Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/361



Gentlemen, man has a heart as well as a head, moral principles as well as intellectual powers, and in forming the human character this fact ought never to be overlooked. Comment would only weaken the impression of the following suggestive passage from Bacon, which Lord Bolingbroke has pronounced to be one of the finest and deepest in his writings, and which Sir W. Hamilton has quoted with admiration; it is indeed full of significance and truth. "In forming the human character," remarks the great philosopher, "we must not proceed as a statuary does in forming a statue, who works sometimes on the face, sometimes on the limbs, sometimes on the folds of the drapery; but we must proceed (and it is in our power to proceed) as Nature does in forming a flower, or any other of her productions; she throws out altogether, and at once, the whole system of being, and the rudiments of all the parts."

I must conclude. Many are the temptations which are likely to beset your path in life; temptations from temptations from without, temptations from within, to resist which will require the energetic action of all the better elements of your character. Walk therefore the path of life warily, wisely; recognize the weakness of self, and never for a moment forget the golden saying of the brave Duke John of Saxony, "the straight line is the shortest road."

If your studies, imbued as they have been with high principles of honor and of truth, fail to make you men of honor, truthfulness and integrity, they have failed to influence for good your moral nature, however much they may have succeeded in sharpening your intellect, or in adding to the stores of your knowledge. Your Alma Mater will fail to recognize in you her own success, unless you exhibit to the world an incorruptible integrity, chivalrous honor, unswerving truth, genuine sympathy with your brother-man, and an enlarged mind free alike from pride, prejudice and selfishness.

Cultivate then a tender conscience, a conscience which shall have power to rule alike your thoughts and actions. In One word, be gentlemen in all the feelings, science. principles and chivalry of gentlehood. Let the world see that with informed heads you have reformed hearts, and that your intellectual training has been no one-sided system which has done all that is possible to be done for the mind, while it has left untended and untrained the heart, whence are the very issues of moral life.