Volume 2 — DIALOGUE VIII. ON THE USES OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. LORD SHAFTESBURY—MR. LOCKE. (continued 2)

Your Lordship’s candour and equity will then, upon the whole, permit an obvious distinction to be made between the MEN and their PROFESSION. Too many of the sacred order, I confess, and am sorry for it, seem now to have their minds perverted by those principles, and heated by those passions, which do little credit to their function, or themselves; and are equally inconsistent with the genius of that religion they profess to teach, as they are unfriendly to that legal constitution both of church and state, which they have bound themselves to support. But their profession is little concerned in all this; and in a succession or two of these men (if the present set be, many of them, incorrigible) you may surely reckon upon all those prejudices and passions being worked off, which now administer the occasion of so much dislike to it.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

Well, but clergy-manners; will they, too, be worked off, with their other infirmities?

MR. LOCKE.

Perhaps, they may; if not, forgive them this one defect; at least, if it be their only one. But you do not mean, that the manners of the clergy, as such, are more offensive than those of other people. They are suited to their profession and way of life, from which they naturally result; and if the clergy have not that gloss upon them, which sets off the manners of finer men, they rarely disgust you with the affectation of it. But, after all, if persons of your Lordship’s quality and breeding would condescend to countenance them a little, they would, doubtless, brighten under your eye; and might come in time to reflect somewhat of that high polish, which glistens so much in the address and conversation of their betters.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

What transmutations they may undergo hereafter, and by what means, I am not curious to enquire. On this head, their candid apologist is at liberty to be as much in jest, or in earnest, as he thinks fit. But from what appears at present, I must take leave, in my turn, to think less reverendly, than He would have me, of our sacred instructors; and though I value some particular persons of the order, as much as any man, yet, till I see a greater change in the principles, temper, and manners of that body, than, I fear, is likely to come to pass in our days, I can have no very favourable sentiments of those rude, illiberal, and monkish seminaries, where such worthies preside.

MR. LOCKE.

Let us have patience, my Lord. I have not scrupled to confess to you, that much is, at present, amiss in those seminaries, and wants to be set right. But so, God knows, there is every where else. As our factions and parties both in religion and government die away, the Universities will become more reasonable; and as the general manners refine, they too will, of course, take a better air and polish. In a word, they may not lead the public taste or judgment; but, as I said, they will be sure to follow it.

And the happy period is not, perhaps, far off. For, now I have taken upon me to divine so much of the future condition of our Universities, let me paint to you more particularly what I conceive of their growing improvements; and, in a kind of prophetic strain, such as old age, they say, pretends to, and may be indulged in, delineate to you a faint prospect of those brighter days, which I see rising upon us.

“The TIME will come, my Lord, and I even assure myself it is at no great distance, when the Universities of England shall be as respectable, for the learning they teach, the principles they instil, and the morals they inculcate, as they are now contemptible, in your Lordship’s eye at least, on these several accounts.

“I see the day, when a scholastic theology shall give place to a rational divinity, conducted on the principles of sound criticism and well interpreted scripture: when their sums and systems shall fly before enlightened reason and sober speculation: when a fanciful, precarious, and hypothetic philosophy, shall desert their schools; and be replaced by real science, supporting itself on the sure grounds of experiment and cautious observation: when their physics shall be fact; their metaphysics, common sense; and their ethics, human nature.

“Do I flatter myself with fond imaginations, my Lord? Or is not the time at hand, when St. Paul shall lecture our divines, and not Calvin; our Bacons and Boyles expel Aristotle; Mr. Newton fill the chair of Des Cartes; and even your friend (if your Lordship can forgive the arrogance of placing himself by the side of such men) take the lead of Burgersdicius?

“Still, my Lord, my prophetic eye penetrates further. Amidst these improvements in real science, the languages shall be learnt for use, and not pedantry: Your Lordship’s admired ancients shall be respected, and not idolized: the forms of classic composition be emulated: and a set of men arise, even beneath the shade of our academic cloysters, that shall polish the taste, as well as advance the knowledge, of their country.

“Yet, I am but half way in the portraiture of my vision. The appointed lecturers of our youth, whom your Lordship loves to qualify with the name of bearded boys, shall adopt the manners of men; shall instruct with knowledge, and persuade with reason; shall be the first to explode slavish doctrines and narrow principles; shall draw respect to themselves, rather from the authority of their characters, than of their places; and, which is the first and last part of a good education, set the noble and ingenuous youth intrusted to their care, the brightest examples of diligence, sobriety, and virtue.

“Perhaps in those days, a freer commerce shall be opened with the world: the students of our colleges be ambitious of appearing in good company: and a general civility prevail, where your Lordship sees nothing, at present, but barbarism and rudeness.

“Nay, who knows but, in this different state of things, the arts themselves may gain admission into these seminaries; and even the exercises be taught there, which our noble youth are now sent to acquire on the Continent?

“Such, I persuade myself, if the presage of old experience may pass for any thing, is the happier scene which a little time shall disclose to your view, in our English Universities. What its duration may be, I cannot discover. Much will depend on the general manners, and the public encouragement. In the mean time, if any cloud rest upon it, it will not, I assure myself, arise immediately from within, but from the little, or, which is worse, the ill-directed favour, which the Great shall vouchsafe to shew to places, so qualified, and so deserving their protection.

“Yet, after all I have seen, or perhaps dreamt, as your Lordship may rather object to me, of the future flourishing estate of our Universities, and of their extreme fitness in all respects to answer the ends of their institution, I cannot be mistaken in one prediction, “that the mode of early Travel will still continue; perhaps its fury will increase; and our youth of quality be still sent abroad for their education, when every reason shall cease which your Lordship has now alleged in favour of that practice.”

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

This last prediction may, perhaps, be true; I mean, if those others should ever be accomplished. But as I have no great faith in modern prophecy, and see at present no symptoms of this coming age of gold, which your fancy has now presented to us, you must excuse me if these prophetic strains, as you termed them, have no great weight with me before their completion. Should that ever happen, I shall respect your foresight, at least; and rejoice extremely at an event, which, I shall then freely own, will leave my countrymen no excuse for their folly.

This, Sir, was the substance of what passed between us on the subject in question. Our other friends interposed, indeed, at times; but rarely, and in few words; and I have rather chosen to mix their occasional observations with our own, than perplex and lengthen this recital by a more punctilious exactness. Besides, I could not think it civil to introduce my friends upon the scene, only to shew them, as it were, for mutes; their politeness to us, who were principals in the debate, being such, as to restrain them from bearing any considerable part in it. Yet this way of relation would, no doubt, have given something more of life to the sketch I here send you; as their presence, you may believe, certainly did to the original conversation.

It is enough to say, that nothing more material, than what I have now related to you, passed on the occasion. For by this time the day was pretty well spent, and it was necessary for us to withdraw to our several engagements.

For myself, I leave you to guess the effect which our philosopher’s grave remonstrance left upon me. One thing you will think remarkable; that the part of arraigning the present state of things should fall to my share; while he, at an age that is naturally querulous and dissatisfied, was employed in defending it. Whether this be a proof of his wisdom, or good spirits, I pretend not to say. But it gave me a pleasure to hear the old man indulging himself in the prospect of better days, of which, as young as we are, and as warmly as we wish for them, you and I had always despaired.