Item 166 - Letter from Julius Charles Hare

WW's letter has disheartened JCH with regard to the success of John Sterling's plan for a Samuel Coleridge prize essay at Cambridge University [see JCH to WW, 12 Oct. 1834]. He encloses a rough draft of the project which he will also send off to Connop Thirlwall, Christopher and William Wordsworth and William French once he has heard from WW: 'Subjects of the kind here pointed out have occasionally been given for Hudson essays; for instance the Reasonableness of the Atonement was the subject some two years ago. Butler's Analogy might convince our bigwig that reason may be applied to the truths of Christianity without blowing them up; and even in sermons one perpetually hears people endeavouring to shew the coincidence between Reason and Scripture. In assenting to Sterling's proposal I was influenced by two motives, the wish to see Coleridge's name associated with Christian philosophy, and the wish to have it openly recognized that philosophy and Christianity are not antagonist powers. Such an admission might do much toward the emancipation of our theology'. It may be easier and less difficult if the essay was to be generally on all metaphysical subjects, treated either speculatively or historically. There is no equivalent scheme in England.