Answer for the junior members of the Royal College of Surgeons, of Edinburgh, to the Memorial of Dr James Gregory / [John Bell].

  • Gregory James, 1753-1821.
Date:
1800
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Answer for the junior members of the Royal College of Surgeons, of Edinburgh, to the Memorial of Dr James Gregory / [John Bell]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    [ >5 ] courted popularity in Athens with all kinds of expedients, and walked the ftreets with fo diforderly an air, that the more difcerning were ufed to fay, “ that youth, who walks the ftreets fo carelefsly, muft either be a fool or a very great man.” After all the more natural expedients were exhauft- ed, Alcibiades became afraid, left the loungers of the porti- coes and ftatuary fhops fhould want fomething to fay of him. Having a beautiful fpaniel, he cut off the faithful creature’s tail, that they might wonder at Alcibiades and his dog. There is no fpecific quality of our author, or rather no phe- nomenon of his great mind, fo awful to thofe who Hand in the condition of culprits before him, as the facility with which he brings the gigantic force of his abilities, the feveral ra- diations of his unlimited knowledge in logic, law, and meta- phyfics to bear upon the queftion. It is efpecially awful, to fee the power with which he works and turns the moft pon- derous engines of the law ; “for he knows, and is well aware likewife, that the general principles of good logical reafoning are, and muft be, at all times, the fame, and on all fubjecls whatever ; for example, the fame in Scotch law atprefent, as in Greek mathematics 2000 years ago. And likewife he knows that, except in mathematical lcience, there is no fubject of reafoning, in which the real ufe and ftrid application of the principles of logic have been fo well ex- emplified, and fo much attended to, as in law.” “ Thefe preliminaries I have premifed (fays the memorialift, i. e. the premifes, being as it were premifed,) before I ftate logi- cally that argument which I cannot state legally ! Why'for a ducat! for want of knowledge of the law.”—* Yet he