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432 mitted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, in as far as maintaining that beauty consists in an aptness of parts for the end to which they are assigned, may be considered an admission of the principle of association, at a period when one of an inversely opposite nature Mas supported by Burke and Price. To those who have followed these two, the name of Dugald Stewart has to be added; while that eminent scholar and great philosopher, Richard Payne Knight, has, amidst the various and rather ill-arranged mass of useful information and acute remark, accumulated in his inquiry into the principles of taste, well illustrated the theory propounded by Dr Gerard, and it has been finally enlarged and systematized by Dr Alison, and the author of a criticism on that work in the Edinburgh Review, one of the most beautiful and perfect specimens of modern composition. At the period when Dr Gerard produced this work, he was a member of a species of debating institution half way betwixt a society and a club, subject neither to the pompous state of the one, nor the excess of the other. This society is well known in Scottish literary history, as embracing among its members many of the first men of the time. More or less connected with it were the classical Blackwell, and Gregory, and Reid, the parent of that clear philosophy which has distinguished the country, and Beattie, who, though his merits have perhaps been too highly rated, was certainly fit to have been an ornament to any association of literary men. The use of literary societies has been much exaggerated; but still it cannot be denied, that wherever a spot becomes distinguished for many superior minds, there is one of these pleasing sources of activity arid enjoyment to be found. That it is more the effect than the cause may be true. Such men as Gerard, Reid, and Blackwell would have been distinguished in any sphere of life; but if the principle should maintain itself in no other science, it is at least true of philosophy, that intercommunication and untechnical debate, clear and purify the ideas previously formed, and ramify them to an extent of which the thinker had never previously dreamed. It must have been grateful beyond conception to the members of this retired and unostentatious body, to have found learning and elegance gradually brightening under their influence, after a dreary and unlettered series of ages which had passed over their university and the district, to feel that, though living apart from the grand centres of literary attraction, they had the enjoyments these could bestow beside their own retired hearths and among their own professional colleagues, and to be conscious that they bestowed a dignity on the spot they inhabited, which a long period of commercial prosperity could never bestow, and gave a tone to the literature of their institution which should continue when they were gone. In June 1760, Dr Gerard was chosen professor of divinity in Marischal college, being at the same time presented with the living of the Grey Friars' church, in Aberdeen. During his tenure of these situations, he published his "Dissertations on the Genius and Evidences of Christianity," a subject which he treated with more soundness, reason, and gentlemanly spirit, than others of the same period have chosen to display. In June 1771, he resigned both these situations, and accepted the theological chair of King's college, and three years afterwards published "An Essay on Genius;" this production is stamped with the same strength of argument, and penetrating thought, every where to be found in the productions of the author. The heads of the subject are laid down with much philosophical correctness, and followed out with that liberal breadth of argument peculiar to those who prefer what is reasonable and true, to what supports an assumed theory. The language is not florid, and indeed does not aim at what is called elegant writing, but is admirably fitted to convey the ideas clearly and consistently, and seems more intended to be understood than to be admired. It commences with a discussion on the nature of "genius." which is