376 Proceedings of the British Association for 1850. 



land had the very great distinction of producing — aye, and 

 before almost any other university in Christendom — a good 

 Newtonian philosophy, and admirable original commentators 

 on the Newtonian philosophy ; and through those channels 

 which Scotland supplied, that Newtonian system of philoso- 

 phy has been diffused through Europe. But coming down to 

 our own days, in every branch of science Edinburgh has con- 

 tributed most nobly. He might speak of a series of great 

 mathematical teachers who have in succession filled its chairs ; 

 but he would pass them over. Who was the great leader 

 in that branch of science so important in its bearings upon 

 the civil welfare of men % He was a man most intimately 

 connected with Edinburgh — Adam Smith — one of the glo- 

 ries of this University. Then, again, with regard to the 

 discoveries in chemistry — another comparatively modern 

 science — who takes a higher philosophical place than the 

 illustrious Black, one of the grandest, most intellectual, and 

 crowning decorations of the University of Edinburgh ? — (ap- 

 plause.) The learned Professor then expressed his fervent 

 gratitude for having been privileged in his younger days to 

 peruse the works of such men as Reid and Dugald Stewart ; 

 and, speaking of such illustrious names, he thought it a most 

 glorious privilege in a University like that of Edinburgh to 

 have such a grand intellectual ancestry to connect the pre- 

 sent with the past — not to induce them to stand up as mere 

 parvenusydi^Tneve mushrooms in literature and science, spring- 

 ing up in a night ; but, on the contrary, as men who believed 

 in the vast services of an intellectual ancestry, to shew what 

 can be done, not by the labours of one man, but by that 

 accumulation arising from the labours of generation after 

 generation, and that no man who belongs to the University 

 of Edinburgh, or any other similar seat of learning, ever dare 

 to dissociate the present from the past, or cut oiF that con- 

 nection with our intellectual ancestry which is not only our 

 pride and boast, but also an element of our intellectual 

 strength— (applause.) But, after all, it would be but a petty 

 and sorry matter if we were merely to boast of those who are 

 gone : but it is not so. They have not carried away their 

 mantles, but have cast them upon the shoulders of their suc- 

 cessors, who are now filling their offices to the best of their 



