Thomas Reid

In the early months of 1786, Robert Burns gives an indication that he is aware of the Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid. In his Letter to James Tennant, Glenconner, he refers briefly to Smith's work by indicating its concern for 'sympathetic feeling', but his reference to Reid's work is more extensive, asserting its central theme of common sense and offering a slightly reductive judgement on its conclusions. A common perception of Reid in the years that immediately followed publication of his Inquiry was of his being the Auld Kirk's champion who had entered the lists to challenge the sceptic and infidel Hume. Reid's background as a parish minister in the rural New Machar for over fourteen years (1737-51) before he entered Kings College, University of Aberdeen, may have lent some credence to the view of him as a defender of the faith, but there was more to his work than providing a Christian counter to Hume.