SIR WILLIAM Hamilton's PHiLOsopHYi 211 



new system, to the chair of Moral Philosophy did not take place till 

 1729, to that of Logic and Metaphysics not till the following year. In 

 Aberdeen the old system was continued even in 1752, when Dr. Reid 

 was elected Professor of Philosojihy and in discharge of its duties 

 required to teach Mathematics and Physics, as well as Logic and 

 Ethics.* 



The first professor appointed under the new system to the chair of 

 Logic and Metaphysics in Edinburgh was Dr. John Stevenson, to 

 whom an honourable place should be assigned among the earlier origi- 

 nators of the philosophical inquiry, which the introduction of that 

 system assisted in advancing. It is not indeed for the contributions 

 which his own speculations have given to the philosophy of Scotland, 

 that he is here brought into prominence ; but his influence as a 

 teacher in awakening and unfolding the philosophical spirit in others 

 is spoken of by such pupils as Robertson and Stewart so highly, that 

 one cannot but wish to know more of him than is contained in the 

 slender notices which fhave come down to us. 



In the same year in which Stevenson entered upon his labours in 

 Edinburgh, a man of greater importance both for the results of his specu- 

 lations, and for his influence as a philosophical teacher, commenced his 

 career as professor of moral philosophy in the University of Glasgow. 

 Francis Hutcheson is rightly regarded by nearly all historians of 

 philosophy as the true originator of the Scottish School. Undoubt- 

 edly his claim to this po.sition is founded in a considerable measure on 

 the influence which he exerted in directing inquiry towards mental 

 phenomena in general ; but we shall afterwards see how largely the 

 distinctive doctrine of the Scottish school is indebted to the most 

 prominent dcctrine of his system, — the theory of internal senses 

 whose affections furnish the mind with ideas as peculiar and inde- 

 composable as those with which we are furnished by the afi'ections of 

 the external or bodily senses.^ 



We are now to trace the course through which speculation was 

 led to the position it assumed in the Scottish school. From the 

 opening of intercourse with England, the Scotch professors seem to 

 have kept their students abreast of the most recent English specula- 



'Siewart's Account of Reid in Hamilton's edition of Stewart's Works, Vol. X., 

 p. 253. 



fThe fullest information about Stevenson that I have met with is in Bower's 

 Ehtory of the University of Edinburgh, Vol. II., pp. 269-2al. 



JSee Reid's Intellectual Powers, Essay VI., Chap. 2. 



