James Beattie, 1735-1803

James Beattie, MA Marischal College, 1753, LLD King's College, 1770, DCL Oxford, 1773, was Professor of Moral Philosophy and Logic at Marischal College from 1760 until his death on 18 Aug 1803. He was a contemporary and friend of notable Aberdeen philosophers, Thomas Reid, George Campbell, John Gregory and Alexander Gerard, and an elected member of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society from 1761 until its demise in 1773. His Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth (1770), written in response to David Hume's Treatise on Human Nature, is the best known of his philosophical works. Other well-known pieces include Scoticisms (Aberdeen, 1778), Dissertations - Moral and Critical (1783), Evidences of the Christian Religion briefly and plainly stated (1786), and Elements of Moral Science (1790 - 1793). He also enjoyed critical and popular acclaim for literary works such as The Minstrel (vol 1 1771, vol 2 1774) and The Hermit .

Beattie was born on 25 Oct 1735, in Laurencekirk, Kincardineshire, the son of James Beattie, farmer, and studied at Marischal College, under Thomas Blackwell, author of An Inquiry into the Life and Writings of Homer . After graduating from Marischal College in 1753, he took the post of clerk and schoolmaster in the parish of Fordoun, Laurencekirk, and in 1758 was appointed schoolmaster at Aberdeen Grammar School. He married Mary Dun on 28 Jun 1767, and had 2 children, James Hay Beattie (appointed assistant and later successor to his father at Marischal, 1787) and Montagu Beattie.

See DNB; Fasti Academiae Mariscallanae Aberdonensis: Selections from the Records of the Marischal College and University, 1593 - 1860, ed. by Peter John Anderson, 3 vols (Aberdeen: Spalding Club, 1889-1898); Alexander Bower, An Account of the Life of James Beattie (London: Baldwin, 1804); William Forbes, An Account of the Life and Writings of James Beattie, LLD, Including Many of His Original Letters (Edinburgh: Constable, 1806); William Geddes, Poetic Ideals of Education: The Minstrel and George MacDonald (Aberdeen: J.R. Smith, 1896); The Minutes of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society, 1758 - 1773, ed. by H. Lewis Ulman (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1990), pp. 37-40.

From the guide to the Papers of and relating to James Beattie (1735 - 1803) Professor of Moral Philosophy and Logic, poet, essayist and moral philosopher, c 1758 - c 1799, (University of Aberdeen)