Thomas Hill Green, the English idealist philosopher, was born the fourth son of a Church of England clergyman at Birkin in Yorkshire. His mother died when he was only a year old. Green received his early education from his father before going at the age of fourteen to Rugby School, which had been reorganized on distinctive lines by Thomas Arnold a few years earlier. The corporate side of life at Rugby had little appeal for Green, but his fellow scholars were already impressed by his seriousness and independence of mind. Academically, he was able but not outstanding. In 1855 he entered Balliol College, Oxford, where he was an undergraduate for the next four years. Green was only a moderate classical scholar, but he got first-class honors when he took the final examinations in Literae Humaniores, preparation for which gave him his first serious...