We shall talk of more than of an over-ruling Providence. That such exists, will seem to us a patent fact. But it will seem to us somewhat Manichæan to believe that the world is ill made, mankind a failure, and that all God has to do with them, is to set them right here and there, when they go intolerably wrong. We shall believe not merely in an over-ruling Providence, but (if I may dare to coin a word) in an under-ruling one, which has fixed for mankind eternal laws of life, health, growth, both physical and spiritual; in an around-ruling Providence, likewise, by which circumstances, that which stands around a man, are perpetually arranged, it may be, are fore-ordained, so that each law shall have at least an opportunity of taking effect on the right person, in the right time and place; and in an in-ruling Providence. too, from whose inspiration comes all true thought, all right feeling; from whom, we must believe, man alone of all living things known to us inherits that mysterious faculty of perceiving the law beneath the phænomena, by virtue of which he is a man.
But we can hold all this, surely, and equally hold all which natural science may teach us. Hold what natural science teaches? We shall not dare not to hold it. It will be sacred in our eyes. All light which science, political, economic, physiological, or other, can throw upon the past, will be welcomed by us, as coming from the Author of all light. To ignore it, even to receive it suspiciously and grudgingly, we shall feel to be a sin against Him. We shall dread no ‘inroads of materialism;’ because we shall be standing upon that spiritual ground which underlies—ay, causes—the material. All discoveries of science, whether political or economic, whether laws of health or laws of climate, will be accepted trustfully and cheerfully. And when we meet with such startling speculations as those on the influence of climate, soil, scenery on national character, which have lately excited so much controversy, we shall welcome them at first sight, just because they give us hope of order where we had seen only disorder, law where we fancied chance: we shall verify them patiently; correct them if they need correction; and if proven, believe that they have worked, and still work, ουκ ανευ Θεου, as factors in the great method of Him who has appointed to all nations their times, and the bounds of their habitation, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him: though He be not far from any one of them; for in Him we live, and move, and have our being, and are the offspring of God Himself.
I thus end what it seemed to me proper to say in this, my Inaugural Lecture; thanking you much for the patience with which you have heard me: and if I have in it too often spoken of myself, and my own opinions, I can only answer that it is a fault which has been forced on me by my position, and which will not occur again. It seemed to me that some sort of statement of my belief was necessary, if only from respect to a University from which I have been long separated, and to return to which is to me a high honour and a deep pleasure; and I cannot but be aware (it is best to be honest) that there exists a prejudice against me in the minds of better men than I am, on account of certain early writings of mine. That prejudice, I trust, with God’s help, I shall be able to dissipate. At least whatever I shall fail in doing, this University will find that I shall do one thing; and that is, obey the Apostolic precept, ‘Study to be quiet, and to do your own business.’
Footnotes:
[1] Grimm, Grammatik, ii. p. 516.
[2] See Grimm, Grammatik, (2nd edit.) vol. i. p. 108; vol. ii. p. 581.
[3] Lectures on the Science of Language, vol. ii. p. 232.
[4] Förstemann mentions a Latin inscription of the third century found near Wiesbaden with the Dative Toutiorigi.
[5] German classics, by M. M. p. 12.
[6] Anonym. Valesian. ad calcem Ann. Marcellin. p. 722. Gibbon, cap. xxxix; now known, through Mommsen, as the Annals of Ravenna.