Apologetics in the Eighteenth Century

Abstract

THE edition of Butler which Mr. Gladstone and the Clarendon Press has published suggests many interesting reflections. It is pleasant to see the University of Oxford doing honor by this book to two of its most illustrious sons, one the most eminent thinker it produced in the eighteenth century, the other the most eminent statesman it has formed in the nineteenth. It is no less interesting to see the enthusiasm of one distinguished Oxonian for another, who had done so much for the formation of his mind and the vindication of his faith. Still more interesting it is to think of a statesman in his retirement concerning himself with a book of this kind and quality. Mr. Gladstone, indeed, has never been a mere politician, but has ever remained a scholar and thinker, never so absorbed in the politics which were mere questions of the hour as to forget those ideas which are the permanent problems of thought and the true roots of character. In this he has been in some respects far from singular among English statesmen. It is not skill in the expediencies of the moment, but the possession of a lofty idealism, that distinguishes the statesman from the man of affairs. There is no principle which English history more illustrates than this, that problems, even in passing politics, are best understood when looked at in the light of large ideas and high aims. If we are unable to name Bacon a statesman, yet we cannot forget that he is the most eminent English philosopher of his day,--to say, as some have said, of all time, is to speak foolishly. Clarendon, once chancellor of the kingdom, has given us a history that will live as long as the English tongue. Bolingbroke, a narrow and reactionary Tory in an age of