5S0 MEMOIR OF 



ship, and upon the plan he pursued in the conduct of his Lec- 

 tures. 



The Class had hitherto been taught chiefly in relation to the 

 Science of Law, to which it was considered as subsidiary. It 

 was not so much Universal History that was the subject of 

 prelection, as the History of Rome ; and the views that were 

 exhibited of Roman Antiquities, were chiefly those that were 

 illustrative of the principles or progress of the Civil Law. Mr 

 Tytler felt that it became him to take a more comprehensive 

 view of the subject ; to aim at higher utilities than those of 

 a single profession ; to adapt his Lectures to the more libe- 

 ral opinions which had arisen with regard to education, and the 

 increasing celebrity of the University where they were to be 

 delivered ; and in the course of them, (as he has himself ex- 

 pressed it,) to exhibit a progressive view of the state of mankind 

 from the earliest ages, of which we have any account, — to deline- 

 ate the origin of states and empires, — the great outlines of their 

 history, — the revolutions which they have undergone, — and the 

 causes which have contributed to their rise and grandeur, or ope- 

 rated to their decline and extinction. 



In the execution of a design so extensive, Mr Tytler's at- 

 tention was first directed to the choice of a Plan, or to the 

 formation of a system of arrangement, by which he might be 

 able to give some degree of unity and consistence to the great 

 mass of materials that were before him. In examining the 

 methods in which Academical Lectures on this subject had hi- 

 therto been conducted, either in this country or on the Conti- 

 nent, he perceived that there were two different systems which 

 had chiefly been followed, and which may, perhaps, not impro- 

 perly be styled the Narrative, and the Didactic Systems. In 

 the first, the principle of arrangement was simply that of Chro- 

 nology : the only order observed was the order of time, and 



the 



