The Scottish Philosophy [152]
there may also be an affinity between the two groups.
He corrects a very common misapprehension of his day as to abstract and general ideas. In his work on metaphysics: "Abstract ideas are different from general, though they be confounded by our modern philosophers; an idea must be first abstracted from the particular object from which it exists before it can be generalized." In his work on language, he shows that we may have a conception of a particular quality of any substance abstracted from its other qualities without averring such quality to belong to any other substance. " In order to form the general idea, a separation or discrimination is necessary of these qualities one from another; and this kind of abstraction I hold to be the first act of human intellect, and it is here the road parts betwixt us and the brute; for the brute perceives the thing and perceives the perception in his memory just as the object is presented by nature-that is, with all its several sensible qualities united; whereas the human intellect separates and discriminates and considers by itself the color,, without the figure, and the size without either." {255}
XXXII.-ADAM FERGUSON[73] H/E\ was the son of Rev. Adam Ferguson, minister of the parish of Loarerait, Perthshire, and was born June 20, 1723. The Scottish ministers often belonged to good families in these times, and Carlyle describes Ferguson as the son of a Highland clergyman with good connections and a Highland pride and spirit. He received his early education partly from his father, partly at the parish school. We are ever discovering traces of the influence of the parish schools of Scotland in producing its great men. He afterwards went to the gram mar school of Perth, where he excelled in classics and the composition of essays, which has always had a high place in Scotland, fostered by the very circumstance that boys had to unlearn the Scottish and learn the English tongue. Thence he resorted to the University of St. Andrews, where he graduated May 4, 1742, with a high reputation in classics, mathematics, and metaphysics. He now entered on the study of theology, first at St. Andrews, and then in Edinburgh, where he fell into the circle of Robertson, Blair, Wedderburn, and Carlyle, and joined them in forming a debating society. Before finishing his theological course, he was appointed deputy-chaplain of the Highland forty- second regiment, and was present at the battle of Fontenoy, where he went into action at the head of the attacking column with a drawn sword in his hand. His military career helped him afterwards to give accurate descriptions of battles in -- his "Roman History," and furnished him opportunities for studying human nature and politics. He never had any predilection for the clerical profession, and abandoned it altogether on the death of his father. After spending some time in Holland, as so many Scottish youths had done in the previous century, he returned to his old associates in Edinburgh, where he was appointed, in 1757, David Hume's successor as librarian and clerk in the Advocate's Library. He there became a member of the "Select Society" instituted {256} in 1754 by Allan Ramsay, and holding its meetings in one of the inner apartments of the library, for literary discussion, philosophical inquiry, and improvement in public speaking. Among its members were Hume, Robertson, Smith, John Home, Wilkie, Lord Hailes, Lord Monboddo, Sir John Dalrymple, and the elder Mr. Tytler, the men who constituted the bright literary constellation of their age and Country. This society declined after a time, but was renewed in 1762, under the name (at the suggestion of Ferguson) of the " Poker Club." Ferguson became involved in the controversy stirred by his friend Home writing the play of Douglas, and published " The Morality of Stage Plays seriously Considered." He seems to have left the office of librarian rather abruptly, being allured by an offer to become tutor to the sons of Lord Bute. By the influence
He corrects a very common misapprehension of his day as to abstract and general ideas. In his work on metaphysics: "Abstract ideas are different from general, though they be confounded by our modern philosophers; an idea must be first abstracted from the particular object from which it exists before it can be generalized." In his work on language, he shows that we may have a conception of a particular quality of any substance abstracted from its other qualities without averring such quality to belong to any other substance. " In order to form the general idea, a separation or discrimination is necessary of these qualities one from another; and this kind of abstraction I hold to be the first act of human intellect, and it is here the road parts betwixt us and the brute; for the brute perceives the thing and perceives the perception in his memory just as the object is presented by nature-that is, with all its several sensible qualities united; whereas the human intellect separates and discriminates and considers by itself the color,
XXXII.-ADAM FERGUSON[73] H/E\ was the son of Rev. Adam Ferguson, minister of the parish of Loarerait, Perthshire, and was born June 20, 1723. The Scottish ministers often belonged to good families in these times, and Carlyle describes Ferguson as the son of a Highland clergyman with good connections and a Highland pride and spirit. He received his early education partly from his father, partly at the parish school. We are ever discovering traces of the influence of the parish schools of Scotland in producing its great men. He afterwards went to the gram mar school of Perth, where he excelled in classics and the composition of essays, which has always had a high place in Scotland, fostered by the very circumstance that boys had to unlearn the Scottish and learn the English tongue. Thence he resorted to the University of St. Andrews, where he graduated May 4, 1742, with a high reputation in classics, mathematics, and metaphysics. He now entered on the study of theology, first at St. Andrews, and then in Edinburgh, where he fell into the circle of Robertson, Blair, Wedderburn, and Carlyle, and joined them in forming a debating society. Before finishing his theological course, he was appointed deputy-chaplain of the Highland forty- second regiment, and was present at the battle of Fontenoy, where he went into action at the head of the attacking column with a drawn sword in his hand. His military career helped him afterwards to give accurate descriptions of battles in -- his "Roman History," and furnished him opportunities for studying human nature and politics. He never had any predilection for the clerical profession, and abandoned it altogether on the death of his father. After spending some time in Holland, as so many Scottish youths had done in the previous century, he returned to his old associates in Edinburgh, where he was appointed, in 1757, David Hume's successor as librarian and clerk in the Advocate's Library. He there became a member of the "Select Society" instituted {256} in 1754 by Allan Ramsay, and holding its meetings in one of the inner apartments of the library, for literary discussion, philosophical inquiry, and improvement in public speaking. Among its members were Hume, Robertson, Smith, John Home, Wilkie, Lord Hailes, Lord Monboddo, Sir John Dalrymple, and the elder Mr. Tytler, the men who constituted the bright literary constellation of their age and Country. This society declined after a time, but was renewed in 1762, under the name (at the suggestion of Ferguson) of the " Poker Club." Ferguson became involved in the controversy stirred by his friend Home writing the play of Douglas, and published " The Morality of Stage Plays seriously Considered." He seems to have left the office of librarian rather abruptly, being allured by an offer to become tutor to the sons of Lord Bute. By the influence