containing as it does nearly a thousand closely printed pages, at least a third part is contributed by the living philosopher,—and this proportion supplies a very inadequate idea of his share of the elaborate research, and refined and highly abstract thinking, which is comprehended in the book.
Dr. Reid’s philosophical works have long been recognised in this country as the type and standard of the Philosophy of Scotland, and they are now regarded by the most thoughtful men of Europe and America as constituting a conspicuous land-mark on the wide sea of modern speculation. Familiar to our academic youth at home, as supplying for the most part the text or outline of the discussions in intellectual and moral science in the Scottish universities, they have recently been translated into French by M. Jouffroy, and made the basis of instruction in philosophy in the schools of France.
The exposition of the doctrines of Reid, and the various ingenious applications of them to explain and amend the qualities of human character and society, which are contained in the works of Mr. Stewart—of which a slight but graceful specimen appears in this volume, in the “Account of the Life and Writings of Reid,”—if they have added little to the speculative intrepidity of the Scottish school, have at least given a diffused popularity to the more abstract speculations of the elder Scottish philosopher.
In consequence probably of his singularly high ideal of what is required in philosophical authorship, the
