The Eighteenth Century Background

Basil Willey

Columbia Univ. Pr.

Nineteenth Century Studies: Coleridge to Matthew Arnold (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Nineteenth Century Studies: Coleridge to Matthew ArnoldWriting in 1838, soon after the deaths of Bentham and Coleridge, J. S. Mill described these two writers as 'the two great seminal minds of England in their age', and claimed that' there is hardly to be found in England an individual of any importance in the world of mind who. Did not first learn to think from one Of these two. 1 In another essay (1840) Mill tried to indicate the quality of their inﬂuence: 'by Bentham' he wrote, 'beyond all others, men have been led to ask themselves in regard to any ancient or received opinion, Is it true? And by Coleridge, What Is the meaning of It. P '2 In Bentham the spirit Of the eighteenth century lived on taking his stand, like any Brobdingnagian sage or visitor froin China, 'outside the received Opinion', he 'surveyed it as an entire stranger to it'. Coleridge, on the other hand.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Literature & Fiction

Essays & Correspondence

Forgotten Books

Excerpt from More Nineteenth Century Studies: A Group of Honest DoubtersSignificance, than that of the divergent courses of the brothers Newman. It is as if two rivers, taking their rise in the same dividing range, should yet be deflected by some minute original irregularity of level, so that one pours its waters into the Mediterranean, the other into the German Ocean. The Morning Leader newspaper, shortly after the death of Francis called John 'a spiritual Tory' and Francis 'a Spiritual radical'. Long before this - even five years before his own conversion to Rome - John took his younger brother as an omen of the dangers of Protestantism 'whether or not Anglicanism leads to Rome,' he wrote to his sister Jemima, 'so far is clear as day, that Protestantism leads to infidelity.' The career of Francis, indeed, seemed to him the clearest and most painful illustration of one of his own deepest beliefs, that there is no logical standing-point between Romanism and Atheism. One of my main objects in what follows will be to suggest that this antithesis represents a dangerous half-truth. The foundations of nineteenth cen tury Protestantism were indeed insecure, and out of this insecurity there was bound to emerge, and did emerge, a drift on the one hand towards Rome and on the other to wards unbelief. The brothers John and Francis Newman had a great deal in common; far more than might at first sight be supposed. They had not only drunk the same milk of evangelical doctrine in their childhood, but they both had subtle and dissolvent intellects, and the instinctive scepticism which questions received assumptions. But see ticrsm, as history has repeatedly shown, may be the basis of orthodoxy as well as of heresy; according to the proportion it bears to.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

More Nineteenth Century Studies: A Group of Honest Doubters (Classic Reprint)

<p>Excerpt from The Seventeenth Century Background: Studies in the Thought of the Age in Relation to Poetry and Religion First it may be well to enquire, not with Pilate 'what is Truth?' but what was felt to he 'truth' and 'explanation' under seventeenth century conditions. As T. E. Hulme and others have pointed out, it is almost insuperably difficult to become critically conscious Of one's own habitual assumptions; 'doctrines felt as facts' can only be seen to be doctrines, and not facts, after great efforts Of thought, and usually only with the aid of a first rate metaphysician. It is, however, less difficult to detect the assumptions of an age distant from our own, espe cially when these have been subject to criticism. At this distance Of time it should be possible, I think, to state fairly accurately what the seventeenth century felt as 'true', and what satisfied it as 'explanation'. In reading seventeenth century writers one feels that it was as 'ex planation' that they chie&#64258;y valued the 'new philosophy', and it is for this reason that I wish first to enquire, briefly, what is 'explanation'? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.</p>

The Seventeenth Century Background: Studies in the Thought of the Age in Relation to Poetry and Religion (Classic Reprint)

The Seventeenth Century Background: Studies in the Thought of the Age in Relation to Poetry and Religion

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

Chatto and Windus

Seventeenth Century Background: Studies in the Thought of the Age in Relation to Poetry and Religion (Ark Paperbacks)

Routledge

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Basil Willey. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Basil Willey