Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin | Page 5

(which were
supposed to depend upon study alone) essays in many cases of a nature
that demands the most prolonged and deep reflection. The effect of this
is evident. Those who, from circumstances, have neither opportunity
nor leisure thus to reflect, must, in order to secure their success, acquire
that kind of superficial information which may enable them to draw
sufficiently plausible conclusions, upon very slight grounds; and [of]

many who have this form of knowledge, most will eventually be proved
(if this system is carried to an excess) to have but little of the substance
of it.
He had meant to read for double honours, but illness, brought on by
over- work, obliged him to confine himself to classics. All who know
Oxford are aware, that the term 'Classics,' as there used, embraces not
only Greek and Latin scholarship, but also Ancient History and
Philosophy. In these latter studies the natural taste and previous
education of James Bruce led him to take a special interest, and he
threw himself into the work in no niggard spirit.[5] At the Michaelmas
Examination of 1832, he was placed in the first class in classics, and
common report spoke of him as 'the best first of his 'year.' Not long
afterwards he was elected Fellow of Merton. He appears to have been a
candidate also for the Eldon Scholarship, but without success. In a
contest for a legal prize it was no discredit to be defeated by Roundell
Palmer.
[Sidenote: Taste for philosophy.]
Some of his contemporaries have a lively remembrance of the
eagerness with which, while still a student, he travelled into fields at
that period beyond the somewhat narrow range of academic study.
Professor Maurice at one time, Dr. Pusey at another, were his delighted
companions in exploring the dialogues of Plato. Mr. Gladstone
'remembers his speaking of Milton's prose works with great fervour
when they were at Eton together;' and adds the confession--interesting
alike as regards both the young students--'I think it was from his mouth
I first learned that Milton had written any prose,' This affection for
those soul-stirring treatises of the great advocate of free speech and
inquiry he always retained: they formed his constant companions
wherever he travelled; and there are many occasions in which their
influence may be traced on his thought and language. 'I would rather
swallow a bushel of chaff than lose the precious grains of truth which
may somewhere or other be scattered in it,' was a sentiment which,
though expressed in much later life, was characteristic of his whole
career. In this spirit he listened with deep interest to the roll of

theological controversy then raging at Oxford, though he was never
carried away by its violence.
In after life he had little leisure to pursue the philosophic studies
commenced at Oxford; but they took deep and permanent hold on his
mind, and formed in fact the groundwork of his great practical ability.
This is well stated by Sir Frederick Bruce:--
In Elgin (to use the distinctions of Coleridge, whose philosophy he had
thoroughly mastered) the Reason and Understanding were both largely
developed, and both admirably balanced. And in this combination lay
the secret of his success in so many spheres of action, so different in
their characteristics, so alike in their difficulties. The process he went
through was always the same. He set himself to work to form in his
own mind a clear idea of each of the constituent parts of the problem
with which he had to deal. This he effected partly by reading, but still
more by conversation with special men, and by that extraordinary
logical power of mind and penetration which not only enabled him to
get out of every man all he had in him, but which revealed to those men
themselves a knowledge of their own imperfect and crude conceptions,
and made them constantly unwilling witnesses or reluctant adherents to
views which originally they were prepared to oppose. To test the
accuracy of their statements and observations, and to discriminate
between what was fact and what was prejudice or misconception, he
made use of the higher faculty of cultivated Reason, which enabled him,
by his deep insight into the universal principles of human nature, of
forms of government, &c., to bring to the consideration of particular
facts the light of an a priori knowledge of what was to be expected
under particular circumstances. The result was, that in an incredibly
short time, and with little apparent study or effort, he attained an
accurate and clear conception of the essential facts before him, and was
thus enabled to strike out a course which he could consistently pursue
amidst all difficulties, because it was in harmony with the actual facts
and the permanent conditions of the problem he had