6 Conclusion William Wilberforce died on 29 July 1833, two days after hearing that the legislation for the abolition of slavery in British dominions had successfully completed its passage through the House of Commons, a fitting conclusion to the work he had begun nearly half a century before. The Practical View both reflected and contributed to a major shift in religious consciousness of which the continuing growth of the Evangelical movement was the most striking manifestation. Methodist num
5.2 Wilberforce’s anti-slavery campaign in context Certainly the outcome was a positive one from Wilberforce’s point of view in that abolition of the slave trade in British ships and colonial possessions passed rapidly through both Houses of Parliament, and became law in March 1807. This result in part implied an increased receptivity to Wilberforce’s religious arguments against slavery, but there were also other factors at work. These included the advance of liberal ideas of justice and toleration, themselves reflecting the influence of
4.6 Contemporary reactions Wilberforce’s underlying conservative inclinations and his vested interest in the existing social order led him to emphasise those aspects of Christianity that are conducive to stability rather than the more radical strands of Jesus’ teaching. Nevertheless, there is no doubt of Wilberforce’s absolute conviction of the reality of an afterlife and, consequently, of the spiritual perspective in which life as we know it has to be viewed. Herein was an outlook fundamentally different from th
4.5 The interaction of religion and society Now read the previous extract again with the associated commentary which draws out the key points and their significance, particularly in helping to understand the interaction of religion and society at this time. Wilberfor 4.1 The impact of A Practical View
A Practical View is significant both as a kind of ‘manifesto’ by a prominent figure in a religious movement of rapidly expanding influence, and as part of an ongoing process of reflection on the state of British politics and society in the aftermath of the French Revolution. Wilberforce had been working on it intermittently for four years before its eventual publication on 12 April 1797. As a busy politician he struggled to find the time for sustained writing. He had initially had 3 Britain in the 1790s A problem that has exercised historians for many years is, put in its most concise form: why was there no revolution in Britain in the 1790s? The question is a significant one here, because religious factors have formed an important strand in the answers that have been given. The intellectual trend was set by the publication in 1913 of England in 1815, in which the French historian Elie Halévy (1870–1937) argued that the growth of Methodism in this period was a key factor in the Bri 1.3 Wilberforce’s ‘Conversion’ to Evangelicalism Wilberforce’s religious ‘conversion’ in 1785 was profound but not instantaneous. Through the influence of Isaac Milner, an Evangelical clergyman who was his companion on extended journeys on the Continent, he first became intellectually convinced of the truth of Christian doctrines that he had doubted in the early 1780s. This process of rational argument, study and consideration was characteristic of an Enlightenment way of thinking, even if the conclusion was diametrically opposed to t 1.2 Upbringing; MP for Yorkshire William Wilberforce (Figure 1) was born in Hull, the son and grandson of substantial merchants who had made their fortune in trade between Yorkshire and the Baltic. His father died in 1768 and he subsequently went to live for a period with his uncle and aunt. Through them he was exposed not only to the influence of John Newton, but also to that 1.1 Early influences In the early summer of 1771, the clergyman and writer John Newton (1725–1807) was visited at Olney by two of his admirers, William and Hannah Wilberforce, a wealthy childless couple, and their 11-year-old nephew and heir, also named William. Newton made a profound impression on the boy. In 1785 it was to Newton that the younger William Wilberforce (1759–1833), now Member of Parliament for Yorkshire and a close friend of Prime Minister William Pitt (the Younger), turned for counsel in the Learning outcomes When you have completed your work on this unit you should have developed: a knowledge of key aspects of William Wilberforce’s political career and writings, and an appreciation of their historical and religious significance; an awareness of the relationship of Evangelicalism to cultural transitions between the Enlightenment and Romanticism; an understanding of the contribution of religion to cultural, social and political change in Britain in the Introduction William Wilberforce, the politician and religious writer, was instrumental in the abolition of slavery in Britain in 1807. This unit explores Wilberforce’s career and writings and assesses their historical significance. In particular it examines the contribution that Evangelicalism, the religious tradition to which Wilberforce belonged, made in the transitions between the Enlightenment and Romanticism. Throughout it relates Wilberforce’s career and writings to wider social and cultural de 5.3 Do we have a duty to God not to commit suicide? Why, you may be wondering, would anyone think that we have a duty to God not to take our own lives? Because it would have been so familiar to his original readership, Hume barely bothers to state the position he is opposing before criticising it. His concern is to refute the charge that in taking our own lives we would be ‘encroaching on the office of divine providence, and disturbing the order of the universe’ (paragraph 8). This position can be expressed less elegantly but more t 5.2 Philosophy, religion and everyday life Perhaps because he is aware he will be stirring up trouble by publishing his views on this topic, Hume warms to his theme by talking in paragraphs 1–4 about how he conceives of the relation between philosophy, religious ‘superstition’ and ordinary life. The rest of the essay can be read independently of this opening, but these early ruminations are worth pausing over. They reveal subtleties in Hume's sceptical outlook that are drowned out in the more polemical parts of the two essays. 5.1 The reception of Hume's views ‘Of suicide’ was received with the same degree of public hostility as his essay on immortality. Here is what an anonymous reviewer of the 1777 posthumous edition of both essays had to say in the Monthly Review (1784, vol. 70, pp. 427–8): Were a drunken libertine to throw out such nauseous stuff in the presence of his Bacchanalian companions, there might be some excuse for him; but were any man to advan 4.1 Why was our immortality an issue? When reading about Hume's death you may have been puzzled as to why people became so worked up about Hume's attitude. The question of what, if anything, happens after death is something most of us are at least curious about, just as most of us are curious to know what we will be doing in a few years’ time. But curiosity cannot explain the venom evident in the condemnations of Hume. The reason for the hostility can be approached by considering the opera Don Giovanni. The opera i 3.4 Proving God's existence Deists had at their disposal three traditional ways of arguing for the existence of God. The most popular in the late eighteenth century was the argument from design (also known as the teleological argument, from the Greek word telos, meaning end or purpose). This argument begins with an observation: the world around us is not chaotic but ordered and harmonious. Some examples: whenever the tide comes in it goes out again shortly after; without an ability to inhale a 3.1 The moderate reformers 1789–92 was a period of relatively moderate reform in the spirit of the Enlightenment – moderate, that is, compared with what followed. It was certainly revolutionary in relation to what went before. The Constituent Assembly (August 1789–September 1791) and its successor, the Legislative Assembly (October 1791–August 1792), comprising educated members of the Third Estate joined by liberal-minded nobles and clergy, were satisfied with the transformation of absolute monarchy into 2.4 Enlightened reformism – dismantling the Old Regime The National Assembly, the self-proclaimed and now de facto supreme representative and legislative organ of state, set to work on the constitution which it had sworn to introduce. Calling itself the Constituent Assembly (to stress both its representative credentials and its constitutional mission), it consisted of 745 deputies elected for two years with virtually unlimited power to pass laws. The king, by interposing his veto, might delay but could not override laws passed by it 1.3 Napier's approach to logarithms Napier's major and more lasting invention, that of logarithms, forms a very interesting case study in mathematical development. Within a century or so what started life as merely an aid to calculation, a set of ‘excellent briefe rules’, as Napier called them, came to occupy a central role within the body of theoretical mathematics. The basic idea of what logarithms were to achieve is straightforward: to replace the wearisome task of multiplying two numbers by the simpler task Learning outcomes By the end of this unit you should be able to: analyse the pros and cons of the biographical monograph in art history; examine the strengths and weaknesses of the biographical monograph in relation to other kinds of art history writing.
Exercise 4
