SKETCH OF JAMES CROLL. 547 



method which, combines both elements from experience and a 

 priori elements. The Rev. Dr. John Cairns regarded the work 

 as a positive contribution to theistic argument, and said that the 

 author (whose name was not declared) need only to give himself 

 entirely to this topic or any other to secure distinguished success. 

 Five hundred copies of the book were printed, and it paid ex- 

 penses and returned a small profit. 



Notwithstanding it was anonymous, Mr. Croll gained a repu- 

 tation from this work, which led to his connection, in 1858, with 

 the Commonwealth newspaper, a journal at Glasgow devoted to 

 the advocacy of temperance and social and political reform ; a 

 position which, as he was a total abstainer and a strong advocate 

 of temperance and had forsworn the use of tobacco, suited him 

 very well. 



After he had worked a year and a half with the Common- 

 wealth, the directors of the Andersonian College advertised for a 

 janitor. Mr. Croll applied for the position, which involved the 

 keeping of the museum and the free run of the libraries, and, ob- 

 taining it, entered upon its duties in the fall of 1859. He found it 

 the most congenial position he ever occupied, notwithstanding one 

 of its duties was the disagreeable one, of which no mention is 

 found in his autobiography, of collecting subscriptions from pri- 

 vate gentlemen for the support of the institution. " After twenty 

 years of an unsettled life," he says, " full of hardships and diffi- 

 culties, it was a great relief to get settled down into what might 

 be regarded as a permanent home/' But " Why so many changes, 

 trials, and difficulties ? " The disability of his arm precluded him 

 from active work and compelled him to make changes of occupa- 

 tion which were not advantageous. But the main cause of his 

 troubles, he confesses, "was that strong and almost irresistible 

 propensity toward study which prevented me devoting my whole 

 energy to business. Study always came first, business second; 

 and the result was that in this age of competition I was left be- 

 hind in the race." His situation in the college was compatible 

 with study. 



Mr. Croll's tastes were nearly evenly balanced between philo- 

 sophical and theological speculation and the study of physical 

 science, partly to his advantage and partly to his disadvantage; 

 so that, as he observes, when he was engaged in physics he was 

 continually tempted to turn aside into philosophy, and when 

 in philosophy the attractions of physics frequently drew him 

 over, and it was only by strong effort that he could keep in one 

 region of inquiry without passing over into the other. Hitherto 

 he had been engaged for about fifteen years in philosophical and 

 theological studies, the culmination of which was his book on 

 theism. Now the Andersonian Library afforded facilities for 



