English author, Anglican dean and professor of divinity (1860–1954)
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Inge was a prolific author. In addition to scores of articles, lectures and sermons, he also wrote over 35 books.[7] Inge was a columnist for the Evening Standard for many years, finishing in 1946.
He is best known for his works on Plotinus[7] and neoplatonic philosophy, and on Christian mysticism, but also wrote on general topics of life and current politics.
Inge was a strong proponent of the spiritual type of religion—"that autonomous faith which rests upon experience and individual inspiration"—as opposed to one of coercive authority. He was therefore outspoken in his criticisms of the Roman Catholic Church. His thought, on the whole, represents a blending of traditional Christian theology with elements of Platonic philosophy. He shares this in common with one of his favourite writers, Benjamin Whichcote, the first of the Cambridge Platonists.
He was nicknamed 'The Gloomy Dean' because of his pessimistic views in his Romanes Lecture of 1920, "The Idea of Progress"[8] and in his Evening Standard articles. In his Romanes Lecture he said that although mankind's accumulated experience and wonderful discoveries had great value, they did not constitute real progress in human nature itself.
He critiqued democracy's propensity to lead to mob rule and the tyranny of the majority, echoing Tocqueville and Burke, while remaining supportive of the parliamentary and representative system over against autocracy. His stance was typical of the elitist sensibilities expressed by other interwar liberals, conservatives, and progressives. In 1919, he anticipated Churchill's famous 1947 remark about democracy as "the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time," saying that "Democracy is a form of government which may be rationally defended, not as being good, but as being less bad than any other.”[9] He saw the levelling tendency of democratism as in tension with the fact that "Human beings are born unequal" and opined that "the only persons who have a right to govern their neighbours are those who are competent to do so."[10] He questioned the electoral prudence of the British Conservative Party in lowering the age of women's suffrage from 30 to 21 on the eve of its being granted, alongside the removal of property requirements for male as well as female voters,[11] though once it had been granted he accepted it pragmatically.[citation needed]
Inge was a supporter of population control and a member of the British Eugenics Society from 1908[12] “until the Second World War, when he resigned in disgust.”[13] These were themes he touched on in newspaper or journal articles collected in Outspoken Essays and subsequent publications.
Inge critiqued certain social welfare schemes that he believed "penalized the successful while subsidizing the weak and feckless".[7][dead link]
Inge defended the dignity of British Jews against the anti-DreyfusardHilaire Belloc’s 1922 book The Jews. “It is contrary to all our traditions," he wrote, "to do what Mr. Belloc wishes us to do—to refuse to forget a man’s racial origins while he lives among us as a good Englishman […] we have enriched our stock by blending it with desirable foreigners of all sorts.”[14] Against scapegoating of Jews, Inge reminded his readers that “It is not their fault that they have been excluded from agriculture and similar pursuits […] It was not by their own choice that they were impounded in Ghettos, or driven to money-lending.”[15] In Inge’s view, “we ought to be ashamed of anti-Jewish prejudice” because “[a]bove all, race-consciousness is a rather silly thing. The sensible man takes his neighbours as he finds them, and is not too ready to believe in dark conspiracies.”[16]
He was also known for his support for nudism.[17][bettersourceneeded] He supported the publishing of Maurice Parmelee's[18] book, The New Gymnosophy: Nudity and the Modern Life,[19] and was critical of town councillors who were insisting that bathers wear full bathing costumes.[20]
Recognition
He was made a Commander of the Victorian Order (CVO) in 1918 and promoted to Knight Commander (KCVO) in 1930.[5] He received Honorary Doctorates of Divinity from both Oxford and Aberdeen Universities, Honorary Doctorates of Literature from both Durham and Sheffield, and Honorary Doctorates of Laws from both Edinburgh and St Andrews. He was also an honorary fellow of both King's and Jesus Colleges at Cambridge, and of Hertford College at Oxford. In 1921, he was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences.[21]
On 3 May 1905, Inge married Mary Catharine "Kitty" Spooner, daughter of Henry Maxwell Spooner, the Archdeacon of Maidstone.[22] They had five children:
William Craufurd Inge (1906–2001)
Edward Ralph Churton Inge (1907–1980)
Catharine Mary Inge (1910–1997), married Derek Wigram
The following bibliography is a selection taken mainly from Adam Fox's biography Dean Inge and his biographical sketch in Crockford's Clerical Directory.
↑Bliss, Michael (1984). "Resurrections in Toronto: Fact and Myth in the Discovery of Insulin". Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 38 (3): 15–36. JSTOR20171755. Paula, the 10-year-old daughter of Dean Inge, the noted Anglican theologian, was less fortunate. The onset of her diabetes was late in 1921. Because the British were operating about a year behind the North Americans, Paula Inge died before good insulin was available. her father consoled himself with the thought that God had given the parents a whole year's grace before taking their daughter.
