The scheme was first propounded by Mr. James Knowles, then editor of the “Contemporary Review,” now of the “Nineteenth Century,” in conversation with Tennyson and Professor Pritchard (Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford).

Thus the Society came to be composed of men of the most opposite ways of thinking and of very various occupations in life.  The largest group was that of churchmen:—­ecclesiastical dignitaries such as Thompson, the Archbishop of York, Ellicott, Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, and Dean Alford; staunch laymen such as Mr. Gladstone, Lord Selborne, and the Duke of Argyll; while the liberal school was represented by Dean Stanley, F.D.  Maurice, and Mark Pattison.  Three distinguished converts from the English Church championed Roman Catholic doctrine—­Cardinal Manning, Father Dalgairns, and W.G.  Ward, while Unitarianism claimed Dr. James Martineau.  At the opposite pole, in antagonism to Christian theology and theism generally, stood Professor W.K.  Clifford, whose youthful brilliancy was destined to be cut short by an untimely death.  Positivism was represented by Mr. Frederic Harrison; and Agnosticism by such men of science or letters as Huxley and Tyndall, Mr. John Morley, and Mr. Leslie Stephen.

Something was gained, too, by the variety of callings followed by the different members.  While there were professional students of philosophy, like Professor Henry Sidgwick or Sir Alexander Grant, the Principal of Edinburgh University, in some the technical knowledge of philosophy was overlaid by studies in history or letters; in others, by the practical experience of the law or politics; in others, again, medicine or biology supplied a powerful psychological instrument.  This fact tended to keep the discussions in touch with reality on many sides.

There was Tennyson, for instance, the only poet who thoroughly understood the movement of modern science, a stately but silent member; Mr. Ruskin, J.A.  Froude, Shadworth Hodgson, R.H.  Hutton of the “Spectator,” James Hinton, and the well-known essayist, W.R.  Greg; Sir James FitzJames Stephen, Sir F. Pollock, Robert Lowe (Lord Sherbrooke), Sir M.E.  Grant Duff, and Lord Arthur Russell; Sir John Lubbock, Dr. W.B.  Carpenter, Sir William Gull, and Sir Andrew Clark.

Of contemporary thinkers of the first rank, neither John Stuart Mill nor Mr. Herbert Spencer joined the society.  The letter of the former declining the invitation to join (given in the “Life of W.G.  Ward” page 299) is extremely characteristic.  He considers the object of the projectors very laudable, “but it is very doubtful whether it will be realised in practice.”  The undoubted advantages of oral discussion on such questions are, he continues, best realised if undertaken in the manner of the Socratic dialogue, between one and one; but less so in a mixed assembly.  He therefore did not think himself justified in joining the society at the expense of other occupations for which his time was already engaged.  And he concludes by defending himself against the charge of not paying fair attention to the arguments of his opponents.