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Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [july 18, 
many whose tastes lie altogether outside of the profession which he 
adorned. But Lord Gifford was not a lawyer merely ; and during 
those years when the shadow of death was upon him he had, along 
with other and higher consolations, the ample stores of philosophy 
and poetry, and the varied studies of earlier years. 
By the death of Alexander Gibson, advocate, Secretary of the 
Educational Endowments Commission, the public service, as well 
as his many personal friends, have suffered a loss which will not 
easily be repaired. Born at Kirkcaldy — the birth-place, as I need 
not remind this learned audience, of Adam Smith, the founder of 
Political Economy as a separate branch of human knowledge, — like 
Smith, young Gibson received the first of his education at the 
burgh school of that town. Graduating afterwards in Arts in the 
University of Edinburgh, he took an active part in the Diagnostic 
Society, and speedily gained the reputation of a student of great 
acuteness and of wide reading, both in literature and in law. He 
was also much interested in natural philosophy and science, and 
in that department of his professional knowledge which Leibnitz, at 
once a jurist and a mathematician, pronounced to rank next to 
geometry in the soundness of its principles and the certainty of its 
conclusions, the noble system of equity of the Roman law. I 
quote his words — “ I have often said that after the writings of 
geometricians there exists nothing which, in point of strength, 
subtility, and depth, can be compared with the works of the Roman 
lawyers” (Dugald Stewart’s Works, by Hamilton, vol. i. p. 186, 
1854).* 
But to return from this digression. “ Time and the hour ” forbid 
my making more than passing mention of many names of which I 
should willingly have said more in this place. 
Mr William Denny of Dumbarton was a distinguished naval 
constructor, and, as such, a large employer of labour. He took a 
keen interest in the improvement of the working classes, and his 
death caused a widely felt sorrow among a large circle of friends, 
not in this country only but abroad. 
* Dixi ssepius, post scripta geometrarum, nihil extare quod vi ac subtilitate 
cum Romanorum jureconsultorum sci'iptis comparari potest tantum nervi 
adest tantum profunditatis (Leibnitz’ Works, by Dutens, vol. iv. part 3, 
pp. 267, 268). 
