Cole could not accept the idea of a "determinate human superior" his wife recalled that "he... never gave orders except in a purely routine and non-significant sense (this somehow did not conflict that he employed household servants throughout his life). His dislike of all forms of hierarchy and hatred of ritual led to atheism at an early age, though he never engaged in anti-religious polemics. While no luddite, he greatly admired everything produced by William Morris including his affection for the Cotswolds. Though he enjoyed classical music and derided the radio as "so much noise." Almost allergic to higher mathematics (he did not understand Algebra) he distrusted science, as it was being used to quantify things that were best left to interpretation.