James Hutchison Stirling : his Life and Work. By Amelia
Hutchison Stirling, M.A. (T. Fisher Unwin. 10s. 6d. not.)— J. H. Stirling wrote, as it is put in this book, where he is com- pared with Carlyle, "for the very few." It is a sufficient explana- tion when we say that the great work of his life was to expound' the philosophy of Hegel, and that the "Secret of Hegel" is the work by which ho is best known, so far as he is known at all. His early years wore given to the practice of medicine. This he diversified with literature, becoming a contributor to Douglas Jerrold's magazine and to other periodicals. At thirty-six, having a competency of very modest dimensions, we gather, ho devoted himself to philosophy. In 1860, when he was forty, he returned to Scotland, and about four and a half years later, after a time of continuous effort, his magnwm opus was published. The first portion of it is appropriately entitled " The Struggle to Hegel." Of course it was not a pecuniary success, but it met from the audience, "fit though few," a hearty welcome. In the following year he was a candidate for the Chair of Moral Philosophy in Glasgow. The electors preferred Mr. Edward Caird, who may be said to have more or less justified the choice. In I867 he stood for a similar Chair in Edinburgh and was again defeated, this time by a candidate who was most distinctly inferior. The only preferment, if the term may be used, that came to him was the appointment to give the first course of lectures delivered on the Gifford Foundation. Edinburgh bestowed on him a doctor's degree. and St. Andrews later on did the same. Pecuniary reward he never had—that the writer on philosophy can hardly expect. But among "those who knew" he stands high as a prophet in the first sense of that word—the expounder of oracles which the ordi- nary human intelligence does not take in. Great figures, Carlyle and Emerson among them, cross the stage as we look at this picture of life. And the man himself is a fine figure of the singles minded lover of knowledge. One thing is wanting to this careful study—a bibliography.
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