The Scottish Philosophy [168]
unjust opinion of Stewart, if, in consequence of weaknesses, we thought him devoid of originality, independence, or profundity. We certainly do not claim for him the sagacity of Locke, or the speculative genius of Leibnitz, or a power of generalizing, details equal to Adam Smith, or the shrewdness of Reid, or the logical grasp of Kant and Hamilton, and I admit that he was inferior to all these men in originality; but he has admirable qualities of his own, in soundness of judgment he is more to be trusted than any of them; and, if he is without some of their excellencies, he is also without some of their faults. He has no such rash and unmeasured diatribes as Locke's assault on innate ideas; no such extravagances as the monadical theory of Leibnitz; no such wasting of ingenuity as Smith's theory in his " Moral Sentiments; " he does not commit such gross misapprehensions in scholarship as Reid does; and he never allows any logic to conduct him to such preposterous conclusions as Kant and Hamilton landed themselves in, when they declared causation to be a law of thought and not of things. I have noticed that in many cases Stewart hides his originality as carefully as others boast of theirs. Often have I found, after going the round of philosophers in seeking light on some abstruse subject, that, on {283} turning to Stewart, his doctrine is, after all, the most profound, as it s the most judicious.
I do not mean to enter into the details of his remaining life. In 1783, he married a Miss Bannatyne of Glasgow, who died in 1787, leaving an only child, afterwards Colonel Stewart. He spent the summers of 1788 and 1789 on the Continent. In the appendix to the Memoir, there is a selection from the letters which he wrote to his friends at home. Though written in the midst of instructive scenes, and on the eve of great events, they are excessively general and common-place, and display no shrewdness of observation. In 1790, he married a daughter of Lord Cranston, a lady of high accomplishments, fascinating manners, and literary tastes. His house now became the resort of the best society of Edinburgh, and he himself the centre and bond of an accomplished circle, at a time when the metropolis of Scotland in the winter months was the residence of many of the principal Scottish families, and of persons of high literary and scientific eminence. The weekly reunions in his house, which happily blended the aristocracies of rank and letters, bringing together the peer and the unfriended scholar, were for many years the source of an influence that most beneficially affected the society of the capital. His influence was extended by his receiving into his house, as boarders, young men chiefly of rank and fortune. In his classes of moral philosophy and of political economy, he had under him a greater body of young men who afterwards distinguished themselves, than any other teacher that I can think of. Among them we have to place Lord Brougham, Lord Palmerston, Lord John Russell, Francis Horner, Lord Lansdowne, Francis Jeffrey, Walter Scott, Sydney Smith, Thomas Brown, Thomas Chalmers, James Mill, Archibald Alison, and many others who have risen to great eminence in politics, in literature, or philosophy; and most of these have acknowledged the good which they derived from his lectures, while some of them have carried out in practical measures the principles which he inculcated. He seems, in particular, to have kindled a fine enthusiasm in the breast of Francis Horner, who ever speaks of him in terms of loftiest admiration, and, though cut off in early life, lived long enough to exhibit the high moral aims which he had imbibed from the lessons of Stewart. {284}
It was in 1792 that the first volume of his "Elements" was published. In 1793, appeared his " Outlines of Moral Philosophy," containing an epitome of the doctrines expanded in his larger writings. His other works appeared after successive intervals: his Account of Adam Smith in 1793, of Robertson in 1796, and of Reid in 1802; his "Philosophical Essays" in 1810; the second volume
I do not mean to enter into the details of his remaining life. In 1783, he married a Miss Bannatyne of Glasgow, who died in 1787, leaving an only child, afterwards Colonel Stewart. He spent the summers of 1788 and 1789 on the Continent. In the appendix to the Memoir, there is a selection from the letters which he wrote to his friends at home. Though written in the midst of instructive scenes, and on the eve of great events, they are excessively general and common-place, and display no shrewdness of observation. In 1790, he married a daughter of Lord Cranston, a lady of high accomplishments, fascinating manners, and literary tastes. His house now became the resort of the best society of Edinburgh, and he himself the centre and bond of an accomplished circle, at a time when the metropolis of Scotland in the winter months was the residence of many of the principal Scottish families, and of persons of high literary and scientific eminence. The weekly reunions in his house, which happily blended the aristocracies of rank and letters, bringing together the peer and the unfriended scholar, were for many years the source of an influence that most beneficially affected the society of the capital. His influence was extended by his receiving into his house, as boarders, young men chiefly of rank and fortune. In his classes of moral philosophy and of political economy, he had under him a greater body of young men who afterwards distinguished themselves, than any other teacher that I can think of. Among them we have to place Lord Brougham, Lord Palmerston, Lord John Russell, Francis Horner, Lord Lansdowne, Francis Jeffrey, Walter Scott, Sydney Smith, Thomas Brown, Thomas Chalmers, James Mill, Archibald Alison, and many others who have risen to great eminence in politics, in literature, or philosophy; and most of these have acknowledged the good which they derived from his lectures, while some of them have carried out in practical measures the principles which he inculcated. He seems, in particular, to have kindled a fine enthusiasm in the breast of Francis Horner, who ever speaks of him in terms of loftiest admiration, and, though cut off in early life, lived long enough to exhibit the high moral aims which he had imbibed from the lessons of Stewart. {284}
It was in 1792 that the first volume of his "Elements" was published. In 1793, appeared his " Outlines of Moral Philosophy," containing an epitome of the doctrines expanded in his larger writings. His other works appeared after successive intervals: his Account of Adam Smith in 1793, of Robertson in 1796, and of Reid in 1802; his "Philosophical Essays" in 1810; the second volume