I/F he was not the founder, he is the fit representative of the Scottish philosophy.He is in every respect, a Scotchman of the genuine type: shrewd, cautious, outwardly calm, and yet with a deep well of feeling within, and capable of enthusiasm; not witty, but with a quiet vein of humor.And then he has the truly philosophic spirit:
seeking truth modestly, humbly, diligently; piercing beneath the surface to gaze on the true nature of things; and not to be caught by sophistry, or misled by plausible representations.He has not the mathematical consecutiveness of Descartes, the speculative genius of Leibnitz, the sagacity of Locke, the <spirituel> of Berkeley, or the {193}
detective skill of Hume; but he has a quality quite as valuable as any of these, even in philosophy; he has in perfection that common-sense which he so commends, and this saves him from the extreme positions into which these great men have been tempted by the soaring nature of their inexorable logic.It is genius, and not the want of it, that adulterates philosophy." He looks steadily and inquires carefully into the subjects of which he is treating; and if he does not go round them he acknowledges that he has not done so; and what he does see, he sees clearly and describes honestly." The labyrinth may be too intricate, and the thread too fine to be traced through all its windings; but if we stop when we can trace it no farther, and secure the ground we have gained, there is no harm done, and a quicker eye may at times trace it farther." Speculative youths are apt to feel that, because he is so sober, and makes so little pretension, he cannot possibly be far-seeing or profound; but this is at the time of life when they have risen above taking a mother's counsel, and become wiser than their fathers; and, after following other and more showy lights for a time, they may at last be obliged to acknowledge that they have here the true light of the sun, which it is safer to follow than that of the flashing meteor.M.Cousin, in his preface to the last edition of his volume on the Scottish philosophy, declares that the true modern Socrates has not been Locke, but Reid." Kant," he says, " has commenced the German philosophy, but he has not governed it.It early escaped him, to throw itself in very opposite directions.The name of Kant rests only on the ruins of his doctrines.Reid has impressed on the Scottish mind a movement less grand, but this movement has had no reactions." " Yes," he adds, " Reid is a man of genius, and of a true and powerful originality; so we said in 1819, and so we say in 1857, after having held long converse with mighty systems, discovered their secret, and taken their measure." There is profound truth in this; but it is scarcely correct to say that there have been no reactions against Reid in Scotland.There was a reaction by Brown against his indiscriminate admission of first principles.
Again, there is a reaction in the present day on the part of those who dislike his appeal to consciousness as revealing to us a certain amount of truth, and who deal, in consequence, solely with {194} historical sketches of philosophic systems, or who make the philosophy of the human mind a branch of physiology.Still Reid has continued to exercise a greater influence than any other metaphysician on the thought of his country.It is true, that in some respects he resembles Socrates; but in others he differs from him quite as much as the Scotch mind differs from the Greek.Both have very much the same truth-loving spirit, the same homely sense, and contempt for pretension: but Socrates has vastly more subtlety and dialectic skill, and reaches the conclusion that truth cannot be found except in moral subjects; whereas Reid firmly maintains and resolutely proclaims that settled truth can be attained by observation, in the kingdoms both of mind and matter.Reid's style will not please those who are seeking for flashes of genius, of wit or eloquence.But it always clearly expresses his ideas;and some prefer his plain statements, his familiar idioms, commonly purely English, to the stateliness of Stewart, --who cannot express a commonplace thought except in a rounded period, -- and the perpetual rhetoric of Brown.
