James Frederick Ferrier

herwise have been able to do. Ferrier's death was what his life had been: it was with calm courage that he looked it in the face-the same calm courage with which he faced the perhaps even greater p

ht to have gone there once more, he was unable to carry out his intention. On the 31st of October, Dr. Christison was consulted about his state, and pronounced his case to be past hope of remedy. He opened his class on the 11th of November in his own house, but during this month was generally confined to bed. On the 8th of December he was attacked by congestion of the brain, and never lectured again. His class was conducted by Mr. Rhoades,[16] then Warden of the recently-founded College Hall, who, as many others among his colleagues would have been ready to do, willingly undertook the melancholy task of officiating for so beloved

d his manner of life was not conducive to physical health, combining as it did late hours with lack of physical exercise. But in these later years he was unable to walk more than the shortest distance, the ascent of a staircase was an effort to him, and tendencies to asthma developed which must have made his life often enough a physical pain. Still, though it was evident that there could be but one ending to the struggle, Ferrier gave expression to no complaints, and though he might, as Principal Tulloch says, utter a

ard was given to him, Ferrier exclaimed, 'That must be a good fellow!' Principal Tulloch, his friend and for ten years his colleague, was with him constantly, and talked often to him about his work-the work on Plato and his philosophy, that he would have liked to accomplish in order to complete his lectures. The summer before his death they read together some of Plato's dialogues which he had carefully pencilled with his notes. He also took to reading Virgil, in which occupation his friend frequently joined with him, and this seemed to relieve the languor from which he suffered. As to religion, which was a subject on which he thought much, although he did not frequently express an opinion, Tulloch says: 'He was unable to feel much interest in any of its popular forms, but he had a most intense interest in its great mysteries, and a thorough reverence for its truths when these were not disfigured by superstition and formalism.' Immortality, as we have seen, meant to him that there is a permanent and abiding element beyond the merely particular and individual which must pass away, and so far it was a reality in his mind. God was a real presence in the world, and not a far away divinity in whom men believed but whom they could not know; but as to the cre

r whom, once known, there is no real past. The characteristic features and qualities of such men become part of our conscious life; memory keeps them before us living and influential, in a higher, truer present which overshado

to? Was it worth the labour of so many years of toil? Who is there who can reply? And yet we can see something of what has been accomplished; we can see that philosophy has been made a more living thing for Scotland, that a blow has been struck against materialistic creeds, or beliefs which are merely formal and without any true convincing power. It may not have been much: the work was but begun, and it was left to others to carry that work on. But in philosophy, as in the rest,

SCOTS"

ions of t

M S

R C. MAC

luminous. The monograph, as a whole, shoul

ticism interspersed amidst the chapters on the philosopher's two principal treatises.

s of the 'Famous Scots' Series permitted, is clearly and e

ned, vivid, the picture of a great man, and with all i

political economy, and as a sketch of the career of one o

d criticism of its subject. It deserves a promin

ation of the Cobdenic ideas of international policy. The author considers it to be Adam Smith's chief achievement that he has demonstr

ch is in keeping with its convictions. It has vision, too, and that

e of Smith in his essential character as the author of the doctrine of Free

tten, to my mind at least, one of the best of the series of 'Famous Scots,' and has enshrined the author

e are some interesting stor

ended as among the very best of a n

riptions of the society of his time; but it will undoubtedly be as an exposition of the ph

, indeed, Mr. Macpherson's object is educational. Not content with doing justice to the great master o

to the volume just issued. Mr. Macpherson has given us a volume much above the average of the series both in literary merit and thoughtfulness. We st

an admirable serie

monograph."-Lo

bly written monograph.

ch Smith lived that he is able to make an excellent use of them as showing how they influenced such a thinker as the author

upon the individualistic character of his teaching. It is well that his authority on the side of individualism should be put forward in these days of rampant Socialism, when the great mass of legislative meas

tno

1

ount of the family is given which was written by Mis

2

or the Demies or Scholars, and seldom read for honours. In Ferrier's days Magdalen College admitted no ordinary commoners, and there were but few resident undergraduates, many of the t

3

Warwickshire, a well-known genealogist, and the

4

Anne Scott, and Lockhart, when they visited Wilson at El

5

emurred to interviewing the father of the lady, and she herself undertook the mission. Presently she returned with a card pinned upon her breast bearing the satisfactory inscription, 'With the author's compliments'! Ayt

6

conditioned (Sir Wil

7

r John Skel

8

r for Thomas Carlyle, then coming into fame amongst them; bu

9

e Necessity of a Change in the Patr

1

Jowett, vol. i.

1

y, by John Campbel

1

of a Busy Life, by Da

1

196, by Mrs

1

1

1

ries, by Davi

1

Ferrier's

1

hical Remains, Introd

riber'

errors have been cor

istencies in the text hav