The Sun.
London, England, 1864-11-14 00:00:00

-- -
EARL RUB!, TELL AT ABERDEEN.

[A summary of the following appeared in our impression
of Saturday :-1

ABERDEEN, Nov. 11.
Yesterday the Right Hon. Lord Russell arrived
in Aberdeen for the purpose of being formally ins
stalled as Lord Rector of Aberdeen University, to
which effice he was elected in December, 1863—the
tenure of office being for three years. His lordship
was accompanied by his daughter, Lady Georginia
Russell,
The formal installation took place in the Hall of
Mariachal College-buildings at 12 o'clock. At 1
o'clock the Lord Rector delivered his inaugural
address in the Music-hall, in presence of an audience
of 2,000 persons, including students, graduates of
the University, and others, a fair portion of them
b,ing ladies. On entering the hall, accompanied by
Principal Campbell and the members of the Senatus,
bia lordship was loudly cheered. After prayer by
the Principal,
The LORD RECTOR (Lord Russell) spoke as fol-
lows :—Gentlemen, my first duty is one of gratitude
to you for the honour which you have done me in
electing me Rector. (Applause.) I feel indebted to
you for this honour on account of the fame and re-
putation of this University—(applause)—on account
of its ancient distinction—a distinction which has
been enhanced of late years by mathematical hon-
ours gained in an English University—(applause)
—causing the names of your sons to be recorded
in its honoured annals. Gentlemen, in addressing
you to-day, it has occurred to me, thinking of this
matter, that I should ill detain you by attempting
to enlarge upon the beauties of literature or acqui-
sitions of science, which are brought before you in
a way far more exact, far more ample, far more in-
telligently than I could do by such learned profes-
sors as those who are enaged in the teaching of
this University. But, gentlemen, it has seemed to
me that there are questions not so far out of the
usual scope of my labours, in which I am not so in-
competent. to advise—(applause)—upon which, at all
events, I can examine with you—problems of the
utmost interest to the human race, and by examining
which we may attain, in future days, and for future
speculations, truths which are of the utmost value
to the welfare of the human race. (Applause.) Those
upon which I propose to speak to you are the two
questions—first, is there any law or general rule by
which the decline of States is governed ; and se-
condly, what is the general aspect of the world at
present, and doth it teach us to hope or despond P
(Applause.) Now, gentlemen, I think it has too often
been assumed without much inquiry, that there was
a sort of destiny—a kind of fate which ruled the fall
of States—which caused some to rise and others to
fall, and without any valid reasons such as in the
moral as well as in the physical world usually des
termine events. But I think, howsoever little we
examine, we shall find there are causes sufficient
,--causes which are known to us and which operate
in our case, and which equally determine the final
condition and fall of States. I will not stop to cons
eider those questions which relate to nations so small
in size, so insignificant in arms that, although they
have by the exertion of great talent and virtue sud-
denly risen to great prosperity—and, indeed, may
have kept that prosperity for a long time—yet have
in the end been overpowered by States more consis
derable, more potent in arms than themselves. This
is in some degree applicable to Holland, which was
a great and flourishing State, but could hardly
maintain against the force of the Republic of France
its former condition. Such was the case with the
State of Venice, which lasted for a number of cen-
turies, and was governed with great wisdom, but
was not able to contend when Austria and France
appeared determined to crush the republic. But I
am about to speak to you of the great States of the
world, and first, of that great State of Rome which
rose by so much wisdom, by so much valour in arms,
by such exceeding sagacity in its choice of the means
of government, such power in carrying its conquest
of other countries to the very height of power, which
you all know and on which I need not dwell. How
came it, then, that that great power, so extensive
hitherto and so wise, declined, and at length fell to
the ground ? I think you will find the defects re-
garding the state of government, defects regarding
the state of morals, defects relating partly to literae
tur and arts, but, more than that, to the state of
religion, caused the fall of that great empire.
(Applause.) To speak in the first place of the Go-
vernment of Rome, there was a time, in the course
of the second Punic war, when it might have been
possible to have had a representative Government
for the whole of Italy, and that representative Go-
vernment might have been a Government capable
of conducting for centuries in Italy itself a free and
happy Governmeat. But that was not the case.
..
was not chosen, and the State of Berne became in
point of government the sink of the greatest vice
—of the most notorious corruption, with regard to
all its offices, which were openly sold to the highest
bidders—with regard to its judicial functions, and
with regard to every part of the State. There is a
story which I will not repeat to you literally or cor-
rectly, hut, as it so happens, it has a pleasantry
equally good in English and in Latin, I may refer
to it. After Cicero had pleaded most eloquently in
behalf of a client, the opposite party, who had suc-
ceeded, told him the next day " Well, it appears
after all that the majority did not pay any Wens
tion to your fine words, Cicero," and he said, " Yes,
not the majority, but the minority at all events pei-el
credit to my words, but the majority paid no credit
to you, for they made you pay ready money."
(Laughter and applause.) That which was in fact,
on the part of Cicero, a source of ridicule, pervaded
Rome so generally, that it was impossible a Go-
vernment so corrupt should continue in a course of
success. With regard to morals they were almost
in a still worse condition. There was no rank of life
that was respected. The sons, when the days of the
proscriptions came, betrayed their fathers for the
sake of the plunder of their riches. In every relae
tion of life there was the greatest perfidy, the most
shameless vices, Now, with regard to literature I
might be told, as it has been often said, that the
age of Augustus was the meet flourishing age of
Roman literature, but, if you come to examine this
and some other instances, you will find it was the
previous struggle, it was the previous liberty which
for a time, in the midst of security, enabled those
great writers to flourish, who made Roman liters.
tare famous through all time. (Applause.) It is
somewhat as if any one could suppose that the ripe
juice of the grape is entirely owing to the fall of
autumn, without recollecting that the spring and
summer have prepared these juices, have strength..
ened those fruits which we find so rich and strong
at the close of the summer. (Applause.) And that
autumn, during which those fruits aro produced—
in which we find the grape so luxuriant and the
olive so abundant—have preceded the winter dur-
ing which all these fruits wither and disappear.
(Applause.) That I believe to have been the casein
Rome. That from the time that the Government
was destroyed and despotism established, there was
a commencement of decline, and those great talents
which had astonished the world became fewer and
fewer, and in tame ceased to appear. In commence•
rent of the annals of Tacitus there is an allusion to
the historians, most of them now lost, who were
known during the time of the Republic, and he
thus puts the phrase. In the sense, though not in
the same words, he says •.—" Many of us have re.
lated the events of 820 years, from the building of
the city of Rome and while the Roman Republic
endured. These events were related with equal
talent and freedom after the battle of Actium,.
When it became necessary, for the sake of peace,'
that power should be placed in one person these
great talents disappeared," Here, then, we have
two or three of the causes of the decline of Rome—
that the Government had become utterly corrupt,
that the morals were entirely vicious ; that liters.%
ture, which had fieurished for a time, could no
longer show the same vigour, or flourish with the
same power, when despotism had completely over-
whelmed it. (Applause.) But the Romans had,
according to. Polybius, a greet attachment to their
religion, and, coneiderirg that this was so far under
the power and superintendence of the gods, they
did not venture to break their faith, or to swerve
from the rule of right,"while they had entire belief
in that religion. It was a part of that ignorance

which God winked at, and when there were certain
signs in the moral world, as well as certain pl ieno-
mena in the physical world, which clear showed
the being of a God. (Applause.) Indeed, Sallust,
a rhetorical historian certainly, but one who would
not depart far from what he believed to be the case,
represented that in the Senate of Rome, when it
came to be a question of the punishment of Ca tiline,
Caesar and the greater part of the senators proposed
that he should be put to death, Sallnst describes
Caesar as talking very smoothly of the punishment
of death, and saying that, in fact, instead of giving
them a continuance of care, you give them repose
and rest, which is one of the greatest boons that
they can have. In answer to the opinion he repree
seats Cato as saying :
" Btlne et composite Caius Cec3ar paulo ante in
hoc ordine do vita et morte disseruit, credo falsa
existimans ea quae de inferis narrantur diverse
itinere males a bonis loca tetra, inculta, feeds, atque
formidolosahabere."—Salustii Catilina. That shows
that in that time, when the Government had
become corrupt, and when all bonds and ties of so•
ciety were becoming loosed, in that same time, the
fears that men had on account of their religious bee
lief, these fears were likewise vanishing, and disap.
pearing. (Applause.) In the same spirit we find
Virgil envying the cold impiety of Lucretius ;-
6, Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,
Atque metus omnes et inexorabile fatum
Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari."
Virgil.
In the same spirit we find Lucan describes Cato as
speaking when he was brought to the Temple of
Jupiter, and advised to consult the oracle; he said
there is no need of a Deity speaking in the temple ;
and he says you may come to others, but do not come
to me asking me to consult the oracle—
" Sortilegis egeant dubii semperque futuris
Casibus ancipites, me non oracula certum
Sed mors certa facit, pavido fortique cadendum est
Hoc sane est dixisse Jovem."—Lucan.
What, then, in that state of Rome, with everything
which could sway men and prevent them giving
entire reins to their passions, with every power
which could restrain their evil courses taken away
—what remained but that a Dictator, by means of
arms, by means of the abilities with which he di-
rected those arms, should supplant the whole powers
of the Government, and erect that tyranny on the
basis of the free state of Rome—that state of Rome
which had flourished, and which had risen, which
had flourished, which had subsisted entirely on ac-
count of its freedom, and which, having lost that
freedom, though it might endure, as it did endure
for centuries in its decayed state, had no longer that
life or spirit which would lead it to fresh victories
and glory ? It was supposed by some men that the
whole evil of this state of things consisted in the
usurpation of Caaear,whereas Cae iar was but the arm,
the instrument to carry into effect the punishment—
punishment justly due to those who had forgotten
all their virtues, and sunk into the abyss. In this
state of the world Brutus and Cassius, with some
30 other persons, guided by Roman traditions,
thought to deliver the Republic, to vindicate liberty,
and to ease the world by the murder of Cec3ar.
They accomplished so much of their design as sues
cessfully to kill Caesar ; but they neither served the
Republic nor liberty, nor the world. For the evil
war not in the person of Caesar, but in the mastery
of a licentious soldiery and a corrupt people, so that
more cruelty, more ferocity, servitude more aban-
doned, and despotism more fixed, were the natural
and certain consequences of the murder of Cw Sar—
a murder which was not less perfidious, nor less
bloody, than any other murder. I have said this
because the assassination of Cesar was perpetrated
by the dagger of Brutus the patriot, and has been
approved by the pen of the poet ; but it is not in
this way that freedom can be restored. When the
spirit of liberty has been overpowered by a lawless
soldiery, and sunk in the vices of a corrupt people,
it cannot be restored by the dagger. Octavius and
Antony, by their prescriptions, effaced the clemency
of Caesar, but maintained the tyrannical power he
had usurped. What was required was not the death
of a man, but the regeneration of a people. This
Brutus and Cassius could not effect, but they gave
the authority with which the murderers of William
the Silent and Henry IV. cf France afterwards
took advantage. The authority, be it observed,
was assumed by Brutus, and who shall refuse it to
Ravaillac ? By the sentence of an unknown and
secret tribunal, deciding without open trial, and
executing their sentence by treachery, fell Julius
Caesar; by such a tribunal and by such an execu-
tion also fell William of Orange and Henry IV. of
France. (Applause.) So that nothing can be more
unsafe for mankind than to leave it to any fanatical
assassin to commit a murder upon him whom he
thinks a tyrant, because that tyrant may be as
William of Orange seeking to deliver a people
France opening the ways of peace and prosperity
to a great people. (Applause.) And now having
thus spoken to you—l hope not too much at
length—on the causes of the fall of Rome, I pro-
ceed at once to another and far distant period of
history. But before Ido this let me say that it has
been observed—and I am inclined to think observed
with truth—that the long decline, the painful decay
of the empire of Rome gave occasion, gave the op-
portunity for Christian converts to spread the
Christian religion (applause) ; to spread that religion
not only among the Roman subjects, but among
the barbarians who were to succeed in overpowering
them, and thus laid the foundations at once of better
states of society, and of a pure instead of a corrupt
religion. (Great applause.) I will now, then, come
at once to a far different time, to a time at the be-
ginning of the 16th century, when the Reformation
was about to break out, The Christian religion had
then been established in Rome; but it had been
established in a corrupt shape, and those who were
the men of letters of Italy, who were the chief
ornaments of Italy, had studied more Platonic philo-
sophy than the Christian religion—a time of what
Machiavelli calls " a noble idleness," without regard
to any religion or any Government. It was at this
time that a German monk, really in earnest, sought
to find out what was really the meaning of the re-
ligion that had been delivered by God to mankind ;
and in so doing he rescued the nations of Europe
from the contaminating and low observances which,
under the name of the Christian religion, some had
indulged in. (Applause.) But, be it observed, I am
speaking now not of the Roman Catholic religion as
it was maintained ; I am speaking of the state of
things in the dark ages, and I hold that the revival
of letters in the 16th century was a revival of letters
not only for Protestants but for Catholics. Men
then began to study the meaning of their religion,
and if they did not arrive at the same conclusions,
if they arrived indeed at very different conclusions,
they had at least in their hearts and minds a true
wish to follow the doctrines of Christ. (Applause.)
But the result of the revolution in religion was, as
you all know, not only great dissensions, but civil
wars of the utmost atrocity spreading through
Europe. It is not for us to say what are the
intentions of the Almighty Being in permitting
those civil wars to exist, but this we know that
in His eyes a thousand years are but as a day,
and we may think that it was for the purpose of
purifying religion, that it was for the purpose of
the discussion—or the criticism—of the reading of
the Scriptures that these civil wars were permitted,
and that at length light was to come out of the
darkness of the time. (Applause.) I may now speak
to you of the Government of that time. And here
again you will see that the Reformation of religion
was the source not only of right, but of vigour and
of a. flourishing state of opinion in many countries
of Europe where there were some things done witu
regard to government which had a tendency in the
opposite direction. Philip do Comines, a most ex-
cellent and valuable historian, tells us that Charles
VIII. of France loaded his soul very heavily, be-
cause ho put an end to the States-General of Ponce
and destroyed liberty in that country, The effects
were not immediate. France grew and flourished
to
a great height of prosperity—to a great height
of power among the nations of Europe—but at
length the time
which Charles Vclallnl
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suc-
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ance
scenes of the Frenchensued,andthe
hotrible Revolution—that
ground of France, which cawedti?
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blood-
shed, thed,
shed, which caused so many wars, were in fact the effect of