The Fly in the Amber – The Controversy with Newman

The (in)famous 1864 controversy between Charles Kingsley and John Henry Newman on the nature of truth has received ample scholarly attention. This chapter, therefore, does not propose to look at all the multi-faceted details of the clash once more, but rather wants to offer new perspectives by placing the controversy in the context of two closely related controversies. First, in February 1863, Maurice, Pusey and Newman fought over questions of truth in the columns of The Times. Kingsley rejoiced to see his religious mentor Maurice speak out against the Tractarians. Second, a few months later, Pusey vetoed Kingsley’s candidacy for degree of Doctor of Civil Law at Oxford, a move which inflamed Kingsley deeply. When he publicly accused Newman of dishonesty and duplicity in 1864 he was still hurting. To answer Kingsley’s accusations Newman produced his masterly spiritual autobiography, Apologia Pro Vita Sua. Its immediate fame obscured Newman’s original aggressive expressions (which made even Newman’s friends wince), and which were promptly removed from later editions. The Kingsley-Newman controversy had a lasting impact on such figures as Charles Dodgson and Edwin Abbott, who clearly appropriated it in their writing during the last decades of the century.