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mathematics than they di < 3 9 that they importuned sue to become their private tutor . . To O'ne of them ( Mr . . Luther ) it will be seen hereafter how much I am indebted ^ and with the other ( IJr . Strachey ) I have maintained through life an uninterrupted
friendship . -May I meet them both in heaven ! I undoubtedly wished to have had my time to myse ! f especially till I had taken my degree ; bat the narrowness of my circumstances , accompanied with a disposition to expense , or , more properly speaking " , with a desire to appear
respectably , induced me to comply with their request . From that period , for above thirty yeans of my life , and as long as my health lasted , a considerable portion e * f my time was spent In instructing- others without much instructing myself , or in presiding at disputations in philosophy or theology , from which , after a certain time , I derived little intellectual improvement
< fe Whilst I was an under-graduate , I kept a great deal of wkctt is called the best company——that is , of idle fellow-commoners , and other persons of fortunetut their manners never subdued my
prudence ; I had strong ambition Co be distihgiiished , and was sensible that , though wealth might plead some excuse for idleness , extravagance and folly in others , the want of wealth could plead none for me .
When I used to be returning to my room at one or two in the morning , after spending a jolly evening , I often observed a light in the chamber of one of the same standing with myself ; this never failed to excite my jealousy , and the next day was always a day of hard study . I have gone
without my dinner a hundred times on sucla occasions . I thought I never entirely understood a proposition in any part of mathematics or natural philosophy , till I was able In a solitary wark , obstipo capite atqwe exporrecto labello ^ to draw the scheme in my head , and go through every
step of the demonstration without book or pen and paper . I found this was a very difficult task , especially in some of the perplexed schemes , and long demonstrations of the Twelfth Book of Euclid ^ and in UHopitaFs Conic Sections , and in Newton s Principia . My walks for this
purpose were so frequent , that my tutor , not knowirig what I was about , once reproached me for being a lounger . I never gave up a difficult point : in a demonstration tiJi I liacl made It out proprio Marie ; I have been stopped at a single step for three da ^ 's . This perseverance in accomplishing
whatever I undertook , , during the whole of my active life , a sti iking feature in my character , so much so , that Di \ Powell , the Master of St . John ' s College , said to a young man , a pupil of mine , for whom I was prosecuting' an appeal which I had lodged ! with the yiisjter against the College -
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— - Take my advice , Sir , and go back to your Curacy , for your tutor is a man of perseverance , not to say obstinacjo' " * * * . * Pp . 9—12 .
The Doctor expresses great satisfaction in finding amongst his papers two declamations , which he composed as a voluntary exercise at college . They shew , he says , that a long * , commerce in the public world only tended to confirm that political bent of bis mind in favour of civil liberty , which was formed in it before he knew of
what selfish and low-minded materials the public world was made . " They were suggested to his mind from the perusal of Vertofs Roman Hevolutions *
* Were such kind of books / ' he remarks , " put into the hands of Kings during their boyhood * and Tory trqsh at no age recommended to them , Kings in their manhood would scorn to aim
at arbitrary power through corrupted parliaments'" P * - 13 . Dr . Watson seems to have been of his friend Dr . Law ' s opinion concerning the Iiuman soul . He was led to consider the subject , by being obliged , as an opponent in the
philosophical schools at Cambridge , io 1758 , to find arguments against the question , Anima estsud naturaimmortalis . Speaking of his " school-b 6 y * s faith , " " that the soul was a substance
distinct fr < m the body / he says , 46 this notion of the soul was , without doubt , the offspring of prejudice and ignorance , and I must own that my knowledge of the nature of the soul is much the same now that it was
then . I have read volumes on the subject , but I have no scruple in saying , that I know nothing about it . " ' P . 15 . Notwithstanding this avowed scepticism , we apprehend that be could not have described his Christian belief
in the words that follow , and the sentiment is frequently repeated in the course of the narrative , unless he had strongly inclined at least to the material hypothesis : — " Believing as I do in the troth of the Christian religion , which teaches , that men are -accountable for their actions , I trouble not myself with dark disquisitions concerning * necessity and liberty , matter and
spirit ; hoping * as I do for eternal life through Jesus Christ , I am not disturbed at my inability clearly flo convince myself that the soul is , or is not , a substance distinct from the body . The truth &f the
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52 Reviewo—Life of the Bishop of Latidaff .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1818, page 52, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2472/page/52/
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