Priestley had pointed out before.I am sorry that I never got the other works of that most extraordinary man, who, in a metaphysical age or country, would certainly have been deemed as much the boast of America as his great countryman Franklin." In their joint studies the two youths read much of Xenophon and Herodotus and more of Plato; and so well was this known -- exciting admiration in some, in others envy-that it was not unusual, as they went along, for their class-fellows to point at them and say: " There go Plato and Herodotus." But the arena in which they met most frequently was that of morals and metaphysics."After having sharpened their weapons by reading, they often repaired to the spacious sands upon the sea-shore, and still more frequently to the picturesque scenery on the banks of the Don above the old town, to discuss with eagerness the various subjects to which their attention had been directed.There was scarcely an important {348} position in Berkeley's "Minute Philosopher," or Butler's " Analogy," or in Edwards on the Will, over which they had not thus debated with the utmost intensity.Night after night, nay month after month, for two seasons, they met only to study or dispute, yet no unkindly feeling ensued." (Gregory's " Memoir of Robert Hall.")In 1784 he entered on the study of medicine, and was under the famous Dr.Cullen, but attached himself to the fancies of John Brown, author of the Brunonian system, which had its little day.At Edinburgh he became a member of the famous Speculative Society, which did so much to stimulate the intellectual life of young men.He is able to testify of Edinburgh University, " that it is not easy to conceive a university where industry was more general, where reading was more fashionable, and where indolence and ignorance were more disreputable.Every mind was in a state of fermentation.The direction of mental activity will not indeed be universally approved.It certainly was very much, though not exclusively, pointed towards metaphysical inquiries." To the " Royal Physical Society," he read a paper on the instincts and dispositions of animals, and showed that animals had memory, imagination, and reason in different degrees; declining to enter on the difficult question: "To what circumstance are we to attribute the intellectual superiority of man over other animals?" He took his medical degree with credit, but it does not appear that he ever had the taste for the patient observation of physiological facts which would have made him eminent in the profession.It is quite clear that, while a hard student, he mingled freely in the excesses for which the Edinburgh lawyers and students were noted at that period.It is proper to add that, when in Edinburgh, he attended the lectures of Dugald Stewart, with whom he carried on an occasional correspondence through life.
He was now seized with the disposition attributed to his countrymen of going south when they have to seek a settlement for life, and he went to London in the spring of 1788.There he meant to follow the medical profession, but he was easily turned aside from it.He became deeply interested in the politics of the time, which took their direction from the revolt of the American colonies, and from the fermentation preceding the revolutionary outburst in France.He listened eagerly to the {349} orations of Burke and Sheridan; and became a speaker him self in one of the numerous political societies of the period.He was led by his social dispositions to mingle in the society that was open to him."His company was sought after, and few were the occupations which induced him willingly to decline a pleasant invitation." Feeling a difficulty in sustaining him self, he sold his little highland estate, and bravely entered into the state of matrimony.He now betook himself to the study of the law, and, had he kept to it steadily, would undoubtedly have risen to great eminence in certain departments of it requiring thought and lofty eloquence.But an opportunity now presented itself to call forth his special gifts, and enable him at once to rise to distinction.