Thus among the supporters of the old order of thought, there was one section more or less ready to learn of the new. Another, seeing that the doctrines of which they were firmly convinced were thrust aside by the rapid advance of the new school, thought, as men not unnaturally think in the like situation, that the latter did not duly weigh what was said on their side. Hence this section eagerly entered into the proposal to found a society which should bring together men of diverse views, and effect, as they hoped, by personal discussion of the great questions at issue, in the manner and with the machinery of the learned societies, a rapprochement unattainable by written debate. The scheme was first propounded by Mr. James Knowles, then editor of the "Contemporary Review," now of the "Nineteenth Century," in conversation with Tennyson and Professor Pritchard (Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford). Thus the Society came to be composed of men of the most opposite ways of thinking and of very various occupations in life. The largest group was that of churchmen:--ecclesiastical dignitaries such as Thompson, the Archbishop of York, Ellicott, Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, and Dean Alford; staunch laymen such as Mr. Gladstone, Lord Selborne, and the Duke of Argyll; while the liberal school was represented by Dean Stanley, F.D. Maurice, and Mark Pattison. Three distinguished converts from the English Church championed Roman Catholic doctrine--Cardinal Manning, Father Dalgairns, and W.G. Ward, while Unitarianism claimed Dr. James Martineau. At the opposite pole, in antagonism to Christian theology and theism generally, stood Professor W.K. Clifford, whose youthful brilliancy was destined to be cut short by an untimely death. Positivism was represented by Mr. Frederic Harrison; and Agnosticism by such men of science or letters as Huxley and Tyndall, Mr. John Morley, and Mr. Leslie Stephen. Something was gained, too, by the variety of callings followed by the different members. While there were professional students of philosophy, like Professor Henry Sidgwick or Sir Alexander Grant, the Principal of Edinburgh University, in some the technical knowledge of philosophy was overlaid by studies in history or letters; in others, by the practical experience of the law or politics; in others, again, medicine or biology supplied a powerful psychological instrument. This fact tended to keep the discussions in touch with reality on many sides. There was Tennyson, for instance, the only poet who thoroughly understood the movement of modern science, a stately but silent member; Mr. Ruskin, J.A. Froude, Shadworth Hodgson, R.H. Hutton of the "Spectator," James Hinton, and the well-known essayist, W.R. Greg; Sir James FitzJames Stephen, Sir F. Pollock, Robert Lowe (Lord Sherbrooke), Sir M.E. Grant Duff, and Lord Arthur Russell; Sir John Lubbock, Dr. W.B. Carpenter, Sir William Gull, and Sir Andrew Clark.