Item 96 - Letter from Henry Sidgwick to Alfred Marshall

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Announces that they 'have just settled the [examination results of, and prizes to be awarded to] the women', and that it has been decided that Miss Larmer should get the scholarship. Claims to be somewhat disappointed in her work. States that she was 'clearly head' in Political Economy and second by two marks in Logic. Adds that they only gave out two firsts in Group D, and no distinction. States that he got Venn to fix the standard for passing level with that of '[Poll men] in June.' Refers to Miss M. Kennedy's work, which 'agreeably surprised' him. States that his plans of lecturing the following term are still rather vague, 'on account of Miss L's uncertainty'.

In relation to Evolution, claims to have understood the view Marshall expressed the previous term, but does not think he agrees with him, and is quite sure that he does not agree with Karl Marx. Declares that '[t]his Spiessbürger is after all only our friend the "Bourgeois" for whose wicked selfishness Political Economy is supposed to have been invented...' Claims that when he first read socialistic tracts he was much impressed with the breadth of view implied 'in this contemptuous term', but, on reflection, believes that 'the Bourgeois after all appeared to [him] the heir of the ages...and so of Bentham's Normal Man.' Declares that he does not quite understand Marshall's position on Benthamism. States that he does not think it the special function of the Philosophy of Jurisprudence to develop dynamical conception, and that he believes that a grasp of the Utilitarian method of determining rules would have been of the greatest value to himself. States that he had 'worked out principles of constitutional Jus[tice] - for B[entham]'s Normal Mensche in two or three lectures', and is consequently biased in favour of the method. Claims that it is too hot to work in Cambridge, and that he is reading novels.