Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~180,000 words · 857 passages
Cite this work
- APAThomas Reid. (n.d.). Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/thomas-reid/essays-on-the-active-powers-of-the-human-mind
- MLAThomas Reid. Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/thomas-reid/essays-on-the-active-powers-of-the-human-mind.
- ChicagoThomas Reid. Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/thomas-reid/essays-on-the-active-powers-of-the-human-mind.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
The twin volume to the last, of 1788: where that one was about knowing, this is about acting, and here Reid sets out his theory of liberty and of morals.
Context and history
The central argument about liberty is that of agent causation: an action is not caused by a prior desire as one billiard ball is moved by another; rather there is an agent who causes it, and that is a different way of causing from the physical. Reid holds that without this it makes no sense to hold anyone responsible. The moral part argues that the principles of duty are self-evident, as the principles of common sense are in knowledge, and it opposes Hume expressly: reason is not the slave of the passions, and what is right is not what we happen to like. Reid's two volumes were written to go together, and to read one alone is to see only half.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
It would be very ftrange indeed, if mankind had always ufed thefe words fo familiarly, without perceiving that they had no meaning ; and that this difcovery fliould have been firft made by a Philofophcr of the prefent age. With equal reafon it might be maintained, that though there are words in all languages to exprefs fight, and words to fignify the various colours which are objeds of fight ; yet that all mankind from the beginning of the world had been blind, and never had an idea of fight or of colour. But there are no abfurdities fo grofs as thofe which Philofophers have advanced concerning ideas. The fame Subje£l. THERE are, I believe, no abftrad notions, that are to be found more early, or more univerfally, in the minds of men, than thofe of ading, and being aded upon. Every child that underftands *4 ESSAY I. CHAP. II. underftands the difllndlon between ftriking and being flruck, mufl have the conception of adlion and pailion. We find accordingly, that there Is no language fo Imperfed, but that it has adive and paffive verbs, and participles ; the one fignifying fome kind of adionj the other the being aded upon. This diftindion enters into the original contexture of all languages. Adive verbs have a form and conftrudtlon proper to themfelves ; paffive verbs a different fonn and a different conflru6lion. In all languages, the nominative to an adlive verb is the agent; the thing aded upon is put in an oblique cafe. In paffive verbs, the thing adted upon is the nominative, and the agent, if expreCfed, muit be in an oblique cafe ; as in this example : Raphael drew the Cartoons j the Cartoons were drawn by Raphael.…