Henry 1838-1900 Sidgwick

SIDGWICK, HENRY (1838-1900), English philosopher, was born at Skipton in Yorkshire on May 31, 1838. He was edu cated at Rugby and at Trinity, Cambridge. In 1859 he was elected to a fellowship at Trinity, and soon afterwards appointed to a classical lectureship there. This post he held for ten years, but in 1869 exchanged his lectureship for one in moral philosophy.

In that year he resigned his fellowship on religious grounds. He retained his lectureship, and in 1881 was elected an honorary fellow. In 1874 he published his Method of Ethics (6th ed. 1901, containing emendations written just before his death). In 1875 he was appointed praelector on moral and political philosophy at Trinity, in 1883 Knightbridge professor of moral philosophy, and in 1885, the religious test having been removed, his college once more elected him to a fellowship on the foundation. Sidgwick took an active part in the business of the university, and in many forms of social and philanthropic work. He was one of the founders and first president of the Society for Psychical Re search, and was a member of the Metaphysical Society. He took a leading part in promoting the higher education of women. It was at his suggestion and with his help that Miss Clough opened a house of residence for students; and when this had developed into Newnham college, and in 1880 the North hall was added, Sidgwick, who had in 1876 married Eleanor Mildred Balfour (sister of A. J. Balfour), went with his wife to live there for two years. He died on Aug. 28, 1900. On the death of Miss Clough, the first principal of Newnham, in 1892, Mrs. Sidg

wick succeeded her and retained the position until 1910. In that year she retired and until 1919 was bursar of the college. In 1910 she became secretary of the Society for Psychical Research.

Sidgwick was deeply interested in psychical phenomena, but his energies were primarily devoted to the study of religion and philosophy. As early as 1862 he described himself as a theist. For the rest of his life, though he regarded Christianity as "indis pensable and irreplaceable—looking at it from a sociological point of view," he found himself unable to return to it as a religion. In political economy he was a Utilitarian on the lines of Mill and Bentham.

His chief works are

Principles of Political Economy (1883, 3rd ed. 1901) ; Scope and Method of Economic Science (1885); Outlines of the History of Ethics (1886, 5th ed. 1902), enlarged from his article ETHICS in the Encyclopedia Britannica; Ele ments of Politics (1891, 2nd ed. 1897), an attempt to supply an adequate treatise on the subject starting from the old lines of Bentham and Mill. The following were published posthumously: Philosophy; its Scope and Relations (1902) ; Lectures on the Ethics of T. H. Green, Mr. Herbert Spencer and J. Martineau (1902) ; The Development of European Polity (1903) ; Miscel laneous Essays and Addresses (1904) ; Lectures on the Philosophy of Kant (1905).

See a Memoir of Henry Sidgwick, written by his brother with the collaboration of his widow (1906).