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Thomas Hill Green (1836–1882)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Richard A. Chapman
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Extract

“MANY of the troubles of today reflect the distraction of minds to which a sane and balanced view of society has never been adequately presented. … No other writer … has the classical strength and sanity of Professor Green, who was never more thorough and at home than when dealing with those questions affecting citizenship in and for which, it may be said, he lived” (Bosanquet).

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 27 , Issue 4 , October 1965 , pp. 516 - 531
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1965

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References

1 Bosanquet, Bernard, Preface to the 1941 Edition of Green's Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation (London, 1941)Google Scholar.

2 Fairbrother, W. H., The Philosophy of Thomas Hill Green (London, 1896), Prefatory Note, p. viGoogle Scholar.

3 The Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation were first delivered by Green in 1879, but not published until after his death in 1882. Prolegomena to Ethics was published in 1883, and the collected Works (3 vols.) in 1885, 1886, and 1888. Of all his major works, Green saw only one book published, his Introduction to Hume (Longmans, 1874–1875)Google Scholar.

4 There are two exceptions to this generalization. One is Chin's, Y. L. published Ph.D. Thesis The Political Theory of T. H. Green (New York, 1920)Google Scholar, but this is little known and almost unobtainable. The other exception is Milne's, A. J. M.The Social Philosophy of English Idealism (London, 1962)Google Scholar, which has two very useful chapters on Green's moral and political philosophy. Lamont's, W. D.Introduction to Green's Moral Philosophy (London, 1934)Google Scholar merely aims at condensing the Prolegomena to Ethics.

5 It is most remarkable that in his writings Leslie Stephen did not even notice Green's philosophy. Stephen wrote the three volumes of English Utilitarians in 1900 as if Green had never lived — yet no other work of political philosophy as important as Green's posthumously published Lectures on Political Obligation had been written by an Englishman during Stephen's maturity, and to ignore it was to ignore one of the main attempts to give liberalism a new ethical foundation. Such flagrant disregard by a co-editor of the Dictionary of National Biography (although Stephen wrote the piece on Green in it), was probably intended as the most condemning criticism. See Annan, Noel G.Leslie Stephen (London, 1951), p. 243Google Scholar.

6 It is interesting to note that Green, Bosanquet, and Bradley were all sons of Evangelical clergymen.

7 See Works, III, p. xvii.

8 Loc. cit.

9 See also Faber, Geoffrey, Jowett (London, 1958), p. 40Google Scholar.

10 Earl of Oxford, and Asquith, , Memories and Reflections (Boston, 1918), p. 21Google Scholar. This is not to suggest, however, that Asquith was an ardent follower of Green, for on p. 24 he says “For myself, though I owe more than I can say to Green's gymnastics, both intellectual and moral, I never ‘worshipped at the Temple's inner shrine.’”

11 Works, III, xvi, 276.

12 Ibid., xxxiv.

13 Ibid., xix.

14 Symonds to Nettleship, MS. letter, Balliol Library, quoted by Richter, Melvin in The Political Philosophy of T. H. Green (unpublished Ph.D. Thesis at Harvard University, 1953)Google Scholar; see also MacGunn, JohnSix Radical Thinkers (London, 1910), p. 247Google Scholar.

15 G. A. Fyffe to Nettleship. MS. letter, Balliol Library, quoted by Richter in The Political Philosophy of T. H. Green.

16 Works, III, xxxiv.

17 Until 1871 all Non-Conformists, Catholics, and Jews were excluded from Oxford by the requirements that all students subscribe to the Thirty-Nine articles.

18 See Ashton, Arthur J., As I Went on My Way (London, 1924)Google Scholar, quoted by Richter, op. cit.

19 See Farrell, Lewis R., An Oxonian Looks Back (London, 1934)Google Scholar, quoted by Richter, op. cit.

20 From Sidgwick, Henry, A Memoir, p. 394Google Scholar. Also quoted in an article by Pringle-Pattison, A. Seth: “Henry Sidgwick: Thos. Hill Green” in Mind XVII (1908), 98Google Scholar.

21 For example, Green, spoke of Wordsworth's “Ode to Duty” as “the high water mark of modern poetry.” Works, III, xviiiGoogle Scholar. In all these philosophers he was attracted by the idea of a divine life or spirit pervading the world, making nature intelligible, giving unity to history, embodying itself in states and churches and inspiring individual men to genius.

22 MrsWard, Humphrey, Robert Elsmere (3 vols., London, 1888)Google Scholar.

23 See Trevelyan, Janet Penrose, The Life of Mrs. Humphrey Ward (New York, 1923)Google Scholar.

24 Mainly in The Nineteenth Century (periodical).

25 In the Preface to the “Westmorland Edition” of Robert Elsmere issued twenty-three years later, Mrs. Ward herself confessed to her models for some of the principal characters … to Thos. Hill Green, “the noblest and most persuasive master of philosophic thought in modern Oxford,” for Henry Grey. See Trevelyan, J. P., The Life of Mrs. Humphrey Ward, pp. 50et seq.Google Scholar

26 MrsWard, Humphrey, Robert Elsmere, p. 364Google Scholar. I have discovered that these particular statements (and probably others as well, although I have not been able to locate them) have been taken word-for-word from Green's writings. See Works, III, 259.

27 MrsWard, Humphrey, Robert Elsmere, p. 445Google Scholar.

28 Ibid., p. 386.

29 Ibid., p. 584.

30 Ibid., p. 65–67.

31 Until the first University Commission in 1854 all fellows of Oxford Colleges, with the occasional exception of medical fellows, were required by statute to have taken Orders in the Church of England. Although this requirement was abolished, in the 1870's there were still many tutors who had been appointed under the statute. Green was probably the first lay tutor at Balliol, and he chose to give two sermons (in 1870 and 1877) in accordance with the Oxford custom. See Works, III, 230–276.

32 Works, III, xcii.

33 Ibid., 246.

34 See SirLeathes, Stanley “The Qualifications, Recruitment and Training of Public Servants” in Public Administration, I (1923), 343CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 See The Journal of the Rev. John Wesley.

36 See Works, III, 181, 226, 249.

37 Ibid., 92 et seq.

38 Ibid., xxxix and c.

39 Works, III, xxvii, cix, 221, 239, 248; Principles of Political Obligation, p. 131; Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 260. MrsWard, Humphrey, Robert Elsmere, p. 578Google Scholar, wrote: “For eternal life, the ideal state, is not something future and distant. Dante knew it when he talked of ‘quella que imperadisa la via menti!’ Paradise is here, visible and tangible by mortal eyes and hands, wherever self is lost in loving, wherever the narrow limits of personality are beaten down by the inrush of the Divine Spirit.”

40 “‘The parting with the Christian mythology is the rending asunder of bones and marrow’ — words which I have put into Grey's mouth — were words of Mr. Green to me. It was the only thing of the sort I ever heard him say — he was a man who never spoke his feelings — but it was said with a penetrating force and sincerity which I still remember keenly. A long intellectual travail had convinced him that the miraculous Christian story was untenable; but speculatively he gave it up with grief and difficulty, and practically to his last hour he clung to all the forms and associations of the old belief with a wonderful affection.” These words of Mrs. Humphrey Ward are quoted by Trevelyan, J. P., The Life of Mrs. Humphrey Ward, p. 63Google Scholar. Notice also that in Robert Elsmere, p. 380, after the “crisis” — “only the habit of faith held, the close instinctive clinging to a Power beyond sense — a Goodness, a Will, not man's.”

41 Works, III, xxxv.

42 Ibid., xlv.

43 Mrs. Green to Nettleship, Ms. note, Balliol Library, quoted by Melvin Richter, op. cit.

44 See A. D. Lindsay, Introduction to the Principles of Political Obligation.

45 See Works, III, xxiv, cxi, cxii.

46 Ibid., xx.

47 Ibid., xxiii. Cf. “Patriotism … is … (the temper of) the citizen … following a feudal chief.” Principles of Political Obligation, p. 172.

48 Works, III, xxiii.

49 Ibid., p. xxiv.

50 Loc. cit.

51 Works, III, xxxvii and cxvii; Barker, Ernest: Political Thought in England from 1848 to 1914 (London, 1948), Ch. 2Google Scholar. Green made a special effort (unsuccessful) to reclaim his brother in 1862.

52 Works, III, cxvi. See also justification in Ibid. 365 et seq.

53 He was very interested in the work of the Oxford High School for Boys, and in 1877 contributed to it and founded a scholarship.

54 Instructions given to assistant commissioners, quoted in Works, III, xlv.

55 Ibid., 387.

56 Ibid., 392.

57 Ibid., xxxvi.

58 Ibid., xlviii.

59 Ibid., p. 414.

60 Ibid., p. 433.

61 Ibid., p. lii.

62 See Faber, , Jowett, p. 354Google Scholar.

63 Works, III, lxi.

64 Ibid., p. lvii.

65 Ibid., p. cxiii.

66 Ibid., p. xxv.