93.Mr.Gordon.-- What is the province and use of metaphysics? Dec.8, 176794.Dr.Gerard.-- Whether poetry can be justly reckoned an imitative art; and, if it can, in what respects?
Jan.26, 1768.
95.Mr.Farquhar.-- Whether the maintaining an esoteric and exoteric doctrine, as was practised by the ancients, is reconcilable to the principles of virtue.
96.Mr.Beattie.-- Whether that superiority of understanding by which the inhabitants of Europe and of the countries immediately adjoining imagine them.selves to be distinguished may not easily be accounted for without supposing the rest of mankind of an inferior species.{472}
97.Dr.George Skene.-- Whether the aim of a public teacher ought to be to adapt his instructions to the capacities of the duller part of his audience or to forward the ingenious.
98.Mr.Ogilvie.-- What is that in the manners of any nation which exhibits it justly to the appellations of civilized or barbarous?
99.Mr.Dunbar.-What are the characteristics of polished language? and how is the comparative excellency of different languages to be estimated?
too.Mr.Trail.-- How far may the inequalities of astronomical refraction be remedied by the thermometer and barometer?
101.Dr.David Skene.-- Whether the late proceedings with respect to a favorite of the mob be an evidence of the corruption or of the improvement of our constitution.
102.Principal Campbel.-- What is the proper notion of civil liberty? Oct.24, 1769103.Mr.Gordon.-- How far the facts relating to the burning of the Roman ships in the harbor of Syracuse be reconcilable to the laws of reflection and refraction of light.Nov.1769.
104.Dr.Gerard.-- Whether any account can be given of the causes why great geniuses have arisen at the periods which have been most remarkable for them, and why they have frequently arisen in clusters.Dec.12, 1769.
105.Mr.Beattie.-- Whether the use of translations can ever supersede the necessity o' studying the Greek and Roman authors in the original languages.May 8, 1770106.Dr.George Skene.-- What is the difference between pressure and momentum; and how are they to I>e compared? NOV.27, 1770.
107.Mr.Ogilvy.-- Whether there may be any reason to believe that the friendships of this life may continue after death.
108.Mr.Dunbar.-Whether the increasing the number of British peers tends to enlarge or diminish the power of the crown.March 27, 1770109.Mr.Trail.-- What are the <desideraia> in mathematics? June 12, 1770, 110.Occasional question proposed by Mr.Beattie.--Whether it be not for the advantage of mankind as moral beings that the evidence of a future state is rather a high probability than an absolute certainty.Oct.-- 9, 1769.
111.Dr.David Skene.-- What are the advantages and disadvantages arising from the different arrangements of words which obtain in the antient and modern languages?
112.Principal Campbel.-- What is the best method of teaching a foreign or dead language?
113.Mr.Gordon.-- How are <vis inertae> and weight to be distinguished, and in what do they agree?
114.Dr.Gerard.-- Whether national characters depend upon physical or moral causes, or whether they are influenced by both.Feb.26, 1771115.Mr.Beattie.-- Does it imply any absurdity or any thing inconsistent with the divine perfections to suppose that evil, both physical and moral, must be permitted to take place in a state of moral probation? March 26, 1771.
116.Dr.George Skene.
117.Mr.Ogilvy.-- Is there any injustice done to an impressed man, when he is punished according to the articles of war? March 12, 1771118.Mr.Dunbar.-- How are the proceedings of instinct to be distinguished from reason or sagacity in animals? Feb.
II, 1772.
119.Mr.Trail.-- What is the cause of the color of the heavenly bodies P Feb.25, 1772 {473}
111 .Dr.Campbel.-- What are the advantages and disadvantages arising from the different arrangements of words which obtain in the ancient and modern languages?
120.Mr.Gordon.-- How far is an expensive taste of living connected with corruption of manners and the ruin of a nation?
121.Dr.Gerard.-- What are the ways in which watering operates in improving land? March 24, 1772.
122.Dr.Beattie.-- How far is versification essential to poetry?
123.Dr.George Skene.
124.Mr.Ogilvy.-- By what circumstances has slavery been so moderated as to become supportable to so many nations of mankind?
125.Dr.Dunbar.
126.Mr.Trail.-- Does Dr.Halley's theory of evaporation sufficiently account for the constant influx into the Mediterranean at the Straits of Gibraltar?
ART.III.MSS.<Papers by Dr.Reid, text me by Francis Edmund, Esq., Aberdeen> (<see pp.> 192, 223.)I.<Some Observations on the modern System of Materialism>.This paper is in no fewer than five forms, showing what pains he took with it.One or two of the forms were notes or preparations, the other three fully written out as if to be read before a society.
By the modern system of materialism he means that advanced by Dr.Priestley in his " Disquisitions relating to Matter and Spirit," 1777, and " Free Discussion of the Doctrines of Materialism and Philosophical Necessity," 1777.
The paper is of a thorough and searching character, distinguished for acuteness beyond almost any of the published writings of Reid, and written with great point and naivete.It looks as if designed for publication.Chap.1.
<Of the Connection of this System with other philosophical Opinions>.Here he describes the views entertained of substance by eminent men, criticising ably the defective views of Locke.Chap.II.<Of Newton's Rules of philosophizing>, showing that he had profoundly studied Newton.He gives fair explanations of Newton's rules.He shows that Priestley does not follow these rules.Chap.III.