Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 3.djvu/56

84 ing from those portions of the globe—from the banks of the Euphrates and the Nile—which the biblical history describes as the seat of the earliest civilization. Modern history is equally favourable to Dr Doig's system. In Eastern Asia, we find nations remaining for thousands of years in identically the same state of improvement, or if they have moved at all, it has been a retrograde movement In Africa also, we perceive man in precisely the same condition in which the Greek and Roman writers represent him to have been two thousand years ago. Europe alone affords an example of progress in civilization, and that progress may be easily traced to intercourse with the eastern nations. Man seems to possess no power to advance unassisted, beyond the first stage of barbarism. According to Dr Robertson, "in every stage of society, the faculties, the sentiments, and the desires of men, are so accommodated to their own state, that they become standards of excellence to themselves; they affix the idea of perfection and happiness to those attainments which resemble their own, and whereever the objects of enjoyment to which they have been accustomed are wanting, confidently pronounce a people to be barbarous and miserable." The impediments which prejudice and national vanity thus oppose to improvement were mainly broken down in Europe by the crusades and their consequences, whereby the civilization of the East was diffused through the several nations in Europe. America presents the only instance of a people having advanced considerably in civilization unassisted, apparently, by external intercourse. The Mexicans and Peruvians, when first discovered, were greatly more civilized than the surrounding tribes: but although this be admitted, yet, as it still remains a debateable question whence the people of America derived their origin, and as the most plausible theory represents them as having migrated from the nations of eastern Asia, it may, after all, be contended, that the Mexicans and Peruvians had rather retrograded than advanced, and that, in truth, they only retained a portion of the civilization which they originally derived from the same common source.

Dr Doig's controversy with lord Kainea was maintained in two letters addressed to his lordship, but which were not published until 1793, several years after the death of lord Kames; they led, however, to an immediate intimacy between the controvertists, of the commencement of which we have an interesting anecdote. The first of these letters "dated from Stirling, but without the subscription of the writer, was transmitted to lord Kames, who was then passing the Christmas vacation at Blair-Drummond; his curiosity was roused to discover the author of a composition which bore evidence of a most uncommon degree of learning and ingenuity. In conversing on the subject with an intimate friend, Dr Graham Moir of Leckie, a gentleman of taste and erudition, and of great scientific knowledge, who frequently visited him in the country, his lordship producing the letter of his anonymous correspondent, 'In the name of wonder,' said he, 'Doctor, what prodigy of learning have you got in the town of Stirling, who is capable of writing this letter, which I received a few days ago?' The doctor, after glancing over a few papes, answered, 'I think I know him,—there is but one man who is able to write this letter, and a most extraordinary man he is;—David Doig, the master of our grammar school.'—'What!' said lord Kames, 'a genius of this kind, within a few miles of my house, and I never to have heard of him! And a fine fellow, too: he tells his mind roundly and plainly; I love him for that: he does not spare me: I respect him the more:—you must make us acquainted, my good doctor: I will write him a card; and to morrow, if you please, you shall bring him to dine with me.' The interview took place accordingly; and to the mutual satisfaction of the .parties. The subject of their controversy was freely and amply discussed; and