STEWART, DUGALD, a celebrated metaphysical writer, was born at Edinburgh on the 22d November 1753, and was the only son who survived the age of in fancy of the celebrated Dr. Matthew Stewart, pro fessor of mathematics in the College of Edinburgh, and Miss Stewart, daughter of Mr. A. Stewart, writer to the signet. When a child, his health was feeble and precarious, and it was only by the greatest care that his parents succeeded in re-establishing it. At the age of seven he went to the High School, where his talents were favourably displayed, and after com pleting the usual routine of instruction at that acade my, he was admitted a student in the University. Under the roof of his father, he was early initiated into geometry and algebra; but the peculiar bias of his mind was exhibited during his attendance on the lectures of Dr. Stevenson, then professor of logic, and of the celebrated Dr. Adam Ferguson, who filled with so much talent the chair of moral philosophy. It was this circumstance, no doubt, that induced his father to send him, at the age of eighteen, to the University of Glasgow, to attend the lectures of Dr. Reid, who was then sustaining, single-handed, the honour of that seat of learning, which had in the course of a few years been deprived of the services of Dr. Robert Simson, Dr. Adam Smith, and Dr. Black. In the session of 1771-1772, he attended a course of Dr. Reid's lectures,and was thus enabled to prosecute, under his great master, that important science which he was destined to illustrate and extend. The progress which he here made in his metaphysical studies was proportioned to the ardour with Which he devoted himself to the subject; and, not content with listening merely to the instructions of his master, or with the speculations of his leisure hours, he composed during the session that admirable Essay on Dreaming, which he afterwards published in the first volume of his Philosophy of the Human Mind.
The health of his father had been for some time declining, and in the autumn of 1771 it had become so precarious, that Mr. Stewart was called upon to prepare for teaching the mathematical classes during the ensuing session. This duty, which devolved upon him at the age of nineteen, he discharged with great credit to himself, and, notwithstanding the high repu tation of his father, the great success of his son brought an additional number of students to the class.
In the year 1774, when he had reached his twenty first year, he was appointed assistant and successor to his father,—a situation which he continued to fill till the death of Dr. Stewart in 1785.
In the year 1778, when Dr. Adam Ferguson was appointed secretary to the commissioners for quieting the disorders which had broken out in America, Mr. Stewart undertook to supply his place during the session of that year; and this unexpected occupation was the more severe, as he had previously pledged himself to deliver a course of lectures on astronomy, in addition to the usual labours of his two mathe matical courses. Three days after he had undertaken this difficult task, Mr. Stewart commenced his course of Ethics, and with no other preparation but that which he was able to make in the morning, he de livered a course of extempore lectures, which dis played in a remarkable degree the vigour of his mind, and the extent of his general information. Before the close of the session, his health had obviously suffered from the bodily as well as the mental fatigues to which he had been exposed, and such was the degree of his exhaustion, that it was necessary to lift him into the carriage when he set off for London at the close of the session.
The reputation of Mr. Stewart had now become so great, that several of the and Scottish nobility were desirous of placing their sons under his super intendance; and he accordingly, in 1780, agreed to receive some pupils into his house. Among these were the late Marquis of Lothian, the late Lord Belhaven, Basil Lord Daer, the late Lord Powerscourt, Alexander Muir Mackenzie, Esq. of Delvin, and the late Mr. Henry Glassford. Ile accompanied the Marquis of Lothian to Paris in 1783, and on his re turn from the Continent, in the autumn of the same year, he married Miss Bannatine, daughter of Neil Bannatinc, Esq. a merchant in Glasgow, by whom he had a son, the present Lieutenant-Colonel Matthew Stewart, who inherits no small share of the talents and acuteness of his father.