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MECHANICS' MUTUAL INSTRUCTION CLASS.

27

I had been studying in Herschel and others. It was my way all through the numerous essays that I prepared for societies, to choose a difficult subject that I did not fully understand at the moment, but got cleared up, under the strain of being committed to bring it before an audience. After one or two other addresses on Physical subjects, I seem to have made a beginning in Mental topics.

Of course, there was much to be gained from listening to the very various discourses given in the class. There was no lack of either ability or information; and, in the earlier days, there was little of the acrimonious spirit that came out at the later stages. Strict orthodoxy was largely represented; while a small number were inclined to speculations that the others viewed with suspicion. These were chiefly upon Phrenology, which was now in full force in Edinburgh, through the Combes, and had a small number of votaries in Aberdeen. The great rock of offence with the orthodox was its supposed materialism; and its supporters had always to meet this objection, but with little success. I got necessarily involved in the controversy, and so did the Stewarts,-who, if I remember right, were opponents, although they and I, with all our orthodoxy, were entirely free of religious rancour

on that or any other question. Combe's Constitution of Man had great influence at that time; and I think we went cordially along with it, while only partially admitting his phrenological

tenets.

One paper in the class came upon me as a revelation, an essay on Spenser's Faerie Queene. I thought a great deal about it-it was a sort of opening up of the domain of poetry; but I could not then follow the lead.

It was in connexion with the Mechanics' Institution, and this class in particular, that I was first initiated into the forms of business, in which I have all my life taken a very great interest, without being an adept of the highest order.

In every way, this class was a most important contribution to one's life. The zest of it was

enormous.

The close of this year was otherwise eventful. Having resolved on pursuing the study of Latin, I bought the Jesuits' edition of the Principia, and was soon able, by help of the translation, to master, not only the text, but the commentary, and became at last independent of Elgen's copy of Mott. I had to refresh my knowledge of the Conic Sections; with that I got through the first book, and a large part of the second in the latter half of this year.

NOTICED BY THE REV. JOHN MURRAY.

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In the month of November, 1835, I happened to be in the shop of Peter Gray, bookseller, one of the members of the Mechanics' Class, a very able mathematician and a great friend of mine. The Rev. John Murray, minister of the North Parish, in Aberdeen, was in the shop at the time, and overhearing my talk with Gray, got the impression that I must be a precocious youth, and made me come and see him at his house. He recommended me strongly to prepare myself for going to college, my only want being a better knowledge of Latin, in which he offered to assist me in every way; especially, by giving me exercises and correcting them. The session of 1835 had begun, and there was a period of eleven months to the opening of the next in those months it was my business to be sufficiently prepared to go up to the Bursary competition. Mr. Murray also gave me letters of introduction to Dr. Cruickshank of Marischal College, and Professor Tulloch of King's, who both received me with the greatest kindness, each wishing me to come to his college; so that, in the end, I had the embarrassment of preferring one, which was Marischal-a strong motive being that the walks to King's would have entailed an injurious amount of fatigue. Notwithstanding, I made repeated calls upon Professor Tulloch; and he talked with me,

and lent me works on Analytical Geometry and Trigonometry.

I found it necessary, however, to lay aside mathematics for Latin, the time being short. Yet my busy brain could not rest satisfied with the study of a language, do what I would. I worked at Latin with all my might, but also gave some time to the Mechanics' Class. Moreover, it was this year (my eighteenth) that saw me first plunged into proper mental study, which now took the place of Mathematics. I have not memoranda enough to trace the first steps, but I can remember reading, before I went to college, Hume's Treatise of Human Nature. The impression that I retain is proof that I had been thinking on the fundamentals of psychology and metaphysics. I could not refute Hume's Idealism any more than when I first heard of it from the Stewarts. But, from an indistinct recollection, I believe I was dissatisfied with his resolving all the difference between impressions and ideas into intensity alone. Long before this date, I had the habit of frequently watching my trains of thought, and trying to assign the links of connexion in the mind subjectively. I had thus a certain small stock of observations to appeal to in encountering psychological theories in reading. From the memoranda jotted down at the end of 1836, I infer that I had

BEGINNING OF STUDY IN MENTAL SCIENCE.

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now become enthusiastic in the study of mind as a pursuit, and that it more than divided my attention with Mathematics and Natural Philosophy.

Still, the leading events of the year consisted in the study of Latin, which became more singleeyed as the year wore on. Besides Mr. Murray's lessons, I found a private tutor in David Smith— who became a friend afterwards; but, not being much of a classic, he was inefficient in getting me up in Version writing. The grand final stroke was my going to the Grammar School for the three autumn months. This I owe to Mr. Murray's introduction to Melvin, and to Melvin's kindness. He declined a fee, and put me into the fifth class, where I got up surprisingly before the end of the quarter. Mr. Murray had lent me Crombie's Gymnasium, with a Key; and I set to work to commit to memory the Latin of the Key, so as to reproduce it at the sight of the English. The effect was striking and immediate. I got over the tendency to slip into maximus errors almost at a bound, to Melvin's astonishment; but, of course, was far behind in composition generally, and ended about twelfth or fourteenth in the class order from which it was apparent that I should not appear in the Bursary List, this usually consisting of the first ten or twelve in the school, with an exceptional

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