THOMAS

See also:

• BROWN
• BROWN, CHARLES BROCKDEN (1771-181o)
• BROWN, FORD MADOX (1821-1893)
• BROWN, FRANCIS (1849- )
• BROWN, GEORGE (1818-188o)
• BROWN, HENRY KIRKE (1814-1886)
• BROWN, JACOB (1775–1828)
• BROWN, JOHN (1715–1766)
• BROWN, JOHN (1722-1787)
• BROWN, JOHN (1735–1788)
• BROWN, JOHN (1784–1858)
• BROWN, JOHN (1800-1859)
• BROWN, JOHN (1810—1882)
• BROWN, JOHN GEORGE (1831— )
• BROWN, ROBERT (1773-1858)
• BROWN, SAMUEL MORISON (1817—1856)
• BROWN, SIR GEORGE (1790-1865)
• BROWN, SIR JOHN (1816-1896)
• BROWN, SIR WILLIAM, BART
• BROWN, THOMAS (1663-1704)
• THOMAS BROWN (1778-1820)
• BROWN, THOMAS EDWARD (1830-1897)
• BROWN, WILLIAM LAURENCE (1755–1830)

BROWN (1778-1820)  , Scottish philosopher, was born at Kirkmabreck, Kirkcudbright, where his father was parish clergyman . He was a boy of a refined nature, a wide reader and an eager student . Educated at several schools in London, he went to Edinburgh University in 1792, where he attended Dugald Stewart's moral philosophy class . His attendance was desultory, and he does not appear to have completed his arts course . After studying law for a time he took up medicine; his graduation thesis De Somno was well received . But his great strength lay in metaphysical analysis, as was shown in his answer to the objections raised against the appointment of Sir John Leslie to the mathematical professorship (18o5) . Leslie, a follower of Hume, was attacked by the clerical party as a sceptic and an infidel, and Brown took the opportunity to defend Hume's doctrine of causality as in no way inimical to religion . His defence, at first only a pamphlet, became in its third edition a lengthy treatise entitled Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and Effect, and is a fine specimen of Brown's analytical faculty . In 18o6 he became a medical practitioner in partner-ship with James Gregory, but, though successful in his profession, preferred literature and philosophy . After twice failing in the attempt to gain a professorship in the university, he was invited, during an illness of Dugald Stewart in the session of 1808-1809, to act as his substitute, and during the following session he undertook a great part of Stewart's work . The students received him with enthusiasm, due partly to his splendid rhetoric and partly to the novelty and ingenuity of his views . In 1810 he was appointed as colleague to Stewart, a position which he held for the rest of his life .

He wrote his lectures at high pressure, and devoted much time to the editing and publication of the numerous poems which he had written at various times during his life . He was also engaged in preparing an abstract of his lectures as a handbook for his class . His

health, never strong, gave way under the strain of his work . He was advised to take a voyage to London, where he died on the 2nd of April 182o . His friend and biographer, David Welsh (1793-1845), super-intended the publication of his text-book, the Physiology of the Human Mind, and his Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind was published by his successors, John Stewart and the Rev . E . Milroy . The latter was received with great enthusiasm both in England (where it reached its 19th edition) and in America; but recent criticism has lessened its popularity and it is now almost forgotten . Brown's philosophy occupies an intermediate place between the earlier Scottish school and the later analytical or associational psychology . To the latter Brown really belonged, but he had preserved certain doctrines of the older school which were out of harmony with his fundamental view . He still retained a small quantum of intuitive beliefs, and did not appear to see that the very existence of these could not be explained by his theory of mental action . This intermediate or wavering position accounts for the comparative neglect into which his works have now fallen .

They did much to excite thinking, and advanced many problems by more than one step, but they did not furnish a coherent

system, and the doctrines which were then new have since been worked out with greater consistency and clearness . Brown wrote a criticism of Darwin's Zoonomia (1798), and was one of the first contributors to the Edinburgh Review, in the second number of which he published a criticism of the Kantian philosophy, based entirely on Villers's French account of it . Among his poems, which are modelled on Pope and Akenside and rather commonplace, may be mentioned: Paradise of Coquettes (1814); Wanderer in Norway (1815) ; Warfiend (1816) ; Bower of Spring (1817); Agnes (1818); Emily (1819); a collected edition in 4 vols. appeared in 1820 . For a severe criticism of Brown's philosophy, see Sir W . Hamilton's Discussions and Lectures on Metaphysics; and for a high estimate of his merits, see J . S . Mill's Examination of Hamilton . Sec also D . Welsh's Account of the Life and Writings, &c . (1825); M'Cosh's Scottish Philosophy, pp . 317-337 . The only German writer who seems to have known anything of Brown is Beneke, who found in him anticipations of some of his own doctrines .

.See

Die neue Psychologie, pp . 320-330 .