Taking Influence and Law to be the two great principles of Government, it is plain that, historically speaking, Influence comes first, and then Law. Thus Orpheus preceded Lycurgus and Solon. Thus Deioces the Mede laid the foundations of his power in his personal reputation for justice, and then established it in the seven walls by which he surrounded himself in Ecbatana. First we have the “virum pietate gravem,” whose word “rules the spirits and soothes the breasts” of the multitude;—or the warrior;—or the mythologist and bard;—then follow at length the dynasty and constitution. Such is the history of society; it begins in the poet, and ends in the policeman.
Universities are instances of the same course: they begin in Influence, they end in System. At first, whatever good they may have done, has been the work of persons, of personal exertions; of faith in persons, of personal attachments. Their Professors have been a sort of preachers and missionaries, and have not only taught, but have won over or inflamed their hearers. As time has gone on, it has been found out that personal influence does not last for ever; that individuals get past their work, that they die, that they cannot always be depended on, that they change; that, if they are to be the exponents of a University, it will have no abidance, no steadiness; that it will be great and small again, and will inspire no trust. Accordingly, system has of necessity been superadded to individual action; a University has been embodied in a constitution, it has exerted authority, it has been protected by rights and privileges, it has enforced discipline, it has developed itself into Colleges, and has admitted Monasteries into its territory. The details of this advance and consummation are of course different in different instances; each University has a career of its own; I have been stating the process in the logical, rather than in the historical order; but such it has been on the whole, whether in ancient or medieval times. Zeal began, power and wisdom completed: private enterprise came first, national or governmental recognition followed; first the Greek, then the Macedonian and Roman; the Athenian created, the Imperialist organized and consolidated. This is the subject I am going to enter upon today.
Now as to Athens, I have already shown what it did, and implied what it did not do; and I shall proceed to say something more about it. I have another reason for dwelling on the subject; it will lead me to direct attention to certain characteristics of Athenian opinion, which are not only to my immediate purpose, but will form an introduction to something I should like to say on a future occasion, if I could grasp my own thoughts, about the philosophical sentiments of the present age, their drift, and their bearing on a University. This is another matter; but I mention it because it is one out of several reasons which will set me on a course, in which I shall seem to be ranging very wide of my mark, while all the time I shall have a meaning in my wanderings.
Beginning then the subject very far back, I observe that the guide of life, implanted in our nature, discriminating right from wrong, and investing right with authority and sway, is our Conscience, which Revelation does but enlighten, strengthen, and refine. Coming from one and the same Author, these internal and external monitors of course recognize and bear witness to each other; Nature warrants without anticipating the Supernatural, and the Supernatural completes without superseding Nature. Such is the divine order of things; but man,—not being divine, nor over partial to so stern a reprover within his breast, yet seeing too the necessity of some rule or other, some common standard of conduct, if Society is to be kept together, and the children of Adam to be saved from setting up each for himself with every one else his foe,—as soon as he has secured for himself some little cultivation of intellect, looks about him how he can manage to dispense with Conscience, and find some other principle to do its work. The most plausible and obvious and ordinary of these expedients, is the Law of the State, human law; the more plausible and ordinary, because it really comes to us with a divine sanction, and necessarily has a place in every society or community of men. Accordingly it is very widely used instead of Conscience, as but a little experience of life will show us; “the law says this;” “would you have me go against the law?” is considered an unanswerable argument in every case; and, when the two come into collision, it follows of course that Conscience is to give way, and the Law to prevail.
Another substitute for Conscience is the rule of Expediency: Conscience is pronounced superannuated and retires on a pension, whenever a people is so far advanced in illumination, as to perceive that right and wrong can to a certain extent be measured and determined by the useful on the one hand, and by the hurtful on the other; according to the maxim, which embodies this principle, that “honesty is the best policy.”