Item 74 - Letter from J. C. Shairp to Henry Sidgwick

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Thanks Sidgwick for sending him his Methods of Ethics. Remarks that it is always with interest that he reads books by those he had known in their younger days at Rugby. Admits that he sometimes finds himself baffled by works by former pupils, as was the case with the two large works on philosophy produced by S. [Hodgkins]. Claims that what he has read of Sidgwick's work seems to be quite within his comprehension, and that the subjects on which he writes are those which he [Shairp] has studied before his Oxford days. Remarks on Sidgwick's treatment of 'the Border law between morals and religion.' States that he agrees with Hutton in his essay "on 'the [ ] Significance of Atheism'...[and] with all that section in the 5th Chap of Newman's Grammar of Assent entitled 'Belief in one God'." Refers how in the latter book, he disagrees with how 'the nexus between conscience and religion' is drawn out, but that he believes that Newman 'had nothing better in English since BP Butler wrote.' States his intention to read the whole of Sidgwick's book carefully whenever he can get time away from his college duties.