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STEWART, DUGALD. 



STEWART, DUGALD. 



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formable to the spirit of the Greek geometry. The first tract contains 

 the theory of centripetal forces in a series of propositions, which, 

 admitting the quadrature of curves, are rigorous; and in the remainder 

 of the work Dr. Stewart considers the intricate subject of the pertur- 

 bations. His design was to carry on the approximations for deter- 

 mining the elements of the orbits according to the method in which 

 Newton, Machin, Walmsley, and other eminent mathematicians had 

 begun the investigations ; but the work stops far short of the ends 

 now proposed in the researches of physical astronomy. 



In the following year he published a series of geometrical pro- 

 positions, which are investigated analytically, and afterwards demon- 

 strated by synthetical processes : they are entitled, ' Propositions 

 More Veterum demonstrate,' and this designation is said to have 

 been given to them by Dr. Simson. His last work was an ' Essay on 

 the Sun's Distance;' and this problem he endeavoured to treat accord- 

 ing to the method of the ancients, but the subject is too intricate to 

 admit of their analysis being applied to it, though the work exhibits all 

 the ingenuity which might be expected from the learned author. 

 Making use of the movement of the moon's apsides as an effect of 

 solar perturbation, he determined the parallax of the sun to be 6'9", 

 and it is now known to be about 8". Being obliged, in order to 

 diminish the complexity of the investigation, to reject quantities 

 which were supposed to have but small influence on the result, con- 

 siderable errors exist in the steps; and, except that compensations 

 occurred, the parallax might have appeared to be three times as great 

 as it is in reality. The 'Essay' was much animadverted on by 

 Dawson and Landen during the life of the writer ; and since the true 

 parallax of the sun has been ascertained from the transit of Venus, in 

 1769, it is admitted that no reliance can be placed on the determina- 

 tion of such an element b/y inductions drawn from the effects of the 

 mutual attractions exercised by the bodies of the solar system. 



STEWART, DUGALD, the son of Dr. Matthew Stewart, the subject 

 of the preceding article, was born in Edinburgh, on the 22nd of 

 November 1753. He was educated at the high school of Edinburgh, 

 and the progress he made in classical and mathematical attainments 

 was such as to excite the warmest expectations of future success. In 

 the winter of 1772, having that year attended the course of lectures 

 delivered by Dr. Reid at Glasgow, his love for metaphysical specula- 

 tion was roused, and he wrote and read to a literary association an 

 ' Essay on Dreaming,' which he afterwards incorporated in his ' Ele- 

 ments of the Philosophy of the Human Mind' (vol. i. chap, v., 5). 

 He was then in his nineteenth year. But still more decisive was the 

 fulfilment of his early promise a short time afterwards, when, having 

 completed his Glasgow studies, he assumed the charge of the mathe- 

 matical classes hitherto taught by his father in the University of 

 Edinburgh, and on coming of age he was appointed joint mathematical 

 professor with his father. 



He taught with great success until his five and twentieth year, 

 when an occasion presented itself for his resuming his favourite studies 

 under the most advantageous position. Dr. Ferguson, the then pro- 

 fessor of moral philosophy at Edinburgh, having been sent as secretary 

 to the commissioners to conclude peace with North America, Dugald 

 Stewart was called upon to fill his place during his absence. He 

 accepted the invitation and during the session 1778-79, besides teach- 

 ing his own classes of mathematics, and one on astronomy, he lectured 

 on ethics for Dr. Ferguson ; thinking over every morning the subject 

 of lecture for the day, and addressing his pupils extempore. His 

 amiable and elegant manner was much relished, and his lectures gave 

 so much satisfaction, that on the retirement of Dr. Ferguson, in 1785, 

 he was appointed his successor. He had previously had the care of a 

 few private pupils of rank whom he received into his family. He was 

 thirty-two years of age when he entered upon his new professorship. 

 His mind had become enlarged and enriched with a discursive, desul- 

 tory, but valuable erudition, his opinions had become fixed, and the 

 habitual grace and mildness of his manner had become still more 

 winning from his increasing confidence and facility of exposition. He 

 became very popular. His lecture-room was crowded, his fame spread 

 over Great Britain before he had published anything, and, as Sir James 

 Mackintosh truly remarks, " without derogation from his writings it 

 may be said that his disciples were among his best works." His first 

 work therefore came heralded by fame, and it scarcely disappointed 

 anticipation. It was the first volume of his 'Elements of the Philo- 

 sophy of the Human Mind,' which appeared in 1792. The subject 

 was treated with an elegance and eloquence of diction and a richness 

 of illustration which more than compensated the majority of readers 

 for its deficiencies in profundity and logical sequence of ideas ; indeed 

 its very faults were helps to its popularity, because it satisfied the 

 current tendency to reaction against the sensualist school, and at the 

 same time made no great demand on the speculative faculty of its 

 reader. The philosophy was that of Reid, but rendered attractive by 

 those arts of composition to which Dugald Stewart paid such fastidious 

 attention; yet of this philosophy, and of Dugald Stewart's works 

 generally, we may say with Professor Cousin, " it was an honourable 

 protestation of common sense against the extravagancies and extreme 

 consequences of sensualism. But it proceeded no further in its path 

 than did Locke in his. The Scotch philosophy limited itself to the 

 re-establishment of some of the forgotten elements of human nature, 

 and some of the fundamental ideas of reason, which it described such 



BIOQ. DIV, VOL. V. 



as they now incontestably appear; but it did not attempt to account 

 for them, nor to ascend to their origin, nor to follow them in their 

 legitimate applications; it had a commencement of psychology, but 

 no regular logic ; it had neither a metaphysic, nor a theodicea, nor a 

 cosmology ; it had a little of morals and politics, but no system. The 

 merits of the Scotch, as of Locke, are clearness and good sense ; their 

 faults are the absence of any speculative ability, the want of compre- 

 hensiveness and of rigorous precision." (Court de Philosophic, Intro. 

 & I' Hist, de Phil., Le?on XII.) 



In the following year (1793) Dugald Stewart published his ' Outlines 

 of Moral Philosophy,' a text-book for his pupils: and the 'Life of 

 Adam Smith,' which appeared in the 'Transactions' of the Royal 

 Society of Edinburgh ; and which was followed by the ' Life of Dr. 

 Robertson' in 1796, and the ' Life of Dr. Reid' in 1802. They have 

 been subsequently reprinted. His activity was unceasing; and in 

 1800 he added a series of 'Lectures on Political Economy' to his 

 heavy professional duties, but they were not continued. On several 

 occasions when his colleagues were ill, he gave temporary lectures for 

 them on natural philosophy, logic, and rhetoric. In the winter of 

 1808-9, from grief at the loss of his younger son, which brought on a 

 severe indisposition, he was obliged to have a deputy to discharge his 

 duties. In the following session, seeing little prospect of recovering his 

 health, he resigned altogether; and in May 1810, Dr. Thomas Brown, 

 his late assistant, was appointed in his place. Dugald Stewart having 

 now retired from public life, lived constantly at Kinneill House, on 

 the Frith of Forth, about twenty miles west from Edinburgh, where 

 he devoted himself to the prosecution of his favourite studies. The 

 fruits of his retirement were not slow in manifesting themselves : in 

 1810 appeared his first volume of 'Philosophical Essays,' in the 

 preface to which he says, " The state of my health having interrupted, 

 for many mouths past, the continuation of my work on the human 

 mind, I was induced to attempt, in the meantime, the easier task of 

 preparing for the press a volume of Essays." Yet it is in this work, 

 which he considered the " easier task," that he has best proved his 

 claim to the title of a metaphysician, which is noticed both by Sir 

 James Mackintosh and Professor Cousin (' Fragmens Philosophiques,' 

 p. 78) ; indeed his chief work, as he frankly owns, is rather a collection, 

 of such theories pointing towards the common end of throwing light 

 on tho structure and functions of the mind, than a systematic treatise, 

 such as might be expected from the title of elements. " It is in 

 essays of this kind," says Mackintosh, "that he has most surpassed 

 other cultivators of mental philosophy. His remarks on the effect of 

 casual associations may be quoted as a specimen of the most original 

 and just thoughts conveyed in the best manner." ('Dissertation pre- 

 fixed to Ency. Britan.,' p. 329.) The ' Philosophical Essays ' reached 

 three editions in seven years; the contents of the volume are various 

 and interesting, on Locke, Berkeley, Influence of Locke on the 

 Philosophy of France ; Metaphysical Theories of Hartley, Priestley, 

 and Darwin ; on Philological Speculations; on the Beautiful, Sublime, 

 Taste, and Culture of Intellectual Habits. In 1814 the second volume 

 of his 'Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind' appeared; 

 but was not so well received, and never, we believe, reached a second 

 edition. In 1815 appeared his celebrated Preliminary Dissertation to the 

 Supplement of the 'Encyclopaedia Britanuica,' entitled 'A General View 

 of the Progress of Metaphysical, Ethical, and Political Science since the 

 Revival of Letters ; ' a work for which his discursive reading well 

 fitted him. It enjoys considerable popularity, and chiefly owing to 

 these very qualities, for as a philosophical view of the progress of the 

 metaphysical sciences it is almost worthless. He never once rises to 

 any comprehensive principle. There is no unity in that mass of 

 writing, of criticism, and notes. He never attempts to seize the spirit 

 of each age, and to show how it influenced others. All is isolated. 

 Pleasant and clever as the adversaria of some student, but very 

 inefficient if looked on as a treatise or consulted as a history. As a 

 specimen of his carelessness, we may mention the entire omission of 

 Spinoza, a man whose influence on speculative philosophy has been, 

 only second to that of his master Des Cartes. His extreme careless- 

 ness as to any systematic comprehension of what he was to perform, 

 and his neglect as to arrangement of materials, are, as is remarked by a 

 writer in the ' Quarterly Review,' shown in the author's ' advertise- 

 ment,' wherein we are told that his original design (as is well known 

 to his friends) was to comprise in ten or twelve sheets all the pre- 

 liminary matter which he was to contribute to the 'Supplement.' 

 It has now extended to six times this length, and we are informed that 

 he has only discussed one of the three divisions under which he had pro- 

 jected to arrange his subject. We cannot but observe that this fact 

 sufficiently justifies all that we had ventured to say on the desultory 

 and unpremeditated manner in which the work must have been pre- 

 pared. Yet in the face of this, and of the internal evidence of its 

 desultory nature, Sir James Mackintosh declares this discourse to be 

 " the most splendid of Mr. Stewart's works." (' Edin. Review,' Sept. 

 1816, p. 191. See also a second article by the same hand on this 

 Discourse, ' Edin. Review,' October 1821, pp. 220-267.) 



Stewart remained silent from this period till 1821, when the second 

 part of his ' Discourse ' was published, and attracted as much attention 

 as the former, and more hostility, because it was principally occupied 

 with a weak and cavilling attack on Locke and his school. The following 

 year he suffered from palsy, which interrupted his labours till 1827, 



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