Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/493

 the same position, with regard to a variety of things, at which you have arrived now, —having been transported thither by an enchanter's wand. There are some who think that it would be better for India, in the end, if that had been so, and if, to para-phrase the famous words of Medea, the trees had been never felled, which were formed into the bark of Vasco da Gama. Possibly, they are right: at least, I cannot contradict them, being no proficient in the terribly difficult, and not very profitable, science of Hypothetics. Mark this, however, that if the rough hand of the conqueror had never intervened, at least the present generation would not now be thinking the thoughts, which fill the minds of the graduates of this University.

The British Government in India for the last two generations has been mainly engaged in giving to you, readymade, nearly every result of our long political struggles and experiments. It has only been restrained from giving you more, by a consideration for your own feelings and ideas.

There is nothing you can ask from your rulers, in the way of such results, that I can think of, which they would not willingly give you to-morrow. Already, in some ways, they have given you more than they have ever given themselves. I need only point to your Codes.

All the wisest men in England would give such as these to England to-morrow; but the force of prejudice and interest in certain quarters has been always too strong. The highest intelligence of the nation has not yet been able to lift the question of codification out of the field of politics; the field, that is, of clamour and of strife.

Few profounder remarks have ever been made about politics, than one which was made by an eminent American, a citizen of the Great Republic: "We shall one day learn to supersede politics by education."

All sane persons in England rejoice, as one subject after another passes out of politics, and becomes the common property of both political parties. The glory of what is known as the Liberal party in that country is, that so very many things, which it has championed at various times, have now passed from being contested truths, into accepted truisms. The glory of the Conservative party is that, although it has again and again opposed those truths, "including" in its opposition to them every argument that could reasonably be adduced, and marshalling against