504

A DISCOURSE,

PRONOUNCED AT CAMBRIDGE, BEFORE

THE PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY,

AT THE ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION ON THE THIRTY-FIRST DAY

OF AUGUST, 1826.

BY JOSEPH STORY.

GENTLEMEN,

If I had consulted my own wishes, I should not have presumed to address you on the present occasion. The habits of professional employment rarely admit of leisure for the indulgence of literary taste. And in a science whose mastery demands a whole life of laborious diligence, whose details are inexhaustible, and whose intricacies task the most acute intellects, it would be matter of surprise if every hour withdrawn from its concerns did not somewhat put at hazard the success of its votary. Nor can it escape observation, how much the technical doctrines of a jurisprudence, drawn from remote antiquity, and expanding itself over the business of many ages, must have a tendency to chill that enthusiasm which lends encouragement to every enterprise, and to obscure those finer forms of thought which give to literature its lovelier, I may say, its inexpressible graces. The consciousness of difficulties of this sort may well be supposed to press upon every professional mind. They can be overlooked by those only whose youth has not been tried in the hard school of experience, or whose genius gives no credit to impossibilities.

I have not hesitated, however, to yield to your invitation, trusting to that indulgence which has not hitherto been withheld from well-meant efforts, and not unwilling to add the testimony of my own example, however humble, in favor of the claims of this society to the services of all its members.

We live in an extraordinary age. It has been marked by events which will leave a durable impression upon the pages of history by their own intrinsic importance. But they will be read with far deeper emotions in their effects upon future ages; in their consequences upon the happiness of whole communities; in the direct or silent changes forced by them into the very structure of society;

in the establishment of a new and mighty empire, the empire of public opinion; in the operation of what lord Bacon has characterized almost as supreme power, the power of knowledge, working its way to universality, and interposing checks upon government and people, by means gentle and decisive, which have never before been fully felt, and are, even now, perhaps, incapable of being perfectly comprehended.

Other ages have been marked by brilliant feats in arms. Wars have been waged for the best and for the worst of purposes. The ambitious conqueror has trodden whole nations under his feet, to satisfy the lust of power; and the eagles of his victories have stood on either extreme of the civilized world. The barbarian has broken loose from his northern fastnesses, and overwhelmed, in his progress, temples and thrones, the adorers of the true God, and the worshippers of idols. Heroes and patriots have successfully resisted the invaders of their country, or perished in its defence; and in each way have given immortality to their exploits. Kingdoms have been rent asunder by intestine broils, or by struggles for freedom. Bigotry has traced out the march of its persecutions in footsteps of blood, and superstition employed its terrors to nerve the arm of the tyrant, or immolate his victims. There have been ancient leagues for the partition of empires, for the support of thrones, for the fencing out of human improvement, and for the consolidation of arbitrary power. There have, too, been bright spots on the earth, where the cheering light of liberty shone in peace; where learning unlocked its stores in various profusion; where the arts unfolded themselves in every form of beauty and grandeur; where literature loved to linger in academic shades, or enjoy the public sunshine; where song lent new inspiration to the temple; where eloquence alternately consecrated the hall of legislation, or astonished the forum with its appeals.

We may not assert, that the present age can lay claim to the production of any one of the mightiest efforts of human genius. Homer and Virgil, and Shakspeare and Milton, were of other days, and yet stand unrivalled in song. Time has not inscribed upon the sepulchre of the dead any nobler names in eloquence than Demosthenes and Cicero. Who has outdone the chisel of Phidias, or the pencil of Michael Angelo and Raffaelle? Where are the monuments of our day whose architecture dares to contend with the Doric, Ionic or Corinthian of Greece, or even with the Composite or Gothic of later times? History yet points to the pregnant though brief text of Tacitus, and acknowledges no finer models than those of antiquity. The stream of a century has swept by the works of Locke and Newton; yet they still stand alone in unapproached, in unapproachable majesty.

Nor may we pronounce that the present age, by its collective

splendor in arts and arms, casts into shade all former epochs. The era of Pericles witnessed a combination of talents and acquirements, of celebrated deeds and celebrated works, which the lapse of twenty-two centuries has left unobscured. Augustus, surveying his mighty empire, could scarcely contemplate with more satisfaction the triumph of his arms, than the triumph of the philosophy and literature of Rome. France yet delights to dwell on the times of Louis the Fourteenth, as the proudest in her annals; and England (with far less propriety) looks back upon the reign of queen Anne for the best models of her literary excellence.

But, though we may not arrogate to ourselves the possession of the first genius, or the first era, in human history, let it not be imagined that we do not live in an extraordinary age. It is impossible to look around us without alternate emotions of exultation and astonishment. What shall we say of one revolution which created a nation out of thirteen feeble colonies, and founded the empire of liberty upon the basis of the perfect equality in rights and representation of all its citizens?-which commenced in a struggle, by enlightened men, for principles, and not for places, and, in its progress and conclusion, exhibited examples of heroism, patriotic sacrifices, and disinterested virtue, which have never been surpassed in the most favored regions? What shall we say of this nation, which has, in fifty years, quadrupled its population, and spread itself from the Atlantic to the Rocky mountains, not by the desolations of successful war, but by the triumphant march of industry and enterprise? What shall we say of another revolution, which shook Europe to its centre, overturned principalities and thrones, demolished oppressions whose iron had for ages entered into the souls of their subjects, and, after various fortunes of victory and defeat, of military despotism and popular commotion, ended at last in the planting of free institutions, free tenures, and representative government, in the very soil of absolute monarchy? What shall we say of another revolution, or rather series of revolutions, which has restored to South America the independence torn from her, three centuries ago, by the force or by the fraud of those nations whose present visitations bespeak a Providence which superintends and measures out, at awful distances, its rewards and its retributions? She has risen, as it were, from the depths of the ⚫ ocean, where she had been buried for ages. Her shores no longer murmur with the hoarse surges of her unnavigated waters, or echo the jealous footsteps of her armed oppressors. Her forests and her table-lands, her mountains and her valleys, gladden with the voices of the free. She welcomes to her ports the whitening sails of commerce. She feels that the treasures of her mines, the broad expanse of her rivers, the beauty of her lakes, the grandeur of her scenery, the products of her fertile and inexhaustible soil,

are no longer the close domain of a distant sovereign, but the free inheritance of her own children. She sees that these are to bind her to other nations by ties which outlive all compacts and all dynasties,-by ties of mutual sympathy, mutual equality, and mu

tual interest.

But such events sink into nothing, compared with the great moral, political and literary revolutions by which they have been accompanied. Upon some of these topics I may not indulge myself even for a moment. They have been discussed here, and in other places, in a manner which forbids all hope of more comprehensive illustration. They may, indeed, be still followed out; but whoever dares the difficulties of such a task, will falter with unequal footsteps.

What I propose to myself, on the present occasion, is of a far more limited and humble nature. It is to trace out some of the circumstances of our age which connect themselves closely with the cause of science and letters; to sketch, here and there, a light and shadow of our days; to look somewhat at our own prospects and attainments;-and thus to lay before you something for reflection, for encouragement, and for admonition.

One of the most striking characteristics of our age, and that, indeed, which has worked deepest in all the changes of its fortunes and pursuits, is the general diffusion of knowledge. This is emphatically the age of reading. In other times, this was the privilege of the few; in ours, it is the possession of the many. Learning once constituted the accomplishment of those in the higher orders of society, who had no relish for active employment, and of those whose monastic lives and religious profession sought to escape from the weariness of their common duties. Its progress may be said to have been gradually downwards from the higher to the middle classes of society. It scarcely reached at all, in its joys or its sorrows, in its instructions or its fantasies, the home of the peasant and artisan. It now radiates in all directions, and exerts its central force more in the middle than in any other class of society. The means of education were formerly within the reach of few. It required wealth to accumulate knowledge. The possession of a library was no ordinary achievement. The learned leisure of a fellowship in some university seemed almost indispensable for any successful studies; and the patronage of princes and courtiers was the narrow avenue of public favor. I speak of a period at little more than the distance of two centuries; not of particular instances, but of the general cast and complexion of life.

The principal cause of this change is to be found in the freedom of the press, or rather in coöperating with the cheapness of the press. It has been aided, also, by the system of free schools wherever it has been established; by that liberal commerce which

connects, by golden chains, the interests of mankind; by that spirit of inquiry which Protestantism awakened throughout Christian Europe; and, above all, by those necessities which have compelled even absolute monarchs to appeal to the patriotism and common sentiments of their subjects. Little more than a century has elapsed since the press, in England, was under the control of a licenser; and within our own days only has it ceased to be a contempt, punishable by imprisonment, to print the debates of parliament. We all know how it still is on the continent of Europe. It either speaks in timid under-tones, or echoes back the prescribed formularies of the government. The moment publicity is given to affairs of state, they excite every where an irresistible interest. If discussion be permitted, it will soon be necessary to enlist talents to defend, as well as talents to devise, measures. The daily press first instructed men in their wants, and soon found that the eagerness of curiosity outstripped the power of gratifying it. No man can now doubt the fact, that wherever the press is free, it will emancipate the people; wherever knowledge circulates unrestrained, it is no longer safe to oppress; wherever public opinion is enlightened, it nourishes an independent, masculine and healthful spirit. If Faustus were now living, he might exclaim, with all the enthusiasm of Archimedes, and with a far nearer approach to the truth, Give me where I may place a free press, and I will shake the world.

One interesting effect which owes its origin to this universal love and power of reading, is felt in the altered condition of authors themselves. They no longer depend upon the smiles of a favored few. The patronage of the great is no longer submissively entreated or exultingly proclaimed. Their patrons are the public: their readers are the civilized world. They address themselves, not to the present generation alone, but aspire to instruct posterity. No blushing dedications seek an easy passport to fame, or flatter the perilous condescension of pride. No illuminated letters flourish on the silky page, asking admission to the courtly drawing-room. Authors are no longer the humble companions or dependants of the nobility; but they constitute the chosen ornaments of society, and are welcomed to the gay circles of fashion and the palaces of princes. Theirs is no longer an unthrifty vocation, closely allied to penury; but an elevated profession, maintaining its thousands in lucrative pursuits. It is not with them as it was in the days of Milton, whose immortal "Paradise Lost" drew five sterling pounds, with a contingent of five more, from the reluctant bookseller.

My lord Coke would hardly find good authority, in our day, for his provoking commentary on the memorable statute of the fourth Henry, which declares that "none henceforth shall use to multiply gold or silver, or use the craft of multiplication"-in which he