Dugald Stewart

Dugald Stewart (1753 to 1828) was a Scottish philosopher and mathematician, regarded as one of the most important figures of the later Scottish Enlightenment. Born in his father's quarters at the Old College of the University of Edinburgh, he studied there and then spent a session at Glasgow under Thomas Reid, to whom he later owed his theory of morality. He became joint professor of mathematics in 1775 and in 1785 succeeded Adam Ferguson in the chair of moral philosophy, which he held for twenty-five years and made a centre of intellectual influence. His lectures were widely spread by his many students, and he was renowned as a populariser of the work of Francis Hutcheson and Adam Smith. In 1783 he was a joint founder of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.