"I /WAS born," he tells us, " at Aldowrie, on the banks of Loch Ness within seven miles of the town of Inverness, in Scotland, on the 26th of October, 1765." His father was a subaltern and younger brother, possessed of a small family property, and his mother was pressed with many anxieties; but she and the whole female kindred combined to lavish kindness upon the child and possibly fondled him too much.In 1775, he was sent to the school at Fortrose.The boarding mistress was very pious and orthodox, and at times rebuked the usher who was suspected of some heretical opinions.He betook himself early to reading thoughtful works, some of them beyond his years, such as Burnet on the Thirty-Nine Articles, and he formed opinions of his own, and became a warm advocate for free-will.
"About the same time," be says, "I read the old translation (called Dryden's) of Plutarch's 'Lives' and Echard's 'Roman History.' I well remember that the perusal of the last led me into a ridiculous habit.from which I shall never be totally free.I used to fancy myself emperor of Constantinople.
I distributed offices and provinces amongst my school fellows; I loaded my favorites with dignity and power, and I often made the objects of my dislike feel the weight of my imperial resentment.I carried on the series of political events in solitude for several hours;.I resumed them, and continued them from day to day for months.Ever since, I have been more prone to building castles in the air than most others.My castle-building bas always been of a singular kind.It was not the anticipation of a sanguine disposition, expecting extraordinary success in its pursuits.My disposition is not sanguine, and my visions have generally regarded things as much unconnected with my ordinary pursuits and as little to be expected as the crown of Constantinople at the school of Fortrose.
These fancies, indeed, have never amounted to conviction, or, in other words, they have never influenced my actions; but I must confess that they have often been as steady and of as regular recurrence as conviction itself, and that they have sometimes created a little faint expectation, a state of mind in which my wonder that they should be realized would not be so great as it rationally ought to be.The indulgence of this dreaming propensity produces good and bad consequences.It produces indolence, improvidence, cheerfulness; a study is its favorite scene; and I have no doubt that many a man, surrounded by piles of folios and apparently engaged in the most profound researches, is in reality often employed in distributing the offices and provinces of the empire of Constantinople." {347}
The instruction he received at school was loose and far from accurate." Whatever I have done beyond has been since added by my own irregular reading But no subsequent circumstance could make up for that invaluable habit of vigorous and methodical industry which the indulgence and irregularity of my school life prevented me from acquiring, and of which I have painfully felt the want in every part of my life." In 1780 he went to college at Aberdeen." I bought and read three or four books this first winter, which were very much out of the course of boys of fifteen anywhere, but most of all at Aberdeen.Among them was Priestley's "Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion," and Beattie's " Essay on Truth," which confirmed my disposition to metaphysical inquiries, and Warburton's " Divine Legation,"which delighted me more than any book I had yet read, and which perhaps tainted my mind with a fondness for the twilight of historical hypothesis, but which certainly inspired me with that passion for investigating the history of opinions which has influenced my reading through life.At the college he formed an intimacy with a most engaging and promising youth, Robert Hall, who afterwards became the most brilliant preacher of his age." His society and conversation had a great influence on my mind; our controversies were almost unceasing.We lived in the same house, and we were both very disputatious.He led me to the perusal of Jonathan Edwards's book on Free Will, which Dr.
