"You must know then that from my earliest infancy I found always a
strong inclination to books and letters. As our college education
in Scotland, extending little further than the languages, ends
commonly when we are about fourteen or fifteen years of age, I was
after that left to my own choice in my reading, and found it
incline me almost equally to books of reasoning and philosophy, and
to poetry and the polite authors. Every one who is acquainted
either with the philosophers or critics, knows that there is
nothing yet established in either of these two sciences, and that
they contain little more than endless disputes, even in the most
fundamental articles. Upon examination of these, I found a certain
boldness of temper growing on me, which was not inclined to submit
to any authority in these subjects, but led me to seek out some new
medium, by which truth might be established. After much study and
reflection on this, at last, when I was about eighteen years of
age, there seemed to be opened up to me a new scene of thought,
which transported me beyond measure, and made me, with an ardour
natural to young men, throw up every other pleasure or business to
apply entirely to it. The law, which was the business I designed to
follow, appeared nauseous to me, and I could think of no other way
of pushing my fortune in the world, but that of a scholar and
philosopher.
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