At the time of his marriage Ferrier had been practising at the Bar, probably with no great measure of success, seeing that his heart was not really set upon his work. It was at this period that he first began to write, and his first contribution to literature took the form of certain papers contributed to Blackwood's Magazine, the subject being the 'Philosophy of Consciousness.' From that time onwards Ferrier continued to write on philosophic or literary topics until his death, and many of these writings were first published in the famous magazine.
Before entering, however, on any consideration of Ferrier's writings and of the philosophy of the day, it might be worth while to try to picture to ourselves the social conditions and feelings of the time, in order that we may get some idea of the influences which surrounded him, and be assisted in our efforts to understand his outlook.
In the beginning of the nineteenth century Scotland had been ground down by a strange tyranny—the tyranny of one man as it seemed, which man was Henry Dundas, first Viscount Melville, who for many long years ruled our country as few countries have been ruled before. What this despotism meant it is difficult for us, a century later, to figure to ourselves. All offices were dependent on his patronage; it was to him that everyone had to look for whatever post, advancement, or concession was required. And Dundas, with consummate power and administrative ability, moulded Scotland to his will, and by his own acts made her what she was before the world. But all the while, though unperceived, a new spirit was really dawning; the principles of the Revolution, in spite of everything, had spread, and all unobserved the time-spirit made its influence felt below a surface of apparent calm. It laid hold first of all of the common people—weavers and the like: it roused these rough, uneducated men to a sense of wrong and the resolution to seek a remedy. Not much, however, was accomplished. Some futile risings took place—risings pitiable in their inadequacy—of hard-working weavers armed with pikes and antiquated muskets. Of course, such rebels were easily suppressed; the leaders were sentenced to execution or transportation, as the case might be; but though peace apparently was restored and public meetings to oppose the Government were rigorously suppressed, trade and manufactures were arising: Scotland was not really dead, as she appeared. A new life was dawning: reform was in the air, and in due time made its presence felt. But the memory of these times of political oppression, when the franchise was the privilege of the few, and of the few who were entirely out of sympathy with the most part of their countrymen or their country's wants, remained with the people just as did the 'Killing-time' of Covenanting days two centuries before. Time heals the wounds of a country as of an individual, but the operation is slow, and it is doubtful whether either period of history will ever be forgotten. At anyrate, if they are so as this century closes, they were not in the Scotland known to Ferrier; they were still a very present memory and one whose influence was keenly felt.
And along with this political struggle yet another struggle was taking place, no less real though not so evident. The religion of the country had been as dead as was the politics in the century that was gone—dead in the sleep of Moderatism and indifferentism. But it, too, had awakened; the evangelical school arose, liberty of church government was claimed, a liberty which, when denied it, rent the Established Church in twain.
In our country it has been characteristic that great movements have usually begun with those most in touch with its inmost life, the so-called lower orders of its citizens. The nobles and the kings have rather followed than taken the lead. In the awakening of the present century this at anyrate was the case. 'Society,' so called, remained conservative in its view for long after the people had determined to advance. Scott, it must be remembered, was a retrogressive influence. The romanticism of his novels lent a charm to days gone by which might or might not be deserved; but they also encouraged their readers to imagine a revival of those days of chivalry as a possibility even now, when men were crying for their rights, when they had awakened to a sense of their possessions, and would take nothing in their place. The real chieftains were no more; they were imitation chieftains only who were playing at the game, and it was a game the clansmen would not join in. Few exercises could be more strange than first to read the account of Scottish life in one of the immortal novels by Scott dealing with last century, and then to turn to Miss Ferrier or Galt, depicting a period not so very different. Setting aside all questions of genius, where comparison would be absurd, it would seem as if a beautiful enamel had been removed, and a bare reality revealed, somewhat sordid in comparison. The life was not really sordid,—realism as usual had overshot its mark,—but the enamel had been somewhat thickly laid, and might require to be removed, if truth were to be revealed.
So in the higher grades of Edinburgh society the enamel of gentility has done its best to prejudice us against much true and genuine worth. It was characterised by a certain conventional unconventionality, a certain 'preciosity' which brought it near deserving a still stronger name, and it maintained its right to formulate the canons of criticism for the kingdom. Edinburgh, it must be recollected, was no 'mean city,' no ordinary provincial town. It was still esteemed a metropolis. It had its aristocracy, though mainly of the order of those unable to bear the greater expense of London life. It had no manufactories to speak of, no mercantile class to 'vulgarise' it; it possessed a University, and the law courts of the nation. But above all it had a literary society. In the beginning of the century it had such men as Henry Mackenzie, Dugald Stewart, John Playfair, Dr. Gregory, Dr. Thomas Brown, not to speak of Scott and Jeffrey—a society unrivalled out of London. And in later days, when these were gone, others rose to fill their places.
Of course, in addition to the movement of the working people, there was an educated protest against Toryism, and it was made by a party who, to their credit be it said, risked their prospects of advancement for the principles of freedom. In their days Toryism, we must recollect, meant something very different from what it might be supposed to signify in our own. It meant an attitude of obstruction as regards all change from established standards of whatever kind; it signified a point of view which said that grievances should be unredressed unless it was in its interest to redress them. The new party of opposition included in its numbers Whig lawyers like Gibson Craig and Henry Erskine, in earlier days, and Francis Jeffrey and Lord Cockburn later on; a party of progress was also formed within the Church, and the same within the precincts of the University. The movement, as became a movement on the political side largely headed by lawyers, had no tendency to violence; it was moderate in its policy, and by no means revolutionary—indeed it may be doubted whether there ever was much tendency to revolt even amongst those working men who expressed themselves most strongly. The advance party, however, carried the day, and when Ferrier began to write, Scotland was in a very different state from that of twenty years before. The Reform Bill had passed, and men had the moulding of their country's destiny practically placed within their hands. In the University, again, Sir William Hamilton, a Whig, had just been appointed to the Chair of Logic, while Moncreiff, Chalmers, and the rest, were prominent in the Church. The traditions of literary Edinburgh at the beginning of the century had been kept up by a circle amongst whom Lockhart, Wilson, and De Quincey may be mentioned; now Carlyle, who had left Edinburgh not long before, was coming into notice, and a new era seemed to be dawning, not so glorious as the past, but more untrammelled and more free.
How philosophy was affected by the change, and how Ferrier assisted in its progress, it is our business now to tell; but we must first briefly sketch the history of Scottish speculation to this date, in order to show the position in which he found it.
CHAPTER III
PHILOSOPHY BEFORE FERRIER'S DAY
In attempting to give some idea of philosophy as it was in Scotland in the earlier portion of the present century, we shall have to go back two hundred years or thereabout, in order to find a satisfactory basis from which to start. For philosophy, as no one realised more than Ferrier, is no arbitrary succession of systems following one upon another as their propounders might decree; it is a development in the truest and highest significance of that word. It means the gradual working out of the questions which reason sets to be answered; and though it seems as if we had sometimes to turn our faces backwards, and to revert to systems of bygone days, we always find, when we look more closely, that in our onward course we have merely dropped some thread in our web, the recovery of which is requisite in order that it may be duly taken up and woven with the rest.