LEARNING OF THE ATHENS.
----“As a dog that turns the spit
Bestirs himself, and plies his feet,
To climb the wheel, but all in vain,
His own weight brings him down again,
And still he’s in the self-same place,
Where, at his setting out, he was;
So, in the circle of the arts,
Do they advance their nat’ral parts,
Till falling back still, for retreat,
They fall to juggle, cant, and cheat.”
IF, in her metropolitan status as the seat of Caledonian law, the
Athens be fixed as the dog-star, as the seat of Caledonian learning,
she has been and must be, changeful as the moon. If the wealth of her
lawyers “swells like the Solway,” the renown of her philosophers “ebbs
like its tide.” The very same cause which raises the one,--which makes
all hearts envy, all eyes admire, all knees worship, and all tongues
speak the Babylonish dialect of special pleaders, comes cold and
curdling as December’s ice over every thing else; and though there
may be an occasional spring of the living water of the mind, which
has its source too deep, or its current too thoroughly imbued with
the immortal fire, for submitting to the cold congelation; yet such
glorious instances must be few and far between. Even in the law itself,
there may be green branches, just as there are green branches on the
Upas; but, like the Upas, the law, or indeed any thing else which is
so overpowering in its influence as the law is in the Athens, must in
itself monopolize all the greenness, and etiolate and wither every
thing that attempts to grow under its broad and gloomy shade. Whatever
promises the chief reward will, under any circumstances, always attract
the chief talent; and the state of the whole British dominions, and of
the Athens not less than any other portion of them, is at present such
as not to be exceedingly favourable to the pursuits of abstract and
recondite philosophy. Luxury has found out for all those who have money
to spend without working for it,--whether they have it as a legitimate
heritage from their natural parents, or as the adopted children of that
great nursery-mother of idlers, the state, abundant employment,--full
occupation from every hour that they can snatch from the pangs of
intemperance and the pillow of sleep, not only without profound
philosophy, but without thought of any description that reaches
beyond the enjoyment of the moment; and the number of these persons,
especially the latter division of them, is so very considerable, that,
of the remaining independent portion of the British people, none can
afford to be philosophic or learned upon any other terms than those
of being paid for it,--taking it up, and following it as a trade,
as much as other men do the boring of cannon, or the building of
bridges. That this is unquestionably true of the whole country, may
be established from the philosophical publications, whether regular
or periodical, which make their appearance at the present day. Of the
regular class, there has not, so far as I know, been published, within
the last thirty years, in any part of the British dominions, a single
original work, that will transmit the name of its author to posterity.
There have indeed been books, and books in which there have been the
details of new experiments, and occasionally scraps of theories; but,
like successive days in the kalendar, the one has usurped the place
and extinguished the remembrance of the other; and, at the present
moment, the most unmarketable article which an author could carry to a
bookseller would be a profound treatise on any of the sciences. With
regard to periodical learning again, (I use the word “learning” as
distinguished from and even opposed to literature,) the case is very
nearly the same. The philosophical journals, of all the periodicals,
have the most limited circulation, are the least read, and the least
worth the reading,--just because the proprietors of them cannot afford
to pay for the labour which it would require to make them better.
Now, if this be the case with the British dominions generally, and with
the British metropolis, where every species of talent has the means of
being stimulated to the greatest exertion, and where every exertion
meets with the most ample reward, much more must it be the case in
the Athens, where there is not only no adequate remuneration for the
labours of learning, but where there is a more honoured and rewarded
pursuit, constantly soliciting the choice, not only of the Athenian,
but of the Scottish talent generally, away from it. It cannot be
hoped, that when a man of very ordinary talents can get a comfortable
living and honourable distinction in society, by managing the estates
of Scotch lairds, or the causes of Scotch litigants, men of superior
ability will consent to starve in obscurity for the love of learning
or of science. Mankind have become to the full as mercenary in their
intellectual as in their civil marriages; and the Athenian muses, like
the Athenian maidens, pine in unwooed neglect, because they have no
dowry.
The Athenian University was long the boast of the Athens, not only as a
school of philosophy, and a school of medicine, but as a general school
of learning; and, with the exception, perhaps, of the latter, the
titles were, in the case of a few illustrious men, well earned. Those
times have, however, gone by, and the Athenian university, pressed
down by the general circumstances of the Athens, and yet more by the
peculiar circumstances of its own patronage, has sunk to rise no more.
Universities, indeed, have much of the general character of
stars,--they shine brightest when all else is dark, and fade, if
they do not disappear, when illumination becomes general. While the
people, generally speaking, are ignorant, they are lights in the path
of learning; but when the people become generally well informed, they
are not much better than lumber. This would be their fate in general
illumination, under any circumstances; but it is peculiarly so, in the
circumstances under which--or rather, in spite of which, knowledge is
at present spreading over the British dominions. The same cause which
renders abstract studies unprofitable, must render the systems of
universities unpopular, except in so far as the name of being there is
necessary for professional purposes; and where the name is all that men
actually need, they will not burden themselves with much of the thing
named. If it were not that there are such things as fellowships, fat
dinners, facilities for juvenile dissipation, church and other livings,
a key to certain offices, and a general nominal eclât, which in so far
serves as a substitute for real information, it is very possible that
several halls in Oxford and Cambridge would be abandoned to bats and
spiders,--that “the two eyes of England” would be left “for daws to
peck at;” and it was pretty plain to me, from the general tenour of the
Athenian feeling, as expressed in the Athenian speech, that, if the
attendance of certain classes of her university were not required for
those who plaster the consciences of Caledonian sinners, and who bring
down the tone of the Caledonian pulse, or the Caledonian purse, her
learned Thebans would be allowed to deliver their prelections to the
stones in the wall, and the beam of the timber. In as far, therefore,
as I could see and reason from circumstances, there is much, both in
the feeling of the people in the Athens, and in the causes by which
that feeling is produced, to render the decline of learning certain
on the one hand, while there is little or nothing of a counteracting
tendency on the other.
In addition to this, in as far as the university is concerned, there
is the infliction of perhaps the very worst patronage that could be
devised or even imagined. I have noticed already, what a precious
piece of work the corporations, or, as they are termed, “the councils”
of the royal burghs are in Scotland. In itself, there is nothing to
render that of the Athens better than any of the others; and, in close
juxtaposition with it, there is something which tends to make it worse.
The whole town-councils in Scotland are, their attention to their own
personal interests excepted, ignorant, unreasoning, and passive tools
in the hands of the ruling faction. If the actual leaders of that
faction have not their actual residence in the Athens, it is there that
they find the hands which do their work. Those hands belong to men, who
not only have a better education than the Athenian magistrates, but who
perform more important functions, and perform them in the face, and for
the weal or the woe of the whole of Scotland. To them, therefore, the
magistrates of the Athens are inferior; and this circumstance, taken in
conjunction with the inferiority which the whole system of the Scotch
burghs tends to stamp upon the magistrates, renders the said civic
rulers of the Athens the most unfit patrons of a school of philosophy,
or indeed of any thing learned or liberal, that human imagination
could devise. Not only this; but the superior talents, at least the
superior pretensions, of the other functionaries alluded to, will throw
the civic worthies into their train as followers; and thus, whatever
patronage they exercise, will have to sustain, in addition to their
own sheer dulness, the dead deadening weight of the party politics of
the country,--a combination of stupidity and slavery, under which that
system were either greater or less than human, which could flourish in
a rational and liberal manner.
When it is known that the provost, bailies, counsellors, and deacons
of the Athens,--seldom men of any education, and never men of any
genius,--_cum avisamento eorum ministrorum_, (which, being interpreted,
signifies “without benefit of clergy,”) have the sole power of electing
the greater number of professors in the Athenian university,--when it
is considered that the remaining ones are nominated by the crown, in
other words, by the leading faction in Scotland for the time,--and
when it is borne in mind that the said provosts, bailies, counsellors,
and deacons, are little else than a pair of bagpipes, upon which the
said faction discourses whatsoever music it chooses,--it will become
but too apparent, that the chances of having the professors’ chairs
filled by the very fittest men possible are about as small as can well
be estimated. That ignorant men should have the power of appointing
professors of learning is in itself a very great absurdity; and that
the ignorant men to whom such a power is delegated, should themselves
be tacked to the tail of a political faction for the purpose of
retaining places, contrary both to reason and their own abilities,
makes the matter, theoretically considered, a great deal worse. I have
no wish to accuse the civic archons of the Athens of wilful abuse in
the exercise of this patronage; but I have seen them, I have heard
them speak, and I have noticed the estimation in which they are held;
and, by a very charitable induction from all these circumstances, I
cannot help coming to the conclusion, that they are totally incapable,
of their own knowledge, of determining who is, or who is not, a fit
person for being porter to the Athenian college, far less professor of
the humblest art or science held forth upon within its walls, not even
excepting the professor of agriculture, or, as he is aptly termed, “the
doctor of dunghills.”
Accordingly, though in times past, and not very long past, there have
been found, in sundry chairs of the Athenian university, men who
would have done honour to any college in any country, I looked for a
continuation of men of the same talents and eminence; but though I
looked for them, I found them not. The time has not long gone by, when
the principal of that university was numbered, if not with the most
learned and profound, at least with the most elegant of historians;
but I should be glad to be informed of what person, or thing, or
circumstance, the being that I found holding the supreme sway in
the Athenian university, and in its metropolitan name, presenting
himself before the King, as a specimen and representative of all the
universities of Scotland, could write the history. It is true, that
the office of this person is not much else than a sinecure, as he
seldom comes before the public, except when his name stands rubric to
a diploma; but, if an image is found with a wooden head, people are
apt to turn away, without any very much examination of the limbs. It
is said, more wittily than wisely perhaps, among the fledglings at the
seats of science in the south, that “whatever may be the walls, the
heads of houses are most commonly of lead;” and the saying might be
carried to the Athens, if it were worth the trouble. I was told that,
if at some former point of Athenian history, this personage had not
been a bachelor, and the daughter of a quondam provost of the Athens
a damsel to be wooed, the college of the Athens might have gone all
unprincipaled for him; but the Athenians are so prone to drill holes in
the glory of each other, that one never knows how much of their story
to believe.
Still, if the nomination of the masters of Eton and Winchester, and the
doctors of Isis and Cam, were deputed to the corporation of London,
England would tremble for her learned fame; and yet no one can deny
that the court of aldermen, notwithstanding the mental and corporeal
obesity of which they are accused, are far more promising patrons for
such purposes, than the town-council of the Athens. Their own election
depends upon a greater number of persons, and before they can carry it,
they must have some superiority over the freemen of their ward,--the
means of flattering and bribing them, if nothing else; but, in the
Athens, there is not the smallest test of talent previous to a man’s
being chosen an elector of professors; and, therefore, no pledge that
he either will or can exercise that function in a proper manner.
The “_avisamentum eorum ministrorum_” has no tendency to amend the
matter; for the advice which these worthies are most likely to give,
is, that themselves are the fittest of all possible professors,--a
proposition, of which the theoretical doubts are great, and they are
not lessened by experience.
The ministers of the Edinburgh kirks, appointed by the same persons
as the professors, may be presumed to be appointed upon the same
principles; and thus, though they were conjoined with the others,
in the university nominations, it would be but an increase of the
evil,--the addition of the political son to that of the political
father; or, as Professor Leslie would express it, “a combination of
direct and retroflected dulness.”
In consequence of these circumstances, the _eorum ministrorum_ have
usurped every professor’s chair in the Athenian college which can be
by any sophistry twisted into a compatibility with the functions of
a minister of the Kirk. After the very Reverend personage who, as
aforesaid, groans under the load of the principality (not of Wales),
the chairs, not only of divinity, church history, and Hebrew, but of
logic and rhetoric, and the belles lettres, are in the hands of the
Athenian priests. Now, though a parson _in esse_ be the most likely
person to teach divinity and church history, because those who are
parsons _in posse_ are the only persons that are likely to dip deeply
into such studies; though, in a country where Jews do not thrive, it
be a matter of no great moment who shall teach Hebrew, and though
logic and rhetoric, as they are usually taught, be no weighty matters,
yet there are substantial reasons why no officiating clergyman in the
Athens should hold any chair whatever in the college.
In the first place, the Kirk of Scotland, at least according to her
book of discipline, recognises no clergyman who does not perform the
whole of his duties in his own person. She will have no “dumb dogs who
cannot bark,” and if they bark to the extent that she points out, they
will have no strength left even to hunt syllogisms in _Bar-ba-ra_,
or to nozzle up Hebrew roots. The minister of the Kirk is, by its
constitution, presumed not only to reside in his parish, and perform
divine service every Sunday, but to devote the whole of the week, that
is, as much of _every_ day of it, as other men of a similar rank in
life are supposed to devote to business, to visiting his people at
their houses, and receiving their visits at his own, instructing and
catechising the young, recommending the destitute to the charity of
the Kirk Session, praying by the bed-side of the dying, and performing
a number of other little offices of religion and charity, which
are supposed to be imperiously binding upon him in virtue of his
solemn vow of ordination. Ministers of the Kirk are furthermore not
understood to purchase their annual stock of “_Conciones Selectæ_” in
the booksellers’ shop, as is the case in some other places; and thus
every spare hour from the parochial duties of the week is presumed to
be taken up in preparing for the pulpit duties of the Sunday. Hence
a minister of the Scottish Kirk, who is in the possession of a cure,
cannot, in conscientious accordance with the oath that he takes when he
is inducted, or with the practical duties which he ought to perform,
accept of a professorship even of divinity or Hebrew. Either the
church-living should be such as to occupy by its duties and reward by
its emoluments, the whole of the incumbent’s time, or it should be so
altered as to bring it to this state.
With regard to the professorships, again, it is extremely doubtful
whether even such of them as divinity and church history can be
profitably placed in the hands of the parsons; at any rate, one would
very naturally think that the duties of a professor’s chair should
be sufficiently arduous for occupying the whole of a mind as large
as that which falls to the ordinary run of clerical persons; while,
in the case of those of logic and rhetoric, the arts required in the
Parliament-House, the grand theatre of logical wrangling and rhetorical
display, not only in the Athens, but for all Scotland, the clumsy
concatenation and leaden style which I heard, even in the Athenian
pulpits, are strong presumptive evidence against the propriety of
having them intrusted to clerical hands.
But it is not to those professorships alone that _eorum ministrorum_
aspire. Not many years have gone by since the whole Athens was
thrown into confusion, because one of the brethren was not permitted
to squelch his carcass into the chair of mathematics, and become
the successor of MacLaurin, and Stewart, and Playfair; and had he
succeeded, the Athenians would perhaps ere now have had a clerical
expounder of “Dirlton’s Doubts” in the chair of law, and a holder
forth in the Tron Kirk wielding the anatomical scalpel during the
week. The objections taken to the better-qualified candidate upon that
occasion, were such as to throw considerable light upon the feeling of
_eorum ministrorum_ toward the university, and to enable one to form a
pretty accurate guess at what will be its state if their unquenchable
longing for it shall ever be fully satisfied. The exception which they
took was a grave charge of infidelity, founded upon an allusion to
David Hume, contained in a note to a purely philosophic book, and a
book, too, which, both from its subject and its style, was never likely
to get into general circulation, and would be read by nobody, merely on
account of the note--the only part which was impugned as being contrary
to the canons of orthodoxy.
It must be allowed that, if its patronage were at all in decent hands,
the constitution of the Athenian university is not bad. The salaries
of the professors are all so small that if the livings are worth the
acceptance of men of talent, they must be chiefly made up of the small
annual fees payable by the students. This is a very wholesome plan, and
tends more to reward every one according to his real merits than that
which obtains at most other places. The patronage, however, with the
three elements of civil ignorance, political influence, and clerical
intrigue, arranged against the single and undefined good of the
institution, is more than enough to paralyze all the good which that
principle, properly supported, or even let alone, would be capable of
effecting.
Those evils have begun to pervade the whole system. As the Athens
is the grand seat of lawyers, there will always be students for the
law classes, increasing with the increase that there is for lawyers;
but in every thing else the poison of decay has been infused, and
the decay itself has become visible. With the exception of Leslie,
who has written some very flaming articles in the Edinburgh Review,
and some books in which the path to geometry is made a little more
thorny than ever; of Jamieson, who has been most learned on slate and
granite; and Wilson, who has indited some pretty lake poetry, and
some pitiful political prose, of which he is said to be now highly
ashamed,--I did not hear that any of the Athenian professors have put
in a single claim for immortality. Even in her anatomical school, that
upon which she rested her fame the longest and the most securely, the
recent falling off has been great; and of all those who now shine in
the lists of her _senatus_ there is none able to hold the book for
Gregory, or the scalpel for old Monro, or light the furnace for Black.
I understand that for the fragments of her medical school that remain,
the Athens is almost wholly dependant upon private lecturers; that
the students pay their fees and enter their names at the college, not
with any view of attending the classes there, but because the fees
and entries are necessary for the ceremony of graduation. But for the
celebrity of her professors, the Athens possesses no advantages as
the locality of a medical school. From the nature and pursuits of the
Athenian society, there is neither that variety of patients, nor that
variety of cases, which is found in cities even of equal population,
where a large portion of the people are engaged in manufactures. That
it is as good in this respect as Glasgow begins to be doubted, as a
considerable number of medical students now attend the Glasgow college
in preference; and that it is any way comparable to London, as a school
of surgery, no one can suppose. If the medical glory of the Athenian
college continue to decrease as it has done for some time, that college
will soon become, like the Athens herself, a pensionary upon the law
and the politics of Scotland.
But if there be those causes of mortality in the college, there is
not much hope of life in any of the other philosophic institutions of
the Athens. Royal societies are no where much better than coteries
of old wives; and, judging from their recent pursuits, that of the
Athens can form no exception to the general character. That a poet
and novelist should be the president of such an institution, is proof
that the number of Athenian philosophers cannot be great; and however
successful and deserving of success such a person may be in his other
and lighter capacity, he is not the most likely man to give soundness
and solidity to the speculations of philosophers. The fact is, that
with the exception of the teacher of a class, and the editor of an
Encyclopedia, (who are of course but very heavy and humdrum persons,)
and a wisdom-struck squire or two, who take to the amusement of the
small philosophy of mosses and muscle-shells rather than the small
carpentry of snuff-boxes and fiddles, and who would be quite eclipsed
in any other place, there is nothing in the Athens which can be called
an amateur philosopher, and of the professional ones I have already
spoken.
In their philosophical opinions, the Athenians are an absolute
pendulum; and when the history of their swingings this way and that
way is looked at, they seem to be a pendulum which has no continued
stimulus of motion, but of which the oscillations, though not fewer in
number, gradually become more and more insignificant in range. While
David Hume was lord of the ascendant, the Athenians doubted every thing
but their own wisdom and importance; under Adam Smith, they considered
“moral sentiments” as being valuable only in “theory,” and learned
“economy” in their “politics,” by bringing all their disposable votes
and vices to the best market. Under Robertson, they knew all history;
and with Blair, every sentence was taken from the storehouse of the
Belles Lettres, and measured by the gauge of Rhetoric. When Reid and
Dugald Stewart turned the tables upon the sceptics, the Athenians were
entirely composed of intellectual or of active powers, and they were
drawn and held by the sweetest cords of association. With Playfair,
they attempted to go quietly to the very depth of philosophic systems;
and anon, they started to the moon with Dr. Brewster. While Leslie was
new, they burned and sweated with him in all the ardour of radiant
caloric; and now they lie upon mossy banks, prepared for them by
Brewster, Jamieson, and Sir George, and listen to the tales of Sir
Walter, or to the ghost stories of Dr. Hibbert. Thus have opinions
changed, and importances have faded away; but the Athenians have in
their nature remained the same. So change the phases of the moon, now
beamy, anon blank; now pushing her horns eastward, now westward,--but
still the same dark globe, without light save that which it has at
second-hand from another.