Lectures on the philosophy of the human mind. By the late Thomas Brown, M.D. . In three volumes

Brown, Thomas

Published by John Grigg, No. 2 North Fourth St. and William P. Bason, 308 King Street, Charleston, S.C., Philadelphia, 1824

About this Item

First American edition, 3 volumes, 8vo, pp. vii, [1], 448; vii, [1], 467, [1]vii, [1], 496; original green-gray paper-covered boards, printed paper labels on spine; prelims and terminals with some foxing, clean tear in the first page of the table of contents in volume I (no loss), some light chipping and cracking at the extremities; boards a little soiled; in all, a good, sound copy. Thomas Brown (1778-1820), medical doctor, poet, lecturer, and philosopher, died prematurely at age 42, and this work was published posthumously in the year of his death. The book proved immensely popular. It ran to no fewer than twenty editions, the last edition being published forty years after its first publication. In 1815 he was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society. "Brown's Lectures was one of the most successful philosophy books of the period, going through twenty editions. The Lectures were widely acknowledged to be the most successful and popular work of their kind ever to have appeared. Henry Cockburn's comments in his Memorials were representative of many similarly positive appraisals. He spoke of Brown's Lectures as one of the most 'delightful books in the English language', which had enjoyed 'unexampled success'. Writing at the end of the century, the British philosopher Robert Adamson wrote of the book, in the Encyclopaedia Britannica: 'It is no exaggeration to say that never before or since has a work on metaphysics been so popular.' McCosh, in his History of the Scottish Philosophy, painted a vivid picture of the immense success, popularity and influence of Brown's lectures in Edinburgh and beyond: "A course so eminently popular among students had not .been delivered in any previous age in the University of Edinburgh, and has not, in a later age, been surpassed . 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 . 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." American Imprints 15575. See Dixon, From Passions to Emotions: The Creation of a Secular Psychological Category, Cambridge, 2003, pp. 111-12.

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Lectures on the philosophy of the human mind. By the late Thomas Brown, M.D. . In three volumes
• Publisher: John Grigg, No. 2 North Fourth St. and William P. Bason, 308 King Street, Charleston, S.C., Philadelphia
• Publication Date: 1824
• Seller catalogs:
  • English Literature