HENRY SIDGWICK.
WE were only able last week to refer briefly to the great loss sustained by English culture in the death of Professor Henry Sidgwick. - This week we propose to say a little more on his striking personality. We think the key to Sidgwick's mind and to his peculiar influence was that he was essentially Greek in spirit. That fine Greek maxim, "Not too much," was a very real intellectual guide to Sidgwick, dominating his temper and his work. Doubtless the Greek intellect was fruitful in the production of what may be called dogmatic philosophic systems, but its primary idea was not the production of systems. Greek intellect was bent mainly on free inquiry ; intellectual eagerness combined with the balanced mind, the fine mental poise, was what chiefly charac- terised the Greek. Now in this remarkable combination of intellectual eagerness with intellectual poise Sidgwick seems to us to have stood nearer to Greek thought than any other English philosophic writer of our time. It was his methods rather than his conclusions of which we chiefly think, and of which apparently he chiefly thought. It was, of course, commonly said of him that he came to no conclusions, but was what Emerson said of himself, "an endless seeker." This was perhaps scarcely fair to Sidgwick, who certainly seems to have arrived at some quite distinct and final views in ethics, religion, and sociology. But undoubtedly his tendency was so markedly that of poise, his wish was so much more evidently to teach a method than to reach a dogma, that the general view taken of him may be considered only an exaggeration of a truth.
His method, we say, was entirely Greek; it was the analytic method of Socrates and Aristotle. Though he had spent much time on Plato, we should say that his mind was scarcely Platonic. He lacked the poetic mysticism of Plato which made of that superbly endowed man a link between the Greek and Christian worlds. But Sidgwick sympathised completely with the general Aristotelian method, and with much in the Aristotelian conclusions on ethics and politics. Had he chosen
to give to the world a complete exposition of Aristotle, we think it would probably have superseded all the Aristotelian criticisms and commentaries which English philosophic learning has pro- duced. As it is, we can see the influence of Aristotle as the most typical mind of Greece powerfully influencing all of Sidgwick's writings. Sidgwick is carefully committed to an exact and impartial statement of every point of view. He cannot bear that even the side which appeals least to him should not be completely and even sympathetically stated. He has not the English love for taking a" side." He empties his mind of all prejudices, he has no interest to serve but the truth. We cannot estimate our debt to a rare mind of this order. It sweeps away the mists of passion and preconceived notions; it realises for us Bacon's "dry light," it enables us to have a glimpse of the exalted and educating nature of Greek culture, it liberates our intellect and gives us the freedom of the world of mind.
In another respect Sidgwick was thoroughly Greek, just as the great German thinkers are, in that he was encyclopmdic in his intellectual sweep. Both the Greek and German thinkers have carried their fundamental ideas into all depart- ments of life. They have insisted, after their analytic process, in seeing life as a whole and in treating of all it contents. Aristotle applies his principles in ethics, politics, metaphysics, natural history, and doubtless in many other categories in those works which are unhappily lost. Plato's dialectic is almost coextensive with life. Kant and Hegel search with sweeping gaze through all the forms and categories of thought and being, trying to find universal principles and a unification of knowledge. English philosophic work has been more fragmentary, though in our time Mr. Spencer has essayed the task so congenial to the Greek and German mind. It is true we cannot say that Professor Sidgwick seriously attempted any co-ordination of knowledge. Perhaps he had not arrived at sufficiently clear and positive conclusions for that. At any rate his writings, though absolutely guided by the same principles of method, are detached. But his interests were wide, and he saw at least that the moral and political life furnished problems which must all be treated on the same lines of method, and so he wrote both on ethics, politics, and political economy, all this work being characterised by the same calm, lucid analysis, always just, always in proportion, Clough has give us the inner mental standpoint in those lines of "Pure form nakedly displayed, And all things absolutely made."
That was the attitude of Sidgwick; it governed his tastes and methods and made of him an influence in our time more purely Greek than any other.
Though we think such an influence most necessary for a country like England, which is not in the least degree Greek in mind and temper, we cannot of course deny that Sidgwick had, as the French say, the defects of his qualities. He was, perhaps, the foremost power of his time in the University of Cambridge, and deservedly so, since no other Cambridge man was equipped with such a fine and extensive culture. But his influence was purely critical, and Cambridge, devoted as she is to science, mathematics, and exact scholarship, needs more of what a friend and colleague of Sidgwick's, the late Sir J. Seeley, called the "enthusiasm of humanity." This Sidgwick could not impart. He not only founded no school (for that we may, perhaps, be grateful), he gave no stimulus to the study of philosophy, which so little inte- rests Cambridge that, during several years, the numbers in the Moral Sciences Tripos might have been counted on the fingers of one hand. It is said in defence that Cambridge is historically scientific, but she produced the Cambridge Platonists, and no great University ought surely to rest con- tent without displaying energy in the greatest of all studies, —" divine philosophy." No University can be accounted in quite a healthy state in which philosophy is at so low an ebb as at Cambridge. We should not say that Sidgwick was in any way responsible for that, but we should be compelled to say that he did nothing to prevent or remedy that condition of things. He carefully and conscientiously instructed, but he did not inspire.
It is greatly to the credit of Professor Sidgwick (as it is to the credit of William James, of the New England Cambridge) that he entered so courageously into the work of the Psychics Research Society, and that at a timo when the cause of psychical research was looked on askance by some superfine intellectual people. Sidgwiek never paused to ask whether his action was likely to be construed as undignified ; his essentially Greek mind was interested in everything of im- portance which could conceivably throw light on the problems of human personality and destiny, and he had the moral courage to pursue his inquiries in fields into which some of his contemporaries would not enter. It is greatly to his credit that he determined to investigate phenomena which, because they were new and because they seemed to aid super- naturalism, were foolishly ignored by some scientific men. It need hardly be said how admirably Sidgwick carried his prudent and balanced temper and mind into these problems as he did into his academic work. It is sufficient praise for him that he kept the Psychical Research Society on the right lines, tempering belief in general aims with caution in methods.
On the whole, in ethical philosophy, we must class Sidg- wick with the Utilitarian school, using the term in its widest and highest sense. It is not our own school of thought, but we can recognise its strong case, and we think, with Wundt, that its methods must be combined with the great ends of the Idealist schools. In political economy no one can say exactly what was Sidgwick's standpoint. He tries to look all round, from the classic individualism of Ricardo to the economics of Socialism, and to be fair to all. On the whole he seems to be favourable to a considerable extension of State functions, to hold with Professor Marshall that much can be done to eliminate poverty, and his work is especially useful in distin- guishing between the science and the art of political economy. But all through it is rather the method than the results which is of peculiar value. His book on politics seems to us the least valuable of his works. His is a figure we shall not easily forget. We see again that thoughtful face with the deep eyes, the expression austere and yet kindly, the long beard, the somewhat slight form, the light eager walk, the bent head, and we can see the figure at times rooted to the spot, standing in the street quite oblivious of passing traffic, the mind revolving some great problem which was more to him than the customary doings of daily life. His tastes were simple, his conscience was high, his aspirations noble, his life almost ideal. He might almost have been the reincarnation of an ancient Greek philosopher; and what greater praise can we pay to the memory of Henry Sidgwick ?
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