The Sun.
London, England, 1859-12-24 00:00:00

warn you against over-hasty interferences, against
generalisations founded on insufficient induction—
against the excessive reaction in sentiment and
opinion, to which contrasts so startling, and moral
and social paradoxes so unexpected as those to which
I have been referring, are not unlikely to lead. It
may be well—it is well—that by the events that are
passing around, us we should be reminded of the
fact that there are springs of human action
which lie beyond the reach of mere calcula-
tions of utility. and profit, and that we may
not expect to penetrate all the mysteries
of Owl's providence by the aid of a philosophy which
looks only to secondary causes, and takes no cogni-
sance of a First. (Cheers.) But we shall err, if, in
our impatience and precipitancy, we lose confidence
in the true principles of social and economical
science, or blind ourselves to the manifest tendency
—a tendency constantly operating, though subject
to occasional checks and hindrances—the manifest
tendency of such discoveries as those to which
Adam Smith, and Black, and Watt, contributed—
to promote happiness and goodwill among men.
(Cheers.) An eloquent writer has said that human
intelligence is always advancing, but advancing in
a spiral line ; and. this observation, as it appears to
me, is still more emphatically true of social pro-
gress. Bear in mind that the power of discriminat-
ing between the accidental and the necessary, be-
tween the occasional and the constant, the tempo-
rary and the permanent, the exception and the
rule, is the quality which ought especially to dis-
tinguish the educated man. If you would be enti
tied to the reputation of honesty, it is not enough
that you should be able to show that you are not
consciously deceivers of your fellow-men. You
must also have it in your power to prove that you
have omitted no precaution which untiring vigi-
lance and constant exercise of self-control -could
supply to prevent you from being self-deceived.
John Stuart Mill, in his last work, argues in favour
of entire freedom of thought and discussion, on the
ground that even if the opinion which is opposed
to the received opinion, and which, therefore, there
may be- some desire or disposition to suppress—
does not contain the whole truth, or ever a portion
of the truth, yet, nevertheless, its ventilation is ex-
pedient, as a means of preventing the truth to
which it is opposed from crystallising into a preju-
dice, or evaporating into an empty formula. Of
such paramount importance, then, in the judgment
cf this great thinker, is vigilance in the cause of
truth, that he seems to hold the somewhat para-
doxical opinion that the citadel of truth is never so
secure -as when the enemy is actually at the gate.
It is recorded of Watt that in looking over the spe-
cifications of inventions for which patent- rights
were obtained, but which proved, nevertheless,
when brought to the test of practice and trial, to
he insufficient or worthless, he found many which
were but the embodiment of ideas that had
suggested 'themselves to his own mind, but which,
when-he had subjected them to that process of ri-
gorous scrutiny and examination through which he
required the products of his brain to pass; he had
found to be insufficient, and. consequently had re-
jected. It appears to me that this anecdote conveys
a truth we would do well to lay, to heart. It illus-
trates in a striking manner the intimate connexion
subsisting between moral self-control and intellec-
tual superiority. If we would be true to ourselves
and to others, we must use the same severity which
Watt employed in testing the claims to acceptance
of our favourite speculations, not in physics only,
but in /ethics, politics, and social science, and all
other departments of human thought. (Applause.)
But to pass from these reflections, which are sug-
gested by a general consideration of the signs and
circumstances of the present time, permit me to ob-
serve that this time is also a time of special interest
to all of us who are connected with the Scottish
universities, because we are now about to apply,
and develop° in practice, those changes in their
constitution which recent legislation has introduced.
Applause.) Perhaps I may be permitted to watch
the operation of those changes with even more than
ordinary solicitude, because at a very early period,
and before it became general, I was associated with
those who took a lead in the movement in favour of
university reform. (Cheers.) I joined in this move-
ment under the conviction that, in the working of
our university system, there were points—some of
importance, and some of *tail—which_ called. ur-
gently for amendment, and that the best interests
of all classes in our population required that these
amendments should be effected without delay-
-that, looking to the progress which education in
the highest departments was making in England
and elsewhere, our Scottish universities could not
remain stationary without forfeiting the honourable
position at one time assigned to them. But I felt
then—as indeed—if I may be permitted to refer
to a circumstance so trifling—l stated publicly in
this city at the time, that this work of amendment
was one which ought to be undertaken in a reve-
rential spirit ; that our universities had a dis-
tinctive character of their own, which it would be
worse than folly to sacrifice iu the pursuit of an
ideal derived. from other bodies. (Cheers.) After
some remarks on this point, and upon tho import-
ance and necessity of diligent study, the noble earl
proceeded. It is impossible to address you from
this place—from this great centre of commercial
activity—without being reminded of the fact that
these British isles are the heart of an empire some
fifty times more extensive than themselves—(ap-
plause)—and without being tempted to ask—What
new lines of duty, what opportunities of usefulness,
what avenues of distinction are opened up to the
educated youth of this country by this vast exten-
sion of dominion ? (Applause.) To some of you—
to many of you, perhaps—this inquiry, on such an
occasion as the present, may seem to be irrelevant
and superfluous. Your native land is the field upon
which, as you fondly anticipate, your energies will
be employed, and where you will reap the fruit of
your exertions. You look forward to laborious
days, but to laborious days spent within the reach
of the influences of our refined and highly civilised
society, in the fellowship of those with whom you
arc even now, on friendly rivalry or heartiest sym-
pathy, associated in the acquisition of academical
distinction. It was so with myself at that period
of my life when I was engaged in the same plea-
surable and elevating pursuits in which you are
now occupied, and when I indulged the hope with
which many of your bosoms are now heaving. But
such expectations may be disappointed. It may be
the lot of some of you to lead a pilgrim's life, a life
of exile in distant parts of the empire. More of you,
therefore, than you are now aware of may perhaps
be interested in the inquiry which I have now
made. (Applause.) Now, gentlemen, in endea-
vouring to answer that question, not sufficiently
and fully, but to answer it as satisfactorily as I can
in the brief space which is still at my disposal, I do
not intend to insist particularly upon the oppor-
tunities which are afforded to the class of persons to
which I am referring, by the liberal principles
which have been of late adopted in the distribution
of the patronage of the crown. (Applause.) Still
less, although I have been two years in China, and
ought to know something about it—(cheers)—still
less do I intend now to discuss the merits or defects
—the advantages or the disadvantages—of compe-
tition as a means of admission to the public service.
Whether or not the able men who are engaged in
perfecting and developing that system will succeed
in devising a scheme of examination which shall
prove an adequate test of the relative fitness of can-
didates for situations and for a career that leads to
situations of responsibility and trust, and to posi-
tions where administrative capacity is the first and
most important requisite—whether they will suc-
ceed or not in that object experience alone will tell ;
but two things are, I think, already certain ; in the
first place, that the adoption of the system is in
itself a satisfactory proof of the disinterestedness
and public spirit of the statesmen of our day (ap-
plause); and in the second place, that it is the
bounden duty of our educational institutions to
make the necessary provisions to enable Or youth
of this country to obtain their full intend t make
more in these
advantages. (Applause.) Nor do I ?
more than a passing reference to such openings
a,(si
those which have been provided by the labours and
the zeal, and the indomitable patience and perseve-
rance, and Christian devotedness of our great hero
and apostle, Dr. Livingstone. (Applause.) The ap-
peal which he has made, and which is so modestly
and so touchingly conveyed in that passage from the
preface to his narrative, where he says, " This book
will speak less of what has been done than of what
remains to do, before it can be said that the Goal
pel has been preached to all nations"—that appeal
has already been nobly responded to by Oxford and
Cambridge; and I doubt not that among the youth
educated at our Scottish universities there will be
found to be many who are willing and desirous to
follow that example. (Applause.) What I wish
more particularly to impress upon you at the pre-
sent moment is the fact that, independently of op-
portunities which may seem to be to a certain ex-
tent adventitious and exceptional, the vast depend-
encies of this empire in the course of their natural
growth and development afford a constantly widen-
ing and expanding and increasing outlet, in which
the educated intelligence of this country may
find scope and room and verge for profitable
exercise.. I venture to affirm, as the result of