any other human being. And now that he is gone, I cherish his memory with the most affectionate esteem. I cannot associate with his name a single unpleasant thought, and I contemplate his powers and the evidences of their exercise with profound admiration. Let others have found their interest in adulating the living philosopher, I have preferred to pronounce my eulogium over his honoured grave.
"Never to mansions where the mighty rest,
Since their foundations, came a nobler guest."
These are some of the lights of Scottish philosophy; now for some of its shadows; for neither picture nor pamphlet is perfect without a due proportion and admixture of the two. Our landscape would not be complete without the presence of the Rev. John Cairns, U.P. minister at Berwick-upon-Tweed.
This reverend gentleman has been pleased to publish two pamphlets, with the avowed object of biassing the judgment of the elector's in the determination of the late contest. The one of them is entitled "An Examination of Professor Ferrier's Theory of Knowing and Being," the other is entitled "The Scottish Philosophy, a Vindication and Reply." This gentleman's connection with the canvass, and with the civic corporation of Edinburgh, of whom he may be regarded as the self-constituted, and to some extent adopted, adviser, has given him a sort of temporary position in the eyes of the local public, which may, perhaps, justify me in taking some notice of him and his performances.
In dealing with Mr Cairns, I shall go at once to the points which he sums up under six heads, as the results of my system, referring, where necessary, to the passages of his pamphlet, by which, as he conceives, these results are borne out. This plan will exhaust and settle the whole array of his objections.
The results of my system are said by Mr Cairns to be these:—
"I. That it confounds the province of logic and metaphysics, and attempts to reach real existence, not by belief, but by formal demonstration."
