iv.] CHOICE OF A PROFESSION, 1832. 81 



so from the conviction that of all men's lives the opening 



rs most repay close attention, because it is then that 



master tendencies first show themselves, that the 



materials are gathered in, which pass most deeply into 



tho being, that the hues are laid, which colour the 



whole life till the end. But if this is true of all men, it 



is especially true of strong intense natures which take 



i* line early, and keep it unfalteringly. 

 That saying, ' The child is father of the man/ though 

 perhaps first uttered by Wordsworth, sounds like a 

 world-old proverb. In no man was this more distinctly 

 seen than in James Forbes. The moral habits and 

 mental pursuits, begun in the nursery at Colinton, re- 

 mained with him all life through. But there is another 

 circumstance that makes those first years instructive, 

 especially to those who have still to shape their course. 

 Forbes may be said to have been a self-educated man. Till 

 his sixteenth year, when he entered college, the instruction 

 he had was of the slightest and most desultory kind. 

 No doubt he was surrounded by a refined and intelli- 

 gent atmosphere, one in which the tone was more than 

 usually pure and serious. But the mental habits and the 

 definite information which he took with him to college 

 were not put in him by the spoon ; the habits were formed 

 by his own self-discipline, the knowledge gathered by his 

 own unwearied seeking ; and even during his college 

 years this continued. The main thing was not the infor- 

 ion furnished, nor the stimulus given by the professors' 

 ires, but the widening of his mental horizon by the 

 n of his own swift intelligence and persistent effort. 

 The journals and observations which he had begun years 

 before he entered college continued to be his most cherished 

 employment and his chief means of education throughout 

 his college course. That one year spent in I taly, we have 

 seen what an impulse it gave to all his thoughts and early 

 predilections. His after labours in the Alps were only 

 continuations of habits and processes of observation then 

 begun. To us now looking back it is clear that physical 

 science was his no tin ent Tnw.inls it he was borne 



