by Professor Nitsch, who in the following year published a 'general view' of the philosophy. Wirgman became an enthusiast; he learned German, studied all Kant's works, and found that, among other merits, their clearness made them especially suitable for the rising generation. He taught their philosophy to his own boys when they were fourteen, and wrote his essay for the Encyclopædia in 1812. Feeling, however, that he was, as he said to De Morgan, only an 'old brute of a jeweller,' he sought for a worthier interpreter. Who, he asked himself, was the first metaphysician in the country? Obviously that 'elegant and accomplished scholar,' Dugald Stewart. Stewart was the light of Edinburgh; of him even the Edinburgh Reviewers spoke respectfully, and to him the Whig nobles sent their sons to be brought up on sound principles. Stewart, moreover, had just announced his intention of completing his Analysis of the Intellectual Faculties. To Stewart, therefore, Wirgman sent a copy of his own work. It was intended to show the great man that the task which he was attempting had been definitively achieved in Germany thirty years before. Stewart—as Wirgman assumed—being a philosopher, and
