Alexander Bain

There are many names that are worth taking note of in the world of philosophy and one name that deserves to be known is Alexander Bain—a Scottish educationalist and philosopher. He is also known as one of the most innovative and prominent minds in different fields that include logic, education reform, psychology, linguistics and moral philosophy. Alexander Bain was also the founder of Mind and this is worth taking note of since it was the very first journal of its kind to focus on psychology as well as analytical philosophy. He was also the man responsible for the application of the scientific method to the study of psychology. At the University of Aberdeen, Alexander Bain also held the inaugural Regius Chair position in Logic. He was also a professor in English Literature and Moral Philosophy. There were a couple of times where he was elected as the Lord Rector at the School.

His Early Life

It was in Aberdeen, Scotland where Alexander Bain was born to Margaret Paul and George Bain on June 11, 1818. George, his father, was a veteran soldier and a weaver. In fact, Alexander Bain left school at 11; he got a weaver job and this is why in the rex philosophorum, he was described as a “Weevir.” Alexander Bain also attended lectures held in the Aberdeen Public Library and the Mechanic’s Institute of Aberdeen. In 1839, he enrolled in Marischal College and met Professor John Cruickshank, a professor of mathematics who was of great influence to Alexander Bain. He also met Thomas Clark, a professor of chemistry, and William Knight who taught Natural Philosophy.

Nearing the completion of his degree as an undergraduate, he associated with the Westminster Review as a contributor and this was where his article The Electrotype and the Daguerrotype was published. At around the same time, his connection to John Stuart Mill was founded and developed into a friendship that lasted a lifetime. During his college studies and career, he stood out for his prowess in mental philosophy, physics and mathematics. He was so good that he even graduated with the highest honors.

Alexander Bain substituted for the regular professor in 1841 and taught Moral Philosophy. The professor then was ill and unable to continue with his academic work. Bain was on the job for three terms while continuing with his article contributions to the Westminster while helping John Stuart Mill make revisions on his Systems of Logic manuscript (1842).

His Academic Career

The year 1845 was a big year for Alexander Bain since he was given the job as a Professor of Natural Philosophy and Mathematics at the University of Glasgow. In 1846, he quit the position and made more time for writing since he preferred a wider field. Two years later, he decided to make the move to London and took under Sir Chadwick at the Board of Health. His work was focused on becoming a noted affiliate of the intellectual circle along with John Stuart Mill and George Grote. He also devoted a lot of his time and work to social reform.

Several years after when he was 37 years old, he had the chance to publish a major work of his which was The Senses and Intellect. In 1859, he followed it up with another major work that was entitled The Emotions and the Will. Alexander Bain was a very busy man. At the University of London he worked as an examiner in Moral Philosophy and Logic from 1857-61 and 1864-69. It was also there that he became an instructor for Indian Civil Services and Moral Science Examinations.

He later moved to a new position at the University of Aberdeen which as new at the time. It was still newly formed since it was the time that the Scottish Universities Commission amalgamated two universities—Marischal College and King’s College, Aberdeen.

Alexander Bain was a man ahead of his time and it was one of his greatest triumphs that he got people to pay more attention to the study of linguistics. In 1959, the subjects of English and logic were not really a focus in Aberdeen so he put a lot of his time and effort into rectifying any deficiencies. He not only raised the educational standards in North Scotland in the University of Abderdeen, but he also worked to establish the School of Philosophy. His work at Aberdeen also influenced the way grammar and composition was taught in the entire United Kingdom.

His philosophical works were also used in the classroom but they came in condensed versions since his original works were much too long and bulky to be used in the classroom. In fact, in 1870 he published a work entitled Logic which was written specifically to be used in classrooms. The book was loosely based on some works by John Stuart Mill.

Social Reform

Bain had a special interest in development and social justice. In fact, he actively took part in social and political movements in his time. After he retired from the Chair of Logic post, he was twice elected as the Lord Rector at the University of Aberdeen. He worked hard to advocate reform especially when it came to how sciences were taught. He also supported the trust to include modern languages in the school curriculum. He was also known to be a strong supporter of student’s rights.

After Alexander Bain gave up his post as a professor and Chair at the University of Aberdeen, he was succeeded by one of his most brilliant students, William Minto. However, retirement did not stop him from working on the subjects and issues which he was passionate for. He still worked on papers on books about teaching English and rhetoric.

The last years of his life were spent in Aberdeen and in private. He was married twice but never had any children. Alexander Bain died on September 18, 1903 and his last request was that no stone should be put on his grave and his books were to serve as his monuments.

James Hutton

James Hutton is also known as the father of modern geology. Apart from being one of the most prominent figures in this field of science, he is also a noted physician, naturalist, chemical manufacturer, and an experimental agriculturalist. One of his most salient contributions to science was his uniformitarianism which happens to be one of the fundamental principles that geology has. Not only did he make great observations concerning the world that surrounded him, he was able to come up with reasoned and valid geological arguments.

Early Life and Educational Background

He was one of five children of the merchant named William Hutton who was also at that time the city treasurer of Edinburgh. His father, however, died when he was still young and it was their mother Sarah Balfour who had taken care of him and his siblings.

His mother had insisted that James should attend the High School of Edinburgh and James had shown a particular interest for chemistry and mathematics. When he turned 14 though, he studied as a “student of humanity” at the University of Edinburgh. He then became a lawyer’s apprentice, but upon the advice of his employer for him to have a more congenial career, James Hutton began to pursue his interest in medicine as it was nearest to chemistry which was his favorite pursuit back then.

For three years, he studied in Edinburgh and was able to complete his medical education in the University of Paris. In the year 1974, he finished his degree as a Doctor of Medicine at Leiden where his thesis had been on blood circulation. During that time, however, it wasn’t exactly the boom of the medical profession and seeing there was little opportunity for him, James Hutton left his career as a doctor and pursued agricultural endeavors.

Careers

He had inherited a small property which had been in their family since 1713 when his father passed away. He used this piece of land in Berwickshire for his agricultural pursuits. It was after his not so fruitful practice of medicine that he moved back to their farm in the Slighhouses and he began making some improvements when he settled there in 1750. He had experimented with both plant as well as animal husbandry, and noted his innovations and ideas in a work called The Elements of Agriculture. One of his more famous accomplishments in agriculture involved his development of a red dye he was able to make from the madder plant’s roots.

His exposure to agriculture was what had led him to develop a love for geology for which he is famous for. The process of clearing and then draining the farm had given him enough opportunities to observe rocks and their formation. The farm became a stable place and later on he was able to build a house where he and his three sisters lived in Edinburgh.

James Hutton and Geology

Back in the day, geology in the proper meaning of the word was practically nonexistent, but there was quite a progress in mineralogy. Ideas conceived by James Hutton were unheard of and were not easily entertained by those who were then the experts in mineralogy. He had desired to trace the origins of different rocks and minerals which would then lead to a better understanding of the earth’s history.

He pursued his research for years, and it was in the spring of 1785 when he had expressed his views to the Royal Society of Edinburgh—only recently established then through his work called Theory of the Earth, or an Investigation of the Laws Observable in the Composition, Dissolution and Restoration of Land upon the Globe. His work had been remarkable and he had expressed how this study was not at all like cosmogony.

According to Hutton, geology is a study which is confined to the materials found on the earth and that all around there may be evidence proving that the rocks which are now visible on the earth’s surface may have been part of greater, older rocks which have previously been in the bottom of the sea—that there is a cycle of rock formation and that pressure, heat, and other factors contribute to the presence of these materials on the earth’s surface.

He searched for evidence to prove his theories, and discovered how granite was able to penetrate metamorphic schists—which was indicative or granite’s being molten at one point. He had also discovered a similar event of penetration of volcanic rocks through sedimentary rocks. James Hutton had even travelled with John Playfair to find more geological samples proving the origin of rocks and minerals by examining the unconformities and rock formations they came across.

From the observations and research that Hutton had noted, he reasoned how there must have already been innumerable cycles which each involved the deposition of materials onto the seabed, uplift of these same materials through tilting and erosion, and formation of different layers under the sea. The thicknesses of the layers had implied to him the stretches of time in between the formation of these rocks.

Other Interests

It was not only geology that had captured the attention of Hutton, but he also had an interest for meteorology and the earth’s atmosphere. Apart from his publication called “Theory of the Earth” he also had one entitled “Theory of the Rain” where he had investigated about the climate as well as rainfall in different parts of the world which led him to conclude that rainfall is regulated by humidity as well as air currents.

He had also believed that the earth is a superorganism, but this idea of his was overshadowed by the reductionism in the 19^th century. Apart from those beliefs, he also advocated the uniformitarianism for living organisms.

Much of the contributions of Hutton received less attention than it should have when he was still alive, but five years after his death, John Playfair published a great summary of Hutton’s works in Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth, and a biography of the father of geology was also published by Playfair in the fifth volume of Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.