252 MEMOIK OF JOHN WILSON. 



were both numerous and sharp, at modern Radicalism, and its cant 

 phrase, ' March of Intellect.' The scene was one not to be forgot- 

 ten. It was the only occasion any expression of political feeling 

 or bias escaped from him ; and yet, though he spoke under great 

 excitement and with merciless severity, he said nothing that made 

 him less respected and admired even by those who differed from him 

 in his political views.* 



" The course was concluded by a series of about twenty lectures 

 on Natural Theology, in which that subject was treated in a manner 

 altogether worthy of its vast importance. The great writers, both 

 ancient and modern, were reviewed in a highly philosophical and 

 finely appreciatory spirit. The ability of Hume was fully admitted, 

 and his arguments met as fairly and successfully as they have ever 

 been ; but the pretensions of Lord Brougham to authority in the 

 matter were called in question, and some of his views severely 

 criticised. The moral attributes of God ; the duties of man to his 

 Maker ; religion in the abstract ; the immortality and immateriality 

 of the soul ; the moral philosophy of the Greeks, and especially the 

 doctrines of Socrates and Plato, were all handled in a way befitting 

 the grandeur and sacredness of these topics, and so as to impress 

 every student with the depth and earnestness of the Professor's 

 religious views and feelings, as well as with the high-toned morality 

 of his whole mind and temperament. 



" And now, reviewing generally one's old impressions of the 

 character of the whole course, and qualifying these by the help of 

 subsequent experience and knowledge, there remains a very decided 

 conviction that while the overflowing wealth of poetical reference 

 and illustration, and the somewhat excessive ornamentation of lan- 

 guage, were calculated so far to choke and conceal the systematic 

 philosophy of the lectures ; to amuse rather than instruct the stu- 

 dents ; to deprave rather than chasten and purify their style of com- 

 position ; the high merits and distinguished qualities of the lectures 

 are indisputable, and their tendency to engender free thought, and 

 to encourage large and liberal-minded study of the works of all the 



* The obnoxious reference to the " Liberator" appears to have been subsequently omitted from 

 the lecture; but the topic in reference to which it occurred seems to have been one in which the 

 Professor found some difficulty in restraining his contempt for some of the cants of the day 

 about Progress, March of Intellect, &c. Mr. Nicolson gives me the following extract from his 

 notes of the lectures (1S4S-9). immediately preceding a quotation from M. Ohenevix on the benefits 

 of public instruction as the surest basis of stable government : — "These sentiments are not tho 

 growth of late years, as some contemptible persons would 6eem to insinuato." 



