CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY. 21 



Brown closes the trinity of the Scotch philosophers ; 

 and he is, on the whole, no unequal third. From first 

 to last in Reid, in Stewart, in Brown, it is simply an 

 Inquiry into the Mind that is alone before us. Reid, 

 by the establishment of constants, would like to put to 

 night all these plaguy fluents of Hume ; and Stewart, 

 who is rather fascinated by these same fluents, but who 

 must still as a professor's son and a professor himself 

 rank on the received side Stewart would review these 

 constants, re-marshal them, re-dress them re-dress them, 

 and that, too, in the very finest of possible British 

 uniforms ; while, finally, for his part, Brown would fain, 

 in view of his own originality and worth, throw all into 

 new and admirably simpler groupings. Each of the three 

 has his own merit. Reid, as first, would seem naturally 

 to deserve most acknowledgment. He is an excellent 

 professor. His pupils must be allowed, on that material, 

 to be excellently well pastured ; and he himself indeed, 

 not pretending to much, must be allowed to have realised 

 all that he pretended to. His style, consequently, is 

 plain ; for were it more, it would be too much. But yet 

 Reid can touch the very deepest themes, as necessary 

 and contingent truths, time and space, etc. ; at the same 

 time that his current material is no more, as said, than 

 the usual psychology of the " schools." Hutcheson was 

 a far more learned man than Reid ; and, leaving out of 

 view what aesthetically is peculiar to him, his little Latin 

 books show, probably, what constituted the consideration 

 of most of the Chairs all over Europe at the tune. 

 Indeed, these little Latin books would not even yet 

 be out of place, were they laid down as initial guide- 

 books to philosophical courses nowadays. The elegance 

 of their Latin is still held in admiration even by the 

 Latin-writing philosophers of Germany itself. One sees 

 that Hutcheson has read, among others, Wolfius. With 



