A discourse on the studies of university

Preface

The substance of the following discourse was delivered in the Chapel of Trinity College, on the day of the annual Commemoration in December last, and is published at the request of the junior members of the Society, to whom it was more immediately addressed. As the long delay in its publication requires some apology, the Author begs leave to state, that the request, on which he is now acting, first reached him during the Christmas vacation, when he was absent from the University ; and that for some weeks after his return he was so much occupied in completing a course of lectures and in passing two memoirs through the press, that the Lent Term had nearly expired before he had time to revise his MS for the printer. Without any further delay it was then struck off as far as page 28 ; and he hoped to have published it at the commencement of the Easter Term.

During its progress through the press he found however that he had undertaken a more difficult task than he had imagined : for having animadverted with much freedom on some parts of the Cambridge course of reading, he felt himself compelled, before he dared to give what he had written to the public, to enter at more length on a justification of his opinions. On this account, his remarks on the classical, metaphysical, and moral studies of the University (extending from p. 28 to p. 77) were cast over again, and expanded to at least three times their original length.

VI PKEFACK.

Before this part of his task was completed, an attack of indisposition compelled him for a short time to quit the University; and on his return the languor of ill health, and a series of engagements of which it is not necessary here to speak, prevented him from immediately resuming it : so that the latter part of this discourse was not printed till a late period in the Easter Term, when most of the junior Members had left the University for the long vacation. On this account (as the Appendix was not written, and perhaps he ought to add, as the determination fell in with the ready excuses of a procrastinating spirit) he resolved not to publish before the University reassembled in the October Term.

Lest he should be accused of printing a discourse too widely differing from the one he was requested to publish, he wishes to state, that (with the exception of mere verbal corrections) it is, as far as p. 28, in the form in which it was first written, and that the conclusion has undergone no change : and in the two parts which have been so much expanded, he has preserved the scope and sentiments, and in many instances the very words of his first sketch. The notes added in an Appendix are not written to serve any purpose of ostentation. By most academic persons they may be considered unnecessary : but should a single reader find them of use in explaining or enforcing what is stated in the text, the Author will not regret that he has written them.

He has attacked the utilitarian theory of morals, not merely because he thinks it founded on false reasoning, but because he also believes that it produces a degrading effect on the temper and conduct of those who adopt it. It is, however, more easy to pull down than to build up ; and he thinks it unfortunate that there is no English work on morals at once unexceptionable in its principles, and cast in such a form as

PREFACE. Vll

to meet the wants of the University. Bishop Butler's three Sermons on Human Nature and his Dissertation on the Nature of Virtue have lately become subjects of examination in Trinity College. Of their kind, they are works of inestimable value : but they are devoted rather to the discussion of the principles of morality than to the establishment of a system of moral philosophy ; and they are considered by most persons, who begin to speculate on such questions, both difficult and uninviting.

Before concluding this Preface, the Author disclaims any notion of holding out the following pages as a formal dissertation on academic studies. Such an attempt would be far above his powers ; not falling in with his usual habits of thought, and requiring research for which he has neither time nor inclination. What is here printed treats of subjects treated of a hundred times before, and professes no originality, except what it derives from the circumstances under which it was delivered and the persons to whom it was addressed. Should it be the means of leading even a small number of them to think more justly on any of the subjects of academic learning ; and to combine moral and religious habits of thought with those severe physical studies, during which the best faculties of the mind are sometimes permitted to droop and wither, his most earnest wishes will be accomplished.

Trinity College, Cambridge, Nov. 5, 1833.

A

DISCOURSE,

Psalm CXVI. I7, 18, 19-

/ 7vill offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all his people. In the courts of the Lord's house, in the midst of thee, Jerusalem. Praise ye the Lord.

How beautiful and how varied are the forms of praise and thanksgiving in the book of Psalms ! They appear as the outpourings of a grateful heart before God for the glories of his creation — for succour in the hour of danger — for deliverance from affliction — for national privileges — and for anticipated salvation. There is an earnestness in many of them that lays hold upon our strongest sympathies : for (without speaking of their inspired and prophetic character) they may be truly said to spring from feelings which are natural to every man who is not utterly debased, and in the exercise of which generous tempers ever take delight. The words I have chosen are the conclusion of a Psalm composed by one who had been raised up from some great affliction — his soul had been delivered from death, his eyes from tears, and his feet from falling. I quote them however with no reference to the purpose for which they were first uttered, but because they are well fitted for the occasion that brings us together — to offer in the courts of the Lord's house the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and to call upon the name of the Lord.

A

A well disciplined mind may perhaps learn to see every thing with an eye of faith, so as to find, in all the dispensations of Providence, a motive for the exercise of holiness. But many of us are, I fear, too little endowed with a spirit leading to a contemplation of God in the common bounties of his creation : our spiritual sluggishness requires something more exciting than sensations arising from large and general views of God's providence — something which comes immediately to our own hearts and bosoms, and seems to bear upon our personal happiness. When the body is weighed down by sickness, or the spirits sunk by present affliction, the glories of this world fade away before us ; and we seek, or at least as Christian men we ought to seek, our proper consolation in looking to that heavenly kingdom which suffers no change, and into which sorrow finds no entrance : and after the clouds lately gathered round us are passed away and we are conscious of a great deliverance, the feelings of our hearts (unless quite dead to religious sense) will burst forth in the language of praise and thanksgiving. In like manner, though perhaps in less degree, on the national anniversary, the religious festival, or the solemn commemoration, thoughts seemingly extinct within us will start into new life, and trains of association will arise, lifting our thoughts above the selfishness and sensuality of the world, and fixing them on our noblest destinies.

And let me here observe, that the fact of our receiving impressions like these (however interrupted, and by whatever means excited), is an evidence that the spirit of religion is not dead within us. By the blessing of God, the spark now burning but dimly may be excited to a flame, which shall refine the corruptions of our hearts, and become the animating principle of our lives. On this account, every visitation tending to alienate our affections from the world ought to be considered as the warning voice of God addressed to ourselves, and not to be despised ; and every solemnity of religion (whether public or private), having the power of touching the heart and acting on our better feelings, is to be regarded as a merciful invitation of God, and never to be rejectedo

Sentiments such as these are surely fitted for the occasion on which we meet ; to return thanks to God for the mercies he has vouchsafed to us — to recount the names of those pious benefactors to whom we owe the peaceful abode of learning and science wherein we dwell — to place before the mind's eye those illustrious men who have inhabited this our Zion, and obtained for themselves a name imperishable as the records of our race. These men are to us in the place of a glorious ancestry, urging us by their example to an emulation of their deeds ^ and we are unworthy sons if we turn a deaf ear to that voice by which they still seem to speak to us.

Among them were found many to join the foremost rank of those who in ancient times emancipated this country from spiritual bondage ; to partake in the great work of translating the records of our faith into our native tongue, and to put forth their whole intellectual strength in diffusing the light of Christian truth among the people.

In their lists we read the name of Bacon, who, gifted almost with prophetic spirit, was enabled to climb the Pisgah of science, and point out the land of promise to those who were to follow him — of Newton, who after having achieved, by his single arm, the conquest of the natural world, was not puiFed up, but gave God the glory ; combining, with powers which never fell to the share of any other man, the simplicity of a child, and the humility of a Christian — of Ray, who saw the finger of God in the whole frame-work of animated nature, and within these very walls taught the listeners to comprehend the meaning of those characters he himself had first interpreted — of Barrow, the learned and the wise, the inventive

a2 philosopher, the manly reasoner, the eloquent and single-minded christian moralist — and of many other illustrious men, whose very names time would fail me to tell, who having had their minds braced by the studies of this place, and their hearts sanctified by the wisdom from above, devoted themselves to the high and sacred office of extending the empire of truth.

And surely the happiness we enjoy and the names we this day commemorate, require something more from us than the gratitude of the lips — something more than a formal and heartless ceremonial. We are here met at our annual celebration where these mighty men have met before; we are worshipping at the altar where they worshipped, we are treading on their ashes, and looking on their tombs, and every thing around us is sanctified by their genius.

Circumstances like these have ever exerted a powerful influence on generous natures. If heathen men have felt them, and made them the topics of exhortation and the mainsprings of national honour, how much more ought they to affect us who are assembled as a Christian brotherhood. We believe that the glorious names we commemorate are not those of men who have perished without hope ; but that having fought the good fight in this life, they have received a crown of glory in that which is to come. They seem to speak to us from their tombs, but with no earthly voice, encouraging us by their example, and telling us to be firm and of good cheer in this our pilgrimage — that beyond the dark portal to which we all are hurrying there is a land of promise — and that treading in the steps where they have trodden, and guided by the heavenly hand which guided them, we ourselves may reach that land and dwell with them in everlasting glory.

The influence of domestic example is I think to be recognized in the institutions of every nation. In all of them, under some form or other, we find the traces of hereditary rank and of transmitted authority : and in infant societies.

those institutions did not, I believe, commence in assumed physical superiority, but rather in the experience of moral fitness.

It is not wise for us too nicely to canvass the decrees of Omnipotence : some of them we can partially comprehend — some of them must ever remain hidden from our sight. We are however justified in saying that in the moral as in the physical world, God seems to govern by general laws : and when he declares to us, that he will visit the sins of the fathers on their children ; and that he will have mercy on thousands in them that love him and obey him ; we hear not a new and despotic annunciation contrary to the ordinary operations of his moral government; but rather we hear a formal promulgation and a higher sanction of them. It is true as a matter of fact, that some races and kindreds are favoured above the rest of men — that God shews mercy to them in thousands, spreading among them the light of truth, and exalting them above the other nations of the earth. But these temporal blessings, I repeat, are not violations, but examples of the moral government of God ; for in the nature of things they only co-exist with the exercise of those moral and intellectual qualities which bind men and families together, and form the very sinews of national strength. When the lessons and the examples of virtue fail, the nation's strength fails with them ; the voice of eloquence, and the maxims of wisdom are no longer heard within its walls, and its proudest monuments soon moulder into the dust ; or if they remain at all, are visited in after times as mighty ruins, serving only to contrast its former glory with its present desolation.

It is then our bounden duty to reflect, that our sentiments and our conduct do not terminate with ourselves. Every man however humble his station and feeble his powers, exercises some influence on those who are about him for good or for evil: and these influences emanating again as from a fresh center, are propagated onwards — and though diluted by new motives, and modified by new circumstances at each transmission, so as in common cases to be lost to the eye of man, they may still go on producing a silent effect to the remotest generations; and thus become, under Providence, a part of the appointed means by which a nation's glory is continued, and its strength upheld.

What I have said of nations, is true also of families or households like our own. If we have received a goodly inheritance we ought to transmit it unimpaired to our children. It matters not to us that the light of truth has been shed abroad by those who have gone before us, if we be living in intellectual darkness. It is not our honour, but our shame, that the wise and good have dwelt within these walls, if they have now no living representatives. Self-examination is therefore among the most important duties of this solemnity ; nor is it to be a mere idle and inoperative retrospect, but must be followed by prayer against intellectual pride and presumptuous sins — prayer for support in those resolves of which our consciences approve — prayer above all for that spirit which will lift us above the temptations of the world. If we be endowed with this temper, we bring a hallowed offering to the altar, and cannot doubt that the incense of our praise will mount up to the throne of grace, and bring down a blessing on our household.

By the arrangements of Providence, things which to us seem good and evil are so blended in this life, that in the annual celebration of societies like our own, we are seldom permitted to meet with feelings of vinmixed joy. In thinking of the past glories of our body and of the mighty minds by which its animation has been continued, it is impossible for any one Avho has dwelt within its walls but a few short years, not to be struck with the changes in its moral aspect — not to be reminded of early prospects blighted, of the links of

J friendship severed — not to have impressed upon his memory, that hearts but as yesterday warm with kindness, and tongues glowing with the accents of genius, are now cold and inanimate. The song of praise and the voice of thanksgiving ought therefore to be heard as notes of preparation ; telling us that this is not our abiding city — that with all the good things it contains, and the goodly recollections belonging to it, it is but a halting place in the great pilgrimage of life — and that before another returning festival, the names of some of u& may be also written on the long scroll of those who are departed.

These, my brethren, seem to be sentiments not merely fitted for the occasion on which we meet, but such as must force themselves on every serious and reflecting mind. I must however content myself with this short allusion to them, as the time does not allow me to dwell on them any farther.

Leaving then these general topics, I proceed to speak of this as a place of sound learning and christian education, and to inquire what ought to be the conduct of the understanding during the course of our academic studies before we enter on the great theatre of life. What I am now saying, though I hope not altogether unfitting to other ears, is chiefly addressed to the younger members of our household.

In the first place, let me put before you a law and condition of your being, of great influence in the formation of your characters. Impressions independent of the will, whether produced directly through the senses, or by trains of association within the mind, gradually lose their power by repetition : but habits, whether of mind or body depending on a previous determination of the will, gain strength by their very exercise, so as at length to become a part of ourselves and an element of our happiness. It is to the operation of this law that we must refer some of the strangest contradictions in human nature. What a melancholy contrast we too often find between the generous temper of youth, and the cold calculating spirit of a later period ! between the actions of a man at one time of his life and those of another ! I believe there is not one whom I am now addressing, who, if he reflect at all, will not acknowledge how much the cold hand of time has already chilled some of his better feelings. Now it is absolutely certain, that sensuality and other sins to which by nature man is prone, will do their work in marring the image of God, and (unless opposed by some countervailing principle) will end in habits making a wreck both of soul and body. In such a state of things a man becomes utterly spellbound — he is in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity^ and has no power to help himself; and the hand of God alone can help him.

I am not now contending for the doctrine of moral necessity ; but I do affirm that the moral government of God is by general laws ; and that it is our bounden duty to study those laws, and as far as we can to turn them to our account. As far, at least, as this world is concerned, the feelings on which we act in early life may and do diminish in their intensity, and yet we may go on in a course, honourable to ourselves and useful to our country, mainly by what is called the force of habit. Of what vast importance it is then, to those I am now addressing, many of whom have barely reached the dawn of manhood, to lay a good foundation against the coming time, by fostering habits of practical kindness, and self control — by mental discipline and study — ^by cultivating all those qualities which give elevation to the moral and intellectual character — in one word, by not wavering between right and wrong, but by learning the great lesson of acting strenuously and unhesitatingly on the light of conscience.

The studies of this place, as far as they relate to mere human learning, divide themselves into three branches.

1st. The study of the laws of nature, comprehending all parts of inductive philosophy.

2dly. The study of ancient literature — or in other words, of those authentic records which convey to us an account of the feelings, the sentiments, and the actions, of men prominent in the history of the most famous empires of the ancient world. In these works we seek for examples and maxims of prudence and models of taste.

Srdly. The study of ourselves, considered as individuals and as social beings. Under this head are included ethics, and metaphysics, moral and political philosophy, and some other kindred subjects of great complexity, hardly touched on in our academic system, and to be followed out in the more mature labours of after life. Our duty here is to secure a good foundation on which to build ; and to this end we must inquire what ought to be the conduct of the mind in entering on any of these great provinces of human learning.

I. A study of the laws of nature for many years has been, and I hope ever will be, held up to honour in this venerable seat of the discoveries of Newton. But in this, as in every other field of labour, no man can put aside the curse pronounced on him — that by the sweat of his brow he shall reap his harvest. Before he can reach that elevation from whence he may look down upon and comprehend the mysteries of the natural world, his way is steep and toilsome, and he must read the records of creation in a strange, and to many minds, a repulsive language, which rejecting both the senses and the imagination, speaks only to the understanding. But when this language is once learnt, it becomes a mighty instrument of thought, teaching us to link together the phenomena of past and future times ; and gives the mind a domination over many parts of the material world, by teaching it to comprehend the laws by which the actions of material things are ti-overned. To follow in this track, first trodden by the immortal Newton — to study this language of pure unmixed truth, is to be regarded not only as your duty, but your high privilege. It is no servile task, no ungenerous labour. The laws by which God has thought good to govern the universe are surely subjects of lofty contemplation ; and the study of that symbolical language by which alone these laws can be fully decyphered, is well deserving of your noblest efforts. Studies of this kind not merely contain their own intellectual reward, but give the mind a habit of abstraction, most difficult to acquire by ordinary means, and a power of concentration of inestimable value in the business of life. Were there any doubt of this, I would appeal to modern examples, and point out a long list of illustrious men, who after being strengthened by our severe studies and trained in our discipline have borne off the prize in the intellectual conflicts of their country. But I need not attempt to prove what no one is prepared to deny.

Are there, however, no other consequences of these studies beyond those I have pointed to ? The moral capacities of man must not be left out of account in any part of intellectual discipline. Now these severe studies are on the whole favourable to self control; for, without fastening on the mind through the passions and the senses, they give it not merely a power of concentration, but save it from the languor and misery arising from vacuity of thought — the origin of perhaps half the vices of our nature.

Again, the study of the higher sciences is well suited to keep down a spirit of arrogance and intellectual pride: for, in disentangling the phenomena of the material world, we encounter things which hourly tell us of the feebleness of our jiowers, and material combinations so infinitely beyond the reach of any intellectual analysis as to convince us at once of the narrow limitation of our faculties. In the power of grasping abstract truth, and in the power of linking together remote truths by chains of abstract reasoning, we may be distinguished from the lower orders of the beings placed around us ; but, in the exercise of these powers, we bear perhaps no resemblance whatsoever to the supreme intellect. Applied to an Almighty Being with the attribute of ubiquity, in whose mind all things past and to come co-exist in eternal presence, time and space have no meaning, at least in that sense in which they are conditions of our own thoughts and actions. To him all truth is as by intuition ; by us truth is only apprehended through the slow and toilsome process of comparison. So that the powers and capacities, forming the very implements of our strength, are also the indications of our weakness. In some of our capacities, we may perhaps exhibit a faint shadow of a portion of our Maker's image ; but in the reasoning power, of which we sometimes vainly boast, we bear to him, I believe, no resemblance whatsoever.

Simplicity of character, humility, and love of truth, ought therefore to be (and I believe generally have been) among the attributes of minds well trained in Philosophy. After all that has been done since the thoughts of man were first turned to the phenomena of the material world — after all the boasted discoveries of science, from the first records of civilization, down to our own days — those glorious passages of the Old Testament, contrasting the power and wisdom of God in the wonders of his creation, with man's impotence and ignorance, have still, and ever will continue to have, not merely a figurative or poetical, but a literal application. Gird up now thy loins like a man ; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me^. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ? declare, if thou hast understanding Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner-stone thereof ; when the morning-stars sang together,

* Job, chap, xxxviii.

and all the sojis of God shouted for joy ? Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb ? When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddling hand for it.... and said, Hitherto shalt thou come, hut no further : and here shall thy proud waves he stayed ?.... Where is the way where light dwelleth ? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof . . . Knowest thou it, because thou wast then horn ? or because the number of thy days is great?

Before such an interrogator, we can only bow in humble adoration. The stvidy of the laws of nature may strengthen and exalt the intellectual powers : but strange must be our condition of self-government and tortuous our habits of thought, if such studies be allowed to co-exist with self-love and arrogance and intellectual pride.

A study of the Newtonian philosophy, as affecting our moral powers and capacities (the subject I am now pressing on your thoughts), does not terminate in mere negations. It teaches us to see the finger of God in all things animate and inanimate, and gives us an exalted conception of his attributes, placing before us the clearest proof of their reality ; and so prepares, or ought to prepare, the mind for the reception of that higher illumination, whicli brings the rebellious faculties into obedience to the divine will.

We learn, by experiment, the different actions and relations of the material things around us, and we find them bound together by a law of mutual attraction. Following our master of philosophy in the loftiest generalization recorded in the history of mankind, we attribute this property, found in the matter on the surface of our planet, to every other mass of matter within the limits of the visible universe. We bring our o;eneralization to the test of observations of a new and certain kind, and we find that it is true. We find that no parts of the visible universe are insulated from the rest ; but that all are knit together by the operation of a common law. We follow this law into its remotest consequences, and we find it terminating in beauty, and harmony, and order*.