For Scotch Metaphysics, or any logical system, he never cared, and in his
days there was written over the Academic entrances "No Mysticism." He
distinguished himself in Mathematics, and soon found, by his own vaunt,
the _Principia_ of Newton prostrate at his feet: he was a favourite pupil
of Leslie, who escaped the frequent penalty of befriending him, but he
took no prizes: the noise in the class room hindered his answers, and he
said later to Mr. Froude that thoughts only came to him properly when
alone.
[Footnote: He went so far as to say in 1847 that "the man who had mastered
the first forty-seven propositions of Euclid stood nearer to God than he
had done before."]
The social leader of a select set of young men in his own rank, by choice
and necessity _integer vitae_, he divided his time between the seclusion
of study and writing letters, in which kind of literature he was perhaps
the most prolific writer of his time. In 1814 Carlyle completed his course
without taking a degree, did some tutorial work, and, in the same year,
accepted the post of Mathematical Usher at Annan as successor to Irving,
who had been translated to Haddington. Still in formal pursuit of the
ministry, though beginning to fight shy of its fences, he went up twice a
year to deliver addresses at the Divinity Hall, one of which, "on the uses
of affliction," was afterwards by himself condemned as flowery; another
was a Latin thesis on the theme, "num detur religio naturalis.
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