INAUGUEAL ADDRESS. 
89 
ledge, and it is for them, each and all, to keep themselves on a 
level with the leading line of thought in the departments to which 
they have attached themselves. 
There are some characteristics of the present age which are more 
capable of general application than others. Some that are capable 
of universal application, wherever there is any interchange of 
ideas by means of a language known to the civilized world 
The primary divisions into which the subjects for whose sake 
this institution was established may be classified, are philosophy, 
science, art, and literature. Can we, as an institution, recognize 
any leading characteristic in the present advancing condition of 
thought in these departments of mental activity which is common 
to them all ? I think a student of the history of any particular 
era can discover a leading characteristic by which that era may be 
distinguished. Perhaps it is easier for the historian to perceive the 
genius which governed mankind at a particular age, having before 
him the events which succeeded, as well as the records of the con- 
ditions which preceded, the period that forms the subject of his 
researches, than it is for those who themselves play a part in the 
drama to detect the deep-seated impulse which directs their actions. 
The historian has not only the advantage of being removed from 
the influences in operation at the time that he describes, but he has 
also the opportunity of considering the efl'ect as well as the cause ; 
he can observe not the facts only, but their consequences, without 
which no fact can be fully understood or appreciated. Eut though 
the past may be a study which is easier than the present — -though 
historians may have advantages over those who are students of the 
phenomena of their own time, they have also conspicuous disad- 
vantages. In point of interest to ourselves the present must be 
all-absorbing. We are creatures of the present, and the present is 
also our creation. The interest felt in history itself is mainly due 
to the light which it throws on the present, to the explanation 
which it affords of the succession of consequences, all culminating 
in the events which we now experience, all subordinate to our own 
state of existence, with our hopes and our fears, our expectations 
and our speculations, our certainties and our doubts. 
An eminent historian has recently, in an address delivered on an 
occasion similar to this, when the kindred Devonshire Association 
held its Meeting at Devonport, hazarded an opinion that Shake- 
speare is your only true historian. It is not for me to question 
