A metaphysician of singular ability and originality, born at Edinburgh; after graduating at Oxford was called to the Scotch bar in 1832; but under the influence of Sir W. Hamilton, metaphysics became his dominant interest, and he found an outlet for his views in the pages of Blackwood by a paper on "Consciousness," which attracted the attention of Emerson; in 1842 was appointed professor of History in Edinburgh University, and three years later of Moral Philosophy in St. Andrews; published the "Institutes of Metaphysics," a lucid exposition of the Berkleian philosophy, and "Lectures on Greek Philosophy," and edited the works of his uncle and father-in-law, Christopher North; "he belongs," says Dr. Stirling, "to an era of thought that was inaugurated by Thomas Carlyle" (1808-1864).