The life and letters of Benjamin Jowett, M. A., master of Balliol college, Oxford.

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Life of Benjamin Jowett

[CHAP. IX

seek to form a school. He rather discouraged some
too eager disciples, saying that 'to meddle in theology
required an exceptionally happy nature.' His one
thought in dealing with his pupils was, what was best
individually for them. Nothing angered him so much
as to find that a former pupil had been incurring odium
in defending him. ' We must all fight our own battles,'
were his last words at parting from one of them, and
they were said with energetic warmth. 'I was sorry
to hear that you had got a reputation for heterodoxy
with Mr. —. Will you be careful of this? A young
man is in great danger of becoming powerless who is
shelved in this way.' The power of personal influence,
which had been conspicuous in some members of the
High Church party, he thought might have been valuable
if they had also had the power of respecting the independence of the persons whom they had influenced.
Once in passing Littlemore, he glanced at the building
where Newman had drawn together his followers in the
year before his secession. 'It was very unfair to those
young men,' he said. Nor was he readily disposed to
strengthen his own position by allying himself with
others, merely because they had also fallen under the
ecclesiastical ban. Some of F. D. Maurice's disciples
were provoked at his persistent silence with regard to
their teacher. 'I shall never join with that modern NeoPlatonism,' was his remark to one who had hinted this:
'it is so easy to substitute one mysticism for another.'
No speculative difficulties confused his practical sense.
While exercising the utmost freedom in speculation,
his constant aim was to hold a just balance between
philosophy and actual life. He often quoted the saying
of Coleridge, 'The only common sense worth having
is that which is based on metaphysics'; and he upheld