About the Book
The Metaphysical Society was founded in 1869 at the instigation of James Knowles (editor of the Contemporary Review and then of the Nineteenth Century) with a view to "collect, arrange, and diffuse Knowledge (whether objective or subjective) of mental and moral phenomena " (first resolution of the Society in April 1869).
The Society was a private club which gathered together a latter-day clerisy. Building on the tradition of the Cambridge Apostles, they elected talented members from across the Victorian intellectual spectrum: Bishops, one Cardinal, philosophers, men of science, literary figures, and politicians. The Society included in its 62 members prominent figures such as T. H. Huxley, William Gladstone, Walter Bagehot, Henry Edward Manning, John Ruskin and Alfred Lord Tennyson.
The papers they produced are key primary sources which shed new light on the ideas of their authors on the burning subjects of the day, ranging from the existence and personality of God to the nature of conscience or the existence of the soul. They are a legacy of a period when intellectuals were wondering how, and what, to believe in a time of social change, spiritual crisis, and scientific progress.
The dissolution of the Society in 1880 did not diminish the value of the papers: they illustrate a tradition of private, open discussion among famous men of the most widely varying views; they offer detailed insight into the evolution of the relationships between different schools of Victorian scientific and religious thought; and they bring to light heretofore under-represented points of conflict and harmony. All 95 papers are included, accompanied by introductions and scholarly notes that set each paper into their proper context.
Table of Contents:
Volume I
Introduction
Further reading
Preliminary note on editorial practices
Note on the illustrations
Alfred Tennyson: Poetic Prologue to the 2 June 1869 meeting, "The Higher Pantheism"
1: Richard Holt Hutton: 2 June 1869, "On Mr. H. Spencer's Theory of the Gradual Transformation of Utilitarian into Intuitive Morality by Hereditary Descent"
2: William B. Carpenter: 14 July 1869, "The Common Sense Philosophy of Causation"
3: T. H. Huxley: 17 November 1869, "The Views of Hume, Kant, and Whately upon the Logical Basis of the Doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul"
4: William George Ward: 15 December 1869, "On Memory as an Intuitive Faculty"
5: John Lubbock: 12 January 1870, "The Moral Condition of Savages"
6: Roden Noel: 9 February 1870, "What is Matter?"
7: John D. Dalgairns: 16 March 1870, "On the Theory of a Soul"
8: Henry Sidgwick: 27 April 1870, "The Verification of Beliefs"
9: James Martineau: 15 June 1870, "Is There Any 'Axiom of Causality'? "
10: Frederic Harrison: 13 July 1870, "The Relativity of Knowledge"
11: T. H. Huxley: 8 November 1870,"Has a Frog a Soul; and of What Nature is That Soul, Supposing it to Exist?"
12: Walter Bagehot: 13 December 1870, "On the Emotion of Conviction"
13: Henry Edward Manning: 11 January 1871, "What is the Relation of the Will to Thought?"
14: Alexander Grant: 8 February 1871, "On the Nature and Origin of the Moral Ideas"
15: Arthur Russell: 14 March 1871, "On the Absolute"
16: John Ruskin: 25 April 1871, "Theorem: The Range of Intellectual Conception is Proportioned to the Rank in Animated Life"
17: James Anthony Froude: 16 May 1871, "Evidence"
18: Richard Holt Hutton: 13 June 1871, "Mr. Herbert Spencer on Moral Intuitions and Moral Sentiments"
19: Charles J. Ellicott: 11 July 1871, "What is Death?"
20: Frederick Dennison Maurice: 21 November 1871, "On the Words 'Nature;' 'Natural,' and 'Supernatural'"
21: Arthur Penrhyn Stanley: 19 December 1871, "Do We Form Our Opinions on External Authority?"
22: William B. Carpenter: 17 January 1872, "What is Common Sense?"
23: William Rathbone Greg: 13 February 1872, " Wherein Consists the Special Beauty of Imperfection and Decay?"
24: James Antony Froude: 12 March 1872, "Are Numbers and Geometrical Figures Real Things?"
25: Mark Pattison: 9 April 1872, "The Arguments for a Future Life"
26: Henry Edward Manning: 14 May 1872, "That Legitimate Authority is an Evidence of Truth"
27: John D. Dalgairns: 11 June 1872, "Is God Unknowable?"
28: Frederic Harrison: 9 July 1872, "On the Supposed Necessity of Certain Metaphysical Problems"
29: Shadworth Hodgson: 12 November 1872, "Five Idols of the Theatre"
30: William George Ward: 10 December 1872, "Can Experience Prove the Uniformity of Nature?"
Volume II
31: Arthur Russell: 14 January 1873, "Darwinians and Idealists"
32: John Ruskin: 11 February 1873, "The Nature and Authority of Miracle"
33: Henry Wentworth Acland: 11 March 1873, "Faith and Knowledge"
34: Roden Noel: 8 April 1873, "On Will"
35: George Croom Robertson: 13 May 1873, "The Action of So Called Motives"
36: Henry Edward Manning: 10 June 1873, "A Diagnosis and Prescription"
37: Richard Holt Hutton: 8 July 1873, "Euthanasia"
38: Charles J. Ellicott: 8 July 1873, "Oral Communication on Euthanasia"
39: James Hinton: 18 November 1873, "On the Relation of the Organic and Inorganic Worlds"
40: Henry Sidgwick: 16 December 1873, "Utilitarianism"
41: Arthur Russell: 13 January 1874, "The Speculative Method"
42: Walter Bagehot: 10 February 1874, "The Metaphysical Basis of Toleration"
43: James Fitzjames Stephen: 10 March 1874, "Some Thoughts on Necessary Truth"
44: Richard Holt Hutton: 14 April 1874, "Latent Thought"
45: John D. Dalgairns: 12 May 1874, "The Personality of God"
46: W. K. Clifford: 9 June 1874, "On the Nature of Things in Themselves"
47: William George Ward: 14 July 1874, "A Reply on Necessary Truth?"
48: William B. Carpenter: 17 November 1874, "On the Doctrine of Human Automatism"
49: William Rathbone Greg: 8 December 1874, "Can Truths be Apprehended Which Could not Have Been Discovered?"
50: James Fitzjames Stephen: 12 January 1875, "On a Theory of Dr. Newman's as to Believing in Mysteries"
51: William Thomson: 9 February 1875, "Will and Responsibility"
52: W. K. Clifford: 9 March 1875, "The Scientific Basis of Morals"
53: William Connor Magee: 13 April 1875, "Hospitals for Incurables Considered from a Moral Point of View"
54: John Ruskin: 11 May 1875, "Theorem: Social Policy Must Be Based on the Scientific Principle of Natural Selection"
55: Arthur Russell: 8 June 1875, "The Right of Man over the Lower Animals"
56: Henry Sidgwick: 13 July 1875, "The Theory of Evolution in its Application to Practice"
57: James Fitzjames Stephen: 9 November 1875, "Remarks on the Proof of Miracles"
58: William B. Carpenter: 14 December 1875, "On the Fallacies of Testimony in Relation to the Supernatural"
59: T. H. Huxley: 11 January 1876, "The Evidence of the Miracle of the Resurrection"
60: Shadworth Hodgson: 14 March 1876, "The Pre-Suppositions of Miracles"
61: W. K. Clifford: 11 April 1876, "The Ethics of Belief"
62: Arthur Russell: 9 May1876, "The Persistence of the Religious Feeling"
63: St George Jackson Mivart: 13 June 1876, "What is the Good of Truth?"
64: James Fitzjames Stephen: 11 July 1876, "What is a Lie?"
Volume III
65: George Croom Robertson: 14 November 1876, "How Do We Come by Our Knowledge?"
66: James Fitzjames Stephen: 12 December 1876, "The Effect of a Decline of Religious Belief on Morality"
67: Frederic Harrison: 9 January 1877, "The Soul before and after Death" Part I
68: Henry Edward Manning: 13 February 1877, "The Soul before and after Death" Part II
69: James Fitzjames Stephen: 13 March 1877, "Authority in Matters of Opinion"
70: James Martineau: 17 April 1877, "The Supposed Conflict between Efficient and Final Causation"
71: St George Jackson Mivart: 8 May 1877, "Matter and Force"
72: Leslie Stephen: 12 June 1877, "Belief and Evidence"
73: Arthur Russell: 10 July 1877, "On Ideas as a Force"
74: Richard Holt Hutton: 13 November 1877, "On the Relation of Evidence to Conviction"
75: John Morley: 11 December 1877, "Various Definitions of Materialism"
76: Henry Sidgwick: 15 January 1878, "The Relation of Psychogony to Metaphysics and Ethics"
77: Mark Pattison: 12 February 1878, "Double Truth"
78: Matthew P. W. Boulton: 9 April 1878, "Has a Metaphysical Society any Raison d'etre?"
79: William Connor Magee: 11 June 1878, "The Ethics of Persecution"
80: John Charles Bucknill: 9 July 1878, "The Limits of Philanthropy"
81: Shadworth Hodgson: 12 November 1878, "Is Monism Tenable?"
82: Richard Holt Hutton: 17 December 1878, "Is 'Lapsed Intelligence' a Probable Origin for Complex Animal Instincts?"
83: Henry Sidgwick: 14 January 1879, "Incoherence of Empirical Philosophy"
84: James Fitzjames Stephen: 11 February 1879, "On the Utility of Truth"
85: Leslie Stephen: 11 March 1879, "The Uniformity of Nature"
86: St George Jackson Mivart: 8 April 1879, "The Religion of Emotion"
87: Henry Edward Manning: 27 May 1879, "The Objective Certainty of the Immaterial World"
88: Frederic Harrison: 10 June 1879, "The Social Factor in Psychology"
89: Henry Edward Manning: 25 November 1879, "What is Philosophy?"
90: Richard Holt Hutton: 9 December 1879, "Is Causation or Power in Nature a Reality, or a Mere Anthropomorphic Fancy?"
91: William Gull: 13 January 1880, "What Are the Elements of a Sensation?"
92: Henry Sidgwick: 10 February 1880, "The Scope of Metaphysics"
93: Frederick Pollock: 9 March 1880, "Generic and Symbolic Images"
94: Joseph Raymond Gasquet: 13 April 1880, "The Relation of Metaphysics to the Rest of Philosophy"
95: Charles Barnes Upton: 11 May 1880, "The Recent Phase of the Free-Will Controversy"
Biographical Register of the Members of the Metaphysical Society
Biographical Index
Index
About the Author :
Catherine Marshall is Senior Lecturer in British Studies, Universite de Cergy-Pontoise Bernard Lightman is Professor of Humanities, York University, Toronto
Richard England is Dean of the Honors College, and Professor of Philosophy, Eastern Illinois University
Review :
The target audience for these volumes are those interested in the primary source content, as well as the history and thought of elite Victorian thinkers. The introduction, commentary, apparatus, and indices make these high-level essays more accessible. The footnotes are thorough and helpful when placing the source material within its proper historical context [T]his edition is essential for those interested in the broad range of topics discussed, as well as the history of the discussion and the persons involved in the Metaphysical Society.
In the introduction the three editors contend that the Metaphysical Society and what it produced deserves to be given its rightful place in the Victorian history of ideas (p. 25). Their critical edition of the societys papers fulfills that objective magnificently. It is a veritable treasure trove of nineteenthcentury intellectual history that ought to be on the shelves of every serious research library.
In sum, the publication of these three volumes opens up a whole new fertile field for scholarly investigation.Overall the editors have done a marvellously meticulous job in preparing these three substantial volumes of papers for publication and in consequence have rendered a great service to scholarship, particularly to the history of ideas of the mid-Victorian period. Scholars of nineteenth-century Victorian thought owe them a real debt of gratitude for their extensive critical labours. s
