Philosopher of the Scottish Enlightenment, considered the founder of the Scottish School of Common Sense, spent his peaceful life in his native country, where, after graduating from the University of Aberdeen at sixteen, he was librarian and professor at the university, pastor of the parish of New Machar, founder of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society and successor of Adam Smith in the prestigious Professorship of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow University before retiring to devote himself to his studies and writing. The School of the common sense that Reid founded and developed, with their differences, his disciple Dugald Stewart and the editor of his works, William Hamilton, became a fundamental philosophical reference to the British, French and American universities in the nineteenth century. The influence of the ideas of this school is visible in figures such as Peirce, James, Dewey, Sidgwick, Moore, Russell, Wittgenstein and even, looking at Reid often a precursor of analytic philosophy of language. He published in life many articles and three great works, all at a relatively late age: Research into the human mind on the principles of common sense (1764), Essays on the intellectual powers of man (1785) and Essays on the active powers of man (1788).