LITERARY NOTICES. 



563 



points iu which the middle-class schools in 

 particular failed to respond to the needs of 

 those who should attend them, are very pun- 

 gent, go down to the root of the matter, and 

 look to the final and permanent result ; and 

 they show that his strongest sympathies 

 were with the education of the middle class- 

 es, whom the universities were only just be- 

 ginning to touch. This sympathy was inti- 

 mately bound up with a sympathy with the 

 non-conformists, which was expressed in a 

 lecture before the Edinburgh Philosophical 

 Institution on " Cromwell and the English 

 Commonwealth." He supported electoral 

 reform as a means of redeeming the govern- 

 ment from the grasp of capitalists and 

 snobs, and rejoiced over the passage of the 

 conservative bill in 1868, as a victory in 

 which no party was the winner, but the 

 whole nation won "by a measure which 

 makes us for the first time one people." 

 What result was looked for from the en- 

 franchisement of the people was not the 

 present question. "Untie the man's legs, 

 and then it will be time to speculate how he 

 will walk." In one of his speeches he de- 

 fined as the idea of a true liberal pro- 

 gramme " the removal of all obstructions 

 which the law can remove to the free devel- 

 opment of English citizens." In a lecture 

 respecting the position of the political re- 

 formers, he described them as proceeding 

 " upon the principle that true political free- 

 dom means the power on the part of the 

 citizens as a body to make the most and 

 best of themselves, or (which is equivalent) 

 to contribute equally to a common good, and 

 that freedom of contract, freedom in all the 

 forms of doing what one will with one's own, 

 is only valuable as a means to freedom in its 

 positive sense. No contract, then, is valid, 

 which defeats the end for which alone so- 

 ciety enforces contracts at all — i. e., that 

 equal development of the faculties of all 

 which is the highest good for all." On this 

 principle ho justified interference in matters 

 of labor, heilth, education, the letting of 

 land, and the sale of alcohol. The strongest 

 elements in his nature " seem to have been 

 the sense of public duty and the sense of 

 religious dependence, and in the creeds of 

 modern liberalism and modern evangelical- 

 ism he found a congenial language, which 

 he had no difficulty in translating when he 



wished into that of German metaphysics. . . . 

 The idea of a free personality, exercising its 

 freedom under conditions which it has itself 

 created, formed the meeting-point for his 

 political and religious aspirations. In the 

 light of this idea he interpreted to himself 

 the problems of history, of morality, of the- 

 ology." As he grew older, he found that 

 with many of his natural allies, liberal poli- 

 ticians, religious enthusiasts, scientific inves- 

 tigators, he could only go half-way. But, 

 with all modifications in his attitude, "the 

 ideal of Christian citizenship remained his 

 ideal to the end ; and, in spite of frequent 

 antagonism to the accredited representa- 

 tives of physical science, ho never relin- 

 quished the claim to be at one with the 

 true scientific spirit." The subjects of Mr. 

 Green's lectures, both as tutor and as Pro- 

 fessor in Moral Philosophy, turned largely 

 round certain works of Aristotle, to which 

 parts of Plato wei'c added. The manner of 

 treating these works was gradually modified, 

 in accordance with the methods of German 

 commentators and writers like Jowett and 

 Pattison, and became " loss literary and 

 more philosophical." The lectures which 

 he delivered during the four years of his 

 professorship were embodied in bis "Pro- 

 legomena to Ethics," which was published 

 after his death. A course on "Political 

 Obligation " and parts of other courses have 

 been published in the second volume of this 

 edition ; and that and the first volume con- 

 tain the collection of his philosophical works. 

 The present volume of " Miscellanies " con- 

 tains twenty-one papers, which have been 

 published as public addresses, as articles in 

 the " North British Review " and the " Acad- 

 emy," or through other channels. Among 

 the subjects are " The Force of Circum- 

 stances," "The Influence of Civilization on 

 Genius," " The Value and Influence of 

 Works of Fiction in Modern Times," " The 

 Philosophy of Aristotle," " Popular Philoso- 

 phy in its Relation to Life," " Caird's Phi- 

 losophy of Religion," " Immortality," " Chris- 

 tian Dogma," " The English Commonwealth," 

 "Liberal Legislation and Freedom of Con- 

 tract," " The Grading of Secondary Schools," 

 "The Elementary School System of Eng- 

 land," " The Work to be done by the Oxford 

 High School for Boys," and theological sub- 

 jects. 



