The incidents of his remaining life are few, but are sufficient to bring out the lineaments of his character.His chief enjoyments lay in his study, in taking a quiet walk in some solitary place, where he would watch the smoke curling from a cottage chimney, or the dew illuminated with sunshine on the grass, and in the society of his family and a few friends.Never had a mother a more devoted son, or sisters a more affectionate brother.In his disposition there is great gentleness, with a tendency to sentimentality: -- thus, on the occasion of his last visit to his native place, he is thrown into a flood of sensibility, which, when it is related in future years to Chalmers, on his happening to be in the place, the sturdier Scotch divine was thrown into a fit of merriment.We perceive that he is fond of fame and sensitive of blame, but seeking to cherish both as a secret flame; and that he is by no means inclined to allow any one to offer him counsel.In 1819, he prepared his " Physiology of the Mind," as a text-book for his students, and put it into the press the following winter.By the Christmas of that year he was rather unwell; in spring he removed for the benefit of his health to London, and died at Brompton in April, 1820.His remains were deposited in the churchyard of his native place, beside those of his father and mother.
His lectures were published shortly after his death, and excited an interest wherever the English language is spoken, quite equal to that awakened by the living lecturer among the students of Edinburgh.They continued for twenty years to have a popularity in the British dominions and in the United States greater than any philosophical work ever enjoyed before.During these years most students were introduced to metaphysics by the perusal of them, and attractive beyond measure did they find them to be.The writer of this article would give much to have revived within him the enthusiasm which he felt when he first read them.They had never, however, a great reputation on the Continent, where the sensational school thought he had not gone sufficiently far in analysis; where those fighting with the sensational school did not feel that he {325} was capable of yielding them any aid; and where the transcendental school, in particular, blamed him for not rendering a sufficiently deep account of some of the profoundest ideas which the mind of man can entertain, such as those of space, time, and infinity.His reputation was at its greatest height from 1830 to 1835, from which date it began to decline, partly because it was seen that his analyses were too ingenious, and his omissions many and great; and partly because new schools were engaging the philosophic mind; and, in particular, the school of Coleridge, the school of Cousin, and the school of Hamilton.
Coleridge was superseding him by views derived from Germany, which he had long been inculcating, regarding the distinction between the understanding and the reason Cousin, by a brilliant eclectic system, which professedly drew largely from Reid and Kant; and Hamilton, by a searching review of Brown's theory of perception, and by his own metaphysical views promulgated in his lectures and his published writings.The result of all this was a recoil of feeling in which Brown was as much undervalued as he had at one time been overrated.In the midst of these laudations and condemnations, Brown's psychological system has never been completely reviewed.Now that he has passed through a period of undeserved popularity, and a period of unmerited disparagement, the public should be prepared to listen with candor to an impartial criticism.
The psychology of Brown may be summarily described as a combination of the Scottish philosophy of Reid and Stewart, and of the analyses by Condillac, Destutt de Tracy, and the higher philosophers of the sensational school of France, together with views of the association of ideas derived from a prevailing British school.To Reid and Stewart he was indebted more than he was willing to allow, and it would have been better for his ultimate reputation had he imbibed more of their spirit, and adhered more closely to their principles.He admits everywhere with them the existence of principles of irresistible belief; for example, he comes to such a principle when he is discussing the beliefs in our personal identity, and in the invariability of the relation between cause and effect.But acknowledging, as he does, the existence of intuitive principles, he makes no inquiry into their nature and laws {326} and force, or the relation in which they stand to the faculties.In this respect, so far from being an advance on Reid and Stewart, he is rather a retrogression.His method is as much that of Condillac, Destutt de Tracy, and the ideologists of France, as that of Reid and Stewart.He is infected with the besetting sin of metaphysicians, -- that of trusting to analyses instead of patient observation; and, like the French school, his analysis is exercised in reducing the phenomena of the mind to as few powers as possible, and this he succeeds in doing by omitting some of the most characteristic peculiarities of the phenomena.His classification of the faculties bears a general resemblance to that of M.de Tracy, the metaphysician of the sensational school.The Frenchman's division of the faculties is -- sensibility, memory, judgment, and desire Brown's is-sensation, ****** and relative suggestion, and emotion.
