, and a fierce fight ensued
as to who was to be his successor. The two most prominent candidates
were Cairns's friend Campbell Fraser, then Professor of Logic in the
New College, Edinburgh, and Professor James Frederick Ferrier of St.
Andrews. Fraser was then a Hamiltonian and Ferrier was a Hegelian, and
a great hubbub arose between the adherents of the two schools. This
was increased and embittered by the importation of ecclesiastical and
political feeling into the contest; Fraser being a Free Churchman,
and Ferrier receiving the support of the Established Church and Tory
party. The Town Council were very much at sea with regard to the
philosophical controversy, and, through Dr. John Brown, they requested
Cairns to explain its merits to them. Cairns responded by publishing
a pamphlet entitled _An_ _Examination of Professor Ferrier's Theory
of Knowing and Being_. This pamphlet had for its object to show that
Ferrier's election would mean a renunciation of the doctrines which,
as expounded by Hamilton, had added so greatly to the prestige of the
University in recent times as a school of philosophy, and also to
expose what the writer conceived to be the dangerous character of
Ferrier's teaching in relation to religious truth. It increased
the storm tenfold. Replies were published and letters sent to the
newspapers abusing Cairns, and insinuating that he had been led by
a private grudge against Ferrier to take the step he had taken. It
was also affirmed that he was acting at the instigation of the Free
Church, who wanted to abolish their chair of Logic in the New College,
but could not well do so so long as they had its present incumbent
on their hands. A doggerel parody on _John Gilpin_, entitled "The
Diverting History of John Cairns," in which a highly coloured account
is given of the supposed genesis of the pamphlet, was written and
found wide circulation. The first two stanzas of this effusion were
the following:--

"John Cairns was a clergyman
Of credit and renown,
A first-rate U.P. Church had he
In far-famed Berwick town.

John likewise had a loving friend,
A mighty man of knowledge,
The Rev. A.C. Fraser, he
Of the sanctified New College."

Cairns found it needful to issue a second pamphlet, _Scottish
Philosophy: a Vindication and Reply_, in which, while tenaciously
holding to what he had said in the last one, he challenged Ferrier to
mention one single instance in which he had made a