The Rise of British Idealism

Abstract

Mansel had clearly seen the challenge confronting Christian apologetics in the 1850s, that the new interest in German idealism and the prevailing utilitarian mood of English philosophy posed a threat to the relevance of traditional Christian apologetics. Mansel also attacked ‘Modern German Philosophy’ in 1859, in which he said that this movement was based ‘on assumptions which it is impossible to verify if true, and impossible to convict if false … the reality of which we are in search can never be attained in the form of an absolute unity’.1 A few years previously, Mansel had written a satirical sketch entitled, The Phrontisterion, or Oxford in the 19th Century that had been occasioned by the appointment of a Commission to ‘enquire into the State, Discipline, Studies and Revenues of the University and Colleges of Oxford’. Some feared that undue weight would be given to developments in German universities with a result that the spiritual nature of the English system would be undermined by godless ‘usefulness’: I have it now! the Universities. Long as those monkish rookeries exist They’ll be a drag upon us go a-head men; At least with Church Establishment. Abroad They manage these things differently: The Burschen Fight at the barricades; and Herr Professor Will sketch you twenty Paper-Constitutions Shall only cost the foolscap. No subscribing To Articles, no tests of Church Communion; But good Free Trade, religious and political, Progress and Agitation. But at Oxford There’s nought but bigotry and priestcraft. KeywordsNineteenth CenturyContinental PhilosophyGerman IdealismAnglican IdealismChristian TheismThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.