LECT. iv Early Career of James Hiitton 151 



the 3rd June 1726, and was educated at the High School 

 and University of that city. 1 His father was a worthy 

 citizen there, who had held the office of City Treasurer, but 

 died while the son was still very young, to whom he left a 

 small landed property in Berwickshire. While attending 

 the logic lectures at the University, Hutton's attention was 

 arrested by a reference to the fact that, although a single acid 

 suffices to dissolve the baser metals, two acids must combine 

 their strength to effect the solution of gold. The professor, 

 who had only used this illustration in unfolding some 

 general doctrine, may or may not have made his pupil a 

 good logician, but he certainly made him a chemist, for from 

 that time the young student was drawn to chemistry by a 

 force that only became stronger as years went on. When 

 at seventeen years of age he had to select his profession in 

 life, he was placed as an apprentice in a lawyer's office. 

 But genius is irrepressible, and amid the drudgery of the 

 law the young clerk's chemistry not infrequently came to 

 the surface. He would be found amusing himself and his 

 fellow- apprentices with chemical experiments, when he 

 should have been copying papers or studying legal pro- 

 ceedings, so that finally his master, seeing that law was 

 evidently not his bent, released him from his engage- 

 ment, and advised him to seek some other employment 

 more suited to his turn of mind. 



Hutton accordingly, after a year's drudgery at law, 

 made choice of medicine as the profession most nearly 



1 For the biographical details in this sketch I am indebted to the 

 admirable "Biographical Account of Dr. James Hutton" by his friend 

 and illustrator, Playfair. This was first printed in the Transactions of 

 the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and will be found in vol. iv. of Play fair's 

 collected works. 



