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diff --git a/44949-0.txt b/44949-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3da91b9 --- /dev/null +++ b/44949-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4384 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44949 *** + +Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected +without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have +been retained as printed. Words printed in italics are noted with +underscores: _italics_. + + + + +JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER + + +FAMOUS SCOTS SERIES + + +_The following Volumes are now ready_-- + + THOMAS CARLYLE. By HECTOR C. MACPHERSON + ALLAN RAMSAY. By OLIPHANT SMEATON + HUGH MILLER. By W. KEITH LEASK + JOHN KNOX. By A. TAYLOR INNES + ROBERT BURNS. By GABRIEL SETOUN + THE BALLADISTS. By JOHN GEDDIE + RICHARD CAMERON. By Professor HERKLESS + SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON. By EVE BLANTYRE SIMPSON + THOMAS CHALMERS. By Professor W. GARDEN BLAIKIE + JAMES BOSWELL. By W. KEITH LEASK + TOBIAS SMOLLETT. By OLIPHANT SMEATON + FLETCHER OF SALTOUN. By G. W. T. OMOND + THE BLACKWOOD GROUP. By SIR GEORGE DOUGLAS + NORMAN MACLEOD. By JOHN WELLWOOD + SIR WALTER SCOTT. By Professor SAINTSBURY + KIRKCALDY OF GRANGE. By LOUIS A. BARBÉ + ROBERT FERGUSSON. By A. B. GROSART + JAMES THOMSON. By WILLIAM BAYNE + MUNGO PARK. By T. BANKS MACLACHLAN + DAVID HUME. By Professor CALDERWOOD + WILLIAM DUNBAR. By OLIPHANT SMEATON + SIR WILLIAM WALLACE. By Professor MURISON + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. By MARGARET MOYES BLACK + THOMAS REID. By Professor CAMPBELL FRASER + POLLOK and AYTOUN. By ROSALINE MASSON + ADAM SMITH. By HECTOR C. MACPHERSON + ANDREW MELVILLE. By WILLIAM MORRISON + JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER. By E. S. HALDANE + + + + +JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER + + +BY + +E. S. HALDANE + + +FAMOUS SCOTS SERIES + +PUBLISHED BY OLIPHANT ANDERSON & FERRIER +EDINBURGH AND LONDON + + +The designs and ornaments of this volume are by Mr. Joseph Brown, and +the printing from the press of Morrison & Gibb Limited, Edinburgh. + +1899. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + +INTRODUCTION 7 + + +CHAPTER I + +EARLY LIFE 11 + + +CHAPTER II + +WANDERJAHRE--SOCIAL LIFE IN SCOTLAND--BEGINNING OF +HIS LITERARY WORK 27 + + +CHAPTER III + +PHILOSOPHY BEFORE FERRIER'S DAY 41 + + +CHAPTER IV + +'FIERCE WARRES AND FAITHFUL LOVES' 56 + + +CHAPTER V + +DEVELOPMENT OF 'SCOTTISH PHILOSOPHY, THE OLD AND THE +NEW'--FERRIER AS A CORRESPONDENT 72 + + +CHAPTER VI + +FERRIER'S SYSTEM OF PHILOSOPHY--HIS PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS 88 + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE COLERIDGE PLAGIARISM--MISCELLANEOUS LITERARY WORK 106 + + +CHAPTER VIII + +PROFESSORIAL LIFE 122 + + +CHAPTER IX + +LIFE AT ST. ANDREWS 138 + + +CHAPTER X + +LAST DAYS 152 + + + + +JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +Mr. Oliphant Smeaton has asked me to write a few words of preface to +this little book. If I try, it is only because I am old enough to have +had the privilege of knowing some of those who were most closely +associated with Ferrier. + +When I sat at the feet of Professor Campbell Fraser in the Metaphysics +classroom at Edinburgh in 1875, Ferrier's writings were being much read +by us students. The influence of Sir William Hamilton was fast +crumbling in the minds of young men who felt rather than saw that much +lay beyond it. We were still engrossed with the controversy, waged in +books which now, alas! sell for a tenth of their former price, about +the Conditioned and the Unconditioned. We still worked at Reid, +Hamilton, and Mansel. But the attacks of Mill on the one side, and of +Ferrier and Dr. Stirling on the other, were slowly but surely +withdrawing our interest. Ferrier had pointed out a path which seemed +to lead us in the direction of Germany if we would escape from Mill, +and Stirling was urging us in the same sense. It was not merely that +Ferrier had written books. He had died more than ten years earlier, but +his personality was still a living influence. Echoes of his words came +to us through Grant and Sellar. Outside the University, men like +Blackwood and Makgill made us feel what a power he had been. But that +was not all for at least some of us. Mrs. Ferrier had removed to +Edinburgh--and I endorse all that my sister says of her rare quality. +She lived in a house in Torphichen Street, which was the resort of +those attracted, not only by the memory of her husband, but by her own +great gifts. She was an old lady and an invalid. But though she could +not move from her chair, paralysis had not dimmed her mental powers. +She was a true daughter of 'Christopher North.' I doubt whether I have +seen her rival in quickness, her superior I never saw. She could talk +admirably to those sitting near her, and yet follow and join in the +conversation of another group at the end of the room. She could adapt +herself to everyone--to the shy and awkward student of eighteen, who +like myself was too much in awe of her to do more unhelped than answer, +and to the distinguished men of letters who came from every quarter +attracted by her reputation for brilliance. The words of no one could +be more incisive, the words of no one were habitually more kind than +hers. She had known everybody. She forgot nobody. In those days the +relation between Literature and the Parliament House, if less close +than it had been, was more apparent than it is to-day, and +distinguished Scottish judges and advocates mingled in the afternoon in +the drawing-room, where she sat in a great arm-chair, with such men as +Sellar and Stevenson and Grant and Shairp and Tulloch. But her +personality was the supreme bond. + +Those days are over, and with them has passed away much of what +stimulated one to read in the _Institutes_ or the _Philosophical +Remains_. But for the historian of British philosophy Ferrier +continues as a prominent figure. He it was who first did, what Stirling +and Green did again at a stage later on--make a serious appeal to +thoughtful people to follow no longer the shallow rivulets down which +the teaching of the great German thinkers had trickled to them, but to +seek the sources. If as a guide to those sources we do not look on him +to-day as adequate, we are not the less under a deep obligation to him +for having been the pioneer of later guides. What Ferrier wrote about +forty years ago has now become readily accessible, and what has been +got by going there is in process of rapid and complete assimilation. +The opinions which were in 1856 regarded by the authorities of the Free +and United Presbyterian Churches as disqualifying Ferrier for the +opportunity of influencing the mind of the youth of Edinburgh, from the +Chair of Logic and Metaphysics in succession to Sir William Hamilton, +are regarded by the present generation of Presbyterians as the main +reliable bulwark against the attacks of unbelievers. If one may judge +by the essays in the recent volume called _Lux Mundi_, the same +phenomenon displays itself among the young High Church party in +England. The Time-Spirit is fond of revenges. + +But even for others than the historians of the movement of Thought the +books of Ferrier remain attractive. There is about them a certain +atmosphere in which everything seems alive and fresh. Their author was +no Dryasdust. He was a living human being, troubled as we are troubled, +and interested in the things which interest us. He spoke to us, not +from the skies, but from among a crowd of his fellow human beings, and +we feel that he was one of ourselves. As such it is good that a +memorial of him should be placed where it may easily be seen. + +R. B. HALDANE. + + + + +CHAPTER I + +EARLY LIFE + + +It may be a truism, but it is none the less a fact, that it is not +always he of whom the world hears most who influences most deeply the +thought of the age in which he lives. The name of James Frederick +Ferrier is little heard of beyond the comparatively small circle of +philosophic thinkers who reverence his memory and do their best to keep +it green: to others it is a name of little import--one among a +multitude at a time when Scotland had many sons rising up to call her +blessed, and not perhaps one of the most notable of these. And yet, +could we but estimate the value of work accomplished in the higher +sphere of thought as we estimate it in the other regions of practical +work--an impossibility, of course--we might be disposed to modify our +views, and accord our praises in very different quarters from those in +which they are usually bestowed. + +James Ferrier wrote no popular books; he came before the public +comparatively little; he made no effort to reconcile religion with +philosophy on the one hand, or to propound theories startling in their +unorthodoxy on the other. And still we may claim for him a place--and +an honourable place--amongst the other Famous Scots, for the simple +reason that after a long century of wearisome reiteration of tiresome +platitudes--platitudes which had lost their original meaning even to +the utterers of them, and which had become misleading to those who +heard and thought they understood--Ferrier had the courage to strike +out new lines for himself, to look abroad for new inspiration, and to +hand on these inspirations to those who could work them into a truly +national philosophy. + +In Scotland, where, in spite of politics, traditions are honoured to a +degree unknown to most other countries, family and family associations +count for much; and in these James Ferrier was rich. His father was a +Writer to the Signet, John Ferrier by name, whose sister was the famous +Scottish novelist, Susan Ferrier, authoress of _The Inheritance_, +_Destiny_, and _Marriage_. Susan Ferrier did for high life in Scotland +what Gait achieved for the humbler ranks of society, and attained to +considerable eminence in the line of fiction which she adopted. Her +works are still largely read, have recently been republished, and in +their day were greatly admired by no less an authority than Sir Walter +Scott, himself a personal friend of the authoress.[1] Ferrier's +grandfather, James Ferrier, also a Writer to the Signet, was a man of +great energy of character. He acted in a business capacity for many +years both to the Duke of Argyle of the time and to various branches of +the Clan Campbell: it was, indeed, through the influence of the Duke +that he obtained the appointment which he held of Principal Clerk of +Session. James Ferrier, like his daughter, was on terms of intimate +friendship with Sir Walter Scott, with whom he likewise was a colleague +in office. Scott alludes to him in his Journal as 'Uncle Adam,' the +name of a character in Miss Ferrier's _Inheritance_, drawn, as she +herself acknowledges, from her father. He died in 1829, at which time +Scott writes of him: 'Honest old Mr. Ferrier is dead, at extreme old +age. I confess I should not like to live so long. He was a man with +strong passions and strong prejudices, but with generous and manly +sentiments at the same time.' James Ferrier's wife, Miss Coutts, was +remarkable for her beauty: a large family was born to her, the eldest +son of whom was James Frederick Ferrier's father. Young Ferrier, the +subject of this sketch, used frequently to dine with his grandfather at +his house in Morningside, where Susan Ferrier acted in the capacity of +hostess; and it is easy to imagine the bright talk which would take +place on these occasions, and the impression which must have been made +upon the lad, both then and after he attained to manhood; for Miss +Ferrier survived until 1854. In later life, indeed, her wit was said to +be somewhat caustic, and she was possibly dreaded by her younger +friends and relatives as much as she was respected; but this, to do her +justice, was partly owing to infirmities. She was at anyrate keenly +interested in the fortunes of her nephew, to whom she was in the habit +of alluding as 'the last of the metaphysicians'--scarcely, perhaps, a +very happy title for one who was somewhat of an iconoclast, and began a +new era rather than concluded an old. + + [1] In a _Life of Susan Ferrier_, lately published, an + account of the family is given which was written by Miss + Ferrier, for her nephew, the subject of our memoir. + +James Frederick Ferrier's mother, Margaret Wilson, was a sister of +Professor John Wilson--the 'Christopher North' of immortal memory, +whose daughter he was afterwards to marry. Margaret Ferrier was a woman +of striking personal beauty. Her features were perfect in their +symmetry, as is shown in a lovely miniature, painted by Saunders, a +well-known miniature painter of the day, now in the possession of +Professor Ferrier's son, her grandson. Many of these personal charms +descended to James Ferrier, whose well-cut features bore considerable +resemblance to his mother's. And his close connection with the Wilson +family had the result of bringing the young man into association with +whatever was best in literature and art. While yet a boy, we are told, +he sat upon Sir Walter's knee; the Ettrick Shepherd had told him tales +and recited Border ballads; while Lockhart took the trouble to draw +pictures, as he only could, to amuse the child. + +In surroundings such as these James Frederick Ferrier was born on the +16th day of June 1808, his birthplace being Heriot Row, in the new town +of Edinburgh--a street which has been made historic to us by the +recollections of another child who lived there long years afterwards, +and who left the grey city of his birth to die far off in an island in +the Pacific. But of Ferrier's child-life we know nothing: whether he +played at 'tig' or 'shinty' with the children in the adjoining gardens, +or climbed Arthur's Seat, or tried to scale the 'Cats' Nick' in the +Salisbury Crags close by; or whether he was a grave boy, 'holding at' +his lessons, or reading other books that interested him, in preference +to his play. Ferrier did not dwell on these things or talk much of his +youth; or if he did so, his words have been forgotten. What we do +know are the barest facts: that his second name was given him in +consideration of his father's friendship with Lord Frederick Campbell, +Lord Clerk Register of Scotland; that his first name, as is usual in +Scotland for an elder son, was his paternal grandfather's; and that he +was sent to live with the Rev. Dr. Duncan, the parish minister of +Ruthwell, in Dumfriesshire, to receive his early education. Dr. Duncan +of Ruthwell was a man of considerable ability and energy of character, +though not famous in any special sphere of learning. He is well known, +however, in the south of Scotland as the originator of Savings Banks +there, and his works on the Seasons bear evidence of an interest in the +natural world. At anyrate the time passed in Dumfriesshire would appear +to have left pleasant recollections; for when Ferrier in later life +alluded to it, it was with every indication of gratitude for the +instruction which he received. He kept up his friendship with the sons +of his instructor as years went on, and always expressed himself as +deeply attached to the place where a happy childhood had been passed. +Nor was learning apparently neglected, for Ferrier began his Latin +studies at Ruthwell, and there first learned--an unusual lesson for so +young a boy--to delight in the reading of the Latin poets, and of +Virgil and Ovid in particular. After leaving Ruthwell, he attended the +High School of Edinburgh, the great Grammar School of the metropolis, +which was, however, soon to have a rival in another day school set up +in the western part of the rapidly growing town; and then he was sent +to school at Greenwich, where he was placed under the care of Dr. +Burney, a nephew of the famous Fanny Burney, afterwards Madame +d'Arblay. From school, as the manner of the time was, the boy passed to +the University of Edinburgh at the age of seventeen,--older really than +was customary in his day,--and here he remained for the two sessions +1825-26 and 1826-27, or until he was old enough to matriculate at +Oxford. At Edinburgh, Ferrier distinguished himself in the class of +Moral Philosophy, and carried off the prize of the year for a poem +which was looked upon as giving promise of literary power afterwards +fulfilled. His knowledge of Latin and Greek were considered good (the +standard might not have been very high), but in mathematics he was +nowhere. At Oxford he was entered in 1828 as a 'gentleman-commoner' at +Magdalen College, the College of his future father-in-law, John Wilson. +A gentleman-commoner of Magdalen in the earlier half of the century is +not suggestive of severe mental exercise,[2] and from the very little +one can gather from tradition--for contemporaries and friends have +naturally passed away--James Ferrier was no exception to the common +rule. That he rode is very clear; the College was an expensive one, +and he was probably inclined to be extravagant. Tradition speaks of +his pelting the deer in Magdalen Park with eggs; but as to further +distinction in more intellectual lines, record does not tell. In this +respect he presents a contrast to his predecessor at Oxford, and friend +of later days, Sir William Hamilton, whose monumental learning created +him a reputation while still an undergraduate. Sir Roundell Palmer, +afterwards Lord Selborne, was a contemporary of Ferrier's at Oxford; +Sheriff Campbell Smith was at the bar of the House of Lords acting as +Palmer's junior the day after Ferrier's death, and Sir Roundell told +him that he remembered Ferrier well at College; he described him as +'careless about University work,' but as writing clever verses, several +of which he repeated with considerable gusto. Of other friends the +names alone are preserved, William Edward Collins, afterwards +Collins-Wood of Keithick, Perthshire, who died in 1877, and J. P. +Shirley of Ettington Park, in Warwickshire;[3] but what influences were +brought to bear upon him by his University life, or whether his +interest in philosophical pursuits were in any way aroused during his +time at College, we have no means of telling. A later friend, Henry +Inglis, wrote of these early days: 'My friendship with Ferrier began +about the time he was leaving Oxford, or immediately after he had left +it--I should say about 1830 or thereabout. At that University I don't +think he did anything more remarkable than contracting a large tailor's +bill; which annoyed him for many years afterwards. At that time he was +a wonderfully handsome, intellectual-looking young man,--a tremendous +"swell" from top to toe, and with his hair hanging down over his +shoulders.' Though later on in life this last characteristic was not so +marked, Ferrier's photographs show his hair still fairly long and +brushed off a finely-modelled square forehead, such as is usually +associated with strongly developed intellectual faculties. + + [2] The gentlemen-commoners at Magdalen, as elsewhere, paid + higher fees and wore a distinctive costume; at Magdalen they + had a common room of their own, distinct from that of the + Fellows, or the Demies or Scholars, and seldom read for + honours. In Ferrier's days Magdalen College admitted no + ordinary commoners, and there were but few resident + undergraduates, many of the thirty demies being graduates + and non-resident. In the year of his matriculation there + were only ten gentlemen-commoners; thus, as far as + undergraduates went, the College was a small one. + + [3] Mr. Shirley was Member of Parliament for South + Warwickshire, a well-known genealogist, and the author of + _The Noble and Gentle Men of England_. + +It is known that Ferrier took his Bachelor's degree in 1832, and that +he had by that time managed to acquire a very tolerable knowledge of +the classics and begun to study philosophy, so that his time could not +have been entirely idle. For the rest, he probably passed happily +through his years at College, as many others have done before and after +him, without allowing more weighty cares to dwell upon his mind. +Another friend of after days, the late Principal Tulloch, after noting +the fact that Oxford had not then developed the philosophic spirit +which in recent years has marked her schools, and which had not then +taken root any more than the High Church movement which preceded it, +goes on: 'It may be doubted, indeed, whether Oxford exercised any +definite intellectual influence on Professor Ferrier. He had imbibed +his love for the Latin poets before he went there, and his devotion to +Greek philosophy was an after-growth with which he never associated his +Magdalen studies. To one who visited the College with him many years +afterwards, and to whom he pointed out with admiration its noble walks +and trees, his associations with the place seemed to be mainly those of +amusement. There is reason to think that few of those who knew him at +Magdalen would have afterwards recognised him in the laborious student +at St. Andrews, who for weeks together would scarcely cross the +threshold of his study; and yet to all who knew him well, there was +nevertheless a clear connection between the gay gownsman and the +hard-working Professor.' + +In 1832, Ferrier became an advocate at Edinburgh, but it does not +appear that he had any serious idea of practising at the Bar. This is +the period at which we know that the passion for metaphysical +speculation laid hold of him,--a passion which is unintelligible and +inexplicable to those who do not share in it,--and as Ferrier could not +clearly say in what direction this was leading him, as far as practical +life was concerned, he probably deemed it best to attach himself to a +profession which left much scope to the adopter of it, to strike out +lines of his own. What led Ferrier to determine to spend some months of +the year 1834 at Heidelberg it would be extremely interesting to know. +The friend first quoted writes: 'I cannot tell of the influences under +which he devoted himself to metaphysics. My opinion is that there were +none, but that he was a philosopher born. He attached himself at once +to the fellowship of Sir William Hamilton, to whom he was introduced by +a common friend--I think the late Mr. Ludovic Colquhoun. I know that he +looked on Sir William at that time as his master.' + +Probably the friendship with Hamilton simply arose from the natural +attraction which two sympathetic spirits feel to one another. It is +clear that at this time Ferrier's bent was towards metaphysics, and +that, as Mr. Inglis says, this bent was born with him and was only +beginning to find its natural outlet; therefore it would be very +natural to suppose that acquaintance would be sought with one who was +at this time in the zenith of his powers, and whose writings in the +_Edinburgh Review_ were exciting liveliest interest. A casual +acquaintanceship between the young man of three-and-twenty and the +matured philosopher twenty years his senior soon ripened into a +friendship, not perhaps common between two men so different in age. It +is perhaps more remarkable considering the differences in opinion on +philosophical questions which soon arose between the two; for it is +just as difficult for those whose point of view is fundamentally +opposed on speculative questions to carry on an intercourse concerning +their pursuits which shall be both friendly and unconstrained, as for +two political opponents to discuss vital questions of policy without +any undercurrent of self-restraint, when they start from entirely +opposite principles. Most likely had the two been actually +contemporaries it might not have been so easy, but as it was, the +younger man started with, and preserved, the warmest feelings to his +senior; and even in his criticisms he expresses himself in the +strongest terms of gratitude: 'He (Hamilton) has taught those who study +him to _think_, and he must take the consequences, whether they think +in unison with himself or not. We conceive, however, that even those +who differ from him most, would readily own that to his instructive +disquisitions they were indebted for at least half of all they know of +philosophy.' And in the appendix to the _Institutes_, written soon +after Sir William's death, Ferrier says: 'Morally and intellectually, +Sir William Hamilton was among the greatest of the great. A simpler and +a grander nature never arose out of darkness into human life; a truer +and a manlier character God never made. For years together scarcely a +day passed in which I was not in his company for hours, and never on +this earth may I expect to live such happy hours again. I have learned +more from him than from all other philosophers put together; more, both +as regards what I assented to and what I dissented from.' It was this +open and free discussion of all questions that came before +them--discussion in which there must have been much difference of +opinion freely expressed on both sides, that made these evenings spent +in Manor Place, where the Hamiltons, then a recently married couple, +had lately settled, so delightful to young Ferrier. He had +individuality and originality enough not to be carried away by the +arguments used by so great an authority and so learned a man as his +friend was reckoned, and then as later he constantly expressed his +regret that powers so great had been devoted to the service of a +philosophic system--that of Reid--of which Ferrier so thoroughly +disapproved. But at the same time he hardly dared to expect that the +labours of a lifetime could be set aside at the bidding of a man so +much his junior, and to say the truth it is doubtful whether Hamilton +ever fully grasped his opponent's point of view. Still, Ferrier tells +us that from first to last his whole intercourse with Sir William +Hamilton was marked with more pleasure and less pain than ever attended +his intercourse with any human being, and after Hamilton was gone he +cherished that memory with affectionate esteem. A touching account is +given in Sir William's life of how during that terrible illness which +so sadly impaired his powers and nearly took his life, Ferrier might be +seen pacing to and fro on the street opposite his bedroom window during +the whole anxious night, watching for indications of his condition, yet +unwilling to intrude on the attendants, and unable to tear himself from +the spot where his friend was possibly passing through the last agony. +Such friendship is honourable to both men concerned. + +Perhaps, then, it was this intercourse with kindred spirits (for many +such were in the habit of gathering at the Professor's house) that +caused Ferrier finally to determine to make philosophy the pursuit of +his life--this combined, it may be, with the interest in letters which +he could not fail to derive from his own immediate circle. He was in +constant communication with Susan Ferrier, his aunt, who encouraged his +literary bent to the utmost of her power. Then Professor Wilson, his +uncle, though of a very different character from his own, attracted him +by his brightness and wit--a brightness which he says he can hardly +bring before himself, far less communicate to others who had not known +him. Perhaps, as the same friend quoted before suggests, the attraction +was partly due to another source. He says: 'How Ferrier got on with +Wilson I never could divine; unless it were through the bright eyes of +his daughter. Wilson and Ferrier seemed to me as opposite as the poles; +the one all poetry, the other all prose. But the youth probably yielded +to the mature majesty and genius of the man. Had they met on equal +terms I don't think they could have agreed for ten minutes. As it was, +they had serious differences at times, which, however, I believe were +all ultimately and happily adjusted.' + +The visits to his uncle's home, and the attractive young lady whom he +there met, must have largely contributed to Ferrier's happiness in +these years of mental fermentation. Such times come in many men's lives +when youth is turning into manhood, and powers are wakening up within +that seem as though they would lead us we know not whither. And so it +may have been with Ferrier. But he was endowed with considerable +calmness and self-command, combined with a confidence in his powers +sufficient to carry him through many difficulties that might otherwise +have got the better of him. Wilson's home, Elleray, near the Lake of +Windermere, was the centre of a circle of brilliant stars. Ferrier +recollected, while still a lad of seventeen years of age, meeting there +at one time, in the summer of 1825, Scott, Wordsworth, Lockhart, and +Canning, a conjunction difficult to beat.[4] Once more, we are told, +and on a sadder occasion, he came into association with the greatest +Scottish novelist. 'It was on that gloomy voyage when the suffering man +was conveyed to Leith from London, on his return from his ill-fated +foreign journey. Mr. Ferrier was also a passenger, and scarcely dared +to look on the almost unconscious form of one whose genius he so warmly +admired.' The end was then very near. + + [4] This meeting occurred after the Irish tour of Scott, + Miss Anne Scott, and Lockhart, when they visited Wilson at + Elleray. Canning was staying at Storre, in the + neighbourhood. + +Professor Ferrier's daughter tells us that long after, in the summer of +1856, the family went to visit the English Lakes, the centre of +attraction being Elleray, Mr. Ferrier's old home and birthplace. 'The +very name of Elleray breathes of poetry and romance. Our father and +mother had, of course, known it in its glorious prime, when our +grandfather, "Christopher North," wrestled with dalesmen, strolled in +his slippers with Wordsworth to Keswick (a distance of seventeen +miles), and kept his ten-oared barge in the long drawing-room of +Elleray. In these days they had "rich company," and the names of +Southey, Wordsworth, De Quincey, and Coleridge were to them familiar +household words. The cottage my mother was born in still stands, +overshadowed by a giant sycamore.' + +We can easily imagine the effect which society such as this would have +on a young man's mind. But more than that, the friendship with the +attractive cousin, Margaret Wilson, developed into something warmer, +and an engagement was finally formed, which culminated in his marriage +in 1837. Not many of James Ferrier's letters to his cousin during the +long engagement have been preserved; the few that are were written from +Germany in 1834, the year in which he went to Heidelberg; they were +addressed to Thirlstane House, near Selkirk, where Miss Wilson was +residing, and they give a lively account of his adventures. + +The voyage from Leith to Rotterdam, judging from the first letter +written from Heidelberg, and dated August 1834, would appear to have +begun in inauspicious fashion. Ferrier writes: 'I have just been here a +week, and would have answered your letter sooner, had it not been that +I wished to make myself tolerably well acquainted with the surrounding +scenery before writing to you, and really the heat has been so +overwhelming that I have been impelled to take matters leisurely, and +have not even yet been able to get through so much _view-hunting_ as I +should have wished. What I have seen I will endeavour to describe to +you. This place itself is most delightful, and the country about it is +magnificent. But this, as a reviewer would say, _by way of +anticipation_. Have patience, and in the meantime let me take events in +their natural order, and begin by telling you I sailed from Leith on +the morning of the second of this month, with no wind at all. We +drifted on, I know not how, and toward evening were within gunshot of +Inchkeith; on the following morning we were in sight of the Bass, and +in sight of the same we continued during the whole day. For the next +two or three days we went beating up against a head-wind, which forced +us to tack so much that whenever we made one mile we travelled ten, a +pleasant mode of progressing, is it not? However, I had the whole ship +to myself, and plenty of female society in the person of the captain's +lady, who, being fond of pleasure, had chosen to diversify her +monotonous existence at Leith by taking a delightful summer trip to +Rotterdam, which confined her to her crib during almost the whole of +our passage under the pressure of racking headaches and roaring +sickness. She had a weary time of it, poor woman, and nothing could do +her any good--neither spelding, cheese, nor finnan haddies, nor bacon, +nor broth, nor salt beef, nor ale, nor gin, nor brandy and water, nor +Epsom salts, though of one or other of these she was _aye takin'_ a wee +bit, or a little drop. We were nearly a week in clearing our own Firth, +and did no good till we got as far as Scarborough. At this place I had +serious intentions of getting ashore if possible, and making out the +rest of my journey by means that were more to be depended on. Just in +the nick of time, however, a fair wind sprang up, and from Scarborough +we had a capital run, with little or no interruption, to the end of our +voyage.' An account of a ten days' voyage which makes us thankful to be +in great measure independent of the winds at sea! Holland, our +traveller thinks an intolerable country to live in, and the first +impressions of the Rhine are distinctly unfavourable. 'The river +himself is a fine fellow, certainly, but the country through which he +flows is stale, flat, though I believe, not unprofitable. The banks on +either side are covered either with reeds or with a matting of rank +shrubbery formed apparently out of dirty green worsted, and the +continuance of it so palls upon the senses that the mind at last +becomes unconscious of everything except the constant flap-flapping of +the weary paddles as they go beating on, awakening the dull echoes of +the sedgy shores. The eye is occasionally relieved by patches of naked +sand, and now and then a stone about the size of your fist, diversifies +the monotony of the scene. Occasionally, in the distance, are to be +seen funny, forlorn-looking objects, trying evidently to look like +trees, but whether they would really turn out to be trees on a nearer +inspection is what I very much doubt.' At Cologne he had an amusing +meeting with an Englishman, 'whom I at once twigged to be an Oxford +man, and more, even, an Oxford tutor. There is a stiff twitch in the +right shoulder of the tribe, answering to a similar one in the hip-bone +on the same side, which there is no mistaking.' The tutor appears to +have done valiant service in making known the traveller's wants in +French to waiters, etc., though 'he spent rather too much of his time +in scheming how to abridge the sixpence which, "time out of mind," has +been the perquisite of Boots, doorkeepers, etc.' 'But,' he adds in +excuse, 'his name was Bull, and therefore, as the authentic epitome of +his countrymen, he would not fail to possess this along with the other +peculiarities of Englishmen.' From Cologne, Ferrier went to Bonn, where +he had an introduction to Dr. Welsh, and then proceeded up the Rhine to +Mayence. He does not form a very high estimate of the beauty of the +scenery. He feels 'a want of something; in fact, to my mind, there is a +want of everything which makes earth, wood, and water something more +than mere water, wood, and earth. We have here a constant and endless +variety of imposing objects (imposing is just the word for them), but +there is no variety in them, nothing but one round-backed hill after +another, generally carrying their woods, when they have any, very +stiffly, and when they have none presenting to the eye a surface of +tawdry and squalid patchwork,' thus suggesting, in his view, a series +of children's gardens--an impression often left on travellers when +visiting this same country. His next letters find him settled in the +University town of Heidelberg. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +WANDERJAHRE--SOCIAL LIFE IN SCOTLAND--BEGINNING OF HIS LITERARY LIFE + + +In the present century in Germany we have seen a period of almost +unparalleled literary glory succeeded by a time of great commercial +prosperity and national enthusiasm. But when Ferrier visited that +country in 1834 the era of its intellectual greatness had hardly passed +away; some, at least, of its stars remained, and others had very +recently ceased to be. Goethe had died just two years before, but Heine +lived till many years afterwards; amongst the philosophers, though Kant +and Fichte, of course, were long since gone, Schelling was still at +work at Munich, and Hegel lived at Berlin till November of 1831, when +he was cut off during an epidemic of cholera. Most of the great men had +disappeared, and yet the memory of their achievements still survived, +and the impetus they gave to thought could not have been lost. The +traditional lines of speculation consistently carried out since +Reformation days had survived war and national calamity, and it +remained to be seen whether the greater tests of prosperity and success +would be as triumphantly undergone. + +We can imagine Ferrier's feelings when this new world opened up before +him, a Scottish youth, to whom it was a new, untrodden country. It may +be true that it was his literary rather than his speculative affinities +that first attracted him to Germany. To form in literature he always +attached the greatest value, and to the end his interest in letters was +only second to his attachment to philosophy. German poetry was to him +what it was to so many of the youth of the country from which it +came--the expression of their deepest, and likewise of their freshest +aspiration. The poetry of other countries and other tongues--English +and Latin, for example--meant much to him, but that of Germany was +nearest to his heart. French learning did not attract him; neither its +literature nor its metaphysics and psychological method appealed to his +thoughtful, analytic mind; but in Germany he found a nation which had +not as yet resigned its interest in things of transcendental import in +favour of what pertained to mere material welfare. + +Such was the Germany into which Ferrier came in 1834. He did not, so +far as we can hear, enter deeply into its social life; he visited it as +a traveller, rather than as a student, and his stay in it was brief. +Considering the shortness of his time there, and the circumstances of +his visit, the impression that it made upon him is all the more +remarkable, for it was an impression that lasted and was evident +throughout all his after life. Since his day, indeed, it would be +difficult to say how many young Scotsmen have been impressed in a +similar way by a few months' residence at a University town in Germany. +For partly owing to Ferrier's own efforts, and perhaps even more owing +to the 'boom'--to use a vulgarism--brought about by Carlyle's writings, +and by his first making known the marvels of German literature to the +ordinary English-speaking public, who had never learned the language or +tried to understand its recent history, the old traditional literary +alliance between Scotland and France appeared for the time being to +have broken down in favour of a similar association with its rival +country, Germany. The work of Goethe was at last appreciated, nothing +was now too favourable to say about its merits; philosophy was suddenly +discovered to have its home in Germany, and there alone; our insularity +in keeping to our antiquated methods--dryasdust, we were told, as the +old ones of the schools, and perhaps as edifying--was vigorously +denounced. Theology, which had hitherto found complete support from the +philosophic system which acted as her handmaid, and was only tolerated +as such, was naturally affected in like manner by the change; and to +her credit be it said, that instead of with averted eyes looking +elsewhere, as might easily have been done, she determined to face the +worst, and wisely asked the question whether in her department too she +had not something she could learn from a sister country across the sea. +Hence a great change was brought about in the mental attitude of +Scotland; but we anticipate. + +Ferrier, after leaving Heidelberg, paid a short visit to Leipzig, and +then for a few weeks took up his abode at Berlin. From Leipzig he +writes to Miss Wilson again: 'How do you like an _epistola_ dated from +this great emporium of taste and letters, this culminating point of +Germanism, where waggons jostle philosophy, and tobacco-impregnated air +is articulated into divinest music? It is fair-time, and I did not +arrive, as one usually does, a day _behind_ it, but on the very day it +commenced. It will last, I believe, some weeks, and during that time +all business is done on the open streets, which are lined on each side +with large wooden booths, and are swarming with men and merchandise of +every description and from every quarter of the world. It very much +resembles a _Ladies' Sale_ in the Assembly Rooms (what I never saw), +only the ladies here are frequently Jews with fierce beards, and have +always a pipe in their mouths when not eating or drinking. As you walk +along you will find the order of the day to be somewhat as follows. You +first come to pipes, then shawls, then nails, then pipes, pipes again, +pipes, gingerbread, dolls, then pipes, bridles, spurs, pipes, books, +warming-pans, pipes, china, writing-desks, pipes again, pipes, pipes, +pipes, nothing but pipes--the very pen will write nothing but pipes. +Pipes, you see, decidedly carry it. I wonder they don't erect public +tobacco-smoke works, lay _pipes_ for it along the streets, and smoke +away--a city at a time. Private families might take it in as we do +gas!' + +Ferrier appears to have spent a week at Frankfort before reaching his +destination at Leipzig. He describes his journey there: 'At Frankfort I +saw nothing worthy of note except a divine statue of Ariadne riding on +a leopard. After lumbering along for two nights and two days in a +clumsy diligence, I reached Leipzig two days ago. I thought that by the +way I might perhaps see something worthy of mention, and accordingly +sometimes put my head out of the window to look. But no--the trees, for +instance, had all to a man planted their heads in the earth, and were +growing with their legs upwards, just as they do with us; and as for +the natives, they, on the contrary, had each of them filled a +flower-pot, called a skull, full of earth, put their heads in it, and +were growing _downwards_, just as the same animal does in our country; +and on coming to one's recollection in the morning in a German +diligence you find yourself surrounded by the same drowsy, idiotical, +glazed, stained, and gummy complement of faces which might have +accompanied you into Carlisle on an autumn morning after a night of +travel in His Majesty's mail coach.' + +Berlin impressed Ferrier by its imposing public buildings and general +aspect of prosperity. It had, of course, long before reached a position +of importance under the great Frederick's government, though not the +importance or the size that it afterwards attained. Still, it was the +centre of attraction for all classes throughout Prussia, and possessed +a cultivated society in which the middle-class element was to all +appearances predominant. Ferrier writes of the town: 'Of the inside of +the buildings and what is to be seen there I have nothing yet to say, +but their external aspect is most magnificent. Palaces, churches, +mosque-like structures, spires and domes and towers all standing +together, but with large spaces and fine open drives between, so that +all are seen to the greatest possible advantage, conspire to form a +most glorious city. At this moment a fountain which I can see from my +window is playing in the middle of the square. A _jet d'eau_ indeed!! +It may do very well for a Frenchman to call it that, but we must call +it a perfect volcano of water. A huge column goes hissing up as high as +a steeple, with the speed and force of a rocket, and comes down in +thunder, and little rainbows are flitting about in the showery spray. +It being Sunday, every thing and person is gayer than usual. Bands are +playing and soldiers are parading all through the town; everything, +indeed, is military, and yet little is foppish--a statement which to +English ears will sound like a direct contradiction.' + +Our traveller had been given letters to certain Berlin Professors from +young Blackie, afterwards Professor of Greek in Edinburgh University, +who had just translated Goethe's _Faust_ into the English tongue. 'I +went about half an hour ago to call upon a sort of Professor here to +whom I had a letter and a _Faust_ to present from Blackie--found him +ill and confined to bed--was admitted, however, very well received, and +shall call again when I think there is a chance of his being better. I +have still another Professor to call on with a letter and book from +Blackie, and there my acquaintance with the society of Berlin is likely +to terminate.' One other introduction to Ferrier on this expedition to +Germany is mentioned in a note from his aunt, Miss Susan Ferrier, the +only letter to her nephew that has apparently been preserved: whether +or not he availed himself of the offer, history does not record. It +runs as follows:-- + + 'EDINR., _1st August_. + + 'I could not get a letter to Lord Corehouse's German sister + (Countess Purgstall), as it seems she is in bad health, and not fit + to entertain vagabonds; but I enclose a very kind one from my + friend, Mrs. Erskine, to the ambassadress at Munich, and if you + don't go there you may send it by post, as it will be welcome at + any time on its own account.' + +It was, as has been said, only about three years previously to this +visit that Hegel had passed away at Berlin, and one wonders whether +Ferrier first began to interest himself in his writings at this time, +and whether he visited the graveyard near the city gate where Hegel +lies, close to his great predecessor Fichte. One would almost think +this last was so from the exact description given in his short +biography of Hegel; and it is significant that on his return he brought +with him a medallion and a photograph of the great philosopher. This +would seem to indicate that his thoughts were already tending in the +direction of Hegelian metaphysics, but how far this was so we cannot +tell. Certainly the knowledge of the German language acquired by +Ferrier during this visit to the country proved most valuable to him, +and enabled him to study its philosophy at a time when translations +were practically non-existent, and few had learned to read it. That +knowledge must indeed have been tolerably complete, for in 1851, when +Sir Edward Bulwer (afterwards Lord Lytton) was about to republish his +translation of Schiller's Ballads, he corresponded with Ferrier +regarding the accuracy and exactness of his work. He afterwards, in the +preface to the volume, acknowledges the great services Ferrier had +rendered; and in dedicating the book to him, speaks of the debt of +gratitude he owes to one whose 'critical judgment and skill in +detecting the finer shades of meaning in the original' had been so +useful. Ferrier likewise has the credit, accorded him by De Quincey, of +having corrected several errors in _all_ the English translations of +_Faust_ then extant--errors which were not merely literary +inaccuracies, but which also detracted from the vital sense of the +original. As to Lord Lytton, Ferrier must at this time have been +interested in his writings; for in a letter to Miss Wilson, he advises +her to read Bulwer's _Pilgrims of the Rhine_ if she wishes for a +description of the scenery, and speaks of the high esteem with which he +was regarded by the Germans. + +It was in 1837 that Ferrier married the young lady with whom he had so +long corresponded. The marriage was in all respects a happy one. Mrs. +Ferrier's gifts and graces, inherited from her father, will not soon be +forgotten, either in St. Andrews where she lived so long, or in +Edinburgh, the later home of her widowhood. One whose spirits were less +gay might have found a husband whose interests were so completely in +his work--and that a work in which she could not share--difficult to +deal with; but she possessed understanding to appreciate that work, as +well as humour, and could accommodate herself to the circumstances in +which she found herself; while he, on his part, entered into the gaiety +on occasion with the best. A friend and student of the St. Andrews' +days writes of Ferrier: 'He married his cousin Margaret, Professor's +Wilson's daughter, and I don't doubt that a shorthand report of their +courtship would have been better worth reading than nine hundred and +ninety-nine out of every thousand courtships, for she had wit as well +as beauty, and he was capable of appreciating both. No more charming +woman have I ever seen or heard making game of mankind in general, and +in particular of pedants and hypocrites. She would even laugh at her +husband on occasion, but it was dangerous for any volunteer to try to +help her in that sport. A finer-looking couple I have never seen.[5] + + [5] Another sister married William Edmondstoune Aytoun, the + poet. It was regarding Professor Aytoun's proposal for Miss + Wilson's hand that the following story is told. When the + engagement was being formed, Aytoun somewhat demurred to + interviewing the father of the lady, and she herself + undertook the mission. Presently she returned with a card + pinned upon her breast bearing the satisfactory inscription, + 'With the author's compliments'! Aytoun, as is well known, + was extremely plain, and it was of his bust in the + Blackwoods' saloon, a recognisable but idealistic likeness, + that Ferrier remarked, 'I should call that the pursuit of + beauty under difficulties.' + +During her infancy Edinburgh had become Mrs. Ferrier's home, though she +made frequent visits to Westmorland, of whose dialect she had a +complete command. The courtship, however, had been for the most part +carried on at the picturesque old house of Gorton, where 'Christopher +North' was temporarily residing, and which, situated as it is +overlooking the lovely glen made immortal by the name of Hawthornden, +in view of Roslin Chapel, and surrounded by old-fashioned walks and +gardens, must have been an ideal spot for a romantic couple like the +Ferriers to roam in. Another friend writes of Wilson's later home at +Elleray: 'In his hospitable house, where the wits of _Blackwood_ +gathered at intervals and visited individually in season and out of +season, his daughter saw strange men of genius, such as few young +ladies had the fortune to see, and heard talk such as hardly another +has the fortune to hear. Lockhart, with his caricatures and his +incisive sarcasm, was an intimate of the house. The Ettrick Shepherd, +with his plaid and homely Doric, broke in occasionally, as did also De +Quincey, generally towards midnight, when he used to sit pouring forth +his finely-balanced, graceful sentences far on among the small hours of +the morning. There were students, too, year after year, many of them +not undistinguished, and some of whom had, we doubt not, ideas of their +own regarding the flashing hazel eyes of their eloquent Professor's +eldest daughter.' But her cousin was her choice, though wealth offered +no attraction, and neither side had reason to regret the marriage of +affection. + +At the time of his marriage Ferrier had been practising at the Bar, +probably with no great measure of success, seeing that his heart was +not really set upon his work. It was at this period that he first began +to write, and his first contribution to literature took the form of +certain papers contributed to _Blackwood's Magazine_, the subject being +the 'Philosophy of Consciousness.' From that time onwards Ferrier +continued to write on philosophic or literary topics until his death, +and many of these writings were first published in the famous magazine. + +Before entering, however, on any consideration of Ferrier's writings +and of the philosophy of the day, it might be worth while to try to +picture to ourselves the social conditions and feelings of the time, in +order that we may get some idea of the influences which surrounded him, +and be assisted in our efforts to understand his outlook. + +In the beginning of the nineteenth century Scotland had been ground +down by a strange tyranny--the tyranny of one man as it seemed, which +man was Henry Dundas, first Viscount Melville, who for many long years +ruled our country as few countries have been ruled before. What this +despotism meant it is difficult for us, a century later, to figure to +ourselves. All offices were dependent on his patronage; it was to him +that everyone had to look for whatever post, advancement, or concession +was required. And Dundas, with consummate power and administrative +ability, moulded Scotland to his will, and by his own acts made her +what she was before the world. But all the while, though unperceived, a +new spirit was really dawning; the principles of the Revolution, in +spite of everything, had spread, and all unobserved the time-spirit +made its influence felt below a surface of apparent calm. It laid hold +first of all of the common people--weavers and the like: it roused +these rough, uneducated men to a sense of wrong and the resolution to +seek a remedy. Not much, however, was accomplished. Some futile risings +took place--risings pitiable in their inadequacy--of hard-working +weavers armed with pikes and antiquated muskets. Of course, such rebels +were easily suppressed; the leaders were sentenced to execution or +transportation, as the case might be; but though peace apparently was +restored and public meetings to oppose the Government were rigorously +suppressed, trade and manufactures were arising: Scotland was not +really dead, as she appeared. A new life was dawning: reform was in the +air, and in due time made its presence felt. But the memory of these +times of political oppression, when the franchise was the privilege of +the few, and of the few who were entirely out of sympathy with the most +part of their countrymen or their country's wants, remained with the +people just as did the 'Killing-time' of Covenanting days two centuries +before. Time heals the wounds of a country as of an individual, but the +operation is slow, and it is doubtful whether either period of history +will ever be forgotten. At anyrate, if they are so as this century +closes, they were not in the Scotland known to Ferrier; they were still +a very present memory and one whose influence was keenly felt. + +And along with this political struggle yet another struggle was taking +place, no less real though not so evident. The religion of the country +had been as dead as was the politics in the century that was gone--dead +in the sleep of Moderatism and indifferentism. But it, too, had +awakened; the evangelical school arose, liberty of church government +was claimed, a liberty which, when denied it, rent the Established +Church in twain. + +In our country it has been characteristic that great movements have +usually begun with those most in touch with its inmost life, the +so-called lower orders of its citizens. The nobles and the kings have +rather followed than taken the lead. In the awakening of the present +century this at anyrate was the case. 'Society,' so called, remained +conservative in its view for long after the people had determined to +advance. Scott, it must be remembered, was a retrogressive influence. +The romanticism of his novels lent a charm to days gone by which might +or might not be deserved; but they also encouraged their readers to +imagine a revival of those days of chivalry as a possibility even now, +when men were crying for their rights, when they had awakened to a +sense of their possessions, and would take nothing in their place. The +real chieftains were no more; they were imitation chieftains only who +were playing at the game, and it was a game the clansmen would not join +in. Few exercises could be more strange than first to read the account +of Scottish life in one of the immortal novels by Scott dealing with +last century, and then to turn to Miss Ferrier or Galt, depicting a +period not so very different. Setting aside all questions of genius, +where comparison would be absurd, it would seem as if a beautiful +enamel had been removed, and a bare reality revealed, somewhat sordid +in comparison. The life was not really sordid,--realism as usual had +overshot its mark,--but the enamel had been somewhat thickly laid, and +might require to be removed, if truth were to be revealed. + +So in the higher grades of Edinburgh society the enamel of gentility +has done its best to prejudice us against much true and genuine worth. +It was characterised by a certain conventional unconventionality, a +certain 'preciosity' which brought it near deserving a still stronger +name, and it maintained its right to formulate the canons of criticism +for the kingdom. Edinburgh, it must be recollected, was no 'mean city,' +no ordinary provincial town. It was still esteemed a metropolis. It had +its aristocracy, though mainly of the order of those unable to bear the +greater expense of London life. It had no manufactories to speak of, no +mercantile class to 'vulgarise' it; it possessed a University, and the +law courts of the nation. But above all it had a literary society. In +the beginning of the century it had such men as Henry Mackenzie, Dugald +Stewart, John Playfair, Dr. Gregory, Dr. Thomas Brown, not to speak of +Scott and Jeffrey--a society unrivalled out of London. And in later +days, when these were gone, others rose to fill their places. + +Of course, in addition to the movement of the working people, there was +an educated protest against Toryism, and it was made by a party who, to +their credit be it said, risked their prospects of advancement for the +principles of freedom. In their days Toryism, we must recollect, meant +something very different from what it might be supposed to signify in +our own. It meant an attitude of obstruction as regards all change from +established standards of whatever kind; it signified a point of view +which said that grievances should be unredressed unless it was in its +interest to redress them. The new party of opposition included in its +numbers Whig lawyers like Gibson Craig and Henry Erskine, in earlier +days, and Francis Jeffrey and Lord Cockburn later on; a party of +progress was also formed within the Church, and the same within the +precincts of the University. The movement, as became a movement on the +political side largely headed by lawyers, had no tendency to violence; +it was moderate in its policy, and by no means revolutionary--indeed it +may be doubted whether there ever was much tendency to revolt even +amongst those working men who expressed themselves most strongly. The +advance party, however, carried the day, and when Ferrier began to +write, Scotland was in a very different state from that of twenty years +before. The Reform Bill had passed, and men had the moulding of their +country's destiny practically placed within their hands. In the +University, again, Sir William Hamilton, a Whig, had just been +appointed to the Chair of Logic, while Moncreiff, Chalmers, and the +rest, were prominent in the Church. The traditions of literary +Edinburgh at the beginning of the century had been kept up by a circle +amongst whom Lockhart, Wilson, and De Quincey may be mentioned; now +Carlyle, who had left Edinburgh not long before, was coming into +notice, and a new era seemed to be dawning, not so glorious as the +past, but more untrammelled and more free. + +How philosophy was affected by the change, and how Ferrier assisted in +its progress, it is our business now to tell; but we must first briefly +sketch the history of Scottish speculation to this date, in order to +show the position in which he found it. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +PHILOSOPHY BEFORE FERRIER'S DAY + + +In attempting to give some idea of philosophy as it was in Scotland in +the earlier portion of the present century, we shall have to go back +two hundred years or thereabout, in order to find a satisfactory basis +from which to start. For philosophy, as no one realised more than +Ferrier, is no arbitrary succession of systems following one upon +another as their propounders might decree; it is a development in the +truest and highest significance of that word. It means the gradual +working out of the questions which reason sets to be answered; and +though it seems as if we had sometimes to turn our faces backwards, and +to revert to systems of bygone days, we always find, when we look more +closely, that in our onward course we have merely dropped some thread +in our web, the recovery of which is requisite in order that it may be +duly taken up and woven with the rest. + +At the time of which we write the so-called 'Scottish School' of Reid, +Stewart, and Beattie reigned supreme in orthodox Scotland; it had +undisputed power in the Universities, and besides this obtained a very +reputable place in the estimation of Europe, and more especially of +France. As it was this school more especially that Ferrier spent much +of his time in combating, it is its history and place that we wish +shortly to describe. To do so, however, it is needful to go back to its +real founder, Locke, in order that its point of view may fairly be set +forth. + +In applying his mind to the views of Locke, the ordinary man finds +himself arriving at very commonplace and well-accustomed conceptions. +Locke, indeed, may reasonably be said to represent the ideas of common, +everyday life. The ordinary man does not question the reality of +things, he accepts it without asking any questions, and bases his +theories--scientific or otherwise--upon this implied reality. Locke +worked out the theory which had been propounded by Lord Bacon, that +knowledge is obtained by the observation of facts which are implicitly +accepted as realities; and what, it was asked, could be more +self-evident and sane? It is easy to conceive a number of perceiving +minds upon the one hand, ready to take up perceptions of an outside +material substance upon the other. The mind may be considered as a +piece of white paper--a _tabula rasa_, as it was called--on which +external things may make what impression they will, and knowledge is +apparently explained at once. But though Locke certainly succeeded in +making these terms the common coin of ordinary life, difficulties crop +up when we come to examine them more closely. After all, it is evident, +the only knowledge our mind can have is a knowledge of its own +ideas--ideas which are, of course, caused by something which is +outside, or at least, as Locke would say, by its _quality_. Now, from +this it would appear that these 'ideas' after all come between the mind +and the 'thing,' whatever it is, that causes them--that is to say, we +can perhaps maintain that we only know our 'ideas,' and not things as +in themselves. Locke passes into elaborate distinctions between primary +qualities of things, of which he holds exact representations are given, +and secondary qualities, which are not in the same position; but the +whole difficulty we meet with is summed up in the question whether we +really _know_ substance, or whether it is that we can only hope to know +ideas, and 'suppose' some substratum of reality outside. Then another +difficulty is that we can hardly really know our _selves_. How can we +know that the self exists; and if, like Malebranche, we speak of God +revealing substance to us, how do we know about God? We cannot form any +'general' impressions, have any 'general' knowledge; only a sort of +conglomeration of unrelated or detached bits of knowledge can possibly +come home to us. The fact is, that modern philosophy starts with two +separate and self-existent substances; that it does not see how they +can be combined, and that the 'white-paper' theory is so abstract that +we can never arrive at self-consciousness by its means. + +Berkeley followed out the logical consequences of Locke, though perhaps +he hardly knew where these would carry him. He acknowledged that we +know nothing but ideas--nothing outside of our mind. But he adds the +conception of self, and by analogy the conception of God, who acts as a +principle of causation. Whether there is necessary connection in his +sensations or not, he does not say. Hume followed with criticism, +scathing and merciless. He states that all we know of is the experience +we have; and by experience he signifies perceptions. Ideas to him are +nothing more than perceptions, and whether they are ideas simply of the +mind, or ideas of some object, is to him the same. If we begin to +imagine such conceptions as those of universality or necessity, of God +or the self, beyond a complex of successive ideas, we are going farther +than experience permits. We cannot connect our perceptions with an +object, nor can we get beyond what experience allows. Custom merely +brings about certain conclusions which are often enough misleading. It +connects effect and cause, really different events: it brings about +ideas of morality very often deceptive. We have our custom of regarding +things, another has his--who can say which is correct? All we can do +is, what seems a hopeless task enough--we can try to show how these +unrelated particulars seem by repetition to produce an illusionary +connection in our minds. + +Both mind and matter appear, then, to be wanting, and experience alone +is suggested as the means of solving the difficulty in which we are +placed--a point in the argument which left an opportunity open to Kant +to suggest a new development, to ask whether things being found +inadequate in producing knowledge, we might not ask if knowledge could +not be more successful with things. But it is the Scottish lines of +attempted solution that we wish to follow out, and not the German. +Perhaps they are not so very different. + +Philosophy, as Reid found it, was in a bad way enough, as far as the +orthodox mind of Scotland was concerned. All justification for belief +in God, in immortality, in all that was held sacred in a century of +much orthodoxy if little zeal, was gone. Such things might be believed +in by those who found any comfort in so believing, but to the educated +man who had seriously reflected on them, they were anachronisms. The +very desperateness of the case, however, seemed to promise a remedy. +Men could not rest in a state of permanent scepticism, in a world +utterly incapable of being rationally explained. Even the propounder of +the theories allowed this to be true; and as for others, they felt that +they were rational beings, and this signified that there was system in +the world. + +A champion arose when things were at their worst in Thomas Reid, the +founder, or at least the chiefest ornament, of the so-called Scottish +School of Philosophy. He it was who set himself to add the principle of +the coherence of the Universe, and the consequent possibility of +establishing Faith once more in the world. Reid, to begin with, instead +of looking at Hume's results as serious, regarded them as necessarily +absurd. He started a new theory of his own, the theory of Immediate +Perception, which signified that we are able immediately to +apprehend--not ideas only, but the Truth. And how, we may ask, can this +be done? + +It had been pointed out first of all that sensations as understood by +Locke--that is, the relations so called by Locke--might be separated +from sensation in itself; in fact, that these first pertained to mind. +Hence we have a dualistic system given us to start with, and the +question is how the two sides are to be connected? What does this +theory of Immediate Perception, which Reid puts forward as the +solution, mean? Is it just a mechanical union of two antitheses, or is +it something more? + +As to this last, perhaps the real answer would be that it both is, and +is not. That is, the philosophy of Reid would seem still dualistic in +its nature; it certainly implies the mechanical contact of two +confronting substances whose independence is vigorously maintained, in +opposition to the idealistic system which it superseded; but in +reference to Reid we must recollect that his theory of Immediate +Perception was also something more. As regards sensation, for example, +he says that we do not begin with unrelated sensations, but with +judgment--that is, we refer our sensations to a permanent subject, 'I.' +Sensations 'suggest' the nature of a mind and the belief in its +existence. And this signifies that we have the power of making +inferences--how we do not exactly know, but we believe it to be, not by +any special reasoning process, but by the 'common-sense' innately born +within us. Common-sense is responsible for a good deal more--for the +conceptions of existence and of cause, for instance; for Reid +acknowledges that sensations alone must fail to account for ideas such +as those of extension, space, and motion. This standpoint seems indeed +as if it did not differ widely from the Kantian, but at the same time +Reid appears to think that it is not an essential that feelings should +be perceptively referred to an external object; the first part of the +process of perception is carried on without our consciousness--the +mental sensation merely follows--and sensation simply supposes a +sentient being and a certain manner in which that being is affected, +which leaves us much where we were, as far as the subjectivity of our +ideas is concerned. He does not hold that all sensation is a percept +involving extension and much else--involving, indeed, existence. + +Following upon Reid, Dugald Stewart obtained a very considerable +reputation, and he was living and writing at the time Ferrier was a +young man. His main idea would, however, seem to have been to guard his +utterances carefully, and enter upon no keen discussions or +contentions: when a bold assertion is made, it is always under shelter +of some good authority. But his rounded phrases gained him considerable +admiration, as such writing often does. He carried--perhaps +inadvertently--Reid's views farther than he would probably have held as +justifiable. He says we are not, properly speaking, conscious of self +or the existence of self, but merely of a sensation or some other +quality, which, by a _subsequent suggestion_ of the understanding, +leads to a belief in that which exercises the quality. This is the +doctrine of Reid put very crudely, and in a manner calculated to bring +us back to unrelated sensation in earnest. Stewart adopted a new +expression for Reid's 'common-sense,' _i.e._ the 'fundamental laws of +belief,' which might be less ambiguous, but never took popular hold as +did the first. + +There were many others belonging to this school besides Reid and +Stewart, whom it would be impossible to speak of here. The Scottish +Philosophy had its work to do, and no doubt understood that work--the +first essential in a criticism: it endeavoured to vindicate perception +as against sensational idealism, and it only partially succeeded in its +task. But we must be careful not to forget that it opened up the way +for a more comprehensive and satisfactory point of view. It was with +Kant that the distinction arose between sensation and the forms +necessary to its perception, the form of space and time, and so on. As +to this part of the theory of knowledge, Reid and his school were not +clear; they only made an effort to express the fact that something was +required to verify our knowledge, but they were far from satisfactorily +attaining to their goal. The very name of 'common-sense' was +misleading--making people imagine, as it did, that there was nothing in +philosophy after all that the man in the street could not know by +applying the smallest modicum of reflection to the subject. Philosophy +thus came to be considered as superfluous, and it was thought that the +sooner we got rid of it and were content to observe the mandates of our +hearts, the better for all concerned. + +What, then, was the work which Ferrier placed before himself when he +commenced to write upon and teach philosophy? He was thoroughly and +entirely dissatisfied with the old point of view, the point of view of +the 'common-sense' school of metaphysicians, to begin with. Sometimes +it seems as though we could not judge a system altogether from the best +exponent of it, although theoretically we are always bound to turn to +him. In a national philosophy, at least, we want something that will +wear, that will bear to be put in ordinary language, something which +can be understood of the people, which can be assimilated with the +popular religion and politics--in fact, which can really be _lived_ as +well as thought; and it is only after many years of use that we can +really tell whether these conditions have been fulfilled. For this +reason we are in some measure justified in taking the popular estimate +of a system, and in considering its practical results as well as the +value of its theory. Now, the commonly accepted view of the +eighteenth-century philosophers in Scotland is that there is nothing +very wonderful about the subject--like the _Bourgeois Gentilhomme_ of +Molière, we are shown that we have been philosophising all our lives, +only we never knew it. 'Common-sense'--an attribute with which we all +believe we are in some small measure endowed--explains everything if we +simply exercise it, and that is open to us all: there has been much +talk, it would seem, about nothing; secrets hidden to wise men are +revealed to babes, and we have but to keep our minds open in order to +receive them. + +We are all acquainted with this talk in speculative regions of +knowledge, but we most of us also know how disastrous it is to any true +advancement in such directions. What happens now is just what happened +in the eighteenth century. Men relapse into a self-satisfied indolence +of mind: in religion they are content with believing in a sort of +general divine Beneficence which will somehow make matters straight, +however crooked they may seem to be; and in philosophy they are guided +by their instincts, which teach them that what they wish to believe is +true. + +Now, all this is what Ferrier and the modern movement, largely +influenced by German modes of thought, wish to protest against with all +their might. The scepticism of Hume and Gibbon was logical, if utterly +impossible as a working creed and necessarily ending in absurdity; but +this irrational kind of optimism was altogether repugnant to those who +demanded a reasonable explanation of themselves and of their place in +nature. The question had become summed up in one of superlative +importance, namely, the distinction that existed between the natural +and supernatural sides of our existence. The materialistic school had +practically done away with the latter in its entirety, had said that +nature is capable of being explained by mechanical means, and that +these must necessarily suffice for us. But the orthodox section adopted +other lines; it accepted all the ordinarily received ideas of God, +immortality, and the like, but it maintained the existence of an +Absolute which can only be inferred, but not presented to the mind, +and, strangest of all, declared that the 'last and highest consecration +of all true religion must be an altar "To the unknown and unknowable +God."'[6] This so-called 'pious' philosophy declares that 'To think +that God is, as we can think Him to be, is blasphemy,' and 'A God +understood would be no God at all.' The German philosophy saw that if +once we are to renounce our reason, or trust to it only within a +certain sphere, all hope for us is lost, as far as withstanding the +attack of outside enemies is concerned. We are liable to sceptical +attacks from every side, and all we can maintain against them is a +personal conviction which is not proof. How, then, was the difficulty +met? + + [6] _Philosophy of the Unconditioned_ (Sir William + Hamilton), p. 15. + +Kant, as we have said, made an important development upon the position +of Hume. Hume had arrived at the point of declaring the particular mind +and matter equally incompetent to afford an ultimate explanation of +things, and he suggested experience in their place. This is the first +note of the new philosophy: experience, not a process of the +interaction of two separate things, mind on the one hand, matter on the +other, but something comprehending both. This, however, was scarcely +realised either by Hume or Kant, though the latter came very near the +formulation of it. Kant saw, at least, that things could not produce +knowledge, and he therefore changed his front and suggested starting +with the knowledge that was before regarded as result--a change in +point of view that caused a revolution in thought similar to that +caused in our ideas of the natural world by the introduction of the +system of Copernicus. Still, while following out his Copernican theory, +Kant did not go far enough. His methods were still somewhat +psychological in nature. He still regarded thought as something which +can be separated from the thinker; he still maintained the existence of +things in themselves independent and outside of thought. He gives us a +'theory' of knowledge, when what we want to reach is knowledge itself, +and not a subjective conception of it. + +Here it is that the Absolute Idealism comes in--the Idealism most +associated with the name of Hegel. Hegel takes experience, knowledge, +or thought, in another and much more comprehensive fashion than did his +predecessors. Knowledge, in fact, is all-comprehending; it embraces +both sides in itself, and explains them as 'moments,' _i.e._ +complementary factors in the one Reality. To make this clearer: we have +been all along taking knowledge as a dualistic process, as having two +sides involved in it, a subject and an object. Now, Hegel says our +mistake is this: we cannot make a separation of such a kind except by a +process of abstraction: the one really implies the other, and could not +possibly exist without it. We may in our ordinary pursuits do so, +without doubt; we may concentrate our attention on one side or the +other, as the case may be; we may look at the world as if it could be +explained by mechanical means, as, indeed, to a certain point it can. +But, Hegel says, these explanations are not sufficient; they can easily +be shown to be untrue, when driven far enough: the world is something +larger; it has the ideal side as well as the real, and, as we are +placed, they are both necessarily there, and must both be recognised, +if we are to attain to true conceptions. + +Without saying that Ferrier wholly assimilated the modern German +view,--for of course he did not,--he was clearly largely influenced by +it, more largely perhaps than he was even himself aware. It +particularly met the present difficulties with which he was confronted. +The negative attitude was felt to be impossible, and the other, the +Belief which then, as now, was so strongly advocated, the Belief which +meant a more or less blind acceptance of a spiritual power beyond our +own, the Belief in the God we cannot know and glory in not being able +so to know, he felt to be an equal impossibility. Ferrier, and many +others, asked the question, Are these alternatives exhaustive? Can we +not have a rational explanation of the world and of ourselves? Can we +not, that is, attain to freedom? The new point of view seemed in some +measure to meet the difficulty, and therefore it was looked to with +hope and anticipation even although its bearing was not at first +entirely comprehended. Ferrier was one of those who perceived the +momentous consequences which such a change of front would cause, and he +set himself to work it out as best he could. In an interesting paper +which he writes on 'The Philosophy of Common-Sense,' with special +reference to Sir William Hamilton's edition of the works of Dr. Reid, +we see in what way his opinions had developed. + +The point which Ferrier made the real crux of the whole question of +philosophy was the distinction which exists between the ordinary +psychological doctrine of perception and the metaphysical. The former +drew a distinction between the perceiving mind and matter, and based +its reasonings on the assumed modification of our minds brought about +by matter regarded as self-existent, _i.e._ existent in itself and +without regard to any perceiving mind. Now, Ferrier points out that +this system of 'representationalism,' of representative ideas, +necessarily leads to scepticism; for who can tell us more, than that we +have certain ideas--that is, how can it be known that the real matter +supposed to cause them has any part at all in the process? Scepticism, +as we saw before, has the way opened up for it, and it doubts the +existence of matter, seeing that it has been given no reasonable +grounds for belief in it, while Idealism boldly denies its +instrumentality and existence. What then, he asks, of Dr. Reid and his +School of Common-Sense? Reid cannot say that matter is known in +consciousness, but what he does say is that something innately born +within us forces us to believe in its existence. But then, as Ferrier +pertinently points out, scepticism and idealism do not merely doubt and +deny the existence of a self-existent matter as an object of +consciousness, but also because it is no object of belief. And what has +Reid to show for his beliefs? Nothing but his word. We must all, +Ferrier says, be sceptics or idealists; we are all forced on to deny +that matter in any form exists, for it is only self-existent matter +that we recognise as psychologists. Stewart tries to reinstate it by an +appeal to 'direct observation,' an appeal which, Ferrier truly says, is +manifestly absurd; reasoning is useless, and we must, it would appear, +allow any efforts we might make towards rectifying our position to be +recognised as futile. + +But now, Ferrier says, the metaphysical solution of the problem comes +in. We are in an _impasse_, it would appear; the analysis of the given +fact is found impossible. But the failure of psychology opens up the +way to metaphysic. 'The turning-round of thought from psychology to +metaphysic is the true interpretation of the Platonic conversion of the +soul from ignorance to knowledge, from mere opinion to certainty and +satisfaction; in other words, from a discipline in which the thinking +is only _apparent_, to a discipline in which the thinking is _real_.' +'The difference is as great between "the science of the human mind" and +metaphysic, as it is between the Ptolemaic and the Copernican +astronomy, and it is very much of the same kind.' It is not that +metaphysic proposes to do _more_ than psychology; it aims at nothing +but what it can fully overtake, and does not propose to carry a man +farther than his tether extends, or the surroundings in which he finds +himself. Metaphysic in the hands of all true astronomers of thought, +from Plato to Hegel, if it accomplishes more, attempts less. + +Metaphysic, Ferrier says, demands the whole given fact, and that fact +is summed up in this: 'We apprehend the perception of an object,' and +nothing short of this suffices--that is, not the perception of matter, +but our apprehension of that perception, or what we before called +knowledge, ultimate knowledge in its widest sense. And this given fact +is unlike the mere perception of matter, for it is capable of analysis +and is not simply subjective and egoistic. Psychology recognises +perception on the one hand (subjective), and matter on the other +(objective), but metaphysic says the distinction ought to be drawn +between 'our apprehension' and 'the perception-of-matter,' the latter +being one fact and indivisible, and on no account to be taken as two +separate facts or thoughts. The whole point is, that by no possible +means can the perception-of-matter be divided into two facts or +existences, as was done by psychology. And Ferrier goes on to point out +that this is not a subjective idealism, it is not a condition of the +human soul alone, but it 'dwells apart, a mighty and independent +system, a city fitted up and upheld by the living God.' And in +authenticating this last belief Ferrier calls in internal convictions, +'common-sense,' to assist the evidence of speculative reason, where, +had he followed more upon the lines of the great German Idealists, he +might have done without it. + +Now, Ferrier continues, we are safe against the cavils of scepticism; +the metaphysical theory of perception steers clear of all the +perplexities of representationalism; for it gives us in perception one +only object, the perception of matter; the objectivity of this _datum_ +keeps us clear from subjective idealism. + +From the perception of matter, a fact in which man merely participates, +Ferrier infers a Divine mind, of which perceptions are the property: +they are states of the everlasting intellect. The exercise of the +senses is the condition upon which we are permitted to apprehend or +participate in the objective perception of material things. This, +shortly, is the position from which he starts. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +'FIERCE WARRES AND FAITHFUL LOVES' + + +'If Ferrier's life should be written hereafter,' said one, who knew and +valued him, just after his death,[7] 'let his biographer take for its +motto these five words from the _Faery Queen_ which the biographer of +the Napiers has so happily chosen.' Ferrier's life was not, what it +perhaps seems, looking back on its comparatively uneventful course, +consistently calm and placid,--a life such as is commonly supposed to +befit those who soar into lofty speculative heights, and find the +'difficult air' in which they dwell suited to their contemplative +temperaments. Ferrier was intrepid and daring in his reasoning; a sort +of free lance, Dr. Skelton says he was considered in orthodox +philosophical circles; a High Tory in politics, yet one who did not +hesitate to probe to the bottom the questions which came before him, +even though the task meant changing the whole attitude of mind from +which he started. And once sure of his point, Ferrier never hesitated +openly to declare it. What he hated most of all was 'laborious dulness +and consecrated feebleness'; commonplace orthodoxy was repugnant to him +in the extreme, and possibly few things gave him more sincere pleasure +than violently to combat it. The fighting instinct is proper to most +men who have 'stuff' in them, and Ferrier in spite of his slight and +delicately made frame was manly to the core. But, as the same writer +says, 'though combative over his books and theories, his nature was +singularly pure, affectionate, and tolerant. He loved his friends even +better than he hated his foes. His prejudices were invincible; but, +apart from his prejudices, his mind was open and receptive--prepared to +welcome truth from whatever quarter it came.' Such a keen, eager nature +was sure to be in the fray if battle had to be fought, and we think +none the worse of him for that. Battles of intellect are not less keen +than battles of physical strength, and much more daring and subtlety +may be called into play in the fighting of them; and Ferrier, refined, +sensitive, fastidious, as he was, had his battles to fight, and fought +them with an eagerness and zeal almost too great for the object he had +in view. + + [7] The late Sir John Skelton, K.C.B. + +After his marriage in 1837, Ferrier devoted his attention almost +entirely to the philosophy he loved so well. He did not succeed--did +not perhaps try to succeed--at the Bar, to which he had been called. +Many qualities are required by a successful advocate besides the subtle +mind and acute reasoning powers which Ferrier undoubtedly possessed: +possibly--we might almost say probably--these could have been +cultivated had he made the effort. He had, to begin with, a fair junior +counsel's practice, owing to his family connections, and this might +have been easily developed; his ambition, however, did not soar in the +direction of the law courts, and he did not give that whole-hearted +devotion to the subject which is requisite if success is to follow the +efforts of the novice. But if he was not attracted by the work at the +Parliament House, he was attracted elsewhere; and to his first +mistress, Philosophy, none could be more faithful. In other lines, it +is true, he read much and deeply: literature in its widest sense +attracted him as it would attract any educated man. Poetry, above all, +he loved, in spite of the tale sometimes told against him, that he +gravely proposed turning _In Memoriam_ into prose in order to ascertain +logically 'whether its merits were sustained by reason as well as by +rhyme'--a proposition which is said greatly to have entertained its +author, when related to him by a mutual friend. Works of imagination he +delighted in--all spheres of literature appealed to him; he had the +sense of form which is denied to many of his craft; he wrote in a style +at once brilliant and clear, and carelessness on this score in some of +the writings of his countrymen irritated him, as those sensitive to +such things are irritated. He has often been spoken of as a living +protest against the materialism of the age, working away in the quiet, +regardless of the busy throng, without its ambitions and its cares. +Sometimes, of course, he temporarily deserted the work he loved the +best for regions less remote; sometimes he consented to lecture on +purely literary topics, and often he wrote biographies for a +dictionary, or articles or reviews for _Blackwood's Edinburgh +Magazine_. As it was to this serial that Ferrier made his most +important contributions, both philosophic and literary, for the next +fifteen years, and as it was in its pages that the development of his +system may be traced, a few words about its history may not be out of +place, although it is a history with which we have every reason to be +familiar now. + +About 1816 the _Edinburgh Review_ reigned supreme in literature. What +was most strange, however, was that the Conservative party, so strong +in politics, had no literary organ of their own--and this at a time +when the line of demarcation between the rival sides in politics was so +fixed that no virtue could be recognised in an opponent or in an +opponent's views, even though they were held regarding matters quite +remote from politics. The Whig party, though in a minority politically +and socially, represented a minority of tremendous power, and possessed +latent capabilities which soon broke forth into action. At this time, +for instance, they had literary ability of a singularly marked +description; they were not bound down by traditions as were their +opponents, and were consequently much more free to strike out lines of +their own, always of course under the guidance of that past-master in +criticism, Francis Jeffrey. Although his words were received as +oracular by his friends, this dictatorship in matters of literary taste +was naturally extremely distasteful to those who differed from him, +especially as the influence it exerted was not a local or national +influence alone, but one which affected the opinion of the whole United +Kingdom. For a time, no doubt, the party was so strong that the matter +was not taken as serious, but it soon became evident that a strenuous +effort must be made if affairs were to be placed on a better footing, +and if a protest were to be raised against the cynical criticism in +which the Reviewers indulged. Consequently, in April 1817, a literary +periodical called the _Edinburgh Monthly Magazine_ was started by two +gentlemen of some experience in literary matters, with the assistance +of Mr. William Blackwood, an enterprising Edinburgh publisher, whose +reputation had grown of recent years to considerable dimensions. This +magazine was not a great success: the editors and publisher did not +agree, and finally Mr. Blackwood purchased the formers' share in it, +took over the magazine himself, and, to make matters clear, gave it his +name; thus in October of the same year the first number of _Blackwood's +Edinburgh Magazine_ appeared. From a quiet and unobtrusive 'Miscellany' +the magazine developed into a strongly partisan periodical, with a +brilliant array of young contributors, determined to oppose the +_Edinburgh Review_ régime with all its might, and not afraid to speak +its mind respecting the literary gods of the day. Every month some one +came under the lash; Coleridge, Leigh Hunt, and many others were dealt +with in terms unmeasured in their severity, and in the very first +number appeared the famous 'Chaldee Manuscript' which made the hair of +Edinburgh society stand on end with horror. In spite of the immoderate +expression of its opinions, the magazine flourished--it was fresh and +novel, and much genius was enlisted in writing for its pages. The +editor's identity was always matter for conjecture; but though the +contributors included a number of distinguished men, such as Mackenzie, +De Quincey, Hogg, Fraser Tytler, and Jameson, there were two names +which were always associated with the periodical--those of John Gibson +Lockhart and Ferrier's uncle and father-in-law, John Wilson. The latter +in particular was often held to be the real editor whom everyone was so +anxious to discover, but this belief has been emphatically denied. +Although the management might appear to be in the control of a +triumvirate, Blackwood himself kept the supreme power in his hands, +whatever he might at times find it politic to lead outsiders to infer. + +When Ferrier began to write for it in 1838, _Blackwood's Magazine_ was +not of course the same fiery publication of twenty years before; nor +were Ferrier's articles for the most part of a nature such as to appeal +strongly to an excitable and partisan public. Things had changed much +since 1817: the Reform Bill had passed; the politics of the country +were very different; the Toryism of Ferrier and his friends was quite +unlike the Toryism of the early part of the century: it more resembled +the Conservatism or Traditionalism of a yet later date, which objected +to violent changes only owing to their violence, and by no means to +reform, if gradually carried out. This policy was reflected in _Maga's_ +pages, to which Ferrier would naturally turn when he wished to reach +the public ear, both from family association and hereditary politics. +His first contribution was certainly not light in character; nor did it +resemble the 'bright, racy' articles which are supposed to be the +requisite for modern serial publications. The subject was 'An +Introduction to the Philosophy of Consciousness,' and it consisted of a +series of papers contributed during two successive years (1838 and +1839), which really embodied the result of the work in which Ferrier +had during the past few years been engaged, and signified a complete +divergence from the accepted manner of regarding consciousness, and a +protest against the 'faith-philosophy' which it became Ferrier's +special mission to combat. Perhaps it is only in Scotland that a public +could be found sufficiently interested in speculative questions to make +them the subject of interest to a fairly wide and general circle, such +as would be likely to peruse the pages of a monthly magazine like +Blackwood's. But of this interesting contribution to metaphysical +speculation, in which Ferrier commenced his philosophical career by +grappling with the deepest and most fundamental questions in a manner, +as Hamilton acknowledges, hitherto unattempted in the humbler +speculations of this country, we shall speak later on, as also of his +further contributions to the magazine. + +In the year 1821, Sir William Hamilton had been a candidate for the +Chair of Moral Philosophy along with John Wilson, Ferrier's future +father-in-law. In spite of Wilson's literary gifts, there is probably +no question that of the two his opponent was best qualified to teach +the subject, owing to the greatness of his philosophical attainments +and the profundity of his learning. But in the temper of the time the +merits of the candidates could not be calmly weighed by the Town +Council, the electing body; and Hamilton was a Whig, and a Whig +contributor to that atheistical and Jacobin _Edinburgh Review_, and was +therefore on no account to be elected. The disappointment to Hamilton +was great; but it was slightly salved by his subsequent election--to +their credit be it said, for Whig principles were far from popular +among them--by the Faculty of Advocates to a chair rendered vacant in +1821 by the resignation of Professor Fraser Tytler--the Chair of Civil +History. In 1836, however, Sir William's merits at length received +their reward, and he became the Professor of Logic and Metaphysics. +When Ferrier probably felt the need of some more lucrative form of +employment, he applied for the Chair of History once occupied by +Hamilton, and rendered vacant by the resignation of Professor Skene; he +obtained the appointment in 1842, and held it for four years +subsequently. Large remuneration it certainly did not bring with it, +but the duties were comparatively and correspondingly light.[8] Indeed, +as attendance was not required of students studying for the degrees in +Arts, or for any of the professions, the difficulty was to form a +regular class at all. The salary paid to Sir William was £100 a year, +and even this small sum was apparently only to be obtained with +difficulty. The main advantage of holding the chair at all was the +prospect it held out of succeeding later on to some more important +office. Of Ferrier's class-work at this time we know but little. The +reading requisite for the post was likely to prove useful in later +days, and could not have been uncongenial; but probably in a class +sometimes formed--if tradition speak aright--of one solitary student, +the work of preparation would not be taken very seriously. Anyhow, +there was plenty of time left to pursue his philosophic studies; and in +1844-45, when Sir William Hamilton came so near to death, Ferrier acted +as his substitute, and carried on his classes with zeal and with +success--a success which was warmly acknowledged by the Professor. Of +course, though he conducted the examinations and other class-work, +Ferrier merely read the lectures written by Hamilton; else there might, +one would fancy, be found to be a lack of continuity between the +deliverances of the two staunch friends but uncompromising opponents. +Any differences of opinion made, however, no difference in their +friendship. The distress of Ferrier on his friend's sudden paralytic +seizure has already been described; to his affectionate nature it was +no small thing that one for whom he had so deep a regard came so very +near death's door. Every Sunday while in Edinburgh, he spent the +afternoon in walking with his friend and in talking of the subjects +which most interested both. + + [8] There was a movement amongst the students to secure the + chair for Thomas Carlyle, then coming into fame amongst + them; but Ferrier was chosen by the patrons, the Faculty of + Advocates. + +Of these early days Professor Fraser writes:--'My personal intercourse +with Ferrier was very infrequent, but very delightful when it did +occur. He was surely the most picturesque figure among the Scottish +philosophers--easy, graceful, humorous, eminently subtle, and with a +fine literary faculty--qualities not conspicuous in most of them. When +I was a private member of Sir W. Hamilton's advanced class in +metaphysics in 1838-39, and for some years after, I was often at Sir +William's house, and Ferrier was sometimes of the party on these +occasions. I remember his kindly familiarity with us students, the +interest and sympathy with which he entered into metaphysical +discussion, his help and co-operation in a metaphysical society which +we were endeavouring to organise. His essays on the Philosophy of +Consciousness were then being issued in _Blackwood_, and were felt to +open questions strange at a time when speculation was almost dead in +Scotland--Reid at a discount, Brown found empty, and Hamilton, with +Kant, only struggling into ascendency. + +'In these days, if I remember right, Ferrier lived in Carlton Street, +Stockbridge--an advocate whose interest was all in letters and +philosophy, a student of simple habits, fond of German, not a +conspicuous talker, of easy polished manners and fond of a joke, with a +scientific interest in all sorts of facts and their meanings, and +perhaps a disposition to paradox. I remember the interest he took in +phenomena of "mesmeric sleep," as it was called. An eminent student was +sometimes induced for experiment to submit himself to mesmeric +influence at these now far-off evening gatherings at Sir William's. To +Ferrier the phenomena suggested curious speculation, but I think +without scientific result.' The subject was one on which Ferrier +afterwards wrote in _Blackwood_, and it was a subject which always had +the deepest interest for him. It, however, as he believed, cost him the +friendship of Professor Cairns, a frequent subject at these informal +séances, and one whom Ferrier rashly twitted for what he evidently +regarded as a weakness, his easily accomplished subjection to the +application of mesmeric power. + +In 1845 the Chair of Moral Philosophy in the University of St. Andrews, +then occupied by Dr. Cook, and once held by Dr. Chalmers, became vacant +by the former's death, and Ferrier entered as a candidate. Highly +recommended as he was by Hamilton and others, Ferrier was the +successful applicant, and St. Andrews became his home for nineteen +years thereafter, or until his death in 1864. + +Such is a bald statement of the facts of what would seem a singularly +uneventful life. Life divided between the study, library, and +classroom, there was little room for incident outside the ordinary +incidents of domestic and academic routine. Yet Ferrier never sank into +the conventionality which life in a small University town might induce. +His interests were always fresh; he was constantly engaged in writing +and rewriting his lectures, which, unlike some of his calling, he was +not content to read and re-read from year to year unaltered. His +thoughts were constantly on his subject and on his students, planning +how best to communicate to them the knowledge that he was endeavouring +to convey--a life which came as near the ideal of philosophic devotion +as is perhaps possible in this nineteenth century of turmoil and +unrest. Still, gentleman and man of culture as he was, Ferrier had a +fighting side as well, and that side was once or twice aroused in all +the vehemence of its native strength. + +Twice Ferrier made application for a philosophical chair in the town of +his birth and boyhood. In 1852, when his father-in-law, John Wilson, +retired, he became a candidate for the professorship of Moral +Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh; and then again, in 1856, he +offered himself as a successor to Sir William Hamilton as Professor of +Logic and Metaphysics. On neither occasion was he successful, and on +both occasions he suffered much from calumnious statements respecting +his 'German' and unorthodox views--a kind of calumny which is more than +likely to arise and carry weight when the judges are men of honourable +character but of little education, men to whom a shibboleth is +everything and real progress in learning nothing. On the first occasion +there were several candidates who submitted their applications, but on +Professor M'Cosh's retiring from the combat, the two who were 'in the +running' were Professor Ferrier of St. Andrews and Professor Macdougall +of the Free Church College in Edinburgh. It is curious, as instancing +the strange change which had come over the politics of Scotland since +the Reform Act had passed, that the very influences that told in favour +of John Wilson in applying for a professorship in 1821 should thirty +years later tell as strongly against his son-in-law. In 1852, nine +years after the Disruption, so greatly had matters altered, that the +Free Church liberal party carried all before it in the Corporation. And +although the liberal journals of the earlier date were never tired of +maintaining liberty of thought and action, yet when circumstances +changed, the liberty appeared in a somewhat different light; and the +qualification of being a Whig was added to a considerable number of +appointments both in the Church and in the State. Professor Macdougall, +Ferrier's opponent, had held his professorship in the Free Church +College, lately established for the teaching of theology and +preparation of candidates for the ministry. On the establishment of the +College, the subject of Moral Philosophy was considered to be one which +should be taught elsewhere than in an 'Erastian' University, and +accordingly it was thought necessary to institute the chair occupied by +Professor Macdougall. In the first instance the class was eminently +successful in point of numbers, and the corresponding class in the +University proportionately suffered; but as time went on the attendance +in the Free Church class dwindled, and it was considered that this +chair need not be continued, but that students might be permitted to +attend at the University. When Professor Macdougall now offered himself +as candidate for the University chair, there was of course an immediate +outcry of a 'job.' Rightly or wrongly it was said, 'Let the Free Church +have a Professor of her own body and opinions if she will, but why +force him upon the Established Church as well; are her country and +ministers to be indoctrinated with Voluntary principles?' There might +not have been much force in the argument had the status of the two +candidates been the same, but it was evident to all unprejudiced +observers that this was far from being the case. And it could hardly be +pleaded in justification of the Council's action that they formed their +judgment upon the testimonials laid before them; for Ferrier's far +exceeded his rival's in weight, if not in strength of expression, and +included in their number communications from such men as Sir William +Hamilton, De Quincey, Bulwer, Alison, and Lockhart--men the most +distinguished of the age. De Quincey's opinion of Ferrier is worth +quoting. He says that he regards him as 'the metaphysician of greatest +promise among his contemporaries either in England or in Scotland,' and +the testimonial which at this time he accorded Ferrier is as remarkable +a document as is often produced on such occasions, when commonplace +would usually appear to be the object aimed at. It is several pages in +length, and goes fully into the question not only of what Ferrier was, +but also of what a candidate ought to be. De Quincey speaks warmly of +Ferrier's services in respect of the English rendering of _Faust_ +before alluded to, and points out the benefit there is in having had an +education which has run along two separate paths--paths differing from +one another in nature, doubtless, but integrating likewise--the one +being that resulting from his intercourse with Wilson and his literary +coterie, the other that of the course of study he had pursued on German +lines. He sums up Ferrier's philosophic qualities by saying, 'Out of +Germany, and comparing him with the men of his own generation, such at +least as I had any means of estimating, Mr. Ferrier was the only man +who exhibited much of true metaphysical subtlety, as contrasted with +mere dialectical acuteness.' For this testimonial, we may incidentally +mention, Ferrier writes a most interesting letter of thanks, which is +published in his _Remains_. As a return for the kindness done him, he +'sets forth a slight chart of the speculative latitudes' he had +reached, and which he 'expects to navigate without being +wrecked'--really an admirably clear epitome in so short a space of the +argument of the _Institutes_. + +But to come back to the contest: in spite of testimonials, the fact +remained that Ferrier had studied German philosophy, and might have +imbibed some German infidelity, while his opponent made no professions +of being acquainted either with the German philosophy or language, +besides having the advantage of being a Liberal and Free Churchman; and +he was consequently appointed to the chair. Of course, there was an +outcry. The election was put forward as an argument against the +abolition of Tests, though in this case Ferrier, as an Episcopalian, +might be said to be a Dissenter equally with his opponent. It was +argued that the election should be set aside unless the necessary +subscription were made before the Presbytery of the bounds. For a +century back such tests had not been exacted as far as the Moral +Philosophy chair was concerned, nor would they probably have been so +had Ferrier himself been nominated. But though the Presbytery concerned +was in this case prepared to go all lengths, it appeared that it was +not in its members that the initiative was vested, the practice being +to take the oath before the Lord Provost or other authorised +magistrate. Consequently, indignant at discovering their impotence, the +members of the body retaliated by declaring that they would divert past +the new Professor's class the students who should afterwards come +within their jurisdiction, and thus, by their foolish action, they +probably did their best to bring about the result they deprecated so +much--the abolition of Tests in their entirety. + +Ecclesiastical feeling ran high at the time, and things were said and +done on both sides which were far from being wise or prudent. But the +effect on a sensitive nature like Ferrier's is easy to imagine. This +was the first blow he had met with, and being the first he did not take +it quite so seriously to heart. But when it was followed years later by +yet another repulse, signifying to his view an attitude of mind in +orthodox Scotland opposed to any liberty of thought amongst its +teachers, Ferrier felt the day for silence was ended, and, wisely or +unwisely, he published a hot defence of his position in a pamphlet +entitled _Scottish Philosophy, the Old and the New_. On this occasion +the question had risen above the mere discussion of Church and Tests; +the whole future of philosophy in Scotland was, he believed, at stake; +it was time, he felt, that someone should speak out his mind, and who +more suitable than the leader of the modern movement and the one, as he +considered it, who had suffered most by his opinions? + +Without having lived through the time or seen something of its effects, +it would be difficult to realise how narrow were the bounds allowed to +speculative thought some forty years ago in Scotland. Since the old +days of Moderatism and apathy there had, indeed, been a great revival +of interest in such matters as concerned Belief. Men's convictions were +intense and sincere; and what had once been a subject of convention and +common usage, had now become the one important topic of their lives. So +far the change was all for the good; it promoted many important +virtues; it made men serious about serious things; it made them realise +their responsibilities as human beings. But as those who lived through +it, or saw the results it brought about, must also know, it had another +side. A certain spiritual self-assurance sprang into existence, which, +though it was bred of intense reality of conviction, brought with it +consequences of a specially trying kind to those who did not altogether +share in it. As so often happens when a new light dawns, men thought +that to them at length _all_ truth had been revealed, and acted in +accordance with this belief. They formulated their systems--hide-bound +almost as before--and decided in their minds that in them they had the +standards for judging of their fellows. But Truth is a strange +will-o'-the-wisp after all,--when we think we have reached her, she has +eluded our grasp,--and so when those rose up who said the end of the +matter was not yet, a storm of indignation fell upon their heads. This +is what happened with Ferrier and the orthodox Edinburgh world. There +might, it was said by the latter, be men lax enough to listen to +reasonings such as his, and even to agree with them, but for those who +_knew_ the truth as it was in its reality, such pandering to +latitudinarian doctrines was unpardonable. And as at this time the Town +Council of Edinburgh was seriously inclined (some of the members, in +the second instance, were the same as those who had adjudicated in the +former contest), Ferrier's fate was, he considered, sealed before the +question really came before them. Whether the matter was quite as +serious as Ferrier thought, it is perhaps unnecessary to say. At +anyrate, there was a considerable element of truth in the view he took +of it, and he was justified in much--if not in all--of what he said in +his defence. The _Institutes_, first published in 1854, had just +reached a second edition, so that his views were fairly before the +world. What caused the tremendous outburst of opposition we must take +another chapter to consider; and then we must try to trace the course +of Ferrier's development from the time at which he first began to write +on philosophic subjects, and when he openly broke with the Scottish +School of Philosophy. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +DEVELOPMENT OF 'SCOTTISH PHILOSOPHY, THE OLD AND THE NEW'--FERRIER AS A +CORRESPONDENT + + +It is probably in the main a wise rule for defeated candidates to keep +silence about the cause of their defeat. But every rule has its +exception, and there are times in which we honour a man none the less +because--contrary to the dictates of worldly wisdom--he gives voice to +the sense of injustice that is rankling in his mind. Ferrier had been +disappointed in 1852 in not obtaining the Chair of Moral Philosophy for +which he was a candidate; but then he had not published the work which +has made his name famous, and his claims were therefore not what +afterwards they became. But when in 1856, after the _Institutes_ had +been two years before the public, and just after the book had reached a +second edition, another defeat followed on the first, Ferrier ascribed +the result to the opposition to, and misrepresentation of, his system, +and claimed with some degree of justice that it was not his merits that +were taken into account, but the supposed orthodoxy, or want of +orthodoxy, of his views. For this reason he issued a 'Statement' in +pamphlet form, entitled _Scottish Philosophy, the Old and the New_, +dealing with the matter at length. + +In Ferrier's view, a serious crisis had been arrived at in the history +of the University of Edinburgh, and one which might lead to yet further +evil were not something done to place matters on a better footing. Had +the Town Council, the electing body, been affected simply by personal +or sectarian feelings, it would not so much have mattered; but when +Ferrier was forced to the conclusion that what they did must end in the +curtailment of all liberty in regard to philosophical opinion, so far +as the University was concerned, he felt the time had come to speak. +For a quarter of a century he had devoted the best part of his life and +energies to the study of philosophy, and he held he had a duty to +discharge to it as one of the public instructors of the land. What +cause, he asked, had a body like the Council to say originality was to +be proscribed and independence utterly forbidden? Through their +liberalism tests had been practically abolished: was another test, far +more exacting than the last, to be substituted in their place? A +candidate for a philosopher's chair need not be a believer in Christ or +a member of the Established Church; but he must, it would appear, +believe in Dr. Reid and the Hamiltonian system of philosophy. + +The 'common-sense' school, against which Ferrier's attacks were mainly +directed, too often found its satisfaction in commonplace statements of +obvious facts, and we cannot wonder that Ferrier should ask why +Scottish students should be required to pay for 'bottled air' while the +whole atmosphere is 'floating with liquid balm that could be had for +nothing?'--a question, indeed, which cannot fail to strike whoever +tries to wade through certain tedious dissertations of the time, all +expressing truths which seem incontrovertible in their nature, but all +of which are also inexpressibly uninteresting. Philosophy to Ferrier is +not the elementary science that it would appear from these discourses: +loose ways of thinking which we ordinarily adopt must, he considers, be +rectified and not confirmed. And yet he disclaims the accusation that +he has conjured with 'the portentous name of Hegel,' or derived his +system from German soil. Hegel, he constantly confesses, is frequently +to him inexplicable, and his system is Scottish to the core. + +A warm debt of gratitude to Hamilton, Ferrier, it is true, acknowledges +even while he differs from his views--a debt to one whose 'soul could +travel on eagles' wings,' and from whom he had learned so much--whom, +indeed, he had loved so warmly. Hamilton had not agreed with Ferrier; +he had thought him wrong, and told him so, and Ferrier was the last to +resent this action, or think the less of him for not recanting at his +word the conclusions of a lifetime's labour. Provocation, the younger +man acknowledges, he had often given him, and 'never was such rough +provocation retaliated with such gentle spleen.' + +But what most roused Ferrier's ire was, not the criticisms of men like +Hamilton, but such as were contained in a pamphlet published by the +Rev. Mr. Cairns of Berwick, afterwards Principal Cairns of the United +Presbyterian College--a pamphlet which he believed had biassed the +judgment of the electors in making their decision. We now know that +indirectly they had requested Mr. Cairns's advice, and he, considering +that orthodoxy was being seriously threatened by German rationalistic +views, had formulated his indictment against Ferrier in the strongest +possible terms. He believed that in Ferrier's writings there was an +attempt to substitute formal demonstration of real existence for +'belief,' thereby making faith of no effect; also that he denied the +separate existence of the material world and the mind, and that (and +probably this is the most serious count in the charge) the +substantiality of the mind was subverted, and consequently belief in +personal identity rendered impossible. He further said that by Ferrier +absolute existence is reduced to a mere relation, and finally, that his +conception of a Deity is inadequate, and metaphysics and natural +theology are divorced. + +We cannot, of course, deal in detail with Ferrier's energetic +repudiation of the accusation brought so specifically against him. The +heat with which he wrote seems scarcely justified now that we look back +on it from the standpoint of more than forty years ahead. But we do not +realise how much such accusations meant at the time at which they were +made--how they affected not a man's personal advancement only, but also +the opinion in which he was held by those for whose opinion he cared +the most. The greater toleration of the present day may mean +corresponding lack of zeal or interest, but surely it also means a +recognition of the fact that men may choose their own methods in the +search for truth without thereby endangering the object held in view. +Mr. Cairns's attack--without intention, for he was an honourable man +and able scholar--was unjust. Ferrier does not claim to _prove_ +existence--he accepts it, and only reasons as to what it is; as to the +material world, he acknowledges not a mere material world, but one +along with which intelligence is and must be known; the separate +existence of mind he likewise denies only in so far as to assert that +mind without thought is nonsense. The substantiality of the mind he +maintains as the one great permanent existence amid all fluctuations +and contingencies, and without personal identity, he tells us, there +can be no continued consciousness amid the changes of the unfluctuating +existence called the 'I'--though in this regard one feels that +something is left to say in criticism, from the orthodox point of view. +Absolute existence is indeed reduced into relations, but into relations +together constituting the truth, if contradictory in themselves; that +is, a concrete, as distinguished from an abstract truth. As to the +final accusation of the insufficiency of Ferrier's view of the Deity, +it is true he states that the Deity is not independent of His creative +powers, revelation and manifestation; but surely this is a worthier +conception than the old one of the Unknown God, which tells us to +worship we know not what. + +The pity is that in this publication, and another on very similar +lines,[9] Ferrier allowed himself to turn from philosophical to +personal criticism, and to say what he must afterwards have regretted. +In the second edition of his first pamphlet these references were +modified, and in any case they must be ascribed to the quick temper +with which he was naturally endowed, and which led him to express his +feelings more strongly than he should, rather than to deliberate +judgment. No one was more sensible than he of the danger to which he +was subject of allowing himself to be carried off his feet in the heat +of argument. This is very clearly shown by a letter to a friend quoted +in the _Remains_: 'One thing I would recommend, not to be too sharp in +your criticism of others. No one has committed this fault oftener, or +is more disposed to commit it than myself; but I am certain that it is +not pleasing to the reader, and after an interval it is displeasing to +oneself. In the heat and hurry of writing a lecture I often hit a +brother philosopher as I think cleverly enough, but on coming to it +coolly next year I very seldom repeat the passage.' An admission and +acknowledgment which does a proud man like Ferrier credit. + + [9] _A Letter to the Lord Advocate on the Necessity of a + Change in the Patronage of the University of Edinburgh._ + +One cannot help speculating on the effect of the mass of criticism and +counter-criticism (for there were others who took up the cudgels on +either side, once the controversy was fairly started) upon the +unfortunate Town Councillors of Edinburgh, to whom they were directed: +one would imagine them to wish their powers curtailed if they were to +involve their mastering several conflicting theories of existence, and +forming a just judgment regarding their respective merits. The exercise +of patronage is always a difficult and thankless task, but surely in no +case could it have been more difficult than in this, and we can hardly +wonder now that the electors simply took the advice of those they +deemed most worthy to bestow it; certainly the candidate finally +selected was one who did everything in the occupation of his chair to +disarm the criticism then brought to bear upon the appointment. In +cooler moments probably none would have been readier to admit this than +was Ferrier; but when he wrote he was smarting under the sense of +having failed to receive a fair consideration of his claims, and he +undoubtedly spoke more strongly than the case required. + +After this controversy was over, Ferrier's interest in polemical +philosophy in great degree waned; and in the quiet of the old +University town of St. Andrews--the town which provides so rich a fund +of historic interest combined with the academic calm of University +life--Ferrier passed the remainder of his days working at his favourite +subjects. Sometimes these were varied by incursions into literature, in +which his interest grew ever keener; and economics, which was one of +the subjects he was bound to teach. His life was uneventful; it was +varied little by expeditions into the outer world, much as these would +have been appreciated by his friends. His whole interest was centred in +his work and in the University in which he taught, and whose well-being +was so dear to him. Of his letters, few, unfortunately, have been +preserved; and this is the more unfortunate that he had the gift, now +comparatively so rare, of expressing himself with ease, and in bright, +well-chosen language. Of his correspondents one only seems to have +preserved the letters written to him, Mr. George Makgill of Kemback, a +neighbouring laird in Fife and advocate in Edinburgh, whose similarity +in tastes drew him towards the St. Andrews Philosophy Professor. + +Of these letters there are some of sufficient interest to bear +quotation. One of the first is written in October 1851 from St. +Andrews, and plunges into the deepest topics without much preface. +Ferrier says:-- + +'What is the Beginning of Philosophy? Philosophy must have had the same +Beginning that all other things have, otherwise there would be +something peculiar or anomalous or sectarian in its origin, which would +destroy its claims to genuineness and catholicity. What, then, is the +Beginning of all things and consequently the Beginning of Philosophy? + +'Answer--WANT. + +'Want is the Beginning of Philosophy because it is the Beginning of all +things. Is the Beginning of Philosophy a bodily want? No. Why not? +Because nothing that may be given to the Body has any effect in +appeasing the want. The Beginning of Philosophy, then, must be an +intellectual want--a Hunger of the Soul. + +'But all wants have their objects in which they seek and find their +gratification. What then is the object of the hunger of the soul? + +'Answer--KNOWLEDGE. + +'Philosophy is a Hunger of the Soul after Knowledge. What is +Knowledge?--reduced through various intermediate stages to question, +what is the common and essential quality in all knowledge--the quality +which makes knowledge knowledge? Answer approached by raising question: +What is the essential quality in all food--the quality which makes food +food? This is obviously its physically nutritive quality. Whatever has +the nutritive property is food; whatever has it not is not food, +however like excellent beef and mutton it may be. So in regard to +knowledge, its common and essential quality--the quality in virtue of +which knowledge is knowledge--is its nutritive quality. Whatever +nourishes and satisfies the mind is knowledge, as whatever nourishes +and satisfies the body is food. The intellectually _nutritive property_ +in knowledge is the common and essential property in knowledge. What is +the nutritive quality in knowledge? Answer (without beating about the +bush)--TRUTH. + +'What is TRUTH? Answer--Truth is whatever is supported by Evidence. + +'What is EVIDENCE? Evidence is whatever is supported by Experience. +What is EXPERIENCE? Here we stop; we can only divide Experience into +its kinds, which are two, _Experience of Fact_ and _Experience of Pure +Reason_. Observe the manoeuvre in the last line by which you knaves of +the anti-metaphysical school are outwitted. You _oppose Pure Reason_ to +_Experience,_ and philosophers generally assent to the distinction. +This at once gives your school the advantage, for the world will always +cleave to experience in preference to anything else, leaving us +metaphysicians, who are supposed to abandon experience, hanging as it +were in baskets in the clouds. But _I_ do not abandon experience as the +ultimate foundation of _all_ knowledge; only I maintain that there are +_two_ kinds of experience, both of which are equally experience, the +experience of Fact and the experience of Pure Reason. You are thus +deprived of your advantage. I am as much a man of experience as you +are.' + +Evidently it had been a question with Ferrier whether he should use the +expression Experience, so well known to us now, or substitute for it +Consciousness, which, as a matter of fact, he afterwards did: 'Why is +it so grievous and fatal an error to confound Experience and +Consciousness? Is not a man's experience the whole developed contents +of his consciousness? I cannot see how this can be denied. And +therefore, before you wrote, I was _swithering_ (and am so still) +whether I should not make consciousness the basis of the whole +superstructure--the raw material of the article which in its finished +state is knowledge. After all, the dispute, I suspect, is mainly +verbal.' + +There are many evidences in these letters that Ferrier was not +neglecting German Philosophy, for taking Experience as his basis he +shows how it may be divided into _Wesen_ (_-an sich_), _Seyn_ (_für +sich_), and the _Begriff_ (_anundfürsich_) on the lines of German +metaphysics. As to the 'Common-Sense' Philosophy, he expresses himself +in no measured terms: 'I am glad we agree in opinion as to the merits +of the Common-Sense Philosophy. Considered in its details and +accessories, it certainly contains many good things; but, viewed as a +whole and _in essentialibus_, it is about the greatest humbug that ever +was palmed off upon an unwary world. As an instance among many which +might be adduced, of the ambiguity of the word, and of the vacillation +of the members of this school, it may be remarked that while Reid made +the essence of common-sense to consist in this, that its judgments are +not conclusions obtained by ratiocination (_Works_, Sir W. Hamilton's +edition, p. 425), Stewart, on the contrary, holds that these judgments +are "the result of a train of reasoning so rapid as to escape notice" +(_Elements_, vol. ii. p. 103). Sir W.'s _one hundred and six witnesses_ +are a most conglomerate set, and a little cross-examination would try +their mettle severely.' + +The most important part of Ferrier's system was his working out of the +'Theory of Ignorance,' in which, indeed, he might congratulate himself +in having in great measure broken open new ground. He says of it: +'Hurrah, [Greek: eurêka], I have discovered the _Law of Ignorance_--and +if I had a hecatomb of kain hens at my command I would sacrifice them +_instanter_ to the propitious patron of metaphysics. Look you here. The +Law of Knowledge is this, that, in order to know any _one_ thing we +must always know two things; _hoc cum alio_--object plus subject--thing ++ me. This is the unit of knowledge. Analogously, only inversely, in +order to be ignorant of any _one_ thing we must be ignorant of _two_ +things--_hujus cum alio_--object plus subject--thing + me. This is the +unit of ignorance.' Apparently, in spite of full explanation of his +newly-discovered view, Ferrier's correspondent had failed to take it +in, and consequently he gently rails at him for 'sticking at the +axiom,' and wishes him to help him to a name for what he calls the +'Agnoiology' for want of something better. He goes on: 'I take it that +I have caught you in my net, and that wallop about as you will I shall +land you at last. I have now little fear that I shall succeed in +convincing you, or at anyrate less hardened sinners, that the knowledge +of object-subject is a self-contradiction, and that therefore +object-subject, or matter _per se_, is not a thing of which we can with +any sense or propriety be said to be ignorant. Be this as it may, you +must at anyrate recognise in this doctrine a very great novelty in +philosophy. The more incogitable a thing becomes, the more ignorant of +it do _we_ become--that is the natural supposition. Is it not then a +bold and original stroke to show that when a thing passes into absolute +incogitability we cease that instant to be ignorant of it? I believe +that doctrine to be right and true, but I am certain that, obvious as +it is, it has been nowhere anticipated or even hinted at in the bygone +career of speculation. I claim this as _my discovery_. In the doctrine +of Ignorance I believe that I have absolutely no precursor. What think +you?' + +Mr. Makgill had accused Ferrier of anthropomorphism in his system, and +he replies as follows:--'You cannot charge me with anthropomorphism +without being guilty of it yourself. Don't you see that "the Beyond" +all human thought and knowledge is itself _a category_ of human +thought? There is much _naïveté_ in the procedure of you cautious +gentry who would keep scrupulously _within_ the length of your tether: +as if the conception of a _without_ that tether was not a mode of +thinking. Will you tell me why you and Kant and others don't make +_existence_ a category of human thought? This has always puzzled me. + +'Surely the man who made extension and time mere forms of human +knowledge need have made no bones of existence. Meanwhile, as the post +is just starting, I beg you to consider this, that the anthropomorphist +and the anti-anthropomorphists are both of necessity anthropomorphists, +and for my part I maintain that the anti-man is the bigger +anthropomorphist of the two.' This criticism of the 'Beyond' and its +unknowableness, while yet it was acknowledged, is as much to the point +in the present day as it was in those, and its statement brings +forcibly before our minds the truth of Goethe's well-known saying: +'_Der Mensch begreift niemals wie anthropomorphisch er ist_.' + +The doctrine of Ignorance, so essential to Ferrier's system, he found +it hard to make clear to others:--'I am astonished at your not seeing +the use, indeed the absolute necessity, of a _true_ doctrine of +ignorance. This blindness of yours shows me what I may expect from the +public; and how careful I must be, if I would go down at all, to render +myself perfectly clear and explicit. Don't you see that a correct +doctrine of ignorance is necessary for two reasons--_first_, on account +of the _false_ doctrine of ignorance universally prevalent, one which +has hitherto rendered, and must ever render, anything like a scientific +ontology impossible; and, _secondly_, because this correct theory of +ignorance follows inevitably from my doctrine of knowledge? This, which +I consider a very strong recommendation, an indispensable condition of +the theory of ignorance, is the very ground on which you object to it. +Surely you would not have me establish a doctrine of ignorance which +was not consistent with my doctrine of knowledge. Surely I am entitled +to deduce all that is logically deducible from my principles. Your +meaning I presume is that my doctrine of ignorance flows so manifestly +from my doctrine of knowledge that it is unnecessary to develop and +parade it. There I differ from you. It flows _inevitably_, but I cannot +think that it flows obviously. Else why was it never hit upon until +now?... Don't tell me, then, that _my_ conclusions that matter _per +se_, _Ding an sich_, is what it is impossible for us to be ignorant of, +just _because_ it is absolutely unknowable (and for no other reason). +Don't tell me that this conclusion is so obvious as not to require to +be put down in black and white, when we find Kant and _every_ other +philosopher drawing, but most erroneously, the directly opposite +conclusion from the same premises. Matter _per se_, _Ding an sich_, was +of all things that of which we were most ignorant!! and the ruin of +metaphysics was the consequence of their infatuated blindness. Your +objection, then, to my doctrine of ignorance, viz., that it is fixed in +the very fixing of the doctrine of knowledge, and therefore does not +require explication or elucidation, I cannot regard as a good +objection. It is true that the one of these fixes the other; but it +requires some amount of explanation and demonstration to make this +palpable to the understandings even of the most acute, and I am not +sure that even you (yes, put on your best pair of spectacles, you will +need them) yet see how impossible it is for us to be ignorant of matter +_per se_, or of anything which is absolutely unknowable.' + +This matter of the _Ding an sich_ Ferrier felt to be the crucial point +in his system: 'You talk glibly of "existence _per se_," as maids of +fifteen do of puppy dogs. This shows that, like a carpet knight, you +have never smelt the real smoke of metaphysical battle, but at most +have taken part in the sham fights and listened to the shotless popguns +of the martinet of Königsberg. You will find existence _per se_ a +tougher customer than you imagine.' + +As to the _Institutes_, then on the verge of publication, the author +says: 'I am inclined to follow your advice, so far, in regard to the +title of the work, and to call it the "Theory of Knowing and Being," +leaving out ignorance. But why an _introduction_ to metaphysics? If +this be an _introduction_ to metaphysics, pray, Mr. Pundit, what and +where are metaphysics themselves? No, sir, it shall be called a +_text-book_ of metaphysics, meaning thereby, that it is a complete body +(and soul) of metaphysics. You are an uncommonly _modest_ fellow in so +far as the protestations of your _friends_ are concerned!' + +This correspondence appears to have continued regularly for some years, +and to have dealt almost entirely with metaphysical and economic +subjects--the subjects which were constantly in Ferrier's mind, as he +taught them in the University and tried to work them out in his study. +Doubtless it was of the greatest use to him to be able to write about +them as he would, had opportunity served, have spoken; and this +opportunity was afforded by his friendship with his correspondent, +whose interest in philosophy was keen, and whose critical faculties +were exceptionally acute, although he never accomplished any original +work on philosophical lines. + +Of other letters few have been preserved. Absence from home did not +make a reason for writing, for Ferrier's journeyings were but few. In +1859, however, he made an expedition to England to see his +newly-married daughter, Lady Grant, start for India with her husband, +Sir Alexander Grant, after his appointment to the Chancellorship of the +University of Bombay. From Southampton he made his way to the scene of +his schooldays at Greenwich, from which place he writes to one of the +sons of Dr. Bruce of Ruthwell, with whom he spent a happy childhood: +'One of our fêtes was a sumptuous fish dinner at Greenwich. I call it +sumptuous, but in truth the fish was utter trash, the best of them not +comparable to Loch Fyne herring. Whitebait is the greatest humbug of +the age, though it may be heresy to say so in your neighbourhood.' This +journey was concluded by a visit to Oxford and to the Lake country, +with both of which Ferrier's associations were so many and so +agreeable. + +The following is a letter, dated 21st March 1862, to Professor +Lushington, his friend and biographer:--'I have been very remiss in not +acknowledging your photograph, which came safe, and is much admired by +all who have seen it. I must get a book for its reception and that of +some other worthies, otherwise my children will appropriate it for +their collections, with which the house is swarming.... The _ego_ is an +infinite and active capacity of _never being anything in particular_. I +will uphold that definition against the world. Did you never feel how +much you revolted from being fixed and determined? Depend upon it, that +is the true nature of a spirit--never to be any determinate existence. +This is our real immutability--for death can get hold only of that +which has a determinate being. _We_ stand loose from all +determinations. That is our chance of escaping his clutches." + +This expresses Ferrier's views and hopes for an after life: he looked +forward to an immortality in which the particular and determinate +should disappear and only the absolute element remain--in which death +should mean only the rising from the individual into a true and +universal life. It is a matter to which he frequently refers, and +always in terms of a very similar nature. We shall see how, when the +end was coming near, his views remained the same, and he was able to +face the inevitable without a qualm or shadow of complaint. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +FERRIER'S SYSTEM OF PHILOSOPHY--PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS + + +'If one were asked,' says Professor Fraser, 'for the English writings +which are fitted in the most attractive way to absorb a reader of +competent intelligence and imagination in the final or metaphysical +question concerning the Being in which we and the world of sensible +things participate, Berkeley's _Dialogues_, Hume's _Inquiry into Human +Understanding_, and some of the lately published _Philosophical +Remains_ of Professor Ferrier are probably those which would best +deserve to be mentioned.' + +It has been given to few philosophers of modern days to write on +philosophic questions in a manner at once so lucid and so convincing as +that of Ferrier. Nor can it in his case be said that matter is +sacrificed to form, for the writer does not hesitate to 'nail his +colours to the mast,' as he himself expresses it, and to tackle +questions the most vital in their character in a straightforward and +uncompromising fashion. His earliest published writings, as we have +seen, took the form of a series of seven articles, which appeared, +roughly speaking, in alternate months, between February of 1838 and +March of 1839. These articles, entitled _An Introduction to the +Philosophy of Consciousness_, represented the results of their author's +work during the years which had elapsed since he first began to be +really interested in philosophy, and to feel that the way of looking at +it adopted almost universally in Scotland was not satisfying to +himself, or in any way defensible. + +The whole point in Ferrier's view turns upon the way in which we look +at 'Mind.' 'The human mind, to speak it profanely,' says Ferrier, 'is +like the goose that laid the golden eggs. The metaphysician resembles +the analytic poulterer who slew it to get at them in a lump, and found +_nothing_ for his pains.... Look at thought, and feeling, and passion, +as they glow in the pages of Shakespeare--golden eggs indeed! Look at +the same as they stagnate on the dissecting-table of Dr. Brown, and +marvel at the change. Behold how shapeless and extinct they have +become!' Locke began by saying there are no original ideas, simply +impressions from without; Hume then says cause and effect are incapable +of explanation, and the notion which we form of them is a nonentity, +seeing that we have a series of impressions alone to work from; Reid +says there is a mind and there is an object, and calls in common-sense +to interpret between the two. But the mistake all through is very +evident: man looks at Nature in a certain way, interprets her by +certain categories, and then he turns his eye upon himself, +endeavouring thereby to judge of what he finds within by methods of a +similar kind. And the human mind cannot be so 'objectised'; it is +something more than the sum of its 'feelings,' 'passions,' and 'states +of mind.' Dr. Reid had done a service by exploding the old doctrine of +'ideas'; he brought mind into contact with immediate things, but much +more is left for us to do; the same office has to be performed for +'mind'--that is, mind when we regard it as something which connects us +with the universe, or something which can be looked at and examined, as +we might look at or examine a thing outside ourselves, and not as that +which is necessary to any such examination. 'Is it not enough for a man +that he is _himself_? There can be no dispute about that. _I_ am; what +more would I have? What more would I be? Why would I be _mind_? I am +_myself_ therefore let it perish.' + +What, then, makes a man what he is? It is the fact of consciousness, +the fact which marks him off from all other things with a deep line of +separation. It is this and this alone, Ferrier says, this '_human_ +phenomenon,' and not its objects, passions, or emotions, which leads us +into pastures fresh and far separated from the dreary round which the +old metaphysicians followed. The same discovery, of course, is always +being made, though to Ferrier it was new; we are always straying into +devious ways, ways that lead us into grey regions of abstraction, and +we always want to be called back to the concrete and the real, to the +freshness and the brightness of life as it is and lives. + +Ferrier from this time onwards, from his youth until his death, kept +one definite aim in view: the object of his life was to insist with all +his might that our interests must be concentrated on man as he is as +man, and not on a mere sum-total of passions and sensations by which +the human being is affected. The consciousness of a state of mind is +very different from that state of mind itself, and the two must be kept +absolutely distinct. 'Let mind have the things which are mind's, and +man the things which are man's.' We should, Ferrier says, fling 'mind' +and its lumber overboard, busy ourselves with _the man_ and his facts. +Man's passions and sensations may be referred to 'mind' indeed, but he +cannot lay his hands upon the fact of consciousness. That fact cannot +be conceived of as vested in the _object_ called the 'human mind,' an +object being something really or ideally different from ourselves. In +speaking of 'my mind,' mind may be what it chooses, but the +consciousness is in the _ego_; and mind is really destitute of +consciousness, otherwise the _ego_ would necessarily be present in it. +The dilemma is as follows: 'Unless the philosophers of mind attribute +consciousness to mind, they leave out of view the most important +phenomena of man; and _if_ they attribute consciousness to mind, they +annihilate the object of their research, in so far as the whole extent +of this fact is concerned.' + +Since Ferrier's time this point has been worked out very fully, and by +none more successfully than by an English philosopher, Professor T. H. +Green of Oxford, in his Introduction to the works of Hume. But when +Ferrier wrote, his ideas were new; in England at least he was breaking +up ground hitherto untouched, and therefore the debt of gratitude we +owe him is not small, especially when we consider the forces against +which he warred. 'Common-sense,' the solution offered for all +philosophic difficulties, is really the _problem_ of philosophy, and to +speak of the 'philosophy of common-sense' is simply to confuse the +problem with its solution. Common-sense, or rather what is given by its +means, has simply to be construed into intelligible forms: in itself it +makes no attempt to solve the difficulties that present themselves, and +it is folly to suggest its doing so. When a man speaks of _my_ +sensations or _my_ states of mind, he means something of which he--as +consciousness--is independent, and which can be made an object to him. +Were it not so, of course he could not possibly arrive at freedom, but +would merely be the helpless child of destiny; and, as Ferrier points +out, were consciousness and sensation one, consciousness would not have +the power, undoubtedly possessed by it, of 'recovering the balance' +that it loses on experiencing pain or passion; the return of +consciousness, as he puts it, 'lowers the temperature' of the sensation +or the passion, and the man regains the personality that for the time +had almost vanished. A man, he tells us, can hardly even be said to be +the 'victim' of his mind, and irresponsible--_i.e._, man stands aloof +from the modifications which may visit him, therefore we should study +him as he is, and not merely these 'states of mind' common to him and +to animals alike. And consciousness must be active, exercising itself +upon those states, and thereby realising human freedom. + +Philosophy, then, is the gospel of freedom as contrasted with the +bondage of the physical kingdom. But we are in subjection at the first, +and all our lifetime a constant fight is being carried on. Philosophy +paints its grey in grey, another great philosopher has told us, only +when the freshness and life of youth has gone: the reconciliation is in +the ideal, not the actual world. And so with Ferrier: 'The flowers of +thy happiness,' says he, 'are withered. They could not last; they +gilded but for a day the opening portals of life. But in their place I +will give thee freedom's flowers. To act _according_ to thy inclination +may be enjoyment; but know that to act _against_ it is liberty, and +thou only actest thus because thou art really free.' Great and weighty +words, which might be pondered by many more than those to whom they +were originally addressed. + +Having established his fundamental principles, Ferrier goes on to trace +the birth of self-consciousness in the child--the knowledge of itself +as 'I,' which means the knowledge of good and evil--the moral birth. +Perception, again, is a synthesis of sensation and consciousness--the +realisation of self in conjunction with the sensation experienced: it +is, of course, peculiar to man. Things can only take effect on 'me' +when there is a 'me' to take effect upon, and not at birth, or before I +come to consciousness. Consciousness is the very essence and origin of +the _ego_; without consciousness no man would be 'I.' It is our refusal +to be acted on by outside impressions that constitutes our personality +and perception of them; our communication with the universe is the +communication of _non_-communication. And the _ego_ is not something +which comes into the world ready-made; it is a living activity which is +_never_ passive, for were it passive, it would be annihilated; in +submitting to the action of causality its life would be gone. Our +destiny is to free ourselves from the bonds of nature, from that +'blessed state of primeval innocence,' the blessedness, after all, of +bondage. A man cannot _be_ until he _acts_, for his Being arises out of +his actions: consciousness being an act, our proper existence is the +consequence of that act. His natural condition for others, and before +he comes to existence, Ferrier says, is given, while his existence for +himself is made by his thinking himself. It is only in the latter case +that he can attain to Liberty, instead of remaining bound by the bonds +imposed upon him by Necessity. The three great moments of humanity are: +first, the natural or given man in enslaved Being; second, the +conscious man in action working into freedom against passion; third, +the 'I': man as free, that is, real personal Being. + +Philosophy has thus a great future before her. Instead of being a mere +dead theory as heretofore, she becomes renovated into a new life when +she gets her proper place; she is separated from her supposed +connection with the physical world, and is recognised as consciousness. +When this is so, she loses her merely theoretic aspect, and is +identified with the living practical interests of mankind. The dead +symbols become living realities, the dead twigs are clothed with +verdure. 'Know thyself, and in knowing thyself thou shalt see that this +self is not thy true self; but, in the very act of knowing this, thou +shalt at once displace this false self, and establish thy true self in +its room.' And Ferrier goes on to trace the bearings of his theories in +the moral and intellectual world. He finds in morality something more +than a refined self-love; he finds the dawning will endeavouring to +assert itself, to break free from the trammels imposed upon it by +nature. Freedom, the great end of man, is contravened by the passive +conditions of his nature; these are therefore wrong, and every act of +resistance tends to the accomplishment of the one important end, which +is to procure his liberty. + +This essay, or series of essays, gives the keynote to Ferrier's thought +and writings, therefore it seemed worth while to consider its argument +in detail. The completeness of the break with the old philosophy is +manifest. The 'scientific' methods applied to every region of knowledge +were then in universal use, and no little courage was required to +challenge their pretensions as they were challenged by Ferrier. But in +courage, as we know, Ferrier was never lacking. His mind once made up, +he had no fear in making his opinions known. He considered that the +Scottish Philosophy had become something very like materialism in the +hands of Brown and others, and he believed that the whole point of view +must be changed if a really spiritual philosophy was to take its place. +There may be traces of the impetuosity of youth in this attack: much +working out was undoubtedly required before it could be said that a +system had been established. But all the same this essay is a brilliant +piece of philosophic writing--instinct with life and enthusiasm--one +which must have made its readers feel that the dry bones of a dead +system had wakened into life, and that what they had imagined an +abstract and dismal science had become instinct with living, practical +interest--something to be 'lived' as well as studied. + +The _Institutes of Metaphysics_--the work by which Ferrier's name will +descend to posterity--is a development of the Philosophy of +Consciousness; but it is more carefully reasoned out and +systematised--the result of many years of thoughtful labour. For +several years before the work was published (in 1854) the propositions +which are contained in it were developed in the course of Ferrier's +regular lectures. The _Institutes_, or _Theory of Knowing and Being_, +commences with a definition of philosophy as a 'body of reasoned +truth,' and states that though there were plenty of dissertations on +the subject in existence, there was no philosophy itself--no scheme of +demonstrated truth; and this, and not simply a 'contribution' to +philosophy was what was now required, and what the writer proposed to +give. The divisions into which he separates Philosophy are: first, the +Epistemology, or theory of knowledge; secondly, the Agnoiology, or +theory of ignorance; and thirdly, the Ontology, or theory of being. The +fundamental question is, 'What is the _one_ feature which is identical, +invariable, and essential in all the varieties of our knowledge?' + +The first condition of knowledge is that we should know ourselves, and +reason gives certainty to this proposition which is not capable of +demonstration, owing to its being itself the starting-point; the +counter-proposition, asserting the separate subject and object of +knowledge, and the mutual presence of the two without intelligence's +being necessarily cognisant of itself, represents general opinion, and +the ordinary view of popular psychology. Knowledge, then, Ferrier goes +on, always has the self as an essential part of it; it is +knowledge-in-union-with-whatever-it-apprehends. The objective part of +the object of knowledge, though distinguishable, is not really +separable from the subjective or _ego_; both constitute the _unit_ of +knowledge--an utterance thoroughly Hegelian in its character, however +Ferrier may disclaim a connection with Hegel's system. In space they +may be separated, but not in cognition, and this idealism does not for +one moment deny the existence of 'external' things, but only says they +can have no meaning if out of relation to those which are 'internal'; +as Hegel might have put it, they could be known as separable by means +of 'abstraction' only. From this point we are led on to the next +statement, and a most important statement it is, that matter _per se_ +is of necessity absolutely unknowable; or to what Ferrier calls the +Theory of Ignorance. Whether or not this theory can make good the title +to originality which its author claims for it, there is no doubt that +its statement in clear language, such as no one can fail to understand, +marks an important era in English speculation. There are, Ferrier says, +two sorts of so-called ignorance: one of these is incidental to some +minds, but not to all--an ignorance of defect, he puts it--just as we +might be said to be ignorant of a language we had never learned. But +the other ignorance (not, properly speaking, ignorance at all) is +incident to _all_ intelligence by its very nature, and is no defect or +imperfection. The law of ignorance hence is that 'we can be ignorant +only of what can be known,' or 'the knowable is alone the ignorable.' +The bearing of this important point is seen at once when we turn back +to the theory of knowing. Knowledge is something of which the subject +cannot shake himself free; 'I' must always, in whatever I apprehend, +apprehend 'me.' We don't apprehend 'things,' that is, but what is +apprehended is 'me-apprehending-things.' Things-plus-me is the only +knowable, and consequently the only 'ignorable.' + +This brings us a great way towards the Absolute Idealism associated +mainly with the name of Hegel--towards the Knowledge or 'Experience' (a +word which Ferrier afterwards himself makes use of) which shall cease +to be a 'theory,' being recognised as comprehending within itself all +Reality--as recognising no distinction between object and subject, +excepting when they are regarded as two poles both equally essential, +and separated only when looked at in abstraction. If Ferrier's 'theory +of knowledge' did not proceed so far, he at least made the discovery +that the subjective idealism of Kant was as unsatisfactory as the +relativity of Hamilton, and as certainly tending to agnosticism. Kant's +'thing-in-itself' is not that of which we are ignorant, or a hidden +reality which can be known by faith. It is that which cannot possibly +be known--and, in other words, a contradiction or nonsense. Now, +Ferrier says, we arrive at the true Idealism--the triumph of +philosophy. If it is said to reduce all things to the phenomena of +consciousness, it does the same to every _nothing_. What falls out of +consciousness becomes incogitable; it lapses, not into nothing, but +into what is contradictory. The material universe _per se_, and all its +qualities _per se_, are not only absolutely unknowable, but absolutely +unthinkable. We do indeed know substance, but only as object plus +subject--as matter _mecum_ or in cognition as thought together with the +self. + +It may be true that we cannot claim for Ferrier complete originality in +his thinking; work on very similar lines was being carried on +elsewhere. It is not difficult to trace throughout his writings the +mode of his development. The earlier works are evidently influenced by +Fichte and his school, since the personal _ego_ and individual freedom +figure as the principal conceptions in our knowledge; and even while +the Scottish school of psychologists is being combated, the influence +of Hamilton is very manifest. But as time goes on, Ferrier's ideas +become more concrete; the theory of consciousness becomes more absolute +in its conception; the human or individual element is less conspicuous +as the universal element is more, which signifies that gradually he +approaches closer to the standpoint of the later German thinkers by a +careful study of their works, though for the most part it is Reid and +Hamilton his criticisms have in view, and not the corresponding work of +Kant. + +Still, we should say that Ferrier's attitude represented another phase +in the same struggle against abstraction and towards unity in +knowledge, rather than being a simple outcome of the German influence +in Scotland. This last assumption he at least repudiated with energy, +and boldly claimed to have developed and completed his system for +himself. He claimed to have worked on national lines; to have started +from the philosophy of his country as it was currently accepted, and to +have little difficulty in proving from itself its absolute inadequacy. +He felt that in his doctrine of the reality of knowledge he had found +the means of solving problems hitherto dark and obscure, and he used +his instruments bravely, and on the whole successfully. + +The faith-philosophy which professed to know reality through the +senses, when these senses were a part of the external universe, or +signified taking for granted the matter in dispute, was utterly +repugnant to Ferrier. The Unknowable of Sir William Hamilton was +inconceivable to him, and he ever kept this theory and its errors in +his mind, while developing a system of his own. It is better that a +philosophic system should grow up thus, instead of coming to us from +without in language hard to understand because of foreign idioms and +unwonted modes of expression. To be of use, a philosophy should speak +the language of the people: until it becomes identified with ordinary +ways of thinking, its influence is never really great; and the Idealism +of Germany has in this country always suffered from being intelligible +only to the few. Therefore we hold all credit due to Ferrier for +consistently refusing to adopt the phraseology of a foreign country, +and setting himself, heart and soul, to find expression for his +thoughts in the language of his birth. + +Ferrier introduces his _Lectures on Greek Philosophy_, the last subject +on which he undertook to write, in a manner which reminds us of Hegel's +remarkable Introduction to his _History of Philosophy_; he begins, like +Hegel, by pointing out that the study of philosophy is just the study +of our own reason in its development, but that what is worked out in +our minds hurriedly and within contracted limits, is in philosophy +evolved at leisure, and seen in its just proportions: the historian of +philosophy has not merely to record the existence of dead systems of +thought that are past and gone, but the living products of his _own_, +full of present, vital interest, and there is nothing arbitrary or +capricious in such a history: all is reasoned thought as it manifests +and reveals itself. + +Philosophy, Ferrier defines, by calling it the pursuit of Truth--not +relative Truth, but absolute, what necessarily exists for all minds +alike; and man's faculties (contrary to what is generally supposed) are +competent to attain to it, provided only that they have something in +common with all other minds, _i.e._, are partakers in a universal +intelligence. He works this out in his Introduction in an extremely +interesting way, showing, as he does, how in all intelligence there +must be a universal, a unity; that the very essence of religion, for +example, rests on the unity which constitutes the bond between God and +man, and that when this is denied, religion is made impossible. What +then, we may ask, is the Truth that has to be pursued? + +It is that which is the real, the object of philosophy--the real which +exists for all intelligence. The historian of philosophy must show that +philosophy in its history corresponds with this definition, if the +definition be a true one. + +The lectures begin with Thales and the followers of the Ionic school, +and Ferrier points out how, in spite of the material elements which are +taken as a basis, their systems are philosophic, in so far as they aim +at the establishment of a universal in all things, and carry with them +the belief that this universal is the ultimately real; and this gives +them an interest which from their sensuous forms we could hardly have +expected to find. But it was Heraclitus' doctrine of Becoming that was +most congenial to Ferrier, as it was to his great predecessor Hegel. +Being and Not-Being, the unity of contraries as essential sides of +Truth, in such conceptions as these Ferrier believes we come nearer to +the truth of the universe than in the current views of philosophy, in +which the unity of contrary determinations in one subject is regarded +as impossible. Apart, either side is incomprehensible, and hence Mr. +Mansel and Sir William Hamilton argue the impotence of human reason; +but if, as Ferrier believes, they are shown to be but moments or +essential factors in conception, the antagonism will be proved +unreal--it will be an antagonism proper to the very life and essence of +reason. + +Possibly in his account of the early Greek philosophers Ferrier may +have done what many historians of philosophy have done before him, he +may have read into the systems which he has been describing much more +than he was entitled so to read. He may, when he is talking of the +Eleatics of Heraclitus, and even of Socrates and Plato, have had before +his mind the special battle which he had chosen to fight--the battle +against sensationalism in Scotland, against materialism in the form in +which he found it--rather than fairly to set before his readers an +exact and accurate account of the teaching of the particular +philosopher of whom he writes. But has it ever been otherwise in any +history of thought that was ever written, excepting perhaps in some +dryasdust compendium which none excepting those weighed down with dread +of examination questions, care to peruse? Thought reads itself from +itself, and if it sometimes reads the present into the past, and thinks +to see it there, is there matter for surprise, or is it so very far +wrong? If it tells us something of the secrets it itself conceals, it +is surely telling us after all much of those that are gone. + +For Plato, Ferrier naturally had a very great affinity; he deals with +him at length, and evidently had made a special and careful study of +his writings. But the same method is applied by him to Plato as was +before applied to the other Greek philosophers. 'It is not so much by +reading Plato as by studying our own minds that we can find out what +ideas are, and perceive the significance of the theory which expounds +them. It is only by verifying in our own consciousness the discoveries +of antecedent philosophers that we can hope rightly to understand their +doctrines or appreciate the value and importance of their +speculations.' And so Ferrier proceeds to prove the necessity for the +existence of 'ideas'--of universals--as the absolute truth and +groundwork of whatever is. No intelligence can be intelligent excepting +by their light, and they are the necessary laws or principles on which +all Being and Knowing are dependent. 'All philosophy,' he says of +Plato, 'speculative and practical, has been foreshadowed by his +prophetic intelligence; often dimly, but always so attractively as to +whet the curiosity and stimulate the ardour of those who have chosen +him as a guide.' And it was as such that Ferrier marked him out and +chose him as his own. With Aristotle he had probably less in common, +and his treatment both of him and of the Stoics, Epicureans, and +Neo-Platonists, with which the history ends, is less sympathetic in its +tone and understanding in its style. But these lectures as a whole, +though never put together for printing as a book, must always be of +interest to the student of philosophy. + +A philosophic article, entitled _Berkeley and Idealism_, and published +in June of 1842, was designed to meet the attack of Mr. Samuel Bailey, +who had written a _Review of Berkeley's Theory of Vision_, criticising +the soundness of his views. Mr. Bailey replied, and Ferrier a year +later published an article on that reply. Ferrier rightly appreciates +the very important place which ought to be allowed to Berkeley as a +factor in the development of philosophic truth--a place which has only +been properly understood in later years. He saw the part he had played +in bringing the real significance of Absolute Idealism into view, and +deprecated the representation of his system made by David Hume, or the +popular idea that Berkeley denied all reality to matter. What he did +deny was the reality which is supposed to lie beyond experience, and +his criticism in this regard was invaluable as a basis for a future +system. In his own words, he did not wish to change things into ideas, +but _ideas_ into _things_: matter could not exist independently of +mind. But yet Ferrier is perfectly aware that Berkeley did not entirely +grasp the absolute standpoint that the thing is the appearance, and the +appearance is the thing. Regarded merely as a literary production, this +article is entitled to rank with the classics of philosophic writings +both as regards the beauty of its style and its logical development. +Ferrier does not often touch directly on questions of religion or +theology, but there is an interesting passage in this essay which shows +his views regarding the question of immortality. He is talking of the +impossibility of our ever conceiving to ourselves the idea of our +annihilation. Such an idea could not be rationally articulated. We +_appear_, indeed, to be able to realise it, but we only _think_ we +think it: real thought of death in this sense would involve our being +already dead; but in thought we are and must be immortal. 'We have +nothing to wait for; eternity is even now within us, and time, with all +its vexing troubles, is no more.' + +It was something absolute and enduring for which Ferrier was ever on +the search. Those of his Introductory Lectures which are preserved bear +out this statement, if nothing else were left to do so. Philosophy, +thought, is more than systems: 'As long as man thinks, the light must +burn.' Could he but teach the young men who gathered round him day by +day to think, he cared little as to what so-called 'system' they +adopted. He put his arguments clearly before them, but they were free +to criticise as they would. And perhaps it was because they realised +that the Truth was more to him than personal fame that their affection +for him was so great. He always kept before him, too, that in teaching +any science the mental discipline which it involves must not be +overlooked. The practical rule of disciplining the mind should run side +by side with the theoretical instruction, which might soon be +forgotten; the great effort of a teacher should be in the best and +highest sense to _educate_ his students. That is, he has not only to +instil their minds with multifarious learning, but to make their +thinking systematic. + +And philosophy must, he tells us, be made interesting if it is to be of +any use: we must arrive at a 'philosophic consciousness,' and +distinguish philosophy from mere opinion. It is mind which is the +permanent and immutable in all change and mutation; even the Greeks +found the idea of permanence in mind while they regarded change as the +principle of matter. + +Thus, when the end of the day had come, when the lamp grew dim, and the +books he loved so much must be for the last time shut, Ferrier's +teaching was not so very different from what it was nearly thirty years +before. The only real change was that the impetuosity of youth had +gone; the man and his system had both become matured: the one more +tolerant, more careful in expression, more considerate of the feelings +of his opponents; the other more systematic, more coordinated, firmer +in its grasp. There was much to do if the system were to be shown to +hold its place in every department of life, as an absolute system must: +much that has not even yet been accomplished. But for those who came in +contact with him, the man was more even than his creed--to them this +frail form which seemed to be wasting away before their eyes, yet never +losing the keen interest in work to be accomplished, must have taught a +lesson more than systems of philosophy dream of. For they could not +fail to learn that the eternal can be found in history--even in history +of long centuries ago, as in every other sphere of knowledge--and that +the search for it supports the seeker in his daily life, takes all its +bitterness from what is hardest, from pain, suffering, and even death. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE COLERIDGE PLAGIARISM--MISCELLANEOUS LITERARY WORK + + +The story of the so-called Coleridge plagiarism is an old one now, but +it is one which roused much feeling at the time, and likewise one on +which there is considerable division of opinion even in the present +day. Into this controversy Ferrier plunged by writing a formidable +indictment of Coleridge's position in _Blackwood's Magazine_ for March +of 1840. + +When Ferrier took up the cudgels the matter stood thus. In the earlier +quarter of the century German Philosophy was coming, or rather had +already come, more or less into vogue in England; and as the German +language was not largely read, and yet people were vaguely interested, +though in what they hardly knew, they welcomed an appreciative +interpreter of that philosophy, and an original writer on similar +lines, in one whose reputation was esteemed so highly as that of +Coleridge. Coleridge in this matter, indeed, occupied a position which +was unique; for the treasures of German poetry and prose had not as yet +been fully opened up, and he was held to possess the means of doing +this in a quite exceptional degree. The works of Schiller, Goethe, and +the other poets came to the world--and to Coleridge with the rest--as a +sort of revelation. But the poet in his own mind was nothing if not a +philosopher--a kind of seer amongst men, speculating, somewhat vaguely +it might be, on matters of transcendental import--and in Schelling he +thought he had discovered a kindred spirit; in his writings he believed +he had found the Idealism for which he had so long been seeking in +Böhme, Fox, and the other mystics--a creed which, though pantheistic in +its essence, yet fulfilled the condition of being both orthodox and +Trinitarian in its form. This, for many reasons, was a creed presenting +many attractions to the younger men of the day, especially when set +forth with a certain literary flavour. We have Carlyle's immortal +picture of how it influenced John Sterling and his friends. + +Coleridge's _Biographia Literaria_, in which the principal so-called +Schelling plagiarisms are contained, was published in 1817, but it was +not for a considerable time after that that the plagiarisms were +discovered, or at least taken notice of. The first serious indictment +came from no less an authority than De Quincey, whose interest in +philosophical matters was as great as Coleridge's, and who published +his views in an appreciative but gossipy article in _Tait's Magazine_ +of September 1834. To commence with, he took up the question of the +'Hymn to Chamouni'; but since, in this matter, Coleridge afterwards +admitted his indebtedness to a German poetess, Frederica Brun, it does +not seem an important one. Nor, indeed, does De Quincey pretend to take +exception to certain expressions in Coleridge's 'France' which are +evidently borrowed from Milton, or to regard them as indicating more +than a peculiar omission of quotation marks. But the really serious +matter, one for which De Quincey cannot by any means account, is that +in the _Biographia Literaria_ there occurs a dissertation on the +doctrine of Knowing and Being which is an exact translation from an +essay written by Schelling. De Quincey cannot indeed explain away the +mystery, but he makes the best of it, pleading excuses such as we often +hear adduced in cases of 'kleptomania' when they occur amongst the +well-to-do, or so-called higher classes--_e.g._, the evident fact that +there was no necessity so to steal, no motive for stealing, even though +the theft had evidently been committed. Still, though the defence may +be ingenious, and though we may go so far as to acknowledge that +Coleridge had sufficient originality of mind to weave out theories of +his own without borrowing from others, it must be confessed that under +the aggravated circumstances the argument falls somewhat flat; and this +was the impression made on many minds even at the time. The ball once +set rolling, the dispute went on, and the next important incident was +an article by Julius Hare in the _British Magazine_ of January 1835. +This is a hot defence of the so-called 'Christian' philosopher, who is +said to be influencing the best and most promising young men of the +day, as against the assault of the 'English Opium-Eater'--'that +ill-boding _alias_ of evil record.' As to De Quincey's somewhat unkind +but entertaining stories, there is some reason in Hare's objections, +seeing that they were told of one to whom the writer owned himself +indebted. But when Hare tackles the plagiarisms themselves, and +endeavours to defend them, his task is harder. Coleridge had indeed +stated that his ideas were thought out and matured before he had seen a +page of Schelling; but at the same time, in an earlier portion of his +work, he made a somewhat ambiguous reference to his indebtedness to the +German philosopher, and deprecated his being accused of intentioned +plagiarism from his writings. Of course it may be said that a thief +does not draw attention to the goods from which he has stolen, but yet +even Hare acknowledges that it is hard to understand how half a dozen +pages (we now know that it really exceeded thirty) should have been +bodily transferred from one work to another, and suggests that the most +probable solution is that Coleridge had a practice of keeping notebooks +for his thoughts, mingled with extracts from what he had been reading +at the time, and that he thus became confused between the two. + +At this point Ferrier steps in and takes the whole matter under +review--a matter which he looked upon as serious (perhaps more serious +than we should now consider it) from a national as well as an +individual point of view. He held that the reputation of his country +was at stake, as well as that of a single philosophic thinker, and that +neither De Quincey nor Hare had gone into the matter with sufficient +care or knowledge, or ascertained how large it really was. It was +undoubtedly the case that Coleridge's reputation in philosophic +matters--and in these days that reputation was not small--was derived +from what he had purloined from the writings of a German youth, and +whatever the poet's claim on our regard on other scores may be, it was +certainly due to Schelling that the debt should be acknowledged. As far +as the _Biographia Literaria_ is concerned, the facts are plain. +Coleridge makes certain general acknowledgments of indebtedness to +Schelling to begin with. He acknowledges that there may be found in his +works an identity of thought or phrase with Schelling's, and allows him +to be the founder of the philosophy of nature; but he claims at the +same time the honour of making that philosophy intelligible to his +fellow-countrymen, and even of thinking it out beforehand. Having said +so much, there follow pages together--sometimes as many as six or eight +on end--which are virtually copied _verbatim_ from Schelling, though +with occasional interpolations of the so-called author here and there. +Ferrier has examined the whole matter most minutely, and made a long +list of the more flagrant cases of copying: thirty-one pages, he points +out, are faithfully transcribed, partially or wholly, from Schelling's +works alone, without allowing for what the author admits to be +translated _in part_ from a 'contemporary writer of the Continent.' And +Schelling was not the only sufferer, nor was it only in the region of +metaphysics that the thefts were made. The substratum of a whole +chapter of the _Biographia Literaria_ is, Ferrier discovered, taken +from another author named Maasz, and Coleridge's lecture 'On Poesy or +Art' is closely copied and largely translated from Schelling's +'Discourse upon the Relations in which the Plastic Arts stand to +Nature.' This was a blow indeed to those who had boasted of the +profundity of Coleridge's views on art; but his poetry surely remained +intact. But no, 'Verses exemplifying the Homeric Metre' are found to +be--unacknowledged--a translation from Schiller; and yet worse, because +less likely to be discovered, the lines written 'To a Cataract' have +the same metre, language, and thought as certain verses by Count von +Stolberg, which were shown to Ferrier by a friend. + +The whole matter is a very strange one and not easy to explain. Of +course the references to Schelling's labours in similar lines are +there, and may in a sense disarm our criticism. But then, +unfortunately, there also are the statements that the ideas had been +matured in Coleridge's mind before he had seen a single line of +Schelling's work, and he clearly gives us to understand that he had +toiled out the system for himself, and that it was the 'offspring of +his own spirit.' It is this overmuch protesting that makes us, like +Ferrier, disposed to take the darkest view of the affair: anything that +can be said in Coleridge's defence is found in the manner in which it +was taken by the one who had most right to feel aggrieved. In the life +of Jowett,[10] recently published, there is an interesting account of +Schelling's views on Coleridge, taken from a conversation, notes of +which were made by the late Sir Alexander Grant, Ferrier's son-in-law, +when still an undergraduate. Jowett, while at Berlin, had, it appears, +seen Schelling, and talked to him of the plagiarisms. He took the +matter, Jowett states, good-naturedly, thought Coleridge to have been +attacked unfairly, and even went so far as to assert that he had +expressed many things better than he could have done himself--certainly +a very generous acknowledgment. Probably the most charitable +construction we can put on Coleridge's act is that which Jowett himself +advances in saying that the poet is not to be looked upon or judged as +an ordinary man would be, seeing that often enough he hardly could be +said to have been responsible for his actions; while his egotism, which +was extreme, may have likewise led him--it may be almost +unconsciously--into acts of doubtful honesty. But evidently, in spite +of Ferrier's work, Jowett, and possibly even Schelling himself, had no +idea of the extent to which the plagiarisms extended. There would, of +course, have been comparatively little harm in Coleridge's action had +he been content to borrow materials which he was about to work up in +his own way, or to do what his biographer Gillman says is done by the +'bee which flies from flower to flower in quest of food,' but which +'digests and elaborates' that food by its native power. Unfortunately, +the more we read Coleridge's philosophic writings, the more we feel +constrained to agree with Ferrier that the matter is not digested as +Gillman suggests, but taken possession of in its ready-made condition. +The parts which he adds do not assist in throwing light on what +precedes, but are evidently padding of a somewhat commonplace and +superficial kind. We can only say, like Jowett, that the manner of his +life may have injured Coleridge's moral sense, and that his desire to +pose as a philosopher who should yet be a so-called 'Christian' may +have led him to encroach upon the spheres of others, instead of keeping +to those in which he could hold his own unchallenged. + + [10] _Life of Benjamin Jowett_, vol. i. pp. 98 and 145. + +A labour of love with Ferrier, on very different lines than the above, +was to bring out in five volumes the works of his father-in-law, John +Wilson, 'Christopher North,' including the _Noctes Ambrosianæ_, and his +Essays and Papers contributed to _Blackwood_. This was published in +1856, but must, of course, have meant a considerable amount of work to +the editor for some time previously. One of the most interesting parts +of the work is Ferrier's preface to the famous 'Chaldee Manuscript,' in +vol. iv. The story of the 'Chaldee MS.' is now a matter of history, +fully recorded in the recently published records of the famous house of +Blackwood. In 1817 the Whigs ruled in matters literary, mainly through +the instrumentality of the _Edinburgh Review_, then in its heyday of +fame. A reaction, however, set in, and the change was inaugurated by +the publication of the so-called 'Chaldee MS.,' a wild _extravaganza_, +or _jeu d'esprit_, hitting off the foibles of Whiggism, under the guise +of an allegory describing the origin and rise of _Blackwood's +Magazine_, the rival which had risen up in opposition to the _Review_, +and the discomfiture of another journal carried on under the auspices +of Constable. It was in the seventh number of _Blackwood_ that the +satire appeared--that is, the first number of _Blackwood's Edinburgh +Magazine_ as distinguished from the _Edinburgh Monthly Magazine_, +published from Blackwood's office to begin with, but on comparatively +mild and inoffensive lines. One may imagine the effect of this Tory +outburst on the society of Edinburgh. All the _literati_ of the town +were involved: Sir Walter Scott himself, Mackenzie, Sir David Brewster, +Sir William Hamilton, Professor Jamieson, Tytler, Playfair, and many +others, some of whom emerged but seldom from the retirement of private +life. Nowadays it would be difficult, if not impossible, to identify +the different characters, were it not for the assistance of Professor +Ferrier's marginal notes; but in those days they were no doubt +recognisable enough. Of course the magazine went like wildfire; but the +ludicrous description in semi-biblical language of individuals with +absurd allegorical appendages, constituted, as Ferrier acknowledges, an +offence against propriety which could not be defended, even though no +real malevolence might be signified. Whether Ferrier was justified in +republishing the _Noctes_, in so far as they could be identified with +Wilson, has been disputed; but, as the publisher, Major Blackwood, +points out, the time was past for anyone to be hurt by the +personalities which they contained, and the only harm the republication +could inflict was upon the _Noctes_ themselves. The conception of the +'Chaldee Manuscript,' he tells us, was in the first part due to Hogg; +and Wilson and Lockhart were held responsible for the last. There is a +tradition, too, though Ferrier does not mention it, that Hamilton was +one of the party in Mr. Wilson's house (53 Queen Street) where the skit +was said to have been concocted, and that he even contributed to it a +verse. This may have been the case, as Wilson and Lockhart were his +intimate friends; but it seems strange to think of so thoroughgoing a +Whig being found mixed up in such a plot, and with such companions. + +Though it is easy to understand that Ferrier felt the editing of his +father-in-law and uncle's work was a duty which it was incumbent upon +him to perform, one cannot help surmising that it may have been a less +congenial task to him than many others. There was little in common +between the two men, both distinguished in their way, and Wilson's +humour and poetic fancy, however bright and vivid, was not of the sort +that would appeal most to Ferrier. A few years before his death Ferrier +gave up the project he had in view of writing Wilson's life, partly in +despair of setting forth his talents as he felt they should be set +forth, and partly from the lack of material to work from. He says, in a +letter written at the time, 'It would do no good to talk in general +terms of his wonderful powers, of his genius being greater (as in some +sense it was) than that of any of his contemporaries--greater, too, +than any of his publications show. The public would require other +evidences of this beyond one's mere word--something might have been +done had some of us Boswellized him judiciously, but this having been +omitted, I do not see how it is possible to do him justice.' The book +was eventually undertaken, and successfully accomplished, by Wilson's +daughter, Mrs. Gordon. + +We have spoken of Ferrier's interest in German literature; so early as +1839 he published a translation of _Pietro d'Abano_ by Ludwig Tieck, +one of the inner circle of the so-called Romantic School to which the +Schlegels and Novalis also belonged--the school which opposed itself to +the eighteenth-century enlightenment, making its cry the return to +nature, and demanding with Fichte that a work of art should be a 'free +product of the inner consciousness.' Another specimen of Ferrier's +translating powers is given in a rendering from Deinhardstein's _Bild +der Danæ_, a love story in which Salvator Rosa figures. This appeared +in _Blackwood_ of September 1841, and an extract from it is published +in the _Remains_. + +But one of the earliest and most remarkable of Ferrier's literary +criticisms in _Blackwood's Magazine_ was an anonymous article on the +various translations of Goethe's _Faust_ published in 1840. We have +seen that Ferrier had made a special study of the writings of Schiller +and Goethe, and that his work had been much appreciated both by Lytton +and De Quincey. In this article the writer takes seven different +renderings of the drama, carefully analyses them, points out their +deficiencies, and even adventures on the difficult task, for a critic, +of himself translating one or two pages. Now that German is so widely +read in England, we are all too well aware of the insufficiency of any +translation of _Faust_ to regard even the best in any other light than +as a makeshift. But then things were different, and it was possible +that wrong impressions of the original might be conveyed by inadequate +translations. Ferrier's point was that Goethe, while writing in rhyme +and in exquisitely poetical language, managed at the same time to find +words such as might really be used by ordinary mortals; but the +translators, in endeavouring rightly enough to keep to the rhyming +form, entirely fail in their endeavour after the same end. He considers +that though in prose we may deviate from the ordinary proprieties of +language, we may not do so in rhyming poetry; for though the poet has +to describe the thought and passion of real men in the language of real +life, his dialect must at the same time be taken out of the category of +ordinary discourse because of the use of rhyme; and he is therefore +called upon as far as possible to remove this bar, and reconcile us to +the peculiarity of his style by the simplicity of his language; +otherwise all illusion will be at an end. Rhymes brought together by +force can succeed in giving us no pleasure; the writer should possess +the power of mastering his material and compelling it to serve his +ends. + +Ferrier's speculative instincts naturally led him to discuss the +often-discussed motive of the play. Is it so, as Coleridge says, that +the love of knowledge for itself could not bring about the evil +consequences depicted in the character of Faust, but only the love of +knowledge for some base purpose? Ferrier replies, No, the love of +knowledge as an end in itself would people the world with Fausts. 'Such +a love of knowledge exercises itself in speculation merely, and not in +action; and if the experiences of purely speculative men were gathered, +we think that most of them would be found to confess, bitterly confess, +that indulgence in an abstract reflective thinking (whatever effect it +may have ultimately upon their nobler genius, supposing them to have +one) in the meantime absolutely kills, or appears to kill, all the +minor faculties of the soul--all the lesser genial powers, upon the +exercise of which the greater part of human happiness depends. They +would own, not without remorse, that pure speculation--that is, +knowledge pursued _for itself_ alone--has often been tasted by them to +be, as Coleridge elsewhere says, 'the bitterest and rottenest part of +the core of the fruit of the forbidden tree.' This seems a strange +confession for a thinker reputed so abstract as Ferrier, but of course +the truth of what he says is evident. Knowledge regarded as an end in +itself might have brought Faust into his troubles, it is true, and he +might likewise have found himself ready to rush into what he conceives +to be the opposite extreme; but a greater philosopher than Ferrier has +said that though 'knowledge brought about the Fall, it also contains +the principle of Redemption,' and we take this to signify that we must +look at knowledge as a necessary element in the culture and education +of an individual or a people, which, though it carries trouble in its +wake, does not leave us in our distress, but brings along with it the +principle of healing, or is the 'healer of itself.' + +Soon after the above, Ferrier contributes to the same journal an +article entitled 'The Tittle-Tattle of a Philosopher,' or an account of +the 'Journey through Life' of Professor Krug of Leipzig. Krug appears +to have been a sort of Admirable Crichton amongst philosophers, to whom +no subject came amiss, and who was ready to take his part in every sort +of philosophical discussion. By Hegel and the idealist school he is +somewhat contemptuously referred to as one of that class of writers of +whom it is said '_Ils se sont battus les flancs pour être de grands +hommes_.' Anyhow, his recollections are at least amusing, if not +philosophically edifying. + +A review of the poems of Coventry Patmore a few years later is a very +different production. It carries us back to the old days of +_Blackwood_, when calm judgment was not so much an object as strength +of expression, withering criticism, and biting sarcasm. Ferrier no +doubt believed it would be well for literature to turn back to the old +days of the knout; but few, we fancy, will agree with him, even if they +suffer for so differing by permitting certain trashy publications to +see the light. Too often, unfortunately, the knout, when it is applied, +arrives on shoulders that are innocent. Of course Ferrier believed that +the worst prognostications of a quarter of a century before were now +being realised by the application not being persevered in; but as to +this particular piece of criticism, whatever our opinion of Patmore's +poetic powers may be, surely the writer was unreasonably severe; surely +the work does not deserve to be dealt with in such unmeasured terms of +opprobrium. It is refreshing to turn to an appreciative, if also +somewhat critical review of the poems of Elizabeth Barrett, published +in the same year, 1844, part of which has been republished in the +_Remains_. In this article Ferrier urges once more the point on which +he continually insists--the adoption of a direct simplicity of style: +one which goes straight to the point, or, as he puts it, which is felt +to 'get through business.' Excepting certain criticism on the score of +style and phraseology, however, Ferrier is all praise of the high +degree of poetic merit which the writings revealed--merit which he must +have been amongst the first to discover and make known. + +The last of Ferrier's work for the magazine in which he had so often +written, was a series of articles on the New Readings from Shakespeare, +published in 1853. These articles were in the main a criticism of Mr. +Payne Collier's 'Notes and Emendations' to the Text of Shakespeare's +'Plays' from early MS. corrections which he had discovered in a copy of +the folio 1632. Ferrier, who was a thorough Shakespeare student, and +whose appreciation of Shakespeare is often spoken of by those who knew +him, had no faith in the authenticity of the new readings, though he +thinks they have a certain interest as matter of curiosity. He goes +through the plays and the alterations made in them _seriatim_, and +comes to the conclusion that in most cases they have little value. In +fact, he proceeds so far as to say that they have opened his eyes to 'a +depth of purity and correctness in the received text of Shakespeare' of +which he had no suspicion--a satisfactory conclusion to the ordinary +reader. + +Besides his work for _Blackwood_, Ferrier was in the habit of +contributing articles to the _Imperial Dictionary of Universal +Biography_ on the various philosophers. Two of these, the biographies +of Schelling and Hegel, are printed in the _Remains_, but besides these +he wrote on Adam Smith, Swift, Schiller, etc., and occasionally +utilised the articles in his lectures. + +On yet another line Ferrier wrote a pamphlet in 1848, entitled +_Observations on Church and State_, suggested by the Duke of Argyll's +essay on the Ecclesiastical History of Scotland. This pamphlet aims at +proving that the Assembly of the Church is really, as the Duke argues, +not merely an ecclesiastical, but a national council, or, as Ferrier +terms it, the 'second and junior of the Scottish Houses of Parliament.' +Being therefore amenable to no other earthly power, it was justified in +opposing the decrees of the Court of Session; though, however, the Free +Church ministers were right in defending their constitutional +privileges, Ferrier holds that they were wrong in doing so as the +'Church' in opposition to the 'State,' and that this brought upon them +their discomfiture. They should not, in his view, have acknowledged +that the Church's property could be forfeit to the State, and +consequently should not have voluntarily resigned their livings. The +pamphlet shows considerable interest in the controversy raging so +vehemently at the time. + +In St. Andrews there was no social meeting at which Ferrier was not a +welcome guest. When popular lectures, then coming into vogue, were +instituted in the town, Ferrier was called upon to deliver one of the +series, the subject chosen being 'Our Contemporary Poetical +Literature.' He says in a letter: 'I am in perfect agony in quest of +something to say about "Our Contemporary Poets" in the Town Hall here +on Friday. I must pump up something, being committed like an ass to +that subject, but devil a thing will come. I wish Aytoun would come +over and plead their cause.' However, in spite of fears, the lecture +appears to have been a success: it was an eloquent appeal on behalf of +poetry as an invaluable educational factor and agent in carrying +forward the work of human civilisation, and an appreciation of the work +of Tennyson, Macaulay, Aytoun, and Lytton. In the same year, but a few +months later, Ferrier was asked to deliver the opening address of the +Edinburgh Philosophical Institution. This Institution has for long been +the means of bringing celebrities from all parts of the country to +lecture before an Edinburgh audience, and its origin and conception was +largely due to Professor Wilson, Ferrier's father-in-law, who was in +the habit of opening the session with an introductory address. His +health no longer permitting this to be done, the directors requested +Ferrier to take his place. The address was on purely general topics, +dealing mainly with the objects of the Institution, then somewhat of a +novelty. He concluded: 'Labour is the lot of man. No pleasure can +surpass the satisfaction which a man feels in the efficient discharge +of the active duties of his calling. But it is equally true that every +professional occupation, from the highest to the lowest, requires to be +counterpoised and alleviated by pursuits of a more liberal order than +itself. Without these the best faculties of our souls must sink down +into an ignoble torpor, and human intercourse be shorn of its highest +enjoyments, and its brightest blessings.' This is characteristic of +Ferrier's view of life. One-sidedness was his particular abhorrence, +and if he could in any measure impress its evil upon those whose daily +business was apt to engross their attention, to the detriment of the +higher spheres of thinking, he was glad at least to make the attempt. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +PROFESSORIAL LIFE + + +The St. Andrews University has the reputation of being given to strife, +and never being thoroughly at rest unless it has at least one law-plea +in operation before the Court of Session in Edinburgh, or an appeal +before the House of Lords in London. In a small town, and more +especially in a small University town, there is of course unlimited +opportunity for discussing every matter of interest, and battles are +fought and won before our very doors--battles often just as interesting +as those of the great world outside, and more engrossing because in +them we probably play the part of active participators, instead of +being simple spectators from outside. Of this time Sheriff Smith, +however, writes: 'Never was the University set more social, and less +given to strife than in Ferrier's day. Grander feats I have often seen +elsewhere, but brighter or more intellectual talk, ranging from the +playful to the profound, never have I heard anywhere.' In this respect +it contrasts with the more self-conscious and less natural social +gatherings of the neighbouring city of Edinburgh, whose stiffness and +formality was unknown to the smaller town. The company, without passing +beyond University bounds, was excellent. There was Tulloch at St. +Mary's, still a young man at his prime, and a warm friend of Ferrier's +in spite of the traditional decree that St. Mary's dealings with the +other College should be as few as might be; there was Shairp, +afterwards Professor of Poetry in Oxford, and always a delightful and +inspiring companion; in the Chair of Logic there was Professor +Spalding, whose ill-health alone prevented him from sharing largely in +the social life; and he was succeeded by Professor Veitch, afterwards +of Glasgow, whose appreciation of Ferrier was keen, and with whom +Ferrier had so much intercourse of a mutually enjoyable sort. Then +there was Professor Sellar, a staunch friend and true, and likewise Sir +David Brewster, the veteran man of science, whom Scotland delights to +honour. When Brewster resigned the Principalship of the United College +in 1859, Ferrier was pressed to become a candidate for the post, and +Brewster himself promised his support, and urged Ferrier's claims; but +there were difficulties in the way, and his place was filled by another +follower of science, Principal Forbes. + +Ferrier's students are now, of course, dispersed abroad far and wide. +One of their number, Sheriff Campbell Smith of Dundee, writes of them +as follows:--'His old students are scattered everywhere--through all +countries, professions, and climates. To many of them the world of +faith and action has become more narrow and less ideal than it seemed +when they sat listening to his lofty and eloquent speculations in the +little old classroom among earnest young faces that are no longer +young, and nearly all grown dim to memory; but to none of them can +there be any feeling regarding him alien to respect and affection, +while to many there will remain the conviction that he was for them and +their experience the _first_ impersonation of living literature, whose +lectures, set off by his thrilling voice, slight interesting burr, and +solemn pauses, and holding in solution profound original thought and +subtle critical suggestions, were a sort of revelation, opening up new +worlds, and shedding a flood of new light upon the old familiar world +of thought and knowledge in which genius alone could see and disclose +wonders.' And this sometime student tells how in passages from the +standard poets undetected meanings were discovered, and new light was +thrown upon the subject of his talk by quotations from the classics, +from Milton and Byron as well as from his favourite Horace. His +eloquence, he tells us, might not be so strong and overwhelming as that +of Chalmers, but it was more fine, subtle, and poetical in its +affinities, revealing thought more splendid and transcendental. 'In +person and manner Professor Ferrier was the very ideal of a Professor +and a gentleman. Nature had made him in the body what he strove after +in spirit. His features were cast in the finest classic mould, and were +faultlessly perfect, as was also his tall thin person,--from the finely +formed head, thickly covered with black hair, which the last ten years +turned into iron-grey, to the noticeably handsome foot.... A human +being less under the influence of low or selfish motives could not be +conceived in this mercenary anti-ideal age. If he made mistakes, they +were due to his living in an ideal world, and not to either malice or +guile, both of which were entirely foreign to his nature.'[11] And yet +there was nothing of the Puritan about the Professor's nature. There +are celebrations in St. Andrews in commemoration of a certain damsel, +Kate Kennedy by name, which are characterised by demonstrations of a +somewhat noisy order. Some of the Professors denounced this institution +and demanded its abolition. But Ferrier had too much sense of humour to +do this; he did not rebuke the lads for the exuberance of their +spirits, but by his calm dignity contrived to keep them within due +bounds. + + [11] _Writings by the Way_, by John Campbell Smith, p. 357 + _seq._ + +A picture of Ferrier was painted about a year before his death by Sir +John Watson Gordon, and it may still be seen in the University Hall +beside the other men of learning who have adorned their University. It +was painted for his friends and former students, but though a fairly +accurate likeness, it is said not to have conveyed to others the keen, +intellectual look so characteristic of the face. It was the nameless +charm--charm of manner and personality--that drew Ferrier's students so +forcibly towards him. As his colleague, Principal Tulloch, said in a +lecture after his death: 'There was a buoyant and graceful charm in all +he did--a perfect sympathy, cordiality, and frankness which won the +hearts of his students as of all who sought his intellectual +companionship. Maintaining the dignity of his position with easy +indifference, he could descend to the most free and affectionate +intercourse; make his students as it were parties with him in his +discussions, and, while guiding them with a master hand, awaken at the +same time their own activities of thought as fellow-workers with +himself. There was nothing, I am sure, more valuable in his teaching +than this--nothing for which his students will longer remember it with +gratitude. No man could be more free from the small vanity of making +disciples. He loved speculation too dearly for itself--he prized too +highly the sacred right of reason, to wish any man or any student +merely to adopt his system or repeat his thought. Not to manufacture +thought for others, but to excite thought in others; to stimulate the +powers of inquiry, and brace all the higher functions of the intellect, +was his great aim. He might be comparatively careless, therefore, of +the small process of drilling, and minute labour of correction. These, +indeed, he greatly valued in their own place. But he felt that his +strength lay in a different direction--in the intellectual impulse +which his own thinking, in its life, its zealous and clear open +candour, was capable of imparting.' + +Ferrier was not, perhaps, naturally endowed with any special capacity +for business, but the business that fell to him as a member of the +_Senatus Academicus_ was performed with the greatest care and zeal. +With the movement for women's University education, which has always +been to the front in St. Andrews, he was sympathetic, although it was +not a matter in which he played any special part. 'No one,' it was +said, 'had clearer perceptions or a cooler and fairer judgment in any +matter which seemed to him of importance.' Principal Tulloch tells how +on one occasion in particular, where the interests of the University +were at stake, his clear sense and vigilance carried it through its +troubles. His loyalty to St. Andrews at all times was indeed +unquestioned. It is possible that had he made it his endeavour to +devote more interest to practical affairs outside the University +limits, it might have been better for himself. There may, perhaps, be +truth in the saying that metaphysics is apt to have an enervating +effect upon the moral senses, or at least upon the practical +activities, and to take from men's usefulness in the ordinary affairs +of life; but one can hardly realise Ferrier other than he was, a +student whose whole interests were devoted to the philosophy he had +espoused, and who loved to deal with the fundamental questions that +remained beneath all action and all thought, rather than with those +more concrete; and the former lay in a region purely speculative. Such +as he was, he never failed to preserve the most perfect order in his +class, and to do what was required of him with praiseworthy accuracy +and minute attention to details. + +'Life in his study,' says Principal Tulloch, 'was Professor Ferrier's +characteristic life. There have been, I daresay, even in our time, +harder students than he was; but there could scarcely be anyone who was +more habitually a student, who lived more amongst books, and took more +special and constant delight in intercourse with them. In his very +extensive but choice library he knew every book by head-mark, as he +would say, and could lay his hands upon the desired volume at once. It +was a great pleasure to him to bring to the light from an obscure +corner some comparatively unknown English speculator of whom the +University library knew nothing.' + +We are often told how he would be found seated in his library clad in a +long dressing-gown which clung round his tall form, and making him look +even taller--a typical philosopher, though perhaps handsomer than many +of his craft. 'My father rarely went from home,' writes his daughter, +'and when not in the College class-room was to be found in his snug, +well-stocked, ill-bound library, writing or reading, clad in a very +becoming dark blue dressing-gown. He was no smoker, but carried with +him a small silver snuff-box.' + +Professor Shairp says that now and then he used to go to hear him +lecture. 'I never saw anything better than his manner towards his +students. There was in it ease, yet dignity so respectful both to them +and to himself that no one could think of presuming with him. Yet it +was unusually kindly, and full of a playful humour which greatly +attached them to him. No one could be farther removed from either the +Don or the Disciplinarian. But his look of keen intellect and high +breeding, combined with gentleness and feeling for his students, +commanded attention more than any discipline could have done. In +matters of College discipline, while he was fair and just, he always +leant to the forbearing side.... Till his illness took a more serious +form, he was to be met at dinner-parties, to which his society always +gave a great charm. In general society his conversation was full of +humour and playful jokes, and he had a quick yet kindly eye to note the +extravagances and absurdities of men.' And the Professor goes on to +narrate how on a winter afternoon he would fall to talking of Horace, +an especial favourite of his, and how then he would read the racy and +unconventional translation he had made up for amusement. And afterwards +he would talk of Wordsworth and the feelings he awoke in him, showing +'a richness of literary knowledge, and a delicacy and keenness of +appreciation, of which his philosophical writings, except by their fine +style, give no hint.' Hegel and Plato were the favourite objects of his +study. Of the former he never satisfied himself that he had completely +mastered the conception. But the insight that he had got into his +dialectic and into the doctrine of Reality contributed very largely to +making his philosophy what it was. He endeavoured to apply the system +in various directions, and ever continued in his efforts to work it out +more fully. + +Another former student, who has been quoted before, writes in his +Recollections of student life at St. Andrews:[12] 'Ferrier had not +Spalding's thorough method of teaching. He had no regular time for +receiving and correcting essays; he had only one written examination; +for oral examination he had an easy way, in which the questions +suggested the answers; yet all these drawbacks were atoned for by his +living presence. It was an embodiment of literary and philosophical +enthusiasm, happily blended with sympathy and urbanity. It did the work +of the most thorough class drill, for it arrested the attention, opened +the mind, and filled it with love of learning and wisdom. Intellect and +humanity seemed to radiate from his countenance like light and heat, +and illumined and fascinated all on whom they fell.... Let me recall +him as he appeared in the spring of 1854. The eleven-o'clock bell has +rung. All the other classes have gone in to lecture. We, the students +of Moral Philosophy, are lingering in the quadrangle, for the +Professor, punctual in his unpunctuality, comes in regularly two or +three minutes after the hour. Through the archway under the +time-honoured steeple of St. Salvator's he approaches--a tall somewhat +emaciated figure, with intellectual and benevolent countenance. As he +hurries in we follow and take our seats. In a minute he issues gowned +from his anteroom, seats himself in his chair, and places his silver +snuff-box before him. Now that he is without his hat and in his gown, +he has a striking appearance. His head is large, well-developed, and +covered with thick iron-grey hair; his features are regular, his mouth +is refined and sensitive, his chin is strong, and his eyes as seen +behind his spectacles are keenly intelligent and at the same time +benevolent. He begins by calling up a student to be orally examined; +and the catechising goes on very much in the following style:-- + + [12] _Pleasant Recollections of a Busy Life_, by David + Pryde, LL.D., p. 59. + +'"_Professor._--Well, Mr. Brown, answer a few questions, if you please. +What is the first proposition of the lectures? + +'"_Student_ repeats it. + +'"_Professor._--Quite right, Mr. Brown. And, Mr. Brown, is this quite +true? + +'"_Stud._--Yes. + +'"_Prof._--Quite right, Mr. Brown. At least, so I think. And, Mr. +Brown, is it not absurd to hold the reverse? + +'"_Stud._--Yes. + +'"_Prof._--Yes, yes. Thank you, Mr. Brown. That will do." + +'The Professor then begins his lecture. As long as he is stating and +proving the propositions in his metaphysical system, his tone is simple +and matter-of-fact. His great aim is to make his meaning plain, and for +that purpose he often expresses an important idea in various ways, +using synonyms, and sometimes reading a sentence twice. But when he +comes to illustrate his thoughts, his manner changes. He lets loose his +fancy, his imagination, and even his humour; and his whole soul comes +into his voice. His burr, scarcely distinguishable in his ordinary +speech, now becomes strong, and his whole utterance is slow, intense, +and fervid. He is particularly happy in his quotations from the poets, +and he has a peculiarity in reading them which increases the effect. +When rolling forth a line he sometimes pauses before he comes to the +end, as if to collect his strength, and then utters the last word or +words with redoubled emphasis. The effect of his eloquence on the +students is electrical. They cease to take notes; every head is raised; +every face beams with delight; and at the end of a passage their +feelings find vent in a thunderstorm of applause. + +'The two most remarkable features of his lectures were their method and +clearness. Order and light were the very elements in which his mind +lived and moved. He kept this end in view, threw aside the facts that +were unnecessary, arranged the facts that were necessary, and expressed +them with a precision about which there could be no ambiguity. In fact, +each idea and the whole chain of ideas were visible by their own light. +So perspicuous were the words that they might have been called +crystallised thoughts. + +'Out of the classroom Ferrier was equally polite and kind, especially +to those students who showed a love and a capacity for philosophy. It +was no uncommon thing for him to stop a student in the street and +invite him to the house to have a talk about the work of the class. I +have a distant recollection of my first visit to his study; I see him +yet, with his noble, benignant countenance, as he reads and discusses +passages in my first essay, gravely reasoning with me on the points +that were reasonable, passing lightly over those that were merely +rhetorical, and smiling good-naturedly at those that attacked in no +measured language his own system.' + +Professor Ferrier was never failing in hospitality to his students as +to his other friends. Dr. Pryde goes on: 'Every year Ferrier invited +the best of his students to dinner. At the dinner at which I was +present there were two of his fellow-professors, Sellar and Fischer. It +was a great treat for a youth like me. Mrs. Ferrier was effervescent +with animal spirits and talk; Ferrier himself, looking like a nobleman +in his old-fashioned dress-coat with gold buttons, interposed +occasionally with his subtle touches of wit and humour.' The Professor +appears to have been an inveterate snuffer. His students used to tell +how the silver snuff-box was made the medium of explaining the +Berkeleian system, and how to their minds the system, fairly clear in +words, became a hopeless tangle when the assistance of the snuff-box +was resorted to. And Dr. Pryde narrates how he used to see Professor +Spalding and Professor Ferrier seated side by side in the students' +benches, looking on the same book, listening to their young colleague +Professor Sellar's inspiring lectures, and at intervals exchanging +snuff-boxes. He gives the following account of his last visit to +Ferrier, when he was on his deathbed, but still in his library among +his books: 'He told me that his disease was mortal; but face to face +with death he was cheerful and contented, and had bated not one jot of +his interest in learning and in public events. He was very anxious that +I should take lunch with Mrs. Ferrier and the rest of the family; and +though he could not join us, he sent into the dining-room a special +bottle of wine as a substitute for himself. Two months afterwards he +had passed away.' + +Tulloch writes after the sad event had occurred:[13] 'I have, of course, +heard the sad news from St. Andrews. What sadness it has been to me I +cannot tell you. St. Andrews never can be the same place without +Ferrier. God knows what is to become of the University with all these +breaks upon its old society; and where can we supply such a place as +Ferrier's?' And his biographer adds: 'The removal of that delicate and +clear spirit from a little society in which his position was so +important, and his innate refinement of mind so powerful and beneficial +an influence, was a loss almost indescribable, not only to the friends +who loved him, but to the University. His great reputation was an +honour to the place, combining as it did so many associations of the +brilliant past with that due to the finest intellectual perception and +the most engaging and attractive character. Even his little +whimsicalities and strain of quaint humour gave a charm the more; and +the closing of the cheerful house, the centre of wit and brightness to +the academical community, was a loss which St. Andrews never failed to +feel, nor the survivors to lament.' + + [13] _Memoir_, p. 196, by Mrs. Oliphant. + +Professor Ferrier was occasionally called upon to make a visit to +London, although this did not seem to have been by any means a frequent +occurrence. Business he must occasionally have had there, for in 1861 +he was appointed to examine in the London University, and in 1863, +shortly before his death, the Society of Arts offered him an +examinership in Logic and Mental Science, in place of the late +Archbishop of York, which he accepted. But of one visit which he paid +in 1858, with Principal Tulloch as joint delegate from the University +of St. Andrews, Mrs. Oliphant gives an amusing account, in her _Memoir +of Principal Tulloch_.[14] The object of the deputation was to watch the +progress of the University Bill through the House of Commons. This Bill +was one of the earliest efforts after regulating the studies, degrees, +etc., of the Scottish Universities, and also dealt with an increase in +the Parliamentary grant which, if it passed, would considerably affect +the Professors' incomes as well as the resources of the University. The +Bill, which was under the charge of Lord Advocate Inglis (afterwards +Lord Justice-General of Scotland), likewise provided that in each +University a University Court should be established, as also a +University Council composed of graduates. Ferrier and Tulloch no doubt +did their part in the business which they had in hand: they visited all +the Members of Parliament who were likely to be interested, as other +Scottish deputations have done before and since, and received the same +evasive and varying replies. But in the evenings, and when they were +free, they entertained themselves in different fashion. First of all, +they have hardly arrived after their long night's journey's travel +before they burst upon the 'trim and well-ordered room where Mr. John +Blackwood and his wife were seated at breakfast'--this evidently at +Ferrier's instigation. Then, having settled in Duke Street, St. +James's, they are asked, rather inappropriately, it would seem, to a +ball, where they were 'equally impressed by the size of the crinoline +and the absence of beauty.' Next Cremorne was visited, Tulloch +declaring that his object was to take care of his companion. 'If you +had seen Ferrier as he gazed frae him with the half-amused, +half-scowling expression he not unfrequently assumes, looking bored, +and yet with a vague philosophical interest at the wonderful expanse of +gay dresses and fresh womanhood around him!' 'He will go nowhere +without a cab; to-day for the first time I got him into an omnibus in +search of an Aberdeen Professor, a wild and wandering distance which we +thought we never should reach.' The theatre was visited, too; Lear was +being played, very possibly by Charles Kean. In the Royal Academy, +Frith's Derby Day was the attraction of the year. But quite remarkable +was the interest which Ferrier--who did not appreciate in general +'going to church,' and used to say he preferred to sit and listen to +the faint sounds of the organ from the quiet of his room--betrayed in +the eloquence of Spurgeon, then at the height of his fame and +attracting enormous congregations round him in the Surrey Garden +Theatre. Tulloch wrote to his wife: 'We have just been to hear +Spurgeon, and have been both so much impressed that I write to give you +my impressions while they are fresh. As we came out we both confessed, +"There is no doubt about _that_," and I was struck with Ferrier's +remarkable expression, "I feel it would do me good to hear the like of +that, it sat so close to reality." The sermon is about the most real +thing I have come in contact with for a long time.' The building was +large and airy, with window-doors from which you could walk into the +gardens beyond, and Ferrier, Tulloch writes, now and then took a turn +in the fresh air outside while the sermon was progressing. + + [14] P. 127. + +After London, Oxford was visited, and here the friends lived at Balliol +with Mr. Jowett, who had not yet become the Master. Ferrier would +doubtless delight in showing to his friend the beauties of the place +with which he had so many memories, but to attend eight-o'clock chapel +with Tulloch was, the latter tells us, beyond the limits of his zeal. +Just before this, in 1857, another visit was paid by Ferrier to Oxford +with his family, and this time to visit Lady Grant, the mother of his +future son-in-law. It was at Commemoration-time, we are told, and a +ball was given in honour of the party. On this occasion Ferrier for the +first time met Professor Jowett, besides many other kindred spirits, +and he thoroughly enjoyed wandering about the old haunts at Magdalen, +where in his youth he had pelted the deer and played the part of a +young and thoughtless gownsman. + +A little book was published some years ago, on behoof of the St. +Andrews Students' Union, entitled _Speculum Universitatis_, in which +former students and _alumni_ piously record their recollections of +their _Alma Mater_. Some of these papers bring before us very vividly +the sort of impression which the life left upon the lads, drawn +together from all manner of home surroundings, and equally influenced +by the memories of the past and the living presence of those who were +the means of opening up new tracts of knowledge to their view. One of +them, already often quoted, says in a paper called 'The Light of Long +Ago': 'I always sink into the conviction that the St. Andrews United +College was never so well worth attending as during the days when in +its classrooms Duncan taught Mathematics, Spalding taught Logic, and +Ferrier taught Metaphysics and Moral Science, illustrating living +literature in his literary style, and in the strange tones, pauses, and +inflections of his voice. To the field of literature and speculation +Ferrier restored glimpses of the sunshine of Paradise. Under his +magical spell they ceased to look like fields that had been cursed with +weeds, watered with sweat and tears, and levelled and planted with +untold labour. Every utterance of his tended alike to disclose the +beauty and penetrate the mystery of existence. He was a persevering +philosopher, but he was also a poet by a gift of nature. The burden of +this most unintelligible world did not oppress him, nor any other +burden. Intellectual action proving the riddles of reason was a joy to +him. He loved philosophy and poetry for their own sake, and he infected +others with a kindred, but not an equal, passion. He could jest and +laugh and play. If he ever discovered that much study is a weariness of +the flesh, he most effectually concealed that discovery.' + +And to conclude, we have the testimony of another former student who is +now distinguished in the fields of literature, but who always remains +faithful to his home of early days. Mr. Andrew Lang says: 'Professor +Ferrier's lectures on Moral Philosophy were the most interesting and +inspiriting that I ever listened to either at Oxford or St. Andrews. I +looked on Mr. Ferrier with a kind of mysterious reverence, as on the +last of the golden chain of great philosophers. There was, I know not +what of dignity, of humour, and of wisdom in his face; there was an air +of the student, the vanquisher of difficulties, the discoverer of +hidden knowledge, in him that I have seen in no other. His method at +that time was to lecture on the History of Philosophy, and his manner +was so persuasive that one believed firmly in the tenets of each school +he described, till he advanced those of the next! Thus the whole +historical evolution of thought went on in the mind of each of his +listeners.' + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +LIFE AT ST. ANDREWS + + +In an old-world town like St. Andrews the stately, old-world Moral +Philosophy Professor must have seemed wonderfully in his place. There +are men who, good-looking in youth, become 'ordinary-looking' in later +years, but Ferrier's looks were not of such a kind. To the last--of +course he was not an old man when he died--he preserved the same +distinguished appearance that we are told marked him out from amongst +his fellows while still a youth. The tall figure, clad in +old-fashioned, well-cut coat and white duck trousers, the close-shaven +face, and merry twinkle about the eye signifying a sense of humour +which removed him far from anything which we associate with the name of +pedant; the dignity, when dignity was required, and yet the sympathy +always ready to be extended to the student, however far he was from +taking up the point, if he were only trying his best to comprehend--all +this made up to those who knew him, the man, the scholar, and the +high-bred gentleman, which, in no ordinary or conventional sense, +Professor Ferrier was. It is the personality which, when years have +passed and individual traits have been forgotten, it is so difficult to +reproduce. The personal attraction, the atmosphere of culture and +chivalry, which was always felt to hang about the Professor, has not +been forgotten by those who can recall him in the old St. Andrews days; +but who can reproduce this charm, or do more than state its existence +as a fact? Perhaps this sort only comes to those whose life is mainly +intellectual--who have not much, comparatively speaking, to suffer from +the rough and tumble to which the 'practical' man is subjected in the +course of his career. Sometimes it is said that those who preach high +maxims of philosophy and conduct belie their doctrines in their outward +lives; but on the whole, when we review their careers, this would +wonderfully seldom seem to be the case. From Socrates' time onwards we +have had philosophers who have taught virtue and practised it +simultaneously, and in no case has this combination been better +exemplified in recent days than in that of James Frederick Ferrier, and +one who unsuccessfully contested his chair upon his death, Thomas Hill +Green, Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford. It seems as though it +may after all be good to speculate on the deep things of the earth as +well as to do the deeds of righteousness. + +If the saying is true, that the happiest man is he who is without a +history, then Ferrier has every claim to be enrolled in the ranks of +those who have attained their end. For happiness _was_ an end to +Ferrier: he had no idea of practising virtue in the abstract, and +finding a sufficiency in this. He believed, however, that the happiness +to be sought for was the happiness of realising our highest aims, and +the aim he put before him he very largely succeeded in attaining. His +life was what most people would consider monotonous enough: few events +outside the ordinary occurrences of family and University life broke in +upon its tranquil course. Unlike the custom of some of his colleagues, +summer and winter alike were passed by Ferrier in the quaint old +sea-bound town. He lived there largely for his work and books. Not that +he disliked society; he took the deepest interest even in his +dinner-parties, and whether as a host or as a guest, was equally +delightful as a companion or as a talker. But in his books he found his +real life; he would take them down to table, and bed he seldom reached +till midnight was passed by two hours at least. One who knew and cared +for him, the attractive wife of one of his colleagues, who spent ten +sessions at St. Andrews before distinguishing the Humanity Chair in +Edinburgh, tells how the West Park house had something about its +atmosphere that marked it out as unique--something which was due in +great measure to the cultured father, but also to the bright and witty +mother and the three beautiful young daughters, who together formed a +household by itself, and one which made the grey old town a different +place to those who lived in it. + +Ferrier, as we have seen, had many distinguished colleagues in the +University. Besides Professor Sellar, who held the Chair of Greek, +there was the Principal of St. Mary's (Principal Tulloch), Professor +Shairp, then Professor of Latin, and later on the Principal; the Logic +Professor, Veitch, Sir David Brewster, Principal of the United +Colleges, and others. But the society was unconventional in the +extreme. The salaries were not large: including fees, the ordinance of +the Scottish Universities Commission appointing the salaries of +Professors in 1861, estimates the salary of the professorship of Moral +Philosophy at St. Andrews at £444, 18s., and the Principal only +received about £100 more. But there were not those social customs and +conventions to maintain that succeed in making life on a small income +irksome in a larger city. All were practically on the same level in the +University circle, and St. Andrews was not invaded by so large an army +of golfing visitors then as now, though the game of course was played +with equal keenness and enthusiasm. Professor Ferrier took no part in +this or other physical amusement: possibly it had been better for him +had he left his books and study at times to do so. The friend spoken of +above tells, however, of the merry parties who walked home after dining +out, the laughing protests which she made against the Professor's rash +statement (in allusion to his theory of _perception-mecum_) that _she_ +was 'unredeemed nonsense' without _him_; the way in which, when an idea +struck him, he would walk to her house with his daughter, regardless of +the lateness of the hour, and throw pebbles at the lighted bedroom +windows to gain admittance--and of course a hospitable supper; how she, +knowing that a tablemaid was wanted in the Ferrier establishment, +dressed up as such and interviewed the mistress, who found her highly +satisfactory but curiously resembling her friend Mrs. Sellar; and how +when this was told her husband, he exclaimed, 'Why, of course it's she +dressed up; let us pursue her,' which was done with good effect! All +these tales, and many others like them, show what the homely, sociable, +and yet cultured life was like--a life such as we in this country +seldom have experience of: perhaps that of a German University town may +most resemble it. In spite of being in many ways a recluse, Ferrier was +ever a favourite with his students, just because he treated them, not +with familiarity indeed, but as gentlemen like himself. Other +Professors were cheered when they appeared in public, but the loudest +cheers were always given to Ferrier. + +Mrs. Ferrier's brilliant personality many can remember who knew her +during her widowhood in Edinburgh. She had inherited many of her +father, 'Christopher North's' physical and mental gifts, shown in looks +and wit. A friend of old days writes: 'She was a queen in St. Andrews, +at once admired for her wit, her eloquence, her personal charms, and +dreaded for her free speech, her powers of ridicule, and her withering +mimicry. Faithful, however, to her friends, she was beloved by them, +and they will lament her now as one of the warmest-hearted and most +highly-gifted of her sex.' Mrs. Ferrier never wrote for +publication,--she is said to have scorned the idea,--but those who knew +her never can forget the flow of eloquence, the wit and satire mingled, +the humorous touches and the keen sense of fun that characterised her +talk; for she was one of an era of brilliant talkers that would seem to +have passed away. Mrs. Ferrier's capacity for giving appropriate +nicknames was well known: Jowett, afterwards Master of Balliol, she +christened the 'little downy owl.' Her husband's philosophy she +graphically described by saying that 'it made you feel as if you were +sitting up on a cloud with nothing on, a lucifer match in your hand, +but nothing to strike it on,'--a description appealing vividly to many +who have tried to master it! + +In many ways she seemed a link with the past of bright memories in +Scotland, when these links were very nearly severed. Five children in +all were born to her; of her sons one, now dead, inherited many of his +father's gifts. Her elder daughter, Lady Grant, the wife of Sir +Alexander Grant, Principal of the Edinburgh University and a +distinguished classical scholar, likewise succeeded to much of her +mother's grace and charm as well as of her father's accomplishments. +Under the initials 'O. J.' she was in the habit of contributing +delightful humorous sketches to _Blackwood's Magazine_--the magazine +which her father and her grandfather had so often contributed to in +their day; but her life was not a long one: she died in 1895, eleven +years after her husband, and while many possibilities seemed still +before her. + +Perhaps we might try to picture to ourselves the life in which Ferrier +played so prominent a part in the only real University town of which +Scotland can boast. For it is in St. Andrews that the traditional +distinctions between the College and the University are maintained, +that there is the solemn stillness which befits an ancient seat of +learning, that every step brings one in view of some monument of ages +that are past and gone, and that we are reminded not only of the +learning of our ancestors, of their piety and devotion to the College +they built and endowed, but of the secular history of our country as +well. In this, at least, the little University of the North has an +advantage over her rich and powerful rivals, inasmuch as there is +hardly any important event which has taken place in Scottish history +but has left its mark upon the place. No wonder the love of her +students to the _Alma Mater_ is proverbial. In Scotland we have little +left to tell us of the mediæval church and life, so completely has the +Reformation done its work, and so thoroughly was the land cleared of +its 'popish images'; and hence we value what little there remains to us +all the more. And the University of St. Andrews, the oldest of our +seats of learning, has come down to us from mediæval days. It was +founded by a Catholic bishop in 1411, about a century after the +dedication of the Cathedral, now, of course, a ruin. But it is to the +good Bishop Kennedy who established the College of St. Salvator, one of +the two United Colleges of later times, that we ascribe most honour in +reference to the old foundation. Not only did he build the College on +the site which was afterwards occupied by the classrooms in which +Ferrier and his colleagues taught, but he likewise endowed them with +vestments and rich jewels, including amongst their numbers a +beautifully chased silver mace which may still be seen. Of the old +College buildings there is but the chapel and janitor's house now +existing; within the chapel, which is modernised and used for +Presbyterian service, is the ancient founder's tomb. The quadrangle, +after the Reformation, fell into disrepair, and the present buildings +are comparatively of recent date. The next College founded--that of St. +Leonard--which became early imbued with Reformation principles, was, in +the eighteenth century, when its finances had become low, incorporated +with St. Salvator's, and when conjoined they were in Ferrier's time, as +now, known as the 'United College.' Besides the United College there +was a third and last College, called St. Mary's. Though founded by the +last of the Catholic bishops before the Reformation, it was +subsequently presided over by the anti-prelatists Andrew Melville and +Samuel Rutherford. St. Mary's has always been devoted to the study of +theology. + +But the history of her colleges is not all that has to be told of the +ancient city. Association it has with nearly all who have had to do +with the making of our history--the good Queen Margaret, Beaton, and, +above all, Queen Mary and her great opponent Knox. The ruined Castle +has many tales to tell could stones and trees have tongues--stories of +bloodshed, of battle, of the long siege when Knox was forced to yield +to France and be carried to the galleys. After the murder of Archbishop +Sharp, and the revolution of 1688, the town once so prosperous dwindled +away, and decayed into an unimportant seaport. There is curiously +little attractive about its situation in many regards. It is out of the +way, difficult of access once upon a time, and even now not on a main +line of rail, too near the great cities, and yet at the same time too +far off. The coast is dangerous for fishermen, and there is no harbour +that can be called such. No wonder, it seems, that the town became +neglected and insanitary, that Dr. Johnson speaks of 'the silence and +solitude of inactive indigence and gloomy depopulation,' and left it +with 'mournful images.' But if St. Andrews had its drawbacks, it had +still more its compensations. It had its links--the long stretch of +sandhills spread far along the coast, and bringing crowds of visitors +to the town every summer as it comes round; and for the pursuit of +learning the remoteness of position has some advantages. Even at its +worst the University showed signs of its recuperative powers. Early in +the century Chalmers was assistant to the Professor of Mathematics, and +then occupied the Chair of Moral Philosophy (that chair to which +Ferrier was afterwards appointed), and drew crowds of students round +him. Then came a time of innovation. If in 1821 St. Andrews was badly +paved, ill-lighted, and ruinous, an era of reform set in. New +classrooms were built, the once neglected library was added to and +rearranged, and the town was put to rights through an energetic +provost, Major, afterwards Sir Hugh, Lyon Playfair. He made 'crooked +places straight' in more senses than one, swept away the 'middens' that +polluted the air, saw to the lighting and paving of the streets, and +generally brought about the improvements which we expect to find in a +modern town. 'On being placed in the civic chair, he had found the +streets unpaved, uneven, overgrown with weeds, and dirty; the ruins of +the time-honoured Cathedral and Castle used as a quarry for greedy and +sacrilegious builders, and the University buildings falling into +disrepair; and he had resolved to change all this. With persistency +almost unexampled, he had employed all the arts of persuasion and +compulsion upon those who had the power to remedy these abuses. He had +dunned, he had coaxed, he had bantered, he had bargained, he had +borrowed, he had begged; and he had been successful. In 1851 the +streets were paved and clean, the fine old ruins were declared sacred, +and the dilapidated parts of the University buildings had been replaced +by a new edifice. And he--the Major, as he was called--a little man, +white-haired, shaggy-eyebrowed, blue-eyed, red-faced, with his hat +cocked on the side of his head, and a stout cane in his hand, walked +about in triumph, the uncrowned king of the place.'[15] + + [15] _Pleasant Memories_, by David Pryde, LL.D. + +Of this same renovating provost, it is told that one day he dropped in +to see the Moral Philosophy Professor, who, however deeply engaged with +his books, was always ready to receive his visitors. 'Well, Major, I +have just completed the great work of my life. In this book I claim to +make philosophy intelligible to the meanest understanding.' Playfair at +once requested to hear some of it read aloud. Ferrier reluctantly +started to read in his slow, emphatic way, till the Major became +fidgety; still he went on, till Playfair started to his feet. 'I say, +Ferrier, do you mean to say this is intelligible to the meanest +understanding?' 'Do you understand it, Major?' 'Yes, I think I do.' +'Then, Major, I'm satisfied.' + +Of the social life, Mrs. Oliphant says in her _Life of Principal +Tulloch_: 'The society, I believe, was more stationary than it has been +since, and more entirely disposed to make of St. Andrews the +pleasantest and brightest of abiding-places. Sir David Brewster was +still throned in St. Leonard's. Professor Ferrier, with his witty and +brilliant wife--he full of quiet humour, she of wildest wit, a mimic of +alarming and delightful power, with something of the countenance and +much of the genius of her father, the great "Christopher North" of +_Blackwood's Magazine_--made the brightest centre of social mirth and +meetings. West Park, their pleasant home, at the period which I record +it, was ever open, ever sounding with gay voices and merry laughter, +with a boundless freedom of talk and comment, and an endless stream of +good company. Professor Ferrier himself was one of the greatest +metaphysicians of his time--the first certainly in Scotland; but this +was perhaps less upon the surface than a number of humorous ways which +were the delight of his friends, many quaint abstractions proper to his +philosophic character, and a happy friendliness and gentleness along +with his wit, which gave his society a continual charm.' Professor +Knight, who now occupies Ferrier's place in the professoriate of St. +Andrews, in his _Life of Professor Shairp_, quotes from a paper of +reminiscences by Professor Sellar: 'The centre of all the intellectual +and social life of the University and of the town was Professor +Ferrier. He inspired in the students a feeling of affectionate devotion +as well as admiration, such as I have hardly ever known inspired by any +teacher; and to many of them his mere presence and bearing in the +classroom was a large element in a liberal education. By all his +colleagues he was esteemed as a man of most sterling honour, a staunch +friend, and a most humorous and delightful companion.... There +certainly never was a household known to either of us in which the +spirit of racy and original humour and fun was so exuberant and +spontaneous in every member of it, as that of which the Professor and +his wife--the most gifted and brilliant, and most like her father of +the three gifted daughters of "Christopher North"--were the heads. Our +evenings there generally ended in the Professor's study, where he was +always ready to discuss, either from a serious or humorous point of +view (not without congenial accompaniment), the various points of his +system till the morning was well advanced.' + +Ferrier's daughter writes of the house at West Park: 'It was an +old-fashioned, rough cast or "harled" house standing on the road in +Market Street, but approached through a small green gate and a short +avenue of trees--trees that were engraven on the heart and memory from +childhood. The garden at the back still remains. In our time it was a +real old-fashioned Scotch garden, well stocked with "berries," pears, +and apples; quaint grass walks ran through it, and a summer-house with +stained-glass windows stood in a corner. West Park was built on a site +once occupied by the Grey Friars, and I am not romancing when I say +that bones and coins were known to have been discovered in the garden +even in our time. Our home was socially a very amusing and happy one, +though my father lived a good deal apart from us, coming down from his +dear old library occasionally in the evenings to join the family +circle.' This family circle was occasionally supplemented by a French +teacher or a German, and for one year by a certain Mrs. Huggins, an old +ex-actress who originally came to give a Shakespeare reading in St. +Andrews, and who fell into financial difficulties, and was invited by +the hospitable Mrs. Ferrier to make her home for a time at West Park. +The visit was not in all respects a success, Mrs. Huggins being +somewhat exacting in her requirements and difficult to satisfy. So +little part did its master take in household matters that it was only +by accident, after reading prayers one Sunday evening, that he noticed +her presence. On inquiring who the stranger was, Mrs. Ferrier replied, +'Oh, that is Mrs. Huggins.' 'Then what is her avocation?' 'To read +Shakespeare and draw your window-curtains,' said the ever-ready Mrs. +Ferrier! The children of the house were brought up to love the stage +and everyone pertaining to it, and whenever a strolling company came to +St. Andrews the Ferriers were the first to attend their play. The same +daughter writes that when children their father used to thrill them +with tales of Burke and Hare, the murderers and resurrectionists whose +doings brought about a reign of terror in Edinburgh early in the +century. As a boy, Ferrier used to walk out to his grandfather's in +Morningside--then a country suburb--in fear and trembling, expecting +every moment to meet Burke, the object of his terror. On one occasion +he believed that he had done so, and skulked behind a hedge and lay +down till the scourge of Edinburgh passed by. In 1828 he witnessed his +hanging in the Edinburgh prison. Professor Wilson, his father-in-law, +it may be recollected, spoke out his mind about the famous Dr. Knox in +the _Noctes_ as well as in his classroom, and it was a well-known fact +that his favourite Newfoundland dog Brontë was poisoned by the students +as an act of retaliation. + +Murder trials had always a fascination for Ferrier. On one occasion he +read aloud to his children De Quincey's essay, 'Murder as a Fine Art,' +which so terrified his youngest daughter that she could hardly bring +herself to leave her father's library for bed. Somewhat severe to his +sons, to his daughters Ferrier was specially kind and indulgent, +helping them with their German studies, reading Schiller's plays to +them, and when little children telling them old-world fairy tales. A +present of Grimm's Tales, brought by her father after a visit to +London, was, she tells us, a never-to-be-forgotten joy to the +recipient. + +The charm of the West Park house was spoken of by all the numerous +young men permitted to frequent its hospitable board. There was a +wonderful concoction known by the name of 'Bishop,' against whose +attraction one who suffered by its potency says that novices were +warned, more especially in view of a certain sunk fence in the +immediate vicinity which had afterwards to be avoided. The jokes that +passed at these entertainments, which were never dull, are past and +gone,--their piquancy would be gone even could they be reproduced,--but +the impression left on the minds of those who shared in them is +ineffaceable, and is as vivid now as forty years ago. + +There was a custom, now almost extinct, of keeping books of so-called +'Confessions,' in which the contributors had the rather formidable task +of filling up their likes or dislikes for the entertainment of their +owners. In Mrs. Sellar's album Ferrier made several interesting +'confessions'--whether we take them _au grand sérieux_ or only as +playful jests with a grain of truth behind. Here are some of the +questions and their answers. + + Question. Answer. + + Your favourite character in Socrates. + history. + + The character you most dislike. Calvin. + + Your favourite kind of literature. _The Arabian Nights._ + + Your favourite author. Hegel. + + Your favourite occupation and Driving with a handsome + amusement. woman. + + Those you dislike most. Fishing, walking, and + dancing. + + Your favourite topics of Humorous and tender. + conversation. + + Those you dislike most. Statistical and personal. + + Your ambition. To reach the Truth. + + Your ideal. Always to pay ready money. + + Your hobby. Peacemaking. + + The virtue you most admire. Reasonableness. + + The vices to which you are The world, the flesh, and + most lenient. the devil. + +These last two answers are very characteristic of Ferrier's point of +view in later days. He was above all reasonable--no ascetic who could +not understand the temptations of the world, but one who enjoyed its +pleasures, saw the humorous side of life, appreciated the æsthetic, and +yet kept the dictates of reason ever before his mind. And his ambition +to reach the Truth + + 'Differed from a host + Of aims alike in character and kind, + Mostly in this--that in itself alone + Shall its reward be, not an alien end + Blending therewith.' + +Thus, like Paracelsus, he aspired. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +LAST DAYS + + +It used to be said that none can be counted happy until they die, and +certainly the manner of a man's death often throws light upon his +previous life, and enables us to judge it as we should not otherwise +have been able to do. Ferrier's death was what his life had been: it +was with calm courage that he looked it in the face--the same calm +courage with which he faced the perhaps even greater problems of life +that presented themselves. Death had no terrors to him; he had lived in +the consciousness that it was an essential factor in life, and a factor +which was not ever to be overlooked. And he had every opportunity, +physically speaking, for expecting its approach. In November 1861 he +had a violent seizure of _angina pectoris_, after which, although he +temporarily recovered, he never completely regained his strength. For +some weeks he was unable to meet his students, and then, when partially +recovered, he arranged to hold the class in the dining-room of his +house, which was fitted up specially for the purpose. Twice in the year +1863 was he attacked in a similar way; in June of that year he went up +to London to conduct the examination in philosophy of the students of +the London University; but in October, when he ought to have gone there +once more, he was unable to carry out his intention. On the 31st of +October, Dr. Christison was consulted about his state, and pronounced +his case to be past hope of remedy. He opened his class on the 11th of +November in his own house, but during this month was generally confined +to bed. On the 8th of December he was attacked by congestion of the +brain, and never lectured again. His class was conducted by Mr. +Rhoades,[16] then Warden of the recently-founded College Hall, who, as +many others among his colleagues would have been ready to do, willingly +undertook the melancholy task of officiating for so beloved and +honoured a friend. After this, all severe study and mental exertion was +forbidden. He became gradually weaker, with glimpses now and then of +transitory improvement. So in unfailing courage and resignation, not +unwilling to hope for longer respite, but always prepared to die, he +placidly, reverently, awaited the close, tended by the watchful care of +his devoted wife and children.[17] On the 11th day of June 1864, Ferrier +passed away. He is buried in Edinburgh, in the old churchyard of St. +Cuthbert's, in the heart of the city, near his father and his +grandfather, and many others whose names are famous in the annals of +his country. + + [16] Afterwards Ferrier's son-in-law. + + [17] _Lectures and Philosophical Remains_, Introductory + Notes, p. xxii. + +During these three years, in which death had been a question of but a +short time, Ferrier had not ceased to be busy and interested in his +work. The dates of his lectures on Greek Philosophy show that he had +not failed to carry on the work of bringing them into shape, and though +the wish could not be accomplished in its entirety, it speaks much for +his resolution and determination that through all his bodily weakness +he kept his work in hand. Of course much had to be forgone. Ferrier was +never what is called robust, and his manner of life was not conducive +to physical health, combining as it did late hours with lack of +physical exercise. But in these later years he was unable to walk more +than the shortest distance, the ascent of a staircase was an effort to +him, and tendencies to asthma developed which must have made his life +often enough a physical pain. Still, though it was evident that there +could be but one ending to the struggle, Ferrier gave expression to no +complaints, and though he might, as Principal Tulloch says, utter a +half-playful, half-grim expression regarding his sufferings, he never +seemed to think there was anything strange in them, anything that he +should not bear calmly as a man and as a Christian. Nor did he talk of +change of scene or climate as likely to give relief. He 'quietly, +steadily, and cheerfully' faced the issue, be it what it might. The +very day before he died, he was, we are told, in his library, busy +amongst his books. Truly, it may be said of him as of another cut off +while yet in his prime, 'he died learning.' + +'Towards his friends during this time,' says his biographer, 'all +that was sweetest in his disposition seemed to gain strength and +expansion from the near shadow of death. He spoke of death with +entire fearlessness, and though this was nothing new to those who +knew him best, it impressed their minds at this time more vividly +than ever. The less they dared to hope for his life being prolonged, +the more their love and regard were deepened by his tender +thoughtfulness for others, and the kindliness which annihilated all +absorbing concern for himself. In many little characteristic touches of +humour, frankness, beneficence, beautiful gratitude for any slight help +or attention, his truest and best nature seemed to come out all the +more freely; he grew as it were more and more entirely himself indeed. +If ever a man was true to philosophy, or a man's philosophy true to +him, it was so with Ferrier during all the time when he looked death in +the face and possessed his soul in patience.' And, as so often happens +when the things of this world are regarded _sub specie æternitatis_, +the old animosities, such as they were, faded away. It is told how a +former opponent on philosophical questions whose criticisms he had +resented, called to inquire for him, and when the card was given to +him, Ferrier exclaimed, 'That must be a good fellow!' Principal +Tulloch, his friend and for ten years his colleague, was with him +constantly, and talked often to him about his work--the work on Plato +and his philosophy, that he would have liked to accomplish in order to +complete his lectures. The summer before his death they read together +some of Plato's dialogues which he had carefully pencilled with his +notes. He also took to reading Virgil, in which occupation his friend +frequently joined with him, and this seemed to relieve the languor from +which he suffered. As to religion, which was a subject on which he +thought much, although he did not frequently express an opinion, +Tulloch says: 'He was unable to feel much interest in any of its +popular forms, but he had a most intense interest in its great +mysteries, and a thorough reverence for its truths when these were not +disfigured by superstition and formalism.' Immortality, as we have +seen, meant to him that there is a permanent and abiding element beyond +the merely particular and individual which must pass away, and so far +it was a reality in his mind. God was a real presence in the world, and +not a far away divinity in whom men believed but whom they could not +know; but as to the creeds and doctrines of the Church, they seemed far +removed from the Essential, from true Reality. Professor (afterwards +Principal) Shairp writes: 'In the visits which I made to his bedroom +from time to time, when I found him sometimes on chair or sofa, +sometimes in bed, I never heard one peevish or complaining word escape +him, nothing but what was calm and cheerful, though to himself as to +others it was evident that the outward man was fast perishing. The last +time but one that I saw him was on a Sunday in April. He was sitting up +in bed. The conversation fell on serious subjects, on the craving the +soul feels for some strength and support out from and above itself, on +the certainty that all men feel that need, and on the testimony left by +those who have tried it most, that they had found that need met by Him +of whose earthly life the gospel histories bear witness. This, or +something like this, was the subject on which our conversation turned. +He paused and dwelt on the thought of the soul's hunger. "Hunger is the +great weaver in moral things as in physical. The hunger that is in the +new-born child sits weaving the whole bodily frame, bones and sinews, +out of nothing. And so I suppose in moral and spiritual things it is +hunger that builds up the being."' + +Professor Veitch, a later colleague at St. Andrews, adds: 'We miss the +finely-cut decisive face, the erect manly presence, the measured +meditative step, the friendly greeting. But there are men, and Ferrier +was one of them, for whom, once known, there is no real past. The +characteristic features and qualities of such men become part of our +conscious life; memory keeps them before us living and influential, in +a higher, truer present which overshadows the actual and visible.' And +Professor Baynes speaks of him as one of the noblest and most +pure-hearted men that he had ever known, combining 'a fine ethereal +intelligence with a most gallant, tender, and courageous spirit.' + +Such is the man as he presented himself to his friends even when the +shadows were darkening and the last long journey coming very near: a +true man and a good; one in whose footsteps we fain would tread, one +who makes it easier for those who follow him to tread them too. His +work was done; it might seem unfinished--what work is ever complete? +But he had taken his share in it, the little bit that any individual +man can do, and had done it with all his strength. And what did it +amount to? Was it worth the labour of so many years of toil? Who is +there who can reply? And yet we can see something of what has been +accomplished; we can see that philosophy has been made a more living +thing for Scotland, that a blow has been struck against materialistic +creeds, or beliefs which are merely formal and without any true +convincing power. It may not have been much: the work was but begun, +and it was left to others to carry that work on. But in philosophy, as +in the rest, it is the first step that costs, and amid great difficulty +and considerable opposition Ferrier took that step. He left much +unexplained; he dwelt too much in the clouds, and did not try to solve +the real difficulties of personal, individual life; he did not show how +his high-flown theories worked in a world of strife and struggle, of +sin and sorrow. He could only be said to have struck a keynote, but +that keynote as far as it went was true, and the harmonies may be left +to follow. + + + + +"FAMOUS SCOTS" SERIES. + +_Some Opinions of the Press on_ + +ADAM SMITH. + +BY HECTOR C. MACPHERSON. + + +"The style is pleasant, and the treatment luminous. The monograph, as a +whole, should be found attractive and informing."--_Globe._ + +"Smith's life is briefly and clearly told, and there is a good deal +of independent criticism interspersed amidst the chapters on the +philosopher's two principal treatises. Mr. Macpherson's analysis of +Smith's economic teaching makes excellent reading."--_Echo._ + +"His personal and intellectual career, so far as the limits of the +'Famous Scots' Series permitted, is clearly and entertainingly +presented by Mr. Macpherson."--_Morning Leader._ + +"The book is of great price. It is complete, proportioned, vivid, +the picture of a great man, and with all its brevity, worthy of his +greatness."--_Expository Times._ + +"Interesting both as a contribution to the literature of political +economy, and as a sketch of the career of one of Scotland's most +illustrious sons."--_Publishers' Circular._ + +"The monograph is a clear and able exposition and criticism of its +subject. It deserves a prominent place in the series it belongs +to."--_Bookman._ + +"An interesting and lively study of the English founder of political +economy, this little book is remarkable as a whole-hearted vindication +of the Cobdenic ideas of international policy. The author considers it +to be Adam Smith's chief achievement that he has demonstrated with +scientific completeness that Free Trade, as Cobden happily expressed +it, is the international law of God Almighty."--_Spectator._ + +"This little book is written with brains and a degree of courage which +is in keeping with its convictions. It has vision, too, and that counts +for righteousness, if anywhere, in political economy."--_Speaker._ + +"A sound and able piece of work, and contains a fair and discerning +estimate of Smith in his essential character as the author of the +doctrine of Free Trade, and consequently of the modern science of +economics."--_Glasgow Herald._ + +"The writer of this biography deserves to be warmly congratulated on +the result of his labour. He has written, to my mind at least, one of +the best of the series of 'Famous Scots,' and has enshrined the author +of the 'Wealth of Nations' in a manner at once attractive, interesting, +and instructive."--_Northern Figaro._ + +"Of Adam Smith the man there are some interesting stories in this +volume."--_Academy._ + +"This book is one warmly to be commended as among the very best of a +notable series."--_Kilmarnock Standard._ + +"The story of Smith's life is plainly but interestingly told, with +occasional graphic descriptions of the society of his time; but it +will undoubtedly be as an exposition of the philosophical questions +involved that the book will be most highly prized."--_Daily Free +Press._ + +"It is a biography with a specific purpose, and this purpose is +admirably worked out. In some respects, indeed, Mr. Macpherson's object +is educational. Not content with doing justice to the great master of +economic science, he shows what we owe to other workers in the same +school of thought."--_Leeds Mercury._ + +"Those who have read Mr. Macpherson's 'Thomas Carlyle,' with which +this highly interesting series was opened, will turn with pleasure and +expectancy to the volume just issued. Mr. Macpherson has given us a +volume much above the average of the series both in literary merit and +thoughtfulness. We strongly recommend this excellent pen-and-ink +portrait, of the man who gave Britain the key to the wealth of the +world, of our fellow-students."--_Student._ + +"One of the best of an admirable series."--_Scots Pictorial._ + +"An admirable monograph."--_London Daily Mail._ + +"A thoughtful and capably written monograph."--_Liverpool Daily Post._ + +"Mr. Macpherson states the facts most admirably, and he has such a +knowledge of the movements and events of the times in which Smith +lived that he is able to make an excellent use of them as showing how +they influenced such a thinker as the author of the 'Wealth of +Nations,' and how, in turn, he was able to change the trend of the +thinking of his age."--_Perthshire Courier._ + +MR. HERBERT SPENCER says: "I have learned much from your sketch of +Adam Smith's life and work. It presents the essential facts in a lucid +and interesting way. Especially am I glad to see that you have +insisted upon the individualistic character of his teaching. It is +well that his authority on the side of individualism should be put +forward in these days of rampant Socialism, when the great mass of +legislative measures extend public agency and restrict private agency; +the advocates of such measures being blind to the fact that by small +steps they are bringing about a state in which the citizen will have +lost all freedom." + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of James Frederick Ferrier, by +Elizabeth Sanderson Haldane + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44949 *** |