LARY ATTRACTION, BOSCOVICH'S THEORY, and ROTATION, all as remodelled for the Elements; then follow STRENGTH OF MATERIALS, CARPENTRY, ROOF, CONSTRUCTION OF ARCHES, CONSTRUCTION OF CENTRES. 2. The article STEAM-ENGINE is enriched with notes and an appendix by the late Mr Watt: the next is MACHINERY, then RESISTANCE OF FLUIDS, RIVERS, WATER-WORKS, PUMPS. 3. ASTRONOMY, TELESCOPE, PNEUMATICS. 4. ELECTRICITY, MAGNETISM, VARIATION, TEMPERAMENT, TRUMPET, WATCH-WORK, and SEAMANSHIP. The notes are not numerous, and the editor's principal labour has been to retrench some passages that appeared to him superfluous when the papers were to stand as parts of such a collection.
"Although Dr Robison's name," says Dr Brewster in his preface, "cannot be associated with the great discoveries of the century which he adorned, yet the memory of his talents and his virtues will be long cherished by his country. Imbued with the genuine spirit of the philosophy which he taught, he was one of the warmest patrons of genius wherever it was found. His mind was nobly elevated above the mean jealousies of rival ambition, and his love of science and of justice was too ardent to allow him either to depreciate the labours of others, or to transfer them to himself. To these great qualities as a philosopher, Dr Robison added all the more estimable endowments of domestic and of social life. His friendship was at all times generous and sincere. His piety was ardent and unostentatious. His patriotism was of the most pure and exalted character; and, like the immortal Newton, whose memory he cherished with a peculiar reverence, he was pre-eminently entitled to the high distinction of a Christian, patriot, and philosopher." His person was handsome, and his physiognomy prepossessing; and he appears to have been endowed with an extraordinary combination of talents, even exclusively of those which were called into immediate activity in his professional pursuits; for he was a good linguist, an excellent draughtsman, and an accomplished musician. His conversation was always energetic and interesting, and sometimes even poetical; and his liberality of sentiment was only limited by his regard for what he considered as the best interests of mankind.
A short account of his life was published in 1802, by a contributor to the Philosophical Magazine, who, among other inaccuracies, thought himself at liberty to assert that he was an admirer of the algebraical form of representation, in preference to the geometrical. His friend Dr Gleig soon after stepped forward to correct these mistakes, in the Antijacobin Review for 1802, and his letter was copied into the Philosophical Magazine. He asserts, from his own knowledge, that even yet Professor Robison "delights much more in geometry than in any of the modes of algebra, assigning as the reason of his preference, that in the longest demonstration the geometrician has always clear and adequate ideas, which the most expert algebraist can very seldom have." It may perhaps be asserted, on the other hand, that the same reasoning would lead us always to employ actual multiplication or division, in preference to the use of logarithms or of a sliding rule; and that the whole of the magic of calculation depends on the abstraction of the results from the numerous and separately important steps by which they are obtained; but the having once seen those steps clearly is certainly of great importance to the process of reasoning, even when the memory no longer retains them; and no mathematician of correct taste can study the ancient geometricians without admiring the elegance and precision of their method, even amidst the pedantry which too frequently envelops their expressions, and without being grateful for their punctuality in collecting their results into the very convenient form of distinct propositions, and in making such references from each proposition to the foundations on which it depends, as to ca-
able him readily to trace back their steps to the most elementary principles; which is scarcely possible in any of the works of the most modern school of analysis. Professor Robison, however, seems rarely to have cultivated the higher mathematics for their own sake only, or any further than as they could be applied to the study of the phenomena of nature, or to the practice of the combinations of art; in fact, without some such limitation, there would be no track to guide us in the pathless regions of quantity and number, and their endless relations and functions. But besides the utility of the pure mathematics as a branch of early education, in exercising and fortifying the powers of the mind, it is impossible to foresee with certainty how much of mathematics may be wanted by the natural philosopher in any given investigation; and Professor Robison, as well as many others of his countrymen, would certainly have been the better for the possession of a little more, as the author of the criticisms in the Imperial Review has already had occasion to remark.
Philosophical Magazine, xiii.; Dr Gleig, in Antijacobin Magazine, xi. 1802; Stark's Biographia Scotica; Aikin's General Biography, viii. Lond. 1813, 4to; Playfair, in Edinb. Trans. vii. 1815, p. 495; Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary, xxv. Lond. 1816, 8vo. (L. L.)