author
Henry Calderwood
1830–1897
A Scottish minister and philosopher, he spent nearly three decades teaching moral philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. His writings brought big questions about ethics, religion, mind, and education to a wide readership in the nineteenth century.
1 Audiobook
The Relations of Science and Religion The Morse Lecture, 1880
by Henry Calderwood
About the author
Born in Peebles, Scotland, on May 10, 1830, Henry Calderwood studied in Edinburgh and first entered the ministry of the United Presbyterian Church. He served as a minister in Glasgow before moving fully into academic life, and in 1868 he was appointed Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, a post he held until his death in 1897.
Calderwood wrote on philosophy, religion, psychology, and education. Among his best-known works are The Philosophy of the Infinite, which challenged the idea that the human mind cannot know the infinite, and A Handbook of Moral Philosophy, a book widely used by students. He also wrote on the relation of mind and brain, showing his interest in how moral and mental life connect.
What makes Calderwood interesting today is the range of his work. He was not only an academic philosopher but also a public thinker who tried to make difficult ideas clear and useful, especially in questions of conscience, character, and human nature.