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HENEY SIDGWICK
HENRY SIDGWICK
A MEMOIR BY
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HENRY SIDGWICK
A MEMOIR BY
A. S. AND E. M. S.
3L0tt0oit MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY I9O6
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PKEFACE
APART from personal memories and printed records, the chief materials for this account of Henry Sidgwick's life are the following : — A short autobiographical frag- ment dictated in his last illness ; an intermittent journal kept between 1884 and 1892, and sent at intervals to John Addington Symonds at Davos ; and a large number of other private letters, placed at our disposal by various relations and friends. A study of these papers convinced us that our object would be best attained by a narrative largely consisting of extracts from his own letters. For not only does the chief interest of a life, outwardly so uneventful as his, lie in the thoughts, the aims, the character, which are best described or exhibited in his own words ; but also his letters sufficiently resemble his talk to bring his personality vividly before those who knew him, and doubtless in some measure also before readers who never saw him.
Accordingly, we have chosen from his letters such passages, whether of narrative, discussion, or comment, as seemed to us to be characteristic or interesting, or to give the facts required. What we have printed are generally extracts — seldom complete letters. When- ever anything is omitted which bears on the immediate subject, we have indicated the fact by dots. Among the omitted passages there are, of course, some refer- ences to private matters which could not be published, and a few comments which might mislead or annoy ;
y
vi HENRY SIDGWICK
but, speaking generally, the omissions have been prompted merely by desire for brevity and interest.
We wish here to tender our thanks to the many friends to whom we are indebted for the loan of letters, or for other communications, which have made our task possible. Among those from whom such help has been received are the following : — Rt. Hon. A. J. Balfour, Lady Frances Balfour, Mr. R. Bowes, Mr. H. F. Brown, Mr. Oscar Browning, Rt. Hon. James Bryce, Lady Victoria Buxton, Miss Cannan, Major-General Carey, Mr. Basil Champneys, Miss B. A. Clough, Mr. F. W. Cornish, Mrs. Creighton, Mr. J. W. Cross, Professor A. V. Dicey, Professor Edgeworth, Hon. W. Everett, Miss H. Gladstone, Mrs. A. Grove, Baron F. von Hiigel, Dr. H. Jackson, Miss A. Johnson, Dr. and Mrs. Keynes, Mrs. Latham, Mrs. McAnally, Professor Maitland, Professor A. Marshall, Miss Martineau, Professor J. B. Mayor, Mr. J. R. Mozley, Mrs. F. W. H. Myers, Mrs. A. J. Patterson, Mr. G. A. Plimpton, Mr. F. Podmore, Lady Rayleigh, Mrs. W. C. Sidgwick, Mrs. R. Sidgwick, Professor Sorley, Professor Sully, Mr. C. H. Tawney, Lord Tennyson, Father Tyrrell, Dr. Venn, Dr. Waldstein, Mr. and Mrs. Wilfrid Ward, Lady Welby, Mrs. E. M. Young, Sir George Young.
In particular we have also to thank Sir George Trevelyan, Dr. and Mrs. Peile, Mr. A. C. Benson, and others for reading the proofs in slip and making useful suggestions, and to acknowledge help received in this and other ways from William Carr Sidgwick and Mary Benson, his brother and sister. Finally, we wish to mention with especial gratitude the in- valuable aid and sympathy given at every stage of our work by his life-long friend Henry Graham Dakyns.
ARTHUR SIDGWICK. ELEANOR MILDRED SIDGWICK.
Jamiary 1906,
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
rxor 1838-1859 ....... 1
Birth and ancestry, 1-3 ; childhood at Tenby and Clifton, 3, 4 ; at school at Blackheath (Rev. H. Dale), 4-6 ; at Rugby, 6-15 ; influence of E. W. Benson, 8-11 ; games, out-door and in, 9, 11-12 ; hay fever, 12 ; school friends, 14 ; goes to Cambridge, 11, 15 ; Bell and Craven Scholarships, 15-17 ; dyspepsia, 18 ; life at Cambridge, 18-20 ; read- ing party at Oban, 20-23 ; reminiscences of Sidgwick at this time, 23-27 ; reciting poetry, 25 ; Wrangler and Senior Classic, 28 ; "Apostles," 29-32.
CHAPTER II 1859-1864 ...... 33
Autobiographical fragment (1858-1869), 33-38 ; first tour abroad and stay at Dresden, 40-42 ; writing poetry, 41, 50, 51, 53, 63, 64 ; Fellow and assistant - tutor of Trinity, 42; teaching classics, 34, 44, 48; beginnings of Psychical Research, 43 ; question of taking orders, 47, 62 ; at Berlin, 55-60 ; teaching at the Cambridge Working Men's College, 61 ; President of the Union, 63 ; on Essays and Reviews, 49, 64-65 ; reading political economy, 36, 39, 66-67 ; question of the Bar, 63, 68 ; writing on Tocqueville, 70 ; Mastership at Rugby accepted and refused, 70-71 ; Initial Society, 71-73 ; studying Comte, 74, 75 ; Herbert Spencer, 76 ; on prospects of philosophy at Cambridge, 75 ; attempt to cure stammer, 77 ; examines at Isle of Man and at Marlborough, 80, 83 ; religious diffi- culties, 80-83, 89-90, 122-4 ; Paris and Switzerland with H. G. Dakyns, 83-86 ; studying Arabic, 37, 85-98 passim ; lecturing on Acts of the Apostles, 78, 95 ; Paris with J. J. Cowell and others, 94-95; studying Hebrew, 98-103 passim; Spiritualism, 103-6 passim; ball in Trinity, 107 ; studying Arabic at Gottingen, 108-17; the Harz with H. G. Dakyns, 115-16 ; congress of Orientalists, 117 ; abandons Arabic, 122-5.
CHAPTER III 1865-1869 . . . . . . .125
Mottoes from the Bible, 125 ; takes private pupils in classics again, 125, 126 ; Paris with G. 0. Trevelyan, 128-9 ; examines at Clifton, 130 ; examining in Moral Sciences Tripos, 130, 132, 156-7 ; Grote Club, 133, 134-8; stays with C. Kegan Paul, 138, 139; Ecce Homo, 143-8 passim, 150 ; examining at Harrow, 149 ; at the Lakes with G. 0. Trevelyan, 149-51 ; reform of Moral Sciences Tripos, 153, 155,
vii
viii HENRY SIDGWICK
PACE
159 ; of Classical Tripos, 154-5, 163, 184 ; College reforms, 156-7, 172-3 ; reading Philosophy, 150-68 ; iu London for long vacation of 1867, writing and investigating Spiritualism, 164 - 71 ; beginning of friendship with J. A. Synionds, 166 ; lectureship in Moral Science, 167 ; Festiniog with G. O.'Trevelyan and others, 168, 169 ; lecturing on English history, 167, 169, 170, 171, 179 ; examinations for women, 174, 180/181, 182, 188, 189 ; death of J. J. Cowell, 175, 177-8 ; at Cannes and Mentone with J. A. Symonds, 175-7, 179, 180 ; Alps with G. 0. Trevelyan and others, 185, 187 ; Free Christian Union, 189-91, 197 ; correspondence about A. H. Clough, 192-5 ; lieginuing of friendship with F. W. H. Myers, 196 ; resignation of Fellowship, 142, 145-6, 166, 197-202.
CHAPTER IV
1869-1876 . . . . . . .203
Lectures for women and development of Newnham College, 203-12, 224, 226, 227, 242, 243, 246, 247, 248, 249, 255, 256, 258, 268 ; work at charity organisation, etc., 205 ; on reviewing, 213 ; article on Clough, 214-17 ; university reform, 219, 255-7, 265-7, 274, 276 ; Metaphysical Society, 220-23 ; Eranus, 223-4 ; religious views, 227 ; Germany and Franco-German war, 228-41 ; Innsbruck, Venice, Milan, 236-8 ; supports Miss Garrett's election to School Board, 241, 242 ; takes a house for students and invites Miss Clough to take charge of it, 242, 243-4, 246, 247, 248, 249; writing in Academy, etc., 244 ; shares
rooms with F. H , 245, 253 ; correspondence - teaching, 248-9,
252 ; writing Methods of Ethics, 252, 277, 283, 284, 287 ; stays at Freshwater, 260, 261, 278 ; stands for Professorship of Moral Philo- sophy, 260-65 ; agitation about compulsory Greek iu the Previous Examination, 265-7 ; stays at Margate, 269 ; advice to invalids, 269- 271 ; university extension, 271-2; review of Herbert Spencer, 277-8; at Margate again, 280-82 ; investigation of Spiritualism with Myers and Gurney, 284, 288-94, 296-300 ; publication of Methods of Ethics, 291-2, 295, 296 ; appointed Pi-selector of Moral Philosophy, 299 ; engagement to Miss Balfour, 299-302 ; marriage, 302.
CHAPTER V
1876-1883 . . . . . . .303
Sidgwick's teaching and conversation described by various persons, 303- 319 ; wedding tour and residence at 18 Brookside, Cambridge, 319, 320; views on lecturing, 321-2; moves to "Hillside," 324-6; article on "Bentham and Benthamism," 327 ; tour among German universities, 327-31 ; conference of schoolmistresses, 333 ; "Ethics" for Encyclopaedia Britannica, 334; lawn tennis, 334 ; Switzerland and first visit to Davos, 336 ; death of his mother, 339-40 ; Political Economy, 340-41 ; elected member of Athenaeum, 341 ; Charity Organisation, 341-3 ; residence at North Hall, Newnham College, 343-5 ; letter to General Carey about religious beliefs, 345-8 ; opening of Tripos Ex- aminations to women, 349-52 ; Hon. LL.D., Glasgow, and honorary fellowship at Trinity, 351, 353 ; letters on religious questions to his sister and to J. R. Mozley, 354-8 ; foundation of Society for Psychical Research, 358-9 ; Newnham College debt paid off, 359 ; address as President at first meeting of the Society for Psychical Research, 361-5 ; death of F. M. Balfour, 365-6 ; tour in Italy and Rome, 366-8 ; publication of Principles of Political Economy, 366 ; elected to Professorship of Moral Philosophy, 368-70.
CONTENTS ix
CHAPTER VI
PAGE
1883-1893 . . 371
Sidgwick's university policy and work in academic reorganisation and administration, 371-9; Hon. LL.D., Edinburgh and St. Andrews, 380; journal letters to J. A. Symonds, 381-499, 515-24 ; County Franchise Bill and Redistribution, 381-3, 386-7, 389, 390, 392, 393 ; Madame Blavatsky and Theosophy, 385, 405, 410 ; view of himself as a psychical researcher, 387 ; death of Fawcett, 391 ; on Westcott and Maurice, 393-4 ; view of himself as a teacher, 395-6 ; on the vitality of the Church of England, 396 ; working at Political Economy at Whittingehame, 397-9 ; re-elected Fellow of Trinity, 400 ; Gordon and Khartoum, 400-401, 402, 405 ; university organisation, 402 ; stays at Keble College, 402-3 ; with J. Bryce, 403-4 ; at Six Mile Bottom, 404-5 ; death of H. A. J. Munro, 406, 409 ; tempted to stand for Parliament, 407 ; on multiplication of University administrative work, 411 ; change of Government, 411-15 ; at Pavilion, near Aldeburgh, 416, 417 ; writing economic address for British Associa- tion, 417, 419, 421 ; on Medical Relief Bill, 417-19 ; British Association at Aberdeen, 423-5 ; at haunted house, 425 ; General Election of 1885, 422, 423, 427, 429, 430-33 ; third hall at Newn- haru College, 430 ; E-umenides at Cambridge, 432-3 ; lecture at Edinburgh on the " Historical Method," 436 ; Home Rule, 434, 436, 438, 439, 443, 445, 447, 448, 449, 524 ; death of Henry Bradshaw, 439 ; writing History of Ethics, 443-4 ; at Shanklin with A. Sidgwicks, 446 ; General Election of 1886, 449-53 ; comes home from Davos to vote Unionist, 449 ; British Association at Birmingham, 455-6 ; writing on Political Economy, 457, 463 ; death of W. H. Thompson, 458-9 ; publication of Phantasms of the Living, 460 ; Dr. Butler made Master of Trinity, 460 ; Liberal Unionist meeting, 462 ; Lord Randolph Churchill's resignation, 463-4, 467 ; curling, 464, 465;" psychical " experiments with D. (fraudulent), 465-6; depression about ethics, 466-7, 471-2, 475, 484-6 ; his sympathy at this time with In Afemoriam, 468 ; on certain newspapers, 469-70 ; thought- transference experiments, 473 ; A. J. Balfour Irish Secretary, 472, 474 ; agitation in 1887 about degrees for women, 476-8 ; problem of the unemployed, 480-81 ; visit to Ireland, 482 ; work on politics, 481, 487 ; thoughts of leaving Cambridge, 488-9 ; on honorary degrees, 489-90 ; garden party at Newnham, 491-2 ; death of Edmund Gurney, 493 ; visit to C. Bowens, 495 ; to Ireland, 496-7 ; haunted house, 497, 498 ; British Association at Bath and Bernard Shaw, 497-8 ; lectures on Shakespeare and on "Morality of Strife," 500 ; International Congress of Experimental Psychologists (1889), 501, 515 ; various "psychical" investigations, 501-2 ; closing of public path through Newnham, 503-4 ; Hon. D.C.L. at Oxford, 505 ; elected to Council of the Senate, 506 ; letters to J. R. Mozley about Cardinal Newman, 507-8 ; publication of Elements of Politics, 509 ; agitation about ' compulsory Greek ' (1891), 509-11 ; takes over financial re- sponsibility for Mind, 512; second International Congress of Psycho- logists (London, 1892, Sidgwick persident), 513, 515, 524 ; death of Miss Clough, and Mrs. Sidgwick appointed Principal of Newnham College, 514, 515 ; tour in Germany, Hungary, and France, 516-21 ; reflections on travel, 521-2 ; member of Gresham University Com- mission, 518, 523, 525 ; hypnotism at Nancy, 521 ; lectures on philosophy, 523 ; General Election of 1892 and Home Rule, 523, 524 ; death of Tennyson, 524-5 ; death of J. A. Symonds, 526-7 ; move from " Hillside " to Newnham College, 527.
x HENRY SIDGWICK
CHAPTER VII
PAGE
1894-1900 .... . 528
Life at Newnham College, 528-30 ; love of scenery and dowers, 529 ; Report of Gresham University Commission, 530 ; death of Roden Noel, 530-32 ; investigation of Eusapia Paladiuo at the lie Roubaud, 532 ; tableaux vivants, 533; "Political Prophecy and Sociology," 533; death of Sir J. Seeley, 535 ; attack of influenza, 535-7 ; seaside with A. Sidgwicks, 536 - 7 ; edits Seeley's Introduction to Political Science, 537-8 ; to Lord Tennyson about In Memoriam, 538-42 ; investigation of E. Paladino at Cambridge, 542-3 ; to Mr. Champneys on Milton's metre, 543 ; agitation for degrees for women, 544-6, 550-52 ; Hungarian honorary degree, 546-7 ; third International Congress of Psychologists (at Munich), 547-8 ; tour in Bavaria and Tirol, 548-9; death of Archbishop Benson, 549-50; Synthetic Society, 556-60, 573, 576 ; Canon Gore on Sidgwick, 556-8 ; to Professor Edgeworth on taxation, 560 ; tour in North Italy, 561 ; to Lord Tennyson on Pope's metre, 562 ; Practical Ethics, 553, 563, 569 ; controversy about St. Edmund's House, 563-7 ; honorary degrees to Mr. Bryce and Mr. Dicey, 567 ; sixtieth birthday, 568 ; lectures on Metaphysics, 570, 571 ; Italian politics, 572-3 ; tour in Cornwall, 573-4 ; Boer War, 575, 576-8, 579, 580, 581, 582 ; British Academy, 581.
CHAPTER VIII
LAST MONTHS ...... 584
Fatal illness, 584 ; arrangements about unfinished work, 584-5, 586-7 ; Newnham College fellowships and freehold, 585 ; address to Philo- sophical Society at Oxford, 585-6 ; farewell letters, 587-9 ; meeting of the Synthetic Society, 588 ; luncheon at Leckhamptou House, 588 ; in nursing home, 589-93 ; at Margate, 593-5 ; last weeks at Terling Place, 595-8 ; death and burial, 598-9.
APPENDIX I. Papers read to the Synthetic Society : I. on " The Nature of the Evidence for Theism," p. 600 ; and II. on " Authority, Scientific and Theological," p. 608 . . 600
APPENDIX II. List of Henry Sidgwick's published writings . 616 APPENDIX IIL List of Biographical Notices of Henry Sidgwick 623 INDEX 624
ILLUSTBATIONS
HENRY SIDGWICK (ABOUT 1894), PROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY SAMUEL A. WALKER ..... Frontispiece
ELIZABETH COOPER, 1905, AGED 87 . HENRY SIDGWICK AS AN UNDERGRADUATE
MRS. WILLIAM SIDGWICK (HENRY SIDGWICK'S MOTHER), ABOUT 1870 .
HENRY SIDGWICK IN 1876 . NEWNHAM COLLEGE, 1895
To face page 6 16
203
„ 303
528
XI
CHAPTER I
1838-1859
HENRY SIDGWICK was born on May 31, 1838, at Skipton, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. He was the third son, and the fourth child, of the Rev. William Sidgwick, whose father had been established since 1784 as a cotton-spinner at Skipton. The mill, worked by water-power, lay in the grounds behind the castle ; and Mr. Sidgwick, who had a country house some miles off, called Stone Gappe, occupied in the winter the gate-house of the old castle as his private dwelling. Little is known about his origin save that he came from Leeds in 1784, but there was a persistent tradition in the family that they had originally migrated from Dent, a picturesque dale in the far north-west of the county, to the north of Ingleborough, opening out into the larger valley of the Clough at Sedbergh. At Dent there have been for the last four centuries at least, as the parish registers show, "sidesmen" (or small farmers owning their land) of the name of Sidgwick or Sidgswick. The only one of the clan who was at all widely known was Adam Sedgwick l of Cambridge, who held the Professorship of Geology for fifty-five years. Many of this vigorous stock appear in later years to have settled in other places, particularly in the manufac- turing towns of the West Riding, and amongst these was William Sidgwick, the cotton-spinner of Skipton. Four of his five sons remained in or near Skipton,
1 The name was erroneously altered about 1745 to Sedgwick.
B
2 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, i
engaged in the business ; the other (Henry Sidgwick's father), destined for the Church, was sent to Trinity College, Cambridge, where his name appears as the last of the Wranglers in 1829.1
After his ordination William Sidgwick the younger undertook parochial work, first at Rampside (near Broughton-in-Furness) in 1833, and in the same year was married to Mary Crofts, the eldest daughter of another Yorkshire family from the East Riding. She with her three brothers and two sisters had been left orphans at a very early age, and the whole charge of these six children was generously under- taken by a bachelor uncle, the Rev. William Carr, who was the fourth in succession of the same family to hold the living of Bolton Abbey. In this beauti- ful seclusion, with the heather-clad moors above, and the rock-bed stream of the Wharfe flowing through wooded banks not a stone's throw from the parsonage, Henry Sidgwick's mother passed her childhood. Those who knew her in after years observed that while she had many interests and much force both of mind and character, she had no special artistic sensibility either to music or painting ; but in regard to scenery she showed all her life the most vivid and discriminating delight. And there can be little doubt that this was largely due to the fact that the sensitive
1 He travelled abroad through France, Switzerland, and Italy the same year with one of his brothers, making the grand tour in the old fashion. A folio four-page letter (folded in the middle of the fourth page, as usual in the pre-envelope era) has been preserved, written by W. Sidgwick to his friend Perronet Thompson — a document of about 3000 words — filled literally within and without by elaborate descriptions of scenery. Another detail of this tour is known, which we may be excused for quoting. On the day after the letter from Turin was posted, the following letter was written from London to a firm of which one of the Sidgwicks was partner : —
BEDFORD HOTEL, COVJCNT GARDEN, 22)w? October 1829.
SIE— I have the pleasure of enclosing a cheque for £12, which Mr. W. Sidgwick was kind enough to lend me when in Paris. There is also a great-coat which he entrusted to my care. By his request, I have taken the liberty of forwarding the money and the coat to you.— I ana, sir, your obedient servant, W. SI. THACKERAY.
Mr. Sidgwick had clearly passed through Paris on his way out, and had relieved his impecunious College acquaintance with money and a great- coat.
1838-44, AGE 0-6 HENRY SIDGWICK 3
years of early girlhood were passed amid the beauties of Wharfedale.
In the winter of 1834 Mr. and Mrs. Sidgwick, with their eldest son,1 born at Rampside, moved to another cure at Barnborough, near Doncaster, and two years later to Skipton, Mr. Sidgwick haviug been appointed to the headmastership of the grammar school, which was then in the old building, a picturesquely situated house at the end of the town, close to the foot of Rumblesmoor. The eldest daughter2 was born at Barnborough in 1835; and four more children followed in the five years between the move to Skipton in 1836 and their father's death in 1841. In August of the previous year the second boy3 had died, and the eldest daughter was already failing. The mother tried first Barmouth, and afterwards Tenby, in vain ; the child died at Tenby, and in June 1844 the family at last found a settled home in Redland, on the out- skirts of Bristol, close to Durdham Down.
Henry Sidgwick was only six years old when these wanderings were over ; and there is naturally little to record, even if there were anybody alive who could remember it, or if it were worth telling.4 His elder brother (who was about nine) remembers two things only : that at Tenby Henry learnt to play chess sufficiently, to defeat certain ladies who had made acquaintance with his mother ; but whether this is to be ascribed to the child's skill or the ladies' good nature there is nothing to show. Anyhow, the chess so excited the little boy of five that by the doctor's orders it was discontinued. At the same time, and perhaps owing to the same excitement, he first
1 William Carr Sidgwick, named after the uncle. - Henrietta Rose, d. September 25, 1841.
3 Edward Plunket, d. August 17, 1840. The other three were Henry, Arthur, and Mary (afterwards Mrs. Benson).
4 In a letter written in 1869 to a child of eight, then at Tenhy, he says : — ' ' The first thing that I remember in my whole life is picking up an immense piece of chalk on the south sands. I wonder whether there is any to be found there now."
4 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, r
developed the tendency to stammer, which he never wholly lost. The other anecdote is as follows :— The two boys had picked up Bonnycastle's Astronomy, illustrated with plans, and amused themselves with drawing on the Tenby sands figures of the planetary orbits. A kind-hearted gentleman (described as the brother of a Colonial Bishop) came up to them to see what they were doing, and being told, expressed his admiration of their work. The little astronomers immediately proceeded to examine him, and asked him to point out which was Uranus. The unfortunate gentleman pointed to Venus, and when he had retired abashed, they both solemnly shook their heads over the " deplorable ignorance of grown-up people."
After the move to Redland the boy lived at home for four years under a governess (Miss Green), with Latin lessons from his mother, and then for two years more he went to a day school in Bristol known as the Bishop's College, now long extinct. The younger brother and sister remember chiefly the earlier years, when Henry was the inventive genius of the nursery. Nearly all the games which the three children most relished were either devised by him, or greatly improved by his additions, and amongst them was a special language whereby the children believed they might safely discuss their secrets in the presence of the cold world of elders. The tedium of Sunday, when games (unless con- structively religious) were forbidden, was beguiled, under his direction, not only by an extended secular use of the animals of Noah's ark, but for a while by the preaching of actual sermons written with all seriousness, on which the children bestowed remark- able pains.
In 1850 he was thought old enough to leave home and join his elder brother at a school in Blackheath, under the charge of the Rev. H. Dale, known in those days as a scholarly translator of Thucydides. Mr.
1844-50, AGE 6-12 HENEY SIDGWICK 5
Dale had for some years been headmaster of the Bishop's College at Bristol, and was personally known to Mrs. Sidgwick. At Blackheath the two boys only stayed till the end of 1851, as Mr. Dale in December of that year accepted a living, and the school ceased to exist. About Sidgwick's first brief experience of a boarding school there is little to tell. Between the brothers there was four years' difference in age, and neither in school nor in games would they be much thrown together. The elder brother chiefly remembers three things — the gaiety and vivacity of his disposi- tion, which made him a general favourite ; the unusual cleverness which he showed from the first in his studies ; and one alarming accident of which he was the victim. Blackheath in the fifties was the only place in England where golf was played, and the schoolboys naturally took the keenest interest in the game. One day Henry was watching one of the seniors preparing to drive, and was stooping down just too near the player, when the swing of the club caught him full in the face. The blow narrowly missed his left eye, and it might easily have killed him. Fortunately he escaped with a severe cut, which laid him up for some time, and left a scar that was visible to the end of his life. The only other record of this time is a letter to his mother (May 5, 1850), the solitary one that has been preserved until we reach his undergraduate days.
MY DEAR MAMMA — I am much obliged to you for your kind letter. I do not really know the cause of my illness myself, but I think it arose from something I ate the day before at dinner, for ... most of the boys felt rather ill. I enjoyed my visit to London very much. . . . Mr. Wheatley l was very kind to us ; it must have been a great trouble to him to take us about. I shall be very much pleased to see Miss Green,2 if you can induce
1 His godfather, an old friend of his mother's (see p. 550). 2 His former governess, much beloved by all the family.
6 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, i
her to stay till we come home. I can easily imagine all you said about the chess-playing, but I have not played more than three games since the beginning of the quarter, and all these were in the first week after I came. I think I should like to give Harry James [a friend of his own age] something; if you know what he would like, please to buy him out of my money not exceeding 3s. ; if not, I had better wait till I come home.
I can explain how we are got into the second class in German ; it is doing just the same as the third ; and as to the play, we have not got to translate it ourselves really ; the master tells us all we do not know. Give my love to all, including Elizabeth.1
It is clear that his mother had been anxious about three things — a report of his illness, his chess-playing, and his promotion in German, which he had hardly begun to learn. The answer of the child (he was not yet twelve) was probably reassuring on all these points.
Mr. Dale in leaving Blackheath took with him some of the elder boys as pupils, including Sidgwick's elder brother, now eighteen, and destined for Oxford, and he wrote to Mrs. Sidgwick urging that the younger brother should also be entrusted to his care. But the mother very sensibly preferred to send him to a good school. It was decided that he should be sent to Rugby in September 1852, and for the inter- vening six months should live at home, and attend once more the old Bristol day school.
This decision was, on the part of Mrs. Sidgwick, somewhat of a new departure. Her late husband had always held the strongest objections to the old public schools, from a rooted belief in their low moral tone. His information, it must be remembered, would
1 Elizabeth Cooper, the old nurse who brought up all the Sidgwicks, and afterwards all the Bensons, and still lives, aged eighty-seven (1905), having been over seventy years in the family, thus surviving three of the four parents, and five of the twelve children.
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1850-52, AGE 12-u HENEY SIDGWICK 7
date from his Cambridge days, before Dr. Arnold had begun the era of reform ; and he died a year before Arnold, when the effects of that reform were only in their earliest stage. His objections were undoubtedly sound at the time they were formed, and it was inevitable that Mrs. Sidgwick, after his death, should resolve to be guided by them. It was singular, as she used to remark in later years, that not only the public schools in general, but Rugby in particular, had been thus condemned. Yet it so fell out that she lived to see two sons and five nephews at Rugby ; and two grandsons, one born in her lifetime, were afterwards Rugby boys. The change in her views was due to a new influence, which may be briefly explained, as it was of the first importance in its effect on Henry Sidgwick in his school days.
Edward White Benson, a cousin of Mrs. Sidgwick' s husband, had recently been brought into close rela- tions with her and her family. He was a distinguished undergraduate at Cambridge when, in 1850, by the sudden death of his mother and his elder sister, there was thrown on him the care of a number of younger brothers and sisters ; and the shock was still greater when it was discovered that the family, supposed to be provided for, were left practically without means. Friends and relatives gave what help they could, and among the most active of these was Mrs. Sidgwick. In this way Benson came to know the Sidgwicks well, and was often at the Bristol house. That a keen, thoughtful, and distinguished young man, some years older than the eldest of her sons, himself trained under an exceptionally able headmaster,1 and with a wide knowledge of the best men at the University from all the public schools, should be able to give Mrs. Sidgwick material help in the choice of a school, and to modify her prejudices, was on every ground most
1 James Prince Lee, formerly master at Rugby under Arnold, then head- master of King Edward's School, Birmingham, -where Benson was a day- boy ; afterwards first Bishop of Manchester.
8 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAI-. i
natural. The result is best stated in Henry Sidgwick 's words. Speaking of Benson and bimself, he says l :—
In the summer of this year we both went to Eugby. By his advice, my mother had arranged in the winter of 1851-52 that I should enter the school after the summer holidays in 1852 : it was not till some months later that he received the offer of a mastership. I may mention that it was through his advice that my mother was persuaded to dis- regard what she knew to have been her husband's deter- mination not to send his sons to any of the public schools, on the ground of fear of their moral tone. She was per- suaded that there had been a great change in the moral tone of public schools since the time that my father received the information on which his resolution was based : and as the work of Arnold was thought to have had a leading part in this moral change, the selection of Eugby was natural.
Accordingly, in September 1852 Sidgwick was entered at Rugby, and Benson at the same time began his seven years' work as assistant-master in the school. His influence over his young cousin was already strong, and for some years it steadily increased.
Sidgwick, in the paper above quoted, gives the following account : —
During the first year I was in C. Evans's 2 house, and E. W. B. was in lodgings on the Dunchurch Eoad. ... I was not altogether happy in the life of the house : he let me come and talk to him when • I liked, and his little room . . . was the place where I was happiest. His sympathy at this time — indeed at all times, but this was when I felt most need of it — was eminently wise and tactful in its restraint ; he encouraged one to face difficulties of conduct with manly independence, and repressed egotistic whinings, yet not so as to make one feel any want of sympathy. . . .
The unhappiuess of which he speaks was probably
1 Life of Archbishop Benson, vol. i. p. 147.
2 Rev. C. Evans, afterwards Headmaster of King Edward's School, Birmingham, and later Canon of Worcester, died 1904.
1852-55, AGE 14-17 HENEY SIDGWICK 9
not serious, and can easily be explained by the cir- cumstances. An exceptionally clever boy of fourteen, rather unusually devoid of aptitude for school games, with good health, but lacking in physical vigour, from his childhood an omnivorous reader, and in his first year at school placed in a very high form, would anywhere be likely to feel rather solitary;1 particularly in a boarding-house which then, and for many years afterwards, was conspicuous for its eminence in athletic sports, and probably contained some rough elements. But this was only a temporary phase.
In June 1853 his mother moved from Bristol to Rugby, and for the next two years Sidgwick lived at home. It was arranged that Benson also should take up his abode with the family of cousins. It was a large and busy household ; but Sidgwick records that " through [Benson's] talk in home life, his readings aloud, etc., his advice and stimulus abundantly given tete-a-tete, his intellectual influence over me was completely maintained."
The strength of this influence is easy to under- stand. There was a warm personal regard on both sides, in addition to the close relationship. Benson was a keen young master, just discovering his own powers to teach and impress his pupils, and he was brought into daily contact with a remarkably thoughtful, studious, and receptive boy, who yet needed much guidance that the elder was zealous to give. It is not surprising that the impression made on the younger of the two was deep and lasting. Of Benson's teaching he says (p. 148) : —
His grasp of concrete details in any matter that he studied with us or for us was remarkably full, close, and vivid : and his power of communicating his own keen and subtle sense of the literary quality of classical writings,
1 H. G. Dakyns recalls that Sidgwick was found on one occasion taking a solitary dinner at the confectioner's — a fact suggesting some discomfort in the boarding-house arrangements.
10 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, i
and also of using them to bring the ancient world lifelike and human before our minds, was unrivalled. In these points I felt that the occasional lessons he gave the Sixth far surpassed any other teaching I had at Rugby — or indeed afterwards.
As an instance of this vivid teaching, Sidgwick remembers a single incidental lesson given to the Sixth on the Birds of Aristophanes, where the master dramatised the comedy for the boys with voice and gesture, which clearly threw a new light on the play, and " simply showed me how to read " the poet. Another memory gives us a glimpse of rather deeper things. At the end of a lesson on Tacitus, after Benson had made the boys feel " the gloomy indigna- tion " of the historian at the corruption of his times,
he, closing the book, reminded us how the Founder of the religion that was destined to purify the old civilised world was at this very time on earth. It was only a couple of sentences, but I remember going away startled into a reverent appreciation of the providential scheme of human history which was not soon to be forgotten.
On the predominant power of this influence during the years 1852-57 — an influence not confined to intellectual and moral matters, but extending to practical decisions — Sidgwick speaks in explicit and emphatic terms (pp. 150, 151): —
His unquestioned rule over my mind was not in the least maintained by fear. . . . When I did what he advised — in matters outside the school regulations — it was not from awe of him and fear of blame, but from a conviction that he was right and a desire to be like him. I remember that in my last year at school the Headmaster [Dr. Goul- burn] wanted me to go up for the Balliol Scholarship : it was a tradition at Rugby that promising boys were to compete for this. I talked to E. W. B., he carefully abstained from deciding and said it was for me to choose.
1852-55, AGE H-17 HENRY SIDGWICK 11
But I knew he was enthusiastic in his affection for Trinity : and though the distinction of the Balliol Scholar- ship tempted me, I felt I must go to Trinity, and refused without hesitation.
I went up to Cambridge in October 1855 : but still for the first half of rny undergraduate time his influence over me was stronger than that of any one else. ... I had no other ideal except to be a scholar as like him as possible. Then, in my second year at Cambridge, I began to fall under different influences, which went on increasing till I was definitely enlisted as an " Academic Liberal." . . . This led inevitably to a profound change in my relations to E. W. B.
Of Sidgwick's progress at Rugby little need be said. He went rapidly up the school, taking various prizes ; and the chief thing in which he differed from the ordinary successful schoolboy was his unusually wide reading, his exceptional taste for poetry, and the fact that his talent for mathematics was quite as noticeable as his proficiency in the classical studies. After one year in the Sixth, being then seventeen and one month, he defeated all his seniors and took the first exhibition. There was some discussion as to whether he should nevertheless stay another year — as was often the custom for a young clever boy to do ; but on the whole it was decided that he should go at once to Cambridge. In after years he expressed a strong opinion that it would have been better, probably for his studies, and certainly for his health, if he had stayed.
He has been described above as showing during his school days a certain want of physical vigour, and no special aptitude for games. It was not that he disliked them as such, or kept wholly aloof from them at school — which even fifty years ago was hardly possible for a schoolboy. He learnt to swim and skate, to play cricket, football, and fives, etc., like
12 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, i
other boys, but he never had the abounding physical energy, the keen love of enterprise and adventure, which prompts the normal boy to be always doing something active, and often rather overdoing it. On the other hand, he had from his early childhood a quite extraordinary delight in reading — certainly far beyond any of his companions either at home or at school. On one occasion, when some Christmas tableaux vivants were being rehearsed, in which the part of Sir Nicholas Blount had been assigned him, he was discovered in a showy Elizabethan doublet, sword, and ruffles, reading a Waverley novel on the stairs, in entire abstraction from what to the others was the engrossing interest of the coming exhibition. Anyhow, both his physical and mental qualities tended constantly to keep him somewhat aloof from the more active family and school occupations ; and another weight was thrown into the same scale in his twelfth year by a sudden attack of hay fever, an ailment which continued more or less to the end of his life to incapacitate him for outdoor activities during the best weeks of the early summer.
For games of the quieter kind he not only had no distaste — it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that he had more interest and aptitude for them than any British boy then extant. These belonged to the intellectual side of amusement, where his desire for mastering ever new fields was catholic and unfailing. His nursery inventiveness has been mentioned above ; and he was particularly inexhaustible in extemporis- ing marvellous tales. A little later, in the early fifties, he turned his attention to cards ; and his juniors remember being initiated by him (among other games) into the mysteries of the obsolete quadrille, which is well known from Cranford. The rules apparently he had lighted on, no one knew where, in the course of his studies. Here, moreover, not research alone was required ; his talent for
1852-55, AGE H-17 HENRY SIDGWICK 13
diplomacy was also needed, and was ready at the call. Among the tabooed horrors, like the public schools and (at a later date) tobacco, cards were naturally included ; and his younger accomplices recollect the quiet mixture of innocence and skill whereby he averted danger, and obtained a working concession from the domestic authorities.
Among the minor home amusements in the Rugby Christmas holidays was that of play-acting — as in any other household where lively youngsters abound. This was much promoted by the presence in the next house of a family of five schoolfellows about the same age as the Sidgwicks, including Henry Sidg- wick's intimate and life-long friend, H. G. Dakyns, who was conspicuously the best performer of the youthful troupe. Sidgwick took a keen though placid interest in these shows, and was always ready to help. On later occasions some published farce was given ; but at first the managers were more ambitious, and Dakyns and Sidgwick undertook to write a drama, including some actual songs. The audience were entirely composed of the elders of the two families ; and in the absence of any evidence we may perhaps conjecture that the piece had a succes d'estime. Of the drama itself four pages remain, printed by one of the boys ; and a kind critic might infer that the authors had been studying Goldsmith's comedies.
It is perhaps a little surprising that until he went to college Sidgwick was never known (with this and two other exceptions) to have followed the usual practice of clever children with an early developed fondness for literature, and to have attempted original composition. The first exception was a resolve, announced at the age of seven, that he would write a story. The family tradition is that the title was, " Walter Edwards, by a little boy of seven years old " ; that at least one line of the story was written, though probably not more ; and that, puffed up by some
14 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, i
injudicious visitor's praise, he one day tried to relieve the tedium of a somewhat stiff tea-party by suggest- ing that he should bring down his unfinished work. Of course the sensible mother suppressed the obtrusive infant ; he retired apparently hurt in his feelings, and decided to throw no more pearls before an illiterate public. The other exception was an early poem which he found many years afterwards among old papers, and described as consisting of bad rhymes and precocious sentiment.
The reason for this comparative poverty of pro- duction is probably quite simple. He was not an ambitious boy, except so far as he was always thoughtful, keenly interested in the world of things to be known, and gifted with an intense intellectual curiosity. It is not surprising that in the earlier stages of his mental growth his desires were rather to explore than to produce ; and this was really due to the activity and higher quality of his mind rather than to any lack of vigour or initiative.
Of his school friends a brief word may be added. He was only at Rugby three years, a very much shorter time than was or is the case with most boys who reach the top of the school ; and during part of the first year he was, as we have seen, somewhat solitary. But not a few of his lifelong friendships began at Rugby. Besides H. G. Dakyns, with whom for forty- eight years he had the closest and most continuous intercourse, there were older boys, above him in the school, like Charles Bo wen and Thomas Hill Green, both valued friends in after days ; H. W. Eve and F. E. Kitchener, afterwards with him at Trinity ; Charles Bernard and C. H. Tawney, who had been schoolfellows at the Bristol day school ; and several of the boys who lived in Rugby, whose companionship (after 1853, when the Sidgwicks settled there) was available in the holidays. But it is plain from his own clear and emphatic statement, given
1855-56, AGE 17-is HENEY SIDGWICK 15
above, that in the three years of his Rugby life the main influence was not that of his school friends and contemporaries, but rather the young cousin and master, afterwards to be his brother - in - law, who during the last two years was living in the same house. The points in which Sidgwick differed from other boys — his unusual ability and intellectual curiosity, his passion for reading, and his lack of interest or aptitude for some of the more active pursuits of the ordinary boy — all tended to make natural the close tie with one only a few years older, to whom he owed much, whom he deeply admired, and whom it was his strong ambition and hope, at this time, to follow and resemble.
In October 1855 Sidgwick began his residence at Cambridge, which was destined to be his home for forty-five years, until his death in 1900. In those days there were no entrance or minor scholarships, whereby a boy coming up from school could take from the first the position of a scholar ; and in the case of Trinity College not even the most distinguished undergraduate could compete for a place on the foundation till the middle of his second year. Before that time Sidgwick had won two University scholarships ; the Bell in his second term, and the Craven — the annual blue ribbon of the classical studies — rather more than a year later. The Bell Scholarship, being confined to freshmen who were sons of clergymen, occasionally fell to men of less distinction ; but in 1856 at any rate the Bell scholars were the three best men of the year. There were two scholarships annually, and the first (in this year) was won by Arthur Holmes of St. John's College, who was afterwards Craven scholar, twice Porson prizeman, and second in the Classical Tripos ; while the second scholarship was divided between Sidgwick and J. M. Wilson of St. John's
16 HENRY SIDGWICK
(now Canon of Worcester), who in 1859 were re- spectively Senior Classic and Senior Wrangler.
The Craven Scholarship, at this time of the value of £75 annually, was open to all undergraduates and could be held for seven years. It was therefore, both in distinction and in value, far the greatest of University prizes. Holmes had already won it the year before; and so in 1857 the most formidable competitor was removed from the field. But all the best scholars of three years were sure to compete, and even fourth-year men on the brink of their Tripos occasionally entered, though they were very rarely successful. The scholarship was awarded to Sidgwick ; and E. E. Bowen of Harrow wrote (January 1901), shortly before his lamented death, the following genial account of the election :—
Our boat had been down the river, in one of the winter months forty-four years ago, and I was returning over Mid- summer Common with a rowing companion whose soul was above classics. But casually, and dropping for a moment the course of normal conversation, he said, " 1 see the Craven is out." " Who has got it ? " I asked, disguising as well as I could the circumstance, unknown to my friend, that I had been in for the examination myself, and had even ventured to look forward to the coveted distinction as possibly my own ; for the Craven Scholarship was the highest achievement open to undergraduates. " Oh," he said, " that young Sidgwick " ; and the subject dropped. " Young Sidgwick " was, I am glad to think, already a friend of my own, and one to whom the most disappointed of competitors would hardly grudge his victory : for he was the most dis- tinguished of a set of Rugby l men who had streamed into
1 It was observed that at both Universities the Rugbeians were about this time unusually successful in winning the highest prizes and honours. In the two years 1857-58 the Rugby men won the Ireland, Hertford, and Mathematical University scholarships at Oxford, besides the Xewdigate and Latin Verse ; and at Cambridge the Craven, two Bell scholarships, and the Davies. No doubt this was partly due to the accident of clever boys enter- ing at Rugby, but partly to the presence of unusually gifted or inspiring teachers on the Rugby staff, of whom the most remarkable were T. S.
.
•
of Har
'01), :he following
•
Slssvru cJ-idau'i
1857, AGE is-19 HENKY SIDGWICK 17
the universities of late, and his arrival had been heralded to us by examiners and tutors as that of one beyond the common rank.
The news of Sidgwick's success reached Rugby by telegraph, and his younger brother well remembers the pride and delight with which it was welcomed by the sixth form and the masters. Next day E. "W. Benson received the following letter — written in a rather youthful vein of elaborate humour : —
At 12.15 [P.M.] this morning [March 12] I was astounded by the appearance of the University Marshal in my rooms to communicate to me the exhilarating intelligence which I hope you received as soon as electricity could convey it. My first idea, although I had been thinking about the Craven lately a good deal, was a vague fancy that I was about to be hauled up for some offence committed against the statutes of the University. Soon, however, the benign and at the same time meaning smile of that remarkable personage conveyed a misty idea of some news divinely good. It was not, however, till the oracular words, " You are elected to the Craven Scholarship " had passed his lips that I realised the tremendous fact. I then gave a wild shriek, leapt up into the air, and threw up my arms above my head. . . . The worthy marshal, however, who is, I suppose, accustomed to all the various manifestations of ecstasy, remained imperturbable ; seemed loftily amused by my inquiring when I should call on the Vice-Chancellor, . . . and condescended to agree to come next morning to receive his sovereign,1 as I had no money about me.
"Well, I am still rather frantic, and am, I am afraid, writing rather nonsense, but that is no matter. ... I hope mamma did not think, on the first reception of the
Evans, G. G. Bradley, E. W. Benson, C. Evans, and J. C. Shairp. Among the Rugbeians who had recently left the school were A. G. Butler, C. S. C. Bowen, Horace Davey, Robinson Ellis, Thomas Hill Green, C. H. Tawney, E. H. Fisher, F. E. Kitchener, H. W. Eve, and H. Sidgwick.
1 The customary fee for the official who announced the award of prizes or scholarships, nominally optional, but really, of course, impossible to refuse.
18 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, i
dispatch, that ray own imprudence or Dr. Paget's mis- management had brought on an alarming relapse. . . .
The last sentence refers to his partial breakdown in health, on which a few words of explanation are required.
As a boy, except for the usual childish complaints and the hay fever in the early summer, he had had uniformly good health. But in his second year at College he suffered from an acute and prolonged attack of dyspepsia. This was aggravated, as he used to tell, by a very unwise regimen devised by himself at the beginning of his illness, before he had consulted a doctor. The attack lasted many months, and caused grave anxiety to his friends ; but he was finally restored to normal health by strict obedience to rules in the matter of diet and bodily exercise. He lived to sixty-two, and passed an exceedingly active life, doing a large amount of teaching, writing, reading, and administrative work of the highest and most exacting kind without any other serious illness or breakdown ; but still the traces of this attack remained to the end in occasional insomnia or recurrence of the old trouble, and in the constant need of care.1
His illness, while it lasted, was no doubt depress- ing, and for a time interfered with his work, but not seriously enough to affect his success in examination. As regards his reading, he had continued from the first to divide his time between classics and mathe- matics, and intended to enter for both Triposes. In these days the advance of both studies has made it practically impossible for a student to " read double " with any prospect of success ; and even at that time, since both examinations fell (with only a short interval between them) in the middle of the fourth year of residence, it was somewhat of an
1 Until his illness he had been in the habit of drinking only water — no tea, coffee, wine, or beer.
1857, AGE 19 HENEY SIDGWICK 19
undertaking to attempt both. Sidgwick's interest and quickness of mastery in both subjects enabled him to achieve success without undue strain, in spite of his illness. For active exercise he was restricted to the daily walk between two and four, which was then the common practice of the reading man who did not boat and could not afford to ride. It must be remembered that in the fifties at Cambridge boating was the only organised sport within the reach of everybody. There was no regular football ; cricket was confined to the May Term, and few colleges had their own grounds ; racquets and fives were only just beginning; croquet (if that can be called exercise), lawn-tennis, the bicycle, and polo were none of them yet invented. Sidgwick had no aptitude or liking for boating ; and even if he had tried it, the exertion would have been too great to be permitted after he fell ill. In one way the attack was a blessing in disguise, since it forced him to realise the importance of regularity in open-air exercise, which otherwise, with his insatiable intellectual curiosity and his ever-growing range and variety of interests, he might have been tempted somewhat to neglect.
Besides the three ordinary terms, the regular practice had grown up at Cambridge of making arrangements for those who wished to reside for some weeks in July and August. Scholars were considered to have the right to come up ; and of the rest the authorities chose those applicants who seemed most likely to benefit. Those who took part in these summer gatherings at Trinity would probably agree that no time in their undergraduate course was more profitable or more delightful. There were no formal duties, not even lectures ; everybody lived in College, and a reading man found many or most of his best friends at hand, without having to go to remote lodgings to visit them. There was plenty of time for
20 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, i
solid work in the morning and evening, and also for walks, bathes, canoeing on the river, or any and every form of summer pleasures and social intercourse. In 1857 Sidgwick thus resided "in the Long," and though no definite account remains, it is clear from the letters that he had enjoyed it much. In a metrical letter to E. E. Bowen (written in January 1859, after the latter had left Cambridge for a Harrow mastership) he appeals to him, in a passage at once playful in form but serious in feeling, as follows : —
And if a common friendship may die out, Then by all sacred sweet communion Between the witching hours of twelve and two, All burning words before the burning fire (For you would never spare your logs, you know), All quiet converse while we sipped our tea — Remember us, as we remember you !
These talks before the fire in the winter terms, or pacing the Great Court or Neville's Cloisters in the summer nights, who that has known them can forget? Four conditions are required for such intercourse to be at its best — the age of rapidly developing powers and interest, the leisure, the freedom, and, above all, the men. In University life all these conditions are present, in a degree that few can ever find again so fully realised and so easily available. And in the summer gathering the other conditions remain, and the freedom and leisure are largely increased. The thoughts, the tastes, the new conceptions and ideals of life, that are shaped or shadowed in such talk, are likely to be among the most fertile and permanent of impressions in after years.
In 1858 the programme was varied by a reading party at Oban. The party consisted of seven under- graduates, including (besides Sidgwick) Sir G. Young, C. H. Tawney, A. C. Humphreys (now Humphreys-
1857-58, AGE 19-20 HENKY SIDGWICK 21
Owen), and J. Peile. Several of their College friends were up at Cambridge for the vacation, and Sidgwick had undertaken, somewhat rashly, to write a journal, recording the doings of the Oban party, for the benefit of their friends at Trinity :—
The hapless men who toil from ten to two, Through a rank sewer drive a frail canoe, . . .
as a later poet belonging to the same group (G. 0. Trevelyan) described his friends who were keeping the long- vacation term at Cambridge in 1860. The journal, however, — as such things will — came to an abrupt end, the youthful editor finding letters less trouble, and more likely to evoke response. He writes to H. G. Dakyns (August 1858) : —
We are getting on here very well, working average hard in self-defence, as it rains all day, but playing whist to a fearful extent ; one day we had four rubbers ; that was when Hope Edwardes paid us a visit on his way to the scene of his ruralisation with Trevelyan and some Oxford men. They profess to be going to grind very hard, but we doubt it.
We have had tremendous fights about lodgings. . . . We have been dislodged [by our landlady] from two rooms upstairs, where we gloried in drawing and dining- rooms, into a schoolroom below. . . . Our landlady let half her rooms to another lady, and then proceeded to let the whole to us for two months, without saying anything about the previous arrangement, under the impression (it seems) that we should be accommodating and pay her the same price all along ; but for the rest of the acts that we did, and for the fights Young fought, and how he warred with the she-dragon, are they not written in the journal (q.v.) ? . . . We contrive to take pretty long walks sometimes, but it is better getting wet through in the mountains than in the flats. . . . Hammond l is a splendid coach. . . . Write and tell me all about you. . . .
1 J. L. Hammond, Senior Classic in 1852, a man of rare personal gifts and powers, whose comparatively early death in 1880 was a deplorable loss to friends and to the University.
22 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, i
He also writes (July 26, 1858) from Oban to
0. Browning : —
... I have had an amusing letter from Bowen, who describes himself as " eating the lotus " (which I am to understand " either metaphorically or as alluding to raspberries ") " under the paternal roof." I should be delighted if he could put on a spirt and get one of our many vacant fellowships. . . . We do a very fair amount of work, though sometimes we waste time in talking ; but it is very pleasant after the solitariness of Cambridge study, and seems to bring back old school times ; however, I mean to be more vigorous for the future.
I am bringing myself by dint of a course of Lucan and Pindar to a strong dislike of ancient poetry — not that I cannot see the beauty of both, but they are both so very hard, and there is such a ponderousness and want of grace about Lucan, and an artificiality and continued forced sublimity about Pindar, that wearies my soul. I wish every one who talks about " the Theban Eagle " was forced to read him through and pass an examination in him — every one since Gray, I mean, who (I suppose) really did understand him, and like him, and imitate him splendidly — with more taste, I should think, if considerably less talent ; but perhaps I shall be better disposed to him before I have done with him.
English literature we sternly abjure, and our sole recrea- tion (indoors), besides sociality, is a rubber of whist after dinner. I taught Tawney picquet the other day, and after a couple of games in which I beat him hollow, he pro- nounced that there " was not much play in it." Rather cool, was not it ?
Good-bye. Excuse my describing to you our scenery, etc., in this letter, as I have just been writing home about it, and my soul abhors saying the same thing twice.
Again, before leaving, to H. G. Dakyns (September
1, 1858):—
We are all of us popping off soon. Young goes to-
1858, AGE 20 HENRY SIDGWICK 23
morrow. . . . Tawney and Humphreys are either lazy or home-sick, and are going home as soon as they can. . . . Peile and I start next Saturday for Ballachulish, whence we have chalked out a tour for about five days, to be concluded by a walk in to Tawney's abode on Derwentwater, where I stay about ten days. ... I paid a visit last Saturday to Hope Edwardes and his party. I had a splendid evening walk of about fifteen miles through a romantic pass, beginning with sunset and ending with moonlight. Incontinent, I proceeded to play three rubbers of whist (in the midst of which delightful recreation I found them), and then went in for oysters and bitter beer, and then went to bed and felt happy.
The last passage is tolerably conclusive as to his recovered health. The effects of the 1857 attack could not have been much felt, at any rate in the Scotch air. C. H. Tawney remembers his saying that " he found it hard at first to bear the yoke" of the doctor's regimen ; but the yoke must have sat fairly easy on him at Oban. If at any time his illness had interfered with his cheerfulness, this too had been recovered, and on this point Mr. Tawney is very emphatic. He dwells on the
buoyant joyousness of his youth, and his delight in simple and harmless fun. ... I think [at Oban] he observed a very strict regimen, . . . but he was always full of fun and in a sunny frame of mind. . . . My recollections of him at Bishop's College, and Rugby, and Cambridge are that he was a most amusing companion. He seemed to possess an inexhaustible fund of merriment.
A cousin of Mr. Tawney's (Miss Bernard, now Mrs. Latham), who lived in the same house, insists strongly on the same point : —
We always considered Mr. Sidgwick, when we were all young together, as the most lively, interested talker we knew — interested in discussing anything and everything.
24 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, i
I remember one visit when he was an undergraduate [the 1858 visit to Oakfield, near Keswick, referred to above] he stayed some time, joined in everything the family did, and we considered — and I think a houseful of young visitors that we had thought so also — made everything he joined in more amusing. He suggested that we should get up tableaux vivants. ... It was in the same visit that one day I went to the drawing-room to help my mother receive some callers, and saw at the other end of the room Mr. Sidgwick asleep in an easy chair, dressed in an Afghan costume of white felt, belonging to my father, and wearing the fur cap belonging to it. ... I saw also that some one had come in ... and had put the reigning kitten on the top of the fur cap, and there she was asleep, and Mr. Sidgwick asleep under her. . . . When he awoke he wasn't the least discomposed by any of the circumstances.
These are trifles, but they go to make up the remembrance I have of his being such a charming visitor, always amusing, and always making himself at home with us.
On other occasions when he was staying with us I remember on wet days his hunting up some of us and proposing a discussion . . . and discuss we did ! We were a large family party, and sometimes he would be the only outsider. . . .
Another side of the Oban life is well touched by Dr. Peile, who writes (Cambridge Review, October 1900) as follows: —
When our work [at Oban] was done, we went together by Glencoe and Kannoch through Perthshire, and formed that intimacy which a walking tour specially fosters in young men. I remember pleasant discussions on literature — the Greek and Latin on which we were then chiefly engaged. He was in those days a keen composer in verse, and I have still some of his translations from Tennyson into very Euripidean iambics. But we certainly discussed Tennyson much more ; we both knew In Memoriam well, and Sidgwick was especially fond of the prelude. It ex-
1858, AGE 20 HENEY SIDGWICK 25
presses very nearly, I think, his theological standpoint at that time : and his comment on it ... in the Life of Lord Tennyson . . . shows strikingly how the old associations clung to him when his standpoint had changed. I knew nothing then of Browning — but he did, and I can still remember how he declaimed the " Lost Leader." To recite poetry . . . was a pleasure to him all his life. . . .
And few men, he might have added, ever had a memory so richly stored with poetry, or could recite so well. Frederic Myers, an intimate friend and himself a born poet, in the fervent and eloquent tribute to his memory written for the Society of Psychical Research and reprinted in his Fragments of Prose and Poetry, goes so far as to say that he has " never known man or woman who could recite poetry like him." And another friend has described how long hours of walking in Switzerland were beguiled by his repeating, without effort or pause, poem after poem from his inexhaustible stores.1 In later years he gave lectures from time to time — mostly to the Newnham students, but occasionally elsewhere — on the English poets. The MSS. of some of these remain, either complete or in the form of notes ; but the quotations are never written out. It was his habit to trust to his memory, and, as many a hearer felt, no part of the lectures was more enlightening or impressive.
The following passage from the letter of E. E. Bowen (quoted above) refers to Sidgwick's under- graduate years or shortly afterwards, and it illus-
1 His friend, G. 0. Trevelyan, once crossed the Channel with him in bad weather, and during the whole passage Sidgwick stood on deck reciting English poetry with emphasis and gesticulation slowly to himself. He had explained before starting that this singular practice had been recommended to him as a preventive against sea-sickness. When they reached France, he told Trevelyan he had "nearly got to the end of his English poetry, and, if the voyage had been longer, he would have had to begin on other languages. " Trevelyan carefully tested the speed of recitation by a watch, and estimated that about 2000 lines had been recited between Dover and Calais.
26 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, i
trates and helps to complete the picture given of him by other friends of that time : —
Within his first few years after leaving school there were but few branches of knowledge and human interest into which he had not plunged. . . . Perhaps I should except the world of sport, which he regarded not indeed for a moment with contempt, but with an amused and large-hearted tolerance quite his own. In intellectual matters I should put down, as his first and supreme characteristic, candour. It seemed to me then, as it does now, something morally beautiful and surprising ; it dominated and coloured his other great qualities — those of subtlety, memory, boldness. And the tolerance of which I have just spoken was in the next degree his most striking attribute. Perhaps pure laziness was the shortcoming for which he had least sympathy; but he seemed to make, as a very great mind does, allowances for everything; he was considerate and large-hearted because he saw so much.
A younger generation cannot well realise how bright and cheerful a companion he was in early years. In the spring of life he could be versatile and gay with the rest : abundant in quiet humour: not boisterous, as many or most, but full of playful thoughts and ready for the mirthful side of things as well as the serious. ... I have a delightful recollection of a short knapsack tour that we had together in South Wales : some of the best bits of the grand Cardigan Bay are inseparably connected in my mind with him. I remember one little inn where we stayed to get lunch ; . . . something suggested a quotation from Horace, and that another, till we fell to an eager competition as to who could begin some stanza of the Odes that the other could not finish ; . . . the attack and defence beguiled the hungry interval, and indeed raged so hotly that the face of the landlord when he entered with our meal was that of a man who thinks he is witnessing a scene neither comprehensible nor perfectly sane.
Besides the University examinations, which were
1858, AGE 20 HENRY SIDGWICK 27
(for Sidgwick's year) now looming in the near future, there was at Trinity an annual College examination then called ' the May,' in which the men were classed and various prizes awarded. The list of 1858 con- tains Sidgwick's name as a winner of five prizes. In the same year he and his friend, G. 0. Trevelyan, divided between them Sir William Browne's prize for Greek and Latin epigrams. These, being University prizes, had to be recited at the annual summer degree-day, called at Cambridge the Com- mencement, apparently because it fell at the end of the academic year. It was not in those days a lively or brilliant occasion, for the simple reason that it was held (by old custom, now altered) in the vacation. Even the prizemen who recited poems and received medals were allowed to appear by proxy, and the two Browne's medallists of 1858, being both in Scotland on reading parties, availed themselves of this per- mission. The proxy on this occasion was 0. Browning, and in the letter to him from Sidgwick, above quoted, occurs this playful passage : —
I write in fulfilment of my promise, and also to thank you for the Senate House performance. . . . By the bye — excuse a pardonable curiosity — but have you got my medal ? What is it like ? and how big is it ? I received from the Guardian of the following day the startling intelligence that " H. Sidgwick and G. 0. Trevelyan recited their epigrams in the Senate House, etc."
Sidgwick came back in October for the last term of study before the two fateful examinations.1 Every one knew that in the Classical Tripos he could not
1 One little incident of this term we may be excused for recording. Sir G. Trevelyan writes : "In 1858 Macaulay sent me his famous biography of William Pitt in slips. I remember Henry and me kneeling on chairs at the table and reading it greedily through, then and there, from beginning to end. When we came to the passage, ' It is not easy • to compare him fairly with Ximenes and Sully, Richelieu and Oxenstiern, John De Witt and Warren Hastings,' Henry said in a plaintive voice, 'I don't want to compare him with Ximenes or Sully, Richelieu or Oxenstiern, John De Witt or Warren Hastings.' "
HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, i
be lower than second in the first class ; and in mathematics he was sure of a Second Class (technically called Senior Optime), which was a necessary con- dition of competing for the Chancellor's Medal, the last classical distinction open to undergraduates. In regard to the Mathematical Tripos his own forecast appears in the metrical letter to his friend E. E. Bo wen, quoted above. After discussing his friends' chances he continues : —
" What of yourself ? " — Of me ? Why, as for me
I have not pored in vain the classic lore,
But learned contentum parvo vivere.
A modest Senior Op. will crown my hopes.
In both contests he surpassed these expectations. In January he came out 33rd Wrangler (almost the same place as his father held thirty years before) ; and in the Classical Tripos he was first, and also won the first Chancellor's Medal. When the list was read Sidgwick was not in Cambridge, but his friends flocked to the Senate House to hear the result. The contest between him and Holmes was also a battle between the two old rival Colleges, Trinity and St. John's, and there was a general feeling that either might win. The following from G. 0. Trevelyan pictures the scene with much vigour, and what we may call " local colour": —
CAMBRIDGE UNION SOCIETY, 1859.
DEAREST SIDGE — "Toss him up, and three cheers," as we used to say when the Eton Captain was caught at long- leg. Tawney and I came into the Senate House a second late, and found a collection of men cheering at the pitch of their voices. Then came " Holmes of John's," and a faint Johnian cheer, and we saw how the matter stood, and shouted till the whole place rang again. The Johnians have entirely subsided. We sympathise a good deal with you, as you have often expressed your fear of this con- summation. Three times three for Hope Edwardes ! And,
1859, AGE 20-21 HENEY SIDGWICK 29
oh ! A is bracketed with B , who has hitherto
talked of him as the greatest fool in the University !
Why did you absent yourself? Your presence would have been the last drop in the cup. ... If you are at Lugano in September, shall you mind my joining you for a week or so ? — With much love, I remain, ever yours most sincerely, G. 0. TREVELYAN.
For Sidgwick the year 1859 was to prove un- usually eventful, considering how even, on the whole, the flow of his life was destined to be : Wrangler, Senior Classic, and Chancellor's Medallist in the first term ; in June, the marriage of his sister to E. W. Benson, then first Headmaster of Wellington College ; in July, his first tour abroad ; in October, his election to a Trinity Fellowship ; then, in the Michaelmas term, he settled down, at the unusually early age of twenty-one, to his new life as an academic teacher, which lasted, with only the intermission of a single term, for forty-one years.
It remains to refer briefly to one more fact, of the first importance to his development during these undergraduate days — namely, his election in his second year to the society known as " the Apostles." He has described in general terms its character, and the effect of it on himself, in the autobiographical fragment which is printed at the beginning of the next chapter ; but it may be well to add a few more details as to the method and procedure of the society as it had become in Sidgwick's time.
The meetings were held every Saturday at 8.30 in the rooms of the " Moderator," that is to say, the man who was to read the essay. The business began with tea, to which anchovy toast was an indispensable, and perhaps symbolic, adjunct ; and then the essay was read, the "brethren" sitting round the fire, the reader usually at the table. Next came the discus- sion. Every one who was there stood up in turn
30 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, i
before the fire, facing the circle, and gave his views on the subject, or on the essay, or on the arguments used by previous speakers, or, indeed, on anything which he was pleased to consider relevant to any one of these. The freedom both of subject and of handling was absolute ; and not only did no one ever dream of violating this freedom or suggesting any limit to it, but every member would have regarded such an attempt as an attack on the ark of the covenant.
When the discussion was over the moderator replied, usually answering opponents, but in no way bound to do so, since he enjoyed the same absolute freedom of presentment as the rest. The society then proceeded to put the question. But the question as put was by no means necessarily in the same terms, and often not on the same issue, as the subject of the essay ; it was always formulated afresh. An attempt was usually made to pick out the deepest, or the widest, or the most interesting of the points raised (by moderator or speakers) during the evening ; but the statement of it was often so epigrammatic, cryptic, ironical, or bizarre, that the last state of that ques- tion was (to the outward eye) far indeed from the first. When it was at last formulated, presenting some simple alternative issue, every member signed, as on one side or the other, or as refusing to vote, in the page of the society's book where the meeting was recorded. Each member had the right to add a note to his signature, explaining, or further specifying his view, or modifying the apparent meaning of his vote. The notes often contained the most lumin- ous or interesting suggestions, couched usually in humorous or ironic form.
The subjects were chosen as follows : — At the end of each meeting, the man whose turn it was to "moderate" next week was bound to produce four subjects, from which the members chose one. It was usual, possibly in humorous imitation of the Greek drama, to have
1857-59, AGE 19-21 HENKY SIDGWICK 31
three serious questions, and the fourth playful. But the choice might as legally fall on the last one as on any of the others. The choice would generally turn on what each voter thought would produce the best discussion, though it was not at all necessary for the essayist to explain what line he would take, or even what the questions meant.
In selecting new members to keep up the numbers of the constantly changing society, the greatest possible care was taken. If a man was mentioned as likely, every member had to make his acquaint- ance, and not till this was done was any proposal for his election brought forward. The society was supposed to be secret ; but the secret was no doubt occasionally penetrated. In the close companionship of College life it was impossible for the same eight or ten men, usually more or less prominent in their own circles, to disappear every Saturday night with- out inferences being drawn. And when a new aspirant was being canvassed, he could hardly help being surprised that several men, most of whom, perhaps, he did not know, had suddenly sought his acquaint- ance, and that he was constantly meeting the same group in the rooms of one or other of them. Thus reticence in the company of friends who were not " brethren," and closed doors on Saturday night, were not enough to prevent shrewd guesses even at the time ; and biographies of earlier ' apostles ' have revealed a good deal since.1
That the society made some mistakes, both of omission and commission, in the selection of its members, no one looking back would deny. But in Sidgwick's day, though here and there it failed to secure a man of the highest gifts or promise, the society maintained a high level of ability, even if
1 The society is mentioned, or referred to, in Carlyle's Sterling, in In Memoriam (Ixxxvii.), in Dean Meri vale's Autobiography, and in the Lives of F. D. Maurice, Julian Fane, Tennyson, Sir James Stephen, and F. J. A. Hort.
32 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, i
it hardly reached the standard of the old days— the days of Tennyson, Hallam, Trench, Merivale, Thompson, Brookfield, Blakesley, and Charles Buller. Sidgwick says (in his Autobiographical Fragment) that his election to the Apostles had "more effect on his intellectual life than any one thing that happened to him afterwards." The phrase, striking and emphatic as it is, will be readily accepted by those who can remember or imagine the stimulus of such organised and regular discussions on a young man of high mental calibre and strong desire to know, when the disputants are at once close friends and intellectual equals or superiors.1 But there was another reason for this powerful effect described by Sidgwick which should not be overlooked, and that was the new influx of ideas, the activity of thought and discussion, the theological, scientific, and political changes, which marked the twenty years 1855-75. It is enough to give the names of Mill, Comte, Spencer, Strauss, Renan, Carlyle, Matthew Arnold, George Eliot, and Darwin, to remind younger readers how deep and wide and many-sided the intellectual movement was. The time was such that even sluggish minds were caught by the current and swept into new regions. It was not surprising that Sidgwick, with rapidly maturing powers, with new leisure, like-minded friends, and full opportunity of discussion, should feel at such a time an impulse which the tamer decades that followed could never again so powerfully supply.
1 In his cordial reference to Dr. Talbot (infra 403) he says, "We agree in two characteristics ... a belief that we can learn, and a determination that we will learn, from people of the most opposite opinions. 1 acquired these characteristics in the dear old days of the Apostles at Cambridge."
CHAPTER II 1859-1864
THE history of Henry Sidgwick's life from 1859 onwards can fortunately be followed to so great an extent in letters that have been preserved as to be presented in almost autobiographical form. But before turning to the letters we have an actual bit of autobiography which gives a clue especially to the ten years from 1859, when he took his degree, to 1869, when he resigned his Fellowship at Trinity— the period which in writing his reminiscences of his brother-in-law, Archbishop Benson, he called his " years of ' storm and stress ' as regards religious convictions and ecclesiastical relations." It was sug- gested to him during his last illness that if his strength did not return sufficiently to enable him to undertake severe mental labour, he might yet usefully write reminiscences which would be interesting. The idea pleased him, and he turned it over in his mind, with the result that about a fortnight before his death he dictated the following fragment — too quickly cut short by his increasing weakness.
My aim in what I am about to say now is to give such an account of my life — mainly my inner intellectual life — as shall render the central and fundamental aims that par- tially at least determined its course when apparently most fitful and erratic, as clear and intelligible as I can. That aim is very simply stated. It has been the solution, or con-
33 D
34 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP.
tribution to the solution, of the deepest problems of human life. The peculiarity of my career has been that I have sought light on these problems, and that not casually but systematically and laboriously, from very various sources and by very diverse methods. In my contributions to the Life of Edward Benson I gave an account of myself and my views at school and after my degree which I should like to be read by any one who may use this fragment for biographical purposes.1 I have noted the great change that took place about the middle of my undergraduate time. Up to that point I cannot remem- ber that I had formed any ambition beyond success in my examinations and the attainment of a Trinity Fellowship ; but in the Michaelmas term of my second year an event occurred which had more effect on my intellectual life than any one thing that happened to me afterwards : I became a member of a discussion society — old and possessing historical traditions — which went by the name of " The Apostles." A good description of it as it existed in his time is to be found in the late Dean Merivale's autobio- graphy. When I joined it the number of members was not large, and there is an exuberant vitality in Merivale's de- scription to which I recall nothing corresponding. But the spirit, I think, remained the same, and gradually this spirit — at least as I apprehended it — absorbed and dominated me. I can only describe it as the spirit of the pursuit of truth with absolute devotion and unreserve by a group of intimate friends, who were perfectly frank with each other, and indulged in any amount of humorous sarcasm and playful banter, and yet each respects the other, and when he discourses tries to learn from him and see what he sees. Absolute candour was the only duty that the tradition of the society enforced. No consistency was demanded with opinions previously held — truth as we saw it then and there was what we had to embrace and maintain, and there were no propositions so well established that an Apostle had not the right to deny or question, if he did so sincerely
1 Extracts from this have been already quoted in the previous chapter, and a further passage will be found at p. 39.
n HENEY SIDGWICK 35
and not from mere love of paradox. The gravest subjects were continually debated, but gravity of treatment, as I have said, was not imposed, though sincerity was. In fact it was rather a point of the apostolic mind to understand how much suggestion and instruction may be derived from what is in form a jest — even in dealing with the gravest matters.
I had at first been reluctant to enter this society when I was asked to join it. I thought that a standing weekly engagement for a whole evening would interfere with my work for my two Triposes. But after I had gradually appre- hended the spirit as I have described it, it came to seem to me that no part of my life at Cambridge was so real to me as the Saturday evenings on which the apostolic debates were held ; and the tie of attachment to the society is much the strongest corporate bond which I have known in life. I think, then, that my admission into this society and the enthusiastic way in which I came to idealise it really deter- mined or revealed that the deepest bent of my nature was towards the life of thought — thought exercised on the central problems of human life.
But many years elapsed before the consciousness of this led me to embrace the study of philosophy as my life's work. The reasons for this were partly financial. I had to earn my income, and I saw no prospect of earning it by teaching philosophy except through the mere chance that I might be elected to the single Cambridge professorship in the subject at a proximate vacancy. Though the Moral Sciences Tripos in its earliest form was instituted in 1851, it was supposed that the teaching required for it would be given by Professors, and there seemed no prospect of a Trinity lectureship being devoted to the subject. I had to accept the Classical lectureship that was offered to me in October 1859 if I wished to secure myself the possibility of working at Cambridge with an adequate income. This, of course, made it necessary for me to devote a considerable part of my time to classical study. I ought also to add that the first two years after my degree
36 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP.
I allowed myself to be seduced into private tuition as a means of increasing my income.
But Cambridge vacations being long, I still had a good deal of spare time, and it was not long before I began a more or less systematic study of philosophy, in the form of a study of J. S. Mill's works, who, I think, had attained, when I began my study, the full height of that remarkable influence which he exercised over youth- ful thought, and perhaps I may say the thought of the country generally, for a period of some years. No one thinker, so far as I know, has ever had anything like equal influence in the forty years or so that have elapsed since Mill's domination began to weaken. But the nature of his philosophy — the attitude it took up towards the fundamental questions as to the nature of man and his relation to God and the universe — was not such as to encourage me to expect from philosophy decisive positive answers to these questions, and I was by no means then disposed to acquiesce in negative or agnostic answers. In fact I had not in any way broken with the orthodox Christianity in which I had been brought up, though I had become sceptical with regard to many of its conclusions, and generally with regard to its methods of proof. Thus for several years the time that I devoted to the study of the questions of most serious concern was divided in a fitful and varying way between philosophy and theology, my most vital interest seeming to lie some- times in the one study, sometimes in the other. Add to this that under Mill's influence I was also strongly led as a matter of duty to study political economy thoroughly, and give no little thought to practical questions, social and political.
In 1862 I was powerfully impressed by Kenan's Etudes tfHistoire Eeligieuse, and derived from Kenan's eloquent persuasions the conviction that it was impossible really to understand at first hand Christianity as a historical religion without penetrating more deeply the mind of the Hebrews and of the Semitic stock from which they sprang. This led to a very important and engrossing employment of
II
HENKY SIDGWICK 37
a great part of my spare time in the study of Arabic and Hebrew. I may say that the provisional conclusions I had formed with regard to Christianity are expressed in an article on " Ecce Homo " in the Westminster Review [of July 1866].1 My studies, aimed directly at a solution of the great issues between Christianity and Scepticism or Agnos- ticism, had not, as I knew, led to a really decisive result, and I think it was partly from weariness of a continual internal debate which seemed likely to be interminable that I found the relief, which I certainly did find, in my renewal of linguistic studies.
From September 1862 — when I devoted every day and the whole day for five weeks in Dresden to the study of Arabic with a private tutor — for about three years, as I re- member, the greater part of my spare tune was devoted to the study of Arabic and Hebrew literature and history. I began even to think that I might perhaps attain one of the two professorships in Arabic which the University possessed, and formed a design of devoting myself to an elaborate compari- son of the Hebrew development of religion with Arabic Mohammedanism. I ought to mention that the final reason which seemed to make philosophy hopeless as a source of breadwinning was that the single chair of Moral Philosophy then expressly included Moral Theology. Hence it seemed most probable that a layman would not be appointed to it — still less a layman known to be unorthodox. No similar difficulty seemed to stand in the way of my obtaining one of the Arabic chairs. However, in the course of the three years I began to see clearly that the study of Arabic, pur- sued as it ought to be pursued by one who aimed at repre- senting it in the University, would absorb too much time, and draw me inevitably away from the central problems which constituted my deepest interest. I began also to think that the comparative historical study which I had planned would not really give any important aid in answering the great questions raised by the orthodox Christianity from which my view of the Universe had been derived. Was
1 Reprinted in the volume of Miscellaneous Essays and Addresses, 1904.
38 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP.
Jesus incarnate God, miraculously brought into the world as a man ? Were his utterances of divine authority ? Did lie actually rise from the grave with a human body glorified, and therewith ascend into heaven ? Or if the answers to these questions could not strictly be affirmative in the ordinary sense of the term, what element of truth, vital for mankind, could be disengaged from the husk of legend, or symbolised by the legend, supposing the truth itself capable of being established by human reasoning ? Study of Philosophy and Theology, which I had never abandoned, began again to occupy more of my time.
This made me willing to accept the examinership in the Moral Sciences Tripos in [1865], though it rendered needful a good deal of work. Then an unexpected chance of devoting myself to philosophy and yet making an income occurred. The authorities of Trinity, I think in 1867, offered a lectureship in Moral Sciences to me if I liked to exchange my Classical lectureship for it.1 Having thus to choose between philosophy and my vaguer ideas of Semitic history, I did not hesitate. I took the post offered me, determined to throw myself into the work of making, if possible, a philosophical school in Cambridge.
Meanwhile I had been led back to philosophy by a quite different line of thought from a practical point of view — that is, by the question that seemed to me continually to press with more urgency for a definite answer — whether I had a right to keep my Fellowship. I did my very best to decide the question methodically on general principles, but I found it very difficult, and I may say that it was while struggling with the difficulty thence arising that I went through a good deal of the thought that was ultimately systematised in the Methods of Ethics.
Here, unfortunately, Sidgwick's account of his life breaks off, or at least becomes too fragmentary to
1 Strictly speaking, there was no change in his appointment. He remained, as before, assistant tutor, but was asked to teach Moral Sciences instead of Classics. He appears, so far as can be ascertained from College records, to have begun lecturing on the Moral Sciences in the Michaelmas term of 1867.
ir HENKY SIDGWICK 39
reproduce verbatim ; but the following passage from his reminiscences of E. W. Benson amplifies it in some points, and gives a further key to much that appears in the letters to be quoted presently. He writes to A. C. Benson in 1897 : —
At the close of the earlier reminiscences . . . relating to your father as I knew him in my school days at Eugby, I hinted that before the end of my undergraduate career his intellectual influence on me had given way to that of a school of thought entirely alien to his. As I look back no-w- on this change, its rapidity and completeness seem to me surprising : — or rather, perhaps, they -would seem so, if I had not in later years had personal experience — from the opposite point of view — of similarly swift and decisive transfers of intellectual allegiance in the case of pupils of my own. I feel bound to make this clear . . . because one result of it is that — in spite of an intimacy never clouded by any consciousness of change in our relation of personal affection — my reminiscences of his talk and judgments as to his views in later years are rather those of an outsider, intellectually speaking. At the same time the very contrast between the workings of our minds often seemed to suggest to me a vivid idea of his. . . .
To explain more precisely the " contrast " of which I have spoken, I will begin by sketching briefly the ideal which, under the influence primarily of J. S. Mill, but partly of Comte seen through Mill's spectacles, gradually became dominant in my mind in the early sixties : — I say " in my mind," but you will understand that it was largely derived from intercourse with others of my generation, and that at the time it seemed to me the only possible ideal for all adequately enlightened minds. It had two aspects, one social and the other philosophical or theological. What we aimed at from a social point of view was a complete revision of human relations, political, moral, and economic, in the light of science directed by comprehensive and impartial sympathy ; and an unsparing reform of whatever, in the judgment of science, was pronounced to be not conducive to
40 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
the general happiness. This social science must of course have historical knowledge as a basis : but, being science, it must regard the unscientific beliefs, moral or political, of past ages as altogether wrong, — at least in respect of the method of their attainment, and the grounds on which they were accepted. History, in short, was conceived as supplying the material on which we had to work, but not the ideal which we aimed at realising ; except so far as history properly understood showed that the time had come for the scientific treatment of political and moral problems.
As regards theology, those with whom I sympathised had no close agreement in conclusions, — their views varied from pure positivism to the " Neochristianity " of the Essayists and Keviewers : and my own opinions were for many years unsettled and widely fluctuating. What was fixed and unalterable and accepted by us all was the neces- sity and duty of examining the evidence for historical Christianity with strict scientific impartiality ; placing our- selves as far as possible outside traditional sentiments and opinions, and endeavouring to weigh the pros and cons on all theological questions as a duly instructed rational being from another planet — or let us say from China — would naturally weigh them. . . .*
In the summer of 1859, after his sister's marriage on June 23, with Edward White Benson, he went abroad, first to Dresden to learn German, and thence to the Alps and North Italy. He visited Chamounix and its neighbourhood, and then joining one of his chief Cambridge friends, J. J. Cowell, at Zermatt, went round by the Monte Moro Pass to the Italian lakes, stayed at Milan, visited the battlefields of the just terminated war for the liberation of Lombardy from Austria, and returned by the St. Gothard Pass and the Lake of Lucerne. The following letter is written early in August to H. G. Dakyns : —
MY DEAR GRAHAM — " How doth the little busy bee
1 Life of Archbishop Benson, vol. i. pp. 249, 250.
1859, AGE 21 HENKY SIDGWICK 41
improve each shining hour ? " etc. I improve this one (an hour of digestion at the Hotel de Tete Noire — Tete Noire being the name of a pass between Martigny and Chamounix) in writing to you. ... I was too lazy to write at Dresden. The German literature was very fascinating, and when I had done my home work I always had concerts and gallery or something to go to. Besides, you never wrote to me. Never mind ; I hope you have had still better reasons than I have, and have been making se ven- league- boot - progress (excuse a German compound) in the classics. . . .
Cowell has never answered any of my letters, conse- quentementally I am in a state of complete doubt as to whether I shall meet him at all. I gave him the choice of Berne and Chamounix ; he was to decide ; he didn't, so here I am at Chamouuix — at least there are only four and a half hours more (which will be an awful grind with my knapsack, by the bye). . . .
I have written a good deal of poetry, and have at present the plots of two novels and one long poem in my head. But I fear they will come to nothing.
To E. W. Benson from Courmayeur, August 12
... I did not find at Dresden, even though I was alone, that the time made itself for letter-writing. I used to work religiously till 4 o'clock almost every day (with a break of one hour for dinner, and two hours three times a week for the Picture Gallery), and then, what with walking, bathing, and listening to threepenny concerts, it soon became supper time ; and after supper, of course, I went to bed in true German fashion, for I got up every morning at six.
I accomplished the reading and writing as well as could be expected ; in the speaking my progress was so-so ; but the thing which you will be perhaps surprised to hear has hitherto baffled all my efforts is the understanding the language when spoken. When a German talks to me I can understand him tolerably, with trouble, but when he talks to other Germans in my presence I am utterly at a loss. . . .
But I have got such a great deal to tell you about
42 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
Dresden. I liked Herr Schier very much — except his politics, which we stirred up one day when I had written a little political piece for a German exercise. He appeared to consider a decent despotism as the ideal government — very anti-German, I should have supposed. Otherwise we got on very well indeed, and he pronounced me " sehr fleissig" If he would only have put on a shirt every now and then ! But one can't expect perfection in this world. . . .
To his Sister, from Cambridge, September 27
. . . Now I know I have no right to complain of your not writing, as my hopes of your doing so rested entirely on my belief in your Benevolence and not on any Eight or Obliga- tion (excuse Dr. Whewell's phraseology),1 so I won't (after doing it for a page and a quarter) ; and supposing that you can conveniently receive me on Wednesday, 5th, I will keep my own adventures, or at least such of them as are interesting, for oral delivery. ... I arrived here on Satur- day. My examination begins on Thursday, so I have three days to " tone myself down." If I get a Fellowship I shall have to be up here on the 10th ; if not, I shall be able to enjoy myself (?) till the 15th, I believe, when I have to meet my pupils. " Wot a game it is," as Mr. Weller says. I always feel inclined to laugh when a man comes wanting me to take him as a pupil. . . .
I must now leave you for the Theory of Causation.
He was elected to a Fellowship and appointed Assistant Tutor, and on October 30, 1859, he writes to his sister :—
Behold that I have never written to you before ; very wrong, but my — hem — professional engagements must be pleaded as my excuse. If you could only see me taking my pupils, or my pupils taking — their hats off to me, the amount of respect that you no doubt already entertain for me would be considerably increased.
Time passes with flying step. I have got more work
1 Whewell's Elements of Morality was at this time prescribed for the study of undergraduates at Trinity as an introduction to philosophy.
1859, AGE 21 HENEY SIDGWICK 43
than I intended to take, but I enjoy it very much, and only regret that I have not much time for my private reading. Arthur [his brother] is happily installed in my old rooms.1 . . . I find I have left some letters. . . . Would you kindly let me have them, as the Ghost story that Mamma sent me was among them, and I value it, and should like to have it here. I have heard a couple of fresh ones from an Irish friend of mine here, who knows the subjects of them intimately ; Ireland appears to be a soil in which they flourish well. One of my rooms,2 in which I am now sitting, is beautifully cosy; I know in about a year it will break my heart to part with it. About this time I may as well thank you for your congratulations. . . .
He had before his degree joined the Ghost Society, which Archbishop Benson when at Cambridge had helped to found (see Life of the latter, vol. i. p. 98). Dr. Westcott, afterwards Bishop of Durham, while in residence at Cambridge, had apparently acted as secre- tary; and in 18 60, when he had left for Harrow, we find him sending Sidgwick a story, " produced by the old ' ghostly ' circular," and adding, " I trust I am right in believing you are still engaged in the pursuit of the question." This investigation of ghost stories was the beginning, so far as Sidgwick was concerned, of " Psychical Research," in which, as will be seen in the following pages, he was engaged, with brief intervals, during the rest of his life. The whole subject connected itself with his philosophical and theological studies. As he says, in the disjointed notes with which the auto- biographical fragment above quoted ends, comparative thaumatology required its investigation ; and, further, the possibility of direct proof of continued individual existence after death could not be neglected either from a theological or an ethical point of view.
To his Sister, a little later in the Term . . . My spiritual discoveries are rather languishing
1 Hostel A 4. 2 Nevile's Court, L 3.
44 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
at present. Uncle Robert kindly sent me a newspaper containing a poor woman's dream about her son's death — dreamt on the night of the wreck of the Royal Charter. It was curious, as the fulfilment was as yet unknown ; but still, considering how fruitful of dreams such a night must be, not very strong evidence. I have not heard anything as to the fulfilment.
Alas ! for my German, I am getting very lazy about it and forgetting it all . . .
Is not my handwriting degenerating ? It is the effect of hard work. I have got a young American [W. Everett] reading with me — a very nice fellow. . . . He has let me into a thing or two about America. I was thinking of emigrat- ing thither the other day when the press was full of those foolishly irritating articles which I thought would bring on a French war.1 I am not yet quite settled, but I think I shall at any rate wait till after Christmas. Our patriots here (the Rifle Corps) are in high glee because Prince Albert has taken them under his protection. They had been almost wet-blanketed by Lord Hardwicke (our Lord- Lieutenant), who refused to grant commissions to under- graduates. Insulting, was it not ? So the reaction of H.R.H.'s favour is great.
To the Hon. Roden Noel, tlun travelling in Syria, on February 18, 1860
Nothing but the fact that I am now bound, Ixion-like, on the gigantic wheel of an educational system, and in consequence whirled round day by day through a circle of fixed instructions, which leave me but little free volition — or, in other words, nothing but the fact that I am a busy assistant tutor of this college — should have prevented my answering your letter a week ago, or nearly so, as I re- ceived it Saturday last.
But how can I produce anything fit to be called an answer to you ? You take me through a number of dream-
1 The country had been roused to renewed distrust and suspicion of Louis Napoleon and France by the annexation of Savoy and Nice after the Italian war. Hence the volunteer movement of 1859.
i860, AGE 21 HENKY SIDGWICK 45
like scenes and experiences, investing them with a reality that they did not before possess, as clustering round you, whom I have actually seen and known and talked to and shared anchovy toast with.1 (You observe I speak only of physical facts.) They seem to partake of the certainty which your " entity " has for me.
This is in answer to the sophistry with which you began your letter — " that I could get facts from books of travels." I felt as if you were slaying me by my own weapons, as I have used the sophism before now to excuse my own laziness in my humbler peregrinations. Why, my brother,2 do you suppose it is the same thing even if I read an exactly similar description in a book ? Is Palmyra no more realisable when I picture you there, than if I connected it with Eliot Warburton, who may be a mere name ? Or did I believe in Kinglake's Beyrout, sheikhs, deserts, etc., so much as I do in yours ? If you hadn't delightfully belied your preface, I should have grumbled.
But what, I repeat, can I set before you in return ? The trivial oscillations of my external life ? or the vague, half-incomprehensible fluctuations of my inner being ? No, I will begin with our friends.
Alas ! you know the quick succession of human waves at the University ; there is no one here to whom I thought meet to show your letter. Brandreth is the only one of your fellow-apostles still in residence. . . .
Bowen is still a junior master at Harrow. He enjoys the work very much, and is, I think, eminently suited ; with his widely opened, keen, and graceful intellect he will never become odiously professional or shoppy as some men do, especially if they begin too young. He is very fond of boys, and gets on very well with them ; he has a perennial spring of boyishness in himself, which is the first, second, and third requisite for a schoolmaster, I think, for
Who boys would lead, himself should boyish be.
I sometimes think he is wasted there, as he has so much of
a certain kind of sparkling and versatile genius in him ;
1 See p. 29. 2 Both members of the " Apostles."
46 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
but, after all, as he himself says, " It is not every man's duty to seek to be famous."
Butler is, as I see you have heard, headmaster now at Harrow. I believe, from reports, that he is getting on as well as could be wished in every way ; but I have not got anything but business — scrap — letters since he went there from him. When Vaughan's resignation was known last year, everybody was sorry that it came so soon, as Butler, universally marked out as the fit man, was so young. This was, indeed, nearly deciding the election against him ; but I think no one who knew him had the least doubt that he was the best man for the place ; I have myself a perhaps extravagant belief in him. I think he only wants experience to carry on Vaughan's system of delicate and unremittingly careful management thoroughly well ; and he will add this important advantage, that no one will ever fancy him insincere. I never expect to see again a man so naturally formed to win " golden opinions from all sorts of people." I never heard of any man, even the most wholesale scoffer, saying a word against Butler. My only fear is that the work will age him prematurely, bodily and mentally ; it is such a tremendous load for a young man of twenty-six. Pitt was Prime Minister at twenty- three ; but Pitt was worn out at thirty-seven.
How much I miss him I can hardly tell you. I have such a number of thoughts, questions, doubts, difficulties, vague ideas and dreams that I can now tell to no one with the same certainty of affectionate interest and assistance. To most of my friends who have not yet left me stranded on the dry shore of collegiate superannuation I feel rather as if I ought to give advice instead of receiving it. Especially as my old loved counsellor Fisher l is also gone. He is in a somewhat unsettled state at present, as he missed his Fellowship last year when Bowen and I got ours, and is now reading in rather a vague way for the Fellowship Examina- tion next year. I don't like our Fellowship Examination
1 E. H. Fisher, old Rugbeian, who had been indefatigably kind to Sidgwick during his illness.
1860, AGE 21 HENEY SIDGWICK 47
system ; it keeps men reading away at the old things in a kind of restless, unprofitable way, and wasting the valuable time in which they might be preparing themselves for their work in life, whether professionally or as men. Fisher so disliked the thought of staying up here that he accepted the offer of Mr. Marshall, a merchant prince of Leeds, and became the tutor of a young Marshall — an office somewhat distasteful to him, I fear, but it leaves him plenty of time for reading. He will in time, I think, become a country clergyman, and, Heaven be praised, not a bigoted one. Excuse this burst, but the virulency of unreasoning orthodoxy is getting to disgust me more and more daily. In fact, my own great difficulty at present is the doubt as to whether I can put such fetters on the free expression of my religious belief as seems to be expected of a clergyman. This is one difficulty ; another is a lurking fear that I am really taking up this highest and holiest of professions as a pis oiler; I know that if I had had any opening, any interest, I should have tried to get into public life ; and I fear my ambition is only torpid from hopelessness and not eradicated.
I am generally in a somewhat turbid state as to my course of life. I have a dislike to being merely a dilettante student ; and yet, in these days of division of labour, when the stream of knowledge is widening day by day, it seems as if a man who wished to benefit mankind by study is forced so definitely to take up a speciality — a thing, again, that I am averse to doing. But I must [not] let my tur- bidity overflow on you.
Perhaps you would like to hear the present phase of the "Apostolic " Succession. We are : Brandreth, Sidgwick, Tawney, Browning, Cowell, Trevelyan, Jebb. The first four I think you just know. Cowell is a Westminster man and a Unionic speaker. Trevelyan you may know by report, a Harrow man and the nephew of Macaulay. He will be my chief friend when this last wave shall have burst, sweeping off Tawney, Browning, Cowell. The vicissitudes of human things affect even The Society slightly : at least
48 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
I think our discussions are less vigorous now than usual ; but the great Idea, which sits invisible among us, has, I trust, as potent a magic as ever to elevate and unite. . . .
Your account of Palestine and Palmyra almost recalled the old feeling of half -pleasant, half -painful longing (like a hungry man's reading about a feast) with which I used to devour Eothen and The Crescent and the Cross. . . . "Well, I wish you freedom from fevers, conquest over bronchitis, and that you may quarry countless treasures of learning from the neglected mines of the Royal tombs. If you throw any light on Platonic mysticism, bring out any esoteric doctrines that our uninitiated eyes are now blind to, why, we shall be proud of you as a man and a brother. Our discussions have of late taken a slightly political and social turn — for instance, I am now engaged on an essay on the " Over-population " theory — but every now and then we have a good speculation, than which nothing has a more rousing and quickening effect. I wish you could have discussed with us last term "Whether Life Culminated," viz. whether the noblest view of man's course inter utramque facem was not that of continued progress instead of first ascent and then descent. It was the last at which Butler was present.
. . . Would you like literary gossip ? I feel chatty now. You must know we have started a new monthly in Cambridge — Macmillan's Magazine, advertisements whereof almost paper Macmillan's shop, and are surreptitiously foisted into all his books sent out. It is pretty good, not equal to [the] other novelty, the Cornhill, edited by Thackeray. . . .
My literary dreams are crushed at present under the load of lectures and pupils. I like the work very much, and I think it is doing me good in one way, but I fear it is lowering me in another. I shall give up part of it soon.
. . . We, it is true, are mourning lost great ones, along with England ; Archdeacon Hardwicke and Sir James Stephen are both hard to replace in their way. But what
1860, AGE 21 HESTKY SLDGWICK 49
will the Muse of History do, now that Macaulay, Prescott, Hallam, have all died in one year ?
I hope to write to you again, possibly to hear from you. I am going to stay in England this summer, calmly to settle the questions that now agitate me, and, if I can, to read some Theology in the Long Vacation.
Farewell, to conclude this desultory epistle.
To E. W. Benson, on March 14 [1860]
I have not written to you this term, and though I am very hard-worked I am not so bad as all that. I enjoy Cambridge very much still, but somehow it seems to breed a kind of intellectual turmoil within me, and I shall not be sorry to get down for a while. I have quite fixed now only to take two pupils in the May Term, and no more after that for at least a year : during which time I hope to give myself a partial education in History and Philosophy. On the whole I have changed my idea of reading Theology this year : I cannot explain all my motives in a letter, but one of them is that I feel I should be more able to grapple with it after I had trained my mind in a more substantial branch of learning and a severer kind of thought than classics affords.
However, I am conscious of being in a somewhat unsettled state (which I hope is not undesirable for a little while, as long as one is considering what will influence one's whole life) : so I may change again.
... I have not been to a single College meeting yet from a kind of humility, as I know if I did go I should instantly become a strong partisan either of Beforin or Conservatism — not that there is much Eeform going on now except of the Hall. . . .
I hear Temple is going to bring out an essay in the heretical collection [Essays and Reviews']. I hope it won't be a bad thing for the school [Kugby], but really in the present state of public feeling to associate oneself with Jowett, Baden Powell, and Eoland Williams is a bold step to take. Perhaps if he brings out the sermons preached in
E
50 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
the Rugby chapel at the same time, it may counterbalance the tcaicrjv 0/uA.ww.1
. . . You know we (i.e. the Senate) have made the Moral and Natural Sciences Tripos confer a degree. J. B. Mayor sent round a convincing pamphlet to prove the claim of Morals. As all he had to prove was that that Tripos was a test of as much work as the Poll Exam., it wasn't hard to do. But if the University does not grow more " moral " soon, the change won't have much effect, as this year there are simply no candidates.
To his Sister on the same date
. . . The fact is that I have got a good deal engaged for the vacation ; I have asked a friend [G. 0. Trevelyan] to stay with me at Rugby for the week after Easter, and I am going down to examine at Harrow at the end of March. Don't think of me, you know of course, but just write and tell me your independent plans, and I will avariciously arrange to have as much time with you as I can.
I do not know whether you see Macmillan's Magazine : if you did, you would be perhaps indignant at discovering a present I once made you vulgarised in print. I mean my rhymes, "Wander, 0 wander." I told Mamma, and she wrote me a reproachful criticism for being so unfeeling towards the young lady ! — so much for one's irony. I intend to write her an indignant answer.
Have you ever seen Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter ? It is a wonderful work, and enchained even me, who am tolerably sated of novels now.
I am just getting to the end of my hard work, as the Littlego (which I never thought I should have reason to bless) begins on Monday. I am not worn to a Skellinton, but I shan't be sorry for rest. Good-bye.
The poem referred to was published in Macmillan's Magazine for March 1860. It runs as follows : —
1 " Evil company," from the line of Menander, <j>0dpovffi.v ^ 6fu\ia,i K.Kat, quoted by S. Paul.
1860, AGE 22 HENRY SIDGWICK 51
GOETHE AND FREDERIKA
i
Wander, 0 wander, maiden sweet, In the fairy bower, while yet you may. See, in rapture he lies at your feet ; Rest on the truth of the glorious youth, Rest — for a summer day. That great clear spirit of flickering fire You have lulled awhile in magic sleep, But you cannot fill his wide desire. His heart is tender, his eyes are deep, His words divinely flow ; But his voice and his glance are not for you ; He never can be to a maiden true ; Soon will he wake and go.
II
" Well, well, 'twere a piteous thing To chain for ever that strong young wing. Let the butterfly break for his own sweet sake The gossamer threads that have bound him ; Let him shed in free flight his rainbow light, And gladden the world around him. Short is the struggle and slight is the strain : Such a web was made to be broken, And she that wove it may weave again. Or if no power of love to bless Can heal the wound in her bosom true, It is but a lorn heart more or less, And hearts are many and poets few " ; So his pardon is lightly spoken.
In May 1860 Mrs. Sidgwick gave up the "Blue House " at Rugby, where they had all lived since 1853, and for two years had no fixed home. He writes to her at Beddgelert from Cambridge early in July : —
... I shall not come home [from Germany, where he was going] until I am forced, unless I can speak German perfectly — there's a resolution for you. I leave Cambridge to-morrow for London, there to meet a few friends attracted to the metropolis by the Eton and Harrow Match. My three weeks here have not been spent quite as I could wish, but still they have been profitable ; they have
52 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
at least kept me out of virulent hay fever. . . . Thanks for the Ghost story. Did I tell you I had had two at first hand by letter from a clergyman ? very remarkable ones. I will tell you them when we meet. Mind you shut up everybody who says that such stories can only be got from " cousin's cousin's friends " or such-like distant parties.
To H. G. Dakyns from London (J. J. Cowell's) a few days later
. . . For myself, I am going abroad in about a day or so (exact time, depending on Patterson, is more uncertain than Louis Napoleon's movements), going to fix myself at Berlin, and study German language, life, and literature for about six weeks ; then I am going to travel till the end of the Long in Germany. I hope to see many interesting towns, and to be able to do the Ehine lingeringly and jollily with all the grapes on the vines, and to come home reading and speaking German with nearly the same ease as English. If I do that I think I shall be able to keep it up for the future, as I should be sure to read German literature till I had exhausted it, if I could only read it with real comfort after Hall. Such are my views.
Do you know that I am considered at Cambridge to have become irretrievably donnish — probably I am the last person to hear of the fact, and am not the least amused by it — I dare say it is true, and it gives me another induce- ment to stay up at Cambridge and discover what are the internal arrangements of that being whose external pheno- mena I have so long gazed at with interest and admiration.
... I am in great uncertainty still as to my future life, but as I have a golden rule never to think about myself for more than half an hour in the twenty-four, it does not interfere either with my work or my enjoyment.
My time of reading at Cambridge was considerably shortened ; but as I have a fixed determination to take no more pupils it does not so much matter, as I shall have plenty of time for reading next term.
Good-bye. I am too stupid to write a good letter.
i860, AGE 22 HENRY SIDGWICK 53
To his Mother on July 19, 1860
I am staying now with my friend Cowell, who is living here now en gar$on, as his family are gone to Norway. I am enjoying myself a good deal as London is always delightful to me ; what it might be if I stayed longer than a fortnight I do not know. I went to see Holman Hunt [The Finding of Christ in the Temple] again. I think the picture improves every time I go, and has given me more pleasure than any other I ever saw, except, perhaps, the San Sisto.
What do you think ? to-night I am going to witness some spirit-rapping. I do not know the least what pheno- mena I shall see, but I intend to have as absolute proof as possible whether the whole thing be imposture or not
Poetry. I have no ' afflatus ' now ever, and I can't write any except I have : I am getting prosy generally. . . . Well, I do not much care ; life gives me a great deal of happiness, though of a quieter kind, perhaps, than is usual at my age.
. . . The Saturday Review is so good now; it is the great thing I regret in leaving England, as I don't expect to find it in Berlin.1
To his Mother from Berlin, August 8 ... I travelled hither by Antwerp, Aix, Hanover, and Magdeburg. I was fortunate enough to come in for a remarkable ceremony at Aix, one that lasts for three days and occurs only once in seven years — the showing of the Greater Relics. It was a striking but melancholy sight. From ten to twelve all the space round the Cathedral from which any sight of the Tower Gallery could be obtained was crammed with pilgrims all too poor to go into the Cathedral afterwards, for which Is. was charged. The Tower Gallery was the scene of the procession, consisting of the relics and relic- bearers and a crowd of attendant priests, clothed, I suppose,
1 This was still the heyday of the Saturday Review. Men like Maine, Harcourt, the two Bowens, Freeman, the late Lord Salisbury, Mark Pattison, Mr. John Morley, Mr. Goldwin Smith, and the two Stephens were writing for it about this time.
54 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
appropriately. I brought away a couple of memorials in the shape of little tin medals piously commemorative of the occasion. I went into the Cathedral afterwards in the midst of a mass of one-shillingers and saw the relics, which I need not describe. The Cathedral itself is a striking one, but its effect was spoilt in my eyes by the number of tawdry flags intended to decorate it inside. On either side of the principal relic, which was called a shift belonging to the Virgin Mary, sat two priests, who every minute received handfuls of rosaries from the passing throng, which they applied to the relic and then returned. The contrast between the intense reality of the people's devotion and the wretched anachronism of its object might have made me laugh ; but it didn't, it made me very sad.
I had my hay fever bad in Aix, so I chose to go by night to Hanover; so I lost the country on the whole. However, I felt the magic of the Khine when I crossed it at Diisseldorf, and woke up for a couple of hours of con- siderable interest before reaching Hanover. . . .
To his Sister from, Berlin
I have not kept my promise, have I ? You see I have been bothered and unsettled since I came to Berlin, and hoping, like Mr. Micawber, that something would turn up. Something has turned up now, and I am living en famille with Dr. Liidde-Neurath, 1 Markgrafen Strasse.
It is very simple and homely, but pleasant for a change ; everybody " gemiithlich," which is as untranslatable a word as " comfort " in English — " genial " comes nearest. The cheapness is wonderful, especially as Berlin is a dear town for Germany. I have a big room to myself, with a fine prospect ; and I get boarded and instructed as well (not by the Dr., but a regular teacher) for under £10 for six weeks. I can converse without much trouble, though I find it very hard to make a joke or to tell a story ; in matters of food or politics I am tolerably at home.
Patterson, who went out with me, conceived, I regret to say, an infinite disgust of Berlin, the Germans, their
i860, AGE 22 HENKY SIDGWICK 55
manners, customs, and language. Consequently I could not prevail on him to stay above a fortnight here, and then he went off to tour on his own account ; so I am thrown entirely on my own resources, which is at least good for my German. Our conversation used always to be carried on in the same strain, I doing the enthusiastic traveller, he the cynical. For instance : —
S. " The reason that I admire this town is that it is such a splendid example of human effort unassisted by nature — such a complete creation."
P. "Well, after the Creation there should have come a Deluge to clean the streets."
And it must be confessed that the drainage is a weak point in Berlin.
I am a wretched man for seeing sights, but I did go and see Potsdam the other day, and was very much pleased. . . . The palace in Potsdam is both prettier and more interesting than the Schloss in Berlin, the latter as con- taming remains of Frederick the Great. His sword was carried off by the Abhorred One — the uncle of " Him," as the comic paper always styles Louis Napoleon. It is quite wonderful what intense hatred burns in the German mind against the name of Napoleon. . . .
I gained nothing from my spirit-rapping but experience in the lower forms of human nature : the woman was a complete humbug. This does not in the least shake my (qualified) belief in spirit-rapping, as I hold that where there is flame there must also be smoke. She accomplished, however, some very remarkable liftings of the table, which I am almost compelled to attribute to a concealed machine, as they must have required more strength than she was pos- sessed of, however great her sleight of hand may have been. Some remarkable dents were afterwards discovered under the foot of the table, which tend to confirm this theory.1
. . . Try sleeping between two feather beds, nothing else — only try it, that's all.
1 The sitting had taken place at Cowell's house.
56 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
To his Mother (on hearing of the birth, on August 19, of his nephew, Martin White Benson)
... I cannot say that I had been anxious, as I fear I anticipate the best now as a matter of course, having enjoyed unbroken prosperity. However, I need not say that I was very glad to receive your letter. You and Minnie, however, I cannot the least realise, under the new circumstances : I have tried, but found it in vain : I shall require to see the darling girl again first before I can screw up my imagination to the facts. The only picture that presents itself as lifelike to me is Elizabeth ; l I can see her now smiling and making subjunctive observations. Give Minnie my love, congratulations, and best wishes. It makes me feel old, however. I make remarks to myself on the subject in the character of a bachelor uncle of at least fifty years of age. By that time, perhaps, if I live and have done my duty, the unconstrained mirth which I lost prematurely may have come back to me; but I do not know why I am getting on this topic, only a variety of events have lately occurred which make me feel how unlike my youthful dreams are to those of the majority of man- kind, and wonder into what eccentric mould I shall ultimately harden.
I have not much more news for you, at least only pictures of ' still life ' now. I have fallen by chance upon a family which is just such a one as I would have chosen — more German than most in Germany, I should think. Tight poverty (they only keep one servant, a maid of all work ; we have no wine, beer, or pudding, etc. The mother and daughters are all the morning engaged in ' household duties,' viz. cooking, sweeping, etc., and in dresses that most servants in England would not wear), thorough uncon- strained geniality, and considerable intellectual cultivation. As regards means, just larely in the rank of gentlemen, yet without the least particle of proud humility, or any other English unpleasant accompaniment of genteel poverty. The son is serving as a volunteer now — serving his year (for all
1 His old nurse.
i860, AGE 22 HENRY SIDGWICK 57
Prussians are obliged either to serve three years as regular soldiers, or, if they can afford it, one year as volunteers). He has accordingly sometimes to get up at three o'clock in the morning to be on parade in time ; and as the duty of awaking him falls on his father the doctor, and as also the latter is obliged often to do two or three hours of head- work at night, the result is that his quantum of sleep is often less than Bishop Ken's. However, he is always equally genial and cheerful and capable of philosophical conversation. . . .
My chief amusement is the theatre, of which there is a large number in Berlin ; some very good comic acting, and respectable tragic, but the man who takes the principal parts is unendurably ' loud', in all senses of the word.
My teacher I like very much, a keen, active, lively, learned young German. I am going out a walk with him now, and must conclude.
To his Sister
... If you want an easy and delightful German book to amuse yourself with, purchase some of Tieck's Novellen. They are written in a beautiful flowing style, like limpid gold, and worked up with a rare perfection of art. He is my only new acquaintance in the belles-lettres line.
I was much amused lately by seeing an Englishman represented on the German stage. He appeared in a suit of perfect white, coat and all, was very calm and deliberate in all his movements, and unconsciously coolly impertinent in his observations. . . . The Englishman always appears in the German comedy, (1) when any eccentric bet is required for the exigencies of the plot, (2) when anything especially mad, which also necessitates a lavish expenditure of money, has to be done ; then steps in the Englander with his sovereigns.
. . . Employed as I am now I have no impulse to indulge in composition, and indeed I have conceived too hearty a contempt for all the products of my own brain to regret this at all. Perhaps after a thorough surrendering
58 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
of my soul to the contemplation of great models I may be qualified to produce something better. . . .
To his Mother from Dresden, September 23, 1860
I have concluded my stay at Berlin, and if I have not progressed quite so far in German as I might have done, at any rate I have enjoyed myself much and learnt a good deal in other ways. I think I shall always come to Germany when I want to learn humility and contentment ; to live among people at once so poor, so diligent, so learned, so genial and happy is the best medicine devisable for restless self-conceit and luxurious ambition. I have dropped over to Dresden to see Ada 1 and renew my acquaintance with the town and pictures. It is certainly a much more interesting place than Berlin, though I have acquired an affection for the latter, and must certainly return in a year or two to visit it again. . . . We went to the theatre together to see the famous Emil Devrient act. He is an old actor of nearly sixty who has outlived his powers but not his reputation; for though he really acts very well, the applause he receives is paid to ten years back.
To E. W. Benson from Ilseriburg, October 2
I am in a rustic inn in the Harz, disinclined to play cards and unable to drink any more of the thick beer which stands before me. When I add that I have taken a walk of nine hours to-day, you will not expect an intellectual letter from me. (The waiter said I could not possibly walk it. " Kellner," said I, " when an Englishman says ' I will,' he does it." I didn't say it out loud because in the heat of the moment I could not express myself in German.) I happen to be in the Harz because I have lately been present at a giant meeting of German " Philologues, School- masters, and Orientalists " at Brunswick. Professor Herrig took me with him from Berlin, and initiated me into the mysteries thereof. I attended, however, on my own account as " Sidgwick, Collaborator, aus Cambridge." It was very
1 His cousin, Ada Benson, afterwards Mrs. McDowalL
i860, AGE 22 HENRY SIDGWICK 59
interesting to come upon such a regular knock-down of German Gelehrsamkeit. I saw two or three celebrated men : Ewald, who is really grand-looking — not a particle of the bookworminess which almost all have to some extent — fine eyes, with (what Carlyle would call) a deep heroic soul looking out of them. I was introduced to Doderlein ; he is a dear old man with such a loving face, and at the same time very refined features, expressing the thorough scholar in the Cambridge sense of the word. Well, there was wisdom in the morning and wit in the evening, the quality of the former being decidedly superior to that of the latter. What struck me most was the universally good speaking in the discussions, really eloquent some of them were, and no one painful to listen to. The essays delivered were not very good, but I heard a really splendid translation of (Edipus Tyrannus excellently read by the translator. German is a better language for translating Greek than English, when well handled. We are always obliged to strain our very slight power of compounding words.
Well, I have enjoyed my stay in Berlin very much, though the university was not going on, and though there are considerable drawbacks to Berlin as a summer residence. Professor Herrig has been very kind indeed, though he and indeed all the schoolmasters were so very busy that I could not see much of them. I parted from him in Brunswick, and he desired to be remembered to you most kindly. I was entrusted with similar messages to you from the Director and Professor Eanke. What a rum little old boy the latter is ! He told me himself, with much laughter, the last time I called that Lord John Russell was compared to him when he visited Berlin, and really there is much resemblance in build between them, though not in feature. The Director is a great contrast to his brother ; there was a portrait of him in the Berlin Exhibition of pictures, which was the most striking of all the portraits there. I was present at three or four " Stunden " in his school, and remarked how very odd Greek sounds when pronounced according to the accents. Politics and coffee at Stehely's formed a very
60 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
pleasant item in the order of the day. N.B. — One of the " Orientalists " — a very learned man — having visited Berlin on the occasion of some assembly, was so enchanted with this side of it that he refused to go when the meeting was over. " No," said he, " 1 must stay a few days and drink coffee at Stehely's." I am very slow, however, in learning to speak the language. I can carry on a conversation now, but I continually make blunders and forget the right word, and I never attempt to tell a long story in German. With the rest of my progress I am tolerably satisfied.
To C. H. Tawney from the Harz on October 2
... I have spent six weeks in Berlin in a German family, learning the language, manners, customs, and cookery of our Grandfather-land. . . .
Well, Berlin is, after all, a fine town ; it strikes one on first acquaintance as highly artificial, as in fact it was ; it hasn't " growed " like Topsy, but bears traces of the plastic hand of a paternal Government. One square, where one sees the royal castle, the museum and the arsenal together, is equal, I should think, to anything in Europe. I have lived with a doctor as poor as a rat and as learned as most Cambridge tutors. I have learned to fling out the gutturals nearly like a native, to sleep between two feather beds, to smoke home-growed tobacco,1 to go to bed at ten and get up at six, to drink " beer-soup " (v. Carlyle's Frederick the Great), etc., etc. Among other accomplishments I must not omit that of reading German newspapers and putting myself — I will not say at home — but on intimate terms with German politics. The view I have obtained of them is not fascinating. All parties nearly are in a dilemma between the impossibility of moving in one direction, and an inconquerable disinclination to move in the other. Nobody is content with things as they are, and nobody wants to alter them. For instance, men will tell you in one sentence that the condition of Austria is incurable, and in the next that the preservation of Austria is necessary to Germany.
1 It was at this time that he first began smoking.
i860, AGE 22 HENRY SIDGWICK 61
Again, everybody allows that not merely Prussian ambition, but the interests of Germany render it requisite that Prussia should maintain her position as a Great Power ; in consequence of this Prussia has to live beyond her means, and it is only due to the really excellent government that there are no discontents among the people. Yet any idea of enlarging Prussian territory is abhorred by all but the extremest German Radicals. But I forgot that you haven't been boring yourself with this web of entanglements for two months.
To his Mother from Cambridge on October 29 We must come to some arrangement for meeting in winter. I get away about the 14th [of December], and am ready to go anywhere and do anything for the next three weeks ; the last month of the vacation I am rather disposed to spend up here in learning Hebrew, for which I require a space of perfectly disengaged time. . . .
I am engaged now six hours a day in pure talking, besides two hours a week at the Working Men's College,1 where I instruct, among others, a converted Jew in the rudiments of Latin ! He was brought by a queer enthusi- astic Syrian traveller that we have among our fellows. Hard work is very healthy, especially after three months ruminating in a foreign land.
To 0. Browning at Eton later in the Michaelmas Term Of course I ought to have written to you before, but how is a man situated as I am to do what he ought? When I
1 An account of the Working Men's College at Cambridge will be found in Cambridge Described and Illustrated, by Atkinson and Clark (Macmillan, 1897). It was founded in 1855 in imitation of the one established in London by F. D. Maurice, but, unlike the latter, which is still flourishing, it came to an end about 1865. Its original promoters were Messrs. Daniel and Alexander Macmillan, Mr. H. M. Butler, now Master of Trinity, and Mr. Vesey, now Archdeacon of Huntingdon, and it provided evening classes for men occu- pied during the day, as extension lectures and classes under Government inspection now do. The classes best attended were those in English literature, history, elementary mathematics, Latin, French, and drawing. We learn through Mr. R. Bowes, who has kindly inquired for us, that no systematic record seems to exist of those who taught in it, but that the minutes state that H. Sidgwick was elected in October 1860. Whether he continued to teach there later we do not know.
62 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
say situated, I do not want to express a state of rest so much as a state of motion : for inward and outward impulses keep me all day long on the move. First, I have got nine pupils and three lectures, so that my time is fully occupied from eight to two every day (by the way, breakfasting in three minutes is not so bad for the digestion as one might think : if you occupy it all in eating, and reserve the cup of tea to drink afterwards). Now, you may or may not be aware that it is in entire opposition to my former plans that I am now coaching : but — I was alone abroad for three months — I looked into my soul and thought I discovered there excessive hastiness ; so I determined that I would take to coaching again to see if I could not get to like it. I am not at all tired by it, and I try most earnestly to think that I enjoy it : but I do not at all really, and I shall have to give it up, after all, presently. " There must be other work to do," after all, for a man with really no lack of energy — a conceited remark which I would only make to a brother [' apostle '].
Well, I have almost determined not to take orders. I see that there is a great gulf between my views and the views once held by those who framed the Articles : and now held by at least a portion of the Church of England ; I think I could juggle myself into signing the Articles as well as any one else : but I really feel that it may at least be the duty of some — if so e/ioi) 76 — to avoid the best-motived perjury. Well, so much egotism for your amusement or boredom. . . .
To 0. Browning from Cambridge, January 31, 1861
Macmillan is coming out to-morrow. The best thing you can do will be to abuse the parts in the article1 that you do not like ; there are sure to be some. To tell you the truth, there is one paragraph, after all, which I know is too strong. . . .
Trevelyan has been telling me about H and Cowell.
, . . You know I do not believe in H thoroughly ;
1 An article (unsigned) he had written on Eton.
1861, AGE 22 HENEY SIDGWICK 63
I hope I am not canting, but I think he is just a little too " worldly." He seems to me to be absorbed by an edacious ambition : and that is what I fear I should be if I went to London.
After all, I am getting to believe in you schoolmasters : not that I feel any more disposed to become one. But I fall back on my old idea that the only valuable education of the human soul is the moral one : and schoolmastering is at least as favourable to that as anything else. . . .
Aldis senior ! Two Senior Wranglers running who won't try for Fellowships.1 It ought to make some impression.
To 0. Browning a little later
You will see a poem you may know in next Maemillan. I only publish it because it is the kind of thing that one does not write merely for one's own satisfaction. I have no ambition at present to invite sympathisers with my own sub- jectivity (as Teutons would say). ... I am hesitating about going to the Bar in October ; I do not think I shall go, but I may. I foresee the gradual decline of interesting conver- sation : and I know that I am not a man that can exist without it. At present I support life on the Society ['Apostles'] and J. R. Seeley of Christ's (who ought to have been a member).
... I have written to the Times* about Essays and Beviews, but I do not expect they will put it in. Liberavi animam meam at any rate.
Just Hall time and a Library Committee meeting (I am President of the Union) after Hall ; then an evening lecture on Plato.
P.S. — *As Cambridge Graduate. It is in to-day, Wednesday.
The poem referred to in this letter, and which appeared in Maemillan' s Magazine for March 1861, is the following : —
1 On account of the necessity of conforming to the Church of England. The two were Sir James Stirling and Mr. W. Steadman Aldis.
64 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
THE DESPOT'S HEIR
Through years of solitude and chill disdain, Gnawed by suppressed ambition's hungry woe, He taught his crafty eye and fathomless brain All springs that move this human puppetrshow :
Watched from below each turn of Fortune's wheel, And learnt, unknown, with kings and hosts to deal.
Then tiger-like he felt his stealthy way,
Till tiger-like he leapt upon a throne :
Hollow and cold and selfish there he lay,
Tuning to paeans Freedom's dying moan,
Crouched in the shadow of a mightier name, Masked with the mantle of a vaster fame.
Silent with steady hand and calm quick eye
He wrought his robe of greatness day by day ;
Men's hope and fear and love and enmity
He wove like threads with passionless potent sway :
And sacred names of "righteous," "generous," "grand," He shed like pigments from the painter's hand.
Unreverencing, unfeeling, unbelieving —
And all the world around, his vast machine,
Felt strange new forces mid its varied heaving,
And hidden tempests burst the false serene, And nations bled and royal houses fell — And still the despot's weaving prospered well.
This and "Goethe and Frederika," quoted above, are, we believe, the only poems he ever published except in a school magazine, though, as may be seen from his letters, he had in his early years, like many others, higher hopes and ambitions in this line.
The letter to the Times referred to above, and which appeared on February 20, is characteristic. It is as follows : —
May I address you a few words, on behalf of the thinking laity of England, upon the much-vexed question of Essays and Reviews ?
What we all want is, briefly, not a condemnation, but a refutation. The age when ecclesiastical censures were sufficient in such cases has passed away. A large portion
1861, AGE 22 HENEY SIDGWICK 65
of the laity now, though unqualified for abstruse theological investigations, are yet competent to hear and decide on theological arguments. These men will not be satisfied by an ex cathedra shelving of the question, nor terrified by a deduction of awful consequences from the new speculations. For philosophy and history alike have taught them to seek not what is " safe," but what is true. What has hitherto appeared — a couple of intemperate articles in Pharisaical organs ; a pamphlet by one of the washiest of High Church bookmakers ; an article in the Quarterly, with the usual irritability and more than the usual unfairness of that review — such things as these are calculated only to alienate the men I speak of. And yet these men cling with all their hearts to Church of England Christianity ! As a learned living divine (Mr. Westcott) expresses it, they love their early faith, but they love truth more.
We want, then, a reply which will take each essay separately, discuss it fully and fairly, entering into the writer's point of view. We want a reply not purely anta- gonistic, but containing, besides a refutation of errors, the definition, as far as possible, of the truths neglected or per- verted in those errors. We want, in short, a book written in the spirit of Bishop Butler. Such a reply, especially, must not proceed on the assumption of a " conspiracy " among the essayists. This assumption is as unfair to their real sentiments as it is opposed to their express declaration. All the friends of the essayists know that the only ground upon which they have met is a belief in the advantage of perfectly open discussion and perfectly impartial investiga- tion. If they can be met and refuted on their own ground, the publication of the book will have been a blessing to the Church ; for we cannot ignore the fact that the thoughts they have expressed have long been floating vaguely through the minds of many. The way in which they have hitherto been handled will increase their influence, I think, upon the mass of English laity ; it will increase their influence, I am sure, upon the youth of England.
66 HEXEY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
To H. G. Dalcyns, probably in the Lent Teiin of 1861 ... As for me, I live a lotus-eating life, unmingled with introspection (just at present), but not free from many anxieties as to the future ; and tempered with political economy, which I am studying just as a ballast to my necessarily busy selfishness, which would otherwise be intoler- able to my real self.
I wish I was a hereditary legislator. I would renovate the House of Lords.1 The British aristocracy should have another lease of existence. Never mind. ... I forget whether you agree with Mill's population theory. I think the way he blinks the practical morality of the question is the coolest thing I know. And I know many cool things on the part of your thorough-going theorists. I believe in " Be fruitful and multiply." I think the most crying need now is a better organised colonisation. To think of the latent world -civilisation in our swarms of fertile Anglo-Saxon pauperism.
To H. G. Dakyns from Cambridge at the end of May 1861
You see I have not given up my " Laing's-Denmark " idea,2 as you call it, but I am very undecided as to whether I shall leave Cambridge this year or not. You see I am not very quick in " creating myself a sphere " of action ; I have one at Cambridge, and am loth to leave it on a voyage of pure self-improvement. Besides, if I utilise my Longs, perhaps on the whole my great travel may as well be deferred for a few years ; I feel that I ought to get more thoroughly acquainted with iny own country before making the examination of foreign ones my sole object These reasons will, I think, induce ine to refrain from starting off to the Continent at the end of this Long, as I once thought of doing. . . .
I read through Mill's Representative Government in one morning. It is extremely good, I think, though I cannot get over my scepticism as to the elaborate Hare-ian scheme.
1 There had been an attack on the House of Lords on account of its resistance to the repeal of the paper duty in 1860.
2 Idea of travelling for study, as Lairig did in Denmark.
1861, AGE 23 HENEY SIDGWICK 67
As to [Mill and] population . . . colonisation is unanswer- able, I think ; if not, please answer it. You simply pass it by, and talk about paper duties. The taking off of these I consider a black piece of official or Parliamentary tyranny !
To his Sister from Cambridge about July 1, 1861
I have been very successful in life since our brief and transitory yet happy (as far as one can be happy in this life, which, as the farmer said, isn't much) interview terminated at the Royal Academy. Successful, that is, not considering the pecuniary losses which my habitual carelessness has brought upon me ; they have been rather above the average, as they have amounted to nine shillings in as many days. I fear that a large family on £300 a year is the only thing that would now make me properly thrifty. . . .
I proposed to her [his mother] our plan as to [her settling at] Cambridge, and urged it on her as strongly as I felt I ought : but she thinks I am as yet too un- settled for her to anchor herself on such a shifting shore. And perhaps she is right. I am full of dreams now, not that I feel confident that any of them will come to much. But I wish that 1 had a kindred spirit still left at Cam- bridge. All my kindred spirits are now wasting their sweetness as schoolmasters, and I go and visit them with a strange mixture of envy and regret for their sakes. I am very happy here with my books : I read Macaulay and Mill alternately, and the contrast of styles enhances the enjoyment of both. I pleasantly diversify the com- bination with geography. I must buy Johnstone's Physical Atlas. I am going to study geology this summer while moving about. Only sometimes I have a wish to talk — seasons when
man's thought, Barer, intenser,
Selfgathered for an outbreak, as it ought, Chafes in the censer.1
1 Browning's ' ' Grammarian's Funeral " was a favourite poem of his.
68 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
But I should only care to talk to one person — one out of four or five all many miles off.
To U. G. Dakyns, from his uncle Francis Lace's house, Stone Gappe, near Skipton, on August 24, 1861
... As for myself, I gave up my idea of going abroad, and determined to pay a debt of visits to my kindred in Yorkshire. I wanted time and quiet to settle entirely my plan of life. For I feel that some fundamental personal questions ought to be settled this Long: or else I shall begin to drift in the ambiguous way that so many College Fellows do. The only choice with me is between the Bar in London and Study in Cambridge. For the Bar there are :
(1) The prospect, very problematical, of attaining the posi- tion of a practical politician (for which I doubt my fitness).
(2) The certainty of the precious (to me) stimulus of intellectual society. (3) The conviction that the work of that profession, if vastly more absorbing, is vastly more improving than Tuition. Against it is: (1) The chance of failure, involving the renunciation of domesticity and the adoption, wearied and baffled, of the career (of literary action) which I now renounce. (2) The certainty of neglecting in professional and political engagements the deeper problems which now interest me, especially the great one of reconciling my religious instinct with my growing conviction that both individual and social morality ought to be placed on an inductive basis. This is my present personal subject of meditation ; if you will give me any advice it will be received with interest. [(3)] I ought to have mentioned a repugnance, perhaps unreasonable, to advocacy as practised in England.
I see the reviews are very hard on Buckle,1 justly so, I think, except that they refuse to appreciate the originality which he certainly shows as an artist, if not as a thinker. Abuse him as you like, he is the first Englishman who has attempted to write scientific history, and I for one paid a
1 History of Civilisation in Eiigland, vol. i., published in 1857 ; vol. ii., in 1861.
1861, AGE 2.3 HENEY SIDGWICK 69
tribute to that attempt in the intense interest with which I read it. If it is presumptuous to pretend to construct a science of History in the present stage of our development, it seems to me still more presumptuous to say that such a science " transcends the faculties of men " ; and this is a fair statement of my present views on the question. If I stay at Cambridge I should like to divide my time between general scepticism as free as air, and inductive "Politik" as practical and detailed as I can get it, to secure me from being a dreamer. I leave out literature in dividing my time, just as I leave out food ; both the one and the other will get taken in in quite sufficient quantities. Politically, I am getting to feel an enlightened and sympathetic detestation for our democrats (Bright and Cobden, assisted by Congreve and Co.), more and more strongly every day. Their alliance with the perjured despot of France has long shown (to me) their cloven hooves, and I cannot be suffi- ciently thankful for it. I am much more fixed politically than anywhere else. I seem to see as clear as if it was in history, the long Conservative reaction that awaits us when the Whig party have vanished, and I also see the shock menaced by the Eadical opposition when they have sufficiently agitated the country. The only remedy, the only means to "save the one true seed," etc., is to form a Liberal Mediative party on the principles of J. S. Mill. To this effort I humbly devote my humble self and influence.
If I could rejoice over the disorder of Naples it would [be] because it affords such a signal triumph to the admirers of Cavour over those of Garibaldi. All the work of " the schemer " has lasted and thriven. If anything overthrows it, it will be the result of " the hero's " imprudence. Don't set me down as sneering at Garibaldi, only the excessive admiration of him and depreciation of Cavour seems to me vulgar and unenlightened : an exaltation of the inorganic over the organic which I think the most dangerous result of the democratic movement of society.
I am going back to Cambridge soon ; not going abroad
70 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
at all. I am engaged to write an article on Tocqueville, which I shall do can amore : only I am so utterly ignorant of everything French that I am afraid of putting some nonsense into it. Write and say how long you shall be in Paris. I might come. It depends whether the article is for October or November, which I do not quite know.1 I have been reading a little French and Italian — nothing else. I have a growing passion for French prose of a certain kind, an appetite that must have satisfaction in the course of the next year. We have been up all hills, etc., in the Lakes — very jolly. . . .
He had been staying with his mother and brothers at Miss dough's house, Eller How, Ambleside — which Mrs. Sidgwick had taken for some weeks that summer — and in a letter to Mr. Alexander Macmillan on July 23 concerning this very article on Tocqueville, wrote :—
My early rising gives me the regular advantage of two hours over the rest of my household ; so that though I am ostensibly quite idle, I have still time for study. Also, in this month and this country the man that holds the watering-pot is very active, and proves a considerable check on our pedestrian operations.
To his Sister from Cambridge at the, end of August or beginning of September
Now for a subject painful to me. You will have heard from Mamma that I was offered a mastership at Rugby [by Dr. Temple], and had accepted it. I have now again ultimately refused it. I have behaved very badly. It cost me much mental struggle to break my word : but I thought it better not to prolong the error of a day into the mistake of a life. I do not know if they will forgive me at Rugby. I am going abroad now to shake the whole thing off my mind.
You see, Mamma wanting to go to Rugby, and my wanting to live with her, and my being so fond of Rugby,
1 The article appeared in Macmillaris Magazine for November 1861, and is reprinted as a supplement to Misfellnneoun Essays and Addresses.
isei, AGE 23 HENKY SIDGWICK 71
and having such an admiration for Dr. Temple and liking Butler1 so much, and knowing so many people there, and being inclined to an act of self-sacrifice, and fearing the selfishness of College life — all this (and the pecuniary temptation and the chance of getting settled — as baser motives superadded) made me neglect the one plain fact, which far outweighs the rest — that I know my vocation in life to be not teaching but study. When I came up to Cambridge I saw this. Edward will understand better than you why I absolutely dare not give up my time now. Will you show him this letter ? I do not defend my conduct — I was inexcusably hasty in promising. I may have been wrong, but I do not think I was, in retracting. I wished him to know the truth on this matter, as he will probably hear of it from elsewhere.
To H. G. Dakyns about December 1
. . . What do you think of the Trent row ? 2 Of course we talk of nothing else here. I hope there will be no child- ishness about " our flag," but, of course, if Seward wants a war with England, he must have it, and I hope he will like it ; to me international law seems clearly on our side. I didn't think so at first.
Early in 1861 a society called the "Initial Society" was founded to carry on discussion by correspondence of any subjects that might occur to the members. One member started a discussion by a note, and this went round to the other members, who added notes- long or short — criticising or agreeing. The notes were signed by initials — hence the name. The society, which owed its origin to Mr. F. E. Kitchener, con- sisted of six or eight young men and women, not necessarily known to each other — F. E. Kitchener himself and his sister (now Mrs. Peile), Henry Sidgwick and his sister (Mrs. Benson), H. G. Dakyns,
1 A. G. Butler, afterwards Headmaster of Haileybury.
2 The seizure, by an American warship, of Envoys from the Confederate States on board the English mail steamer Trent. They were afterwards released.
72 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
J. Peile, H. W. Eve, and Miss E. Rhodes, a friend of Miss Kitchener, were all at least for a time members. The society was active during 1861 and 1862, and went on at any rate through 1863. It discussed many subjects, such as Music, Colenso, Mixed Motives, Toleration, Vocation of Women, Paul Ferroll, Dress, Who are the Men who influence most directly their Generation, Men and Women re Training of Boys and Girls, Justice and Philanthropy, Sermons. The following passage from a note by Henry Sidgwick, in a preliminary discussion as to the work of the society itself, shows the spirit in which it was intended that the discussions should be carried on.
The leading principle of our action should surely be to embody a part of ourselves in our notes. Let us write down our own thoughts exactly as they exist in us at the time of writing ; and let us express them exactly in the dress that seems to us to fit them best. Don't let us think of style, as style, or write by rules. Of course let us aim at clearness and conciseness, avoid conscious slovenli- ness, and admit any ornaments that are thoroughly natural. But let us avoid like poison writing for effect. We are not writing for a lazy and luxurious public for whom truth must be sugared, but for one another. The best rule for style in all compositions is " keep your audience in mind." " Write at somebody, as you always talk at somebody."
The following passages in " notes " by him bearing on the education of women are of some biographical interest in view of his later work. After discussing the advantage to most people of marriage, he says (the date was probably about October 1862) :—
Not that I think celibacy a unique evil, considered in its effect on general happiness, probably dyspepsia is on the whole more powerful, but an evil it is for the majority. This being the case, it always seems to me rather a noble thing for a person of great natural elevation not to marry,
1862, AGE 23 HENEY SIDGWICK 73
except under peculiar circumstances. If other human relations develop in us an equal flow of love and energy (the primary and paramount branch of self-culture), there is no doubt that the greater freedom of celibacy, the higher self-denial of its work, the time it leaves for useful but unlucrative pursuits, the material means it places at our disposal for the advantage of our fellow-creatures ought to have great weight in the balance — in a densely-populated country the last especially, and in a commercial age the last but one. So far I have argued generally ; but descending to women in particular I entirely agree with E. R. as to the immense educational influence in the hands of single women, if they are but trained to see and use it.
And again in another note : —
I agree with H. G. D. that it is not necessary to say beforehand whether women could ever become like men. I would rather ask, " Could their education and position in society be assimilated to that of men with advantage ? " For example (1), E. R. confesses that their mental training is miserably deficient ; it ought therefore to be altered ; the only conceivable way of altering it would render it more like that of men. (2) I agree with H. G. D. that we ought to give women certain rights which they may fairly claim, and which we at present withhold from them. I am amused, however, by my friend professing a desire to pro- ceed with the greatest moderation, and then coming out with a measure so violently radical as that of giving women votes in elections.1 . . . But I think that simple justice would make us ... throw open to them such professions as they can be qualified for.
1 Some twenty years later Sidgwick's view on the franchise question had changed. In a letter on Women's Franchise to the Spectator of May 31, 1884, he says, "So long as the responsibility is thrown on women, unmarried or widows, of earning their own livelihood in any way that industrial competition allows, their claim to have the ordinary constitu- tional protection against any encroachments on the part of other sections of the community is prirnd facie undeniable. And surely . . . this broad and obvious consideration ought to prevail against any ingenious arguments that may be constructed for concluding that the interests of women are not, as a matter of fact, likely to be encroached upon."
74 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
To E. M. Young from Oxford, January 28, 1862. (Mr. Young was ill, and Jiad obtained permission to defer his final degree examination for a year.)
... I have no doubt . . . that just now you are feeling what a bore it will be to have to work a year more at the old curriculum. But you ought to console yourself by thinking how much worse it would be if you were a mathematical man. (This is, I am told, the approved and orthodox method of taking comfort under misfortune.) . . .
I wish I was at Oxford, where they are always having exciting controversies which keep them alive. Nothing is so fertile in jokes and happy sayings as a good semi- theological row. Just now Jowett and his foes divide the attention of the common rooms with Mansel and Gold win Smith. I have just read G. S.'s Rational Religion. It seems smashing, but he loses by being over-controversial. There should be at least an affectation of fairness in a damaging attack of the kind. People consider Mansel's chance of a bishopric as lessened. . . .
I went up to Cambridge [in the vacation] to have a quiet study of Auguste Comte. I have rather less sym- pathy with his views than before ; but his life is a fine evidence of the power of enthusiasm even in the nineteenth century. I tried to fancy being a Positivist and adoring Gutenberg, the inventor of printing, but I found the conception impossible.
The following fragment is all that remains of a letter to Roden Noel, which must have been written in February or March 1862 : —
haunted by a dread that it is only a wild dream, all this scientific study of Human Nature, a dream as vain and unsubstantial as Alchemy. At such moments, if I had been brought up a Roman Catholic, I might become a Jesuit in order to get a definite object in life, and have it over. I am sometimes startled to find to what a halt my old theological trains of thought and sentiment have come ; I have never deliberately discarded them, but the scientific
1862, AGE 23 HENKY SIDGWICK 75
atmosphere seems to paralyse them. However, I cling to the hope of a final reconcilement of spiritual needs with intellectual principles.
1 had to come to an abrupt conclusion, and now I
do not know what I was going to say next. I am certainly bored to-day. One thing is that our folk have decided to put up a statue to the late Prince [Albert], instead of com- memorating him by promoting the studies he had at heart. I confess I think commemorative statues not the most appropriate things on Academic ground. . . . The real grief is that I seem to see more clearly the hopelessness of reviving a vigorous Philosophy in these time-honoured courts. Eeally everybody with spirit nowadays is resolute to enter on what is called life ; and there are left behind but a sufficient number of lazy egotists, pedants, and jolly good fellows to absorb the revenues of our religious founders, and carry on the narrow studies of the place. And I, without masters, without sympathy, feel that it will be a dreary struggle. If I go on I shall inflict all my tedious - ness on you.
To H. G. Dakyns in March
... I have taken my name off the books of the University club, which looks like not going to the Bar; but I still hanker after the fleshpots of Egypt ; especially when I dine in College halls and hear dull conversation, I think how I might be listening to interesting talk in London if it were not for this confounded Fellowship, which lapses in seven years. I wonder (1) if I should do for the Bar, (2) if I should preserve my zealous, philosophic, and generalising spirit while loading my memory with a mass of forensic detail. You will see that my spirit is not at rest. However, I am busy, in the deepest sense of the word : I am revolving a Theory of Ethics, which I think might appear in the form of essays ; I think I see a reconciliation between the moral sense and utilitarian theories. I am reading Comte too again, and am just now by way of taking long solitary constitutionals in order
76 HEXEY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
to unravel a violent reaction from Comteism which at present holds me. I cannot swallow his Religion of Humanity, and yet his arguments as to the necessity of Religion of some sort have great weight with me. At present I am much more a disciple of Herbert Spencer than of Comte : but I am thinking of enunciating the formula " God is Love " as a scientific induction to form the basis of a religion. Do you ever read Browning's poems ? They form my light reading at present : —
Others mistrust and say, " But Time escapes,
Live now or never." He said, " What's Time ? leave Now for doge and apes,
Man has for ever."
Whether this is objectively true or not, I cannot help having an aesthetic admiration of it.
To his Sister about the end of March
Never a line ! which may apply either to you or me ; I presume we are both of us almost unique specimens of the genus " Lazy Correspondent." " Unique " I say, though I do not forget Edward ; but there is no saying what he would not do if he were not a headmaster. My invention has been a good deal drawn upon this term to give the latest news from Wellington College, but I flatter myself that I have done you at least justice, especially in respect of population and Royal Favour. I write now, I am conscious, chiefly that it may not be said that we were a whole term without corresponding.
I am going to see Mamma to-morrow. I am fortunate enough to get down a week or so earlier than usual this term, and I have a strong intention to utilise the lengthened period in an expedition to Paris. We have easy lives of it up here, have we not ? However, I hope we spend the addi- tional leisure in self-improvement. If I go it will be with Graham Dakyns. . . . By the bye, I remember firmly resolving to write to you on the 20th last to condole with you on coming of age. Life is as yet smiling and flowery : wait, my child, a few short years till you attain
1862, AGE 23 HENEY SIDGWICK 77
the age of him who now addresses you, and the illusions will have vanished.
This is an extract from my proposed letter ; perhaps you are not sorry that it was never sent. I made one of my usual mistakes to-day : I went into Macmillau's to abuse his men about some book, and addressed myself rather absently to my accustomed desk. I delivered myself with much fluency, but the man from the desk replied, to my astonish- ment, " This is very interesting, but my name is Gurney of Trinity." Evidently a man of some humour.
You may as well write to me at Leamington [where his mother was then staying]. You know the kind of thing I like to hear, all that is interesting, and besides all that will do to tell people. I wish, in fact, as our lively cousins say, to be " posted up." I have not been doing anything literary this term ; I have been lazily absorbing philosophy, history, and politics. But I am engaged on a Great Work. (N.B. — I have hit upon this to say when people ask me what I am doing. I may write a great work some day, and if I don't, I am as well off as most people who really mean to.)
To H. G. Dakyns from Leamington on March 30
Second thoughts are best. ... I feel on consideration that I am in duty bound to spend this vacation in finally curing my stammering, which was made worse last term by lecturing, and which must be got over before next term. Learning a foreign language would be a great impediment.
To H. G. Dakyns, April 7
I am getting on with my stammering, and hope to cure it this vacation. I have not read anything here, nor indeed advanced much in my " Reconciliation of Ethical Systems," as to which I have had a tough battle with William. You will understand my position on this subject if you compare Bain with Comte. Bain is the only thoroughly honest Utilitarian philosopher I know, and he allows self-sacrifice and ra e^o/zei>a [things connected with it] to constitute
78 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
a " glorious paradox," whereas Comte and all practical Utilitarians exalt the same sentiments into the supreme Rule of life. These are the views I am trying to reconcile.
To H. G. Dakyns, April 29
... I have much to communicate. I am in the gripe of a violent reaction from all I have been thinking and feeling for the last year. I want some one to pour it out upon. How fearfully impulsive and unstable I am ! " Were it not better done as others use." One thing is that I am so much more " dramatic " than personal. I pass by a kind of eager impulse from one drama or Heart-Tragedy (or Comedy, as the case may be) to another, and when I begin to take stock, as it were, on my account, my prudential instincts being awakened, I wonder what it all means, and whether there is any higher or lower, better or worse, in human life, except so far as sympathy and a kind of rude philosophy go.
To J. J. Co-well from Cambridge, May 9
I intended to write to you the first of the month that you might find the letter on your arrival, but these " aged wives " to whom I am " yoked " (Tennyson) have given me the Acts of the Apostles to lecture on, and as 1 was entirely ignorant of all that had been said about that work, I have been forced to devote long days to the perusal of many " Schwunkinses," as you were wont to call them.
I aui sorry we could not meet at Florence, but as my vacation ended just about the time your residence there commenced, you see it was quite impossible. ... I have been spending my vacation in England trying to cure my stammering. I cannot say that I have succeeded so far, in spite of zealous efforts, and I begin to fear that the work will take me a long time. However, I have now sufficient resolution and self-control to apply to the work in good earnest. I am an M.A. now, and am getting to see more of the authorities of the College ; I cannot say that they improve on a nearer acquaintance on the
1862, AGE 23 HENRY SIDGWICK 79
whole intellectually; morally I think they do. They seeui to me a kind of big children.
. . . After all, this is a very nice life if it was not so enervating. But as to that, alas ! my own life is too strong an evidence. With all my philosophy and my lofty aspirations, I do get through so very little work. I make resolutions and break them day after day. But still somehow one's mind grows, and I am in hopes of teaching the world something some day, if only I can shake off my laziness and begin to write. My views are in a state of change now on religious and philosophical subjects, and I should much enjoy an opportunity of talking with you. I have given up a good deal of my materialism and scepticism, and come round to Maurice and Broad Church again ; not that I expect exactly to stay there, but I feel that I must learn all they have got to teach me before I go any further. I have been deeply impressed by the impotence of modern unbelief in explaining the phenomena which Christians point to as evidence of the Holy Spirit's influence. "The wind bloweth where it listeth, etc.," is as true now as it ever was. I used to think that one explained the difference between the religious and irreligious man by using words like " enthusiasm " ; but science can no more bridge over this difference than she can the difference between a man and a brute. Of course by ' religious ' I do not mean orthodox ; I simply mean a man impressed with the Divine Govern- ment and the Divine sympathy — only I cannot help think- ing that a man beginning with this and reading simply and candidly the New Testament, will end by being more orthodox than at first one thinks possible when one feels one's indignation kindled against Persecuting Bishops. — I have tried to give you an idea of my change of thought and feeling, but I fear somewhat confusedly.
Well, my dear fellow, I hope you are getting happily and delightfully convalescent. Do you feel yourself filled with Art-rapture in the famous city of Dante ? I shall be anxious to hear how soon you are coming back to England. I wonder if your distaste for the law and your devotion to
80 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAp. n
philosophy will continue when your vigour is renewed. You know I have always thought you made for the practical rather than the speculative life, with your clear keenness of thought and deliberate ardour of zeal. However, no man can judge for another in the main conduct of life : as I feel myself when my friends press me to go to the Bar. I hope you are enjoying life a little, and that your nervous consti- tution has recovered its tone after the violent and varied shocks it received in the course of the last year.
The Society, of course, flourishes. [W.] Everett is the only new member. It was a very good election in my opinion. I have had much most interesting talk with him. He has considerable interest in Metaphysics, though his mind is primarily rhetorical. His declamation in chapel was a wonder.1 The old Dons, to nay surprise, were enraptured, Whewell especially.
I must conclude or you will think I had better have remained silent than burst forth with such prolixity.
To his Mother from Liverpool early in June
... I am going to cross the sea to-day to the Isle of Man and examine there for a week ; about a fortnight hence I go to Marlborough for another examination. ... I wish now I had not taken this examination, only it will be a source of amusement afterwards.2 ... I have been " getting up" the Isle of Man. ... It used to be a refuge for debtors ; a friend of mine asked an old fellow there where he had been before he came to the Isle of Man. He laid his hand on his shoulder and said, " My dear young friend, never you ask any of us Manxmen where we were before we came here."
To H. G. Dakyns from Douglas, Isle of Man, June 9, 1862
" Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel," is said to have been the remark of a fine old Semitic Sheik. This 1
1 The prize declamations were by old custom recited in chapel ; W. Everett's striking oration, on Arctic Explorers, was long remembered for its. eloquence and effective delivery.
3 This visit always did interest him in retrospect.
1862, AGE 24 HEKRY SIDGWICK 81
apply not to you (which would be cruel) but to myself. My conversion ended in smoke : or rather, I found that it wanted very much more to convert me to Christianity. The change that had operated in me was a violent reaction into- a yearning after the Spiritual, after soaking myself in much Comte. You see you have not read d, or you would (perhaps) sympathise. So I was willing enough to believe in a man who came and brought humanity into communion with the Divine Spirit, but Sin ! Punishment ! Mediation I I found that there was much more to swallow, which my inner life during the last two years had gradually alienated me from more and more. So I read Mansel (Bampton) again. He really is a well-meaning man, and U a raison for the most part against Metaphysicians. But he talks of Revelation as if the Bible had dropped from the skies ready translated into English ; he ignores all historical criticism utterly. If the Bible was proved a whole, I think we might bow beneath the yoke of Mansel and Bishop Butler. So I was thrown back on myself to ponder whether I could possibly believe that God had (salvd reverentid) shoved a book into the world, and left men to squabble about it in aeternum. In this state I fell in with F. Newman 'a books, Phases and The Soul, devoured them : and felt that I was really only wishing to be a Spiritual Theist (and a Christian if necessary).
But you dehumanise too much. It is not a question about past events and whether they can be a basis for faith. But if Christ is living now, the king of men, and able really to give us help, as man to man, one has a human longing to rest on him ; and one would (not believe but) force oneself to contemplate any notions of divine things which he thought edifying. I can't pretend to see any good in them now, but I may, when I have had more spiritual experience. However, I think one ought to begin by being a Theist — to contemplate, I mean, a Heart and Mind behind phenomena. The phrase "joy in the Holy Ghost" expresses a real mental phenomenon which has been present in all ages of Christianity. You see, there is no sort of proof against
G
82 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
there being a Mind and Heart behind phenomena. The contemplation of this hypothesis answers to a need now existing in my nature, and the experience of thousands testifies that such contemplation generates an abiding evdovo-iao-fios, with all its attendant noblenesses and raptures.
Now to your " can Faith depend on facts ? " Why, if I had to think that a man's damnation or salvation de- pended on a right view of historical facts, I allow I should feel an insuperable difficulty in the thought you so express. But I do not see why the best development of humanity should not be conditioned thus. That is all. A man may be a very fine man as a Theist or Positivist, and may have a very valuable faith : but suppose the most powerful informing and inspiring faith is only obtainable from ideas which depend on a right view of historical events — why is this inconceivable ? As a matter of fact we see one kind of Faith is better than another — as judged by average results. Why should not Christian faith be the best ? At present, however, I am only a Theist; but I have vowed that it shall not be for want of profound and devoted study, if I do not become a Christian.
As to plans, please do exactly what you like. You consider me terribly. I am really not so selfish as I seem. I do not care about the seaside in June if I have a town. So I should be quite willing to join you in Paris, and you may take your pension for a month.
To H. G. Dakyns from Marlborough, June 20
[T. H.] Green has written to me offering to join us : it is a mark of confidence which pleases me, and (I hope) you. ... As to your father,1 of course I am very sorry for his sake, and indeed for my own, so long as I look at it unscientifically ; it is unfortunate, too, that it was a greatly exaggerated statement, and yet perfectly impossible to explain. But I do not agree with you as to the duty of
1 In his son's absence Mr. Dakyns, senior, had been asked to open his letters, and had read the preceding one.
1862, AGE 24 HENKY SIDGWICK 83
concealment ; I am certain the duty is all the other way ; it is a spurious philanthropy that suppresses earnest con- victions to avoid offence ; why, the very antagonism deepens the spiritual life of those who are really orthodox, though it makes the formalist blacker. . . . My only motive for not speaking out now is scepticism : I am not sure I am right, and so I keep silence even from good words, but it is pain and grief to me, and hence my present hunger to get to the bottom of all the detailed and technical controversy, and see if a stable defence of orthodoxy is lurking under any of the dry leaves.
I told J. B. Mayor last term my perplexity about holding Fellowship, and he answered, wisely I think, that " when the views that were at present negative became positive in me, I ought to resign, not till then." But I must break off.
P.S, — . . . The thing I regret is the falsity of the impression your father must form of those words. Is it not strange that I should have written the most offensive letter I ever wrote just at the moment when I felt really nearer a Christian than I had been for months ? . . .
To his Mother from Harrow, June 30
I am at length in calm repose, and with my plans made up. I finished my Marlborough examination on Tuesday last, and am going to cross the Channel on Monday evening. I am going to stay a month in Paris with Graham Dakyns. ... I am sorry I missed seeing you at Wellington College. ... I suppose you will allow that the new baby x is ugly. I am obliged to catch hold of this to preserve my character as a baby-hater, for I feel myself compelled to join in the general Martin-worship. He is just getting into the interesting stage. I have enjoyed my examinations on the whole and been freer from hay fever than usual. . . .
I was very much charmed with Marlborough. ... I was very much interested in the Isle of Man too. I was surprised to learn that my Uncle Lace was a benefactor to
1 A. C. Benson.
84 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, ir
King William's College there. He gives two prizes every year. Did you know this ? Several people spoke to me about him. One gets into the aristocratic society of the Island by examining. My money was handed over to me in the council chamber. On the whole it was very jolly.
The month in Paris, spent in a boarding-house kept by Mme. la Comtesse du P., afforded consider- able amusement to Sidgwick and his friend. The absence of embarrassment with which Mme. la Comtesse gave a party in her very small bedroom was one of the things that delighted him.1
To his Mother from Lucerne, August 3
... I shall not be coming home till the end of September. I meant to come before, but the state of my health has compelled me to interpolate a Swiss tour between my French and German periods of study, which will throw me back. I do not want to shorten my German visit, as I shall be in the company of some old schoolfellows with whom I was very intimate at Eugby, and of whom I have not seen much since. We are now on the eve of starting for our tour ; we are four : Graham Dakyns, [T. H.] Green, [A. O.] Eutson, and myself; we are going to have twelve days in the Bernese Oberland, and then I go off to Dresden. . . . We enjoyed our stay in Paris very much. . . .
Lucerne is a very nice place, and I like idleness just now ; the view of the Lake is magnificent, and it would take one a week to tire of looking at it and bathing, but to-morrow we go to fresh fields and pastures new. . . . We are going only to do very mild things, mere ladies' walks. After all, I believe it is healthier. ... I think I have exhausted my first love of travelling ; I enjoy it and profit by it now, but without enthusiasm.
1 Amusing in a different way were the naive remarks of Madame la Comtesse in reference to religious topics, as e.g. when she exclaimed sell- pityingly : "Ah! monsieur, le bon Dieu ne me protege pas beaucoup — je ne sais pourquoi," or astonished the friends by referring to "la Saitite Vierge" as "la fenime de Jesus:Christ. "
1862, AGE 24 HENRY SIDGWICK 85
According to Mr. Dakyns's recollection Augsburg and Nuremberg were visited on the way from Switzer- land to Dresden, which was reached towards the end of August. From there he writes to his mother : —
. . . The Swiss tour made me very ill for about three days, as walking, I find, always does : only I am very well now, and look back on the few fine days we had with great pleasure. I saw all the part of Switzerland that I had left out in my last tour, with the exception of one little three days' tour, generally the first taken, which an obstinate set of clouds compelled me to relinquish. On the whole I prefer my this year's tour to my former visit to the High Alps. I have a natural preference of the smiling and varied to the bleak and sublime. But if it were not so long ago, I should abuse the weather, which was really worse than reason- able. We had to do most of the walks in a dogged bad temper. But one fine day makes you forget three misty ones when it comes. . . .
I have had my time very well [filled] since I came to Dresden. What with making a start in Arabic (which is a difficult language for a beginner, as it belongs to quite a different family of language to those I know), reading German, talking German, going to the concerts (charming ones in the open air for threepence), going to the theatre, reading in the long-winded German newspaper of all the numerous rows which are disturbing or threatening to dis- turb the peace of the planet, cultivating the society of my three friends, not to speak of other casual avocations — with all this the time goes before I can really turn round. In my list I omitted the Gallery, but that is really the most important of all the amusements, and takes most time. I have discovered several new beauties this year, but have not changed my opinion about any of my old favourites. ... I think this is the last time I shall come abroad for a year or so. I have got my plan of reading tolerably settled, and as it is a very extensive one, it will absorb all my vacations. But very likely when next Long Vacation comes
86 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
I shall feel a strong longing for the Continent. At present I feel as if my mind was enlarged enough by travel.
I hope you have got tolerably comfortable by this time.1 Minnie says there is plenty of room in the house for modest people, according to your account ; that means several unroomy rooms. If so, we shall do very well : indeed, I rather rejoice, as it will prevent us having a lot of people at once, a thing that I used to like when I was young ; but I find, now I am growing old, that it becomes a bore. . . . I am going to join Edward and Minnie at the Gallery.
To his Mother at the end of September
I shall be home by Thursday or latest Friday in next week ; that will give me a fortnight with you. Having begun this Arabic, I really could not spend less than five weeks on it ; or I should have forgotten all I had learnt by the time I got to Cambridge again. ... I have been very happy here ; my friends are all going off now. It has been very delightful to me to have them with me the whole summer.
. . . Very bad the news from America.2 There is an interesting crisis going on in Prussia ; the King seems to be as stupid, honest, and pig-headed as our old George III. . . . It is great fun reading the Arabian Nights in the original, even though it be only at the rate of five lines an hour.
A miserable letter, but I grudge every minute taken from Arabic just now. Love to all.
To H. G. Dakyns (at Clifton} from Cambridge, October 22, 1862
I was not surprised at the tone of your letter, although I even hope that the world is less black before your face now than it was when you wrote. If I was in the circum- stances you describe, I should probably go to sea (Bristol being a favourable place) in a week ; but you have natur- ally a disposition so much more sympathetic than mine that
1 In her new house at Rugby, on the Bilton Road.
2 Doubtless "Stonewall " Jackson's successes. Sidgwick was very keenly interested in the American Civil War, his sympathies being with the North.
1862, AGE 24 E^TKY SIDGWICK 87
I expect you will become more or less homogeneous (at least superficially) to your milieu before the end of the half- year.1
If a man only could make up his mind not to marry ! But the longer I live the more I believe in that institution for all men but those of very sympathetic disposition : though I retain my old theory about the perfection of the human race coinciding with its removal en masse from this planet. I believe also that by a perverse law of human nature marriage is more necessary to a man not engaged in practical work. You will perceive that these observations are rather general than a propos of Dakyns. Seriously, I do not see why you should not like schoolmastering. But I should go in for saving money. I am doing it myself, and it gives a certain zest, though of a coarse kind, to life.
As for me, I learnt a little Arabic (indeed Schier was so good as to say that my progress was " unglaublich schnell," " in fact," said the excellent man, with tears in [his] eyes, " I may even hear of your writing a — Dictionary before you die ! ") I got much interested in the language ; I am pursuing it doggedly, but I have rather lost my view of what is to come of it. Mohammedanism is such a very inferior article to Judaism that I do not think much is to be gained from comparing the two. And then I do not believe that the earlier prophets admitted even the qualified hypocrisy one finds in Mohammed. However, when one gets to the heresies, one may get hold of some laws of religious pro- gress. As for general standpoint, Green said when we parted that he feared he should have to describe me to Conington as a " kind of mild Positivist " — " not rampant," he was so good as to add (perhaps you would come under that designation). But I begin to despair of fixing myself in England.
To his Mother, November 2
I am glad that you enjoyed your visit to London. I wish I could have spent more time in the Exhibition ; as it
1 This was Mr. Dakyns's first term as an assistant-master at Clifton, then just opened.
88 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
was, I was entirely unable to do the foreign pictures justice. I admired the statuary on the whole very much ; as a rule I am not much moved by statuary. I liked the Reading Girl, though perhaps it endeavours too much to attain the attractions which properly belong to painting. There has been some theological excitement in consequence of Bishop Colenso's publication, of which you may have heard in the Guardian. . . .
To his Mother from A. G. Butler's at Haihybwry, December 1
It is very hard that because Arthur does not write to you, therefore you do not write to me. Such I conjecture to be your frame of mind from a message Wilson gave me when I saw him not long ago at Trevelyan's dinner. I am glad to say that I am pretty well (rather exhausted by prolonged dissipation ; last week, oddly enough, I went out to dinner every day) and tolerably busy. I have been examining a school lately : and the progress I have made in Arabic is extraordinary. My eyes are pretty well ; I am obliged to read at night, but I do it as little as I can. My friend Trevelyan has now gone down for good. His father, as I daresay you have seen, has been appointed financial member of the Indian Council, and his son is going to be his private secretary. It seems a crisis in my life, as he is the last of the friends I made as an under- graduate. But it would be absurd in me to complain, as I am not at all unhappy: though this is the most trying circum- stance connected with prolonged residence at the University. But there are lots of nice men there still, and I have not, I am thankful to say, at all lost the power of making friends, though I feel I am growing old, and probably appear a great Don to freshmen.
... I saw Miss Mulock the other day ; she was staying with Macmillan. They say she is a very nice person ; she looks pleasant and sympathetic, yet hardly capable of the powerful delineations of passion one meets with in her books. They say she is odd and comes to evening parties in her morning dress. . . .
1862, AGE 24 HENEY SIDGWICK 89
If you meet any Trinity men, you may tell them that [J. L.] Hammond is going to be Bursar. Everybody is rejoiced. . . . Professor Sedgwick is flourishing, and it is expected that he will lecture next year for " positively the last time," as he has said any time the last ten years.
To H. G. Dakyns about the same time
I have been very busy the last three weeks about a Middle Class examination and other things, and I seize the first absolute leisure held out to me by a visit to Butler to answer your letter. . . .
As for myself, I have not been getting on lately. I have been rather idle, rather dissipated, rather distrait, rather occupied with irrelevant work. Arabic is getting on gradually ; my immediate desire is to go in for Scriptural criticism, but I wish to go steadily through the Arabic before I begin Hebrew, and, besides, I have a secret convic- tion that the great use of learning Hebrew is to ascertain how little depends on it, and, with regard to Biblical criticism, that it is impossible to demonstrate from them- selves the non-infallibility of the Hebrew writings : just as it would be to demonstrate the non-infallibility of Livy if there was any desire to uphold it. It all depends on the scientific sense, and antiquarianism will never overthrow superstition except in a few intellects who would probably have got rid of it [in] other ways. So I am falling back (in my innermost core) into philosophy, and spinning round and round on the old point of " Personal God," " Living Will," and other Theistic phrases.
Have you yet read F. Newman ? The difficulty is this. Supposing it proved inductively that Mystical Beliefs are beneficial, and supposing they satisfy an instinct (which may, however, be destined to die out in the human race), is one therefore to mould oneself on them? Bishop Butler and Co. would of course say that you ought to regulate your relations to the Infinite on probabilities, just like any other practical question. But I have a paramount instinct to be led, and not lead myself, in these relations. And it seems
90 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
as yet irrational to slide into mysticism (which I think I easily could) for my own gratification. And I cannot quite see that my social duties would be any the better for it. But my instinct for it is yet so strong that I am gradually developing my intuitive theories (which were repressed in the Long from my contrast to Green). You know I want intuitions for Morality ; at least one (of Love) is required to supplement the utilitarian morality, and I do not see why, if we are to have one, we may not have others. I have worked away vigorously at the selfish morality, but I cannot persuade myself, except by trusting intuition, that Christian self-sacrifice is really a happier life than classical insouciance.
That is, the question seems to me an open one. The effort to attain the Christian ideal may be a life-long painful struggle ; and therefore, though I may believe this ideal when realised productive of greater happiness, yet indi- vidually (if it is not a question of life or death) my laziness would induce me to prefer a lower, more attainable Goethean ideal. Intuitions turn the scale. I shall probably fall away from Mill and Co. for a phase. I cannot develop my views in the brief space of a letter, but perhaps you catch them. Another way out of it is finding the foundation of Christianity inexplicable by ordinary laws, and therefore, as the vulgus [do], worshipping the mystery, and obeying (child- like) the moral and religious intuitions of Christ, and, to a certain extent, of the Apostles. You see, I still hunger and thirst after orthodoxy : but I am, I trust, firm not to barter my intellectual birthright for a mess of mystical pottage.
To his Motlier from Cambridge, December 12, 1862
I shall come down on the 22nd, Arthur with me. . . . My work is over, and I am grinding at Arabic and ethnology. My friends are all coming up from the different schools and it is very jolly. ... I shall bring my Arabic home with me. I do not think I shall go in for much light literature, except newspapers, etc., because it uses up valu- able eyesight. I do not know of any good books going. I
1863, AGE 24 HENEY SIDGWICK 91
have read Prehistoric Man, but it isn't much. There are some interesting scientific books expected by Lyell and Huxley bearing on Primaeval Man.
To his Mother, January 24, 1863 (from 0. Brouming's at Eton, after a visit to Roden Noel)
... I went by the Metropolitan Eailway on Monday; it is really most impressive — more so than any other ' wonder of the age ' that I have ever seen. In spite of the enormous expense it ought to be a great success. There is no disagreeable smell.
To his Mother from Cambridge early in February
... I enjoyed my visit to Oxford very much. . . . Conington introduced me, as he promised, to one of the " stars " of Oxford — Professor Henry Smith. He certainly is a wonderful converser ; he kept up an incessant stream of more or less smart things from 7 o'clock to 10. ... I begin lecturing to-morrow: there are piles of newly arrived portmanteaus at the porter's lodge just now. . . . Did I leave a racquet at Eugby ?
To his Mother a fortnight later
... As to " Colenso," ... I seriously think a crisis is coming on again in the Church of England — much like that of the Tractarians. Colenso's book is simply interesting as the spark that fires the straw. Of course his conclusions have long been familiar to scholars, even in England. I am sorry no one has reviewed Miss B.'s book. I have thought it over, and I think I am hardly by way of doing it. I am wanting to cut my connection with the Press (a very slender one), as it interferes with my study and does not improve my style. . . .
Yes, I have read the Chronicles of Carlingford ; it has two sides, a realistic and a melodramatic. The realistic part is worthy of comparison with George Eliot, and one cannot give it higher praise ; but the melodramatic element a little spoils it, as it does all that Mrs. Oliphant writes.
92 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
Altogether it is about the best novel that has come out for some time.
I am interested in your views about Hymen, and the facilities for serving him. Do you think women, as a rule, are annoyed by the social restraints as much as men ? I ask because it does not appear in their books. I should like the American freedom; I don't suppose you would. Young ladies there give their address to men and ask them to call with perfect sangfroid. But of course people marry much more easily in America in an economic point of view, as the struggle for life is so much less felt, and " losing caste " is so much less dreaded. There is no doubt that men in England fall in love chiefly at abnormal periods : when on a reading party or at the seaside, or at a foreign hotel, or at Christmas, or any other occasion when something, either external circumstances or any dominant emotion, thaws the eternal ice. The misfortune is that if these casual thaws do not last long enough, all the advantage gained is lost ; two lines of life that casually intersected diverge perhaps for ever, and the frost sets in with redoubled force. After all, though, people marry, I daresay, as happily as can be expected, and probably the miseries of celibacy are exag- gerated by philanthropists, especially female.
To his Sister about the middle of March
. . . Have you played any more chess ? I have had a game or two since I came up, but I find that it has always interfered with my work, so I have left it off of late. I can beat any ordinary amateur — at least if I may judge from the people who have come up to see me.
As for my Arabic, it has languished rather of late. I believe the only place where I can work well at a subject of that kind is a place like Dresden, where I can isolate myself completely. However, I hope to be pretty well advanced both in it and Hebrew by the end of the Long.
They say that there are ten volumes of Les Miserdbles. I have hitherto been able to read only the fourth ; also, I believe there are two volumes of Kinglake's history of the
1863, AGE 24 HENEY SIDGWICK 93
Crimea, but I read the first three weeks ago, and have got no further. This is one of the advantages of the circulating library I belong to.
I am going down to Eugby for a day or two at the end of the week. I shall avoid politics, and only discuss the more interesting subject of Matrimony. I have been reading ' Ladies' advice to each other " lately in several little books, and I natter myself that I know a thing or two about your sex. I hate being taunted as a Fellow of a College with ignorance of the female character, so I determined to get it up.
To H. G. Dakynsfrom Cambridge, March 22, 1863
I never lived such a spiritually uneventful term as the last. I do not know why ; partly, I think, from neglect of my digestion and consequent hypochondria. I have not even progressed much in Arabic. Partly the reason is that I was drawn away into reading an alien subject, just as I was the year before, in order to write an article on Women (which has, however, not yet eventuated, and which won't eventuate now, I think). I am not an original man, and I think less of my own thoughts every day. I have quite determined to spend the whole Long in study. This Easter I am going to Paris with Cowell, and more or less with Arthur. "We are going chiefly to fldner, and partly to do the theatres. It was too hot to do them properly in the summer, and I feel they ought to be done. I shall have to go on with Arabic all through next term, but I think I shall probably combine it with Hebrew. I am not, I think, in any new phase — except politically, perhaps, I am getting more aristo- cratic : that is, not in ideal, but practically and as regards the immediate aspirations. I have no sympathy with things like the Polish insurrection, and altogether I am getting disgusted with the " nationality " theory. I see that the " national " sentiment is a pure and ennobling one, but I do not think it a rational one ; and I think it diverts much valuable enthusiasm from the true and fructiferous course of progress, which does not consist in rectification of boundaries or reconstruction of maps, but rather in internal reorganisa-
94 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
tion of the same. It would be better for the world, I think, if the enthusiasts, the salt of the earth, would try and fire the people for real liberty and not for this ethnological humbug.
In Theology I am much as ever : I have not yet investi- gated Spiritualism, but I am still bent upon doing so as soon as I have an opportunity : when I find anything out I will let you know. I talked to Green about it when I was up in Oxford. He rather " sniffed " at it, as Coniugton says. However, I do not decide against a novelty because the wise of this world despise, or even because the fools patronise it. ...
I liked Pusey's letters l ; he is spoiling it a little by getting angry now. I think it is a. shame that Stanley and the others do not sign their names. I confess I feel less and less inclined to take my stand on the unstable footing of Liberal Anglicanism, and though practically I sympathise more with the Liberal Anglicans than their opponents, yet in my inmost heart I lean towards the others (or rather in my inmost mind). "Well, I wonder whether our lot will ever do anything : I mean the religious sceptics, not the sceptical Anglicans. We have absolutely no spokesman now. There is no man in England who reflects my notions in print, no, not one.
The visit to Paris came off, Henry Sidgwick, with J. J. Cowell, meeting Arthur Sidgwick, F. W. H. Myers, and F. W. Cornish, " separate parties, but often together." He writes to his mother about April 6 : —
. . . We are enjoying Paris very much — that is to say, we are as little bored as an Englishman ever is when he is amusing himself. I can't speak French in the least, I find, so I shall give up trying as a bad job. But I like the Tuileries and the Champs Ely sees as much as ever. Not that I am at all attracted by France as I am by Germany. I never feel the least desire to spend my life here. Paris
1 Defending the prosecution of Jowett for heresy.
1863, AGE 24 HENRY SIDGWICK 95
seems just like a vast watering-place made for the rich of all nations to amuse themselves in. Not but what when one pushes below the surface one finds a great deal of very interesting everyday life going on. And there is plenty of serious enthusiasm. It is a great mistake to suppose the French frivolous ; the only truth is that when they do devote themselves to vanities they do it with much falat and extravagance. But it seems to me that in the sober pursuits of life there is more devotion and unselfishness here than [in] England. There are more men who love their profession for its own sake, and do not look on it merely as a means of making money. Of course one may be misled in this by the difference of national character: as the French, fond of real and mock heroics, always attribute to themselves their best motive as the sole one, whereas an Englishman chooses his worst to publish — at least an Englishman of ordinary honesty.
I do not quite know when I shall come back to England ; I think I shall leave Paris on Monday week, but if the leaves have come out I may stay a day or two longer. We are just not in the right season now for seeing anything that depends on green. . . .
To his Mother from Cambridge on May 4
I am well, pretty happy, and working very hard; it would delight your heart to see how I rise at 6^-, some- times at 5^-. We dine at 2, play croquet afterwards, tea, walk, two or three hours' more reading, and bed at 10. Quite Arcadian. I am reading nothing but Arabic and lectures. I am lecturing on the Acts of the Apostles. It is a book wonderfully little appreciated ; at least I had no idea myself how interesting it was, though I had read it pretty often, till I began to lecture on it.
What do you think of your favourite Times on Church extension ? That organ has deliberately chosen and picked out the single diabolical element of conservatism : that which says, " What we've got is humbug, but we are very com- fortable, and we don't intend to change it for any other
96 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
humbug." I saw Arthur's and my old friend Testing l to-day, and we fraternised on the subject. You should read Gladstone's speech to-day.2 Never was he more splendide mendcuK, which Arthur will translate.
A little later he writes to his sister that he cannot come to see her at the end of term as
I shall be plunged in examination, and if hay fever is superadded, I must not venture, as my eyes may be taken bad, which will be a disastrous preliminary to the study of Hebrew, which I am staying at Cambridge this Long in order to commence.
... I am going up to town to-morrow, and I shall try and cast a hurried glance over the Academy ; but I must be back here again on Thursday morning, as I have to non- placet a Grace of the Senate (petitioning against Mr. Bouverie's bill).3 We, the non-placeters, shall be in a miserable minority, and I must not diminish it. ...
I am getting to know a deal about English history, and am wondering whether a book could be written about it, at once short, instructive, and interesting. Read Gold win Smith's lectures if you can ; they are so carefully composed that it is a real pleasure to read them, independently of anything one learns from them.
To his Mother early in June
Many thanks for your letter and gift [a birthday present]. I have now passed what is said to be the dangerous age (as regards imprudent marriage) : I certainly do not feel as if I had outgrown the rashness of youth in other respects : how- ever, there is no immediate danger of my creating a vacancy in the Fellowships.4 I still think of staying here mainly in the Long Vacation ; the idea that Cambridge is insalubrious at
1 Afterwards Bishop of St. Albans.
2 A speech advocating the levying of income tax on " Charities."
3 University tests. Mr. Bouverie's bill to repeal the "Conformity to the Liturgy " clause in the Act of Uniformity, on account of the injury it caused to the University.
4 By marrying.
1863, AGE 25 HENKY SIDGWICK 97
that season is, I believe, a complete delusion. We are as flat as a board, but for that very reason we get lots of wind. . . . I just had three-quarters of an hour at the Academy. I cannot conceive any one except a painter admiring the ghastly St. Agnes. I believe technically it is well done, except that the garment wreathed about her feet cannot possibly have fallen down into that shape. The other two of Millais' are wonderfully well painted : only I am vexed at a man of his wonderful execution deliberately choosing such trivial subjects. There used to be some poetry in him ; where is it gone to ? His inspiration seems now about the level of Mrs. Henry Wood's novels.
To H, Gr. Dakyns from Cambridge about the same time
... I am getting into a thoroughly unindividual state of mind on theological topics ; I think a hundred times of what the British public are ripe for, for once that I think of what I believe. Perhaps the conviction is growing on me that the Truth about the studies I set my heart on (Theology and Moral Philosophy) will not be found out for a generation or two. This may be true, but it is paralysis to think so, and it makes a man who has forsworn Physics take refuge in Grammar and Geography as studies based on something certain. On the whole, I think I have a gift for grammar, and if I thought it of the smallest use to mankind I could devote myself to it without any regret. But I must write out my views on Morals, as they are reaching a remarkable definiteness as far as they go.
Can't you come and see me in the Long ? I shall be up here all the time, as I am going to tackle Hebrew. I have not been able to do it yet : I am so lazy, and Arabic is so vastly copious. I do not yet feel that I have a thoroughly firm grasp of it : but I shall try and keep both up in the Long when there are no plaguey undergraduates to teach.
. . . is trying for the Professorship of ,
much to my annoyance, as he is a friend of mine, and yet I don't think he is the best man. It is a horrid nuisance to have to put one's principles into practice. But I am nerved
H
98 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
by finding morality here on such subjects at such a low ebb. Nobody makes a secret of voting for his personal friend as such. Is it Cambridge eip&veia ? I think irony a bad thing both here and at Oxford ; it is often only a veil for real low principle. Upon my word, the way in which I discuss theology with half a dozen clergymen is startling. The country is enormously deceived.
To his Mother from Cambridge, June 28
. . . My resolution to stay in Cambridge this Long has not wavered. You will pardon my assuming a tone of Heroism, but the fact is that when I communicated to my friends, as they parted for their several tours, my immutable resolve, they received it with an anxiety, a seriousness, implying that they expected at the most to have to gather up my mangled remains when they returned in October. Here I am, then ; the climate agrees with me ; I revel in Leisure ; if I do not over-eat myself (our cook is very good) my health will be all right ; I have got half through the irregular verbs of Hebrew (and let me tell you that the irregular verbs in Arabic are Clockwork as compared to them). . . .
To H. G. Dakyns in July
... I have begun Hebrew. Grammatically it is infinitely arbitrary and uninteresting as compared to Arabic — which has as pretty a grammar in its way as any language but Greek — and on the whole it is so unprepossessing that, with the miserable idleness, instability, and indigestion which characterise me, I can foresee that if I had begun it in Term time I should have made nothing of it. As it is, nothing can prevent my going on with it, and I suppose I shall at last be getting into Old Testament Criticism towards the end of the Long. I seem to myself to be getting stagnant as to ideas, owing to this long spell of almost mechanical drudgery ; and I have no one here who sympathises with me quite enough — except, indeed, one man, only he is an undergraduate at Downing,1 and I cannot see very much of
1 J. B. Payne.
1863, AGE 25 HENKY SIDGWICK 99
him. When I say sympathise, of course I mean intel- lectually. The clerical atmosphere of the place begins to oppress me. Not that men are intolerant, heaven forbid — anything but that — in fact, the accounts that come to us from Oxford seem like a wild medieval dream. We are thoroughly Nineteenth Century English — according to the Times idea of the English character — unspeculative, tolerant, hard-working, and yet miserably given to wasting time on unrefined, unelevating relaxations (such as College feasts whist, and supper). But — have you read a spirited if not profound attack in Macmillan1 of July on the clergy in general and Convocation in particular ? I have the same feeling as regards our Clergy ; as men I respect many of them much, and like some ; but they are either bigots, or they show the same kind of perplexed drifting inadequacy to the occasion which the Macmillaner describes — reminding me of A. Clough
. . . No arraying I see, or king in Israel ; Only a confused cry, " For God's sake do not stir there." 2
When one reads the novels or pamphlets of twenty years ago, it is almost pathetic to note the fiery, youthful, vigorous self-confidence of the High Church then, and mark the con- trast now. There are lots of Puseyites here now — quite a big revival, but no mind among them, and such as there is goes either to "active work," antiquarianism, or political agitation.
My own views do not alter ; you know I attach less and less value to criticism the more time I spend over it. How can a close knowledge of Hebrew help us to convince a man who after reading the English Version believes that God Almighty wrote the account of Noah's flood ? I have no doubt antiquarian research will bring [out] some valuable results in time in Hebrew antiquities as elsewhere: but long before that the research will have become one of purely antiquarian curiosity. Meanwhile, one can at least contra-
1 An article entitled "Convocation aiid Dr. Colenso."
2 Incorrectly quoted from dough's Bothie : —
Neither battle I see, nor arraying, nor king in Israel ;
Only infinite jumble and mess and dislocation,
Backed by a solemn appeal, ' For God's sake, do not stir there ! '
100 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
diet the people who say that it would all come right if you only gave the right meaning to niNnrr or similar word.
To his Mother from Cambridge, July 10
. . . The Jews were a splendid people, but the more I read about them the more averse I become to the Biblio- latry of the day. This is a disagreeable age to live in ; there are so many opinions held about everything, and the advocates of each abuse their opponents so violently that it quite frightens a modest man.
To H. G. Dakyns in Augvst
I am sorry you are relaxed. I am not very well myself, but I can get a good morning's work most days; in the evenings I am afraid of trying my eyes with an unfamiliar language. The Long appears to me dull on the whole. You see, John Peile (and so on) are down and — but this is humbug, for I really am enjoying myself very much. I get very enthusiastic over Hebrew. I went down for three weeks at the end of July. I went [to Wellington College to examine, and] to see Tawney ; he is better ; he is going to try a sea voyage round the Cape to Calcutta and back with a brother of his who has got an Indian appointment. He is much interested in what we will discreetly call Modern Thought.
Since I came up here again I have been " pegging away" at the Pentateuch. I have just finished the destruction of those miserable Egyptians. Hebrew is fine, in most ways finer than Arabic ; it is less soft, copious, has the disadvan- tage of being an antiquarian language, and having a less symmetrical grammar. I do not see my way to anything decisive in criticism, e.g. the Elohistic and Jehovistic theories are all very fishy. Being an impartial man, I feel morally certain that it all means something, only what? Each theory can be easily overthrown. Stanley called Ewald the Niebuhr of Hebrew history. Tawney shrewdly remarks that there will soon come a Cornewall Lewis of ditto, or even a Grote (as you say yourself); who will quietly treat the earlier legends as mere legends, and begin with, say,
1863, AGE 25 HENEY SIDGWICK 101
Samuel, to construct the history. However, meanwhile I am living a happy life on the fine old literature. You can't have an idea from the English version of its charm, the naive semi-poetical turn of all the more eloquent parts. The blessing of Isaac and the story of Joseph are really unsurpassed. Esau's character is wonderfully drawn. The composer of these stories must really have been a great dramatist. There is great art in the abrupt breaking down of Joseph's elaborate trial of his brethren, after the intensely pathetic, despairing appeal of Judah. You see I am enthusiastic, but the best is over ; already in Exodus looms the sacerdotal, the dry, the stiff, the systematic, which cul- minates in Leviticus. Deuteronomy I expect to enjoy, and Judges excessively. I want to get to the end of Kings before Term.
To his Mother, August 30
... I am reading Hebrew still. I have just finished Deuteronomy. I mean to go on when I come down, as I am in splendid working order, and only wish to exchange the society of Dons for yours. Deuteronomy is not as interesting as the earlier books ; it is more rhetorical, though in parts very sublime. Miriam's Song in Exodus is very fine in the original.
To 0. Browning from Cambridge, October 13 It is astonishing to find the Long come to an end. It has seemed long, and I have learnt infinitely less Hebrew than I might reasonably have expected. I shall not get through the O.T. by Christmas. The Hebrew Prophets are overrated, I think, aesthetically speaking ; singularly fine fragments, but so chaotic and tautological, amorphous and monotonous.
I had a talk with an Etonian in the Long, who told me that all the boys were passionately fond of Balston; he confided to me that " King's " was ruined by a set of people called University reformers, and that no decent fellow would go there for the future. He remarked, as a sign of the depravation of King's, that the masters who had recently
102 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
come from thence had the ridiculous bad taste to object to even a slight intoxication on the time-honoured 4th of June. Altogether it was most edifying, and I felt what a sacri- legious spirit I was of. ...
seems to have improved his mind much. I hope
you have done the same. Mine, on the other hand, is thoroughly empty of all ideas except Semitic. Cowell is battering me to Southernise me with some effect.1 . . .
To H. G. Dakyns early in November
You will see from the Initial [Society] papers I forward that I am become less Northern. I shall best express my feeling by saying that my slumbering, smothered disgust at " Sentimental Politics " has broken out all at once. In this frame of rnind I came across an article in Fraser of October, which I wish you would read if you can get hold of it. There is no good entering on so many-sided a question in a letter. I think as things are now, it would be just as sensible for us to exterminate Brazilian society as for the North to exterminate Carolinian. If the war were to end now, I should not regret it. The New Englanders have cleansed themselves from the guilt of slavery. Let the crusade cease ; let us draw a " cordon " round the abnormal society, and let the oligarchs try their experiment. It would get the world on faster. The Spectator represents the sentirnentalism I loathe. There is less sympathy, less self- control, less of the element of ethics in the Northern spirit every day. The finest natural emotions do not make up for this. You had better write something terse and dry in your reply. Cairnes is a sentimentalist in the clothing of a political economist.2
I am sorry your life is low. I am much interested in all you say. I should like to get at this Oxford Hegel - ianism and see what it means. I used to talk with Green, but I did not draw much. This belief in the Tubingen
1 Concerning the American Civil War.
2 This refers to Professor Cairnes' The Slave Power. Notwithstanding this outburst, Sidgwick remained in the main in sympathy with the North throughout (seo p. 129).
1864, AGE 25 HENRY SIDGWICK 103
school is still more amazing. I think of it, as I do of most schools, that it will probably vindicate to itself a distinct corner in Biblical interpretation, when that is per- fected. Just as the old theory of Forgery in the Old Testament still holds more or less as to Daniel, so probably some of the books of the New Testament are really mere manifestations of Tendenz. But this Hegelian Christ ! I do not believe much in Ewald neither. We want a G. C. Lewis in Hebrew history.
To his Sister in November 1863
... I have nearly got through the Old Testament: I shall have done all but Ezekiel (the hardest) by the time I go down. I begin to wonder that any one who has ever learnt any language and has six months, clear, to spare — this last is a rare gratification, I know — does not learn Hebrew. There are so few words that one soon gets to feel more or less at home in it. It is distressing, however, to have the finest passages of the translation destroyed by the barbarous fidelity of a ruthless German commentator. Fancy putting, instead of " the iron entered into his soul," " his soul entered the iron " ! . . .
Have you seen any literature ? There is a poetess who calls herself " Jean Ingelow " who is estimable. The Keviews have discovered that Woolner's poem [" My Beautiful Lady "] is a swan, and I do not think it a goose myself.
On December 11, 1863, he writes to his mother arranging to spend Christmas with her at Rugby, and it is interesting, in view of his work in Psychical Research, to find him saying : —
Though I am pretty well read in Pneumatological Literature, I have not heard of the book you mention. I will look for it in the University library as soon as I have a moment's leisure.
To his Mother, February 11, 1864
... I am distracted just at present from my regular work by examining for the University scholarship. It is a
104 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
kind of work I dislike, but can't [shirk]. My complaints of idleness are well founded, though they refer rather to habit than to results. I have a perpetual consciousness that I ought to be working, so that, on the whole, I get through a fair amount ; but I have never formed a habit of really steady application, so that I waste a good deal of tune every day that no one can take account of but myself. I am not quite sure that you and other people are not right in saying that some practical work would benefit me in respect of this and similar habits. One great drawback, however, to the satisfactoriness of my work is the uncer- tainty I always feel as to the ultimate result of it. I do not believe in anything I study quite enough to give me an ardent love of every fact connected with it ; and one ought to have that belief in order to carry one over wearisome tracts of ennui. William is coming to see me in a fort- night ; we are very busy and lively ; certainly the complete ease of Cambridge society is very charming to me. . . .
To his Mother, March 22
... I have been reading at the British Museum. The facilities of study afforded there are really a thing for an Englishman to be proud of. I positively wasted a good deal of the short time I had to spend there in mere admiration. . . .
To H. Gr. Dakyns, March
. . . Littre* is very good, tho' it makes me reflect that Positivism kills biography as an art. There is no individu- ality in his Comte : it is a mere type : only that he is the only one of his type. I agree with him entirely as to the " subjective phase of C.'s life." I'll write soon. Spiritualism progresses but slowly ; I am not quite in the same phase, as I (fancy I) have actually heard the raps (produced by Cfowell]), so that your " dreaming awake " theory will require a further development. However, I have no kind of evidence to come before a jury. So keep it still dark till I blaze forth. I am going to prosecute it this Easter. I can only assure
1864, AGE 25 HENEY SIDGWICK 105
you that an evening with S[piri]ts, scriptorc C[pweir\o, is as fascinating to me as any novel. I talk with Arabs, Hindoos, Spaniards, Counts Cavour, etc. I yield to the belief at the time, and recover my philosophic scepticism next morning.1
I am stupid, horribly unaesthetic, can't sympathise with your reading Dante in the least. You will turn out the " poetical mind," after all.
I talked to Green in Oxford ; I was horrified by his idea of diaconising ; it is only in such a milieu as Oxford that a high-minded man could think of it. But there the political side of Neology is so prominent that one con- tinually comes across this feeling about Subscription, " The more you want to keep me out, the more I won't."
I am grinding at Mohammad [in] Sprenger; he thinks him a very inferior person, just as Kenan did ; his (S.'s) views seem somewhat to resemble R's. I wish his style did in the very least. But I am getting to detest the " probable " ; this kind of history is a " system of ingenious guesses."
. . . Can't you come up here at Easter from Good Friday to Sunday ? We shall have quite a family party. Benson preaches in St. Mary's. Trevelyan will be up and a friend of mine I should like you to see.
To H. G. Dakyns, April 5
. . . Then again, in so far as (e.g.) the Protestant symbol depends on erroneous interpretation of historic facts (and it does to an enormous degree), it seems treason to science even to wish to retain it. To be candid, I will allow that I do wish to retain the idea of Divine Sacrifice, though it seems to me irreconcilable with a philosophic Theism. I am fascinated by Browning's [lines in " Saul," § xviii.].
1 The experiments in automatic writing with his friend Cowell, here mentioned, are described by Sidgwick in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. iii. pp. 25-27 (in an article by F. W. H. Myers on automatic writing). He there says, "The experiments that we made . . . always failed to show anything in the statements written down that might not have been due to the working of [my friend's] own brain ; and at the end of my visit we were both agreed that there was no ground for attributing the phenomenon to any other cause but unconscious cerebration." The " raps " remained puzzling.
106 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
Would I suffer for him that I love ? So wouldst thou, so wilt thou. So shall crown thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost crown, And thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor down One spot for the creature to stand in. It is by no breath, Turn of eye, wave of hand, that salvation joins issue with death.
Yet I feel this must be abandoned. ... As to Spiritualism, do not speak of it : I have not progressed, but am in painful doubt ; still I have some personal experiences and much testimony, and I find it hard to believe that I shall not discover some unknown laws, psychological or other; but I do not yet wish even to expound except viva voce when interrogated. The raps were perceived by the sensoria of myself and Cowell, sitting at a small table, certainly not in consequence of any physical force exercised by us on the table. You will ticket it as a case of the " idee fixe."
I go to some German University about June 16 to learn Arabic, and hope to be abroad the whole Long.
To his Mother from Cambridge, about the end of April
... I went to Oxford last Saturday and saw "William. I enjoyed it excessively ! the Sunday was delicious and the intellectual excitement of the conversation there almost fatiguing. Oxford presents a striking contrast to Cam- bridge in respect of the much greater stir and activity of the intellectual life that is kept up there. It is partly due to the hot controversies that are always raging there, which keep people's minds always thinking ; so we have perhaps a compensative advantage in the scholarlike quiet and tolera- tion of Cambridge, where a man may on the whole " speak the thing he will."
I am inclined to agree with you about the new master- ship at Rugby ; the only doubt is what Arthur will do. I do not think he will be sorry to have more time to read, and I myself hope that he will elect to stay at Cambridge. There is much good that he could do there, and he could soon be saving. I find that I have saved £1700, and hope to save £400 a year as long as I stay here: in spite of all my travelling, books, and the extremely luxurious life
1864, AGE 26 HENEY SIDGWICK 107
that I can hardly help leading. However, I know you think that William and I are enough victims on the Moloch-altar of College life. . . .
To his Mother about May 13
I shall perhaps come down to Eugby as early as Thursday, the 2nd, . . . and my friend Cowell will come at whatever time I do. The only thing that makes it doubtful is that we are going to have the Prince and Princess of Wales here for the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th of June, and I cannot quite make up my mind whether I shall stay and help to entertain them or not.
We are going to give a grand ball in Neville's Court on the 4th of June. I consider it a most unseemly proceeding on the part of a charitable foundation for the purposes of education, and of which the majority are clergymen, and so I opposed it with all the means in my power, especially as it will be a very great expense, and you know my miserly tendencies. However, as it is going to take place, I would gladly take my part if I thought it would do any one any good. But I cannot think of any family with marriageable girls whom I could ask to come up for the occasion : and no one else could possibly care to come to Cambridge when the town will be so crowded. So I think my room will be preferable to my company. However, I have not quite made up my mind. ... I have been up to town, and had a glimpse of the Eoyal Academy. There seemed to me to be, on the whole, the same lack of imagination, but one or two pictures made me covetous.
To H. G. Dakyns in May
... I am sorry you are in so nightmarish a state. Have you been reading Carlyle or any such poison ? For myself I wake up every morning with a fresh faith in progress (of some sort). I have as much right to be in despair as any one, for I cannot even get my moral sense right. I have been setting to work on a book that was to be called " Eudsemonism Eestated": and just when I have demonstrated on paper the
108 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
absolute preferableness of complete self-devotion, I find myself disbelieving it — or at least disbelieving it to be demonstrable. I will hope for any amount of religious and moral development, but I will not stir a finger to compress the world into a system, and it does not at present seem as if it was going to harmonise itself without compression. The only possible cult then possible at present is that of the healthy, under all circumstances : and I am becoming a sort of Christianised Aristippus (as to my ideal).
The reading of Aubrey de Vere has excited in my mind old fancies of going to Chios. A. de V. succeeds, I think, in a sort of loose, careless classicism which is as different from the compressed inhaltsvoll classic style of Tennyson and Tennysonians as — I can't think of a comparison.
Would you go to Chios ? I believe one can live in luxury on £40 a year there. Meanwhile, for it is as well to have two strings to one's bow, I am trying to get the Tutors to appoint me Moral Philosophy lecturer to the College. I do not think they will.
There are lots of things going on here, and in fact I feel as if Cambridge was improving. Do you see Kenan's incidental notice of English Universities in the last Revue ? The great charm of Eenan is that he is so " earnest."
To Roden Noel from Ostend
... I am on my way to Germany with a vague inten- tion of studying Arabic literature with the aid of some hdve et famdique Privat- decent, as Kenan has it. There are two professors of Arabic at Cambridge, and they give between them twelve lectures a year, which is scant nourishment for a soul as eager after knowledge as mine is. I am staying here a day or two to get a breath of sea air to blow away my hay fever, which is violent just at this season.
... By the bye, the characteristic of Browning I once described as " applying the blow-pipe to passion " is more prominent than ever in his last volume, particularly in "James Lee." There is one delightful exception to this
1864, AGE 26 HENKY SIDGWICK 109
remark, viz. " Youth and Art " ; the bitter regret only comes
out in one verse : —
We have not sighed deep, laughed free, Starved, feasted, despaired — been happy.
The second line is perfection ; you could not do it in any language but English. It is curious to see what an dan Browning's popularity has taken after his having been so long merely the idol of a clique.
There is a new story by the authoress of The Heir of Reddyffe, which I have read with all my old enthusiasm. I thought it was quite gone off, as the last two of her books rather bored me, but I can't get The Tried out of my head. Did you ever read Madame Bovary, a French novel by Flaubert ? It is very powerful, and Miss Yonge reminds me of it by force of contrast. It describes how the terrible ennui of mean French rural domestic life drags down the soul of an ambitious woman, whereas Miss Yonge makes one feel how full of interest the narrowest sphere of life is. I think her religion is charming, and it mellows with age, the dpre Puseyism wears off. I will write to you again when I get settled and describe a German interior, if I get admitted into one, as I hope. . . .
To his Mother from the house of Professor Benfey at Gottingen, about the end of June
Above is my address. I expect to stay here at any rate till the end of August. The worthy Professor, who has made me a member of his family for a consideration of £8 a month, is a Professor of Sanscrit whom I met three years ago at an assembly of philologers in Brunswick. I after- wards paid him a flying visit here, and then formed the idea of coming some day to read in Gottingen. I feel very well satisfied with my situation so far. I have private lessons in Arabic twice a week from the laborious Professor Wiistenfeld ; I attend four times a week the half public lectures of the distinguished Professor Ewald (there are only three pupils, including myself), who also has promised to give me once a week another private lesson. So as
110 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
far as my studies go I am pretty well provided. The family circle is not large ; it consists besides myself of the Professor, his wife, whom I think it would not be too severe to call " a nice, motherly person," and three daughters, of whom two are still at school, i.e. a day school in Gottingen, which they tell me is the best in all Hanover. The third daughter is just grown up ; she is intelligent, enthusiastic, and not ugly, and speaks English better than any of the others, indeed very well. The Professor has been in England (in fact he was offered, he tells me, a post at Kugby in Dr. Arnold's time), and has even written a Sanscrit Grammar in English, and is now engaged on a Lexicon in the same language, in correcting the proofs for which I am to assist him — but he is by no means perfect in his use of the language. He tells me that his daughter has learnt chiefly from him, but she often corrects him. My own German has suffered sadly from want of use, and I intend to propose to the Fra'ulein to exchange instruction in our respective languages for an hour or so a day. If she consents I shall have much the best of the bargain, but she does not know how well she knows the language. It is remarkable to what an extent I feel at home in Germany ; and this town is particularly one that suits my tempera- ment; it is just the size I like, about 15,000 inhabitants; it is situated in a pretty hilly country — unlike Berlin, that is plumped down in the middle of the dullest, flattest, sandiest level in Europe. The town was fortified before the peace, but the ramparts (as has happened in so many other places) have been turned into a shady walk round the town, which is really delightful : and very academic in the meditative mood they inspire. The streets are tolerably empty ; there are no sights to be seen and no amusements to distract one ; altogether it is exactly the place I should have chosen. In September my professors (one certainly and probably both), travel away, and I shall most likely go eastward in search of Arabians, to Dresden, Halle, or Leipsic. I stayed three days at Ostend ; it was not a bad place for hay fever, as the only walk that had the least
1864, AGE 26 HENEY SIDGWICK 111
attraction was along the shore, where there is a fine sea-wall of about half a mile in length. I walked up and down there, and read Arabian Nights for the rest of the time, and supported life with the extra - English cookery of the expensive inn, i.e. raw beefsteaks relieved by mutton chops one day, and mutton chops succeeded by underdone beef- steaks another. It was, however, successful medically, as my hay fever did not sensibly return during the tedious railway journey from Ostend to Gdttingen.
To his Mother, from the same address, in the middle of July
Here I am very comfortable still. . . . To-day is Sunday, and I have just attended the Lutheran service in the church opposite. Certainly there is no doubt that the sermons in Germany are much better (that is, more impressive) than our own. I have never heard a sermon delivered in at all a perfunctory way, and the great majority show that they have carefully cultivated delivery, tone, and expression. I called on Professor Ewald after service. It appears to be the custom here to pay calls between eleven and one on Sunday morning; and especially Ewald works so hard all the week that it would be impertinent to disturb him with a visit. He told me that sermons in Germany are considered to be in an improving state rather than the reverse, and that only in very rustic districts did the clergy dare to read their sermons. I can't see why clergy in England should not all learn to preach without book. What the discourse loses in intrinsic merit is counterbalanced ten times over by the additional power of impressing that it acquires.
The Professors are very obliging ; they insist on giving me lessons gratis. Ewald's lectures are always gratis, but Professor Wiistenfeld gives me absolutely two hours of his already very scanty leisure, and insists on not being paid. This is absolutely embarrassing. I hear, however, that he is rich for a German, and fills his post here only because of his decided taste for study. I have not got to know any of the students here ; they howl twice a week in a big room opposite, where they enjoy beer, tobacco, and students' ' rags.'
112 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP. H
Every now and then one hears of duelling, which appears to be earned on almost entirely as an amusement and rarely as a means of avenging an affront. Yet my Professor assures me that no one in Germany dares refuse to fight a duel, when challenged, without distinctly losing caste. Extraordinary state of things ! but it is evidently one of those absurdities which can only be gradually extinguished by public opinion. Three Catholic officers in Berlin lately refused to fight duels on conscientious grounds. Duelling is forbidden in the army, and yet these three men were forced by the authorities to sell out ! ! !
Meta Benfey is a charming girl, and I only wish I could devote more of my time to the improvement of my German by conversation with her. The other two children are about fourteen and fifteen, I imagine. . . . Professor Benfey is a great talker, and the more I see of him the greater respect I entertain for his ability. He is not at all a man who impresses one with ability at first — in general Germans do not seem to me to aim at attaining an oracular manner, as is so much the fashion in England — but he has wonderfully quick and accurate perceptions, astonishing powers of work, unfailing clearness of head.
To H. G. Dakyns, from Professor Benfey' s, in July 1864
... I have no heart to write about myself. I feel somewhat like Matthew Arnold's Oxus, as if I had poured the feeble stream of my energies into an Arabic waste,
forgetting the bright speed I had, A foiled circuitous wanderer.
I do not get on as well as I hoped : Ewald disappoints me, he is so very narrow-minded on some points. It is difficult to be at once a grammarian and a philosopher, or even a philosophic historian. The sharpness and swiftness of his perception is wonderful, the devotion and philanthropy of his soul admirable — but he wants many-sidedness.
To H. Gr. Dakyns a little later " Come out into the azure," says Emerson. " Hug the
1864, AGE 26 HENKY SIDGWICK 113
day " ; and I feel inclined to apply the advice to you. "Never consider yourself an exception to general rules," said an Epicurean we both knew. This also may be quoted. Do not consider me unsympathising ; it is not so. It is thus. When I first read your letter, the mysterious gloom pervading it descended on me like a thick cloud. On re-reading it the conviction forced itself on me that you really drew three - fourths of your wormwood from a fallacious sense of isolation in the manifold experiences of humanity, which I too have known, and which I consider the only intolerable evil. Therefore I consider, as far as I can look on it as an abstract question, that your resolution to communicate yourself to me is good. I once had a terrible (but in this case semi-hypochondriacal) gloom, which I dissipated by a violent struggle after lumen siccum. However, that is probably not the least to the point, but I have an inexplicable conviction that when I hear what you have to tell I shall be able to talk very much to the point. ... I really think that the power of combining sympathy and lumen siccum does belong to me, and the unpleasant is as human (um) as the pleasant.
To H. Gf. Dakyns again later
God the Creator is profuse of poisons, as Shelley bitterly said ; but the Eedeemer, the conscious spirit in us, has nothing to do with them. He has but to seek the antidote. " Portions and parcels of the dreadful past " is a heathen idea ; say rather, the Past is divine, God's work, with all its lights and shadows. The present also is in so far God's as it is the result of the past. God hands over to us at this moment a complex stuff of weakness and strength, sickness and health, habits and desires, good and pernicious ; our conscious spirit has but to apply its modicum of energy to mould this toward the ideal. . . .
One word. Strive not to let your spirit be clouded by your flesh : in every disease this is the worst danger : it means what is called hypochondria, the state when one's thoughts are enslaved to one's clay. I do not know
I
114 HENRY SIDG WICK CHAP, n
whether you are in danger of this : if so, believe one who has cried ev Be <pdei, KOI o\eacrov,1 that the will is very powerful in such cases.
To his Mother about the middle of August
It is a long time since I wrote, but my life has settled into a singularly uneventful course. I read Arabic and talk German ; I talk German and read Arabic — voila tout — except on Sundays, when I go long walks with a Prussian student of Sanscrit, with whom I have made acquaintance. He cheers my solitude and spoils my German, because I only use the language when with him for the purpose of exchanging ideas without paying the least regard to the accuracy of the form in which they are conveyed. He is a most amiable-looking man, and you would take him for an Englishman. I wish I could introduce you to Professor Ewald ; I am sure you would like him. I shall bring over some photographs of him ; with his high forehead and long white hair he looks so reverend, simple, and benevolent, and withal somewhat shiftless, just as a learned man ought to be. I discovered at the end of the term that he had lengthened his lectures half an hour solely for my sake, and he has promised to give me private lessons all through September. I am resting now — that is, only reading the Arabian Nights a few hours a day — till Graham Dakyns comes (I expect him at the end of this week) to spend a few days in the Harz ; then I shall set to work again for about a month more, after which I shall have another break in the shape of a " Philologer-assembly," the thing I went to three years ago, if you remember, which takes place in Hanover. It will be interesting to me, as I shall see all the philological swells together ; and I believe two or three other Englishmen will be there. I do not feel at all exhausted, as I carefully avoid working hard, and take plenty of sleep, rest, and exercise. So I have no doubt I shall be quite well (as far as work goes) at the end of the Long. I take a complete holiday
1 Iliad, xvii. 647. The prayer of Aias, when his foes are hidden by the mist : "Give us light, tho* thou slay us."
1864, AGK 26 HENKY SIDGWICK 115
on Sunday. Besides, I am not engaged in anything really straining to the mind ; when one has advanced as far in a language as I have in Arabic, the labour of acquiring words and phrases is tedious but not exhausting.
If any one asks whether I am turning into a beer-drinking German (as I believe the phrase is) you may inform them that I have not drunk above three glasses since I have been in Germany. I resolved to leave off strong drink to a great extent this summer, and did so without experiencing any discomfort. The diet is only too good, except the tea, which they only make German fashion — that is, about a spoonful to ten cups ; consequently it never keeps me awake, as you may imagine. I like my host and family excessively, but I believe I have told you all about them. The other day an Englishman turned up when I was away, and when I came back they informed me they had heard that I had an elder brother a distinguished wit (" der ausgezeichnete Witze macht ") in Oxford.
Arthur had told me of his acceptance of the Rugby mastership. / can allow that he has taken a prudent, perhaps a wise course ; you will rejoice that at least one son is saved from the dangerous seductions of University residence ; at any rate I am very glad that your stay at Rugby will be so much pleasanter. . . .
To his Mother about the middle of September
I can't come home ; my three months for which I am engaged will not be over till the 8th of October, and I must pay my visit to Paul1 at the end of the vacation. You will see lots of me after I do come home. My progress in Arabic is slower than I had hoped, and, as I am never able to work very hard, I can only attain my object by long perseverance. ... I imagine you will perhaps see G. Dakyns before this reaches you. We had a tolerably prosperous journey in the Harz, and thoroughly explored the different valleys, of which indeed only one is first-class in the way of beauty. It so happened that just in this one
1 Rev. C. Kegan Paul, then Rector of Bailie, Wimborne.
116 HEXRY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
the weather was all that could be wished ; so, though we had a good deal of rain, we ought not to complain. This one valley, a thickly-wooded ravine, occasionally rocky, with a fine, clear, full stream, I do not know anything to beat. On the other hand, the mountains are mere lumps ; one only goes up one, the Brocken, and it is the stupidest ascent I ever made.
I take walking tours rather on faith, as they always make me rather unwell at the time, and I am not sure whether they do me any ultimate benefit. However, I am on the whole in decidedly good health.
No one comes near this Arcadia in the shape of a friend or an acquaintance, which is on the whole satisfactory. I hate to carry England about with me everywhere. I am very fond of the town, and my fondness for the simplicity of German life is an old story. ' As a change ' you will say, ' and to add zest to the luxuries of Cambridge when I return.' Perhaps so ; at any rate I feel as if, were anything to drive me out of England, it would be only a half banish- ment so long as I had Germany to fall back upon. Not that I at all want to be even half banished. I value in theory the English freedom of action as high, if not higher than the German freedom of thought. Besides, in a certain sense we have more real liberality in England than here. That is the really educated — for sometimes I think that the half-educated Englishman whom the daily papers are written to suit is the most conceited idiot on the face of the earth.
To his Mother from Lille, October 10
You perceive I have left Arcadia. Yes, I have taken a tender farewell of my two instructors in Arabic, of my excellent host and his amiable and lively family, and am spending the night in a country where they chatter a superficial language called French. Well, I allow the parting was painful. I am always very sorry to leave Germany, and never more than this time — but I shall get over it. You know why I like the people : they seem to me to have attained the end of civilisation, i.e. intellectual
1864, AGE 26 HENRY SIDGWICK 117
and aesthetic development, without the usual concomitant disadvantages of civilisation, i.e. luxury and ceremony. I shall not begin to feel any patriotic impulse till I see the white cliffs of Dover.
Professor Ewald is disinterestedness itself. He has devoted to me I do not know how much of his valuable time, and absolutely refused to take any payment. He is very fond of talking about England, especially English Theology; in our parting interview he urged on me the importance of studying Hebrew in a country where no one was able properly to answer Colenso.
I went and attended a meeting of Philologers at Hanover. It was not bad fun. I lived with the Orientalist section, who are a sociable lot. The one thing I object to is a German state dinner where the speeches go on between the courses. One eats one's first spoonful of soup at 4^- P.M., and one's last mouthful of cheese about 8.30. Imagine the amount of wine one may drink meanwhile, hobnobbing (literally) with affectionate brother professors ! One or two lights of learning did seem to me to be momentarily quenched or at least nickering.
I have not learnt very much Arabic. Professor Ewald is not complimentary, but he consoles me by saying I know more than most Englishmen. My other Professor is much politer : but then he is at once good-natured and shy.
It is Arcadia. And then they are such nice people — allowing, of course, for differences of manners and customs. Did I mention that Professor Benfey is one of the founders of Comparative Philology ? The King of Hanover asked to be remembered to you — that is, he would have done, if he had thought of it ; as it was, he only asked about the state of Hebrew learning in the English Universities. He was, on the whole, very amiable, and seemed to take a pleasure in talking English.
To H. G. Ddkyns from the Rev. C. Kegan PauFs, Bailie, Winiborne, Dorsetshire
... I have left my Germany : never before with such
118 HENRY SIDG WICK CHAP, n
regret But then I never before spoke the language quite so well or liked any particular people quite so much. I always feel it only requires an effort, a stretching of the muscles, and the tasteless luxury, the dusty culture, the noisy and inane polemics of Cambridge and Oxford are left behind for ever. But I do not make the effort chiefly I think from a remnant of Theistic at3a>? — a feeling that destiny has placed me among modern monkery to do in it whatever the nineteenth century, acting through me, will — for pietas I do not think I have much. . . .
Friendship between the sexes is, you know, after all a devilish difficult thing. How are you to prevent mistakes on the one side or the other 1 It is not as if the human heart was only capable of the one or other definite emotion, blue or red : then it would be comparatively easy to dis- tinguish which was proffered : but, on the contrary, there are all sorts of purples which run into one another. . . .
I have tried in vain to get Professor Benfey to explain to me the identification of the Geist (an abstraction which I allow to have advantages over the Grand Eire) with God, but all he can say is that this sort of Pantheism is the natural development of the Begrijf der Gottheit, latent in humanity. I begin to think that there are only a few Englishmen and no Frenchmen or Germans who can really philosophise without being cheated by big words.
To H. G. Dakyns from Cambridge, October 21
... I am somewhat depressed, chiefly by the conviction growing on me that I am irretrievably second-rate as regards performance. I believe I am cursed with some original ideas, and I have a talent for rapid perception. But I am destitute of Gibbonian gifts which I most want. I cannot swallow and digest, combine, build. Then people believe in me somewhat. I wish they would not. It is my old want — a first fiddle.
You say " you understand " what 1 Me 1 My Gemliths- leben ? C'est possible ; but I doubt it. Your words are to the point, but I feel that you do not take me at my
1864, AGE 26 HENKY SIDGWICK 119
own valuation. My theory is that I have a solid base of temperament, however I may puff and slide,1 and I have done nothing yet that to me disproves the theory, though I have no doubt puffed and slid a good deal. Certainly the fascination that German life exercises on me is singular, because I see the defects of it quite clearly ; yet they affect me not — just like a lover. But it's too simple a solution to take this as a beck of destiny. If I had been born in Arcadia I might be happier : but if I fled thither it would become a Capua, Certainly Cambridge air (socially) feels somewhat cold after Gottingen ; and I never got so fond of any individual persons as I did of the Professor and his daughter. The Frau Professorin was less " simpatica " ; still everything I do, feel, or think is but a conscious experiment, and will be till the first fiddle turns up. I am out of humour. How " bornirt " and provincial the Spectator seems, how coldly shallow the Saturday Review \ Oh ! this historical religion. I feel as if I was half encour- aging it by even reading Arabic. Is not its part played out for thinkers ? History is interesting as a trdpepyov, but let us turn to it when the dust is laid. It will save time and trouble in the end. So I grumble.
I partly agree with the reviews against Aylmer's Field. A poem ought not to be the abstract of a sensation novel. The interest is strong, the compression marvellous, but unsatisfying ; but there are fine bits — the lovers' parting is very beautiful ; on the other hand, it contains some of his worst mannerisms : a return to youthful crudities ; the style is untempered. How false the sermon is dramatically !
But what growth there is in the man mentally ! How he has caught the spirit of the age in The Voyage ! I thought he had fallen off into the didactic- dramatic mood that grows on poetic souls with advancing years ; but how
1 These flashes on the surface are not he. He has a solid base of temperament ; But as the water lily starts and slides Upon the level in little puffs of wind, Though anchored to the bottom, such is he.
(Tennyson, Princess, iv.)
120 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
wonderful — to me — is the lyricised thought of verse 9. I cannot get it out of my head : —
Now high on waves that idly burst
How sad — but a chastened sadness, our sadness — that of the second half of the 19th century — no " Verzweiflung." * The dream in City Clerks [Sea Dreams] is as good ; but, you know, I am always most moved by lyrics. By the bye, I like City Clerks much better than I expected. I have subjectively harmonised it.
I could write about myself, but just at present I take singularly little interest in that particular aggregate of psychological phenomena. If there is anything you care to know, only ask it — and write. Poor Colenso. I have read his last pamphlet ; the letters from the Zulus are really affecting.
The new volume of essays and reviews is abandoned owing to Stanley. How ekelig religious politics are in England ; but we have got a legal Church, and I did not make the world. But I feel deucedly inclined to appeal to first principles. In fact, morally and socially to strip — undress, take to the leather jerkin of Emotional Theism and the woods (see Sartor Rtsarti^s).
Does all this look like a man with a solid base of temperament ? It depends on your theory of human nature. Write. I take (temporarily and inconsistently) more interest in you than in yours affectionately, HENRY SIDGWICK.
To H. G. Dakyns about a week later
. . . For my part I have determined to love the Ideal
only.
Now nearer to the prow she seemed
Like Virtue firm, like knowledge fair,
but I won't plague [you] with my schemes, which have undergone a marked variation. I am studying Theology.
1 F. Myers says in his paper in memory of Henry Sidgwick (reprinted in Fragments of Prose and Poetry) : " My most vivid memory of my friend is as he would recite to me — and I have never known man or woman who could recite poetry like him — that noble apologue of seekers, which was the central expression of his inward life. I speak of Tennyson's poem of ' The Voyage. ' "
1864, AGE 26 HENRY SIDGWICK 121
To H. G. Ddkyns a day or two later
As for me, it is simple truth that I take very little interest in myself. When we meet and talk on things in general I shall be able to give you some new theories on love, friendship, human life, and multa alia. There are things I might tell you. I do not abstain because I want to have any secret from you : but because the mere fact of telling even you would incarnate a ghost of a dream which I want to keep ghostly.
I have gone through a Lduterung's-prozess, that is one thing. My stay in Germany has done me unmixed good, morally and emotionally — if any man dare say this of him- self. I do not mean that it has made me happier. In fact, it has loaded me with a degree of self-contempt which is inconsistent with buoyant happiness. My resolution to read Theology is a result of my moral improvement. I discovered that my idea of writing the history of Islam and obtaining an Arabic Professorship really involved being untrue to the only vocation I have ever discovered in myself.
To H. G. Dakyns about November 2
... I should like to explain to you the change in my plans some time. I think the instinct that led me to it was true. Do you know, if I was quite sure that every one whose opinion was worth having regarded me as a very commonplace person, it would be an indescribable relief. Believe my sincerity, and if you are able, convey delicately this relief. By commonplace I mean simply as regards power and performance.
To his Motlier from Cambridge about October 24
I have been rather long in writing. I had a most delightful visit to Dorsetshire. ... I felt my patriotism revive among the chalk downs and rich autumnal parks. . . .
I have got quite into order again, and am setting to work, though I certainly do not feel so much inclined for reading as I should have done after a more complete holiday.
122 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
I turn over my books and then smoke a pipe ; however, I hope soon to get into swing. ... I do not like the moral and intellectual atmosphere at Cambridge any better for having been at Gottingen. I do not mean in the abstract, but as regards its effects upon me ; however, the great lesson I have learnt in Germany is the necessity and duty of steady work, and that one can do anywhere.
I am reading all kinds of books. The last volume of Vacation Tourists seems to me very good on the whole. Do you get books now from a Club ? If you do, the article on Poland here is worth reading.
To H. G. Dakyns, November 26
I have got over my own little emotional difficulty : I can lock up the memory in a corner of my soul with the certainty that if I ever after years open it again, there will be only a faint pleasant perfume left. . . .
As to my other troubles, I think I am going to lock them up too : and take pupils hard. I think my resolution is fixed. I am not made for non-definite studies ; besides, I feel so keenly
Wir, wir leben, unser sind die Stunden Und der Lebende hat Recht,
that I doubt whether I am made for anything except some- thing in which living masses take a vivid interest. This cuts off Arabic. How I wish I had employed my leisure which I have so wasted, in studying philosophy and art ! But I have common sense enough not to regret. The past, as I said to you once, is God's. I must now have work, hard work, paid work ; my disbelief in myself is too intense for anything else. Besides, I want to earn my freedom from the Church of England. What a hideous compromise between baseness and heroism ! Yet I do not see anything else in this strange age of transition for a man who feels bitterly the Druck of hypocrisy, yet cannot reconcile him- self to cut the Gordian knot. My feeling is that emotional Theism will shine in more and more upon mankind through the veil of history and life ; that all religions are good in so
1864, AGE 26 HENRY SIDG-WICK 123
far as they approximate to it, and that formulae are neces- sary for the mass of mankind in their present state : and that the task of substituting a purer for a crasser formula is a grand one, but I must leave it to a man who has more belief in himself than I have. In short, I feel with regard to the Church of England 8oOXo9 etc^d?)? ; fj,rj <rol aXX' el Kal Svvaa-ai, eXeu#epo? jevecrOat, ^a\\ov and I mean to put it, if possible, in my power.
In another letter to Mr. Dakyns, probably written about this time, he says, " What a strange thiDg a natural man is ! Stranger if he has a philosopher inside him looking at him all the while."
To his mother on December 9, 1864, after suggest- ing arrangements for his friends A. J. Patterson and J. B. Payne to pay them visits during the holidays, lie writes : —
I am very busy just now with examination and College politics. ... I have had on the whole an idle term. Perhaps my work during the Long has disposed me to relaxation.
To H. G. Dakyns from Eugly, December 22
. . . My views are pretty well fixed. The only doubt is about applying for an examinership ; but the other line leaves me freer, though ultimately poorer. However, blow material considerations. I perceive that I am at a turning- point of my life. Everything appears different to what it ever did before. I feel as if I was just awake, and yet I do not regret my dreams.
The Past is God's, I always repeat. I have never before freed my innermost conscience from the thraldom of a historical belief. Long after the belief had gone, the impression remained that it was all-important to have a view on the historical question. As if after dying I were likely to meet God and He to say, Well, are you a Christian ? ' No,' I say, ' but I have a theory on the origin of the 1 1 Cor. vii. 21.
124 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
Gospels which is really the best I could form on the evidence ; and, please, this ought to do as well.' I begin to think now that this was probably an erroneous idea of my relations to the infinite : and I begin to think that there has been about enough study devoted to the bible, and that the vein to work now is comparative history. A compara- tive history of the mythical, and a comparative history of ecstasy, the past, especially the remote past, being, after all, always subordinate to the present. But what is still more required is psychological experiments in ethics and intuitive Theism : that is what on the whole the human race has got to do for some years. I detest history for the nonce ; I think it is using up too many minds. I do not on the whole believe in its being made a science by itself. I agree with Mill against Comte. Politik, besides, is so infinitely more important just now ; of course, history will be always subsidiary to Politik, but les origines less than any other history. Moreover, life is more than any study, Wir, wir leben, or at least has prior claims. Every soul has a right to live; let das Individuum " get its sop and hold its noise" ; you see, I believe that enlightened egoism will always put a limit to itself. Even in history I feel convinced our oriental element is for working on the masses, our ethnic for influencing the philosopher, which makes me acquiesce more in taking to classics again.
NOTE. — The following lines, which occurred to Sidgwick in sleep, or which at least he awoke thinking of, are characteristic enough to seem worth recording. We have no record of the date, but believe that he dreamt them in the early sixties.
We think so because other people all think so,
Or because — or because — after all we do think BO,
Or because we were told so, and think we must think so,
Or because we once thought so, and think we still think so,
Or because having thought so, we think we will think so.
CHAPTER III
1865-1869
DURING most of his adult life Sidgwick had some text — a different one at different periods — which ran in his head, representing the keynote, so to speak, of his thought about his own life. From about 1861 to about 1865 the text was, "After the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers." From about 1865 to October 1869 it was, " Are not Abana andPharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel 1 may I not wash in them, and be clean ? . . . And his servants . . . said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it ? " From October 1869 to about 1875 the text was, "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." From about 1875 to about 1890, "But this one thing I do, forgetting those things that are behind, and stretching forth unto those that are before, I press towards the mark." And finally from about 1890, "Gather up the fragments that are left, that nothing be lost."
He had before the beginning of 1865 finally abandoned his oriental studies, and for a time he again took private pupils in classics, besides his work for the College, in order to make himself independent of his fellowship and assistant tutorship. During the following years the question of resigning his fellow- ship, one aspect of which expressed itself in the second of the above texts, was constantly before him.
125
126 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, m
To his Mother from Cambridge, February 1, 1865
We are beginning work again and are preparing for a very long term (I wish Convocation, instead of persecuting some miserable heretic, would fix Easter to the same day of the month every year). . . .
I enjoyed all my visits very much. I found Browning just returned from Paris, where he had been inspecting French schools. You may have seen a letter of his in the Times of Tuesday, signed 0. B. The most singular thing about French schools as compared with our own is the very little freedom enjoyed by the boys. They are under sur- veillance day and night. Browning said that the teachers he spoke to did not defend the system in the abstract, but said it was found necessary in practice. That is nineteenth century Conservatism, the same everywhere. The French- man said that English boys were " beaucoup plus sages : mais," he added, " beaucoup moins intelligents."
. . . Read a delicious story in the Cornhill of February called " Tid's old Red Rag of a Shawl." I am tormented till I know who has written it, because it is by no hand familiar to me : and it is wonderfully fresh, animated, and original.1
To 0. Browning about this time
... I have not got any composition in a book : I have a lot of pieces on separate scraps of paper, but as I am full of pupils and have composition lectures too, I want every scrap. I had a book which would have done, but I have been looking for it vainly, and have come to the conclusion that I must have lent it to somebody in bygone days when I was devoting myself to Arabic.
To his Mother, February 2 1
I have several pupils and six hours a day at the least, but I do not feel at all hard worked. I break- fast every day at 7^. I am not doing anything else : only brooding on things in general, which I do with a
1 It was written by Miss Henrietta Keddie.
1865, AGE 26 HENEY SIDGWICK 127
•
clear conscience after six hours of work. In fact, 1 am sure that if one wants to muse in a general way one ought to take plenty of definite work, or else the vague thought tells on the brain. I am inclined to think that a certain amount of drudgery is necessary to longevity : that idleness and creative tension alike exhaust the vital force. Kingsley is preaching sensation sermons on the Psalms of David ; last Sunday he defended the cursings; I am told he made a spirited apology. I do not go and hear him. I go to Oxford on Saturday for a refreshment,1 not that I want any — Cambridge is a delightful place. Tell Arthur to beg, borrow, or steal Emilia in England ; it had such an effect on me that I employed my spare cash in buying up the man's other works.2
To H. G. Datyns, March 12, 1865
I have kept silence even from good words because I have found out nothing yet, either ISia or KOIVTJ o-v^epov.^ I seem on the verge ever of discovering the secret of life, but perhaps I am like the rustic of Horace, and the turbid stream of doubt and debate flows, and will flow. I have not thrown myself into classics : the reason being that without any effort I like the work of pupilising so much that if I could only feel sure that neither conscience nor ambition would reawake, I would acquiesce in it. ... But to tell you the truth, my conscience and the other thing have re-awoke. What I mean to do till the end of the May term is, think
1 Probably for the first " Ad Eundem " dinner. The Ad Eundem Society, composed of Oxford and Cambridge men, some resident and some non- resident, was founded by William Sidgwiek about 1864, to dine together once in each term, alternately at Oxford and Cambridge. Henry Sidgwick was one of the original members, and was a very regular attendant till his death. Other early members were : W. G. Clark, W. H. Thompson, J. Bryce, H. A. J. Munro, L. Stephen, G. O. Trevelyan, Henry Smith, Goldwin Smith, G. Lushington, F. Otter, H. Fawcett, K. E. Digby, A. G. Vernon Harcourt, and others. The club still continues, and has had imitators. It was one of the means of promoting intercourse and exchange of ideas between Oxford and Cambridge, which was, even apart from this, stimulated by the residence of one brother at each University.
2 George Meredith's novels had at this time attained so little of their subsequent fame that second-hand copies of these "other works" — The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, Evan Harrington, and Khoda Fleming — were acquired for, we believe, less than one shilling a volume — first editions.
* For the private or public good.
128 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, m
over things in general, and then take a final decision ; 1 consider my former plans fairly overthrown, . . . and I may fairly take some time in reconstruction. I change my views from day to day, but, on the whole, I think I cherish the design of going with you to Tubingen when we have both made money enough to live on, and throwing ourselves into some study — Comti probandum.1 Qu'en dites vous ?
In the Easter vacation he went to Paris with G. 0. Trevelyan, and writes to his mother at the end of April : —
After a week in Paris which positively reminded one of the dog days, and which Trevelyan declared to be much hotter than any weather people try to walk in at Calcutta, I am returned to Cambridge : that is, I am staying at present with Noel, but I shall be in Cambridge on Thursday. On the whole I enjoyed myself very much, except that I felt very dissipated. I never before achieved the art of doing nothing so completely ; my sole employment in the morning was to read the play for the evening and go to the galleries. Certainly French acting and French cookery are both first- rate of their kind, and if one gets tired of the latter sooner than the former, it must be attributed to the inferiority of the body to the mind in respect of aesthetic enjoyment. Paris is, I think, the only town in the world that I ever admired as a town. I admire it more each time I go there. Eeally for a week it is enjoyment enough strolling along the Boulevards or in and out of the nooks in the Bois de Boulogne. Tell Arthur that I disliked the St. Michael more than ever. ... I find I take much less pleasure than I did in modern French art ; out of the whole room reserved to it at the Louvre, there was only one picture that I would have sacrificed much to possess — Greuze's " Peasant Girl."
Have you read Trevelyan's book [Cawnpore] 1 I think it ought certainly to increase his reputation, although it has some of his old defects undiminished. But there is no one living who can tell a story with more sustained vigour, in my opinion. I have not seen any review of it yet.
1 Such as Comte would approve, i.e. of service to humanity.
1865, AGE 27 HENKY SIDGWICK 129
I got your stereo-photograph (what is the short for it ?) at 113 Rue de Sebastopol. After walking up four pair of stairs I entered a room, and was set down before a tall narrow box with a stereoscope at the top and told to turn a handle : being thus transported to any part of the world. Eeally, it was more like magic than any other part of modern civilisation I ever came in the way of.
To H. G. Dakyns from Cambridge, April 27
... I shall be here now sine die and ready to see you anywhere any time. I have not got any new ideas on the universe from dining at Vefours and going to see French Burlesques ; nor many from G. 0. T. ; but on politics, litera- ture, art, and drama I am posted up.
To his Mother, May 15
... I think I shall stay in England this Long, as there is a particular subject I want to read, and take a short holiday in the North. But I find it as well not to make any plans, as the moment a plan is made I begin to think about changing it. ...
I have never been so pleased with anything that did not concern myself as I have been with the triumph of the Federal Cause in America. Dear me, I half wish I was there. There is something worth doing.
To H, G. Dakyns at the end of May
At present ... I am busy with the May [examination]. I am ashamed too at having nothing to say : I have no views yet : I half think I have set the theological question at rest : but one never knows when the beast is laid. I sometimes think I am accumulating force against the approaching period of resolution, but perhaps that is a delusion. What disgusts me is that I am getting so very Voltairian, and I am quite sure — at least all the swells tell you — that Voltairianism is used up. Have you read Mill ? 1 I shudder when I think how many Scotchmen
1 Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, published 1865.
K
130 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, m
are at this moment driving quills in reply. It is amusing how entirely Mill has the small press under his control. I wonder how many of the reviewers have read Hamilton fairly. I am free to confess I have not. I allow I enjoy Mill. I never could read Sir W. He never gave me the idea of being in earnest. I am amused when I think how I told William [Sidgwick] and [T. H.] Green of the approach- ing book. W. shrugged, and said he thought it was a great waste of labour to crush a nonentity. G. growled that he would, hoffentlich, involve himself and Hamilton in a common ruin. Well, I wait for the Scotchmen. My dear Graham, I could write you any amount on things in general, but I feel that it does not make up for having no views on interesting subjects. John Grote is going to bring out a book.1 Rough Thoughts on something, he calls it ; they are sure to be rough, and sure to be thoughts.
To his Mother from Wellington College late in July
I am here revelling in idleness and hot weather, and unbending my mind in female society. I left Clifton yesterday ; the work [of examining] was really so appal- lingly hard that I had no time to call on anybody. I enjoyed it, however, as much as one can enjoy hard work. [After visits in Yorkshire] ... I must be in Cambridge again by the end of the month, as I have a good deal of hard reading cut out for me. I shall come to you when I want to relax slightly. I know the atmosphere will be too industrious to allow me to do more. . . .
The hard reading was in preparation for examin- ing in the Moral Sciences Tripos in November of this year, and again in 1866.
To his Mother from Cambridge, September 16
. . . There is a nice little party here, and everything is very favourable to reading. Only I have had to put up Venetian blinds to keep out the heat, which has been nearly equal to what it was in Paris at Easter.
1 Exploratio Philosophica : Plough Notes on Modern Intellectual Science.
1865, AGE 27 HENRY SIDGWICK 131
Dr. Lightfoot has come back from Dauphine, where he has been with Edward [Benson] ; he says they have had a most successful tour, religiously avoiding every high hill. Mr. Martin is here, and Munro, and a chaplain, and Somerset (whom you have seen), and Sir George Young, and King, who devotes his life to gems, and myself — a most delightful diversity of ages, opinions, sentiments, pursuits. I shall stay here some time longer, probably till the Fellowship Examination is over. . . .
The College is in a more reforming humour than I ever saw it, and if two or three old fellows would only — be made Deans, we should have some fun soon.
To 0. Browning from Cambridge, September 2 7
... I should like to have been at Berlin ; I was very fond of it, though I hate it, in the way Trevelyan hates India. I hated the country, and the climate, and the while sand of the streets, and the soldiers who look as if they had just captured the town. ... I can quite understand your liking the Gallery for the same reason that it bored me : it is so admirable for the historic study of Art. I don't care for Art in embryo myself, and I have rather a weakness for the decadence. (It is astonishing, by the bye, how I have forgotten that Gallery.) I thought you were examining the schools of Scandinavia. I should like to hear how politics are going on in Prussia ; I used to enrage the people at Gottingeu by telling them that Bismarck was the greatest statesman in Europe. At any rate he keeps up the Hohenzollern tradition. ... I have been reading all kinds of things lately. I find out that political economy is what I really enjoy as an intellectual exercise. It is just in the right stage of scientific progress, and there are not too many facts to be got up. I have been designing a treatise on Politics: it is very much wanted : G. C. Lewis is miserable ; — in fact, everybody has been studying constitutional history lately, and ignored Politics. Mill, with characteristic caution, has confined himself to a portion of the subject. Now I am sure myself
132 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, m
that history will have in the future less and less influence on Politics in the most advanced countries. Principles will soon be everything, and tradition nothing : except as regards its influence on the form.
N.B. — Mill goes extraordinarily well into Aristotelian Greek with the same kind of shortening that puts Macaulay into Tacitean prose.
To his Mother on November 6
... I have set my papers [for the Moral Sciences Tripos], and am amusing myself with reading Hallam's Middle Ages. As you have not read Hallam you will not perceive the fine irony of this remark. The only interest in it consists in trying to ascertain why it is so inexpressibly dull : the man is clever, enthusiastic, and has a good style. It is very hard to work now ; everybody is giving dinners at half-past seven. . . .
To 0. Browning from Cambridge in November
... I had a good many things to say to you about political philosophy, in answer to your letter; I only remember one, roiov8e [as follows] : — You seem to think that the ideal of Political Economists excludes ap^ato7r\ovTot,1 mine does not certainly. I certainly hope for a much more equal division of production : but the question to me seems to lie in the relation of wages and profits. I would not if I could, and I could not if I would, consistently with sound economic theories, alter the inequalities arising from Kent (theoretic, Ricardo-rent, I mean) or Natural Monopoly : and these must necessarily increase as civilisa- tion increases, and though they may be forcibly subdivided, will, if left alone, produce as many ap^aio7r\ovTot as one wants. Look at " Petrolia," for instance : of course people who make the lucky hits are uneducated generally, but that is just the point ; if you could get all classes properly educated in the highest sense of the term, a man who
1 Mr. Browning had argued that no country could attain high mental and aesthetic cultivation without a rather large rich and leisured class — &pxaLi.lyir\ovToi, JEschylean word for " families of ancient wealth."
1865, AGE 27 HENEY SIDGWICK 133
came into a fortune by " striking ile " would not waste it : and if he did not become a patron of Art himself, he might bring up his children to be so. That is a case of natural monopoly. As for Eent, I for one do not mind the Ricardo- rent of land getting accumulated in large masses, provided care is taken (by giving long leases, etc.) that this does not interfere with the amelioration of the soil : and then you have your ap^ato7r\ovTot at once. What I want to do is to put an end to the existing and threatening strife between Labour and Capital by any possible means.
... In order to relieve the weight of years that seemed to be pressing on the Society,1 I have, with reluc- tance, become an honorary member.
To H. G. Dakyns, November 7
Mozley, I have so far made advances to that I have got him to join our society at Trumpington. I shall get to know him soon that way, I hope. He is shy, and I have only one way of overcoming shyness, i.e. by rattling, which only answers with some people. The kind of talk we have at Trumpington, my "Apostolic" training makes me in some respects appreciate peculiarly. Conse- quently, I am a sort of Thaliarchus at that feast of reason, i.e. other men may be truer ftdtcxoi, in fact, I know they are, but I am a genial Ovpaofyopos? But at Cambridge there is a good deal of the feast of reason if you know where to look for it, and if you evade shams. But there is very little of the flow of soul. We communicate in one kind (this is not a ribald joke, but a profound allegory).
Distinguished names — but 'tis, somehow, As if they played at being names Still more distinguished.
This is becoming a motto of mine, not of course with regard to Cambridge, but to our age. Mill is an exception. He will have to be destroyed, as he is becoming as intoler- able as Aristeides, but when he is destroyed, we shall build
1 The "Apostles."
- Thaliarchus, ruler of the feast ; ^d/cxot and 6vpffotp6poi, worshippers and attendants of Bacchus, in allusion to Plato, Phced. 69 c.
134 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, in
him a mausoleum as big as his present temple of fame — of that I am convinced.
I think I shall try and write on Ethics in the course of next year. At present I am enlarging my mind in strict subjection to the Moral Science Tripos. . . .
Cowell, one of the very very few men I love, is, I fear, dying. Do not put it so, if you speak of it. There is hope, but it is a complication of consumption with rheumatism of the heart recently discovered. I am going to see him at Christmas at St. Leonards.
The society at Trumpington spoken of in this letter was what was afterwards — probably after John Grote died— called the " Grote Club." The Rev. John Grote, Knightbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy from 1855 till his death in 1866, lived at Trumpington (close to Cambridge), of which parish he was vicar. At what date the little meetings for philosophical discussion became a more or less regular institution we do not know. They were at first held in the rooms of different members, and then for some years at the Vicarage at Trumpington. Sidgwick, Mr. J. B. Mayor, and Mr. Aldis Wright seem to have been among the original members. We owe the following interesting account of the meetings to Dr. John Venn.
I first made Henry Sidgwick's acquaintance in 1862, when I came back to Cambridge to commence residence as a lecturer in Moral Science. This was just at the transition period of the University, when the new Statutes had come into operation, but whilst the men who were to work the Statutes had all been trained in the traditions of the past. Two new Triposes had come into existence, the Moral Science and the Natural Science, but they had only just been made avenues for a degree ; and it was still hardly recognised by resident fellows and lecturers that any but the old studies could furnish a solid training, or give full scope to the powers of a really able student.
1865, AGE 27 HENEY SIDGWICK 135
I was soon brought into contact with two men to whom I feel that I owe very much, and to whom certainly the Moral Science Tripos owes much, as having done more perhaps than any other residents to win for it some con- fidence, amongst the older teachers, as a serious course of study. These were J. B. Mayor of St. John's College, at that time the solitary " Moral Science lecturer " in the University, and H. Sidgwick. They welcomed me cordially, and almost immediately introduced me to a small society which then, I think, formed — with the exception, of course, of the well-known " Apostles " — the only thing in the nature of a speculative club or gathering in Cambridge. It has been termed the Grote Club, but we knew it by no name ; and indeed its small size and brief life hardly deserved that it should have one. Still I, for one, owe it much, if only for the friends I made there, and for the incalculable advantage of my being there first introduced to keen and perfectly free discussion of fundamental principles — an experience rarer forty years ago than many would now believe possible. The more regular members of this little gathering consisted of Professor Grote, J. B. Mayor, H. Sidgwick, Aldis Wright, and myself. Occasion- ally one or two others appeared, and after a short time J. E. Mozley of King's and J. B. Pearson of St. John's joined us, but there was nothing in the way of formal introduction or regular membership. We used to meet once or twice a term at Grote's vicarage at Trumpington, where he hospitably entertained us at dinner, after which the evening was devoted to the reading of a paper by one of us, and its subsequent discussion. As a " moderator " in such discussions, Grote struck me as simply admirable. Nothing escaped his keen and critical judgment, and he asserted himself just sufficiently to draw out the thoughts of those who were shy in expressing themselves, and to keep the conversation from straggling into side issues. His extreme aversion to any dogmatic statement, which is so prominent in his Exploratio Philosophica, involved no draw- back in such a position.
136 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAIMII
Circumstances had hitherto made me rather a stranger to gatherings of this sort, but Sidgwick was already thoroughly experienced in them. This cannot have been the first, as it was very far from being the last, of the associations which he had either originated or joined, for the same general purpose of securing critical discussion on fundamental problems of Ethics, Metaphysics, or Theology. Such intercourse seemed to supply the atmosphere in which he breathed most freely, and to furnish him with the most genuine relaxation which he could enjoy. For a young man — he must have then have been about twenty-four — he was already remarkably mature; and his attitude had become that essentially critical one, so familiar afterwards to his friends. I understood that, at a still earlier age, he had been so far inclined towards dogma as to have adopted much of the Positive Philosophy. He had certainly studied it carefully, and was, as far as I know, the only man in Cambridge who had done so at first hand — that is, otherwise than through the medium of Mill's Logic. By the time I knew him, this stage, if it ever existed, had been passed by, and he would freely give his judgment for and against every doctrine of Comte, as of any other philosopher. I have no clear recollection of any paper contributed by him, perhaps owing to the fact that he seldom advanced what could be termed definitely constructive views. I remember, on one occasion, that he himself contrasted his own way of thinking with that of his younger brother, whose fertility in constructing ethical theories and in having them repaired next day (after fraternal criticism) seemed to excite his admiration. In all our debates he showed his readiness of reply and well-known imperturbable calmness in argument.
Though his interests at this time were already strongly speculative, his main studies were still philological. He was then strenuously devoting himself to Arabic and Hebrew, and (as our common friend Seeley remarked) appeared to be looking forward to becoming the English Ewald. He had, in fact, but recently returned from a
1865, AGE 27 HENEY SIDGWICK 137
stay at a German University — I think Gottingen — where he had been pursuing the study of these languages. I never heard him speak at that time as if he thought that philosophy would be his main employment.
After Grote's death the Society continued to meet in each other's rooms — each time in the room of the reader of the paper for the evening. Professor Alfred Marshall writes to us : —
When I was admitted in 1867, the active members were Professor F. D. Maurice (Grote's successor), Sidgwick, Venn, J. E. Mozley, and J. B. Pearson. . . . After 1867 or 1868 the club languished a little : but new vigour was soon imparted to it by the advent of W. K. Clifford q,nd J. F. Moulton. For a year or two Sidgwick, Mozley, Clifford, Moulton, and myself were the active members ; and we all attended regularly. Clifford and Moulton had at that time read but little philosophy ; so they kept quiet for the first half-hour of the discussion ; and listened eagerly to what others, and especially Sidgwick, said. Then they let their tongues loose, and the pace was tremendous. If I might have verbatim reports of a dozen of the best conversa- tions I have heard, I should choose two or three from among those evenings in which Sidgwick and Clifford were the chief speakers. Another would certainly be a conversation at tea before a Grote Club meeting, of which I have unfortunately no record (I think it was early in 1868), in which practically no one spoke but Maurice and Sidgwick. Sidgwick devoted himself to drawing out Maurice's recollec- tions of English social and political life in the thirties, forties, and fifties. Maurice's face shone out bright, with its singular holy radiance, as he responded to Sidgwick's inquiries and suggestions ; and we others said afterwards that we owed all the delight of that evening to him. No one else among us knew enough to keep on again and again arousing the warm latent energy of the old man : for he always looked tired, and would relapse into silence after two or three minutes' talk, however eager it had been,
138 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, m
unless stimulated by some one \vho knew how to strike the right chord.
The Christmas vacation of 1865-66 was spent partly with his mother at Rugby, partly in visits.
To his Mother from the Eev. C. Kegan Paul's at Bailie, Wimborne, January 14, 1866
I arrived an hour late, but in good time for dinner, after a most delightful journey. The air was balmy like early spring, and the prospect was unusually interesting from the immense floods that supervened towards afternoon, and the delightful disorganisation of the telegraph posts and wires. The snow seems to have gathered on the wires and afforded prise to the wind — such a slaughter of posts has never been known here. I had my usual good luck, for if I had gone on Friday I should not have got beyond Templecombe, as the Somerset and Dorset line is dreadfully demoralised ; as it was, we were tacked on to a luggage train, which did not increase our speed or equability of motion.
To H. G. Dakyns on January 16
. . . Paul is a man who brings out yet another side of me, as he is a materialistic Theist of yet another kind. I never knew a man who so thoroughly understands the Art of Living — as far as I can see, at least — and that without being particularly able. But it is quite vain to give the least idea of a man in a letter ; it is almost vain, or worse than vain, in conversation. I will only say that I plus Paul form a " we " different from any other " we." We agree that we are not [at] Jerusalem, perhaps not even on the way thither, but we climb Pisgah together and see distant gleams of the jewel-gated city.
To his Mother from Eoden Noel's, January 26
... I have certainly had a complete holiday for a month, which is something I have not had for some time. I suppose holidays do one good on the whole, but I always
1866, AGE 27 HENRY SIDGWICK 139
feel at the time as if it was wrong to take them, as I never feel absolutely in want of them. However, I have enjoyed myself and had some good talk at Bailie. I shall try and get Paul to come to Rugby some time, if you will allow me. He is a very pleasant man.1 I saw Dr. Rowland Williams there. He is much more amiable than you would expect from his books ; in fact, in conversing with him I was struck with the courteous deference that he paid, or seemed to pay, to the opinions of younger men. He is evidently quite sincere in thinking that he is one of the very few orthodox clergymen in England now. You may smile, but it is quite true. The heretics whom fortune has associated with him he tolerates (as an exercise of Christian virtue), but that is all.
I found Cowell looking much better than I expected ; I trust now that there is good hope that the disease of the heart will not prove rapidly fatal. Whether there is any hope of ultimate recovery I do not know. . . .
To his Mother from Cambridge, January 29
... I am glad you think Martin 2 is like me. I hope he will turn out better; I think there was once a tide in my affairs — a few years ago — which if I had taken might have led me to greatness. May Martin have as good opportunities and make more use of them. He certainly startled me by the extent to which he appreciated things ; my idea was, however, that he had less character than Arthur [Benson], which perhaps is also my case as compared with either of my brothers.
What ' orthodox ' may come to designate in the way of actual opinions I do not know : but I have little doubt that it will always be used by some people to mean their opinions. Dr. Williams is one of these people no doubt,
1 In a later letter he writes to his mother : " Paul I like very much : . . . the time I have spent in his house has always been particularly happy, and in a way that one does not feel at the time so much, but on looking back. People who can produce that feeling in their guests understand the art of life."
2 His nephew, Martin White Benson, was a boy of quite unusual promise. He died suddenly at Winchester, February 9, 1878, in hia eighteenth year.
140 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, m
but, as I say, his courteous deference to the opinions of those who were arguing with him, and his candour, seemed to me remarkable. For / was distinctly a heretic in his eyes.
... I am studying Metaphysics. It is very absorbing, only unfortunately bad for the digestion, because it turns one's thoughts so much inward.
. . . Yes, I have had good talk. I stayed two days with my friend Noel ; he is also absorbed in Metaphysics, only we had hardly time to do more than touch on the subject. I do not know anything about Ecce Homo, except that every one here speaks highly of it. From a review I saw of it I decided not to read it, but I see I shall have to do so.
To H. G. Dakyns, apparently early in this term
How are you going on ? busy, I suppose, with a full house. For myself, I am only writing this letter because I ought to be reading the history of philosophy and preparing for my lectures ' on Ends ' [Cicero]. But I hate the history of philosophy even more than any other history ; it is so hard to know what any particular man thought, and so worthless when you do know it. Yet I think I could do it somehow if I could only get up an interest in Gelehrsamkeit. I watch the real students here (there are a few) and say with envy (the many-sided phrase), " Wen Gott betriigt, ist wohl betrogen." For it is " Betrug," or at least I think so : I do not see how all these past facts are ever to be digested. The time may come when we can reconstruct the past from the (then understood) laws of human nature, but it will only be the most general reconstruction that will be advisable or possible, and we shall always have facts enough for that ; we don't want to know what particular black stones the aborigines adored — at least I don't. All this is peevish, I know. Yet partly I cannot but think I do well to be angry. I am very jealous for the free exercise of the human intellect. Still, I didn't make the world, as Jacob said to Rachel,1 and I suppose this Gelehr-
1 "Am I in God's stead ?" (Jacob to Rachel, Gen. xxx. 2).
1866, AGE 27 HENKY SIDGWICK 141
samkeit has its end, like toothache, and is the peculiar function of the present age. However, I do not think I can do it ; let me depart i\ea)<j teal etyiei/T??.1 . . . What should I do without Clough ? He is the wine of life to me, and my work is the bread — somewhat dry — yet between the two a man may live in comparative luxury, and, quod superest, refrain himself, and bear.
To H. G. Dakyns
Come as soon as you like. What shall I say ? I have discovered nothing and settled nothing. Is the Theism to be the background or the light of the picture of life ? the reserve or the ammunition of the forces with which one fights Time ? I do not know ; meanwhile Time is blazing away. A very imaginary pale grief this, you will say. Perhaps so. I certainly eat, drink, sleep in what is called comfort : also I lecture : I even make and laugh at jokes ; nay, I exercise my reasoning faculty on what is called solid reading. No one has a right to say of me that I live by bread alone. Do I ? I perhaps were better if I did ; others do, and do not seem to find the bread too crumby. I have lost my notebook on metaphysics, and am in tem- porary despair, which may be taken as an evidence that my interest in metaphysics is chiefly a prospective author's. Sometimes, however, it is more ; but a man who is so firmly convinced that we are born potentially niany-sided and have to specialise frightfully to live — why, for such a man this very specialising becomes difficult. It is odd that video melwra should be actually the cause of deteriora sequor, but so it is. However, I recall Tocqueville's saying (I like the childlike freshness of a French student; it is curious, in France the man of pleasure seems always blasd, the student never), cest I'homme politique qu'il faut faire devenir en nous, and try to apply it mutatis mutandis. Moreover, a friend of mine here is putting through the press a logical work,2 which will be recognised as, if not great, original, I trust ; so there is a life in philosophy yet in old Cambridge.
1 Plato, Republic, vi. 496 c, of the just man. - Doubtless J. Venn's Logic of Chance, published in September 1866.
142 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, in
To H. G. Dakyns
... I sometimes think again of resigning ; I am so bankrupt of most things men desire, I would at least have a sort of savings-bank pittance of honesty. But perhaps this very impulse is only another form of Protean vacillation and purposelessness. . . .
My dear boy, this remaining in the Church of England is just — humbug. The terrible thing is that for " curious and carnal persons " — what fine English the articles are once and again — to be humbug in one thing is to make a terrible breach in the citadel of morality. One has to resist every temptation cominus [in close fight] ; one can't say, " / do not so-and-so, it is not my line," which is the last resource for a tolerant eudaemonist. The Devil remarks that it just is one's line.
Sometimes the pudding gets particularly rank in the soul's nostrils. You see the greatest humbug of all is to pretend I do these things for the sake of my mother (!) I wish to heaven I did. Then had I been a better man :
more like the B s of this world. Humbug — to pretend
I do it for the sake of my work. I wish I did. Then had I been like . . . Heaven only knows how many " bona fide members." l No, my dear friend, whatever I do at present, I do principally for the sake of myself; the question is, which self. This is all the choice my nature allows. Throw yourself into your social self, urges Trevelyan — even Cowell, the Bayard of social morality. At any rate, says Trevelyan, do something ; sound advice ; but something has hamstrung me. I cannot, as the Germans say, vom Flecke. I believe Clough is bad for me. Browning's " Statue and Bust " would be wholesome bitters, but I am past bitters, and know that I shall never " burn upward to my point of bliss." . . .
These are the sweepings of my brain, not its best. But I really think one must have either some sort of Faith or Honesty, if one cannot live by bread alone.
1 Holding their Fellowships as bona fide members of the Church of England.
1866, AGE 27 HENKY SIDGWICK 143
To his Mother, February 19
If you hear that I have had an attack of the gout, don't believe it. I have slightly disordered my system by meta- physics and neglect of exercise, and I was obliged to lie up with an inflamed ankle in consequence. I " amused my friends " (as Mr. Peter Magnus says) by telling them I had the gout. I was a little alarmed, as I never had such a symptom before. I mean to do my six miles devoutly henceforward. I can't say I enjoy exercise particularly, but I see one must look on it as part of the day's duty.
. . . Mrs. Oliphant's Agnes is worth reading. It is deeper, more feeling, than most of her books, though it has her defects : and it has one advantage, that the plot-interest does not turn entirely on amativeness. It will interest me much some time to read my old letters.1 At present I should dread it : there would be too many " ghosts of buried plans and phantom hopes " assembled there. Ecce Homo is a great work. I do not find the author's method satisfactory, because he passes so lightly over critical questions : but the second part — the ideally constructive — is surprisingly powerful and absorbing, almost sublime in parts. It has made a great sensation here. The author keeps his secret.
To his Mother on February 27
... I am glad you are interested in Lecky; what I always feel about reading and thinking is this (something you have said suggests it) : it is impossible to estimate the ultimate good to be derived, in indirect ways, from any bit of mental cultivation that one manages to give oneself. I say " manages," for it is not so easy as people think to choose reading that really sets the mind to work and makes it grow. But we are always all of us much " involved in matter," as Aristotle says ; this world, our little petty interests, are " too much with us," and anything that lifts us out of them is a gain. Indeed I estimate men a good deal by their capacity for this elevation, " soaring." It is not by any means proportionate to talent — intellect viewed
1 She had asked him if he would like to see his old letters.
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as an instrument, as the knife with which one opens the oyster. Arthur Butler has it, and it is one of the things I like in [E. A.] Scott.
... It is not I who object to gossip ; I have always maintained that it was the only way most people [have] of exercising their minds really, originally, on moral and social questions (not that this applies to your remarks). I certainly am interested in the Ritchies. I wish you could see them and ascertain whether the interest is due to my very limited acquaintance with (feminine) human nature. It is very limited. Still I have met with and known in a sort of a way many families, and I never met with one that took my fancy like this.
. . . Macmillan won't say who wrote Ecce Homo. He has promised some time to ask twenty people to dinner, including myself and the author. Gladstone wrote him (M.) a letter acknowledging a presented copy and calling it a "noble book." The younger men (Myers, e.g.) are some of them tremendously stirred by it. I myself not quite in the same way. It recalls my favourite passage of Carlyle that " in spite of temporary spiritual hebetude and cecity man and his universe are eternally Divine, and that no past nobleness or revelation of the Divine can or will ever be lost to him." But the author means us to go further and credit what is now to us incredible. He may be right. I look for Vol. II.
To his Mother, March 26
I think I shall come down about the middle of Passion week. I shall come from Wellington College, but I cannot quite fix my movements, as I want to be here to inaugurate our new master : and we cannot yet fix the day for that ceremony, as the patent or mandate has not been made out yet. We are all somewhat relieved by the appointment, as we were afraid of a non-resident — at least of such non- residents as were talked of. Thompson will make a very good sort of master, though not perhaps the best. He is a little too lazy or dyspeptic (perhaps the first results from the second) for that. . . .
1866, AGE 27 HENRY SIDGWICK 145
I shall be very glad to meet my Uncle Eobert [Sidgwick]. But if by questions of the day you mean theological questions, I cannot say that I am very anxious to talk about them. I have been for some time past rather anxious to avoid talking about them more than I can help. If you mean politics or philosophy, I am ready for any amount. . . .
To his Mother from Cambridge on May 3
. . . We are in a considerable state of agitation here, as all sorts of projects of reform are coming to the surface, partly in consequence of having a new master — people begin to stretch themselves and feel a certain freedom and independence. . . . There is much that needs alteration, as I suspect there is in every old and wealthy Corporation ; and it is the merit of Cambridge that though there is in it very little reforming spirit, there is also very little of what Carlyle calls hide-bound Toryism ; people judge every new proposal really on its own merits — without enthusiasm and without prejudice. ... I am unable still to make up my mind whether I shall go abroad this year or stay in England and read philosophy. . . . Perhaps I may be decided to go abroad by the fact of a European war : supposing there should be one. I have never been even on the skirts of a campaign. I came after one at Solferino, and even that was exciting enough.
To H. G. Dakyns in April or May 1866
... It would require a very strong motive to make me pledge myself pecuniarily to the Church of England. Still, I feel that I am gradually coming to a state of mind which, if it continues, will eventuate in complete practical reconciliation with the Church. You remember what I wrote to you about Ecce Homo. Well, I fluctuated, and when you saw me I had partly changed my mind about it, but on the whole, as so often with me, Trpwrat typovribes appear ultimately as ao^repat [first thoughts . . . wiser]. I have had the work of Christ put before me by a powerful
L
146 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, m
hand, and been made to recognise its extraordinary excellence as I have never before done ; and though I do not for a moment relinquish my right to judge it by the ideal, and estimate its defects, partialities, etc., yet I do feel the great need that mankind have of a pattern, and I have none that I could propose to substitute. Hence I feel that I should call myself a Christian if I were in a country where l . . . Now, as long as the views I hold on religion and morality are such as I should think only desirable to publish to the educated, it seems to me it is not my social duty to dissent. If I ever felt I could teach with e^ovaia and not as the reverends, I should certainly dissent, but in order to do that one requires a very clear, definite, practical creed. Now it seems to me that if you feel no spiritual need of preaching and no prospect of such a need (I only feel a very dim and remote one), from my point of view you would go in bald-headed for the old concern. I have convinced myself that what they want is conformity, as lax as you like ; besides, if they wanted to turn me out, I do not feel at all sure that I should not take the legal view and defy them. I have come to the conclusion that there is no analogy in the field of moral obligation by which to explain and decide religious tests and rites ; they are sui generis, and must be judged on general principles. Yet I must repeat my views have fluctuated so that I would not willingly bind myself to the Church of England further than I am bound. So I do not know what to advise you. As to what you say in your conclusion, it makes me unhappy. Christianity, Positivism, etc., are only forms of the ideal, and human progress has hitherto depended upon the ideal and those who have believed in it. One may always become practical, and perhaps serve God as well that way; still, if one has faith in the ideal, let us take errors, confusions, doubts, despairs, sins, mistakes, misfortunes, losses, as so many blows in the noblest fight. If not, let us become practical (what some French writers curiously call " positif") at once. I have often thought of doing so, but
1 The letter is torn and a piece lost here.
1866, AGE 27 HENRY SIDGWICK 147
at tliis moment I feel that if I had yielded to the impulse I should have sunk to the " rear and the slaves." l
To H. G. Dafyns, May 4
Be of good cheer ; I think I may see my way through the New Testament. Not rays of light, but a sort of twilight is gathering round me, and the lineaments — still very vague — of the Messiah and his flock are beginning to haunt me. Perhaps I too shall become one of the self- deluded constructive people ; never mind : they too are God's creatures, and have their function. I think, whatever I beget in the way of construction, I shall always have lucid intervals in which I can estimate and allow for paternal fondness. One line of attack which would be very effective (if one wanted to attack) would be the evidence of free composition in Gospels and Acts carefully collected and arranged. The materials for the first part lie richly strewn in Strauss ; what relates to the Acts has gradually impressed itself on me unsought. Strauss has much insight; his weak point is, of course, his Mythic Theory, but he is better than many Renans. The Spectator on Renan had more reason than usual.
I have put down folgendes in my Note-book : — " Professor Huxley would have us worship (' chiefly silently ') a Subject without Predicates. M. Renan would have us adore (roulant d'exstases en exstases) Predicates without a Subject." So Theism is split by Positivism, arid Protestant and Catholic positivist seizes each his half. This will be a good Hulsean Lecture, when I have become Broad Church and been ordained on ray way to a bishopric. Curious, the one thing I feel I could be — in the way of worldly success — is a bishop. " I know with whom I have to deal." I am 'cuter even than Lightfoot, who is wise as serpents. Well, this is frivolous. Dulce est desipere in loco — it is doubtful whether we ought to read the verb with a " c."
I think Ecce Homo will turn out a broken reed, but it is just the kind that does not run into a man's hand and 1 Browning's "Lost Leader."
148 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, in
pierce it — in fact, I think there will always be a stump left. I have over-abused the Quarterly [article on " Ecce Homo "] ; there is no doubt he [Seeley] is diffuse ; turgid, however, he is not, and, after all, he is one of the few people who has stirred me powerfully with real eloquence.
Reforms are breaking out here everywhere ; the long long canker of peace is over and done ; the only thing soon will be to avoid radicalism. The Master, however, is, I fear, easily bored. I wonder whether I shall ever talk as sensible elderly men do of a " system that has worked so well " as our system of lectures. If so, Heaven make me a Tory and give me respectable prejudices and venerable creeds first. " Wen Gott betriigt," etc. But what shall we say of him whom Teufel betriigt ? Preachers are of opinion that it is a commoner case.
Sidgwick's article on " Ecce Homo " for the West- minster Review (republished in Miscellaneous Essays and Addresses) was written in May and June of this year. It was, of course, anonymous, but he wrote it with the knowledge of his friend, J. B,. Seeley, of whose authorship of the book he was now aware, and with whom, indeed, he was in correspondence about some points of disagreement.
To his Mother on May 18
... I do not think I shall come to Rugby before the end of the half. ... I study best in vacation, not only because I have more time, for as regards actual time I could do a good deal in term-time, but because I have a restive imagination, and as long as my mind is filled with all manner of College and University matters, I cannot harness it (to any purpose) to subjects more remote from everyday interest. . . .
Mrs. G , I see she amuses you. I like people who
are unlike other people in their ways. You are quite right about the " foreignness " of her mani&re d'etre, but it is not only in the " sunny south " one finds that exparisiveness :
1866, AGE 28 HENRY SIDGWICK 149
the Germans have a good deal of it. I sometimes think it is the more natural state (and desirable) than our English reserve, only when it is affected it is very odious, and if it was the general manner, it would involve so much hypocrisy in some people, just as the manner of good society does, only more offensively. . . .
To his Mother from Cambridge, July 2
My hay fever is somewhat abated of its virulence, and I can behold the face of nature without sneezing therein. I am not going to travel just yet, however. Towards the end of the month I shall be hanging about London, seeing the Academy, going to Eton, examining at Harrow, and so on. On the 10th of August I am going to the Lakes with Trevelyan for a short time. ... I am reading now pretty hard, and very much enjoying the complete freedom and leisure. We are now somewhat revolutionised in our habits, as we are cleaning and painting our hall ; even gilding, I believe, we are going to indulge in. I have no hand in such extravagances, but you may trace the civilising influence of our new Master in this and other things. We are actually going to dine on chairs after this vacation. Mr. Martin unwillingly yielded to the irresistible tendency of the age to luxuriousness.
To his Mother from Grange in Borrowdale on August 14
I have been here now since Friday. It is wonderfully well situated. No one can tell till he stands immediately in front of the house and looks out from our drawing- room window how singularly complete the view is. The rising ground in front of our house is just sufficient to throw out the hills round the Lake and Skiddaw in the distance. I went up Latrigg on Saturday morning before Trevelyan came, and got splendid views. ... I am going in for French belles lettres in the evening and German philosophy in the morning. Trevelyan is relaxing from the cares of statesmanship. Poor fellow, the first face he saw on entering Borrowdale was that of a principal constituent, a
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Quaker tailor, who, though a man of peace by profession, is supposed invaluable in an electioneering contest. ... I was very happy at seeing Derwentwater again. My affections are unalterably fixed on Derwentwater : though I am not sure that some of the Grasrnere scenery is not superior. But the crowd of little hills between this and Buttermere is singularly interesting, and we have great opportunities of seeing them from here. I will go to Wastdale Head this visit, but it has been persistently raining there ever since I came.
Did you ever read a book called the Initials ? It is a very old novel by this time, but if you ever came across it you would find it not dull, and it would give you a good idea of German life such as I have seen it — except as being a strong caricature on some points.
To fioden Noel from the same place
... As to my article [on "Ecce Homo"], I hardly expected you to have any other feelings about it than those you express ; indeed, I hardly could bring myself to send it you. Convinced as I am that conflict on this subject is inevitable and ultimately beneficial, I am not so much pained by it as I once was. I have counted the cost, and am content to go on exciting the disgust of enthusiasts — that is, of the people whose sympathy I value most — in defence of (what seems to me) historic truth and sound criticism. It seems to me that ultimate religious agreement is ideally possible on my method, and not even ideally possible on yours — as each sect and party will go on making a particular view of history a test of spirituality and thus feel itself at liberty to dispense (not that you do that) with other arguments. Perhaps this mode of thinking is inseparable from a fervent belief ; if so, it may be the proper function of non-fervent people like myself to pursue a different method ; between the two truth may be elicited.
To JRoden Noel from the same place
I am afraid I must confess that reading Fichte has not brought me more in sympathy with the German
1866, AGE 28 HENRY SIDGWICK 151
manner. I quite understand what you say as to his being more fervent, more human than Kant. But as a thinker I rate him infinitely lower, or at least feel myself infinitely less en rapport with him. Kant's phraseology I do not merely understand, but I often find it quite a revelation to me. Fichte's phraseology (if I do understand it, which I must always leave doubtful) I can convict of inconsistency or inaccuracy at every step. Fichte seems to me absolutely devoid of judgment; moreover, I cannot trust my mind to his with the least confidence. I am coming more and more to the opinion that the whole " Identitats- philosophic " (Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel) is a monstrous mistake, and that we must go back to Kant and begin again from him. Not that I feel prepared to call myself a Kantian, but I shall always look on him as one of my teachers. You see, my dear friend, how far we are from an agreement on meta- physical points. I fear we can hardly enter upon a crusade together against empiricism. But in such crusade I heartily sympathise with you, as I have parted company with Mill I feel for ever. I still think the best motto for a true Metaphysic are those two lines of Shelley : —
I am the eye with which the Universe Beholds itself and knows itself divine.
To his Mother from Borrowdale, August 27
I leave here on the 1st of September and go into Dorsetshire. I shall see Furness Abbey on the way. It is a dreadful long journey, and I almost wish now I had not promised to pay the visit. Did you see Professor Grote's death ? It startled me very much ; I shall miss him at Cambridge exceedingly.
To his Mother on September 1 2 from the Rev. C. Kegan Paul's
I am playing chess with Cowell, who is staying here. I am enjoying myself as much as I can in the rain, which has prevented my seeing much of the scenery or places of general interest in the neighbourhood. ... I am so idle. I am going back to Cambridge on Saturday to read hard
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for a fortnight if possible. This is the second Long Vacation I have frittered away pursuing study as a vain shadow. I have no resolution. . . .
To his MotJier from Cambridge on September 23
I suppose you are at home and busy. I have been here about a week now, trying to write an article that I have had in my head for some time J — but I have not been well and so I shall probably be delayed. . . .
I hope to come to you on October 3 for a week — that is the day the University Library opens, and I want to get some books before the country clergy have gone off with them all.
To his Mother on October 1
I cannot come down on Wednesday, as I suddenly find an operation is necessary on my teeth. . . . How provoking teeth are ! Mine have been spoiling my work lately ; however, I have discovered the one thing I can do when they ache — that is, chess. It just hits the mean ; Philosophy is too hard, and a novel I can no more enjoy in pain than sweetmeats when bilious, unless it is a very good novel. I think if chess was of the smallest value to the human race I could go in for it with great ardour ; as it is, it is a solemn frivolity. I never touch it now in health.
. . . For some reason or other I secrete much cynicism just at present, but I am not going to inflict any on you.
To his Mother from Cambridge on October 2 1 Please send the Portfolio ; I find I want it ; I always leave something behind — it is a kind of fatality. I no longer try and resist it, but confine myself to hoping that it won't be anything valuable. ... I had already determined not to go in for the Professorship of Moral Philosophy [vacant by Professor Grote's death] when I learnt that F. D. Maurice was a candidate. I should think he has now the best chance, as the Board of Electors is one peculiarly likely to favour his claims — or rather to regard 1 Probably a pamphlet mentioned below, p. 154.
18C6, AGE 28 HENKY SIDGWICK 153
them without the disfavour which certain persons would bring to the consideration of the question. In some respects I very much hope that he will be a very good appointment, as he will certainly be a stimulating lecturer, and Cambridge stands in some need of stimulus just now ; but I am rather
sorry for my friend , as he is young, eager, devoted to
the subject, and thoroughly of the new school as regards his view of Professorial functions. (When I say the new school your conservatism need not be alarmed ; I mean the school of which Dr. Lightfoot is with us the most distinguished representative : the people who regard themselves [as being] as much bound to teach and to write as any other salaried functionary is bound to discharge the duties for which he is paid.) . . .
Our hall is resplendent ; the undergraduates call it the " Alhambra."
To his Mother on November 7, 1866
It is a long while since I have written to you, but this time I have been really hard at work. I am preparing myself to remodel an examination here in which I take great interest — that for Moral Sciences. We have formed sub-committees of the Board of Moral Sciences to do this work, and I am on two. It is the kind of work which one may take very easy, but of which the more one does the more influence one gets : and I want as much influence as I can have in order to carry through my ideas on the subject, which are rather strong. The election of Professor Maurice has created great excitement here among a certain party, and I fear that the peaceful times of Cambridge are passing away and that we shall presently be steeped in polemics almost to the same extent as Oxford. We have to-day been electing the Council of the Senate — an important body as regards our administration — and for the first time the parties of the Senate have been so far organised as to con- struct "tickets" of candidates — a FAmdricaine — to ensure that all individual members of either party vote for the same candidates : and so no votes be lost, partisanly speaking. I
154 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, in
do not know that any particular harm or good will result except an increase of party feeling. I send Arthur a pamphlet of mine — it will not interest you much. Tell him that I can send one or two more, if he thinks they will do any good — I mean, if there are any Rugby people who may be made to come up and vote in case the question comes before the Senate.
Well, perhaps enough of politics. ... By the bye, now I have got this piece of University work, I do not feel sure that I shall manage to go to France at Christmas, so perhaps I may turn up again at Rugby. I have not made up my mind, as I hate abandoning a scheme, but it seems stupid to go to Paris, of all places, with a lot of work on one's hands. Nay, I may almost be certain I should not do it.
The pamphlet here spoken of was one on the Classical Tripos Examination. A discussion on the question of reforming this examination by giving more weight to the subject-matter, as distinct from the mere language of certain authors, and diminishing the weight attached to verse composition, was being actively carried on by pamphlets and fly-sheets, and Sidgwick wrote strongly supporting such changes. It would be out of place to quote the whole pamphlet, but the following passages seem to give the gist of his view : —
While I agree with every word of Mr. Cope's eulogy of translation as an instrument for disciplining the mind, I may remark that a part of it refers only to maturer students : there are but few undergraduates who " generalise, classify, and combine " for themselves or " collect into rules and principles " the results of their own observation. But I do believe they learn close attention, accurate observation, subtlety of discrimination, and the power of applying the generalisations of others with judgment and tact, and moreover their verbal memory is cultivated to a considerable extent. But the habits of reading reflectively and intelligently, of combining isolated facts into an organised whole, of following
1866, AGE 28 HENRY SIDGWICK 155
and appreciating a subtle and continuous argument, of grasping new ideas with facility and just apprehension, are at least equally valuable : and if they are more difficult to acquire, that is precisely the reason why the highest educa- tion in the country ought to make vigorous efforts to impart them. Strong powers of abstract and discursive thought must be always rare : but I lament that we do so little to stimulate and direct them. Nor must we forget that it is much more important for ordinary men to learn to think correctly about historical and philosophical subjects than about philological : and that each study requires, to a certain extent, a special training ; which men who do not receive it from others have to acquire for themselves (except in the case of a gifted few) by gradually finding out their mistakes and deficiencies in a prolonged process of self-education.
And about verse composition : —
I think that in the case of inferior men it hardly at all tends to improve their accurate knowledge of the languages, and that it takes up time which might be much better spent in almost any other work.
In December 1866 a Syndicate (committee), on which Sidgwick served, was appointed to consider the question. The scheme it proposed was rejected by the Senate in May 1868 by the votes (it was said) of non-residents who happened to have come to Cam- bridge for a flower-show. An amended scheme, a compromise of course, but effecting something in the direction desired by Sidgwick, was carried in the following year.
The remodelling of the Moral Sciences Tripos, with which he was even more closely concerned, was accomplished more quickly. The new scheme was agreed on in 1867, and came into operation in 1869, and A. J. Balfour — a favourite pupil of Sidgwick, and afterwards his brother-in-law — was one of the first examined under it.
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To his Brother William, December 6
I am coining over [to Oxford] to stay with Harcourt1 — if nothing prevents — from Tuesday to Thursday next. I want to talk to Natural Science men with a view to a motion I am bringing forward in our College meeting. But 1 also should very much like to have a good talk with Professor Wilson,* e.g. — about Text-books for Philosophy. We are altering our list of books [recommended to students], and there is an opportunity now for getting the thing well done. Impressed with this, I am going to stay in England and give up my expedition to Paris in order to work at this. I wish I was less ignorant. Where shall you be in vacation ? If you can come here from Thursday next to Saturday after, you will probably find plenty of men. Our general [College] meeting is on Friday, and Londoners come up. There will be, of course, a shoppiness in the air.
The motion to be brought forward in the College meeting was to the effect, "That considering the great need of providing for the direction of new studies in the College, especially the study of Physical Science, at least one Praelector be appointed without delay in accordance with Statute xiv." It had been proposed at the previous general meeting in December 1865, but, as the custom then was, could not be voted on till the next annual meeting. Sidgwick's interest in it is shown not only by this journey to Oxford, but by letters still extant from different persons, Huxley and others, whom he had consulted as to the possibility of securing a suitable person to fill such a post.
To his Mother on December 7
I should have written before, but I have been very busy with work that I am just bringing to an end — the Moral Science [Tripos] examination. It is very interesting, but it absorbs one's whole mind ; at least in my case, as I take so
1 Mr. A. G. Vernon Harcourt, Lee's Reader in Chemistry at Christ Church. 2 Professor of Moral Philosophy.
1866, AGE 28 HENRY SIDGWICK 157
strong an interest in the subject, and am so anxious to do thorough justice to the men. After to-morrow afternoon I shall have a few days' holiday, and then set to work at what is to occupy me during the vacation. ... I have more to do than I can do, which is always a painful position. One has to decide somewhat arbitrarily what one will do. ...
Tell Arthur that I shall press my motion about Natural Science pnelector, and if he believes in it he ought to come.
To his Mother about ten days later
. . . My motion was lost at the College meeting. I am now reading principally Philosophy. I have a great deal to read, and I shall reserve the morning for study when I am with you. . . .
There are considerable changes going on here which will probably affect me somewhat. Not, however, in a way to make me feel more settled here. But I have now got so used to being unsettled that I work just as well.
To H. G. Dakyns, December 8
The only reason that I regret the hiatus in our corre- spondence is the loss of time. Life is short, and we might have written to one another many good letters during the last six months. On every other ground it is very satis- factory to let half a year intervene, retaining the calm confidence that one may begin any subject in the middle at the end of it. I have not progressed since I saw you except backwards. At my age it is a great thing even to progress backwards ; it shows that one is not stagnating. I mean, in respect of thought I feel more like a young man (in all the points in which youth is inferior to age) than I did in June. In the first place I have less of a creed, philo- sophically speaking. I think I have more knowledge of what the thoughts of men have been, and a less conscious faculty of choosing the true and refusing the false among them.
I wonder whether I shall remain a boy all my life in this respect. I do not say this paradoxically, but having John Grote in my mind, who certainly retained, with the
158 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, m
freshness, the indecisiveness of youth till the day of his death. I wonder whether we are coming to an age of general indecisiveness ; I do not mean the frivolous scepticism of modern Philistines (I almost prefer the frivolous dogmatism of ancient ditto), but the feeling of a man who will not make up his mind till mankind has. I feel that this standpoint is ultimately indefensible, because mankind have never made up their mind except in consequence of some individual having done so. Still there seems to me to be the dilemma. In the present age an educated man must either be prophet or persistent sceptic — there seems no nudia via. I have sold myself to metaphysics for " a time and half a time " ; I do not as yet regret the bargain. Take notice that I have finally parted from Mill and Comte — not without tears and wailings and cuttings of the hair. I am at present an eclectic. I believe in the possibility of pur- suing conflicting methods of mental philosophy side by side.
I am at any rate in travail with an idea, whether it is worth anything remains to be seen. You will have your doubts, remembering many aveptaia [wind-eggs] from the same brain.
. . . Since I saw you I have experienced Alfred de Musset. He seems to me to preserve in verse the peculiar charm of French prose — wit, delicacy, subtlety, combined with the intensity and simplicity of the poet.
L'esperance humaine est lasse d'etre mere
— a wonderful line. I disbelieve it utterly. I am still ultra-Tennysonian as regards progress.
We are in a period of change now in Trinity, but I cannot write about it now. My feeling about reforms here is curious. Whatever I do, or try to do, I see a symbolical figure of the Church of England muttering ' timeo Danaos.'
To 0. Browning from Cambridge, about the middle of December
... I do not feel your polite irony about philosophers touch me at all ; my view is that we ought to be more, not
1866, AGE 28 HENKY SIDGWICK 159
less, strictly educational than we are. If ever I become a power in my College a considerable increase in work (at least of teachers) will take place.
To Roden Noel from Rugly a few days later
I have been very hard at work (for me) ever since I left the Lakes, chiefly with plans — hitherto abortive — of works on philosophy, interwoven with preparation for an examina- tion I have had to conduct in November, and also for an alteration in our philosophical course, — i.e. in the list of books that we recommend to students of philosophy.
The Board of Moral Science, as the body which directs the study in Cambridge is called, has undertaken an entire remodelling of the list, which was too large before and not well put together. A good share in this important and difficult task devolves upon me (who feel myself somewhat incompetent to perform it — though not more incompetent than any one else here perhaps, unless I underrate Cambridge philosophy, that is, putting Maurice on one side) ; so I have been filling up lacunae in my philosophical education, and reading different authors in order to test their educational value. It is really a very difficult question. One feels that great learning and great impartiality ought to be combined to solve it. You will not be surprised — however con- temptuous— to hear that we shall certainly exclude all the post-Kantian developments in Germany. I have not yefc managed to read any Hegel, and must leave it absolutely alone for a little time to come, for I should have to decide on my list long before I had time to understand him. I think the best-informed people among us — excepting Maurice again — form their idea of Hegel from Sir W. Hamilton and Mansel — or at any rate from them illustrated by a cursory and perfectly ineffectual perusal of one of his books. There is certainly one friend of mine — the metaphysician I spoke to you of- — who half believes in him : but he thinks him quite unfit for our purpose. On the other hand, even those of us who do not believe in the philosophic soundness of Kant's Kritik profess great respect for its educational value.
160 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, m
Well, perhaps enough of metaphysics, though I have a great deal to say about them at a fitting season. I am gradually feeling a way to a system of my own, founded on a union between Brown and Hamilton, with an intermixture of Kant and Ferrier. My fundamental position is much what it was in the summer — that fundamental dualism which seems to you so unphilosophical. Bother. I cannot get off this subject. . . .
My history during the last five months has been chiefly the history of my philosophical thinking. Only I happened to read Lecky in the Long. You know the book — History of Rationalism. With the perverseness that sometimes characterises me I took up the subject from entirely the opposite point of view to Lecky, and determined to investigate the evidence for mediaeval miracles, as he insists it is not an investigation of this evidence, but merely the progress of events, march of mind, etc., which has brought about our present disbelief in them. The results have, I confess, astonished myself. I keep silence at present even from good words, but I dimly foresee that I shall have to entirely alter my whole view of the universe and admit the " miraculous," as we call it, as a permanent element in human history and experience. You know my " Spiritual- istic " ghost-seeing tendencies. These all link on, and the Origins of all religions find themselves explained. However, as I say, I keep silence at present ; I am only in the middle of my inquiries.
My chief poetic reading last term was Alfred de Musset. I also went through a course of Victor Hugo. I read his prose dramas for the first time. I think everything he writes is worth reading, though everything he writes seems to me marred by the same defect — want of taste — want of what the Germans call a sense of Mass (measure). In fact, in him Romanticism is in its stage of blind reaction against Classicism. Some of his little poems I delight in. Do you know one that begins
S'il est un charmant gazon Que le ciel arrose.
1867, AGE 23 HENEY SIDGWICK 161
It is what I call exquisite. . . . But Alfred de Musset, though morally very far inferior to V. H., and also inferior, I think, in vis, in genius, is still on the whole a greater poet, just because he has a sense of measure and harmony. He has in verse that esprit which charms one in French prose, only idealised, glorified. Some of his outbursts of scepticism affect me wonderfully. If you get his Poesies Nouvelles, tell me what you think of " L'espoir en Dieu." I fear, however, that the same thing which prevents your caring for Clough will come in here. I like sceptical poets myself. Alfred de M. reminds me of Clough, though they are so very different.
To his Mother from St. Leonards, January 21, 1867
Two or three friends of mine are here, so my visit is interesting, though it is at a very unfortunate time as regards poor Cowell. I am partly haunted with the fear that I excite him too much with talking. It is very hard to know what to do, as he is not conscious of being excited at the time, and there is nothing he likes so well as talking about interesting subjects. It is wonderful to me how he keeps up his spirits externally, I am afraid not without some expenditure of effort. . . .
My two philosophic friends at Cambridge have both got engaged to be married within the last three months. This is trying, is it not ? I bow, however, to the decrees of Providence. The last one is a man on whom I especially relied. I suppose if I live ten years more at Cambridge, I shall have emerged from the period of these disagreeable surprises. Most of my friends will be either married or happy bachelors. This is the language of a bear, but it is not my fault that we are thrown at Cambridge into antagonism with the great interests of human life.
To his Mother from Cambridge, February 14
... I have been pretty hard worked for some time with College and University work, but I have plenty of time again now. " The old order chaugeth, giving place to new," and I
M
162 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, m
want to have a hand in the good work. Tell Arthur I can recommend him Archie Lovell as a sensation novel. It interests for the time, and leaves no intellectual hot coppers afterwards. On the whole, I do not recommend it you, as I do not think it quite worth reading at your pace. You suck a novel so dry that the juice ought to be really good.
To his Mother, March 13
Have you sent off the " de Mirville " [Pneumatologie] to
Miss A ? I have been having a little correspondence
with her on the subject. I am trying to instil into her some sound views on the subject of Spiritualism ; she at present shares the benighted ignorance of the general public on funda- mental points. I forget whether you have asked me lately to recommend you books to read. There is a book recently appeared on the English Constitution, which is lively enough to interest people in the subject who have not previously given much attention to politics, and at the same time is more full of keen observations (at first-hand) and thoughtful suggestions than any political work I have ever read. It is entirely free from party spirit. It is called TJie English Constitution, by W. Bagehot. The two best books I have read for years on politics are this and Grant Duff's Studies in European Politics. I think any one who had read them would know more about English and foreign politics than most people who had not. Of novels there is none except the Village on the Cliff, which is first-rate. I am busy at present with University business and various nugae Idboriosae [tiresome trifles].
To his Mother from Cambridge, May 1 0
... I suppose that the duty to society of making one's rooms nice is a general, not a universal one. I certainly feel inclined to make an exception. Although I am in no way sure that I shall leave this place soon, yet I feel like a stranger and a sojourner here, and could no more take trouble about my temporary abode than a sincere believer in Dr. Gumming (if there be such a thing) could build a
1867, AGE 28 HENEY SIDGWICK 163
house and lay out an estate. I have no heart to do it. In a general way a bachelor making himself comfortable seems to me an incongruous thing. As so many people have to live without domestic happiness I am very glad that there are people who can make themselves comfortable and be contented and calm in that state. But I remain single with a view to freedom and independence and I should despise myself if it was for anything else. Now I see that fellows of colleges have a tendency to become lazy and luxurious, and I do not intend to be at any rate the latter. ... I have bored you with a dull and egotistical discourse. I enjoyed my visit to London beyond measure : every moment was tilled up with something delightful. After all, the happiness of life does depend on intellectual sympathy to me, or rather this is one necessary element in it : and when I get a great deal of it at once, as one does in a holiday spent in London, one seems to live a good deal in the time. Of course one would get much less of it from the same people if one lived among them.
To 0. Browning, May 10
... I perceived that you drew a fancy portrait of Cambridge Verhaltnisse coloured with hues of the imagina- tion. The truth is that probably on the average we have a little more enlightenment than educators elsewhere, but then we are lazier and have less zeal. Again, of course, we have the power, as we control you to a great extent; but then who are the " we." I never really cared about the votes of the country clergy and other quondam poll- men until I sat upon a syndicate and had to waste my time in devising means of making them swallow the medicine that we were preparing for them. We have nearly got through our Classical Tripos scheme ; and, though it might not unfairly be termed a miserable com- promise, yet, being a moderate man, I am tolerably satisfied with it, as I am with the Government Eeform Bill, but I have great doubts whether our report will be accepted by the Senate. We have arranged that a man who does no
164 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, m
verses will only lose half a paper's marks, and that every one must get up some Plato and Aristotle. I hope that if our scheme is carried, men who go through the course will have their minds a little more awakened by it and will feel a little less like school-boys at the end.
. . . Did you happen to see an article of mine [anony- mous] in Macmillan of April on " Liberal Education"? There are some over-strong things in it about verses which must be put down to the heat of controversy. In cool moments I suspend my judgment as to the advantage of verses (when properly taught) at a certain period of a boy's education. But will they continue much longer to be properly taught ? or indeed are they well taught except by some half-dozen men in England ? though this seems an unsatisfactory line of argument. There is much reforming activity going on here now, and I should be tolerably happy but for the religious question. In fact, the chief thing that keeps me here is the work to be done : which will be done in a year or two.
To his Mother from Cambridge, June 1 7
... I have very nearly got through my work — the next four hours will finish it — as far as my private work goes. To-morrow comes the adding up marks in conclave and then a dinner — the Englishman's indispensable wind-up. On Wednesday or Thursday I go to London. . . .
To his Mother from Lodgings in Gower Street, July 10
I have left more than one of your letters unanswered, I fear, so my time ought to have been crowded, but I fear there is little to show for it : I have been seeing friends chiefly and walking to and fro in a great city. I have not been quite idle, however : I have been working at an essay for a volume,1 and, besides, you may perhaps see an article in next Macmillan2 of mine. I fear, however, my work will hardly pay my expenses. I have been inquiring into
1 "The Theory of Classical Education " (in a volume of Essays on a Liberal Education), re published in Miscellaneous Essays and Addresses, 1904.
a On "The Prophet of Culture," republished in Misc. Ess. and Addresses.
1867, AGE 29 HENEY SIDGWICK 165
Spiritualism, but it has not come to much. I can get to see and hear very astounding things in the dark with people I do not know, but I can never get conditions to satisfy me. My time seems very full ; indeed, I can never get enough time to read at the Museum ; and I feel very well, though I cannot get enough sleep in this noisy metro- polis. What do you think ? I am thinking next term of writing an essay for the Quarterly Review.1 I do not know if it will be put in. I have plenty of work on my hands, as I have an entirely new subject to prepare for next term. But I feel more as if I could write literature than I have ever done before, if my mind was only less chaotic. Sometimes even when I feel full of ideas the trouble of binding them into paragraphs is like making ropes of sand. Not that I always feel even full of ideas. But London is a stimulating place : one meets stimulating people. I will tell you who is one — Mazzini. I met him the other night at dinner, and he attacked me about Spiritualism, and bore down upon me with such a current of clear, eager argument — I was quite overwhelmed. People generally treat the thing as a joke, or else have nothing to say but the shallowest commonplaces.2 I am here in
1 The editor had invited him to offer one, but it was never written, we believe.
2 He was very much impressed by this conversation with Mazzini, and used afterwards to refer to the intelligent grasp he showed of the nature of the evidence required and the difficulties of the subject ; also to a story he told of collective illusion due to expectancy and sympathy, which is given in Sidgwick's words in Phantasms of the Living, vol. ii. p. 188 (footnote) as follows : —
" In or near some Italian town, Mazzini saw a group of people standing, apparently gazing upwards into the sky. Going up to it, he asked one of the gazers what he was looking at. ' The cross — do you not see ? ' was the answer ; and the man pointed to the place where the cross was supposed to be. Mazzini, however, could discern no vestige of anything cruciform in the sky ; and, much wondering, went up to another gazer, put a similar question, and received a similar answer. It was evident that the whole crowd had persuaded itself that it was contemplating a marvellous cross. 'So,' said Mazzini, 'I was turning away, when my eye caught the countenance of a gazer who looked somewhat more intelli- gent than the rest, and also, I thought, had a faint air of perplexity and doubt in his gaze. I went up to him, and asked what he was looking at. "The cross," he said, "there." I took hold of his arm, gave Mm a slight shake, and said, ' ' There is not any cross at all. " A sort of change came over his countenance, as though he was waking up from a kind of dream; and he responded, "No, as you say, there is no cross
166 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, in
lodgings between two visits. I have been staying with Symonds. I think you know him ; he has been at Rugby. He is also stimulating, though he is a great invalid. I am going to stay with Cowell. . . . Ah ! books. No, I have not read any lately. The Cornhill of July is good ; there is Matthew Arnold on " Culture," and an article on the " Alps " which makes one want to go there.
Though he had met J. A. Symonds — already a friend of his brother Arthur and of H. G. Dakyns — before this, the visit here referred to was the beginning of the intimate friendship between them which lasted as long as Symonds lived. The latter says in his autobiography, " Henry Sidgwick, whose acquaint- ance I had recently made, was also staying in London [in this summer] philosophising, going to spiritual- istic stances, and trying to support himself (for an experiment) on the minimum of daily outlay. Our acquaintance ripened rapidly into a deep and close friendship, which has been to me of inestimable value during the last twenty - two years." To Sidgwick, too, this friendship was one of the things he most valued in life. The correspondence now begun was specially active during the remainder of this year, but Sidgwick's letters were destroyed when Symonds left his house in Clifton finally in 1880, and burnt his own and his father's papers.2 His letters to Sidgwick during the autumn reflect the latter's conscientious questionings as to retaining or resigning his Fellowship, and with it, of course, prob- ably his work at Cambridge. These letters show, too, that Sidgwick had at this time serious thoughts of writing a book on the origins of Christianity.
The experiment mentioned in the above quotation
at all." So we two walked away, and left the crowd to their cross. ' It is nearly twenty years since I heard this story ; but it made a consider- able impression on me, both from the manner in which Mazzini told it, and from its importance in relation to the evidence for ' spiritualistic ' phenomena."
1 Life of John Addington Symonds, by H. F. Brown, vol. i. p. 413.
2 Op. tit. vol. ii. pp. 171-174.
1867, AGE 29 HENEY SIDGWICK 167
from Symonds of " trying to support himself on the minimum of daily outlay " was not persisted in for long, because though it was not pushed very far — we believe that he did not restrict the amount of food, and allowed himself one good meat meal a day at an eating-house — he found the change of habit seriously interfered with his work. And it is evident that this year, 1867, must have been a specially active and busy one — what with writing, lecturing, and investi- gation of spiritualism. It appears to have been in this year that the College arranged that he should lecture for the Moral Sciences Tripos. There is no trace earlier of his having done so, and there is a College notice, dated June 1867, announcing lectures for the following term by Sidgwick on Mental Philo- sophy and on Moral Philosophy, each three times a week, besides lectures on Moral Philosophy for the ordinary degree if asked for. In addition to this he belonged to a group of Trinity lecturers who were trying to supplant private tuition for classical students, and in connection with this scheme he had undertaken to read Cicero's philosophical treatises with a small class ; classes to read other books were to be taken by Mr. Jebb, Mr. Jackson, and Mr. Currey. " Gentle- men desirous of joining any of these classes " were " requested to communicate with Mr. Sidgwick." He had also undertaken to lecture on History for the ordinary degree. In short, he seems to have been putting in practice in his own person what he says to 0. Browning about College lecturers in the letter quoted above (p. 159).
To his Mother from Gower Street, July 25
I have been staying the last week with Cowell, and am now again in lodgings for some little time — writing my essay and hunting up Spiritualists. I have not been fortunate so far in my inquiries — for various reasons.
... I am a very prudent man, and shall take a
168 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, m
holiday as soon as I feel I want one. I do not think I shall come to Wellington College at the beginning of the holidays, as I must finish my essay before I leave London, and it will take me at least till the 7th of August. If I have it on my mind when I come I shall get no good from my holiday. I am very much excited in London, by London : I really feel that it is too much for my provincial brain. There are so many people to see of such various manners of thought and views of life, and such conveniences for all kind of intellectual stimulation. To go from the British Museum to the Portrait Gallery, or the Royal Academy, is enough for one day, and to talk to a member of the society of " Divine Spiritualists " in the evening afterwards is too much.
To his Sister from Festiniog in August
I am here in the midst of scenery which is not first- rate but very pleasing to me, as I have seen nothing in the way of glens or tarns for an age. I vex my friends here by comparing it with the Lakes, and in theory I think such contrasts always show an ill-conditioned mind ; but some- how this Natur keeps suggesting the Lakes, it is so like, and yet so unlike ; it seems just to lack the refinement, the " distinction," the excellence of Borrowdale and Grasmere. However, I shall enjoy myself much ; we have much exhilarating good fellowship and good talk at breakfast and in the evening, George Trevelyan especially being a well- spring of both. I shall be here at least a week — back in London probably early in September. I am so behindhand with my work (having quixotically undertaken rather more than I can do well), that I think when this holiday is over I shall probably have to work hard on till Christmas. . . . I send you also a German effusion of mine about which I spoke. You will say that it is the outcome of rather a melancholy mood — Teutonically sentimental, in fact, and that was why I was moved to write it in German. ... If you ever feel inclined to break new ground in German poetry, get hold of Riickart's Selected Works and see how you like
1867, AGE 29 HENRY SIDGWICK 169
them. One song of his is running in my head now; it makes more of the German language in a particular way than any of the great poets. It begins " Er ist gekommen."
To H. G. Dakyns from Gower Street
... If you think you are behaving well in going away without leaving me your address and not writing, my pre- ponderating disposition is to put it down in my note-book, acquiesce, and turn to the study of Moral Philosophy. . . . I am reading very hard and at the same time doggedly carrying out my spiritualistic inquiry. I am not sure that I shall not soon give it up for the present — the pressure of College work is heavy upon me. I am preparing to teach English History to Poll men. My knowledge of history is small, and my interest in the details ; indeed, I feel that I was rather quixotic in undertaking to deliver lectures in it. I did it altruistically. However, I like extending my sympathies, and I find I gradually get a derived and secondary interest in these wearisome details, caught from the enthusiasm of the students who devote themselves to dig them out. My friends objurgate me for not writing, and my only defence (for write I will not, write I cannot at present) is to plunge into professional work. I have been staying at Festiniog with some Cambridge men, and had much good fellowship and some nature emotions. There is one glen
"Where in one dream the feverish time of youth Might fade in slumber.
But I am beginning to crave fuller draughts of scenery than I have had for some time. Also of pictures. Alas ! self-development, self-sacrifice ! Gegensatze — who will give their Versohnung ? Did you see my article in Macmillan, [see p. 164], where I asked this ?
To his Mother from Gower Street, September 6
There is no one here now, or at least no one that I can see without wasting a great deal of time. . . . Just at present life is somewhat difficult for me — full of doubts
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and problems, and solitude is good for me, though rather depressing. There are some bracing lines of Aubrey de Vere I think of: —
Fear not, or thou shalt find Cause too much for fear : Sigh not, or every wind
Shall waft thee deep and drear The echoes of the murmurs Of many a wasted year.
Good advice, if one could only take it.
To H. G. Dakyns from Cambridge, 7 P.M. September 25 When you did not come to me on Friday, my faith in Providence was momentarily shaken, and I half determined only to do my duty when it was convenient. My duty is, however, not really difficult ; I expect to have almost nobody to teach ; it is rather as a symbol of service to humanity that I am devoting myself to it with emphasis. However, the historic passion is coming over me, and I feel a great desire to know the exact state of the Early English. As Artemus Ward said, " The researches of many eminent antiquarians have already thrown much darkness on the subject ; and it is probable, if they continner their labours, that we shall soon know nothing at all " about the Early English. This is not buffoonery, as you may think — it raises the deepest questions of Positivism. For I am half inclined to believe that the pursuit of knowledge wants regulating terribly, and that in trying to solve problems really indeterminate we are pouring valuable energies into sand-deserts. I say half-inclined, for, after all, I sympathise too intensely with la curiosiU pure to give in quite to this theory ; but I do rather feel as if the indulgence of it was a luxury that ought to be left to Paradise. Si non post corpora exstingnuntur magnae animae, we may some day among other things ascertain how much British blood runs in the veins of the Anglo-Saxon Eace.
I am bearing the burden of humanity in the lap of luxury, and in consequence not bearing it well. After all, Pascal was practically right: if one is to embrace infinite
1867, AGE 29 HENKY SIDGWICK 171
doubt, if it is to come into our bowels like water, and like oil into our bones, it ought to be upon sackcloth and ashes and in a bare cell, and not amid '47 port and the silvery talk of W. G. Clark. When I go to my rooms I feel strange, ghastly ; that is why I write to you. But there again — if one allows this consciousness " the time is short " to grow and get strong, it seems to fold up all life into a feverish moment.
The world shall feel my impulse or I die.
Think of all the second-rate men who have said this and died — and — Who cares ?
Butterflies may dread extinction.
This is a strange mood for me. But at Trumpington to-day I brushed away a spider's life and said, " This is sentience." What am I more than elaborate sentience ?
My sister gets on very slowly ; my mother is really alarmed. After all, the trivialities of life are a thick cloak ; I suppose one ought to wrap oneself in it and thank Heaven. But is not the " casual " who has no cloak, grander ? Marriage ! !
To his Mother from Cambridge, October
I have no time to spare now ; my only unhappiness is that I am not able to work as hard as I should like. I have been wrong in not giving myself a longer complete holiday this long vacation ; it would have saved time in the end. However, I do not regret as a whole the way it has gone ; I have not at any rate spent it in vain ; I have lived and progressed, and done a little work. I certainly thought that I should have got further towards explaining Spiritualism, one way or the other ; however, it gives life an additional interest having a problem of such magnitude still to solve. ... I am getting more interested in ecclesi- astical matters from reading English history ; the mediaeval Church seems to me almost the only interesting thing in the dreary confusion of futile little wars that fill the chronicles of feudalism. It is such a strange mixture of sublimity and meanness, unselfishness and grovelling corruption.
172 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, in
To his Mother, November 13
Tell Arthur I am much obliged for the signatures. I sent in my thirteen propositions to-day [for the College meeting]. I was very nearly sending in the paper with his ribaldry on the back of it. Imagine the feelings of our august head on reading it. The extent to which I am reforming mankind at present is quite appalling ; the oldest inhabitant has never known anything like it. Don't be alarmed, we have a fine old Conservative Constitution which will resist many shocks of feeble individuals like myself. These Conservatives are too triumphant at present. What a feast they have in Italian affairs ! I cannot deny that things could not have turned out better for them ; the revolution has met with failure, the scheming government of Victor Emmanuel with disgrace, and the " Man of Sin " himself with the hatred of twenty-four millions of men. Poor Garibaldi ! I wish he had at least got the chesnuts out of the fire. Trevelyan (who is in Italy) was present at his arrest — a sad spectacle. On the whole I believe the regular army is the part of the nation that sympathises least with him.
The " thirteen propositions " here mentioned were motions for College reforms which, being proposed at the meeting in December 1867, would, according to custom, be voted on at the next annual meeting in December 1868. They included, among others, pro- posals for awarding scholarships and fellowships for Natural Science ; about a redistribution of the tuition money ; about the appointment of " Prselectors " to teach and direct the studies in different departments ; and a proposal to omit the words in the oath sworn by fellows on their election, promising conformity to the Church of England. Though he calls these his resolutions, and very probably drafted them, he was not, of course, acting alone. Indeed, as we learn from Dr. Henry Jackson, from 1865 till he ceased to be a member of the governing body of the College in 1869,
1867, AGE 29 HENRY SIDGWICK 173
he was the most prominent of a group of resident juniors which, in concert with J. Lempriere Hammond, brought liberal motions before the annual meeting, and a letter to him from Hammond, who with others signed the thirteen propositions, shows that the latter's advice was taken as to their order. In sending them to his brother Arthur to sign Henry says : —
. . . You will easily see that [the enclosed (new) pro- position for altering the statutes about Praelectors], com- bined with the tuition propositions, open an almost unlimited vista of reform as possible, while the changes they enforce are very humble and practical.
We may as well say here that when these proposals came to be voted on in December 1868, those concerning Natural Sciences Fellowships and Prselectors were in the main carried, and to some extent those about the tuition fund, and they soon bore fruit. The proposal for doing away with religious tests was lost, but after Sidgwick and others had resigned their Fellowships a more com- prehensive motion was proposed in December 1869, namely, " That the Master and Seniors take such steps as may be necessary in order to repeal all religious restrictions on the election and conditions of tenure of fellowships at present contained in the statutes ; " and this was carried in the following year by the requisite two-thirds majority. Some of the Seniors questioned the powers of the governing body ; but the Test Act of 1871 made further proceedings unnecessary.
To his Sister from Cambridge, November 13
If I could only find your address [at Hastings], which I have been searching for, for two days, I would send you a book to read : and will if you like, and have not read it. It is called A Lost Love, by Ashford Owen. It reminds me a little of Eomance of a Dull Life, etc., only it is written with
174 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, m
less intellect and perhaps more passionateness. It is indeed this latter quality — a certain intensity — which makes it attractive. I like it fairly myself, but one or two friends of mine whose opinion I value admire it extremely. . . . How do you like Hastings ? I know it well, and look forward to seeing much more of it in years to come — that is, in case my poor friend Cowell's life is preserved, as I do not expect he will leave Hastings again now. I hope you are not having any of our fogs. Last time I was at Hastings all the thriving shopkeepers were looking green and yellow ; it was January and the snow was deeper there than anywhere else in England. Another winter like this, they felt, would ruin them. We have been having the most splendid autumn — all gone now, of course. I never saw our trees looking better. It was like a really good poem ; usually it is like a respectable poem, and the differ- ence is great
I am involved in a project for improving female educa- tion : by providing examinations for governesses. An endeavour is being made to form a joint board, consisting of members of the two Universities, for the purpose. The plan is at present vague, but I think it may very likely come to something good. Meanwhile, there are various other projects — afloat and just launching — with similar ends. It appears that there is particular activity in the North of England. School-mistresses and other enlightened people have associated themselves in several great towns, and out of these associations a general council has been formed with lofty aspirations.1
If you can get hold of the Guardian Angel by 0. W. Holmes you will find it worth reading, though not good as a novel, I think.
In this letter we see the beginnings of the move- ment for the examination of women. Sidgwick was not present at the meeting held in London to discuss
1 The North of England Council, founded in 1867 with Miss A. J. Clough as Secretary and Mrs. Josephine Butler as President.
1867, AGE 29 HENKY SIDGWICK 175
the formation of the above-mentioned "joint board,"1 but he evidently was very soon drawn in.
In December of 1867 his friend Co well's long illness came to an end. He died at Hastings. After attending the funeral and selecting from his friend's library, which had been bequeathed to him, such books as he could make use of, Sidgwick proceeded to Cannes to join Mr. and Mrs. J. A. Symonds.
To his Mother from Cannes, January 6, 1868
I have arrived here safe after a somewhat trying journey, but one that, on the whole, I did not object to. The worst part of it was from Dover to Calais : my impression is that the voyage was very rough, or else I am growing a worse sailor every year. Certainly I was very ill : so much so that I was afraid to go on by the night train to Avignon for fear of being regularly knocked up. However, I was glad to have a morning in Paris : Paris is a town that, as a town, I love far above all towns : I never come to it without being exhilarated, or leave it without regret. My affection was sorely tried by the bitter north wind ; I never felt colder all my life ; and to see the shopwomen with their caps in the streets before their uncovered boards selling drennes (it was December 31) gave me a great admiration for the hardiness of French constitutions. These ttrennes are amusing : it is such a regular institution — one which I certainly do not wish to transplant. The having to give presents to every one on a fixed day is a piece of rfylementation on the part of public opinion which I do not at all approve of. It is bad enough in England having to give presents to your friends when they marry — a duty which I sometimes neglect. I spent some hours in the Louvre, and found that my feeling for Greuze had grown. He is the one French artist whose pictures exercise a distinct attraction on me and give me unmixed pleasure.
1 The following, among others, were present : Charles Kingsley, B. H. Kennedy, J. R. Seeley, T. Markby, H. D. Warr, J. B. Payne, Mr. James Stuart, Dr. H. Jackson, Mrs. Josephine Butler, Miss Emily Davies, Miss Boucherett.
176 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, in
Afterwards I put on all the clothes I could find in niy small portmanteau and took the night express to Avignon. This town I saw under difficulties — under a snowstorm and a wind, which I find is called " the mistral," but by any other name it would cut one equally to the bone. The Palace of the Popes looks much more like a great barrack, which it now is, than like a palace — not to speak of the abode of the Vicar of Christ ; one feels that the Pope must have turned into a highly military personage before he took to inhabiting such a forbidding fortress. I slept Wednesday night in Marseilles, and in the morning got my first view of the tideless sea. The harbour of Marseilles is very effective : like the harbour one imagines in one's childhood, with all the features — forts, docks, ships, church on the snow-clad hill, etc., very prominent and distinct. I never saw the Mediterranean before, and the weather having become milder, I historically sentimentalised over it. ...
I had a melancholy business at Hastings, dividing the library. I could not take all the books, and indeed those I have taken will oblige me to have my room lined with bookcases. This complete break-up, extinction of a family, is very sad.
To H. G. Dakyns from Cambridge, January 29
I left the Garden on Monday week. When I say the garden, I speak chiefly objectively and only partly subjec- tively. I thought as I was on my way that it would be odd if something did not happen — something to make this mixed like the rest of life. When I got to Cannes I found it had happened. Johnnie [Symonds] had sprained his ankle a day or two before. The confinement to the house brought on a return of a cerebral complaint from which he suffers. It became doubtful whether I ought to stay, and indeed, on looking back, I am afraid I feel sure I ought not : but I sophisticated myself into staying, and made a permanent effort (with what doubtful and varying success you know me well enough to imagine) to avoid fatiguing topics. It was sad and painful, though I myself was so happy as to
1868, AGE 29 HENKY SIDGWICK 177
feel unsympathetic. But some life has the Divine in it as a felt element, and everything else seems to vanish in comparison — just as it does from the point of view of mysticism. Why cannot we all have it always ?
For should I prize thee, could'st thou last, At half thy real worth
I wonder. It is only my belief in Providence, my optimism, that makes me even disposed to entertain a doubt.
. . . Johnnie is often very depressed. I felt terribly that
I had
. . . Neither faith nor light, Nor certitude, nor any help in pain, . . .
as Matthew Arnold says. My religion, which I believe is sincere, seemed such a weak and feeble thing when I endeavoured to communicate it in need. What can I do ? I cannot, as Clough says, "be profane with yes and no" — subjectively it would be profanity. Oh, how I sympathise with Kant ! with his passionate yearning for synthesis and condemned by his reason to criticism. . . .
About myself there is little to say. I am preparing lectures on Metaphysics — vexed with the subject and myself — but still hoping that it will prove a fine exercise in subtle analysis for my pupils and myself. I am treating Hamilton more sympathetically than Mill does, from much the same point of view. The reviews so far are friendly to my essay [on " The Theory of a Classical Education "]. I like criticising myself, and have formulated the following on it : —
Pro. — Always thoughtful, often subtle : generally sensible and impartial : approaches the subject from the right point of view.
Con. — Inconsequent, ill-arranged : stiff and ponderous in style : nothing really striking or original in the arguments.
To 0. Browning, January 30 (about Cowell)
Your letter met me a few days ago on my return from Cannes. I was at the funeral, as perhaps you know. I wished very much that you could have been there, as there was no one of his Cambridge friends except Moorsom, who
N
178 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, m
did not, I think, know him particularly well at Cambridge, though he has taken the most affectionate care of him during the last year. He is a very good fellow. But there was no friend whom Jermyu loved more than you, and hardly one who appreciated him so well. I had written proposing to stay with him : my letter was crossed by one from Moorsom announcing his death. I hardly felt that I regretted it, though it came upon me like a shock. And I felt still less regret after talking to Moorsom. He described his utter lassitude during the last three months as some- thing painful to witness. He did not even care to be turned towards the sun, on his sofa. Only his delicate and tender politeness never left him. I think there are many who will remember him for his chivalrous kindliness — as a sort of Bayard of friendship. (I am afraid the phrase is affected, but you will understand it.) But one had to know him well to appreciate — it was some time before I did myself — his unvarying graceful unselfishness carried out into the smallest details, and his profoundly sympathetic considerate- ness, that was never in the least superficial, but always so unreservedly given. He was certainly a mark for the blows of fortune. I remember he was a man whom I once used rather to envy. There was no relative at the funeral but one first cousin. The extinction of that family has been awfully rapid and complete. Still no man could be more truly and appropriately mourned by his friends. How such a loss makes the days seem irrevocable when we made friendships without knowing what they were worth. Well, if life teaches one that it is some compensation for other losses.
I hear wonderful things of your new headmaster [Dr. Hornby]. He is supposed to be a friend of Jowett's. Disraeli's Reform Bill and Eton in the hands of an Oxford Liberal ! What is going to happen ? I should like to hear how the cynicism of Johnson is affected by the new regime. We are beginning to set our house in order here. Did you see Vesuvius ? I have had some divine days among orange groves at Mentone.
1868, AGE 29 HENKY SIDGWICK 179
To his Mother from Cambridge, February 2
I got a little out of order, I think from the journey back from Cannes, and have to take care of myself now, and not use my eyes or brain at all after dinner for an hour or two; or — dyspepsia. What a time it wastes ! . . . However, I take great care of myself, only I have just now rather a pressure of work. ... I travelled to Cannes with Mr. Otto Goldschmidt, a most neat, vivacious little man, who, to my amazement, did not look perceptibly unbrushed even when we took our morning coffee at Lyons after a night journey, when every one else has a drearily debauched aspect. . . . Mentone is delightful. You must go there some winter ; there are orchards of oranges and lemons, valleys feathered with olives, picturesque bare hills behind them, a fine line of coast, and the blue sea — sapphire isn't the word for it, as Trevelyan would say — and the air has just enough cold in it to prevent the sun ever being oppressive. Then there are picturesque little villages on the top of precipitous hills, where they built them out of reach of the pirates. In spite of the extreme painfulness of my visit in some ways, I had a few days of unmixed delight. . . .
To his Sister, February 7
I am excessively busy now. Please tell Edward that he was quite right about my teaching History ; I ought never to have attempted it. History is par excellence a subject which ought to be taught with enthusiasm and from a full mind. I am not enthusiastic about [it] just at present, and my mind is full of all sorts of other things. However, it is a beneficent law of nature that one gradually gets an acquired or secondary enthusiasm about everything at which one has to work hard. I wish you could have been with me at Cannes ; you would have got quite well. Cannes has exactly the sort of climate in which I can conceive of people worshipping the sun. A dull day there was just like a dull winter day in England, only the dulness was not quite so opaque. But a bright day was like — what shall I compare
180 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, m
it to ? Except that the day was so short, it was like an early May day with a touch of east wind in it. I kept saying to myself all the while I was at C., why on earth do people stay in England who have no duties or who do not do them ? (I am afraid you are included in neither class.)
Tennyson is coming to stay at the Lodge here, and I hope to see him. I do not like the poems that he has been sputtering all about the press lately, and I wish he would not do it.
Our book [Essays on a Liberal Education] has been very amiably reviewed on the whole; the most unintelligent review that I have seen was that in the Times yesterday. Conington's, in the Contemporary, very good, only a little too minute, and a little too egoistic.
We have got to elect a new member [of Parliament], and every one feels it disgraceful that we have no really eminent man to bring forward. I can't help it. / can't stand ; I have not time.
Do you know that I am violently engaged in a scheme for improving female education ? A Board is constituted of Oxford and Cambridge men (no end of swells, includ- ing the people who have refused Bpcs., etc.) to examine governesses and schoolmistresses.
To 0. Browning on February 16
... I meant to answer your letter about Fame, but had nothing to say. I have occasionally an idea that Fame is something people believed in two thousand years ago, when they thought that all people out of their own set were Bov\oi or ftdpfiapoi — and, strange to say, they got it. The impres- sive thing about the somewhat commonplace Ode of Horace (" Exegi monumentum," etc.) is that it was true. But as for fame now, when
Jupiter livre le monde Aux myrmidons,
I should not like to fix my desires on it. But if one does want it, I imagine the best method is concentration almost
1868, AGE 29 HENEY SIDGWICK 181
amounting to idte fixe. And I do not suppose any man in any career need despair if he only puts his soul into his circumstances : he takes as good a ticket in the lottery as any man. The hopeless people (for fame) are the round pegs in square holes.
As for my essay, if it has not convinced you that " classical education ought to be abandoned," and that " Greek ought to be no more studied than Persian," it has failed in attaining an object of which its writer never dreamed, and which he is somewhat surprised to find attri- buted to him. Curiously, while you half charge me with writing beyond my serious belief, I have not really written up to it. If we had only firstrate teachers and text-books of the subjects worth knowing, I should be inclined to pitch the Classics overboard. But one great advantage of litera- ture as an instrument of education is that it supplements a teacher's defects so much. Temple is moving for English, as you probably know.
To his Mother, March 8
. . . The scheme of the University of London is as yet undetermined. If it proves to be a good one, and satis- factory to the guiding spirits of female education, there will then be two schemes of examination for women, just as there are now Oxford middle-class examinations and Cambridge ditto. It is improbable that they will be exact copies of each other. Some may prefer one, some the other. Of course we [the " Board " mentioned above to his sister] shall have the disadvantage of being a voluntary association ; at the same time it is possible that some ladies may have more confidence in the older Universities. I do not see why competition should not be good here, as it is in so many other things. . . .
. . . Though we can hold out no decided hope of getting the Universities to take the matter up in their [corporate] capacity, it will be our continual effort to bring this about. We think the best way of doing it is to start our scheme and show by its success (if it succeeds) that
182 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, m
there is a real demand for such examinations as these. We shall at any rate have the effect (which seems to me a great incidental advantage) of interesting a large number of the influential members of both Universities in the cause of the higher education of women. Our position is, in fact, simply this — We intend to meet an existing need, and to continue our operations as long as we get a sufficient number of candidates, unless superseded by corporate action on the part of either Cambridge or Oxford. We hope that all who prefer the London University (when its examinations begin) will go there ; then if we get few or no candidates, it will be obviously right for us to dissolve.
It appears from this letter that at this time Sidg- wick entertained little expectation of the University of Cambridge itself undertaking such an examination im- mediately ; indeed at the London meeting Dr. Henry Jackson seems alone to have thought this likely. But when a memorial, taken round by Mr. James Stuart, was signed by seventy-four members of the Senate, including some of the most rigid conser- vatives, it was clear that the time to move had come. A scheme was carried without opposition in October 1868,1 and the first "Examination for Women" (the name was changed later to Higher Local Examina- tion) was held by the University in June 1869.
To his Mother on May 6 I was very glad to get your letter. I am tolerably well,
1 The scheme and an account of the discussion on it (in which Henry Sidgwick took part), and also the memorial above referred to, and another signed by Mrs. Josephine Butler, Miss Anne J. dough, and others, will be found in the first number of the Cambridge University Gazette (for October 28, 1868), p. 7.
It should be said that there was a division of opinion among those interested in the promotion of women's education about the advisability of establishing this examination. Dr. Jackson writes : " After the London meeting [referred to above on p. 175] Miss Emily Da vies declared for the exact following of University examinations. But the Cambridge residents, not seeing how soon women would be ready for Tripos examinations, and fearing the low standard of pass examinations, very decidedly preferred the establishment of a special examination for women. I remember well discussing the question with F. Myers, and calling upon Charles Kingsley to tell him of our strong feeling about it."
1888, AGE 29 HENKY SIDGWICK 183
not very. It is only my nerves that have got a little depressed, not by hard work, for I have not been working hard, but by too continuous a strain. I do not think hard work is otherwise than healthy if one can enjoy leisure. What is trying is a Care perpetually haunting one, of whatever sort it may be. With one man it may be a hopeless passion, with another the consciousness of holding views which he does not know whether to avow or conceal. Well, I do not want to harp on this string, especially as I am in a state very much the reverse of self- confidence, and do not think that my views are of half as much importance to mankind as those of wiser men. My work will end about the 6th of June. I hope if you come to see me it will be about then — or else when the interest- ing events (boat processions, flower shows, etc. There is always a period when we abandon ourselves to dissipation) take place, of which I will inform you. Cambridge is charming just now. . . . My rooms,1 you know, are those of an anchorite. As this is the only respect in which my life is anchoritic, I cling to it with something of a superstitious feeling. ... I am rather afraid of breaking down before the end of the term, but I hope I shall not.
To his Mother on May 7
... I will tell you exactly what my engagements are. I have two lectures, each of an hour, a day to deliver; one of them takes about an hour to prepare, and for the other, as it is on a new subject which requires much thinking over, I like to allow four or five. That makes seven or eight, and casual engagements about an hour more. I fear I should have to abstract about eight hours a day at least from your society, except on Sunday (after the 6th of June I shall be quite free). If you came, I should arrange my time thus. I should be engaged till 2, except an hour for breakfast and for two or three hours in the evening, say from 9 to 11^. The rest of the day I could give up to play. You see, I am just not vigorous enough to be able to compress my work. 1 Xevile's Court I 2. He had occupied them since 1862.
184 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, m
His mother and his cousin Annie Sidgwick [Mrs. Stephen Marshall] paid the visit here spoken of in June, and greatly enjoyed it. In a letter about it from his mother she especially dwells on the delightful kindness and hospitality of old Professor Sedgvvick.
To 0. Browning also early in May
I do not know how you feel about our Tripos scheme. The 2Qth instant is the day of voting on it. Let any one come who feels a desire to diminish the influence of verses and increase the intelligent interest in authors.1 There is much change going on here. But I rather expect a Protestant- Conservative reaction apropos of the Irish Church, which will keep us in chains for some time longer. I shall not believe in Disestablishment till I see it. I have always the feeling very strongly that the real influence of the news- paper press is declining, and that one can less and less feel the public pulse by it. It is every year more read and less trusted. I speak, however, in ignorance. I do not often get a talk with the " bald-headed man on the omnibus."
Johnson writes to me that Eton too is physicising. I am hopeful about education. I think we are on the way of finding out the right method of forming a sound theory on the subject.
To his Mother, June 28
... I just saw the Royal Academy. I did not like any of the Leightons so well as last year's, though the Ariadne is very crafty ; nor any of Millais' except the Rosalind and Celia. . . .
My friend Charles Bernard is now in England with his wife. Would you like me to ask him to run down to Rugby while I am there and stay at your house for a day or so ? I do not know that he will, but he may like to take a look at the old school, and I should like to ask him. I shall see him in town. ... I am working now, and am very well, and amazed when any one says it is too hot. Pray keep the MSS. [some papers he had lent her] as long as you like.
1 The scheme was thrown out on this occasion.
1868, AGE 30 HENRY SIDGWICK 185
Really I do not know whether they will interest you at all. They are interesting to me, as all details of one's own mental life are. One grows old in Cambridge very fast, that is up to a certain point, and at that point (as far as I can judge from my contemporaries) one may remain a long time.
To 0. Browning from the School House at Rugby, July 1 8
. . . Would you like me to come on Friday 24th ? I get my work [examining] over here on the 23rd. ... I do not go abroad till about 5th of August. To the Alps with Trevelyan and others. ... I intend to be lazy and happy. I go, in fact, with the view of getting rid of Geist — under- stood in the strictly metaphysical sense. . . .
I have been reading French Grammar lately. There seem to me a few neat bits of education in it. And as far as I can gather, little or nothing is made of them as French is generally taught. . . .
To 0. Browning about the end of October
... As regards the University Gazette, I have nothing to do with it myself, but I believe a good deal in it, and intend to give it my humble support. ... I hope the thing will lead to a good deal of healthy discussion here. I was sorry not to meet you in Switzerland. I missed everybody I wanted to meet, and only just missed them. I hope your high passes agreed with you. I half think that the next time I go to Switzerland I shall take my chance of breaking my neck along with other people. Trevelyan and I got hold of a very good porter-guide, who was a sound Liberal with a proper hatred of feudality. The only thing of importance that I have to say about the Alps is that the view from Miirren is not only the sublimest thing I have ever seen in S., but I have seen nothing to compare with it in sublimity.
Yes, I had a most delightful two hours with the Leweses. I shall go again as soon as I can. Mrs. Lewes said one or two things like the subtle humour of her books, which I should not have detected in her at Cambridge. But I have
186 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, m
been reading the Spanish Gypsy again, and am compelled to admit to myself that I do not find it admirable as poetry.
I will gladly join any educational league, when the leading educational Liberals are agreed on a programme.
He " supported " the University Gazette (above mentioned) by contributing letters from time to time, on improvement of the Little -Go; reform of the Classical Tripos ; the study of English ; marriage- able fellowships and revision of the College lecture system, including free competition among lecturers. He argues that under a system of free competition bad lecturing would " be driven entirely out of the field : a consummation devoutly to be wished."
To his Sister, November 13
I write, after all, from Mr. Martin's old rooms.1 An unexpected accident gave me the chance of taking them, and I could not resist the opportunity of " bettering myself " to that extent. The consequence is that I no longer live in the squalor that was so dear to me. I have not adorned these rooms, but it will take some years to reduce them to the state which becomes a philosopher. I have all the feeling that I may live and die here — that is, if I should live and die in this place of sound learning. I think a very short while will now decide whether Cambridge is likely to become (at least in this generation) a place where I should care to live and die. In fact, my impression is — do not mention it — that The Crisis is coming. I am 30^- years old and never remember to have seen a Crisis coming before, and I suppose every man has a right to have the hallucination at least once in his life.
We are in much vivacity here. We have a new Uni- versity Gazette. Edward ought to take it in. It comes out every Wednesday, is only threepence, and is going to contain
1 The rooms in Nevile's Court (D 2 and 6) which Sidgwick kept till) his marriage in 1876. His predecessor in these rooms, the Rev. Francis Martin, at one time Bursar and afterwards Vice-Master of the College, had been a very kind friend to E. W. Benson, and through him a family friend.
1869, AGE 30 HENEY SIDGWICK 187
all the newest educational notions. Meanwhile we are defer- ring the composition of our great works till we have got into proper order our — hum — Dinner Arrangements. We have been somewhat afraid of a great undergraduate strike (though I do not know how on earth our 500 men would provide for themselves if they seceded from the Trinity kitchens).
I wish Edward would come up and pronounce our new court (newest court, I mean ; we call them Eocene, Meiocene, and Pleiocene) rather picturesque. We do not dislike it ourselves, but competent architectural judges have pro- nounced it execrable.
. . . The chief idea I carried home [from the Alps] was the sublimity of Mtirren. If I had nothing else to live for, I think I should philosophise at Miirren in the summer and Men tone in the winter. The spring I should reserve for travelling. In the autumn I should stroll under the chest- nuts of Trinity and ponder the great Dinner question.
To his Mother from the Symonds House at Clifton, January 17, 1869
I have just arrived here, having left the Pauls yester- day. ... I enjoyed my visit there, and in London too, very much. In fact, the one was a pleasant contrast to the other. London is always rather exciting to me when I go there for a short time ; and I now know so many people that I have the uncomfortable feeling of not having time to see them all. . . . With regard to myself, I do distinctly feel that if I had held some years ago the views which I now hold as to the proper position of a Sceptic in the social order, I should not have spoken so unguardedly on religious subjects as I have done till lately, not only to you but to other people. And if I do not regret it very strongly, it is because I feel convinced that English religious society is going through a great crisis just now, and it will probably become impossible soon to conceal from anybody the extent to which rationalistic views are held, and the extent of their deviation from traditional opinion.
Enough ; I hope things will go on as quietly as possible.
188 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP. HI
You see that the Ritualists are determined to burn altar lights after all. I wonder what the other side will do. I have no strong feeling either way. I should like the Church to include the Ritualists, but I feel that a " legal " church in which the law is not enforced becomes an absurdity which cannot long be tolerated.
To his Sister from the same place on January 1 7
. . . Talking of poems, a friend of mine, of whom you have probably heard me speak — Roden Noel — has just brought out a second volume of poems.1 I never pressed my friends to read his first, but this (with great faults) is really so good that I should like to draw your attention to it. His blank verse is sometimes " prose cut into lengths," but it is full of real feeling, and he has a rare gift of description — rich, delicate, pregnant, and accurate. . . .
To his Sister from Cambridge on January 2 7
... I have been corresponding with Miss [Sophia] Jex- Blake, who wants a medical degree. I do not know what we can do for her here. Opinion is advancing very fast in respect of female education : but I am afraid it has not yet got quite as far as that in these old places. I like Miss Jex-Blake ; there is no acridity in her protest against the established barriers.
Did you see my letter in the Spectator, defending our (Cambridge) Scheme for Women's examinations ? A friend told me, with an air of surprise, that he thought it was very sensible. Common sense is not supposed to be my forte : but the fact is on this question I feel so sure that all the good arguments are on our side that I am inclined to be very moderate. We (the reformers) hold the winning cards ; if we play quietly we shall get the game without any fuss. I wish I was equally confident of the baking of all the pies into which I poke my fingers.
The following is from the letter to the Spectator of January 16, 1869, above referred to : —
1 Beatrice and Other Poems.
1869, AGE 30 HENEY SIDGWICK 189
Though I have had no part in framing the Cambridge scheme for examining women recently published, and am not altogether prepared to justify its mildness, I should like to say a few words in defence of its principles.
. . . Whatever may be said in favour of a different school education for the two sexes, the present exclusion of women from the higher studies of the University is perfectly indefensible in principle, and must sooner or later give way. When this barrier is broken down, whatever special examinations for women may still be retained will be very different from any that we now institute. At present we have two distinct classes to consider: students who wish for guidance and support in their studies, and professional teachers who wish to obtain proof of adequate capacity. The first class will be com- posed of specially intellectual girls, and all these will try to obtain honours. It is only the inferior portion of the second class who will try merely to pass. In their case we shall be distinguishing the competent from the in- competent by examining them in the few subjects which they will certainly profess and be required to teach. We cannot expect parents in general suddenly to alter their views of what girls are to be taught ; and we shall prob- ably have more immediate effect in improving education by raising the quality of what is demanded, than by attempt- ing to supply something else.
To his Mother, February 8
Martineau has written a fine pamphlet for the Free Christian Union.
It was not till after some hesitation and discussion that in June 1868 Henry Sidgwick had joined in founding a society called the " Free Christian Union," of which the object was to invite " to common action all who deem men responsible, not for the attainment of Divine truth, but only for the serious search for it ; and who rely, for the religious improvement of
190 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, m
human life, on filial Piety and brotherly Charity, with or without more particular agreement in matters of doctrinal theology." * Mr. C. S. Cookson was Presi- dent, and Sidgwick Vice-president, and among the leading members were the Rev. J. J. Taylor, Principal of Manchester New College, Dr. James Martineau, Rev. C. Kegan Paul, and others. The society did not really succeed. Notwithstanding an attendance at the religious service held on its first anniversary so large that the meeting had to be adjourned from the room taken for it to a larger hall, it was found impossible to obtain in sufficient amount the active service, personal counte- nance, and literary and official work needful to its success ; and after little more than two years it was dissolved. A contemplated volume of essays was never produced, but the society did arrange for the publication of one or two essays, and one of these was an essay by Sidgwick on the " Ethics of Con- formity and Subscription,"" originally intended to form part of the volume. The following letter to Dr.
1 The full expression of the object of the Society is contained in the following preamble and declaration : —
" Whereas, for ages past, Christians have been taught .that correct con- ceptions of Divine things are necessary to acceptance with God and to religious relations with each other ;
"And, in vain pursuit of Orthodoxy, have parted into rival Churches, and lost the bond of common work and love :
"And whereas, with the progressive changes of thought and feeling, uniformity in doctrinal opinion becomes ever more precarious, while moral and spiritual affinities grow and deepen :
"And whereas the Divine Will is summed up by Jesus Christ Himself in Love to God and Love to Man ;
"And the terms of pious union among men should be as broad as those of communion with God ;
"This Society, desiring a spiritual fellowship co-extensive with these terms, invites to common action all who deem men responsible, not for the attainment of Divine truth, but only for the serious search for it ; and who rely, for the religious improvement of human life, on filial Piety and brotherly Charitj7, with or without more particular agreement in matters of doctrinal theology. Its object is, by relieving the Christian life from reliance on theological articles or external rites, to save it from conflict with the knowledge and conscience of mankind, and bring it back to the essential conditions of harmony between God and man."
* Published by Williams and Norgate in 1870. The substance of this essay was republished in 1898 in " Practical Ethics."
1869, AGE so HENEY SIDGWICK 191
Martineau, written from Cambridge on February 22, 1869, throws some light on the causes of failure : —
I write to give you an account of my visit to Oxford, as far as it bears upon the Free Christian Union. The pro- spect is not very encouraging. It appears that the Liberals at Oxford are chiefly (1) positivists of some shade ; (2) Broad Church men of the mildly comprehensive and cautiously vague type, with innovating tendencies, chiefly political ; or (3) Metaphysicians, either non-religious or with a religion far too unearthly for them to care about operating directly on the public creeds. Such was my view before I saw Green, and he quite confirms it.
The only young man whom he mentioned as a possible ally is Mr. Nettleship, a Fellow of Lincoln. . . .
I talked to Jowett. He is by no means unsympathetic, and was anxious not to discourage the undertaking. But he seemed to think (1) that Anglican clergymen ought to take the Church of England for their sphere of liberalising work ; (2) that the union between enlightened Christians of all denominations, though very real, was too ethereal to be expressed in the concrete form of an association. " This is an old method," he said, " and should be left to the old parties."
So much I have to say. I will write either to Nettleship or Seeley whenever you like. I think I shall get one or two members for the Union here. I shall be glad to receive your pamphlet.
To his Mother, March 8
... I can't have a holiday : from which you must not think that 1 am overworking. I am not in the least ; in fact, I am rather underworking. I got a little alarmed at the beginning of the term about sleeplessness, and so I do no work to speak of now in the evening. Two consequences : I do not want a holiday (being never tired out) ; and I cannot afford one, as I live from hand to mouth, so to speak, and want time to prepare my lectures for next term. . . .
Lowell's new volume I will bring with me, in case
192 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, m
Arthur should not have got it. The Commemoration Ode is, on the whole, splendid — ought to appear in any collection of English Lyrics. By the bye, the word " English " must now become designative of race and language, not of polity. We must call ourselves, as opposed to the Americans, Britons. . . .
To his Mother, March 18
... If my present tantalising cold does not get worse, I shall be staying with Mrs. Clough from Monday to Wednesday. I got her invitation just after my plans were fixed, and wished to accept it, as there is a new edition of Clough's Eemains passing through the press, and I shall like to talk to her about it.
... I wish I had been anywhere but among the east winds these last three weeks, as I have been suffering from a prolonged influenza. March is a dreadful month ; if I was a rich man, I would not spend it in England for any rules of fashion. . . .
I have got rid of my last pupil to-night, and am enjoy- ing learned leisure — which means that I am writing a paper for our philological journal.1
My friend Patterson's book on Hungary is very nearly finished ; I have seen most of it, and think it will be both worth reading and readable. Most books of travel are either the one or the other.
To Mrs. Clouyh from Rugby, March 26
I could hardly express to you at parting the great pleasure that I have felt in being with you and talking to you these days : but I think you may have understood that this was so. I am only afraid lest, being somewhat excited and feeling that there was a short time to say a great deal in, I may have said anything that was both annoying to you and not true ; or at least not true enough to be worth saying. As regards Natura naturans, I think I was exaggerative. I think it will be an accident if any one says anything dis-
1 "On a Passage in Plato's Republic, B. vi." See Journal of Philology, vol. ii. p. 96 et seq.
1869, AGE so HENEY SIDGWICK 193
agreeable about it ; even among the people who would not quite approve of its being published " for the sake of others," there are few who would not be impressed by the singular purity and elevation of its tone. And I feel strongly that — for the sake of other others it would be wrong to withhold it, even apart from its poetical excellence.
To Mrs. Clough from Cainbridge, April 2
The enclosure [on Amours de Voyage} I send by way of explaining some things I said to you, which seem to require, perhaps, explanation, as the idea I tried to express is not a current one, and is, indeed, hard to put clearly, though it seems very distinct to myself. If it is wrong, I feel that my whole view of the poems must have been wrong from the first ; I must have
mich in das Buch hineingelesen, to a strange extent. Which is very possible.
The enclosure referred to is the following : —
AMOURS DE VOYAGE
There are several threads of scepticism skilfully inter- woven in this story ; and especially in the controversy which Claude's intellect carries on with love, on which the main interest centres, there are at least two distinct elements, which we may describe as (1) controversy with the mode of selection ; (2) with the fact of selection. The first of these is neatly argued, and the sceptical arguments are reasonable enough ; but the second, into which the first plays, reveals to us a much rarer and profounder mood. It is this mood which — I have always thought — has not been caught by Clough's critics ; that is, they feel the subtle charm of it as they read, but when they try to express what the whole poem means, it becomes something much more trivial and vulgar, from their inability to describe what is deepest in it.
This mood is, in the strict sense of the term, philosophic. It consists in devotion to knowledge, abstract knowledge, absolute truth, not as a means for living happily, but as
0
194 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, in
offering in its apprehension the highest kind of life. It aspires to a central point of view in which there is no dis- tortion, a state of contemplation, in which, by " the lumen siccum of the mind," everything is seen precisely as it is.
This is the first phase of the mood as it appears in Canto I., xii. : in conflict with a germinating passion which is felt to draw away from centrality, to shed a coloured radiance which is not lumen siccum, to involve, in fact, a sort of magic, enchantment, deceit.
But, in Canto III. vi.-viii., it reappears with more glow and vitality in it. It is no longer mere knowledge, mere intellectual contemplation, which this central point of view gives, but a certain universal and infinite sympathy with the life that is in all things. This is the mood in its finest and most self-sufficing phase, which makes him exclaim,
Life is beautiful. . . .
Life were beatitude, living a perfect divine satisfaction.
There is here a sort of blending of the spirit of the philo- sopher proper and the spirit in which Wordsworth contem- plated nature. A double portion of this spirit rested on Clough, and he combined with it a philosophic impulse unknown to Wordsworth; therefore one conceives that he would feel with peculiar intensity the perfectness of this mood of, as it were, divine contemplation, when we seem to see things as God sees them, and all things make music to us as they make music to God.
Very different is the mood of Canto V., iv. v. The man has prevailed over the philosopher. " The absolute " is felt as a " hard naked rock" in comparison with the rich earth of life, and aspiration after it, as a substitute for life, as futile illusion.
And this, of course, is the conclusion of the whole poem. Indeed, its defect as a work of art is that this is even too much emphasised : that the young philosopher, in the grasp of what Carlyle calls " victorious analysis," is a little over- caricatured.
And perhaps one may trace a subtle suggestion of truth in the point of the story at which the mood appears the second time, as universal sympathy. For one is made to
1869, AGE so HENEY SIDGWICK 195
feel that the glow and radiance which it has here, the change from a dry intellectual attachment to abstractions, is due to the personal experience through which the hero has been passing. It is at any rate a fact that (at least with most men) this contemplative rapture fades and withers unless fed by more individualised feelings : with which yet it seems to come into conflict. Every man who has felt the mood has seemed to be raised by it to heaven, and felt it a loss to be " circumscribed here into action," to lose (as Clough elsewhere says) " the soul " in " action, passion." We have felt for a moment a consciousness of perfect knowledge combined with universal sympathy, and it seems to fill our life to the brim ; why must we come down from this to special interests, " petty particular doings " and yearnings for " good for us," not " good absolute " ?
Well, we must because we are human beings, and because we cannot remain in this ethereal atmosphere. Practical wisdom decides the conflict in favour of the constitutional instincts of humanity.
To his Mother from Cambridge, April 20
I am working so hard that I do not read the newspapers : at least not properly, which is rather an unusual thing for me. Consequently I do not write letters, unless I think something will happen if I don't. I like the man who said that letters answered themselves. It is true in nine cases out of ten, only in the tenth there is a shindy.
. . . We are wondering whether our usual concourse of May visitors will go on increasing, as it has the last few years ; it seems that every show place gets every year more and more thronged, and it seems our destiny to turn into a show place. Learning will go elsewhere and we shall sub- side into cicerones. The typical Cambridge man will be an antiquarian personage who knows about the history of colleges, and is devoted to " culture des ruines," as the French pamphleteer said. I see that my friend Mozley has produced his article on Modern Poets in the Quarterly. ... I believe he puts Clough high, at which I am glad, as
196 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, in
it will astonish the old-fashioned readers of the Quarterly. They will regard the editor as a literary Disraeli marching with his age. . . .
On May 3 he writes to F. Myers about some business connected with the Moral Sciences Tripos for which Myers examined in 1868 and 1869 * and con- tinues :—
I quite accept your epithets for Eossetti's sonnets. Also they pleased me critically and classificatorily, as I discovered in him the " missing link " between Swinburne and Christina Rossetti. They seem to me to combine so many qualities, Elizabethan pregnancy, a romantic phantasy which is — well, I do not know of what age, but it has all the charm of the antique, and a vibrating subtle passion which is very modern — or Italian (I do not know Italian) ; I wish he would write some more. . . .
Markby 2 is a little over - enthusiastic about female [educational] prospects. He is going to write a paper soon which is to change public opinion ; after that, he thinks, we shall succeed. Still the question is in a hopeful way. The fact is there is no real conservatism anywhere among educated men. Only vis inertice.
In June 1869 he reached a turning-point in his life ; he resigned his Assistant Tutorship and Fellowship. In doing so, he of course risked the cutting short of his Cambridge career altogether, but the action of his College in appointing him lecturer in Moral Sciences averted this, and he continued his work as before with merely a diminished income. The following letters give the facts and his feelings about them from slightly different points of view.
To his Mother from Cambridge on June 4 Many thanks for your letter. It reached me at a critical
1 His friendship and correspondence with F. Myers only began about this time. Though Myers when he first came up to Cambridge had been his pupil and had long been his brother Arthur's friend, he had till now been to him little more than an acquaintance.
2 T. Markby, Secretary of the Local Examinations Syndicate.
1869, AGE 31 HENEY SIDGWICK 197
point of my career. I have just resigned my Assistant Tutorship and informed the Authorities that I intend to resign my Fellowship very shortly. It is not impossible that they may appoint me lecturer in spite of this, though I hardly expect it. I will tell you when anything is decided. Meanwhile it is a secret. You may be glad to hear that the Master expressed himself very kindly about me in communicating my resignation to the College. In fact every one is very kind, and if I am not reappointed it will not be from want of goodwill, but from a conviction that the interests of the College do not allow it. Whatever happens I am happy and know that I have done what was right. In fact, though I had some struggle before doing it, it now appears not the least bit of a sacrifice, but simply the natural and inevitable thing to do.
Tell Arthur that I think we had, on the whole, success- ful meetings at the Free Christian Union.1 Paul's sermon was very good, better than I expected. It is misrepresented in the most important points in the Pall Mall Gazette.
I have been staying again with Mrs. Clough ; I like her very much. The new book is to be out in about a fortnight.
To his Sister, June 6
I should have written to you before, but I have been very busy and somewhat anxious. My Destiny for the next few years is being settled. When it's settled I will write. That will be in a day or two, I suppose. It does not rest with me now. This is a riddle : must be, at present.
If you want to read a sensation novel by a man of genius who has thrown himself away, read Charles Reade's Foul Play. If you want to read a really compact and instructive book of travel, read Zincke's Last Winter in the United States. If you want to read entertaining Blank Verse (a great rarity) read Miss Smedley's Lady Grace. If you want to witness your brother's attempt to instruct the gentlemen of the press in simple arithmetic (a complete
1 The anniversary meeting referred to above (p. 190).
198 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAV. m
failure), read a letter signed " A Wrangler " in last Spectator.1 If you want to get new ideas on infantile education, read an accompanying book which Miss Clough gave me to show to you. If you — but you can't want to improve your mind in so many ways at once.
To E. W. Benson on June 13, 1869 The thing is settled. I informed the Seniority that it was my intention to resign my Fellowship at the end of the year, in order to free myself from dogmatic obligations. With great kindness and some (I hope not excessive) boldness they have offered me, on this understanding, the post of lecturer on Moral Sciences (not Assistant Tutor), which I have accepted. I do not, as at present advised, intend to secede from the Church of England : I have taken Lightfoot's advice on this point (as a sufficiently unconcerned reason- able orthodox clergyman). I explained to him that, as far as sympathy and goodwill go, I had no wish to secede, but I could not accept the dogmatic obligation of the Apostles' Creed, which primd facie I have bound myself (in con- firmation) to accept. I think, however, that one can only go in this matter by what is commonly understood, and Lightfoot being strongly of opinion that the Apostles' Creed is not dogmatically obligatory on laymen, I think I shall assume that to be the reasonable view. Of course many Liberals regard the Church as defined by purely legal boundaries : but I cannot take that view, while at the same time it would be morbid to take too rigid an interpretation of the effect of the ceremonies that admitted one to the Communion.
Whether my view is right or not, I think I have done right in acting on it. This continued casuistical debate makes one absorbed and egoistic. It will be at once pleasant and good for me to have done with it.
To H. G. Dakyns, June 14 The thing is arranged. I have given notice of my
1 A letter on Mr. Lowe's Budget and the proposed change in collecting income tax, in the Spectator for June 5, 1869.
1869, AGE 31 HENRY SIDGWICK 199
intention to resign my Fellowship, and the Seniority have offered me a lectureship in Moral Sciences at £200 a year, which I have accepted. I now intend, if possible, to absorb myself in this work : be an instrument : lose my -tyv-fflv that I may find it. It is a sublime function, and if no one but myself feels hmv sublime, surely so much the better. Clitdlae asino.
Just now I am much depressed, with no particle of regret for what I have done, but depressed at the thought of being so different from my friends.
Why should a man desire in any way To vary from the kindly race of men 1
There is nothing in me of prophet or apostle. The great vital, productive, joy-giving qualities that I admire in others I cannot attain to : I can only lay on the altar of humanity as an offering this miserable bit of legal observance.
The worst is that I am forced to condemn others, objectively of course, for not acting in the same way; a moral impulse must be universally-legislative: the notion of " gratifying my own conscience " is to me self-contra- dictory ; the moment I view the step as the gratification of a purely individual impulse the impulse has ceased.
It is curious : the people whom I begin to sympathise with are the orthodox. I begin to feel, during the service of the Church of England, sentimental if not devotional. And, no doubt, I shall probably recover the respect of some of them : though others will think me still more a child of perdition. Yet, alas, they are the men whom I do not sympathise with. Their faces are turned toward the setting sun, " the dear dead light," as Swinburne says ; mine toward the rising. Or is mine also westward fixed? Is this Moral Ideal that dominates me a part of the past dispensation, and is harmonious life, and no, however symmetrical, formal abstraction from life, the only ideal of the future ?
Even my Positivism is half against me. The effect on society of maintaining the standard of veracity is sometimes so shadowy that I feel as if I was conforming to a mere
200 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, in
metaphysical " formula. If I had been a hero and had perfect confidence in myself I might have been even as Harrison or Beesly. Or shall we say Jowett ? — but there is my excuse. I have endeavoured to estimate, lumine sicco, the effect of Jowett's action. It seems to me mixed of good and evil ; I attribute the evil to falseness of position and the good to fineness of character. It were wild arrogance in me to put myself in such a position. Little people should be at least harmless.
Well, I feel as if I had been under water in the depths of abstract-ethical egoistic debate. Let me emerge. Sun is shining and all shapes of life evolving overhead. Let me emerge ; perhaps I shall recover the calm outward gaze, the quick helpful hand, of the lover and child of nature.
What shall be done unto the man who cares only for the highest things, and to those cannot attain ? His fate is not sketched in proverbs nor sung in poems ; I do not find anything relating to him in the Bible, or in Horace, or in Browning. Perhaps his portion is only the bitter- sweet passion of perpetual pursuit, which, if he knew that, were wholly bitter.
To F. Myers, a month later
You may have heard from Arthur or others of my affairs. I am resigning my Fellowship. ... It seems strange that I have not done this before, but I felt that I must understand why other people did not do it. I think now that I do understand the various reasons, but I have lost much time.
To Mrs. Clough, July 31
... As for my resignation and consequent prospects, you are very good to think about them. Personally 1 feel no doubt that I have done right. For long I have had no doubt except what arose from the fact that most of the persons whose opinion I most regard think differently. But one must at last act on one's own view. It is my pain- ful conviction that the prevailing lax subscription is not
1869, AGE 31 HENEY SIDGWICK 201
perfectly conscientious in the case of many subscribers : and that those who subscribe laxly from the highest motives are responsible for the degradation of moral and religious feeling that others suffer. It would require very clear and evident gain of some other kind to induce me to undergo this responsibility. And such gain I do not see. Even if I make the extreme supposition that all heretics avow themselves such and are driven away from the universities, some harm would no doubt be done, but not so much as is supposed. A reaction must come soon and the universities be thrown open ; meanwhile there are plenty of excellent teachers on all subjects who are genuinely orthodox; and even as regards religious specu- lation the passion for truth in young minds would be stimulated by such an event, and they would find plenty of sources for " illumination " even if our rushlights were put out.
All this is, of course, an unpractical supposition. I make it to show myself that I am obeying a sound general rule — I feel very strongly the importance of "providing things honest in the sight of all men." It is surely a great good that one's moral position should be one that simple-minded people can understand. I happen to care very little what men in general think of me individually : but I care very much about what they think of human nature. I dread doing anything to support the plausible suspicion that men in general, even those who profess lofty aspirations, are secretly swayed by material interests.
After all, it is odd to be finding subtle reasons for an act of mere honesty : but I am reduced to that by the refusal of my friends to recognise it as such.
To his relations the step he had taken did not, of course, come altogether as a surprise, and it was not the step itself but the divergence of view from the Church of England which led to it that his mother and his sister and brother-in-law regretted. His mother wrote to him that she " could have no feeling
202 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, m
about the step he had taken than that of true and affectionate respect " ; and Edward Benson wrote, " It's all very sad and puzzling, and yet the one thought I hold fast is that we are but circumnavigating this obscure globe in opposite directions, and shall accom- plish the same space in the same time and be ready for a new cruise together when night is past." After a visit soon afterwards paid to Wellington College, Sidgwick wrote to his mother from the J. A. Symonds's house at Clifton : —
I enjoyed my visit to Wellington College very much. Mary seemed very well, eager, full of life and ideas ; the children delightful ; and I had some intimate talk with Edward on religious subjects, which was thoroughly pleasant and satisfactory to me, and I think as much so to him as could be expected.
His own sentiment as regards breaking with the Church he expressed in lines adapted from Tennyson's " Palace of Art " :—
Yet pull not down my minster towers, that were
So gravely, gloriously wrought ; Perchance I may return with others there
When I have cleared my thought
7/r?/ ///,;/„/
,38 to be generally po
open mind, for keeping his judgment in a when the facts were doubtful and decisions involving practical results were not immediately required. moreov* ,-s had a vivid perception/
/alid in
a 1> con
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(
-ult wa^ .
unhe
stini iced
CHAPTER IV
1869-1876
SIDGWICK now entered, as regards his mental life, the more tranquil phase indicated by the text, " Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." To some people we believe that he seemed a man who was seldom " fully persuaded in his own mind." But this was a mistake. He held opinions firmly, though it is true that he had a greater capacity than seems to be generally possessed for maintaining an open mind, for keeping his judgment in suspense when the facts were doubtful and decisions involving practical results were not immediately required. He, moreover, always had a vivid perception of the other side of a question, and was eager to take into account what was valid in an opponent's position, so that in practical affairs he generally acted consciously on a balance of advantages, not on any overpowering conviction that the course he adopted must certainly be right ; there was no element of fanaticism in anything he did, and his temperament was not a sanguine one. The result was not indecisiveness in action. When he took up any matter — for instance, the education of women — he worked at it with a deliberate zeal and unwavering single-minded self- devotion which made up for lack of enthusiastic and unhesitating conviction ; but he worked without the stimulus which this gives ; and perhaps his balanced
203
204 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
temperament prevented his being a very inspiring leader, except to those who knew him well. With these, however, his calm judgment, never hasty and entirely unbiassed by selfish aims, carried great weight. As an old friend and fellow -worker ex- pressed it,1 " He was at no time the leader of a party. But he often led the leaders : and he always had wide influence on those who were not leaders." 2
The period with which the present chapter is concerned is marked by two very important parts of his life's work — the writing of his first book, TJie Methods of Ethics, and the initiation and develop- ment of what afterwards became Newnham College, up to the opening of the first portion of the present College buildings. Of the early development of women's education at Cambridge it will be desirable to give a brief account3 before proceeding with the letters.
We saw in the last chapter that Sidgwick threw himself heartily into the establishment by the University of an examination for women. The examination was first held in the summer of 1869, and he was one of the examiners. The establishment of this examination was an outcome of the active movement going on at that time in different parts
1 Dr. Peile in an address as President of Newnham College.
2 Another old friend wrote of him as one " whose fairness in controversy almost led him to be unfair to his own side ; who seldom made a statement or expressed an opinion without qualifying it ; who was commonly reputed to have a mind so subtle and evenly balanced that it never pronounced a decision ; and yet whose counsel guided practical men, and whose wisdom was recognised by men of every school of thought and religion." And further on he speaks of finding in him "the speculative and critical faculty, which investigates facts, brought into harmony and controlled by the practical faculty which decides what is to be done. Those who came to Henry Sidgwick for practical advice knew that he would omit nothing from his view, and understand all, and that his decision would be founded in justice and charity." F. W. C. in the Pilot for December 22, 1900.
3 A much fuller account of the starting of Newnham College, with mention of the many friends whose co-operation, both in personal service and timely pecuniary aid, made its development possible, will be found in the Memoir of Anne J. Clough, by her niece, Miss B. A. Clough (Edward Arnold, 1897). To the account there given, which was carefully read in proof by Sidgwick, we are indebted for much of what follows.
1869, AGE si HENEY SIDGWICK 205
of the country for providing women with improved educational opportunities — a movement the crying need for which was emphasised by the report of the Schools Inquiry Commission in 1869, and the very unsatisfactory state of girls' and women's education therein revealed. The demand was not for examina- tion only, and schemes for instruction by courses of lectures and classes were being tried in various places. Sidgrwick had had his thoughts turned in a general
o o o
way to the subject of the education of women by the writings of J. S. Mill, and doubtless also by F. D. Maurice, whose interest in it is well known, and who was, as we have seen, at this time Professor of Moral Philosophy at Cambridge. But his taking it up actively at this particular moment was partly due to a need which he felt of doing some practically useful work. What he did in giving up his Fellowship was negative, and he wanted to do something positive.
In this state of mind the education of women presented itself as a piece of work which lay to his hand.1 Accordingly he proposed in the autumn of 1869 that lectures should be organised for women at Cambridge in the subjects, in the first instance, of the newly started examination, and that this examination should be used to test the results. The proposal met at once with considerable support from members of the University ; Professor and Mrs. Fawcett were interested in it from the first, and at a meeting held for the purpose in their drawing-room the interest of other Cambridge ladies was secured. A committee of men and women was formed, of which Sidgwick was one of the honorary secretaries,2
1 It was doubtless from an impulse of the same kind that he about the same time interested himself in a less successful movement — that for co-operative production. He took an active interest, and shares to a small amount, in the Cabinetmakers' Co-operative Society, and, we believe, in others. He seems to have begun regular work on the Cambridge Mendicity Society, afterwards the Cambridge Charity Organisation Society, about this time also — that is, in the spring of 1871.
2 The Executive Committee consisted of Professor Maurice, Mr. T. G. Bonney, Mr. Ferrers (afterwards Master of Gonville and Cams College),
206 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
and a scheme of lectures was drawn up in readiness for the Lent Term of 1870. The circular announcing these refers to the schemes of lectures for women in progress elsewhere, and continues : " It has seemed to many persons resident in Cambridge that this town offers exceptional facilities for an attempt of this kind, since it contains a large number of trained and practised teachers who are willing to extend the sphere of their instruction."
Sidgwick, and Mrs. Fawcett, had from the first the hope and intention that the scheme should be the means of opening to women in the country at large the advantages of University education ; and accord- ingly the original plan had included a house for the reception of students from a distance. But it was found that this part of the plan would deprive the scheme of the support of some persons who were favourably disposed to the idea of the lectures, and it was therefore decided to postpone it at least until there was a clearer need for it. Though the lectures thus at first served residents in or near Cambridge only, they were immediately successful, between seventy and eighty women attending in the first term. It had been agreed at the outset that an effort should be made to provide scholarships to enable students to avail themselves of the opportunity offered, and in response to an appeal from Mrs. Fawcett, J. S. Mill wrote in March 1870 promising £40 a year for two years from himself and Miss Helen Taylor. Others also subscribed, so that it was possible to offer two or three small scholarships. This, added to the attrac- tion of the lectures, brought some students from a distance, and though the committee took no formal responsibility for these students, it fell to Sidgwick to make seini-officially the necessary arrangements for
Mr. Peile (now Master of Christ's College), Mrs. Adams, Mrs. Fawcett, Miss M. G. Kennedy, Mrs. Venn : with Sidgwick and Mr. Markby (then Secretary to the Local Examinations Syndicate), as secretaries, and Mrs. Bateson (wife of the Master of St. John's College) as treasurer.
1869-71 HENRY SIDGWICK 207
them. At first they were received into the houses of ladies resident in Cambridge, but by the end of 1870 the expediency of making more permanent provision for students from a distance came to be generally admitted by those who were interested in the scheme of lectures. They were not prepared as yet to make any appeal for funds, but this difficulty was met by Sidgwick determining to take a house for students on his own responsibility, and he accordingly began early in 1871 to look for a lady to take charge of it. His first idea was to ask Miss Clough, with whom he was personally acquainted through her sister-in-law, Mrs. Arthur Hugh Clough. She was, however, at that time otherwise engaged, and it was only in May 1871 that he learnt that she could come in the following October for at least one or two terms. It need hardly be said that the choice proved a most fortunate one. Sidgwick's reasons for wishing to secure Miss Clough's help are given in his own words in her niece's memoir of her, p. 193 : —
When, in accordance with the general plan formed in 1870 for developing the system of lectures for women in Cambridge, it became necessary to find a lady to preside over the house destined to receive " external students," my first idea was to ask Miss Clough ; and though her refusal for a time turned my thoughts into other directions,1 I never doubted that her acceptance of the post would be the best possible thing for the new institution ; and when she finally accepted, I had a great sense of satisfaction and con- fidence with regard to the future. My desire for her co-operation was partly on account of her long devotion to the improvement of the education of women ; but it was partly due to the fact that I thought she would be in special sympathy with the plan on which I wished the work at Cambridge to be conducted.
1 One plan thought of was to ask his mother to come to Cambridge and take charge of the house, but -without speaking to her about it he came to the conclusion that it would not suit her health.
208 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
Briefly, this plan was to secure for women the full benefits of University education, working from the basis of the new examination for women, which, as we have seen, was intended to encourage a higher standard of study ; and by giving a better choice of subjects than the examinations for the ordinary degree of the University, to avoid imposing on girls any servile imitation of the system of second- ary education in vogue for boys, or compelling them to take Greek and Latin as a necessary preliminary to all the higher branches of academic study. Sidgwick considered the imposition of two dead languages on all boys coming to the University to have a very mischievous effect on education, and at this time was sanguine enough to believe that the University would long ere now have removed the yoke from boys' schools, and opened itself frankly to modern sides and modern schools. This hope was an additional reason for allowing full freedom of development to girls' schools and for not wishing to press them, in their then plastic condition, into a mould likely soon to be altered. He continues :—
I believed that this plan would be in accordance with Miss dough's views, and my expectations in this respect were completely realised. While desiring, with a quiet intensity, which I gradually came to understand, to throw open the advantages of University education to women without limit or reserve, she cordially welcomed the new examination, with its liberal scheme of options, as adapted to the actual condition of girls. She saw that the adoption of this as our preliminary examination would establish a vital connection between the work done in Cambridge and the work done throughout England under the influence of the University ; and the idea that this new local examina- tion, while benefiting the education of girls throughout the country, might, at the same time, be a means of selecting the most promising students from the country at large, and
1869-1871 HENKY SIDGWICK 209
providing them with a complete academic training, gave her special pleasure. She also thought that the experience gained by Cambridge teachers as to effects of the course of study practically prescribed or encouraged by this examina- tion would be easily made accessible to the Syndicate managing the examination, and would lead to improvements in it, the advantage of which would accrue to a wider circle.
The important question of the lady to take charge of the house being thus settled temporarily — and, in fact, as it proved, finally — Sidgwick's next duty was to find a house. He took and furnished 74 Regent Street, and Miss Clough with five students began residence there in October 1871. Though he was at first financially responsible for the house, what he actually had to pay — when it was once furnished — was probably small, for Miss Clough, who worked without salary, also paid for her own board, and the students paid fees which nearly covered their expenses.
The number of students attracted to Cambridge by the lectures continually increased. After a year in the Regent Street house, it became necessary to find a larger one. Then additional houses had to be taken, and finally before the end of 1873 it was decided to build. A company was formed, money was raised by subscriptions and shares, a site was obtained on lease from St. John's College in the district of Cambridge called Newnham, and "Newnham Hall," now forming part of the " Old Hall " of Newn- ham College, was built and opened for thirty students in October 1875.
The scheme for lectures, and the Hall of residence, were still under the management of different com- mittees, though many of the same people, includ- ing Sidgwick and Miss Clough, were concerned with both. In 1873 the committee managing the lectures transformed itself into an " Association for
210 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
Promoting the Higher Education of Women in Cambridge," of which Professor Adams, the well- known astronomer, became president. The change was made partly for stability, partly to extend the interest in the movement, but chiefly for financial reasons. It was desired to secure a regular income from subscriptions, in order to provide for the rent of lecture rooms, to supplement the fees in the smaller classes, to help the poorer students, and to provide exhibitions. Accordingly the Association consisted of subscribers, as well as of those who lectured for it, and of Professors who opened their lectures to women. An important stage in the movement was reached when in November 1874 two students1 of the Associa- tion took honours in the Moral Sciences Tripos, and in the following term another took honours in both the Mathematical and Classical Triposes ; 2 and when in the autumn of that year Newnham Hall was opened, the scheme was felt to have attained a position which promised stability and permanence.
While this development of lectures, and a Hall of residence for those coming from a distance to attend them, was proceeding at Cambridge, the institution which ultimately became Girton College, and which was first established at Hitchin in October 1869, was also growing up. Sidgwick, who was interested in this scheme, and was from the beginning and for many years on its staff of lecturers, at first regarded it and the Cambridge scheme as supplementary to each other. Union of the two was, however, pre- vented by two things. First, the Hitchin committee, of which the moving spirit was Miss Emily Davies, deliberately decided not to build in Cambridge, ulti- mately selecting the Girton site, about two miles away. This would have made any amalgamation
1 Miss Paley (now Mrs. Alfred Marshall) and Miss Amy Bulley.
a The holder of the Mill -Taylor scholarship, Miss Creak, now head- mistress of King Edward's High School for Girls, Birmingham. Admission to Tripos examinations was informal at this time.
1869-1871 HENKY SIDGWICK 211
with a scheme of which an important object was to provide lectures for Cambridge women difficult. But a more formidable obstacle to union lay in the rooted objection of Miss Davies and her committee to the examination for women which formed the basis of the Cambridge scheme. She objected on principle to any examination for women only, and, not attaching the same importance as the promoters of the Cambridge scheme to the low standard of the examinations for the pass degrees, prepared her students for these. There were other differences. The Hitchin scheme aimed at exact conformity in all respects to the course prescribed for men, while the Cambridge scheme was more elastic, and therefore, as its promoters believed, more suited to the then state of women's education. Many of the early students came for quite short periods of study, as they could aiford it, sometimes even for one term only. Others, whose early education was deficient, stayed for longer than the period prescribed for an honours course. In short, each case was considered and dealt with on its merits. The Cambridge Hall of residence too was more frankly undenominational than Miss Davies's college, and the fees there were less.
As time has gone on the differences between the two institutions — the lectures' scheme with the Hall of residence now merged in Newnham College, and the Hitchin College, now well known as Girton College — have diminished. The improved oppor- tunities for school education enjoyed by girls have led to much less demand from Cambridge residents for elementary lectures. The examinations for pass degrees have dropped out of sight since those for degrees in honours (but not for pass degrees) were formally opened to women in 1881. Both at Newnham and Girton the great majority of students are now taking one or other of the numerous honour courses of the University. Newnham College still continues to avail itself of the privilege granted when
212 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
the examinations were opened to women, and to which Sidgwick attached great importance, of using the Higher Local examination without Greek and Latin as a possible alternative to the " Little Go " ; but the two colleges work side by side harmoniously, and to some extent combine ; and, to use Sidgwick's own words, " It is now hardly possible to doubt that the independent development of the two institutions side by side has been on the whole indirectly an advantage to both, by securing a wider extent of aid and support than could otherwise have been obtained for the academic education of women in Cambridge."
In the summer of 1869 Sidgwick stayed for a short time at Southend in Essex, attracted, as he says, by hearing that there was a pier l-£- mile long, which must, he thought, give a marine atmosphere. He wrote to Mrs. Clough from there on June 29 : —
Many thanks for your kind offer, but I shall be lodging in Gower Street (35), with a view to the Museum Library. But I shall be very glad to come and see you and hear of any educational schemes. Tell Miss Clough that I am examining our (Camb. Univ.) women in German; very reluctantly, as I am sure no one who has learnt a language as I have learnt German can really know the points of it. But I am curious to see what results I shall get.
After various visits to friends in July, he went early in August to the Lakes with his mother and his brother William. G. 0. Trevelyan was also of the party.
To F. Myers from Patterdale in August
... I leave the Lakes most probably on the 1st September. We have had weather coarsely bright, blurring, unsatisfying with haze ; sensually most enjoyable. ... I seem likely to get C. H. Pearson * to lecture on History in Trin. Coll., a €vpr/fj.a [a catch], I think, on the whole.
1 Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, and afterwards Education Minister in Victoria, author of National Life and Character (Macmillau, 1893).
1869, AGE 31 HENRY SIDGWICK 213
Sidgwick explains how he came to be concerned with this appointment in some reminiscences of Pearson which he contributed for his biography : —
In 1869 I had to advise the authorities of Trinity College as to the appointment of a lecturer in Modern History. My intervention in the matter came about as follows. . . . When in 1867 I was appointed lecturer in Moral Sciences at Trinity, it became my duty to teach history among other subjects. But in 1867 and 1868 changes were made which severed the connection of History with Moral Sciences, and ... it was obvious that the lecturer in Moral Sciences could no longer undertake it; but, having had temporary charge of the subject, I was asked to make suggestions with regard to the proposed separate provision for it. I knew that Pearson had at the time no permanent work, and thought it would be a great thing if we could secure him. But the position and stipend (£200 a year) seemed so inadequate to his claims that I did not venture to offer it him directly. I wrote him a letter ostensibly asking him to recommend a candidate, but so worded as to make clear that he could have it if he liked. He replied accepting; and for two years — from October 1869 — he resided in Cambridge during term time as Trinity lecturer in Modern History.
To F, Myers from Cambridge, September 11
... I never review anything which has not really interested me, and which I do not think other people ought to read ; at the same time I feel more in my element when I feel called upon to weigh and balance and mete out so many ounces of blame and so many of praise, than when enthusiasm and sublime nights are wanted.
If it is true that you cannot write a novel, I should think it was for the reason (which gives women such a superiority over men in this line) that you do not care enough about little things, and, therefore, do not observe them enough. It is on the reproduction of these with
214 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
fidelity and ease (as well as characteristical humour) that the lifelikeness of a novel depends ; and few writers can do without it. But I really do not know why you should not write a novel — though I cannot say I want you to try.
To his Mother from Cambridge, September 28
I am still here ; tolerably well, and taking great care of my health, as I expect to have rather a hard term next term. I work in the morning, and in the evening turn over oldish books — by which I mean anything but the romances of the present generation. I shall stay here now till term begins, to see the last of my Fellowship : it is curious watching the sands of it run out in this way. My position here, in respect of rooms, etc., is still quite un- determined.
It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good, and I am told that the candidates for Fellowships consider that the hand of Providence has lately manifested itself in a very marked way.1 . . .
I am very much pleased at the appointment of Seeley as our new Professor of History. The study is at a very low ebb in Cambridge, and he is just the man to inspire an enthusiasm for it. Also on other grounds I shall rejoice in his returning to Cambridge. I always thought it was a great loss to us when he went down.
His article on Clough2 appeared in the Westminster Review for October, and to F. Myers, who had written enthusiastically about it, he writes on October 24 :—
... I was much delighted with your praise. I did not think the article had succeeded, but it certainly ought to have been fair, as I had felt much on the subject and taken pains to be precise. In a note there is de me fabula 2 — nob I hope obtrusive or intrusive. Do not tell any one who does not see it.
1 In making vacancies through his and other resignations.
2 Reprinted in Miscellaneous Essays and Addresses (Macmillan, 1904).
3 A note about Clough'a resignation of his Fellowship and Tutorship. See p. 68 of above work.
1869, AGE si HENEY SIDGWICK 215
As to my defect as a critic,1 I feel sure that you are right generally (only that it does not arise from kind- heartedness, from which I humbly think I am quite exempt; rather from an instinct that catholicity is my line, a virtue in which I have more chance of getting ahead than most), but, of course, I won't admit it in any particular instance. . . .
As to your sonnets I have now made up my mind. In the first place, if you realise how much I enjoy them, you will send me some more. ... In the third,2 the alteration of style [you spoke of] is pure gain. It is more direct, simple, and rapid, without any loss of fulness and definiteness of melody. It seems to me to combine to a great degree the exquisiteness of Tennyson with that of Christina Eossetti (do you know her sonnet " Eemember " ? I think that perhaps the most perfect thing any living poet has written).
To Mrs. Clough on November 6
I should not like to ask you what you think of my article, any more than I wanted you to read it, had I not been encouraged since publishing to think it less unworthy than it seemed to me before. Even now it seems to me very inadequate, especially in the part which is in conception most original (I mean about "Amours de Voyage" and cognate poems). I seem to have left out all that was important and pointed in what I have to say. All that I can hope is that I have suggested the right point of view to ap- preciative minds that can work it out for themselves — such as F. Myers, who delighted me by writing that the article " had much increased his interest in Clough, which was before great." I tell you this partly because it confirms my conviction that he was before his age — in fact, belongs especially to this age, this actual Young England. For Myers is a man whose turn of mind is so antagonistic to subtle scepticism that he could not have appreciated these poems except that he [is], as every susceptible youth must be, de son siecle.
1 Myers had said that he praised too unreservedly.
* The sonnet referred to is probably the one printed in Myers's Fragments of Prose and Poetry, pp. 156, 157.
216 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
I am afraid you will have been vexed with what I say of the Mari Magno tales. However, you probably knew that I did not appreciate them. My friends all say that my language is too severe, even when they agree on the whole with my view. And I think so myself now. I think two things, first, that I am probably " inappreciative " (as I say of F. T. P[algrave]) of this part of his work ; secondly, that my language gives a wrong impression of my own opinion, e.g. everything I say of them in the comparison with Crabbe still seems to me true, only there is a larger amount in them that is subtle and original and permanently impressive than any one would gather from my words.
The truth is, when I wrote, I was antipathetically affected by the deliberately infantile simplicity of style in which parts of them (especially [the] First Tale) are written. This I call Ultra- Wordsworthiau, Patmorean, and other bad names. I see now that, whether I like the effect or not, I ought to allow that there is great skill and faculty shown in the limpid ease with which it is maintained. I have been made to feel this by a comparison with the only other Crabbean poem I know of recent times, Allingharn's Lawrence Bloomfield.
So much for my palinode : which you see is strictly guarded, as I still must maintain my view of the inferiority of the poems, and more or less for the reasons I have given.
Conington's * death moved me very much. One is glad that so much appreciation is expressed of him : more than I ever heard expressed in Oxford while he was alive — but that is natural. He was nobly true to his ideal of life : an ideal of a peculiar and rare kind, much needed in our academic life. It seems to alter Oxford to me.
To Mrs. dough on November 24
As to my views on "Amours de Vfoyage]." I had two dis- tinct reasons for not saying more than I did, neither of which is very easy to explain. First, I was afraid of becoming rhapsodical, and abandoning the precise, careful, measured
1 John Conington, Professor of Latin at Oxford, died October 23, 1869.
1869, AGE 31 HENEY SIDGWICK 217
style, which I particularly wished to maintain throughout. But besides this, in certain states of mind I doubt my own insight and the value of what I have to say on this matter so much, that I lack the air of serene conviction which alone enables one to talk upon such a subject impressively. It was in this unexalted and uninspired humour that I wrote the whole article : and so when I came to this part I did not feel able to do more than hint to a sympathetic reader the sort of thing that he would find in the poems.
To Mr. Oscar Browning he writes on November 8 about the election of Mr. (now Sir Richard) Jebb as Public Orator, which had just taken place, and for which he had been working. The rival candidates belonged to different colleges.
The Jebb election disturbed our minds somewhat, and I sadly fear that the ebullition of College feeling which it involved has thrown back progress somewhat. College feeling is a dividing and paralysing force in University matters, and I snub it whenever I can ; but on some occasions there is no bridling it. But there is no one whom I should have been more glad to give a Post to than Jebb. Dignity and a secure position are the thing for him. He won't turn idle.
The following letter to his mother, written from Cambridge on November 6, relates to the controversy about Dr. Temple's essay in Essays and Reviews, which had been revived on his appointment in this year as Bishop of Exeter : —
It seems to me that the Temple case is not really a difficult one : only that no one person, friend or foe, has exactly seen it properly. Many say (as your friends) " that if Dr. T. disagreed with the other essayists, he should have said so or withdrawn the essay." This appears to me ridiculous, considering the disclaimer of agreement. On the other hand, I do think that by joining in a series of essays, the object of which was more or less defined, a certain amount of sympathy with the other essayists was
218 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
implied. He says along with them that he hopes certain subjects will be benefited by " free handling," etc. Now, either the manner in which the other essayists treat the subject is, on the whole, and speaking generally, the sort of free handling that he intended, or it is not ; if it is not (I do not mean if this essayist or that has gone a little too far, but if, on the whole, it is quite different to what he ex- pected and not at all what he approves of), I certainly think he was, under the circumstances, called on to say so ; if, on the other hand, it is what he expected or thereabouts, then he may certainly be fairly charged — not with any definite agreement with their opinions, but — with a general sympathy with their tone and point of view. In short, by retaining his essay among the seven he may be said to imply not that he agrees with the things the others say, but that he thinks it right that this sort of thing should be written by clergymen of the Church of England.
Now that is a very different view to what High Churchmen and Low Churchmen think, and I am not surprised that they are vexed at his appointment. Nor am I inclined to blame Pusey for his passionate appeals to those who think with him ; I thought his first letter quite consistent and good from his point of view. In the later ones he seems to me to have gone beyond the limits of fair advocacy ; but on the whole his position is quite reasonable and intelligible ; he does not wish to belong to a Church of which one chief pastor is a man who sympathises with the other Essayists and Eeviewers to the extent to which Dr. Temple may be assumed to sympathise. I am not inclined to blame Pusey, for if one said to him that the two essayists selected by their opponents for attack, were acquitted by the highest ecclesiastical court, and therefore that Temple has, after all, only incurred " complicity " with something that has been declared not to be " guilt," he would of course reply that he cares no more for Privy Council decisions than S. Paul would have cared for the decision of Nero. Pusey is ready to accept Disestablishment with all its disadvantages. But the people with whom I do feel indignant are certain
1869, AGE 31 HENKY SIDGWICK 219
bishops, deans, canons, etc., who cling to the advantages of a National Establishment and yet kick against its most obvious obligations : who wish to enjoy at once the comfort of belonging to a comprehensive church and the comfort of belonging to an exclusive sect : and who are clamorous to resist, even to the extent of illegality, the promotion of a man of most shining qualities, simply because he sympathises with persons whom yet they are forced to accept as brother clergymen who have not exceeded the liberty of speculation which the law acknowledged by both parties allows — and which if it did not allow, the Establishment would not last a year.
There's a long sentence : it is like a letter to the Daily News : but one has argued so much about the matter that it is difficult not to fall into a ponderous style.
This was a period of much reforming activity in the University, and though Sidgwick does not, in the letters which have been preserved, say much in detail about the questions which were being discussed, he was keenly interested in many of them. The aboli- tion of religious tests was the most prominent object of the activity of the academic liberals, both within the University and in Parliament, until it was accom- plished by Act of Parliament in June 1871. Sidg- wick's action in resigning his Fellowship had, no doubt, helped, as Sir George Young — an active promoter of the abolition — has said,1 to develop and crystallise public opinion at Cambridge, and a very successful meeting at St. John's College Lodge on November 29, 1869, in which the veterans Adam Sedgwick and F. D. Maurice both took part, was an important step in the movement. After the meeting, Dr. Jackson tells us, some of the younger men met in Sidgwick's rooms and jointly framed a report of the proceedings. He remembers that Sidgwick reported Maurice, whose subtlety of statement had attracted him.
1 Cambridge Review, November 1, 1900.
220 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
To his Mother from Cambridge, December 26
What do you think of the new Tennyson ? 1 We regard it here as rather an imposition on the part of the publisher — republishing the " Morte d' Arthur " (not to speak of " Lucretius " and other small poems) and having so few lines in a page. It is as bad as one of Victor Hugo's novels. The poem called the " Higher Pantheism " was read at a meeting of the Metaphysical Society to which I belong, by the poet himself.2 After he had done reading there was a pause, and then Tyndall (who is entirely devoid of shyness) said, " I suppose this is not offered as a subject for discussion."
The Metaphysical Society, though it had a com- paratively short existence (1869-1880), has become rather well known owing to the number of dis- tinguished men, of all shades of opinion, who were members of it. Accounts of it will be found in the biographies of Dr. W. G. Ward, Sir James Stephen, Cardinal Manning, Lord Tennyson, Professor Huxley, and Dr. James Martineau.3 Sidgwick was among those invited to join at the beginning, and was a member throughout. The meetings took place once a month, usually at the Grosvenor Hotel ; the members dined together first, and then the paper for the evening, an abstract of which had been previously circulated, was read and discussed. The following "recollections," written by Sidgwick for Mr. Wilfrid Ward, appeared in 1893 in the latter's Life of his father,4 and though mainly intended to give his im- pression of Dr. Ward, may serve also to give his feeling about the Society : —
1 The "Holy Grail."
2 This poem was read at the first meeting after the formation of the Society on June 2, 1869, but apparently not by the poet himself (see the Life of Lord Tennyson, vol. ii. pp. 168, 170). Sidgwick was evidently not present on the occasion, though he was an original member of the Society.
3 There is also an article by R. H. Hutton — a constant attendant at the meetings — in the Ninteenth Century for August 1895, giving a more or less imaginary account of a typical meeting of the Society.
4 William George Ward and the Catholic Revival, see p. 313.
1869, AGE si HENRY SIDGWICK 221
I remember well the first time that I saw your father — it was, I think, at the second or third meeting of the Society. He came into the room along with Manning, and the marked contrast between them added to the impressive- ness. I remember thinking that I had never seen a face that seemed so clearly to indicate a strongly -developed sensuous nature, and yet was at the same time so intellectual as your father's. I do not mean merely that it expressed intellectual faculty, ... I mean rather the predominance of the intellectual life, of concern (as Matthew Arnold says) for the " things of the mind." I did not then know your father's writings at all ; and though from what I had heard of him I expected to find him an effective defender of the Catholic position, I certainly did not anticipate that I should come — as after two or three meetings I did come — to place him in the very first rank of our members, as judged from the point of view of the Society in respect of their aptitudes for furthering its aim. The aim of the Society was, by frank and close debate and unreserved communication of dissent and objection, to attain — not agreement, which was of course beyond hope — but a diminution of mutual misunderstanding. For this kind of discussion your father's gifts were very remarkable. The only other member of the Society who in my recollection rivals him is — curiously enough — Huxley. Huxley was perhaps unsurpassed in the quickness with which he could see and express with perfect clearness and precision the best answer that could be made, from his point of view, to any argument urged against him. But your father's dialectic interested me more, apart of course from any question of agreement with principles or conclusions, not only from its subtlety, but from the strong and unexpected impression it made on me of complete sincerity and self- abandonment to the train of thought that was being pursued at the time. When Tennyson's lines on him came out afterwards I thought that two of them —
How subtle at tierce and quart of mind with mind, How loyal in the following of thy Lord !
222 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP. IT
were very apt and representative ; but the first line does not convey what I am now trying to express — the feeling that he gave himself up to the \6<yos like an interlocutor in a Platonic dialogue, and was prepared to follow it to any conclusions to which it might lead. This is a characteristic more commonly found in the discussions of youth than in those of middle age ; and I do not know that I can better describe the impression of this feature of your father's manner of debate than by saying that he often reminded me of old undergraduate days more than any other of the disputants. And of course this was all the more impres- sive in a man who so unreservedly at the same time put forth his complete adhesion to an elaborate dogmatic system.
I remember that once — on one of the rare occasions on which I had the privilege of sitting next him at our dinners —I asked him to tell me exactly the Catholic doctrine on some point of conduct, the nature of which I cannot now recall. He answered, " Opinions are divided ; there are two views, of which I, as usual, take the more bigoted." Of course I understood the word to mean " bigoted as you would call it " : but the choice of the word seemed to me illustrative of the mixture of serious frankness and genial provocativeness which characterised his share of our debates.
To Mr. Leonard Huxley he wrote :—
I became a member of the Metaphysical Society, I think, at its first meeting in 1869; and, though my engage- ments in Cambridge did not allow me to attend regularly, I retain a very distinct recollection of the part taken by your father in the debates at which we were present together. There were several members of the Society with whose philosophical views I had, on the whole, more sympathy ; but there was certainly no one to whom I found it more pleasant and more instructive to listen. . . .
The general tone of the Metaphysical Society was one of
1 Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley, vol. i. p. 320 (1st ed. 1900).
1869, AGE 31 HENEY SIDGWICK 223
extreme consideration for the feelings of opponents, and your father's speaking formed no exception to the general harmony. At the same time I seem to remember him as the most combative of all the speakers who took a leading part in the debates. His habit of never wasting words, and the edge naturally given to his remarks by his genius for clear and effective statement, partly account for this im- pression ; still I used to think that he liked fighting, and occasionally liked to give play to his sarcastic humour — though always strictly within the limits imposed by courtesy. I remember that on one occasion when I had read to the Society an essay on the " Incoherence of Empiricism," I looked forward with some little anxiety to his criticisms ; and when they came, I felt that my anxiety had not been superfluous ; he " went for " the weak points of my argument in half a dozen trenchant sentences, of which I shall not forget the impression. It was hard hitting, though perfectly courteous and fair.
We may mention here another discussion club to which Sidgwick belonged, and which was founded in the period of his life with which we are now dealing, though it does not happen to be referred to in the letters — a purely Cambridge society called the " Eranus." The following account of it was written by Sidgwick for Sir Arthur Hort, whose biography of his father was published in 1896 : — l
The club came into being, I think, in November 1872. The originator of the idea was the present Bishop of Durham [Westcott], and he, together with Lightfoot and your father, may be regarded as constituting the original nucleus of the club. It was not, however, designed to have, nor has it from first to last had, a preponderantly theological character ; on the contrary, its fundamental idea was that it should contain representatives of different departments of academic study, and afford them regular opportunities for meeting and for an interchange of ideas somewhat more
1 Life and Letters of F. J. A. Hort, sometime Hulsean Professor and Lady Margaret Reader in Divinity in the University of Cambridge, vol. ii. p. 184.
224 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
serious and methodical than is suitable at an ordinary social gathering. Accordingly the original members in- cluded, among others, Clerk Maxwell, Seeley, [Henry] Jack- son, and myself,1 as well as the three theologians whom I have called the nucleus. The number of the club has varied, but never exceeded twelve.
It met five or six times a year in the evening at the house or rooms of one of its members. The host of the evening had the duty of reading a paper as an introduction to conversation. The range of subjects was entirely un- restricted ; the general idea was that each member in turn would select a subject in which he was specially interested, and would therefore probably choose one belonging more or less to his own department of study, only not of too technical a character to be interesting to outsiders. But there was no obligation on him to choose such a subject if he preferred one of more completely general interest, such as education, politics, the mutual duties of social classes, etc.; and, as a matter of fact, we have often discussed subjects of this latter kind. I should add that the reading of the paper was followed by conversation quite spontaneous and unregulated, not anything like formal debate.
To return to the correspondence, he writes to Mr. 0. Browning on January 22, 1870 : —
I enclose programme [of lectures for women]. You see our scheme was ambitious ; but in a University town it seemed good to be ambitious. And I hope we shall keep up our ideal of comprehensive and academic instruction, in spite of initial failure, till it is clearly seen whether we can attract any of the aspiring girls from without. If we do not we shall, of course, sink into something comparatively small. But experiment and audacity are good.2 . . .
I am in hopes that matters at Rugby will settle them- selves. But any imagination you can form of the extent of
1 [Later, Lord Acton, Professor Clifford Allbutt, Mr. George Darwin, and others belonged to the Society.]
2 To Mrs. dough he wrote on February 6 : "We have sixty-seven ladies availing themselves of our lectures, which is pretty good."
1870, AGE 31 HENEY SIDGWICK 225
the calamity l as they now feel it, falls short of the reality. My view is that Hayman is a well-meaning, vulgar-souled man, who will suit himself as much as he can to the Rugby tone, and veiy likely do better there than he has done at other inferior schools — with plenty of intellectual vigour of an inferior quality ; not a humbug, but only what we call an impostor at Cambridge, i.e. a second-rate man who conscientiously thinks himself a first-rate man.
The following letter to his mother about the withdrawal by Dr. Temple of his essay in Essays and Reviews was probably written in February 1870 : —
I am sorry to say that I cannot understand or feel satisfactory Dr. Temple's explanation of his step. Both his reasons seem to me bad reasons. Of course there is a good deal to be said for the view that " what is allowed to F. Temple is not allowed to the Bishop of Exeter " ; but at the same time the reason why so many of us rejoiced at Dr. Temple's elevation was that we thought there would now be one bishop on the bench who would not take that view : one man who would say and do as Bishop of Exeter exactly what he would have said and done as Frederick Temple. This argument then is intelligible but distressing to me ; the second reason, " that Essays and Reviews have up to this time been doing more good than harm, but have now begun to do more harm than good," I do not even under- stand. It seems to me that the questions raised, e.g. by Wilson and Jowett, are just as important to keep before the public mind now as they were to put before it then ; and the essays in which they were argued were certainly more thoughtful and exhaustive than most of what is written on the subject ; and that I say, disagreeing intensely with the fundamental view of Wilson.
At the same time I quite think, and keep saying here, that the Bishop's speech in Convocation was very courageous ;
1 The appointment of Dr. H. Hayman as Headmaster of Rugby, on Dr. Temple becoming Bishop of Exeter. The trouble arising out of this appointment continued till Hayman's dismissal in 1873, and naturally occupied Sidgwick a good deal on account of his interest in his old school, as well as his brother Arthur's position in it.
Q
226 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
he has said for his collaborators in E[ssays and] R[eviews\ what none of his friends dared to say when the question of his appointment was being discussed, and what is hardly reconcilable with the apologia that some of them — e.g. E. W. B[enson] — made for him.
I am sorry to say that most Liberals that I see speak more strongly against the Bishop than I have written. In fact, I almost always find myself defending him. At the same time I do not think the thing very important. I cannot but believe that controversies and changes are im- pending over the Church of England which will quite drive out of our recollection this tempest in a tea-cup. . . .
I am very busy, as a part of the ladies' lectures has fallen on me, besides secretarial work.
To his Sister from Cambridge on April 8
You will see that our ladies' lectures are doing so far very nicely. There is sure to be a reaction, the people who have gone into the thing for amusement getting tired of it, and the question is how we shall tide over that. No doubt many experiments are necessary before the exact form which the higher education of women ought to take can be determined. . . . Mill has come forward like a woman !
I have not written anything more in the Pall Mall.1 I have written a pamphlet in the same sense which will perhaps be printed — on the text, "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." - That is really the gist of the pamphlet — that if the preachers of religion wish to retain their hold over educated men they must show in their utterances on sacred occasions the same sincerity, exactness, unreserve, that men of science show in expound- ing the laws of nature. I do not think that much good is to be done by saying this, but I want to liberate my soul, and then ever after hold my peace.
1 He had written a long letter on "Clerical Engagements" in the Pall Mall Gazette of January 6, 1869.
2 The pamphlet, Ethics of Conformity and Subscription, written for the Free Christian Union, see p. 190.
1370, AGE 32 HENEY SIDGWICK 227
To his Mother from Cambridge towards the end of May
Here we are all quiet and prosperous. I am very well so far : rather hard at work with a variety of teachings. Have you got me any subscriptions for our ladies' lectures ?
I have read the greater part of Disraeli's novel [Lothair], and do not think it equal to the best of his earlier ones. But it is very light and amusing reading. I do not think I have read anything else lately except Eossetti's poems. Some of these are splendid ; but they require selecting, and I should not exactly recommend the whole book.
To F. Myers from Ostend, June 26
I have been intending to write to you for some time, but wanted to write about what it is at the same time difficult for me to write about. You mentioned a poem to be addressed to me de rebus divinis. This would interest and gratify me ; but I feel that you do not perhaps know my religious views exactly — just because I do not generally feel called on to preciser them — and that on this occasion I must not let myself be taken for a prophet, being something quite different.
The truth is — if Clough had not lived and written, I should probably be now exactly where he was. I have not solved in any way the Gordian Knot which he fingered.1 I can neither adequately rationalise faith, nor reconcile faith and reason, nor suppress reason. But this is just the benefit of an utterly veracious man like Clough, that it is impossible for any one, however sympathetic, to remain where he was. He exposes the ragged edges of himself. One sees that in an irreligious age one must not let oneself drift, or else the rational element of oneself is dispropor- tionately expressed and developed by the influence of environment, and one loses the fidelity to one's true self. This last is the point : I do not feel called or able to preach religion except as far as it is involved in fidelity to one's true self. I firmly believe that religion is normal to
1 To finger idly some old Gordian knot, And with much toil attain to half-believe.
228 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
mankind, and therefore take part unhesitatingly in any social action to adapt and sustain it (as far as a layman may). I know also that my true self is a Theist, but I believe that many persons are really faithful to themselves in being irreligious, and I do not feel able to prophesy to them. If I have any complaint against them, it is not that they do not believe in a God, but that they are content with, happy in, a universe where there is no God ; but many of them are not content, and to these I have nothing to say, not being able to argue the matter on any common ground.
The passionate personal yearnings which you put into your verse I do not feel, though I am wrought to much sympathy when you express them. But for myself I could be quite happy in the Garden of Eden — nay, in such " gardens of Epicurus " as lie open to me, but into which I cannot go from a world so full of sorrow.
I have read your poems through again. I certainly do not understand how any [one] can fail to be fascinated from time to time by the combination of great freshness (and generally intensity) of feeling with finished elastic stateliness of style. . . .
To his Mother from Ostend on July 1
I am, as you will see, still here; the truth is I am divided between a sense of the great salubrity of the air for [hay fever] (the difference between this place and Dover is unaccountable but clear) and a desire to get to Berlin, which I want to see again as the capital of a united Germany — partly united, that is, "in shpots," as Hans Breitmann says. ... I shall stay in Germany, I think, till the end of September (subtracting the time spent in the mountains). I am reading German books, and I have a sort of notion of making a sort of tour of the Universities. September, however, being vacation, is a bad time to see them, and therefore my plan is uncertain. ... I am always in hopes that the remarkable unity of feeling among the [Eugby] masters — supposing they all manage to stay — will make up to Rugby for the dulness, or worse, of the head.
1870, AGK 32 HENEY SIDGWICK 229
If this once breaks down, they will certainly all be glad to go.
To his Mother from Berlin a week or so later
Heat at last ; and heat in Berlin is heat. Drainage also is difficult, as the river is rather higher than most other parts of the surface. However, I shall exist for a fortnight. Also we have raised all our prices since we became the metropolis of North Germany, and my money is melting away like ice when you leave the spoon in it.
In the next letter to his mother, written on July 10, we see the approach of the Franco-German War :—
I have got permission to read in the Library here, and shall probably stay some days. Then I shall go either to Halle or Gottingen. I read no English, and the im- mersion in a different set of words and ideas is entertaining enough. . . .
Are people afraid of war in England ? We are taking it very coolly here ; the papers affect to be amused with the French. I saw just now the following ingenious advertisement : —
FROM PARIS. EXTRA POST.
Our new great -coat, much resembling
that generally called
THE SPANISH
Ought to be bought by every one who has not DECLARED WAR
against Parisian Fashion.
So you see we feel able to make a joke of the thing. This was five days before war was declared.
To F. W. Cornish, July 17
I have been intending to write to you as soon as I felt equal to an entertaining epistle. But this now seems an
230 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
indefinite delay. Not on account of Bad Digestion, Blighted Affections, or any of the received causes of melancholy, but because I am engaged in a hopeless struggle with the Hegelian philosophy.
Day after day I sit down to my books with a firm determination to master the German Heraclitus, and as regularly I depart to my Mittagsessen with a sense of hope- less defeat. No difficulty of any other writer can convey the least conception even of the sort of difficulty that I find in Hegel. My only consolation is (just as they say that a Eussian's linguistic aptitude is due to his extremely jaw-break- ing vernacular) that every other philosophical work I take up seems easy. But no amount of difficulty alone would distress my spirit if there was not added the paralysing doubt whether, after all, I am not breaking my head over highly profound nonsense. For it is rather a sense of professional duty than any natural instinct which has forced me to this. For there is no doubt that Hegelianism is on the increase — everywhere except in Germany. Here, they tell me, the Hegelian School are all old professors ; there is not a Hegelian Privat-docent to be found. As far as I can make out, the prevailing views here are much the same as those in England : Empiricism, Materialism, a very indefinite idealism, and Kantism — only that they take their Kantism pure, and we take ours mixed, in the form of Hamilton and Mansel.
However, I did not intend [to] bore you with so much shop — and indeed most of us are now thinking of quite different things. The newspapers are driving a thriving trade ; they all of them sell ' Extra-Blatts ' about three times a day. Really it is a serious thought how much self-sacrifice it must require on the part of Able Editors not to fan the flames of war — especially in the keen competition of journals which one has here.
Certainly it seems to me that the guilt of this war is as unequally divided as is possible in human quarrels ; at the same time I persist in thinking that the war could have been avoided by Prussia. That is because I have more
mo, AGE 32 HENKY SIDGWICK 231
belief in the Sentimental Politics of Ollivier than my friends here. I think he is an honest man, though with absolutely no statesmanlike qualities : and therefore that, if Prussia had simply declined, with extreme suavity of mode, to comply with the ridiculous demands of Benedetti, he would not have felt himself able to make it a casus belli. Only these Europeans have perfectly mediseval notions of their " honour " and the bloodshed that it requires. As to the prospects of the war, as far as I can see, all depends on the French preventing the union of North and South Germany. I do not think the Southerners will remain neutral, and therefore the French must paralyse the co-opera- tion of North and South by a sudden coup. I expect to hear of their making a dash at Frankfort.
I have not the slightest idea where you are, and there- fore feel that this letter will be probably stupider when it reaches you than it was originally. It is very interesting being here. I am fond of Berlin, and think the Prussians have improved since I was last here — there is less self- assertion about them.
If you are in Germany you are perhaps reading novels. It is very difficult to find out what the really good German novels are ; there is a want of able criticism of belles lettres, or I do not know where to look for it. As I make out there are five people worth reading in their way, besides Fritz Eeuter, whose " Platt " I do not want to try just yet, viz. Auerbach, Gutzkow, Freytag, Hacklander, and Spiel- hagen. Of these Hacklander is the lowest — writes, I mean, for the lowest public, and sacrifices everything to amusing them ; but there is always very good workmanship in his books and some real humour. Auerbach and Frey- tag you probably know. Auerbach seems to me a real poet, but is liable to be terribly tedious, and is too senti- mental for my taste : only that one always feels him a man of genius. Gutzkow, too, seems to me a man of genius and of profound, penetrating, reckless insight into life and society ; but he does not quite know how to tell a story. Spielhagen is a little of everything ; he is hardly known in
232 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
England, and is, I fancy, young, as in both of the books of his that I have read all the female characters fall in love with the hero, which is a somewhat juvenile cast of plot. Almost all the German novels have a Purpose ; Heyse's tales are the great exception ; I read and reread these with increased admiration of their workmanship.
Oh this War ! It does make one despise one's genera- tion that it should be possible. I have always disliked the " principle of non-intervention " ; it now seems to me " damnable selfishness." If we had not ostentatiously isolated ourselves in past years, we might have stopped this. Now I suppose it is impossible. Russia, I suppose, will prefer the role of e<£efy>o?, or at any rate will intervene later. One feels that it serves Bismarck right, and so these dear, honest, peace-loving Achivi must suffer. It is very hard to read Hegel in the midst of it.
To his Mother about the same time
[After some remarks on the war he continues] You ask me what is the " good " of such a poem as [Rossetti's] "Jenny." I do not quite know whether you mean to siiggest (1) that the subject is too disagreeable to be fit for poetry, or (2) that the moral effect is likely to be bad. The latter I should scarcely think myself, as there is not a particle of morbid imagination in it, no idealising of vice. It seemed to me a perfectly truthful delineation of common- place fact — indeed the pathetic effect of the poem is intended to spring from its fidelity to commonplace. As for the first objection, I should be inclined perhaps to admit it — only one would limit the range of tragedy a good deal if one excluded all disagreeable subjects. One would cut off several of Shakespeare's plays for example. I do not myself think that one can demand that all literature shall be adapted for young ladies' reading, though one rejoices that so much of our best literature is so adapted.
To Roden Noel from Berlin, Jidy 21 I have been delaying to write to you partly because I
1870, AGE 32 HENKY SIDGWICK 233
wished to talk about Hegel; but I can't sum up yet on him : I am too bewildered. Here are scraps : —
The Germans say that all the Hegelian teachers (toler- ably numerous) are old men. Of the young men the few who take to philosophy regard the post-Kantian philosophy as (at best) a valuable and suggestive forecast or imagina- tion of the work of philosophy : but for what they actually believe, go back to Kant. The post-Kantian philosophy is a tower of Babel, intended to unite earth and heaven. After Hegel the work stopped because of the confusion of tongues.
... I am rather distracted from Hegel by this war, which disgusts me profoundly. All the bad passions of these highly educated people are coming out : not that I am surprised. . . .
To his Mother from Halle, July 30
I stay here till Thursday — the University closes on Wednesday. I intend to bring my own studies to a close sooner than I should otherwise have done. They have not been quite as profitable as I expected, partly from my own want of energy, partly from the nature of the subject, — my opinion as to German philosophy having altered itself somewhat on nearer inspection, — but chiefly from the excitement of the war. . . .
Certainly it has been very exciting in Berlin, partly from my sympathy with the Germans, and partly from the melancholy interest of watching a people pass — all together, high and low, cultivated and uncultivated — from a state of good-humoured tranquillity to one of raging indignation. Indignation highly moral and religious (they believe utterly in the justice of their cause, and that Providence has demented the monster in Paris, previous to ruining him utterly, and means to overrule his wicked designs to the effecting of the union of Germany), but indignation which renders them quite blind to the French view of the case, and finds vent in needlessly coarse expressions of hatred towards Louis Napoleon and his wife. Why the Empress is dragged in, you may not guess. She is supposed to
234 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
have wanted the Prince of Hohenzollern to marry a relative of hers, and to have been infuriated by his refusing to pledge himself thereto. This canard is taken here quite seriously.
Just now my own position is slightly uncomfortable. There is much wrath against England for "shain neutrality." Every one asks : " Does England then want another Alabama Question ? " Certainly the conduct of the English Government seems to me short-sightedly timid, if it be true that cartridges are openly sent to France by Birming- ham firms. Also I am obliged to allow that there is something cowardly in Granville's extreme anxiety not to offend France, and to keep the balance of praise and blame even. It seems to me quite true that both parties have taken offence too easily (one is reminded that in this society, duelling is regarded as an inevitable necessity), but to say this and no more seems to me a stupid injustice. All one ought to say is that Prussia did not do her utmost to pre- vent the war which France did her utmost to provoke.
To Mrs. Clough from, Halle on July 30 and August 2
I really owe much to your introduction, as I gained the use of the Royal Library by it, which the Geheimrath kindly vouchsafed me. ... It happened to be just the turning- point between peace and war, and I was struck almost with consternation, in talking to the Geheimrath, by the vehe- ment expression of martial ferocity that depicted itself on his amiable learned countenance and issued from the midst of his mild Teutonic beard.
Since then I have seen how intense and profound the feeling is which inspires Germany now. The fact is 1870 links itself on to 1814. The national regeneration, one may almost say birth, of Germany is identified with the war of liberation — war against Napoleon I. : and it seems as if their hatred of France was but another side of their patriotism. It has been very interesting to me to be in Berlin all this time : though somewhat painful, as I am too cold-blooded to sympathise with the martial
1870, AGE 32 HENRY SIDGWICK 235
ardour, and am even disgusted by the coarse abuse of Napoleon with which the journals abound. I do not think we were so bad in England during the Crimean War. But the Germans are certainly naif, and do not under- stand the art of innuendo. Just now they are very wrathful against England ; and when I pay a visit to a Professor to whom I have a letter of introduction, hoping to discuss with him Divine Philosophy, he explains to me, with vehement gestures, that England is a country of cowards, and has made herself contemptible in the eyes of the civilised world.1 . . .
. . . We have had the most splendid thunderstorms here. I live in the swell quarter of Halle, on the " Pro- menade," which is pretty enough to become thoroughly scenic with a thunderstorm about sunset. I think the most prosaic person could not help taking the thunder- storm symbolically. Reading the journals — I cannot refrain from absorbing three or four daily — gives me just the same headache in spirit as the approach of a storm in body. The flashes are beginning.
I am oppressed too by consciousness of my nationality, as the feeling against England grows bitterer, and every day I feel less able to defend the conduct of our Govern- ment. There is a smart levity in Grauville's utterances, and an unctuous, long-winded unmeaningness in Gladstone's, which seem to me, as I read them here, to hide cowardice and impotence. Then I cannot understand there being any doubt about Bismarck's document. It seems to me as clear as day that he is speaking the strict truth, and that the French are lying and prevaricating.
1 Sidgwick used to describe how on this tour when he presented a letter of introduction to a Professor at one of the Universities he visited, the conversation fell on the subject of England's neutrality, and the argument being conducted in the German tongue, the Professor got the best of it. The next day, however, the Professor returned the call, and out of polite- ness made English the language of communication. Sidgwick, seeing his opportunity, turned the conversation on England's neutrality again, when the positions were reversed ; all the disadvantages which he had suffered the day before from comparative want of command of the language were now experienced by his interlocutor, the veins on whose forehead swelled with the effort to bring out the answers he wished.
236 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
Bismarck has played with the French diplomacy and completely outwitted and exposed it. I confess that my admiration for this man is growing. Did you ever con- template his photograph ? it seems to me very expressive — broad, intellectual forehead, intense subtlety (becoming astuteness) about brows, eyes, and mouth, genuine benevo- lence in the latter, tho' hardly visible in the general effect of resolute force which the whole face gives. His speeches always give me the same impression — astuteness under the control of honesty, and tempered by frank direct vigour.1 If the Prussian generals are only as superior to the French as the Prussian statesmen are, the war will soon be over.
To his Mother from Munich, August 9
I find it hard to leave Germany in this exciting time. I could not go to Gottingen ; the lines were too much occupied with transport of soldiers. I got to Nuremberg with some difficulty : there was only one slow train in the day for non-militaries, and that at most inconvenient times. I had to spend three hours at a junction, from 11 to 2 at night. I am very well, and have left off working. I enjoy seeing these towns and hearing the talk of the people. Certainly this is a grand time for Germany. I do not mean the victories, though of course the exultation over them is immense : but the consciousness that the whole people is at length united in a just cause : that has an elevating effect.
To his Mother on August 27
I write this in a miserable inn at Friedrichshafen, on the Lake of Constance, very much out of humour.
I will briefly describe my course since I wrote last. The trifling ailment, my allusion to which you probably did not notice, . . . threatened to prevent my walking at all. Therefore, after a delightful day at Inns- bruck (which was beautiful as a dream), I gave up the idea
1 Later revelations, of course, modified this view of Bismarck's character, as well as of his share of responsibility for the war.
1870, AGE 32 HENEY SIDGWICK 237
of mountaineering for the present and went to Venice, Verona, and Milan.
My three days at Venice were perfect: quite fine, no mosquitoes, just hot enough to make the shade of the gondola delicious. Venice is the only town I know which realises the word " enchanted," partly from the fantastic and strange character of the place. The first night I came, I could not tear myself away from the Piazza di S. Marco and the Riva Dei Schiavoni. Sleep did not seem to be a part of the programme.
From Milan I went to Bellaggio, which I found fully as fascinating as I did ten years ago. Then over the Maloja to Pontresina, which I reached on the 22nd, and found your two letters, but none from William or Arthur. Under the circumstances, being fearful of much walking, and also intending to be in England by the 1st of September, I determined to take a taste of the Alps at Pontresina and then leave Switzerland. My only doubt was whether to try France or Germany. From Chur there did not seem much difference as to shortness in space, and though the French express trains would be shorter in time, there seemed more chance of being stopped near Paris. So I determined to try Germany, especially as they told me at Chur that I could get through to Stuttgart in a day. Which has proved false : I am detained six hours here, and shall not get to Stuttgart to-night. However, I shall no doubt come out at Cologne after a day or two, and then it will be comparatively plain sailing.
... I shall be hard at work from the time I get back till Term begins. My studies in July suggested to me to recast my lectures for next term, and I want to carry out the idea thoroughly. . . .
To Roden Noel from Cambridge on September 8
Yes, I think before I left Halle — though the University closed much sooner than usual, and I left the place feeling rather uncomfortable just then as a " member of the low- minded trading community who were then selling coals and
238 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
cartridges to the enemies of the Fatherland " — still, before I left Halle I had made up my mind about Hegel for the present. No, I shall read no more of it : not of Hegel in the German language. But if Hegelianism shows itself in England I feel equal to dealing with it. The method seems to me a mistake, and therefore the system a ruin ; there may be "gold to be dug there," as Carlyle says, but I have no time to dig for it amid the scoriae. But there are some great broad truths, independent of the method, and lying safe at the base of the system ; with Hegel's intense grasp of these I sympathise strongly, and to it I attribute the success of his philosophy, e.g. generally speaking, the re- action from the formalism, phenomenalism, ultra -subject- ivism of Kant. That the Universe is essentially and fundamentally rational ; the laws of the subject and the object harmonious ; history the evolution of the human spirit, etc. etc. — all this is well enough. And I do not say that the science of metaphysics will not ultimately be constructed in the way that Hegel tried to construct it, by patiently thinking out the meaning of our most general and fundamental notions, and their relation to each [other]. But that that relation is not the Dialectical Evolution of Hegel I have no doubt. . . .
After I gave up work I had a beautiful tour, admiring everything childishly, and more than ever before. Quaint Nuremberg, Munich with its pathetic, patient endeavour to be a capital of Culture ; Innsbruck, beautiful as a dream (it really was when I saw it, chequered sky, sunlight on the town, thin clouds half-veiling the exquisitely grouped hills) ; Venice — mere fairyland ; . . . Milan, where I finally placed the crown of Gothic architecture on the Cathedral. I met an Italian as I walked and gazed who talked English ; he remarked with startling vehemence that the Architect who built the Western Facade was a Beast.
To his Mother from Cambridge on September 16
I arrived here after a very successful journey, which was only chequered by one slight detention at Heidelberg
1870, AGE 32 HENEY SIDGWICK 239
after I wrote to you. I slept at Ulm, then at Darmstadt. Between these two towns I travelled with an exceedingly bright, genial young German who was on his way to join the army. " He hoped he should not be too late for the excursion to Paris." As far as I could judge, just passing through, intense exultation swallowed up all more painful feeling in the German mind. I did not happen to see any- thing of the wounded. My fellow-traveller was very eager to learn what I thought would be the action of the neutrals, and especially England. I told him that whatever sym- pathy we might have for France now was quite unselfish, as we had no fear whatever of Germany, and if they left a burning hatred of themselves in the breasts of the French nation, we, as far as our private interests went, would be only all the safer : but that we thought that territorial aggrandisement of any kind would prevent an enduring peace. I think he saw the force of this : but the Germans assume a kind of pedagogic air : they " feel it a Stern Duty " to inflict condign punishment on France, as a school- master when he flogs an incorrigible pupil. I think they are quite sincere in this.
To F. Myers on September 19
I ... must be in Cambridge from October 1 on, partly for ladies' lectures, partly to catch zealous pupils who are to be examined in November, and dialectically improve them before term begins. ... I came home from Germany earlier than I intended. I could not go back to a University town and read philosophy with this war going on, especially as my sympathies have rather turned round of late. Somehow there is something almost attractive about French conceit, it disarms censure from its extravagance ; but a German flushed with victory, on the one hand heavily expressing the utmost rigour of the old barbarous war -law, on the other talking lengthily of his moral pre - eminence and superlative civilisedness, is not a delectable object to con- template.
240 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
To his Mother from Cambridge, October 30
I have been too busy writing secretarial letters to write for some time. . . . The enclosed will show you the degree of success that our scheme [of lectures for women] has had so far as applications go. It remains to be seen what the eating of the pudding will be like. ... I have had my time much taken up by this business, and am for once in my life very busy. There are such a number of small things to do in organisation. I am actually learning how to economise time ! My feeling is that if I was engaged in practical business of a definite kind, I could get to do it rather well, but that practical affairs of an indefinite kind would drive me wild.
There is a great deal of zeal here for women's education, not much fanaticism and not much serious opposition. The fact is all the jokes have been made, and refined people feel that. I am rather in hopes that we shall get some support from without, otherwise we shall no doubt dwindle ; however, it was right to be ambitious in a University town.
To JF. Myers from Cambridge, November 5
Here we are thinking of nothing but war and academic reforms.
Sidgwick describes, in the reminiscences contri- buted to the biography of C. H. Pearson, the part that the latter used to take in these discussions on the war : —
I remember vividly to this day how in the Michaelmas Term of 1870, at the critical time of the German invasion of France — when even rigidly conscientious students were found yielding to the temptation of reading newspapers in the morning — Pearson adopted the view that the French resistance to the invaders was going to succeed. He stood alone among us in this opinion ; but his knowledge of the military facts, and of historical struggles more or less analogous, was so copious and minute, and his power of
1870, AGE 32 HENEY SIDGWICK 241
handling his material so masterly, that night after night, at the end of the postprandial debate, we sat silenced, though unconvinced, and Pearson's hypothesis manifestly held the field. The next morning would bring new evidence on our side, which seemed overwhelming as we read the papers ; but when we met again in the evening we found that Pearson had changed his front so as to resist effectively the new onset of facts, or even to convert them into arguments for his own conclusion. The performance as I recall it was really a dialectical masterpiece ; all the more impressive from the serious conviction with which the protean paradox was continually maintained.
To his Mother, November 14
. . . Tell Arthur that we lost " the whole ticket " at the elections to Council. But I do not think it will much matter. The questions which are coming to the front now in Academic affairs are not of a party character. And we are certainly not party men. The longer I live the more strongly I feel our immunity in this respect. No one is ever long angry with any one else ; and every one (except a few cantankerous persons) is always trying to find a way of reconciling himself with his opponents. I am sorry to see that this is not so in the Metropolis, and that all the worst features of Parliamentary elections are to be intro- duced into the elections of school-boards in the Metropolis. I allowed my name to be put on Miss Garrett's Committee for Marylebone — I do not quite know why, as I have no call to interfere in metropolitan affairs — but some people wished it. ...
What do you think of Myers's last poem in Macmillan ? x I think it very fine, and his being able to write anything so like Pope shows great versatility of style.
To his Mother from Cambridge, December 2
I am forced to stay up at the end of Term for an examination which begins on the 16th. I rather wish I 1 " Implicit Promise of Immortality."
R
242 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAV. iv
had declined, but I don't like declining to do what my College asks me. . . .
The Hitchin Girls have come over to pass the Little-Go examination. They are not, of course, formally admitted, but the University has given leave to them to have the papers, and the examiners have consented to examine them. I am afraid that if they pass the examination, the Cambridge world will not be particularly impressed. Miss Garrett's triumph in London is remarkable, unexpected by her com- mittee certainly. I do not like the expense of these school-board elections. We are supposed to have managed everything with as little paid service as possible, and yet we (not that I am more than a name) have spent nearly £500.
To 0. Browning from Rugby, December 24
I am really sorry to decline. I always feel it a defect in my classic-educational career that I never examined at Eton. But two years ago I vowed never to examine any more schools, and on the strength of this vow I refused several, including Jex-Blake at Cheltenham, an old friend. So I feel, on the whole, that I cannot come to you. I think the vow was good, as I am very lazy and have a good deal of work that I must do, if I am to escape self-contempt. You will easily get a much better examiner.
To his Mother from Cambridge, January 15, 1871 ... I have been detained here by trifling matters connected with the ladies' lectures. We are just now in rather a peculiar position — we have given exhibitions, and induced one or two young persons to come to Cambridge, but the Committee as such does not provide them any accommodation. This is done advisedly, because some of us, though they do not object to girls coming up to Cambridge to attend lectures, yet do not wish formally to encourage them : still less to be responsible for them. The result is that I have semi-ofh'cially to make arrangements for the comfort of these persons, or at least to see that no difficulty is thrown in their way by absence of provision.
1871, AGE 32 HENEY SIDGWICK 243
To his Mother on February 15
My ladies' lectures are so far going on very well. I am not over-sanguine, knowing that fashion changes, but yet hopeful that we may become a real focus of improve- ment in female education. We have now three or four " outsiders " — I mean young women who have come to us from abroad.
To Eoden Nod (part of a philosophical correspondence)
You see though I hold strongly that the Eight is know- able, if not " absolutely " (in your sense), yet as an ideal, a standard to which we may indefinitely approximate, I by no means assert that it is known, that our general rules are even nearly the best possible. And I think it probable that the current morality is faulty just in the direction you indicate, by having too general rigid rules, and not making allowance enough for individual differences. At the same time I do think the broad lines of right conduct are pretty well ascertained. But I hope more than most men for progress in ethical conceptions, resulting, as progress in science does, from observation and experiment. But just as the scientific discoverer must not follow his own whims and fancies but earnestly seek truth, so it is not the man who abandons himself to impulse, but the man who, against mere impulse and mere convention alike, seeks and does what is Eight who will really lead mankind to the truer way, to richer and fuller and more profoundly harmonious life. My ideal is a law infinitely constraining and yet infinitely flexible, not prescribing perhaps for any two men the same conduct, and yet the same law, because recognised by all as objective, and always varying on rational and therefore general grounds, " the same," as Cicero says, "for you and for me, here and at Athens, now and for ever."
The following letter, dated March 18, is his first letter to Miss Clough about the house for students attending the lectures for women at Cambridge : —
244 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
I have been intending to write to you some time about our educational schemes here in Cambridge, but I hoped to come to London and see you. Various things have kept me in Cambridge, and will keep me till Easter. We are now in a somewhat critical stage of progress. It has become clear that we cannot leave our young ladies to take care of themselves, and that we must make some provision for lodging strangers. Those who are now here are lodged with private persons interested in the scheme. I have now engaged to open a boarding-house : vide enclosed. The great question is, who will take charge of the young establishment. We are so anxious to keep down the expenses that we want, if we can, to find some one who will give her services without requiring a salary. I am aware, of course, of the general objections to gratuitous work : on the other hand our effort is an exceptional one : we are passing through a period of changes and tentative experiments : enthusiasm has to a great extent started our effort, and I intend to try whether enthusiasm will not maintain it until this period is past, and we see what the new time has in store for female education.
Now can you tell me of any one : — some one, if possible, who would strengthen our hands ? If you had not been occupied with your own important work, I think I should have appealed to your enthusiasm.
To his Sister from Rugby, April 9
"Write a line to say how you are. I am . . . very well, also very lazy, only that I spend a little of my time in writ- ing on philosophical subjects, partly what I hope may some day turn out to be a book, and partly articles and scraps in the Academy and elsewhere. Also letters and scraps in the Cambridge Reporter} besides secretarial work for the women's lectures. ... So I am not found out to be idle. I send Programme.
1 Except one or two reviews, the "letters and scraps " in the Cambridge University Reporter were mainly on questions of academic reform. In the Academy he was writing a good deal at this time, chiefly reviews of philosophical works, and during this year and the next he also contributed reviews, etc., to the Athenaeum and the Spectator.
1871, AGE 32 HENKY SIDGWICK 245
To his Mother from, Cambridge, May 8 (about the son of an old friend of his father s)
I have written to F. H. offering to take him in and pay his expenses of residence and education here for three terms, and to continue the arrangement for a fourth if he gets a first-class in his May Examination, only letting him pay for his dinners in the fourth term. The expense will not be much to me if he occupies my spare room:1 not much over £50 as I reckon. I had a very nice letter from Mrs. H. — I mean a letter which gave me a pleasant idea of her — which convinced me that Cambridge was the best opening they could see, in spite of the expense and dis- advantage of delay. I have made my offer conditional on his satisfying me in June (when our new-comers are tested) that he has sufficient abilities.
This offer to F. H., which was carried out in due course, was made after much careful thought and discussion. Sidgwick used to say afterwards that this experience had given him great confidence in his own power of foreseeing the exact amount of personal inconvenience that would be involved in any course involving sacrifice of comfort, and estimat- ing whether the object to be gained was worth it. Going to live in Newnham College when his wife took charge of the new Hall in 1880 was a case in point.
To his Sister from Cambridge, May 17
[The Headmasters] are urging us to undertake ex- aminations of Schools generally, on the principle of examining whole schools, not head forms only. Kidding says openly that he does not think our examination of the lower forms likely to be as good as one conducted by the masters, but he thinks the public or the Government are determined that the schools shall be externally examined, and that they had rather we did the work than any one else. I think it
1 Sidgwick had two sitting-rooms, one within the other, with a bedroom beyond, and a small attic above entered separately.
246 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, n
ridiculous to be so subservient to an imaginary public (which I have never heard clamouring on the subject), and am sure that the Government will not in this matter like to oppose the consensus of educators.1 I want, therefore, to go in strongly against this, and at the same time for an " Abiturienten-examen " like the German. I should like to know what Edward thinks — and, besides, this is a dodge for making you write.
To F. Myers from Cambridge in May or June
As far as I have a conviction, I do not believe in deliberate choice in love. When I was young and " erotion " (cf. Clough 2) I used to repeat to myself the end of Iphigenia's prayer (Goethe, favourite play of mine) for wholesome
warning —
Ye Gods, . . .
in calm repose,
Ye listen to our prayer, that childishly Beseeches you to hasten, but your hand Ne'er breaks unripe the golden fruits of heaven. And woe to him who with impatient grasp Profanely plucks and eats unto his death A bitter food.
(It is exquisitely tender and melodious in the German, but you know I do not profess verse-making.)
. . . Will you please tell your mother that I am temporarily supplied with a President of my " Hall," Miss Clough having promised to start us. She only comes for one or two terms, so I am still looking out, though more tranquilly, for her successor. I am now examining houses. This whole matter takes up so much of my time that if I were more certain of my power of producing good intellectual work, I should doubt whether it was worth while ; but it is, I think, good for me. I think I have a tough carcass which will take some time wearing out, and that I shall say all I have to say to mankind before I die. Meanwhile,
1 Compare a letter by Sidgwick in the Cambridge University Reporter of May 24, 1871, in which a propos to this matter he remarks on the "danger of exhausting our energies in the improvement of all minds except our own."
- Mari Magno, Clergyman's First Tale.
1871, AGE 33 HENKY SIDGWICK 247
I am forced more and more into involuntary antagonism with Miss Davies [see pp. 210, 211]. She wrote to me the other day and mentioned affably that I was the serpent that was eating out her vitals.
To 0. Browning on June, 7
... I am choosing a house for our young women — which is a difficult task, as genteel Cambridge is increasing rapidly in numbers owing to Enlargement of Professoriate, Marriage of Fellows, and Movement generally, which, here at least, is against celibacy. Female education is centering here. Miss Davies is collecting funds to build a college two miles and a half (or |) off. Thus we shall have two systems of Higher Education of "Women going on side by side. However, we are accustomed in Cambridge to a complexity of systems, and there are plenty of fine old arguments to prove that it is rather a help than a hindrance. The work takes up my time rather, but is very entertaining. And I am growing fond of women. I like working with them. I begin to sympathise with the pleasures of the mild parson.
. . . Pearson has just left us to waste his culture on the Bush. So we are looking for a historian. You have not in Editorial capacity come across any impecunious genius, I suppose ?
I am not going to take any real holiday this Long. I have been so disgracefully idle all the term that I cannot in very shame. Also I have no money, the cares of a householder being incumbent. As a friend puts it, I am going to have all the fun of being married, without the burden of a wife.
To his Mother from Cambridge early in June
Many thanks for your remembrance of my birthday. I am beginning to be sorely ashamed of the length of time that I have cumbered the earth without doing anything worth doing. But I feel that though, from various reasons, I have remained immature too long, I am now
248 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
" grown up," and I hope the next ten years will be different from the last. . . .
I am very busy with examinations, writing, and looking for my House. My friends tell me that I shall gain much of the experience of a Married Man before I have done. Already I find myself estimating the expense of Plate and Linen, etc. I hope to come to Rugby about middle of July.
To F. Myers from Llandudno, June 25
This is chiefly on business. A lady 1 — whom I know principally because I once combined with her, when we both were younger, in a society for mutual improvement by means of correspondence — has written a paper on the Advisability of educating Rural Young Women by means of Correspondence, which has been submitted to me. I, as it seems to be my destiny to do these things, and as, on reflection and consultation with persons interested in the Cause, . . . the plan seemed worth trying, have under- taken to try and organise a system of Education by Post, preparatory (at any rate at starting) for the Cambridge Examinations, and in connection to some extent with our lectures — that is, I shall ask the lecturers, generally speaking, in the first instance to undertake the work, unless more competent people elsewhere occur to me.
Now I want to ask you as Superintendent of English for Home Study (aut si quid, etc.), what your colleagues and pupils are likely to think of this. ... I ought to give you the main points of my scheme as at present contemplated. . . . Systematic Instruction in variety of subjects (as in Camb. Exam.), by means of: — (i.) Advice as to reading text- books. (ii.) Papers on ditto. (iii.) Answers to questions and solutions of difficulties found by students of ditto [etc.].
Tell me what you think.2
1 Miss Eliza Rhodes, who had been a member of the Initial Society. See p. 72.
2 This scheme for instruction by cor. ispondence was successfully carried on for over twenty years, Mrs. Peile for seventeen years, and afterwards Miss Rhodes acting with great zeal and energy as Honorary Secretaries.
1871, AGE 33 HENRY SIDGWICK 249
I have been attending a North of England Council Meeting,1 and making observations on women. It seems to me that they have at present one defect in " action by means of debate," they have not quite enough practical self-assertion at the right place and time, and hence are more apt to nurse small jealousies than men. Nous autres hornmes, if a President of a Committee shows a disposition to suppress one, one snubs him at once, says loudly the thing he doesn't like, and then is in good-humour after- wards.
I am in an ultra-philosophic humour, having just lost my portmanteau, containing the results of two years' medita- tion. It is thought to be at Bangor or somewhere on the Great Western Railway. Kismet !
I am here o&ambulating the Irish Channel, or circum- ambulating the Great Orme's Head, to keep off h.f. [hay fever].
To F. Myers from Cambridge, August 2
... I always feel that I should like to [be] as many people as possible (the right sort of people — I am afraid I should not include a French enfant du siecle), if they would all live harmoniously and come out in the right weather in a sort of Dutch- barometrical way. Practically one has to kill a few of one's natural selves (between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five) to let the rest grow — a very painful slaughter of innocents.
To his Mother from Cambridge on August 5
Lately I have been lying at full length on my sofa from inflammation of the ankle. I do not know exactly how it came, but it is all right again now. I have had various vicissitudes since I left you. I found a tolerably suitable house here for my young ladies after a few days' searching,
Sidgwick used to say that his experience in teaching Political Economy by correspondence had convinced him that, at least for the abler students, it was a very valuable and educative method of instruction. It taught the student to make clear to herself the nature of her difficulties, which is, of course, more than half way to solving them.
1 For North of England Council see p. 174, footnote.
250 HENKY SLDGWICK CHAP, iv
and got that off my mind. I then went to stay with the Buxtons on the borders of Epping Forest, and then to London, where I found portentous heat and equally por- tentous hay fever. I do hate London in heat ; all the things which the Poets have written about green fields, shady glens, rippling streams, etc., come into my head and tantalise me. I got introduced to Miss Octavia Hill, whom I have long wanted to meet : ever since I read an article of hers in Macmillan on her work among the poor in the East of London. She is a very interesting woman, and if ever I take a vow of asceticism and bestow all my goods to feed the poor, I will give them to her, as the person who is likely to make them do — least harm. I then went to see Mrs. Clough and made my final arrangements with Miss Clough for our proceedings next term. I spent with Trevelyan the suspensive day between the rejection of the Army Bill by the Lords and Gladstone's coup d'&at.1 Trevelyan had had notice given him privately of what the Ministry was going to do and was in proportionately good spirits. I saw my friend Patterson who was also cheerful as a translation of a Hungarian story by him is to appear in the Cornhill. He says it is very pathetic to people who have any sympathy with old times, so perhaps you will like to read it. Since then I have been here trying to get a little reading done, but I cannot shake off my laziness. I also had my Political Economy papers (of the ladies) to look over. . . .
To Mrs. Clough from Hallsteads? Ulleswater, on September 5
I trust this address will satisfy your kind wishes on my behalf; not that I am the least ill, or in need of a holiday, or deserve one, having been very lazy during the hot weather at Cambridge. ... I do not want more than a fair field and no favour for professional women ; but they are so sure to be severely attacked and criticised. ... It always seems to me that the mere fact of a woman holding her
1 The Royal Warrant on Purchase. 2 The house of Mr. Arthur Marshall, uncle of F. Myers.
1871, AGE 33 HENKY SIDGWICK 251
own in medical or surgical practice would prove much in her favour. I suppose people in general have (and for their peace of mind it seems desirable that they should have) more belief in their doctor's wisdom and infallibility than is at all deserved, and this belief is kept up by the esprit de corps which leads them to conceal or palliate each other's mistakes. Now, women will, generally speaking, have to maintain themselves without this support.
I shall be back in Cambridge on the 18th, which is, I suppose, about the time that Miss Clough will want me there. Out of the four prospective exhibitioners, two, I think, will come to the house. ... I am glad that Miss Clough has had a successful trip. I like being in England so much that I feel as if I should never go abroad any more — that is, until I am transported for taking part in the Revolution of 188—.
To Mrs. Clough from Bugby, September 18
Hallsteads is one of the most delightful houses I know, and has, much to my surprise, the best view of Ulleswater. I did not think there could be so good a view so near the bottom of the lake, not having calculated on Helvellyn being brought to the head and centre of the picture.
Have you read " Balaustion " yet ? It is very good reading, but we classical people are puzzled to know whether Browning means to interpret or remodel Euripides. The former would be an inadmissible hypothesis in the case of any one but Browning, but as he cannot dramatise common people without subtilising their mental processes till they become something like his own, I should attribute to him an ultra - commentatorial tendency to find hidden meanings in great authors. At any rate it is curiously unlike Euripides — the best figure, Hercules, being most especially so.
To F. Myers from Cambridge o-n October 10
I have much to talk to you about. I seem to remember that the last letter I wrote you never got itself written — the
252 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
fallacious expectation of seeing you at Rugby intervening inopportunely. Here I arn, not overburdened with work, but rather distracted with the variety of it. I have to teach history this term : no successor having turned up to Pearson : and Cambridge breeding no historian. We are thinking of taking some healthy young resident and locking him up with a Hume. It is rather a disgrace to us that we all take so small an interest in the human race. . . .
My second Correspondence Circular will soon appear. Miss Clough is here : house getting on : there will be five this term.
To F. Myers, October 28
I should like very much [to go to Paris], but I cannot afford the time. The truth is that I have allowed myself to be involved in so much Education and Educationalism that I cannot really work in term-time. I have perhaps been wrong, but it is idle to consider that now ; only I must get one or two books written in the course of the next two or three years. I have found that I write slowly and with grea^ labour. So, in fine, my only chance lies in using all the vacation that I can get; some days necessarily go to holidays, visiting family and friends ; the rest I must keep solid. So I have bid farewell to Europe for the present. The truth is I am getting into a state — I suppose a very well-known morbidity among ills that flesh, etc. — of Book on the Brain. Only that instead of one book there are at least three. Pray come and see me. Selfishly I long for it. You have the art of making me feel — temporarily — Wise and Good. (Now if I said that to X., he would think I meant in contrast with himself.) But I do want to hear about yourself.
To his Mother on October 29
... I too have been very busy. I have had a fresh burden imposed upon me owing to the absence of a history lecturer, and my work in connection with lectures for women, etc., takes up my time ; how energetic Rugby is, by the way, in
1871, AGE 33 HENEY SIDGWICK 253
this matter ! . . . I see Edward now on Sundays, who tells me about Mary. He says she does an immense amount of work — too much — and so has no time for writing. We live in a busy age. I don't know what the next generation will do. Perhaps they will relapse into the old ways of leisure.
You will be glad to hear that my arrangement [of sharing rooms (see p. 245)] with F. H. is turning out — if not a brilliant success as far as the social side goes — at any rate by no means a failure. We meet at breakfast, chat pleasantly enough, and are not in each other's way (as far as I know) during the rest of the day. . . . Altogether I am prepared to say with the lamented Pumblechook that it was Eight to do it, Kyind to do it, Beenevolent to do it, and that if it came over again I would do it again.
To F. Myers on October 31
I hope you are coming up. I am suffering from much depression of spirits from various causes, or I should have written more at length to you. What you said about philanthropy finds much response in my thoughts. . . . My idea of philanthropy (practical) is that it is a noble profession or career rather than a Virtue. I certainly quite agree with the economists and laisser-faire school in thinking it a very difficult career to succeed in — but ^aXe?ra ra Ka\d. . . .
To F. Myers on November 20
Each day I have wished to write to you how delightful and salutary your visit has been to me. You always do me good, though you make me feel more deeply the perplexities of conduct. I wish I had more wisdom to impart to those whom I love; it is not for want of seeking it.
Sometimes I console myself for fundamental scepticism by the feeling that it is necessary, if we are to choose Good per se; if we were too sure of personal happiness, this unselfish choice would be impossible. I do not think with
254 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
Kant that noble choice is the only good thing in man, but I do think it a great good. However, at other times this seems to me a very wire-drawn and metaphysical consola- tion. Now as I write it is real to me.
. . . Much gratitude for your generous gift — too generous, — but you will not expect from a philanthropist the delicacy to decline it (when did a Ph. refuse cash ?). I will tell you of its ultimate destination.
To H. G. Dakyns
The only difficulty I have felt in answering yours has arisen from the impossibility of writing an adequate letter ; or, even more, the consciousness of having been in one of those " hours of gloom " in which one can only fulfil feebly tasks willed in hours of insight — and live, as Schiller says, by means of Beschaftigung (though I wish I could say that mine nie ermattef). A general speculative break-down and a doubt as to the wisdom of my small practical efforts formed the soil of my despondency. . . .
Only that I do not want to write a letter full of hazy suggestions of calamity, I would endeavour to hint my speculative troubles. My state is something like this. I seem to myself to have invented an egress from scepticism, and to be just vigorous enough to hold the door open and let other people go through — if they will. Au fond, I have, as I have ever had, a profound belief in Things in General, but just not sufficient belief in anything in particular to gain the full joy of living by means of it; I keep looking forward to that one hundred years hence when it will be all the same, and am nervously anxious about the criticism not of posterity generally, but just of the H.S. and friends who may be living then. I see how they will think that I ought to have acted and thought, and have hardly energy to get through my task of rendering them possible. Evolution is and will prevail.
Well, perhaps you will not be surprised to learn that I have become a Liberal Conservative. I believe in Forster's Bill and in administration generally. I don't want the
1871, AGE 33 HENKY SIDGWICK 255
English Re volution, and don't believe in it, thinking that our separation between North and South, and in the North between the energetic self-help in social matters and this curious enthusiasm tar formed republicanism (that is certainly a remarkable fact) will keep Society stable and save " happy England."
I have sometimes joy in my educational work, not always : I believe I am often unintelligible.
My best delight is in my devotion to Alma Mater and the feeling I sometimes have that I am really handing on the torch — torch of enthusiasm for knowledge and virtue — to better youths.
To Mrs. dough from Cambridge on December 9
I am not really overworked, but I have just too much to do to be able to leave Cambridge without the greatest difficulty. I have been rather sleepless lately, and told Miss Clough so. But the cause is not exactly overwork, but excitement and work together ; I have had one or two things troubling me that I could not talk of. However, when work is over here I shall be very glad to get away for a day or two and come to see you.
Everything is going on very nicely here, as far as I know ; but the relation — actual and prospective — of the scheme to Miss Davies keeps perplexing me [see pp. 210, 211]. I find it hard to get my friends here to sympathise with my extreme disinclination to hinder in any way the success of her efforts. However, I trust in the strong breeze that is at present carrying on all movements in this direction.
To F. Myers from Oxford on December 20
. . . You may have seen in the newspapers that we have been memorialising Gladstone : entreating him to investigate and reform us without unnecessary preludes and prefaces. We had a great success, and collected some 110 signatures ; but the business of collecting, etc., naturally gravitated upon me, who have got to be regarded not so much as a Leader of the Liberal party in Cambridge as
256 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
Perpetual chief clerk and servant of all work to said party. So I have written no letters lately.
I thought your circular [in connection with instruction by correspondence] excellent ; I only hope that the thing won't trouble you too much. Please make an impartial estimate of your expenditure of time and trouble, and of the results attained as far as you can ascertain them, so that we may consider at the end of the year whether the latter are worth the former.
. . . Meanwhile Emily Davies and the inevitable com- plication of educational machinery weighs on my soul ; but I feel with Luther that, if Providence has the cause of Female Education at heart, now is the time for some manifest intervention.
. . . Middlemarch ? l I feel as if I could have planned the story much better ; I don't see why the Dryasdust hero need have been more than, say, thirty-five, and he might have had an illusory halo of vague spiritual aspiration ; the end of the story could have been made just as tragic. The style is the finest intellectual cookery.
I admire your French verses much.2 How do you do them ? I have had the finest classical education, but I couldn't — no, not if I retired to the sea-side with a Corpus Poetarum G-allicorum.
The memorial spoken of in the above letter was one representing that a Commission about to be appointed to inquire into the funds of the University and Colleges would serve no effectual purpose and would delay the full consideration of reforms. Glad- stone was not moved by it, nor was a largely signed memorial (the Burn-Morgan Memorial) drawn up in December 1872, and specifying the reforms desired, more successful at the time. The reforms asked for were in effect that Fellowships divorced from work at the University should not be held for life ; that a permanent professional career should be opened
1 The first part of Middlemarch appeared in December 1871. ^ Sent to him in MS., not published.
is/2, AGE 33 HENEY SIDGWICK 257
to those engaged in College work by allowing Fellows of colleges to marry ; that provision should be made for the association of colleges for educational purposes, in order to secure more efficient teaching and more leisure for study ; and that the pecuniary and other relations between the University and colleges should be revised. The intention of these reforms, the memorial said, was to increase the educational effici- ency of the University, and at the same time promote the advancement of science and learning.1 In parti- cular, by diminishing the number of Fellowships held away from the University, College funds would be set free for University work to be done either by the Colleges acting in combination or by the University itself — a part of the College funds being used to supplement the meagre endowment possessed by the University as such.
This memorial was sent in again in 1876 (when the Conservatives had come into office), and a com- mission appointed in 1877 to revise the statutes of University and Colleges did much in the direction desired by the memorialists.
To his Mother from Cambridge on January 12, 1872 I ought to have answered your last letter before, as I have not been busy. I assure you I have no prejudice against the commemoration of New Year's Day, though I am not myself very susceptible to the influence of con- ventional divisions of time, nor do I need reminding of the shortness of life, mutability of human things, etc. ... I had a delightful visit at Clifton; Symonds was, I think, better than usual.
To " George Eliot "
I am going to make a request which, I trust, you will not consider too presumptuous.
1 Compare letters by H. Sidgwick in the University Reporter of February 22 and March 1 and 8, 1871 (on "Academic Teachers") ; and one in the Spectator of November 30, 1872; also his article on "Idle Fellowships" in Miscellaneous Essays and Addresses.
S
258 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
I want your leave to bring with me when I next come to see you — that is on the next Sabbath holiday that I am able to allow myself — my friend Frederic Myers. I should not venture to ask this merely because he is a man who I think would interest you : but, in fact, you met him here once, and were kind enough to invite him to call on you. Unfortunately so long a time elapsed before he could avail himself of your invitation that when the opportunity came he was too shy to take it, and would not now venture to recall himself unceremoniously to your recollection. I therefore offered to ask your leave to bring him with me.
I have just read the second part of Middlemarch twice through with equal pleasure and profit. It seems to me to surpass all previous books for exquisite expression of delicate psychological observation.
To F. Myers on February 1 5
. . . For myself I seem to myself like some statesman Macaulay speaks of whom neither etc., nor etc., nor etc. (say study of Hegel and Vice-Presidency of F.C.TJ.) had altered from the dreaming schoolboy that he was at sixteen. It is a sad fate to be at once romantic and prosaic : —
. . . What am I ? An infant crying for the moon, An infant crying to no tune, And with no language but a cry.
(After Tennyson).
But there is one advantage in being a philosopher by profession — one has very drastic remedies for egotism very ready to hand.
To his Mother on February 28
My ladies' lectures are flourishing; I hear that a Benevolent Individual is thinking of giving us £1000; however, as he may change his mind before the donation is completed, do not mention it. This would relieve me of all pecuniary anxiety as far as the lectures go.
1872, AGE 33 HENKY SIDGWICK 259
To H. G. Dalcyns, March 7 (ivriting to accept the function of trustee for his marriage settlement)
... As for our wedding,1 I fear both Arthur and I will be somewhat unfestive in mood : A. from the gloom that envelopes Eugby, and I from spontaneous ill-temper. Still we are both so unfeignedly rejoiced for W[illiam] that perhaps we may become for an hour passably hymeneal.
... I feel often as unrelated and unadapted to my universe as man can feel, except on the one side of friend- ship ; and there, in my deepest gloom, all seems strangely good, and you among the best. . . . But " golden news " expect none, unless I light perchance on the secret of the Universe, in which case I will let you know.
To F. Myers from Freshivater in April 2
I find it very difficult to answer your letter, as I feel that you expect from me not so much sympathy, and certainly not Hortation (which grows on every moral bush), but strictest Science, and such adumbrated Principles of Conduct as may spring from strictest science. And my difficulty is that I cannot give to principles of conduct either the formal certainty that comes from exact science or the practical certainty that comes from a real Consensus of Experts. And I feel that your peculiar phase of the " Maladie " is due to the fact that you demand certainty with special peremptoriness — certainty established either emotionally or intellectually. I sometimes feel with some- what of a profound hope and enthusiasm that the function of the English mind with its uncompromising matter-of-fact- ness, will be to put the final question to the Universe with a solid, passionate determination to be answered which must come to something. However in the meantime we have to live on less than certainty, which for you is peculiarly difficult.
1 His brother William's.
2 Myers notes on this letter, " I think this is the most interesting letter I ever received from him."
260 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, n-
But I have as much sympathy (and de-me-fabula sensa- tion) as it is possible for one in whom egoism and altruism are combined so differently. I mean that whereas you appear to me to fulfil rracrav SiKaiocrvvijv in social rela- tions, ... I am conscious of being cased in a bark of selfish habit ; but deliberately and in reflective mood I have no disposition to seek my own pleasure in any form, and often not much care for my own existence.
Still, apart from idiosyncrasies, it seems to me that Victorious Analysis paralyses impulse (and the faith that is born of impulse, and is merely impulse in another form), and that we have all of us to do two difficult things : (1) to choose in a certain spiritual twilight and obscurity the noble and the good and refuse the evil and base : and (2) to make Will and rational purpose supply the place of impulse. One must choose the best, as such (by whatever criterion one determines " best "). In this way, it seems to me that one drinks at the inexhaustible horn at the other end of which is the ocean of primal force.
We have seen the Laureate, who was tres bon, and re- cited to us " Boadicea " — he reads it "celebrated," "violators," which thus solves a doubt of mine.
Professor Maurice died on April 1, 1872, and the following letters relate to Siclgwick's candidature for the Professorship thus rendered vacant :—
To his Mother from Cambridge, April 1 6
I am ashamed that I have not written before, but I have now so many letters of a business sort to write that my time for letter-writing goes. I have been very busy about this Professorship, which is vacant. It constitutes a really difficult question for me to decide. I partly think of becoming a candidate for it myself; but (1) I do not think I have very much chance, and (2) another man [Stirling, author of Secret of Hegel] who will, I think, come forward seems to me to have more claim to it than I have, and I may possibly injure his chances by standing. On the
1872, AGE 33 HENRY SIDGWICK 261
other hand, I believe he has less chance of being elected than I have. You see the matter is rather complicated, and I do not easily make up my mind ; however, I shall manage to decide in time. The election may possibly make a good deal of difference in my work, and it may possibly not make much difference : it is hard to predict, as it depends on the line which the Professor will take.
Poor Maurice's death was startling ; I knew he had been very ill, but thought that he was out of danger just when I got the news of his death. This was at Bourne- mouth : I, too, have been travelling about a good deal since the end of last term. I have been staying with the Pauls at Bailie, and also at Freshwater, where I have smoked a pipe with the Laureate. He was exceedingly kind, and we (Symonds was with me) had a most interesting conversa- tion with him. Altogether, Freshwater remains in my mind as a sort of Arcadia — every one was so hospitable in an easy and airy manner. Miss Thackeray was there among other people, most delightful of authoresses ; she has a simple, unstudied playfulness of manner, half sly, but wholly sympathetic, which is irresistible.
To F. Myers, undated
... I rather think the electors ought to give it [to Venn] (if Stirling is out of the question) on the ground of Performance. ... I do not think, however, that I shall refrain from standing on this ground.
The whole matter is of considerable importance to my prospects. I shall most likely leave Cambridge if either Venn or Pearson l is elected : as I want to concentrate myself on Practical Philosophy, and the new Professor, being active, will occupy this sphere. But this considera- tion does not really influence me much either way, on selfish grounds : for I cannot make up my mind whether I want to stay here or not. Supposing Duty did not detain me I rather think I should prefer going. In fact, my mind is rather a chaos as far as personal interests go. 1 J. B. Pearson of St. John's College.
262 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
I think I told you of our interview with the Laureate. I was struck by his great kindliness and simplicity, also his sensitiveness to the opinion of inferior creatures like [certain critics]. I tried to flatter him by hinting (what is, of course, my Conscientious Conviction) that no one but he and Milton could construct blank verse, but I cannot say that he seemed disposed to be flattered ; he rather in- sisted that the blank verse of Keats and Shelley was good in its way.
He is certainly a full-sized soul, and so is his wife ; they both dwarf the common millions. I do not think Mrs. Cameron suits him — I mean she does not draw him out well, though he is amused with her. He wants some one at once playful and suggestive to make him talk : flashes on the surface, revealing depths.
Good-bye, I must turn to my female correspondence.
To F. Myers on April 2 1
Stirling will not stand. So I shall : feeling that I have made the best of both worlds, the ideal world in which S. would have been elected, and the actual — in which the post will probably fall to Pearson.
I feel that if either Venn or Pearson are elected, my days here will be brief — that is, if I can believe in myself sufficiently and in my work. Otherwise Cambridge is a comfortable hospital for maimed intellects and carridres manqutes. But I feel that if I stay here to coach youth when another (competent) person has been elected to teach ethics, I shall be neglecting the Divine signal. It will be
One task more declined, one more footpath untrod.
The following parody of Tennyson, sent by Sidg- wick to Myers, was probably enclosed in the above letter : —
THE MODERN ULYSSES
It little profits that an idle coach
In these grey walls, amid these dreary flats,
Yoked to these AGED WIVES, I mete and dole
1872, AGE 33 HENRY SIDGWICK 263
Blue-moulded knowledge to a brutish race That boat and feed and whist and know not ME. I cannot rest from travel . . .
For always roaming with a Murray's Guide Much have I seen and known, . . . And drink delights of partial-authorship Within the rosy binding of Macmillan. . . .
This is my PEARSON. . . .
To him I leave my pupils and my books :
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
His toil, by Arts ingenuous to make mild
The rugged student, and through SAFE DEGREES
To thrust him. . . .
There lies the dock ; the vessel puffs her steam ; There glooms the odorous river. Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to see a Revolution. . . .
To his Mother on April 24
I have been busy about this election, and have not had time to write more than a card. I have been writing candidates' letters, for I am standing after all. I do not much care whether I am elected or not, but I thought I might as well scramble with the rest. If I am appointed it will give me a stimulus to work, which is a good thing ; otherwise I am quite happy in my present humble position. I have no ambition, and I think that a little resolution will enable me to do the work which I am qualified to do just as well without being made Professor. If you do not mind my not Succeeding in Life, I am sure I don't. I don't think it a virtue having so little ambition ; I feel that I should have been more industrious and of more use to my fellow- creatures if I had had more. Still it saves one a good deal of trouble.
To his Mother on April 30
The Eev. T. R. Birks (an Evangelical Theologian of some note) has been elected Professor of Moral Philosophy.
264 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
As far as I am concerned I do not find that I much care for various reasons, viz. : —
(1) What are Professorships ? Mere dust, mere dross, in
comparison with Knowledge and Virtue. (This is Philosophy.)
(2) There would have been no great increase in INCOME, only
£50 more than I have now from the College. (This is Common-Sense.)
(3) If I had been elected it would have entailed several
woes : —
(a) Several more stupid people would have asked me to dinner.
(6) Several more comparatively ineligible men would have written to me for Testimonials. (This consideration is very important.}
(c) Several dull writers would have sent me their books. In replying I should have had to tell several white lies. (All this is the Wisdom that springs from Experience.)
So don't waste any sympathy on me. Keep it all for H. H[ayman], who, I trust, will soon want it. I hope to come to Rugby on llth.
To F. Myers on May 1
. . . As for our election, I think, after all, that it is not as bad as it looks — I mean as far as the credit of Cam- bridge is concerned ; of course the post is simply thrown away as far as teaching of undergraduates goes. But Birks is a man of force and acumen, and has written books that show these qualities ; and it has been the custom here to consider the Professorship as a mere ornament and dignity.
I think this fixes me here for some years more. With- out conceit, I think that my going would be a blow to the study, which I have nursed for several years here. How- ever, I do not bind myself to anything.
1872, AGE 33 HENKY SIDGWICK 265
To F. Myers a few days later
... As for our affair, it is said to be better than was supposed. Birks also has a work on ethics in his desk.
I am just now lazy and demoralised, and weakly regret, not the Professorship, but the gentle external compulsion that it would have given. However, I think I must stay here at least one year more, and most probably for ever. . . . I thought Pearson was going to be chosen, and so found my erratic humour roused ; but it will probably subside.
To Mrs. dough on May 25
I have had it in my mind to write to you ever since the Catastrophe : I mean the election of B — ks. At first it seemed to affect me very much. I took it as a mark of deliberate contempt for the study of Moral Philosophy ; or, even worse, a determination to crush it under the Heel of Theology. But it turned out on inquiry that the electors had really intended to choose, and believed that they were choosing, the Best Philosopher, so that my indignation has evaporated. . . .
I do not know quite how much you will have heard from Miss Clough about the house, but I daresay you know as much or more than I do. This term has been rather a trying one ; and it seems clear now that we were wrong originally in not establishing Laws and Ordinances for our institution, depending on the sanction of external authority. There is such a strong impulse towards liberty among the young women attracted by the movement that they will not submit to maternal government.
To 0. Browning in May
I am getting adhesions of Headmasters to the principle, of offering French and German as alternative for Greek (or one ancient language) in Little- Go, and should much like Hornby's. I am bringing out a paper to-morrow evening (Tuesday) or Wednesday morning on the subject. If you can get it, please telegraph.
266 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
Tke paper referred to was part of a discussion by flysheets, such as is usual at Cambridge when a question which is coming on for voting excites strong feeling. Mr. Browning seems to have been able to assure him of Dr. Hornby's approval. The proposal under discussion was indirectly the result of the Report of the Endowed Schools Commission, published in 1870, which urged the abolition of the requirement of Greek as a preliminary to all degrees, in order that the University might be in more satisfactory con- nection with non- classical schools. Two successive Syndicates, appointed to report on this question, recommended the substitution of French and German as an alternative for Greek. Sidgwick served on the second of these from 1871 to 1873, and its first report was now being voted on. The abolition of compulsory Greek was carried in principle on this occasion ; but the scheme in final form was lost by nine votes in the following year. The following are extracts from a flysheet issued by Sidgwick on this second occasion : —
When the question was last discussed among us, I showed that the Headmasters of nearly all the most important schools in the country were in favour of allowing an alter- native for Greek. Most of these were classical scholars of the highest academic distinction ; several of them had been convinced of the necessity of this change, in spite of strong prepossessions. I have since received from different parts of the country additional evidence of the eager and widely- spread desire that exists among schoolmasters for the relaxation. At the late conference of Headmasters an overwhelming majority was in favour of a change of this kind. . . .
What we contend is, that the linguistic training derived from the study of ancient languages may be adequately given by one of them : that the additional advantage gained by studying a second is, from this point of view, com- paratively slight : that therefore the enforcement of loth
1872, AGE 34 HENEY SIDGWICK 267
together can only be defended on the ground of the literary culture that they impart : and that the knowledge of Greek which our Previous Examination exacts is nearly worthless for purposes of literary culture : whereas the knowledge of French and German which we propose to exact would be of real value in this respect. I should myself be disposed to urge the change on this ground alone, without reference to the far greater practical utility of the modern languages.
To F. Myers about this time
I am just reading [Meredith's] last novel [Harry Rich- mond] with a painful sense of genius wasted. It is not merely that his plot as well as his style is a series of conundrums, but that his imagination, though as compre- hensive and definite as ever, seems to have less and less relation to the truth of human life. I still think him one of the very few men of genius of the age, but he has not got the Eoot of the Matter.
To F. Myers from Rugby on June 16
Your letter gave me a mixture of pleasure and pain — pleasure in your sympathy with all that is best in me, and pain from a consciousness of the probably meagre and mostly unbeautiful result that will remain after the com- plete evolution of the Organism that now addresses you. I do not write in cynical despair : there is a process and a permanent purpose, and I am hopeful of being something positive in the Universe : but that it is something very unsmooth and unrotund, adapted for very peculiar func- tions. I feel more and more unlike my own ideal, and perhaps acquiesce more and more in my own limitations. Or rather I do this as much as I can at all allow myself ; for perhaps it is a last device of the devil to persuade one to assuage the wretchedness of moral unbeauty by dwelling on the Insight which detects, the Aspiration which in a sense causes, the Impartiality which avows one's shortcomings.
However, my aspirations are the best thing in me, and so far I have unmixed joy in your sympathy.
268 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
As for my Domestic troubles [some difficulty in con- nection with the house for students], I am almost ashamed to confess that they gave me much more amusement than anything else. Egoistically I do not value myself as TrpaKTiKos : and anything that I do of an originative kind I do only (1) because it seems demonstrably right on first principles (2) because a good many seem to agree that it ought to be done. In doing [it] I only trust by docility and impartiality and good intentions to avoid egregious failure if Providence so will. And putting myself out of sight, I regard this female-educational movement as being in the phase of tentatives and experiments, and think that we may do the cause as much good by failing in an intelligent and cheerful manner as by succeeding. I did not intend to blame Miss Clough, but rather my own want of tact. The storm is now blown over. Miss Clough has real reason to complain of me as unsympathetic ; I allowed her to see that I was partly amused by it, and I think this hurt her. The Scheme is her life at present, and it is so little a piece of mine. You see I have just sufficient sympathy with my fellow-creatures to see these things afterwards.
To his Mother from Lodgings at Margate on June 2 5
I am now settled here for (I suppose) about a fortnight, by which time hay fever ought to be at least cured enough to make life endurable in London. ... I was not very well in London ; otherwise the work l was very pleasant, and I always like staying with Mrs. Clough. Her two daughters are such a curious contrast, the eldest exhibiting the old type of womanhood in rudiment, and the youngest very decidedly the new type. I keep wondering what she will be wanting to do in ten years if the world goes on moving.
To F. Myers a few days later
As for my philosophy, it gets on slowly. I think I have made out a point or two about Justice, but the relation
1 Superintending the Examination for Women.
1372, AGE 34 HENEY SIDGWICK 269
of the sexes still puzzles me. It is a problem with ever new xs and ys emerging. Is the permanent movement of civilised man towards the Socialism of force, or the Socialism of persuasion (Comte), or Individualism (H. Spencer)? I do not know, and yet everything seems to turn on it. Well, well :
et fj,r) yap €(mv o e<? ovros, o><? cry <j75, irapa aol ^eyeo-fla), KOI Kara-^revSov /caX<u9
This is not what the Devil says now, but something much subtler in the same style.
To his Mother from the Sarnie Club, London, in July
I liked Margate, and think I shall go there again. It is a more picturesque town than I expected. We had some splendid sunsets. The people are, I suppose, vulgar, but therefore somewhat more amusing, and I soon got out of their reach along the chalk cliffs.
I shall be paying visits for the next ten days, then to Cambridge. . . .
I wrote my review of the Italian book,2 but when I came to correct the proofs I found I was in a difficulty, as I had quoted some Italian, and, from my ignorance of the grammar, could not feel sure whether it was rightly printed or not. However, the author had left some comical mistakes in English, so it only served him right.
To his Sister (who was out of health at this time and suffering from nervous exhaustion) from Cambridge, August 12
I am getting on very slowly with my work here, feeling very lazy and horrified to find that the middle of August is upon me. So I am not in a position to give advice as to doing your duty when you do not feel inclined to do it. But I have one or two rules (which you won't find in
1 Even if this god is no god, as thou sayest, let him pass for a god with thee, and nobly lie and say he is. — Euripides, Bacchae, 333.
2 Barzelotti, La Morale nella Filosofia Positiva, reviewed in the Academy for July 1.
270 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
copy-books on the subject), by means of which I manage to worry along — as: (1) Always save yourself as much trouble as possible, as, e.g., by doing anything that can be done any time when the first impulse occurs, etc. (2) Always do that part of your duty that you don't dislike — then you can think over the rest, which at any rate has by that time been reduced into a more manageable shape. Then it seems clear that one should (3) always do at once whatever being disagreeable yet must be done, and will only get worse by putting it off. (You perhaps will say that you have seen something like this in the copy-books; on the contrary, what you find there is that all disagreeable duties are least unpleasant if done at once. But, in fact, some of them have not to be done at all in that case ; only instead one has the duty of apologising for not doing them : but this to fallen man, with a fair stock of excusa- tory phraseology, is often easier than doing them.) Also some disagreeable things do get easier when you put them off; one familiarises oneself with the idea — I think tooth- drawing is one of these ; however, they are exceptional.
Enough of moralising. I wanted to tell you that at Eton I was introduced to Mrs. Oliphant, who was very unlike what I expected : Scotch accent, quiet in manner, and rather caustic ; you would never have attributed to her any emotional eagerness. It is curious that in the case of George Eliot it is just the reverse ; her conversation is full of eager sympathy, but there is comparatively little humour in it.
To his Sister about two months later
I would have answered your letter before, but I have enough to do to make me think myself busy. Really busy, I suppose I never was in my life.1 . . .
I wish you could give a better account of yourself.
1 The view that persons doing academic work were never really hard worked, though they were apt to be under the illusion that they were, was one he often expressed. He would take the work of a successful lawyer in full practice as a standard, and give as an instance an ordinary day in the life of Lord Bowen, when he (Sidgwick) was staying with him during the Tichborne trial.
1872, AGE 34 HENRY SIDGWICK 271
Your letter reminds me vividly of long-past invalidism,1 though I have no doubt that you are a very different sort of convalescent. In fact, I once thought of writing "Advice to Invalids," drawn from my own experience, and was prevented chiefly by the consideration that there are so many varieties of invalids, and each so different from the other, that my advice would be useless to all except a very few ; one might almost as well write " Advice to Persons in Love " : or letters for them, as in the Complete Letter- Writer.
However, the chief part of my advice related to " Self- preoccupation." I fancy I had always been rather a selfish being before I was ill, but it had been quite a different kind of selfishness ; I had never been absorbed in my own sensations, my own pleasures and pains, but rather my own notions and dreams. Suddenly my attention was concen- trated on MY DIGESTION. This is really a subject of much [more] varied interest than people suppose who have never concentrated themselves on it; still it grows monotonous in time, and is also not salutary.
When I found out how selfish I was, I used at first to try and alter myself by conscientious struggles, efforts of Will. But that does not answer for an invalid ; one has not to fight oneself in open battles, but to circumvent oneself by quietly encouraging all the various interests that take one out of self. Botany was something, the Times something ; but to me the great artifice was the direct and sympathetic observation of others. I used to try and think how they were feeling, and sometimes to prophesy what they would say. I think most of my little knowledge of my fellow-creatures comes from that period of my life.
However, this letter is getting as egoistic as if it had been written then — whereas, in truth, I am peculiarly unegoistic at present, having too much to do. Female Education is in a state of movement just at present here : and all other education too. We rarely feel as much at the centre of things as we now are. I am considering a
1 This refers to his illness as an undergraduate, see p. 18.
272 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
scheme for educating the whole country, at least as far as it is willing to be educated, and has left school. It is a comfort to think what a rising profession I belong to.
I don't go in for modern literature just at present ; when I have any spare time I read Middletnarch over again. But things seem to be running towards Biography now, and my own taste is changing in the same direction. Novels weary me, because they are not true, I don't mean in a vulgar sense, but true to human nature. Now Biographies are true, at least the letters in them ; * the chief objection to them is that they are stuffed with facts that one wants to forget. I hear the Hare book (Memorials of a Quiet Life) is very good : and the second volume of Forster's Dickens, though there is too much in it about another eminent man.
The " Scheme for Educating the whole Country " developed into what are now known as University Extension Lectures. The co-operation of the Uni- versity in establishing these had been asked for in petitions from various large towns and from educa- tional bodies (including the North of England Council), and they were started in the autumn of 1873, at first experimentally. Mr. James Stuart was the moving spirit in this very successful experiment, but Sidgwick was actively interested.-
To F. Myers (who was abroad) from Cambridge on August 1 5
. . . Yes, I am trying to work here : I do not get on much, but I have just sufficient strength of mind not to go away. Shall be delighted to see you on the 23rd ; but going to Cornwall would be too patent a confession of defeat. My moral sense would never get over it. I am already saying continually " Were it not better done as others use, to climb snow mountains and drink Swiss champagne ? " But
1 In later life Sidgwick used to give another reason for preferring biographies for reading in illness — namely, that it gives the reader a sense of superiority to feel that he is, at any rate, alive, while the subject of the biography is not.
1872, AGE 34 HENKY SIDGWICK 273
fas dbstat. Farewell : I do not suppose this will reach you : but mind you tell me when you are coming.
To F. Myers on September 1
. . . However, seriously there is one thing I should like to say about myself and my views of life, as far as they interest you.
There are three quite distinct things, first my theory of practice, framed for the Normal man, secondly my theory of my own life, thirdly my own practice. The difference between each pair is great, so that the divergence of (3) from (1) becomes immense. I consider that my own nature is in many respects profoundly defective when compared with the type, but still that there is a certain kind of excellence, and also of happiness, which it might attain ; but even this it does not. My difficulty about you is that feeling that you deviate from the Type in a direction opposite to mine, I find it hard to make up my mind, even approximately, as to how great the deviation is.
A truce to analysis.
To F. Myers from Cambridge on September 28
Behold me returned, having read all your books. . . . As for Taine, he is a clever man, and I have a sort of moral respect for a writer who gives you results of so much honest hard cerebration. But I cannot say I like him any more. It is all hard, metallic, in a way mechanical. Nor does it seem to me written by a Parisian (as he describes such) for Parisians. There is perhaps no lack of subtlety of insight, but certainly of delicacy of touch. His hard outlines, violent colours, emphasis, exaggeration, caricature, offend even a barbarian Anglo- Saxon like myself. . . .
You talked of Creighton and Laing as willing to correspond with women. Would either of them, think you, in English Literature ? there is a great run on that. Also we want money for impecunious governesses. I have already spent the £25 you gave me on this, thinking there
T
274 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
could be no better use for it. Do you think any well-to-do person believing in correspondence would subscribe ? Our plan is to make the poor girls pay for one course, and then to give them two more if they like ; we always get a certificate of poverty from a clergyman.
The sore at Rugby is, I fear, recrudescent, but I only know vaguely.
To his Mother from, Cambridge on November 6
I have read very little lately except Plato and Greek History ; I have been writing an erudite paper on the " Sophists " l for our Philological Journal. I have only managed to read Macmillan, and Miss Thackeray's story in CornhUl, and Middlemarch, and O. W. Holmes's new book, which I think a falling off though readable (Poet at the Breakfast Table}. I am told the new Darwin [Expression of the Emotions'] is very entertaining. . . . The " Adventures of a Phaeton " in Macmillan seems to me excellent.
To his Mother on November 24
I am now really busy not merely in my own imagination, as I am examining next week, and have things I must write besides my lectures. You may have seen in the Times of yesterday the account of a meeting on University Organisa- tion 2 in which I took part, and which has occupied a good deal of my time. I do not quite know what will come of it, but many people seem to think that the Government is likely to overhaul us in some mode or other either in '73 or '74, and that people who are interested in the Universities and want them to fulfil their proper function ought to enunciate their ideas and be ready with their schemes. You may possibly see a letter of mine on the subject in next week's Spectator, if the editor puts it in, as he ought to do for an
1 Reprinted in the volume of Lectures on the Philosophy of Kant and other Philosophical Lectures and Essays (Macmillan, 1905).
* A meeting of Oxford and Cambridge men held at the Freemasons' Tavern in London on November 16, Mark Pattison in the chair, to discuss University Reform. The persons present agreed to form themselves into a "Society for the Organisation of Academical Study." See Academy, vol. iii. p. 460.
1873, AGE 34 HENEY SIDGWICK 275
old contributor, though it will be rather written in contra- vention of an article he has written this week.1
To his Mother on February 3
Sedgwick's death 2 was rather sudden at the last. I only heard on Wednesday that he was ill. He was knocked up by a meeting which the Chapter of Norwich took it into their heads to come up and hold in his rooms. They thought it would interest and enliven the old man, but it turned out unfortunately. His energy collapsed suddenly and entirely, and it was soon seen that this was the end. It is a great severance of our ties with the past. He is the last " historical character " of Trinity. He must have been by nearly thirty years the oldest man in College — a generation. The Master was much affected in reading the service.
... I have been attacked lately with something indicating disorganisation of the M[ucous] M[embrane]. I am now taking great care and feel pretty well. Taking care consists chiefly in never reading except when I like. My doctor approves. I tell him that is not the way to get on in the world, but he says that his business is not to get people on in the world but to keep them in it.
To C. H. Tawney in India, February 7 Of the numerous propositions that Man makes, that to write to his fellowman seems least often crowned with fulfilment by an overruling Providence. Hence I at length take this unpretending scrap of paper, feeling that I shall certainly fill it, and say all I have to say, and that if I took a bigger I should put off writing till to-morrow. I left your wife in Clifton a month ago, meaning to write on the spot. I wish I had seen you. When you come again we must not miss. Your wife told me of your plan of coming home for good in a couple of years ; indeed, it is partly about that that I wish to write to you. . . .
Education is a pretty thriving profession here at present,
1 It appeared in the Spectator for November 30.
2 Adam Sedgwick, Professor of Geology, died January 27, 1873, aged eighty-seven.
276 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
because it is steadily rising in public estimation and interest ; there are always more posts than there are good men to fill them. But it happens quite naturally, and in accordance with the laws of Political Economy, that only the posts involving rather severe drudgery are at once well paid and easy to get, e.g. I do not myself want cash, being unmarried and unluxurious, but if I did I should find it very hard to get in my own line. Morals and Metaphysics are a sort of thing that every intelligent person thinks he knows and a great many intelligent people would be glad to teach for very little. I think myself lucky to get about £300 a year in all here for teaching every one who wants to learn any, examining, reviewing, and doing other odd jobs. On the other hand, the man who takes a preparatory school for small boys soon rolls in wealth, if he is successful and he may be a Pollman for aught people in general care. Between these extremes things go similarly, excepting the few fat prizes, which are still chiefly monopolised by the clergy.
Affairs here are pretty interesting (in Cambridge, I mean). Reformers believe that we are on the eve of considerable changes in the way of completer organisation of Colleges into a really academic body. We are partly waiting on Providence and Gladstone, but meanwhile we shall make some attempt to manage our own affairs. In Trinity we have passed (as far as the consent of the Fellows goes) a large scheme of reform, and are now waiting the sanction of the Privy Council.1 It enables every one to marry with a few exceptions, and makes all sinecure Fellowships terminable in five years. These be the current ideas. . . .
At Rugby things are as bad as can be : intolerable : the outcome I foresee not. Of myself there is nothing to say except that I am struggling with a book on ethics. Peile flourishes. Hammond is occupied in reconstructing endowed schools. The earth revolves on her axis, and the apostles meet every Saturday.
1 This sanction was refused, to the great indignation of reformers at Trinity, on the plea that a commission would shortly be issued. Sidgwick, not being a Fellow, had, of course, no part himself in passing the abortive statutes here spoken of.
1873, AGE 34 HENKY SIDGWICK 277
To H. a. Dakyns in February IS 73
What you have told me came to me sad and strange.1 The eternal mystery breaking into das Alltagliche in a sharp, ragged manner. I hope your wife has not suffered much.
As for me, I cannot write easily : I have been for some time in one of my moods of disquieting self-contempt, which cannot be made to vanish by the mere imagination of a friend.
This I wrote days ago. The truth is that the "Weltschmerz " really weighs on me for the first time in my life : mingled with egoistic humiliation. I am a curious mixture of the neya\6-^rv^o<; and /u/cpoAjru^o<? : I cannot really care for anything little : and yet I do not feel myself worthy of — or ever hope to attain — anything worthy of attainment.
Ethics is losing its interest for me rather, as the insolu- bility of its fundamental problem is impressed on me. I think the contribution to the formal clearness and coherence of our ethical thought which I have to offer is just worth giving : for a few speculatively-minded persons — very few. And as for all practical questions of interest, I feel as if I had now to begin at the beginning and learn the ABC.
Why this letter has been so long in writing I do not quite know. Perhaps it is owing to a peculiar hallucination under which I labour that I shall suddenly find my ideas cleared up — say the day after to-morrow — on the subjects over which I brood heavily. Take this as a psychological phenomenon. I am now working at a review of Herbert Spencer,2 which, I think, adds to my general despair. I find myself compelled to form the lowest opinion of a great deal of the results, and yet I have an immense admiration for his knowledge, his tenacious hold of very abstract and original ideas throughout a bold and complicated con- struction, his power of Combination and Induction. But the grotesque and chaotic confusion of his metaphysics !
1 The birth and death of a child. 2 Published in the Academy of April 1873.
278 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
Well, it seems to me perhaps a warning that the time for Metaphysics has gone by. If so, as the Englishman asked Teufelsdrockh, " at great cost what am I educated to do ? "
To F. Myers about the same time
I am very sorry to be faithless, but I cannot come to town just at present. I sincerely meant to, but languor occupied me, and now I find I must work to make up for lost time (at review of Herbert Spencer l and article on Sophists,2 both promised for the middle of March). When these are done I shall see my way a little. I think I shall be in town on Sunday, 30th of March, certainly, and I hope to be in a better mood for meeting rny fellow-creatures by that time. . . . Next week I happen to have lectures every day and could not conveniently get away for a night. . . .
I should be very glad to come to Brandon House s in April : if I do not find it necessary for my health to take sea-air — in fact Freshwater. The air agrees with me, and occasional contemplation of the Laureate affords one of the purest pleasures that our fallen nature has to give. Also Leslie Stephen tells me that he may probably be there, and I need not remark that one who cultivates his pen ought also to cultivate editors. I do not know whether these reasons seem to you adequate — if not, add that I want to write my book. 1 think now of bringing it out after all, evading difficulties. . . .
I saw Morris the other day, and taxed him with putting nineteenth-century sentiment on the provincial stage of a medieval Arcadia.4 He said Middle Ages were subtle to any extent in amatory matters. I said they might be subtle, but they weren't sceptical of their own emotions, did not " tremble for the death of desire." He grinned good- humouredly and admitted. I think the last two songs worth keeping, especially the last but one.
1 See p. 277.
2 The second article on this subject, published in the Journal of Philology, Part ix., and, like the first (see p. 274), reprinted in the volume of Lectures on the Philosophy of Kant, etc.
3 Myers's home at Cheltenham.
4 Myers notes that this refers to Morris's Love is Enough.
1873, AGE 34 HENKY SIDG-WICK 279
To Mrs. dough from Cambridge on March 19
Miss Clough will have told you that our educational enterprise is passing into a new and perplexing stage. I hope we shall emerge from it ; but if any one should call and ask your advice as to a Philanthropic Investment of Four Thousand Pounds, please refer him to me.
The following post-card to his sister, sent from London on April 15, throws light both on how he spent the Easter vacation of this year and on his habitual want of order in the smaller material concerns of life : —
Did I leave any BOOTS, SHOES, or GOLOSHES with you in my bedroom ? It seems as if I ought to have more of these useful articles on hand.
The heart, bereaved, of why and how
Unknowing, knows that yet before
It HAD what e'en to memory now
Returns NO MORE, NO MORE.1
If found, to be sent to 23 Gower Street, London, W.C. I am writing this in the British Museum Library because they WILL not bring my books. Excuse agitation.
To his Mother on May 30
I ought to have written long ago, but I have been very busy. My lectures have now come to an end, and I am gathering up the fragments of neglected duties. I had heard of my uncle's death 2 before you wrote. I was much startled and grieved, having no idea that he was in any danger. I remember well the last time that I saw him at the mill, little thinking that it was the last time. I seem to remember all my childish feelings about him as the Head of the family, and it makes me sad to think that I shall never see his fine impressive old face again. . . . When this reaches you I shall be thirty-five ! I have a sort of fear that I shall be old before I know where my life has gone to. The years are beginning to go with Kailroad Speed ; it seems
1 Clough. 2 J. B. Sidgwick, died May 19, 1873.
280 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
scarcely yesterday that you gave me a birthday present for 1872. I assure you that the only reason I have not written to thank you for your kind offer has been that I was indulging a constitutional vacillation as to what I should say — embarras de richesses. On the whole, it seems to me that there is no use in Birthday Presents if one does not get one's fancies indulged, and get things which it would be too extravagant to buy. So I intend to ask you to give me some of Miss Thackeray's works. I say " some," because I do not know how much they cost. Whatever she writes has a peculiar and exquisite charm for me — a sort of spiritual fragrance, a tender, graceful sweetness which defies analysis — and I feel that even if I ever lose my admiration for them, it will be an interesting thing for me to have books which have once affected me so strongly.
To his Mother from, 7 Athelstan Road, Margate, on June 2 9
Here I am as usual ! that is, I was here last year in Ethelbert Terrace, if you remember. (That is close by ; all this part of the town was built by some fanatical Anglo- Saxon.) ... I do not think I ever wrote to thank you for the books — Miss Thackeray's — which came shining bright before I left Cambridge ; it was very remiss of me. Since that time I have been staying with the Stephens and seen her. She is going to write another fairy tale — Jack and the Bean- stalk. However, this is a secret. . . . Also she told me some interesting things about Browning and " Red Cotton Nightcap Country," which I will tell you some time if you have read or tried to read that singular production. Talking of books, there are several books to talk about — in the first place Mrs. Cornish's novel Alcestis, which you should read or make others read. I am inclined to think it a great success, though I cannot properly appreciate it, as the motive is music. But it is a book that without effort takes the reader out of the commonplace from first to last — and that is a great deal to say of any book. There is another book I want people to read, not a new one exactly — Mrs. Webster's The Auspicious Day. It is a dramatic poem ; I
1873, AGE 35 HENKY SIDGWICK 281
read it while conducting the Local Examination in London, and could not help crying over it, though I was perched so high that sixty-five young ladies could see — unless too much occupied with their papers — an Examiner Weep. So it must have been really moving. Tell Arthur that Symonds's Greek Poets is very good in parts — on the whole better than [his] Dante — and will improve his mind.
How are all your affairs ? Many sympathising strangers in London inquired after Rugby, but I told them that the situation was unchanged. I do not know whether it will be any comfort to you to know that all the M.P.'s I have seen believe in the " Conservative Reaction," so that possibly H. H [ay man] may be made a Dean soon.
To his Sister from Margate on July 1
... I have been in London conducting the Examination of Women and indulging in other amusements. Now I am writing a Book, or pretending to do so, as far as Christy Minstrels and other barbaric phenomena will allow me. I subsist chiefly on a kind of fish called Margate Dabs (No, the jest that occurs to you is NOT admissible) and on Miss Braddon's novels. Yes, I have decided that they really are more improving to the mind than Mrs. Henry "Wood's. But now — I know we do not agree about Mrs. Oliphant — but I really must recommend May, and I must deliberately say that I consider Mrs. 0. to be in the Very first rank of novelists. There is no one whose books keep my mind in a more delightfully sustained state of emotional excitement, vibrating between laughter and pity for poor humanity. It is not on account of the depth of her pathos or the richness and justesse of her satire, but the intense complex sympathy — naturally dashed with unaffected apprehension of the humorous side of things — with which she presents the series of situations. . . .
How easy the problem of life becomes when one is alone at Margate with nothing to do. I have grappled with and overcome even the difficulty of ordering dinner — thanks to the MAKGATE DABS.
282 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
To F. Myers from Margate on July 6
I have had spiritual reasons enough to write to you for a long time, but they have all been outweighed by the sort of lethargy of spirit in which I still linger, feeling that my little stream of life, with its mingled current half speculative, half transcendental -human, has run itself into a sort of sandy desert, where it is temporarily spreading and drying up and flowing underground, and altogether behaving in an unaccountable manner. . . .
I do not think I like Margate quite as well as last year. In fact, I am not sure that it would not bore me (except for my immense intellectual resources) during the day ; but at sunset the contrast between the enchanted sea and the platitudes of the promenade delights me as before. I struggle on with my little book : not from any interest or belief in it, but because I feel that it must be written and that it will bore me more the more I delay it. Not a very hopeful mood for authorship. Are you doing anything besides living ? I mean when you are not adorning the education of the country with your manners and improving it by new regulations.1 . . .
To F. Myers from Cambridge on August I
I am moved to write by having found a letter of yours here, feeling that if you did not know that I had not received it when we talked, you must have thought some of my remarks somewhat unresponsive — even allowing for the Democritean mood in which our conversations are carried on.
You know that in spite of my love of truth, I am too fond of you not to be keenly pleased by your overestimate of me ; I only feel bound from time to time to warn you that you will find me out. My only merit (if it be a merit) is that I have never swerved from following the ideal
evermore unseen And fixt upon the far sea line,
1 Myers was one of H. M. Inspectors of Schools.
1873, AGE 35 HENEY SIDGWICK 283
but I have a double sorrow, first, that I cannot come to know the relation of the ideal to the actual ; and, secondly, that I myself show so mean and uncomely to my own vision. Further, as to you, I have another sadness in feeling that during the years in which we have exchanged thoughts I have unwillingly done you more harm than good by the cold corrosive scepticism which somehow, in my own mind, is powerless to affect my ' idealism,' but which I see in more than one case acting otherwise upon others. Still your friendship is one of the best delights of my life, and no difference of ethical opinion between us can affect this, though it may increase my despondency as to things in general. . . .
To his Mother from Cambridge on September 4
My life is highly uneventful, but not unhappy, though my work is in a lingering state. I shall be curious to hear what you say of the Lincoln domicile.1 There is something interesting, after all, in these domestic changes ; novelty is gratifying to the human breast, and I feel that I may some time acquire the same fraternal feeling for that cathedral town that I now have for the fir -woods of Wellington College. I wonder whether I shall ever go there again.
Do you see Macmillan ? The Princess of Thule is a very pretty, slightly-woven story.
To " George Eliot " from Eugly on September 2 3
When I saw you last in London you were kind enough to invite me to come and see you at Black-brook. I shall be in London on Saturday and Sunday week (October 4 and 5) before beginning work again, and I should very much like to run down to you on one of these days, if you are likely to be at home then.
... I feel rather dull from the task of weaving a sieve to hold the water of life in — for a book on Morals often seems like that; however tight one tries to draw the meshes,
1 E. W. Benson had been made Chancellor of the diocese of Lincoln.
284 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
everything of the nature of Wisdom seems to have run through when one examines the result — that is, if it was ever there. In this state I cannot tell you with what refreshment I turn and read your books again.
To H. G. Dakyns from Cambridge on October 12
I wish I could have come to you, but I have been nowhere, hoping to get on with my book on the Methods of Ethics — a hope much frustrated by my own weakness, but still not altogether unrealised. I think I shall get the thing done some time next year. There is written — Book I. ; f of Book II. ; ^ of Book III. ; plan of last book. [These are] perhaps not in final form, but nearly so. The book solves nothing, but may clear up the ideas of one or two people a little. . . .
Female Education thriving — about twenty students have come up.
To F. Myers on October 30 (regarding, in the first place, subscriptions for building a Hall of residence for women students}
Many thanks for your services with the Millionaire. We are trying two or three of them now. I have not yet written [to the Millionaire], waiting till a little circular is printed — a curious document in style, patched of me and Miss Clough : her naive, earnest, slightly incoherent appeals intercalated with the colourless, ponderous, semi-official prolixity with which I inevitably treat such matters.1
... As for Spirit-rapping, I am exactly in the same mind towards it as towards Keligion. I believe there is some- thing in it : don't know what : have tried hard to discover, and find that I always paralyse the phenomena ; my taste is strongly affected by the obvious humbug mixed with it, which, at the same time, my reason does not overestimate.
1 On November 15 Sidgwick wrote to Myers about this on a post-card : "The high- souled merchant has responded in a high-souled manner: we are now in the category of irbcov " [how much]. The circular here men- tioned was one signed by Miss Clough, and largely quoted from on pp. 158-60 of the Memoir of Miss Clough already referred to.
1873, AGE 35 HENEY SIDGWICK 285
John King l is an old friend, but as he always came into the dark and talked at random, our friendship refrigerated. Still I shall be glad to accompany you on any favourable opportunity. . . .
This is the first reference we have to co-operation in psychical research between Sidgwick and Myers, though Myers seems to have determined to undertake the investigation, and, if possible, along with Sidgwick, in consequence of a conversation with him in 1869, when, as he tells us in his address In Memory of Henri/ Sidgwick, from which we have already quoted : —
In a star-light walk which I shall not forget (December 3, 1869), I asked him, almost with trembling, whether he thought that when Tradition, Intuition, Metaphysic, had failed to solve the riddle of the Universe, there was still a chance that from any actual observable phenomena — ghosts, spirits, whatsoever there might be — some valid knowledge might be drawn as to a World Unseen. Already, it seemed, he had thought that this was possible ; steadily, though in no sanguine fashion, he indicated some last grounds of hope ; and from that night onwards I resolved to pursue this quest, if it might be, at his side.
To his Mother on November 4
It is quite true that I ought to have written long ago, but I have been much engaged in that part of my time that goes to writing letters — with various correspondence con- nected with the lectures for women. We have just set the scheme on a new footing — " broader basis " we call it — by constructing an Association to which any one may belong. (You will be a member if you will continue paying your guinea subscription.) This entails much letter-writing, and I am secretary also of two or three other societies, etc. . . . I am very well, and am quite of opinion that it is my own fault if I am not in first-rate spirits.
The following letter refers to the end of the long
o o
1 A soi-disant spirit.
286 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
Rugby crisis. The school had been steadily decreas- ing : the governing body had reinstated one of the masters whom Dr. Hayman had dismissed, and it was generally felt that their patience would soon be exhausted. The last straw was the unauthorised dismissal of Arthur Sidgwick, who was leaving at Christmas. In December the Headmaster himself was dismissed. The ' uncertainty ' Sidgwick speaks of concerned his brother's position, as he was to be married at the end of the year, and it was not at all clear whether he would be reappointed.
To his Mother from London, December 20
You see that all is over, and as well as could be expected. It is vexatious that everything should be so uncertain about Arthur, but all things human are mixed. It is rumoured that H. H. means to resist, but Bowen says that he will only lose his money — not a legal leg to stand on. The Times this morning is as good as could be expected, considering all things. Somehow I do not feel quite as happy as I hoped to feel ; still the relief is very great.
I am very sorry to hear about your health, but as for the journey,1 I have been for some time afraid of it on your account, and therefore am really somewhat relieved at its being given up. . . .
You never answered my letter about our Association, but it does not matter ; it was a piece of business of the enduring and patient kind.
To H. G. Dakyns, February 18*74 (who had asked him to be godfather to his son)
I can't, for the same reason as Johnnie [J. A. Symonds], and also that I refused a similar request of William's. I am nothing if not veracious : though I by no means wish to say that I should not have my own children baptized : I have never fully considered the matter. But I cannot take the Creed into my mouth. I am very sorry to refuse. I might 1 To the Riviera ; Sidgwick was to have taken her out.
1874, AGE 35 HENEY SIDGWICK 287
add that I sincerely hope that the child may imbibe a very different spirit from mine, but this is not my motive in declining.
My book drags on, but I think it will be done in a way by Easter, thrown aside for the May term, and then revised in June, and published in the autumn. At least I hope for this. It bores me very much, and I want to get it off my hands before it makes me quite ill.
This disgust with a book in its last stages towards completion is probably common with authors. Cer- tainly it attacked Sidgwick in the case of every book he wrote, and was not unnaturally accompanied by painful depression.
He writes to F. Myers on February 17 from Cambridge, arranging for joint entertainment of the Frederick Harrisons, Charles Bowens, and others, and continues :—
For myself I am in gloom and inertia. . . . Life still amuses me — " Eideamus igitur homines dum sumus."
There are several good comic points about the Conserva- tive reaction : 1 Hans Gladstone led a Barty, vere ish dat Barty now ?
To his Mother from Cambridge on March 28
I have at length decided with much regret that I cannot leave Cambridge this vacation, being too busy. I meant to have come down to you, but Providence has ordered other- wise, as follows. About a fortnight ago I had a bad attack of indigestion ; I was just trying to finish a piece of work on which I am engaged ; I gave it up and took a holiday — except, of course, for my routine business. I thus gradually got better, but did not like to resolve to spend the vacation in work without seeing a doctor. Therefore being forced to go to London on the business of Miss Clough's new house, I took the opportunity of seeing Gladstone's physician, Dr. Andrew Clark, who is said to be a very good man especially
1 Gladstone had unexpectedly dissolved Parliament in January 1874, and the Conservatives had been returned with a majority of about fifty.
288 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
for the dyspepsias etc. etc. of Students. . . . He put me on rather a strict diet, but said that I might go back to Cambridge and work. I tell you all this that you may not be anxious about my health. I hope to have a really good holiday in the Long Vacation some time.
This was probably the occasion on which, Dr. Andrew Clark having recommended riding, Sidgwick asked whether running would not do as well. The doctor, smiling, assented, and for years afterwards Sidgwick generally took his exercise in the form of gentle running combined with walking. Many will remember his habit of running in the streets and roads of Cambridge.
The investigation of spiritualism had been going on to some extent during these months, but in May Myers seems to have proposed something more systematic and persistent — in fact, a sort of informal association for the purpose, with a common fund.1 Sidgwick writes to him from Cambridge on May 18 : —
Gurney, as at present advised, will give us — his warmest sympathies (but no more), in spiritualistic investigation.
For myself I am minded to take the plunge : but I feel that it is ' a long row to hoe/ and want a few days' con- sideration, which the uncertainty of hay fever conveniently gives. . . .
A few days later he writes : —
As to sp-r-ts, please do what seems good in your eyes, and count on me to co-operate.
It is interesting to find that Edmund Gurney, who soon after became, and remained to the end of his life, one of the most important collaborators in the movement, hesitated at first about joining in it. The phenomena occurring in the presence of mediums,
1 This was not the Society for Psychical Research, which was not founded till 1882.
1874, AGE 36 HENKY SIDGWICK 289
and alleged to be inexplicable by known physical laws, had been brought prominently to the notice of the educated world at this time by the investigations of Mr. (now Sir William) Crookes. These he had described in articles published in the Quarterly Journal of Science and elsewhere in 1871, and in further articles in this year (1874), and the interest thus aroused had been further stimulated by an article by Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace, called " A Defence of Modern Spiritualism/' which appeared in the Fortnightly Review during this year. Sidg- wick and Myers, therefore, found others ready to join, more or less thoroughly, in the investigation, among them Lord Rayleigh and Mr. A. J. Balfour, both of whom had sittings for investigation in their own houses. We do not propose to go into the details of the investigations carried out by the group, as these are sufficiently dealt with in papers published later in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research ; but this much of explanation seems required to make clear some of the letters that follow.
To F. Myers
I will send a line again when there is really anything
to say.
Griefs, joys in Time's strange dance
Interchangeably advance,
also an immense amount of business mixed in, which the poets do not recognise, but which is perhaps useful as a diluent.
To F. Myers in June
Please don't plague yourself about lodgings [for spiritual- istic experiments], and remember that I am after all a Philosopher. I chiefly wanted to impress on you that my usual anxiety to save an honest sixpence quite gives way at this season of the year to my anxiety to sleep ; if I cannot secure some of the silence that ought to be in the Starry Sky, I generally find that the sleep I want is
u
290 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
(probably) among the Lonely Hills.1 I will not fail on Wednesday at 2.30.
To his Mother from Cambridge, July 1
I am here again, reading in a lazy way, and taking a little real holiday. I find I cannot take holiday in London: it is too exciting. I feel myself in no danger of working too hard, as I enjoy immensely the sense of leisureliness that the Long Vacation gives : but I want to get through one or two bits of work, and feel no need of change. Indeed one of the puzzling things to me is to conceive how human beings whose lot is cast in such an age as this can want " change." I seem to get more variety than is good for my brain every day of my life. Change ! What I want is uniformity. ... I have been investigating " Spiritualism " ; are you interested ?
To his Mother (who was staying at Exeter with Bishop Temple) from London, July 11
I would have written to you before, but I have un- fortunately nothing to communicate on the interesting subject of Spiritualism — in fact, I find that I must give up the subject for the present, as I am behindhand with my work. I hope, however, to take it up again at some future time. It is certainly a most perplexing subject. There is so much crass imposture and foolish credulity mixed up with it, that I am not at all surprised at men of science declining to have anything to do with it. On the other hand, no one who has not read Crookes's articles in the Quarterly Journal of Science, or some similar statement, has any idea of the weight of the evidence in favour of the phenomena. As a friend of mine (who is a disbeliever) says : " There are only three alternatives — Crookes is either affirming a tissue of purposeless lies, or a monomaniac, or the phenomena are true," and we seem to me to be driven to one of these conclusions. And then there is the startling fact that while all this is going on Crookes is exhibiting 1 Cf. Wordsworth, "Brougham Castle."
1874, AGE 36 HENKY SIDGWICK 291
before the Koyal Society experiments of novel and great interest on the motive force of heat. Altogether I am surprised that the thing is not attracting more attention. We have had tremendous heat in London, which has made me almost unable to work ; I am now going back to Cambridge for a few days to finish my book, which I shall put into the printer's hands (I hope) before very long. It is a book too technical to give me any general reputation ; indeed it can scarcely be said to belong to Literature, but I hope it will at least show that I am not altogether idle — as most of us academic residents are supposed to be. I shall be very glad to have it done, as then I shall be able to have a little real rest.
... If you say anything to the Bishop about Spiritualism, please say that no one should pronounce on the primd facie case for serious investigation — this is really all that I main- tain on behalf of Spiritualism — who has not read Crookes's Researches.
I am going to the Lakes in August.
To F. Myers from Eton (undated)
1 go to London again on Monday ; probably not to Cambridge till Thursday or Friday, when I shall have to see Clay about my book. Macmillan has taken it on half profits, in so cordial and confiding a manner that I feel ashamed of having taken him in. However, he is going to send the proof-sheets to John Morley, and I think I shall get something out of the latter in the way of criticism.
To F. Myers early in August
Morley has behaved beautifully, and said everything amiable about my book that veracity would permit. He has delighted me by giving exactly the view of it which I take when I am in the best humour with it. (Macmillan will no doubt take the risk now.) I should have told you when I wrote last, only I am somewhat disgusted with the philoprogenitiveness of authors.
292 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
To his Mother from The Chancery, Lincoln (the new residence of his sister and brother-in-law}, September 9
I do not know how I have come to be so long without writing to you — chiefly, I think, from a sense of incomplete- ness about my life lately, which has led me to defer saying anything "just a few days longer" in order that I might have something to tell. But I feel that it is time to give a sort of account of myself. I may consider my life in three aspects — to use the style of an author — first, the business connected with my book ; secondly, my inquiry into Spiritualism ; and thirdly, the holiday-making which may be supposed to be the proper business of the month of August.
I forget whether I told you that Macmillan had agreed to take the risk of my book, and to give me half profits, in case there should be any — which is, however, highly im- probable. This affair took a considerable number of days to settle, partly owing to scruples of my own ; for, as the book is written in a rather obscure and technical style, intended primarily for students, I was afraid that it was really unfair on Macmillan to ask him to take the risk. So I urged him to show a portion of the MS. to Mr. John Morley, the editor of the Fortnightly Review, which he accordingly did. To my great satisfaction, Morley reported tolerably favourably, and said that the work ought to excite a fair amount of interest and pay its expenses. So we settled the pecuniary part of the transaction : and what- ever else happens I shall not be out of pocket in con- sequence of my desire to instruct mankind. Since then I have been correcting proof-sheets ; about a fourth is already printed, and I am in hopes of getting it out before Christmas. I have to work steadily at the proofs and the MS., but not hard ; I have plenty of time to spare and have been giving some of this to Spiritualism, though as yet without any conclusive or particularly interesting results. I went to stay with Lord Rayleigh early in August to meet Mrs. Jencken, one of the original Fox girls, in connection with
1874, AGE 36 HENKY SIDGWICK 293
whom these singular phenomena first attracted attention in America in 1848. We heard abundance of " raps," but the particular experiment that we were trying did not succeed. I shall probably go there again in a day or two to try it again. After leaving Eayleigh I went to Hallsteads,1 where I have been spending a fortnight that ended last Monday. Many remarkable phenomena had occurred there before I arrived, which were all the more interesting because there was no public medium; for example, a table was raised from the ground while all the hands of those who sat near it were laid on the table, etc., etc. Nothing, however, happened while I was there that is worth narrating.
Hallsteads is a charming place, and I enjoyed my stay there very much. Here all are well, Mary apparently very well ; the boys,2 of course, in excellent spirits. I enjoy the old house much.
To Rode.ii Noel from Cambridge on October 6
As for me, I am almost entirely absorbed now between my book, my lectures, the education of women, and — Bogies, as Sidney Colvin calls them. I have now gone in for the investigation of Spiritualism in real earnest : not (so far) with much result of a kind interesting to outsiders : but to me the interest of the inquiry grows with every step. Meanwhile supplying copy and correcting proof-sheets fill up my time. I have read nothing all the Long except [Swinburne's] Both/well, which I don't like — in spite of John Morley, who certainly says what can be said for it effectively and honestly (this month's Macmillan). But it is, on the whole, a mass of uninspired verbosity.
To his Mother from Cambridge, October 24
I was very nearly coming to Oxford 3 at the beginning of the term, only I was prevented just at the last moment by
1 See p. 250, footnote.
2 Martin and Arthur Benson, who had just got scholarships at Winchester and Eton respectively.
3 Mrs. Sidgwick was now living at Oxford, having given up her house at Rugby to the Arthur Sidgwicks.
294 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
business here. The Education of Women (in its present Cambridge phase) hampers my movements somewhat more than would otherwise be the case. . . .
As for my Spiritualistic inquiries, I am sorry to say that there is not really anything to tell about them ! If an Outsider asks me as to results, I always say that I have received extraordinarily strong testimony to some very remarkable Phenomena, but that they seem to me still to " require confirmation " — really the testimony is almost irresistible. I believe the young men here — I mean the thoughtful set — are beginning to be very much interested in it. Certainly we live in a strange age.
To F. Myers
... I confess I do not quite like what you tell me of Mrs. Fay [a medium]. Why does she keep changing her ground ? ... It becomes less and less possible to narrate her behaviour to me in such a way as to make it seem unsuspicious to outsiders. So I feel that I must for the present drop both her and Mrs. Jencken out of my " case for Spiritualism," and am vexed at being thrown back in this way.
What induces me — not to abandon but — to restrict my spiritualistic investigations is not their disagreeableness (they have never been other than disagreeable as far as paid mediums are concerned), but their persistent and singular frustration. However, I find my interest in the subject is still too intense to allow me to suspend operations just yet, so I mean to have some more seances with Herne in December, and will join with you in the negotiations with Newcastle.
These negotiations with Newcastle-on-Tyne, where there was a flourishing society of spiritualists, con- cerned the investigation of certain mediums there, and resulted in visits to Newcastle in January and in March 1875, and to the mediums being brought to Cambridge and to London at different times in the spring and summer.
1875, AGE 36 HENKY SIDGWICK 295
Sidg wick's book, The Methods of Ethics, was published in December 1874. In January 1875 he wrote at Newcastle the following fragment of a letter to C. H. Pearson, unfinished and unsent, but some- how accidently preserved.
I meant to answer your letter long ago : but before you get this you will, I trust, have received a sort of excuse for my delay in the form of my book — which I may as well say at once I don't expect any of my friends to read : the less because it is essentially an attempt to introduce precision of thought into a subject usually treated in a too loose and popular way, and therefore I feel cannot fail to be some- what dry and repellent. However, it is a great comfort to have got it out. I am now waiting tranquilly till the very limited public to whom it is addressed has sufficiently digested it to express some views about it.
When we heard that you were, after all, to leave the free life of the bush,1 we could not help wishing that you had stayed in Cambridge, where the reconstructed Historical Tripos is manifesting considerable vitality. I think I told you that we had separated History from Law and ballasted it with Political Philosophy and Economy and International Law in order to make the course a better training for the reasoning Faculties — in fact, to some extent carried out Seeley's idea of identifying History and Politics. Historical fanatics think that we have spoilt the pure element by these additions : but I feel sure that from an educational point of view there is at least much to be said for our scheme, which, however, has yet to be tested by results. Meanwhile we are in expectation of another university [commission].
To his Mother from Newcastle, March 23, 1875
I have so much correspondence in connection with the various schemes in which I am involved, that I have almost given up all other letter- writing ! This must not be, however.
1 To become lecturer on Modern History at Melbourne University.
296 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
You are right in guessing that nothing is so interesting to me to hear about as my book ! I suppose every author is the same in this respect. The review in the Spectator is quite satisfying to my vanity, and is certainly able, but it does not seem to me very satisfactory in other ways — that is, I do not feel that the author has really apprehended the drift of my argument, on the whole, and I am not surprised that you do not altogether follow his. The best review — or at least the one most gratifying to the author — is that by Sully in the Examiner, to which Arthur refers. But there has been no hostile review, and I suppose my book may be now said to have had what the French call a succte d'estime of a very mild kind. I do not feel that it deserved anything more : and it is an unceasing satisfaction to me to have actually written it ! I shall not trouble the public with another very soon — probably in about three or four years. But whenever the time comes to write it, I shall do the work with more ease and confidence than this last, and therefore I hope better : I only hope the sale will have been good enough to induce Macmillan to run the risk of another. As for my " investigation " it is hardly worth while saying anything about it as yet. The phenomena we have witnessed [with the mediums at Newcastle] are very extraordinary, and the tests that we have applied have so far failed to indicate any imposture on the part of the mediums : but we hope to be able to apply stricter tests when the mediums come to London, which will be in a few days.
The book has had a good deal more than the succes d'estime he here claims for it. It is now in its sixth edition. It is read in America and Germany (where there has been more than one proposal to translate it), as well as England, and in 1898 it was translated into Japanese and widely sold in Japan.
To F. Myers about the end of March Wedgwood a is sincerely concerned about our proposed seances at Cambridge. He thinks the Master would be
1 Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood, who was much interested in the investigation.
1876, AGE 37 HENKY SIDGWICK 297
sustained by public opinion if he dismissed me ! So there is yet a chance of one's posing as Galileo. What delight !
To his Mother from Cambridge on April 1 3
I am very busy in various ways. We are still occupied with the investigation of Spiritualism, and do not quite see our way to getting it finished. It takes a great deal of time, but the interest of it does not abate.
To Roden Noel, May 1
... I am absorbed in business and have no time for Literature, but I am cursing and swearing, at spare moments, over Browning's last [" The Inn Album "].
To F. Myers from Cambridge, May 25
Lots of applications for admission [to seances with the Xewcastle mediums] — indeed I believe people are beginning to think it is a part of the Cambridge Festivities, and want to know who gives tickets.
Sidgwick presided at the ' Apostles' ' dinner at Richmond this year, and afterwards went to Broad- stairs, where he stayed in the same house as his sister-in-law, Mrs. William Sidgwick.
To his Mother from Broadstairs, June 26
You will be glad to hear that my book has sold as well as Macmillan at all expected : that is, he now feels pretty secure that it will all go off some time or other, and thinks it may be worth while to have a second edition. About 700 copies have been disposed of, out of the thousand that he printed. Altogether I think he will look favourably on any other offer I may make to him in future years, which is the important point. He says that about 250 copies have gone to the United States, and one result turned up the other day in the enclosed card, left at my rooms in my absence. I send it as evidence that my fame is More Than European !
298 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
To If. G. Dakyns from Broadstairs, June 27
I am here with-my sister-in-law (William's wife) and her little boy [Nevil], who is a jolly little boy. I am languid and hay-feverish and she is very good to me and makes excellent and superior conversation and salad. On July 5th I go back to London for another bout of ghosts. When your letter came I was just going in for three weeks of experiments, all of which failed, or nearly so ; the " phenomena " would not occur under the conditions we wished to impose. I do not know what to say now about the thing. . . . Really my state of mind is such as I would rather not put on paper : I feel sure there would be some misapprehension resulting. But I should like very much to talk it over at any length.
As for my other occupations, I am moderately lazy now ; I have not even planned in detail any new book. I manage to fill my time with the reading necessary for my lectures, and with my female education business. (We are just finishing our new house for the girl of the period.) Certain people have told me that the great defect of my book is non-recognition of Evolution, so I am now writing an article on Theory of Evolution in its Application to Ethics, which is to appear in a new philosophical quarterly next January.1 I do not feel now much impulse to write books, but I have a good many to write — even if I get no new insight into the secret of the Universe : so I hope impulse will return. . . .
Do come to Newcastle in August, or at least be ready to come. (We may find out the trick in July.)
To H. G. Dakyns, July 18
Those destinies which — as you explained in your penultimate letter — have mysteriously intervened to prevent your introduction to Spiritualism are still, I fear, exerting their malignant influence, and it is much more questionable than when I wrote last whether it is really worth your while to come to Newcastle. ... I am bound to tell you
1 This article on the ' ' Theory of Evolution in its Application to Practice " appeared in the first number of Mind, January 1876.
1876, AGE 37 HENRY SIDGWICK 299
that our present investigation in London . . . has as yet led to no satisfactory results. We are applying ... a test which seems to us as conclusive as any that can be devised ; we had seven seances, nearly altogether unsuccess- ful, and on Friday and Saturday last we had two which were even more suspicious in their partial success than the previously unsuccessful ones, so much so that two members of our circle have announced their intention of withdrawing, as from a proved imposture.
Before the end of the series of sittings, incidents of a still more suspicious character occurred, so that the probability of fraud became painfully heavy, and though Sidgwick went to Newcastle himself, being, as he said, " a fox who has at least half cut off his tail," he was not accompanied by Mr. Dakyns. From New- castle he went to the Lakes, where he again stayed during August of this year.
In October 1875 Sidgwick was appointed by his College Prselector of Moral and Political Philosophy. It gave him a larger income and a fixed and per- manent position. This was the more important to him as he had begun to think of marriage. The seances at Arthur Balfour's house had thrown him much into the society of his friend's sister,1 who managed his house ; and he also met her on Newnham Hall business, as she was a member of the governing body, having become interested in it through her brother, and therefore indirectly through Sidgwick. However, any thoughts in this direction were at this time locked in his own breast.
To his Mother on October 6
You will be pleased to read the enclosed.2 It means an addition of £250 a year to my income and an established position. It just comes at the time when I was beginning
1 Eleanor Mildred Balfour (Nora).
2 Doubtless the letter in which the Master of Trinity announced to him his appointment.
300 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
to feel that I should like something of the kind, if I was to stay here. As it is, I may be now considered quite fixed- here : the sense of being so is really a great relief to my mind. I will come and see you in Oxford as soon as I can. I hope, too, you will come and see me in the place which I now really feel to be home.
To his Mother on November 19
The reason why I should have been glad if you could have come to Cambridge now is that I should like you to see Newnham Hall with, so to say, the first bloom on it. The house is full, and everything is going on satisfactorily so far, and we have all of us the sense of repose and tranquil pleasure with which one reaches the top of the first stage in climbing a hill ! So it would be nice if you could come, but of course any other time will do just as well, so you will not let this trouble you. (On December 10 I go away for the vacation.)
Doubtless another reason why he wished his mother to pay this visit (which she was not able to do) was that Miss Balfour was staying with Miss Clough. They became engaged in December.
To H. G. Dakynsfrom 4 Carlton Gardens, London, December 17
I suppose you have already heard from Johnnie [Symonds] that I have a good deal to tell, which I shall be very glad to begin to tell on the 24th. I am corning to Clifton Hill House1 on the 21st or 22nd. This is her brother's house : and the last morning before she goes to Paris for a week. So ,1 am temporarily not in the humour for analysis : but shall be up to any amount of it when we meet.
To J. A. Symonds (a post-card), January 20, 1876
Concerning Truth [i.e. Spiritualistic investigation] we remain where we were ; we now despair of the [mediums — another set with whom investigations were going on]. . . .
1 J. A. Symonds's house.
1876, AGK 37 HENRY SIDGWICK 301
Otherwise we are happy, adinire Rip l to the full, agree in . . . views of life generally. ... I have written to take Fawcett's house [at Cambridge], whither you are to come and see us: (the drawing-room is Green and Blue with plenty of Plates).
To F. Myers on February 22
Everything is always better than it is expected to be. I wonder whether this will go on through life ! I do not see why not. It is so tranquil.
To F. Myers from Cambridge on February 2 8
We have not yet got over the shock of Lord Salisbury's speech. Whether he does not know what academic con- servatism is : whether he does not care : whether Oxford Conservatives are unlike Cambridge ones, I cannot make out just yet, and have nothing to do but suppress my exultation and see what turns up.2
To F. Myers from Cambridge, on March 1
I am very sorry to hear of your anxieties. I feel like Gideon's fleece with the rain of misfortune falling round me — indeed I have done so, as you know, ever since my happiness began. My mother is ill and depressed, partly by loneliness, . . . while I cannot but feel myself in the Garden of Eden 3 every week from Wednesday to Saturday (don't tell any one that I get away for so long).
To Eoden Noel from Terling Place on March 23
I look forward to your present, for which many thanks. I feel exalted on a tide of affluence, due to the goodwill of
1 Rip van Winkle, a play which was having a great run at that time.
2 A speech made in introducing a Bill to establish a statutory Commission for reorganising the University and Colleges of Oxford on the general lines desired by Cambridge Liberals. An article by Sidgwick on this question of reorganisation, entitled "Idle Fellowships," was published in the Con- temporary Review for April 1876, and has been reprinted in Miscellaneous Essays and Addresses.
s Miss Balfour was staying with her sister Lady Rayleigh at Terling Place, in Essex.
302 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, iv
my friends. Will you come to my wedding ? that is, if you are in town, for I don't think such a ceremony worth the effort of a journey ! I shall send you and Mrs. Noel a formal invitation, and if you can, it will be an addition to my pleasure (or an alleviation of my pain). But it is more important that you should come and stay with us in Cam- bridge as soon as we are in a position to be hospitable.
I liked your poem very much, though it is very little suited to my mood, the characteristic of which is a sense of security and serenity in the enjoyment of this new sweet- ness of life. When you know my wife you will understand this. But I thought it a very pretty lyric, and I should have written to tell you so had I not been in an exception- ally migratory, affair^, forgetful condition.
P.S. — I omitted to say that I am to be married on April 4, at St. James's Church, Piccadilly, from 4 Carlton Gardens.
<"//•//
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or in the men who came to ut they
mark steps in the recognition by th< and
•f his position in h
ses in Moral -
.
CHAPTER V
1876-1883
THE beginning of this chapter, which is to deal with the period between Sidgwick's appointment as Prae- lector in Moral and Political Sciences at Trinity College and his election in 1883 to the chair of Moral Philo- sophy in the University, is a fitting place for saying something of him as a teacher. Not that either appointment made any important difference in the subjects he taught, or in his method of teaching them, or in the men who came to his lectures ; but they mark steps in the recognition by the College and University of his position in his chosen work.
Sidgwick's classes in Moral Sciences were never large. The moral sciences l are studied at Cambridge as a course for a degree by themselves. They have, therefore, to compete with the prestige of the older subjects of classics and mathematics, and with the more obvious professional utility of these and other subjects, such as theology, science, and engineering. Moreover, the study of the moral sciences does not suggest itself as a definite preparation for any profession but that of teaching them, and, as a matter of fact, a large proportion of the men who have obtained a first-class in the Moral Sciences
1 Including at this time Logic, Psychology, Ethics, Metaphysics, Political Economy, and Politics ; in 1903 the two last-named subjects were divided off to form a new Tripos.
303
304 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP.
Tripos at Cambridge do hold, or have held, professor- ships and lectureships in moral sciences in the various universities and university colleges of Great Britain. But apart from the effect of such practical considera- tions, the nature of Sidgwick's philosophical teaching was not of a kind likely to draw large classes. He did not teach as a prophet, and he required of his pupils hard thought, without promising them that this would result in any revelation of the secret of the universe. He believed that search for philosophic truth, theoretical and practical, was one of the most important objects to which the human mind could be devoted, he was hopeful of ultimate results from that devotion, and desired that some of the best thought of the age should be employed in the quest ; but he also believed that those who could hope to advance the study of philosophy, or even could profit by the study, were few, and often expressed the view that students who could only hope to attain a third class in the Moral Sciences Tripos probably made a mistake in taking up the subject at all. A teacher in this frame of mind would naturally not expect to draw large classes. For some account of his effect as a teacher we may best turn to his pupils, and no one has described it more eloquently than Professor Maitland. Speaking after Sidgwick's death, at a meeting held at Cambridge on November 26, 1900, for promoting a memorial to him,1 he said : —
It is not perhaps uncommon that pupils should speak of their master, especially when they have lately lost him, in words which to them seem the barest truth, though they will seem somewhat extravagant to other people. I believe that this is not uncommon ; I hope that it will never be uncommon. Were it otherwise, this world would be a poor place in which to teach or in which to learn. Still it seems natural and right that something should be said this after-
1 See University Reporter.
v HENRY SIDGWICK 305
noon by some of Sidgwick's pupils; though, if I may interpret their thoughts and feelings, they would much rather speak of him among themselves than attempt to speak of him in public. As you all know, they were never very many. The growth in Cambridge of new studies, scientific and historical, of all sorts and kinds — a growth in which Sidgwick himself was keenly interested and which he fostered, not only by generous gifts of money, but by a still more generous devotion of his time and thought, his counsel and his fore- sight— this growth drew away hearers from his lecture-room and left the school of moral sciences, a school that was small in numbers. Small, but I will not say weak. When I look round this room, when I think how many of the men who are teaching philosophy or moral science in Cambridge and elsewhere were Sidgwick's pupils, when I think of the names of the men who of late years have been writing books on these subjects, then, without pretending to be their judge, I feel safe in saying that within the field that was most properly his own Sidgwick's work has borne excellent fruit. But all that should be said about this matter might be much better said by others, if only they would speak. My few words will try to express the opinion of some of Sidgwick's pupils who, for one reason or another, were not fitted or were not destined to be philosophers.
It is now thirty years ago since some chance — I think it was the idle whim of an idle undergraduate — took me to Sidgwick's lecture-room, there to find teaching the like of which had never come in my way before. There is very much else to be said of Sidgwick ; some part of it has been beautifully said this afternoon; but I should like to add this : I believe that he was a supremely great teacher. In the first place, I remember the admirable patience which could never be outworn by stupidity, and which nothing but pretentiousness could disturb. Then there was the sympathetic and kindly endeavour to overcome our shyness, to make us talk, and to make us think. Then there was that marked dislike for any mere reproduction of his own opinions, which made it impossible for Sidgwick to be in
x
306 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP.
the bad sense the founder of a school. I sometimes think that the one and only prejudice that Sidgwick had was a prejudice against his own results. All this was far more impressive and far more inspiriting to us than any dogmatism could have been. Then the freest and boldest thinking was set forth in words which seemed to carry candour and sobriety and circumspection to their furthest limit. It has been said already this afternoon, but I will say it again ; I believe that no more truthful man than Sidgwick ever lived. I am speaking of a rare intellectual virtue. However small the class might be, Sidgwick always gave us his very best ; not what might be good enough for undergraduates, or what might serve for temporary purposes, but the complex truth, just as he saw it, with all those reservations and qualifications, exceptions and distinctions which suggested themselves to a mind that was indeed marvellously subtle, but was showing us its wonderful power simply because even in a lecture- room it could be content with nothing less than the maximum of attainable and communicable truth. Then, as the terms went by, we came to think of lecture time as the best time that we had in Cambridge ; and some of us, looking back now, can say that it was in a very true sense the best time that we have had in our lives. We turned away to other studies or pursuits, but the memories of Sidgwick's lectures lived on. The matter of the lectures, the theories and the arguments, might be forgotten ; but the method remained, the spirit remained, as an ideal — an unattainable ideal, perhaps, but a model of perfect work. I know that in this matter I can speak for others ; but just one word of my own case. For ten years and more I hardly saw Sidgwick. To meet him was a rare event, a rare delight. But there he always was : the critic and judge of any work that I might be doing : a master, who, however forbearing he might be towards others, always exacted from himself the utmost truthfulness of which word and thought are capable. Well, I think it no bad thing that young men should go away from Cambridge with such a master as that in their minds, even though in a given case little may come of the
v HENRY SIDGWICK 307
teaching. Then some years later Sidgwick was finding money for a Eeadership in English law, and I was back in Cambridge as his colleague. Then I often met him at Boards and Councils, sometimes to agree and sometimes to disagree ; but that old sense of his mastership, his mastery, never faded ; it was as strong as ever until the last moment when he said, Good-bye.
I can say no more. Perhaps I have already tried to say too much. We who were, we who are, Sidgwick's pupils need no memorial of him. We cannot forget. Only in some way or another we would bear some poor testimony of our gratitude and our admiration, our reverence and our love.
And the opinions expressed by other pupils cor- roborate what Professor Maitland says. Dr. Keynes, who was not only a pupil of Sidgwick's but after- wards his colleague in the teaching of moral sciences, describes his methods in greater detail in the Economic Journal of December 1900 : —
As a lecturer he showed the same critical power and faculty of close reasoning and impartial analysis which distinguish his published works. He never indulged in irrelevant digressions or introduced merely rhetorical passages, and sustained attention on the part of his hearers was required throughout. Those, however, who gave the necessary attention were more than repaid by the exact insight and the abundant material for subsequent reflection that they gained. In the discussion classes that he held, and in individual interviews, his pupils came more directly under his personal influence ; and that influence was inspiring and enduring. He was of course not a dogmatic teacher, and his pupils were not aroused to enthusiasm for any set of dogmas of which they might feel it their duty to be the propagandists ; but he inspired in them a genuine love of truth, he cultivated a disposition of fairness towards oppon- ents, and he fostered a habit of intellectual sincerity and thoroughness. In dealing with the exercises submitted to him for criticism he was always quick to perceive and ready
308 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP.
to enter into the point of view of the writer, and he sought to encourage independent thought. He was at the same time relentless in laying bare inconsistency and slovenliness of thought ; and in his power of supplying a discipline in clear unprejudiced thinking he was unrivalled. He had a remarkable power of putting searching questions after the Socratic manner ; his questions often appeared simple enough on the surface, but they would nevertheless lead unerringly to the exposure of any underlying confusion. Many of his most brilliant pupils differ widely from one another in the philosophic doctrines to which they now adhere, but as regards the intellectual stimulus and insight which they derived from his teaching, there is little doubt but that they would be in agreement.
" I think our [his pupils'] admiration of him so grew into affection that it is difficult to say how much he was to us as a guide in the intellectual life and as a wise counsellor," writes his successor, Pro- fessor Sorley, in a private letter ; and in the Inter- national Journal of Ethics for January 1901 he says : —
If the Moral Sciences Tripos has a position in the esti- mation of university and college authorities far higher than the mere number of its students can account for, this position is largely due to the influence of Sidgwick, to his care in organising the philosophical teaching, to his own untiring zeal as a lecturer, and to the distinction which his reputation gave to the department of which he was the chief representative. Sidgwick exerted a powerful influence, both intellectual and moral, upon his pupils. But his tem- perament was too critical, his intellect too evenly balanced, to admit of his teaching a dogmatic system. . . . What he taught was much more a method, an attitude of mind ; and his teaching was a training in the philosophical temper — in candour, self-criticism, and regard for truth. . . . Upon those who could receive it, his teaching had a finer effect than enthusiasm for any set of beliefs ; it communi-
v HENRY SLDGWICK 309
cated an enthusiasm for truth itself : the rigour of self- criticism as well as the ardour of inquiry. Severely intellectual in his method of instruction, if his teaching was touched by emotion at all, it was the amor intdlectvalis veritatis that inspired it.
Mr. Arthur Balfour writes : —
My sister, Mrs. Sidgwick, has asked me, as one of the earliest of Henry Sidgwick's pupils in philosophy, to supple- ment from my personal recollection what has been so excellently said by Professor Maitland and others who came somewhat later into contact with him as a teacher. In truth, however, I have little to add to their statements, and nothing to correct in them. If my case in any way differs from theirs, it is chiefly because circumstances gave me informal opportunities of profiting by Sidgwick's society, which could scarcely fall to the lot of any undergraduates but those who happened, like myself, to be " fellow-com- moners," and as such to be possessed of privileges which gave them exceptional chances of social intercourse with the older members of the College.
I came up from Eton to Cambridge in 1866 with no Academic ambitions, but with the highest expectations as to the gratifications which Academic life had to offer, both in the way of ideas and in the way of amusements. That these expectations, so far as the first head is concerned, were in no wise disappointed was largely due to Sidgwick. My philosophic equipment when I first became his pupil was but slender — being, indeed, little more than what I had acquired at Eton for my own entertainment. Nor did I find it easy to increase this modest stock of learning by attendance at ordinary lectures, which others besides myself have found a somewhat irksome and ineffectual means of increasing knowledge. Few teachers would, in these cir- cumstances, have taken either much trouble or the right kind of trouble with so unsatisfactory a pupil, and certainly any teacher would have been justified in leaving me to my own devices. Fortunately for me Henry Sidgwick took a
310 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP.
more tolerant view. In addition to his other lectures he had at that time a small class for those specially interested in the metaphysical side of the " moral sciences " Tripos, a class so small indeed that it consisted, if 1 remember right, only of one other student besides myself. We met in Sidg- wick's own rooms. The teaching was largely in the nature of conversational discussion ; and though I cannot, at this distance of time, recall it in detail, I retain a vivid recollec- tion of the zest with which these hours were enjoyed.
This was partly due to the method which Sidgwick adopted. In the first place we were allowed to forget that we were preparing for an examination, an oblivion which may or may not be desirable in other branches of study, but is almost essential if the pleasures of speculation are to be enjoyed without alloy.
In the second place he did not unduly force upon us the historic method of studying philosophy. The history of thought is doubtless of the first importance to the philo- sopher as well as the historian, but its importance is secondary and derivative. Nor is it likely to be fully appreciated by the youthful student. To him the subtleties of metaphysics are mere weariness unless the problems he is asked to consider are problems which he wants to solve. What some eminent person thought two hundred or two thousand years ago, and why he thought it, are matters which seem of small moment unless and until their bearing on the questions which call for an answer to-day becomes more or less apparent. This, at least, was my own feeling at the time ; and either because he agreed with the sentiment or because he thought it wise to take account of it in deal- ing with1 his juniors, Sidgwick never drove us into those arid regions of speculation where, to the modern mind, the arguments seem without cogency and the conclusions with- out interest.
I greatly regret that at this distance of time I am not able to give the precise details of his method of teaching. This is partly due to a very defective memory, but partly also to the fact that the relation of tutor and pupil rapidly
v HENEY SIDGWICK 311
ripened into a warm personal friendship ; and I find it quite impossible to disentangle the impressions he left on me, and to assign some to official teaching, others to private conver- sation. But this is, I think, in itself a high tribute to his qualities as a teacher. What most people want in order to do their best is recognition ; and the kind of recognition from a distinguished man of eight-and-twenty which is most valued by a boy of eighteen is the admission that his difficulties are worth solving, his objections worth answer- ing, his arguments worth weighing. This form of convey- ing encouragement came naturally to Sidgwick. Of all the men I have known he was the readiest to consider every controversy and every controversialist on their merits. He never claimed authority ; he never sought to impose his views ; he never argued for victory ; he never evaded an issue. Whether these are the qualities which best fit their possessor to found a " school " may well be doubted. But there can be no doubt whatever that they contributed to give Sidgwick a most potent and memorable influence, not so much over the opinions as over the intellectual develop- ment of any who had the good fortune to be associated with him, whether as pupil or as friend. I was doubly happy in that I was both.
The following letter, written to Sidgwick by a pupil contemporary with Arthur Balfour, must have given him pleasure since it has been preserved : —
TRIN. HALL, Thursday Night.
DEAR SIR — I once had the privilege of attending a course of your lectures in Trinity, and if you have any recollection of me at all I fear it must be of me as a man who was very little the better for the pains you took. But I never have forgotten, and never shall forget, the kind interest you showed in my work and the unsparing trouble you gave to it ; and I cannot go down without expressing to you — if you will permit me to do so — my gratitude for the interest you showed in me. It was quite a fresh experience to me to find any one who could show a sympathetic
312 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP.
interest in one's work, and being such, it has made an impression on me which I am not likely to forget. I beg you will pardon me if I do a very unusual thing in thus addressing you ; but I should wish you to believe that even the least hopeful men can sometimes appreciate and, I trust, be better for the attention and interest bestowed upon them.
Looking over exercises with pupils individually was an important part of his teaching, and Miss Alice Gardner, writing about this, refers to the seriousness with which he took — to use her own words —
the expression of our difficulties, and how he treated our remarks as respectfully as if they had been made by some eminent critic. One felt that, however wide the difference between one's own mind and his might be, he regarded each one of us as, in a sense, a fellow-seeker after truth and clearness ; and the feeling brought stimulus and hope.
In the latter part of his life he sometimes com- plained that he had become weary of the continual effort to clear the confused ideas of beginners — to scrub the brains of undergraduates, as he sometimes expressed it. And possibly his teaching was not well suited to the stupider sort of pupil. An anonym- ous writer in the Cambridge Letter (1900) of the Newnham College Club1 says in the course of an interesting article :—
The rigid attention necessary to follow him in lecture some found almost too great a strain, and he indulged in no rhetoric to lessen it. ... He always aimed at getting into close quarters with the minds of those whom he taught, and when he succeeded the gain to the learner was im- measurable. But crude and unformed minds scarcely offered him grappling ground. Pupils have been heard to complain that he could understand and sympathise with almost every mental state except those most prevalent ones of blankness
1 Printed for private circulation. This article was, we believe, the joint production of more than one pupil, afterwards members of the staff of Newnham College.
v HEKRY SIDGWICK 313
and confusion. The mind of the average learner was a blunter instrument almost than he could conceive.
His teaching was not, of course, limited to the subjects included in the Moral Sciences Tripos. As we have seen, he taught classics during the first eight years after he took his degree. Mr. William Everett of Massachusetts, his earliest, or one of his earliest, pupils, writes : —
I entered Trinity the day I was twenty years old [Sidg- wick himself being twenty-one], and almost immediately made arrangements for being his private pupil, the first, I think, he ever had. From that day to this he has occupied a position in my life absolutely unlike any other man's. To say that I admired his talents and enjoyed his company is what so many can say that it tells nothing personal ; but he always understood me. I never needed to explain anything. . . . And every time I met him — alas ! so sadly rare in all these forty years — was as if we never parted.
He lectured in the sixties for pass-men, and used to tell a humorous story of one of these who, taking some opportunity of thanking him for his lectures, added, " They are the best I ever attended, except perhaps the lectures of Professor Kingsley ; l but then his are intended to improve the mind."
In the earlier days of Newnham College he used sometimes to give courses of lectures there on English or French literature. An old pupil, who attended a few such lectures on French literature in her first year, writes : " Even in my raw immaturity and dense ignorance I felt that that kind of teaching was an inspiration to one, and I have never for- gotten the illuminating effect they had on me." Sidgwick was an exceedingly good lecturer on literary subjects, and many will remember with pleasure the lectures which during the last twelve years of his life he occasionally gave — chiefly at
1 Charles Kingsley was Professor of Modern History from 1860 to 1869.
314 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP.
Newnham College — on Pope and Shakespeare. Some of the latter have been published in the volume of Miscellaneous Essays and Addresses. " To hear him lecture on Shakespeare," says one writer, " was one of the best of intellectual feasts." But good as the matter of these lectures was, the pleasure they gave was due yet more to his exceedingly good reading and reciting of poetry of all kinds.
Much of Sidgwick's influence as a teacher naturally depended, as will have been perceived from the opinions we have quoted, on his qualities as a man. As the late Bishop of Southampton, A. T. Lyttelton, a pupil of Sidgwick's, says in a letter written in September 1900 :—
Ever since he first taught me, nearly thirty years ago, he was a strengthening and inspiriting influence to me, in a way I hardly realised till he was taken. Not only, or per- haps chiefly, in intellectual things, but in practical matters of conduct, his wisdom, considerateness, unselfishness, and resolute impartiality were a constant help, a standard one put before oneself for guidance.
Similar expressions occur again and again in letters written about him, and to these qualities is to be attributed the extent to which his many friends 1 turned to him for help, advice, criticism of schemes or writings. To these qualities, too, we may in part attribute the personal charm which almost all who knew him well seem to have felt. It is difficult, if not impossible, to convey an impression of personal charm by writing about it — one can only state that it was there. And it is almost equally difficult to give an impression of charm of conversation. Perhaps the best we can do is to reproduce descriptions given by various friends, hoping that the picture thus pre- sented from slightly different points of view may produce the effect of a living whole.
" I do not know any one who has more friends that love him," wrote one friend.
v HENKY SIDGWICK 315
Sir Leslie Stephen, in a biographical notice of him in Mind,1 says of Sidgwick's conversation : —
The vivacity of such impressions [the flashing of some new thought upon his mind] made him one of the best of talkers. The difficulty of describing conversation is pro- verbial, and when I seek for appropriate epithets I am discouraged by the vagueness which makes them equally applicable to others. Henry Smith, for example, who often met Sidgwick at the " Ad Eundem," had an equal fame for good sayings ; and both might be credited with unfailing urbanity, humour, quickness, and other such qualities. Their styles were nevertheless entirely different, while to point out the exact nature of the difference is beyond my powers. Smith, perhaps, excelled especially in the art of concealing a keen epigram in a voice and manner of almost excessive gentleness. Sidgwick rather startled one by sudden and unexpected combinations and arch inversions of commonplace. His skill in using his stammer was often noticed. His hearers watched and waited for the coming thought which then exploded the more effectually. Sidg- wick not only conceded but eagerly promoted contributions of talk from his companions. He would wait with slightly parted lips for an answer to some inquiry, showing a keen interest which encouraged your expectation that you were about to say a good thing, and sometimes, let us hope, helped to realise the expectation. He differed from Smith — who preserved a strict reticence upon the final problems — by a readiness to discuss any question whatever, if it were welcome to his companions. He was not only perfectly frank but glad to gain enlightenment even from compara- tively commonplace minds. Johnson commended a talker who would fairly put his mind to yours. That marks one of Sidgwick's merits. He would take up any topic ; made no pretension to superiority, and was as willing to admit ignorance or error as he was always fertile in new lights. He delighted in purely literary talk ; and his criticisms
1 Mind for January 1901.
316 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP.
happily combined two often inconsistent qualities : the fresh- ness of impression which suggests a first reading of some book, with the ripeness of judgment which implies familiarity with the book and its writer.
The idea here suggested that Sidgwick used his stammer with a skill at least semi-conscious seems to have been a common one with his friends. But there was certainly no conscious skill in the matter. He regarded his stammer — which varied a good deal with his health, or at least with his freshness or fatigue — as an unmixed drawback and inconvenience, and it often worried him. We take it that the hesitation often came at the pointed word because it was the point, the desire to bring it out producing the nervous effect to which the stammer was due.
Dr. Keynes in the article in the Economic Journal from which we have already quoted says : —
It was extraordinary how illuminating he would be, whatever turn the conversation might take : on one topic after another he had something interesting to say, and what he said was always to the point and suggestive. He had an excellent memory, and there seemed to be no limit to the range of his knowledge. He was a capital story- teller: his supply of apposite stories — they were always pertinent to the previous conversation, never brought in merely for their own sake — seemed inexhaustible. And all his talk was touched by a subtle, delicate humour that added to its charm.
His manner of conversation is described as follows by his nephew, A. C. Benson : —
I always felt my uncle to be the best talker I ever met. It used to delight me, when he joined our own home-circle, where the conversation was apt to run on ecclesiastical lines, to watch the adroit and yet perfectly simple way in which he would follow technical questions, and throw a new light upon them ; but the real charm consisted in a
v HENRY SIDGWICK 317
mixture of sympathy and humility. He received — I am speaking of quite early days — one's halting contributions to a subject with a serious courtesy, and often gave the remark a deft twist which gave it a distinguished air. I used to feel his unaffected laughter, his humorous interest in any incident one told him, to be a sincere compliment. In later years I generally talked with him on literary subjects ; here his knowledge was extraordinary ; but it was accom- panied by a gentle deference that drew me to confide tastes and preferences to him in a way that I could do to but few.
The actual manner of his talk was indescribably attractive ; his gentle voice, his wise and kindly air, as he balanced arguments and statements, the gestures of his delicate hands, his lazy and contented laugh, the backward poise of his head, his updrawn eyebrows, all made it a pleasure to watch him. Yet his expression as a rule tended to be melancholy, and even wistful.
I remember once a supreme instance of his conversa- tional powers. It was at a small dinner-party ; he took in a lady whose social equipment was not great, and who was obviously ill at ease. I wondered what subject he would select. He began at once on the subject of the education of children, in the simplest way, as though he only desired information. The lady, who had a young family, became at once communicative and blithe ; and what might have been a dreary business was turned into a delightful occasion.
A point, here illustrated, that he could talk agree- ably and generally get some enjoyment for himself in conversation with almost anybody — even dull, or shy, or unpractised talkers, was very noticeable. He regarded it as a wasted opportunity if, even in a commonplace morning call, he had failed to learn some fact or get at some point of view new to him. The following passage in the Cambridge Letter, already quoted from, brings out this same point : —
In brilliant company he was naturally at his best, but
318 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP.
out of the shyest or dullest he managed to elicit something. He got the best out of people that there was. He would take up the most trivial remark, the most unpromising subject, and by an ingenious turn convert it to something of interest, so that the sorriest conversationalist would have a cheered sense of having contributed to the entertainment. " If you so much as mentioned a duster in his presence," said some one, " he would glorify it on the spot." . . . But now and again he unconsciously embarrassed random talkers with his quite serious and polite — " Now, what exactly do you mean by ? " On such occasions those who were con- scious of not having meant anything in particular did well to ... change the subject — if he would let them. For he might be so generously confident that they meant something, and so intent on his inquiry into their views that he would mercilessly corner them, and expose the nakedness of the land.
One of the most interesting descriptions of Sidg- wick's conversation is in Mr. Bryce's delightful volume of Studies in Contemporary Biography. He says : —
Sidgwick did not write swiftly or easily, because he weighed carefully everything he wrote. But his mind was alert and nimble in the highest degree. Thus he was an admirable talker, seeing in a moment the point of an argument, seizing on distinctions which others had failed to perceive, suggesting new aspects from which a question might be regarded, and enlivening every topic by a keen yet sweet and kindly wit. Wit, seldom allowed to have play in his books, was one of the characteristics which made his company charming. Its effect was heightened by a hesitation in his speech which often forced him to pause before the critical word or phrase of the sentence had been reached. When that word or phrase came, it was sure to be the right one. Though fond of arguing, he was so candid and fair, admitting all that there was in his opponent's case, and obviously trying to see the point from
v HENRY SIDGWICK 319
his opponent's side, that nobody felt annoyed at having come off second best, while everybody who cared for good talk went away feeling not only that he knew more about the matter than he did before, but that he had enjoyed an intellectual pleasure of a rare and high kind. The keenness of his penetration was not formidable, because it was joined to an indulgent judgment : the ceaseless activity of his intellect was softened rather than reduced by the gaiety of his manner. His talk was conversation, not discourse, for though he naturally became the centre of nearly every company in which he found himself, he took no more than his share. It was like the sparkling of a brook whose ripples seem to give out sunshine.
It is perhaps not inappropriate to quote here the view taken of him by one of his fellow-workers in Psychical Research — Mr. F. Podmore. After re- ferring to " that charm of humour and felicitous phrasing which made his conversation so fascinating," Mr. Podmore goes on to speak of " the impression his character made on all who knew him," and con- tinues : —
He always seemed to me one of those very rare char- acters whose insight was so pure and true, that his decision, whether in practical matters or in purely intellectual problems, would not be biassed even unconsciously by any personal preference. Great lawyers no doubt are trained to deal with one particular class of subjects in this manner. But Mr. Sidgwick's gift of clear, unbiassed vision on all questions alike has always seemed to me a very rare quality. I don't think he himself realised how rare. He often gave the rest of the world credit — undeserved credit, as I used to think — for being as disinterested in their judgments as himself.
After their marriage Sidgwick and his wife went to Paris, visiting Amiens on their way out, and Rouen, Caen, and Canterbury on the way back. At the
320 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, v
beginning of May they took up their abode at Pro- fessor and Mrs. Fawcett's house (18 Brookside) for the summer, till the house in course of building, which they had secured in the Chesterton Road (Hillside, opposite Magdalene College), should be completed and ready for them. Through the hospitality of Sidg- wick's numerous friends, the first term was much taken up with dining out, and they also had old friends to stay with them. The social charm of life at Cambridge was greatly added to by the fact that Mrs. Sidgwick had two brothers living there — Francis, a Fellow and lecturer of Trinity, and Gerald, about to become one. During the first two terms her youngest brother Eustace was also there as an undergraduate. A weekly " family dinner " soon became a regular and delightful custom, — not less pleasant when, in 1880, Lord Rayleigh was appointed to the Chair of Experi- mental Physics, and he and Lady Rayleigh (Mrs. Sidgwick's sister) joined the family party living at Cambridge.
The letters preserved are comparatively few for the period we are now dealing with, partly because Sidgwick's mother, for some time before her death in January 1879, became unable to read letters, partly because F. Myers now lived at Cambridge. Doubtless, too, as business increased, the impulse to write long letters diminished both in himself and his friends. He never really enjoyed letter -writing as he did conversation ; and in the later decades of his life he got into the habit of trying to compress letters into one side of a sheet of notepaper, which, however, with his small handwriting, left it possible to say a good deal. He would often write these brief letters holding the paper in his hand and walking about the room.
The following extracts from letters written in May 1876 refer to Mr. Oscar Browning's intention, after leaving Eton, to reside at Cambridge and teach history without any definite post : —
1876, AGK 37 HENEY SIDGWICK 321
... I do not think [the unremuneratedness of your Cambridge work] will make it less valued or less effective, if you can put your heart in it, but rather more so. I think there is a crying need here of the kind of influence over youth that you want to exercise, and that in every way there is a sphere for you here, if only you do not mind (1) absence of remuneration, and (2) being continually asked by your friends where you are and what you are doing. My own position after I gave up my Fellowship had a kind of analogy, — that is, I was only paid a very small salary, — and my friends outside found it rather hard to understand why I did not try to get something else. But my impression is that my positive relation to undergraduates was helped rather than hindered. ... I never made much use of my opportunities; but ever since 1869 I have felt that the fact that I was spending myself unreservedly in writing and teaching my subject without care for adequate remunera- tion gave me an academic position second to none in respect of opportunities. I wish I had been able to use them better.
To 0. Browning on a later occasion
One thing I can assure you — that you will gain time and energy by [withdrawal from College affairs]. I often think that if I had not resigned my Fellowship I should never have written my book.
To the Same on May 24
As to lectures, I have generally found it convenient to lecture three times a week l — that is, to meet the class as often ; but I do not give a regular lecture every time, as every now and then I occupy the hour in discussing questions that I have set, etc. On the whole, my ideal would be something like five formal lectures a fortnight, and a sixth day occupied in more informal discussion. But I still feel myself in a very tentative condition as regards lectures. I
1 This does not, of course, mean that he only lectured three times a week, but that three times a week was usually the best for one subject. He often gave two or more courses on different subjects in the same term.
Y
322 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, v
shall very likely begin a series of experiments next term, as I never feel that I have quite solved the problem of making oral instruction the right supplement to books in the present age.
This problem he never solved to his satisfaction, partly because of the difficulty of getting under- graduates to formulate their difficulties and ask questions. He discussed the subject in 1890 in an article in the New Review, called " A Lecture against Lecturing," which has been republished in the volume of Miscellaneous Essays and Addresses.
To 0. Browning from London, June 24
... I should like to talk to you about Political Philo- sophy. I am preparing myself to write " Elements of Politics," and am thinking of printing some " outlines of Politics " to use for my lectures, and also to get criticised as regards arrangement, etc., before I write my book. But of this when we meet. I am busy reading Law books now.
To his Sister from his mother's house in Oxford, undated
... I do not think that I have really anything to add to what I have said before, except to express less self-reliance. Only I do not know that it is im- portant to settle the exact amount of one's conscious need of dogmatic religion, it being undeniable that (1) it would be a great moral force and source of moral progress, and (2) that one does seem to get on without it about as well as the great mass of people who profess it, as far as one can judge from external appearances. But I think that in talking to you I laid too much stress on this latter, and not enough on the former. Whereas the truth is that the consciousness of the comparatively low moral level on which my own nature seems to keep me has often driven me to the verge of trying to alter my intellectual convic- tions : and would have driven me over the verge but for the fear that this kind of intellectual suicide might, after all,
1876, AGE 38 HENKY SIDGWICK 323
bring with it moral deterioration instead of improvement. All this, however, belongs to some time ago : of late Life has been made very smooth to me.
To his Mother from Arthur Balfour's house at Strathconan in Ross- shire (since sold) on August 24
My last letter to you was written in the early morning of our journey from Edinburgh hither, which I can hardly recall without a shudder at the heat ! This evening we have a large peat-fire, and the wind on the hills is cutting. However, I think the cold agrees with us all, and there is a great charm in this scenery and in the feeling of out- of-the-world-ness. There is not the same rich beauty as in the Cumberland scenery and the best parts of the West Highlands, but yet there is a wonderful amount of picturesqueness, and greater variety of aspects, from the changes of cloud, rain, mist, morning and evening, etc., than I have known anywhere else. The hills near range from 1500 to 2500 feet: we ascended one of the latter size a day or two ago, and had a fine geographical view from it. My brothers-in-law began to stalk deer on Monday last, and have killed four stags (red deer) but none with a really fine pair of horns — such as two which I see while I write, for stags' heads are the chief ornament of this mansion. We are now living almost entirely on the produce of the chase in various forms : we dined to-day on salmon and venison, and grouse are always on hand ! I am glad you liked those we sent you.
I have been with Nora to visit two or three people in the " Strath," one of them a woman living in almost the only remaining specimen of the stone hovels that a genera- tion ago were the ordinary houses here : things with a hole in the roof, low, queer-shaped, looking almost as if they had grown out of the ground. She seemed very comfortable : but it is certainly an evidence of the progress of civilisation to compare this with the neat cottages in which the rest of the population live. I had no idea before I came here — though I do not quite know why I had not — how much
324 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, v
resemblance these Highland people have to Irishmen as we ordinarily imagine them ; some of them, at least, have just the same kind of impulsive and affectionate effusive- ness. There was one old woman in particular whom we visited to-day who said " at all, at all," just like an Irish- woman in fiction, and generally showed the same kind of eagerness in talking. I ought to add, however, that I did not detect in her household arrangements any of the recognised defects of the Irish character.
To his Mother from 1 8 Brookside, September 1 6
We have now been vibrating between London and Cambridge for about ten days, and I believe Nora has nearly arranged the furniture of our new house to her satisfaction. . . . We shall probably transfer ourselves in the week after next ; not, I think, before. . . .
This is absolutely saison morte in Cambridge, but we have one or two friends near by a happy accident. In about a week most of them will have re-assembled, and be in preparation for the term's work. There is a prevailing theory that Cambridge is unhealthy in September, but I believe this to be due to an inversion of cause and effect not uncommon ; it is said to be unhealthy because every one goes away then, and not vice versa.
, To H. G. Dakyns from Hillside, Chesterton Road, October 1 0
I have been half hoping, since I got your note, to be subpoenaed by Lankester's lawyers,1 which would give me an excuse for going up to London. I am not really con- cerned in the case (Lankester used my name without authority), and I want to keep out of it, being anxious not to appear before the public in connection with Spiritualism until I have a definite conclusion to announce. I went to Slade several times, and, as far as my own experience goes, should unhesitatingly pronounce against [him], but there is
1 Dr. Ray Lankester was prosecuting as an impostor Dr. Slade, an American medium, who had a good deal of vogue at this time, and who obtained writing on a slate which he attributed to spirits, or at least not to any normal agency.
1876, AGE 38 HENRY SIDGWICK 325
a good deal of testimony for him, quite untouched by any explanation yet offered. I am curious to see whether this will come into court and stand cross-examination.
We have just got into this house. It seems to me a rather nice place. Altogether I have to fight against Optimism rather vigorously : or should have to, except for Bulgarian atrocities and the like. But my individual endeavours are still rather baulked in most directions. Spiritualism is in statu quo : I see no sound methods for attacking philosophical problems : I am growing daily more sceptical in educational methods : politics are a blind free fight. With all this I am horribly and disgracefully conscious of Bien-etre.
To his Mother from Hillside on October 27
I have been occupied in preparing my Annual Eeport of the A.F.P.T.H.E.O.W.LC. ; these are the initials of the Association * of which you are one of the patrons. Nora is doing mathematics in the intervals of time which she can spare from melancholy contemplation of our DRAWING-ROOM CURTAINS, which have just come after long delay, and turn out to have been so badly made that a beautiful cross stripe of brown velvet, which was to complete their splendour, is so unequally situated in the two halves of the curtains, that when they are drawn together at night the inequality is evident to the most inattentive gaze. However, when I tell you that this is our chief failure as yet in furnishing, you will probably think us tolerably lucky. Everybody in Cambridge seems to think that the house was made for us : though the garden is still rather in the condition of the sort of ground which is used in sermons to symbolise the undisciplined heart of man ! I wish you could see my study, which I consider to be really Nora's great success. It is only 13 feet by 15, and her practised eye perceived that it was necessary to waste no space on bookcases, but instead to put up shelves all round, covering the whole
1 Association for Promoting the Higher Education of "Women in Cambridge.
326 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, v
wall, except a small space above the fire-place where Plato, Anaxagoras, Aristotle look down calmly on the student. From the window I see across the road into the leafy coverts of Magdalene. Altogether we are getting quite a homelike feeling about the place : and — if we had not rashly pledged ourselves to a demonstration in favour of simplicity in dinner-giving, with a cook prematurely exalted out of a kitchen-maid — we should be quite happy as regards our relation to society.
To his Mother from Hillside on February 3, 1877
We have now got our affairs into order for the term — I mean the affairs of the Education of Women, as managed by Treasurer and Secretary [i.e. his wife and himself], — and have time to look about us. I have got a good deal to do ; I am going to lecture [for women] on Shakespeare, Bacon, and perhaps Milton, besides my ordinary work ; but it is not the same kind of hurry and worry as last term.
When we left you, last Monday week, we saw Worcester Cathedral — a restoration which I did not much admire — and then went on comfortably to Cheltenham. What do you think I did at Cheltenham ? I " linked " or " runk " (I do not know how the verb is conjugated), rather to the surprise of my friends. The sport is still kept up at Cheltenham, though it has gone out of fashion elsewhere. It is not half as amusing as real skating, and I think that my first experiment will be my last. We met a lovely little Canadian lady who whirled round the rink with delightful ease ; she said that the Canadians had begun to take to the sport, not content with their five months' winter. We had a pleasant visit at Cheltenham. Mrs. Myers [F. Myers's mother] was very kind and hospitable. She was much interested about fighting the Corporation of Manchester, who are trying to turn Thirlmere Lake into a big ugly reservoir for Lancashire towns. It is a battle of Taste against Con- venience, so I am afraid Taste will lose.
Then we had a night at Rugby [with the Arthur Sidgwicks], which was very pleasant. Eose is certainly a
1877, AGE 39 HENRY SIDGWICK 327
charming creature — the other infant [aged one month] was thoughtfully kept out of my sight. What do you think ? Jex- Blake has raised nearly £10,000 for buildings at Rugby (observatory, school library, reading-room, etc.). I think this shows great energy in dignified mendicancy.
To H. Cr. Dakyns from Hillside on April 13
We are staying here now indefinitely. We only go to London on April 25 to witness the archaic but impres- sive ceremony of Consecrating a Bishop.1 So come if you do take a flight.
I have been writing an article on "Bentham" for Morley, which may appear next Fortnightly? and am now struggling with second edition of my book. If you happen to read " Bentham," I shall be curious to hear what you think of it from a literary point of view, as it is the first thing that I have written for years in which I have aimed at all at literary effect. Alas for politics ! 3
Eain, wind and rain, and where is he who knows ?
To H. G. Dakyns on May 15
As regards Eastern Question, I do not myself feel any alarm ; I rely on Lord Derby not drifting into war. He has no foresight, sympathy, or political dexterity ; but if he is not cool and pacific, what is he ? I think a great opportunity has been missed, but you can't make a states- man by crying for him.
In July 1877 Sidgwick made a fortnight's tour among German universities with the object of form- ing as good a view as possible of the best arrange- ments for Cambridge. The Commission, which, in concert with the University and Colleges, was to initiate changes in their organisation and financial relations, was constituted during this year's session
1 The consecration of E. W. Benson as Bishop of Truro.
2 Republished in Miscellaneous Essays and Addresses.
3 Russia declared war against Turkey on April 24.
328 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, v
of Parliament. In anticipation of it a syndicate, of which Sidgwick was a member, had been appointed in 1875 to consider in detail the needs of the University ; thus his mind was much occupied with the subject of academic organisation, and he wished to inform it in every possible way.
To his Wife from Bonn
Everything has gone as well as could be expected : no hay fever to speak of, owing to the windy and showery weather — it is quite cold here! I reached Bonn at 12.30, dined at 1.15 at table d'hdte, where a conversible German gave me his views about the [Russo-Turkish] war. Germany, he says, sympathises equally with neither : they expect peace pretty soon. After dinner I went and called on Professor Kamphausen, Dean of the Evangelical Faculty of Theology. He gave me some information and one or two instructive anecdotes pour rire : e.g. that a Professor, giving a Zeugniss to a student, stated that he had studied " mit nie gesehenem Fleisse " ! * . . . I find it very difficult to make out still about the control over the students. My informants take rather different views about it. After Kamphausen I saw Delius, who teaches (and talks) English; but he had no interest in organisation, and he handed me on to his colleague Bischoff, a lively man, who has been some years in England, and whom you would hardly take for a German. From talking to him I have for the first time got an idea how elaborate an examination schoolmasters have to pass here, in each department in which they wish to teach. In English, for example, they have to know the whole literature from Chaucer downwards, and also "historical grammar," which includes Anglo-Saxon. . . .
I have just read in Alma Mater (an organ of universities) a thrilling account of the "Remotion" of a privat-docent from Berlin, which may interest John [Rayleigh], as it involves Helmholtz. It appears that a pugnacious p.d., named Diihring, has written a Kritische Geschichte der 1 With never-seen industry.
1877, AGE 39 HENRY SIDGWICK 329
Principien der Mechanik, in which he charges Helmholtz with having, "in his 1847 published Abhandlung ' ueber die Erhaltung der Kraft,' " not mentioned a treatise of R. Meyer (discoverer of the mechanical equivalent of heat — I thought Joule discovered it !), published five years before. Dlihring further sneers at Helmholtz's philosophis- ing, and approving of " den pikanten Widersinn einer anti- eutdeidischen geometric." These two points formed one of the grounds of complaint made by the Faculty against Diihring ; the other was a general attack on the university system in a pamphlet called Der Weg zur hohern Berufs- bildung der Frauen — which I must get hold of. On these grounds the Minister of Education has ordered Diihring to close his lectures ; consequently the Berlin students are holding " Versammlungen " and inditing " Aufrufe." I reflect with satisfaction that we are free from this sort of thing at Cambridge.
To his Wife from Gbttingen
Since Tuesday everything has gone as well as before. I saw four Professors in Bonn in all, and have seen four here : all amiable to me personally, though I seem to myself an un- mitigated bore to most of them. ... I am afraid that there is no doubt indirect coercion on the students to hear the lectures of the Professors who examine, and that the results are not always very satisfactory. Also there is practical coercion as regards attendance at lectures generally, though not formal. And though there is no private tuition to speak of, this seems to me chiefly because the student is on the average too poor to pay for it ; so that it cannot thrive. However, I am glad I came. I think this kind of thing comes about as near a holiday as I can really manage to enjoy. I am not worthy of Amusement, generally speaking: but this sort of investigation is no strain on the mind. On Tuesday evening I saw the lighted Rhine from the bridge [at Cologne], and on Wednesday morning the apse of the Cathedral from the west end — the two things which im- pressed me in 1859. Last evening I spent in reviving old
330 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, v
memories with the Benfeys : and this morning, in the intervals between my interrogatories, I have been reviving them all day long. It is fourteen years since I was here. I wonder why this kind of revival always makes one melancholy. I think it is partly because one never really can sympathise completely with one's former self, and the sense of the incompleteness of sympathy produces a faint but deep discord in the innermost of one's nature. Some- thing of the sort, I think. . . .
One of these professors had one or two rather good proverbs. I was remarking to him on the great severity of the examinations for schoolmasters, as delineated in the official Reglement. " Yes," he said, " but the soup is not eaten as hot as it's cooked."
. . . My views on academic organisation are in a very disturbed condition. Perhaps they will settle down before I come back.
To his Wife from Leipzig
Things are not going quite so well in Leipzig ; — one feels the difference between small towns and large. The people here are further off : go away for Sundays : are busier, and more bored with a casual English cross-questioner. How- ever, I will not judge hastily.
I have got Diihring's pamphlet with the attack on the University. I find to my horror that he only expresses my deepest secret convictions as to the antiquatedness of the traditional lecture system, and my worst fears as to jobs in professorial appointments : — though he, no doubt, expresses them very nastily. Alas ! alas ! how is one to come to practical conclusions ?
To his MotJier from Leipzig
... I was amused by an Americanised German I met in the train the other day, who was himself an odd mixture of Teuton and Yankee, and was at the same time struck with the difference between the ways of the two nations. In German railway stations one finds written up, "Es ist verboten die Bahn zu betreten " (it is forbidden to walk on
1877, AGE 39 HENBY SLDGWICK 331
the line). " Now," he said, " in America we put up, ' Please to look out for the Locomotive.' " I thought the difference between the two very characteristic.
To his Wife from the Kaiserhof, Berlin
My mind is made up — at least it was in the train this afternoon, only perhaps the nintiness of my resolution has been already a little softened by this Palace : you should see the court in front of the Speise-saal : Palms ! — but still I think my mind is made up to start from this Metropolis of Metaphysics and Drill on Sunday night at 10 P.M., spend Monday night at Brussels, Lille, or Calais, and arrive at 4 Carlton Gardens about 6.30 on Tuesday afternoon. There. Now make your plans. I think we may as well spend the day in London, and go down to Cambridge in the cool of the evening. ... I have been half tempted to cut Berlin short, but I think I may perhaps get some wider views here than in the provincial universities. I do not at all feel that the journey has been thrown away. I think I am on pretty firm ground now as regards the working of things here : I find by this time that I generally know beforehand what my professor will say. They have been abundantly hospitable to me. Since I got to Gottingen I have only dined at my own expense twice out of six days ! This is quite a new thing in my experience of Germany. . . .
" Why," you may perhaps ask, " being humble and economical " — as you know I am — " why did I ever come to this gorgeousness ? " I will tell you why ; it was the hope (which has not been disappointed) of meeting once more with sheet, blanket, and counterpane instead of the lumpish thing they call a " Stepp-decke." These simple articles are worth a hundred Palms.
During the remainder of the summer Sidgwick and his wife paid a long visit to his mother at Oxford, and afterwards, among other visits, stayed with old Mrs. Grote, then in her eighty-fifth year, whose racy conversation greatly delighted him.
332 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, v
To Miss Cannan (an old friend of his Mother's) from Cambridge, October 27
I am afraid that we cannot hope that my mother will ever regain her old mental vigour ; the best to be looked for is that she should remain cheerful and not find time hang too heavy. The afternoons were liable to be especially weary when we were there — one is always liable to a dreary cessation of life towards afternoon, except one is either busy or buoyant — and I am afraid they will grow worse toward the winter. I am very glad that you were able to go to her.
We have been full of business here with University Beforni and the continual extension of our lectures for women. We have now over sixty in Cambridge who have come there to get some ' University education,' and the movement still grows.
I am glad you are interested in the progress of my 2nd edition. I never feel when I have finished writing anything that I am at all inclined to draw any one's attention [to it], but I get into better humour with my work after six months or so have elapsed. If you will send me your address on a postcard, I will tell the publishers to forward you a copy of my new edition, on condition that you will not feel called upon to read it.
To H. G. Dakyns on November 6
We should like extremely to come to you — indeed I for a long time thought of proposing it boldly myself — but it is, alas ! doubtful now owing to a miserable article that drags for the Encyclopaedia JSritannica.1 I may be all the latter half of December in the last agonies of the effort to make it decently complete.
Good accounts from my mother yesterday. But she will have received a terrible shock to-day. My Aunt Henrietta [Crofts] has died suddenly. I am going to the funeral on Thursday.
1 The article on Ethics, afterwards (in 1886) published separately in an enlarged form as Outlines of the History of Ethics.
1878, AGE 39 HENEY SIDGWICK 333
To his Mother from Whittingeliame (Arthur Balfour's house in Hast Lothian) on January 2, 1878
We were in a great whirl of business up to the very end of last year, until we fled hither on the last day of it (Monday) to peace and quiet. On Wednesday evening (26th) we got down to Cambridge, late and cross, having missed our train ; all Thursday morning we were complet- ing our arrangements for the Conference of Schoolmistresses * on the following day ; on Thursday at 4 P.M. our friends arrived, and educational talk began, lasting without inter- mission till Friday evening ; the regular conference lasted from 11 A.M. to 6.45 P.M. on Friday, with half an hour's interval for lunch. On Saturday I began to prepare my answers for the Cambridge University Commissioners, which had to reach them by New Year's Day. I went to bed on Sunday night without having quite finished them, and only just succeeded in writing the last sentence on Monday morning before starting at 8 for the journey to Scotland ! This I call high-pressure existence.
The Conference was a success on the whole ; we had about thirty schoolmistresses and seven or eight delegates from local educational committees, and made up a compact and business-like little meeting at the Town Hall. I had to take the chair, and was very favourably impressed with the schoolmistresses ; they were a very bright-looking set, and said what they had to say in a clear, short, practical way. We fixed a limit of ten minutes for the speeches, but the only speaker who showed the least disposition to exceed it was a Man. . . . Among the people who came were . . . [T. H.] Green from Oxford with his professorial honours fresh upon him, and [H. W.] Eve, who used to be at
1 A conference of schoolmistresses and Local Examination secretaries and members of the Association for promoting the Higher Education of Women at Cambridge, to discuss the courses of study in girls' schools and the work- ing of the Local Examinations, with a view to possible modifications. It was arranged at the suggestion, and largely by the exertions, of Miss Clough, who, as Sidgwick said, " was always considering [her work at Cambridge] in its bearing on national education, and planning how its beneficial effects on the country at large might be improved and extended."
334 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, v
Wellington College. Altogether there was a very pleasant meeting of old friends.
Here we have delightful weather, fresh but not frosty ; my brothers-in-law are all assembled, and though I have not done my article, I have got the burden of it pretty well off my mind. I hope the New Year is kind to you too, and will continue so. There is a lovely winter view from my window now — fresh green grass of the glen with the stream winding among it, a few dark evergreens in front, and beyond the reddish browns and purples of the leafless trees that clothe the sides of the glen. I do not wonder that Nora is so fond of her home.
To F. Myers from Hillside on February 20
I have read your article [on Mazzini], and found it very interesting, and in some parts admirably effective. . . .
My sister writes with serenity — even with a bright intensity of resignation [about her son Martin's death], but I am half afraid of a reaction. And I know not what to write to her ; I find my ignorance as to TO pe\\ov [the future] appalling.
To F. W. Cornish in March
I am very busy with proofs of an article on Ethics for Encyclopaedia Britannica ; it explains the whole course of thought from Socrates to myself, and so I have to look very carefully through it for fear there should be some- thing somewhere that might misrepresent somebody.
Do you play lawn tennis ? We have just been making a winter ground in our back garden to keep us healthy for ever and distract our attention from the little wisdom with which we are governed.1
Sidgwick was very fond of lawn tennis at this time and for a good many years afterwards, and played fairly well.
1 This was the time when the treaty of San Stefano between Russia and Turkey was being discussed.
1878, AGE 40 HENRY SIDGWICK 335
To Roden Nod on June 24
I have been intending to write to you some time, ever since I got your last, and long before ; but I am a worse correspondent every year !
I read your "Victor Hugo" with much interest. I do not think I liked the article, as a whole, so much as others of yours, but this was chiefly on account of the abstracts of stories which it perhaps inevitably included. The advantage of criticising poetry as compared with novels is that the critic can give the reader by quotations some idea of what it is that moves him to admiration. I do not see how this can be done in the case of a novel. The critic's abridgement, mingled with eulogistic remarks, is like a bill of fare, ac- companied with licking of the lips, read by a man who has dined to a man who hasn't. And partly because your admiration is so genuine, one feels this more in your reviews than in those of colder and more formal critics.
However, there were many things impressively put in your article, and I am glad to have read it. I certainly do not quite agree with you about Victor Hugo ; and yet I do not think that I disagree with you either to the extent or in the manner that you suppose — if I may judge from the vicious side-hits at some imagined school of antagonistic critics with which the article is interspersed. (I do not suppose that you mean me ! but that my view is conceived by you to lie somewhere in the direction towards which your backhanders are directed.) My objection to V. H. is not that his expression is not sufficiently reclierchd, that he does not suppress morality in deference to Art, etc., etc. It is true that I object to the formless, unchastened flow of his ideas and words in verse and prose ; but I object still more to the want of wisdom, humility, reverence, in fact real sanity of mind (as human mind), in dealing with the tremendous problems which he handles so unhesitatingly. As a dramatist he sacrifices real enduring dramatic effect for transient sensational shock, and he wastes his deep insight and feeling about life and the world in constructing
336 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, v
profuse fireworks of epigrams and antitheses. However, he is a great man, and I do not want to attack him ; and I value him all the more because he is so strong and splendid in representing emotions other than sexual love, with which other poet novelists weary one. Childhood, maternity, paternity ; he is the poet of these.
Enough. When do you come back to England ? and where shall you be during July ? I am on my way to Davos to see Symonds. From thence I go to Pontresina, afterwards to vague travel in the Alps. Have you been doing any more Spiritualism? I have not quite given it up, but my investigation of it is a very dreary and dis- appointing chapter in my life.
Symonds's Many Moods. I should like to talk to you about them. Some of the newer things gave me unexpected delight — some of the sonnets of death ; and especially some Dream-pieces.
The visit to Davos here spoken of was the first of a series of delightful visits to Mr. and Mrs. J. A. Symonds, who, on account of the health of the former, almost made their home there from 1877. Sidgwick and his wife visited them about every alternate summer, generally combining the visit with some touring in other parts of Switzerland. On this par- ticular occasion Mrs. Sidgwick's sister, Miss Balfour, was with them, and the tour ranged through a wide extent of Alpine scenery — Engadine, Italian Lakes, Macugnaga, Monte Moro, Saas, the Rhone Glacier, the Grimsel, and the Bernese Oberland.
To Miss Cannan from Boulogne on June 24
I never meant to leave your letter of problems altogether unanswered. And yet it is absurd for me to pretend to give any answer to your questions. I have not answered them for myself, as I well know, and it would be hypocritical to pretend to answer them for any one else. But as you have read my book, I can perhaps give you some idea of
1878, AGE 40 HENEY SIDGWICK 337
what was in my mind, when I wrote it, as regards the whole vast problem with which Ethics deals.
It is sometimes said that there are two fundamental ethical questions, " What is right," and " Why is it right " ; and though the distinction is open to attack, I think it expresses in an imperfect fashion the fundamental difference between the aspects in which two different classes of minds habitually view the great problem of life. There are some minds to whom the great difficulty is to know how to act; how in this mixed world (however it has come to be so mixed) the ideal of Duty (of whose ideal reality they feel no general doubt) is to be concretely realised here and now — there are so many competing methods and so much to be said on both sides of so many questions. It is for this class of minds that my book is primarily designed; not that I pretend to give them immediate practical guidance in any special difficulties they may have, but I try to contribute towards an ultimate reconciliation and binding together of all the different lines of moral reasoning that have gone on mingling and contending with each other since men first began to reflect on their wellbeing and their duty.
Well, it is for these that I have tried to write, in this way. But I know very well that there is another class of minds, with which I have also strong sympathy, who have never really felt troubled about practical questions. They have always seemed to be fully guided by the simple rules of the common conscience, supplemented (wherever these are ambiguous) by a clear and decisive moral instinct. What they long to know is not so much what Duty is, but how Duty comes to be there in conflict with inclination ; why the individual is so often sacrificed to the general ; why both in the single life and in the race good is so imperfectly triumphant over evil, etc., etc. To a speculative mind these questions are, no doubt, more profoundly interesting than the others. Sometimes they become absorbingly so to me, but I rather turn aside from much contemplation of them, because I not only cannot answer them to my satis- faction, but do not even know where to look for the answer
z
338 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, v
that I want. I am sincerely glad that so many of my fellow-creatures are satisfied with the answers that they get from positive religions ; and the others — philosophers — find a substitute for the satisfaction of an answer found, in the high and severe delight of seeking it. I cannot quite do either ; and therefore I hold my tongue as much as I can !
To Roden Noel from Surrey (where he was staying with the Trevelyans), on September 2
One of the things I wanted to talk to you about was the impression produced by your lyrics.1 I have never been more moved by verse than I was by some of them, and I have been thinking of the question of publishing them, which you say Symonds advised. What I really feel that I should wish [is] that they might be published for a part of the world — sympathetic souls or those who have similarly suffered — and not for the rest.2 Tennyson says in In Memoriam that words " half conceal and half disclose the grief within," but in your poems the unveiling seems to me more the sole result. This is the difference of the way of your writing. Tennyson's reflected and elaborate work does seem to weave a kind of garment to hide the bare fact of sorrow. But for those who have suffered, your lyrics would bring great gain — that is, if the merely painful ones were clearly but the first notes of the strain, leading up to faith and consolation at the close.
As for the great question of Immortality, there was one line of thought I wanted to suggest, in which, from time to time, I find a kind of repose — which, curiously enough, I find is that in which Browning's poem on the subject (" La Saisiaz ") concludes. It is that on moral grounds, hope rather [than] certainty is fit for us in this earthly existence. For if we had certainty there would be no room for the sublimest
1 A Little Child's Monument, published in 1881, and which Sidgwick had been reading in MS.
2 In a letter written to Mr. Noel in 1881, after the publication of the poems, Sidgwick says : — "I have no doubt now that you were quite right to publish, even at the risk of seeming too unreserved to some fastidious persons ; I have no doubt the book will be precious to many bereaved parents."
187s, AGE 40 HENEY SIDGWICK 339
effort of our mental life — self-sacrifice and the moral choice of Good as Good, though not perhaps good for us here and now. From this point of view I feel that on the one hand I could not endure an unjust universe, in which Good Absolute was not also good for each ; and on the other hand that the certain knowledge that Justice ruled the universe would preclude the unselfish choice of Good as Good. What weakens and obscures this argument is that from time to time I feel so very doubtful about " Good Absolute," what it is and how it is to be attained.
I am very sorry to hear what you say of your mother's health. I am looking very anxiously for the effect of the fall of the year on my mother. She has continued without any change through the summer, but we fear the cold and wet. I hope the air of Beatenberg has done Mrs. Noel good. I got two splendid views from Beatenberg, one in the evening — sunset light behind cloud on the noble pyramid of the Eiger, its top just buried in a dark sky that it seemed to uphold, fragments of heavy white cloud in the valleys between. Next morning not a cloud to be seen : the three great mountains rising white against the blue sky.
P.S. — Why should I be a Dizzy ite ? From a cosmopolitan point of view I do not much object to the Anglo-Turkish Convention.1 But I think England is in great danger both from her new responsibilities and from her new temper.2
To H. G. Ddkyns from Cambridge on November 1 1
My mother has had a turn for the worse, and we feel it to be now very doubtful whether her strength will rally again. If it should not, though she will sink gradually and I hope painlessly, I suppose she will hardly see another spring. I am going to Oxford on the 23rd, and perhaps shall know more then. Meanwhile I hope you both will think of coming here when term ends, unless things should have
1 By which England engaged to protect Turkey from any further Russian aggression in Asia Minor, and in return was to occupy and administer Cyprus.
a Responsibilities incurred by the Convention and by the Treaty of Berlin and the temper nicknamea "Jingo."
340 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, v
their most critical aspect just then. I should like to tell you all about my ideas and sentiments ; and I will — as soon as ever I cease the vain pursuit of yesterday's neglected duties which is now continually absorbing me.
To H. G. Dakyns from Terling Place on January 11, 1879
My mother's life can hardly be prolonged more than a few months now. She cannot speak, and only just recognises us. Happily she seems to have no pain. All the way in which this affects me cannot be written about.
The end came quicker than he expected. He was summoned to Oxford by telegram on January 15, and on January 17 he writes to H. G. Dakyns again : —
My mother died this morning at 7, peacefully and with- out any consciousness. I am living in a world of memory, where you have no small share, and you will meet me there in spirit and grieve for us.
To F. Myers from Cambridge on January 25
I have been wishing to write to you since we came back here on Wednesday ; but I find it difficult to write, not from painfulness of feeling — for this actual end, now that all is over, seems really a release — but from perplexity and mingledness. I feel as if I had reached the summit of the Pass of Life ; behind the old memories from infancy, unrolled like a map, and before the strange world of " the majority," near though in a mist, at which I am forced to gaze. And more than ever the alternatives of the Great Either-Or seem to be Pessimism or Faith.
After this there are for many months but few letters. Sidgwick was as usual occupied with his teaching and with University Reform and Organisation. He was writing on Ethics and Philosophy in Mind, and he was working at Political Economy, both lecturing and writing on it. Three articles on economic sub-
1879, AGE 4i HEXEY SIDGWICK 341
jects, the substance of which was afterwards incorpor- ated in his book on Political Economy, appeared in the Fortnightly Review in 1879. In March of this year he was elected a member of the Athenaeum Club by the Committee, which naturally gratified him a good deal. He constantly used the club when in London during the remainder of his life. In June and July Sidgwick and his wife stayed at Clifton with the Dakynses, and afterwards at St. Ives in Cornwall, whence they went to the Bensons at Truro. Later they stayed in Scotland. " I am pegging away obstinately at Political Economy," he writes to H. G. Dakyns on September 6 from Cambridge. And in November, respecting a Christmas vacation together at Rome which had been proposed, he says : —
Alas ! prospect of Home has vanished, from combined pressure of Philosophy [and] Charity Organisation, and reflection that E[ome] would hardly be good for sleepless- ness, which is threatening, though not yet very serious. . . . I have put aside Political Economy, and am pegging away at first sketch of Elements of Philosophy.1
To his Sister from Terling Place, November 29
"Why I have not written to you before is one of those things of -which, as philosophers say, no explanation can be given in the existing condition of our knowledge. But now, having got away from Cambridge for a day or two, I find that that mysterious veil of " something else to do," which generally stands between me and my correspondence, is palpably removed. So here is for our news. The chief at present is that we are not going to Eome, as we had hoped and planned. Eeasons are partly that my work does not allow of it, and partly that I have been drawn more and more into some local quasi-philanthropic work at Cambridge which requires my presence at Christmas-time. ... It is the business of reconstructing the old " Mendicity " Society on
1 He \vas preparing to lecture on Metaphysics in the following terms.
342 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, v
the principles of the London Charity Organisation Society. Though we have not yet much to do, the work is very interesting, not less that the positive part of it is very per- plexing. The negative part, the elimination of impostors, is in the main very easy ; the professional mendicants either do not come to our office to be inquired into or their case soon breaks down for the most part. But the positive work, the helping of people who ought to be helped, presents great difficulties ; for the people we have to deal with are so often just trembling morally on the verge of helpless pauperism, and it is very hard to say in any case whether the help we give will cheer and stimulate a man to help himself, or whether it will not just push him gently into the passive condition of letting society take him in hand and do what it will with him.
Well, this is [a] subject for an essay. As for other news, we are just now anxious about Eayleigh's coming to Cam- bridge. Perhaps you saw that a memorial signed by all the mathematical professors had been sent to urge him to come and succeed Maxwell as Professor of Experimental Physics. He has not yet decided. It is rather a wrench to give up leisure and the comforts of a country-house unless one is quite sure that one's duty to society requires it.1
Sidgwick had been an active member of the old Mendicity Society since 1871, and took a leading part in 1879 in the reconstruction referred to in this letter, so much so that after his death the Committee of the Cambridge Charity Organisation Society put on record that the formation of the Society was mainly due to his initiative. He was the chairman of the executive committee of the reconstructed Society in 1880, 1881, and 1882, and again from 1886 to 1890, and after the pressure of other work had in the latter year led to his withdrawing from the executive com- mittee, his interest in the Society continued, and later
1 The decision was made in the affirmative. Lord Rayleigh held the Professorship from January 1880 to June 1884, residing at Cambridge in term time.
1880, AGE 42 HENEY SIDGWICK 343
he constantly presided at its annual meetings. One who had worked with him speaks of him as having " been an ideal chairman, a generous benefactor, and the wisest of counsellors."
To H. G. Dakyns from Dover, June 8, 1880, 8 A.M. {starting for Murreri)
Pardon me for not having answered before. I was overwhelmed with the end of the term's work. Very many thanks for " Tommy Big Eyes." l I think it is certainly one of the best — the characters all good and well-contrasted, and the incidents very well brought home. The only point at which I took umbrage was the sudden collapse of Cain at the end, which did not seem quite in character. Tell Brown that I am grateful, and hope he will go on. . . . We are off to the Alps. Very sorry just to miss J. A. S.
To Miss Cannanfrom (frindelwald on June 13
Your thoughtful consideration for my time induced me to defer answering your letter till all my cares were over, as they accumulated rather thick at the end of the term. My wife and I are now taking a holiday for two or three weeks, in about the only place in which I find it possible to take a complete holiday, i.e. close under snow mountains, a situation which has also the advantage of keeping off hay fever, to which we are both liable. . . .
We return to Cambridge early in July, where we have to prepare for a temporary change of life. The new house at Newnham will be opened in October ; and as it will be a matter of some difficulty and delicacy to arrange for the joint administration of the two houses in the best possible way, it has been thought expedient to make my wife " Vice- Principal " of Newnham College, to take charge of the new house. This is, of course, an ad interim measure, to enable us to ascertain by experience the best way of dividing the functions between the administrators of the two houses ; we
1 One of T. E. Brown's Fo'c's'le Yarns, now published in the volume of his collected Poems.
344 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, v
think that a tenure of about two years will give us experi- ence enough. So we are temporarily giving up Hillside for the two years, or at least for one year certain, with a prospect of continuing the new arrangement for the second year. The actual change is a nuisance, and I am rather afraid that my wife may dislike the work more than she expects ; but at any rate the experience will be worth gaining, and it seems, on the whole, an advantage not to appoint a second Principal or Vice-Principal until we have got the experience.
Meanwhile I sent you the volume of Grote's, which I hope will interest you. I am glad that you found " food for the mind" in my article [in the Encyclopedia Britannica], though rather, I fear, in the preserved-meat condition, what the Spectator calls " pemmican." The greater part of it is meant rather as a book of reference than to be exactly read, or perhaps I should confess that it is specially adapted for students preparing for Examination ! They will get crammed in some way, and I endeavoured to produce a somewhat less indigestible extract of history than others which I have seen. The account of Christian Morality was the most interesting part of the work to myself; I was surprised at being unable to find anything of the kind in any book that came in my way, I suppose because everybody is assumed to be familiar with it.
I was, on the whole, disappointed in Spencer's Data of Ethics, though, of course, it contains much that is acute and suggestive ; but considered as the mature fruit of so dis- tinguished a philosopher's thought, it seemed to me certainly crude and superficial. I have stated some of my objections to it in the last number of Mind.
We (at Cambridge) are much interested in the election of Bain's successor at Aberdeen. I hope a good man will be appointed ; there are so few posts providing a livelihood for impecunious philosophers that I should be sorry if it were given to a mere teacher, even if a competent teacher. The ex-professor appeared at Cambridge a week or two ago ; did not at all look as if he were past his work, but, on the
1880, AGE 42 HENEY SIDGWICK 345
contrary, extremely lively. I hope we shall profit by his leisure.
The number of women coming up to Cambridge to study had been increasing during these years, and in 1880 there were eighty-five. Supplementary houses had been taken for them by the Association, and a considerable number were accommodated in lodgings ; but these temporary arrangements were not found very satisfactory, and after some hesitation as to the prudence of committing further to bricks and mortar what was still regarded as an experimental institution (for it had as yet received no formal recognition from the University), it was decided (in 1879) to build another Hall of residence for students close to the first. It was also resolved to amalgamate the Associa- tion for promoting the Higher Education of Women in Cambridge and the Newnham Hall Company into one Association. This was accomplished in 1880, and the name Newnham College was given both to the Association and to the buildings. The new Hall, called at first North Hall, now Sidgwick Hall, (which like the first, was built on land held on lease from St. John's College), contained lecture-rooms to take the place of those hitherto hired by the Association in the town, and the money needed for building was provided partly by a fund accumulated by the Lecture Association out of subscriptions and donations, partly by special donations for the purpose, and the remainder by borrowing. The building was completed only just in time for Sidgwick and his wife to take up their abode there before the students came up in October.
The following letter was written on August 8, 1880, to an old schoolfellow, Major, now Major- General Carey, whom he had not seen since his Rugby days.
The signature at the foot of your letter recalled the old days at Rugby very vividly ; and if I have delayed answer-
346 HEXEY SIDGWICK CHAF. v
ing your letter, it has not been from any want of interest, but rather because I have felt painfully how little I had to say that could give you any satisfaction. This is not because I am myself discontented with life, or inclined to complain of the mysterious universe in which I am placed ; my creed, such as it is, is sufficient to enable me to live happily from day to day, hoping for more light from some quarter or other. But experience has convinced me that what contents me would not content others ; and therefore for the last ten years — since in 1870 I gave up, to avoid hypocrisy, my Fellowship at Trinity — I have " kept silence even from good words," and never voluntarily disclosed my views on religion to any one. But I have never thought it right to conceal them from any one who seriously wished to have them, and had any claim to be answered ; and I feel that such a letter as yours can only be met with perfect frankness ; therefore this long preface is only that you may not blame me for the dissatisfaction that you will feel when you lay my letter down.
Frankly, then, I must first draw a distinction, in order to explain my position between Theism and Christianity. It is now a long time since I could even imagine myself believing in Christianity after the orthodox fashion ; not that I have any abstract objection to miracles, but because I cannot see any rational ground for treating the marvellous stories of the Gospels differently from the many other marvellous narratives which we meet with in history and biography, ancient and modern. While, if I were to believe all these marvellous narratives, I should have to suppose a continual communication between an " unseen universe " and our planet ; and this would prevent the Gospel story from having anything like the unique character that it has for Christians. I do not make this latter supposition merely for the sake of argument ; I am not inclined to oppose to this series of marvellous narratives (outside the Gospels) the sort of unhesitating [disjbelief that most of my orthodox friends do. In fact, I have spent a good deal of my leisure for some years in investigating ghost stories, spiritualistic pheno-
1880, AGE 42 HENEY SIDGWICK 347
mena, etc., etc., and I have not yet abandoned the hope of finding some residuum of truth in them, though as yet the most definite result that I have reached is a considerable enlargement of my conceptions of the possibilities of human credulity and misrepresentation. Meanwhile the dilemma is clear and certain to me. Either one must believe in ghosts, modern miracles, etc., or there can be no ground for giving credence to the Gospel story : and as I have not yet decided to do the former, I am provisionally incredulous as to the latter — and in fact for many years I have not thought of Christianity except as the creed of my friends and fellow-countrymen, etc.
But as regards Theism the case is different. Though here my answer will doubtless surprise you. For if I am asked whether I believe in a God, I should really have to say that I do not know — that is, I do not know whether I believe or merely hope that there is a moral order in this universe that we know, a supreme principle of Wisdom and Benevolence, guiding all things to good ends, and to the happiness of the good. I certainly hope that this is so, but I do not think it capable of being proved. All I can say is that no opposed explanation of the origin of the cosmos — for instance, the atomistic explanation — seems to me even plausible, and that I cannot accept life on any other terms, or construct a rational system of my own conduct except on the basis of this faith.
You will say, perhaps, " the question is not whether we should like, or find it convenient to believe in a God, but whether such belief is true" To this I answer, " What criterion have you of the truth of any of the fundamental beliefs of science, except that they are consistent, harmonious with other beliefs that we find ourselves naturally impelled to hold." And this is precisely the relation that I find to exist between Theism and the whole system of my moral beliefs. Duty is to me as real a thing as the physical world, though it is not apprehended in the same way ; but all my apparent knowledge of duty falls into chaos if my belief in the moral government of the world is conceived to be withdrawn.
348 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, v
Well, I cannot resign myself to disbelief in duty ; in fact, if I did, I should feel that the last barrier between me and complete philosophical scepticism, or disbelief in truth altogether, was broken down. Therefore I sometimes say to myself " I believe in God"; while sometimes again I can say no more than " I hope this belief is true, and I must and will act as if it was."
This is a candid answer to your question, so far as I can give one.
To G. 0. Trevelyan from Cambridge, December 2
I have been intending to write to you about your book [The Early History of Charles James Fox] when this news of your appointment * comes ! I am delighted ; it seems exactly the thing that ought to have been offered you before. I hope you feel in the mood for office.
Though this does not quite harmonise with my view about your book: which I can sum up briefly by saying that as Literature it is a joy for ever, but as a memorial to C. J. F. it is — as our lively neighbours have it — "not serious." It is evident to me that you will have to write the rest of it ; but how, if you are going to be a Minister ? If Dalrymple will get up a fund, the next time there is a Conservative reaction, for turning you out of the Border Burghs, I think I shall — urge my Tory friends to subscribe to it. Certainly no book since your Macaulay has given me in anything like the same degree the simple pleasure of reading what is well written.
To F. W. Cornish from Glasgow (where he was staying with Professor and Mrs. Jebb), January 7, 1881
We are coming to London on Monday next, arriving late. On Tuesday evening we are thinking of going to the Cup 2 . . . (unless the crowd is too great). If you and your wife were disengaged that evening and would come too it
1 As Secretary to the Admiralty.
2 Tennyson's play, first produced on January 3, 1881, at the Lyceum Theatre.
1881, AGE 42 HENEY SIDGWICK 349
would be pleasant. If so, please join us at dinner at the Grosvenor at 6.30. . . . I shall probably stay [in London] till Saturday. My days will be spent in reading German books on Taxation at the British Museum, but we will meet somehow. . . . Jebb seems pretty flourishing, but slightly disappointed at his class being less than 550.
To H. Cr. Dakyns from Cambridge, February 16
Can you come up on Thursday, 24th, at 2.30 P.M. to vote for opening the University Examinations to Women ? It is rather a cool suggestion to an inhabitant of Clifton : but we want every vote we can, as it is the crisis of our move- ment, and failure would be a terrible blow. Could you get any one else to come ? . . . Excuse this scrawl in the midst of worry. I am printing off my Political Economy amidst many distractions.
This crisis of the movement for women's education at Cambridge had been looming for nearly a year, and had meant hard work and anxiety for Sidgwick. A Girton student — Miss C. A. Scott, now Professor of Mathematics at Bryn Mawr College, U.S.A. — had been equal to the 8th Wrangler in 1880, but her ex- amination, like that of all women students up to this time, had been informal. The University took no cognisance of the women students at all, and it was solely through the courtesy of the examiners that they were examined at the same time and in the same papers as the men. Zealous friends of the cause outside Cambridge made Miss Scott's success the occasion for getting up a memorial to the Uni- versity, praying that women might have the right of admission to the degree examinations and to degrees. This action was viewed with considerable alarm by the friends of women's education inside the University and by the authorities both of Newnham and of Girton. The stake involved was great, for if the University altogether rejected the petition, it could
350 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, v
not be hoped that the informal examination of the women would continue ; the experiment would come to an end, and prudent people thought it would be wiser to continue the experimental stage till they could feel more sure that the University was con- vinced of the reasonableness of the movement. How- ever, Mr. and Mrs. Steadman Aldis,1 the prime movers in getting up the petition, took a different view ; they worked with great energy, and at the end of April 1880 sent it in with more than 8500 signatures. As the question was thus raised the committee of the Association for promoting the Higher Educa- tion of Women and the executive committee of Girton sent in statements setting forth what they had respectively accomplished and what they aimed at,2 and in the middle of May a memorial was sent in from 123 resident members of the Senate asking, like the memorial from the committee of the Association, that the connection between the University examinations and the academic instruc- tion provided for women in Cambridge might be put on a more formal and stable footing. A Syndicate, of which Sidgwick was a member, was appointed in June to consider these four memorials. In their report issued in December they recom- mended the formal admission of female students to the Honours Examinations of the University, and the authoritative record of the results of their examina- tion in published class lists, adding that women admitted to these examinations should be required to have fulfilled the same conditions of residence as are imposed on members of the University, and that they should either have given the same evidence of preliminary training by passing the Previous Ex- amination, or the various substitutes accepted for it,
1 Mr. Aldis was the Senior Wrangler of 1861 debarred from a Fellowship by being a Dissenter, see p. 63.
2 This was almost the last act of this Association as a separate organisa- tion.
1831, AGE 42 HENEY SIDGWICK 351
or else should have obtained an honour certificate in the Higher Local examination, with the condition of passing in the language group and the mathematical group.1 The recommendations did not of course go so far as many desired, but all agreed that if they were accepted much would be gained, and that more could hardly be hoped for at that time.
It was on these recommendations — which if passed would place the education of women at Cambridge on a comparatively firm basis — that the Senate was called to vote on February 24, 1881. An active canvass was carried on on both sides, and up to the moment of voting the friends of Newnham and Girton were extremely anxious about the result. The resident members of the University on the other side, however, came to the conclusion before the voting that opposition was useless, and they tried to stop their friends from coming up, and largely ab- stained from voting themselves, with the result that the recommendations of the Syndicate were carried by 331 votes to 32.
To his Sister from Cambridge, March 26
You must write and congratulate me on the distinctions which the Learned World is conferring on me — actually two distinctions ! — on a person so many years entirely un- distinguished. The University of Glasgow is going to make me an LL.D. about April 29. And my own College has just decided to make me an Honorary Fellow. j|^" H. F. must by Statute be distinguished for " Literary merit." There !
We are well, and the North Hall2 is apparently pros- perous : and Nora is rather overworked but cheerful : and 1 am putting through the press a book on the Theory of Political Economy. This is about all our news — that is, besides the triumph of the 24th of February, of which the
1 This alternative exempted women from the necessity of passing in Latin or Greek, which Sidgwick regarded as a great advantage.
2 The part of Newnham College of which Mrs. Sidgwick took charge.
352 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, v
Newspapers informed you. I shall never forget the astonish- ment with which I realised that the Senate House was full of about 400 M.A.'s, and that, so far as I could see, they were all going to vote on the right side. Ultimately, with great trouble, I discovered the Enemy seated in a depressed manner on a couple of benches in one corner, about thirty in number. However, I do not feel elated by the triumph ; I have so strong a natural aversion to responsibility that I dread any increase of it. And I am not inclined to under- rate the difficulties and perils of the future. Still, I hope we shall rub through them and do at any rate more good than harm : as I trust has been the case in these ten years. The above has been our great excitement ; but life is full enough in various small ways. . . . Love to all. Brown's poems — Fo'c's'le Yarns — are out. Buy 'em — or persuade friends to.
To H. G. Dakynsfrom Newnham, April 15
I have been long ashamed of not answering your letter and acknowledging the receipt of the Brunonian book. I have been delighting in the poems ; mildly regretting a sacrifice or two to decorum. I wish I could review it, but the pen of a ready reviewer is almost a disused implement with me now, and my struggle with my Economic Work too pressing. . . .
Tell Brown — but probably you are already departed and on your way to Greece, peace being in the ascendant. I should have written to you before about coming here, but my wife is in trouble about the death of one of her brothers — quite suddenly [in Australia].1 So we have had to give up our hopes of seeing friends this vacation. Tell me of your plans. I suppose Greece means to do the prudent thing, and will bet on there not being a revolution : I think the nation is tactful and will be restrained by an instinct that public sentiment is not favourable to revolu- tions just now. However, I may be wrong.
1 Cecil Charles Balfour, born 1849.
1881, AGE 42 HENRY SIDGWICK 353
To F. W. Cornish on May 18
I was very glad to get your congratulations, though I have been tardy in acknowledging them. Nothing of the kind ever gave me more pleasure than this Honorary Fellow- ship— in fact, when I read the Master's letter announcing it I was reminded of the time when the University Marshal came into my rooms with the news of the Craven ! l It is all the more pleasant to me because of the probable impend- ing change in my situation, and the causes which have led to it. The situation is this. Birks, the Professor of Moral Philosophy, has been lying for nearly a year hopelessly paralysed and almost unconscious. He cannot recover, but may live years or months. As he could not appoint a deputy, it fell to the Vice-Chancellor to fill the chair temporarily : who passed over me and appointed my old pupil Cunningham. It was a very marked slight to my work ; but I only mention it as a reason for inferring that when the vacancy in the chair occurs I shall very probably be passed over similarly. Meanwhile, ... for some months I had looked forward to the Deputy-professorship as an excuse for handing over a part of my salary to the College with which they might establish a second lectureship in Moral Sciences. . . . But this hope having vanished, I had to try to get the thing done without it, and found that the only satisfactory way of achieving this was to announce the resignation of mv Prselector-
•/
ship a year hence. I easily resolved on this ; but having resolved, I felt a kind of mild self-pity at the prospect of the nullity to which I was so soon to be reduced — and just in this state of mind came the Honorary Fellowship, and I felt that, whatever might happen, sixteen Fellows of the College had committed themselves to the daring position that I was a distinguished person. So now, whether I am to be Professor or not, I am prepared for either fortune.
I should like to come and see you, but if you can
1 See p. 17.
2 A
354 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, v
equally well have me, I should like to come about the end of September. We are going for holiday to the Alps from the middle of June to the middle of July : and then my wife will be fixed in Cambridge, taking care of Newn- hamites, and I think I ought also to be fixed, pegging away at my book on Political Economy, which is to come out in October. But some time in September I must have another holiday. . . .
I am very glad you like Myers's Wordsworth.1 It has more of his best thought and feeling than anything else he has written ; not mere literary skill — though I think there is plenty of that.
To his Sister on June 10
I was thinking rather sadly of my birthday when your letter came and cheered me. I should have written to you long since about what we talked of in London ; but the more I thought about it the more I felt that I had said all, or nearly all, that I wanted to say to you. You see, I do not want to bring you to my position. I am not sorry exactly to be in the position myself : it has grave defects and dis- advantages, but I feel in a way suited for it ; I regard it as an inevitable point in the process of thought, and take it as a soldier takes a post of difficulty. But I cannot take the responsibility of drawing any one else to it — though neither can I take the responsibility of placing obstacles in their way. Still, I have some results of thought on theological and ethical questions which, it seems to me, may be profitable to others who are led on other ways in the wanderings of Spirits ; and in our talk I gave you what I could of these — and if you ever feel inclined to ask me any more questions, I will give you in the same way, if I may, what seems to me at once true and profitable.
Yes, we are off on Tuesday to Davos. . . .
The Swiss tour included, besides the visit to Davos, a journey up the Voider Rheinthal and to Andermatt, a day or two with the Dakynses on the
1 In Morley's "English Men of Letters " series.
1881, AGE 43 HENKY SIDGWICK 355
Righi, and some time at Chamounix with Frank and Gerald Balfour, who were mountaineering.
To Eoden Noel on June 28
I got your card this morning just as I was leaving Hotel Buol, Davos- Platz, where we have been spending ten days with the Symondses. . . . J. A. S.'s two volumes, conclud- ing the Eenaissance, are on the point of coming out, and ought, I think, to make an impression.
I read some of your poems again at Davos with increased pleasure. " Azrael," I think, impressed me most ; there is a strange forcible movement of melody in it which, so to say, overcomes the painfulness of the subject, and sweeps it away on a tide of poetry. " De Profundis " is deeply inter- esting, but it puts me in too argumentative a mood for aesthetic enjoyment.
Ill May of this year Mr. J. R. Mozley had written him a letter in which the question of the limits of belief (or disbelief) allowable in a lay member of the Church of England was propounded : and he had accompanied it with some theological MS. for criticism. Sidgwick wrote two letters in answer, partly on the practical and partly on the theoretical questions referred to, from which extracts may be given. The first letter is dated May 16 : —
. . . The strictest view of lay -membership of the Church of England does not seem to me to involve more than acceptance of the Apostles' Creed. . . . [But] the belief in the miraculous birth of Jesus seems to me so definite and important a part of the Apostles' Creed that I am decidedly of opinion that no one who rejects it can hold any position of profit or trust, of which membership of the Church of England is a condition, without a grave breach of the ordinary rule of good faith. That such a breach is under all circumstances wrong, a utilitarian like myself will shrink from affirming; but that it would require strong special grounds to justify it I feel no doubt. And I cannot
356 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, v
say that even - — 's letter would alter my view on this point, since I do not see that a bishop has any power of dispensing from the moral obligation to believe the Apostles' Creed in its " plain grammatical sense." But the question whether a man may not go to Church and receive the Sacrament according to the rite of the Church of England without believing all the Apostles' Creed seems to me different again ; and on this question the decision of a judicious bishop seems to me entitled to great weight. In fact, I have two views of the matter, which I am inclined to combine, though I am not quite sure how far I can com- bine them consistently. So far as I regard the Church of England as a political institution established by the nation, membership of which carries with it certain advantages, I feel it a moral duty to interpret strictly the legally imposed conditions of membership. (And from this point of view I can recognise nothing like a dispensing power in bishops or any other persons.) But so far as I regard it as an associa- tion of religious persons who unite for common worship, I am inclined to apply a less strict criterion, and to admit as legitimate any relaxation of the express formula of common belief, which I have fair ground for regarding as approved by the general sentiment of the earnest part of the existing association.
... I should be very glad to think with you that the experience of Christians that prayers for spiritual help are answered is a valid ground for believing in the objective existence of a universally present sympathising and answer- ing Spirit. ... I doubt the validity of this " experience " because of the general resemblance and affinity that it seems to me to have to a mass of beliefs — which as mutually inconsistent must be largely erroneous — which mankind in different ages and countries have held with regard to the spiritual world, and of which a great part similarly rest on supposed immediate experiences of enthusiastic, " inspired " persons. When an anchorite prays and is comforted by a vision of the Virgin or a Saint, we are agreed, are we not, that the effect is purely
1881, AGE 43 HENKY SLDGWICK 357
subjective ? When he prays and afterwards feels a gain in moral strength, in life-giving hope, tranquillised selfish desires, he seems to me enviable ; but am I therefore to say that his experience is surer evidence of objective reality in this case than in the former ? I hardly think so. ...
On July 30 in returning the MS. he adds the following : —
When I try to follow the line of thought here I find it necessary to distinguish clearly several questions : — 1. How far has Christianity been indispensable or beneficial to the progress of mankind up to the point now reached ? 2. How far does it seem beneficial or indispensable at the present stage, or likely to be so in future ? 3. Is it true ?
I am not myself disposed to connect 1 or 2 closely with 3. . . . No doubt, if I could foresee the future of mankind suffi- ciently to declare Christianity for all time indispensable, or even beneficial, to the human race, I should have a difficulty in supposing it not true. But I have no such foresight. . . . In fact, the reason why I keep strict silence now for many years with regard to theology is that while I cannot myself discover adequate rational basis for the Christian hope of happy immortality, it seems to me that the general loss of such a hope, from the minds of average human beings as now constituted, would be an evil of which I cannot pretend to measure the extent. I am not prepared to say that the dissolution of the existing social order would follow, but I think the danger of such dissolution would be seriously increased, and that the evil would certainly be very great. But I am not prepared to say that this will be equally true some centuries hence ; in fact, I see strong ground for believing that it will not be equally true, since the tendency of development has certainly been to make human beings more sympathetic ; and the more sympathetic they become, the more likely it seems to me that the results of their actions on other human beings (including remote posterity) will supply adequate motives to goodness of conduct, and render the expectation of personal immortality, and of God's
358 HENEY SLDGWICK CHAP, v
moral order more realised, less important from this point of view. At the same time a considerable improvement in average human beings in this respect of sympathy is likely to increase the mundane happiness for men generally, and to render the hope of future happiness less needed to sustain them in the trials of lite.
To J. A. Symonds from Newnham College on September 4
. . . We are now alone again, and I am labouring slowly at my Political Economy. But the great event that has occurred to me is that my interest in Spiritualism has been revived ! But of this in our next.
This renewed interest in " Spiritualism " was mainly due to experiments by Professor W. F. Barrett of Dublin, which seemed to show that " thought transference " — the influence of one mind upon another, apart from any recognised mode of perception — was a reality. The interest of Sidgwick and others in this was part of the impulse that, through the zeal and energy of Professor Barrett, led to the foundation of the Society for Psychical Kesearch. At a conference convened by the latter, and held on January 6, 1882, the Society was planned, and it was definitely constituted in February of that year, with Sidgwick as its first President, and with the declared object of " making an organised and systematic attempt to investigate that large group of debatable phenomena designated by such terms as mesmeric, psychical, and spiritualistic." An examination of thought transference as above defined was specified as one of the first things to be undertaken, partly because this subject was exciting popular attention at the time owing to the ' willing game ' which was much in rogue, and of which the explanation was popularly assumed to be thought transference. But the attention of the investigators was not limited to this, and during the winter and
1881, AGE 43 HENEY SIDGWICK 359
spring of 1881-2 Sidgwick was again joining in the investigation of mediums for the physical phenomena of spiritualism.
To his Sister from Newnham on December 8
... I have some more news that may interest you.
1. Miss Moherly has just come out practically first in the Moral Sciences Tripos, though her name does not appear publicly, as she has only been examined informally.1 But I am very glad, as she is really able and thoughtful in a high degree and deserves this success, though I hardly expected it. The joke is that she and another Newnham student [Miss Finlay] are the only candidates whose work has come up to first-class standard !
2. We have paid off all the debt on Newnham; it is now a business paying its way, owning a capital of two houses, which, when they are full, yield a fair endowment fund for exhibitions, future buildings, etc. In fact, for the first time for ten years I feel that the institution can really stand alone, altogether independent of my fostering care. (Kir~ not that this ought to be noised abroad on the house-
\ W-" <->
tops, as we can still do with donations, etc. — but we could, if necessary, exist without them.)
3. I am chaffed in Hall because my nephew is said to have brought forward, in the King's [College] Debating Society, a motion to the following effect : — " That the Higher Education of Women is Undesirable." There is a charming breadth of statement here ! He tells me that it was carried by 11 to 10.
We are going to Scotland in a week or so for most of the holidays.
To F. W. Cornish from WJiittingehame on December 20
Pardon my delay in answering your letter — it arrived when I was winding up the arrears of the term ; but I ought to have written at once to say that we could not
1 She had not fulfilled all the conditions required under the new regulations for formal admission to the examination.
360 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, v
come to you, as we were due to spend Christmas here. . . . I am just now rather under pressure of work, being anxious to finish a book on Political Economy before the end of the vacation, if possible. It is a book which has unfortunately ceased to interest me as much as some other things, and therefore I find it requires favourable external circumstances to make me get on with it. ... It is perhaps characteristic of middle age to be careful in " gathering up the fragments " of all things pleasant, and I regard myself now as a very middle-aged man for my age.
To G. 0. Trevelyan from Newriham on April 28, 1882
I shall be delighted to book you for a walk on Saturday, May 20.1 If you come down by the midday train, you might come here to lunch and contemplate our establish- ment, which has at any rate the advantage of being unique, or nearly so. It seems a long while since we have had a good talk. I console myself by reading your speeches. I hope to be in London a good part of July, enjoying life, and shall hope to see something of you — always supposing that it is possible to see a Minister during the last month of the session !
Have you read Jebb's Bentley in Morley's series ? The Phalaris part seems to me decidedly well done — and it was difficult to do after Macaulay ; other parts, too, are good, though on the whole it rather makes clear to one that Bentley does not belong to English Literature.
To his Sister from 4 Carlton Gardens on July 1
I shall be in London off and on during July. Nora will be at Cambridge superintending Long Vacation at Newnham, as we do not leave till October — that is, Miss Gladstone [who was to succeed Mrs. Sidgwick] does not become responsible till then. . . .
My book still hangs, but I hope will certainly be out in
1 Mr. Trevelyan was appointed Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland early in May (in succession to Lord Frederick Cavendish), so that this walk did not come off. It was no doubt intended to be combined with an " Ad Eundem " dinner on May 20.
1882, AGE 44 HENEY SIDGWICK 361
October. I am consoled to find in reading the biographies of eminent men that their books frequently come out later than was intended. Our plans are rather more settled ; I do not give up my Praelectorship till Christmas, so that we shall be in Cambridge next term, though not at our house. Then we hope to spend a spring in Italy, and come back to our house in April for the May term — if everything is favourable.
To H. G. Dahyns, Jidy 12
Alas for the envious years ! I am just writing Eeminiscences of T. H. Green l (as raw material for the biography) — painful scraps of nearly vanished memories.
To the Same from 4 Carlton Gardens, London, July 14
I am glad to hear of your arrival,2 though I shall not see you till next week. I have a meeting in London on Monday (" Society for Psychical Eesearch " !), and shall come down in the evening or on Tuesday. I want you to come to lunch or dinner at Newnham to meet, if possible, the Goodwins, a pleasant American classical scholar, who is going to archseologise in Athens for a year: staying with Jebb. I have written to my wife to arrange this if possible, and she will write to you or your wife. Much when we meet.
The meeting here spoken of was the first general meeting of the Society for Psychical Research. It may be interesting to quote some extracts from Sidgwick's introductory address as President, as they explain his attitude to the subject. He said : —
The first question I have heard is, Why form a Society for Psychical Eesearch at all at this time, including in its scope not merely the phenomena of thought-reading (to which your attention will be directed chiefly this after- noon), but also those of clairvoyance and mesmerism, and the mass of obscure phenomena commonly known as
1 Died March 26, 1882.
2 Near Cambridge, where Mr. and Mrs. Dakyns had taken a house for the summer.
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Spiritualistic ? Well, in answering this, the first question, I shall be able to say something on which I hope we shall all agree ; meaning by " we " not merely we who are in this room, but we and the scientific world outside ; and as, unfortunately, I have but few observations to make on which so much agreement can be hoped for, it may be as well to bring this into prominence, namely, that we are all agreed that the present state of things is a scandal to the en- lightened age in which we live. That the dispute as to the reality of these marvellous phenomena — of which it is quite impossible to exaggerate the scientific importance, if only a tenth part of what has been alleged by generally credible witnesses could be shown to be true, — I say it is a scandal that the dispute as to the reality of these phenomena should still be going on, that so many competent witnesses should have declared their belief in them, that so many others should be profoundly interested in having the question determined, and yet that the educated world, as a body, should still be simply in the attitude of incredulity.
Now the primary aim of our Society, the thing which we all unite to promote, whether as believers or non-believers, is to make a sustained and systematic attempt to remove this scandal in one way or another. Some of those whom I address feel, no doubt, that this attempt can only lead to the proof of most of the alleged phenomena ; some, again, think it probable that most, if not all, will be disproved ; but, regarded as a Society, we are quite unpledged, and as individuals we are all agreed that any particular investiga- tion that we may make should be carried on with a single- minded desire to ascertain the facts, and without any foregone conclusion as to their nature.
But then here comes the second question, which I have heard put by many who are by no means unfriendly to our efforts, — that is, Why should this attempt succeed more than so many others that have been made during the last thirty years ? To this question there are several answers. The first is, that the work has to go on. The matter is far too important to be left where it now is, and indeed, con-
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sidering the importance of the questions still in dispute, which we hope to try to solve, as compared with other scientific problems on which years of patient and unbroken investigation have been employed, we may say that no proportionate amount of labour has yet been devoted to our problems ; so that even if we were to grant that previous efforts had completely failed, that would still be no adequate reason for not renewing them. But again, I should say that previous efforts have not failed ; it is only true that they have not completely succeeded. Important evidence has been accumulated, important experience has been gained, and important effects have been produced upon the public mind. . . .
Thirty years ago it was thought that want of scientific culture was an adequate explanation of the vulgar belief in mesmerism and table - turning. Then, as one man of scientific repute after another came forward with the results of individual investigation, there was a quite ludicrous ingenuity exercised in finding reasons for discrediting his scientific culture. He was said to be an amateur, not a professional ; or a specialist without adequate generality of view and training ; or a mere discoverer not acquainted with the strict methods of experimental research ; or he was not a Fellow of the Eoyal Society, or if he was it was by an unfortunate accident. Or again, national distrust came in ; it was chiefly in America that these things went on ; or, as I was told myself in Germany some years ago, it was only in England, or America, or France, or Italy, or Russia, or some half-educated country, but not in the land of Geist. Well, these things are changed now, and though I do not think this kind of argument has quite gone out of use yet it has on the whole been found more difficult to work ; and our obstinately incredulous friends, I think, are now generally content to regard the interest that men of undisputed scientific culture take in these phenomena as an unexplained mystery, like the phenomena themselves.
Then again, to turn to a different class of objectors, I think, though I do not wish to overrate the change, that the
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attitude of the clergy has sensibly altered. A generation ago the investigator of the phenomena of Spiritualism was in danger of being assailed by a formidable alliance of scientific orthodoxy and religious orthodoxy ; but I think that this alliance is now harder to bring about. Several of the more enlightened clergy and laity who attend to the state of religious evidences have come to feel that the general principles on which incredulous science explains off-hand the evidence for these modern marvels are at least equally cogent against the records of ancient miracles, that the two bodies of evidence must prima facie stand or fall together, or at least must be dealt with by the same methods. . . .
For these various reasons I think we may say that on the whole matters are now more favourable for an impartial reception of the results of our investigation, so far as we can succeed in obtaining any positive results, than they were twenty years ago. In saying this I do not in the least wish to ignore or make light of the evidence that has been accumulated in recent years to show that at least a great part of the extraordinary phenomena referred to spiritual agency by Spiritualists in England and America are really due to trickery and fraud of some kind. I had this in view when I said just now that important experience had been gained by preceding investigations. . . .
My interest in this subject dates back for nearly twenty years, and I quite remember that when I began to look into the matter, nearly every educated Spiritualist that I came across, however firmly convinced, warned me against fraud, and emphasised his warning by impressive anecdotes. It is merely a question of degree, and I think it would be generally admitted that recent experiences have changed the view of many Spiritualists with regard to the degree. I think that even educated and scientific Spiritualists were not quite prepared for the amount of fraud which has recently come to light, nor for the obstinacy with which the mediums against whom fraud has been proved have been afterwards defended, and have in fact been able to go
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on with what I may, without offence, call their trade, after exposure no less than before.
It was a few days after this that a great and sudden blow fell in the death of Sidgwick's brother- in-law, Francis Maitland Balfour, through an accident in the Alps. Frank Balfour, who had not completed his thirty-first year, had already made a considerable name for himself by his scientific work, and had been appointed to a Professorship of Animal Morphology, specially created for him at Cambridge, but a few weeks before ; he was a man of marked and growing influence in the University, and he was beloved to an unusual degree by his family and friends. He and his guide were killed on the slopes of Mont Blanc, near Courmayeur, on, it is believed, July 19, and the news reached England on Sunday, the 23rd. The body, when recovered, was brought home for burial at Whittingehame.
To H. G. Dakyns, July 25
Thank you for writing. It is a dreadful blow to us and an irreparable loss to Cambridge — at least it now seems so. Otherwise many older men might envy such a life.
To F. Myers from Whittingehame, August 5
We have just laid the coffin in the earth : it is on high ground within a cluster of trees : the spot where my wife took me six years ago to show me her mother's grave : — a sacred seal of full admission to the heart of this unique family life, which it has been my privilege to share for these six years, and which now can never again be what it has been — not until old things have passed away and all things have become new ; if Time or Eternity has indeed such consummation in store for us.
As to this, I have no faith like yours. But I am glad that at least the funeral service is not so alien to me as it was; the materialistic ceremonial to-day seemed to me
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symbolic, interpreted by the words of the Apostle, who to-day seemed to me to have known more than the churches understood — or perhaps he was inspired by one who knew more.
The Michaelmas term of this year was spent with the Rayleighs in their house at Cambridge. Sidgwick was lecturing on Elementary Moral Philosophy, and on the Conditions of social order and wellbeiug with special reference to the doctrines of Bentham and Mill ; this last course being given as deputy for the Knightbridge Professor — a post which he held during the academic year 1882-3. He was also still at work on his Political Economy, and though the long -planned Italian tour was put off for some ten days on account of the book, it was still unfinished when he and his wife finally started on December 23, and the last chapters went with him in slip. The tour occupied nearly four months ; the Lent term of 1883 was the only term Sidgwick spent away from Cambridge from the time he came up as an under- graduate in 1855 till his death in 1900. On the way south they visited Avignon and Aries, spent some days at Cannes, and went thence to Mentone, where they met M. Scherer and his wife and with them other French philosophers. Here they were joined by Mr. James Bryce, who went on with them to Alassio, Spezia, Siena, Orvieto, and Rome, and was a most delightful travelling companion. He remained with them till the end of January. Unfortunately during the greater part of the tour Sidgwick was not well, and during part of it was really ill. He had probably been overworking, and his unfinished book was a great burden to him at Rome.
To F. Myers from Rome about January 28, 1883 I was just thinking of writing to you when yours arrived; should have written before, but have been rather unwell ever since I have been here — dyspeptic and
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hypochrondriacal — and consequently rather reluctant to communicate impressions of the Eternal City blackened by this unhappy mood. On the whole I think I may say that the ancient remains and the works of Art have impressed me as much as I expected, in different ways ; but all that is connected with the form of Christianity centralised here is antipathetic to me — partly, no doubt, because one almost never finds the Ages of Faith purely conveyed ; the expres- sion of them is almost always ' restored ' and plastered over by the later ages of make believe. However, of these things hereafter, when I have got a better humour and maturer judgment. . . .
I have been trying to find out something about Spiritualistic movement here, and may perhaps do some- thing in the way of spreading your circular [about Psychical Research], . . .
In February, after a few days at Naples, where, in spite of illness, Sidgwick was very much impressed by Pompeii, they returned through Rome to Pisa, and then went to stay with Gerald Balfour at his villa outside Florence. Here Sidgwick was for some days really seriously ill.
To F. Myers, March 12
I am still in rather an unsatisfactory state as regards health, but hope things will come right soon. We expect my brother Arthur and his wife to arrive here this evening, and I suppose we shall go away, either with them or by our- selves, about the end of the week, and get to Livorno a day or two after, but it depends partly on their plans. . . .
Will you propose Gerald Balfour on my behalf as a member of the S.P.R and second him ? He is the only ' Hegelian ' (to use the term very generally) whom I have yet found in sympathy with us, perhaps because he dis- tinguishes clearly between the universal with which philosophy is concerned, and the individual minds whose destiny philosophy does not seem likely to determine. . . . He seems to enjoy his external life, which has certainly
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many attractions, though I do not think that I should like to live at Florence myself. . . .
My book will, I suppose, come out at Easter. I am daily expecting the final proof of the table of contents. . . .
The visit to Leghorn — for seances, under the auspices of Signor Coen — took place in March, but did not yield results of value for psychical research. Sidgwick was also occupied at Leghorn in writing on Kant for Mind. After this he and his wife joined the Arthur Sidgwicks at Pisa, and the four together visited Lucca, Bologna, Ravenna, Modeua, Parma, Milan, Lugano, ending with the St. Gothard Railway, and Brunnen on the Lake of Lucerne. Notwithstanding the illness already mentioned Sidgwick got much enjoyment out of the whole tour, and impressions which gave him lasting pleasure.
To J. A. Symonds in the summer of 1883 (after a visit to Davos)
I have decided to stand for the Professorship [vacant by the death in July of the Rev. T. R. Birks] ; I do not quite see who else is to have it, and I find that the Psychical Researchers think it better for the cause — at least this is Myers's view. Also it is not yet clear that Psychical Research can occupy a great deal of one's time ; it depends on our finding 'subjects.' Still I feel as if the bolder course would be to throw it up ; but I cannot make up my mind to do anything quite so unlike what is expected of me. This is quite private. Every one here thinks the chair is the one object of my desires !
He was elected to the Professorship on Novem- ber 1, and writes to his sister from Hillside on November 5 :—
Best thanks for congratulations, Edward's and yours ; it is certainly a real satisfaction to me to have a stable position. Otherwise I feel that I have got too old for the
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pleasure of this kind — or this degree — of professional success, but perhaps that is all for the best.
"We are very glad that there is no reason to be alarmed about Edward. I am afraid he has not been able to sleep as much as Mr. Gladstone, who, when he had to stay in bed last year in consequence of an accident, slept, as he told us, " from 9 to 1 0 hours " !
To J. E. Mozley on November 15
Many thanks for your congratulations ; I hope to be able to do useful work in my chair, at least for the present. Life seems very short to me, and I do not quite know how soon a sense of the little time left will lead me to give up Academic business.
As to Moral Philosophy, I should be very glad to do something more in the way of constructive work than I have done, but I do not yet see my way to it. Meanwhile I am a provisional sojouruer in the tents of Common Sense, and occupy my spare moments with patching the rents of this frail shelter.
I have often thought of writing to you about the matters we have discussed ; but have no new important word to say. Though life goes very rapidly with me at this stage, the process of the world's thought, so far as I share it, seems to be going very slowly ; the old problems seem to remain where they were, and no changes have occurred in my thoughts or feelings with regard to them that deserve the dignity of the written word : though I shall be ready for conversation on them when an oppor- tunity offers.
To H. G. Dakyns from Liverpool (where lie was engaged in some psychical investigation), December 1 8
We are on our way to Chief Secretary's Lodge, Phoenix Park, Dublin.1 It looks an ominous address, but I am hoping for much political instruction. ... I heard that you had mingled in the giddy throng that crowded about the
1 To stay with Mr. Trerelyan.
2B
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Birds? I wish I had seen you. I hope you were among those who thought it worth coming to see, for there were some who doubted ; and I myself deemed it rather instruc- tive than exhilarating. But I felt as I did in the Ajax that even mediocre acting brings out points which escape one in reading ; especially that one never does attach enough importance to the action of the chorus. . . .
For my Professorship, I am glad the matter is settled, as the work I have in hand in Cambridge now — partly my own, partly general academic reorganisation — is likely to be better done when one has a certain sense of stability. Otherwise I do not care about it, as I should have done ten years ago, which is due, I suppose, to middle age.
1 The Birds of Aristophanes, acted at Cambridge in November of this year.
CHAPTER VI
1883-1893
THE work of " general academic reorganisation" which Sidgwick refers to in the letter at the close of the preceding chapter, occupied so large a share of his thoughts and energy during the period we now enter on, that it will be well to devote a few words to it here. It arose out of the statutes framed by the University Commission, which came into force in 1882 ; and the body charged with carrying it out was a new one, a " General Board of Studies," consisting largely of representatives of the Special Boards in charge of the different departments of study. Sidg- wick joined the General Board, when it was first constituted in November 1882, as the representa- tive of the Special Board for Moral Science, and, with the brief interruption caused by his absence in Italy in the Lent term of 1883, served on it con- tinuously till the end of 1899 ; he did not then stand for re-election — partly because he wished to have more time for his own work, and partly, perhaps, because he had somewhat lost interest in the ad- ministration of a University which had seemed to him to show want of adequately progressive action in several instances.
Among the most important duties of the new Board was that of administering to the best advan- tage a common fund for University purposes com-
371
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posed of contributions exacted from the Colleges by the new statutes — contributions which were to increase at intervals of three years to a stated maximum. By means of this additional income the University was to establish Professorships, Readerships, and Uni- versity Lectureships, to increase the emoluments attached to some of the existing Professorships, to provide necessary buildings, and otherwise to enlarge its work and render it more efficient ; and it was the business of the General Board to co-ordinate the demands of different departments so as to present to the University a workable scheme which should give the utmost efficiency possible under the circumstances. When, however, the demands of the Special Boards were formulated it became "immediately obvious," as the General Board said in a report in May 1883, "that the funds at the disposal of the University would be for the present wholly inadequate to supply the wants which the several Boards considered to be urgent," and it will be seen that the work of adjust- ing these claims was necessarily a very delicate and difficult one. The difficulty was, moreover, greatly increased by the unforeseen effect of agricultural depression, which by impoverishing the Colleges, whose property was and is largely agricultural, rendered it impossible to exact from them the full tax counted on by the Commissioners in framing the statutes.
The organisation and development of the work of the University with which the General Board was concerned was, as readers of the previous chapters will be aware, an object which Sidgwick had long had in view and had long been working for. He desired on the one hand to extend the influence of the University, and to open its doors as widely- as possible to different classes of serious students, and on the other so to organise the teaching offered as not only to provide as far as possible for all subjects
vi HENKY SIDGWICK 373
required, and (for industrious students) do away with the need of private tuition, but also to avoid the overlapping, and consequent waste of funds and energy, apt to arise from the separate organisation of the Colleges.
Of his desire to open the doors of the University to different classes of students his work for women is an example, but by no means the only one. The maintenance and development of teaching for Indian Civil Servants was an object to which he devoted both time and money,1 and in May 1883, when there had been some question, on pecuniary grounds, of discontinuing the attempt to provide adequately for them, he said, in a discussion in the Arts Schools, that his own " opinion was well known that research should be much more considered and encouraged in the Uni- versity than now ; still, the discredit of abandoning the connection with these students [Indian Civil Servants] would be so grave that he would rather postpone important research than incur the loss." The view here expressed is typical ; he sympathised with every effort to enlarge the field of University influence both on the literary and scientific sides,2 and the develop-
1 He served on the Board for Indian Civil Service Studies from May 1883 to December 1896, and from 1884 to 1888 himself provided £200 a year towards the expenses of the teaching required.
2 Sidgwick himself more than once came to the temporary aid of different departments when the poverty of the University prevented their receiving the financial support which seemed to him particularly urgently needed. Thus he gave £300 a year for four years (from 1884) out of his Professorial stipend for a Readership in Law, to which Sir. F. W. llaitland was appointed ; earlier lie had anonymously supplemented the stipend of the Professor of Modern History ; in 1897 he promised to the University £200 a year for five years from his own stipend for a Professor of Mental Philosophy ; and in 1889 and 1890 he gave at an opportune moment £1500 for buildings for the Physio- logical department. His gift to the Indian Civil Service department has been already mentioned. We may add to this various smaller gifts to help in starting Classical Art and Archaeology as a subject of academic study, in providing the engineering laboratory, and to further other objects. It is not so much the fact of giving that deserves notice in Sidgwick's case, for fortunately for the University much public-spirited generosity has been shown by others of its teachers and officers in gifts and gratuitous services, but Sidgwick's interest in all departments of University work led to his gifts being widely distributed — not confined to one department. As was said in October 1900 by the Vice -Chancellor (Mr. Chawner), after
374 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP.
ment of departments of study which by some were viewed with distrust as too narrowly professional, such as — besides the Indian Civil Service studies — engineering, agriculture, and the training of teachers, was always encouraged by him. His desire to ex- tend the sphere of influence of the University in the interest of sound learning was one of the reasons which made him wish that the imposition of Greek on all its members should be done away with, since he believed that this would make it possible for the University to put itself at the head, as it were, of the modern sides of schools as well as of the classical sides, and also at the head of those " modern " schools, already numerous and certain to increase, of whose curriculum Greek was not a regular part.1
Dr. Henry Jackson has kindly furnished us with the following notes on Sidgwick's work for the Uni- versity, especially in connection with the General Board : —
From the first Sidgwick took a leading part in the deliberations of the General Board of Studies. The Board had to face a preliminary question of great difficulty and of paramount importance : Was the money derived from the Colleges to be spent in the complete endowment of a few posts or in the partial endowment of many ? Sidgwick declared for the latter policy : and when the Board accepted it and proceeded to settle details, expended upon the nice adjustment of rival claims a wealth of equitable and ingenious thought. His policy was not one with which I could altogether sympathise : but, sympathiser or not, no
referring to Sidgwick's death in his review of the events of the year : " There was hardly any department in the life and work of the University in which he did not take an active and sympathetic interest. During the last thirty years few reforms have been carried which he has not helped to promote."
* For Sidgwick's views on the adoption of technological subjects as academic, on the relation of the Universities to the training of teachers, and on the connection of the University with schools other than classical, com- pare a Memorandum by him, written in answer to questions by the Royal Commission on Secondary) Education. — Report of the Commission, vol. v. p. 243.
vi HENRY SIDGWICK 375
one could too much admire his public spirit, his fairness, his industry in investigation, his dialectical skill.
Presently the Board tried to define the duties of pro- fessors. I never admired Sidgwick qua politician more than in the debates on this delicate subject. Himself a professor, and a very conscientious one, he took a large and generous view of the work which a professor should be expected to do. The professors, however, resented the pro- posed regulations. Sidgwick argued with unfailing wit and imperturbable good -humour. But he made no converts among his colleagues, and the attempt to define the number of lectures to be required of professors was dropped.
In course of time it appeared that the calculations of the Commissioners had been unduly sanguine, and that, in view of agricultural depression, the tax payable by the Colleges to the University could not be exacted in full. The situation interested Sidgwick intensely. He devised a scheme of relaxation which failed by reason of its excessive subtlety and elaboration.1 It was, I think, at this time that he was a member of a small committee appointed to investigate the needs of the several departments. He did the whole work of collecting information : his two colleagues, liveing and myself, were of use, if at all, only as critics.
For several years he was Secretary to the Board, first personally, afterwards through a deputy, whom he gener- ously paid. When he left it, December 31, 1899, I had a regretful feeling that this must mean for him the abandon- ment of administrative work in the University. The news seemed to me almost tragic. It was as if I had heard of the parting of a parent and a child.
I used to wish that Sidgwick might be made a member of the Financial Board ; I am sure that finance interested
1 [The scheme, the complication of which arose from the attempt to give relief to the more distressed colleges with as little loss as possible to the University by a differential treatment of the Colleges, was substantially adopted by the Council of the Senate, and carried in the Senate by a majority of seventy-two to thirty in October 1890. The alteration of the statutes involved, however, could not be carried out without the consent of the Colleges as such, and as ten out of the seventeen dissented, the scheme had to be dropped.]
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him much. I think that he would have liked nothing better than to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. He would have devised an amazingly ingenious budget, and his ex- position of it would have been a marvel of lucidity and address. He was a frequent, ready, and singularly effective speaker in our little Parliament, held in the Arts School. I do not agree with those who talk of him as a man who was never likely to enter public life. On the contrary, it would never have surprised me, especially in later years, if he had stood for Parliament. If he had done so, and been elected, my conviction is that he would have had a very considerable position as a critic. He was in my opinion an admirable speaker: skilful in the statement of his points, fertile in suggestion, incisive in attack.
It seemed to me that in deliberation, whereas many men are content to fasten upon some one important prin- ciple, and at all hazards to follow it to its consequences, Sidgwick always tried to take into account all relevant considerations, and to effect, if not a reconciliation of pros and cons, at any rate a compromise between them. Hence he habitually inclined to a middle course ; and hence his opinion might undergo unexpected and considerable changes. Similarly, in discussion or debate, whereas many men are content to support their own convictions, leaving to opponents the presentation of countervailing arguments, he was always arbitrator rather than partisan. Indeed it sometimes happened that the compromise which he had devised for himself stood in the way of his acceptance of any other. I have heard it said that he " sat on the fence." This seems to me a complete mistake. The man who " sits on the fence " is one who, whether he has or has not definite convictions, is reluctant to declare himself. As I have said, Sidgwick's conclusions were often compromises, and might change surprisingly; but they were always exactly thought out, confidently affirmed, and eagerly defended.
Sidgwick's efforts for the better organisation of the existing academic teaching were to a great extent doomed to failure. As Dr. Peile writes : —
vi HENKY SIDGWICK 377
The General Board was not well fitted for the purpose. It was heterogeneous — composed chiefly of the repre- sentatives of all the Special Boards, with, little inclina- tion to force change on recalcitrant Special Boards, still less to enter into conflict with the Colleges, by whom the most numerous class of teachers in the University were appointed and paid. . . . Sidgwick had on the Board a few strong opponents, and many half-convinced supporters who might turn at any time into opponents. He persevered with varying success. He was one of the few members of the Board who had clear views as to what should be done to put into shape the control which the statutes expected the General Board to exercise through the Special Boards, and his logical consistency, his obvious sincerity, and his dexterous management drew as a rule sufficient supporters after him. But there was a general misgiving that he was leading the Board into contests in which it would not be the victor, and might suffer seriously in prestige. It did actually suffer. In popular estimation the Board was meddlesome and ineffective, and not in- frequently Sidgwick was held responsible. The Board often felt that he was bringing them into trouble, and came to regard his proposals with suspicion ; while he, very naturally, became sometimes impatient of the Board. But he never wavered in his policy, and all that could be done in a position so impossible he did.
Singularly different was his position on the Council of the Senate, to which he was elected in 1890. That body has for its statutable function the preparation of Graces to be presented to the Senate for its ratification. But most proposals, whether they deal with internal business or deal with the external relations of the University, end or may end in Graces ; and therefore an astonishingly wide range of matters comes before the Council. On the Council Sidgwick's position was from the first very strong. Whenever he spoke — and he spoke frequently — he commanded the attention of every member by his remarkable aptitude for business, by his originality and sagacity, and by the incisiveness of his
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comments. On the Council, as on the General Board, though, from the different nature of the business of the two bodies, to a less degree, he exhibited what seemed to many his most remarkable characteristic : his willingness to strike out as a compromise some line of action which would be accepted by an opponent. No one could be more keen than he was in maintaining what he felt to be essential. But he had the rare power of realising clearly what was strong in his opponent's case. In fact, where the ordinary man saw one side of a question, he could habitually see two — or more ; and his fairness in making allowance for the strong points of the view opposed to his own, made him willing to sacrifice anything in his own which was not vital.
We may add here the testimony of the Bishop of Bristol (Dr. G. F. Browne l) as to the impression Sidgwick produced on the Council of the Senate : —
Having taken an active part with him in the manage- ment of some of the gravest affairs of the University, I speak from the point of view of one who was supposed, on the whole, to take a side generally different from that which he took. I well remember before I was ever sent to the Council of the Senate myself, being present at a meeting of the electors where Henry Sidgwick was described as a very dangerous person, and we were wanted, though we might not be able to get some one else in, at least to keep Henry Sidgwick out. When I saw what he was on the Council, I realised that he was one of the anchors and mainstays of all that was good. I never knew a man more anxious to see the real good, and conserve that at all hazards. He was never a partisan, in the electioneering sense of the word.2
1 Speech at the meeting for promoting a memorial to H. Sidgwick, November 26, 1900.
2 Dr. Peile says of the Council generally that — "elected at first on strictly party lines — and still so nominally — it has long ceased to be to any great degree partisan. In 1874 (when I first knew it), if a member voted on some division against his party on the Council, there followed a stillness of wonder and of awe. Now such a lapse is too common to be noted. There are, of course, members who may be expected to advocate change ; there are others who may be counted on to oppose change. But the majority vote quite independently on the merits, as they conceive them, of each proposal."
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Dr. Browne also speaks of Sidgwick's work in another department of University administration, the Local Examinations and Lectures Syndicate, of which he (Dr. Browne) was Secretary from 1871 to 1892, during more than half of which period Sidgwick was a member of the Syndicate.1 He says : —
No one can speak with the fulness and continuousness of knowledge, with which I can, of the work which Henry Sidgwick did in moulding the beginning and in attending to the growth of all the external work of the University. . . . I do not know — and my memory goes back over a great many years — any one who filled a larger place than he did, and always with sageness and sanity, either in initiating methods, or in discussing the proposals of others, in the development of the Local Examinations and Local Lectures. I always felt in the office that if Sidgwick had been present and had fairly discussed a matter we at least knew this, — that there was not any obviously better plan to be conceived, and that we had not lost sight of any main considerations. ... I do not think any one will know how much the University owes to the wise inspiration, the wise manage- ment, which Sidgwick was always ready to give. . . .
We now return to the letters : — To H. G. Dakyns from Catribridge on February 27, 1884
It is more than time that I should write to thank you for your long letter about Davos. (I have been busy with visitors,2 and work, and endless correspondence, etc., about psychical matters, which occupies all my leisure.) Both my wife and I were most deeply interested by your letter, which corresponded to, and fitted in with, all else I had heard. . . . The whole thing would be so infinitely and darkly tragic,3 that I could not bear to write or think
1 Sidgwick served on the Syndicate from 1871 to 1873, 1875 to 1878, 1879 to 1883, 1887 to 1891.
2 Sidgwick was very hospitably inclined, and there was a good deal of entertaining done at Hillside — both friends staying and small dinner-parties.
3 Illness of his daughter Janet and other serious anxieties which were pressing upon J. A. Symonds.
380 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
about it all, except for a certain irresistible hopefulness produced in me by the singular combination of marvellous elasticity of temperament and chequered gleams of fortune which his [Symonds'J career shows ; so that somehow it is impossible to despair quite of finding that everything has corne right again. . . .
And you — I hope you are having a serene spring among olives and owls. How about Xenophon ? . . . I have been out of the way of Hellenic conversation lately; but I believe that the movement for the English school at Athens [founded June 1883] is still going on. I fear, however, that it will take years to collect the money they want, and I do not think that it is very easy just now to collect money for this kind of object. One is apt to judge the world from the part of it one sees : but the impression produced on me is that it is in a rather sternly philanthropic frame of mind, rather socialistic, rather inclined to find culture frivolous, and to busy itself with the poverty in the East End of London. However, research must go on, though a third of the families in London do live in one room.
If you think I am cynical, I fear it is so. I have been busy lately reviewing Green's posthumous book — Prolegomena to Ethics. I read it twice over carefully : the first time much impressed with its ethical force and persuasiveness : the second time unable to resist the conviction that my intellect could not put it together into a coherent whole — in fact, that it would not do — and yet that probably it was better that young men should be believers in it than in any- thing I can teach them. This is a conviction adapted to make a Professor cynical. My review will appear in Mind. I hope it will not annoy the disciples. I could not be other than frank. . . .
Arthur writes that . . . the opening of (some not all) Oxford Examinations to Women [has been carried]. So some things are going on well.
In 1884 Sidgwick received the honorary LL.D. degree from two Scottish Universities — from St.
1884, AGE 46 HENKY SIDGWICK 381
Andrews in February, and from Edinburgh at the great tercentenary celebration in April. In June he and his wife stayed with the Symondses at Davos, and he then arranged with Symonds to try to keep a journal and send it to him monthly ; Symonds on his side, agreeing to preserve it carefully and ulti- mately return it. The Journal was continued for several years, and we give the greater part of it here. It begins : —
This journal [for July] is written entirely on July 31, 1884; but I intend to write it in the form of a daily journal, in order to get myself, if possible, into the habit of keeping one.
After some remarks on the journey home, ending with "July 15 ... At Charing Cross the examina- tion of boxes was certainly sufficient to render it risky to import Dynamite," a reference to the dynamite scare of the day, he continues : —
At Carlton Gardens [Arthur Balfour's] had much political talk. Tories seem pretty confident, and are — that is, my Tories are — more afraid that their own people will give way * than of any mischief that can come if they hold out. As I supposed, the real reason why the stand was made on the second reading rather than in Committee — which was the point on which Cairns's and Salisbury's arguments seemed to me weakest — was that the leaders thought it would practically be more difficult to keep their majority firm on an amend- ment made in Committee. Still, I cannot help thinking that they would have done better to pass the second read- ing and to secure by an amendment the appeal to the old constituencies on redistribution : it would have weakened one of the most effective charges against them — that their
1 About insisting cm a Redistribution Bill being brought in before the Franchise Bill giving votes to householders in the counties was passed. The Franchise Bill had been passed by the House of Commons on June 26, but was thrown oiit in the House of Lords at the second reading, on a resolution of Lord Cairns.
382 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
concern for redistribution is pretended as an excuse for delaying the franchise. The charge is, I think, groundless ; as they are now too deeply pledged to the franchise : but it finds some colour in the notorious dislike that many of them really feel for it.
July 16. — Went down to Embley.1 . . .
July 17. — Had pleasant walks. Delighted in English tree-scenery after Switzerland.
July 18. — Back to London: more political talk. . . .
July 19. — Met Trevelyan, and walked across St. James's Park with him to his office. He is very angry with Lord Salisbury;2 and thinks that the people will demonstrate with some effect, and that the Lords may give way. I said that if I were a peer I should now be ashamed to yield : but he maintained that a real expression of popular feeling is some- thing of which the impressiveness cannot be imagined till it comes. He admitted the probable mischief, as regards Ireland, of exacerbating party differences : but thought the only chance of keeping the [Irish] Home Rulers [in order] would be a very decided majority of one party : the Liberals might get this from the reformed constituencies, but the Tories could not possibly get it.
Went to see Irving in Twelfth Night. Irving's Malvolio is better than I expected : not masterly, but sometimes good and always careful and vigorous, a little too pathetic in confinement. But the play seems to me, as always, rather poor stuff for the most part. One may write this in a journal. Viola (Ellen Terry) fair.
July 21. — Went to the Demonstration in Hyde Park. The procession seemed to be partly in earnest, notably the agricultural labourers with hop-poles ; but the emotion of the lines of spectators seemed to me entirely that of sight- seers. The speaking at the platforms in the Park was rather flat, except at the one where Arch was ; here the crowd hindered me from getting near enough to hear more
1 Where Mrs. Clough lived with her mother, Mrs. Smith, on the borders of the New Forest.
2 For refusing to pass the Franchise Bill without a Redistribution Bill, except after an appeal to the Constituencies.
1884, AGE 46 HENKY SIDGWICK 383
than fragments of his eloquence, but he seemed effective. On the whole, if I had been a Tory peer, I should have gone home unshaken.
July 22. — To Cambridge, to entertain Lord Acton and Miss Gladstone. Lord A. pleasant and full of information : but does not give one the idea of " the most learned man in England " until one talks to him about some question of erudition, and then it is evident that he has the learning of a Librarian and something more ; whether enough more to make him write a great work is doubtful to me.
Jidy 23. — Got ideas from Lord Acton about mediaeval political philosophy : he thinks no one before Aquinas worth looking up. He told me several books to read : German and bulky. He thinks Salisbury's tactics mistaken, whether the peers give way in the autumn or not; and I have no doubt that the Liberals will gain by having an election on this question, if only the agitation against the Lords does not frighten moderate men. At present the Government are trying to hold back the movement for abolishing or transforming the Second Chamber : but if the peers throw out the bill again in the autumn session, it will be hard for the Government to maintain this attitude : and yet Harting- ton cannot lead an attack on hereditary privileges with a light heart. The strong point in the Conservative position is that the Government appear afraid of appealing to the old constituencies ; and the strong point in the Liberal position is that the Tories seem afraid of the new electors. Which is the strongest depends on whether, on the whole, the old electors have more sympathy with the new electors or fear of them.
July 24. — Settled down to " labor improbus." Looked through Savigny. The mediaeval jurists do not seem to have contributed much to the progress of political philosophy.
August 6. — Went to tea with Rayleigh at the laboratory — a farewell visit before his voyage to Canada [as President of the British Association]. We talked over his presiden- tial address. ... I, who belong to the prescientific era, can understand more than half of it, and what I understand is all interesting and worthy of attention. . . .
384 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
Dined with 0. Browning to meet Madame de Novikoff (O.K.) ; was rather disappointed ; her talk is lively and spirited enough, but she said nothing that interested me. She avowed a cordial regard for — Madame Blavatsky. She holds that not only Puschkine but Gogol should be ranked above Turgenieff. P. I have never read, but in the German translations of G. I can discern no genius ; his satiric descriptions of Eussian types and manners seem effective enough, but not striking. Perhaps his charm evaporates in German — and perhaps the flavour of Madame de N.'s talk is dulled by English.
August 7. — Xora went to London to listen to Inter- national Educationists in Conference.
August 8. — Went up to London to hear Nora read her paper at the " Healtheries." Eoom crowded ; paper read well — judicious and compact. The international conversa- tion that followed was hardly a debate: the nations are respectively at such different stages in the development of the question of female education. Two Frenchmen dis- puted whether woman was to be specially trained for her function as " mere." The lowest point was reached by a German who praised an institution in Dresden (?) where they are taught to wash babies. The best speech was by Miss Freeman, Principal of Wellesley College. I gathered from her that the practical question in U.S. is not whether women are to have a University education, but whether they are to have it in mixed classes with men. It appears that, speaking broadly, the Western States have gone for mixed education — the University of Michigan (e.g.} is open to both sexes equally — while the more dignified universities of the Eastern States are still resisting the invasion of women, and separate colleges for them, like Wellesley, are flourishing. Miss F. holds that the two systems should go on side by side, being adapted respectively to different kinds of women. Parents should choose.
We went back to Cambridge with Gurney, who comes to a Literary Committee on Ghost Stories.
August 9. — Arthur [Sidgwick] comes to spend Sunday ;
1884, AGE 46 HENRY SIDGWICK 385
after dinner we all go to a meeting of the Cambridge Branch of the S.P.R.,1 where Madame Blavatsky, Mohini, and other Theosophists are to show off. The meeting is in Oscar Browning's spacious rooms : which are crowded to overflowing — all the members of the Branch, and more than as many outsiders. There must have been over seventy ; I should not have thought that such a crowd could have been got together in the Long Vacation. Myers and I had the task of ' drawing ' Mme. B. by questions, Mohini taking a share of the answers. We kept it up better than I expected for a couple of hours ; the interest of the miscellaneous throng — half of whom, I suppose, came with the very vaguest notions of Theosophy — being apparently fairly well sustained. On the whole I was favourably impressed with Mme. B. No doubt the stuff of her answers resembled [her book] Isis Unveiled in some of its worst characteristics ; but her manner was certainly frank and straightforward — it was hard to imagine her the elaborate impostor that she must be if the whole thing is a trick.
August 10. — We all went to a Theosophic lunch with Myers. Madame de Novikoff was there ; certainly she has social gifts, but she does not interest me. Our favourable impression of Mme. Bflavatsky] was sustained ; if personal sensibilities can be trusted, she is a genuine being, with a vigorous nature intellectual as well as emotional, and a real desire for the good of mankind. This impression is all the more noteworthy as she is externally unattractive — with her flounces full of cigarette ashes — and not pre- possessing in manner. Certainly we like her, both Nora and I. If she is a humbug, she is a consummate one : as her remarks have the air not only of spontaneity and random- ness but sometimes of an amusing indiscretion. Thus in the midst of an account of the Mahatmas in Tibet, intended to give us an elevated view of these personages, she blurted out her candid impression that the chief Mahatma of all was the most utter dried-up old mummy that she ever saw. . . .
August 1 1 . — Worked all day at ghost stories [' phantasms 1 Society for Psychical Research.
2 c
386 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
of the dead ']. By the nature of the case, the evidence here is rarely as good in quality as that of 'phantasms of the living'; but out of about three hundred stories, from twenty to thirty must be pronounced good. If put together, it could not fail to impress any one at all open-minded on the subject. Still, it is not enough ; we must try hard to get some cases which will admit of experimental test [i.e. haunted house].
August 14-22. — Quiet days, I working at Political Philosophy, Nora at a paper 011 the (dead) ghost stories for the meeting of the Cambridge Branch of the S.P.E. on evening of Friday 22nd.
August 23. — Went to Barton Hall and met Edward Bunbury, the geographer, who talked much. The Govern- ment are actually at work on their Redistribution Bill, and there is some idea that they may adopt Lord Cowper's suggestion, and lay it before the House in October. If the Lords want a compromise this is perhaps as good as any that may be suggested ; but if they want to force a dissolution it will be playing their game, since the dis- solution after the Redistribution Bill is seen, with the Franchise Bill not passed, is certain to lose the Government some of the seats which they propose to redistribute. On the whole I do not think W. E. G. will concede so much. The political situation is unchanged — we are waiting for Gladstone's speech to his constituents.
August 25. — Had a letter from X. to tell me frankly that he regards himself as belonging to the same class of human beings as Beethoven, though he does not exactly place himself on a level with him. I wrote to assure him that I could never have intended to imply the opposite. I like this frankness. I began to consider how I classed myself in relation to philosophers. On the whole, it seemed to me that my view would be best expressed by some such remark as Wordsworth's to Lamb, that he " could have written the plays of Shakespeare if he had had a mind to." I feel as if I could have worked out a false system as good as — say — the Kritik of Pure Reason, if I had thought it worth while. " Only the mind was wanting."
1884, AGE 46 HENRY SIDGWICK 387
August 31. — Gladstone's speech. It contains a clear, but not obtrusive, menace that Government will take up the agitation against the Peers, if they do not give way in the autumn. If this be so, they will have to give a pretty distinct lead as to the kind of change required. So far the reformers seem rather at sea about it. At the same time he does not seem opposed to compromise.
September 1 1 (!). — There has been nothing to write about except my work l — of which the tale is told in various note- books— and Psychical Research, which I feel ought to be my work more than it is. One effect of growing older is that I cannot really give my mind to more than one thing at once ; and though I think Psychical Research profoundly important to mankind, whereas sound views on the evolu- tion of political ideas are a luxury easily dispensed with, I am ashamed to find how much more interested I am in the latter than in the former. The reason is that I feel as if I had the kind of mind adapted for seeing things — rela- tions— for myself in the history of Thought : when I read what other people say, I seem to see that they have not got it quite right ; and then, after an effort, what seems to be the truth comes to me. This is as near the sense of original production as I ever get, and only intellectual work that gives me this experience really takes hold on me. Now in Psychical Research the only faculty that I seem able to exercise is the judicial ; I feel equal to classifying and to some extent weighing the evidence — so far as it depends on general considerations — but I do not feel the least gift for making a legitimate hypothesis as to the causes of the phenomena, and I am too unobservant and unimaginative about physical events generally to be at all good at evaluating particular bits of evidence. For to tell whether a ' psychical ' experiment or narrative is good or not evidentially requires one to imagine with adequate accuracy and exhaustiveness the various possibilities of
1 About his work he says to H. G. Dakyns on September 3, ' ' We had a good time at Davos in June-July, since when I have been pretty steadily in Cambridge bringing out a third edition of my Ethics and working at the history of political ideas."
388 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
' natural ' causation of the phenomenon, and judge the degree of improbability of each. Nora is much better at all this than I ain : and I mean to give her the work to do, on this ground, so far as she will take it. She has gone to Strathconan [her brother's] with the printed slips of the ' phantasms of the living'; there are now more than 1000, but this number includes a good many that have little evidential value.
September 14. — Started yesterday on a tour of Psychical Research — i.e. to make personal acquaintance with certain persons who have told interesting ghost stories, etc., arid, while asking questions necessary to ascertain the exact evidential value of their narratives, to try to form a view of their personal qualities as witnesses, for our private satis- faction, at any rate. Arrived at Teignmouth 4.50 P.M. . . . Teignmouth is not a bad place to be obliged to go to on business. Its fashionable part lies on a bar of sand (the ' Den ' = Dune) between river and sea, so that it has two water-sides, and its river-side was really picturesque last night as I saw it across the river — ships in the harbour, and behind them houses climbing the hill, with dark green wood among them, behind, beyond, stretching up the fair Devon river — evening light under thunder sky.
September 19 [from H. G. Dakyns's house at Clifton}. — Yesterday I finished my investigations, all except Bridport. Psychical Research is not disagreeable when the subjects of inquiry live in well-situated country houses and ask one to lunch ; one feels, in fact, that one is making the best of both worlds. But when (as on Wednesday) one travels from 7 A.M. to 10 P.M., in abnormal heat, on the day of the fair of the neighbourhood, on railways where the regular practice is to stuff the (heated) 3rd-class passengers into 2nd-class carriages, the case is altered, and one has to remind oneself of the sacrifices made by other scientific investigators in the cause of truth. However, the results are on the whole satisfactory; the stories that become worse after oral examination are mostly those that we had already judged to be objectionable, and some are decidedly improved by the examination.
1884, AGE 46 HENRY SIDGWICK 389
September 30 [Hillside']. — Arthur [Sidgwick] has just gone, having stayed from 26th to 29th. We had much talk about politics. . . .
I think the Lords will not give way. They have taken up a strong position in which they win, whatever happens, and establish a constitutional precedent in favour of their claim to appeal to the people against their representatives, unless the Government place themselves at the head of the Radical attack on the Lords. ... I do not think the Lords will be moved to give way by fear of this latter step, because (a) they will think that there is a good chance of the Liberal party breaking up over the question ; and (i) surrender now would leave them so precarious a remnant of political power, that it is very doubtful whether they would not as a whole have as much or more under any reformed system of constructing the second chamber that is likely to be carried. . . .
My Conservative friends are confident (e.g. Arthur Balfour) — but perhaps they do not know much of the feelings of the more weak-kneed peers. I gather from what he says that the Tory tactics in the Lords are likely to be somewhat different from what they were in the summer : they will not throw out the bill on the second reading, but will refuse to proceed with it in committee till the Redistribution Bill comes up. This is certainly more constitutionally correct.
To G. 0. Trevelyan from Cambridge on October 24 (to congratulate him on his change of office}
I am delighted to hear that you have exchanged a turbulent kingdom [Ireland] for a well - regulated Duchy [Lancaster]. It is also pleasant that everybody is pleased : Liberals cordial, Tories complimentary, and even the enter- taining Parnellites in joy at having routed a hostile chief secretary and driven him into the Cabinet, pour decourager les autres. I hope now you will at any rate have some good holidays.
I think, if I had nothing else to do, I would make a
390 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
political novel out of your career for these four and a half years. The scene would open in the Cambridge Backs in May 1880, when we walked and talked after you had been left out of the Government. Then would come a brilliant imaginative description of the Board of Admiralty (piquant contrast of old salts and red-tapish landlubbers, G. 0. T. riding the waves of controversy). Then in Vol. II. the more serious interest would begin. There would be the assassin-hunt and the police-row — low humour and genre- painting got out of the domestic relation of Irish criminals and peelers. As for the love-making element, we might have the head of the police and an ardent young Home-ruler rivals for the affections of a beautiful niece of the Lord Lieutenant, a situation which offers so many good endings that I do not know which to choose. Finally there would be an interview with the Grand Old Man [Gladstone], who would take to prophesying like Jacob. It might be called " Through One Administration " if Mrs. Burnett did not object.
The Journal again (after a month's interval)
October 31. — I had an interesting conversation last Satur- day with Arthur Balfour on the political situation. He con- siders that a compromise is improbable ; each side considers that it has scored by the vacation campaign, and probably each side is so far in the right that its own supporters have been made enthusiastic by the strife. Certainly the Conservatives think that they have had success ; they do not claim to have had the largest number of meetings, but they claim to have had one or two of the biggest and best ; they think that the Government have failed because, having gone in for a national agitation, they have got no more than a party demonstration. Grant this to be enthusiastic and unanimous, so far as Liberals go, will it remain so if the Government attack the House of Lords seriously ? He thinks the Liberals must lose at least some Whigs when this develop- ment takes place, and that Gladstone shrinks from it on this ground. No compromise has been suggested which is not a surrender of one side or the other ; the Lords — to put
1884, AGE 46 HENRY SIDGWICK 391
it on the lowest ground — cannot afford to surrender ; Gladstone is not likely to recognise the need of it.
November 6. — JH. Fawcett.J l Just now I think most of the wonderful success and example of this life, which is now beyond the reach of time and change. Some lines of Tennyson run in my head : —
0 well for him whose will is strong ! He suffers, but he will not suffer long ; For him . . .
Not all Calamity's hugest waves confound, Who seems a promontory of rock, Tempest-buffeted, citadel-crowned.
He was a hero of a peculiar type, without any outward air of self-sacrifice or suggestion of idealism in his ordinary talk, and yet one felt that his determination to live the ordinary life of a man, and a successful man — who gives pity and aid more than he takes it — required a continual sustained effort which did not draw its force from self-love alone; it continually demanded and obtained the further force given by the consciousness of the power of serving others ; and the needs of this struggle gave to a nature, which, though large, healthy, and generous, was not originally characterised by high moral aspiration, an elevation it would not otherwise have had.
In spite of all that I have read of saints and sages, I feel that if grievous physical calamity came upon me, yet one that left the springs of physical energy unimpaired, I should turn for strength to this example. I wonder how many blind feel that he has opened the door of their prison-house and shown them the way back to ordinary life : steep, yet one that may be trodden by a steady and trustful step.
November 29 (!). — Grumbling. Again a month without a journal ; but I do not give up all hope. I have had for the whole month a bad cold, cough, irritation of mucous membrane, consequent headaches, collapse in the evenings, etc. : so that the waves of work and business have closed
1 Fawcett died on November 6, 1884.
392 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
over me, and I have been living from hand to mouth. In a fortnight more all this will have come to an end.
As for the results of the month, they present themselves to me as gloomy, which perhaps may be due in various ways to the irritation of the M.M. But I seem to have failed so far as Professor — perhaps partly from my colds and coughs ! — at any rate both my classes l have grown small by degrees and beautifully less. And I am growing doubtful as to my general line in academic organisation ; I am beset with a fear that all my efforts to make professorial teaching effective by making it quasi-tutorial will fall between two stools and produce neither good teaching or good research. And Psychical Research is growing dark and difficult ; I am shaken in my view of telepathic evidence by
the breakdown of Sir E. H 's narrative in the Nineteenth
Century. Here is a man tells an elaborate story of what happened to him less than ten years ago, and his wife (who was an actor in the drama) confirms it, and her mother bears witness that the wife told her next morning : and yet the story is altogether inaccurate in fundamental points — it is indeed difficult to understand how any of it can be true.
About Politics alone I am not gloomy ; my expectations have been agreeably disappointed by the Compromise.2 I have always said that there was no reason why both parties should not secure what they professed to be concerned about, though I did not think it would be done in this way. The general verdict seems to be (so far as discernible among the vociferations of parties) that the " Tories mark honours, and Gladstone marks the trick." It fixes Lord Salisbury pretty steady in his seat : though whether his seat itself is steady — with the tide of democracy roaring within as well as without the Tory pale — seems questionable.
I have been reading Maine in the Quarterly — the best anti-democratic writing that we have had. He dined with us this evening : seems really concerned that we have no
1 He was lecturing on Elementary Political Philosophy three times, and on the History of Modern Political Philosophy twice a week.
3 Effected by an agreement between the leaders of the two parties in private conference as to the lines of the Redistribution Bill to be passed.
1884, AGE 46 HENEY SIDGWICK 393
proper constitution in England : thinks it would be a real gain to have a constitutional code settled by Act of Parliament. Of course it could not have binding force for future Parliaments, but — there is valuable efficacy in the written word ; if judiciously written it would be difficult to alter. The genuine alarm that M. seems to feel at the existing state of things in England impressed me much, since his intellect has always seemed to me a very cool and disengaged one.
December 20 ! — Habit of journalising not yet formed. And yet I have from time to time in the day many thoughts that I am disposed to commit fido libello and also fido amico, but when evening comes, I lack the impulse to write.
Arthur Balfour has been with us ; he thinks strongly that his party have been well guided, and gained prestige by the conflict and compromise ; but he is by no means triumphant — hardly even cheerful — about the future. He thinks single-member constituencies1 are the best method of securing representation of minorities that the people will accept, but that the whole arrangement may be overthrown if there is a strong feeling worked up against it in the big towns. (This was ten days ago. Now it looks as if the arrangement would certainly stand. Myself, I prefer ' pro- portional representation ' : but its advocates seem to me to be flogging a dead horse now.)
On the whole, I should say that Gladstone's strategy as regards this Bill has been good, if one reviews its history as a whole, but that his tactics in July were clearly mistaken. He has made Tories and Peers take a great leap towards democracy, but he has let them pluck laurels in the precipitate descent.
December 2 1 . — My nephew, A C. Benson, came to dinner this evening. He told me that in theology Westcott was the one man exercising influence, but that he (A. C. B.) could not get hold of his method. He thinks Westcott very like Maurice as he appears in the biography. They certainly have the common characteristic of continually offer- ing to their opponents an intellectual sympathy which the 1 As arranged in the "Compromise."
394 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
latter, with the utmost gratitude, are quite unable to accept. The difference is that Westcott is orthodox in his conclusions, and only paradoxical in his arguments, whereas Maurice was to some extent paradoxical in both.
December 22-26. — I have had rather an exciting five days, rendered more agitated towards the end by the uncer- tainty of the P. O. about Christmas time. I will put down the main points : —
The story begins on December 13, when we elected Alfred Marshall Professor of Political Economy. He came here on December 17, called on us, heard my view of the lectures required, then suddenly broke out. I had pro- duced on him the impression of a petty tyrant " dressed in a little brief authority " (Chairman of the Board of Moral Science) who wished to regulate, trammel, hamper a man who knew more about the subject than I did. I tried to explain, and we parted friends ; but the explanation was imperfect, correspondence ensued, and on Tuesday (23) I received from him a long and very impressive letter, analys- ing my academic career, and pointing out that the one source of failure in it was my mania for over-regulation. The result of this had been that my energies had been frittered away on details of administration, and on the effort to give a wretched handful of undergraduates the particular teaching that they required for the Moral Sciences Tripos. He contrasted my lecture-room, in which a handful of men are taking down what they regard as useful for examination, with that of [T. H.] Green, in which a hundred men — half of them B.A/s — ignoring examinations, were wont to hang on the lips of the man who was sincerely anxious to teach them the truth about the universe and human life. I have left out the partly courteous, partly affectionate — for Marshall is an old friend — padding of the letter, by which he meant to soften the pressure of these hard truths, but this is the substance.
I was much interested by this letter : * reflected on my
1 As regards Sidgwick's attitude towards criticism we may quote the following sentences written by him to his wife a year or two later, though
1884, AGE 46 HENEY SIDGWICK 395
own life and career: and came to the conclusion that 1 would write down my own view of the causes of my academic failure — I mean my failure to attract men on a large scale.
First, My Character and Opinions. Once, in reading Bagehot's article on Clough, I noted a few sentences which struck me as applying also to myself. As follows : —
" Though without much fame, he had no envy. But he had a strong realism. He saw what it is considered cynical to see — the absurdities of many persons, the pomposities of many creeds, the splendid zeal with which missionaries rush on to teach what they do not know, the wonderful earnest- ness with which most incomplete solutions of the universe are thrust upon us as complete and satisfying." (This represents my relation to T. H. G. and his work.) " ' Le fond de la Providence/ says the French novelist, ' c'est 1'ironie.' Mr. Clough would not have said that, but he knew . . . what was the portion of truth contained in it. Undeniably this is an odd world, whether it should have been so or no ; and all our speculations upon it should begin with some admission of its strangeness and singularity. The habit of dwelling upon such thoughts as these will not of itself make a man happy, and may make unhappy one who is inclined to be so."
I, however, am not unhappy ; for Destiny, which bestowed on me the dubious gift of this vue d'ensemble, also gave me richly all external sources of happiness — friends, a wife, congenial occupation, freedom from material cares — but, feeling that the deepest truth I have to tell is by no means " good tidings," I naturally shrink from exercising on others the personal influence which would make men [resemble] me, as much as men more optimistic and prophetic naturally aim
not exactly applying to the present case : — "I am sorry you are plagued
with the correspondence with ; at the same time I cannot help
thinking that you may derive instruction from this, and from the criticisms in Light, if you can get yourself into the state of mind of taking a large amount of misunderstanding and misrepresentation as inevitable, and merely endeavour to extract the grains of useful suggestion. At least, I myself have always learnt from criticism when I could get into this state of mind about it."
396 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
at exercising such influence. Hence as a teacher I naturally desire to limit my teaching to those whose bent or deliberate choice it is to search after ultimate truth ; if such come to me, I try to tell them all I know ; if others come with vaguer aims, I wish if possible to train their faculties with- out guiding their judgments. I would not if I could, and I could not if I would, say anything which would make philosophy — my philosophy — popular.
As for " over-regulation," it seems to me that there is an element of truth in it and an element of error. I have no desire to have my own way — not knowing sufficiently what way is my own; still less to coerce others. But I have a great desire in all social relations for definite understand- ings ; not knowing what road is best for humanity to walk in, I want all roads that claim to be roads to be well made and hedged in. This impulse may no doubt mislead to pharisaism and mere schematism that devitalises the courses that kind nature keeps — perhaps it has misled me.
January 1, 1885. — This last sentence was finished at Addington Park,1 where I now write on New Year's Day. I am always impressed here with a strange sense of the vitality of the Church of England, and its power of function- ing intellectually and morally in the atmosphere of modern scientific and social thought. At Cambridge I get into the way of regarding it as something that once was alive and growing, but now exists merely because it is a pillar or buttress of uncertain value in a complicated edifice that no one wants just now to take to pieces. Here, however, I feel rather as if I were contemplating a big fish out of water, propelling itself smoothly and gaily over the high road.
January 3, 1885. — Went from Addington to London for the Sunday. Nora immersed herself in the Phantasms of the Living, with a view to conference [regarding the proposed book] on Sunday evening. I read Taine (Origines de la France Contemporaine) at the Athenaeum. Certainly the book is a remarkable success — so enchaining, and on so trite 1 His brother-in-law's, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
1885, AGE 46 HENKY SIDGWICK 397
a subject. But it seems to me essentially deficient in sympathy and therefore in real penetration. It is all very well to maintain a scientific attitude of mind : but the physicist must have his senses acute and alert to perform a fine scientific analysis accurately, and sympathy is an indispensable sense of the scientific historian.
January 5. — Went to Whittingehame (10 A.M. to 7.13 P.M.) ; read Fowler's Progressive Morality for Mind — not a strong book, but the sort of book that is wanted. I think I can praise it mildly, but sufficiently to prevent a breach of friendship. Henry Butcher met us at York, and rode in our carriage from Newcastle to Berwick. He tells me that he does not know a man in Ireland, even among those who were its strongest advocates, who does not think the joint-ownership established by the Irish Land Act unwork- able ; some mode of transferring the complete ownership to the tenants appears an absolute necessity. The question is, who is to run the risk of lending the purchase -money ? Apart from the political danger, I should be quite willing that the British tax-payer should run it : but now ?
January 6. — Settled down to the life of luxury and literary ease which I always enjoy here and in which I revel, though with some moral self-contempt for the disproportion of my 'wages' to my 'work.' However, the perusal of the different reviews of my book,1 which I reserved for the vaca- tion, is a tonic !
January 7. — Head reviews of my book and talked to A. J. B. His chances for Manchester seem to be improved by the single-member system, which he thinks now pretty safe.2
January 8. — Read and made notes of reviews and private criticisms. The total result is just not unfavourable enough to make me decide not to bring out a second edition. It will not be difficult to remove most of the weak places
1 The Principles of Political Economy. Sidgwick's practice was to defer reading reviews till he had collected all, when he generally found that a good many cancelled each other out.
2 Arthur Balfour was at this time member for Hertford, but was a candi- date for the East Manchester constituency at the next election.
398 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
successfully attacked by the critics — except the one damning defect of long-winded and difficult dulness. Even this I shall try to diminish. I feel inclined to jump over chairs like the German baron — " pour apprendre a etre vif."
January 1 1 . — Began " improving " my book. Can not help thinking all the time of a " sow's ear." My imagination is filled with that intractable material
January 12. — Talbots (of Keble), who have been here, are gone. We have had some interesting talks — especially about expenditure of wealth, on which I have promised to write to him. I like his type of Christianity ; it accepts the modern time with a kind of simple and trustful openness to truth which is very attractive. Some day I shall ask him how he gets (logically) at his creed.
January 26. — We have just settled down again at Cam- bridge. . . . Why have I not kept this diary ? I am afraid it was because, during my last week at Whittingehame, 1 fell into the habit of surrendering myself to the pleasure of the evening in the form partly of French novels, partly the anecdotes and arguments of Mr. Henry J. Howorth. Mr. Howorth deserves a description. He is a Manchester barrister, an active politician, member of Arthur Balfour's Conservative committee there. He has written a book on the history of the Mongols. The first day of his arrival he gave me three pamphlets on metaphysics. The second evening he entertained us with an account of his con- troversy with Freeman on early English History. It was not till the third day, when I took him out walking, that I discovered that his real passion — just now — is geology, on which he discoursed to me for an interesting hour. . . . It is really refreshing to find, at this date, a man who reads and writes about what he pleases, and snaps his fingers at the Division of Labour.
These days at Whittingehame, with Political Economy, Howorth, and other Tories, were instructive but depressing. Their criticism on the present phase of Radicalism seems to me unanswerable. Am I then becoming a Tory ? Perhaps, but a strange one. Whoever saw a Tory dressed (symboli-
1885, AGE 46 HENKY SIDGWICK 399
cally) in sackcloth and ashes, and bewailing the necessity of conserving our glorious Constitution pro tern. ?
On the coldest afternoon, with snow beneath and around, we mildly tobogganed, but with Canadian toboggans, which appear to be different from the Davos ones — longer and narrower ; you sit and lie down in them. I gathered that the Davos instrument is more what in Canada is called a " bob-sleigh."
On the 19th I went back to Cambridge, and on the 20th lectured on early English Political Economy 1 — before Locke. Heading the growth of England's commercial greatness rouses a mixture of curiosity and patriotic anxiety ; it seems clear that we are past all culmination, relatively speaking, and it would be contrary to all historic precedents that we should not go down hill ; but will it be by destructive, disastrous shocks, or gradual painless decline ? That, I fear, is the only question of practical importance ; but who can answer it ?
January 30. — Went up to London to the Industrial Conference — it was interesting enough — not so much to hear what the delegates said, for those best worth hearing (e.g., a miner and an agricultural labourer) did not seem to have practised speeches of ten minutes' length, and had to sit down just as they were getting to the point : but it was interesting to hear their tone and observe what they cheered. On the whole, I was pleased with the men of the North. I do not think the acrid declamatory Socialism which has its home in London will go down with the people of Lancashire and Yorkshire. No doubt they have now inclinations to- wards wild panaceas as regards land ; but I think they have a practical turn of mind, and will not be led far astray. The 'Liberty and Property ' defender was a complete failure. Individualism of the extreme kind has clearly had its day.
In the afternoon we had a successful S.P.E. meeting. Nora's paper on " Phantasms of the Dead " read very well, I thought. I fear it was disappointing to the audience, as it poured cold water, in a lucid and impartial manner, on more than nine-tenths of our ghost -stories. The task of
1 Probably as part of the course on History of Political Philosophy.
400 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
dealing with the small fraction that remain is much harder ; we are hardly feeling our way to a view. It looks as if there was some cause for persons experiencing independently similar hallucinations in certain houses, but we are not at present inclined to back ghosts against the field as the cause.
February 2. — I came [back] to Cambridge to be admitted a Fellow of Trinity. Quantum mutatus db illo socio admitted twenty-five years ago. The tempora are also considerably mutata. Last time I swore that I would drive away strange doctrine ; this time I only pledged myself to restore any College property that might be in my possession when I ceased to be a Fellow. In the evening I feasted in a scarlet gown ; felt middle-aged and pompous, but loyal at heart, and glad to be at home again in my College.
February 7. — Presided to-day at a Proportional Repre- sentation meeting, called to discuss the application of the principle of P.R to University Constituencies. Good speech by P. Lyttelton Gell of Balliol, who came over for the purpose. It appears that many Liberals, reduced to despair by the big Tory majorities, are determined to abolish Uni- versity seats. . . . Hence, to save the seats, this idea of apply- ing Proportional Eepresentation to them has been started. It is proposed to tie Oxford and Cambridge into one con- stituency, which would afford one Liberal seat. The sugges- tion is opportune, but I cannot think it will have sufficient support to make it worth while to agitate about it, unless Proportional Representation generally becomes much more alive than it now is. ... Meeting small, perhaps because distant Khartoum absorbs too much attention. . . .
February 16. — Hiatus! The agitating times and the struggle to do Political Economy combined have caused this collapse. Not that I exactly share the sentiment about Gordon : I cannot satisfy myself that he is not partly to blame for our troubles. I think none the worse of a hero for being a fanatic ; but a fanatic is liable to obey no orders except God's in a crisis. I cannot think that the Govern- ment were quite blind enough to drift by themselves into this horrible mess. I conceive that they had one policy
1885, AGE 46 HENKY SIDGWICK 401
and he another, and that he, taking his own heroic line, dragged them after him reluctantly, and therefore too late. I console myself by thinking that I know nothing of warfare, for if I trusted my judgment I should think our little army must be in extreme danger. . . .
Dilke l lunched with us yesterday. I did not like to talk about Egypt. He said he thought the movement for applying proportional representation to the Universities might succeed, not now, but in a few years. . . .
February 19. — Dined with Protheros and met Stopford Brooke ; should like him if he did not look so just the Irish popular preacher. He told me that Burne- Jones and Morris breakfast together every Sunday, and that a week or two ago B.-J. told him, with tears of joy in his eyes, that they had had a real talk about Art the Sunday before, the first time for many months, Socialism having all this time been the sole topic ! Met Eobertson Smith there ; the little man flowed, entertained, domineered, almost as usual.
February 22. — J. W. Cross came yesterday for the night. We talked about his book [George Eliot's Life']. He tells me 5000 copies are sold, so, as it is a two-guinea book, the publisher is no doubt happy. Granting the plan of the book — i.e. that it is to be a quasi-autobiography made up of letters, and thus aiming at an exhibition of the inner life almost exclusively — it seems to me a remarkable success ; at any rate, I closed the third volume with as powerful a sense of a great and rare personality as I have ever had from a biography. And the little Cross has allowed himself to write is certainly well done — modest, tactful, and what the reader wants. The only nasty review that I have seen is the Saturday ; but as the dominant tone of the S.R. is a combination of conceited orthodoxy and cynical worldli- ness, I do not see how it could do otherwise than snarl and spit at a life so serenely heretical, constantly aspiring, and deliberately emotional.
February 24. — Nora went to Newnham to celebrate — with speeches and dancing — the anniversary of the admission
1 Sir Charles Dilke, Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs.
2D
402 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
of women to University examinations. On the same day Marshall gave his inaugural lecture, containing the threatened declaration of war against me and my efforts at University organisation. I did not go to hear him, but I am told that it was courteously expressed, though unmistakable to the initiated. I have come to the conclusion, without — I think — pique or undue despondency, that I must abandon my efforts. Too many forces are against me — Westcott, Seeley, and now Marshall. Jackson, who is the only member of the Board who cordially and strongly agrees with me, avows that he is quite hopeless. And, after all, it is easy to overvalue organisation, and at any rate well to know in time when a line has to be abandoned. " I will bury myself in my books, and the Devil " — who, I suppose, is the great anti-organiser — "may pipe to his own."
The Great Debate has begun. I prophesy that the Government case will look better after the debate than it does now. The Government has got into a terrible situa- tion ; and no doubt it is now clear that they ought either not to have sent Gordon at all, or to have backed him up earlier. But if it had turned out well, what an achieve- ment it would have been to have pacified the Soudan with- out wasting a soldier ! It was a piece of highly speculative politics which has failed.
February 27. — What an absurd thing this debate is ! I can understand turning out the Government because they have failed ; that wants but few words to argue ; but to try to make them say exactly how they are going to get out of their hole seems to me pernicious folly. Such declara- tions may hamper them seriously at [a] critical point, since they won't like to get out of it any other way but that which they have undertaken to try. Let them get out any way they can, so long as they can avoid disaster and pre- vent a rolling wave of Mohammedan fanaticism from pouring down upon Egypt. I think, however, that I want the Government to be turned out, on the whole — to change the luck ! But I should be much surprised at its happening.
March 2. — Returned from staying at — Keble ! As the
1885, AGE 46 HENRY SIDGWICK 403
Doge said to Francis I., the most remarkable thing was to find myself there. But, in fact, the extent to which I really get on — not only externally, but in intimate conversation —with Talbot is less remarkable to me than it was : since I have come to know that we agree in two characteristics, which [are] quite independent of formal creeds — a belief that we can learn, and a determination that we will learn, from people of the most opposite opinions. / acquired these characteristics in the dear old days of the Apostles at Cam- bridge ; I wonder where Talbot acquired them.
On Saturday was a meeting of a Branch of the S.P.R. at Oxford. ... I heard that certain dons are concerned about this movement, being afraid that it will " unsettle the mind " of young Oxford, which reminded me of the man who felt himself ill after a city dinner in consequence of having imprudently taken a walnut.
March 7. — Went up yesterday to the dinner of the Political Economy Club. It is astonishing how little Political Economy these people know. Thorold Rogers knows a little, and thinks he knows all there is to be known. Courtney knows a good deal in his old-fashioned style, and must be confirmed in his economic orthodoxy by his justifiable consciousness of his superiority to almost every one else there. I found myself in the position of defending Ricardo.
Spent the night at Bryce's ; met Lord Acton, who told me that Cross was much disappointed at his review of " George Eliot's Life " in the Nineteenth Century. I am not surprised, for, though it is the best and most interesting review that has appeared, it has the defect of trying her throughout by a standard which is really irrelevant ; he keeps pointing out that at this or the other stage of her development she did not know what a thoroughly educated person of first-class ability and unimpaired leisure would have known. Also he has an odd way of throwing down statements of the most disputable kind with the air of saying what is not only generally admitted, but trite ; as when he says that she did not take to Shakespeare on
404 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP. M
account of his " insularity " and the " obviousness " of his characters.
However, it is an interesting article, and he is an interesting man with his vast learning, and a sort of modest communicativeness of ready generalisations. He does not so much strike me as a remarkable man, but rather as a man like most of us who get first-classes and fellowships, but one whose youthful eagerness to learn has had fair and full play. And yet Cui Bono ? since it seems very doubtful whether he will publish anything.
Had a pleasant talk to Bryce about his book on the United States. I think it ought to be the book of the season next year. The Americans believe in him : and I think he will manage to produce a favourable impression of them in the English mind without an air of parti pris — since he by no means thinks democracy has broken down — and also to tell them plain truths without losing their goodwill. If I am right, it will be a feat to have produced the combined result. C. H. Pearson was there, believing in Australia as much as ever, but personally much disposed to return to England, if the mother-country would make him a good offer.
March 12. — Have just finished Pattison's Memoir; curious as an unconscious confession of sordid egotism, mingling with a genuine ardour for an academic ideal of life. Very odd that a man of so much intellectual calibre appears never to have turned on his own character the cold and bitter criticism that he applies to others. In spite of my sympathy with his views, I cannot but admit that his life is a moral fiasco, which the orthodox have a right to point to as a warning against infidelity. The fiasco is far worse than Carlyle's, though the fall is from a lower pedestal.
March 16. — Returned from pleasant visit at Hall's (Six Mile Bottom) refreshed with merry jests and genial hospitality. Talked to J. W. Cross about Lord Acton's article, which has rather vexed him. I urged the profound admiration implied throughout — though here and there
1885, AGE 46 HENEY SIDGWICK 405
dissembled — and emphatically expressed at the close. . . .
Miss was there ; I liked her personally ; she is not
at all conceited to talk to, and her occasional efforts to be sententious are rather agreeable ; the superciliousness of her style seems to belong to her pen or her ink, like some people's humour and other people's fine sentiments. But her socialism — which we all employed ourselves in drawing — seemed to me a crude affair ; she reminded me of Carlyle's saying of Mrs. J. S. Mill (when Mrs. Taylor), that she had a " deal of unwise intellect."
March 22. — On Friday last we went to Brighton to experiment in Mesmerism. . . .
We talked over Theosophy, of which Hodgson keeps us amply informed by weekly accounts [from India] of his investigation.1 His opinion of the evidence seems to be growing steadily more unfavourable ; but there are still some things difficult to explain on the theory of fraud. I have no doubt, however, that Blavatsky has done most of it. She is a great woman.
I am trying to find out what people are thinking about in London. Nothing lively. The Tories have said so often that the country was going to the dogs, that now that they really bond fide think it is going they seem merely paralysed and languid. They do not even abuse Gladstone in the old style ; the only sarcasm I have heard is that ' the Mahdi has telegraphed to Wilfrid Blunt expressing a wish to subscribe to the Gordon Memorial ! ' It is partly the im- possibility of turning the Government out, and partly a deep distrust of the democratic plunge that they have agreed to take with a good grace.
Nor does there seem any excitement about the Eussian quarrel ; 2 the truth is that in spite of the newspapers no one can believe that Gladstone will go to war with Eussia — the irony of history does not reach this pitch !
March 26. — Have been reading Marius the Epicurean
1 Dr. Hodgson had been sent out by the Society for Psychical Research to investigate 'Theosophy.' For his Report see Proc. S.P.R., vol. iii.
2 About the frontier of Afghanistan; leading to the "Penjdeh in- cident."
406 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
with an adequate amount of serene satisfaction. I think it is a success — as much a success as Pater is capable of. Its interest depends, for me, entirely on style and treatment ; I not only do not care about Marius's moods and phases, but I can hardly imagine that the author seriously expects me to care about them. But the pictures of ancient life are sweet, transparent, delicate ; and though laboured, yet not so that the reader is made to feel the weariness of the labour — he rather feels flattered by the trouble this scholarly person has taken to please him. In short, it is a " bland " and " select " book, " gracious " certainly, if not exactly " opulent " ; — and its preciosity, though a salient feature, is not offensive.
March 29. — By way of contrast to Pater, I have been reading the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn — much to be recommended to admirers of Mark Twain (the author). Huck Finn is a kind of boyish, semi-savage Gil Bias, of low — the lowest — Transatlantic life, living by his wits on the Mississippi. The novelty of the scene heightens the romantic imprevu of his adventures : and the comic impre'vu of his reflections on them is — about once every three times — irresistibly laughable.
Have just dined in Trinity. We cannot really believe in war with Eussia; we simply feel that, by all general rules, the game of brag has reached a dangerous point.
April 4. — Heard to-day details of Munro's * death. . . . If it had been possible to bury him in the College Chapel, there would have been a strong wish to bring the body home, but this was legally out of the question — and it is not unfit that he should rest in the eternal city. Two of the most strongly marked figures and characters of Cam- bridge have gone in Fawcett and Munro, alike in a certain rugged vigour and naturalness, if in little else. I feel as if I were growing old rapidly, and should soon come to the time when
Things long passed over suffice, and men forgotten that were.
1 H. A. J. Munro, Fellow of Trinity, editor of Lucretius, died at Rome, March 30, 1885.
1885, AGE 46 HENKY SIDGWICK 407
In the evening I received a telegram from Hall of Six Mile Bottom, asking if I would be a candidate for his division of the county at the next election. I gather that with his support a Liberal would have a good chance, and the candidature, with his hospitality for headquarters, would be as pleasant as any could be. I was tempted ; but I communed with my political conscience and discovered that I could not come forward as a Liberal at this juncture without hypocrisy. I am a Utilitarian, and would be a hypocrite if I were convinced that the country required this sacrifice ; but I cannot rate my political value so high. In fact the temptation was really this : I want to write a great book on Politics during the next ten years, and am afraid it will be too academic if I do not somehow go into the actual struggle. But how ?
April 9. — Nothing but toil these last few days, but feebly performed. Am trying to write chapters for a book on Politics, but it will not be literature any more than my other books. Yet I should like to write literature before I die, if only the substance of what I have to say would adapt itself to form.
Have been studying Plato again, in spite of my despair as to the possibility of making out what he means. I am coming to the conclusion that his myths are not as I once thought the drapery of a half-philosophised creed to which he clings while conscious that it is not philosophy. I now think he was not half poet, half philosopher, but philosopher to the core, as determined as Descartes to believe nothing but the clearest and most certain truth, who only used his imagination in myths to dress up &6%ai for the vulgar, as near the truth as their minds could stand, but that a long way off. Thus all the anthropomorphic theology he scatters about, so attractive to pious, cultivated souls, is, I think, simply and solely for the vulgar ! Then how the world has been taken in ! and how plainly he has told us in the Republic his view of these useful fictions. Instead of securus judicat orbis terrarum must we not say orbis terrarum vult decipi et decipietur ?
408 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
Telegram that Kussians have attacked and defeated the Afghans !
April 10. — Bushed at the papers. After all, the liussians seem to have had provocation, so far as actual attack goes. The Afghans had " not advanced, but only occupied a more advantageous position." The distinction is not impressive to a civilian. Still Sir Peter Lumsden's opinion clearly is that the Kussians were substantially aggressors. Is he to be trusted ?
April 11. — Dined with the Political Economy Club and sat next Dalhousie who seems to rely on Lumsden's report, and says Eussians are quite untrustworthy. What do the Russians want ? My impression is that they do not want war, but think it a good opportunity, Gladstone being in power with Egypt on his hands, to increase their prestige with the Afghans. . . .
Our discussion [at the Political Economy Club] was on the rise in value of gold as cause of depression. The bankers came to the front. It is an exaggeration to say that they know no Political Economy ; I think they read Mill some time ago, and look at him from time to time on Sundays.
April 15. — Arrived yesterday at Ran by on a visit to Francis Otter. Interesting and pleasant visit, so far. I had never stayed with Otter since his marriage, and in old days, though I liked him for his intellectual eagerness and warmheartedness, there was something about him of random, casual, ineffective discordance with the normal conditions of human life which made one very dubious what the flavour of his life would be when the fizz was off. But under the influence of a happy marriage and a moderate landed estate he has managed to become solid, sober, harmonious, without any Philistinism. . . .
April 16. — Went yesterday to see Tennyson's birth- place (Somersby), thirteen miles off; tolerably picturesque in the midst of the wolds, with sloping garden at back and seven wych-elms on the left. Mrs. Burton, the lady of the house, obligingly showed us the fireplace made by the father and his boys. She said Yankees came sometimes,
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but there do not seem to be many pilgrims — perhaps because it is seven miles from the nearest railway.
Talked to Otter about Comte and Congreve. The latter's position he thinks hopeless since the split. . . . He showed me Comte's " Testament," printed some little time ago for private circulation, containing his correspondence with Clotilde de Vaux. It certainly is not adapted for the profane. Some of the letters — just before the crisis manqut of their love-affair — would be thought a grotesque caricature if they appeared in a " Tendenz- Roman " against Comtisin. . . . Still, I like Comte, so far as one can like any one so portentously devoid of a sense of humour.
Told some real ghost -stories to Otter's three nice children, and felt their great inferiority to sham ones — whether for entertainment or edification.1
April 25. — I cannot find any one who knows what we are going to do when we have drifted into war ; but the general conviction is that the drift is now irresistible.
April 26. — Commemorative service in Chapel for Hotham and Munro. I was much moved, and Trotter's sermon was pathetic ; but I could not avoid the mood of Myers's lines : —
Whereof the priests, for all they say and sing, Know none the more, nor help in anything.
The first lesson was about Balaam's Ass !
April 28. — Alfred Elliott (Commissioner of Assam) came to dinner, and we talked about Afghans and Indians. He thinks the demonstrations of Indian loyalty genuine: denies that Anglo-Indians generally are all converted to the Forward policy : and stoutly maintains that India ought to be defended behind her own mountain boundary. But the impression produced on my mind was that there was something to be said for not going to Afghanistan, and something for staying when we had gone, but nothing for
1 In earlier years Sidgwick had a marked faculty for improvising stories to children. Sir. Dakyns recalls " a memorable occasion when Henry — who was visiting us at Clifton — lying on the rug near the fire, told inimitably a tale to Amy, who was three or four years old, and all eyes and ears greedily absorbing the rather tragic history of THE BLOODTHIRSTY BLUEBELLS."
410 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
the course actually adopted of invading, scuttling, and then agreeing to protect a people now become so hostile and suspicious that they will not let our troops in till the mischief is done. Graham Dakyus came to-day. . . .
April 30. — Hodgson came back from Madras. He has no doubt that all Theosophic marvels are and were a fraud from beginning to end. He thinks Mine. Blavatsky a re- markable woman, possibly working from motives of Russian patriotism and Russian pay to foment native discontent. He thinks Theosophy will go on, but that we may help to prevent people of education from being further duped.
May 10. — Dined with Myers last night and met the Trevelyans. T. has recovered all his spirits since he got free of Ireland, but his hair is curiously white, in patches, from the troubles of these years. When he began to talk enthusiastically about Gladstone he seemed very like the old Trevelyan. . . . To-day the Trevelyans came to lunch. "We talked among other things of the violence of Parlia- mentary debate ; I asked him whether the abuse of ministers was not hotter a hundred years ago. He said the debates of that time urged openly more serious moral charges than people would openly make now, and in very strong language, but generally with more dignity of style, and more gentlemanliness as regards interruption.
May 11. — I learn from Nora that I shall not be able to go to the ' Ad Eundem ' at Oxford, as important matters will come before the Newnham Council on the 16th. It will be proposed to take a decided, though not irrevocable, step towards the building of a third Hall, by taking a temporary house to receive additional students. Miss Clough, whose mind is always peculiarly open to the logic of facts, has yielded to the pressure of applications, and set her thoughts towards a third Hall, and as " ce qu'elle veut, elle veut fortement," I expect that we shall begin building in about two years, if the pressure continues. I shall have a certain satisfaction in seeing the thing complete. We shall then have an institution of about 150 students in a ground of eight acres, and if society wants more room they must
1885, AGE 47 HENEY SIDGWICK 411
found a new college. However, it is not yet decided, for ' Holloway ' is an unknown quantity still indeterminate.
May 16. — Had the Newnham Council; all went off well ; house is to be taken.
May 20. — "Labor improbus"; struggling with details of examination papers — a wretched business. I sometimes fear (when I think that I might have come to something intellectually) that I have been wrong in giving up so much of my time to this educational routine. " Clitellae bovi : non est nostrum onus." For I get no satisfaction out of it ; have no conviction that any one else would not do it better.
May 21. — We went up to London and dined with Gurney to meet the amateur conjuror whom Maskelyne has recommended to E. G., and whom we hope to employ in investigating mediums. . . .
May 25. — I am trying to finish my review [for Mind] of Martineau (Types of JZthical Theoi*y). I shall praise it as much as I can, but it is not a first-rate book, though it is by an author of fine qualities — a remarkable com- bination of vivid imagination and emotional rhetoric with precision of thought. But yet — he seems to me altogether out of it ; I can scarcely treat his theory with proper respect. No doubt I seem so to him : and are we not both right ? The book makes me rather depressed about ethics.
May 26. — Alas ! with Boards General and Special, Com- mittees of Boards, Syndicates and Sub-syndicates, there is a luxuriant fungoid growth of administrative work feeding on the best juices of academic life. One longs for a benevolent despot, " one still strong man " in a blatant University.
June 16. — I have intermitted this diary in consequence of the general worry at the end of term. Now that I have come to London in the very acme of Cabinet-making, I shall write a line or two in it daily.
The cause of the crisis is difficult to conjecture exactly. It seems agreed that the defeat on the Budget was quite unexpected by Gladstone at any rate, and therefore in a certain sense the Ministry were not " riding for a fall." On
4lL> HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
the other hand the prevailing opinion is that it is a gain to the Liberals to go out now, and therefore one wonders why the Tories consent to come in. Nor can I quite make out from Arthur Balfour what answer they would give to this ' why ' — whether they ( 1 ) think the Liberals mistaken, or (2) recognise that they (the Tories) are in a dilemma, and consider that both acceptance and refusal are bad for them, but acceptance not worse than refusal as regards the future ; so that the opportunities of doing good to the country (rt? yap eV#Xo9 ov% avru) <£t\o? ;) during the next live months may be reckoned as pure gain. This latter is on the whole the view that I attribute to them.
June 17. — The depressing thing from a patriotic point of view is that every one seems to agree that in any case no " Crimes Act " can be passed this year. Why the great majority of the House of Commons, who certainly want a Crimes Act, cannot have their way, I do not quite know. If there can be agreements at all between Tories and Liberals, I should have thought there might have been agreement about this ; but experts confidently say no.
So in any case Parnell wins by the change of ministry : a bad omen for next session. For my part I think that the triumph of the Irish faction in the next Parliament is assured, barring gross mistakes or startling accidents. Parnell will hold all the trumps and his game will be so easy that I feel as if I could play it myself !
June 1 8. — The interest of being at the centre of informa- tion is that — though A. J. B. will tell me very little — one does get to know the sort of extent to which the newspaper explanation of events is true. E.g. I feel no doubt that all the talk of the ' conditions ' imposed by Eandolph Churchill is idle ; there has been some friction, but on this wise — the removal of Northcote to the Lords was arranged between him and Salisbury, with the former's complete assent ; but some of Northcote's friends have protested and made diffi- culties. As for Lord Eandolph Churchill, he has certainly not stipulated for any one's removal, and the " old gang "- in particular the ' tradesmen ' Smith and Cross — will have
1885, AGE 47 HENRY SIDGWICK 413
their places as before. The question now is whether they can get from Gladstone adequate pledges that they will be allowed to have their Budget undisturbed ; if not, they will not come in after all. At present there is a hitch ; Gladstone declines to pledge.
As to the wisdom of the Tories in taking office, my view now is that it will go against them at the next election. The Liberals will gain in impetus by being in Opposition and in oblivion of their mistakes in foreign policy, especially if the Tories make mistakes too. I also think that in the five months allowed them they can do too little on their own account to make it worth while to come in ; they will be almost entirely employed in wiping up the messes of the Liberals — a process in which they will hardly keep clean ! But I think that the Liberals are in any case pretty sure of a fair majority in the next Parliament ; and the bigger this is (if only it can be big enough) the better for England, owing to the danger of the Irish holding the balance. And I think the Tories will gain from five months' experience of office in being able to criticise more effectively and have a definite alternative policy. It will be better for them and the country when their turn comes in the Parliament after next.
This is the view of a judicious and impartial philosopher, but the forecast has one defect : it assumes the old division of parties to continue ; but in truth I think that there may be a shifting of the line soon. Pondering the question, how could Chamberlain make a Home Rule speech, and talk of " sweeping away the anachronism of Dublin Castle," with the official harness still warm from his back ? I judge that he thinks the time has come to bid openly for the Irish vote, at the cost of alienating any number of Whigs. Will this lead to a serious split ? or will the Liberals in the next Parliament be to so great extent Chamberlain's men that it will not matter ? I can hardly think the latter.
June, 19. — The hitch continues — solution not to be arrived at till Tuesday. I met the G.O.M.1 at dinner; he
1 Grand Old Man, i.e. Gladstone.
414 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
was in excellent form, arguing genially and persuasively the question of Free Trade and Protection with the ex- President of the U.S. Senate. Bryce tells me that he speaks of the negotiations with indifference, as if he did not want to come in again, but did not mind, and certainly would not grant unreasonable demands. . . .
June 22. — Met Trevelyan, and went to lunch with him. He was pretty sure that the Conservatives would take office. " The mere fact," he said, " that the negotiations are going on proves it," on the principle that the woman who deliberates is lost. The Liberals, he said, would certainly not give way, but he was by no means clear that it was not the interest of the Tories to take office even without pledges. Arthur Balfour appeared at dinner, and allowed to transpire that an arrangement would most probably be come to. After dinner I went to see Minnie [his sister] at Lambeth — laid up with a bad ankle, but full of instruction about the state of religion among the ' upper ten ' in the metropolis. . . .
June 23. — Arrangement is come to; the Tories take office, and it is pretty clear that they have waived almost entirely their demand for assurances. Certainly I am rather surprised: but it is said that the Queen put pressure, and I suppose that there was always a quiet, noiseless pressure from below exercised by the people anxious for office. So Randolph Churchill is really to be Secretary for India. It does not make one in love with Parliamentary Government !
June 24. — Arthur Balfour is, I think, very judiciously placed at the head of the Local Government Board and out of the Cabinet. There is no feeling expressed anywhere that he is above his place — as there certainly would have been if his uncle had put him in the Cabinet ; and it is a very important place just now, as the Liberal move against or towards Home Rule is to be extension of local govern- ment.
Dined with Statisticians, whose rather dull debates I have been attending these three days. Speaking fair, but I cannot make out how any one can stand it in June.
1885, AGE 47 HENRY SIDGWICK 415
And it is odd that no one has yet found out how discus- sions of scientific subjects ought to be managed now that the printing-press has been in the world for more than three centuries. What can be more absurd than to call eminent men together from all parts of Europe, and spend the few precious hours of their meeting in reading papers which every one has, or might have, printed in his hands. The printed matter ought to be distributed each evening, and discussed next day by those who have taken the trouble to read it. The same principle might be applied to debates in Parliament, professors' lectures, etc., etc.
June 26. — Eead Gladstone's account of the negotiations. I think he has behaved perfectly correctly throughout — after the original blunder of threatening resignation. On further reflection, I do not see why the Tories should not get on without pledges, if they will consent to avoid all startling Jingoism.
June 28. — The Book — Phantasms of the Living1 — is getting on. Yesterday we heard Myers read the first half of his introduction. I am rather troubled about that part of it which relates to religion. M. says roundly to the Theologian, " If the results of our investigation are re- jected, they must inevitably carry your miracles along with them." This is, I doubt not, true, but is it wise to say it ? Also it is only true as regards the ultimate effect. I do not doubt that if we ultimately reach a negative conclusion, this inquiry of ours will in time be regarded by sceptics as supplying the last element of proof necessary to complete the case against Christianity and other historic religions ; but for many generations — perhaps many centuries — the only difference will be that Christianity, Mohammedanism, etc., will have to support their miracles instead of being supported by them ; and the historic roots of these great institutions are surely quite strong enough to enable them to do this for an indefinite period — in fact until sociology has been really constructed, and the scientist steps into the place of the priest.
1 By E. Gurney, F. Myers, and F. Podmore.
416 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vr
June 30. — Had a talk this evening with Arthur Balfour about the probable action of the Ministry. The point of most interest is Egypt, on which he has nothing to tell me. The general opinion outside is that the Cabinet mean to put off a decision, if possible, until Parliament has come to an end. For two or three months they will be really " interreges," and as the retiring Government have tried many policies and failed in each and all, I think public opinion will receive benevolently anything the Tories like to do. A. J. B. defended inaction as regards Ireland ; I do not see why it should not answer for the time, if Parnell has sufficient hold over his own people. But he will fairly score it as a triumph ; and his position in the next Parlia- ment will be so much stronger.
July 4. — Nora and I, Gurney and A. Myers, came down to Brighton on Thursday to try mesmeric experi- ments. . . .
July 5. — Went down with N. to Harrow, and lunched with Bowen ; saw Butler for half an hour after Chapel. It made me sad to reflect that I had not been there since our marriage — partly through mishaps, partly through supine- ness. In this way one drops threads of one's life which cannot again be taken up. The day was lovely, and the views from the hill. We went to see the magnificent bathing-place into which ' Duck-puddle ' has expanded itself. Butler told me that during the twenty-five years of his headmastership £130,000 had been raised by subscrip- tions from old Harrovians and parents ; the school having no adequate foundation, it has become customary to send the hat round on all occasions, and no one complains.
July 6. — Went to see the Mikado of Gilbert and Sulli- van, and thought, as I always do of their pieces, how much better it would have been if a little more pains had been taken — if the whole had been kept more up to the level of the best things.
July 8. — Came yesterday to The Pavilion, a summer residence of Hall [of Six Mile Bottom], lent us for twelve days' aestivation. It is on the Suffolk coast, about three
1885, AGE 47 HENRY SIDGWICK 417
miles from Aldeburgh. Scenery not picturesque ; and yet it is an attractive place — partly because it is wild ; a little wild garden of mainly ferns, wild flowers, etc., is between the house and the garden gate, from which steps descend immediately to the sea. Partly the house has an original construction appropriate for summer ; no front door, but an outer staircase up to a verandah, which runs round three sides, and into which three sitting-rooms open. I live in one, Nora in the other, and we have meals in the third.
July 15. — A happy week — without a history! I have read Political Economy and written part of my address for the British Association.1 Nora has edited the July journal of the S.P.E. and written the report of the Theosophic phenomena. I have helped a little, but she has done more work than I have. Further, we have walked and looked at the sea, tried to distinguish brigs from schooners, and species of schooners ; in the evening read bad novels and tried psychical experiments with cards. Isolation complete.
My problem in preparing address for the British Ass. is to put as optimistic a colour as possible on the rather low view that I take of the present state of our economic knowledge. Really, in this as in other departments, my tendency is to scepticism, but scepticism of a humble, empirical, and more or less hopeful kind. I do not argue, or even think, that nothing is known, still less that nothing can be known by the received methods, but that of what is most important to know we, as yet, know much less than most people suppose.
July 19. — I have been reading the newspapers without any guidance except my intellectus sibi permissus to the interpretation of the signs of the political weather, and, so far as my unaided intellect can judge, I do not like the way that the Tories are going on. Thus (1) I do not like the line Arthur Balfour is taking as to Medical Eelief ; 2 I
1 As President of the Economic Section (Section F). The address has been republished in Miscellaneous Essays and Addresses.
2 Bill to abolish the disqualification from voting of persons receiving medical relief only.
2 E
418 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
think this is the kind of question on which Tories — and indeed any sensible ministry — should yield reluctantly, and only the very minimum that they are forced to yield, if they yield at all. For the concession cannot but have a depressing effect on the movement towards providence, which all the true philanthropists who know the poor are doing their utmost to support. And if they yield, it should be on account of the circumstances of the case, and because, owing to hospitals, etc., there is a profound and deeply -rooted distinction in the popular mind between medical treatment and ordinary relief. Certainly they should not yield on the ground A. J. B.'s [speech] suggests, that Chamberlain's agitation has made it impossible to hold out. This is surely giving far too great encouragement to agitation.
Also (2) I think the line they are taking about Ireland is in too cynical a contrast with the line they were taking up to the very moment of Gladstone's resignation — I speak of the Tories generally ; I quite admit that Churchill and Gorst are maintaining their consistency, but the extent to which Beach is giving in to them seems to me discreditable to the party as a whole and of bad omen for the future.
Judy 21. — We came back to London yesterday. I went ... to the Athenaeum to read Sir Robert Peel's speeches. To-day I have been at the Museum, and at the House of Commons hearing Courtney attack the Government for their weakness on the question of Medical Eelief. I do not care so much for Courtney's own disapproval, as his political economy makes it inevitable, but I am afraid he is right in saying that practical philanthropists are against it. They have been trying hard for fifteen years to teach the poor thrift, and now the moral weight of the legislature is to be thrown into the other scale, so far as medical relief is concerned.
John Hollond, for whose opinion I have much respect, as he was for some time chairman both of the Board of Guardians and the Charity Organisation Committee in his district of London, says that he is on the whole of opinion
1885, AGE 47 HENKY SIDGWICK 419
that the battle of economy should uot be fought at this point ; but he thinks the line between medical relief proper and ' medical comforts,' — port wine, etc. — should be strongly maintained. Certainly there seems to me a rather stronger line between senna and beef-tea than between beef-tea and other kinds of food.
July 24. — With this last sentence the House of Commons disagreed yesterday by a majority of fifty. The Government stuck to the line between medicine and food ; the Liberals saw an opportunity of proving that Short is the friend after all, and not Codlin; the economists, angry with the Government, left them in the lurch ; so the line has now to be drawn between the sick man's food and the food of his family. I am afraid that this will hardly be maintained, and that soon all paupers out of the workhouse will be enfranchised in the unseemly competition for popularity. The Times blames Arthur Balfour too severely, overlooking the fact that the re- sponsibility, after all, belongs to the Cabinet. But I confess I do not like his line.
July 31. — Came to Cambridge Friday last, and have been reading lazily Comte — with a view to my address — and S.P.R. literature. I wish Ingram had not been allowed to air his Positivism in the Eiwydopcedia Britannica, attacking Political Economy a la Comte in the article headed by the name of that science. I must reply : can hardly avoid attacking Comte : can hardly attack him without making him ridiculous : and I do not like jeering at a great man's foibles.
Aiiymt 7. — Came up to London yesterday, and took two-thirds of my address for Section F to the secretary of the British Ass. to be printed. ... It seems to me very dull, and I wish I had kept out of the business ; however, it is one of the things that only comes once. . . . Went, by appointment, to lunch with Manton Marble, a leading Democrat now over here, to find out whether there is any chance of the European Governments doing anything effective to support silver. It seems that the Bland Bill,
420 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vr
under which the U.S. Treasury is bound to coin 2,000,000 dollars a month in silver, is likely to be repealed next session ; the men of business in the Eastern States, who are afraid that the accumulating mass of silver dollars will soon force on the change of their currency to a practically silver basis, will make a great effort ; the Cabinet is on the same side, and they expect to win. If this takes place it will no doubt cause a further fall of the rupee in India, and that, I suppose, will stimulate the export of Indian wheat for some years till the effects of the fall are evenly distributed among all kinds of exchange in India. Hence there are trying times coming for the Indian Government, and also an increased pressure on English agriculture ; but I think it would require worse dangers than these to turn John Bull's heart from his monometallic gold currency, and so I told Manton Marble. In the evening J. K. Cross (ex-Under- Secretary for India) dined with us, and made very light of the above dangers. On verra. Meeting of S.P.R. Council in the afternoon, very harmonious.
August 8. — Arthur Benson dined with us ; has found the work hard at Eton, but says he likes it. He thinks that Warre's changes are pretty well finished ; the most important change has been to relieve the tutors of the old load of work in writing fair copies. Also modern languages have been increased. But in the main the system that has " made Eton what it is " may be expected to continue during a steady conservative reign of twenty years or so.
August 9. — Dined in Hall and met Colvin. . . . He tells me that Morley's J. S. Mill is nearly ready. I think that I must take the opportunity of its appear- ance to write my promised article for the Contemporary on J. S. M.,1 though I cannot but think that it is too soon to attempt a final estimate of his work ; the reaction against him is still active in my own mind as well as in that of others. What I really envy him is his style ; whenever I have by accident tried to say something that 1 He did not write it.
1835, AGE 47 HENKY SIDGWICK 421
he has said before, without knowing, his way of saying it always seems indefinitely better.
August 11. — Have been reading Comte and Spencer, with all my old admiration for their intellectual force and industry and more than my old amazement at their fatuous self-confidence. It does not seem to me that either of them knows what self-criticism means. I wonder if this is a defect inseparable from their excellences. Certainly I find my own self-criticism an obstacle to energetic and spirited work, but on the other hand I feel that whatever value my work has is due to it.
August 12. — [The] Frank Darwins came to lunch, and he showed me the chapter about his father's religious opinions in the biography that he is writing. There is nothing original in Darwin's thought on this subject, but the great frankness, simplicity, and modesty of his utterances is, to me, very attractive.
Came to Terling Place with a book-box full of Sociolo- gists.
August 15. — Have been reading Schaffle's Ban und Leben des sozialen Korpers, It is a remarkable work, but not science in my opinion; at most a careful definition of the ground on which science may some day be built.
August 22. — Went up to London yesterday and had a long day with Gurney and Myers working on Phantasms of the Living. There are now eleven chapters printed in slip. I hardly imagine that any one will read it, and the reviewers will doubtless only select the weak stories to make fun of. And yet I think it will somehow influence opinion. It will have one advantage — hard to get in these days — that there never has been a book of the kind.
On Thursday I sent off my address to Section F of the British Association to the printer, all except the last paragraph. I charge the Sociologists with mistaking the statement of a problem for its solution, and deluding them- selves into the belief that they know the laws of evolution of society, because they have a clear conception of the general fact of social evolution. To amuse my audience I
422 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
quote some of Cointe's confident prophecies, which certainly read rather absurd now. But it is poor stuff, this sterile criticism, and I am rather ashamed of it : only the pre- tensions of these people irritate me into the belief that it is a public duty to repress them.
August 24. — C. H. Strutt, M.P., came for the Sunday. He has been making Tory speeches — says no one can tell how the labourers will vote. It appears that the most effective points on the Tory side fail, as the labourer is indifferent to foreign affairs. I asked Charley what the dangerous points were on the Liberal side. He said four : (1) Abolition of tithe ; but this the farmers care more about than the labourers. It is certainly impudent of the Liberals to promise this. (2) Cheap loaf. This the labourers are very keen about, and the Tory retort that a cheap loaf is no good when you have no wages to buy it with does not alarm them; they do not yet feel a falling off in demand for labour — partly owing to the steady attraction of the towns. The Tories have to swear that they have no intention of making the loaf dear. On the whole there does not seem much chance for Protection. (3) Chamberlain's proposal to provide them with land. They have rather a vague idea of the terms, but they grasp that land is being offered them. (4) Fourthly and lastly comes gratitude to the Liberals for having given them the vote. On the Tory side the chief forces are habitual deference and a vague fear that some harm will come to them if they vote against their masters.
August 29. — I feel an involuntary traitor when I stay in a country-house of a brother-in-law. It is not that I want to take away their property to make peasant-proprietors or any other Radical device ; as a political economist I can only look on all small-scale industry as an interesting survival, which must be content to fill the crannies and crevices left by the big-scale industry. It is not by the road of peasant-proprietorship that the salvation of modern society is to be attained. No, why I feel a traitor is because I look with satisfaction on the changes of a different and more truly modern kind which are forcibly modernising
1885, AGE 47 HENRY SIDGWICK 423
the traditional ways of these landed people : — the cheapness of corn which is driving them all to look into ways and means as any man of business would ; and the extension of the franchise which is obliging them to argue before their labourers as an advocate before his jury. Every day they are becoming more genuinely members of a free industrial community. . . .
September 3. — Yesterday I corrected the proof of my address and sent it to the printers — off my mind. . . . To-day we took the first stage of our Northern journey and reached the Eaikes [his uncle's house at Skipton].
September 4. — I have tried to make out the political situation here ; the chief point is that the Tories are working Fair Trade — whereas in the South they fight shy of it. My uncle is still meditating the problem of our genealogy ; he gave me a copy of the stamp which the tobacconist at Leeds — believed to be " Honest James " and my great-great- grandfather— used for his packets of Virginia. But we do not seem able to trace back the tobacconist to our ancestral hill-valley on the Cumbrian border. So we must be content to begin with Tobacco. One might start from a worse thing.
September 6. — Yesterday we saw Carlisle Cathedral, and came on to Stirling which we liked much. The walk up the steep street to the Greyfriars Church and the Castle reminded us a little of the Italian hill-towns, but the windings of the lazy Forth at our feet were like nothing Italian. View from the Castle good ; we hailed Ben Lomond, Ben Venue, and Ben An, and recalled pleasant tour-recollections. It is noteworthy that even here the waiters are of the German or Swiss nation ; I wonder if I shall some day be addressed in Lowland Scotch in an Alpine Inn.
September 8. — Passed through Aberdeen yesterday and arrived at Haddo House, where we are staying till to- morrow. I like both Lord and Lady Aberdeen, and think the view of garden and park very pretty. Henry Drummond, author of Natural Law in the, Spiritual
424 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
World, is here, but he does not seem disposed to lecture us either on Science or Religion, and is, in fact, unpretend- ing and agreeable.
September 10. — Am pleased with the success of my address, which I delivered at 12 to-day. Audience rather larger than was expected ; seemed to take all my points — especially at the end, when I took to poking fun at the Sociologists.
September 14. — We are enjoying the British Association certainly, though I do not get much out of it intellectually, nor think that Science is likely to profit much by the discussions of Section F. But our hosts, the Bains,1 are hospitable ; Bain has plenty of interesting talk, of a dry, sensible, unexciting sort — willing to gossip about J. S. Mill, the Grotes, etc. He brings home to me forcibly the universal mild disapproval and regret with which Mill's platonic liaison with Mrs. Taylor was regarded by his old friends — rather on intellectual grounds, as an infatuation unworthy of a philosopher — and the extent to which it consequently cut him off from his old friends. Also I am more strongly impressed with the brilliant social predominance of Mrs. Grote. Bain says that in conversation Grote was nothing when she was there — or at least a most subordinate figure, and did not wish to be more.
Burdon Sanderson, the physiologist, and his wife have also been staying with the Bains ; his face has remarkable intellectual refinement and force, and I liked all he said ; but he did not say much. On Sunday Masson came to dinner : genial, told good stories, and defended Carlyle with vigour and conviction.
September 15. — We leave to-morrow. We have had some interesting papers, and one decidedly able (on bimetallism), but the discussions have been disappointing. The profound difficulty of making the talk of this section really scientific is that Statisticians and Economists are yoked together, and the Statisticians are weak or arrie're' in economic theory. It is worse than if the Physicists and Mechanicians were com-
1 Professor Alexander Bain.
1885, AGE 47 HENEY SIDGWICK 425
bined ; but they have each a section. This afternoon we distributed £1300 over various forms of research. The British Ass. is, at any rate, a Golden Ass !
September 30. — Hiatus again ! We left Aberdeen on the 16th, spent a week at Whittingehame, a night at Leeds with Stephen Marshalls, two nights at Hawarden with the G.O.M., and two nights in the Haunted House at Wend- over. At Whittingehame the most noteworthy fact was the intensity of the agricultural depression in East Lothian. A neighbour of A. J. B.'s has just let for £150 a farm that a few years ago was let for £900 ! To think that it is less than ten years since the landlord's prospect of unearned increment seemed as sure as anything human.
At Hawarden the G.O.M. was somewhat hoarse, but cheerful and full of interesting talk on various topics. The geology of Norway and Psychical Eesearch appeared to be the subjects that interested him most, but he told us one or two noteworthy things of a political bearing, — e.g. that the Cabinet now sit round a table, whereas they used to sit on chairs in a circle; he thinks the change a mistake, as leading to a less steady concentration of attention.
At the Haunted House nothing worthy of note — unless it be worthy of note that there was nothing. The experi- ment has been completely futile. We cross-questioned some of the witnesses, including the curate, an Oxford man, who sticks firmly to his belief. The cumulative evidence is certainly impressive, but the moral is that we must get more impressive evidence before trying another experiment.
Home on Monday. We read Light for September, and were amazed to find the Spiritualists furious because the article on Spiritualism in the Encydopcedia Britannica is to be written by Nora. And we had fondly thought that they would be pleased ! It is remarkable how inadequate are one's utmost efforts to imagine correctly the unfavourable views taken of one by one's fellow-men.
October 8. — Went over last night to dine with Hall at Six Mile Bottom. After talking to him I really begin to think that the split in the Liberal party may be going to
426 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
come after all — the split I have heard predicted ever since I began to be a politician, and have vowed that I would not believe in till it came. Even now I do not think that interest only will drive the Liberal Landlords over to the Tories, but I think it possible that alarm at the prospect of legislation against them, together with genuine disgust at the ignorant rashness of Chamberlain, coming at the top of agricultural depression, at a time when the enlarged Franchise and the Irish difficulty combine to cause a conviction that a new order of things has to come — I think that all this together may drive a considerable secession to the Tories, and make the Liberal party more largely Eadical.
October 2 2 (!) — A fortnight's interval, in which I have been engaged in odds and ends of educational arrangements. The term's work is now in its normal movement, and I return to my diary.
The question that interests me most in my educational arrangements is this. Shall I or shall I not succeed in my efforts to adapt professorial teaching to an age in which reading is the ordinary way of receiving instruction ? According to my view, the University professor should no longer, as of old, make it his business to give the first exposition of his subject — he should assume that that is given by books ; his function should be to give the second exposition which all ordinary students need from their incomplete understanding of the first, to solve the difficulties and perplexities which the perusal of the books has left — or raised — in the reader's mind. A lecture has the great disadvantage, as compared with a book, that the student cannot pause and think over what is difficult, cannot turn back and compare one statement with another; it ought to have the great advantage that it can be adapted to the special needs of the lecturees. But then, in order that this advantage may be gained, the class must put questions to the teacher ; and here is where my efforts so far seem to fail : my class will not question me. In vain I assure them that I shall be grateful for the most vague statement of diffi culty ,
1885, AGE 47 HENEY SIDGWICK 427
doubt, or disagreement connected with my Methods of Ethics. I select chapters for discussion, and say, " Tell me, if you like, merely that you don't see the exact drift of § 2, or of page 47, etc., then I shall know where a fresh attempt at exposition is required." But, so far, I cannot get them to do this, and I do not exactly know why !
October 24. — Went up to London to meet Bichet,1 the French savant, editor of Revue Scientifique, who has taken up Thought-transference. I liked him much, and think it a great thing for the S.P.E. that our Research has been introduced to the French educated world by such a com- petent authority. It is curious that he does not seem to have to face the kind of scornful opposition that we have to face in England from physiologists and physicians and their camp-followers in the press.
Talked to Arthur Balfour about the elections. The Liberals expect to have a majority, from thirty to fifty, over Tories and Parnellites together ; for though they admit that they will lose in the boroughs, they expect to gain very largely in the counties. The Tory computation is that, including the Parnellites, the present Government will have a majority of about twenty ; they admit that the Liberals will nearly sweep a great part of the North of England, but they think the Liberals much overrate their influence with the agricultural labourer in the South. Gerald appears to be intensely eager, and a decidedly successful speaker, but cannot be said to have more than " just a chance " of coming in for Leeds.
October 25. — Returned to Cambridge, and found in- teresting letter from J. A. S. containing judicious eulogy of my Aberdeen address, and just criticism on this journal as not adequately confidential. But I can only answer with the Needy Knife-grinder,
" Story, God bless you, I have none to tell, sir."
I have gone through very markedly the change from Subjectivity to Objectivity, which Hegel (I think) somewhere
1 Professor Ch. Richet, of the Faculte de Medecine, University of Paris.
428 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
describes in one of those rare human passages which occur in his works — how that consciousness of personality is naturally developed in youth's period of struggle and hesitation, when we doubt of our whole relation to the world, and know not what of the great things we conceive we are really to do, under what banner we are to serve, wonder whether we are called to contemplation or action, fruition or renouncement, wonder when the maiden of our dreams is to appear on the stage and whether we or some other is to win her, and so forth. But the middle-aged man has got his place in the cosmic order pretty well fixed ; he has married (let us hope) the wife of his choice and taken the shilling in some service ; his work is so far cut out that the question is rather how he will do it than what he will do ; and daily habit drives his interests naturally from himself to his work, and the ordered move- ments of the world of which his regulated action is a part. Something like this Hegel says, and in this sense I am conscious of having become middle - aged, though the colouring of the above description is rather too optimistic for me, and if I were a poet I should probably give ex- pression to nay subjectivity in some new fashion of pessi- mistic whine at the general out-of-jointness of the times. But I am not a poet, and the prosaic whine of a philo- sopher— who ought, ex professo, to be calculating instead of whining — is an utterance not tolerable to Gods or men.
October 26. — Letter from . His wife is laid up
with an internal strain, which I have no doubt she has neglected. I wonder whether health is most impaired by foolish self-indulgence — generally of men — or futile self- sacrifice — generally of women.
October 31. — Coleridge, I think, said that every man could write an interesting biography of himself, if he would only tell the whole truth. I don't think so ; it is as much a special gift as poetry. To interest the reader, the auto- biographer should take an intense brooding interest in his own life — as (e.g.) Pattison does — which is by no means natural to all. Probably many lives, like mine, have a main current
1885, AGE 47 HENEY SIDGWICK 429
of calm well-being, dull to narrate, while the events of interest in them are chiefly vexations, from which they wish to escape as much as possible, not to fix them in the emotional memory by relating them.
November 1. — Eead Tennyson ["Vastness"] in Macmillan — something senile perhaps in the incoherence of the verses, but what magnificent senility !
November 6. — I am reminded of some foreigner's remark that the only two things that Englishmen really care about are Eeligion and Trade, because Eeligion is the weak point in the cohesion of the Liberal party, and Trade in the cohesion of the Tory party. But so far the Tories have managed to keep their internal disagreements on Free Trade pretty well in the background, whereas Chamberlain has thrust the Disestablishment question crudely forward. The Liberals, I think, are sure to lose by this, but it is hard to say how much ; the seceders will be numerically few in proportion to the whole electorate ; the people who sulk in their tents will be more, but whether their sulking will make much difference to the whole battle — is just what every one would like to know, and what nobody does know.
Have been reading Austin Dobson's At the Sign of the Lyre. I do not think that there is anything in it that I find quite so excellent as an " Autumn Idyll " in Old- World Idylls ; but it is very satisfactory work, and a " Masque of the Months " reveals a new kind of power, which I did not know him to possess.
November 12. — Eead with much interest J. A. S.'s review of Dobson in Academy of November 7. Have re- read Old-World Idylls, and find myself confirmed in the view that A. D. . . . is, in a certain limited range, a poet of rare excellence. His management of rhyme is, I think, as good as Calverley's — with much more of the ars celare artem which C. S. C.'s burlesque does not require. By the by, I think that in this later volume he uses his skill in rhyming more for mere play — as in " Molly Trefusis " — and less as an element of finished and complex artistic effect, as in the "Autumn Idyll."
430 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
November 15. — A pleasant, though small " Ad Eundem " dinner yesterday. . . .
November 16. — Had interesting talk with Dicey about his book (The Law of the Constitution), which seems to me an excellent piece of work. I told him that the last chapter had cleared up my view, so that I could not really remember what it had been previously ; — the best thing a book can do for ona He said it was all written up to the last chapter.
November 21. — The die is cast! — I mean about Newn- ham College, not the elections. We have settled to go in for building a third Hall ; the only question is where. I find that younger opinion is drifting towards a preference for one continuous building ; the waste and severance involved in two separate Halls are said to outweigh the advantages. I am therefore inclined to put the third Hall in the closest physical contiguity with the other two. But I shall leave it all to Nora.
November 24. — I have voted Liberal, after some hesita- tion : first, because I want a strong majority, and still think the Liberals have the best chance of getting it — though I now think their chance is only a little the best: secondly, because the Disestablishment question has come to the front, and though averse to raising the question, I feel that now it has been raised I ought to cast in my lot with the Disestablishes. . . .
Let me prophesy. On the whole I think parties will be nearly even, the Liberals having slightly the best of it — leaving the Parnellites out. Six weeks ago I should have been inclined to give them a large majority over Tories alone, but everything seems to me to have gone against them. 1. Tories have got the Irish vote safe without any such fiasco in Ireland as might have occurred, and would have alienated their supporters here. 2. They have gained much by the Liberal mistake of bringing forward Dis- establishment. 3. Foreign affairs have gone in their favour ; the Bulgarian matter seemed likely to go the other way, but this selfish aggression of Servia has practically
1885, AGE 47 HENRY SIDGWICK 431
rehabilitated the Berlin treaty. Also Sir H. Wolff is said to have scored a success — and no one certainly can prove he has not.
1 P.M. — Cambridge has gone Tory! Fawcett used to say that Cambridge was an excellent test of the country. I wonder if this will prove to be so.
November 25. — Manifest Tory reaction in the boroughs. Only in the Midland counties — Birmingham and the Potteries — does the democracy appear still in full vigour. In Cambridge I am informed that the reaction is due (1) to the severe administration of outdoor relief by a Liberal majority of the Guardians ; and (2) to the railway people resenting Fowler's refusal to vote for making " automatic coupling" compulsory. If true, it illustrates the chaotic state into which the division of parties has fallen.
November 26. — Reaction even stronger than I thought yesterday ; no Liberal for any one of the nine Liverpool districts, and in Leeds, which we thought a stronghold of Liberalism, three districts out of five have gone Tory. But I am very glad, all the same, that Gerald Balfour is in. It now seems probable that the Tories will have a majority apart from the Irish, but not, I fear, enough to be inde- pendent of them.
November 27. — Reaction going on still: four out of five of the Manchester seats Tory, including Arthur Balfour's with a majority of 800. Everything now depends on the counties. If they go like the boroughs, the parties — apart from the Irish — will be nearly even ; but there are forces operating on both sides to make the result different. . . . On the whole I stick to my original prophecy that English or patriotic parties are likely to be very even — a disastrous result !
Gerald's success at Leeds defeating the Local manu- facturer and former member is considered very brilliant. Both he and Arthur are said to be personally very popular. I wonder how much or how long they will agree in Parlia- ment !
November 2 8. — Two or three county results, but nothing
432 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
to shake opinion above expressed. I am glad the G.O.M. is in with a thumping majority and that Scotch Liberalism shows so far no sign of weakening — glad, I mean, on personal grounds, as it will break the Grand Old Man's fall, and save it from disgrace.
November 28, Evening. — Liberals winning seats in Lin- colnshire (Otter), Norfolk, Suffolk, Huntingdon : looks as if they would have considerable gains in Eastern Counties.
Let me forget politics a moment. I have found time to read [Stevenson's] Prince Otto — with decided pleasure, which would have been, however, considerably greater if I had not been haunted throughout by a sense of ambiguous genre I could not feel sure how much the author intended for amusing extravaganza and how much for serious presenta- tion of human relations and problems. To ask the question seems dull and pedantic, but it asked itself involuntarily.
December 3. — Trevelyan came, in good spirits at the way the county elections are going. . . . But he is very depressing about Ireland ; sees no middle course between Home Rule, which he takes to mean Separation, and governing Ireland like a Crown Colony ; this latter, he says, would be easy enough — he would not mind doing it himself — if the English people would make up its mind to it ; but this he thinks most unlikely.
December 4. — Went to see Eumenides with Arthur [Sidg- wick] and Trevelyan, and was most agreeably surprised it is long since I have had three hours of more instructive delight. Chiefly, I suppose, from being unexpectedly made to feel the truth of old phrases, often heard — and repeated — about the statuesque and processional character of the Greek drama, the importance of the chorus, the religious signifi- cance of Aeschylean tragedy, etc. Partly, I was unex- pectedly susceptible to Stanford's music,1 which [was] declared to be excellent and appropriate, for I was at first
1 Sidgwick was extremely unmusical, and could not distinguish one tune from another. Moreover, musical sound seems in some way to have inter- fered with his sense of rhythm, which was very strong in poetry ; at least he used to say that he never could learn to dance because he could not catch the time. Nevertheless, appropriate musical accompaniment to words sometimes affected him powerfully, as in this case.
1885, AGE 47 HENEY SIDGWICK 433
indifferent to the Furies when they were discovered lying asleep on the stage ; but after the first song I began to feel the most extraordinary interest in them, and in the conflict between old divinities and new.
The acting was for the most part well-bred and careful rather than impressive ; but Orestes was certainly effective, and the figures were excellently chosen, especially in the scene of Areopagus ; the contrast of Athene and Apollo, tall, comely (Apollo decidedly handsome), and serene, with the anxious Orestes and the undersized coarsely eager leader of the Furies, was admirable ; and when the voting was over, the pleading of Athene with the Eumenides, the reconciliation, and the beautiful procession of white -robed figures with torch-bearers which expressed the reconcilia- tion— all moved me to an extent which I can now hardly explain to myself. Certainly, if classical education is to go on, the educational gain of such dramatic representations as these seems to me very great ; if I had seen this play in my freshman's term, it would have done me more good than a whole term's lectures.
Trevelyan, I think, must be a degree more unmusical than I, since at the end of the second act he announced that he was going to the Union to look at the telegrams of yesterday's polls, and so missed the conclusion. Arthur was as much pleased as I.
December 5. — Trevelyan predicted that the Liberals would get 330,1 so that the coalition would have a majority of 10. He made light of the split between Radicals and Moderates. . . .
December 10. — Have been over to Oxford to elect a pro- fessor for Auckland (New Zealand) ; was struck with the way in which the Dublin candidates came to the front ; probably they do not know quite as much scholarship as our people, but their best men — one of whom we chose — seem to have more breadth of training and more " go." Dined yesterday with Jowett and Mahaffy (two brother electors). Mahaffy
1 They did get 333, giving them a majority of 82 over Conservatives alone, but not a majority over Conservatives and Parnellites together.
2F
434 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
very agreeable. He said that if Lord Salisbury was iucliued to come to terms with Parnell, the Irish Tories would be no obstacle ; they felt the gravity of the situation so much that they would be glad of almost any settlement. Jowett also was in good form. I talked of the " idea of develop- ment" as characteristic of the present age, and he said " Don't you think it is the word rather than the idea," and would not believe that the development of political institutions could be traced at all. I told him I was going to lecture about it next term ; whereat he smiled gravely, as though implying that it might perhaps be traced enough for that purpose. Arthur's babies nice.
December 17. — A week of rather random and wasted labour ! I begin to think that the development of political institutions cannot even be lectured about. Am depressed by the rumours of Gladstone's scheme for Home Rule. I am inclined to believe them : and I foresee that the scheme will be well-meant, and will contain plausible guarantees of both the interests of England and the interests of the loyal minority, and that Gladstone will advocate it persuasively, and — with the help of the Irish vote — will most likely carry the country decidedly with him if the Lords force another election : but that the guarantees will be illusory and the scheme really a pusillanimous surrender of those whom we are bound to protect, and of posterity. The experience of Egypt, the Transvaal, and Irish affairs last session presses me to this gloomy prophecy — which is all the gloomier on account of my personal regard and admira- tion for the G.O.M. Let us hope better things.
December 21. — On Friday evening we found Arthur Balfour and Gerald at Carlton Gardens. Arthur believes the rumours about Gladstone to be substantially correct. I gathered from his talk that the Tories are anxious to go out as soon as possible. They think it bad for the party to try legislation in a minority, and they think that the best chance both for the country and " boni homines " is that Gladstone should have rope given to propose his Home Rule scheme. Then, they hope, his party will go to pieces
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over it, the G.O.M.'s prestige be finally ruined, and the country saved. This, I gather, is their view ; it was not exactly expressed.
December 24. — Have read J. R Mozley's poem [The Romance of Dennell] with almost as much unexpected pleasure as the Eumenides gave me ! I award him the laurel crown ; here is a new poet with an independent, underived style and the rare gift of telling a long story so that one regrets that it is not longer. The style is too Wordsworthian to please at first; also the treatment too oddly mixed — in parts — of trivial-realistic with fantastical- operatic. But the style grows on one and ultimately com- mands the attention in an even, tranquil, but thoroughly attractive way. For about one and a half cantos I was secretly rather sorry that the book looked so long ; for the last three cantos I was genuinely sorry that the rapidly decreasing remainder looked so short. Some of the songs are very good, but the point of the book is that it is a long, successful narrative in blank verse.
December 31. — After the lapse of a week I find the impression produced by the Romance of Dennell still very powerful. At the same time — like the impression of a novel — it does not so much prompt me to read the book a second time as to tell every one else to read it at once.
January I, 1886. — The political situation still con- fused and obscure, but the prevailing opinion is that the Tories will stay on for the present. No one professes to look more than a month or two ahead !
I am getting absorbed in the study of history for my lectures. History always fascinates me, though I am repelled from it by a conviction of its comparative useless- ness ; and the most attractive questions are the most unprofitable.
January 3. — Came up to London yesterday to meeting of S.P.R It has now 600 members and associates, and I shall now let it run alone without any more nursing. I think it has done good work, as I do not doubt that Thought-transference is genuine, and hope it will soon be
436 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vr
established beyond cavil ; but I see no prospect of making way in the far more interesting investigation of Spiritualism. I fear our experience shows that evidence available for scientific purposes is not likely to be forthcoming ; still, having put our hands to plough this bog, it would be feeble to look back so soon.
January 5. — Came yesterday from London to Whittinge- hame ; read in the train Spencer's Political Institutions, and think much more highly of it now that I come back to it after reading other, especially German, books. He is, as always, over-confident in generalisation, but it is a most vigorous and useful essay towards the construction of scientific sociology ; I do not know anything as good.
January 7. — Went in to Edinburgh yesterday and read my essay on the " Historical Method " 1 to the Philosophical Society. So far as I could see, it went off as well as any- thing so purely negative could be expected to do. There were over 150 young men ; they seemed to take my points — once or twice even embarrassing me by applauding before I had put on the final rhetorical flourish. It would, I think, be more inspiriting to be a Scotch Professor than a Cambridge one — though less comfortable.
Met S. H. Butcher, who talked eagerly and interestingly about Ireland. He thinks that the one thing absolutely needful is to separate the agrarian from the political element of the Home Eule [movement], and to quench the former by at once restoring order and promoting Purchase on a large scale. The tenants, he thinks, would buy willingly, if they were once made to believe that England did not intend to let them get the land without paying for it ; and if the landlords were once bought out, we might develop local government in Ireland without danger. But unless this is done, any and every concession will simply be used to strengthen the league. The anti-Gladstonian feeling seems growing and hardening, at least among the people I meet.
January 9. — Came back to Cambridge to-day and read more Herbert Spencer in the train. I find History studied
1 Published in Mind for April 1886.
1886, AGE 47 HENEY SIDGWICK 437
as inductive Sociology more and rnore interesting, and quite wonder that I have neglected it so long. It seems to me that, without genius or originality, one might produce a really important work combining Hegelian view of evolu- tion of the idea of State with Spencerian view of quasi- biological evolution of the fact of the State, and testing both severely by history.
January 11. — Read Giercke's Deutsches Genossenschafts- retht from 10 to 4, with interval of Indian Civil Service business. It is certainly an able work, but I think he carries legal subtleties a little too far back into the naive beginnings of German history.
January 12. — Dined with Latham (Southacre) to meet the Warden of Merton [Brodrick], who is the first man I have met who thinks Chamberlain's allotment scheme good — apart from the element of spoliation. Tried hard to interest myself in Church Eeform, in order to talk to Porter about it, who seemed genuinely interested. My own view is that it would be highly imprudent in the Church to attempt the only kind of reform that would seriously interest me — i.e. widening of subscription with a view to include the Modern Spirit. I do not think the Spirit of the age, in its most religious phase, is really Christian ; I think it is Theistic, with a respectful consciousness of its historic connection with Christianity — that is, so far as its view is more than Agnosticism limited by Optimism, referring the Cosmos to a Power of which we can predicate nothing except a general tendency to bring things out right on the whole.
January 15. — Have been reading Greek history, and am more than ever struck with the advanced civilisation of the Homeric Greeks as compared with the Dorian invaders of Peloponnese, as I am led to conceive them. Sparta no doubt must be the work of a political genius — it cannot be explained by general sociological causes — but he must have been in a position to learn lessons of political re- flection from a society far more mature than that of the hardy mountaineers he governed.
January 25. — Have been busy with lectures; am too
438 HENRY SIDGWICK CH.VP. vi
depressed at the political prospect to want to write, or even to read about it. The only method of avoiding disaster in Ireland is a formal coalition of the English parties on the basis of a determination to hold Ireland firmly. Then order might be re-established, capital might recover from its scare ; by a judicious scheme of purchase working not too quickly, the agrarian element of the sedition might be gradually separated from the political, and in time things might go well. But this is an idle dream. Meanwhile the Government have depressed their friends by their indecision ; if they had come forward with a well-considered measure against boycotting, they would at any rate have fallen gloriously ; as it is, the general expectation is that they will soon fall ingloriously.
January 26. — Am fighting against a general depression of mind ; conviction that I am not likely to write anything that will interest myself or any one else, and that my work here is a failure.
January 30. — Have recovered a more or less cheerful view of my private affairs, but not of the affairs of the nation. The Government fell, as was expected, only rather more so : having managed to mismanage their last debate and please neither political economists nor labourers and their philanthropic-socialistic friends. The general view is that their parliamentary management has a striking re- semblance to the Liberal management of foreign affairs — vacillation, incoherence, and weak excuses.
January 31. — Talked to F. Myers about Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. JekylL We both think it extra- ordinarily good, but we think it might have been better if English taste had allowed a little more " realism " and if S. himself had a little more genuine interest in morality and fund of moral experience. As it is, the ethical effect of the story is produced not — as in Hawthorne's case — by any originality of moral imagination, but by sheer literary power ; still it is remarkable. He is certainly now in the first rank of living literary artists.
February 1 6. — A lamentable hiatus, due to hurry in work.
1886, AGE 47 HENRY SIDGWICK 439
Yesterday I went to Bradshaw's l funeral ; we are growing terribly used to funerals now. But it was specially impressive : the crowd in the hall of King's, the procession through the court, the roll of the funeral music in King's Chapel. Within how short a time we have lost three — Fawcett, Munro, Bradshaw — each of whom has left a place that will not be filled ; and the third, perhaps, most of all, for he had with other gifts the special gift of affection.
Nora and I must have heard, we think, the last words he spoke : as he bade us farewell, in his bright, affectionate way, at the gate of King's, after we had walked home together from dinner on Thursday evening. How soon after that death came we do not know, but probably soon, as he was found in his chair in the morning. It is an enviable death.
February 21. — For the first time for weeks I am moved to write about Politics, chiefly to mark, with some alarm, the extent of my alienation from current Liberalism. We are drifting on to what must be a national disaster, and the forces impelling are Party organisation and Liberal prin- ciples. The stability of the dual organisation of parties makes it difficult for the average politician to see any way out of the trouble without satisfying the Irish ; and Liberal principles make it seem right to let them have what they want. So the good man closes his eyes and hopes that what they want will not turn out, after all, so ruinous to England as some people think.
My personal trouble is that I do not quite see what to do about my book on Politics. My political ideal is nearly written out — and lo ! I begin to feel uncomfortable about it ; I begin to find something wooden and fatuous in the sublime smile of Freedom.
February 24. — I have had rather an interesting surprise. Some days ago I saw in the Pall Mall a short review of an obviously fictitious biography of " Arthur Hamilton, B.A., Trin. Coll., Cambridge," by " Christopher Carr." The names seemed somehow familiar to me ; reflecting on them, I
1 Henry Bradshaw, University Librarian, died February 10, 1886.
440 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
conjectured that hero and biographer were " differentiated " out of my nephew, Arthur Christopher Benson. (Readers requested to keep the secret until they hear it from some other source.) So I bought the book, and have been reading it. It is a curious performance, immature both in Art and Thought, but, I think, very promising, having the essential qualities of individuality and aplomb ; it may be doubted whether the hero's ideas and ways of life deserve attention, but there is no doubt that they are definitely and delicately conceived and impressively delineated, and the writer nowhere gives one the sense of misapplied effort — the effects he tries to produce he does produce. As for the pattern of life presented, it ought, I think, to interest a certain portion of the " company of well-dressed men and women out in search of a religion," as Emerson calls modern society. One point in it that struck me was the complete absence of the socialistic enthusiasm which I have always regarded as the main current of new feeling among thoughtful young men during the last few years here — the years that my nephew was here as undergraduate. It might have been written in the last century, so far as the relations of rich and poor are concerned. " The world," as Jowett says, " is a very big place" — and even the miniature world of thought that a single university holds has a greater variety of drifts and currents that scarcely intermingle than one is disposed to think.
What the fate of the book may be I do not conjecture, and it is as likely as not to fall almost dead ; but I think it will impress any one who does read it.
We have just elected Robertson Smith as Librarian : a good thing for the University; but I feel rather sorry that another fine intellect is to be buried — or at least bowed — under the growing load of administrative work. It must needs be that Machinery extends and develops, but the man of genius and aspirations who becomes servant to a machine makes either a grand sacrifice or a " gran rifiuto."
March 7. — Yesterday we had the S.P.R. meeting in the
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evening ; I was in the chair. Barrett read a paper which was pro-Spiritualistic, but guardedly so, and produced (I think) a good effect on the audience. I feel, however, that the natural drift of my mind is now towards total in- credulity in respect of extra-human intelligences ; I have to remind myself forcibly of the arguments on the other side, just as a year ago I had to dwell deliberately on the sceptical argument to keep myself properly balanced. Lord Lome was there and Princess Louise ; he came up and talked to me afterwards. I asked him what the Duke of Argyll thought of Psychical Eesearch, and he said — neatly — " My father, I believe, is in favour of the ' policy of examination and inquiry ' on all matters except Home Eule."
March 1 5. — Have had a week of " labor improbus " on my last two historical lectures. They have interested me immensely, and I am really humiliated to find what a stimulus the function of lecturing gives to one's power of taking in ideas. I now do know a little about the development of political institutions in Europe.
March 1 7. — Ever since I got J. A. S.'s letter I have been thinking over the political pessimism of my last month's journal, and trying to make my thoughts more distinct to myself. I find that there are two elements which have to be carefully separated : —
1. I have a certain alarm in respect of the movement of modern society towards Socialism, i.e. the more and more extensive intervention of Government with a view to palliate the inequalities in the distribution of wealth. At the same time I regard this movement as on the whole desirable and beneficent — the expectation of it belongs to the cheerful side of my forecast of the future; if duly moderated it might, I conceive, be purely beneficent, and bring improvement at every stage. But — judging from past experience — one must expect that so vast a change will not be realised without violent shocks and oscillations, great blunders followed by great disasters and consequent reactions ; that the march of progress, perturbed by the
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CHAP. VI
selfish ambitions of leaders and the blind appetites of followers, will suffer many spasmodic deviations into paths which it will have painfully to retrace. Perhaps — as in the movement of the last century towards Liberty — one country will have to suffer the pains of experiments for the benefit of the whole system of States ; and if so, it is on various grounds likely that this country may be England.
In this way I sometimes feel alarmed — even for my own " much goods laid up for many years " — but not, on the whole, seriously. Considering all the chances of misfortune that life offers, the chance of having one's railway shares confiscated is not prominent, though I should not be surprised at being mulcted of a part of my dividends.
2. My recent fear and depression has been rather of a different kind : has related rather to the structure of Government than the degree of its interference with property and contract. I have hitherto held unquestion- ingly the Liberal doctrine that in the modern industrial community government by elected and responsible repre- sentatives was and would remain the normal type. But no one has yet found out how to make this kind of govern- ment work, except on the system of alternating parties ; and it is the force of resistance which this machine of party government presents to the influence of enlightened and rational opinion, at crises like this, which alarms. I find myself asking myself whether perhaps, after all, it is Csesarism which will win in the competition for existence, and guide modern industrial society successfully towards its socialistic goal. However, I do not yet think this ; but it is a terrible problem what to do with party government.
March 26. — Have been thinking lately of my advanced age, not exactly with depression, but with a nervous con- sciousness that time is short and that I have hardly sufficient left to do my proper work in. (For I find that with all my fits of disgust at my work I relapse after a time into the conviction that I have a proper work ; and that I have done some of it, but that most of it is still to do.) Against the personal alarms of old age marriage seems
1886, AGE 47 HENEY SIDGWICK 443
to me a fair protection ; there is as much security against cheerlessness as a mortal can expect in the reasonable prospect that one will grow old along with one's wife, growing more intimate through the accumulations of shared experience. Only a very young poet would write
Idle habit links us yet,
— habit being really the most hardworking and beneficent of the Divine Forces.
March 27. — Gerald [Balfour] arrived, in good spirits, with cheerful hopes of " dishing Gladstone." Chamberlain and Trevelyan are certainly going out. It is certainly an extraordinary Transformation Scene. At the time of the election the one effort of Gladstone seemed to be to prevent the party from splitting into Chamberlainites and Harting- tonites ; and now Chamberlain and Hartington are combined against the great measure of the year [the Home Eule Bill].
March 29. — We had a great discussion on Home Eule last night, Stuart being there. His line is "50 millions not too great a price to pay for pacifying Ireland." I think there is something to be said, from an ethical point of view, in favour of allowing a nation to get out of a difficulty by a heavy fine ; and if I thought we could, or ought to, resign our imperial responsibilities generally, I do not know that I should so much object to this. (I am conscious that my predominant passion is curiosity, and that I am being tempted by the desire to see what comes of Home Eule — so long as I have no responsibility for introducing it.) But no ; the 5 0 millions (Stuart thinks the extra burden may be reduced to this from the 100 or 200 millions most talk of) is too dangerous a premium on organised social disorder. What we are facing is a combination of political and agrarian agitation ; what Gladstone proposes is a premium on both : and the price is too high to buy a serious increase of social danger with, as well as disgrace and demoralisation as regards our imperial character.
March 31. — I find the task of revising my article on " Ethics " for the benefit of the Scotch Church more disagree-
444 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, vr
able than I expected.1 There is so much that might be improved, and I have to work against time and an irritable digestion. When it was originally written, I had to work against space as well as time, being limited to about thirty pages. I thought the conditions severe, but it now seems to me that if one is forced to do an important work too quickly, it is rather a gain to be also forced to do it too briefly.
I have been solacing myself with Anna Karenine in the evenings. It is, on the whole, the most impressive novel I have read for years — not the genius of Turgenieff, but, I think, a more equable and sustained talent of pre- senting clearly-conceived types in powerfully-felt situations. I put down the author, Count Leon Tolstoi, on my, most select list of romancers.
April 3. — Went up to London last night; slept at Bryce's ; Michael Davitt came to breakfast. I liked him on the whole ; he talked simply, frankly, and vigorously, though hardly impressively. He maintained that even if no Purchase Bill was passed, the landlords would be fairly treated by the Irish parliament ; on inquiry this was found to mean that, except in certain districts where there really ought to be wo rent, they would get about fifteen years' purchase of about three-fourths of the judicial rent. He said that he regarded Parnell as likely to be very con- servative ; he had asked him not long ago what he thought of the prospects of a satisfactory settlement of the land question if it were left to the Irish parliament, and that Parnell had paused, looked at him in silence for a moment, and then said quietly, " The best way of securing it would be to put you in prison for a couple of years."
Talked to Bryce about the political situation. He thought that Chamberlain could not work with Hartington, and did not mean to ; that he meant to fight for his own plan of ' extended local government without Home Kule,'
1 The article on "Ethics" in the Encyclopaedia Britannica was expanded into the little book, Outlines of the History of Ethics, with a view primarily to the need of such a book for students preparing for the ministry of the Church of Scotland.
1886, AGE 47 HENRY SIDGWICK 445
and if he succeeded, the Liberal party must break up into three fractions — Gladstonian Home Eulers, Chamberlainite Eadicals, and Hartingtonian Whigs. To me it seems that Chamberlain mistakes the situation and his own position ; does not see how much Gladstone's action has changed the situation ; the only tolerable alternative for Home Eule now is Coercion, and vigorous coercion ; any intermediate scheme has become irrelevant, even to stupidity. Bryce seemed to be looking forward cheerfully to literary leisure. He said that Trevelyan had looked lately as if the struggle of coming out had been very painful. I am not surprised, as the sentiment of party loyalty is with him almost a passion.
April 13. — Had a talk with Arthur Balfour last night about the political situation. He thinks the second reading of the [Home Eule] Bill will be a very near thing, but that it is most likely to be thrown out : Chamberlain is thoroughly aware that he must either crush Gladstone or be crushed, and will strain eveiy nerve to throw out the Bill. I pointed out the irrelevance of C.'s position to the present situation — rejecting both Home Eule and Coercion when one of the alternatives must be chosen. He admitted that the fraction of Chamberlainites was not likely to be large, but thought that his opposition would encourage many M.P.'s, Hartingtonian at heart but with Eadical con- stituencies, to vote according to their convictions. He may be right about the present Parliament, but I cannot feel much doubt — I wish I could — that Gladstone will win on an appeal to the country. ... I regard his victory as scarcely doubtful, and try to hope that there is just a chance that the new constitution may work, after all.
Last night we dined with Leslie Stephen, and met George Meredith, whom I liked, but was somewhat dis- appointed in his conversation. He was not affected or conceited and talked fluently, but not exactly with ease, nor did his phrases seem to me often to have any peculiar apt- ness ; once or twice there was an amusing stroke of humorous fancy, as when he talked of an unhappy singer's voice being
446 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
" like the soul of a lemon in purgatory " ; but these things did not come often.
April 14. — Yesterday we went down to Shanklin, and met Arthur [Sidgwick] and his wife at the Spa Hotel. A. is a convinced Home Ruler. Thus we scatter and diverge as life goes on. Read Gass's Christliche Ethik, and wondered in what age of the world I should have had most chance of being a Christian ; decided in favour of the thirteenth century — supposing I could have been a pupil of Thomas Aquinas.
April 15. — Read Gass. It is curious, from our present point of view, to see how much on a par Slavery and Private Property seemed to primitive Christians ; that men should be free, and that they should share alike in the fruits of the earth, seemed to them equally true as ideal pro- positions and equally irrelevant to actual society. Pleasant walk yesterday over downs from Ventnor to Shanklin.
April 1 9. — I am sorry our week has come to an end ; I have read as much Gass as could be expected, and enjoyed myself in all intervals. Bezique nightly with Arthur ; walks in the afternoon. To-day we went to the ' Roman house' — i.e. partially uncovered pavement of one — near Brading ; then we climbed a hill and got a fine view all round this corner of the island from Ryde to Shanklin. Nora, I, and Arthur walked home by the beach from Sandown, and talked of Arthur's lectures on literature and Browning Club. I have a strong feeling that Arthur does not make the most of himself, somehow ; he has really remarkable gifts. I have now heard him lecture twice, and think that he is the best lecturer in a certain style that I have ever heard, i.e. if what you want is compact abundance of good points. Yet he does not seem to have any impulse to take up a big piece of literary work ; perhaps his mis- fortune is to have been too successful, professionally and socially, in a certain limited way.
April 22. — Came back to Cambridge last night, after a day and a half rather misspent in the British Museum. Graham Dakyns and his wife have arrived. . . .
1886, AGE 47 HENEY SIDGWICK 447
April 25. — Arthur [Sidgwick] came on Friday to enter- tain Graham while I work at my book (half of it is revised, tant bien que mal}. [Professor] W. F. Barrett (of S.P.E. and [the College of Science] Dublin) came last night, so to-day we have had Home Kule, varied by Psychical Eesearch. We consoled ourselves by thinking that most of our country- men were condemned, conversationally, to Home Eule un- mixed. The situation reminds me of the fowls in the story : most people I meet are discussing earnestly whether we are to have Home Eule, whereas to me the only practical question is with what sauce the unpalatable morsel is to be cooked. If the wiser part of the population would con- centrate their minds (in petto} on that question they might do some good. To me the important thing seems to be to leave Ulster out — or most of it. If the Ulster people try hard it might be done ; perhaps they will when the second reading is past.
April 3 0. — " Labor improbus " — of a distasteful kind. I have been skimming the surface of mediaeval thought with a profound sense of the futility of sounding its abysses. But it is nearly over.
May 7. — I went up to read a paper at the Political Economy Club on " Taxation." Very few came to hear me ; those who did were respectful. Giffen inclined to back out of his advocacy of ' degressive ' taxation. Courtney main- tained that M.P.s really did consider the problem of taxa- tion as a whole — as I urged — although their speeches did not make this evident. Afterwards I saw Bryce at the Athenaeum, went home with him, and had a talk about Home Eule. His chief argument is that the Democracy will not coerce, and therefore we must come to this in the end ; so we had better take it at once quietly. I think he is very likely right as to the ultimate result : but I do not think that the Home Eule in the bush is sufficiently more mischievous than the H.E. in the hand, to make it im- prudent to fight on a bare chance of staving it off altogether.
May 11-15. — Bains came. Bain very fair company,
448 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
though dry ; a sustained flow of interesting matter, with occasionally a good anecdote. . . .
May 15-17. — Newnham College Council. J. W. Cross, Champneys, Mrs. Fawcett with us. We are apparently in for an expenditure of nearly £20,000, most of which probably the College will have to borrow. It is rash, but Nora and I, after talking it over, concluded that it was a case for audace. We were all very anti-Gladstonian.
Cross is writing on Dante ; see article in Blackivood, " Dante for the General " : readable, and makes one point well which was new to me — who am, however, the merest out- sider— viz. the change towards bitterness in Dante after the 7th Canto of the Inferno.
May 24. — Came back from spending Sunday with Hall of Six Mile Bottom, whose political state of mind is inter- esting and instructive. He is working strongly against Gladstone's Bill, yet he half thinks that if only Ulster could be exempted, he would accept the Bill on the " Liberal principle " that the Irish ought to be allowed to govern themselves if they like ; yet again — having travelled in Ireland — he tries to imagine what the country would come to under the rulership of Parnell and Co., and cannot find it in his heart to promote the result, even on Liberal Principles.
May 29. — " Labor improbus " throughout the week, varied by dinner-parties to entertain Frances Balfour, who has been here since Monday. She gave us a very interesting account of a conversation between the G.O.M. and the Duke of Argyll (this is private), in which the former said (1) that since 1881 he had said nothing inconsistent with Home Eule, which he then saw would come; (2) that his language at the last election ought to have made his intention clear to discerning readers ; then — pathetically — that he feared his efforts to save his country from defeat in a discreditable and humiliating struggle were destined to fail. Poor G.O.M.
June 2. — I have kept back this meagre excuse for a journal in hopes of ' seeing my way ' as regards my Swiss
1886, AGE 48 HENRY SIDGWICK 449
tour ; but it must remain uncertain for some few days. I want to leave London June 19th (having returned my last proof to the printer on June 18th), and to stay in Switzer- land till about middle of July ; but the betting just now is on the double event of a defeat of the Bill and an immediate dissolution, in which case I should be bound as a patriot to stay and vote. However, I privately believe that the " old Parliamentary hand " will get his second reading yet ; and even if he is beaten he may not dissolve at once. I think it is the interest of the country to have the question settled as soon as possible ; but rumour says the Gladstonians want time to collect the sinews of war, also that delay is a gain to them, since a certain part of the popular opposition to the Bill is due to unfamiliarity.
He did go to Davos, and wrote thence to F. Myers, • : We are having a good time here " ; but his tour was cut short by the General Election, as he felt bound to come home and vote. Accordingly the Journal begins again on July 3 :—
July 3. — We reached London on Thursday afternoon, after a journey on the whole successful — though the serenity caused by the consciousness of patriotic duty, combined with absence of hay fever, was chequered by anxieties about Miss D. Nora has a decided conviction that taking care of strange young ladies is not my line ; I admit myself that it is a business that needs training — for such a man as I am, who have not sufficient intuitive knowledge of the workings of a young lady's mind to divine that if I let her take her own ticket she will only take it to Calais instead of London. But I shall do better next time.
Yesterday I voted for Fitzgerald, the Tory candidate. About 11 P.M. we heard that he was in by a majority increased to over 400. This morning the news from the rest of England shows balanced gains and losses — on the whole good for Unionists. I dined in Hall, and swaggered with apparent success about my patriotic sacrifice of my Swiss tour.
2G
450 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
July 5. — Unionists gaining slowly but steadily. Dined in Hall, and was surprised to find the great preponderance of Unionist sentiment among the Trinity fellows — a body always, since I have known Trinity, preponderantly Liberal.
July 7. — " The cry is still they come." Gladstone is clearly not going to win, unless he has a magic by which he can gain extra seats in the counties, which is not likely, and as yet the signs are the other way.
July 9. — Came to Terling yesterday : every one re- gards the Unionist Victory as overwhelmingly secure — the question now interesting is whether the Tories can get a majority ; but that is too much for them to hope. For myself I cannot tell whether I should hope for it or not, if I thought that there was any chance of it.
July 10. — Gerald Balfour came, in the best of spirits. . . . We talked over the situation. I see that Trevelyan (and the Pall Mall) still cling to the idea that Gladstone may bring in a new Home Rule Bill, adapted to unite the Liberal party again ; but we are all agreed that this is out of the question. It lies between a Hartington-Salisbury Ministry and a purely Tory Ministry with Unionist support. The latter is thought most likely, but owing entirely to Hartington's unwillingness to coalesce. I told Gerald that the Unionists could not reckon — even if they hold to- gether— on more than one Parliament ; they must do the business within that time. He is sanguine ; he thinks the National League will be beaten if outrages are put down, and that that can be done ; I do not feel sure of either proposition.
July 17. — Frances Balfour has been here, and we have been drinking the cup of election excitement to the dregs. Now there is a pause till Cabinet-making begins. The Duke of Argyll (whose views we get second-hand through Frances) is strongly for Coalition ; it is supposed that a struggle is going on for Hartington, Goschen pulling him for coalition and Henry James the other way. The Tories, so far as I can learn, are keen for coalition ; some of them — probably most — would even accept a Liberal Premier ;
1886, AGE 48 HENRY SIDGWICK 451
but the better opinion is that Hartington will not join a Tory Cabinet, though he will promise them loyal support. The Tory gains in the counties have been more striking than in the boroughs — they have made bigger changes in the proportional numbers of the two parties, as counted at the polls. There are various explanations of the swing- round of the agricultural labourer. Here (Essex) my Tory friends think that he is partly disgusted at not having got his three acres and a cow, partly afraid of Irish competition in the labour market. He is not suffering from such com- petition now, but he remembers, or has heard of it in the past ; so, when the Tory candidates tell him that Home Eule would make the Irish labourers swarm over England, he thinks it at any rate safer to let well alone.
It is remarkable how completely the Tories have con- vinced themselves not only that this adhesion of the mass of the Liberal party to Home Rule is entirely due to Glad- stone— which I admit — but that it entirely depends on him, and will vanish like a bad dream when he goes off the stage. Of that I cannot persuade myself. It seems to me that — unless some great and unexpectedly successful effort is made to settle Home Rule on Chamberlainite lines (which seems to me scarcely possible) — the parties are now divided on Union-Disunion lines till further orders from Destiny.
July 26. — Finished L'CSuvre (Zola), having had a good deal of interest and aesthetic enjoyment in parts, but it gets too wild towards the end, and too disgusting. I am more than ever convinced that though Zola is a genuine artist, it is misleading to call him " realistic " ; he is a man with realistic theory, but quite incapable of seeing and depicting the reality of human life, and with a craze about sexuality that reminds one of a monk who has mistaken his vocation.
July 31. — Frances Balfour has charitably written me two excellent epistles of political gossip. The most interest- ing points are — (1) G.O.M. to Count Miinster, " Do you think England will stand this state of things ? do you think Ireland will ? do you think I shall ? " which looks like
452 HENKY SLDGWICK CHAP, vi
fighting. ("2) The obstacle to Goscheii joining Tories was not his unwillingness, but the difficulty of finding him u seat Tlieoretically, this is a most valid objection under representative institutions ; practically it says little for the self-sacrificing patriotism of the Tories, since it would have been a real gain to them and to the country to have had him as Chancellor [of the Exchequer] instead of Randolph.
To Lady Frances Balfour on July 25
Your letter is full of interesting matter, but the point that agitates my brain most is Gladstone saying, " Do you think I will stand it ? " It is rather like a chess-player saying he won't stand check to his king ; if 1 were playing against him I should hope it meant that he was going to make a rash move. G. is very like a certain kind of chess- player, who can't play a losing game with patient skill, but has a ' demonic ' power of recovering himself and making a deadly rush if a real opening is given.
Every one seems now convinced that the Liberal Unionists will hold aloof en 'masse, but I still hope that your father l and Goschen will join, as Unionists, not Tories, though pre- pared to face the result of being inextricably mixed up with Tories in the popular view. It seems to me very important that the Government should look as different as possible from the familiar old crusted Conservative article, all the more that they will have to act, as I think, in a fine old crusted manner. I am depressed by what you say of the rank and file of the Conservatives, though I don't think it matters much about the formation of the Govern- ment, as I expect Lord S. will do what he thinks best in spite of pressure, but I should be afraid that it may tell afterwards, and make a rift easier to introduce between them and the Liberal Unionists. . . .
I did not get much pleasure out of my pictures on Monday, though I thought the Burne-Jones 2 impressive, and was glad that it was in his later manner — not the Early Cadaverous ; but the Mermaid's face seemed to me too
1 The Duke of Argyll. - " The Depths of the Sea. "
1886, AGE 48 HENRY SIDGWICK 453
human, a face that tells a story. Now I do not object to a mermaid having had adventures, but I do not think they ought to leave traces on her countenance.
To Lady Frances Balfour on July 30
... To go from prophecy to history : it is worth observ- ing that Gladstone has had almost no practice in leading opposition when he is in a minority ; last time he was away, and the time before — the time of Disraeli's Reform Bill — the situation was very different; for the moment D. had given Household Suffrage the Liberal majority was in spirit reunited, and only wanted a plausible ground for open reunion. So the Old Parliamentary Hand has really to play a very unfamiliar game. . . .
How odd about Goschen ! In this age of political self- sacrifice I should have thought some one might have resigned in his favour. I wish that he and your father could have joined the Ministry.
Lord Randolph is a bitterer pill to us than you imagine (I mean by " us " the altogether insignificant handful of Academic Unionist Liberals). It is not only that he is wholly ignorant of political economy — I suppose there are Treasury clerks who can put together a decent Budget — but he does not know his own ignorance ; I am afraid there is a danger of his bringing out some utter nonsense in arguing on Money or Trade, which will discredit the Government. And, altogether, we have not got used to taking him seriously. However, as we approve of Hartington not joining, we have no right to grumble openly, and I don't.
To Lady Frances Balfour, August 2
... As regards [Lord Randolph's] leadership, it is per- haps unreasonableness in us to object to reckless violence in a Tory more than in a Radical, but there is no doubt that we do, genuinely and without party bias. It is much as some men — not patterns of behaviour — dislike fast women ; they think it the part of women rather than men to keep up the standard of propriety, and we think it the
454 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
part of Tories rather than Radicals to keep up the standard of sobriety, moderation, and that class of virtues.
The Journal again : —
August 13. — Went up to London yesterday to see Mac- millan about a stupid blunder in my Outlines. I have represented a man whom I ought to have known all about — Sir James Mackintosh — as publishing a book in 1836, four years after he was dead ! The cause of the blunder is simple carelessness — of a kind that now seems incredible. I find my Political Economy is sold out, and I must revise it hastily for a second edition — a task I much dislike. I think there are some good things in it ; but I regard it as on the whole a failure, and don't think I can improve it much.
August 15. — I have been reflecting on the break-down of the Liberal candidature for East Birmingham.1 It is a triumph of Common Sense over Logic. It was against logic for the Chamberlainites to vote against a Radical who accepted Home Rule under Chamberlain's conditions ; but it was against common sense for them to accept in August a Gladstonian whom they had repudiated in July ; and common sense triumphed.
August 17. — I have been reading Howells's Lemuel Barker, as far as it has gone. Certainly it is good. I think the short and simple amours of the lower middle classes, depicted with this de haut en bos prosaic realism, may bore me soon, but I have not been bored so far. It is interesting to compare Howells's (superior) Bostonians with James's. There is the same fond of moral earnestness and introspec- tive scrupulosity in both types ; but in James it is unrniti- gatedly serious and naively wearisome ; in Howell it is veiled and tempered — in well-bred persons — by a surface of vivacious self- critical humour and mutually critical banter. Probably Boston includes both sorts, but Howells's sort are more readable.
August 20. — We have been having quite a flock of American visitors this week — professors, male and female.
1 Against Mr. Matthews, now Lord Llandaff, appointed Home Secretary.
1886, AGE 48 HENKY SIDGWICK 455
In talking over the American University System, I am impressed with its being at the opposite pole to the German, in the direction of discipline ; certainly, considering the independent habits and manner that all observers attribute to American youth, it is remarkable how very like school- boys undergraduates seem to be everywhere treated.
August 27. — Have come back from Addington after delightful days ; I find that I grow more and more, on the one hand, to regard Christianity as indispensable and irre- placeable— looking at it from a sociological point of view — and on the other hand to find it more and more incompre- hensible how any one whom I feel to be really akin to myself in intellectual habits and culture can possibly find his religion in [it]. My own alienation from it is all the stronger because it is so purely intellectual : I am glad that so many superior people are able to become clergymen, but I am less and less able to understand how the result is brought about in so many thoroughly sincere and disinterested and able minds.
Letter to J. A. Symonds, sent with the Journal for August
. . . For my part, I have been rather wasting my time ; but I keep pegging away, and I find now that I have acquired a confidence that I shall get through any work I undertake in time — if Providence allows me timev One reason why I have not got on much is that while I have been ostensibly and voluntarily working at Politics, my mind has been obstinately and latently occupied with, the fundamental question of the relation of morality : — I tend to the view that the question of Personality, the point on which the theist as such differs from the atheist, is of no fundamental ethical importance. The question is what is the order of the Cosmos, not whether it is a consciously planned order. But whether it is worth saying this, in our present state of ignorance on both questions, is doubtful.
TJie Journal continues : —
September 5. — Eeturned yesterday from the British Association at Birmingham, where we have been spending
456 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
three pleasant days with Mr. George Dixon [M.P.], a thoroughly nice man. (This is not an adjective I often use, nor did I expect to apply it to a leading Brummagem politician, but it is the word for Dixon ; he is not brilliant nor exactly impressive, and though he is able, it is not his ability that strikes one so much as a gentle thoughtfulness, sustained, alert, mildly humorous.) 1 asked for the explana- tion of the Unionist phalanx in Birmingham, which seems to present an unbroken front when the Liberal party every- where else is shattered and rent. He thought it was half an accident ; the party was really divided here as elsewhere just below the top, but that Bright and Chamberlain and himself — no one of the three ordinarily in the habit of taking his opinions from either of the other two — happened to coincide on this question ; and they, 1 gathered, were the three recognised leaders, Bright being the old time-honoured political chief, .Chamberlain the established " boss " in the industrial action of the municipality, and Dixon the educa- tional boss. . . .
As for the British Association — we had some good papers in our Economic Section, especially on land tenure ; but it seems to me impossible to make the discussions very valu- able. The time must necessarily be limited ; and there are certain familiar bores who turn up at every meeting and limit still further the fruitful minutes.
September 13. — Have been to W. H. Hall's [Six Mile Bottom] for the Sunday ; had, as usual, a good time. Hall said that — though an ardent Unionist — he should find it difficult to vote against ParneH's Bill, as he had no doubt that the fall in prices had really neutralised advantages con- ferred on the tenants by the judicial rents. The case seems to me one of those difficult ones in which there are strong arguments on both sides which do not meet each other. Doubtless the current Irish idea of a fair rent is a rent which leaves the tenant enough to live on according to a customary standard of comfort ; probably the Land Com- mission was largely governed by this idea in its decisions ; if so, rents which were (on this view) " fair " when decided,
1886, AGE 48 HENRY SIDGWICK 457
are not fair now. On the other hand, the rent as tixed was supposed to be secured to the landlord for fifteen years ; and if there had been a rise in prices, he certainly would have got no more ; so that he should lose by a fall is palpably unfair to him. On the whole, as the Irish idea involves a principle inconsistent with the whole structure of our modern industrial society, I cannot blame the Tories for declining to apply it further ; and as Parnell's Bill practi- cally involves this further, I cannot blame [them] for resisting it. Still, as this resistance involves a practical withdrawal of advantages conceded so recently, it is very awkward politically at this crisis. Probably, if I were in the House, I should take the weak course of walking out — as Chamberlain proposes to do.
September 25. — A terrible hiatus ! but I have been leading a dull existence, and yet busy ; working at articles on Political Economy and at my book. I have written on Economic Socialism for the Contemporary? and on Bimetal- lism for the Fortnightly — the former at the request of the excellent Paton (a Nonconformist minister who semi-edits the Contemporary) that I would write something " juste-milieu " about the Laisser-Faire controversy. Paton is a man for whom I have genuine regard as an energetic philanthropist of the cheery optimistic-Christian type ; but I much doubt whether anything I can write can possibly suit him, from the difference in our temperaments and habits of mind. Though I generally get somewhere about the middle on most political questions, there is very little affinity between me and an optimistic " juste-milieu " mind ; for this holds that both extremes are right, if each would only see the other's side, and that truth can be arrived at by harmoni- ously compounding the two ; whereas I opine that both are proceeding from unwarranted premises to uncertified con- clusions, and that scientific truth on the subject of dispute is only to be reached, if at all, by a road that neither has found.
On Bimetallism I have written partly because my 1 Republished in Miscellaneous Essays and Addresses.
458 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAV. vi
interest in the subject has been revived through Arthur Balfour's being made chairman of the commission on Currency. I am afraid he may lose time and reputation over the business : rather agreeing with Lord Salisbury (as quoted by Gerald) that the English mind is very slow- moving in these matters, and that the bimetallist (however much in the right) is likely to remain a " faddist " for the present generation.
September 29. — Have had serious indigestion lately; altogether feel falling into sere and yellow. For relaxation from " Value " and " Capital " I have been reading and meditating on Koden Noel's book [Essays on Poetry and Poets}. On the whole, I find it solidly satisfactory ; and it removes a lurking fear in my mind that in spite of his originality, vigour, and flow of ideas, he would be found not exactly to "come off" as an essayist. . . . But the fundamental difference between him and me is that he thinks the Poet has Insight into Truth, instead of merely Emotions and an Art of expressing them. I like a poet who believes in himself as a Seer, because his emotions are likely to interest me more and have a fuller and finer tone ; but I cannot pretend to believe in him, except tran- siently for the purpose of getting the aesthetic impression. And I feel rather angry when I am asked to take a poet as a philosopher.
There are no politics about in this region. Most of us old Liberals are Unionists, and our attitude is that of languidly forming a ring round the Government and the National League, with the hope — on the whole — that the Government will win, but feeling rather like outsiders.
I hear that Trevelyan sits broodingly in his place in Northumberland, meditating over the ruin that Gladstone has brought on the Liberal party, and glad to be saved from the necessity of co-operating with the Tories.
October 5. — Thompson's funeral : 1 impressive in a simple way. I shall miss him, though not deeply. He was not a great man : and his work, though good in quality, was too 1 W. H. Thompson, Master of Trinity College.
1886. AGE 48 HENKY SIDGWICK 459
meagre to make a mark, or really justify his academic posi- tion. But he was a striking personality : nor will his place be filled : and, to me uniformly kind and genial.
It is rather melancholy on these occasions to meet, time after time, old acquaintances — each time older than before — whom one never meets except at funerals, so that the old associations which they recall come gradually to be impregnated with solemn black.
In the evening I went to Westcott's to meet the Short- houses. I talked first to her. ... I invited and obtained a description of the labours preparatory to John Inglesant — how the author steeped himself in seventeenth-century litera- ture till his whole mind was impregnated with it : until, one day he declared himself ripe for writing a seventeenth- century novel, if he only had a plot : and then, a little later, the plot was found. (I thought it rude to ask her what exactly the plot was.) Then, as chapter after chapter was slowly written, they were read to her, and criticised, para- graph by paragraph, sentences cut out and rewritten, phrases and words altered, until the perfect marriage of sound and sense was attained which the finished work shows. (This last sentence, of course, only implied.)
I talked to him then, and liked him more decidedly ; found him unaffected and unspoiled by fame, odd-looking, not exactly apt for conversation, highly nervous and stam- mering in utterance. I spoke of J. A. S., whom he praised warmly, unreservedly ; indeed, when I tried to characterise critically the duJcia vitia of the style of that eminent writer, he said — half rebukingly, though simply — that it was " good enough for him ; he did not feel any defects in it." He said, however, that he thought J. A. S. had mis- understood his position as to the possibility of adequately describing the scenery of un visited lands ; he never con- tended that an adequate description of a particular place could be given thus — nor had he tried to describe any particular Italian town — only to give the general character- istics of Italian scenery as a suitable background for his story. However, he had given up the idea of writing another
460 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
Italian story. His thoughts in talking seemed to come slowly, and to be expressed with difficulty, though eagerly. Altogether a singular product of Birmingham, . . .
October 11. — In the intervals of work I have had much talk about the probable future Master. I gather that there is a party who would like to have me — I do not suppose it is very large — but that, in the opinion of experienced persons, my appointment is not within the range of prac- tical politics ; chiefly because of my known religious, or non-religious, opinions. This is my own view ; and the only difficulty that I have is in making up my mind whether I regret it or not. Much serving of tables is expected of an M.C. in these days, especially if he be a man who has played the part of a reformer, as I have ; and I rather feel as if I had given enough of my life to administration already, and as if the time had come to gather up the fragments that remain and dedicate them to learning and thought. However, it is an idle speculation, as there is no chance of my having the offer. The situation, impartially viewed, appears to be this : — We think Lord Salisbury will want to appoint a cleric if he can : but that as there is no clerical candidate whose appointment will not be open to strong objections, he may acquiesce in a Conservative layman : and that in this case it will be either Cayley or Eayleigh.
October 29. — Went up to London yesterday to an S.P.R meeting. Myers was very good ; he really is an excellent speaker. We have reached the real crisis in the history of the Society, for Phantasms of the Living is printed, and advance copies have been sent to the newspapers. . . .
November 1. — So Butler is our new master ! I am not surprised, but cannot yet tell whether I like it or not ; old feelings of personal affection and admiration for the brilliant scholar who was a young B.A. when I came up — a pleasant revival of the memories of the proudest, if not the happiest year of my life (1859) when we were both lecturers together — these jar and clash with depression and dissatisfaction at the snub given to academic work. I have
1886, AGE 48 HENKY SIDGWICK 461
no doubt, however, that he will do the work of the master- ship— according to the new administrative idea of it — very well.
November 19. — We are much pleased that Arthur Balfour is in the Cabinet.1
November 22. — Arthur Balfour came for the Sunday, but did not reveal any Cabinet secrets. He approves of Phantasms [the book]. . . . He defended the action of the Government in putting privately moral pressure on the Irish landlords to reduce rents, but did not quite satisfy me as to the consistency of the ground the Conservatives have taken up. For the appeal must be either (1) to the landlord's justice, or (2) to his generosity, or (3) to political exigences; but if (1) Parnell's measure was justified, if (2) no pressure ought to be put, if (3) it is almost as palpable a " caving in " to the forces of sedition as Gladstone's measures. However, I more and more see that the business of Government is a series of compromises — and, in respect of the demand for logical consistency, it is as bewildering and irritating as Mill's imaginarv world, in which things did not
<J O *< O
happen according to uniform laws of cause and effect, would be to a scientifically trained thinker.
November 30. — Wrote to explain why I was opposed to the organisation of Liberal Unionists in Cambridge ; my reasons being (1) that the number of those who would consent to be organised under this name is much smaller than the number of those who went over to the Tories at the last election, because many of the seceders are so determined to vote for the Tories as long as the Irish question is to the front and ' Home Rule ' inscribed on the Gladstonian banner, that they hardly like calling themselves Liberal, though very likely they will vote for Liberals again when once this question is out of the way. Besides, organising ourselves into a body with meetings will force us to have and express an official opinion about what the Tories do, whereas I for one should much prefer to " lie low," and have no share of responsibility for their proceedings. 1 As Secretary for Scotland.
462 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
December 4. — Yesterday we installed our new Master ; a curious ceremonial. I took a part in it once before, nearly twenty years ago ; perhaps 1 shall see another, perhaps not. The gates of the college were closed about 1 1 A.M. ; at noon we Fellows assembled in Combination Room, and there received the patent which Butler sent in for our inspection. Then we processioned, two and two — Trotter [Vice-Master] leading — to the great gate, which was thrown open, and the Master entered ; we escorted him to the chapel, where Trotter admitted him. The change of times and the inroad of the modern commercial spirit was grotesquely manifested in the engagement he took, not as of old to defend the faith and drive away strange doctrine, but to restore all the college property in his possession within two months after ceasing to be master ! It was not an edifying ceremonial. But after dinner in the evening he made a very pretty, feeling, appropriate speech, which must, too, have been in structure impromptu, as it was largely suggested by Trotter's speech in proposing his health. He asked us to excuse the exaggerative praise of an old schoolfellow, " For we were nursed upon the self-same hill " ; then took occasion from something T. had said to give an interesting anecdote of "Whewell; then spoke nicely of Thompson, his old tutor, and of his own inferiority to his predecessors : " My gifts are of a lighter kind, but such as they are they will be offered unreservedly to the service of the college," etc., etc. ... I have no doubt Butler will do all this public representation business excellently : and though at first some will think his effusiveness insincere, they will in time come to think otherwise, if they have any discernment of truth and loyalty.
December 8. — Yesterday I went up to London to the Liberal Unionist meeting. It was a decided success ; the room crowded — all benches full and solid columns of Unionists standing in the pathways that separated the benches. And the sentiment of secession was strong and unfaltering ; all the anti-Gladstonian sentiments were loudly cheered. Hartington;s language was well chosen and
1886, AGE 48 HENRY SIDGWICK 463
impressive, and Selborne more animated than I could have supposed possible. Still the impression on my mind was that we were like a regiment of officers without common soldiers, and with little prospect of finding any " rank and file."
To-day was Commemoration dinner. I sat between two judges of the High Court, with the Lord Mayor and Attorney- General opposite. I do not remember ever dining in company so officially distinguished. Speaking good, especially Butler's ; only that the old tone of flattery of Trinity, which the speakers appeared generally to regard as de rigueur, offended my taste, especially as there were non- Trinity guests.
December 15. — A week's "labor irnprobus" on my Political Economy (for 2nd edition) with sadly little to show. Decidedly nature intended me to read books and not to write them ; I wish the former function was regarded as a sufficient fulfilment of Professorial duty.
December 2 1. — More labour; have got through my Book I. (Theory of Production), and come up to London to dine with the Statistical Club and attend a debate on " Sliding Scales," chiefly noteworthy for the speech of John Burnett, Trades-Unionist, which was not only sensible and instructive, but remarkably moderate. Certainly the improvement in the relations between the leaders of the artisans and the rest of the community is a most cheering feature in the democratic movement of the last twenty years — if only the leaders are really still leading.
December 23. — Yesterday I went from King's Cross to Whittingehame — comfortably between breakfast and dinner. I always feel the triumph of modern industry when, after breakfasting in London about nine, I cross the Tweed about tea-time —
December 27. — My last paragraph was interrupted just as I was going to put down our conversation on politics, and now the situation is so changed that I cannot remember what political views we had four days ago ! For on Friday came the news of Randolph Churchill's resignation.
464 HENKY SIDGWICK ,-HAV. vi
Chaos Cosmos ; Cosmos Chaos,
as the Laureate says. As to what is going to happen we have not the slightest idea ; and as to what has happened — there is not much [use] in staying with a Cabinet Minister at a crisis, since he is bound not to tell one anything that is not in the newspapers, and takes no interest in what is there. But I gather that R. C.'s resignation is a real surprise to his colleagues, and that they at least are not aware of any adequate cause for it, except the dispute about the military estimates, which knowing journalists refuse to regard as the real cause. I also see that both Arthur and Gerald are eager that this opportunity should be seized of alliance with Hartingtou, Goschen, and Co. They think- that the new party thus formed would be quite as homo- geneous as parties ever can be ; in fact, it would put the line of division between parties in the right place ; it would be called a coalition, but it would be a fusion. I am inclined to agree, but 1 doubt if Hartington will think so, and think he will refuse to join the Ministry. Arthur went off to London by last night's train, to see Lord Salisbury and attend Cabinet to-morrow.
December 28. — We hear that Arthur's train arrived in London four hours late from the snow on the line. It is very thoughtless of Lord Randolph to make a crisis at this inclement season. A telegram has come from him to say that he will be at least a week in London. All the news- papers I see (Times, Scotsman, Glasgow Herald) are urging the Liberal Unionists towards coalition — the Times even menacing them with a dissolution if they refuse.
December 31. — It seems clear that coalition is not to be. The rank and file of both parties object. My forecast of the future is now of the gloomiest kind. I think party organisation in England is too rigid a thing to be broken up, and that ' Liberal Unionism ' will be broken against it at the next election, and with Randolph forming a cave, a dissolution from some cause or other is only too probable. Gerald is very angry with the rank and file of his party.
January 1 [1887]. — Meanwhile 1 have been "curling"
1887, AGE 48 HENEY SIDGWICK 465
all this week on a neighbouring pond. It is a fine game ; superficially like bowls on ice played with heavy, flat, cylindrical stones, but the spirit quite different. In bowls there can be no really organised effort ; ... in curling . . . the game is won by captaincy ; the individual has to be subordinated to the common interest ; the most skilful player may find it his duty merely to use his stone to clear a way for, or guard another. In this action for [the] community lies the greater charm of the game.
January 10. — We have had a week — five days — of mesmeric investigation, not without interest and even excitement, though of rather a depressing kind, ending dramatically this morning. The mesmerist was a Mr. D., who came to Cambridge last term as a platform performer; certainly threw persons into a hypnotic state ; and appeared — on the stage — to have the power of conveying ideas telepathically. In private he had been tried once or twice and failed, but he claimed the power, and the great point in his favour was that he seemed a gentleman ; had been a French master in a school ; above all, had a brother a Cantab, and a respectable clergyman. So we engaged him for a week's investigation, and Nora and I came back, on the 3rd, from Scotland express to take part in it. When we arrived we found that the acumen of Eichard Hodgson had already suspected the code of signals by which D. com- municated the number and suit of a card to his apparently hypnotised subject, and a few more experiments turned the suspicion into certainty. The code is in one respect ingenious ; one's idea of secret signals generally is that the party giving the signals does all that has to be done, the other party being purely recipient. But in D.'s signals the process of counting is performed by the heavy, regular breathing of the hypnotised subject, his own function being merely to mark by some sudden sound — sigh, groan, or crumpling of paper — when the arithmetic breathing was to begin and when it was to stop. In this way the number of the card was conveyed ; and the suit similarly — clubs being represented by 3, diamonds by 4, hearts by 8 — the
2H
466 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
numbers of the places in the alphabet of c, d, h. The sign for spades plagued us a little ; ultimately we concluded that it was an indefinitely large number. By Thursday we were all able to predict the card as well as the hypnotic girl ; on Friday we made some excuse for getting D. into another room, and Hodgson took advantage of the oppor- tunity to give signals, which were duly interpreted. So on Saturday, in paying him his money, I made him a short speech, in which I endeavoured to bring him [to] a sense of his misconduct — but the only effect was that he went to his inn, drank a bottle of champagne, and abused us roundly to every one who would listen for not having treated him as a gentleman. We all feel that it is a lesson — not dear at the price — to have nothing whatever to do with platform Thought-transference, however gentlemanly the performers may be in antecedents and connections.
I think Tennyson's " Locksley Hall Sixty Years After " a fine and interesting poem, only senile in incoherence — no lack of force. It is interesting to observe the change in his management of the metre ; like Shakespeare's third style as compared with his second, it has become a better instru- ment for dramatic expression of feeling, but with con- siderable loss of musical, and on the whole I think of rhetorical, effect. Still, the musical lines are particularly impressive — perhaps from their comparative rarity, e.g.,
Universal ocean softly washing all her warless isles.
The absence of the ordinary break in the verse makes the effect very delicate to my ear.
January 28. — This is a long interval, but I have been passing through a mental crisis which disinclined me for self-revelation. I have been facing the fact that I am drifting steadily to the conclusion — I have by no means arrived at it, but am certainly drifting towards it — that we have not, and are never likely to have, empirical evidence of the existence of the individual after death. Soon, therefore, it will probably be my duty as a reasonable being — and especially as a professional philosopher — to consider on
1887, AGE 48 HENKY SIDGWICK 467
what basis the human individual ought to construct his life under these circumstances. Some fifteen years ago, when I was writing my book on Ethics, I was inclined to hold with Kant that we must postulate the continued existence of the soul, in order to effect that harmony of Duty with Happiness which seemed to me indispensable to rational moral life. At any rate I thought I might provisionally postulate it, while setting out on the serious search for empirical evidence. If I decide that this search is a failure, shall I finally and decisively make this postulate ? Can I consistently with my whole view of truth and the method of its attainment ? And if I answer " no " to each of these questions, have I any ethical system at all ? And if not, can I continue to be Professor and absorb myself in the mere erudition of the subject — write "studies" of moralists from Socrates to Bentham — in short, become one of the " many " who, as Lowell says,
Sought truth, and lavished life's best oil
Amid the dust of books to find her, Content at last for guerdon of their toil
With the last mantle she hath left behind her.
I am nearly forty-nine, and I do not find a taste for the old clothes of opinions growing on me.
I have mixed up the personal and general questions, because every speculation of this kind ends, with me, in a practical problem, " What is to be done here and now." That is a question which I must answer: whereas as to the riddle of the Universe — I never had the presumption to hope that its solution was reserved for me, though I had to try.
January 30. — Gerald Balfour is sanguine about the Parliamentary situation. Randolph's explanation, though respectfully received, was not really a success ; the im- pression is pretty general that he was surprised at the acceptance of his resignation. The Government majority is still quite solid and trustworthy.
I certainly think myself that the situation is one which will give almost a crucial test whether Englishmen still
468 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
possess the instinct of parliamentary government — as contrasted, for instance, with Frenchmen. For the majority having been so distinctly elected to maintain the Union, and ' maintenance of the Union ' being manifestly one of the omelettes that requires the breaking of eggs — i.e. continual rows with Irishmen in Ireland and in Parliament — it is evident that they ought not to let any of these rows, or any accumulation of them, turn the Government out. Nor do I think failure to carry their bills — except bills necessary for administration — ought to turn them out ; for no sensible man thinks any English legislation, just now, comparable in importance to a right solution of the Irish Question.
But I cannot say that I think it improbable that they will be turned out ; not at once, but after a succession of small defeats — on questions on which stupid Unionists think it needful to vote Liberal, and perhaps Randolph heads a squad of independent Tories — has gradually brought them into contempt.
February 10. — Nothing has happened — since we met the G.O.M. at dinner on Tuesday week — to impress me much. The thing most interesting to myself is the in- tensity of sympathy with which I have been reading In Memoriam.1 This is due, I think, to my final despair of obtaining — I mean my obtaining, for I do not yet despair as regards the human race — any adequate rational ground for believing the immortality of the soul. What has struck me most in this re-reading is (1) the absence of any originality in the thought, but also (2) the exquisite selection and fitting together of arguments in the best argumentative portions, so as to produce a kind of balanced, rhythmical fluctuation of moods. Perhaps a certain balanced- ness is the most distinctive characteristic of Tennyson's mind among poets, which inclines him to the "juste milieu " in politics, and in such poems as " Love and Duty " to a sort of complex sympathy evenly divided between passion and principle. Perhaps this specially makes him the
1 Compare below, pp. 538-542.
1887, AGE 48 HENEY SIDGWICK 469
representative poet of an age whose most characteristic merit is to see both sides of a question. Thus in In Memoriam the points where I am most affected are where a certain retour sur soi-mthne occurs. Almost any poet might have written,
And like a man in wrath the heart Stood up and answered, I have felt.
But only Tennyson would have immediately added, No, like a child in doubt and fear.
February 14. — Keturned from 'Ad Euudem ' at Oxford. Pleasant party at Arthur's : Trevelyan and William. I had much talk with G. O. T., and was surprised — and rather alarmed — to find him so hopeful about the reunion of the Liberal party. He pointedly abstained from refer- ence to the ' Eound Table ' conferences, but he spoke of the increasing dispositions to reunion manifested by the Gladstonians, and implied that they were met by corre- sponding dispositions in his own breast. When W. and I drove off to the station this morning W. said, " There will be a new fight about Home Kule soon, with the camps entirely rearranged." In which camp shall I be then ? I cannot say till I see on what terms Trevelyan and Chamberlain have reunited — if reunion there is to be. ...
February 26. — Arthur [Sidgwick] writes that his wife (who has been staying at Alassio) " has been earthquaked, but still survives." The Riviera is always the place I yearn to go to when March winds are impending, and I rather think the attraction is increased by the vague chance of an earthquake. I should like to feel the shock, and I should like to see the wall of the room crack — always supposing it was some one else's house.
February 28. — My journal is meagre because — outside my work, which is interesting enough but yields no note- worthy incidents or emotions — I spend my time chiefly in " fingering idly " the " old Gordian knot " x of life. Some- times I diversify my speculations by trying to determine
1 Clough.
470 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
what newspaper to take in. The Times is too full — I do not care to study the decline and fall of England in such detail ; the Daily News is imbecile ; the Standard I have eschewed as impudently immoral since it published a stolen document without affecting to recognise the need of an explanation ; the Pall Mall is too much of an irritant for the hour sacred to digestion ; the odour of Jenkins still lingers round the Morning Post. I am trying the St. James, but it is, alas ! dull.
I forgot to mention that when the G.O.M. was here at the beginning of the month, he planted a tree in Newnham grounds ; but the enemy came by night and dug it up and carried it off. Said enemy is believed on good grounds to be Tory undergraduates of brutal tendencies, but the police have not yet discovered the individuals. Public opinion, even of Tories, condemns the proceeding — but mildly. Another wag, witting of the intended burglary, sent four photographers to take ' groups ' of Newnhamites round the tree. Him opinion hardly blames.
March 5. — Have just seen at the Union that Hicks- Beach is resigning from ill-health, and that Arthur Balfour is to be Chief Secretary. Both Nora and I are much depressed, from a conviction that he will not be able to stand it physically, and will break down : which will not only be sad for his friends, but also what Ithacus velit — a triumph to the Parnellites.
I am also rather depressed by the accounts of Trevelyan's speech to the Eighty Club: not exactly surprised after what he said at Oxford, but still I feel that he has shown unstatesmanlike haste in concluding that the time has come to fall openly into the arms of the Gladstonians. I sometimes think that we none of us grow older au fond, only in the outside of our minds. In the core of him Trevelyan is just as impulsive as when he was an under- graduate ; and have I changed much myself in essentials ? Perhaps only Philistines really grow old in mind — I mean the people who, as years go on, identify themselves with the worldly aims and conventional standard which, when
1887, AGE 48 HENEY SIDGWICK 471
young, they regard as outside themselves. Excellent people often these Philistines, and a most necessary element of society, but still I am inclined to think that they grow old in a sense in which we — perhaps — do not.
March 7. — Trevelyan has published an "authorised" report of his speech. It is not quite so bad as rumour represented it, but still unstatesmanlike, I think. As regards his sanguine forecast of the reunion of the great Liberal Party I suspend my judgment till I see the terms of reunion ; but I cannot now imagine any which at once Trevelyan ought to accept (as a patriot, and with his avowed views) and Parnell is likely to submit to under present circumstances. Still, there may be a modus vivendi possible which I do not see ; but in any case, until the Liberal party has actually come together and is prepared to take the responsibilities of office, surely no ex-Chief- Secretary ought to say that the "game of law and order was up." It is a game that we may have to throw up ; but woe unto that man through whom it is thrown up — and any one who prematurely declares it thrown up has a share of this fearful responsibility.
March 16. — I have been thinking much, sadly and solemnly, of J. A. S.'s answer to my January journal. In spite of sympathy of friendship, I feel by the limitations of my nature incapable of really comprehending the state of mind of one who does not desire the continuance of his personal being. All the activities in which I truly live seem to carry with them the same demand for the " wages of going on." They also carry with them concomitant pleasure : not perhaps now — aatat 49 — in a degree that excites enthusiasm, but quite sufficient to satisfy the instinctive claims of a man who has never been conscious of having a creditor account with the universe. Whether if this pleasure failed I could rely on myself to live from a pure sense of duty I do not really know ; I hope so, but I cannot affirm.
But at present the recognised failure of my efforts to obtain evidence of immortality affects me not as a Man but
472 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
as a Moralist. " Ethics," says J. A. S., " can take care of themselves." I think I agree with what is meant, but should word it differently. I should say " morality can take [care] of itself," or rather the principle of life in human society can take care of morality. But how ? Perhaps always by producing an illusory belief in im- mortality in the average man, who must live content with Common Sense. Perhaps he will always
Fix perfect homes in the unsubstantial sky, And say what is not will be by and by.
At any rate, somehow or other, morality will get on : I do not feel particularly anxious about that. But my special business is not to maintain morality somehow, but to establish it logically as a reasoned system ; and I have declared and published that this cannot be done, if we are limited to merely mundane sanctions, owing to the inevit- able divergence, in this imperfect world, between the individual's Duty and his Happiness. I said in 1874 that without some datum beyond experience " the Cosmos of Duty is reduced to a Chaos." Am I to recant this conviction and answer my own arguments — which no one of my numerous antagonists has yet even tried to answer ? Or am I to use my position — and draw my salary — for teaching that Morality is a chaos, from the point of view of Practical Reason ; adding cheerfully that, as man is not after all a rational being, there is no real fear that morality won't be kept up somehow. I do not at present see my way to acquiesce in either alternative. But I shall do nothing hastily, non ego hoc ferrem calidus iuventa, but the " consulship of Plancus " is long past.
March 22. — More meditations on the same subject — with no progress. On one point J. A. S. has not caught my position ; he says that he never expected much from the method of proof on which I have relied. But the point is that I have tried all methods in turn — all that I found pointed out by any of those who have gone before me ; and all in turn have failed — revelatiorial, rational, empirical methods — there is no proof in any of them. Still, it is
1887, AGE 48 HENRY SIDGWICK 473
premature to despair, and I am quite content to go on seeking while life lasts ; that is not the perplexing problem ; the question is whether to profess Ethics without a basis.
March 28 — Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool. — We have come here to make Thought-transference experiments; I after staying in London first with Bryce, then with Arthur Balfour, and talking Home Rule with both. I find I do not much disagree with Bryce. I think with him that the ' game of law and order ' most likely is ' up ' — unless some explosion of Irish- American dynamite should suddenly harden the English people into obstinate resistance to the disintegration of the kingdom ; somewhat as the heart of our American kinsmen was hardened twenty- five years ago when the slave-owners fired on Fort Sumter. But even then, after we have set ourselves to the struggle and won, we shall only be at the beginning of the work ; and can the English democracy have patience for the tedious task that remains ? — especially a task so unlike the part of our history that fills us with pride. I hardly think so.
Arthur Balfour seems well and vigorous ; I do not find his sisters particularly anxious about his health. It is a tremendous task thrust on him so suddenly, but he is a philosopher ; he has no doubt as to the duty that lies before him; he is not troubled with any respect for his parlia- mentary opponents ; if the Government fail, I do not think the blame will be his. . . .
March 30. — We had interesting experiments yesterday evening in Thought - transference with Miss Relph ; not quite enough success to impress the public decisively, but the conditions unexceptionable, and the results such as leave no doubt in my mind that I witnessed the real phenomenon. It certainly is a great fact ; I feel a transient glow of scientific enthusiasm, and find life worth living merely to prosecute this discovery. If only I could form the least conception of the modus transferendi ! and if only we could find some percipient whose time we could control a little more.
March 31. — Alas! our second serious effort to get
474 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
Thought - transference under our ' unexceptionable condi- tions ' was a complete failure, and the former results are hardly such as to convince an outsider. Still I believe in them, and shall go on.
April 4. — Yesterday we stayed at Carlton Gardens on our way through [from] Liverpool, and I had some talk with A. J. B. about his [Crimes] Bill. He said that the change of venue from Ireland to England was not absolutely necessary, even assuming the jury-system to be maintained, since a special jury in Dublin, chosen according to the Crown's legal right of rejection, could be trusted to give verdicts according to evidence. But they could not do it without serious personal risk in any case in which popular sentiment was strongly stirred, and he thought it unfair to them to expose them to the danger ; also such a jury would always be said to be ' packed.' He thought the only alternative to the change of venue was a strong commission of judges, but the judges would not like this !
I do not like the bankruptcy clauses of his Land Bill, for the broad reason that I do not like offering a man an extra inducement to go bankrupt. But it may be the least evil in the very awkward position in which the Tory party is placed, of having to carry further the principles of a Land Bill (of 1881) of which they altogether disapprove. . . .
In somewhat the same tone he writes on April 9 to his friend, A. J. Patterson, at this time Professor of English at Buda-Pest : —
As for us in England, we are keeping Her Majesty's jubilee in a rather unjubilant frame of mind. Sensible persons think that the chance of getting any tolerable state of things established in Ireland, by any method what- ever— with Gladstone agitating for Parnell with the reck- less impetuosity of his (in every sense) green old age — are very slender. In particular, I am rather gloomy about my brother-in-law's prospects. If his Coercion Bill fails, his career as Irish Secretary is a failure ; if it succeeds, the 'left wing' of the patriots are likely to dynamite him.
1887, AGE 48 HENRY SIDGWICK 475
However, he continues cheerful so far. Let us do the same !
On April 10 Sidgwick heard from Symoiids that the blow he had long been fearing had fallen ; his daughter Janet had died on April 7. This is merely noted in the Journal, and the letter about it written to his friend has not been preserved.
The Journal continues : —
April 14. — We are going on visits to-morrow to the Otters and to Miss Ewart. I find myself without impulse to write anything of my inner life in this journal ; the fact is that while I find it easy enough to live with more or less satisfaction, I cannot at present get any satisfaction from thinking about life, for thinking means — as I am a philo- sopher— endeavouring to frame an ethical theory which will hold together, and to this I do not see my way. And the consideration that the morality of the world may be trusted to get on without philosophers does not altogether console. The ancient sage took up a strong position who argued, " We must philosophize, for either we ought to philosophize or we ought not ; and if we ought not to philo- sophize, we can only know this by studying philosophy." But tradition does not say what course the sage recom- mended to a philosopher who has philosophized himself into a conviction of the unprofitableness of philosophy. He must do something else ; but how is he to do it on rational grounds without philosophy ? and [when] whatever impulses nature may have given to him — as to other men — to do things without rational grounds have been effectually sup- pressed by philosophy ?
However, of all this a solution will doubtless be found " ambulando " — though it will very likely be " ambulando," as Tennyson says, " in a strange diagonal."
April 22. — Have got back after pleasant visits. Otter did not look very well ; but he seemed happy, and has three nice, simple-mannered, eager children, in whom he is duly interested. We talked much of the difficult question
476 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
what an infidel is to say to his children on religious sub- jects. I certainly think that if I meant to send a boy to a public school — to give him " all the chances " socially — 1 should try not to put his mind out of harmony with the established religion, but it seems to me terribly perilous to do this by positive hypocrisy ; I should try to do it by reserve and by adjourning perplexing questions " till he grew older." But Otter seemed to think this would not really answer.
On Monday (18th) we went to Miss Ewart's house on the edge of the Surrey hills ; it has a beautiful view and afforded us real aesthetic refreshment. I wonder this country is not more cockneyfied, being so near London. On Wednesday I dined with the Lord Mayor,1 and came back to Cambridge at night by special train. I liked the Lord Mayor's speaking ; ... he managed to say something sensible and to the point in each speech, and seemed genuinely pleased to see his old University around him.
In the summer of 1887 a committee was formed in London to agitate for the opening of Cambridge degrees to women, the occasion being the brilliant success of Miss Agnata Ramsay (now Mrs. Butler), who had come out at the head of the Classical Tripos list. Sidgwick thought it very unwise to raise the question only six years after the opening of the Triposes, and did his best to stop the movement. In a letter primarily addressed to the Secretary of the London Committee, but afterwards more widely circulated, he says : —
The decisive reason [for regarding it as unwise to raise the question at this time] is that various important sections of the body of residents who supported the opening of the Examinations to women . . . would on various grounds refuse to support any scheme that could under existing circumstances be brought forward for opening the degree ; and that in consequence any such scheme would, when it
1 Sir R. Hanson, an old Rugby and Trinity man, gave two dinners at the Mansion-House to members of his school and College.
1887, AGK 49 HENEY SIDGWICK 477
came before the Senate, be almost certainly defeated by a combination of these various sections with the opponents of the whole movement.
[He then briefly characterises these different sections and their different grounds of opposition, ending with the one that made it impossible for himself to join the move- ment.] Your Committee, as I understand, are determined that the conditions shall be absolutely identical for men and women ; they have formally resolved that they " will not support any measure admitting women to degrees on other conditions than those laid down for undergraduates generally." That is, they propose to ask the University practically to reverse the line of action that was adopted, after full discussion, six years ago ; when an honour certifi- cate in the Higher Local Examination, including at least a pass in Group B (Languages) and Group C (Mathematics), was allowed as an alternative to passing the Previous Examination imposed on undergraduates who are candidates for honours.
[Some, he says, would oppose this reversal on principle.] Others — among whom I am to be reckoned — are not opposed on principle to identity of conditions for the two sexes in University Examinations ; but they are determined, if possible, to prevent the University from applying to the education of girls the pressure in the direction of classics which would inevitably be given if the present Previous Examination were made compulsory on female students preparing for the Tripos Examinations. They have no wish that the University should throw its influence against the development of classical education in girls' schools : but they wish it to remain — as it has hitherto remained — perfectly neutral in the matter.1 . . . [He continues] I do not mean to recommend an indefinite delay : I am quite
1 He said later on ill the controversy that if the question " whether the University should admit women to membership under such conditions and limitations as it may from time to time determine," could be brought for- ward separately from the question "what these conditions and limitations are to be " he "should answer the first unhesitatingly in the aifirmative ; trusting to the wisdom of the University to settle the second question with a single-minded regard to the true interests of the education of women."
478 HENRY SIDG-WICK CHAP, vt
of opinion that the question whether Cambridge is to become a mixed university is one that ought to be raised and fully debated before many years have passed. But 1 think that a delay of four or five years may be reasonably asked for : and that after this interval has elapsed, the question is likely to be raised under decidedly more favour- able circumstances than at present. In the first place it is not improbable that in the meantime the Previous Examina- tion for undergraduates generally may be modified ; so that " identity of conditions " will no longer mean " compulsory Greek." Secondly, even if this cause of dissension should not be removed, the objection on the score of insufficient ex- perience will have vanished, or have been much reduced. . . . You will observe that I have said nothing about the proposal of your Committee to ask for the admission of women to the Pass examinations. Such a proposal, if it comes before us, will be very strongly resisted by myself and others for a variety of reasons. But at the present stage of the discussion it is not necessary that I should further complicate an inevitably tangled controversy by giving these reasons : since this proposal, in my opinion, admits of being treated and settled quite separately from the main question.
Sidgwick's advice did not prevail, and much corre- spondence in the papers and signing of memorials ensued. Finally, in February 1888, memorials were sent in to the Council from members of the Senate opposed to giving degrees to women which were more numerously signed than those in favour of moving, and the Council decided to take no steps in the matter.
After April 1887 there is no more Journal for many months. Symonds was in England in the early summer, and afterwards monthly letters took the place of the Journal for a time.
To J. A. Symonds from Cambridge, November 2 Yesterday was the day for my letter, but preparation for lectures intervened. On politics, however, I have little to
1887, AGE 49 HENRY SIDGWICK 479
tell you that you would not learn from the newspapers, except that the Chief Secretary for Ireland is well and keeps up his spirits ! I hear that the Unionist Cause is losing ground, and in particular I hear that Chamberlain, in spite of the bold face he puts on in public, privately regards the game as nearly ' up/ But the Liberal Unionists whom I meet here are, if anything, more deter- mined than ever ; the only change of sentiment which manifests itself in my personal entourage is that the L.U.S are gradually giving up the hope of reunion with the G.L.S. My own view is that the task which the Government have in hand, of suppressing a rebellion so firmly organised and enjoying the open sympathy of the Liberal party, is an almost impossible one to succeed in : but that it is quite premature to pronounce on their success. There is sure to be a certain amount of blundering on the part of the sub- ordinates, and these blunders will be of course used by the Liberal speakers and Press as a means of acting on English opinion ; but the important question is whether they will succeed in convincing the average farmer that the Plan of Campaign is a bad investment. On that question I think it quite premature to express a judgment.
We stayed with the Trevelyans in the summer — a delightful visit : and I had a good deal of talk about his ' tergiversation.' I think he has been hardly used, so far as his action has gone as yet. The real test, I think, will come when the Home Rulers return to power — assuming that this is to happen — and the new Home Rule scheme has to be brought forward. T.'s position is, ' I voted against a Bill that I thought bad, and I should vote against a similar Bill if it should be brought in again ; I avowed this to my constituents, and have been elected on this understanding. I think that Gladstone's late Government have learnt the lesson of their defeat, and that they are likely, when the time comes, to bring in a Bill that I can support. I do not see why the fact that I disagreed with them on a Bill that is dead is a sufficient reason for my practically joining the Tories.' I think there is force in
480 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
this, and that Trevelyan cannot fairly be attacked for in- consistency from his own point of view ; but I cannot myself share his confidence that the Gladstonians have " learnt their lesson." Otherwise why should they continue repeating that no arrangement which does not satisfy the Parnellites is worth bringing forward. If we have Home Rule at all, I think that Law and Order will have to be maintained by the accomplices of dynamitards ; but I do not see why they should not maintain these august entities tolerably — except in the case of landlords, who will certainly be sacrificed if they are not bought out.
Enough. I see your translation of Benvenuto announced, and wonder in what regions your indefatigable pen is now travelling. I am working at Politics, not very heartily, but I make way, and do not doubt that I shall bring out a heavy book on the subject before very long. As to Ethics — matters are in statu quo. Time will bring decision.
To J. A. Symonds, December 1
On the state of the nation I have not much to say that is definite. The Tories whom I know are tolerably hopeful as to the accomplishment of TO, TT/JO? TTO&WV — the restora- tion of a tolerable degree of obedience to law in Ireland. They think that things will come gradually round if Government is firm and does not lose its head ; and they think now (which opinion I share) that Arthur Balfour will exhibit these necessary qualities. Still there is always the possibility of serious mistakes by subordinate officials — including resident magistrates — raising a storm of popular indignation. A. J. B. himself, with whom I have had an hour's talk, is tolerably hopeful on this point. But this is but the smallest part of the Unionists' problem. They have also got to reduce the agrarian difficulty to something endurable : and there seems to be great disagreement among them as to how this is to be attempted. . . .
As regards " law and order " in London, there is an idea that the lawless and disorderly party have got the worst of it for the present, and know it ; nor can I learn from any
1887, AGE 49 HENEY SIDGWICK 481
one whose opinion I regard that the problem of " distress of unemployed " is really formidable at present ; but there is an uneasy feeling that it may soon become so, and that " something must be done " — something, I suppose, in the direction of recognising the " Eight to Labour," or rather the right to get wages. I have always thought myself that our system of poor relief required development in this direction ; it succeeds admirably (speaking KO.T avdpwirov) in preventing starvation without encouraging idleness, but its method is too purely deterrent; still, it is very difficult to remedy this defect without coming nearer the brink of socialism. Thus the outlook is not promising : the sky full of clouds, though none very black just at present. That everybody seems to have lost his head in France affects us, I think, less than it would do if we were in a more sanguine mood about political progress. Meanwhile we are not most of us in a humour to read a rhymed play by Swinburne ; we feel we must leave that amusement to the happy Americans and Australians.
Personally, I am trying to absorb myself in my Opus Magnum on Politics. My position is that I seem to myself now to have grasped and analyzed adequately the only possible method of dealing systematically with political problems ; but my deep conviction is that it can yield as yet little fruit of practical utility — so doubt whether it is worth while to work it out in a book. Still man must work — and a Professor must write books. I look forward with much interest to your new departure in literary criticism ; J you certainly have the gift of perennial youthfulness of spirit. I do not think I have, except in my general attitude towards life, which is very like that of a somewhat pessimistic undergraduate.
Graham [Dakyns] and Arthur [Sidgwick] were here for the Greek play. . . . [It] had a complete external success — house crowded every night — but I did not think it really equal to the Eumenidcs, chiefly because the part of (Edipus
1 Symonds was beginning to put into shape Essays Speculative and Suggestive.
2i
4.82 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
is one which makes too great demands on the actor for a juvenile amateur to be able to satisfy even tolerably throughout. The chief thing I gained from it was a keener apprehension of Jocasta's character ; I had not appreciated its subtle femininity. But the conclusion was less satis- factory on the stage than in the closet ; the pathos of the scene with father and daughter seemed too obviously qontrived for effect.
• To J. A. Symonds, January 8, 1888
We came back yesterday from Ireland — from a fort- night's visit at the Chief Secretary's Lodge. The time was very interesting : but I may communicate in con- fidence to the reader of this Journal that it has not tended to increase my hope of preserving the Union. This is chiefly because it seems to me that the whole thing rests on the Government ; that the Irish loyalists outside the Government are wanting in " Grit." A. J. B. is cheerful and confident ; has no doubt that by a calm, steady, fearless enforcement of the law he will bring things round gradually in time. And he says that, according to all the information he gets through all sources, things are coming round ; rents are being paid ; and — in spite of the opposition of the League — the £5,000,000 to be lent by the Government for the transfer of land from landlords to tenants (under Lord Ashbourne's act) is nearly exhausted. On the other hand, the other side have an air of equal con- fidence ; and assert, apparently with truth, that landlords are " caving in " to the tenants. Probably both statements are true, and the battle is still undecided ; but I should be disposed to back the Government if time were allowed. But then I see no reason to think that more time will be allowed than the average duration of a Parliament ; and I hardly hope that within that time the success of the Government will be sufficiently clear to tell much in their favour with the constituencies ; and if so, I can hardly doubt that the incidents of the process of " bringing round " will tell against them. . . . The danger of mistakes seems to me
1888, AGE 49 HENKY SIDGWICK 483
much increased by the peculiar legal situation of the Government. They are trying to put down dangerous meetings by the common law ; and as the power of the Executive to do this seems by the agreement of legal experts to be somewhat imperfectly denned, they are compelled to throw on the resident magistrates — necessarily imperfect judicial instruments — the peculiarly difficult task of apply- ing imperfectly-defined principles. . . .
I send [this] feeling it hardly worth sending. The truth is, though I enjoyed my visit to Ireland I did not get much out of it in the way of new ideas. It was serious and thrilling to think of the danger (which I believe to be very real), and A. J. B.'s coolness and courage ; and it was comic to read United Ireland, as an illustration of the free speech which the tyrant allows. But I could not feel that any light went up in my horizon.
To A. J. Patterson at Buda-Pest on March 8, 1888
I have been suffering from sleeplessness for some months, which has led me to make a rigid rule of abstinence from all reading after dinner which tends to hard thinking. This has seriously restricted my power of taking intellectual excursions ! . . .
I have been rather gloomy lately on various grounds — one is, that I find myself approaching the time of life in which it seems an exceptional thing to be alive. Trotter's * death especially moved me ; he had been seriously out of order for more than a year, but no one suspected any immediate danger — at least I did not — until suddenly he caught cold, which turned to inflammation of the lungs. His death was on public grounds a very great loss ; for years he has occupied a quite unique position in the very complicated administration of our academic business — com- plicated from the intricate way in which university and colleges are mixed up. Another such man, with indefatig- able industry, absolute disinterestedness, and complete
1 The Rev. Coutts Trotter, vice - Master of Trinity College, died on December 4, 1887.
484 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
clear grasp of our perplexed affairs, is very difficult to tind ; and his loss is all the more irreparable at this crisis, as we are passing through a period of financial distress from the fall in rents, and as in the University of Cambridge — per- haps also in that of Buda-Pest — almost every department and not a few individuals are continually wanting more money. . . .
At the end of March Sidgwick and his wife paid a brief visit to Munich on Psychical Research business ; but as he writes afterwards to H. G. Dakyns :—
We have come back from Munich re infecta. The" Subject" [with whom experiments were to be tried] fell ill just on our arrival — our usual luck ! But we liked the Munich Society [for Psychical Eesearch], and enjoyed our holiday.
To J. A, Symonds from Cambridge on April 8
I have been since I wrote to you in a state of mind so familiar to me that I ought to be proof against the illusion connected with it — and yet I am not proof — the state of knowing that before long I have to make a decision of fundamental importance, a decision that must profoundly influence my life and outlook on things in general one way or another, feeling that I have sufficiently examined all the pros and cons that my intellect can discover, and that the matter is therefore ripe for decision ; feeling at the same time that my mind is not moved to a decision to-day, and therefore expecting — here comes in the invincible illusion — that it must settle down into decidedness to-morrow or the day after : and that when this moment comes the existence I am leading in a kind of tunnel under the surface of ordinary human life will have come to an end : I shall emerge into the open air and experience a rush of the kind of clear ideas and emotions that one is prompted to com- municate to one's friends.
This is the state I have been in for two months. The question is the one I wrote to you about as to the tenability of my position here as a teacher of Ethics. The grounds of
1888, AGE 49 HENKY SIDGWICK 485
indecision are these. Ethics seems to me in a position inter- mediate between Theology and Science, regarded as subjects of academic study and profession, in this way : — No one doubts that a Professor of Theology, under the conditions prevailing in England at least, is expected to be in some way constructive ; if not exactly orthodox, at any rate he is expected to have and to be able to communicate a rational basis for some established creed and system. If he conies to the conclusion that no such basis is attainable, most sensible persons would agree that he is in his wrong place and had better take up some other calling. On the other hand the professor of any branch of science is under no such restriction ; he is expected to communicate unreservedly the results to which he has come, whether favourable or not to the received doctrines : if (e.g.) he were the solitary Darwinian in a society of Creationists, that would be no reason for resigning his chair — rather for holding on. Now iny difficulty is to make up my mind which of these analogies I ought to apply to my own case — and I have not yet done so.
Enough ! this is longer than I intended. What I in- tended to say is that I have [now] emerged from my tunnel by an act of will, and do not mean to let my mind turn on this hook any more for the present. And as a sign and seal of the change I mean to recommence my journal : — you will receive April's journal at the end of the month.
April 12. — To-day I recommence my journal, with a determination to continue it. The opportunity is good, as I am alone, Nora having gone to London to hear her brother's speech at the Banquet last evening. The change is great in my own mind since I left off the journal ; and, though the loss is great, I am obliged to confess to myself that the change is not altogether for the worse. I take life more as it conies, and with more concern for small things. I aim at cheerfulness and I generally attain it. I have a stronger Distinctive repugnance to cause pain or annoyance to any human being. In old times, when the old idea of a judgment at which all would be known still hung about
486 HENKY SIDGWIGK CHAP, vi
me, I was more concerned about being in the right in my human relations — about having, as Bishop Andrewes says, " defensionem bonam " ante trem.endv.in tribunal. But now I have let this drop into the background, and though I still feel what Carlyle calls the " Infinity of Duty," it is only in great matters I feel it ; as regards the petty worries of life, I feel that both the Universe and Duty de minimis non curant : or rather the one Infinite duty is to be serene. And serene I am — so far !
Sidgwick was liable to periods of depression all his life after his illness as an undergraduate, generally accompanied — perhaps caused — by a tendency to lie awake at night. During the latter part of his life he used, as indicated in the passage just quoted, to make a great effort to conceal depression from those he was with. To a great extent he succeeded, and he found the effort beneficial to himself. He never took drugs to relieve sleeplessness. He had been warned against this by a doctor early in life, and never wavered from the principle he had adopted. Nor did he read in bed ; he generally found it best to lie still, and get rest if he could not get sleep. He used to find making plans for the future a soothing occupation under these circumstances.
April 18. — Back to Cambridge (from Terling) for a term's work. Have read J. A. S.'s aesthetic article in Fort- nightly, which I agreed with and liked much — terse and pregnant, interesting and suggestive. Some things I differed from. It hardly seems to me that Milton's Death or Goethe's Mephisto are " fantastic " ; — Death, because of the mysterious shadowiness of the description which satisfies our emotion while it (as I should say) eludes our fantasy ; Mephisto, because the external embodiment which is fan- tastic is not Goethean. What Goethe creates appeals to Thought, not Fantasy.
April 20. — I have been thinking over the old distinc- tion between Fancy and Imagination. It seems to me that
1888, AGE 49 HENEY SIDGWICK 48Y
we agree to consider that Imagination and not mere Fancy is exercised when the artist's fictitious representation is designed as the expression of a spiritual truth, e.g. when Tennyson writes,
And falling with my weight of cares Upon the great world's altar stairs That slope through darkness up to God,
it is imagination not fancy that produces the image. And it is because both Death and Mephisto are partly of this kind that I do not call them fantastic.
April 30. — Labor Improbus ! During the last fortnight I have settled all my literary hesitations; determined to bring out two books (1) Elements of Politics, and (2) Develop- ment of European Polity, have made out the plan of (1) — - twenty-three chapters, of which sixteen are more or less written — have sent off the first three to the printer, and got three more ready for sending : all with the term's work going on. This is good for so dilatory and indecisive a person as I am. I hope I may keep it up.
People about me — knowing ones (I do not mean 'having knowledge') — are prophesying a European war. But I have a simple faith in Bis[marck]. I feel sure Bis. wants peace, and I think he will get what he wants. But how, I know not. Also the Boulanger scare in France is opposed to war, since the people in power must think that war would increase Boulanger's chances, and they cannot want that. The anti-English feeling in Germany I take to be merely popular and transient. . . .
May 7. — Kegan Paul came on Saturday for the Sunday with his wife and Nancy. It was a pleasant visit — more* like old times than I expected. Leslie Stephen remarked the other day that Kegan Paul had become uninteresting since he changed from a clerical heretic into a prosperous publisher ; but a man must have some interesting qualities who can effect this change after middle life, in the easy; buoyant, cheerful, successful way in which Paul managed it. He has had to tell Congreve that " Positivism has dropped off him like other things."
488 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
May 20. — (In Oxford). Very pleasant meeting of ' Ad Eimdeni.' But I feel that as I grow older I really know less and less of the real life of Oxford. I am half inclined to think that there is no real life now — no central pre- dominant pulsation of life — such as there was in the " con- sulship of Plancus" (1860-65). . . . T find that there is a widespread feeling in Oxford that the portrait of Green [in llobert Elsmere] is something that ought not to have been tlone. I do not quite know why, for all admit that it is at once faithful and friendly. I have no particular desire for posthumous fame, but I think it would please me rather than otherwise to know that I should be introduced into a novel after death in this kind of way. Met Miss Smith, who seemed to me to have grown older, and grown more so, but to be very much all there. She said that " Greats " was going to be thrown open to women. Met Jowett, too. Every one said he had wonderfully recovered ; yet he seemed to me clearly older in a sadder way ; I mean so that an unwonted touch of something like pity mingled with one's reverence — pity for the feeling he must have of having taken a distinct step down the last incline.
Had interesting talk with Dicey about reform of the British Constitution. Our idea is to borrow from America the stability for a definite period of the executive, but to keep the original appointment of it in the hands of the Legislature (as practically in England now). Disputes on legislative measures to be settled by the " referendum " as in Switzerland now. K^ Must look up Swiss Constitution.
May 25. — I feel that everything points to my leaving Cambridge. I do not think I was made to be a teacher of age and dignity : I like talking to young men, but I like talking to them as an equal — and this becomes harder as the years go on. If we go I think Cambridge will miss my wife more than me, and this sometimes makes me pause : but I think on the whole she would be happier in a quieter life, though happy enough here —
fJ.€V fvOdS' fVKoX.O<S 8' CKCt.1
Aristophanes, Froys. Said of Sophocles.
1888, AGE 50 HENKY SIDGWICK 489
Arthur [Sidgwick], too, lias stirred my desire to go to Greece; he says that the "remains" come up to expectation, and the scenery much more so. But this is a subordinate consideration !
May 31. — My fiftieth birthday! I find that now my whole nature is beginning to sway in the direction of leaving Cambridge. Two old impulses raise their heads and sing in tune within me: (1) the desire of travel, to know the world of West- European civilisation thoroughly and as a whole ; and (2) the desire of literary independence, to be able to speak when I like as a man to men, and not three times a week as a salaried teacher to pupils. I understand the teacher who said that his classes were his " wings," but in my deep doubt whether what now appears to me true tends to edification I find them rather chains than wings.
It little profits that, a dubious don In these dull rooms, amid these dreary flats, Yoked to these aged wives, I mete and dole Unbottomed ethics to a
" savage race " won't do, but it is a race that " knows not me," for I cannot bring myself to make myself known. ([Aged wives], I fear, must be taken to refer to the Heads of Houses.)
June 1. — S.P.R meeting and Nora's paper on Pre- monitions. Paper difficult to write because she does not believe in them, and yet we fear that too negative an attitude would prevent our getting the full supply of fresh stories which we want to complete our telepathic evidence, the simple minds of our audience not distinguish- ing between telepathy and premonitions. I thought she siicceeded tolerably well, but Gurney thought she erred on the side of too great indulgence to weak evidence.
June 11. — Our distinguished guests have come and gone, and I shall now communicate to this faithful page my impression of the whole business. It can only be expressed here, because, as three of the honorary graduates were Nora's brother and brother-in-law and uncle,1 and as the
1 A. J. Balfour, Lord Rayleigh, and Lord Salisbury.
490 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
whole thing was, by irate Gladstoniaus, regarded as a demonstration on the Unionist side, I feel in private duty bound to refer to it in public with an air of modest triumph. But, in strictest confidence, L think (1) that a University ought to give no honorary degrees except for merit that it is professionally competent to recognise, i.e. for eminence in science and learning ; and that it ought to recognise this species of merit with the strictest impartiality. It is urged on the other side that the opinion of a body like the University on the merits of statesmen is a matter of some interest, that it may interest other less learned persons, that we are bound as patriots to express, etc., etc. My answer is that we may fulfil this patriotic duty in any other way we like — if electing a Unionist member is not enough — except by assuming the position of a fountain of honour on this subject. That we cannot really be; o <f>povip,os does not so regard us, and it is only old custom that prevents us from being ridiculous when we try to assume the position. But (2) if we had wished to show our appreciation of political merit, I think the choice should have been less partisan. Lord Rosebery was not enough to balance Salisbury, Goschen, and Balfour. (Lord Acton, no doubt, is a Home Ruler, but he is not known to the public as such.) There ought to have been also John Morley or G. O. Trevelyan. However, it was an exciting time, especially as we achieved for Newnham the triumph of getting all the Swells (including Prince and Princess of Wales) to come to its Garden Party. This was partly due to the cordiality of the Vice-Chancellor, who was, I think, anxious to show that though Cambridge will not give women degrees, it does not in any way draw back the hand it has held out to them.
We had the Premier, Lady Salisbury, and Gwendolen Cecil, as well as Arthur and Alice Balfour [staying with us]. It strained the resources of our humble establish- ment, but I liked having the Salisburys. I think Lord S. is particularly attractive in private life — one recognizes the style of his speeches in his humorous observations ;
isss, AGE 50 HENEY SIDGWICK 491
otherwise I should describe his manner as simple, gentle, and unassuming.
Of Newnham I say nothing : because the Master of Magdalene, who acted as autocratic distributor of tickets, and had been very obliging to us, told the Editor of The Banner to apply to Nora for an account of the Garden Party at Newnham. We thought it would be ungrateful to refuse, and some fun to try our first and last piece of penny-a-lining on so auspicious an occasion. Here is the result. The discerning reader can probably distinguish, the two pens I
GARDEN PAETY AT NEWNHAM COLLEGE
In closing the proceedings at the Fitzwilliam Museum the Vice-Chancellor communicated to his guests a genera} invitation to a garden party in the grounds of Newnham College. It was known that the Royal visitors had promised to grace with their presence this party, given on the occasion of the opening of the large dining-hall and assembly room which forms part of the new third Hall of Newnham, to be called after the Principal, Clough Hall • and accordingly distinguished visitors and residents were soon seen crossing the Cam in the direction of the ladies' college. The grounds of Newnham — about eight acres in extent — were alive with students and ex- students to the number of nearly three hundred, distinguishable, amid the growing throng of visitors, by the irises worn in their dresses. Presently two lines of iris-wearers might be seen forming on the sides of the approach from the gate to the door of Clough Hall, along which the Royal carriages were to pass, and a gleam of sunshine — unhappily too transient — brought out effectively the red brick gables and white eaves of the new " Queen Annine " building. Meanwhile the mass of the visitors congregated in the graceful dining-hall, filling both the main body of the room and the gallery, while on the dais at one end sat the College choir, waiting in thrilled expectation for the signal to begin the National Anthem. The hall, with its two deep bays, its richly moulded barrel roof, and its galleries round two sides, was well set off by the gay party assembled and the taste- ful floral decorations, and must have been a gratifying sight to the architect, Mr. Champneys, who was among the guests. The minutes fly and the expectation grows more intense, in the dining-hall and along the lines of " Newnhamites " outside, and
492 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
also in the entrance of Clough Hall, where the Council of Newnham, Miss Clough (the Principal), and Miss Gladstone (the Vice-Principal of the College), and four students with bouquets for the Princesses, are awaiting the Royal party. The ex- pectancy turns momentarily to anxiety when the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Prime Minister, who had been among the earliest arrivals, are seen driving off to catch their train. But soon a murmur runs " Here they come " ; the Royal carriage drives up between the lines of courtesying maidens to Clough Hall ; and Professor Cayley, President of the Newnham Council, in the scarlet doctor's gown conferred on him three hours before, escorts the Princess of Wales to her seat in the dining-hall. The Prince of Wales follows with Miss Clough on his arm, and after them the three young Princesses with Prince Albert Victor : while the choir, somewhat nervous with loyal emotion, are singing three verses of "God save the Queen." Then come two part songs, in which the girlish voices show to more advantage ; then the brief concert is over and the Royal visitors cross the road that divides the Newnham grounds to the garden of the Old Hall, where tea is prepared for them. It is in this older garden — which has had fourteen years to grow up — that the al fresco part of the entertainment takes place ; and the garden looks pretty enough in the sun- shine between the showers, which unfortunately fell at intervals throughout the day, and during one of which the Royal party drives off to the station.
Then there is yet another ceremony to be performed in the new dining-hall, viz. the announcement of the foundation of a studentship in honour of Miss Marion Kennedy, daughter of the venerable Professor of Greek, whose services to Newnham are known to all members and friends of the College. Then the guests gradually disperse, and the hall is prepared for the supper, with which 290 Newnhamites, past and present, are to close the day. But of this banquet nothing can be told ; indeed we hear that the only male visitors admitted to look down upon the scene from the gallery were Professor Cayley, the actual President of the College, and Professor Adams, who guided its fortunes at an earlier stage of its history.
June 21. — We have come down to Cambridge after visits to Lambeth, H. W. Eve, and Carlton Gardens, ending with the Apostles' dinner at Richmond, at which S. H. Butcher was very good in the chair.
1888, AGE 50 HENKY SIDGWICK 49 a
June. 25. — Alas! Alas!
F. and A, Myers came yesterday to tell us the terrible news of Edmund Gurney's sudden death. It happened at Brighton on Friday night from an overdose of chloroform, supposed taken for neuralgia or insomnia ; he is known to have been suffering lately from obstinate sleeplessness. Quis desiderio ? . . . I can write no more journal this month. . . . We saw him last on Tuesday, 19th; he seemed to us well and in good spirits. Fred Myers feels it terribly, but we too — Nora and I — do not know how we shall do without him.
In writing, as President of the Society for Psychical Research, to convey to Mrs. Gurney the sympathy of the Council of the Society, he says :—
It was hoped that this would not seem to you merely formal — you would feel that we were speaking as representa- tives of the whole body of persons interested in the work of which the main burden has so long rested on him ; from the letters that we have received we know how widely this feeling is shared and how strongly.
I must add that nothing that can be said in public will really express our sense of loss : because what we really feel as regards the work is the profound difficulty of carrying it on at all, in an adequate and worthy way. But of this we must say nothing, as we feel it a duty not to discourage others. We are determined that the work shall be carried through to whatever result the laws of the Universe destine for it ; we feel it to be now not only a duty owed to humanity, but also to the memory of our friend and colleague, that the results of our previous labour should not fail from any faint-heartedness. So we shall go forward with energy and determination — though the fresh enthusiasm of the old days, and the delight of comradeship, can never be what it was.
The Journal continv.es: —
July 12. — Yesterday we came up to London to dine with Trevelyans. Very pleasant. I sat next to Lady
494 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
Grant Duff, who knew who I was and thought she could make most out of me by discussing Psychical Kesearch. She seemed surprised that I did not read Laurence Oliphant. I tried to make her understand that we are in polar opposition ; my sole aim is proof, whereas L. O., though keen-witted and clever, appears as indifferent to scientific proof of the world he proposes to reveal as the most woolly- headed enthusiast.
July 13. — We went to see Taming of the Shrew last night (American Company). It had heen strongly re- commended ; the only actress of pretension was Katherine, and the only point that I could find in her acting was a certain little squeal of anger which she emitted three or four times. This was good, and after the first emission I found myself watching for it as the only possible source of enjoyment. But the play is an intolerably bad one ; I hope very little of it is Shakespeare's. We dined with Arthur [Balfour] at the House of Commons, and walked afterwards on the terrace, which is a very fascinating place. We talked of the Government's offer of a Commission of Judges to Parnell. Alice [Balfour] bet me two to one that he would somehow manage to refuse it. I think these are fair odds. My view is that he did not write the letters which he declares to be forged, but that he is on other grounds afraid of going into court.
July 14. — Went to lunch with Bryce. We talked about Parnell, and we found we agreed very closely in spite of the disagreement between us on Home Eule. He thinks Parnell will score on the question of the letters, but that he certainly has things to conceal, and whether he or the Times will score on the whole depends on how grave these things are, and whether they will all be forced into light. . . .
July 16. — Yesterday and to-day I wrote my address for the S.P.Pu, and this evening delivered it. My main object was to stir up effort for the collection of new telepathic cases. I have not much hope of our getting out positive results in any other department of our inquiry, but I am not yet hopeless of establishing telepathy, and I
1888, AGE 50 HENRY SIDGWICK 495
am now specially anxious, for Edmund Gurney's sake, that his six years' labour should not be lost. It was a good meeting. Before going to bed I saw Arthur [Balfour], who was just come from the House. He tells me that Parnell's utterances about the Commission, inconsistent and furious, made them think him really embarrassed. . . .
July 19. — Yesterday I joined other Fellows of Trinity in giving lunch to Pan - Anglican bishops. I sat next the Bishop of Manchester, who talked fluently, vigorously, and interestingly. He tells me that what resists the spread of Socialism in Lancashire is not so much Trades Unionism as the diffusion of property among the elite of the working class, especially the fact that they have largely become owners of houses by means of building societies.
August 6. — Just come back from Charles Boweu's (Sussex), where we have been spending the Sunday. Very pleasant visit. Bowen a charming host. We talked of the Parnell Commission ; ... he disapproved of the Bill on the whole ; " it was not desirable the judges should have this kind of work put on them," but he thought they would get through it more quickly than was supposed.
We talked of his translation of Virgil. As I think this has many merits, I could speak quite candidly of the merits and the defects. I think it expresses in ordinary narrative the perpetual undulating sweetness of the Virgilian hexa- meter better than any other English ; I think it expresses both pathetic effects and forcible rhetoric, vehement appeal, very well, and in such passages Bowen works it with attractive simplicity, e.g. —
Lay on the tomb of Dido for funeral offering this, Neither be love nor league to unite my people and his. Rise, thou nameless avenger, from Dido's ashes to come, Follow with fire and slaughter the false Dardanians home, Smite them to-day, hereafter
It is better in the context than to quote, as its point is fluent vehemence. But sometimes single lines are good, as " Thin as the idle breezes and like some dream of the night," for " Par levibus ventis " This I told him, and asked
496 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
him at the same time why he deliberately so often made the metre jolt. He said it was his fear of monotony in the long narrative passages.
Some of the most interesting talk I had was with Sir Alfred Lyall, whom I liked much. He would talk on India if one wanted, but preferred poetry and philosophy.
August 19. — A week of rather confused toil. Off to Ireland to-morrow. I think I see my way to my Elements of Politics, i.e. I shall bring it out somehow, though I shall be very tired of it before I do.
August 28. — Danesfort, Killarney. We have been here, staying with Butchers; a week of much enjoyment. Their house looks out on the " lower lake " — the characteristic of Killarney is that its three lakes are strung on one string, one stream — scenery not unlike the English lakes, but more luxurious, with its richer woods, and more gently harmonious in the lines of the hills. The upper lake is rather wilder, and a row down the broad river that connects it with the middle lake — ending in a tiny " shooting of the rapids " — is a unique pleasure.
August 29. — Yesterday we came to Mount Trenchard (Monteagle's), on the Shannon. I have had much interest- ing talk with both Butcher and Monteagle on the Irish question. They both think that the Government, maintain- ing their present policy, would certainly triumph over the forces of agrarian and political sedition in Ireland ; the critical conflict is not here, but in the mind of English Demos. I met Colonel Turner at Killarney, and was struck with the importance he attached to the attitude of the priests. He said the state of Clare was much worse than that of Kerry, and attributed this mainly to the more revolutionary character of the priests in Clare under a bishop who appears to be a nonentity. Monteagle confirms this, and thinks that the still better condition of Limerick is due to the moral vigour of the bishop. This being so, I am rather surprised that the papal rescript seems as yet to have produced so little effect — plan of campaign and boy- cotting going on much as before. My friends reply that it
1888, AGE 50 HENRY SIDGWICK 497
is Rome's usual method to apply the curb patiently and gently in such a case as this, and let resistance if possible die out gradually ; but that the priests have to submit, and they know it.
September 5. — We left Ireland last night, with a serene transit (I have now crossed St. George's Channel six times without a touch of sea-sickness), and arrived about 7 P.M. at our haunted house . . . near Cheltenham, where our Spiritualist friend C. C. Massey was hospitably awaiting us. It is pleasantly situated, so close to a range of hills that twenty minutes' walk gives one a beautiful view of the whole plain in which Gloucester and Cheltenham are seen, looking across to the Malvern Hills. To-morrow I go to Bath to the British Association.
September 8. — Back from a very pleasant two days at Bath. The town revived wonderfully my childish recollec- tions, with its villas picturesquely climbing upwards from the basin where the town lies. But forty years ago archaeo- logy was less advanced ; now one can see from the street an old Roman bath 60 or 80 feet long, forming part, as it were, of the modern baths, and impressively illustrating the historic continuity of the " health resort."
The most interesting thing at my Section (Economic Science) was the field-day on Socialism which we had yester- day. The Committee had invited a live Socialist, redhot " from the Streets," as he told us, who sketched in a really brilliant address the rapid series of steps by which modern society is to pass peacefully into social democracy. The node of the transition was supplied by urban ground-rents (it is interesting to observe that the old picture of the agri- cultural landlord -drone, battening on social prosperity to which he contributes nothing, is withdrawn for the present as too ludicrously out of accordance with the facts). It is now urban ground-rent that the municipal governments will have to seize, to meet the ever-growing necessity of providing work and wages for the unemployed. How exactly this seizure of urban rents was to develop into a complete nationalisation of industry I could not remember
2K
498 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
afterwards, but it seemed to go very naturally at the time. There was a peroration rhetorically effective as well as daring, in which he explained that the bliss of perfected socialism would only come by slow degrees, with lingering step and long delays, and claimed our sympathy for the noble-hearted men whose ardent philanthropy had led them to desire to cut these delays short by immediate revolution and spoliation. It was, indeed, a mistake on their part ; the laws of social development did not admit of it ; but if we were not quite lost in complacent selfishness we should join him in regretting that this shorter way with property was impossible.
Altogether a noteworthy performance : — the man's name is Bernard Shaw : Myers says he has written books worth reading.
I find no " phenomena " have occurred in my absence. This evening the Vicar (Rev. F. Gurney, E. G.'s brother) came to dinner ; also an old schoolfellow of mine (Bruce Pryce), with whom I talked over old " Blackheathen " days.
September 10. — "No phenomena." Miss X has
been here four nights now . . . having been invited by us as apparently "sensitive." She has heard strange noises, but we agree that they come to nothing. . . .
September 12. — Nora and Miss X.went off — "phenomena" being obviously unattainable. It is, however, to be noted that the evidence for ' hauntings ' is unshaken by any inquiries that we have been able to make : but the " experi- mental method " is a failure. I had interesting talk with Massey about Laurence Oliphant, who certainly seems to be a very impressive personality. But his book (Scientific Religion) is not impressive ; arrogantly dogmatic, without anything more in the way of evidence or argument than any other latter-day prophet supplies. He believes himself to be in continual close communication with his deceased wife, but yet has just married a second ; spiritual bigamy, it seems — but I understand the first approves.
September 13. — Came to Cam. and began labor improbus on my book. Politics an agreeable change from Psychics.
1889, AGE so HENKY SIDGWICK 499
September 2 7. — I have put the principles of International Law into two chapters, but whether any one will care to read them I much doubt. Yesterday we called at Trinity Lodge and were introduced to the new mistress. . . . Butler charmingly in his place in this old historic house, of which he shows the points simply, delightfully, instructively. . . .
October 2. — I thought these poor jottings had gone, but here they are still. Nothing has occurred except that I have varied my " labor improbus " by a debauch of one or two novels. On the whole I recommend Bourget's Andre Cornells ; it is a psychological crime story, but has some freshness in that the psychological interest lies not in the murder, but in the man who discovers it.
After this the Journal breaks off — it is not recorded why — not to be resumed till 1892, and the available letters in the intervening years are somewhat sparse.
To H. G. Dakynsfrom Cambridge, January 31, 1889 I sympathise vehemently with your disaster [the loss of the manuscript of part of his forthcoming Xenophon~\. I am always myself very nervous about losing MS., since I once, many years ago, went down to Llandudno to finish writing a portion of a book, and remained there three weeks separated from my portmanteau, which ultimately turned up when I had to leave. Let me know on a postcard if it turns up ; I suppose the chances are in favour of its having been bona-fide taken by an honest traveller : only then it is odd that it was not sent back at once. Myers once told me that he recovered in London a portmanteau containing a mass of papers (unlocked over) of the Moral Sciences Tripos, just half an hour before the man who had taken it by mistake was about to carry it off with a lot of others to the West of Ireland, where, as he told M., he " might not have looked at it for weeks ! " But this, I imagine, is the kind of hair-breadth escape that only happens to imaginative persons.
It is no consolation, I fancy, to think on the similar miseries of others. I remember that the only time I met
500 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
the Political Economist Cliffe Leslie, he told me that he had lost his whole opus magnum some years before, travelling in France : I remember he said that he was always looking to see his new and original ideas on the philosophy of Law — I think that was the subject — appearing in an elegant French form.
We are both of us very busy : I have two books on Politics — one deductive and analytical l going through press, one (smaller), inductive and historical, getting ready for press 2 — on my hands : and also have to do more for S.P.K. to make up for the gap caused by the loss of Gurney. ... I have also been persuaded to lecture on Shakespeare 3 and on the " Morality of Strife " : 4 and do not know quite what to say on these topics.
To J. A. Symonds on March 5, 1889
In a general way, I think you owe me a letter, but I owe you thanks for your opinion about Titus Andronicus. The point interested me a good deal ; the external evidence seems to me very strong for the genuineness, because Shakespeare must have known of Meres' statement, and the play is so bad that it is difficult to understand why he did not emphatically repudiate [it] if it was not sub- stantially his. No other of Meres' twelve Shakespearian plays is even doubtful, assuming, as I think we fairly may, that Love's Labour Lost is an earlier draft of All's Well that Ends Well. And I have great doubts whether the mere badness of the writing ought to be made an argument at all. Have you ever considered Macbeth ? I feel now scarcely any doubt that parts of it are not Shakespeare.
We are all bewildered at the breakdown of the Times [about the forged Pigott letters]. Knowing ones among
1 Elements of Politics, published in 1891.
2 This was the beginning of the book Development of European Polity, published after his death. Several chapters, mostly afterwards modified to a considerable extent, were printed or typewritten at this time and dis- cussed with Seeley and other friends.
3 At Newnham College. See Miscellaneous Essays and Addresses, Nos. 4 and 5.
4 For the Ethical Society. The lecture is included in the volume of Practical Ethics.
1889, AGE 51 HENEY SIDGWICK 501
Unionists are inclined to say that there is more to come out yet, but they seem to me rather like my Spiritualistic friends, who, when a medium is caught, fall back on the earlier phenomena he produced before he was demoralised.
To A. J. Patterson, at Buda-Pest, March 16 I am sorry to hear what you say about the burden of work. But my experience is all in favour of writing out lectures. For me, this does not only save trouble, it really tends to make the lectures better : for when I read them over for re-delivery, I often see defects in them which I can improve — I mean defects of style and exposition. If I trusted to notes, I should not see the defects, and they would therefore recur.
How are your politics [in Hungary] ? I do not know if you take an interest in our drift towards Dualism or Federalism. Nothing is certain in politics : but I think we may assume that, owing to the fiasco of the Times, the drift will be apparently very decided for a few months.
In the summer of this year Sidgwick and his wife attended an International Congress of Experi- mental Psychologists held at Paris, where " Psychical Research," under Professor Richet's influence, occupied a rather prominent place in the discussions. The Congress gave its sanction to, and thus extended the range of, a " census of hallucinations " — an attempt to obtain on a larger scale than had been done in Phantasms of the Living statistics relative to sensory hallucinations experienced by persons in ordinary- health. This census, which had been undertaken, under Sidgwick's superintendence,bythe Society for Psychical Research, occupied a good deal of time during the following years, till the report on it was published in 1894.1 The main object, so far as Psychical Research was concerned, was of course to ascertain what proportion of hallucinations might be expected to occur by chance at the time of the death of the
1 In Proceedings, S.P.R., vol. x.
502 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
person represented, and how much the actual pro- portion exceeds this. Some other important in- vestigations in Psychical Kesearch were occupying Sidgwick's attention at this time. In the summer and autumn of 1889 he and his wife, with Mr. G. A. Smith as hypnotist, carried on at Brighton experi- ments in thought-transference, with some hypnotised subjects, which proved of great interest.1 Then Mrs. Piper — a medium who in a trance state seemed to have a power of getting information telepathically from the minds of those who sat with her, and some- times something beyond this — was induced by F. Myers and other prominent members of the Society for Psychical Research to come over to England for experiments in the winter of 1889-90.2 Sidgwick took an active part in the investigation, and though he did not himself have any success with her, the experiences of his friends impressed him very strongly.
To H. Gf. Dakyns from Cambridge, December 19 I have owed you a letter for a long time ! But last term I was unusually overwhelmed with administrative work — all the things that I am most interested in here seemed to come to a crisis at the same time. E.g. University Finance : — you may know that about two years ago the College Worm turned, and said that it would not and could not pay the taxation to the University imposed on it by the last Commission. On this matter I have been engineering a Compromise, the prospects of which seem promising at present, — but a compromise may always be wrecked in sight of harbour.3
Then the Indian Civil Service Examination got itself
1,The Report on these was read at a meeting of the S.P.R. in November 1889, and a full account published in Proc., vol. vi. Further experiments with the same and other subjects were carried on by Mrs. Sidgwick, Miss Alice Johnson, and others in 1890, 1891, and 1892.
2 She had previously been experimented with in America by Professor William James and Dr. Hodgson, secretary of the American Branch of the Society for Psychical Research — Dr. Hodgson who had investigated Madame Blavatsky. 3 See p. 375.
1889, AGE 51 HENRY SIDGWICK 503
changed ; perhaps you know about this, as it concerns schoolmasters too, or rather it did concern schoolmasters, only the change of age has substituted us for you in the unequal struggle with crammers waged by orthodox educators. Well, I have been engaged in constructing a scheme for the Competitive Examination by which a fair chance is to be given to University Graduates ; and a job it has been, as we had to adjust and balance the relative claims of Classics, Mathematics, and Natural Science, not to speak of other subjects, and at the same time balance the claims of Oxford and the claims of Cambridge so that neither may feel postponed to the other. This involved visits to Oxford and endless correspondence, and what will come of it all is a secret yet hidden in the breast of the Secretary of State. Then Newnham College has been trying to get leave to close a path that runs through it : and this has got mixed up with the making of a road which is to take a slice off [other people's gardens] : hence tears and wrath and long letters in the Cambridge papers, and in short a first-class row, in which I have had to be Pro- tagonist for Newnham.
This — and (all the time) fourth edition of my Ethics and first edition of my Politics struggling to get themselves printed amidst Lectures, Boards, and Syndicates ; and Psychical Research, and an International Census of Hallucinations.
Well, term is over, and eighteen chapters of my book on Politics are ready for printing off, and of the thirteen that remain about eleven are wholly or partially in type, and the other two half-written. So if I died, the book could come out ! I have often thought of sending you some [proofs], but a deep conviction that it would not be a good ddassement from Xenophon has held me back. And there is lots to be done to the chapters that remain ; so no Christmas holidays for me. I do hope to get it off my hands by the end of next term, then a real Easter holiday. And how is Xenophon ? I heard from J. A. S. that it was weighing on you, and sympathised. At a certain stage of
504 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
each book I find all my impulse gone, and only get forward by a kind of momentum ; this is my case now.
We thought J. A. S. in excellent form, and standing English weather wonderfully.
The path here spoken of was successfully closed in 1892, to the great — greater indeed than was ex- pected— benefit of Newnham College, and a carriage road, " Sidgwick Avenue," substituted for it. Other friends of Newnham, as well as Sidgwick, aided in finding the funds required for the road-making and compensation.
To A. J. Patterson at Buda-Pest from Cambridge, „ December 27, 1889
. . . Your letter . . . arrived at a time when I was much oppressed with a variety of work — so its answer got deferred till the vacation. I was sorry to find yours so sad in tone : especially as I have nothing cheering to com- municate, except that I am living personally a very happy life — having congenial work, a faultless wife, and a con- stitution that does not seem to be going to break down just yet ; though I do not regard the time allotted to me before decay sets in, as very long ; I do not expect it to reach to the biblical three score and ten. I perceive, however, that I am not getting into a cheerful train of thought. Nor can I find anything consolatory in the aspect of public affairs; I share to the full the general disillusionment of political idealists, perhaps all the more fully that I am spending my time in trying to finish a book on the Theory of Politics, with a growing conviction that the political results of the coming generation will be determined by considerations very unlike those that come to the pen of a theoretical person writing in his study. . . .
Besides the Elements of Politics, and University work of various kinds, what chiefly interests me is the ill-defined subject known as " Psychical Research." I do not think it interests you, and probably the rumours of our work in it hardly reach Buda-Pest. But your friend Medveczky had
1890, AGE 52 HENRY SIDGWICK 505
to hear something of it at the Congress of Experimental Psychology, at which we met in Paris in August. I have no doubt of the importance of what we are doing, but I do not know exactly what is to come of it.
Bryce ! You doubtless have heard all about the remarkable success of his great book [The American Commonwealth]. . . .
Have you had the influenza ? and what do you think of the value of the pacific assurances circulating in European journalism ? Are we really going to have no war because every one is afraid of it ? And is that excellent patch-work, the Austro- Hungarian Monarchy, coming unsewn ? And what do you think of Home Rule in Wales ? These are questions that I should like to discuss with you if opportunity offered.
In June 1890 an honorary D.C.L. degree was conferred on him by the University of Oxford. A number of other honorary degrees were conferred at the same time, and among the recipients the one at that moment most interesting to the public was H. M. Stanley (afterwards Sir Henry), the African explorer. Alphabetical order led to Stanley and Sidgwick walking together in the procession, and the latter used to relate how, when he found himself on the kerb between Stanley and the street, he tried to dodge, so as to give the eager crowd as good a view as possible of its darling hero, at the same time trying to draw that silent hero into conversation, and never getting more than a monosyllable in reply, if that.
To A. J. Patterson from Lucerne, July 30, 1890
I have got both your letters ; the first, of July 8, arrived just when I was leaving Cambridge. I took it abroad with me, but had not found time to answer it — amid the distractions of a visit to a friend whose health obliges him to live at Davos (Grisons) — when the second arrived. We are now lapsed into the leisure of hotel life. . . .
Yes, I lost my watch at Stanley's wedding — not in
506 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
Westminster Abbey, but while forcing my way through a crowd in the neighbourhood — only rumour has exaggerated its value. The incident was by no means a remarkable one, since a crowd of the kind that the wedding of the African hero was sure to collect has long been known to be the happy hunting-ground of the London pickpocket. . . .
To A. J. Patterson from Cambridge, October 8 I am amused by your description of your human material. I was once told in a German University that I ought to be able to tell whether I was in a law lecture- room or a philological ditto by observing whether the coats of the lecturees were new or shabby. I suppose it is the same with you. So far as I could make out, even in Germany — the land of Geist — it is but a very small per- centage of students whose academic study is prompted and guided by a pure love of knowledge. The so-called ' philo- sophical faculty ' at the Universities is really as professional, in the main, as any other ; only one of the professions for which it prepares is the profession of University Professor. Here in England, tradition, aided by fellowships within, and a continually increasing stock of wealth without, still main- tains the habit of studying professionally useless matter.
It was in November 1890 that he became a mem- ber of the Council of the Senate, elected, as all members are, to serve for four years. The Council meets regularly on Monday mornings in term time, and it was doubtless on account of this additional demand on his time that he at this time resigned the vice-chairmanship (i.e. acting chairmanship) of the Executive Committee of the Cambridge Charity Organisation Society, which he had held since 1886.
To Roden Noel from Cambridge on December 2 1 I hope by the time you come in March I shall have finished a book on the Elements of Politics which is now absorbing all my energies. I have lost my interest in it, which makes it harder to finish.
1891, AGE 52 HENEY SIDGWICK 507
My wife's time is now chiefly occupied in editing the Journal and Proceedings of the S.P.E. There is a No. of the Proceedings just coming out, in which an F.R.S. (Lodge) testifies to remarkable phenomena.1 I think we are on the verge of something important.
In the winter of 1890-91 Mr. J. R. Mozley showed him some letters from his uncle, Cardinal Newman, some of which were afterwards (in 1899) published in the Contemporary Review. This led to a correspond- ence of some interest, from which the following are extracts : —
On January 9, 1891 : —
The Cardinal interests me — always has interested me — as a man and a writer rather than a reasoner. I delight in the perfect fit of his thought to its expression, and the rare unforced individuality of both ; but as a reasoner I have never been disposed to take him seriously, by which I do not of course mean that I treat his views with levity, but that, regarding him as a man whose conclusions have always been influenced primarily by his emotions, and only secondarily by the workings of his subtle and ingenious intellect, I have never felt that my own intellect need be strained to its full energies to deal with his arguments ; they always seemed to me to admit of being referred with- out much difficulty to certain well-known heads, to which the generic answers were known.
This is why I do not ask you to send me the rest of the correspondence. ... I should be interested, but not in your way ; indeed I feel rather perversely inclined to take his side against you in the argument — agreeing with you, but sympathising with him, as one might sympathise with a daughter who refused to admit her father in the wrong. There always seems to me something feminine, in the old traditional sense, about the workings of his mind, not- withstanding that he is in a certain way so remarkable a " maestro " in dialectic.
1 This was the report of the experiments with Mrs. Piper, referred to above (p. 502).
508 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
On January 1 1 : —
My attitude towards Christianity is briefly this. (1) I think Optimism in some form is an indispensable creed — not for every one, but for progressive humanity as a whole. (2) I think Optimism in a Theistic form — I mean the belief that there is a sympathetic soul of the Universe that intends the welfare of each particular human being and is guiding all the events of his life for his good — is, for the great majority of human beings, not only the most attractive form of optimism, but the most easily acceptable, being not more unproven than any other form of optimism, and certainly more completely satisfying to the deepest human needs. (3) I think that no form of Optimism has an adequate rational basis ; therefore, if Theism is to be maintained — and I am inclined to predict the needs of the human heart will maintain it — it must be, for Europeans, by virtue of the support that it still obtains from the traditional belief in historical Christianity.
Well, I myself have taken service with Reason, and I have no intention of deserting. At the same time I do not think that loyalty to my standard requires me to feign a satisfaction in the service which I do not really feel. I am conscious of hankerings after Optimism, and if I yielded to these hankerings, I really think the haven of rest that I should seek would be the Church of Rome, just because of the insistence on authority of which your uncle speaks. There seem to me only two alternatives: either my own reason or some external authority ; and if the latter, as my own reason would have to be exercised for the last time in choosing my authority, I should not hesitate to choose the Roman Church on broad historic grounds.
On January 31 : —
. . . There is, however, one point on which I should like to explain my view a little more. In saying, or hinting, that I had somewhat more sympathy with the Cardinal than you, I did not at all mean to imply that I held it rational to base the evidence for Christianity on authority alone ; and
1891, AGE 53 HENRY SIDGWICK 509
I quite agree with you that the adaptation of Theism to the " inward feelings " and needs of men is, in fact, an indis- pensable condition of their accepting the external evidences as satisfactory.
In short, my position is that I regard both internal evidences — from " inward feelings " — and external as inadequate for various reasons, though at the same time inclined to predict that the belief will be maintained in ordinary minds from the satisfaction it gives to men's normal emotional needs. But owing to my view of the inadequacy of the intuitional proof of Theism, I sympathise with those who turn from it to external authority, though I do not agree with them.
In July 1891 he was sending off the last proof- sheets of the Elements of Politics, and also working at the book now published as Development of European Polity. He writes to his wife on July 13 during a temporary absence of the latter : "I am getting on all right, but rather in despair about my neiv book ; the work for it is very interesting, but grows and grows."
To H. G. Dakyns from Cambridge, September 8 We are just returned from Davos. J. A. S. in excellent form : had just got Michael Angelo l buried (in MS.) before we left. I have been at Chamounix with William [Sidgwick], whose physical powers and enterprise I regard with admira- tion and envy.
In 1891 the Council of the Senate, acting on the recommendation of the General Board of Studies, proposed the appointment of a Syndicate to consider the expediency of allowing more widely an alternative for either Greek or Latin in the Previous Examination. The question was discussed in the Senate on May 30, and voted on on October 29. Feeling ran high, and active discussion was carried on by fly-sheets and
1 Symonds was finishing his Life of Michael Angelo Buonarroti, published 1892.
510 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
in the newspapers, and non-resident voters were canvassed. Sidgwick took an active part in the discussion, and besides speaking at the meeting, circulating more than one fly-sheet, and writing to the papers, acted as secretary in collecting signatures to a circular in support of the proposal, issued three days before the voting. He felt strongly, as he said in the Senate, that "the more Modern Sides [of schools] grew, the greater the responsibilities of the Universities became. It was the Universities which made the regulations which would be the cause of whatever damage was done by preventing the Modern Sides providing to the extent they might do a liberal course of education." In a fly-sheet circulated on October 19 he dwells on the policy of the University in enlarging its sphere of influence. If the Victoria University and the Scottish University Commission were right in judging that an important part of the class of persons capable and desirous of profiting by University education may with advantage dispense with the study of one of the two classical languages, " to say that Cambridge need not concern herself with [the requirements of this class] appears to me incon- sistent with the whole line of policy which we have systematically and successfully pursued for nearly a generation." And further on, in the same paper, he says : —
The question is frequently argued as though the Univer- sity were being asked to take sides with Physical Science against Classics : and we are accordingly told with much emphasis that it is as important for an educated person to understand human history as to understand the laws of the physical world, and that the influence of Greece and Rome upon human history is unique and unparalleled, etc., etc. But all such comparisons are irrelevant to the present issue ; since if the proposed Syndicate were to recommend the extremest change that the terms of its appointment allow, the predominance of classics over physical science in
1891, AGE 53 HENKY SIDGWICK 511
our educational system would still be indisputable. For students of physical science would still be required to devote a solid portion of their school time to the study of classics ; while students of classics would still be allowed, as at present, to remain in absolute ignorance of physical science.
Another cognate mistake is to assume that those who are in favour of this change desire to lessen the amount of literary training imposed on students of science, in order that they may have more time to devote to their special studies. I know no one who entertains this desire ; and I entirely agree with those who deprecate any such specialisa- tion. My objection to the existing system is not that it gives too much literary education to boys whose bent is scientific rather than literary ; but that, in consequence of an unsuitable choice of instruments, it gives too little.
The proposal was lost by a large majority ; and another proposal, voted on in the following February, to consider a scheme for degrees in science, in which Sidgwick interested himself, was also negatived. The large majority by which the Greek vote was lost was a great disappointment to him. In this matter, to which he attached so much importance, the University seemed to be going backwards. In the sixties almost all the progressive party at Cambridge hoped to live to see compulsory Greek done away with, but now the University seemed to have become hidebound in a kind of stupid conservatism, and he began to antici- pate a long period of slow decadence in which, from failure to adapt itself to the needs of the times, it would gradually fall into disrepute, acting harmfully on the schools meanwhile. He used to point de- spondingly to the Chinese Mandarins as an example of the effect of clinging to worn-out forms of literary examination. He began too to think of a teaching University of London as perhaps the future centre o useful Academic work.
512 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vr
During 1891 negotiations had been going on with a view to the carrying on of Mind, the quarterly review of psychology and philosophy which was the main organ of philosophers in England, and to which Sidgwick was a frequent contributor. From its beginning in 1876 till the end of 1891 Professor Alexander Bain of Aberdeen had been responsible for it financially, and it was edited by Professor Groom Robertson. But ill-health now compelled the latter to give up the editorship, and Professor Bain wished also to be relieved of further responsibility. It was now arranged that Sidgwick should take it over. He became financially responsible for it in January 1892, and Mr. G. F. Stout, the present editor, undertook the editorship with the co-operation of Sidgwick and others. This arrangement continued till 1900, when Sidgwick, shortly before his death — though before he had any reason to expect this to occur soon — initiated the formation of the " Mind Association " to carry on the journal by means of guaranteed subscriptions.
To A. J. Patterson from Whittingehame, January 1, 1892
I am staying with Arthur Balfour, who is putting on his armour for the Parliamentary Campaign. The proximity of the General Election is I believe producing in all parties a certain strain of anxiety rather than any other emotion. I do not myself feel any doubt that the Separatist party will have a majority, but the question is whether they will have a majority large enough to carry so fateful a change as Home Rule. If not, it is hard to guess what can happen.
To H. G. Dakyns on January 2
If you will put off reading my book till I have read the reviews of it, I will then give you an impartial opinion as to whether it is worth reading. At present I get the reviews from Romeike and put them in a box, but refrain from reading them, in order to keep my mind from the subject :
1892, AGE 53 HENRY SIDGWICK 513
as Ethics and Psychology (including Psychical Eesearch) at present claim my whole attention. I have to preside at a Congress of Experimental Psychologists in August, and am at present disgracefully ignorant of what has been done in the subject while I have been writing on Politics.
To Roden Noel on February 16
My wife and I are very busy struggling with a variety of affairs in which the " International Census of Hallucina- tions " takes the most prominent place. I am preparing to preside over the International Congress of Experimental Psychology which is to meet early in August. I shall have the delicate and difficult task of persuading the orthodox psychologist to regard ' Psychical Research ' as a legitimate branch of experimental Psychology !
Have you seen W. Morris's last book ? I think the socialistic poems touching, though mostly not good as literature. Influenza and other calamities have spared us, so we have the feeling of being the favourites of Providence !
On February 27 Miss Clough, the Principal of Newnham College, died — a loss acutely felt by all who had worked with her, both as a personal grief and a serious calamity for Newnham College.
To J. A. Symonds from Lambeth Palace, March 16, 1892 Your letter has stirred me up and the Journal is to be begun to-day ! Cause of delay chiefly supineness, the only reason of any psychological interest being that I feel, both as regards my philosophic aims — which are my chief inner being — and my political interests, in the attitude of the audience waiting for the curtain to draw up. Only the curtain in the former case — the veil that hides the truths that Psychical Research seeks to penetrate — is hardened by the perdurability of the ages ; whereas the latter will be drawn up at the next General Election. Perhaps at this date my journal may become more interesting ; till then I fear it will be filled with feeble ejaculations of impatience and shufflings of the feet.
2L
514 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
It might, however, have been interesting during the last week, if I had had energy to write it, as we have been engaged in anxiously deliberating whether to do what the Newnham College Council unanimously wish, and agree that Nora shall take the office of Principal of N. C. The die is cast, and she has written to accept. It is understood, however, that the work will not be absorbing, as she is not to manage any of the three Halls of which Newnhain now consists, but only to be a superfluous boss of the whole institution. It was difficult to refuse ; and if I am — as I still am — doubtful whether she has done right in accepting, it is almost solely on account of the S.P.R
It commits us to giving up our house, as soon as certain new buildings are ready, and living in said buildings for a few years : perhaps till I resign my Professorship, as I at present mean to do in about six years. Enough : this particular " senseless act of benevolence " is sufficiently characterised for the philosopher of Davos so that he will understand references that will from time to time appear in the journal.
To say that we admire the literary activity that centres in Am Hof is not enough. We are stupefied in admiration. I have not yet got hold of Catherine's book,1 but I hear on all sides that it is a complete success. We are looking forward to the Life in Swiss Highlands, and putting off forming a view of M. A. B. [Michael Angelo Buonarroti] till the great two volumes appear. . . .
Well, I think my present formule de la vie is from Walt Whitman. " I have urged you forward, and still urge you, without the slightest idea of our destination." I quote from memory.
P.S. — I am going about interviewing for S.P.E.
To H. G. Dakyns from Cologne, March 24
. . . We could not resist the unanimous wish of the Council [of Newnhain College] ; and of course it is a great
1 Recollections of a Happy Life, being the Autobiography of Marianne North, edited by her sister, Mrs. Symonds.
1892, AGE 53 HENRY SIDGWICK 515
pleasure to us, (while at the same time it increases the sense of responsibility and difficult duty of ' coming up to the mark ') to find that the staff and the students are pleased. What we feel most strongly is that after Miss Clough's death it is the duty of all who have given their minds to Newnham to ' close ranks ' and take the place that others moved by the same interest, assign to one. We hope it will be for the good of the College.
I am here writing under the shadow of the Cathedral I have never yet seen it complete ! — So time passes in one's middle age. I am not sure that I like its completion. Certainly its incompletion was a painful defect : but then all things human are defective : and while I revere the works of the Middle Ages in themselves, I am not sure that I like them completed in the nineteenth century.
I am on my way to Berlin to see psychologists, and then for a week's visit of friendship to Patterson at Pest, whom I have not seen for years. Kindest remembrances to your wife ; (mine is meditating on her responsibilities in Cam- bridge !)
The Journal recommences : —
March 26, 1892. — In theory my journal began a week ago, but I thought Berlin would be a good place to start in, and have only just arrived. Why am I here ? The causes go back to 1889, when Prof. Richet, our friend and colleague in S.P.E. matters, got up a " Congress of Physio- logical Psychology " in Paris, and asked us to come to it. We came out of simple friendship ; but when we arrived we found that the ingenious Richet designed to bring the S.P.R. to glory at this Congress. And this, in some degree, came about. My " Census of Hallucinations " received the honour of being taken up by the Congress, . . . and I was designated as President of the next meeting of the Congress, which is to be held in London in the autumn of this year : and, under the influence of Richet, Telepathy came quite as much to the front as it desired or deserved.
Behold me, then, President-elect of a Congress of experi-
516 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
mental Psychologists — most of them stubborn materialists, interested solely in psychophysical experiments on the senses ; whereas / have never experimented except in telepathy. Water and fire, oil and vinegar, are feeble to express our antagonism ! What was to be done ? How was the Congress to be got up ? I took a decided step. I sought out James Sully — probably the one Englishman known to German Professors as a writer on physiological Psychology — and said to him, "... be secretary : write to leading Germans : and, in short, get up the Congress so far as ordinary experimental Psychology goes ; Myers and I will provide the extraordinary element ; and we will trust in Providence to make the explosion when the two elements meet endurable." He agreed.
But there was another difficulty. It is twenty-two years since I spent any time in Germany, and I have almost ceased to understand the language when spoken by others than waiters, etc. I thought I must do something to revive the dormant intelligence of German speech that may be sup- posed to be in my brain, and — an old friend (A. J. Patterson) writing from Pest that I must come and see him — I deter- mined to devote this Easter to Germany and Hungary. For the next week I shall be in Berlin ; I shall call on some of the German professors to whom Sully has written : also on one or two Berliners interested in telepathy : shall endeavour to converse in German : shall go to University lectures and theatrical performances : and meanwhile endeavour to revive old memories of Berlin life. I am alone.
April 7. — I have had an eventful fortnight — if new impressions are events : but more in the latter part than in the first. I did not much revive old memories — chiefly because my old friends are gone, and Berlin life in March is very different from Berlin life in July. But the psychologists on whom I called were very cordial, and seemed to take my visit as a compliment, though two at least out of the three, Preyer and Ebbinghaus, appeared to know that Psychical Kesearch was the only branch of
1892, AGE 53 HENRY SIDGWICK 517
Experimental Psychology which I had cultivated. I went to a meeting of the " Psych ologische Gesellschaft," which corresponds to the S.P.R. I was received with marked politeness, and liked the members ; but the society does not appear to succeed in doing any " psychical research," and has to get matter for its meetings by digressing into ortho- dox psychology. . . .
I went three times to the theatre ; . . . two out of [the] three times I ... [made] out tolerably well what was going on, but neither time did I care for the piece as a whole, though one actor in the Deutsch Theater was good. I left Berlin feeling that, relatively to me, the Drama cannot really compete with the Novel ; the play is a novel with fine shades left out and regard for probability thrown overboard. But in Vienna, on Sunday last, my view changed again. I went to the " Deutsches Volkstheater " ; the play, called Die Ehre, was full of improbabilities : but it was in part very well acted : and I felt that the collisions and contrasts of feeling which modern life pre-eminently affords require the drama for adequate expression. . . .
I must not omit to say that in passing from Berlin to Vienna I had a pleasant afternoon and next morning at Prag, owing to the kindness of Professor Hering, who walked me about the town in the afternoon, and sent a young psychologist, Hillebrand, to take me about in the morning. The picturesqueness of Prag came up to expectation, in spite of the smash of the famous Karlsbriicke ; especially the approach of the Kleinstadt from the Karlsbriicke is a thing to remember.
My young psychologist, by the way, does not sympa- thise— although a pupil of Bering's — with the recent tendency to exalt the physiological and experimental side of psychology. He thinks Brentano the greatest German psychologist.
To his Wife
I have been to see Hering, who will not come to the Congress — being one of the people who likes to enjoy his holiday in the country — but was otherwise extremely
518 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
amiable, and walked me about the town discoursing about hypnotism among other matters. He had a case of apparent clairvoyance which he satisfied himself was extra- ordinary ' hypermnesia ' (intensified memory) : but so extra- ordinary that he does not think it would be believed if he published it. I told him about Delboeuf s servant girl and the post-hypnotic order to bring a handkerchief after 3500 minutes : but he said very frankly that he didn't believe that ! An attractive man Hering ; I wish he was coming.
. . . Hering was rather interesting about the social con- dition of Prag. He says that Germans and Czechs form almost distinct societies, even in the University ; he hardly ever meets his Czech colleagues for social purposes. He thinks the culture of the Czechs is declining owing to the general feeling that it is patriotic to have nothing to do with the German language : that some of them are beginning to feel this, and are consequently getting up a movement for learning — French !
I have accepted the offer about the Royal Commission ; didn't see how I could refuse. Alas ! Alas !
This was the Gresham University Commission, appointed to consider the draft charter for a Teaching University in London. He had previously shown interest in the abortive attempt to form a Teaching University, and it was on this account probably that lie felt unable to refuse.
The Journal continues : —
April 9. — Pest is a delightful place for a traveller who has been entertained with dinner or supper every evening of his stay !
April 10. — On Tuesday I supped with Lanczy, Professor of History, who had breakfasted with me at Newnham [in 1882], and is a cultivated man, talking English slowly but accurately. On Wednesday " Pulzsky Agost," whose book I had reviewed in the English Historical [Review, called] and took me to sup with his wife and Mr. Black — once Schwarz, but had anglicised his name and Americanised
1892, AGE 53 HENRY SIDGWICK 519
his views and language in U.S. Pulzsky is a man with a great flow of ideas, talks excellent English (was at school in England), and readily communicated to me a full view of the political situation in Hungary. ... On Thursday I supped — no, I must say dined this time — with Medveczky, Professor of Philosophy, and drank more varied and abundant alcoholic fluids than I have done for a long time. I was formally toasted, and had to make a little speech ; but this was nothing to Friday, when I went to a banquet of Pro- fessors, and had my health drunk from three different points of view, so that I made three speeches.1 Last night I dined with Sir A. Nicholson and met Szilargy, one of the Ministers, who after dinner gave me a full view of the Hungarian situation so far as it presents analogies to the Irish question. Very interesting and instructive.
The Journal breaks off, and " the account of Hungarian politics did not get itself written." The hiatus can be partially filled from letters to his wife. On April 13 he writes to her from Vienna : — -
... I have not seen an English newspaper since I left Pest; the feeling I got from miscellaneous reading of Austrian and Hungarian papers is that it would be pusil- lanimous in us Englishmen to despair, even if Home Eule has to come with all its probable train of subsequent troubles : since the Germans in Austria and the Magyars in Hungary have so very much harder and more dangerous problems of the same kind to deal with, and yet they do not despair. It is at any rate a boon for us to be free from all the language questions. At the same time I think the chances are much against the present Austro-Hungarian State — or rather dual union of States — holding together for the next fifty years. If it manages that, it may hold together for good.
From Munich on April 15 1 arrived here about 7. Schrenck 2 was engaged, but
1 "This demands psychological subtlety," as he said to H. G. Dakyns.
2 Baron Dr. von Schrenck Notzing, secretary of the Munich branch of the Psychologische Gesellschaft.
520 HENRY SIDG WICK CHAP, vi
he sent Max Offner, the Vice-President of the Munich branch of the " [Psychologische] Gesellschaft," who has been entertaining me for about three hours. He is a schoolmaster, who rather represents the side of orthodox psychology, and is not convinced of telepathy — but not hostile. The Gesellschaft in its present form combines ordinary psychology with psychical research : and doesn't do much at the latter from want of subjects : in fact, I gather that what they chiefly do in this line is from time to time to have a report on our [S.P.R.] Proceedings ! . . . I have been chiefly talking to Offner about Paedagogik — in which he doesn't believe — and the Greek question, which appears to be burning here too and as to which he is decidedly on our side. I am rather cheered to find a German who talks of dropping Greek altogether and reducing Latin to a mini- mum, as if it were quite within the range of practical Politics. . . .
From Nancy on April 20
Just after I had posted yesterday's letter and dined, Liegeois * turned up, and made himself very agreeable, and . . . pressed me to come and dine with him to-morrow (this evening). He also proposed to take me to Liebeault2 and Bernheim this afternoon. . . . [Liebeault] is a man of about sixty, who looks — what he called himself — somewhat ' sauvage ' but vigorous, and we found him vivacious and interesting; but I am afraid he will not do more for the cause, as he has given up his practice — apparently tired — and is now intending to do literary work.
From Paris on April 21 :
I have managed to get to Paris to-day after all ! Bern- heim came to dinner at Liegeois' last night ; very interesting evening, every one friendly, . . . conversation not at all bad, considering the miscellaneousness of the party. I en- deavoured to make up for my inadequate French by paying
1 Professor of Law at Nancy.
2 Dr. Lie"beault, well known as one of the founders of the Nancy school of hypnotism along with the head of the medical faculty at the University, Dr. Bernheim.
1892, AGE 53 HENKY SIDGWICK 521
compliments to the School of Nancy, and I think we all parted in good humour with each other. I arranged to go with Bernheim to the hospital early this morning. Accord- ingly he called for me at 9 A.M. and we went : and I saw for the first time the business-like application of curative hypnotism to a casual collection of patients. The phenomena were, of course, of the barndoor kind — except one which I will mention ; what was interesting was (1) the rapidity with which every one he tried succumbed, though two had never been tried before ; (2) the matter-of-course way in which he gave orders to believe inventions and directed hallucinations, while the other patients were looking [on]. It is difficult for a stranger to feel sure how far what each one does is not influenced by what he knows to be expected of him; the line between genuine unconscious and semi- conscious obedience seems to me hard to draw.
The most remarkable thing — which was quite new to me — was the way in which an invented (invented by B.) story of a quarrel in the night between two patients appeared to be believed and developed, first by the persons primarily concerned, and then by half a dozen other patients in the room — in the normal state at the time — who all professed to have either seen or heard the quarrel in some degree. I think not more than two or three of the eight or nine whom he questioned said they had not heard or seen anything. If the thing is not semi-conscious complais- ance, it is certainly a most extraordinary manifestation of suggestibility.
TJie Journal continues : —
May 2. — . . . I will make three observations, as fruits of travel.
1. Personal. I am sad to find that as I grow older, my power of interesting myself deeply in anything but human beings and their manners [is] diminishing. When I was young I used rather to like to know no one in a new town, in order to get more full and pure the impression of the town itself, and make acquaintance with that. But being alone
522 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
at Vienna — all the professors to whom I had introductions being off on Easter Holidays — I confess I was mildly bored, except when I was at the theatre, in spite of the magnifi- cence and historic interest of the city. Similarly at Stras- burg ; whereas at Munich, Nancy, and Paris, finding friendly acquaintances, I was happy.
2. Sociological. What a strange contrast there is between the similarity of the ideas and manners of thought of educated Europeans in all parts of Europe, on almost all subjects of educated interest except politics, as contrasted with the diversity of their political ideas and habits of thought! Talking to my professors about philosophy, psychology, education, life, I almost forget that we belong to different countries ; but when the talk turns on politics, the difference is generally sudden and startling, in spite of all the interchange of thought and mutual imitation of institutions that has gone on for so long and is — one would think — increasing.
3. S.P.R.ical. I have come back with a deep con- viction that among the many persons in Germany and France who sympathise with our efforts, there is no one who is really doing work in the subject — no one, that is, of the persons who are qualified to deal with its difficulties, in my opinion. Richet is doing something, but he is just now more interested in a flying machine. No one is saying — as Hodgson in America — ' Psychical Research is the most important thing in the world ; rny life's success and failure shall be bound up with it.' Yet I am convinced that only in this temper shall we achieve what we ought to achieve.
On Saturday Nora was made Principal of Newnham, and to-day she is dining for the first time as Principal at the Hall called by her name. I am doubtful whether she did right in accepting, but only for a reason which does not occur to any of the friends and relations who write about it. I fear that she may not find time for the work of the S.P.R, for which I think her uniquely fit — much more fit than I am. If it turns out that she must sacrifice some of this work, I shall have to take her place ; but my intellect
1892, AGE 54 HENRY SIDGWICK 523
will be an inferior substitute for this work, and I shall give up with reluctance the plans of literary work for which I am better fitted. Still, if it must be so, I shall give them up without hesitation, just as I should give them up to fight for my country if it was invaded (by the way, though, I believe I am too old for that).
I feel that at the age I have reached — close on fifty-four — my chief demand on the world is Time. I have as much as I strongly desire of money, reputation, friends ; but time — no. When I think of the little that probably remains, the much I have wasted, the much that I need for my work — I put the pen down !
Press of work prevented his having any journal to send in June. On June 7 he wrote to Eoden Noel : — " Till about August 15th every day is full of business ; then after a fortnight's holiday I have to settle down to the preparation of a new and difficult set of lectures." These lectures were doubtless a course on " Philosophy, its Scope and Method," given in the Michaelmas term of 1892. He had lectured only on Ethics and Politics since 1883.
To J. A. Symonds on July 4
Finding myself in the Athenaeum, I thought I would write a political page of my journal, which I enclose. I am glad you are going to stay so long in England. . . . We are oppressed by preparations for [the] International Congress of Experimental Psychology, added to the work of a Eoyal Commission for making a London University.1 But the Congress will be over on August 4th.
In the Journal, after forecasting — not very correctly — the results of the General Election then going on,
he says :—
I voted this morning for my present Conservative member for the borough of Cambridge, without hesitation, but with a great sense of isolation. In the most important
1 The Gresham University Commission had begun its work on May 21.
524 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vr
parts of the discussion that is now being carried on I agree with the Opposition: that is, I think, as I have always thought, that if there were no attack on property combined with the political movement for semi-independence of the Irish nationality, I should think it on the whole best to yield to this movement. I am optimistic as regards the connexion of Ireland with England ; I think this connexion will subsist — for purposes of common defence and offence and unrestricted internal trade — whether we give Home Ilule or refuse it ; but I think we shall have somewhat less political trouble with Ireland if we give it than if we refuse it. But to abandon the landowners of Ireland to the tender mercies of the people who have for eleven years carried on an unscrupulous private war against their rights of pro- perty— rights which those of us who supported the Land Bill of 1881 morally pledged ourselves to secure to them — this is a national crime and deep moral disgrace in which I can have no part. The fact that even Tory speakers lay no stress on this danger only makes me feel it more strongly ; they know that the landlords are not a popular class, and that the spoliation of them will arouse very feeble indigna- tion in the breast of the average household suffrager.
The Congress of Psychologists was a great success, and repaid the time and energy expended on it and in preparation for it, so far as such a meeting can. Many friends assisted by offering hospitality ; many psychologists from many lands met, and there was much social enjoyment and stimulating interchange of ideas.
It was in October of this year that Tennyson died. Sidgwick wrote to his son : —
It is like the end of a reign — only that there is no con- cluding ' vive le roi ! ' And, indeed, whatever the future may have in store for English poetry, it is impossible that any one should ever hold the sway he held over the minds of men of my generation ; it is impossible that any one's thoughts and words should be so entwined with the best
1893, AGE 54 HENRY SIDGWICK 525
moments of the spring and summer of our lives : " To us he seems the last."
He was probably working too hard at this time, for he writes to his wife in December : — " I am working as hard as I can, but I wish I could manage a little more sleeping at night and a little less in the after- noon ! " And again : — " I am getting on, but every- thing takes longer than one expects, and so much labour is thrown away, e.g. all the labour I am spend- ing on the New University, so far as I can see." The work was partly probably in connection with the fifth edition of his Methods of Ethics, brought out in the latter half of 1893. The revision of his books for a new edition alwavs involved a great deal of time
•
and thought — labour which he grudged somewhat when he had new subjects he wanted to go on to. A third edition of his History of Ethics had been pub- lished in 1892.
In January of 1893 his wife had a fall, producing slight concussion of the brain, while they were staying with the Creightons at Peterborough. This gave him some anxiety at first and necessitated care for some time ; he always felt very grateful to Mrs. Creighton for her kindness on this occasion.
To Miss Cannan from Hillside, February 17
Pray do not defer your proposed visit. I was very much alarmed at first by my wife's accident ; but it has turned out a " straightforward case," and she would be very sorry if you did not come. I ought to say that on Saturday / shall be away, but I return on Sunday night. ... I am a fixture here always from Monday to Thursday, but in the latter part of the week I am liable to become migratory.
His migratoriness at the end of the week was due to his Royal Commission, which was meeting on Thursday and Friday each week.
526 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vi
To Mr. Albert Dicey on March 1
... I quite agree with you that the painfulness to Pro- testant Ulster of the dilemma that Home Eule presents — of either separating themselves from Great Britain or from the other Irish Loyalists — is a strong argument against Home Eule, and one that Ulster may legitimately press with emphasis. But I cannot think it a conclusive argu- ment. I cannot think it gives Protestant Ulster a right to determine the conditions of the arrangement between Great Britain and the rest of Ireland : though I think it gives Protestant Ulster a very strong claim to have any arrange- ment she may like, 05 between Great Britain and herself.
To Miss Cannan on April 13
My wife is much obliged to you for your suggestion about the opening for chemical students at Newnham. We are always on the look out for openings not educational, because it is far from being true that any one can teach who cannot find anything else to do — even if they know what they profess to teach. In fact, I think there is no calling — except, perhaps, Holy Orders — into which it is less desirable to drive people who are not conscious of a call.
What is the best way of disposing of the superfluous overgrowth of one's library ? This is the real problem for persons (of a literary turn) about to change house. I have not yet solved it ; but I console myself by observing that my builder is not yet presenting the problem in a pressing form !
J. A. Symonds died at Rome on April 19.
To Roden Noel on May 12
On J. A. S.'s death I tried to write to you, but could not. I feel it as one feels a calamity long expected but irreparable. But for himself, I cannot help feeling a certain relief that it all came so quickly. He has often said to me that he had no dread of death or aversion to it, but that he did shrink from the long, tedious business of consumptive dying. I am glad he has been spared that. He has had a wonderful life, and done his work in a struggle with ill-
1893, AGE 54 HENRY SIDGWICK 527
health which ennobles the work. But it is difficult to realise that all converse with that bright spirit is at an end.
To Mr. Wilfrid Ward on July 1 7 (about his biography of his father} l
By a coincidence your letter arrived just as I was finishing the last chapter of your book. I have read it with great interest. I think your book is one of a rare class — the class of biographies which are good in the sense in which good novels are good : I mean biographies which do not merely give the reader the feeling that the writer has performed a task incumbent on him in a competent manner, but which give him the peculiar pleasure and instruction that can only be given by the full unfolding of the intellectual and moral quality of a rare mind that has lived, developed, and produced important social effects in interesting circumstances.
In August 1893 he gave a course of three lectures on the History of Modern Political Ideas up to 1789 to Extension students at the summer meeting held at Cambridge that year. After they were over he writes to his wife : —
I have finished my lectures, and to-morrow I concentrate myself on my book for — twelve days ! Such is the leisure for study of a being supposed to have that commodity unlimited.
The Michaelmas term of 1893 was the last spent at Hillside. The new building at Newnham College containing the rooms to be occupied by Sidgwick and his wife was now completed, and in the middle of December they moved into them. He had managed to deal somehow with "the superfluous overgrowth of his library," and what remained was successfully disposed in the rooms and passages of his new abode.
1 W. G. Ward and the Catholic Revival.
CHAPTER VII 1894-1900
THE rooms occupied by Sidgwick and his wife at Newnham College were on the first floor of a build- ing erected with money left by Mr. and Mrs. Pfeifier. Standing across the site of the recently closed path, it connected the earliest part of the College buildings with the part over which Mrs. Sidgwick had presided in 1880 to 1882. Below their rooms was the archway containing the bronze gates given by students as a memorial to Miss Clough, and above were students' rooms. From the windows there is an extensive view of the College buildings and of the garden. The rooms included a private dining-room, where Sidgwick and his wife usually had their meals. The study (as at Hillside) was somewhat small ; but every available space in Sidgwick's study - tables, chairs, and even parts of the floor — were generally covered with piled -up books and papers, and this would probably have happened whatever the size of the room. No one was allowed to move any- thing in these apparently miscellaneous piles, and Sidgwick had a surprising power of laying his hand on what he wanted in the seeming chaos. Still crises would occur, some book or paper would be unfindable, or the height of the piles would become unbearable, and there was nothing for it but a drastic tidying-up. After an hour or two of this had resulted in the
528
1894, AGE 55 HENRY SIDGWICK 529
destruction of much rubbish, and the reduction of the rest of the accumulated masses to comparative order, he would triumphantly invite a sympathetic in- spection of the transformation effected.
Sidgwick very much enjoyed his new abode. He liked the pretty, well-proportioned rooms. He liked the College buildings with their red brick and white paint glowing in the sunshine, and he liked the garden made cheerful by students moving about. The aesthetic pleasure was of course enhanced by all this being a visible evidence of the success of his efforts for the education of women. He liked the garden, too, as a place to walk in for a few minutes at a time while thinking out a problem, and might often be seen strolling there, absently stroking his beard on the under side and holding it up against his mouth — a gesture very habitual with him while meditating. The garden soon gave him pleasure too in another way, for during the last years of his life he acquired a new love for the beauty of flowers. It will have been perceived that he had always greatly enjoyed scenery, but the minuter beauties of nature did not appeal to him much till these later years, and he was gratified to find a new taste growing with the approach of old age. It was the colour that he cared for most in flowers, and he especially enjoyed a mass of yellow blossom.
Sidgwick and his wife made a practice of dining about once a week in hall with the staff and students of the College, who had also other opportunities of intercourse with him. In their third and fourth years students were invited to breakfast in groups of four ; and in the afternoons, once a week, when Mrs. Sidgwick was at home to them, he would come in for a few minutes for his tea and delight them with his talk. One of them writes : " One afternoon when we listened (and laughed) while he talked, in Mrs. Sidgwick's drawing-room, will always be among
2 M
530 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vn
my Red Letter days. It was a kind of ' liberal educa- tion ' " ; and another speaks of vivid recollections of his reading some of Newbolt's Admirals All on one of these occasions. The students' enjoyment of their life at Newnham gave him great satisfaction, and he regarded this, and the pleasure they obtained in later life through College friendships and the wider outlook on life which they owed to Newnham, as among the greatest benefits the College conferred.
The Report of the Gresham University Commission was issued in January 1894, and its recommendations have been substantially followed in framing the con- stitution of the present University of London, which came into force in 1900. Sidgwick was opposed for more reasons than one to the principle of combining the ordinary work of a university with the function of giving degrees to external students, on which the Report was framed ; but he considered it so important that a university — in the ordinary sense — should be established in London with as little delay as possible even on a basis which he regarded as ill-chosen, that he appended his signature. In the hope, however, that it might be of service to those who would actually have to construct and administer the new University, he added a careful note1 pointing out what he conceived to be the disadvantages and dangers involved in the combination. Of these the most important was that, as the training obtained at a University in a healthy condition has a value not expressed in the marks which it enables its students to obtain in examination, it was hard that a new University should be singled out to be deprived of the power of representing this value by its degrees.
In May 1894 his friend Roden Noel died suddenly of heart disease while on a journey. Sidgwick wrote to his widow from Cambridge on June 2 : —
1 Report of the Gresham University Commission, 1894, p. lix.
1894, AGE 56 HENEY SIDGWICK 531
I must write a few lines — though I feel how useless words are — to tell you how much shocked and grieved I was by the news of Eoden's death. I have been thinking ever since of him and of your trouble ; and also of the early years of our friendship, when we talked and wrote to each other, in the eagerness of youth, on all things in heaven and earth. I have always felt that, though he was keenly disappointed by the world's inadequate recognition of his genius, he did his work in life none the less resolutely, and brought out his great gifts, and remained nobly true to his ideal. I never knew any one more free from what Goethe calls — " was uns alle bandigt, das Gemeine." After conversing with him I always felt that the great realities of Life and Thought and Art, the true concerns of the human spirit, became more real and fresh and vivid to me.
I am afraid that in later years I often vexed him some- what by unsympathetic criticism of his poetic work : but I am glad to think that this never made any division between us, — he knew that I recognised in him the " deep poetic heart " and the rare constructive force and vividness of poetic imagination in which he was second to none among his contemporaries.
To Lady Victoria Buxton (Mr. Nod's sister) on June 12
It is now thirty-six years since we first became intimate friends at Cambridge. ... I am glad to think that . . . we never failed to talk and write with perfect mutual trust and unreserve. And I certainly never came away from a talk with him without feeling afresh the variety and richness of his nature, and his sensitiveness to all things beautiful in nature, and all things noble or pathetic in human life. I never knew any one who seemed more at home in that higher region of thought and feeling, — into which most of us rise occasionally with some effort, — where the great realities of human life and destiny are not only intellectually grasped but felt with full intensity. I do not think that any of those who really knew him can ever forget him ; and I believe that there are many who only knew him through
HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, vn
his writings who will feel that the world is poorer by his loss.
To H. Gr. Dakyns from Newnham, July 2 9
. . . The truth is that my plans — and more than my plans — have received rather a shock within the course of the last three days. I have had letters from F. Myers and 0. Lodge — as a member of the S.P.E. you will know their names— to the effect that they believe themselves to have got proof of the reality of the physical phenomena of Spiritualism. (I use current terms, because the question is not yet as to the cause of the phenomena, but only as to the fact.) The in- vestigations have been carried on in a small island off the Mediterranean coast, belonging to Charles Eichet — Parisian Professor of Physiology — whose name you may also know from our Proceedings. He, Myers, and Lodge have been together investigating Eusapia Paladino, an Italian medium, and they believe themselves to have got the phenomena under perfect tests.— I tell you all this, not only because it may interest you, but that you may see how my plans are upset. Eichet asks me to go to this island, and go I must. For either they are right, and I must put myself in a position to support them, or they are wrong, in which case I must try to find out how or why. Eichet is a very careful worker, but still
This visit of Sidgwick and his wife to the He Roubaud, and their stay under the hospitable roof of Professor Richet, first on the island, and then on the mainland in the neighbourhood of Hyeres, was very enjoyable and very interesting. It is true that the phenomena to be investigated were less striking after Sidgwick arrived than they had been before, but they were striking enough, and at the time he was almost convinced of their genuineness. It was only after Eusapia Paladino had been proved in the following summer to be a habitual trickster (see below, pp. 542, 543) that, taking into account certain suspicious cir- cumstances observed on this earlier occasion, Sidgwick
1894, AGE 56 HENKY SIDGWICK 533
concluded that all the mysterious phenomena he had witnessed in her presence were due to fraud. After leaving the South of France, Sidgwick and his wife went to Switzerland for a short time, in the course of which they stayed with Mrs. Symonds at Davos, and returned to England about the middle of September. During this summer and autumn he was taking a very great- interest in the Memoir of J. A. Symonds, which Mr. H. F. Brown was engaged in writing.
To Miss Cannan from WJiittingehame on January 1, 1895
I write, as you see, from Scotland, where we are spend- ing our brief holiday among nephews and nieces of tender years. You may be amused to imagine me as about to personate in a tableau vivant — for the amusement of a festive audience — the character of John Knox, the particular inci- dent in John Knox's career selected for representation being his vain endeavour to correct the frivolity of Queen Mary. 1 told my sisters-in-law that Erasmus would suit me much better, but they did not think that a Scottish audience could be expected to take any interest in a Laodicean of that stamp — in spite of Froude.
. . . Talking of History reminds me that I have been making some remarks on Mr. Kidd's book. You may remember that you were reading it when you were with us. It occurs to me that you may be interested in them, so I have asked my bookseller to send you a copy of the National Review, in which my article appeared. I am rather afraid that you may think it shows undue animosity ; the truth is that I have no ill-will towards Kidd, who is certainly a vigorous and stimulating writer, but I do think that the reviewers are to blame for not having found out how little he knows. I do not mean "little" compared with most men, but little compared with the pretensions of his book. However, of this you will judge if you read my review.1
1 "Political Prophecy and Sociology," in the National Review for December 1894, reprinted in Miscellaneous Essays and Addresses.
534 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, vn
To his Sister-in-law, Mrs. William Sidgwick, from WTiittingehame on January 9
I ought to have sent you back the enclosed [Anthony Hope's Dolly Dialogues] before, with a critical view : but I found it — like all the author's productions — easier to read than to exercise one's mind about afterwards. The central thread of story seems to me an exceed- ingly clever bit of harping on one string — with the draw- backs of that form of instrumental music : but I think it would get a little wearisome before the end if the dialogue were not so neat and well managed. But the secondary characters — at least the female ones — seem to me much more coarsely done : e.g. the scene with the Dowager seems to me so farcical as to jar with the tone of well - bred, if extravagant, comedy maintained in the 4 Dolly ' scenes, and Mrs. Hilary and Miss Phyllis seem to me both conventional and vulgar. However, I read it through from beginning to end with complete entertain- ment ; and as I grow older I think this is the kind of com- position that I prefer for relaxation, rather than a novel carrying heavier guns. I read rather a good one of the latter sort last week, My Lady Rotha (Weyman) : I thought it good all through, but was still slightly pleased when I got to the end of it — whereas I was certainly sorry when I finished the Dolly Dialogues.
I hope you have had a pleasant Christmas. We have been quiet and happy here. . . . We return to Cambridge on Friday, I going round by Glasgow to give a lecture to the Philosophical Society.1
The political tone here is decidedly hopeful, though I do not precisely know on what solid grounds, as the prospects of the session appear to me rather favourable to the other side, and A. J. B. does not go by bye-elections. But hopeful they are.
I hope William is still able to golf. I was getting on rather well with the garden variety of the game till snow came.
1 On "The Philosophy of Common Sense," published in Mind, and re- published in Lectures on Kant and other Lectures and Essays, 1905.
1894, AGE 56 HENEY SIDGWICK 535
Garden golf as played at Whittingehame offered considerable variety, a sufficiency of hazards and some good iron strokes, and Sidgwick, without play- ing well, enjoyed it very much, and felt so boyish a pleasure in a successful stroke that it gave others a sympathetic pleasure to see him play.
To Lady Frances Balfov.r from Cambridge, January 1 6 Seeley's death l no friend could regret on his account ; it was almost painless, as the disease had been, and that with cancer is something to be grateful for. But it makes Cam- bridge feel diminished and poor to have lost within a year two men so remarkable as him and Eobertson Smith. We have no young men coming on of the same mark — at any rate outside mathematics and physical science.
To his Nephew, A. C. Benson, on March 15 I have been having rather a bad time with influenza — a fortnight on my back — or I would have thanked you before for your Gray.2 I read it with much interest : it seemed to me conceived with subtlety and care, and finely expressed. It is not my Gray : but I do not state that as an objection, as I am conscious that I have never quite been able to make out G. But I should have thought that his interest in literature was more that of an artist in verbal express- sion ; his interest in history more either antiquarian or literary ; and his interest in nature — well. But I like almost all the part of your poem that presents this side of him very much, the delicate observation seems to me thoroughly Grayish ; still I was going to say that I do not imagine him as likely to climb mountains "in pursuit of some unheeded spirit." This seems to me to put him too near Wordsworth or Shelley.
However, as I said, I like all this part of the poem thoroughly, though with reserves from a biographical point of view. I don't altogether like what you say of his friends.
1 Sir J. R. Seeley died on January 13, 1895.
2 "Thomas Gray." a poem privately printed in 1895, and afterwards published with The Professor and other Poems.
536 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vn
As to Horace Walpole, I suppose his enthusiasm for Gray had somewhat cooled by 1771 ; still, I don't imagine him as ever coming the patron over G. — not since the first unfortunate journey. And as to the " plump Precentor," may we not hope that Gray carried to his grave the amiable blindness of friendship which had led him to labour so abundantly in correcting Mason's stuff? Is there any evidence that he didn't ? He certainly made him his literary executor. But you know all this much better than I do. The lines about Bonstetten are moving and doubtless true, though I fancy Gray, who was after all an Englishman, thought the effusiveness and excitability of the young Swiss a little gueer, though very charming. But this is not a criticism ; you could not put everything into blank verse !
Enough. You understand that I ramble on not to instruct you, but merely to show that your poem has interested me.
To Miss Cannan from the Bedford Hotel, Brighton, on April 1
Our process of convalescence is, I think, complete ; at least we are as well as we were before the " flu," — my wife says she is better. We spent eight days with my brother Arthur and his wife, first at Littlehampton, and then at Seaford, with much pleasure. The physical delight of feel- ing one's strength come back is very great. It must be admitted that sea-air was supplied by Providence with a vigour and profusion which rendered it more medicinal than agreeable ; but the wind dropped yesterday, and March went out like a lamb after all, though the lamb-like character was only assumed at the very last moment.
It is a provoking kind of complaint this influenza, as it does not even confer immunity from itself ; and I certainly found it very depressing for a time. For three days I could take an interest in nothing except making my will — I mean it was to this subject that my thoughts naturally flew when I let them go. But then I do not remember spending a day in bed for twenty years before, so the unaccustomed incidents of this position may have had something to do with the depression. As Mr. Garth in Middlemarch says
1895, AGE 56 HENKY SIDGWICK 537
[when he lost £90 to a scapegrace prottgd], "These things are a great interruption to business."
I cannot strongly recommend either of our seaside places from the point of view of scenery, but we had a pleasant afternoon at Lewes, which is historically interesting and picturesquely situated.
If all goes well we hope to come to the Lakes * at the end of August — but this is looking too far ahead !
To Wilfrid Ward from Cambridge, May 18 Owing to unusual pressure of work — I have had to read and advise on the publication of the MS. of a deceased friend — I have been unable to read your Quarterly article2 till yesterday. As regards the two points mentioned in your letter, I think I agree mainly with Balfour on the first, and with you, to a great extent, on the second. That is (1) I am not able to separate my conception of the external world into " physical " and " metaphysical " in the manner which you seem to regard as simple and accepted. I do not say that a distinction may not be drawn between the two ways of regarding and investigating matter : but that it is much more difficult to draw than is commonly supposed by students of physical science who have a turn for philosophising, and who find it a convenient way of gliding over the contradictions, in which their philosophising tends to involve them, to put their view into two compartments. This kind of dualism always reminds me of the more simple-minded people who are content to regard a proposition as " true in theory, but not in practice." I do not, of course, say this with regard to your view, but only to indicate " where I am " in the matter.
(2) On the other hand, as regards Reason and Authority, I am on the whole decidedly with you. I am thinking of printing something on the subject. If I do, I will send it you ; if not, I will send you the rough notes suggested by your article.
1 Miss Caiman lives in Easedale.
2 An article on Arthur Balfour's The Foundations of Belief, in the Quarterly Review, March 1895.
538 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, vn
The " deceased friend " whose manuscript he had been reading was doubtless Seeley. During this year he edited Seeley's Introduction to Political Science, published in January 1896.
It was in one of these years that Sidgwick wrote to Lord Tennyson the following letter about In Memoriam, published in the latter's life of his father.1
After thinking over the matter, it has seemed to me better to write to you a somewhat different kind of letter from that which I originally designed : a letter not primarily intended for publication, though I wish you to feel at liberty to print any part of it which you may find suitable, but primarily intended to serve rather as a " document " on which you may base any statements you may wish to make as to the impression produced by In Memoriam. I have decided to adopt this course because I want to write with rather more frank egotism than I should otherwise like to show. I want to do this, because in describing the impres- sion made on me by the poem, I ought to make clear the point of view from which I approached it, and the attitude of thought which I retained under its influence. In what follows I shall be describing chiefly my own experiences : but I shall allow myself sometimes to say " we " rather than " I," meaning by " we " my generation, as known to me through converse with intimate friends.
To begin, then : our views on religious matters were not, at any rate after a year or two of the discussions started in 1860 by Essays and Reviews, really in harmony with those which we found suggested by In Memoriam. They were more sceptical and less Christian, in any strict sense of the word ; certainly this was the case with myself : I remember feeling that Clough represented my individual habits of thought and sentiment more than your father, although as a poet he moved me less. And this more sceptical attitude has remained mine through life ; while at the same time I feel that the beliefs in God and in immortality are vital to human well-being.
1 Alfred, Lord Tennyson, A Memoir, vol. i. p. 300.
1895; AGE 57 HENKY SIDGWICK 539
Hence the most important influence of In Memorwm on my thought, apart from its poetic charm as an expres- sion of personal emotion, opened in a region, if I may so say, deeper down than the difference between Theism and Christianity : it lay in the unparalleled combination of intensity of feeling with comprehensiveness of view and balance of judgment, shown in presenting the deepest needs and perplexities of humanity. And this influence, I find, has increased rather than diminished as years have gone on, and as the great issues between Agnostic Science and Faith have become continually more prominent. In the sixties I should say that these deeper issues were somewhat obscured by the discussions on Christian dogma, and Inspiration of Scripture, etc. You may remember Browning's reference to this period [Gold Hair, xxix.] —
The Essays and Reviews debate Begins to tell on the public mind, And Colenso's words have weight.
During these years we were absorbed in struggling for freedom of thought in the trammels of a historical religion : and perhaps what we sympathised with most in In Memoriam at this time, apart from the personal feeling, was the defence of " honest doubt," the reconciliation of knowledge and faith in the introductory poem, and the hopeful trumpeting of the lines on the New Year —
Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace,
and generally the forward movement of the thought.
Well, the years pass, the struggle with what Carlyle used to call " Hebrew old clothes " is over, Freedom is won, and what does Freedom bring us to ? It brings us face to face with atheistic science : the faith in God and Immortality, which we had been struggling to clear from superstition, suddenly seems to be in the air : and in seeking for a firm basis for this faith we find ourselves in the midst of the " fight with death " which In Memoriam so powerfully presents.
"What In Memoriam did for us, for me at least, in this struggle was to impress on us the ineffaceable and
540 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vn
ineradicable conviction that humanity will not and cannot acquiesce in a godless world : the " man in men " will not do this, whatever individual men may do, whatever they may temporarily feel themselves driven to do, by following methods which they cannot abandon to the conclusions to which these methods at present seem to lead.
The force with which it impressed this conviction was not due to the mere intensity of its expression of the feel- ings which Atheism outrages and Agnosticism ignores : but rather to its expression of them along with a reverent docility to the lessons of science which also belongs to the essence of the thought of our age.
I remember being struck with a note in Nature, at the time of your father's death, which dwelt on this last- mentioned aspect of his work, and regarded him as pre- eminently the Poet of Science. I have always felt this characteristic important in estimating his effect on his generation. Wordsworth's attitude towards Nature was one that, so to say, left Science unregarded : the Nature for which Wordsworth stirred our feelings was Nature as known by simple observation and interpreted by religious and sympathetic intuition. But for your father the physical world is always the world as known to us through physical science : the scientific view of it dominates his thoughts about it ; and his general acceptance of this view is real and sincere, even when he utters the intensest feeling of its inadequacy to satisfy our deepest needs. Had it been otherwise, had he met the atheistic tendencies of modern Science with more confident defiance, more confident assertion of an Intuitive Faculty of theological knowledge, overriding the results laboriously reached by empirical science, I think his antagonism to these tendencies would have been far less impressive.
I always feel this strongly in reading the memorable lines [cxxiv.] : —
If e'er when faith had fallen asleep, I heard a voice ' believe no more,' And heard an ever-breaking shore
That tumbled in the Godless deep ;
I8P5, AGK 57 HENRY SIDGWICK 541
A warmth within the breast would melt The freezing reason's colder part, And like a man in wrath the heart
Stood up and answered ' I have felt.'
At this point, if the stanzas had stopped here, we should have shaken our heads and said, " Feeling must not usurp the function of Eeason. Feeling is not knowing. It is the duty of a rational being to follow truth wherever it leads."
But the poet's instinct knows this ; he knows that this usurpation by Feeling of the function of Eeason is too bold and confident ; accordingly in the next stanza he gives the turn to humility in the protest of Feeling which is required (I think) to win the assent of the " man in men " at this stage of human thought :
No, like a child in doubt and fear :
But that blind clamour made me wise ; Then was I as a child that cries,
But, crying, knows his father near ;
And what I am beheld again
What is, and no man understands ; And out of darkness came the hands
That reach through nature, moulding men.
These lines I can never read without tears. I feel in them the indestructible and inalienable minimum of faith which humanity cannot give up because it is necessary for life ; and which I know that I, at least so far as the man in me is deeper than the methodical thinker, cannot give up.
If the possibility of a " godless world " is excluded, the faith thus restored is, for the poet, unquestionably a form of Christian faith : there seems to him then no reason for doubting that the
sinless years That breathed beneath the Syrian blue,
and the marvel of the life continued after the bodily death, were a manifestation of the " immortal love " which by faith we embrace as the essence of the Divine nature. " If the dead rise not, Christ is not risen " : but if we may believe that they rise, then it seems to him, we may and must believe the main drift of the Gospel story ; though we may
542 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vn
transiently wonder why the risen Lord told His disciples only of life, and nothing of " what it is to die."
From this point of view the note of Christian faith struck in the introductory stanzas is in harmony with all that follows. And yet I have always felt that in a certain sense the effect of the introduction does not quite represent the effect of the poem. Faith, in the introduction, is too completely triumphant. I think this is inevitable, because so far as the thought-debate presented by the poem is summed up, it must be summed up on the side of Faith. Faith must give the last word : but the last word is not the whole utterance of the truth : the whole truth is that assurance and doubt must alternate in the moral world in which we at present live, somewhat as night and day alternate in the physical world. The revealing visions come and go ; when they come we feel that we know : but in the intervals we must pass through states in which all is dark, and in which we can only struggle to hold the conviction that
. . . Power is with us in the night Which makes the darkness and the light, And dwells not in the light alone, [xcvi]
To H. G. Dakyns from Cambridge, August 15, 1895 ... I think I must come alone, as we ought not both to leave Cambridge while the " Eusapia " experiments [see p. 532] are going on here. . . . The experiments are interesting, but perplexing.
To the Same from London on August 23 I hope to reach . Haslemere at 5.34 to-morrow. I am here temporarily, presiding at an International Co-operative Congress ; return to Eusapia and the Dark Circle this evening.
And again on August 3 1 from Cambridge As to Eusapia, nothing to say as yet. Hodgson l is here, and we are determined to worry out the truth if possible.
These experiments with Eusapia Paladino, extend-
1 Secretary of the American Branch of the S. P. R.
1895, AGE 57 HENKY SIDGWICK 543
iug over several weeks — during which Mr. and Mrs. Myers, with praiseworthy devotion to the interests of science, entertained her at their house at Cam- bridge— ended in a conviction that the phenomena exhibited there were fraudulent, and could almost all be explained by a particular trick which had been early suspected, and of which Dr. Hodgson worked out the details. The medium had steadily refused conditions which would have excluded this method.
To Mr. Basil Champneys from Cambridge, January 9, 1896 . . . The chief general defect of [Bridges'] account of [Milton's] metre seems to me perhaps due to a desire to be clear and elementary, and not to subtilise too much : but he certainly seems to me to represent the relations of syllables stressed and unstressed as simpler than they really are. Thus he ignores relativity of stress : I mean that the iambic effect is often produced when the syllable that ought to be short is stressed as much, or nearly as much, as long syllables ordinarily are, only it is followed by one which has more weight. Take the line- On this mount he appeared ; under this tree Stood visible.
Bridges, I suppose, would simply say that there was an " inversion of stress in the fourth foot," and would not notice the fifth. But in fact the parallel between the two sentences requires the second " this " to be nearly as much stressed as the first, so that the iambic effect is only pro- duced by a stronger stress on " tree " ; and certainly both " this " and " tree " are more stressed than the first syllable of " under."
Also I think more evidence is needed of the startling proposition that Milton scanned his lines on one plan and read them on another. He is, no doubt, the pedant among our great poets : but I doubt his being as much of a pedant as that implies. However, I am not confident here. But on one point I am confident. I feel sure that in [two of
544 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vn
his] examples B. has missed M.'s way of pronouncing two words derived from the Latin : I feel sure that Milton accented " ambitious " and " future " as we now accent " ambitiosus " and " futurus " in reading Latin. The lines are surely quite intolerable as B. reads them.1 However, it is certainly a good piece of work.
In November 1895 the Associates of Newnham College 2 had urged that a new appeal should be made to the University of Cambridge to give degrees to women. Sidgwick hesitated. He had a strong con- viction that it would be the right course for the University to take, and decidedly to its own advan- tage— pecuniarily and otherwise — to admit women to full membership ; and as he said to the Senate in February 1896, they had had twenty-five years to think the matter over, and " no one could accuse the University of undue haste and rashness if they now decided to admit women to the full membership of the University." Also all the Universities in Great Britain, except Cambridge and Oxford, had by this time opened their degrees to women. Still he doubted whether the University was ripe for a sound de- cision on the question. The women had the substan- tial advantages of University education, examination, and recognition ; he feared that these might be imperilled by asking for more ; and he was at first inclined also to think that the advantages they would gain by the degree were of a more formal and un- substantial kind than they supposed. The women, however, went into the case with care, and produced
1 The lines alluded to as given by Mr. Bridges in his Milton's Prosody are : —
(a) As an example of " inversion of fourth stress " :
Before thy fellows ambitious to win. (V) As an example of ' ' inverted fifth stress " :
Beyond all past example and future.
2 A body consisting of members of the staff and former students of the College, limited in number, and chosen as most fit to advance education, learning, and research. They have certain functions in the government of the College.
1896, AGE 57 HENRY SIDGWICK 545
evidence that the absence of the recognised stamp of the degree was a real drawback, especially to women engaged in the teaching profession.1 At the same time Sidgwick was given good reason for be- lieving that there were members of the Senate who,
O
though generally on the conservative side, would be prepared to go so far as to give to women a titular degree without full membership or voting powers,- thus removing the principal grievance, and therefore establishing — without disturbing the organisation of the University — what might well have been a stable compromise. Another reason for moving was pressure from Oxford, where a similar movement was going on and the support of Cambridge was desired.
Ultimately Sidgwick and other supporters of women's education at Cambridge decided to move, and having decided he as usual threw himself vigor- ously into the business. As a first step a small meeting of members of the Senate interested in Newnham and Girton Colleges was convened by Sidgwick and presided over by Dr. Peile at Christ's College. At this meeting it was decided to memorialise the Council of the Senate, asking for a syndicate to consider the question ; and an executive committee was formed, of which Dr. Porter, Master of Peter- house, was chairman and Mr. W. Bateson secretary. The memorial3 was largely and influentially signed, and was supported by other memorials from former students of Newnham and Girton, head-mistresses, and others. The appointment of a syndicate was
1 That the disadvantages complained of were genuine is perhaps even clearer now than it was then, and this is confirmed by the extent to which Cambridge and Oxford women are availing themselves of the recent offer of the University of Dublin (Trinity College) to give them ad eundem degrees.
2 This was what, from 1856 to 1871, had been done in the case of Non- conformists as regards the M.A. degree.
3 It ran: "We, the undersigned Members of the Senate, are of opinion that the time has arrived for reopening the question of admitting women to Degrees in the University of Cambridge. We therefore respectfully beg that the Council of the Senate will nominate a Syndicate to consider on what conditions and with what restrictions, if any, women should be admitted to Degrees in the University."
2N
546 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, vn
proposed by the Council of the Senate and its members nominated, and these proposals were voted on on March 12, 1896.1
From the first there was strong opposition to the movement, and the opponents took the unusual step of objecting to the personnel of the syndicate as nominated by the Council, one ground alleged being that some of those nominated — by which was meant especially Sidgwick and Dr. Peile — were declared partisans. This accusation of partisanship grieved Sidgwick. He felt that if devotion could be measured by time and labour and money freely spent, he had shown — as his opponents ought to have known — more devotion to the University than to Newnham,2 and that it was monstrous to suppose that in case of antagonism between the interests of the two he would side with Newnham against the University. But perhaps he took the matter to heart too much. No doubt this objection to the syndicate was frivolous, since it was desirable on a body which had to inquire into facts, and frame, if it thought well, a scheme for the Senate to vote on, to have persons of different views, and able from their own knowledge to throw light on the question. But the objection was only a move in the game, and the word partisan had prob- ably been used thoughtlessly. The Senate agreed that a syndicate should be appointed, but by a small majority rejected the particular syndicate proposed. Another was nominated and appointed in May, and entered on its labours.
To A. J. Patterson at Buda- Pest from Cambridge, April 27 I have been considering the very agreeable and flattering
1 The syndicate was "to consider what further rights or privileges, if any, should be granted to women students by the University, and whether women should be made admissible to degrees in the University, and if so, to what degrees, on what conditions, and with what restrictions, if any. "
2 It would not have been true some years later (when he had contributed largely to the purchase of the Newnham freehold, and had also bought other land for the College) to say that he had given more money to the University than to Newnham.
1896, AGE 58 HENKY SIDGWICK 547
invitation which you communicated to me in your letter of April 21st, with every desire to accept it if possible. I feel much honoured by the offer of an honorary doctor's degree ; and it would have given me the greatest pleasure, if it had been possible, to come to spend a week at Buda- Pest and receive the doctorate in person. But I am afraid that my engagements here render it quite impossible for me to be present on May 13th. . . . I must therefore ask you to express to Prof. Foldes my grateful appreciation of the honour designed for me, and my regret that I am unable to accept his invitation and revive my pleasant recollections of the hospitality of the University of Buda- Pest. . . .
As he was unable to go to Hungary, the honorary degree here spoken of was conferred upon him in his absence.
To Professor Sully from Cambridge, May 1
No, I think there will be no material change in my Methods [of Ethics'} after the present edition. People have left off criticising me, and my own mind is (doubtless) hardening with age. I published no supplement * after the third edition, as the supplement to the second was a dead failure. No one bought it, or hardly any one.
I sympathise with both your remarks about 's
book. I feel that in all branches of Moral Sciences there is at present a danger that every energetic teacher will want to write his own book and make it as unlike other people's books as he can. But after all this is a sign of intellectual life, and I suppose we shall some time or other begin to converge towards agreement.
To Professor Sully on June 25
I am sorry you have had to decline a paper for Munich, but hope you may be able to come after all. ... As for
1 He had insisted on publishing the chief changes made both in the second and in the third edition of his Methods of Ethics in supplements which could be bought separately, for the convenience of those who possessed the previous edition. It was the fifth edition that was running in 1896. He did make some changes in the sixth edition, with which he was occupied at the time of his death.
548 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, vn
insomnia, I have been rather alarmed : but five days at Brighton have brought me up to 6 hours again : so I do not feel qualified to ask for sympathy. At Cambridge I am liable to run down to 5^, 4^, 3^ — the latter figure alarms me. I was going to recommend Brighton, but doubt- less you know all that sea air can do for you. With me, I think, it is not only the air, but the soothing effect of a walk by the sea after dinner.
The third International Congress of Psychology took place at Munich early in August 1896, and Sidgwick and his wife attended. They went first to Lindau, on the Lake of Constance, to visit an old governess of his wife's,1 and then to Munich, where the members of the Congress were most hospitably entertained. Sidgwick himself read a paper in reply to some criticisms on the Brighton thought-transference experiments referred to above (p. 502). After Munich they visited the Tegernsee, and enjoyed the hospitality of Lord Acton : went on to Innsbruck via the Achensee : and then, joining Mr. and Mrs. Bryce, proceeded to the Sulden Thai at the foot of the Ortler, and had a delightful stay there. During this year he was engaged on a second edition of his Elements of Politics.
To Sir George Trevelyan from Cambridge, September 3 We are going to Scotland to-morrow for ten days or so, and it seems natural to propose to come to you on the way back. But Nature's Design may present itself otherwise to you, for various reasons — such as absence, presence of other guests, or need of quiet and solitude for the composition of Immortal Works ! So I merely say that we are open to an offer, say, from 15th to 18th September, and that our address will be Whittingehame, Prestonkirk, N.B. (I suppose it is still N.B. even from Northumberland, but this I leave to you.)
We have been attending a Congress of Psychologists at
1 Fraiilein Luise Kinkelin.
1896, AGE 58 HENEY SIDGWICK 549
Munich, and afterwards travelling in Tirol. (I am told that one does not say " the Tirol," but simply " Tirol " ; and to spell it with a " y " is nearly as bad as spelling " tyro " so.) Did you ever dine at a German banquet ? The speeches begin after the soup, and between each speech comes a dish to be consumed. You would think it would tend to make the Speeches short ; but no, it tends to make the dishes cold. But I will not be ungrateful. The beer which the Town Council of Munich presented in full streams to over 400 psychologists was first-rate.
To H. G. Dakyns from Wliittingehame on September 10, 1896
Shall you be at home at the end of this month ? Tenny- son has asked me to come to have a look at the book,1 and I should like to have a night at least with you, if you are at home and have a bed for me.
And again on September 15
Armenia ! I have not heard from A. J. B. anything of what is being done (I suppose it to be a Cabinet secret if there is anything). What I saw of public opinion abroad was not very encouraging ; it did not appear that any nation except England took a strong enough interest in the Armenians to risk raising the Eastern Question for their sake. It seems to me that at the present stage it would be a mistake for England to try isolated action : but I am inclined to approve of the agitation going on, as more likely to strengthen the hands of Government than to weaken them — at least so long as it is kept on the present lines.
I am glad you are interested in Hodgson's paper.2 The real evidence is stronger than what can be published, owing to need of suppressing personal things.
It was soon after this that he had the great sorrow of losing his brother-in-law, Edward White Benson, who died suddenly at Hawarden on October 11, 1896. He writes to Miss Cannan from Cambridge on
1 The Life of Alfred Lord Tennyson, then in proof.
- A further paper in Proc. S.P.R., vol. xii., about the Mrs. Piper referred to above (p. 502).
550 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vn
November 5, after paying his sister a last visit at Addington : —
It was kind of you to write and tell me of Mr. Wheatley Balme's l death. I am sorry that I shall not see him again. He was one of the last links remaining with the older generation of friends of my family — almost all the rest have " joined the majority " — and his hospitality is a part of my earliest memories of the Lakes.
I went on Saturday last to see my sister for the last time at Addington. She has borne all very well, and I hope will get through the dreary business of breaking up the establishments at Lambeth and Addington without any serious strain. . . .
Temple's appointment [as Archbishop] puts strange memories in the head of a person of my age. Thirty-five years ago any one who prophesied it would have been a very audacious prophet. But no one now impeaches his orthodoxy and he is certainly a strong man. My sister thinks it the best appointment that could have been made.
The syndicate appointed to consider the question of degrees for women published its report on March 1, 1897. It recommended that titular degrees should be conferred on women who had passed a Tripos examination in accordance with the existing regula- tions, and who had resided for nine terms. The pro- posals were discussed in the Arts Schools on March 13, 15, and 16. Sidgwick spoke at some length, but much of his speech was of course directed to points of temporary interest ; we will only quote one para- graph : —
The University of Cambridge in 1881 gave the sub- stance ; it is now considering whether or not it should give the symbol. You have evidence laid before you, showing that the symbol is required to produce a due popular valua- tion of what our students trained here have done and the examinations they have successfully passed. The symbol
1 His godfather, formerly Mr. Wheatley, see p. 5.
1897, AGE 58 HENRY SIDGWICK 551
is required, but it would be a great mistake to suppose that the country taken as a whole is so unintelligent as to value the symbol more than the substance. That is not the case. The view throughout the circles in which the truth with regard to educational matters is known, is that the Universities have already taken the most important step. That in my view is the reason why it is not only the interest of women, but I should say, quite as much the interest of the University to take the further step that is to-day proposed. From the point of view of the provinces the question of membership falls into a subordinate place. What they mean by a degree is a recognised stamp of the fact that the student has successfully passed through a course of education at Oxford or Cambridge. They cannot understand your action in refusing it. At first they do not believe it ; they do not believe when they are told that the students of ISTewnham and Girton have passed through the same course as the undergraduate students pass through. When they do believe it, they think the University is either absurd or unjust. You will remove that impression throughout the country, I believe, by adopting the recom- mendations of the Syndicate.
According to custom the votes were not taken at the same time as the discussion. In the meanwhile the opposition became more and more active and violent. They frightened themselves and others by what seemed to the supporters of the proposals to be bugbears, and they took the step of stirring up feel- ing among the undergraduates.1 The violence of the opposition alarmed some supporters so much as to induce them to withdraw even at the last minute. Much discussion was carried on in the newspapers and otherwise, and Sidgwick took a very active part in this, answering what seemed to him misstatements
1 The undergraduates became much excited, especially on the day of voting. After the vote a considerable number of them, losing their heads and their manners, came up to Newnham College with the intention of burning on the lawn an effigy of a woman graduate. They were met with closed gates, and after a little time induced to disperse.
552 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, vn
or misleading arguments. The voting was fixed for May 21. Sidgwick writes to A. C. Benson on May 5 : —
May we count on you for Friday 21st here (1 to 3 P.M.) ? We shall want all our friends. It will be the largest vote ever taken on both sides : but the opposition is very strong.
I will send you some more ideas about the biography *- after the 21st!
The proposal was lost by 1707 to 661 votes. On May 24 he writes to H. G. Dakyns :—
I was sorry to miss you on Friday : I voted as near one [o'clock] as I could, and went back to Newnham to receive Arthur and other guests. Then when I got back to Senate -house Yard you were apparently gone, and so I supposed missed the rotten eggs, crackers, etc., that enter- tained those who were standing in Senate -house Yard between 2 and 3 P.M. However, I hope you saw some old friends and did not regret coming. I may assure you that the votes of our friends were no less important to us than if we had been nearer victory : since if our numbers had been much weaker there would have been a serious danger of reactionary measures. I hope now that there is not much danger of this.
I am going away for a short holiday — having got leave from my General Board — in the hope that change of air may revive my faculty of sleeping. I have decided to go to the Isle of Wight (partly because just one point remains on which I may possibly be of some slight service to Tennyson in the final revision of vol. ii. [of the Life of his father]).
Cromer was this year selected for a residence in the worst part of the hay-fever season, and the long vacation was otherwise spent mainly at Cambridge as usual.
To Lord Tennyson from Cambridge, October 19, 1897 We cannot resist your kind invitation to come to
1 Of Archbishop Benson.
1898, AGE 59 HENRY SIDGWICK 553
Farringford in the winter — always supposing that the only time available to us should be found to suit you, viz. the second week in January. (We are to spend Christmas in Scotland.)
The chorus of commendation appears to continue with- out any discordant note of importance. Even the Saturday Heview, which is nothing if not critical, and which complains of the binding of your book, the margins, the spelling (it is seriously disturbed by your spelling " Fitzgerald " with a small " g ") — even this critical organ is remarkably appreci- ative as regards matters of weightier import.
To Lord Tennyson from Cambridge, December 6
I have been very busy since you wrote last — finishing a book l and writing a memo, for a Royal Commission.2 But meanwhile I have got hold of the Oxford Mag. and have been much pleased with the review, not merely that it is very appreciative, but also because it was well written and evidently by a good judge. I am afraid that the general standard of literary culture is higher in Oxford than Cam- bridge at present,3 though I do not think that in the department of Classics there is any one whose scholarly culture is quite so finished as Jebb's.
He was much interested at this time in the law of Conspiracy and the important case of Allen v. Flood, and writes to Mr. Albert Dicey on December 20, 1897:—
. . . The decision seems to me to give rise inevitably to the following dilemma. The inducement supplied by Allen was a threat of concerted action on the part of a number of ironworkers. The action threatened was either (a) legal or (6) illegal : if it was legal then why is not ordinary boy- cotting legal (I mean boycotting without demonstrable con-
1 Practical Ethics, n Collection of Addresses and Essays, Swan Sonnenschein, 1898. The Preface is dated November 1897.
2 In answer to questions from the Royal Commission on Local Taxation ; see volume of Memoranda published by the Commission in 1899, p. 99 et seq.
3 There had been an inappreciative review of the Life of Tennyson in the Cambridge fie view.
554 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, vn
nection with outrages) : if it was illegal, then it is legal for A to threaten B with illegal conduct on the part of C, D, E, etc., which conduct he must be supposed to have some power of influencing. This seems to limit the notion of illegal incitation so closely as to much facilitate boycotting practically, even though it makes it formally illegal.
I hope in any case that the Law of Conspiracy will come before the House of Lords soon.
To Lady Rayleigh (his sister-in-law, who was travelling in India), February 10, 1898
I have been thinking that you owed me a letter to tell me how far the volumes I recommended after a hasty survey were found to correspond to the facts of Indian Life, as noted by the penetrating eye of the tourist. But as time has gone on I have gradually come to suspect that, what with sight-seeing, the weariness of Oriental railway travelling, and the profusion of entertainment provided by Anglo-Indian hospitality — your perusal of these volumes has been more limited than you like to confess ! Mean- while I have been so much interested in your letters circulated through the family that I feel my claim to be written to has vanished and turned into a duty to write. But there is very little to say that can interest a traveller about this part of the world, at least so far as my experi- ence of it goes. Certainly at Cambridge we are as dull as ditch-water; an unfortunate simile, because the one topic about which we are a little agitated is our Drainage, on which we have experimented to the tune of £130,000, with the result of making things worse — if the plain man's nerves of smell are a criterion. Doctors disagree ; but on the whole we are most of us glad to think that this im- postor of a century of scientific progress in the arts of civilisation will soon be over. The only other thing we [the University] are interested in is our poverty : we are wondering whether the sums dropped into the hat that we are holding out at George Darwin's instigation will com- pensate for the humiliation of holding it out. "We haven't
1898, AGE 59 HENRY SIDGWICK 555
yet nearly enough to compensate — only a little over £3000 — but we still dream of the millionaire waking up to the opportunity of undying fame that we have offered.
As to affairs of the nation — the most important event that has happened since you left, the collapse of the Engineers' strike, I unluckily don't know enough about. The unqualified triumph of the masters may have one of two opposite effects on Trade Unionism : it may either make it more moderate or more Socialistic, turning its hopes either to the formation of a Parliamentary labour party or some great Union of federated trades. I am in- clined myself to think that it will have the first effect to begin with and the second ultimately ; but I have not been able to talk the prospects over with any one really "in the know." General politics are, I think, very dull ; but perhaps I regard them with the jaundiced eye of a Liberal Unionist, a member now of the L.U. Council. I have just come from a meeting at which — with the help of " the Duke " — we managed to be cheerful enough as long as reporters were there : but when reporters were gone, " leakage " and how to stop leakage was the only topic. The humiliating thing is that we pose as a specially intelli- gent part of the community, and yet have to confess that " leakage " means that many of us are so irredeemably stupid as to believe the Home Eule question dead.
I saw Arthur [Balfour] on Friday ; he seemed rather worried as well as hard -worked, but whether it was by foreigners or colleagues he did not tell me. ... So far as my world goes, the Government is not popular : there is a vague feeling that England is not having things her own way as much as she ought to and that it must be the Government's fault : we can only see very imperfectly what cards are dealt them, but we can see they don't take tricks. If they had any great blow anywhere which could be plausibly repre- sented as due to a blunder of theirs, I think this vague dissatisfaction might be intensified into dangerous dislike.
Tell John [Rayleigh] that I was especially pleased with his letter to Nora ; knowing that I shall never travel in
556 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vn
India myself, I am cheered by contemplating the disagree- able side of the operation. I hope, however, that he enjoyed his eclipse and got some satisfying glimpses of Nature in the North- West.
In 1896 a discussion society called the Synthetic Society, somewhat like the old Metaphysical Society, had been formed through the action of a group of persons differing from each other in theological opinions, and yet equally desirous of union in the effort to find a philosophical basis for religious belief. It met in London five or six times in the season, and among its members it counted A. J. Balfour, James Bryce, F. W. Cornish, Albert Dicey, Canon Gore, R. B. Haldane, Baron Frederic v. Hugel, R. H. Hutton, Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir Alfred Lyall, Dr. James Martineau, F. W. H. Myers, the Bishop of Rochester (Dr. Talbot), Father Tyrrell, Mr. Wilfrid Ward, who was one of its most energetic founders and with Mr. George Wyndham acted as secretary, and later Pro- fessor James Ward. Sidgwick had early in its progress been asked to join the Society, but the tendency of an exciting evening to produce a wakeful night made him hesitate. However, his interest in the questions discussed, and his old love of good discussion, were irresistible, and he was elected a member, first joining in the discussions in 1898. Canon Gore, now Bishop of Birmingham, spoke of him and his relation to this Society at the memorial meeting held at Cambridge in November 1900, to which we have already referred, as follows :—
But two years ago he joined a Society with which I was connected. . . . The object of the Society was to bring together people of quite different points of view in order that they might see how far they could arrive at any basis of agreement with regard to those matters which underlie our life — the great principles of philosophy and religion ; or if it was plain that an agreement could not be reached, how far
1898, AGE 59 HENKY SIDGWICK 557
they could contribute anything by way of discussion to the mutual understanding of one another's position. At once he became the life and soul of that Society, so much so that his death makes us wonder whether we had not better die too. We were all, or most of us, men who had reached, or were getting beyond, middle life ; we had our positions settled, we knew what we thought and what we were unable to think. To most of us it was quite apparent that we should not change our views, and we had ceased to believe that other people would change theirs. Therefore, though we were interested, we were not hopeful. It was extra- ordinary the difference which appeared in the treatment of questions by Henry Sidgwick. There is a passage — a very well-known passage — in the Phaedo of Plato, in which, after he has been speaking sadly of the unsatisfactoriness of the arguments for the immortality of the soul, he yet declares that unless some Divine word — I think I am recalling its substance correctly — should give us a better basis of security, at least we must make the best of all the human arguments we can get, and never relax the earnest- ness of our inquiry until death. That was what was so remarkable in Henry Sidgwick — the perpetual hopefulness of his inquiry. He always seemed to expect that some new turn of argument, some new phase of thought, might arise and put a new aspect upon the intellectual scenery, or give a new weight in the balance of argument. There was in him an extraordinary belief in following reason — a belief and a hopefulness which continued up to the last. This is, I venture to think, a quality which is exceedingly rare in our time, for mostly when we have settled down to our positions we lose any real hope of obtaining any strikingly new light on the deepest matters. It was quite otherwise with Sidgwick. Although, no doubt, you felt that the dominant quality of his mind was sceptical, though he was investigating, and then reinvestigating — though he was expressing doubt and then doubting the expressed doubt, and then doubting the doubt about the doubt, — yet the quality of his mind was profoundly different from ordinary
558 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, vn
scepticism : for it was inspired by a fundamental belief in the attainableness of positive truth. At the bottom of his mind was the profound desire to find an adequate basis on which to rest a positive construction of a worthy life.
Speaking as a person who believes that in our lifetime we are much more likely to be lacking in faith than in criticism, I yet feel that it is those of us whose religious faith is clearest who ought to feel most peremptorily the need of a strenuous criticism such as that which Henry Sidgwick's mind was always supplying. I will venture just to recall the subject of the last conversation but one which I had with him. It illustrated the extraordinary vigour of mind with which he was perpetually re-approaching old questions. He was telling me at some length what were the reasons which in quite early days had led him to feel that the arguments for the orthodox belief about our Lord, about Jesus Christ, were inadequate ; and then, with a touch which was so characteristic of him, he said he had sometimes felt he had not followed sufficiently the turn of modern criticism, and that he sometimes wondered whether the modern critical attitude was not one which was both broader and more hopeful, and one which might put a new aspect upon what for a time he had more or less abandoned thinking about. So he put before me detailed questions, greatly overestimating my powers to answer them ; and I said that I did not really feel able to answer them, but that if he would give me time I would try to write an answer. I wrote him a letter, to which I got a prompt reply ; for in the interval he had received what he believed to be the sentence of death ; and he said that he was very grateful for my letter, but, deeply interested as he was in the inquiry, he felt that now it would have to be undertaken by other people, for the days when he could hope to do fresh work of that sort were over. Yet it was most impressive to me — the extraordinary energy with which he could re-take up an old question with a thoroughgoing hopefulness as to new light.1
1 Dr. Westcott, Bishop of Durham, well expresses a similar impression of Sidgwick in a sermon preached at Trinity College in December 1900, and
1898, AGE 59 HENRY SIDGWICK 559
Sidgwick read the principal paper of the evening at two meetings of the Synthetic Society — February 25, 1898, and February 24, 1899. The first was a discussion of the nature of the evidence for Theism, and concludes with the following paragraph : —
It seems to me, then, that if we are led to accept Theism as being, more than any other view of the Universe, con- sistent with, and calculated to impart a clear consistency to, the whole body of what we commonly agree to take for knowledge — including knowledge of right and wrong — we accept it on grounds analogous to those on which important scientific conclusions have been accepted ; and that, even though we are unable to add the increase of certitude derivable from verified predictions, we may still attain a sufficient strength of reasoned conviction to justify us in calling our conclusions a " working philosophy."
The paper read in 1899 was on Authority, Scientific and Theological. These papers are too long to quote in full here, but as they express Sidgwick's latest views on important subjects, which he has scarcely discussed in any of his published works, it seems well to give them in an Appendix (see App. I. p. 600).
To Wilfrid Ward on March 4, 1898 (about the discussion at the Synthetic Society on February 25)
I am glad too that the discussion seemed to [Lodge] to " make for approximation to agreement " : the phrase exactly expresses what I think we ought to aim at ; it would be idle to expect more. ... In opposing your argument I
published in Lessons from Work, Macmillan and Co., 1901. He says : "The thought [that a University is a natural home of hope] is now brought very near to us by our most recent loss. For hope born in a time of doubt from an unfaltering belief in the reality of truth was, I think, one of the most conspicuous features in Prof. Sidgwick's nature. Great in range and exactness of knowledge, great in subtlety of analysis, great in power of criticism, he was still greater in character. He offered the highest type of a seeker after truth, more anxious to understand an opponent's argument than to refute him : watchful lest any element in a discussion should be left unnoticed ; patient, reverent, ready to the last to welcome light from any quarter ; a champion always of things just, and pure, and lovely " (p. 296, footnote).
560 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, vn
intended to limit myself to the sociological point of view ; from which morality does not seem to me to lead us to Theism. But I did not mean to say that I could be satisfied with [regarding] morality exclusively from this point of view ; quite the reverse. I hold strongly that sociological inquiry cannot answer the deepest questions which the individual, reflecting on his moral judgments and impulses, is inevitably led to ask. And where Sociology fails, the need of Theism — or at least some doctrine establishing the moral order of the world — seems to me clear.
To Professor Edgeworth on March 2 0
Excuse my delay in answering your letter. I have been busy with matters very remote from the theory of taxa- tion. ... It seems to me obvious that if Ireland is to be regarded as a separate entity at all financially, the first thing to do is to compare the sums raised in Ireland by taxation with the cost of the Government of Ireland, and see what surplus remains as Ireland's contribution to the common expenses of the United Kingdom. It is admitted that, from this point of view, she is primd facie in debt to England : I mean that she contributes about a million less than she ought, according to the Commission's view of her wealth, assuming that she ought to contribute in proportion to her wealth.
It is said, I know, that the expenses of Irish Govern- ment are largely due to her connection with Great Britain. I am quite willing to admit that this may possibly be the case ; but the OWLS probandi is on the other side, and I have never seen a serious attempt to shoulder the burden by detailed arguments. It does not seem to me the kind of question that can be settled by a general compromise.
But the theoretically important issue between us is as to the principle of equal sacrifice. I think, however, that the difference of opinion is largely due to the fact that my consideration of the matter is less abstract than yours. It seems to me that if we adopt the English system of national not local taxation — i.e. tax the poor majority only
1898, AGE 59 HENKY SIDGWICK 561
through luxuries, and chiefly dangerous luxuries — the principle of " equal sacrifice " cannot be carried out : we must let off total abstainers. If you reply that we ought still to carry it out as far as possible, then my answer is that I am willing to aim at a certain approximation to it — as between rich and poor, or generally different income- classes — but that on the whole the best ideal to aim at in scaling this approximation seems to me to be proportion- ment of taxation to income. I admit that I choose this on political rather than economical grounds, i.e. on account of its clearness and definiteness compared to the principle of equal sacrifice. The latter seems to me, in concrete application to the English system of taxation, to involve so many elements that cannot be valued otherwise than arbitrarily.
As regards the advantages of voluntary taxation, I admit force in your rejoinder. But you do not seem to me to consider — and indeed it is difficult to estimate quantitatively — the gain of feeling that one might avoid paying taxes if one liked ; or rather perhaps I should say, the absence of the feeling of being obliged to pay. This is enjoyed by consumers of spirits and tobacco, as well as by abstainers. I quite admit that I can give no numerical estimate of it : but I certainly feel that it would be very real to me if I was living on £100 a year.
There is plenty more to say, but I must not write a treatise: especially as I am off to-morrow to the Italian Lakes.3
This proved to be his last tour abroad, and, like his first, included the Italian Lakes and the plain of Lombardy. It was successfully made in company with his wife and the Arthur Sidgwicks ; the lakes of Lugano and Como were visited, and also the towns of Saronno, Milan, Pavia, Verona, Venice.
1 For a fuller discussion of some of the points dealt with in this letter compare Sidgwick's Note, written for the Royal Commission on the Financial Relations of Great Britain and Ireland, and published in 1895 in the Report of the Commission, second volume, p. 180.
2o
562 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP. VH
To Lord Tennyson from Cambridge on April 19
... I did not give a five-accent line because I assumed it as the normal or typical line, from which the others are deviations. But it is not every five-accent line that is normal : to be normal it must have the accents all on the even syllables — second, fourth, sixth, eighth, tenth. . . . The mistake that people commonly make is not in con- ceiving the normal line wrong, nor in failing to recognise the fact of deviations, but in vaguely supposing something incorrect and licentious in deviation — as though the ideal were to have as many normal lines as possible.
I have sometimes thought that Pope's metre affords the best means of delivering beginners from this elementary error. For Pope is a writer who aims in a specially marked way at a balanced antithesis between two parts of a line : and it is obviously easier to get a metrical balance between the two parts with four accents or six — which can be arranged in two twos or two threes — than with Jive. Hence, when he wants a balance combined with lightness of movement, he naturally tends to four-accent lines : —
A timorous f6e and a suspicious friend. Fop at the toilet, flatterer at the board. Sporus at Court or Japhet in a jaiL
On the other hand, when he wants balance with weight, he tends similarly to six-accent lines : —
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil Ider. S61e judge of truth, in endless error hurled.
It seems to me absolutely clear that the metrical construc- tion of both kinds of lines is entirely missed unless the accentual balance between the two parts is kept ; and to keep this balance we have distinctly to recognise that there are not five accents, but four or six, as the case may be : while still keeping the five-accent type in the background of one's mind as the standard from which the deviations are instinctively measured.
Also, though Pope rarely deviates from the normal so
1898, AGE 59 HENEY SIDGWICK 563
far as three-accent or semi-accent lines, he knows how to use either of these with effect, e.g.
Or ravished with the whistling of a name (Essay on Man), is a fine three-accent line. So, again,
And strains from hard-bound brains eight lines a year
(Epistle to Arbuthnof),
is a clever adaptation of the seven-accent line to express the idea of laborious composition.
To Wilfrid Ward from Cambridge, April 28
I wish very much that I could come to the discussion to-morrow ; but I fear the state of my health forbids. I came back from Italy three weeks ago with a cold and cough which I have not been able to shake off, and which is rather depressing my vitality; I feel bound to take care of it, and am afraid I must regard the journey to London and Synthetic debate as excluded by reasonable self-regard. I am very sorry to have thus missed two discussions, both of which I should have liked to hear. Last time was in the middle of my vacation, and I had a prior engagement of long standing at the Italian Lakes.
I shall be much interested in reading your Quarterly Article on " Eeligious Conformity." What I said in that Essay does not seem to have given much offence, but the following Essay on " Clerical Veracity " * has drawn protests private and public ; but the protests seem to me to be unable to disengage the ethical from the theological question.
The summer term of 1898 brought Sidgwick another disappointment in academic affairs in the refusal of the Cambridge Senate to admit St. Edmund's House as a public hostel. St. Edmund's House was established to give young men in train- ing for the Roman Catholic secular priesthood, and therefore under special discipline, an opportunity of reading for degrees in honours. Its students could, under existing regulations, be non -collegiate students,
1 Two of the essays in his Practical Ethics.
564 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, vn
but its founders and managers were naturally anxious that it should be, as an institution, in direct relation with the University, and independent of the Non- Collegiate Students' Board. The Ordinance in- stituting Public Hostels like Selwyn College met the case. This Ordinance, passed in 1882, when Selwyn College was founded, provided for the recognition of institutions which, relatively to the undergraduates studying in them, are to all intents and purposes colleges, but which do not hold the constitutional position in the government and ad- ministration of the University held by Colleges proper. Sidgwick's general desire for the open door in University affairs naturally led him to wish that St. Edmund's House should be recognised, and to regard the opposite view as curiously illiberal. The following fly-sheet which he issued on the subject explains his view :—
I am astonished to read Mr. 's statement — made
in absolutely unqualified terms — that the Act of 1871 " left the University system undenominational." The state- ment is doubtless true with regard to all departments except Theology : but as regards this department it is the reverse of the truth : and the exception is obviously of fundamental importance when we are considering the question of admitting a denominational hostel. The Act of 1871 left the whole official teaching of Theology, in the University and its federated Colleges, entirely in the hands of the Church of England : and actually, in strict accordance with the provisions of this Act, there are from fifteen to twenty Theological Lectureships in the Colleges, besides six University Professorships (including the Professorship of Hebrew) occupied by Anglican clergymen. Now, even if these posts were all equally open to members of all denominations, I should still be willing to admit denomina- tional hostels ; holding that the advantages of strictly unsectarian education — like other good things — are more likely to be appreciated if it is not forced down the throats
1898, AGE GO HENKY SIDGWICK 565
of people who want something else. Still, if the University system had thus been made completely unsectarian, the
position taken up by Mr. and his allies would be at
any rate compatible with fair and equal treatment of all sects. We might then have said with truth to St. Edmund's House : " This is a strictly undenominational University : we cannot let you in : you will introduce the taint of denominationalism from which we are now free." But we can hardly have the face to say this, with the Church of England established and endowed in the ample and exclusive manner above described. It seems to me that in this state of things common fairness would require us to allow other denominations to establish public hostels, if they like, even if Selwyn College had never been admitted. But to refuse this privilege to other denominations, after granting it to the Church of England, appears to me to be in effect —
though not, of course, in the intention of Mr. and his
friends — an act of gross and palpable partisanship.
Whether such hostels are likely to be founded, if the permission to found them be freely granted, is a different question, which it does not seem to me necessary to decide. But my opinion is that they are not likely to be founded, so long as the Theological teaching in the University and the Colleges is carried on in the thoroughly academic spirit in which it is actually carried on, and is as free as I believe it actually to be from aggressive and proselytising tendencies. So long as this spirit continues to prevail, I think that Pro- testant Nonconformists will generally prefer to send their sons to the older Colleges : and the fact that no one of these denominations has made an attempt to found a denomina- tional hostel, during the fifteen years that have elapsed since the admission of Selwyn, tends strongly to support this view. For it must be remembered that at the time of the controversy over the Ordinance instituting Public Hostels it was assumed as a matter of course — New Liberalism not having yet been invented — that the question practically at issue was the general question of admitting denominational Colleges, not the particular question of admitting Selwyn.
566 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, vn
Perhaps I may be allowed to quote — partly as evidence of this, partly because it expresses the view that I still hold on this general question — the concluding paragraph of a fly- sheet issued at the time of this controversy by the late Rev. Coutts Trotter and myself [on May 31,1882],
The question of tests is more serious.
We agree with the memorialists in holding that the best academic education is to be obtained in institutions where men of different opinions are allowed to mix together on a footing of perfect equality, but we cannot see that it is either just or expedient to deny to others who think differently the right to provide institutions in which they may associate together on such terms as they find suitable. In our view it was right to claim that the advantages of the old foundations should be thrown open to the nation at large : it would be wrong to insist that all the educational institutions of the University should be framed on the model which we think best. If denominational Hostels of a narrow type increase and flourish so as to become an important factor in University life we shall regret the result, but not our votes of next Thursday. Such a state of things would show that the institutions had met a widely-felt want, the satisfaction of which we had neither the right nor, in the end, the power to forbid.
If, on the other hand, as we hope and expect, the impulse to found denominational Hostels should prove to be comparatively weak, and the exclusiveness of such as may be founded should gradually yield to the liberalising influences of the place, we shall have got all we want without feeling that we have tried to interfere with any reasonable experiment, or that we have allowed the stigma of intolerance to rest upon Cambridge liberalism.
But, finally, it is urged that St. Edmund's House is worse than an ordinary denominational College, since it is confined to those preparing for the clerical profession. This seems to me captious. We must take a broad view of the policy of the Church of Rome in reference to Cam- bridge and Oxford, and look at it as a whole : and when we so regard it, the fact that the Church is willing that its lay members should receive their education at the older Colleges surely implies a much larger measure of acceptance on its part of the educational aspects of our system than would
1898, AGE 60 HENEY SIDGWICK 567
be implied in a proposal to found a Koman Catholic hostel for laity and clergy alike.
In June of this year Sidgwick had the pleasure of seeing honorary degrees conferred by the University on his friends Mr. Bryce and Mr. Albert Dicey — eminently persons whom he thought the University honoured itself by honouring.1
To Mrs. William Sidgwick, June 25
Have you seen Bernard Shaw's plays ? He has published them in two volumes, labelled " pleasant " and " unpleasant " respectively ; and the names are quite appropriate. The last in the " pleasant " volume [ You Never Can Tell] amused me much.
To Horatio F. Brown from Cambridge, July 2
I have long been meaning to write to you about your article on Sarpi, which I read twice with much interest. It gives a clear and vivid impression of a striking character and figure. One criticism occurred to me : — the specimens you give of his "ironical humour" on pp. 263, 264, are rather disappointing. . . . On the other hand, the phrase you quote in the preceding paragraph — " the beginning and the end are clear, a safe-conduct and a pyre " — seems to me excellently characteristic of the man and the style that you describe. (And it is a phrase widely applicable to the conduct of the Catholic Church in secular matters.) But the important criticism which I had to make on your essay refers to its historical, not its biographical, aspect. When I say " criticism " I use too pretentious a word. I should rather say a vague sense of disagreement which might have solidified itself into criticism if I had found time to extend my imperfect knowledge of the relevant historical facts. But I am too busy with other matters : so I will only give it you briefly in its vague form. It seems to me that you attach somewhat too much importance to the struggle of Venice with the Pope — in which Sarpi plays a part — con-
1 See chap. vi. pp. 489, 490.
568 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vn
sidered in relation to European history generally. Was not the tendency of the Reformation and its consequences irre- sistible on the side of the secular power ? Was it not certain that when the chaotic conflict came to an end the State, unified on a monarchical basis, would be decisively predominant over the Church — in Catholic as well as Protestant countries alike, speaking broadly ? Take Spain, the leading State undisputedly loyal to Catholicism : it always seemed to me that Philip II. was for practical purposes nearly as autocratic in ecclesiastical affairs as Henry VIII. ! This is, of course, an exaggeration : but at any rate one finds him regulating the details of ecclesiastical discipline, refusing to admit the Pope's bulls and despatches when they contravene his policy, appointing archbishops and bishops, etc. The Inquisition is his instrument, not the Pope's : it is he who gives it orders : he names, dismisses, and controls the inquisitors. In fact, in spite of his fanaticism, one finds him using the Inquisition for purely secular purposes — much to the Pope's disgust — when the instruments of his ordinary administration fail. His fanaticism is intense : but it is limited by a still intenser belief in himself and his sovereign rights.
However, this is becoming a lecture : which is very inappropriate, as I feel you know more about the matter than I do.
I wonder if this will find you still in Venice. We look back with much pleasure to our brief visit — though the cold I caught there lingered beyond the end of our inclement English April ! But I was consoled by many agreeable recollections, including your " casa."
Graham Dakyns came to see me on May 31st, to cele- brate my sixtieth birthday with due solemnity. Do you know the doctrine called ' Christian Science,' which I hear is becoming fashionable? Its creed is that diseases, pains, etc., are illusions which may be dispelled by a sufficiently resolute disbelief in their existence. We agreed that the method was applicable — if not to Gout or Influenza — at any rate to the disease called Old Age.
1898, AGE 60 HENEY SIDGWICK 569
To Bishop Creighton from Cambridge, August 30
[He had sent his book Practical Ethics to the Bishop, who in writing to thank him had said : " But there is a point which you have not touched on — the moral influence on his generation of a public man. Take Bismarck, for instance ; he lowered the tone of European diplomacy. How is this to be set against his positive achievements ? The sort of moral judgment I am frequently led to is of this sort, ' His aims were for the good of his country, as it was then understood, its territorial extension, etc., etc. ; but in pursuing these aims he told so many lies, and did so many brutal actions, and showed such an example of personal selfishness that I do not know whether he did more good to the material interests of his country, or harm to its spiritual growth.' The educational effect of the doings of a prominent man is enormous : how are we to appraise it with other qualities and achievements ? "]
I should have thanked you before for your interesting letter about my little book, but I thought that your holiday would probably be still more " Epicurean " the fewer the letters that intruded into it. So I send this not to be for- warded— nor answered. But I should like to say that the omission you note in my essay on Public Morality is one of which I am quite conscious : and I entirely agreed with what you said about it. The difficulty of weighing material gain against moral loss is one which I was conscious of not being able to deal with in a manner that would satisfy or edify the 'plain man,' for whom my little volume was supposed to be written. I have no moral scales in which I can balance these disparate values : that is, when anything like a delicate balance is required. Practically, I find that when my mind comes to a clear decision on a particular problem of this class, it is not because I can establish any sort of ' ratio of exchange ' — so much material gain = so much moral loss — but because one or other of the values compared, either the gain or the loss, seems to me much more certain than the other in the particular case.
As regards Acton's view of the historian's duty to pro- nounce moral judgments, I am inclined to say that it is not the historian's business to be either judge or advocate, but
570 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, vn
merely to give the reader such means of judging — if the reader wishes to judge — as his superior knowledge enables him to give. The plain man is sure to want to judge, and may be left to do this ; but certainly the contemporary moral code, so far as this is ascertainable, is a historical fact which he ought to know before judging, and it is a part of the historian's business to ascertain whatever can be known about this. But on this point I think we are agreed ; at any rate I have always liked your method of dealing with such problems — of which there were plenty in your period.
To Mrs. William Sidgwick from Cambridge, October 6
I came back here on Monday to work at a Trinity Fellowship Dissertation on which I have to report, and look over examination papers. . . . The work of the term is already upon us both, so I fear we cannot get away for the smallest visit. We have been spending most of September at Whittingehame ; and last Sunday we went to the Bryces, who have built themselves a rural house in Sussex, near Forest Kow ; attractive place with views and woods. This closed our holiday. ... I am sorry I cannot come to stay with you, and would come if I could possibly squeeze out the time, but I am plagued with a set of new lectures.
The new set of lectures was a course on meta- physics. Since 1895 he had been lecturing mainly on Ethics and Politics ; in 1898-99 and the following year he lectured on Ethics and on Metaphysics, and in the Easter term of 1899 also gave a course of lectures on Political Science and Sociology.
To A. C. Benson, October 7
I hope you are getting to the end of your labours * in a cheerful frame of mind — if any book was ever finished [otherwise] than in a state of dissatisfaction (none of mine ever were, except a " Manual ").
1 The Life of his father.
1898, AGE 60 HENKY SIDGWICK 571
I owe you thanks for sending nie your " Memorial Ode ' (4th of June). Why I did not send them before I can hardly explain, but I thought it excellent, omne tulit punctum ; it was both moving and edifying.
To F. W. Cornish from Cambridge, December 1 8
I am much interested to learn that your book [Sunning- well] is so near publication, and have no doubt that I shall like to read what your unorthodox Canon has to say for himself — though, as you say, I fear I shall not approve of his unorthodoxy and Canonicity combined. I have much sympathy both with Anglicanism and what F. Harrison called " Neochristianity," but the mixture of the two is liable to result in some form of the " pia fraus " which it [is] my special aim to urge mankind to leave behind. The times past of our well-intentioned deceptions God winked at — at least I hope so — but now commandeth all men to worship with sincerity and truth. You must remember that it is " mon metier d'etre " moraliste.
I wish sincerely that we could come to you, as you kindly propose. But this Christmas vacation I have to devote to " labor improbus " on my metaphysical lectures for next term. The only break I can allow myself is a day at Oxford to keep Arthur's " Silver Wedding," December 30, which I shall extend to two days to go round by London to see [Kegan] Paul. We must meet after your book is out !
To Wilfrid Ward, in Italy, from Cambridge, December 21
What you say x about my article leaves me nothing to quarrel with — at any rate at present ; perhaps I may find some ground for picking a quarrel when I see [your] article in its final form ; but at present I do not find it. I may possibly write something in answer to what you say, as the Editor of the International Journal of Ethics — in which my article on " Ethics of Conformity " appeared — has asked me for another article ; and I am rather inclined to write one
1 In the draft of an article on "Ethics of Religious Conformity," which appeared in the Quarterly Review for January 1899.
572 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, vn
explaining the purely ethical standpoint of the former, and its independence of any theological assumptions.1 The struggle between Freedom and Authority, in this depart- ment, must certainly go on, and I do not pretend to forecast its ultimate issue, though quite willing to discuss sympathetically any suggestion of a modus vivendi between the two principles ; but my special point is that it will be earned on under better conditions, intellectual and moral, if we uphold and enforce the simple ethical demand for sincerity in solemn utterances of theological beliefs. However, this does not concern the Synthetic Society, and I shall not drag it into anything I may write for them.
To Wilfrid Ward from Cambridge, December 28
Your letter on Italian politics is very interesting. Two points occurred to me on reading it.
I had always supposed the Catholics, though prevented by principle from taking part in revolutionary movements, still looked on them not without satisfaction, in the hope that if the existing political order were overthrown, some form of Federation might be attained in which the Pope might recover his old territory or a part of it. I always thought this chimerical, but I supposed it was more or less in the minds of the Catholics. Now your account does not suggest this ; on the other hand, it does not expressly exclude it. If such ideas exist, they would seem to render any such modus vivendi as you suggest of more doubtful value from the point of view of the partisans of the existing regime ; as any concession might be used as a basis for more effective subsequent action, in case the revolu- tionary opportunity offered. But if this is not so, and the Catholics would sincerely accept an arrangement that would secure the Pope's independence in the Leonine City, this certainly seems a small price to pay for definitive harmony.
But even as things are, is there really any ground for fear of interference with the Pope's spiritual authority? I mean has the Italian monarchy ever done anything that
1 This article was not written.
1899, AGE eo HENRY SIDGWICK 573
would give occasion for this fear ? Or is the fear [this,] that it might do something, if a 'modus vivendi were established that did not provide sufficient guarantee for independence ?
To Wilfrid Ward, January 16, 1899
I shall be happy to accept the honour of being Vice- Chairman of the Synthetic Society, if it does not involve an implied obligation to be present at all the meetings. For I expect to be out of England between March 16 and April 24. I could come, so far as I know, to meetings not within these limits.
. . . As far as I see at present, my paper is likely to turn on the profound difference between modern scientific authority and theological authority, the former being the unconstrained consensus of unfettered inquirers after truth, and the latter being — but the adjectives here require careful thinking over. However, you see the general idea of the thing. Still I should like to be free to change my views after the debate.
In the paper which he read in February (see Appendix I. p. 608) he avoided the difficulty by merely putting the proposition in the negative : —
The agreement of Theologians (he says) has not the characteristics that I have given above, as essential to the authority of a scientific ' consensus of experts.' That is, it is not the unconstrained agreement of individual thinkers, pursuing truth with unfettered independence of judgment and unfettered mutual criticism, encouraged to probe and test the validity of received doctrines as uncompromisingly and severely as their reason may prompt, and to declare any conclusion they may form with the utmost openness and unreserve.
The intention "to be out of England" in the Easter vacation was not carried out. Probably it was an often planned but never accomplished visit to Greece that he had in view, but early in February he had a rather severe attack of tonsilitis which threw his work
574 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vn
into arrears, and made it advisable to shorten his holiday. This was taken in Cornwall, the Arthur Sidgwicks joining him and his wife as in the previous year. They visited Fowey, Falmouth, the Lizard, Truro, Tintagel. The weather was favourable, and April is a good time to see Cornwall, for the gorse was in great beauty. The new cathedral of Truro, although only the choir and transepts were then finished, made a great impression on Sidgwick. He was naturally specially interested in it on account of its connection with Archbishop Benson, who was the prime mover in getting it built, and as a memorial to whom it has since been completed.
To Lord Tennyson, then Governor of South Australia, from Cambridge, June 28, 1899
I meant to write and thank you for the South Australian newspapers, proclaiming the glories of your arrival and reception : I was impressed with the smallness of the planet by receiving in Cambridge on May 13 journals bearing date April 11 ; I suppose in the twentieth century we shall be making Long Vacation trips to the Antipodes. This impulse was crushed by the business of the term ; but I received a second a few days ago from the news of the New South Wales vote on Federation. The majority might have been larger, but I suppose it is decisive, — and satis- factory in view of the popular force of the arguments, financial and sentimental, used on the other side. I suppose the establishment of the Australian commonwealth is now a certainty : and am much pleased on all grounds.
I thought your speech — besides being sympathetic and stirring — showed the same excellent faculty of selecting topics interesting to your audience, that was shown on a larger scale in your biography. I think the dictum —
All styles are good except the style that bores, is particularly applicable to public speaking : and though many superior persons cannot manage to avoid the exception, I don't think you are in any danger of failing.
1899, AGE 61 HENEY SIDGWICK 575
There was only one sentence in the speech — about passing from party conflicts to a serener clime — which seemed to me to indicate a resolute preference of the ideal to the actual, at least according to my information ; but I will hope that your experience has so far confirmed your anticipation, and that the political barometer of South Australia is " set fair."
Our internal politics are quite " serene " — not to say dull — at present, the ecclesiastical crisis being temporarily suspended ; and the slight breezes of excitement that arise in them — as (e.g.) on the question whether women are to be Aldermen in the new London boroughs — must seem parochial at the Antipodes. But on foreign affairs we have, I think, more anxiety than the newspapers show. No one that I know is at all happy about the Transvaal affair : after all that has happened, we do not like even threatening war — much less actual war — for grievances that do not amount to a proper casus belli : and yet it is difficult to see how it is to be avoided if Kruger is obstinate. However, there is a tolerably prevalent patriotic disposition to support the Government through the crisis.
In the way of books — the only great excitement has been the Browning Letters, which I think were published before you went. "When I say " great excitement," I mean to a limited circle ; judging from my acquaintance, in order to be really excited, one must previously have been strongly interested in both the poets as poets : otherwise the interest is not sufficient to carry the reader through two volumes of lovers' iterations. But those who (like me) have fulfilled this condition have been more moved and absorbed by the book than by any recent novel : though I hope it will not be drawn into a precedent : I don't like the idea of future poets having an eye to posthumous fame in composing future love letters.
Morris's biography is also interesting — even to a man who has never been able to care much about aesthetic paper- hanging — and well done on the whole, especially the literary part. The Life of Sir Robert Peel (vols. ii. and iii.) is also
576 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vn
well done, and has much interested the statesmen of my acquaintance and the Master of Trinity and me : but I don't hear the world talking much about it.
As for Australia — I find that the English world has some interest in Federation, but more in the incontestable superiority of the Eleven. In fact, scientific minds are beginning to seek for an explanation of the phenomenon ; but I am not aware that they have found any yet !
Send me a newspaper or two from time to time when they have anything about you.
The federation of the Australian Colonies inter- ested Sidgwick greatly. He believed that in federa- tion there and elsewhere lay the best hopes for the peace and progress of the world.
The only letters we have between this and Christmas Day 1899 are to Mr. Wilfrid Ward about a more systematic scheme of discussion by the Synthetic Society, of which Sidgwick was to be President and Canon Gore Vice-president in 1900. In the words of Dr. Talbot, then Bishop of Rochester, the Synthetic Society " benefited greatly by the quiet way in which [Sidgwick] introduced order into our rather rambling discussions, and, along with the quality of his own contributions, by his earnest and hopeful desire to draw some result out of our work, which should in some degree correspond with its object of helping men of different kinds to some joint constructive thought."
He was at Whittingehame in the autumn of this year, and on his way home stayed with his old friend, the Rev. E. M. Young, at Rothbury.
To Lord Tennyson, in Australia, from Terling Place,
Christmas Day, 1899
I should have written to you before, but I have been for some months in the exceptional position — among my friends — of disliking and disapproving of this war and fore- boding that it will end in disgrace and disaster to England.
1899, AGE ei HENEY SIDGWICK 577
And I felt, somehow, reluctant to send unpatriotic grum- blings and gloomy forebodings to the Antipodes, which might arrive just when there was the most palpable need of consentaneous resolution and cheerful equanimity. But now that the first part of my Cassandra-like prophecies — those relating to the numbers, stubbornness, and fighting qualities of the Boers — have become unmistakable facts, the divergence of opinion between myself and my fellow- countrymen is much reduced. They know now the sort of thing that they have gone in for : and I admit that I overestimated the danger of foreign interference, at any rate for a time. I still fear that it may come when we least expect it : but for a time we seem to be fortunate in the desire of the French to have a successful Great Exhibition next year, and the genuinely pacific aspirations of the Czar, seconded by the importance to Russian diplomacy of avoiding an alliance of England and Japan against her. So I have become somewhat cheerfuller, while my friends have gradually lowered their spirits degree by degree ; so that I do not suppose this letter will be gloomier than others that reach you.
As for the causes of the war, that has now become a historian's question, — but I sometimes wonder whether the historian will find the right answer to it ! whether he will not agree with all the members of the Opposition whom I meet and the best-informed continental newspapers (e.g. the Temps) and regard the war as Chamberlain's war. Now I am convinced that if it is any one man's war — I do not say it is, as that manner of personifying the causes of im- portant political events is always largely erroneous — but if it is one man's war it is Milner's, not Chamberlain's. Chamberlain only comes second in responsibility through the fearlessness (and perhaps what the Opposition journals call " pushfulness ") with which he carried out the policy urged on him by Milner.
But I gather from the stirring speech you sent me — which I read with much interest — that you are inclined to take the same view. Well, at any rate the war has mani-
2p
578 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vn
tested the force and genuineness of the Imperial sentiment in the Colonies ; that is the brightest aspect of the whole matter.
I hope your affairs are still prosperous and your popularity undiminished, and no troubles or alarms about health or other domestic matters. Have you not had a constitutional crisis and change of ministry ? I wonder on what principles that is managed. When I read Todd l some years ago, it appeared to me by no means plain sailing : but perhaps experience has now reduced it to rule.
Of literature I have only to say that Stevenson's Letters seem to me more attractive than I expected. His drolling to his friends is sometimes excellent : and where it is rather strained, it interests one in another way — suggesting the pathos and the courage of his struggle with disease.
To Professor Maitland, in the Canary Islands, from Cambridge, January 5, 1900
When I got your postcard I tried to make a rational choice between Jargon and Verbosity in the abstract, but 1 did not find it possible. They have to be presented in the Concrete before the faculty of choice can make any pro- nouncement. There are writers who prefer the two in combination, and they are by no means irreconcilable. Have you still any remembrance of Sir William Hamilton, who, I think, was still living an examinational life — if no other — in your day ? I seem to remember that, in a polemic against Brown, he accuses that philosopher of " evacuating the phenomenon of everything in it that desiderates explanation." Don't you call this J. and V. ?
I think if I were you I would use " organic idea " = conception of society as an organism, if, when you imagine the probable reader of your book (when published), he seems to your imagination intelligent enough to understand " organic idea " in this sense. (Here is V. with a ven- geance.) What I mean is, that I for many years committed the error of imagining an ideal reader of my book and writing for him. Since I took to writing for the probably
1 Todd's Parliamentary Government in the British Colonies.
1900, AGE 61 HENRY SIDGWICK 579
actual reader, I think iny philosophic style has exhibited a slight modicum of improvement. (V. again I)
I hope you are enjoying physical life and gaining strength. Social life, I suppose, few Englishmen who read the newspapers are exactly enjoying except the very pessimistic who " always told you so " and the very optimistic who are as convinced as they ever were that everything will come right in the end. The intermediate majority feel gloomier, I think, than Englishmen have felt since some time in the first decade of the nineteenth century. The only thing that affords us a mild solatium of entertainment are the letters in the newspapers of people who are convinced that we are now living in the Twentieth Century. It is obvious to the reader that the conviction came first, as a consequence of the momentous change from "18 — " to "19 — ," and the reasons have been sought for afterwards. But there is a certain piquancy in studying a fairly well-sustained debate with the valid arguments all on one side.
Literature : — Stevenson's Letters excellent : Stephen Phillips' Drama [Paolo and Francesco], I fear, overrated : S 's infernally bad ; don't remember anything else.
To H. G. DaJcyns from Cambridge, February 3 As for us we are fairly prosperous, but neither just quite as well as we could wish, sometimes mildly anxious about ourselves and sometimes about each other : I mention this, because ideas of giving up work before long hover before our minds. But I do not at present think that they are coming to much : I cannot quite persuade myself that Newnham would get on as well without my wife, and for myself, I cannot resign my chair before 1902 without throwing a financial burden on the University or myself.1 So I think I am fixed till 1902 ; but then change may be imminent !
I mention this sort of thing to prepare you for the fact that my opus magnum is not getting on. Partly, however,
1 On account of his arrangement about his own chair and that of Mental Philosophy and Logic see p. 373, footnote.
580 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vn
the reason is that my Methods of Ethics wants a sixth edition, and I hope to goodness it will be the last wanted, as 1 am very tired of the book, and think the world ought to be.
As for the War. I find my view is suspiciously like that expressed in the lines of the Biglow Papers : —
Ez fer the war, I go agin it, —
Thet is, I think thet, bein' in it, The best way is to fight it thru.
In prose : I thought the war unjustifiable on any principle of International right, and on the whole indefensible on grounds of policy : though I admit the situation a difficult one. I incline to forecast that the Republics will achieve their independence, most probably through the intervention, direct or indirect, of Europe. But I agree with the Government in thinking that this, if it comes, will be the beginning of the end for the British Empire. So, on the whole, I keep silence as far as I can and read as little as I can of the newspapers, and hope that I am a Pessimist !
To Mrs. William Sidgwick, March 2
We have been busy about various things as usual — I mean the kind of things that seem very unimportant when they are over but entail a good deal of correspondence. Consequently, or on account of the spring, or of old age, we have both of us been mildly unwell. . . . But the short term will soon end, and the weather is more normal.
I wonder if we shall agree about the Archbishop's Life. I gather from what you wrote to Nora that we should agree that it ought to have been shorter — but that is almost a common form for criticism of biographies, especially of eccle- siastical personages. But, apart from this, I thought it a very good piece of work — in fact almost all that was the composition of A. C. B. himself seemed to me excellent — except perhaps that there was too much about the family of Sidgwicks ! But the reminiscences of other persons are always very various in quality : and I am inclined to think
1900, AGE 61 HENRY SIDGWICK 581
that it inevitably brings the work down to a lower level to insert them to any large extent. It is astonishing how incapable some superior people are of writing this kind of thing. . . .
The students have just been celebrating the relief of Ladysmith by a bonfire, which, Nora says, has gone off without disaster ! I suppose the War will now become a slow affair : for which I am not sorry, as I have an " early Victorian " dislike of the whole affair.
Sidgwick was a good deal interested at this time in the question of founding in this country an Academy designed to occupy in relation to depart- ments of scientific inquiry (using scientific in the widest sense) other than mathematics and natural science, a position analogous to that occupied by the Royal Society in relation to these latter studies. Correspondence about this was doubtless one of the "various things" about which he had "been busy." He saw the difficulties, but, like Lord Acton, who also died before the charter was granted, believed that the organisation into a body resembling the Royal Society, of those engaged in studying History. Philology, Philosophy, Economics, might render valu- able aid in the promotion of these studies. The British Academy did not receive its charter till the summer of 1902, nearly two years after his death, but he had taken so leading a part in the preliminary dis- cussion that he has been commemorated in the pages of its Proceedings as one who would not only have been among its first members, but one of those most certain to exert influence within the body.
To Professor Sully from Cambridge, March 29 I should rather like to explain why, after thinking over your paper [a petition about stopping the war], I could not sign it. Perhaps it is partly my personal con- nection with the Government which makes me think, in considering a question of this kind, " What should I do if
582 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vn
I were the Government ? " Now there is no doubt that if I were constituted the Government now, and took up the matter at this stage, I should not think it right to bring the war to an end except under conditions that gave adequate security against its recurrence, provided for the equality of Dutch and English throughout South Africa, and also for the payment of some part of the cost by the gold-bearing districts. I should think this my duty, taking up the matter at this stage, in spite of my strong condemnation of the diplomacy that brought the war about. This being so, I have tried hard to think of any conditions that we could offer the Boers such that a " brave people, jealous of their independence, could be expected " to acquiesce in, which will also realise the ends above mentioned, especially security against the recurrence of the war.
I think that the only terms England can offer, con- sistently with the attainment of practically necessary ends, are such as the Boers cannot be expected to accept at present, except from hopelessness of foreign aid — which I suppose is a state of mind that they have not yet arrived at : nor do I think I should be hopeless in their place.
I have tried hard to think of any arrangement recon- ciling adequate security for England with effective inde- pendence for the Boers : but I cannot satisfy myself with any plan that has occurred to me. And, judging from the utterances of representative men, the majority of the Liberal Party are much in the same condition.
This is why I decided not to sign.
To Mrs. Wilfrid Ward from Cambridge, March 31
I send back the Fioretti} ... I am ashamed of having kept [it] so long . . . but I found my Italian a little more rusty than I had supposed, and only managed to read slowly. I am sincerely obliged to you for directing my attention to it. It has — or rather the first portion of it has for me — a quite unique and remarkable charm. By the first portion I mean
1 / Fioretti di S. Francesco.
1900, AGE 61 HENRY SIDGWICK 583
rather more than half the first volume, i.e. the chapters that relate to S. Francis himself. When one passes in reading to the narratives relating to miracles and visions of other " frati " I find that the peculiar attraction of the Franciscan stories has vanished ; it seems to depend on the individuality of the man. Compare the preaching to the birds in Chap. XVI. and the preaching to the fishes in Chap. XL. I do not quite know why the effect of the former is powerful and moving, while the latter is irresistibly comic : but so I find it.
I also much prefer the naivete of the earlier chapters to the more elaborate and precise style of the " Considera- tions " in the second volume, with their somewhat insistent glorification of the saint and his order. But this is of course the view of an outsider who cannot approach the topic of the Stigmata without a rather definite scientific presumption.
To H. Gr. Dakyns from Cambridge on May 7
Much interested in what you say about Andromache [Mr. Gilbert Murray's play]. I read it — at Miss Harrison's suggestion — and thought it quite a success: but my enthusiasm is a degree or two below yours. It was very spirited and excellent reading : but it seemed to me that between deliberate erudite barbarism and spontaneous natural modernity what we used to call the ' Hellenic Spirit' had somehow slipped through. Also the characters appeared to me somewhat too unattractive for a play intended for the stage — except Andromache, who again seems to me somewhat depayse'e in her surroundings ; there- fore not quite so real as the rest. However, all this means that I did not get the joy out of it that you did !
CHAPTER VIII
LAST MONTHS
EARLY in the month of May 1900 Sidgwick, by his Cambridge physician's advice, consulted an eminent surgeon l in London, and learnt the serious nature of the illness which had recently affected him. He was suffering from an internal cancer, which must ulti- mately prove fatal, and which within a very short time would necessitate an operation of a grave character. For nearly a fortnight he told no one but his wife. It was easier to carry on life in a normal manner when no one knew. But he began to set his affairs in order. He felt full of vigour and vitality, and minded very much leaving this life and all the work he was doing and was in- terested in ; and he was especially troubled because he was leaving so much literary work unfinished. There was the book on the Development of European Polity,' already in an advanced state, but which he had had to lay aside, feeling that he could not give to it the time and labour required to make it as scholarly a work as he desired while giving courses of lectures on metaphysics ; there was an Introduction to Philo- sophy 3 which he was gradually evolving into a book. And in a more fragmentary state there were other metaphysical lectures which in his own mind were
1 Mr. Allingham. 2 Published in 1903.
3 Edited by Dr. James Ward, and published in 1902 as Philosophy, its Scope and Relations.
584
1900, AGE 61 HENPvY SIDGWICK 585
books in embryo.1 He did what he could to arrange these and his other papers, fearing, what proved to be the case, that after the operation he might not be able to do any more work ; but he had promised to give an address on the Philosophy of T. H. Green to the Oxford Philosophical Society on May 20, the pre- paration of which required time, and prevented his spending as much time in putting his papers into order as he would have liked.
On the 12th of May there was a meeting of the Newnham Council, at which it was agreed, though unfortunately not at that time unanimously, that the College should undertake and endeavour to carry on a scheme of research fellowships which had been in- itiated by the Associates of the College,2 and in which Sidgwick was keenly interested. He believed it to be most important, both in the educational work of the College and for the maintenance of its proper academic position, that women capable of advancing knowledge should be attracted to it, and be enabled to carry on their work after the degree course.
He had had the satisfaction of seeing another great step accomplished in the history of Newnham College, though one of a more material kind. The College, which had been built on leasehold land, had at the end of 1899 been able to acquire the freehold of its buildings and gardens. Newnham College was a part of his life's work which had developed beyond all that had been hoped, and which he could feel he was leaving in a stable condition.
On May 19 he went to Oxford for his last Ad Eundem dinner, he and his wife staying with the Diceys. On the Sunday evening he read the paper
1 What seemed available of these lectures has been edited by Dr. Ward, and published with some essays from Mind and elsewhere under the title Lectures on the Philosophy of Kant and other Philosophical Lectures and Essays, 1905.
2 See p. 544, footnote 2. The first fellowship had been given by Mrs. Herringham, the same generous friend who is endeavouring to secure their endowment now.
586 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, vm
on Green to the Oxford Philosophical Society.1 It was to be his last address, but of this, or of there being anything amiss, his audience had no suspicion. During this visit he also attended a meeting to establish the Mind Association, which was to take over from him and carry on the philosophical journal Mind*
On the Sunday morning he told his brother Arthur what was impending.
After his return to Cambridge he put in writing directions about his papers, in which he asked his colleague and friend Dr. James Ward to take charge of the philosophical papers, describing what he had intended to do with them, and asking him to publish what he thought desirable. To Miss E. E. C. Jones he entrusted his ethical papers,3 with full confidence in her judgment as to the question wThether any printed articles on Ethics or any unprinted matter
1 This paper was published in Mind for January 1901, and has since been included in the volume The Philosophy of Kant, etc., published 1905. We are indebted to Mr. F. C. S. Schiller for the following account of the meeting: "The gathering on the evening of Sunday, 20th May, was a distinguished one, as the author and the subject (The Philosophy of T. H. Green) had attracted the chief representatives of absolute 'idealism,' from the Master of Balliol downwards. After a few prefatory remarks, in which he deprecated the intention of merely dialectical refuta- tion, Sidgwick read what seemed to me — perhaps because I felt a strange touch of solemnity which I could not account for — the most lucid, sincere, and impressive piece of philosophic criticism it had ever been my privilege to hear. Its burden was that there existed a fundamental incoherence in Green's thinking. When he had finished, the disciples of Green got up one after the other and — admitted it ! Only they thought that it might be cured by going on from Green in various directions to Hegel, to natural science, etc. Finally a prominent Hegelian made the inevitable suggestion that such fundamental incoherence merely indicated that the region of the ultimate difficulties of thought had been reached, and inferred that both sides of the contradiction should be sustained. This gave Sidgwick his opportunity. After replying to the other criticisms, he went on to say that ' as for the remarks of the last speaker, he had never been able to make out from the school to which he evidently belonged how they managed to distinguish the contradictions which they took to be evidence of error from those which they regarded as intimations of higher truth. ' As he sat down amid laughter and applause, an eminent tutor pertinently remarked to me that this showed that Henry was not wholly devoid of the Sidgwickedness of his family." " See p. 512.
3 Some of these, namely lectures on The Ethics of T. H. Green, H. Spencer, and J. Martincau, were arranged for publication by Miss Jones, and pub- lished in 1902.
1900, AGE 6i HENEY SIDGWICK 587
should be published, and he also asked her to com- plete the revision of Methods of Ethics for the sixth edition which he had in hand. He asked Dr. Keynes to see through the press a third edition of his Political Economy which was now demanded ; and the Development of European Polity he asked his wife to publish, if, after obtaining expert opinion, it seemed advisable.1
To F. W. H. Myers on May 24
I went to Leckhampton this afternoon to tell you face to face our trouble. But you were away, and I must write.
I have an organic disorder which, the expert said more than a fortnight ago, must soon render an operation neces- sary. I am, by my Cambridge physician's advice, going to see him again to-morrow. He may say " at once." I believe that the chances of the Operation are on the whole favourable: I mean that the probabilities are that I shall not die under it : but how long I shall live after it is uncertain. At any rate it will be only an invalid half-life.
I have hoped till to-day to defer telling this till after your brother's visit. I have shrunk from grieving those who love me. But to-day I am telling brothers and sisters and one or two intimate friends. Only these ; please tell no one. We may of course have to put our visitors off. If so, we shall telegraph to you to-morrow afternoon. If not, all will go on as arranged, and in that case I shall probably come to the Synthetic. . . .
Life is very strange now: very terrible: but I try to meet it like a man, my beloved wife aiding me. I hold on — or try to hold on — to duty and love ; and through love to touch the larger hope.
I wish now I had told you before, as this may be fare- well. Your friendship has had a great place in my life, and as I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I feel your affection. Pray for me.
This may be farewell, but I hope not.
1 This was done, and it appeared, as already stated, in 1903.
588 HENKY SIDGWICK CHAP, vm
It was decided that the operation should be per- formed on the 31st. Sidgwick presided at the meet- ing of the Synthetic Society on the 25th. The paper for that evening was one by Arthur Balfour on prayer. "Thus it came about," says Myers, "that my friend's last utterance — not public, indeed, but spoken intimately to a small company of like-minded men — was an appeal for pure spirituality in all human supplication — a gentle summons to desire only such things as cannot pass away/' 1
F. Myers's brother Ernest was to have stayed with the Sidgwicks for the following week-end, but the time was so short and there was so much to do that this plan was changed, and Mr. Ernest Myers went to his brother's at Leckhampton House instead, Sidgwick coming, as previously arranged, to a luncheon party there on the 27th. A friend who was present wrote afterwards : —
The last of many lessons that I learnt from him, the most beautiful and the most unforgettable, was at the lunch at Leckhampton on May 27. He taught me there how calmly and manfully death and suffering could be faced, as he recited without a break in his voice the lines which I could hardly bear to hear, from " Super Flumina Babylonis,"2 ending
Where the light of the life of him is on all past things, Death only dies.
I think that the sound of his voice and the light on his face will be before me when the call comes for me ; and I shall be grateful then for his death as well as for his life.
To H. G. Dakyns, May 29
I have sad words to say, and it grieves me to think of the grief they will cause you. I learnt three weeks ago that I have an incurable complaint, . . . the fatal termination of
1 See Myers's Fragments.
2 This poem of Swinburne's had come up in the course of conversation, probably primarily from the point of view of its metre.
1900, AGE 6i HENRY SIDGWICK 589
which may, however, be averted for the time by a surgical operation, which is now arranged for Thursday. If all goes as well as possible, I shall be in bed in a nursing home in London for about three weeks ; and then I am encouraged to look forward to a period of invalid life which may extend even to years, though it may be much briefer.
All this is hard to bear ; I shall try to bear it as a man should.
I think much of old times and old friends and especially of your unfailing love and sympathy. It is through human love that I try to touch the Divine and
faintly trust the larger hope.
Nora will tell you how things go with . us ; it is possible that you may be able to come to see me in London.
Good-bye, old and dear friend, — not, 1 will hope, a final farewell, though a solemn one. Think of me in my trial : pray for me, if you are moved to prayer. Give your wife my love.
To Sir George Trevelyan, May 29
... If, therefore, I have the best fortune, this need not be ' farewell ' absolutely. But if it should be farewell, think of me as one to whom your friendship has been an unfailing source of delight and profit for more than forty years ; and who knows that you forgive him if he has ever unintentionally offended you in anything.
My thoughts go back to the old days when we walked round the cloisters and talked of Life and the spirit in which it should be lived. You have fulfilled your promise better than I : and I pray that you may have the serene old age that I have vainly hoped for myself. Good-bye, dear friend. Tell your wife, and give her my love.
He called on old friends in Cambridge to take leave of them, wrote to the Vice-Chancellor resigning his professorship, and on the 30th left Cambridge, as it proved finally, in order to go into the nursing home in London where the operation was to be per- formed by Mr. Allingham the next morning. He
590 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vm
dined that night with his brother-in-law, and never was his conversation more brilliant than at that little family party — only Arthur and Alice Balfour and Sidgwick and his wife present — in the large dining- room at 10 Downing Street.
To H, F. Brown from 18 Lanc/lium Street on June 1 (a short note dictated)
I have neglected to write to you either about " A Shrop- shire Lad " or your own poems, which duly arrived, but you will forgive me when I tell you that I have been in sudden great trouble. . . . The operation has now been performed, and I am told that all is going well. Still 1 fear we may never meet again, and your friendship as I have looked forward to it in the coming years is one of the things that I regret to leave in a world where I have found it sweet to live.
To Miss Cannan from 1 8 Langham Street, June 8
So far 1 am told everything has gone well. If nothing untoward occurs I may hope to be able to walk about in a fortnight's time. At present I dictate this in bed, where, moreover, I am confined to two positions. I am trying to learn patience, but I fear I have not progressed very far, and sixty-two is rather a late age to begin to learn it.
We were very sorry to hear of your illness and trouble, and are glad to be able to think of you as now strong again, and able to enjoy the beauty of the Grasmere spring.
I thought it best to resign my professorship at once, and so be free from all responsibility in the matter ; but I am not without hope of being quite able to do work after the Long Vacation, though, of course, it will be only literary work.
To Wilfrid Ward, from 1 8 Langham Street, June 1 1
I must write a line to thank you for your sympathy. I
believe that everything is going well with me now in the
sense that I may hope in a fortnight or so to be restored to
the ranks of the people who meet their friends in the
1900, AGE 62 HENRY SIDGWICK 591
streets, and may do some little work. Meanwhile, if you have a spare half-hour to bestow on me any time during the next ten days, I shall be very glad to have a talk. I often think of the work we have been trying to do together, and hope it may come to something good with or without my aid.
Many friends, old and new, visited him during his recovery from the operation, and he very much enjoyed their society. The Bishop of Birmingham (Canon Gore), in the speech at the Memorial meeting from which we have already quoted, spoke of a visit he had made as follows :—
But, of course, it was impossible to know him without feeling that incomparably the most impressive thing about him was his character. We talk in a familiar way about the world, the flesh, and the devil. One could not know him without thinking that neither the world, the flesh, nor the devil had any place in him or about him. There was in him an extraordinary simplicity and goodness. When I came away from the last interview with him — after the operation from which reprieve was hoped, but which in the event proved to be not much more than the prelude to the end — after that last interview, when he had talked with his habitual grace and vigour and cheerfulness, and with a most moving courage in the face of death, there was only one thought which came to my mind, in which I seemed in the least degree able to sum up and express the impression which was left upon me, and it was that most sacred of all promises — " Blessed are the pure in heart ; for they shall see God."
One visit with which he was greatly pleased was that of Sir William Harcourt, who came to bring him an official message from his beloved ' Apostles ' Society, at whose annual dinner, the last of the century, Sir William presided early in June.
To F. Myers from 1 8 Langham Street on June 2 5 I send herewith your two books. Many thanks.
592 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vm
" Helplessness of Miss Pick " is quite first-rate : I have not read anything better since my stay here began. The actual date of our departure from London is rather uncertain : but my convalescence is supposed to be steady. This is my first letter written with my own hand !
To Baron F. von Hugel from 1 8 Langham Street, June 3 0
Though I am not quite up to serious correspondence yet, I cannot refrain from dictating a few lines to thank you for your very kind and interesting letter. Since I learnt some eight weeks ago that I had an incurable disease, and could only look forward at the best to a period of semi-invalid existence, uncertain in quality and in duration, the aims and aspirations, ambitions, hopes, and pleasures that for so many years have centred in my intellectual work have become dim and pale : and one effect of this is that I value all the more the kindness of my friends. Hence you will believe that what you say of me in your letter has given me profound gratification. I feel indeed that your praise is quite beyond my deserts ; but at any rate you characterise my ideal ; and it is a deep satisfaction to any one who has to look back on his life's work as something nearly finished to think that the incompleteness of his work and the imper- fection of his manner of performing it have not altogether obscured his ideal from the recognition of his fellow-men.1
What I may be able to do in the future is as yet quite uncertain. As soon as I am physically strong enough I shall endeavour to return to habits of daily work, but I am warned against anything like fatigue. I shall be very sorry if I am not able to write something more on the subjects on which we have exchanged ideas at the Synthetic ; but I am afraid that any contribution I can make will be only frag- mentary.
To F. Myers from Langham Street on July 3
This is the last letter I date from this address. Looking
1 Baron von Hugel had referred to "the noble spirit of beautiful dis- interestedness, candour, and courage, and chivalrous courtesy which has constantly shone out from your work."
1900, AGE 62 HENEY SIDGWICK 593
back, it seems a long time since my (physically) normal life was closed on my sixty-second birthday by the operation ; but it is really only thirty-three days, and these have been entirely free from pain and fairly free from discomfort, and full of kindness of friends and acquaintances. To-day, at 3.25, I go to Margate. . . . The Cliftonwlle Hotel will be our address till further notice (probably for the fortnight of our stay). So if the spirit moves you to pay that brief visit of which you spoke, and other duties allow, you will know where to come.
My future is still obscure, and I understand that no one can forecast either the quality or duration of the fragment of life that remains to me : but doctor and nurses combine to assure me that I have done well so far in the way of convalescence. . . .
" There is a courage that from need began." It is rather surprising, when I look back, that I never personally felt the need of it till now. But it is something to have felt it sympathetically : so that the need is at once familiar and new.
To H. F. Brown from, Margate, July 6
Your last delightful letter, bringing the flavour and spirit of Alpine solitudes, reached me in London just before I was bidden to transfer myself to this Isle of Thanet. 'Tis only for the physical qualities of the air that I have come : so I will not try to send you in return the spirit and flavour of Margate. But in fact I am not in a position to do this : as I have had to come — in search of an invalid's comforts — to the most fashionable hotel : and the real flavour of Margate is to be found in the holiday -making of quite unfashionable people.
My journey hither was supposed to commence the last stage of my — ' convalescence ' we call it, hopefully, though the degree of health ultimately recoverable is, we know, uncertain. But it is something to be able to lunch, dine, and walk about among healthy human beings without a marked sense of dissimilarity. (If this reads rather morose,
2Q
594 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vm
set it down to the vain desires of Alpine scenery and tramps that your letter has excited !)
To Sir George Trevelyan from Margate, July 11 (about R. E. Prothero's edition of Byron's Letters and Journals, which Sir George had sent him).
I had to drop the book for a time at my London abode, as reading in the recumbent attitude strained my eyes, and the print of the notes was too small. Now some of the notes — e.g. on Thomas Moore, Robert Southey, etc. — are not indispensable, but others on minor personages were more necessary to full enjoyment. Having returned to a normal amount of upright posture, I have taken to it again, and find it fascinating reading. What striking contrasts there are : such mtality and so little sense of enjoyment of life, so complete independence of genius in literary products — after Childe Harold is reached — and yet such genuine deference to the opinion of smaller men. This latter contrast, I suppose, belongs to youth, and I find I con- tinually forget how young he is.
As regards myself, I believe I am convalescing, though with ups and downs ; but it is still uncertain to what kind or degree of health I shall convalesce ! I cultivate patience and hope, and ride in a Bath chair when I am unequal to walking. But the period before my sixty-second birthday (when I had the operation) seems a long while off.
To F. Myers from Margate, July 17
I think I shall try to write the reminiscences * when I get back a little intellectual energy. The work has the advantage that it may legitimately be fragmentary ; the drawback is that I am not conscious of any talent for it. But I am encouraged by what Lyall says 2 of my contribu- tion to Tennyson.
I have been going on with "ups and downs," and
1 Autobiographical reminiscences, which Myers, during his visit to him at Margate, had urged him to write, and of which he did dictate from his bed in August the beginning, given at pp. 33-38.
2 To F. Myers.
1900, AGE 62 HENEY SIDGWICK 595
altogether have not progressed sensibly since you were here. On the whole, however, I think I have more energy on my good days. . . . My brother Arthur has been here, and cheered and stimulated us much.
To Father Tyrrell from Margate, July 17
I must send you a line of thanks for your very kind and sympathetic letter. I value sincerely the prayers of all whose kindness prompts them to pray for me, and especially of those who devote themselves to the betterment of man's spiritual life. And I trust it is unnecessary to say that this value is entirely independent of agreement in theo- logical beliefs. What you say — with much delicacy — of the different attitudes towards the endurance of pain and sorrow in which our respective intellectual conclusions place us is profoundly true. But I recognised that truth long ago in days of health and happiness : indeed it has been before my mind in all my thought about the central problems of philosophy and theology. Perhaps if the fragment of semi-invalid life that I have to look forward to allows me time and vigour of brain sufficient, I may try to put my thoughts on these matters into an orderly form for the help of others — if when I have set them forth they seem to me useful. If so I shall encourage myself by thinking that they may interest you among others.
Meanwhile, not as a thinker but as a weak human being, aided and cheered in his weakness by human sympathy, I thank you for your kind words.
After Margate he stayed for a few days with his brother-in-law at 10 Downing Street, London, and then went to the Eayleighs at Terling for a visit, on his way, as he hoped, to Cambridge. But his disease was progressing, perhaps owing to the excessively hot weather of that July, and this was his last journey. His last days were spent under the hospitable roof where he had passed so many happy ones during his engagement.
596 HENRY SIDGWICK CHAP, vm
To Wilfrid Ward from Terling Place, July 28
I write one line to explain my silence. The fact is that almost from the time your letter reached me, my convales- cence began to go down-hill, and I am now weaker instead of stronger than I was when I left the nursing home. However, I try to hope that this may be only transient ; and I hope therefore both to read your article in the Fortnightly, and to try to formulate my view on the ques- tion of relativity. Meanwhile, I must not delay longer to acknowledge your letter and to ask you to convey my thanks to Mrs. Ward for the Fioretti.1 They look most attractive, and the book will always remind me that I owe to her my introduction to it. I have been preaching to my friends [the duty] of making themselves acquainted with the book ; but it is astonishing how many cultivated persons are unable to read Italian with satisfaction to themselves, and I am not sure that the unique charm of the narrative would be altogether conveyed in an English translation.
To H. F. Broum on August 9 (dictated to H. G. Dakyns, who was visiting him)
My convalescence has been going down -hill for some time, and I have been almost unequal to the meagrest correspondence ; but it is always a pleasure to me to get letters from friends — especially letters like yours — so please remain assured of that.
I hope Disentis has come up to the expectation in respect both of climate and blissful solitude. Graham, by whose hand you will perceive I am writing this letter, has promised to send me Henley's shea/let. He describes the verses as " virile," but says that H. is very much in earnest. My feelings towards the new Britannia are very much the same as yours : but I am inclined to distinguish the people from the newspapers. In many ways I admire the behaviour of the people during this disastrous year. I only think that our peculiar national stupidity has never been so strongly
1 Mrs. "Ward had sent him as a present a little bound copy of the Fioretti di S. Francesco.
1900, AGE 62 HENEY SIDGWICK 597
shown [as] in the manner in which we have broken the policy of the century and dropt our traditional sympathy with nationalities struggling for freedom — without apparently being aware of this violent change of attitude. When the Times talks of the Boers on the rare occasions when it recognises their virtues — " making good British subjects in a few years " — I almost feel as if the old idea of national independence as a priceless good for which a brave man may willingly die had vanished into a dim and remote past. But I am getting ineptly rhetorical.
Good-bye. You will see from the address of the letter that I have not got to Cambridge yet. If I ever do get there I will send you a line from Newnham. It will mean that I am better and hopeful of doing a little work.
To the Rev. E. M. Young on August 13
Your interesting letter gave me much pleasure. I value the letters of my friends and the kindness which prompts them none the less that I am hardly equal to responding, having in fact been confined to bed and fluid diet for about a fortnight, which seems to have brought my brain into a completely sloppy condition. This is due to a digestive dis- turbance, which does not seem properly to belong to my complaint, and the doctors assure me that it may be transient. But I am afraid it will be a slow affair getting rid of it. ...
As regards the Chinese nightmare — what strikes me is that in the year 1900, when so many have gone to and fro, and the knowledge of the world in which we live is increased so much, we are still so very ignorant of what is really going on, and has been going on, in this great State embodying the one alien civilisation that it remains to Europe to overcome. I have always thought that the collision and interpenetration of European science and Chinese institutions — which it seemed to me must come — would be an interesting phenomenon of the twentieth century ; but the present shock of the two civilisations in battle is something quite different, and what will come of it I know not.
598 HENEY SIDGWICK CHAP, vm
It was on this day that a decisive change for the worse showed itself, after which hope was practically given up.
From Arthur Sidgwick to Sir George Trevelyan, Oxford, August 20, 1900
I send one line to say that we have now no hopes for Henry, but that the growing weakness, which he bears with unbroken patience and the simplest unselfish fortitude, may soon reach the natural end which he so desires.
We left him on Friday, and to-day I hear only that a further change has come, and that his wife and my sister, who are there (Terling, in Essex), are simply waiting, as he is, for his release.
I know your warm heart will be sorry with no common sorrow, but you must not be sorry for death to come now to him. I wish you could have seen him here (on last May 20) when he felt well, but told us that his death was certain in a short time. There were fluctuations of hope afterwards, which the doctors were probably bound to hold out to him ; but he was the truer prophet. And his quiet review of his own life, briefly given to me (in the room where I write) in the simplest words, was what we can none of us forget. It was the last and best example of what he was and is — as I have known since I knew anything, and you have known for over forty years.
There is no more to say, and indeed to you no need for me to say anything. You will feel as we do.
I will write if and when there is a further change. You will share all our hopes for him, and we can neither of us have any fears for such as he is.
The end came on August 28.
His body was buried in the village churchyard at Terling, and thus the Church of England service was used without question, although his old hope of returning to the Church of his fathers had not been fulfilled. He refrained from leaving any directions on this point; but in May 1900, when he supposed
1900, AGE 62 HENKY SIDGWICK 599
that his funeral would take place in a town cemetery, he talked of it with his wife. If it were decided, he said, not to use the Church of England service — and not to use it was what seemed to him most in harmony with his views and actions in life — he would like to have the following words said over his grave :— " Let us commend to the love of God with silent prayer the soul of a sinful man who partly tried to do his duty. It is by his wish that I say over his grave these words and no more."
APPENDIX I
PAPERS READ BY H. SIDGWICK TO THE SYNTHETIC
SOCIETY
I. ON THE NATURE OF THE EVIDENCE FOR THEISM Read on February 25, 1898
I WILL begin by briefly explaining the aim of this paper.
The primary object of our Society, as indicated in its rules, is to contribute to the establishment of "a working philosophy of religious belief," or, as it is called in the first paper, a " constructive philosophy to replace the old natural theologies," which are widely felt to be more or less antiquated. In a paper read at our last meeting X argued that the object of the Society would be best attained by limiting the scope of our discussions, and agreeing to withdraw from certain well-known lines of argument, especially "that class of arguments which purport to lead to the recognition of Theism by observation of the working of the visible world, and of man's needs and aspirations, moral as well as material." These are afterwards described as " rationalistic arguments drawn from the indications of physical and ethical experience." The writer's aim, if I understand the conclusion of his paper, is by discarding these arguments to concentrate discussion on the validity of certain fundamental assumptions, on the basis of which — if they are accepted as valid — some system of Christian Theology may be conclusively demonstrated.
Now, in dealing with a subject so vast and many-sided, there is always an important gain in concentrating discussion, and limiting it to certain definite lines. I have, therefore, much sympathy with X's general aim ; and my object in the present paper is to go as far as I can in the direction in which he invites us. But I (1) think his exclusions too sweeping, and
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(2) should desire them, so far as I accept them, to be regarded as provisional and not final.
(1) For, first, if we exclude physical and ethical experience altogether, there seems to be only left the " high priori road " of abstract metaphysical reasoning, as the single method of cogently demonstrating the Theistic conclusion. Now I am far from wishing to exclude this method ; but, judging from past experience of its use by philosophers, I confess that I have little hope of reaching Christian Theism by means of it, if we are strictly confined to it. We may arrive at a Universal Subject, distinguishable from the world that is metaphysically proved to be inconceivable without it, a Universal Thinker whose thoughts are the necessary relations that constitute and connect into a whole what we call particular things ; but from this conception I do not believe that we can pass, by any bridge that Metaphysics can build, to the conception of God which Christianity requires. And, considering the continually increasing prominence of positive science in our modern view of knowledge, and the continualty increasing prominence of the ethical aspect in our modern view of religion, I am not disposed to expect satisfactory results from concentrating discussion on a line of thought which ignores both the one and the other.
(2) At the same time I shall quite consent to the provisional exclusion of certain lines of argument — both in the region of physical and in that of ethical experience — which have been commonly used by advocates of Theism. But I should wish the exclusion to be understood to be merely provisional. For Theism, in the sense at least in which we are concerned with it, is an answer to a philosophical question of a central and fundamental character ; it is or involves a view of the Universe of Things or Thought as a whole, the acceptance of which is likely to have an effect on every part of the system of knowledge or rational thought which the Theist forms. Thus he will be led to find everywhere evidences of the Divine Nature and Purpose, which he will reasonably take as confirmations of his central belief ; although, when regarded as proofs of this belief by a thinker in a more neutral attitude of mind, they cannot but appear wanting in cogency. For instance, a Theist who is also a physicist notes that the process of physical change actually going on, in the part of the physical universe of which we have experience, is analogous to that of a clock running down : when we follow it forward in our thought we see that, according to our conception of its laws, it must come to an end some time, and similarly when we follow it backward that it must have had a beginning
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altogether unlike any step in the process and not explicable as the result of any causes empirically known to us. Thus the con- ception of a Divine Creation seems to him naturally to fill the place left by the purely physical notion of an inexplicable beginning. But I should like to discard all arguments of this kind here, since they cannot possibly convince a student of physics who is not already a Theist ; he must always think it scientifically preferable to suppose unknown physical causes and undiscovered physical laws, rather than to leap out of physics to so alien an agency as Divine Creative Force.
Similarly, we shall find it quite natural that a chemist, other- wise convinced of Theism, should call attention to " the illustra- tions of the wisdom, goodness, and power of God which may be discovered in the constitution of the atmosphere " ; and give us, in chapter after chapter, "The Testimony of Oxygen," "The Testimony of Nitrogen," " The Testimony of Carbonic Dioxide " ; pointing out that, if these important gases had not had the precise properties which they actually possess, physical life, as we know it, could not have been lived on this earth. For a Theist to dilate on these topics is quite reasonable and proper : but I must agree with X that all this class of arguments should be at present discarded by those who are seeking proofs of Theism. For I cannot but accept the prevalent opinion of post- Darwinian zoologists, that the vast variety of forms of life known to us through observation and the geological record have come into being — all except some unknown original living matter — through the self-adaptation of life to its physical conditions ; and I am thus led to form so extensive an idea of the adaptability and variability of life, that I can see no reason for answering in the negative the hypothetical question, "Could life have been evolved on this planet if its gaseous elements had been quite different from what they are ? " No doubt the peculiar com- bination of physical and chemical changes which life, as a merely physical fact, presents to us remains as yet inexplicable by known mechanical or chemical laws — and the adaptability of which I have just spoken seems to increase the difficulty of explaining it. But though this is a serious obstacle in the way of the construc- tion of a Materialistic or " Naturalistic " philosophy, I cannot find in it a cogent argument for Theism. In the present state of our knowledge, it would seem to me more philosophical to look for an explanation of the mystery of physical life, taken simply by itself, in some extension of our knowledge on such obscure topics as chemical affinities and crystalline structure. So far as this is concerned, therefore, I am willing to concur
APPENDIX I 603
with X in provisionally discarding the "celebrated argument from design."
But the case is different when we turn to the psychical side of life, which I have so far ignored — sensations, emotions, voli- tions, and thoughts. In explaining the behaviour of the species of animal distinguished as Man, facts of this kind become a prominent object of contemplation ; but we commonly suppose, with unquestioning certitude, the existence of the psychical fact we call feeling, throughout the whole range of animal life ; while to the higher mammalia, at least, we attribute emotions, per- ceptions, and inferences more or less similar to the human. This view of animal life is, as I say, unquestionably accepted ; indeed, it is necessary to justify the equally accepted disapproval and legal prohibition of " cruelty to animals," since we do not interfere to prevent the most wanton and savage disintegration of the most highly organised vegetables by their owners. Now, so far as " observation of the working of the visible world " is understood to include the systematic study of this class of facts — what we may call the 'world of mind' — it seems to me impossible to disregard it in seeking for a proof of Theism. For, though positive science — Biology and Psychophysiology — concerns itself increasingly with this class of facts, it can hardly be with any hope of explaining the laws of their development as the result of any combination of physical and chemical laws. As Mr. Spencer emphatically avows, " though accumulated observations and ex- periments have led us to the belief" that specific changes in organic matter are the invariable concomitants of feelings and thoughts, "we remain utterly incapable of seeing and even of imagining how the two are related. Mind still continues to us a something without any kinship with other things." If, then, in contemplating the evolution of mind as a whole, we are irresistibly led to find in the later stages the explanation of the earlier — as we find in the adult organism and its functions the explanation of the characteristics of its germ — we cannot, in the case of the mental fact, fall back on materialistic hypo- theses to account for the phenomenon. Similarly, if in con- templating the most remarkable product of mind — scientific knowledge — in its latest stage, we find ourselves irresistibly led to assume as real a completer knowledge, comprehending and going indefinitely beyond the imperfect and fragmentary know- ledge possessed by human minds, this inference is not — as in the case of the chemist's arguments for Divine Design — the intro- duction of a hypothesis primd facie alien to the matter that we are studying. For these reasons, I think our concessions to X,
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as regards discarding the "celebrated argument from design,'7 should stop at the world of mind (including the world of animate life viewed on its mental side).
I do not mean to suggest that we are likely to find a complete proof of Theism by merely following the lines of thought that I have just indicated. Theism is a philosophical doctrine : it is the primary aim of philosophy to unify completely, bring into clear coherence, all departments of rational thought; and this aim cannot be realised by any philosophy that leaves out of its view the important body of judgments and reasonings which form the subject matter of Ethics. And it seems especially im- possible, in attempting the construction of a Theistic Philosophy, to leave Ethics on one side. No view of Theism — as X says — " is of much importance to mankind which does not include the conception of a Sovereign Will that orders all things " ; and if — as he goes on to say — " the only form of dogmatic religion worth arguing about is Christianity," I think we may agree to add one word to the statement previously quoted, and say "A Sovereign Will that orders all things tightly." For this reason I cannot agree to discard from our discussions — even provisionally— " arguments drawn from the indications of ethical experience."
But here again I should like to go as far as I can to meet X's views. I quite admit that when we contemplate human morality from the point of view from which the historian or sociologist naturally contemplates it — regarding it as a body of rules of conduct supported by social sentiments of approval and dis- approval, which a normal member of society shares, and through sympathy with others applies reflectively to his own conduct as well as to the conduct of others — it certainly does not seem "easy to prove that the Theistic hypothesis is necessary to account for its existence." Especially when we direct our atten- tion to the variations in prevalent moral opinion and sentiment, which are observable as we pass in our contemplative survey from age to age, and from one contemporary society to another ; the fluid and changing results that impartial observation thus seems to yield hardly even suggest the hypothesis of "super- human institution " : they are more naturally viewed as a part of the complex adaptation of social man to the varying conditions of gregarious existence, civilised and uncivilised. Nor would the fact that saints generally have found themselves irresistibly led to regard moral rules as the dictates of a Divine Euler weigh with me much on the other side ; unless I were assured that the saints in question had made a systematic attempt to contemplate the variations in positive morality from a sociological point of
APPENDIX I 605
view — which is not, so far as I know, the case. But all such sociological observation of morality ignores the question which, from the point of view of the reflective individual, is the funda- mental question of Ethics, ' Why should I, always and in all circumstances, do what is most conducive to the well-being of my society, or of humanity at large 1 ' To answer this question satisfactorily, we have to find a solution of the primd facie conflict between an individual's interest and his social duty, which the actual conditions of human life from time to time present. Optimistic moralists of the last century attempted to obtain the required solution by establishing a perfect coincidence of interest and duty on a strictly empirical basis ; but such attempts are now, I think, abandoned by serious thinkers ; and yet some solution must be found, if the normal judgments of our practical reason are to be reduced to a coherent system. It is this con- sideration which led Kant to affirm with so much emphasis the indispensability of Theism in the construction of an ethical system : " Without a God and without a world, not visible to us now but hoped for, the glorious ideas of morality are indeed objects of applause and admiration, but not springs of purpose and action, because they fail to fulfil all the aims which are natural to every rational being." This language is too sweeping to express my own convictions : still, the importance of the con- ception of the moral government of the world, in giving the required systematic coherence to Ethics, seems to me so great that I cannot consent to discard this consideration — even pro- visionally— in seeking a " Avorking philosophy " of Theism.
At this point it may perhaps be objected, "No doubt it would be highly convenient for Ethics to establish the moral government of the world : but, though that consideration may supply a motive for seeking to prove Theism, it does not contribute in any way to the required proof : it rather helps the Agnostic to explain why so many educated persons accept Theism though unproven and unprovable." To this I should reply by asking whether any philosophical theory can ever be established, if we are not to accept as evidence of its truth the fact that it introduces unity, harmony, systematic coherence into our thought, and removes the conflict and contradiction which would otherwise exist in the whole or some department of it ?
And this leads me to the last of X's exclusions which my limits allow me to discuss : i.e. his proposal to discard all arguments based on "the analogy between hypotheses that are verifiable and those that are not verifiable by human experience." Here, again, I do not entirely disagree with the drift of his remarks.
606 HENRY SIDGWICK
It seems to me difficult to deny that those sciences which can point to exact particular predictions, made before the event and realised by the event, acquire thereby a claim to our confidence, which must be wanting to any philosophy of Theism, based on the data which we at present possess. For Theism, if it is to be of any "practical importance to mankind," predicts, and must predict : it predicts the complete realisation of Divine Justice in the ordering of the world of humanity and the individual lives of men : and it admittedly cannot show the realisation of this prediction in past experience. But I cannot admit — what X at any rate seems to suggest — that verification by particular experiences and cogent demonstration from incontrovertible premises are the only modes of attaining the kind and degree of certitude which we require for a " working philosophy of religious belief." This contention appears to me itself con- ti'ary to experience : that is, to experience of the manner in which conviction has actually been reached in the progress of human knowledge. I may point out that the contention, if admitted, would be as fatal to dogmatic Agnosticism as it would be, in my opinion, to Theism : for the proposition that " the reality under- lying appearances is totally and for ever inconceivable by us " obviously does not admit of verification by experience, while it is incapable of being demonstrated from incontrovertible premises. But I will not dwell on this point, as there is no representative of dogmatic Agnosticism here ; nor will I now attempt to prove — Avhat seems to me true — that it would be equally fatal to any philosophical system known to me as now alive : that would require another paper longer than the present. I prefer to consider examples of the intellectual process by which new convictions have actually been substituted for old ones in the progress of empirical sciences : it seems to me that such changes repeatedly take place not because new experiences, really crucial, have proved the new opinion right and the old wrong : it is rather that the new opinion is seen to harmonise better with previously known facts, and with men's whole conception of the course of nature. Take the doctrine of Evolution as accepted with intense conviction by the great majority of biologists during the last thirty years — I mean not specially Darwinianism, but the general doctrine that all living things are produced from antecedent living things, and that all differences in living forms are to be explained as due to the action, direct or indirect, of the environ- ment and to the gradual summation of small differences between parents and offspring. It is surely impossible to say that this sweeping proposition is in any sense proved by the new experi-
APPENDIX I 607
ences which Darwin produced in support of it. And I under- stand (I write, of course, subject to correction by any expert present) that the same may be said of the greatest change ever made in our view of the physical world. It was not in virtue of any new decisive observations of the heavenly bodies that Copernicus established the heliocentric system of celestial motions : his system prevailed through the greater simplicity and consistency with which it explained phenomena already known.
In short, the more we examine the process of change in what is commonly accepted as knowledge, the more we find that the notion of " verification by experience " — in the sense of " verification by particular sense-perceptions " — is inadequate to explain or justify it. The criterion that we find really decisive, in case after case, is not any particular new sense- perception, or group of new sense-perceptions, but consistency with an elaborate and complex system of beliefs, in which the results of an indefinite number of perceptions and inferences are combined. Let me take a case of some current interest. Many of the vulgar and a few educated persons still believe that there are such things as ' ghosts ' moving about in space. The vulgar naively consider that this general statement is ' verified ' by the numerous experiences of ' seeing ghosts,' which undoubtedly do occur to some persons from time to time. But no educated person thinks that the mere fact of A's ' seeing ' a ghost is any evidence at all for the above generalisation: he unhesitatingly concludes that the apparent vision of an external object is in this case merely apparent, an 'hallucination.' And why ? Surely because the existence of something so material as to produce through the organ of vision the apparent perception of a human figure, and yet so immaterial as to pass through the wall of a room, is incompatible with his general concep- tion of the physical world. Suppose this general conception different, and the "verification" might be accepted by a mind far from credulous. Indeed, the history of thought shows this. Epicurus was not in his age regarded as prone to superstition, but rather as the great deliverer from the terrors of superstition : yet Epicurus held it to be an important argument for the exist- ence of Gods that phantasms of them appear to men in dreams and visions.
It seems to me, then, that if we are led to accept Theism as being, more than any other view of the Universe, consistent with, and calculated to impart a clear consistency to, the whole body of what we commonly agree to take for knowledge —
608 HENEY SIDGWICK
including knowledge of right and wrong — we accept it on grounds analogous to those on which important scientific con- clusions have been accepted ; and that, even though we are unable to add the increase of certitude derivable from verified predictions, we may still attain a sufficient strength of reasoned conviction to justify us in calling our conclusions a " working philosophy."
II. AUTHORITY, SCIENTIFIC AND THEOLOGICAL (Read on February 24, 1899)
(i.) I THINK that commonly when the term 'authority' is used to denote a ground or source of human belief, the implied antithesis is not to Reason simply, but to the independent reason of one or more individuals. The distinction seems to be primarily between (1) propositions believed by (e.g.} me, because self-evident to me, or proved by my own reasoning from empirical data, and (2) propositions believed by me because of the decisions of other persons that they ought to be believed. These latter are said to be beliefs of which Authority is the ground or cause.
But a further distinction is at once seen to be necessary. For I may hold beliefs on Authority in two essentially distinct ways : either (a) because I believe them to be held by others with better knowledge than myself of the matters in question, or (b) because other persons command me to hold them, and I am afraid that they will do me some harm if I do not obey. I think that, in theological discussion, ' Authority,' as a source of belief, is sometimes used with the first of these implications, some- times with the second, sometimes, confusedly, with both at once.
It may be said that Authority in sense (b) cannot be really a source of belief, but only of the profession of belief ; because beliefs cannot be adopted at will. But I do not think that this is true without qualification ; at least, in the case of most men. A strong aversion to the consequences of the rejection of a belief may influence the will to produce conditions favour- able to its acceptance — e.g. by reading arguments on one side, and not on the other side — and so, in the long run, and on the average, tend to produce the belief : and ordinarily a man who is impelled by fear of penalties, legal or social, to profess any belief, will have an aversion, moral or religious, to insincere profession.
I think, therefore, that Authority, in this sense (b), is really
APPENDIX I 609
a source of belief. But I need not consider this further, as I have only referred to this operation of Authority in order to exclude it from the present discussion. I am here only con- cerned with Authority in the first sense (a), in which it is pre- sented not merely as a source but as a rational cp-ound for belief. In this sense, as I have said, there cannot be an ultimate antithesis between Authority and Eeason ; because, if the validity of a belief that I hold on the authority of others is questioned, I must find adequate reasons for accepting the authority. The mere fact that other men hold a belief which does not commend itself to my independent judgment cannot be a reason for my holding it unless I have adequate grounds for holding that they have better means than 1 have for forming a judgment on the matter in question. In short, the proper antithesis is not between Authority and Reason, but between Authority and the independent exercise of private Reason.
Taking Authority in this sense, I think that its place in determining the actual beliefs, speculative and practical, of ordinary educated persons, is not only very large, but tends to grow with the growth of science and civilisation, on account of the increasing specialisation in the pursuit of knowledge which is an inevitable accompaniment of this growth. Probably there never was a time when the amount of beliefs held by an average educated person, undemonstrated and unverified by himself, was greater than it is now. But it is no less true — and it much concerns us here to note — that men are more and more disposed only to accept authority of a particular kind : the authority, namely, that is formed and maintained by the unconstrained agreement of individual experts, each of whom is believed to be seeking truth with unfettered independence, and declaring what he has found with perfect openness and the greatest attainable precision. This authority, therefore, is conceived as the authority of the living mind of humanity, and as containing within itself, by the very nature of its composition, adequate guarantees for the elimination of error by continual self- questioning and self-criticism ; it is not an authority — such as that of our Supreme Court of Appeal was once held to be — that refuses to question its own past decisions ; on the con- trary, it encourages to the utmost any well-reasoned criticism of the most fundamental among them. It is for this kind of authority that the wonderful and steady progress of physical knowledge leads educated persons to entertain a continually increasing respect — accompanied, I think, by a
2R
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corresponding distrust of any other kind of authority in matters intellectual.
Now here, I think, is to be found an important part of the explanation of the comparatively little influence exercised by the authority of theologians over educated English laymen at the present day as compared with that exercised by scientific authority. It is not merely that the theologians of different churches, and different schools within the same Church, disagree with one another on fundamental points of theological method : it is still more that even where they agree — and there is, of course, an overwhelming preponderance of agreement among European theologians on the points of Christian doctrine that appear most important to a plain man — the agreement has not the character- istics that I have given above, as essential to the authority of a scientific ' consensus of experts.' That is, it is not the uncon- strained agreement of individual thinkers, pursuing truth with unfettered independence of judgment and unfettered mutual criticism, encouraged to probe and test the validity of received doctrines as uncompromisingly and severely as their reason may prompt, and to declare any conclusion they may form with the utmost openness and unreserve.
And I may observe, from an academic point of view, that this contrast has become more marked since the removal, a generation ago, of all religious tests and conditions in all departments of academic work and study except Theology : since this change has left the severe limitation of theological study by foregone conclusions more naked and palpable, because more exceptional, than it was before.
I am not arguing that this state of things ought to be altered. I fully admit the force of the arguments on the other side, urged upon me by clerical friends with whom I have from time to time discussed the question. But then the very force of these argu- ments only strengthens my impression of the comparative worthlessness of the most imposing consensus of opinion among theologians, under the existing conditions of their study. For the gist of the arguments generally is, that if the academic study and teaching of Theology were perfectly free and un- fettered, an alarming diversity of opinion must be expected to manifest itself among the freed teachers, the disadvantages of which, direct and indirect, would outweigh the advantages of freedom.
Whether this forecast is justified, in the present state of thought, to the extent required to render the arguments based on it decisive, is a question of ecclesiastical and academic organ-
APPENDIX I 611
isation into which I do not now propose to enter. My point now is, that as things are the deepest antagonism between Science and Theology lies in the difference in the authority derived from consensus of experts in either case — which is the inevitable result of the difference in the conditions under which the consensus is attained — rather than in any collisions between scientific and theological teaching on special points : I mean such as the conflict between Geology and Genesis, Evolution and Special Creation, etc. In saying this I refer to Science strictly taken, Science keeping within the limits of conclusions attained by scientific method ; as distinguished from the materialistic or ' naturalistic ' philosophy which certain scientists profess to base on the positive sciences, but of which the sweeping con- clusions appear to me to be neither attained by strictly scientific methods nor supported by a real consensus of scientific experts. Putting this kind of philosophy aside, and considering only the relation between Theology and Natural Science keeping within its proper limits, I think that any conflicts between the two in the future are likely to be of a minor kind, not much more im- portant than the conflicts that arise from time to time between one branch of physical science and another — e.g. between physicists and geologists as to the past duration of the earth. And, further, if the amount of agreement actually attained by professed theologians on fundamental points could be regarded as having the quality of a scientific consensus — i.e. if it could be regarded as the unconstrained result of unfettered study of the subject by persons selected only by their interest in and capacity for such study — I do not think that the large disagree- ments that would still remain need materially impair for plain men the authority of the agreement, not even if the theologians continued to be as deeply divided as at present into sects. The theologians would, no doubt, appear to the plain man to attach exaggerated importance to the points on which they disagreed ; but then he is often inclined to pass a similar judgment on the disputes of scientists, philologers, historians, etc. He is inclined to laugh at them all as beings apt to fuss and quarrel hotly over comparative trifles, but he is none the less docile to the authority of their consensus when they agree.
(ii.) Supposing that we admit this inferiority in the theo- logical consensus, arising inevitably from the conditions of constraint under which it is arrived at, the next question is whether there is any remedy for it— other than the removal of the constraint, which I take to be at present impracticable.
Primd facie we cannot find a remedy by appealing to the
612 HENRY SIDGWICK
consensus of civilised mankind at large. No doubt this consensus would decisively support the consensus of theologians on funda- mental points — at any rate, if we limit our notion of civilisation to European civilisation. But primd facie it would seem to have little rational authority, because the persons whose agreement would constitute it are prima facie not intellectually qualified to pronounce judgment on the difficult questions at issue.
I suppose Christian Theology may be roughly divided into three parts : (1) reasonings tending to establish — or predispose the intellect to accept — the belief in God : (2) reasonings tend- ing to show that special knowledge as to the nature of God and His relations to men is or has been given to certain individuals or groups of individuals — the Church or its governing councils or head, or the writers of the treatises included in the Bible or the New Testament ; (3) deductions of dogmatic conclusions from the recorded utterances of these persons or groups. Now, of these three parts the first belongs to Philosophy, and the most difficult region of Philosophy ; the second involves a combination of Philosophy and History ; the third I will not venture to characterise, but it would certainly seem to require special knowledge and skill not possessed by an average man. The judgment of the masses seems to me primd facie quite untrust- worthy on any of the questions raised in any of the three parts.
(iii.) At this point, however, a line of thought was suggested by Mr. Ward's paper — read at our last meeting — which, if valid, avoids to an important extent the difficulties that I have been urging. The main object of the present paper — to which all that I have so far said is merely preparatory — is to contribute to a full discussion of this line of thought.
In order to do this I will first express the view in my own words (which, of course, may not be accepted by Mr. Ward), and then indicate certain objections that I find to it.
Briefly, then : besides the Rational Theology and the Revelational Theology of which I have spoken, we are asked to recognise a third kind of theology, which I may perhaps call, for distinction, Empirical — the product of a faculty not peculiar to trained theologians, but normal to the human mind at the highest stage of its development yet reached. The object of this kind of theology is the reality dimly apprehended in the religious consciousness, which is normally inseparable from the moral consciousness as developed in the most advanced stage of civilisation. This object is but dimly and imperfectly appre- hended, because the faculty is still in a rudimentary condition : still, its apprehensions are sufficiently developed to have a
APPENDIX I 613
legitimate claim to be regarded as a source of objective know- ledge. It is not developed equally in all men, any more (e.g.) than the apprehension of beauty ; but — like the perception of beauty — it is developed in average educated men sufficiently to enable them to recognise and accept the superior insight of experts ; only the experts, for the purpose of this kind of theology, are not Theologians commonly so called, but Saints. This Empirical Theology does not aim at superseding the need for either Rational or Revelational Theology : it is too conscious of its imperfection : but it is independent of them in its source, and in its claim to validity, so far as its rudimentary insight goes. It needs the other kinds of theology, but they also need it, especially in view of their inferiority as compared with Science, in respect of "unconstrained consensus."
This Empirical Theology is independent, here and now, of Christian Revelation, however much this may have been historic- ally an indispensable factor in the development of the faculty which is its source ; for there may be Jewish or Mohammedan or purely Theistic Saints, no less than Christian Saints ; indeed I suppose we should admit pagan Saints (Socrates). Again, it is largely independent of Rational Theology, since it does not deal with the speculative problems with which Rational Theology is prominently concerned. Empirical Theology has, as such, nothing to do with the conception of God as First Cause of the Universe, as Infinite and Absolute Being, Ens Summum, Ens Realissimum ; it has nothing to do with the arguments of philosophical Theism — the inference from the contingent to the necessary, from the finite to the Infinite, from the relative to the Absolute, from the idea of perfection to the reality, from the watch to the watchmaker. It is not opposed to these arguments, it simply leaves them to metaphysicians ; the God it contem- plates is thought of under a very different series or system of notions. He is thought of as having a Righteous Will, the content of which, so far as it relates to man, is partially appre- hended under the form of rules of duty ; He is thought of as standing to men in a relation fitly symbolised by the relation of a father to his children ; He is thought of as a source of aid and strength in the never-ending struggle with sin, which forms an essential element of the higher moral life ; finally, He is thought of as centre and sovereign of a spiritual kingdom of which human beings are or may be members. These and other cog- nate ideas constitute the thought^element of the common religious consciousness in the latest stage of its development, and not the metaphysical ideas of First Cause, Infinite and Absolute Being,
614 HENEY SIDGWICK
etc. Accordingly, it is this system of ideas that should be taken as expressing or symbolising the aspect of reality apprehended through our common religious consciousness, just as our common system of physical ideas — our conception of the world as a coherent aggregate of solid things occupying and moving in space of three dimensions — expresses or symbolises the aspect of reality apprehended through the senses. It would, of course, remain a problem for Philosophy to co-ordinate the two systems of ideas, and exhibit them in coherent and intelligible relations : indeed we may say that this would be the central problem of Philosophy : but the failure to solve it would not hinder Theology from pursuing its own course of development un- disturbed, any more than the development of mathematics or physics is hindered by the still unsettled controversies of meta- physicians as to the ultimate nature of Space, Time, Matter, Force. And, finally, it would be for this system of conceptions and implicit beliefs that we should claim the authority of a consensus free from the defects attaching to the consensus of pro- fessional theologians.
This, if I have rightly understood him, is Mr. Ward's view of the content of the developed religious consciousness, regarded as containing an apprehension of Reality. I have presented it in my own form, because I have myself pursued independently this line of thought, in the hope of finding it a path to truth. 1 !ut it seems to me open to objections, the chief of which I must now briefly indicate.
1. I do not think it a serious objection that there are many persons, not necessarily irreligious, in whom the religious con- sciousness does not appear to contain this independent affirma- tion of the reality of its object; i.e., for whom the beliefs which form the framework for their religious emotions are conceived to rest entirely on an historical or historico-philosophical basis, so that if this basis is found untrustworthy, religion goes out of their life, and they acquiesce intellectually — if not emotionally — in a world without God. For such persons may have — and no doubt often do have — their moral consciousness feebly developed, being chiefly or solely moved to conform to current moral rules by their external sanctions ; and, according to the view above set forth, it is only in a fully developed moral consciousness that we should expect to find the theological implications clear and strong. Nor would the case be materially altered by finding a few highly moral individuals whose morality is quite untheo- logical; for we might regard these as abnormal and compare their case (e.g.) to that of eminent men of letters who have no
APPENDIX I 615
ear for music. The difficulty that I find is in convincing myself that this untheological morality is really abnormal, and does not rather represent the beginnings of a more advanced stage in the development of the moral consciousness. It seems to me a tenable view that the development of scientific sociology and of social sentiment in average men tends ultimately to disconnect morality from its present theological scaffolding, and exhibit it as simply the outcome of social feeling guided by a rational fore- cast of social consequences.
2. Even for minds for which morality is inseparable from theological implications, these implications do not appear always to present themselves as apprehensions of Reality, but rather as (a) practical postulates, or (b) even merely needs of belief, not involving any affirmation of real existence. The former, as is known, was the view of Kant, whom it is difficult to regard as a man whose moral consciousness was not adequately developed, owing to the manifest predominance of ethical considerations in his philosophical system. Perhaps it may be said that Kant's distinction between practical postulates and speculative cog- nitions— between propositions that I must assume in order to act rationally and propositions that I regard as representing reality — is too subtle and metaphysical to be important for our present purpose. I should be disposed to admit this so far as the conception of a practical postulate can be stably maintained in the precise Kantian form ; but I think that for most minds a belief recognised as assumed merely for practice is liable to decline into a belief of which there is an intellectual need, but a need that does not carry with it its own satisfaction : the satis- faction of the need has to be obtained, if at all, through some other line of thought. And so far as this is the case with the theological implications of our common moral consciousness, their value for the purposes of Mr. Ward's argument would seem to be much reduced, if not altogether destroyed.
LIST OF HENRY SIDGWICK'S PUBLISHED WRITINGS
BOOKS
(The books are all published by Macmillan and Co. except Practical Ethics, which is published by Swan Sonnenscheiri and Co.)
The Methods of Ethics, 1st ed. 1874 ; 2nd ed. 1877 ; 3rd ed. 1884 ;
4th ed. 1890 ; 5th ed. 1893 ; 6th ed. 1901. The Principles of Political Economy, 1st ed. 1883; 2nd ed. 1887 ;
3rd ed. 1901. Outlines of the History of Ethics for English Readers, 1st ed. 1886 ;
2nd ed. 1888 ; 3rd ed. 1892 ; 4th ed. 1896 ; 5th ed. 1902. The Elements of Politics, 1st ed. 1891 ; 2nd ed. 1897. Practical Ethics: A Collection of Addresses and Essays, 1898. Philosophy, Its Scope and Relations : An Introductory Course of Lectures,
1902. Lectures on the Ethics of T. H. &reen, H. Spencer, and J. Martineau,
1902.
The Development of European Polity, 1903. Miscellaneous Essays and Addresses, 1904. Lectures on the Philosophy of Kant and other Philosophical Lectures and
Essays, 1905.
Note. — The last five of the above works were published posthumously.
ARTICLES, REVIEWS, PAMPHLETS, ETC.
The following catalogue is probably incomplete as regards contributions to Periodicals before 1870, since no record of anonymous contributions before that date either to Macmillan's Magazine or to the Spectator has been kept, nor are we aware what other papers Sidgwick may have contributed to anonymously. It is not, however, probable that the omissions are important. Anonymous articles or reviews before 1870 which we have included in the list have been traced by
616
APPENDIX II 617
references in Sidgwick's correspondence. For the list of his contributions to the Athenceum (anonymous of course) we are indebted to the kindness of the late editor, Mr. Norman M'Coll ; and the editor of the Spectator has kindly furnished us with a list of his contributions (likewise anonymous) to that journal in 1870 and afterwards.
1860 "Goethe and Frederika" (verses, anon.), Macmillan's Magazine
for March, p. 353 (quoted above, p. 51).
1861 "Eton " (anon.), Macmillan's Magazine for February, p. 292. "The Despot's Heir" (verses, anon.), Macmillan's Magazine for
March, p. 361 (quoted above, p. 64). Ranke's History of England (Review), Macmillan's Magazine
for May, p. 85. " Alexis de Tocqueville," l Macmillan's Magazine for November,
p. 37.
1866 "Ecce Homo"1 (anon.), Westminster Review, July.
1867 "Liberal Education" (anon.), Macmillan's Magazine, April,
p. 464. " The Prophet of Culture," l Macmillan's Magazine, August,
p. 271. " The Theory of a Classical Education," 1 in a volume of Essays
on a Liberal Ediication, edited by F. W. Farrar, published
by Macmillan and Co.
1869 "Mr. Roden Noel's Poems" (Review), Spectator, February 13. Courthope's Ludibria Lunae (Review), Spectator, August 7.
" Poems and Prose Remains of A. H. Clough " l (anon.), West- minster Review, October.
Baring Gould's Origin and Development of Religious Belief (Review), Cambridge University Gazette, December 15.
1870 F. N. Broome's Stranger of Seriphos (Review), Spectator,
February 19.
The Ethics of Conformity and Subscription, a pamphlet of 40 pages written for the Free Christian Union, and published by Williams and Norgate. (The substance of this pamphlet is repeated in the article on "The Ethics of Religious Con- formity" in 1895. See below.)
1871 Courthope's Paradise of Birds (Review), Spectator, Feb. 18.
J. Grote's Examination of the Utilitarian Philosophy (Review),
Cambridge University Reporter, February 8. Swinburne's Songs before Sunrise (Review), Cambridge University
Reporter, February 22. Maguire's Essays on the Platonic Ethics (Review), Cambridge
University Reporter, March 1. J. Grote's Examination of the Utilitarian Philosophy (Review),
Academy, April 1, p. 197.
1 Reprinted in Miscellaneous Essays and Addresses.
618 HENEY SLDGWICK
Conway's Earthward Pilgrimage (Review), Academy, April 15,
p. 215. Mutton's Essays, Theological and Literary, (Review), Academy,
July 1, p. 325. Maguire's Essays on the Platonic Ethics (Review), Academy,
September 15, p. 441. Beale's Life Theories and their Influence on Religious
Thought (Review), Academy, October 15, p. 481. G. H. Lewes's History of Philosophy (Review), Academy,
November 15, p. 519. Critique of Prof. Eraser's edition of Berkeley, Athenaeum,
June 17 and 24. "Verification of Beliefs," Contemporary Review, July, p. 582.
1872 "Professor Trendelenburg " (short obituary notice), Academy,
February 1, p. 53. Zimmermann's Samuel Clarke's Life and Doctrine (Review),
Academy, April 1, p. 132. Miss Cobbe's Darwinism in Morals and other Essays (Review),
Academy, June 15, p. 231. Barzelotti's La Morale nella Filosofia Positiva (Review), Academy,
July 1, p. 250. Spicker's Die Philosophic des Grafen von Shaftesbnry (Review),
Academy, August 15, p. 313. Mahaffy's Kant's Critical Philosophy for English Readers
(Review), Academy, September 15, p. 357. Jodl's Leben und Philosophie David Humes (Review), Academy,
October 15, p. 388. Leifchild's Higher Ministry of Nature viewed in the Light of
Modern Science (Review, anon.), Athenceum, April 6. Critique of Lord Ormathwaite's Astronomy and Geology Com- pared, Athenceum, April 20.
Article on Monck's Space and Vision, Athenceum, May 18. Dr. Bree's Exposition of Fallacies in the Hypothesis of Mr.
Darwin (Review), Athenceum, July 20. Bikker's and Hatton's Ethics for Undenominational Schools
(Review), Athenceum, July 27. Note in Reply to Dr Bree's Vindication of his Book, Athenceum,
August 3.
" Pleasure and Desire," Contemporary Review, April, p. 662. " The Sophists," I.,1 Journal of Philology, No. 8, voL iv.
1873 "The Sophists," II.,1 Journal of Philology, No. 9, vol. v. Spencer's Principles of Psychology (Review), Academy, April 1,
p. 131.
"John Stuart Mill" (obituary notice), Academy, May 15, p. 193. Mansel's Letters, Lectures, and Reviews (Review), Academy,
July 15, p. 267.
1 Reprinted in The Philosophy of Kant and other Lectures and Essays.
APPENDIX II 619
J. F. Stephen's Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, (Review), Academy,
August 1, p. 292. Dr. Tuke's Effect of the Mind upon the Body (Review),
Athen&um, July 12. Spencer's Principles of Psychology (Review), Spectator
June 21. Prof. Cairnes's Political Essays (Review), Spectator, November 8.
1874 "On a Passage in Plato's Republic" Journal of Philology,
No. 10, voL v.
Green and Grose's Edition of Hume's Treatise (Review), Academy, May 30, p. 608.
1875 Greea and Grose's Edition of Hume's Essays (Review),
Academy, August 7, p. 146.
Green and Grose's Hume (Review), Spectator, March -11 . "The Late Professor Cairnes" (sub- leader), Spectator, July 31.
1876 "The Theory of Evolution in its Application to Practice,"
Mind, vol. i. p. 52.
" Philosophy at Cambridge," Mind, vol. i. p. 235. Bradley's Ethical Studies (critical notice), Mind, vol. i. p. 545. " Prof. Calderwood on Intuitionism in Morals " (note), Mind,
vol. i. p. 563. " Idle Fellowships," l Contemporary Review, April.
1877 "Hedonism and Ultimate Good," Mind, vol. ii. p. 27. Rejoinder to Bradley's Reply to Notice of his Book (discussion),
Mind, vol. ii. p. 125. J. Grote's Treatise on Moral Ideals (critical notice), Mind, vol. ii.
p. 239. Reply to Mr. Barratt on " The Suppression of Egoism," Mind,
vol. ii. p. 411. " Bentham and Benthamism," 1 Fortnightly Review, May.
1878 Article on Ethics in the Encyclopedia Britannica. (This was
afterwards republished in an enlarged form as Outlines of iht History of Ethics for English Readers.)
1879 "The Establishment of Ethical First Principles" (notes and
discussions), Mind, vol. iv. p. 106. "The So-called Idealism of Kant" (notes and discussions),
Mind, vol. iv. p. 408. Guyau's La Morale d'Epicure et ses Rapports avec les
Doctrines Contemporaines (critical notice), Mind, vol. iv.
p. 582.
" Economic Method," Fortnightly Review, February. " "What is Money ? " Fortnightly Review, April. " The Wages Fund Theory," Fortnightly Review, September.
1880 "On Historical Psychology," Nineteenth Century, February.
u Kant's Refutation of Idealism " (notes and discussions), Mind, vol. v. p. 111.
1 Reprinted in Miscellaneous Essays and Addresses.
620 HENRY SIDGWICK
Fouillee's L'Idee moderne du Droit en Allemagne, en Angle-
terre, et en France, (critical notice), Mind, vol. v. p. 135. "Mr. Spencer's Ethical System," Mind, vol. v. p. 216.
1882 Inaugural Address, as President, to the Society for Psychical
Research, July, Proceedings, S.P.R. vol. i. p. 7.
Address to the Society for Psychical Research (reply to criti- cisms), December, Proceedings, S.P.R. vol. i. p. 65.
" On the Fundamental Doctrines of Descartes " (notes and discussions), Mind, vol. vii. p. 435.
" Incoherence of Empirical Philosophy," l Mind, vol. vii. p. 533.
L. Stephen's The Science of Ethics (critical notice), Mind, voL vii. p. 562.
1883 "A Criticism of the Critical Philosophy," I. and II., Mind,
vol. viii. pp. 69 and 313. " Kant's View of Mathematical Premisses and Reasonings " (notes
and discussions), Mind, vol. viii. pp. 421 and 577. Address to the S.P.R. (on the relation of Psychical Research to
Science), Proceedings, S.P.R. vol. i. p. 245.
1884 Address to the Society for Psychical Research (on the general
scientific position of the Society), Proceedings, S.P.R. vol. ii. p. 152. "Green's Ethics," Mind, vol. ix. p. 169.
1885 Fowler's Progressive Morality (critical notice), Mind, vol. x.
p. 266. J. Martineau's Types of Ethical Theory (critical notice), Mind,
vol. x. p. 426. Address as President of Section F of the British Association on
" The Scope and Method of Economic Science." 2
1886 "Dr. Martineau's Defence of Types of Ethical Theory" (in
notes and correspondence), Mind, vol. xi. p. 142. " The Historical Method," Mind, vol. xi. p. 203. Bluntschli's Theory of the State (Review), English Historical
Review, April. Discussion with C. C. Massey on Possibilities of Malobserva-
tion, Proceedings, S.P.R. vol. iv. " Economic Socialism," - Contemporary Review, November.
1887 " Idiopsychological Ethics" (a further article on Martineau's
Ethics), Mind, vol. xii. p. 31.
1888 "The Kantian Conception of Free- Will"3 (discussion), Mind,
vol. xiii. p. 405. Pulszky's Theory of Law and Civil Society (Review), English
Historical Review, October. Address to the Society for Psychical Research (a survey of the
work of the Society) (July), Proceedings, S.P.R. vol. v. p. 271.
1 Reprinted in The Philosophy of Kant and other Lectures and Essays.
2 Reprinted in Miscellaneous Essays and Addresses. 3 Reprinted as Appendix to the 6th Edition of Methods of Ethics.
APPENDIX II 621
1889 Address to the S.P.R, on the Physical Phenomena of Spiritual-
ism (January), Proceedings, S.P.R. vol. v. p. 399. Address to the S.P.R. on the Canons of Evidence in Psychical
Research (May), Proceedings, S.P.B. vol. vi. p. 1. Address to the S.P.R. on the Census of Hallucinations, Pro- ceedings, S.P.R. vol. vi. p. 7. Paper on Experiments in Thought Transference (written
jointly with Mrs. Sidgwick), Proceedings, S.P.R. vol. vi. p.
128. " Plato's Utilitarianism : a Dialogue by John Qrote and Henry
Sidgwick," Classical Review, March. " Some Fundamental Ethical Controversies," Mind, vol. xiv.
p. 473.
1890 " A Lecture against Lecturing," x New Review, May.
Second Address to the S.P.R. on the Census of Hallucinations,
(July), Proceedings, S.P.R. vol. vi. p. 429. " The Morality of Strife," 2 International Journal of Ethics,
vol. i. p. 1.
1892 "The Feeling- Tone of Desire and Aversion" (discussion),
Mind, vol. i. N.S. p. 94.
H. Spencer's "Justice" (critical notice), Mind, vol. i. N.S. p. 107.
1893 "Unreasonable Action,"2 Mimt, vol. ii. N.S. p. 174.
" My Station and its Duties," 3 International Journal of Ethics, vol. iv. p. 1.
1894 Note to the Report of the Gresham University Commission,
p. lix., published January 1894.
"Luxury,"2 International Journal of Ethics, vol. v. p. 1. "A Dialogue on Time and Common Sense,"4 Mind, vol. iii.
N.S. p. 441.
" Political Prophecy and Sociology,"1 National Review, December. " The Trial Scene in the Iliad, Classical Review, February. Note on the Term e/cTT^o/aot or €KTrjp.6pLoi., Classical Revieu;
July. " Conjectures on the Constitutional History of Athens," Classical
Review, October. Article " Economic Science and Economics " in the Dictionary
of Political Economy, vol. i.
1895 "The Philosophy of Common Sense,"4 Mind, vol. iv. N.S. p.
145.
"Theory and Practice" (discussion), Mind, vol. iv. N.S. p. 370. D. G. Ritchie's " Natural Rights " (critical notice), Mind,
vol. iv. N.S. p. 384.
1 Reprinted in Miscellaneous Essays and Addresses. - Reprinted in Practical Ethics.
3 Reprinted in Practical Ethics under the name of "The Aims and Methods of an Ethical Society."
4 Reprinted in The Philosophy of Kant and other Lectures and Essays.
622 HENEY SIDGWICK
" The Ethics of Religious Conformity," l International Journal of Ethics, vol. vi.
" The Economic Lessons of Socialism," 2 Economic Journal, September.
Note on the Memorandum of Sir R. Gitfen to the Royal Com- mission on the Financial Relations of Great Britain and Ireland, Report of the Commission, vol. ii. of Minutes of Evidence, p. 180.
Memorandum in Answer to Questions from the Royal Com- mission on Secondary Education, Report of the Commission, vol. v. p. 243.
1896 Prof. Gidding's Principles of Sociology (Review), Economic
Journal, September.
1897 "The Pursuit of Culture as an Ideal"3 (an Address to the
Students at Aberystwyth). Published as a Pamphlet. " Involuntary Whispering considered in Relation to Experiments in Thought Transference," Proceedings, ti.P.R. vol. xii.
1899 Prof. Gidding's Elements of Sociology (Review), Economic
Journal, September, vol. ix.
" The Relation of Ethics to Sociology," 2 International Journal of Ethics, October, vol. x.
Memorandum to the Royal Commission on Local Taxation in Reply to questions on the Classification and Incidence of Taxa- tion, Report of the Commission, volume of Memoranda, p. 99.
Articles on " Political Economy, its Scope" : " Political Economy, its Method": "Political Economy and Ethics": in the Dictionary of Political Economy, vol. iii.
1900 "Criteria of Truth and Error,"4 Mind, vol. ix. N.S. January.
1901 " The Philosophy of T. H. Green " 4 (an address delivered to the
Oxford Philosophical Society in May 1900), Mind, vol. x. N.S. January.
"Prof. Sidgwick's Ethical View: An Auto -Historical Frag- ment," 5 Mind, vol. x. N.S. April.
1 Reprinted in Practical Ethics.
2 Reprinted in Miscellaneous Essays and Addresses.
3 Reprinted in part in Miscellaneous Essays and Addresses.
* Reprinted in The Philosophy of Kant and other Lectures and Essays.
6 Printed also in the Preface to the 6th edition of Methods of Ethics.
APPENDIX III BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES OF HENRY SIDGWICK
Rt. Hon. James Bryce, " Henry Sidgwick," in Studies of Contemporary
Biography (Macmillan, 1903), reprinted from The Nation for
September 27, 1900. Sir Frederick Pollock, " Henry Sidgwick," in The Pilot for September
15, 1900. J. Peile, " Reminiscences of Henry Sidgwick," in the Cambridge
Review for October 25, 1900. J. Peile, An Address on Henry Sidgwick, given as President of
Newnham College at the Annual General Meeting on November
3, 1900, Newnham College Report. Anonymous Note in the Charity Organisation Review, vol. viii. N.S.
October 1900. C. F. G. Masterman, "Henry Sidgwick," in The Commonwealth for
October 1900. Reprinted in In Peril of Change, Fisher
Unwin, 1905.
E. E. C. J., " Professor Henry Sidgwick," Journal of Education,
October 1900.
Alice Gardner, "The Late Professor Sidgwick," Secondary Education, November 15, 1900.
F. W. H. Myers, " In Memory of Henry Sidgwick," Proceedings
of the Society for Psychical Research, December 1900, vol. xv.
p. 452. Reprinted in Fragments of Prose and Poetry, Long- mans, 1904. Sir Oliver Lodge, "In Memory of Henry Sidgwick," Proceedings,
S.P.R. vol. xv. p. 463. " Report of the Proceedings for Promoting a Memorial of the Late
Henry Sidgwick," Cambridge University Reporter, December 7,
1900. F. W. C., "The Sidgwick Memorial Meeting," The Pilot, December 22,
1900. J. N. Keynes, " Obituary : Henry Sidgwick," Economic Journal,
December 1900. W. R. Sorley, " Henry Sidgwick," International Journal of Ethics,
January 1901. Anonymous Article on " Professor Sidgwick " in the Cambridge Letter
for 1900 (privately printed for the Newnham College Club\ Sir L. Stephen, "Henry Sidgwick," Mind, vol. x. N.S. January 1901. Sir L. Stephen, Article " Henry Sidgwick" in the Dictionary of National
Biography. Rt. Hon. J. Bryce, " Obituary Notice : Henry Sidgwick," Proceedings
of the British Academy, 1903-4. 623
INDEX
Aberdeen, Lord and Lady, 423
Academical Study, Society for Organisa- tion of, 274
Academy (newspaper), 244
Acton, Lord, 383 ; review of G. Eliot's Life, 403, 404 ; 490, 569, 581
"Acts of the Apostles," 78, 95
Adams, Professor, 210, 492
Adams, Mrs., 206
Ad Eundem Society, 127, 430, 469, 488, 585
Afghanistan and Russia, 405, 406, 408, 409
Aix-la-Chapelle, 53-54
Albert (Prince), 44, 75
Aldis, W. Steadman, 63, 350
Allingham, W. , ' ' Lawrence Bloom- field," 216
American Civil War, 71, 86, 102, 129
Andrewes, Bishop, 486
"Apostles" Society, 29-32, 34-35, 63, 133, 297, 403, 492, 591
Aquinas, Thomas, 383, 446
"Arabian Nights," 86, 111, 114
Arch, Joseph, 382
" Archie Lovell," 162
Argyll, Duke of, 441, 448, 450, 452
Arnold, Matthew, 32, 112 ; Sidgwick's article on, 164 ; 166, 177, 221
"Arthur Hamilton, B.A.," 439
Athensenm Club, 341
Athenaeum (newspaper), 244
Australian Colonies, Federation of, 576
Authority, Scientific and Theological, 559, 608
Autobiographical fragment, 33-38
Avignon, 176
Bagehot, W., "The English Constitu- tion," 162 ; 395
Bain, Professor Alexander, 77, 344, 424, 447, 512
Balfour, Miss A. B., 336, 494, 590
Balfour, Rt. Hon. Arthur James, 155 289, 299 ; on Sidgwick as a teacher 309 ; 389, 390, 393, 397, 412, 414 416, 417, 419, 427, 431, 4:34, 445, 458, 461, 464, 470, 473, 474, 480, 482, 483, 490, 494, 495, 512, 534. 537, 549, 555, 556, 588, 590
Balfour, Cecil Charles, death of, 352
Balfour, Mr. Eustace J. A., 320
Balfour, Lady Frances, 448, 450, 451 ; letters to, 452, 453, 535
Balfour, Francis Maitland, 320, 355 ; death of, 365
Balfour, Rt. Hon. Gerald William. 320, 355, 367, 427, 431, 434, 443, 450, 458, 464, 467
Barrett, Professor W. F., 358, 441. 447
Barzelotti, review of, 269
Bateson, Mrs., 206
Bateson, Mr. W., 545
Bath, 497
Beach, Sir Michael Hicks, 418, 470
Beesly, E. S., 200
Beufey, Professor, 109, 110, 112, 117, 118, 119, 330
Benson, Ada (Mrs. McDowall), 58
Benson, Mr. Arthur Christopher, 39, 83, 293 ; on Sidgwick's conversation, 316 ; 393, 420, 440 ; letters to, 535, 552, 570
Benson, Edward White (Archbishop), 7, 8, 9, 10, 17 ; marriage to Sidg- wick's sister, 29, 40 ; 33, 34, 39, 43, 71, 105, 179, 187, 202, 226, 253 ; letters to, 17, 41, 49, 58, 198 ; death, 549 ; biography, 580
Benson, Mrs. E. W. (Sidgwick's .sister Mary, Minnie), 3, 4, 29, 40, 56, 334, 414, 550, 598 ; letters to, 42, 43, 54, 57, 67, 70, 76, 92, 103, 16S, 173, 179, 186, 188, 197, 226, 244,
624
INDEX
625
245, 269, 270, 279, 281, 322, 341,
351, 354, 359, 360, 368 Benson, Martin White, 56, 139, 293 "Bentham and Benthamism," Sidg-
wick's article on, 327 Berlin, 54, 55, 57, 59, 60, 131, 228,
229, 331, 516
Bernard, Sir Charles, 14, 184 Bernheim, Dr., 520, 521 "Bimetallism," article on, 457 Biographies verstis Novels, 272 Birks, Rev. T. R., 263-5, 368 Bischoff, Professor, 328 Bismarck, 131, 232, 235, 236, 487,
569 Black, W., "Adventures of a
Phaeton," 274; "Princess of
Thule," 283 Blavatsky, Madame, 384, 385, 405,
410 Boer War, 575, 576-8, 579, 580, 581,
582, 596-7
Bonney, Professor T. G., 205 Boulanger, General, 487 Bourget, Paul, "Andre Cornells," 499 Bowen, Lord, 14, 17, 286, 287, 495 ;
his translation of Virgil, 495 Bowen, E. E., letter about Sidgwick,
16, 26 ; letter to, 20, 28 ; 45-46,
416
Braddon, Miss, her novels, 281 Bradshaw, Henry, death of, 439 Brandreth, Rev. H., 45, 47 Bridges, Robert, on Milton's metre,
543
Bright, John, 69, 456 British Academy, 581 British Association, 383, 417, 423-5,
455, 456, 497-8 ; address for section
F of, 417, 419, 421-2, 423, 424 British Constitution, 393-4, 488 British Museum Library, 104 Brodrick, Hon. G. C. (Warden of
Merton), 437
Brooke, Rev. Stopford, 401 Brown, Mr. H. F., 533 ; letters to,
567, 590, 593, 596 Brown, T. E., "Tommy Big Eyes,"
343; "Fo'c's'le Yarns, "352 Browne, Dr. G. F. (Bishop of Bristol),
on Sidgwick's administrative work
in the University, 378, 379 Browning, Mr. Oscar, 27, 126, 384, 385 ;
letters to, 22, 27, 61, 62, 63, 101,
126, 131, 132, 158, 163, 177, 180,
184, 185, 217, 224, 242, 247, 265,
321, 322 Browning, Robert, 67, 76, 105, 106 ;
"James Lee," 108 ; 142 ; "Balaus-
tion," 251; 297; "La Saisiaz," 338 ; 539 ; " Letters of R. and E. B. Browning," 575
Bryce, Rt. Hon. James, 127 ; on Sidg- wick's conversation, 318 ; 366, 403 ; "American Commonwealth," 404, 505 ; 414, 444, 445, 447, 473, 494, 548, 556, 567
Buckle's " History of Civilisation," 68 Burne-Jones, Sir E., 401, 452 Burnett, Mr. John, 463 Burn-Morgan Memorial, 256 Butcher, Professor S. Henry, 397, 436,
492, 496
Butler, Bishop, 65, 81, 89 Butler, Rev. Arthur G., 17, 71, 144 Butler, Dr. H. M. (Master of Trinity College), 46, 61, 416, 460, 462, 463, 499
Butler, Mrs. Josephine, 174, 175, 182 Buxton. Lady Victoria, letter to, 531 Byron, Lord, "Letters and Journals," 594
Cairnes, Professor, 102
Calverley, C. S., 429
Cambridge University Reporter, 244,
257 Cannan, Miss, letters to, 332, 336,
343, 525, 526, 533, 536, 550, 590 Carey, Major-Geueral, letter to, 345 Carlyle, Thomas, 31, 32, 107, 145, 238,
404, 405, 424, 486 Cavour, Count, 69 Cayley, Professor A., 460, 492 Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. Joseph, 413,
418, 422, 426, 429, 437, 443, 444,
445, 454, 456, 457, 469, 479, 577 Champneys, Mr. Basil, 448, 491 ;
letter to, 543 Charity Organisation Society, 205, 342,
506
China, 597
Christian Science, 568 Churchill, Lord Randolph, 412, 418,
452, 453, 463-4, 467 Clark, Dr. A., 287, 288 Clark, W. G., 127, 171 "Classical Education," Sidgwick's
article on, 164, 177, 180, 181 Classical Tripos, reform of, 154, 155,
163, 184 "Clerical Veracity," Sidgwick's article
on, 563
Clifford, W. K., 137 Clough, A. H., 99, 141, 142, 161, 177,
192 ; "Amours de Voyage," 193-5 ;
Sidgwick's article on, 214-17 ; 227,
246, 279, 395, 469, 538
2s
626
HENKY SIDGWICK
Clough, Mrs. A. H., 192, 197, 207,
268 ; letters to, 192, 193, 200, 212,
215, 216, 234, 250, 251, 255, 265, 279 Clough, Miss Anne J., 70, 174, 182 ;
memoir of, 204 ; 207, 208, 209, 212 ;
letter to, 244 ; 246, 250, 251, 252,
255, 265, 268, 279, 284, 287, 333,
410, 492 ; death of, 513, 515 Colenso, Bishop, 88, 91, 99, 120, 539 Coleridge, S. T., 428 Cologne Cathedral, 329, 515 Comte, Auguste, 32, 39, 74, 75, 76, 77,
81, 104, 124, 136, 158, 269, 409,
419, 421, 422
Congreve, Richard, 69, 409, 487 Conington, Professor John, 87, 91, 94,
180 ; death of, 216 Conspiracy, law of, 553 Cooper, Elizabeth, nurse in the Sidgwick
family, 6, 56 Cornhill Magazine, 48 Cornish, F. W., 94, 556 ; letters to,
229, 334, 348, 353, 359, 571 Cornish, Mrs., "Alcestis," 281 Cornwall, 341, 574 Correspondence, teaching by, 248, 249,
273, 274 Council of the Senate, Sidgwick as
member of, 377, 378, 506. (He
served on the Council from 1890
to 1898.) Courtney, Rt. Hon. Leonard, 403, 418,
447 Cowell, J. J., 40, 41, 47, 53, 55, 94,
102 ; automatic writing of, 105 ;
106, 107, 134, 139, 142, 161, 167,
174; his death, 175, 177-8;
letter to, 78 Crabbe, George, 216 Creak, Miss, 210 Creighton, Bishop, 273 ; letter to,
569
Creighton, Mrs., 525 Crimes Act, 412, 474 Crofts, Miss Henrietta, 332 Crookes, Sir William, 289, 290, 291 Cross, Mr. J. K., 420 Cross, Mr. J. W., 401, 404, 448 Curling, 464-5
Dakyns, Mr. H. Graham, 9, 13, 14, 71, 73,85, 114, 115, 388, 446, 481, 596 ; letters to, 21, 22, 40, 52, 66, 68, 71, 75, 77, 78, 80, 82, 86, 89, 93, 97, 98, 100, 102, 104, 105, 107, 112, 113, 117, 118, 120, 121, 122, 123, 127, 129, 133, 138, 140, 141, 142, 145, 147, 157, 169, 170, 176, 198, 254, 259, 277, 284, 286, 298, 300,
324, 327, 332, 339, 340, 341, 343, 349, 352, 361, 365, 369, 379, 387, 484, 499, 502, 509, 512, 514, 532, 542, 549, 552, 579, 583, 588
Dale (Rev. H.), 4
Dante, 448
Darwin, Charles, 32, 421
Darwin, Mr. Francis, 421
Darwin, Sir George, 554
Davies, Miss Emily, 175, 182, 210, 211, 247, 255, 256
Davitt, Mr. Michael, 444
Delboeuf, Professor, 518
Delius, Professor, 328
Derby, Earl of, 327
De Vere, Aubrey, 108, 170
Devrient, Emil (actor), 58
Dicey, Professor Albert Venn, "The Law of the Constitution," 430 ; 488, 556, 567, 585 ; letters to. 526, 553
Dilke, Sir Charles, 401
Disraeli, 196 ; his novels, 227
Dixon, George, M.P., 456
Dobson, Mr. Austin, ' ' At the Sign of the Lyre," "Old-World Idylls," 429
Doderlein, Professor, 59
Drama, the, versus the Novel, 517
Dresden, 41, 58, 85
Drummoud, Professor Henry, 423
Dublin University, 432, 545
Duelling, 112, 234
Duhring, 328
"Ecce Homo," 140, 143, 144, 145, 147 ; article on, by Sidgwick, 37, 148, 150
' ' Economic Science, Scope and Method of" (address as President of Section F of British Association), 417, 419, 421-2, 423, 424
"Economic Socialism," article by Sidg- wick, 457
Edgeworth, Professor, letter to, 560
Eliot, George (Lewes, Leweses), 32, 91, 185, 270; "Middlemarch,"256,258, 272, 536 ; letters to, 257, 283 ; Life of, by J. W. Cross, 401
Elliott, Sir Alfred, 409
Emerson, R. W., 112
Engineers' Strike, 555
' ' Eranus " Society, 223
' ' Essays and Reviews, " 40, 49 ; letter on, to Times, 63, 64 ; 217, 225, 538
Ethics, Moral Philosophy, etc., 68, 75, 90, 97, 108, 134, 243, 369, 411, 467 ; Ethics and immortality, 471-3
Ethics, article on, by Sidgwick in Encyclopaedia Britannica, 332, 334, 443
INDEX
627
"Ethics, Methods of," Sidgwick's book, 38, 204, 244, 284, 237, 291, 292, 295, 296, 297, 298, 336, 337, 387, 503, 525, 547, 580, 587
"Ethics of Conformity and Subscrip- tion," pamphlet by Sidgwick, 190
" Ethics of T. H. Green, H. Spencer, and J. Martineau," Sidgwick's book, 586
"Ethics, Outlines of the History of," Sidgwick's book on, 332, 443-4, 454, 525
"Ethics, Practical," Sidgwick's book, 500, 553
"Eton," article, 62
Evans, Rev. C., 8, 17
Evans, T. S., 16
Eve, Mr. H. W., 14, 17, 72, 333, 492
Everett, Hon. William, 44, 80 ; on Sidgwick as teacher, 313
' ' Evolution, Theory of, in its Applica- tion to Practice," article on, 298
Ewald, Professor, 59, 100, 103, 109, 111, 112, 114, 117
Ewart, Miss, 475, 476
Exhibition of 1862, 87
Fame, to O. Browning on, 180
Fancy and Imagination, 486
Fawcett, Henry, 127, 205 ; death of,
391, 406 ; 431
Fawcett, Mrs. Henry, 205, 206, 448 Fellowship, election to, 42 ; resignation
of, 38, 83, 142, 145-6, 166, 197-
202 ; honorary fellowship, 351, 353 ;
re-elected Fellow, 400 Ferrers, Dr. N. M., 205 Ferrier, J. F., 160 Testing, Bishop, 96 Festiniog, 168, 169
F. H , 245, 253
Fichte, 150
" Fioretti di S. Francesco," 582, 596
Fisher, E. H., 17, 46
Flaubert's "Madame Bovary," 109
Forster, Right Hon. W. E., 254
Forster's " Life of Dickens," 272
Fowler, Rev. Thomas, ' ' Progressive
Morality," 397
Franco-German War, 229-41 passim Free Christian Union, 189-91, 197,
226, 258
Freeman, Miss Alice, 384 Free Trade and Protection, Fair Trade,
414, 422, 423, 429
Gardner, Miss Alice, on Sidgwick as a
teacher, 312 Garibaldi, 69, 172
Garrett's, Miss, election to School Board, 241, 242
Gass, "Christliche Ethik." 446
Gell, Mr. P. Lyttelton, 400
General Election, of 1885, 427, 429, 430, 431, 432, -133 ; of 1886, 449, 450, 451 ; of 1892, 523
German novelists, 57, 231-2
Giercke, Otto, " Deutsches Genossen- schaftsrecht, " 437
Gilbert and Sullivan's "Mikado," 416
Girton College, 210
Gladstone, Miss Helen, 360, 492
Gladstone, Mary (Mrs. Drew), 383
Gladstone, Rt. Hon. W. E., 96, 144, 235, 250, 255, 256, 276, 287, 369, 386, 387, 390, 392, 393, 405, 410, 413, 415, 425, 432, 434, 443, 445, 448, 451, 452, 453, 458, 470
Goethe, 246, 486
Gogol (Russian writer), 384
Goldschmidt, Otto, 179
Goodwin, Professor, 361
Gordon, General, and Egypt, 400, 402, 405, 416
Gore, Dr. C. (Bishop of Birmingham), 556 ; about Sidgwick at the Synthetic Society and otherwise, 556-8, 591
Gorst, Sir J., 418
Goschen, Lord, 452, 453, 464, 490
Gottingen, 109-111, 116, 119, 122, 329-30
Grant -Duff, "Studies in European Politics," 162
Graiiville, Lord, 234, 235
Gray, Thomas, 535-6
Greek, compulsory, 208, 265-7, 351, 374, 478, 509-11, 520
Greek history, 437
Greek plays at Cambridge, "Birds," 369 ; " Eumenides," 432 ; " CEdipus Tyrannus," 481
Green, Thomas Hill, 14, 17, 82, 84, 87, 90, 94, 102, 191, 333, 361 ; " Pro- legomena to Ethics," 380 ; 394, 395, 488 ; address on the Philosophy of, 585, 586
Green, Miss, Sidgwick's governess, 4, 5
Greshaui University Commission, 518, 523, 525, 530
Greuze, J. B., "Peasant Girl," 128; 175
Grote, John, 130, 134, 135, 151, 157
Grote, Mrs. George, 331, 424
Grote Club, 133-8
Gurney, Edmund, 288, 384, 411, 416, 421, 489 ; death of, 493, 495
Gurney, Mrs. Edmund, letter to, 493
628
HENEY SIDGWICK
Hall, W. H. (of Six Mile Bottom), 404,
407, 416, 425, 448, 456 Hallam, H., 49 ; "Middle Ages," 132 Halle, 235 Hallucinations, International Census
of, 501, 513, 515 Hamilton, Sir W., 130, 159, 160, 177,
578 Hammond, J. Lempriere, 21, 89, 173,
276
Hanson, Sir R., 476 Harcourt, Mr. A. G. Vernon, 127,
156
Harcourt, Sir W. Vernon, 591 Hardwicke, Archdeacon, 48 Harrison, Mr. Frederick, 200, 287 Hartington, Marquis of, 383, 443, 444,
445, 450, 453, 462, 464 Harz mountains, 58, 115 Haunted houses, 386, 425, 497, 498 Hawthorne (Nathaniel), " Scarlet Let- ter," 50
Hayman, Dr. H., 225, 286 Hegel, Hegelian, 102, 151, 159, 230,
233, 238, 427, 437, 586 "Helplessness of Miss Pick" (story),
592
Hering, Professor, 517 Herrig, Professor, 58, 59 Herringham, Mrs., 585 Hill, Miss Octavia, 250 "Historical Method," essay on, 436 Historical Tripos, 295 History, English, lectures on, 169, 170,
171, 179, 213, 252 History, fascination of, 435 " History of Modern Political Ideas up
to 1789," lectures on, 527 History of Philosophy, 140 Hodgson, Dr. R., 405, 410, 465, 502,
522, 542, 543, 649 Hollond, Mr. John, 418
Holman Hunt's ' ' Finding of Christ in the Temple," 53
Holmes, Arthur, 15, 28
Holmes, O. W., "Guardian Angel," 174 ; "Poet at Breakfast Table," 274
Home Rule, 397, 413, 416, 434, 436, 438, 443, 444, 445, 447, 448, 450, 451, 461, 467-8, 469, 473, 474, 479, 480, 482, 494, 496, 512, 519,
523, 524, 526, 555
Hope, Anthony, "Dolly Dialogues,"
534
Hornby, Dr., 178, 263, 266 Hort, Professor F. J. A., 31, 223 Howorth, Sir Henry J., 398 Howells, W. D., "Lemuel Barker,"
454
Hiigel, Baron F. von, 556 ; letter to,
592
Hugo, Victor, 92, 160-61, 335-6 Humphreys, A. C. (Humphreys-Owen),
20
Hungary, 519 Hutton, R. H., 220, 556 Huxley, T. H., 91, 147, 156, 220, 221,
222-3 Hypnotism, mesmerism, 405, 416, 465,
518 ; at Nancy, 520-21
"Idle Fellowships," Sidgwick's article on, 257, 301
"Incoherence of Empiricism," Sidg- wick's article, 223
Indian Civil Servants and Universities, 373, 502-3
Industrial Conference, 399
Ingelow, Jean, 103
Initial Society, 71-73
"Initials, The" (novel), 150
Innsbruck, 238, 548
Irving, Sir Henry, 382
Italian Politics, 572
Jackson, Dr. Henry, 167, 172, 175, 182, 219, 224 ; on Sidgwick's Uni- versity policy and administration, 374-6; 402
James, Mr. Henry, 454
James, Sir Henry, 450
James, Professor W., 502
Jebb, Sir R. C., 167, 217, 348, 349 ; "Bentley," 360; 553
Jencken, Mrs., 292, 294
Jex-Blake, Dr. Sophia, 188
Jex-Blake, Dr. T. W., 242, 327
Jones, Miss E. E. C., 586
Journal letters to J. A. Symonds, 381-476, 478-83, 486-99, 515-24
Jowett, Benjamin, 49, 74, 178, 191, 200, 225, 433, 440, 488
Kamphausen, Professor, 328
Kant, Immanuel, 151, 159, 160, 177 ;
articles on, for Mind, 368 ; 467, 585 Keble College, 402 Kennedy, Dr. B. H., 175 Kennedy, Miss M. G., 206, 492 Keynes, Dr. J. N., on Sidgwick as a
teacher, 307 ; as a talker, 316 Kidd, Mr. Benjamin, 533 Killarney, 496 Kinglake, A. W., "Eothen," 45, 48;
" Crimea," 93
Kingsley, Charles, 127, 175, 182, 313 Kitchener, Mr. F. E., 14, 17, 71 Kruger, President, 575
INDEX
629
Lace, Francis, 83
Lakes, English, 149, 150
Lanczy, Professor, 518
Latham, Heury, 437
Latham, Mrs. (Miss Bernard), letter
from, 23 Lecky, W. E. H., 143 ; "History of
Rationalism," 160 Lectures and lecturing, views on, 321-2,
330, 426 Leslie, Cliffe, 500 Lewis, Sir George Cornewall, 100, 103,
131 Liberal Unionists, 451, 452, 453, 456,
458, 461, 462, 464, 467, 468, 479-
480, 555
Liebeault, Dr., 520 Liegeois, Professor, 520 Lightfoot, Bishop, 131, 153, 198, 223 Littr£ (on Conite), 104 Lodge, Sir Oliver, 507, 532, 556, 559 Lome, Marquis of, 441 Louis Napoleon, 44, 53, 64, 69, 233,
235
Lowell, J. R, 191-2, 467, 580 Lucan, 22
Liidde-Neurath, Dr., 54, 56-57 Lyall, Sir Alfred, 496, 556, 594 Lyttelton, Hon. Arthur T., on Sidg-
wick's influence, 314
Macaulay, Lord, "Biography of Pitt,"
27 ; 49, 67 Macmillan, Alexander, 61, 88, 144,
291, 292, 454 ; letter to, 70 Maonillan's Magazine, 48 Mahaffy, Professor, 433 Maine, Sir Henry, 392 Maitland, Professor, on Sidgwick as a
teacher, 304-7 ; letter to, 578 Manchester, Bishop of, 495 Mansel, Dean, 74, 81, 159 Marble, Mr. Manton, 419 Margate, 268, 269, 280, 281, 282, 593,
594
Markby, T., 175, 196, 206 Marshall, Professor A., about the Grote
Club, 137 Marshall, Stephen (Mr., Mrs.), 184,
425
Martin, Rev. Francis, 131, 149, 186 Martineau, Dr. James, 189, 190, 220 ;
"Types of Ethical Theory," 411 ;
556, 586 ; letter to, 191 Massey, C. C., 497, 498 Masson, David, 424 Maurice, F. D., 31, 79, 137, 152, 153,
159, 205, 219 ; death of, 260 ; 393,
394
Mayor, Professor J. B., 50, 83, 134, 135
Mazzini, Giuseppe, 165, 334
Medical Relief BUI, 417-19
Medveczky, Professor, 504, 519
Mendicity Society, see Charity Organisa- tion Society
Mentone, 179, 187
Meredith, George, 127 ; " Emilia in England," 127 ; " Harry Richmond," 267 ; 445
Merivale, Dean, 32, 34
Metaphysical Society, 220 et seq.
Metaphysics, 140, 141, 151, 158, 159, 160 ; lectures on, 177, 341, 523, 570
Metropolitan Railway, 91
Milan, 40, 237, 238, 368, 561
Mill, J. S., 32, 36, 39 ; " Population Theory,"66; "Representative Govern- ment," 66; 67, 69, 90, 124; "On Hamilton," 129 ; 130, 131, 133, 151, 158, 205, 206, 420, 424, 461
Millais, J. E., " St. Agnes," 97 ; " Rosa- lind and Celia," 184
Milner, Lord, 577
Milton, his description of Death, 486 ; his metre, 543-4
Mind (Quarterly Review of Philo- sophy), arrangements about, 512, 586
Moberly, Miss Mary, 359
Mohammedanism, 87
Monteagle, Lord, 496
" Morality of Strife," essay on, 500, 569
Moral Sciences Tripos, 35, 50 ; Sidgwick examining for, 38, 130, 132, 134, 156 (he examined for the Tripos in 1865, 1866, 1872, 1876, 1877, 1880, 1883, 1884, 1885, 1890, 1891, 1895); reform of the Tripos, 153, 155, 159
Morley, Rt. Hon. John, 291, 292, 293, 490
Morris, W., "Love is Enough," 278 ; 401, 513 ; biography, 575
Moulton, Mr. J. F., 137
Mozley, Mr. J. K, 133, 135, 137, 195 ; " The Romance of Dennell," 435 ; letters to, on lay membership of the Church of England, 355, 357 ; on Moral Philosophy, 369 ; on Cardinal Newman, 507, 508-9
Mulock, Miss, 88
Munich, 238, 484, 519, 547, 548
Munro, H. A. J., 127, 131 ; death of, 406, 409
Miirren, 185, 187, 343
Murray, Professor Gilbert, "Andro- mache," 583
Musset, A. de, 158, 160, 161
630
HENEY SIDGWICK
Myers, Arthur, 416, 493
Myers, Mr. Ernest, 588
Myers, Frederic W. H., 25, 94, 144, 182 ; beginning of friendship with Sidgwick, 196 ; 215 ; " Implicit Promise of Immortality," 241 ; 258, 285, 288, 320 ; his " Wordsworth " (in English Men of Letters Series), 354 ; 385, 410, 438, 460, 493, 498, 499, 516, 532, 543, 556, 594 ; his article on Sidgwick quoted, 25, 120, 285, 588 ; letters to, 196, 200, 212, I 213, 214, 227, 239, 240, 246, 248, 249, 251, 252, 253, 255, 258, 259, 261, 262, 264, 265, 267, 268, 272, 273, 278, 282, 284, 287, 289, 291, 294, 296, 297, 301, 334, 340, 365, 366, 367, 449, 587, 591, 592, 594
Myers, Mrs. F. W. H., 543
Myers, Mrs. (mother to F. W. H. Myers), 326
Nettleship, Heiiry, 191
Newbolt, Henry, "Admirals All," 530
Newman, Cardinal, 507, 508
Newman F. W., " Phases of Faith " and " The Soul," 81, 89
Newnham College, see Women's Educa- tion
Nicholson, Sir A., 519
Noel, Hon. Roden. 140 ; " Beatrice and Other Poems," 188; "A Little Child's Monument," 338; "Essays on Poetry and Poets," 458 ; letters to, 44, 74, 108, 150, 159, 232, 237, 243, 293, 297, 301, 335, 338, 355, 506, 513, 523, 526 ; death of, 530
Noel, Mrs. Roden, letter to, 531
Northcote, Sir Stafford, 412
North of England Council, 174, 249
Novikoff, Madame de, 384, 385
Oliphant, Laurence, 494, 498 ; " Scien- tific Religion," 498
Oliphant, Mrs., " Chronicles of Carling- ford," 91 ; " Agnes,' 143 ; 270, 281
Otter, F., 127, 408, 409, 475
Owen, Ashford, "A Lost Love," 173
Oxford, 74, 106, 488
Paladino, Eusapia, 532, 542-3
Paley, Miss (Mrs. Alfred Marshall), 210
Pall Mall Gazette, letter on " Clerical
Engagements," 226 Paris, 84, 94, 128, 175 Parnell, Charles Stuart, 412, 416, 434,
444, 456, 461, 471, 494, 495, 500 Party organisation, dangers of, 439, 442 Pascal, Blaise, 170
Pater, Walter, "Marius the Epicurean,"
405-6
Paton, Rev. J. B., 457 Patterson, A. J., 54, 123 ; his book on
Hungary, 192 ; 250, 474, 515 ; letters
to, 474, 483, 501, 504, 505, 506,
512, 546
Pattison, Mark, 274 ; "Memoirs," 404 Paul, C. Kegan, 115, 138, 139, 190,
197, 261, 487, 571 Payne, J. B., 98, 123, 175 Pearson, C. H., 212, 213, 240, 247, 295,
404 ; letter to, 295 Pearson, Rev. J. B., 135, 261, 262, 263,
265 Peel, Sir Robert, speeches, 418 ; Life of,
575 Peile, Dr. J. (Master of Christ's College),
21 ; on Sidgwick in 1858, 24 ; 72,
204, 206, 276 ; on Sidgwick's uni- versity administration, 377 ; 545, 546 Peile, Mrs., 71, 248 Phantasms of the dead, 385, 386 Phantasms of the living, 386, 388, 396 " Phantasms of the Living," (the book),
165, 415, 421, 460, 461, 501 "Philosophy, its Scope and Method"
(lectures), 523
" Philosophy of Common Sense " (lec- ture), 534 "Philosophy, the Scope and Relations
of" (book), 584 Pindar, 22 Piper, Mrs., experiments with, 502,
507
Plato, 407
Podmore, Mr. F., on Sidgwick, 319 Polish insurrection, 93 Political Economy Club, 403, 408, 447 "Political Economy, Principles of,"
(book), 340, 341, 349, 351, 360, 366,
397, 400, 454, 463, 587 Political Economy, reading of, 36, 39.
66-67 "Political Prophecy and Sociology"
(article), 533 Political Science and Sociology, lectures
on, 570 "Politics, Elements of" (book), 322,
439, 481, 487, 496, 500, 503, 504,
506, 509, 548 Politics, similarity of European ideas
except in, 522 " Polity, Development of European "
(book), 487, 500, 509, 584, 587 Pope's metre, 562 Porter, Dr., 437, 545 Prag, 517 Professional women, 250
INDEX
631
" Prophet of Culture" (essay), 164, 169
Proportional representation, 393, 400
Prothero, Mr. and Mrs. G. W., 401
Pryce, Mr. Bruce, 498
Psychical Research, Ghosts, Spiritual- ism, 43, 44, 52, 53, 55, 94, 103, 104, 105, 106, 160, 162, 165, 166, 167, 168, 171, 284, 285, 288, 289, 290, 291, 292, 293, 294, 296, 297, 298, 299, 300, 324, 358, 368, 387, 388, 447, 484, 504, 513, 522; see also Hallucinations, Census of, Haunted Houses, Hypnotism, Paladino, Phan- tasms of the Dead, Phantasms of the Living, Piper, Psychical Research, Society for, Telepathy
Psychical Research, Society for, Founda- tion of, 358 ; first Presidential address, 361-5 ; meetings of, 385, 386, 403, 435, 440-41, 460, 489, 494 ; German Society, 517, 520
Psychologists, International Congresses of Experimental, 501, 513, 515, 523, 524, 548
Pulzky, Agost, 518
Ptisey, Dr. E. B., 94, 218
Ranke, Professor, 59
Rayleigh, Lord, 289, 292, 320, 342,
366, 383, 460, 595 Rayleigh, Lady, 301, 320, 366, 595 ;
letter to, 554 Reade, Charles. 197 Renan, Ernest, 32, 36, 105, 108, 147 Rhodes, Miss E., 72, 248 Ricardo, David, 133, 403 Richet, Professor Charles, 427, 501,
515, 522, 532 " Robert Elsmere," 488 Rome, 366, 367 Rossetti, Christina. 196, 215 Rossetti, D. G., 196, 227, 232 Ruckert's poems, 168 Rugby, 8, 9, 11, 49, 51, 70, 224, 225,
228, 264, 281, 286 Rutson, A. O., 84
St. Edmund's House, 563-7 Salisbury, Lord, 301, 381, 382, 392,
412, 434, 458, 490 Sanderson, Sir J. Burdon, 424 Sarpi, Paolo, 567 Saturday Review, 53, 119 Schaffle's ' ' Bau uud Leben des sozialen
Korpers," 421 Schier, Herr, 42, 87 Schiller, Mr. F. C. S., 586 Schiller, J. C. F. von, 254 Science, proposed degrees in, 511
Scott, E. A., 144
Secondary Education, Memorandum to
Commission on, 374 Sedgwick, Professor Adam, 1, 89, 184,
219 275 Seeley, Sir John, 63, 148, 175, 191.
214, 224, 295, 402 ; death of, 535 ;
Introduction to Political Science,
538 ; see also Ecce Homo Selwyn College, 564-6 Shakespeare, W., Twelfth Night, 382 ;
Taming of the Shrew, 494 ; Titus
Andronicus, 500 ; Macbeth, 500 ;
lectures on, 314, 500 Shaw, Mr. G. Bernard, 497-8, 567 Shelley, P. B., 113, 151, 535 Shorthouse, J. H., "John Inglesant,"
459 Sidgwick, Arthur (and Mrs. Arthur),
43, 94, 115, 127, 157, 162, 192,
225, 286, 326, 384, 389, 432, 446,
447, 481, 561, 571, 574 ; letter to, 173 ; letter from, to Sir G. 0. Tre- velyan, 598
Sidgwick, Henry. For abstract of biography see table of contents.
Sidgwick, Mrs. Henry (Nora), 319, 320, 323, 325, 326, 336, 343, 351, 360, 384, 386, 388, 399, 401, 417, 446,
448, 471, 489, 502, 507, 514, 522, 525, 528-9, 587, 598, 599 ; letters to, 328, 329, 330, 331, 395, 517, 519-21
Sidgwick, J. B., death of, 279
Sidgwick, R. H., 145, 423
Sidgwick, Rev. W. (Henry Sidgwick's father), 1-3
Sidgwick, Mrs. W. (Henry Sidgwick's mother), 2-3, 4, 5, 6-7, 9, 50, 51, 67, 70, 76, 77, 142, 171, 184, 201, 207, 300 ; letters to, 5, 51, 53, 56, 58, 61, 80, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 90, 91, 95, 96, 98, 100, 101, 103, 104, 106, 107, 109, 111, 114, 115, 116, 121, 123, 126, 128, 129, 130, 132, 138, 139, 143, 144, 145, 148, 149, 151, 152, 153, 156, 157, 161, 162, 164, 167, 169, 171, 172, 175, 179, 181, 182, 183, 184, 187, 189, 191, 192, 195, 196, 202, 214, 217, 220, 225, 227, 228, 229, 232, 233, 236, 238, 240, 241, 242, 243, 245, 247, 249, 252, 257, 258, 260, 263, 268, 269, 274, 275, 279, 280, 283, 285, 286, 287, 290, 292, 293, 295, 297, 299, 300, 323, 324, 325, 326, 330, 333 ; death of, 339, 340
Sidgwick, Mr. William Carr, 3, 114, 115, 127, 509 ; letter to, 156
632
HENRY SIDGWICK
Sidgwick, Mrs. W. C., 298 ; letters to,
534, 567, 570, 580 Sidgwick Avenue, 504 Slade, Dr., 325
Smedley, Miss, "Lady Grace," 197 Smith, Goldwin, "Rational Religion,"
74; 127
Smith, Professor Henry, 91, 127, 315 Smith, W. Robertson, 401, 440 Socialism, 441-2, 481, 495, 497 Sociology, inductive, 437 Somersby, 408 "Sophists, The," Sidgwick's articles,
274, 278 Sorley, Professor, on Sidgwick as
teacher, 308 Spectator, letters to, quoted, 73, 188-9;
writing in, referred to, 188, 198, 244,
274 Spencer, Herbert, 32, 76, 269 ; review
on, 277, 278; "Data of Ethics,"
344 ; 421 ; "Political Institutions,"
436, 436-7
Stammering, 4, 76, 77, 315, 316, 318 Stanley, Dean, 94, 100, 120 Stanley, Sir H. M., 505 Stephen, Sir Leslie, 127, 278; on
Sidgwick's conversation, 315 ; 445,
487 Stevenson, R. L., "Prince Otto," 432 ;
"Dr. Jekyll," 438; "Letters of,"
578, 579
Strauss, E., 32, 147 Strutt, Hon. C. H., 422 Stuart, Mr. James, 175, 182, 272,
443 Sully, Professor James, 296, 516 ;
letters to, 547, 581
Swinburne, Mr. A. C., 196; "Both- well," 293 ; 481,588 Symonds, John Addington, 166, 175,
261, 281, 300, 336 ; " Many Moods,"
336 ; 379, 380, 381, 429, 475, 509 ;
letters to, 300, 358, 368, 455, 478,
480, 482, 484, 500, 513, 523 ;
besides the journal-letters, 381-452,
454-76, 485-99, 515-17, 518, 521-
524 ; death of, 526 ; memoir of,
533 Synthetic Society, 556-60, 573, 576,
588 ; Papers read to, Appendix I. Szilargy (Hungarian Minister), 519
Taine, H. A., 273; "Origines de la France Contemporaine, " 396
Talbot, Dr. E. S. (Bishop of South- wark), 398, 403, 556, 576
Tautphceus, Baroness, "The Initials," 150
Tawney, Mr. C. H., 14, 17, 20, 47, 100 ; letters to, 60, 275
Taxation, 447, 560-61
Telepathy and Thought-transference, 435, 473, 489, 494, 520, 548
Temple, Archbishop, 49, 71, 181, 217- 219, 225-6, 550
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 31, 108 ; "In Memoriam," 24, 25, 468, 538- 542; "Princess," 119; "Aylmer's Field," 119; "The Voyage," 119, 120; "Sea Dreams, "120; 180,220,
260, 261, 262, 278, 408 ; " Vast- ness," 429; "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After," 466 ; 468, 487 ; death of, 524
Tennyson, Hallam, Lord, 549 ; letters to, 552, 553, 562, 574, 576
Tests, abolition of religious, 96, 219
Texts (Bible), as mottoes at different periods, 125
Thackeray, W. M., 2
Thackeray, Miss (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie), " Village on the Cliff," 162 ;
261, 274, 280
Theism, Theist, 228, 347-8, 508, 559 ; Appendix I., 600 et seq.
Thompson, Perronet, 2
Thompson, W. H. (Master of Trinity), 127, 144, 275 ; his death, 458
"Tid's old Red Rag of a Shawl," by Miss H. Keddie, 126
Tocqueville, Alexis de, 70, 141
Tolstoi, Leon, "Anna Karenine," 444
Trevelyan, Sir George Otto, 21, 25, 27, 28, 47, 50, 62, 88, 127, 128; "Cawnpore," 128; 142, 149,168, 212, 250, 338; "Early History of C. J. Fox," 348 ; 382, 410, 414, 432, 433, 443, 450, 458, 469, 470, 471, 479, 490, 493 ; letters to, 348, 360, 389, 548, 589, 594
Trotter, Rev. Coutts, 462 ; death of, 483 ; 566
Twain, Mark, " Adventures of Huckle- berry Finn," 406
Tyndall, Professor, 220
Tyrrell, Father, 556 ; letter to, 595
Unemployed, 481
University and College Reform, 156-9,
167, 172-3, 274, 276, 301 ; see
also Greek, compulsory University Commission, 301, 327, 333,
371 ; see also Gresham University
Commission University Extension, 272 ; lectures
for, 527
INDEX
633
University Gazette, 185, 186 University policy, Sidgwick's, 272-4
" Vacation Tourists," 122
Venice, 237, 561
Venn, Dr. J., on Grote Club, 134-7 ;
141, 261, 262 Venn, Mrs., 206 Verses by Henry Sidgwick, 51, 64,
246, 262 Victoria University, 510
Wallace, Alfred Russel, "Defence of
Modern Spiritualism," 289 Ward, Artemus, 170 Ward, Professor James, 556, 586 Ward, Mr. Wilfrid, 556 ; letters to,
527, 537, 559, 563, 571, 572, 573,
590, 596
Ward, Mrs. Wilfrid, letter to, 582 Ward, W. G., 220-22, 527 Webster, Mrs., " The Auspicious Day,"
280
Wedgwood, Hensleigh, 296 Westcott, Bishop, 43, 65, 223, 393,
394, 402, 459, 558 Wheatley-Balme, 5, 550 Whewell, Dr. W., 42, 80, 462 Whitman, Walt, 514 Williams, Dr. Rowland, 49, 139 Women's Education, Sidgwick's early
views on, 72, 73 ; examinations,
174, 180, 181, 182, 188, 189, 212,
333, 384 ; lectures for women in Cambridge and development of Newnham College, 204-12, 224, 226, 227, 240, 242-9 (passim), 251, 252, 255, 256, 258, 262, 265, 268, 271, 279, 284, 285, 287, 300, 325, 326, 343-4, 345, 359, 360, 410, 411, 430, 448, 490, 491-2, 503, 504, 513, 514, 515, 546, 585 ; opening of University examinations to women, 349 - 52, 373, 380 ; degrees for women, 476-8, 544- 546, 550-52 ; Sidgwick's residence at Newnham College, 343-5, 528- 530 ; see also Correspondence, teaching by
Women's Franchise, 73
Woolner's " My Beautiful Lady," 103
Wordsworth, W., 194, 289, 290, 540
Working Men's College, Cambridge, 61
Wright, Dr. W. Aldis, 134
Wiistenfeld, Professor, 109, 111, 117
Yonge, Miss C. M., 109
Young, Rev. E. M., letters to, 74, 597 ;
576 Young, Sir George, 20, 131, 219
Zincke, F. Barham, "United States,"
197 Zola, E., 451
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