Alexander Bain - Academic Career

Academic Career

In 1845 he was appointed Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Anderson's University in Glasgow. A year later, preferring a wider field, he resigned the position and devoted himself to writing. In 1848 he moved to London to fill a post in the Board of Health under Sir Edwin Chadwick where he worked for social reform and became a prominent member of the intellectual circle which included George Grote and John Stuart Mill. In 1855 he published his first major work, The Senses and the Intellect, followed in 1859 by The Emotions and the Will. These treatises won him a position among independent thinkers. Bain was also Examiner in Logic and Moral Philosophy from 1857–1862 and 1864–1869 for the University of London and also an Instructor in Moral Science for the Indian Civil Service examinations.

In 1860 he was appointed by the British Crown to the inaugural Regius Chair of Logic and the Regius Chair of English Literature at the University of Aberdeen, which was newly formed after the amalgamation of King's College, Aberdeen and Marischal College by the Scottish Universities Commission of 1858.