all political history, where such things have not been rare.


I shall never again enjoy the opportunity of speaking my thoughts
to such an audience as this, and on so privileged an occasion a
lecturer may well be tempted to bethink himself whether he knows
of any neglected truth, any cardinal proposition, that might
serve as his selected epigraph, as a last signal, perhaps even as
a target. I am not thinking of those shining precepts which are
the registered property of every school; that is to say--Learn as
much by writing as by reading; be not content with the best book;
seek sidelights from the others; have no favourites; keep men and
things apart; guard against the prestige of great names #86; see that
your judgments are your own, and do not shrink from disagreement;
no trusting without testing; be more severe to ideas than to
actions #87; do not overlook the strength of the bad cause or the
weakness of the good #88; never be surprised by the crumbling of an
idol or the disclosure of a skeleton; judge talent at its best
and character at its worst; suspect power more than vice #89, and
study problems in preference to periods; for instance: the
derivation of Luther, the scientific influence of Bacon, the
predecessors of Adam Smith, the medieval masters of Rousseau, the
consistency of Burke, the identity of the first Whig. Most of
this, I suppose, is undisputed, and calls for no enlargement.
But the weight of opinion is against me when I exhort you never
to debase the moral currency or to lower the standard of
rectitude, but to try others by the final maxim that governs your
own lives, and to suffer no man and no cause to escape the
undying penalty which history has the power to inflict on wrong #90.
The plea in extenuation of guilt and mitigation of punishment is