Caleb Sprague Henry was an Episcopalian minister and professor of mental and moral philosophy at New York University from 1838 to 1852. Like
James Marsh, he championed transcendental ethics as an alternative to the fashionable secular ethical theory of the day, utilitarianism, and, like virtually all the New England Transcendentalists, opposed the sensational and selfish system of John Locke. In 1834 he translated into English
Victor Cousin’s “Critical Examination of Locke’s Essay on the Human Understanding,” part of Cousin’s longer work
History of Philosophy in the Eighteenth Century, and published it under the title
Elements of Psychology. Like
Frederic Henry Hedge, Henry advocated a “Broad Church” which stressed inclusion and tolerance and de-emphasized denominational differences. Although Henry remained an ecclesiastical conservative, his challenge to Lockean notions surfaced in American culture at a philosophically critical moment and spurred the Transcendental movement.