BAILEY, Samuel, an able writer on philosophical and literary subjects, was born at Sheffield in 1791. His father carried on a large general business in that town, and for some years the son devoted himself to mercantile pur suits. It was not long, however, before he gave up this occupation, and, having a competent fortune, withdrew from all business concerns, with the exception of the Sheffield Banking Company, of which he was chairman for many years. Although an ardent Liberal of most advanced views, he took little or no active part in political affairs. On two occasions, at the earnest solicitation of his numerous friends and admirers, he stood for Sheffield, but without success. The “Bentham of Hallamshire,” as he has been called, was of too retiring a disposition, and had too much of the philosophical politician about him to win the admiration or suffrages of an ordinary body of electors. His life is for the most part a history of hi3 numerous and varied publications, and his name is known to a very limited circle. The intimation of his sudden death on the 18th January 1870, with the subsequent notice of his munificent gift of £90,000 to his native town, excited some curiosity and interest, which, however, quickly died away. This is not quite as it should be. Bailey has certainly given to the world no work of first-rate importance, but there are few authors of modern times who have written more elegantly and clearly, or with more originality of treatment, on the various problems of psychology and political science. His first work, Essays on the Formation and Publication of Opinions, published anonymously in 1821 (2d ed. 1826, 3d ed. 1837), a thoughtful, practical, and clearly written treatise, has attracted a greater share of public attention and favour than any of his other writings. A sequel to it appeared in 1829, Essays on the Pursuit of Truth, on the Progress of Knowledge, and on the Fundamental Principle of all Evidence and Expectation (2d ed. 1844). Intermediate between these two were Questions on Political Economy, Politics, Morals,dec., 1823, and a Critical Dissertation on the Nature, Measure, and Causes of Value, directed against the opinions of Ricardo and his school. His next publications were also on economic or political subjects, Rationale of Political Representation, 1835, and Money audits Vicissitudes, 1837; about the same time also appeared some of his pamphlets, Discussion of Parliamentary Reform, Right of Primogeniture Examined, Defence of Joint-Stock Banks. Bailey seems then to have turned his attention almost entirely to speculative philosophy. In 1842 appeared his Review of Berkeley's Theory of Vision, an acute and able work, which called forth rejoinders from J. S. Mill in the Westminster Review (reprinted in Dissertations), and from Ferrier in Blackwood (reprinted in Lectures and Remains, ii.) Bailey replied to his critics in A Letter to a Philosopher, dec., 1843. In 1851 he published one of his best works, Theory of Reasoning (2d ed. 1852), a thoughtful discussion of the nature of inference, and an able criticism of the functions and value of the syllogism. In 1852 he published Discourses on Various Subjects; and finally summed up his philosophic views in the Letters on the Philosophy of the Human Mind (three series, 1855, 1858, 1863), which is at once the most considerable and the most valuable of his contributions to mental science. Bailey had not entirely given himself up to abstract studies; in 1845 he had ventured on poetical composition. Maro, a poem in four cantos (85 pp., Longmans), contains a somewhat lively description of the mental state of a young poet who printed 1000 copies of his first poem, of which only 10 were sold. He had also been a diligent student of Shakespeare, and his last literary work was the treatise, in two volumes, On the Received Text of Shakespeares Dramatic Writings and its Improvement. It must be confessed that many of the emendations suggested by him are more fantastic than felicitous.

The Letters contain, in clear and lively language, a very fresh discussion of many of the principal problems in philosophy, or rather in psychology. Bailey can hardly be classed as belonging either to the strictly empirical or to the idealist school, but his general tendency is towards the former. The following are the most interesting points in his work :—(1.) In regard to method, he founds psychology entirely on introspection; critical study of one’s own consciousness is, according to him, the only means of obtaining materials for philosophy. He thus, to a certain extent, agrees with the Scotch school, but he differs from them in rejecting altogether the doctrine of mental faculties. What have been designated faculties are, upon his view, merely classified facts or phenomena of consciousness. He criticises very severely the habitual use of figurative or metaphorical language in describing mental operations. (2.) His doctrine of perception, which is, in brief, that “the perception of external things through the organs of sense is a direct mental act or phenomenon of consciousness not susceptible of being resolved into anything else,” and the reality of which can be neither proved nor disproved, is not worked out in detail, but is supported by elaborate and sometimes subtle criticisms of all other theories. Upon this point Bailey’s remarks are deserving of attention. (3.) With regard to general and abstract ideas and general propositions, his opinions are those of the empirical school, but his analysis frequently puts the matter in a new light, and brings forward points of novelty. (4.) In the theory of morals Bailey is an advocate of Utilitarianism, and works out with great skill the steps in the formation of the “complex” mental facts involved in the recognition of duty, obligation, right. His handling of the moral sentiments {Letters, iii. 193-258) is one of the best specimens of his general style of psychological analysis.

And the sailor’s song— “0 swiftly glides the bonny boat Just parted from the shore.” (See Joanna Baillie ’s Dramatic and Poetical Works, Lond. 1851, 1 vol.)

BAILLIE, Dr Matthew, anatomist and physician, was born in the manse of Shotts, Lanarkshire, in 1761. He came of a highly gifted family: his father, the Rev. James Baillie, was successively clergyman of the parishes of Shotts, Bothwell, and Hamilton, in Lanarkshire, and afterwards professor of divinity in the university of Glasgow; his mother was Dorothea, sister of the celebrated William and John Hunter; and his sister Joanna was the poet. Dr Baillie was for several years a student in the university of Glasgow, where he heard the lectures of Dr Reid on moral philosophy. His professional career was determined by the advice of his uncle, Dr William Hunter, who undertook to superintend his education. On his father’s death he obtained an exhibition to Balliol College, Oxford, where he remained a year before removing to London. His studies were there carried on under the personal direction of his uncle, and after two years he began to be associated with Dr Hunter in his anatomical lectures as an assistant and demonstrator, visiting Oxford occasionally, so as to keep the terms necessary for the degree of bachelor of medicine. Dr Hunter, at his death, bequeathed the use of his magnificent collections to his nephew, together with the lecture-rooms in Windmill Street, an annuity of £100 a year, and a small family estate in Scotland. The last was resigned by Baillie to his other uncle, Dr John Hunter, whom he considered as the natural heir. Within two years after Dr Hunter’s death his nephew became the principal teacher in that celebrated school of anatomy; and in 1787, although only a bachelor of medicine, he was appointed physician to St George’s Hospital. In 1789 he married Sophia, daughter of the eminent accoucheur Dr Denman, a connection favourable to his practice. In 1795 he published his Morbid Anatomy, a work which was speedily translated into French, Italian, and German, into the last by the anatomist Sömmering. After this he had the honour of being enrolled a doctor of medicine of Oxford, and Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. As a practising physician he was universally respected, and his decease, which took place on the 23d of September 1823, in the 63d year of his age, was sincerely regretted.

The second edition of the Morbid Anatomy appeared in 1797; and two years afterwards it was illustrated by a 4to volume of engravings, with descriptions of the plates. His Anatomical Lectures and Medical Observations were printed privately after his death. The Works, 2 vols. 8vo, edited, with a biographical sketch, by Mr Wardrop, contain only the Morbid Anatomy and miscellaneous medical papers.

BAILLIE, Robert, a prominent Scotch Presbyterian of the 17th century, was bornât Glasgow in 1602. He graduated in 1620 at the university of that town, and then applied himself to the study of divinity. In 1631, after he had been ordained and had acted for some years as regent in the university, he was appointed to the living of Kilwinning in Ayrshire. The church disputes of the century were just beginning, and Baillie was naturally drawn into them. In 1638 he was a member of the famous Glasgow Assembly, and soon after he accompanied Leslie and the Scotch army as chaplain or preacher. In 1642 he was made professor of divinity at Glasgow, and in the following year was selected as one of the five Scotch clergymen who were sent to the great Westminster Assembly. In 1649 he was one of the commissioners sent to Holland for the purpose of inviting Charles II. to Scotland, and of settling the terms of his admission to the government. He continued to take an active part in all the minor disputes of the church, and in 1661, after the ejection of Gillespie, he was made principal of the Glasgow University. He died in August of the following year,— his death being probably hastened by his mortification at the apparently firm establishment of Episcopacy in Scotland. Baillie was a man of learning and ability; his views were not extreme, and he played but a secondary part in the stirring events of the time. His Letters, by which he is now chiefly remembered, are of considerable historical importance, and give a very lively picture of the period. A complete memoir and a full notice of all his writings will be found in Dr Laing’s edition of the Letters and Journals of Robert Baillie, Bannatyne Club, 3 vols., Edinburgh, 1841-42.

His attention, meantime, was not solely devoted to abstract science; he was equally distinguished for eloquence and brilliancy of style. His Éloges on Corneille, Leibnitz, Molière, and others, were universally admired. In 1773 he was proposed as a candidate for the secretaryship of the Academy of Sciences, and was supported by Buffon; the influence of D’Alembert, however, secured the appointment of the famous Condorcet. In 1784 Bailly was made secretary of the French Academy, and in the following year he was admitted to the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres. This was the only instance, from the time of Fontenelle, of any writer being at the same time a member of all the three academies.

In the year 1775 he published the first volume of his most extensive work, History of Astronomy, which contained the history from its origin down to the foundation of the Alexandrian school. This was followed by three volumes on Modern Astronomy, published between 1776 and 1783. The work is of little or no historical value, but it is admirably written, and added greatly to the author’s reputation as a master of narrative exposition. In 1787 he completed the history by a volume on Indian and Oriental astronomy, which shows considerable erudition, but is not founded on a complete knowledge of the Indian records, and is highly fantastic in its speculations.

The quiet course of Bailly’s life, hitherto devoted to literature and science, was now broken in upon by that great convulsion, the French Revolution, of which he was one of the first and most zealous promoters. In the part which he acted, he has had the singular good fortune to be well spoken of by opposite factions, and has never been charged either with want of integrity or with selfish designs. When the states-general of France were assembled in 1789, he was elected a deputy to the tiers-état, of which he was afterwards chosen president; and when the national assembly had been constituted, he continued in the chair, and officiated as president at the time the king’s proclamation was issued ordering that body to disperse. During the struggle which took place between the national assembly and the court, Bailly was amongst the most forward in asserting those popular rights which were then new in France; and it was he who dictated the famous oath to the members of the tiers-état, by which they pledged themselves “to resist tyrants and tyranny, and never to separate till they had obtained a free constitution.” On the 14th of July following, the day on which the Bastille was stormed and taken by the people, he was by universal consent appointed mayor of Paris. In this high office he is allowed to have acted with great integrity, courage, and moderation, and to have discharged its arduous and sometimes perilous duties in a highly honourable manner, and during its course he was instrumental in promoting the various measures by which the popular party at length prevailed over that of the court; for which, as well as for his conduct in other respects, he obtained a high degree of popularity. But the multitude, newly unshackled from the fetters of despotism, greedy of novelty, fired with enthusiastic and unsettled notions of freedom, and daily panting for change, would brook no opposition to their wild schemes. Bailly, who probably saw too late the general disposition of the people to anarchy, still wished the laws to be respected, and hoped by the vigorous enforcement of them to restore and maintain tranquillity. He ordered some deputies from the military insurgents of Nancy to be arrested, and firmly opposed the rash proceedings of Marat and Hebert; he ceased to be a member of the Jacobin club; and he exerted himself strongly to persuade the populace to permit the king and royal family to depart to St Cloud. By these measures, which were very distasteful to the fickle and infuriated people, he lost their confidence and favour; and his popularity was finally destroyed by his conduct on the occasion of the tumultuous meeting of the populace on the 17th of July 1791, to demand the abolition of monarchy; for, when called on by the national assembly to disperse the mob, who had assaulted the soldiery, he ordered the latter to fire, by which means 40 persons were killed and above 100 wounded. Finding himself after this an object of hatred and suspicion to the people, whom he had faithfully served, he resigned his office at the dissolution of the constituent assembly in the end of the year 1791, and retired to Nantes. From there he wrote to Laplace, who was residing at Melun, and proposed, if it were safe, to join him. Laplace, finding that a detachment of revolutionary troops had been ordered to Melun, advised Bailly not to venture, but his advice was neglected. The ex-mayor was recognised by one of the soldiers, arrested, and thrown into prison. Arraigned on 10th November 1793 before a sanguinary tribunal, he was on the 11th condemned to death as a conspirator, and executed the day following, near the spot where he had given the order for the military to fire on the people. He met his death with the greatest calmness and courage.

Several works written by Bailly, and found in manuscript, have been published since his death; particularly an Essay on Fables and their History, and Memoirs of a Witness of the Revolution, which come down to October 1789. Notices of his life are given in the Éloges by St Just, Lalande, and Lacretelle; also in Arago, Notices Biographiques, vol. ii.