attachments exposed him to correspondingly intense grief when he lost
those who were dearest to him; true also that, being by temperament a
man of peace, he was during the latter half of his life almost
constantly at war. But his home, first in the lifetime of his mother
and then in that of his wife, had a serene and unclouded brightness;
and the care of the Abbey, rich with the associations of nearly a
thousand years of history, provided a function which exactly suited
him and which constituted a never-failing source of enjoyment. To
dwell in the centre of the life of the Church of England, and to dwell
close to the Houses of Parliament, in the midst of the making of
history, knowing and seeing those who were principally concerned in
making it, was in itself a pleasure to his quenchless historical
curiosity. His cheerfulness and animation, although to some extent
revived by his visit to America and the reception he met with there,
were never the same after his wife's death in 1876. But the sweetness
of his disposition and his affection for his friends knew no
diminution. He remembered everything that concerned them; was always
ready with sympathy in sorrow or joy; and gave to all alike, high or
low, famous or unknown, the same impression, that his friendship was
for themselves, and not for any gifts or rank or other worldly
advantage they might enjoy. The art of friendship is the greatest art
in life. To enjoy his was to be educated in that art.
-----
[16] A _Life of Dean Stanley_, in two volumes, begun by Theodore
Walrond, continued by Dean Bradley, and completed by Mr. R. E.
Prothero, appeared in 1893.
[17] When J. S. Mill was a candidate for Westminster in 1868, Stanley
published a letter announcing his support, partly out of
personal respect for Mill, partly because it gave him an
opportunity of expressing an opinion on the Irish Church
question, and of reprobating the charge of atheism which had
been brought against Mill.
THOMAS HILL GREEN
The name of Thomas Green, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the
University of Oxford, was not, during his lifetime, widely known
outside the University itself. But he is still remembered by students
of metaphysics and ethics as one of the most vigorous thinkers of his
time; and his personality was a striking one, which made a deep and
lasting impression on those with whom he came in contact.
He was born in Yorkshire in 1836, the son of a country clergyman; was
educated at Rugby School and at Balliol College, Oxford, of which he
became a fellow in 1860, and a tutor in 1869. In 1867 he was an
unsuccessful candidate for a chair of philosophy at St. Andrews, and
in 1878 was elected Professor of Moral Philosophy in his own
University, which he never thereafter quitted. He was married in 1869
and died in 1882. It was a life externally uneventful, but full of
thought and work, and latterly crowned by great influence over the
younger and great respect from the senior members of the University.
I can best describe Green as he was in his undergraduate days, for
it was then that I saw most of him. His appearance was striking, and
made him a familiar figure even to those who did not know him
personally. Thick black hair, a sallow complexion, dark eyebrows,
deep-set eyes of rich brown with a peculiarly steadfast look, were
the features which first struck one; and with these there was a
remarkable seriousness of expression, an air of solidity and quiet
strength. He knew comparatively few people, and of these only a
very few intimately, having no taste or turn for those sports in
which university acquaintances are most frequently made, and seldom
appearing at breakfast or wine parties. This caused him to pass for
harsh or unsocial; and I remember having felt a slight sense of
alarm the first time I found myself seated beside him. Though we
belonged to different colleges I had heard a great deal about him,
for Oxford undergraduates are warmly interested in one another, and
at the time I am recalling they had an inordinate fondness for
measuring the intellectual gifts and conjecturing the future of those
among their contemporaries who seemed likely to attain eminence.
Those who came to know Green intimately, soon perceived that under
his reserve there lay not only a capacity for affection--no man was
more tenacious in his friendships--but qualities that made him an
attractive companion. His tendency to solitude sprang less from
pride or coldness, than from the occupation of his mind by subjects
which seldom weigh on men of his age. He had, even when a boy at
school (where he lived much by himself, but exercised considerable
moral influence), been grappling with the problems of metaphysics
and theology, and they had given a tinge of gravity to his manner.
The relief to that gravity lay in his humour, which was not only
abundant but genial and sympathetic. It used to remind us of
Carlyle--he had both the sense of humour and an underlying Puritanism
in common with Carlyle, one of the authors who (with Milton and
Wordsworth) had most influenced him--but in Green the Puritan tinge
was more kindly, and, above all, more lenient to ordinary people.
While averse, perhaps too severely averse, to whatever was luxurious
or frivolous in undergraduate life, he had the warmest interest in,
and the strongest sympathy for, the humbler classes. Loving social
equality, and filled with a sense of the dignity of simple human
nature, he liked to meet farmers and tradespeople on their own level,
and knew how to do so without seeming to condescend; indeed
nothing pleased him better, than when they addressed him as one of
themselves, the manner of his talk to them, as well as the extreme
plainness of his dress, conducing to such mistakes. The belief in
the duty of approaching the people directly and getting them to
think and to form and express their own views in their own way was
at the root of all his political doctrines.
Though apt to be silent in general company, no one could be more
agreeable when you were alone with him. We used to say of him--and his
seniors said the same--that one never talked to him without carrying
away something to ponder over. On everything he said or wrote there
was stamped the impress of a strong individuality, a mind that thought
for itself, a character ruggedly original, wherein grimness was
mingled with humour, and practical shrewdness with a love for abstract
speculation. His independence appeared even in the way he pursued his
studies. With abilities of the highest order, he cared comparatively
little for the distinctions which the University offers; choosing
rather to follow out his own line of reading in the way he judged
permanently useful than to devote himself to the pursuit of honours
and prizes.
He was constitutionally lethargic, found it hard to rouse himself to
exertion, and was apt to let himself be driven to the last moment in
finishing a piece of work. There was a rule in his College that an
essay should be given in every Friday evening. His was, to the great
annoyance of the dons, never ready till Saturday. But when it did go
in, it was the weightiest and most thoughtful, as well as the most
eloquent, that the College produced. This indolence had one good
result. It disposed him to brood over subjects, while others were
running quickly through many books and getting up subjects for
examination. It contributed to that depth and systematic quality which
struck us in his thinking, and made him seem mature beside even the
ablest of his contemporaries. When others were being, so to speak,
blown hither and thither, picking up and fascinated by new ideas,
which they did not know how to fit in with their old ones, he seemed
to have already formed for himself, at least in outline, a scheme of
philosophy and life coherent and complete. There was nothing random or
scattered in his ideas; his mind, like his style of writing, which ran
into long and complicated sentences, had a singular connectedness. You
felt that all its principles were in relation with one another. This
maturity in his mental attitude gave him an air of superiority, just
as the strength of his convictions gave a dogmatic quality to his
deliverances. Yet in spite of positiveness and tenacity he had the
saving grace of a humility which distrusted human nature in himself at
least as much as he distrusted it in others. Leading an introspective
life, he had many "wrestlings," and often seemed conscious of the
struggle between the natural man and the spiritual man, as described
in the Epistle to the Romans.
In these early days, before, and to a less extent after, taking his
degree, he used to speak a good deal, mostly on political topics, at
the University Debating Society, where so many generations of young
men have sharpened their wits upon one another. His speaking was
vigorous, shrewd, and full of matter, yet it could not be called
popular. It was, in a certain sense, too good for a debating society,
too serious, and without the dash and sparkle which tell upon
audiences of that kind. Sometimes, however, and notably in a debate
on the American War of Secession in 1863, he produced, by the
concentrated energy of his language and the fierce conviction with
which he spoke, a powerful effect.[18] In a business assembly,
discussing practical questions, he would soon have become prominent,
and would have been capable on occasions of an oratorical success.
Retired as was Green's life, he became by degrees more and more widely
known beyond the circle of his own intimates; and became also, I
think, more willing to make new friends. His truthfulness appeared in
this that, though powerful in argument, he did not argue for victory.
When he felt the force of what was urged against him, his admissions
were candid. Thus people came to respect his character, with its high
sense of duty, its simplicity, its uprightness, its earnest devotion
to an ideal, even more than they admired his intellectual powers. I
remember one friend of my own, himself eminent in undergraduate
Oxford, and belonging to another college, between which and Green's
there existed much rivalry, who, having been defeated by Green in
competition for a University prize, said, "If it had been any one
else, I should have been vexed, but I don't mind being beaten by a man
I respect so much." My friend knew Green very slightly, and had been
at one time strongly prejudiced against him by rumours of his
heterodox opinions.
So much for those undergraduate days on which recollection loves to
dwell, but which were not days of unmixed happiness to Green, for his
means were narrow and the future rose cloudy before him. When anxiety
was removed by the income which a fellowship secured, he still
hesitated as to his course in life. At one time he thought of
journalism, or of seeking a post in the Education Office. More
frequently his thoughts turned to the clerical profession. His
theological opinions would not have permitted him to enter the
service of the Church of England, but he did seriously consider
whether he should become a Unitarian minister. It was not till he
found that his college needed him as a teacher that these difficulties
came to an end. Similarly he had doubted whether to devote himself to
history, to theology, or to metaphysics. For history he had
unquestionable gifts. With no exceptional capacity for mastering or
retaining facts, he had a remarkable power of penetrating at once to
the dominant facts, of grasping their connection, and working out
their consequences. He had also a keen sense of the dramatic aspect of
events, and a turn, not unlike Carlyle's, partly perhaps formed on
Carlyle, of fastening on the details in which character shows itself,
and illumining narrative by personal touches. On the problems of
theology he had meditated even at school, and after taking his degree
he set himself to a systematic study of the German critics, and I
remember that when we were living together at Heidelberg he had begun
to prepare a translation of C. F. Baur's principal treatise. As he
worked slowly, the translation was never finished. Though not
professing to be an adherent of the Tuebingen school, he had been
fascinated by Baur's ingenuity and constructive power.
Ultimately he settled down to metaphysical and ethical inquiries, and
devoted to these the last thirteen years of his life. During his
undergraduate years the two intellectual forces most powerful at
Oxford had been the writings of J. H. Newman in the religious sphere,
though their influence was already past its meridian, and the writings
of John Stuart Mill in the sphere of logic and philosophy. By neither
of these, save in the way of antagonism, had Green been influenced. He
heartily hated all the Utilitarian school, and had an especial scorn
for Buckle, who, now almost forgotten, enjoyed in those days, as being
supposed to be a philosophic historian, a brief term of popularity.
Green had been led by Carlyle to the Germans, and his philosophic
thinking was determined chiefly by Kant and Hegel, more perhaps by the
former than by the latter, for it was always upon ethical rather than
upon purely metaphysical problems that his mind was bent. His
religious vein and his hold upon practical life made him more
interested in morals than in abstract speculation. Thus he became the
leader in Oxford of a new philosophic school which looked to Kant as
its master, and which for a time, partly perhaps because it
effectively attacked the school of Mill, received the adhesion of some
among the most thoughtful of the younger High Churchmen. Like Kant, he
set himself to answer David Hume, and the essay prefixed to his
edition of Hume's _Treatise on Human Nature_. along with his
_Prolegomena to Ethics_, are the only books in which his doctrines
have been given to the world, for he did not live to write the more
systematic exposition he had planned. These two essays are hard
reading, for his philosophical style was usually technical, and
sometimes verged on obscurity. But when he wrote on less abstruse
matters he was intelligible as well as weighty, full of thought, and
with an occasional underglow of restrained eloquence. The force of
character and convictions makes itself felt through the language.
His mind, though constructive, was not, having regard to its general
power, either fertile or versatile. Like most of those who prefer
solitary musings to the commerce of men, he had little facility, and
found it hard to express his thoughts in any other words than those
into which his musings had first flowed. Thus even his oral teaching
was not easy to follow. An anecdote was current how when one day he
had been explaining to a small class his theory of the origin of our
ideas, the class listened in rapt attention to his forcible rhetoric,
admiring each sentence as it fell, and thinking that all their
difficulties were being removed. When he ended they expressed their
gratitude for the pleasure he had given them, and were quitting the
room, when one, halting at the door, said timidly, "But, Mr. Green,
what did you say was really the origin of our ideas?" However,
whether they were or were not capable of assimilating his doctrines,
his pupils all joined in their respect for him. They felt the
loftiness of his character, they recognised the fervour of his belief.
He was the most powerful ethical influence, and perhaps also the most
stimulative intellectual influence, that in those years played upon
the minds of the ablest youth of the University. But it was a singular
fact, which those who have never lived in Oxford or Cambridge may find
it hard to understand, that when he rose from the post of a college
tutor to that of a University professor, his influence declined, not
that his powers or his earnestness waned, but because as a professor
he had fewer auditors and less personal relation with them than he had
commanded as a college teacher. Such is the working of the collegiate
system in Oxford, curiously unfortunate when it deprives the ablest
men, as they rise naturally to the highest positions, of the
opportunities for usefulness they had previously enjoyed.
As his powers developed and came to be recognised, so did those slight
asperities which had been observed in undergraduate days soften down
and disappear. Though he lived a retired life, his work brought him
into contact with a good many people, and he became more genial in
general company. I remember his saying with a smile when I had lured
him into Wales for a short excursion, "I don't know whether it is a
sign of declining virtue, but I find as I grow older that I am less
and less fond of my own company." From the first he had won the
confidence and affection of his pupils. Many of them used long
afterwards to say that his conduct and his teaching had been the one
great example or one great influence they had found and felt in
Oxford. The unclouded happiness of his married life made it easier for
him to see the bright side of things, and he could not but enjoy the
sense that the seed he sowed was falling on ground fit to receive it.
Even when ill-health had fastened on him, and was checking both his
studies and his public work, it did not affect the evenness of his
temper nor sharpen the edge of his judgments of others. In earlier
days these had been sometimes austere, though expressed in temperate
and measured terms.
I must not forget to add that although Green's opinions were by no
means orthodox, the influence he exerted while he remained a college
tutor was in large measure a religious influence. As the clergyman
used to be in the English Universities less of a clergyman than he was
anywhere else, so conversely it caused no surprise there that a lay
teacher should concern himself with the religious life of his pupils.
Green, however, did more, for he on two occasions at least delivered
to his pupils, before the celebration of the communion in the college
chapel, addresses which were afterwards privately printed, and which
present his view of the relations of ethics and religion in a way
impressive even to those who may find it hard to follow the
philosophical argument.
Metaphysicians are generally as little interested in practical
politics as poets are, and not better suited for political life. Green
was a remarkable exception. Politics were in a certain sense the
strongest of his interests. To him metaphysics were not only the basis
of theology, but also the basis of politics. Everything was to
converge on the free life of the individual in a free State; rational
faith and reason inspired by emotion were to have their perfect work
in making the good citizen.
His interest in politics was perhaps less active in later years than
it had been in his youth, but his principles stood unchanged. He was a
thoroughgoing Liberal, or what used to be called a Radical, full of
faith in the people, an advocate of pretty nearly every measure that
tended to democratise English institutions, a friend of peace and of
non-intervention. In our days he would have been called a Little
Englander, for though his ideal of national life was lofty, the
wellbeing of the masses was to him a more essential part of that ideal
than any extension of territory or power. He once said that he would
rather see the flag of England trailed in the dirt than add sixpence
to the taxes that weigh upon the poor. In foreign politics Louis
Napoleon, as the corrupter of France and the disturber of Europe, was
his favourite aversion; in home politics, Lord Palmerston, as the
chief obstacle to parliamentary reform. The statesman whom he most
admired and trusted was Mr. Bright. A strong sense of civic duty led
him to enter the City Council of Oxford, although he could ill spare
from his study and his lecture-room the time which the discharge of
municipal duties required. He was the first tutor who had ever offered
himself to a ward for election. The townsfolk, between whom and the
University there had generally been little love, the former thinking
themselves looked down upon by the latter, warmly appreciated his
action in coming out of his seclusion to help them, and his influence
in the Council contributed to secure some useful reforms, among
others, the establishment of a "grammar" or secondary school for the
city.
One of the last things he wrote was a short pamphlet on freedom of
contract, intended to justify the interference with bargains between
landlord and tenant which was proposed by Mr. Gladstone's Irish Land
Bill of 1881. It is a vigorous piece of reasoning, which may still be
read with interest in respect of its application of philosophical
principles to a political controversy. Had he desired it he might have
gone to the House of Commons as member for the city of Oxford. But he
had found in the Council a field for local public work, and apart from
his constitutional indolence and his declining health, he had
concluded that his first duty lay in expounding his philosophical
system.
Green will be long remembered in the English Universities as the
strongest force in the sphere of ethical philosophy that they have
seen in the second half of the nineteenth century, and remembered also
as a singular instance of a metaphysician with a bent towards politics
and practical life, no less than as a thinker far removed from
orthodoxy who exerted over orthodox Christians a potent and inspiring
religious influence.
-----
[18] As I have referred to the American Civil War, it is worth adding
that there were no places in England where the varying fortunes
of that tremendous struggle were followed with a more intense
interest than in Oxford and Cambridge, and none in which so
large a proportion of the educated class sympathised with the
cause of the North. Mr. Goldwin Smith led the section which
took that view, and which included three-fourths of the best
talent in Oxford. Among the younger men Green was the most
conspicuous for his ardour on behalf of the principles of human
equality and freedom. He followed and watched every move in the
military game. No Massachusetts Abolitionist welcomed the fall
of Vicksburg with a keener joy. He used to say that the whole
future of humanity was involved in the triumph of the Federal
arms.
ARCHBISHOP TAIT[19]
England is now the only Protestant country in which bishops retain
some relics of the dignity and influence which belonged to the
episcopal office during the Middle Ages. Even in Roman Catholic
countries they have been sadly shorn of their ancient importance,
though the prelates of Hungary still hold vast possessions, while
in France, or Spain, or the Catholic parts of Germany a man of eminent
talents and energy may occasionally use his official position to
become, through his influence over Catholic electors or Catholic
deputies, a considerable political factor. This happens even in
the United States and Canada, though in the United States the
general feeling that religion must be kept out of politics obliges
ecclesiastics to use their spiritual powers cautiously and sparingly.
England stands alone in the fact that although the Protestant
Episcopal Church is, in so far as she is established by law, the
creature and subject of the State, she is nevertheless so far
independent as a religious organisation that she retains a greater
power than in other Protestant nations. State establishment, though it
may have depressed, has not stifled her ecclesiastical life, and an
interest in ecclesiastical questions is shown by a larger proportion
of her laity than one finds in Germany or the Scandinavian kingdoms. A
man of shining parts has, as an English bishop, a wide field of
action and influence open to him outside the sphere of theology or
of purely official duty. And the opportunities of the position
attain their maximum when he reaches the primatial chair of
Canterbury, which is now the oldest and the most dignified of all the
metropolitan sees in countries that have accepted the Reformation of
the sixteenth century.