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 EECTOEIAL ADDEESSES 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE 
 
 UNIVEESITY OF ST. ANDEEWS
 
 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS 
 
 SIR WILLIAM STIRLING-MAXWELL, Bakt. 
 
 TO 
 
 THE MARQUESS OF BUTE 
 1863-1893 
 
 EDITED 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM KNIGHT, LLD. 
 
 PROFESSOR OP MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 LONDON 
 ADAM AND CHAELES BLACK 
 
 1894
 
 IH15 
 
 fo 
 
 TO 
 
 HIS GRACE 
 
 THE DUKE OF AEGYLL 
 
 K.G. 
 CHANCELLOR 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS 
 THIS VOLUME 
 
 OF 
 
 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 DELIVERED DURING HIS CHANCELLORSHIP 
 
 is 
 DEDICATED BY 
 
 THE EDITOR
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 1. Introduction by the Editor 
 
 2. Rectorial Addresses 
 
 Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, Bart. . 
 John Stuart Mill .... 
 
 James Anthony Froude First Address . 
 Second Address 
 
 Lord Neaves ..... 
 
 Arthur Penrhyn Stanley First Address 
 
 Second Address 
 
 Lord Selborne 
 Sir Theodore Martin . 
 Lord Reay .... 
 Arthur James Balfour 
 Marquess op Dufferin and Ava 
 Marquess of Bute 
 
 3. Appendices 
 
 (1) List of Rectors 
 
 (2) List of Rectors' Prizes . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ix 
 
 1 
 17 
 81 
 111 
 155 
 185 
 210 
 235 
 261 
 283 
 307 
 331 
 365 
 
 397 
 399
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 The publication of the Eectorial Addresses delivered at the 
 University of St. Andrews, since the passing of the Univer- 
 sities (Scotland) Act of 1858, has often been thought of. 
 The late Principals Tulloch and Shairp were most anxious 
 that it should be undertaken. As more than one-third of a 
 century has elapsed since the passing of the Act, it seems 
 appropriate that the thirteen Addresses, which have been 
 delivered by our eleven Eectors, should now be brought 
 together, and issued in a memorial volume, for the benefit 
 of the University and its students. All the Rectors who 
 still live have cordially consented to the publication of their 
 addresses, and the representatives of those who are dead 
 have done the same. 
 
 To those who wish to understand the aims and ideals of 
 our Scottish Universities, during the latter half of the nine- 
 teenth century, the perusal of these Addresses will be more 
 than interesting, as they discuss some of the deepest educa- 
 tional problems, and deal with others of wide practical signifi- 
 cance. It is an honour to the students of the University 
 that such men have been elected to fill the rectorial chair. 
 
 It may be expedient, in a brief Introduction, to state a 
 few historical facts in reference to the office of Rector ; and 
 to add one or two incidents in connection with the elections 
 which have taken place at St. Andrews, during the last 
 thirty years.
 
 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 Next to the Chancellor, the Eector is the highest digni- 
 tary in the University. According to the terms of the 
 foundation Charter it was necessary that the Eector should 
 be a graduate of the University and in holy orders ; but sub- 
 sequent to the Eeformation it was ordained that " ony man 
 may be made Eector that is a suppost and past maister of 
 the University, saving he keep residence within the same, 
 after his acceptation of the office, and during the time 
 thereof, for the maist part." In consequence of repeated 
 disturbances at the annual election it was enacted in 1625 
 that in future no one should be eligible for the office of 
 Eector "praeter primarios collegiorum magistros." This enact- 
 ment was in turn superseded by a statute of 9th August 
 1642, to the effect that "because it is required that the 
 Eector of the University be a man, not only of known piety 
 and gravity, but also of eminent virtue, it is ordained, that 
 no regents of philosophy, but the Principals of the Colleges, 
 and public Professors only, shall be capable of the office of 
 Eectorate ; and that the Eector, being chosen, shall exercise 
 his office with such dignity and authority as the Eectors of 
 the University have done in former times." From the 
 union of the Colleges of St. Salvator and St. Leonard in 
 1747, till the coming into operation of the Universities 
 (Scotland) Act of 1858, eligibility to this office was practi- 
 cally confined to the two Principals, the Professor of 
 Divinity, and the Professor of Ecclesiastical History. 
 
 It appears that under the original constitution of the 
 University all its masters and students were entitled to take 
 part in the election of the Eector. In 1475 this privilege 
 was restricted to the Doctors, Masters, and Graduates, but 
 in 1625 the students were again included. In 1642, how- 
 ever, a new Act expressly excluded the junior students, and 
 limited the privilege to such of them as were Bachelors,
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Magistrands, and Students of Divinity. This arrangement 
 continued until 1825, when the following resolution was 
 adopted by the Senatus Academicus : " As the Act of the 
 Eoyal visitation in 1625, and which does not appear to 
 have been repealed, bears that the right of voting at the 
 election of the Eector should be common to the Masters 
 and all the Students of the University without exception, 
 they find that in future at the election of the Rector, this 
 order should be strictly observed." 
 
 Previous to 1859 the electors were divided into four 
 nations, termed Fifani, Angusiani, Lothiani, and Albani. 
 Each nation chose from its own number an Intrant, and the 
 four Intrants elected the Eector the previous Eector having 
 a casting vote in case of an equality in the voting of the 
 Intrants. By an Ordinance of the Scottish Universities 
 Commission, dated 4th May 1859, voting by nations was 
 abolished, and a general poll of all matriculated students sub- 
 stituted the casting vote being transferred to the Chancellor. 
 
 The choice of a Eector being limited to four persons, 
 the annual election became, in course of time, a mere matter 
 of routine. It excited scarcely any interest among the 
 students the result being almost always a foregone conclu- 
 sion. A movement for reform began shortly before the 
 appointment of the Scottish Universities Commission of 
 1826, and in March 1825 the Comitia unanimously 
 chose Sir Walter Scott to be Eector of the University. 
 The presidents declared the election void, and dismissed the 
 Comitia. The result of the election and the circumstances 
 attending it were officially communicated to Sir Walter by 
 Principal Nicoll, who received from him the following 
 reply : 
 
 " Edinburgh, 8th March 1825. 
 
 Reverend Sir Before I was this evening honoured with your 
 letter, I had received a visit from some young Gentlemen of your
 
 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 University, making me the honourable proposal to which you allude, 
 which, however, I did not hesitate a moment to decline, partly from 
 personal considerations, but much more from my sense of the great 
 detriment likely to ensue to the University and the Students from the 
 dissension which my acceptance of the honour which they meant for 
 me must necessarily have involved. I have endeavoured to express 
 my . personal feelings of the distinction proposed, and the reasons 
 which induce me in honour and conscience to decline it in the letter, 
 of which I send you a copy hastily transcribed, as the hour is late, 
 and I must despatch the original. I hope it may have some effect in 
 putting the matter at rest. I am greatly indebted to you Sir, as a 
 respected individual, and the learned body of which you are the Head, 
 for their undeserved expressions of respect and regard. As I have 
 anticipated their wishes in this respect, permit me to presume so far 
 on your good opinion as to express my sincere hope that the young 
 Gentlemen's proceeding may be viewed by the Senatus Academicus as 
 the natural, tho' perhaps ill - considered emanation of a wish to 
 assert privileges of which they supposed themselves possessed, and that 
 it will not be remembered unfavourably against the individuals con- 
 cerned. I am sensible the wisdom of the Senatus Academicus requires 
 no counsel from me on such a point, but having been in some degree 
 involuntarily implicated in the matter, I hope I will be judged 
 pardonable in offering my intercession. 
 
 With sincere good wishes for the prosperity of your respected and 
 venerable University I have the honour to be, Reverend Sir, your most 
 obedt. humble Servt, Walter Scott. 
 
 I should do the young Gentlemen much injustice if I did not add 
 that their application to me was couched in the most becoming terms 
 with respect to you, and the Senatus." 
 
 In March 1843 another effort was made to break through 
 the traditional routine, and this time Dr. Chalmers was 
 elected Eector by a plurality of votes. The Senatus forth- 
 with declared the election to be null, and shortly afterwards 
 expelled three of the Intrants who had voted for an outside 
 Rector. The case was appealed to the St. Andrews Uni- 
 versity Commissioners, who were then sitting in Edinburgh, 
 and who went very fully into the whole matter. In the 
 end the Commissioners recalled the sentence of expulsion
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 pronounced by the Senatus, and reinstated the three students 
 in all the privileges formerly belonging to them. On the 
 other hand they held that the election of Dr. Chalmers was 
 properly declared null and void by the Senatus. 
 
 A more successful attempt at reform was made in 1858, 
 when a large section of the students again resolved to have 
 a Eector from without. When the Comitia met as usual, on 
 the first Monday of March, two of the Intrants voted for 
 Dr. Buist, Professor of Church History, and two for Sir 
 Ealph Anstruther. The retiring Eector, Dr. Brown, Pro- 
 fessor of Divinity, (who favoured the reform party), gave his 
 casting vote for Sir Ealph. Doubts were cast on the validity 
 of the election, and the matter was ultimately referred to 
 Lord Advocate Inglis. He advised the University to uphold 
 the election, and to instal Sir Ealph ; which was accordingly 
 done, on 25th March 1858. 
 
 Professor Mitchell, who is perhaps the most trustworthy 
 authority now living in reference to the history of the 
 University during his student years, tells me that Sir Ealph's 
 address was delivered in the Lower Library Hall that his- 
 toric room in which the Scottish Parliament once sat. It was 
 not an elaborate oration, or academic address, like those of 
 his successors in office ; but such an extempore speech as 
 might be expected from a genial country gentleman. It 
 was not published in pamphlet-form, but a report of it 
 appeared in the Fifeshire Journal for March 31st, 1858 ; in 
 which the subsequent proceedings of the installation day 
 (the 24th) at a meeting of graduates, and an evening 
 banquet are recorded. The following are extracts from 
 Sir Ealph Anstruther's address : 
 
 "... Gentlemen, I feel, and have felt during the greater part of 
 my life, the deepest interest in the University and city of St. Andrews, 
 and in everything connected with them ; and I look back with the
 
 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 most lively emotions of pleasure to the years I spent here in early 
 life. And this, not only when I think of the amusements of my boy- 
 hood, of the zest with which I cast aside my student's gown, and 
 rushed to the Links to join in that wonderful game, which seems to 
 possess equal charms for the merry schoolboy and the grave professor, 
 or of the exhilarating plunge into the Witch Lake and rapid swim across 
 its waters, or of the more quiet ramble to the Kenly. . . . These, 
 indeed, are all reminiscences of the most agreeable character, but my 
 chief source of pleasure in the retrospect is, that those days were the 
 only period of my life when I really and truly devoted myself to the 
 pursuit of knowledge, and because the instructions I then received 
 have been of the most inestimable value to me in all the subsequent 
 parts of my life. This is why X feel so deep an interest in St. 
 Andrews, and this is why I feel such gratitude to you, gentlemen, for 
 having this day enabled me to renew in so gratifying and honourable 
 a fashion my connection with my old and deeply venerated Alma 
 Mater. . . . You petitioned the Senatus Academicus you petitioned 
 the Royal Commissioners you elected extrinsic Rectors you selected 
 the best and most gifted men in Scotland to the office, amongst 
 others, I would mention the immortal names of Scott and Chalmers ; 
 but all in vain. Then you took something of an erratic course, went 
 beyond the limits of your own country, and, in a fit of desperation, 
 actually elected the Emperor of Russia ! Gentlemen, it was a bold 
 step. As the law has been explained by Her Majesty's legal adviser 
 for Scotland, had his Imperial Majesty accepted office, he would have 
 been to all intents and purposes your Rector. . . . Gentlemen, fortun- 
 ately for you, the Emperor did not accept. It is possible indeed that 
 he never heard of the honour intended for him, at any rate he did 
 not accept, neither did either of our two eminent countrymen to whom 
 I have alluded. Your ambition then had a sad fall, and you were 
 obliged to content yourselves with a plain, simple, country gentle- 
 man, one equally removed from the two last illustrious individuals 
 I have mentioned in genius and persuasive eloquence, as he is from 
 the former in the power, and, I trust, in the spirit of Imperial 
 despotism. ..." 
 
 The proceedings at the meeting of graduates in the after- 
 noon were interesting, but the speeches delivered at the 
 evening bancpiet which followed were much more so ; and 
 from these I select some sentences spoken by one of the
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 most distinguished men who has ever held office in the 
 University, Professor Ferrier. He said : 
 
 "... This day will be ever memorable in the annals of our Scotch 
 Universities memorable more particularly in the annals of the Uni- 
 versity of St. Andrews, and for two reasons first, on account of 
 the meeting of the Association of Graduates ; and, secondly, on ac- 
 count of the installation of a new and extraneous Rector of the 
 University. This, I believe, is the first occasion on which the 
 Association of our Graduates has met in a corporate and social capacity. 
 
 In regard to the installation of our new Rector, I am sure 
 
 that our old Alma Mater must have felt that she had renewed her 
 youth, when, by that imposing ceremony, the trammels which had so 
 long confined her were broken through. My excellent friend, Dr. 
 Anderson, has just alluded very touchingly to his youthful recollec- 
 tions when he was a student here I think he said some few centuries 
 ago (great laughter) for a few centuries are as nothing in the lifetime 
 of so distinguished a geologist. Our University must then have been 
 in her teens ; now she is a venerable old lady of a very certain age, 
 namely, about four hundred and fifty years. But I am sure that she must 
 have felt her old blood rejuvenescent, when listening to the admirable 
 address with which our Rector inaugurated the new era on which she 
 is entering. We owe a great deal to Sir Ralph Anstruther, not only 
 for the prompt kindness with which he met our wishes, and entered 
 into our views, but for the fine and cordial spirit which his well- 
 timed, and in all respects happy address infused into the proceedings 
 of the day. In regard to the sister Universities of Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge, these are the glories of England. They are institutions with 
 which our Scottish Universities can, in some respects, never pretend 
 to vie. But let us hope that the time is at hand if it be not already 
 come when they shall stand forth as the glories of Scotland. Mean- 
 while let the sister Universities shine on together, each preserving its 
 proper and distinctive lustre. Let each endeavour to appropriate 
 whatever is available for good in the system of the other. But in 
 working out their respective reforms, let each look principally, or 
 only, to itself let each work out its own system in its own way, and 
 in accordance with the wants and the genius of its own people. . . ." 
 
 The election of Sir Ealph Anstruther was immediately 
 followed by the passing of the Universities (Scotland) Act 
 
 b
 
 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 of 1858, which placed the election of Eector on an entirely 
 new basis. The previous practice was completely reversed. 
 Instead of two Principals and two Professors being alone 
 eligible for the office, Principals and Professors were 
 henceforth expressly excluded from holding it. The 
 Eector at the same time ceased to be resident head of the 
 University, an office which thereafter devolved upon the 
 Principal. 
 
 Under the old system the Eector, immediately after his 
 election, nominated deputies and assessors. The deputies 
 were usually the other viri rectorales, while the assessors 
 were the members of the Senatus Academicus. These con- 
 stituted the Eectorial Court, before which all causes were heard 
 and determined. For a long period the Eector acted as a 
 civil magistrate within the University, and to him an appeal 
 lay in all matters of discipline from the sentences of the 
 Colleges. At one time his jurisdiction even extended over 
 the people of the Town, when any of them interfered with 
 the rights and privileges of the University, or assaulted any 
 of its members. After 1859 it was no longer necessary 
 that the Eector should appoint deputies and assessors as 
 before, but he was allowed the privilege of appointing one 
 assessor on the newly-instituted University Court of which 
 he himself was made the President. 
 
 The first election of a Eector under the new system took 
 place on 24th November 1859, when Colonel Mure of 
 Caldwell the accomplished author of A Critical History of 
 the Language and Literature of Ancient Greece was elected 
 by a majority of 22 votes over Sir Ealph Anstruther the 
 state of the poll being: for Colonel Mure, 73, and for Sir 
 Ealph Anstruther, 51. Colonel Mure, however, declined 
 to accept the office, on account of the state of his health. 
 There was a general feeling that, in the circumstances, the 
 office should revert to Sir Ealph Anstruther, but the Uni-
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 versities Commission appointed a new election to take place 
 on 20th December. On that occasion Sir William Dunbar 
 was nominated in opposition to Sir Ealph, but the latter 
 was elected by a majority of 7 64 voting for Sir Ealph 
 Anstruther, and 57 for Sir William Dunbar. At a meeting 
 of Senatus held on 17th March 1860 a letter was read 
 from Sir Kalph, intimating that on account of the state 
 of his health it would be inconvenient for him to be 
 installed at that time. There is no further reference to 
 his tenure of the office in the Minutes of Senatus, nor 
 any mention of his having delivered an inaugural address. 
 At the first meeting of the newly - constituted " General 
 Council" of the University, which was held on the 29th 
 March 1860, it is stated in a long report of the proceed- 
 ings in the county newspaper, that Sir Ealph was not 
 present. 
 
 Sir William Stirling -Maxwell, Bart. then William 
 Stirling, Esq., of Keir was the second Hector. He was 
 elected on the 27th November 1862, by 101 votes; over 
 59 recorded for Lord Dalhousie. He delivered his address 
 on the 18th of January, 1863, but it was not published at 
 the time in pamphlet form, as all subsequent addresses of 
 the St. Andrews Eectors have been. It was reported in the 
 Perthshire Journal of 22nd January 1863 ; and, from that 
 report, it is printed verbatim in the sixth volume of Sir 
 William Stirling-Maxwell's published Works, containing his 
 " Miscellaneous Essays and Addresses," from which the text 
 in this volume is reproduced. The present baronet writes 
 that it " shews every sign, in its careful wording, of having 
 been taken from the MS. ; and my father himself was satisfied 
 with it, as he had some copies specially printed for himself." 
 It was remarkable for the high strain of moral wisdom 
 pervading it, being weighted with " good counsel " from 
 beginning to end.
 
 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 Mr. John Stuart Mill was elected Bector, on the 23rd of 
 November 1 8 6 5, by 9 5 votes ; as against 48, recorded for Lord 
 Kinnaird. His address delivered on the 1st of February 
 1867 is printed from his published works. It was one 
 of the most interesting in the series, and philosophically 
 speaking the most important, as it contained a survey of 
 existing educational methods, and of the curriculum of study 
 at the University; dealing with perennial problems, rather than 
 with passing interests. Mill's discussion of the deficiencies of 
 our Secondary Education was far in advance of his time. He 
 traversed, in encyclopedic fashion, almost the whole domain 
 of knowledge, mapping it out with rare analytic skill : and 
 it is questionable if, in any of his larger treatises, he has left 
 a better memorial of his philosophic insight. There is a 
 fulness and a stateliness about it, as well as a presage of 
 the future, which are all remarkable. He indicated the 
 value to the University of a course of training in " Engineer- 
 ing and the Industrial Arts," as well as in Law and Medicine, 
 and the older Disciplines a forecast of what has been 
 partially realised. His plea for the historical study of 
 dogma whether in Ethics or Theology and for a compre- 
 hensive policy in the organisation and development of the 
 Church of the Future, was as significant as his vindica- 
 tion of the study of Art. It was by far the longest 
 address delivered at St. Andrews, but its merit justified its 
 length. 
 
 Mr. James Anthony Froude was elected Eector on the 
 26th of November 1868, by 91 votes; against 77, given to 
 Mr. Disraeli, afterwards Lord Beaconsfield. He was one 
 of two Eectors who, during their tenure of office, gave a 
 second address to the students, in addition to that delivered 
 at installation. Both of these addresses were republished 
 by Mr. Froude in his Short Studies on Great Subjects. He was 
 installed as Bector, and gave his first address on the 20th
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 of March 1869. Those who heard it remember how it was 
 lit up by many subtle "asides," and the happy commentary 
 of a master in historical criticism. It was, in the best 
 sense of the phrase, a utilitarian address, inasmuch as it was 
 a plea for such a kind of culture as would fit young men 
 for the after- work of life. On the 17th of March 1871 
 Mr. Froude gave a second address, ostensibly on Calvinism, 
 but in reality dealing with the profound philosophical pro- 
 blems which underlie Theology. 
 
 On the 23rd of November 1871, Mr. Euskin was elected 
 Eector, by 86 votes ; against 79, recorded for Lord Lytton. It 
 would seem that some exception was taken to Euskin's 
 election, on the ground that he was a Professor in the Uni- 
 versity of Oxford : and in the Scottish Universities Act of 
 1856 it is expressly stated that no " Professor " is eligible 
 for the office of Eector. Mr. Euskin's friends held and 
 were probably quite within their legal rights in holding 
 that the disability applied only to a Scottish University 
 Professor, that is to say, one engaged in the work of teaching 
 in Scotland. I do not think Mr. Euskin resigned. From 
 an expression in one of his letters written when he was 
 thought of as Eector in a subsequent year I gather that 
 he considered the legal difficulty a device of " the opposition." 
 Had he resigned, Lord Lytton would have become Eector ; 
 but a new election took place early in the following 
 year. 
 
 In 1883 Mr. Euskin was again approached by some of 
 the students, to see if he would accept the Eectorship if 
 elected. I do not know how he replied to the official letter 
 of the student, or committee of students, who first addressed 
 him ; but his letters to others on the subject are most 
 characteristic. As Mr. Euskin is still, however, happily 
 amongst us, their publication must be deferred. 
 
 On the 28th of March 1872, Lord Neaves was chosen
 
 xx RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 Eector, by 73 votes; over Professor Huxley, who had 70. 
 He was installed on the 14th day of February 1873. His 
 visit to St. Andrews was marked by no special incident ; 
 but I well remember how, as the rectorial procession wended 
 its way up the narrow passage, or extemporised alley in the 
 Library, to the dais where the address was to be delivered, 
 'mid showers of peas thrown right and left by the students 
 even at that stage of the proceedings, the ever humorous 
 Eector turned round to the Vice-Chancellor, and said, " This 
 is just a pis-alley." Lord Neaves's address was full of 
 wisdom. It almost seemed as if the flaming torch had 
 been handed on to him by Sir William Stirling-Maxwell. 
 AafiTrdBia e^oi>Te? hiahaxrovaiv aWrj\oi<;. 
 
 Dean Stanley had been an occasional visitor to St. Andrews, 
 long before his election to the Eectorial Chair ; and he loved 
 the place, and much connected with it, as few men have done. 
 It was he who called it " the Oxford of the North." 
 He was elected on the 26th of November 1874; by 70 
 votes over Lord Salisbury, who had 66. His inaugural 
 address, given on the 31st of March 1875, and published 
 at the time as a pamphlet, was reprinted two years later 
 under the title of " The Study of Greatness," in his volume 
 of Sermons and Addresses Delivered at St. Andrews. It is 
 a singularly interesting study of the influence of the con- 
 templation of Greatness, whether embodied in Institutions, 
 in Men, in Ideas, or in Deeds. The effect of this address 
 is admirably described by Principal Shairp, in a letter to 
 Lady Augusta Stanley, who had been unable to accompany 
 her husband to St. Andrews : 
 
 " During his three days here he was at his brightest and best, with 
 but one thing wanting to make all perfect your presence. In his 
 address on Wednesday he surpassed himself, or rather I should say 
 that he was at his very best. I put his address alongside of that
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 wonderful burst at the Scott Centenary ; only that was but twenty 
 minutes, this was maintained for nearly an hour and a half. Every 
 one, old and young, was hushed and thrilled by it. I wish you had 
 seen the faces of the students, how intent eager and responsive they 
 were, as they drank in every word. 
 
 Then at the two evening parties he threw himself in among 
 the students in a way that astonished every one. Poor shy lads ! 
 they had never seen before, perhaps will never see again, such 
 a man, addressing them in such easy, equal, and hearty terms. The 
 naturalness and gracefulness with which he moved about from 
 one to another surprised me, well as I knew the charm of his 
 manner. 
 
 His presence has been like a bright angel's visit, that has 
 sweetened many a heart not used to such things. His address and 
 his influence here will, I trust, be no passing, but a permanent good 
 to the old place. Before the term of his Rectorship expires we shall 
 hope to see him here again, and you with him, restored to health, as 
 before." 
 
 Dean Stanley followed Mr. Froude's example, and gave 
 a second address, during his term of office as Rector. 
 Principal Tulloch had asked him, on the occasion of his 
 former visit, to address the theological students at St. 
 Mary's College. He complied by speaking to the Uni- 
 versity at large, on the 16th of March 1877, his subject 
 being " The Hopes of Theology " ; an address which was 
 published in Macmillans Magazine in May 1877, and after- 
 wards in the Dean's Sermons and Addresses. In the interval 
 between his two rectorial visits to St. Andrews, Lady 
 Augusta had died, and the mainspring of Dean Stanley's 
 life was broken : but, although his loss gave a certain sad- 
 ness to his second address, and as he told the Queen it 
 was " less inspiring, because less congenial to the mass of 
 the students," The Hopes of Theology is one of the finest 
 things he ever wrote. In it he tried to " bell the Inch- 
 cape Rock," on which so many of the galleons of the old 
 theology had suffered shipwreck. His address contains a
 
 RECTORAL ADDRESSES 
 
 very remarkable vindication of that " catholic, comprehensive, 
 discriminating, all-embracing Christianity, which has the 
 promise, not perhaps of the present time, but of the times 
 that are yet to be." 
 
 During his visit to St. Andrews in 1877, Dean Stanley 
 preached two remarkable sermons in the city. One of 
 these, addressed to the students of the University in their 
 own chapel of St. Salvator's College, was specially memorable 
 as a discourse of a great preacher of the nineteenth century. 
 It contained a memorable passage on the influence of the best 
 traditions of a Seat of Learning upon the mind and character 
 of students, producing a sort of academic apostolical suc- 
 cession. His references to Burns and to Scott, and to " the 
 upward journey over the Hill of Difficulty to the House 
 called Beautiful," were memorable ; but much more note- 
 worthy, and most pathetic, was the Dean's description of the 
 sound of rivulets, heard all night by the weary traveller in 
 the south of Spain rivulets made by the Moorish conquerors 
 of Granada five centuries ago ; and its parallel in the con- 
 tinuity of intellectual and moral influence in the world. 
 That simile, drawn out in a wonderful manner, and spoken 
 by a voice of rare delicacy and strength of persuasion, 
 produced a more intense effect on the audience which 
 listened to it, than is the customary result of University 
 sermons. 
 
 "The weary traveller in the south of Spain who, after passing 
 many an arid plain and many a bare hill, finds himself at nightfall 
 under the heights of Granada, will hear rushing and rippling under 
 the shade of the spreading trees, and along the side of the dusty road, 
 the grateful murmur of the running waters, of streamlets whose sweet 
 music mingles with his dreams as he sleeps, and meets his ear as the 
 first pleasant voice in the stillness of the early dawn. What is it? 
 It is the sound of the irrigating rivulets called into existence by the 
 Moorish occupants of Granada five centuries ago, which, amidst all 
 the changes of race and religion, have never ceased to flow. Their
 
 INTRODUCTION xxiii 
 
 empire has fallen, their creed has been suppressed by fire and sword, 
 their nation has been driven from the shores of Spain, their palaces 
 crumble into ruins, but the trace of their beneficent civilisation still 
 continues ; and in this continuity, that which was good and wise and 
 generous, in that gifted but unhappy race, still lives on to cheer 
 and refresh their enemies and conquerors. Even so it is icith the 
 good deeds of those who have gone before us whatever there has been 
 of grateful consideration, of kindly hospitality, of far-reaching gener- 
 osity, of gracious charity, of high-minded justice, of unselfish devotion, 
 of saintly practice, these still feed the stream of moral fertilisation, 
 which will run on, when their place knows them no more, even when 
 their names have perished." 
 
 One of the impressive incidents of Dean Stanley's 
 visits to St. Andrews was the way in which he quoted and 
 referred to the well-known Greek words inscribed on a 
 scroll in the Library Hall, behind the dais from which he 
 spoke Alev dpiareveiv turning round and pointing to the 
 motto, with a rare dignity and intensity of feeling. It 
 appealed to many who heard it; and, over and over again, 
 the late Principal Shairp spoke of that incident as one of 
 the most pathetic which had ever occurred, in his experience, 
 in connection with our rectorial gatherings. Afterwards, 
 at Westminster, the Dean alluded to these St. Andrews 
 visits, with their many memories, as about the' most 
 delightful in his life. 
 
 The election of Lord Selborne, on the 22 nd of November 
 1877, by 79 votes; as against 64 recorded for the Hon. 
 Gathorne Hardy, was welcomed by many Liberals and 
 Conservatives alike as a gain to the University. Lord 
 Selborne was an old friend of Bishop Wordsworth, and of 
 Principal Shairp. When he came to deliver his address, 
 he was the guest of the Vice-Chancellor. Lady Selborne 
 (who accompanied him) stayed at Bishopshall. One little 
 incident connected with his visit may be mentioned. In 
 August 1878- Bishop Wordsworth had written some Latin
 
 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 verse, Ad Virum nobilissimum Comitem de Beaconsfield, post 
 reditum a Berolinensi Congrcssu, July 16, 1878. Meeting 
 Stanley at Megginch Castle that delightful haunt of happy 
 memories to all who were privileged to know its inmates 
 he asked the Dean to give him an English version of them, 
 which he might send to the Premier. In a few days the 
 Bishop received what he had asked ; and the Latin original 
 by himself, with Stanley's English version, were sent to 
 Hughenden Manor. He received a reply, the first sentence 
 of which was, " It is the happiest union since Beaumont and 
 Fletcher." With a very pardonable pride, at a dinner party 
 in Bishopshall, the Bishop showed this letter to the 
 Rector, and sent it round his table to the assembled 
 guests. I do not know whether the remark was more 
 characteristic of Disraeli, or laudatory of Wordsworth and 
 Stanley. 
 
 Sir Theodore Martin was elected Rector in November 
 1880, by 113 votes; over 68 given to Mr. Freeman, the 
 historian. Of his tenure of office one of the chief things to 
 be recorded is the fact that Lady Martin Helen Faucit of 
 the English stage accompanied her husband to St. Andrews. 
 They were the guests of the Viee-Chancellor, and Lady 
 Martin most kindly volunteered to give to the students 
 a recital of the trial scene in The Merchant of Venice, 
 and of a part of As You Like It, in which as Rosa- 
 lind she was so charming on the stage. Sir Theodore 
 and Lady Martin left many happy memories behind 
 them. 
 
 On the 22nd November 188:3, Mr. Russell Lowell, 
 United States Minister to England, was elected Rector, by 
 100 votes; as against 82 recorded in favour of the Right 
 Hon. E. Gibson, M.P. for Dublin University. In the course 
 of the contest, Mr. Lowell wrote on the 17th November 
 1883.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 "... I had not the least notion that there was any 
 political colour in the election of Sectors, or I should not 
 have consented to stand. I hope that it will be made to 
 appear (if proper) that my candidature rests on purely 
 literary grounds." 
 
 After his election several letters were received from 
 representative men in Great Britain and America, referring 
 to the choice of the students. One of them went the length 
 of regarding it as a new international bond one of amity 
 and friendship between the great Anglo-Saxon races of the 
 world. But, most unfortunately for St. Andrews, the 
 legality of the election was challenged by the supporters 
 of the rival candidate, on the ground that Lowell was an 
 American, and 'therefore an alien ! After long considera- 
 tion and discussion with Principal Tulloch, it was agreed 
 that the point one almost of international law should 
 be referred to Lord Selborne, the outgoing Rector. I need 
 not quote Lord Selborne's reply; it will suffice to give 
 an extract from Mr. Lowell's letter of 12th December 
 1883. 
 
 "... I have, I need hardly say, been altogether 
 gratified with the kindly way in which my election has 
 been received on both sides of the water ; but I cannot help 
 feeling that I should have been wiser, had I at once with- 
 drawn on hearing that objections would be made instead 
 of yielding to the perhaps too friendly advice of Lord 
 Selborne. I have left the matter wholly in the hands of 
 the Vice-Chancellor, in whose discretion and good feeling 
 I have entire confidence ; but I should be glad if you will 
 kindly say to him that I earnestly wish him to give every 
 possible weight to any doubts that may occur to his own 
 mind, and to be sure that I have absolutely no 'personal 
 feeling as to the result. 
 
 " I shall always be grateful for the universal expression
 
 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 of kindness brought out by the occasion, serving to warm 
 again the blood of my old age. . . ." 
 
 The result was that Mr. Lowell withdrew, and Lord 
 Eeay was elected. 
 
 Up to this time, seven of the Eectorial Addresses had 
 been delivered in the Upper Library Hall of the University 
 in South Street, in which the portraits of many persons 
 officially connected with the University are hung. It was 
 invariably found, however, to be too small to accommodate 
 those who wished to attend the triennial ceremony; and 
 when Lord Eeay became Eector, the Senate resolved to 
 transfer the function to the Eecreation Hall, in the City 
 Eoad. There the installation of Lord Eeay took place, and 
 there his address was delivered in 1885, a sort of annus 
 mirabilis in the history of the University as Principal 
 Tulloch used to call it so far as the conferring of honorary 
 degrees was concerned. The degree of Doctor of Divinity 
 was given to the representatives of no fewer than eight 
 different religious denominations ; and the degree of Doctor 
 of Laws was conferred upon the following many of them 
 having been students of the University The Marquess of 
 Lome, the Earl of Elgin, the Earl of Dalhousie, the Earl of 
 Aberdeen, the Earl of Eosebery, Lord Eeay (Eector), Lord 
 Cross, Sir George Young, the Hon. Waldegrave Leslie, Mr. 
 Arthur J. Balfour, M.P. ; Mr. John B. Balfour, M.P. ; Mr. 
 James A. Campbell, M.P. ; Dr. Hugh Cleghorn, Mr. William 
 Leonard Courtney, New College, Oxford ; Sir E. Anstruther 
 Dalzell, Vice-President of the India Council ; John Duncan, 
 M.D., Edinburgh ; Mr. Andrew Lang, Fellow of Merton 
 College, Oxford ; Mr. E. Eay Lankester, University College, 
 London ; Mr. W. E. H. Lecky, London ; Dr. Playfair, 
 London ; the Principal of University College, Dundee ; the 
 Provost of St. Andrews, and the minister of Ballachulish 
 and Ardccour.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 As the address of an academical statesman, Lord Eeay's 
 was the weightiest of these delivered at St. Andrews. If 
 Mr. Mills' was the production of a comprehensive theorist, 
 Lord Eeay's address was that of a sagacious practical states- 
 man ; and it contained some suggestions which have been 
 adopted by the Scottish Universities Commission. 
 
 On the 25th November 1886, the Eight Hon. Arthur 
 James Balfour was elected by the students to succeed Lord 
 Eeay, by 108 votes ; against 8 8 recorded for Sir John 
 Lubbock. As a distinguished politician and literary man, 
 he was welcomed by the students with rare enthusiasm. 
 There is nothing specially to record of his tenure of office, 
 as his manifold official duties in the Service of his Country 
 made his stay in St. Andrews a very brief one. His visit 
 to the University was memorable, however, in many 
 ways. 
 
 On the 28th November 1889, the Marquess of Dufferin 
 and Ava was chosen to succeed Mr. Balfour, by 1 3 votes ; 
 over 100 recorded in favour of Lord Balfour of Burleigh. 
 Lord Dufferin is one of the most accomplished diplomatists 
 and administrators in foreign lands, that England has known. 
 His address was one which the students of the University 
 will cherish for generations to come ; and it is perhaps 
 the only Eectorial Address which was to be found for 
 sale in the bookstalls of railway stations on the Continent of 
 Europe. 
 
 On the 24th November 1892, the Marquess of Bute 
 was elected Eector the only occasion on which there was 
 no contest. Of his address it is impossible to speak too 
 highly, or of his services to the University and its students, 
 as well as of his patriotic schemes for the restoration and 
 development of the glories of St. Andrews. Perhaps no 
 one amongst our contemporaries loves the ancient city 
 from an antiquarian, a historic, a religious, and an academic
 
 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 point of view more profoundly than Lord Bute ; and it 
 is to be hoped that his efforts to befriend it, on strictly 
 academic lines, including his wish to see other colleges 
 either affiliated to, or incorporated within it will be at 
 length realised. 
 
 The Addresses are all reprinted from the pamphlets in 
 which they originally appeared, the footnotes and quotations 
 being also by the respective authors. 
 
 Beference has been made to Mr. Buskin and Mr. Bussell 
 Lowell, who were elected, but did not accept office. Of 
 all those, however, amongst contemporary literary men, 
 whom the students of St. Andrews wished to honour by 
 election to their rectorial Chair but who could not see his 
 way to comply with their wish Eobert Browning is the 
 most famous. He was approached three times in different 
 years, when it was thought possible to secure his services, 
 The first occasion was in 1869, before I went to St. 
 Andrews. On the 11th March, in that year, he wrote 
 thus to Mr. W. W. Tulloch, the son of the Principal of 
 St. Mary's College. 
 
 " If I have delayed answering your letter, and attempt- 
 ing to comment upon its enclosure, you must partly blame 
 yourself; you literally 'took my breath away.' I had no 
 notion that the wish to do me the great honour of making 
 me Eector of your famous University was so effectually 
 and so earnestly expressed. I cannot regret under all cir- 
 cumstances that I shrank from what I am really unfit for 
 but I do regret that I was. ignorant, at the time, of the 
 existence of such a kind and generous feeling in my behalf 
 as that which you now mention, and which must have been 
 the result of your own speech, rather than any merits of 
 mine. All I can say is that I am most grateful to you, and 
 all who sympathise with you ; and that I shall never think
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 of Saint Andrews without a throb of pride at having at least 
 succeeded in making you my friends and well wishers." 
 
 In 1 8 7 6 the first winter which I spent in St. Andrews 
 the students of that year again thought of Browning as 
 their Eector, and a committee of them urged him to allow 
 himself to be nominated. They received a declinatory note. 
 Nothing daunted, four of their number started for London 
 one Friday afternoon, when University class-work was 
 ended, met the poet next morning, by appointment, at his 
 house in Warwick Square, and urged him to consent to 
 become their Eector. He was greatly impressed, as he told 
 me afterwards, by this most significant proof of what 
 Carlyle had called " the beautiful enthusiasm " * of the 
 Edinburgh students when he was elected as their Eector. 
 He received them most courteously ; and while compelled to 
 decline their request, he presented to each of the en- 
 thusiasts, before they left, a copy of one of his volumes of 
 verse. One of the four was Mr. Macdonald Mackay, now 
 Professor of History in University College, Liverpool. 
 
 Browning wrote afterwards 
 
 ''London, 19 Warwick Crescent, *W., 
 
 Nov. 22, '77. 
 
 ... I really want words to do any sort of justice to 
 my feelings very mingled as they are, great pleasure with 
 much pain, yet in which after all the pleasure predominates 
 exquisite pleasure I will say at the evidence of sympathy 
 and kindness which have taken me by surprise indeed. I 
 shall not trust myself to stammer when I am clearly unable to 
 speak. The gentlemen of the Deputation will have informed 
 you of that refusal of the previous offer made formally to me 
 nearly a year ago of the " Independent Club " at Glasgow. 
 
 1 See the report of his Rectorial Address at Edinburgh, on the 2nd 
 April 1866.
 
 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 Having been forced to decline the same honour, warmly 
 pressed on me in that instance, I felt it impossible to seem 
 to throw a slight upon my friends and supporters there. 
 I believe I mentioned to them that the main difficulty 
 in the case was that I had been compelled to forego 
 the distinction, originally put within my reach by St. 
 Andrews ; and now certainly no academical distinction of 
 a similar nature if such existed should induce me to 
 accept it. Quite enough pride, or something better, re- 
 mains to me that I might have been but for circumstances 
 out of my control the unanimously chosen Bector of the 
 University. 
 
 May I beg you to interpret far beyond the letter 
 the sense of what I have attempted to say. . . . 
 
 Bob-ert Browning.'" 
 
 It would thus seem that the reason why Browning 
 declined the Glasgow Bectorship in 1876 was that he had 
 previously declined the St. Andrews offer in 1869 ; and 
 that the reason why he refused to stand for St. Andrews in 
 1877 was that he had refused the Bectorship in Glasgow 
 in 1876! 
 
 Again, however, in 1884, some of the students of that 
 year tried to persuade him once more to become a candi- 
 date for the Bectorship. On the 10th of January 1884 he 
 wrote " . . . The honour of standing for the Bectorship, was, 
 by the same post, proposed to me ; as you expected ; and 
 very respectfully (in no conventional sense) declined, as on 
 former occasions. I am glad to see that Lord Beay is a 
 candidate ; no fitter one could be suggested. . . ." 
 
 Going back a few years, at the close of 1880, some 
 students thought of Tennyson as their Bector; but, before 
 being definitely selected, he was approached with the 
 view of finding out whether he would accept the office if
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 elected. He replied from Aldworth on 19th November 
 1880: 
 
 "... Present my thanks to the students, but let me be 
 forgiven if I decline the honour." 
 
 When the idea first occurred to me of collecting and 
 editing these Addresses, I submitted it to the Principal and 
 Vice-Chancellor, as I thought he might wish to undertake 
 the preparation of such a volume, and to contribute to it a 
 more elaborate Historical Sketch of the University than any- 
 thing I could write. When I found that he did not contem- 
 plate such a work, it seemed to me appropriate since more 
 than a third of a century has passed since the first 
 Rectorial Address was given, under the regulations of the 
 Universities Commission of 1858 to collect and to edit 
 all those delivered at St. Andrews, for the sake both of past 
 and present alumni. I daresay that many former students 
 of this ancient University will be glad to possess a volume 
 containing not only the address to which they themselves 
 listened, as undergraduates and which they took part in 
 securing for their Alma Mater but also the addresses of 
 earlier and later Rectors, who have conferred lustre oil the 
 University of which we all are proud. 
 
 The extraordinary love which old St. Andrews students 
 have for their Alma Mater, and which Professors who 
 have only spent a year or two in the city, and then gone 
 to other spheres of labour share with them, has no parallel 
 in any other Scottish, and perhaps not in any British, Uni- 
 versity. Just the other day, I met, at the entrance gate of 
 the University of Edinburgh, a distinguished student, who 
 had taken his Arts classes at St. Andrews, and afterwards 
 gone for his Divinity course to Edinburgh. I asked him 
 what he was now doing. He said he was lingering beside 
 " his stepmother," as in duty bound, for a short time ; but
 
 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 that he was going off to Germany very soon. The way in 
 which he spoke of the stepmother showed what he thought 
 of his old Alma Mater. 
 
 One thing should be mentioned in connection with the 
 Sectorial Elections at St. Andrews, as compared with those 
 in the other Universities of Scotland. In every case, save 
 one, there has been a contest ; and even in that one the 
 election was preceded by an academic debate, over the merit 
 of possible rivals (and what University, or what student in 
 it, would be " worth his salt," were there no friendly or 
 hostile canvassing of the claims of men, thought worthy of 
 such an office) ; but the contest at St. Andrews has not 
 usually been a political one, as it has been almost invariably 
 in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen. 
 
 Sir William Stirling -Maxwell remarks in the noble 
 address which begins this volume that the office of Eector 
 was not created, by the Universities Act of 1858, "with- 
 out some discussion." The chief objection taken to the 
 creation of the office was that, as " the example of Glasgow 
 llectorial Election was sure to be followed, they would be 
 apt to be mere political contests ; and that such contests 
 might both interfere with academical discipline, and have 
 the effect of introducing amongst the students habits of 
 premature political partisanship." l Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell 
 further says that the decision come to on both sides ulti- 
 mately was, " in the hope that the political element in the 
 elections would be diminished rather than increased." 
 
 Whatever may have been the case with the other 
 Universities, there is no doubt that the St. Andrews students 
 have spontaneously sought for Hectors who would adorn 
 the Office, rather than for men who would help a Party. 
 Long may it be so ! Perhaps they have seen, more clearly 
 than students at other Universities have done, that both 
 
 1 See ].. 1 3.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 the political parties of the day as of all time have an 
 equally important function to discharge towards the State ; 
 and that these rectorial conflicts had better turn round 
 other issues, than a decision as to which of the two 
 should be honoured by the election of one of its members 
 to academic office. 
 
 To glorify St. Andrews as a University city is happily a 
 work of supererogation. It is a little University, and has 
 always been so. Owing to its position, on a seaboard 
 promontory, remote from the great centres of population and 
 industry, cut off even from the main lines of modern 
 locomotion, it has " dwelt apart," and pursued a somewhat 
 solitary way. It has not been greatly moved by the stir 
 of the centuries, during which its teachers have striven to 
 educate the young men who have resorted to it. Any 
 success it has achieved is not quantitative, but qualitative. 
 It is perhaps to its honour that in an age which measures 
 most attainments by their utilitarian market -value one 
 little Place of Learning has gone on its way with quiet 
 perseverance, surrounded, (on south and west and north), by 
 younger and much larger Institutions, supposed at times 
 to be ready to take it up within them, if not to menace 
 its very existence. It is notorious that Institutions which 
 are threatened live long ; but one of the most interesting 
 things about St. Andrews is the number of its friends : the 
 great " cloud of witnesses " who have either written in praise 
 of it, or spoken in its honour, or proved their devotion by 
 deeds of beneficence. It is questionable if any University in 
 the world ever received so signal a proof of the loyalty of its 
 sons, as was shown to St. Andrews when an old student, 
 the late Mr. Alexander Berry afterwards one of the most 
 successful merchant-princes of Australia drew up a will, 
 in which he bequeathed his whole fortune, reckoned by the
 
 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 million, to his brother in liferent, and to the University of 
 St. Andrews in fee. Unfortunately for the University, (or 
 fortunately who can tell ?) Mr. Berry died with his will 
 unsigned ; and the younger inheriting the whole of the 
 vast estates, but knowing his elder brother's wish left 
 100,000 as a gift to St. Andrews. A similar instance 
 of loyal devotion to the place is seen in the bequest of Sir 
 TaylorThomson Her Majesty's late representative at Teheran 
 of 30,000, to found bursaries at the University where he 
 was himself taught. These gifts are very significant signs 
 of the strength of the tie far stronger than the donors 
 were aware of when they were students which continues 
 to bind men, after they go abroad and push their fortunes in 
 other lands, to the old place where they were trained in 
 Arts or in Science. 
 
 I have referred to the uniqueness of St. Andrews in Scot- 
 land, in everything except its wealth ; but it is questionable 
 if any single University in the world Oxford, or Cambridge, 
 in England ; Bologna, Paris, Salamanca, or Berlin, on the 
 Continent ; any one of the hundred colleges in the United 
 States, or of the dozens in Canada has had so much 
 written in its praise as the University of this little city 
 by the sea. The fascination which it comes to exact over 
 its students is most subtle. It binds them, or ever they 
 are aware of it. Lads from the moorlands of Perthshire or 
 Inverness trained in remote country Parish Schools, youths 
 coming straight from the noisy din of our larger towns, from 
 the sombre thoroughfares of Dundee, boys from English 
 public schools, children of professional men in London or 
 the Colonies, " sons of the manse " in Scotland or in England, 
 all find out, in a very short time, that the hand of the past 
 as well as of the present is upon them, and that they are 
 bound to the place where they are being trained by a very 
 curious magnetic spell. Letters are constantly received from
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 old alumni, now occupying positions of distinction in our 
 own or other lands, who write of the University, of the 
 days they spent in it, and of its influence over them, with 
 an ardour which makes the ordinary resident wonder what 
 can possibly give rise to it. I may add that some of these 
 letters refer to Principals Tulloch and Shairp, and to Pro- 
 fessor Baynes, in such a way that I wish they had been 
 included in the already published Memoirs of the Principals, 
 and in the too long delayed memorial volume of my late 
 esteemed colleague, the Professor of Logic. Such letters 
 written with all the glow of perfervid youth lead their 
 recipient to ask, " What is the cause of this enthusiasm ? " 
 Is it the long history of the city, which attracts and fas- 
 cinates, for it surely cannot be the present condition of the 
 place ? Is it the Euins, the Links, the sandy Dunes, the 
 grand Sea-coast attractive alike in storm and calm ? Is it 
 the Library, with its mediaeval as well as its modern stores, 
 so delightful to the student bent on learning ? Is it the 
 Students' Union, or the College Societies the " Philosophi- 
 cal," which it took so many years to organise, but which is 
 now flourishing? or the "Classical" and "Literary" com- 
 bined ? or the " Musical " ? or the " Dramatic " ? Is it the 
 social life of the place, the kindness of so many of the 
 citizens to the students ? Is it the University Golf-Club, 
 its Summer Tennis, or its Artillery Battery, or its College 
 Chapel Services ? Or is it something of all of these com- 
 bined ? 
 
 Perhaps it is most of all the unconscious influence of the 
 great historic past of St. Andrews. It is well known that 
 the genius loci exerts itself most powerfully when one is 
 least conscious of it. Anyhow very soon after his arrival in 
 the city, the novice gets to understand the meaning of the 
 words which our old dramatist, John Webster, 1 wrote 
 
 1 In his Ducfiess of Malfi.
 
 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 I do love these ancient Euins ; 
 
 We never tread upon them but we set 
 
 Our foot upon a reverend History. 
 
 The tributes to the city, in prose and verse, are far too 
 numerous to quote in this preface ; but, as they come from 
 many quarters, a few may be given as samples of the rest. 
 One of the best is by a Scottish poet, Arthur Johnston, 
 who wrote in praise of many places in Latin verse. The 
 fourth section of his Poemata Omnia (1642) contains "De- 
 scriptions celebriorum urbium Scotise." It is questionable 
 if any of his descriptions is finer than the following 
 
 Andreapolis 
 
 Urbs sacra, nuper eras toti venerabilis orbi ; 
 
 Nee fuit in toto sanctior orbe locus. 
 Iuppiter erubuit tua cernens templa, sacello 
 
 Et de Tarpeio multa querela fuit. 
 Haec quoque contemplans Ephesinae conditor aedis, 
 
 Ipse strum merito risk & odit opus. 
 Vestibus aequabant templorum marmora Mystae 
 
 Cunctaque divini plena nitoris erant. 
 Ordinis hie sacri princeps, spectabilis auro, 
 
 Iura dabat patribus Scotia quotquot habet. 
 Priscus honor periit ; traxerunt templa ruinam, 
 Nee superest Mystis qui fuit ante nitor : 
 Sacra tamen Musis urbs es, Phoebique ministris, 
 Nee major meritis est honor ille tuis. 
 Lumine te blando, Musas quae diligit, Eos 
 
 Adspicit, & roseis molliter afflat equis. 
 Mane novo juxta Musarum murmurat aedes 
 
 Rauca Thetis, somnos & jubet esse breves. 
 Proximus est campus, studiis hie fessa juventus 
 
 Se recreat, vires sumit & ende novas. 
 Phocis amor Plioebi fuit olim, Palladis Acte, 
 
 In te jam stabilem fixit uterque larem. 
 
 Perhaps another poem, referring to Dundee, may have 
 an interest to the readers of these Addresses, from the
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 relation in which the newly founded College in that city 
 stands to the University. 
 
 Taodunum 
 
 Urbs vetus, undosi cui parent ostia Tai, 
 
 Et male Cimbrorum quod tegit ossa solum, 
 Genua te spectans sua ridet marmora, moles 
 
 Pyramidum flocci barbara Memphis habet. 
 Ipsa suas merito contemnunt Gargara messes, 
 
 Quasque regit, damnat terra Liburna rates. 
 Et Venetum populi de paupertate queruntur, 
 
 Nee Cnidus aequoreos jactat, ut ante, greges. 
 Si conferre lubet, pubes Spartana juventae, 
 
 Consulibus cedit Roma togata tuis. 
 Qui mendicatum Tai de gurgite nomen 
 
 Dat tibi, credatur mentis & artis inops. 
 Structa Deum manibus cum possis jure videri, 
 
 lure Dei-donum te tua terra vocat. 
 
 Every one knows that our English lexicographer, Dr. 
 Samuel Johnson, visited St. Andrews, in company with 
 his biographer Bos well, in 1773. The following is an 
 extract from Boswell's account of the " Tour " : 
 
 " \Sth August 1773. We had a dreary drive, in a dusky night to 
 St. Andrews, where we arrived late. We found a good supper at 
 Glass's Inn, and Dr. Johnson revived agreeably. He said, ' The 
 collection called The Muses' Welcome to King James (first of England 
 and sixth of Scotland), on his return to his native kingdom, showed 
 that there was then abundance of learning in Scotland : and that the 
 conceits in that collection, with which people find fault, were mere 
 mode 1 ' He added, ' We could not now entertain a Sovereign so ; that 
 Buchanan had spread the spirit of learning amongst us, but we had 
 lost it during the civil wars.' l 
 
 After supper we made a procession to Saint Leonard's College, the 
 
 1 When a Scotchman was talking against Warburton, Johnson said he 
 had more literature than had been imported from Scotland since the days of 
 Buchanan. Upon the other's mentioning other eminent writers of the 
 Scotch, "These will not do," .said Johnson ; " Let us have some more of your 
 northern lights ; these are mere farthing candles." Johnson's JForks (17S7), 
 xi. 208.
 
 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 landlord walking before us with a candle, and the waiter with a 
 lantern. That college had some time before been dissolved ; and Dr. 
 Watson, a professor here (the historian of Philip II.), had purchased 
 the ground, and what buildings remained. When we entered this 
 court, it seemed quite academical ; and we found in his house very 
 comfortable and genteel accommodation. 
 
 Thursday, August 1 9. . . . Dr. Watson observed, that Glasgow Uni- 
 versity had fewer home-students since trade increased, as learning was 
 rather incompatible with it. Johnson. ' Why, Sir, as trade is now 
 carried on by subordinate hands, men in trade have as much leisure as 
 others ; and now learning itself is a trade. A man goes to a bookseller, 
 and gets what he can. We have done with patronage. In the infancy 
 of learning, we find some great man praised for it. This diffused it 
 among others. When it becomes general, an authour leaves the 
 great, and applies to the multitude.' Boswell. ' It is a shame that 
 authours are not now better patronised.' Johnson. ' No, Sir. If 
 learning cannot support a man, if he must sit with his hands across 
 till somebody feeds him, it is as to him a bad thing, and it is better 
 as it is. With patronage, what flattery ! what falsehood ! While a 
 man is in equilibrio, he throws truth ameng the multitude, and lets 
 them take it as they please ; in patronage, he must say what pleases 
 his patron, and it is an equal chance whether that be truth or false- 
 hood.' Watson. 'But is not the case now, that, instead of flattering 
 one person, we flatter the age ? ' Johnson. ' No, Sir. The world always 
 lets a man tell what he thinks, his own way. I wonder, however, 
 that so many people have written, who might have let it alone. That 
 people should endeavour to excel in conversation, I do not wonder ; 
 because in conversation praise is instantly reverberated.' . . . 
 
 After what Dr. Johnson had said of St. Andrews, which he had 
 long wished to see, as our oldest university, and the seat of our 
 Primate in the days of Episcopacy, I can say little. Since the 
 publication of Dr. Johnson's book, I find that he has been censured 
 for not seeing here the ancient chapel of St. Rule, a curious piece of 
 sacred architecture. But this was neither his fault nor mine. We 
 were both of us abundantly desirous of surveying such sort of 
 antiquities ; but neither of us knew of this. I am afraid the censure 
 must fall on those who did not tell us of it. . . . There is no wonder 
 that he was affected with a strong indignation, while he beheld the 
 ruins of religious magnificence. I happened to ask where John Knox 
 was- buried. Dr. Johnston burst out, ' I hope in the high-way.' I 
 have been looking at his reformations.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 It was a very fine day. Dr. Johnson seemed quite wrapt up in the 
 contemplation of the scenes which were now presented to him. He 
 kept his hat off while he was upon any part of the ground where the 
 cathedral had stood. He said well, that 'Knox had set on a mob, 
 without knowing where it would, end ; and that differing from a man 
 in doctrine was no reason why you should pull his house about his 
 ears.' As we walked in the cloisters, there was a solemn echo, while 
 he talked loudly of a proper retirement from the world. Mr. Nairne 
 said he had an inclination to retire. I called Dr. Johnson's attention 
 to this, that I might hear his opinion if it was right. Johnson. ' Yes, 
 when he has done his duty to society. In general, as every man is 
 obliged not only to " love God, but his neighbour as himself," he must 
 bear his part in active life ; yet there are exceptions. Those who are 
 exceedingly scrupulous (which I do not approve, for I am no friend to 
 scruples), and find their scrupulosity invincible, so that they are quite 
 in the dark, and know not what they shall do, or those who cannot 
 resist temptations, and find they make themselves worse by being in 
 the world, without making it better, may retire. I never read of a 
 hermit, but in imagination I kiss his feet ; never of a monastery, but 
 I could fall on my knees, and kiss the pavement. But I think putting 
 young people there, who know nothing of life, nothing of retirement, 
 is dangerous and wicked. It is a saying as old as Hesiod, 
 
 "Ep7<x veQv, (3ov\al re fieauv, ev\ai. re yepbvrwv. 
 
 That is a very noble line ; not that young men should not pray, or old 
 men not give counsel, but that every season of life has its proper duties. 
 I have thought of retiring, and have talked of it to a friend ; but I 
 find my vocation is rather to active life.' I said, some young monks 
 might be allowed, to show that it is not age alone that can retire to 
 pious solitude ; but he thought this would only show that they could 
 not resist temptation. 
 
 He wanted to mount the steeples, but it could not be done. There 
 are no good inscriptions here. Bad Roman characters he naturally 
 mistook for half Gothick, half Roman. One of the steeples, which he 
 was told was in danger, he wished not to be taken down ; ' for,' said 
 he, ' it may fall on some of the posterity of John Knox, and no great 
 matter ! ' Dinner was mentioned. Johnson. ' Ay, ay ; amidst all 
 these sorrowful scenes, I have no objection to dinner.' 
 
 We went and looked at the castle, where Cardinal Beaton was 
 murdered, and then visited Principal Murison at his college, where is 
 a good library-room ; but the Principal was abundantly vain of it, for
 
 xl RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 he seriously said to Dr. Johnson, 'You have not such a one in 
 England. . . .' 
 
 We looked at St. Salvador's College. The rooms for students 
 seemed very commodious, and Dr. Johnson said, the chapel was the 
 neatest place of worship he had seen. The key of the library could 
 not be found, for it seems Professor Hill, who was out of town, had 
 taken it with him. Dr. Johnson told a joke he had heard of a 
 monastery abroad, where the key of the library could never be 
 found. . . .'"' 
 
 Lord Cockburn's account of St. Andrews, given in his 
 Circuit Journeys, is characteristic ; and, as it reflects the spirit 
 of the place a generation or two after Dr. Johnson's visit, it 
 may be quoted. 
 
 "Arbroath, Saturday Forenoon, 2 1 / 'th April 1844. ... I mean 
 to pass on and meditate amidst the fragments of St. Andrews. 
 
 28th April 1844. And a delightful meditation it has been. We 
 got here yesterday in time to mount St. Regulus, which soon gives" a 
 stranger an idea of the whole place, and to view the Cathedral ; and I 
 have passed the whole of this, the day of peace, amidst the relics and 
 the scenery of this singular spot. Both days have been beautiful. 
 
 I have only been twice here before, and am thankful that I had 
 utterly forgotten everything about it, except its general character. 
 The first time was about thirty-two years ago. . . . Professor Fergus- 
 son, then in his 90th year, lived here at that period, with whose family 
 I was very intimate. He was then the most monumental of living 
 men. A fine countenance, long milk-white hair, grey eyes, nearly 
 sightless, a bare, deeply gullied throat, gave him the appearance of an 
 antique cast of this world, while an unclouded intellect, and a strong 
 spirit, savoured powerfully of the next. 
 
 My next visit here was a few years after this I can't remember 
 exactly when but I came to see some priory acres, about which there 
 was a litigation. I only stayed one evening. And on neither occasion 
 had I time to see, or leisure to feel, the place. 
 
 I have now, partly alone, and partly with Professor Jackson, seen 
 and felt it all, outside and inside. 
 
 There is no single spot in Scotland equally full of historical interest- 
 A foreigner who reads the annals of Scotland, and sees, in every page, 
 the important position which this place occupied in the literary, the 
 political, and the ecclesiastical transactions of the countrv, would
 
 INTRODUCTION xli 
 
 naturally imagine the modern St. Andrews, though amerced perhaps 
 of its ancient greatness, to he a large, splendid, and influential city. 
 On approaching it, he sees across an almost treeless plain a few spires 
 standing on a point of rock on the edge of the ocean ; and on entering 
 he finds himself in a dead village, without the slightest importance or 
 attractions, except what it derives from the tales that these spires 
 recall. 
 
 There is no place in this country over which the Genius of 
 Antiquity lingers so impressively. The architectural wrecks that have 
 heen spared are in themselves too far gone. They are literally ruins, 
 or rather the ruins of ruins. Few of them have left even their outlines 
 more than discoverable. But this improves the mysteriousness of the 
 fragments, some of which, moreover, dignify parts of otherwise paltry 
 streets, in which they appear to have been left for no other purpose 
 except that of protesting against modern encroachment. And they are 
 all of a civil character. Even what is called the castle was less of a 
 castle than of a palace. It was a strong place, but not a place chiefly 
 for military defence. They all breathe of literary and ecclesiastical 
 events, and of such political transactions as were anciently involved in 
 the Church. There is no feeling here of mere feudal war. 
 
 And the associations of ancient venerableness which belong so 
 peculiarly to St. Andrews are less disturbed by the repugnances of later 
 ages than in any place that I can think of, where the claims of antiquity 
 are opposed to those of living convenience. The colleges which, 
 though young in comparison with the cathedral, the tower, and the 
 castle, are coeval with the age of the Reformation, instead of interfering 
 with the sentiment of the place, bring down the evidence of its learning 
 into a nearer period, and prolong the appropriate feeling. . . . The 
 old academic edifices are in excellent keeping with the still older ruins. 
 And these colleges, when gone into, display many most interesting 
 remains, especially the general university library, a far better collection 
 of books than I had any idea they possessed. 
 
 The town itself, though I would rather have no town at all, is less 
 offensive than might be at first conceived possible. . . . The proper 
 town the true St. Andrews is in good character. It is still almost 
 entirely surrounded by its ancient wall, and is said never to have been 
 larger than it is now, a statement which the absence of all vestiges of 
 ancient buildings beyond the wall makes very probable. Its only three 
 considerable streets all radiate, at a very acute angle, from the cathedral 
 westward. There has never been any attempt at decoration on the 
 houses, which are all singularly plain, though often dignified by a bit
 
 xlii RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 of sculpture, a scarcely legible inscription, a defaced coat-of-arms, or 
 some other vestige of the olden time. There are very few shops, and, 
 thank God, no trade or manufactures. I could not detect a single 
 steam-engine, and their navy consisted of three coal sloops which lay 
 within a small pier composed of large stones laid rudely, though 
 strongly, together upon a natural quay of rock. The gentry of the 
 place consists of Professors, retired Indians, saving lairds, old ladies 
 and gentlemen with humble purses, families resorting here for golf and 
 education, or for economy, or for sea-bathing. Nobody comes for what 
 is called business. Woe be on the ignorant wight who did ! He 
 would die of lethargy the first week. 
 
 For all this produces a silent, calm place. The streets on Saturday 
 evening and all this day were utterly quiet. The steps of a passenger 
 struck me, while sitting in this Black Bull parlour, as if it had been a 
 person moving in a cloister, or crossing some still college quadrangle, 
 amidst the subdued noises of a hot forenoon. . . . 
 
 It is the asylum of repose a city of refuge for those who cannot 
 live in the country, but wish for as little town as possible. And all 
 this is in unison with the- ruins, the still surviving edifices, the 
 academical institutions, and the past history of the place. On the 
 whole, it is the best Pompeii in Scotland. If the Professors and the 
 youths be not studious and learned, it must be their own fault. They 
 have everything to excite their ambition books, tranquillity, and old 
 inspiration. And if anything more were wanting, they have it in 
 their extensive links, their singular rocks, and their miles of the most 
 admirable, hard, dry sand. There cannot be better sea walks. The 
 prospects are not very good, except perhaps in a day such as this a 
 day of absolute calmness and brightness when every distant object 
 glitters, and the horizon of the ocean, in its landless quarter, trembles 
 in light, and the white sea-birds stand on one leg on the warm rocks, 
 and the water lays itself out in long unbroken waves, as if it was 
 playing with the beautiful bays. The water, however, though clear 
 enough for the east coast, is no match for the liquid crystal that laves 
 all our western shores. 
 
 Nor are the philosophers here disturbed, like some other naturally 
 piiet spots, by being made a thoroughfare of. The town leads to 
 almost nothing. Few can say truly that they went to any place 
 by St. Andrews. St. Andrews itself must be the object of the pil- 
 grimage. 
 
 But though, to a stranger, tranquillity seems to be deeply impressed 
 on the whole place, the natives are not solitary. On the contrary,
 
 INTRODUCTION xliii 
 
 among themselves they are very social. Except those who choose to 
 study, they are all idle ; and having all a competency, often humble, no 
 doubt, but sometimes considerable, they are exactly the sort of people 
 who can be gregarious without remorse, and are allured into parties 
 by the necessity of keeping awake. And they have a local pleasure of 
 their own, which is as much the staple of the place as old colleges and 
 churches are. This is golfing, which is here not a mere pastime, but a 
 business and a passion, and has for ages been so, owing probably to 
 their admirable links. This pursuit actually draws many a middle- 
 aged gentleman whose stomach requires exercise, and his purse cheap 
 pleasure, to reside here with his family ; and it is the established 
 recreation of all the learning and all the dignity of the town. There 
 is a pretty large set who do nothing else, who begin in the morning 
 and stop only for dinner, and who, after practising the game in the sea 
 breeze all day, discuss it all night. Their talk is of holes. The 
 intermixture of these men, or rather the intermixture of this occupa- 
 tion, with its interests, and hazards, and matches, considerably whets 
 the social appetite. And the result is, that their meetings are very 
 numerous, and that, on the whole, they are rather a guttling popula- 
 tion. However, it is all done quietly, innocently, and respectably, 
 insomuch that even the recreation of the place partakes of what is, 
 and ought to be, its peculiar character and avocation. 
 
 If St. Andrews contributes little to knowledge, what college con- 
 tributes much % What have been the Hired products of Oxford ? The 
 chief use of the academic bowers is, to preserve the taste and the 
 means of learning. And, in this view, though other Scotch eolleges 
 may be better fitted for professional education, there is none of them 
 so well suited for a lettered retreat. 
 
 Yesterday and to-day I have explored all the outsides of things, and 
 as much of the interiors as Sunday would permit Mr. Jackson, the 
 Professor of Divinity, to show me. I walked eastward with him this 
 afternoon to the Spindle Eock, about two miles oil; a beautiful sea- 
 beach walk, ending with that tall and singular cliff standing apart on 
 the shore the best of many specimens of the kind (pp. 226-32)." 
 
 There are many felicitous descriptions of the place in 
 prose. Dean Stanley's, Lord Bute's, and others, are recorded 
 in this volume. From Stanley's the following sentences 
 may be quoted : 
 
 " Other sacred and historic localities of your country have been
 
 xliv RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 long ago deserted by the stream of events. The White House of 
 Ninian lies a stranded relic on the shores of Galloway. For nearly a 
 thousand years the holy island of Iona has ceased to be ' the lumi- 
 nary of the Caledonian regions.' But this temple, as of another 
 Minerva, planted as on another storm-vexed Cape of Sunium this 
 secluded sanctuary of ancient wisdom with the foam-flakes of the 
 Northern Ocean driving through its streets, with the skeleton of its 
 antique magnificence lifting up its gaunt arms into the sky still 
 carries on the tradition of its first beginnings. Two voices sound 
 through it ' One is of the sea, one of the cathedral ' ' each a 
 mighty voice ; ' two inner corresponding voices also, which, in any 
 institution that has endured and deserves to endure, must be heard 
 in unison the voice of a potent past, and the voice of an in- 
 vigorating future." 
 
 In her Memoir of the Life of John Tulloch, Mrs. Olipliant 
 writes (pp. 122-23) 
 
 " There are now few places where the visitor is more likely to meet 
 with other pilgrims from all quarters of the world. The little grey 
 town with its rocks and ruins, the stately relics of a historico- 
 ecclesiastical period now entirely passed, and leaving no sign except 
 in these monuments of a lodging far more magnificent than faith 
 or learning has ever since had in Scotland, with the dark and 
 dangerous reefs below, which make St. Andrews Bay a name of fear 
 to seafaring men ; and around the half-encompassing sea, sometimes 
 grey as northern skies can make it, sometimes crisp and brilliant in 
 its blue breadth, as full of colour as the Mediterranean ; the long 
 stretch of sandhills and cheerful links, the brown and red roofs all 
 clustered about an old steeple or two, thinning out into farmhouses 
 and cottages landward among their spare and wind-swept trees, 
 running down into fisher-houses, and the bustle of a little storm- 
 beaten fort towards the east, stands now, as then, upon its little 
 promontory, with all those charms of situation and association which 
 make a place of human habitation most dear. I think there is no 
 such sweep and breadth of sky anywhere. The " spacious firmament 
 on high" sweeps round and round, with the distant hills in soft 
 outline against its tints of pearl, and the levels of the sea melting into 
 it, yet keeping their imperceptible line of distinction, brimming over 
 in that vast and glorious cup. The great globe r.ways visibly in the 
 summer sunshine, so that the musing spectator seems to see its vast 
 circumference, the level of its human diameter, the circle that holds
 
 IN TROD UCTION x lv 
 
 S 
 
 it separate from all other spaces and worlds. Nowhere else has my 
 mind received the same impression of " the round world and all that 
 it contains." And there could be no more magnificent sight any- 
 where than the sunsets that flame upon the western sky over the long 
 levels of the links, or the rush of the Aurora Borealis in the intense 
 blue of the midnight frost, or the infinite soft gradations of earth and 
 sea and air in the lingering summer evenings, when the gleam of 
 half-a-dozen lighthouses comes out intermittent, like faint earthly 
 stars in the dim celestial circles when silence reigns and peace." 
 
 Another description of the sunsets and evening lights 
 at St. Andrews may be given from an article, entitled 
 " Alma Mater on Sea," contributed by Mrs. Alexander to TJie 
 Gentleman's Magazine in August 1884. 
 
 The sunsets here over the woods of Strathtyrum and the hills 
 beyond are wonderfully fine. Such colouring is rarely seen in these 
 latitudes : gorgeous flaming crimson, richest orange, deep purple 
 changing to rose and gold, to palest green and blue, with the delicate 
 lustre of mother-of-pearl, casting their glories over field and trees, 
 touching the glimpse of water, where the Eden runs into the sea at the 
 head of the links, with fire, and slowly retreating before the downy 
 darkness of the short summer night. When you have watched the 
 death of day, and read your book or paper by the lingering light till 
 ten o'clock, should you be still wakeful, you may see the first flush of 
 dawn a few minutes after what we are accustomed to consider mid- 
 night (p. 177). 
 
 Arthur Johnson's Latin poem on St. Andrews has been 
 already quoted. One or two other poetical tributes to it 
 may be given. 
 
 In the first canto of Marmion, Sir Walter Scott represents 
 the Palmer as thus addressing the Lord 
 
 But I have solemn vows to pay, 
 And may not linger by the way, 
 
 To fair St. Andrews bound ; 
 Within the ocean-cave to pray, 
 Where good Saint Eule his holy lay, 
 From midnight to the dawn of day, 
 
 Suns to the billows' sound.
 
 xlvi RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 It would be superfluous to explain the allusions in this 
 stanza. After Sir Walter's, there are certainly no modern 
 poems referring to St. Andrews, at all so memorable as one 
 by an old student and afterwards the Gifford Lecturer 
 of the University Mr. Andrew Lang ; and other two by 
 a later student (whose premature death every one who 
 knew him deplores), Mr. Robert F. Murray of Ilminster, 
 Somersetshire. Mr. Lang lived as a student in the College 
 Hall afterwards Bishopshall near the ruined chapel of 
 St. Leonard. He embalmed his memories of a friend, of 
 the University, and of the city, in the following immortal 
 lines, and which he called 
 
 Almae Matres 1 
 
 (St. Andrews, 1862. Oxford, 1865.) 
 
 St. Andrews by the Northern sea, 
 A haunted toion it is to me ! 
 A little city, worn and grey, 
 
 The grey North Ocean girds it round. 
 And o'er the rocks and up the bay, 
 
 The long sea-rollers surge and sound. 
 And still the thin and biting spray 
 
 Drives down the melancholy street, 
 And still endure, and still decay, 
 
 Towers that the salt winds vainly beat 
 Ghost-like and shadowy they stand 
 Dim mirrored in the wet sea-sand. 
 
 St. Leonard's chapel, long ago 
 
 We loitered idly where the tall 
 Fresh-budded mountain ashes blow 
 
 Within thy desecrated wall : 
 The tough roots rent the tomb below, 
 
 The April birds sang clamorous : 
 We did not dream, we could not know, 
 
 How hardly Fate would deal with us ! 
 
 1 Rhymes a la Mod,: By A. La
 
 INTRODUCTION xlvii 
 
 0, broken minster, looking forth 
 
 Beyond the bay, above the town : 
 0, winter of the kindly North, 
 
 O, college of the scarlet gown, 
 And shining sands beside the sea, 
 
 And stretch of links beyond the sand, 
 Once more I watch you, and to me 
 
 It is as if I touched his hand ! 
 
 And therefore art thou yet more dear, 
 
 0, little city, grey and sere, 
 Though shrunken from thine ancient pride, 
 
 And lonely by thy lonely sea, 
 Than these fair halls on Isis' side, 
 
 Where Youth an hour came back to me ! 
 A land of waters green and clear, 
 
 Of willows and of poplars tall, 
 And, in the spring time of the year, 
 
 The white may breaking over all, 
 And Pleasure quick to come at call. 
 
 And summer rides by marsh and wold, 
 And Autumn with her crimson pall 
 
 About the towers of Magdalen rolled ; 
 And strange enchantments from the past, 
 
 And memories of the friends of old, 
 And strong Tradition, binding fast 
 
 The " liying terms" with bands of gold, 
 
 All these hath Oxford : all are dear, 
 
 But dearer far the little town, 
 The drifting surf, the wintry year, 
 The college of the scarlet gown, 
 St. Andrews by the Northern sea, 
 That is a haunted town to me ! 
 
 Mr. Murray's tribute to his University is contained in 
 two poems, published in the The Scarlet Gown, one entitled 
 " A December Day," the other " Alter Many Days." 
 
 d
 
 xlviii RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 A December Bay 
 
 Blue, blue is the sea to-day, 
 
 Warmly the light 
 Sleeps on St. Andrews Bay 
 
 Blue, fringed with white. 
 
 That's no December sky ! 
 
 Surely 'tis June 
 Holds now her state on high, 
 
 Queen of the noon. 
 
 Only the tree-tops bare 
 
 Crowning the hill, 
 Clear-cut in perfect air, 
 
 Warn us that still 
 
 Winter, the aged chief, 
 
 Mighty in power, 
 Exiles the tender leaf, 
 
 Exiles the flower. 
 
 Is there a heart to-day, 
 
 A heart that grieves 
 For flowers that fade away, 
 
 For fallen leaves ? 
 
 Oh, not in leaves or flowers 
 
 Endures the charm 
 That clothes those naked towers 
 
 With love-light warm. 
 
 dear St. Andrews Bay, 
 
 Winter or Spring 
 Gives not nor takes away 
 
 Memories that cling 
 
 All round thy girdling reefs, 
 
 That walk thy shore, 
 Memories of joys and griefs 
 
 Ours evermore,
 
 INTRODUCTION xlix 
 
 After Many Days 
 
 The mist hangs round the College tower, 
 
 The ghostly street 
 Is silent at this midnight hour, 
 
 Save for my feet. 
 
 . With none to see, with none to hear, 
 
 Downward I go 
 To where, beside the rugged pier, 
 The sea sings low. 
 
 It sings a tune well loved and known 
 
 In days gone by, 
 When often here, and not alone, 
 
 I watched the sky. 
 
 That was a barren time at best, 
 
 Its fruits were few ; 
 But fruits and flowers had keener zest 
 
 And fresher hue. 
 
 Life has not since been wholly vain, 
 
 And now I bear 
 Of wisdom plucked from joy and pain 
 
 Some slender share. 
 
 But, howsoever rich the store, 
 
 I'd lay it down, 
 To feel upon my back once more 
 
 The old red gown. 
 
 It is doubtful if any Verses on St. Andrews will ever 
 rival these three, either in their poetry or their pathos. 
 
 I at first intended to write a detailed account of the 
 incidents of each election. That will be done, however, 
 much more effectively by a student who took part in them, 
 than by a professor officially outside of them all. 
 
 It has seemed appropriate that this volume should be 
 bound in red, as it is a memorial of the " City of the Scarlet
 
 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 Gown," and that its cover should have embossed upon it a 
 reproduction of the University Maces, which have been 
 carried in procession at every Eectorial Address for thirty 
 years. 
 
 The St. Andrews University Maces were engraved in 
 volume xxvi. of the Proceedings of the Society of Anti- 
 quaries of Scotland (1892), which contains an interesting 
 paper, by Alexander J. S. Brook, entitled " An Account of 
 the Maces of the Universities of St. Andrews, Glasgow, 
 Aberdeen, and Edinburgh, the College of Justice, the City of 
 Edinburgh, etc." 
 
 I have been indebted for the historical facts in connection 
 with the office of Eector before 1858, to Mr. Maitland 
 Anderson, the accomplished librarian of the University of 
 St. Andrews, to whom I desire to express my most cordial 
 thanks. 
 
 Should any profit accrue from the sale of the volume, 
 it will be devoted, in some form or other, to the benefit of 
 the students of the University, who elect the Eector ; and 
 it would have been inscribed to the Students, as a body, had 
 it not been for the obvious fitness of dedicating it to the 
 Chancellor. 
 
 WILLIAM KNIGHT. 
 
 March 1894.
 
 SIR WILLIAM STIRLING -MAXWELL, BART. 
 
 Rector fbom 1862 to 1865 
 Address Delivered on January 18, 1863
 
 SIR WILLIAM STIRLING-MAXWELL, BART. 
 
 Mr. Principal and Gentlemen The first duty which 
 I have to perform to-day is to thank you very sincerely for 
 the high honour which you have done me in placing me in 
 the chair of Eector of this ancient and famous University. 
 With the distinction, I likewise accept all the responsibili- 
 ties thereto attached ; and I hope to be able to discharge 
 the duties of the post in such a manner as may not dis- 
 appoint those who at the recent election were pleased to 
 prefer my humble name to that of a noble Earl distinguished 
 by high services rendered to the State. 1 
 
 The honour which you have conferred is valuable, not 
 only for its own sake, not only because it was unexpected 
 and unsolicited, but also because it has been conferred by 
 young and generous hearts, whose sympathy and approval 
 are more cheering and grateful to men of an elder genera- 
 tion than the givers can ever know until they themselves 
 have ceased to be young. No one can look with any hope 
 or interest into his own future, without looking earnestly 
 and wistfully into the broader future of those who are 
 following him in the journey of life. The limits of the one, 
 and its possibilities, are already discernible. The more 
 distant boundaries of the other give ampler room both for 
 hope and achievement. All those whose duty it is to 
 address mixed assemblages, single out the young as the 
 objects of their most passionate appeals. The young heart, 
 they know full well, is the kindliest soil for any seed they 
 may have to sow, as it is also that in which the plant has 
 1 The Earl of Dalhousie.
 
 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 the best chance of coming to maturity. It is therefore a 
 high privilege to be selected by an audience wholly com- 
 posed of the young, to address them in a few words of 
 friendly counsel as to their present employments and their 
 future career. 
 
 It is impossible to meet the assembled youth of a 
 seminary of this rank without being struck by the thought, 
 which cannot be too strongly pressed home to themselves, 
 that theirs are the hands in which will soon be placed, in no 
 inconsiderable degree, the future fortunes of their country. 
 It will mainly rest with you, and your contemporaries at our 
 other seats of learning, whether the age which opens as you 
 enter on the duties of life is to be a better or a worse por- 
 tion of the world's history than that which is passing away ; 
 whether it is to be an age of stagnation, or of feverish 
 advance ending in retrogression, or of orderly and trium- 
 phant progress ; whether intellectual life is to flourish in it, 
 side by side with material prosperity ; whether Scotland is 
 to repose on her old laurels as the land of Napier and 
 Adam Smith, of Watt and of Brewster, of Hume and 
 Eobertson, of Jeffrey and Carlyle, of Burns and Scott, and of 
 Campbell and Aytoun ; or whether she is to produce other 
 names worthy to be enrolled with these in the true golden 
 book of this empire. In this great responsibility you are 
 all jointly and severally concerned. There is one, and but 
 one, way of meeting it. Let each one of you cultivate to 
 the utmost the faculties with which he has been endowed, 
 that he may bring them to the world's arena in the highest 
 state of order and efficiency. That is the main purpose for 
 which you are assembled in this University. You are here 
 also to acquire habits of industry and application, the power 
 of continuously giving your minds to any subject until you 
 have mastered it in its principles, and in its details. Lastly, 
 you are here to store your minds with positive knowledge ; 
 to provision them for the voyage of life, from the ancient 
 storehouses and fountains ; and to obtain facility in using 
 the keys of science, which hereafter may open for you the 
 doors of the inner chambers of wisdom.
 
 SIR WILLIAM STIRLING-MAXWELL 5 
 
 I wish I could impress upon your minds the immense 
 importance of improving your opportunities, and the bitter- 
 ness of ithe unavailing regret with which you will look back 
 on the neglect of them ; or convey to you some adequate 
 idea of the price at which such opportunities would be pur- 
 chased by some of us, for whom they are long since past 
 and over. There is a time for all things a time for pre- 
 paration and a time for action. When the latter hour has 
 struck for us, we cannot by any device put back the hands 
 of the clock. Prepared or not prepared, most of us must 
 face the realities of life, and begin a sterner education under 
 that hard taskmaster the world, who cares not where straw 
 is found, but demands that bricks shall be made. Even 
 those favoured few who, when their contemporaries are at 
 work, may recur to the preparation for work, even they 
 cannot recall the hours which they have lost, or the happy 
 flexibility of faculty which they have wasted ; and they find 
 themselves contending with obstacles far more serious than 
 those from which they had before turned back, with powers 
 rusted for want of use, and bad habits luxuriant from long- 
 indulgence. 
 
 To know 
 
 That which before us lies in daily life 
 
 Is the prime wisdom. 
 
 That which lies before you, in this your academical life, is 
 to learn the art of learning. You will never again have the 
 choice of acquiring it on easier or on so easy terms ; and, if 
 you succeed in acquiring it, it is an art which you will 
 practise with profit and with pleasure to your dying day. 
 The precise methods by which it is to be acquired, it is un- 
 necessary for me to attempt to describe, as it certainly 
 would be presumptuous, in the presence of your dis- 
 tinguished Professors. Besides, the method must be dis- 
 covered, in a great measure, by each man for himself. Our 
 minds work in various ways, differing from each other as 
 the tools of the carpenter differ. The saw, the chisel, the 
 hatchet, and the plane are all made for cutting, but must be 
 handled in different ways each in a way of its own, and
 
 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 none of them like the common knife, which can neverthe- 
 less be made to answer some of the purposes of all the four. 
 Each man's experience will teach him the most effective 
 mode of applying his own powers. The one thing needful 
 is that they should be applied, and kept in honest and 
 healthy exercise. 
 
 While I endeavour to press it upon you that you are 
 here to submit your minds to a course of intellectual 
 training, I do not forget that there is a moral discipline of 
 at least equal importance to which you must betimes, and 
 especially at this time, become accustomed. It is, in my 
 opinion, a mistake to draw a broad distinction between 
 these two kinds of training, as if they were two distinct 
 operations, and as if it were possible to choose the one and 
 reject the other, and to carry on the one with success while 
 the other is wholly neglected. Depend upon it, this separa- 
 tion is nob possible. Man cannot attain to any practice, or 
 even to any just appreciation of what is true and beautiful 
 in morals, without at the same time using and strengthening 
 his intellectual powers. Nor can we exercise and improve 
 our intellectual powers by any conceivable process which 
 will not at the same time develop some of the most im- 
 portant of our moral faculties. Self-control, self-denial, the 
 habit of sacrificing the present to the future things lying 
 at the foundation of all practical virtue must be acquired 
 before the high places of thought can be reached ; nor is 
 there any surer way of acquiring them than by resolutely 
 facing the hill of intellectual difficulty. Certainly, one of 
 your chief aims here ought to be to obey, in your studies, in 
 your amusements, in your academic and social life, the 
 golden rule, " Whatsoever ye would that men should do 
 unto you, do ye even so to them." Like anything else 
 worth learning, you will learn obedience to this rule more 
 easily now than at a later period of life. The moral capa- 
 city of our nature, no less than its intellectual capacity, 
 shrinks and stiffens if not brought early into active exercise. 
 
 There is an error into which young students are apt to 
 fall, at which I may here glance. It is an error to which
 
 SIR WILLIAM STIRLING-MAXWELL 7 
 
 those of a lively imagination are specially liable. They 
 console themselves for neglect of their proper academical 
 studies, and for their consequent deficiency in important 
 branches of scholastic knowledge, by the thought that they 
 are pursuing in private some other reading which they find 
 more attractive, and the results of which they persuade 
 themselves will be of equal value. This is one of those 
 flattering unctions which are ever at hand to soothe the 
 stings of conscience. Work and play, even intellectual work 
 and intellectual play, are two distinct things, and must not 
 be confounded. Each is good in its way, and necessary for 
 our intellectual and physical well-being, but neither can 
 supply the place of the other. Of course, it is possible to 
 turn play into work, as Horace Walpole did, of whom it was 
 said that after his serious business of collecting knick- 
 knacks and chronicling gossip, he used to go and unbend 
 his mind in the House of Commons. I doubt, however, 
 whether this transformation is ever attempted or effected at 
 college. Certain it is that the mind which has undergone 
 the severe training of accurate scholarship and scientific 
 reasoning, is in a very different state of power and efficiency 
 from that which has only disported itself in the flowery 
 pastures of miscellaneous literature. It is also certain that 
 the disciplined mind will derive much more advantage from 
 subsequent desultory reading, will assimilate more quickly 
 all that is nutritive in that circumambient atmosphere of 
 print in which we, of this age and country, live and move 
 and have our being. I believe that even those who read 
 very little nowadays, read, or at least run their eyes over a 
 greater amount of letterpress, than was read a century ago 
 by many who were true lovers of reading. For that very 
 reason many of us, not naturally incapable of thought, think 
 a good deal less. Never was there a time when so much 
 loose and imperfect thought was served up by the aid of 
 skilful cookery, and when it was of greater importance for 
 the reader to keep his mental palate and digestive organs in 
 a sound and healthy state. 
 
 Do not understand me to speak with disparagement of
 
 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 desultory or general reading. In its proper place it is no 
 less profitable than agreeable, and a taste for it is one of 
 the happiest of inclinations. Books are a source of pleasure 
 the purest and most lasting ; the wisest of men have found 
 them the best of companions, as they are also, to use the 
 apt words of a modern poet, the 
 
 Friends that can neither alter nor forsake. 
 
 But in this companionship and friendship, free and various 
 as it may be, there is great necessity for choice. Consider 
 how enormous is the mass of real knowledge and thought 
 that is now garnered in books ; how still more stupendous 
 is the heap of sham knowledge, and second or tenth hand 
 thought of which they are the vehicles. Who ever yet 
 glanced round the shelves of even a moderate library with- 
 out encountering some book or books of which he had never 
 before heard ? Choose any subject, no matter how small, 
 and visit a collection of books relating to that subject, or 
 look into its bibliography, and you will find yourself in a 
 hive of very strange and very busy bees, and will discover 
 that even in the narrowest corner of literature, of the 
 making of books there is no end. Some time since I visited 
 a friend at Florence, and was shown into a noble room, 
 about fifty feet long, nearly full of books. I remarked that 
 he seemed to have collected a very fine Italian library. 
 " Hardly Italian," he replied ; " for I have nothing here but 
 what relates to the history and literature of Tuscany." Six- 
 teen years ago M. Duplessis published his Bibliography of 
 Books concerning Proverbs, in which he enumerated about 
 one thousand separate works. A gentleman in Germany 
 lately told me that he was thinking of editing a new edition, 
 and that he had collected materials which would increase 
 M. Duplessis' list threefold. A large octavo volume has 
 lately appeared a Bibliography of French Books of 
 Heraldry ; and the French language, some fifteen years ago, 
 already possessed six hundred treatises on the diseases of the 
 vine. Think of the reading-room of the British Museum, 
 with its magnificent circuit of four hundred and twenty feet
 
 SIR WILLIAM STIRLING-MAXWELL 9 
 
 of wall covered to the height of six feet with books of refer- 
 ence books, each of which may be supposed to be in 
 frequent requisition by one or other of the readers. Lastly, 
 turn over the pages of the London Publisher s Circular, a 
 large annual volume, and behold the strong and steady 
 stream of English books alone, which every year pours itself 
 into the ocean of literature. In navigating this ocean, of 
 which the stoutest mariner can pass over only some frac- 
 tional part, it is surely well to keep some port in view. 
 Reading with a special purpose even at leisure hours, with 
 reference to some favourite period of history, or other branch 
 of knowledge, gives an interest to all kinds of reading and a 
 flavour not their own to very dry books. It is a habit into 
 which lovers of books almost unconsciously fall ; yet it 
 would be well for each man to select his subject with 
 deliberation, and with due consideration to the time at his 
 disposal, and the opportunities within his reach. 
 
 Many of you have probably already made, or will soon 
 make, choice of a profession. This important subject has 
 lately been so admirably and thoroughly treated in a book 
 with which you all are, or ought to be, familiar, that I 
 should be guilty of presumption if I did much more than 
 refer you to the pages of Beginning Life} Those of you 
 who are destined for any of the branches of the public 
 service at home or abroad, which are entered through com- 
 petitive examinations, may be said to have begun life 
 already-. The dependence of success in these examinations 
 on industry and diligence at college is too close and obvious 
 to need illustration. Although the connection between 
 success in other paths of life and a creditable college career 
 is less obvious, and perhaps less close, the two things are, 
 notwithstanding, intimately connected. Let me call your 
 attention to what Principal Tulloch says of the learned 
 professions, which he characterises as " the especially intel- 
 lectual professions, demanding vivacious intellectual interest, 
 and powers of independent thought " in all who would 
 
 1 Beginning life, by John Tulloch, D.D., Principal of St. Mary's College. 
 Edinburgh, 1862, 8vo.
 
 10 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 pursue them with honour to themselves and usefulness to 
 others. In these professions, while solid professional 
 learning is essential, a large and various stock of knowledge 
 is of immense value. What morsel of erudition or scrap of 
 science is there which may not at some time or other be 
 turned to good account by the lawyer, whose business, 
 touching, at all points, the whole circle of human interest 
 and passion, may lead him into any subject on which 
 dispute and litigation are possible, and who may, one day, 
 have to deal with the foundations of British liberty, or the 
 subtleties of international law, and the next to explain, 
 clearly and neatly, the qualities of a coal or the fashion of a 
 bobbin ? Let those of you who intend to practise the 
 healing art listen to the opinion of Sir Benjamin Brodie a 
 man whose own remarkable attainments justified the- high 
 standard which he prescribed for others. " There is no pro- 
 fession," says this eminent man, "in which it is more 
 essential that those engaged in it should cultivate the talent 
 of observing, thinking, and reasoning for themselves, than it 
 is in ours. How many branches of knowledge there are 
 which, if not directly, are indirectly, useful in the study of 
 pathology, medicine, and surgery. And all general know- 
 ledge, whether of moral or physical science, tends to expand 
 the intellect, and to qualify it better for particular pur- 
 suits." 1 
 
 But, in truth, the bar and medicine are in small danger 
 of being overcrowded with incompetent or uncultivated 
 men, for in them such men have so little chance of employ- 
 ment that their connection with either profession will be 
 little more than in name. But in the sacred profession no 
 such safeguard exists. Into all sections of the Church there 
 are ways of ingress from which no means have yet been 
 found of excluding some persons very far below the mark of 
 their high calling. How heavy, then, is the responsibility 
 of those who are led either by inconsiderate zeal or coarse 
 worldly motives, to undertake awful duties for which they 
 
 1 Discourse addressed to tlie Students of St. George' s Hospital. London, 1843. 
 8vo. pp. 16-18.
 
 SIR WILLIAM STIRLING-MAXWELL 11 
 
 are not intellectually fitted ! I can imagine no position 
 more humiliating to a man of any sense and feeling than to 
 find himself, Sunday after Sunday, emptying the church 
 which he has undertaken to endeavour to fill, and deterring 
 his neighbours from the worship to which it is his chief 
 business to draw them. 
 
 But supposing the young aspirant for ordination to 
 possess all the intellectual vivacity and spiritual fervour 
 necessary for the effective performance of sacred functions, I 
 see in the present aspect of opinion within and without the 
 Church, strong reasons why he should pause and ponder 
 maturely before he binds himself with an irrevocable vow. 
 I need hardly remind you in this place of the great changes 
 of opinion to which all associations of men are liable. The 
 law of change is abundantly exemplified in the history of 
 your own University. It is a Protestant University, 
 founded by Papal bull, and endowed by prelates who shed 
 the blood of Protestant martyrs. It has seen various kinds 
 of Protestantism established as the religion of the State. It 
 has also seen the rise and growth of several flourishing 
 Protestant sects. Men can no more go on thinking the 
 faded thoughts than following the superseded callings of 
 distant times. It would be as impossible to restore any 
 human interest to many of the questions which most 
 strongly moved the wisest minds of the fifteenth century, as 
 it would be to revive the business of the monkish scribe and 
 establish a scriptorium in Printing-House Square. Even of 
 the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to which we are 
 linked by so many golden chains of poetry and eloquence, 
 immortal as the minds which fashioned them of the cen- 
 turies of Shakespeare and Jonson, of Bacon and Milton 
 how much of the wit is now dim, how much of the humour 
 is evaporated, how much of the thought is to us alien and 
 unintelligible ! Articles and formulas of belief the most 
 precise, the most consummate theories of ecclesiastical 
 polity, are not exempt from the law of decay to which other 
 productions of the human mind are subject. Look at what 
 has lately happened in that Church of which it is the boast
 
 12 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 and pride that she is " from change and all mutation free." 
 Pius IX., exasperated at the loss of his territories, fulminates 
 excommunications into the air, addressed to all whom it 
 may concern those concerned being two persons only, the 
 King of Italy and the French Emperor, a proceeding inter- 
 esting to the world, in so far as it shows that the Pope is 
 somewhat ashamed of his once formidable spiritual weapon. 
 Mark the effect of the thunder among his own priesthood. 
 Of the Italian clergy, upwards of 8,000, headed by the 
 learned Passaglia, approach him with a petition praying that 
 he will now resign the whole of that temporal power of 
 which he has repeatedly and publicly declared thai he 
 cannot part with the smallest portion, and the invasion of a 
 part of which had so lately called forth his severest spiritual 
 censure. While an important section of the Italian clergy 
 is thus giving a practical exemplification of Catholic unity, 
 some of our divines, eminent for learning, piety, and worth, 
 are evincing uneasiness under the pressure of standards and 
 formulas which they had previously accepted and sub- 
 scribed. Questions have been raised by them, certainly in 
 no unbecoming spirit, on subjects on which a few years ago 
 speculation would hardly have been considered allowable to 
 persons of their cloth. They have endeavoured to show 
 how old ideas may bear new meanings, how old truths may 
 be brought into new combinations. Even those who have 
 entered the lists as their antagonists, professing to stand 
 strictly upon the ancient ways, seem sometimes to have 
 indulged if I may venture to judge in novelties of their 
 own. 
 
 Upon these controversies this is no time or place to 
 enter. But their existence, and the interest they excite, 
 betoken a time of unusually free and active inquiry. I 
 cannot help pointing out the importance of these questions, 
 and this temper of the time, to you who are preparing your- 
 selves for the ministry. I ask you seriously to consider 
 how painful must be the position of the man who has to 
 reconcile convictions which have been slowly growing up 
 in his matured mind with vows taken, perhaps somewhat
 
 SIX WILLIAM STIRLING-MAXWELL 13 
 
 hastily, in his youth, and who, even if he succeeds in satis- 
 fying his own conscience, knows that the meaning which he 
 now attaches to these vows is not the meaning which they 
 commonly bear amongst those who have also taken them. 
 With a mind fully endowed and cultivated, and a faith 
 securely fixed, a minister of the Gospel stands second to 
 none in the dignity and usefulness of his calling. But if 
 he, imperfectly informed himself, doubting himself, under- 
 takes to enlighten the ignorance and solve the doubts of 
 others, then he is of all professional men the most super- 
 fluous and the most miserable. Let me entreat you, while 
 you are still without the pale of the one calling which a 
 man can hardly quit without some shadow of discredit, to 
 consider well the difficulties which lie on the threshold and 
 the difficulties which you may find within. Eecollect that 
 on the day you enter it, you engage that your then thoughts 
 and opinions, on a wide range of complex subjects, shall be 
 the thoughts and opinions of your whole life. If you feel 
 any misgiving as to your power of keeping this engagement, 
 let the painful conflicts on this very matter which have 
 fallen to the lot of others, warn you, while there is yet time, 
 to seek some other field of exertion. If, on the other hand, 
 you feel no such misgiving, and resolve to continue your 
 preparation for the ministry, remember that that preparation 
 demands the strenuous exercise of all your faculties ; and 
 especially set before you that precept of the Gospel which 
 you aspire to preach, which bids you " Prove all things, and 
 hold fast that which is good." 
 
 In conclusion, I shall take the liberty of offering a few 
 remarks on the nature and duties of the office in virtue of 
 which I have the honour to address you. The office, as it 
 at present exists in our Universities, is, as you are aware, 
 the creation of the Universities Act of 1858. It was not 
 created without some discussion, though, as that discussion 
 took place not in Parliament, but at a full meeting of 
 Scotch members, no report of it was published. Those who 
 objected to the creation did so on the ground that as the 
 example of Glasgow rectorial elections was sure to be
 
 14 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 followed, the elections would be apt to be mere political 
 contests ; and that such contests might both interfere with 
 academical discipline, and have the effect of introducing 
 amongst the students habits of premature political partisan- 
 ship. On the other side, it was argued that it was a whole- 
 some principle in a free country to introduce a good deal 
 of the popular element into all our institutions ; that the 
 students had never yet made any choice that was not 
 creditable to them ; and that when the office ceased to, be 
 merely honorary, political leaders would be less ready than 
 in former times to accept it. I think I may safely say that 
 the majority who decided the question, and the minority 
 who acquiesced in their decision, did so in the hope that the 
 political element in the elections would be diminished 
 rather than increased by the proposed changes. If there be 
 a danger of its again unduly predominating, I think it will 
 arise from the belief, natural perhaps, but unsound never- 
 theless, that some advantage will arise to the Universities 
 from their rectors being distinguished politicians, or at least 
 members of the House of Commons. 1 Desiring very 
 earnestly to see our Universities enjoy direct representation 
 in that House, I must take the liberty of warning you 
 who, I hope, may one day vote for a member for the 
 Scottish Universities against supposing that Parliamentary 
 rectors are likely to fructify into Parliamentary representa- 
 tives. Suppose some English borough " much bemused in 
 beer" and bribery, to be disfranchised next month, and the 
 Scotch members to make an effort to secure the seat for our 
 Universities observe what is not unlikely, under present 
 circumstances, to happen. Other claimants advocating 
 the claims of London, Middlesex, Cork, and I know not how 
 many other constituencies may say to us : " You are 
 making a very unreasonable demand ; your Universities 
 have three rectors in the House already two of them the 
 Prime Minister and his first lieutenant ; they are, in fact, 
 
 1 This impression was sufficiently apparent in some of the speeches at the 
 meetings preliminary to the late rectorial elections at St. Andrews, Glasgow, 
 and Edinburgh.
 
 SIR WILLIAM STIRLING-MAXWELL 15 
 
 almost as strongly represented in point of numbers as the 
 English Universities, and we protest against giving them a 
 fourth seat." My two distinguished colleagues, with whom 
 it is an honour to be associated, are, I fear, but too likely 
 to take the same course and use the same argument. This 
 adverse argument naturally arises from selecting rectors 
 from the House of Commons. Until Parliament will con- 
 sent to do justice to the claims of the Scotch Universities, 
 their real representatives are and must be the members for 
 the towns and counties in which they are situated. Your 
 rectors have certain duties to perform here, and they ought 
 to be chosen chiefly with a view to the efficient performance 
 of these duties with due regard, of course, had to personal 
 character and not with a view to other functions which 
 certainly do not belong to the office, and which can hardly 
 be safely assumed. It only remains for me to thank you 
 for the attention with which you have heard me, and to 
 announce my intention to give an annual ten-guinea prize, 
 during my tenure of office, for the best English essay the 
 subject of the first of-which will ere long be made public.
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 REGTOR FROM 1865 TO 1868 
 Address Delivered on February 1, 1867 
 
 ?>
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 In complying with the custom which prescribes that the 
 person whom you have called by your suffrages to the 
 honorary presidency of your University should embody in 
 an address a few thoughts on the subjects which most 
 nearly concern a seat of liberal education, let me begin by 
 saying that this usage appears to me highly commendable. 
 Education, in its larger sense, is one of the most inexhaust- 
 ible of all topics. Though there is hardly any subject on 
 which so much has been written, by so many of the wisest 
 men, it is as fresh to those who come to it with a fresh 
 mind, a mind not hopelessly filled with other people's 
 conclusions, as it was to the first explorers of it : and not- 
 withstanding the great mass of excellent things which 
 have been said respecting it, no thoughtful person finds 
 any lack of things both great and small still waiting to be 
 said, or waiting to be developed and followed out to their 
 consequences. Education, moreover, is one of the subjects 
 which most essentially require to be considered by various 
 minds, and from a variety of points of view. For, of all 
 many-sided subjects, it is the one which has the greatest 
 number of sides. Not only does it include whatever we 
 do for ourselves, and whatever is done for us by others, for 
 the express purpose of bringing us somewhat nearer to 
 the perfection of our nature ; it does more. In its largest 
 acceptation, it comprehends even the indirect effects pro- 
 duced on character and on the human faculties, by things 
 of which the direct purposes are quite different ; by laws, by 
 forms of government, by the industrial arts, by modes of 
 social life ; nay, even by physical facts not dependent on
 
 20 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 human will ; by climate, soil, and local position. Whatever 
 helps to shape the human being to make the individual 
 what he is, or hinder him from being what he is not is 
 part of his education. And a very bad education it often 
 is ; requiring all that can be done by cultivated intelligence 
 and will, to counteract its tendencies. To take an obvious 
 instance : the niggardliness of Nature in some places, by 
 engrossing the whole energies of the human being in the 
 mere preservation of life, and her over -bounty in others, 
 affording a sort of brutish subsistence on too easy terms, 
 with hardly any exertion of the human faculties, are both 
 hostile to the spontaneous growth and development of the 
 mind ; and it is at those two extremes of the scale that we 
 find human societies in the state of most unmitigated 
 savagery. I shall confine myself, however, to education in 
 the narrower sense ; the culture which each generation 
 purposely gives to those who are to be its successors, in 
 order to qualify them for at least keeping up, and if possible 
 for raising, the level of improvement which has been 
 attained. Nearly all here present are daily occupied either 
 in receiving or in giving this sort of education : and the 
 part of it which most concerns you at present is that in 
 which you are yourselves engaged the education which 
 is the appointed business of a national University. 
 
 The proper function of a University in national 
 education is tolerably well understood. At least there is a 
 tolerably general agreement about what a University is 
 not. It is not a place of professional education. Univer- 
 sities are not intended to teach the knowledge required to 
 fit men for some special mode of gaining their livelihood. 
 Their object is not to make skilful lawyers, or physicians, 
 or engineers, but capable and cultivated human beings. It 
 is very right that there should be public facilities for the 
 study of professions. It is well that there should be 
 Schools of Law, and of Medicine, and it would be well if 
 there were schools of Engineering, and the industrial arts. 
 The countries which have such institutions are greatly the 
 better for them ; and there is something to be said for
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 21 
 
 having them in the same localities, and under the same 
 general superintendence, as the establishments devoted to 
 education properly so called. But these things are no 
 part of what every generation owes to the next, as that on 
 which its civilisation and worth will principally depend. 
 They are needed only by a comparatively few, who are 
 under the strongest private inducements to acquire them by 
 their own efforts ; and even those few do not require them 
 until after their education, in the ordinary sense, has been 
 completed. Whether those whose speciality they are, will 
 learn them as a branch of intelligence or as a mere trade, 
 and whether, having learnt them, they will make a wise 
 and conscientious use of them or the reverse, depends less 
 on the manner in which they are taught their profession, 
 than upon what sort of minds they bring to it what kind 
 of intelligence, and of conscience, the general system of 
 education has developed in them. Men are men before 
 they are lawyers, or physicians, or merchants, or manu- 
 facturers ; and if you make them capable and sensible men, 
 they will make themselves capable and sensible lawyers or 
 physicians. What professional men should carry away with 
 them from a University, is not professional knowledge, but 
 that which should direct the use of their professional 
 knowledge, and bring the light of general culture to 
 illuminate the technicalities of a special pursuit. " Men 
 may be competent lawyers without general education, but 
 it depends on general education to make them philosophic 
 lawyers who demand, and are capable of apprehending, 
 principles, instead of merely cramming their memory with 
 details. And so of all other useful pursuits, mechanical 
 included. Education makes a man a more intelligent 
 shoemaker, if that be his occupation, but not by teaching 
 him how to make shoes ; it does so by the mental exercise 
 it gives, and the habits it impresses. 
 
 This, then, is what a mathematician would call the 
 higher limit of University education : its province ends 
 where education, ceasing to be general, branches off into 
 departments adapted to the individual's destination in life.
 
 22 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 The lower limit is more difficult to define. A University 
 is not concerned with elementary instruction : the pupil is 
 supposed to have acquired that before coming here. But 
 where does elementary instruction end, and the higher 
 studies begin ? Some have given a very wide extension to 
 the idea of elementary instruction. According to them, it is 
 not the office of a University to give instruction in single 
 branches of knowledge from the commencement. What the 
 pupil should be taught here (they think), is to methodise 
 his knowledge : to look at every separate part of it in its 
 relation to the other parts, and to the whole ; combining 
 the partial glimpses which he has obtained of the field of 
 human knowledge at different points, into a general map, if 
 I may so speak, of the entire region ; observing how all 
 knowledge is connected, how we ascend to one branch by 
 means of another, how the higher modifies the lower, and 
 the lower helps us to understand the higher ; how every 
 existing reality is a compound of many properties, of which 
 each science or distinct mode of study reveals but a small 
 part, but the whole of which must be included to enable us 
 to know it truly as a fact in Nature, and not as a mere 
 abstraction. 
 
 This last stage of general education, destined to give the 
 pupil a comprehensive and connected view of the things 
 which he has already learnt separately, includes a philo- 
 sophic study of the Methods of the Sciences; the modes in 
 which the human intellect proceeds from the known to the 
 unknown. We must be taught to generalise our conception 
 of the resources which the human mind possesses for the 
 exploration of nature ; to understand how man discovers 
 the real facts of the world, and by what tests he can judge 
 whether he has really found them. And doubtless this is 
 the crown and consummation of a liberal education : but 
 before we restrict a University to this highest department 
 of instruction before we confine it to teaching, not know- 
 ledge, but the philosophy of knowledge we must be assured 
 that the knowledge itself has been acquired elsewhere. 
 Those who take this view of the function of a University
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 23 
 
 are not wrong in thinking that the Schools, as distinguished 
 from the Universities, ought to be adequate to teaching 
 every branch of general instruction required by youth, so 
 far as it can be studied apart from the rest. But where 
 are such schools to be found? Since science assumed its 
 modern character, nowhere: and in these islands less even 
 than elsewhere. This ancient kingdom, thanks to its great 
 religious reformers, had the inestimable advantage, denied 
 to its southern sister, of excellent parish schools, which 
 gave, really and not in pretence, a considerable amount of 
 valuable literary instruction to the bulk of the population, 
 two centuries earlier than in any other country. But 
 schools of a still higher description have been, even in 
 Scotland, so few and inadequate, that the Universities have 
 had to perform largely the functions which ought to be 
 performed by schools ; receiving students at an early age, 
 and undertaking not only the work for which the schools 
 should have prepared them, but much of the preparation 
 itself. Every Scottish University is not a University only, 
 but a High School, to supply the deficiency of other schools. 
 And if the English Universities do not do the same, it is 
 not because the same need does not exist, but because it is 
 disregarded. Youths come to the Scottish Universities 
 ignorant, and are there taught. The majority of those who 
 come to the English Universities come still more ignorant, 
 and ignorant they go away. 
 
 In point of fact, therefore, the office of a Scottish 
 University comprises the whole of a liberal education, from 
 the foundations upwards. And the scheme of your Univer- 
 sities has, almost from the beginning, really aimed at 
 including the whole, both in depth and in breadth. You 
 have not, as the English Universities so long did, confined 
 all the stress of your teaching, all your real effort to teach, 
 within the limits of two subjects, the classical languages 
 and mathematics. You did not wait till the last few years 
 to establish a Natural Science and a Moral Science Tripos. 
 Instruction in both those departments was organised long 
 ago ; and your teachers of those subjects have not been
 
 24 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 nominal professors, who did not lecture : some of the 
 greatest names in physical and in moral science have 
 taught in your Universities, and by their teaching contri- 
 buted to form some of the most distinguished intellects of 
 the last and present centuries. To comment upon the 
 course of education at the Scottish Universities is to pass 
 in review every essential department of general culture. 
 The best use, then, which I am able to make of the present 
 occasion, is to offer a few remarks on each of those depart- 
 ments, considered in its relation to human cultivation at 
 large : adverting to the nature of the claims which each has 
 to a place in liberal education ; in what special manner 
 they each conduce to the improvement of the individual 
 mind and the benefit of the race ; and how they all con- 
 spire to the common end, the strengthening, exalting, 
 purifying, and beautifying of our common nature, and the 
 fitting out of mankind with the necessary mental imple- 
 ments for the work they have to perform through life. 
 
 Let me first say a few words on the great controversy 
 of the present day with regard to the higher education, the 
 difference which most broadly divides educational reformers 
 and conservatives ; the vexed question between the ancient 
 languages and the modern sciences and arts ; whether 
 general education should be classical let me use a wider 
 expression, and say literary or scientific. A dispute as 
 endlessly, and often as fruitlessly agitated as that old 
 controversy which it resembles, made memorable by the 
 names of Swift and Sir William Temple in England and 
 Fontenelle in France the contest for superiority between 
 the ancients and the moderns. This question, whether we 
 should be taught the classics or the sciences, seems to me, I 
 confess, very like a dispute whether painters should cultivate 
 drawing or colouring, or, to use a more homely illustration, 
 whether a tailor should make coats or trousers. I can 
 only reply by the question, why not both ? Can anything 
 deserve the name of a good education which does not include 
 literature and science too ? If there were no more to be 
 said than that scientific education teaches us to think,
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 25 
 
 and literary education to express our thoughts, do we not 
 require both ? and is not any one a poor, maimed, lopsided 
 fragment of humanity who is deficient in either ? We are 
 not obliged to ask ourselves whether it is more important 
 to know the languages or the sciences. Short as life is, 
 and shorter still as we make it by the time we waste on 
 things which are neither business, nor meditation, nor 
 pleasure, we are not so badly off that our scholars need be 
 ignorant of the laws and properties of the world they live 
 in, or our scientific men destitute of poetic feeling and 
 artistic cultivation. I am amazed at the limited conception 
 which many educational reformers have formed to them- 
 selves of a human being's power of acquisition. The study 
 of science, they truly say, is indispensable : our present 
 education neglects it : there is truth in this too, though it is 
 not all truth : and they think it impossible to find room for 
 the studies which they desire to encourage, but by turning 
 out, at least from general education, those which are now 
 chiefly cultivated. How absurd, they say, that the whole 
 of boyhood should be taken up in acquiring an imperfect 
 knowledge of two dead languages. Absurd indeed : but is 
 the human mind's capacity to learn measured by that of 
 Eton and Westminster to teach ? I should prefer to see 
 these reformers pointing their attacks against the shameful 
 inefficiency of the schools, public and private, which pretend 
 to teach these two languages and do not. I should like to 
 hear them denounce the wretched methods of teaching, and 
 the criminal idleness and supineness, which waste the entire 
 boyhood of the pupils without really giving to most of them 
 more than a smattering, if even that, of the only kind of 
 knowledge which is even pretended to be cared for. Let us 
 try what conscientious and intelligent teaching can do, 
 before we presume to decide what cannot be done. 
 
 Scotland has on the whole, in this respect, been con- 
 siderably more fortunate than England. Scotch youths 
 have never found it impossible to leave school or the 
 university, having learnt somewhat of other things besides 
 Greek and Latin ; and why ? Because Greek and Latin
 
 26 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 have been better taught. A beginning of classical instruc- 
 tion has all along been made in the common schools : and 
 the common schools of Scotland, like her Universities, 
 have never been the mere shams that the English Univer- 
 sities were during the last century, and the greater part of 
 the English classical schools still are. The only tolerable 
 Latin grammars for school purposes that I know of, which 
 had been produced in these islands until very lately, were 
 written by Scotchmen. Eeason, indeed, is beginning to find 
 its way by gradual infiltration even into English schools, 
 and to maintain a contest, though as yet a very unequal 
 one, against routine. A few practical reformers of school 
 tuition, of whom Arnold was the most eminent, have 
 made a beginning of amendment in many things : but 
 reforms, worthy of the name, are always slow, and reform 
 even of governments and churches is not so slow as that of 
 schools, for there is the great preliminary difficulty of 
 fashioning the instruments : of teaching the teachers." If 
 all the improvements in the mode of teaching languages 
 which are already sanctioned by experience, were adopted 
 into our classical schools, we should soon cease to hear of 
 Latin and Greek as studies which must engross the school 
 years, and render impossible any other acquirements. If a 
 boy learnt Greek and Latin on the same principle on which 
 a mere child learns with such ease and rapidity any modern 
 language, namely, by acquiring some familiarity with the 
 vocabulary by practice and repetition, before being troubled 
 with grammatical rules those rules being acquired with 
 tenfold greater facility when the cases to which they apply 
 are already familiar to the mind ; an average schoolboy, 
 long before the age at which schooling terminates, would be 
 able to read fluently and with intelligent interest any 
 ordinary Latin or Greek author in prose or verse, would 
 have a competent knowledge of the grammatical structure 
 of both languages, and have had time besides for an ample 
 amount of scientific instruction. I might go much further; 
 but I am as unwilling to speak out all that I think practic- 
 able in this matter, as George Stephenson was about
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 27 
 
 railways, when he calculated the average speed of a train 
 at ten miles an hour, because if he had estimated it higher, 
 the practical men would have turned a deaf ear to him, as 
 that most unsafe character in their estimation, an enthusiast 
 and a visionary. The results have shown, in that case, who 
 was the real practical man. What the results would show 
 in the other case, I will not attempt to anticipate. But I 
 will say confidently, that if the two classical languages were 
 properly taught, there would be no need whatever for 
 ejecting them from the school course, in order to have 
 sufficient time for everything else that need be included 
 therein. 
 
 Let me say a few words more on this strangely limited 
 estimate of what it is possible for human beings to learn, 
 resting on a tacit assumption that they are already as 
 efficiently taught as they ever can be. So narrow a con- 
 ception not only vitiates our idea of education, but actually, 
 if we receive it, darkens our anticipations as to the future 
 progress of mankind. For if the inexorable conditions of 
 human life make it useless for one man to attempt to know 
 more than one thing, what is to become of the human 
 intellect as facts accumulate ? In every generation, and 
 now more rapidly than ever, the things which it is 
 necessary that somebody should know are more and more 
 multiplied. Every department of knowledge becomes so 
 loaded with details, that one who endeavours to know it 
 with minute accuracy, must confine himself to a smaller 
 and smaller portion of the whole extent : every science and 
 art must be cut up into subdivisions, until each man's 
 portion, the district which he thoroughly knows, bears about 
 the same ratio to the whole range of useful knowledge that 
 the art of putting on a pin's head does to the field of human 
 industry. Now, if in order to know that little completely, 
 it is necessary to remain wholly ignorant of all the rest, 
 what will soon be the worth of a man, for any human 
 purpose except his own infinitesimal fraction of human 
 wants and requirements ? His state will be even worse 
 than that of simple ignorance. Experience proves that
 
 28 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 there is no one study or pursuit, which, practised to the 
 exclusion of all others, does not narrow and pervert the 
 mind ; breeding in it a class of prejudices special to that 
 pursuit, besides a general prejudice, common to all narrow 
 specialities, against large views, from an incapacity to take 
 in and appreciate the grounds of them. We should have 
 to expect that human nature would be more and more 
 dwarfed, and unfitted for great things, by its very proficiency 
 in small ones. But matters are not so bad with us : there 
 is no ground for so dreary an anticipation. It is not the 
 utmost limit of human acquirement to know only one thing, 
 but to combine a minute knowledge of one or a few things 
 with a general knowledge of many things. By a general 
 knowledge I do not mean a few vague impressions. An 
 eminent man, one of whose writings is part of the course of 
 this University, Archbishop Whately, has well discriminated 
 between a general knowledge and a superficial knowledge. 
 To have a general knowledge of a subject is to know only 
 its leading truths, but to know these not superficially but 
 thoroughly, so as to have a true conception of the subject 
 in its great features ; leaving the minor details to those who 
 require them for the purposes of their special pursuit. 
 There is no incompatibility between knowing a wide range 
 of subjects up to this point, and some one subject with the 
 completeness required by those who make it their principal 
 occupation. It is this combination which gives an enlight- 
 ened public : a body of cultivated intellects, each taught by 
 its attainments in its own province what real knowledge is, 
 and knowing enough of other subjects to be able to discern 
 who are those that know them better. The amount of 
 knowledge is not to be lightly estimated, which qualifies us 
 for judging to whom we may have recourse for more. The 
 elements of the more important studies being widely diffused, 
 those who have reached the higher summits find a public 
 capable of appreciating their superiority, and prepared to 
 follow their lead. It is thus too that minds are formed 
 capable of guiding and improving public opinion on the 
 greater concerns of practical life. Government and civil
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 29 
 
 society are the most complicated of all subjects accessible 
 to the human mind : and he who would deal competently 
 with them as a thinker, and not as a blind follower of a 
 party, requires not only a general knowledge of the leading 
 facts of life, both moral and material, but an understanding 
 exercised and disciplined in the principles and rules of 
 sound thinking, up to a point which neither the experience 
 of life, nor any one science or branch of knowledge, affords. 
 Let us understand, then, that it should be our aim in 
 learning, not merely to know the one thing which is to be 
 our principal occupation, as well as it can be known, but to 
 do this and also to know something of all the great subjects 
 of human interest : taking care to know that something 
 accurately ; marking well the dividing line between what 
 we know accurately and what we do not ; and remembering 
 that our object should be to obtain a true view of nature 
 and life in their broad outline, and that it is idle to throw 
 away time upon the details of anything which is to form no 
 part of the occupation of our practical energies. 
 
 It by no means follows, however, that every useful 
 branch of general, as distinct from professional, knowledge, 
 should be included in the curriculum of school or university 
 studies. There are things which are better learnt out of 
 school, or when the school years, and even those usually 
 passed in a Scottish University, are over. I do not agree 
 with those reformers who would give a regular and pro- 
 minent place in the school or University course to modern 
 languages. This is not because I attach small importance 
 to the knowledge of them. No one can in our age be 
 esteemed a well-instructed person who is not familiar with 
 at least the French language, so as to read French books 
 with ease ; and there is great use in cultivating a familiarity 
 with German. But living languages are so much more 
 easily acquired by intercourse with those who use them in 
 daily life ; a few months in the country itself, if properly 
 employed, go so much farther than as many years of school 
 lessons ; that it is really waste of time for those to whom 
 that easier mode is attainable, to labour at them with no
 
 30 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 help but that of books and masters : and it will in time be 
 made attainable, through international schools and colleges, 
 to many more than at present. Universities do enough to 
 facilitate the study of modern languages, if they give a 
 mastery over that ancient language which is the foundation 
 of most of them, and the possession of which makes it 
 easier to learn four or five of the continental languages, 
 than it is to learn one of them without it. Again, it has 
 always seemed to me a great absurdity that history and 
 geography should be taught in schools ; except in elementary 
 schools for the children of the labouring classes, whose 
 subsequent access to books is limited. Who ever really 
 learnt history and geography except by private reading ? 
 and what an utter failure a system of education must be, if 
 it has not given the pupil a sufficient taste for reading to 
 seek for himself those most attractive and easily intelligible 
 of all kinds of knowledge ? Besides, such history and 
 geography as can be taught in schools exercise none of 
 the faculties of the intelligence except the memory. A 
 University is indeed the place where the student should be 
 introduced to the Philosophy of History ; where Professors 
 who not merely know the facts, but have exercised their 
 minds on them, should initiate him into the causes and 
 explanation, so far as within our reach, of the past life of 
 mankind in its principal features. Historical criticism also 
 the test of historical truth is a subject to which his 
 attention may well be drawn in this stage of his education. 
 But of the mere facts of history, as commonly accepted, 
 what educated youth of any mental activity does not learn 
 as much as is necessary, if he is simply turned loose into an 
 historical library? What he needs on this, and on most 
 other matters of common information, is not that he should 
 be taught it in boyhood, but that abundance of books should 
 be accessible to him. p 
 
 The only Languages, then, and the only Literatures, to 
 which I would allow a place in the ordinary curriculum, are 
 those of the Greeks and Romans ; and to these I would 
 preserve the position in it which they at present occupy.
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 31 
 
 That position is justified, by the great value, in education, 
 of knowing well some other cultivated language and liter- 
 ature than one's own, and by the peculiar value of those 
 particular languages and literatures. 
 
 There is one purely intellectual benefit from a know- 
 ledge of languages, which I am specially desirous to dwell 
 on. Those who have seriously reflected on the causes of 
 human error, have been deeply impressed with the tendency 
 of mankind to mistake words for things. Without entering 
 into the metaphysics of the subject, we know how common 
 it is to use words glibly and with apparent propriety, and 
 to accept them confidently when used by others, without 
 ever having had any distinct conception of the things 
 denoted by them. To quote again from Archbishop 
 Whately, it is the habit of mankind to mistake familiarity 
 for accurate knowledge. As we seldom think of asking the 
 meaning of what we see every day, so when our ears are 
 used to the sound of a word or a phrase, we do not suspect 
 that it conveys no clear idea to our minds, and that we 
 should have the utmost difficulty in defining it, or expressing, 
 in any other words, what we think we understand by it. 
 Now it is obvious in what manner this bad habit tends to 
 be corrected by the practice of translating with accuracy 
 from one language to another, and hunting out the meanings 
 expressed in a vocabulary with which we have not grown 
 familiar by early and constant use. I hardly know any 
 greater proof of the extraordinary genius of the Greeks, than 
 that they were able to make such brilliant achievements in 
 abstract thought, knowing, as they generally did, no language 
 but their own. But the Greeks did not escape the effects 
 of this deficiency. Their greatest intellects, those who laid 
 the foundation of philosophy and of all our intellectual 
 culture, Plato and Aristotle, are continually led away by 
 words ; mistaking the accidents of language for real relations 
 in nature, and supposing that things which have the same 
 name in the Greek tongue must be the same in their own 
 essence. There is a well-known saying of Hobbes, the far- 
 reaching significance of which you will more and more
 
 32 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 appreciate in proportion to the growth of your own intellect : 
 " Words are the counters of wise men, but the money of 
 fools." With the wise man a word stands for the fact 
 which it represents ; to the fool it is itself the fact. To 
 carry on Hobbes' metaphor, the counter is far more likely 
 to be taken for merely w T hat it is, by those who are in the 
 habit of using many different kinds of counters. But 
 besides the advantage of possessing another cultivated 
 language, there is a further consideration equally important. 
 Without knowing the language of a people, we never really 
 know their thoughts, their feelings, and their type of char- 
 acter : and unless we do possess this knowledge, of some 
 other people than ourselves, we remain, to the hour of our 
 death, with our intellects only half expanded. Look at a 
 youth who has never been out of his family circle : he 
 never dreams of any other opinions or ways of thinking than 
 those he has been bred up in ; or, if he has heard of any 
 such, attributes them to some moral defect, or inferiority of 
 nature or education. If his family are Tory, he cannot 
 conceive the possibility of being a Liberal ; if Liberal, of 
 being a Tory. What the notions and habits of a single 
 family are to a boy who has had no intercourse beyond it, 
 the notions and habits of his own country are to him who 
 is ignorant of every other. Those notions and habits are to 
 him Human Nature itself ; whatever varies from them is an 
 unaccountable aberration which he cannot mentally realise : 
 the idea that any other ways can be right, or as near an 
 approach to right as some of his own, is inconceivable to 
 him. This does not merely close his eyes to the many 
 things which every country still has to learn from others : 
 it hinders every country from reaching the improvement 
 which it could otherwise attain by itself. We are not likely 
 to correct any of our opinions, or mend any of our ways, 
 unless we begin by conceiving that they are capable of 
 amendment : but merely to know that foreigners think 
 differently from ourselves, without understanding why they 
 do so, or what they really do think, does but confirm us in 
 our self-conceit, and connect our national vanity with the
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 33 
 
 preservation of our own peculiarities. Improvement consists 
 in bringing our opinions into nearer agreement with facts ; 
 and we shall not be likely to do this while we look at facts 
 only through glasses coloured by those very opinions. But 
 since we cannot divest ourselves of preconceived notions, 
 there is no known means of eliminating their influence but 
 by frequently using the differently coloured glasses of other 
 people : and those of other nations, as the most different, are 
 the best. 
 
 But if it is so useful, on this account, to know the 
 Language and Literature of any other cultivated and civilised 
 people, the most valuable of all to us in this respect are 
 the languages and literature of the ancients. No nations of 
 modern and civilised Europe are so unlike one another, as 
 the Greeks and Eomans are unlike all of us ; yet without 
 being, as some remote Orientals are, so totally dissimilar, 
 that the labour of a life is required to enable us to under- 
 stand them. Were this the only gain to be derived from a 
 knowledge of the ancients, it would already place the study 
 of them in a high rank among enlightening and liberalising 
 pursuits. It is of no use saying that we may know them 
 through modern writings. We may know something of them 
 in that way ; which is much better than knowing nothing. 
 But modern books do not teach us ancient thought ; they 
 teach us some modern writer's notion of ancient thought. 
 Modern books do not show us the Greeks and Eomans ; 
 they tell us some modern writer's opinions about the Greeks 
 and Eomans. Translations are scarcely better. When we 
 want really to know what a person thinks or says, we seek 
 it at first hand from himself. We do not trust to another 
 person's impression of his meaning, given in another person's 
 words ; we refer to his own. Much more is it necessary to 
 do so when his words are in one language, and those of his 
 reporter in another. Modern phraseology never conveys the 
 exact meaning of a Greek writer ; it cannot do so, except by 
 a diffuse explanatory circumlocution which no translator 
 dares use. We must be able, in a certain degree, to think 
 in Greek, if we would represent to ourselves how a Greek 
 
 3
 
 34 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 thought : and this not only in the abstruse region of 
 metaphysics, but about the political, religious, and even 
 domestic concerns of life. I will mention a further aspect 
 of this question, which, though I have not the merit of 
 orisnnatirjo- it, I do not remember to have seen noticed in 
 any book. There is no part of our knowledge which it is 
 more useful to obtain at first hand to go to the fountain 
 head for than our knowledge of History. Yet this, in 
 most cases, we hardly ever do. Our conception of the past 
 is not drawn from its own records, but from books written 
 about it; containing not the facts, but a view of the facts, 
 which has shape^ itself in the mind of somebody, of our own 
 or a very recent time. Such books are very instructive and 
 valuable ; they help us to understand history, to interpret 
 history, to draw just conclusions from it ; at the worst, they 
 set us the example of trying to do all this ; but they are 
 not themselves history. The knowledge they give is upon 
 trust, and even when they have done their best, it is not 
 only incomplete but partial, because confined to what a few 
 modern writers have seen in the materials, and have thought 
 worth picking out from among them. How little we learn 
 of our own ancestors from Hume, or Hallam, or Macaulay, 
 compared with what we know if we add to what these tell 
 us, even a little reading of contemporary authors and docu- 
 ments ! The most recent historians are so well aware of 
 this, that they fill their pages with extracts from the 
 original materials, feeling that these extracts are the real 
 history, and their comments and thread of narrative are 
 only helps towards understanding it. Now it is part of the 
 great worth to us of our Greek and Latin studies, that in 
 them we do read history in the original sources. We are 
 in actual contact with contemporary minds; we are not de- 
 pendent on hearsay ; we have something by which we can 
 test and check the representations and theories of modern 
 historians. It may be asked, why then not study the 
 original materials of modern history ? I answer, it is highly 
 desirable to do so ; and let me remark by the way, that 
 even this requires a dead language, nearly all the docu-
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 35 
 
 ments prior to the Eeformation, and many subsequent to it, 
 being written in Latin. But the exploration of these 
 documents, though a most useful pursuit, cannot be a 
 branch of education. Not to speak of their vast extent, and 
 the fragmentary nature of each, the strongest reason is, that 
 in learning the spirit of our own past ages, until a compara- 
 tively recent period, from contemporary writers, we learn 
 hardly anything else. Those authors, with a few exceptions, 
 are little worth reading on their own account. While, in 
 studying the great writers of antiquity, we are not only 
 learning to understand the ancient mind, but laying in a 
 stock of wise thought and observation, still valuable to our- 
 selves ; and at the same time making ourselves familiar with 
 a number of the most perfect and finished literary composi- 
 tions which the human mind has produced compositions 
 which, from the altered conditions of human life, are likely 
 to be seldom paralleled, in their sustained excellence, by the 
 times to come. 
 
 Even as mere languages, no modern European language 
 is so valuable a discipline to the intellect as those of Greece 
 and Rome, on account of their regular and complicated 
 structure. Consider for a moment what Grammar is. It is 
 the most elementary part of Logic. It is the beginning of 
 the analysis of the thinking process. The principles and 
 rules of grammar are the means by which the forms of 
 language are made to correspond with the universal forms of 
 thought. The distinctions between the various parts of 
 speech, between the cases of nouns, the moods and tenses of 
 verbs, the functions of particles, are distinctions in thought, 
 not merely in words. Single nouns and verbs express 
 objects and events, many of which can be cognised by the 
 senses : but the modes of putting nouns and verbs together, 
 express the relations of objects and events, which can be 
 cognised only by the intellect ; and each different mode 
 corresponds to a different relation. The structure of every 
 sentence is a lesson in logic. The various rules of syntax 
 oblige us to distinguish between the subject and predicate 
 of a proposition, between the agent, the action, and the thing
 
 36 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 acted upon ; to mark when an idea is intended to modify or 
 qualify, or merely to unite with, some other idea ; what 
 assertions are categorical, what only conditional ; whether 
 the intention is to express similarity or contrast, to make a 
 plurality of assertions conjunctively or disjunctively ; what 
 portions of a sentence, though grammatically complete 
 within themselves, are mere members or subordinate parts 
 of the assertion made by the entire sentence. Such things 
 form the subject-matter of universal grammar; and the 
 languages which teach it best are those which have the most 
 definite rules, and which provide distinct forms for the 
 greatest number of distinctions in thought, so that if we fail 
 to attend precisely and accurately to any of these, we cannot 
 avoid committing a solecism in language. In these qualities 
 the classical languages have an incomparable superiority 
 over every modern language, and over all languages, dead 
 or living, which have a literature worth being generally 
 studied. 
 
 But the superiority of the literature itself, for purposes of 
 education, is still more marked and decisive. Even in the 
 substantial value of the matter of which it is the vehicle, it 
 is very far from having been superseded. The discoveries of 
 the ancients in science have been greatly surpassed, and as 
 much of them as is still valuable loses nothing by being- 
 incorporated in modern treatises : but what does not so well 
 admit of being transferred bodily, and has been very 
 imperfectly carried off even piecemeal, is the treasure which 
 they accumulated of what may be called the wisdom of life : 
 the rich store of experience of human nature and conduct, 
 which the acute and observing minds of those ages, aided in 
 their observations by the greater simplicity of manners and 
 life, consigned to their writings, and most of which retains 
 all its value. The speeches in Thucydides ; the Rhetoric, 
 Ethics, and Politics of Aristotle ; the Dialogues of Plato ; 
 the Orations of Demosthenes ; the Satires, and especially the 
 Epistles of Horace ; all the writings of Tacitus ; the great 
 work of Quintilian, a repertory of the best thoughts of the 
 ancient world on all subjects connected with education ; and,
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 37 
 
 in a less formal manner, all that is left to us of the ancient 
 historians, orators, philosophers, and even dramatists, are re- 
 plete with remarks and maxims of singular good sense and 
 penetration, applicable both to political and to private life : 
 and the actual truths we find in them are even surpassed in 
 value by the encouragement and help they give us in the pur- 
 suit of truth. Human invention has never produced anything 
 so valuable, in the way both of stimulation and of discipline 
 to the inquiring intellect, as the Dialectic of the ancients, of 
 which many of the works of Aristotle illustrate the theory, 
 and those of Plato exhibit the practice. No modern writings 
 come near to these, in teaching, both by precept and example, 
 the way to investigate truth, on those subjects, so vastly im- 
 portant to us, which remain matters of controversy, from the 
 difficulty or impossibility of bringing them to a directly ex- 
 perimental test. To question all things ; never to turn away 
 from any difficulty ; to accept no doctrine either from our- 
 selves or from other people without a rigid scrutiny by 
 negative criticism, letting no fallacy, or incoherence, or 
 confusion of thought, slip by unperceived ; above all, 
 to insist upon having the meaning of a word clearly 
 understood before using it, and the meaning of a proposition 
 before assenting to it ; these are the lessons we learn from 
 the ancient dialecticians. With all this vigorous manage- 
 ment of the negative element, they inspire no scepticism 
 about the reality of truth, or indifference to its pursuit. The 
 noblest enthusiasm, both for the search after truth and for 
 applying it to its highest uses, pervades these writers, Aristotle 
 no less than Plato, though Plato has incomparably the 
 greater power of imparting those feelings to others. In 
 cultivating, therefore, the ancient languages as our best 
 literary education, we are all the while laying an admirable 
 foundation for ethical and philosophical culture. In purely 
 literary excellence in perfection of form the pre-eminence 
 of the ancients is not disputed. In every department which 
 they attempted, and they attempted almost all, their com- 
 position, like their sculpture, has been to the greatest modern 
 artists an example, to be looked up to with hopeless admira-
 
 38 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 tion, but of inappreciable value as a light on high, guiding 
 their own endeavours. In prose and in poetry, in epic, lyric, 
 or dramatic, as in historical, philosophical, and oratorical art, 
 the pinnacle on which they stand is equally eminent: I am 
 now speaking of the form, the artistic perfection of treatment : 
 for, as regards substance, I consider modern Poetry to be 
 superior to ancient, in the same manner, though in a less 
 degree, as modern Science : it enters deeper into nature. 
 The feelings of the modern mind are more various, more 
 complex and manifold, than those of the ancients ever were. 
 The modern mind is, what the ancient mind was not, brood- 
 ing and self-conscious ; and its meditative self-consciousness 
 has discovered depths in the human soul which the Greeks 
 and Eomans did not dream of, and would not have under- 
 stood. But what they had got to express, they expressed in 
 a manner which few even of the greatest moderns have 
 seriously attempted to rival. It must be remembered that 
 they had more time, and that they wrote chiefly for a select 
 class, possessed of leisure. To us w r ho write in a hurry 
 for people who read in a hurry, the attempt to give an equal 
 degree of finish would be loss of time. But to be familiar 
 with perfect models is not the less important to us because 
 the element in which we work precludes even the effort to 
 equal them. They show us at least what excellence is, and 
 make us desire it, and strive to get as near to it as is within 
 our reach. And this is the value to us of the ancient 
 writers, all the more emphatically, because their excellence 
 does not admit of being copied, or directly imitated. It does 
 not consist in a trick which can be learnt, but in the perfect 
 adaptation of means to ends. The secret of the style of the 
 great Greek and Eoman authors, is that it is the perfection 
 of good sense. In the first place, they never use a word 
 without a meaning, or a word which adds nothing to the 
 meaning. They always (to begin with) had a meaning ; they 
 knew what they wanted to say ; and their whole purpose 
 was to say it with the highest degree of exactness and com- 
 pleteness, and bring it home to the mind with the greatest 
 possible clearness and vividness. It never entered into their 

 
 JOHN STUART MILL 39 
 
 thoughts to conceive of a piece of writing as beautiful in 
 itself, abstractedly from what it had to express : its beauty 
 must all be subservient to the most perfect expression of the 
 sense. The curiosa felicitas which their critics ascribed in 
 a pre-eminent degree to Horace, expresses the standard at 
 which they all aimed. Their style is exactly described by 
 Swift's definition, " the right words in the right places." 
 Look at an oration of Demosthenes ; there is nothing in it 
 which calls attention to itself as style at all : it is only after 
 a close examination we perceive that every word is what it 
 should be, and where it should be, to lead the hearer smoothly 
 and imperceptibly into the state of mind which the orator 
 wishes to produce. The perfection of the workmanship is 
 only visible in the total absence of any blemish or fault, and 
 of anything which checks the flow of thought and feeling, any- 
 thing which even momentarily distracts the mind from the 
 main purpose. But then (as has been well said) it was not 
 the object of Demosthenes to make the Athenians cry out 
 " What a splendid speaker ! " but to make them say, " Let us 
 march against Philip ! " It was only in the decline of ancient 
 literature that ornament began to be cultivated merely as 
 ornament In the time of its maturity, not the merest 
 epithet was put in because it was thought beautiful in itself; 
 nor even for a merely descriptive purpose, for epithets purely 
 descriptive were one of the corruptions of style which abound 
 in Lucan, for example : the word had no business there un- 
 less it brought out some feature which was wanted, and 
 helped to place the object in the light which the purpose of 
 the composition required. These conditions being complied 
 with, then indeed the intrinsic beauty of the means used 
 was a source of additional effect, of which it behoved them 
 to avail themselves, like rhythm and melody of versification. 
 But these great writers knew that ornament for the sake of 
 ornament ornament which attracts attention to itself, and 
 shines by its own beauties, only does so by calling off the 
 mind from the main object, and thus not only interferes with 
 the higher purpose of human discourse, which ought, and 
 generally professes, to have some matter to communicate,
 
 40 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 apart from the mere excitement of the moment, but also spoils 
 the perfection of the composition as a piece of fine art, by 
 destroying the unity of effect. This, then, is the first great 
 lesson in composition to be learnt from the classical authors. 
 The second is, not to be prolix. In a single paragraph, 
 Thucydides can give a clear and vivid representation of a 
 battle, such as a reader who has once taken it into his mind 
 can seldom forget. The most powerful and affecting piece of 
 narrative perhaps in all historical literature, is the account 
 of the Sicilian catastrophe in his seventh book, yet how few 
 pages does it fill ! The ancients were concise, because of the 
 extreme pains they took witli their compositions ; almost all 
 moderns are prolix, because they do not. The great ancients 
 could express a thought so perfectly in a few words or 
 sentences, that they did not need to add any more : the 
 moderns, because they cannot bring it out clearly and com- 
 pletely at once, return again and again, heaping sentence 
 upon sentence, each adding a little more elucidation, in hopes 
 that though no single sentence expresses the full meaning, 
 the whole together may give a sufficient notion of it. In this 
 respect I am afraid we are growing worse instead of better, 
 for want of time and patience, and from the necessity we are 
 in of addressing almost all writings to a busy and imperfectly 
 prepared public. The demands of modern life are such the 
 work to be done, the mass to be worked upon, are so vast, 
 that those who have anything particular to say who have, 
 as the phrase goes, any message to deliver cannot afford to 
 devote their time to the production of masterpieces. But 
 they would do far worse than they do, if there had never been 
 masterpieces, or if they had never known them. Early 
 familiarity with the perfect, makes our most imperfect pro- 
 duction far less bad than it otherwise would be. To have a 
 high standard of excellence often makes the whole difference 
 of rendering our work good when it would otherwise be 
 mediocre. 
 
 For all these reasons I think it important to retain these 
 two Languages and Literatures in the place they occupy, as a 
 part of liberal education that is, of the education of all who
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 41 
 
 are not obliged by their circumstances to discontinue their 
 scholastic studies at a very early age. But the same reasons 
 which vindicate the place of classical studies in general 
 education, show also the proper limitation of them. They 
 should be carried as far as is sufficient to enable the pupil, 
 in after life, to read the great works of ancient literature 
 with ease. Those who have leisure and inclination to make 
 scholarship, or ancient history, or general philology, their 
 pursuit, of course require much more, but there is no room 
 for more in general education. The laborious idleness in 
 which the school-time is wasted away in the English class- 
 ical schools deserves the severest reprehension. To what 
 purpose should the most precious years of early life be irre- 
 parably squandered in learning to write bad Latin and Greek 
 verses ? I do not see that we are much the better even for 
 those who end by writing good ones. I am often tempted 
 to ask the favourites of nature and fortune, whether all the 
 serious and important work of the world is done, that their 
 time and energy can be spared for these nugcc difficiles t I am 
 not blind to the utility of composing in a language, as a 
 means of learning it accurately. I hardly know any other 
 means equally effectual. But why should not prose com- 
 position suffice ? What need is there of original composition 
 at all ? if that can be called original which unfortunate 
 schoolboys, without any thoughts to express, hammer out on 
 compulsion from mere memory, acquiring the pernicious 
 habit which a teacher should consider it one of his first 
 duties to repress, that of merely stringing together borrowed 
 phrases ? The exercise in composition, most suitable to the 
 requirements of learners, is that most valuable one, of re- 
 translating from translated passages of a good author : and to 
 this might be added, what still exists in many Continental 
 places of education, occasional practice in talking Latin. 
 There would be something to be said for the time spent in 
 the manufacture of verses, if such practice were necessary 
 for the enjoyment of ancient poetry ; though it would be 
 better to lose that enjoyment than to purchase it at so ex- 
 travagant a price. But the beauties of a great poet would be
 
 42 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 a far poorer thing than they are, if they only impressed us 
 through a knowledge of the technicalities of his art. The 
 poet needed those technicalities : they are not necessary to 
 us. They are essential for criticising a poem, but not for 
 enjoying it. All that is wanted is sufficient familiarity with 
 the language, for its meaning to reach us without any sense 
 of effort, and clothed with the associations on which the poet 
 counted for producing his effect. Whoever has this famili- 
 arity, and a practised ear, can have as keen a relish of the 
 music of Virgil and Horace, as of Gray, or Burns, or Shelley, 
 though he know not the metrical rules of a common Sapphic 
 or Alcaic. I do not say that these rules ought not to be 
 taught, but I would have a class apart for them, and would 
 make the appropriate exercises an optional, not a compulsory 
 part of the school teaching. 
 
 Much more might be said respecting classical instruction, 
 and literary cultivation in general, as a part of liberal edu- 
 cation. But it is time to speak of the uses of Scientific 
 Instruction : or rather its indispensable necessity, for it is 
 recommended by every consideration which pleads for any 
 high order of intellectual education at all. 
 
 The most obvious part of the value of scientific instruction, 
 the mere information that it gives, speaks for itself. We are 
 born into a world which we have not made a world whose 
 phenomena take place according to fixed laws, of which we do 
 not bring any knowledge into the world with us. In such 
 a world we are appointed to live, and in it all our work is 
 to be done. Our whole working power depends on know- 
 ing the laws of the world in other words, the properties 
 of the things which we have to work with, and to work 
 among, and to work upon. We may and do rely, for the 
 greater part of this knowledge, on the few who in each de- 
 partment make its acquisition their main business in life. 
 But unless an elementary knowledge of scientific truths is 
 diffused among the public, they never know what is certain 
 and what is not, or who are entitled to speak with authority 
 and who are not : and they either have no faith at all in the 
 testimony of science, or are the ready dupes of charlatans
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 43 
 
 and impostors. They alternate between ignorant distrust, 
 and blind, often misplaced, confidence. Besides, who is 
 there who would not wish to understand the meaning of 
 the common physical facts that take place under his eye ? 
 Who would not wish to know why a pump raises water, 
 why a lever moves heavy weights, why it is hot at the 
 tropics and cold at the poles, why the moon is sometimes 
 dark and sometimes bright, what is the cause of the tides ? 
 Do we not feel that he who is totally ignorant of these things, 
 let him be ever so skilled in a special profession, is not an 
 educated man but an ignoramus ? It is surely no small part 
 of education to put us in intelligent possession of the most 
 important and most universally interesting facts of the uni- 
 verse, so that the world which surrounds us may not be a sealed 
 book to us, uninteresting because unintelligible. This, how- 
 ever, is but the simplest and most obvious part of the utility 
 of science, and the part which, if neglected in youth, may 
 be the most easily made up for afterwards. It is more im- 
 portant to understand the value of scientific instruction as a 
 training and disciplining process, to fit the intellect for the 
 proper work of a human being. Facts are the materials of 
 our knowledge, but the mind itself is the instrument : and it 
 is easier to acquire facts, than to judge what they prove, and 
 how, through the facts which we know, to get to those* which 
 we want to know. 
 
 The most incessant occupation of the human intellect 
 throughout life is the ascertainment of truth. We are 
 always needing to knoM r what is actually true about some- 
 thing or other. It is not given to us all to discover great 
 general truths that are a light to all men and to future 
 generations ; though with a better general education the 
 number of those who could do so would be far greater than 
 it is. But we all require the ability to judge between the 
 conflicting opinions which are offered to us as vital truths ; 
 to choose what doctrines we will receive in the matter of 
 religion, for example ; to judge whether we ought to be 
 Tories, Whigs, or Badicals, or to what length it is our duty 
 to go with each ; to form a rational conviction on great
 
 44 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 questions of legislation and internal policy, and on the 
 manner in which our country should behave to dependencies 
 and to foreign nations. And the need we have of knowing 
 how to discriminate truth, is not confined to the larger truths. 
 All through life it is our most pressing interest to find out 
 the truth about all the matters we are concerned with. If 
 we are farmers we want to find what will truly improve our 
 soil ; if merchants, what will truly influence the markets of 
 our commodities ; if judges, or jurymen, or advocates, who it 
 was that truly did an unlawful act, or to whom a disputed 
 right truly belongs. Every time we have to make a new re- 
 solution or alter an old one, in any situation in life, we shall 
 go wrong unless we know the truth about the facts on which 
 our resolution depends. Now, however different these 
 searches for truth may look, and however unlike they really 
 are in their subject-matter, the methods of getting at truth, 
 and the tests of truth, are in all cases much the same. 
 There are but two roads by which truth can be discovered : 
 observation and reasoning observation, of course, including 
 experiment. We all observe, and we all reason, and there- 
 fore, more or less successfully, we all ascertain truths : but 
 most of us do it very ill, and could not get on at all were we 
 not able to fall back on others who do it better. If we 
 could not do it in any degree, we should be mere instruments 
 in the hands of those who could : they would be able to re- 
 duce us to slavery. Then how shall we best learn to do this ? 
 By being shown the way in which it has already been suc- 
 cessfully clone. The processes by which truth is attained, 
 reasoning and observation, have been carried to their greatest 
 known perfection in the physical sciences. As classical 
 literature furnishes the most perfect types of the art of ex- 
 pression, so do the physical sciences those of the art of 
 thinking. Mathematics, and its application to astronomy 
 and natural philosophy, are the most complete example of 
 the discovery of truths by reasoning ; experimental science, 
 of their discovery by direct observation. In all these cases 
 we know that we can trust the operation, because the con- 
 clusions to which it has led have been found true by
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 45 
 
 subsequent trial. It is by the study of these, then, that we 
 may hope to qualify ourselves for distinguishing truth, in 
 cases where there do not exist the same ready means of 
 verification. 
 
 In what consists the principal and most characteristic 
 difference between one human intellect and another ? In 
 their ability to judge correctly of evidence. Our direct 
 perceptions of truth are so limited ; we know so few things 
 by immediate intuition, or, as it used to be called, by simple 
 apprehension that we depend for almost all our valuable 
 knowledge, on evidence external to itself; and most of us 
 are very unsafe hands at estimating evidence, where an 
 appeal cannot be made to actual eyesight. The intellectual 
 part of our education has nothing more important to do 
 than to correct or mitigate this almost universal infirmity 
 this summary and substance of nearly all purely intellectual 
 weakness. To do this with effect needs all the resources 
 which the most perfect system of intellectual training can 
 command. Those resources, as every teacher knows, are 
 but of three kinds : first, models ; secondly, rules ; thirdly, 
 appropriate practice. The models of the art of estimating 
 evidence are furnished by science ; the rules are suggested 
 by science ; and the study of science is the most funda- 
 mental portion of the practice. 
 
 Take in the first instance Mathematics. It is chiefly 
 from mathematics we realise the fact that there actually is a 
 road to truth by means of reasoning ; that anything real, 
 and which will be found true when tried, can be arrived at 
 by a mere operation of the mind. The flagrant abuse of 
 mere reasoning in the days of the schoolmen, when men 
 argued confidently to supposed facts of outward nature 
 without properly establishing their premises, or checking 
 the conclusions by observation, created a prejudice in the 
 modern, and especially in the English mind, against deduc- 
 tive reasoning altogether, as a mode of investigation. The 
 prejudice lasted long, and was upheld by the misunderstood 
 authority of Lord Bacon ; until the prodigious applications 
 of mathematics to physical science to the discovery of the
 
 46 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 laws of external nature slowly and tardily restored the 
 reasoning process to the place which belongs to it as a 
 source of real knowledge. Mathematics, pure and applied, 
 are still the great conclusive example of what can be done 
 by reasoning. Mathematics also habituates us to several of 
 the principal precautions for the safety of the process. Our 
 first studies in geometry teach us two invaluable lessons. 
 One is, to lay down at the beginning, in express and clear 
 terms, all the premises from which we intend to reason. 
 The other is, to keep every step in the reasoning distinct 
 and separate from all the other steps, and to make each 
 step safe before proceeding to another ; expressly stating to 
 ourselves, at every joint in the reasoning, what new premise 
 we there introduce. It is not necessary that we should do 
 this at all times, in all our reasonings. But we must be 
 always able and ready to do it. If the validity of our 
 argument is denied, or if we doubt it ourselves, that is the 
 way to check it. In this way we are often enabled to 
 detect at once the exact place where paralogism or confusion 
 get in : and after sufficient practice we may be able to keep 
 them out from the beginning. It is to mathematics, again, 
 that we owe our first notion of a connected body of truth ; 
 truths which grow out of one another, and hang together so 
 that each implies all the rest ; that no one of them can be 
 questioned without contradicting another or others, until in 
 the end it appears that no part of the system can be false 
 unless the whole is so. Pure mathematics first gave us this 
 conception ; applied mathematics extends it to the realm of 
 physical nature. Applied mathematics shows us that not 
 only the truths of abstract number and extension, but the 
 external facts of the universe, which we apprehend by our 
 senses, form, at least in a large part of all nature, a web 
 similarly held together. We are able, by reasoning from a 
 few fundamental truths, to explain and predict the pheno- 
 mena of material objects : and what is still more remarkable, 
 the fundamental truths were themselves found out by 
 reasoning ; for they are not such as are obvious to the 
 senses, but had to be inferred by a mathematical process
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 47 
 
 from a mass of minute details, which alone came within the 
 direct reach of human observation. When Newton, in this 
 manner, discovered the laws of the solar system, he created, 
 for all posterity, the true idea of science. He gave the 
 most perfect example we are ever likely to have, of that 
 union of reasoning and observation, which by means of facts 
 that can be directly observed, ascends to laws which govern 
 multitudes of other facts laws which not only explain and 
 account for what we see, but give us assurance beforehand 
 of much that we do not see, much that we never could have 
 found out by observation, though, having been found out, it 
 is always verified by the result. 
 
 While mathematics, and the mathematical sciences, 
 supply us with a typical example of the ascertainment of 
 truth by reasoning, those physical sciences which are not 
 mathematical, such as chemistry, and purely experimental 
 physics, show us in equal perfection the other mode of 
 arriving at certain truth, by observation, in its most accu- 
 rate form, that of experiment. The value of mathematics 
 in a logical point of view is an old topic with mathe- 
 maticians, and has even been insisted on so exclusively as 
 to provoke a counter- exaggeration, of which a well-known 
 essay by Sir William Hamilton is an example : but the 
 logical value of experimental science is comparatively a 
 new subject, yet there is no intellectual discipline more 
 important than that which the experimental sciences afford. 
 Their whole occupation consists in doing well, what all of 
 us, during the whole of life, are engaged in doing, for the 
 most part badly. All men do not affect to be reasoners, 
 but all profess, and really attempt, to draw inferences from 
 experience : yet hardly any one, who has not been a student 
 of the physical sciences, sets out with any just idea of what 
 the process of interpreting experience really is. If a fact 
 has occurred once or oftener, and another fact has followed 
 it, people think they have got an experiment, and are well 
 on the road towards showing that the one fact is the cause 
 of the other. If they did but know the immense amount of 
 precaution necessary to a scientific experiment ; with what
 
 48 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 sedulous care the accompanying circumstances are contrived 
 and varied, so as to exclude every agency but that which 
 is the subject of the experiment ; or, when disturbing- 
 agencies cannot be excluded, the minute accuracy with 
 which their influence is calculated and allowed for, in order 
 that the residue may contain nothing but what is due to 
 the one agency under examination ; if these things were 
 attended to, people would be much less easily satisfied that 
 their opinions have the evidence of experience. Many 
 popular notions and generalisations which are in all mouths 
 would be thought a great deal less certain than they are 
 supposed to be ; but we should begin to lay the foundation 
 of really experimental knowledge on things which are now 
 the subjects of mere vague discussion, where one side finds 
 as much to say, and says it as confidently, as another, and 
 each person's opinion is less determined by evidence than 
 by his accidental interest or prepossession. In politics, for 
 instance, it is evident to whoever comes to the study from 
 that of the experimental sciences, that no political con- 
 clusions of any value for practice can be arrived at by 
 direct experience. Such specific experience as we can have, 
 serves only to verify, and even that insufficiently, the con- 
 clusions of reasoning. Take any active force you please in 
 politics, take the liberties of England, or free trade : how 
 should we know that either of these things conduced to 
 prosperity, if we could discern no tendency in the things 
 themselves to produce it ? If we had only the evidence of 
 what is called our experience, such prosperity as we enjoy 
 might be owing to a hundred other causes, and might have 
 been obstructed, not promoted, by these. All true political 
 science is, in one sense of the phrase, k 'priori, being deduced 
 from the tendencies of things, tendencies known either 
 through our general experience of human nature, or as the 
 result of an analysis of the course of history, considered as a 
 progressive evolution. It requires, therefore, the union of in- 
 duction, and deduction, and the mind that is equal to it must 
 have been well disciplined in both. But familiarity with scien- 
 tific experiment at least does the useful service of inspiring
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 49 
 
 a wholesome scepticism about the conclusions which the 
 mere surface of experience suggests. 
 
 The study, on the one hand, of mathematics and its 
 applications, on the other, of experimental science, prepares 
 us for the principal business of the intellect, by the practice 
 of it in the most characteristic cases, and by familiarity with 
 the most perfect and successful models of it. But in great 
 things as in small, examples and models are not sufficient : 
 we want rules as well. Familiarity with the correct use 
 of a language in conversation and writing does not make 
 rules of grammar unnecessary ; nor does the amplest know- 
 ledge of sciences of reasoning and experiment dispense with 
 rules of logic. We may have heard correct reasonings and 
 seen skilful experiments all our lives we shall not learn 
 by mere imitation to do the like, unless we pay careful 
 attention to how it is done. It is much easier in these 
 abstract matters, than in purely mechanical ones, to mistake 
 bad work for good. To mark out the difference between 
 them is the province of Logic. Logic lays down the general 
 principles and laws of the search after truth ; the conditions 
 which, whether recognised or not, must actually have been 
 observed if the mind has done its work rightly. Logic is 
 the intellectual complement of mathematics and physics. 
 Those sciences give the practice, of which Logic is the theory. 
 It declares the principles, rules, and precepts, of which they 
 exemplify the observance. 
 
 The science of Logic has two parts : ratiocinative and 
 inductive logic. The one helps to keep us right in reason- 
 ing from premises, the other in concluding from observation. 
 Eatiocinative logic is much older than inductive, because 
 reasoning in the narrower sense of the word is an easier 
 process than induction, and the science which works by 
 mere reasoning, pure mathematics, had been carried to a 
 considerable height while the sciences of observation were 
 still in the purely empirical period. The principles of 
 ratiocination, therefore, were the earliest understood and 
 systematised, and the logic of ratiocination is even now 
 suitable to an earlier stage in education than that of
 
 50 ' RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 induction. The principles of induction cannot be properly 
 understood without some previous study of the inductive 
 sciences : but the logic of reasoning, which was already 
 carried to a high degree of perfection by Aristotle, does not 
 absolutely require even a knowledge of mathematics, but 
 can be sufficiently exemplified and illustrated from the 
 practice of daily life. 
 
 Of Logic I venture to say, even if limited to that of mere 
 ratiocination, the theory of names, propositions, and the 
 syllogism, that there is no part of intellectual education 
 which is of greater value, or whose place can so ill be 
 supplied by anything else. Its uses, it is true, are chiefly 
 negative ; its function is, not so much to teach us to go 
 right, as to keep us from going wrong. But in the opera- 
 tions of the intellect it is so much easier to go wrong than 
 right; it is so utterly impossible for even the most vigorous 
 mind to keep itself in the path but by maintaining a vigilant 
 watch against all deviations, and noting all the byways by 
 which it is possible to go astray that the chief difference 
 between one reasoner and another consists in their less or 
 greater liability to be misled. Logic points out all the 
 possible ways in which, starting from true premises, we 
 may draw false conclusions. By its analysis of the reasoning 
 process, and the forms it supplies for stating and setting 
 forth our reasonings, it enables us to guard the points at 
 which a fallacy is in danger of slipping in, or to lay our 
 fingers upon the place where it has slipped in. When I 
 consider how very simple the theory of reasoning is, and 
 how short a time is sufficient for acquiring a thorough 
 knowledge of its principles and rules, and even considerable 
 expertness in applying them, I can find no excuse for 
 omission to study it on the part of any one who aspires to 
 succeed in any intellectual pursuit. Logic is the great 
 disperser of hazy and confused thinking : it clears up the 
 fogs which hide from us our own ignorance, and make us 
 believe that we understand a subject when we do not. We 
 must not be led away by talk about inarticulate giants who 
 do great deeds without knowing how, and see into the most
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 51 
 
 recondite truths without any of the ordinary helps, and 
 without being able to explain to other people how they 
 reach their conclusions, nor consequently to convince any 
 other people of the truth of them. There may be such men, 
 as there are deaf and dumb persons who do clever things, 
 but for all that, speech and hearing are faculties by no means 
 to be dispensed with. If you want to know whether you 
 are thinking rightly, put your thoughts into words. In the 
 very attempt to do this you will find yourselves, consciously 
 or unconsciously, using logical forms. Logic compels us 
 to throw our meaning into distinct propositions, and our 
 reasonings into distinct steps. It makes us conscious of all 
 the implied assumptions on which we are proceeding, and 
 which, if not true, vitiate the entire process. It makes us 
 aware what extent of doctrine we commit ourselves to by 
 any course of reasoning, and obliges us to look the implied 
 premises in the face, and make up our minds whether we 
 can stand to them. It makes our opinions consistent with 
 themselves and with one another, and forces us to think 
 clearly, even when it cannot make us think correctly. It 
 is true that error may be consistent and systematic as well 
 as truth ; but this is not the common case. It is no small 
 advantage to see clearly the principles and consequences 
 involved in our opinions, and which we must either accept, 
 or else abandon those opinions. We are much nearer to 
 finding truth when we search for it in broad daylight. 
 Error, pursued rigorously to all that is implied in it, seldom 
 fails to get detected by coming into collision with some 
 known and admitted fact. 
 
 You will find abundance of people to tell you that logic 
 is no help to thought, and that people cannot be taught to 
 think by rules. Undoubtedly rules by themselves, without 
 practice, go but a little way in teaching anything. But if 
 the practice of thinking is not improved by rules, I venture 
 to say it is the only difficult thing done by human beings 
 that is not so. A man learns to saw wood principally by 
 practice, but there are rules for doing it, grounded on the 
 nature of the operation, and if he is not taught the rules, he
 
 52 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 will not saw well until he has discovered them for himself. 
 Wherever there is a right way and a wrong, there must be 
 a difference between them, and it must be possible to find 
 out what the difference is ; and when found out and 
 expressed in words, it is a rule for the operation. If any- 
 one is inclined to disparage rules, I say to him, try to learn 
 anything which there are rules for, without knowing the 
 rules, and see how you succeed. To those who think lightly 
 of the School Logic, I say, take the trouble to learn it. You 
 will easily do so in a few weeks, and you will see whether 
 it is of no use to you in making your mind clear, and keeping 
 you from stumbling in the dark over the most outrageous 
 fallacies. Nobody, I believe, who has really learnt it, and 
 who goes on using his mind, is insensible to its benefits, 
 unless he started with a prejudice, or, like some eminent 
 English and Scottish thinkers of the past century, is under 
 the influence of a reaction against the exaggerated preten- 
 sions made by the schoolmen, not so much in behalf of logic 
 as of the reasoning process itself. Still more highly must 
 the use of logic be estimated, if we include in it, as we ought 
 to do, the principles and rules of Induction as well as of 
 Ratiocination. As the one logic guards us against bad 
 Deduction, so does the other against bad generalisation, which 
 is a still more universal error. If men easily err in arguing 
 from one general proposition to another, still more easily do 
 they go wrong in interpreting the observations made by 
 themselves and others. There is nothing in which an 
 untrained mind shows itself more hopelessly incapable, than 
 in drawing the proper general conclusions from its own 
 experience. And even trained minds, when all their train- 
 ing is on a special subject, and does not extend to the 
 general principles of induction, are only kept right when 
 there are ready opportunities of verifying their inferences 
 by facts. Able scientific men, when they venture upon 
 subjects in which they have no facts to check them, are 
 often found drawing conclusions or making generalisations 
 from their experimental knowledge, such as any sound theory 
 of induction would show to be utterly unwarranted. So
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 53 
 
 true is it that practice alone, even of a good kind, is not 
 sufficient without principles and rules. Lord Bacon had the 
 great merit of seeing that rules were necessary, and conceiv- 
 ing, to a very considerable extent, their true character. 
 The defects of his conception were such as were inevitable 
 while the inductive sciences were only in the earliest stage 
 of their progress, and the highest efforts of the human mind 
 in that direction had not yet been made. Inadequate as 
 the Baconian view of induction was, and rapidly as the 
 practice outgrew it, it is only within a generation or two 
 that any considerable improvement has been made in the 
 theory ; very much through the impulse given by two of the 
 many distinguished men who have adorned the Scottish 
 universities, Dugald Stewart and Brown. 
 
 I have given a very incomplete and summary view of 
 the educational benefits derived from instruction in the more 
 perfect sciences, and in the rules for the proper use of the 
 intellectual faculties which the practice of those sciences has 
 suggested. There are other sciences, which are in a more 
 backward state, and tax the whole powers of the mind in its 
 mature years, yet a beginning of which may be beneficially 
 made in university studies, while a tincture of them is 
 valuable even to those who are never likely to proceed 
 further. The first is Physiology ; the science of the laws of 
 organic and animal life, and especially of the structure and 
 functions of the human body. It would be absurd to 
 pretend that a profound knowledge of this difficult subject 
 can be acquired in youth, or as a part of general education. 
 Yet an acquaintance with its leading truths is one of those 
 acquirements which ought not to be the exclusive property 
 of a particular profession. The value of such knowledge 
 for daily uses has been made familiar to us all by the 
 sanitary discussions of late years. There is hardly one 
 among us who may not, in some position of authority, be 
 required to form an opinion and take part in public action 
 on sanitary subjects. And the importance of understanding 
 the true conditions of health and disease of knowing how 
 to acquire and preserve that healthy habit of body which
 
 54 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 the most tedious and costly medical treatment so often fails 
 to restore when once lost, should secure a place in general 
 education for the principal maxims of hygiene, and some of 
 those even of practical medicine. For those who aim at 
 high intellectual cultivation, the study of physiology has still 
 greater recommendations, and is, in the present state of 
 advancement of the higher studies, a real necessity. The 
 practice which it gives in the study of nature is such as no 
 other physical science affords in the same kind, and is the 
 best introduction to the difficult questions of politics and 
 social life. Scientific education, apart from professional 
 objects, is but a preparation for judging rightly of Man, and 
 of his requirements and interests. But to this final pursuit, 
 which has been called par excellence the proper study of 
 mankind, physiology is the most serviceable of the sciences, 
 because it is the nearest. Its subject is already Man : the 
 same complex and manifold being, whose properties are not 
 independent of circumstance, and immovable from age to age, 
 like those of the ellipse and hyperbola, or of sulphur and 
 phosphorus, but are infinitely various, indefinitely modifiable 
 by art or accident, graduating by the nicest shades into one 
 another, and reacting upon one another in a thousand ways, 
 so that they are seldom capable of being isolated and 
 observed separately. With the difficulties of the study of a 
 being so constituted, the physiologist, and he alone among 
 scientific enquirers, is already familiar. Take what view we 
 will of man as a spiritual being, one part of his nature is 
 far more like another than either of them is like anything 
 else. In the organic world we study nature under disad- 
 vantages very similar to those which affect the study of 
 moral and political phenomena : our means of making 
 experiments are almost as limited, while the extreme 
 complexity of the facts makes the conclusions of general 
 reasoning unusually precarious, on account of the vast 
 number of circumstances that conspire to determine every 
 result. Yet in spite of these obstacles, it is found possible. 
 in physiology to arrive at a considerable number of well- 
 ascertained and important truths. This therefore is an
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 55 
 
 excellent school in which to study the means of overcoming 
 similar difficulties elsewhere. It is in physiology, too, that 
 we are first introduced to some of the conceptions which 
 play the greatest part in the moral and social sciences, but 
 'which do not occur at all in those of inorganic nature. As, 
 for instance, the idea of predisposition, and of predisposing 
 causes, as distinguished from exciting causes. The operation 
 of all moral forces is immensely influenced by predisposition : 
 without that element, it is impossible to explain the 
 commonest facts of history and social life. Physiology is 
 also the first science in which we recognise the influence of 
 habit the tendency of something to happen again merely 
 because it has happened before. From physiology, too, we 
 get our clearest notion of what is meant by development or 
 evolution. The growth of a plant or animal from the first 
 germ is the typical specimen of a phenomenon which rules 
 through the whole course of the history of man and society 
 increase of function, through expansion and differentiation 
 of structure by internal forces. I cannot enter into the 
 subject at greater length ; it is enough if I throw out hints 
 which may be germs of further thought in yourselves. Those 
 who aim at high intellectual achievements may be assured 
 that no part of their time will be less wasted, than that 
 which they employ in becoming familiar with the methods 
 and with the main conceptions of the science of organisation 
 and life. 
 
 Physiology, at its upper extremity, touches on Psycho- 
 logy, or the Philosophy of Mind : and without raising any 
 disputed questions about the limits between Matter and 
 Spirit, the nerves and brain are admitted to have so intimate 
 a connection with the mental operations, that the student of 
 the last cannot dispense with a considerable knowledge of 
 the first. The value of psychology itself need hardly be 
 expatiated upon in a Scottish university ; for it has always 
 been there studied with brilliant success. Almost every- 
 thing which has been contributed from these islands towards 
 its advancement since Locke and Berkeley, has until very 
 lately, and much of it even in the present generation,
 
 56 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 proceeded from Scottish authors and Scottish professors. 
 Psychology, in truth, is simply the knowledge of the laws of 
 Human Nature. If there is anything that deserves to be 
 studied by man, it is his own nature and that of his fellow- 
 men : and if it is worth studying at all, it is worth studying 
 scientifically, so as to reach the fundamental laws which 
 underlie and govern all the rest. With regard to the 
 suitableness of this subject for general education, a distinc- 
 tion must be made. There are certain observed laws of our 
 thoughts and of our feelings which rest upon experimental 
 evidence, and, once seized, are a clue to the interpretation 
 of much that we are conscious of in ourselves, and observe 
 in one another. Such, for example, are the laws of associ- 
 ation. Psychology, so far as it consists of such laws I 
 speak of the laws themselves, not of their disputed applica- 
 tions is as positive and certain a science as Chemistry, and 
 fit to be taught as such. When, however, we pass beyond 
 the bounds of these admitted truths, to questions which are 
 still in controversy among the different philosophical schools 
 how far the higher operations of the mind can be explained 
 by association, how far we must admit other primary prin- 
 ciples what faculties of the mind are simple, what complex, 
 and what is the composition of the latter above all, when 
 we embark upon the sea of metaphysics properly so called, 
 and enquire, for instance, whether time and space are real 
 existences, as is our spontaneous impression, or forms of our 
 sensitive faculty, as is maintained by Kant, or complex ideas 
 generated by association ; whether matter and spirit are 
 conceptions merely relative to our faculties, or facts existing 
 per se, and in the latter case, what is the nature and limit 
 of our knowledge of them ; whether the will of man is free 
 or determined by causes, and what is the real difference 
 between the two doctrines, matters on which the most 
 thinking men, and those who have given most study to the 
 subjects, are still divided, it is neither to be expected nor 
 desired that those who do not specially devote themselves 
 to the higher departments of speculation should employ 
 much of their time in attempting to get to the bottom of
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 these questions. But it is a part of liberal education to 
 know that such controversies exist, and, in a general way, 
 what has been said on both sides of them. It is instructive 
 to know the failures of the human intellect as well as its 
 successes, its imperfect as well as its perfect attainments ; 
 to be aware of the open questions, as well as of those which 
 have been definitively resolved. A very summary view of 
 these disputed matters may suffice for the many ; but a 
 system of education is not intended solely for the many : it 
 has to kindle the aspirations and aid the efforts of those who 
 are destined to stand forth as thinkers above the multitude : 
 and for these there is hardly to be found any discipline 
 comparable to that which these metaphysical controversies 
 afford. For they are essentially questions about the esti- 
 mation of evidence ; about the ultimate grounds of belief ; 
 the conditions required to justify our most familiar and 
 intimate convictions ; and the real meaning and import of 
 words and phrases which we have used from infancy as if 
 we understood all about them, which are even at the found- 
 ation of human language, yet of which no one except a 
 metaphysician has rendered to himself a complete account. 
 Whatever philosophical opinions the study of these questions 
 may lead us to adopt, no one ever came out of the discussion 
 of them without increased vigour of understanding, an 
 increased demand for precision of thought and language, and 
 a more careful and exact appreciation of the nature of proof. 
 There never was any sharpener of the intellectual faculties 
 superior to the Berkeleian controversy. There is even now 
 no reading more profitable to students confining myself to 
 writers in our own language, and notwithstanding that so 
 many of their speculations are already obsolete than 
 Hobbes and Locke, Eeid and Stewart, Hume, Hartley, and 
 Brown : on condition that these great thinkers are not read 
 passively, as masters to be followed, but actively, as supplying 
 materials and incentives to thought. To come to our own 
 contemporaries, he who has mastered Sir William Hamilton 
 and your own lamented Ferrier as distinguished represent- 
 atives of one of the two great schools of philosophy, and an
 
 58 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 eminent Professor in a neighbouring University, Professor 
 Bain, probably the greatest living authority in the other, 
 has gained a practice in the most searching methods of 
 philosophic investigation applied to the most arduous 
 subjects, which is no inadequate preparation for any intel- 
 lectual difficulties that he is ever likely to be called on 
 to resolve. 
 
 In this brief outline of a complete scientific education, I 
 have said nothing about direct instruction in that which it 
 is the chief of all the ends of intellectual education to 
 qualify us for the exercise of thought on the great inter- 
 ests of mankind as moral and social beings Ethics and 
 Politics, in the largest sense. These things are not, in the 
 existing state of human knowledge, the subject of a science, 
 generally admitted and accepted. Politics cannot be learnt 
 once for all, from a text-book, or the instructions of a 
 master. What we require to be taught on that subject, is 
 to be our own teachers. It is a subject on which we have 
 no masters to follow ; each must explore for himself, and 
 exercise an independent judgment. Scientific politics do 
 not consist in having a set of conclusions ready made, to be 
 applied everywhere indiscriminately, but in setting the mind 
 to work in a scientific spirit to discover in each instance the 
 truths applicable to the given case. And this, at present, 
 scarcely any two persons do in the same way. Education 
 is not entitled, on this subject, to recommend any set of 
 opinions as resting on the authority of established science. 
 But it can supply the student with materials for his own 
 mind, and helps to use them. It can make him acquainted 
 with the best speculations on the subject, taken from differ- 
 ent points of view : none of which will be found complete, 
 while each embodies some considerations really relevant, 
 really requiring to be taken into the account. Education 
 may also introduce us to the principal facts which have a 
 direct bearing on the subject, namely, the different modes or 
 stages of civilisation that have been found among mankind, 
 and the characteristic properties of each. This is the true 
 purpose of Historical Studies, as prosecuted in a University.
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 59 
 
 The leadiDg facts of ancient and modern history should be 
 known by the student from his private reading : if that 
 knowledge be wanting, it cannot possibly be supplied here. 
 What a professor of History has to teach, is the meaning of 
 those facts. His office is to help the student in collecting 
 from history what are the main differences between human 
 beings, and between the institutions of society, at one time 
 or place and at another : in picturing to himself human life 
 and the human conception of life, as they were at the differ- 
 ent stages of human development : in distinguishing between 
 what is the same in all ages and what is progressive, and 
 forming some incipient conception of the causes and laws of 
 progress. All these things are as yet very imperfectly 
 understood even by the most philosophic enquirers, and are 
 quite unfit to be taught dogmatically. The object is to lead 
 the student to attend to them ; to make him take interest in 
 history not as a mere narrative, but as a chain of causes and 
 effects still unwinding itself before his eyes, and full of 
 momentous consequences to himself and his descendants ; 
 the unfolding of a great epic or dramatic action, to terminate 
 in the happiness or misery, the elevation or degradation, of 
 the human race ; an unremitting conflict between good and 
 evil powers, of which every act done by any of us, insig- 
 nificant as we are, forms one of the incidents ; a conflict in 
 which even the smallest of us cannot escape from taking- 
 part, in which whoever does not help the right side is 
 helping the wrong, and for our share in which, whether it 
 be greater or smaller, and let its actual consequences be 
 visible or in the main invisible, no one of us can escape the 
 responsibility. Though education cannot arm and equip its 
 pupils for this fight with any complete philosophy, either of 
 politics or of history, there is much positive instruction that 
 it can give them, having a direct bearing on the duties of 
 citizenship. They should be taught the outlines of the 
 civil and political institutions of their own country, and in 
 a more general way, of the more advanced of the other 
 civilised nations. Those branches of politics, or of the laws 
 of social life, in which there exists a collection of facts or
 
 60 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 thoughts sufficiently sifted and methodised to form the 
 beginning of a science, should be taught cxprofesso. Among 
 the chief of these is Political Economy ; the sources and 
 conditions of wealth and material prosperity for aggregate 
 bodies of human beings. This study approaches nearer to 
 the rank of a science, in the sense in which we apply that 
 name to the physical sciences, than anything else connected 
 with politics yet does. I need not enlarge on the important 
 lessons which it affords for the guidance of life, and for the 
 estimation of laws and institutions, or on the necessity of 
 knowing all that it can teach in order to have true views of 
 the course of human affairs, or form plans for their improve- 
 ment which will stand actual trial. The same persons who 
 cry down Logic will generally warn you against Political 
 Economy. It is unfeeling, they will tell you. It recognises 
 unpleasant facts. Eor my part, the most unfeeling thing I 
 know of is the law of gravitation : it breaks the neck of the 
 best and most amiable person without scruple, if he forgets 
 for a single moment to give heed to it. The winds and 
 waves too are very unfeeling. Would you advise those who 
 go to sea to deny the winds and waves or to make use of 
 them, and find the means of guarding against their dangers ? 
 My advice to you is to study the great writers on Political 
 Economy, and hold firmly by whatever in them you find 
 true ; and depend upon it that if you are not selfish or hard- 
 hearted already, Political Economy will not make you so. 
 
 Of no less importance than Political Economy is the study 
 of what is called Jurisprudence ; the general principles of 
 law ; the social necessities which laws are required to meet ; 
 the features common to all systems of law, and the differ- 
 ences between them ; the requisites of good legislation, the 
 proper mode of constructing a legal system, and the best 
 constitution of courts of justice and modes of legal procedure. 
 These things are not only the chief part of the business of 
 government, but the vital concern of every citizen ; and their 
 improvement affords a wide scope for the energies of any 
 duly prepared mind, ambitious of contributing towards the 
 better condition of the human race. For this, too, admir-
 
 JOHN S TUA R T MILL 61 
 
 able helps have been provided by writers of our own or of 
 a very recent time. At the head of them stands Bentham ; 
 undoubtedly the greatest master who ever devoted the labour 
 of a life to let in light on the subject of law ; and who is the 
 more intelligible to non-professional persons, because, as his 
 way is, he builds up the subject from its foundation in the 
 facts of human life, and shows by careful consideration of 
 ends and means, what law might and ought to be, in 
 deplorable contrast with what it is. Other enlightened 
 jurists have followed with contributions of two kinds, as the 
 type of which I may take two works, equally admirable in 
 their respective times. Mr. Austin, in his Lectures on 
 Jurisprudence, takes for his basis the Boman law, the most 
 elaborately consistent legal system which history has shown 
 us in actual operation, and that which the greatest number 
 of accomplished minds have employed themselves in har- 
 monising. From this he singles out the principles and 
 distinctions which are of general applicability, and employs 
 the powers and resources of a most precise and analytic 
 mind to give to those principles and distinctions a philo- 
 sophic basis, grounded in the universal reason of mankind, 
 and not in mere technical convenience. Mr. Maine, in his 
 treatise on Ancient Law in its relations to Modern Thought, 
 shows from the history of law, and from what is known of 
 the primitive institutions of mankind, the origin of much 
 that has lasted till now, and has a firm footing both in the 
 laws and in the ideas of modern times ; showing that many 
 of these things never originated in reason, but are relics of 
 the institutions of barbarous society, modified more or less 
 by civilisation, but kept standing by the persistency of 
 ideas which were the offspring of those barbarous institu- 
 tions, and have survived their parent. The path opened 
 by Mr. Maine has been followed up by others, with addi- 
 tional illustrations of the influence of obsolete ideas on 
 modern institutions, and of obsolete institutions on modern 
 ideas ; an action and reaction which perpetuate, in many of 
 the greatest concerns, a mitigated barbarism : things being 
 continually accepted as dictates of nature and necessities of
 
 62 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 life, which, if we knew all, we should see to have originated 
 in artificial arrangements of society, long since abandoned 
 and condemned. 
 
 To these studies I would add International Law, which 
 I decidedly think should be taught in all universities, and 
 should form part of all liberal education. The need of it is 
 far from being limited to diplomatists and lawyers ; it ex- 
 tends to every citizen. What is called the Law of Nations 
 is not properly law, but a part of ethics : a set of moral 
 rules, accepted as authoritative by civilised states. It is 
 true that these rules neither are nor ought to be of eternal 
 obligation, but do and must vary more or less from age to 
 age, as the consciences of nations become more enlightened 
 and the exigencies of political society undergo change. 
 But the rules mostly were at their origin, and still are, an 
 application of the maxims of honesty and humanity to the 
 intercourse of states. They were introduced by the moral 
 sentiments of mankind, or by their sense of the general 
 interest, to mitigate the crimes and sufferings of a state of 
 war, and to restrain governments and nations from unjust or 
 dishonest conduct towards one another in time of peace. 
 Since every country stands in numerous and various 
 relations with the other countries of the world, and many, 
 our own among the number, exercise actual authority over 
 some of these, a knowledge of the established rules of inter- 
 national morality is essential to the duty of every nation, and 
 therefore of every person in it who helps to make up the 
 nation, and whose voice and feeling form a part of what is 
 called public opinion. Let not any one pacify his conscience 
 by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, 
 and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to com- 
 pass their ends, than that good men should look on and do 
 nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, 
 allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the 
 means which he helps to supply, because he will not 
 trouble himself to use his mind on the subject. It depends 
 on the habit of attending to and looking into public trans- 
 actions, and on the degree of information and solid judgment
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 63 
 
 respecting them that exists in the community, whether the 
 conduct of the nation as a nation, both within itself and 
 towards others, shall be selfish, corrupt, and tyrannical, or 
 rational and enlightened, just and noble. 
 
 Of these more advanced studies, only a small commence- 
 ment can be made at schools and universities ; but even 
 this is of the highest value, by awakening an interest in the 
 subjects, by conquering the first difficulties, and inuring the 
 mind to the kind of exertion which the studies require, by 
 implanting a desire to make further progress, and directing 
 the student to the best tracks and the best helps. So far 
 as these branches of knowledge have been acquired, we have 
 learnt, or been put into the way of learning, our duty, and 
 our work in life. Knowing it, however, is but half the 
 work of education; it still remains, that what we know, we 
 shall be willing and determined to put in practice. Never- 
 theless, to know the truth is already a great way towards 
 disposing us to act upon it. What we see clearly and ap- 
 prehend keenly, we have a natural desire to act out. "To 
 see the best, and yet the worst pursue," is a possible but 
 not a common state of mind ; those who follow the wrong 
 have generally first taken care to be voluntarily ignorant of 
 the right. They have silenced their conscience, but they 
 are not knowingly disobeying it. If you take an average 
 human mind while still young, before the objects it has 
 chosen in life have given it a turn in any bad direction, you 
 will generally find it desiring what is good, right, and for 
 the benefit of all ; and if that season is properly used to 
 implant the knowledge and give the training which shall 
 render rectitude of judgment more habitual than sophistry, 
 a serious barrier will have been erected against the inroads 
 of selfishness and falsehood. Still, it is a very imperfect 
 education which trains the intelligence only, but not the 
 will. No one can dispense with an education directed ex- 
 pressly to the moral as well as the intellectual part 
 of his being. Such education, so far as it is direct, is either 
 moral or religious ; and these may either be treated as dis- 
 tinct, or as different aspects of the same thing. The subject
 
 64 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 we are now considering is not education as a whole, but 
 scholastic education, and we must keep in view the 
 inevitable limitations of what schools and universities can 
 do. It is beyond their power to educate morally or 
 religiously. Moral and religious education consist in train- 
 ing the feelings and the daily habits ; and these are, in the 
 main, beyond the sphere and inaccessible to the control of 
 public education. It is the home, the family, which gives 
 us the moral or religious education we really receive : and 
 this is completed, and modified, sometimes for the better, 
 often for the worse, by society, and the opinions and feelings 
 with which we are there surrounded. The moral or religious 
 influence which a University can exercise, consists less in 
 any express teaching, than in the pervading tone of the 
 place. Whatever it teaches, it should teach as penetrated by 
 a sense of duty ; it should present all knowledge as chiefly 
 a means to worthiness of life, given for the double purpose 
 of making each of us practically useful to our fellow-creatures, 
 and of elevating the character of the species itself exalting 
 and dignifying our nature. There is nothing which spreads 
 more contagiously from teacher to pupil than elevation of 
 sentiment : often and often have students caught from the 
 living influence of a professor, a contempt for mean and 
 selfisli objects, and a noble ambition to leave the world 
 better than they found it, which they have carried with 
 them throughout life. In these respects, teachers of every 
 kind have natural and peculiar means of doing with effect, 
 what every one who mixes with his fellow-beings, or addresses 
 himself to them in any character, should feel bound to do 
 to the extent of his capacity and opportunities. "What is 
 special to a university on these subjects belongs chiefly, 
 like the rest of its work, to the intellectual department. 
 A university exists for the purpose of laying open to each 
 succeeding generation, as far as the conditions of the case 
 admit, the accumulated treasure of the thoughts of mankind. 
 As an indispensable part of this, it has to make known to 
 them what mankind at large, their own country, and the 
 best and wisest individual men, have thought on the great
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 65 
 
 subjects of morals and religion. There should be, and there 
 is in most universities, professorial instruction in Moral 
 Philosophy ; but I could wish that this instruction were of 
 a somewhat different type from what is ordinarily met with. 
 I could wish that it were more expository, less polemical, 
 and above all less dogmatic. The learner should be made 
 acquainted with the principal systems of moral philosophy 
 which have existed and been practically operative among 
 mankind, and should hear what there is to be said for each : 
 the Aristotelian, the Epicurean, the Stoic, the Judaic, the 
 Christian in the various modes of its interpretation, which 
 differ almost as much from one another as the teachings of 
 those earlier schools. He should be made familiar with the 
 different standards of right and wrong which have been 
 taken as the basis of ethics : general utility, natural justice, 
 natural rights, a moral sense, principles of practical reason, 
 and the rest. Among all these, it is not so much the 
 teacher's business to take a side, and fight stoutly for some 
 one against the rest, as it is to direct them all towards the 
 establishment and preservation of the rules of conduct most 
 advantageous to mankind. There is not one of these 
 systems which has not its good side ; not one from which 
 there is not something to be learnt by the votaries of the 
 others ; not one which is not suggested by a keen, though 
 it may not always be a clear, perception of some important 
 truths, which are the prop of the system, and the neglect or 
 undervaluing of which in other systems is their character- 
 istic infirmity. A system which may be as a whole erroneous, 
 is still valuable, until it has forced upon mankind a sufficient 
 attention to the portion of truth which suggested it. The 
 ethical teacher does his part best, when he points out how 
 each system may be strengthened even on its own basis, by 
 taking into more complete account the truths which other 
 systems have realised more fully and made more prominent. 
 I do not mean that he should encourage an essentially 
 sceptical eclecticism. While placing every system in the 
 best aspect it admits of, and endeavouring to draw from all 
 of them the most salutary consequences compatible with 
 
 5
 
 66 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 their nature, I would by no means debar him from enforcing 
 by his best arguments his own preference for some one of 
 the number. They cannot be all true ; though those which 
 are false as theories may contain particular truths, indispens- 
 able to the completeness of the true theory. But on this 
 subject, even more than on any of those I have previously 
 mentioned, it is not the teacher's business to impose his own 
 judgment, but to inform and discipline that of his pupil. 
 
 And this same clue, if we keep hold of it, will guide us 
 through the labyrinth of conflicting thought into which we 
 enter when we touch the great question of the relation of 
 education to Religion. As I have already said, the only 
 really effective religious education is the parental that of 
 home and childhood. All that social and public education 
 has in its power to do, further than by a general pervading 
 tone of reverence and duty, amounts to little more than the 
 information which it can give ; but this is extremely valu- 
 able. I shall not enter into the question which has been 
 debated with so much vehemence in the last and present 
 generation, whether religion ought to be taught at all in 
 universities and public schools, seeing that religion is the 
 subject of all others on which men's opinions are most 
 widely at variance. On neither side of this controversy do 
 the disputants seem to me to have sufficiently freed their 
 minds from the old notion of education, that it consists in 
 the dogmatic inculcation from authority, of what the teacher 
 deems true. Why should it be impossible that information 
 of the greatest value, on subjects connected with religion, 
 should be brought before the student's mind ; that he should 
 be made acquainted with so important a part of the national 
 thought, and of the intellectual labours of past generations, 
 as those relating to religion, without being taught dogmatic- 
 ally the doctrines of any church or sect ? Christianity 
 being a historical religion, the sort of religious instruction 
 which seems to me most appropriate to a University is the 
 study of Ecclesiastical History. If teaching, even on matters 
 of scientific certainty, should aim quite as much at showing 
 how the results are arrived at, as at teaching the results
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 67 
 
 themselves, far more, then, should this be the case on 
 subjects where there is the widest diversity of opinion 
 among men of equal ability, and who have taken equal 
 pains to arrive at the truth. This diversity should of itself 
 be a warning to a conscientious teacher that he has no right 
 to impose his opinion authoritatively upon a youthful mind. 
 His teaching should not be in the spirit of dogmatism, but 
 in that of enquiry. The pupil should not be addressed as 
 if his religion had been chosen for him, but as one who will 
 have to choose it for himself. The various Churches, estab- 
 lished and unestablished, are quite competent to the task 
 which is peculiarly theirs, that of teaching each its own 
 doctrines, as far as necessary, to its own rising generation. 
 The proper business of a University is different : not to 
 tell us from authority what we ought to believe, and make 
 us accept the belief as a duty, but to give us information 
 and training, and help us to form our own belief in a 
 manner worthy of intelligent beings, who seek for truth at 
 all hazards, and demand to know all the difficulties, in 
 order that they may be better qualified to find, or recognise, 
 the most satisfactory mode of resolving them. The vast 
 importance of these questions -the great results as regards 
 the conduct of our lives, which depend upon our choosing 
 one belief or another are the strongest reasons why we 
 should not trust our judgment when it has been formed in 
 ignorance of the evidence, and why we should not consent 
 to be restricted to a one-sided teaching, which informs us of 
 what a particular teacher or association of teachers receive 
 as true doctrine and sound argument, but of nothing more. 
 
 I do not affirm that a University, if it represses free 
 thought and inquiry, must be altogether a failure, for the 
 freest thinkers have often been trained in the most slavish 
 seminaries of learning. The great Christian reformers 
 were taught in Eoman Catholic Universities ; the sceptical 
 philosophers of France were mostly educated by the Jesuits. 
 The human mind is sometimes impelled all the more 
 violently in one direction, by an over zealous and demon- 
 strative attempt to drag it in the opposite. But this is not
 
 G8 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 what Universities are appointed for to drive men from 
 them, even into good, by excess of evil. A University 
 ought to be a place of free speculation. The more diligently 
 it does its duty in all other respects, the more certain it is 
 to be that. The old English Universities, in the present 
 generation, are doing better work than they have done 
 within human memory in teaching the ordinary studies 
 of their curriculum ; and one of the consequences has been, 
 that whereas they formerly seemed to exist mainly for the 
 repression of independent thought, and the chaining up of 
 the individual intellect and conscience, they are now the 
 great foci of free and manly enquiry, to the higher and 
 professional classes, south of the Tweed. The ruling minds 
 of those ancient seminaries have at last remembered that to 
 place themselves in hostility to the free use of the under- 
 standing, is to abdicate their own best privilege, that of 
 guiding it. A modest deference, at least provisional, to the 
 united authority of the specially instructed, is becoming in 
 a youthful and imperfectly formed mind ; but when there is 
 no united authority when the specially instructed are so 
 divided and scattered that almost any opinion can boast of 
 some high authority, and no opinion whatever can claim 
 all ; when, therefore, it can never be deemed extremely 
 improbable that one who uses his mind freely may see 
 reason to change his first opinion, then, whatever you do, 
 keep, at all risks, your minds open : do not barter away 
 your freedom of thought. Those of you who are destined, 
 for the clerical profession are, no doubt, so far held to a 
 certain number of doctrines, that if you ceased to believe 
 them you would not be justified in remaining in a position 
 in which you would be required to teach insincerely. But 
 use your influence to make those doctrines as few as possible. 
 It is not right that men should be bribed to hold out against 
 conviction to shut their ears against objections, or, if the 
 objections penetrate, to continue professing full and unfalter- 
 ing belief when their confidence is already shaken. Neither 
 is it right that if men honestly profess to have changed 
 some of their religious opinions, their honesty should as a
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 69 
 
 matter of course exclude them from taking a part for which 
 they may be admirably qualified, in the spiritual instruction 
 of the nation. The tendency of the age, on both sides of 
 the ancient Border, is towards the relaxation of formularies, 
 and a less rigid construction of articles. This very circum- 
 stance, by making the limits of orthodoxy less definite, and 
 obliging every one to draw the line for himself, is an 
 embarrassment to consciences. But I hold entirely with 
 those clergymen who elect to remain in the national church, 
 so long as they are able to accept its articles and confessions 
 in any sense, or with any interpretation consistent with 
 common honesty, whether it be the generally received in- 
 terpretation or not. If all were to desert the church who 
 put a large and liberal construction on its terms of com- 
 munion, or who would wish to see those terms widened, the 
 national provision for religious teaching and worship would 
 be left utterly to those who take the narrowest, the most 
 literal, and purely textual view of the formularies ; who, 
 though by no means necessarily bigots, are under the great 
 disadvantage of having the bigots for their allies, and who, 
 however great their merits may be and they are often very 
 great if the Church is improvable, are not the most 
 likely persons to improve it. Therefore, if it were not an 
 impertinence in me to tender advice in such a matter, I -should 
 say, let all who conscientiously can, remain in the Church. 
 A Church is far more easily improved from within than from 
 without. Almost all the illustrious reformers of religion 
 began by being clergymen ;* but they did not think that 
 their profession as clergymen was inconsistent with being 
 reformers. They mostly indeed ended their days outside 
 the churches in which they were born ; but it was because 
 the churches, in an evil hour for themselves, cast them out. 
 They did not think it any business of theirs to withdraw. 
 They thought they had a better right to remain in the fold, 
 than those had who expelled them. 
 
 I have now said what 1 had to say on the two kinds 
 of education which the system of Schools and Universities 
 is intended to promote intellectual education, and moral
 
 70 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 education ; knowledge and the training of the knowing 
 faculty, conscience and that of the moral faculty. These 
 are the two main ingredients of human culture ; but they 
 do not exhaust the whole of it. There is a third division, 
 which, if subordinate, and owing allegiance to the two 
 others, is barely inferior to them, and not less needful to 
 the completeness of the human being ; 1 mean the aesthetic 
 branch ; the culture which comes through poetry and art, 
 and may be described as the education of the feelings, and 
 the cultivation of the beautiful. This department of things 
 deserves to be regarded in a far more serious light than is 
 the custom of these countries. It is only of late, and chiefly 
 by a superficial imitation of foreigners, that we have begun 
 to use the word Art by itself, and to speak of Art as we 
 speak of Science, or Government, or Eeligion : we used to 
 talk of the Arts, and more specifically of the Fine Arts : and 
 even by them were vulgarly meant only two forms of art, 
 Painting and Sculpture, the two which as a people we cared 
 least about which were regarded even by the more culti- 
 vated among us as little more than branches of domestic 
 ornamentation, a kind of elegant upholstery. The very 
 words " Fine Arts " called up a notion of frivolity, of great 
 pains expended on a rather trifling object on something 
 which differed from the cheaper and commoner arts of 
 producing pretty things, mainly by being more difficult, 
 and by giving fops an opportunity of pluming themselves 
 on caring for it and on being able to talk about it. This 
 estimate extended in no small degree, though not altogether, 
 even to Poetry the queen of Arts; but, in Great Britain, 
 hardly included under the name. It cannot exactly be said 
 that poetry was little thought of; we were proud of our 
 Shakespeare and Milton, and in one period at least of our 
 history, that of Queen Anne, it was a high literary dis- 
 tinction to be a poet ; but Poetry was hardly looked upon 
 in any serious light, or as having much value except as an 
 amusement or excitement, the superiority of which over 
 others principally consisted in being that of a more refined 
 order of minds. Yet the celebrated saying of Fletcher of
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 71 
 
 Saltoun, " Let who will make the laws of a people if I write 
 their songs," might have taught us how great an instrument 
 for acting on the human mind we were undervaluing. It 
 would be difficult for anybody to imagine that " Rule Bri- 
 tannia," for example, or " Scots wha' hae," had no permanent 
 influence on the higher region of human character ; some of 
 Moore's songs have done more for Ireland than all Grattan's 
 speeches : and songs are far from being the highest or most 
 impressive form of poetry. On these subjects, the mode of 
 thinking and feeling of other countries was not only not 
 intelligible, but not credible, to an average Englishman. 
 To find Art ranking on a complete equality, in theory at 
 least, with Philosophy, Learning, and Science as holding 
 an equally important place among the agents of civilisation, 
 and among the elements of the worth of humanity ; to find 
 even Painting and Sculpture treated as great social powers, 
 and the Art of a country as a feature in its character and 
 condition, little inferior in importance to either its Eeligion 
 or its Government, all this only did not amaze and puzzle 
 Englishmen, because it was too strange for them to be able 
 to realise it, or, in truth, to believe it possible : and the 
 radical difference of feeling on this matter between the 
 British people and those of France, Germany, and the 
 Continent generally, is one among the causes of that 
 extraordinary inability to understand one another, which 
 exists between England and the rest of Europe, while it 
 does not exist to anything like the same degree between one 
 nation of Continental Europe and another. It may be 
 traced to the two influences which have chiefly shaped the 
 British character since the days of the Stuarts : commercial 
 money -getting business, and religious Puritanism. Business, 
 demanding the whole of the faculties, and whether pursued 
 from duty or the love of gain, regarding as a loss of time 
 whatever does not conduce directly to the end ; Puritanism, 
 which, looking upon every feeling of human nature, except 
 fear and reverence for God, as a snare, if not as partaking 
 of sin, looked coldly, if not disapprovingly, on the cultivation 
 of the sentiments. Different causes have produced different
 
 72 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 effects in the Continental nations ; among whom it is even 
 now observable that virtue and goodness are generally for 
 the most part an affair of the sentiments, while with us 
 they are almost exclusively an affair of duty. Accordingly, 
 the kind of advantage which we have had over many other 
 countries in point of morals I am not sure that we are 
 not losing it has consisted in greater tenderness of con- 
 science. In this we have had on the whole a real superiority, 
 though one principally negative ; for conscience is with 
 most men a power chiefly in the way of restraint a 
 power which acts rather in staying our hands from any 
 great wickedness, than by the direction it gives to the 
 general course of our desires and sentiments. One of the 
 commonest types of character among us is that of a man 
 all whose ambition is self-regarding ; who has no higher 
 purpose in life than to enrich or raise in the world himself 
 and his family ; who never dreams of making the good of 
 his fellow-creatures or of his country an habitual object, 
 further than giving away, annually, or from time to time, 
 certain sums in charity; but who has a conscience sincerely 
 alive to whatever is generally considered wrong, and would 
 scruple to use any very illegitimate means for attaining his 
 self-interested objects. While it will often happen in other 
 countries that men whose feelings and whose active energies 
 point strongly in an unselfish direction, who have the love 
 of their country, of human improvement, of human freedom, 
 even of virtue, in great strength, and of whose thoughts and 
 activity a large share is devoted to disinterested objects, will 
 yet, in the pursuit of these or of any other objects that they 
 strongly desire, permit themselves to do wrong things which 
 the other man, though intrinsically, and taking the whole 
 of his character, farther removed from what a human being 
 ought to be, could not bring himself to commit. It is of 
 no use to debate which of these two states of mind is the 
 best, or rather the least bad. It is quite possible to cultivate 
 the conscience and the sentiments too. Nothing hinders us 
 from so training a man that he will not, even for a disin- 
 terested purpose, violate the moral law, and also feeding
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 73 
 
 and encouraging those high feelings, on which we mainly 
 rely for lifting men above low and sordid objects, and 
 giving them a higher conception of what constitutes success 
 in life. If we wish men to practise virtue, it is worth 
 while trying to make them love virtue, and feel it an object 
 in itself, and not a tax paid for leave to pursue other objects. 
 It is worth training them to feel, not only actual wrong or 
 actual meanness, but the absence of noble aims and endea- 
 vours, as not merely blamable but also degrading : to have 
 a feeling of the miserable smallness of mere self in the face 
 of this great Universe, of the collective mass of our fellow- 
 creatures, in the face of past history and of the indefinite 
 future the poorness and insignificance of human life if it 
 is to be all spent in making things comfortable for ourselves 
 and our kin, and raising ourselves and them a step or two 
 on the social ladder. Thus feeling, we learn to respect 
 ourselves only so far as we feel capable of nobler objects : 
 and if, unfortunately, those by whom we are surrounded do 
 not share our aspirations, perhaps disapprove the conduct 
 to which we are prompted by them to sustain ourselves 
 by the ideal sympathy of the great characters in history, or 
 even in fiction, and by the contemplation of an idealised 
 posterity : shall I add, of ideal perfection embodied in a 
 Divine Being % Now, of this elevated tone of mincl the 
 great source of inspiration is poetry, and all literature so far 
 as it is poetical and artistic. We may imbibe exalted 
 feelings from Plato, or Demosthenes, or Tacitus, but it is in 
 so far as those great men are not solely philosophers or 
 orators or historians, but poets and artists. Nor is it only 
 loftiness, only the heroic feelings, that are bred by poetic 
 cultivation. Its power is as great in calming the soul as in 
 elevating it in fostering the milder emotions, as the more 
 exalted. It brings home to us all those aspects of life 
 which take hold of our nature on its unselfish side, and lead 
 us to identify our joy and grief with the good or ill of the 
 system of which we form a part; and all those solemn or 
 pensive feelings, which, without having any direct application 
 to conduct, incline us to take life seriously, and predispose
 
 74 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 us to the reception of anything which comes before us in 
 the shape of duty. "Who does not feel a better man after a 
 course of Dante, or of Wordsworth, or, I will add, of Lucretius 
 or the Georgics, or after brooding over Gray's " Elegy," or 
 Shelley's " Hymn to Intellectual Beauty " ? I have spoken of 
 poetry, but all the other modes of art produce similar effects 
 in their degree. The races and nations whose senses are 
 naturally finer and their sensuous perceptions more exer- 
 cised than ours, receive the same kind of impressions from 
 painting and sculpture : and many of the more delicately 
 organised among ourselves do the same. All the arts of 
 expression tend to keep alive and in activity the feeliDgs 
 they express. Do you think that the great Italian painters 
 would have filled the place they did in the European mind 
 would have been universally ranked among the greatest 
 men of their time if their productions had done nothing for 
 it but to serve as the decoration of a public hall or a private 
 salon ? Their Nativities and Crucifixions, their glorious 
 Madonnas and Saints, were to their susceptible Southern 
 countrymen the great school not only of devotional, but of 
 all the elevated and all the imaginative feelings. We colder 
 Northerns may approach to a conception of this function of 
 art when we listen to an oratorio of Handel, or give our- 
 selves up to the emotions excited by a Gothic cathedral. 
 Even apart from any specific emotional expression, the mere 
 contemplation of beauty of a high order produces in no 
 small degree this elevating effect on the character. The 
 power of natural scenery addresses itself to the same region 
 of human nature which corresponds to Art. There are few 
 capable of feeling the sublimer order of natural beauty, such 
 as your own Highlands and other mountain regions afford, 
 who are not, at least temporarily, raised by it above the 
 littlenesses of humanity, and made to feel the puerility of 
 the petty objects which set men's interests at variance, 
 contrasted with the nobler pleasures which all might share. 
 To whatever avocations we may be called in life, let us 
 never quash these susceptibilities within us, but carefully 
 seek the opportunities of maintaining them in exercise.
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 75 
 
 The more prosaic our ordinary duties, the more necessary it 
 is to keep up the tone of our minds by frequent visits to 
 that higher region of thought and feeling, in which every 
 work seems dignified in proportion to the ends for which, 
 and the spirit in which, it is done ; where we learn, 
 while eagerly seizing every opportunity of exercising higher 
 faculties and performing higher duties, to regard all useful 
 and honest work as a public function, which may be 
 ennobled by the mode of performing it which has not 
 properly any other nobility than what that gives and 
 which, if ever so humble, is never mean but when it is 
 meanly done, and when the motives from which it is done 
 are mean motives. There is, besides, a natural affinity 
 between goodness and the cultivation of the Beautiful, 
 when it is real cultivation, and not a mere unguided in- 
 stinct. He who has learnt what beauty is, if he be of a 
 virtuous character, will desire to realise it in his own life 
 will keep before himself a type of perfect beauty in human 
 character, to light his attempts at self-culture. There is a 
 true meaning in the saying of Goethe, though liable to be 
 misunderstood and perverted, that the Beautiful is greater 
 than the Good ; for it includes the Good, and adds some- 
 thing to it : it is the Good made perfect, and fitted with all 
 the collateral perfections which make it a finished* and 
 completed thing. Now, this sense of perfection, which 
 would make us demand from every creation of man the 
 very utmost that it ought to give, and render us intolerant 
 of the smallest fault in ourselves or in anything we do, is 
 one of the results of Art cultivation. No other human 
 productions come so near to perfection as works of pure Art. 
 In all other things, we are, and may reasonably be, satisfied 
 if the degree of excellence is as great as the object imme- 
 diately in view seems to us to be worth : but in Art, the 
 perfection is itself the object. If I were to define Art, I 
 should be inclined to call it, the endeavour after perfection 
 in execution. If we meet with even a piece of mechanical 
 work which bears the marks of being done in this spirit 
 which is done as if the workman loved it, and tried to make
 
 76 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 it as good as possible, though something less good would 
 have answered the purpose for which it was ostensibly 
 made we say that he has worked like an artist. Art, 
 when really cultivated, and not merely practised empirically, 
 maintains, what it first gave the conception of, an ideal 
 Beauty, to be eternally aimed at, though surpassing what 
 can be actually attained ; and by this idea it trains us 
 never to be completely satisfied with imperfection in what 
 we ourselves do and are : to idealise, as much as possible, 
 every work we do, and most of all, our own characters and 
 lives. 
 
 And now, having travelled with you over the whole 
 range of the materials and training which a University 
 supplies as a preparation for the higher uses of life, it is 
 almost needless to add any exhortation to you to profit by 
 the gift. Now is your opportunity for gaining a degree of 
 insight into subjects larger and far more ennobling than the 
 minutiae of a business or a profession, and for acquiring a 
 facility of using your minds on all that concerns the higher 
 interests of man, which you will carry with you into the 
 occupations of active life, and which will prevent even the 
 short intervals of time which that may leave you, from 
 being altogether lost for noble purposes. Having once 
 conquered the first difficulties, the only ones of which the 
 irksomeness surpasses the interest, having turned the point 
 beyond which what was once a task becomes a pleasure, in 
 even the busiest after-life the higher powers of your mind 
 will make progress imperceptibly, by the spontaneous exer- 
 cise of your thoughts, and by the lessons you will know 
 how to learn from daily experience. So, at least, it will be 
 if in your early studies you have fixed your eyes upon the 
 ultimate end from which those studies take their chief value 
 that of making you more effective combatants in the 
 great fight which never ceases to rage between Good and 
 Evil, and more equal to coping with the ever new problems 
 which the changing course of human nature and human 
 society present to be resolved. Aims like these commonly 
 retain the footing which they have once established in the
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 mind ; and their presence in our thoughts keeps our 
 higher faculties in exercise, and makes us consider the 
 acquirements and powers which we store up at any time 
 of our lives, as a mental capital, to be freely expended in 
 helping forward any mode which presents itself of making 
 mankind in any respect wiser or better, or placing any 
 portion of human affairs on a more sensible and rational 
 footing than its existing one. There is not one of us who 
 may not qualify himself so to improve the average amount 
 of opportunities, as to leave his fellow-creatures some little 
 the better for the use he has known how to make of his 
 intellect. To make this little greater, let us strive to keep 
 ourselves acquainted with the best thoughts that are brought 
 forth by the original minds of the age ; that we may know 
 what movements stand most in need of our aid, and that, as 
 far as depends on us, the good seed may not fall on a rock, 
 and perish without reaching the soil in which it might have 
 germinated and flourished. You are to be a part of the 
 public who are to welcome, encourage, and help forward the 
 future intellectual benefactors of humanity ; and you are, if 
 possible, to furnish your contingent to the number of those 
 benefactors. Nor let any one be discouraged by what may 
 seem, in moments of despondency, the lack of time and of 
 opportunity. Those who know how to employ opportunities 
 will often find that they can create them : and what we 
 achieve depends less on the amount of time we possess, than 
 on the use we make of our time. You and your like are 
 the hope and resource of your country in the coming gener- 
 ation. All great things which that generation is destined 
 to do, have to be done by some like you ; several will 
 assuredly be done by persons for whom society has done 
 much less, to whom it has given far less preparation, than 
 those whom I am now addressing. I do not attempt to 
 instigate you by the prospect of direct rewards, either earthly 
 or heavenly ; the less we think about being rewarded in 
 either way, the better for us. But there is one reward 
 which will not fail you, and which may be called disinter- 
 ested, because it is not a consequence, but is inherent in
 
 78 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 the very fact of deserving it, the deeper and more varied 
 interest you will feel in life, which will give it tenfold its 
 value, and a value which will last to the end. All merely 
 personal objects grow less valuable as we advance in life. 
 This not only endures, but increases.
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 
 
 Rector prom 1868 to 1871
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 
 
 FIRST ADDRESS 
 
 {Delivered on March 19, 1869) 
 
 My first duty, in the observations which I am about to 
 address to you, is to make my personal acknowledgments on 
 the occasion which has brought me to this place. When 
 we begin our work in this world, we value most the appro- 
 bation of those older than ourselves. To be regarded 
 favourably by those who have obtained distinction bids us 
 hope that we too, by and bye, may come to be distin- 
 guished in turn. As we advance in life, we learn the limits 
 of our abilities. Our expectations for the future shrink to 
 modest dimensions. The question with us is no longer 
 what we shall do, but what we have done. We calt our- 
 selves to account for the time and talents which we have 
 used or misused, and then it is that the good opinion of 
 those who are coming after us becomes so peculiarly agree- 
 able. If we have been roughly handled by our contem- 
 poraries, it flatters our self-conceit to have interested another 
 generation. If we feel that we have before long to pass 
 away, we can dream of a second future for ourselves in the 
 thoughts of those who are about to take their turn upon the 
 stage. 
 
 Therefore it is that no recognition of efforts of mine 
 which I have ever received has given me so much pleasure 
 as this movement of yours in electing me your Hector ; an 
 honour as spontaneously and generously bestowed by you as 
 it was unlooked for, I may say undreamt of, by me. 
 
 6
 
 82 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 Many years ago, when I was first studying the history 
 of the Eeformation in Scotland, I read a story of a slave in 
 a French galley who was one morning bending wearily over 
 his oar. The day was breaking, and, rising out of the gray 
 waters, a line of cliffs was visible, and the white houses of 
 a town and a church tower. The rower was a man unused 
 to such service, worn with toil and watching, and likely, it 
 was thought, to die. A companion touched him, pointed to 
 the shore, and asked him if he knew it. 
 
 " Yes," he answered, " I know it well. I see the steeple 
 of that place where God opened my mouth in public to his 
 glory ; and I know, how weak soever I now appear, I shall 
 not depart out of this life till my tongue glorify his name 
 in the same place." 
 
 Gentlemen, that town was St. Andrews, that galley-slave 
 was John Knox ; and we know that he came back and did 
 " glorify God " in this place, and others, to some purpose. 
 
 Well, if anybody had told me, when I was reading 
 about this, that I also should one day come to St. Andrews 
 and be called on to address the University, I should have 
 listened with more absolute incredulity than Knox's com- 
 rade listened to that prophecy. 
 
 Yet, inconceivable as it would then have seemed, the 
 unlikely has become fact. I am addressing the successors 
 of that remote generation of students whom Knox, at the 
 end of his life, " called round him," in the yard of this very 
 College ; " and exhorted them," as James Melville tells us, 
 "to know God and stand by the good cause, and use their 
 time well." It will be happy for me if I, too, can read a 
 few words to you out of the same lesson-book ; for to make 
 us know our duty and do it, to make us upright in act and 
 true in thought and word, is the aim of all instruction 
 which deserves the name, the epitome of all purposes for 
 which education exists. Duty changes, truth expands, one 
 age cannot teach another either the details of its obligations, 
 or the matter of its knowledge ; but the principle of obliga- 
 tion is everlasting. The consciousness of duty, whatever its 
 origin, is to the moral nature of man what life is in the
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 83 
 
 seed-cells of all organised creatures ; the condition of its 
 coherence, the elementary force in virtue of which it grows. 
 
 Every one admits this in words. Eather, it has become 
 a cant nowadays to make a parade of noble intentions. The 
 application is the difficulty. When we pass beyond the 
 verbal propositions our guides fail us, and we are left in 
 practice to grope our way, or guess it as we can. So far as 
 our special occupations go, there is no uncertainty. Are we 
 traders, mechanics, lawyers, doctors ? we know our work. 
 Our duty is to do it as honestly and as well as we can. 
 When we pass to our larger interests, to those which con- 
 cern us as men to what Knox meant " by knowing God 
 and standing by the good cause " I suppose there has 
 been rarely a time in the history of the world when intelli- 
 gent people have held more opposite opinions. The Scots 
 to whom Knox was speaking understood him well enough. 
 They had their Bibles as the rule of their lives. They had 
 broken down the tyranny of a contemptible superstition. 
 They were growing up into yeomen, farmers, artisans, 
 traders, scholars, or ministers, each with the business of his 
 life clearly marked out before him. Their duty was to walk 
 uprightly by the light of the Ten Commandments, and to 
 fight with soul and body against the high-born scoimdrel- 
 dom, and spiritual sorcery, which were combining to make 
 them again into slaves. 
 
 I will read you a description of the leaders of the great 
 party in Scotland against whom the Protestants and Knox 
 were contending. I am not going to quote any fierce old 
 Calvinist, who will be set down as a bigot and a liar. My 
 witness is M. Fontenay, brother of the secretary of Mary 
 Stuart, who was residing here on Mary Stuart's business. The 
 persons of whom he was speaking were the so-called Catholic 
 Lords ; and the occasion was in a letter to herself : 
 
 " The Sirens," wrote this M. Fontenay, " which bewitch 
 the lords of this country are money and power. If 1 preach 
 to them of their duty to their Sovereign if I talk to them 
 of honour, of justice, of virtue, of the illustrious actions of 
 their forefathers, and of the example which they should
 
 84 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 themselves bequeath to their posterity they think me a 
 fool. They can talk of these things themselves talk as 
 well as the best philosophers in Europe. But, when it 
 comes to action, they are like the Athenians, who knew 
 what was good, but would not do it. The misfortune of 
 Scotland is that the noble lords will not look beyond the 
 points of their shoes. They care nothing for the future and 
 less for the past." 
 
 To free Scotland from the control of an unworthy 
 aristocracy, to bid the dead virtues live again, and plant the 
 eternal rules in the consciences of the people this, as I 
 understand it, was what Knox was working at, and it was 
 comparatively a simple thing. It was simple, because the 
 difficulty was not to know what to do, but how to do it. It 
 required no special discernment to see into the fitness for 
 government of lords like those described by Fontenay ; or 
 to see the difference as a rule of life between the New 
 Testament, and a creed that issued in Jesuitism, and the 
 massacre of St. Bartholomew. The truth was plain as the 
 sun. The thing then wanted was courage ; courage in 
 common men to risk their skins, to venture the high pro- 
 bability that before the work was done they might have 
 their throats cut, or see their houses burnt over their heads. 
 
 Times are changed ; we are still surrounded by tempta- 
 tions, but they no longer appear in the shape of stake and 
 gallows. They come rather as intellectual perplexities, on 
 the largest and gravest questions which concern us as 
 human creatures ; perplexities with regard to which self- 
 interest is perpetually tempting us to be false to our real 
 convictions. The best that we can do for one another is to 
 exchange our thoughts freely ; and that, after all, is but 
 little. Experience is no more transferable in morals than in 
 art. The drawing-master can direct his pupil generally in 
 the principles of art. He can teach him here and there to 
 avoid familiar stumbling-blocks. But the pupil must him- 
 self realise every rule which the master gives him. He 
 must spoil a hundred copy-books before the lesson will 
 yield its meaning to him. Action is the real teacher.
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 85 
 
 Instruction does but prevent waste of time or mistakes ; 
 and mistakes themselves are often the best teachers of all. 
 In every accomplishment, every mastery of truth, moral, 
 spiritual, or mechanical, 
 
 Necesse est 
 Multa diu concreta modis inolescere miris : 
 
 our acquirements must grow into us in marvellous ways 
 marvellous as anything connected with man has been, is, 
 and will be. 
 
 I have but the doubtful advantage, in speaking to you, 
 of a few more years of life ; and even whether years bring 
 wisdom, or do not bring it, is far from certain. The fact of 
 growing older teaches many of us to respect notions which 
 we once believed to be antiquated. Our intellectual joints 
 stiffen, and our fathers' crutches have attractions for us 
 You must therefore take the remarks that I am going to 
 make at what appears to you their intrinsic value. 
 Stranger as I am to all of you, and in a relation with you 
 which is only transient, I can but offer you some few 
 general conclusions, which have forced themselves on me 
 during my own experience, in the hope that you may find 
 them not wholly useless. And, as it is desirable to give 
 form to remarks which might otherwise be desultory, I will 
 follow the train of thought suggested by our presence at 
 this place, and the purpose which brings you here. You 
 stand on the margin of the great world, into which you are 
 about to be plunged to sink, or swim. We will consider 
 the stock-in-trade, the moral and mental furniture, with 
 which you will start upon your journey. 
 
 In the first place you are Scots ; you come of a fine 
 stock, and much will be expected of you. If we except the 
 Athenians and the Jews, no people so few in number have 
 scored so deep a mark in the world's history as you have 
 done. No people have a juster right to be proud of their 
 blood. I suppose, if any one of you were asked whether he 
 would prefer to be the son of a Scotch peasant, or to be the 
 heir of an Indian rajah with twenty lacs of rupees, he 
 would not hesitate about his answer : we should none of us
 
 86 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 object to the rupees, but I doubt if the Scot ever breathed 
 who would have sold his birthright for them. Well, then, 
 Noblesse oblige; all blood is noble here, and a noble life 
 should go along with it. It is not for nothing that you 
 here, and we in England, come both of us of our respective 
 races ; we inherit honourable traditions and memories ; we 
 inherit qualities inherent in our bone and blood, which have 
 been earned for us, no thanks to ourselves, by twenty 
 generations of ancestors. Our fortunes are now linked 
 together, for good and evil, never more to be divided ; but 
 when we examine our several contributions to the common 
 stock, the account is more in your favour than ours. 
 
 More than once you saved English Protestantism ; you 
 may have to save it again, for all that I know, at the rate 
 at which our English parsons are now running. You gave 
 us the Stuarts, but you helped us to get rid of them. Even 
 now you are teaching us what, unless we saw it before our 
 eyes, no Englishman would believe to be possible, that a 
 member of Parliament can be elected without bribery. For 
 shrewdness of head, thoroughgoing completeness, contempt 
 of compromise, and moral backbone, no set of people were 
 ever started into life more generously provided. You did 
 not make these things ; it takes many generations to breed 
 high qualities either of mind or body, but you have them ; 
 they are a fine capital to commence business with, and, as I 
 said, Noblesse oblige. 
 
 So much for what you bring with you into the world. 
 And the other part of your equipment is only second in 
 importance to it : I mean your education. There is no 
 occasion to tell a Scotchman to value education. On this, 
 too, you have set us an example which we are beginning to 
 imitate ; I only wish our prejudices and jealousies would 
 let us imitate it thoroughly. In the form of your educa- 
 tion, whether in the parish School or here at the University, 
 there is little to be desired. It is fair all round to poor and 
 rich alike. You have broken down or you never permitted 
 to rise the enormous barrier of expense, which makes the 
 highest education in England a privilege of the wealthy.
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 87 
 
 The subject-matter is another thing. Whether the subjects 
 to which, either with you or with us, the precious years of 
 boyhood and youth continue to be given, are the best in 
 themselves whether they should be altered or added to, and 
 if so, in what direction and to what extent are questions 
 which all the world is busy with. Education is on every- 
 body's lips. Our own great Schools and Colleges are in the 
 middle of a revolution, which, like most revolutions, means 
 discontent with what we have, and no clear idea of what 
 we would have. You yourselves cannot here have wholly 
 escaped the infection, or if you have, you will not escape it 
 long. The causes are not far to seek. On the one hand 
 there is the immense multiplication of the subjects of know- 
 ledge, through the progress of science, and the investigation 
 on all sides into the present and past condition of this 
 planet and its inhabitants ; on the other, the equally 
 increased range of occupations, among which the working- 
 part of mankind are now distributed, and for one or other 
 of which our education is intended to qualify us. It is 
 admitted by everyone that we cannot any longer confine 
 ourselves to the learned languages, to the Grammar and 
 Logic and Philosophy which satisfied the seventeenth 
 century. Yet, if we try to pile on the top of these the 
 histories and literatures of our own and other nations, witli 
 modern languages and sciences, we accumulate a load of 
 matter which the most ardent and industrious student 
 cannot be expected to cope with. 
 
 It may seem presumptuous in a person like myself, un- 
 connected as I have been for many years with any educa- 
 tional body, to obtrude my opinion on these things. Yet 
 outsiders, it is said, sometimes see deeper into a game than 
 those who are engaged in playing it. 
 
 In everything that we do or mean to do, the first condi- 
 tion of success is that we understand clearly the result 
 which we desire to produce. The house-builder does not 
 gather together a mass of bricks and timber and mortar, 
 and trust that somehow a house will shape itself out of its 
 materials. Wheels, springs, screws, and dial-plate will not
 
 88 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 constitute a watch, unless they are shaped and fitted with 
 the proper relations to one another. I have long thought 
 that, to educate successfully, you should first ascertain 
 clearly, with sharp and distinct outline, what you mean by 
 an educated man. 
 
 Now, our ancestors, whatever their other shortcomings, 
 understood what they meant perfectly well. In their 
 primary education, and in their higher education, they knew 
 what they wanted to produce, and they suited their means 
 to their ends. They set out with the principle that every 
 child born into the world should be taught his duty to God 
 and man. The majority of people had to live, as they 
 always must, by bodily labour; therefore every boy was as 
 early as was convenient set to labour. He was not per- 
 mitted to idle about the streets or lanes. He was appren- 
 ticed to some honest industry. Either he was sent to a 
 farm, or, if his wits were sharper, he was allotted to the 
 village carpenter, bricklayer, tailor, shoemaker, or whatever 
 it might be. He was instructed in some positive calling, by 
 which he could earn his bread, and become a profitable 
 member of the commonwealth. Besides this, but not you 
 will observe independent of it, you had in Scotland estab- 
 lished by Knox your parish schools, where he was taught 
 to read, and (if he showed special talent that way) was 
 made a scholar of, and trained for the ministry. But 
 neither Knox, nor any one in those days, thought of what 
 we call enlarging the mind. A boy was taught reading 
 that he might read his Bible, and learn to fear God, and be 
 ashamed and afraid to do wrong. 
 
 An eminent American was once talking to me of the 
 school system in the United States. The boast and glory 
 of it, in his mind, was that every citizen born had a fair 
 and equal start in life. Every one of them knew that lie 
 had a chance of becoming President of the liepublic, and 
 was spurred to energy by the hope. Here, too, you see, is 
 a distinct object. Young Americans are all educated alike. 
 The aim put before them is to get on. They are like 
 runners in a race, set to push and shoulder for the best
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 89 
 
 places ; never to rest contented, but to struggle forward in 
 never-ending competition. It has answered its purpose in a 
 new and unsettled country, where the centre of gravity has 
 not yet determined into its place ; but I cannot think that 
 such a system as this can be permanent, or that human 
 society, constituted on such a principle, will ultimately be 
 found tolerable. For one thing, the prizes of life so looked 
 at are at best but few and the competitors many. " For 
 myself," said the great Spinoza, " I am certain that the good 
 of human life cannot lie in the possession of things which, 
 for one man to possess, is for the rest to lose, but rather in 
 things which all can possess alike, and where one man's 
 wealth promotes his neighbour's." At any rate, it was not 
 any such notion as this which Knox had before him when 
 he instituted your parish schools. We had no parish 
 schools in England for centuries after he was gone, but the 
 object was answered by the Church catechising and the 
 Sunday school. Our boys, like yours, were made to under- 
 stand that they would have to answer for the use that they 
 made of their lives. And in both countries, by industrial 
 training, they were put in the way of leading useful lives if 
 they would be honest. The essential thing was, that every 
 one that was willing to work should be enabled to maintain 
 himself, and his family, in honour and independence. 
 
 Pass to the education of a scholar, and you find the 
 same principle otherwise applied. There are two ways of 
 being independent. If you require much, you must produce 
 much. If you produce little, you must require little. 
 Those whose studies added nothing to the material wealth 
 of the world were taught to be content to be poor. They 
 were a burden on others, and the burden was made as light 
 as possible. The thirty thousand students who gathered 
 out of Europe to Paris to listen to Abelard did not travel in 
 carriages, and they brought no portmanteaus with them. 
 They carried their wardrobes on their backs. They walked 
 from Paris to Padua, from Padua to Salamanca, and they 
 begged their way along the roads. The laws of mendicancy 
 in all countries were suspended in favour of scholars
 
 90 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 wandering in pursuit of knowledge. At home, at his 
 college, the scholar's fare was the hardest, his lodging was 
 the barest. If rich in mind, he was expected to be poor in 
 body ; . and so deeply was this theory grafted into English 
 feeling that earls and dukes, when they began to frequent 
 Universities, shared the common simplicity. The furniture 
 of a noble earl's room at an English university at present may 
 cost, including the pictures of opera-dancers and racehorses, 
 and such like, perhaps five hundred pounds. When the mag- 
 nificent Earl of Essex was sent to Cambridge, in Elizabeth's 
 time, his guardians provided him with a deal table covered 
 with green baize, a truckle bed, half-a-dozen chairs, and a 
 wash-hand basin. The cost of all, I think, was five pounds. 
 
 You see what was meant. The scholar was held in 
 high honour ; but his contributions to the commonwealth 
 were not appreciable in money, and were not rewarded with 
 money. He went without what he could not produce, that 
 he might keep his independence and his self-respect 
 unharmed. Neither scholarship nor science starved under 
 this treatment ; more noble souls have been smothered in 
 luxury than were ever killed by hunger. Your Knox was 
 brought up in this way, Buchanan was brought up in this 
 way, Luther was brought up in this way, and Tyndal, who 
 translated the Bible, and Milton, and Kepler, and Spinoza, 
 and your Eobert Burns. Compare Burns, bred behind the 
 plough, and our English Byron ! 
 
 This was the old education, which formed the character 
 of the English and Scotch nations. It is dying away at 
 both extremities, as no longer suited to what is called 
 modern civilisation. The apprenticeship as a system of 
 instruction is gone. The discipline of poverty not here as 
 yet, I am happy to think, but in England is gone also ; 
 and we have got instead what are called enlarged minds. 
 
 I ask a modern march-of-intellect man what education 
 is for ; and he tells me it is to make educated men. I ask 
 what an educated man is : he tells me it is a man whose 
 intelligence has been cultivated, who knows something of 
 the world he lives in the different races of men, their
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 91 
 
 languages, their histories, and the books that thay have 
 written ; and again, modern science, astronomy, geology, 
 physiology, political economy, mathematics, mechanics 
 everything in fact which an educated man ought to know. 
 
 Education, according to this, means instruction in every- 
 thing which human beings have done, thought, or dis- 
 covered ; all history, all languages, all sciences. 
 
 The demands which intelligent people imagine that they 
 can make on the minds of students in this way are some- 
 thing amazing. I will give you a curious illustration of it. 
 When the competitive examination system was first set on 
 foot, a board of examiners met to draw up their papers of 
 questions. The scale of requirement had first to be settled. 
 Among them a highly distinguished man, who was to 
 examine in English history, announced that for himself, he 
 meant to set a paper for which Macaulay might possibly 
 get full marks ; and he wished the rest of the examiners to 
 imitate him in the other subjects. I saw the paper which 
 he set. I could myself have answered two questions out of 
 a dozen. And it was gravely expected that ordinary young- 
 men of twenty-one, who were to be examined also in Greek 
 and Latin, in Moral Philosophy, in ancient History, in Mathe- 
 matics, and in two modern Languages, were to show a pro- 
 ficiency in each and all of these subjects, which a man of 
 mature age and extraordinary talents, who had devoted his 
 whole time to that special study, had attained only in one 
 of them. 
 
 Under this system teaching becomes cramming ; an 
 enormous accumulation of propositions of all sorts and kinds 
 is thrust down the students' throats, to be poured out again, 
 I might say vomited out, into examiners' laps ; and this 
 when it is notorious that the sole condition of making pro- 
 gress in any branch of art or knowledge is to leave on one 
 side everything irrelevant to it, and to throw your un- 
 divided energy on the special thing you have in hand. 
 
 Our old Universities are struggling against these 
 absurdities. Yet, when we look at the work which they on 
 their side are doing, it is scarcely more satisfactory. A
 
 92 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 young man going to Oxford learns the same things which 
 were taught there two centuries ago ; but, unlike the old 
 scholars, he learns no lessons of poverty along with it. In 
 his three years' course he will have tasted luxuries unknown 
 to him at home, and contracted habits of self-indulgence 
 which make subsequent hardships unbearable ; while his 
 antiquated knowledge, such as it is, has fallen out of the 
 market ; there is no demand for him ; he is not sustained 
 by the respect of the world, which finds him ignorant of 
 everything in which it is interested. He is called educated ; 
 yet, if circumstances throw him on his own resources, he 
 cannot earn a sixpence for himself. An Oxford education 
 fits a man extremely well for the trade of gentleman. I do 
 not know for what other trade it does fit him as at present 
 constituted. More than one man who has taken high 
 honours there, who has learnt faithfully all that the 
 University undertakes to teach him, has been seen in these 
 late years breaking stones upon a road in Australia. That 
 was all which he was found to be fit for when brought in 
 contact with the primary realities of things. 
 
 It has become necessary to alter all this ; but how, and 
 in what direction ? If I go into modern model schools, I 
 find first of all the three E's, about which we are all agreed ; 
 I find next the old Latin and Greek, which the schools 
 must keep to while the Universities confine their honours 
 to these ; and then, by way of keeping up with the times, 
 " abridgments," " text-books," " elements," or whatever they 
 are called, of a mixed multitude of matters, history, natural 
 history, physiology, chronology, geology, political economy, 
 and I know not what besides; general knowledge which, 
 in my experience, means general ignorance ; stuff arranged 
 admirably for one purpose, and one purpose only r to make 
 a show in examinations. To cram a lad's mind with 
 infinite names of things which he never handled, places he 
 never saw or will see, statements of facts which he cannot 
 possibly understand, and must remain merely words to him 
 this, in my opinion, is like loading his stomach with 
 marbles ; for bread giving him a stone. It is wonderful
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 93 
 
 what a quantity of things of this kind a quick boy will 
 commit to memory, how smartly he will answer questions, 
 how he will show off in school inspections, and delight the 
 heart of his master. But what has been gained for the boy 
 himself, let him carry this kind of thing as far as he will, if, 
 when he leaves school, he has to make his own living ? 
 Lord Brougham once said he hoped a time would come 
 when every man in England would read Bacon. William 
 Cobbett, that you may have heard of, said he would be 
 contented if a time came when every man in England 
 would eat bacon. People talk about enlarging the mind. 
 Some years ago I attended a lecture on education in the 
 Eree Trade Hall at Manchester. Seven or eight thousand 
 people were present, and among the speakers was one of the 
 most popular orators of the day. He talked in the usual 
 way of the neglect of past generations, the benighted 
 peasant, in whose besotted brain even thought was extinct, 
 and whose sole spiritual instruction was the dull and 
 dubious parson's sermon. Then came the contrasted 
 picture : the broad river of modern discovery flowing 
 through town and hamlet, science shining as an intellectual 
 sun, and knowledge and justice, as her handmaids, redressing 
 the wrongs and healing the miseries of mankind. Then, 
 wrapt with inspired frenzy, the musical voice, thrilling with 
 transcendent emotion " I seem," the orator said, " I seem 
 to hear again the echo of that voice which rolled over the 
 primeval chaos, saying, ' Let there be light.' " 
 
 As you may see a breeze of wind pass over standing 
 corn, and every stalk bends and a long wave sweeps across 
 the field, so all that listening multitude swayed and wavered 
 under the words. Yet, in plain prose, what did this gentle- 
 man definitely mean ? First and foremost, a man has to 
 earn his living; and all the 'ologies will not of themselves 
 enable him to earn it. Light ! yes, we do want light, but 
 it must be light which will help us to work, and find food 
 and clothes and lodging for ourselves. A modern school 
 will undoubtedly sharpen the wits of a clever boy. He 
 will oo out into the world with the knowledge that there
 
 .94 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 are a great many good things in it which it will be highly 
 pleasant to get hold of; able as yet to do no one thing for 
 which anybody will pay him, yet bent on pushing himself 
 forward into the pleasant places somehow. Some intelli- 
 gent people think that this is a promising state of mind, 
 that an ardent desire to better our position is the most power- 
 ful incentive that we can feel to energy and industry. A 
 great political economist has defended the existence of a 
 luxuriously-living idle class as supplying a motive for exer- 
 tion to those who are less highly favoured. They are like 
 Olympian gods, condescending to show themselves in their 
 Empyrean, and to say to their worshippers, " Make money, 
 money enough, and you and your descendants shall become 
 as we are, and shoot grouse and drink champagne all the 
 days of your lives." 
 
 No doubt this would be a highly influential incitement 
 to activity of a sort ; only it must be remembered that 
 there are many sorts of activity, and short smooth cuts to 
 wealth, as well as long hilly roads. In civilised and 
 artificial communities there are many ways where fools 
 have money, and rogues want it of effecting a change of 
 possession. The process is at once an intellectual pleasure, 
 extremely rapid, and every way more agreeable than dull 
 mechanical labour. I doubt very much, indeed, whether 
 the honesty of the country has been improved by the sub- 
 stitution, so generally, of mental education for industrial ; 
 and the three E's, if no industrial training has gone along 
 with them, are apt, as Miss Nightingale observes, to pro- 
 duce a fourth Ii of rascaldom. 
 
 But it is only fair, if I quarrel alike with those who go 
 forward and those who stand still, to offer an opinion of my 
 own. If I call other people's systems absurd, in justice I 
 must give them a system of my own to retort upon. 
 Well, then, to recur once more to my question. Before we 
 begin to build, let us have a plan of the house that we 
 would construct. Before we begin to train a boy's mind, 
 I will try to explain what I, for my part, would desire to 
 see done with it.
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 95 
 
 I will take the lowest scale first. 
 
 I accept without qualification the first principle of our 
 forefathers, that every boy born into the world should be 
 put in the way of maintaining himself in honest inde- 
 pendence. No education which does not make this its 
 first aim is worth anything at all. There are but three 
 ways of living, as some one has said ; by working, by 
 begging, or by stealing. Those who do not work, disguise 
 it in whatever pretty language we please, are doing one of 
 the other two. A poor man's child is brought here with 
 no will of his own. We have no right to condemn him to 
 be a mendicant or a rogue ; he may fairly demand there- 
 fore to be put in the way of earning his bread by labour. 
 The practical necessities must take precedence of the 
 intellectual. A tree must be rooted in the soil before it 
 can bear flowers and fruit. A man must learn to stand 
 upright upon his own feet, to respect himself, to be inde- 
 pendent of charity or accident. It is on this basis only 
 that any superstructure of intellectual cultivation worth 
 having can possibly be built. The old apprenticeship 
 therefore was, in my opinion, an excellect system, as the 
 world used to be. The Ten Commandments, and a handi- 
 craft, made a good and wholesome equipment to commence 
 life with. Times are changed. The apprentice plan broke 
 down : partly because it was abused for purposes of 
 tyranny ; partly because employers did not care to be 
 burdened with boys whose labour was unprofitable; partly 
 because it opened no road for exceptional clever lads to rise 
 into higher positions ; they were started in a groove from 
 which they could never afterwards escape. 
 
 Yet the original necessities remain unchanged. The 
 Ten Commandments are as obligatory as ever, and practical 
 ability the being able to do something, and not merely to 
 answer questions must still be the backbone of the educa- 
 tion of every boy who has to earn his bread by manual 
 labour. 
 
 Add knowledge afterwards as much as you will, but let 
 it be knowledge which will lead to the doin<>- better each
 
 96 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 particular work which a boy is practising, and every frac- 
 tion of it will thus be useful to him ; and if he has it 
 in him to rise, there is no fear but he will find oppor- 
 tunity. The poet Coleridge once said that every man might 
 have two versions of his Bible ; one the book that he read, 
 the other the trade that he pursued ; he could find per- 
 petual illustrations of every Bible' truth in the thoughts 
 which his occupation might open to him. I would say, 
 less fancifully, that every honest occupation to which a 
 man sets his hand would raise him into a philosopher if 
 he mastered all the knowledge that belonged to his craft. 
 
 Every occupation, even the meanest I don't say the 
 scavenger's or the chimney-sweep's but every productive 
 occupation which adds anything to the capital of mankind, 
 if followed assiduously with a desire to understand every- 
 thing connected with it, is an ascending stair, whose summit 
 is nowhere, and from the successive steps of which the 
 horizon of knowledge perpetually enlarges. Take the 
 lowest and most unskilled labour of all, that of the peasant 
 in the field. The peasant's business is to make the earth 
 grow food ; the elementary rules of his art are the simplest, 
 and the rude practice of it the easiest ; yet between the 
 worst agriculture and the best lies agricultural chemistry, 
 the application of machinery, the laws of the economy of 
 force, and the most curious problems of physiology. Each 
 step of knowledge gained in these things can be immedi- 
 ately applied and realised. Each point of the science 
 which the labourer masters will make him not only a wiser 
 man but a better workman ; and will either lift him, if he 
 is ambitious, to a higher position, or make him more intelli- 
 gent and more valuable if he remains where he is. If he 
 be one of Lord Brougham's geniuses, he need not go to the 
 Novum Organon ; there is no direction in which his own 
 subject will not lead him, if he cares to follow it, to the 
 furthest boundary of thought. Only I insist on this, that 
 information shall go along with practice, and the man's 
 work become more profitable while lie himself becomes 
 wiser. He may then go far, or he may stop short ; but
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 97 
 
 whichever he do, what he has gained will be real gain, and 
 become part and parcel of himself. 
 
 It sounds like mockery to talk thus of the possible 
 prospects of the toil-worn drudge who drags his limbs at 
 the day's end to his straw pallet, sleeps heavily, and wakes 
 only to renew the weary round. I am but comparing two 
 systems of education, from each of which the expected 
 results may be equally extravagant. I mean only that if 
 there is to be this voice rolling over chaos again, ushering 
 in a millennium, the w r ay to it lies through industrial teach- 
 ing, where the practical underlies the intellectual. The 
 millions must ever be condemned to toil with their hands, 
 or the race will cease to exist. The beneficent light, when 
 it comes, will be a light which will make labour more pro- 
 ductive by being more scientific ; which will make the 
 humblest drudgery not unworthy of a human being, by 
 making it at the same time an exercise to his mind. 
 
 I spoke of the field labourer. I might have gone 
 through the catalogue of manual craftsmen, blacksmiths, 
 carpenters, bricklayers, tailors, cobblers, fishermen, what 
 you will. The same rule applies to them all. Detached 
 facts on miscellaneous subjects, as they are taught at a 
 modern school, are like separate letters of endless alphabets. 
 You may load the mechanical memory with them till it 
 becomes a marvel of retentiveness. Your young prodigy 
 may amaze examiners, and delight inspectors. His achieve- 
 ments may be emblazoned in blue-books, and furnish 
 matter for flattering reports on the excellence of our educa- 
 tional system ; and all this while you have been feeding 
 him with chips of granite. But arrange your letters into 
 words, and each word becomes a thought, a symbol waking 
 in the mind an image of a real thing. Group your words 
 into sentences, and thought is married to thought and pro- 
 duces other thoughts, and the chips of granite become soft 
 bread, wholesome, nutritious, and invigorating. Teach your 
 boys subjects which they can only remember mechanically, 
 and you teach them nothing which it is worth their while 
 to know. Teach them facts and principles which they can 
 
 7
 
 98 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 apply and use in the work of their lives ; and if the object 
 be to give your clever working lads a chance of rising to 
 become Presidents of the United States, or millionaires 
 with palaces and powdered footmen, the ascent into those 
 blessed conditions will be easier and healthier, along the 
 track of an instructed industry, than by the paths which 
 the most keenly sharpened wits would be apt to choose for 
 themselves. 
 
 To pass to the next scale, which more properly con- 
 cerns us here. As the world requires handicrafts, so it 
 requires those whose work is with the brain, or with brain 
 and # hand combined doctors, lawyers, engineers, ministers 
 of religion. Bodies become deranged, affairs become de- 
 ranged, sick souls require their sores to be attended to ; 
 and so arise the learned professions, to one or other of 
 which I presume that most of you whom I am addressing 
 intend to belong. Well, to the education for the pro- 
 fessions I would apply the same principle. The student 
 should learn at the University what will enable him to 
 earn his living as soon after he leaves it as possible. I 
 am well aware that a professional education cannot be com- 
 pleted at a University ; but it is true also that with 
 every profession there is a theoretic or scientific ground- 
 work which can be learnt nowhere so well, and, if those 
 precious years are wasted on what is useless, will never be 
 learnt properly at all. You are going to be a lawyer : you 
 must learn Latin, for you cannot understand the laws of 
 Scotland without it ; but if you must learn another lan- 
 guage, Norman French will be more useful to you than 
 Greek, and the Acts of Parliament of Scotland more 
 important reading than Livy or Thucydides. Are you to 
 to be a doctor ? you must learn Latin too ; but neither 
 Thucydides nor the Acts of Parliament will be of use to 
 you you must learn Chemistry ; and if you intend here- 
 after to keep on a level with your science, you must learn 
 modern French and German, and learn them thoroughly 
 well, for mistakes in your work are dangerous. 
 
 Are you to be an engineer ? You must work now,
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 99 
 
 when you have time, at Mathematics. You will make no 
 progress without it. You must work at Chemistry ; it is 
 the grammar of all physical sciences, and there is hardly 
 one of the physical sciences with which you may not 
 require to be acquainted. The world is wide, and Great 
 Britain is a small crowded island. You may wait long for 
 employment here. Your skill will be welcomed abroad : 
 therefore now also, while you have time, learn French, or 
 Russian, or Chinese, or Turkish. The command of any one 
 of these languages will secure to an English or Scotch 
 engineer instant and unbounded occupation. 
 
 The principle that I advocate is of earth, earthy. I 
 am quite aware of it. We are ourselves made of earth ; 
 our work is on the earth ; and most of us are commonplace 
 people, who are obliged to make the most of our time. 
 History, Poetry, Logic, Moral Philosophy, Classical Literature, 
 are excellent as ornament. If you care for such things, 
 they may be the amusement of your leisure hereafter ; but 
 they will not help you to stand on your feet and walk 
 alone ; and no one is properly a man till he can do that. 
 You cannot learn everything ; the objects of knowledge 
 have multiplied beyond the powers of the strongest mind to 
 keep pace with them all. You must choose among them, 
 and the only reasonable guide to choice in such mat'ters is 
 utility. The old saying, Non multa, sed multum, becomes 
 every day more pressingly true. If we mean to thrive, we 
 must take one line and rigidly and sternly confine our 
 energies to it. Am I told that it will make men into 
 machines ? I answer that no men are machines who are 
 doing good work conscientiously and honestly, with the 
 fear of their Maker before them. And if a doctor or a 
 lawyer has it in him to become a great man, he can ascend 
 through his profession to any height to which his talents 
 are equal. All that is open to the handicraftsmen is open 
 to him, only that he starts a great many rounds higher up 
 the ladder. 
 
 What I deplore in our present higher education is the 
 devotion of so much effort and so many precious years to
 
 100 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 subjects which have no practical bearing upon life. We 
 had a theory at Oxford that our system, however defective 
 in many ways, yet developed in us some especially precious 
 human qualities. Classics and Philosophy are called there 
 literce humaniores. They are supposed to have an effect 
 on character, and to be specially adapted for creating 
 ministers of religion. The training of clergymen is, if any- 
 thing, the special object of Oxford teaching. All arrange- 
 ments are made with a view to it. The heads of Colleges, 
 the resident Fellows, Tutors, Professors, are, with rare ex- 
 ceptions, ecclesiastics themselves. 
 
 Well, then, if they have hold of the right idea, the 
 effect ought to have been considerable. We have had 
 thirty years of unexampled clerical activity among us : 
 churches have been doubled ; theological books, magazines, 
 reviews, newspapers, have been poured out by the hundreds 
 of thousands ; while by the side of it there has sprung up 
 an equally astonishing development of moral dishonesty. 
 From the great houses in the City of London to the 
 village grocer, the commercial life of England has been 
 saturated with fraud. So deep has it gone that a strictly 
 honest tradesman can hardly hold his ground against com- 
 petition. You can no longer trust that any article that 
 you buy is the thing which it pretends to be. We have 
 false weights, false measures, cheating, and shoddy every- 
 where. Yet the clergy have seen all this grow up in 
 absolute indifference ; and the great question which at this 
 moment is agitating the Church of England is the colour 
 of the ecclesiastical petticoats. 
 
 Many a hundred sermons have I heard in England, 
 many a dissertation on the mysteries of the faith, on the 
 divine mission of the clergy, on apostolical succession, on 
 bishops, and justification, and the theory of good works, 
 and verbal inspiration, and the efficacy of the sacraments ; 
 but never, during these thirty wonderful years, never one 
 that I can recollect on common honesty, or those primitive 
 commandments, Thou shalt not lie, and Thou shalt not 
 steal.
 
 _ f /- /d-UM^ 
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 101 
 
 The late Bishop Blomfield used to tell a story of his 
 having been once late in life at the University Church at 
 Cambridge, and of having seen a verger there whom he 
 remembered when he was himself an undergraduate. The 
 Bishop said he was glad to see him looking so well at such 
 a great age. " Oh yes, my Lord," the fellow said, " I have 
 much to be grateful for. I have heard every sermon which 
 has been preached in this church for fifty years, and, thank 
 God, I am a Christian still." 
 
 Classical Philosophy, classical History and Literature, 
 taking, as they do, no hold upon the living hearts and 
 imagination of men in this modern age leave their working- 
 intelligence a prey to wild imaginations, and make them 
 incapable of really understanding the world in which they 
 live. If the clergy knew as much of the history of Eng- 
 land and Scotland as they know about Greece and Rome, 
 if they had been ever taught to open their eyes and see 
 what is actually round them instead of groping among 
 books to find what men did or thought at Alexandria or 
 Constantinople fifteen hundred years ago, they would 
 grapple more effectively with the moral pestilence which is 
 poisoning all the air. 
 
 But it was not this that I came here to speak of. 
 What I insist upon is, generally, that in a country like 
 ours, where each child that is born among us finds every 
 acre of land appropriated, a universal " Not yours " set 
 upon the rich things with which he is surrounded, and a 
 government which, unlike those of old Greece or modern 
 China, does not permit superfluous babies to be strangled 
 such a child, I say, since he is required to live, has a 
 right to demand such teaching as shall enable him to live 
 with honesty, and take such a place in society as belongs 
 to the faculties which he has brought with him. It is a 
 right which was recognised in one shape or another by our 
 ancestors. It must be recognised now and always, if we 
 are not to become a mutinous rabble. And it ought to be 
 the guiding principle of all education, high and low. We 
 have not to look any longer to this island only. There is
 
 102 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 an abiding place now for Englishmen and Scots wherever 
 our flag is flying. This narrow Britain, once our only home, 
 lias become the breeding-place and nursery of a race which 
 is spreading over the world. Year after year we are 
 swarming as the bees swarm ; and year after year, and I 
 hope more and more, high-minded young men of all ranks 
 will prefer free air and free elbow-room for mind and body 
 to the stool and desk of the dingy office, the ill -paid 
 drudgery of the crowded ranks of the professions, or the 
 hopeless labour of our home farmsteads and workshops. 
 
 Education always should contemplate this larger 
 sphere, and cultivate the capacities which will command 
 success there. Britain may have yet a future before it 
 grander than its past; instead of a country standing alone, 
 complete in itself, it may become the metropolis of an 
 enormous and coherent empire : but on this condition only, 
 that her children, when they leave her shores, shall look 
 back upon her, not like the poor Irish when they fly to 
 America as a stepmother who gave them stones for bread, 
 but as a mother to whose care and nurture they shall owe 
 their after prosperity. Whether this shall be so, whether 
 England has reached its highest point of greatness, and 
 will now descend to a second place among the nations, or 
 whether it has yet before it another era of brighter glory, 
 depends on ourselves, and depends more than anything on 
 the breeding which we give to our children. The boy that 
 is kindly nurtured, and wisely taught and assisted to make 
 his way in life, does not forget his father and his mother. 
 He is proud of his family, and jealous for the honour of the 
 name that he bears. If the million lads that swarm in 
 our towns and villages are so trained that at home or in 
 the colonies they can provide for themselves, without 
 passing first through a painful interval of suffering, they 
 will be loyal wherever they may be ; good citizens at home, 
 and still Englishmen and Scots on the Canadian lakes or 
 in New Zealand. Our island shores will be stretched till 
 they cover half the globe. It was not so that we colonised 
 America, and we are now reaping the reward of our careless-
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 103 
 
 ness. We sent America our convicts. We sent America 
 our Pilgrim Fathers, flinging them out as worse than 
 felons. We said to the Irish cottier, You are a burden 
 upon the rates ; go find a home elsewhere. Had we 
 offered him a home in the enormous territories that belomr 
 to us, we might have sent him to places where he would 
 have been no burden but a blessing. But we bade him 
 carelessly go where he would, and shift as he could for 
 himself; he went with a sense of burning wrong, and he 
 left a root of bitterness behind him. Injustice and heed- 
 lessness have borne their proper fruits. We have raised up 
 against us a mighty empire to be the rival, it may be the 
 successful rival, of our power. 
 
 Loyalty, love of kindred, love of country, we know not 
 what we are doing when we trifle with feelings the most 
 precious and beautiful that belong to us most beautiful, 
 most enduring, most hard to be obliterated yet feelings 
 which, when they are obliterated, cannot change to neu- 
 trality and cold friendship. Americans still, in spite of 
 themselves, speak of England as home. They tell us they 
 must be our brothers or our enemies, and which of the two 
 they will ultimately be is still uncertain. 
 
 I beg your pardon for this digression ; but there are 
 subjects on which we feel sometimes compelled to speak, in 
 season, and out of it. 
 
 To go back. 
 
 I shall be asked whether, after all, this earning our 
 living, this getting on in the world, are not low objects for 
 human beings to set before themselves. Is not spirit more 
 than matter ? Is there no such thing as pure intellectual 
 culture ? " Philosophy," says Novalis, " will bake no 
 bread, but it gives us our souls ; it gives us Heaven ; it 
 gives us knowledge of those grand truths which concern us 
 as immortal beings." Was it not said, " Take no thought 
 what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, or wherewithal 
 ye shall be clothed ? Your Heavenly Father knoweth that 
 ye have need of these things. Behold the lilies of the 
 field, they toil not, neither do they spin. Yet Solomon in
 
 104 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." Is this a 
 dream ? No, indeed ! But such directions as these are 
 addressed only to few ; and perhaps fewer still have heart 
 to follow them. If you choose the counsels of perfection, 
 count the cost, and understand what they mean. I knew 
 a student once from whose tongue dropped the sublimest 
 of sentiments; who was never weary of discoursing on 
 beauty and truth and lofty motives ; who seemed to be 
 longing for some gulf to jump into like the Roman Curtius 
 some " fine opening for a young man " into which to 
 plunge and devote himself for the benefit of mankind. 
 Yet he was running all the while into debt, squandering 
 the money on idle luxuries which his father was sparing 
 out of a narrow income to give him a college education ; 
 dreaming of martyrdom, and unable to sacrifice a single 
 pleasure ! 
 
 Consider to whom the words which I quoted were 
 spoken ; not to all the disciples, but to the Apostles who 
 were about to wander over the world as missionaries. 
 
 High above all occupations which have their beginning 
 and end in the seventy years of mortal life, stand un- 
 doubtedly the unproductive callings which belong to 
 spiritual culture. Only, let not those who say we will 
 devote ourselves to truth, to wisdom, to science, to art, expect 
 to be rewarded with the wages of the other professions. 
 
 University education in England was devoted to 
 spiritual culture, and assumed its present character in con- 
 sequence ; but, as I told you before, it taught originally 
 the accompanying necessary lesson of poverty. The 
 ancient scholar lived, during his course, upon alms alms 
 either from living patrons, or founders and benefactors. 
 lint the scale of his allowance provided for no indulgences ; 
 either he learnt something besides his Latin, or he learnt to 
 endure hardship. And if a University persists in teaching 
 nothing but what it calls the Humanities, it is bound to 
 insist also on rough clothing, hard beds, and common food. 
 For myself, I admire that ancient rule of the Jews that 
 every man, no matter of what grade or calling, shall learn
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 105 
 
 some handicraft ; that the man of intellect, while, like St. 
 Paul, he is teaching the world, yet, like St. Paul, may be 
 burdensome to no one. A man was not considered entitled 
 to live if he could not keep himself from starving. Surely 
 those University men who had taken honours, breaking 
 stones on an Australian road, were sorry spectacles ; and 
 still more sorry and disgraceful is the outcry coming by 
 every mail from our colonies : " Send us no more of what 
 you call educated men ; send us smiths, masons, car- 
 penters, day labourers ; all of those will thrive, will earn 
 their eight, ten, or twelve shillings a day ; but your 
 educated man is a log on our hands ; he loafs in useless- 
 ness till his means are spent, he then turns billiard- 
 marker, enlists as a soldier, or starves." It hurts no 
 intellect to be able to make a door, or hammer a horse- 
 shoe ; and if you can do either of these, you have nothing 
 to fear from fortune. " I will work with my hands, and 
 keep my brain for myself," said some one proudly when it was 
 proposed to him that he should make a profession of litera- 
 ture. Spinoza, the most powerful intellectual worker that 
 Europe has produced during the last two centuries, waving 
 aside the pensions and legacies that were thrust upon him, 
 chose to maintain himself by grinding object-glasses for 
 microscopes and telescopes. 
 
 If a son of mine told me that he wished to devote 
 himself to intellectual pursuits, I would act as I should 
 act if he wished to make an imprudent marriage. I would 
 absolutely prohibit him for a time, till the firmness of his 
 purpose had been tried. If he stood the test, and showed 
 real talent, I would insist that he should in some way 
 make himself independent of the profits of intellectual work 
 for subsistence. Scholars and philosophers were originally 
 clergymen. Nowadays a great many people whose tend- 
 encies lie in the clerical direction, yet for various reasons 
 shrink from the obligations which the office imposes. They 
 take, therefore, to literature, and attempt and expect to 
 make a profession of it. 
 
 Now, without taking a transcendental view of the
 
 106 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 matter, literature happens to be the only occupation in 
 which the wages are not in proportion to the goodness of 
 the work done. It is not that they are generally small, 
 but the adjustment of them is awry. It is true that in all 
 callings nothing great will be produced if the first object 
 be what you can make by them. To do what you do well 
 should be the first thing, the wages the second ; but except 
 in the instances of which I am speaking, the rewards of a 
 man are in proportion to his skill and industry. The best 
 carpenter receives the highest pay. The better he works, 
 the better for his prospects. The best lawyer, the best 
 doctor, commands most practice and makes the largest 
 fortune. But with literature, a different element is intro- 
 duced into the problem. The present rule on which 
 authors are paid is by the page and the sheet ; the more 
 words the more pay. It ought to be exactly the reverse. 
 Great poetry, great philosophy, great scientific discovery, 
 every intellectual production which has genius, work, and 
 permanence in it, is the fruit of long thought and patient 
 and painful elaboration. Work of this kind, done hastily, 
 would be better not done at all. When completed, it will 
 be small in bulk ; it will address itself for a long time to 
 the few, and not to the many. The reward for it will not 
 be measurable, and not obtainable in money except after 
 many generations, when the brain out of which it was spun 
 has long returned to its dust. Only by accident is a work 
 of genius immediately popular, in the sense of being widely 
 bought. No collected edition of Shakespeare's plays was 
 demanded in Shakespeare's life. Milton received five 
 pounds for Paradise Lost. The distilled essence of the 
 thought of Bishop Butler, the greatest prelate that the 
 English Church ever produced, fills a moderate-sized octavo 
 volume ; Spinoza's works, including his surviving letters, 
 fill but three ; and though they have revolutionised the 
 philosophy of Europe, have no attractions for the multitude. 
 A really great man has " to create the taste " with which he 
 is to be enjoyed. There are splendid exceptions of merit 
 eagerly recognised and early rewarded our honoured
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 107 
 
 English Laureate for instance, Alfred Tennyson, or your 
 own countryman Thomas Carlyle. Yet even Tennyson 
 waited through ten years of depreciation before poems 
 which are now on every one's lips passed into a second 
 edition. Carlyle, whose transcendent powers were welcomed 
 in their infancy by Goethe, who long years ago was recog- 
 nised by statesmen and thinkers in both hemispheres as the 
 most remarkable of living men ; yet, if success be measured 
 by what has been paid him for his services, stands far 
 below your Belgravian novelist. A hundred years hence, 
 perhaps, people at large will begin to understand how vast 
 a man has been among them. 
 
 If you make literature a trade to live by, you will be 
 tempted always to take your talents to the most profitable 
 market ; and the most profitable market will be no assur- 
 ance to you that you are making a noble or even a worthy 
 use of them. Better a thousand times, if your object is to 
 advance your position in life, that you should choose some 
 other calling of which making money is a legitimate aim, 
 and where your success will vary as the goodness of your 
 work ; better for yourselves, for your consciences, for your 
 own souls, as we used to say, and for the world you live in. 
 
 Therefore, I say, if any of you choose this mode of 
 spending your existence, choose it deliberately, with a full 
 knowledge of what you are doing, Eeconcile yourselves to 
 the condition of the old scholars. Make up your minds to 
 be poor : care only for what is true and right and good. 
 On those conditions you may add something real to the 
 intellectual stock of mankind, and mankind in return may 
 perhaps give you bread enough to live upon, though bread 
 extremely thinly spread with butter. 
 
 I' have detained you long, but I cannot close without a 
 few more general words. We live in times of change 
 political change, intellectual change, change of all kinds. 
 You whose minds are active, especially such of you as give 
 yourselves much to speculation, will be drawn inevitably 
 into profoundly interesting yet perplexing questions, of which 
 our fathers and Grandfathers knew nothing. Practical men
 
 108 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 engaged in business take formulas for granted. They can- 
 not be for ever running to first principles. They hate 
 to see established opinions disturbed. Opinions, however, 
 will and must be disturbed from time to time. There is 
 no help for it. The minds of ardent and clever students 
 are particularly apt to move fast in these directions ; and 
 thus when they go out into the world, they find themselves 
 exposed to one of two temptations, according to their 
 temperament : either to lend themselves to what is popular 
 and plausible, to conceal their real convictions, to take up 
 with what we call in England humbug, to humbug others, 
 or perhaps, to keep matters still smoother, to humbug 
 themselves ; or else to quarrel violently with things which 
 they imagine to be passing away, and which they consider 
 should be quick in doing it, as having no basis in truth. 
 A young man of ability nowadays is extremely likely to 
 be tempted into one or other of these lines. The first is 
 the more common on my side of the Tweed; the harsher 
 and more thoroughgoing, perhaps, on yours. Things are 
 changing, and have to change, but they change very slowly. 
 The established authorities are in possession of the field, 
 and are naturally desirous to keep it. And there is no 
 kind of service which they more eagerly reward than the 
 support of clever fellows who have dipped over the edge 
 of latitudinarism, who profess to have sounded the disturb- 
 ing currents of the intellectual seas, and discovered that 
 they are accidental or unimportant. 
 
 On the other hand, men who cannot away with this 
 kind of thing are likely to be exasperated into unwise 
 demonstrativeness, to become radicals in politics and 
 radicals in thought. Their private disapprobation bursts 
 into open enmity ; and this road too, if they continue long 
 upon it, leads to no healthy conclusions. No one can 
 thrive upon denials : positive truth of some kind is 
 essential as food both for mind and character. Depend 
 upon it that in all long-established practices or spiritual 
 formulas there has been some living truth ; and if you 
 have not discovered and learnt to respect it, you do not
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 109 
 
 yet understand the questions which you are in a hurry to 
 solve. And again, intellectually impatient people should 
 remember the rules of social courtesy, which forbid us in 
 private to say things, however true, which can give pain 
 to others. These rules forbid us equally in public to 
 obtrude opinions which offend those who do not share them. 
 Our thoughts and our conduct are our own. We may say 
 justly to any one, You shall not make me profess to think 
 true what I believe to be false ; you shall not make me 
 do what I do not think just : but there our natural liberty 
 ends. Others have as good a right to their opinion as we 
 have to ours. To any one who holds what are called 
 advanced views on serious subjects, I recommend a patient 
 reticence and the reflection that, after all, he may possibly 
 be wrong. Whether we are Kadicals or Conservatives, we 
 require to be often reminded that truth or falsehood, 
 justice and injustice, are no creatures of our own belief. 
 We cannot make true things false, or false things true, by 
 choosing to think them so. We cannot vote right into 
 wrong or wrong into right. The eternal truths and rights 
 of things exist, fortunately, independent of our thoughts or 
 wishes, fixed as mathematics, inherent in the nature of 
 man and the world. They are no more to be trifled with 
 than gravitation. If we discover and obey them, it is well 
 with us ; but that is all we can do. You can no more 
 make a social regulation work well which is not just than 
 you can make water run uphill. 
 
 I tell you therefore, who take up with plausibilities, 
 not to trust your weight too far upon them, and not to 
 condemn others for having misgivings which at the bottom 
 of your own minds, if you look so deep, you will find that 
 you share yourselves with them. You, who believe that 
 you have hold of newer and wider truths, show it, as you 
 may and must show it, unless you are misled by your 
 own dreams, in leading wider, simpler, and nobler lives. 
 Assert your own freedom if you will, but assert it modestly 
 and quietly ; respecting others as you wish to be respected 
 yourselves. Only and especially I would say this : be
 
 110 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 honest with yourselves, whatever the temptation ; say 
 nothing to others that you do not think, and play no 
 tricks with your own minds. 
 
 Of all the evil spirits abroad at this hour in the world, 
 humbug is the most dangerous. 
 
 This above all, to thine own self be true ; 
 And it must follow, as the night the day, 
 Thou canst not then be false to any man.
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FKOUDE 
 
 SECOND ADDRESS 
 
 CALVINISM 
 
 (Delivered on March 17, 1871) 
 
 Gentlemen While I am unwilling to allow the tem- 
 porary connection between us to come to an end without 
 once more addressing you, I find it difficult to select a 
 subject on which it may be worth your while to listen 
 to what I have to say. You know yourselves better 
 than I can tell you the purposes for which you are 
 assembled in this place. Many of you will have formed 
 honourable resolutions to acquit yourselves bravely and 
 manfully, both in your term of preparation here, and in the 
 life which you are about to enter resolutions which would 
 make exhortations of mine to you to persevere appear 
 unmeaning and almost impertinent. You are conscious in 
 detail of the aims which you have set before yourselves 
 you have, perhaps, already chosen the professions which you 
 mean to follow, and are better aware than I can be of the 
 subjects which you have to master if you mean to pursue 
 them successfully. I should show myself unworthy of the 
 honour which you conferred on me in my election as your 
 Hector were I to waste your time with profitless generalities. 
 I have decided, after due consideration, to speak to you of 
 things which, though not immediately connected with the 
 University of St. Andrews, or any other University, yet 
 concern us all more nearly than any other matter in the 
 world ; and though I am not vain enough to suppose that I 
 can throw new material light upon them, yet where there is 
 so much division and uncertainty, the sincere convictions of
 
 112 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 any man, if openly expressed, may be of value as factors in 
 the problem. At all events, I shall hope that the hour for 
 which I shall ask you to attend to me will not have passed 
 away without leaving some definite trace behind it. 
 
 I may say at once that I am about to travel over 
 serious ground. I shall not trespass on theology, though I 
 must go near the frontiers of it. I shall give you the con- 
 clusions which I have been led to form upon a series of 
 spiritual phenomena which have appeared successively in 
 different ages of the world which have exercised the most 
 remarkable influence on the character and history of man- 
 kind, and have left their traces nowhere more distinctly 
 than in this Scotland where we now stand. 
 
 Every one here present must have become familiar in 
 late years with the change of tone throughout Europe and 
 America on the subject of Calvinism. After being accepted 
 for two centuries in all Protestant countries as the final 
 account of the relations between man and his Maker, it has 
 come to be regarded by liberal thinkers as a system of 
 belief incredible in itself, dishonouring to its object, and as 
 intolerable as it has been itself intolerant. The Catholics 
 whom it overthrew take courage from the philosophers, and 
 assail it on the same ground. To represent man as sent into 
 the world under a curse, as incurably wicked wicked by 
 the constitution of his flesh, and wicked by eternal decree 
 as doomed, unless exempted by special grace which he 
 cannot merit, or by any effort of his own obtain, to live in 
 sin while he remains on earth, and to be eternally miserable 
 when he leaves it to represent him as born unable to 
 keep the commandments, yet as justly liable to everlasting 
 punishment for breaking them, is alike repugnant to reason 
 and to conscience, and turns existence into a hideous night- 
 mare. To deny the freedom of the will is to make morality 
 impossible. To tell men that they cannot help themselves 
 is to fling them into recklessness and despair. To what 
 purpose the effort to be virtuous when it is an effort which 
 is foredoomed to fail when those that are saved are saved 
 by no effort of their own, and confess themselves the worst
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 113 
 
 of sinners, even when rescued from the penalties of sin ; and 
 those that are lost are lost by an everlasting sentence 
 decreed against them before they were born ? How are we 
 to call the Euler who laid us under this iron code by the 
 name of Wise, or Just, or Merciful, when we ascribe 
 principles of action to Him which in a human father we 
 should call preposterous and monstrous ? 
 
 The discussion of these strange questions has been 
 pursued at all times with inevitable passion, and the crisis 
 uniformly has been a drawn battle. The Arminian has 
 entangled the Calvinist, the Calvinist has entangled the 
 Arminian, in a labyrinth of contradictions. The advocate of 
 free will appeals to conscience and instinct to an a priori 
 sense of what ought in equity to be. The necessitarian falls 
 back upon the experienced reality of facts. It is true, and 
 no argument can gainsay it, that men are placed in the 
 world unequally favoured, both in inward disposition and 
 outward circumstances. Some children are born with 
 temperaments which make a life of innocence and purity 
 natural and easy to them ; others are born with violent 
 passions, or even with distinct tendencies to evil inherited 
 from their ancestors, and seemingly unconquerable some 
 are constitutionally brave, others are constitutionally cowards 
 some are born in religious families, and are carefully 
 educated and watched over ; others draw their first breath 
 in an atmosphere of crime, and cease to inhale it only when 
 they pass into their graves. Only a fourth part of man- 
 kind are born Christians. The remainder never hear the 
 name of Christ except as a reproach. The Chinese and 
 the Japanese we may almost say every weaker race with 
 whom we have come in contact connect it only with the 
 forced intrusion of strangers, whose behaviour among them 
 has served ill to recommend their creed. These are facts 
 which no casuistry can explain away. And if we believe 
 at all that the world is governed by a conscious and intelli- 
 gent Being, we must believe also, however we can reconcile 
 it with our own ideas, that these anomalies have not arisen 
 by accident, but have been ordered of purpose and design. 
 
 8
 
 114 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 No less noticeable is it that the materialistic and the 
 metaphysical philosophers deny as completely as Calvinism 
 what is popularly called Free Will. Every effect has its 
 cause. In every action the will is determined by the 
 motive which at the moment is operating most powerfully 
 upon it. When we do wrong, we are led away by tempta- 
 tion. If we overcome our temptation, we overcome it either 
 because we foresee inconvenient consequences, and the 
 certainty of future pains is stronger than the present 
 pleasure ; or else because we prefer right to wrong, and our 
 desire for good is greater than our desire for indulgence. 
 It is impossible to conceive a man, when two courses are 
 open to him, choosing that which he least desires. He may 
 say that he can do what he dislikes because it is his duty. 
 Precisely so. His desire to do his duty is a stronger motive 
 with him than the attraction of present pleasure. 
 
 Spinoza, from entirely different premises, came to the 
 same conclusion as Mr. Mill or Mr. Buckle, and can find no 
 better account of the situation of man than in the illustra- 
 tion of St. Paul, " Hath not the potter power over the clay, 
 to make one vessel to honour and another to dishonour ? " 
 
 If Arminianism most commends itself to our feelings, 
 Calvinism is nearer to the facts, how T ever harsh and for- 
 bidding those facts may seem. 
 
 I have no intention, however, of entangling myself or 
 you in these controversies. As little shall I consider 
 whether men have done wisely in attempting a doctrinal 
 solution of problems the conditions of which are so im- 
 perfectly known. The moral system of the universe is like 
 a document written in alternate ciphers, which change from 
 line to line. We read a sentence, but at the next our key 
 fails us ; we see that there is something written there, but if 
 we guess at it we are guessing in the dark. It seems more 
 faithful, more becoming, in beings such as we are, to rest in 
 the conviction of our own inadequacy, and confine ourselves 
 to those moral rules for our lives and actions on which, so 
 far as they concern ourselves, we are left in no uncertainty 
 at all.
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 115 
 
 At present, at any rate, we are concerned with an aspect 
 of the matter entirely different. I am going to ask you to 
 consider how it came to pass that if Calvinism is indeed the 
 hard and unreasonable creed which modern enlightenment 
 declares it to be, it has possessed such singular attractions 
 in past times for some of the greatest men that ever lived. 
 And how being, as we are told, fatal to morality, because 
 it denies free will the first symptom of its operation, 
 wherever it established itself, was to obliterate the distinction 
 between sins and crimes, and to make the moral law the 
 rule of life for States as well as persons. I shall ask you 
 again, why, if it be a creed of intellectual servitude, it was 
 able to inspire and sustain the bravest efforts ever made by 
 man to break the yoke of unjust authority. When all else 
 has failed when patriotism has covered its face and human 
 courage has broken down when intellect has yielded, as 
 Gibbon says, "with a smile or a sigh," content to philoso- 
 phise in the closet, and abroad worship with the vulgar 
 when emotion and sentiment and tender imaginative piety 
 have become the handmaids of superstition, and have dreamt 
 themselves into forgetfulness that there is any difference 
 between lies and truth the slavish form of belief called 
 Calvinism, in one or other of its many forms, has borne ever 
 an inflexible front to illusion and mendacity, and has 
 preferred rather to be ground to powder like flint than to 
 bend before violence or melt under enervating temptation. 
 
 It is enough to mention the name of William the 
 Silent, of Luther for on the points of which I am speaking- 
 Luther was one with Calvin of your own Knox and 
 Andrew Melville and the Regent Murray, of Coligny, of our 
 English Cromwell, of Milton, of John Bunyan. These were 
 men possessed of all the qualities which give nobility and 
 grandeur to human nature men whose lives were as upright 
 as their intellects were commanding, and their public aims 
 untainted with selfishness ; unalterably just where duty 
 required them to be stern, but with the tenderness of a 
 woman in their hearts ; frank, true, cheerful, humorous, as 
 unlike sour fanatics as it is possible to imagine anyone, and
 
 116 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 able in some way to sound the keynote to which every 
 brave and faithful heart in Europe instinctively vibrated. 
 
 This is the problem. Grapes do not grow on bramble- 
 bushes. Illustrious natures do not form themselves upon 
 narrow and cruel theories. Spiritual life is full of apparent 
 paradoxes. When St. Patrick preached the Gospel on Tarah 
 hill to Leoghaire, the Irish king, the Druids and the wise 
 men of Ireland shook their heads. " Why," asked the 
 king, " does what the cleric preaches seem so dangerous to 
 you ? " " Because," was the remarkable answer, " because 
 he preaches repentance, and the law of repentance is such 
 that a man shall say, ' I may commit a thousand crimes, 
 and if I repent I shall be forgiven, and it will be no worse 
 with me : therefore I will continue to sin.' " The Druids 
 argued logically, but they drew a false inference notwith- 
 standing. The practical effect of a belief is the real test 
 of its soundness. Where we find a heroic life appearing as 
 the uniform fruit of a particular mode of opinion, it is 
 childish to argue in the face of fact that the result ought 
 to have been different. 
 
 The question which I have proposed, however, admits 
 of a reasonable answer. I must ask you only to accompany 
 me on a somewhat wide circuit in search of it. 
 
 There seems, in the first place, to lie in all men, in pro- 
 portion to the strength of their understanding, a conviction 
 that there is in all human things a real order and purpose, 
 notwithstanding the chaos in which at times they seem to 
 be involved. Suffering scattered blindly, without remedial 
 purpose or retributive propriety good and evil distributed 
 with the most absolute disregard of moral merit or demerit 
 enormous crimes perpetrated with impunity, or vengeance 
 when it comes falling not on the guilty, but the innocent 
 
 Desert a beggar born, 
 And needy nothing trimmed in jollity 
 
 these phenomena present, generation after generation, the 
 same perplexing and even maddening features ; and without
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 117 
 
 an illogical, but none the less a positive, certainty that " things 
 are not as they seem " that, in spite of appearance, there is 
 justice at the heart of them, and that, in the working out 
 of the vast drama, justice will assert somehow and some- 
 where its sovereign right and power the better sort of 
 persons would find existence altogether unendurable. This 
 is what the Greeks meant by the 'Amy/o;, or destiny, which 
 at the bottom is no other than moral Providence. Pro- 
 metheus chained on the rock is the counterpart of Job on 
 his dunghill. Torn with unrelaxing agony, the vulture with 
 beak and talons rending at his heart, the Titan still defies 
 the tyrant at whose command he suffers ; and, strong in 
 conscious innocence, he appeals to the eternal Molpa, which 
 will do him right in the end. The Olympian gods were 
 cruel, jealous, capricious, malignant ; but beyond and above 
 the Olympian gods lay the silent, brooding, everlasting fate, 
 of which victim and tyrant were alike the instruments, and 
 which at last, far off, after ages of misery it might be, but 
 still before all was over, would vindicate the sovereignty of 
 justice. Pull as it may be of contradictions and per- 
 plexities, this obscure belief lies at the very core of our 
 spiritual nature ; and it is called fate, or it is called pre- 
 destination, according as it is regarded pantheistically as a 
 necessary condition of the universe, or as the decree of a 
 self-conscious being. 
 
 Intimately connected with this belief, and perhaps the 
 fact of which it is the inadequate expression, is the existence 
 in nature of omnipresent organic laws, penetrating the 
 material world, penetrating the moral world of human life 
 and society ; which insist on being obeyed in all that we do 
 and handle which we cannot alter, cannot modify which 
 will go with us, and assist and befriend us, if we recognise 
 and comply with them which inexorably make themselves 
 felt in failure and disaster if we neglect or attempt to 
 thwart them. Search where we will among created things, 
 far as the microscope will allow the eye to pierce, we find 
 organisation everywhere. Large forms resolve themselves 
 into parts, but these parts are but organised out of other
 
 118 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 parts, down so far as we can see into infinity. When 
 the plant meets with the conditions which agree with it, 
 it thrives ; under unhealthy conditions it is poisoned, and 
 disintegrates. It is the same precisely with each one of 
 ourselves, whether as individuals or as aggregated into 
 associations, into families, into nations, into institutions. 
 The remotest fibre of human action, from the policy of 
 empires to the most insignificant trifle over which we waste 
 an idle hour or moment, either moves in harmony with the 
 true law of our being, or is else at discord with it. A king 
 or a parliament enacts a law, and we imagine we are 
 creating some new regulation, to encounter unprecedented 
 circumstances. The law itself which applied to these cir- 
 cumstances was enacted from eternity. It has its existence 
 independent of us, and will enforce itself either to reward 
 or punish, as the attitude which we assume towards it is 
 wise or unwise. Our human laws are but the copies, more 
 or less imperfect, of the eternal laws so far as we can read 
 them ; and either succeed and promote our welfare, or fail 
 and bring confusion and disaster, according as the legislator's 
 insight has detected the true principle, or has been distorted 
 by ignorance or selfishness. 
 
 And these laws are absolute, inflexible, irreversible, 
 the steady friends of the wise and good, the eternal enemies 
 of the blockhead and the knave. No Pope can dispense 
 with a statute enrolled in the Chancery of Heaven, or 
 popular vote repeal it. The discipline is a stern one, and 
 many a wild endeavour men have made to obtain less hard 
 conditions, or imagine them other than they are. They 
 have conceived the rule of the Almighty to be like the rule 
 of one of themselves. They have fancied that they could 
 bribe or appease Him tempt Him by penance or pious 
 offering to suspend or turn aside his displeasure. They are 
 asking that his own eternal nature shall become other than 
 it is. One thing only they can do. They for themselves, 
 by changing their own courses, can make the law which 
 they have broken thenceforward their friend. Their dis- 
 positions and nature will revive and become healthy again
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 119 
 
 when they are no longer in opposition to the will of their 
 Maker. This is the natural action of what we call repent- 
 ance. But the penalties of the wrongs of the past remain 
 unrepealed. As men have sown they must still reap. 
 The profligate who has ruined his health or fortune may 
 learn before he dies that he has lived as a fool, and may 
 recover something of his peace of mind as he recovers his 
 understanding; but no miracle takes away his paralysis, or 
 gives back to his children the bread of which he has robbed 
 them. He may himself be pardoned, but the consequences 
 of his acts remain. 
 
 Once more : and it is the most awful feature of our 
 condition. The laws of nature are general, and are no 
 respecters of persons. There has been, and there still is, a 
 clinging impression that the sufferings of men are the results 
 of their own particular misdeeds, and that no one is or can 
 be punished for the faults of others. I shall not dispute 
 about the word " punishment." " The fathers have eaten 
 sour grapes," said the Jewish proverb, " and the children's 
 teeth are set on edge." So said Jewish experience, and 
 Ezekiel answered that these words should no longer be used 
 among them. " The soul that sinneth, it shall die." Yes, 
 there is a promise that the soul shall be saved ; there is no 
 such promise for the body. Every man is the architect of 
 his own character, and if to the extent of his opportunities 
 he has lived purely, nobly, and uprightly, the misfortunes 
 which may fall on him through the crimes or errors of other 
 men cannot injure the immortal part of him. But it is no 
 less true that we are made dependent one upon another to 
 a degree which can hardly be exaggerated. The winds and 
 waves are on the side of the best navigator the seaman 
 who best understands them. Place a fool at the helm, and crew 
 and passengers will perish, be they ever so innocent. The 
 Tower of Siloam fell, not for any sins of the eighteen who 
 were crushed by it, but through bad mortar probably, the 
 rotting of a beam, or the uneven setting of the foundations. 
 The persons who should have suffered, according to our 
 notion of distributive justice, were the ignorant architects
 
 120 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 or masons who had done their work amiss. But the guilty 
 had perhaps long been turned to dust. And the law of 
 gravity brought the tower down at its own time, indifferent 
 to the persons who might be under it. 
 
 Now the feature which distinguishes man from other 
 animals is that he is able to observe and discover these laws 
 which are of such mighty moment to him, and direct his 
 conduct in conformity with them. The more subtle may be 
 revealed only by complicated experience. The plainer and 
 more obvious among those especially which are called 
 moral have been apprehended among the higher races 
 easily and readily. I shall not ask how the knowledge of 
 them has been obtained, whether by external revelation, or 
 by natural insight, or by some other influence working 
 through human faculties. The fact is all that we are con- 
 cerned with, that from the earliest times of which we have 
 historical knowledge there have always been men who have 
 recognised the distinction between the nobler and the baser 
 parts of their being. They have perceived that if they 
 would be men and not beasts, they must control their 
 animal passions, prefer truth to falsehood, courage to 
 cowardice, justice to violence, and compassion to cruelty. 
 These are the elementary principles of morality, on the 
 recognition of which the welfare and improvement of man- 
 kind depend, and human history has been little more than 
 a record of the struggle which began at the beginning and 
 will continue to the end between the few who have had 
 ability to see into the truth and loyalty to obey it, and the 
 multitude who by evasion or rebellion have hoped to thrive 
 in spite of it. 
 
 Thus we see that in the better sort of men there are two 
 elementary convictions ; that there is over all things an 
 unsleeping, inflexible, all-ordering just power, and that this 
 power governs the world by laws which can be seen in their 
 effects, and on the obedience to which, and on nothing else, 
 human welfare depends. 
 
 And now I will suppose some one whose tendencies are 
 naturally healthy, though as yet no special occasion shall
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 121 
 
 have roused him to serious thought, growing up in a civilised 
 community where, as usually happens, a compromise has 
 been struck between vice and virtue, where a certain differ- 
 ence between right and wrong is recognised decently on the 
 surface, while below it one half of the people are rushing 
 steadily after the thing called pleasure, and the other half 
 labouring in drudgery to provide the means of it for 
 the idle. 
 
 Of practical justice in such a community there will be 
 exceedingly little, but as society cannot go along at all with- 
 out paying morality some outward homage, there will of 
 course be an established religion an Olympus, a Valhalla, 
 or some system of a theogony or theology, with temples, 
 priests, liturgies, public confessions in one form or another of 
 the dependence of the things we see upon what is not seen, 
 with certain ideas of duty, and penalties imposed for neglect 
 of it. These there will be, and also, as obedience is dis- 
 agreeable and requires abstinence from various indulgences, 
 there will be contrivances by which the indulgences can be 
 secured, and no harm come of it. By the side of the moral 
 law there grows up a law of ceremonial observance, to which 
 is attached a notion of superior sanctity and especial obliga- 
 tion. Morality, though not at first disowned, is slighted as 
 comparatively trivial. Duty in the high sense conies to 
 mean religious duty, that is to say, the attentive observance 
 of certain forms and ceremonies, and these forms and cere- 
 monies come into collision little, or not at all, with ordinary 
 life, and ultimately have a tendency to resolve themselves 
 into payments of money. 
 
 Thus rises what is called idolatry. I do not mean by 
 idolatry the mere worship of manufactured images. I mean 
 the separation between practical obligation, and new moons 
 and sabbaths, outward acts of devotion, or formulas of 
 particular opinions. It is a state of things perpetually 
 recurring ; for there is nothing, if it would only act, more 
 agreeable to all parties concerned. Priests find their office 
 magnified, and their consequence increased. Laymen can be 
 in favour with God and man, so priests tell them, while
 
 122 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 their enjoyments or occupations are in no way interfered 
 with. The mischief is that the laws of nature remain mean- 
 while unsuspended ; and all the functions of society become 
 poisoned through neglect of them. Eeligion, which ought to 
 have been a restraint, becomes a fresh instrument of evil, 
 to the imaginative and the weak a contemptible superstition, 
 to the educated a mockery, to knaves and hypocrites a cloak 
 of iniquity, to all alike to those who suffer, and those who 
 seem to profit by it a lie so palpable as to be worse than 
 atheism itself. 
 
 There comes a time when all this has to end. The 
 over-indulgence of the few is the over-penury of the many. 
 Injustice begets misery, and misery resentment. Something 
 happens, perhaps some unusual oppression, or some act of 
 religious mendacity especially glaring. Such a person as I 
 am supposing asks himself, " What is the meaning of these 
 things ? " His eyes are opened. Gradually he discovers 
 that he is living surrounded with falsehood, drinking lies 
 like water, his conscience polluted, his intellect degraded by 
 the abominations which envelop his existence. At first 
 perhaps he will feel most keenly for himself. He will not 
 suppose that he can set to rights a world that is out of joint, 
 but he will himself relinquish his share in what he detests 
 and despises. He withdraws into himself. If what others 
 are doing and saying is obviously wrong, then he has to ask 
 himself what is right, and what is the true purpose of his 
 existence. Light breaks more clearly on him. He becomes 
 conscious of impulses towards something purer and higher 
 than he has yet experienced or even imagined. Whence 
 these impulses come he cannot tell. He is too keenly 
 aware of the selfish and cowardly thoughts, which rise up to 
 mar and thwart his nobler aspirations, to believe that they 
 can possibly be his own. If he conquers his baser nature, 
 he feels that he is conquering himself. The conqueror and 
 the conquered cannot be the same ; and he therefore con- 
 cludes, not in vanity, but in profound humiliation and self- 
 abasement, that the infinite grace of God and nothing else is 
 rescuing him from destruction. He is converted, as the
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 123 
 
 theologians say. He sets his face upon another road from that 
 which he has hitherto travelled, and to which he can never 
 return. It has been no merit of his own. His disposition 
 will rather be to exaggerate his own worthlessness, that he 
 may exalt the more what has been done for him, and he 
 resolves thenceforward to enlist himself as a soldier on the 
 side of truth and right, and to have no wishes, no desires, no 
 opinions but what the service of his Master imposes. Like 
 a soldier he abandons his freedom, desiring only like a 
 soldier to act and speak, no longer as of himself, but as com- 
 missioned from some supreme authority. In such a condi- 
 tion a man becomes magnetic. There are epidemics of noble- 
 ness as well as epidemics of disease ; and he infects others 
 with his own enthusiasm. Even in the most corrupt ages, 
 there are always more persons than we suppose, who, in their 
 hearts, rebel against the prevailing fashions ; one takes 
 courage from another, one supports another ; communities 
 form themselves with higher principles of action, and purer 
 intellectual beliefs. As their numbers multiply, they catch 
 fire with a common idea, and a common indignation ; and 
 ultimately burst out into open war with the lies and 
 iniquities that surround them. 
 
 I have been describing a natural process which has 
 repeated itself many times in human history, and, unless the 
 old opinion that we are more than animated clay, and that 
 our nature has nobler affinities, dies away into a dream, will 
 repeat itself at recurring intervals, so long as our race 
 survives upon the planet. 
 
 I have told you generally what I conceive to be our real 
 position, and the administration under which we live ; and I 
 have indicated how naturally the conviction of the truth 
 would tend to express itself in the moral formulas of Calvin- 
 ism. I will now run briefly over the most remarkable of 
 ,the great historical movements to which I have alluded ; and 
 you will see, in the striking recurrence of the same peculiar 
 mode of thought and action, an evidence that, if not com- 
 pletely accurate, it must possess some near and close affinity 
 with the real fact. I will take first the example with which
 
 124 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 we are all most familiar that of the Chosen People. I 
 must again remind you that I am not talking of Theology. 
 I say nothing of what is technically called Revelation. I am 
 treating these matters as phenomena of human experience, 
 the lessons of which would be identically the same if no 
 revelation existed. 
 
 The discovery of the key to the hieroglyphics, the 
 excavations in the tombs, the investigations carried on by a 
 series of careful enquirers, from Belzoni to Lepsius, into the 
 antiquities of the Valley of Nile, interpreting and in turn 
 interpreted by Manetho and Herodotus, have thrown a light 
 in many respects singularly clear upon the condition of the 
 first country which, so far as History can tell, succeeded in 
 achieving a state of high civilisation. From a period the 
 remoteness of which it is unsafe to conjecture there had 
 been established in Egypt an elaborate and splendid empire 
 which, though it had not escaped revolutions, had suffered 
 none which had caused organic changes there. It had 
 strength, wealth, power, coherence, a vigorous monarchy, 
 dominant and exclusive castes of nobles and priests, and a 
 proletariat of slaves. Its cities, temples, and monuments are 
 still, in their ruin, the admiration of engineers and the 
 despair of architects. Original intellectual conceptions 
 inspired its public buildings. Saved by situation, like 
 China, from the intrusion of barbarians, it developed at 
 leisure its own ideas, undisturbed from without ; and when 
 it becomes historically visible to us it was in the zenith of 
 its glory. The habits of the higher classes were elaborately 
 luxurious, and the vanity and the self-indulgence of the few 
 were made possible as it is and always must be where 
 vanity and self-indulgence exist by the oppression and 
 misery of the millions. You can see on the sides of the 
 tombs for their pride and their pomp followed them even 
 in their graves the effeminate patrician of the court of the 
 Pharaohs reclining in his gilded gondola, the attendant 
 eunuch waiting upon him with the goblet or plate of fruit, 
 the bevies of languishing damsels fluttering round him in 
 their transparent draperies. Shakespeare's Cleopatra might
 
 J A MES A NTH ON Y FRO UDE 1 25 
 
 have sate for the portrait of the Potiphar's wife who tried 
 the virtue of the son of Jacob : 
 
 The barge slie sate in, like a burnished throne, 
 Burned on the water : the poop was beaten gold ; 
 Purple the sails, and so perfumed that 
 The winds were love-sick with them. . . . 
 
 For her own person, 
 It beggared all description : she did lie 
 In her pavilion cloth-of-gold of tissue 
 O'er-picturing that Venus where we see 
 The fancy out- work nature : on each side her 
 Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids, 
 With divers-coloured fans, whose wind did seem 
 To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool, 
 And what they did, undid. 
 
 By the side of all this there was a no less elaborate 
 religion an ecclesiastical hierarchy powerful as the sacer- 
 dotalism of Mediaeval Europe, with a creed in the middle of 
 it which was a complicated idolatry of the physical forces. 
 
 There are at bottom but two possible religions that 
 which rises in the moral nature of man, and which takes 
 shape in moral commandments, and that which grows out 
 of the observation of the material energies which operate in 
 the external universe. The sun at all times has been the 
 central object of this material reverence. The sun Was the 
 parent of light ; the sun was the lord of the sky and the 
 lord of the seasons ; at the sun's bidding the earth brought 
 forth her harvests and ripened them to maturity. The sun, 
 too, was beneficent to the good and to the evil, and, like the 
 laws of political economy, drew no harsh distinctions be- 
 tween one person and another. It demanded only that 
 certain work should be done, and smiled equally on the 
 crops of the slave-driver and the garden of the innocent 
 peasant. The moon, when the sun sunk to his night's rest, 
 reigned as his vicegerent, the queen of the revolving heavens, 
 and in her waxing and waning and singular movement 
 among the stars was the perpetual occasion of admiring and 
 adoring curiosity. Nature in all her forms was wonderful ; 
 Nature in her beneficent forms was to be loved and
 
 126 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 worshipped ; and being, as Nature is, indifferent to morality, 
 bestowing prosperity on principles which make no demands 
 on chastity or equity, she is, in one form or other, the 
 divinity on whose shrine in all ages the favoured sections 
 of society have always gladly paid their homage. Where 
 Nature is sovereign, there is no need of austerity and self- 
 denial. The object of life is the pursuit of wealth, and the 
 pleasures which wealth can purchase ; and the rules for our 
 practical guidance are the laws, as the economists say, by 
 which wealth can be acquired. 
 
 It is an excellent creed for those who have the happi- 
 ness to profit by it, and will have its followers to the end 
 of time. In these later ages it connects itself with the 
 natural sciences, progress of the intellect, specious shadows 
 of all kinds which will not interfere with its supreme 
 management of political arrangements. In Egypt, where 
 knowledge was in its rudiments, every natural force, the 
 minutest plant or animal, which influenced human fortunes 
 for good or evil, came in for a niche in the shrine of the 
 temples of the sun and moon. Snakes and crocodiles, dogs, 
 cats, cranes, and beetles were propitiated by sacrifices, by 
 laboured ceremonials of laudation ; nothing living was too 
 mean to find a place in the omnivorous devotionalism of 
 the Egyptian clergy. We, in these days, proud as we may 
 be of our intellectual advances, need not ridicule popular 
 credulity. Even here in Scotland, not so long ago, wretched 
 old women were supposed to run about the country in the 
 shape of hares. At this very hour the ablest of living 
 natural philosophers is looking gravely to the courtships 
 of moths and butterflies to solve the problem of the origin 
 of man, and prove his descent from an African baboon. 
 
 There was, however, in ancient Egypt another article 
 of faith besides nature-worship of transcendent moment a 
 belief which had probably descended from earlier and purer 
 ages, and had then originated in the minds of sincere and 
 earnest men as a solution of the real problem of humanity. 
 The inscriptions and paintings in the tombs near Thebes 
 make it perfectly clear that the Egyptians looked forward
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 127 
 
 to a future state to the judgment-bar of Osiris, where they 
 would each one day stand to give account for their actions. 
 They believed as clearly as we do, and with a conviction of 
 a very similar kind, that those who had done good would 
 go to everlasting life, and those who had done evil into 
 eternal perdition. 
 
 Such a belief, if coupled with an accurate perception of 
 what good and evil mean with a distinct certainty that 
 men will be tried by the moral law, before a perfectly just 
 judge, and that no subterfuges will avail cannot but 
 exercise a most profound and most tremendous influence 
 upon human conduct. And yet our own experience, if 
 nothing else, proves that this belief, when moulded into 
 traditional and conventional shapes, may lose its practical 
 power; nay, without ceasing to be professed, and even 
 sincerely held, may become more mischievous than salutary. 
 And this is owing to the fatal distinction of which I spoke 
 just now, which seems to have an irresistible tendency to 
 shape itself, in civilised societies, between religious and 
 moral duties. "With the help of this distinction it becomes 
 possible for a man, as long as he avoids gross sins, to 
 neglect every one of his positive obligations to be careless, 
 selfish, unscrupulous, indifferent to everything but his own 
 pleasures and to imagine all the time that his condition 
 is perfectly satisfactory, and that he can look forward to 
 what is before him without the slightest uneasiness. All 
 accounts represent the Egyptians as an eminently religious 
 people. No profanity was tolerated there, no scepticism, no 
 insolent disobedience to the established priesthood. If a 
 doubt ever crossed the mind of some licentious philosopher 
 as to the entire sacredness of the stainless Apis, if ever a 
 question forced itself on him whether the Lord of heaven 
 and earth could really be incarnated in the stupidest of 
 created beasts, he kept his counsels to himself, if he was 
 not shocked at his own impiety. The priests, who professed 
 supernatural powers the priests, who were in communica- 
 tion with the gods themselves they possessed the keys of 
 the sacred mysteries, and what was Philosophy that it
 
 128 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 should lift its voice against them ? The word of the priest 
 nine parts a charlatan, and one part, perhaps, himself 
 imposed on was absolute. He knew the counsels of 
 Osiris, he knew that the question which would be asked at 
 the dread tribunal was not whether a man had been just 
 and true and merciful, but whether he had believed what 
 he was told to believe, and had duly paid the fees to the 
 temple. And so the world went its way, controlled by no 
 dread of retribution ; and on the tomb-frescoes you can see 
 legions of slaves under the lash dragging from the quarries 
 the blocks of granite which were to form the eternal monu- 
 ments of the Pharaohs' tyranny ; and you read in the 
 earliest authentic history that when there was a fear that 
 the slave-races should multiply so fast as to be dangerous, 
 their babies were flung to the crocodiles. 
 
 One of these slave-races rose at last in revolt. Notice- 
 ably it did not rise against oppression as such, or directly 
 in consequence of oppression. We hear of no massacre of 
 slave-drivers, no burning of towns or villages, none of the 
 usual accompaniments of peasant insurrections. If Egypt 
 was plagued, it was not by mutinous mobs or incendiaries. 
 Half a million men simply rose up and declared that they 
 could endure no longer the mendacity, the hypocrisy, the 
 vile and incredible rubbish, which was offered to them in 
 the sacred name of religion. " Let us go," they said, into 
 the wilderness, go out of these soft water-meadows and corn- 
 fields, forsake our leeks and our fieshpots, and take in 
 exchange a life of hardship and wandering, " that we may 
 worship the God of our fathers." Their leader had been 
 trained in the wisdom of the Egyptians, and among the 
 rocks of Sinai had learnt that it was wind and vanity. The 
 half-obscured traditions of his ancestors awoke to life again, 
 and were rekindled by him in his people. They would bear 
 with lies no longer. They shook the dust of Egypt from 
 their feet, and the prate and falsehood of it from their souls, 
 and they withdrew, with all belonging to them, into the 
 Arabian desert, that they might no longer serve cats and 
 dogs and bulls and beetles, but the Eternal Spirit who had
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 129 
 
 been pleased to make his existence known to them. They 
 sung no paeans of liberty. They were delivered from the 
 house of bondage, but it was the bondage of mendacity, and 
 they left it only to assume another service. The Eternal 
 had taken pity on them. In revealing his true nature to 
 them, he had taken them for his children. They were not 
 their own, but his, and they laid their lives under command- 
 ments which were as close a copy as, with the knowledge 
 which they possessed, they could make, to the moral laws 
 of the maker of the universe. In essentials the Book of the 
 Law was a covenant of practical justice. Eewards and 
 punishments were alike immediate, both to each separate 
 person and to the collective nation. Eetribution in a life 
 to come was dropped out of sight, not denied, but not in- 
 sisted on. The belief in it had been corrupted to evil, and 
 rather enervated than encouraged the efforts after present 
 equity. Every man was to reap as he had sown here, in 
 the immediate world to live under his own vine and fig- 
 tree, and thrive or suffer according to his actual deserts. 
 Keligion was not a thing of past or future, an account of 
 things that had been, or of things which one day would be 
 again. God was the actual living ruler of real every-day 
 life ; nature- worship was swept away, and in the warmth 
 and passion of conviction they became, as I said, the soldiers 
 of a purer creed. In Palestine, where they found idolatry 
 in a form yet fouler and more cruel than what they had 
 left behind them, they trampled it out as if in inspired 
 abomination of a system of which the fruits were so detest- 
 able. They were not perfect very far from perfect. An 
 army at best is made of mixed materials, and war, of all 
 ways of making wrong into right, is the harshest ; but they 
 were directed by a noble purpose, and they have left a mark 
 never to be effaced in the history of the human race. 
 
 The fire died away. "The Israelites," we are told, 
 "mingled among the heathen and learned their works." 
 They ceased to be missionaries. They hardly and fitfully 
 preserved the records of the meaning of their own exodus. 
 Eight hundred years went by, and the flame rekindled in 
 
 9
 
 130 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 another country. Cities more splendid even than the 
 hundred-gated Thebes itself had risen on the banks of the 
 Euphrates. Grand military empires had been founded on 
 war and conquest. Peace had followed when no enemies 
 were left to conquer; and with peace had come philosophy, 
 science, agricultural enterprise, magnificent engineering works 
 for the draining and irrigation of the Mesopotamian plains. 
 Temples and palaces towered into the sky. The pomp and 
 luxury of Asia rivalled, and even surpassed, the glories of 
 Egypt ; and by the side of it a second nature-worship, 
 which, if less elaborately absurd, was more deeply detest- 
 able. The foulest vices were consecrated to the service of 
 the gods, and the holiest ceremonies were inoculated with 
 impurity and sensuality. 
 
 The seventh century before the Christian era was dis- 
 tinguished over the whole East by extraordinary religious 
 revolutions. With the most remarkable of these, that which 
 bears the name of Buddha, I am not here concerned. 
 Buddhism has been the creed for more than two thousand 
 years of half the human race, but it left unaffected our own 
 western world, and therefore I here pass it by. 
 
 Simultaneously with Buddha, there appeared another 
 teacher, Zerdusht, or, as the Greeks called him, Zoroaster, 
 among the hardy tribes of the Persian mountains. He 
 taught a creed which, like that of the Israelites, was 
 essentially moral and extremely simple. Nature-worship, 
 as I said, knew nothing of morality. When the objects of 
 natural idolatry became personified, and physical phenomena 
 were metamorphosed into allegorical mythology, the indiffer- 
 ence to morality which was obvious in nature became 
 ascribed as a matter of course to gods which were but 
 nature in a personal disguise. Zoroaster, like Moses, saw 
 behind the physical forces into the deeper laws of right and 
 wrong. He supposed himself to discover two antagonist 
 powers contending in the heart of man as well as in the 
 outward universe a spirit of light and a spirit of darkness, 
 a spirit of truth and a spirit of falsehood, a spirit life-giving 
 and beautiful, a spirit poisonous and deadly. To one or
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 131 
 
 other of these powers man was necessarily in servitude. As 
 the follower of Ormuzd, he became enrolled in the celestial 
 armies, whose business was to fight against sin and misery, 
 against wrong-doing and impurity, against injustice and lies 
 and baseness of all sorts and kinds ; and every one with a 
 soul in him to prefer good to evil was summoned to the holy 
 wars, which would end at last after ages in the final over- 
 throw of Ahriman. 
 
 The Persians caught rapidly Zoroaster's spirit. Uncor- 
 rupted by luxury, they responded eagerly to a voice which 
 they recognised as speaking truth to them. They have been 
 called the Puritans of the Old World. Never any people, it 
 is said, hated idolatry as they hated it, and for the simple 
 reason that they hated lies. A Persian lad, Herodotus tells 
 us, was educated in three especial accomplishments. He 
 was taught to ride, to shoot, and to speak the truth that is 
 to say, he was brought up to be brave, active, valiant, and 
 upright. When a man speaks the truth, you may count 
 pretty surely that he possesses most other virtues. Half the 
 vices in the world rise out of cowardice, and one who is 
 afraid of lying is usually afraid of nothing else. Speech is 
 an article of trade in which we are all dealers, and the one 
 beyond all others where we are most bound to provide 
 honest wares : 
 
 e'x#pos /J-ol Ka/ceivos o/xws 'Ai'Sao irvXalcriv 
 
 6's 6' erepov [xev Kevdy ivl (/>peo"iv aAAo Be eliry. 
 
 This seems to have been the Persian temperament, and 
 in virtue of it they were chosen as the instruments clearly 
 recognised as such by the Prophet Isaiah for one which 
 were to sweep the earth clean of abominations, which had 
 grown to an intolerable height. Bel bowed down, and Nebo 
 had to stoop before them. Babylon, the lady of kingdoms, 
 was laid in the dust, and " her stargazers and her astrologers 
 and her monthly prognosticators " could not save her with 
 all their skill. They and she were borne away together. 
 Egypt's turn followed. Pietribution had been long delayed, 
 but her cup ran over at last. The palm-groves were flung
 
 132 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 into the river, the temples polluted, the idols mutilated. 
 The precious Apis, for all its godhood, was led with a halter 
 before the Persian king, and stabbed in the sight of the 
 world by Persian steel. 
 
 " Profane ! " exclaimed the priests, as pious persons, on 
 like occasions, have exclaimed a thousand times : " these 
 Puritans have no reverence for holy things." Eather it is 
 because they do reverence things which deserve reverence 
 that they loathe and abhor the counterfeit. What does an 
 ascertained imposture deserve but to be denied, exposed, 
 insulted, trampled under foot, danced upon, if nothing less 
 will serve, till the very geese take courage and venture to 
 hiss derision ? Are we to wreathe aureoles round the brows 
 of phantasms lest we shock the sensibilities of the idiots 
 who have - believed them to be divine ? Was the Prophet 
 Isaiah so tender in his way of treating such matters ? 
 
 Who hath formed a god, or molten a graven image that is profit- 
 able for nothing ? He heweth him down cedars. He taketh the 
 cypress and the oak from the trees of the forest. He burneth part 
 thereof in the fire ; with part thereof he eateth flesh. He roasteth 
 roast, and is satisfied : yea, he warmeth himself, and saith, Aha, I am 
 warm, I have seen the fire : and the residue thereof he maketh a god, 
 even his graven image : he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, 
 and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me ; for thou art my god. 
 
 Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for fear of the 
 Lord, for the glory of His majesty when He ariseth to shake terribly 
 the earth. In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver and gold, 
 which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and 
 the bats. 
 
 Again events glide on. Persia runs the usual course. 
 Virtue and truth produced strength, strength dominion, 
 dominion riches, riches luxury, and luxury weakness and 
 collapse fatal sequence repeated so often, yet to so little 
 purpose. The hardy warrior of the mountains degenerated 
 into a vulgar sybarite. His manliness became effeminacy ; 
 his piety a ritual of priests ; himself a liar, a coward, and a 
 slave. The Greeks conquered the Persians, copied their 
 manners, and fell in turn before the Eomans. We count 
 little more than 500 years from the fall of Babylon, and the
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 133 
 
 entire known world was lying at the feet of a great military 
 despotism. Coming originally themselves from the East, 
 the classic nations had brought with them also the primaeval 
 nature-worship of Asia. The Greek imagination had woven 
 the Eastern metaphors into a singular mythology, in which 
 the gods were represented as beings possessing in a splendid 
 degree physical beauty, physical strength, with the kind of 
 awfulness which belong to their origin ; the fitful, wanton, 
 changeable, yet also terrible powers of the elemental world. 
 Translated into the language of humanity, the actions and 
 adventures thus ascribed to the gods became in process of 
 time impossible to be believed. Intellect expanded ; moral 
 sense grew more vigorous, and with it the conviction that, if 
 the national traditions were true, man must be more just 
 than his Maker. In iEschylus and Sophocles, in Pindar and 
 Plato, you see conscience asserting its sovereignty over the 
 most sacred beliefs instinctive reverence and piety struggling 
 sometimes to express themselves under the names and forms 
 of the past, sometimes bursting out uncontrollably into in- 
 dignant abhorrence : 
 
 'E/-106 8' a.7ropa yacTTpifxapyov 
 Ma/captov tiv ei7retv. 
 ' A<f>i(TTafjLaL . . . 
 
 KGU TTOV Tt KGU /3pOTWV (fyptVOlS 
 
 v-rrep tov d\a6rj Aoyov 
 8e8ai8aXfxevoL \ptv8e(Ti ttolkcXois 
 ea7raTWVTt p,v9oi. 
 Xapts 8' onrep airavTa Tev)(eL 
 ra petAi^a Ovarols 
 
 TTL<f>pOl(Ta Tlp\a.V 
 
 Kat, amcrTOv epycraTO it'kttov 
 
 p,p.Vat TO TToXXaKlS. 
 
 To me 'twere strange indeed 
 To charge the blessed gods with greed. 
 
 I dare not do it 
 
 Myths too oft, 
 With quaintly coloured lies enwrought, 
 To stray from truth have mortals brought 
 And Art, which round all things below 
 A charm of loveliness can throw, 
 Has robed the false in honour's hue, 
 And made the unbelievable seem true.
 
 134 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 " All religions," says Gibbon, " are to the vulgar equally 
 true, to the philosopher equally false, and to the statesman 
 equally useful " : thus scornfully summing up the theory of 
 the matter which he found to be held by the politicians of 
 the age which he was describing, and perhaps of his own. 
 Eeligion, as a moral force, died away with the establishment 
 of the Eoman Empire, and with it died probity, patriotism, 
 and human dignity, and all that men had learnt in nobler 
 ages to honour and to value as good. Order reigned un- 
 broken under the control of the legions. Industry flourished, 
 and natural science, and most of the elements of what we 
 now call civilisation. Ships covered the seas. Huge towns 
 adorned the Imperial provinces. The manners of men be- 
 came more artificial, and in a certain sense more humane. 
 Eeligion was a State establishment a decent acknowledg- 
 ment of a power or powers which, if they existed at all, 
 amused themselves in the depths of space, careless, so their 
 deity was not denied, of the woe or weal of humanity : the 
 living fact, supreme in Church and State, being the wearer 
 of the purple, who as the practical realisation of authority, 
 assumed the name as well as the substance. The one god 
 immediately known to man was thenceforth the Divus 
 Caesar, whose throne in the sky was waiting empty for him 
 till his earthly exile was ended, and it pleased him to join 
 or rejoin his kindred divinities. 
 
 It was the era of atheism atheism such as this earth 
 never witnessed before or since. You who have read 
 Tacitus know the practical fruits of it, as they appeared at 
 the heart of the system in the second Babylon, the proud 
 city of the seven hills. You will remember how, for the 
 crime of a single slave, the entire household of a Eoman 
 patrician, four hundred innocent human beings, were led in 
 chains across the Forum and murdered by what was called 
 law. You will remember the exquisite Nero, who, in his 
 love of art, to throw himself more fully into the genius of 
 Greek tragedy, committed incest with his mother that he 
 might be a second (Edipus, and assassinated her that he 
 might realise the sensations of Orestes. You will recall one
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 135 
 
 scene which Tacitus describes, not as exceptional or standing 
 alone, but merely, he says, " quas ut exemplum referam ne 
 saepius eadem prodigentia narranda sit" the hymeneal 
 night-banquet on Agrippa's lake, graced by the presence of 
 the wives and daughters of the Eoman senators, where, 
 amidst blazing fireworks and music, and cloth-of-gold 
 pavilions, and naked prostitutes, the majesty of the Caesars 
 celebrated his nuptials with a boy. 
 
 There, I conceive, was the visible product of material 
 civilisation, where there was no fear of God in the middle 
 of it the final outcome of wealth and prosperity and art 
 and culture, raised aloft as a sign for all ages to look upon. 
 
 But it is not to this, nor to the fire of hell which in due 
 time burst out to consume it, that I desire now to draw your 
 attention. I have to point out to you two purifying move- 
 ments which were at work in the midst of the pollution, 
 one of which came to nothing and survives only in books, 
 the second a force which was to mould for ages the future 
 history of man. Both require our notice, for both singu- 
 larly contained the particular feature which is called the 
 reproach of Calvinism. 
 
 The blackest night is never utterly dark. When man- 
 kind seem most abandoned there are always a seven thou- 
 sand somewhere who have not bowed the knee . to the 
 fashionable opinions of the hour. Among the great 
 Eoman families a certain number remained republican 
 in feeling and republican in habit. The State religion 
 was as incredible to them as to every one else. They 
 could not persuade themselves that they could discover 
 the will of Heaven in the colour of a calf's liver or in 
 the appetite of the sacred chickens ; but they had re- 
 tained the moral instincts of their citizen ancestors. They 
 knew nothing of God or the gods, but they had something 
 in themselves which made sensuality nauseating instead of 
 pleasant to them. They had an austere sense of the mean- 
 ing of the word " duty." They could distinguish and rever- 
 ence the nobler possibilities of their nature. They disdained 
 what was base and effeminate, and, though religion failed
 
 136 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 them, they constructed out of philosophy a rule which would 
 serve to live by. Stoicism is a not unnatural refuge of 
 thoughtful men in confused and sceptical ages. It adheres 
 rigidly to morality. It offers no easy Epicurean explanation 
 of the origin of man, which resolves him into an organisa- 
 tion of particles, and dismisses him again into nothingness. 
 It recognises only that men who are the slaves of their 
 passions are miserable and impotent, and insists that per- 
 sonal inclinations shall be subordinated to conscience. It 
 prescribes plainness of life, that the number of our neces- 
 sities may be as few as possible, and in placing the business 
 of life in intellectual and moral action, it destroys the tempt- 
 ation to sensual gratifications. It teaches a contempt of 
 death so complete that it can be encountered without a 
 nutter of the pulse ; and, while it raises men above the 
 suffering which makes others miserable, generates a proud 
 submissiveness to sorrow which noblest natures feel most 
 keenly, by representing this huge scene and the shows 
 which it presents as the work of some unknown but irresist- 
 ible force, against which it is vain to struggle and childish 
 to repine. 
 
 As with Calvinism, a theoretic belief in an overruling 
 will or destiny was not only compatible with but seemed 
 naturally to issue in the control of the animal appetites. 
 The Stoic did not argue that, " as fate governs all things, I 
 can do no wrong, and therefore I will take my pleasure ; " 
 but rather, " The moral law within me is the noblest part 
 of my being, and compels me to submit to it." He did not 
 withdraw from the world like the Christian anchorite. He 
 remained at his post in the senate, the Forum, or the army. 
 A Stoic in Marcus Aurelius gave a passing dignity to the dis- 
 honoured purple. In Tacitus, Stoicism has left an eternal 
 evidence how grand a creature man may be, though unas- 
 sisted by conscious dependence on external spiritual help, 
 through steady disdain of what is base, steady reverence for 
 all that deserves to be revered, and inflexible integrity in 
 word and deed. 
 
 But Stoicism could under no circumstances be a res;en-
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 137 
 
 erating power in the general world. It was a position only- 
 tenable to the educated ; it was without hope and without 
 enthusiasm. From a contempt of the objects which man- 
 kind most desired, the step was short and inevitable to 
 contempt of mankind themselves. Wrapped in mournful 
 self-dependence, the Stoic could face calmly for himself 
 whatever lot the fates might send : 
 
 Si fractus illabatur orbis, 
 Impavidum ferient ruinae. 
 
 But, natural as such a creed might be in a Eoman noble 
 under the Empire, natural perhaps as it may always be in 
 corrupted ages and amidst disorganised beliefs, the very 
 sternness of Stoicism was repellent. It carried no consolation 
 to the hearts of the suffering millions, who were in no 
 danger of being led away by luxury, because their whole 
 lives were passed in poverty and wretchedness. It was 
 individual, not missionary. The Stoic declared no active 
 war against corruption. He stood alone, protesting scorn- 
 fully in silent example against evils which he was without 
 power to cure. Like Caesar, he folded himself in his mantle. 
 The world might do its worst. He would keep his own 
 soul unstained. 
 
 Place beside the Stoics their contemporaries, the Galilean 
 fishermen and the tentmaker of Tarsus. I am not about to 
 sketch in a few paragraphs the rise of Christianity. I mean 
 only to point to the principles on which the small knot of 
 men gathered themselves together who were about to lay the 
 foundations of a vast spiritual revolution. The guilt and 
 wretchedness in which the world was steeped St. Paul felt 
 as keenly as Tacitus. Like Tacitus, too, he believed that the 
 wild and miserable scene which he beheld was no result of 
 accident, but had been ordained so to be, and was the direct 
 expression of an all-mastering Power. But he saw also 
 that this Power was no blind necessity or iron chain of con- 
 nected cause and effect, but a perfectly just, perfectly wise 
 being, who governed all things by the everlasting immutable 
 laws of his own nature ; that when these laws were
 
 138 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 resisted or forgotten they wrought ruin and confusion, and 
 slavery to death and sin ; that when they were recognised 
 and obeyed the curse would be taken away, and freedom 
 and manliness come back again. Whence the disobedience 
 had first risen was a problem which St. Paul solved in a 
 manner not at all unlike the Persians. There was a 
 rebellious spirit in the universe, penetrating into men's 
 hearts, and prompting them to disloyalty and revolt. It 
 removed the question a step further back without answer- 
 ing it, but the fact was plain as the sunlight. Men had 
 neglected the laws of their Maker. In neglecting them 
 they had brought universal ruin, not on themselves only, 
 but on all society, and if the world was to be saved from 
 destruction they must be persuaded or forced back into 
 their allegiance. The law itself had been once more 
 revealed on the mountains of Palestine, and in the person 
 and example of One who had lived and died to make it 
 known ; and those who had heard and known Him, being 
 possessed with His spirit, felt themselves commissioned as a 
 missionary legion to publish the truth to mankind. They 
 were not, like the Israelites or the Persians, to fight with 
 the sword not even in their own defence. The sword can 
 take life, but not give it ; and the command to the Apostles 
 was to sow the invisible seed in the hotbed of corruption, 
 and feed and foster it, and water it with the blood, not of 
 others, but themselves. Their own wills, ambitions, hopes, 
 desires, emotions, were swallowed up in the will to which 
 they had surrendered themselves. They were soldiers. It 
 was St. Paul's metaphor, and no other is so appropriate. 
 They claimed no merit through their calling ; they were too 
 conscious of their own sins to indulge in the poisonous 
 reflection that they were not as other men. They were 
 summoned out on their allegiance, and armed with the 
 spiritual strength which belongs to the consciousness of a 
 just cause. If they indulged any personal hope, it was only 
 that their weaknesses would not be remembered against 
 them that, having been chosen for a work in which the 
 victory was assured, they would be made themselves worthy
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 139 
 
 of their calling, and, though they might slide, would not be 
 allowed to fall. Many mysteries remained unsolved. Man 
 was as clay in the potter's hand one vessel was made to 
 honour and another to dishonour. Why, who could tell ? 
 This only they knew, that they must themselves do no 
 dishonour to the spirit that was in them gain others, gain 
 all who would join them for their common purpose, and 
 fight with all their souls against ignorance and sin. 
 
 The fishermen of Gennesaret planted Christianity, and 
 many a winter and many a summer have since rolled over 
 it. More than once it has shed its leaves and seemed 
 to be dying, and when the buds burst again the colour 
 of the foliage was changed. The theory of it which 
 is taught to-day in the theological schools of St. Andrews 
 would have sounded strange from the pulpit of your once 
 proud cathedral. As the same thought expresses itself in 
 many languages, so spiritual truths assume ever-varying 
 forms. The garment fades the moths devour it the 
 woven fibres disintegrate, and turn to dust. The idea 
 only is immortal, and never fades. The hermit who made 
 his cell below the cliff where the cathedral stands, the 
 monkish architect who designed the plan of it, the princes 
 who brought it to perfection, the Protestants who shattered 
 it into ruin, the preacher of last Sunday at the University 
 church, would have many a quarrel, were they to meet now, 
 before they would understand each other. But at the 
 bottom of the minds of all the same thought would be pre- 
 dominant that they were soldiers of the Almighty, com- 
 missioned to fight with lies and selfishness, and that all 
 alike they and those against whom they were contending 
 were in his hands, to deal with after his own pleasure. 
 
 Again six centuries go by. Christianity becomes the 
 religion of the Eoman Empire. The Empire divides, and 
 the Church is divided with it. Europe is overrun by the 
 Northern nations. The power of the Western Coesars 
 breaks in pieces, but the Western Church stands erect 
 makes its way into the hearts of the conquerors, penetrates 
 the German forests, opens a path into Britain and Ireland.
 
 140 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 By the noble Gothic nations it is welcomed with passionate 
 enthusiasm. The warriors of Odin are transformed into a 
 Christian chivalry, and the wild Valhalla into a Christian 
 Heaven. Fiery, passionate nations are not tamed in a 
 generation or a century, but a new conception of what was 
 praiseworthy and excellent had taken hold of their imagina- 
 tion and the understanding. Kings, when their day of toil 
 was over, laid down crown and sword, and retired into 
 cloisters, to pass what remained of life to them in prayers 
 and meditations on eternity. The supreme object of rever- 
 ence was no longer the hero of the battlefield, but the bare- 
 foot missionary who was carrying the Gospel among the 
 tribes that were still untaught. So beautiful in their con- 
 ception of him was the character of one of these wandering 
 priests that their stories formed a new mythology. So vast 
 were the real miracles which they were working on men's 
 souls that wonders of a more ordinary sort were assigned to 
 them as a matter of course. They raised the dead, they 
 healed the sick, they cast out devils, with a word or with 
 the sign of the cross. Plain facts were too poor for the 
 enthusiasm of German piety ; and noble human figures were 
 exhibited, as it were, in the resplendent light of a painted 
 window in the effort to do them exaggerated honour. 
 
 It was pity, for truth only smells sweet for ever, and 
 illusions, however innocent, are deadly as the cankerworm. 
 Long cycles had to pass before the fruit of these poison- 
 seeds would ripen. The practical result, meanwhile, was to 
 substitute in the minds of the sovereign races which were 
 to take the lead in the coming era the principles of the 
 moral law for the law of force and the sword. 
 
 The Eastern branch of the divided Church experienced 
 meanwhile a less happy fortune. In the East there was no 
 virgin soil like the great noble Teutonic peoples. Asia was 
 a worn-out stage on which drama after drama of history had 
 been played and played out. Languid luxury only was 
 there, huge aggregation of wealth in particular localities, and 
 the no less inevitable shadow attached to luxury by the 
 necessities of things, oppression and misery and squalor.
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 141 
 
 Christianity and the world had come to terms after the 
 established fashion the world to be let alone in its 
 pleasures and its sins ; the Church relegated to opinion, with 
 free liberty to split doctrinal hairs to the end of time. The 
 work of the Church's degradation had begun, even before it 
 accepted the tainted hand of Constantine. Already in the 
 third century speculative Christianity had become the 
 fashionable creed of Alexandria, and had purchased the 
 favour of patrician congregations, if not by open tolerance 
 of vice, yet by leaving it to grow unresisted. St. Clement 
 details contemptuously the inventory of the boudoir of a fine 
 lady of his flock, the list of essences on her toilet-table, the 
 shoes, sandals, and slippers with which her dainty feet were 
 decorated in endless variety. He describes her as she as- 
 cends the steps of the fiaatXiicr), to which she was going for 
 what she called her prayers, with a page lifting up her 
 train. He paints her as she walks along the street, her 
 petticoats projecting with some horsehair arrangement be- 
 hind, and the street boys jeering at her as she passes. 
 
 All that Christianity was meant to do in making life 
 simple and habits pure was left undone, while, with a few 
 exceptions, like that of St. Clement himself, the intellectual 
 energy of its bishops and teachers was exhausted in spinning- 
 endless cobwebs of metaphysical theology. Human ' life at 
 the best is enveloped in darkness ; we know not what we 
 are or whither we are bound. Eeligion is the light by 
 which we are to see our way along the moral pathways with- 
 out straying into the brake or the morass. We are not to 
 look at religion itself, but at surrounding things with the 
 help of religion. If we fasten our attention upon the light 
 itself, analysing it into its component rays, speculating on the 
 union and composition of the substances of which it is com- 
 posed, not only will it no longer serve us for a guide, but 
 our dazzled senses lose their natural powers ; we should 
 grope our way more safely in conscious blindness. 
 
 If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness % 
 In the place of the old material idolatry we erect a new
 
 142 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 idolatry of words and phrases. Our duty is no longer to 
 be true, and honest, and brave, and self-denying, and pure ; 
 but to be exact in our formulas, to hold accurately some 
 nice and curious proposition, to place damnation in straying 
 a hair's breadth from some symbol which exults in being 
 unintelligible, and salvation in the skill with which the 
 mind can balance itself on some intellectual tightrope. 
 
 There is no more instructive phenomenon in history 
 than the ease and rapidity with which the Arabian caliphs 
 lopped off the fairest provinces of the Eastern Empire. 
 When nations are easily conquered, we may be sure that 
 they have first lost their moral self-respect. When their 
 religions, as they call them, go down at a breath, those 
 religions have become already but bubbles of vapour. The 
 laws of Heaven are long-enduring, but their patience comes 
 to an end at last. Because justice is not executed speedily 
 men persuade themselves that there is no such thing as 
 justice. But the lame foot, as the Greek proverb said, 
 overtakes the swift one in the end ; and the longer the 
 forbearance the sharper the retribution when it comes. 
 
 As the Greek theology was one of the most complicated 
 accounts ever offered of the nature of God and his relation 
 to man, so the message of Mahomet, when he first unfolded 
 the green banner, was one of the most simple. There is no 
 god but God : God is King, and you must and shall obey 
 his will. This was Islam, as it was first offered at the 
 sword's point to people who had lost the power of under- 
 standing any other argument. Your images are wood and 
 stone ; your metaphysics are words without understanding ; 
 the world lies in wickedness and wretchedness because you 
 have forgotten the statutes of your Master, and you shall go 
 back to those ; you shall fulfil the purpose for which you 
 were set to live upon the earth, or you shall not live at all. 
 
 Tremendous inroad upon the liberties of conscience ! 
 What right, it is asked, have those people that you have 
 been calling soldiers of the Almighty to interfere by force 
 with the opinions of others ? Let them leave us alone ; we 
 meddle not with them. Let them, if they please, obey
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 143 
 
 those laws they talk of; we have other notions of such 
 things ; we will obey ours, and let the result judge between 
 us. The result was judging between them. The meek 
 Apostle with no weapon but his word and his example, and 
 winning victories by himself submitting to be killed, is 
 a fairer object than a fierce Kaled, calling himself the sword 
 of the Almighty. But we cannot order for ourselves in 
 what way these things shall be. The caitiff Damascenes, to 
 whom Kaled gave the alternative of the Koran or death, 
 were men themselves, who had hands to hold a sword with 
 if they had heart to use it, or a creed for which they cared 
 to risk their lives. In such a quarrel superior strength and 
 courage are the signs of the presence of a nobler conviction. 
 
 To the question, " What right have you to interfere with 
 us ? " there is but one answer : " We must. These things 
 which we tell you are true ; and in your hearts you know 
 it ; your own cowardice convicts you. The moral laws of 
 your Maker are written in your consciences as well as in 
 ours. If you disobey them, you bring disaster not only on 
 your own wretched selves, but on all around you. It is our 
 common concern, and if you will not submit, in the name of 
 our Master we will compel you." 
 
 Any fanatic, it will be said, might use the same 
 language. Is not history full of instances of dreamers or 
 impostors, ' boasting themselves to be somebody," who for 
 some wild illusion, or for their own ambition, have thrown 
 the world into convulsions ? Is not Mahomet himself a 
 signal the most signal illustration of it ? I should say 
 rather that when men have risen in arms for a false cause 
 the event has proved it by the cause coming to nothing. 
 The world is not so constituted that courage, and strength, and 
 endurance, and organisation, and success long sustained, are 
 to be obtained in the service of falsehood. If I could think 
 that, I should lose the most convincing reason for believing 
 that we are governed by a moral power. The moral laws of 
 our being execute themselves through the instrumentality of 
 men ; and in those great movements which determine the 
 moral condition of many nations through many centuries,
 
 144 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 the stronger side, it seems to me, has uniformly been the 
 better side, and stronger because it has been better. 
 
 I am not upholding Mahomet as if he had been a 
 perfect man, or the Koran as a second Bible. The crescent 
 was no sun, nor even a complete moon reigning full-orbed 
 in the night heaven. The light there was in it was but 
 reflected from the sacred books of the Jews and the Arab 
 traditions. The morality of it was defective. The detailed 
 conception of man's duties inferior, far inferior, to what St. 
 Martin and St. Patrick, St. Columba and St. Augustine, were 
 teaching, or had taught, in Western Europe. Mahometanism 
 rapidly degenerated. The first caliphs stood far above 
 Saladin. The descent from Saladin to a modern Moslem 
 despot is like a fall over a precipice. All established 
 things, nations, constitutions all established things which 
 have life in them have also the seeds of death. They grow, 
 they have their day of usefulness, they decay and pass 
 away, " lest one good custom should corrupt the world." 
 
 But the light which there was in the Moslem creed was 
 real. It taught the omnipotence and omnipresence of one 
 eternal Spirit, the Maker and Euler of all things, by 
 whose everlasting purpose all things were, and whose will 
 all things must obey ; and this central truth, to which later 
 experience and broader knowledge can add nothing, it has 
 taught so clearly and so simply that in Islam there has 
 been no room for heresy, and scarcely for schism. 
 
 The Koran has been accused of countenancing sensual 
 vice. Eather it bridled and brought within limits a sensu- 
 ality which before was unbounded. It forbade, and has 
 absolutely extinguished, wherever Islam is professed, the 
 bestial drunkenness which is the disgrace of our Christian 
 English and Scottish towns. Even now, after centuries of 
 decay, the Mussulman probably governs his life by the 
 Koran more accurately than most Christians obey the 
 Sermon on the Mount or the Ten Commandments. In our 
 own India, where the Moslem creed retains its relative 
 superiority to the superstitions of the native races, the 
 Mussulman is a higher order of being. Were the English
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 145 
 
 to withdraw he would retake the sovereignty of the 
 peninsula by natural right not because he has larger 
 bones and sinews, but by superiority of intellect and heart ; 
 in other words, because he has a truer faith. 
 
 I said that while Christianity degenerated in the East 
 with extreme rapidity, in the West it retained its firmer 
 characters. It became the vitalising spirit of a new organ- 
 isation of society. All that we call modern civilisation in a 
 sense which deserves the name, is the visible expression of 
 the transforming power of the Gospel. 
 
 I said also that by the side of the healthy influences of 
 regeneration there were sown along with it the germs 
 of evil to come. All living ideas, from the necessity of 
 things, take up into their constitutions whatever forces are 
 already working round them. The most ardent aspirations 
 after truth will not anticipate knowledge, and the errors of 
 the imagination become consecrated as surely as the purest 
 impulses of conscience. So long as the laws of the physical 
 world remain a mystery, the action of all uncomprehended 
 phenomena, the movements of the heavenly bodies, the 
 winds and storms, famines, murrains, and human epidemics, 
 are ascribed to the voluntary interference of supernatural 
 beings. The belief in witches and fairies, in spells and 
 talismans, could not be dispelled by Science, for scieiice did 
 not exist. The Church, therefore, entered into competition 
 with her evil rivals on their own ground. The saint came 
 into the field against the enchanters. The powers of charms 
 and amulets were eclipsed by martyrs' relics, sacraments, 
 and holy water. The magician, with the devil at his back, 
 got to yield to the divine powers imparted to priests by 
 spiritual descent in the imposition of hands. 
 
 Thus a gigantic system of supernaturalism overspread 
 the entire Western world. There was no deliberate imposi- 
 tion. The clergy were as ignorant as the people of true 
 relations between natural cause and effect. Their business, 
 so far as they were conscious of their purpose, was to con- 
 tend against the works of the devil. They saw practically 
 that they were able to convert men from violence and
 
 146 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 impurity to piety and self-restraint. Their very humility 
 forbade them to attribute such wonderful results to their 
 own teaching. When it was universally believed that 
 human beings could make covenants with Satan by signing 
 their names in blood, what more natural than that they 
 should assume, for instance, that the sprinkling of water, 
 the inaugurating ceremony of the purer and better life, 
 should exert a mysterious mechanical influence upon the 
 character ? 
 
 If regeneration by baptism, however, with its kindred 
 imaginations, was not true, innocence of intention could not 
 prevent the natural consequences of falsehood. Time went 
 on ; knowledge increased ; doubt stole in, and with doubt 
 the passionate determination to preserve beliefs at all 
 hazards which had grown too dear to superstition to be 
 parted with. In the twelfth century the mystery called 
 transubstantiation had come to be regarded with widespread 
 misgiving. To encounter scepticism, there then arose for 
 the first time what have been called pious frauds. It was 
 not perceived that men who lend themselves consciously 
 to lies, with however excellent an intention, will become 
 eventually deliberate rogues. The clergy, doubtless, believed 
 that in the consecration of the elements an invisible change 
 was really and truly effected. But to produce an effect on 
 the secular mind the invisible had to be made visible. A 
 general practice sprung up to pretend that in the breaking 
 of the wafer real blood had gushed out ; real pieces of flesh 
 were found between the fingers. The precious things thus 
 produced were awfully preserved, and with the Pope's bless- 
 ing were deposited in shrines for the strengthening of faith 
 and the confutation of the presumptuous unbeliever. 
 
 When a start has once been made on the road of decep- 
 tion, the after-progress is a rapid one. The desired effect 
 was not produced. Incredulity increased. Imposture ran 
 a race with unbelief in the vain hope of silencing enquiry, 
 and with imposture all genuine love for spiritual or moral 
 truth disappeared. 
 
 You all know to what condition the Catholic Church
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 147 
 
 had sunk at the beginning of the sixteenth century. An 
 insolent hierarchy, with an army of priests behind them, 
 dominated every country in Europe. The Church was like 
 a hard nutshell round a shrivelled kernel. The priests in 
 parting with their sincerity had lost the control over their 
 own appetites which only sincerity can give. Profligate in 
 their own lives, they extended to the laity the same easy 
 latitude which they asserted for their own conduct. Religi- 
 ous duty no longer consisted in leading a virtuous life, but 
 in purchasing immunity for self-indulgence by one of the 
 thousand remedies which Church officials were ever ready to 
 dispense at an adequate price. 
 
 The pleasant arrangement came to an end a sudden 
 and terrible one. Christianity had not been upon the earth 
 for nothing. The spiritual organisation of the Church was 
 corrupt to the core ; but in the general awakening of Europe 
 it was impossible to conceal the contrast between the 
 doctrines taught in the Catholic pulpits and the creed of 
 which they were the counterfeit. Again and again the 
 gathering indignation sputtered out to be savagely repressed. 
 At last it pleased Pope Leo, who wanted money to finish 
 St. Peter's, to send about spiritual hawkers with wares which 
 were called indulgences notes to be presented at the gates 
 of purgatory as passports to the easiest places there and 
 then Luther spoke and the whirlwind burst. 
 
 I can but glance at the Reformation in Germany. 
 Luther himself was one of the grandest men that ever lived 
 on earth. Never was any one more loyal to the light that 
 was in him, braver, truer, or wider-minded in the noblest 
 sense of the word. The share of the work which fell to 
 him Luther accomplished most perfectly. But he was 
 exceptionally fortunate in one way, that in Saxony he had 
 his sovereign on his side, and the enemy, however furious, 
 could not reach him with fleshly weapons, and could but 
 grind his teeth and curse. Other nations who had caught 
 Luther's spirit had to win their liberty on harder terms, and 
 the Catholic churchmen were able to add to their other 
 crimes the cruelty of fiends. Princes and politicians, who
 
 148 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 had State reasons for disliking popular outbursts, sided with 
 the established spiritual authorities. Heresy was assailed 
 with fire and sword, and a spirit harsher than Luther's was 
 needed to steel the converts' hearts for the trials which came 
 upon them. Lutheranism, when Luther himself was gone, 
 and the thing which we in England know as Anglicanism, 
 were inclined to temporising and half-measures. The 
 Lutheran congregations were but half emancipated from 
 superstition, and shrank from pressing the struggle to 
 extremities ; and half-measures meant half-heartedness, 
 convictions which were but half convictions, and truth with 
 an alloy of falsehood. Half-measures, however, would not 
 quench the bonfires of Philip of Spain, or raise men in 
 France or Scotland who would meet crest to crest the 
 Princes of the House of Lorraine. The Eeformers required 
 a position more sharply defined, and a sterner leader, and 
 that leader they found in John Calvin. 
 
 There is no occasion to say much of Calvin's personal 
 history. His name is now associated only with gloom and 
 austerity. Suppose it is true that he rarely laughed. He 
 had none of Luther's genial and sunny humour. Could 
 they have exchanged conditions, Luther's temper might have 
 been somewhat grimmer, but he would never have been 
 entirely like Calvin. Nevertheless, for hard times hard men 
 are needed, and intellects which can pierce to the roots 
 where truth and lies part company. It fares ill with the 
 soldiers of religion when " the accursed thing " is in their 
 camp. And this is to be said of Calvin, that so far as the 
 state of knowledge permitted, no eye could have detected 
 more keenly the unsound spots in the received creed of the 
 Church, nor was there reformer in Europe so resolute to 
 excise, tear out, and destroy what was distinctly seen to be 
 false so resolute to establish what was true in its place, and 
 make truth to the last fibre of it the rule of practical life. 
 
 Calvinism as it existed at Geneva, and as it endeavoured 
 to be wherever it took root for a century and a half after 
 him, was not a system of opinion, but an attempt to make 
 the will of God as revealed in the Bible an authoritative
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 149 
 
 guide for social as well as personal direction. Men wonder 
 why the Calvinists, being so doctrinal, yet seemed to dwell 
 so much and so emphatically on the Old Testament. It 
 was because in the Old Testament they found, or thought 
 they found, a divine example of national government, a 
 distinct indication of the laws which men were ordered to 
 follow, with visible and immediate punishments attached to 
 disobedience. At Geneva, as for a time in Scotland, moral 
 sins were treated after the example of the Mosaic law, as 
 crimes- to be punished by the magistrate. "Elsewhere," 
 said Knox, speaking of Geneva, " the Word of God is taught 
 as purely, but never anywhere have I seen God obeyed as 
 faithfully." l 
 
 If it was a dream, it was at least a noble one. The 
 Calvinists have been called intolerant. Intolerance of an 
 enemy who is trying to kill you seems to me a pardon- 
 able state of mind. It is no easy matter to tolerate lies 
 clearly convicted of being lies under any circumstances ; 
 specially it is not easy to tolerate lies which strut about in 
 the name of religion ; but there is no reason to suppose that 
 the Calvinists at the beginning would have thought of 
 meddling with the Church if they had been themselves let 
 alone. They would have formed communities apart. Like 
 the Israelites whom they wished to resemble, they* would 
 have withdrawn into the wilderness the Pilgrim Fathers 
 actually did so withdraw into the wilderness of New Eng- 
 land to worship the God of their fathers, and would have 
 left argument and example to work their natural effect. 
 Norman Leslie did not kill Cardinal Beaton down in the 
 castle yonder because he was a Catholic, but because he 
 was a murderer. The Catholics chose to add to their 
 already incredible creed a fresh article, that they were 
 
 1 In burning witches the Calvinists followed their model too exactly ; but 
 it is to be remembered that they really believed these poor creatures to have 
 made a compact with Satan. And, as regards morality, it may be doubted 
 whether inviting spirit-rappers to dinner, and allowing them to pretend 
 to consult our dead relations, is very much more innocent. The first method 
 is but excess of indignation with evil ; the second is complacent toying 
 with it.
 
 150 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 entitled to hang and burn those who differed from them ; 
 and in this quarrel the Calvinists, Bible in hand, appealed 
 to the God of battles. They grew harsher, fiercer if you 
 please more fanatical. It was extremely natural that 
 they should. They dwelt, as pious men are apt to dwell 
 in suffering and sorrow, on the all-disposing power of 
 Providence. Their burden grew lighter as they considered 
 that God had so determined that they must bear it. But 
 they attracted to their ranks almost every man in Western 
 Europe " that hated a lie." They were crushed down, but 
 they rose again. They were splintered and torn, but no 
 power could bend or melt them. They had many faults ; 
 let him that is without sin cast a stone at them. They 
 abhorred, as no body of men ever more abhorred, all con- 
 scious mendacity, all impurity, all moral wrong, of every 
 kind so far as they could recognise it. Whatever exists at 
 this moment in England and Scotland of conscientious fear 
 of doing evil is the remnant of the convictions which were 
 branded by the Calvinists into the people's hearts. Though 
 they failed to destroy Komanism, though it survives and 
 may survive long as an opinion, they drew its fangs ; they 
 forced it to abandon that detestable principle, that it was 
 entitled to murder those who dissented from it. Nay, it 
 may be said that, by having shamed Bomanism out of its 
 practical corruption, the Calvinists enabled it to revive. 
 
 Why, it is asked, were they so dogmatic ? Why could 
 they not be contented to teach men reasonably and quietly 
 that to be wicked was to be miserable, that in the in- 
 dulgence of immoderate passions they would find less happi- 
 ness than in adhering to the rules of justice, or yielding to 
 the impulses of more generous emotions ? And, for the 
 rest, why could they not let fools be fools, and leave opinion 
 free about matters of which neither they nor others could 
 know anything certain at all ? 
 
 I reply that it is not true that goodness is synonymous 
 with happiness. The most perfect being who ever trod the 
 soil of this planet was called the Man of Sorrows. If 
 happiness means absence of care and inexperience of painful
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 151 
 
 emotion, the best securities for it are a hard heart and a 
 good digestion. If morality has no better foundation than 
 a tendency to promote happiness, its sanction is but a feeble 
 uncertainty. If it be recognised as part of the constitution 
 of the world, it carries with it its right to command; and 
 those who see clearly what it is, will insist on submission 
 to it, and derive authority from the distinctness of their 
 recognition, to enforce submission where their power extends. 
 Philosophy goes no further than probabilities, and in every 
 assertion keeps a doubt in reserve. Compare the remon- 
 strance of the casual passer-by, if a mob of ruffians are mis- 
 behaving themselves in the street, with the downright energy 
 of the policeman who strikes in fearlessly, one against a 
 dozen, as a minister of the law. There is the same differ- 
 ence through life between the man who has a sure conviction, 
 and him whose thoughts never rise beyond a " perhaps." 
 
 Any fanatic may say as much, it is again answered, for 
 the wildest madness. But the elementary principles of 
 morality are not forms of madness. No one pretends that 
 it is uncertain whether truth is better than falsehood, or 
 justice than injustice. Speculation can eat away the 
 sanction, superstition can erect rival duties, but neither one 
 nor the other pretends to touch the fact that these principles 
 exist, and the very essence and life of all great religious 
 movements is the recognition of them as of authority, and 
 as part of the eternal framework of things. 
 
 There is, however, it must be allowed, something in 
 what these objectors say. The power of Calvinism has 
 waned. The discipline which it once aspired to maintain 
 has fallen slack. Desire for ease and self-indulgence drag 
 for ever in quiet times at the heel of noble aspirations, 
 while the shadow struggles to remain and preserve its 
 outline when the substance is passing away. The argu- 
 mentative and logical side of Calvin's mind has created once 
 more a fatal opportunity for a separation between opinion 
 and morality. We have learnt, as we say, to make the 
 best of both worlds, to take political economy fur the rule 
 of our conduct, and to relegate religion into the profession
 
 152 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 of orthodox doctrines. Systems have been invented to 
 explain the inexplicable. Metaphors have been translated 
 into formulas, and paradoxes intelligible to emotion have 
 been thrust upon the acceptance of the reason; while duty, 
 the loftiest of all sensations which we are permitted to 
 experience, has been resolved into the acceptance of a 
 scheme of salvation for the individual human soul. Was 
 it not written long ago, " He that will save his soul shall 
 lose it " ? If we think of religion only as a means of 
 escaping what we call the wrath to come, we shall not 
 escape it ; we are already under it ; we are under the 
 burden of death, for we care only for ourselves. 
 
 This was not the religion of your fathers; this was not 
 the Calvinism which overthrew spiritual wickedness, and 
 hurled kings from their thrones, and purged England and 
 Scotland, for a time at least, of lies and charlatanry. 
 Calvinism was the spirit which rises in revolt against un- 
 truth, the spirit which, as I have shown you, has appeared, 
 and reappeared, and in due time will appear again, unless 
 God be a delusion and man be as the beasts that perish. 
 Tor it is but the inflashing upon the conscience of the 
 nature and origin of the laws by which mankind are 
 governed laws which exist, whether we acknowledge them 
 or whether we deny them, and will have their way, to our 
 Aveal or woe, according to the attitude in which we please 
 to place ourselves towards them inherent, like the laws of 
 gravity, in the nature of things, not made by us, not to be 
 altered by us, but to be discerned and obeyed by us at our 
 everlasting peril. 
 
 Nay, rather the law of gravity is but a property of 
 material things, and matter and all that belongs to it may 
 one day fade away like a cloud and vanish. The moral law 
 is inherent in eternity. " Heaven and earth shall pass 
 away, but my word shall not pass away." The law is the 
 expression of the will of the Spirit of the Universe. The 
 spirit in man which corresponds to and perceives the 
 Eternal Spirit is part of its essence, and immortal as it is 
 immortal. The Calvinists called the eye within us the
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 153 
 
 Inspiration of the Almighty. Aristotle could see that it 
 was not of earth, or any creature of space and time : 
 
 o Se vovs eoinev eyyuyvio-dat ovcria tis ovcra koli ov <f>6eipe(rdai. 
 
 What the thing is which we call ourselves we know 
 not. It may be true I for one care not if it be that the 
 descent of our mortal bodies may be traced through an 
 ascending series to some glutinous jelly formed on the rocks 
 of the primeval ocean. It is nothing to me how the Maker 
 of me has been pleased to construct the organised substance 
 which I call my body. It is mine, but it is not me. The 
 vovs, the intellectual spirit, being an ovaia an essence 
 we believe to be an imperishable something which has been 
 engendered in us from another source. As Wordsworth 
 says : 
 
 Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting : 
 The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, 
 
 Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
 And cometh from afar : 
 
 Not in entire forgetfulness, 
 
 And not in utter nakedness, 
 But trailing clouds of glory do we come 
 
 From God, who is our home.
 
 LOKD NEAVES 
 
 Rector from 1872 to 1874 
 Address delivered on February 13, 1873
 
 LORD NEAVES 
 
 The first and most pleasing duty which I have to perform at 
 this time is to thank the University and the Electors for the 
 honour they have done me in calling upon me to occupy this 
 chair. To be thus chosen to fill a high office in the most 
 ancient, and by no means the least distinguished of our 
 Scottish Universities, must be gratifying to the feelings of 
 any one to whom learning and Literature are dear, and might 
 be a just cause of some pride and self-satisfaction, if I were 
 not conscious that the choice is in a great measure due to 
 considerations independent of personal merit, arising from 
 my position and from my possible services being more 
 accessible than those of the much more eminent and accom- 
 plished men whose names were at the same time submitted 
 for your consideration. I shall only on this subject now 
 express my earnest wish and firm resolution to spare no 
 pains, and to leave no exertion untried, to maintain and 
 promote the reputation, usefulness, and welfare of the 
 University. 
 
 I trust, and indeed believe, that I speak the sentiments 
 of all here present, when I state my full concurrence with 
 the views lately announced and so ably advocated by your 
 Parliamentary representative, that our Universities should 
 continue to be maintained in their full efficiency as schools 
 of instruction, as well as in their character of examining and 
 degree-conferring institutions. I could add nothing either 
 of force or of authority to the arguments which Dr. Lyon 
 Playfair has advanced on that important question ; and I 
 shall merely add the expression of my confident hope that
 
 158 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 no change in this respect will be attempted, in opposition 
 to what I believe to be the unanimous feeling of Scotland. 
 
 The benefits derived from the assemblage in one place 
 of a variety of learned men to teach what they know, and 
 of a number of earnest students eager to acquire whatever 
 they can learn in each other's company, in the different 
 branches of a liberal education, are too obvious and have 
 too often been promulgated to need illustration from me at 
 this time. The proverb holds here, as in other operations 
 of social influence, "As iron sharpeneth iron, so a man 
 sharpeneth the countenance of his friend." Even the fading 
 embers of a fire will gather strength and be kindled into a 
 flame by mutual contact, when they would grow cold and 
 lifeless if insulated from each other. The specialties of 
 one man supplement or rectify the peculiarities of his 
 neighbour ; the very faults of those thus associated tend to 
 act as a mutual check, and they all learn a degree of 
 sympathy and tolerance for diversities of opinion and of 
 pursuit, to which the solitary student never attains. Add to 
 this that the esprit de corps which prompts fellow-students 
 to maintain the honour and credit of their Alma Mater, is 
 always a high and a salutary motive to exertion. 
 
 If any country is peculiarly indebted to its Universities 
 for its position and prosperity, I think it is our own. 
 
 Let us look at the state of Scotland as it was at the 
 beginning of the fifteenth century. 
 
 The Scottish nation, from the earliest period of its 
 authentic history, was divided into two very different races 
 a Teutonic or low German population on the east and 
 south, and a congeries of Celtic tribes on the north and 
 west. I say nothing of the relative powers of these re- 
 spective nationalities in respect of mental or intellectual 
 capacity. Probably the combination of their differing 
 characteristics was necessary to complete the best pattern 
 that the nation, as a whole, was destined to exhibit. But 
 I suppose it will be generally allowed that in the Saxon 
 mind intellect predominated over the other powers, as 
 imagination did in the Gael. But in one important quality,
 
 LORD NEA VES 159 
 
 having reference to social organisation, there was a very- 
 clear preponderance on the Saxon side I mean the aptitude 
 for observing order and constituting civil government. The 
 Celtic race, amidst many generous impulses and kindly 
 affections, have shown, among ourselves at least, a certain 
 antipathy to any extensive cohesion of component parts, and 
 have evinced a tendency to subdivide themselves into small 
 septs, which have too often been found at deadly feud with 
 each other, though, unlike what has been said of their Irish 
 kinsmen, they generally combined together against the 
 common foe. The defects to which I have referred form a 
 serious impediment to the advance of civilisation, and the 
 consequence in Scotland was, that for several centuries the 
 national unity and prosperity were disturbed by the dis- 
 unions and disorders of the Celtic mountaineers. 
 
 The Saxon population, on the other hand, without being- 
 deficient in military qualities when these were needed, 
 arranged themselves readily into Burghs and Cities, estab- 
 lished among them forms of municipal government, such as 
 were derived from traditions of Eoman organisation, and on 
 the east coast of Scotland availed themselves of their free and 
 extensive, though stormy, seaboard, to become mariners and 
 merchants, and to engage in a prosperous and profitable 
 trade with the seaports of France and the ports around the 
 North Sea, from which the most beneficial commercial and 
 social results were to be expected. 
 
 In the south of Scotland the inhabitants were by nature 
 as highly gifted with mental energy and powerful intellect 
 as any of their countrymen; but unfortunately along the 
 whole English frontier the frequent and irritating wars that 
 had occurred, and the national bitterness that had been 
 infused into these contests, by arrogant pretensions on one 
 or both sides, proved fatal to the pursuits of industry and 
 cultivation, and thus an extent of agricultural and pastoral 
 country, that might have been a region of peace and plenty 
 was given up to incessant aggressions and retaliations of 
 plunder and bloodshed that proved fatal to the arts and 
 habits of civilised life.
 
 160 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 This state of things was in the fullest development of its 
 injurious tendencies in the beginning of the fifteenth century, 
 when the devastation and disturbance of the eastern border were 
 brought to a height by the battle of Homildon Hill in 1402. 
 
 A few years afterwards a scene was enacted in the north 
 of Scotland of the most portentous and threatening descrip- 
 tion. This was exhibited in the invasion of the district 
 of Moray and Aberdeen by the hordes of Celtic Katerans 
 who acknowledged the supremacy of Donald of the Isles, 
 and who threatened to overrun and devastate the peaceful 
 and prosperous tract of lowland and maritime country on 
 our east coast. These invaders, though not decisively de- 
 feated at the memorable battle of Harlaw in 1411, were 
 yet by the results of that combat impeded in their further 
 progress, and the flourishing city of Aberdeen was thus 
 preserved from all the horrors that can befall a rich town 
 sacked by ruthless and insatiable barbarians. 
 
 The geography of this condition of things led to the 
 discouraging consequence, that at the beginning of the 
 fifteenth century the civilised part of Scotland was in truth 
 confined to a sort of irregular triangle, of which Aberdeen 
 was the apex on the north, while Edinburgh and Glasgow 
 were the two extremities at the base. To the south lay a 
 lovely and fertile territory that was little better than a 
 debatable land ; while the north and west districts were 
 surrendered to highland or island tribes, equally unwilling 
 and unable to be governed by law or order. 
 
 In such circumstances it was clear that the future welfare 
 of Scotland depended upon the question whether the in- 
 fluential men of this special and limited district could be 
 trained and disciplined so as to be able amidst all disturbing- 
 causes to govern and legislate for the country at large, and 
 thus maintain and advance its independence and prosperity. 
 This was the problem to be worked out, and earnestly did 
 the great and good men of that age set themselves to a task, 
 which they prosecuted with a degree of ability and success 
 that entitle them to the highest praise and to our per- 
 manent gratitude.
 
 LORD NEA VES 161 
 
 I need not say that Churchmen must have been the 
 chief agents in accomplishing this great work, and they had 
 the sagacity to see that the establishment of native Uni- 
 versities was the most likely means of attaining their end. 
 Scotland was not without learning, but it had to seek its 
 education abroad ; and it was a great matter that neither its 
 learned men nor its students should be driven to the remedy 
 of even a temporary expatriation, in the prosecution of the 
 liberal pursuits to which they wished to devote themselves. 
 The fifteenth century came in this way to see the establish- 
 ment, within Scotland, of three Universities, that of St. 
 Andrews, in 1411, the very year of the battle of Harlaw ; 
 Glasgow, in 1450; and King's College of Aberdeen, in 
 1494. There was thus erected along the line of civilisation 
 that I before indicated, a chain of what may be called forts 
 or garrisons of learning, from which its protecting and 
 elevating influence might be diffused around, and placed 
 within easy reach of those who were most likely to wish 
 for, and to profit by its benefits. 
 
 It will be found, I think, that during that important and 
 critical century the great thinkers of Scotland, and its best 
 legislators, were intent on the prosecution of an object to 
 which in our own day, and in different circumstances, we 
 have been turning our attention. I mean, the establishment, 
 as far as feasible, of a compulsory education. But there was 
 this difference in the aspect in which that question then 
 presented itself. The prominent object nowadays is rather 
 to compel the poor to educate their children ; the object 
 then was directly or indirectly to compel the rich to be 
 educated. But in noticing this distinction, I would earnestly 
 deprecate the idea that the system then pursued was the 
 result of any feeling of favouritism for the rich as compared 
 with the poor. It arose, it is clear, from the best and 
 wisest principles of patriotism and social prudence. 
 
 I do not hesitate, indeed, to say that in almost any 
 country or state of society the education of rich young men 
 is of at least equal importance to that of the poor. Both 
 classes have their temptations as well as their needs. But,
 
 162 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 generally speaking, poverty, like adversity, is a school in 
 itself; and if a poor lad has common honesty, he will at 
 least be preserved from many deviations from other virtues. 
 He can't be idle he can't be slothful he can't be luxurious: 
 he will be trained in the discipline that nature establishes 
 by those motives and checks which the poets tell us were 
 introduced by Jupiter under his iron reign, " curis acuens 
 mortalia corda" But the rich man's son, with his bed 
 made for him by his predecessors, with no natural motive 
 for exertion with the power to be idle with impunity, and 
 to be as expensive as he chooses, he it is that more especially 
 needs education to furnish him with moral motives in- 
 tellectual enjoyments spiritual aspirations, to incite him to 
 what is good, and preserve him from what is evil. He has 
 infinitely more and greater temptations and seductions ; he 
 lias infinitely fewer and less restraints than the poor man ; 
 and if he is selfish or voluptuous, what endless mischief he 
 may diffuse by the influence of his example or encourage- 
 ment ! How many of his poorer associates may he ruin ! 
 How many hearts and homes may he render wretched by 
 carrying his evil principles and influence into them ! An 
 ill-educated, or even an uneducated young man of station 
 and wealth may become one of the greatest curses of society, 
 and the general prevalence of that defect throughout u 
 nation may of itself seal its doom. 
 
 These considerations were peculiarly appropriate for 
 Scotland in the fifteenth century, though the form in which 
 the evil would operate might have its own peculiarities. 
 The government of Scotland was aristocratic. That was a 
 necessity of its nature, arising from the history of its de- 
 velopment out of the Teutonic elements that resulted in 
 Feudalism. The Crown was weak in any condition of things, 
 but special circumstances, including the captivity of James 
 L, gave peculiar power to the Scottish barons. And if 
 these men and their sons were to be brought up merely as 
 uncivilised tyrants, or ruthless leaders of a military following, 
 the prospects of the country were indeed sad. It was 
 essential, if Scotland was in any respect to prosper, that
 
 LORD NEA VES 163 
 
 the rising generation of the Scottish nobility and better 
 landholders should possess as much knowledge as would 
 teach them to reverence learning, and as much law as would 
 fit them to do justice to their dependants under the ex- 
 tensive jurisdictions which were intrusted to their care ; and 
 further, it was essential that they and the larger freeholders 
 should be qualified to do their duty in Parliament by pro- 
 viding such enactments as would best remedy existing evils, 
 and best provide for the welfare of all classes. 
 
 The Act of Parliament passed in 1494, in the fifth 
 Parliament of James IV., c. 54, has been often referred to; 
 but I think it cannot be sufficiently dwelt upon as revealing 
 the spirit which was then seeking to develop itself ; nor has 
 it always been noticed that the benefits sought to be derived 
 from it were not partial or one-sided, but were designed for 
 the advantage of the whole community, rich and poor, high 
 and low. 
 
 That all Barronnes and Free-halders that ar of substance put 
 their eldest Sonnes and Aires to the Schules. 
 
 Item. It is statute and ordained throw all the Realme, that all 
 Barronnes and Free-halders, that ar of substance, put their eldest 
 Sonnes and Aires to the Schules, fra they be sex or nine zeires of age, 
 and till remaine at the Grammar Schules, quhill they be competentlie 
 founded and have perfite Latine. And thereafter to remaine three 
 zeirs at the Schules of Art and Jure. Swa that they may have knaw- 
 ledge and understanding of the Lawes. Throw the quhilks justice 
 may remaine universally throw all the Realme. Swa that they that 
 ar Schireffes or Judges Ordinares under the Kingis Hienesse, may have 
 knawledge to doe justice, that the puir people sulde have na neede to 
 seek our Soveraine Lordis principal Auditour, for ilk small injurie : 
 And (puhat Barronne or Free-halder of substance, that haldis not his 
 Sonne at the Schules as said is, havand na lauchful essoinzie, hot 
 failzies herein, fra knawledge may be gotten thereof, he sail pay to the 
 King, the summe of twentie pound. 
 
 I cannot help noticing that this admirable Act was 
 passed in the very year in which King's College of Aberdeen 
 was founded by the excellent Bishop Elphinstone. 
 
 Nothing can better show the humane and wise spirit 
 which, in the midst of many human errors, was at work in
 
 164 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 the Scottish Parliament during this century, than the re- 
 markable law passed in the very middle of it, during the 
 reign of James II., being the Act 1449, chapter 18, that 
 ' The byer of Landes suld keepe the tackes set before the 
 bying." It is worth while to take some special notice of 
 this Act, although its nature and history must be well known 
 to many who now hear me. 
 
 According to strict rules of law, the contract of location 
 or lease is merely a personal agreement between the con- 
 tracting parties, so that the lessee of lands has no real or 
 proprietary right to keep possession of them in competition 
 with a true right of property. It follows, therefore, that if 
 the original lessor sells the lands, the buyer who thus 
 becomes proprietor can immediately oust the lessee or tenant, 
 who has no other remedy but a personal claim of reparation 
 against the lessor. This state of things, where it prevailed, 
 led necessarily to much hardship and to great uncertainty 
 in the position of the tenants of land, who could not rely 
 with any confidence on the continuance of their possessions. 
 Some of the Continental nations accordingly saw cause to 
 relax this rule, and to give to tenants a fixity of tenure 
 which they would not otherwise have enjoyed ; and this 
 more equitable and beneficial law was embodied by the 
 Scottish Parliament in the Act of 1449, which I have men- 
 tioned, which may be considered as the Palladium of Scottish 
 tenancy, and the main basis of Scottish Agriculture, by the 
 encouragement and protection which it gave to leases, when 
 they were granted, as the law required, on equitable terms. 
 
 There is little doubt that the progress of Scotland, both 
 in learning and general prosperity, would have advanced 
 more rapidly than it did in the sixteenth century, if it had 
 not been for that event, the most disastrous in Scottish 
 history, by which James IV. perished on the field of 
 Flodden, in the flower of his age. Such a contingency was 
 not beyond the reach of probability, from foregone indications ; 
 for in 1498 the Spanish envoy, Pedro de Ayala, in writing 
 to his master and mistress with an account of James's 
 character and accomplishments, states as one of his faults,
 
 LORD NEA VES 165 
 
 " He loves war so much that I fear the peace with England 
 will not last long " ; and he explains at the same time that 
 he is courageous, " even more so than a king should be. I 
 have seen him often undertake most dangerous things in 
 the last wars. On such occasions he does not take the least 
 care of himself. He does not think it right to begin 
 any warlike undertaking without being himself the first in 
 danger." 
 
 It is, however, a strong proof of the courage and well- 
 organised position of Scotland at that time, that no invasion 
 of the kingdom was attempted, and under all her disasters 
 and disadvantages, the Scottish nation advanced in learning 
 and liberality of thought; and the Universities, while in- 
 strumental in promoting learning in all its forms, were 
 themselves, though of Popish origin, not slow to contribute 
 their part, in due time, to the great Information of religion 
 which was effected in the middle of the sixteenth century. 
 The progress of legislation in Scotland during the succeeding 
 period until the Union was in many respects most satisfactory, 
 and many enlightened laws were passed on the most im- 
 portant matters, which showed advanced views on social 
 subjects. 
 
 It would be unpardonable here to omit stating that, 
 while the Grammar Schools and Universities of Scotland 
 were designed, both to meet the demands of the Church and 
 to qualify the sons of barons and freeholders for discharging 
 their public and political duties, provision was also made for 
 enabling the humbler members of society to cultivate and 
 employ any talent and taste which they might exhibit for 
 the pursuits of learning. Helps were given them by which 
 they might rise from an obscure position to a respectable 
 and even a high eminence in the learned world, somewhat 
 in the way in which we see " salmon-ladders " now placed 
 in rivers to enable the fish to ascend the steepest fall and 
 reach the ground to which they are aspiring ; and it has 
 always been the characteristic of Scotland that the son of 
 the humblest peasant has the means of attaining a thorough 
 education, and of commanding all the advantages which
 
 166 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 education can give, provided he has the ability and perse- 
 verance to avail himself of the aids thus afforded. 
 
 Whether this state of things is to continue, or whether 
 there may not now be a gulf that is practically impassable 
 between our lower and higher schools, is a question involved 
 in some uncertainty, but which deeply concerns the future 
 character and welfare of the Scottish people, and which I 
 trust will in some way or other be solved, so as to maintain 
 the same fusion of ranks, and the same facilities that have 
 hitherto existed for low-born genius and merit to rise to 
 their due level. 
 
 To descant upon the studies which ought to be pursued 
 at a University would, in me, be both needless and officious. 
 You are better aware of them than I can be. I shall only 
 recall to your recollection a few general views which it is 
 important to keep in mind. 
 
 You do not come here to study insulated facts or par- 
 ticular details. It is said that " knowledge is power," and 
 perhaps all knowledge is some kind of power to somebody 
 or other. But it is not all knowledge that you are here in 
 pursuit of. It would do you little or no good that you knew 
 all the streets in Constantinople, though there might be some- 
 body on the spot, some water-carrier, for instance, to whom 
 it would be useful. A Welsh friend of mine used to attach 
 great interest to the inquiry whether there were more 
 Smiths or Joneses in the London Directory, for in his view 
 the one or the other state of things showed the preponderance 
 of the Saxon or Celtic element in the metropolitan popula- 
 tion. But it is not with such matters that you have here 
 to deal : you are in search of general principles and universal 
 truths. Above all, it is your business, and that of your 
 instructors, to develop the powers of your mind, so that no 
 important faculty shall remain uncultivated, and that no 
 essential and salutary feeling shall remain unexercised. 
 This kind of training, if it does not make you learned men 
 now, will enable you to become so hereafter, if that is your 
 destination ; or it will give you keys that will open the 
 door to the practice of any liberal profession which you may
 
 LORD NEA VES 167 
 
 choose, and to the discharge of any public or social duty to 
 which you may be called. If in this place you learn the 
 art of learning whatever may claim your attention in after- 
 life, you will not have studied here in vain. 
 
 There is no purpose, perhaps, which the lessons of a 
 Studium generate can better serve than that of enabling us 
 to distinguish and compare the different processes by which 
 we arrive at truth. 
 
 Beyond all doubt, the mathematical sciences involve in 
 their propositions the most absolute, and, as some think, the 
 only complete certainty to which we can attain. They 
 depend upon no contingency, no hypothesis. Everything 
 rests on a solid, abstract basis, from the axioms with which 
 we begin, to the most intricate and complicated results into 
 which these are developed ; while the mind, as it proceeds 
 by degrees from a point to a line, from a line to a surface, 
 and from a surface to a solid, or while it follows out the 
 marvellous relations that lie hid in the intersection or 
 revolution of lines or surfaces, becomes aware of a beauty 
 and symmetry of the most attractive kind, and of which the 
 charm is greatly enhanced when we see the same principles 
 carried out in the operations of mechanism, whether in 
 nature or in art, up to the sublimest movements of the 
 heavenly bodies themselves. No mind can be thoroughly 
 educated that is not well imbued with the power and 
 excellence of these forms of truth. 
 
 But I think it also clear that the study of the mathe- 
 matical sciences alone would constitute an imperfect edu- 
 cation, and would not serve as a safe or sufficient guide in 
 the conduct of life. Life is not a mathematical process, 
 and its course is not dependent upon demonstrations. Apart 
 from those instinctive and sublime beliefs which seem to be 
 impressed upon us, without proofs, by the very exercise of 
 our mental powers, probabilities seem, after all, to be the 
 utmost that we can attain to, and if these are very strong- 
 which they may be to an indefinite degree they are amply 
 sufficient to regulate our conduct. Logic itself, whether 
 inductive or deductive, is not equivalent to strict demonstra-
 
 168 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 tion. Inductive logic leaves always the possibility of some 
 exceptional case having been kept out of view, and deductive 
 logic is ever dependent on the truth of its premises. Yet 
 these processes of reasoning are all that our nature requires 
 for practical certitude, and we shall fall into grievous errors 
 if we seek for strict demonstration where that is not attain- 
 able in the nature of things. 
 
 Accompanying and assisting all our other studies, the 
 great and vital subject of Language must ever hold a para- 
 mount place. For language, in so far as it is rational language, 
 and not merely the instinctive utterance of a feeling or a 
 want, is one of the great characteristics of mankind, and is 
 not only the exponent but the instrument of thought. No 
 justification is therefore necessary of the immense importance 
 always attached to it, whether in the higher or in the lower 
 forms of education. 
 
 Without dwelling on a subject so well known, I shall 
 state, in a few words, the conclusions to which I think we 
 are here led, both by experience and by reflection. 
 
 Generally speaking, no one language can be thoroughly 
 understood without the study of more than one. A plurality 
 of languages must be studied and compared before we can 
 arrive at the essence of language, in its general character 
 and perfect conception. 
 
 The only plausible argument that I have heard against 
 this view is, that the Greeks were masters of their own 
 admirable tongue and yet, generally speaking, were un- 
 acquainted with any other. We must here, however, attend 
 to the consideration that the Greeks were about the most 
 acute people that ever lived, though they were not very 
 sound philologists. Yet I have sometimes been led to 
 suspect that the variety and character of their dialects were 
 such as to make them almost equivalent to a diversity of 
 languages. Those dialects were not provincial or vulgar 
 corruptions of a classical standard, but each of them was an 
 independent form of speech, pure and perfect, according to 
 its own laws and principles. 
 
 The differences of date and place, too, to which their
 
 LORD N EAVES 169 
 
 great authors belonged, were such as to produce a multiplicity 
 of idioms that might serve instead of a difference of national 
 languages, such as we in our time are familiar with. 
 Homer, Herodotus, Pindar, Aristophanes, could scarcely be 
 studied and compared together, without illustrating those 
 principles which reveal to us the unity of essence hid in all 
 languages, though not exhibiting a uniformity of aspect. 
 
 I must own, indeed, that I cannot find clear proofs 
 of any such views of comparative philology ; even in the 
 strange medley presented by Plato's Cratylus. "We know, 
 however, how anxious the Greeks were to preserve a true 
 Hellenismos, free from barbarisms, solecisms, and <fkwaaai, 
 and at the same time that Homer was a constant study and 
 a common schoolbook among them. As to this last matter, 
 you may remember the Greek epigram, thus translated : 
 
 A thriving Doctor sent his boy to school 
 
 To gain some grammar, should he prove no fool ; 
 
 But took him soon away, with little warning, 
 
 On finding out the lesson he was learning : 
 
 How great Pelides' wrath, in Homer's rhyme, 
 
 Sent many souls to Hades ere their time. 
 
 "No need, for that, my hoy should hither come : 
 
 That lesson he can better learn at home ; 
 
 For I myself now, in that very way, 
 
 Send many souls to Hades every day. 
 
 I cannot doubt that the model languages, which wc 
 ought to study along with our own, are the classical. 
 Greek and Latin seem every way the best companions in 
 studying our native English. Not that we are to write 
 English like Greek and Latin, but that we are to seek out 
 in those ancient tongues the excellences which they possess, 
 and endeavour to reproduce the same effects in that form 
 which our mother tongue is capable of accomplishing, accord- 
 ing to its own character and genius ; while at the same time 
 we may try in it to find peculiar resources and charms of, 
 which the older languages were destitute. 
 
 I do not say that substitutes might not be found for 
 Greek and Latin in other languages. 1 daresay a student 
 might, by the study of Sanskrit alone, make himself a subtle
 
 170 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 and philosophical grammarian ; though I may have my sus- 
 picion that the ideas he acquired would be too artificial, and 
 that he might be led too far into the regions of theory and 
 fancy. But whether we look to the character of our minds, 
 or to the history of our institutions and civilisation, I think 
 it clear that Greek and Latin are the springs from which 
 our scholars must derive their inspiration. Greek men and 
 Greek books are our masters in philosophy : Eoman legisla- 
 tion and Eoman institutions are the models on which our 
 laws and government have been mainly moulded ; and both 
 of these languages have attained to the utmost perfection in 
 poetry, history, and eloquence. 
 
 In like manner I have little doubt that the study of 
 some modern languages might, if necessary, go far to serve 
 certain purposes instead of Greek and Latin. For instance, 
 if we were carefully to study the best French writers of 
 prose, and the worst German writers of prose, we might 
 arrive at a tolerable perception of good and bad writing, by 
 seeing both the guides that we should follow, and the beacons 
 that we should avoid. Yet no one would seriously say 
 that any modern language could show us the refinement, the 
 grace, the strength, and the majesty, which belong to the 
 best Greek and Roman authors. 
 
 It is an inestimable advantage attending the study of 
 those languages, that while we analyse the noble and 
 beautiful forms into which their diction is cast, we have the 
 opportunity at the same time of studying the wisdom and 
 the beauty of thought with which their works abound, and 
 the force of character which their great men display. It 
 may safely, I think, be asserted, that whatever shortcomings 
 or faults are here and there visible, the highest ideal of a 
 wise or great man, according to the Greek or Eoman 
 standard, needs only the rectifying and elevating influence of 
 Christian principles to form a pattern of humanity such as 
 we may safely strive to emulate. 
 
 The tone of Greek and Eoman literature, so far from 
 becoming obsolete in its application, seems to me to be 
 peculiarly appropriate to the wants of the present day.
 
 LORD N EAVES 171 
 
 The taste for Beauty which is so important an element in 
 human nature, has little provision made for its cultivation 
 at our Universities except in the province of literature. It 
 were most desirable, that our students should learn more 
 than they can now do, to appreciate the graces of form, 
 colour, and movement, which are to be found both in Nature 
 and Art. But whether from want of susceptibility, from our 
 being engrossed with weightier studies, or from that res 
 ancjusta which is sometimes a spur and sometimes an im- 
 pediment, there is little or no means of learning here the 
 sources or the tests of excellence in any of the fine arts ; and 
 it is only lately that even in the English Universities an 
 attempt has been made to supply that want by the dis- 
 tinguished man whom you, some time ago, elected unavail- 
 ingly to the office which I have the honour to hold. It is 
 in literature alone that the sense of beauty can be elicited 
 and cultivated in these academic seats ; and no better models 
 of excellence, or canons of criticism, could anywhere be found 
 for the formation of taste in the youthful mind than those 
 which the classics supply. 
 
 I think, further, that the general spirit of Greek and 
 1 toman literature is much wanted at the present time, as a 
 counterpoise to the commercial or financial tendencies of the 
 age. I am far from depreciating the value of wealth ; and, 
 certainly, there are few temporal gifts of more importance 
 to virtue and to happiness, than pecuniary independence. 
 Burns, himself, with all the moderation of his views, and 
 with all his sincere praise of " honest poverty," proclaimed, 
 and in the end of his life too sadly missed, what he terms 
 " the glorious privilege of being independent." And David 
 Hume, a great philosopher in many things, and especially in 
 this, showed his unvarying estimate of the essential import- 
 ance to every man, and in particular to a literary man, of 
 a sufficient competence, and for many years practised the 
 utmost frugality to attain this object. . 
 
 To some men, however, whether by accident or by 
 merit, opportunities have lately been given of amassing 
 fortunes, far exceeding in amount anything known or dreamt
 
 172 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 of in this country before. I must, at the same time, say 
 that this has been done, almost without exception, in a 
 manner more legitimate and honourable, more free from 
 corrupt or sordid dealings, than the annals of commercial 
 prosperity could at any former period exhibit. I must add, 
 too, that the use made of that wealth by our millionaires 
 has generally been as honourable as its mode of acquisition. 
 Still, there is a risk that the worship of wealth may become 
 too prevalent among us ; and there is, and always will be, 
 a large class in the community who are debarred from the 
 possession of much money, and who, from their peculiar 
 position, are even poorer than many who have less means. 
 Men who, by taste or circumstances, are led to devote them- 
 selves to scholarship or pure science, are destined, in general, 
 to possess a limited .share of this world's goods ; and it 
 needs all the dignity and all the enjoyments which literature 
 and philosophy can supply, to enable them to carry an erect 
 front, and to command the respect which their high attain- 
 ments and beneficial influence entitle them to demand. 
 These men who, with their families, instead of tasting the 
 resources of luxury, must be content with " plain living and 
 high thinking," such as their predecessors in the same path 
 have nobly practised, will find in classical literature the 
 sympathy and support of which they stand in need. With 
 all our appreciation of the merit of men who have acquired 
 fortunes by their industry or talent, we must still abide by 
 that undoubted truth, proclaimed so unequivocally in ancient 
 literature 
 
 Xon possidentem multa vocaveris 
 Recte beatuni ; rectius occupat 
 
 Xomen beati, qui Deorum 
 
 Muneribus sapienter uti, 
 Duranique callet pauperiem patL 
 
 It is well for scholars and men of learning to feel this 
 consolation ; and it will be wise in those who are their 
 superiors in wealth or rank to acknowledge its truth also, 
 and to recognise the fact that there are, in a well-constituted 
 society, many aristocracies, and that one of these consists of
 
 LORD N EAVES 173 
 
 the men whose genius and accomplishments can delight and 
 enlighten their fellow-creatures, though they may not pave 
 the way to riches or to grandeur. 
 
 Your future destinies in life will be various ; and as to 
 some of them I am little competent to give you advice or 
 assistance. I cannot be your guide in science or in philo- 
 sophy. But, reviewing the relative importance of University 
 studies, I will venture to indicate those that I consider the 
 most practically useful in the walks of actual life with which 
 I am best acquainted. I do not hesitate to say, that the 
 acquirements which are most conducive to success, and 
 which seem indeed to be indispensable to it, are these two 
 a thorough command of Language, and a mastery of Logic 
 particularly of Deductive Logic. 
 
 Of this last attainment I think the importance and uses 
 are often underrated. The fact is, that, like the Bourgeois 
 Gentilhomme, we are constantly practising logic without 
 knowing it. We may do it inartificially ; we may do it 
 inaccurately and illogically ; but we are always chopping 
 logic, as if for our daily food. The relation of universals to 
 particulars, which is the essence of logic, can never be for- 
 gotten by a reasoning animal like man, and the very use 
 of language brings it into perpetual exercise. Almost all 
 thinking consists in this, that we get hold of some general 
 truth, and then, applying it to a particular example, we 
 arrive at a definite conclusion. It has been said by some 
 writers, that Deductive Logic implies Inductive, and that 
 Induction must precede Deduction. But that is not so in 
 actual life. Our major propositions that is, our general 
 truths or maxims are not always derived from Induction. 
 Comparatively speaking, this is true of only a small pro- 
 portion of them. Induction may be the nobler art, but it is 
 more rarely put in exercise. Many men, and especially 
 young men, do not think much about extending their views 
 from particular facts to general truths. They get their 
 general truths from other sources, independently of any 
 Inductive process of their own. All the great practical 
 truths and precepts of religion are dictated to us in their
 
 174 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 full-grown generality, and are received as absolutely binding 
 by religious men without auy process of Induction. " Thou 
 shalt do no murder : " " Thou shalt not steal : " " Thou shalt 
 not covet : " these are major propositions, which descended 
 to us from heaven direct, and which leave us nothing to do 
 but to apply the general prohibition to individual cases as 
 they arise. We see this familiarly illustrated in our usual 
 forms of criminal process, which are conducted commonly 
 on the plan of a Syllogism. Thus, murder is a crime that 
 ought to be punished. You, the accused, have done an act 
 which is murder : therefore you ought to be punished. In 
 like manner the precepts in the Sermon on the Mount, which, 
 unlike most of the Old Testament commandments, are not 
 prohibitory merely, but positive and active, these are bind- 
 ing on the Christian conscience, as the dictates of infallible 
 Authority. The enactments of human legislation are bind- 
 ing on the subjects who owe allegiance to the legislator, and 
 are expressed in the form of general propositions, which come 
 to be applied to individual cases. All maxims that are 
 received upon high personal credit, or from popular opinion 
 or ancient tradition, are major propositions, which may 
 indeed be tested or examined, but which for the most part 
 are taken for granted, and not inquired into. The sayings 
 of the Seven Sages of Greece were of this description. The 
 Proverbs even of the vulgar pass current, and those of wise 
 men, of course, have all the greater weight from the reputa- 
 tion of their authors. " Wise saws and modern instances " 
 are an exercise of the logical faculties in daily use. " All 
 men are mortal," is a major proposition, which may or might 
 have been got from Induction, but which for ages has been 
 received as indisputable by myriads that never witnessed 
 death. It might be difficult, perhaps, to impress it on the 
 little child so beautifully described by Wordsworth, in his 
 poem of "We are Seven," who could nowise be got to 
 believe that the " two that in the churchyard lie, my sister 
 and my brother," were not to be counted in the number of 
 the family. But a few years soon enable the youngest and 
 the strongest among us to adopt the general belief ; though,
 
 LORD NEA VES 175 
 
 indeed, a satirical poet would persuade us that the general 
 maxim does not meet with an unqualified acceptance; for 
 he tells that " All men think all men mortal hut themselves." 
 Again, " Honesty is the best policy " does not strike a very 
 high tone in morals, but it is generally received on credit by 
 most men ; though, to be sure, there is the story of a man 
 who could give his word for the truth of it, " as he had tried 
 it both ways." That, indeed, was an example of the dis- 
 covery of a general truth by induction. But I hope 
 it is not the ordinary way by which that truth has been 
 arrived at. 
 
 It has been said that Deductive Logic makes no new 
 discovery, and in a certain sense that is true. The con- 
 clusion is in reality wrapt up in the premises, and the 
 logical process merely unfolds and discloses it ; but in that 
 sense it discovers what had before been covered and kept 
 out of sight. 
 
 These processes of deduction are the result of our 
 natural tendencies, and are not of an artificial kind. But 
 we are apt in our haste to jump to wrong conclusions, with- 
 out sufficiently attending to the steps by which we ought to 
 have proceeded. 
 
 The use of Logic as an art is that we are thereby com- 
 pelled to sift and analyse the general and special propositions 
 with which we have to deal, so as to see that there is no 
 error or mistake anywhere, no equivocation or ambiguity in 
 the essential words used, and thus to become sure that the 
 precise species facti falls under the larger proposition on 
 which the proof mainly depends. When by accurate 
 definition and careful discrimination we have secured 
 these requisites, our conclusion is inevitable if our premises 
 are true. Not that these operations are to be thrust upon 
 the notice of our hearers. Here, as elsewhere, ars est celare 
 artem. But they will be of infinite value to our own minds, 
 particularly by teaching us to acquire the power of analytical 
 clearness. I may wind up these observations by saying, 
 that theoretical wisdom seems to consist in our knowing as 
 many as possible of the important maxims or major pro-
 
 176 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 positions that have been discovered in the world's history ; 
 and 'practical wisdom, in the skill with which we apply 
 these to the individual situations and emergencies which we 
 encounter in the conduct of life. 
 
 The acquisition of a complete mastery of language is the 
 other important requisite to which I referred. This subject 
 is one intimately connected with University studies, and at 
 the same time has bearings upon practical life of the most 
 important kind. It is a duty which ought to be felt by all 
 men of high education, and more particularly by those des- 
 tined for the liberal professions, to acquire and cultivate the 
 power of expressing their thoughts in clear and unambiguous 
 language. It is needless to tell you how great a part has 
 been played by the power of language in the affairs of life, 
 and even in the events of public history ; though it is prob- 
 able that mere eloquence has not now the influence which 
 it once wielded. It is desirable that our style, whether of 
 writing or of speaking, should be correct, should be elegant, 
 should be forcible. But the quality necessary above all 
 others is that it should be clear. It may seem superfluous 
 to announce a precept upon this matter, but its enforcement 
 is urgently needed, as the neglect of it is lamentably pre- 
 valent ; and the evil consequences of that neglect are almost 
 incalculably great. 
 
 It has long been seen that a large proportion of the dis- 
 putes that exist in philosophy and theology proceed from a 
 want of agreement among men as to the language they 
 employ. But the mischief is not confined to matters of 
 theoretical controversy. The contracts that we enter into 
 are vitiated by the same fault, and hence a fertile field of 
 strife and dispute is opened up. Still worse effects are pro- 
 duced by the obscure or ambiguous language in which men's 
 wills or the settlements of- their property are expressed ; and 
 it cannot be doubted that from this cause innumerable cases 
 have occurred where parties have been cruelly deprived of 
 rights intended by testators to be conferred on them, not 
 only where deceased persons had made their own wills, 
 which no one should ever do, but where those deeds have
 
 LORD N EAVES 177 
 
 been framed by others, whose profession it was to express 
 clearly what they were employed to reduce to writing. 
 
 Nor is this great evil confined to private rights ; our 
 legislation is tainted with the same tendency to a fearful 
 extent. Scarcely an Act of Parliament is passed, that is not 
 found, as soon as it comes into operation, to abound with 
 obscurities and ambiguities, which it is scarcely possible to 
 clear up, or which are only interpreted by means of ex- 
 pensive and dilatory proceedings, and at the risk of render- 
 ing ridiculous both the law and the Legislature. If we were 
 to discount the lawsuits and disappointments of fair expecta- 
 tions, that have arisen from obscure and ambiguous clauses 
 in deeds and documents, and especially in wills and 
 statutes, our law reports would be reduced to a much smaller 
 bulk than they now exhibit ; and there would be far less 
 heart-burning and resentment against the administration of 
 justice. 
 
 It is an alarming fact that this neglect or violation of 
 the duty of clear expression seems lately to have been 
 carried into the region of diplomacy. It has almost been 
 openly avowed, as to some late negotiations, that language 
 was made use of in treaties that was purposely chosen as 
 being ambiguous, in order to bring about an apparent agree- 
 ment on controverted matters where there was no real unity 
 of intention. Language, it has been said, was for this pur- 
 pose used that was " less accurate ' than it should have 
 been ; which plainly implies that the true difficulty to be 
 solved was not fairly faced, but that the dispute was 
 adjourned to a future day, when the treaty should come to 
 be carried into execution. I trust that there is some 
 mistake as to this matter, and I am certain that such an 
 intention cannot have been general among our negotiators. 
 It cannot be doubted that such a mode of proceeding is 
 vicious and unsound. It may have been sometimes resorted 
 to by opposing attorneys, who wanted to patch up the 
 semblance of an agreement anyhow, and who had no 
 objection to a subsequent litigation as to the meaning of the 
 equivocal language adopted. But the device is unworthy
 
 178 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 of a great nation. It is disingenuous in itself, and it is not 
 a safe or prudent practice, for it is a general rule that all 
 ambiguous language is to be construed against the party who 
 proposes the use of it ; and indeed it is quite fair that any 
 one who propounds ambiguous language in a contract, in 
 order to gain the assent of the other contracting party, shall 
 be held to that construction of his words which is most 
 favourable to the opponent whom he has thus attempted to 
 influence. 
 
 The art of speaking or writing clearly is not one that 
 can be acquired without great care and pains. It presup- 
 poses much previous thought and meditation, and constant 
 circumspection as to the weight, bearing, and arrangement 
 of the words employed. The foundation of it is to be laid 
 in clear thinking ; for it is hopeless to expect unambiguous 
 expression if our ideas are hazy or confused. Next after 
 clear thinking comes plain speaking, which implies the ex- 
 clusion of all vague or doubtful phrases, and the selection 
 of those words and expressions which are the most precise 
 and proper to convey to others what we think ourselves. 
 
 It has been said by some eminent satirists of human 
 nature that language was intended to conceal our thoughts. 
 I should prefer to adopt another view that has been sug- 
 gested namely, that language has a threefold use : first, to 
 express our thoughts ; second, to conceal our thoughts ; and 
 third, to conceal the fact that we have no thoughts ; and I 
 am inclined to think that the last of these uses is as often 
 put in exercise as either of the others. This mode of em- 
 ploying language is a very old invention ; it was the great 
 resource of the ancient oracles, who, when consulted as to a 
 future event, contrived generally to disguise their ignorance 
 by using language that would accommodate itself to either 
 result. 
 
 Aio te, J^acida, Romanos vincere posse. 
 iEacidas the Romans will subdue. 
 
 This response shows some ingenuity in evading the 
 tendency of the Latin language to distinguish the nominative
 
 LORD NEAVES 179 
 
 from the accusative case, for by the form of the sentence 
 in the use of " Aio," both the subject and the object are 
 made accusatives. Such prophets belonged to that class of 
 " J u gli n g fiends " whom Macbeth denounces 
 
 That palter with us in a double sense ; 
 That keep the word of promise to our ear, 
 And break it to our hope. 
 
 The rationale of their power of deception seems to have 
 been this, that credulous and sanguine men are apt to believe 
 any indistinct utterances, in the sense most agreeable to 
 their own wishes, according to the proverb, " As the fool 
 thinks the bell clinks," and it is only after the event that 
 they discover the original ambiguity. This concealment of 
 the absence of thought or knowledge is often, I have no 
 doubt, involuntary rather than intentional. Many men do 
 not know or do not realise the inaccuracy or imperfection of 
 their own ideas on certain subjects, and this mistake is 
 specially apt to befall those who have by nature a great 
 command of fluent language. I was once asked by a lady 
 why a mutual friend had not succeeded at the bar, consider- 
 ing that he possessed such fluency of speech. My answer 
 was, that that was the very reason of his want of success. 
 He was able to speak to any extent, upon any subject, 
 whether he understood it or not ; and that fault, when 
 found out, was fatal to him. Every man, therefore, that has 
 in this sense " the gift of the gab " ought to be specially on 
 his guard, so as to be sure that he thoroughly knows what 
 he means on any matter on which he has to speak or write, 
 and that he is not the dupe of his own facility or fertility 
 of expression. An abundance of words is apt to run into 
 mere circumlocution, which goes round about the subject, 
 but never fairly grapples with it. A superfluity of foliage 
 conceals not only any fruit that the tree may have, but even 
 the fact that it has no fruit at all. 
 
 As a requisite of plain speaking, it is further necessary, 
 in regard to matters which require plain expression, that 
 there should be as little use as possible of metaphorical
 
 180 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 language. Figures of speech are out of place when we are 
 dealing with business. Butler's hero, Hudibras, had this 
 vicious tendency among others ; for besides his disposition 
 to a Babylonish dialect, natural to his school of metaphysical 
 divinity, it is said that 
 
 For rhetoric, he could not ope 
 
 His mouth but out there flew a trope. 
 
 Nothing is more effective than the judicious use of meta- 
 phorical illustration when the matter in hand is already 
 well defined and unmistakably understood, and when all 
 that is wanted is to enforce, or add incentives to adopt, 
 what is sought to be advocated. But the first thing is to 
 lay down and explain precisely the true matter at issue ; 
 and there is no other way but " plain speaking," by which 
 the speaker or the hearer can be certain that they know 
 what they are about. Some languages, such as the Persian, 
 at least as employed by certain writers, seem incapable of 
 saying anything in a plain way. But this Asiatic eloquence 
 is not suitable to the genius of the English language or of 
 the English people. When a Persian story-teller, like the 
 author of the Lights of Canopas, wishes to tell that some 
 one prosecuted his object with energy and success, he would 
 say, " He put the foot of determination into the stirrup of 
 despatch, and spurred on the steed of his resolution to the 
 goal of accomplishment." Wishing to praise the utility 
 of Silence, that fabulist says : " As long as the door of the 
 casket of speech is fastened with the bolt of silence, and the 
 seal of taciturnity is placed on the lid of the repertory of 
 discourse, all the sweet herbs in the garden of life grow 
 safely, and the young tree of existence yields all the fruit 
 of security and enjoyment ; but when the rosebud of 
 eloquence unfolds its smiles, and the nightingale of oratory 
 begins to warble, one cannot be safe," etc. Sometimes such 
 frippery, though silly and ridiculous, is intelligible enough. 
 But when the writer comes to abstruser matters, he wraps 
 up the kernel of his meaning in the husks of his verbosity, 
 so that no one can find out what he is after.
 
 LORD NEAVES 181 
 
 We are told that we are probably on the eve of a system 
 of codification as to our laws. If this be so, it will be of 
 the utmost importance that the task should be performed 
 with the greatest care and skill in reference to the im- 
 portant considerations of which I have now been treating. 
 Otherwise, the publication of a Code will be the signal for 
 an endless series of litigations as to the true meaning of our 
 new laws. It is fortunate that we now have at the head of 
 the law a man of first-rate talents, accomplishments, and 
 learning in his profession whose name is well known in 
 this place, and whose services, I trust, in one position or 
 another, will long be available to his country. The skill 
 and accuracy of one so able and conscientious, aided by the 
 co-operation of other distinguished jurists, may save us from 
 the evils to which crude or hasty legislation in this matter 
 would inevitably expose us. 
 
 I ought, in conclusion, to add, that whatever skill you 
 may possess in language or logic, or anything else, it will 
 avail you little, even for secular success, if you are not 
 animated and guided by high moral principles, based upon 
 the Christian Scriptures, and illustrated and enforced by the 
 best ethical teachers of ancient and modern times. 
 
 These, gentlemen, are the somewhat desultory observa- 
 tions that have occurred to me to address to you at this 
 time. They have been put together during the limited 
 leisure allowed by an official life, and they savour perhaps 
 too much of professional tendencies. They need, therefore, 
 all the indulgence that you can give them. I shall rejoice if 
 now or at any future time they are of any service to you in 
 your career of study, or at your entrance into the world ; and 
 thanking you for the kindness with which you have listened 
 to me, I have now to bid you farewell for the present, and 
 to wish you health and strength to carry on your studies, 
 and every success that can attend the prosecution of them.
 
 ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY 
 
 Rector from 1874 to 1877
 
 ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY 
 
 FIKST ADDRESS 
 
 THE STUDY OF GREATNESS 
 
 (Delivered on March 31, 1875) 
 
 When, twenty years ago, I first explored thoroughly the 
 historic scenes of St. Andrews, trader the guidance of the 
 distinguished Principal of St. Mary's College, I well remember 
 how he brought me into this ancient library, and pointed 
 out the inscription over our heads 
 
 Aiei/ dpt<TTViV KCU VTTtpO)(OV (flfliVai ciAAwv 
 
 and told the story, familiar, I doubt not, to each succes- 
 sive generation of this place how Lord Campbell, when a 
 student of St. Andrews, was fired by its winged words, with 
 the early ambition of winning in the race of life the first 
 post in his profession, which he ultimately achieved by 
 becoming Lord High Chancellor of England. 
 
 No doubt the Homeric line, if literally rendered, as by 
 its most recent translator 
 
 To aim at highest honours, and surpass 
 My comrades all 
 
 contains the ordinary principle of hard-headed emulation 
 and nothing more. But it is one of the many instances in 
 which the spirit of a great poet, and, we may add, of a great 
 language, breathes a far wider sense than the dry letter of a 
 verbal translation can give. 
 
 In this impression of the whole passage I am confirmed 
 by an interesting anecdote which I have been told of another 
 Scotsman, more eminent than Lord Campbell. You will 
 remember that pathetic epoch in the closing years of Walter
 
 186 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 Scott which has been so well described by my dear friend 
 Principal Shairp when, on the eve of quitting his native 
 air for Italy, he received at Abbotsford the renowned poet 
 of the English Lakes, who was to immortalise those days 
 in the finest piece of his noble lyrical trilogy Yarrow 
 Revisited. On that occasion William Wordsworth brought 
 with him a youthful kinsman then quite unconscious of 
 his future close connection with Scotland and St. Andrews, 
 who, with all the ardour of an Oxford scholar, attempted 
 to draw from his illustrious host the expression of an opinion 
 regarding a new translation of Homer (that of Sotheby) 
 which had just appeared. The old bard listened with his 
 usual gracious condescension to the young Oxonian, and 
 replied, " I have not seen it. Pope's Iliad is good enough 
 for me. I am no Grecian, but I cannot conceive anything 
 better than Pope's rendering of the advice given to Glaucus." 
 And then he repeated, with all the fervour of one who 
 grasped, both in text and context, the full meaning at once 
 of the ancient and modern poet 
 
 To stand the first in worth as in command ; 
 To add new honours to my native land ; 
 Before my eyes my mighty sires to place, 
 And emulate the glories of our race. 
 
 That is the meaning which I propose to read in or 
 beneath the motto of this library. Not merely the advan- 
 tage of a hot competition for the prizes of fortune, but the 
 advantage, the wisdom, especially in education, of admiring 
 and appreciating that which transcends the ordinary course 
 of life that which is intended in the Apostolic precept by 
 the word which we imperfectly render " honest " oaa 
 aefiva " whatsoever things are grand, majestic, awful, vener- 
 able." In all ages, but not least in this age of an equality 
 which, together with its noble, has also' its ignoble aspect ; 
 of a mediocrity which, no doubt, has its golden but also its 
 leaden side, it is the function alike of teachers and taught 
 to have their minds fixed not only on what is useful, sound, 
 wise, and good, but on what is great, in institutions, in men, 
 in books, in ideas, and in actions.
 
 ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY 187 
 
 I. We are familiar with the inspiring force inherent in 
 the consciousness of belonging to a great country or a great 
 family. No doubt the smallest country, the humblest birth, 
 can be transfigured by the character of those who adorn 
 them. But the reverse is also true that the least and 
 humblest of individuals can be transfigured by the grandeur 
 of the associations which he inherits. And if perchance 
 the strength of the individual character and of the position 
 which is occupied coincide, a combination is produced which 
 at once comes up to the ideal described by Homer. In the 
 case of national grandeur, I need hardly recall to Scotsmen 
 the force which the best traditions of the Scottish people 
 breathed into characters like those of the Cameronian regi- 
 ment, who prayed as they fought, and fought as they prayed ; 
 who might be slain, never conquered ; " ready, wherever 
 their duty or their religion called them, with undaunted 
 spirit and with great vivacity of mind, to encounter hard- 
 ships, attempt great enterprises, despise dangers, and bravely 
 rush to death or victory " ; or again, like those of the 
 settlers in Darien, whom Wesley found "in sobriety, in- 
 dustry, frugality, patience, in sincerity and openness of 
 behaviour, in justice, and mercy of all kinds, not content 
 with exemplary kindness and friendship to one another, but 
 extending it to the utmost of their ability to every stranger 
 that came within their gates." * Or, for the similar effects 
 of ancestral greatness, if I turn southwards, let it be to an 
 example familiar to many in this place. Had it been the 
 fortune of this University to have selected my rival, if I 
 may so call him, for the honourable office which I hold, and 
 had any of you in consequence wandered as far as his 
 princely domain in Hertfordshire, you would have there 
 seen how truly the inheritor of the famous name of Cecil 
 and of the historic halls of Hatfield has learned to " emulate 
 the glories of his race," and fill worthily a place in itself 
 great. This same transforming influence, which we thus 
 acknowledge with regard to a great country and a great 
 family, we ought also to foster in regard to institutions. 
 1 Lectures on the Church of Scotland, pp. 82, 136.
 
 188 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 How often is an individual inspired with new motives, new 
 powers, a new nature, by some high office which calls forth 
 faculties of which those around him and he himself were 
 ignorant ! How closely are both the stability and the pro- 
 gress of our nation involved in the continuance of complex 
 elements of a constitution which, once lost, cannot be re- 
 stored, and which in other countries have been impatiently 
 cast away. It is this which gives to such institutions at 
 once their conservative and their regenerative force con- 
 servative, because they act as the bulwark, the framework 
 of the commonwealth regenerative because they contain 
 within themselves sources of fresh life, w*hich it would be 
 vain to seek elsewhere. The due appreciation of this 
 double asjDect combines what is best in both parties in the 
 State. It is the glory of education to inspire, on the one 
 hand, reverential resolve to hand on national heirlooms 
 unimpaired to the coming age. The love for posterity, on 
 which one of the most eminent of my predecessors in this 
 office so forcibly dwelt in his place in Parliament, combines 
 with the love of antiquity to cherish all the links of " natural 
 piety " which bind the past to the future. But the very 
 same cultivation ought, on the other hand, to kindle the 
 burning desire to correct, to enlarge, to complete that which 
 can only by such constant development maintain their 
 inherent strength. Well did the lamented Arthur Helps 
 insist, in each province or department of the body politic, on 
 the value of the race he would not call them by the aspir- 
 ing name of " reformers," but by the more modest, though 
 equally efficacious, name of " improvers." And the same 
 result is equally brought out by the essentially paltry 
 character of the reverse policy. It is equally removed from 
 wise statesmanship, lofty patriotism, and true philosophy, 
 to live in the presence of a great institution and be, on the 
 one side, so little moved by it as to sit with folded hands, 
 caring nothing for its fame or its usefulness or, on the 
 other side, to desire its destruction, not in the heroic frenzy 
 of the religious reformers of the sixteenth, or of the philo- 
 sophic enthusiasts of the eighteenth century, in the hope of
 
 ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY 189 
 
 building something grander on its ruins, but for the mere 
 sake of destruction, or worse still, for the sake of raising a 
 war-cry, or rallying a broken party, or meeting the supposed 
 exigencies of the passing hour, whether in Church or State, 
 whether in education or politics. 
 
 Thus much we feel instinctively on the large scale of 
 history. But we feel it also when exemplified in more 
 familiar instances. And here I may be excused if, for a few 
 moments, I fix your attention on the elements of greatness, 
 and the lessons supplied by them, in the most obvious 
 example our own University of St. Andrews. 
 
 I have said that it is an obvious example ; but in fact 
 it is the more impressive because in some respects it is not 
 obvious. The University of St. Andrews is not as some 
 measure greatness a great University. It is indeed the 
 smallest of all, in numbers, in influence, and in wealth. 
 But in some of the elements of real grandeur it stands the 
 first of the Universities of Scotland amongst the first of 
 the historic localities of Great Britain. Look at its natural 
 features, which, unlike those of the English Universities, 
 contain from the very beginning the germ of its subsequent 
 fortunes. It is the eastern Land's End of Scotland, the 
 counterpart of the romantic seat of the ancient British 
 Primacy, the Western sanctuary of the Welsh St. David. 
 Figure it to yourselves as we trace it in its earlier nomen- 
 clature, when Magus Moor was a still wild morass, when 
 this promontory was still the Muck Eoss the " headland " 
 of the fierce " wild boar " whose gigantic tusks were long 
 hung over the altar of the cathedral. Look at the encirc- 
 ling rocks, the sandy beach, where the founders of your early 
 civilisation stood at bay against the -warriors who, hardly 
 less fierce than the boars and wolves, came pouring down 
 from the inland hills. Explore the caverns of the beetling- 
 cliffs, into which, according to the fine old legend, the bones of 
 St. Andrew, first called of the Apostles, came drifting, without 
 oar or sail, from the shores of Achaia, the type of the silent 
 process by which Christian piety and Grecian culture were 
 to penetrate at last into these rugged coasts and illuminate
 
 190 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 these northern skies. In the rude outline of the chapel 
 of Our Lady of the Eock we trace the last stand which the 
 old Culdee worship, without development, without order, 
 made in its latest struggle against the giant aftergrowth of 
 mediaeval civilisation which overshadowed and overwhelmed 
 it. In that group of antique edifices, the Cell, the sanctuary 
 of the Eoyal Mount (Kil-ry-Mont), unrivalled in the British 
 Islands, save on the Eock of Cashel, thus concentrating in 
 one focus on this extremity of Fife the successive stages of 
 Northern ecclesiastical polity, we see the shifting of the pole 
 of the religious and national life of the Scottish kingdom 
 from the islands of the Celtic West to the shores of the 
 Norse and German Ocean; transferring the stone of Fate from 
 Dunstaffnage to the mound of Destiny at Scone, diverting 
 the regal sepulchres from the wild graveyard of Iona to the 
 Eoyal Abbey of Dunfermline, and transforming the wander- 
 ing mission of the Irish outlaw Columba into the settled 
 hierarchy of the Anglo-Norman Church of Margaret and 
 David. Then comes that thrilling scene which the victorious 
 Scotsman must ever recall with pride, and which even the 
 vanquished Englishman must regard with admiration, when 
 Eobert Bruce came, with all the nobles of a restored and 
 emancipated Scotland, to the consecration of the great 
 Cathedral as the trophy and memorial of the triumph of 
 Bannockburn, in which the patron saint of Scotland was 
 supposed to have borne so conspicuous a part. Inevitably 
 out of that union of religious and national freedom it came 
 to pass that the Cross of St. Andrew, which, after all the 
 storms of nature and of man, still remains sculptured on 
 your mouldering walls, passed into the Eoyal banner of 
 Scotland. Irresistibly, also, did the Primacy of St. Andrews, 
 at last bursting the yoke which had hitherto placed the 
 Church of Scotland under the foreign dominion of the 
 aspiring Prelates of Canterbury or York, become itself a 
 pledge and badge of the independence of the nation. And 
 then by that instinct, ineradicable alike in the darkest and 
 the most enlightened ages, of the natural union between 
 religion and science, between liberty and learning, there
 
 ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY 191 
 
 sprang up under the shadow of the Metropolitan Cathedral, 
 in the freed Church of the freed kingdom of Scotland, the 
 earliest of Scottish Universities. Well might the clergy of 
 Scotland and the citizens of St. Andrews celebrate, even with 
 boisterous mirth of pipe and dance, the day on which Henry 
 Ogilvy brought from Eome the Papal Bull which was to 
 establish the first native home of Scottish education. The 
 peculiar prerogative of the Eoman see which, in that period, 
 could alone grant this privilege, has now lost its vigour in 
 every part of Christendom, Catholic and Protestant alike. 
 The Pope who granted the Bull has fallen under the 
 anathema of his own Church, and his place knows him no 
 more. But the University which Benedict XIII. founded 
 still lived on, and became henceforth the centre of a new 
 life amidst the schisms of a divided Papacy and the decay 
 of a falling hierarchy. 
 
 Nowhere in the whole of Europe was the battle between 
 the spirit of the past and the spirit of the future fought out 
 in closer quarters, or with more terrible tenacity, than when 
 the new learning entrenched itself as in a fortress in the 
 College of St. Leonard, and the old learning in that of St. 
 Salvator; when the Cardinal in his pride of place looked 
 down on the suffering Eeformer beneath ; when stern fana- 
 ticism struck those successive blows which slew one primate 
 in his seagirt castle, and the other, long afterwards, on the 
 lonely moor. Nowhere did the rulers of a University play 
 so mighty a part in the history of their country as Buchanan, 
 and Melville, and Eutherford, who, from their chairs as 
 principals and rectors, framed the new polity of Scotland 
 nowhere, out of Wittenberg, did academic students receive 
 more heart-stirring counsel than those whom in his old age 
 Knox drew to his side, and told them in language as much 
 needed now as then, " to use their time well to know God 
 and His work in their country to stand by the good cause, 
 and to follow the good examples and good instructions of 
 their masters." 
 
 I need not follow your history downwards to our own 
 time. It is enough to have indicated thus briefly how
 
 192 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 various and how continuous lias been the course of the 
 religious and intellectual life of Scotland in this corner of 
 the kingdom, from St. Eule, the anchorite, in his wave-beaten 
 cavern, to Chalmers and Terrier, Brewster and Forbes, teach- 
 ing the latest results of theological and philosophical research. 
 Other sacred and historic localities of your country have 
 been long ago deserted by the stream of events. The White 
 House of Ninian lies a stranded relic on the shores of Gal- 
 loway. For nearly a thousand years the holy island of 
 Iona has ceased to be " the luminary of the Caledonian 
 regions." But this temple, as of another Minerva, planted 
 as on another storm-vexed Cape of Sunium this secluded 
 sanctuary of ancient wisdom with the foamflakes of the 
 Northern Ocean driving through its streets, with the skeleton 
 of its antique magnificence lifting up its gaunt arms into the 
 sky still carries on the tradition of its first beginnings. 
 Two voices sound through it " One is of the sea, one of the 
 cathedral " " each a mighty voice ; " two inner correspond- 
 ing voices also, which, in any institution that has endured and 
 deserves to endure, must be heard in unison the voice of 
 a potent past, and the voice of an invigorating future. It is 
 the boast on the gravestone of old John Wynram, who lies 
 buried in the grass-grown cemetery of St. Leonards, that 
 through all the storms of the Pteformation, " conversis rebus" 
 " under the ruins of a world turned upside down," he had 
 remained the sub-prior of St. Andrews. That same boast 
 may still, in a nobler and wider sense than those words were 
 used of that stubborn or pliant ecclesiastic, belong to the 
 local genius of St. Andrews, that through all the manifold 
 changes of the Scottish Church Culdee, Catholic, Protestant, 
 Episcopalian, Presbyterian its spiritual identity has never 
 been altogether broken, its historical grandeur never wholly 
 forfeited. 
 
 Doubtless, this inheritance imposes on St. Andrews, 
 as on all ancient establishments, a corresponding duty. 
 Doubtless, as in old days at Oxford, the colleges were 
 exhorted to reinforce their resources by seeking out intel- 
 lectual alliances even " in Greece or Italy beyond the Po,"
 
 ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY 193 
 
 so it is the policy and privilege of St. Andrews to welcome 
 every new growth of knowledge or power, even though it 
 comes from beyond the waters of the Tay, or of the Tweed. 
 Doubtless, numbers and wealth and activity, no less than 
 splendid memories, are elements of academic grandeur, and 
 the swarming multitudes of a vast city are in a certain 
 sense, as has been truly said, " great as with the sublimity 
 of sea or of mountains." Yet still the greatness of the 
 greatest commercial cities is variable, transitory, and, if lost, 
 to be regained elsewhere ; but the inspiring atmosphere of 
 a long academic past is a national treasure which cannot be 
 abandoned and recalled at will. The hoary hairs of an 
 institution which reaches back for centuries are a crown of 
 glory, which, amidst whatever infirmities, gives it at least 
 one form of that pre-eminence that exaltation above its 
 fellows which the Homeric verse describes. 
 
 Forgive me if I have dwelt at too great length on this 
 example of a majestic and venerable foundation, in con- 
 sideration of my grateful sense, not only of the honour you 
 have done me in electing me as its Eector, but also of the 
 delightful hours and days passed amidst its solemn ruins, 
 and the roar of its winds and waves, and the stores of its 
 ancient learning, and the genial converse of its living 
 inmates. Forgive me, also, if I venture to say how it 
 would be altogether without excuse if, amona; those who 
 dwell amidst such influences, the taste for the poetic, 
 historic aspect of human thought above all, for the poetry 
 and the history of your own romantic country should 
 languish and pine ; if I urge that in such touching and 
 refining appeals, as are here supplied to the tragedy, the 
 epic of human life, is to be found perhaps the natural 
 counterpoise to the hardening struggles and fierce competi- 
 tions of this stirring and striving generation. 
 
 II. I turn from the effect of greatness as embodied in 
 institutions, to greatness as embodied in men, in ideas, in 
 books. No one can question the importance to the educa- 
 tion of young men, or, indeed, of any men, to have before 
 their eyes the example, to have inspired into their souls 
 
 13
 
 194 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 the influence, of characters or intellects that " stand the 
 first in worth as in command." To have known, to have 
 been guided by any such, is indeed one of the most precious 
 of human opportunities ; to have, for once in our lives, 
 been penetrated by the awe, the thrill, the delight of sitting 
 at the feet of one whom we instinctively felt to be a great 
 man, in the historical sense of the word, is amongst the rare 
 experiences which the ordinary daily conflicts of humanity 
 in their constant attrition confirm rather than diminish. 
 We know instinctively the characteristics of such pre- 
 eminence, wherever we recognise, singly or combined, large- 
 ness of mind, or strength of character, or firmness of will, 
 or fire of genius, there is a born leader. Such an one we 
 ought to be prepared to hear even before he begins to 
 speak. It is for the most part not he, but we, who are to 
 blame if we fail to understand him. Whenever such a 
 superior intelligence approves, either in teacher or scholar, 
 we have our reward, though all meaner minds turn away 
 from us. " I looked around my audience," said the old 
 Grecian orator, " and they had dwindled away almost to 
 nothing one only remained. But that one was Plato, and 
 this was enough for me." The heroes of mankind are 
 the mountains, the highlands of the moral world. They 
 diversify its monotony, they furnish the watershed of its 
 history as certainly as the Grampians, or the Alps, or the 
 Andes tower over the lowlands and fertilise the plains and 
 divide the basins of the world of nature. They are the 
 " full-welling fountain-heads of change," as well as the 
 serene heights of repose. To be blind to this superiority, 
 to be indifferent to these eminences, to think only of their 
 defects, or their angularities, is as depressing to the in- 
 tellectual sense of beauty and worth as was that strange 
 unconsciousness of physical grandeur which, in the last 
 century, caused Oliver Goldsmith to prefer the continuous 
 plain of Holland to the hills and rocks of which he com- 
 plained as intercepting by their deformities the view of the 
 unfortunate traveller in Scotland. To appreciate the glories 
 of Shakspeare, or Newton, or Luther, or Wellington to
 
 ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY 195 
 
 discriminate between the nobler materials of such natures 
 as these, and the poorer stuff of which common mortals are 
 composed, is as bracing to the moral and intellectual nerves 
 as the newly-awakened enjoyment of Ben Nevis or of Mont 
 Blanc is to the opening minds and active limbs of our 
 latest born generation. 
 
 It falls to the lot only of a few to have an actual 
 experience of living historical greatness. But it is the 
 delight of a University, of a library, of education, of study, 
 that we may thus be brought into direct intercourse with 
 the great characters of the past ; and it is a most useful 
 corrective to confront the subtle speculations of our own 
 brains with the great books which permit us to hold com- 
 munion with the mighty dead, even more closely than had 
 we been their contemporaries. " Surely," once exclaimed 
 Sir John Herschel, " if the worst of men were snatched into 
 Paradise for only half-an-hour, he would come back the 
 better for it." " Surely," may we not say, in a lesser 
 degree, if, like Thomas the Ehymer, we were snatched 
 away, as we are in the brighter moments of our intel- 
 lectual pursuits, into the fairyland of the poets of old, or 
 like Dante in his vision, into those Elysian Fields, where 
 we behold " the Kings of those who know," and converse 
 with those " who saw life steadily and saw it whole," we 
 rise insensibly above ourselves, and " prop our souls in these 
 bad times " with an unfailing support. Be sure that the 
 study of the most famous authors, even in minute detail 
 even line by line and word by word is amongst the most 
 nourishing of intellectual repasts. Be sure that the attempt 
 to clothe the dry bones of philosophic theories with the 
 flesh and blood which they wore in other days is the best 
 mode of understanding both the difference and the likeness 
 of ancient and of modern times. Bemember the pregnant 
 saying of Goethe " There are many echoes in the world 
 but few voices," and let it be your constant effort to dis- 
 tinguish the voices from the echoes, and to respond accord- 
 ingly. Insist on reading the great books, on marking the 
 great events of the world, and the little books may be left
 
 196 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 to take care of themselves, and the trivial incidents of 
 passing politics ; and diplomacy may perish with the using. 
 Bear in mind that in every branch of knowledge scientific, 
 or literary, or artistic the first question to be asked is, Who 
 is it that in that branch stands confessedly at the head ? 
 What is its chief oracle ? Who is the ruling genius, head 
 and shoulders above the rest ? It is the master- works of 
 the respective department of study which are, as it were, the 
 Canonical, the Symbolical books of science and literature, 
 established beyond appeal by their own intrinsic merits, 
 and by the universal acceptance of mankind. 
 
 Above all, endeavour to grasp the distinction between 
 the great primary ideas and the small secondary ideas 
 which jostle each other in the turmoil of thought. Bemem- 
 ber that those ideas which reach far and wide, and which 
 can be expressed in terms plain, intelligible, persuasive, 
 to all educated men, claim at once a superiority above 
 the technicalities of controversial or professional circles. 
 We do not say that this largeness of thought and of lan- 
 guage is a necessary test of truth. It may be that fine 
 philosophic or poetic inspirations have come into the world 
 wrapt in the swaddling-clothes of an enigma, or in the 
 obscure corner of a sect. No doubt there is a racy flavour 
 inherent in the words and in the ideas of each particular 
 country no doubt there are local institutions which can- 
 not be transplanted to other regions without perishing. 
 But, as a general rule, it is one of the best safeguards 
 against narrow, impracticable, fantastic doctrines to test 
 them by contrast and comparison with the lofty thoughts 
 which belong to the literature of all times and all coun- 
 tries. There is much in the insularities of England and of 
 Anglicanism which we do well to keep, even though we 
 can never expect our neighbours in France or Germany, 
 or even in Scotland, to accept them. There are many 
 Scoticisms of dialect, of humour, and of argument which 
 (reversing the saying of Sydney Smith) it would require a 
 surgical operation to get into the head of an Englishman. 
 But in order for our ideas to claim the character of uni-
 
 ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY 197 
 
 versal principles and to demand universal acceptance, they 
 rmist have a universal significance and a universal applica- 
 tion ; and therefore to maintain for any doctrines that they 
 cannot be appreciated outside our own communion or 
 nation that they are incomprehensible to the unintelli- 
 gent or unregenerate natures which have their habitation, 
 north or south of the Tweed, as the case may be, is to 
 relinquish for such doctrines all hope of permanent triumph. 
 Be sure that ideas which can only be expressed in the 
 local slang or the dogmatic cant of a province, or a party, 
 or a school, or a sect, are ideas, perhaps of the second and 
 third, but certainly not of the first, order of truth. Be 
 sure that if they refuse to be conveyed except in one single 
 form of expression, that single form of expression stands 
 self-condemned, as well as the ideas which it represents. 
 Be sure that the language of world-wide literature is the 
 only fitting garb for those eternal and primary principles 
 of which the Grecian poet has said, in words which one of 
 your own Professors has well rendered, that "they have 
 their foundation on high all-embracing like their parent 
 Heaven neither did mortal infirmity preside over their 
 birth, nor shall forgetfulness ever lay them to sleep* There 
 is in them a great divinity that grows not old." l 
 
 III. There is one special sphere to which in this Uni- 
 versity, where so large a proportion of the students are 
 destined for the sacred ministry of the Church, these 
 remarks are specially applicable. Nowhere in education is 
 the contemplation of greatness more fruitful of profitable 
 lessons, more useful as a safeguard against popular errors, 
 than in theology. It has been one of the main causes of 
 the barrenness of Christian theology, as compared with 
 the richness of the Christian religion, that the intellectual 
 oracles of the Church have been too often looked for, 
 not in those who, by God's peculiar grace, have been fitted 
 " to stand the first in worth as in command," but in 
 those who, by imperfect culture or meagre endowments, 
 are entitled only to a very inferior place in the school 
 1 QZdipus Tyroiinus, 865. (See Professor Campbell's edition, p. 186.)
 
 198 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 of divine philosophy. Never was there sounder advice 
 given to theological students than by one whose eminence, 
 both as a theologian and as a man, enabled him to speak 
 with a weight which time has only increased : " I would 
 ask the theological student never to lay aside the greatest 
 works of human genius, of whatever age or country. They 
 are not so numerous as to overwhelm him ; and whatever 
 be his particular studies, some of them, whether philoso- 
 phers, poets, or historians, should always be on his table 
 and daily in his hand, till his mind, catching a portion of 
 their excellence, is able to work with tenfold power on 
 whatever subjects he may submit to it. And if for those 
 great instructors he be content to leave unopened many of 
 the volumes which are now thought so essential to theo- 
 logical learning, let him not be afraid of the results of the 
 exchange. Always supposing as the foundation a constant, 
 critical, and devout study of the Scriptures themselves, and 
 the use of those philological and antiquarian works which 
 are essential, and alone essential, to the understanding of 
 them, he will find that in the comparison of human works, 
 both spiritually and intellectually, the works of the greatest 
 minds will be most useful to him that he may be well 
 content to be ignorant even of Bull and Pearson, if he is 
 thus enabled to become more intimately familiar with Bacon 
 and Aristotle." x 
 
 And when Arnold, speaking to English students, drew 
 this contrast between the professed theologians of his own 
 church and the universal teachers of all Churches, he would 
 not have refused to Scottish students in their lighter hours 
 to vary the somewhat arid and thorny discussions in which 
 at times the theology of Scotland has been absorbed, by 
 recurrence to those perennial springs of instruction which, 
 on another occasion, I ventured to place in the first ranks 
 of Scottish theology the wise humour, the sagacious pene- 
 tration, the tender pathos of Robert Burns ; the far-seeing 
 toleration, the profound reverence, the critical insight into 
 
 1 Arnold's Sermons, vol. iii., Preface, p. xxiii. I would commend the 
 study of the whole essay.
 
 ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY 199 
 
 the various shades of religious thought and feeling, the 
 moderation which " turns to scorn the falsehood of extremes," 
 the lofty sense of Christian honour, purity, and justice, that 
 breathes through every volume of the romances of Walter 
 Scott. You will not suppose that, in thus commending the 
 great works of secular genius, I forget that neither in the 
 secular nor the ecclesiastical sphere is mental power a 
 guarantee for moral strength. I fully grant that Bacon 
 may have been though his latest biographer doubts it 
 not only " the wisest and brightest," but " the meanest of 
 mankind ; " or that Burns, by his miserable weakness, was, 
 as none knew better than himself, a beacon of melancholy 
 warning, no less than of blazing light, to the youth of 
 Scotland. You will not misunderstand me as if for the 
 Christian minister, or indeed for the Christian man, I were 
 exalting the intellectual above the spiritual and moral 
 sphere. That has a grandeur of its own, on which, were 
 this the time or place to speak, it would be easy to enlarge. 
 Samuel Eutherford, who proudly said on his deathbed that 
 " in a few days more he should be where few kings and 
 great folk come," and whose bones sanctify with a new con- 
 secration the Cathedral churchyard where he lies 'amongst 
 you Thomas Erskine, of Linlathen, who rests on the 
 opposite promontory within sight of your towers, and with 
 whom even a brief converse was, for the moment, to have 
 one's conversation in heaven these are memories of another 
 kind, and strains of a higher mood, on which I cannot now 
 more than touch. You will perceive that what I am urging 
 is the necessity, the duty, the privilege of reserving our in- 
 tellectual submission and veneration for the greater and not 
 the lesser lights that God has placed in the intellectual 
 firmament. 
 
 This, and this only, is the solution of the much-vexed 
 question of authority. We are told, and truly told, that 
 authority is needed for the guidance of the human spirit 
 for that mass of mankind that require not to lead, but to 
 be led. But what authority ? Is it the official authority 
 of Popes, Councils, Bishops, Presbyters, Presbyteries ? is it
 
 200 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 the prescriptive authority of Fathers, or Beformers, or 
 authors of Confessions and Catechisms, and long chains of 
 authorised commentators ? These all no doubt claim a 
 certain deference according to their legal or historical weight. 
 But the true, reasonable, and sufficient allegiance of the 
 mind and intellect is due only to those far higher author- 
 ities which the world acknowledges without dispute, because 
 their potent word carries its own conviction with it 
 because their " vision and faculty divine " has seen what none 
 others have seen because their keen penetration and deep 
 research have explored what none others have explored. 
 Even in that Church which proclaims most loudly the 
 theory of submission to official authority, that theory is 
 often abandoned in practice almost as completely as if it 
 had never been asserted. Not only has it of late been put 
 forward by a famous divine of that Church that the au- 
 thority of the Pope himself must be controlled by the 
 verifying faculty of conscience and private judgment, but 
 in the long course of its eventful history it is not the 
 Bishops of Eome that have been the real oracles of the 
 Catholic or even of the Roman Church. In the whole range 
 of the Papal succession there is not one who can find a place 
 amongst the luminaries of all time or to whom, however 
 powerful in maintaining the privileges of his order, we can 
 ascribe the solution of any of the wider and deeper pro- 
 blems which have occupied the attention of mankind. The 
 guiding spirits of the Early and of the Middle Ages were theo- 
 logians of obscure sees, or students with no ecclesiastical rank ; 
 not an Innocent, or a Gregory, or a Pius, but Augustine, the 
 pastor of a small African diocese ; and Jerome, a secluded 
 scholar in Palestine ; and Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican 
 professor of Naples, and Thomas a Kempis, an unknown 
 canon in an almost unknown town of Germany. Even in 
 the School of Theology, as represented in the frescoes of the 
 Vatican, there is no single prelate or doctor whose voice 
 reaches from pole to pole with anything like the same 
 universal power as that of the great lay poet of the Divine 
 ( 'omedy, whom Ptaphael by a touch of genius, as just as it
 
 ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY 
 
 201 
 
 was bold, has there introduced amongst them. It is indeed 
 true that the high offices of Church and State may help to 
 moderate the passions of their occupants, and to fill even 
 ordinary men with a force beyond themselves. But still 
 the voice which touches the heart and consciences of men 
 with a really persuasive and constraining authority is not 
 that which speaks ex catheclrd, but that which speaks from 
 the far higher inspiration of personal gifts, of a heaven- 
 sent grace or wisdom. We are not left in ignorance or 
 uncertainty where to seek for such utterances. The con- 
 current voice of the civilised world has, for the most part, 
 already pointed them out and accepted them. 
 
 And this same principle of natural selection applies to 
 the Bible itself. The whole of Christendom yields to its 
 authority, not only because it is the most sacred of all sacred 
 oracles, but because it is the greatest of all great books. It 
 won its way to its exalted place by no decree of Council, 
 Pope, or Patriarch, but by the instinctive reverence for those 
 internal claims which are set forth in the Confession of the 
 Faith of the Church of Scotland, with a clearness surpassing 
 by a long way any like description of the Scriptures, in any 
 other confession, Greek, Boman, or Protestant. " Amongst 
 the arguments whereby the Bible doth abundantly evidence 
 itself to be the word of God are the heavenliness of the 
 matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, 
 the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole." You 
 will observe that these " incomparable excellences," these 
 signs of authority, all turn on the intrinsic evidence of 
 moral and intellectual greatness ; and amongst them one 
 conspicuous and pervasive element is that " majesty of 
 style " which gives to the leading passages of the Bible a 
 perpetuity and bloom of youth when so many of the in- 
 ferior products of humanity have grown old and vanished 
 away. It is because the study of the Scriptures cultivates 
 in the popular mind this sense of true dignity and grace, 
 this " holy hope and high humility," that even from a 
 purely mental point of view it is so invaluable an instru- 
 ment in popular education. Where this sense exists or is
 
 202 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 formed, there the mind overlooks and is proof against those 
 grotesque extravagances, those little trivialities of form and 
 speech, which have often disfigured the most zealous faith. 
 The majesty of the Bible will touch hearts which even its 
 holiness cannot move, and will awe minds which no argu- 
 ment can convince. The early chapters of Genesis contain 
 many things at which the man of science may stumble ; 
 but none will question their unapproachable sublimity. 
 The Book of Isaiah may furnish endless matter for the 
 critic; but the more fastidious he is, the more freely will 
 he acknowledge its magnificence of thought and diction. 
 The authorship of the Four Gospels may be defended, 
 attacked, and analysed interminably ; but the whole world 
 bows down before the grandeur of the Eight Beatitudes, and 
 the Parable of the Prodigal Son, and the Farewell Dis- 
 courses, and the story of Gethsemane and Calvary. 
 
 Such an appreciation of the magnitude of the Bible will 
 be alike instructive, both in comparison with other hooks 
 and in comparing the different parts of its own contents. 
 We shall thus learn to treat calmly its relation to the gifted 
 or venerated authors of other times, because we shall rest 
 assured that whatever is truly great in them may be 
 welcomed by us as part of the same Divine Truth, which 
 has appeared in a like, albeit a loftier, form in the Hebrew 
 and Christian Scriptures. We shall thus appreciate the 
 importance of that doctrine of proportion which is as 
 necessary in sacred as it is in secular studies, and shall 
 feel that one of the main duties of those scribes who have 
 to " bring out of the treasure-house things new and old," 
 great and small, is to have an eye exercised to discern be- 
 tween truths which are accidental secondary and tempo- 
 rary, and truths which are essential primary and eternal. 
 We shall thus distinguish statements which belong to the 
 passing argument and external imagery of the sacred writer 
 from statements which are, as our forefathers used to say 
 (though it may be with a somewhat different meaning), 
 "the sum and substance of saving doctrine." We shall 
 welcome without fear the keenest dissection, and freest
 
 (J / 
 
 ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY 203 
 
 handling of the form construction and derivation of the 
 letter, whether of the Scripture or of Confessions of Faith, 
 if we are convinced that the true " supernatural " is the 
 inner spiritual life, which remains after criticism has done 
 its best and its worst, and of which foes and friends may 
 alike confess that 
 
 We do it wrong, being so majestical, 
 To offer it the show of violence 
 For it is, as the air, invulnerable, 
 And our vain blows malicious mockery. 
 
 IV. It will not be thought unsuitable if, from this wide 
 survey and from these high subjects, I come round again to 
 yourselves, and speak of one more kind of greatness the 
 greatness of individual actions. Great institutions are not 
 ours to make ; great men are rare ; great ideas are borne 
 in upon us we know not how or whence. But great deeds 
 are within the reach of all, and it should be a never-ceasing 
 aim of genuine education to encourage the admiration and 
 appreciation, not mainly of actions that are good and wise 
 we all know that but of deeds high-minded large- 
 minded, which embrace a sphere not narrow but wide, not 
 mean but lofty, deeds magnificent in quality in purpose 
 and in effect. 
 
 Such are those instances of unselfish munificence, which 
 were the redeeming features of the violence and the ignor- 
 ance of the Middle Ages. Henry Wardlaw and James 
 Kennedy were not above their age in character or genius. 
 But the public spirit, the thought for posterity, which they 
 showed in the foundation of this University and its earliest 
 Colleges, were above themselves. Such again are those dis- 
 plays of unshaken conviction witnessed on this classic 
 ground of the first martyrdoms of the Scottish Reformation. 
 Patrick Hamilton and George Wishart were not above their 
 contemporaries in learning or in wisdom, but when Hamil- 
 ton died in front of St. Salvator's College, and Wishart 
 under the walls of Beaton's Palace, their deeds also were 
 above their characters. " The dead which they slew in
 
 204 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 their deaths were more than the dead which they had slain 
 in their lives." Such acts of splendid generosity, and of 
 heroic sacrifice for conscience sake, have not been unknown 
 to modern Scotland. But still, in the face of the increasing 
 temptation to contract munificence to the narrow limits of 
 our own party or neighbourhood or family, or to ally the 
 pilgrim Faithful with Byends and Facing Bothways, it is 
 well that those shining lights should remind us of what has 
 been and what may be. And without speaking of such 
 wider and more visible manifestations of what in old English 
 was styled the spirit " exceedingly magnifical," is it not 
 possible that some group of college friends in this University 
 may bind themselves together by a resolution, like to that 
 of a circle of German students in the University of 
 Gottingen, who, in the year 1814, "on a certain cheerful 
 evening, made a vow to each other, that they would effect 
 something great in their lives ? " All of them did more 
 or less fulfil that early vow, and one of that circle, in 
 whose biography the incident is recorded, 1 was Bunsen, 
 that marvellous example, in our times, of what an eager 
 and resolute student could achieve. 
 
 None can foretell for himself or for others what great 
 possibilities may be wrapt up in his future years. When 
 Andrew Melville was a student in this College, John 
 Douglas, who was Bector of the University, used to take 
 the puny orphan youth between his knees, question him 
 on his studies, and say, " My silly fatherless and motherless 
 boy, it's ill to witt what God may make of thee yet." - I do 
 not presume on the same familiarity ; but I venture to say 
 to the youngest, humblest student here present "It is 
 hard to know what God may make of thee yet," 
 
 And let us remember that this greatness of action 
 depends on two other kinds of greatness on our appreciation 
 of the greatness of the manner of doing what is good and 
 our appreciation of the greatness of the occasion when it 
 can be done. 
 
 The " grand style," the " great manner " that is within 
 
 1 Viiiiscn'a Life, vol. i. p. 46. - M'Crie's Melville, i. p. 13.
 
 ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY 205 
 
 our grasp, however distant it may seem. It has been well 
 said by an eminent French writer, that the true calling of a 
 Christian is not to do extraordinary things, but to do 
 ordinary things in an extraordinary way. The most trivial 
 tasks can be accomplished in a noble gentle regal spirit, 
 which overrides and puts aside all petty paltry feelings, 
 and which elevates all little things. Whatever is affected, 
 whatever is ostentatious, whatever is taken up from mere 
 fashion, or party cry, that is small vulgar contemptible. 
 Whatever springs from our own independent thought, what- 
 ever is modest genuine and transparent, whatever is de- 
 liberately pursued because it tends towards a grand result- 
 that is noble commanding great. When one of your most 
 illustrious scholars, George Buchanan, in his latter days was 
 visited by that "motherless, fatherless boy" whom I just 
 now named, he was found teaching his serving-lad the 
 alphabet. And when Melville v r ondered that he was 
 engaged in so humble a work " Better this," said the old 
 Preceptor of Princes, " better this than stealing sheep, or 
 sitting idle, which is as ill." When they asked him to 
 alter some detail in his History about the burial of David 
 Eizzio that might offend the King, he asked, " Tell me, man, 
 if I have told the truth." " Yes, sir, I think so." " Then 
 I will bide his feud [anger] and all his kin's. Pray, pray 
 God for me, and He will direct me." These were very 
 homely matters, but the spirit in which they were touched 
 was no less than imperial. 
 
 There is also the greatness of occasion. It sometimes 
 happens that we can best illustrate the grandeur of an 
 opportunity to be sought by our regret for an opportunity 
 that is lost. One such we will give from the history of 
 this place. Of all the names of the ancient Scottish 
 ecclesiastical history, there is none which has a more tragic 
 interest than that of the young Alexander Stuart who was 
 raised to the Archbishopric of St. Andrews at the early age 
 of eighteen by his father, James IV. He was the pupil of 
 Erasmus, and that great man has left on record his profound 
 admiration of the Scottish youth, who had been his com-
 
 206 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 panion and scholar in the stately old Italian city of Siena. 
 Tall, dignified, graceful, with no blemish except the short- 
 ness of sight which he shared in common with so many 
 modern students of gentle manners, playful humour but 
 keen as a hound in pursuit of knowledge, in history, 
 theology, law, above all in the new Greek learning an 
 accomplished musician, a delightful talker, high-spirited 
 and high-minded, without haughtiness, religious without a 
 particle of superstition born to command, yet born also to 
 conciliate such was the figure that his master 1 describes ; 
 and already the University of St. Andrews had felt the 
 stimulus of his youthful energy; already the enlightened 
 spirits of Scotland were beginning to breathe freely in the 
 atmosphere in which he had himself been nourished. Had 
 that young student of St. Andrews (for so, although Arch- 
 bishop, we may still call him) had he lived to fulfil this 
 wonderful promise had he, with these rare gifts and rare 
 opportunities, been spared to meet the impending crisis of 
 the coming generation, instead of the worldly, intriguing, 
 and profligate Beaton had he been here enthroned in this 
 venerable see, with the spirit of our own Colet in a higher 
 post, the aspirations of our own More without his difficulties, 
 ready to prepare the way for the first shock of the Kefor- 
 mation what a chance for the ancient Church of this 
 country ! What an occasion of combining the best parts of 
 the old with the best parts of the new ! what a call, if 
 indeed its doom had not been already fixed, to purify that 
 corrupt Episcopacy ! What a hope, if moderation in those 
 times had been possible, of restraining the violence of the 
 iconoclast reaction ! But alas ! he was slain by his father's 
 side on the field of Flodden. Of all " the flowers of the 
 forest that were " there " wede away," surely none was more 
 lovely, more precious, than this young Marcellus of the 
 Scottish Church. If he fell under the memorable charge of 
 my namesake on that fatal day, may he accept thus late the 
 lament which a kinsman of his foe would fain pour over his 
 untimely bier. 
 
 1 Erasmus, Opp. ii. p. 554. (Adagia: Spartam nactus, es, etc.)
 
 ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY 207 
 
 But the opportunity which was opening before Alexander 
 Stuart is not unlike that which is open to us and the 
 spirit which would have guided his course is the same as 
 that which for us is still no less indispensable. He was, as 
 I have said, the pupil of Erasmus, who alone of his age 
 combined what was then a world-wide knowledge with an 
 insight into those ideas of Christian truth which, as I have 
 before said, are alone destined to be permanent. What 
 there was in Knox and Buchanan and Andrew Melville, 
 which belonged to their own peculiar time and circumstances 
 the fury of their indignation, the technical form of their 
 creed, the narrowness of their party spirit has passed 
 away. That which we seek to rekindle from their ashes is 
 the spark which they derived from the higher spirits of their 
 time, whose language and whose aspirations are even more 
 suited to us than to them. Erasmus and those who hold 
 with him that the vital, inexhaustible element of Christianity 
 is its moral and spiritual, as distinct from its formal or its 
 emotional side, are called to the front, with an audience 
 more willing to hear than Erasmus found. The penetration 
 of new ideas into the whole fabric of belief and of social 
 life the insensible formation of a wider theology' which 
 shall embrace and vivify the forms of the past the changes, 
 whether for good or evil, which have lately been effected in 
 the constitution of the Church of Scotland the changes 
 which may possibly be impending over this ancient University 
 itself all give a zest, a stimulus, alike to the general and 
 the particular career of those whom I address, of which the 
 new and surpassing interest ought to compensate for the 
 many perplexities and discouragements which such changes 
 bring. The line of light which has been traced by a familiar 
 hand in this place through the succession of blameless and 
 lofty spirits who, from Hooker to Butler, kept alive the 
 "rational theology" of England indicates the pathway 
 along which the faith, may we not add the philosophy, of 
 Christendom must walk, if it is to produce fruits worthy of 
 the future. Is it too much to ask for the spirit and method 
 of Erasmus, combined with the energy of Luther and Knox,
 
 208 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 with the repose of Fenelon and Leighton ? Is it impossible 
 that the enthusiasm, which has hitherto been reserved for 
 the coarser and narrower channels of doctrine, may be turned 
 into the broader vaster currents of a more Catholic, and 
 therefore a more Evangelical faith than our predecessors 
 have known ? It surely may be hoped that if there have 
 been times, when (to use well-known words) " our nerves 
 were irritated by trifles," there shall also be times when 
 " great events " and great thoughts " shall make us calm." 
 I would not unduly exaggerate the prospects of success, or 
 underrate the fears of failure, in the attempt to attain a 
 higher and more spiritual theology a more patriotic and 
 generous policy. The circumstances around us may often 
 seem dismal, small, ignoble ; the dwarfing levelling dis- 
 turbing effect of partisanship, and false popularity, may seem 
 almost irresistible. The " rocks ahead," which Cassandra 
 foresees, are too visible amongst the breakers not to fill the 
 stoutest hearts with alarm. Even thus, those who contend 
 for long years in vain may reflect that the greatness of the 
 end for which they strive is worth the bitterness of the 
 disappointment 
 
 Victrix causa Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni. 
 
 Tis better to have fought and lost 
 Than never to have fought at all. 
 
 But surely in the peculiar crisis of our age the game is still 
 in our hands. We see clearly the enterprise before us. 
 And when in that enterprise we consider how a few addi- 
 tional grains of charity would make all the difference from 
 how many mistakes we should be saved, by the simplest 
 elements of common sense and self-control how much our 
 heat would gain by how slight an accession of light, how 
 doubly the value of our light would be enhanced by how 
 slight an infusion of heat, by how slight an addition of 
 sweetness what molehills of prejudice which a breath of 
 truth might overturn, have been erected into what moun- 
 tains of difficulty, what a fund of conciliation lies wrapt 
 up in all larger and more truthful views of science, of
 
 ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY 209 
 
 literature, and of the Bible what noble paths of practice 
 remain to be explored, unknown to former generations then 
 we may well turn to those other fine lines of the same 
 Roman poet, and take as our watchword, not the despairing 
 words of the vanquished Cato, but the exulting words of the 
 victorious Caesar 
 
 Spe trepido : baud unquam vidi tarn magna daturos 
 Tarn prope me Superos : camporum limite parvo 
 Absumus a votis. 
 
 Or if I may venture to present them in an English para- 
 phrase 
 
 I tremble not with terror, but with hope, 
 
 As the great day reveals its coming scope ; 
 
 Never before our anxious hearts to cheer, 
 
 Have such bright gifts of Heaven been brought so near, 
 
 Nor ever has been kept the aspiring soul 
 
 By space so narrow from so grand a goal. 
 
 14
 
 ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY 
 
 SECOND ADDRESS 
 
 THE HOPES OF THEOLOGY 
 
 {Delivered on March 16, 1876) 
 
 On the occasion of my former address at St. Andrews, the 
 Principal of St. Mary's College asked me to speak a few- 
 words to the theological students under his charge. It was 
 not within my power to comply with his request at that 
 moment. But now that the time draws near to take fare- 
 well of an office which I have valued so highly, I have 
 thought that I might properly touch on some subject 
 which, though of general interest, had special refer- 
 ence to theology. When I spoke to you before, I ap- 
 pealed to the motto which is written over this ancient 
 hall 
 
 'AtV apMTTLVZLV 
 
 and dwelling on the inspiring force of the contemplation 
 of greatness in all its forms, I endeavoured to show how 
 bright was the sunshine which such a thought throws on all 
 your present duties and studies. That brightness I would 
 still wish to maintain, though within a more definite range, 
 and in a humbler and graver tone, more suited to the altered 
 circumstances both of him who speaks and of you who 
 listen. 
 
 The topic which I propose to take is one at which T 
 slightly hinted in the conclusion of my last words to you, 
 and which was suggested to me afresh by the instructive 
 address delivered, in the course of the late winter, to the 
 students of Aberdeen by an eminent statesman one of the
 
 ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY 211 
 
 foremost of our time. He, speaking with the fulness of his 
 varied experience, and with the strength of true humility 
 and moderation, chose as his theme " The Eocks Ahead," in 
 the political and social world, indicated some years ago by a 
 distinguished publicist. But besides the political and the 
 economical rocks, there was a third rock, which the prophet 
 of ill had pointed out, the religious or theological rock 
 namely, the danger arising to religion from the apparently 
 increasing divergence between the intelligence and the faith 
 of our time. It is this topic touched for a moment by 
 Mr. Forster ; handled more fully, but still in a rapid survey, 
 by an accomplished countryman of your own, Mr. Grant 
 Duff, at Edinburgh on which I propose to insist more at 
 length on the present occasion. You know the story of the 
 Inchcape Eock, almost within sight of these shores ; how for 
 many years it was the terror of mariners until an enter- 
 prising Abbot of Aberbrothock ventured to fasten a bell 
 upon the sunken reef. Will you permit the successor of the 
 Abbots of "Westminster, after the fashion of the Douglas of 
 your own Scottish history, to attempt to " bell this rock ? " 
 The waves of controversy and alarm will still, doubtless, dash 
 over it ; but, perchance, if my advice contains any truth, you 
 will catch from time to time henceforth, amidst the roar of 
 the billows, faint chimes of a more cheering music ; and 
 even if some rash rover shall tear off the signal of warning 
 and encouragement, yet the rude shifts of the Abbot may 
 suggest to some wiser and more scientific inventor to build 
 on the rock a lighthouse, which will more effectually defy 
 the storm, and more extensively illuminate the darkness of 
 the time to come. I propose, then, to speak to you of the 
 grounds of hope for the religion and theology of the future. 
 I do not deny that the forebodings of Mr. Greg 
 have some foundation. It was one of the last anxious 
 aspirations of Dean Milman, 1 that some means might be 
 found to avert the wide and widening breach, which he 
 seemed to see between the thought and the religion of 
 England. There has been an increasing suspicion which 
 
 1 History of the Jews, 3rd edition, vol. i. p. xxxiv.
 
 212 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 threatens more and more to embitter the fiercer factions of 
 the ecclesiastical and the scientific world each rejoicing to 
 push the statements of its rival to the extremest con- 
 sequences, and to place on them the worst possible con- 
 struction. There have arisen new questions, which ancient 
 theology has for the most part not even considered. There 
 is an impetuosity on both sides, which to the sober sense of 
 the preceding century was unknown, and which insists on 
 the precipitation of conflicts, once cautiously avoided or 
 quietly surmounted. There are also indications that we are 
 passing through one of those periods of partial eclipse which 
 from time to time retard the healthy progress of mankind. 
 In the place of the abundant harvest of statesmanlike and 
 poetic genius with which the nineteenth century opened, 
 there have sprung up too often the lean and puny stalks 
 blighted with the east wind. Of this wasting, withering 
 influence modern theology has had its full share. Super- 
 stitions which seemed to have died away have returned with 
 redoubled force ; fantastic ideas of divine and human things, 
 which the calm judgment of the last century, the heaven- 
 inspired insight of the dawn of this, would have scattered 
 like the dreams of fever, seem to reign supreme in large 
 sections of the religious world. And this calamity has 
 overtaken us in the presence of the vast, perhaps dispro- 
 portionate, advance of scientific knowledge, which feels most 
 keenly and presses most heavily the weaknesses of a 
 credulous or ceremonial form of belief. It is, no doubt, 
 conceivable that these dreadful forms and " fiery faces " 
 might portend for England the same overthrow of faith that 
 has overtaken other countries. If such a separation were 
 indeed universally impending between the religion of the 
 coming age and the progress of knowledge, between the 
 permanent interests of the Christian Churches and the 
 interests of the European States, then there would be a 
 cause for alarm more serious than the panics of religious 
 journals, or the assaults of enraged critics. It would be the 
 ingem motv.s exccdcntium numinv.m the tread of depart- 
 ing deity
 
 ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY 213 
 
 Non me tua fervida terrent 
 Dicta, ferox ; seel Di terrent et Jupiter hostis. 
 
 But behind those outward manifestations of danger, there is 
 a higher Christianity, which neither assailants nor defenders 
 have fully exhausted. We cannot believe that the inexor- 
 able hour has struck. There is good ground for hoping 
 that the difficulties of religion national religion, Christian 
 religion are but the results of passing maladies, either in its 
 professed friends or supposed foes. We may fairly say, with 
 the first Napoleon 1 " We have perhaps gone a little too 
 fast ; but we have reason on our side, and when one has 
 reason on one's side, one should have the courage to run 
 some risks." The evening star, according to the fine image 
 of the poet, which is the accompaniment of the setting day, 
 may be one and the same with the morning star, the har- 
 binger of sunrise. 
 
 It is a large inquiry. I can but touch on a few salient 
 points. 
 
 I. There is the essentially progressive element in religion 
 itself. Lord Macaulay, in his celebrated essay on Kanke's 
 History of the Popes, maintains, with all the exuberance 
 of logic and rhetoric, that the difference between theology 
 and all other sciences is this, that what the former was in 
 the days of the patriarch Job, such it must be in the nine- 
 teenth century, and to the end of time. No doubt in reli- 
 gion, as in all great subjects of human thought, there is 
 a permanent and unchanging element ; but in everything 
 which relates to its form, in much which relates to its sub- 
 stance, the paradox of our great historian is as contrary to 
 fact, as it would be crushing to our aspirations if it were true. 
 In the practice of theological controversy, it has been too 
 much the custom to make the most of differences, and the 
 least of agreements. But in the theological study of the 
 past, it has been too much the custom to see only the 
 agreements, and not the differences. Look in the face the 
 fact that the belief of each successive epoch of Christendom 
 
 1 Matthew Arnold, Popular Education in France.
 
 214 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 has varied enormously from the belief of its predecessors. 
 The variations of the Catholic Church, both past and present, 
 have been almost, if not quite, as deep and wide as the 
 variations of Protestantism ; and these variations, whilst they 
 show that each form of theology is but an approximation to 
 the truth, and not the whole truth itself, contain the surest 
 indication of vitality in the whole body of religious faith. 
 The conceptions of the relations of man to man, and, still 
 more, of man to God, have been incontestably altered with 
 the growth of centuries. Not to speak of the total extinction 
 of ancient polytheism, and confining ourselves within the 
 limits of the Christian Church, it is one of the most con- 
 solatory fruits of theological study to observe the disappear- 
 ance of whole continents of useless controversies which once 
 distracted the world. What has become of the belief, once 
 absolutely universal in Christendom, that no human being 
 could be saved who had not passed through the waters of 
 baptism ; that even innocent children, if not immersed in the 
 font, were doomed to endless perdition ? Or where are the 
 interminable questions respecting the doctrine of predestina- 
 tion, or the mode of justification, which occupied the middle 
 of the sixteenth, and the close of the eighteenth century in 
 Protestant Churches ? Into what limbo has passed the 
 terrible conflict between the Burghers and the Anti-Burerhers 
 amongst the now United Presbyterians ? What do we now 
 hear of the doctrine of the Double Procession, or of the 
 Light on Mount Tabor, which, in the ninth century and in 
 the fifteenth, filled the mind of Eastern Christendom? 
 These questions for the time occupied, in these several 
 Churches, the whole horizon of theological thought. They 
 are dead, and buried ; and for us, standing on their graves, it 
 is idle to say that theology has not changed. It has changed. 
 Religion has survived those changes ; and this is the historical 
 pledge that it may, that it will, survive a thousand more. 
 
 Even the mere removal of what may be called dead 
 matter out of the path of living progress is of itself a posi- 
 tive gain. But the signs of the capability of future improve- 
 ment in Religion are more direct than this. No doubt
 
 ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY 215 
 
 theologians have themselves to thank for the rigid, immutable 
 character which has been ascribed by philosophers to their 
 beliefs. The Jesuit maxim, Sint ut sunt, aut non sint, has 
 been too often accepted in all Churches for any of the 
 Churches to complain if they have been taken at their word. 
 But already, as far back as the Eeformation, there were 
 indications of a deeper insight exceptional and quaint, but 
 so expressive as to vindicate for Christianity, even then, the 
 widest range which future discoveries may open before it. 
 In the first Confession of John Knox, the Eeformers had 
 perceived what had been so long concealed from the eyes of 
 the Schoolmen and the Fathers that the most positive 
 expressions, even of their own convictions, were not guaran- 
 teed from imperfection or mutability ; and the entreaty with 
 which that Confession is prefaced, contains at once a fine 
 example of true Christian humility and the stimulus to the 
 noblest Christian ambition " We conjure you, if any man 
 will note in this our Confession any article or sentence 
 repugnant to God's Holy Word, that it would please him of 
 his gentleness, and for Christian charity's sake, to admonish 
 us of the same in writing ; and we, upon our honour and 
 fidelity, do promise him satisfaction from the Holy Scriptures, 
 or due reformation of that which he shall prove to be amiss." 
 And perhaps even more striking is the like expression in the 
 well-known address of the first pastor of the Pilgrim Fathers, 
 before embarking on the great enterprise which was to issue 
 in the foundation of new churches and new commonwealths 
 beyond the Atlantic " I am verily persuaded that the Lord 
 has more truth yet to come for us yet to break forth out 
 of His Holy Word. The Lutherans cannot be drawn to go 
 beyond what Luther saw. The Calvinists stick fast where 
 they were left by that great man of God, who yet saw not 
 all things. Though they were burning and shining lights, 
 yet they penetrated not into the whole counsel of God, but 
 were as willing to embrace further light as that which they 
 first received. I beseech you to remember that it is an 
 article of your Church's covenant, that you be ready to 
 receive whatever truth shall be made known to you from
 
 216 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 the written Word of God." "Noble words," says the 
 eloquent historian l of the Dutch Eepublic " words to bear 
 fruit, after centuries shall go by." They are, indeed, the 
 charter of the future glories of Protestant, and perhaps of 
 Boman Christianity. Well did Archbishop Whately, on the 
 eve of a change in the constitution of the Church of England, 
 exclaim " I will not believe that the Eeformers locked the 
 door, and threw away the key for ever ! " It is in the light 
 of this progressive historical development that the confessions 
 and liturgies, the doctrines and usages, of former times find 
 their proper place. All of them, taken as the final expres- 
 sions of absolute truth, are misleading. All of them, even 
 the most imperfect, may be taken as the various phases and 
 steps of a Church and a faith whose glory it is to be per- 
 petually advancing towards perfection. 
 
 II. When we examine in detail the materials of Chris- 
 tian theology, they give abundant confirmation of this gene- 
 ral truth. Theology has gained, and may gain immensely, 
 by the process which has produced so vast a change in all 
 other branches of knowledge the process of diving below 
 the surface and discovering the original foundations. How 
 much has been effected for archaeology by the excavations of 
 Pompeii, of Nineveh, of Eome, of Troy, of Mycense ! How 
 much for history, by the exploration of the archives of 
 Simancas, of the Register House of Edinburgh ! How much 
 for science, by the crucible of chemistry, by the spade and 
 hatchet of the geologist, by the plummet of the Challenger ! 
 To this general law theology furnishes no exception. 
 Every deep religious system has in it more than 
 appeared at the time to its votaries far more than has 
 appeared in later times to its adversaries. Even in the 
 ancient pagan religions of Greece and P.ome, it is surprising 
 to observe how vast a power of expansion and edification 
 was latent in forms of which the influence might long ago 
 seem to have died out. The glory of the Homeric poems, 
 the solemnity of Sophocles and iEschylus, the beauty of the 
 Apollo Belvidere, have, as it were, risen from their graves 
 
 1 Motley, Life of Barncvcldt, ii. 295.
 
 ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY 217 
 
 after the lapse of centuries, and occupy a larger space in the 
 modern mind than they have done at any time since their 
 first creation. Even in the case of Mohammedanism the 
 Koran has, within the last century, been awakened from a 
 slumber of ages, and has been discovered to contain maxims 
 which Christendom might cultivate with advantage, but 
 which, in all the long centuries of ignorance, were hopelessly 
 forgotten both by friends and foes. A great religion is not 
 dead because it is not immediately comprehended, or because 
 it is subsequently perverted, if only its primitive elements 
 contain, along with the seeds of decay and transformation, 
 the seeds of living truth. Especially is this the case in 
 Christianity, which is not only (like Mohammedanism) the 
 religion of a sacred book, but the religion of a sacred litera- 
 ture and a sacred life. 
 
 Putting aside for the moment all question of the divine 
 authority of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, and of 
 the dogmatic systems built upon them, it is certain that 
 their original force and grace is far more keenly appreciated 
 now than it was when they were overlaid with fanciful 
 allegories and scholastic perversions. The spirit of the 
 time, the " Zeit-Geist," as Matthew Arnold says, " has 
 turned the rays of his lantern " full upon them, and in " the 
 fierce light " that beats upon their structure through this 
 process, if some parts have faded away, if the relation of all 
 the parts to each other has been greatly altered, yet there 
 can be no question that by its influence, which has pene- 
 trated, more or less, all modern theology, the meaning, and 
 with the meaning the grandeur and the beauty, of the 
 Sacred Volume has been brought out with a fulness which 
 was unknown to Hume and Voltaire, because it had been 
 equally unknown to Aquinas and Augustine. Whole systems 
 of false doctrine or false practice, whole fabrics of barbarous 
 phraseology, have received their death-blow, as the Ithuriel 
 of modern criticism has transfixed with his spear here a 
 spurious text, there an untenable interpretation, here a 
 wrong translation, there a mistaken punctuation. 
 
 Or again, with regard to our increased knowledge of the
 
 218 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 dates and authorship of particular books, much, no doubt, 
 remains obscure ; but this partial ignorance is as the fulness 
 of knowledge compared with the total blank which prevailed 
 in the Church for a thousand years or more. All the in- 
 struction, inward and outward, which we have acquired from 
 our discovery of the successive dates, and therewith of the 
 successive phases, of St. Paul's Epistles, was lost almost 
 until the beginning of this century, but has now become the 
 starting-point of fresh inquiry and fresh delight in every 
 historical or theological treatise. The disentanglement of 
 the Psalter, the Pentateuch, and the Book of Isaiah, from the 
 artificial and fallacious monotony in which, regardless of 
 times and circumstances, a blind tradition had involved them, 
 gives a significance to the several portions of the respective 
 books which no one who has once grasped it will ever 
 willingly abandon. The Parables, as has been of late well 
 described, have by their very nature an immortality of ap- 
 plication, which could never have been perceived had they 
 been always, as they were in many instances at the time of 
 their first delivery, shut up within the gross, carnal, matter- 
 of-fact interpretation of those who said, " How can this man 
 give us his flesh to eat ? " or " It is because we have taken 
 no bread." In short, when it was perceived, in the noble 
 language of Burke, 1 that the Bible was not a dead code, or 
 collection of rigid dogmas, but, " an infinite variety of a 
 most venerable and most multifarious literature," from that 
 moment it became as impossible in the nature of things 
 that the educated portion of mankind should ever cease to 
 take an interest in the Old and New Testament, as it would 
 be that they should cease to take an interest in Homer, or 
 Shakespeare, or Dante, or Scott. The Sacred Books, which 
 were once regarded as the stars were regarded by ancient 
 astronomers, spangles set in the sky, or floating masses of 
 nebulous light, ,or a galaxy of milky spots, have now been 
 resolved by the telescope of scholarship into their com- 
 ponent parts. Lord Macaulay would not have denied that 
 astronomy has undergone a total revolution through Coper- 
 1 Burke's Works, x. 21, Speech on Acts of Uniformity.
 
 ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY 219 
 
 nicus, Galileo, and Newton a revolution which has im- 
 mensely extended its grandeur and its usefulness. Erasmus, 
 Lowth, Herder, and Ewald have effected for Biblical know- 
 ledge a revolution no less complete and no less beneficent. 
 There has been, as it were, a triple chain of singular, one 
 may almost say providential, coincidences. The same 
 critical investigation which has opened our eyes to the 
 beauty and the wisdom of the sacred records, has by revealing 
 to us the large infusion of the poetic element, enabled us 
 to distinguish between the temporary and the essential, 
 between the parabolical and the historical ; and thus, at the 
 moment when science and ethnology are pointing out diffi- 
 culties, which, on a literal and mechanical view of the 
 Biblical records, are insuperable, a door of escape has been 
 opened by the disclosure of a higher aspect of the Scriptures, 
 which would be equally true and valuable, were there no 
 scientific difficulty in existence. Except in the lowest and 
 most barbarous classes of society, the invectives and the 
 scoffs of the last century have ceased. They have been 
 extinguished, not by the fires of the Inquisition, or the 
 anathemas of Convocations or General Assemblies, but by the 
 steady growth of the same reverential, rational appreciation 
 of the divine processes for the revelation of great truths, as 
 has shut the mouths of the defamers of Milton and covered 
 with shame the despisers of Shakespeare. 
 
 III. Leaving the grounds of hope furnished to us by the 
 original documents of our faith, let us turn to those whicli 
 are supplied from the study of its doctrines and institutions. 
 And here I will name two bridges, as it were, by which the 
 passage to a brighter prospect may be effected. One is the 
 increasing consciousness of the importance of definition. It 
 was said by a famous theologian of Oxford thirty years ago 
 that " without definition controversy is either hopeless or 
 useless." He has not, in his subsequent career, applied 
 this maxim, as we might fairly have expected from his 
 subtle intellect, to the clearing away of obstructions and 
 frivolities. But the maxim is true, not only in the negative 
 sense in which he pronounced it, but in the more important
 
 220 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 sense of the pacifying and enlightening tendency necessarily 
 implied in all attempts to arrive at the clear meaning of 
 the words employed. It was a sagacious remark which I 
 heard not long ago from a Scottish minister on the shores 
 of Argyleshire, that the vehemence of theological controversy 
 has been chiefly in proportion to the emptiness of the 
 phrases used. So long as an expression is employed merely 
 as a party watchword, without inquiring what it means, it 
 acts like a magical spell ; it excites enthusiasm ; it spreads 
 like an infectious malady ; it terrifies the weak ; it acts as a 
 stimulant to the vacant brain. But the moment that we 
 attempt to trace its origin, to discover in what other words 
 it can be expressed, the enthusiasm cools, the panic subsides, 
 the contagion ceases to be catching, the dram ceases to in- 
 toxicate, the cloud disperses, and the clear sky appears. 
 This pregnant reflection might be aptly illustrated by 
 examples in the history of the Scottish Churches. But I 
 will confine myself to two instances drawn from other 
 countries. One is that of which I have before spoken, the 
 doctrine of the Double Procession, which was sufficient to 
 tear asunder the Eastern and Western Churches ; to give the 
 chief practical occasion for the terrible anathemas of the 
 Athanasian Creed ; to precipitate the fall of the Empire of 
 Constantinople; and therefore to sow the original seed of 
 the present formidable Eastern Question. This controversy 
 lias in later days, with very few exceptions, fallen into 
 entire obscurity. But in those cases where it has occupied 
 the attention of modern theologians, its sting has been taken 
 out by the process, simple as it would seem, but to which 
 resort had never been had before, of inducing the combatants 
 to express their conflicting opinions by other phrases than 
 those which had been the basis of the original antagonism. 
 This, and this only, is the permanent interest which attached 
 to a recent Conference at Bonn, between certain theologians 
 of the Greek, Latin, and English Churches. What was then 
 done with much satisfaction, at least to those more im- 
 mediately concerned, might be applied with still more 
 advantage to many other like phrases, which have acted as
 
 ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY 221 
 
 mischievous a part in the disintegration and disunion of 
 Christendom. Another instance shall be given from a 
 Church nearer home. In the Gorham Controversy, which 
 in 1850 threatened to rend the Church of England from its 
 summit to its base, and which produced the widest theo- 
 logical panic of any within our time, the whole question 
 hinged on the word " regeneration " ; and yet, as Bishop 
 Thirlwall showed in one of those charges, which I would 
 recommend to all theological students, of whatever church, 
 who wish to see the value of severe discrimination and 
 judicial serenity on the successive controversies of our time, 
 it never occurred to the disputants that there was an am- 
 biguity in the word itself it never occurred to either of 
 them to define, or explain, what either of them intended to 
 express by it. 1 What is there said with withering irony of 
 " regeneration " is true of the larger number of theological 
 phrases by which truth has been veiled and charity stifled. 
 Differences and difficulties will remain. But the bitterness 
 of the fight is chiefly concerning words ; the fight itself is 
 what the apostle denounced as " a battle of words." 2 Ex- 
 plain these define these the party collapses, the bitter- 
 ness exhales, the fear is cast out. 
 
 Another ground of hope is the growing sense of the 
 doctrine of proportion. It is a doctrine which has dawned 
 slowly and painfully on the theological mind of Christendom. 
 " In God's matters," said Samuel Eutherford, " there is not, 
 as in grammar, the positive and comparative degrees ; there 
 is not a true, a more true, and a most true." " Every pin 
 of the tabernacle," said Ebenezer Erskine, in his amazement 
 at the indifference which Whitfield displayed towards 
 the Solemn League and Covenant, " is precious." :! What 
 Ilutherford and Erskine thus tersely and quaintly ex- 
 pressed is but the assumption on which has rested the 
 vast basis of the liabbinical theology of Judaism, and the 
 Scholastic Theology, whether of Catholic or Protestant 
 Churches. But to the better spirits of Christendom there 
 
 1 Bishop Thirlwall's Charges, i. 156. - 1 Tim. vi. 4. 
 
 :; Lectures on the Church of Scot /and. p. 78.
 
 222 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 has penetrated the conviction that these maxims are not only 
 not sound, but are unsound to the very core. " There is 
 a true, a more true, and a most true." "Every pin of 
 the tabernacle is not equally precious." Richard Hooker 
 and Richard Baxter had already begun to perceive that 
 religion was no exception to the truth, expressed by a 
 yet greater genius than either, in the magnificent lines of 
 Troilus and Cressida, which tells us how essential it is in all 
 
 things to 
 
 Observe degree, priority, and {dace, 
 Insistence, course, proportion, season, form, 
 Office, and custom, in all line of order. 
 
 This, if not the ultimate, at any rate is the proximate, 
 solution of some of the difficulties which have threatened, 
 or which still threaten, the peace of churches and the 
 growth of religion. 
 
 Take the vexed question of church government. The 
 main source of the gall which once poisoned, and still 
 in some measure poisons, the relations between Episcopal 
 and Presbyterian Churches, was not the position that one 
 or other form was to be found in the Bible, or in antiquity, 
 or was more conformable to common -sense and order. 
 These are comparatively innocent and unexciting proposi- 
 tions. The distracting thought lay in the conviction that 
 one or other was absolutely perfect, and was alone essential 
 to the Christian religion. It is for the rectification of 
 this misplaced exclusiveness that we owe a deep debt of 
 gratitude to such men as Hooker in England and Leighton 
 in Scotland. There is much to be said for Presbyterianism ; 
 there is much to be said for Episcopacy. But there is 
 much more to be said for the secondary, temporary, 
 accidental character of both, when compared with the 
 general principles to which they each minister; and in 
 the light of these principles we shall view more justly 
 and calmly the real merits and demerits both of bishops 
 and of presbyters, than is possible for those who, like 
 your Scottish or my English ancestors, upheld the con- 
 stitution of either Church as, in all times and under all
 
 ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY 223 
 
 circumstances, irrevocably indispensable. What is true with 
 regard to those two leading distinctions is still more 
 applicable to all debates on patronage, ecclesiastical courts, 
 vestments, postures. There is a difference there is, if we 
 choose so to express it, a right and a wrong in each case. 
 The appointment by a multitude may be preferable to 
 the appointment by a single individual ; the appointment 
 by a responsible layman may be preferable to the appoint- 
 ment by a synod ; a black gown may, in certain circumstances, 
 be superior to a white one, or a white one to a red one. 
 But far more important than any of these positions is the 
 persuasion that, at most, all of these things, the nomination, 
 the jurisdiction, the dress, the attitude of ministers, are 
 but means towards an end very distant means towards 
 a very distant end. And in measure as we appreciate 
 this due proportion, scandals will diminish, and the Church 
 of the future will leap forward on its course, bounding like 
 a ship that has thrown over its super-charge of cargo, or 
 quelled an intestine mutiny. 
 
 Or take a yet graver question -the mode of regarding 
 those physical wonders which are called miracles. There 
 is no doubt an increasing difficulty on this subject a 
 difficulty enhanced by the incredulity which now besets 
 the educated sections of mankind, and by the credulity 
 which has taken hold with a fresh tenacity on the half- 
 educated. It is a question on which neither science nor 
 religion, I venture to think, has yet spoken the last word. 
 It is a complex problem, imperatively demanding that 
 careful definition of which I spoke before, and the calm 
 survey of the extraordinary incidents not only of Biblical 
 but of ecclesiastical history, whether Catholic or Protestant. 
 On the true aspects of such physical portents as have 
 been connected with the history of religion, there is much 
 to be argued. But on these arguments I do not enter. 
 The point on which I would desire to fix your attention 
 is this : that whatever view we take of these " signs and 
 wonders," their relative proportion as grounds of argument 
 has altogether changed. There is a well-known saying,
 
 224 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 like other famous axioms 1 of Christian life, erroneously 
 ascribed to St. Augustine " We believe the miracles for 
 the sake of the Gospels, not the Gospels for the sake of 
 the miracles." Fill your minds with this principle, view 
 it in all its consequences, observe how many maxims both 
 of the Bible and of philosophy conform to it, and you will 
 find yourselves in a position which will enable you to 
 treat with equanimity half the perplexities of this subject. 
 However valuable the record of extraordinary manifestations 
 may be in other respects, however impressively they may 
 be used to convey the truths of which they are confessedly 
 but the symbols, they have, in the eyes of the very men whom 
 we most desire to convince, become stumbling blocks and 
 not supports. External evidence has with the most re- 
 flecting minds receded to the background, internal evidence 
 has come to the front. Let us learn by experience to 
 use with moderation arguments which, at least for the 
 present, have lost their force. Let us acknowledge that 
 
 1 It fell to my lot two years ago to track out the story of another famous 
 maxim, which was really due to Rupertus Meldenius, an obscure German divine 
 of the seventeenth century, but, in like manner, falsely ascribed to Augustine, 
 " In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas. " See " Address 
 on Richard Baxter," in Macmillan's Magazine, July, 1876. The saying 
 concerning miracles is sometimes quoted as Augustine's, but on inquiry I 
 find that there is no ground for ascribing it to him. The nearest approach 
 to it is the passage from the treatise Dc Unitatc Ecclesicc, c. 19, to which 
 Archbishop Trench refers in his work on the Miracles. "Quaeeumque 
 talia [i.e. the Donatist Miracles] in Catholica [Ecclesia] hunt, ideo sunt 
 approbata, quia in Catholica fiunt ; non ideo manifestatur Catholica, quia haec 
 in ea fiunt." This, however, is a very inadequate statement of the principle, 
 if indeed it be not merely the polemical and untenable assertion that, whatever 
 miracles are wrought by heretics for that very reason go for nothing the 
 exact opposite of our Lord's words, Mark ix. 38. 
 
 The substance of the sentiment, however, has been repeatedly expressed 
 by writers, who, if less famous than Augustine, have penetrated far more 
 profoundly into the root of the question. Not to mention Coleridge, Arnold, 
 and Milman, it may suffice to quote from the work of Archbishop Trench, to 
 which reference has just been made. '''Miracles,' says Fuller, 'are the 
 swaddling clothes of the infant Church : ' and. we may add, not the garments 
 of the full-grown " (Trench on the Miracles, 51). " It may be more truly said, 
 tliatwe believe the miracles for Christ's sab:, than Christ for the miracles' sake." 
 {Ibid. 103.)
 
 ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY 225 
 
 there are greater miracles, more convincing miracles, than 
 those which appeal only to our sense of astonishment. 
 " The greatest of miracles," as a venerable statesman has 
 observed, is the character of Christ. The world was 
 converted, in the first instance, not by appeals to physical, 
 but to moral prodigies. Let us recognise that the preter- 
 natural is not the supernatural, and that, whether the 
 preternatural is present or absent, the true supernatural 
 may and will remain unshaken. 
 
 IV. And what is the true supernatural ? What are 
 those essentials in religion which have been the purifying 
 salt of Christianity hitherto, and will be the illuminating 
 light hereafter ; which, raising us above our natural state, 
 point to a destiny above this material world this common- 
 place existence ? The great advance which, on the whole, 
 theology has made in these latter centuries, and which it 
 may be expected still more to make in the centuries which 
 are to come, is this, that the essential, the supernatural 
 elements of religion are recognised to be those which are 
 moral and spiritual. These are its chief recommendations 
 to the reason of mankind. Without them, it would have 
 long ago perished. So far as it has lost sight of these, it 
 has dwindled and faded. With these, it may overcome the 
 world. Other opportunities will occur in which I shall 
 hope to draw out at length both the means by which these 
 spiritual elements of Christianity may be carried on from 
 generation to generation, and also the characteristics which 
 distinguish them from like elements in inferior religions. 1 It 
 is enough to have indicated that in the supremacy of these, 
 and in their supremacy alone, lies the hope of the future. 
 To love whatever is truly lovable, to detest whatever is truly 
 detestable, to believe that the glory and divinity of goodness 
 is indestructible, and that there has been, is, and will be, a 
 constant enlargement and elevation of our conceptions of it 
 furnishes a basis of religion which, whilst preserving all 
 the best parts of the sacred records and of Christian worship 
 
 1 In the two sermons preached in the College Church and in the Parish 
 Church of St. Andrews on the following Sunday, 18th March. 
 
 '5
 
 226 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 and practice, is a guarantee at once for its perpetuity and 
 for its growth. 
 
 Observe also that in proportion to our insistence on the 
 moral greatness of Christianity as its chief evidence and 
 chief essence, there accrues an external weight of authority 
 denied to the lower and narrower, but granted to the higher 
 and wider, views of religion. When we look over the long- 
 annals of ecclesiastical history, we shall often find that it is 
 not within the close range of the so-called orthodox, but 
 from the outlying camp of the so-called heretic or infidel, 
 that the champions of the true faith have come. Not from 
 the logic of Calvin, or the rhetoric of Bossuet, but from the 
 great scholars and philosophers of the close of the last cen- 
 tury and the beginning of this, have been drawn the best 
 portraitures of Christianity and its Founder. A clearer 
 glimpse into the nature of the Deity was granted to Spinoza, 1 
 the excommunicated Jew of Amsterdam, than to the com- 
 bined forces of Episcopacy and Presbytery in the Synod 
 of Dordrecht. When we cast our eyes over the volumes 
 which, perhaps, of all others, give us at once the clearest 
 prospect of the progress of humanity, and the saddest retro- 
 spect of the mistakes of theology Mr. Lecky's History of 
 European Morals and of Rationalism when we read there 
 of the eradication of deeply rooted beliefs which, under the 
 guidance of ecclesiastics and ecclesiastical rulers, were sup- 
 posed to be essential to the existence of Religion witchcraft, 
 persecution, intolerance, prohibition of commercial intercourse 
 if for one moment our faith is staggered by seeing that 
 these beneficent changes were brought about by States in 
 defiance of Churches, by philosophers in defiance of divines, 
 
 1 This statement would be justified by a comparison of the best sayings of 
 Spinoza with the best sayings of the Synod of Dort. The former are still 
 read with admiration and instruction, even by those who widely differ from 
 Spinoza's general teaching. The latter are but little known, even to those 
 who most firmly agree with the theory propounded by the Synod. 
 
 It may also be well to record, over against the anathemas which have been 
 levelled at his name, the epithet by which his humbler acquaintances called 
 him immediately after his death, "The blessed Spinoza," and the description 
 given of him by Schleiermacher, ' ; He was a man full of Religion, and of the 
 Holy Ghost."
 
 ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY 227 
 
 it is revived when we perceive that the end towards which 
 those various agencies worked is the same as that desired 
 by the best of the theologians ; that what Mr. Lecky calls 
 the secularisation of politics is in fact the Christianisation 
 of theology. That view of man, of the universe, and of God, 
 which by a recent able writer is called " Natural Eeligion " x 
 is in fact Christianity in its larger and wider aspect. The 
 hope of immortality, which, beyond any other belief of man, 
 carries us out of the world of sense, was eagerly defended 
 by Voltaire and Eousseau, no less than by Butler and Paley. 
 The serious view of duty, the admiration of the heroic and 
 the generous and the just, the belief in the transcendent 
 value of the spiritual and the unseen, are cherished posses- 
 sions of the philosophers of our generation, no less than of 
 the missionaries and saints of the generation that is past. 
 The Goliath of the nineteenth century, as was once well 
 observed by a professor 2 of your own, is not on the opposite 
 side of the valley he is in our midst ; he is on our side ; 
 he is not to be slain by sling and stone, but he is if we 
 did but know it our friend, our ally, our champion. If 
 there is a constantly increasing tendency, as Mr. Lecky 
 says, 3 to identify the Bible and conscience, this is in other 
 words, as he himself well states the case, a tendency to place 
 Christianity in a position " in which we have the strongest 
 evidence of the triumph of the conceptions of its Founder," 
 a position in which, by the nature of the case, the doubters 
 will be constantly diminishing and the intelligent believers 
 constantly increasing. 
 
 It is indeed one hope not only for the solution, but for 
 the pacific solution of our theological problems, that in this 
 more than in any previous age, in our country more than in 
 most countries, the critical and the conservative elements 
 overlap, interweave, and shade off into each other " Ionians, 
 and Dorians on both sides." The intelligent High Church- 
 
 1 See a series of most instructive articles in Macmillans Magazine, on 
 "Natural Religion," between February 1875 and April 1877. 
 12 Professor Campbell. 
 3 History of nationalism, i. 384, ii. 247, 385.
 
 228 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 man, the moderate Free Churchman, melts almost imper- 
 ceptibly into the inquiring scholar. The generous Puritan or 
 Nonconformist is more than one third a Latitudinarian, 
 perhaps even one half a Churchman. Few philosophers have 
 so entirely parted with the natural feelings of the human heart, 
 or the natural aspirations of the human mind, as to be in- 
 different to the sane or insane direction of so mighty an 
 instrument for good or evil as the religious instinct of man- 
 kind. And thus the basis of a reasonable theology, even 
 if shaken for the moment by the frenzy of partisans, has 
 intrinsically become wider and more solid. The lines drawn 
 by sects and parties do not correspond with the deeper lines 
 of human nature and of history. A distinguished theological 
 statesman some time since drew out what he called a chart 
 of religious thought. But there was one school of thought 
 which was noticed only to be dismissed. And yet this 
 school or tendency is one which happily runs across all the 
 others and contains within itself, not indeed all, but many 
 of the finest elements of Christendom the backbone of 
 Christian life, the lamp of Christian thought. We often 
 hear of the reconciliation of theology and science. The 
 phrase is well intended, and has been used as the title of 
 an excellent book. But it does not exactly describe the 
 case. What we need is the recognition that so far as they 
 meet, Theology and Science are one and indivisible. What- 
 ever enlarges our ideas of Nature enlarges our ideas of God. 
 Whatever gives us a deeper insight into the nature of the 
 Author of the universe gives us a deeper insight into the 
 secrets of the universe itself. Whatever is bad theology is 
 also bad science ; whatever is good science is also good 
 theology. In like manner, we hear of the reconciliation of 
 religion and morality. The answer is the same ; they are 
 one and indivisible. Whatever tends to elevate the virtue, 
 the purity, the generosity of mankind, is high religion ; 
 whatever debases the mind, or corrupts the heart, or hardens 
 the conscience, under whatever pretext, however specious, 
 is low religion, is infidelity of the worst sort. There are, 
 according to the old Greek proverb, many who have borne
 
 ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY 229 
 
 the thyrsus, and yet not been inspired prophets. There are 
 many also who have been inspired prophets without wearing 
 the prophetic mantle, or bearing the mystic wand ; and 
 these, whether statesmen philosophers poets, have been 
 amongst the friends, conscious or unconscious, of the religion 
 of the future ; they are citizens, whether registered or un- 
 registered, in the Jerusalem which is above, and which 
 is free. 
 
 And now, with all this cloud of witnesses, what is our 
 duty in this interval of waiting, of transition ? What is 
 our duty ? and what is yours, students of St. Andrews, 
 future pastors of the famous Church of Scotland, rising 
 generation of that strong Scottish nation which in former 
 times was the firmest bulwark of a national Protestant 
 reasonable Christianity ? You, no doubt, in this secluded 
 corner of our island, feel the breath of the spirit of the age. 
 How are you to avoid being carried about with every gust 
 of its fitful doctrine ? How are you to gather into your 
 sails the bounding breeze of its invincible strength ? There 
 is nothing to make you despair of your Church. It may 
 have to pass through many transformations ; but a Church 
 which has not only stood the rude shocks of so many 
 secessions and disruptions, but continues to gather into its 
 ranks the most liberal tendencies of the nation, is too great 
 an institution to be sacrificed to the exigencies of party, if 
 only it be true to that fine maxim of Archbishop Leighton's, 
 of leaving to others " to preach up the times," and claiming 
 for itself " to preach up eternity." The principle of a 
 National Establishment, which Chalmers vindicated in the 
 interests of Christian philanthropy, has in these latter days 
 more and more commended itself in the interests of Christian 
 liberty. The enlarging, elevating influence infused into a 
 religious institution by its contact, however slight, with so 
 magnificent an ordinance as the British commonwealth ; the 
 value of resting a religious union not on some special doctrine 
 or institution, but on the highest welfare of the whole 
 community ; these principles are not less, but more 
 appreciated now, than they were in a less civilised age. It
 
 230 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 is the growing conviction of all thoughtful men that there 
 is no ground in the nature of things, or in the precepts of 
 the Christian religion, for the sharp division which divines 
 used to draw between the spiritual and secular, for the 
 curious fancy which represented all which belonged to 
 ecclesiastical matters as holy, all which belonged to the 
 state as worldly. In proportion as those larger and nobler 
 hopes of religion, of which I have been speaking, penetrate 
 into all the communions of this country, the provincial and 
 retrograde distinctions which have been stereotyped amongst 
 us will fade away ; and the policy of improving and reforming 
 institutions, instead of blindly destroying or blindly pre- 
 serving them, will regain the hold which, as late as the first 
 half of this century, it retained on the intelligence and con- 
 science of the nation. 
 
 There is perhaps a danger which threatens the Church 
 of Scotland, in common with all the Churches of Christendom 
 the apprehension which we sometimes hear expressed, 
 that the more gifted and cultivated minds of the coming 
 generation shrink from the noble mission, because of the 
 supposed restraints of the clerical profession. Far more 
 dismal than any secession of Old Lights, or New Lights, 
 would be the secession of the vigorous intellects and nobler 
 natures, which of old time made the Scottish Church, though 
 poor in wealth, rich in the best gifts of God. But it is 
 precisely this tendency which it is in your own power to 
 cure, or to prevent. The attractions of the Christian min- 
 istry, the opportunities which it offers of untried usefulness, 
 are not less but greater, in proportion as the questions of 
 religion involve a larger and deeper sweep of ideas than 
 when they ran within the four corners of the Confession of 
 Faith. Nor is there any reason in the constitution of your 
 Church, or in the prospects of your country, why that 
 Confession should be an obstacle to the expanding forms of 
 religious life amongst you. I am not here to criticise or 
 disparage that venerable document, which, born under my 
 own roof at Westminster, alone of all such confessions for a 
 short time represented the whole national faitli of Great
 
 ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY 231 
 
 Britain. If it has some defects or exaggerations, from which 
 our own Thirty-nine Articles are free, on the other hand it 
 has soared to higher heights and struck down to deeper 
 depths. Each views theology from a limited experience ; 
 and through the colour of the atmosphere, political, philo- 
 sophical, and military, in which the framers of each were 
 moving. To compare the failings and the excellences of 
 the two Confessions, and to illustrate from them the con- 
 dition of our respective Churches, would be, if this were the 
 time or place, a most interesting and instructive task. Still, 
 even the Confession of the Westminster Assembly is not 
 the essential, is not the best characteristic of the Church of 
 Scotland, any more than the Thirty-nine Articles are the 
 essential or the best characteristic of the Church of England. 
 Nor are the present forms of adhesion to it more sacred 
 than the ancient forms of adhesion to the English standards, 
 which a few years ago, by the timely intervention of the 
 Imperial Legislature, were largely modified, 1 and might 
 at any moment without any loss to the Church or the State, 
 be altogether abolished. 
 
 These, however, are merely passing and external diffi- 
 culties, to be surmounted by patriotic policy, by mutual 
 forbearance, by courageous perseverance. Neither for us 
 nor for you are any such restrictions worth a single gifted 
 intellect or a single devout life that they may exclude. 
 
 But neither in the retention nor in the abolition of these 
 local impediments is the main interest of the ministry of the 
 Church of Scotland in the times that are coming. Confession 
 or no Confession, subscription or no subscription, Established 
 Church or Free or United Presbyterian, there is other and 
 worthier work for you to accomplish. There are, on the one 
 hand, the moral evils which you have to combat, the rough 
 manners, the intemperate habits of large numbers of your 
 fellow-citizens. There are, on the other hand, the high and 
 pure traditions of former times which you have to maintain ; 
 the appropriation of whatever pastoral activity or keen 
 intellectual ardour may be seen in other communions. 
 
 1 See Essays on Church and State, 212.
 
 232 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 There are those words and works of greatness to which I 
 referred in my earlier address, and the actual examples 
 which you have or have had before you in your own 
 generation. In these there is more than enough to occupy 
 and exalt yourselves and others, and to show that the 
 Church of Scotland is still able, and is still proud, to hold 
 its head among the Churches of Christendom. It is for you 
 to welcome with a just pride its acknowledged glories. Place 
 before yourselves the noble thoughts which have been en- 
 kindled, not by Germans, not by Anglicans, but by your 
 own pastors and teachers. Remember how one 1 has taught 
 you, in language never surpassed, the connection of religion 
 with common life, and the claims of the one universal 
 religion to acceptance by the very reason of its universality ; 
 how another 2 has shown you the high value of theology, 
 viewed in its long historical aspect, and the yet higher 
 grandeur of religion ; how 3 another has taught you that, 
 however great is the Church militant or the Church 
 dogmatic, there is yet a greater Church, the Church 
 beneficent ; how one 4 has endeavoured to represent to you 
 the relation of religion to culture, another 5 of religion to 
 philosophy, and 6 another of religion to ritual ; how the still 
 small whispers of spiritual life, though no longer 7 heard 
 from the farther shore of the Tay or of the Clyde, still make 
 themselves felt by those whose ears are attuned to their 
 heavenly harmonies ; how many an eloquent voice is yet 
 heard from the pulpit of ancient abbey or populous city or 
 mountain village ; how inspiring is the example 8 of the 
 venerable teacher whom the Church of Scotland sent out to 
 India some forty years ago, and who still bears the greatest 
 name of living Indian missionaries ; how invigorating and 
 stimulating is the memory of the foremost Scottish minister 
 
 1 Principal Caird. 2 Principal Tulloch. 
 
 3 Salvation Here and Hereafter, by John Service, Minister of Inch. 
 
 4 Principal Shairp. 5 Professor Knight. 
 
 6 Pastoral Counsels, by the late John Robertson ; Reforms in tlic Church of 
 Scotland, by the late Robert Lee, D.D. 
 
 7 The late John M'Leod Campbell, and the late Thomas Erskine. 
 
 8 Dr. Duff.
 
 ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY 233 
 
 of our age, 1 who, though gone, yet still seems to live again 
 amongst us in his own flesh and blood, and whose command- 
 ing voice still exhorts us, as with his dying words, to be 
 " broad with the breadth of the charity of Almighty God, 
 and narrow with the narrowness of His righteousness." I 
 might enlarge the roll I might go back to the worthies of 
 earlier days to Carstairs, 2 whose memory was recalled of 
 late by a descendant worthy of himself to the great literary 
 leaders of the Church in the last century to Chalmers and 
 Irving. In our own time, I might speak of your most 
 famous living countryman, who, though winding up the 
 threads of his long and honourable life at Chelsea, has never 
 disdained the traditions of the Scottish Church and nation, 
 still warms at the recollection of his native Annandale, still 
 is fired with poetic ardour when he speaks of the glories of 
 St. Andrews. 
 
 But it is enough. There are words which often come 
 into my mind when I look at an assemblage like this 
 words spoken by a gifted poet, endeared to some among us, 
 and who loved your country well a cry, desponding 
 perhaps, yet also cheering, wrung from him by the dis- 
 locations and confusions of his time, which is also ours, when 
 he looked out on the contending forces of the age 
 
 that the armies indeed were arrayed ! O joy of the onset ! 
 Sound, thou trumpet of God ; come forth, great cause, to array us ; 
 King and leader appear ; thy soldiers sorrowing seek thee. :i 
 
 We may already hear the distant notes of that trumpet; 
 we may catch, however faintly, the coming of that cause. 
 The kings and leaders surely will appear at last, if their 
 soldiers will but follow them on to victory. 
 
 It was once said in mournful complaint of the highest 
 ecclesiastic in Christendom, " For the sake of gaining to-day, 
 he has thrown away to-morrow for ever." Be our policy 
 the reverse of this : be it ours to fasten our thoughts, not 
 on the passions and parties of the brief to-day, but on the 
 
 1 Life of Norman MacLeod. " Life of Carstairs, by Dr. Story. 
 
 3 Cloush's Bothic, ix.
 
 234 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 hopes of the long to-morrow. The day, the year, may 
 perchance belong to the destructives the cynics and the 
 partisans. But the morrow, the coming century, belongs 
 to the catholic comprehensive discriminating all-embracing 
 Christianity, which has the promise, not perhaps of this 
 present time, but of the times which are yet to be. 
 
 fortes, pejoraque passi 
 
 Mecum saepe viri 
 
 Cras ingens iterabimus sequor. 
 
 Come, my friends 
 Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought, with me . . . 
 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
 
 ROUNDELL, LORD SELBORNE 
 
 Rector from 1877 to 1880 
 Address delivered on November 21, 1878
 
 LOED SELBORNE 
 
 I suppose that every one who is called upon to address a 
 body of young men upon an occasion like this must have 
 two predominant feelings : a cordial interest in them, and a 
 wish to draw from his own experience some hints or lessons 
 which may give them encouragement and help. The soul 
 does not grow old, as the body does (a fact, itself one of 
 the natural signs of immortality) : there is a well-spring of 
 youth, inseparable from the sense of personal identity, which 
 accompanies from childhood to the grave every man who 
 has not stifled in himself the higher emotions ; and this 
 produces a sympathy of older men with younger, which the 
 young (not having passed through the same experience) 
 cannot be expected fully to understand. That sympathy, 
 powerful always, must have peculiar force when it is excited 
 towards an assembly, not of young men only, but of students 
 in one of the most ancient seats of learning of a nation 
 remarkable for the distinction of its citizens in every field 
 in which distinction can be obtained : I may add, when it 
 is excited in the breast of one who knows from experience 
 the value of such studies and such institutions, and who is 
 not insensible to the honour done him by this particular 
 audience, in calling him to a post which has been filled by 
 many remarkable, and by some illustrious men. 
 
 You all know how Xerxes, when the multitude which 
 he had assembled for the invasion of Greece passed in review 
 before him, was melted into tears by the thought that in a 
 few years every one of that great army would be numbered 
 with the dead. I daresay, too, you remember the Ode in
 
 238 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 which Gray prefigured to himself* the future misfortunes of 
 the young generation, which he saw repeating the scenes of 
 his own boyhood in the playing-fields of Eton. My thoughts 
 on the present occasion are very different. It is indeed 
 wholesome for every one to understand and remember the 
 necessary conditions of human life, and to contemplate the 
 possibility of misfortune ; not (like Gray) in a temper of 
 cynical despondency, but with manly courage, and with a 
 resolution to take all possible security against it by a right 
 use of his faculties and opportunities. But I am thinking 
 of those on whom my eyes now fall, not as mortals, but as 
 immortals. I look not to the close, but to the opening of 
 their work in life. I recognise in them (notwithstanding- 
 all the inevitable disappointments which must occur) a 
 Band of Hope, out of which the ranks of the wise and good 
 and happy may reasonably be expected to receive many 
 recruits, and some of whom may not improbably be destined 
 to take their places among the benefactors of mankind. 
 
 It has been the habit of the elders in every generation 
 to regard with anxiety the changes of opinions, manners, and 
 institutions going on around them ; while the juniors more 
 generally throw themselves with sanguine confidence into 
 the forward movement of their time, whatever it may be. 
 I suppose this to happen by a natural law, each temper 
 supplying the proper corrective of the other ; and the result 
 being that in ordinary times progress is made, not rapidly, 
 but safely. I have no sympathy with those who say 
 
 Aetas parentum, pejor avis, tulit 
 
 Nos nequiores ; mox daturos 
 
 Progeniem vitiosiorem. 
 
 Without disparaging what was good in former times, and 
 certainly without supposing that none of the present genera- 
 tion have fallen short of their fathers, I believe the truth, 
 on the whole, to be in the opposite direction. I think it is 
 reasonable to hope (as it is certainly natural to desire), that 
 our children may be better, very much better, than ourselves. 
 Much depends upon them. The movement of our time is,
 
 LORD SELBORNE 239 
 
 beyond all doubt, going on at an accelerated rate, as compared 
 with that of former ages ; and a greater or less degree of 
 wisdom and virtue in the new generation, to some of whom 
 I am now speaking, may make all the difference between a 
 balance of good and a balance of evil in its consequences to 
 mankind. If, as is probable, there never was a time more 
 stimulating to intellectual activity, it must also follow that 
 there was never more need of a healthy morality, and a sound 
 education, to control and direct it. 
 
 I will imagine to myself a model student, such as some 
 of you doubtless are such as I should wish all of you to be ; 
 and I will endeavour, not so much to interest you by an 
 intellectual exercise, as to speak to you in a practical way, 
 as I might to such a student, if I were bound to him by ties 
 of blood or affection, and thought him likely to attend to 
 my words. 
 
 And first, with respect to that aim and object in life to 
 which all education ought to be relative and subservient. 
 A complaint has, of late, been made, that some of those who 
 profit most by Academical study afterwards find themselves 
 at a loss for a suitable career ; and it has occurred to some 
 that the Universities themselves might provide them with 
 what they want. If, however, the complaint is just, the 
 disease must lie too deep to be cured by any such remedy. 
 Those who are supposed to be so disappointed must have 
 been laying in a stock, not of furniture for their own minds, 
 and strength for their own characters, but of intellectual 
 wares to be disposed of in some market, in which they are 
 found not to be in demand, or not to command the price 
 which their owners set upon them. This is a mercantile 
 speculation ; and there is, no doubt, a necessary and a legiti- 
 mate place for mercantile occupations and the mercantile 
 spirit in human affairs. But the mercantile view of educa- 
 tion is not a very high one ; and those who take it must be 
 content to submit to economical laws. I advise you to look 
 higher. There is nothing truer, even in Scripture, than the 
 saying that " a man's life consisteth not in the abundance 
 of the things which he possesseth." It is a poor ambition
 
 240 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 which cannot do without what the world calls success, or 
 which would be willing always to purchase success on the 
 world's terms. The greatest, noblest, and happiest career 
 to attain as nearly as possible to the perfection, and to do as 
 well as possible the work, of a man is consistent with 
 poverty and obscurity, but is closed against importunate 
 desires. 
 
 It is impossible to promise my model student that, do 
 what he may, even if he had the highest intellectual gifts, he 
 would be a Croesus, or a Chatham, or a Wellington. But I 
 may venture confidently to assure him that, without any 
 extraordinary gifts, it is quite in his power to be George 
 Herbert's " Honest Man." 
 
 Who is the Honest Man 1 
 He that doth still and strongly good pursue, 
 To God, his neighbour, and himself most true ; 
 
 Whom neither force nor fawning can 
 Unpin, or wrench from giving all their due ; 
 
 Whose honesty is not 
 So loose and easy, that a ruffling wind 
 Can blow away, or glittering look it blind ; 
 
 Who rides his sure and even trot 
 While the world now rides by, now lags behind ; 
 
 Who, when great trials come, 
 Nor seeks nor shuns them ; but doth calmly stay 
 Till he the thing and the example weigh ; 
 
 All being brought into a sum, 
 What place or person calls for, he doth pay ; 
 
 Whom none can work or woo 
 To use in anything a trick or sleight ; 
 For above all things he abhors deceit ; 
 
 His words and works and fashion too 
 All of a piece ; and all are clear and straight. 
 
 There is much in common between the thought of this 
 poem and that of another, with which the pupils of my 
 friend, Principal Shairp, can hardly be otherwise than 
 familiar. In spite of that familiarity, they will, I am sure,
 
 LORD SELBORNE 241 
 
 bear with me if I repeat a few more lines, from Words- 
 worth's " Happy Warrior " 
 
 Who is the Happy Warrior ? who is he' 
 That every man in arms should wish to be ? 
 
 It is the man 
 
 Whose high endeavours are an inward light 
 That makes the path before him always bright ; 
 Who, with a natural instinct to discern 
 What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn 
 Abides by this resolve, and stops not there, 
 But makes his moral being his prime care ; 
 
 Who, if he rise to station of command, 
 Rises by open means ; and there will stand 
 On honourable terms, or else retire, 
 And in himself possess his own desire ; 
 Who comprehends his trust, and to the same 
 Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim ; 
 And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait 
 For wealth, or honours, or for worldly state ; 
 Whom they must follow ; on whose head must fall 
 Like showers of manna, if they come at all ; 
 
 Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth 
 For ever, and to noble deeds give birth, 
 Or he must fall to sleep without his fame, 
 And leave a dead, unprofitable name, 
 Finds comfort in himself and in his cause ; 
 And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws 
 His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause : 
 This is the Happy Warrior ; this is he 
 That every man in arms should wish to be. 
 
 I would suggest that it is the first end and object of 
 the best education to build up this sort of character ; that 
 its next office is to teach a man the right use of such of his 
 own faculties as are of the greatest general importance ; and 
 that it should be its crowning work to furnish him, or put 
 him in the way of furnishing himself, with such knowledge 
 as, to a man of such a character, with intellectual powers 
 brought under his command by proper discipline, will be 
 
 16
 
 242 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 practically useful in whatever may be his walk of life. 
 And it is important that this subordination of means to ends 
 should be observed. It is liable to be disturbed when the 
 intellectual is in advance of the moral development ; and 
 also when the superstructure of knowledge is substituted 
 for, or preferred to, the foundation. There is, in our times, 
 a tendency to both these kinds of disturbance ; to the first, 
 from the unsettling effect of speculations adverse to those 
 influences by which the lower appetites are chiefly kept in 
 check; to the second, from the increasing demand for such 
 instruction as is supposed to be directly, rather than in- 
 directly, useful. 
 
 What do I mean, when I speak of the intellectual as in 
 advance of the moral development ? One part of my mean- 
 ing is so plain, that I should hardly dwell upon it, except 
 as an introduction to what may not be quite so obvious. 
 Every right-minded father who loves his son would say, 
 I wish my boy to obtain (if he can) prizes and distinctions 
 at school, at college, in the world ; I shall be proud of him 
 if he surpasses others in ability and attainment ; but I value 
 his purity and uprightness far above all these things ; I 
 would rather that he should remain all his life in obscurity, 
 than " gain the whole world, and lose his own soul." Love 
 judges by a truer and higher standard than ambition ; and I 
 should not wish to refer you to any standard lower than the 
 truest and the highest. But even ambition, if not a very 
 ignoble one indeed, cannot afford to disregard the supremacy 
 of the moral sense. As Demosthenes called " action " not 
 only the first, but the second and the third requisite of an 
 orator, so, if I were asked what I thought the first, the second, 
 and the third requisite of a successful and noble life, I should 
 say, and I should reiterate, " a good conscience." There is 
 no lever like this to overcome the difficulties of life ; no 
 power greater than the simple, straightforward, unselfish 
 energy which it gives ; no drawback and dead- weight, even 
 upon what to outside observers may seem a successful career 
 comparable with the loss of it. And those who contract bad 
 habits in their youth can never be the same men afterwards
 
 LORD SELBORNE 243 
 
 as if they had not done so. They may recover themselves 
 so far as to escape from total debasement ; they may follow 
 in later life, the calls of honour and virtue ; but they are 
 handicapped in the race, and they would probably be glad 
 to sacrifice any object of worldly desire in order to undo the 
 past, if that were possible. I referred, just now, to Gray's 
 ode On a distant prospect of Eton College ; it sets before 
 young men some very unhappy contingencies of life, which 
 may best be avoided by the early formation of habits of 
 obedience to moral discipline. 
 
 Every one can apply these observations, so far as they 
 relate to gross forms of vice ; and some people speak of 
 morality as if it consisted wholly in abstinence from gross 
 vices. I hope your conception of it is not so narrow. A 
 young man is not really moral unless he is honourable and 
 truthful in act and word, just and considerate towards others 
 of every class, mindful of what is due to his parents and 
 friends, scrupulous about living within his means and not 
 incurring debt ; nor, if he lives in an atmosphere of excite- 
 ment, and wastes in idleness, or in excessive or unsuitable 
 amusements, the time which ought to be spent in study, 
 and the money with which he is entrusted for better 
 purposes. 
 
 It is much to stand right in these things ; but, to the 
 higher class of minds especially, even this is not enough. 
 There are more subtle forms of mischief, resulting from an 
 excess of intellectual activity and ambition, when not 
 balanced by a corresponding moral development. An 
 eminent man, now a Bishop of the Church of England, lias 
 said, that " little hearts and large brains are produced by 
 some forms of education." Taste, imagination, and the love 
 of knowledge, in persons of a cold natural temperament, 
 often acquire such predominance as to exclude, for a time, 
 the ordinary temptations to irregular conduct, and yet may 
 not be accompanied by the positive virtues essential to the 
 formation of a high character. Of such men we occasionally 
 hear it said, that they might be better if they were not so 
 good ; the truth being that they have the form, but not the
 
 244 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 substance, of goodness. Now, there can be no doubt that 
 the conscientious cultivation of the intellect, especially by 
 students in places of learning, is a moral virtue ; it is, in- 
 deed, that virtue to the practice of which students, as such, 
 are particularly called ; and, being so, it is generally in 
 them the index of other virtues. But it ceases to be virtue, 
 and becomes moroseness or self-idolatry, when it is one- 
 sided, and too much absorbs the whole man ; an effect 
 which, though seldom perfectly developed till later life, is (I 
 suppose) always traceable to habits which began in youth. 
 The positiveness of opinion, the neglect of disturbing forces, 
 the demand for ideal perfection everywhere but in them- 
 selves, which in many men disfigure the early developments 
 of thought, but afterwards receive correction from experience, 
 are in these cases hardened and intensified. It is of such 
 stuff as this, when brought by extraordinary occasions into 
 the world of action, that misanthropes, and tyrants, and 
 inquisitors are made. Some notions of philosophers seem 
 to lead in this direction ; such as that of Aristotle when he 
 represents the theoretical or speculative life as the highest 
 form of human excellence ; and the familiar passage of 
 Lucretius, (honey, to use his own figure, upon the lips, but 
 wormwood within), where he dwells upon the pleasure of 
 occupying the high places of human wisdom, and from 
 thence looking down, with a complacency not unmixed with 
 contempt, upon the pursuits and interests of ordinary men. 
 The ordinary man may be excused, if (with Wordsworth) he 
 retaliates upon this sort of philosopher, by describing him as 
 having " neither eyes nor ears," as being " himself his world, 
 and his own God " 
 
 One, to whose smooth-rubbed soul can cling 
 Nor form nor feeling, great or small ; 
 A reasoning, self-sufficing, thing ; 
 An intellectual All-in-all. 
 
 How, then, may those who love knowledge for its own 
 sake guard themselves against this really debasing sort of 
 intellectualism ? Not by relaxing their efforts after self-
 
 LORD SELBORNE 245 
 
 cultivation and the acquisition of knowledge ; but by set- 
 ting before themselves a Christian and not a heathen, a 
 practical and not a fantastic, view of life ; by cherishing 
 and acting upon, large and generous sympathies ; by avoid- 
 ing recluse and unsociable habits ; by endeavouring to see 
 things from the points of view of other men as well as their 
 own ; by learning the lessons of self-restraint, self-sacrifice, 
 modesty in self - judgment ; by enduring superiority in 
 others ; and (in spite of Aristotle) by valuing duty above 
 sentiment, and work above theory. 
 
 With respect to the other way, in which the subordina- 
 tion of means to ends in education is liable to be disturbed 
 the tendency to put the superstructure of knowledge out 
 of its proper place, and to give it precedence over the 
 cultivation and development of those faculties on which its 
 use depends (perhaps I ought rather to say, to treat it as 
 being itself a complete intellectual discipline, without any 
 other foundation), the present generation is undergoing 
 a strong reaction from a former undue neglect of the in- 
 strumental parts of knowledge. And this is dangerous ; 
 because the special prerogatives of youth point , in the 
 opposite direction, and are liable, by this system, to be 
 wasted and thrown away ; and the object itself, of filling 
 the mind with a stock of available knowledge, is really not 
 attainable unless the mind has been properly trained to 
 understand, retain, and apply it. One prerogative of youth 
 consists in the almost mechanical nature of its passive 
 mental operations, undisturbed by any settled contrary 
 currents of thought, will, or habit ; which makes it easily 
 receptive of systematic instruction in those tilings of which 
 no mastery can be obtained without first learning their 
 elements patiently and gradually. Another (the opposite of 
 this, and yet consistent with it), is its fulness of unsophisti- 
 cated feeling and imagination, not yet subdued to measure 
 all things by the standard of experience what Wordsworth 
 calls " the Vision splendid," by which " the youth, who daily 
 further from the East must travel, is on his way attended." 
 These are very great, but they are also " fugitive " powers.
 
 246 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 If wisely impressed into the service of education, they may 
 accomplish very great things; and their neglect at that 
 time can never be repaired. 
 
 These considerations appear to me to have a direct bear- 
 ing upon three particular subjects of study Language, 
 Mathematics, and Poetry ; and to be important also, by way 
 of introduction to a fourth Natural Science. 
 
 I should be sorry if, in these seats of learning, the exact 
 study of Language on the one hand, or the cultivation of 
 poetical taste on the other, should ever come to be valued 
 by the mere measure of their apparent marketable results. 
 When our Pitts and Cannings and Gladstones were at school 
 and at college, these were instruments of education very 
 much relied on ; and extremely powerful instruments in 
 many cases they proved to be. It might have been better, 
 no doubt, if other things which were not then learnt had 
 been added to them ; but it would certainly have been 
 much worse for some men, perhaps for the nation gener- 
 ally, if these things had been neglected or less highly 
 valued. 
 
 You are aware that the system which ascribed so much 
 value to classical studies is now very often called in question, 
 and that some people speak as if the whole result of the 
 time spent on Latin and Greek, when most successfully em- 
 ployed, were the acquisition of two dead languages, and the 
 command of their literature. This is itself no inconsiderable 
 gain ; because that literature includes all the Scriptures of 
 the New Testament, and its secular part presents, within a 
 small compass, more signal and typical examples of force, 
 taste, and correctness of style than can elsewhere be found. 
 I do not propose to enter into that controversy; I will only 
 observe (what you probably know) that, whether the time 
 so employed has or has not been excessive, this estimate of 
 its fruits is certainly imperfect. Of all the uses of such 
 studies the most important is this, that they are a discipline 
 of the faculty of speech ; they give a mastery of the art of 
 language, as the vehicle of thought and reason; or, in other 
 words, they give the power of quickly and accurately
 
 LORD SELBORNE 24^ 
 
 expressing what we ourselves mean, and understanding what 
 is meant by others, in speaking, reading, and writing. 
 Though taught by methods which cannot be described as 
 scientific, this knowledge really partakes of a scientific 
 character ; and, when gained in the terms of one language, 
 it may readily be applied to others. I am far from saying 
 that it might not be gained by the study of one or more 
 living languages upon a like exact and patient method. 
 But modern languages are seldom, if ever, so taught ; and 
 the Greek and Latin tongues, with their intricate structure, 
 and full and clear exhibition of the various modifications of 
 which the forms of thought are susceptible, are peculiarly fit 
 to exemplify the general laws of language. 
 
 When we consider how the relation of words to thought 
 lies at the root of logic and all other sciences, of all our 
 means of acquiring, using, and communicating knowledge, of 
 acting upon and influencing the minds of others, both in 
 private and in public, it can hardly be too much to say, 
 that the science of language is the most architectonic of all 
 those, which the docility of the passive faculties of the young 
 makes proper subjects for school and college instruction. 
 And it may safely be added, as to men in general, that if its 
 elements are not mastered then, they will hardly ever be so well 
 mastered afterwards. There is a time for all things ; a time 
 for laying foundations, and a time for building upon them. 
 A mason, who raises a building without a sufficient founda- 
 tion, may sometimes secure it afterwards by " under-pinning." 
 But intellectual under-pinning is a difficult process, when 
 the mind has received a certain set of impulses and im- 
 pressions, and has been launched, with the habits so formed, 
 upon the business of life. The patience and self-denial, 
 necessary for making good lost ground, under such circum- 
 stances, is a very rare gift; and the time and appliances in- 
 dispensable for it are seldom at command. I do not, of 
 course, differ from those who deprecate the fruitless labour 
 of attempting to force the study of Greek or Latin upon 
 minds not receptive of them, to the neglect of other things 
 suitable to their capacities. But to such as are intellectu-
 
 248 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 ally more fortunate, and have time and opportunity for their 
 acquisition, I would represent the neglect or depreciation of 
 the classical languages as certainly a mistake ; I doubt 
 whether, to them, any other branch of the studies of boyhood 
 and youth can be more permanently or more practically 
 useful. It must not, however, be supposed, because I thus 
 speak, that I undervalue modern languages, especially German 
 and French. Their study ought to be facilitated by a 
 thorough training in Latin and Greek, and should be con- 
 sidered its necessary complement ; and to those who, for 
 whatever reason, are obliged to forego such a training, this 
 will be found the best substitute. French now fills the 
 place formerly held by Latin, as the universal medium of 
 intercourse, by speech and writing, with foreign nations : an 
 intercourse of constantly increasing importance, in almost 
 every department of the business of life. The acquisition 
 therefore of French ought now to be considered as indispens- 
 able to an educated man as that of Latin was in the Middle 
 Ages. The want of it, when it has been neglected, is felt 
 as a serious drawback by every one to whom success brings 
 opportunities of meeting and associating with distinguished 
 men of other countries, whether his line be mercantile, 
 literary, scientific, legal, or political. I do not think there 
 is any other mistake in early education of which such a 
 man will be more frequently or more disagreeably reminded, 
 or for which he will be more disposed to blame those who 
 directed the studies of his youth. 
 
 Mathematics are not in any danger of being undervalued 
 in these times. Their practical utility, when measured by 
 definite and marketable results, is well understood. As in 
 the case of the classical languages, so in that of Mathematics, 
 there are some (I must confess myself to be one) to whom 
 the gift of acquiring them seems to have been denied by 
 nature. The loss is great; for this is another architectonic 
 science, one of the master-keys of knowledge. The acquisi- 
 tion of its elements is a discipline of abstract reason, which, if 
 to most young persons (and especially to those of active 
 imagination or volatile temper) it is austere and repulsive,
 
 LORD SELBORNE 249 
 
 needs so much the more on that account to be undertaken 
 before the passive faculties lose their pliancy. 
 
 The value of Mathematical knowledge cannot be 
 exaggerated ; but it is important to remember its limits. 
 It is the measure of form, number, time, and space; of 
 things sensible, and of those laws of thought which define 
 our conceptions of them. It is the necessary foundation of 
 most, if not all, of what is comprehended under the name 
 of Natural Science. But of moral evidence and moral 
 truth it is no measure at all. Its completeness and absolute 
 sufficiency within its proper limits seems to have the effect 
 of making some men its slaves, and not its masters ; as if 
 there could be no ground for believing anything which is 
 neither directly perceived by the senses nor capable of being 
 absolutely demonstrated. While, therefore, an education in 
 which Mathematics are neglected is one-sided and imperfect, 
 one in which they are too exclusive and predominant may 
 possibly be more imperfect still, unless the mind is of less 
 consequence than its instruments. 
 
 To pass from Mathematics to Poetry may seem like 
 going from one pole to its opposite. Poetry is conversant 
 with those faculties fancy, imagination, the sense of beauty, 
 the moral sentiments, the higher aspirations of humanity 
 with which Mathematical Science has least to do. Just as 
 boyhood is the season in which the passive faculties, necessary 
 for the acquisition of the elements of language and of 
 Mathematics, are most tractable ; so the active faculties, with 
 which Poetry is conversant, are strongest and simplest in 
 youth, and have then a vantage-ground, of which the later 
 experience of life tends in many ways to deprive them. 
 They accompany, and often play an important part in, the 
 awakening of the mind to a consciousness of its own strength 
 and powers, both of work and of enjoyment. They come 
 upon it with the force of new discoveries, new treasures of 
 intellectual activity and life. They quicken all its percep- 
 tions, and, in the first burst of their spring-time, they are 
 natural and honest, even if not always deep or accurate. I can- 
 not but think that it is a thing of great moment to encourage,
 
 250 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 cultivate, guide, and develop them ; so as to counteract the 
 narrowing tendencies of a too exclusive devotion to exact 
 science, and to produce a generally healthy and well-balanced 
 tone of mind. 
 
 Poetry may be made an instrument of education, partly 
 by exercises in composition and criticism, but chiefly by the 
 wise direction of poetical reading. There have been few 
 more successful teachers than some, who, though not tech- 
 nically first-rate scholars, had the gift of infusing into the 
 minds of their pupils a love for the works of great poets. 
 Nor am I sure that, in any other way, a foundation can 
 so well be laid even for historical and philosophical studies, 
 of which, though they may be begun at college, the serious 
 prosecution must belong to after life. There can be no 
 greater mistake than to regard poetry merely as word-music 
 and word-painting, a fine art, an exercise in the beautiful, a 
 sport of fancy, a luxury of the intellect. All this it is ; but 
 it could not be this, unless it were also more. The elements 
 of the beautiful, the materials of fancy, must have their 
 bases in Truth. The great poets of the world are certainly 
 among its greatest and its wisest men ; perhaps no other 
 men have exercised so wide or so permanent an influence and 
 power. To get into real sympathy with their minds is to 
 approach very near to the innermost sanctuaries of humanity. 
 
 I may be excused for repeating here (because I am still 
 persuaded of their truth) words which I used twenty-six 
 years ago, in a lecture upon the connection of Poetry with 
 History. 
 
 " The Poet is ' Nature's Priest ' ; he recognises and 
 glorifies wisdom and beauty, both in their common and in 
 their more exalted forms. It is his office to speak the 
 intelligible language of universal humanity ; to collect the 
 finest and most volatile essence of the thoughts, the emotions, 
 and the aspirations of his time, and to add it for ever to the 
 common intellectual stock of mankind. His writings are a 
 storehouse of popular philosophy ; by his art the sayings of 
 genius pass as proverbs into the mouths of the people : he 
 is the "lass and mirror, in which are to be seen those of the
 
 LORD SELBORNE 251 
 
 accepted truths, the ruling ideas, the prospects and retro- 
 spects of his age, which upon his own mind had most 
 power, not analysed or exhibited in any abstract form, but 
 as he was himself actuated by them; as the moral atmos- 
 phere, the medium of sight, through which he contemplated 
 tilings present, past, and to come. Tor the Poet is a Eepre- 
 sentative Man : the exponent of whatever he feels as 
 beautiful, and worthy on that account to be immortal, in 
 the peculiar spirit and distinctive character of his own time. 
 Sometimes he may appear to precede, sometimes to follow, a 
 course of events which constitutes the external manifestation 
 of the same spirit : he may be among the first touched by a 
 fire which is afterwards to light up the world, or it may 
 mount in his soul into a dying blaze, after it has spent its 
 force and is elsewhere well-nigh extinguished. But the 
 power which moves him and his fellowmen is the same ; 
 and the voice which he utters finds its echo, if not in the 
 general heart of his country, at least in the hearts of many of 
 his contemporaries." 
 
 I have, so far, given reasons for thinking that poetical 
 studies are a good balance for the abstract sciences, % and a 
 good introduction to History and Philosophy. I will now 
 speak of Natural Science, with the subject-matter of which 
 Poetry, as well as Philosophy, has much to do, and which 
 in all times, and not least in our own, has influenced the 
 course of the world's history in many wonderful ways. The 
 transition is easy from Poetry to Nature ; from the love of 
 Nature to the study of it ; and from the study of Nature to 
 the highest questions on which the human mind can be 
 engaged. 
 
 The title of Natural Science to a prominent and 
 honoured place in any worthy course of Academical study 
 is now universally recognised. Associating itself with, and 
 colouring (as it does) other branches of philosophy, its great 
 practical importance and growing popularity call for careful 
 discrimination between those processes and results which 
 ure truly scientific, and speculations which may pass current 
 under that name without having a real claim to it. It is
 
 252 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 inevitable that such speculations should often deviate from 
 the proper field of experiment and observation into regions 
 where experiment and observation are impossible. It may 
 not therefore be out of place to suggest some cautions, with 
 which inquiries of this nature, especially when entered upon 
 by the young, should be pursued. 
 
 If it is right, in following the track of scientific investi- 
 gation, to put aside all mere prejudices which may stand in 
 the way of the honest reception of evidence it is also right 
 to be watchful against the inroad of other prepossessions, of an 
 opposite kind. Every paradoxical or destructive philosophy 
 has attractions for some minds, from sympathy with the 
 courage which faces the consequences (often inconvenient, 
 sometimes dangerous) of hostility to received beliefs. It is, 
 however, obvious that such an attraction may be unfavour- 
 able to the distinction which ought always to be made, 
 between a polemical temper, and one reverent and loyal 
 towards Truth. It is easier to go straight round the com- 
 pass from optimism to pessimism, from fanaticism to irre- 
 ligion, from belief on one authority to disbelief on another 
 than to observe moderation, and balance evidence. Truth 
 (which is the one thing to be cared for) will no doubt in 
 the end prevail. But it does not prevail with every man. 
 Shipwreck may easily be suffered in the search for it, if it is 
 undertaken in an impatient spirit. With minds off their 
 balance, inconclusive arguments, confidently presented and 
 reiterated, very easily pass for proofs. The history of human 
 thought is full of baseless speculations, which nevertheless 
 in their day attracted crowds of enthusiastic disciples. 
 " There is often a virulent contagion " (I use Professor 
 Tyndall's words) " in a confident tone : and this hardihood 
 of argumentative assertion is sure to influence minds swayed, 
 not by knowledge, but by authority." The pliancy of young 
 and the levity of indolent minds ; the eagerness of some for 
 emancipation from fetters of every kind, even from the laws 
 of liberty and reason ; the interest of novelty ; the authority 
 acquired by leaders in every movement, and the not always 
 tolerant use which they make of it ; the mutual admiration,
 
 LORD SELBORNE 253 
 
 from which scientific circles are not exempt ; the multi- 
 plication of voices, which even when they are but echoes of 
 each other sound like cumulative evidence ; all these 
 influences surround the region of discovery with an artificial 
 atmosphere, and make the discrimination between true 
 discovery and its counterfeits difficult. Nothing can be 
 more natural, nothing more right, than that young men 
 should look up with affectionate veneration to their teachers; 
 yet even this generous feeling may often undermine that 
 strength and independence of judgment, which is necessary 
 to " prove all things," and to " hold fast that which is good." 
 We see this exemplified in the history of religious sects and 
 parties. Multitudes of men make for themselves Popes, 
 not ascribing to them infallibility, but following them quite 
 as blindly as if they were infallible. Scepticism, as well as 
 Eeligion, has its dogmatists, its sectaries and zealots, even 
 its idolaters ; and unlearned and occupied men, in 
 scientific as well as other departments of thought, must 
 inevitably take upon trust many things which they cannot 
 verify for themselves. 
 
 There are, however, some principles, by which* even 
 those who cannot enter deeply into such subjects may be 
 helped to discern between facts and theories, between true 
 and false lights. 
 
 In many cases, the line may be drawn by simply keep- 
 ing in view the laws of logic and evidence. In a great 
 political and judicial Assembly to which I have the honour 
 to belong it sometimes happens that there is an equality of 
 voices for, and against, a proposition, to reverse a prior judg- 
 ment, or to change an existing law. In such cases, the 
 maxim which there prevails is Semper prccsumitur pro 
 negante ; the presumption, until proof to the contrary, is in 
 favour, not of the new but of the old opinion. The 
 principle of this rule is founded in very good sense, and it is 
 capable of wide application. The world could not go on, 
 unless some prima facie credit were given to beliefs, which 
 represent the present results of the past experience of men. 
 A belief may no doubt be general, and yet erroneous.
 
 254 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 There is no want of instances of such errors, known to all 
 of us. But, in all such cases, the burden of proof ought to 
 be kept in mind ; and the proof, when it professes to be 
 scientific, should be strictly required. 
 
 In this subject-matter the test of truth is experiment ; 
 and every theory which goes beyond the limits of experi- 
 ment, or of just logical deduction from it, is incapable of 
 verification, and at best can belong only to the region of 
 probable truth. It may, or it may not, furnish convenient 
 symbols for particular mental operations ; it may, with 
 greater or less plausibility, seek to measure, from the 
 standing-point of our actual knowledge, the past or future 
 possibilities of the Universe. But what is material to 
 observe is, that when it makes these attempts it passes 
 beyond the bounds of Science, properly so called. The 
 cosmogonies of natural philosophers such, for example, as 
 the theories that all the variety of substances now existing 
 in this world, or which may exist elsewhere in space, are 
 derived from the concourse and self-arrangement of homo- 
 geneous, or heterogeneous Atoms ; that the visible universe 
 has been gradually formed by the mutual attraction of 
 molecules of " world-dust," or " star-dust," infinitely diffused ; 
 that the differences of species and organism in all kinds of 
 plants and animals, are due to what is called " evolution," 
 may to some minds seem reasonable, to others (possibly) the 
 reverse. What I am bold enough to dispute altogether is 
 their title to be called scientific. Largely as they are con- 
 versant with, much as they profess to build upon, some of 
 the facts of scientific observation, they receive no support 
 from anything which deserves the name of evidence. They 
 make (so it seems to me) as large a demand on faith with- 
 out experience, on " the evidence of things not seen," as is 
 made by any doctrines of Theology. 
 
 The inductive Logic, with which this class of inquiries 
 is concerned, must always depend for its cogency upon the 
 extent and accessibility of the field of observation, and the 
 exactness, completeness, and relevancy of the observations 
 made within that field. The presence of any unknown or
 
 LORD SELBORNE 255 
 
 misunderstood factor may vitiate the whole process. Induc- 
 tion from scanty or indirect materials, or from the imperfect 
 observation of materials imperfectly known, when it cannot 
 be verified by experiment, must necessarily be speculative 
 and precarious. 
 
 It should, therefore, be a first principle in all such 
 inquiries, to begin with a right conception of what Natural 
 Science can, and what it cannot do. It can collect, classify, 
 and compare phenomena ; it can note their succession and 
 order ; it can decompose the subjects of sense into some of 
 their elements, and can trace those elements through many 
 permutations and combinations of substance and form ; it 
 can to some extent measure, excite, and make use of the 
 mechanical, chemical, and other forces on which their 
 structure, arrangement, growth, and other changes depend. 
 To all these things it can give names, convenient as signs 
 and symbols. But what the things, so observed and so 
 named, are in themselves what matter is, what force is, no 
 philosopher can tell us. When we have measured the dis- 
 tances and weighed the masses of all the heavenly bodies, 
 when we have tested by the spectroscope the materials ef the 
 sun and stars, we are still on the outside of things. If we 
 sometimes seem to penetrate beneath the surface, it is only like 
 children who unpack nests of Chinese boxes, or peel off the 
 coats of a bulb. In words for which I am indebted to my 
 friend and your Chancellor, (himself no mean philosopher), the 
 Duke of Argyll, " Every advance has its new horizon ; every 
 answered question brings into view another question, un- 
 answered and perhaps unanswerable, lying close behind it." 
 And, as it is only through impressions made upon our 
 inward consciousness that we are brought into sensible con- 
 tact with any part of this wonderful world, so it is only 
 through the judgment of the same consciousness that 
 we understand the impressions thus made upon us to be 
 faithful, and trust to them as conveying a true knowledge 
 of realities external to ourselves. Matter without mind 
 would be to us nothing ; it is through mind only that 
 matter is perceived.
 
 256 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 As Science cannot tell us anything of the essential 
 nature, so neither can it inform us of the ultimate cause of 
 any of these things. Every moment's experience, and all 
 the results of investigation, concur to show that everything 
 in the world has not been from all eternity exactly as it is 
 now ; that there are causes and effects a series of changes 
 depending on laws, or on some law, of causation. Science 
 may trace, link after link upwards, some small part of the 
 chain which thus hangs down from Infinity ; but how that 
 chain came into existence, what began and what sustains it 
 on these points Science is, and must continue to be, 
 silent. The atomic, or world-dust cosmogony is not more 
 satisfactory, or more intelligible, as an explanation of -our- 
 selves, and of all the varieties of Being Form and Force, 
 which we see around us, than the Chaos of the ancients. 
 The question, " And Chaos whence ? " still inevitably recurs. 
 
 The speculations of natural philosophers, even after their 
 boldest flights, fail ' to throw the faintest ray of light upon 
 the transition from inorganic matter to vegetable life, upon 
 animal life, consciousness, and instinct, upon reason and 
 the moral sense in man. Are these realities, or not ? Do 
 they, or do they not, belong to a higher system, to a greater 
 world, than that of Physics, Mechanics, and Chemistry ? 
 No analysis of the material structures with which they are 
 connected has any tendency to explain how they came to be, 
 or why they differ as they do. All the suns and planets of 
 the universe, supposing them to be without life or reason, 
 would be but multiples of the things, over winch Eeason reigns 
 of those particles of dead matter which man cannot but 
 believe to be immeasurably below himself. How can any 
 theory of existence be sufficient and satisfactory, which has 
 nothing to tell us about this higher order of facts which 
 confesses itself blind and impotent in its presence ? What- 
 ever else is credible, this at least can never be believed, 
 that man's Moral Nature tells him a false tale ; that all Ids 
 sense of freedom and power, all his self - knowledge, self- 
 criticism, discernment between good and evil, is a kaleido- 
 scope of the brain, a phantasmagoria of illusions. Many
 
 LORD SELBORNE 257 
 
 poisonous vapours may float in the social atmosphere; but 
 none, surely, can be worse than that which would suggest 
 doubt or disbelief of everything which cannot be tasted, 
 handled, or seen. It is disbelief not in God only, but in 
 Man. Not in the sphere of Eeligion only, but in those of 
 Morals and Politics, it leaves our human life without rudder, 
 chart, or compass. Epicureanism was the philosophy of 
 Imperial Rome ; to modern materialism, the will of those 
 who have power is the sole ground of the obligation of law. 
 Epicureanism in the higher, and Socialism in the lower 
 regions of thought, are still as they have always been the 
 natural products of this system. 
 
 Here it is that Eeligion comes in. I will not trespass at 
 all upon the proper province of the teachers of Eeligion ; 
 but to be silent as to the keystone of the arch of human 
 knowledge and virtue is not possible. Morality, which is 
 the conscience of Eeason ; Language, which is discourse of 
 Eeason ; Mathematics the infallible Law, Poetry the 
 Creative spirit, and Natural Science the experimental 
 Eecord of Eeason all point to this. Eeligion har- 
 monises the inward world of life and consciousness with the 
 outward world of sense, ascribing all to one great Cause ; 
 which, if our knowledge of it is but as a tangent to Infinity, 
 still realises the highest conceptions and aspirations which 
 man can form, impersonating the supremacy of perfect 
 Eeason. In a moral and intelligent Author of the Universe, 
 of absolute power, wisdom, and goodness, Eeason finds the 
 explanation and the archetype of itself, nowhere else 
 discoverable. Infinity and eternal Self-existence are tran- 
 scendent Eealities, which it is impossible to understand, 
 but in which, under one hypothesis or another, belief is 
 absolutely unavoidable. The alternative is between intelli- 
 gent and unintelligent Self-existence. If it is against 
 nature to persuade a man that he is not superior to a piece 
 of iron or a stone, not less evident, as it seems to me, is the 
 superior reasonableness of an account of the origin of all 
 things which makes them emanate from, and depend upon 
 supreme and perfect Eeason over one which derives every - 
 
 17
 
 258 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 thing from developments, supposed to be spontaneous, of 
 brute inorganic matter of matter, supposed to be governed 
 by laws and yet to be without a lawgiver. The more we 
 dissect, analyse, decompose, the more mastery we obtain 
 over the elements of matter, the more irresistible (to 
 my mind at least) becomes the conviction that there is a 
 higher and greater Power behind them. Those who 
 recognise the idea of " Force " as necessary to be added to 
 the idea of matter, in order to account for the existence 
 and the known conditions of the Universe, bear testimony 
 to this truth, though they fail to explain it. To me (I 
 trust to my hearers also) the presence of that Power is a 
 revelation of God. It was Lord Bacon who said : " I had 
 rather believe all the fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, 
 and the Al-koran, than that this universal frame is without 
 a mind." And he added : " It is true that a little philo- 
 sophy inclineth man's mind to atheism; but depth in 
 philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion. For 
 while the mind of man looketh upon second causes 
 scattered, it may sometimes rest in them, and go no farther ; 
 but when it beholdeth the chain of them confederate and 
 linked together, it must needs fly to Providence and Deity." 
 Nature leads men who know no Revelation viam palantes 
 qucerere vitce ; to seek the Unknown, by " feeling after 
 Him, if haply they may find Him." That cannot be true 
 Science which on this the most important of all subjects 
 would lead those, who believe that they have found Him, 
 back to blank ignorance, and teach them to " care for none 
 of these things." 
 
 You will hear, nevertheless, from some who think 
 themselves wise, that these things are " unknowable." A 
 dogma which denies the possibility of the knowledge, seems 
 to me to deny also the possibility of the being, of God. It 
 is implied in any reasonable conception of the Author of 
 the Universe, that He is " not far from every one of us." 
 It cannot, on that supposition, be unreasonable to believe 
 that the same law of human nature which enables us to 
 acquire other knowledge, may, from a contact real, though
 
 LORD SELBORNE 259 
 
 not visible, enable us to acquire some knowledge of Him 
 also. His means of making Himself known to his intelli- 
 gent creatures must be as boundless as his presence and 
 power. All human knowledge is partial, determined by the 
 conditions of contact between our nature and that which is 
 external to us ; reaching our minds, as a rule, indirectly ; 
 and always coloured by the media through which it comes. 
 With respect to our knowledge of our fellow-men, even of 
 those whom we know best, it has been truly said by John 
 Henry Newman, that " we see them, and they act upon us, 
 only, as it were, at a distance, through the medium of 
 sense : they cannot get at our souls " ; and by Keble, that 
 
 Each in his hidden sphere, of joy or woe, 
 Our hermit spirits dwell, and range apart. 
 
 Nevertheless, with all this incompleteness, and in some 
 sense inaccessibility, no knowledge can be more real, more 
 precious, or more necessary for the conduct of life, than 
 that which we have of each other's minds. On natural prin- 
 ciples, what is not an objection to the lower cannot be an 
 objection to the higher knowledge. And what is the evi- 
 dence of facts ? That faith in God is a real power in the 
 world, by which the lives and characters of multitudes of 
 men and women have been, and are being continually 
 formed, and that such men and such women have been and 
 are "the salt of the earth," are facts which cannot be 
 denied. Everybody knows examples of them ; and what 
 is in this respect our own experience, has also been the 
 experience of ages. There is no other kind of knowledge, 
 the truth of which is attested, in the same manner and 
 degree as this, by its moral fruits. 
 
 To those of you who may wish to see the natural argu- 
 ment for religion presented in a form as nearly as possible- 
 scientific, and afterwards to compare its results with the 
 main doctrines of Revelation (with reference to some of the 
 objections urged against it by opponents), no better advice 
 can be given than that which you would probably receive 
 from your instructors in this place namely, to make your-
 
 260 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 selves thoroughly masters of two of the best known and most 
 excellent books in our language, Paley's Natural Theology, 
 and Butler's Analogy works which can never be out of 
 date ; and which, though extremely different in style, are 
 in this respect alike, that in both of them everything is to 
 the purpose, without any mixture of sophistry or rhetoric. 
 Only it should be remembered, that such works, to be 
 understood, must be approached in a reasonable and patient 
 temper. They are not written for those who know no 
 difficulties, nor for those who will accept no solution of 
 any difficulty so long as they can point to others which 
 remain unsolved : which, under any conceivable hypothesis, 
 must always be the case. It may, perhaps, not be super- 
 fluous to add, that most of the writers who in the present 
 day assail Christianity seem also to set aside Natural 
 Eeligion, as depending upon evidence of a kind not admitted 
 by their systems. Indeed, the attack is now very often 
 directed against Paley's argument, rather than against that 
 of Butler. This school of thought, so far as relates to the 
 moral and spiritual world, is simply destructive. 
 
 Gentlemen, I have spoken long enough. I have said 
 what, in one shape or another, most of you, probably, have 
 heard or read, perhaps, often before. There are, however, 
 some truths, which it is more natural for one who feels 
 their importance to seek to impress, even upon those who 
 may know them already, than to strive after novelties on 
 an occasion like this. To the younger of you, part of what 
 I have said may not as yet seem so practical as I could 
 wish it to be ; but perhaps at some future time it may 
 become so. If, now or hereafter, any part of it should 
 prove useful to any of my hearers, my object will have 
 been gained. 
 
 In the hope, gentlemen, that, both during my tenure of 
 office, and afterwards, you will do your best to support the 
 honour and credit of this University, I bid you farewell.
 
 SIR THEODORE MARTIN 
 
 Rector from 1880 to 1883 
 Address delivered on November 21, 1881
 
 SIR THEODORE MARTIN 
 
 Gentlemen As you make your way through life, you will 
 probably find that very many of the things that give you 
 most pleasure, that sometimes even bring you much per- 
 manent happiness, are things to which you have not only 
 not looked forward, but which have come upon you with 
 all the suddenness of surprise. To reach the goal of some 
 cherished ambition does not always bring the satisfaction 
 we have hoped for. Success may come too late, or it may 
 be bought at too dear an expenditure of energy or of health. 
 But if the aim has been worthy, and worthily pursued, the 
 years of strenuous and well calculated effort which have 
 been directed to attain it will surely be cheered by signs, 
 from unexpected quarters, that your work has not been in 
 vain ; that you have made friends where you looked for 
 none ; that in some way unknown to, nay, undreamed of 
 by yourself, you have created in others that sympathetic 
 interest which is at once the most precious reward for 
 labours past, and the strongest incitement to future en- 
 deavour. 
 
 In my own person, gentlemen, 1 have often had 
 occasion to acknowledge the truth of what I have just said, 
 but never more than in the circumstance to which T owe 
 the honour of now addressing you from this place. When a 
 student like yourselves, I had my ambitious dreams. What 
 they were it would be hard for me now to recall, when the 
 current of my life has run in channels far different from 
 what I then, anticipated, and better things have befallen me 
 than I could even have imagined. But if such an aspira-
 
 264 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 tion could then have entered my head as possible, nothing 
 could have kindled a warmer thrill within my heart, than 
 the thought that I should some day be elected as their 
 Eector spontaneously and cordially as I have been by 
 such a body of my young countrymen as yourselves. As 
 it would have been then, so is it now. I heard of the 
 intention to nominate me for that honourable distinction 
 with a pleased surprise, for it told me what I had never 
 dreamed that the younger spirits of my dear native land 
 thought that I had done something, in my day and genera- 
 tion, not unworthy of their race. When I learned that I 
 had been chosen, in competition with a rival whose pre- 
 eminence in the studies he has made his own none can 
 recognise more frankly than myself, my pleasure was 
 mingled with pride, to find that I had so many unknown 
 friends, among the young and ardent who were being trained 
 as I had myself been trained, and who were equipping them- 
 selves to fight the battle of life upon the same lines upon 
 which I had myself fought it. 
 
 But, gentlemen, my pride was mingled with a strong 
 feeling of my own unworthiness to occupy a place which 
 has been filled by men of gifts so varied and distinguished. 
 Believe me, I say this in no spirit of false humility. To 
 learn, not to teach, has always been the attitude of my 
 life ; and to more than one of these men I have long been 
 accustomed to look up with gratitude, for instruction and 
 for guidance. I have had the happiness of knowing some 
 of them as friends, of taking sweet counsel with them in 
 their homes as well as in their books. Nor will you think 
 it out of place if I say here, that among the many gratify- 
 ing circumstances associated with my election as your 
 Rector, not the least is the remembrance that the very first 
 to offer me congratulation was one whose name will always, 
 I am sure, be held in high honour in this University, but 
 whose voice, alas ! it will no more hear, the late Dean of 
 Westminster. Yes, we shall hear his voice no more, and 
 how great is that loss to those who knew and loved him, 
 it would be difficult to estimate ; but the large generous
 
 SIR THEODORE MARTIN 265 
 
 soul, that gave a charm to the tine lines of that expressive 
 mouth, and spoke in the eager penetrating kindly glance of 
 those sympathetic eyes, lives on in his books. It lives, 
 too, in the influence which his spirit and character wrought 
 upon those among whom lie moved and worked, and through 
 them will carry on the great purpose of his life, to break 
 down the futile distinctions which separate men into schools 
 and sects and parties, and to bind them together in the ties 
 of Christian brotherhood, as befits us short-lived " travellers 
 between life and death," the children of a common Father, 
 the wayfarers towards a common goal. 
 
 Coming after such men as Arthur Stanley, as Froude, as 
 John Stuart Mill, men whose lives have been devoted to 
 the study of history, of human progress, of the great questions 
 that bear upon the welfare of men here and hereafter, 
 how can I hope to engage your attention, or to say anything 
 that you will regard as a word in season ? A crowded life 
 of hard professional work has left me little leisure for 
 
 The search of deep philosophy, 
 Wit, eloquence, and poetry. 
 
 I have been well content if only I might " enjoy the 
 things which others understand," and the longer I live the 
 more do I incline to the silence of the humble student ; 
 growing, as I do, every day more and more conscious of the 
 perplexities which, in these days of change and restless 
 inquiry, surround nearly every question that concerns the 
 social and political wellbeing of our race. I cannot there- 
 fore hope to say anything very new to you ; or rather, I 
 should" say, to put any old truths for all great truths 
 are old before you in a new and striking way. But I 
 am sure you will bear with what I may have to say, for 
 the sake of the sincerity and goodwill with which it is 
 offered. 
 
 Gentlemen, it seems to me that never at any period of 
 our country's history was it more necessary that young men, 
 on entering into the active life for which you are now 
 preparing, should bring with them not only a clear conception
 
 266 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 of what they mean to aim at there, but also minds and 
 bodies well prepared for the career, whatever it may be, 
 into which they may be thrown. Every profession, every 
 vocation, is crowded to excess, and as the population goes 
 on augmenting, the struggle for subsistence becomes daily 
 harder and harder ; the competition for employment grows 
 keener and keener ; the standard of attainment in knowledge 
 and practical skill becomes higher and higher, the strain 
 upon the physical strength more severe. This being so, it 
 becomes more than ever essential that a young man shall 
 bring into the field the mens sana in corpore sano, a 
 sound constitution both of mind and body, a brain that has 
 been taught to observe and to think, a moral nature dis- 
 ciplined to labour and to self-denial, with nerve to face 
 difficulty, and not to be daunted by disappointment, or even 
 by failure, and with health to support fatigue and to profit 
 by success. To achieve these results in the degree and 
 manner suitable to the various spheres of life is, I presume, 
 the purpose of all education that deserves the name. But 
 it is in an especial degree that of the class to which you 
 belong. 
 
 Our Scottish forefathers had very clear ideas on this 
 subject. They took care that every child learned, both at 
 home and in the parish school, that he could not do his 
 duty to God or man unless he lived an honest, sober, 
 truthful, simple life, making the best that circumstances 
 would permit of the faculties and opportunities God had 
 given him, earning the bread that he ate, and thinking it 
 the worst of shames not to secure his own independence, 
 and that of those who had to lean upon him, by the labour 
 of his brain and hands. That simple, noble creed were 
 ill exchanged for the superficial accomplishments which 
 now-a-days pass in many quarters for education. It made our 
 country what it was, the home and stronghold of civil and 
 religious freedom ; it triumphed over the disadvantages of 
 a rigorous climate and barren soil ; it sent out our young 
 men to all parts of the world, to be the pioneers of industry 
 and improvement, to earn honourable rewards in fame and
 
 SIR THEODORE MARTIN 267 
 
 fortune, and to make the blood of a Scotchman widely 
 recognised as in some measure a guarantee for integrity, for 
 courage, intelligence, and perseverance. 
 
 In that old system which had for its main object to 
 mould and weld the character of the people into uprightness 
 and self-reliance, book learning was not overlooked. But 
 as that was not to be acquired without special gifts, or the 
 leisure of which those who have to do the rough everyday 
 work of the world have of necessity little, no attempt was 
 made to make it general. At the same time, however, every 
 fair encouragement was given to those whose genius irresist- 
 ibly impelled them to a life of study and research, or to 
 seek a career in what are called the learned professions. 
 There, too, the system had its triumphs ; for it not only 
 bred good preachers, lawyers, and doctors, but also turned 
 out scholars, philosophers, and men of science, who, pursuing 
 knowledge generally under difficulties, which put their 
 enthusiasm to the severest test, and who, having to make 
 sure their footing at every step of their progress, knew 
 thoroughly what they professed to know, and by books of 
 solid value, or by important discoveries in science, proved 
 their title to a place among the teachers and benefactors of 
 mankind. 
 
 The great principles by which our ancestors were guided 
 in these matters are eternally true. To turn out good men 
 and good citizens was their aim ; and, according to their 
 lights and their means, they spared no efforts to achieve it. 
 As regarded primary education, there was little room for 
 improvement. Whether, as time went on, and great changes 
 took place in the circumstances and the wants of the country, 
 the methods pursued in the higher education were always 
 the best, is not so clear. 
 
 Speaking from the experience of my own youth, the range 
 of studies was too limited, the methods of instruction were 
 faulty ; and too much, far too much, time was spent over 
 these studies, such as they were. "We were too early taken 
 away from learning the structure and the resources of our 
 own language, and from its stores of historical, biographical,
 
 268 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 and other knowledge, which the opening mind of youth 
 could follow with interest, and assimilate with ease and 
 advantage ; and were sent to puzzle in a confused way over 
 Latin and Greek, to which many of the best years of our 
 youth were devoted, almost to the exclusion of every other 
 study. Never can I forget the hopeless weariness of those 
 long hours, spent by myself in the Edinburgh High School, 
 during six years, in learning badly what might easily, under 
 proper training, have been learned thoroughly in one-half 
 the time. The system was radically faulty ; for the pace 
 at which our knowledge advanced was regulated by the 
 idlers and the dunces, who, to say the least, formed a 
 tolerably liberal proportion of the much too large classes, of 
 which we were compelled to form a part. 
 
 What was the result ? As it cost a boy of fair intelli- 
 gence really no effort to acquire all that he was expected to 
 learn, and as no amount of attainment enabled him to 
 abridge the regular curriculum, the studies to which he was 
 fettered too often became to him an object of ennui and 
 disgust. Accordingly, it was only the boys of strong 
 character, who set up other subjects of study for themselves, 
 and so kept their minds fresh and active, who escaped un- 
 hurt from the evils of the system. But the injury to them 
 was not slight ; for at that age I hold that every hour lost 
 is a serious mischief, and the mischief is more serious when 
 the loss is linked by painful associations with studies that 
 should have brought only delight and profit. How many of 
 us felt what Byron so vigorously expressed in his farewell 
 to Horace, whom " he hated so " x The weary iteration of 
 lines badly construed and miserably translated under the 
 handling of a prosaic system, which did not even aim at 
 giving vitality to the poetry of our text-books, or creating a 
 human interest in either the men who wrote it or the people 
 of whose soul it was the finest expression, took from the 
 Venusian bard well-nigh all his brilliancy and charm, and 
 
 1 Then farewell, Horace, -whom I hated so, 
 Not for thy faults, but mine, etc. 
 
 Childe Harold, canto iii. , stanza 67.
 
 SIR THEODORE MARTIN 269 
 
 blurred the sweetness and stately grace of his great compeer 
 Virgil. And this for young men who already knew and 
 loved Milton, Dryden, Gray, Goldsmith, Burns, and Scott, 
 who were beginning to appreciate Wordsworth, and to drink 
 instruction to mind and heart from that perennial well-head 
 of beauty and wisdom, and humour and humanity, which is 
 to be found in Shakespeare, young men who, if rightly 
 taught, might have enjoyed their Horace, their Virgil, or 
 their Catullus, with a relish as keen as they felt for their 
 English favourites, nay, with possibly even a keener relish, 
 by reason of the pleasant extra effort which it costs to 
 master them, and which fixes attention upon the subtler 
 shades of suggestion or of beautiful diction, which young 
 readers, ever impetuous and eager, are apt to overlook in 
 their native writers. 
 
 Passing from the High School to the University, with 
 any love for the classics which I had ever felt almost crushed 
 out of me, I must ever remember with gratitude the new 
 life and interest infused into them for us by the spirit of 
 the then Professor of Humanity there Professor Pillans. 
 What had seemed harsh, crabbed, colourless, grew full of 
 fascination and charm, and " a perpetual feast of nectared 
 sweets, where no crude surfeit reigned." He taught us to 
 read and to assimilate the thoughts, of which the words had 
 heretofore often seemed but sapless husks. He connected 
 the literature of Pome with its history ; he made us under- 
 stand something of the men to whom it was addressed, and 
 of the state of society in which it was produced. Thus he 
 made it a living thing for us. He taught us to think of 
 men who for us had hitherto been little better than names 
 as human beings, much like the men who had made and 
 were making our own history, and encouraged us to try to 
 gather from their stories incentives to work as they had 
 
 done 
 
 Certare ingenio, contendere nobilitate, 
 
 and lessons to guide us in the formation of opinion as to 
 what is the foundation of a nation's greatness, and by what
 
 270 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 the greatness of a nation, once achieved, is alone to be 
 maintained. Under such guidance, gentlemen, you may 
 conceive with what eager delight we took to our Cicero, our 
 Livy, and our Tacitus ; how it became a positive pleasure to 
 combat the difficulties that stood in our way, as we strove 
 to gain full insight into their meaning, and how deep a hold 
 the great maxims of practical wisdom, which we learned 
 from them, established upon our minds and in our memories ! 
 With what different eyes, too, did we look upon our 
 Lucretius, our Ovid, our Virgil, our Horace ! We read 
 them with a new light upon the page, and learned to love 
 them with a love which has outlived the lapse of years, and 
 been proof against the blandishments of newer claimants for 
 our regard. 
 
 Why do I recall these experiences of my own ? I do 
 so, because they seem to me to contain a lesson of wide 
 application. I do not know whether the system under which 
 my compeers and myself suffered has been changed. I hope 
 it has been reformed, and that not indifferently only, but 
 altogether ; for, as it was then, so it must always be, a 
 heavy drag upon the nascent intelligence of a large section 
 of the community. If boys or young men are to be taught, 
 you must make sure of their feeling an interest in what 
 they have to learn. Do that, and the idlest will not turn 
 away from his studies, nor the dullest lose heart over them. 
 Let them see the use of what they are learning ; make their 
 understanding work upon it ; waken their powers of observa- 
 tion and deduction ; rouse within them the feelings and the 
 thoughts of which words are but the symbols ; feed them, in 
 short, with facts which they can appreciate, and not with 
 phantasmal phrases, and I care not what you set before 
 them be it grammar, or history, or geography, or classics, or 
 mathematics, or natural science, or the great leading prin- 
 ciples of health, morality, or economy and you will have 
 little cause to complain of the numbers of dull boys or un- 
 satisfactory men. Follow the opposite course, cram them, 
 according to their various powers of absorption, with facts 
 they neither understand nor care for, with dates and names
 
 SIR THEODORE MARTIN 271 
 
 which they have not been taught to connect with subjects 
 of human interest ; load their memories with problems which 
 they have been schooled into working out mechanically, and 
 with cut-and-dry opinions, which can be produced to meet 
 the exigencies of a pass examination -and you may turn out 
 a fair number of clever fellows, to make a figure in class lists, 
 but in those lists, I fear, very few of the men will be found 
 who make their mark in life by bringing into it the well- 
 digested knowledge, the ready helpful intelligence, and the 
 strength of character, which are the things most wanted in 
 every sphere, and which, in the main, are tolerably certain 
 of recognition and wordly success. 
 
 I am not going to weary you with any remarks upon 
 the vexed question, whether a classical or so-called scientific 
 education is the best. Like many other controversies of 
 comparison, it seems to me to be rather a futile one, believ- 
 ing, as I do, that it is quite possible to combine both, and 
 that in all the higher education both ought to be combined, 
 leaving the student to give the preponderance of his time 
 and attention to that which he finds most congenial to his 
 gifts and tastes, or most likely to prove of value for the 
 work he has to do in life. No one will admit more frankly 
 than myself that the educational studies of our schools and 
 universities, as formerly pursued, were both too narrow and 
 too uniform. They omitted instruction in many things 
 which it was not only useful but necessary for every 
 educated man to know, and they did not sufficiently take 
 into account the diversities in the social position, and in the 
 quality and bias of mind, of the students. All this is now 
 in the fair way to be corrected. With the facilities every- 
 where offered, it will be a man's own fault if he finds him- 
 self, as many of the men who won distinction in the then 
 only favoured studies used to find themselves, launched into 
 active life in ignorance of the elements of physical science, 
 of the phenomena of the material world, and of the laws and 
 forces by which it is animated or controlled. The regret of 
 such men at their own deficiencies was deepened by the 
 thought, how easy it would have been to have acquired, by
 
 272 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 a little extra effort, all this knowledge side by side with 
 their other pursuits, and how difficult it was to repair the 
 defect, when the mind was either no longer so plastic or so 
 receptive as in youth, or when the studies and active duties 
 of a business or profession left them little or no opportunity 
 for the task. So, too, in the wide range of academic studies, 
 there is now scope for every variety of gift and inclination, 
 and there is no longer an excuse for the deadening of 
 enthusiasm, often degenerating into habits of idleness, which 
 was begotten by distaste for studies for which the student 
 had no natural aptitude. 
 
 But whatever a man's special gifts may be, or whatever 
 his future profession or pursuits in life, it seems to me that 
 he cannot but be a gainer by the training which is to be 
 had under a good system of classical study. Of course all 
 studies are good by which the mind learns to think, to 
 observe with precision, to seek out principles, to methodise 
 facts, to draw reasonable conclusions from them, and to be 
 able to find apt words for whatever it wants to express. 
 But I know of no way in which all these ends are more 
 likely to be arrived at than by a sound training in the 
 classics. The man who has grappled successfully with the 
 great Greek and Koman writers may be trusted to have 
 developed a faculty which will stand him in excellent 
 stead, whatever he may be called upon to do, or wherever 
 he may be called upon to go. What he knows he will 
 know thoroughly, and he will have acquired a habit of 
 application and intellectual discernment, which will enable 
 him to acquire and digest other knowledge with a rapidity, 
 and to turn it to account with an address, that must give 
 him an incalculable advantage over other men, who may be 
 full of general information or practical knowledge, but who 
 have not undergone the discipline of difficulty, of reasoning, 
 and reflection involved in a mastery of the great classical 
 writers. 
 
 The young man who can put into terse well -chosen 
 English all the meaning of any passage of Thucydides or 
 Tacitus, or who can make a good precis of an oration of
 
 SIR THEODORE MARTIN 273 
 
 Demosthenes or Cicero, will go into active life well prepared 
 to follow any intellectual pursuit. As a doctor, a lawyer, a 
 clergyman, as an engineer, an artist, a merchant or a manu- 
 facturer, he will find the benefit of the knowledge and 
 aptitude which went to these achievements. They will make 
 all the special studies of his vocation easier. At the same 
 time, he will be better able to fulfil the duties of a good 
 citizen, by bringing to the consideration of all social and 
 political questions a judgment, less likely to be captivated by 
 plausible fallacies or fervid rhetoric, for he will know why 
 states and empires, which bear the closest analogy to our own, 
 have risen and fallen. He will know, too, what the manly 
 and sagacious thinkers of antiquity have thought upon such 
 questions, and be able to call the experience of the past ages 
 and states of society to his aid in judging of what is necessary 
 or expedient for the present. 
 
 And who will say that such knowledge is not specially 
 needed at the present time? These are days in which, it 
 seems to me, every man who can is bound to think of these 
 things, and to be at pains to seek light from whatever quarter 
 he can in forming his political opinions. And where will 
 he find more instruction, whether to warn or to guide, than 
 in the history of Greece and Eome, and in the recorded con- 
 clusions of the leading minds of those countries as to what 
 makes the welfare and prosperity, and secures the stability 
 of a state. We have chosen whether wisely, or not, time 
 will show to set aside the principle which, among all civil- 
 ised states of which we have an authentic record, has been 
 accepted as the only sound one. Cicero expressed it in ten 
 words. " Semper in republica tenendum est, ne plurimum 
 valeant plurimi 1 (Be Bepublica, ii. 22). And Why? 
 Because wisdom and constancy have never yet in the world's 
 history been the characteristics of the " plurimi." Is there 
 anything, in the state of our modern society, to make us be- 
 lieve that this is less the case now, than it has ever been ? 
 
 Look at any of our great cities, in which population 
 
 1 "There is one rule that must ever be observed in a state, the preponder- 
 ance of power must not be in the multitude." 
 
 18
 
 274 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 multiplies with a startling rapidity, without a corresponding 
 increase in the means of comfort, or even of bare subsistence. 
 Is the proportion of the suffering, the discontented, the needy, 
 the improvident, the unscrupulous, which will always be 
 found in old communities, less than it has ever been ? Is 
 the bitterness of those " who have not " against those " who 
 have " likely to be less rancorous, where the extremes of 
 wealth and poverty, of luxurious idleness and ill-paid toil, 
 of profuse extravagance and " looped and windowed ragged- 
 ness," are brought into such sharp contrast ? Is the disposi- 
 tion to think that " whatever is, is wrong " likely to be less 
 widely spread, when the numbers who have nothing to lose 
 by change are so great ? Still it is in the hands of the 
 " plurimi " that we have deliberately chosen to place the 
 preponderance of power ; and, being there, to recall or to 
 restrict it is impossible. We must therefore make the best 
 of the altered state of things, trusting to the average good 
 sense, and to the patriotism of the mass of the body politic, 
 not to use that power without deliberation, or a due regard 
 for the teachings of history and experience. 
 
 But the experiment we are making is a momentous one ; 
 and it is incumbent upon the educated youth of the country 
 to show by their example that they are alive to the fact. If 
 British liberty shall ever be in danger, the danger will come 
 not from above, but from below. The old party distinctions 
 have lost wellnigh all their meaning. Be in no haste, I 
 would say to you, if I might, to make up your views on great 
 political questions. None are more intricate. The interests 
 of the nation are so vast, and so complex ; our relations to 
 our own colonies and dependencies, as well as to the other 
 great states of Europe, demand such cautious handling, that 
 there are in truth no subjects on which it so much behoves 
 men to ponder well before coming to a conclusion. Think 
 of the magnitude of the interests involved ; think of the 
 disastrous consequences of any great mistake in legislation 
 or in policy ! A colony lost, the stability of property shaken, 
 the belief disturbed that Britain can hold, by her own strong 
 arm and her wise administration, all that generations of her
 
 Sffi THEODORE MARTIN 275 
 
 sons have won for her ! Let any of these things happen, 
 and who can say how great, how swift may be her decline ? 
 These are the great issues on which political questions bear. 
 How needful, then, that they should be approached with 
 minds un warped by the bias of party ties, or of party passions. 
 Even without such bias it will always be hard enough to 
 keep the judgment clear. Why then should young men 
 who may fairly hope hereafter, each in his sphere, to assist, 
 (some, it may be, even to lead), in the formation of public 
 opinion fetter their judgment, or their independence, by 
 adopting the catchwords of the hour, or by subjecting them- 
 selves to the prejudices from which no political party can 
 be wholly exempt ? 
 
 Just as I consider what may be learned in a sound course 
 of classical study an admirable preparation for approaching 
 the political questions which agitate modern society ; so too, 
 I venture to think that to none will such studies, and those 
 studies of Mental Philosophy with which they are generally 
 combined, be of more advantage than to those whose lives 
 are to be devoted to the Natural Sciences. They will have 
 learned that there is a large number of ultimate facts and 
 phenomena in man's nature, as real and as significant as any 
 of the material phenomena of the universe. They will know 
 how thoroughly most of the problems about Man -the world 
 he lives in, his place and duties in it, and his future have 
 been canvassed, and discussed, by the wisest heads of which 
 the world has left any record. They will therefore approach 
 their studies with a modest and reverential spirit, and be less 
 likely to launch into profitless speculations on what can never 
 be known, and to promulgate those rash deductions from 
 very limited data, which characterise so many works of 
 modern scientific philosophy. Were such studies as I have 
 indicated more general, many weak and mischievous books 
 would never see the light, and many a tortured heart and 
 brain would be saved from bewilderment and despair. 
 
 Neither, gentlemen, I am sure, will you fail to join with 
 me in rating highly the advantage of being trained in youth 
 upon Books, written in languages which, as vehicles of
 
 276 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 expression, have never been surpassed, books which Time's 
 severe but kindly hand has winnowed for us from the mass 
 of ephemeral and commonplace work, which was, no doubt, 
 produced in abundance both at Athens and in Eome. De- 
 pend upon it, ancient civilisation, like our own, was prolific 
 in men like the Etruscan Cassius, of whom Horace speaks 
 in the Tenth Satire of his First Book, 
 
 Capsis quern fama est esse librisque 
 Ambustum nronriis. 
 
 Ambustum propriis, 
 
 whose poems were so voluminous that, as Mr. Conington 
 puts it in his admirable translation, 
 
 When he died, his kinsfolk simply laid 
 His works in order, and his pyre was made. 
 
 The ancients had a most laudable horror of big books. 
 They felt how true in regard to books, as well as to other 
 things, is the proverb : " The half is better than the whole." 
 Above all, they knew that the man who studies to condense, 
 acquires in the process the sense of proportion, the art of 
 separating what is essential from what is accidental ; makes, 
 in short, that reserve of power to be felt in his work, which 
 leaves upon the reader's mind a delightful impression of 
 symmetry and finish. Moreover, the tone of thought in the 
 best Greek and Eoman writers is essentially noble and manly. 
 Trained upon such standards, the mind is less likely to be 
 attracted by what is false or feeble, unwholesome, sickly, 
 or sentimental, of which there is enough and to spare in 
 modern literature ; just as, if our early years have been sur- 
 rounded by specimens of the best art, ancient, or modern, 
 we insensibly imbibe such a knowledge of pure form, of 
 elevated expression, of what is essentially true to nature, 
 that the eye turns' aside with indifference from bad drawing, 
 vapid sentiment, or meretricious colour. 
 
 The main thing after all is, that in youth we " learn to 
 learn ; " and, having done this, that we then find out for our- 
 selves what interests us most, and what we are therefore 
 likely to do best. With that knowledge let us then determine
 
 SIR THEODORE MARTIN 277 
 
 to work out what gifts we have with all our might. "Quidquid 
 vult, valde vult," says Cicero of his friend Brutus. It is this 
 doing what he has to do with a will, with the determination 
 that, what he wills that he shall accomplish, which makes 
 the useful, the influential, the successful man. He is sure, 
 however his lot may be cast, to find scope for his energy. 
 An intelligent persistency, which is a very different thing 
 indeed from a resolute obstinacy, is the quality of all others 
 a young man should cultivate in himself. Be modest, but 
 determined ; measure your own powers carefully and even 
 sternly ; but resolve that whatever gift is in you shall, with 
 God's help, be fully and strenuously worked out. Aim high, 
 but take care that your aim is within your compass, and that, 
 come what may, it is pursued by honourable means. Above 
 all, cultivate the habit of work. " I consider the capacity 
 to labour," writes Sir Walter Scott to his friend Adolpfms, 
 " as part of the happiness I have enjoyed." Part of the 
 happiness ? Most men who have gone through a life crowded 
 with demands upon their capacity for labour, will rather say 
 that it has been their chief enjoyment, nay their chief 
 blessing, that they have been called upon to exercise that 
 capacity, and that it has answered to the call. Many such 
 men have I myself known ; and I wish I could tell you how 
 much to them has been that delight in recurring to the books 
 and studies of their youth, which makes them look back with 
 tender reverence to the school, or Alma Mater, in which their 
 love for Literature, Philosophy or Science was first developed. 
 Others I have known, men "gifted with predominating powers," 
 which have found vent in pursuits that have crowned them 
 with wealth, and all the good things which wealth places 
 within our reach, who have bitterly mourned, either that in 
 their youth they had no chance of acquiring a knowledge of 
 books or the arts, or that they had not duly availed themselves 
 of such opportunities as they had. How poor and maimed 
 do such men feel their life to be, when they find the strength 
 or the occasion for active pursuits fail, and they cannot beguile 
 the weariness of the heavy hours, by availing themselves of 
 the delights which they see are found by other men in the
 
 278 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 very books which stare at themselves in mute rebuke from 
 their library shelves ! 
 
 It is no paradox to say that there is nothing like work, 
 pursued, of course, with a due regard to the claims of the 
 body to exercise and care, for maintaining the elasticity 
 of the mind, and preparing it for what we should all aim 
 at, the carrying on the spirit of youth, the freshness of 
 enjoyment, into riper years, and even into old age. Idleness 
 and frivolity are the cankers of the soul, and bring upon 
 it premature disgust, decrepitude, and palsy. There is a 
 sentence of Cicero's on this point, which experience has often 
 recalled to me as full of truth. " At enim adolescentem, in 
 quo senile aliquid, seu senem, in quo est aliquid juventutis 
 probo ; quod qui sequitur, corpore senex esse poterit, animo 
 nunquam erit." " What I delight to see is a youth with 
 something of an old man in him, even as I do to see an old 
 man who has in him something of a youth ; where these 
 qualities are, a man may become old in body, but never in 
 mind." In this great world of moral and material wonder, 
 where there is so much of beauty, of grandeur, of mystery, 
 of struggle, of noble effort, of pitiful failure, of magnificent 
 enterprise, of fascinating discovery so much to love, so 
 much to admire and to revere, so much to help forward, so 
 much to fight against and to subdue in this world which we 
 believe to be but the training-ground of our souls for nobler 
 and higher and less encumbered work hereafter, in this quasi 
 childhood of our real lives, why should we not try to keep 
 our souls as open to new impressions in our riper years as 
 in the days of our youth ? It is not years that make 
 age. Frivolous pursuits, base passions unsubdued, narrow 
 selfishness, vacuity of mind, life with sordid aims or without 
 an aim at all, these are the things that bring age upon the 
 soul. Healthful tastes, an open eye for what is beautiful 
 and good in nature and in man, a happy remembrance of 
 youthful pleasures, a mind never without some active interest 
 or pursuit, these are the things that carry on the feelings 
 of youth even into the years when the body may have lost 
 most of its comeliness and its force.
 
 SIR THEODORE MARTIN 279 
 
 There is so much to be known, so much that it befits 
 all educated men to know, that the work of learning cannot 
 be begun too soon, or prosecuted too earnestly. At the best, 
 do what we will, we shall do little more than learn, at every 
 step we advance, of how much we are ignorant, and see dim 
 vistas before us of paths to be explored, and catch glimpses 
 of fresh fields where knowledge is to be reaped. Is there 
 not something deeply significant, deeply touching, in Goethe's 
 dying words : " Light, more light ! " Light to keep our feet 
 from stumbling, light to cheer us on our onward path, through 
 toil and trial, light to lighten the darkness by which " our 
 haughty life is crowned." It is for this that the daily cry 
 goes up from all good men everywhere, and from none more 
 earnestly than from those to whom most of it is vouchsafed. 
 To bring light and sweetness into our lives is the doctrine 
 pressed unweariedly upon us by one of the most impressive 
 writers of our time. It is not for me to define all that 
 Mr. Matthew Arnold includes within these two words ; but 
 I think I will not wrong him, if I say that he means them 
 at least to include that culture of the whole man, which 
 while it sharpens, enriches, and fortifies the intellect-^ feeds 
 the imagination with noble images and aspirations, develops 
 and cultivates the taste for the arts and courtesies which 
 embellish life, and the sympathies which make men unselfish, 
 forbearing, and helpful one to another. Wisdom of the head, 
 he would tell us, is all very well ; but there is a something 
 greater and better than that without which no man can 
 indeed be truly wise wisdom of the heart. It is only 
 when the two combine that the world gets its really great 
 men and women. And who are they whom we best love, and 
 admire the most, among those that cross our path in daily 
 life ? Is it not those in whom we recognise that blending 
 of intelligence with refinement, and consideration for others, 
 which gives a harmony and beauty and calm strength to the 
 character, and commands instinctively our confidence and 
 respect ? 
 
 What Mr. Arnold says, Goethe also meant ; ' for, as I 
 have read his teaching, he included sweetness in the light
 
 280 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 the glow of the heart, as well as the illumination of the 
 brain which he craved as needful for man's happiness. 
 The first part of his greatest work, the Faust, is only a 
 splendid illustration of the doctrine, that the cultivation of 
 the mere intellect, and the quest of happiness in and for the 
 individual merely, must culminate in disappointment and 
 despair. The second part, which may be fairly held to con- 
 tain his last views on the great problem of human life, 
 illustrates the truth, which wise men of all ages have 
 preached, that happiness is only to be reached through 
 active beneficence, through the application of knowledge and 
 power to the welfare of mankind. While Faust pored in 
 his study over musty volumes of medicine, jurisprudence, 
 and theology and perplexed his reason with problems 
 which, by their very nature, admit of no solution the 
 accumulation of pedantic scholarship, and the bewilderment 
 of brain, in which his studies resulted, brought only bitter- 
 ness of heart, a feeling that every higher aspiration of his 
 nature was left unsatisfied, a deadness of all belief in what- 
 soever makes life worth living, a total recklessness as to the 
 great hereafter, what it might be, or whether there was any 
 hereafter at all. In this mood, we know, Mephistopheles 
 found it easy to get him into his toils ; and Faust, confident 
 in his sad creed that all mortal struggle, all mortal happi- 
 ness, was vain, made his unholy compact, on the footing that 
 the fiend may claim him as his own, should a moment ever 
 arrive in which he should say 
 
 Verweile docli ! du bist so schon. 
 Stay, stay, oh stay ! Thou art so fair. 
 
 That moment he believes will never come, but come it does. 
 And how ? Not when he holds poor Gretchen in his arms 
 in the rapture of triumphant passion ; not in the contempla- 
 tion of the beauty, and grandeur, of the universe ; not in the 
 possession of wealth, and power ; not even in the ecstacy of 
 winning for his bride the divine Helena, whom he is able 
 to evoke from Hades in all the splendour of her immortal 
 charms
 
 SIR THEODORE MARTIN 281 
 
 Fairer than the evening air, 
 Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars. 
 
 Even in the transports of enjoyment and triumphant 
 power a sense of insufficiency and incompleteness is ever 
 present with him. It is only when he has grown old, when 
 his thoughts are not for himself but for others, when he 
 takes to reclaiming land from the sea, and to building- 
 harbours, and succeeds by these and other works in making 
 hundreds of his fellow-creatures happy, that the cravings 
 of his heart are, for the first time, satisfied. Then the wish 
 mounts to his lips, that the state of things in which he finds 
 himself, and the mood of soul which it has wrought within 
 him, may last. The moment has come when he can say to 
 it 
 
 Stay, stay, oh stay ! Thou art so fair, 
 
 and be content to die. 
 
 Let none of you think that, because your career in life 
 may afford no wide scope for doing good to your fellow-men, 
 that the principle here indicated does not apply to you. 
 Which of you can say to what great work he may not- some 
 day be called, or what his power for good over others may 
 be ? But whatever your sphere of influence, be it large or 
 be it small, there is sure to be ample scope in it for unself- 
 ishness, and for active good, for proving yourselves to be 
 gentle, generous, sympathetic, forbearing, courteous. Deter- 
 mine that such you shall be. Keep this resolve steadily in 
 view, and it will " make the path before you always bright," 
 and keep alive within you that sacred fire of enthusiasm, 
 which, if fostered and directed to worthy ends in youth, will 
 not burn itself out, but will prove to be the purifier and 
 sustainer of your riper age. " Beautiful is young enthusiasm," 
 said Thomas Carlyle ; " keep it to the end, and be more and 
 more correct in fixing on the object of it. It is a terrible 
 thing to be wrong in that the source of all our miseries 
 and confusions whatever." 
 
 Many of you, I daresay, know well some lines with 
 which Thackeray ended one of his pleasant Christmas books,
 
 282 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 lines as full of wisdom, as they are beautiful in tone, and 
 in their simple force. They express much of the feeling 
 with which I close the few and feeble words in which I have 
 addressed you 
 
 Come wealth or want, come good or ill, 
 
 Let young and old accept their part, 
 And bow before the Awful Will, 
 
 And bear it with an honest heart. 
 Who misses, or who wins the prize, 
 
 Go, lose, or conquer as you can ; 
 But, if you fall, or if you rise, 
 
 Be each, pray God, a gentleman !
 
 LORD REAY 
 
 Kector from 1884 to 1886 
 Address delivered on January 30. 1885
 
 LORD REAY 
 
 Nobody, gentlemen, could rise to address you in this place 
 without feeling even if he were not a Scotsman how large 
 a hold the University of St. Andrews must have on the 
 veneration of Scotsmen. Here it was that the monks of the 
 Augustinian Priory withstood the claim of the Archbishops 
 of York and Canterbury to exercise jurisdiction over the 
 See of St. Andrews, and the whole Scottish Church. The 
 ecclesiastical and the civil independence of Scotland found 
 its staunchest supporters here. The Schola Illustris the 
 Pedagogium besides the University itself, bear witness to 
 the fact that St. Andrews is the traditional home of Scottish 
 Learning. It is also here that Knox matured his new faith, 
 and strengthened himself for that struggle which was the re- 
 generation of our countrymen, and which gave them that 
 moral vigour which produces a ruling race. From the pulpit 
 of this parish church was preached the first Protestant ser- 
 mon in 1547, when only the College of St. Leonard's sup- 
 ported Knox. Little did Archbishop Stuart, the youthful 
 founder of St. Leonard's College, the friend of Erasmus, 
 foresee that Andrew Melville, the friend of Scaliger, would 
 as Principal Shairp has well expressed it lay the foundation 
 in Scotland of the " Democracy and Presbyterianism imbibed 
 at Geneva." Principal Shairp must, however, allow me to 
 complete his sentence, and to say that "Democracy and 
 Presbyterianism " have left Scotsmen the most loyal subjects 
 of their Sovereigns, and have established between Dutch- 
 men and the House of Orange those remarkably close ties 
 which still exist at the present time. " Democracy and
 
 286 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 Presbyterianism," as they are understood in Scotland, have 
 hitherto proved safeguards of some value against anarchy and 
 agnosticism. 
 
 To-day I vividly recall my own University days at Leiden, 
 and I feel that the undergraduates who have bestowed this 
 rectorial distinction upon me have thereby paid a compliment 
 to my old University of Leiden, which, like the University 
 of St. Andrews, played such a great part in the struggle for 
 freedom. At Leiden, Stair the greatest Scottish lawyer 
 studied, in exile, philosophy of law. At Leiden, the works of 
 the greatest Scottish scholar once your Principal George 
 Buchanan, were published in their best edition by one of its 
 professors, Burman. 
 
 Through a curious coincidence, it has fallen to my lot 
 to deal, in the case of Amsterdam, as a member of the 
 States-General, with the extension of a teaching University 
 to a degree-conferring University ; and to deal, in the case of 
 London, with the extension of a degree-giving University 
 to a teaching University. I am, therefore, you will see, 
 more familiar with the process of expanding Universities than 
 with the process of destroying them ; and you have certainly 
 chosen as your Kector, however many demerits he may have, 
 one who does not wish to see the career of this University 
 prematurely closed. I am sure that on this point my friends, 
 the students of both parties, are of one mind. We desire to 
 see the steady progress of the work inaugurated by Bishop 
 Wardlaw, when he founded the first University in Scotland. 
 I think I may even venture on a bolder assertion that the 
 idea of closing the annals of this University is repugnant 
 to all classes of our countrymen. In our ancestors, in their 
 educational enthusiasm, we take a national pride ; our his- 
 torical conscience is sensitive and easily offended. To have 
 been chosen at such a critical juncture to be the spokesman 
 of the students, who are the lineal descendants of such a long- 
 line of ancestors, I shall always consider to have been a 
 signal proof of confidence of the rising generation, for which 
 I cannot be grateful enough. The question of the continued 
 existence of St. Andrews is practically settled. The question
 
 LORD REA V 287 
 
 of its increased usefulness is still unsettled. Eeform is, I 
 know, the question which at this moment is the one absorbing 
 topic of interest at our Universities, and 1 think I cannot do 
 better than submit to you some of the reforms which are 
 absolutely needed to place the Scottish Universities on a level 
 with the requirements of the present day. In an address I 
 can only give you the principal outlines, but even then the 
 urgency of reform will become perfectly clear. For obvious 
 reasons I allude to the four Universities, because the magni- 
 tude of the work to be done implies that it must be carried 
 out jointly by all four. The division of labour between the 
 Universities is a question of executive detail with which I 
 cannot deal. 
 
 The objects of University teaching may be considered 
 in relation to general culture, to professional efficiency, and 
 to scientific research and learning. If a University is 
 considered as providing general culture, the question of 
 organisation and of examination falls into the background. 
 The most important regulations in that case are those which 
 provide a. sufficient number of chairs, for lectures on a 
 variety of subjects, which are necessary to impart culture. 
 The English Universities were mainly adapted to that end, 
 but are altering their old traditions. This remark especially 
 applies to Cambridge. The undergraduates, who attend 
 lectures, and who receive degrees, will then have to think of 
 their professional studies after they leave the University, and 
 no doubt will in their profession have wider views than those 
 who have not enjoyed such a benefit. If, on the other hand, 
 a University aims at imparting the best professional teaching, 
 the question of organisation and of examination becomes 
 very important, and its relation to the outside world assumes 
 a very different aspect. Where the highest research is one 
 of the functions of a University, we shall have to take into 
 consideration not only how knowledge can be imparted, but 
 how it can be created. In carrying out the reform of our 
 Universities, we shall have to ask ourselves whicli of these 
 three objects we aim at securing. 
 
 Scotland aspires to give to the Empire its best educational
 
 288 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 forces. Scotland is not hampered in this aspiration by any- 
 sectarian prejudices. The right of independent inquiry has 
 been established long ago. There is only one solution which 
 can be given to the problem. Scotland wishes to secure the 
 best means of providing men of culture, of the highest pro- 
 fessional eminence, of original research. If I may take this 
 for granted, I must conclude that Scotland desires to have 
 its Universities placed on such a footing that they can 
 fulfil this threefold obligation. Are we aiming too high ? 
 When the late Principal Sir Alexander Grant spoke to me 
 about the Tercentenary of the University of Edinburgh, I 
 said to him : " Aim high ; make it a meeting of all the best 
 University men of all countries." When I met him at the 
 Tercentenary, he said to me : " You see, we have not lost 
 sight of your hint." Now, to any Executive Commission for 
 the Scottish Universities I would give the same motto Aim 
 high. Surely Scotland can have Universities doing the 
 same work as the Universities of Wurtemburg, Baden, and 
 Hanover. If the German Universities are giving to Germany 
 men of general culture, of professional merit, and of original 
 research, is there any reason why the Scottish Universities 
 should fall behind in the race ? It is obvious that the 
 German system, uniting these three objects, is better than 
 the French system, which separates them. 
 
 Till lately, the French Universities were chiefly schools 
 for providing the country with lawyers and doctors. The 
 Faculty of Arts languished, and research was carried on 
 in separate institutions. The French are at this moment 
 carrying out reforms vigorously, a Belgian report on higher 
 education is at this moment in the press, and Italy is spend- 
 ing money to improve its Universities. 
 
 In Germany there is, in fact, some friction between 
 the two tendencies one to make the Universities subser- 
 vient to utilitarian purposes, and the other to discard them 
 altogether ; but the very fact of a juxtaposition of these 
 two forces increases the vigour of University life. If, on 
 the one hand the Senate of a University knows that it 
 must provide for the professions, and on the other that it
 
 LORD RE A Y 289 
 
 must provide for general culture and research, the Senate is 
 much less likely to fall into a groove. Such a University- 
 will be a living organism, always keeping touch with the 
 mainsprings of the life of the nation. 
 
 Let me take the Faculty of Law. A Faculty of Law, 
 which will have to provide for the general legal culture of 
 statesmen, of magistrates, of landowners, for the professional 
 efficiency of judges, of lawyers, of solicitors, of clerks in the 
 Civil Service, and also for th higher standard of legal re- 
 search of jurists, will be a better Faculty of Law than if it 
 were to do only one of these three things. The three 
 branches will not suffer, but the work done in one depart- 
 ment will reap the benefit of the work done in another de- 
 partment. You will not wonder that I have mentioned the 
 Faculty of Law first, because I am associated with it ; and 
 I should be most ungrateful if I did not acknowledge what 
 I owe to my legal studies. I wish to see that Faculty in 
 Scotland recognised as one of the principal factors of Uni- 
 versity life. Is anybody prepared to deny that scientific 
 study of our laws is a pure and simple necessity, just as 
 much as the study of divinity and of medicine ? The health 
 of the soul is, of course, to be placed first, the health of the 
 body next ; but is the health of the body corporate to be 
 left to haphazard influences and experimental legislation, to be 
 accompanied by experimental application of laws ? Surely, 
 now that we have a growing demand for more legislation on 
 a number of subjects, the time has come to give our law- 
 givers the means of qualifying for their work. 
 
 In France the number of law students was 5,849 during 
 the first half-year of 1884, of which number the Faculty 
 in Paris had 2,594. Take, again, the Civil Service; its 
 functions are becoming more important every clay, and more 
 complicated. Where is the proper place to educate these 
 Civil Servants ? In a Faculty of Law, which would do for 
 us what the " Ecole des Sciences Politiques " is doing for 
 France. Do not forget that Lords Brougham, Russell, and 
 Palmerston were students in Edinburgh, where they found 
 what Oxford and Cambridge did not offer to them. Now 
 
 19
 
 290 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 Cambridge has instituted a Modern History Tripos, an 
 Amended Law Tripos, a Modern Language Tripos, a Tripos 
 of the Indian and a Tripos of the Semitic languages. 
 
 It is clear that we have to give to our Law Faculty a 
 twofold character, as the Germans have done ; devoting part 
 of it to public law, and another part to civil law. Judges, 
 lawyers, and solicitors would avail themselves of the latter ; 
 public men, diplomatists, civil servants, of the former. 
 Without giving anything like an exhaustive list of the 
 Chairs which such a Faculty should possess, I shall only 
 mention those which are absolutely needful : the philosophy 
 of law, comparative politics and jurisprudence, civil law and 
 procedure, criminal law and procedure, constitutional law, ad- 
 ministrative law, constitutional relations between the mother 
 country and the colonies, including, of course, colonial in- 
 stitutions, public international law, private international law, 
 political economy, history of diplomatic relations, medical 
 jurisprudence, legal drafting, commercial law, statistics which 
 would include the history of financial legislation and its 
 influence on public prosperity. 
 
 I only propose to restore in our University practice an 
 ancient Scottish statute, which contains the precept : " It is 
 ordained that all barons and freeholders that are of substance 
 put their eldest sons and heirs to the schools from they be 
 eight or nine years of age, and to remain at the grammar 
 schools till they are competently founded, and have perfect 
 Latin ; and thereafter to remain three years at the schools 
 of art and law, so that they may have knowledge and un- 
 derstanding of the law, through which justice may reign 
 universally through all the realm." I do not propose to 
 limit this to Barons, and Latin scholars. I am happy to 
 know that I am addressing as my constituents the sons 
 of crofters, to whom I have thrown open the bursary in 
 my gift. 
 
 Are we to uphold the teaching of Divinity at our 
 Universities ? On this point alone I might have given you 
 a rectorial address ; but I shall attempt to put my views in 
 a concise form. I suppose that we are all agreed that Scot-
 
 LORD REA Y 291 
 
 land derives its character in no small degree from Presby- 
 terianism. The sobriety of thought, the dourness of the 
 Scottish intellect, are products of a creed which above all 
 things is logical. The nation, besides, is attached to that 
 creed. The nation, therefore, is entitled to obtain for the 
 exponents of that creed the very best education. 
 
 But there are other considerations. Is a University 
 complete which has no Theological Faculty ? Bacon calls 
 theology " the Queen of Sciences," and certainly the relations 
 of man to his Creator cannot be left out. They form a 
 necessary link in the chain. Aristotle speaks of "the 
 mind and everything which is by means of man " as one 
 of the causes of the things that take place. If you leave 
 out this cause, you leave out the most powerful influ- 
 ence which works on the mind of man. If the mind of 
 man is subject to a higher influence, it becomes all-important 
 to obtain as much knowledge as we can obtain about that 
 higher influence. The philanthropic current which un- 
 doubtedly runs through modern society, the threatening- 
 aspect of socialism, make the study of the relations of man 
 to society, and of man and society to God, imperative. It is 
 therefore of the greatest moment that the theologian should 
 not be isolated, but should feel that he is representing a 
 science which is closely connected with other sciences. 
 
 In the third century Origen trained his hearers in the use 
 of words in Logic, Physics, Geometry, Astronomy, Ethical 
 Science, and Philosophy before they approached Theology. 
 Presbyterians repudiate the notion of a priestly caste, trained 
 in seminaries, and a Faculty of Theology is the natural 
 home of Presbyterian research. Who can describe the in- 
 fluence exerted in the most remote Highland parish by a 
 minister trained at one of our Universities ; and who can esti- 
 mate the loss inflicted on Scottish civilisation if our ministry 
 were no longer to be University men, but stunted in their 
 intellectual growth by a process of sectarian cram. If 
 Protestantism is established in the hearts of the people of 
 Scotland and this is the only establishment which any 
 Church should be jealous of if the people of Scotland wish
 
 292 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 to have a clergy who are theologians and who, as such, have 
 grasped the relation of Theology to other Sciences they must 
 insist on their clergy being recruited at National Universities. 
 I, for one, cannot conceive greater sophistry than is implied 
 in Pope's lines 
 
 For modes of faith, let graceless zealots fight ; 
 His can't be wrong whose life is in the right, 
 
 because Pope severs the mode of life from the mode of faith. 
 "Without a careful study of " the mode of faith " of Scots- 
 men, Scottish history is unintelligible. 
 
 The debt of gratitude which the Scottish people owe 
 to the Scottish Presbyterian clergy would be repaid with 
 the basest ingratitude, if the Faculty of Divinity were to be 
 exiled from its proper place. The loss to Scottish civilisa- 
 tion would be equally great. The French Chamber has 
 just put an end to the Eoman Catholic Faculties of Theology, 
 of which Dante was once an undergraduate at Paris, but it 
 has paid a marked tribute to Presbyterianism. It has left 
 the Presbyterian Faculties standing, because the Presby- 
 terians pointed out that a University degree was a necessity 
 to them. Let me also point out that the faculty of Paris is 
 open equally to Calvinists and Lutherans. All that we 
 require in Scotland is a Faculty, in which the Chairs will 
 be occupied by the best men in all the Reformed Churches. 
 
 There are no practical difficulties. Those who put 
 them forth lose sight of the functions of a University on 
 the one side, and of the wants of the people on the other ; 
 and, as 90 per cent of the population of Scotland belong to 
 one or other of the three leading sections of the Presby- 
 terian Church, these three sections are mainly entitled to be 
 represented in the Faculty of Divinity. A University with- 
 out a Faculty of Divinity is incomplete. The subject- 
 matter to which all the Faculties contribute, would not be 
 thoroughly investigated. Pasteur paid a tribute to Theology 
 when he said, in his inaugural address to the Academie : 
 " The man who proclaims the Infinite (and no one can 
 avoid it) accumulates in that affirmation more of the
 
 LORD RE A Y 293 
 
 Supernatural than can be found in all the miracles 
 recorded in all religions." If a University is, as I said, 
 a place of research, I should like to ask an Agnostic 
 whether he does not think that a Faculty of Divinity 
 is needed, even from his point of view, to conduct re- 
 search in the highest sphere, as to the attributes of what 
 Herbert Spencer calls "a first Cause," which, as he says, is 
 " infinite and absolute." Are teachers to be trained at our 
 Universities ? In St. Andrews, at all events, it would be 
 ungraceful to give a negative reply, in the presence of the 
 Professor of the history, theory, and practice of Education. 
 But it would be unpardonable to treat the subject as one of 
 minor importance. An army of teachers, an army of ex- 
 aminers, is spread all over the country. Can anybody for 
 one single moment believe that these armies can operate 
 with skill unless they are instructed in tactics ? Of all 
 astounding assertions the most astonishing certainly is, that 
 the men who are to teach theories, who are to test theories, 
 are themselves not to be taught the theory of their own art. 
 It is to the honour of the Universities of St. Andrews, and 
 of Edinburgh, that this glaring defect has been mitigated. 
 Do you require method in education ? You probably 
 admit this. How is method to be obtained in education ? 
 Only by the pursuit of the philosophy of education. An 
 educator must find out by what means subject-matter is 
 most rapidly, and at the same time most thoroughly, assimi- 
 lated ; under what conditions that process of assimilation 
 has to be carried on ; what are the circumstances which 
 militate against its success. The whole question of " cram," 
 the question of " over-work," the question of modern versus 
 classical education, the limits of secondary and of higher 
 education, the neglect on the Continent of physical educa- 
 tion in one word, the growth of mind, body, and soul are 
 problems which cannot be left to the solution of men who 
 have simply a practical turn for teaching. 
 
 We are not contending for an examination in the philo- 
 sophy, art, and history of Education as the sole qualification 
 of teachers. On the contrary, instead of the rough practical
 
 294 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 test you now apply, you will be able to apply a test by 
 which that practical efficiency which you naturally require, 
 can be tried, because you will see whether practice and 
 theory are in harmony. Good practice in Education, as well 
 as in Games, is simply an example of the theory, which is 
 the rule. A successful practical teacher is simply a teacher 
 who carries on his business, on the understanding that he 
 will not depart from certain laws, which are a theory, after 
 all, whether he likes to admit it or not. 
 
 If we have training colleges for our schoolmasters, why 
 should we be without training for our teachers in the depart- 
 ment of Secondary Education ? And if such training is 
 wanted, the University is the natural place for it. All 
 graduates formerly were obliged to teach for two or three 
 years ; this sufficiently shows what then was considered 
 the main object of a University education. If secondary 
 education is to be a success, it will depend mainly on the 
 way in which the Universities will fulfil their duties in 
 this respect. It is one of the highest functions which the 
 Universities have to discharge. Work at the University 
 will be made more profitable, if the work which precedes a 
 University career is performed according to the method, 
 which will enable a student at once to feel himself at home 
 when he attends University lectures. 
 
 In training an efficient staff of teachers for secondary 
 education, and training them on the same lines as the future 
 university Professors, the Universities increase their own 
 efficiency. In Germany, the teachers and masters in the 
 middle schools and gymnasia are all educated at the Uni- 
 versities. In France, strenuous efforts are made to reach 
 the same goal. 
 
 The Scottish Universities are desirous of reaching an- 
 other stratum. They wish to secure the supervision of 
 the training of primary teachers. As long as our schools 
 are not merely primary, but contain a secondary element, 
 it is natural that the Universities should entertain this 
 wish, though the training colleges are doing admirable 
 work. We cannot, I believe, transform the Universities
 
 LORD RE A Y 295 
 
 into the sole training schools of primary teachers, without 
 results which would prove disastrous ; but, to obtain the 
 fullest recognition from the Education Department, for those 
 who are training to be schoolmasters, and who are attending 
 classes at the Universities, I consider only just. Closer 
 connection of the training colleges with the Universities is 
 also desirable. 
 
 It is a remarkable fact that in Germany, even for 
 secondary teachers, a training college has been established 
 by Professor Stoy at Jena, which shows that, even for that 
 higher class of teachers, the training colleges are considered 
 not altogether superfluous by some pedagogues. Important 
 information on this subject will be found in two reports of 
 1883, on the Herbart-Stoy-Ziller system, by the Directors 
 in the province of Saxony. 
 
 I agree with the late Monsieur Dumont whose pre- 
 mature death has inflicted a terrible loss on University 
 reform in France that " care should be taken not to make 
 of higher education a kind of secondary education of a more 
 refined order." I wish our Universities to be levelled 
 up; but, if we are confronted with this dilemma, 'that the 
 youth from the rural districts of Scotland must either have 
 the higher part of their secondary education at the Uni- 
 versities, or none at all, I, for one, am not a sufficiently 
 hardened doctrinaire to slam the door of the Universities in 
 their faces. Generations of our countrymen have valued 
 this privilege. I do not wish to take away the ideal of 
 culture, which now gives a higher tone to the rural classes 
 of Scotland, and which is unequalled in any other country. 
 It is clear, however, that merely preparatory classes, in the 
 Faculties of Arts and of Science, should not in any way 
 interfere with the higher work which is the proper sphere 
 of Professors. Are we to have a separate Faculty of 
 Science ? I should say certainly. Just look at the field 
 covered by a Faculty of Science. It is preparatory to 
 medical science ; and our engineers, our manufacturers, our 
 analysts, our botanists, our zoologists, our astronomers, our 
 naval constructors, our geologists, our biologists, our physi-
 
 296 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 ologists, our mineralogists, our agriculturalists, should obtain 
 scientific degrees. I do not see why a Faculty, having such 
 an immense area, should remain linked with another, which 
 has quite different objects to pursue. 
 
 The same work done by the French Ecole Polytechnique 
 I wish to see done at the Universities ; and if the Germans 
 have lately spent 340,000 on a new College for technical 
 education at Berlin, I should like to ask what possible 
 reason can be adduced for stinting science-teaching in 
 Scotland, at a moment when the report on technical instruc- 
 tion has pointed out that "theoretical knowledge and 
 scientific training are of pre-eminent importance, as in the 
 case of the manufacturer of fine chemicals, or in that of the 
 metallurgical chemist, or the electrical engineer, the higher 
 technical instruction may with advantage be extended to 
 the age of twenty and twenty-two." Here, then, is a clear 
 case even for a Philistine to grant Government aid. If we 
 are to hold our own in manufactures, if we do not want to 
 go abroad for scientific managers of our works, then give to 
 our Universities the full equipment, which is necessary to 
 bring science up to the highest level. The University of 
 Edinburgh has done well in establishing Chairs of Agricul- 
 ture and of Engineering; but this is merely a small be- 
 ginning. The Scottish Universities are, by their constitu- 
 tion, by their popular instincts, well adapted to spread their 
 wings into this vast field, of what I should like to call the 
 higher education of the classes who are the actual producers 
 of the wealth of the nation. The sooner this gap is filled 
 up, the better it will be for the country ; and it constitutes 
 another claim on the Government. 
 
 There is a peculiar aptness in giving what I should like 
 to call a purely modern side to the Scottish Universities. 
 They have not had the benefit of large endowments, but 
 their most important endowment hitherto has been the 
 value put upon a University education by various pro- 
 fessions in Scotland, which in England do not by any means 
 show the same appreciation of it. That is a character which 
 they should carefully preserve and extend. The demand
 
 LORD RE A Y 297 
 
 which is at present strong for scientific training, in walks 
 of life in which it has hitherto been neglected, should be 
 responded to by the Scottish Universities without a moment's 
 hesitation. Of course, that department will have to bid 
 good-bye to Classics ; but, if we draw into the charmed circle 
 of University life those whose influence on our material and 
 social progress is very great indeed, we shall simply have 
 done for our generation what the founders of our Universities 
 intended to do for theirs. Science is the great renovator of 
 this century; whatever may be material in its objects, will, 
 by contact in the University, be counteracted by other 
 influences. 
 
 The golden words of not the least eminent of my pre- 
 decessors, on the recognition due to Art and Poetry in a 
 University, will not have faded from your memory. I may 
 not agree with all the arguments used by Stuart Mill, but 
 I certainly should wish to give to Art and Poetry, in this 
 modern side of our Universities, a prominent place. Those 
 professions which will be allured to the Universities, by 
 throwing open to them the Science classes, will certainly 
 be all the better for the development of their imaginative 
 faculties ; and these are easily roused in a Scotsman, how- 
 ever much he may have been maligned on account of his 
 Puritanical notions. 
 
 With reference to the Science faculty, I should like to 
 make a remark, which applies also to the other faculties, 
 but very specially to this faculty. I should wish to give it 
 considerable power to establish Lectureships in any special 
 subject, for which a specially gifted man should be found. 
 Though the number of his pupils might be very limited, the 
 publication of the results of his research carried on at the 
 University and through it would raise the University in 
 what I should like to call the international scale. Besides, 
 the knowledge of such prizes being attainable would stimu- 
 late original research anions the more brilliant under- 
 graduates. I wish those lecturers to be incorporated in the 
 University. I admit that I would rather see those lecturers 
 organised in the University than competing with the Uni-
 
 298 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 versity outside its gates. We had better use our resources 
 scanty as they are to give a complete organisation to 
 our Universities before we think of squandering our in- 
 tellectual treasures by establishing competing institutions. 
 These lecturers should, of course, be supplied with all the 
 best tools. As scientific lectures of the more recondite 
 character will necessarily only be attended by a few students, 
 it is obvious that remuneration in this case must be mainly 
 independent of fees, whatever may be the system adopted 
 in other cases. What I am pleading for is simply the 
 immediate and constant annexation of any scientific specialist 
 by one of our Universities. These lecturers would, of course, 
 represent a different category from those who would under- 
 take the burden of elementary lectures, leaving to the 
 professors the comprehensive view, and consequently the 
 highest teaching of their subject. 
 
 On the extreme importance of giving to the Scottish Uni- 
 versities a full complement of Laboratories I need not insist. 
 The excellent work done at our University in that branch 
 of scientific investigation, so important to one of our fore- 
 most national industries namely, zoological marine research 
 cannot any longer be ignored. The generous devotion 
 shown by Professor M'Intosh is deserving of the fullest 
 recognition. The meteorological observatory on Ben Nevis 
 though not attached to any of our Universities, yet 
 worked by their professors and students deserves our 
 hearty sympathy. Both are experiments whose success 
 may in no distant future increase largely the food supply 
 of the people. To those who may doubt the expediency of 
 strengthening the higher Science teaching in Scotland by 
 creating a separate faculty of Science, I shall simply recall 
 this fact, that in the Netherlands there are four science 
 faculties with forty-one professors. The creation of a new 
 faculty is further provided for in the original Bull of Pope 
 Benedict XIII., of 1413, which says: "We found and 
 institute a University in the said city of St. Andrews, for 
 theology, canon and civil law, arts, medicine, and other 
 lawful faculties."
 
 LORD RE A Y 299 
 
 What I have observed about the Faculty of Science 
 applies to the Medical Faculty, about which little need be 
 said, as it has attained European fame by adopting many of 
 those improvements which I am recommending for the 
 other Faculties. Nothing that it can possibly require should 
 be refused to it. The Science and the Medical Faculties 
 at this University have, I believe, a splendid opening, if 
 they make the most of Miss Baxter's grand foundation in 
 the neighbouring town. Science itself is paving the way, 
 bridging over the difficulty. On this side of the Tay you 
 have the old associations ; on the other side, you have the 
 vitality of modern progress. Eemain separated, and you 
 are weak on both sides ; unite, and you double your 
 strength. The distance will be smaller than that between 
 a West End and an East End Hospital, belonging to the 
 new London University. You are the oldest family among 
 the Universities ; take heed that, by haughty isolation, you 
 may not meet with the tragic fate of extinction. And, to 
 my Dundee friends, I would say : You have the means of 
 building your future glory, on the sure foundation of the 
 experience of centuries. Let your College be the fourth 
 constellation in the St. Andrews planetary system. The 
 ideal of a University is the blending of the ancient and 
 modern. 
 
 About the Faculty of Arts I can be very brief,- because 
 its needs, as well as those of the Faculty of Medicine, are 
 least likely to be overlooked by any Executive Commission ; 
 and, because it has an exalted position, which I shall not 
 impugn except where it attempts to monopolise, and thereby 
 to destroy, the increased usefulness of the Universities. 
 Besides a very complete staff for keeping up its philo- 
 sophical and classical traditions, I wish to see its philo- 
 logical efficiency increased, and provision made for Modern 
 Literature. At Leipsic there are the following Chairs : an 
 ordinary Professor and two lecturers for French ; two 
 ordinary Professors and four lecturers for Teutonic ; one 
 ordinary Professor for English, whose class is attended by 
 300 students ; one lecturer for Italian, and one for Spanish ;
 
 300 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 one Professor and two lecturers for Slavonic. The great 
 importance of developing this essential element in a Faculty 
 of Arts is clear, if our Universities are to undertake what 
 I have included in the Faculty of Science as the new poly- 
 technic part. 
 
 In his evidence before the Universities Commission, 
 Professor Eamsay, of the Glasgow University, said 
 "What we feel to be the characteristic of our system is, 
 that with us the teaching is the main thing, and the ex- 
 amination is subordinated to it. At Oxford the cry of 
 University reformers is that the teaching is entirely dwarfed 
 and controlled by the examinations." I may quote still 
 further : " The teaching given in the classes is the most 
 valuable portion of our Scottish University system, and it 
 would be simply a miserable policy to make our degrees 
 popular (as some people call it) by making them represent 
 less culture." The only essential element of success in 
 a University is that its teaching should be first-rate. 
 Whether it leads to a degree, and how it leads to a degree, 
 are matters not unimportant, but they are not essential. 
 A University without prescribed courses, without examina- 
 tions, and without degrees, is conceivable. A University 
 out of which men emerge with degrees but untaught, as 
 they did during the last century in Oxford and Cambridge, 
 is not a University. Of course, as our Universities are 
 professional Schools, courses will have to be prescribed as 
 avenues to various professions. 
 
 I am altogether in favour of qualifying for professions 
 by a University degree, and not by State examinations, 
 which is the German system. As the needs of professions 
 constantly vary, and as new professions constantly require 
 University training, I do not wish to draw a very hard and 
 fast line, but I would give to the various Faculties very 
 elastic powers of determining what courses of study, and 
 what variety of examinations for degrees, they should pre- 
 scribe. To stereotype either an entrance examination, or 
 the entrance to the lectures of a Faculty, or the examina- 
 tions for degrees, would be very injudicious. The avenues
 
 LORD REA V 301 
 
 to, and from, the University should be wide. Excellence in 
 each special department will be more easy of attainment, 
 the less you aim at uniformity. The tendency of Science 
 in all directions is subdivision. The more flexible your 
 system is the better ; the more alternative courses you 
 open, the more your Universities will prosper. What is 
 wanted is a machinery, by which the University can con- 
 stantly adjust its resources to supply needs, as they arise. 
 Finality in University reform may suit the Treasury ; but, 
 you cannot make a bargain with knowledge, which is an 
 expanding quantity. The Treasury cannot hold a perpetual 
 season-ticket for the Scottish Universities. The days of 
 the " trivium " and of the " quadrivium " are not likely to 
 recur. Let us see what is the expenditure, which foreign 
 Governments, and Parliaments, consider imperative. In 
 1868, the French Government only spent 8,000 on Uni- 
 versity education; the estimates now are 400,000, besides 
 extraordinary estimates, to which the State, the " Depart- 
 ment," and the "Communes" contribute. Since 1868, 
 Parliament, the representatives of " Departments " and of 
 " Communes," have voted close upon seven millions for 
 Buildings, used by higher educational institutions, of which 
 the Government contribute one million and a fifth, the 
 towns more than four. Between 1868 and 1878 thirty 
 Chairs were created in the Faculties of Science and Arts, 
 besides eighty-nine lectureships. From 1878 to 1884 the 
 Faculties of Science were endowed with four new Chairs 
 and several laboratories, and the Faculties of Arts with 
 fifteen new Chairs. At the present moment, the first have 
 78 lecturers and the latter 111, divided in "Cours Com- 
 plementaires " and " Maitrises de Conferences." The first 
 embrace Sanskrit, Semitic languages, Romance languages, 
 and literature of the Middle Ages the latter are supple- 
 mentary lectures to those given by the professors. They 
 are chiefly intended for those who wish to teach in their 
 turn. M. Waddington, the present French Ambassador in 
 London, was the founder of 300 bursaries, and now there 
 are 516. The Faculty of Arts, which was called "la
 
 302 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 petite faculte," has now been raised from the slough of 
 despond to a much higher level, and is no longer what it 
 was twenty years ago without pupils. The Sorbonne 
 now boasts of a thousand bond fide undergraduates in Arts 
 and Science. On the 24th of January of last year M. 
 Fallieres, Minister of Education, told the Senate that he 
 required one million and a fifth more to put the Faculties 
 on such a footing that they could compete with foreign 
 Universities. 
 
 In the Netherlands in 1876, the last year before the 
 new Act was in operation, a sum of 62,000 was spent; 
 the estimates for 1885 amount to 136,000 for University 
 education alone. 
 
 Let us see what has been spent on the University of 
 Strasburg. Its new buildings, or rather palaces, were 
 opened on the 29th October of last year. The Academie 
 of Strasburg was transformed into a University by an 
 Imperial decree of the 11th December 1871, the very 
 day (mark the coincidence) that the additional convention 
 was signed of the treaty of peace at Frankfort. Since 
 the annexation, 640,000 have been spent on buildings, 
 71,400 on the library, and the annual estimates exceed 
 40,000 for the University, and come up to 6,000 for 
 the library. Of these buildings the Chemical Institute 
 amounts to 35,000 ; the Institute for Physics to 28,000 ; 
 the Botanical Institute to 26,000 ; the Observatory 
 to 25,000; the Anatomical Institute to 42,000; the 
 Clinical Surgery to 26,000 ; the Institute of Physiological 
 Chemistry to 16,000; and the Physiological Institute to 
 13,900. The University had 858 matriculated students, 
 and of these 100 quite filled the Institute for Organic and 
 Inorganic Chemistry, which cannot hold more. There are 
 73 ordinary professors and 19 extraordinary. This is done 
 for less than 1,000 students. What is done in Scotland 
 for seven times the number ? 
 
 The question of University reform in Scotland is not 
 merely an educational question. It is a question of 
 practical importance to anybody who looks at political
 
 LORD RE A Y 303 
 
 questions from a statesman-like point of view. The chief 
 wealth of Scotland consists in the natural resources of 
 Scottish brains. The development of brain-power on a 
 wide scale is what a Scottish statesman has to look to. If 
 we had a Scottish Parliament sitting in Edinburgh, I have 
 no doubt that the organisation of the Universities would 
 be the first number on the legislative programme. There 
 were Scottish University Commissions in 1567, 1574, 
 1652, 1661, and 1690, and the Act of Union guaranteed 
 the existence of the four Universities. We have scattered 
 doctors and surgeons broadcast over the Empire, why 
 should we not do the same for other professions ? If the 
 University of St. Andrews has given a headmaster to West- 
 minster, there is no reason why the University of Edin- 
 burgh should not give one to Harrow, and why the 
 University of Glasgow should not give to Eton the head 
 of its Science department, or Aberdeen another Arnold to 
 Rugby. 
 
 If we are to make our Universities what they ought 
 to be, without having a Parliament of our own, we must 
 impress the Parliament, in which we play such a very 
 meek part, with the sense that we are in earnest. We 
 must convince them that we are not asking for University 
 reform as a luxury, but as a right. It is clearly a right of 
 Scotsmen to have the same means of education which are 
 at the disposal of the people of Baden. This is not a 
 question of local importance. It concerns the greatness of 
 the Empire. Development of more brain-power in Scot- 
 land means increased national efficiency and less danger 
 from democratic ignorance. 
 
 Our position is unassailable ; on one condition, how- 
 ever that our Universities should present a joint front. 
 They are the representatives in the country of its noblest 
 and highest aspirations. They should combine to convince 
 the Government that they do not urge selfish claims, but 
 the most imperative needs which any nation can plead. 
 We cannot ask the Government to put each of the four 
 Universities on the same footing as the University of
 
 304 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 Strasburg ; but we have a right to expect that everything 
 which is taught at Strasburg should at least be taught at 
 one of the four Universities. To secure the success of the 
 reform of the Universities, I would impress on the Senates 
 of the four Universities the paramount obligation of estab- 
 lishing a temporary federation to secure a maximum of 
 advantages by division of labour. Such a federation was 
 contemplated in the seventeenth century. These are the 
 " Overtours of the 20th August, 1641, concerning ye 
 Universities of this kingdome to be represented be the 
 Generall Assemblie to ye Kingis Majestie and Parliament 
 first, becaus the good estate both of the Kirk and 
 comone wealth dependeth mainly from the flourishing of 
 universities and colledges as ye seminaries of both, quilk 
 cannot be expected unless ye poore means quilk they have 
 be helped, and sufficient revenues be provided for them, 
 and the same weill employed. Thairfore, that out of the 
 rent of prelacies, collegiate, or chapter kirkes, or syclike, 
 a sufficient maintenance be provyded for a competent 
 number of professors, teachers, and bursars in all faculties, 
 especiallie in divinitie, and for upholding, repairing, and 
 enlairging ye fabrik of the colleges, furnishing of libraries, 
 and siclyk good uses in everie universitie and colledge. 
 Nixt, for keiping of good order, preveining, and removeing 
 of abuses and promoveing of pietie and learning, it is very 
 neidfull and expedict that there be a communioun and cor- 
 respondence keipit betwixt all the universities and colledges, 
 and thairfore that it be ordained that thair be a meiting 
 ones everie yeire at sic times and places as sal be agreit 
 upon of commissionars from everie universitie and colledge, 
 to consult and determine upon thair commone affaires, and 
 whatsoever may concern them for the end above speit, and 
 wlia also, or some of thair number, may represent what sal 
 be neidfull and expedict for the same effect to Parliamint 
 and Gnall Assemblies. Item, that speiall cair be had 
 that the places of the professors, especially of professors of 
 divinitie, in everie universitie and colledge be filled with 
 the ablest men and best affected to the lieformatioune and
 
 LORD REA Y 305 
 
 order of this Kirk." In this document we do not find the 
 advice to the Regents with which the memorial of the 
 visitation of 1588 concludes "Forbid their quarelling 
 . . . albeit it be not altogether prohibit that they may 
 flyte (scold), yet forbid fechting or bearing of daggis or 
 swerdis." This advice, however, would be perfectly appro- 
 priate to the German Universities, if they were to have a 
 "visitation" in 1888. 
 
 Nothing will damage the cause of University reform 
 more than what I shall venture to call a competitive 
 scramble by each individual University for the spoils. 
 Nothing will raise the influence of the Scottish Universi- 
 ties more than the conviction that they are not pleading 
 for the private interests of their own house, but for the 
 undoubted public interest of placing the Scottish Univer- 
 sities in their collective capacity on the highest level 
 attained by Universities elsewhere. We cannot ask for 
 four Chairs of the History of Art, or of International Law, 
 but we certainly ought to have one. 
 
 Gentlemen, I am sadly conscious that I have not 
 spoken to you with the authority of my illustrious prede- 
 cessors ; I have spoken under a deep sense of responsibility. 
 I know that many of my friends deprecate alarm, because 
 of foreign warlike preparations ; but, without entering on 
 this vexatious question, you must allow me to confess that 
 I am an educational alarmist. When I see the educa- 
 tional armaments of France and Germany constantly 
 strengthened, and when I know what a splendid Uni- 
 versity London cannot fail to acquire, I must look upon 
 Mr. Courtney's proportionate representation of Scotland on 
 the educational estimates as a bad illustration of the 
 representation of minorities. The rights of the educational 
 conscience of Scotland must be vindicated. On the Govern- 
 ment we have a distinct claim. Nobody has ever main- 
 tained that the Government could leave our Universities 
 to their fate. Twenty years elapsed after the Reformation 
 before a Commission undertook the Universities. It ought 
 not to take twenty years before a Secretary for Scotland
 
 306 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 lays on the table of the House of Commons the report 
 of our Executive Commission. The very fact that Oxford 
 and Cambridge are self-supporting gives strength to our 
 claim, because an advance made by the Government north 
 of the Tweed must stimulate advance south of the Tweed. 
 In educational matters it is the function of Scotland to 
 act as a stimulant to England. The reforms I propose are, 
 I admit, of a very thoroughgoing, but mainly constructive, 
 character. 
 
 Speaking in this ancient centre of Scottish learning, I 
 am not conscious that I have said anything which need 
 in any way offend our ancestors if they were present. The 
 tradition I most value is that tradition of moral strength, 
 of moral character, and of moral tone, which our ancestors 
 have left us as their most precious legacy. It is as if I 
 heard their voice thus addressing the rising generation of 
 Scotsmen : Eepudiate everything that is unreal ; respect 
 only that which is simple and true. With small means 
 we achieved great things ; with the wealth of knowledge 
 you now possess, achieve greater things.
 
 ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR 
 
 Rector from 1886 to 1889 
 Address delivered on December 10, 1887
 
 ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR 
 
 THE PLEASURES OF READING 
 
 It has probably not been the lot of many of my pre- 
 decessors in the distinguished post to which you have 
 elected me to deliver a Rectorial Address under circum- 
 stances more adverse to the deliberate reflection and the 
 careful preparation which such a performance requires. So 
 strongly do I feel the extreme difficulty of saying anything 
 worthy of this place and of this audience, at a time when 
 the daily and even hourly calls upon me are incessant, that 
 I should have been disposed to defer to a more convenient 
 season my first public appearance amongst you. From this, 
 however, I was deterred by one consideration namely, that 
 if the Rectorial installation were postponed till next year, or 
 the year after, I should have no opportunity of meeting 
 those who interested themselves in the last Rectorial election. 
 In University life, generation succeeds generation with such 
 rapidity, that the leaders among the students of one year 
 are the departed heroes of the next. And I prefer, there- 
 fore, even under the somewhat adverse circumstances which 
 I have indicated, to meet those who took a principal part in 
 the contest of last November, whether for or against me, 
 to all the advantages which my audience might be expected 
 to derive from a postponement of my Address. 
 
 I will confess to you at the outset that I have been 
 much embarrassed in the selection of a subject. Not a few 
 of my predecessors have found themselves, I should imagine, 
 in a similar difficulty. A Rectorial Address might, so I 
 was informed, be about anything. But this " anything " is 
 too apt, upon further investigation, to resolve itself into
 
 310 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 nothing. Some topics are too dull. Some are too con- 
 troversial. Some interest only the few. Some are too 
 great a strain upon the speaker who has to prepare them. 
 Some too severely tax the patience of the audience which 
 has to listen to them. And I confess to have been much 
 perplexed in my search for a topic on which I could say 
 something to which you would have patience to listen, or 
 on which I might find it profitable to speak. 
 
 One theme, however, there is, not inappropriate to the 
 place in which I speak, nor, I hope, unwelcome to the 
 audience which I address. The youngest of you have left 
 behind that period of youth during which it seems incon- 
 ceivable that any book should afford recreation except a 
 story-book. Many of you are just reaching the period 
 when, at the end of your prescribed curriculum, the whole 
 field and compass of literature lies outspread before you ; 
 when with faculties trained and disciplined, and the edge of 
 curiosity not dulled or worn with use, you may enter at 
 your leisure into the intellectual heritage of the centuries. 
 
 Now the question of how to read, and what to read, has 
 of late filled much space in the daily papers, if it cannot, 
 strictly speaking be said to have profoundly occupied the 
 public mind. But you need be under no alarm. I am not 
 going to supply you with a new list of a hundred books, 
 nor am I about to take the world into my confidence in 
 respect of my favourite passages from the best authors. 
 Nor again do I address myself to the professed student, to 
 the fortunate individual with whom literature or science is 
 the business as well as the pleasure of life. I have not the 
 qualifications which would enable me to undertake such a 
 task with the smallest hope of success. My aim is humble, 
 though the audience to whom I desire to speak is large ; for 
 I speak to the ordinary reader with ordinary capacities and 
 ordinary leisure, to whom reading is, or ought to be, not a 
 business but a pleasure ; and my theme is the enjoyment 
 not the improvement, nor the glory, nor the profit, but the 
 enjoyment which may be derived by such an one from 
 books.
 
 , ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR 311 
 
 It is perhaps due to the controversial habits engendered 
 by my unfortunate profession, that I find no easier method 
 of making my own view clear than by contrasting with it 
 what I regard as an erroneous view held by somebody else ; 
 and in the present case the doctrine which I shall choose as 
 a foil to my own is one which has been stated with the 
 utmost force and directness by that brilliant and dis- 
 tinguished writer, Mr. Frederic Harrison. He has given 
 us in a series of excellent essays his opinion on the 
 principles which should guide us in the choice of books. 
 Against that part of his treatise which is occupied with 
 specific recommendations of certain authors I have not a 
 word to say. He has resisted all the temptations to 
 eccentricity which so easily beset the modern critic. 
 Every book which he praises deserves his praise, and has 
 long been praised by the world at large. I do not, 
 indeed, hold that the verdict of the world is necessarily 
 binding on the individual conscience. I admit to the full 
 that there is an enormous quantity of hollow devotion, of 
 withered orthodoxy divorced from living faith, in the 
 eternal chorus of praise which goes up from every literary 
 altar to the memory of the immortal dead. Nevertheless, 
 every critic is bound to recognise, as Mr. Harrison recog- 
 nises, that he must put down to individual peculiarity any 
 difference he may have with the general verdict of the 
 ages ; he must feel that mankind are not likely to be in 
 a conspiracy of error as to the kind of literary work which 
 conveys to them the highest literary enjoyment, and that in 
 such cases at least securus judicat orbis terrarum. 
 
 But it is quite possible to hold that any work recom- 
 mended by Mr. Harrison is worth repeated reading, and yet 
 to reject utterly the theory of study by which these recom- 
 mendations are prefaced. For Mr. Harrison is a ruthless 
 censor. His index expurgatoriws includes, so far as I can 
 discover, the whole catalogue of the British Museum, with 
 the exception of a small remnant which might easily be 
 contained in about thirty or forty volumes. The vast 
 remainder he contemplates with feelings apparently not
 
 312 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 merely of indifference, but of active aversion. He surveys 
 the boundless and ever -increasing waste of books with 
 emotions compounded of disgust and dismay. He is 
 almost tempted to say in his haste that the invention of 
 printing has been an evil one for humanity. In the 
 habits of miscellaneous reading born of a too easy access 
 to libraries, circulating and other, he sees many soul- 
 destroying tendencies ; and his ideal reader would appear 
 to be a gentleman who rejects with a lofty scorn all in 
 history that does not pass for being first-rate in importance, 
 and all in literature that is not admitted to be first-rate in 
 quality. 
 
 Now, I am far from denying that this theory is plausible. 
 Of all that has been written, it is certain that the professed 
 student can master but an infinitesimal fraction. Of that 
 fraction the ordinary reader can master but a very small 
 part. What advice, then, can be better than to select for 
 study the few masterpieces that have come down to us, and 
 to treat as non-existent the huge but undistinguished re- 
 mainder ? We are like travellers passing hastily through 
 some ancient city filled with memorials of many generations 
 and more than one great civilisation. Our time is short. 
 Of what may be seen we can only see at best but a trifling 
 fragment. Let us then take care that we waste none of 
 our precious moments upon that which is less than the 
 most excellent. So preaches Mr. Frederic Harrison. And 
 when a doctrine which, put thus, may seem not only 
 wise but obvious, is further supported by such assertions 
 as that habits of miscellaneous reading " close the mind to 
 what is spiritually sustaining " by " stuffing it with what is 
 simply curious," or that such methods of study are worse 
 than no habits of study at all, because they " gorge and 
 enfeeble " the mind by " excess in that which cannot 
 nourish," I almost feel that in venturing to dissent from it 
 1 may be attacking not merely the teaching of common- 
 sense, but the inspirations of a high morality. 
 
 Yet I am convinced that, for most persons, the views 
 thus laid down by Mr. Harrison are wrong, and that what
 
 ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR 313 
 
 he describes, with characteristic vigour, as " an impotent 
 voracity for desultory information," is in reality a most 
 desirable and a not too common form of mental appetite. I 
 have no sympathy whatever for the horror he expresses at 
 the "incessant accumulation of fresh books." I am never 
 tempted to regret that Gutenberg was born into the world. 
 I care not at all though the " cataract of printed stuff," as 
 Mr. Harrison calls it, should flow and still flow on until the 
 catalogues of our libraries should make libraries themselves. 
 I am prepared, indeed, to express sympathy almost amount- 
 ing to approbation for any one who would check all writing 
 which was not intended for the printer. I pay no tribute 
 of grateful admiration to those who have oppressed mankind 
 with the dubious blessing of the penny post. But the 
 ground of the distinction is plain. We are always obliged 
 to read our letters, and are sometimes obliged to answer 
 them. But who obliges us to wade through the piled-up 
 lumber of an ancient library, or to skim more than we like 
 off the frothy foolishness poured forth in ceaseless stream by 
 our circulating libraries ? Dead dunces do not importune 
 us ; Grub Street does not ask for a reply by return of post, 
 Even their living successors need hurt no one who possesses 
 the very moderate degree of social courage required to make 
 the admission that he has not read the last new novel or 
 the current number of a fashionable magazine. 
 
 But this is not the view of Mr. Harrison. To him the 
 position of any one having free access to a large library is 
 fraught with issues so tremendous that, in order adequately 
 to describe it, he has to seek for parallels in two of the 
 most highly wrought episodes in fiction the Ancient 
 Mariner, becalmed and thirsting on the tropic ocean ; 
 Banyan's Christian in the crisis of spiritual conflict. But 
 there is here, surely, some error and some exaggeration. 
 Has miscellaneous reading the dreadful consequences which 
 Mr. Harrison depicts ? Has it any of them ? His declara- 
 tions about the intellect being " gorged and enfeebled " by 
 the absorption of too much information, expresses no doubt 
 with great vigour an analogy, for which there is high
 
 314 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 authority, between the human mind and the human stomach ; 
 but surely it is an analogy which may be pressed too far. 
 I have often heard of the individual whose excellent natural 
 gifts have been so overloaded with huge masses of undigested 
 and indigestible learning, that they have had no chance of 
 healthy development. But though I have often heard of 
 this personage, I have never met him, and I believe him to 
 be mythical. It is true, no doubt, that many learned 
 people are dull ; but there is no indication whatever that 
 they are dull because they are learned. True dulness is 
 seldom acquired ; it is a natural grace, the manifestations of 
 which, however modified by education, remain in substance 
 the same. Fill a dull man to the brim with knowledge, 
 and he will not become less dull, as the enthusiasts for 
 education vainly imagine ; neither will he become duller, as 
 Mr. Harrison appears to suppose. He will remain in 
 essence what he always has been and always must have 
 been. But whereas his dulness would, if left to itself, have 
 been merely vacuous, it may have become, under careful 
 cultivation, pretentious and pedantic. 
 
 I would further point out to you that, while there is no 
 ground in experience for supposing that a keen interest in 
 those facts which Mr. Harrison describes as " merely curious " 
 has any stupefying effect upon the mind, or has any ten- 
 dency to render it insensible to the higher things of literature 
 and art, there is positive evidence that many of those 
 who have most deeply felt the charm of those higher things 
 have been consumed by that omnivorous appetite for know- 
 ledge which excites Mr. Harrison's especial indignation. 
 Dr. Johnson, for instance, though deaf to some of the most 
 delicate harmonies of verse, was, without question, a very 
 great critic. Yet, in Dr. Johnson's opinion, literary history, 
 which is for the most part composed of facts which Mr. 
 Harrison would regard as insignificant, about authors whom 
 he would regard as pernicious, was the most delightful of 
 studies. Again, consider the case of Lord Macaulay. Lord 
 Macaulay did everything Mr. Harrison says he ought not 
 to have done. From youth to age he was continuously
 
 ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR 315 
 
 occupied in " gorging and enfeebling " his intellect by the 
 unlimited consumption of every species of literature, from 
 the masterpieces of the age of Pericles to the latest rubbish 
 from the circulating library. It is not told of him that his 
 intellect suffered by the process ; and though it will hardly 
 be claimed for him that he was a great critic, none will deny 
 that he possessed the keenest susceptibilities for literary 
 excellence in many languages and in every form. If English- 
 men and Scotchmen do not satisfy you, I will take a 
 Frenchman. The most accomplished critic whom France 
 has produced is, by general admission, St. Beuve. His 
 capacity for appreciating supreme perfection in literature 
 will be disputed by none ; yet the great bulk of his vast 
 literary industry was expended upon the lives and writings 
 of authors whose lives Mr. Harrison would desire us to 
 forget, and whose writings almost wring from him the wish 
 that the art of printing had never been discovered. 
 
 I am even bold enough to hazard the conjecture (I trust 
 he will forgive me), that Mr. Harrison's life may be quoted 
 against Mr. Harrison's theory. I entirely decline to believe 
 without further evidence that the writings whose vigour of 
 style and of thought have been the delight of us all, are the 
 product of his own system. I hope I do him no wrong, 
 but I cannot help thinking that, if we knew all, we should 
 tind that he followed the practice of those worthy physicians 
 who, after prescribing the most abstemious diet to their 
 patients, may be seen partaking freely, and to all appearances 
 safely, of the most succulent and the most unwholesome of 
 the forbidden dishes. 
 
 It has to be noted that Mr. Harrison's list of the books 
 which deserve perusal would seem to indicate that, in his 
 opinion, the pleasures to be derived from literature are 
 chiefly pleasures of the imagination. Poets, dramatists, and 
 novelists form the bulk of what is specificially permitted to 
 his disciples. Now, though I have clearly stated that the 
 list is not one of which any person is likely to assert that 
 it contains books which ought to be excluded, yet, even 
 from the point of view of what may be termed aesthetic
 
 316 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 enjoyment, the field in which we are allowed to take our 
 pleasures seems to me unduly restricted. 
 
 Contemporary poetry, for instance, on which Mr. Harri- 
 son bestows a good deal of hard language, has, and must 
 have for the generation which produces it, certain qualities 
 not likely to be possessed by any other. Charles Lamb has 
 somewhere declared that a pun loses all its virtue as soon 
 as the momentary quality of the intellectual and social 
 atmosphere in which it was born has changed its character. 
 What is true of this, the humblest effort of verbal art, is 
 true, in a different measure and degree, of all, even of the 
 highest forms of literature. To some extent every work 
 requires interpretation to generations who are separated by 
 differences of thought or education from the age in which it 
 was originally produced. That this is so with every book 
 which depends for its interest upon feelings and fashions 
 which have utterly vanished, no one will be disposed, I 
 imagine, to deny. Butler's Hudibras, for instance, which 
 was the delight of a gay and witty society, is to me, at least, 
 not unfrequently dull. Of some works which made a noise 
 in their day, it seems impossible to detect the slightest trace 
 of charm. But this is not the case with Hudibras ; its 
 merits are obvious. That they should have appealed to a 
 generation sick of the reign of the " Saints," is precisely what 
 we should have expected. But to us, who are not sick of 
 the reign of the Saints, they appeal but imperfectly. The 
 attempt to reproduce artificially the frame of mind of those 
 who first read the poem is not only an effort, but is to most 
 people, at all events, an unsuccessful effort. What is true 
 of Hudibras is true also, though in an inconceivably 
 smaller degree, of those great works of imagination which 
 deal with the elemental facts of human character and human 
 passion. Yet even on these, time does, though lightly, lay 
 his hand. Wherever what may be called " historic sym- 
 pathy" is required, there will be some diminution of the 
 enjoyment which those must have felt who were the poet's 
 contemporaries. We look, so to speak, at the same splendid 
 landscape as they, but distance has made it necessary for us
 
 ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR 317 
 
 to aid our natural vision with glasses, and some loss of light 
 will thus inevitably be produced, and some inconvenience 
 from the difficulty of truly adjusting the focus. Of all 
 authors, Homer would, I suppose, be thought to suffer least 
 from such drawbacks. But yet, in order to listen to Homer's 
 accents with the ears of an ancient Greek, we must be able, 
 among other things, to enter into a view about the gods 
 which is as far removed from what we should describe as 
 true religious sentiment, as it is from the frigid ingenuity of 
 those later poets who regarded the deities of Greek myth- 
 ology as so many wheels in the supernatural machinery with 
 which it pleased them to carry on the action of their pieces. 
 If we are to accept Mr. Herbert Spencer's views as to the 
 progress of our species, changes of sentiment are likely to 
 occur which will far more seriously interfere with the world's 
 delight in the Homeric poems. When human beings become 
 " so nicely adjusted to their environment " that courage and 
 dexterity in battle will have become as useless among virtues 
 as an old helmet is among weapons of war ; when fighting 
 gets to be looked upon with the sort of disgust excited in us 
 by cannibalism ; and when public opinion shall regard a 
 warrior much in the same light that we regard a hangman, 
 I do not see how any fragment of that vast and splendid 
 literature which depends for its interest upon deeds of 
 heroism and the joy of battle is to retain its ancient charm. 
 About these remote contingencies, howeverj am glad to think 
 that neither you nor I need trouble our heads ; and if I paren- 
 thetically allude to them now, it is merely as an illustration 
 of a truth not always sufficiently remembered, and as an 
 excuse for those who find in the genuine, though possibly 
 second-rate, productions of their own age, a charm for which 
 they search in vain among the mighty monuments of a past 
 literature. 
 
 But I leave this train of thought, which has perhaps 
 already taken me too far, in order to point out a more 
 fundamental error, as I think it, which arises from regarding 
 literature solely from this high aesthetic standpoint. The 
 pleasures of the imagination derived from the best literary
 
 318 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 models form, without doubt, the most exquisite portion of 
 the enjoyment which we may extract from books ; but they 
 do not, in my opinion, form the largest portion, if we take 
 into account mass as well as quality, in our calculation. 
 There is the literature which appeals to the imagination or 
 the fancy, some stray specimens of which Mr. Harrison will 
 permit us to peruse ; but is there not also the literature 
 which satisfies the curiosity ? Is this vast storehouse of 
 pleasure to be thrown hastily aside because many of the 
 facts which it contains are alleged to be insignificant, be- 
 cause the appetite to which they minister is said to be 
 morbid ? Consider a little. We are here dealing with one 
 of the strongest intellectual impulses of rational beings. 
 Animals, as a rule, trouble themselves but little with any- 
 thing unless they want either to eat it or to run away from 
 it. Interest in, and wonder at, the works of nature and the 
 doings of man are products of civilisation, and excite 
 emotions which do not diminish but increase with increasing 
 knowledge and cultivation. Feed them and they grow ; 
 minister to them and they will greatly multiply. We hear 
 much indeed of what is called " idle curiosity," but I am 
 loath to brand any form of curiosity as necessarily idle. 
 Take, for example, one of the most singular, but, in this age, 
 one of the most universal forms in which it is accustomed 
 to manifest itself I mean that of an exhaustive study of 
 the contents of the morning and evening papers. It is cer- 
 tainly remarkable that any person who has nothing to get 
 by it should destroy his eyesight and confuse his brain by a 
 conscientious attempt to master the dull and doubtful details 
 of the European diary daily transmitted to us by " Our 
 Special Correspondent." But it must be remembered that 
 this is only a somewhat unprofitable exercise of that 
 disinterested love of knowledge which moves men to pene- 
 trate the Polar snows, to build up systems of philosophy, or 
 to explore the secrets of the remotest heavens. It has in it 
 the rudiments of infinite and varied delights. It can be 
 turned, and it should be turned, into a curiosity for which 
 nothing that has been done, or thought, or suffered, or
 
 A R THUR J A MES BALFO UR 319 
 
 believed no law which governs the world of matter or the 
 world of mind can be wholly alien or uninteresting. 
 
 Truly it is a subject for astonishment that, instead of 
 expanding to the utmost the employment of this pleasure- 
 giving faculty, so many persons should set themselves to 
 work to limit its exercise by all kinds of arbitrary regula- 
 tions. Some persons, for example, tell us that the acquisi- 
 tion of knowledge is all very well, but that it must be 
 useful knowledge, meaning usually thereby that it must 
 enable a man to get on in a profession, pass an examination, 
 shine in conversation, or obtain a reputation for learning. But 
 even if they mean something higher than this even if they 
 mean that knowledge, to be worth anything, must subserve 
 ultimately, if not immediately, the material or spiritual 
 interests of mankind the doctrine is one which should be 
 energetically repudiated. I admit, of course, at once, that 
 discoveries the most apparently remote from human concerns 
 have often proved themselves of the utmost commercial or 
 manufacturing value. But they require no such justification 
 for their existence, nor were they striven for with any such 
 object. Navigation is not the final cause of astronomy, nor 
 telegraphy of electro-dynamics, nor dye-works of chemistry. 
 And if it be true that the desire of knowledge for the sake 
 of knowledge was the animating motive of the great men 
 who first wrested her secrets from nature, why should* it not 
 also be enough for us, to whom it is not given to discover, 
 but only to learn as best we may what has been discovered 
 by others ? 
 
 Another maxim, more plausible but equally pernicious, 
 is that superficial knowledge is worse than no knowledge at 
 all. That " a little knowledge is a dangerous thing " is a 
 saying which has now got currency as a proverb stamped in 
 the mint of Pope's versification, of Pope who, with the 
 most imperfect knowledge of Greek, translated Homer ; 
 with the most imperfect knowledge of the Elizabethan 
 drama, edited Shakespeare ; and with the most imperfect 
 knowledge of philosophy, wrote the Essay on Man. But 
 what is this " little knowledge " which is supposed to be so
 
 320 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 dangerous ? What is it " little " in relation to ? If in 
 relation to what there is to know, then all human know- 
 ledge is little. If in relation to what actually is known by- 
 somebody, then we must condemn as " dangerous " the 
 knowledge which Archimedes possessed of mechanics, or 
 Copernicus of astronomy ; for a shilling primer and a few 
 weeks' study will enable any student to outstrip in mere 
 information some of the greatest teachers of the past. No 
 doubt, that little knowledge which thinks itself to be great, 
 may possibly be a dangerous, as it certainly is a most 
 ridiculous, thing. We have all suffered under that emi- 
 nently absurd individual who, on the strength of one or 
 two volumes, imperfectly apprehended by himself, and long 
 discredited in the estimation of every one else, is prepared 
 to supply you on the shortest notice with a dogmatic 
 solution of every problem suggested by this " unintelligible 
 world " ; or the political variety of the same pernicious 
 genus, whose statecraft consists in the ready application to 
 the most complex question of national interest of some 
 high-sounding commonplace which has done weary duty on 
 a thousand platforms, and which even in its palmiest days 
 was never fit for anything better than a peroration. But in 
 our dislike of the individual, do not let us mistake the 
 diagnosis of his disease. He suffers not from ignorance, but 
 from stupidity. Give him learning and you make him not 
 wise, but only more pretentious in his folly. 
 
 I say, then, that so far from a little knowledge being 
 undesirable, a little knowledge is all that on most subjects 
 any of us can hope to attain, and that as a source not of 
 worldly profit but of personal pleasure, it may be of incal- 
 culable value to its possessor. But it will naturally be 
 asked, " How are we to select from among the infinite 
 number of things which may be known, those which it is 
 best worth while for us to know ? " We are constantly 
 being told to concern ourselves with learning what is 
 important, and not to waste our energies upon what is in- 
 significant. But what are the marks by which we shall 
 recognise the important, and how is it to be distinguished
 
 , ARTHUR JAMES BALFO UR 321 
 
 from the insignificant ? A precise and complete answer to 
 this question which shall be true for all men cannot be 
 given. I am considering knowledge, recollect, as it ministers 
 to enjoyment, and from this point of view each unit of 
 information is obviously of importance in proportion as it 
 increases the general sum of enjoyment which we obtain 
 from knowledge. This, of course, makes it impossible to 
 lay down precise rules which shall be an equally sure guide 
 to all sorts and conditions of men ; for in this, as in other 
 matters, tastes must differ, and against real difference of 
 taste there is no appeal. 
 
 There is, however, one caution which it may be worth 
 your while to keep in view, Do not be persuaded into 
 applying any general proposition on this subject with a 
 foolish impartiality to every kind of knowledge. There are 
 those who tell you that it is the broad generalities and 
 the far-reaching principles which govern the world, which 
 are alone worthy of your attention. A fact which is not 
 an illustration of a law, in the opinion of these persons, 
 appears to lose all its value. Incidents which do not fit 
 into some great generalisation, events which are merely 
 picturesque, details which are merely curious they dismiss 
 as unworthy the interest of a reasoning being. Now, even in 
 science, this doctrine in its extreme form does not hold good. 
 The most scientific of men have taken profound interest in 
 the investigation of facts from the determination of which 
 they do not anticipate any material addition to our know- 
 ledge of the laws which regulate the universe. In these 
 matters I need hardly say that I speak wholly without author- 
 ity. But I have always been under the impression that an in- 
 vestigation which has cost hundreds of thousands of pounds ; 
 which has stirred on three occasions the whole scientific com- 
 munity throughout the civilised world ; on which has been ex- 
 pended the utmost skill in the construction of instruments and 
 their application to purposes of research (I refer to the 
 attempts made to determine the distance of the sun by 
 observations of the transit of Venus), would, even if it 
 had been brought to a successful issue, have furnished man-
 
 322 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 kind with the knowledge of no new astronomical principle. 1 
 The laws which govern the motions of the solar system, the 
 proportions which the various elements in that system bear 
 to one another, have long been known. The distance of the 
 sun itself is known within limits of error, relatively 
 speaking, not very considerable. Were the measuring-rod 
 we apply to the heavens based on an estimate of the sun's 
 distance from the earth, which was wrong by (say) three per 
 cent, it would not to the lay mind seem to affect very 
 materially our view either of the distribution of the 
 heavenly bodies or of their motions. And yet this in- 
 formation, this piece of celestial gossip, would seem to be 
 that which was chiefly expected from the successful pro- 
 secution of an investigation in which whole nations have 
 interested themselves. 
 
 But though no one can, I think, pretend that science 
 does not concern itself, and properly concern itself, with 
 facts which are not in themselves, to all appearance, illustra- 
 tions of law, it is undoubtedly true that for those who desire to 
 extract the greatest pleasure from science, a knowledge, 
 however elementary, of the leading principles of investigation 
 and the larger laws of nature, is the acquisition most to be 
 desired. To him who is not a specialist, a comprehension 
 of the broad outlines of the universe as it presents itself to 
 the scientific imagination, is the thing most worth striving 
 to attain. But when we turn from science to what is 
 rather vaguely called history, the same principles of study 
 do not, I think, altogether apply, and mainly for this reason, 
 that while the recognition of the reign of law is the chief 
 amongst the pleasures imparted by science, our inevitable 
 ignorance makes it the least among the pleasures imparted 
 by history. 
 
 It is no doubt true that we are surrounded by advisers 
 
 1 The accurate determination of the velocity of light would, doubtless, be 
 of the greatest importance in physics. But as regards astronomical research, 
 in reference to which the transit of Venus has been principally observed, the 
 illustration in the text seems accurate. The amount of possible error is 
 much less than three per cent.
 
 , A R THUR JAMES RA LFO UR 323 
 
 who tell us that all study of the past is barren except in so 
 far as it enables us to determine the laws by which the 
 evolution of human societies is governed. How far such 
 an investigation has been up to the present time fruitful in 
 results I will not inquire. That it will ever enable us to 
 trace with accuracy the course which states and nations are 
 destined to pursue in the future, or to account in detail for 
 their history in the past, I do not indeed believe. We are 
 borne along like travellers on some unexplored stream. We 
 may know enough of the general configuration of the globe 
 to be sure that we are making our way towards the 
 ocean. We may know enough by experience or theory of 
 the laws regulating the flow of liquids, to conjecture how 
 the river will behave under the varying influences to which 
 it may be subject. More than this we cannot know. It 
 will depend largely upon causes which, in relation to any 
 laws which we are ever likely to discover, may properly be 
 called accidental, whether we are destined sluggishly to 
 drift among fever-striken swamps, to hurry down perilous 
 rapids, or to glide gently through fair scenes of peaceful 
 cultivation. 
 
 But leaving on one side ambitious sociological specula- 
 tions, and even those more modest but hitherto more 
 successful investigations into the causes which have in 
 particular cases been principally operative in producing 
 great political changes, there are still two modes in which 
 we can derive what I may call " spectacular " enjoyment 
 from the study of history. There is first the pleasure which 
 arises from the contemplation of some great historic drama, 
 or some broad and well-marked phase of social development. 
 The story of the rise, greatness, and decay of a nation is like 
 some vast epic which contains as subsidiary episodes the 
 varied stories of the rise, greatness, and decay of creeds, of 
 parties, and of statesmen. The imagination is moved by the 
 slow unrolling of this great picture of human mutability, as 
 it is moved by the contrasted permanence of the abiding 
 stars. The ceaseless conflict, the strange echoes of long- 
 forgotten controversies, the confusion of purpose, the successes
 
 324 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 which lay deep the seeds of future evils, the failures that 
 ultimately divert the otherwise inevitable danger, the heroism 
 which struggles to the last for a cause foredoomed to defeat, 
 the wickedness which sides with right, and the wisdom 
 which huzzas at the triumph of folly fate, meanwhile, 
 through all this turmoil and perplexity, working silently 
 towards the predestined end, all these form together a 
 subject, the contemplation of which need surely never weary. 
 
 But there is yet another and very different species of 
 enjoyment to be derived from the records of the past, which 
 require a somewhat different method of study in order that 
 it may be fully tasted. Instead of contemplating, as it were, 
 from a distance, the larger aspects of the human drama, we 
 may elect to move in familiar fellowship amid the scenes 
 and actors of special periods. We may add to the interest 
 we derive from the contemplation of contemporary politics, 
 a similar interest derived from a not less minute, and 
 probably more accurate, knowledge of some comparatively 
 brief passage in the political history of the past. We may 
 extend the social circle in which we move a circle perhaps 
 narrowed and restricted through circumstances beyond our 
 control by making intimate acquaintances, perhaps even 
 close friends, among a society long departed, but which, 
 when we have once learnt the trick of it, it rests with us to 
 revive. 
 
 It is this kind of historical reading which is usually 
 branded as frivolous and useless, and persons who indulge 
 in it often delude themselves into thinking that the real 
 motive of their investigation into bygone scenes and ancient 
 scandals is philosophic interest in an important historical 
 episode, whereas in truth it is not the philosophy which 
 glorifies the details, but the details which make tolerable 
 the philosophy. Consider, for example, the case of the 
 French Eevolution. The period from the taking of the 
 Bastille to the fall of Eobespierre, is of about the same 
 length as very commonly intervenes between two of our 
 general elections. On these comparatively few months 
 libraries have been written. The incidents of every week
 
 ARTHUR J A MES BALFO UR 325 
 
 are matters of familiar knowledge. The character and the 
 biography of every actor in the drama has been made the 
 subject of minute study ; and by common admission, there 
 is no more fascinating page in the history of the world. But 
 the interest is not what is commonly called philosophic, it 
 is personal. Because the Eevolution is the dominant fact 
 in modern history, therefore people suppose that the doings 
 of this or that provincial lawyer, tossed into temporary 
 eminence and eternal infamy by some freak of the revolu- 
 tionary wave, or the atrocities committed by this or that 
 mob, half drunk with blood, rhetoric, and alcohol, are of 
 transcendent importance. In truth their interest is great, 
 but their importance is small. What we are concerned to 
 know as students of the philosophy of history is, not the 
 character of each turn and eddy in the great social cataract, 
 but the manner in which the currents of the upper stream 
 drew surely in towards the final plunge, and slowly collected 
 themselves after the catastrophe, again to pursue, at a 
 different level, their renewed and comparatively tranquil 
 course. 
 
 Now, if so much of the interest of the French Eevolution 
 depends upon our minute knowledge of each passing incident, 
 how much more necessary is such knowledge when we are 
 dealing with the quiet nooks and corners of history-^when 
 we are seeking an introduction, let us say, into the literary 
 society of Johnson or the fashionable society of Walpole ! 
 Society, dead or alive, can have no charm without intimacy, 
 and no intimacy without interest in trifles which I fear 
 Mr. Harrison would describe as "merely curious." If we 
 would feel at our ease in any company, if we wish to find 
 humour in its jokes and point in its repartees, we must 
 know something of the beliefs and the prejudices of its various 
 members their loves and their hates, their hopes and their 
 fears, their maladies, their marriages, and their flirtations. 
 If these things are beneath our notice, we shall not be the 
 less qualified to serve our Queen and Country, but need make 
 no attempt to extract pleasure out of one of the most delightful 
 departments of literature.
 
 326 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 That there is such a thing as trifling information, I do 
 not of course question ; but the frame of mind in which the 
 reader is constantly weighing the exact importance to the 
 universe at large of each circumstance which the author 
 presents to his notice, is not one conducive to the true 
 enjoyment of a picture whose effect depends upon a multitude 
 of slight and seemingly insignificant touches, which impress 
 the mind often without remaining in the memory. The best 
 method of guarding against the danger of reading what is 
 useless, is to read only what is interesting, a truth which 
 will seem a paradox to a whole class of readers, fitting objects 
 of our commiseration, who may be often recognised by their 
 habit of asking some adviser for a list of books, and then 
 marking out a scheme of study in the course of which all 
 these are to be conscientiously perused. These unfortunate 
 persons apparently read a book principally with the object 
 of getting to the end of it. They reach the word " Finis " 
 with the same sensation of triumph as an Indian feels who 
 strings a fresh scalp to his girdle. They are not happy 
 unless they mark by some definite performance each step in 
 the weary path of self- improvement. To begin a volume 
 and not to finish it, would be to deprive themselves of this 
 satisfaction ; it would be to lose all the reward of their earlier 
 self-denial by a lapse from virtue at the end. To skip, 
 according to their literary code, is a form of cheating : it is 
 a mode of obtaining credit for erudition on false pretences ; 
 a plan by which the advantages of learning are surreptitiously 
 obtained by those who have not won them by honest toil. 
 But all this is quite wrong. In matters literary, works have 
 no saving efficacy. He has only half learnt the art of reading 
 who has not added to it the even more refined accomplish- 
 ments of skipping and of skimming ; and the first step has 
 hardly been taken in the direction of making literature a 
 pleasure, until interest in the subject, and not a desire to 
 spare (so to speak) the author's feelings, or to accomplish an 
 appointed task, is the prevailing motive of the reader. 
 
 I have now reached, not indeed the end of my subject, 
 which I have scarcely begun, but the limits inexorably set
 
 , A R THUR JAMES BALFO UR 327 
 
 by the circumstances under which it is treated. Yet I am 
 unwilling to conclude without meeting an objection to my 
 method of dealing with it which has, I am sure, been present 
 to the minds of not a few who have been good enough to 
 listen to me with patience. It will be said that I have 
 ignored the higher functions of literature, that I have 
 degraded it from its rightful place, by discussing only 
 certain ways in which it may minister to the entertainment 
 of an idle hour, leaving wholly out of sight its contributions 
 to what Mr. Harrison calls our " spiritual sustenance." Now 
 this is partly because the first of these topics, and not the 
 second, was the avowed subject of my address ; but it is 
 partly because I am deliberately of opinion that it is the 
 pleasures and not the profits, spiritual or temporal, of literature 
 which most require to be preached in the ear of the ordinary 
 reader. I hold, indeed, the faith that all such pleasures 
 minister to the development of much that is best in man, 
 mental and moral ; but the charm is broken and the object 
 lost if the remote consequence is consciously pursued to the 
 exclusion of the immediate end. It will not, I suppose, be 
 denied that the beauties of nature are at least as well qualified 
 to minister to our higher needs as are the beauties of literature. 
 Yet we do not say we are going to walk to the top of such 
 and such a hill in order to provide ourselves with " spiritual 
 sustenance." We say we are going to look at the view. 
 And I am convinced that this, which is the natural and 
 simple way of considering literature as well as nature, is 
 also the true way. The habit of always requiring some 
 reward for knowledge beyond the knowledge itself, be that 
 reward some material prize, or be it what is vaguely called 
 self-improvement, is one with which I confess I have little 
 sympathy, fostered though it is by the whole system of 
 our modern education. Do not suppose that I desire the 
 impossible. I would not, if I could, destroy the examination 
 system. But there are times, I admit, when I feel tempted 
 somewhat to vary the prayer of the poet, and to ask whether 
 heaven has not reserved in pity to this much educating 
 generation some peaceful desert of literature as yet unclaimed
 
 328 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 by the crammer or the coach, where it might be possible for 
 the student to wander, even perhaps to stray, at his own 
 pleasure, without rinding every beauty labelled, every difficulty 
 engineered, every nook surveyed, and a professional cicerone 
 standing at every corner to guide each succeeding traveller 
 along the same well-worn round. If such a wish were 
 granted, I would further ask that the domain of knowledge 
 thus left outside the examination system should be the 
 literature of our own country. I grant to the full that the 
 systematic study of some literature must be a principal element 
 in the education of youth. But why should that literature 
 be our own ? Why should we brush off the bloom and 
 freshness from the works to which Englishmen and Scotchmen 
 most naturally turn for refreshment, namely, those written 
 in their own language ? Why should we associate them 
 with the memory of hours spent in weary study ; in the 
 effort to remember for purposes of examination what no 
 human being would wish to remember for any other ; in the 
 struggle to learn something, not because the learner desires 
 to know it, but because he desires some one else to know 
 that he knows it ? This is the dark side of the examination 
 system a system necessary, and therefore excellent, but 
 one which does, through the very efficiency and thoroughness 
 of the drill by which it imparts knowledge, to some extent 
 impair the most delicate pleasures by which the acquisition 
 of knowledge should be attended. 
 
 How great those pleasures may be, I trust there are 
 many here who can testify. When I compare the position 
 of the reader of to-day with that of his predecessor of the 
 sixteenth century, I am amazed at the ingratitude of 
 those who are tempted even for a moment to regret the 
 invention of printing and the multiplication of books. There 
 is now no mood of mind to which a man may not administer 
 the appropriate nutriment or medicine at the cost of reaching 
 down a volume from his book-shelf. In every department 
 of knowledge infinitely more is known, and what is known 
 is incomparably more accessible than it was to our ancestors. 
 The lighter forms of literature, good, bad, and indifferent,
 
 <ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR 329 
 
 which have added so vastly to the happiness of mankind, 
 have increased beyond powers of computation ; nor do I 
 believe that there is any reason to think that they have 
 elbowed out their more serious and important brethren. It 
 is perfectly possible for a man, not a professed student, and 
 who only gives to reading the leisure hours of a business 
 life, to acquire such a general knowledge of the laws of 
 nature and the facts of history, that every great advance 
 made in either department shall be to him both intelligible 
 and interesting ; and he may besides have among his familiar 
 friends many a departed worthy whose memory is embalmed 
 in the pages of memoir or biography. All this is ours for 
 the asking. All this we shall ask for, if only it be our 
 happy fortune to love, for its own sake, the beauty and 
 the knowledge to be gathered from books. And if this be 
 our fortune, the world may be kind or unkind it may seem 
 to us to be hastening on the wings of enlightenment and 
 progress to an imminent millennium, or it may weigh us 
 down with the sense of insoluble difficulty and irremediable 
 wrong ; but whatever else it be, so long as we have good 
 health and a good library, it can hardly be dull.
 
 MARQUESS OF DUFFERIN AND AVA 
 
 Rector from 1889 to 1892 
 Address delivered on April 6, 1891
 
 MARQUESS OF DUFFERIN AND AVA 
 
 Gentlemen It occasionally happens that young persons 
 rush into matrimony with a keener sense of its delights than 
 of its obligations. Something of this sort happened when I 
 wooed your suffrages as a candidate for the Rectorship of 
 St. Andrews. The greatness of the honour, the pleasure of 
 being again associated with the district which was the 
 early home of my ancestors, and to which the instincts of 
 atavism have driven my daughter to return, so dazzled my 
 imagination that I did not sufficiently apprehend the re- 
 sponsibility of the task which I am now called upon to 
 perform. It is certainly no light matter for any one so 
 inadequately equipped as myself to engage in the per- 
 formance of a function which has been hitherto discharged 
 by one or other of the foremost men of the age, and which I 
 now feel would have been far better executed by he dis- 
 tinguished nobleman who entered into friendly competition 
 with me at the last election ; for, gentlemen, there is not 
 one of those who have hitherto spoken from this desk who 
 was not either a master of universal learning, or entitled by 
 his acquaintance with some special subject, or his eminence 
 in one or other of the learned professions, or the acknow- 
 ledged powers of his mind and the majesty of his age and 
 character, to speak to you with an authority to which it 
 would be presumptuous for me to pretend. I daresay, 
 indeed, were I inspired by less grateful feelings than those 
 which animate me at this moment, I might contrive to 
 clothe the commonplace observations usually current at 
 educational gatherings in sufficiently sounding language to
 
 334 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 satisfy the decencies of the occasion ; but, when painfully 
 thinking over, as I have been for some time past, in what 
 style I should frame my present address, I determined that 
 the best return I could make to those who had shown me 
 so much kindness, but to whom I knew I was incompetent 
 to communicate anything worth their attention in regard 
 either to Science or Letters, would be to give them in as 
 simple and unpretending a manner as I could, such 
 practical hints in regard to some few of the matters which 
 will affect their start in life as my own personal experience 
 might furnish. In doing this my flight will naturally keep 
 to a very low and humble level ; but I take it for granted 
 that those young and ardent souls I see around me have 
 been so permeated and inspired by the combined spirit of 
 religion and patriotism which envelops this historic site, 
 and which has made Scotland what she is, that there is 
 already implanted deep and firm within their minds the 
 ever-present, all -pervading conviction that, beyond and 
 apart from the transitory aims and objects of personal 
 ambition or the prizes of a successful career, the one em- 
 ployment which makes life worth living or ourselves worthy 
 to live is the worship and service of our heavenly Father, 
 and a self-sacrificing devotion to the welfare and honour of 
 our country and of those who dwell within its borders. 
 
 Assuming, then, as a premiss that these two principles, 
 the love of God and the love of your native land, are to you 
 as the very breath of your nostrils, and the permanent as 
 well as the ultimate objects of your existence, I propose to 
 pretermit those loftier themes upon which my predecessors 
 have expatiated, and will confine myself to the considera- 
 tion of such subordinate topics as an ordinary man of the 
 world might presume to submit to such an audience. But, 
 at the outset, I wish it to be understood that there are two 
 classes of students who are not likely to profit by what I 
 have to say namely, those individuals whom Providence 
 may have endowed with the gift of divine genius, whose 
 hearts and lips have been touched by the living coal from 
 the altar, for genius in its essence is original and in-
 
 MARQUESS OF DUFFERIN AND A VA 335 
 
 ventive, and reaches its ends by its own methods ; and 
 those golden youths, if any such there be among you, in 
 whose veins still leaps the blood of their Viking ancestors, 
 and who abhor the very sight of a book and the thought of 
 any sedentary occupation. To the former my observations 
 will seem superfluous, while to the latter they will prove as 
 useless as have proved to them for centuries the elaborate 
 machinery of all our great public schools, which continue 
 as heretofore to send forth into the world thousands and 
 thousands of generous and gallant young men, speaking no 
 language but their own, innocent of Latin and of Greek, 
 and as ignorant of the marvellous tissue of events recorded 
 in the history of past ages> or of the first principles of 
 those august sciences which minister to the civilisation of the 
 world as they were when they first went to school ; though, 
 on the other hand, able to give long odds to every nation 
 in Europe at cricket, polo, football, golf, curling, riding 
 across country, or any other athletic exercise, including 
 probably fighting. Whether the time will ever come when 
 our educational authorities will discover the secret of in- 
 doctrinating this excellent raw material with some tincture 
 of Letters and a suspicion of Learning, must remain a 
 matter of conjecture. It is devoutly to be wished that 
 they should do so ; for even fighting is becoming a matter 
 of scholarship. In Germany, I believe, some progress has 
 been made in that direction, accompanied, however, by the 
 disadvantage of putting a large percentage of the population 
 into spectacles. 
 
 Those, however, I have in view at present are such as 
 must always form the majority in an assembly like the 
 present young men who are now what I myself was at 
 your age, and therefore into whose feelings I can enter 
 neither particularly brilliant nor exceptionally dull, but 
 gifted with ordinary ability and with the powers of memory 
 and the habits of industry common to the bulk of all 
 university students. 
 
 The first piece of advice, then, I would give to what I may 
 call my audience proper, is to endeavour to reach a practical
 
 336 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 conception both of the length and of the shortness of life. 
 According to the dictum of the Psalmist, every one of you 
 has a right to expect, if all goes well, some fifty years of 
 existence in other words, more than eighteen thousand 
 days. Now, all of you have probably already formed a 
 pretty good conception of what is meant by a thorough 
 day's work, and you will agree with me that a good deal 
 may be acquired and achieved during the course of eighteen 
 thousand days. In youth one's future life resembles a far 
 extending, nay, almost interminable plain ; but, though in- 
 terminable, the view of it is so choked and obscured by 
 the mists of uncertainty and of inexperience, that our actual 
 horizon remains extremely restricted. As a consequence, 
 the present, with its immediate purposes and enjoyments, 
 assumes undue importance in our eyes, and we undervalue 
 those more distant needs and advantages which we should 
 at once begin to provide against and secure. To those, 
 however, who have almost completed their journey, and 
 whose appointed tale of years has been wellnigh told, the 
 past seems but as yesterday, and the country they have 
 traversed, as they look back upon it from the Delectable 
 Mountains, lies at their feet marvellously foreshortened, 
 with every incident of their pilgrimage standing out in 
 magical distinctness. They can mark with regret, mingled 
 with wonder at their folly, their unaccountable deviations 
 from the direct route, their blind wanderings round and 
 about in the barren deserts of idleness or the thorny 
 thickets of misapplied endeavour, while they bewail with 
 many a sigh their neglect in not having started from the 
 outset with greater definiteness of purpose and a wiser 
 appreciation of what real life was, and of the use which 
 might be made of it. What, therefore, I would say to 
 you is this get clearly into your heads the fact that life 
 is a succinct, definite, circumscribed period of time, suffi- 
 ciently long to get a great deal done in it, and yet not 
 long enough to oppress us with the idea of exhausting 
 and unending effort. As children can be more readily 
 got to exert themselves when they know it is only for an
 
 MARQUESS OF DUFFERIN AND A VA 337 
 
 hour at a time, so we grown men will find the burden and 
 heat of the day less wearisome if we are careful to re- 
 member that the orb of our existence is ceaselessly measuring 
 its rapid track towards the horizon, and that at the appointed 
 time the vesper-bell of evening will surely summon us to 
 repose. Take care, then, that on quitting these walls you 
 enter at once, as willing workmen, into the vineyard, lest 
 later on you should have to lament with the poet 
 
 So much to do, so little done, 
 Our thread of life a third part spun, 
 And yet its labours scarce begun ; 
 While, stealing downwards sun by sun, 
 The empty years in silence run 
 To darkness and oblivion, 
 Leaving behind them still unwon 
 A people's benediction. 
 
 In the next place, try and frame for yourselves before- 
 hand as clear and correct a conception as circumstances 
 may permit of the nature, incidence, and ultimate conditions 
 of whatever careers you are determined to follow, being 
 careful at the same time, before you choose your professions, 
 to get a right knowledge of your individual aptitudes, and 
 of the extent of your powers ; for I am convinced that our 
 usefulness, as well as our happiness, depends upon our work 
 being done in a congenial atmosphere, and that it is" much 
 better to choose a humbler, less promising, or less remun- 
 erative walk in life, in which we are certain of personal 
 satisfaction, than to commit ourselves to a more ambitious 
 employment which may perhaps prove distressing to our 
 tastes and unsuited to our faculties. 
 
 Another topic to which I would direct your attention 
 though perhaps you may smile at my doing so is the 
 necessity of attending to your health, and consequently of 
 acquiring some knowledge of the principles of hygiene. It 
 has always been a marvel to me how the youth of England 
 ever attain manhood, so inconceivably silly are the things 
 that schoolboys are perpetually doing, through simple ignor- 
 ance. But grown men at our universities are equally
 
 338 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 careless, and ruin their constitutions, cripple themselves 
 for life, or destroy their nervous system, through neglect 
 of the commonest rules. Beading men are those who 
 most signally err in this particular for while the athletes 
 on the river or in the cricket- field follow the severest 
 regimen in order to keep their bodies fit for the impend- 
 ing exertion, the students live upon tea, neglect their 
 exercise, disdain fresh air, and sit up till any hour in the 
 morning ; and yet any doctor will tell you that our mental 
 functions, our memories, our attention, our powers of con- 
 tinuous application, are even more dependent for their 
 vigour and vitality on the general condition of our health 
 than is the play of our muscles. Moreover, there is 
 nothing more extraordinary than the trifling character of 
 the circumstances which will tilt the balance of our bodily 
 condition in the direction of health or of disease, or how 
 insignificant are the precautions which prove sufficient to 
 maintain our minds clear, cheerful, and elastic, and to 
 render the exercise of our faculties a delight and a 
 triumph, instead of leaving us to labour in an atmo- 
 sphere of inertness and despondency. But, on the other 
 hand, as youth is always prone to exaggeration, you must 
 be on your guard against allowing a reasonable solicitude 
 about your health to degenerate into the worst of tyrannies 
 that of hypochondria. Nor ought we to be less careful 
 of what I may call the hygiene of our souls, or rather of 
 our nervous systems ; for it is an undoubted fact that, as 
 men grow up from youth to manhood, there is developed 
 within their frames a certain nervous effervescence which, 
 unless wisely and manfully controlled, results either in 
 physical excesses or else in various forms of hysteria, 
 which sometimes take the shape of religious melancholy or 
 of extravagant or factitious religious enthusiasm, which only 
 too often proves not only unreal and evanescent, but the 
 herald of a deplorable and pernicious reaction. Remember, 
 therefore, that the healthiness and robustness of your nerves 
 and mental fibre are as worthy of cultivation as those of 
 your corporeal faculties. In this way you will keep your
 
 MA RQ UESS OF D UFFERIN AND A VA 339 
 
 characters free from those morbid, sentimental, and vicious 
 growths which leave a human being neither man nor 
 woman. 
 
 Another matter connected with education which has 
 frequently struck me on looking back on my own past is, 
 that we do not make our pupils understand how much easier 
 is the mastery of various branches of learning than at first 
 sight may appear to be the case, of course I am not now 
 speaking of flights into the higher regions of abstruse science, 
 but of simple acquirements. And this occurs, I think, more 
 frequently with boys than with girls. A little girl is told 
 to learn a foreign language whether German, French, or 
 Italian and, without any misgivings on the subject, she 
 sets about acquiring it as a matter of course, in the firm 
 conviction that in so many months, Or at all events in a 
 year or two, she will have mastered it. But when has it ever 
 occurred to the imagination of the most sanguine little boy 
 that he would ever really know either Latin or Greek ? And 
 yet why should he not ? If a slip of a girl of ten or twelve 
 can be taught to read at sight any French or German book 
 without difficulty, why should our boys go on from eight 
 till two-and-twenty pounding away at Latin and Greek, 
 without being able in nine cases out of ten to do more than 
 blunder through a passage of some author they have pre- 
 viously got up ? My belief is that our whole method of 
 teaching the dead languages should be changed, that we 
 begin altogether at the wrong end, and that this initial mis- 
 take is never retrieved. I myself was introduced to the 
 Latin grammar when I was six years old, and to the Greek 
 Grammar a couple of years later ; and when I left Oxford 
 after fourteen years of uninterrupted application at these 
 two tongues, the most that I could do was to translate with 
 some sort of decency a few Greek plays, some books of 
 Herodotus, a little of Cicero, and some Virgil and Horace 
 that had already been carefully conned. Of course there 
 were many men of my own standing in Oxford whose 
 acquirements in ancient literature were infinitely more com- 
 plete and creditable ; but, as I said at the beginning of these
 
 340 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 observations, it is the average student that I am keeping in 
 my mind, and I have no hesitation in saying that the great 
 majority of my contemporaries were not a whit better ini- 
 tiated in the classics than myself. Later in life I reflected 
 with shame on the paucity of my classical acquirements, 
 and I set myself down to learn Greek in the same way as 
 I would set about learning a modern language. The result 
 was, that although I had only spare moments of time to 
 give to the business, I soon found myself able to take up 
 any ordinary Greek poet or prose writer, and read what was 
 written as easily as I could French always, of course, 
 excepting a corrupt chorus or some of the more difficult 
 authors. Well, I believe boys ought to be taught in the 
 same way that is to say, they should begin with the voca- 
 bulary, long before they are bothered with the grammar, 
 that the acquisition of whatever tongue they take up should 
 be rendered interesting, and that the names of Virgil, Homer, 
 Horace, Cicero, and Herodotus should not be allowed to 
 stink in their nostrils for the rest of their lives by being 
 made the vehicles through which the grammar is drummed 
 into them. 
 
 Of course, it may be objected that this method of learn- 
 ing a classical language eviscerates the good to be obtained 
 from the disciplinary effects of the usually accepted process ; 
 but, in the first place, it is merely a question of the stage at 
 which the grammar should be taken up, for I am as much 
 an admirer of fine scholarship as any one ; and, in the next, 
 the mysteries of the grammar will be much better learnt at 
 a later period of our school life, when its origin, its historical 
 growth, and its inter-relationship in different tongues can 
 be properly explained to the pupil. Moreover, there are a 
 dozen different ways of training a boy's mind into habits of 
 accuracy ; and when the problem is to learn a language, 
 no matter whether it may be an ancient or a modern one, the 
 common-sense view is to follow whatever method enables 
 us to acquire it with the least expenditure of labour, time, 
 and annoyance. In any event, the grammar, when it is 
 taught, should be inculcated without the most precious
 
 MARQUESS OF DUFFERIN AND A VA 341 
 
 authors of antiquity being degraded by the use to which 
 they are now put. Indeed, I should be inclined to prohibit 
 boys from opening any of these greater prose writers or poets 
 until they had learned to read Latin and Greek pretty 
 fluently by an independent process ; for of this I am sure, 
 that it is only after you know a language that you can really 
 properly appreciate the niceties either of its grammar and 
 construction, or of the style in which it is written. But, it 
 may be said, what are to be our schoolbooks if the usual 
 authors are to be tabooed ? Well, there are a few easy ones 
 which might be still retained, such as the so-called fables of 
 iEsop, together with some of the more interesting episodes 
 from Xenophon, Plutarch, Herodotus, and the first book of 
 Livy. There are also the Greek Eomances, one of them, by 
 the way, opening with as dramatic a scene as is to be found 
 in the most sensational modern novel. As for myself, the 
 only specimens of Greek literature which I ever really 
 enjoyed as a young learner, were the funny Scholastikoi 
 stories, which have ever since clung to my memory. But 
 why should not some of our clever young classical tutors 
 translate into simple Latin and Greek a few of our English 
 standard stories, or a set of interesting anecdotes, or even a 
 tale or two from the Arabian Nights, or a good novel ? 
 Why should not the more spirited of your own Border 
 ballads or Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome be * turned 
 into rhymed Latin metre, so as to stick for ever in the 
 child's recollection ? In India, the acquisition of Persian 
 has been greatly facilitated by Talbot's translation of 
 Robinson Crusoe into that language. It might be said 
 that the result would not be classical Latin or grammatical 
 Greek but what would that matter ? What you want to 
 drive into the boys' heads and memories is the vocabulary 
 and a knowledge of the meaning of the words, and this can 
 only be done by interesting them in the story, by exciting 
 their curiosity, by* making them eager to know what comes 
 next, and what it is that is concealed within the jargon of 
 sentences they are set down to read. How few of us there 
 are who would ever have acquired French if we had been
 
 342 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 confined to Bossuet's sermons or Montesquieu's Treatise, 
 unaided by the blessed stimulus of Dumas' novels. If such 
 a plan as this were adopted, both Latin and Greek would be 
 acquired in half the time now taken to teach them, and we 
 should then disarm the enmity of those who would exclude 
 Greek from our university curriculum on account of its 
 acquisition being incompatible with that of practical sub- 
 jects. Moreover, men of twenty would no longer be matri- 
 culating at Oxford and Cambridge with less classical know- 
 ledge than they ought to have acquired when they left 
 their preparatory school, while for the rest of their lives the 
 golden-mouthed authors of antiquity would be a source of 
 endless delight and recreation, and the pious iEneas would 
 cease to be a stumbling-block and a rock of offence to the 
 ingenuous British schoolboy. For, gentlemen, I confess I 
 am inclined to range myself on the side of those who would 
 retain not only Latin, but also Greek, as an essential part 
 of the education of every gentleman. Indeed, I cannot 
 conceive the meaning of the term education if either Greek 
 or Latin is to be excluded. Nay, if one were to be compul- 
 sorily omitted, I would prefer dropping Latin rather than 
 Greek ; for, surely, if a choice has to be made, Herodotus, 
 Thucydides, Euripides, Sophocles and Aristophanes, Pindar 
 and Theocritus, are more precious possessions than even the 
 works of the Eoman authors, who, after all, only imitate 
 their style and reflect their genius. Has not Greek literature 
 been the quarry out of which the brightest gems in the 
 writings of our modern authors have been extracted ? Is 
 not Greek genius the divine source from which has sprung 
 the existing aftergrowth of European literature, philosophy, 
 art, and politics, while it is through the portals of Grecian 
 history, Grecian mythology, and Grecian tradition that we 
 find entrance into those dim mysterious regions peopled by 
 the primeval nations that sprung, flourished, and decayed 
 during a series of unnoted centuries on the banks of the 
 Nile, the Tigris, and the Euphrates. How is it possible, 
 then, that any intelligent man with the slightest curiosity 
 or love of learning, or interest in the past, could be content
 
 MARQUESS OF DUFFERIN AND A VA 343 
 
 to remain ignorant of a language, in itself the most beautiful 
 ever spoken by man, and that has embalmed for the benefit 
 of future ages such inestimable treasures of original thought 
 and far-reaching information ? Besides, where else will you 
 obtain, otherwise than in the stories of the Greek States, 
 such a marvellous or instructive Krieg spiel or rehearsal of 
 the course and possible contingencies of modern European 
 politics ? Put Eussia or America for Macedon, the unknown 
 quantity ; Germany and France for Thebes and Sparta ; 
 England for Athens ; China for the Empire of Darius, and 
 you see at a glance what may happen to an empire such 
 as ours. Like Great Britain, Athens was a small mother 
 country, with a splendid maritime jurisdiction and important 
 colonies, some of which turned against her in the day of 
 trouble, while her absolute existence the food of her people, 
 her revenues, and her commercial wealth depended on her 
 command of the sea. She loses a single naval battle, and 
 her imperium is for ever shattered, the violet crown falls 
 from her brows, her foremost citizens are either executed or 
 sold into slavery, and her name as a political entity fades 
 from the page of history. 
 
 Nor, gentlemen, can I see that the admitted desirability, 
 nay, necessity, of acquiring a knowledge of at all events 
 one modern European language, need in any degree interfere 
 with the claims of the classical tongues. During the four- 
 teen years which may be regarded as the educational period, 
 there should be ample time for the acquisition of both. 
 In most European countries, except perhaps France, the 
 children of the upper classes generally know two languages, 
 beside their own, before they are ten years old ; in Bussia 
 they all know three, and this independently of other studies. 
 What is to prevent the British youth doing as much by 
 the time he is twenty ? The late John Stuart Mill was, 
 I believe, of opinion that it is a waste of time to learn a 
 foreign language out of the country in which it is spoken, 
 and in this view I am inclined to agree, if there is any 
 prospect of the student ever being in a position to visit 
 for a certain number of months the country in question ;
 
 344 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 but, even so, it would be well for him to obtain some slight 
 knowledge of it beforehand. Inasmuch, however, as it is 
 only the minority of young men to whom it is possible to 
 reside abroad, instruction in one European tongue should, 
 I think, be made an essential element in education. Nor 
 can there be any doubt that that language should be French; 
 for not only is its literature the most diverse and admirable 
 possessed by any European community except our own, 
 but it has long been accepted as the common channel of 
 communication between European nations. There is also 
 another reason which makes it more desirable to know 
 French than what probably may be considered the next 
 most useful language, namely, German. The genius of 
 French and English are so dissimilar, and the mould in 
 which they are cast so different, that they never can be 
 quite satisfactorily translated the one into the other. 
 Consequently, if a French author is really to be appreciated, 
 he must be read in the original. This is not the case as 
 regards German, into which language even Shakespeare has 
 been so admirably rendered as to have lost comparatively 
 little of his original glory. Of course a knowledge of 
 German is of great use both to the scientific and the 
 theological student and to the literary critic, for a great 
 deal of the original thinking of the present day is done 
 by Germans ; but, on the other hand, almost every first-rate 
 book that is written in German is pretty sure within a 
 very short space of time to be translated into English. 
 I should therefore say that to the ordinary student who 
 has not the faculty for acquiring foreign languages, which 
 is a talent of its own, or who has not some special prospect 
 of being connected during his future career with German 
 interests, it would be good economy to pretermit the 
 German and to be content with French. If, however, 
 his tastes and his natural aptitudes lie in the direction 
 of languages, he might with advantage apply himself not 
 only to German but also to Italian. With regard, however, 
 to the latter, I would observe that it is a great mistake 
 to suppose that it is an easy language either to learn to
 
 MARQUESS OF DUFFERIN AND A VA 345 
 
 speak or to learn to read. In this respect it is the most 
 deceptive of all languages, for to any one with a knowledge 
 of French and of Latin it appears at first sight extremely 
 easy. Nor, indeed, is there very much difficulty in acquiring 
 a sufficient smattering of it to run through the Italian 
 newspapers or to enable you to make known all your 
 needs as a traveller; but when you come to converse in 
 it with educated people, or to read Dante and the great 
 Italian classics, the case is very different. Still, it is a 
 lovely tongue, and its medieval literature is equally rich 
 and interesting. 
 
 And now I wonder whether I could be of any use to 
 you in giving any hints as to how a modern language is 
 to be learnt. Sticking to the principle which I have 
 already submitted in reference to Latin and Greek, it seems 
 to me that the first thing to do is to acquire some knowledge 
 of its vocabulary. There are various ways of doing this. 
 The late Dr. Schliemann, who was undoubtedly a very apt 
 linguist, used, I believe, to take some good book written in 
 the tongue he wished to acquire, and learn off a certain 
 number of pages by heart; but this is a process which it 
 requires a peculiar capacity to accomplish. The great 
 Duke of Wellington learnt Spanish out of a Spanish prayer- 
 book once given him by the famous old ladies of Llangollen. 
 What I would recommend is this, to inquire for some 
 work in the language which is both easy and entertaining, 
 and then to get a Frenchman or a German, as the case 
 may be, to read it out to you aloud, and to tell you viva 
 voce every word that you do not know, while you mark 
 the unknown word on your own copy as you go on. If 
 this living dictionary is not within your reach, then I 
 would say though I tremble as I utter the words provide 
 yourselves with a good crib. Of course these markings 
 would occur under almost every word in the first chapter 
 perhaps in every other word in the second, and in two- 
 thirds of the words in the third, fourth, and fifth ; but 
 before you got half through the book, the interruptions 
 would gradually diminish for every author has a vocabu-
 
 346 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 lary of his own, outside of which he does not travel ; and 
 probably by the time you had got through two-thirds of 
 the work, you would find yourselves able to finish the 
 volume without any assistance. In a novel, say of two 
 volumes or of six hundred pages, there will probably be 
 three thousand words about which you have had to inquire, 
 and which you will have marked. Of these you should 
 make a list, either in writing, or, what perhaps is better 
 still, through the medium of a type-writer, after which you 
 should learn them by heart. A person with a fair memory 
 should be able, without sacrificing much time to the 
 business, to master forty words a-day, so that three thousand 
 words could be acquired in about three months. When 
 this process has been accomplished, you will find that you 
 will be able to take up any ordinary book in the language 
 in question and read it, I will not say with fluency, but 
 at all events without that sense of intolerable irksomeness 
 which oppresses us when we have to puzzle through each 
 successive sentence with] the aid of a dictionary. If going 
 through the first book has not been found sufficient to 
 enable us to read the succeeding book with ease, the 
 original process can be again repeated until our vocabulary 
 has become so enlarged as to render it altogether unneces- 
 sary. Of course I do not mean to imply that in the course 
 of the foregoing operation we are to neglect the grammar ; 
 but my own experience has taught me that, although it 
 may be desirable as a preliminary step to run lightly 
 through some elementary grammar of the language, the 
 task of acquiring a comprehensive, intimate, and intelligent 
 knowledge of its rules will be much more rapidly and 
 thoroughly accomplished after we are able to embrace at 
 a glance the meaning of a sentence and the relation to 
 each other of the various words which compose it ; for, 
 at this stage, those grammatical rules which at first it 
 seemed very difficult for the memory to retain, soon impress 
 themselves instinctively upon one's attention. 
 
 Another advantage accruing from this method of writing- 
 down as you go along a list of the words you do not readily
 
 MARQUESS OF DUFFERIN AND A VA 347 
 
 remember is that, if through disuse for a few years, absence 
 from the country, or other accidental circumstance, you in 
 a great measure forget a language which you have once 
 learned, a very slight re-study of your vocabularies will 
 enable you to recover it. 
 
 Before I quit the subject of modern languages, however, 
 there is another point to which I may refer for a moment, 
 namely, the acquisition of a good accent. Here again 
 certain persons are endowed with greater aptitudes than 
 others, for it will be generally, though not always, found 
 that those who have a good ear for music have also a happy 
 knack of acquiring a right pronunciation ; but even those 
 who cannot whistle a tune need not be discouraged on this 
 account, for, with a little care and attention, they also will 
 be able to attain the desired object. Of course the only 
 way to do this is by constantly listening to the language in 
 question spoken around them. I would therefore strongly 
 advise the student, even should he have learnt to read or 
 write French or German readily, to avoid every attempt at 
 pronouncing it in his own uninstructed manner, for it is 
 almost impossible to get rid of the wrong pronunciation of 
 a word or of a bad accent when once one has acquired it. 
 If, however, there is a French or a German instructor handy, 
 the best plan would be to make him either talk to you or 
 read to you out loud, and then, when you have in a certain 
 degree accustomed your ear to his pronunciation, to read 
 out aloud to him. But this latter process will have to be 
 pursued very diligently and for a great length of time, and 
 the words you cannot pronounce should be written down, 
 and you should be constantly repeating them to yourself; 
 for in this way you will find your mouth and your vocal 
 organs gradually mould themselves to the nasal and gut- 
 tural accents of your French and German friends. 
 
 But far more important than the acquisition of any 
 foreign tongue is the art of skilfully handling your own. 
 Already Providence has issued its decree that English should 
 be the predominant language of the globe. In other words, 
 the man who writes a good book or makes a good speech in
 
 348 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 English will command for all time what is already the 
 greatest audience known to history, and which eventually 
 will cover the better part of three of the five continents of 
 the world. Consequently, if any of you should have any- 
 thing worth saying, and you can only learn how to say it 
 properly, you will be able to ensure a vast amount of 
 sympathy and attention. But it is not only to the writers 
 of books and sermons and addresses that the power of 
 expressing our thoughts in clear, persuasive, and enchanting 
 language is useful. The pen of a ready writer is an in- 
 estimable advantage in our daily avocations and our social 
 and domestic relations. How, then, is this to be acquired ? 
 this simple but divine gift by which a string of the 
 most commonplace monosyllables can be arrayed in such a 
 connection with one another as to caress our ears like the 
 music of the spheres, at the same time that they melt our 
 heart or convince our understanding. That is a secret 
 which I do not myself possess, and therefore which I cannot 
 disclose ; but many admirable books have been written, 
 especially in Scotland, on the rhetorical art, on literary 
 style, and other cognate subjects. Personally, I do not be- 
 lieve that any of these books are of much practical benefit. 
 But there is one golden rule which I would venture to insist 
 upon namely, that in the first place, before putting pen to 
 paper, you should compel your own mind to hammer out an 
 absolutely clear and distinct conception of the thought you 
 wish to express, and that then you should put it into the 
 simplest and least Latinised words that come to hand, 
 without giving a thought to what is called style, and con- 
 fining your attention to the attainment of only two objects 
 conciseness and lucidity. If these two points are secured, 
 the rhythm, cadence, harmony, and music will come of their 
 own accord. In fact, let the first sentence in Caesar's 
 Commentaries be your model, for simplicity is as great a 
 grace in style as it is in character and conduct. But do 
 not imagine that either clearness or conciseness can be 
 attained without a great deal of labour. In the hurry and 
 fervour of composition we are too apt to become obscure
 
 MARQUESS OF DUFFERIN AND AVA 349 
 
 and, above all, redundant. Indeed, until we have been 
 shown how to boil down our paragraphs by some person 
 acquainted with the secret, it is difficult to believe the 
 extent to which compression may be advantageously carried, 
 not merely by the suppression of adjectives, adverbs, parti- 
 ciples, and expletives, but by a change in the construction of 
 the sentences. Of course there are a few simple mechanical 
 rules which are easily followed, such as the breaking up 
 both of your paragraphs and of your sentences into unequal 
 lengths ; the introduction of a synonym in the place of a 
 too frequently recurring vocable ; the rounding of the periods 
 with a word of a certain weight and substance ; and the 
 preventing your sentences, especially at their commencement, 
 being cast in the same grammatical mould. These, however, 
 are trifling precautions in which you will soon acquire a 
 mechanical aptitude. But there is one great danger to 
 which a young writer is exposed, and that is a love of 
 ornament, metaphor, and allusion. I do not say that they 
 are not permissible in the hands of a master of literature, 
 but then a master has an unerring instinct and an ex- 
 quisiteness of taste which never betray him ; but in nine 
 cases out of ten the neophyte will do well ruthlessly to tear 
 out from his composition all its choicest flowers, even though 
 they should shriek like mandrakes at the operation. I 
 confess the rule is a very difficult one to observe, and that, 
 after the severest and most searching excision, symptoms of 
 this noxious efflorescence may still lurk in one's manuscript. 
 If they do, you may be certain that an adequate retribution 
 will overtake you. Some years ago I had to write a report 
 on the best way of reorganising the Government of Egypt. 
 It was a subject upon which I had spent a great deal of 
 pains and labour, and my one thought in drawing up the 
 paper was to make it a clear, practical, and business-like 
 statement of the actual condition of the country, and of the 
 measures it would be desirable to introduce for its improve- 
 ment. Unfortunately, however, in one of the earlier para- 
 graphs I was tempted in the fervour of composition, as there 
 rose to my mind's eye a regenerated Egypt and the beneficial
 
 350 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 consequences of the reforms I was suggesting, and which 
 have been so happily applied, expanded, and improved upon 
 by Sir Evelyn Baring, to make some allusion to Memnon 
 and the rising sun. It was a perfectly spontaneous image, 
 which sprung unbidden from the innocence of my heart ; 
 but, in spite of the general indulgence with which the report 
 was received, those who, for one reason or another, were 
 opposed to the policy of the Government I was representing, 
 at once seized upon this unfortunate simile, and denounced 
 what I had written, which, in all its other parts, was as 
 bald as well could be, as a literary exercitation ; and no 
 doubt they were perfectly justified in considering that 
 neither Memnon nor the rising sun had any business in a 
 blue-book. 
 
 There is one other useful rule which I would also re- 
 commend to all young writers, no matter what may be 
 the nature of their composition whether books, speeches, 
 sermons, lectures, or addresses namely, that after they have 
 written them they should cut them down by about a third. 
 Probably there are few books, still fewer sermons, and cer- 
 tainly no speeches that have ever been produced or delivered, 
 which would not have been very much improved by being 
 considerably curtailed. 
 
 But, talking of speeches, perhaps it may interest you to 
 know what I have occasionally heard from various authorities 
 in their regard. Undoubtedly, the gift of speaking is a 
 totally different thing from the gift of writing ; nor does it 
 by any means follow that he who excels in the one is 
 equally perfect in the other. Indeed, next to the gift of 
 poetic inspiration, the gift of true oratory is the rarest of any 
 accorded to man, and yet it is the one which, in England at 
 all events, leads more readily than any other to distinction, 
 to fame, to power, and to what are called substantial public 
 rewards. Whether it is beneficial that this should be the 
 case may be a question ; for it does not always follow that 
 great eloquence is the handmaid of perfect wisdom. On 
 the other hand, it is seldom dissociated from eminent ability 
 of some kind or another. Xow it is probable that the great
 
 MARQUESS OF DUFFERIN AND A VA 351 
 
 majority of those whom I am addressing will be called upon 
 to speak in public, either as ministers of the Gospel, as 
 lawyers, as members of Parliament, or as exponents of opinion 
 in some form or another. It is therefore of the utmost im- 
 portance to you to know how the art of public speaking can 
 be best attained. 
 
 I am not now alluding to that almost preter-human elo- 
 quence which is the endowment of genius, and of genius 
 alone, and which flows from the lips of a great orator, im- 
 passioned and uninvoked, clothing his ideas in words of fire 
 which burn into the hearts of his audience, and leave them 
 spell-bound beneath the wand of the enchanter. It is only 
 to few, to very few, amongst men that this power is intrusted ; 
 but there is a secondary order of eloquence which, though in 
 no sense artificial, can provided there exist a certain natural 
 aptitude be successfully cultivated and rendered of com- 
 manding utility as an instrument of pleasure and persuasion. 
 The first essential principle is undoubtedly practice. I have 
 often heard experienced members of the House of Commons 
 remark on the extraordinary improvement which practice has 
 produced in those whom necessary circumstances or their 
 own courage and ambition have induced to persevere in 
 imposing themselves upon a long-suffering audience. The 
 reason of this is not far to seek. What is required' before 
 a man can think effectively upon his legs is the perfect con- 
 centration of his attention upon what he has to say ; but 
 this is almost impossible to those who are new to the effort. 
 A multitude of thoughts utterly foreign to their speech and 
 its subject are dividing their minds, while sheer physical 
 nervousness imports a further element of confusion. The 
 fear of failure and its consequences ; the dazzling spectacle 
 of so many hundred attentive faces swimming before their 
 eyes ; the careless gestures and whisperings of the indifferent 
 members of their audiences ; the knowledge that their notes 
 have got hopelessly mixed, combine to create a situation of 
 mental torture which shakes the limbs, dries the mouth, and 
 twists the tongue inextricably round the teeth. Indeed, so 
 terrible is the ordeal that, as we all know, only a minority
 
 352 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 are capable of surviving it ; but in the case of those who 
 have courage to persevere, these unpleasant accidents and 
 symptoms will eventually vanish, the train of their thoughts 
 will gradually flow forth clearly and calmly, and the necessary 
 words will suggest themselves with less and less difficulty 
 and effort. But still I am inclined to believe that no good 
 speech is ever made, unless by the most practised of our public 
 men, without a great deal of careful preparation. Indeed, it 
 is almost an insult to his audience for any ordinary person 
 to demand their attention unless he has well considered 
 beforehand what he is going to say. But of course both the 
 kinds and the degrees of possible preparation are very various. 
 Some persons and this we know was the practice of 
 Demosthenes, of Cicero, and of the ancients write out every 
 word of their speeches from beginning to end beforehand ; 
 and this practice, I imagine, has been followed by many 
 eminent orators of our own time by Macaulay, for instance, 
 by the late Lord Ellenborough, and by others. Some per- 
 sons only compose and write out beforehand portions of what 
 they intend to say, but these portions generally include the 
 exordium and the peroration. Mr. Bright, I believe, made 
 no secret of this being his practice ; and we have Lord 
 Brougham's own statement for the fact that he wrote out the 
 last paragraphs of his speech in defence of Queen Caroline 
 nine times. But I do not recommend any one who would 
 really desire to become a good speaker to accustom himself, 
 unless on exceptional occasions, even though he should write 
 out his speech beforehand, to learn it by heart. Such a prac- 
 tice is like swimming with corks. In the first place, to most 
 people, both the labour of such a process and the time oc- 
 cupied in executing it would be found excessive ; and in the 
 next, if through any lapse of memory you get into difficulties, 
 your breakdown is sure to be instantaneous and complete. 
 Moreover, under such conditions you would never become a 
 debater, or capable of replying to the arguments of an op- 
 ponent, which is even a more useful and necessary aptitude 
 in public life than the art of delivering a set speech. At 
 the same time there are occasions when it would be prudent
 
 MARQUESS OF DUFFERIN AND A VA 353 
 
 to follow such a course. For instance, I remember, many 
 many years ago, I was intrusted by the late Lord Palmerston 
 with the duty of moving the Address in the House of Lords 
 on the assembling of Parliament after the death of Prince 
 Albert. The occasion was a most sad and solemn one, for 
 the principal subject of my discourse was the national loss 
 we had so recently sustained. I felt that were I to trust to 
 the inspiration of the moment, or even to such perfunctory 
 methods of preparation as are generally adopted, it might 
 very well happen not only that I should fail to give adequate 
 expression to my own feelings, and to the feelings of the 
 august assembly of whose grief I had been appointed the 
 interpreter, but that there might fall from my lips some un- 
 happy and incongruous phrase which would jar disagreeably 
 on the ears of every one present, and expose me to well- 
 merited censure and reproach. Accordingly, I at once sat 
 down and wrote out every word of my speech, and learnt it 
 so carefully by heart that I knew that no untoward accident 
 or interruption could interfere with its delivery ; and in this 
 way, though it lasted an hour and a half, I was able, without 
 once looking at a note, to go through it without accident to 
 the end. But if you do learn your speech by heart, do not 
 embellish it with unnecessary apostrophes, like a member 
 of the French Chamber, who, in the midst of the most profound 
 silence, said, " In vain does your clamour try to stifle my voice ; 
 your rude howls do not intimidate me ; " or, like Quintilian's 
 orator pleading against Cassius Severus, who, suddenly 
 stopping short, cried out to his opponent, "Why do you fix 
 on me that angry scowl ? " " I ! " said Cassius, surprised, " I 
 was not even thinking of you, but since you have it written so, 
 I am ready to oblige ; " at the same time making a hideous 
 grimace, which threw the audience into fits of laughter. 
 There are also one or two other occasions when the writing- 
 out at least of a speech beforehand may be advisable 
 namely, where the audience you have in view is rather the 
 general public you hope to reach through the newspapers 
 than the few score persons by whom alone your observations 
 are actually heard ; for, strange to say, it frequently happens 
 
 23
 
 354 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 that an extempore speech which sounds excellent to those 
 who hear it, does not read nearly so well in a report, whereas 
 a prepared one, which sounds artificial and tiresome to the 
 listener, will prove a moving and powerful exposition of a 
 theme when perused by the public. There are also occa- 
 sions when a responsible Minister, in making a statement, 
 especially if relating to foreign affairs, is bound to consider 
 not only the turn of every sentence, but carefully to weigh 
 every word he utters, as an ill-chosen phrase might give rise 
 to the most serious consequences. 
 
 Indeed, there are numerous instances where even 
 practised orators have come to grief through what we 
 may call a slip of the tongue in the course of an extempore 
 speech nay, it was only the other day that the choice of 
 an ill-considered epithet caused the fall of a powerful 
 Minister in Italy. Still it is undoubtedly a fact that all 
 audiences prefer an extempore or semi- extempore effort to 
 the finest specimens of prepared, self-conscious, and thea- 
 trical oratory. I am even inclined to think that they are 
 more attentive to a somewhat hesitating than to a glib and 
 fluent speaker, as they certainly are ready to show far 
 more indulgence to bashfulness than to a too confident 
 demeanour. 
 
 If, however, you write out your speech beforehand, 
 there are one or two precautions to which you had better 
 attend. In the first place, do not have it sent to the 
 reporters interlarded with cheers before it has been delivered, 
 as once was done by an acquaintance of mine, who, after 
 all, never got an opportunity of speaking ; in the next, do 
 not repeat as a speech a couple of pages from some well- 
 known author, as Lord Beaconsfield most unaccountably 
 did when passing an eulogium on the Duke of Wellington, 
 for only a very great man could afford to take such a 
 liberty ; and, lastly, do not let the manuscript fall out of 
 your pocket, for there may be practised upon you a trick 
 which was played once in the House of Commons by Sir 
 Thomas Wyse upon an honourable member. Sir Thomas 
 Wyse told me the story himself. The gentleman in
 
 MARQUESS OF DUFFERIN AND A VA 355 
 
 question had come down primed with a great oration, but 
 unfortunately he dropped his manuscript. A mischiev- 
 ous colleague picked it up and brought it to Sir Thomas, 
 who had an extraordinary faculty of learning by heart. 
 Some other business being on hand enabled Sir Thomas 
 Wyse to retire to a committee -room and duly prepare 
 himself. When the discussion came on, he watched his 
 chance, and contrived to catch the Speaker's eye at the 
 opportune moment. A great number of people had been 
 let into the secret, and were watching the effect produced 
 by the stolen thunder upon its rightful proprietor. At 
 first he showed signs of being pleased with support from so 
 unexpected a quarter, but when gradually he recognised his 
 own well-polished periods flowing forth from alien lips, the 
 look of surprise, indignation, and confusion which passed 
 over his countenance was extremely comical. 
 
 What, however, I should recommend to beginners, but 
 only to beginners, is a suggestion made to me in the 
 hunting-field by an eminent Privy Councillor, who was 
 undoubtedly a very powerful speaker, and was able to 
 hold the attention of the House of Commons for long 
 periods at a time. The plan he told me he pursued was 
 the following : He first, of course, saturated himself with 
 a thorough knowledge of his subject. This, I need not say, 
 must be a preliminary to every good speech. He then 
 carefully constructed a skeleton of his arguments, and 
 impressed this firmly on his memory, after which he went 
 to his study and wrote down as fast as he could lay pen to 
 paper his whole speech from the beginning to the end ; but 
 the moment he had completed his task and here is the 
 peculiarity of his method he gathered all the sheets 
 together and put them in the fire without looking at them. 
 He then sat down and repeated the process, and this not 
 once or twice, but three, four, five, or six times. In this 
 way he not only got clearly into his head the articulated 
 structure of his speech, but having clothed the same ideas 
 over and over again with different forms of expression, 
 when he went down to deliver himself in the House of
 
 356 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 Commons he had such a wealth of language at his disposal, 
 such a variety in his vocabulary, that he never had to 
 hesitate for the words or to stutter or stumble over a 
 single sentence. But it is needless to observe that this 
 process, though very effectual for the purpose aimed at, 
 would only be possible to a person who addressed his 
 audience at rare intervals, and had ample time at his 
 disposal for the excessively laborious process I have de- 
 scribed. Still it appears to me a mode of procedure which 
 is not unworthy of a beginner's attention, as it would at 
 once give him confidence, fluency, and a clear perception of 
 the line of country he had to traverse ; and this in itself is 
 a great advantage, for very often when a man gives utterance 
 on his legs to a succession of inane or meaningless phrases, 
 it is because for the moment his brain has not supplied 
 him with the necessary material for the proper continuation 
 of his discourse, and his tongue is performing one office 
 while his mind and his memory are endeavouring to fulfil 
 another. Nor must you suppose that even the most 
 practised of our public men are free from those lapses and 
 infirmities which naturally fill our own minds with terror 
 at the thought of speaking in public. I have seen the 
 late Lord Derby, one of the most eloquent, courageous, and 
 successful speakers that ever charmed the two Houses of 
 Parliament, tremble throughout his frame at the commence- 
 ment of one of his great speeches. I have seen a Lord 
 Chancellor of England completely lose the thread of his 
 discourse, and, sitting down, confess that he had done so ; 
 and I have heard another very famous orator rolling forth 
 platitude after platitude in the most helpless manner, simply 
 because he could not, for the life of him, hit off a satis- 
 factory peroration. 
 
 Another practice which I have also found useful, has 
 been to dictate a speech over to a shorthand writer immed- 
 iately before delivering it. When I was in Canada, particu- 
 larly in remote districts, it frequently happened that the 
 newspaper reporters were not masters of shorthand, or 
 perhaps there was only one shorthand writer amongst them.
 
 MARQUESS OF DUFFERIN AND AVA 357 
 
 As a consequence, they sometimes asked me to say over my 
 speech beforehand to their representative, and I was quite 
 surprised to find how a compliance with their request 
 enabled me to clarify and condense what I intended to 
 say when an hour later I addressed my audience. 
 
 There is another subject in connection with public 
 speaking upon which one or two observations may be 
 opportune, and that is gesture. There is no doubt that a 
 graceful, commanding, and dignified attitude in the orator 
 greatly enhances the effect of fervid eloquence, and in this 
 respect I am afraid it is rather on the Continent than in the 
 House of Commons that your best models will be found. 
 According to our ideas, foreigners gesticulate a great deal too 
 much ; but I have been much struck, when attending the 
 debates in the Italian Parliament, by the unstudied and 
 easy manner in which its members enforce their meaning 
 by graceful and spontaneous gestures. They neither put 
 their hands beneath their coat-tails, nor do they scratch the 
 tops of their heads, nor do they toss about their pocket- 
 handkerchiefs, or wave one arm up and down like a pump- 
 handle, nor bend their bodies in two at every word. So far 
 from this being the case, it is quite a pleasure to watch 
 them, even when you are not able either to hear or perhaps 
 to comprehend what they are saying ; and, consequently, you 
 must not be surprised if I am disposed to insist on the 
 advisability of paying some attention to the movements of 
 your hands and body when you speak. What may be the 
 best method to follow is another question. I remember 
 getting a very useful hint from Wigan, the actor, when we 
 were both attending a charity dinner in the City. He had 
 observed that when making my speech I had kept turning 
 my palms to the audience, as is a very common habit with 
 many people, and he told me that on the stage they were 
 specially warned against this practice, as it conveyed the 
 notion of weakness ; whereas, if the back of the hand were 
 displayed, the very opposite effect would be produced. 
 However, I am inclined to refer you on this delicate subject 
 to your womenkind. It is wonderful what an eye one's
 
 358 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 sisters and cousins have for any awkwardness of manner or 
 ungainly tricks and contortions ; nor probably will you find 
 them behindhand, especially your daughters, when you have 
 them, in proffering their criticisms on the subject. As 
 supplementary to these impartial and frank instructors, 1 
 would recommend you to well, if I were not speaking to a 
 Scotch audience, I would say to go through a course of 
 dancing lessons ; but to you, being what you are, and in the 
 city of John Knox, I will refrain from so frivolous a sugges- 
 tion, and propose to you to go to the fencing-master instead ; 
 for not only will you derive from the practice of fencing 
 that indescribable lightness and freedom in your joints 
 which is the very essence of grace, but you will find that in 
 the fencing-room there is such an atmosphere of traditional 
 courtesy, that it will give you in general society that easi- 
 ness, aplomb, and self-confidence which is the foundation of 
 good manners and gentleman-like bearing. 
 
 There is one further general suggestion, in addition to 
 the few practical hints I have given you, which perhaps you 
 may find useful, and it is that, apart from and in addition 
 to whatever may be the professional and obligatory occupa- 
 tions of your lives, you should invent for yourself an interest 
 or employment as distinct as possible from your usual 
 avocations. A parergon of this kind will always provide 
 you with a delightful rest or change, whether it be an art 
 such as music or painting, the exercise of an experimental 
 science such as chemistry which I believe engrosses Lord 
 Salisbury's leisure moments or a species of sport like book- 
 collecting, or the acquisition of some abstruse tongue like 
 hieroglyphics or Arabic, or something of the sort, which shall 
 stimulate your imagination and lift you out of the ruts along 
 which the routine of your ordinary lives forces you to travel. 
 
 But, gentlemen, I am transgressing my own recommend- 
 ation that all speeches should be as short as -possible : and 
 after all I am afraid that I have only treated you to a very 
 gossiping, commonplace allocution to nothing, in short, 
 that may not have occurred to your own minds. My object 
 has been not to be brilliant myself, but useful to you. All
 
 MARQUESS OF DUFFERIN AND A VA 359 
 
 the loftier themes upon which young men are generally 
 addressed on these occasions I have purposely pretermitted ; 
 nor have I ventured, for obvious reasons, to indulge in any 
 recommendations in regard to the higher, more abstruse, and 
 scientific departments of your university studies, for upon 
 none of them would I be entitled to speak with the slightest 
 authority. And yet, before concluding, I would like, as 
 your Lord Eector, to risk a few parting words in reference 
 to one or two of what I will call the lesser moralities ; for 
 education does not simply consist in the acquisition of 
 knowledge or even the training of our mental faculties : it 
 also includes the disciplining of our consciences and the right 
 ruling of our conduct; for what is the use of putting arms 
 into a man's hands if it is only to turn them against himself 
 or his friends ? which is what happens to us if we employ 
 our faculties otherwise than in accordance with God's will. 
 Now the essence of conduct is a right judgment in all things. 
 But good judgment, like everything else, is a gift from 
 heaven which some have and some have not. There is, 
 however, one practical rule in regard to the formation of our 
 judgments upon which I am disposed to insist, and that is, 
 that you should never arrive at any decision nor enter upon 
 the execution of any act, without setting yourselves deliber- 
 ately and of set purpose to consider it in all its bearings. 
 This seems a very commonplace recommendation*; but 1 
 firmly believe that half the mistakes that are made in life 
 arise from people merely revolving things in their minds in 
 a casual, half-hearted kind of manner, and allowing an 
 impression in regard to them to form itself insensibly and 
 automatically as a kind of growth, and the result of an 
 imperceptible process, Now, in the course of a somewhat 
 varied public career, I have had to arrive at decisions upon 
 many momentous subjects, involving not merely my own 
 interests or the interests of persons connected with me, but 
 the welfare and happiness of thousands and thousands, I 
 may say millions, of my fellow-creatures. Well, my practice 
 has always been, and I heartily recommend it to my young 
 hearers, no matter how long or how carefully I may have
 
 360 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 been chewing the cud of reflection, never to adopt a final 
 determination without shutting myself up in a room for an 
 hour or a couple of hours, as the case may be, and then, 
 with all the might and intellectual force which I was cap- 
 able of exerting, digging down into the very depths and 
 remotest crannies of the problem, until the process had 
 evolved clear and distinct in my mind's eye a conclusion as 
 sharp and cleanly cut as the facets of a diamond : nor, when 
 once this conclusion was arrived at, have I ever allowed 
 myself to reconsider the matter, unless some new element 
 affecting the question, hitherto unnoticed or unknown, should 
 be disclosed ; for if one is weak enough to get into the 
 habit of going back upon one's decision, the chances are that 
 your faculties, being no longer so alert as when you origin- 
 ally took the matter into consideration, some one factor in 
 the case acquires, according to the transitory mood or temper 
 of your mind at that particular moment, a predominance 
 and an importance which does not belong to it, and in this 
 way you are led into a change of opinion which in all 
 probability turns out to be a wrong one. To the foregoing 
 advice I have to add a corollary. Never send off a letter, 
 and especially if it is likely to involve you in an angry 
 discussion with another person, by the evening's post. 
 Reserve it, if possible, till the next morning, and you will 
 find after you have read it again that in some cases you 
 will not send it at all, or, if it has to go, that it will be in 
 a different form from that in which it was originally written. 
 Then, again, I would advise you not to stimulate over 
 much the critical faculty of course I am not using the 
 term in its literary sense. On the contrary, you will find 
 life much pleasanter if you habituate yourselves to seek out 
 and to see the good rather than the evil in all things. Nor 
 need you be the least afraid that such an attitude will in 
 any degree blunt your preceptions or generate a tendency to 
 silly and indiscriminating admiration. So far from this 
 being the case, it is in those whose natural impulse it is to 
 recognise merit, whether in persons or in things, that the 
 faculty of true criticism is most vigilant ; but, like a faithful
 
 MARQUESS OF DUFF ERIN AND A VA 361 
 
 watch -dog, it lies apparently dormant until the real 
 aggressor approaches, instead of annoying the world in 
 general by perpetually snarling at the heels of every innocent 
 passer-by. The very reverse, however, is the case as regards 
 the spirit of the detractor and habitual fault-finder. By dint 
 of perpetually fixing his gaze upon the weaknesses and the 
 defects of his fellow-creatures, or upon what is less beautiful 
 and lovely in the world he becomes, as it were, colour-blind, 
 and, to his own great loss and misery, degenerates into a 
 narrow-minded cynic. In illustration of my meaning I 
 subjoin this rather pretty oriental apologue : 
 
 A dead wolf lay beside the road which led from 
 Jerusalem to Jericho. First came a Pharisee, who 
 exclaimed, " How the brute stinks ! " then came a Sadducee, 
 who cried, " How horridly its coat stares ! " then followed 
 a publican, who remarked on the hideous look in its glazed 
 and sunken eyes. Lastly came our Saviour, who exclaimed, 
 " What beautiful teeth the creature has ! " 
 
 And now I will conclude by mentioning two further 
 rules of conduct which I would urge you to consider one 
 to be observed in the interests of your fellow-creatures, and 
 the other in view of your own happiness namely, the 
 cultivation, first, of the spirit of Justice, and secondly, of the 
 sentiment of Chivalry. I am disposed to lay especial, stress 
 on each of these points, because it seems to me that modern 
 society runs the risk of losing its hold upon both of them. 
 A wave of hysterical sentimentality appears in some 
 quarters to be threatening the first principles of Justice, 
 and other influences which it would be difficult to define or 
 analyse are drying up the fountains of Chivalry. There 
 is no doubt that the weak point in all democratic societies 
 is to be found within the domain of Justice. And by 
 Justice I do not mean the justice administered in our courts 
 of law, but Justice as it is understood and interpreted by 
 public opinion, by our newspapers nay, even by our 
 Parliaments. The misapprehension of the exigencies and 
 requirements of Justice is the product of by no means 
 unamiable qualities in our human nature. It is the
 
 362 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 triumph of the heart over the head, of our feeling over our 
 reason, and it is further stimulated by that tendency to 
 " compassion " which has of late become so signally 
 developed amongst masses of men in most civilised nations ; 
 for we must remember that amongst the bulk of mankind 
 the emotions, the affections, the passions incident to human 
 nature, are being daily and hourly stimulated through the 
 friction of their social and domestic relations, whereas their 
 logical faculties are much more rarely brought into play, 
 and when this is the case, sentiment is sure to overpower 
 reason. Some of the most cruel episodes in the French 
 Revolution had their origin in -this perversion of a not 
 unrighteous instinct. We see the same tendency in 
 American lynchings and in the scandalous scenes at French 
 murder trials or, to cite a ridiculous instance, when the 
 good actor who has sustained the villain's part in some 
 thrilling drama is unmercifully hissed by the excited pit 
 and gallery on his reappearance after the fall of the curtain. 
 Now Justice, and Justice alone, is the very basis and 
 foundation of civilisation, as well as of all private and 
 public happiness, and if we destroy its legitimate supremacy, 
 the most frightful evils will be sure to overtake the human 
 race. 
 
 Since in a State fond men are tempted still 
 To evil, for a guard against worst ill, 
 And what in quality and act is best 
 Doth seldom on a right foundation rest, 
 Then labour good on good to fix, that so 
 Justice may triumph over every foe. 
 
 With regard to the spirit of Chivalry which I have 
 recommended you to cultivate, a very few words will suffice. 
 Remember that the very essence of that spirit is the empire 
 of pure and generous thoughts in a virile and robust body, 
 and if you wish to have this spirit exemplified in its noblest 
 form, I refer you to those immortal works in which it is 
 embalmed for the happiness and instruction of all time 
 the poems and romances of Walter Scott. Compare the 
 magical creations evolved from that powerful brain and
 
 MARQUESS OF DUFFERIN AND A VA 363 
 
 noble heart with certain novels of modern times, and you 
 will be able at once to appreciate the difference between 
 the two worlds which either have created. While the one 
 compels us to wander through the polluted atmosphere of 
 what are falsely called the realities of life, the other leads 
 our souls through a region where manly virtue, heroic 
 courage, self-respect, and, above all, a tender and loving 
 reverence for women, which is the keystone of all goodness, 
 are the characteristics that illuminate and glorify its 
 surroundings. Believe me, the only true reality is the 
 ideal, and what is commonly referred to as the realistic 
 truth is a degraded and apocryphal eidolon. The secret of 
 lifelong happiness is not, as is generally said, to keep one's 
 illusions as long as possible, but to preserve the conviction 
 that one's " illusions " are the only realities, and that their 
 destruction is tantamount to our becoming the victims of a 
 vain and empty dream. But with knightly Purity and 
 white-robed Justice for your companions on either hand, 
 the magic light of which Wordsworth speaks in his glorious 
 " Ode on Immortality " will neither waver nor fade from 
 your path, but will invest all your surroundings, your inner 
 thoughts, and the outward sights of earth and heaven with a 
 magical glory and a divine iridescence, showering sunshine 
 and gladness over your most commonplace employments, 
 and illuminating your declining years with unspeakable 
 content.
 
 MARQUESS OF BUTE 
 
 Rector from 1892 to 1895 
 Address delivered on November 20, 1893
 
 MARQUESS OF BUTE 
 
 The position to which I have had the honour of being 
 elected has surrounded me with a good many elements of 
 the new or of the unexpected. My installation indeed is 
 but a few moments old, but those who know anything of 
 the circumstances of my election know that that election 
 was in no way anticipated by me. My adventures since 
 have not been of a character which I foresaw. Nor can I 
 even exclude from the category of the unforeseen much kind- 
 ness with which I have been treated, for it has been greater 
 than any for which I was entitled to look. But there is 
 one feature about my office in which there is for me nothing- 
 new. That feature is St. Andrews itself. I may indeed 
 claim that my affection for this place has hitherto been life- 
 long. My mother, like so many others, sometimes .came 
 here about August and September how often, I do not 
 remember, for these sojourns enter dimly into the region of 
 some of the very earliest recollections which I have, and 
 these memories, associated with that of the only parent whom 
 I ever knew, and with those of friends of hers, nearly all of 
 whom are now passed away, form elements in that mental 
 store which is now become sacred for me without becoming 
 sorrowful. I dimly recall the old garden of St. Leonard's 
 and a variety of mechanical toys working by wind and water 
 with which Sir Hugh Lyon Playfair had adorned it. The 
 art of taking photographs was then new, and he was rather an 
 enthusiastic amateur, in it, and fond of getting my mother and 
 her friends to sit for him. I think I have some of the results 
 now. There was Sir David Brewster, who gave me a kaleido-
 
 368 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 scope, an instrument which was, I believe, of his inventing, and 
 was then still regarded by his contemporaries as somewhat a 
 new thing ; and I have a faint remembrance of some other 
 optical machine of his, I think of a rotatory character. I 
 remember gazing from St. Andrews at the great comet which 
 there was about the time of the Indian Mutiny, and when 
 we were living in the Principal of St. Mary's house, my 
 kinsman, Charles MacLean, came home wounded from India 
 and stayed with us, and with his maimed hand gave me 
 some elementary lessons in fortification, with wet sand in a 
 box. I think St. Mary's must have been the last house in 
 St. Andrews where we stayed. I am one of those persons, 
 of perhaps disputable prudence, who keep a Diary, and I 
 find under date of July 20, 1889 "to St. Andrews . . . 
 saw the last of the old garden of St. Mary's College, where 
 I used to play (and eat unripe pears) as a child : they are 
 going to build the library extension over it." Well, I can 
 only hope that the fruits of the tree of knowledge, to the 
 cultivation of which that spot is now dedicated, may 
 prove less crude and more wholesome than the grosser 
 dainties, to the attractions of which I there formerly 
 yielded. 
 
 As I grew towards manhood, I did not put away childish 
 things in the sense of losing my feelings towards this place. 
 And I remember when I was at Oxford and was going one 
 Long Vacation to Iceland in company with an English 
 friend (now the secretary of one of Her Majesty's present 
 ministers), I stopped the yacht here in order to show him 
 with pride the only place in Scotland, as far as I know, 
 whose appearance can boast any kinship with that of 
 Oxford. And, indeed, if the buildings here be comparatively 
 few, they would be proud enough at Oxford of the tower 
 and chapel of St. Salvator ; they never had any building 
 such as is the Cathedral, even in its ruins; they have 
 nothing to compare to the tower of St. Eegulus, and no 
 walls like those of Prior Hepburn. And the glorious 
 surroundings of nature here rise above any comparison with 
 the site of Oxford amid flat meadows surrounded by tame
 
 MARQUESS OF BUTE 369 
 
 hills, upon the banks of a small sluggish river, and annually 
 insulated for a longer or shorter period by floods. 
 
 I was going to have added that St. Andrews had also 
 the advantage over Oxford of emerging into the light of 
 history from the glittering haze of the heroic myth, instead 
 of from the dark fogs of uncertainty, occasionally illuminated 
 by the fitful will-o'-the wisp of doubtful conjecture. But I 
 am not fond of the heroic myth when I can get facts, and 
 even fair suppositions drawn from facts. And St. Andrews 
 needs not the heroic myth in order to clothe its birth or its 
 history with lustre. Its real history is noble. And as 
 time advances, and the romance of youth becomes ever more 
 and more distant, and the sober desire for historic and 
 scientific truth waxes stronger, it seems to me all the more 
 precious for being a real history which is recoverable from 
 documents, and of which what must still be the subject of con- 
 jecture, is at least conjecture based upon good circumstantial 
 evidence. How much has been done for that history by the 
 late William Skene it would be unseemly here not to 
 acknowledge, and the field which his learning covered was 
 so vast that it is no disparagement to him to say that he 
 lias left in it much which has yet to be gleaned, or that a 
 consultation of the authorities may sometimes lead to the 
 respectful formation upon particular points of conclusions 
 other than his. 
 
 I look upon the history of St. Andrews as especially 
 precious here as a continual expression of and witness to the 
 spirit of the Scottish nationality in the higher spheres of 
 thought and activity. There is, of course, a true and a false 
 nationalism. It seems to me to be a false nationalism when, 
 as I think is done by Erastianism, it is attempted to render 
 amenable to political and even artificial distinctions things 
 which are by their very nature either true or false, not only 
 in every part of this planet, not only in this system, but 
 universally. It is a true nationalism which recognises and 
 acts upon those racial instincts and characteristics which are 
 eradicable only with the races themselves. The develop- 
 ments of these instincts and characteristics may be modified, 
 
 24
 
 370 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 but to ignore their existence and endeavour to thwart their 
 manifestation is merely a useless and harmful fighting 
 against nature. This extends into the modes of religious 
 thought and practice as well as to other things. It would 
 be no doubt an exaggeration to say that the conversion of 
 an Aryan country to Christianity is no more than the 
 infusion of Shemitism into its religion ; but I have seen a 
 certain amount of people of different races and of different 
 religions, and the result of my observation is that those who 
 are of the same race, and of different religions, resemble one 
 another more even in their religious practices than do those 
 who are of the same religion but of different races. I might 
 take divers examples, which I abstain from citing for fear of 
 hurting the feelings of any good people, but I think I cannot 
 be blamed for taking two or three which are historic. You 
 cannot have helped remarking how parts of the English 
 population in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. 
 displayed great indifference upon the subject of what really 
 were fundamentals, but rose in rebellion over changes in 
 certain adjuncts which were of no comparative importance. 
 And I verily believe that if the parish churches among those 
 people's descendants were turned into Buddhist temples 
 to-morrow, they would regard you with perfect equanimity 
 while you held forth to them upon the Causal Nexus of 
 Being, or upon that Mrvana which Wagner has so beauti- 
 fully called " love's endless, dreamless sleep." What they 
 would not like would probably be the priest wearing a 
 yellow robe. It is, I believe, a certain fact that the statues 
 of Reason which were set up in the Erench Churches at the 
 time of the Great Revolution became in not infrequent cases 
 the objects of the same observances as had, a few years 
 before, surrounded in the same places statues representing 
 very different things. No one, again, can read the sugges- 
 tions for religious practices which Auguste Comte has made 
 to his disciples without being struck by their resemblance to 
 those which prevail among the majority of Erench Christians. 
 As to Scotland, I may recall to you the rather hyperbolical 
 saying, ascribed (on I forget what authority) to James VII.,
 
 MARQUESS OF BUTE 371 
 
 to the effect that every Scotchman, to whatever Church he 
 may belong, and however sincerely, is always a Presbyterian. 
 I look, then, upon St. Andrews and her history as a 
 singularly pure type, presentment, and symbol of the dis- 
 tinctive genius of the Scottish race energising in the highest 
 field of thought, a chief witness to, and monument of, the 
 Scottish national history in its most ideal and elevated 
 aspects. In such a type, while the whole is, as I think, and 
 have said, controlled, through the very force of nature, by 
 physiological causes, the introduction of Christianity has 
 necessitated the existence of two elements. They are ele- 
 ments which here have harmonised as a patriotic State 
 supporting a patriotic Church. The secular or State 
 element is the Scottish nationality, of which the southern of 
 the two Roman walls in Britain was perhaps even originally 
 a witness, perhaps, after the invasion of Britain by the 
 English and Saxons, in one sense a partial cause, in any 
 case has been, and, as I think, is the great geographical 
 expression. The Christian element has been based upon 
 things which are contemporary not with the invasion of 
 Britain by the English, but with that by the Romans. I 
 mean the difference between the so-called Retrine and the 
 Joannine Liturgical families. I need not remind the 
 student of Christian Liturgiology that all the antient Litur- 
 gies contain in common a certain skeleton or groundwork, 
 and certain formulae, which for this reason can hardly fail to 
 be ascribed to the Apostolic era itself, most probably even 
 to a time before the dispersion of the Apostles, but that 
 after these features of a common origin to which all alike 
 bear witness, the early forms of Christian worship divide 
 themselves into five heads. It is true that in these cases 
 the difference of the lex orandi implied no difference in the 
 lex crcdendi, but they sometimes became identified with 
 discussions such as the Raschal controversy, which some, 
 such as the Canterbury school, did their very best to drag 
 into the sphere of doctrine. Indeed, the representatives of 
 that school at Whitby, in 664, strove, more or less honestly, 
 to represent Columba as being set up as a rival to the
 
 372 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 Apostle Peter. If they had named the Apostle John, it 
 would not have been true, but it would have been nearer to 
 the mark. Perhaps they did not dare. As for the five 
 Liturgical families with the Egyptian, the Syrian, and the 
 Chaldean, we need not here concern ourselves. But the 
 Italian, commonly called Petrine, and the Ephesine or 
 Joannine have divided the Western world. The early 
 history of the Italian is turbid. Without going the lengths 
 of Kenan, I think it will be generally admitted that there 
 are some indications of a Pauline as well as of a Petrine 
 tradition, and the period at which what was originally, as 
 we all know, a Greek Church, became, under influences 
 which were possibly African, a Latin Church, is wrapped 
 in absolute mystery. On the other hand, the Joannine 
 Liturgy is recognised on all hands as springing from the 
 tradition of the beloved disciple, from the very home of her 
 whom all generations shall call blessed. It was brought to 
 Lyons by Irenseus, the disciple of Polycarp, the disciple of 
 John. The local traditions of the Churches probable 
 enough, I think bring it to Marseilles with the family of 
 Bethany, Martha, and Mary, and Lazarus. Under the cir- 
 cumstances, its history presents a curious phenomenon, and 
 it is almost startling to read the language applied to it, for 
 instance, by " T," the biographer of St. Margaret. It has 
 now practically no rest for the sole of its foot except in a 
 side-chapel of the Cathedral of Toledo, and even that it 
 owes only to the cultured patriotism of Cardinal Ximenes. 
 
 What were the forms of Christian worship prevalent in 
 Britain during the Poman occupation, it is unnecessary here 
 and now to discuss. I hazard the conjecture that they very 
 probably varied, according to the nationalities of the troops 
 quartered in the island, or of the other immigrants from 
 different parts of the Empire, in the same way that different 
 forms of worship are to be found at the present moment in 
 use among the British population of India. The author of 
 the Life of Brendan of Cluainferta (I speak of the Life, not 
 of the Romance) mentions a Greek Liturgy as in use in 
 Wales in the Vlth century. This, is at least, a proof that
 
 MARQUESS OF BUTE 373 
 
 he believed such a thing to be possible ; if it be true, it may 
 throw some light upon the tradition of Eleutherius and 
 Lleurwg, as showing a possible survival from that epoch. 
 But before the Eomans had finally evacuated Britain, our 
 illustrious compatriot, Patrick M'Calphurn was born near 
 Dunbarton. What the form of Christianity was which he 
 introduced into Ireland can hardly be said to have admitted 
 of any question before, but the publication by the Bolland- 
 ists in 1882 of the Wurzburg Codex of the Life by Muirchu 
 Maccumachtheni, appears to me to clinch it by rendering no 
 longer reasonable any doubt that in the words of that Life, 
 " he went forth no farther" than Auxerre, but sat at the 
 feet of Germanus, " according to that which Paul was at the 
 feet of Gamaliel," and that his " brethren " (as he himself 
 expresses it) were " the Saints of the Lord ... in the 
 Gauls." This was undoubtedly the form of Christianity re- 
 imported into what is now called Scotland, by Columba, in 
 563. The mission of Columba has indeed perished as 
 regards its merely Liturgical practices, and their very monu- 
 ments are scant. But in its essence, as the abiding idea of 
 a national and nationalist church, it will be generally con- 
 fessed to have ultimately dominated hitherto anything which 
 it found before it, and anything which it has since been 
 sought to introduce into it. It lives mightily. Whatever 
 denomination people belong to in Scotland at this day, they 
 are all eager, with hardly a single if any exception, to claim 
 that they most truly represent the ideas of Columba. I do 
 not believe that his memory ever received so wide a venera- 
 tion as it does at this moment. 
 
 And it is with this birth of the distinctively patriotic 
 National Scottish Church, as opposed to what had hitherto 
 been rather the Churches of Roman Cantonments, that what 
 had been thitherto merely the Wild Boars' Headland, first, 
 but at once, becomes in the very light of Columba's own 
 day, if not actual presence, a sacred spot. There are two 
 names connected with the sowing of that grain of mustard- 
 seed which afterwards grew into such a tree, in whose 
 branches so many a mind of soaring thought and thrilling
 
 374 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 voice has found a congenial home. The first of these two 
 is Kenneth of Aghaboe, the intimate personal friend of 
 Columba, whom he accompanied when he first went to see 
 Brude, the King of the Picts, and whom he survived for 
 only three years, dying in the year 600. Of his historic 
 greatness in Ireland, it is needless to speak. His fame is 
 attested in Scotland by the continual popular use of his 
 name, as well as by the dedications of churches. I am, 
 however, inclined to think, with Dr. Skene, that when he is 
 named in connection with St. Andrews, the phrase is used 
 rather loosely, much as one might say that the Charing 
 Cross Eailway Station is in London, whereas it is really 
 west of Temple Bar, and that, familiar as he must have been 
 with the Promontorium Apri, the actual scene of his 
 temporary abode is more probably to be found outside its 
 swampy moat. The second name is that of Kegulus. With 
 him the question is different. A tower raised in his 
 memory when that memory was less than half as distant as 
 it now is, still rises above us, and his connection with the 
 actual spot is intimate. But very little is now known about 
 him. He belongs almost completely to that curious class of 
 whom it has been said, with a certain quaint beauty, that 
 " their memories are justly venerated among men, but their 
 acts are known only to God." I have not succeeded in 
 finding any date assigned as that of his death, but one of the 
 few statements regarding him associates him with a moment 
 more interesting than that which a barren entry of decease 
 would record. It was soon after the accession of Aidan 
 M'Gabhrain, that great Prince from whom not only is our 
 present Royal Family descended, and in right of whom they 
 may be said to reign, but who undoubtedly was the first 
 monarch who proclaimed the national independence of the 
 Scottish Kingdom, and who is regarded by Dr. Skene as the 
 founder of the Scottish monarchy more really than even 
 Fergus M'Erca ; while he also seems to have been the last 
 man who actually represented the Roman Emperors, as 
 commanding the united forces of all Christian Britain. 
 Only the year before Columba, in obedience, as he believed,
 
 MARQUESS OF BUTE 375 
 
 to a direct revelation from Heaven which had substituted 
 the Divine Will for his own, had ordained him King in Iona 
 with such a tremor of patriotic and religious emotion, that 
 while his hand was resting upon the august head the very 
 words of Benediction which he was reciting had been broken 
 by an unpremeditated outburst of prophecy and warning. In 
 574 the hero and the saint went together to Drumceatt, to 
 claim the independence of the Scottish Kingdom. Before 
 he returned, Columba founded the Church of Drumcliffe, and 
 among those who met him upon the occasion to do him 
 honour was Eegulus. 
 
 From the few facts and the jumble of contradictory 
 fictions, I think we may at least gather that Eegulus was a 
 contemporary, and a friend, perhaps a disciple of Columba, 
 who retired at some time to the then solitude of the Boars' 
 Headland. There is certainly a curious coincidence between 
 this name of the Boars' Headland, with the Cursus Apri and 
 the rest of it, and that of the Boars' Isle in Lough Derg on 
 the Shannon, with which the name of Eegulus is elsewhere 
 associated. And I venture to hazard a conjecture. I 
 cannot identify the isle among the many which stud Lough 
 Derg, but I find that the Lough is fairly deep. Pigs notoriously 
 swim very badly, and I strongly doubt whether wild boars 
 would ever make an habitual resort of an island in deep 
 water. Whence then the name ? At St. Andrews it is 
 fitting enough, as this isolated headland is separated from 
 the mainland only by a swampy valley with a little stream, 
 where the boars would have wallowed and whence they 
 could have sought a drier refuge on the higher ground. Is 
 it possible that Eegulus went over into Scotland after 
 Columba, later than the Synod of Drumceatt, and then 
 founded the cell called thenceforward Cillrighmonaich, and 
 when he returned to Ireland and sought an hermitage in 
 Lough Derg, gave it the name of Boars' Isle in remembrance 
 of his foundation and probably his hermitage upon the 
 Boars' Headland ? 
 
 From the time of Eegulus till that when it became St. 
 Andrews, I notice nothing of the history of this place, but
 
 376 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 events took place which mightily affected it. In 597 (the 
 very year of Columba's death) the Petrine Church of 
 Canterbury was founded by an Italian mission under 
 Augustine, and, although primarily meant for the conver- 
 sion of the heathen Angles and Saxons, soon assumed an 
 aggressive attitude not only towards English Churches such 
 as that of Deira, which owed their existence to the labours 
 of the members of the ancient Joannine Churches, but also 
 towards these churches themselves. In 664, the Canter- 
 bury party at the Synod of Whitby, by invoking the civil 
 power to decide a purely ecclesiastical question, succeeded 
 in conquering and capturing the Church of Northumbria. 
 In 710 a similar change was made by Nectan MacDerili, 
 King of the Picts. He threw himself body and soul into 
 the arms of the Canterbury party. In 7 1 7 he expelled the 
 Columban monks from his dominions. He proclaimed St. 
 Peter Patron of his country, and invited an architect to build 
 him a church in the Eoman style, a building of which I 
 need hardly remind you that the late Dr. Stuart believed 
 the lower part of the existing tower of Eestennet Priory to 
 be a part. It is interesting to observe how history repeats 
 itself, as though by those re-incarnations of which we have 
 heard a good deal of late years. Not many months ago a 
 ceremony with a similar object was performed in London in 
 honour of St. Peter, with exactly the same intention as that 
 of Nect'an MacDerili, and the place purposely selected for it 
 was a building erected on precisely the same principle, and 
 with the same motive as those which dictated his archi- 
 tectural choice. 
 
 This brings me to the time of the inbringing of the 
 reliques of St. Andrew, from which this city has its name, 
 and the national and sacred movement with which that 
 in -bringing is associated. First, as to the reliques. 
 Without discussing the varying amount of attraction 
 which is presented to various minds by the contempla- 
 tion of minute fragments of bone, it is a patent fact that 
 the reverence for the remains of the dead, of which 
 that attraction is only one manifestation, is a universal
 
 MARQUESS OF BUTE 377 
 
 sentiment of mankind. The respectful or tender cere- 
 monial of every funeral is only another form of it. And 
 such respect varies in character with the character of the 
 dead. The emotion which centred round the bones of 
 Robert Bruce when they were found in their grave at 
 Dunfermline in 1818, and reinterred the next year, was 
 patriotism. But it is the love of our Fatherland which is 
 in heaven which rouses emotion at the sight of remains 
 which, as we know them to have been sown in corruption, 
 we are also sure will be raised in incorruption, but 
 especially of a body which had enabled him who wore it 
 to walk with Christ in the flesh, which had enabled him 
 to imitate his Master to such an extent as to manifest by 
 suffering martyrdom the love than which no man hath 
 greater, which had enabled him alone with Peter, among 
 the Apostles, to share with their Master the death of the 
 Cross. 
 
 But it is needless to remark that a superstructure of 
 such feeling as that with which we should gaze upon the 
 mortal remains of the Saint, of the Apostle, of Andrew, 
 must be based upon at least a reasonable belief in the 
 authenticity of the object, and such belief can only be 
 justified by a purely archaeological investigation. It is 
 necessary to hold clear, on the one hand, from the exces- 
 sive credulity which has enriched collectors with so many 
 autographs of Burns, not to mention those of Montrose or 
 Charles Edward, articles made by or belonging to Mary, 
 Queen of Scots, or furniture, especially writing-tables, 
 once used by Marie Antoinette, and, on the other, from 
 an irrational and unscientific scepticism which I fancy 
 really owes a good deal to jests made by Erasmus, of 
 which I venture to think that the honesty is sometimes 
 nearly as shady as the taste. I follow the late Dr. Skene, 
 so far as he goes, as to the history of the reliques of the 
 Apostle Andrew which were brought here and gave this 
 place its name, while I admit with him that some of the 
 evidence is only circumstantial, and I supplement his 
 researches with one or two additional observations.
 
 378 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 In the time of Constantine the Great the grave of the 
 Apostle Andrew at Patrai, in the Peloponnesos, must have 
 been as well known as that of John Bunyan is to us. The 
 comparison is very exact, because both belonged to the 
 mechanic class, both were itinerant preachers of detested 
 dissenting sects, and both for that reason found themselves 
 in collision with the law. The body of Andrew was 
 removed by Constantine to Constantinople in the twentieth 
 year of his reign, and by him or Constantius buried 
 in the Church of the Apostles. Eoundly speaking, as I 
 need hardly remind you, it was thence removed by Cardinal 
 Peter Capuano, after the sack of Constantinople in 1204, 
 and reinterred in 1208 in the Cathedral of Amalfi, where 
 it now is. I have seen the top of the skull. It was 
 during the sojourn of the remains of the Apostle at 
 Constantinople that they underwent a mutilation which, 
 according to the plausible conjecture of Dr. Skene, was 
 the remote cause of the national position which the 
 Galilean Fisherman now occupies among us. When 
 Gregory the Great returned in 584 from discharging the 
 duty of Apocrisiarius at the Court of Tiberius II., he 
 brought with him to Rome an arm of St. Andrew, which 
 the Emperor had given him, and placed it in the monastery 
 of St. Andrew (now called, from its founder, San Gregorio), 
 which he erected upon the site of his ancestral home 
 and where most of it seems still to be. But from this it 
 may be conjectured were taken the reliques brought to 
 England by Augustine, a monk of the same monastery, 
 and in honour of which his royal convert, Ethelbert, 
 erected the Church of St. Andrew at Piochester. Hence 
 again were most probably derived the reliques which 
 Bishop Acca placed in the church which he raised in 
 honour of St. Andrew in his See at Hexham. In 731 
 lie was expelled from his See for what cause we know 
 not, but it can have been none to endear the Northumbrian 
 Government to his sympathies. He is said to have taken 
 refuge among the Picts. It is certain that Angus, King 
 of the Picts, received reliques of the Apostle, which he
 
 , MARQUESS OF BUTE 379 
 
 placed here, and immolated this place, the antient 
 Muckross, the more modern Cillrighmonaich, to the 
 Apostle from whom it is now named. That the late 
 Historiographer Royal was right in this derivation of the 
 reliques here from the arm brought by Gregory from 
 Constantinople, appears to me to be greatly supported by 
 the fact that these reliques are stated to have consisted of 
 three fingers (probably finger-bones) and a fragment of 
 an arm. A knee-pan and a tooth, which are also men- 
 tioned, I am inclined to guess to have been the additions 
 of subsequent and less critical times. But whatever the 
 history of these bits of bone, and whether they were or 
 were not part of the body of the first-called Apostle of 
 Christ, they were undoubtedly believed at the time to 
 be genuine, and they were the immediate cause of the 
 creation of St. Andrews as the great national church of 
 Scotland. 
 
 The historic expulsion of Acca followed at no long 
 interval after the occupation of the throne of the Picts by 
 Angus, son of Fergus, and while that Prince must have 
 been still warm from the struggle in which he had deposed 
 Nectan MacDerili. Angus is distinguished for three sets of 
 wars in particular. The first of these is the struggle against 
 Nectan MacDerili, the last scene of which was enacted 
 at Loch Inch in 729, although the civil war did not close 
 till 731, and Nectan did not die till the following year. 
 It was a struggle which argues in Angus no love for 
 Xectan and his Canterbury sympathies, or any enthusiasm 
 for his peculiar Petrine devotion. The second group 
 consists of his wars against the Scots of Dalriada, which 
 argue no special love for Iona, the sacred capital of their 
 race, and its Columban monks. The third class are his 
 wars against Northumbria, which argue no love for the 
 Cantuarian Churches and the English Benedictines, but 
 do render certain at least one bond of sympathy with 
 Acca, the possessor of the reliques of the Apostle Andrew, 
 the Bishop whom the English had driven out of his See 
 of Hexham.
 
 380 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 I think that the presentation of the reliques to him by 
 Acca, which gave him an advantage over Nectan MacDerili, 
 who is not known to have possessed any of St. Peter, 
 enabled him to indulge all these feelings at once by 
 starting a thoroughly national church of his own and pro- 
 claiming St. Andrew Patron of Scotland. 
 
 He selected the antient Boars' Headland for the place 
 which should be given to the Apostle. This may have 
 been partly for some topographico-historical reason, such 
 as meeting Acca near there, as hinted in the later and 
 mythological legends, but I should fancy mainly for two 
 reasons. The first of these is that so beautifully expressed 
 by Sir Walter Scott, when he puts in the mouth of one of 
 his characters the words, " If there is anything utterly 
 uneatable, let it be given to the poor," and in accordance 
 with which you will observe that the sites bestowed for 
 monasteries are in most cases either howling wildernesses 
 like the Grande Chartreuse, or bogs and swamps such as 
 the site of Fountains must have been till it was reclaimed 
 by labour which it was not worth the lay proprietor's 
 while to expend ; while the endowments of these establish- 
 ments, as recorded in their Chartularies, consist with almost 
 monotonous regularity, of the bestowal by lay Patrons of 
 the Patronages of parishes of which they were unable to 
 draw the teinds for themselves. This wild and rocky 
 headland, separated by a swamp from the cultivable main- 
 land, must have been singularly well adapted for the 
 purpose of pious munificence. The second reason was 
 that there was an appeal to national ecclesiastical history 
 and sentiment in the memories of Kenneth and Kegulus, 
 the friends of Columba : indeed, the name Cillrighmonaich, 
 as a variant of Ceannrighmonaich, leads me to conjecture 
 that there may have been actually some place of worship 
 dating from the time of liegulus. 
 
 Then Angus wanted some staff to look after the place, 
 to do something to keep the services going decently, and 
 to provide lodging for anybody who came (doubtless in- 
 cluding himself), and, as he did not want to have Dalriadic
 
 ' MARQUESS OF BUTE 381 
 
 monks from Iona, and still less English Benedictines from 
 Northumbria, or to have to endow any one else, he put in 
 a community of Culdees. I think that the first mention 
 of Culdees at St. Andrews is the entry in the Annals of 
 the Four Masters under 742, and, I believe, in Tighernac 
 under 747, Mors Tuathalain Abbas Cindrighmonair/h, and 
 that this is one of the very few places, either on account 
 of its royal or sacred character, or because they ruled 
 there alone, or for all these or some other reason or 
 reasons, where their superior was styled Abbat. This 
 peculiarity seems to be preserved down to this day by 
 the use of the word Abbey in connection with some places 
 in this city, although I have not found the title itself used 
 later than 1178-88, when the constitution of the Culdees 
 was being shaken by the action of the Bishop and his new 
 so-called Augustinian Chapter. Perhaps the then holder 
 was the last who bore it. 
 
 I feel a good deal of shrinking from that old subject of 
 fiction, the Culdees, but I suppose something must be 
 said, if not for very shame's sake, at least for history's 
 sake. As in many other points concerning Celtic ecclesi- 
 astical history on which I have not been able myself to 
 make original research, I feel great confidence in accept- 
 ing on this subject the opinion of my late dear and 
 venerated friend, Bishop Grant of Aberdeen, who was 
 able to deal with such things with singular learning and 
 acumen. There are either historical notices or more or 
 less trustworthy allusions to 25 establishments of persons 
 called Culdees. Of these establishments, 13 were in Scot- 
 land, 9 in Ireland, 1 at York, and 1 in the island of 
 Bardsey, off the coast of Carmarthenshire. These people 
 had at least two Kules which are extant, one of which is 
 attributed to Mochuda, who died in 6o(j, but is perhaps 
 somewhat later, and the first name actually connected 
 with them is that of Moling, who died in 09 7. They do 
 not seem, like ordinary religious orders, to have had any 
 bond of common Government, a fact which probably 
 accounts for what appears to be a notice of some re-
 
 382 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 organising of some at least of the Scottish houses upon 
 an Irish model in 921. Their establishments were com- 
 munities, but where, as was, or came to be, the case at 
 St. Andrews, they consisted of married men living with 
 their families, the tie of the common Tife cannot have 
 been very strict. They were not clerical bodies in the 
 ordinary sense, any more than is the Board of Governors 
 of an hospital, although, as with such a board, a clergy- 
 man might join them if he so pleased. They dedicated 
 themselves mainly to two works. First, they erected and 
 maintained hospitals for the spiritual, and the more com- 
 fortable bodily tending of the poor and the sick ; and 
 secondly, they strove by singing, etc., to make more solemn 
 the rendering of Divine Service. 
 
 This ecclesiastical part of their work consisted in 
 attending and taking part in the regular Church services 
 every day. In the absence of a properly ordained officiant, 
 they conducted them, with the exception of the Eucharist. 
 In the fifteenth century w T e find that the Prior of the 
 Culdees of Armagh was a sort of precentor in the 
 Cathedral. In some cases, at least, there seems to have 
 been an attempt to add to the daily services the chanting 
 through of the whole Book of Psalms every day. The 
 distinctiveness of their hospital work is illustrated by a 
 mystic story about Moling, in the Book of Leinster, so 
 striking that I shall read it. " One time, when he was 
 praying in his Church, he saw the youth coming to him 
 into the house. A purple garment was about him, and 
 he had a distinguished countenance. That is good, 
 cleric, said he. Amen, said Moling. Why dost thou 
 not salute me ? said the youth. Who art thou ? said 
 Moling. I, said he, am Christ, the Sou of God. That 
 is not possible, said Moling, when Christ approaches to 
 converse with the Celi-De, it is not in purple. . . . 
 He comes, but in forms of the miserable, i.e. of the 
 sick and lepers." The Book of Fenagh applies the word 
 Culdee to St. John the Evangelist, apparently because 
 he provided for the widowed and childless mother a
 
 MARQUESS OF BUTE 383 
 
 home and the services of a son. One might have 
 thought that the sacred pathos of this allusion might 
 have moved Prior Hepburn to spare the poor old women 
 whom he deprived, with a rather brutal remark, of their 
 refuge, but probably he had never heard and never thought 
 of it. 
 
 The origin of the Culdees is from Ireland, but the fact 
 of their larger development in Scotland is owing, I think, 
 to the expulsion of the Columban clergy by Nectan 
 MacDerili, whereby they were, to a certain extent, called 
 upon to take their place ; indeed, Dr. Skene remarks that 
 it is not till after that expulsion that the name of Culdee 
 appears in Scotland at all. This is again, I think, an 
 instance in which history repeats itself. Such lay bodies 
 occasionally coexist with monasticism, but the suppression 
 of monasticism has a tendency to develop them. I re- 
 member visiting a lay community on the slopes of Mount 
 Etna, which was several centuries old, and in Mallorca 
 there were at least two. One of these, which I visited, 
 and in which there was no clergyman, was, I think, 
 though I am not quite sure, older than the suppression 
 of the Spanish monasteries, but my impression is that 
 the other, which I did not see, but which I heard had 
 been joined by one clergyman, was more recent. The 
 most striking instance, however, is that of the body com- 
 monly called Frati Grigi, who have come into existence 
 in Italy entirely since the suppression of the monastic 
 establishments under the present Italian constitution. 
 They have, besides other establishments, which I believe 
 are numerous, an Orphanage or Eeformatory for boys, and 
 an Asylum for old men, with which I am familiar, close 
 to Sorrento. 
 
 The history of Scotland now gathers more and more 
 closely round St. Andrews, and nearly every distinguished 
 name is to be found in connection with it. The national 
 Bishopric of Alban had been founded at Fortrenn about 
 the middle of the ninth century. Early in the tenth 
 century King Constantine and Bishop Cellach stood to-
 
 384 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 gether upon the Mote Hill at Scone, and swore that in 
 the land of the Picts " the laws and discipline of the 
 faith, and the rights of the Churches and of the Gospels, 
 should be kept as well as among the Scots." This Cellach 
 transferred the See, which had already been moved from 
 Fortrenn to Abernethy, from Abernethy to St. Andrews, 
 and Constantine himself, in extreme old age, went thither 
 and became Abbat of the Culdees. As it is said 
 
 Afterwards did God call him 
 
 To the Recles on the brink of the waves, 
 
 In the house of the Apostle he came to his death ; 
 
 Undefiled was the pilgrim. 
 
 In 1144 the reforming and constructive zeal which so 
 marks the reign of David I. made itself felt at St. Andrews. 
 Kobert the Bishop, an Englishman, in view of the lay 
 character of the Culdees, and anxious to provide his church 
 with a clerical staff, in strict accordance with the ideas of 
 his day and of his sovereign, brought in the Augustinian 
 Canons who, as I need hardly remind you, have nothing 
 to do with Augustine, except so far as their rule is based 
 upon his works, especially the 109th Epistle, which, how- 
 ever, originally relates to women. The result was a kind 
 of intermittent struggle with the Culdees, the original 
 occupiers of the ground, which lasted about 200 years. 
 The hospital work of the Culdees crystallised into the 
 hospital of St. Leonard, the name, of which is the same 
 as that of their hospital built by King Stephen at York. 
 It was, as you know, suppressed by Prior Hepburn in 
 1512, and turned into St. Leonard's College, so that its 
 moral heir is now the United College, and its material 
 representatives the remains of the chapel, once the parish 
 church of St. Leonard, and some remains of buildings 
 mainly incorporated in those of Miss Dove's admirable 
 school. The more ecclesiastical side of the Culdee com- 
 munity became shaped into the Eoyal Collegiate Chapel 
 of St. Mary of the Heugh, the interesting remains of 
 which, uncovered not so many years ago, we see upon 
 the Kirkheugh. This institution long survived the
 
 MARQUESS OF BUTE 385 
 
 Eeformation. But in the arrangements for the settling of 
 Episcopacy by James VI. the place was, in 1606, conveyed 
 to the Archbishop, and Mr. Eobert Buchanan, who had 
 been appointed to the Provostry in 1599, the last repre- 
 sentative of the Culdees, and successor of Tuathalain, died 
 minister of Ceres in 1617. 
 
 I have said that there is hardly one great name in 
 the history of Scotland which is not connected with St. 
 Andrews, and the mention of the Culdees is connected, 
 though not in a friendly way, with the chief action of 
 William .Wallace towards the place. William Frazer, 
 Bishop of St. Andrews, died in France 20th August 1297. 
 William Comyn, Provost of the Culdees, was the English 
 candidate, and they claimed the right to vote, but were 
 not allowed, and William Lamberton was elected. In 
 the articles against him, printed by Palgrave, we find 
 " when the Chapter of St. Andrews had chosen Mr. 
 William Comyn, who had always held himself loyal to 
 our Lord the King and in his friendship, William Wallace 
 and his adherents, the enemies of our Lord the King, to 
 whom the said Mr. William Lamberton had, and has 
 been, an adherent, contrary to his oath and allegiance, by 
 force and stress made him to be elected Bishop of St. 
 Andrews." I think this implies that Wallace was actually 
 present and aided the seven Augustinians to exclude the 
 Culdees, and that the day must have been 5 th September, 
 as stated by Gordon, just a week before the Battle of 
 Stirling, and not 5 th November, as stated in Bower, when 
 Wallace was in England. But if so the election must 
 have been very hurried, as they could not long have 
 heard of Frazer's death. On 5 th July 1318 this Lamberton 
 had the satisfaction of consecrating the Cathedral in the 
 presence of King Bobert I., who then settled 100 marks 
 yearly upon the Church in thank-offering for his victory 
 at Bannockburn. It is interesting still to observe upon 
 the east wall of the Cathedral the scored lines which 
 guided Lamberton's thumb in applying the Sanctum 
 Chrisma. 
 
 25
 
 386 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 In 1378 broke out the Great Schism, and the Church 
 of Scotland, with the exception of the Bishop of Galloway, 
 who had to retire to York, declared in favour of the line of 
 Anagni. It was during the Schism that the University 
 was founded. Of the University itself I need hardly speak. 
 I was going to say Si monumentum quceris circumspice, but 
 I might apply that famous quotation to the University itself, 
 as the living monument of the remarkable man who founded 
 it in 1413 at the request of Bishop Wardlaw. I mean 
 Peter de Luna. His arms still appear upon the University 
 Seal between those of the King and of the Bishop. But if 
 you look above the Tabernacle in St. Salvator's Chapel, you 
 will see that some Urbanist fanatic has defaced them. 
 That childish act, which could not delete the facts of 
 history by injuring an historical work of art, was but of a 
 part with the treatment which Peter received from so many 
 during life, and a forerunner of that which his memory has 
 very commonly received since his death. To denounce him 
 has been the continuous occupation of the historians who 
 adopt the Urbanist view, a view which is undoubtedly the 
 prevalent one, although there have not lacked writers such 
 as Baluze, to set forth the other side of the question. Dr. 
 Ludwig Pastor, Professor of History in the University of 
 Innsbruck, has assailed Peter de Luna and his party within 
 the last few years, in a work which has just been published 
 in an English translation, and the learning of which is 
 worthy of the writer's nationality. German nationality 
 may, however, I think, have something more to do with it, 
 when we find Peter represented as a tool for the unjust 
 extension of French political influence, much as we might 
 regard French political agents in Siam, Madagascar, or 
 Tunis. The accusation strikes me as remarkable, when we 
 consider that the man was a Spaniard, and passed most of 
 his official and public career as the object of the persecution 
 of the French Government, which finally drove him out of 
 the country. The more usual charge against him is pig- 
 headed obstinacy. But pig-headed obstinacy is an ex- 
 pression which may be only an abusive term for what
 
 MARQUESS OF BUTE 387 
 
 others might as well call an unflinching and self-sacrificing 
 devotion to duty. He is accused of believing himself to 
 have been in the wrong all the while, and here, as far as 
 my reading goes, I would join issue. It might, I think, 
 have been observed that where so many learned and able, 
 so many pious, even saintly persons were divided in 
 opinion, a difference of judgment from one side or the 
 other did not necessarily imply moral obliquity. Ee- 
 member also that the Sovereign Princes of Spain suspended 
 their judgment until the most searching inquiry had 
 ascertained the facts which were to be laid before them as 
 the basis for their decision : that this was done, and that 
 after the most careful consideration, the decision of these 
 Sovereigns was given in favour of the claims of the line 
 represented by Peter. A very able English writer, who 
 has publicly directed against him, within the last few 
 months, a reiterated attack, which is all the more telling 
 from the moderation of its language, admits not only the 
 force of the case as put by Baluze, but also that until the 
 publication of the additional documents from the Vatican 
 Secret Archives, by the Abbe Gayet, in 1889, the full 
 strength of the Anagni case was not placed before us. As 
 a matter of practice, I would ask you, if you wish to form 
 an opinion, to investigate the conditions under which the 
 Conclave elected Urban, and to ask yourselves what would 
 be the decision of one of our judges at this day were 
 similar evidence laid before him in the case of a Parlia- 
 mentary election petition. Peter de Luna has been held up 
 to condemnation as a man whose only motive was a personal 
 lust of power. I do not think that it looks very like it, 
 that, when Scotland was the only country in Europe really 
 faithful to him, and an army of French troops was beleagur- 
 ing his Palace, to extort his resignation, and were withheld 
 from actually assailing it only by that spectacle of patient 
 dignity, he yet refused at any cost to assent to the induction 
 into this Church of St. Andrews of one who would be an 
 unfit minister of the Word and Sacraments ; and when the 
 Scottish Government proceeded to give the temporalities to
 
 388 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 their nominee, Peter replied that that was in their power, 
 and they were able to rob the Church of St. Andrews if 
 they would, but that as for him, he would never consent 
 and he never did. It does not look like personal and 
 worldly ambition that when he was asked why he did not 
 lay France under interdict, he replied that he would never 
 profane the censures of the Church to punish the poor, the 
 ignorant, and the helpless, for the faults of their rulers, and, 
 moreover, in a matter which could possibly be said to 
 concern himself personally. It does not look like personal 
 ambition when all his Cardinals left him, and he told them 
 that they might go, but that he dared not flee, and leave the 
 care of the sheep which the Great Shepherd had called upon 
 him to assume. Ambition is generally to be measured by 
 its possible gains. What did he gain ? The shifty Angelo 
 Corario, the infamous Baldassare Cossa, even poor Egidio 
 Munoz, gained by submission the certainty of much more 
 power and wealth and dignity than they could have dared to 
 hope for before their uncertain assumption of the state by the 
 resignation of which they gained it. Peter de Luna, your 
 founder, a man whose straightforwardness no one has ever 
 challenged, a man whose private life no one has ever dared 
 to assail, but who said that he could not desert the post of 
 duty except at the command of Him who had called him 
 to it, received nothing but persecution, as far as this world 
 goes, ruin. This very University deserted him five years 
 after he had founded it. But I hope that when he lay 
 upon his death-bed at Peniscola, almost quite forsaken by 
 men, he was yet not alone, because the Master whom he 
 had tried to serve was with him. 
 
 I have always desiderated that" history should be written 
 with only an impartial statement of absolutely certain facts, 
 so that the reader may be able to take one view or the 
 other, just as the contemporary did. The ideal history of 
 Mary, Queen of Scots, composed upon this principle, certainly 
 never has been written, and I strongly doubt whether it ever 
 will be written. I myself have tried to deal thus with 
 smaller matters, in my own small way, and I think not
 
 MARQUESS OF BUTE 389 
 
 altogether without such success as I really coveted, namely, 
 a testimony to my absolute impartiality. I once wrote an 
 essay on the so-called prophecies of Malachi of Armagh, in 
 which I did my best to put the arguments both for and 
 against their Divine inspiration as strongly as I could. 
 Some of my friends said to me afterwards, that they won- 
 dered how I could believe in such rubbish. Others told me 
 that, however I might myself believe these prophecies to be 
 a forgery, they thought I might have done better to attack 
 in less violent language a thing in which so many good 
 people believe. A third friend told me that I had displayed 
 an absolute impartiality, which deprived my essay of all 
 interest. Then I wrote another essay upon the question 
 whether Giordano Bruno was burnt or not. I put the 
 historical arguments both ways as well as I could. My own 
 impression at the time was that he really was burnt. But 
 a newspaper critic remarked that I had strained every nerve 
 to make out that he was not, and I had finally a sort of 
 triumph over myself, because, when I re-read the article 
 some years afterwards, I found myself a good deal shaken in 
 my opinion by my own arguments. I think, therefore, that 
 you may fairly trust me, even me, to speak of the Eefor- 
 mation without giving offence to any man. It is not, how- 
 ever, merely the fearsome joy of dancing among eggs 
 which makes me wish to speak of the subject, but because 
 it necessarily falls in with the line of historical sketch which 
 I have been taking, and because there are two observations 
 upon it which I wish to make. 
 
 The first of these is that the Great Schism, of which 
 your own founder, Peter de Luna, was one of the most 
 prominent features and almost the last survivor, was one of 
 the things which most chiefly led to it. That this would 
 be so would be evident to anybody who thinks, having regard 
 to the belief hitherto generally prevalent in Western 
 Christendom as to the constitution of the Visible Church. It 
 is interesting to observe as a proof of this the effect of the 
 spectacle upon the mind of Wiclif. He began by being a 
 violent Urbanist. He said (I cannot lay my hand upon the
 
 390 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 place, but the words fixed themselves in my memory), " No 
 man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called 
 of God, as was Aaron, and as is Urban." Afterwards he 
 said, " If ever Urban departs from the right way, then is his 
 election a mistaken one ; and in this case it would be not a 
 little for the good of the Church to want both Popes alike." 
 He ended by blessing God for having, as he expressed it, 
 split the serpent's head into two. Professor Pastor has gone 
 into this whole question at length, in its several aspects. I 
 need only here remark that the necessities of the contending 
 parties and the ultimate discrediting and weakening of the 
 central authority must be universally admitted to have 
 borne an immense part in generating, in perpetuating, and 
 in fostering those practical abuses, the existence of which 
 at the beginning of the sixteenth century no moderately 
 educated man in his senses denies. 
 
 Considering the prominent position which St. Andrews 
 had occupied in connection with the Great Schism, it is 
 therefore all the more natural to observe the prominent 
 position which it occupies in the history of the Eeformation, 
 or to observe that in 1571 no less than 12 of the Augus- 
 tinian Chapter, without counting the Prior and the Prior 
 of Pitmook, were holding Eeformed parochial benefices, and 
 that the Principal of St. Mary's, an old Carmelite friar, was 
 inducted into the Eeformed Archbishopric in the same year. 
 
 As far as the University goes, and any changes effected 
 in its constitution, I might nearly as well have left the 
 Eeformation unmentioned ; but this is exactly the second 
 remark which I wished to make upon the subject, viz. the 
 mild and conservative manner in which the Eeformation was 
 effected in Scotland as compared with England. A tempest 
 of blood and fire raged in England for something like 300 
 years, in fits of intermittent violence, but rising into a 
 tornado in the reigns of Henry VIII. and his children. In 
 Scotland, the future was reserving horrors of cruelty based 
 upon religion almost entirely for later periods, for witches 
 and for Covenanters. The maximum of persons put to 
 death in connection with the Eeformation is stated to be 19
 
 MARQ UESS OF B UTE 391 
 
 on one side and 5 or 6 on the other. Admit the 25. 
 Henry or Mary would have consumed them in a month. 
 Again, the dissolution of the religious houses was effected 
 without that cruelty and injustice towards individuals which 
 marked the proceedings of Henry VIII. It is not very 
 unusual to hear people talk vaguely about what they call 
 the rapacity of the nobles. I once began a thorough ex- 
 amination of this subject. It is not finished, but I did 
 enough to see that this sort of talk is nonsense. Very few 
 persons profited by the confiscation of this property who did 
 not profit by it already. The Act of Eesuniption itself was 
 not passed till long after the Eeformation, viz. in 1587, and 
 the ground on which the Crown resumed, viz. that the 
 objects for which the grants had been sanctioned were no 
 longer attained, was not unreasonable. The vested rights of 
 individuals were respected ; there had even sometimes to be 
 interference to prevent their alienating property in which 
 they could in any case have had only a life-interest. There 
 were immense reservations and exceptions, provisions for 
 glebes, and so on. In some cases, especially the friaries, 
 which were few and poor, the property went to the burgh 
 where they were situated. In some, as at Queensferry, it 
 was returned to the representatives of the donor. In most, 
 it seems to have been made over to the Abbats or Priors, 
 many of whom already held it almost hereditarily, and of 
 whom, as regarded the larger houses, there were very few 
 who were either in Holy Orders, or members of the Order 
 to which the establishment belonged. Some of these 
 remain to this day Neubotle, for example and the 
 Chapel Eoyal, and the endowments connected with it, still 
 holds the Abbacies of Crossraguel and Dundrennan. Lastly, 
 a good deal is said about the destruction of architectural 
 monuments, which I believe to be at least very greatly 
 exaggerated in popular belief. Many of the people who say 
 these things do not know, or do not remember that the work 
 of ruin in the south, as at Melrose, was the work, not of the 
 Scottish Eeformers, but of the English. The expression 
 " cast down " means, I think, the destruction of much of the
 
 392 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 internal decoration and furniture, and, although many- 
 inestimable monuments of art and history must thus have 
 perished, the destruction of stone buildings is not only a 
 thing which a mob could hardly effect, but is opposed to 
 the formal directions sent from Edinburgh in 1560, not to 
 injure desks, windows, doors, glass, or iron, to a variety of 
 notices, such as the directions given in 1563 for the upkeep 
 of the Abbey of Dunfermline, which had been what was 
 called " cast down " three years before, and to the action of 
 John Knox himself with regard to Scone, when the building 
 was ruined in spite of him. As regards the Cathedral of 
 St. Andrews, I commend to consideration not only Knox's 
 own description of what occurred, and which does not seem 
 to me to warrant the impression often conveyed by modern 
 writers, but also the arguments of Mr. Fleming as to the 
 bad condition of the building for some time before its sack, 
 in 1559. 
 
 The last occasion upon which St. Andrews appears as 
 the centre of the national life was the sitting of Parliament 
 in 1645-46. Just as the Eeformation may be traced from 
 the Great Schism, so may the Covenant be traced from the 
 Eeformation. And this is no doubt the case as regards the 
 First Covenant ; but the Solemn League and Covenant I am 
 inclined to regard less in this light than in that of an ex- 
 pression of the national spirit, for, although its first article 
 connects it with the earlier document, the essential principle 
 of the second is the same as that of the clause apparently 
 added to the Coronation Oath for the first time in 1331, on 
 the recommendation of John XXI. in 1329, and certainly 
 administered to David, Duke of Eothesay, in 1399, while 
 the remaining four articles do not differ in principle from 
 that of the famous declaration of the Barons of Scotland in 
 1320. "With regard to the blood which was shed by this 
 St. Andrews Parliament, and to which I think that an 
 undue amount of relative attention is sometimes called, I 
 will only express the hope that as regards the Irish prisoners 
 we may form an exaggerated idea of the numbers who 
 suffered, and we must regard the episode in the light of the
 
 MARQUESS OF BUTE 393 
 
 nature of their unprovoked invasion of the country under 
 Montrose, and specially of their acts at Kilsyth, and above 
 all, at Aberdeen. Whatever it was, I believe it was not as 
 sanguinary, not only as the action of the French Eepublican 
 Government in Brittany, but as that of the Hanoverian 
 Government after the '45. As regards regular judicial 
 proceedings, there can be no comparison between the moderate 
 justice with which the Covenanting Government selected for 
 punishment a few of the highest and most responsible 
 leaders, and the almost promiscuous vindictiveness with 
 which the Hanoverian consigned to a death of studied 
 horror a great number of persons, even down to the hum- 
 blest walks of life. And the same moderation once more 
 appears towards the close of the century, in the philosophical 
 self - restraint which unlike the silly fanaticism which 
 defaced the arms of Peter de Luna has left us intact in 
 the Parish Church, even after 1689, the blatant monument 
 of Archbishop Sharp. 
 
 I have quoted the saying of him who called the 
 eighteenth century the Valley of the Shadow of Death 
 more than once, and still I cannot find another phrase which 
 seems to me so truly to depict it. So in Scotland 1706-7 
 1715-16 1745-46. In St. Andrews the Imum Cazli was 
 probably reached when the Butcher Duke of Cumberland 
 was elected Chancellor in 1746, and next year St. Leonard's 
 College may be said to have collapsed from inanition. 
 
 Eppur , si muove or, as I would rather say, Ejopure, 
 sta. Anyhow, it abides still. 
 
 I have spoken of the past. Perhaps I should in any 
 case have been borne in that direction by my own idiosyn- 
 crasy, or by the same profound veneration for this spot 
 which led my Assessor, when he was invited to preach the 
 University sermon, to choose for his text the words : " Put 
 off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou 
 standest is holy ground." But after all, how could I, here 
 and now, have spoken of the present or of the future ? In the 
 present there are " fightings within and fears without." And 
 yet perhaps a voice, however feeble, which speaks here of
 
 394 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 the past, may aspire to do a little both for the present and 
 for the future by fanning the noble ambition to have a 
 present, and to make a future, worthy of a noble past. 
 
 Of the future how could I have spoken ? I have heard 
 a distinguished man utter the hideous word euthanasia. I 
 myself have sometimes dreamt of the primeval headland, 
 still lifting skyward its crown of antient towers, but with 
 that crown encircled by an aureola of affiliated colleges a 
 commonwealth of seats of learning, an Oxford of the North. 
 
 Anyhow, even as in the days of Constantine, the son of 
 Aedh, the house of the Apostle still stands upon the brink 
 of the waves. May it stand. 
 
 On the 5 th of March, in this year, I took a walk with 
 Professor Knight to Drumcarrow. It was a fine, sunny 
 day. We stood among the remains of the prehistoric fort, 
 and looked over the bright view, the glorious landscape 
 enriched by so many memories, the city of St. Andrews 
 enthroned upon her sea-girt promontory, the German Ocean 
 stretching to the horizon, from where it chafes upon the 
 cliffs which support her walls. And we remarked how 
 God and man, how nature and history, had alike marked this 
 place as an ideal home of learning and culture. And then 
 the view and the name of the Apostle together carried my 
 thoughts away to another land and to a narrower and land- 
 locked sea. I do not mean that where Patrai, the scene of 
 Andrew's death, looks from the shores of Achaia towards the 
 home of Ulysses over waters rendered for ever glorious by 
 the victory of Lepanto. I do not mean the City of Con- 
 stantine, where the first Christian Emperor enshrined his 
 body, and where the union of ineffably debased luxury and 
 ineffably debased misery, which drains into the sea of 
 Marmora, excites a disgust which almost chokes grief and 
 humiliation. Neither do I mean those sun-baked preci- 
 pices which, by the shores of the Gulf of Salerno, beetle 
 over the grave where lies the body that was conformed in 
 death to the likeness of the death of the Lord. I mean the 
 land of Andrew's birth the hot, brown hills, which, far 
 below the general sea-level of the world, gird in the Lake of
 
 MARQUESS OF BUTE 395 
 
 Gennesereth, that strange landscape which also is not 
 unknown to me, the environing circle of arid steeps, at 
 whose feet, nevertheless, the occasional brakes of oleander 
 raise above the line of the waters their masses of pink 
 blossom, and whence the eye can see the snows of Hermon 
 glistering against the sky far away, and I pray that some 
 words which he heard uttered upon one of those hills may 
 be realised here, that the physical situation of this place 
 may be but a parable of its moral position, and that it 
 may yet be said of the House of the Apostle that " the rain 
 descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and 
 beat upon that house ; and it fell not : for it was founded 
 upon a rock."
 
 APPENDIX I 
 
 LIST OF EECTOES OF THE UNIVERSITY FROM 
 1859 TO 1894 
 
 SIR RALPH ANSTRUTHER 
 
 (1859-1862) 
 
 SIR WILLIAM STIRLING-MAXWELL 
 
 (1862-1865) 
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 (1865-1868) 
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 
 
 (1868-1871) 
 
 LORD NEAVES 
 
 (1872-1874) 
 
 DEAN STANLEY 
 
 (1874-1877) 
 
 THE EARL OF SELBORNE 
 
 (1877-1880)
 
 398 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 SIR THEODORE MARTIN 
 
 (1880-1883) 
 
 LORD REAY 
 
 (1884-1886) 
 
 ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR 
 
 (1886-1889) 
 
 THE MARQUESS OF DUFFERIN AND AVA 
 
 (1889-1892) 
 
 THE MARQUESS OF BUTE 
 
 (1892-1895) 
 
 The Rector of a Scottish University is elected for a term of three years. 
 Ten of the twelve St. Andrews' Rectors, whose addresses are published in this 
 volume, held office for three years, but two of them, viz., Lord Neaves and Lord 
 Reay, only for two years. The explanation of this is that Mr. Ruskin was elected 
 before Lord Neaves, and Mr. Russell Lowell before Lord Reay, but neither of 
 them took office. The delay in the appointment of their successors, in each case, 
 took a year out of their terms of office respectively. It may also be explained 
 that the date for the delivery of the Rectorial Address isi nvariably left to the 
 Rector. It will be seen that an interval of nearly five years separated Mr. 
 Balfour's address from Lord Reay's, while only two and a half divided Lord 
 Bute's from Lord Dufferin's, and only one year and two months separated Sir 
 Theodore Martin's and Lord Reay's. As three to four years is the usual length 
 of the undergraduate course, this has deprived some students from ever hearing 
 a Rectorial Address, and has enabled others to hear two of them. But, when 
 public men are selected to fill such an office as the Rector of a University, it must 
 be left to them to fix the date most convenient for their visit, and their address. 
 
 W. K.
 
 APPENDIX II 
 
 LIST OF RECTORS' PRIZES, WITH THE NAMES OF 
 THE WINNERS 
 
 Sir WILLIAM STIRLING-MAXWELL 
 
 I. Ten Guineas for Essay on " Solar Physics." 
 
 John G. M'Pherson, M.A., and George Forbes, equal. 
 
 II. Ten Guineas for Essay on "A Comparison between Ancient 
 Tragedy and Shakespeare." 
 
 Edmund Robertson. 
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 I. Twenty-five Pounds for Essay on " The Sources of Fallaceous 
 Thinking, and of Opinion insufficiently grounded in fact, which 
 lie in the original Constitution of the Human Mind ; and on 
 any modes of fortifying the Mind against the tendencies thence 
 arising." 
 
 Edmund Robertson. 
 
 II. Twenty-five Pounds for Essay on "The Logical and Psychological 
 questions involved in the Controversy between Nominalism and 
 Realism ; and on any Remains of Realism in the Schools of the 
 present day." 
 
 Alexander Stewart. 
 
 III. Twenty-five Pounds for Essay " To explain and illustrate the 
 Principle of Inseparable Association and its Applications to the 
 Theory of the more complex Mental Operations." 
 
 William Horne.
 
 400 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 
 
 I. Ten Guineas for Essay on " The Gowrie Conspiracy." 
 William Weir Tulloch. 
 
 II. Ten Guineas for Essay on " The Influence of France on Scotland." 
 Result hot recorded. 
 
 III. Fifteen Pounds for Essay on " The Olympic Games their effect 
 upon Greek Culture." 
 
 Peter Anton. 
 
 LORD NEAVES 
 
 I. Prize for Proficiency in Mathematics, and Natural Philosophy. 
 Robert T. Cunningham. 
 
 II. Prize for Proficiency in Logic, Metaphysics, and Moral Philosophy. 
 Alexander Spence, M.A. 
 
 III. Prize for Proficiency in Classics, and Philology. 
 Joseph Brown. 
 
 DEAN- STANLEY 
 
 Ten Pounds for Essay on " The Legend of St. Andrew, in con- 
 nection with Scotland." 
 
 John Anderson Black. 
 
 LORD SELBORNE 
 
 Twenty-one Pounds for Essay on " The Causes of Internal 
 Decay in Nations." 
 
 James M'Reath. 
 
 SIR THEODORE MARTIN 
 
 I. Twenty-five Pounds for Essay on " Lyrical Poetry : its distinctive 
 functions, and the various forms which it has assumed." 
 
 William A. Sim. 
 
 II. Twenty -five Pounds for Essay on "The Element of Originality 
 in Latin Poetry." 
 
 Archibald Allan.
 
 APPENDIX 401 
 
 LORD REAY 
 
 Twenty -five Pounds for Essay on the question "Is Ownership of 
 Agricultural Land a necessary element of the Wellbeing of the 
 Rural Labourer?" 
 
 John Liddell, M.A. 
 
 ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR 
 
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