his pupils, and his more impassioned
qualities in controversy, became more remarkable."[1] Hamilton's
philosophy may not now command the acceptance that once belonged to
it, and that part of it which has been most influential may be put
to-day to a use of which he did not dream, and of which he would not
have approved, but Hamilton himself--"the black eagle of the desert,"
as the "Chaldee Manuscript" calls him--was a mighty force. The
influence of that vehement and commanding personality on a generation
of susceptible young men was deep and far-reaching. He seized and held
the minds of his students until they were able to grasp what he had to
give them,--until, in spite of the toil and pain it cost them, they
were _made_ to grasp it. And he further trained them in habits of
mental discipline and intellectual integrity, which were of quite
priceless value to them. "I am more indebted to you," wrote Cairns to
him in 1848, "for the foundation of my intellectual habits and tastes
than to any other person, and shall bear, by the will of the Almighty,
the impress of your hand through any future stage of existence."

[Footnote 1: _Memoir of Sir W. Hamilton_, p. 231.]

Cairns was first in Hamilton's class at the close of the session, and
also first in Professor John Wilson's Moral Philosophy Class. "Of the
many hundreds of students," Wilson wrote four years later, "whose
career I have watched during the last twenty years, not one has given
higher promise of excellence than John Cairns; his talents are of the
highest order; his attainments in literature, philosophy, and science
rare indeed; and his character such as to command universal respect."

This winter he joined with eight or nine of Hamilton's most
distinguished students in forming the "Metaphysical Society," which
met weekly for the purpose of discussing philosophical questions. In a
Memoir which he afterwards wrote of John Clark, one of the founders of
this Society, he thus describes the association that led to its being
formed, and that was further cemented by its formation: "Willingly
do I recall and linger upon these days and months, extending
even to years, in which common studies of this abstract nature bound
us together. It was the romance--the poetry--of speculation and
friendship. All the vexed questions of the schools were attempted by
our united strength, after our higher guide had set the example. The
thorny wilds of logic were pleasant as an enchanted gro