222 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



it becomes inevitable that subjects have to be treated 

 and matters discussed, for which an asseml)ly of 

 even the greatest scholars cannot guarantee adequate 

 and equal treatment. Du Bois - Reymond, the great 

 physiologist of Berlin, has truly and honestly admitted 

 this fact in saying that the teacher of physiology has 

 indeed to teach a great many things which he does not 

 know. We may express this fact, which has exerted an 

 enormous influence upon the development of philosophic 

 systems, and, indeed, on all comprehensive doctrines, by 

 saying that the position of an official teacher imposes 

 upon him obligations which the unofficial and extramural 

 scholar has never to face. These demands, which the 

 position of a university professor officially imposes, 

 made themselves felt when the Scotch universities took 

 up the teaching of moral and mental philosophy in the 

 eighteenth century ; ^ they were accentuated when that 



^ " The Parliamentary Commis- 

 sion for visiting the Universities, 

 appointed in 1690 and following 

 years, directed in 1695 the Pro- 

 fessors of Philosophy in St Andrews 

 to prepare the heads of a system of 

 Logic, and the corresponding Pro- 

 fessors in Edinburgh to prepare a 

 course of Metaphysics. The com- 

 pends drawn up in consequence 

 were passed from one college to 

 another for revision ; there is no 

 evidence that they were finally 

 sanctioned, but they may be ac- 

 cepted as giving a fair idea of the 

 instructions in philosophy conveyed 

 in the universities of Scotland at 

 the close of the seventeenth cen- 

 tury — at the very time when 

 Locke's Essay was finding its way 

 so rapidly over the three kingdoms. 

 Logic is called the instrument to 

 acquire other sciences, inasmuch as 



it prescribes rules for rightly appre- 

 hending, judging, and arguing. 

 . . . Metaphysics are said to be 

 defined by some as a science of 

 being as being ; by others as a 

 speculative science, which considers 

 being in general and its properties 

 and kinds as abstracted from 

 matter. The benefits arising from 

 the study of metaphysics are said to 

 be, that treating of undoubted 

 truths and axioms we are enabled 

 by their assistance the better to 

 discover truths generally and avoid 

 errors. . . . That ... it aids the 

 understanding in every kind of 

 learning, and specially in theology, 

 in which use is made of meta- 

 physical terms. . . . Such was the 

 pabulum on which college youths 

 fed during the century " (M'Cosh, 

 'The Scottish Philosophy,' 1875, 

 pp. 22, et stq.) 



