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IV. Metaphysics may be able to give a more accurate expression of fundamental truth. It is one of the peculiar excellencies of the Scottish school that they stand up for first truths which cannot be proven on the one hand nor set aside on the other. They are not just agreed as to the form which they should take, or the language in which they should be expressed. Mr. {460} J. S. Mill and Mr. Herbert Spencer think that they can account for all or many of these by the association of ideas or heredity. But neither of these thinkers is so bold as to maintain that he has done away with all fundamental truth. It can be shown that Mr. Mill is for ever appealing to truths which he assumes and regards himself as entitled to assume. (See " Examination of the Philosophy of J. S. Mill.") Mr. Spencer falls back on a law of necessity which testifies to a great unknown, which he allots as a territory to faith and to religion. I do not admit that he has given a proper expression to the fundamental verity or fundamental verities which he assumes. He starts on the principle of relativity, as expounded by Hamilton and Mansel, the authoritative metaphysicians when he began to speculate. I do not admit that the known logically or metaphysically implies the unknown. I am sure that his followers will leave behind them as they advance this unknown region of faith. Following out his own method, they will account for it all by circumstances working from generation to generation. But as Mill and Spencer have not been able to get rid of first truths, so no others will and this whether they avow it or no. All processes must conduct to something ultimate. Thought requires a final resting- place, which will be found self-evident, necessary, universal. The age demands that the whole subject be rediscussed, with the view of determining what are the first, the last, and the everlasting principles of thought and truth. Some of those defended by the Scottish metaphysicians may be derivative, but they will be found to imply a root from which they are sprung. {461}

APPENDIX {462} {463}

APPENDIX.

ART. 1. ( 64)

31, 1737. -- I am glad your present situation is agreeable to you. I must insist on your promise of a visit whenever you find honest Mr. Haliday (Mr. Drennan's colleague) in good health, so that he could take the whole bur den for a month or six weeks. Robert Simson, with you and Charles Moor, would be wondrous happy till three in a morning; I would be with you from five to ten. I can write you little news. Our college is very well this year as to numbers and quality of scholars, but the younger classes are less numerous as people here grow less set on a college education for lads designed for business.... I must tell you a shameful story of our college. My letter I wrote from Dublin stopped Clotworthy O'Neal getting his degree upon his first application. He got some folks in this country who are tools of the court to recommend the matter to our principal. He made a compliment of twenty guineas to the college library, and the principal watched an opportunity when there was a thin meeting, but his tools all present, and carried to him a degree in --; that too, only an honorary one, and declared so in the diploma without any certificate for his learning or manners. My dissent is entered in the books, and four more masters decline signing it."

17, 1738 -- Robert Simson, if he were not indolent beyond imagination, could in a fortnight's application finish another book which would surprise the connoisseurs. About November last, I sent a manuscript to Will Bruce chiefly for his and Mr. Abernethy's perusal. He showed it to the Bishop of Derry, who, it seems, is much pleased with it, and promises me a long epistle soon. I heartily wish you had seen it, but it did not