Abstract

The present volume is an important and highly useful contribution to Reid studies that adds considerably to our knowledge of his work. The book is well made, and I noticed only one misprint. It contains three sets of manuscripts, one dealing with natural history, another on physiology, and a third, much the largest, on Reid’s work on materialism. It also contains a statement by Paul Wood of very sensible editorial principles, seventy-four pages of introductions to the manuscript material, some explanatory notes with translations of Latin passages in the manuscripts and information about the papers and books Reid quotes or refers to in his texts, an index of manuscripts, a set of textual notes, and a not very useful index for the volume as a whole. Lamentably, the usefulness of the volume is compromised by Wood’s having used editions of Reid’s printed works that are rare and not easily available instead of the standard 1895 Hamilton eighth edition in the Georg Olms reprinted edition. Wood does, on rare occasions, quote from or refer to the Hamilton 1854 fourth edition of Reid’s work whose pagination appears to coincide with the 1895 edition, but these references are too few to be helpful.