Henry Longueville Mansel

The Very Reverend Henry Longueville Mansel, D.D. (6 October 1820 – 1 July 1871) was an English philosopher and ecclesiastic.

Life

He was born at Cosgrove, Northamptonshire (where his father, also Henry Longueville Mansel, fourth son of General John Mansel, was rector). He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, London and St John's College, Oxford. He took a double first in 1843, and became tutor of his college. He was appointed reader in moral and metaphysical philosophy at Magdalen College in 1855, and Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy in 1859. He was a great opponent of university reform and of the Hegelianism which was then beginning to take root in Oxford. In 1867 he succeeded Arthur Penrhyn Stanley as regius professor of ecclesiastical history, and in 1868 he was appointed dean of St Paul's. He died in Cosgrove on the first of July 1871.

The philosophy of Mansel, like that of Sir William Hamilton, was mainly due to Aristotle, Immanuel Kant and Thomas Reid. Like Hamilton, Mansel maintained the purely formal character of logic, the duality of consciousness as testifying to both self and the external world, and the limitation of knowledge to the finite and "conditioned." His doctrines were developed in his edition of Aldrich's Artis logicae rudimenta (1849) — his chief contribution to the reviving study of Aristotle — and in his Prolegomena logica: an Inquiry into the Psychological Character of Logical Processes (1851, 2nd ed. enlarged 1860), in which the limits of logic as the "science of formal thinking" are rigorously determined.

In his Bampton lectures on The Limits of Religious Thought (1858, 5th ed. 1867; Danish trans. 1888) he applied to Christian theology the metaphysical agnosticism which seemed to result from Kant's criticism, and which had been developed in Hamilton's Philosophy of the Unconditioned. While denying all knowledge of the supersensuous, Mansel deviated from Kant in contending that cognition of the ego as it really is belongs among the facts of experience. Consciousness, he held — agreeing thus with the doctrine of "natural realism" which Hamilton developed from Reid — implies knowledge both of self and of the external world. The latter Mansel's psychology reduces to consciousness of our organism as extended; with the former is given consciousness of free will and moral obligation.

These lectures led Mansel to a bitter controversy with the Christian socialist theologian Frederick Maurice.^[1]

A summary of Mansel's philosophy is contained in his article "Metaphysics" in the 5th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1860). He also wrote

The Philosophy of the Conditioned (1866) in reply to John Stuart Mill's criticism of Hamilton;
Letters, Lectures, and Reviews (ed. Chandler, 1873),
The Gnostic Heresies of the First and Second Centuries (ed. Joseph Barber Lightfoot, 1875, with a biographical sketch by Lord Carnarvon).

He contributed a commentary on the first two gospels to the Speaker's Commentary (1881).

Mansel was married to the daughter of Admiral Sir Robert Moorsom ^[2]^[3]

Notes

References

John William Burgon, Lives of Twelve Good Men (1888–1889);
James Martineau, Essays, Reviews and Addresses (London, 1891), ih. 117 seq.;
A. W. Benn, The History of English Rationalism in the Nineteenth Century (1906), ii. 100–112;
David Masson, Recent British Philosophy (3rd ed., London, 1877), pp. 252 seq.;
Kenneth D. Freeman, "The Role of Reason in Religion: A Study of Henry Mansel" (The Hague, 1969);
Leslie Stephen (1893). "Mansel, Henry Longueville". In Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography. 36. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

Attribution

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Manael, Henry Longueville". Encyclopædia Britannica. 17 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 616.

External links

Media related to Henry Longueville Mansel at Wikimedia Commons
Works by Henry Longueville Mansel at Project Gutenberg
Works by or about Henry Longueville Mansel at Internet Archive

Academic offices
Preceded by Walter Waddington Shirley	Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History 1866–1868	Succeeded by William Bright
Church of England titles
Preceded by Henry Hart Milman	Dean of St Paul's 1868–1871	Succeeded by Richard William Church

St Paul's Cathedral

Deans

High Medieval	Wulman Ranulf Flambard (disputed) William de Mareni Ralph de Langford Hugh de Mareni Ralph de Diceto Alard de Burnham Gervase de Howbridge Robert de Watford Martin de Pattishall Geoffrey de Lucy William of Sainte-Mère-Église Henry de Cornhill Walter de Saleron Robert de Barton Peter de Newport Richard Talbot John de Ebulo Geoffrey de Fering John Chishull Hervey de Boreham Thomas Ingoldsthorpe Roger de La Legh William de Montfort Ralph Baldock

Late Medieval	Arnald Frangerius de Cantilupo John Sandale Richard Newport Roger Northburgh Vitalis de Testa John de Everdon Gilbert de Bruera Richard de Kilvington Walter de Alderbury Thomas Trilleck John de Appleby Thomas de Eure Thomas Stowe Thomas More Reginald Kentwood Thomas Lisieux Lawrence Booth William Say Roger Radclyffe Thomas Wynterbourne William Worsley

Early modern	Robert Sherborne John Colet Richard Pace Richard Sampson John Incent William May John Feckenham Henry Cole William May (again) Alexander Nowell John Overall Valentine Cary John Donne Thomas Winniffe Richard Steward Matthew Nicholas John Barwick William Sancroft Edward Stillingfleet John Tillotson William Sherlock Henry Godolphin Francis Hare Joseph Butler Thomas Secker John Hume Frederick Cornwallis Thomas Newton Thomas Thurlow

Late modern	George Pretyman Tomline William Van Mildert Charles Sumner Edward Copleston Henry Hart Milman Henry Longueville Mansel Richard William Church Robert Gregory William Inge Walter Matthews Martin Sullivan Alan Webster Eric Evans John Moses Graeme Knowles Michael Colclough (acting) David Ison

Clergy
(current)

Mark Oakley (Canon Chancellor)
Michael Hampel (Canon Precentor)
Philippa Boardman (Canon Treasurer)
Tricia Hillas (Canon Pastor)
Rosemary Morton (Minor Canon, Succentor & Senior Cardinal)
James Milne (Minor Canon, Sacrist & Junior Cardinal)
Helen O'Sullivan (Priest Vicar & Chaplain)

Category
Commons

Authority control	WorldCat Identities VIAF: 59159179 LCCN: n80040824 ISNI: 0000 0000 8343 9609 GND: 118577247 SELIBR: 298720 SUDOC: 027697010 BNF: cb123502387 (data) NLA: 35326566

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