With Coleridge, the metaphysician, it is impossible to deal here. Dr. Traill summed up his teaching very concisely in the following sentences:
"There is indeed no moral theory of life, there are no maxims of conduct, such as youth above all things craves for, in Coleridge's teaching. Apart from the intrinsic difficulties of the task to which he invites his disciples, it labours under a primary and essential disadvantage of postponing moral to intellectual liberation. Contrive somehow or other to attain to just ideas as to the capacities and limitations of the human consciousness, considered especially in relation to its two important and eternally distinct functions, the Reason and the Understanding: and peace of mind shall in due time be added unto you. That is in effect Coleridge's answer to the inquirer who consults him; and if the distinction between the Reason and the Understanding were as obvious as it is obscure to the average unmetaphysical mind, and of a value as assured for the purpose to which Coleridge applies it as it is uncertain, the answer would nevertheless send many a would-be disciple sorrowful away."
It is not necessary to pursue the subject. Between the reader and the metaphysician stands the poet and the critic, and for the greater part of the present and future generations these will suffice.
INDEX
- "Absence," [64]
- "Æolian Harp," [65]
- Æsthetical Essays, [49]
- Aids to Reflection, [52], [53], [75], [87]
- Allsop, Thomas, [49], [50], [51], [75], [83]
- Beaumont, Sir George, [36], [41]
- Biographia Literaria, [48], [49], [75]
- Blackwoods, the, [51]
- Boyer, Rev. James, [18], [64]
- Burnett, [23], [26], [65]
- Carlyle, on Coleridge, [91]
- Cary, Rev. H. F., [49]
- "Christabel," [30], [34], [48], [62], [82]
- Christ's Hospital, [18], [64]
- "Church and State," [58], [87]
- Clarke, Cowden, [52]
- Clarkson, Mrs., [43]
- Coleridge, Berkeley, [31]
- Coleridge, David Hartley, [28], [47], [50]
- Coleridge, Henry Nelson, [52], [58], [91]
- Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, early life and education, [13];
- at Christ's Hospital, [18], [64];
- ill-health, [19], [25], [35], [39], [41], [84];
- attachment to Mary Evans, [19];
- at Jesus College, Cambridge, [19], [20], [23];
- pecuniary difficulties and debts, [21], [23], [29], [39], [50], [51], [52];
- erratic disposition, [20], [24], [40], [62];
- joins the army, [21], [22];
- Pantisocracy scheme, [22], [26];
- relations with Southey, [22], [26], [27], [33], [36], [41], [47], [49], [71], [82];
- engagement to Sarah Flicker, [23];
- relations with Charles Lamb, [26], [27], [31], [34], [44], [47], [58], [59], [62], [78], [79];
- marriage, [27];
- opium habit, [28], [31], [32], [35], [47], [49], [52], [70], [84];
- life at Nether Stowey with Charles Lloyd, [29];
- relations with the Wordsworths, [29], [30], [32], [33], [36], [43], [44], [50], [57], [62], [73], [80], [82], [83], [89], [91];
- the Wedgwoods' generosity, [30], [31], [32], [34], [35], [41], [46];
- visit to Germany, [32];
- literary life in London, [33];
- in the Lake District, [34];
- in Malta, [36], [37];
- in Italy, [39];
- troubled years, [41];
- lectures, [42], [44], [46], [49], [91];
- Table Talk, [52], [58], [63], [74], [83];
- pension from Royal Society of Literature, [52], [56];
- later and more tranquil years, [53], [55];
- successful re-issue of poems, [56];
- second visit to Germany, [57];
- Government grant, [58], [59];
- last days and death at Highgate, [59];
- epitaph, [60], [71];
- as observer of Nature, [61], [64], [65], [78];
- philosophic bent, [63], [86];
- essays and prose writings, [70], [75], [91];
- as poet and critic, [75] et seq.;
- religious phases, [87];
- place in literature, [88], [89]
- Coleridge, Sara, his daughter, [52], [58]
- Cologne, lines on, [57]
- Confessions of an Enquiring Mind, [88]
- Cottle, the publisher, [27], [47]
- Courier, The, [34], [41], [47], [49]