It is no question at all with me, whether any service of that kind was to be expected from those great dealers in church-work. Perhaps another and later æra may be pointed out, when the same office might, and should, have been undertaken by our political craftsmen.
MR. LOCKE.
Your Lordship means at the Revolution; and, as the generous principles of liberty, on which the Revolution was founded, had received but little countenance from the Universities, this consideration, you will say, afforded the best pretence for attempting their reformation. But wise men saw, that the credit which those learned bodies had drawn to themselves, and indeed deservedly, by their late conduct, notwithstanding their speculative systems and conclusions, was at that time too high, to suffer a rigorous inspection to be made into their statutes and constitutions: they saw, in that convulsion of the state, it would be impossible to carry on a design of this nature, without endangering the new settlement, or exposing it at least to many odious and inconvenient imputations: and they saw, besides, that the spirit of liberty, which had prevailed so far as to reform the state itself, would insensibly extend its influence to all subordinate societies.
In a word, the close and immediate connexion, which the Universities have with the church, made it natural and highly reasonable to expect that both should have shared the same fate at the Reformation: but the necessity was not so urgent, or so visible at least, that the Universities should be new-modelled, at the Revolution.
However, my Lord, what the wisdom of either age omitted, or was unable to do, time, and that desuetude which attends upon it, will gradually bring about; not to say, has in some measure accomplished. And, to take matters as they now are, the studies and discipline of the Universities are not without their use, and should not be too violently declaimed against and degraded.
The elements of literature are reasonably well taught in those places. At least, the familiarity, which men have with the learned languages (the proper foundation, as I dare say your Lordship holds, of all real learning and politeness) is very much owing to the lectures of our colleges. And, though I am sensible what exceptions are to be made in other respects, yet, on the whole, religion, and good morals, receive an advantage from their institutions, and the regularity of their discipline.
LORD SHAFTESBURY.
Yes; their religion is intolerance; and their morals, servility. For, as to any freedom of manly thought, or the dignity of virtue—
MR. LOCKE.
You are ready to look for them any where else than in our English Universities.