(1778-1820) Metaphysician, son of the Rev. Samuel Brown, minister of Kirkinabreck, practised for some time as a physician in Edinburgh, but his tastes and talents lying in the direction of literature and philosophy, he devoted himself to the cultivation of these, and succeeded Dugald Stewart as Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, in which position he had remarkable popularity as a lecturer. His main contribution to literature is his Lectures, puborn after his death. Brown was a man of attractive character and considerable talents, but as a philosopher he is now largely superseded. He also wrote poetry, which, though graceful, lacked force, and is now forgotten.