logic and English in the university of Aberdeen (created on the amalgamation of the two colleges, King’s and Marischal, by the Scottish Universities Commission of 1858). Up to this date neither logic nor English had received adequate attention in Aberdeen, and Bain devoted himself to supplying these deficiencies. He succeeded not only in raising the standard of education generally in the north of Scotland, but also in forming a school of philosophy and in widely influencing the teaching of English grammar and composition. His efforts were first directed to the preparation of English textbooks: Higher English Grammar (1863), followed in 1866 by the Manual of Rhetoric, in 1872 by A First English Grammar, and in 1874 by the Companion to the Higher Grammar. These works covered a large field and their original views and methods met with wide acceptance. But the other subject of his chair also called for attention. His own philosophical writings already published, especially The Senses and the Intellect (to which was added, in 1861, The Study of Character, including an Estimate of Phrenology), were too large for effective use in the class-room. Accordingly in 1868, he published his Manual of Mental and Moral Science, mainly a condensed form of his treatises, with the doctrines re-stated, and in many instances freshly illustrated, and with many important additions. The year 1870 saw the publication of the Logic. This, too, was a work designed for the use of students; it was based on J. S. Mill, but differed from him in many particulars, and had as distinctive features the treatment of the doctrine of the conservation of energy in connexion with causation and the detailed application of the principles of logic to the various sciences. His services to education in Scotland were now recognized by the conferment of the honorary degree of doctor of laws by the university of Edinburgh in 1871. Next came two publications in “The International Scientific Series,” namely, Mind and Body (1872), and Education as a Science (1879).
All these works, from the Higher English Grammar downwards, were written by Bain during his twenty years’ professoriate at Aberdeen. To the same period belongs his institution of the philosophical journal Mind; the first number appeared in January 1876, under the editorship of a former pupil, G. Croom Robertson, of University College, London. To this journal Bain contributed many important articles and discussions; and in fact he bore the whole expenses of it till Robertson, owing to ill-health, resigned the editorship in 1891, when it passed into other hands. Bain resigned his professorship in 1880 and was succeeded by William Minto, one of his most brilliant pupils. Nevertheless his interest in thought, and his desire to complete the scheme of work mapped out in earlier years, remained as keen as ever. Accordingly, in 1882 appeared the Biography of James Mill, and accompanying it John Stuart Mill: a Criticism, with Personal Recollections. Next came (1884) a collection of articles and papers, most of which had appeared in magazines, under the title of Practical Essays. This was succeeded (1887, 1888) by a new edition of the Rhetoric, and along with it, a book On Teaching English, being an exhaustive application of the principles of rhetoric to the criticism of style, for the use of teachers; and in 1894 he published a revised edition of The Senses and the Intellect, which contains his last word on psychology. In 1894 also appeared his last contribution to Mind. His last years were spent in privacy at Aberdeen, where he died on the 18th of September 1903. He married twice but left no children.
Bain’s life was mainly that of a thinker and a man of letters. But he also took a keen interest and frequently an active part in the political and social movements of the day; and so highly did the students of Aberdeen rate his practical ability, that, after his retirement from the chair of logic, they twice in succession elected him lord rector of the university, each term of office extending over three years. He was a strenuous advocate of reform, especially in the teaching of sciences, and supported the claims of modern languages to a place in the curriculum. A marble bust of him stands in the public library and his portrait hangs in the Marischal College.
Wide as Bain’s influence has been as a logician, a grammarian and a writer on rhetoric, his reputation rests on his psychology. At one with Johannes Müller in the conviction psychologus nemo nisi physiologus, he was the first in Great Britain during the 19th century to apply physiology in a thoroughgoing fashion to the elucidation of mental states. He was the originator of the theory of psycho-physical parallelism, which is used so widely as a working basis by modern psychologists. His idea of applying the natural history method of classification to psychical phenomena gave scientific character to his work, the value of which was enhanced by his methodical exposition and his command of illustration. In line with this, too, is his demand that psychology shall be cleared of metaphysics; and to his lead is no doubt due in great measure the position that psychology has now acquired as a distinct positive science. Prof. Wm. James calls his work the “last word” of the earlier stage of psychology, but he was in reality the pioneer of the new. Subsequent psycho-physical investigations have all been in the spirit of his work; and although he consistently advocated the introspective method in psychological investigation, he was among the first to appreciate the help that may be given to it by animal and social and infant psychology. He may justly claim the merit of having guided the awakened psychological interest of British thinkers of the second half of the 19th century into fruitful channels. He emphasized the importance of our active experiences of movement and effort, and though his theory of a central innervation sense is no longer held as he propounded it, its value as a suggestion to later psychologists is great. His autobiography, published in 1904, contains a full list of his works, and also the history of the last thirteen years of his life by W. L. Davidson of Aberdeen University, who further contributed to Mind (April 1904) a review of Bain’s services to philosophy.
Works (beside the above):—Edition with notes of Paley’s Moral Philosophy (1852); Education as a Science (1879); Dissertations on leading philosophical topics (1903, mainly reprints of papers in Mind); he collaborated with J. S. Mill and Grote in editing James Mill’s Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind (1869), and assisted in editing Grote’s Aristotle and Minor Works; he also wrote a memoir prefixed to G. Croom Robertson’s Philosophical Remains (1894). (See Psychology and Association of Ideas.) (W. L. D.)
BAIN, ANDREW GEDDES (1797–1864), British geologist, was a native of Scotland. In 1820 he emigrated to Cape Colony, and carried on for some years the business of a saddler at Graaff Reinet. During the Kaffir War in 1833–34 he took command of a provisional battalion raised for the defence of the frontier. Later he was engaged to construct a military road through the Ecca Pass, and displayed engineering talents which led to his being permanently employed as surveyor of military roads under the corps of Royal Engineers. This occupation created an interest in geology, which was fostered in 1837 by the loan of Lyell’s Elements. He discovered the remains of many reptilia, including the Dicynodon, which was obtained from the Karroo Beds near Fort Beaufort and described by Owen. Devoting all his spare energies to geological studies, Bain prepared in 1852 the first comprehensive geological map of South Africa, a work of great merit, which was published by the Geological Society of London in 1856. He died at Cape Town in 1864.
Obituary by Dr R. N. Rubidge, in Geol. Mag. January 1865, p. 47; also Trans. Geol. Soc. S. Africa, vol. ii. part v., June 1896 (with portrait).
BAINBRIDGE, JOHN (1582–1643), English astronomer, was born at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, in Leicestershire. He started as a physician and practised for some years, kept a school and studied astronomy. Having removed to London, he was admitted (November 6, 1618) a licentiate of the college of physicians, and attracted notice by a publication concerning the comet of 1618. Sir Henry Savile (1549–1622) thereupon appointed him in 1619 to the Savilian chair of astronomy just founded by him at Oxford; Bainbridge was incorporated of Merton College and became, in 1631 and 1635 respectively, junior and senior reader of Linacre’s lectures. He died at Oxford on the 3rd of November 1643. He wrote An Astronomical Description of the late Comet (1619); Canicularia (1648); and translated Proclus’ De Sphaera, and Ptolemy’s De Planetarum Hypothesibus (1620). Several
