It was my good fortune and that probably fixed the destinies of my life, that Doctor William Small of Scotland was then Professor of Mathematics, a man profound in most of the useful branches of science, with a happy talent of communication, correct and gentlemanly manners, and an enlarged and liberal mind. He, most happily for me, became soon attached to me, and made me his daily companion when not engaged in the school; and from his conversation I got my first views of the expansion of science, and of the system of things in which we are placed. Fortunately, the philosophical chair became vacant soon after my arrival at college, and he was appointed to fill it _per interim_: and he was the first who ever gave, in that college, regular lectures in Ethics, Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres.[6] For Jefferson Doctor Small was the prime awakener and inspirer. Through him the young man was introduced to George Wythe who soon accepted him as a student of law, and through him again he was received by Governor Fauquier. Such were the first really cultured men with whom Jefferson ever came in contact: William Small, the mathematician and philosopher, would not have been a true Scot if he had not had that passionate love for discussion and logic which seems the innate gift of so many sons of the Highlands. Francis Fauquier, "the ornament and delight of Virginia", generous, liberal, elegant in his manners and requirements, was the son of Doctor Fauquier of Floirac, near Bordeaux, who had worked under Newton in the mint and become a director of the Bank of England. His early biographer Burke, the Virginia historian, has chiefly emphasized his propensity to gaming. But Fauquier was an economist of no mean distinction and had written an important tract on the basis of taxation. He was interested in physics or natural philosophy and had become a Fellow of the Royal Society. He was a student of natural phenomena and sent to the Society the description of a hail-storm in Virginia. Finally, there was George Wythe, whose virtue was of the purest tint, his integrity inflexible, and his justice exact. Last and most important of all his qualities, perhaps, was the characteristic peculiarity mentioned by Jefferson in the sketch he wrote after the death of his old master: "he was firm in his philosophy, and neither troubling, nor perhaps trusting any one with his religion."