OF THE LATE PROFESSOR ROBISON. 513 



Mr Rob i son was admitted at Edinburgh the 16th Septem- 

 ber 1774, and gave his first course of lectures in the winter 

 following. The person to whom he succeeded had been 

 very eminent and very useful in his profession. He posses- 

 sed a great deal of ingenuity, and much knowledge, in 

 all the branches of Physical Science. Without perhaps being 

 very deeply versed in the higher parts of the mathematics, 

 he had much more knowledge of them than is requisite 

 for explaining the elements of Natural Philosophy. His views 

 in the latter were sound, often original, and always explained 

 with great clearness and simplicity. The mathematical and 

 experimental parts were so happily combined, that his lec- 

 tures communicated not only an excellent view of the princi- 

 ples of the science, but much practical knowledge concerning 

 the means by which those principles are embodied in matter, 

 and made palpable to sense. 



Mr Robison , who now succeeded to this chair, had also talents 

 and acquirements of a very high order. The scenes of active 

 life in which he had been early engaged, and in which he had 

 seen the great operations of the nautical and the military art, 

 had been followed, or accompanied, with much study, so that 

 a thorough knowledge of the principles, as well as the prac- 

 tice, of those arts, had been acquired. His knowledge of the 

 mathematics was accurate and extensive, and included, what 

 was at that time rare in this country, a considerable familiari- 

 ty with the discoveries and inventions of the foreign mathema- 

 ticians. 



In the general outline of his course, he did not, however, devi- 

 ate materially from that which had been sketched by his prede- 

 cessors, except, I think, in one point of arrangement, by which 



he 



