ct
altogether. Observe then, Gentlemen, I have no intention, in any thing I
shall say, of bringing into the argument the authority of the Church, or
any authority at all; but I shall consider the question simply on the
grounds of human reason and human wisdom. I am investigating in the
abstract, and am determining what is in itself right and true. For the
moment I know nothing, so to say, of history. I take things as I find
them; I have no concern with the past; I find myself here; I set myself to
the duties I find here; I set myself to further, by every means in my
power, doctrines and views, true in themselves, recognized by Catholics as
such, familiar to my own mind; and to do this quite apart from the
consideration of questions which have been determined without me and
before me. I am here the advocate and the minister of a certain great
principle; yet not merely advocate and minister, else had I not been here
at all. It has been my previous keen sense and hearty reception of that
principle, that has been at once the reason, as I must suppose, of my
being selected for this office, and is the cause of my accepting it. I am
told on authority that a principle is expedient, which I have ever felt to
be true. And I argue in its behalf on its own merits, the authority, which
brings me here, being my opportunity for arguing, but not the ground of my
argument itself.

And a fourth reason is here suggested for consulting the history of
Protestant institutions, when I am going to speak of the object and nature
of University Education. It will serve to remind you, Gentlemen, that I am
concerned with questions, not simply of immutable truth, but of practice
and expedience. It would ill have become me to undertake a subject, on
which points of dispute have arisen among persons so far above me in
authority and name, in relation to a state of society, about which I have
so much to learn, if it involved an appeal to sacred truths, or the
determination of some imperative rule of conduct. It would have been
presumptuous in me so to have acted, nor am I so acting. Even the question
of the union of Theology with the secular Sciences, which is its religious
side, simple as it is of solution in the abstract, has, according to
difference of circumstances, been at different times differently decided.
Necessity has no law, and expedience is often one form of necessity. It is
no principle with sensible men, of whatever cast of opinion, to do