I!) 



REID, MAJOR-GEN. SIR WILLIAM, K.C.B. 



REIMARUS, HERMANN SAMUEL. 



these moral notions might be expressed algebraically, after this 

 manner: the benevolence or moral desert of an agent was' analogous 

 to a fraction, which had the good performed for the numerator, and 

 the dispositions of the agent for the denominator. Reid, after examin- 

 ing in Ms essay the nature of mathematical proof, and the subjects to 

 which it had been applied by Hutcbeson, showed that mathematics 

 could by no means have a necessary relation to morals, because the 

 truths to which the two sciences respectively refer addressed them- 

 selves to different faculties of the mind. In 1752 the professors of 

 King's College, Aberdeen, elected Reid to be their professor of moral 

 philosophy. After this appointment he founded a private literary 

 society, which met once a week, and its object was the discussion of 

 philosophical subjects for the mutual improvement of the members, 

 among whom were Doctors George Gregory, Campbell, Beattie, and 

 Gerard, including of course the projector. Though Reid had as yet 

 published nothing but the ' Essay ' mentioned above, his character as 

 a philosopher was established ; and in 1763 the University of Glasgow 

 invited him to succeed Dr. Adam Smith in the chair of moral philo- 

 sophy. He entered upon its duties in 1764, in the discharge of which 

 he laboured indefatigably to carry out his principles. In the same 

 year he published his ' Inquiry into the Human Mind,' the substance 

 of which he had previously delivered to his pupils at Aberdeen, and 

 also read to the society just named. The principal object of this 

 work was to counteract the influence of that scepticism which Hume 

 had founded on the spiritual and ideal system of Berkeley. About 

 the time that the ' Inquiry ' was published, the author received the 

 degree of D.D. from the University of Aberdeen. In 1773 he pub- 

 lished, in Lord Kames's 'Sketches of the History of Man,' 'An 

 Analysis of Aristotle's Logic.' In 1781 Dr. Reid withdrew from 

 public labours ; but he did not cease to pursue his favourite occupa- 

 tions. In 1785 he published his 'Essays on the Intellectual Powers,' 

 of which the substance had been delivered, as he tells us, annually for 

 more than twenty years to a large body of the more advanced 

 students at Glasgow, and for several years before at Aberdeen. In 

 1788 came out his ' Essays on the Active Power of the Human Mind.' 

 Dr. Reid does not appear to have published any more works than 

 those already mentioned ; but he gave his attention to various other 

 subjects, both in his private studies and in relation to his college 

 lectures. Upon commencing his duties at Glasgow, he divided his 

 course into four parts, after the example of his predecessor, Adam 

 Smith; the first part comprised metaphysics; the second, moral 

 philosophy ; the third, natural law; and the fourth, political rights. 

 He also gave lectures on rhetoric. He read several essays at different 

 times before a philosophical society of which he was a member. 

 Among these were ' An Examination of Dr. Priestley's opinion con- 

 cerning Matter and Mind;' 'Observations on the Utopia of Sir 

 Thomas More ; ' 'Physiological Reflections on Muscular Motion.' The 

 last essay was read by Dr. Reid to his associates a few months only 

 before his death, which took place October 7, 1796, in the eighty- 

 seventh year of his age. After his death, his ' Essays on the Intellec- 

 tual and Active Powers' were published by Mr. Dugald Stewart, as 

 'The Philosophy of Dr. Reid,' with a life of the author prefixed, from 

 which this account of him is chiefly taken. 



The moral and social qualities of Dr. Reid were such as naturally 

 to inspire esteem, and in private life no man could be more highly 

 esteemed than he was. As a writer, his language is simple and manly, 

 and his style clear and forcible, without any pretence to ornament. 

 Opinions vary as to the merits of his philosophy. His aim was to arrive 

 at the general laws which regulate our mental operations by the 

 inductive method, which, he thought, had never been applied to this 

 subject. f He has the merit of showing the unsatisfactory nature of 

 certain moral systems proposed by his predecessors, though it must be 

 owned that he occasionally fails to perceive the real purpose of parti- 

 cular systems and lines of argument : indeed, Reid, as Hamilton 

 remarks in one of his notes, " was but very superficially versed in the 

 literature of philosophy." Whether he has himself laid the founda- 

 tion of a system that will prove satisfactory is very doubtful. Perhaps 

 the laws which regulate the material world will never be found 

 altogether applicable to the operations of mind. In all attempts that 

 have hitherto been made so to apply these laws, some conclusions 

 have inevitably followed, which our sense of right and wrong refuses 

 to admit, and this men will ever regard as a safer guide than any 

 scheme of philosophy however ably propounded. As to Dr. Reid's 

 view of Aristotle's logic, it appears only just to say that he probably 

 never read Aristotle's logic in the original and did not clearly under- 

 stand it. A new and collected edition of Reid's works, edited with 

 Notes and Supplementary Dissertations by Sir W. Hamilton was in 

 part published in 1846, but at Hamilton's death in 1856 the work was 

 still incomplete. [HAMILTON, SIB WILLIAM.] The student of Reid 

 should on no account omit to examine most carefully the notes of Sir 

 William Hamilton. 



*REID, MAJOR-GENERAL SIR WILLIAM, K.C.B., F.R.S., was 

 born in 1791, at Kinglassie in Fifes-hire, being the eldest son of the 

 Reverend James Reid, a clergyman of the Scottish Church. He was 

 educated in the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, and entered 

 the army as a Lieutenant of Royal Engineers in 1809. Reserved 

 under the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsula until the European 

 peace, afterwards under General Lambert in America, and subsequently 



BlOd. DIV. VOL. V. 



under the duke again in Belgium. In 1816, having attained the rank 

 of captain, he served in the expedition against Algiers, assisting in the 

 operations connected with the bombardment of that place. For some 

 years after this period he was adjutant of the corps of Sappers and 

 Miners; and he became also one of those students of science, to 

 whom the lectures delivered by the professors of the ' Royal Institu- 

 tion of Great Britain' have afforded opportunities of enlarging and 

 correcting their early instruction, which have proved so important to 

 many persons engaged in the active business of life. On Feb. 21, 

 1839, he was elected F.R.S. In 1838 as lieutenant-colonel he was 

 appointed Governor of Bermuda; and in 1846 Governor of the Wind- 

 ward Islands. Great improvements in the agriculture of Bermuda 

 were effected by him, and in both governments his firm and con- 

 ciliatory conduct gained the confidence and good-will of the entire 

 population. Two years afterwards he returned to England, and in 

 1849 was appointed commanding engineer at Woolwich. In 1850 and 

 1851 he directed the officers of Engineers and the Sappers and Miners, 

 preparatory to and during the Great Exhibition. On the resignation 

 of Mr. R. Stephenson, C. E. [STEPHENSON, ROBERT], Colonel lieid was 

 requested by the Royal Commission to succeed him as chairman of 

 the executive committee, to the duties of which office he gave unre- 

 mitting attention until the close of the Exhibition. In September 

 1851 he was appointed Governor of Malta, and on the termination of 

 his services at the Exhibition, for which he declined remuneration, 

 received the honour of K.C.B., and shortly afterwards proceeded to 

 Malta, the government of which he has continued to retain to this 

 time (April 1857). 



General Reid is the second in point of time of the investigators of 

 laws of storms, to whom both science and navigation have become so 

 greatly indebted during the last quarter of a century, and to whose 

 labours a remarkable finish has been given, with respect to theory by 

 the philosophical skill, first of Sir John Herschel, and more recently 

 of Professor Dove of Berlin ; while Mr. Dobson, in papers commu- 

 nicated to the British Association, has shown their influence as 

 exciting, or rather permissive causes, of the explosions of fire- 

 damp in coal-mines. A paper had been published in .the ' American 

 Journal of Science' by Mr. Redfield, and this was placed in the 

 hands of Lieutenant-Colonel Reid, whose attention had been pre- 

 viously drawn to the subject when employed in Barbadoes as Major 

 of Engineers, in re-instating the buildings ruined by the hurricane of 

 1831. Impressed with the importance of the subject, as well in its 

 practical as in its scientific relations, he continued to devote much 

 attention to it, and became convinced of the rotatory character and 

 definite path which had been ascribed to these storms by Mr. Redfield. 

 He embodied his views in an elaborate paper 'On Hurricanes,' occu- 

 pying seventy pages of the second volume of the ' Papers on Subjects 

 connected with the Duties of the Corps of Royal Engineers,' which 

 was published in 1838. In the same year appeared his celebrated 

 work, founded upon the contents of that paper, entitled 'An Attempt 

 to develope the Law of Storms by means of Facts arranged according 

 to Place and Time ; ' of which three enlarged editions have since been 

 published. In 1849 he published 'The Progress of the Development 

 of the Law of Storms and of the Variable Winds, with the Practical 

 Application of the subject to Navigation.' The subject has also 

 received the attention of Mr. Henry Piddington of Calcutta, and Mr. 

 Alexander Thorn of Mauritius, both of whom have produced valuable 

 works on the subject, and the former (from whom rotatory storms have 

 received the appropriate and distinctive appellation of Cyclones), a 

 series of investigations of Indian hurricanes in the journal of the 

 Asiatic Society of Bengal, of the most precise character; while a 

 peculiar theory of their origin and causes has been advanced by Mr. 

 James P. Espy, a second American inquirer on this subject. 



General Reid is also the author of many papers in the publication 

 of the Royal Engineers already cited, and in the 'Philosophical Maga- 

 zine, ' some relating to professional topics and others on various subjects 

 of natural science, chiefly physical and chemical. It is to him that 

 the service, of which he is so distinguished an ornament, as well as 

 the cultivators of science in several departments, are indebted not 

 only for the original suggestion, but also for the plan of executing by 

 officers of the Royal Engineers, of the valuable ' Aide-Memoire to the 

 Military Sciences ' noticed in a former article. [PORTLOCK, JOSEPH 

 ELLISON.] To this work Sir W. Reid was also a contributor. 



REIMARUS, HERMANN SAMUEL, was born at Hamburg, 

 December 22, 1694. Early in life he devoted hi'mself to the study of 

 languages, and he became distinguished for his knowledge of the 

 Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. He pursued his studies at the university 

 of Wittenberg, and upon the completion of his course, in 1717, he 

 maintained some theses ' On the Differences of Hebrew Words,' which 

 established his character for learning and ^cuteness. He then began 

 to travel, and, having passed over several parts of Germany, he stayed 

 a considerable time at Weimar, where he took the opportunity of 

 publishing a collection of minor productions. Having returned to 

 Hamburg, he was in 1727 made professor of philosophy in the univer- 

 sity of that city, and he filled this office with much honour to himself 

 during the space of 41- years. Reimarus married in 1728, Johanna 

 Frederica, the third daughter of the celebrated J. A. Fabricius. This 

 connection with Fabiicius proved to him the occasion of many and 

 great advantages, and he also assisted Fabricius in some of his most 



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