Richard Whately, D.D. (b. 1787, d. 1863), an eminent thinker and writer, entered at Oriel College, Oxford, in 1805, and took his M.A. in 1812. He became a fellow of Oriel in 1811, and after a short experience of a country living at Halesworth, in Suffolk (1822–5), was appointed principal of St. Alban’s Hall, Oxford, in 1825. In 1819 he brought out his “Historical Doubts relative to Napoleon Bonaparte,” an ingenious attempt to show by parody the absurdity of sceptical criticism; and in 1822 he was Bampton lecturer, publishing his addresses under the title of “The Use and Abuse of Party Feeling in Religion.” The lively interest he had taken in social subjects well qualified him for the post of professor of political economy at Oxford, to which he was appointed in 1830, and in the following year his nomination to the Archbishopric of Dublin was severely commented on by certain sections of the English Church. A good appointment, however, it turned out to be and he was of immense service in organising a national system of education in Ireland. Archbishop Whately was the author of:—“Elements of Rhetoric” (1828); “The Elements of Logic” (1826), upon which several strictures have been passed by Hamilton; “Introduction to Political Economy” (1831); “Sermons” (1835); “Essays on Some of the Dangers to Christian Faith which may arise from the Teaching or the Conduct of its Professors” (1839); “Kingdom of Christ” (1841), and other works.

Personal

  Now I am sure that in point of real essential holiness, so far as man can judge of man, there does not live a truer Christian than Whately; and it does grieve me most deeply to hear people speak of him as of a dangerous and latitudinarian character, because in him the intellectual part of his nature keeps pace with the spiritual—instead of being left, as the Evangelicals leave it, a fallow field for all unsightly weeds to flourish in. He is a truly great man—in the highest sense of the word,—and if the safety and welfare of the Protestant Church in Ireland depend in any degree on human instruments, none could be found, I verily believe, in the whole empire, so likely to maintain it.

  He is tall, rather awkward, constantly in motion, constantly talking very rapidly, with a good deal of acuteness and a great variety of knowledge, not without humor, and indulging frequently in classical allusions and once or twice venturing a Greek quotation. He is not prepossessing in manner, and Rogers, from the constant motion of his person from side to side, calls him the “White Bear;” but you always feel, in talking with him, that you are in the grasp of a powerful mind.

  The Bishop’s movements were sometimes as graceful as those of a girl, and at other times as sharp and fierce as those of an angry sibyl; his face never lost its amenity, nor his voice its sweetness—a sweetness which increased when his compliments were most keenly edged with insinuations. His speech was throughout ingenious; but as a whole it was a blunder. There is an inspiration of common sense, as well as one of genius; and crafty men often miss both forms of it.

  He (Dr. Lloyd) talked of Whately, who is much injured by being the centre of a clique who flatter and never contradict him, hence he becomes very despotic. He is a most generous creature, and full of knowledge. He wriggles his limbs about in an extraordinary manner, and once pronounced the benediction with one leg hanging over the reading-desk in church; and in society he will sit balancing his chair, occasionally tipping over backwards. One of his chaplains, during a walk with him, stated that fungus was very good eating, upon which the archbishop insisted on his then and there consuming a slice, which the poor chaplain resisting, the archbishop jerked it into his mouth. A doctor who was with them was in ecstasies of mirth at the scene, which the archbishop perceiving said, “Oh, doctor! you shall try it too: it is very important for you to be able to give an opinion.” “No, thank you, my lord,” said the doctor; “I am not a clergyman, nor am I in your lordship’s diocese.”

  I met the Archbishop of Dublin, Whately, at dinner yesterday at Raikes Currie’s. I don’t think him at all agreeable; he has a skimble-skamble way of talking as if he was half tipsy, and the stories he tells are abominably long and greatly deficient in point.

  There were a few bishops;—Whately, with his odd, overbearing manners, and his unequal conversation,—sometimes rude and tiresome, and at other times full of instruction, and an occasional drollery coming out amidst a world of effort. Perhaps no person of all my acquaintance has from the first appeared to me so singularly overrated as he was then. I believe it is hardly so now.

  There is scarcely anyone whom in memory I love more than Whately, even now. How gladly would I have called upon him in Dublin, except that, again and again by his friends and my own, I have been warned off. He is now pursuing me in his new publications, without my having any part in the provocation. In 1836 he was most severe upon me in relation to the Hampden matter. In 1837 he let me call on him when he was in Oxford; I have never seen him since. I ever must say he taught me to think.

  I have scrambled through the second volume of the Archbishop’s “Life,” and while the old impression of the sifting and clearing power (up to a certain point) of his mind and conversation has been wonderfully revived, I have found, too, something touching and spiritual which very much moves and interests me, and which gives me a sense of depth and rest in the man which his writings never give, and personal intercourse with him seldom, I think, gave.

  We have read lately “Whately’s Life.” Good, but dry: the man remaining as he was, or a trifle better—honest, prosaic, dogmatic, vain, still an able man.

  An industrious student, a deep thinker, an acute reasoner, a learned mind, a correct and at times elegant writer—these are titles of honour with the mere outside-world, travelling in its flying railway-carriage, will gladly award to the late Archbishop of Dublin (Dr. Whately). Not so familiar are certain minor and more curious gifts, which he kept by him for his own and his friends’ entertainment, which broke out at times on more public occasions. He delighted in the oddities of thought, in queer quaint distinctions; and if an object had by any possibility some strange distorted side or corner, or even point, which was undermost, he would gladly stoop down his mind to get that precise view of it, nay, would draw it in that odd light for the amusement of the company. Thus he struck Guizot, who described him as “startling and ingenious, strangely absent, familiar, confused, eccentric, amiable, and engaging, no matter what unpoliteness he might commit, or what propriety he might forget.” In short, a mind with a little of the Sydney Smith’s leaven, whose brilliancy lay in precisely these odd analogies. It was his recreation to take up some intellectual hobby, and make a toy of it.

  A figure somewhat above the ordinary height, and strongly framed, though rather loosely put together. The features of the face have certainly escaped the “fatal gift of beauty.” It is essentially a hard-featured face, with but small amount of color to aid its expressiveness. The eyes are of a pale grayish blue; and the hair is rather sparse and of a pale, sandy tint. The forehead is large and square, and the chin has the pronounced development which indicates abundance of what the French call caractère. The tout ensemble of face, figure, manner and movement is as wholly devoid of graciousness or gracefulness as can easily be imagined. The outward wrappages and integuments which so frequently furnish a key to the character of the human being that is inside them correspond with very complete accuracy to that of the man in question. His black waistcoat bears the marks of having been copiously besprinkled with snuff. His academic gown hangs from his shoulders all awry. His bands are probably not in their proper place in front of his neck. His doctor’s hood hangs similarly out of its due position behind it. And all these trappings, instead of being borne along with pompous elegance which would befit the time and place, are worn with an air that seems to say unmistakably that in the wearer’s opinion they are stupid encumbrances and annoyances, which he would fain get rid of if it were possible. But, withal, there is that about the head and face which to any competent observer would give the unmistakable assurance that there walked a man of no ordinary power and energy of intellect; and the springy activity of gait, apparently repressed with difficulty to the sober pace befitting the occasion, and the superfluous amount of motion with which every part of the person seems to be instinct, give an equal impression of vigor and force.

  He was of a gigantic size and a gaunt aspect, with a strange unconsciousness of the body; and, what is perhaps the next best thing to a perfect manner, he had no manner. What his legs and arms were about was best known to themselves. His rank placed him by the side of the lord lieutenant’s wife when dining at the Castle, and the wife of one of the lord lieutenants has told me that she had occasionally to remove the archbishop’s foot out of her lap. His life has been written in two volumes, but without any attempt to represent his powers as appearing in conversation, always vigorous and significant, often delightfully epigrammatic. He never wasted a thought upon his dignity. If he had, the dignity would have been an unwelcome weight; but, without any intentional arrogance, he was accustomed to assume the intellectual dictatorship of every company in which he found himself. There could be no greater mistake than to infer from this that there was any tincture in him of ecclesiastical intolerance. He was, in reality, intolerant of intolerance, and of not many things beside.

  If there was a man easy for a raw, bashful youth to get on with it was Whately—a great talker, who endured very readily the silence of his company, original in his views, lively, forcible, witty in expressing them, brimful of information on a variety of subjects—so entertaining that, logician as he was, he is said sometimes to have fixed the attention of a party of ladies to his conversation, or rather discourse, for two or three hours at a stretch; free and easy in manners, rough indeed and dogmatic in his enunciation of opinion, but singularly gracious to undergraduates and young masters who, if they were worth anything, were only too happy to be knocked about in argument by such a man. And he on his part professed to be pleased at having cubs in hand whom he might lick into shape, and who, he said, like dogs of King Charles’s breed, could be held up by one leg without yelling.

  As his eloquence was a good deal beyond my infantine capacity, I am glad to have heard his Grace at a later period, though I should not say public speaking was his forte. His voice was not well adapted to the requirements of even a moderately spacious building; it was scarcely what could be called clear-sounding, and his tone was apt to become monotonous. His manner was not remarkable for energy or spirit, and his personal appearance, though he was tall and well-built, was somewhat heavy. His discourses, however, were never wearisome, because not too “long drawn out.” Archbishop Whately’s strong point, as is well known, was logic, and this pre-eminence could scarcely be denied to a man clever enough to argue with such subtlety that he could prove Napoleon never existed.

  The burden of his office [Archbishop of Dublin] was not lightened by popularity. His English birth and breeding and his well-known antipathy to evangelical principles made him an object of jealousy and suspicion to both clergy and laity. His preaching was unpalatable. His chaste, clear-cut, unimpassioned, argumentative style failed to move his hearers, even if his matter did not, as to some it sometimes did, savour of heresy, not to say infidelity.

General

  I should say that the book [“Treatise on Logic”] was the restoration of an unjustly deposed art.

  In reality, there is not a section of his work which has not furnished us with occasion for some profitable speculations; and we are, in consequence, most anxious to see his Logic,—which treats a subject so much more important than Rhetoric, and so obstinately misrepresented that it would delight us much to anticipate a radical exposure of the errors on this subject taken up from the days of Lord Bacon…. Dr. Whately’s is incomparably the best book of its class since Campbell’s “Philosophy of Rhetoric.”

  That he is bold and somewhat rash, must be admitted. That his style is often awkward and ungainly is no less true. But to question his originality or argumentative ability would occur to no one but a partisan. Whoever is acquainted with his “Rhetoric” and “Logic” must be well aware that however great his faults may be, they cannot be imputed to deficiency of intellect. There is sometimes an apparent incoherence in his arguments, which, on reading further, will be found to have arisen from the very depth and compass of his logical design. Of one thing our readers may be well assured, that, when they hear this [“Kingdom of Christ”] or any other work of Whately set aside as empirical and superficial, they may safely attribute it to a sad want either of discrimination or of candour in the critic. From some of his opinions on church government we utterly dissent, for we are neither prelatists nor independents; but we laugh at the idea of decrying him as one who is unworthy of a hearing, and we certainly enjoy the opportunity of seeing how the words of an apostle can be treated by apostle-worshippers.

  It is somewhat surprising, that, with his high claims to distinction, writing upon many of the most interesting questions in a style singularly attractive, his work should have been made so little the subjects of contemporary criticism. Whatever celebrity he has acquired is in no degree owing to the Reviews. He is scarcely at all mentioned by any of the prouder and more august arbiters of destiny, and journalists of humbler pretentions have been slow to notice his publications, and generally they have been niggardly of their encomiums. Like some other great names we could mention, he has risen into celebrity amidst the silence of the heralds of renown…. In turning over Archbishop Whately’s volumes, one of the first qualities that strikes us, is the great intellectual energy they display. This is shown in the number and variety of the works he has published, evincing a mind ready to take an interest in everything, and quick to exhibit that interest in a practical manner. Logic, rhetoric, political economy, theology—nothing comes wrong to him. Great or small, he has something distinctive to say of it; and he does not much care where he says it, provided it be the fitting channel—in the Saturday Magazine, or in the Quarterly; in a half-penny tract, or in a twelve-shilling volume.

  Touching Whately’s “Rhetoric,” I have read it twice, first when it came out, and again within the last few years, and I think of it, as of his other works, that it is full of ideas, and would make a good article in itself, but still more so if the occasion were taken for a general estimate of the man and his writings…. Whately is certainly a very remarkable and even eminent man, and one whose merits and faults are both very important to be pointed out.

  We … venture to express our conviction … that, though this lucid and eloquent writer may, for obvious reasons, be most widely known by his “Logic” and “Rhetoric,” the time will come when his theological works will be, if not more widely read, still more highly prized. To great powers of argument and illustration, and delightful transparency of diction and style, he adds a higher quality still—and a very rare quality it is,—an evident and intense honesty of purpose, an absorbing desire to arrive at the exact truth, and to state it with perfect fairness and with the just limitations.

  The dogmatical and crotchety Archbishop Whately.

  The writings of Dr. Whately are uniformly characterized by clearness of thought, and precision and transparency of style. If one would not indorse all his sentiments, with the slightest attention he may, at least, comprehend them.

  Archbishop Whately’s “Elements of Logic” exhibit, with beautiful precision of statement and felicity of illustration, the Aristotelian logic in an English dress.

  We do not know that any of his works more effectually exhibits the characteristics of his mind. It [“Errors of Romanism”] has the spirit and air of originality which attend upon sublime good sense; and the freshness thus cast around a subject supposed to be worn out is a sample of the vigor which in those days animated everything he said and did. Its fault was the fault of its author’s life—its want of thoroughness. Its reasonings and illustrations stop short at the point where their application to his own Church would be inconvenient; and thus the work was eagerly seized on by the Dissenters, and its omissions supplied.

  Whately rendered the most important service to free thought in his generation, and contributed largely in ways direct and indirect to the promotion of speculative activity.

  Gave a new life to the study of logic, as was admitted by Sir William Hamilton, who combated some of his doctrines, and it has long since taken its place as a standard in the library of mental science. Whately said his mind had for fourteen years brooded over the leading points of his work on Logic.

  Whately had a very good saying about the majority of preachers. “They aim at nothing, and they hit it.” Is it possible to describe better his own episcopate?

  In theology, as in other things, Whately was an active and fertile thinker, animated by an insatiable love of finding the truth and plainly stating it. In sheer grasp of faculty—in laying hold of “some notion” which he considered practically important, and following it out in all its details, beating it plain till no one could fail to see it as he himself saw it—he was unrivalled. Clearness, common sense, honesty and strength of intellect were his great characteristics, and it is in virtue of these rather than in any depth of richness of new or living thought that he became a power first at Oxford and then in the theological world. Whereas Coleridge brought to the interpretation of Christianity the light of a fresh spiritual philosophy, and sought some synthesis of thought by which religion in its highest form should be seen not only to be in harmony with human nature, but to be its only perfect flower and development, its true philosophy, Whately—taking the prevailing philosophy as he found it—brought the daylight of ordinary reason and of historical fact to play upon the accumulated dogmas of traditionary religion, and to show how little they had, in many cases, to say for themselves. He was a subverter of prejudice and commonplace—of what he believed to be religious as well as irreligious mistake, more than anything else.

  As a writer, his style, though wholly without grace, was admirable in its lucidity. He had a singular felicity of illustration, and especially of metaphor, and a rare power of throwing his thoughts into terse and pithy sentences; but his many books, though full of original thinking and in a high degree suggestive to other writers, had always a certain fragmentary and occasional character, which prevented them from taking a place in standard literature. He was conscious of it himself, and was accustomed to say that it was the mission of his life to make up cartridges for others to fire.

  Whately was a man of clear intellect, happy humour, and benevolent heart, but not a learned theologian. His best known book is his “Logic,” constructed upon Aristotelian principles, which was once largely used in English colleges and universities. He carried his sound common sense into theological questions also, and found that not a few orthodox dogmas have no foundation in the Scriptures…. The unwearied diligence with which Whately devoted himself to his ecclesiastical duties, to promoting the education of the lower classes, and unostentatiously assisting the poor, both Protestant and Catholic, of his diocese in Ireland, reflects favourably on his practical and rational theology, which was not either in philosophy or in history and criticism profound. In the latter respect there is much affinity between it and the Rationalistic (Kantian) supernaturalism, as it was represented in Germany in the first decades of the century by not a few theologians deserving of all respect.

  His clear, cold, penetrating intellect, which was not tempered by any sympathy with an emotional religion of any kind, caused him to be more in his element when he was engaged in destructive than in constructive work; but it is a great mistake to regard him as an irreligious man. He had a very firm belief in the fundamental truths of Christianity, and he rendered valuable service to the Church by his masterly confutations of unbelief in its various forms; but he could never be mistaken for a High Churchman or a Low Churchman; theologically as well as politically he was a Liberal of Liberals…. He does not seem to me to have had anything sufficiently positive and definite to offer, in lieu of the Evangelicalism on the one side, which he did his best to upset, or the High Churchmanship on the other, from which he drifted further and further away. At the same time, it is surely a mistaken, not to say suicidal, policy of the defenders of Christianity to persist in regarding him as an enemy, and not as an ally, and a very effective ally, as far as he went. In the literature of the period, his works occupy a prominent place; and, as will be shown in a future chapter, they are all on the side of belief versus unbelief; and a time which was by no means rich in apologetic literature can ill afford to reject the sincerely proffered aid of one who possessed one of the most luminous and powerful intellects of the day.

  Whately, who had some points in common with Sydney Smith, was, like him, in part the victim of the extreme want of accuracy and range in the Oxford education of his youth; but his mental and literary powers were great.

  Whately, as to his point of view and general spirit as a religious thinker, has been fitly likened to Grotius. He handled with clearness and logical strength whatever subject he took up.

  In the Oxford of his day Whately’s was a name to mention with bated breath. He was known to be “noetic,” anti-evangelical, and anti-Erastian. He was accordingly credited with the authorship of the anonymous “Letters on the Church by an Episcopalian” (London, 1826, 8vo.), which, by the vigour of their argument for the autonomy of the church, caused no small stir in clerical circles. Through Newman, whom they profoundly influenced, the “Letters” contributed to the initiation of the tractarian movement. By Whately they were neither acknowledged nor disavowed; but neither were they claimed by any one else. The style is undoubtedly Whatelian; but the high view of apostolical succession which they embody is countenanced in none, and expressly repudiated in one, of Whately’s mature works. On the whole it is most probable that they were written by Whately, but written without an exact appreciation of the ultimate consequences of their principles.