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STE lectures, and, apart from its intrinsic merits, is interesting as a specimen of Stewart's philosophical power at the age of nineteen. In 1772 he returned to Edinburgh to act as substitute for his father in the chair of mathematics, an office which he held for three years, when (June 14, 1775) he was elected conjoint professor of mathematics, before he had completed his twenty-second year. During the three preceding years he had been an active member of the celebrated Speculative Society of Edinburgh, in which he read essays on "Dreaming," the "Causes and Effects of Scepticism," "Taste," &c. In 1778 Professor Fergusson was appointed secretary to the commissioners sent to America, to negotiate regarding the points in dispute between the colonies and the mother country. In his absence, and at his request, the class of moral philosophy was conducted by the young professor of mathematics. Stewart delivered an original course of lectures on morals, and after only a week's notice. He was at the same time engaged for three hours daily as professor of mathematics, giving, during the same session, a course of lectures on astronomy for the first time. "To this season," says his son, "he always referred as the most laborious of his life; and such was the exhaustion of the body, from the intense and continued stretch of the mind, that on his departure for London at the close of the academical session, it was necessary to lift him into the carriage." In 1783 he visited Paris for the first time, and on his return to Scotland in the same year, he married Helen, daughter of Neil Bannatyne of Glasgow, who died four years later leaving an only child, afterwards Colonel Matthew Stewart.

Stewart soon entered on a new and, for him, more appropriate academical sphere. On the resignation of Adam Fergusson in 1785, he was transferred to the chair of moral philosophy, which, during the twenty-five years in which he held it, was famed over Europe for the elevating influences of his philosophical eloquence, and his enlarged and liberal opinions. His pupils were attracted not merely from all parts of Scotland and England, but also from the continent of Europe and from America; and if we may trust their concurrent testimony, seldom if ever in modern times have the doctrines of philosophy been represented in a manner more impressive to the higher order of minds. The number of students, which during the first year of his professorship was about one hundred, had increased in his last session to one hundred and fifty. In one session it had even risen to one hundred and ninety-six, while the average during the years he occupied the chair was one hundred and thirty-eight. In 1800, in addition to the ordinary lectures on moral philosophy, he commenced a separate course on political economy, a department of philosophy then becoming the subject of general inquiry, through the writings of Hume, Adam Smith, and Fergusson, not to speak of Turgot, Quesnai, D'Alembert, and the other French political philosophers. These lectures of Stewart, while not distinguished by striking originality of doctrine, tended powerfully to promote the spread of liberal political opinions. They were at the time the only lectures in that department open to the youth of England and Scotland. They attracted many of those who were afterwards distinguished as men of letters and statesmen. In the catalogue of his students may be found the names of Brougham, Lansdowne, Palmerston, Jeffrey, and Sydney Smith; Lord Lauderdale and Lord Webb Seymour; Cockburn, Macvey Napier, and the Alisons. "Stewart," as his able biographer, Professor Veitch, remarks in reference to the lectures on political economy, "Stewart accomplished a great, though silent and unostentatious work. Besides cherishing the better spirit in philosophy and literature that was now making itself felt in Scotland, he contributed more than any other man of his time to create and foster in the minds of the rising youth, not only of Scotland but of Britain, the love of political freedom, and a sense of the importance of an unfettered economical code. In the quiet retreat of the metropolitan university were to be found the asylum and the nursery of the liberal opinions of the times. From the class-room of Stewart there have gone forth almost all the men whose names are now, after half a century, familiar to this generation as having helped forward the cause of liberal politics, some by their personal influence merely, others by their writings as well, and not a few by their splendid exertions on the fields of practical statesmanship. The internal history of Britain during the past half century is, in a great measure, the record of the slow but secure prevalence of the political principles of Smith and Stewart in the national opinion and councils; and affords a striking example of the gradual ascendancy in public opinion of the speculations of the solitary thinker, which, after being neglected or, it may be, contemned, finally rule the world." It was in his chair at Edinburgh that Stewart was felt in his characteristic influence. "To me," says Lord Cockburn, "his lectures were like the opening of the heavens. I felt that I had a soul. His noble views, unfolded in glorious sentences, elevated me into a higher world. Dugald Stewart was one of the greatest of didactic orators. Had he lived in ancient times, his memory would have descended to us as that of one of the finest of the old eloquent sages. But his lot was better cast. Flourishing in an age which requires all the dignity of morals to counteract the tendencies of physical pursuits, he has exalted the character of his country and his generation. . . . His merit as a lecturer much depends on the recollection of those who heard him. It is a luxury to recall it. He was about the middle size, weakly limbed, and with an appearance of feebleness which gave an air of delicacy to his gait and structure. His forehead was large and bald; his eyebrows bushy; his eyes grey and intelligent, and capable of conveying any emotion from indignation to pity, from serene sense to hearty humour, in which they were powerfully aided by his lips, which, though rather large perhaps, were flexible and expressive. The voice was singularly pleasing; and, as he managed it, a slight burr only made its tones softer. His ear, both for music and for speech, was exquisite; and he was the finest reader I have ever heard. His gesture was simple and elegant, though not free from a tinge of professional formality; and his whole manner that of an academical gentleman. He lectured standing, from notes, which, with their successive additions, must, I suppose, at last have been nearly as full as his spoken words. His lecturing manner was professorial, but gentlemanlike; calm and expository, but rising into greatness or softening into tenderness whenever his subject required it."

When he was professor of moral philosophy Stewart made occasional visits to the continent, especially to France, during the summer recess of the university. He thus formed a large and brilliant circle of acquaintances and correspondents, including Prévost of Geneva, De Girando, Morellet, Suard, Chevalier, and others, who helped to diffuse his opinions and spirit abroad. Other circumstances contributed to a like result. In 1790 he married the accomplished daughter of the Hon. George Cranstoun, sister of Lord Corehouse. After this second marriage he was accustomed to receive into his house some of those young men of rank and fortune who were induced to visit the northern metropolis by the reputation of the university, and by the state of the continent at that time, and who found the family of Stewart the resort of all who were most distinguished for genius, acquirements, or elegance in Edinburgh (then in the height of its literary and scientific renown), and all the foreigners who were led to visit the capital of Scotland. Among those who thus lived in his house may be mentioned Earl Russell and Lord Palmerston, Lord Ashburton, Lord Webb Seymour, and Sir R. H. Inglis. It may easily be conceived how much his peculiar influence was increased by this means, and by the reunions which gathered within the influences of his house and person the most brilliant society of the Scottish capital.

Stewart's disciples, says Sir James Macintosh, were among his best works. His published writings, nevertheless, occupy ten large volumes, in the collected edition, published under the editorial charge of Sir William Hamilton. He first appeared as an author in March, 1792, when he was nearly forty years of age, and when he produced the first volume of his "Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind," of which the second and third appeared, the one more than twenty, and the other more than thirty years afterwards. The first volume was fitly dedicated to his venerable philosophical instructor, Dr. Reid. It is his first instalment to that comprehensive review of human nature, on the inductive method, which he had proposed to himself as the labour of his life. With the two volumes which followed, it proves an excellent introduction to the psychology of the intellectual phenomena, in the style of the best English literature, and with illustrations and allusions which serve agreeably to connect the inquiries of the student with the affairs of ordinary life. It contains comparatively little of abstract metaphysical speculation, recording rather the author's sagacious and often subtle observations of facts in human life, and of the action of the intellectual faculties in various circumstances.