science of nature took in the systems or notions of its Elizabethan
Founders. They were 'Naturalists,' indeed; but that did not imply,
with _their_ use of the term, the absence of the natural common human
sense in the selection of the objects of their pursuits. 'It is a part
of science to make _judicious_ inquiries and wishes,' says the speaker
in chief for this new doctrine of nature; speaking of the particular
and special applications of it which he is forbidden to make openly,
but which he instructs, and prepares, and charges his followers to
make for themselves.
One of those innovations, one of those movements in which the new
ground of ages of future culture is first chalked out--a movement
whose end is not yet, whose beginning we have scarce yet seen--was
made in England, not very far from the time in which Sir Walter
Raleigh, began first to convert the eclat of his rising fortunes at
home, and the splendour of his heroic achievements abroad, and all
those new means of influence which his great position gave him, to the
advancement of those deeper, dearer ambitions, which the predominance
of the nobler elements in his constitution made inevitable with him.
Even then he was ready to endanger those golden opinions, waiting to
be worn in their newest gloss, not cast aside so soon, and new-won
rank, and liberty and life itself, for the sake of putting himself
into his true intellectual relations with his time, as a philosopher
and a beginner of a new age in the human advancement. For 'spirits are
not finely touched but to fine issues.'
If there was no Professor's Chair, if there was no Pulpit or Bishop's
Stall waiting for him, and begging his acceptance of its perquisites,
he must needs institute a chair of his own, and pay for leave to
occupy it. If there was no university with its appliances within his
reach, he must make a university of his own. The germ of a new
'universality' would not be wanting in it. His library, or his
drawing-room, or his 'banquet,' will be Oxford enough for him. He will
begin it as the old monks began theirs, with their readings. Where the
teacher is, there must the school be gathered together. And a school
in the end there will be: a school in the end the true teacher will
have, though he begin it, as the barefoot Athenian began his, in the
stall of the artisan, or in the chat of the Gymnasium, amid the
compliments of the morning levee, or in the woodland stroll, or in the
midnight revel of the banquet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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