences or other scholarly activities in connection with the preparation of
particular volumes.
Director, Mind Association: Julian Dodd
Publications Officer: Sarah Sawyer
RECENTLY PUBLISHED IN THE SERIES:
Art and Belief
Edited by Ema Sullivan-Bissett, Helen Bradley, and Paul Noordhof
The Actual and the Possible
http://www.oxfordscholarship.com.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/view/10.1093/oso/9780198783909.001.0001/oso-9780198783909-miscMatter-1 1/3
Edited by Mark Sinclair
Thinking about the Emotions
Edited by Alix Cohen and Robert Stern
Art, Mind, and Narrative
Edited by Julian Dodd
The Social and Political Philosophy of Mary Wollstonecraft
Edited by Sandrine Bergès and Alan Coffee
The Epistemic Life of Groups
Edited by Michael S. Brady and Miranda Fricker
Reality Making
Edited by Mark Jago
The Metaphysics of Relations
Edited by Anna Marmodoro and David Yates
Thomas Reid on Mind, Knowledge, and Value
Edited by Rebecca Copenhaver and Todd Buras
The Highest Good in Aristotle and Kant
Edited by Joachim Aufderheide and Ralf M. Bader
(p.iv)
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,

United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of

Oxford.
It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research,
scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered
trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© the several contributors 2018
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
First Edition published in 2018
Impression: 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as
expressly permitted
by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate
reprographics
rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside
the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University
Press, at the
address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form

and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University

Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of
America
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Data available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017961511
ISBN 978–0–19–878390–9
Printed and bound by

CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith

and
for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the
materials
contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
Copyright © 2018. All rights reserved.
2018/10/30 Notes on the Contributors - Oxford Scholarship

Biology Linguistics Philosophy Religion
Business and Management Literature Physics Social Work
Classical Studies Mathematics Political Science Sociology
Economics and Finance Music Psychology
History Neuroscience Public Health and
Law Palliative Care Epidemiology
Go to page: Go

C. B. Bow

Print ISBN13: 9780198783909
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198783909.001.0001
(p.vii) Notes on the Contributors


is an Assistant Professor of Global Intellectual History at Yonsei
University. His research on the intellectual history of
Enlightenment(s) and imperialism has appeared in Modern
Intellectual History, The Scottish Historical Review, Historical
Research, History of European Ideas, History, Intellectual History
Review, Journal of Scottish Philosophy, and EighteenthCentury
Scotland.
Claire Etchegaray
is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Université Paris Ouest—
Nanterre La Défense and member of the Institut de Recherches
Philosophiques (IRePh). Her research interests involve the Scottish
Enlightenment, human nature, judgment, reasoning, and
scepticism. Her research has appeared in the journals History of
European Ideas, Archives de philosophie, and in the volumes Croit
on comme on veut? Histoire d’une controverse; Revue de
métaphysique et de morale: Le scepticisme aux limites de la
question; Histoire d’une controverse; Medical Empiricism and
Philosophy of Human Nature in the 17th and 18th Century; and
Scepticism in the Eighteenth Century: Enlightenment, Lumières,
Aufklärung.
Giovanni Gellera
is Post-Doctoral Researcher at the University of Lausanne in the
Swiss National Science Foundation project ‘Tolerance, Intolerance
and Discrimination Regarding Religion’ (2016–20). At the
University of Glasgow, he worked in the Leverhulme Project
‘Scottish Philosophers in 17th-Century Scotland and France’ (2010–
14) and wrote a Ph.D. thesis (2012) on seventeenth-century Scottish
philosophy. He works on the interactions between scholasticism
and early modern philosophy, from the Renaissance to the
Enlightenment. His research has appeared in British Journal for
the History of Philosophy, Journal of Scottish Philosophy, History
of Universities, Intellectual History Review. With Alexander
Broadie, he is working on the first edition and translation of the
Idea philosophiae moralis by James Dundas (1679), for Edinburgh
University Press.
Gordon Graham
is Henry Luce III Professor of Philosophy and the Arts at Princeton
Theological Seminary. His areas of academic interest include
aesthetics, moral philosophy, philosophy of religion, and the
Scottish philosophical tradition. He is Director of the Center for the
Study of Scottish Philosophy at Princeton and founding editor of the
Journal of Scottish Philosophy.
(p.viii) Giovanni B. Grandi
is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of British
Columbia, Okanagan Campus. His research on Scottish philosophy
has appeared in Journal of Scottish Philosophy, Studies in History
and Philosophy of Science, History of Philosophy Quarterly,
Journal of Scottish Thought, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, and
EighteenthCentury Thought. He is the editor of Thomas Reid:
Selected Philosophical Writings (2012).
James A. Harris
is Professor of the History of Philosophy at the University of St
Andrews. He is the author of Hume: An Intellectual Biography
(2015) and Of Liberty and Necessity: The Free Will Debate in
EighteenthCentury British Philosophy (2005). He has published
articles on Hume, Hutcheson, Reid, Beattie, Priestley, and a number
of themes in eighteenth-century British philosophy. He is the editor
of The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy in EighteenthCentury
Britain (2013), and also (with Aaron Garrett) of Volume one of
Scottish Philosophy in the Age of Enlightenment (2015). He has
edited texts by Reid (with Knud Haakonssen), Beattie, Kames, and
Abraham Tucker. He has held fellowships from the Leverhulme
Trust and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK), and in
2012–13 was Member of the Institute for Advanced Study
(Princeton).
Esther Engels Kroeker
is a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Antwerp. Part of her
research is focused on Reid’s moral psychology. She has published
papers on Reid’s moral philosophy, moral perception, and agency.
Some of her recently published articles are Reid on Natural Signs,

Taste and Moral Perception (2009), Reid’s Moral Psychology:
Animal Motives as Guides to Virtue (2011), and Acting from a Good
Conscience: Reid, Love, and Moral Worth (2013). Her research
extends to David Hume’s moral psychology and philosophy of
religion, and her work also focuses on the contemporary debate
surrounding love and practical reasons. She is the co-editor (with
Katrien Schaubroeck) of Love, Reason and Morality (2017).
R. J. W. Mills
is Teaching Fellow in the History of Political Thought at the
University College London. He has articles published or in press on
numerous Scottish thinkers including James Beattie, Archibald
Campbell, Henry Home, Lord Kames, and Alexander Ross and is
currently working on a book about the Scottish Enlightenment’s
application of the ‘science of human nature’ to the study of religion.
Paul B. Wood
Professor Emeritus in the History Department at the University
Victoria in Canada who has published widely on the Scottish
Enlightenment. For the Edinburgh Edition of Thomas Reid he has
edited Thomas Reid (p.ix) on Mathematics and Natural
Philosophy (2017), (with Knud Haakonssen) Thomas Reid on
Society and Politics (2015), The Correspondence of Thomas Reid
(2002), and Thomas Reid on the Animate Creation (1995). He is
currently at work on the final volume in the series, Thomas Reid
and the University, with Alexander Broadie.
(p.x)
Copyright © 2018. All rights reserved.
Introduction
University Press Scholarship Online

C. B. Bow

Print ISBN-13: 9780198783909
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198783909.001.0001
Introduction
C. B. Bow
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198783909.003.0001
Abstract and Keywords

This volume of essays considers the philosophical and
historical significance of common sense philosophy in the
Scottish Enlightenment. As one of eighteenth-century
Scotland’s most original intellectual products, common sense
philosophy dominated the teaching of moral philosophy and
the “science of the mind” at Edinburgh, Glasgow, and
Aberdeen universities during the last quarter of the century,
and also informed many Presbyterian clergymen’s treatment
of human nature from the pulpit....
This volume of essays considers the philosophical and

historical significance of common sense philosophy in the
Scottish Enlightenment. As one of eighteenth-century
Scotland’s most original intellectual products, common sense
philosophy dominated the teaching of moral philosophy and
the “science of the mind” at Edinburgh, Glasgow, and
Aberdeen universities during the last quarter of the century,
and also informed many Presbyterian clergymen’s treatment
of human nature from the pulpit.1 Reflecting on the
Page 1 of 26
PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2018. All
Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a
monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: University of
Edinburgh; date: 30 October 2018
Introduction
importance of this philosophical system, which was widely

known as “the Scottish philosophy” by the nineteenth century,
the Presbyterian divine and philosopher James McCosh wrote:
Scottish metaphysicians and moralists have left their

impress on their own land, not only on the ministers of
religion, and through them upon the body of people, but
also on the whole thinking mind of the country. The
chairs of mental science in the Scottish colleges have
had more influence than any others in germinating
thought in the minds of Scottish youth, and in giving
permanent bias and direction to their intellectual
growth.
(McCosh, 1875: 8)
In these ways common sense philosophy informed the

understanding and exercise of human improvement in the
intellectual and moral culture of the Scottish Enlightenment.2
Thomas Reid popularized prominent features of this

philosophical system, which were later used as criteria to
identify the Scottish “school” of common (p.2) sense
philosophy.3 Writing in 1764, Reid recalled that when he was
initially confronted with David Hume’s brand of scepticism in
the 1740s, Hume’s “reasoning appeared to me to be just: there
was therefore a necessity to call in question the principles
upon which it was founded, or to admit the conclusion” (Reid,
1764: iv). Eventually Reid countered Hume’s Treatise of
Human Nature (1739–40) with An Inquiry into the Mind on the
Principles of Common Sense (1764). Dugald Stewart, who had
studied under Reid at Glasgow University in 1771–2, later
remarked that Reid’s “leading design was evidently to
overthrow the modern system of scepticism” (Stewart, 1811:
452–3). In order to establish a new empirical system for future
inquiries in the science of mind Reid focused on vindicating
his “principles of common sense” and undermining the “Ideal
Theory” upon which he believed modern scepticism was
founded. Stewart highlighted the philosophical significance of
Reid’s attack on the “way of ideas” when he wrote that, “On
the refutation of the ideal theory […] Dr. Reid himself was
disposed to rest his chief merit as an author […] and
something, perhaps, has been added to his labors by those of
his successors” (Stewart, 1822: 354). The ways in which Reid
and moralists associated with the Scottish “school” of common
Page 2 of 26
Introduction
sense developed a viable alternative to Humean scepticism

and the Ideal Theory is the overarching theme of the essays
which appear in this volume.
The volume originated from the British Society for the History
of Philosophy’s 2014 annual conference hosted by Edinburgh
University and supported by the Mind Association, Scots
Philosophical Society, and Taylor & Francis publishers.
Featuring the research of philosophers and intellectual
historians from nine countries and over twenty cities, the
three-day conference explored new avenues to better
understand the place of common sense philosophy within the
Scottish Enlightenment. While the scholarly exchange
between philosophers and intellectual historians is not new,
this dialogue, as we experienced it, encourages a deeper and
more complete examination of philosophical ideas and their
historical value. This volume, which is the first edited
collection devoted exclusively to the philosophy and history of
Scottish common sense during the long eighteenth century,
presents the fruits of the exchanges which took place at the
conference.4 The philosophical writings of Thomas Reid and
David Hume factor prominently in the volume as influential
authors of competing ideas in the history of common (p.3)
sense philosophy. While recent scholarship traces the
transnational reception of common sense philosophy, this
volume centres on recovering its understudied significance in
British contexts.5 The following chapters, which all embody
original and innovative research, shed new light on prominent
features of this philosophical system, including the
methodological use of the inductive method, the subscription
to universal self-evident principles regarded as instincts
rooted in human nature, the conscious awareness of the
intellectual, active, and moral powers of mind, and the belief
in a providential God. This introduction offers a brief overview
of the philosophical themes, historical contexts, and
philosophers examined in this volume.
René Descartes (1596–1650) was considered by Reid to be the

founder of the Ideal Theory, which was also known as the “way
of ideas” or “theory of ideas” in the Enlightenment. Beginning
with seventeenth-century Scottish scholastics, Scottish moral
philosophers responded to Descartes’ philosophy in a variety
of ways. His Discourse on Method (1637) and Principles of
Philosophy (1644) appealed to mathematical principles in
formulating a “rational” philosophical approach to
Page 3 of 26
Introduction
metaphysics, epistemology, and morals.6 John Marshall

suggests that Descartes’ ideal moral theory was intended as
an “exact science”, rather than a mere technique of self
government.7 As a new type of epistemological scepticism,
Descartes brought scholastic direct “realism”, which accepted
the existence of transcendental universals within the material
and moral worlds, into question as a reliable belief system.
After removing “weak” beliefs concerning divinely inspired
material existence, Descartes’ ideal theory accepted “only
what is certain and unshakable”, which did account for some
“realist” beliefs concerning the existence of the material world
in his Meditations (Descartes, 1996: 17). The Cartesian
ambition to secure the foundations of human knowledge in
order to construct a rigorous deductive system of the sciences
challenged the principles of Aristotelian scholasticism.
Although he was a professed Catholic, Descartes’ intervention
in theological and philosophical debates of the early
seventeenth century initiated a prolonged controversy over his
treatment of the “rational soul” and our knowledge of God’s
causal powers.8 Whereas sharp philosophical divisions
emerged between scholastics and Cartesians in continental
Europe during the seventeenth century, Scottish philosophers
in the period sought to harmonize Descartes’ ideas with
scholastic philosophy.
(p.4) The literature on the seventeenth-century Scottish

reception of Cartesianism was, until recently, dominated by
the scholarship of C. M. Shepherd.9 With a focus on
seventeenth-century graduation theses at Scottish
universities, Giovanni Gellera refines the scope of Shepherd’s
earlier work on Scottish philosophical debates of the period by
examining how Descartes’ philosophy affected Scotland’s
Reformed philosophy in higher education. According to
Gellera, around the middle of the century Scottish university
curricula instituted a variety of reforms in response to
Cartesianism. These changes were best shown in new
Reformed doctrinal characteristics in the teaching of
metaphysics, natural philosophy, and epistemology.10 The
broader diffusion of this Reformed Scottish scholasticism, as
Alasdair Raffe argues, signified a transitional moment in
Scotland’s intellectual culture.11 In the first chapter “Common
Sense and Ideal Theory in Seventeenth-Century Scottish
Philosophy”, Gellera documents the extent to which
seventeenth-century Scottish scholastic philosophers
Page 4 of 26
Introduction
anticipated two of Thomas Reid’s main criticisms of the Ideal

Theory. Scottish scholastic theorists maintained that belief
plays a part in sense perception and that the general reliability
of the senses is a first principle of knowledge. This treatment
of sense perception as furnishing reliable and direct evidence
regarding the existence and the nature of the external world
(the view known as “realism”) suggests that there were
important doctrinal continuities between seventeenth-century
Scottish scholastic theorists and the common sense
philosophers of the Enlightenment era.
One of the most important forums for the development of

common sense philosophy was the Aberdeen Philosophical
Society, which was also known as the “Wise Club”. Founded in
1758 to discuss “philosophical” subjects, the Wise Club
boasted a membership drawn from the professional elite of
Aberdeen and the north-east of Scotland that included George
Campbell, John Gregory, David Skene, Alexander Gerard,
Thomas Reid, and James Beattie.12 According to Thomas Reid,
the writings of David Hume dominated discussions within the
Society. On 18 March 1763, Reid wrote to Hume:
Your Friendly Adversaries Drs Campbel & Gerard as well

as Dr Gregory return their Compliments to you
respectively. A little Philosophical Society here of which
all the three are members, is much indebted to you for
its Entertainment […] If you write no more in morals
politicks or metaphysicks [sic], I am afraid we shall be at
a loss for Subjects.
(Reid, 2002: 31)
(p.5) Hume figured prominently in the proceedings of the

Wise Club largely because his radical scepticism alerted Reid
and other common sense theorists to the dangers of the Ideal
Theory. In addition to Humean scepticism, common sense
philosophers discussed theories endorsed by Descartes, John
Locke, George Berkeley, and Nicholas Malebranche as
exemplars of the Ideal Theory.13 Above all, undermining
Hume’s contributions to the “way of ideas” persisted as a
central pursuit in the justification and development of Scottish
common sense philosophy.
Page 5 of 26
Introduction
John Locke’s (1632–1704) invention of British empiricism and

its application to epistemology received attention among
Hume and common sense philosophers.14 In An Essay
Concerning Human Understanding (1689), Locke’s theory of
ideas famously rejected the existence of innate ideas with the
concept of tabula rasa. His theory of ideas and their
operations showed the ways in which agents acquire
knowledge of the external world through the reflection of
experiences.15 In an appeal to Locke’s anti-innatism and
empiricism, Hume also sought to transform the science of the
mind through the use of the “experimental method of
reasoning” (Hume, 2009: 114–15). Hume recommended that
anatomists of human nature engage in the “cautious
observation of human life”, and attend to the evidence
regarding our intellectual and moral powers found “in the
common course of the world […in] men’s behaviour in
company, in affairs, and in their pleasures” (Hume, 2009: 6).
Of this approach to the science of mind, Reid informed Hume
that, “I have learned more from your writings in this kind than
from all others put together” (Reid, 2002: 31). Reid shared
Hume’s criticisms of Locke’s allegedly ambiguous treatment of
“ideas” as a placeholder for all contents of the mind.16 One of
Hume’s revisions to Locke’s theory of ideas included the
distinction between perceptions of “ideas” drawn from
reasoning and the “impressions” of emotions, passions, and
sensations.17 On this distinction, Reid was alarmed that
rendering knowledge of the world wholly dependent on
psychologically intermediate “impressions”, which led to
“ideas”, made Hume’s system and the “way of ideas” more
generally indefensible against philosophical scepticism.
Consequently, Reid and his fellow common sense philosophers
addressed this concern by developing a new philosophical
system (p.6) to investigate and safeguard the science of the
mind from the dangers of modern scepticism.
The use of the term “common sense” to describe “mother wit”

or a conscious intuitive sense perception did not originate with
Reid or within the Wise Club. The philosophical writings of
Anthony Ashley Cooper, the third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671–
1713), George Berkeley, the Bishop of Cloyne (1685–1753),
and Francis Hutcheson (1694–1746) previously popularized
this belief in Scottish moral philosophy. In developing an early
Enlightenment version of “sentimentalism”, Shaftesbury
argued that the “sense of right and wrong [is] as natural to us
Page 6 of 26
Introduction
as natural affection itself, and being a first Principle in our

constitution and there is no speculative opinion, persuasion or
belief which is capable immediately or directly to exclude or
destroy it” (Shaftesbury, 1999: 179).18 In A Treatise
Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710),
Berkeley’s theory of “immaterialism”, which attempted to
strengthen religious conviction by removing the consideration
of the material world, offered another alternative to Locke’s
theory of ideas. But that world has to be understood,
metaphysically speaking, as a set of ideas in the mind of God
according to Berkeley.19 While Reid praised Berkeley’s attempt
to safeguard religious convictions and defend the “vulgar” or
general common sense perceptions of reality from
philosophical error, he believed “immaterialism” rendered
evidence and knowledge of the material world impossible.20
For Reid, the unavoidable scepticism of Berkeley’s system was
an unintended consequence of following the “way of ideas”.
As Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow University

between 1729 and 1746, Hutcheson’s moral theory on the
natural virtues of humankind and moral-sense cognitivism
drew heavily from Shaftesbury’s example of
“sentimentalism”.21 Hutcheson remarked that “to each of our
powers we seem to have a corresponding taste or sense,
recommending the proper use of it to the agent, and making
him relish or value the like exercise of it by
another” (Hutcheson, 1755: 59). While Hume drew from the
writings of Locke, Shaftesbury, and Hutcheson in developing
his version of moral sentimentalism, Reid appealed to
Hutcheson’s example of the “moral sense” in illustrating the
“moral faculty”. According to Reid, “the testimony of our
moral faculty, like that of the external (p.7) senses, is the
testimony of nature, and we have the same reason to rely upon
it” (Reid, 1788: 238). Reid’s account of the moral sense
differed from Hutcheson’s in that Reid argued that agents do
not simply sense moral qualities as Hutcheson had claimed but
form moral judgments through their active powers of mind.
This important distinction situates the innate human ability to
improve the faculties of mind as part of nature’s design.
The ways in which David Hume and Thomas Reid treated

sense perception differently informed the realist and anti-
realist dichotomy within which they are so often categorized
and understood.22 Hume’s moral empiricism observed human
conduct through the use of sense perception. At the same
Page 7 of 26
Introduction
time, he believed that emotional “impressions” of observed

objects and behaviour informed “ideas” of their properties.
This belief led Hume to deny the existence of moral properties.
Contrary to Hume, Reid trusted the testimony of natural sense
perceptions associated with the intellectual and active
operations of the mind. In Chapter 2, “Was Reid a Moral
Realist?”, Gordon Graham examines the extent to which Reid
could be considered a moral realist by comparing his
“objective” reality against Hume’s sentimentalist morality. He
questions if Reid’s opposition to Humean philosophy
encouraged the general categorization of Reid as a moral
realist. Graham provides evidence to interpret Reid’s use of
the analogy between moral sense and sense perception in a
way that does not imply the existence of “real” moral
properties. Reid situated judgment as central in this analogy,
which suggested that the exercise of an intellectual “power”
had primacy over passive sensual experience. The analogy,
therefore, allowed him to apply the concepts “true” and “false”
to moral judgments without any quasi-realist appeal to moral
facts. With a focus on Hume’s treatment of feelings versus
reason and the limits of Reid’s “objective” realism, Graham
suggests nuanced reasons why Reid’s philosophy did not
strictly adhere to the realist and anti-realist dichotomy in
modern philosophy.
Thomas Reid’s and David Hume’s shared interest in furthering

the science of the mind require further qualifications where
their paths diverge. Paul Wood suggests that in understanding
Reid’s philosophy “we must first recognize that Reid was as
much a man of science as he was a moralist” (Wood, 2004: 71).
Reid’s earlier studies at Marischal College, Aberdeen from
1722 to 1726 under the direction of George Turnbull
introduced him to the philosophy of mind conceived of as an
experimental science. Turnbull remarked:
I was led long ago to apply myself to the study of the

human mind in the same way as to the study of the
human body, or any other part of Natural Philosophy:
that is, to (p.8) try whether due enquiry into moral
nature would not soon enable us to account for moral, as
the best of Philosophers teaches us to explain natural
phenomena.
(Turnbull, 1740/2005: 8)
Page 8 of 26
Introduction
Reid’s enthusiasm for Francis Bacon’s inductive method,

which Isaac Newton (1642–1726) popularized in physics, later
played a central part in his moral philosophy. Reid suggested
that “he who philosophizes by other rules, either concerning
the material system, or concerning the mind, mistakes his
aim” (Reid, 1764: 3). Unlike Hume, Reid identified a set of
universal self-evident instinctive beliefs innate in human
nature, namely the “principles of common sense”. Since these
widely held beliefs could not be proven, Reid believed that the
“principles of common sense” allowed anatomists of the mind
to explore the operations of our mental powers without
needing to re-establish the foundations of human knowledge.
Reid and common sense philosophers challenged the Ideal
Theory, as exemplified by Hume’s Treatise (especially in Book
I), because this theory denied one or more of these self-evident
principles of common sense.
Building upon self-evident principles of common sense, this

system’s emphasis on the intellectual and active powers of the
natural constitution of the mind engaged with the broader
debate on “causation” in British philosophy. The debate on
causation questioned the extent to which God intervened in
earthly causes and effects, and whether agents acted out of
necessity or possessed the power to cause an intended effect.
While Hume was concerned with the nature of the necessity
that links a cause to its effect, Reid argued that, “the name of
a cause and of an agent, is properly given to that being only,
which, by its active power produces some change in itself, or
in some other being” (Reid, 1788: 276).23 Reid’s treatment of
causality appealed to Samuel Clarke’s Natural and Revealed
Religion (1705), which he had developed as a Boyle Lecturer
at St Mary-le-Bow Church in London. According to R. F.
Stalley, “Reid’s endorsement of Clarke’s argument shows that,
for him too, the idea that we are free agents is bound up with
the idea that motives are not causes” (Stalley, 2004: 44).
George Pappas shows that Reid’s view of causality was
somewhat prefigured in Berkeley’s philosophy.24 Reid
suggested that the concept of necessity reduced all human
actions to the exclusive determination of God and, therefore,
denied any human freedom in choosing to act or refrain from
an action. According to Reid, if the system of necessity existed
“there can be no moral government, nor moral obligation [and]
there can be no display of moral attributes” (Reid, 1788: 309).
Page 9 of 26
Introduction
(p.9) In these ways Reid identified intellectual and active

powers of the natural constitution as the way for agents to
merit moral approbation.
The literature on Reid’s treatment of causality links his

entwined notion of sense perception, moral judgment, and
“realism” discussed in Chapter 2.25 The question of how these
operations of the natural mental “constitution” factored into
Reid’s version of common sense philosophy is understudied in
the literature. The term “constitution” received various
meanings in early modern medicine, moral, and natural
philosophy. In Chapter 3, “Reid on Our Mental Constitution”,
Claire Etchegaray contributes new insight to a more precise
understanding of Reid’s treatment of the mental “constitution”
by examining the ways in which he accounted for knowledge
of reality and discernment of truth in the anatomy of the mind.
In doing so, Etchegaray evaluates Reid on belief-justification
and his reference to our mental constitution as an already
truthful informant of a knowing subject. Reid did not simply
suggest that knowledge was a natural gift from God. Reid’s
anatomy of the mind sought to explain how natural powers
operate in providing access to reality. With a particular focus
on Reid’s undated and still unpublished manuscript “Of
Constitution”, Etchegaray distinguishes Reid’s approach to the
anatomy of mind from subjectivism. For Reid, the “first
principles of common sense”, as fixed maxims of the mental
constitution, provided an explanation of why mental powers
functioned independently from divine intervention. Etchegaray
concludes on the originality of Reid’s anti-scepticism by
showing the ways in which he treated the “constitution” of the
mind as a subject of knowledge.
In Chapter 4, “On the Ancestry of Reid’s Inquiry”, Giovanni

Grandi shows that Reid’s rejection of the Ideal Theory implied
that sensations were not copies of external qualities such as
extension and figure. While Reid’s Inquiry suggested that
spatiality did not affect the order of sensations, his earlier
unpublished manuscripts on the subject did not deny that
sensations were arranged spatially. Grandi argues that the
differences in Reid’s treatment of sense perception responded
to contextual considerations. Reid primarily denied that ideas
of extension and figure were copied from any single atomic
sensation. At the same time, he also argued that the spatial
relations among atomic sensations were detected by an act of
judgment. The perception of these relations did not require a
Page 10 of 26
Introduction
new sense impression. Only subsequently, possibly motivated

by his commitment to the immateriality of the soul, did Reid
explicitly reject the view that sensations were arranged
spatially and arrived at the belief that the primary qualities of
external bodies were detected by direct acts of perception.
With this in (p.10) mind, Grandi offers an explanation of why
the Scottish philosopher John Fearn (1768–1837) interpreted
Reid’s philosophy as rejecting the idea that sensations were
extended. According to Grandi, Fearn developed this reading
of Reid in order to avoid making the soul extended and thus
material, and also to avoid Hume’s scepticism on the soul’s
existence.
The belief in a providential God as the architect of the natural

constitution of the mind and of the natural world was a central
feature of Scottish common sense philosophy. Reid argued:
Common sense and reason have both one author; that

almighty Author, in all whose other works we observe
consistency, uniformity, and beauty, which charm and
delight the understanding; there must, therefore, be
some order and consistency in the human faculties, as
well as in other parts of his workmanship.
(Reid, 1764: 132)
Reid did not claim to understand the entirety of God’s purpose

for creating a natural constitution with limited freedom, but he
suggested that understanding and working toward the
perfection of this natural constitution enabled the exercise of
moral obligations to oneself, others, and God. According to
Reid, humans are “not merely a tool in the hand of the master,
but a servant, in the proper sense, who has a certain trust, and
is accountable for the discharge of it” (Reid, 1788: 309). While
Reid did not draw evidence from revealed religion in
developing this belief, he recognized, in Humean scepticism,
the theological consequences of separating human nature
from divine inspiration and intent.
In Chapter 5, “A Common Sense Response to Hume’s Moral

Atheism”, Esther Kroeker considers Reid’s response to the
non-theist implications of Hume’s moral philosophy. Kroeker
identifies three key non-theist implications of Hume’s
philosophy, which formed his moral atheism, targeted by Reid:
Hume’s claim that morality was tied to human nature and
Page 11 of 26
Introduction
autonomous from divine or religious motives; natural faculties

and human passions were not directed toward God; and God
was not (and could not be) the object of any moral discourse.
Hume suggested morality was secular and autonomous from
religious doctrines, beliefs, and motivations. Although Reid
agreed with Hume that morality was separate from divine
intervention, Reid claimed that the standard of morality was
not necessarily relative to human nature or divorced from
examples in revealed religion. Kroeker argues that Reid’s
treatment of moral evaluations sought to undermine Hume’s
denial of the existence of a benevolent God. In doing so,
Kroeker shows the ways in which Reid explicitly considered
his moral philosophy as an answer to Hume’s moral atheism.
The systematic rejection of the Ideal Theory and Hume’s

philosophy in the Aberdeen Philosophical Society was well
established when James Beattie (p.11) (1735–1803) joined
the “Wise Club” after his appointment to Professor of Moral
Philosophy and Logic at Marischal College in 1760. In Chapter
6, “The Common Sense of a Poet”, R. J. W. Mills examines
Beattie’s contribution to the philosophy of common sense in
his Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth (1770) as a
different kind of response to Hume’s philosophy. Mills
documents that Beattie distinguished himself as a poet, and
his unanticipated venture into moral philosophy, which later
resulted in his Essay, originated from debate in the Aberdeen
Philosophical Society. But Beattie’s membership to the “Scotch
school”, as Mills argues, is problematic. Unlike Reid,
Campbell, and Gerard, Beattie’s version of common sense did
not examine the anatomy of the mind. He did not restrain his
assault on Humean scepticism in targeting Hume’s character.
Beattie’s inclination toward literature, which resembled
Addison’s notion of morality, and his deep commitment to
defending Christian religious principles meaningfully,
distanced his moral thought from that of his peers in the
“Scotch school”.
The chapters discussed thus far show the ways in which Reid
and Beattie, as exemplars of the “Scotch school”, challenged
Humean scepticism as the most prominent example of the
Ideal Theory in Enlightened Scotland. In Chapter 7, “Hume
and the Common Sense Philosophers”, James Harris discusses
the extent to which Hume responded to Reid and philosophers
associated with the Scottish “school” of common sense. Hume
famously called the “Advertisement” he wrote for the 1777
Page 12 of 26
Introduction
edition of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding “a

compleat answer” to the oppositional writings of Reid and
Beattie. According to Harris, what he meant was that the
Enquiry answers unfair criticisms aimed at his Treatise (1739–
40). Harris addresses the question of how exactly the Enquiry
answered those criticisms. Harris argues that it clarified the
nature of Hume’s scepticism, and, in particular, explained that
Hume’s scepticism did not affect everyday life, which common
sense theorists had claimed. What Hume’s common sense
critics failed to understand, as Harris shows, was that Hume
sought to make a complete break between his brand of
mitigated scepticism and ancient philosophical scepticism.
Humean scepticism was not a way of life, and not a route to
the summum bonum, according to Harris. The dispute
between Hume and the common sense philosophers shows the
difficulty that Hume’s contemporaries had in understanding
that he had completely abandoned the ancient conception of
philosophy as medicina mentis.
Common sense philosophers were not the first to identify their

collective use of this philosophical system as a distinct school
of thought. In Chapter 8, “The ‘New Empire of Common
Sense’”, Paul Wood recovers the historical reception of
common sense philosophy in Britain by tracing the birth of the
Scottish “school” of common sense with particular attention to
Joseph Priestley’s famous criticism (p.12) of Reid, James
Oswald, and James Beattie. Wood’s chapter builds upon the
earlier research of James Fieser, Robin Mills, and Mark
Towsey by examining previously neglected manuscripts from
critics such as the English Catholic Joseph Berington (1743–
1827) and the Irish Protestant Philip Skelton (1707–87).26
Wood argues that it was Berington rather than Priestley who
was the first critic to claim that the appeal to common sense
was a distinctive feature of the “Scotch school” of philosophy.
In this deeply researched chapter on critical assessments of
these Scots, Wood shows that Reid was widely acknowledged
to be the founder and most accomplished exponent of the
“school”. Beattie and Oswald in contrast were generally
dismissed as being derivative thinkers whose ill-conceived
notions of common sense threatened to subvert the rational
belief in Christianity. These contemporary criticisms of Reid,
Oswald, and Beattie affected the next generation of common
sense philosophers at the turn of the nineteenth century.
Page 13 of 26
Introduction
Late eighteenth-century criticisms of the “Scotch school” did

not go unnoticed among Scottish moralists. Of Reid’s
intellectual disciples, Dugald Stewart defended the use of
Scottish common sense philosophy as Professor of Moral
Philosophy from 1785 to 1810.27 In the ninth and final chapter,
“Dugald Stewart and the Legacy of Common Sense in the
Scottish Enlightenment”, C. B. Bow explores the ways in which
Stewart contributed to the endurance of Scottish common
sense philosophy during two transitional periods in Scottish
intellectual culture. Bow discusses Stewart’s enrichment of
Reid’s philosophy by developing a modern system of moral
education during an age of revolutionary change following the
British reception of French revolutionary principles. Unlike
Reid, who never published a supplemental prospectus or
outline for his courses at Aberdeen and Glasgow, Stewart’s
“didactic eloquence” reached a wider audience beyond his
classroom. In the preface to his final publication, Stewart
identified that his readers included “many individuals, not only
from England and the United States of America, but not a few
from France, Switzerland, the north of Germany, and other
parts of Europe” (Stewart, 1828: v). In Scottish contexts,
Stewart’s system of moral education diffused his version of
common sense philosophy among prominent figures of the
Scottish Whig party and contributors to the Edinburgh Review
at the dawn of this new age. The second section of Chapter 9
turns to Stewart’s defence of Scottish common sense
philosophy in response to the early nineteenth-century
Scottish reception of German Idealism. (p.13) This objective
appeared in Stewart’s Dissertation Exhibiting a General View
of the Progress of Metaphysical, Ethical and Political
Philosophy (1815–21) as a supplement to the Encyclopedia
Britannica. In tracing the development of modern philosophy
Stewart suggested reasons why he believed Scottish common
sense philosophy was superior to Immanuel Kant’s “Critical
Idealism” and his belief that Kant’s response to Hume in
treating “causation” lacked originality. Considered by many to
be the “Scotian Plato”, Scottish common sense philosophy
flourished under the care of Stewart during two of the most
transitional moments in the final decades of the Scottish
Enlightenment.
Following Stewart’s death in 1828, the Scottish philosopher

Thomas Carlyle claimed that “Dugald Stewart is dead, and
British Philosophy with him” (Carlyle, 1828: 396). The later
Page 14 of 26
Introduction
writings of nineteenth-century Scottish philosophers, including

Sir William Hamilton (1788–1856), James Ferrier (1808–56), J.
S. Mill (1806–73), and Alexander Bain (1818–1903) among
others, suggest that the Scottish philosophical tradition did
not fade into obscurity.28 The objectives of nineteenth-century
Scottish philosophers, however, did not resemble Stewart’s
attempt to defend, refine, and sustain the legacy of the
“Scotch school”. The emergence of Scottish Idealism and
Utilitarianism, which staunchly criticized the “Scotch school”
and, in particular, Hamilton’s “Natural Realism” as a response
to Humean scepticism, suggested an end to the use of common
sense philosophy at Scottish universities and as a method of
improvement in nineteenth-century Scottish intellectual
culture.29
While nineteenth-century Scottish philosophers criticized the

“Scotch school” in adapting versions of imported philosophical
systems, the transnational diffusion of common sense
philosophy renewed its use on either side of the Atlantic.
Significant changes to Scottish common sense philosophy, like
German Idealism and Utilitarianism in nineteenth-century
Scotland, accompanied the use of this philosophical system in
different national contexts. The translations of Reid and
Stewart’s works by Pierre Paul Royer-Collard (1763–1845),
Victor Cousin (1792–1867), and Théodore Jouffroy (1796–
1842), for example, influenced the development of a distinct
French “school” of common sense philosophy.30 Dugald
Stewart expressed pleasure in reading “the very elegant
translation by M. Jouffroy of my Outlines of Moral Philosophy,
preceded by a long introduction full of original and important
matter” (Stewart, 1828: xii). Cousin’s inclusion of (p.14)
“large extracts from the same work [Outlines], comprising
nearly the whole of” Fragments Philosophiques (1826)
encouraged Stewart’s optimism for the future of common
sense philosophy “in some other countries as well as my
own” (Stewart, 1828: xii).31 But the dominance of German
Idealism in continental Europe throughout the nineteenth
century affected the reception and development of French and
German versions of common sense in an attempt to reconcile
these competing systems.
The diaspora of Scottish philosophers throughout the British

Atlantic world did not encounter this problem in their use of
common sense philosophy. Their efforts to reconstruct the
Scottish philosophical tradition from abroad merit an
Page 15 of 26
Introduction
important place in the legacy of common sense philosophy.32

James McCosh, who served as the President of the College of
New Jersey (now Princeton University) between 1868 and
1888, authored the best example of reconstructing an
intellectual history of common sense philosophy. His
exploratory intellectual biography, The Scottish Philosophy
(1875), of prominent Scottish Enlightenment thinkers
(including Hutcheson, Turnbull, Reid, James Oswald, John
Witherspoon, Beattie, Stewart, and Hamilton) revealed an
ambition to pave a future path for a new version of common
sense philosophy in America. In doing so, McCosh’s philosophy
departed from the Scottish “school” of common sense in
significant ways.33 In explaining the continuities and
discontinuities of his philosophy with the original “Scotch
school”, McCosh wrote:
I am represented as being of the Scottish school of

philosophy. I adhere to it in one important principle: I
believe that the truths of mental philosophy are to be
discovered by a careful observation and induction of
what passes in the mind. But in other respects I differ
from the Scottish school. I profess to get my philosophy
from the study of the human mind directly, and not from
the teaching of others. The Scottish school maintains
that we know only the qualities of things; I say we know
the things themselves. So I call my philosophy Realism,
and by help of a few obvious distinctions I hope to
establish it. Hamilton makes our knowledge relative; I
make it positive.
(McCosh, 1888: 29–30)
Like other Scottish philosophers teaching in different national

contexts during the nineteenth century, McCosh’s
reconstruction of “the Scottish philosophy” critically adapted
Scottish common sense philosophy to the different
circumstances in which he lived. In recovering the ways in
which Scottish common (p.15) sense philosophy originally
developed in response to the Ideal Theory during the long
eighteenth century in Britain, this volume takes an important
step toward a more complete understanding of “the Scottish
philosophy” in the age of Enlightenment.
Bibliography
Page 16 of 26
Introduction
Bibliography references:
Ahnert, T. (2015). The Moral Culture of the Scottish

Enlightenment, 1690–1805, New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press.
Beebee, H. (2006). Hume on Causation, New York: Routledge.
Berkeley, G. (1710/1998). A Treatise Concerning the Principles

of Human Knowledge, edited by J. Dancy, Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Bow, C. B. (2013a). In Defence of the Scottish Enlightenment:

Dugald Stewart’s Role in the 1805 John Leslie Affair, Scottish
Historical Review, 92/1: 123–46.
Bow, C. B. (2013b). Reforming Witherspoon’s Legacy at

Princeton: John Witherspoon, Samuel Stanhope Smith and
James McCosh on Didactic Enlightenment, 1768–1888, History
of European Ideas, 39/5: 650–69.
Bradford, G. (2005). The Status of Moral Knowledge in

Descartes’ Passions, in Descartes and Cartesianism, edited by
N. Smith and J. Taylor, Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press,
2005, 101–14.
Broadie, A. (ed.) (2003). The Cambridge Companion to the

Scottish Enlightenment, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Broadie, A. (2009). A History of Scottish Philosophy,

Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Broadie, A. (2010). Reid Making Sense of Moral Sense, in Reid

on Ethics, edited by Sabine Roeser, Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan, 91–102.
Broadie, A. (2012). Agreeable Connexions: Scottish

Enlightenment Links with France, Edinburgh: Birlinn.
Broadie, A. (2014). Robert Baron on the Assent of Faith,

Journal of Scottish Philosophy, 12/2: 231–42.
Brookes, D. (ed.) (2000). An Inquiry into the Human Mind on

the Principles of Common Sense, Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press.
Page 17 of 26
Introduction
Brookes, D. and Haakonssen, K. (eds.) (2002). Thomas Reid—

Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man: A Critical Edition,
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Brown, M. (2000). Creating a Canon: Dugald Stewart’s

Construction of the Scottish Enlightenment, History of
Universities, 16: 135–54.
Brown, M. (2007). Dugald Stewart and the Problem of

Teaching Politics in the 1790s, Journal of Irish and Scottish
Studies, 1/1: 87–126.
Buras, T. (2009). The Function of Sensations in Reid, Journal of

the History of Philosophy, 47/3: 329–53.
Carey, D. (2005). Locke, Shaftesbury, and Hutcheson:

Contesting Diversity in the Enlightenment, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Carlyle, T. (1828). Thomas to John Carlyle, 25 August 1828, in

Carlyle Letters, vol. 4, 396–401.
Chappell, V. (1999). Locke’s Theory of Ideas, in The Cambridge

Companion to Locke, edited by V. Chappell, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 26–55.
(p.16) Copenhaver, R. (2004). A Realism for Reid: Mediated

but Direct, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 12/1:
61–74.
Craig, C. (2013). Scotland’s Migrant Philosophers and the

History of Scottish Philosophy, History of European Ideas,
39/5: 670–92.
Cuneo, T. (2004). Reid’s Moral Philosophy, in The Cambridge

Companion to Thomas Reid, edited by T. Cuneo and R. Van
Woudenberg, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 243–
66.
Cuneo, T. and Van Woudenberg, R. (eds.) (2004). The

Cambridge Companion to Thomas Reid, Cambridge:
Dalgarno, M. and Matthews, E. (eds.) (1989). The Philosophy

of Thomas Reid, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Page 18 of 26
Introduction
Davie, G. (1973). The Social Significance of the Scottish

Philosophy of Common Sense, The Dow Lecture, Dundee:
University of Dundee Press.
Davie, G. (1999). The Democratic Intellect: Scotland and Her

Universities in the Nineteenth Century, Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press.
Davie, G. (2010). Victor Cousin and the Scottish Philosophers,

Journal of Scottish Philosophy, 7/2: 193–214.
Descartes, R. (1641/1996). Meditations on First Philosophy,

with selections from the objections and replies, translated and
edited by J. Cottingham, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Dicker, G. (2013). Descartes: An Analytic and Historical

Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fieser, J. (ed.) (2000). Scottish Common Sense Philosophy:

Sources and Origins, 5 vols., Bristol and Sterling, VA:
Thoemmes Press.
Gellera, G. (2013). The Philosophy of Robert Forbes: A Scottish

Scholastic Response to Cartesianism, Journal of Scottish
Philosophy, 11/2: 191–211.
Graham, G. (ed.) (2015). Scottish Philosophy in the Nineteenth

and Twentieth Centuries, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Grave, S. (1960). The Philosophy of Common Sense, Oxford:

Oxford University Press.
Greco, J. (2004). Reid’s Reply to the Skeptic, in The Cambridge

Companion to Thomas Reid, edited by T. Cuneo and R. Van
Woudenberg, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 134–
55.
Haakonssen, K. (1984). From Moral Philosophy to Political

Economy: The Contribution of Dugald Stewart, in Philosophers
of the Scottish Enlightenment, edited by V. Hope, Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press, 211–32.
Haakonssen, K. (1996). Natural Law and Moral Philosophy

from Grotius to the Scottish Enlightenment, Cambridge:
Page 19 of 26
Introduction
Haakonssen, K. and Harris, J. A. (eds.) (2010). Thomas Reid—

Essays on the Active Powers of Man, Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press.
Haakonssen, K. and Wood, P. (eds.) (2012). Dugald Stewart:

His Development in Scottish and European Context, special
issue of History of European Ideas, 38.
Harris, J. (2015). Hume: An Intellectual Biography, Cambridge:

Hume, D. (1969). The Letters of David Hume: 1727–1765,

edited by J. Y. T. Grieg, vol. 1, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hume, D. (2009). A Treatise of Human Nature, edited by D.

Norton and M. Norton, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
(p.17) Hutcheson, F. (1755). A System of Moral Philosophy,

vol. 1, London: A. Millar.
Jaffro, L. (2014). Reid on Powers of the Mind and the Person

behind the Curtain, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 41: 197–
213.
Kuehn, M. (2004). Scottish Common Sense in Germany, 1768–

1800: A Contribution to the History of Critical Philosophy,
Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
McCosh, J. (1875). The Scottish Philosophy: Biographical,

Expository, Critical, from Hutcheson to Hamilton, New York:
Carter.
McCosh, J. (1888). Twenty Years of Princeton College: Being a

Farewell Address, New York: Carter.
Madden, E. (1984). Victor Cousin and the Common Sense

Tradition, History of Philosophy Quarterly, 1/1: 93–109.
Marshall, J. (1998). Descartes’s Moral Theory, Ithaca, NY:

Cornell University Press.
Mills, R. (2015). The Reception of ‘That Bigoted Silly Fellow’

James Beattie’s Essay on Truth in Britain, 1770–1830, History
of European Ideas, 41/8: 1049–79.
Mortera, E. L. (2005). Reid, Stewart and the Association of

Ideas, Journal of Scottish Philosophy, 3/2: 157–70.
Page 20 of 26
Introduction
Pappas, G. (1991). Berkeley and Common Sense Realism,

History of Philosophy Quarterly, 8/1: 27–42.
Phillipson, N. (1983). The Pursuit of Virtue in Scottish

University Education: Dugald Stewart and Scottish Moral
Philosophy in the Enlightenment, in Universities, Society and
the Future, edited by N. Phillipson, Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 82–101.
Raffe, A. (2015). Intellectual Change before the

Enlightenment: Scotland, the Netherlands and the Reception
of Cartesian Thought, 1650–1700, Scottish Historical Review,
94/1: 24–47.
Redekop, B. W. (2004). Reid’s Influence in Britain, Germany,

France, and America, in The Cambridge Companion to Thomas
Reid, edited by T. Cuneo and R. Van Woudenberg, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 313–40.
Reid, T. (1764). Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles

of Common Sense, Edinburgh: Creech.
Reid, T. (1785). Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man,

Edinburgh: Bell.
Reid, T. (1788). Essays on the Active Powers of Man,

Edinburgh: Creech.
Reid, T. (2002). The Correspondence of Thomas Reid, edited by

P. Wood, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Roeser, S. (ed.) (2010). Reid on Ethics, Basingstoke: Palgrave

Macmillan.
Segrest, S. P. (2010). America and the Political Philosophy of

Common Sense, Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press.
Shaftesbury, A. A. C. (1999). Characteristics of Men, Manners,

Opinions, Times, edited by L. Klein, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Shepherd, C. M. (1975). Philosophy and Science in the Arts

Curriculum of the Scottish Universities in the Seventeenth
Century, Doctoral dissertation, University of Edinburgh.
Page 21 of 26
Introduction
Shepherd, C. M. (1987). The Arts Curriculum at Aberdeen at

the Beginning of the Eighteenth Century, in Aberdeen and the
Enlightenment, edited by J. J. Carter and J. H. Pittock,
Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 146–54.
Shepherd, C. M. (1992). Newtonianism in Scottish Universities

in the Seventeenth Century, in The Origins and Nature of the
Scottish Enlightenment, edited by R. H. Campbell and A.
Skinner, Edinburgh: John Donald, 65–85.
(p.18) Simon, W. M. (1965). The ‘Two Cultures’ in

Nineteenth-Century France: Victor Cousin and Auguste
Comte, Journal of the History of Ideas, 26/1: 45–58.
Soles, D. E. (1985). Locke’s Empiricism and the Postulation of

Unobservables, Journal of the History of Philosophy, 23/3:
339–69.
Stalley, R. F. (2004). Reid’s Defence of Freedom, in Thomas

Reid: Context, Influence and Significance, edited by J.
Houston, Edinburgh: Dunedin Academic Press, 29–50.
Stewart, D. (1793–4). Lectures of Moral Philosophy, notes

taken by Archibald Bell, Special Collections at Edinburgh
University Library, Ms. Dc.4.97.
Stewart, D. (1811). Account of the Life and Writings of Thomas

Reid, D.D. F.R.S. Edin, in Biographical Memoirs of Adam
Smith, LL.D., of William Robertson, D.D., and of Thomas Reid,
D.D., Edinburgh: George Ramsay and Co.
Stewart, D. (1822). A General View of the Progress of

Metaphysical, Ethical, and Political Philosophy: Since the
Revival of Letters in Europe, Edinburgh: Black.
Stewart, D. (1828). The Philosophy of the Active and Moral

Powers of Man, vol. 1, Edinburgh: Adam Black.
Stewart, M. A. and Wright, J. P. (eds.) (1994). Hume and

Hume’s Connexions, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Towsey, M. R. (2010). Reading the Scottish Enlightenment:

Books and their Readers in Provincial Scotland, 1750–1820,
Leiden and Boston: Brill.
Page 22 of 26
Introduction
Turnbull, G. (1740/2005). The Principles of Moral Philosophy:

An Enquiry into the Wise and Good Government of the Moral
World in Which the Continuance of Good Administration, and
of Due Care about Virtue, for ever, is inferred from present
Order in all Things, in that Part chiefly where Virtue is
concerned, vol. 1, edited by A. Broadie, Indianapolis: Liberty
Fund.
Ulman, L. (1990). The Minutes of the Aberdeen Philosophical

Society, 1758–1773, Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press.
Winch, D. (1983). The System of the North: Dugald Stewart

and his Pupils, in That Noble Science of Politics: A Study of
Nineteenth-Century Intellectual History, edited by S. Collini,
D. Winch, and J. Burrow, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 23–61.
Wood, P. B. (1985). The Hagiography of Common Sense:

Dugald Stewart’s Account of the Life and Writings of Thomas
Reid, in Philosophy, its History and Historiography, edited by
A. J. Holland, Dordrecht: Springer, 305–22.
Wood, P. B. (2000). Dugald Stewart and the Invention of ‘The

Scottish Enlightenment’, in The Scottish Enlightenment:
Essays in Reinterpretation, edited by P. B. Wood, Rochester,
NY: University of Rochester Press.
Wood, P. B. (2004). Thomas Reid and the Culture of Science, in

The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Reid, edited by T.
Cuneo and R. Van Woudenberg, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 53–76.
Wright, J. P. (1983). The Sceptical Realism of David Hume,

Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Notes:
This book owes a debt of gratitude to the authors of the
various essays, the British Society for the History of
Philosophy and especially Pauline Phemister, Paul Wood’s
valued guidance, and to the support of Eleanor Collins and
Oxford University Press.
(1) See Grave, 1960; Davie, 1973; Broadie, 2009.
(2) See Ahnert, 2015.
Page 23 of 26
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
“Eh!” said the worthy man; “no—eh—no—oh, dinna, dinna ask me;
no, I canna!”
After waiting another quarter of an hour, during which the elder was
in a state of great nervous excitement, the father again came to him,
but the elder beckoned him to come out of the room. When both
were outside, the father said:
“Eh, Mr. Sommerville, the wife, puir bodie, canna bear to let her wee
Tammie be ‘liftit’ without a bit word o’ prayer; an’ she hasna gotten to
the kirk since Tammie turned badly, an’ she’ll be the better, an we’ll a’
be the better, o’ a bit prayer. It’s awfu’ heathen-like to tak’ awa’ the
bit bairn for gude an’ a’ out o’ it’s mother’s house without a word o’
comfort; dinna refuse us—we’re a’ kent [known] folk here.”
Mr. Sommerville, who was twitching his fingers until the father had
finished, said: “Oh! for ony favour dinna ask me,—I positeevely
cannot do’t in company;” then taking the father’s hand he pulled him
near him, and said with great earnestness: “I wad rather gi’e the
coffin for naething. Oh! ask the new schoolmaster.”
This was a young teacher who had lately come to Blinkbonny, and
although he was taken aback, he engaged shortly in prayer. All
present were much pleased, said that he was an uncommonly nice
lad, very obliging, and that anybody could see by his prayer that “the
root o’ the matter was in him.”
It may seem strange to add that Mr. Sommerville was
a first-rate elder; he was charitable, considerate, MODEST
upright, and helpful to many. His advices were short, WORTH.
but very “pat:” to the rash, it was, “Leisure a wee;” to
the foolish, “Mend your ways;” to the intemperate, “Do thyself no
harm;” to his apprentices or workmen when they committed
mistakes, his reproofs were not rebukes, far less reproaches, but,
“It’s a pity,” “Ye’ve gane wrang,” “That’s no’ wiselike;” the most
severe was, “That’s very stupid-like.”
Mr. Tait, the young schoolmaster above referred to, had succeeded
the good old man who had been parish teacher for nearly half a
century. He was selected from a list of applicants owing to the
excellent testimonials he presented, and had been asked to meet
with the examination committee in Mr. Walker’s house before the
appointment was finally made. He had acted for some time as
assistant in a parish school adjoining Middlemoor, and was well
known to Mr. Walker. Report said he was “after” a niece of Mr.
Walker’s.
Mr. Tait on the day of meeting was shown into the parlour beside
Mrs. Walker, the committee being in the study. He told Mrs. Walker
how nervous he was, and he looked it. She told him not to be afraid
—she would help him through. There was a roast of beef at the
kitchen fire, which she made the servant carry through the lobby, and
slowly past the door of the study; when the fragrant steam got
diffused, she opened the study door, and said, “Mr. Tait’s here.”
The other business that had occupied the committee
was very quickly despatched. Mr. Tait was called in, THE CIVIL
and Mr. Walker was telling the committee what he SERVICE
knew of Mr. Tait’s abilities and scholarship, when Mrs. EXAMINATI
Walker, after the servant had again carried the hissing ON.
roast through the lobby, half opened the study door, and gave a nod
to Mr. Walker. This, along with the appeal to the lower nature through
the sense of smell, proved irresistible. The gentleman who had been
deputed to examine the applicant did so with such haste, and put
such childish questions, that everybody saw it was a joke, for he
rattled off questions and answers as quickly as he could. Mr. Tait
never needed to utter a word.
Arithmetic,—said he. Ques. How many are six and four?—Ans. Ten,
to be sure; that will do for that.
History.—Ques. Who gave the king the most practical lessons?—
Ans. George Buchanan; right again.
Geography.—Ques. What is the largest town in the world? Ans. Why,
Biggar of course—London’s a big town, but Biggar’s Biggar.
Mathematics.—Ques. What is a simple equation? Ans. Six and half-
a-dozen.
Latin.—Ques. What is the Latin for Fish? Ans. Aqua vitæ, or
“Glenlivat.” Ques. Translate Ex nihilo nihil fit? Ans. It’s time we had
something.
General Knowledge.—Ques. What’s the best change for a wearied
teacher? Ans. Hill air, for it always makes him hilarious.
Literature.—Ques. What did John Gilpin’s wife say to him, and what
did he reply?
Ans. “The dinner waits, and we are tired;”
Says Gilpin, “So am I.”
The examination was declared satisfactory. Mr. Tait was appointed
schoolmaster of Blinkbonny. The merry company sought the dining-
room, did ample justice to Mrs. Walker’s hospitality, and drank Mr.
Tait’s good health and great success to him after that toast had been
proposed by Mr. Walker, who, in doing so, spoke a good deal of Mr.
Tait’s uncle, David Tait of Blackbrae in this parish, who will reappear
more prominently amongst the future “Bits.”
My brother-in-law, the Rev. John Macnab, had come out with the
Free Church, and was assisting Mr. Barrie at a communion season.
The sermon he preached in the evening was a most carefully
prepared one; his subject was “Heaven;” and as I do not wish to give
an opinion of my relative’s abilities, I may say that three of the elders
said it was “most beautiful,—it was like a series of dissolving views.”
It was a long sermon, and the descriptive part of it took up so much
time that there was no “application” part in it.
Old George Brown was, as he had often been on similar occasions,
my guest for the “preachin’s,” as the services at communion seasons
were called; and in these days they were abundant in number, being
two sermons on Thursday, one on Saturday, and at least one on
Monday, besides from about eleven to four and an evening service
on Sabbath.
When we got home, George astonished Mr. Macnab by the amount
of the day’s services he could repeat; and when he had given his
résumé of the evening sermon, he finished up with:
“It was really a grand sermon as far as it went. I never enjoyed a
description of heaven better. Ye told us a’thing aboot heaven except
hoo to get there; and, Maister Macnab, you’ll excuse me, my young
friend, for sayin’ that that shouldna hae been left out, for ye’ll admit
yersel’ if that’s awantin’ a’s awantin’. Ye’ll mind o’ the king’s son’s
feast? The servants didna only tell that a’thing was ready, but they
compelled them to come in.”
Mr. Macnab said to me that night as we sat together
after every other body had retired: “I’ve been criticized “THERE.”
by learned professors and doctors of divinity, by
ministers of experience and ability, by fellow-students and relatives,
but that good old man has given me more insight into what
preaching should be than all the others put together; and I hope that
as long as I live I will never, never, when delivering God’s message
to my fellow-men, forget to tell them ‘how to get there.’”
George “got there” before another communion season came round,
and with him were buried many sayings that were “like apples of gold
in pictures of silver.” Those I have tried to reproduce will remind
many men who are now far on in the journey of life of the frequent
use of Scripture language and metaphor by the men of two or three
generations ago. A tall man was a “Saul among the people;” news
were carried “from Dan to Beersheba;” a disagreeable man was “a
Mordecai at the gate;” and language which was in any way
approaching profanity,—and the standard was a rigorous one,—was
styled “part in the speech of Ashdod, and part in the Jews’
language.” Single names were also used, and to many they were
most expressive, such as an “Achan,” a “Jezebel,” a “Nathaniel,” a
“Goshen,” an “Ishmael.”
I have heard a keen politician, during the course of the election of a
member of Parliament (in the days of open voting, before the “ballot”
was introduced, when the hourly returns of the voting at the various
polling stations were made, and transmitted by swift riders from one
to another), as the numbers were summed up, ask, in order to know
the state of the poll, “Is the young man Absalom safe?” I have also
heard a very worthy elder say in the presence of a very worthy
minister, “Mary, bring out Jeroboam.” Mary produced the whisky
bottle. My teetotal friends will doubtless think this a most appropriate
name.
Mrs. Barrie had been so pleased with Dan’s attention to Nellie’s

grave, that she laid aside the first suit of clothes Mr. Barrie cast off (I
may as well tell that Bell and she between them had “turned” them),
and she was debating with herself whether to go to his house with
them, or send for him, when she met him at the manse gate. With
considerable difficulty she prevailed on him to come up to the house,
but could not induce him to come on to the front approach, much
less in by the front door.
“I’ll stand here, if you please, mem,” said Dan.
“But I wish to speak with you in the house, Mr. Corbett,
if you please,” said Mrs. Barrie. Dan grinned from ear THE
to ear at “Mr.” Corbett; he did not remember of ever WEIGHT
having been called that before, and he kept repeating, OF
HONOURS.
“Maister,—Maister, if you please—Eh, Dan, ye’ll dae
now,” laughing heartily either to or at himself. Dan seldom laughed—
it was almost a new sensation to him; but the “Maister, if you please,”
tickled him immensely, and by the time Bell had got the kitchen door
open, for she saw him halt before the window, and slap his leg, and
laugh until even the blind eye opened and yielded copious tears (so
she said), he was in a social, happy glow.
“What’s ta’en ye the day, Dan? what grand news hae ye gotten?
have ye seen the Cornel?”
Dan could not reply, but brushed past Bell, and said when he settled
a little:
“It’s naething at a’, Bell—it’s fair silliness o’ me; but Mrs. Barrie met
me at the road end and said,” here he fell a-laughing again,
—“‘Maister Corbett, if you please.’ I’m no’ used wi’ such genty
manners, an’ like mony anither fule I was laughin’ at mysel’.”
Mrs. Barrie came into the kitchen, and he laughed when she again
called him “Mr. Corbett,” and said: “Ca’ me Dan, if you please, mem;
naebody ever ca’d me Maister a’ my days afore, and it sounds very
droll—Maisterin’ me.”
“Well, Daniel, then!” said Mrs. Barrie.
“Dan, if you please, mem—just plain Dan.”
“Well, Dan!”
“Ay, that’s liker the thing,” said he.
And Mrs. Barrie spoke very nicely to him; her silver tones touched
his ear like music, and her words reached his heart as she thanked
him for what he had so beautifully done at wee Nellie’s grave; and
she prevailed on him to come into the dining-room to see a miniature
of her Nellie that a friend had painted from memory, and presented
to her. There were other pictures on the walls, mostly engravings,
which Mrs. Barrie explained so neatly, and with so much animation
and clearness, that Dan forgot himself in listening to her, and when
she had gone round the room he asked:
“What did ye say about this ane, if you please, mem? I think ye
called it the Angel’s Whisper?”
When she re-described it, he asked about another and
another. All the engravings were on suggestive “MINISTER
subjects, and Mrs. Barrie made them doubly ING
interesting by her explanations; and almost ANGELS.”
unconsciously to herself, she kept dropping into his
weary heart simple loving words of truth and peace as poor Dan
turned from one picture to another, and Mrs. Barrie followed up her
description with increasing interest to herself as well as to Dan. She
also gave him the clothes, and very sweetly counselled him to go to
the church, any church he liked, and he would hear some fine
pictures.
“There’s nane in the Blinkbonny kirks that I ever heard o’, unless it
be yon marble image on young Captain McLellan’s headstane at the
side o’ the auld kirk pulpit; an’ I aye said to Guy’s gude-faither, auld
Ritchie, that it was daftlike to hae guns and bayonets an’ swords
stuck up like stooky [stucco] images in a kirk. But I dinna ken what to
do wi’ thae fine claes [clothes]; they’re no’ the least like me.”
Dan, however, accepted them at length with a very proper bow, if
lowness is any criterion, took another look of Nellie’s miniature, and
made several bows to Mrs. Barrie as he left the dining-room.
His description of the pictures gave Bell great delight, and she
dropped in a useful word or hint now and again as he went on. Dan
ended with:
“Bell, yon picture o’ wee Nellie let’s me ken her noo, an’ I will keep
her grave snod; an’ there’s yon ane about the angel’s whisper, an’
anither ane I maun ask ye to let me see again some day. D’ye ken if
Mrs. Barrie wad haud [hold] the kirk in the dinin’-room, an’ gang o’er
yon pictures, she wad beat a’ the ministers ever I heard” (“No very
mony, after a’,” thought Dan to himself, “mair’s the pity”). “What for
do they no’ hae pictures in the kirk, an’ tell ye’ about them, like Mrs.
Barrie? I think they wad soon fill their kirks if they did that.”
Dan tried on the clothes as soon as he got home, and he scarcely
knew himself. His first remark was, “Guy, mind yersel’, or I’ll rin ye
hard for the beadleship!” His next, looking at his hands, “They’s no
like thae claes.” He then took down his fishing-rod, took his towel
with him (it was a ragged old potato bag), bought a bit of soap as he
passed through the village, sought out a quiet pool, and made
himself as clean as soap, water, and a rough towel could make him.
After this was over, “Ah, but I’m the better o’ that; I’ll do’t oftener,”
said he, and put up his fishing-rod. The best of the fish he caught
were put under Knowe Park “bass” as formerly, long after night had
fairly settled down. Dan started next day to clean his house. Some
corners needed it very badly. He did the cleaning very well
considering.
He had a strange dream the night after he had seen the pictures,
and after thinking over it and wondering about it for nearly a week,
he was driven to tell it to Bell for peace’ sake, as follows:
“I thocht I was in heaven, an’ about the first body I met
was wee Nellie. I didna ken her at first, but she kent THE
me, an’ she was that glad to see me; an’ somehow I GATES
wasna the least feared. An’ she asked me if I would AJAR.
come an’ see her mansion, an’ she took me into a
beautiful room, an’—but I couldna lay’d off till ye, so I’ll no try’t—an’ I
asked her wha gied her’t, an’ I never saw onything as bonnie as her
face, or heard onything as sweet as her voice, as she said, ‘Jesus! O
Dan, come away an’ see Him!’ ‘No,’ said I, ‘Nellie; He’s no’ for the
like o’ me.’ If ye had seen her face when she said, ‘But He is, Dan,
He is; He likes you better than a’ the gold in a’ the world.’ Then she
said, ‘I’ll let ye see mamma’s mansion.’ It was as bonnie as Nellie’s,
but it was a’ hung round wi’ pictures, an’ Mrs. Barrie was in them a’,
an’ aye some ither wi’ her—whiles ane, Nellie, or maybe Mr. Barrie,
an’ whiles folk I ken, besides folk I dinna ken; but she was aye in the
middle o’ the picture. An’ there was ane wi’ mysel’ an’ her in’t, an’ it
was something like the ‘Angel’s Whisper,’—but the angels were
awfu’ like her tae.
“An’ Nellie showed me your mansion, Bell, an’ it was braw, an’ fu’ o’
bonnie pictures just like Mrs. Barrie’s; an’ I was in some o’ them tae.
An’ I noticed that ye had on your everyday working claes—your very
commonest, and hardly ever on your Sabbath claes at a’.
“Weel, Nellie said to me, ‘Come an’ see your mansion, Dan.’ I was
kind o’ terrified, but she could mak’ me do anything she likit. Weel,
we went to what she ca’d my mansion, an’ the pictures round it were
fearsome to look at, an’ I was in the middle o’ every ane; an’ there
was ane where there were angels very like Mrs. Barrie, an’ Mr.
Barrie, an’ you, speaking to me, an’ lookin’ at me, an’ pointin’ up,—
an’ I lookit up.
“I was sae much ta’en up wi’ the pictures, I didna notice that Nellie
had gaen out; but when I saw Mrs. Barrie an’ you pointin’ up in the
picture, I lookit up, an’ in a moment Nellie comes in an’ says, ‘Here’s
Jesus;’ an’ all at once the pictures vanished, an’ the walls were as
clean an’ white as the driven snaw, an’ there was only one picture
left, an’ that was Jesus. An’ somehow He didna fear me till He cam’
out o’ the picture an’ showed me His hands, an’ there were marks in
the very middle o’ them, like as if nails had once been driven through
them; an’ he was gaun to lay His hands on me when I wakened;—
and it’s been in my head ever since, but I didna like to tell aboot it.
D’ye think it means that I shouldna wear yon fine claes? or what d’ye
think?”
Need I say that Bell was greatly struck with the dream, and did what
she could to press home the lesson it so clearly taught? But Dan
said, “Oh, but, Bell, mind He didna lay hands on me; but that was
maybe my blame, for I started back. But I’m glad I’ve tell’t you, an’ ye
can tell Mrs. Barrie if you like.”
Bell did so. And although Dan was not much changed
outwardly, he liked to speak to Bell about good things, NEVER
and gave over sundry bad habits, and went to Mr. TOO LATE
Walker’s kirk; although, poor man, he knew so little TO MEND.
about the service, that when Mr. Walker said at the
end of his sermon, “I will conclude by,” Dan set off, supposing that all
would follow very soon, and he was astonished to find that the folk
took so long to come home from the church that day. Generally his
wonder had been, “Are they oot a’ready?” as Sunday forenoon had
been a great day for Watty and his cronies meeting in Dan’s house
and garden for a crack on bull-dogs, game-cocks, and sporting
matters. But they paid this respect to religion, that they did not start
for Dan’s until the church was “in,” and left so as to be home before
the church was out.
Dan gave up keeping game fowls, but stuck to his other favourites,
and became a quieter man; but I will not enter further into his state of
mind than say that, I believe he attended the parish church, and I
was told that some time after the dream, but I cannot say as to the
precise date, he tried to put himself in the way of Mr. Scott of
Babbie’s Mill.
Mr. Scott stared to see Dan, and spoke rudely to him. Dan waited till
he was done, and then said, “Mr. Scott, there’s a slap in your hedge,
an’ the sheep’s among the corn. I’ve driven them out, and stappit
[pushed] in a bush, but if ye’ve ony stabs or palings I’ll mend it for ye
in a crack.”
“I want nane o’ yer mendings.”
“Aweel,” said Dan, “I see ye’re angry; and I can only say, Mr. Scott, if
ye’ll no’ be friends, dinna blame me. I own I spoke sair till ye, but
was you no’ first in the fault? I’m no’ seeking onything frae ye, but as
I’m an auld man I want to die in peace wi’ my neibours, so I ax yer
pardon, and gude day.”
“Die in peace!—ye’ll die in a jail, or no’ unlikely on a gallows!” said
the miller.
“Maybe,” said Dan, “but Mr. Walker was tellin’ us on Sabbath about a
deein’ thief, an’ he was made a’ richt as he was deein’; an’ maybe
Him that helpit him will help me.”
“Dan,” said the miller in astonishment, “are you gaun to the kirk
noo?”
“Ay,” said Dan,—“whiles.”
“Weel, Dan, ye seem to make a better use o’ the kirk than I dae; and
as ye was saying, we’ll let byganes be byganes. And thank ye about
the sheep.”
“Aweel,” replied Dan, “Mr. Walker whiles speaks
THE PIPE about lost sheep, and I thocht as I saw yours amang
OF PEACE. the corn, that the sooner our slaps [gaps] are filled
up the better for ourselves and for the sheep, for
some o’ them seemed swalled [swollen].”
The miller and Dan started with the requisites, mended the slap,
looked at the sheep, smoked a quiet pipe, and parted.
“That cowes [beats] a’,” said the miller.
“The canny way’s the best way, after a’,” said Dan.
Colonel Gordon was spending part of the summer with Mr. Kirkwood,
and they called at Knowe Park. The Colonel’s relationship to Mrs.
Barrie was clearly established; and a piano, and some other marks
of kindness on the Colonel’s part, were sent from Edinburgh shortly
thereafter. But unfortunately Bell was not in when the gentlemen
called, greatly to Mr. Kirkwood’s regret, and their visit had been a
short one.
Colonel Gordon was in indifferent health, and Mr. Kirkwood would
not allow him to exert or excite himself in any way, so that Bell’s
“castle in the air” was as hazy as ever; and as neither Mr. nor Mrs.
Barrie had thought much on the matter, the presents were taken as
tokens of goodwill, and politely acknowledged as such, but they
formed no ground in their minds of any, far less of such great
expectations as they did in Bell’s.
The social element in religion was greatly promoted by the soirees
and meetings of that nature held in connection with the Free Church.
Mr. Barrie used to tell of Mr. Taylor’s usual welcome when he
dropped in of an evening: “Come away, Mr. Barrie, ye’ll spend an
hour wi’ us. There’s a great deal o’ religion in sociality, an’ there’s far
ower little sociality in our religion—for that’s what I think is the
‘communion of saints,’ it’s just sociality—gude neibourship, as far as
our firesides are concerned.”
At one of our soirees—I think it was in 1850—Sir John McLelland
suddenly appeared in the Free Church lobby. Dr. Guthrie was one of
the speakers, and the church was crammed. Some young men acted
as ticket-collectors and stewards at the door, and they had been so
anxious to lose nothing of the speeches, that they did not even look
round in reply to Sir John’s question, “Could you find room for me?”
“Have you a ticket?” was the reply.
“A ticket! What sort of ticket? I’ve no ticket,” said Sir John.
“Weel, there are no bags left, and there’s no room in the church, so
you cannot get in.”
This was said without the speaker’s even turning
LOOK round to see to whom he was speaking. Luckily one
BEFORE of the deacons observed Sir John, who said to him,
YOU LEAP. “Can I not get in? This young man here spoke to me
about some bag and ticket, and said I could not get in.”
“Stupid fellow!—beg pardon!—please come this way,” was the reply.
When the poor steward looked round he was so utterly ashamed of
himself that he stood speechless. He “catch’t it” from the other
stewards, and his evening’s enjoyment was spoiled.
Sir John was shown into the vestry, and when the speaker for the
time had concluded, he came to the platform.
The surprise at his appearance added to the warmness of his
reception. It seemed as if the audience could not cease their
expressions of delight. When silence was restored, Mr. Barrie
announced Dr. Guthrie as the next speaker.
Sir John instantly rose and asked to be allowed to say a few words.
He first told the story of the children and Dr. Guthrie at the post-
office, which made Kennedy the tailor spring first on to the seat, then
stand astride on two seats, and wave his Turkey-red and white
spotted cotton handkerchief so excitedly, and cheer so loudly, that he
had to be taken down almost by force.
After Kennedy was quiet, Sir John said, “I spoke to Mr. Barrie and
several of this audience at the time of the Disruption in a way that I
now regret. My language was unguarded and unwise. I do not state
my present opinions; but I then made publicly some very strong
statements which I now wish as publicly to withdraw. Mr. Barrie, and
hundreds of ministers besides him, acted like truly Christian heroes,
and carried out their conscientious convictions in most difficult and
trying circumstances. I honour them for it. But,” turning to the
audience, “I honour you, and those who form the membership of the
Free Church of Scotland, for the noble, and liberal, and high-toned
manner in which you have recognised this heroism, and carried
forward so triumphantly the cause for which they contended. The
Free Church is in my opinion, in Scotland, the event of the century,
and I can hardly conceive that a more noble testimony to principle
could have been possible in any other country in the world.”
Then turning to Dr. Guthrie, he asked to be excused for almost
interrupting him; and to the audience for trespassing on their
patience when such a speaker as Dr. Guthrie was to follow him.
Dr. Guthrie shook hands long and warmly with Sir John, and they
had plenty of time; and when Dr. Guthrie did speak, it was with a
“forty parson” power. He excelled himself, enchained his audience,
and that soiree is a “red-letter” day in Blinkbonny Free Church
annals.
Bell said it was “awfu’ splendid,”—“just magnificent,”—“it beat
everything,”—“she just couldna say what it wasna,—it was ‘maist
awfu’, awfu’ splendid!”
THE ANGEL’S WHISPER.

By Samuel Lover.
A superstition of great beauty prevails in Ireland, that when a child smiles in its
sleep it is “talking with angels.”
A baby was sleeping, its mother was weeping,

For her husband was far on the wild raging sea,
And the tempest was swelling round the fisherman’s dwelling,
And she cried, “Dermot, darling, oh, come back to me!”
Her beads while she number’d, the baby still slumber’d,

And smiled in her face as she bended her knee;
“Oh! blest be that warning, my child, thy sleep adorning,
For I know that the angels are whispering with thee.
“And while they are keeping bright watch o’er thy sleeping,
Oh! pray to them softly, my baby, with me,
And say thou wouldst rather they’d watch o’er thy father;
For I know that the angels are whispering with thee.”
The dawn of the morning saw Dermot returning,

And the wife wept with joy her babe’s father to see;
And closely caressing her child, with a blessing,
Said, “I knew that the angels were whispering with thee.”
CHAPTER XI.
CHANGES AT KNOWE PARK.
“But mony are the ups an’ the douns o’ life,

When the dice-box o’ fate turns tapsalteerie.”
Old Song, “Kate Dalrymple.”
T HE Blinkbonny Free Church congregation was now

a strong one,—so strong that a Dorcas Society IS
was added to its other schemes, and proved of GOLDEN.
SILENCE
great service to the members as well as to the poor.

The choice of Mrs. Clark as convener was a happy one. She
became the mainspring of the concern; and faithfully did she inquire
into all needful cases, and considerately did she administer the
funds,—in some instances so quietly, that several compared the help
they received to “Peter’s sheet that was let down from heaven;” and
in not a few cases the assistance was all the more welcome
because, although it was greatly needed, it would only have been
asked as a last resort.
The collectors had some difficulty in getting the Dorcas Society
started. One of them—a Miss Roxburgh—asked a subscription for
this purpose from Mr. Skinner, a well-to-do and successful man.
“A what kind of society do you call it,—a Dorcas Society? What in all
the world’s that?” said he.
“It’s to provide clothing and coals for the poor.”
“Then why do you not call it something else than that foreign name
Dorcas? Is it Latin, or French, or what is it?”
“Oh,” said Miss Roxburgh, “it’s called after Dorcas, the woman that
made garments for the poor. You’ll remember of her,—Tabitha or
Dorcas?”
“Not I. I never even heard of her name before,—Tabby or Dorcas, or
whatever you call her. Where did you fall in with her? I am certain it
was not in the Bible,” said Mr. Skinner firmly.
“Hoots, ye’re forgetting,” said Miss Roxburgh. “It’s in the Acts of the
Apostles. We read that she died, and they sent for Peter; and when
the poor widows showed him the clothes she had made for them, he
prayed, and she was brought to life again.”
“I read the Bible as well as you,” replied Mr. Skinner, “and I never
either heard or read of any such woman. It’s not in the Acts, I’m
certain. However, as the object is a good one, there’s a pound to
you; but for any favour give your society a decent name, for nobody
will understand what Dorcas means. Dorcas! there is not such a
person in all the Bible.”
After the first year the society ceased to be a Free Church scheme
and became a village one; but Mrs. Clark was continued at the head
of it. She made it a matter of conscience,—stuck to the principle of
helping nobody that had others—especially a “man”—that could
work for them. The distribution of coals was to her a matter of first
concern in the early winter; and, like Job, she could say, “The cause
which I knew not I searched out,” until the receivers came to speak
of them as “Mrs. Clark’s coals.” I commend this “bit” to what an old
elder used to call “my female brethren,” and am convinced if they go
and do likewise they will in no wise lose their reward.
“’Twas to share wi’ the needfu’ our blessin’s were gi’en,

And the friend o’ the puir never wanted a frien’.”
Mr. Barrie had some trouble over what was known as the
“Morisonian” controversy. I will not enter on the question itself. It
turned on the decrees of election, predestination, and what are
known as the Calvinistic doctrines.
George Hunter, a weaver, who had imbibed the
“FOOLS Morisonian ideas, had a considerable power of
RUSH IN.” putting the knotty points in a light which made the
Calvinistic theory appear very monstrous, and he
thought he could easily corner Mr. Barrie. George at length got what
he had anxiously longed for, viz. a chance to fire off the cleverly
worded sentences he had elaborated on the subject. Mr. Barrie, in
reply, quietly stated the doctrine as given in the Confession of Faith,
and quoted the Apostle Paul as his authority.
“But that’s where me an’ Paul differs,” said George.
“What!” said Mr. Barrie, “that’s where Paul and you differ? Do you not
consider the Apostle Paul as an absolute and indisputable
authority?”
“Weel,” said George, “hardly; for I believe that Paul was wrang when
he said that.”
“Paul wrong!” said Mr. Barrie. “Your faith in yourself is certainly great,
but you will excuse me for preferring Paul’s authority not only before
yours, but to the exclusion of all others,” and thus closed the
interview.
In the early summer of 1851, Colonel Gordon again came to reside
with Mr. Kirkwood, near Blinkbonny; and although still an invalid, he
was stronger and more cheerful. He had brought with him an
invalid’s chair, on which he could be wheeled about, and Dan was
employed to push it. When Colonel Gordon first saw Dan he took a
long, inquiring look at him, as if the face was not altogether an
unknown one; but he said nothing, as he thought it likely that he
must have seen him when in Blinkbonny last year. Knowe Park
became the Colonel’s favourite destination in his airings. This may
have been at first brought about by a little management on Dan’s
part; but the old soldier soon grew so fond of the children, that every
day when the weather admitted of his getting out, he landed there.
Bell liked the Colonel for his own sake. He was a fine type of the old
Indian military man,—courteous, interesting, and still handsome
despite his advanced years. Generally she had some tasty soup or
other slight refreshment ready for him, which he thoroughly enjoyed;
and he told Mrs. Barrie that her cook did more to make him well than
the doctor.
Mr. Kirkwood often referred to Bell’s potato-soup in terms which the
Colonel thought absurdly high. On one of his visits, little Gordie
asked him if he would like to see the new chickens. The boy’s
beaming face interested him, and he said,
“Certainly; will you take me to see them?”
Gordie, trained as he had been by Bell not to disturb her feathered
friends, said timidly, “I think Bell would let you see them, but she’ll
not let me touch them.”
Bell was only too glad. Dan wheeled the Colonel to
KIND the spot near the outhouses where the “birdies”
ECHOES. were. It was some time before he could so far relax
his old Indian notions about servants as to speak to
Bell; but she was so attentive and so respectful that he gradually got
into familiar conversation with her, and even referred to Mr.
Kirkwood’s constant praise of her potato-soup.
Bell, whilst keeping her proper distance, so thoroughly won his
respect that he thanked her for the kind way in which she had
studied to have something tasty for him, and complimented her on
her cookery.
“I’m glad to do all in my power for Mrs. Barrie’s friend,” said Bell, “for
she’s been a kind mistress to me; an’ although no’ rich in one
respec’, she has the best o’ a’ kind o’ riches, for she has a’ Martha’s
briskness an’ a’ Mary’s meekness. As to the pitattie-soup, it was just
what was gaun that day; but if Maister Kirkwood wad—as he’s sae
fond o’ Scotch dishes—come here till his dinner some day, Mr. and
Mrs. Barrie wad be glad to see him wi’ you, sir,—but dinna say I said
it,—and I wad try to let him taste some o’ the things he spoke o’ the
first day he was here.”
“Mr. Kirkwood would be delighted, I know: he often speaks about
these things,—offener than I care about, for when he begins there’s
no stopping of him,” said the Colonel.
“Well, sir, beggin’ your pardon for bein’ sae presumin’,” said Bell, “if
ye’ll tell me what he likes best, if it’s a plain auld Scotch dish, I’ll try
to mak’ it sae that it’ll at least bring Mr. Kirkwood in mind, as he says,
o’ auld langsyne; for a’ our denners here are auld-fashioned hamely
fare.”
“Really I could not choose for him. What do you think would be
suitable yourself? For I begin to relish the idea of seeing him sit
down to a really Scotch dinner,—he so often speaks of it. It would be
quite a treat to me.”
“Oh,” said Bell thoughtfully, “let me see,—he’s tried our potato-soup,
but there’s ‘cockie-leekie,’ an’ green pea soup, an’ ‘hotch-potch;’ and
for after that a haggis an’ collops, or a singed sheep’s head; an’ after
that pancakes, an’ rhubarb wi’ some o’ Daisy’s cream.”
Here Bell was interrupted and almost startled by Mr. Kirkwood’s
appearance and voice. He had come to call, but seeing the gathering
at the outhouses, he walked very quietly forward and had overheard
Bell’s last sentence.
“Cockie-leekie!” said he; “splendid! Sheep’s head
THE broth!—glorious! I had forgotten it. Haggis and
COMMISS pancakes!—magnificent! Collops, and what more did
ARIAT. you say?” Then turning to Colonel Gordon, “You
laughed at me for praising the potato-soup, and here
you are getting a whole catalogue of dishes. I can only say that
you’re vastly better lately if you are the length of dining on such fare.”
“It was for you, Mr. Kirkwood, that I was catering, not for myself,”
replied the Colonel; “and we must see Mrs. Barrie about the matter
first.”
Mr. Kirkwood found occasion, on their way to the house, twice or
thrice to turn round and speak to Bell (who followed at a respectful
distance) about some old-fashioned dishes, until Colonel Gordon
said:
“Really, Kirkwood, don’t bother my good friend with such questions.
You speak as if your fortune depended on them. Don’t make so
much of your lower nature.”
“It’s not that so much as old associations,” said Mr. Kirkwood; “but if
you had come into a house on a cold day and got the potato-soup
that I”—
“Stop, Kirkwood, please! Do stop,—I’ve heard it fifty times,” replied
the Colonel.
When the gentlemen got into the dining-room, they felt at a loss how
to invite themselves; but Gordie, on whose shoulder Colonel Gordon
steadied himself when entering the house, did it for them by saying:
“Mamma, Mr. Kirkwood’s coming here to dinner some day, and Bell
is going to make pancakes and nice, nice things for us all.”
“We’ll be delighted to see you, gentlemen,” said Mrs. Barrie, with a
very slight bow to each, “any day that will be most convenient.”
Tuesday week was fixed.
Mr. Kirkwood brought with him some champagne of a special
vintage, it being the only stimulant Colonel Gordon was allowed to
take, and sent it quietly by Dan to Bell. She, busy with her own
special work, looked at the bottles, and as she had not had
champagne in hand before, she said to Dan:
“Take that gold off the cork an’ that string, an’ I’ll draw’t, an’ pit it into
a crystal bottle to be ready.”
Alas! the cork flew into Bell’s face, half the wine was spilt, and she
said sharply:
“Let them draw the next that likes, I’ll no’ fash wi’t.” Thereafter Mr.
Kirkwood became his own butler for the day.
He was carried away by the cockie-leekie to which, at his own
request, he was helped three times. Everything else, especially the
pancakes, increased his delight. The others around the table
enjoyed his immense satisfaction as much as they did the dinner,
which, at least in Gordie’s case, is saying a very great deal.
Mr. Kirkwood walked alongside of Colonel Gordon’s
THE chair as they went homewards,—Dan, of course,
CORRIDOR acting as propeller. When they had reached a high
S OF TIME. part of the road, they halted to enjoy the scene and
the cool evening air. Colonel Gordon looked at Dan,
who was wiping his brow, and observing a scar on his temples, he
said:
“I’ve surely seen you long ago; it’s like a dream to me, but was it not
you that brought me a letter from my brother, many, many years
since, when I was sailing for India? You had a patch over your brow,
and you told me you had had your eye hurt.”
Dan started and said: “Please, sir, are you a brother of the Duke o’
Gordon’s,—toots, I beg your pardon,—Kenneth Gordon’s?”
“I am,” said the Colonel. “I see now it was you that brought the letter.
I was sure I knew you. Poor Kenneth, he was a daring fellow. Did
you know him well?”
“I was one o’ his oarsmen,” said Dan, “but I haena seen him since
the day he gied me the letter to gi’e to you—that was the day after
he hid the brandy an’ the tobacco in Mr. Gordon o’ the Granaries’
cellar, thinkin’ he could get it out next nicht; but the gaugers got
scent o’t, and it took us a’ oor time to get off frae Dumbarton. It was
then that I lost my e’e.”
“Brandy!—tobacco!—excisemen after him!” said Colonel Gordon,
evidently under great excitement “Gordon of the Granaries’ cellar!—
are you in earnest? I’m perfectly stunned. On your life, tell me
everything you know about this matter.”
Dan did so, and pulling from the inside of his vest an old pocket-
book, he showed a bit of dingy paper with some hieroglyphics on it
that none but the initiated could decipher.
“Ye understand, sir, the smugglers that I rowed the boat for had lots
o’ hidin’-places for their stuff, an’ this was one o’ the books they
keepit. There, now,—that anchor wi’ the five twists o’ rope round it,
means five kegs o’ brandy; that R K inside o’ the rope, means
Roseneath kirkyard; that’s your brither’s mark, B Y D and a drawing
o’ a ‘boyn’ or tub,—it was something about the Duke o’ Gordon in the
north country.”
“Yes,” said the Colonel quickly, “Bydand is part of the Gordon crest,
and Aboyne their castle;—but go on.”
“Weel, here’s for Gordon o’ the Granaries;—a castle,
“STRANGE that’s Dumbarton;—a granary wi’ a G, that’s
R THAN Gordon’s place; an’ there’s the anchor wi’ five twists,

Textbook Common Sense in The Scottish Enlightenment C B Bow Ebook All Chapter PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Textbook Common Sense in The Scottish Enlightenment C B Bow Ebook All Chapter PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Common Sense in the Scottish

The Rise and Fall of Scottish Common Sense Realism

The Secular Enlightenment Margaret C. Jacob

Artful Virtue The Interplay of the Beautiful and the

Common Stocks and Common Sense: The Strategies,

Digital Sense The Common Sense Approach to Effectively

A wealth of common sense why simplicity trumps

A Common Sense Guide to Data Structures and Algorithms

The Ministry of Common Sense How to Eliminate

Oxford Scholarship Online

Common Sense in the Scottish Enlightenment

Print publication date: 2018

(p.i) Common Sense in the Scottish Enlightenment

(p.ii) Mind Association occasional Series

(p.iii) Common Sense in the Scottish Enlightenment

This series consists of carefully selected volumes of significant original papers on

Director, Mind Association: Julian Dodd

Publications Officer: Sarah Sawyer

RECENTLY PUBLISHED IN THE SERIES:

Art and Belief

Edited by Ema Sullivan-Bissett, Helen Bradley, and Paul Noordhof

The Actual and the Possible

Edited by Mark Sinclair

Thinking about the Emotions

Edited by Alix Cohen and Robert Stern

Art, Mind, and Narrative

Edited by Julian Dodd

The Social and Political Philosophy of Mary Wollstonecraft

Edited by Sandrine Bergès and Alan Coffee

The Epistemic Life of Groups

Edited by Michael S. Brady and Miranda Fricker

Edited by Mark Jago

The Metaphysics of Relations

Edited by Anna Marmodoro and David Yates

Thomas Reid on Mind, Knowledge, and Value

Edited by Rebecca Copenhaver and Todd Buras

The Highest Good in Aristotle and Kant

Edited by Joachim Aufderheide and Ralf M. Bader

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of

© the several contributors 2018

The moral rights of the authors have been asserted

First Edition published in 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

You must not circulate this work in any other form

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017961511

Printed and bound by

Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith

Copyright © 2018. All rights reserved.

Oxford Scholarship Online

Common Sense in the Scottish Enlightenment

Print publication date: 2018

(p.vii) Notes on the Contributors

Charles Bradford Bow

Some of her recently published articles are Reid on Natural Signs,

Copyright © 2018. All rights reserved.

University Press Scholarship Online

Oxford Scholarship Online

Common Sense in the Scottish Enlightenment

Print publication date: 2018

Abstract and Keywords