^^^^YTioatl^ iL- 7, ^\:3 PRESIDENT LORD'S DISCOURSE ON THE CHARACTER OF PEOFESSOR CHASE. JUN 10 1932 (-I8RARY. DISCOURSE CHARACTER OF THE LATE STEPHEN CHASE, PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS IN DARTMOUTH COLLEGE, B Y NATHAN LORD, PRESIDENT. BY REQUEST OF THE STUDENTS. DARTMOUTH PRESS — HANOVER. 1861. 5SZ DISCOURSE. It is remarkable, when one looks critically over society, how few men are competent to be its teachers, or to manage its most important trusts ; how few have knowledge, com prehension, judgment, skill, or courage to propound elemen tary principles and ideas ; to apply them steadily and con sistently in the administration of affairs ; to arbitrate between conflicting interests ; to control adverse agencies ; and so to temper the general movement as to bring about, on the whole, prosperity. History furnishes but few and partial ex amples. The biographies, even of partizans, are scanty. We are surprized that the world has proceeded so far and so well with so little wisdom and virtue to guide it. It is said, that the preservation of children is a great argument for a particu lar Providence. This is true ; and the argument has greater weight in respect to the preservation of the world. If I did not believe that there is a personal God, and that all events are according to his ordinance, in reference to the ends of moral government, I would plunge into the first stream. Why should I not ? For, according to the last reduction of atheistical philosophy, there is not only no God, but no stream ; and God, and water, and fire, and I myself, and all things else that seem to have substance and reality, are ob jects neither of faith nor sense, but mere ideas. What mat ters it, then, whether I do one thing or another ? If toil and sweat, and pain and death are but ideal, the sooner I cease to be troubled by such disagreeable images the belter. A poor sort of immortality I have then before me, and a poorer philosophy that teaches it, that gives me to believe only in the temporary deveiopeinent of a shadow here, and not a world even of shadows hereafter ; a rolling phantasmagoria, spectre after spectre flitting on and away, till all vanish into nothing. But the poorer the better rid of. I would sooner drown than even seem to thinlc only of such a miserable inheritance. I have brought together here, almost inadvertently, two very dissimilar ideas ; viz., the great fewness of wise and good men, and the great folly of many who seem to be so. But these ideas, though dissimilar and opposite, stand well enough for contrast, if one would describe an example on either side; and they may turn lo account in reference to the occasion now before us. You have requested me to discourse to you of the character of Professor Chase. I will do so frankly, without affectation or reserve, happy in presenting to you my impressions, though they be inadequate, of a character so strongly marked and excellent. I thought him remarkable, one of the few such as I have above suggested ; like other good men, sometimes drawn into an adverse current, and vexed by uncertain winds, but never losing sight of the ancient landmarks, and likely to recover the firm earth wiser and better for the difficult experi ence. In my judgment, there are but few men more remarka ble ; few whose character is more worthy of study ; or whose interior history, if one knew it well enough to describe it in timately and faithfully, would be more instructive to young men at College. I may not expect to do justice to my theme ; for it has points of difficulty, unless one were content to discuss it only on the surface, and to stop short, for mere sentimental effect, of a faithful exposition. That I could not do. I must de scribe Mr. Chase, according to my own method of observa tion, as he stood before me a living man, a scholar-, an officer, a moral being ; and not an image, which may be put in any attitudes that one prefers, for the entertainment of spectators. But I will be careful to observe proprieties, and to keep in view the end for which mainly I speak — not his earthly glory,. for he has a bettor ; but our heavenly, which, if he could speak to us, it would be that he might urge us, with tongue of fire, to seek, at the sacrifice, if need were, and there would be need, of the accumulated glories of this world. In the first Class that entered the College, after my con nexion with it, nearly twenty-three years ago, a young man, spare, tall, as yet unformed in manner, soon engaged the at tention of his teachers. W^e marked his mild, serene, yet quick and penetrating eye ; his independent, unaffected, yet modest and regulated movement ; his lively, versatile, ear nest, and comprehensive mind ; his cheerful and honest dili gence ; his punctual attendance upon the exercises of the College ; his respectful, but unstudied and confiding deport ment towards his superiors ; his frank and generous, but re served intercourse with his fellow students ; hi.3 care in se lecting his most intimate associates ; and his quiet, unpre tending, yet exact and intelligent performance of all the stud ies of his course. An indifferent stranger would not have noticed him, except, perhaps, to criticise his unique exterior ; and his fellow students, as is natural to young persons who are most impressed by sesthetical manner and accomplish ment, did not dignify him as a leader or an oracle. But a deeper insight convinced his teachers that whatever partial observers might think wanting in respect to artistic excellence, was well supplied by more substantial and enduring quali ties. Their eye followed him, while here, as a sound-mind ed, true-hearted young man, and a thorough scholar ; and, after he had graduated, as a teacher at the South, and in two of the oldest Academies of New England. In these different relations he fully justified the good name which he had left behind him at the College, till, the proper occasions serving, he was called back to be first a Tutor, and then Professor of the Mathematics. The subsequent course of Mr. Chase proved that his instructors had not miscalculated his powers, nor over-estimated his qualifications for one of the most diffi cult and trying positions in a learned institution. Professor Chase performed the duties of his office, without interruption, till the close of the last Term, during a period of about thirteen years ; and died, after a short illness, in va cation, while yet a young man. He was scarcely thirty-eight years of age. Yet he was old, if we measure lime, as schol ars should, not by the motion of the heavenly bodies, but the succession of ideas. He had made great proficiency in knowl edge. Well he might ; for he had great susceptibilities. His temperament was ardent, his instincts were lively, his per ceptions keen, his thoughts rapid, his reasoning faculties sharp, his imagination fiery, and his will determined. No man has all his active powers proportioned ; for that would constitute perfection, which exists not in this world any more in physical than in moral natures. But his balance was less disturbed than most, and, consequently, he was capable of various and large attainments. What he could he did, for his spirit was earnest, and his industry untiring. He had be come well founded and extensively versed in most depart ments of liberal study, and it would be difficult to say in what branch of knowledge he would have been most compe tent to excel. He was not a genius ; that is, no one power of the mind absorbed the others ; and his culture was not unequal. Therefore he would not have glared for a while, like a meteor, and then exploded ; but he would have stood one of the pillars of learning, and a true conservator of society. A man of excellent constitutional faculties, like Mr. Chase, must use them, if Providence gives him opportunity. He has a self-moving power. He cannot be still. Use of the facul ties increases their facility and productiveness ; and the in crease of products increases the love of acquisition. His gains, and his consequent love of gain will be according to the Providential direction which he takes, whether to a trade, an art, a profession, to the pursuit of wealth, or power, or general knowledge. Mr. Chase's direction was to knowledge. He acquired it easily, his stores rapidly increased, and the love of it became a passion. He loved knowledge as some men love pleasure, and others gold, for its own sake. Yet not exclusively ; for he was genial, warm-hearled and hu mane. He appreciated the enjoyments of personal, domes- tic, and social life. No man could be more aft'ectioaate, kind, generous, or public-spirited. He was never a recluse or an ascetic. He was ready to take any thing in hand, and liked to have his hands full. He desired an estate ; he studied a profession ; he amused himself with useful arts ; he loved a farm, a garden, an orchard, a fruitery, an apiary ; and, occa sionally, to do the work proper to them all himself; and he did it well. But knowledge, science, in its largest sense, was his beau ideal. I had almost said, his idol : and if he had not been a Christian, he would have been an idolater, in this re spect. As it was, I am not sure that he did not sometimes linger at Athens when he would have profited better at Jeru salem ; and forget that Minerva is not a divinity, except in fable ; and that fable, though it may have had its political uses, like other contrivances for keeping poets and philoso phers in good humor, and ignorant and factious people quiet, is never an equivalent to the Godhead and a Revelation. Mr. Chase had that temptation. But the temptation was not his alone. It belongs to us ; lo all scholars. It consti tutes their chief trial. The man of learning is not often tempted to the more dishonorable vices, except when he gives up the pursuit of learning for other supposed advantages of life. His temptation is to speculative evil. His pursuits be ing the highest and most refined, God subjects him, accord ingly, to this most difficult and dangerous probation. Most scholars fail in it ; just as most other men fail in their differ ent respective trials ; the man of wealth becoming covetous ; of power, ambitious ; of pleasure, prodigal. And specula tive evils, as they are most refined, become, at length, the most destructive. Knowledge is power. It rules the world. It flows out from the supposed sanctuary of the schools, as from the public heart, and, if it sustain and invigorate not the public life, poisons it insensibly, and occasions imbecility and death. It is difficult to appreciate this subtle influence acting through all the governments of Church and State, the professions and trades, down to the remotest extremities of the body politic. It can be estimated only by its effects. But 8 these are written in the history of the nations. The nations have fallen, successively, from the beginning, through the false learning of the schools. They are dead, but their false wisdom lives. That cannot die. It is printed in the books. We read them ; they become our classics ; and the evil is perpetuated. It becomes our learning ; and is printed over again with additions. Every period has its own type of learn ing. Because it is learning, we exalt it, as we do wealth and place, for the dignity and influence it confers. It has its imposing magnitudes, its lustres, its glories ; and we forget that it has saved nothing, but multiplied confusions and strifes, except so far as modified, restrained and limited by the wisdom from above. The best historians of scholasticism all give us the same accounts of the bad tendencies of apos tate science, and its resjlts, in the east and west, in ancient history, in the middle ages, and the Protestant period until now. Its present effects are apparent to the discerning stu dent of the times, and are a constant theme of mourning to the good. It is turning the countries of Luther, and Calvin, and Zuingle, and Cranmer away from God. It is bewildering Eu rope this day. It is subverting the foundations of the Chris tian nations. Our own country is likely to have the most diffi cult experience. We accept the fallacies of the older nations. We reproduce the ancient errors, suiting them to our differ ent social and political conditions- We are learning and ripening faster than the countries which have fallen, in pro portion to our greater freedom ; and too fast for children. The head is growing out of proportion to the heart. Our young brain cannot bear it ; and abused nature will exact its penalty. Such children are likely to die of hydrocephalus, or live in a strait jacket. God's law never fails, though its sentence be delayed. Yet the schools are necessary. Without them we become barbarians ; we go back to paganism and idolatry ; and in paganism and idolatry the destruction is universal. But with them, though the generality pervert them, and become more criminal than pagans in abusing greater light, and dishonor- ing a higher Revelation, we obtain a higher good, through the increased power which these means of knowledge give to piety and virtue. They corrupt the nations ; but give a better direction to the good men who are in ihern, and a bet ter deliverance in the hour of judgment. They strike the men of Sodom with blindness ; but save the righteous Lot. They are not the Church, though they owe mainly to the Church their greatness ; but the seed of the Church is in them, and the same light and heat that bring forth thorns and briers, produce the fruitful vines. The word of God is in them, a sure foundation on the one hand, while it is a stone of stumbling on the other; administering guidance to the friends of God, though confusion to his enemies ; a pillar of cloud to these, hut of fire to those. The schools, like all oth er institutions of fallen man, like the great world itself, of which they are a miniature resemblance, exhibit a strange commingling of good and evil. If in this microcosm, as in the great world itself, the evil be sometimes greater than the good, yet is the good, when it stands its trial, made better by the very severity of its discipline, destined, through the suffer ings of this present time to work out ' a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.' We want the schools ; for the salt that is in them is conservative of Church and Slate. They are a glory in the Christian lands. The visible Church, not withstanding this preserving element, may deny its Lord ; and the State virtually renounce allegiance to the King of kings : and Church and State may give their power together to an Antichrist. But so long as the true Christ is named in the schools, the degenerate Church and State of Christendom will be more illustrious in the reflected glory, and, for the right eous who are in them, will have a longer respite, than the dy nasties of old, inasmuch as sincere Christian learning is more glorious than the unbaptised naturalism of Egypt or of Greece, and produces a greater incidental and collateral ad vantage. Germany, and France, and England, and America could not perish w^hilesuch men as Luther, and Calvin, and Cranmer, and Edwards lived ; nor till their white-washed 2 10 sepulchres should be neglected for the more classic and adorned burying places of their degenerate children. But during this period of probation and discipline how sorely good men are tempted they only can tell who have had the sore experience, and come out of it. Prof. Chase was one of these. If his temptation was great, it was because he had a great mind, and a corresponding love of knowledge. If he failed not in it, it was because his love of knowledge wras exceeded by his love of truth. The natural affection was strong in him, almost to idolatry ; but the supernatural grace prevailed. I refer to Professor Chase's discipline in this respect, be cause it enables me to take up a line of remark, at once hon orable to his memory, and more suggestive of useful instruc tion to students than any other which I could conveniently adopt. I will speak- of this as I have judged. He was fitted by his peculiar mental constitution to be en gaged, I do not say captivated, by that specific type and method of learning which is now prevalent to a great extent in the schools of Christendom, and is showing itself, practi cally and politically, in the popular movements of society ; I mean. Eclecticism, as refined and sublimated by the In stinctive Philosophy. It is the most remarkable off-shoot of Protestantism. It is a consequence of that unprecedented ex citement of the intellect of the learned world, which was pro duced by the Reformation. It marks, especially, the course and results of thought and reasoning, among many learned men, during the last half of the Protestant period, and more especially since the opening of the present century, while Protestantism has been undergoing its secularizing process, and mixing itself with the currents of an excited civilization. It is the way of learning which the worldly mind affectss, in distinction from the religious mind. It is rational, in distinc tion from Christian. It has its name from its activity and comprehensiveness. Its activity and comprehensiveness are made evident in its method. Its method is ascertained by its proceps of combining all pre-existing systems of philosoph- 11 ical reasoning and belief. It professes to bring together the instinctive, the inductive, and the speculative sciences in one perfected science ; or rather, to select from all these (he ele ments of truth which they are supposed to contain, and reduce them to union, harmony, and simplicity, by the power of a single combining principle. That combining principle is the intuitional reason ; an alleged supreme cognitive power of the mind, the critic of all knowledge ; — not the power of intelli gence and reasoning which is personal to us as individuals, for an individual and personal reason is denied ; but the pure, universal reason, the unknown essence, which exists abso lutely in God, but has innumerable incarnations, the last and most perfect of which is in the Eclectic philosophers. The immediate practical work and effect of this supreme intuitional power is a new interpretation of all things, not ac cording to any known or definable laws, but its own ethereal spontaneous apperceptions ; an interpretation not only of the Divine government in general, physical and moral, as declar ed in Nature and Revelaliou, but also of the teachings of the Holy Spirit, hitherto regarded as the ultimate interpreter of all knowledge. Its last consequence is that Nature, Revela tion and the Holy Spirit, not being entertained by the mind as literal facts and entities, according to their respective natu ral and supernatural orders, but ideally, according lo the in terpretation and criticism of the universal reason, have no objective and practical existence. They exist not oui of the mind, but are images, which are — nothing : Man is nothing, and Nature is nothing, and God is nothing — but an idea. We come out in Atheism ; of which the worst form is the practical denial of the work of the Holy Spirit, God's last or dained method of teaching and recovering this world ; which unpardonable sin is not the less but more destructive for its extreme refinement and subtlety, poisoning and killing before its existence is suspected by the common mind. Would that I must not add even the cultivated and refigious mind, when it departs from the simplicity of Christ.* * I may seem to some to have sprung at this severe conclusion. But the 12 The illuminated hierophants of the new method propound it as a panacea. It is the last patented discovery for the sal vation of mankind. It makes man his own restorer, in dis tinction from the word and Spirit of God* Its exhibition is undoubtedly the greatest movement of this age, or any age. It exists in modified variety over the civilized nations. It is, in the cant phraseology of the schools, the present develope- ment of cultivated mind ; or more popularly, the spirit of the a