FOUR REASONABLE MEN: Marcus Aurelius, John Stuart Mill, Ernest Renan, Henry Sidgwick

by Brand Blanshard ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 12, 1984

Philosophical saints: agreeable, old-fashioned biographies of four thinkers distinguished by ""a settled resolution to guide their belief and conduct by the evidence."" Serenity, indeed, would seem to be the keynote of the rather Victorian quartet that Blanshard (Sterling Prof. of Philosophy Emeritus at Yale) has chosen to eulogize. (Even the great Stoic emperor was a sort of honorary Victorian, deeply venerated by men like Renan and Matthew Arnold.) They led immensely busy lives: Marcus Aurelius fighting the Quadi and the Marcomanni; Mill writing on logic, ethics, economics, and politics, while struggling for woman suffrage and other liberal causes: Renan immersed in his lifelong study of Judaism and Christianity; Sidgwick tolling away for 31 years at Cambridge. Still, Blanshard's heroes all managed to maintain a quiet equilibrium. They fought against prejudice and were sometimes vilified for it, but they displayed an exquisite fairness (most of the time) in debating their adversaries. Blanshard admits they had their flaws: Marcus Aurelius persecuted Christians; Mill cut family members who didn't share his uxorious overestimate of Harriet Taylor; Renan had a sentimental streak; Sidgwick--well, Sidgwick was practically perfect. Blanshard summarizes the vast published work of the last three in a readable, unpedantic way, though he doesn't press his analysis very far. (E.g., he discusses Renan's Life of Jesus at some length without observing that the book is evidently a kind of self-portrait.) But this accords with his purpose of presenting exemplars of happy reasonableness to edify and chastise ""our tormented and demented century"" (F. L. Lucas). A painless exercise in secular piety.

Pub Date: April 12, 1984

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Wesleyan Univ. Press--dist. by Harper & Row

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1984

Categories: NONFICTION