The Mind of Gladstone

Abstract

Abstract Gladstone's ideas are far more accessible for analysis now that, following the publication of his diaries, a record of his reading is available. This book traces the evolution of what the diaries reveal as the statesman's central intellectual preoccupations, theology and classical scholarship, as well as the groundwork of his early Conservatism and his mature Liberalism. In particular, it examines the ideological sources of Gladstone's youthful opposition to reform before scrutinising his convictions in theology as they developed from Evangelicalism through Orthodox High Churchmanship and Tractarianism to a liberal Catholicism. His classical studies, focused primarily on Homer, also changed over time, from a version designed to defend a traditional worldview to an approach that celebrated human endeavour. An enduring principle of his thought was the importance of community, but a fresh axiom that arose from the modifications of his views was the centrality of all things human. The twin values of community and humanity were the foundations of Gladstone's rhetoric as Liberal leader, so making him, in terms of recent political thought, a communitarian rather than a liberal, but one with a distinctive humanitarian message. As a result of a thorough scrutiny of Gladstone's private papers, the Victorian statesman is shown to have derived his standpoint from the Christian and classical sources of his thinking and so to have left an enduring intellectual legacy.