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The Trinity Circle

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View the page of William Ashworth

William Ashworth explores the creation of knowledge in nineteenth-century England, when any notion of a recognizably modern science was still nearly a century off, religion still infused all ways of elite knowing, and even those who denied its relevance had to work extremely hard to do so.

Image courtesy of interviewee. June 18, 2024

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This video provides an overview of a discourse on the historical evolution of human reason and its entanglement with technology, economics, and religion. The speaker reflects on a world increasingly centered around human rationality, which has recently come to overshadow religious beliefs, particularly Christianity. This video transition is connected to figures like Charles Babbage, whose work aimed to integrate human reasoning into machines.

The speaker notes a critique of this human-centric outlook from various backgrounds, raising concerns about the morality and truths generated by a reliance solely on human reason and artificial intelligence. The discussion transitions into the 19th century, highlighting the emergence of utilitarianism and the shift from divine wisdom to a secular, calculative approach to knowledge and ethics.

The speaker also discusses the "Trinity Circle," a group of Cambridge scholars who sought to counter the growing influence of human rationality by promoting a divine idealism rooted in Anglican faith. They believed that true knowledge and moral understanding were intertwined with faith and divine grace.

Throughout, the speaker emphasizes the implications of these shifts on the nature of knowledge, morality, and societal structures, concluding that the current relationship between human reasoning, artificial intelligence, and capitalist structures has deep historical roots and remains a critical area of concern as society evolves.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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As far back as my memory goes, I've always wondered

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how we arrived at the human-centric

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world that we live in today.

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That is complete faith in human reason.

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This is after all a recent development.

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Moreover, when did human reason kind

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of melt into technology and economics?

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Uh, I mean, today in large sways of the West,

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we live in a much more secular world

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that typically denies the rule of a Christian religion

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and certainly an active intervening deity.

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I'm, I'm not, I'm not, certainly not saying

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that's a bad thing, but faith is now far more invested in

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human reason, a more recently machine intelligence.

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And this is a historically new phenomenon.

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As such, I kind of became interested in origin stories such

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as Charles Babbage

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and his attempt to build a form

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of human intelligence into a machine.

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Now, there are still many people from an array

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of backgrounds, not just religious, philoso philosophical,

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sociological historical

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who think this has not only created a false knowledge,

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but an accompanying immoral world designed

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by an artificial human corrupted intelligence from

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educational commerce to a lifestyle knowledge and politics.

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So ultimately, materialism in all senses of that word,

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has become the necessary price

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for international competitiveness

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and a kind of pathological quest for economic growth.

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And it was while researching establishment of these,

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values of this kind of world.

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But I realized there's actually a very robust critique

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of it coming from 19th century Anglican quarters.

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So for advocates of a new rational world,

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the passions were condemned

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and the pursuit of material game became a moral at attribute

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decision making duty and moral morality.

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What be based on self-interest

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and rational calculation,

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mechanization stemming from the industrial revolution,

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I've argued, argued elsewhere,

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had a profound impact on the future

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of human intellectual labor By 19th century,

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the actual workings of the mind for certain,

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and I use a gendered term, men of science,

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had become a legitimate site of empirical study,

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no longer a sacred sphere.

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The mind was being put on a show like any

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other object of study.

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So if a, so if a factory system could redefine human

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physical labor and material production,

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surely people like the Cambridge Trinity mathematician

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baggage claimed it could do the same thing for mental labor.

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So a view was also growing in the 19th century

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that emphasized the greatest happiness

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and reducing everything to numbers.

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This came to be seen as neutral in decision making,

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therefore making policy justifiable.

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Those who controlled the numbers,

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Controlled the power.

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This movement has broadly been associated with the rise of

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what came to return utilitarianism, the term popularized

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by the political philosopher John Stewart Mill.

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And in many ways, I think this has become the bedrock

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of modern society.

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So the notion of a divine genius has been replaced

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by an elite calculating cultural entrepreneur.

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You know, the pursuit of knowledge is about utility

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and very, aptly the exploitation

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of course of the natural world.

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So it has big environmental implications.

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Morality has been reduced to a visible calculation

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based on the best outcome for the greatest number

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and not some mystical inner morality.

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So finally, Beth Beth mite utilitarianism has been totally

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financialized and penetrates everything, including,

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of course, intellectual production.

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And I was interested,

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and that's what the book's a critique

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of in the 19th century, how we got to that stage.

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So I, I end the first part there.

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I'll try and gauge with most of that.

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Um, I mean, the book is an engagement with the Kern concerns

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of a few Trinity co college graduates

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and how they attempted to promote a divine

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historicist version of the Anglican faith in opposition

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to this increasing human-centric rationality.

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Uh, for spatial and archival reasons, William Hill

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represents the spine of the book First.

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He's the only one of the Trinity Circle I look at who spent,

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literally spent his entire life at Trinity

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and literally became the outward embodiment of the college

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as master from 1841.

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Moreover, I spent 18 months on, on his records and letters

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and outputs, and by far the best preserved.

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So in this sense, hue is the hub

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and the rest of the spokes within the book's history.

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But this is not underline this, it's not

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to detract from the others, but for reasons.

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But for these reasons, hue is really

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at the center of the book.

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Um, this circle that I call the Trinity Circle, try to embed

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a distinct divine idealism into Cambridge, the thought

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of fuel and his two Trinity colleagues, Julius Hare

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and Op Al, for example, like British idealists in general,

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sorts of refute empiricism

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and utilitarianism through a metaphysical perspective.

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And I'll talk more about that for this group.

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The world had a divine unity that underpinned

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and linked all ideas of knowledge,

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and it didn't take 'em long.

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They arrived in Cambridge in the early 1810s,

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and they were quickly dismayed at the emphasis they found

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placed upon the works of people like John Locke

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and William Paley Locke, for example,

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essentially saw religion as a private matter

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that should be separate from a national church

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and state more precisely

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Look, did not object to established religion per se,

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but did not think it had any special legitimacy

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as against the various other religious sects.

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And he did not think it was any way

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identified with the state.

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The Church of England did, of course,

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and insisted that only via its 39 articles

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could religious interpretation take place where the source

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of understanding came from within

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for hair thorough and hull.

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It was external for Locke

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and comprehended by human sensory-based reason.

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Pale is natural theology supported utilitarian morality

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and placed the emphasis upon man's, again, sensory reason

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to detect divine design.

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And it was this that was examined at Cambridge

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and not pales theology, which argued for the authenticity

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of the Bible and for miracles in his empirical evidence

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of Christianity entitled natural theology

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or Evidence of the existence

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and attributes of the Deity was published in 1802.

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And here Paley placed a human-centric reason at the core

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of Christian morality

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and described a contented world

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with more happiness than pain.

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So this was a legalistic, empiric, empirical view

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of theology in which evidence

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of God was simply found in nature.

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So God's the kind of watchmaker,

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such a view revolted men like hair, fur and fuel.

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And at the heart of their views were more people like

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Samuel Taylor Ridge, who was a staunch advocate for the need

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of a national church and spearheaded the attack upon Paley

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and his faith in pure human reason.

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So the key to survival for much of the established clergy

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was to resist sectarian schools

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of conflicting theological wrangling

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and become united through nurturing one's soul

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by a divine belief, prescribed importantly

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by a national church to substantiate you think you think

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of English civil war here a little bit

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to substantiate the truth within the gospels hair

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and thorough, applied controversial German

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biblical criticism to create a credible doctrine

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for the national church, a doctrine that could embrace

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an array of dissenting views.

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And it was while another Trinity student, yes,

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that man again Babbage sat in his college rooms

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and established a group concerned

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with reporting French algebraic analysis.

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But here sat in his digs

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and created an evening club

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around introducing German literature

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and discussing the beauty

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of the romantic English lake verse.

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So her hair thorough

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and their two trinity friends, hu of course,

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and Hugh James Rose,

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Spent many evenings studying German and learning

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and appreciation for the work of romantic poets.

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After that, hu Hare

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and Al gained fellowships at Trinity Rose

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obtained the Keil buck did, and he Sussex

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and became increasingly connected to the church society.

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And it is during this period that, that that rose kind

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of departs and be

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and takes a decidedly anti-German term turn,

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thanks a huel and his close relationship with the new master

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of Trinity, who's the brother

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of William Wordsworth, the lake poet.

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Uh, the master is Christopher was

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with ha was appointed a classical lecturer at Trinity in

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1822, and al four years later

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s woody teaching there.

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So that really, that's, that's my answer to that question.

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A specific Anglo hybrid version of German idealism

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is being imported into Trinity.

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And this underlines ideas connecting humankind

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with the material world.

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Uh, so matter in a sense is impregnated with the mind

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and the ideas of that matter stem from God.

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And this focused by hair thewell

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and kill on divine intuition, it was hoped,

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would undermine the erosive materialistic philosophy

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that was fast expanding and conquering both the material

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and intellectual landscape.

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Um, the way to revive religion these guys thought was

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to reveal God's ongoing revelation through history.

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This was via the study of philology, the imagination

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and an intense inner introspection.

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Uh, this also characterized coleridge's later work.

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The history of language was a history of consciousness

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to understand the meaning of a word for the past

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provided an insight into that historical context.

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Language, thus is the real archeology of human kind

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is not some, not some sensory reflex,

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but a creative act of the mind

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that ultimately stemmed from God.

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There was and could not

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therefore be any such thing as human evolution

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in the Darwinian sense.

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No other species of God's creation spoke language,

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which is surely proof of man's divine and special nature.

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Man was made on the, on day six of the creation.

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And some 6,000 years ago, full stop, none of this nonsense

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of the earth dates thousands

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and thousands of years, which was being advocated

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or, and and so on.

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To discover a word origin, I its etymology,

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brought you closer to its uncorrupted, meaning

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history revealed that ideas did not spring afresh,

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but were connected to an original core human reason.

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Thus, as the basis of epistemology was

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for these people creating a climate

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of dangerous political reform

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and intellectual distortion driving.

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I'm using the gender term man because they did further

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and further from God and traditional social authority.

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Human reason alone was imperfect and damaged faith.

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It produced a false understanding and morality.

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So higher forms of knowledge such as the imagination, art,

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and poetry that transcends the world of sense.

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But being eclipsed by metro philosophies breaking down at

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this point and becoming, emerging sciences.

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And those disciplines, are are beginning

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to take over our understanding of the world moral philosophy

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and religion, not science.

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These, these, the Trinity Circle are arguing should be at

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the center of an education.

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So it's quite an elitist argument is

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by nurturing reason in conjunction with the imagination

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that the laws of God could be detected, detected,

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and one's moral duties correctly emerged.

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And it was this that heal

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to my surprise when I was researching it actually spent

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so much in his later life working on morality.

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Coleridge wrote in great quote,

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uncharacteristically precise fashion

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for Coleridge in his table talk of 1832.

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The pith of my system is to make the senses out of the mind,

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not the mind from the senses.

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So interpretation of senses depended upon the divine mind.

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And I think this perfectly sums up hair thorough

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and heals disdain

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for this human-centric emphasis upon sensory understanding

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and or pure human deductive reasoning.

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Since all truth was ultimately divine, only those

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with true faith could access such truths.

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France, since their political revolution had encouraged the

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creation of a false world built upon the single

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faculty of human reason.

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So someone like Babbage and John Herschel at St.

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John's clearly supported this new rational world

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and they veered what's

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what would've been considered political radical views.

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So it's quite wrong to imply some historians do that.

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Babbage Herschel Fuel

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and Richard Jones who haven't mentioned

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and probably won't formed a coherent intellectual group

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unified in their views towards science and reform.

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The one thing, the one thing in which they were all united

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was the importance of induction

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and the collection of trustworthy observations.

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That's why historians underline them as being harboring is

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of the scientific method.

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The difference arose from the way those

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data were interpreted.

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And the best

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Way, I think to illustrate,

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this is their differing view, say to Kepler's discovery

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that planet's orbited to the sun in an ellipse.

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So keep the word ellipse in your mind for someone like Mill

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or Herschel, the shape of that orbit

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that ellipse emerged out planetary observations.

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But for someone like Hill, it's

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because Keppler had the idea

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of an ellipse in planted divine implanting in his mind

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for bat and Herschel operating on algebraic symbols,

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they believed put the naked workings of the brain on show

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the brain could thus be rendered visible

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and available to empirical scrutiny and

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therefore opens the possibility

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of being built into a machine so it's no longer a mystical

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and sacred divine sphere.

15:42.815 --> 15:45.315
And this was a quest BA would devote the rest of his life

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to, and by the second part

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of the 19th century become the antithesis

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to the trinity circle's view

15:52.565 --> 15:53.985
for the latter and countless others.

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This separation from the concrete past

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and active, the idea

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of an active deity made such studies unnatural

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and politically subversive.

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So all the Trinity Circle came to be united in their quest

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to demonstrate that mankind

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with an accompanying evangelical emphasis on human reason

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was secondary and always dependent on an all powerful

16:19.205 --> 16:21.345
and active interventionist God.

16:22.355 --> 16:25.055
And all this has clear implications for the nature

16:25.355 --> 16:28.175
of religious faith, the nature of knowledge

16:28.875 --> 16:33.145
and traditional social authority access

16:33.145 --> 16:36.985
to genuine understanding the Trinity Circle believed was

16:36.985 --> 16:38.665
only possible to those with a soul.

16:39.015 --> 16:40.865
This could not be easy articulated,

16:41.485 --> 16:44.345
but was crucial to comprehending God's world,

16:45.005 --> 16:47.225
be it knowledge, the social structure,

16:47.565 --> 16:49.665
the economy or morality.

16:50.735 --> 16:54.035
The Trinity Circle are all united, thus in the defense

16:54.095 --> 16:55.395
of the Church of England.

16:55.905 --> 16:58.235
However, in terms of how best to preserve the church,

16:58.505 --> 16:59.955
they often greatly different.

17:00.695 --> 17:02.435
So at one end of the spectrum you've got Rose.

17:03.055 --> 17:04.715
Uh, the other you've got someone like Al

17:05.375 --> 17:08.875
the former Rose early on had come to fer be disliked.

17:08.875 --> 17:12.275
Now the enthusiasm by al

17:12.275 --> 17:14.115
for German scriptural criticism

17:14.455 --> 17:18.625
and toleration of religious descenters far from being an age

17:18.625 --> 17:21.985
of improvement, it was lots of age of anxiety for these men

17:23.245 --> 17:25.985
and the mathematical tripods dominated

17:26.015 --> 17:27.265
education at Cambridge.

17:28.125 --> 17:30.505
But what type of mathematics should be taught?

17:31.805 --> 17:35.665
The introduction of French algebraic analysis was disturbing

17:35.665 --> 17:36.825
to several Cambridge students

17:36.965 --> 17:40.425
and Dons for outright hostility.

17:40.885 --> 17:44.785
No one seemed so alien as the wealthy banker's son Babbage

17:45.405 --> 17:46.865
who migrated from Trinity

17:47.245 --> 17:49.925
to Peter House the year Hue arrived.

17:51.095 --> 17:54.505
Some Babbage, thus reiterate, comes to be the antithesis,

17:55.085 --> 17:56.225
of the Trinity Circle.

17:57.505 --> 18:00.205
The mathematics taught at Cambridge had traditionally

18:00.205 --> 18:02.445
developed within an environment designed

18:02.585 --> 18:04.725
to produce clergy in for the Church of England.

18:05.265 --> 18:09.285
So in that sense, geometry you could, EU could geometry was

18:09.285 --> 18:11.645
as much a national institution as the church.

18:12.225 --> 18:13.725
So people like the Trinity Circle

18:13.905 --> 18:16.005
and Coleridge understood and emphasized.

18:16.005 --> 18:19.585
This mathematical study was promoted as a means

18:19.585 --> 18:21.865
of reinforcing Christian faith.

18:22.715 --> 18:24.905
University in Anchor University was not there

18:24.905 --> 18:28.585
to discover new facts, certainly not via pure human reason.

18:29.495 --> 18:30.625
It's to train the mind

18:30.845 --> 18:33.145
to understand established knowledge such

18:33.145 --> 18:35.265
as Newtonian gravitational astronomy

18:35.685 --> 18:38.705
and to appreciate the evidence of the natural,

18:38.845 --> 18:42.145
the natural record to adopt French

18:43.105 --> 18:44.265
abstract analytical math,

18:44.265 --> 18:46.985
mathematics would lead the mind into fantasy

18:47.405 --> 18:49.065
and eventually possibly atheism.

18:50.005 --> 18:53.545
The emphasis on algebraic mathematical rigor was bringing in

18:53.545 --> 18:58.105
the discipline closer and closer to an insular human logic

18:59.365 --> 19:00.985
devoid of an active God.

19:01.285 --> 19:03.065
So I'll leave that section there, I think

19:03.605 --> 19:05.305
and move on to your fourth question.

19:05.705 --> 19:08.745
I mean, to be sure the Trinity Circle was not always a

19:08.745 --> 19:12.065
perfect circle, and their views clearly differed in how

19:12.065 --> 19:13.985
to achieve a national church.

19:15.175 --> 19:17.825
Nonetheless, their differences tended wherever

19:18.105 --> 19:19.385
possible to remain private.

19:20.205 --> 19:24.625
On occasion, they did go public such as Al's vocal support

19:24.625 --> 19:28.505
for dissenters in 1833 to allow dissenters into Cambridge.

19:29.105 --> 19:30.385
A solution of sorts was found.

19:31.755 --> 19:33.645
Rose pretty much stayed

19:34.165 --> 19:36.765
resolute in his doctrinal beliefs all his

19:36.765 --> 19:38.965
life from the 1820s.

19:39.545 --> 19:43.525
Hue also became far more static and defined in his outlook.

19:44.645 --> 19:47.535
Hair and third wall were perhaps the most liberal

19:47.915 --> 19:49.015
during the 1820s.

19:49.685 --> 19:50.895
However, I'd argue

19:50.895 --> 19:53.135
after the Great Reform Act 1832,

19:53.565 --> 19:55.095
this also started to change.

19:55.635 --> 19:58.775
And by the 1850s having trouble talking now,

19:58.965 --> 20:01.735
thewell had also become much more conservative

20:02.115 --> 20:06.055
and reactionary towards any theological ecclesiastical

20:06.055 --> 20:07.095
and social form.

20:08.195 --> 20:12.375
And by this point, thewell had become one of the top, taken,

20:12.395 --> 20:14.615
one of the top positions in the church when he was appointed

20:14.615 --> 20:15.775
Bishop or St.

20:15.805 --> 20:20.635
David's. But to, to sum up the national,

20:20.635 --> 20:21.875
the the, the National Church

20:21.875 --> 20:24.475
and Constitution were perceived by these men

20:24.775 --> 20:27.555
as living things and not mere formula.

20:28.775 --> 20:31.075
Uh, the implicit relationship between the Church of England

20:31.455 --> 20:34.515
and the Constitution was not negotiable.

20:36.665 --> 20:40.045
So that's, where, I'll stop that.

20:40.245 --> 20:43.325
I think that question, well, I hope this book shows is

20:43.325 --> 20:47.045
that fear of the dominance of a human-centric

20:47.045 --> 20:48.445
Reason is not new.

20:49.605 --> 20:53.165
Moreover, it sheds light on recent concerns over the rise

20:53.165 --> 20:54.365
of artificial intelligence.

20:55.195 --> 20:58.325
This, as I hope reads the book, will see, has a long history

20:58.325 --> 21:01.165
and is entwined with questions of social authority.

21:02.895 --> 21:05.995
The rise of human reason, just

21:06.075 --> 21:09.755
to reiterate was a fierce critique of established religion

21:10.055 --> 21:12.515
and it's done and the church's relationship to the state.

21:13.175 --> 21:16.155
And this became embedded in a defense of capitalism.

21:16.935 --> 21:18.195
So I think the rise of human reason

21:18.215 --> 21:22.425
and capitalism go hand in hand in some ways along

21:22.425 --> 21:24.105
with an accompanying political economy.

21:24.165 --> 21:25.785
And that's why I would've brought Richard Jones,

21:25.955 --> 21:27.865
who's basically keys college in,

21:27.975 --> 21:31.425
because his job in the Trinity Circle was

21:31.425 --> 21:34.185
to destroy ardian deductive political economy.

21:34.725 --> 21:37.305
But we have haven't really had time to do do that today.

21:38.085 --> 21:40.945
Um, today the relationship is between science

21:41.365 --> 21:45.225
or human reasons to prefer and state profit

21:45.445 --> 21:46.865
and capitalism accompanied

21:46.865 --> 21:49.465
by a legitimating form of knowledge.

21:50.435 --> 21:55.345
So today, just to finish on a, a note today,

21:55.345 --> 21:57.425
instead of judging a computer's functioning

21:57.425 --> 22:01.705
to a human standard, we now judge a human, it seems to me,

22:01.805 --> 22:02.825
by a computer standard.

22:03.735 --> 22:05.565
Algorithms do not know us better,

22:06.385 --> 22:08.725
but they do when we are taught to be more like them.

22:09.665 --> 22:11.845
So I hope my book shares some small lines on when

22:12.205 --> 22:15.565
historically this was first energetically debated.

22:16.045 --> 22:16.165
I.

00:00 - As far back as my memory goes, I've always wondered how we arrived at the human-centric world that we live in today. That is complete faith in human reason. This is after all a recent development. Moreover, when did human reason kind

00:15 - of melt into technology and economics? I mean, today in large sways of the West, we live in a much more secular world that typically denies the rule of a Christian religion and certainly an active intervening deity. I'm, I'm not, I'm not, certainly not saying that's a bad thing, but faith is now far more invested in human reason, a more recently machine intelligence. And this is a historically new phenomenon. As such, I kind of became interested in origin stories such

00:47 - as Charles Babbage and his attempt to build a form of human intelligence into a machine. Now, there are still many people from an array of backgrounds, not just religious, philoso philosophical, sociological historical who think this has not only created a false knowledge, but an accompanying immoral world designed by an artificial human corrupted intelligence from educational commerce to a lifestyle knowledge and politics.

01:17 - So ultimately, materialism in all senses of that word, has become the necessary price for international competitiveness and a kind of pathological quest for economic growth. And it was while researching establishment of these, values of this kind of world. But I realized there's actually a very robust critique of it coming from 19th century Anglican quarters. So for advocates of a new rational world, the passions were condemned

01:47 - and the pursuit of material game became a moral at attribute decision making duty and moral morality. What be based on self-interest and rational calculation, mechanization stemming from the industrial revolution, I've argued, argued elsewhere, had a profound impact on the future of human intellectual labor By 19th century, the actual workings of the mind for certain, and I use a gendered term, men of science,

02:18 - had become a legitimate site of empirical study, no longer a sacred sphere. The mind was being put on a show like any other object of study. So if a, so if a factory system could redefine human physical labor and material production, surely people like the Cambridge Trinity mathematician baggage claimed it could do the same thing for mental labor. So a view was also growing in the 19th century that emphasized the greatest happiness

02:48 - and reducing everything to numbers. This came to be seen as neutral in decision making, therefore making policy justifiable. Those who controlled the numbers, Controlled the power. This movement has broadly been associated with the rise of what came to return utilitarianism, the term popularized by the political philosopher John Stewart Mill. And in many ways, I think this has become the bedrock of modern society.

03:16 - So the notion of a divine genius has been replaced by an elite calculating cultural entrepreneur. You know, the pursuit of knowledge is about utility and very, aptly the exploitation of course of the natural world. So it has big environmental implications. Morality has been reduced to a visible calculation based on the best outcome for the greatest number and not some mystical inner morality. So finally, Beth Beth mite utilitarianism has been totally

03:50 - financialized and penetrates everything, including, of course, intellectual production. And I was interested, and that's what the book's a critique of in the 19th century, how we got to that stage. So I, I end the first part there. I'll try and gauge with most of that. I mean, the book is an engagement with the Kern concerns of a few Trinity co college graduates and how they attempted to promote a divine

04:16 - historicist version of the Anglican faith in opposition to this increasing human-centric rationality. for spatial and archival reasons, William Hill represents the spine of the book First. He's the only one of the Trinity Circle I look at who spent, literally spent his entire life at Trinity and literally became the outward embodiment of the college as master from 1841. Moreover, I spent 18 months on, on his records and letters and outputs, and by far the best preserved.

04:50 - So in this sense, hue is the hub and the rest of the spokes within the book's history. But this is not underline this, it's not to detract from the others, but for reasons. But for these reasons, hue is really at the center of the book. this circle that I call the Trinity Circle, try to embed a distinct divine idealism into Cambridge, the thought of fuel and his two Trinity colleagues, Julius Hare and Op Al, for example, like British idealists in general,

05:21 - sorts of refute empiricism and utilitarianism through a metaphysical perspective. And I'll talk more about that for this group. The world had a divine unity that underpinned and linked all ideas of knowledge, and it didn't take 'em long. They arrived in Cambridge in the early 1810s, and they were quickly dismayed at the emphasis they found placed upon the works of people like John Locke and William Paley Locke, for example,

05:50 - essentially saw religion as a private matter that should be separate from a national church and state more precisely Look, did not object to established religion per se, but did not think it had any special legitimacy as against the various other religious sects. And he did not think it was any way identified with the state. The Church of England did, of course, and insisted that only via its 39 articles

06:16 - could religious interpretation take place where the source of understanding came from within for hair thorough and hull. It was external for Locke and comprehended by human sensory-based reason. Pale is natural theology supported utilitarian morality and placed the emphasis upon man's, again, sensory reason to detect divine design. And it was this that was examined at Cambridge and not pales theology, which argued for the authenticity

06:49 - of the Bible and for miracles in his empirical evidence of Christianity entitled natural theology or Evidence of the existence and attributes of the Deity was published in 1802. And here Paley placed a human-centric reason at the core of Christian morality and described a contented world with more happiness than pain. So this was a legalistic, empiric, empirical view of theology in which evidence

07:20 - of God was simply found in nature. So God's the kind of watchmaker, such a view revolted men like hair, fur and fuel. And at the heart of their views were more people like Samuel Taylor Ridge, who was a staunch advocate for the need of a national church and spearheaded the attack upon Paley and his faith in pure human reason. So the key to survival for much of the established clergy was to resist sectarian schools of conflicting theological wrangling

07:56 - and become united through nurturing one's soul by a divine belief, prescribed importantly by a national church to substantiate you think you think of English civil war here a little bit to substantiate the truth within the gospels hair and thorough, applied controversial German biblical criticism to create a credible doctrine for the national church, a doctrine that could embrace an array of dissenting views. And it was while another Trinity student, yes,

08:28 - that man again Babbage sat in his college rooms and established a group concerned with reporting French algebraic analysis. But here sat in his digs and created an evening club around introducing German literature and discussing the beauty of the romantic English lake verse. So her hair thorough and their two trinity friends, hu of course,

08:53 - and Hugh James Rose, Spent many evenings studying German and learning and appreciation for the work of romantic poets. After that, hu Hare and Al gained fellowships at Trinity Rose obtained the Keil buck did, and he Sussex and became increasingly connected to the church society. And it is during this period that, that that rose kind of departs and be and takes a decidedly anti-German term turn,

09:24 - thanks a huel and his close relationship with the new master of Trinity, who's the brother of William Wordsworth, the lake poet. the master is Christopher was with ha was appointed a classical lecturer at Trinity in 1822, and al four years later s woody teaching there. So that really, that's, that's my answer to that question. A specific Anglo hybrid version of German idealism is being imported into Trinity.

09:53 - And this underlines ideas connecting humankind with the material world. so matter in a sense is impregnated with the mind and the ideas of that matter stem from God. And this focused by hair thewell and kill on divine intuition, it was hoped, would undermine the erosive materialistic philosophy that was fast expanding and conquering both the material and intellectual landscape. the way to revive religion these guys thought was

10:25 - to reveal God's ongoing revelation through history. This was via the study of philology, the imagination and an intense inner introspection. this also characterized coleridge's later work. The history of language was a history of consciousness to understand the meaning of a word for the past provided an insight into that historical context. Language, thus is the real archeology of human kind is not some, not some sensory reflex, but a creative act of the mind

11:04 - that ultimately stemmed from God. There was and could not therefore be any such thing as human evolution in the Darwinian sense. No other species of God's creation spoke language, which is surely proof of man's divine and special nature. Man was made on the, on day six of the creation. And some 6,000 years ago, full stop, none of this nonsense of the earth dates thousands and thousands of years, which was being advocated

11:36 - or, and and so on. To discover a word origin, I its etymology, brought you closer to its uncorrupted, meaning history revealed that ideas did not spring afresh, but were connected to an original core human reason. Thus, as the basis of epistemology was for these people creating a climate of dangerous political reform and intellectual distortion driving. I'm using the gender term man because they did further

12:07 - and further from God and traditional social authority. Human reason alone was imperfect and damaged faith. It produced a false understanding and morality. So higher forms of knowledge such as the imagination, art, and poetry that transcends the world of sense. But being eclipsed by metro philosophies breaking down at this point and becoming, emerging sciences. And those disciplines, are are beginning to take over our understanding of the world moral philosophy and religion, not science.

12:46 - These, these, the Trinity Circle are arguing should be at the center of an education. So it's quite an elitist argument is by nurturing reason in conjunction with the imagination that the laws of God could be detected, detected, and one's moral duties correctly emerged. And it was this that heal to my surprise when I was researching it actually spent so much in his later life working on morality. Coleridge wrote in great quote,

13:17 - uncharacteristically precise fashion for Coleridge in his table talk of 1832. The pith of my system is to make the senses out of the mind, not the mind from the senses. So interpretation of senses depended upon the divine mind. And I think this perfectly sums up hair thorough and heals disdain for this human-centric emphasis upon sensory understanding and or pure human deductive reasoning. Since all truth was ultimately divine, only those

13:53 - with true faith could access such truths. France, since their political revolution had encouraged the creation of a false world built upon the single faculty of human reason. So someone like Babbage and John Herschel at St. John's clearly supported this new rational world and they veered what's what would've been considered political radical views. So it's quite wrong to imply some historians do that. Babbage Herschel Fuel

14:21 - and Richard Jones who haven't mentioned and probably won't formed a coherent intellectual group unified in their views towards science and reform. The one thing, the one thing in which they were all united was the importance of induction and the collection of trustworthy observations. That's why historians underline them as being harboring is of the scientific method. The difference arose from the way those data were interpreted.

14:49 - And the best Way, I think to illustrate, this is their differing view, say to Kepler's discovery that planet's orbited to the sun in an ellipse. So keep the word ellipse in your mind for someone like Mill or Herschel, the shape of that orbit that ellipse emerged out planetary observations. But for someone like Hill, it's because Keppler had the idea of an ellipse in planted divine implanting in his mind

15:19 - for bat and Herschel operating on algebraic symbols, they believed put the naked workings of the brain on show the brain could thus be rendered visible and available to empirical scrutiny and therefore opens the possibility of being built into a machine so it's no longer a mystical and sacred divine sphere. And this was a quest BA would devote the rest of his life to, and by the second part of the 19th century become the antithesis

15:49 - to the trinity circle's view for the latter and countless others. This separation from the concrete past and active, the idea of an active deity made such studies unnatural and politically subversive. So all the Trinity Circle came to be united in their quest to demonstrate that mankind with an accompanying evangelical emphasis on human reason was secondary and always dependent on an all powerful

16:19 - and active interventionist God. And all this has clear implications for the nature of religious faith, the nature of knowledge and traditional social authority access to genuine understanding the Trinity Circle believed was only possible to those with a soul. This could not be easy articulated, but was crucial to comprehending God's world, be it knowledge, the social structure, the economy or morality.

16:50 - The Trinity Circle are all united, thus in the defense of the Church of England. However, in terms of how best to preserve the church, they often greatly different. So at one end of the spectrum you've got Rose. the other you've got someone like Al the former Rose early on had come to fer be disliked. Now the enthusiasm by al for German scriptural criticism and toleration of religious descenters far from being an age

17:18 - of improvement, it was lots of age of anxiety for these men and the mathematical tripods dominated education at Cambridge. But what type of mathematics should be taught? The introduction of French algebraic analysis was disturbing to several Cambridge students and Dons for outright hostility. No one seemed so alien as the wealthy banker's son Babbage who migrated from Trinity to Peter House the year Hue arrived.

17:51 - Some Babbage, thus reiterate, comes to be the antithesis, of the Trinity Circle. The mathematics taught at Cambridge had traditionally developed within an environment designed to produce clergy in for the Church of England. So in that sense, geometry you could, EU could geometry was as much a national institution as the church. So people like the Trinity Circle and Coleridge understood and emphasized. This mathematical study was promoted as a means

18:19 - of reinforcing Christian faith. University in Anchor University was not there to discover new facts, certainly not via pure human reason. It's to train the mind to understand established knowledge such as Newtonian gravitational astronomy and to appreciate the evidence of the natural, the natural record to adopt French abstract analytical math, mathematics would lead the mind into fantasy

18:47 - and eventually possibly atheism. The emphasis on algebraic mathematical rigor was bringing in the discipline closer and closer to an insular human logic devoid of an active God. So I'll leave that section there, I think and move on to your fourth question. I mean, to be sure the Trinity Circle was not always a perfect circle, and their views clearly differed in how to achieve a national church. Nonetheless, their differences tended wherever

19:18 - possible to remain private. On occasion, they did go public such as Al's vocal support for dissenters in 1833 to allow dissenters into Cambridge. A solution of sorts was found. Rose pretty much stayed resolute in his doctrinal beliefs all his life from the 1820s. Hue also became far more static and defined in his outlook. Hair and third wall were perhaps the most liberal during the 1820s.

19:49 - However, I'd argue after the Great Reform Act 1832, this also started to change. And by the 1850s having trouble talking now, thewell had also become much more conservative and reactionary towards any theological ecclesiastical and social form. And by this point, thewell had become one of the top, taken, one of the top positions in the church when he was appointed Bishop or St.

20:15 - David's. But to, to sum up the national, the the, the National Church and Constitution were perceived by these men as living things and not mere formula. the implicit relationship between the Church of England and the Constitution was not negotiable. So that's, where, I'll stop that. I think that question, well, I hope this book shows is that fear of the dominance of a human-centric Reason is not new.

20:49 - Moreover, it sheds light on recent concerns over the rise of artificial intelligence. This, as I hope reads the book, will see, has a long history and is entwined with questions of social authority. The rise of human reason, just to reiterate was a fierce critique of established religion and it's done and the church's relationship to the state. And this became embedded in a defense of capitalism. So I think the rise of human reason and capitalism go hand in hand in some ways along

21:22 - with an accompanying political economy. And that's why I would've brought Richard Jones, who's basically keys college in, because his job in the Trinity Circle was to destroy ardian deductive political economy. But we have haven't really had time to do do that today. today the relationship is between science or human reasons to prefer and state profit and capitalism accompanied by a legitimating form of knowledge.

21:50 - So today, just to finish on a, a note today, instead of judging a computer's functioning to a human standard, we now judge a human, it seems to me, by a computer standard. Algorithms do not know us better, but they do when we are taught to be more like them. So I hope my book shares some small lines on when historically this was first energetically debated. I.

Faculti AI can make mistakes