Footnote:
This edition also issued in print: 2019. - Includes bibliographical references and index. - Description based on online resource; title from home page (viewed on August 30, 2019)
Description:
The Metaphysical Society was founded in 1869 at the instigation of James Knowles with a view to 'collect, arrange, and diffuse Knowledge (whether objective or subjective) of mental and moral phenomena.' The Society was a private dining and debate club that gathered together a latter-day clerisy. Building on the tradition of the Cambridge Apostles, they elected talented members from across the Victorian intellectual spectrum: Bishops, one Cardinal, philosophers, men of science, literary figures, and politicians. The Society included in its 62 members prominent figures such as T.H. Huxley, William Gladstone, Walter Bagehot, Henry Edward Manning, John Ruskin, and Alfred Lord Tennyson. This title moves beyond Alan Willard Brown's 1947 pioneering study of the Metaphysical Society by offering a more detailed analysis of its inner dynamics and its larger impact outside the dining room at the Grosvenor Hotel.