William Robertson Smith

“ In his later thinking his attitude to idealism changed, and he aimed at a constructive philosophy from a point of view which he did not refuse to describe as naturalism or realism. By this term, however, he did not mean that the external mechanism of things in space and time was equivalent to the sum-total of reality, but rather that truth in philosophy is to be reached by turning from abstract conceptions to concrete experience. Mind has indeed come into being, but it is not, on that account, less essential than, or inferior to, nature; each is a partial manifestation of reality. ”

“ In the summer of 1876 Adamson was appointed professor of philosophy and political economy at Owens College, Manchester, in succession to W. Stanley Jevons [q. v.] After six years he was relieved of the work of lecturing in economics; but he greatly extended the philosophical teaching, especially after 1880, when the creation of the Victoria University gave him freedom to plan the work in accordance with his own views. He was made hon. LL.D. of Glasgow in 1883.
In 1893 he was appointed by the crown to the chair of logic in the university of Aberdeen. ”

“ In 1874 he was appointed additional examiner in philosophy in the university, and joined the editorial staff of the 'Encyclopædia Britannica' (9th edition) . To the third and fourth volumes of that work he contributed a large number of articles on subjects of general literature, and in the third volume began a series of important philosophical articles. The article on Francis Bacon (which James Spedding [q. v.] had originally undertaken and had relinquished) first gave public proof of Adamson's powers as a philosophical critic and historian. ”