James Hutton (1726-1797)

                               LIFE of Dr HUTTON.

41

with chemical experiments, when he should have been copying
papers, or studying the forms of legal proceedings; so that Mr
CHALMERS soon perceived that the business of a writer was not
that in which he was destined to succeed. With much good
sense and kindness, therefore, he advised him to think of some
employment better suited to his turn of mind, and released
him from the obligations which he had come under as his ap-
prentice. In this he did an essential service to science, and to
the young man himself. A man of talents may follow any pro-
fession with advantage; a man of genius will hardly succeed but
in that which nature has pointed out.

THE study of medicine, as being the most nearly allied to
chemistry, was that to which young HUTTON now resolved to
dedicate his time. He began that study under Dr GEORGE
YOUNG, the father of the late Dr THOMAS YOUNG, and at the
same time attended the lectures in the University. This course
of medical instruction he followed from 1744 to 1747.

THOUGH a regular school of medicine had now been estabish-
ed in the University of Edinburgh for several years, the system
of medical education was neither in reality, nor in the opinion
of the world, so complete as it has since become. Some part of
a physician’s studies was still to be prosecuted on the Continent;
and accordingly, in the end of 1747, Mr. HUTTON repaired to
Paris, where he pursued with great ardour the studies of che-
mistry and anatomy. After remaining in that metropolis near-
ly two years, he returned by the way of the Low Countries, and
took the degree of Doctor of Medicine at Leyden in September
1749. His thesis is entitled, De Sanguine et Circulatione in Mi-
crocosmo.

ON his return to London about the end of that year, he be-
gan to think seriously of settling in the world. His native city,
to which his views of course were first turned, afforded no very
flattering prospect for his establishment as a physician. The

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business