James Frederick FerrierHaldane, Elizabeth Sanderson
Philosophy
James Frederick Ferrier
Haldane, Elizabeth Sanderson
Ferrier, James Frederick, 1808-1864
In an old-world town like St. Andrews the stately, old-world Moral
Philosophy Professor must have seemed wonderfully in his place. There
are men who, good-looking in youth, become 'ordinary-looking' in later
years, but Ferrier's looks were not of such a kind. To the last--of
course he was not an old man when he died--he preserved the same
distinguished appearance that we are told marked him out from amongst
his fellows while still a youth. The tall figure, clad in
old-fashioned, well-cut coat and white duck trousers, the close-shaven
face, and merry twinkle about the eye signifying a sense of humour
which removed him far from anything which we associate with the name of
pedant; the dignity, when dignity was required, and yet the sympathy
always ready to be extended to the student, however far he was from
taking up the point, if he were only trying his best to comprehend--all
this made up to those who knew him, the man, the scholar, and the
high-bred gentleman, which, in no ordinary or conventional sense,
Professor Ferrier was. It is the personality which, when years have
passed and individual traits have been forgotten, it is so difficult to
reproduce. The personal attraction, the atmosphere of culture and
chivalry, which was always felt to hang about the Professor, has not
been forgotten by those who can recall him in the old St. Andrews days;
but who can reproduce this charm, or do more than state its existence
as a fact? Perhaps this sort only comes to those whose life is mainly
intellectual--who have not much, comparatively speaking, to suffer from
the rough and tumble to which the 'practical' man is subjected in the
course of his career. Sometimes it is said that those who preach high
maxims of philosophy and conduct belie their doctrines in their outward
lives; but on the whole, when we review their careers, this would
wonderfully seldom seem to be the case. From Socrates' time onwards we
have had philosophers who have taught virtue and practised it
simultaneously, and in no case has this combination been better
exemplified in recent days than in that of James Frederick Ferrier, and
one who unsuccessfully contested his chair upon his death, Thomas Hill
Green, Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford. It seems as though it
may after all be good to speculate on the deep things of the earth as
well as to do the deeds of righteousness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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