Page:Matthew Arnold (IA matthewarnold00harr).pdf/31

Rh Comte, which has earned for Positivism the title of Catholicism plus Science. Matthew Arnold, who but for his father's too early death might have been the son of a bishop, and who, in the last century, would himself have been a classical Dean, made an analogous and somewhat restricted combination that is properly described as Anglicanism plus Pantheism.

Let us think no more of his philosophy—the philosophy of an ardent reader of Plato, Spinoza, and Goethe: of his politics—the politics of an Oxford don who lived much at the Athenæum Club: nor of his theology—the theology of an English clergyman who had resigned his orders on conscientious grounds. We will think only of the subtle poet, the consummate critic, the generous spirit, the radiant intelligence, whose over-ambitious fancies are even now fading into oblivion—whose rare imaginings have yet to find a wider and a more discerning audience.