DEAN INGE
By THE DEAN OF EXETER (Dean-Designate of St. Paul's)
DR. INGE has been so long a voice crying in the wilderness of our times that it seems incredible that we shall hear him no more ; but he has determined that his long tale of books shall have no further increment and in a beautiful little volume* he has written as it were a postscript to his works. We may hope that he will not take his self-imposed rule of silence too literally, and that the pen of one of the best essayists of this age will be given occasional exercise. One reason which he gives for ceasing to write is refuted by the very pages in which he explains it. He thinks that his style has deteriorated ; but in Vale we find it at its best, graceful, vigorous, epigrammatic, rising :It times, as in the concluding passage, to a simple and moving eloquence which is beyond art.
The Dean makes it clear that lie will not write an autobiography, nor will he countenance the writing of a biography by anyone ; but he will not be able to prevent attempts being made to estimate his importance m the history of religious thought. The time for that is not yet, but the book in which he says farewell is almost a challenge to consider the sources of his influence. Not least among them may be the fact that he is a great writer. At a time when the subject of religion i• treated either in books of ponderous dullness or in journalese, and philosophy is too often clouded with cumbrous technical terms, Dr. Inge has insisted on writing with the lucidity and ease of Berkeley. The themes which he has treated have been for .the most *Va/e. By W. R.-Inge. (Longmans. 3s. 6d.) part such as did not call out the full resources of prose. He has beyond question the art of exposition ; but scattered here and there arc passages which show that he had no less the power of narrative and the capacity of touching the emotions. The early chapters of Plotinus, with their masterly description of the civilization in which his hero lived, must have caused many readers to wish that their author had exercised more fully the magic art of making the dry bones of ecclesiastical history live.
Dr. Inge modestly remarks that he has had the good fortune to write on subjects which were becoming interesting. We may sec something more than fortune here ; it is an illustration of a quality of mind which has enabled him to hold the attention of intelligent people. Theologians often appear to enquiring persons to be thinking, very acutely and eruditely, about the wrong thing. Dr. Inge was always thinking about the right thing, about questions which were really burning. This is true even when he is engaged in unravelling the complexities of Plotinus, for behind the interpretation of that mystical metaphysician lurks the problem of the value of religious experience as a road to Reality. The restless activity which carried him always to the front where the next battle would break out, generally just before it began, has not waned with the years. He tells us that he was content to leave the further study of mysticism to others because he saw that the struggle for the future of religion must now centre on the new conception of the physical universe which -Science is elaborating and the current repudiation of Christian ethical standards.
When Dr. Inge was appointed Dean of St. Paul's he reflected that he was unlikely to become an ecclesiastic. If by an ecclesiastic is meant one who allows himself to be excessively dominated by tradition and the needs of institutional religion, the reflection was just. He has sometimes been accused, not altogether without ground, .of being unduly indifferent to these things, and perhaps he has not always been fair to bishops who have to govern a Church which includes people of every degree .of culture and intelligence, but his unecclesiastical temper has been a chief cause why his voice has carried -far beyond the so-called " religious circles." Men have rightly felt that here was a first-rate mind thinking freely on the deepest subjects—and often thinking out loud. One who thinks freely and out loud lays himself open to all kinds of misunderstanding and misrepresentation on the part of those who see no necessity for such opera- tions. But he has his reward in the respectful attention of many who would not listen to an ecclesiastic. Dr. Inge has one quality of the really free thinker : he can confess to a change of opinion, and some of his admirers who have occasionally deplored utterances of his on social questions will be glad to notice that he has retracted some of the views expressed on unemployment in the first edition of England.
Mr. Shaw has described Dr. Inge as the greatest intellectual asset of the Church of England. This judge- ment, true as it is, should not lead us to forget his services as a spiritual guide. He has given us two books of devotion which are likely to be read long, after most of our con- temporary religious literature is forgotten, and even in his philosophical works the subject of prayer is frequently, directly or indirectly under discussion. The type of spirituality for which Dr. Inge has stood is one which has a peculiar value for the present time. We often fail to recognize the profound change which has taken place in the presuppositions on which our religious life is based. The Dean's lifetime spans a gulf between two -worlds. Brought up in an environment of old-fashioned Tractarianism he has seen the full impact of criticism and science upon traditional beliefs. The outcome of that impact is not yet clear, but it is obvious enough that the whole system of Christian doctrine and worship is being thought out afresh and must be based on foundations which are not quite the same as the old. Thomas Carlyle, in a prophetic moment, said " Much that used to be taken as outward fact must be grasped as inner truth." We may agree with this saying without denying that Christianity has and must always have its roots in history. It is Dr. Inge's supreme merit that, in a day of perplexity, he, more than any other living teacher, has helped us to keep our eyes fixed on " the things which cannot be shaken," on the eternal values, and encouraged us to hold fast to the belief that in religious experience at its highest we are in immediate contact with Reality. In words which the Dean quotes from Julian of Norwich, " Our faith cometh of the natural loft of the soul, and of the clear light of our reason, and of the steadfast mind which we have of God in our first making."
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