it
of what are called in Cambridge the moral sciences--metaphysics,
ethics, and psychology; becoming first a College Lecturer and then (in
1875) a University Praelector in these subjects. In 1869 he resigned
his fellowship, feeling that he could no longer consider himself a
"_bona fide_ member of the Church of England," that being the
condition then attached by law to the holding of fellowships in the
Colleges at Cambridge. This step caused surprise, for the test was
deemed a very vague and light one, having been recently substituted
for a more stringent requirement, and there had been many holders of
fellowships who were at least as little entitled to call themselves
_bona fide_ members of the Established Church as he was. But, as was
afterwards said of him by Mrs. Cross (George Eliot), Sidgwick was
expected by his intimate friends to conform to standards higher than
average men prescribe for their own conduct. Taken in conjunction with
the fact that several English Dissenters and Scottish Presbyterians
had won the distinction of a Senior Wranglership and been debarred
from fellowships, though they were in theological opinion more
orthodox than some nominal members of the Established Church who were
holding fellowships, Sidgwick's conscientious act made a great
impression in Cambridge and did much to hasten that total abolition
of tests in the Universities which was effected by statute in 1871;
for in England concrete instances of hardship and injustice are more
powerful incitements to reform than the strongest abstract arguments,
and Sidgwick was already so eminent and so respected a figure that all
Cambridge felt the absurdity of excluding such a man from its honours
and emoluments. In 1883 he was appointed Professor of Moral
Philosophy, and continued to hold that post till three months before
his death in 1900, when failing health determined him to resign it.

His life was the still and tranquil life of the thinker, teacher, and
writer, varied by no events more exciting than those controversies
over reforms in the studies and organisation of the University in
which his sense of public duty frequently led him to bear a part.

These I pass over, but there is one branch of his active work to which
special reference ought to be made, viz. the part he took in promoting
the University education of women. In or about the year 1868 he joined
with the late Miss Anne Jane Clough (sister of the poet Arthur Clough)
and a few