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Metaphysical Society
The Metaphysical Society was a famous British debating society, founded in 1869 by James Knowles, who acted as Secretary. Membership was by invitation only, and was exclusively male. Many of its members were prominent clergymen, philosophers, and politicians. Overview The society met monthly, from November to July (to mirror the sitting of Parliament). Its members were never all present at once, and most meetings never exceeded twenty attendees. Papers were read and discussed at meetings on such subjects as the ultimate grounds of belief in the objective and moral sciences, the immortality of the soul, etc. A description of one of the meetings was given by William Connor Magee (then Bishop of Peterborough) in a letter on 13 February 1873: Archbishop Manning in the chair was flanked by two Protestant bishops right and left; on my right was Hutton, editor of the ''Spectator'', an Arian; then came Father Dalgairns, a very able Roman Catholic priest; opposite him Lord A. Russell, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Debating Society
Debate is a process that involves formal discourse on a particular topic, often including a moderator and audience. In a debate, arguments are put forward for often opposing viewpoints. Debates have historically occurred in public meetings, academic institutions, debate halls, coffeehouses, competitions, and legislative assemblies. Debate has also been conducted for educational and recreational purposes, usually associated with educational establishments and debating societies. These debates put an emphasis upon logical consistency, factual accuracy, and emotional appeal to an audience. Modern forms of competitive debate also include rules for participants to discuss and decide upon the framework of the debate (how the debate will be judged). History Debating in various forms has a long history and can be traced back to the philosophical and political debates of Ancient Greece, such as Athenian democracy or Shastrartha in Ancient India. Modern forms of debating and the es ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Penrhyn Stanley
Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, (13 December 1815 – 18 July 1881), known as Dean Stanley, was an English Anglican priest and ecclesiastical historian. He was Dean of Westminster from 1864 to 1881. His position was that of a Broad Churchman and he was the author of a number of works on Church History. He was a co-founder of the Palestine Exploration Fund. Early life Stanley was born in Alderley Edge, in Cheshire, where his father, Edward Stanley, later Bishop of Norwich, was then rector. A brother was Owen Stanley, and his sister was Mary Stanley. The middle-name 'Penrhyn' suggests Welsh lineage. He was educated at Rugby School under Thomas Arnold and in 1834 went up to Balliol College, Oxford. He is generally considered to be the source for the character of George Arthur in Thomas Hughes's well-known book ''Tom Brown's Schooldays'', which is based on Rugby. After winning the Ireland scholarship and the Newdigate Prize for an English poem (''The Gypsies''), he was in 1839 elected ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfred Barry
Alfred Barry (15 January 18261 April 1910) was the third Bishop of Sydney serving 1884–1889. Over the course of his career, Barry served as headmaster of independent schools, Principal of King's College London university and founded Anglican schools such as Shore School. He officiated at the funeral of Charles Darwin in 1882. Life He was born in Ely Place, Holborn in London, the son of the eminent architect, Sir Charles Barry and Sarah Rowsell, and had four brothers; Charles Barry (junior), Edward Middleton Barry, John Wolfe-Barry and Godfrey Barry. From King's College School, he went to Trinity College, Cambridge (B.A., 1848; M.A., 1851), where his performance as 4th Wrangler (aeq.) and 7th Classic won him a minor fellowship and a Smith's prize. In 1850 he became a major fellow and was made deacon in the Church of England by Bishop Thomas Turton of Ely; Bishop Wilberforce of Oxford ordained him priest in 1853. He continued with divinity studies (B.D., 1860; D.D., 1866 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his first pieces, "Timbuktu". He published his first solo collection of poems, ''Poems, Chiefly Lyrical'', in 1830. "Claribel" and "Mariana", which remain some of Tennyson's most celebrated poems, were included in this volume. Although described by some critics as overly sentimental, his verse soon proved popular and brought Tennyson to the attention of well-known writers of the day, including Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Tennyson's early poetry, with its medievalism and powerful visual imagery, was a major influence on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Tennyson also excelled at short lyrics, such as "Break, Break, Break", "The Charge of the Light Brigade", "Tears, Idle Tears", and "Crossing the Bar". Much of his verse was based on classical mytho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Bagehot
Walter Bagehot ( ; 3 February 1826 – 24 March 1877) was an English journalist, businessman, and essayist, who wrote extensively about government, economics, literature and race. He is known for co-founding the ''National Review'' in 1855, and for his works '' The English Constitution'' and '' Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market'' (1873). Life Bagehot was born in Langport, Somerset, England, on 3 February 1826. His father, Thomas Watson Bagehot, was managing director and vice-chairman of Stuckey's Bank. He attended University College London (UCL), where he studied mathematics and, in 1848, earned a master's degree in moral philosophy. Bagehot was called to the bar by Lincoln's Inn, but preferred to join his father in 1852 in his family's shipping and banking business. In 1858, Bagehot married Elizabeth (Eliza) Wilson (1832–1921), whose father, James Wilson, was the founder and owner of ''The Economist''. The couple were happily married until Bagehot's un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Pritchard
Reverend Charles Pritchard (29 February 1808 – 28 May 1893) was a British astronomer, clergyman, and educational reformer. He founded the Clapham Grammar School in 1834 and included sciences in the curriculum. A chapel was erected in 1846. Biography He was born at Alberbury, Shropshire and attended Poplar Academy where he was taught by John Stock, the progressive educationalist. Pritchard later described his studies as consisting of "a systematic course of instruction relating to physical phenomena". At sixteen he was enrolled as a sizar at St John's College, Cambridge, graduating in 1830 as fourth wrangler. In 1832 he was elected a fellow of his college, and in the following year he was ordained, and became head of a private school at Stockwell. From 1834 to 1862 he was headmaster of Clapham grammar school. He then retired to Freshwater, in the Isle of Wight, and took an active interest in the affairs of the Royal Astronomical Society, of which he became honorary s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Tyndall
John Tyndall FRS (; 2 August 1820 – 4 December 1893) was a prominent 19th-century Irish physicist. His scientific fame arose in the 1850s from his study of diamagnetism. Later he made discoveries in the realms of infrared radiation and the physical properties of air, proving the connection between atmospheric CO and what is now known as the greenhouse effect in 1859. Tyndall also published more than a dozen science books which brought state-of-the-art 19th century experimental physics to a wide audience. From 1853 to 1887 he was professor of physics at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in London. He was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society in 1868. Early years and education Tyndall was born in Leighlinbridge, County Carlow, Ireland. His father was a local police constable, descended from Gloucestershire emigrants who settled in southeast Ireland around 1670. Tyndall attended the local schools (Ballinabranna Primary School) in County Carlow until ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Darwinist
Darwinism is a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce. Also called Darwinian theory, it originally included the broad concepts of transmutation of species or of evolution which gained general scientific acceptance after Darwin published ''On the Origin of Species'' in 1859, including concepts which predated Darwin's theories. English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley coined the term ''Darwinism'' in April 1860. Terminology Darwinism subsequently referred to the specific concepts of natural selection, the Weismann barrier, or the central dogma of molecular biology. Though the term usually refers strictly to biological evolution, creationists have appropriated it to refer to the origin of life or to cosmic evolution, that are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley (4 May 1825 – 29 June 1895) was an English biologist and anthropologist specialising in comparative anatomy. He has become known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. The stories regarding Huxley's famous 1860 Oxford evolution debate with Samuel Wilberforce were a key moment in the wider acceptance of evolution and in his own career, although some historians think that the surviving story of the debate is a later fabrication. Huxley had been planning to leave Oxford on the previous day, but, after an encounter with Robert Chambers, the author of '' Vestiges'', he changed his mind and decided to join the debate. Wilberforce was coached by Richard Owen, against whom Huxley also debated about whether humans were closely related to apes. Huxley was slow to accept some of Darwin's ideas, such as gradualism, and was undecided about natural selection, but despite this he was wholehearted in his public support of Darw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Hinton (surgeon)
James Hinton (baptised 26 November 1822 – 16 December 1875) was an English surgeon and author. He was the father of mathematician Charles Howard Hinton. He was an outspoken advocate of polygamy. He appears as a character in some fictional accounts of the 19th century English serial murderer known as Jack the Ripper. Life He was born at Reading, Berkshire, the son of John Howard Hinton, Baptist minister and author of the ''History and Topography of the United States'' and other works. James was educated at his grandfather's school near Oxford, and at the Nonconformist school at Harpenden, and in 1838, on his father's removal to London, was apprenticed to a woollen-draper in Whitechapel. After working there for about a year he became clerk in an insurance office. His evenings were spent in intense study, and this, combined with a concentration on moral problems, so affected his health that, aged eighteen, he tried to seek refuge from his own thoughts by running away to sea. His ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Benjamin Carpenter
William Benjamin Carpenter CB FRS (29 October 1813 – 19 November 1885) was an English physician, invertebrate zoologist and physiologist. He was instrumental in the early stages of the unified University of London. Life Carpenter was born on 29 October 1813 in Exeter, the eldest son of Dr Lant Carpenter and his wife, Anna Carpenter (née Penn). His father was an important Unitarian preacher who, according to Adrian Desmond, influenced a "rising generation of Unitarian intellectuals, including James Martineau and the ''Westminster Reviews John Bowring." From his father, Carpenter learned to believe in the essential lawfulness of creation and that explanations of the world were to be found in physical causes. He embraced this "naturalistic cosmogony" as his starting point. Carpenter was apprenticed in 1828 to the eye surgeon John Bishop Estlin, who was also the son of a Unitarian minister. He attended lectures at Bristol Medical School, later studied at University College ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Martineau
James Martineau (; 21 April 1805 – 11 January 1900) was a British religious philosopher influential in the history of Unitarianism. For 45 years he was Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy and Political Economy in Manchester New College (now Harris Manchester College, of the University of Oxford), the principal training college for British Unitarianism. Many portraits of Martineau, including one painted by George Frederick Watts, are held at London's National Portrait Gallery. In 2014, the gallery revealed that its patron, Catherine, Princess of Wales, was related to Martineau. The Princess's great-great-grandfather, Francis Martineau Lupton, was Martineau's grandnephew. The gallery also holds written correspondence between Martineau and Poet Laureate, Alfred, Lord Tennyson - who records that he "regarded Martineau as the mastermind of all the remarkable company with whom he engaged". Martineau and Lord Tennyson were familiar with Queen Victoria's son, Prince Leopol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
