REID, THOMAS, D.D. a celebrated Scotch metaphy sician, was born at Strachan, in the county of Kincar dine, in April 1710. His father, Lewis Reid, was minis ter of that parish ; and his mother, who was the daughter of Mr. Gregory of Kinnairdie, in Banffshire, was the sister of David, James, and Charles Gregory, who were at the same time professors at Oxford, Edinburgh, and St. Andrews. After receiving the elements of education at the parish school of Kincardine, he was sent to a classical school in Aberdeen, and, at the age of thirteen, he was entered a student of Marischal College.
After studying theology, and taking his degree of master of arts, he was appointed to the office of librarian to the college, and in that situation he formed an inti mate acquaintance with Mr. John Stewart, afterwards Professor of Mathematics in Marischal College. In the year 1736, Mr. Reid resigned the office of librarian, and accompanied Mr. Stewart in a tour through England, during which they visited London, Oxford, and Cam bridge, and became acquainted with many gentlemen of the first distinction in literature and science. In the metropolis, his connexion with Dr. David Gregory ob tained urn easy access to the house of Martin Folks, the President of the Royal Society, where he met with many eminent individuals. At Cambridge he became acquainted with Dr. Bentley, and he had frequent com munications with Saunderson, the blind Mathematician. Our author had scarcely returned from this interesting tour, when the King's College of Aberdeen presented him, in 1737, to the church of New Machar. His or dination to this charge, however, was attended with very unpleasant circumstances. On account of the hostility which then prevailed against the law of patronage, his admission met with the most violent opposition, and he was e'en personally exposed to danger. These irritat ed feelings were soon subdued. His exemplary dis charge of the duties of a Christian pastor, his active benevolence, and his forbearing and conciliatory tem per, subuucd the temporary prejudices of his people, and united him to his parish by those ties which it is painful to see so often severed. This mutual attachment
bet ween him and his parishioners was greatly strength ened by his marriage, in 1740, to his cousin Elizabeth, (daughter of Dr. George Reid, physician in London,) whose kindness and active charity to the sick and the poor were long held in affectionate remembrance.
Although Mr. Reid had during his philosophical and theological studies at the university, begun that train of metaphysical inquiries in which he afterwards acquired such distinguished eminence, yet it was in the peaceful seclusion of a clerical life that he found leisure to devote to these abstract pursuits the whole vigour of his facul ties. The recreations of gardening and of botany seemed to relieve his mind from the intensity of its application, and it was by a judicious combination of deep study with superficial amusements, that he was able to pursue, without interruption, those trains of abstract thought which were necessary in studying the laws of external perception, and those principles which constitute the basis of human knowledge.
In the year 1748, Mr. Reid published, in the Philoso phical Transactions of that year, his Essay on Quantity, occasioned by reading a Treatise, in which simple and compound ratios are applied to -virtue and merit. The treatise here referred to was Dr. Hutcheson's Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue. Dr. Reid's essay met with general admiration, and deserves to be perused by those who are disposed to employ mathematics in inquiries which afford no data for their application.
The reputation which Mr. Reid acquired by this es say, and the high attainments which his friends knew he had made in ethical inquiries, induced the profes sors of King's College, Aberdeen, to appoint him to the chair of moral philosophy, which had become vacant in 1732. The plan of his course comprehended mathe matics, physics, logic and ethics; and for tracing these various branches of knowledge, no man was better quali fied than Mr. Reid.