54 
ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY LIFE [oh. ii. 
Western Isles last year, were here realised; and I 
felt proud that I had been able to think for myself 
on such a subject and to think correctly too. 
However, I do not altogether agree with modern 
ornithologists, and possibly I may become some 
day the author of a new system. At least, I have 
the assurance to think so. . . . 
4 4 Ornithology is my favourite study, and it will 
go hard with me if I do not one day merit the 
name of ornithologist, aye and of botanist too, and 
moreover, of something else of greater importance 
than either.” 
It is most interesting to find that, at so early 
an age (then only twenty-three) he had been able 
to form so clear and confident an outlook with 
regard to his future. What a marvellous growth 
of mind he had undergone in the course of the 
twelve months which had elapsed since his visit to 
Harris the year before. He was then, as appears 
from his journal for that period, still struggling, 
although only with very partial success, in the 
effort to assert what he knew to be the strongest 
and best in him, amid social influences which, 
pleasant as they were, tended to divert him from 
his scientific pursuits. This second journal shows 
how much he had since then gained in extended 
knowledge of Nature, in the attainment to a more 
mature and readier judgment, in greater strength 
of will, in a steadier power of self-regulation and 
endurance in carrying out clearly defined purposes 
with reference to what he was coming to realise as 
his future life’s work. 
