was insinuated that there were too many infidels in the University already. The Presbytery of Edinburgh addressed a Remonstrance to the Senatus Academicus touching their disuse of subscribing the Confession of Faith, notwithstanding the Acts of King William and Queen Anne. The Senatus replied that they were ready to put their names to the Confession when they were called upon to do so by the presbytery. The ministers of Edinburgh now addressed a Remonstrance to the patrons, grounded on a clause in the charter of the college, directing the magistrates to take the advice of the city clergy in the appointment of professors. The magistrates received the Remonstrance, and on the same night appointed Leslie to the mathematical chair.

The clergy based their charge of scepticism upon a note which Leslie had attached to his "Inquiry into the Nature of Heat," in which he had spoken of Hume's "Essay on Necessary Connection," as the most philosophical theory of causation which had yet been given to the world. Leslie protested that the note considered the relation between cause and effect entirely as an object of physical examination; and that as he did not, on the one hand, embrace the whole of Hume's sceptical system, neither was he bound on the other to point out the bad use which had been made of the theory of causation. He wrote to one of the magistrates, repudiating the sentiments with which he was charged; he wrote to Dr Hunter, the Professor of Divinity, in the same strain. But all would not do the fatal note was still quoted against him.

As the ministers of Edinburgh repudiated the doctrine of causation as taught by Hume and adopted by Leslie, they were obliged to state what was their own doctrine. This they did in their Protest and Remonstrance. They said it was orthodox to teach that there was such a necessary connection between cause and effect as implied an operating principle in the cause. They had ventured upon dangerous ground. In avoiding Scylla, they had dashed against Charybdis. Metaphysicians rose up and said that they had taught the gross Materialism of Spinoza-peradventure it had been unwittingly. If physical causes, it was argued, are possessed of active powers or operating principles in themselves, they are efficient causes; and hence there is no necessity to go beyond physical causes for the origin of all things. The foundations of natural religion are destroyed, for a Supreme Intelligence implies that the laws of nature are just God acting in and through what

are called physical causes. Things happen as they do, not because there is any inherent property in them producing, but simply because God so willed it.

The Edinburgh clergy brought their Remonstrance and Protest before the presbytery, praying it to take such steps in the circumstances as seemed most agreeable to the civil and religious institutions of the kingdom. The matter went from the presbytery to the synod, and from the synod to the General Assembly. The Popular party marshalled themselves on the side of Leslie; the Moderates against him. It was strange that it should have been so ; for hitherto the Moderates had been the most earnest advocates of intellectual liberty. They had defended Simson, Wishart, Leechman; they had saved Kames and Hume from excommunication; it was thought they had sheltered M'Gill; it was said they wished all creeds were burned, that so they themselves might think as they pleased. The Popular party, on the other hand, had too often exhibited a too eager desire to repress speculation, and anathematize the slightest deviation from the severest orthodoxy. They had now changed sides. Personalities often interfere with principles. The Moderates fought for a brother; the Popular party fought against them, and on the side which was favoured by the liberal politicians of the day.

The debate in the Assembly was the most brilliant that any living man had listened to. It lasted for two days, and brought upon the floor peers and professors, lords of session and doctors of divinity. The " Edinburgh Review" had recently sprung from the brain of Scotland like a full-armed Minerva. It warmly espoused the cause of Leslie-it poured all its vials of contempt upon the bigots who obstructed his progress to the mathematical chair; but it confesses that the debate in the General Assembly could not have been matched in any other ecclesiastical assembly in the world. Sir Henry Moncreiff was the principal speaker on the side of Leslie. His mind was rather practical than metaphysical, but still he was well able to grasp any metaphysical subtleties that came in his way; and he did not fail to show that atheistic principles could be extracted from the theory of causation propounded by the ministers of Edinburgh, as easily as from that taught by Leslie and Hume. But still it was his object to avoid the thorny paths of metaphysics, and take a common-sense view of the subject, and in this he succeeded to admiration. Adam Gillies and James Moncreiff, both destined to rise to legal

eminence, vigorously supported him. The Lord President Campbell and Lord Hermand gave their weight to the opposite side. But here the brunt of the battle was borne by Dr John Inglis and Principal Hill. Dr Inglis was fast climbing to supreme influence among the Moderate clergy. In this contest he was their metaphysical champion, and it was allowed that upon his own ground he had no match. Hill was more than usually plausible, and showed all the adroitness of a man well skilled to manage parties.

Towards the close of the discussion an elder rose to speak who had seldom or never spoken in that august assemblage before, though he had long charmed the most ingenuous youths of the country by the classic dignity of his elocution as he taught from the moral philosophy chair of Edinburgh. It was Dugald Stewart. He had taken a keen interest in the whole affair, though he seldom took much interest in public matters. He had done all he could to help Leslie, both by recommending him to the magistrates, and defending him from the Press, and now he rose up to speak in his cause. He spoke a few sentences, such as those he usually spoke; but his indignation warming, and finding too full an utterance, he was saluted by cries of "Order; " and unaccustomed to such defiant shouts in the groves of the academy, he fairly broke down.

When the votes were counted, amidst an almost painful anxiety, it was found there were ninety-six votes for dismissing the case, and eighty-four for entertaining it—a result, the announcement of which was received by a loud shout from the gallery, which it was impossible to repress. The people, generally, regarded the decision of the Assembly as the triumph of liberal principles-as the emancipation of the universities from the tyranny of the Church. The Popular party received new popularity for their successful conflict in the cause of science; and the Moderates, with broken ranks and damaged character, never recovered the defeat of this disastrous day.1

Not long after this, dissension began to break out in the Moderate camp. Principal Hill, though the acknowledged leader of the party in the Assembly-for none could equal

1 An interesting account of this controversy will be found in Lord Cockburn's Memorials. See also Dugald Stewart's Short Statement of Facts, &c., and the Edinburgh Review, No. xiii.; the paper in which is known to be from the pen of Leonard Horner.

him in plausible speaking-was not always the originator of its measures. A club of Edinburgh ministers formed the central moving-power. They both laid the egg and hatched it, entrusting the chicken to the Principal's care. Of these Dr Finlayson, the Professor of Logic in the University, was the chief. He spoke little, but he thought much. His finger was in every plot, and he had a faculty for devising measures above most men. Associated with him was Dr Grieve, a bolder though not an abler man. When Principal Hill arrived in town to attend the Assembly, with his own views as to the measures which were to be discussed, he frequently found that his brethren had chalked out a different line of tactics, which it behoved him to pursue. Principal Hill was eminently conciliatory in his dispositions as well as his manners; and when the views of his coadjutors did not contradict his ruling principles, he generally adopted them, and gave them such advocacy as he could. But a jarring chord was now struck, which destroyed the harmony that had hitherto subsisted.

It had long been contested whether the Court of Teinds, having augmented a stipend once, had power to augment it again. By a series of decisions, however, the court had found itself possessed of such a power, and had been in the habit of granting such augmentations.1 Accordingly, in 1806, the minister of Avondale obtained from the Teind Court an augmentation of his stipend, which had been once, but only once, augmented since the Union; and when the judgment was pronounced, no objection was stated to the competency of the claim. The Duke of Hamilton, however, one of the principal heritors of the parish, entered an appeal to the House of Lords; and when it came to be discussed, the counsel very unexpectedly urged the plea of incompetency, which the clergy had thought was a settled question.

Alarmed at the thought of having the stipends of the country pinned down to a certain immovable point, above which they could not rise however much the wealth of the country might increase, the Edinburgh clergy determined to bring the matter before a meeting of the Commission, and urge that the Church should petition to be heard by counsel at the bar of the House of Peers, upon a subject which so greatly affected their interests. They wrote to Principal Hill,

1 Connel on Tithes, vol. ii. An immense mass of interesting informa tion upon this subject will also be found in the Appendix to the Treatise, which forms vol. iii.

explained their views, and pressed him, if he could not attend. the Commission himself, to get as many of his neighbours as possible to attend. Principal Hill replied, that he entirely disapproved of their plans; that he deprecated the interference of the Church in a private cause; and that he was very sure if the House of Lords, in its judicial capacity, was constrained to deprive them of the hope of increasing their stipends, it would, in its legislative capacity, put all things right again. Anxious to have the opinion of Lord Melville, Dr Hill communicated the correspondence to him; and his Lordship not only expressed his concurrence, but wrote to Dr Grieve saying so.

The Edinburgh conclave, instead of being convinced by this, were nettled exceedingly. At the request of his colleagues, Dr Grieve wrote a tart letter to Dr Hill, blaming him for communicating the correspondence to Lord Melville without their consent; vindicating their original views; and broadly telling him that Edinburgh must ever be the centre of correspondence in regard to the interests of their party; and that, while the metropolitans might condescend to ask the aid and advice of the provincials, they must hold in their hands the management of affairs. Dr Hill was not a pugnacious man, or he might have hit back. He wrote a reply, in which, though there be no lack of proper spirit, there is not a single acrimonious word. He intimated his intention of gradually withdrawing himself from the strifes of the Assembly; but declared, that so long as he remained, he would give his best efforts to advance the views of his friends. "I shall deserve," said he, "to sink in the public estimation, if, after being in thirty-five Assemblies as a supporter of the Moderate interest, I did not persevere in that line till the end of my life." He did persevere, and for many years more was still the most attractive speaker, if not the busiest plotter, of the party to which he belonged.1

The theological literature of the country can now boast of Principal Hill's "Lectures on Divinity," published after his death by his son.2 The English language has no better compendium of theology. What Erskine's "Institute" is to the Scotch lawyer, Hill's "Lectures" are to the Scotch divine.

1 Cook's Life of Dr Hill.

2 Lectures on Divinity, by the late George Hill, D.D., Principal of St Mary's College, St Andrews; edited from his manuscript by his son, Alexander Hill, D.D.