BROWN, THOMAS Scottish philosopher, was born at Kirkmabreck and educated in London and afterwards at Edinburgh university, where he attended Dugald Stewart's moral philosophy class. Later he turned to law, but in 1798 he settled on a medical course and in the same year produced his criti cism of Darwin's Zoonomia. In the second number of the Edinburgh Review, to which he now began to contribute, appeared his criticism of the Kantian philosophy, based entirely on Villier's French account. His philosophical ability was further exhibited on the occasion of the clerical opposition to the appointment of Sir John Leslie, a follower of Hume, to the mathematical profes sorship (2805), for Brown undertook to defend Hume's doctrine of causality as in no way inimical to religion. His defence became in its third edition a lengthy treatise entitled Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and Effect. In 1806 he became a medical prac titioner in partnership with James Gregory, but, though success ful in his profession, preferred literature and philosophy. After twice losing a professorship in the university, he was invited, dur ing an illness of Dugald Stewart in the session of 1808-09, to act as his substitute, and during the following session he undertook a great part of Stewart's work, being appointed in 1810 as colleague to Stewart, a position which he held for the rest of his life.
His friend and biographer, David Welsh, superintended the publication of his text-book, the Physiology of the Human Mind, and his successors, John Stewart and the Rev. E. Milroy, pub lished his Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind. The latter reached its 19th edition. Among Brown's many poems, which are modelled on Pope and Akenside and rather common place, may be mentioned: Paradise of Coquettes (1814) ; Wan derer in Norway (1815) ; W ar fiend 0816); Bower of Spring 0817); Agnes 0818); Emily (1819) ; a collected edition ap peared in 1820.
Brown's philosophy occupies an intermediate place between the earlier Scottish school and the later analytical or associational psychology. He retains a certain number of intuitive beliefs, which enables him to claim that our acknowledgment of cause and effect is not derived from experience and that mind and mat ter are sharply distinguished. On the other hand, he approaches sensationalism in his assertions that in perception we look imme diately on a sensation in the mind and only reach externals by-a process of inference, and that will is merely a prevailing desire. Brown's most valuable contributions include his excellent analysis of sensation, especially of touch, his eloquent exposition of the emotions, and his account of the succession of mental states.