by Bart Schultz
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Henry Sidgwick: Eye of the Universe
them what could be learnt, and then, if argument was desirable, argue at
close quarters.”
As will become increasingly evident, Sidgwick’s construction of the
fleshly body in relation to sympathetic understanding played an exceed-
ingly important role in his religious, ethical, and parapsychological strug-
gles. Some would also try to situate this obsession with figurative and
literal forms of telepathic empathizing, mingling of minds, and so on, in
the context of the fascination with mesmerism that first became marked
during the earlier Victorian period, and that itself represented a response
to anxiety over social conflict and the growth of democracy, with new forms
of political leadership seeking to understand and achieve crowd control
and consensus in novel ways. This line of interpretation, not heretofore
developed in connection with Sidgwick, will be more fully addressed in
Chapter , but it is suggestive of just how emblematic of social currents
the seemingly more eccentric side of Sidgwickian sympathy may actually
have been, of just how much his parapsychological interests reflected what
was “in the air.”
Moreover, Sidgwick’s friendship with John Addington Symonds, the
source of some of the most intense intellectual and emotional exchanges
of his life, was very much shaped by Symonds’s chronic invalidism and
the way this affected his philosophical outlook. Symonds shared many
of Sidgwick’s interests, especially in forms of depth psychology, and his
own explorations of Platonic eros provided further forms of struggle with
bodily existence and how it related to the intimacy of minds. Sidgwick
was positively robust compared to Symonds, and in the only times he ever
experienced anything close to Symonds’s tubercular physical weakness
were during this undergraduate bout and in the last months of his life.
It appears that he did make the most of such experiences. Evident
in the foregoing remarks is the struggle with egoism and the body, via
sympathetic talk, that would color the rest of his life, especially during
his times of intellectual crisis. His diary and commonplace book, from his
early years at Cambridge, are filled with records of his battle with self and
flesh. Consider this earnest prayer, recorded in his diary:
Before the Sacrament. I confess my errors to
Jesus Christ in whom I humbly hope & pray
that I believe with a saving faith –
. My selfishness – This I feel is my great evil
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combined with my self-consciousness & my
occasional reactionary asceticism it leads to
acts of great folly as well as wrong-doing.
O God deliver me from this make it
my sole aim primarily to do thy will,
secondarily to further my own health
& self-improvement intellectually morally
& physically; but always relatively if
not subordinately to the welfare of
others – give me a complete devotion
to Jesus Christ & a desire to imitate
him in his utter abandonment of self
in the cause of those whose nature He
took – grant me to realize so as to
feel these great realities; that I may
not merely prate about but acknowledge
from my heart the superiority of heavenly things
to earthly.
. Pride of Intellect – O God grant me neither
to exalt too high nor to despise this
gloriously capable part of my nature.
The “reactionary asceticism” leading to “acts of great folly as well as
wrong-doing” was apparently quite real, and this may be a reference back
to his earlier abstemiousness, his habit of drinking only water, which his
physicians claimed contributed to his digestive problem. But his somewhat
compulsive battling with his own constitution took other forms as well,
such as his efforts to overcome his insomnia and stammering. Indeed, it
is intriguing that his celebrated conversation involved just such a struggle
on the very surface, as it were, in that he was often complimented for
deploying his stammer to enhance the effect of his wit, turning a kind of
physical resistance into a triumph of intellect. As he wrote to Dakyns, in
August of , “Strive not to let your spirit be clouded by your flesh: in
every disease this is the worst danger. I mean what is called hypochondria,
the state when one’s thoughts are enslaved to one’s clay.” It is not at all
far-fetched to read these things as symptomatic portents or manifestations
of the battles against materialism characteristic of his parapsychology and
his own self-experimentation. But then, one had to watch out for the
intellect as well.
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Henry Sidgwick: Eye of the Universe
It should be remarked that Sidgwick apparently had quite extraordi-
nary powers of mental concentration, no doubt related to that absorption
in thought that often kept him from recognizing friends and acquaintances
when he passed them in the street. Oscar Browning recorded his obser-
vations of Sidgwick during the University Scholarship exam, noting how
while everyone else was scribbling away at their Latin verses, Sidgwick
simply sat there motionlessly meditating for nearly the entire period. With
only minutes to go, he came out of his spell and wrote out his entire exam
perfectly.
Absorption in self and pride of intellect – such were the sins of the
young Sidgwick. And sins they were, to his mind, even after the influence
of Benson started to fade. The commonplace book records:
But I desire only studies that however abstract in . . . reasonings have for their end human happiness. Thus Political Economy to make men happier and better en
masse: Theology, to know, not what conduces to my eternal weal, but to our &c.
The strongest conviction I have is a belief in what Comte calls “altruisme”: the
cardinal doctrine, it seems to me, of Jesus of Nazareth. I do not penetrate into my
innermost feelings: it may be that my philanthropy has it’s root in selfishness: I
may be convinced that the only means of securing my own happiness is to pursue
that of my fellow-creatures: but surely if this profound and enlightened selfishness
be a vice, and I sometimes fear that it is, in me, no better regimen could be applied to it than that suggested by itself, namely, devotion to Society. Whether Comtist
or not I feel as if I never should swerve from my cardinal maxim, wh is also his
“L’amour pur principe. Le progres pour but.”
Such remarks, linking Christiani
ty to Comte, should suggest the thor-
oughly religious context (even without Benson) of Sidgwick’s early dab-
blings with utilitarianism. His reluctance to penetrate his innermost feel-
ings was not at all like that of the eighteenth-century skeptics – say, Hume,
who asked, “Why rake into those corners of nature which spread a nuisance
all around?” Nor, at this early stage, did he show any great confidence in
Bentham’s artificial harmony of interests, as so often construed, however
misleadingly, as simply a matter-of-fact acceptance of the prevalence of
self-interested motives. Even in his later sympathy with Bentham, he was
apt to regard the prevalence of self-interest as akin to the prevalence of sin,
something that had to be recognized and dealt with realistically, though
certainly not applauded. He was bent on disciplining himself to altruism,
always suspecting, however, that his deeper nature could be betraying him.
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His consolation was that perhaps he could satisfy his true self by altruistic
action.
And of course, the truth is that Sidgwick did seek to penetrate his in-
nermost feelings, and his gloriously capable intellect was largely employed
in doing precisely that. After all, that was his Apostolic quest. Again, al-
though during his first year or so at Cambridge he was still under Benson’s
sway, the next year saw him “fall under different influences, which went
on increasing” until he was “definitely enlisted as an ‘Academic Liberal.’ ”
And it was the “rapidity and completeness of his transfer of allegiances”
that would later strike him, and the way in which it was effected by groups
like the Apostles and by his own independent studies, rather than by his
formal schooling, about which he hardly ever spoke with any enthusiasm
(rather the opposite). But the transformation was not like that of, say,
Bertrand Russell, who would speedily abandon the religion of his youth
under similar Apostolic circumstances, but then turn a scornful eye on
the entire Christian tradition. Sidgwick would always regard insouciant
atheism or agnosticism as shallow, insensitive to the religious experience
and the demands of the human heart.
Sidgwick’s account of his transition is of the first importance, and neatly
outlines the different sides of his quest.
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 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 realizing;
except so far as history properly understood showed that the time had come for
the scientific treatment of political and moral problems.
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Henry Sidgwick: Eye of the Universe
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 Reviewers: and my own opinions were for many years unsettled
and widely fluctuating. What was fixed and unalterable and accepted by us all was
the necessity and duty of examining the evidence for historical Christianity with
strict scientific impartiality; placing ourselves 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.
This account comports well with the better-known one affixed to the
sixth edition of the Methods, in which Sidgwick alludes to the suffocating
orthodoxy of both Benson and the formal Cambridge curriculum: “My
first adhesion to a definite Ethical system was to the Utilitarianism of Mill:
I found in this relief from the apparently external and arbitrary pressure
of moral rules which I had been educated to obey, and which presented
themselves to me as to some extent doubtful and confused; and some-
times, even when clear, as merely dogmatic, unreasoned, incoherent.”
(ME xvii) But it also indicates the larger historical currents that Sidgwick
was caught up in. Utilitarianism was but one possible form for this en-
thusiasm, and it did not in itself define the complex of religious questions
and controversies, the general innovativeness, of the era. In fact, as will
be shown, it did not represent the direction of the times at all, but was
in some respects a more old-fashioned creed. The academic liberals were
a much more diverse and divided group than the term “Millian” would
suggest.
The academic liberals of these years, the many university figures who
went in for reformism and public service, certainly cherished ambitious
hopes for the revamping of all that was sectarian, and they expected to play
a leading role in preparing the nation for greater democratization, better
and broader education, increased professionalization, and more progres-
sive, less superstitious and dogmatic forms of worship and morality. The
Apostles were of course much identified with this movement, as were sev-
eral other vanguard groups around Oxbridge, though as a movement it
could shelter philosophies as diverse as Sidgwick’s utilitarianism, Huxley’s
Darwinism, T. H. Green’s idealism, and the Oxford Hellenism of Pater
and the early Symonds.
Theologically, the Essays and Reviews proved to be a turning point, when
published in . The book was a collection of critical and latitudinarian
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or Broad Church pieces, designed to encourage open discussion of biblical
questions by figures of eminence – Benjamin Jowett, Frederick Temple,
Baden Powell, Mark Pattison, H. B. Wilson, Rowland Williams, and C. W.
Goodwin. Of these, only Goodwin, of Cambridge, was a layperson. The
heated controversy that followed its appearance predictably pointed up
the differences that now existed between Sidgwick and Benson. Sidgwick
was disgusted by the reaction of the church and sent a harsh letter to the
Times, stating: “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. . . . For philosophy and history alike have taught
them [the laity] to seek not what is ‘safe,’ but what is true.” (M –
) This was what Benson had in mind when he complained about the
insane desire to jump off one’s own shadow. Some years later, after the
book had been condemned by the Convocation of Canterbury, Benson
would defend the promotion of Temple to the see of Exeter, but he would
do so on the grounds that Temple did not share the views of the other
contributors.
To seek not what is safe but what is true, and to do so with strict
scientific impartiality, even on questions of religion and morality – these
were convictions that Sidgwick absorbed as his own, the convictions of
his generation. How could one go out, in good Rugby fashion, to do one’s
Duty, when all was doubtful, even Duty itself?
The content of Sidgwick’s theological transformation will be addressed
in subsequent chapters. First, however, it is necessary to consider at greater
length a more fundamental transformation, the transformation reverber-
ating throughout Sidgwick’s talk about talk and self-creation – namely, his
Apostolic vision of the pursuit of truth. This is the key to his theological
and ethical development, and even to his talk itself. However playful the
Apostolic banter may have been, it had a very real effect on Sidgwick and
the growth of his utilitarian orientation. Lurking within his utilitarianism,
one always finds a poetic Apostolic soul.
IV. Pursuit of Truth
Truth, I hold, not to be that which every man troweth, but to be that which lies
