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

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). 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, a Deist; then two
Scotch Scotch most commonly refers to: * Scotch (adjective), a largely obsolescent adjective meaning "of or from Scotland" **Scotch, old-fashioned name for the indigenous languages of the Scottish people: ***Scots language ("Broad Scotch") *** Scottish G ...
metaphysical writers, Freethinkers; then Knowles, the very broad editor of the Contemporary; then, dressed as a layman and looking like a country squire, was Ward, formerly Rev. Ward, and earliest of the perverts to Rome; then Greg, author of ''The Creed of Christendom'', a Deist; then Froude, the historian, once a deacon in our Church, now a Deist; then
Roden Noël Roden is a name of Germanic origin, originally meaning "red valley" or an anglicization of the Gaelic name "O'Rodain". It may refer to: Places *Roden, Bavaria, a town in the Main-Spessart district of Bavaria, Germany *Roden, Netherlands, a town ...
, an actual Atheist and red republican, and looking very like one! Lastly Ruskin, who read a paper on miracles, which we discussed for an hour and a half! Nothing could be calmer, fairer, or even, on the whole, more reverent than the discussion. In my opinion, we, the Christians, had much the best of it. Dalgairns, the priest, was very masterly; Manning, clever and precise and weighty; Froude, very acute, and so was Greg. We only wanted a Jew and a Muslim to make our Religious Museum complete (''Life'', i. 284).

The last meeting of the society was held on 16 May 1880 and it was dissolved later in November of that year.Christopher A. Kent
"Metaphysical Society (act. 1869–1880)"
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, (http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/theme/45584), 2004. Retrieved 15 April 2013. Huxley said that it died "of too much love"; Tennyson, "because after ten years of strenuous effort no one had succeeded in even defining

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

." According to Dean Stanley, "We all meant the same thing if we only knew it." In 1877 Knowles founded ''The Nineteenth Century'', a literary journal whose editorial style was partly inspired by the debates he had managed at the Metaphysical Society. Many of the society's members became supporters and contributors to the magazine.

Members

The members from first to last were as follows:"The Metaphysical Society. A Reminiscence"
by R. H. Hutton, published in 1885 in '' The Nineteenth Century'' magazine. * Dean Stanley, of

Westminster Abbey Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United ...

John Robert Seeley Sir John Robert Seeley, KCMG (10 September 1834 – 13 January 1895) was an English Liberal historian and political essayist. A founder of British imperial history, he was a prominent advocate for the British Empire, promoting a concept of G ...

, English essayist and historian. *

Roden Noël Roden is a name of Germanic origin, originally meaning "red valley" or an anglicization of the Gaelic name "O'Rodain". It may refer to: Places *Roden, Bavaria, a town in the Main-Spessart district of Bavaria, Germany *Roden, Netherlands, a town ...

, poet *

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 ...

, English philosopher * William Benjamin Carpenter, physiologist and naturalist * James Hinton, surgeon and author *

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 stor ...

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 ...

biologist *

John Tyndall John Tyndall Fellow of the Royal Society, 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 ...

, physicist * Charles Pritchard, astronomer * Richard Holt Hutton, writer and theologian. * William George Ward, Catholic theologian * Walter Bagehot, economist and editor *

James Anthony Froude James Anthony Froude ( ; 23 April 1818 – 20 October 1894) was an English historian, novelist, biographer, and editor of ''Fraser's Magazine''. From his upbringing amidst the Anglo-Catholic Oxford Movement, Froude intended to become a clergy ...

, historian * Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Poet Laureate * Alfred Barry * Lord Arthur Russell, British politician *

William Ewart Gladstone William Ewart Gladstone ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four non-con ...

, Liberal

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

Henry Edward Manning Henry Edward Manning (15 July 1808 – 14 January 1892) was an English prelate of the Catholic church, and the second Archbishop of Westminster from 1865 until his death in 1892. He was ordained in the Church of England as a young man, but con ...

, Archbishop and Cardinal * James Knowles, architect and editor *

John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury, 4th Baronet, (30 April 183428 May 1913), known as Sir John Lubbock, 4th Baronet from 1865 until 1900, was an English banker, Liberal politician, philanthropist, scientist and polymath. Lubbock worked in his fa ...

* Henry Alford, churchman, scholar, and poet * Sir Alexander Grant * Connop Thirlwall * Frederic Harrison * Father Dalgairns *

Sir George Grove Sir George Grove (13 August 182028 May 1900) was an English engineer and writer on music, known as the founding editor of ''Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians''. Grove was trained as a civil engineer, and successful in that profession, b ...

* Shadworth Hodgson *

Henry Sidgwick Henry Sidgwick (; 31 May 1838 – 28 August 1900) was an English utilitarian philosopher and economist. He was the Knightbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1883 until his death, and is best known in phil ...

*Edmund Lushington *Bishop Charles Ellicott * Mark Pattison *

George Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll George John Douglas Campbell, 8th and 1st Duke of Argyll (30 April 1823 – 24 April 1900; styled Marquess of Lorne until 1847), was a Scottish polymath and Liberal statesman. He made a significant geological discovery in the 1850s when his te ...

John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and po ...

Robert Lowe, 1st Viscount Sherbrooke Robert Lowe, 1st Viscount Sherbrooke, GCB, PC (4 December 1811 – 27 July 1892), British statesman, was a pivotal conservative spokesman who helped shape British politics in the latter half of the 19th century. He held office under William ...

* Sir Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant-Duff * William Rathbone Greg * Alexander Campbell Fraser * Henry Acland * John Frederick Denison Maurice * Archbishop Thomson * Thomas Mozely * Richard William Church * William Connor Magee *

George Croom Robertson George Croom Robertson (10 March 1842 – 20 September 1892) was a Scottish philosopher. He sat on the Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage and his wife, Caroline Anna Croom Robertson was a college administrator. Biography He ...

James Fitzjames Stephen Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, 1st Baronet, KCSI (3 March 1829 – 11 March 1894) was an English lawyer, judge, writer, and philosopher. One of the most famous critics of John Stuart Mill, Stephen achieved prominence as a philosopher, law ...

James Joseph Sylvester James Joseph Sylvester (3 September 1814 – 15 March 1897) was an English mathematician. He made fundamental contributions to matrix theory, invariant theory, number theory, partition theory, and combinatorics. He played a leadership ...

* John Charles Bucknill * Andrew Clark *

William Kingdon Clifford William Kingdon Clifford (4 May 18453 March 1879) was an English mathematician and philosopher. Building on the work of Hermann Grassmann, he introduced what is now termed geometric algebra, a special case of the Clifford algebra named in ...

* St. George Jackson Mivart * Matthew Piers Watt Boulton, classicist and amateur scientist * William Waldegrave Palmer, 2nd Earl of Selborne *

John Morley John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn, (24 December 1838 – 23 September 1923) was a British Liberal statesman, writer and newspaper editor. Initially, a journalist in the North of England and then editor of the newly Liberal-lean ...

* Leslie Stephen * Frederick Pollock * Francis Aidan Gasquet *C Barnes Upton * William Withey Gull *Robert Clarke *

Arthur Balfour Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, (, ; 25 July 184819 March 1930), also known as Lord Balfour, was a British Conservative statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1902 to 1905. As foreign secretary in the L ...

* James Sully *Alfred Barratt

References

Citations Bibliography * Brown, Alan Willard ''The Metaphysical Society: Victorian Minds in Crisis, 1869-1880''. New York: Columbia U.P., 1947. * ''The papers of the Metaphysical Society, 1869-1880 : a critical edition'', Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2015, 3 volumes. * Catherine Marshall; Bernard V Lightman; Richard England, ''The Metaphysical Society (1869-1880) : intellectual life in mid-Victorian England'', Oxford ; New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2019.

Overview

Members

References

Further reading