Our world, our university

Simon Heller

MICROCOSMOGRAPHIA ACADEMICA by F. M. Cornford Mainsail Press,clo Queens' College, Cambridge, f8.99, pp. 64

am getting to an age where a few of my I contemporaries from Cambridge are start- ing to make an impact on what we used to call the Life of the Nation. One or two, like Mr Stephen Fry, are doing so in a way that makes that Life all the more worth living; many more, who for reasons of the savage laws of libel in this country had better remain nameless, are simply continuing the process of national decline by ever more energetic means. They, of course, are the ones who have gone into public life, or, even worse, have remained in academia.

Eighty-five years ago, in a work then praised for its satire but now all too appar- ent as a treatise of sickeningly accurate prophecy, a young don called Francis Cornford poked fun at the moral cowardice and pusillanimity of those who ran Cam- bridge University. He illustrated, clearly, how this desire to do nothing for fear of doing something was transmitted out into the wider world; and how those who went out from Cambridge to run the civil ser- vice, the professions, the Government and the British Empire took with them this gospel of inactivity, and thus ensured those institutions ossified and, ultimately, failed.

The Microcosmographia Academica, now republished half a century after Cornford's death (he ended up as Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy), can no longer be regarded as simply entertainment. Those in the senior combination rooms of Corn- ford's old university may well, reading it for the first time, chuckle at how wittily he caught the posturings of academic politi- cians. They will, one is sure, especially enjoy his advice that the best way to achieve the implementation of a policy one passionately supports is to argue patheti- cally for the alternative; and, if that does

not work, to introduce a third option, since that should ensure that there is no majority for anything.

Some of the purely academic jokes will resonate with anyone who has endured uni- versity teaching: such as 'learning is called sound when no-one has ever heard of it', and

'sound scholar' is a term of praise applied to one another by learned men who have no reputation outside the University, and a rather queer one inside it.

Best of all is:

If you should write a book (you had better not), be sure that it is unreadable; otherwise you will be called 'brilliant' and forfeit all respect.

But Cornford did not call his book a micro- cosm for nothing; of even greater insight is what he says that better applies to the world into which Cambridge sends its evan- gelists of despair.

He talks of the main reason for inaction being 'fear' — 'the Political Motive'. 'Have you,' he asks, 'ever noticed how people say "I'm afraid I don't . " when they mean "I think 1 don't . "?' He defines 'the prop- er objects of fear' to include 'Giving your- self away' and 'The Great World', which brings us neatly to politics. 'There is only one argument for doing something; the rest are arguments for doing nothing.' He out- lines 'The Principle of the Wedge' ('you should not act justly now for fear of raising expectations which you are afraid you will not have the courage to satisfy') and 'The Principle of the Dangerous Precedent' ('you should not now do an admittedly right action for fear you, or your equally

timid successors, should not have the

courage to do right in some future case').

We reach the unavoidable conclusion that every public action which is not customary, either is wrong, or, if it is right, is a danger- ous precedent. It follows that nothing should ever be done for the first time.

Familiar, too, from the actions of our governors is 'the Principle of Unripe Time',

that people should not do at the present moment what they think right at that moment, because the moment at which they think it right has not yet arrived.

So, too, 'the present measure would block the way for a far more sweeping reform', and, as we are always being told of the injuries done us by the European Commu- nity or of the press's attempts to persuade the Prime Minister to sack those of his col- leagues caught in adultery, 'it is far better that all reform should come from within'.

Ultimately, things will be done not by committees, but by the old boy network; symbolised by Cornford as the dons who meet each other on their afternoon peram- bulations along King's Parade, and settle the matters in hand by mutual back- scratching.

You can either join them, and become a powerful person; or you can join the great throng of those who spend all their time in preventing them from getting things done, and in the larger task of preventing one another from doing anything whatever.

When next you are told how many of the Cabinet went to Cambridge, read this book and you will have a better insight into why they have made such a mess of the country; such a mess, not least, because they have not yet read it, and learned the full horrible truth for themselves.