Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 9.djvu/382

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
360
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

SKETCH OF ALEXANDER BAIN.

PROFESSOR BAIN, of the University of Aberdeen, is a representative man of the modern school of English thought, who has done his best work in the field of psychology. His elaborate treatises upon the human mind now take a leading place in our literature, and are used as text-books in many colleges and universities. Besides this more special line of inquiry, to which Prof. Bain has given prominent attention, he has also been very active in the general field of higher education as lecturer, examiner, and author. He was born at Aberdeen, in 1818, and entered Marischal College, in the university of that town, in 1836, where he took the degree of M. A. in 1840. From 1841 to 1844 he taught as deputy the class of Moral Philosophy in Marischal College, and 1844-'45 he had charge of the class of Natural Philosophy in that institution. In 1845 he was elected Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Andersonian University at Glasgow. In 1847 he was appointed by the "Metropolitan Sanitary Commission" their assistant secretary, and in 1848 he was transferred to the same office in the General Board of Health, a post which he resigned in 1850. From 1857 to 1862 he held the position of Examiner in Logic and Moral Philosophy in the University of London. During several years from 1858 to 1870 he held the office of Examiner in Moral Science in the India Civil Service Department, and in 1860 he was appointed by the crown Professor of Logic in the University of Aberdeen. In 1864 he was reelected examiner in the University of London, and continued to hold that position till 1869. Prof. Bain's first literary production is said to have been an article in the Westminster Review, published in 1840, and he subsequently contributed much to the pages of that periodical. In 1847-'48 he wrote text-books on astronomy, electricity, and meteorology, in Messrs. Chambers's school series, also several of Chambers's "Papers for the People," and the articles on "Language," "Logic," "The Human Mind," and "Rhetoric," in the "Information for the People." In 1852 he published an edition of the "Moral Philosophy of Paley," with dissertations and notes. "The Senses and the Intellect," his first independent and systematic work, appeared in 1855, and in 1859 was followed by "The Emotions and the Will," thus completing a new methodical exposition of the human mind. In 1861 appeared from his pen "The Study of Character," including an examination of phrenology. In 1863 he published an English Grammar, and in 1866 a "Manual of English Composition and Rhetoric." His more recent works are: "Mental and Moral Science," 1868; "Logic, Deductive and Inductive," 1870; and "Mind and Body," contributed to the "International Scientific Series," in 1873. In 1874 appeared "A Companion to the Higher English Grammar," "Exam-