Henry Longueville Mansel

1820-1871. Dean of St. Paul's. Born at Cosgrove, Northamptonshire, he was a scholar, then tutor, of St. John's College, Oxford, and was ordained in 1844. In 1859 he was appointed first Waynflete professor of moral and metaphysical philosophy at Oxford; in 1866 he succeeded to the regius chair of ecclesiastical history; and in 1868 was made dean of St. Paul's. He achieved eminence as a teacher of logic, though his real interest lay in the field of metaphysics, which he approached by way of psychology. As a metaphysician, however, he gained little distinction. His Bampton Lectures of 1858 brought him into conflict with F.D. Maurice* and John Stuart Mill. Mansel maintained that man acquires knowledge of the nature of God only from supernatural revelation. In What is Revelation? Maurice replied by challenging both Mansel's concept of revelation and his concept of Christianity. The conflict dragged on with a heatedness which did little credit to either man.