Henry Sidgwick- Eye of the Universe Read online

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  HENRY SIDGWICK: EYE OF THE UNIVERSE

  Henry Sidgwick is one of the great intellectual figures of nineteenth-century

  Britain. He was first and foremost a great moral philosopher, whose master-

  work, The Methods of Ethics, is still widely studied today. But he was many

  other things besides, writing on religion, economics, politics, education, and

  literature. He was deeply involved in the founding of the first college for

  women at the University of Cambridge, and he was a leading figure in para-

  psychology. He was also much concerned with the sexual politics of his close

  friend John Addington Symonds, a pioneer of gay studies. Through his fa-

  mous student G. E. Moore, a direct line can be traced from Sidgwick and his

  circle to the Bloomsbury group.

  Bart Schultz has written a magisterial overview of this great Victorian sage –

  the first comprehensive study, offering provocative new critical perspectives

  on the life and the work. Sidgwick’s ethical work is situated in the context

  of his theological and political commitments and is revealed as a necessarily

  guarded statement of his deepest philosophical convictions and doubts. All

  other areas of his writings are covered and presented in the context of the late

  Victorian culture of imperialism.

  This biography, or “Goethean reconstruction,” will be eagerly sought out

  by readers interested in philosophy, Victorian studies, political theory, the

  history of ideas, educational theory, the history of psychology, and gender and

  gay studies.

  Bart Schultz is Fellow and Lecturer in the Division of the Humanities and

  Special Programs Coordinator in the Graham School of General Studies

  at the University of Chicago.

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  Henry Sidgwick:

  Eye of the Universe

  An Intellectual Biography

  Bart Schultz

  University of Chicago

  iii

    

  Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo

  Cambridge University Press

  The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge  , UK

  Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

  www.cambridge.org

  Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521829670

  © Bart Schultz 2004

  This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place

  without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

  First published in print format 2004

  - ----

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  Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of s for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

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  “We learn only from people we love.”

  – Goethe

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  Remember me when I am gone away,

  Gone far away into the silent land;

  When you can no more hold me by the hand,

  Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.

  Remember me when no more day by day

  You tell me of our future that you planned:

  Only remember me; you understand

  It will be late to counsel then or pray.

  Yet if you should forget me for a while

  And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

  For if the darkness and corruption leave

  A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

  Better by far you should forget and smile

  Than that you should remember and be sad.

  “Remember,” by Christina Rossetti,

  described by Henry Sidgwick as

  “perhaps the most perfect thing

  that any living poet has written”

  I ask for life – for life Divine

  Where man’s true self may move

  In one harmonious cord to twine

  The threads of Knowledge and of Love

  Henry Sidgwick, circa 

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  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  page ix

  List of Abbreviations

  xix

   Overture

  

   First Words

  

   Unity

  

   Consensus versus Chaos

  

   Spirits

  

   Friends versus Friends

  

   Colors

  

   Last Words?

  

  Notes

  

  Index

  

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  Acknowledgments

  Henry Sidgwick: Eye of the Universe reflects a very long, very strange trip.

  It is quite possible that my thinking about Henry Sidgwick (and John

  Addington Symonds) began longer ago than I can actually recall, at some

  point in the s when I was reading various works in which their names

  figured – works that, befitting the times, had to do with religion, ethics,

  art, psychology, and cosmic consciousness. My sixties vision of a new age

  resonated happily, at least on some counts, with the visions of a new age that

  animated the late Victorians – visions that rebelled against the limitations

  of a perversely hypocritical commonsense morality. What curious forces

  led to my intense, continuing engagement with these figures and themes

  into and beyond  can only make for much speculation. At any rate,

  circa , I would not have been at all likely to prophesy that this scholarly

  tome was the form that my artwork would take.

  I console myself with the thought that I have at least had a most un-

  orthodox academic career and wound up marrying an art historian and

  adopting a beautiful little girl. It is to Marty and Madeleine that I owe

  everything that is good, in this book and in such life as has existed outside

  of it, and it is to them that I dedicate it.

  My parents, Reynolds and Marian Schultz, now deceased, and my three

  sisters, their husbands and children, were and are a source of loving sup-

  port, whatever qualms they might have about my stubborn waywardness,

  on display in the material that follows.

  And who could forget dear Churchill, the world’s largest miniature

  Schnauzer?

  I would like to express my gratitude to the many friends who con-

  tributed to this project. Their support – and, of course, criticism – has

  been vital and generous. First thanks must again go to Marty, her critical

  reading having been so crucial to my efforts. Next thanks must go to Jerry

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  x

  Acknowledgments

  Schneewind, the rightly acknowledged dean of Sidgwick studies, who has

  been a model and a marvel, showing just how open-minded a senior scholar

  can be, even while being absolutely unstinting in his (much-needed) crit-

  ical input. Mark Singer, another friend from the Sidgwick Society, has

  also, for all our differences, provided much welcome help and stimulus,

  as has Russell Hardin, to whom I owe far more than I can convey. In

  more recent days, my long-distance collegial friendship and collabora-

  tion with Roger Crisp has been a source of great pleasure and intellectual

  value; my work with him on “Sidgwick ” ( Utilitas , November

  ) did much to inspire me to complete Henry Sidgwick: Eye of the

  Universe. Closer to home, I have benefited from Charles Larmore’s eru-

  dite company, our exchanges invariably proving most thought-provoking.

  Very importantly, both John Skorupski and Tom Hurka have been ex-

  ceedingly generous with their time and input, providing me with a wealth

  of detailed critical commentary that is reflected in the following pages

  time and again. Finally, exchanges with Rob Shaver, Brad Hooker, David

  Weinstein, Sissela Bok, and Stephen Darwall, during the assemblage of

  “Sidgwick ,” also proved most fruitful. In fact, the journals Ethics and Utilitas ought to be included in this list, given how much they have meant

  to my work. Cambridge University Press and my editor, Terence Moore,

  belong here as well. The Press also supplied me with an excellent and

  congenial copy editor, Russell Hahn, whose efforts are reflected on nearly

  every page.

  Some old teachers – some of whom are, alas, now gone – will always have

  my enduring gratitude; the late Alan Donagan, the late David Greenstone,

  Shirley Castelnuovo, John Murphy, Jon Elster, Stephen Toulmin, and

  Brian Barry stand out in my memory. I owe them much, even if my in-

  terests and thinking have always remained rather apart. The late William

  Frankena, although never one of my formal teachers, went out of his way

  to help me, and my correspondence with him was a great source of inspi-

  ration. The late John Rawls was similarly generous, as was the late Edward

  Said.

  Of course, alongside these names, I must mention my students in the

  College at the University of Chicago, from whom it has been my pleasure

  to learn for the past fifteen years. Insofar as I have been able to “remain a

  boy” – that is, like Sidgwick’s friend John Grote, excited but undecided

  about all the great questions, including the question of whether there

  are any great questions – it is thanks to them. I am also truly grateful

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  Acknowledgments

  xi

  to the talented scholar-administators who make Chicago such an excit-

  ing community, including Dan Garber, Geof Stone, John Boyer, Richard

  Saller, Bernie Silberman, Bill Brown, Janel Mueller, Joel Snyder, Dan

  Shannon, and Jeff Rosen.

  I am also aware of very real debts to Barbara Donagan, David Brink,

  John Deigh, Donald Davidson, Dale Miller, Ian Jarvie, Peter Nicholson,

  Alan Gauld, Chris Stray, Robert Todd, David Tracy, Stuart Michaels,

  Martha Nussbaum, Phyllis Grosskurth, George Chauncey, David Phillips,

  Georgios Varouxakis, Dick Arneson, Monique Canto-Sperber, Louis

  Crompton, John Gibbins, Bill Lubenow, Chris Parsons, Richard Stern,

  Julian Baggini, Jennifer Welchman, Alan Ryan, Onora O’Neil, Richard

  Flathman, Wendy Donner, Maria Morales, Ray Monk, Stefan Collini,

  Ross Harrison, Evelyn Perry, Dave Coxall, Charlene Haddock Seigfried,

  John Pemble, Noam Chomsky, and Isabelle Richet.

  Two further scholarly projects have turned out to be quite useful for my

  work on this book. Assembling The Complete Works and Select Scholarly

  Correspondence of Henry Sidgwick (Charlottesville, VA: InteLex Corpora-

  tion, ; nd ed. ), the first such collection of Sidgwick’s works, for

  the InteLex Corporation’s Past Masters series of electronic databases was a

  time-consuming but valuable undertaking. My thanks to Mark Rooks and

  Brad Lamb, who invited me to take on the project and who also devoted a

  great deal of time to it. It is courtesy of them that so much Sidgwickian text

  has been transferred to this electronic format and made readily available

  for scholarly work.

  Work on the InteLex project brought me into collaboration with the his-

  torian Jean Wilkins, who not only did a fine job of transcribing Sidgwick’s

  journal, but was also instrumental in tracking dow
n various obscure works

  in the Cambridge libraries and thus helped with the overall assembly of

  the database as well. And it was at an early stage of that project that I also

  recruited the aid of the historian Janet Oppenheim, who supplied valuable

  advice and material relating to Sidgwick’s parapsychological research. Her

  premature death, from cancer, was a terrible loss to the scholarly commu-

  nity. A friend of Janet Oppenheim’s from the British Society for Psychical

  Research, Eleanor O’Keeffe, was also extremely helpful, doing everything

  that she could to ensure that we had a complete record of Sidgwick’s

  publications for the Society.

  With the second edition of the Complete Works, I was brought into

  collaboration with Andrew Dakyns and Belinda Robinson. Andrew, the

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  Acknowledgments

  descendant of Sidgwick’s dear friend Henry Graham Dakyns, turned out

  to be as enjoyable and erudite a companion as his ancestor was reputed to

  have been, and my work with him and Belinda – first on the Sidgwick–

  Dakyns correspondence included in the database, and then on the volume

  Strange Audacious Life: The Construction of John Addington Symonds – has

  been a delight. I was also led in this connection to make contact with

  Herbert Schueller and Bob Peters, the heroic editors of the pathbreaking,

  three-volume Letters of John Addington Symonds (Detroit: Wayne State

  University Press, –), a complementary copy of which Bob gener-

  ously sent to me.

  Andrew, Belinda, and I first got together at a conference, John

  Addington Symonds: The Public and Private Faces of Victorian Culture,

  sponsored by the Department of the History of Art and the Depart-

  ment of Historical Studies and held at Bristol University in the spring

  of . My visit to Bristol was enchanting, thanks especially to John

  Pemble and Annie Burnside, the latter being the warden of Clifton Hill

  House, Symonds’s old home, in which the conference was held, and where

  I also had the pleasure of meeting Vikky and Chris Furse, the latter one

  of Symonds’s descendants. The conference papers were revised and pub-

  lished as John Addington Symonds: Culture and the Demon Desire, ed. John