Biography

GERARD, ALEXANDER (1728-1795). —Philosophical writer, s. of Rev. Gilbert G., was ed. at Aberdeen, where he became Prof., first of Natural Philosophy, and afterwards of Divinity, and one of the ministers of the city. As a prof. he introduced various reforms. In 1756 he gained the prize for an Essay on Taste which, together with an Essay on Genius, he subsequently pub. These treatises, though now superseded, gained for him considerable reputation.