The first is Thomas Reid (1710-96), the Scottish philosopher and advocate of common sense as the root of philosophy.¹ After having served for some years as a minister in the Church of Scotland, Reid became professor of Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen, whence he was called to Glasgow as the successor of Adam Smith. Through his birth in Strachan, Kincardine, he belonged to the same part of Scotland from which Kant’s ancestors had come. Two brief remarks of Goethe show that he knew of the Scotsman’s philosophy, and that he appreciated his influence on contemporary philosophers.²