Such is a bald statement of the facts of what would seem a singularly uneventful life. Life divided between the study, library, and classroom, there was little room for incident outside the ordinary incidents of domestic and academic routine. Yet Ferrier never sank into the conventionality which life in a small University town might induce. His interests were always fresh; he was constantly engaged in writing and rewriting his lectures, which, unlike some of his calling, he was not content to read and re-read from year to year unaltered. His thoughts were constantly on his subject and on his students, planning how best to communicate to them the knowledge that he was endeavouring to convey—a life which came as near the ideal of philosophic devotion as is perhaps possible in this nineteenth century of turmoil and unrest. Still, gentleman and man of culture as he was, Ferrier had a fighting side as well, and that side was once or twice aroused in all the vehemence of its native strength.

Twice Ferrier made application for a philosophical chair in the town of his birth and boyhood. In 1852, when his father-in-law, John Wilson, retired, he became a candidate for the professorship of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh; and then again, in 1856, he offered himself as a successor to Sir William Hamilton as Professor of Logic and Metaphysics. On neither occasion was he successful, and on both occasions he suffered much from calumnious statements respecting his 'German' and unorthodox views—a kind of calumny which is more than likely to arise and carry weight when the judges are men of honourable character but of little education, men to whom a shibboleth is everything and real progress in learning nothing. On the first occasion there were several candidates who submitted their applications, but on Professor M'Cosh's retiring from the combat, the two who were 'in the running' were Professor Ferrier of St. Andrews and Professor Macdougall of the Free Church College in Edinburgh. It is curious, as instancing the strange change which had come over the politics of Scotland since the Reform Act had passed, that the very influences that told in favour of John Wilson in applying for a professorship in 1821 should thirty years later tell as strongly against his son-in-law. In 1852, nine years after the Disruption, so greatly had matters altered, that the Free Church liberal party carried all before it in the Corporation. And although the liberal journals of the earlier date were never tired of maintaining liberty of thought and action, yet when circumstances changed, the liberty appeared in a somewhat different light; and the qualification of being a Whig was added to a considerable number of appointments both in the Church and in the State. Professor Macdougall, Ferrier's opponent, had held his professorship in the Free Church College, lately established for the teaching of theology and preparation of candidates for the ministry. On the establishment of the College, the subject of Moral Philosophy was considered to be one which should be taught elsewhere than in an 'Erastian' University, and accordingly it was thought necessary to institute the chair occupied by Professor Macdougall. In the first instance the class was eminently successful in point of numbers, and the corresponding class in the University proportionately suffered; but as time went on the attendance in the Free Church class dwindled, and it was considered that this chair need not be continued, but that students might be permitted to attend at the University. When Professor Macdougall now offered himself as candidate for the University chair, there was of course an immediate outcry of a 'job.' Rightly or wrongly it was said, 'Let the Free Church have a Professor of her own body and opinions if she will, but why force him upon the Established Church as well; are her country and ministers to be indoctrinated with Voluntary principles?' There might not have been much force in the argument had the status of the two candidates been the same, but it was evident to all unprejudiced observers that this was far from being the case. And it could hardly be pleaded in justification of the Council's action that they formed their judgment upon the testimonials laid before them; for Ferrier's far exceeded his rival's in weight, if not in strength of expression, and included in their number communications from such men as Sir William Hamilton, De Quincey, Bulwer, Alison, and Lockhart—men the most distinguished of the age. De Quincey's opinion of Ferrier is worth quoting. He says that he regards him as 'the metaphysician of greatest promise among his contemporaries either in England or in Scotland,' and the testimonial which at this time he accorded Ferrier is as remarkable a document as is often produced on such occasions, when commonplace would usually appear to be the object aimed at. It is several pages in length, and goes fully into the question not only of what Ferrier was, but also of what a candidate ought to be. De Quincey speaks warmly of Ferrier's services in respect of the English rendering of Faust before alluded to, and points out the benefit there is in having had an education which has run along two separate paths—paths differing from one another in nature, doubtless, but integrating likewise—the one being that resulting from his intercourse with Wilson and his literary coterie, the other that of the course of study he had pursued on German lines. He sums up Ferrier's philosophic qualities by saying, 'Out of Germany, and comparing him with the men of his own generation, such at least as I had any means of estimating, Mr. Ferrier was the only man who exhibited much of true metaphysical subtlety, as contrasted with mere dialectical acuteness.' For this testimonial, we may incidentally mention, Ferrier writes a most interesting letter of thanks, which is published in his Remains. As a return for the kindness done him, he 'sets forth a slight chart of the speculative latitudes' he had reached, and which he 'expects to navigate without being wrecked'—really an admirably clear epitome in so short a space of the argument of the Institutes.

But to come back to the contest: in spite of testimonials, the fact remained that Ferrier had studied German philosophy, and might have imbibed some German infidelity, while his opponent made no professions of being acquainted either with the German philosophy or language, besides having the advantage of being a Liberal and Free Churchman; and he was consequently appointed to the chair. Of course, there was an outcry. The election was put forward as an argument against the abolition of Tests, though in this case Ferrier, as an Episcopalian, might be said to be a Dissenter equally with his opponent. It was argued that the election should be set aside unless the necessary subscription were made before the Presbytery of the bounds. For a century back such tests had not been exacted as far as the Moral Philosophy chair was concerned, nor would they probably have been so had Ferrier himself been nominated. But though the Presbytery concerned was in this case prepared to go all lengths, it appeared that it was not in its members that the initiative was vested, the practice being to take the oath before the Lord Provost or other authorised magistrate. Consequently, indignant at discovering their impotence, the members of the body retaliated by declaring that they would divert past the new Professor's class the students who should afterwards come within their jurisdiction, and thus, by their foolish action, they probably did their best to bring about the result they deprecated so much—the abolition of Tests in their entirety.

Ecclesiastical feeling ran high at the time, and things were said and done on both sides which were far from being wise or prudent. But the effect on a sensitive nature like Ferrier's is easy to imagine. This was the first blow he had met with, and being the first he did not take it quite so seriously to heart. But when it was followed years later by yet another repulse, signifying to his view an attitude of mind in orthodox Scotland opposed to any liberty of thought amongst its teachers, Ferrier felt the day for silence was ended, and, wisely or unwisely, he published a hot defence of his position in a pamphlet entitled Scottish Philosophy, the Old and the New. On this occasion the question had risen above the mere discussion of Church and Tests; the whole future of philosophy in Scotland was, he believed, at stake; it was time, he felt, that someone should speak out his mind, and who more suitable than the leader of the modern movement and the one, as he considered it, who had suffered most by his opinions?

Without having lived through the time or seen something of its effects, it would be difficult to realise how narrow were the bounds allowed to speculative thought some forty years ago in Scotland. Since the old days of Moderatism and apathy there had, indeed, been a great revival of interest in such matters as concerned Belief. Men's convictions were intense and sincere; and what had once been a subject of convention and common usage, had now become the one important topic of their lives. So far the change was all for the good; it promoted many important virtues; it made men serious about serious things; it made them realise their responsibilities as human beings. But as those who lived through it, or saw the results it brought about, must also know, it had another side. A certain spiritual self-assurance sprang into existence, which, though it was bred of intense reality of conviction, brought with it consequences of a specially trying kind to those who did not altogether share in it. As so often happens when a new light dawns, men thought that to them at length all truth had been revealed, and acted in accordance with this belief. They formulated their systems—hide-bound almost as before—and decided in their minds that in them they had the standards for judging of their fellows. But Truth is a strange will-o'-the-wisp after all,—when we think we have reached her, she has eluded our grasp,—and so when those rose up who said the end of the matter was not yet, a storm of indignation fell upon their heads. This is what happened with Ferrier and the orthodox Edinburgh world. There might, it was said by the latter, be men lax enough to listen to reasonings such as his, and even to agree with them, but for those who knew the truth as it was in its reality, such pandering to latitudinarian doctrines was unpardonable. And as at this time the Town Council of Edinburgh was seriously inclined (some of the members, in the second instance, were the same as those who had adjudicated in the former contest), Ferrier's fate was, he considered, sealed before the question really came before them. Whether the matter was quite as serious as Ferrier thought, it is perhaps unnecessary to say. At anyrate, there was a considerable element of truth in the view he took of it, and he was justified in much—if not in all—of what he said in his defence. The Institutes, first published in 1854, had just reached a second edition, so that his views were fairly before the world. What caused the tremendous outburst of opposition we must take another chapter to consider; and then we must try to trace the course of Ferrier's development from the time at which he first began to write on philosophic subjects, and when he openly broke with the Scottish School of Philosophy.

CHAPTER V
DEVELOPMENT OF 'SCOTTISH PHILOSOPHY, THE OLD AND THE NEW'—FERRIER AS A CORRESPONDENT

It is probably in the main a wise rule for defeated candidates to keep silence about the cause of their defeat. But every rule has its exception, and there are times in which we honour a man none the less because—contrary to the dictates of worldly wisdom—he gives voice to the sense of injustice that is rankling in his mind. Ferrier had been disappointed in 1852 in not obtaining the Chair of Moral Philosophy for which he was a candidate; but then he had not published the work which has made his name famous, and his claims were therefore not what afterwards they became. But when in 1856, after the Institutes had been two years before the public, and just after the book had reached a second edition, another defeat followed on the first, Ferrier ascribed the result to the opposition to, and misrepresentation of, his system, and claimed with some degree of justice that it was not his merits that were taken into account, but the supposed orthodoxy, or want of orthodoxy, of his views. For this reason he issued a 'Statement' in pamphlet form, entitled Scottish Philosophy, the Old and the New, dealing with the matter at length.

In Ferrier's view, a serious crisis had been arrived at in the history of the University of Edinburgh, and one which might lead to yet further evil were not something done to place matters on a better footing. Had the Town Council, the electing body, been affected simply by personal or sectarian feelings, it would not so much have mattered; but when Ferrier was forced to the conclusion that what they did must end in the curtailment of all liberty in regard to philosophical opinion, so far as the University was concerned, he felt the time had come to speak. For a quarter of a century he had devoted the best part of his life and energies to the study of philosophy, and he held he had a duty to discharge to it as one of the public instructors of the land. What cause, he asked, had a body like the Council to say originality was to be proscribed and independence utterly forbidden? Through their liberalism tests had been practically abolished: was another test, far more exacting than the last, to be substituted in their place? A candidate for a philosopher's chair need not be a believer in Christ or a member of the Established Church; but he must, it would appear, believe in Dr. Reid and the Hamiltonian system of philosophy.

The 'common-sense' school, against which Ferrier's attacks were mainly directed, too often found its satisfaction in commonplace statements of obvious facts, and we cannot wonder that Ferrier should ask why Scottish students should be required to pay for 'bottled air' while the whole atmosphere is 'floating with liquid balm that could be had for nothing?'—a question, indeed, which cannot fail to strike whoever tries to wade through certain tedious dissertations of the time, all expressing truths which seem incontrovertible in their nature, but all of which are also inexpressibly uninteresting. Philosophy to Ferrier is not the elementary science that it would appear from these discourses: loose ways of thinking which we ordinarily adopt must, he considers, be rectified and not confirmed. And yet he disclaims the accusation that he has conjured with 'the portentous name of Hegel,' or derived his system from German soil. Hegel, he constantly confesses, is frequently to him inexplicable, and his system is Scottish to the core.

A warm debt of gratitude to Hamilton, Ferrier, it is true, acknowledges even while he differs from his views—a debt to one whose 'soul could travel on eagles' wings,' and from whom he had learned so much—whom, indeed, he had loved so warmly. Hamilton had not agreed with Ferrier; he had thought him wrong, and told him so, and Ferrier was the last to resent this action, or think the less of him for not recanting at his word the conclusions of a lifetime's labour. Provocation, the younger man acknowledges, he had often given him, and 'never was such rough provocation retaliated with such gentle spleen.'