OACIFCTRNIA j SfKti OIEGO - J o lo^^ uizi 1 6014 U lCV7 LLC DR. MARTINEAUS PHILOSOPHY A SURVEY DR. MARTINEAU'S PHILOSOPHY A SURVEY BY CHARLES B. UPTON, B.A., B.Sc. EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN MANCHESTER COLLEGE, OXFORD AUTHOR OF THE HIBBERT LECTURES ON THE "BASES OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF" REVISED EDITION WITH ANT INTRODUCTORY ESSAY ILontion JAMES NISBET iff CO., LIMITED 2 1 BERNE RS STREET 1905 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson <5* Co. At the Ballantyne Press PREFACE A SURVEY OF DR. MARTINEAU'S PHILOSOPHICAL WORK This attempt to depict the philosophical side of Dr. Mar- tineau's long and influential life calls for a few words of explanation. To show why circumstances have given me some little advantage for the execution of this task, I may be allowed to give a brief quotation from a paper con- tributed to the Memorial Number of the '' Inquirer " at the time of Dr. IMartineau's decease, with the additional remark that from 1853 to 1859 I was a student in Man- chester New College and attended Dr. Martineau's College Lectures : — " In 1875 I was invited to become one of the teaching-stafT of the College, where for ten years I had the advantage of in- tercourse with my revered teacher, who was then the Principal. A new and most precious opportunity of gaining further in- sight into Dr. Martineau's thought and personal character was at this time afforded me by the great kindness of Dr. Marti- neau and his family ; for at their invitation I for about twenty years spent two or three weeks of my annual holiday at Dr. Martineau's charming Highland home in Rothiemurchus For- est. And here I feel quite ashamed to say how, in my great capcrncss to get light thrown by Dr. Martincau on all my mental i)crplexities, I used to ask philosophical questions in season and out of season, introducing the subject now at meal times, and now again when we were toiling up the steep sides of mighty Cairngorm or Bcn-muick-dhui. I well deserved to V PREFACE be snubbed for these unseasonable obtrusions of my favourite topic ; but never shall I forget the indulgent patience with which the Doctor heard and replied to the several statements of my difficulties. In later years I, at times, ventured to differ from him on some points, and he considered that my views sometimes came dangerously near to Pantheism; but nothing could exceed the courtesy and kindness with which he listened to my arguments and gave me in return his well-weighed opinion." As I copy these words my heart is sorely saddened by the thought that since they were written the daughter, whose thoughtful mind and ever-ready kindness added so much to the pleasure and interest of these mountain ex- cursions, has followed her dearly-loved father into the Unseen World. The chief points of my philosophical talks with Dr. Martineau I was accustomed to write down at the close of the day, and in a few cases I have ventured in the fol- lowing chapters to state opinions of his which I have be- come acquainted with only in this way. In the fifth chapter a brief reference is made to the chief matters of controversy between us in these frequent conversations. I may mention that I am not the only person who has en- joyed the privilege of combining mountain-climbing with metaphysical discussion in company with Dr. Martineau; for I remember hearing from a distinguished young Hegelian professor of philosophy how Dr. Martineau and he debated the fundamental principles of Absolute Idealism in the course of a long day's excursion to the top of Scafell Pike. It may be desirable to refer to the obvious fact that in the accounts of Dr. Martineau's larger treatises given in vi PREFACE tlie sixth, se\enth, and eighth chapters, the necessities of space have compressed the description within very narrow limits. What has been attempted is to give an outline of the main argument, along with some illustrations of Dr. Martineau's style, and a reference to the more important of the criticisms which some of his views have evoked. My chief aim has been to make these chapters, and as far as possible the others also, both an inducement and a help to first-hand study of the original works. I take this opportunity of expressing my hearty thanks to the many friends who, by lending me letters and in other ways, have given me help. I am particularly in- debted to the Rev. Alexander Gordon for valuable infor- mation concerning the early history of Manchester College and some other matters. Grateful acknowledgment is also due from me to the Clarendon Press of Oxford for their kindness in allowing me to quote passages from "A Study of Religion " and " Types of Ethical Theory." CHARLES B. UPTON. St. George's, Littlemore, near Oxford, May I, 1902. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION To the present edition I have prefixed an Introductory Essay, in which an attempt is made to set forth the bearing of Dr. Martineau's thought on the more prominent recent forms of the philosophy of religion. I wish to add, in regard to a statement made on p. 33, vii PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION attributing to Dr. J. D. Morell an article on " Atheism " in the " National Review " for January 1856, that Mr. A. W. Benn, M.A., of Florence, has pointed out that this statement is incorrect. The article in question is not the manuscript article by Dr. Morell, referred to in Dr. Martineau's letter : — " It is from the pen of Mr. R. H. Hutton, who subsequently acknowledged the authorsMp by reprinting a portion of it in his 'Theological Essays.' Morell's paper was apparently rejected in deference to Martineau's criticism. At any rate^ it never appeared in the ' National.' " CHARLES B. UPTON. St. George's, Littlemore, July I, 1905. VIU CONTENTS rAGK Preface v F*REFACE TO SECOND EDITION vii Introductory Essay xi CHAP. I. The Hartleyan Period of Dr. Martineau's Philosophy i 11. The Lectures in Manchester New College . . 21 III. Early Reviews. Correspondence with Prof. F. W. Newman 46 IV. Studies in Berlin. Letters to Rev. J. H. Thom AND Mr. R. H. Hutton 73 V. "Essays, Reviews, and Addresses." The Meta- physical AND Synthetic Societies .... 92 VI. "Types of Ethical Theory" 124 MI. "A Study of Religion" i54 MIL '• A Study of Spinoza." Criticism of Pantheism and Determinism i95 IX. Appreciations and Criticisms 215 INDEX 231 ix INTRODUCTORY ESSAY ON THE RELATION OF DR. MARTINEAU'S WRITINGS TO PRESENT VIEWS ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION The object of this Essay is partly to comment on some criticisms of Dr. Martineau's philosophy which have ap- peared since the publication of the first edition of the following " Sur\'ey," and partly to point out how deeply Martineau's thought in its essential features accords with and supports that form of the philosophy of religion which is now obtaining acceptance all over cultured Christendom ; the philosophy, I mean, which represents religious faith and doctrine as based ultimately on the direct experience of God's self-manifestation in man's higher life, and on the recognition of " Christ as the supreme example and revealer of the Immanence of God in Humanity." From soon after his entrance into the Christian ministry up to the close of his long life two dominant ideas increas- ingly possessed Dr. Martineau's mind, and found constant expression in both his teaching and his preaching. The former of these ideas — the belief in the ever-present and universal Incarnation of God in human souls — has within the last few years become the common property of most of the leading religious thinkers and preachers throughout the civilised world ; but when Martineau began to give eloquent expression to it in his sermons and his articles, it was very imperfectly apprehended both by his co-religionists and by xi DR. MARTINEAU'S PHILOSOPHY ministers in other Christian denominations. The companion idea to this, without which the former would have no com- plete significance, was his conviction of the true indivi- duality, the moral freedom, and the infinite worth in the view of the Eternal, of every rational soul. As a corollary to these two convictions of a living God and of real human freedom and responsibility, there constantly deepened in his mind and heart a firm faith in a future existence where the participation in the infinite and eternal life initiated here would attain to ever fuller realisation. These assurances, which rested firmly on the facts of a very real and rich religious experience, inspired and shaped to a large degree his conception of the nature and final purpose of the whole process of physical and psychical evolution. He saw that there was a large region in human nature on which the researches and discoveries of the em- pirical evolutionists could throw much needful light ; and of this light he diligently availed himself ; but at the same time he felt perfectly convinced that there are in human ex- perience most influential ideas and sentiments which cannot possibly be explained as simply the development of con- ceptions, desires, and emotions which belong to us as finite individual minds and as descendants of animal progenitors. In our idea of the Infinite ; in the sense of absolute obligation to obey the ethical ideal ; in the supernatural strength which accompanies all adherence to moral prin- ciple, and gives power to calmly encounter persecution and even death in a righteous cause; in the elevating and inspiring influence of the truly beautiful in nature, art, and poetry; in the reverence which we feel for all conduct which is actuated by self-forgetful love; in all such ex- periences as these we are distinctly aware of the presence in our consciousness of what is not finite but infinite, not particular but universal, not dependent and transient but self-existent and eternal. xii INTRODUCTORY ESSAY Reverent recognition and adoration of this Supernatural Presence, and constant personal self-surrender to those divine ideals through which the Incarnate God progressively reveals to us features in His own eternal nature, constituted, in Dr. Martineau's judgment, the essence of both Ethics and Rehgion. In his view the philosophy of rcHgion consisted to a large extent in the correct interpretation of these facts of consciousness in which we appear to be in immediate contact and communion with the Spirit who is immanent in all the entities and processes of nature, but who is self- revealed only in tlie higher life of His rational offspring. A vivid consciousness of personal relationship with the Father within him inspired all that is deepest and most precious in his writings, and it was from this consciousness that his faith in Immortality derived its chief support. Christianit}' was so unspeakably precious to him because in the character and teachings of Christ he found a spiritual experience which most powerfully confirmed while it at the same time immensely transcended his own. Passages taken from his writings at very different periods of his Hfe prove how central to his thoughts as well as to his life was his behef in the Incarnation of God in Man. In his fifty-sixth year, in the article on " Tracts for Priests and People," he thus expressed his view of the Incarnation : — " The Incarnation is true, not of Christ exclusively, but of Mun universally, and God everlastingly. He bends into the human, to dwell there ; and humanity is the susceptible organ of the divine. And the spiritual light in us which forms our higher life is of one suhstance (u/xooiViov) with His own righteousness — its manifestation, with unaltered essence and authority, on the theatre of our nature. ... Of this grand and universal truth Christ became the revcaler, not by being an exceptional personage (who could be a rule for nothing), but by being a signal instance of it so intense and impressive as to set fire to every veil that would longer hide it." xlii DR. MARTINEAU'S PHILOSOPHY And in a like strain he writes in his ninetieth year : — " Is not this, then, a true conception that we see in the mind of Christ the very essence of the mind of God in what He loves and requires to see in us ; not the passiveness of an instrument or the obedience of a creature, but the filial devotion, the self-renunciation, the enthusiasm of all righteous affections, v/hich must for ever constitute the ethics of all worlds ? In opening to us this co-essentiality with God through His own personality, did He show us what is true of His own individu- ality alone ? On the contrary. He stands in virtue of it, as the spiritual head of mankind, and what you predicate of Him in actuality is predicable of all in possibility. This interpreta- tion of His life on earth carries the divine essence claimed for Him into our nature as His brethren. In Him as our repre- sentative we learn our summons and receive our adoption as children of God. The * Incarnation ' thus extended from the person of Christ to the nature of man, may fitly be called ' the central mystery of revealed religion.' " A short time ago the Rev. R. J. Campbell, M.A., in reviewing a theological work in the Daily Chronicle, made use of the following pregnant words : — " I was recently asked the question, ' Is Christ God ? ' and my reply to the questioner was * Certainly ; and so are you or you could not ask the question.' " In this significant utterance, which no doubt graphically expresses the present feeling of very many of the most devout and thoughtful spirits* in all the Churches, we recog- nise the same profound idea which possessed James Mar- tineau's mind when, in the first sermon of his " Endeavours after a Christian Life," published more than sixty years ago, he wrote : — " All that we believe without us we must first feel within us ; and it is the one sufficient proof of the grandeur of our nature that we have faith in God ; for no merely finite being can possibly believe the Infi,nite." xiv INTRODUCTORY ESSAY This accords witli a statement which he made two years before in an article in the Christian Teacher : — " The relation which thus subsists between the human conscience and the Divine excellence leads us to avow a faith in the strictly divine and inspired character of our own highest desires and t>est affections. . . . These really constitute a par- ticipation in the Divine nature." And this, the earliest expression of his belief in God's pre- sence and direct self-revelation in the soul, is'repeated in the last of his three most important works, where he emphati- cally declares that " in the very constitution of the human soul there is proN-ision for an immediate apprehension of God." There cannot, I think, be the slightest doubt that it is this doctrine of the immediate apprehension of God's pre- sence and character in the higher life of man — a doctrine which finds philosophic expression in the second volume of the " Stud}- of Religion," and appears in the most varied forms and with infinite wealth of illustration in the "Endeavours" and "Hours of Thought," — which consti- tutes James Martineau's most valuable contribution to the philosophy of rehgion. All truly religious natures feel, and at times rapturously enjoy, this communion with the indwelling God ; but it is only those richly-gifted natures in whom a deeply religious consciousness is conjoined with clear philosophical insight who can perform for their fellow-men the grand function of intelligently interpreting these ethical and spiritual experi- ences in which the influence of a Presence which can in no way be identified with our finite and dependent personalities is most distinctly realised. It is because Martineau's genius was. like that of the Athenian whom he revered as the world's greatest philosoj)her, at once profoundly religious iuid profoundly philosophical, that his works are so accordant XV DR. MARTINEAU'S PHILOSOPHY with, and so helpful to, the highest religious thought and aspirations of the present day. He was a most devoted admirer of Plato, but he was a still more enthusiastic student of the Jewish prophets and of the New Testament, and he found in the latter that divine insight of the Con- science and of the Spiritual Affections which he felt to be somewhat lacking in the too absorbing Intellectualism of the former. Thus he was enabled both in his sermons, and to some extent in his philosophical works also, to express that blending of Greek with Hebraic thought which is so essen- tial to the full understanding of that most central of all truths, the Incarnation and self -revelation of God in the consciousness of mankind. The important question which, especially at the present time, the reflective preacher and theologian is called upon to fairly face and, if he can, to intelligently answer is, whether it is possible for an earnest thinker to be at once a consistent philosopher and a believer in the fundamental moral and religious ideas which are implied in the teaching of the Hebrew prophets and of Jesus of Nazareth. In other words, Does there exist, or can there be discovered, a philo- sophy of the universe of matter and mind which, without violating any law of thought or any facts of experience, accords with and justifies the sentiments of worship, prayer, and spiritual communion ; the belief in man's moral responsibility ; the feelings of remorse and self - condem- nation for sin ; the experience of heartfelt repentance, and the joy of renewed S5niipathy with the indwelling Father ? There are at present in this country two chief forms of the philosophy of religion which to a very important extent agree, but also to a no less important extent differ. Both of them claim to give a satisfactory rationale both of the physical cosmos and of man's ethical and spiritual experiences. The chief representatives of these competing philosophies are xvi INTRODUCTORY ESSAY Lotze and Martineau on the one hand, and the leading ex- ponents of Absolute Idealism on the other. One object of this essay is to give a little help towards a correct under- standing of their respective claims. Three-quarters of a century ago it was supposed by the majority of German preachers that in the elaborate idealist system of Hegel they had found a philosophy which was satisfactory alike to the philosophic intellect and to the Christian consciousness. This satisfaction was compara- tively short-lived, and was succeeded by intense dissatisfac- tion when the implications of this idealism began to be clearly realised. The present dominance of Ritschlian ideas in German pulpits appears to be partly explicable as an extravagant reaction from the undue intellectual pretensions of Hcgchanism. About the year i860, when Hegel had been dead thirty years, and his system had lost its strong hold on the religious thought of Germany, Hegelian ideas were introduced into the British Universities by such able expounders as T. H. Green in Oxford, and Hutchison Stirling and the brothers Caird in Scotland. The first effect of the advocacy of these views at Oxford was closely similar to that produced thirty years before in Germany. Many of the most cultured of the divinity students, and particularly the young Anglican clerg)''men, were for some time quite fascinated by the light which Hegel's ideas, as set forth with kindling moral en- thusiasm by T. H. Green, appeared to throw upon the central truth of the Incarnation, and also upon the Licts of felt personal commimion between the human soul and the Incarnate God. There cannot be any doubt that Hegelianism, in emphasising the immediate im- manence of God in human thought, and in all the lofty and progressive ideals and asi)irations of the soul, did bring inspiration and new life into religious ideas ; and it was on this ^ide of Hegel's thinking that Dr. Martineau xvii b DR. MARTINEAU'S PHILOSOPHY felt himself in close sympathy with the noblest of the British Hegelians. With T. H. Green he cherished a warm and much valued friendship. He delighted to recall his visits to Balliol and the conversations he there enjoyed. Where Martineau and Green were entirely at one was in the conviction that the eternal Thinker, of whose thought the universe is the expression, progressively reveals Himself and His character in the human soul ; or, as Green expresses it, " reproduces Himself " in the individual, when in the course of biological evolution the human stage is reached. Of the self revela- tion of the Infinite in the finite, of the Divine in the human, Martineau was profoundly conscious ; and, as has been before mentioned, he says in one of his earliest sermons, " No merely finite being could believe the infinite." The question at issue between these two brother thinkers was. What is the relation of the individual soul to that Higher Self whose presence we discern within us, and whom Jesus speaks of as " the Father abiding in Me"? In Dr. Mar- tineau's view the answer to this question determines whether tlie answerer's philosophy of religion is theistic or pan- theistic, Hellenic or Christian. The momentous matter at issue, then, in the conversations between these eminent friends was, Does the individual self in the moral crises of its life possess a certain degree of delegated independence of choice in those critical moments when the Divine Self speaking through the moral and spiritual ideals invites and enjoins the soul to rise to a higher level, and so to partici- pate more fully in God's eternal life ; or are the human and the Divine Self related simply as two modes or aspects of the one ultimate and wholly indivisible unity ? The two philosophers give different answers to this question, but the difference between them is not so great as on the surface it may seem to be. Martineau in his " Types of Ethical Theory" says : " The moral authority of the conscience is xviii INTRODUCTORY ESSAY imposed upon the soul by a Divine Presence higher than itself." Green, in his " Prolegomena to Ethics," says: " It is the very essence of moral duty to be imposed by a man upon himself." These statements seem to be fundamentally at variance, but as Martineau points out, in his reply to a criticism by Henry Sidujwick, the apparent difference between them is greatly lessened when we read Green's further ex- planation ; for Green goes on to say that a man is law unto himself not by autonomy of the individual, but by the self- communication of the Infinite Spirit to the finite soul ; and the law itself '* the idea of an absolute should be is authori- tative witli the conscience because it is the deliverance of the eternal perfection to a mind that has to grow, and is imposed th:'ref")re by the Infinite Spirit upon the finite." But although Martineau and Green agree that the real source of the categorical imperati\e of the conscience is the Infinite or Absolute Spirit who i> "reproduced" or incarnated in the indi\idual personality, the fundamental question still remains whether the finite spirit is in any degree separate from the Infinite Spirit, so as to possess a certain amount of delegated free causality which it is open to it to use, in seasons of temptation, cither for the ennoblement or for the degradation of its own character. If no such freedom of choice is open to it, contends Dr. Martineau, all such words as personal re-ponsibilily, sin, hcroi:^m, remorse, and repent- ance are entirely emptied of their recognised meaning ; and a philosopliy which necessarily leads to tlii-i result gives, in Dr. Martineau's view, a very inadequate account of the human, and particularly of the Christian, consciousness. Martinrowning in endorsing the spr)ntaneous judgment of mankind which, on the distinct warrant of the moral con- sciousness, declares that the Eternal confers on His rational creatures such a measure of originative causality, and of freedom of choice, as renders them to a most important xix DR. MARTINEAU'S PHILOSOPHY extent responsible for the fashioning of their own characters. As Browning expresses it : — " God, whose pleasure brought Man into being, stands away, As it were a hand-breadth off, to give Room for the newly-made to live. And look at Him from a place apart, And use his gifts of brain and heart." At the same time it was clear to Martineau's mind that the fact of the Incarnation of God in all our ideals and in every divine aspect of man's being makes it impossible to draw any precise line between the human and the Divine personalities which are co-present and to a large extent indistinguishable in man's higher life ; but, like Browning, he insists that there is certainly one region of our ex- perience where the origination of the activity is evidently with the dependent individual, and not with the immanent God. " I pretend not," he says, " to draw the untraceable line that separates His being from ours. The decisions of the Will doubtless are our own, and constitute the proper sphere of our personal agency. But in a region higher than the Will — the realm of spontaneous thought and emotion — there is scope enough for His ' abode with us.' Whatever is most deep within us is the reflection of Himself. All our better love and higher aspiration are the answering movements of our nature in harmonious obedience to His Spirit." This partial independence of the human will, which the Hegelian philosophy of religion will not allow to be a fact, is in the view of Martineau a sine qua non for the validity of all that is most precious and distinctive in man's ethical and spiritual consciousness. Unless some measure of free choice between alternatives is really open to us, it is impos- sible to give any intelligible explanation or justification of such marked religious experiences as the feeling of estrange- XX INTRODUCTORY ESSAY ment from God and of reconciliation with Him. Unless the finite and dependent spirit has delegated to it this small sphere of free activity, man's consciousness of having sinned must be regarded as illusory ; the sentiments of remorse and repentance cease to have any rational ground ; and the sense of inter-personal relations between the soul and the indwelling Father would appear to correspond with no spiritual reality. It follows from this that while all systems of philosophy which recognise the Incarnation of God in humanity (such as the systems of Plato, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, Lotze, and Martineau) have certain grand features in common, and all alike (as I have before said) exercise an inspiring and ennobhng inlluence in rendering the soul conscious of its essential divinity, and in stimulating it to seek to realise the infinite possibihties involved in its intimate union with God, it still remains true that it is a question of supreme import- ance whether this belief in the Incarnation is or is not accompanied by a belief in the real freedom and consequent responsibility of all God's rational offspring. The systems of Spinoza and Hegel definitely deny that any choice between alternatives is ever open to the human mind. Spinoza frankly and consistently admits that this absence of any real option in human conduct necessarily deprives such sentiments as praise and blame, repentance and remorse of all rational justification; and he accordingly advises his disciples to liberate their minds from these fictions. Some Hegelians, such as T. H. Green, still use the language of Christian thought, and contend that we are " reasonably required to feel shame and remorse for our sins " ; but how a consistent thinker who believes that not one feature in his own character or in that of others coulJ possibly or con- ceivably have been other than it was, can justify the senti- ment of self-condemnation or remorse, neither Green nor his f(41owers attempt to explain. All they do is to beg the question at issue, by reiteratinfj the assertion that " moral XXI DR. MARTINEAU'S PHILOSOPHY freedom" involves no open alternative before the will, and simply means the power of self-determination. That which made Absolute Idealism so captivating at first to young theologians, both in Germany and in Britain, was the circumstance that what was true and inspiring in the system was brought into great prominence, while the unsatis- factory side of it — viz., its thorough-going determinism — was to a great extent concealed by a constant use of the words "moral freedom," which words in the mouths and writings of Hegelians meant something entirely different from what they mean in the ordinary language of mankind. In common ethical usage the possession of moral freedom means that it is open to the soul in seasons of temptation to take either of two alternative courses, either to side with, and give effect to, the divine voice which speaks in its ideals, or to side with and give effect to those personal and selfish interests and desires which contract human nature and hinder it from sharing in the universal and eternal life of God. But as used by Hegelian thinkers " moral freedom " means simply that inasmuch as the human soul is a limited mode or phase of God's being, the divine elements in it will by a necessary process of mental evolution at length become the dominant ones, so that finally, if it preserves its personal consciousness sufficiently long, it will obtain freedom from the narrowing and obstructive influences which at present hinder the realisation of its divine potentialities. This at once suggests the following remarks. It may be quite true that all souls ultimately attain to this spiritual freedom ; but in this actual life it is evident that some per- sons restrain their passions and their greed, and, taking sides with an unselfish ideal, gradually fashion for themselves characters which the indwelling God blesses with His ap- proval and sympathy, and which society admires and reveres ; while, on the other hand, there are persons who yield to their passions and their greed and, as their lives advance, xxii INTRODUCTORY ESSAY more and more realise the animality rather than the divinity in their nature. Are we then to say that both these classes of persons in all the temptations and crises of their career have had only one course open to them, so that the fact that the one class largely attains in this life to spiritual freedom or true self-realisation, while the other class passes perhaps through much disgraceful sin and crime, and dies far removed from spiritual deliverance, is a fact for which no human agent is in the slightest degree responsible, and that therefore the two kinds of lives are simply interesting varie- ties in the modes by which the eternal thought-principle ine\"itably finds expression in the different individuals in which it reproduces itself ? It is perhaps true, though I doubt it, that apart frora real freedom of moral choice, it is still possible that all souls mav, through the lessons of experience alone, reach sooner or later, either in this life or in some distant future life, complete freedom from the tyranny of selfish desires. It must be remembered that Martineau and other Libertarians look forward to this kind of freedom as the soul's goal just as eagerly as the Absolute Idealists do ; but the Libertarian at the same time emphatically affirms the existence in all rational souls, as their distinctive privilege, of another kind of freedom which the Hegelian either ignores or denies to exist ; the freedom, viz., to determine in some measure whether the passage of the soul to real spiritual freedom, or true union with God, shall be a short or an indefinitely long passage. Further, and this is a point of the highest import- ance, Martineau and the Libertarians insist that unless this true freedom of moral choice is a reaUty, the spiritual freedom itself, and all the stages of approach to it, being seen to be simply necessary phases and results in the evolution of the eternal thought-principle, arc deprived of that which lends to them their highest value and dignity ; namely, the con- sciousness that the soul, notwithstanding powerful tcmpta- xxiii DR. MARTINEAU'S PHILOSOPHY tions and inducements to the contrary, has loyally taken sides with the indwelling God, and has thus deserved and received the assurance of His approval and nearer intimacy. We have, as Martineau has pointed out, a most striking evidence of the indestructibility of the belief in man's posses- sion of Free-will in the strange and unnatural shifts to which such mighty thinkers as Plato and Kant have had recourse in their intense desire to find somewhere or somehow in human nature an opportunity for the exercise of that choice between possible alternatives for which their formal philo- sophy can find no room, but to the reality of which their moral consciousness and their deep sense of personal re- sponsibility bear testimony which cannot be silenced. When Plato, following the Greek tendency, had, like the Hegelians, sought a rationale of Ethics not in the study of the immediate facts of the moral consciousness, but in deductions from certain assumed metaphysical first prin- ciples, and had found, as by such a method he was sure to find, that all moral experiences have a complete intellectual explanation, and therefore cannot admit of any element of contingency or free choice, he was nevertheless convinced that moral responsibility requires that man shall somewhere have an open alternative placed before his will. He accord- ingly uses that remarkable myth of " Er the Armenian " as a vehicle to express his assurance that, as the soul appears to him to exercise no true moral freedom in this life, it must have exercised it before entering upon its present stage of existence. Each soul, he says, before its birth on earth is allowed to freely choose its special vocation, and not till this free choice has been made is its character fastened to the spindle of necessity, and Atropos begins to spin for each man the unchangeable thread of destiny. This myth, while it is certainly hardly favourable to Plato's philosophical con- sistency, testifies eloquently to the purity and depth of his ethical experience. Dr. Martin eau's admirable comment on xxiv INTRODUCTORY ESSAY it cannot be too carefull}- considered by the earnest student of ethical and religious philosophy. " It is evident," he says, " that [in Plato's formal philosophy] no distinction can be drawn between natural and moral evil ; no room is left for giiili as opposed to ignorance ; or for retribu- tion, as different from discipline. Yet it is remarkable that Plato could not hold himself exclusively to this point of view ; the instincts of his nature were too much for the restraints of a philosophy, comprehensive indeed, but still short of the compass of his mind ; and when, as at the close of his Republic, his dialectic, unequal to the inner pressure of his moral inspiration, bursts its formal shell, and takes flight upon the air of myth, he proclaims penalties to sin quite too solemn, were it but a mental ugliness, and even, in cases of extremest guilt, announces them as eternal. This, however, is little else than the revolt of his inmost moral sentiment against the checks of his philosophy ; and that his philosophy necessitated the revolt, and found no place for feelings that insisted on expres- sion, enables us to mark the great defect of the whole method." ^ Dr. Martineau stated more than once in conversation that after reading and re-reading Green's " Prolegomena to Ethics," and his two remarkable sermons on " Faith " and " The Witness of the Spirit," the conviction grew upon him that there was implicit in Green's intensely ethical nature a discord between his Hegelian metaphysics and his moral and spiritual consciousness, closely analogous with that which found practical expression in Plato's writings. Mar- tineau also believed that if Green had lived a few years longer he would have approached close to Lotze's philoso- phical position ; and in a letter to a friend, just after the death of Green, he expresses the conviction that Green had at the last firm faith in personal immortality ; but he adds the significant remark that " this faith was not due to his axrccptance of the Hegelian metaphysics, but rather to his emergence out of it." In Kant also, as in Plato, we have another striking ' "Types of Ethical Thcor)-," vol. i. p. 1 1. XXV DR. MARTINEAU'S PHILOSOPHY illustration of the fact that thinkers in whose nature the ethical character is strongly marked cannot rest till they have discovered or invented some action or actions in the life of the soul in the case of which an open alternative is presented to it. As Kant, in his account of the category of phenomenal causatioUj had maintained (without adequate ground, in Dr. Martineau's judgment) that by a necessity of thought the human mind must conceive of all cosmical phenomena, whether physical or psychical, as forming a logical whole, each factor in which is connected by necessary links with every other, he was forced to the conclusion that all man's moral self - determinations must stand in fixed and necessary relations to the other psychological states which precede or accompany them. But having thus handed over the whole sphere of man's conscious life to determinism, he was not at all satisfied (as the Absolute Idealists are) that this was a complete account of the matter. He saw clearly that if this were all, our moral sentiments are baseless delu- sions ; and so, while holding that the acts of the phaenomenal or psychological self are all determined, he held at the same time that the real or metaphysical self, by a " timeless act " which does not enter into consciousness, freely endows itself with its particular phaenomenal character. " A rational being," he writes, " may correctly say of every illegal act he perpetrates that he could have left it undone, although, as phaenomenon, it is sufficiently determined by the past, and so far infallibly necessary ; for the act, with all the past that determines it, belongs to a single phaenomenal character with which he endows himself, and by force of which he imputes to himself, as a cause independent of every sensuous deter- minant, the causality of these phasnomena." This free act of choice, then, which is needed to render a man in some measure responsible for the changes in his character for good or ill : this act which Plato locates at a point anterior to the present life, which Kant represents as xxvi INTRODUCTORY ESSAY timeless and out of consciousness and therefore as wholly unintelligible, and which the Absolute Idealist declares to be non-existent, Lotze and Martineau, in common, I believe, with tlie unsophisticated moral consciousness of mankind, declare to be an act of which we are distinctly conscious, and which is repeated in every season of temptation and in every moral crisis of human life. The Absolute Idealists, as I have said, appear to be free from the ethical scruples which counted for so much with Plato and with Kant. Their chief concern is with the Intellect rather than with the Conscience and the Will. With them God, the eternal principle of Thought, is the only noum€non; the individual man has no distinct causality, and no real choice between alternatives. There is, I believe, no more valuable feature in Mar- tineau's profound analysis of the moral consciousness than that in which he distinguishes between a man's real or Causal Self and the Character which that self has either inherited or fashioned for itself in the course of its history. It is our special character at any time which determines the nature of our temptations, but in every moral crisis of temptation we are conscious that our true self rises above our formed character, that we can envisage the several motives or influences which are conflicting within us, estimate their relative moral worth, and by our free causality, exercised in the way of volitional attention, largely determine whether the mean or the noble elements in our characters shall be strengthened and manifested in our lives. It is not to tlie character but to the self that has the character that the decision for which we are responsible is due. " Is there not," asks Dr. Martineau, " a causal self over and above the caused self, or rather tfie caused stale and contents of the self left as a dcjxjsit from previous behaviour ? Is there not a judging self that knows and weighs the comixiting motives over and above the agitated self that feels them ? " xxvii DR. MARTINEAU'S PHILOSOPHY To this question the Hegelian can give only a negative reply, for his philosophical system leaves no room for the pos- sible existence of a "causal self." He must, and does, identify the Self with the Character, and the character is manifestly incapable of performing an act of free choice. If you ask such a thinker to explain to you the true cause of some momentous moral decision, he can only refer you to the psychical phaenomena which preceded or accompanied it ; and it is self-evident that among these phaenomena you can find nothing that can possibly make a choice between alternatives. Among the criticisms which since Martineau's death have been passed on his philosophy, there is one which would have both surprised and disappointed him, viz., the strong dissent from his view of the self and its freedom which is expressed by Prof. Pringle-Pattison in his able, and in the main, appreciative, estimate of Dr. Martineau's thought in an article in the Hibbert Journal for April 1903. From reading Prof. Pattison's " Hegelianism and Personality," and also the admirable pamphlet on ''Freedom as Ethical Postulate," by Prof. James Seth, Dr. Martineau had received a strong impression that on this basal question of man's moral freedom these distinguished brothers were largely in sympathy with his views ; and in his letters to his friends he more than once said that he confidently expected that their future writings would do much to promote the accept- ance of what he conceived to be the true philosophy of Ethics and Religion. And at that time, I venture to think, there appeared to be very solid ground for such an expec- tation. For instance, in his " Two Lectures on Theism," Prof. Pattison writes : — " God is the fountain-light of all our day, the master-light of all our seeing, inasmuch as we share in the common or universal reason ; and His are the ideals which illuminate and guide our life. But in our wills we feel a principle of self- xxviii INTRODUCTORY ESSAY hood which separates us even from the Being who is the ground of our existence. This is most manifest in the sphere of moral duty. ' Our wills are ours to make them Thine,' as the poet finely puts it. But they must be really ours, if there is to be any ethical value in the surrender — if there is even to be any meaning in the process at all. If there are not two wills involved, then no relation between them is possible, and the imaginary duality is an illusion incident to our limited point of view." Xow, I feel not the slightest doubt that Dr. Martineau would have regarded this fine passage as an admirable and forcible exposition of a fundamental ethical and spiritual truth. And in a similar strain Prof. James Seth, in his " Freedom as Ethical Postulate," says : — " Hegelianism, like Spinozism, has no place for the personality of man, and his proper life as man. Equally with Naturalism such an Absolute Idealism makes of man a mere term in the necessary evolution of the universe, a term which, though higher, is no less necessary in its sequence than the lower terms of the evolution. . . . Such a Transcendentalism, equally with Naturalism, also and at the same time invalidates the dis- tinction between good and evil, resolving apparent evil into real good, and seeing things sub specie cBternilatis as * all very good.' The reality of moral distinctions is bound up with the reality of personal freedom ; freedom is just the consciousness of moral alternative. Transcendental Optimism, therefore, as Professor James remarks, finally ' turns to an ethical indiffer- ence.' To sum up this criticism in a word, the reality of freedom is bound up with the integrity of the moral personality. If I am a person, an ' Ego on my own account,' I am free ; if I am not such a person or Ego, I am not free. And I may be depersonalised either into Nature or into God." It would be difficult, I think, to find in philosophical literature any neater or more conclusive indictment of Absolute Idealism than is presented in this quotation. Dr. Martineau would surely have said that in the words, " freedom is just the consciousness of moral alternative^^'' Prof. James Seth has with clear insight put his finger pre- xxix DR. MARTINEAU'S PHILOSOPHY cisely on the fatal error in Hegelianism which utterly dis- qualifies it for being a sound philosophy either of ethics or religion. I may add that in the first edition of " A Study of Ethical Principles," Professor Seth in some striking sentences (which are omitted, I am told, in the last edition) warmly endorses Dr. Martineau's essential distinction be- tween the self and its character. In what relation these gifted brothers now stand to Hegelianism as a complete system I cannot say ; but so far as the vital question at issue between the Libertarians and the Determinists is concerned, it appears, strange to say, that the two Edinburgh Professors have now passed into accord with the Hegelianism which has long been dominant in Glasgow. In his article in the Hibbert Journal^ Professor Pattison says : — " The initial error of Libertarianism is that it accepts battle on the necessarian terms, and then seeks to evade the conse- quences by a distinction between the character and ' the self which has the character,' attributing to the latter a power ' at will ' to ' determine himself to either branch of an alternative.' But a characterless self is an abstraction of which it is im- possible to predicate agency ; to regard it as issuing its fiat for the one branch or the other is to throw us back on the liberty of indifference." I know no better reply to this criticism than the passage quoted above from Prof. Seth's excellent pamphlet. Prof. Pattison would have gone to the root of the matter at issue between him and Dr. Martineau if he had tried to explain where his brother was mistaken when he identified moral freedom with " the cojisciousness of moral alternative.^^ So far as I can see, Prof. Pattison's present position, as set forth in the Hibbert Journal, excludes the very possibility of any real alternative. The dyslogistic phrase, " liberty of indifference," which necessarians have invented, if it has meaning at all, is simply synonymous with the existence of that open alternative, on the reality of which the Liber- XXX INTRODUCTORY ESSAY tarians, and Prof. James Seth in his pamphlet, emphatically insist. When a person in temptation makes a free choice between yielding to some selfish interest and obeying the claims of the moral ideal, he cannot be intelHgently said to be " indifferent " to either bmnch of the alternative. And as to " a characterless self," no Libertarian ever dreams of the existence of such a thing. Had the self no character it could not act at all, and had it not at the moment of choice con- flicting elements in its character it could not decide between them. \\'hatever decision the self forms in the moral crises of its life it gives dominance to some feature in its own character, and by so doing it either elevates or degrades that character. When some years ago I read with warm interest and pleasure Professor Pattison's "Two Lectures on Theism," I was gratified to find that he quoted in confirmation of his own Wclianscluiuung, Tennyson's expressive w^ords, " Our wills are ours to make them Thine " ; but from his recent criticism of Martineau's Libertarianism, it is evident that in the Edinburgh Professor's present view there is no "open alternative" before the human will, and that the power we possess of making our wills into God's will simply means that our wills are so related to the Divine will that in the course of time, if our life here or hereafter is sufficiently prolonged, our wills by a process of necessary psychological evolution will become approximately identical with the immanent Eternal Will as revealed in our ideals. Lord Tennyson would, I feel assured, have been amazed to learn that such an interpretation as this could ever be given to his well-known lines. The Rev. George Galloway, ac- cordingly, appears to me to be amply justified when in the Hihbcrt Journal for July 1903, he says in reply to Prof. Pattison's criticism of Martineau's Libertarianism : — " Though in Professor Pattison's view, character bo no mechanical product, but dcvfloped by the spiritual principle xxxi DR. MARTINEAU'S PHILOSOPHY in man, it none the less excludes contingency from the personal history. The present is the necessary outcome of the past. On this view remorse and repentance rest on an illusion." Probably Prof. Pringle-Pattison would reply, more hegeli- ano, that the man is properly said to be accountable for his choices because, though they could not have been made otherwise, they are his own spontaneous acts, and are not forced upon him by extraneous constraint. Martineau, in reply to this, would have expressed his agreement with Coleridge's words, that not all the philosophical ingenuity in the world will ever efface the essential distinction between regret and remorse, or will succeed in persuading the un- sophisticated mind that it is truly responsible and blame- worthy for sins which could not possibly have been left uncommitted. My reason for dwelling at such length on the fundamental distinction between Martineau's Libertarianism and the Hegelian's nominal " freedom" but real determinism is that this question both occupies a large space in his writings and is one to which he attached supreme importance. If the position contended for by Prof. Pattison in the Hihhert Journal were established, and the conclusion were reached that no " open alternative " is ever presented to the human soul, this, in Dr. Martineau's judgment, would be equivalent to removing the corner-stone of the structure of thought which he has endeavoured to erect in the " Types of Ethical Theory " and the " Study of Religion," and would seriously lessen the beauty and the force of the most inspiring pas- sages in the " Endeavours " and the " Hours of Thought." So far, then, from agreeing with Prof. Pringle-Pattison that Martineau's Libertarianism is a defect in his philosophy, I feel assured that it is one of its most valuable features ; and my strong conviction is that the religious world will increas- ingly acquiesce in the soundness of the opinion expressed xxxii INTRODUCTORY ESSAY by Dr. John Watson, in his admirable appreciation of Mar- tineau in the Hibbcrt Journal for January 1903, that — " Every one who is interested in reHgion and in morals must be thankful that, as between the two schools of Hegel and Lotze, Martineau for more than half a century was the antagonist of necessity, and in our country the most powerful defender of Personality. And he was profoundly convinced that morals and rehgion were both affected by the issue, since the ethics of necessity can only tell us what has been, what is, and what ' probably will be,' but the ethics of free-will ' what ought to be ' ; and that moral freedom is the condition of the ' highest and deepest spiritual communion between God and the soul.' " I will now very briefly touch on the relation of Dr. Martineau's thought to the Hegelian philosophy as a com- plete system. The powerful attraction which Hegelianism possesses for thinkers of a predominantly intellectual turn consists chiefly in this, that it represents all reality as potentially comprehensible by the human intellect. God, as 1 have said, is, in the Hegelian view, the only noumenon, or metaphysical principle and cause. Man is simply a repro- duction or limited mode of the creative thought of which the universe is the objective expression. By the study, then, of cosmical phenomena, and the discovery of the rational relations which link phenomena together, the human intellect (it is assumed) is on its way to attain an exhaustive know- ledge of all reality; a knowledge not only of physical and psychical pha.'nomena, but also of all the causes to the action of which these pha.'nomcna are due. But if this philosophic pretension is to be made good, and the bound- less claims of Hegelian Gnosticism are to be justified, it is evidently indispensable that the absolute idealist should find scjme way of getting rid of all metajjliysical causes which may influence or interfere with the alleged necessary order of sequence among phrenomena. H man possesses any real freedom of choice in the formation of his character, xxxiii c DR. MARTINEAU'S PHILOSOPHY it is evident that the antecedent mental states which exist in a season of temptation may be followed by either of two equally possible moral decisions. Supposing this to be the case, and the spontaneous moral consciousness of mankind declares that it is the case, it necessarily follows that no mere study of physical or psychical phenomena apart from insight into the nature of the special noiimenal causes which originate and control these phasnomena can possibly give an exhaustive explanation of the relations of sequence in the material and mental world. If, then, it be once admitted that the soul of man in the moral crises of its life can deter- mine itself in either of two possible ways, the elaborate and imposing structure of Hegelian Gnosticism is at once under- mined. Hence the one doctrine with which Hegelian thinkers have no patience is that of the existence in human nature of an open alternative. " Such a doctrine," writes the eminent Hegelian, Dr. Edward Caird, "offends science by the assertion of a kind of freedom which seems to be the negation of all laws of causation." When this consideration was urged upon Dr. Martineau, his answer was that it may offend savants in whom engrossing intellectual interests have for a time eclipsed spiritual interests ; but that in the case of students of nature like Newton, Sir John Herschel, and Lord Kelvin this doctrine that an "open alternative" is allowed to these highest of God's creatures in whose consciousness He reveals Himself, is so far from giving offence that it is welcomed and endorsed as being the only doctrine which at once affords all necessary scope for scientific investigation, and yet in no way encroaches on the legitimate rights of Ethics and Religion. " It is," he added, " not the libertarian view of the human will, but the utterly ungrounded Hegelian doctrine of Causation which, in making everything on earth or in heaven logically necessary and scientifically explicable, ignores or explains away all that is deepest and highest in man's ethical and spiritual experiences." xxxiv INTRODUCTORY ESSAY Dr. Martincau's estimate of Hcgelianism was accordingly in complete accord with that of Emeritus Professor Fraser, Professor P.ittison's predecessor in Edinburgh University, who savs : — " The Hegelian seems to claim, as attainable philosophy, an intuition of the rational articulation of the universe of things and persons in the unity of the creative thought. This, if really attained, would eliminate mystery from our physical and moral experience, and convert philosophy into absolute science. If it has fulfilled its promise, it has translated all faith into rationalised thought. But I cannot find that this all-comprehensive system really tallies with the experience which it is bound to formulate adequately and also to explain ; or that it has yet got so far as to solve even so clamant a difficulty as the existence of immoral agents and moral evil. We ask for intellectual relief for moral difficulties, and we are offered the organisation of thought. We look for bread and we find a stone." It is now very widely recognised in the world of philo- sophical thought that the explanatory powers of the human intellect are very far indeed from being co-extcnsive with the realm of reality. Consciousness clearly affirms our per- sonal existence and activity, but the intellect appears to be intrinsically incapable of explaining how the Eternal fa^iions out of His own substance a multiplicit}' of fmitc individuals. In like manner our moral consciousness afhrms that rational beings, such as we are, are causes capable under certain con- ditions of exercising their causality in cither of two possible directions ; and the fact that the intellect cannot in the case of such personal causes always explain and predict their course of action affords no valid ground whatever for discrediting the clear pronouncement of ethical experience. Hence it is to ro purpose that Professor Henry Jones and other Hegehans now reiterate the statement that if the human .soul in seasons of temptation could freely choose between obeying and resist- ing the voice of the indwelling God, it would be a "miracle." XXXV DR. MARTINEAU'S PHILOSOPHY If every alleged fact which the Hegelian theory of causation cannot avail to explain is to be set aside as being an incredible "miracle," then I make bold to say that the universal beliefs of mankind are crowded with such accepted miracles. Thinkers such as Lotze, Martineau, Lord Kelvin, and a host of others, not only firmly believe in the daily performance of countless such so-called " miracles," but they believe also that it is chiefly for the advent of such " miracle "-workers on this planet that the whole course of biological evolution has been gradually preparing the way. In their judgment both philo- sophy and religious experience support the belief that the supreme purpose of cosmical development is the establish- mentofpersonaland spiritual relations between God and those highest of His creatures in whose inner life He incarnates Himself; and that, therefore, the calling into existence of partially independent personalities, capable alike of real sin and also of real self-sacrifice and heroism, is, in the view of the Eternal, an incomparably higher end than the unlimited extension of scientific prevision and of Hegelian Gnosticism. To Dr. Martineau it seemed somewhat surprising that this system of exclusive intellectualism, which in his view both violates the ethical consciousness and empties the universe of all dynamic energy and real causation, should have so long found favour with many thoughtful minds. He noted, however, that its influence was greatest in academic lecture-rooms, and was not considerable either in the sphere of religious thought or in that of general litera- ture. But though the revolt against it has been longer in appearing than he had expected, it was not very far off ; for on the authority of the able Hegelian, Prof. Henry Jones, in his interesting and brilliant paper in the Hibhert Journal for January 1903, we learn that such a revolt is now present and widespread even among the specially philosophic class; and like all such strong reactions it is assuming varied and at times extravagant forms. xxxvi INTPvODUCTORY ESSAY " The view," he says, " of the hmitations of the intelHgence, and of the subordinate worth of its products, is now maintained in some form or other by all kinds of philosophical sects. Ethical idealists, personal idealists, pluralists, however little they may agree with each other or with the older school of Positivists and Agnostics, are now all united in a revolt against what they deem the extravagant claims of the mere intellect." Prof. Jones is of opinion that this philosophical revolt will finally lead to a clearer understanding of absolute idealism, and hence to an enthusiastic return to its funda- mental principles. Dr. Martineau, on the other hand, was confident that the coming philosophy of religion, while recognising with tlie Hegelians the immediate pre.ience and progressive self revelation of God in the universal laws of our thinking, and in all our authoritative ideals, will no longer place the exclusive, or even the chief, emphasis on Thought ; but as Dr. Hastings Rashdall well expresses it,^ will conceive of the Eternal as " a Holy Trinity of Power, Wisdom, and Love " ; while as the necessary correlative to its conception of God as a loving Will, the future philosophy will insist on the free causality, the infinite worth, and the unending destiny of the individual soul. Students of the philosophy of religion will have noticed with interest that one of the forms which the revolt against Absolute Idealism has recently assumed is the reproduction in a somewhat modified form of Bishop Berkeley's Idealism. The chief representative of this resuscitated Berkeleianism at Cambridge is Professor James Ward in his Gifford Lectures ; while at Oxford a similar theory is advocated by Dr. Hastings Rashdall in his essays in Personal Idealism and Conlcntio Veritaiis. With this form of idealism Dr. Mar- tineau would have had much sympathy. He would by no means have wholly agreed with it, for he was not an idealist. In liis judgment the reality of the external world do^'s not * " Dcxrtrine and DcTclopmcnt," p. 26. xxxvii DR. MARTINEAU'S PHILOSOPHY consist in its being the object of some feeling and think- ing subject, but in the fact that it is the result of the causal activity throughout space of an omnipresent in- telligent Will. He further said that it was incomprehensible to him how individual souls could communicate with, and act upon, each other, unless there exists a real external world which is independent of each of them, and serves as the medium of communication between them. But these differences of opinion do not very seriously affect the foundations of the philosophy of religion ; for on the most essential points this idealism reproduces the ideas to which Dr. Martineau attached chief importance. It accepts, for instance, his metaphysical view of Causation, explains the idea of cause as derived entirely from our experience of personal volition, and maintains almost in Dr. Martineau's own words, that — " Every event must have a cause, but the cause need not be one that works uniformly ; and that therefore a violation of the uniformity of nature is not to be regarded as a priori inconceivable." ^ This recent emergence of Dr. Martineau's characteristic ideas out of the very heart of the highest culture in our two greatest universities goes far, I cannot but think, to justify Mr. R. H. Hutton's and Dr. John Watson's pro- phecy that it will be mainly in the direction of Lotze's and Martineau's thinking, and not in that of Hegel's, that the religious world will look for the most adequate expression of the philosophy which is implicit in Christianity. Before bringing this Essay to a close some reference must be made to an interesting and valuable exposition of Dr. Martineau's philosophical views which has just appeared in a work 2 from the pen of one of the ablest of his pupils. ^ Conteniio Veritatis, p. 52. 2 "James Martineau: a Study of his Life and Thought," pp. 572-73. By J. Estlin Carpenter, M.A. London: Philip Green, 1905. xxxviii INTRODUCTORY ESSAY In regard to one feature of Dr. Martineau's philosophy this exposition differs from that which I have given in the seventh chapter of the " Survey." The question at issue is of some importance; for if Professor Carpenter's inter- pretation is correct, it would seem to follow that Dr. Martineau's conception of the relation of Will (whether Divine or human) to the Forces of the physical cosmos underwent at or before the time of the composition of the " Studyof Religion " a most striking change ; and a change, moreover, of which, I believe, there is no indication that he was himself aware. In the seventh chapter of the " Survey" I explain that Dr. Martineau, following Sir JohnHerschel, derives the idea of Cause from our experience of resistance to our volitional efforts. This experience, while revealing to us that our voli- tions are causes, awakens also the belief that the causes which resist us are also of a volitional nature. " The psychological or intuitive principle which leads us to read a causal power behind phaenomena makes that power the ex- ternal counterpart of our own." As the forces in nature appear to be co-ordinated, and to work for the realisation of a unitary end, Dr. Martineau concludes that they all proceed from one Will ; and in this way he reaches " the first psychological source of Theism, the recognition of a living Will as Cause of the phaenomena of the world." i Human wills, in Dr. Martineau's view, arise from God's partial individuation of His own substance,^ and hence they * " Study of Religion," vol. i. p. 399. ' It is worth noticing that this creative causality is entirely unique and peculiar to Him who is the Ground of all existences, the " Cause of all causes." There is nothing at all analogous to it in the action of created minds. We can create no new cnti:ics but only act on those already in existence. Dr. Martineau does not appear to have taken this into consideration, or he would iiave observed tiiat the ultimate and creative causality of God must essentially transcend the kind of caukaLty which created beings can exert. Cf, Dr. Mellone's " Leaders of Religious Thought," p. 113, and Lolzc's " Outlines of the Philosophy of Religion," chap. v. xxxix DR. MARTINEAU'S PHILOSOPHY also are real causes, and on a small scale put forth force. It is because the human will thus exerts as well as directs force that we know by personal experience what Cause is and what Force is, and can thus intelligibly speak of God's Will as the originator of all the Force in the cosmos save of that very minute fraction which collective human wills originate. This appears to me to have been Martineau's opinion when he was composing his " Study of Religion." Prof. Carpenter, however, is of opinion that although Martineau in his earlier essays defines Force as " WiVunimis Purpose," and treats it as no separate reality but as a mere mental abstraction convenient forscieniific purposes, he, nevertheless, when he wrote the " Study of Religion, " conceived of Force or Power not as put forth or created by Will, but as simply directed into this or that channel by the action of Will. " From the conception of Will, therefore," Professor Carpenter writes, " the element of Force was now discharged ; there was left only ' the choice between two alternative direc- tions of activity.' This choice belongs to the Ego within ; but by what means the volition of the willing Ego directs or sustains the energy lodged in the physical organisation, remains a mystery to which there is no clue." In support of this opinion. Prof. Carpenter cites some passages which no doubt admit of this interpretation, but which, I believe, Dr. Martineau intended to bear a very differ- ent meaning. One of these passages is " The only power required for a Cause is the power of making a difference." Prof. Carpenter apparently assumes that a difference can be made by the will without any force being exerted ; but I feel assured that Dr. Martineau thought otherwise. In the case of every volitional movement we liberate a certain amount of the force stored in our physical organisation. That force is, in Martineau's judgment, the potential energy of God's Will, which, under certain conditions. He puts at our disposal; xl INTRODUCTORY ESSAY and the question is, Did Martincau think that human wills could dispose of a portion of this force without themselves exerting any force ? If he did so think, whence did he get his first great argument for Theism, seeing that the only Will with which he had any direct acquaintance would have had no experience of the exertion of force but only of the direc- tion of it ? Nor do I clearly see how on Prof. Carpenter's interpretation Dr. Martineau could have retained any meta- ph\sical conception of Force at all. There is a passage in the second volume of the " Study of Religion " ^ which leaves no doubt in my mind as to Dr. Martineau's real meaning. After explaining that a certain store of force is potentially \\Tapped up in our physical constitution, he proceeds to show that — " Whatever purpose such a provision serves for the Neces- sarian it would serve no less for the Libertarian. It is regarded by the physicists as a quasi-chamber charged with pent-up force ; the nerve which carries the message of the will has but to hft a latch, and through an open valve the executive current rushes through the proper channel to its work, and the deed is done. So it is, when the only possible course is one. In order that either of two should be possible, wc have only to furnish our chamber with two valves on its opposite sides ; and whether the message is sent to the right latch or to the left, the energy is there, and the line is laid, which will realise the volition." Here the force which is exerted by the human will suffices only to lift a latch, but that is as real a putting forth of force as the upheaving of a mountain would be. I am confirmel in my belief that this is the correct interpre- tation by remembering that I once pointed out to Dr. Martineau the following passage in Sir John Herschell's essay on "The Origin of Force," ^ and that after reading it he expressed his entire agreement with it : — " The actual force necessary to be originated to give rise to the utmost imaginable exertion of animal power in any case, ' 1". 251. ' " Familiar lectures on Scicnliiic Subjects," p. 468. xU DR. MARTINEAU'S PHILOSOPHY may be no greater than is required to move a single material molecule from its place through a space inconceivably minute. , . . But without the power to make some material disposition, to originate some movement, or to change, at least temporarily, the amount of dynamical force appropriate to some one or more material molecules, the mechanical results of human or animal volition are inconceivable. It matters not that we are ignorant of the mode in which this is performed. It suffices to bring the origination of dynamical power, to however small an extent, within the domain of acknowledged personality." If I rightly understand the sentence which I have italicised in the following extract from a recent lecture by Sir Oliver Lodge, who seems to have a conception of the relation of Life to Energy somewhat similar to that which Prof. Carpenter ascribes to Dr. Martineau, it would appear that this distinguished physicist also is unable to explain the action of Life on Energy without assigning to the former the exertion of some minute amount of Force: — " If a living thing produces an effect or moves a body which would not otherwise have been moved, it is sometimes said that the Life must be one of the forms of Energy, otherwise it could not interact with the material world and produce the energetic effects. My contention is that it does interact with the material world, and that it does not upset the law of the conservation of energy. It acts not by producing energy, but by guiding or directing it. It does not alter its amount, but, so to speak it, it shows it the way to go. It exerts guidance or direction. It acts like a switch which guides the locomotive. Railway rails direct the course of the locomotive. How does the rail act ? It ads by applying force at right-angles to the motion of the body." If this last illustration is appropriate, it would seem, notwithstanding what Sir Oliver says in a previous sentence, that Life in guiding Energy does produce and apply some exceedingly small amount of force, but that by applying it at right-angles to the energy which it controls it does not add to the sum-total of the energy in the cosmos. xlii INTRODUCTORY ESSAY I should like to say in conclusion that while I regret my inabUit}' to follow my colleague's exposition on this one important point, I at the same time congratulate myself on tlic very great extent in which the contents of my " Sur\'ey " have been confirmed by the results of Prof. Carpenter's independent research. xliii THE PHILOSOPHICAL WORK OF DR. JAMES MARTINEAU Chapter I THE HARTLEYAN PERIOD OF DR. MARTINEAU'S PHILOSOPHY When one remembers the strong terms of depreciation in which Dr. Martineau in his later years spoke of the " miser- able philosophy " which had so long hampered the intellec- tual expression of his higher life, the question naturally suggests itself, Why did his intensely strong ethical con- sciousness remain so long under this depressing yoke? And this question not only concerns Dr. Martineau, but it applies also to the case of such deeply conscientious and devout natures as Priestley, Belsham, Carpenter, Hutton, and a host of other choice spirits among the early English Uni- tarians. The reasons for this lengthened acquiescence of noble and religious minds in a necessarian doctrine of the will and a utilitarian theory of ethics are, I think, mainly two. The first is that it often takes a long time for a speculative belief to unfold its necessary implications ; and the second, and far more important, is that there were powerful intellectual influences operative at the time which did very much to conceal the real antagonism between these philosophical dogmas and the Christian consciousness. The eminent thinker David Hartley, to whose study of the Laws I A PHILOSOPHICAL WORK of Association psychology is greatly indebted, had in his " Observations on Man " so applied his principles to the moral life as to convince himself and his disciples that the deterministic view of the will " affords sufficient foundation for commendation and blame, for the difference between virtue and vice, and for the justice of punishing vice accord- ing to the popular language." The Virtues, too, which in Hartley's view were first practised because they were found to be conducive to happiness, came afterwards, owing to the operation of the psychological " Law of Transference," to be valued for their own sake, just as in the miser's case the gold which is first sought as a means becomes at last desired as an end in itself. As then, it was supposed that Hartley had conclusively shown that all the ethical ideas and emo- tions which we indicate by such words as " moral responsi- bility," " sin," " repentance," and " remorse " are quite in harmony with the doctrine of necessity, it is not surpris- ing that it was only by slow degrees that the fallacies in- volved in Hartley's explanations were clearly recognised. That at this period of his life Dr. Martineau in no way realised, as he afterwards so clearly did, the essential in- compatibility between this doctrine and our ordinary moral and religious sentiments, is manifest from many passages in the first edition of the " Rationale of Religious Inquiry," published in 1836, when he was still in the Hartleyan stage of thought. And there can be no doubt that his intimate friend, the Rev. John Hamilton Thom, accurately expressed the fact when he said in 1885, on the occasion of Dr. Martineau's retirement from the offices of Principal and Professor in the College : — " When I first knew Dr. Martineau, fifty-three years ago, his philosophy of the will was that of the necessarian, that of the * Analysis of the Human Mind,' by James Mill, the father of the more illustrious John Stuart Mill. ... It is possible that many in this room are not aware of the great transformation that Dr. Martineau has passed upon himself, but let no one 2 THE HARTLEYAN PERIOD think that his spiritual identity has undergone the least change. From this time to that, from that time to this, whether logi- cally or not. — and anyone who knows Dr. Priestley's sermon on ■ Habitual Devotion ' will be slow to doubt the possibility, — his testimony was as clear and firm then as it is now, to a Divine Voice in conscience, to the responsibilities of the will for its choice between good and evil, and to the self-evidencing power of spiritual truth." In the "Life" by Dr. Dnimmond an account has been given of Dr. Martineau's education and of the circum- stajices under which he fijiaUy resolved to dedicate his life to the Christian ministry-, but it may be well to insert here a description of the character of the philosophical instruc- tion given at that time in the College where Dr. iMartinean received his ministerial training, and on which afterwards, during so many years, his eminent genius conferred such dignity. While neither Dr. Priestley nor Mr. Belsham were di- rectly connected wath Manchester New College, they both indirectly exercised great influence over its philosophical teaching during the York period of its history ( 1803-1840). Though Dr. Priestley mainly agreed with the Socinians in regard to the person of Jesus, he did not derive his neces- sarianism from them; for the Socini were libertarians. His necessarianism was derived from the study of Collins and Hartley. In his Autobiography he says : " It was not without a struggle that I gave up my free-will." Priestley's materialism, however, did not come from Hartley (for Hartley appears to have believed in two parallel substances, mind and matter), but from his own scientific studies. His acceptance of Boscovich's view of matter, as constituted of centres of force, makes his materialism somewhat akin to spiritualism; and it is not improbable that this doctrine may have exercised some influence over Dr. Martincau's final conception of the nature of the external world. Mr. Belsham, who appears to have derived his doctrine of 3 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK necessity from a study of the correspondence between Dr. Priestley and Dr. Price, popularised Dr. Priestley's views, and it is most likely that it was his treatise, " The Elements of Mental and Moral Philosophy," which was used as the text-book at York in Dr. Martineau's time. It was in Mr. Belsham's classes at Daventry and afterwards at Hackney College that for the first time the materialistic and neces- sarian philosophy was taught in a Dissenting Academy. While Manchester College remained at its original seat (1786- 1 803), Priestleyan views had no representation in its teaching. It appears that the theological tutors during that period — Dr. Thomas Barnes and Rev. George Walker, F.R.S. — both made a considerable point of psychology, which would naturally go along with their Arian Christol- ogy. But neither during this early Manchester period, nor during the York period of the life of the College, did phil- osophy take such a prominent place in the curriculum as it had done in the earlier Dissenting Academies at War- rington, Daventry, etc.^ This was no doubt due, in part at least, to the growing feeling in that age of " external evidences," that all the more important beliefs, such as the moral character of God, and the Immortality of the soul, are not mainly phil- osophical questions at all, but matters of direct revelation, and hence what we now call the " Philosophy of Religion " was not given to the professor of philosophy, but was dis- cussed, under the title " Natural and Revealed Religion," by one of the theological tutors. We shall afterwards see that this arrangement was based on a conception of " Re- vealed Religion " wholly different from that which Dr. Martineau finally embraced and defended. The conse- 1 " In these older Academies," writes Principal Gordon, " one might almost say that philosophy was the backbone ; but then philosophy was a generic term covering physics as well as metaphysics. Ethics generally went with Theology until Henry Grove at the Taunton Academy made it a separate study." 4 THE HARTLEYAN PERIOD quence of this was that the philosophical part of the Col- lege course became an appendag-e to some more important function. Thus in the earlier ^Manchester period Dr. Thomas Barnes was tutor at once of Hebrew, Theolog}% Metaphysics, and Ethics, while at York, Dr. Martineau's teacher in philosophy, Rev. William Turner, M.A., is de- scribed as " Tutor in Mathematics and Natural and Ex- perimental Philosophy " ; and it was not till the year 1857, when Dr. IMartineau was appointed Professor of Religions, as well as Mental and Moral, Philosophy, that Philosophy secured its rightful position in Manchester College, as a study co-ordinate in importance with that of Theolog}'. But not only in Manchester College, but in Britain gen- erally, the interest taken at this time in philosophical studies contrasted very unfavorably with the flourishing condition of metaphysical thought in Germany, where the great Idealist systems were then taking such mighty hold on many minds. In France, too, the deep and wide-spread interest awakened by Victor Cousin's teaching, especially his critical Lectures on Locke's philosophy (1828-1830), and his impassioned appeal to the impersonal reason in the souls of all men, had given to philosophy that living influence on the thought and literature of France, which it still, to a considerable extent, exerts. Mr. J. J. Tayler, who studied in Germany in 1834- 1835, and gave a most in- teresting " Retrospect of a Twelvemonth passed in Ger- many " in a series of papers contributed to the " Christian Teacher" in 1836, states how greatly he was impressed by the contrast between the enthusiasm for philosophical study which he found at the German Universities, and the com- parative apathy which he had left at home; and he par- ticularly mentions that at Gottingen and elsewhere he found the " Philosophy of Religion " a distinct and important subject. The following passage (p. 67) enables us to vividly realise the difference between philosophy in Ger- 5 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK many and philosophy in England a few years after the date at which Dr. Martineau was pursuing his ministerial studies at Manchester College: — " Speculative philosophy occupies a far more important place in the German Universities than in ours, and the reigning system exercises a great influence in all departments of in- quiry, — particularly in theology, criticism, and what is called (Fsthetik, or the principles of taste. An effect similar to this took place in England fifty or sixty years ago, with the preva- lence of the Hartleyan doctrine of association of ideas, which was applied in the same extensive manner, especially by Dr. Priestley, to the vast range of subjects which his active mind embraced. Since that time this species of philosophy has fallen into disrepute with us; and had it not been for the Scotch philosophers, and some of the writings of Mackintosh, no additions would have been made to it for the last half-cen- tury. How different is the ever-restless philosophical activity of Germany ! " To illustrate this Mr. Tayler then gives a long list of subjects connected with the higher philosophy which were studied during the summer-semester of 1835 at Halle; and there can be little doubt that it was this very tempting bill of fare, presented to his notice by his friend Mr. Tayler, which awakened in Dr. Martineau' s mind a strong desire — realised in 1848- 1849 — ^o go himself and partake of this feast of German thought, that he might form his own judgment of its intrinsic worth. But, as I have said, the Idealism and Eclecticism Avhich were kindling philosophical enthusiasm on the Continent had, during James Martineau's student years, little influ- ence on English thought. In the British Isles what philo- sophical interest existed was divided between the Hartleyan empirical school and the Scotch school of so-called " com- mon sense " ; and of these two antagonistic schools the former was the accepted guide in Manchester College. In that institution the Rev. Charles Wellbeloved, who, 6 THE HARTLEYAN PERIOD up to 1809, appears to have combined the teaching of phil- osophy with that of theology, was a pupil of Belsham, and the Rev. William Turner, who then took the philosophy in hand, was the grandson of the William Turner who during Priestley's ministry at Leeds became his ardent disciple. The grandson, we learn, embraced, and for many years taught, without qualification, the philosophical views of his grandfather; but in 1825, in the latter part of James Martineau's studentship, Mr. Turner began to express him- self somewhat doubtfully in regard to both Necessarianism and Materialism. " As for my own opinion." he says, " I must confess that I have not been able wholly to satisfy my mind on the subject of Liberty and Necessity. Though the direct argument for Necessity appears unanswerable, yet the views which are de- duced from the doctrine, even by Necessarian writers, are so startling, and it requires such an effort to accommodate our new views to the practice of life, and the use of Necessarian language to common language, that there are still some diffi- culties left on my mind." ^ But in his lectures he always adhered closely to the Hartleyan philosophy, and ardently followed it into all its applications to mind and morals. " \\'ith the Scotch philosophy of Intuitive ideas and Com- mon-sense principles (so called)," we are told l)y his pupil Mr. Edward Higginson, " he could keep no terms, being never satisfied to cut a knot which he thought he might by patient industry untie." The same pupil adds: "His philos- ophy of the origin of the moral sentiments and affections was throughout consistently Hartleyan. And while he could find no sound basis for the Obligation of Virtue, short of its ten- dency, as ordained by the sovereign Will of God, to produce the ultimate and truest Happiness of the agent as well as others, he found in the benign operation of the Associative 1 ViiU Memoir of the late William Turner, Junior, M.A., in the " Christian Reformer," 1854, p. 136. 7 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK principle a sufficient vindication of his philosophy from being selfish in any bad sense of the term." ^ It is evident, as we shall presently see from the first important philosophical article which Dr. Martineau wrote, that during his College career, and for at least ten years afterwards, he accepted the views of his philosophical tutor. There is, however, a noteworthy passage in his Biograph- ical Memoranda which shows that he was not wholly satisfied with the Hartleyan Necessarianism and Utilita- rianism, and which appears at the same time to indicate the existence in him and in his sister Harriet of a certain difference of mental constitution. In the summer vacation of 1824 his father gave to him and his sister the means of taking a month's pedestrian tour in Scotland; and during this excursion, in which occurred some interesting adventures, which in his later years Dr. Martineau was fond of recalling, he and his sister talked over the more striking subjects of the College lectures, especially those on philosophy ; and Dr. Martineau writes : — " My sister's acute, rapid, and incisive advance to a con- clusion upon every point pleasantly relieved my slower judg- ment and gave me courage to dismiss suspense. I was at that time, and for several years after, an enthusiastic disciple of the determinist philosophy, and was strongly tainted with the positivist temper which is its frequent concomitant; yet not without such inward reserves and misgivings as to render wel- come my sister's more firm and ready verdict. While she re- mained faithful through life to that early mode of thought, with me those ' reserves and misgivings,' suppressed for a while, recovered from the shock and gained the ascendancy. The divergence led to this result, — that while my sister changed her conclusions, and I mv basis, we both cleared our- 1 I learn from Mr. E. D. Priestley Evans's interesting " History of the New Meeting House at Kidderminster " that James Martineau was not the first of the York students to throw off the Priestleyan yoke. He was preceded by Mr. William Mountford, the gifted author of " Euthanasy," who during his stu- dent years (1833-1838), when the Rev. William Hincks was tutor, altogether renounced the philosophy of Hartlev and Mill. '8 THE HARTLEYAN PERIOD selves from incompatible admixtures, and paid the deference due to logical consistency and completeness." It would appear from this passage not improbable that the influence of his elder sister's confident utterances in favor of determinism may have retained Dr. Martineau longer within the Hartleyan camp than would otherwise have been the case. After his departure from College we get no light thrown upon his mental histor}^ till the year 1835, except, indeed, that in his IMemoranda he mentions that while he was in charge of Dr. Carpenter's school at Bristol, he was, through the recommendation of Dr. Pritchard, author of the " Physical History of Man," ad- mitted to a small, almost private. Philosophical Society of about twelve members, at which " I heard the ablest local men — including John Foster, Hera- path, Pritchard. and Conybeare — discuss the newest questions of the time, and the greatest questions of all time." The meet- ings of this society gave him " many a bright hour in a year which was one of great tension," In 1833 he contributed to the "Monthly Repository" the warmly appreciative but, at the same time, critical estimate of Dr. Priestley. Though this article is of great interest in reference to the general character of Dr. Priestley's mind, it treats very briefly of his philosophical doctrines, and does not give, what we should have expected, any comparison between his views and those of his friend Dr. Price, whose writings had, we know, greatly influenced Dr. Channing. In revising this paper, in 1852, for the collection of his writings called " Miscellanies," Dr. Mar- tineau made, in a few passages, important alterations, so that the original must be referred to by those who wish to trace the changes in the writer's philosophical ideas. Treating, for instance, of Priestley's unsatisfactory account of Memory and of the Idea of Power, Dr. Martineau says 9 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK in the original article : " Throughout Priestley's works it would be vain to seek for the piercing analysis of Brown or James Mill, before whose gaze the most intricate and delicate of human emotions and the most evanescent trains of human ratiocination are arrested, questioned, and made to marshal themselves in their true places amid the nimble evolutions of the mind." But in the reprint the estimate of Brown's and Mill's performances is widely different, for the passage becomes : " Throughout Priestley's works it would be in vain to look for anything like the analytical ingenuity of which later writers belonging to the same school, especially Brown and Mill, afford such elaborate though unsatisfactory display." About Dr. Martineau's first important philosophical pub- lication some uncertainty hangs. When in the later years of his life he was asked whether there was in print any noteworthy expression of his views during the time when he was in intellectual sympathy with Hartley and James Mill, he referred the inquirers to an article of his on " Bentham's Deontology, or Science of Morality," which appeared in 1834 or 1835. As to the periodical in which this appeared, he told some friends, among whom were Principal Gordon and the Rev. A. W. Jackson, that it was the "Christian Reformer." These gentlemen, accordingly, have stated — the one in his article on Dr. Martineau in the " Dictionary of National Biography," and the other in his " James Martineau, A Biography and Study " — that the four papers on "Bentham's Deontology" in the "Chris- tian Reformer " for 1835 form the article of which Dr. Martineau spoke. But in the notes of a conversation I had with him at the Polchar in 1885, I find written: " Fox, in the ' Monthly Repository,' gave Dr. Martineau's necessarian and utilitarian article on ' Bentham's Deon- tolog}\' " The question, then, is, Did Dr. Martineau write the article on Bentham's work which appeared in the 10 THE HARTLEYAN PERIOD "Monthly Repository" for September, 1834, or did he write the four papers on the same work which appeared in the "Christian Reformer" for 1835? He says himself, in his Memoranda, that, soon after his settlement at Par- adise Street, " in consequence of some papers written for Mr. Fox's ' ^Monthly Repository ' I was asked to enrol myself on the literary staff of the ' London Review,' and then commenced a habit of review writing, which, when kept in due subordination, I have found conducive to vigilance and exactitude in study, and which best disposed of all my spare time." The letter from Sir William Moles- worth, inviting Dr. Martineau to join the philosophical radicals who started the " London Review," is before me, dated April, 1S35, and in it he says: " I had the pleasure of reading an able and admirable article by you on ' Ben- tham's Deontology,' which excited in me the greatest desire to obtain from you some contributions to our work." The date of the letter shows that when it was written only the first of the four papers in the " Christian Reformer " could have appeared. The external evidence then would seem to be, on the whole, more favorable to the claims of the " Monthly Repository " article. But the internal evidence furnished both by the style and by the opinions is so strong as to be, I think, quite convincing; and we must suppose, therefore, that it was by a lapse of memory that Dr. Mar- tineau sometimes referred to the " Christian Reformer " as the place of his article. Among the internal evidences that Dr. Martineau did not write the " Christian Reformer " papers, the following is perhaps the most cogent. It is characteristic of Dr. Martineau's ethical theory, not only in its matured form, but even as early as the first edition of the " Rationale of Religious Inquiry," which is nearly contemporaneous with the " Deontology " article, that he represents moral distinctions as depending, not on the Will of God, but on God's essential nature as progressively rc- II PHILOSOPHICAL WORK vealed in the human reason and conscience. Now the writer of the " Christian Reformer " papers says : " With the guidance of the records of revelation everything of the nature of duty must ultimately resolve itself into re- spect to the Will of God " (p. 712), while in the " Monthly Repository " article we read in reference to those moralists who take the Will of God as the measure of right : — " What is the Will of God ? Where is it to be found ? Rev- elation can, at best, supply it only to the limited portion of mankind who admit the authority of the Scriptures. And of these many deny, and none can prove, that Christianity con- tained an ethical code ; and the rest, while they inveigh against so heretical a doctrine, contribute to establish its truth by their entire disagreement respecting the nature of this code. Are we, then, to seek for the Will of God in nature? By what conceivable mark can we know it, but by that of happiness? This is the Divine signature by which alone Providence has made intelligible the oracles of human duty. In the mind of every theist, then, who admits the benevolence of God, the religious definition is co-extensive with the utilitarian ; but the former, being derivative from the latter, cannot be per- mitted to supplant it" (p. 617). It is not improbable that the Editor of the " Christian Reformer " was not wholly satisfied with this feature in the " Monthly Repository " article, and that it was owing to this that he inserted another review of the book in his own journal. The main interest of this elaborate review of Bentham's work lies in the subtlety of thought and brilliancy of ex- pression which the writer displays in his endeavour to com- bine a utilitarian theory of morals with the noble ethical ideas and sentiments which evidently pervaded and actuated his own mind. After quoting Bentham's statement : — " Dream not that men will move their little finger to serve you unless their advantage in so doing be obvious to them. Men never did so and never will while human nature is 12 THE HARTLEYAN PERIOD made of its present materials." the reviewer remarks : " Now with all respect for the L'tilitarian philosopher, we appeal in this matter from him to the universal sentiments and language of mankind. Their feelings are in accordance with the maxim : * If ye do good to them that do good to you. what thank have ye?' Show them that in his acts of kimlness, a man is look- ing to his own ends, that he is meditating a draught on the good-will fund, and the spell of admiration is broken. It may be all very well ; he may be a shrewd fellow enough and won- derfully long-sighted, but as for generosity or benevolence, this banking system will never win such praise. /Viid the people are not wrong." How, then, do these benevolent impulses arise? The reviewer replies: "The process is one with which every reader of Hartley is familiar." The approbation of others brings various good things ; benevolence is found to secure this approbation, and it is at first practised with a view to this. By the Hartleyan " Law of Transference," how^ever, the benevolence which was at first cultivated as a means becomes an end in itself, and the practice of it is found to be attended with very high and sweet internal satisfactions. The pleasures of sympathy blend with these satisfactions; and these inherent pleasures attending benevolence become so inseparable from the act that the latter cannot even strictly be said to be performed for the sake of them. " It is impossible," continues the reviewer, " to find lan- guage which will unexceptionably describe the moral proc- ess involved in such cases as this. In popular phraseology [and in Dr. Martincau's at a later date] the agent wcnild be said to sacrifice his own comfort for tlie sake of another person's ; but as he is really happier in performing the act than in abstaining from it, this is an inaccurate account of the fact. . . . Perhaps the most exact of the popular accounts of such an act arc, that which speaks of it as done for its ozvii sake, and that which terms it disinterested; for as the word interest is used to describe the external advantages of conduct, disinterested is an epithet fitted to denote deeds which are willed solely from their internal qualities." 13 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK Has, then, the reviewer, by travelhng along Hartleyan lines, reached what is popularly meant by disinterestedness f It does not seem so ; for he continues : — " Disinterestedness does not consist in the annihilation of happiness, but in the acceptance of sympathetic in the place of individual enjoyment; and if moralists were to call on a man to relinquish personal pleasures, for which no compen- sation presented itself in any possible satisfactions of internal benevolence or outward recompense, the call would infallibly be made in vain ; no case of obligation can be made out, no instrument exists for acting on the will." It would seem, then, from this, that the Benthamites might have retorted on the reviewer : " It appears, then, on your own showing, that a man in a rational and moral mood could feel no obligation to lift a little finger to help you, had he not the underlying assurance that he would derive some internal or external advantage from so doing." I have given this summary of the review both because it fairly represents the philosophical position of the more thoughtful Unitarians at the time when it was written, and because it will furnish a needful introduction to the later description of the very different ethical theory in which Dr. Martineau's matured thought found satisfac- tion. He would himself in after years probably have said of this article, as we have seen he said of James Mill's account of the origin of the Idea of Power, that it was " an elaborate but unsatisfactory display of analytical in- genuity." At this date, however, James Mill was regarded by him as a very high authority in philosophy. Soon after his settlement in Liverpool Dr. Martineau began to give private lessons to some of the more thoughtful of the young people of his congregation, and I well remember the en- thusiasm with which Miss Ellen Yates of the Dingle used to speak of her attendance at one of these classes. To the young women he lectured not only on philosophy, but also H THE HARTLEYAN PERIOD on European Literature, using as a text-book for the latter Sismondi's " Literature of Southern Europe " ; for WilHam Roscoe's writings had awakened in Liverpool great interest in the language and literature of Italy. On this subject Mr. William Thornely, now of Hampstead, writes the fol- lowing interesting letter, dated Feb. lo, 1901 : — " I think it was in 1835 or 1836 that I first attended a small class of four or five, chiefly ladies, at Dr. Martineau's house, Mount Street, Liverpool. The philosophy of the mind was our subject, and we also wrote compositions. James Mill's * Analysis of the Human Mind ' was our text-book, and we went steadily through it, reading also other works, among which I remember Dr. Thomas Brown's Lectures and his great " Essay on Cause and Effect," in which he states that a cause is merely a constant antecedent. I also remember we were referred to Priestley's " Treatise on Necessity." With the doctrines of these books Dr. Martineau was thoroughly in ac- cordance. A year or two later we went carefully through Mill's * Logic' I subsequently studied Mathematics and Astronomy with Dr. Martineau. There could not be a more delightful teacher. For many months I was quite alone with him. He never failed to give me his utmost energetic attention. " I think it must have been in 1845 when, with two other young men. I attended his class on philosophy, and found all changed. We were at Park Nook by seven in the morning. He was always ready for us with the offer of a cup of coffee. I need hardly speak of the intense interest of these lectures. A great advantage this small class enjoyed was that Dr. Martineau most kindly allowed us to interrupt him when we wanted explanations." The revolution in Dr. Martineau's fundamental philos- ophy indicated in this letter was in part brought about by the difficulties he encountered when endeavouring to give to the pupils above mentioned a satisfactory exposition of the views of James Mill and of Thomas Brown ; and these difficulties became altogether insurmountable when in pre- paring his discourses f(jr the celebrated Liverpool contro- versy he was compelled to fairly face the problem of Moral 15 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK Evil. In his Memoranda he thus vividly recalls this mo- mentous crisis in his intellectual history : — " I can hardly say now what were the successive steps which removed me more and more from the school of philosophical opinion in which I had been trained. In my fondness for physical science I had accepted its fundamental conceptions and maxims as ultimate, and had been unconscious of the metaphysical problems which lay beyond. In this state of mind it was inevitable that the Necessarian doctrine should appear to have demonstrative certainty, for it is little more than a bare expression of the postulates of natural science, and hardly requires a single remove from its definitions. But in the very process of expounding and applying it I not only became aware of the distortion which it gave to the whole group of moral conceptions, but began to see that in Causation there was something behind the phsenomenal sequence traced by inductive observation ; and gradually the scheme which I had taken as a universal formula shrank within limits that did not include the Conscience of man or the Moral Govern- ment of God. Along with this discovery of a metaphysical realm, beyond the physical, came a new attitude of mind towards the early Christian modes of conception, especially those of the Apostle Paul, whose writings seemed to be totally transformed and to open up views of thought of which I had previously no glimpse." This quotation discloses the interesting fact that in the first eight years of his Liverpool ministry the two firm bases of his future theistic faith — the rational necessity of an adequate spiritual cause for the cosmos, and the ethical experience of a superhuman Presence and Authority in the Conscience — were gradually emerging into clear self-evidence before his thought. In conversation he often referred to the writings of Dr. Channing as having powerfully co-operated with the other influences in bringing him to his final and decisive renun- ciation of the Hartleyan theory of ethics. It is somewhat remarkable that there is no clear evidence that either Dr. Richard Price's powerful " Review of the Principal Ques- i6 THE HARTLEYAN PERIOD tions and Difficulties in Morals" (which influenced Dr. Channing) or the writings of the Scotch intuitionalists, Reid and Stewart, had much part in Dr. ^lartineau's philo- sophical conversion. It is not improbable that he may at this date have read and been somewhat affected by Victor Cousin's brilliant lectures, for we know that Cousin was being studied at that time by some Unitarians in England as well as by many in America; and in the "Christian Teacher" for 1837 — a periodical to which, after Mr. Thorn assumed the editorship in 1838, Dr. Martineau oc- casionally contributed — there is an able paper headed " A Fragment of Philosophy," in which the writer speaks of M. Cousin's published works as " coming nearer to a per- fect system of mental and moral philosophy than any other with which I am acquainted." And it is hardly possible that Sir William Hamilton's exposition and criticism of Cousin's view^s in his celebrated article on the " Philos- ophy of the Unconditioned " in the " Edinburgh Review " for October, 1S29, could have failed to attract Dr. Mar- tineau's attention. We know, too, that very shortly after his philosophical change. Dr. Martineau in his lectures at Manchester New College appealed to the writings of Maine de Biran, Royer-Collard, Cousin, and Jouffroy in confir- mation of his own account of the idea of Cause, and that he recommended to both the students and his private pupils the careful study of Cousin's criticism of Locke's philosophy. But whatever may have been tlie influences which con- curred in effecting this fundamental transformation in Dr. Martincau's philosophical system, there can be little doubt that when he preached the striking sermon on " The Chris- tian View of Moral Evil " the process was virtually com- pleted. That discourse gives expression in the most emphatic terms to the doctrine of Ethical Individualism, which forms the keynote of his moral philosophy. 17 B PHILOSOPHICAL WORK " This sense," he says, " of individual accountability — not- withstanding the ingenuity of orthodox divines on the one hand, and necessarian philosophers on the other — is im- paired by all reference of the evil that is in us to any source beyond ourselves. . . . There is no persuasion more indis- pensable to this state of mind, and consequently no impres- sion which Christianity more profoundly leaves upon the heart than that of the personal origin and personal identity of sin, — its individual incommunicable character. . . . Hence it ap- pears impossible to defend the doctrine of Philosophical Ne- cessity — which presents God to us as the author of sin and suffering — from the charge of invading the sense of personal responsibility." It is not surprising, then, that when the printed copy of this sermon reached Boston, Dr. Channing at once (Nov. 29, 1839) wrote to Dr. Martineau: — " The part of your discourse which gave me the sincerest delight, and» for which I would especially thank you, is that in which you protest against the doctrine of philosophical necessity. Nothing for a long time has given me so much pleasure. I have felt that this doctrine, with its natural con- nexions, was a mill-stone round the neck of Unitarianism in England. I know no one who has so clearly and strongly pointed out as yourseff its inconsistency with moral senti- ments in God, and with the exercise of moral sentiments towards him by his creatures. I have always lamented that Dr. Priestley's authority has fastened this doctrine on his followers." It must not be supposed from this radical alteration in Dr. Martineau's metaphysical and ethical philosophy that the character of his sermons after this date underwent any serious change. As we have seen, the Hartleyan applica- tion of the associative processes for a long time caused many Unitarian preachers to believe that necessarian and utilitarian views \vere quite compatible with the purest disinterestedness in morals, and with the sincerest senti- ments of repentance and prayerful aspiration in religion. The chief consequence of the philosophical transformation 18 THE HARTLEYAN PERIOD was the disappearance of that haunting suspicion of incon- gruity between the pulpit utterances and the underlying philosophy from which, during his Hartleyan days, Dr. Martineau could never wholly free himself. He had never been able to find complete satisfaction in Dr. Priestley's candid acknowledgment that "a Necessarian who, as such, believes that }wtJi{ng goes wrong, but that everything is under the best direction possible, him- self and his conduct, as part of an immense and perfect whole, included, cannot accuse himself of having done wrong in the ultimate sense of the words. He has, therefore, in this strict sense, nothing to do with repentance, confession, or pardon, which are all adapted to a different imperfect and fallacious view of things " ; ^ and. therefore, he experienced a delightful sense of freedom and relief when he became convinced of the falsity of the Hartleyan metaphysics and accepted in its place an intui- tional philosophy, in the light of which sin, repentance, and the consciousness of reconciliation with the indwelling Father were seen to be facts in fullest accord with the soul's deepest and clearest insight into ultimate reality. When referring in his Biographical Memoranda to the necessity which his change of basis imposed on him of re-writing all his philosophical lectures, Dr. Martineau adds : — " For all this, however, there was ample compensation in the sense of inward deliverance which I seemed to gain from artificial system into natural speech. It was an escape from a logical cage into the open air. I breathed more freely. The horizon enlarged, I could mingle with the world and believe in what I saw and felt, without refracting it through a glass, which construed it into something else. I could use the lan- guage of men — of their love and hate, of remorse and re- solve, of repentance and prayer — in its simplicity without any ' Subauditur ' which neutralises its sense." ' Priestley's Works, Vol. III. p. Si8. 19 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK As there has appeared in print more than once the state- ment that Dr. Martineau discarded his necessarian and utihtarian principles, owing to contact with German thought at the time of his fifteen months' stay in Germany, in 1848- 1849, ^t ^s necessary to point out that this is manifestly a mistake. Some account will afterwards be given of the important influence upon his culture, which he ascribed to his study at that time of German philosophy; but his own statement in the preface to the " Types of Ethical Theory," " I thus came into the same plight, in respect of the cog- nitive and aesthetic side of life, that had already befallen me in regard to the moral," distinctly shows that the Hartleyan ethics had been previously abandoned. And that this is the fact is placed beyond a doubt, not only by his own words in conversation, but by the character of his writings from 1839 to 1848. 20 Chapter II THE LECTURES IN MANCHESTER NEW COLLEGE After the fundamental change in Dr. Martineau's met- aphysical principles described in the preceding chapter, his philosophical teaching remained for the rest of his long life substantially unaltered and self-consistent. The mod- ifications wliich it underwent were all the outcome of and in harmony with the basal principles which he adopted in 1839. Surprise has been expressed that his three great works should have proceeded from the pen of an octoge- narian writer; but it must be remembered that, with the exception of a portion of the " Seat of Authority," and of the striking chapter on " Hedonism with Evolution " in the " Types of Ethical Theory," the leading ideas of these important volumes had for many years been dis- cussed, session after session, in his College Lectures, and by repeated revision had reached the maturity of thought and perfection of form which they now present. The revolution in Dr. Martineau's philosophical thought, which brought him into happy accord with Dr. Channing, at the same time occasioned an intellectual divergence, though no breach in friendship, between him and another eminent thinker for whose personal character and great philosophical gifts and culture he always entertained a high respect, namely, Mr. John Stuart Mill. When in 1835 Dr. Martineau was invited to form one of the lit- erary staff of the new " London Review," along with tiic two Mills, Blanco White, Peacock, E. L. Bulwcr, etc., 21 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK Mr. J. S. Mill, in writing to welcome him into this journal- istic partnership, expressed the warm interest with which he had read his papers on Priestley in the " Monthly Re- pository," and added : "The last two pages of the concluding paper made an impression upon me which will never be effaced. In a subsequent paper of my own in the ' Repos- itory,' headed 'The Two Kinds of Poetry' (October, 1833), I attempted to carry out your speculation into some of those ulterior consequences which you had rather indicated than stated." When, then. Dr. Martineau was in 1840 appointed Pro- fessor of Mental and Moral Philosophy and Political Econ- omy in Manchester New College, he sent to Mr. Mill a copy of his Introductory Lecture and the Syllabus of his Course. In acknowledging these on May 21, 1841, Mr. Mill says : " 1 had not been an uninterested observer of the affiliation of Manchester New College with the Uni- versity of London " ; and then follow the noteworthy words which so well express the basal idea on which the teaching in the College rests : — " But I was not aware till I read your letter that the plan of instruction was founded upon the principle which I have always most earnestly contended for as the only one on which a University suitable to an age of unsettled creeds can stand, namely, that of leaving each Professor unfettered as to his premisses and conclusions, without regard to what may be taught by the rest. Besides all the other important recom- mendations of this principle, it is the only one which in our time allows such professorships to be filled by men of real superiority, whose speculations have the power of exciting interest in the subject. Such men can less and less endure to be told what they are to teach." After referring to the near approaching completion of his own important work on " Logic," Mr. Mill, in a passage which Dr. Martineau has in part reproduced in the preface to the " Types of Ethical Theory," expresses his desire 22 COLLEGE LECTURES that his friend, if satisfied with the " Logic," would himself take up, systematically, some other part of the great subject of philosophy. " As a Professor," he continues, " you will, I know, take up the whole ; but I do not want to have to wait for your Lectures, which, like Brown's, will no doubt be published some day ; but before that time I may very likely be studying them in another state of existence. I have been very much in- terested by your Introductory Lecture and Syllabus. I shall never forget the time when I was myself under that awful shadow you speak of, nor how I got from under it, but it is all written down in my book. Are not your general meta- phvsical opinions a shade or two more German than they used to be ? " The expression " awful shadow " refers to the following words in Dr. Martineau's Introductory Lecture : — " It is probable that in the secret history of every noble and inquisitive mind there is a passage darkened by the awful shadow of the conception of Necessity ; and it is certain that in the open conflict of debate, there is no question which has so long served to train and sharpen the weapons of dialectic skill." As is well known, ]\Ir. ]\Iill in his " Logic " explains how he had to his own satisfaction cast off the incubus of fatal- ism by the reflection that a man's own volitions and moral decisions are important causes in the formation of his moral character; though at the same time he still regarded these moral decisions as the inevitable consequents of the antecedent psychological states. It is not improbable that at this date Mr. Mill did not clearly perceive that his mode of escape from the depressing yoke of necessity would in no way satisfy a thinker like Dr. Martineau, to whom it appeared self-evident that there can be no real basis for moral responsibility apart from the possession by the human soul, in its moral self-determinations, of a power of free choice between equally possible alternatives. But PHILOSOPHICAL WORK whether or not Mr. Mill was at this date distinctly aware of the essential difference between his conception of moral freedom and Dr. Martineau's, it seems exceedingly likely that the reference to the influence of German metaphysics, in the concluding sentence of his letter, does not refer so much to Dr. Martineau's assertion of Free-will as to the unmistakable indications both in the Lecture and in the Syllabus that the writer is looking to another source than Sensations and the principle of Association for the genesis of the most fundamental ideas, and particularly of the all- important ideas of Causation and of Moral Obligation. This was the essential apostasy from Hartleyan principles and methods, which Mr. Mill's sharp eyes at once detected, and the great significance of which in reference to the future philosophical relations between himself and his friend he must, to some extent, have foreseen. In ascribing this change to German influence he was not altogether wrong; but in all probability the immediate stimulus in this direction came to Dr. Martineau not from Germany but from France, or, rather, from France and Scotland combined. Mr. Jackson in his vivid picture of the intellectual traits of Dr. Martineau's mind shows true insight when he says : — " In some of his mental characteristics he seems of the German type. Yet was he French in his origin ; and it may well be that the moulding of generations by which he became an Englishman left in him something of the genius of his ancestry." ^ I should be inclined to go even further, and say that in his carefulness to find a solid basis in psychological fact for all his metaphysical and ethical constructions, as well as in the artistic graces of his style, he presents more affinity with Cousin and Jouffroy than with any con- * "James Martineau, A Biography and Study," p. 130. 24 COLLEGE LECTURES temporary philosophical school of either Germany or Britain. Royer-Collard and Jouffroy had already intro- duced to French students the writings of Reid and Dugald Stewart ; and the blendinsr in these French Eclectics of sober Scotch psycholog>' with certain Kantian and Hegelian ideas was at this time exercising considerable influence over the Transcendentalists of New England. The elaborate discussion of the Idea of Cause, which was one of the chief features of his course of lectures on Mental Philosophy, shows that Dr. Martineau found support for his conclusions in Cousin's lectures on Locke, and still more in the writings of Maine de Biran. Indeed, Dr. Martineau's account of the meaning of the Causal Idea, which plays such a leading part in his arguments for Theism, and of the relation of Cause to Will, is almost identical with that of Maine de Biran; though in all probability these thinkers arrived at the same results independently of each other. In Dr. Martineau's first course of Lectures in Man- chester New College morals and religion were included under " IMental Philosophy." The subjects to which he afterwards confined the title " Mental Philosophy " were in the first course described as " Apprehensive States of Mind," and corresponded to Dr. Bain's work on " The Senses and the Intellect," while " The Affective States of Mind " embraced " The Emotions and the Will." The Philosophy of Ethics and the Philosophy of Religion, which afterwards in Dr. Martineau's hands grew into the " Types of Ethical Theory " and " A Study of Religion " appear in his first course as brief sub-divisions of this second department of Mental Philosophy. The first part of this course, that on Mental Philosophy proper, underwent great changes; and Dr. Martineau, in 1877, thus describes its successive forms: — " The disadvantages under which my first course on Mental I'hilosopliv was produced prevented me from being long sat- 25 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK isfied with it. It aimed at combining the analyses of the Eng- Hsh Empirical school with the critical idealism of Kant; but, except in particular parts, the relations between them were not properly worked out. After a few years, when my reading had been enlarged, especially by the Study of Hegel, a second course was substituted, prepared on a different plan. And subsequently this also was set aside in favour of a third course, having more the character of independent construction and less of critical commentary on doctrines." This elaborate series of lectures, which is about equal in extent to the " Types of Ethical Theory," was never quite completed. It still, as a whole, remains unprinted, though important sections of it, especially the treatment of the all-important Idea of Cause and of the Ideas of Time and Space, have been in part incorporated in " A Study of Religion " and in some of the published Articles and Essays. Combining, as it does, very careful psychological analysis w^ith a profound discussion of the metaphysical ideas and problems to which that analysis opens the way, this important work is a worthy companion to the two other great courses, which, somewhat modified and en- larged, form the " Types of Ethical Theory " and " A Study of Religion." After an explanation of the threefold division of philosophy into Logic, or Mental Philosophy, Esthetics, and Ethics, corresponding respectively to Truth, Beauty, and Goodness, the lectures are then directed upon the first of these branches of philosophy as the proper subject of the course. The method pursued is to treat in succession Sensation, Perception, Comparison, and Under- standing as embracing all the mental phsenomena with which Logical Psychology has to deal, and in connection with the analyses of these four states and activities of Mind to discuss the metaphysical ideas, such as Personal Identity, Time, Space, Cause, etc., which these psychological ex- periences suggest and involve. The sensations of Smell, Taste, and Hearing are first thoroughly analysed, and it 26 COLLEGE LECTURES is shown that as in connection with these three senses the mind is mainly passive, and the activity of the wall is not called forth, these sensations do not of themselves admit us to any knowledge of an external world or lead to any metaphysical insight. They are, therefore, from a philo- sophical point of view, of minor importance, and are hence named by Dr. Martineau the Impercipient Senses. But when we turn to the Sense of Touch (including the Muscular Sense) and to the Sense of Sight, the case is quite otherwise. These senses are connected with the muscular apparatus, and are therefore felt in association with the mind's volitional activity. Through this fact it is that they, and especially the former of them, admit us to a knowledge of the Self as contrasted with the Not- Self or external world, and thus convert subjective Sensa- tions into objective Perceptions. They are therefore fitly termed by Dr. Martineau *' the Percipient Senses " ; and so important are the metaphysical ideas and problems which arise in our consciousness through these Senses, or rather through the mind's volitional activity with which these senses are associated, that more than half of the sixty lec- tures which form this long course are occupied with a most searching and elaborate exposition and examination of the psychology of these senses and of the philosophical ideas and beliefs which they suggest. The most inlluential of these philosophical ideas is that of Cause ; and the impor- tance which Dr. Martineau attaches to this inquiry is explained and justified by the fact that on the result of it largely depends the validity of one of the two main considerations on which, as explained in " A Study of Religion," a rational theistic belief is founded. The mere feeling that attends the contraction of the muscles would not of itself, in Dr. Martineau's view, give rise to any more philosophical insight than the impercipient senses do. It is to the Sense of Effort which the mind itself experiences 2^ PHILOSOPHICAL WORK when it wills to move the muscles, and to the Feeling of Resistance when its volition is opposed that the belief in a real external world is due. This experience reveals to us at once the existence of the Self as an active principle, and of the Not-Self as a corresponding active principle resist- ing the Self; and as we are conscious of exercising Will, we necessarily assume, contends Dr. Martineau, that the principle which opposes us is also a self-conscious Will ; for this consciousness of an antithesis carries with it the belief that the two members of the antithesis are of the same kind, and as we know the one to be self-conscious Will we necessarily conclude that the other is of the same nature. Here an important controversy arises which receives a candid and full exposition in these lectures, and which is not, I believe, adequately set forth in Dr. Martineau's printed works. In maintaining that the resistance which Nature makes to our volitions is a resistance which can only proceed from a self-conscious Will, Dr. Martineau is quite at one with V. Cousin's very gifted and original teacher in philosophy, Maine de Biran. But on this par- ticular point V. Cousin dissents from his master, and, in Sir William Hamilton's opinion, is successful in refuting his master's doctrine. Cousin agrees with Dr. Martineau in referring the knowledge which we have of our own causality to the sense of Effort and the experience of Resistance, and he also agrees with him that this experience reveals to us that there must be an external cause for the felt re- sistance to our volitions ; but in Cousin's judgment we are not obliged to conclude, as Dr. Martineau maintains we are, that this cause is self-conscious Will ; and recent philosophy shows that Cousin's view has many supporters. The dif- ference between the two theories about the essential nature of Cause is not, however, fundamental in its bearing on Theism; for Cousin on teleological grounds comes to the 28 COLLEGE LECTURES same conclusion as Dr. IVIartineau does that the cosmos is clearly the expression of one intelligent and purposive Cause; and as in our case intelligence manifests itself only through volition, we naturally conclude that the idea of Will best expresses the mode of activity of the Supreme Cause. But the difference between these two great thinkers greatly affects a subordinate though important question. In Cousin's theorv' of Cause there is nothing to render it im- possible or improbable that the Supreme Cause may have called into existence created or secondary causes, such as the monads or elements of the material world, which may have a certain amount of real existence and activity of their own, though devoid of consciousness; but on Dr. Mar- tineau's theory this would be impossible, for real causation with him necessarily involves consciousness and a choice between alternatives. This subject will come up again in a later chapter in connection with the theory of God's relation to the cosmos which is expounded in " A Study of ReHgion." In Dr. Martineau's view what Science calls " Force " is a mere abstraction from the idea of self-con- scious Will ; it is Will with the elements of consciousness and purpose for the time ignored ; or, as he expresses it, is " Will minus Purpose." Along with this experience of resisted volitional effort, Dr. Martineau maintains that not only the antithesis of the Self and the Not-Self, but also the equally important antithesis of the Here and the There, t. e., the Idea of Space, arises in the mind. After a search- ing examination of the various attempts that have been made by such psychologists as James Mill and Professor Bain to discover a wholly empirical origin for this idea, Dr. Martineau finds them all unsatisfactory, and, accord- ingly, agrees with Kant, that its source must be sought in the mind itself. In regard to the Idea of Time, too. Dr. Martineau, after a critical survey of the views of the chief philosophical 29 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK authorities, arrives at the conclusion that, though some idea of finite times may be reached a posteriori, Time as a necessary and universal principle of experience must, like Space, be revealed from an a priori source. While, however, Dr. Martineau thus essentially agrees with Kant's account of the origin of these two ideas, he entirely dissents from Kant's doctrine that they may be only man's subjective way of perceiving and thinking, and have no objective validity. In his view they hold good of all reality, and of all thought. Divine as well as human. Thus Time and Space possess in his philosophy the same real character which they do in the spontaneous judgments of mankind; and his conclusions on this important question are in the main endorsed by those psychologists and philosophers who agree with Prof. G. T. Ladd, of Yale University, in his recent " Theory of Reality " that " Time and Space are forms of cognition of so fundamental a character as to lay valid claim to have their ground in the very nature of reality." In reference to the idealist view of Time and Space, Dr. Martineau, at the close of the lectures which discuss the Idea of Time, thus expresses himself : — " We solve no mystery, therefore, by plunging into the idealism, to which, as Jacobi has conclusively shown, Kant's doctrine of the pure subjectivity of space and time inevitably leads; hence, while we admit that they are objects of d priori knowledge given us through the subjective action of our own perceptive faculty, we must retain them as objects of real and not imaginary knowledge, — the infinite, uncreated, eternal data which constitute the negative conditions of all being and all phaenomena." The idea of Motion is explained in accordance with the objectivity of Space and Time, and in expounding it Dr. Martineau takes occasion to examine and reject the doc- trine, elaborately set forth and defended by Professor Trendelenburg in his " Logische Untersuchungen," that 30 COLLEGE LECTURES Motion is a feature common to both Thought and Matter, and therefore serves as the means of intelHgibly inter- relating- these two forms of reahty. *' In common," says Dr. Martineau, " with all the great metaphysicians both of Greece and Germany, Trendelenburg regards it as the great problem of all philosophy to find a com- mon medium between existence and thought whereby they may communicate with one another. It is assumed that if Matter and Mind were different throughout, they could have nothing to do with each other, but would be on opposite sides of an impassable chasm ; the fact that instead of this, they are on such terms of constant intercourse and good under- standing implies (it is supposed) tJiat there is something zvhieh )>tay be predicated of both, and out of which, as from a genetic point, they both proceed in their divergent courses of development. This common feature which Plato found in his «i8t7, Spinoza in his unity of Substance, Atomists and the Materialists generally in Matter, Hegel in the Idee, Trendelen- burg finds in Motion." Dr. Martineau argues at some length against Trendelen- burg's theory, but his chief objection to it is that " suc- cessive acts of mental attention arc not motion, not even when they follow out some fancied movement. As well might we identify any other percipient act with the attribute perceived, and say, for example, that our idea of red is red, our idea of hot, hot, and of solid, solid." The considerations urged in these lectures against Tren- delenburg's characteristic doctrine are given in a briefer form in the article on Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy,^ in wliich article Dr. Martineau vigorously endorses Sir W. Hamilton's condemnation of the dogma, so generally accepted by metaphysicians, that " like only can know like " ; and this position is consistently maintained through- out his philosophical writings. The two lectures which discuss this Idea of Motion give also a most interesting * " Essays, Reviews, and Addresses," Vol. III. p. 457. 31 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK account of the puzzles or sophisms such as that of " Achilles and the Tortoise," whereby the Greek thinkers of the Eieatic school sought to prove that motion is intrinsically inconceivable and impossible. After criticising the many " solutions " of these sophisms that have been proposed by able thinkers, Dr. Martineau contends that the plausi- bility of Zeno's attempted refutation of the reality of motion is founded on " the artifice of using the infinite divisibility of one of the two quantities (Space and Time) and ignoring it of the other." One other extensive and valuable section of this course on Mental Philosophy calls for mention, viz., that in which, in connection with the percipient sense of Sight, the various views concerning the primitive and the acquired visual perceptions, which from the time of Plato and Aristotle to the present day have been favourite topics for controversy, are fully expounded and criticised. The objections urged by recent savants and philosophers against Berkeley's Theory of Vision, especially those presented by Mr. Samuel Bailey, of Sheffield, are elaborately discussed, but they do not, in Dr. Martineau's view, substantially impair the soundness of the Bishop's judgment, for the results of the ten lectures on Sight are thus summed up : — " On the whole, then, we conclude that modern criticism has done but little to shake the principles of Berkeley's theory. The chief correction which it needs — namely, a doctrine of objectivity, which shall separate Sensation from Perception — is equally wanting to his opponents. And if he was mistaken in some of his predictions as to the probable experience of a person born blind and suddenly endowed with vision, this is to be ascribed rather to the fact that such cases very imper- fectly fulfil the conditions of the theory than to any essential misconception in that theory itself." Throughout this course Dr. Martineau expressed his firm belief that no physiological researches into brain and 32 COLLEGE LECTURES brain functions were likely to throw any important light on philosophical questions/ His views on this subject are briefly given in the following letter to his pupil and friend Mr. Richard H. Hutton. The manuscript referred to is that of an article which appeared in the '' National Review " for January, 1856, under the title " Atheism." and which, as is evident from this letter, was written by Dr. J. D. Morell. This article reviewed, among other books. Mr. Herbert Spencer's " Principles of Psycholog}'-," which had just been published. Liverpool, Nov. 4, 1S55. My dear Richard, — I have read too little of Herbert Spencer to do more with this manuscript than reduce it to mere exposition, with only such terms of praise as may leave the way open to any required amount of dissent. Spencer is so able a man that we may safely leave on the paper free acknowledgments of skill and acuteness. Morell is here and was talking with me on Thursday about the book. I cannot help feeling a good deal of distrust of Morell's judgment on these matters ; he is so obviously taken captive by Spencer, and so ill able to resist the Positivist doctrine of which he admits the book is a development. I am much more disturbed by Morell's summary of results at the end of his paper than by anything in his notice of Herbert Spencer. With all pos- sible good-will towards physiology, and desire that the par- allelism of phccnomcna — physical and mental — should be carefully noticed, I have no expectation of psychological re- sults from merging mental philosophy in the study of organic functions. It therefore appears to me that the whole series of Morell's principles is false, and puts the science on a rotten base. Nor can I find that any results whatever have been at- tained by the physiological school entitling them to turn round so contemptuously on the old psychologists. Whatever be- comes of comparative physiologv' in its future triumphs, it will never destroy the fundamental importance of the ancient " Self-knowledge." But Morell sets the two in rivalry and 1 Professor PrinKlc-Pattison has recently expressed a similar opinion with regard to the psychophysical researches now so much in voruc. " We need not," he savs, "look for light from this quarter upon the problems of philos- ophy and the deeper mysteries of bcinf,'."— " Man's I'lace in the Cosmos," p. 51. 33 C PHILOSOPHICAL WORK gives the palm to the former. Is it right that we should be committed to this in the " National"? Ever affectionately yours, James Martineau. R. H. HUTTON, Esq. I have given a somewhat extended analysis of this im- portant course on Mental Philosophy, partly because it is the only one of the three chief series of College lectures, which is not at present accessible in print, and partly because some general acquaintance with his views on the subjects discussed in it will, I believe, be helpful towards the fuller understanding of the descriptions to be given later on in this book of his published works on the Philosophy of Ethics and of Religion. It may become a question for consideration in the future whether it is desirable to pub- lish in its entirety, or in part, this long and interesting, though unfortunately not wholly completed, course, so that the intellectual as well as the ethical and religious sides of the author's thinking may be studied in close connection with each other. At all events, the publication of certain portions of these lectures, and particularly of the very elaborate critical examination of the origin and meaning of the Ideas of Power and Cause, — a subject which Dr. Martineau had made peculiarly his own, — would, I be- lieve, have interest for present thought, and prove a season- able corrective to much current speculation on this most important question. Before passing on to give a brief account of the way in which the two other great courses of lectures gradually shaped themselves, it is necessary to explain that with the affiliation of Manchester New College with the University of London, which took place at the time when Dr. Mar- tineau was appointed to the philosophical chair, it became necessary to provide, in addition to the above-mentioned 34 COLLEGE LECTURES advanced lectures to the senior students, elementary courses on Mental and Moral Philosophy to meet the needs of the junior students in their preparation for graduation in London. Hence from 1840 to 1875 Dr. Martineau gave also two series of simpler lectures, which gradually in- creased in size and importance, one of which treated of Logical Psychology and also of Deductive and Inductive Logic, while the other gave a description and criticism of the chief ethical theories which had influenced British thought from Hobbes to the present time. In reference to the first of these courses, he writes in his Biographical Memoranda : — " Logic I have always taught from text-books, interrupted by special excursus on topics of difficulty, and have resorted to a variety of guides, — W'hately, Thomson, Hamilton, Tren- delenburg, j\Iill, Mansel, Bain, — deeming it important that the student, by familiarity with several nomenclatures, should leam to break-up and re-form his thought, so as not to become the slave of any one set of abstractions. With considerable surprise I have found that, as a discipline in precision and flexibilitv, no study is more serviceable than that of Aristotle himself." In accordance with this high estimate of the value of direct contact with Aristotle's thought, he was accustomed at one period to get the undergraduates to translate to him from the original Greek the admirable selection of passages from Aristotle's logical treatises contained in Trendelen- burg's " Elementa Logices Aristotele?e Adnotata." The course of lectures on Ethics, which was ultimately published under the title " Types of Ethical Theory," will form the subject of a later chapter. As given to the stu- dents, it was divided into two courses: the first, under the title "Ethical Theories," corresponded to Vol. I., and treated of the unpsychological ethical theories of Plato, Spinoza, and Comte; while the second course, entitled "Psycho- logical Ethics, a Sequel to Ethical Theories," was largely 35 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK identical with the present Vol. II. The growth of this course is thus explained by Dr. Martineau in 1877; — " In Moral Philosophy I began with simply annotating Butler and Paley, — the text-books prescribed by the Univer- sity of London. Lecturing afterwards to a class of graduates, I quitted this narrow ground and wrote a more advanced course, blending historical with systematic method. Becom- ing dissatisfied with mere revision and enlargement of these lectures, and fancying that I saw further into my subject, I began again, and cast it into a form which excluded from use all the former material." At this date Dr. Martineau thought that " his life was too far advanced to allow reasonable hope of completing this final course on Ethics." Happily more of life and of mental energy was in store for him than he had reckoned on, for he lived to make considerable additions to these lectures, especially the long and important section on " He- donism with Evolution " (called forth by the writings of Darwin, Spencer, and their followers) ; and at the time when he retired from his professorship, in 1885, he had given to the course that finished form which it now presents in the " Types of Ethical Theory." With respect to the Lectures on the Philosophy of Re- ligion, it must be remembered that it was not till Dr. Mar- tineau's removal from Liverpool to London, in 1857, that he was appointed expressly Professor of " Religious " as well as of Mental and Moral Philosophy. Up to this date the philosophy of religion had been attached as a sub-section first to the course on Mental Philosophy, which, as we see from the published Syllabus for 1840, included then both Ethics and Religion, and afterwards to the course on Moral Philosophy. This distinct specification of " re- ligion " as a subject for philosophical treatment is very significant; for it indicates that by 1857 the distinction between " natural " and " revealed " religion was in the 36 COLLEGE LECTURES view of the majority of the supporters of Manchester New College losing" the meaning which it had in the writings of Priestley, Belsham, and their disciples, and was acquir- ing the meaning which it now bears in Dr. Alartineau's " Seat of Authority in Religion " ; that is to say, the word " revelation " was beginning to signify not some partic- ular historical disclosure authenticated by miracles, but that progressive self-revelation which God makes of his existence and of his character in the divinest experiences of the human soul. In the Biographical Alemoranda Dr. ^lartineau thus explains the development of his treatment of the Philosophy of Religion : — " The several courses on Logical Psychology, Logic, and Ethics prepared the way for an investigation of the philo- sophical grounds and problems of Religion. At first it seemed sufficient to annex this investigation to the Theory of Ethics, and treat the spiritual relations of man as essentially the moral in their transcendent form. But with the rise of new concep- tions of Force, and the growth of Agnostic doctrines, and the extension of Law to the Evolution of Species, a revision be- came necessary of the older representation of Divine Agency, and a reconsideration of the Ultimate Principles of Human Knowledge. To provide adequately for the critical discussion of this new or rather revived class of subjects, I discarded the compendious course which had met the wants of earlier years, and replaced it by a fresh and substantive treatment of the whole theme of Religion, in its pJiysical and metaphysical, as well as its ethical aspects. This task still occupies me." The lectures here referred to were given to the students under the title " Grounds and Truths of Religion " ; and in a revised and somewhat enlarged form they now con- stitute the published " Study of Religion." The view which Dr. Martineau took of the relation between the three important courses of lectures which have now been described is thus explained by himself in a para- graph of a long letter written, at the time of the rearrange- 37 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK ment of the college work in 1857, to his friend Mr. J. J. Tayler, who was then the Principal of the College : — " I believe that there will be perfect accord between your teachings and my own at every important point which brings them into contact and comparison. Imperfectly as I have worked out the conception, I always hope to form at last a symmetrical whole of the three courses, — Intellectual, Moral and Religious Philosophy ; the two first as bases sustaining in common the last as the summit of our spiritual life. Faith in the Infinite God seems to have a twofold root; viz., in the Axioms, or first truths, of Reason, and, distinctively, in the necessary idea of Causation, which supplies the Dynamical element of Theism ; and in the Intuitions of Conscience, which constrain us to know that our moral life is a Trust, susceptible of sympathy with the Divine life or of alienation from it. This supplies the faith in a Holy as well as a Causal God. Intel- lectual philosophy terminates in the disengagement, from all derivative truths and logical processes, of the primitive data of Reason. Moral philosophy lays bare, in like manner, the foundations of ethical belief. The one brings out the cate- gories for the interpretation of Nature; the other, for Self- interpretation; and these two unite and culminate in the apprehension of God. Thus the courses of Lectures on Mental and Ethical science are so framed (as far as they go) as to converge upon the course on Natural Religion, and to furnish its first principles. The constructive part of this course, in which the simple faith in one God, Infinite, Creative, Holy, — in a Providential Moral Order of the world, and in Human Immortality, — are evolved and justified, is already in exist- ence ; but it will need a good deal of fiUing-in, and must espe- cially be enlarged by a critical survey of the several methods of reasoning by which eminent writers of different schools have sousfht the same truths." *&' Before concluding the account of Dr. Martineau's College Lectures some reference is called for to a course on Political Economy. His first appointment on the Staff of Man- chester New College in 1840 was as " Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy and Political Economy." Consider- ing that this course was a subsidiary one, and that therefore 38 COLLEGE LECTURES the preparation for it can have occupied no very great pro- portion of the writer's time, it is remarkable what thorough acquaintance it displays with the hterature of PoHtical Economy up to that time. This course was given in a more popular form in Cross Street Chapel, IManchester, to persons who were unable to attend the College classes. ;Mr. W'aJter Ashton, who was one of those who took ad- vantage of these lectures, has kindly lent me his care- fully written report of them. After an Introduction containing a Definition of the Science, and an admirable sketch of its history. Dr. jMartineau divides his subject under the three heads of Production, Exchange, and Par- tition. Under the first of these divisions the questions concerning Labour and Capital are discussed, under the second the different views of the real character of Value; while under Partition, or Distribution, Wages, Profit, Rent, and the Public Revenue, are successively inves- tigated. In the earlier lectures Adam Smith's " \\'ealth of Nations " is expounded and, in the main, accepted, though its weak points are indicated with great acuteness. In the second and third divisions Ricardo's " Principles of Political Economy" — at that time the standard work on the subject — is taken as the basis, and his theories of "Value" and of "Rent" are lucidly explained, and to some extent criticised. On the now important question as to the ownership of the Land, Dr. Martineau does not say much, but he briefly points out some of the consequences which result from the existing arrangement, and adds that " there is nothing in the present system of society which has excited, and still excites, so strong a prejudice amongst cer- tain classes as the monopoly of land. There is even an asso- ciation now, in England, for the avowed purpose of gradually working out the surrender of all lands to the state." ^ * It must be remembered that this report of the Lectures does not profess to be vcrli.itim. 39 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK It appears both from these Lectures and from his letters to his friend Prof. F. W. Newman, that Dr. Martineau, while decidedly opposed to all socialistic theories, was yet far from being in sympathy with the extreme laissez-faire school. On the publication of Professor Newman's inter- esting " Lectures on Political Economy," delivered at the Ladies' College in Bedford Square, that book was very ably reviewed by Mr. R. H. Hutton in an article on " Moral Limits to Economic Theory and Socialist Counter-theory " in the "Prospective" for August, 185 1. In this review Mr. Hutton contends that " there are various cases in which both individuals and governments are bound to interfere to modify the unrestricted action of the competitive prin- ciple," and he thinks that there are passages in Professor Newman's lectures which appear to condemn all such inter- ference by the state. Professor Newman attributed the article to Dr. Martineau, and, accordingly, wrote to him to explain that in this respect it had somewhat misrepre- sented his real views. It seems worth while to give Dr. Martineau's reply to Professor Newman's letter, as it indicates clearly his attitude at that date towards the Chris- tian Socialists on the one hand and the ultra-individualists on the other. The letter is dated Sept. 29, 185 1. My dear Newman, — Even before I thank you for your gratifying mistake in reference to the " Prospective " article and your acute criticism upon it, let me introduce to your friendly regard a lady with whom your severer studies have not, I dare say, prevented your forming already a delightful acquaintance. I shall put this letter in the hands of Miss Frederika Bremer, now on her return to Sweden after two years' absence in America. If you find half the interest and pleasure in her society and conversation which we have felt, you will thank me for enriching you with a new friend. But my particular object in making her known to you is to prevent her carrying home without correction the impressions in fa- vour of socialistic doctrine which she has received from the writings of Mr. Kingsley, and, ere she sees you, will probably 40 COLLEGE LECTURES have had confirmed by personal intercourse. I promised to open her way to acquaintance with him on condition that she would balance his influence by seeking also yours. " Alton Locke "' has laid powerful hold on her imagination and feel- ings, and has given greater tenacity to impressions already imparted by certain phalansteries which she visited in the United States. I am afraid of her pen becoming committed to the delusive schemes of these people ; and I trust mainly to you to divert her humane sympathies into a better direction. You are so much at home in these subjects, and have such a happy art of illustrating them by concrete instances, fixing a truth or an argument on the memory and fancy, that no one is so likely to afford her true guidance. I could not say this if there was any great difference between us on the topics discussed in your very interesting Lectures. In fact neither in them nor in Mr. Hutton's Review do I find much to dissent from. On matters purely economical the vari- ance seems to me inconsiderable ; but I certainly do agree with him in setting up, at particular points, a moral resistance to the full swing of economical laws. I think it should be held infamous to offer wages touching upon the physical minimum, and to live on the profits of capital productive only on this condition. I should despise myself were I to do so ; and I cannot but sympathise fully WMth the vehement abhorrence felt towards slop-shops. The inability to support a trading con- cern except on condition of so low a rate of zvagcs ought, I think, to operate as no less a suflficient reason for abandoning it than the yield by it of a low rate of profits. It may be very true that the labour in these cases is of little worth and the labourer of low character ; and what you say of the moral causes of misery among the working classes is most painfully indisputable. But for the exhibition and cure of this very evil, and the introduction of a better moral organisation, it seems to me important to create a sharp line of demarcation separating the respectable self-subsisting workman from the idle profligate ; and a rule which should fling these last at once into the mass of pauperism and corruption that cannot be left to itself would be a great gain. In a condition like ours, of crowded civilisa- tion, there will always be a helpless mass of this kind that must be dealt with by the public will. Were it sufficiently disengaged before the view, socialist speculators would limit themselves to schemes for a remedial organisation addressed to it alone. But so long as it is spread as a morbific element through the whole body of workers, thev will embrace in their 41 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK projects the entire system of society, and in exposing the rotten will attack the sound. All this, I am conscious, is very vague. But the unchecked operation of economical laws, in the ab- sence of any religion to guide, console, and ennoble, crushes the mediocre and weak, without reducing their relative num- bers. It is useless to reproach them with their follies and in- capacities. They will never themselves create the means of amendment or learn what, to others, would be the lessons of experience. They must be cared for; and whatever be the methods adopted, the outlay for their maintenance will be (as the poor-law already is) a concession on the part of Political Economy to the principle of Socialism. Again, in another letter to Professor Newman in the same year, Dr. Martineau says that he is looking forward to his friend's " Lectures on Political Economy " for help towards the better understanding of the principles of Christian Socialism, and then continues : — " The great danger of our present tendencies appears to be, lest, in quest of other and more convenient classifications, the family group should be destroyed as the unit of Society ; and not the family only, but all those mixed assortments of human beings that are the true nurseries of excellence. ... I do not like any direction of effort, which widens the interval between different classes, ranks, and ages, or which despairs of the old- fashioned feeling of Parental responsibility. I am not blind to the im.mense difficulty of attacking the evils of our large towns by a method of moral detail, rather than by the accumulated power of a mechanical organisation. But still the principle seems to me sound ; and the reform which should set all things right zvith one person would surely be better than a reform which should set one thing right with a hundred persons." The following very suggestive letter on the best method of giving practical effect to the sentiment of Benevolence was written in 1848 to the Rev. T. Elford Poynting,^ father of the Rev. Charles T. Poynting, of Manchester, and of Prof. J. H. Poynting, D.Sc, D. Litt., F.R.S., of the University of Birmingham. 1 Author of "The Temple of Education " and "Glimpses of the Heaven that lies around us." 42 COLLEGE LECTURES Liverpool, Jan. 24, 1848. My dear Mr. Poynting, — ... You start a great ques- tion, which I feel myself quite unable to solve. I admire your systematic way of advancing your lines of conquest over one province after another of the great field of Morals ; and leav- ing your garrisons in secure occupation behind you, while you push on to new victories. I often wish for the power of work- ing out regularly such large operations. But I always find that moral truths present themselves to me in detail ; and the only use I can make of my reason is to unite the points after- wards into a series of connected posts. Hence the largeness of your thesis terrifies me. If you asked me whether Monton Parsonage is too capacious and comfortable for you, with so many poor cottages and union workhouses around you. I should say without hesitation, " Not a bit ; build a new room as soon as you want it and can pay for it ; get a Turkey carpet for the old one ; and make your nest so snug that human life may go on within it without clashing against externals, or thinking of its own machinery." So far as the money ques- tion goes, I hold in the main by the doctrine of the Economists, — that the least beneficent thing a man can do with his funds is to give them; and that every fraction of his income diverted from expenditure into charity is turned to inferior social ac- count ; for it is plainly better that the recipient should give labour for what he gets, than give nothing. If I give away this year, by badly clothing myself and family, £20. usually spent in cloth and cotton, I simply transfer the purchasing power from the person who has earned it to those who have not. They will use it probably for different purposes ; and demand will be slackened for my articles, increased for theirs. This disturbance of the usual balance of employments is in itself a great evil, introducing far more distress in the dis- couraged trades than advantage to the rest. If instead of supposing it a temporary disturbance we introduce it as a regular principle of life, the efl!"cct evidently is, to dispense with objects less necessary and multiply those more necessary; to concentrate the energies of society on the production of mere aliment and coarse clothing. But where is this to stop? The rule by which I am determined to give is, that my neigh- bours want more urgently than I do ; they want fustian, which can be got if I will only relinquish my cloth, etc. But this argument will always remain, so long as any difference re- mains between their lot anr 1841, a certain ciiange of attitude towards Cousin's philosophy becomes evident ; and this change is of such an important character that a correct appre- 49 i> PHILOSOPHICAL WORK hension of it is quite indispensable to a sound interpreta- tion and appreciation both of Dr. Martineau's sermons and of his later philosophy. I may be excused, therefore, for dwelling at some length upon it. In the paper in the " Christian Teacher," p, 452, Dr. Martineau says : — " The relation which thus subsists between the human con- science and the Divine excellence leads us to avow a faith in the strictly divine and inspired character of our own highest desires and best affections. We are conscious of them, and so they cannot but be part of our personality," To this passage the following important Note is ap- pended : — " Perhaps we should rather say * they cannot be alien to our nature.' The word ' personality ' is used by philosophical writers to denote that which is peculiar, as well as essential, to our individual self. In this strict sense, the moral and spiritual affections are impersonal, according to the doctrine of the context which treats them as constituting a participa- tion in the Divine nature. The metaphysical reader will per- ceive here a resemblance to the theory of Victor Cousin, who maintains that the will of the human being is the specific faculty in which alone consists his * personality ' ; and that the intuitive reason by which we have knowledge of the un- limited and Absolute Cause, as well as of ourselves and the universe as related effects, is independent and impersonal, — a faculty not peculiar to the subject, but ' from the bosom of consciousness extending to the Infinite, and reaching to the Being of beings.' ... At the opposite pole to this doctrine, which makes the perceptions of ' Reason ' a part of the ac- tivity of God, lies the system of Kant and Fichte, which rep- resents God as an ideal formation — it may be, therefore, a fiction — from the activity of the ' Reason.' The doctrine maintained by me in the text, though resembling that of Kant in one or two of its phrases, far more nearly approaches Cousin in its spirit." I shall endeavour to show in the last chapter of this book that the doctrine of this Note, viz., that man in his rational, ethical, aesthetic, and spiritual experience directly 50 EARLY REVIEWS " participates in the Divine nature," and therefore imme- diately apprehends the Divine Presence, inspires all Dr. Jilartineau's grandest and truest utterances, though it finds but little distinct expression in his formulated philosophy. It appears probable that in the interval between 1840 and 1846 Dr. Martincau had become alarmed by a per- ception of the danger to which the doctrine set forth in the above Note is exposed; the danger, that is, of easily gliding into Pantheism, and that he had seen this unde- sirable transfonnation realised in the case of some of the more extreme members of the New England Transcen- dental School. But be this as it may, it is not possible to read his later references to Cousin without feeling that Dr. Martineau was no longer inclined to accept Cousin's doc- trine that man has a direct knowledge of God in His abso- lute reality. In a passage quoted by Dr. Martineau from the " 5<= Legon " of the " Histoire de la Philosophie," M. Cousin first explains, in agreement with Dr. Martineau, that the discovery by man that he is limited by the resist- ance of external objects first reveals man to himself; but the Self which is thus discovered is a fijiitc self; its very existence springs out of its limitations and finiteness; and the external objects that resist the action of the Self are also discerned as fiuite. " It is, then," he continues, " through this mutual opposi- tion that wc apprehend ourselves; this opposition is perma- nent in the consciousness, and extends throughout it. But this opposition, observe, gentlemen, resolves itself into one single idea, — that of the finite. This iiic that wc arc is finite; the not-mc which limits it is itself finite, and limited by the tnc; they are both so, but in different degrees; we are then still in the finite. Is there not something else in conscious- ness f Yes, gentlemen ; while consciousness seizes upon the me as finite, in opjiosition to the not-mc as finite, it refers this finite, Ixjundcd, relative, contingent me and not-me to a su- perior, absolute, necessary unity, which contains and explains them, and which possesses all the characteristics opposed to 51 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK those which the me finds in itself and in the correlative not- me. This unity is absolute, as the me and not-me are relative. This unity is an ultimate substance, while the me and not-me are dependent substances. Moreover, this superior unity is not only a substance, it is cause also. In fact the me detects itself only in its acts, as a cause acting upon the external world; and the external world awakens the knowledge of the me by the impressions which it makes upon it. This finite cause is the world, and as it is a finite cause, and the me also is a finite cause, the unity, — the substance which contains the me and the not-me, — being a cause, must consequently be in its nature an Infinite Cause." In 1 841 Dr. Martineau would, I believe, in the main, have agreed with this answer which Cousin gives to the question, " Is there not something else in consciousness than these experiences which, after all, do not carry us beyond the finite and the dependent ? " He would probably have said, Yes, there is also in our consciousness the Eter- nal Reason, that immanent Divine Presence, in which all human beings participate, and in virtue of that partici- pation have positive ideas of the Infinite, the Eternal, the Absolute, and can experience that spiritual faith, aspiration, and affection which springs out of the progressive self- revelation of God in the consciousness. In 1846, however, he shrinks from this mode of exposition, and replies to Cousin as follows : — " The reverence in which we hold the meditations of deep thinkers so fills us with self-distrust that we often shrink from expressing a dissent more probably due to our ignorance than to their mistake. But we must confess it to be strange news to us, that beyond the range of the me and the not-me there is a third somewhat, under the designation of the Absolute, or the Absolute Cause. We had always supposed that the sphere of a conception and that of its contradictory were all-compre- hending; and that any object of thought absent from the one must be found in the other. Of anything, be it real or ideal, which is excluded both from the mind and from all else than the mind, we can form not the faintest notion ; and whoever makes assertions about it talks to us in an unknown tongue. 52 EARLY REVIEWS We know well indeed the purpose which this metaphysical invention is intended to serve ; that it is an attempt to rescue the mind from its relative position ; to carry its knowledge beyond phenomena, and give it insight into tilings per sc; to bridge over the supposed chasm between psychology and on- tology. W'e know also the result in which it inevitably ter- minates ; that this third tenn. once admitted successively, swallows up the other two, which, so long as they remain, dispute all its claims, and leaves it no alternative but to anni- hilate them or go out itself ; and that so it comes to reign alone, and establish the triumph of Pantheism." I can, with far more justice than Dr. Martineau, repeat the words with which he begins this criticism, for I feel much hesitation in expressing an opinion as to which of these eminent thinkers has here the most truth on his side. But my impression is that Dr. Martineau does not do full justice to Cousin when he alleges against him the logical principle that the mc and the not-mc together must include the universe of reality. Cousin understands by the 7nc and the not-mc simply the two divisions of finite and dependent existences, man and nature, and his contention is that there are in the human mind ideas of infinitv, of absolute causal- ity, of self-existence, which could not arise unless there were more in our consciousness than can be explained by our sensations and the experience of resistance to our volitional efforts. Now Dr. Martineau himself, in this article, also maintains that there is something else, viz., the idea of Infinity. We have, he says, a necessary idea of Infinite Space, and " the synthesis in the Not-Self, of the ideas of Space and Will, gives the idea of the Infinity of God." It was in this way that he reached the idea of God as " an Infinite Mind " ; but he never appears to have fully realised the difficulty that the " mind " or " will " which he thus supposes to give, by synthesis with the idea of Infinite Space, the idea of God, is the human mind or will, and that will we do not feel to be sclf-cxistcnt. No synthesis, 53 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK therefore, of such a will with Infinity could, it seems to me, give an adequate idea of the Absolute or Self-existent God. But according to Dr. Martineau's other view, as ex- pressed in the Note given above, we gain the idea of God's Infinitude directly from the fact that we, in a certain true sense, " participate in the Divine nature " ; and having thus reached the idea of the Infinite by God's self-revela- tion in our inner life, we may apply that idea to Space. While the former conception of God appears to be the dominant one in his intellectual and formal philosophy, the latter, I believe, underlies his profoundest ethical and reli- gious teaching; and, as I shall afterwards endeavour to show, is the conception which forms the central principle of his philosophy of religion. If it be true, then, as I venture to think it is, that this direct apprehension of God as Infinite and Self-existent is implied throughout Dr. Martineau's philosophy, there would appear to be a very close affinity between Victor Cousin's knowledge of the Absolute and Dr. Martineau's immediate vision of the immanent God. What has now been said renders it unnecessary to dwell at any length on the two reviews of Theodore Parker's " Discourse on Religion," which appeared, the one in the " Prospective Review " for February, 1846, and the other under the title " Strauss and Parker " in the " Westmin- ster " for April, 1847. That same vivid consciousness of the immanence of God in the soul which inspired Cousin's " Lectures " asserted itself also with exuberant vivacity and force in Theodore Parker's noble soul ; and, as was the case at times with Paul, and many of the great mystics, it sometimes so engrossed his interest that the fact that the human Will is made partially independent of God, and, therefore, morally responsible and capable of sinning, is, occasionally, apparently forgotten or ignored. Theodore Parker protests, and rightly, against extreme anthropo- 54 EARLY REVIEWS morphic conceptions of God; but whether the expression " Will," derived from our own experience, adequately de- scribes the activity of God in nature and in the human mind (as Dr. iMartineau in this and other writings eloquently and forcibly contends it does), or whether, as applied to the Eternal, the word " Will " must be interpreted as symbol- ical of a reality beyond our power of complete comprehen- sion, Theodore Parker appears to agree with Dr. Martineau that our moral consciousness clearly testifies to the fact that human wills can and do at times resist the legitimate authority of the Moral Ideal. Nevertheless, in his eager- ness to repudiate the popular theological error that God's presence and activity is manifested, not in the ordinary phrenomena of nature and human life, but only in excep- tional and so-called miraculous events, Parker at times appears to carry the agency of the " Being infinite in Power, Wisdom, and Goodness," upon whom we feel our- selves to be " dependent," not only through the whole of the physical, but also through the psychical world, and in so doing to undermine the foundations of that very inter- personal relation between God and his rational creatures, the production of which both Dr. IMartineau and Prof. John Fiske regard as the supreme purpose for the gradual realisation of which the vast eras of physical and psychical evolution were called into existence. As Dr. Martineau eloquently expresses it : — " Shocked at the banishment of God, as a living Agent, from the actual scenes and recent ages of the world, he has recalled the Almighty Presence with such power as to make an absence of all else ; and when we look for the objects that should be his correlatives, the beings that should receive His regards, the theatre that was waiting for His energy, they are gone. Perhaps we shall be asked. ' What then ? Can there be in human faith an excess of Deity?' Is there any- thing you would care to save * from the general merging of all inferior causes'? Yes, we reply there is one thing that must not be overwhelmed, even by an invasion of the Infinite 55 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK Glory. Let all besides perish if you will ; but when you open the windows of heaven upon this godless earth, and bring back the sacred flood to swallow up each brute rebellious power, let there be an ark of safety built (it is Heaven's own warning word) to preserve the Human Will from annihila- tion ; for if this sink too, the divine irruption designed to purity does but turn creation into a vast Dead Sea occupied by God. Theodore Parker has failed to perceive this." The criticism passed in this review on Theodore Parker's account of Inspiration is highly suggestive, and should be read in connection with Dr. Martineau's more matured views, on this question, which are given in the " Seat of Authority " in the chapter on " ' Natural ' and ' Revealed Religion.' " In the later work it is shown that in a certain sense of the word " Revelation," Theodore Parker's declar- ation that the " Principia " of Newton was the work of an inspired man, is justifiable. For Dr. Martineau there con- tends that both Revelation and Intuition imply communion between the Divine mind and the human; but he adds the important qualification that it is only those intuitions which throw light upon our spiritual relations as personal beings that constitute the object matter of religions know- ledge, and that beyond this sphere " it is not usual to carry the word * Revelation.' Else, these primary cognitions " of Space and Time, Substance and Causality, " simply as data at first hand, might well be called intellectual revela- tions ; and as not found among phsenomena of nature, but standing as prior conditions of them all, might even aspire to the epithet supernatural." Hence it appears that there is no serious difference between Theodore Parker and his critic on this basal question. The testimony which these two articles bear to the heroic love of truth and of humanity which characterised Parker is confirmed by the words in which Dr. Martineau describes the impression made upon him by Parker's visit to him in Liverpool in 1844: — 56 EARLY REVIEWS " When he had gone, I had the delightful consciousness of a new and rare friendship with a man of truly noble and lofty nature. I remember my comparing my fresh personal im- pression of him with the previous literary one, and coming to the conclusion that his stature was higher as a practical re- former than as great thinker. The particular conversations which led me to this estimate I cannot recall. But I gained from him rather less than I had expected on speculative mat- ters, and vastly more in relation to social and moral questions." In juxtaposition with this high estimate of one of America's noblest sons, it is fitting to place Dr. Mar- tineau's impression concerning Parker's contemporary and fellow-countryman, — the great and unique Emerson. It is to be regretted that our sources of information arc con- fined to three letters from Dr. Alartineau's pen, two of which will now be given; while the third, that written to the Rev. E. I. Fripp, will be found in the next chapter. All these letters belong to a much later time in Dr. Martineau's life than that described in the present chapter; but they refer to impressions formed at this period. The following passage from Mr. O. B. Frothingham's "Transcendentalism in New England " will partially explain why it was that, notwith- standing Dr. Martineau's warm admiration and love for this supremely gifted seer, Emerson's constructive writings necessarily failed to give complete satisfaction to a thinker who was aiming to reach a self-consistent Weltanschau- ung which should harmonise the rational beliefs of the questioning intellect with the deliverances of the conscience and the heart. " Emerson," says Mr. Frothingham, " neither dogmatises nor defines. On the contrary, his chief anxiety seems to be to avoid committing himself to opinions. He gives no de- scription of God that will class him as thcist or pantheist ; no definition of immortality that justifies his readers in imputing to him any form of the popular belief in regard to it. Does he believe in personal immortality ? It is impertinent to ask. He will not be questioned; not because he doubts, but bc- 57 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK cause his beliefs are so rich, various, and many-sided that he is unwilHng, by laying emphasis on any one, to do apparent injustice to others. He will be held to no definitions ; he will be reduced to no final statements." On this I would remark that Emerson, in regard to this question of personal immortality, does appear to doubt and to waver in his judgment, and the words in his grand " Threnody " — " What is excellent, As God lives, is pennanent, Hearts are dust, hearts' loves remain, Heart's love will meet thee again " — clearly indicate that there were times in his spiritual experi- ence when his belief in personal immortality was as firm and positive as Dr. Martineau's. The first and most important letter is dated Dec. 31, 1882, and is written to Emerson's personal friend Mr. Alexander Ireland, of Manchester. My dear Sir, — I cannot more pleasantly close the year than by discharging one of its last claims upon my gratitude, due to you for your very interesting sketch of Emerson's life. I found a great charm in it when it appeared mainly as a series of reminiscences of his English visits, and the charm is doubled in the volume recently published. Though I could never find in Emerson's effusions as a Votes so rich a vein of thought or so awakening a power as his most devoted readers were able to recognise, yet in his own personality he appeared to me almost all that is noble, lovely, and venerable ; and in his critical and ethical writings, where he commented on the given matter of life, manners, and character, to rise to the very perfection of moral judgment, pure and keen without a trace of Cynicism, and with a selecting enthusiasm for all beauty and good, calm and passionless because full of faith in them as the permanency of the world. I first heard of him in 1830, from Henry Ware and his wife, who visited me in my early married life in Dublin ; and I have a faint impression that even then he was spoken of by the elder minister with a shade of reserve, as if the want of congeniality between the evangelical pastor and the indepen- 58 EARLY REVIEWS dent thinker was already inwardly felt. Three years after- wards, in 1833, he sought me out in Liverpool, introduced by Henry Ware, and told me the story of his scruple about the Communion. He was then in a very indeterminate state of mind about questions on religion, and I was struck with the mixture of clear decision on the subject which had led to action, and of modest suspense on topics which he had not fully thought out. But I made up my mind that he would not be likely to return to the ministry. If, as would appear from your volume, he was a good Greek scholar and a stu- dent of Plato's dialogues, I suppose he must have sometimes underrated his own attainments. For I well remember ad- dressing some question to him after his first lecture on '' Representative Men," in 1847, about one of his citations, or statements of opinion, and his reply that, life being too short to allow of seeking knowledge at the fountain-head, he was thankful for such an interpreter of Plato as Victor Cousin on whom he had depended. It was that second visit that left upon me an indelible impression of the depth and greatness of his nature. It is curious that no one of the photographs seems to me to reproduce the characteristic expression of his face. My memory demands something between the first and second, with supplementary touches which arc not in either. With hearty thanks and best wishes, I remain, yours faithfully, James Martineau. Alexander Ireland, Esq. The second letter referring to Emerson, is dated Jan. 6, 1890, and is addressed to another of Emerson's personal friends, — Mr. R. C. Hall, of Liverpool. My dear Mr. Hall, — As the New Year refuses to loiter on its way to suit an old man's tardy pace, I am sadly belated with my offering of thanks for your kind and faithful remem- brance of us in the distribution of your annual benedictions. ... I have great sympathy with Emerson's confession that he is, and can never cease to be, haunted by " the letter he is intending to write," but which still remains unwritten. The life of him, by Cabot, in which this occurs, is interesting me greatly, and fixing my impression of him more distinctly than either my memory or my reading had defined for me before. A most winning and delightful personality on the side of the 59 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK affections and conscience, he somewhat disappoints me intel- lectually. With deep and lovely flashes of insight, character- istic of real genius, I find mixed many dicta which, though striking in their epigrammatic form, do not speak to me as true. And the failure of coherent continuity of thought, ap- parently commended to him by a mistaken interpretation of the Kantian distinction of Understanding and Reason, leave his fine materials in an unorganised and patternless condition. Much as I love the man, I seek in vain to learn from him. The fault is probably in me. I do not mean to criticise him, but only to describe my felt relation to him. I remain, always. Yours very sincerely, James Martineau. The last of the important review-articles which Dr. Martineau wrote prior to his stay in Germany, also refers to a distinguished American, its subject being the Memoir of Dr. W. E. Channing. The paper given in the first volume of " Essays, Reviews, and Addresses " is composed of two articles, the former of which appeared in the " Pro- spective " for August, 1848, the latter in the " West- minster " for January, 1849. Although valuable as a study of character and for the very lucid and graphic pic- ture it gives of the difference between Priestleyan Uni- tarianism and the Unitarianism of Channing' s writings, the article has no great philosophical interest. How thank- ful Dr. Martineau felt, at the time of his great philosoph- ical change, for the stimulus and help which he derived from the clear moral insight and glowing enthusiasm of Channing's writings we have already seen. But beyond moral purity and fervour he discerned no great philosoph- ical penetration and grasp in Dr. Channing's mind. " In casting," he says, " our eyes backward over Chan- ning's career, it is easy to assign him his place in literature and life, and to name his characteristics. It would be absurd to range him in the first class of writers ; he produced — he could have produced — no great work in history, philosophy, 60 EARLY REVIEWS or art, to enter into the education of other times; what he has written will not, perhaps, very long be read. His influence, however, though not fitted for permanence, has been both wide and deep. . . . Channing's profound moral sensibility became the source of all his thought ; supplied his clue through every question ; gave a complexion to his view of nature, history, and life; and imparted to him that mixture of reserve and refinement with enthusiasm and fire which his portrait so curiously expresses." The following passage from a letter written by Dr. Channing to Dr. Martineau, Sept. lo, 1841, in reference to the New England Transcendentalists, among whom were some Unitarian ministers, strikingly illustrates the former's incapacity to fully appreciate great philosophical questions : — ** Here, as in England, we have a stir. Happily we have no material anti-supernaturalists. Our reformers are spiritual- ists and hold many grand truths, but in identifying them- selves a good deal with Cousin's crude system, they have lost the life of an original movement. Some among them seem to lean to the anti-miraculous, have got the German notion of myths, etc., and, I fear, are loosening their hold on Christ. They are anxious to depend on the soul's immediate connec- tion with God. They fear lest Christ be made a barrier be- tween the soul and the Supreme, and are in danger of substituting private inspiration for Christianity ; should they go thus far, my hopes from them will cease wholly ; but as yet the elements are in great agitation, and it is hard to say how they will arrange themselves." We can hardly doubt that the last two sentences of this extract must have extorted an amiable smile from Dr. Martineau, for at that date he was far on the road to, if he had not already reached, the firm conviction that all Christianity, in the case both of its founder and his dis- ciples, springs entirely out of this decried " private inspi- ration," and that it is solely by an appeal to this same immediate revelation that its authority and its divinity can 61 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK be tested and allowed. As Mr. Jackson admirably ex- presses it : — " The basal principle of Dr. Martineau's theology is his Theism. Many would say they are theists because they are Christian ; on the authority of Christ they believe in God. Dr. Martineau on the contrary is a Christian because he is a theist. He believes in Christ, for he articulates a divine word which he has also heard." ^ II. What remains of the philosophical correspondence between Dr. Martineau and his friends at this period of his life consists almost entirely of the letters which passed between him and Prof. F. W. Newman, Mr. R. H. Hutton, and the Rev. J. H. Thorn. The correspondence with Mr. Newman will now be given. That with Mr. Hutton and Mr. Thom is connected for the most part w4th Dr. Mar- tineau's residence in Germany, and will, therefore, have more fitting place in the succeeding chapter. Dr. Mar- tineau considered it very fortunate that among his col- leagues in Manchester he found in Prof. F. W. New- man a spirit so congenial with his own. They soon formed a close friendship, and when, to their great mutual regret, they were locally separated, in 1846, by Professor Newman's acceptance of the post of Professor of Latin in University College, London, they commenced a frequent correspondence which continued, with few intermissions, all their lives. Professor Newman had no great taste for pure metaphysics; his theological beliefs were founded more upon immediate moral and spiritual experience than upon philosophical reasoning, so that the letters more gen- erally discussed questions of practical ethics connected with political economy, sociology, and also with international duties, on which subject Professor Newman had very pro- nounced opinions. In the preceding chapter two of Dr. Martineau's letters to Professor Newman were given in ^ "James Martineau, A Study and Biography," p. 182. 62 CORRESPONDENCE WITH NEWMAN illustration of the views which he expounded as Professor of Political Economy. Several letters also passed between them expressing difference of opinion regarding the moral perfection of Jesus, and some of these have been given in Book I. It is wortli noticing, however, that in this controversy Dr. Martineau did not claim for Jesus ex- haustive moral insight, but only perfect fidelity to the ideal as he discerned it. " Christ's excellence," he says, " is thus far unique in his- tory, and to our present apprehensions concurring with the moral ideal of humanity. That no higher human being can ever appear on earth we would by no means venture to affirm. When Jesus himself said, * Why callest thou me good? None is good save One, that is God,' he must have had a thought in his mind beyond his own reality, and he thus points to pos- sibilities which he did not exhaust." WHien Professor Newman's works, " The Soul " and " Phases of Faith," were published, the reviews of these books in the '' Prospective " gave occasion to an interest- ing interchange of letters of a semi-philosophical char- acter. The article on " The Soul " was really written by Mr. J. J. Tayler; but Professor Newman, at first, as- cribed it to Dr. Martineau, and wrote to him in consequence. The following is Dr. Martineau's reply : — February i, 1850. My dear Newman, — My long and wayward silences bring no reproach from you, and shall have no excuse from me. I believe my feeling has been that, until I had read your book, and brought up my mind more nearly to the hour, I had no business to write to you. Now I have read " The Soul," and shall bless you for it, with thanks I cannot speak, so long as I have a Soul that lives. Nothing that I have ever read — unless some scattered thoughts of Pascal's — has come so close to me, and so strengthened a deep but too shrinking faith. . . . Your book is not one that I can criticise, and where I cannot heartily assent I feel more inclincfl to doubt myself than it. The chief thing that affects mc with a certain obscure dissatisfaction is your sharp distinc- ^3 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK tion between the several powers of human nature and your absolute isolation of the Soul as the region of exclusive com- munication with God. For myself, I am not conscious of anything adequately corresponding with this. The action of the conscience and the human affections appear to me inseparably blended with the purest insight and the highest aspirations of Faith; and the conscious communion with God seems the work of no special organ of our being, but the clear and holy kindling of the entire mind, — at least of every faculty which Infinite Perfection can engage. Hence I cannot always feel the reality of your con- trast between spiritual and unspiritual evidence of divine truth, or join in your slight upon the Metaphysics of faith. The spiritual element, I cannot but think, does not in all persons take the form of intuition ; but in minds of the Platonic cast fuses itself into one with philosophic thought, and discerns the Infinite Purity through a glorified cloud of reason and re- flexion. Why throw discredit on the reasonings of such minds as unspiritual? True, metaphysics imply no soul; but many souls find their vision helped by metaphysics, and quite as many, I should say, among the simple and untaught as among the cultivated class. In short, the Pauline class of souls ap- pears to me not the only one, but the Platonic order to be no less naturally stationed in the world; neither appears to be a corruption of the other, or entitled to do more than prefer its own appointed method of access to the Source of Light. In the same way, I doubt whether you do justice to the re- sources of conscience and the class of legal religionists ; though here my sympathies, against my judgment, are entirely with you. Ever, my dear Newman, affectionately yours, James Martineau. A short time before this letter was written Dr. Mar- tineau received a letter from Mr. Richard H. Hutton, treat- ing of the same subject, which he thus condenses : — " Mr. Tayler's ' Prospective Review ' article on Newman's ' The Soul,' etc., draws from Richard a fine and just critique upon the book and its ' evangelical ' basis, which substitutes the religion of personal gratitude for salvation in place of the religion of veneration and aspiration of conscience for moral 64 CORRESPONDENCE WITH NEWMAN perfection, and, therefore, leaves Self and its zvcll-being as the centre, instead of the infinitely Holy and Perfect Mind that communes ivith %ts and leads us on. Hence the utterly im- moral vicarious doctrine, and a conception of Sin which makes it not guilt, but poison; and hence the substitution, in the evangelical piety, of the Pauline theology for that of Christ himself.*' It is necessar}'. now, to insert two letters to Dr. Mar- tineau from Mr. Newman, as they explain Dr. Martincau's important reply to them. The first letter is interesting as showing that Hegelianism was taught at Oxford several years before Prof. T. H. Green's genius and moral enthu- siasm brought it into such prominence. May, 1851. My dear Martineau, — You have performed a painful but wholesome duty in your review of Atkinson and Mar- tineau. To me it is a satisfaction to find you so pointedly avow that there is no logical coherence in their book, — I do not speak of sentences, but of the entire substance, — for I now and then distrust my own understanding of recondite meta- physics, when my only reply is to undervalue the good sense, and the common sense of one who professes to have devoted so much time and effort to it. What has the Mesmerism to do with Atheism ? was my constant cry while I read the book. It also gratified me that you gave the seal of your judgment (and Jacobi's) to what I fancied was a sort of discovery of my own, viz., that the arguments against Theism are argu- ments against Moral Distinctions. In short, Morality, Free- will, and Theism, all three, fall or stand together. This appears to me to be just now the thing which needs to be practically laid before common people. . . . Let me add that I know Mr. Holyoake of late. He is a very candid, kind, simple-minded man, who has taken to puffing off me and my book on the Soul very strangely, but I believe very sincerely, and in order to refute Theism in my person. He was shame- fully persecuted at law some years back, and is a true enthu- siast in his cause. His moral goodness gives power to his doctrine. Now it would be very important to show that the two are in collision. At the same time I do not feel much alarm at an Atheism which is spread by such agencies. It surely can only be a transition towards a new and better re- 65 E PHILOSOPHICAL WORK ligion. Where the heart retains a love and reverence for goodness, it is essentially a worshipper, and will find a God in due time. The stronghold of philosophic Atheism seems to me to be the dogma of the inductive philosophy, " All we know is phenomena." I often used to hear this at Oxford, from cler'cal teachers ! and always resisted it, though not then im- agining its anti-religious tendency. When last I was in Oxford, in Balliol walls (1846), the same doctrine was propounded by an eminent gentleman, a clerical tutor, who is said to be deep in Hegel, and he set me down (almost in so many words) as very puzzle-headed because I resisted it. You make me wonder that I have not always answered as you do. My resistance to Dr. Thomas Brown I have some- times suspected to be fanatical, but indeed it is not for nothing. Your doctrine that all Power is Will seems to me to need explanations which amount to evasions. But perhaps I am still in some confusion. My " Political Economy " will not satisfy you in the defective points, yet it leans in your direction. Ever affectionately yours, F. W. Newman. The second, which is dated a year later, explains itself : — My dear Martin eau, — Chapman makes me nervous by talking of stereotyping cheaply my book on the Soul, and begs me to add my last corrections to it. In order to meet objections from very opposite quarters, I am disposed to pre- fix an introductory Section on the " Metaphysics of Morals." No living man is to me so lucid on these subjects as you are. How much I owe to you I do not know; for my habit is to fuse together all that I learn from every quarter. I believe that much which I learned from Aristotle I have only re- learned more clearly from you. But I often am diffident as to my correctness of phraseology, where I have some confi- dence that I am fundamentally right. I take the liberty of sending for your criticism the new section. It is not so com- pressed as I wish ; but I fear that if I omit all reasons and all illustrations, I shall again be misunderstood. Neither your sister nor Mr. Holyoake appears to me to have had the least idea what I held or meant on these matters. The latter now admits he had quite misconceived me. His Anti-theism is 66 CORRESPONDENCE WITH NEWMAN wholly built on the doctrine of Necessity; so, I think, is the Atkinson-Martincau view. Holyoake believes his view cmi- ncntly Moral ; and I think that to his mind it will really be a practical refutation of his Anti-theism if he can be shown that it is unfavourable to Morals. I do not pretend that Law exists as clearly in the domain of Will as elsewhere. (This is his ^reat objection to me.) Am I going too far in my concession? I do not intend to assert that such a sphere is not one for (even) Divine fore- knowledge ; but neither am I able to assert that it is. I shall cancel one short section in the book, if I insert this. Forgive haste, and Believe me ever yours affectionately, F. W. Newman. Two days after the despatch of this letter, Professor Newman received from Dr. IMartineau a very elaborate reply, commenting on the more important of the eleven paragraphs of the "new Section," which his friend had sent for his consideration. The letter is very long, but it appears desirable to insert it entire, as it gives in epitome the chief features of Dr. Martineau's theory of the relation of God both to the phsenomena of Nature and to the Moral consciousness of man, and when studied in connection with "The Soul; her Sorrows and her Aspirations" (which must be read in the second and later editions, containing the "Introductory Remarks") affords a most instructive in- sight into the distinct characteristics of these two highly gifted exponents of the philosophy of religion, and serves to explain why Air. Newman was never able to feel in complete sympathy with the Unitarian circle of religionists. The letter contains also a most acute criticism of the philos- ophy of Mr. J. S. Mill and his follow'ers, which was at that time the dominant one in this country. LlVF.Rl'ooi,, May 14, 1852. My dear Newman, — If you arc not a Christian, you have more Christian virtues than all the saints in the calendar, that you can so easily forgive me my sins of omission. That 67 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK " Moses was the meekest of men " is no longer an historical any more than it is a moral truth. To say nothing, however, of my own doings, positive or negative, I am truly rejoiced to hear of the projected new edition of " The Soul." It is one of the two or three books which I love with a feeling of measureless gratitude, and that stand off, at long intervals in my memory, as milestones, marking great stages in my spirit- ual life. How you, with your clear and wide vision, can ever have found any use in my poor glasses — that leave so much still dim to my own view — I cannot imagine. But if each will but honestly report what he sees, we can hardly fail, I suppose, to be of some help to one another. I think you can scarcely improve the Introductory Remarks, which appear to me to present, briefly and forcibly, a sum- mary of the most important principles involved in the doc- trines of the book. An opponent will have no excuse for the further misunderstanding of your fundamental positions, and may lay his finger on the particular point which he thinks proper to attack. The part which, with a view to the Atkin- son and (I should think) the Holyoake doctrine, I should like to see a little strengthened, is the statement in No. 7 of the ultimate ground of Moral Truth. These objectors recog- nise no Science of Consciousness, and either avowedly or vir- tually reduce us to evidence of Perception and the intellectual rules applicable to it. Hence their notions of " Morality " begin with external actions as observed in other men, and traced in their physical consequences ; and results in a scheme of eudsemonist policy, which never reaches the living centre and source of obligation. The right to proceed in the oppo- site direction and find the elements and interpretation of moral truth within us in reflexion on our own acts requires, per- haps, a word of vindication. The controversy is really one between Physics, which the objector would advance to uni- versal empire, and Morals, for which we would claim a sepa- rate province and jurisdiction. Unless the feeling can be brought home to Mr. Holyoake that the Sentiment and Be- lief of Obligation are indispensable to Morals, and make all the difference between the breaking-in of a horse and the training of a man, it will be impossible to convince him of the unfavourable tendency of his doctrine, which does ac- tually leave " motives " and interests undisturbed, and leaves room for rules of conduct, while annihilating Duty altogether. I do not think you concede at all too much respecting the relation of Law and Will. Free-will, it appears to me, is so 68 CORRESPONDENCE WITH NEWMAN far from excludincr Law, that were Law shut out as an im- possibility, Free-will must go too. If I can determine myself in a single instance, I can do no less in any number of analo- gous cases; and am as little precluded from cstablishi)ii^ a habit as from performing an insulated act. This habit is a Law which I make for myself; and an observer, after watch- ing for a while, can predict my procedure. Nothing but the absence of Frce-iL'ill could deny this possibility to me. It re- mains, however, always open to me to break away from the analogy hitherto given out, and disappoint the observer's pre- diction. A free mind, in short, is as able to bind as to loose itself, and leaves indefinite scope for Law and prediction, only with the perpetual reserve of potential variation. The cer- tainty arising from such law may evidently range over every degree of probability, but can never become absolute. There is no possible proof that Law exists, in any more stringent sense than this, in Nature, whose uniformities are perfectly explicable to us as the continuous self-determinations of God, always open to possible change of direction, however kept steady by faithfulness of purpose. Necessity can never be proved on the mere evidence of Law, unless, indeed, the Law be of the a priori kind, reached, not by inductive method, but by a deduction from some primary axioms of thought. The German Pantheists do attriliute this geometrical character to all Science, and are accordingly, as it seems to me, the only consistent Necessarians ; Law and Necessity being synony- mous with them. But our English Necessarians are invari- ably Inductive people, hostile to all a priori claims in Physical Knowledge ; thus uniting, with inconsistency the most mani- fest, a Logic of Science which withholds Law from ever be- coming tantamount to Necessity, and a Logic of Religion, which assumes the identity of the two. Would it not be possible to show Holyoake that, in argu- ing from Necessity to Atheism, he tacitly concedes Free-will? " Nature," he says, " reveals no God ; there is no trace of a directing Mind being present there ; for only see ! everything happens by inexorable rule ; nothing can be other than it is ; there is no God ! " In this reasoning the presence of Neces- sity is taken as a mark of the absence of Mind; and we are virtually told that we must get this necessity out of the way, or reclaim some province from it, before we can expect men to recognise the possibility of a living Mind. Can there be a plainer confession than this, that the ideas of Necessity and of Mind are felt to be incompatible? How else should the 69 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK one be thrust before us as a stumbling-block to bar our way to the other? Thus the atheist of this class demands, as an indispensable mark of a Divine Mind, the very Freedom which at the same time he pronounces not only absent from the human but impossible to any Mind. I observe that you adopt the Aristotelian mode of describ- ing moral phasnomena, — as a choice of Ends. Perhaps it is best to do, considering the superior clearness of this objective language, especially where it is so close upon the truth as here. Otherwise this phraseology affects me with a slight feeling of psychological inaccuracy. In a case of moral con- flict, I should rather say we choose which principle of action we will follow, than which end we will secure. And I fancy there is an advantage in this form of expression, because the principles in the mind are comparatively few, and admit of easy enumeration as a list of impulses ; while the ends, en- tangling themselves with external conditions in countless com- binations, are irreducible to definition, and involve us, when we try to estimate them, in exercises of mere rational judg- ment and considerations of possibility and expediency, very proper in the concrete cases, but foreign to the problem, qua moral. But for the purposes of a condensed exposition, I in- cline to believe your phraseology the best. Could you not, however, describe the effects of these " Ends " upon us by some other epithet than " pleasing " ? It seems too much to keep out of view the feeling of higher worth and authority which may often be the only attraction towards an end which we are under sharp temptation to abandon. Is it quite a satisfactory account of the relation of the Mind to Truth to call the Mind the Test of Truth? It is only the phrase — not, of course, the thought — that stopped me as I read. The word " Test " is objective and implies something used by the Mind as Tester; and though the Mind may un- doubtedly use itself in this way, — reflectively consulting its own consciousness, — yet it would be well, perhaps, to distin- guish in the phraseology the consultmo- and the consult<7c? mind, by saying, e. g., that the Mind, in its quest of truth, can have no appeal from its own intuitive judgments, or from the beliefs involved in the exercise of its own faculties. Nothing can be more just and forcible than your detaching Moral from Historical truth (No. 8). Only is there not the qualifying side, that, though nothing which happens in his- tory can constitute right and wrong absolutely, it may reveal them relatively, by presenting higher conceptions and enlarg- 70 CORRESPONDENXE WITH NEWMAN ing the depth of moral experience ; and so quite alter the concrete obligations by altering the development of subsequent persons. Thus the cancelling from history uozo of any por- tion of the past is not to be regarded as morally the same thing for the world, as if its personages and events had ncicr conic upon the field, or been, at least, set there by human belief. You do not in the least intend to deny the action of historical personages on the morals of mankind ; but stupid people may pervert your meaning in some such way. \Vith these trifling reservations you carry me altogether with you in your exposition. I am longing to open your " Regal Rome," but am afraid I cannot get at its interior till after midsummer, when pos- sibly some little leisure may be attainable. I want much also to see your Address to the Italian Society ; especially as I hear it lays down the Ethics of International Sympathy. I have no hope from any European Revolution except j\Iac::ini's. Ever affectionately yours, James IMartineau. In answer to the above, Professor Newman, in writing to Dr. Martineau, on June 2, 1852, says: — " Many thanks for your very useful criticisms and hints. On some of these profound subjects I do not always dare to say just what you say ; and I think I discern that you must secretly disown some of the sentences which I have printed. Still I hope I have benefited by your remarks ; and I almost think Holyoake will in consequence find my ' logic * less vul- nerable than he has thought." After this date the correspondence between the two friends does not often touch on purely philosophical sub- jects. Mr. Newman's " Palinodia," in his later life, in reference to the belief in personal immortality, was very painful to Dr. Martineau, as it was to another very near friend of them both. — Miss Frances Power Cobbc; but though it made a philosophical and theological breach be- tween them, that breach was always effectually liridged over by the strength of their affection, and by the certainty each possessed of the purity and nobility of the other's character. 71 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK On the publication of " A Study of Religion " Professor Newman wrote to Dr. Martineau a warmly appreciative letter; and when, on the appearance of the "Seat of Authority," Newman starts the old question about the moral and spiritual rank of Jesus, Martineau begins a long reply with the words : — " For several reasons I enter with you on controverted sub- jects with some reluctance, and the first of these is that I am so much at one with you (prior to the ' Palinodia ') that your ' Theism ' is in its essence tantamount to my ' Christianity.' " 72 Chapter IV STUDIES IN BERLIN. LETTERS TO REV. J. H. THOM AND MR. R. H. BUTTON With the exception of his course on PoHtical Economy, all Dr. Martiiieau's College Lectures, as well as all his more important philosophical works, took their final shape after his year of study in Germany, 1848- 1849, ^^^> there- fore, to understand his mental history it is necessary to form a clear conception of the effect which this contact with German philosophical culture had upon his funda- mental ideas. We saw at the close of the first chapter that on the basal ethical questions of the freedom of the Will and of the essential character of moral Intuition, the Neces- sarianism and the Utilitarianism of Hartley and Priestley had already been discarded when, in 1840, he began his career as Professor of Philosophy in Manchester New Col- lege. This is confirmed by the following passage from an interesting letter written by Dr. Martineau. in 1894, to the Rev. E. I. Fripp, who had asked him whether Emerson's writings had exercised much influence on his thought : — " As for Emerson, I have ever had, since his first visit to England, in the ' thirties,' a strong affection for him, person- ally. A purer and nobler soul I have never known. And flashes of thought dart from his writings that are as lighten- ing set fast to gleam for ever where it strikes. But for want of coherent continuity, I do not find my account in reading him in his speculative moods, but only in his descriptive and critical productions, — 'English Traits,' 'Rcj^rcscntative Men,' etc. I am not conscious of owing much mental change to him. I am more in debt to Channing; but the ' Palinodia ' in i)hilo- 73 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK sophical doctrine was mainly brought about in the process of working-out my own teaching for congregational and other classes, in the first seven years of my Liverpool ministry. Then it was that I contracted ' my insanity about conscience,' ^ which it is now too late to remedy." But though he had fully satisfied himself as to the true interpretation of the moral consciousness, he had not, as yet, fashioned for himself a Weltanschauung or theory of ultimate reality, in which these truths of ethical expe- rience would find a fitting place and be seen to stand in harmonious relations with the other elements of thought and knowledge. This complete philosophical system it was that the well-spent Semester in Berlin effectually as- sisted him to reach. After those strenuous months of attention to lectures, and of private reading, " the metaphysic of the world had," he says, " come home to me, and never again could I say that phasnomena, in their clusters and chains, were all ; or find myself in a universe with no categories but the like and the unlike, the synchronous and the successive. The possible is, whether it happens or not, and its categories of the right, the beautiful, the necessarily true, may have their contents defined, and held ready for reali- sation whatever centuries lapse ere they appear." ^ Discerning that all phsenomena owe their existence and the laws of sequence among them to a spiritual causality of which they are the expression, he at the same time per- ceived that while the study of Phsenomena and their suc- cessions is the proper function of the various Sciences, the research into the nature and character of the invisible Cause or Causes of these phsenomena is the proper business 1 This little pleasantry is to be explained by the circumstance that Dr. Martineau was aware that some of the younger ministers were inclined to think that he insisted too exclusively on the " Conscience " as the chief source of spiritual insight ; while, on the other hand, another distinguished Unitarian preacher was wont to place his especial, and perhaps also somewhat too exclusive, emphasis on " Divine Love." 2 "Types of Ethical Theory," preface to second edition, p. 14. 74 STUDIES IN BERLIN of Philosophy. By this division of labour the whole group of natural sciences is left absolutely free to legitimate devel- opment without the possibility of collision with either Ethics or Theology. It must not be supposed, however, that Dr. Martineau found in Germany a ready-made sys- tem of philosophy which he carefully studied and then adopted. On the contrary, as we saw in the course on Mental Philosophy, he entirely dissents from the meta- physical theory so fully elaborated by his chief teacher Professor Trendelenburg. And not only so, but in his Address at the commencement of the College session in 1S54, he emphatically says: "It is with deliberate convic- tion that I profess allegiance to the English psychological method, and build up all my hope for philosophy on accu- rate self-knowledge." Further, as will be presently evident, he confesses his disappointment at discovering that all the recent German philosophies were essentially defective in their rationale of man's ethical experience. What he really gained from his studies in Berlin was such an in- creased insight into the history of philosophical thought, and especially into the chief systems of ancient Greece and of modern Germany, that his mind was put into the best possible condition for attaining to a complete and consistent philosophical unification of the several rational, ethical, and religious ideas which were at this time vigorously asserting themselves within his inner life. In his Biographical Memoranda he thus lucidly describes the character and the effects of his Berlin studies : — " A short experience convinced me that, for the purpose of my special studies, I should gain most by reading a good deal and hearing a little. I closely attended Trendelenburg's two courses, — of Logic and of the History of Philosophy, — writing out my notes, with all the citations, in the evenings. Beyond the references which these lectures included, I read only two authors, — Plato and Hegel, — having greatly felt my need of a better insight into both. Curiosity indeed, or 75 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK personal admiration, tempted me, now and then, into the lec- ture-rooms of Gabler, Michelet, Vatke, Neander, Boeckh, Ranke; but from these fascinating excursions into remoter fields I returned only more persuaded of the need of concen- tration on my selected objects. For a long time I found my- self baffled by the difficulties of Hegel ; nor did I gain any help from either the expository logic of Gabler or the rhetoric of Michelet. Often — let me confess it — I struggled for days with a page or two of the ' Encyklopadie,' and tried and rejected several keys of interpretation before the real bear- ings of the passage revealed themselves to me. Indirectly, I was much aided by consulting his writings in the order of their production, and also by following his method in its ap- plication to history. The light thus thrown forward from the growth and backward from the results of his Logical Process is the only effective commentary upon its systematic construc- tion. Though Hegel produced in me no conviction, but rather threw me back upon the position of Kant, yet the study of him affords, I think, a discipline of great value, disenchanting many beguiling abstractions, and accustoming the mind to unmask the forms and processes of thought, whether in itself or in the movements of history. In virtue of some affinity between the ancient Greek and the modern German modes of thought (depending, I believe, on a Pantheistic conception of the world common to both), I was astonished at the reciprocal lights that passed between them when they were studied to- gether. Phrases and doctrines in each which no English ex- position had rendered intelligible cleared themselves at once when represented in terms of the other; so that I constantly seemed to make two discoveries in one act. No doubt this is an experience which, with proper reading, might have been made at home. But when you are steeped in the influences of a foreign language, it forces you to take the tincture of its characteristics." This vivid description of the impression left upon Dr. Martineau's mind by his Berlin experiences requires to be supplemented by some expression of the conclusions he reached respecting the bearing of the German philosophy of that time on ethical and theological ideas. His judg- ment on this question is emphatically given in a letter from Berlin to his intimate friend Rev. J. H. Thorn, dated Feb. 76 STUDIES IN BERLIN 25, 1849; t^^^t is, about a month before the close of the winter Semester. After warm words of admiration for Professor Trendelenburg's personal character, and an ex- pression of opinion that, though not a powerful original thinker, he was a master in the knowledge of Greek phil- osophy, and the perfect model of an honest and intelligent interpreter, the letter continues : — " His Lectures on the History of Philosophy have precisely hit my wants, not imposing a system upon me, and obliging me to struggle with the temptations of a disciple or a parti- san, but affording faithful guidance to sources of both ancient Greek and modern German systems, and presenting in the best way an occasion for the review and correction of my own opinions. I certainly feel that my horizon is greatly enlarged, and that the effort has not been wholly in vain to reach the point of view — so remote from ours — whence the objects of philosophical research are here regarded. I am astonished at the extent of my ignorance. I find I knew nothing of the course of thought since Kant ; and that though I had read a good deal, it was with no more effect than attended the studies of the Israelites, who, when Moses was read, had a veil before their eyes. It is impossible to lose sight, in all one's observations, of the tendency of systems in relation to character and faith. It is my sad persuasion that the direc- tion taken by all recent German philosophy, though compris- ing nominally opposite schools, is quite irreconcilable not only with Christianity, but with all forms of religion which place men under a Personal God and a proper Law of Duty. Their theories have been developed just as they would have been if the principles of action and the moial sentiments iiad for the last half-century been absolutely scored out of human nature, and men had been made up entirely of the ingredients requisite for the dialectician, the naturalist, and the artist. Moral Philosophy does not exist ; not a Lecture on the sub- ject is given in this vast University: not a book treats of it among the hundreds to which Leipzig semi-annually gives birth ; and wherever, in the criticism of systems, any great Moral Ideas are touched upon, it is in a manner which shows, so far as I can judge, an unfamiliarity witii the very conditions of the primary moral problems. This I take to be the irpCnov ipivBoi of the German speculative thought, fruitful in 77 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK results, but especially developing itself into a religion wholly Pantheistic. Schleiermacher's influence, in so many ways good, has in this respect, I think, been disastrous. Not any of the theological parties in existence have any chance of counteracting the philosophical tendency ; one of them, in- deed, represented here by Vatke, itself embodies that tendency in an extreme form ; the other two — the rigid orthodox, led by Hengstenberg, and the mild unheterodox, headed by Nean- der — are unprovided with any defence against the philosophers, and have no weapons but dogmatism, historical reverence, and mere sentiment, which have no more effect upon speculation than steel upon ghosts. Should a new life of political action be really opening upon the country, the enlargement of men's moral consciousness in actual struggle is more likely to work a cure than are helpless efforts by learned men themselves under the secret influence of the disease they deplore." The gloom of this picture would have been somewhat relieved if Dr. Martineau had been aware that there was then lecturing at Gottingen a young Professor of eminent ability whose views had close affinity with his own; who believed, as firmly as Dr. Martineau, in the real freedom of the Will, and who maintained with him that " insight into what ought to be will alone open our eyes to discern what is." But Rudolph Hermann Lotze had not 37et pub- lished his profound yet fascinating " Microcosmus " ; and his "Metaphysik" had not, it appears, at this date excited much attention in Berlin. For several years now Lotze's philoso- phy has exercised a great and beneficent influence over the religious and theological thought of Germany. Theolo- gians of the Vatke type have lost their power; and the numerous disciples of Albrecht Ritschl, who occupy so many German pulpits, are as glad to avail themselves of the works of Lotze as many Anglican and Nonconformist ministers in this country are to seek the solution of their philosoph- ical difficulties in the " Types of Ethical Theory " or " A Study of Religion." Indeed, there would be no great inappropriateness in describing Hermann Lotze as the Ger- 78 STUDIES IN BERLIN man Martineau. But while Dr. Alartineau noted with sat- isfaction in his later years the spread of Lotze's views, he also remarked, in conversation, that the bulk of the strictly- philosophical professors and students in the German Uni- versities did not appear to be greatly affected by Lotze's ethical and religious doctrines. He pointed out that the theorisings of the Absolute Idealists had, indeed, largely lost their power to charm, but that, in part, probably through reaction from their unsubstantial speculations, the philosophical interest of Germany had, in the main, passed over to psychophysical researches and to non-metaphysical psycholog}-, and that, so far as could be gathered from the writings of Wundt and his disciples, the change from the old Idealism did not appear to him to promise, at pres- ent, much real gain to the philosophy of either Ethics or Religion. Though Hegelianism, as a system of philosophy, is hardly represented at the present time in the great Ger- man Universities, yet some of the distinguished Hcgcl- iancr are still with us ; and, in concluding this account of Dr. Martineau's chief mental relations with Germany, I am glad to be able to give, as a companion to the letter to Mr. Thorn in 1849, another letter, written nearly thirty years later, in which Dr. Alartineau refers to the then sur- viving representatives of the Hegelian faith. Since this letter was written to the Rev. S. A. Steinthal in November, 1877, the short list of these noble veterans has, alas, grown shorter still. My dear Mr. Steinthal, — It is true that the generation of genuine disciples of Ilegcl in Germany has almost passed away, and their attitude of mind is now represented chiefly in other countries, c. ^., by Professor Vera at Naples, and by Edward Caird at Glasgow, and Wallace and Green at Ox- ford. Erdmann, however, still remains, if I mistake not, at Halle, — a man whose adhesion docs honour to any system which he undertakes to expound. And I have never heard 79 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK of Carl Ludwig Michelet quitting the scene. I fancy he is still lecturing in Berlin. But, though he is a personal disciple of Hegel, my impressions of his qualifications are not very favourable. I gained them as a hearer of two or three lec- tures in the winter of 1848. Eduard Zeller, the nephew of Strauss, is too independent a thinker to be ranked as the sworn disciple of any school. But he began as an Hegelian, and apparently retains the fundamental principles of his earlier philosophy. Of all the living teachers in Germany, he ap- pears to me the most masterly, accomplished, and lucid ; with the still higher advantage — which I can hardly allow to Kuno Fischer, otherwise his compeer — of fine critical temper and judicial fairness. I have not, however, kept myself well up with the recent appointments in the German Universities; and there may be other men worthy of mention of whom I am unable to speak. Ever faithfully yours, James Martineau. Among the letters on philosophical subjects which Dr. Martineau received about this time there were probably none which had a greater interest for him, and to which he attached more weight, than those written to him by the late Mr. Richard Holt Hutton, who attained considerable fame as the influential Editor of the " Spectator," as a subtle analyst of the character and genius of distinguished authors, and also as a very able theological and philosoph- ical writer. Mr. Hutton's review-articles at one time bore so close a resemblance to Dr. Martineau' s, both in thought and style, that when, in 1866 and 1867, Mr. W. V. Spencer of Boston collected into two volumes, under the title " Essays, Philosophical and Theological " the more impor- tant of Dr. Martineau' s essays and reviews, he, by mistake, inserted in the first volume an excellent article on " Reve- lation: What it is Not, and What it Is," which is from Mr. Hutton's pen. How this great influence of Dr. Mar- tineau's mind over Mr. Hutton's came about calls for a brief explanation. 80 STUDIES IN BERLIN ]Mr. Hiitton was a student in Divinity at Manchester New College in the Session 1847-1848, and, therefore, a hearer of Dr. Martineau's lectures on philosophy. He soon began to feel an intense admiration both for the eminent ability and for the high personal character of his Professor ; and so in a very few years the relation of pupil to teacher developed into warm personal friendship. And when in later years Jklr. Hutton, mainly under the influence of the Rev. F. Denison Maurice, became dissatisfied with the Unitarian theology, and attached himself to those Chris- tians who recognise an eternal " Society " in the Godhead, he still retained the old affection for Dr. Martincau, and the reverence for his profound metaphysical insight. In philosophy Dr. Martineau was still his beloved master, and, notwithstanding the great difference between them, in regard to some of the topics discussed in the " Seat of Authority," Mr. Hutton to the end of his life maintained that " Dr. Martineau's teaching, as a whole, is by far the ablest vindication, which the nineteenth century has pro- duced, of the philosophy implicitly assumed in Christian- ity." The pupil and his former teacher were co-members of the famous " Metaphysical Society " through the twelve years of its existence; and when in the ''nineties" that Society was in a modified form resuscitated, under the name of the " Synthetic Society," they were associated in this philosophical club also. When Dr. Martineau in 1885 retired from the offices of Principal and Professor in Man- chester New College, Mr. Hutton, in a speech made at a meeting of the Trustees, held in connection with Dr. Mar- tineau's retirement, thus pleasantly recalled the happy time when (thirty-six years before) he had lived for a while in Berlin in the same house with the Martineaus : — " Yesterday, in that speech to which we all listened with so much delight, Dr. Martineau referred to a passage in the ' Gorgias ' of Plato, in which the man of the world of that 81 F PHILOSOPHICAL WORK day remonstrates with Socrates about talking to two or three boys in a corner. I have often been ' in a corner ' in the sense we more often attach to that word in the nursery than any other. [Laughter.] But I am proud to say I was in that historic corner to which Dr. Martineau last night referred. [Hear, hear.] As far as I remember, it was a comer of a room, in a certain street in Berlin, in 1849, where we gath- ered round a stove which was supplied with a double amount of fuel. The Thermometer was not much above Zero, and we were not only padded up to the chin, but our feet enclosed in what we used to call the ' holier e Einheit ' of a fur shoe. It was there that my mind was subjected to that strenuous influ- ence, and that he illustrated to his pupils, one or two of them, the same earnestness in undertaking the severe and less agree- able forms of study which he impressed upon us last night. I remember the delight with which we read the ' Gorgias ' as a holiday task ; and I remember the fruitless search after Hegel's pure being and pure nothing. [Laughter and Cheers.] I may say of Dr. Martineau, as one of the poets of the day said of his teacher : — " ' But vigorous teachers seized my youth, And purged its faith, and trimmed its fire ; Showed me the high white star of truth, — There bade me gaze, and there aspire.' " Throughout not only the time of my connection with Alan- chester New College, but the time of that memorable Berlin winter, I was subject to influences of which I could wish to see many better and a great many more results. Still, it is something that I am not ungrateful for those influences which I really felt." The Martineaus remained in Germany till the autumn of 1849, but Mr. Hutton returned to England in the spring, and took his M.A. degree (with the Gold Medal) in the University of London in the summer of that year. In reply to a letter informing him of Mr. Hutton's success, Dr. Mar- tineau v^rote to him from Warmbrunn (Aug. 11, 1849), and after congratulating him, he continues : — " Your report of the Examination interested me greatly, and marks out pretty exactly, I fancy, the direction which English examiners in philosophv are likely to follow for many 82 STUDIES IN BERLIN years to come. In the present state of University instruction in these matters, no excursion beyond the routine of En^^Hsh writers can well be ventured, except into Aristotle and his expositors. I am glad if you could even fancy anything you had from me of use to you; it is something to have given the external occasion for you to work out your own views on matters of so profound an interest, but for the rest I shall return home with the humiliating feeling that whatever I have done must be done over again ; and that in all these years of teaching I have learned only what to avoid. Greatly do I lay to heart what you say about the need of a now work on the foundations of Morals; and if I thought that real good would accrue, I would gladly sacrifice any aim at theoretical per- fection of form or logical order of succession, in order to meet a living want. But the supposed good itself depends greatly on the thorough grounding of one's doctrine, so as to render it, as far as possible, unassailable, except by going down to the very base whence all philosophy springs. At present I cannot, to my satisfaction, adjust the relations of the psychological method I have hitherto pursued to the Ab- solute Idealism of Spinoza and Hegel, so as to assuage the warfare inevitable between schemes of thought so incom- patible; and w'ith the increasing tendency manifest in Eng- land towards some modification of Spinozism, it is necessary to have a mind quite clear upon this point. Without intend- ing to get into poor Brandis's condition, and reserve only a few years of old age for the final construction of a philosoph- ical faith, I have been thankful for a year simply to enlarge my horizon by pursuits scantily possible at home; and have deliberately left the working up of the materials into positive results to the years of practical labour to which, if life and adequate health be granted, I shall now return. By the end of one College Session I shall see pretty well what it may be possible to do, " To anyone who reckons a man's reading by pages, I should be ashamed to give an account of my work since the last report I sent you. It has been confined almost to Plato and Hegel. I finished the 'Republic' some time ago, and closed it with the melancholy feeling of a long leave-taking from the greatest and most delightful of all one's masters in phil- osophy. The change to Hegel is not flattering to one's indo- lence or enriching to one's imagination ; and the worst of it is, that by no cflFort is it possible to accelerate one's speed, the interpretation of his paragrai)hs Ixing like the solution of a 83 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK problem which may clear itself in an hour or may take a week, and meanwhile bars all further progress. I shall not be able to manage more than his ' Logic ' ; but I am glad to feel it possible to draw breath and see one's way in this thin- nest and obscurest heaven of metaphysics. . . . " Yours affectionately, " James Martineau." On the profound question of the relation between the action of the Divine Personality and the human in man's inner life, the following interchange of ideas is of no little interest. In his condensed account of letters received by him, Dr. Martineau says : — " In a letter dated Nov. i, 1849, Mr. R. H. Hutton expounds the mode in which he tries to bring the personality of God and Man into intelligible relation without impairing either; pro- viding for the immanent agency of God in both outward na- ture and in the faculties of man, methodised in laws that do not bend for moral ends, but are simply a fixed basis for re- liance; concurrently with this, maintaining a communion of inspiration or fellowship of moral idealism for the guidance of the soul's selective will, this latter free power being im- paired by every encroachment of the animal and selfish nature, and brought to intenser glow by self-surrender; so that it is enfeebled by personal sin and inherited defect. His solution does not, I fear, reach the heart of the difficulty of providing separate spheres for the two ivills, and yet preserving the in- Unitiide of one. Of his absolute infinitude God will surely have to forego something in order to leave room for created beings really free to determine an alternative." On Nov. 10, 1849, I^^- Martineau, who has by this time returned to Liverpool, replies to Mr. Hutton's letter by the following : — My dear Richard, — ... I fear that in this hasty note I can give no answer to your important philosophical question. I have never yet thought out to my own satisfaction the mode of drawing the separating line between the Divine and human minds. Do you not, however, concede the whole point when you admit the agency of God in mere instinct in the same sense as in physical nature f In that case His present activity 84 STUDIES IN BERLIN is admitted, only denied to be moral activity, and, in the in- stance of instinct assumed by the hypothesis to be un-moral, I do not see how this denial can be called in question. There seems, however, no reason why, merely on account of the u)i- moral character of the instinct, you should refer it at once to man and put it down in the same category as the will. WTi}' not say — the Will is man's sphere ; all beyond Will is God's ; the un-moral his natural, the moral his spiritual agency? In the concrete facts all these may be inextricably mixed, and no doubt, so far as there has been voluntary in- jury to the original instincts, they must be regarded as hav- ing a spoiled divinity, — the human blended with the divine. The word "inspiration" appears to me to be properly reserved for the highest or spiritual agency of God. Ever affectionately yours, James Martineau. Dr. !Martineau summarises as follows Mr. Hutton's reply to this letter, and appears to accept the opinions in it as in complete accord with his own : — " Adverting to my remarks on the theory advanced in his previous letter, he does not think that his idea of human per- sonality differs from mine, unless it be by attaching a stronger importance to the changes wrought in the original instincts by zoluntary actions, both of our ozvn and of our progenitors; so that their state, at any given time, is a resultant of what God has given, and of its past treatment ; and that which, in itself and its divine intent is constituted for useful ends (as Ilutlcr shows), may become subservient to undiinne ends; and sin in the parent may entail defect in the child ; and natural instinct may promote lozver suggestions than would have presented themselves had there been no yielding to temp- tation. Not every actual impulse of the involuntary kind can be recognised as inspiration; and nothing can be more repul- sive and mischievous than to treat as ' inspired ' the spon- taneity of imaginative genius in Goethe or Byron, irrespective of their moral qualities; the divine agency being there 'de- pressed and deranged ' by our own. Better far is the common- I>lace view which treats such cases as an exercise of spoiled natural faculty, with which, having given it, God has nothing to do; though this conception is less exact." «5 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK When J, S. Mill's important work on " Logic " appeared Mr. Hutton criticised it with remarkable acuteness in an article on " Mill and Whewell on the Logic of Induction " in the " Prospective Review " for February, 1850. In the second edition of the " System of Logic " Mr. Mill refers at length to Mr. Hutton's strictures on his view of the " law of causation," and speaks of him as "an intelligent re- viewer." In reference to this Dr. Martineau writes : — Liverpool, Jan. 16, 1S51. My dear Richard, — ... I have just got J. S. Mill's new edition. I am very glad he has noticed your strictures, and in such considerate terms ; though he has been appar- ently too lazy to make himself master of the chief bearings of the discussion. I am very much struck, on looking through his Causation chapters again, with what seems to me his thoroughly untrue and artificial psychology ; and not less so with the utter exclusion, on his principles, of every possibility of Theism. His critique on the " Volitional Theory of Causa- tion " appears to me exceedingly weak, rendered so by the contemptuous spirit in which, notwithstanding the composure of his manner, it is evident he has addressed himself to the refutation. On the whole, I never had so bad an opinion of the Successional doctrine of Causation as this new defence has given me. I want much to go at once more thoroughly into the logic of the mathematical doctrine of Chances. But my mathematical books — I fear also my mathematical know- ledge — are old and not up to the present method of exposi- tion; and I must ask your counsel and help. Sometime or other I must get a regular mathematical course out of you, before I am too old to learn. Do come and let us settle all sorts of delightful plans. Ever your affectionate James Martineau. In answer to a letter from Mr. Hutton containing, it would seem, some inquiry about Dr. Martineau's views in regard to Thomas Carlyle's glorification of the " uncon- scious " element in genius. Dr. Martineau wrote (on Dec. 31, 1853) a profoundly interesting and suggestive answer. It should be read in connection with the sixth sermon in 86 STUDIES IN BERLIN the second volume of the " Endeavours," on " Christian Self-Consciousness," in which occur the words: — " With sig^hs and irresistible longings does this noble writer look back upon imaginary ages of involuntary heroism, when the great and good knew not their greatness and goodness, and genius was found wiiich was a secret to itself, and ever lived for God's sake, instead of for their own. Could he realise his dream of perfection, he would stock the world with unconscious activity, and fill it with men who know not what they do. This celebrated paradox could never occupy a mind like Mr. Carlyle's, did it not envelop an important and season- able truth." What that truth is Dr. Martinean explains to some extent in the sermon from which the extract is taken; but from the following letter we gain, I think, clearer insight into this mystery, and become aware of the existence in Dr. Martineau's mind of a precious vein of thought run- ning down into the deepest things in morals and religion. As we ponder over its most suggestive sentences, gratitude for what it gives us can hardly fail to mingle with a strong desire that we possessed more than we do of the expressions of Dr. Martineau's thinking when he was in this deep and semi-mystical mood : — Dear Richard, — There does not seem to me to be any real difference between your doctrine and mine as to the power of conscious and unconscious faith ; and I have badly expressed my meaning if it looks at all like Carlyle's " uncon- scious " theory, wliich I do not hold. I am far from think- ing that a moral truth loses its practical power by becoming self-conscious; and I do not doubt that the will may apply it unwearied to the organisation of the life. But I cannot divest myself of the idea that there is a difference in this respect be- tween a moral comiction directed upon a finite truth and a religious reverence tending to an Infinite object. This feel- ing which lies high up above the proximate springs of the will seems to me to undergo perpetual change and develop- ment, and to have its headquarters ever young and fresh, while its elder currents become tepid anrj How away. In 87 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK progressive individuals and in the growth of societies the deepest tastes, the inmost worship surely never rest, but pass on to new ideals. Nor is it wonderful that a sentiment which demands the Infinite should find it only by Eternal phases of succession. Every attempt to realise the object in shapes of finite thought must be provisional, and in its detail sui- cidal ; for it must yield at last to the neglected claims of some element which at first had pined obscurely, but asserts its power at last. Whatever new truth accrues from these suc- cessive aspects of conception and belief is permanently won for our knowledge, and may be applied and used like any other knowledge ; but it is transferred from the sphere of religion to that of morals, and belongs rather to science than to faith. And on the other hand, whatever error was em- bodied in the same form falls away, and has its burial-place marked in the catacombs of nescience. This is all that I mean by the waning of conscious beliefs. It implies only a change in the character of their influence; and meanwhile their specifically religious efficacy is succeeded to by fresh reverence rising from behind and energising into power. I do think that in this process the point of greatest weakness and declension is that at which attempts are made, by self- sophistication and intellectual artifice, to detain integrally, in the pretended sphere of religion, a mode of thought for which the time is come to store the grain and blow the chaff away. Far from connecting this idea with any sceptical distrust of objective reality in religion as attainable by man, I rather find it to mean that the Holy Spirit is perpetually passing through the silent spaces of the soul, and suffusing them with inex- haustible colouring of beauty. And however much self-con- sciousness may characterise modern thought, there is no more chance of its abolishing the unconscious life than there is of the growth of knowledge finishing up the Infinite on which it makes the semblance of encroachment. No doubt it is in the middle ground, where the borders mingle of divine rever- ence and human recognition, that the sublimest balance of character is found, with which neither angelic instinct nor applied morals can be compared. But the two realms cannot mingle their confines unless both are there; and the relation between them seems to me pretty much what I have described. • • ••••••* God be with you, dear Richard, Ever your affectionate James Martineau. 08 STUDIES IN BERLIN Between this letter from Dr. Alartineau to IMr. Hutton and the next letter to him of philosophical and theological significance, there appears to be a period of about eight years. In the meantime Mr. Hutton was gradually draw- ing nearer to the position of Maurice, viz., that it is only by accepting the doctrine of a wholly exceptional and unique Incarnation in Jesus " we can keep a God essen- tially social before our hearts and minds." If, then, the evening party, to which the following letter conveys an invitation, included Dr. ^Martineau, Air. Maurice, and also the younger thinker, whom each of these eminent men could claim, though in different ways, as his fervent dis- ciple, it must surely have been a singularly interesting gathering. The " National " article referred to in the letter is probably that on " Old Creeds and New Beliefs " in the " National Review " for January, 1861. Feb. 10, 1861. My dear Richard. — On Friday evening next we are ex- pecting Mr. Byrne (Mr. Maurice's Assistant in Vere Street) and his wife to spend the evening with us, and a few friends, including, I hope, Mr. Maurice. I chose the Friday mainly because I knew it to be your town evening, and I hope you will find the power and the will to join us about eight o'clock. Mr. Byrne is an interesting man, and if you do not know him, I am sure you would be pleased to make his acquaint- ance. We can contrive then, if not before, to exchange a few needful words about the next " National." I should rather like to see the volume you mentioned on the " Philosophy of Histon.'." I have read ]\Ir. IMaurice's notes on the " Na- tional " article with much interest, — though I confess with some perplexity, even with your interpretation to help me. His horror of " instincts " (the word is no favourite with me, and his ascription of its idea to mc is quite erroneous) seems to mc founded on an arbitrary mode of drawing the distinc- tion between what is natural and what is supernatural in human consciousness. Of course nothing that belongs to our personality can be a contrr-llinc;- rule for what the Divine per- 5!onality reveals, but, on the contrarv, must yield to the para- 89 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK mount authority of the latter. The only question is, where and how are we, in our thought, to run the line between them? What Mr. Tayler calls "religious instincts," etc., may be the very same thing in reality as Mr. Maurice means by the voice of the Son of God, the Revelation that speaks from the Spirit in Scripture to the Spirit living in us. Mr. Maurice objects to them as lying on the human side of the line; if Mr. Tayler and I trust them, it is because we see in them the supernatural character which sets them on the Di- vine side. For myself, I have never regarded what is called religious philosophy as anything but the attempt of the human mind to construe to itself, as it best can, the Divine Facts and Realities, which anyhow enter the conscious life of Humanity. To these Realities it has reverently to submit itself; and the notion of reducing them within the limits of its preconceived formulas and substituting the human ideas for the Divine things, Mr. Maurice cannot repudiate more emphatically than I do. But what a strange invitation note I am writing! Ever, dear Richard, Very affectionately yours, James Martineau. The philosophical correspondence between Dr. Mar- tineau and his old pupil appears to have become unfrequent after this time, though they remained firm friends, and often met at the meetings of the Metaphysical Society and elsewhere. Mr. Hutton's searching, but warmly appreci- ative, reviews in the " Spectator " of Dr. Martineau's larger works as they successively appeared, clearly show that there was still much sympathy between him and his old teacher on questions of philosophy. But in theology they were now ranged on opposite sides. It is a funda- mental principle of Dr. Martineau's religious philosophy that all essential theological truth is capable of verifica- tion in the experience of the wisest and most spiritually minded persons; and that dogmas which do not admit of any such verification are ipso facto no part of God's eternal Gospel to Humanity. But this the followers of Mr. Maurice would not allow. As Dr. Martineau admirably 90 STUDIES IN BERLIN puts it in his article on " Tracts for the Priests and People" in the " National Review" for October, 1861 : — "The truth is, this [Mr. Maurice's] school has never suc- ceeded in settling accounts between the Eternal Divine facts, spiritually revealed by the ever-living witness, and the histori- cal pha?nomcna of the past, which, however connected with religion, are cognisable only through human testimony. In the joy of having found the former, even Mr. Maurice forgets the different tenure of the latter, involves them in the same feeling and treatment as if they, too, were entities apprehensible to- day independently of yesterday, and free from the contin- gencies of probable evidence." When Dr. Martineau antl his pupil were sitting round the stove in the Berlin lodging-house they were at one in the belief that " Divine Philosophy " embraces in its sweep the study of all the profound verities of Revealed Religion ; but when in after years the pupil follo\ved another Master, and came to hold that " if we had no vestige of the Incar- nation in history we should have no reason for believing it," ^ he set up a quite different conception of " Revealed Religion," and a conception which, in Dr. Martineau's judgment, made an unnatural and irrational rupture be- tween Philosophy and Theology, and undermined that basal truth on which they both are founded; the truth, namely, of the direct and immediate self-revelation of the Eternal in the consciousness of Humanity. 1 " Essays, Theological and Literary," by R. IT. Hutton, M.A., Vol. I. p. 223. 91 Chapter V "ESSAYS, REVIEWS, AND ADDRESSES." THE METAPHYSICAL AND SYNTHETIC SOCIETIES In the long interval between the return from Germany, in 1849, ^^d the publication of the " Study of Spinoza," in 1882, Dr. Martineau's contributions to philosophical thought were all small in outward form, however weighty in ideas, and took the shape either of Articles for the periodicals, of Papers, such as those written for the Meta- physical Society, or of occasional Addresses at the opening of the College Sessions. All of these that Dr. Martineau considered most worthy of preservation he, in 1890 and 1 89 1, collected into four volumes and published under the title "Essays, Reviews, and Addresses." After the appear- ance of these volumes he gave to the world only one writing of philosophical importance, and that was a review of Mr. A. J. Balfour's "Foundations of Belief." This final article displays wonderful mental vigour, considering that the writer was in his ninetieth year ; and it has special interest as containing Dr. Martineau's only published ex- pression of opinion on Hegelianism. Reference will be made to this article in the last chapter. In the preface to the third volume of the collection, Dr. Martineau remarks of this volume what holds good more or less of all the four : " The discussions in this volume may be regarded as tentatives which gradually prepared the way for the more systematic expositions of the ' Types of Ethical Theory ' and the ' Study of Religion,' and, in some meas- 92 "ESSAYS, REVIEWS, AND ADDRESSES' ure, of the * Seat of Authority in Rehgion.' " As the greater part of these papers were first pubHshed as review- articles in journals, it may be as well to g^ve, at the outset, a brief enumeration of the various periodicals in which they appeared : but it must be understood that the following account is confined to articles which have more or less philosophical significance. As we saw in the first chapter, Dr. Martineau's first pub- lished philosophic essay of any moment was the review of " Bentham's Deontology " in the " Monthly Repository " (at that time edited by W. J. Fox) for 1834. In 1835 he associated himself with ]\lr. J. S. JMill and others on the staff of the *' London Review " ; but that journal only lasted one year under that name, and Dr. Martineau's only contribution to it, of any importance, was not philosophical, being an article on Blanco White's " Second Travels of an Irish Gentleman in Search of a Religion." In 1836 the *' London " was amalgamated with the " Westminster Re- view," and became the " London and Westminster." In 1 84 1 it was altered back to the " Westminster," and so remained till 1847. when it became the " Westminster and Foreign Quarterly Review." It still retained this name at the time when Dr. Martineau, on the establishment of the " National Review " in 1855, ceased to be connected with it.^ Comparatively little of Dr. Martineau's mcta- ' In Prof. F. W. Newman's little book on " The Early History of the Late Cardinal Newman," he refers to the "Westminster Review" as "our chief Atheistic organ " ; and he adds in a note (p. 103) : " The reason I say this is, that Dr. James Martineau declined to continue writing for it because it inter- polated Atheistic articles between his Thei.stic articles." In the " Westminster " for March, 1S91, the Editor or some competent authority makes the following comment on Professor Newman's statement : " The general attitude of the * Review ' has been impartial between Theism and Atheism, and might best be described as 'agnostic' Professor Newman's statement is news to us and we doubt its correctness. On one occasion, the Editor received from Dr. Martineau, either directly or through a mutual friend, a proposal to contribute a review of Harriet Martineau's abridged translation of Comte's ' Philosophic Positive ' As the Editor was of opinion that the work reviewed by Dr. Martineau would 93 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK physical writings found its way into the " Westminster." Indeed, the only articles of his in the " Westminster " that have any bearing on philosophy are the one on " Strauss and Parker " in April, 1847, and that on " Channing " in January, 1849; ^"^ ^^^^^^ ^^ Theodore Parker and on Channing Dr. Martineau has expressed himself more fully in papers of about the same date in the " Prospective Re- view." It is clear from internal evidence that he wrote the philosophical and theological section of the critical summary of " Contemporary Literature " in the " Westminster " during 1854; and it is possible that he did the same for the years 1852 and 1853. After the delivery of the celebrated Liverpool Lectures, which revealed Dr. Martineau's changed philosophical position, he contributed occasionally to the " Christian Teacher," of which Mr. Thom was Editor; but his only paper there of any philosophical significance is the remark- able one on "The Five Points of Christian Faith," in which, as we saw in the third chapter, he showed a decided lean- ing towards Victor Cousin's religious philosophy. In 1845 the " Prospective Review " (under the editorship of Dr. Martineau, Mr. Thorn, and Mr. Charles Wicksteed) took the place of the " Christian Teacher," and to this journal be criticised in a thoroughly hostile spirit, the proposal was assented to on the condition that a note should be prefixed to the article disclaiming editorial responsibility for the contents of it. This condition was not agreeable to Dr. Martineau, who, therefore, did not write the article. We have good reason for believing that, excepting in this case, Dr. Martineau never expressed unwill- ingness to contribute to the ' Westminster ' ; and moreover, for a considerable period he himself wrote the Theological section of the ' Contemporary Literature.' " In his Biographical Memoranda, Dr. Martineau, after referring to a pro- posal in 1853-1854 to merge the " Prospective Review " in the " Westminster Review," says : " Instead of this, the ' Prospective ' was expanded into the ' National Review.' This move was preferred because the tone of the ' West- minster ' was becoming more and more uncongenial with the philosophical and religious convictions of the Editors of the 'Prospective'; and they could not with satisfaction surrender their function, and transfer their own literary work into hands that often indeed gave valuable help to their main objects, but often also visited them with slight or injury." 94 "ESSAYS, REVIEWS, AND ADDRESSES" Dr. Martineau was a frequent contributor. The philosoph- ical articles in the " Prospective Review " prior to Dr. Martineau's residence in Germany are the two critiques of Whewell's ethical works, the noteworthy review of Morell's " History of I^Iodern Philosophy," and the two elaborate papers on " Theodore Parker " and " Channing." These articles have been described and examined in the third chapter. The year of study in Berlin had a marked effect on both the breadth and depth of Dr. Martineau's philosophical insight; and during the " fifties " and the " sixties " there issued from his pen a splendid series of philosophical arti- cles, as finished in expression as they are powerful in thought, dealing with the chief philosophical thinkers and movements of the time. While the " Prospective " con- tinued to exist, which was till 1854, these articles appeared in its pages; and on the "Prospective" being succeeded in 1855 by the " National Review " (edited by Dr. Marti- neau. Mr. R. H. Hutton, and Mr. Walter Bagehot), this high-toned and very able quarterly l^ecame the vehicle for conveying Dr. Martineau's thoughts to the world. When, to the serious injury of the higher intellectual interests of this country, the " National Review " came to an end in 1864, Dr. Martineau almost ceased contributing to English journals, and the one or two articles he wrote after this date went to the " Contemporary Review." To this later period of his life belong also three highly important College Addresses, which will be described below. Between 1872 and 1875, Dr. Martineau wrote a series of theological papers in a New England monthly journal, "Old and New"; but the series broke off abruptly, owing to the sudden collapse of this periodical. Of these papers, one entitled " God in Nature " was reprinted in the " Theological Review " for July, 1872; and in 1890 all of them were incorporated in the " Seat of Authority in Religion," of which thcv form 95 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK the earlier chapters; and this work completely realises the scheme which Dr. Martineau had in his mind when he com- menced writing for " Old and New." To complete the list of Dr. Martineau' s philosophical contributions to period- ical literature it must be added that in answer to an elaborate criticism of the " Types of Ethical Theory " by Prof. H. Sidgwick in " Mind " for July, 1885, Dr. Martineau wrote in the October number of that journal (which at the time was edited by his friend Prof. G. Croom Robertson) a rather long and important reply, which throws new light upon a difficult point in his own ethical theory. Prof. H. Sidgwick replied to this, and his reply called forth a short re- joinder from Dr. Martineau in " Mind " for January, 1886. Dr. Martineau' s smaller treatises, written after his return from Germany, may be classified under the following heads ; and it is to be noticed that all the papers cited below (with the exception of the article on " Mesmeric Atheism " in the ''Prospective" for May, 185 1, and that on "Plato, His Physics and Metaphysics " ^ in the " National " for April, 1861) are contained in the four volumes of " Essays, Reviews, and Addresses." ^ 1. General Papers on Philosophy : " Scope of Mental and Moral Philosophy," Coll. Add. 1841, IV. ; " A Plea for Philosophical Studies," Coll. Add. 1854, IV.; "The- ology in Relation to Progressive Knowledge," Coll. Add. 1865, IV.; "A Word for Scientific Theology," Coll. Add. 1868, IV. 2. Logical Paper: " Mr. Samuel Bailey's ' Theory of Reason- ing,' " Pros. 1852, III. 3. Personal Sketches: " Lessing's Theology and Times," Pros. 1854, I. ; " Personal Influences in Present The- 1 This article is given in the American collection of " Essays, Philosophical and Theological," by James Martineau, Vol. II. 2 In the following classification Pros, stands for " Prospective Review," Mif. for "National Review," Cont. for "Contemporary Review," and Coll. Add. for "College Addresses." The year of the original publication is then given ; and the Roman numerals indicate in which volume of the reprinted "Essays, Reviews, and Addresses " it will be found. 96 "ESSAYS, REVIEWS, AND ADDRESSES" olog>': J. H. Xewman, S. T. Coleridge, T. Carlyle," Xat. 1S56, I.: " Auguste Comte's Life and Philoso- phy," Nat. 1S58, I. ; ■■ Friedrich Schlciermachcr's Life and Times," Nat. 1859, L 4. Historical Articles: " Kingsley's ' Phacthon.' " Pros. 1853, IL ; " Kingsley's ' Alexandria and her Schools,' " Pros. 18^4, IL ; "Plato, His Physics and Metaphysics," Nat. 1801. 5. On the Theory of Human Kno'icleclgc (Epistemology) : " Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy," Pros. 1853, IH. ; *' Mansel's Limits of Religious Thought," Nat. 1859, HL; ''Science, Nescience, and Faith," Nat. 1862, HL 6. Criticisms of Sensational Idealism: "John Stuart Mill's Philosophy," Nat. 1859, HL ; "Alexander Bain's Cere- bral Psychology," Nat. i860, HL 7. On the Philosophical Foundations of Theism: "Hans Christian Oersted; One Mind in Nature," Pros. 1852, HL ; " Nature and God," Nat. i860, HL ; " Tracts for Priests and People," Nat. 1861, H. ; "Is there any Axiom of Causality?"^ Cont. 1870, III. 8. Criticisms of Recent Agnosticism: — (a) Materialism: " Mesmeric Atheism," Pros. 1851 ; " Religion as Affected by Modern IMaterialism," Coll. Add. 1874. IV.; " Alodern Materialism: its Attitude towards Theology," Cont. 1876, IV. (6) Non-theistic Theories of Evolution: " Mind in Na- ture and Intuition in Man," Cont. 1872, IV. 9. The Co)inectio]i betzceen Ethics and Religion: " Ideal Sub- stitutes for God," Coll. Add. 1879, IV. ; " Relation be- tween Ethics and Religion," Coll. Add. 1881, IV. The order in which these " Essays, Reviews, and Ad- dresses" are arranged in the above classification corresponds on the whole witli the actual order in which they successively appeared ; and that order may be, to some extent, explained by considering the changing intellectual conditions in the world of thought during the long period during which Dr. Martineau's creative activity continued. As has been pointed out in an earlier chapter, the three-large and important works ' This paper was previously read before the Metaphysical Society, on June 15, 1870. 97 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK which Dr. Martineau gave to the world after he had entered upon his eightieth year are not to be regarded as, except to a very small extent, new productions of that period of his life. TKe two first of them are almost entirely his great courses of College Lectures revised and, where necessary, completed for publication ; and the earlier part of the " Seat of Authority " in like manner presents ideas which had been gradually accumulating for many years. But while Dr. Martineau was thus gradually embodying the new results of his reading and reflection in his College Lectures, which he, no doubt, from an early period of his career, intended for ultimate publication as the ifiagnum opus of his life, he was at the same time giving to the thinking portion of the public, in the detached form of Review-articles and printed Addresses the more important of these new features in his philosophical system ; and hence his students and the many readers of his contributions to the Reviews were already, to a great extent, in possession of the main principles which pervade and unify his larger works. In this way his in- fluence gradually penetrated into and did much to modify and elevate contemporary thought, both in the sphere of science and in that of theology. His profound yet bril- liant criticism of Sir William Hamilton's philosophy in the " Prospective," and that grand procession of striking ar- ticles in the " National " — " Hansel's Limits of Religious Thought," " Nature and God," " Science, Nescience, and Faith " — arrested the attention of popular writers and journalists, and through them the great formative ideas expressed in these papers passed in a diluted form into the newspapers and the pulpits, and thus helped to give a higher and a more idealistic tone to the literature and to the preach- ing of the time. As Dr. Forsyth admirably expresses it, in his elaborate appreciation and criticism of Dr. Martineau and his philosophy : ^ — ^ " London Quarterly Review," April, 1900. 98 "ESSAYS, REVIEWS, AND ADDRESSES" " He was one of the trinity of spiritual powers who, as theo- logians, have had a subtle and commanding^ influence on the thoughts of the nineteenth century, men marked not only by power, but also by distinction of mind and style. The refer- ence, of course, is, beside himself, to Maurice and J. H. New- man. His style alone would have given him influence, — so lucent, jewelled, over-polished at times, perhaps, but never metallic ; full of fancy — sometimes too full — and of im- agery now scientific, now poetic ; full of delicacy, lithe as steel, with a careful felicity ' saying the unsayable.' Xewman alone ranked with him in this regard. But all three had a style, along with a wondrous penetrativeness of intellect, spiritual imagination, and ideal charm." Evidences of the truth of Dr. Forsyth's vivid picture of the exquisite and varied beauties of Dr. Martineau's style axe to be found in countless passages in these four volumes, especially in the papers enumerated in classes 3 and 4 ; and I much regret that the narrow limits of the space at my disposal do not allow me to adorn these pages with some illustrations. One sample, however, I cannot refrain from giving; it is a description of the remarkable parallelism pre- sented in Mr. Kingsley's " Alexandria and Her Schools " between the intellectual and religious condition of that great city in the declining years of the Roman Empire, and the present state of things in London, Paris, and New York. H the parallelism held good when this fascinating paper was written in 1857, it certainly is not less true and striking in these present days of Theosophy and " Chris- tian Science." " Mr. Kingsley. it has long been evident, is haunted by a supposed analogy between the Neoplatonic period of the de- clining empire and the intellectual tendencies of the present age. And certainly if any believer in the metempsychosis chose to identify ^largarct Fuller with Hypatia, Emerson with Porphyry, the Poughkecpsie seer witii Jamblichus. and Frederick Maurice with Clement, grounds of recognition would not be wanting. Nor does the parallelism wholly fail in the broad features of the two ages. The decline of 99 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK ancient faith without mature successor to take the vacant throne; the attempt of metaphysics to fit the soul with a re- Hgion ; the pretensions of intuition and ecstasy ; the sudden birth, from the very eggs of a high-flown spirituahsm, of mystagogues and mesmerists, as larvae are born of butterflies; the growth of world-cities and world-science, with their public libraries and institutes, their botanic and zoologic gardens, their cheap baths and open parks ; the joint diffusion of taste and demoralisation, of asceticism and intemperance; the in- crease of a proletary class amid the growing humanity of society and the laws; the frequency of frightful epidemics; the combination of gigantic enterprises and immense com- merce with decay at the heart of private life; — afford undoubt- edly a curious group of symptoms common to the Europe of that day and of this. And when Mr. Kingsley justifies, by appeal to the example of the Old World, his despair of any philosophy or theology which substitutes opinions about God for faith in him, and idolises its own dogma instead of trust- ing his living guidance, we think his estimate not less season- able than it is just. For all time the difference is infinite between the partisan of beliefs and the man whose heart is set upon reality, — between one who is lifted up in the pride of his representative notions and another to whose humility the divine truth is present in person; and whether the old orthodox forms or the new-light images be the better type of thought is a barren controversy, breeding only error and nurs- ing only conceit till the mood of advocacy be changed; and they are no longer appropriated as our ideal scheme, but sur- rendered to God's realism. Our century also, no less than the third and fourth, requires to be recalled from subjective sys- tems to objective fact; to cease prating of the 'Religious Sentiment ' in the august hearing of the very God ; and, in- stead of straining the fine metaphysic wing to seek him in the seventh heaven, simply to let him be here and tell us what to do. In fetching this lesson out of the Alexandrine history, and warning us of the difference between worship of human intellect and reverence for divine truth, Mr. Kingsley renders good service." ^ But while the force of Dr. Martineau's reasoning, aided by the high finish of his style, had great influence on both ^ Essays, Vol. II. p. 312. TOO -ESSAYS, REVIEWS, AND ADDRESSES" theological and philosophical thought during the second half of the century-, by refuting the irrational dogmatism of the theologians, on the one hand, and the anti-theistic assump- tions of scientists on the other, it must be remembered that the intellectual environment amid which he lived, and the progressive changes in that environment, determined, in great measure, the direction of his mental energy and the character of his publications. The works of every great thinker are at once the outcome of the dominant thought of his age, and at the same time agents in the remoulding and development of that thought. It was Dr. Martineau's rather unusual fortune to have seen, during the fifty years of his literary activity, some remarkable revolutions in British philosophical thought. At the time when he began to pub- lish these Review-articles there were in Britain two schools of thought struggling for the mastery, of which the one was passing into its declining years, while the other was young and full of vigour. The former of these was the Scotch school ; not, however, as it had been in the time of Reid and Stewart, but as it had become under the influence of the strong personality and immense philosophical erudition of Sir William Hamilton. In the celebrated paper in the " Edinburgh " in 1829, on " The Philosophy of the Uncon- ditioned," which gained European fame, Hamilton, while manifesting great admiration for Victor Cousin, and re- ceiving help from him in support of his own favourite doctrine of " Natural Realism," had used the Kantian philosophy as a means of discrediting Cousin's claims to a positive knowledge of the Absolute. In 1850 Hamilton's influence was still powerful, and had been increased by the publication in 1846 of his edition of Reid's works with its marvellously learned and acute Supplementary Dissertations. But while Hamilton was the supreme authority in the Scotch metropolis, there was arising, in the English capital, a lOI PHILOSOPHICAL WORK new school of teachers, among whom Mr. John Stuart Mill, Dr. Martineau's former colleague on the staff of the " Lon- don Review," took the lead. These thinkers looked to the recently established London University as the great promise of the future. There Metaphysics was to be studied merely as a historical matter, Mental Philosophy was to become Mental Science; and the attention of psychologists being thus diverted from the futile study of noUmena to the fer- tile study of phcrnomena and the processes of association among them, it was supposed that the science of Mind would soon acquire the same positive and progressive char- acter which happily characterised the cultivation of the Natural Sciences. Such was the condition of philosophical affairs in this country when Dr. Martineau returned from Berlin, in 1849. In 1852, in his review in the " Prospective " of Oersted's " Soul in Nature," he sketched an outline of his own posi- tive religious philosophy; an outline which was a forecast of the elaborate presentation of his religious philosophy given in i860 in that magnificent article on " Nature and God," which ranks among the very finest of his productions. In the meantime, however, he directed his critical powers upon the two philosophies which were contending for dom- inance over the British mind. With the old Scotch school he had strong mental affinities, and Sir William Hamilton's vast philosophical knowledge, and his powerful reassertion of Reid's Realism and Dualism, had a great charm for him; but with Hamilton's complete ontological scepticism he had not the slightest sympathy; nor was he at all prepared to follow Hamilton in recovering, by the way of the Moral Consciousness and Faith, theological verities, to which the Reason declined to allow any validity. Hence originated that important paper in the " Prospective " on " Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy " ; in which Dr. Martineau points out with great lucidity Hamilton's fundamental inconsist- 102 "ESSAYS, REVIEWS, AND ADDRESSES" ency, and while he, himself, is not prepared to defend in its entirety the continental ontolog}', he expounds another method, by which he thinks adequate theological insight may be attained and justified. '* Let it be admitted at once," he says, " that all knowledge is relative. . . . But the objects of ontological quest are not lost to us in being only relatively discerned. Because God can be contemplated only like other objects of thought, as differenced from our subjective selves, is it needful to say that he is merely phaenomenal to us and not cognisable in his reality ? " ^ That Dr. J^Iartineau really believed that we do know God /;; Jiis reality is evident from countless passages in his writings; but I must confess that I feel great difficulty in understanding how we could possibly reach this know- ledge if He were differenced from our subjective selves in the same way as " other objects of thought " are. If He only revealed Himself to us as other noiimena^ do, we might have a cognition of Him as " the infinite Not-me " or as " an Infinite Mind " ; but. so far as I can see, we should in this way never apprehend Him " in his reality " ; it is just because He reveals Himself in us, in a way no other object of thought possibly can do, that we do come to know Him in His essential nature, that is to say, to know Him as the Absolute One on whom both the me and the not-me with their mutual relativity alike depend. This is virtually the same question as that to which I called attention before in the tliird chapter, in connection with Dr. Martineau's criticism of Victor Cousin's doctrine of man's intuition of the Absolute. My excuse for again referring to it is, that Dr. Martineau in many of his pro- foundest and most beautiful passages, as, for instance, when > Vol. III. p. 480. ' For ihc sense in which Dr. Martineuu uses the word noiimcnon see the Ninth Chapter. PHILOSOPHICAL WORK he says that " No merely finite being can possibly believe the Infinite," appears to be practically recognising the exist- ence in man of an immediate apprehension of God which is quite different from the relative mode in which we come to know " other objects of thought." Whether this direct apprehension of God can be strictly called " knowledge " depends upon how we define "knowledge" ; but, if I rightly interpret Dr. Martineau's writings, he certainly assumed that in that Divine revelation which is made in us through the universal principles of thought, and through the divinely authoritative ideals of Beauty, Righteousness, and Love, we have a genuine, though very imperfect, insight into the absolute reality of God. While Dr. Martineau thus felt partial dissatisfaction with Hamilton, owing to the latter' s ontological scepticism, he was entirely out of sympathy with the sensational idealists ; and, accordingly, in his article on "John Stuart Mill," in which he does fullest justice to Mill's masterly treat- ment of subjects which, like Political Economy, involve no questions of ultimate metaphysics, he entirely demol- ishes, as he does also in the companion paper on " Pro- fessor Bain's Cerebral Psychology," the Sensationalist's explanation of Reality and Causality. Just at the time when the followers of Hamilton and those of Mill and Bain were thus vehemently contending with each other, and Dr. Martineau was holding his own independently of both, two fresh and quite unexpected claimants for philosophical supremacy appeared upon the scene. Of these one sprang into birth on British soil; the other was of German extraction. The motto of the former was " Evolution and Heredity," that of the latter the "Absolute Reality of Thought"; but each of them vigorously attacked the fundamental principles, both of the Edinburgh intuitionalists and of the London sensa- tionalists; and it is one of the most dramatic events in 104 "ESSAYS, REVIEWS, AND ADDRESSES" the history of philosophical thought that, in less than twenty vears. these new-comers had between them managed to dethrone and dispossess both of the pretenders to philo- sophic rule with whom Dr. ^lartineau had, in previous years, such brilliant encounters. From this circumstance it comes about that Dr. ^lartineau's earlier polemics, pow- erful as they were, have now not much more than a literary and historical interest. Of this he was himself well aware, for in a letter written March 14, 1S92, to the Rev. A. W. Jackson, in reply to Mr. Jackson's request for advice in regard to the most effective course of philosophical reading, he says : — " My only fear is, lest, through having the subjects of study suggested by the sum of an octogenarian's work, you should overtask yourself with labour on literature superseded by fresher products on the same lines. The philosophical prob- lems discussed by Hamilton and IMansel, by Mill and Bain, still survive and reward thorough and independent study.. But they have fallen into new attitudes and their living in- terest has shifted to other aspects, thrown forward partly by the development of the Hegelian school, partly by the Dar- winian revival of the Evolution hypothesis of Lucretius. To be dealt with effectually for the present generation, these problems, though full of historical interest, need to be taken up at their modern end." But to Dr. Martineau's later work, — to his criticism of Mr. Spencer and Professor Tyndall, — this advice is not intended to apply. The views against which these later controversial essays are directed still keep their hold on the public mind, and seem indeed to be yearly strengthening that hold ; and therefore for students of present philosophy the papers referred to retain a strong and living interest. It is to be noted that it was only against the former of the two new philosophies that Dr. Martineau publicly entered the lists. In private talks and letters, however, he, at times, attacked the latter somewhat smartlv, though he knew Prof. 105 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK T. H. Green well, and loved him much, but thought that at heart Green, like most passionately ethical natures, was much more of a Kantian and Lotzian than of a Hegelian. It must be borne in mind that though Ferrier of St. Andrews, and Hutchison Stirling of Edinburgh, had some years before introduced Hegelian ideas to British thinkers, Green did not become a great power at Oxford, nor the two Cairds at Glasgow till Dr. Martineau was close upon his seventieth year; and strange to say, he never fully realised the powerful attraction which Absolute Idealism has for many minds, nor at all anticipated the lengthened influence it was destined to exert on both sides of the Atlantic. But if Hegelianism is still a great power in the liv- ing thought of our time, Spencerianism is certainly not less so; and it was to this phase of the Zeitgeist that Dr. Martineau particularly addressed himself. Spencer's phil- osophy has a metaphysical as well as a scientific side, and it was this metaphysical factor in it, as developed in his " First Principles," which placed him in the same category with such theological Agnostics as Sir W, Hamilton and Dean Mansel. Against the position of this rather curious agnostic trio (consisting of a Divine, a Philosopher, and a Scientist) Dr. Martineau, in the masterly paper on " Science, Nescience, and Faith," brought to bear all the resources of his rich philosophic erudition and of his great dialectic skill. With this paper is closely connected the similar but less comprehensive one on " Mansel's Limits of Religious Thought " ; and both of them, to some extent, restate the same epistemological principles to which I have referred in connection with the article on " Sir W. Hamil- ton's Philosophy." All these impressive papers prove, I think, conclusively that the phsenomena of nature owe their origin to spiritual activity, and that the right clue to the meaning of all cau- io6 ♦* ESSAYS, REVIEWS, AND ADDRESSES" sality is found in our consciousness of volitional Effort. As the cosmical forces appear to be interchangeable, and in their aggregate produce the organic unity of the world, Dr. Martineau successfully contends that they are all modes of activity of One Self-Existent Spirit. Mr. Spencer argues that such a Self-Existent Spirit is '' inconceivable " ; to which Dr. Martineau aptly replies : — " We cannot answer for the consciousness of others ; and in the face of this frequent assertion we hardly like to speak for ourselves. Yet after repeated reflection we cannot at all detect this alleged ' impossibility.' To form an i))iage of any infinitude, — be it of time, space, or number, — to go men- tally through it by successive steps of representation, is in- deed impossible ; not less so than to traverse it in our finite perception and experience. But to have the thought of it as an idea of the Reason, not of the phantasy, and to assign that thought a constituent place in valid beliefs and consistent reasoning, appears to us not only possible, but inevitable; and the large part it plays in mathematical science alone suf- fices to indicate its worth for the intellect." The article on " Nature and God " and that on " Science, Nescience, and Faith " exhibit a feature in Dr. Martineau's philosophy of the cosmos which was often a subject of debate between us, and which as it presented a serious difficulty to my mind may be a stumbling-block to other readers who accept in the main Dr. Martineau's philosophy. The doctrine I refer to is, that the Infinite Mind in fash- ioning the cosmos is conditioned in the exercise of His Causality by the independent existence of Infinite Space, and, probably, also by that of self-existent Matter. " Our age," says Dr. Martineau, " professes itself weary of the old mechanical Deism, and cries out for the Immanent and Living God. It is well; but even for Immanency itself there must be something wherein to dwell ; and for Life some- thing wherein to act. Mind, to think out its problems, — un- less these problems are a dream. — cannot be monistic, — a mere subjective infinitude, — its tides and eddies all within. What resource, then, have we when we seek for something 107 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK objective to God? The first and simplest, in which accord- ingly philosophy has never failed to take refuge, is Space. Inconceivable by us except as co-extensive and co-eternal with him, yet independent of him, it lies ready with all its contents of geometrical property for the induction of his Reason." In a succeeding passage Dr. Martineau further contends that "there must be something else than Space (viz., Matter) objective to God." ^ Whether we agree, or disagree, with Dr. Martineau on this question, it must not be supposed that he re- garded his views on this particular subject as an indis- pensable part of the foundation on which he erects the grand fabric of his philosophy of Theism. Beyond a doubt he himself was firmly convinced not only of the objective reality of Space, but also of its existence inde- pendently of God ; and he also saw good reason for agree- ing with Plato, that Matter is an eternal datum on which the will and thought of the Supreme Being are impressed; but this conviction did not prevent him from expressing much admiration for Lotze's " Microcosmus," in which treatise both the Kantian view of Space is accepted and the Supreme Being is represented as by a differentiation of His own substance, creating a cosmos of finite existences. In Mr. Herbert Spencer's reply to Dr. Martineau's paper on " Science, Nescience, and Faith " he urges that Dr. Martineau can give no clearer account of his mystery of Eternal Space and Eternal Matter as existing indepen- dently of God, than he [Mr. Spencer] can give of his Un- knowable Absolute ; and, in conclusion, he asks : — " Is it not better candidly to acknowledge the incompetence of our intelligence, rather than to persist in calling that an explanation which does but disguise the inexplicable? What- ever answer each may give to this question, he cannot rightly blame those who, finding in themselves an indestructible consciousness of an Ultimate Cause, whence proceed alike 1 Essays, Vol. III. p. 173- 108 "ESSAYS, REVIEWS, AND ADDRESSES" what we call the Material Universe, and what we call Mind, refrain from affirming anything respecting it ; because they find it as inscrutable in nature as it is inconceivable in extent and duration." ^ There does not exist any reply by Dr. Martineau to Mr. Spencer's criticism, but it would not, I think, be foreign to the spirit of Dr. Martineau's teaching to say in response to the above quotation that Mr. Spencer him- self admits that the Ultimate Cause is an Omnipresent Power and that it is certainly not lower than personal. The Theist, then, may confidently argue that the principles of thought, which make the cosmical effects intelligible to the human mind, must needs belong also to the Ultimate Cause whence those effects proceed. And, further, he may reasonably urge that the gradually developing Moral Ideal in Humanity, which carries with it the categorical imper- ative, cannot be other than an imperfect but real and progressive self-revelation by the Ultimate Cause of its own essential character and ends. Again, if the Ultimate Cause produces, as it does, self-conscious personalities, all the essential principles of life and personality must needs be involved in the nature of this Ultimate Cause; and, therefore, the Absolute is by no means essentially and wholly unknowable by the human mind. The many volumes of the " Synthetic System of Phil- osophy," which follow the " First Principles," constitute a very elaborate attempt to give such an account of the Evolution of the Cosmos as shall dispense with the domi- nation of the process by Infinite Intelligence and Will. Against the non-Theistic principles of this side of the Spencerian philosophy Dr. Martineau argues with great clearness and force in the essay on " Mind in Nature and Intuition in Man " ; and this paper also called forth from * "Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative," by Herbert Spencer, Vol. III. p. 300. 109 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK Mr. Spencer a reply, which, under the title of " Mr. Mar- tineau on Evolution," now forms the tenth chapter of the third volume of his " Essays : Scientific, Political, and Speculative." Two years after the publication of Dr. Martineau's above-mentioned criticism of the Spencerian form of the doctrine of Evolution, Dr. Tyndall gave his celebrated Address at Belfast, in which he advocated in a more poetic and pantheistic spirit a conception of the develop- ment of the cosmos, which was as much opposed as Mr. Spencer's to Dr. Martineau's conception of a theistic origin and maintenance of the universe. The main ideas of the Belfast Address were accordingly expounded and keenly criticised, in the following October, by Dr. Mar- tineau in his brilliant and effective Address, at the opening of the College Session, on " Religion as affected by Modern Materialism." To this Professor Tyndall replied in a paper which first appeared in the " Fortnightly Review," but the matter of which was afterwards embodied in the " Reflections on Materialism," which now forms the In- troduction to the second part of his " Fragments of Science." The paper in the " Fortnightly " elicited from Dr. Martineau a long and closely reasoned rejoinder, which appeared first in the " Contemporary Review," and is now printed in Vol. IV. of the " Essays, Reviews, and Ad- dresses," under the title " Modern Materialism : its At- titude towards Theology." It is, of course, not possible for me, in this sketch of Dr. Martineau's philosophical views, to find space to set forth and examine the chief considerations by which in his criticisms of Mr. Spencer's and Professor Tyndall's evolutionar}^ theories he is led to the conclusion that matter can only be said to contain " the promise and potency of all terrestrial life " on the under- standing that in matter and its evolution is immanent and manifested the Thought and Will of the Self-Existent Eter- IIO "ESSAYS, REVIEWS, AND ADDRESSES" nal ; but in the sixth chapter, which treats of the '* Types of Ethical Theory," Dr. Martincau's fundamental ideas on the process of Evolution will be brietly presented. In that chapter too, and also in the chapter on " A Study of Religion," I shall endeavour to give some ex- pression to the grand truth which inspires one of the latest and certainly one of the most eloquent and impres- sive of his College Addresses, namely, that delivered in 1879 on "Ideal Substitutes for God." This Address deep- ened the impression of Dr. Martineau's great philosophi- cal powers, already made, both in literary and in religious circles, by his searching criticisms of Spencer and Tyndall; and it was the combined effect of these striking utterances which raised Dr. Martineau to the admitted rank of the foremost philosophical exponent and champion of the great basal principles of Theism and rational Christianity. Dr. Martineau's use of the word " Atheist " in these papers called forth some protest; for those thinkers in the present day who are unable to profess a definite theistic belief feel that their mental attitude towards the Ultimate Cause is more accurately expressed by that convenient word of Professor Huxley's coinage, — " Agnostic." Dr. Martineau in his Biographical Memoranda thus justifies his use of the word in the article on " Mesmeric Atheism " : — " As to the verbal question, ' Atheism ' has always been understood to mean not the denial of a ' First Cause ' aTrXw?, but the denial that the ' First Cause ' is God, t. c, an Intend- ing and Governing Mind ; nor can we depart from this usage without the absurd result of treating Biichner and those who find their ' First Cause ' in ' Matter and Force ' as Theists." In the article on " Nature and God " Dr. Martineau happene^l to use the words " Theist " and " Atheist " in a way which led Mr. Spencer to think that writers holding his view were described as Atheists. This he naturally felt to be an injustice, and the following letter, written by 1 1 1 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK Dr. Martineau to Dr. W. R. Alger, gives an interesting explanation of the unintended offence. I may add that Dr. Martineau and Mr. Spencer were on friendly terms as co-members of the Athenaeum, and once Dr. Martineau told me with a smile that after he and Mr. Spencer had been discussing for some time, Mr. Spencer said : " Now, Dr. Martineau, let us drop philosophy and try our hands at a game of billiards." Oct. 26, 1S71. My dear Alger, — Dear friend, I lost not a moment, after receipt of your letter, in going to call on Herbert Spencer, who had not sent me your note. I have seen him this morn- ing, and had a long and satisfactory cclaircissement. My offence, it seems, consisted ( i ) in attributing to him a belief in a " background " instead of a " power " behind phae- nomena; (2) in omitting to describe his attitude of denial towards Pantheism and Atheism as well as towards Theism ; (3) in suffering my Essays to appear in England in a volume without notice of his remonstrance. He now understands ( i ) that the word " background " was not intended to exclude the idea of activity involved in "power," though failing to suggest it; (2) that my subject being Theism, I had nothing to do with his attitude towards Atheism and Pantheism; (3) that I did not know what the volume of Essays would contain, and had forgotten all about my review of him ; but, in case of a future edition, will gladly set myself right by a note of explanation. I have nothing but honour for him ; and owe too much to him to have any interest but in understanding his thought exactly as it is. I frankly told him so; and that I felt that he was not a man to let speculative differences become a ground of personal aversion. He declared himself quite sat- isfied; and so far as consists with his exceptional sensitive- ness to dissentient criticism, I fully believe he is so. And so, dear friend, your good wishes have already attained their ac- complishment. I know this will give you a gleam of comfort. Ever your affectionate James Martineau. At the opening of his essay on " The New Affinities of Faith," written in connection with the proposed " Free Christian Union," Dr. Martineau says: — 112 -ESSAYS, REVIEWS, AND ADDRESSES" *' Foreigners have often complained of the intricacy of Eng- lish religious phaenomena. The present age is eliciting from the confusion two conspicuous features, — a return to Sacer- dotal usage, and the erection of an ideal of secular good into a systematic faith. . . . Did we look at the progress of these two forces alone, we might fancy our world surrendered to the alternative, so often threatened, ' Rome or Atheism.' " This called forth a remonstrance from Prof, II. Sidg- wick, in reply to which Dr. Martineau wrote : — lo Gordon Street, Feb. 6, iS6g. Dear Mr. Sidgwick, — I am sincerely obliged by your criticisms, and will briefly report how they affect me. The sentence or two on Atheism I cannot admit to be " rhetori- cal," if by this phrase you mark the semblance of truth as opposed to the reality. It seems to me rigorously true that modem science — correlation of forces and Darwinian theory included — has not in the smallest degree altered the logical weights in the Theistic problem. And Laplace's remark itself shows that it was as easy to him as it is to Darwin to dis- pense with the idea of a Personal God. If the Divine Cause were resorted to only for the residuary phenomena for which scientific hypotheses found no place, I should feel with you that the enlargement of the field of Law rendered more diffi- cult the recognition of Personal Causation. But being unable to admit any scientific discovery of Force, and regarding it as a postulate of Thought, and in that form equivalent to the idea of JVill, I cannot but claim for Theism the field of Law, just as much as what lies beyond it ; and then it is a matter of total indifference (religiously) where the line is run be- tween the reclaimed and the unreclaimed phenomena. Con- versely, the scientific idolatry of unknown " Forces " was just as seductive and as atheistic in the age of Epicurus as it is in ours. My position is that the sice of the known Cosmos makes no difference. In other words, the problem is Meta- physical, not Physical, and is unaffected by the advance of i'hysical Science, On this point, therefore, the text is true to me ; and a change in it, adequate to meet your feeling, would be untrue to me. • •••••••• Believe me ever Yours very truly, James Martineau. 113 H PHILOSOPHICAL WORK While Dr. Martineau was thus, during the " sixties " and " seventies," by means of his pen, contending for im- portant issues with the more prominent scientific expo- nents of the philosophy of the cosmos, he was also in company with some other eminent Theists, meeting sev- eral of these same philosophers and scientists for viva voce debate at the monthly gatherings of the Metaphysical So- ciety. A brief account, therefore, of the nature of this society and of Dr. Martineau' s connection with it will be here in place. The Society originated in a conversation which took place in the house of Mr. James Knowles (now the Editor of the "Nineteenth Century"), where Mr. (later Lord) Tennyson was among the guests; and it appears that it was Lord Tennyson who suggested the formation of a society, the main object of which should be the submitting to searching criticism the intellectual foundations of the spreading Positivism and Agnosticism; and for this pur- pose it was at first proposed to confine the membership to thinkers of a theistic stamp. Eminent men who were on this side of the question were sounded as to their willing- ness to become members, and Dr. Martineau' s reply was to this effect : — " I feel the deepest interest in these problems, and for the equal chance of gaining and giving light would gladly join in discussing them with gnostics and agnostics alike ; but a society of gnostics to put down agnostics I cannot approve and could not join." The scheme was accordingly altered to meet Dr. Mar- tineau's wishes, and able agnostics, like Professors Tyn- dall and Huxley, were invited, and readily assented. " It was feared at first," writes Dr. Martineau, " that the modified project would be unacceptable to the two or three professional theologians who had already been committed ; but they readily acceded to the proposal, and at the first meet- 114 THE METAPHYSICAL SOCIETY ing it was distinctly settled that the members crediting each other with a pure quest of truth would confer together on terms of respectful fellowship, and never visit with reproach the most unreserved statement of reasoned belief or unbelief." Dr. Martineau adds that as far as he could remember this initial understanding was observed throughout the history of the Society. Only in a single instance, and that at one of the earliest meetings, was there any in- fraction of this principle. The solitary exception is thus graphically described by Mr. Wilfrid Ward in his most interesting work on " William George Ward and the Catholic Revival " ; and he gives Mr. Froude as his au- thority for the incident : — " A speaker at one of the first meetings laid down em- phatically as a necessary condition to success, that no element of moral reprobation must appear in the debates. There was a pause, and then Dr. Ward said : ' While acquiescing in this condition as a general rule, I think it cannot be expected that Christian thinkers shall give no sign of the horror with which they would view the spread of such extreme opinions as those advocated by ^^r. Huxley.' Another pause ensued, and then Mr. Huxley said: 'As Dr. Ward has spoken, I must say in fairness that it will be very difficult for me to conceal my feelings as to the intellectual degradation which would come of the general acceptance of such views as Dr. Ward holds.' No answer was given ; but the single speech on either side brought home then and there to all, including the speakers, that if such a tone were admitted the Society could not last a day. From that time onward no word of the kind was ever heard." At the head of the list of members occur the names of Lord Tennyson and Mr. Gladstone; these are followed by those of Lx)rd Selbourne, the Archbishop of York, Dr. James Martineau, Prof. Henry Sidgwick, Mr. R. H. Hut- ton, and Mr. Ruskin; Catholics, as Archbishop Manning, Father Dalgairns, Dr. Ward, and Dr. Gasqiiet; Agnostic men of science, as Professors Tyndall and Huxley; and 115 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK Gnostic men of science and physicians, as Dr. W. B. Car- penter, Professor Mivart, Dr. Andrew Clark, and Sir Wil- liam Gull; with several others. Mr. J. S. Mill and Mr. Herbert Spencer could not be induced to join. Mr. James Knowles was the honorary secretary during nearly all the twelve years of the Society's existence, but towards the end his place was taken by Sir Frederick Pollock. The chairmen were elected for a year, and among them were Mr. Gladstone, Lord Selbourne, Mr. Huxley, Dr. Ward, and Dr. Martineau. And when after twelve years the So- ciety came to an end, because, as Mr. Knowles explains it, "the members knew each other's views and there seemed little to be said which had not been already repeated more than once," the final meeting was held in Dr. Martineau's house under his chairmanship, and the last resolution passed was " that the Chairman be requested to accept the Minute-book, with the documents thereto belonging, as a token of the Society's thanks for his services during the past year." The meetings were first held in Willis's Rooms, but later in the Grosvenor Hotel. After dining together the members sat round a table with a sheet of blank foolscap paper before each one, which was not often used for notes, but sometimes served for other purposes. Professor Huxley, it was said, was fond of drawing sketches and portraits on his sheet, and when I became a member in its later years, I recollect noticing the distin- guished author of " A Defence of Philosophic Doubt " similarly engaged while listening with amused interest to the conflict of the philosophies. Not only were the de- bates often of high interest, but the mere spectacle of several highly gifted thinkers, of very different types of faculty and genius, and with such a variety of facial ex- pression, was itself a treat of no mean order. Towards the close of the evening the debate often passed into a conversation, and the genial affability with which the most ii6 THE xMETAPHYSICAL SOCIETY eminent among them freely interchanged ideas with the humbler members suggested the fancy that we in modern times were enjoying a feast of reason in somewhat of the old Athenian style. In an account of the meetings which Sir INI. E. Grant Duff gave to Mr. Wilfrid Ward, he says : — " I do not remember that the Laureate took any part in the discussion, but his mere presence added dignity to a dignified assemblage. ... I remember after the dissolution of the Society the late Archbishop of York told me he was more struck with the metaphysical ability of Father Dalgairns and of Mr. James Martineau than by that of any other of the disputants." Dr. Martineau felt high respect for the philosophical ability and moral earnestness of the Catholic members; and he writes : " For myself I can say that if I had gained nothing from the Metaphysical Society but the impression of Father Dalgairns's personality, I should have been for ever grateful to it " ; and in conversa- tion he spoke with admiration of the convincing force of the remarkable paper read before the Society by Father Dalgairns on " The Personality of God," which paper ap- I)eared afterwards in an enlarged form in the " Contem- porary Review." Fortunately, the late Mr. R. H. Hutton ^ has left a charming description of one of the most attractive of these monthly meetings, — that on Dec. lo, 1872. He first most happily characterises the more prominent members present, and then gives a vivid statement of the chief points in the various speeches. Of Dr. Martineau and Professors Hux- ley and Tyndall he says : — " The noble and steadfast, but somewhat melancholy, faith which seemed to be sculptured on Dr. Martineau's massive brow shaded off into wistfulness in the glance of his eyes. » " The Nineteenth Century," August, 1885. 117 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK Professor Huxley, who always had a definite standard for every question which he regarded as discussible at all, yet made you feel that his slender definite creed in no way repre- sented the cravings of his large nature. Professor Tyndall's eloquent addresses frequently culminated with some pathetic indication of the mystery which to him surrounded the moral life." The paper of the evening was written by that acute and powerful Catholic thinker Dr. W. G. Ward, then Editor of the " Dublin Review," and was on the question, " Can Experience prove the Uniformity of Nature? " the writer's main object evidently being to remove philosophical objec- tions to the reality of physical miracles. It is curious that there was no Kantian or Hegelian among the speakers, for they all appeared to agree that the doctrine of the Uniformity of Nature was not based on any logical neces- sity, but was, as Huxley expressed it, no more than " a working hypothesis " for the explanation of natural phse- nomena. Professor Huxley maintained, however, that it was a hypothesis that had been so constantly verified by ex- perience that, though he was willing to examine the evidence for alleged miracles, he thought that the probability of their unreality was immensely great. Dr. Martineau agreed with Professor Huxley that the question of miracles was a ques- tion of evidence, but he dissented entirely from his phae- nomenal view of Causation. " I cannot doubt for a moment," he said, " that cause and eflfect are connected together by efficient links, nor that if Force outside of us means the same thing as Force inside of us, the relation of Cause and Effect is as necessary — unless some Higher Power interferes to modify the cause — as the relation of premisses to conclusion." He thought it highly probable that this Higher Power does not interfere in the physical world, but in the sphere of consciousness he recognised the reality of such inter- ference, and said : — ii8 THE METAPHYSICAL SOCIETY " In my view it is quite unreasonable to deny that there are indirect but conclusive proof in history that such supernat- ural intluences have transformed, and do habitually still trans- form, the characters of the very greatest of our race." At a meeting held about a year before the one just re- ferred to, Professor Huxley read a paper on the question, ** Has the Frog a Soul; and of what nature is that Soul, supposing it to exist? " On this occasion an amusing inci- dent occurred, described to me by Dr. Martineau years ago, which I cannot refrain from recalling, especially as it involves a principle of great philosophical importance. After the paper had been read, in which the writer ex- presses his adhesion to the automatic doctrine that " pur- posive operations may be effected by matter without the help of a soul," the noble chairman said to Professor Huxley : — " I happened to be walking this morning along Oxford Street, intending to go to the Marble Arch ; iDut before I got to Oxford Circus something suggested to me that I wanted a new pair of boots, and, as my boot-maker lives in Regent Street, when I reached the Circus I turned down into that street. Now am I to understand. Professor Huxley, that your oi)inion is that the entrance of that idea into my mind had no causal connection with the changed direction of my limbs ? " To this question the Professor replied : " Such certainly is my opinion." After the utterance of this dictum by so high an authority, the Chairman could say no more. During the twelve years the Society existed only two papers were read by Dr. Martineau, but each of them was on a subject of prime significance. The first on June 15, 1870, discussed the question, " Is there any Axiom of Causality?" which paper was afterwards printed in the " Contemporary Review," and is now in Vol. 111. of " Essays, Reviews, and Addresses." The second, on April 17, 1877, was on ** The Supposed Conflict between Eflfi- cicnt and Final Causation." 119 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK In reference to the former of these papers the following extract from a letter written by Dr. Martineau on Aug. 26, 1870, to his friend the Rev. Charles Wicksteed is of deep interest : — " It must be confessed, I fear, that the modern scientific doctrine as conceived by Huxley, Darwin, Tyndall — to say nothing of the Comtists — is fundamentally atheistic. Yet from both Tyndall and Huxley I have heard admissions (in arguments at the Metaphysical Society) which are logically inconsistent with their negative position in regard to religion. When in June last I read a paper at the Metaphysical Society on the doctrine of Causation, Huxley was expected to appear against it as Protagonistes, in his usual incisive way. To my surprise he avowed his assent to the main psychological doc- trine of the paper, — that physically we have no cognisance of causation; that intellectually we are obliged to think it; and that in thinking it we necessarily identify it with Will. But whether this psychological necessity might not be a psy- chological illusion seemed to be his doubt. To speak of the ' Unknown Power ' as an orderly tendency, shaping things into systems which are objects of intellectual apprehension to us, he admits to be unobjectionable; but to suppose Per- sonal design in relation to so vast a universe seemed to be somehow bafifling to his imagination. I asked him why, if his own mind could read and interpret this vast system a pos- teriori, so as to be thus affected by its magnificence, it should be deemed out of the question that the highest Mind should project it a priori f He could only say that Personality, as he measured it, was not equal to the immensity of the product. And it was easy to see that, as a physiologist, he was accus- tomed to look at the human personal attributes as merely emerging from the simply vital phsenomena at their culmi- nating point ; and that this Naturalist's estimate of them rose up to damp and quench his inward reading of them from the consciousness of intellectual light and moral freedom." To this account of the Metaphysical Society it is fitting to append a brief description of the kindred club, the Synthetic Society, of which Dr. Martineau was a member during the last few years of his life. With what indi- vidual the idea of this society originated, I do not know; 120 THE SYNTHETIC SOCIETY but probably w-ith one of the surviving members of the old Metaphysical Society, among whom were Mr. A. J. Balfour, Mr. R. H. Hutton, and Prof. Henry SidgAvick. All these took part in the project, and with them have been associated, among others, the present Bishop of Worcester (then Canon Gore), Mr. Gerald Balfour, the Rev. Dr. Clark, Sir Alfred Lyall, Mr. Haldane, Prof. Oliver Lodge, Dr. Hastings Rashdall, Prof. James Ward, Mr. George Wyndham, and Mr. Wilfrid Ward, the gifted son of that distinguished member of the Metaphysical Society, whose philosophical powers and spiritual worth Dr. Martineau so highly esteemed. The two last-named gentlemen acted as the Honorary Secretaries. The gen- eral object of the Synthetic Society is similar to that of the ^Metaphysical Society, except that the originators thought it better to confine the membership so far as pos- sible to thinkers who were not thoroughly committed to agnostic principles, and, therefore, thought it possible to attain to some measure of real insight into the essential nature of the Ground and Cause of the Universe. When it was proposed to Dr. ]\Iartineau to join this new Society he wrote the following letter, which evinces such mental vigour, both in the clearness of the thought and the grace of the expression, that as the production of a nonagena- rian writer it is probably almost unique. I copy it from a communication by Mr. Ward to the " Times " soon after Dr. Martineau's decease. 35 Gordon Square, Feb. 21, 1896. Drar Mr. Ward, — When the Metaphysical Society was founded, at the suggestion of Tennyson, in the hope of check- ing the growth of Agnosticism, I declined to take part in it, unless the opposed parties were brought face to face on equal terms as seekers of the Truth. Something of the same feel- ing still clings to mc; and I doubt the i)ossihility of keeping clear of the fundamental matters on which they arc at issue in any thorough discussion of the varieties of Gnosticism. The really misplaced people in the old Society were those 121 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK who had no belief in metaphysics at all, and could only treat their problems with impatience or derision. To these mem- bers the end which the Society had in view was not only un- attainable but unreal; and an evening spent in quest of it was a futile waste of life. I certainly feel that we could have prospered better without this class of members, to whom the questions discussed were closed before the attempt to answer them. And if the term " Synthetical " is intended to bespeak a recognition of more than phgenomena as the object of possible knowledge, and is deemed more effectual for the purpose than " Metaphysical," I see no adequate reason against the limitation which it imposes. Those of us who are already in agreement on a fun- damental epistemological question, may help each other by com- paring our several views of what the ulterior Reality is, which is delivered to us in aspects so various. I gladly, therefore, and thankfully accept the invitation with which you honour me. I cannot hope, in the last verge of life, to contribute anything but sympathy to the meetings of the Society. But I have not outlived the habit of learning evermore from my fellows ; and this privilege offered me has an irresistible attraction. Believe me, always, Yours very sincerely, Wilfrid Ward, Esq. James Martineau. The first meeting was held, under the presidency of the Bishop of Rochester, in February, 1896. There was a large and distinguished gathering both at the dinner and at the meeting afterwards. Mr. Wilfrid Ward read a very interesting paper on the objects of the " Synthetic Society." This was followed by a discussion in which Dr. Martineau took an active part, insisting in an able speech on the point that in regard to philosophical insight no real distinction can be drawn between the social and the indi- vidual standpoint. He spoke also at some length at the following meeting in March, and contributed a paper in May. Owing to increasing deafness he, in February, 1898, resigned his active membership in the Society, but he remained an honorary member till his death. 122 THE SYNTHETIC SOCIETY I had the privilege of sitting by his side during the first discussion, and I noticed that his printed copy of the paper for the evening was then, as in the time of the old Metaphysical Society, closely annotated with his short-hand comments, showing that at that advanced age he felt the same warm interest in the " deep things of the Spirit," and concentrated his attention on them with the same conscientious earnestness as in the best days of his physical and intellectual vigour. Round the table with him on that occasion sat his old pupil and life- long friend Mr. R. H. Hutton, and Prof. Henry Sidg- wick, with whom Dr. Martineau had been so intimately associated in the effort to establish a " Free Christian Union." Alas, in the course of one short lustrum all three had passed into the Unseen World — three men so utterly different in their theological conclusions, but so entirely at one in their complete devotion to Truth and to the Moral Ideal. 1-3 Chapter VI "TYPES, OF ETHICAL THEORY" To fully realise the value of Dr. Martineau's " Types of Ethical Theory," and to understand the important in- fluence it is fitted to exert on present culture, it is necessary to clearly perceive what is the special aspect of truth and reality which it expounds and emphasises. Dr. Martineau's writings declare and illustrate the fact that the self-revela- tion of the Divine in the human, of God in man, presents three distinct modes, and that the ideal wise man is he in whom all these three modes are combined and harmo- niously developed.^ First: God is revealed in man's rational nature; in the Reason which enables the mind to rise above itself, to dis- cern laws and general principles, and thus to progressively attain to a more complete and self-consistent conception of the universe. Exclusive or predominant interest in the exercise of this faculty constitutes Intellectualism. Its chief defect is that it empties the universe of its rich personal element, both in reference to God and to man. It is not favourable to either public or private devotion; and it is little concerned about personal immortality. It knows nothing of Sin in the religious sense; Free-will is its bete noire, for it stands in the way of that logical unification of the cosmos which forms the pure intellectualist's su- preme aim. 1 C/. "Essays, Reviews, and Addresses," Vol. IV. p. 580, for the distinction between " the Religion of Causation, the Religion of Conscience, and the Relig- ion of the Spirit." 124 "TYPES OF ETHICAL THEORY" Second: God is revealed in man's moral nature; in the Conscience with its categorical imperative. On this side of his relation to God man becomes aware of a Divine Authority which asserts a right to control his personal de- sires and aims; he realises the fact of felt alienation from, and felt reconciliation with, the Eternal. This ethical ex- perience makes manifest the Moral Freedom of man and the possibility of Sin. The defect of exclusive Ethicalism is that it leads to the conception of God as an external Lawgiver, and shows no adequate appreciation of the im- manent presence of God in all the higher experiences of the soul, nor any deep sense of personal communion with Him. Third: God is revealed in man's spiritual nature; in the consciousness of His immediate presence in the Moral Ideal, in the Ideal of Beauty, in the promptings of Divine Love. The experience of this aspect of Divinity in Hu- manity imparts ideality to the character; kindles senti- ments of devotion, and awakens a growing sense of relationship and spiritual community with all men and with the inner life of nature. The defect of extreme and exclusive Spiritualism or Mysticism is, that it tends to merge the human in the Divine, and in the enjoyment of ideal imaginations to lose both intellectual and moral energy. Now, of these three aspects of the self- revelation of God in man. Dr. Martineau in his writings generally, but es- pecially in the book which I am about to describe, empha- sises and develops the Ethical one. This was certainly the predominant interest with him, and sometimes, I think, his writings betray the defects of excessive Ethicalism ; but the intellectual and the mystical sides of his nature were by no means starved ; and hence he presents points of contact and sympathy with minds of difTerent types. But in this present age of extreme Intcllectualism, when 125 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK the Freedom of the Will is being widely denied or even sneered at, and the belief and interest in Personal Im- mortality is consequently weakened, there can be no more wholesome tonic for the ailments of society than Dr. Mar- tineau's eloquent and uncompromising exposition of the reality and the sublimity of the moral element in human nature. There may be, and I believe are, certain features in Dr. Martineau's admirable and original analysis of our springs of action, and particularly in his description of the mode in which we reach a progressive perception of their relative ethical rank, which more recent thought has shown to require considerable modification, but with regard to the fundamental principles of Ethics, — the intuitive in- sight of the conscience; the reality of moral freedom and responsibility, the source of moral authority and the all- important relationship between Ethics and Religion, — this great work expounds and insists upon essential truths which can never become obsolete, because they rest upon, and are confirmed by, everyday facts in the inner experi- ence of mankind. The character of Dr. Martineau's mind eminently quali- fied him for the task of analysing and interpreting the moral consciousness. His intense interest in the ethical side of human life induced the most careful attention to the psychology of the subject. The philosopher whose main interests are scientific or metaphysical is under strong- temptation to distort and misrepresent ethical phaenomena. Intellectual, moral, and spiritual experiences, although they are often combined in consciousness, have yet entirely dis- tinct characters, and any attempt to confound them and to take the deliverances of the one as a key to explain the others must be fatal to true philosophical insight. A thinker like Professor Ferrier, of St. Andrews, for in- stance, — of whom his biographer, Professor Lushington, writes : " His interest in ethical speculations seemed to 126 "TYPES OF ETHICAL THEORY" me to be entirely subordinate to his metaphysical ; and any ethical doctrine which he reached took its cast from his demonstrative theory of knowledge and existence," — could hardly be expected to be a trustworthy authority on questions of ethical theory; and this to some extent holds good of several recent treatises on Ethics. In modern times the influence of Christian thought has brought the permanent worth and significance of the moral side of human nature into clear consciousness, and hence the modem philosopher is not so likely as was the ancient philosopher to make his ethical views dependent on a preconceived metaphysical theory of the cosmos. Accord- ingly, though even in recent years there have been influen- tial philosophers — such as Hegel and Augustc Comte — who have approached Ethics after the Greek fashion. yet the great majority of religious teachers and moral- ists now follow the example of philosophers like Kant, Lotze, and Dr. Martineau; that is to say, they build their ethical theory on the solid foundation of their moral con- sciousness ; and then, if they go on to form a JVcltan- schauung, a theory of the cosmos as a whole, they take good care that it shall be a theory which does not distort or vio- late that immediate ethical and spiritual experience througli whicli they have every day conscious relations with the Eternal Ground and Cause of all existences. The fol- lowing passage from the Introduction to the " Types of Ethical Theory " admirably describes this fundamental dis- tinction between the two modes of philosophising : — " What the objects are which constitute the scene around nwn may be expressed in two words, — Nature and God ; understanding by the former the totality of perceptible phoe- nomcna, and by the latter the eternal ground and cause whose essence they express. These two arc the companions that no one can ever quit, change as he may his place, his age, his society; they fill the very path of time on which he travels, and the fields of space into which he looks ; and the 127 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK questions what they are, and what exactly they have to do with him, cannot but affect the decision of what he ought to be. Whether you will first address yourselves to them, or rather make your commencement with him, may seem a matter of small moment, inasmuch as all three must be relatively surveyed ; but in fact it makes the greatest difference, — the whole difference between the most opposite schools of opinion, between an objective and a subjective genesis of doctrine, be- tween ancient and modern philosophy. If you give priority to the study of nature and God, and resort to them as your nearest given objects, you are certain to regard them as the better known, and to carry tlie conceptions you gain about them into the remaining field as your interpreters and guides; you will explain the human mind by their analogy, and ex- pect in it a mere extension of their being. If, on the other hand, you permit the human mind to take the lead of these objects in your inquiry, the order of inference will naturally be reversed ; and with the feeling that it is the better known, you will rather believe what the soul says of them, than what they have to say about the soul. In both instances, no doubt, they stand related to man as macrocosm to microcosm ; and we may be asked, ' What matters it whether we think of man as a finite epitome of the universe, or of the universe as the infinite counterpart of man ? ' In the last resort, the differ- ence, I believe, will be found to consist in this, — that when self-consciousness is resorted to as the primary oracle, an as- surance is obtained, and is carried out into the scheme of things, of a free preferential power ; but when the external whole is the first interrogated it affords no means of detect- ing such a power, but, exhibiting to the eye of observation a course of necessary evolution, tempts our thought to force the same type of development upon the human soul. In the one case we obtain a volitional theory of nature; in the other, a naturalistic theory of volition ; and on the resulting schemes of morals the great difference is impressed, that according to the respective modes of procedure the doctrine of proper re- sponsibility is admitted or denied. Thus, then, we obtain our first distinction of method, deducing it simply from the oppo- site lines of direction which the order of investigation may take. Ethics may pursue their course and construct their body of doctrine either from the moral sentiments outwards into the system of the world, or from the system of the world inwards to the moral sentiments. The former method may be called Psychologic; the latter we will for the pres- 128 -TYPES OF ETHICAL THEORY" ent oppose to it by the mere negative designation of the L'npsychologic." ^ Those ethical theories wliich are reached by the Psy- chologic road (including Dr. IMartineau's own) are fully expounded and analysed in the second volume, while the first volume is devoted to a study of the Unpsychologic moralists, and includes lucid expositions of the relation between their respective philosophical systems. Of such systems those of Plato, Spinoza, and Comte are taken as the typical representatives. Plato represents those phil- osophers who believe that tlie universe is the visible mani- festation of an Eternal Intelligent Cause, but who regard that Cause as having in itself infinite resources which are not at all exhausted in the actual universe. Such a metaphysical system is called " Transcendental," because it represents God's being as altogether transcending its mani- festations in the world of ph?enomena. Between this theory and Dr. Alartineau's own theory, as described in " A Study of Religion," there is a close affinity, since both the philo- sophical systems represent God as infinitely richer than the cosmos which he fashions, and therefore as not confined and necessitated in his causality by his own existing mani- festations, but constantly able to introduce quite new phys- ical and psychical elements into the actual world. Hence it is not surprising that Dr. Martineau, in common with the most profound Christian thinkers, had an intense ad- miration and love for this philosopher. The following passage, in which Dr. Martineau impressively depicts how in Plato's mind the principles of later Christian ethics were struggling to find expression through incompati])le Hellenic conceptions, may be taken as a fair sample of the jx^netrating insight and great descriptive power whicli pervade this masterly volume. The sentiment directed towards moral character by the Greeks » Vol. I. p. a. 129 I PHILOSOPHICAL WORK " is no other than that which may be felt towards a fine form or a noble face ; or towards the products of Art and Science ; or towards the several types of intellectual genius. All these belong, in this theory, to one and the same category; they are the essential principles, the eternal life, the formative thoughts of the universe, cropping up into manifestation on the human stage; and all are to be welcomed with the same kind of admiration. This complete merging of all moral ap- probation in the love of beauty and truth is especially visible in the system of Plato; and has its distinctness expressed in his Socratic doctrine, that virtue is an i7n(jT7][Mrj that may be taught. It is evident that no distinction is drawn, in such a scheme, between natural and moral evil ; no room is left for guilt, as opposed to ignorance; or for retribution, as different from discipline. Yet it is remarkable that Plato could not hold himself exclusively to this point of view; the instincts of his nature were too much for the restraints of a philos- ophy, comprehensive indeed, but still short of the compass of his mind ; and when, as at the close of his Republic, his dialectic, unequal to the inner pressure of his moral inspira- tion, bursts its formal shell, and takes flight upon the air of myth, he proclaims penalties to sin quite too solemn, were it but a mental ugliness, and even, in cases of extreme guilt, announces them as eternal. This, however, is little else than the revolt of his inmost moral sentiment against the checks of his philosophy; and that his philosophy necessitated the revolt, and found no place for feelings that insist-ed on ex- pression, enables us to mark the great defect of the whole method." ^ The metaphysical systems represented by Spinoza, since they deny God's transcendence of the universe, are termed the Immanental. They, accordingly, regard all that is in the Supreme Cause as finding actual expression in the existing phsenomena. The influence of such a philosophical system upon ethical theory is obvious; it renders the personality of God inconceivable, and deprives man of all moral freedom.^ 1 p. II. 2 Vide the eighth chapter of this book for the exposition and criticism of Spinoza's theory of ethics. 130 T >> ''TYPES OF ETHICAL THEORY The Transcendental and Immanental systems exhaust all possible unpsychological ethics of the metaphysical type, but there still remain the systems which deny all possible knowledge of, and therefore take no interest in, non- phrenomenal Causes. Such systems Dr. Martineau terms physical. Of these Comte's Positivism is chosen as the most elaborate and consistent example. These systems necessarily break up the separate individuality of human souls, and thus remove the basis of moral freedom and personal responsibility. It was forgotten by some of the critics of tlie " Types of Ethical Theory " that Dr. Martineau. in expounding these three classes of systems, which all issue in unpsycho- logical ethical theories, clearly recognises the fact that in- cidentally such systems may contain much valuable ethical teaching. He places Aristotle's ethical doctrine in the un- psychological class, but he still finds much true ethical psychology in his writings, and he often read portions of the " Xicomachean Ethics " with his pupils. Spinoza's great work, too, abounds in anticipations of the subtle and elaborate psycholog}'- of recent times. In the development of systems dominated by metaphysical conceptions " there is ample room both for subsidiary inductions and for mental analysis." Still, as the metaphysical system gives the character to the ethics, " it is necessary to begin with their metaphysics and proceed to their physics before at- tempting to present their ethical doctrine." Such a course is not necessary in the case of writers whose ethical doc- trine is developed independently of their metaphysical as- sumptions; and, therefore, "no one would ever think of throwing into such a form an account of a modern moral- ist, really psychological, as Hobbes or Butler, Stewart or Sidgwick." ' * Preface to second edition, p. xxvi. PHILOSOPHICAL WORK This classification of unpsychological ethical theories suggests the question of the philosophical position of two theories which are very prevalent at the present time, viz., the Hegelian and the Spencerian. With regard to the for- mer, it is, I think, to be regretted that Dr. Martineau did not choose Hegel instead of Spinoza as the representative of the Immanental moralists; for Dr. Martineau' s exposi- tion and criticism of Hegel's ethics would have been most seasonable and valuable. When, however, the Lectures, on which the " Types of Ethical Theory " are founded, were written. Dr. Martineau had no anticipation that Hegel's ethical views would acquire their present influ- ence. As to Mr. Spencer, he is indeed an ontologist of a very pronounced character; but his doctrine of the Un- knowable Absolute has no practical bearing on his ethics, and, therefore, as an ethical writer he is fitly placed by Dr. Martineau among the evolutionary Hedonists in the psychological series. The second volume, as I have said, is devoted to psy- chological theories; theories, that is, which rest not on a previous conception of the character of the cosmos as a whole, but on the special study of the facts of man's con- scious life, i. e., on the results of psychological analysis. The question, accordingly, on which the whole arrange- ment of this volume depends, is. Does psychological analysis show that there are special features in our ethical experience which do not admit of being derived from, and, therefore, of being explained by, other more elementary factors of the inner life of man? Dr. Martineau main- tains, in common with Bishop Butler, that there are fun- damental ethical experiences which are essentially unique, and which, therefore, no analytical subtlety can resolve into unethical elements. The true ethical theory, then, in his view is what he terms Idiopsychological ; the word iStos here indicating that Ethics has a special territory of 132 "TYPES OF ETHICAL THEORY" its own in man's inner life, and cannot, tlierefore, be made a subordinate appanage to either the sensational, the in- tellectual, or the aesthetic division of psycliological phae- nomena. The first Book, accordingly, which forms about a half of this second volume, is a very complete exposi- tion of Dr. Martineau's own ethical theory, and, therefore, is the portion of the work which has the highest interest and value. The second half of the volume discusses various Hctcro- psychological theories, — that is, the theories which find the ultimate source of man's ethical ideas and sentiments not in an original ethical constitution of our nature, but in some other department of human experience, which is supposed by these thinkers to be wider in its range and more pri- mordial in character than are the ethical aspects of human self-consciousness. These Hetero-psychological theories naturally fall into three classes. Firstly, those which in- terpret Ethics as an outcome of man's scnsation-al experi- ence. These are described by Dr. Martineau under the heading " Hedonist Ethics." Such ethical theories un- dergo a subordinate division according as they rest, as do the theories of Hobbes, Bentham, J. S. Mill, and Profes- sor Bain, on the psychology of the individual man, or like the ethical views of Darwin and ]\lr. Spencer, include, by way of Evolution and Heredity, the psychology of the present man's human and animal progenitors. Of these sub-divisions the former is described as " Utilitarian He- donism," the latter as " Hedonist Evolution." Secondly, those theories which regard ethical ideas as explicable from the universal intellectual intuitions of the mind. The advocates of this view are usually termed rational moral- ists, but Dr. Martineau distinguishes their systems as Di- anoetic Ethics. Under this head come Cudworth, Clarke, and Price; and as these writers build upon ultimate in- tuitions of the mind, and generally emphasise the doctrine 133 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK of Free-will, there is in some respects a close affinity be- tween their views and those of the Idiopsychologic moral- ists. Thirdly and lastly, we have what Dr. Martineau distinguishes as ^Esthetic Ethics, of which the most im- portant instances are the writings of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson. These thinkers represent the moral senti- ments as arising out of the intuitive perception of the Beautiful. But the sense of the Beautiful may attach either to appreciation of the benevolent affections, or to what is charming and lovely in temper and action; as Dr. Martineau expresses it, " our sentiment towards con- duct may be supposed to come from good will or from good taste." One would rather expect, therefore, that there would be found separate exponents of these two dis- tinct aspects of Esthetic Ethics. Practically, however, no such division is made, and this occasions a difficulty in defining exactly the character of this ethical theory. But the distinctive feature which separates it from that of the Dianoetic School is thus lucidly described : — " It so happens that both these principles have committed their cause to the same advocates, who plead, with apparent unconsciousness of change, now in terms of the one, and then in those of the other, and seem to blend them in thought, much as the Greeks melted the KaXbv KayaOov into one con- ception and almost into one word. Hence it is difficult to designate with precision the writers who remain for review, — Shaftesbury and Hutcheson. Whether the term which they emphasise is the Moral Sense, or Disinterested Affection, they seek their key to the judgments of conscience in some form of inward emotion, and not in the mind's submission to the truth of external things; so that the Right is not, as with the previous School, felt because it is known, but known because it is somehow felt. To this new turn of thought we certainly owe a vast accession of fine psychological observa- tion, and subtle analyses of human manners and character. The change from Hobbes to Hutcheson is little less than from Rabelais to George Eliot." * 1 Vol. II. p. 485. 134 -TYPES OF ETHICAL THEORY" It should be added that in the case both of the Dianoetic and of the Esthetic moraHsts the interest of the book is greatly enhanced by the prefixing to the account of each ethical system a graphic picture of the " Life and Per- sonality " of the author. Those who have read the fas- cinating biography which occupies the first hundred pages of "A Study of Spinoza " will fully understand the ad- ditional value and attractiveness thus given to the purely philosophical treatment of the subject. The narrow limits of space imposed upon me, and the importance of try- ing to give a fair account of Dr. Martineau's own ethical theory, render it impossible for me to dwell upon his most able description and criticism of the views of Hetero- psychological writers. One of these ethical theories, how- ever, will demand some attention, — that one, I mean, which represents and defends the principle of Hedonist Ethics; for this theory, especially in the evolutionary form given to it by Darwin and Mr. Spencer, is still one of the two dominant powers in living ethical thought, the other being the Hegelian theory of Ethics, which Dr. Martineau in these volumes does not directly discuss. It was this theory, too, as represented by J. S. Mill, Professor Bain, Mr. Herbert Spencer, and, to some extent, by Professor Tyndall. which evoked the greater number of that remark- able succession of Articles, Essays, and Addresses of which a description was given in the preceding chapter. I propose, then, first to make an attempt to describe the main features in the Idiopsychological theory, referring in the proper place to the more important of the strictures which they have called forth. I will then briefly deal with Evolutionary Hedonism by the help of Dr. Martineau's luminous interpretation and criticism of that now increas- ingly influential doctrine. " The broad fact," says Dr. Martineau, " stated in its un- analysed form, of which Ethics has to find the interpretation, 135 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK is this, — that distinctively as men we have an irresistible ten- dency to approve and disapprove, to pass judgment of right and wrong. Wherever approbation falls, there we cannot help recognising merit ; wherever disapprobation, demerit." ^ It has often been pointed out that in all civilised nations there are two sets of words used to express ethical ideas. The one set denotes habits and customs, for these are the original ideas out of which grow the meaning of the words Morals and Ethics, and the German Sitten; the other set, of which Duty and Obligation are examples, indicate a binding or restraining principle. According to the empirical school the primary ethical experience is ex- pressed by the former set, and the binding principle, which appears in such words as Duty, is derived originally from the enforced restraint which society puts on those who violate the social usages. Dr. Martineau, on the other hand, maintains that it is just because the sentiments of moral right and wrong are the characteristics of human nature that the system of action which they call up re- ceives the name of Mores, or established zvays; and that the outer binding power of society would give rise to no sense of Right were it not accompanied and endorsed by the individual's own consciousness of inner obligation. Beginning with the obvious remark that it is only per- sons and not things that can be objects of moral judg- ments. Dr. Martineau proceeds to answer the question. Do we pass moral judgment upon the external action or upon the motives which prompted the action? In deciding that the judgment is passed upon the motives, he finds himself in agreement with all the leading moralists, including Mr. Spencer, Mr. Leslie Stephen, and T. H. Green. But when he propounds the further question, Do we pass moral judg- ment on the actions of others before we pass them on our own? he finds himself nearly deserted by recent English 1 Vol. II. p. i8. 136 -TYPES OF ETHICAL THEORY" writers on ethics. In opposition to him both j\Ir. Spencer and Mr. Sidgwick assert that our first ethical perceptions are directed upon other persons. Dr. Martineau, however, defends his view by reasons that appear to me incontro- vertible; for he argues that if after passing judgment on the conduct of others we discover that we misapprehended their motives, that discovery leads at once to a revision of our judgment. And if, further, any act of our own has won approval from others, while we ourselves know it proceeded from unworthy motives, we mentally dissent from the external judgment. Hence it appears evident that our moral judgments concerning the conduct of others depend upon our attributing that conduct to motives, the moral value of which we have first discovered in our own case. After distinguishing between a spontaneity and a voli- tion, and explaining that for a voluntary act it is neces- sary that not less than two impulses should be present, Dr. Martineau proceeds to express and establish a vital principle in his ethical theory, which is thus enunciated: — " This plurality of simultaneous tendencies, however, would still present no case for moral judgment were it not also felt to be a plurality of simultaneous tendencies. I must lay a separate stress upon each of these two words: (a) the im- pulses must be simultaneous inter se; and (b) they must both be possibilities to us.'' ^ The second of these necessary conditions of moral judg- ment introduces Dr. Martineau's doctrine of the Self in its relation to the Character, and involves the contention that true Moral Freedom, i. c., a power of choice between equally possible alternatives, is essential to the very exist- ence of genuine morality and moral responsibility. Through a striking but by no means inexplicable con- currence at the present time of the excessive Intcllec- 1 Vol. II. p. 37. PHILOSOPHICAL WORK , tualism of the Absolute Idealists with a like one-sided- ness in the world of scientific thought, the doctrine of the Freedom of the Will is just now widely ignored or denied, and fiiids no expression in many recent ethical treatises. One prominent writer of the Hegelian school makes the strangely inaccurate statement that Lotze and Dr. Martineau are the only eminent recent philosophers in whom the belief in Free-will has survived; while an- other Professor of the same school complacently informs his readers that " it is now generally recognised that De- terminists and Libertarians simply represent opposite sides of the same truth, and that the [Hegelian] idea of self- determination combines the two sides." To Dr. Mar- tineau's question, How can an act of self-determination vwhich admits of no choice between alternatives, and, there- fore, cannot conceivably be other than it is, be an act for which the agent is to be held morally responsible, and a fit subject for praise or blame? these writers furnish no satisfactory answer. Self-condemnation and Remorse are sentiments for which their philosophy affords no rational explanation or justification. For myself I cannot but be- lieve with Dr. Martineau that the time will come when the ethical thought, both of England and America, will en- deavour to duly emphasise and not to explain azvay the most impressive and significant feature in the moral con- sciousness of mankind. When that day comes, and the dawning of it is probably not very far off, this chapter of Dr. Martineau's *' Types of Ethical Theory," and the far fuller treatment of this important subject in " A Study of Religion," will be valued as a very treasure-house of sound ethical ideas, and as an effectual means of removing the present wide-spread rupture between the philosophy of the lecture-rooms and the ethics and religion of the pulpits. We come now to an original feature in Dr. Martineau's ethical theory, which involves some most important truths; 138 "TYPES OF ETHICAL THEORY" but commingled with these are other ideas which are not, I think, altogether proof against critical assaults. The per- manent truths, however, are the essential elements in his ethical and rehgious doctrine, and if the questionable factors are modified or removed, tlie foundations of his philosophy as a bulwark of rational Theism remain substantially un- shaken. He first shows that we do not call an action of ours wrong unless we are conscious of a comparison between two motives or springs of action, and are also conscious that we have freely preferred the worst. Hence results the following canon of right and wrong: "Every action is right which in the presence of a lower principle follows a higher; and ever>' action is wrong which in the presence of a higher principle follows a lower." How, then, do we discover the relative ethical rank of these springs of action? Dr. Martineau maintains that " their moral valuation intui- tively results from their simultaneous appearance'' When they arise together in consciousness and conflict, the mind, without any reasoning process, directly discerns which has the higher moral worth, and therefore the rightful claim upon the will. The chief aim, then, of the ethical philos- opher is to investigate these springs of action and to ascertain their relative ethical rank. Dr. Martineau, accord- ingly, first draws up a psychological classification of the motive principles of our nature, under the four heads of Propensions, Passions, Affections, and Sentiments, and then by means of immediate intuition arranges them in their ethical order. As a preliminary, however, he makes an important division of the springs of action into two classes, — Primary and Secondary; the former including the primitive impulses and desires which have cacii their appropriate objects; the latter being the desires which arise for the particular pleasures which have been experi- enced in the act of realising the primary springs of action. These secondary springs of action are intuitively felt to 139 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK be of inferior moral worth to the corresponding primaries. This part of Dr. Martineau's work abounds in instances of acute insight into human character and in original psy- chological analyses of great permanent value. For these the reader must turn to the work itself, and he will find the careful study of this section most rewarding. This elaborate investigation results in the following ethical ar- rangement of our impulses and desires : — Lowest. 1. Secondary Passions: Censoriousness, Vindictiveness, Suspiciousness. 2. Secondary Organic Propensions: Love of Ease and Sensual Pleasure. 3. Primary Organic Propensions: Appetites. 4. Primary Animal Propensions: Spontaneous Activity. 5. Love of Gain (reflective, derivative from appetite). 6. Secondary Affections (sentimental indulgence of sympathetic feelings). 7. Primary Passions: Antipathy, Fear, Resentment. 8. Causal Energy: Love of Power, or Ambition; Love of Liberty. 9. Secondary Sentiments : Love of Culture. 10. Primary Sentiments of Wonder and Admiration. 11. Primary Affections, Parental and Social, with (ap- proximately) Generosity and Gratitude. 12. Primary Affection of Compassion. 13. Primary Sentiment of Reverence. Highest. In this scale, the lowest, the Secondary Passions, are the only ones which are always inadmissible, being abso- lutely bad. All the others have a relative moral value. It must be admitted, I think, that this arrangement, on the 140 -TYPES OF ETHICAL THEORY" whole, corresponds with the relative rank which the springs of action assume in the spontaneous judgments of society under the present condition of civilisation, and as such is a remarkable and valuable product and proof of Dr. Martineau's great analytical power; but as an ulti- mate rationale of the mode and results of man's ethical insight, it appears open to serious criticism.^ In the first place it may be objected that the determination of the ethical rank of desires is not unfrequently determined by the intensity of the desire, /. c, the nature and the number of the objects on wliich the desire is directed, and that therefore an ethical classification of desires in abstraction from their objects is not wholly practicable. But the most formidable difticulty in the way of directly applying Dr. Martineau's canon of right and wrong is that stated by Professor Sidgwick, viz., that in any moral conflict the comparison ultimately decisive is " not between the lower motives primarily conflicting, but between the effects of the different lines of conduct to which these lower mo- tives respectively prompt, considered in relation to what- ever we regard as the ultimate end or ends of reasonable action." ^ It appears that before Professor Sidgwick pub- lished his " Methods of Ethics " he courteously sent to Dr. Martineau a copy of his remarks on the ethical theory sketched by Dr. Martineau in his review of Whewell's works, and wished to know whether he had correctly interpreted Dr. Martineau's views. In reply Dr. Mar- tineau writes : — ' YoT critical examinations of this theory, reference may be made to Professor .Sidgwick's " Methods of Ethics," Hook III. Chap. VII. (" Motives or Springs of Action as Subjects of Moral Judgment "). Professor Dydc's article on "The Idiopsychological Ethics of Martineau," "Journal of Speculative Philosophy," Vol. XXII. p. 138. Dr. Hertz's "Ethical System of James Martineau." Dr. Mcllonc's " Philosophical Criticism and Construction," p. 3SS-3^JO 2 •' Methods of Ethics," Book III. Chap. XII. 3. 141 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK lo Gordon Street, W. C, Oct. lo, 1874. My dear Mr. Sidgwick, — I return with many thanks both Proof and MS., which I have read with the utmost in- terest, and with as much care as a distracting week will allow me to concentrate upon anything. I acknowledge, and indeed have myself felt and stated (though not in print) the difficulties attaching to the doc- trine which you so effectively criticise, I do not, however, think them insuperable or so considerable as the difficulties which the doctrine removes. But I find it impossible to pre- sent my case to you with any effect, from my want of any adequate conception of your point of view, and also from the imperfect way in which I have presented my own doctrine in the Whewell paper. Without a complete restatement I could not indicate the mode in which, as it seems to me, the force of your objections is in a great measure escaped. The funda- mental difference between us is, I believe, that you regard our judgment of others' actions as the primary moral fact, whilst I find it in judgment upon our own. To me there is no moral element at all in our judgment of others except so far forth as they are ourselves over again, and symbolise our own moral experience; and apart from this their acts would be related to us only as those of the brutes. The valuation of " Motives " I have never regarded as a method for deter- mining the actions proper to pursue. I quite admit the need of objective rules for this purpose; only their application comes in, I should say, after the Moral problem — of the right spring — has been decided. I have no objection to admit the " Moral Sentiments " themselves among the scale of possible impulses. If present, however, they cannot decide between the claims of the two competing impulses whose presence constitutes the problem ; but can only add themselves on as an intensification to the felt authority of the higher. I wish I could do more justice to your acute and careful remarks. But I write in extreme haste. Believe me ever Yours most sincerely, James Martineau. H. Sidgwick, Esq. It is to be noted that if we accept Mr. Sidgwick's ac- count of the form of the ultimate choice made in seasons 142 "TYPES OF ETHICAL THEORY'* of moral conflict, and hold that the comparison is between a particular prompting to action and the felt claims of our highest moral ideal, this does not at all affect Dr. Mar- tineau's main position. It still remains true that our mo- tives to action are of different ethical rank; that we intuitively discern this difference, and that we are free to take sides either with the importunate craving for per- sonal gratification or with that moral ideal which awakens our reverence and claims our obedience. The essential truth in this feature of Dr. IMartineau's ethical theory, and also the modifications in that theory suggested by re- cent ethical thought, are thus lucidly and, I believe, ac- curately expressed by Dr. S. H. Mellone: — '* We retain what is deepest and truest in Dr. Martineau's system ; we accept his doctrine that our ' springs of action ' — understood as consciously purposive desires — cannot be divided into two classes, the absolute right and wrong, but arrange themselves in a scale of moral worth and have vari- ous degrees therein ; we recognise gratefully his insistence on the truth that every one of our ' natural tendencies ' is ethically justified in its proper place, and his brief but pro- found interpretation of moral progress as tlie gradual organ- isation of such tendencies, high and low, and of our refiection upon them, into * social consensus and religion.' We say, with Dr. Martincau. that ' any knowledge with ourselves, large or small, which we may have of the superior right of one spring of action over another comes under the head of conscietice,' and that this is the true form of the moral judgment; but this judgment of the relative worth of our desires is not based merely on a special kind of feeling which arises when two of them meet; it is based on a comparison of their objects with what for the time being is taken as the supreme Ideal of life as a whole. In view of such an Ideal their organisation takes place, as the historical evolution of morality proceeds." ^ This supreme Ideal of life rises from age to age ac- cording as, under the conditions of increasing knowledge and enlarged social experience, the philosoi)hers and * '* rbilosopbical Criticism and Construction," p. 358. PHILOSOPHICAL WORK prophets of mankind attain to the intuitive perception of higher and more comprehensive ethical principles. The sentiment of Reverence which Dr. Martineau describes as the supreme term in the moral hierarchy can hardly, I think, be conceived as a " spring of action " in the same sense as the other members of the scale, for it appears to be simply the emotion we feel towards the immanent Divine Presence who reveals Himself in us and to us through the Moral Ideal.^ And as this Ideal of life as- cends, a modification necessarily takes place in our esti- mate of the relative rank of our springs of action; and therefore it is probable that the above scale of motives drawn up by Dr. Martineau and which corresponds with his stage of ethical insight differs in important particulars from one which would have been drawn up by a pre- Stoical and pre-Christian philosopher such as Aristotle. And this, I believe, is implied in many passages of Dr. Martineau's writings. A most luminous and fertile distinction is that drawn by Dr. Martineau between the Canon of Principles and the Canon of Consequences. It is quite possible, and in- deed common, for different persons to accept the same ethical principle but to differ entirely in their method of giving practical effect to it. The same principle may prompt one man to give alms indiscriminately to beggars, and prompt another to refuse to give alms, and instead to subscribe liberally to a Charity Organisation Society. As Dr. Martineau strikingly expresses it in a private letter, " The Spring of Action selected may work itself out in any one of several different lines; e.g., Social benevo- lence may organise a communistic or nihilistic conspiracy, or may build an Infirmary, or found a University." The perception of ethical principles is a matter of insight; the wise or unwise application of them is a matter of more ^ Cf. Dr. Mellone's "Leaders of Religious Thought," p. 164. 144 *' TYPES OF ETHICAL THEORY" or less foresight. Hence the actual discrepancies in ethical judgment are to be traced back to either of two different sources. They may arise from the fact that an individual or a nation has made a real advance in ethical insight, has become inspired by a richer and higher moral ideal, so that lines of conduct once thought morally indifferent are now discerned to be morally obligatory. But these dis- crepancies are frequently of a much more superficial char- acter, and are occasioned simply by the circumstance that people who are actuated by the same ethical principles differ greatly in practical wisdom ; that is to say, in the ability to realise their ideal effectually by a proper appeal to the Canon of Consequences. One of the most important of the chapters on Idiopsy- chological Ethics is that which deals with the " Nature of Moral Authority " ; as, however, this subject is closely con- nected with the question of the relation of the Divine Personality to the human, it will be better discussed in connection with " A Study of Religion." Before taking leave of Dr. Martineau's own ethical sys- tem, I will briefly refer to his treatment of difficult cases of casuistry. In his most interesting chapter on "Veracity" he justifies untruths to brigands, etc., on the ground that they have put themselves " beyond the pale of the social organism," and that therefore as there is no " common understanding between them and the rest of society, the obligation of veracity does not extend to their case." This solution is not, I think, wholly satisfactory. It will be of interest, however, to compare what is said in that chapter with the following letter written by Dr. Mar- tineau to a young student who had asked his opinion on the following question : " A school-fellow, to save his mother's life, and consequently to shield his young sisters and brothers from orphanhood, told her every day until she recovered a certain lie which injured no one. Did he 145 K PHILOSOPHICAL WORK sin ? " In reply to this Dr. Martineau wrote a long letter, the important portion of which I append; and I may add that this instance is only one of numerous cases in which Dr. Martineau, out of sheer goodness of heart, took the greatest pains to meet the needs of unknown cor- respondents who appealed to him for intellectual help, 5 Gordon Street, Feb. 6, 1878. Dear Sir, — I would gladly disengage you, if I had time and skill, from the meshes of casuistry in which you find your- self and your friend entangled. ... It would be a long busi- ness to work out the Scale of Springs of Action and justify the relative rank which I should assign to them. But cer- tainly the Reverence for Veracity (which is a composite, not a simple principle) would stand in it higher than the filial Affection which in the case you mention came into conflict with it; so that I cannot justify the lie, though the competi- tion is sufficiently close to make one's judgment very lenient. In such cases, the most plausible computation of consequences is apt to be very misleading. Those which immediately im- pend loom large before the view ; while remoter ones may be the more important. If deception was habitually practised upon sick people, the bitterness of sickness would be indefi- nitely increased. I believe it a true rule to say that we have nothing to do with consequences till we have secured the right principle in its sway. Its inevitable operation does not lie at our door, but remains with the Providence of the World. But its contingent operation, according as it is wisely or foolishly directed, comes into our problem. Yours truly, James Martineau. It appears from this that Dr. Martineau would not have endorsed Jacobi's confession, — "I would lie like Desdemona." I will now turn to that section of the Hetero-psycho- logical Moralists on the refutation of whose views espe- cially Dr. Martineau put forth all his great philosophical powers. The chapter on " Utilitarian Hedonism " is in curious contrast with his treatment of the same doctrine 146 -TYPES OF ETHICAL THEORY" in his review of " Bentham's Deontolog}-," in 1834; for in 1885 he most thoroughly exposes the fallacy of his early attempt to extract true " disinterestedness " out of Necessarianism and Utilitarianism. Bentham's statement in the " Deontology " of his own position in regard to Intuitionalism is, as Dr. Martineau shows, virtually a rc- ductio ad absurdum of his doctrine. " It is," says Bentham, " very idle to talk about duties; the word itself has in it sometliing disagreeable and repulsive; and talk about it as we may, the word will not become a rule of conduct. A man, a moralist, gets into an clbow-chair, and f>ours forth pompous dogmatisms about duty and duties. Why is he not listened to? because every man is thinking about in- terests. It is a part of his very nature to think about interests ; and with them the well-judging moralist will find it for his interest to begin. Let him say what he pleases, — to interest, duty must and will be made subservient." Dr. Martineau's demonstration that this view is in clear opposition to a sound analysis of psychological phrenomena is powerfully confirmed by the fact, which he points out, that the two most eminent thinkers, who in recent years have defended Utilitarianism, have between them entirely surrendered Bentham's fundamental principles. For Ben- tham's system rests on two assumptions, — first, that pleasure is an adequate measure of moral obligation, and secondly, that all moral motives are traceable back to self- ish desires. The first of these was virtually given up by Mr. J. S. ]\Iill, when he maintained that there are such qualitative differences in pleasure that no amount of a lower pleasure can be regarded as equivalent in value to even a small amount of the higher sort; for this clearly confesses that it is not the pleasure but the principle with which the pleasure is connected that really decides the right or wrong of conduct. And. on tlie other hand, Prof. H. Sidgwick, by his contention that the idea of " ought " or " duty " is quite ultimate or unanalysable, has shown that 147 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK in his view Utilitarianism cannot be made to rest upon an egoistic basis. But the pre-Darwinian form of the doctrine of Hedon- ism is now rapidly losing its interest, and it is to Dr. Martineau's exposition and criticism of what he terms " Hedonism with Evolution " that students of ethics will most eagerly turn. The vague and unverified potency ascribed to Heredity by writers of this school makes the controversy with them somewhat unsatisfactory to a thinker like Dr. Martineau, with his almost Greek passion for clear definition. He thus contrasts, in semi-humorous words, his old intellectual opponents with these new-fash- ioned experientialists with whom, in the interests of his own firm Theistic faith, he feels called upon to do battle : — " The masculine egoistic Hedonism of Hobbes and Helvetius boldly appealed for confirmation to the clear inward experi- ence of men and women who could confirm or contradict them. To escape their paradoxes, their modern followers take refuge from this strong light in an earlier twilight, where nobody can tell exactly what goes on ; and the extreme fond- ness which they show for tossing about psychological babies, and wringing from them ambiguas voces about how they feel, is natural, in proportion as their doctrine is hard to prove. And if the confessional of each single life has this blank pre- lude, how much more completely hid from view must be the inward autobiography, not of acknowledged ancestors merely, but of pre-existent races, that grin and set their teeth at their descendants from the walls of a museum? By spinning out your process indefinitely, you gain time enough for anything to take place, but too much for anything to be seen; in the very act of creating the evidence, you hide it all away; and the real result is, that you make the story what you please, and no one can put it to the test. If Hobbes, as often hap- pens, gives us a piece of droll psychology, everyone who knows himself can tell whether it is true or false, and lay his finger on any distortion it contains. If Darwin describes the inward conflict of an extinct baboon, he paints a fancy pic- ture of what remains for ever without witness." ^ 1 Vol. II. p. 365. 148 "TYPES OF ETHICAL THEORY" Of the powerful course of argument by which Dr. Mar- tineau rebuts the claim which the evolutionist makes to have explained the genesis of moral ideas and sentiments out of previous unmoral conditions, I can, in this brief chapter, only present the slightest outline. The mere es- tablislmient of the fact that certain higher modes of exist- ence very gradually emerge from and succeed lower modes in no way proves that the lower modes have in themselves any competency to give rise to the higher ones. Most of the critics of Mr. Spencer's ** Synthetic Phil- osophy " commence by asking him how he explains the origin of organic forms out of previous inorganic sub- stances. Mr. Spencer naturally objects to this argumcntum ad ignorantiam, and points out that we are already ac- quainted with physical changes which arc in some degree analogous with this passage from the inorganic to the organic world. He also explains that the part of his philosophy that should deal with this problem has not been published. Dr. Martineau has evidently on this point some sympathy with Mr. Spencer, for when he sets forth the " Hitches in the Evolutionary Deduction," which he declares to be inexplicable in the absence of some new metaphysical causality, he does not begin with the incom- ing of organism upon the planet, but with tlie incoming of feeling or consciousness. He maintains, it is true, that throughout the whole course of evolution we must assume a constant metaphysical causality ; but it is clear that he finds the incontestable proofs of that causality in these striking innovations which he distinguishes as " Hitches." " My argument," he says, " affirms the general proposition, that evolution consists in the perpetual emergence of some- thing nc'v zi'liich is an increment of being upon its prior term, and therefore more tlian its equivalent, and entitled to equal confidence and higher rank. This, however, liiough holding good throughout, has an exceptionally forcible valid- ity at certain stages of the evolution, on which it is ilesirable 149 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK to pause. Though all the differences evolved are something new, and may fall upon an observer's mere perception as equally new, yet, when scrutinised by reason, some may prove to be, like an unsuspected property of a geometrical figure, only a new grouping of data and relations already in hand." ^ Dr. Martineau, accordingly, thinks it just conceivable that chemical atomic forces may not only be equal to de- positing a crystal, but also " to the weaving of the tissue of the plant, or storing up a future for it in its seed." But be it as it may with regard to unconscious organic life, there can be no doubt that the appearance of Feeling pre- sents a clear case of a new beginning. " Once equipped," says Dr. Martineau, " with this new de- parture, the evolutionist may resume his continuous course and pursue it far without pause or hitch; only that now he advances along the line, not of physical, but of mental laws, and transfers himself for guidance from the naturalist to the psychologist. ... So long as the thinking process is traced onward to more and more elaborate forms, as in a continuous direction, there is nothing to stop the way from the ' long- eared quadruped ' to Shakespeare." ^ When, however, psychical evolution reaches the point when the conscious human being becomes capable of dis- cerning the difference between Right and Wrong and of exercising choice in regard to them, " we are introduced to the consciousness of Free-will and the dawn of the Moral idea; of which, I venture to say, the prior psychol- ogy can no more give an admissible account than can the laws of matter and motion, in their physiological appli- cation, give an account of simple consciousness." ^ I sometimes asked Dr. Martineau whether these new features which successively present themselves in the course of evolution may not be conceived as latent or potentially existent in the lower forms of life; and that just as moral and religious ideas are only potentially present in 1 Vol. II. p. 393. 2 /^., p. 396. 8 /5., p. 397, 150 "TYPES OF ETHICAL THEORY" the infant, so the specially human faculties, including even the freedom of the will, may not be dormant in the anthro- poid ape, and only await the needful conditions for their awakenment in consciousness. If so, there may, after all, be some element of truth in tliat well-known remark of Professor Tyndall's about " matter " which created such excitement in theological circles. I could not myself see that Dr. Martincau's main argument would be at all weak- ened by the acceptance of this doctrine of " potentiality " ; provided that we maintain as Lotze does that the Eternal Spirit is immanent in and active in all the elementary con- stituents of the universe. It should be added, however, that Lotze agreed with Dr. Martincau in regarding each human soul as involving a new act of Divine creation. Dr. Martineau in reply explained the cogent reasons which led him to strongly dissent from the idea of the " potential " presence of higher capabilities in the low^er stages of evolu- tion. In this he appears to be supported by Dr. A. R. Wallace, the co-discoverer of the " origin of species," and the following quotations from that writer's very able work on " Darwinism," which appeared five years after the " Types of Ethical Theory," afford a remarkable con- firmation, from an eminent scientific authority, of Dr. Martineau's view of the new increments of being which suc- cessively emerge in the process of development. The only difference between the two writers is that Dr. Wallace sees an essential " hitch " in the passage from the inorganic to the organic, while Dr. Martincau, as we have seen, expresses himself as uncertain on this point: — " It will, no doubt," says Dr. Wallace, " be urged that the admitted continuity of man's progress from the brute does not admit of the introduction of new causes, and that we have no evidence of the sudden change of nature which such intro- duction would bring about. The fallacy as to new causes in- volving any breach of continuity, or any sudden or abrupt diange in the effects, has already been shown ; but we will 151 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK further point out that there are at least three stages in the development of the organic world when some new cause or power must necessarily have come into action. " The first stage is from inorganic to organic, when the earhest vegetable cell, or the living protoplasm out of which it arose, first appeared. . . . Here we have indications of a neiv power at work, which we may term vitality, since it gives to certain forms of matter all those characters and properties which constitute Life. The next stage is still more marvellous, still more completely beyond all possibility of explanation by matter, its laws and forces. It is the introduction of sensa- tion or consciousness, constituting the fundamental distinc- tion between the animal and vegetable kingdoms. . . . The third stage is, as we have seen, the existence in man of a number of his most characteristic and noblest faculties, — those which raise him furthest above the brutes and open up pos- sibilities of almost indefinite advancement. These facilities could not possibly have been developed by means of the same laws which have determined the progressive development of the organic world in general, and also of man's physical organism. These three distinct stages of progress from the inorganic world of matter and motion up to man point clearly to an unseen universe, — to a world of spirit, to which the world of matter is altogether subordinate." ^ Dr. Martineau, having reached by a somewhat dif- ferent route the same conclusion as Dr. Wallace's, viz., that Mr. Spencer's endeavour to find the source of man's moral intuitions in the merely animal consciousness is entirely unsuccessful, then proceeds, in one of the most profound and richly suggestive sections of his work, to explain how, in virtue of the presence of the universal principles of reason and morality in all men, " Conscience develops into Social Consensus and Religion." Inspired by the authoritative ethical ideal a man comes to feel that the moral claims of society on him are but another form of the claims of his own higher nature on himself ; he feels " that the public interest that pleads with him is his inter- est too; the society that withstands him is his society: it 1 " Darwinism," p. 463-476. 152 ** TYPES OF ETHICAL THEORY >» is no foreign and intrusive power that confronts and stops the madness of his pleasure or his passion, but his own share of an altruistic zeal and love that throb in other hearts as well." Nor does the moral evolution stop " when it has moulded into form the existing- average of ethical sympathy." Through the mouths of Reformers and Prophets an ideal is revealed which transcends the actual, and thus arises the conception of " a Kingdom of God in which at last wrong shall wear itself out and the energies of life shall be harmonised and its affections per- fected. Under this aspect it is, that the moral evolution of Society, unable to rest in the State, aspires to transcend it in the Church. . . . Tiie ever-widening conscience of faithful men feels in allegiance bound to nothing short of this; it cannot but pass on from Ethics to Religion."^ » "Types of Ethical Theory," Vol. II. p. 403-405- ^53 Chapter VII "A STUDY OF RELIGION" To bring into clear relief the essential truths which are enunciated in " A Study of Religion," it is desirable first to exhibit the resemblances and the differences between Dr. Martineau's philosophy of religion and the other forms of philosophical and religious thought which at the present time are also influential in many minds. It is clear that we are now living amid a fermentation of ideas on this subject such as always precedes a new birth in metaphysi- cal and theological conceptions. The three philosophical systems which appear most likely to contribute important factors to that philosophy of religion which is now taking shape, and which will dominate the theological thought of the next hundred years, are the systems of Hegel, of Lotze, and of James Martineau. The permanent element in religious thought which German Idealism came into the world to furnish is already deeply imbibed, and is opera- tive both in general and in philosophical literature. That element may be described as the recognition of the eternal presence and self-revelation of God in the human conscious- ness. As a complete system, Hegelianism has proved its inadequacy to interpret and satisfy the moral and reli- gious nature of man. It has lost its hold on the pulpits of Germany, and it will ere long, no doubt, experience the same fate in America. The Determinism which belongs to its very essence is incompatible with the ideas of sin, repentance, and true moral responsibility; and in reference to personal Immortality it furnishes no substantial grounds 154 "A STUDY OF RELIGION" for hope. But the other two systems are full of promise for the future of religious thought; and, if I mistake not. the philosophy of religion of the twentieth century will combine and harmonise eternal truths which are enshrined in Martineau's " Study of Religion " and Lotze's " IMicro- cosmus." That Dr. Martineau was well aware of this affinity between his philosophy and Lotze's, and that he be- lieved the two systems would co-operate and at length blend in the coming philosophy of religion, can be clearly shown by an extract from a letter written by him. in 1S92, to the Rev. A. W. Jackson. After speaking in terms of warm appreciation of Prof. Henry Jones's book on " Browning as a Philosopher and Thinker," Dr. I^Iartineau continues : " I incline to augur from it that Jones will perhaps work himself clear of Hcgclianism in the process of teaching and applying it. There are signs, at least, of a consciousness of what it cannot achieve. In that case he would only be fol- lowing the course of the two brothers Seth, — Andrew, Profes- sor at Edinburgh, and James, Professor at Dalhousie College, Halifax, the author of an excellent pamphlet, ' Freedom as Ethical Postulate,' in which he insists on the fact of Personality as irresolvable by any phrenomcnal or mechanical theory of causation. Under the pressure of the same difficulty the younger brother, Andrew, had previously renounced his Col- lege creed and justified the change in his little book ' Hegel- ianism and Personality.' Both these publications arc well worth study ; they are probably the first symptoms of a turn in the philosophical tide ; the authors are eminently able and earnest thinkers, well furnished for their work. Of the Ger- man conductors out of the Hegelian impasse, Lotze is the most satisfactory known to me. and ^Ir. Bosanquct has now made his writings accessible in English, except, indeed, his ' Mikro- kosmus ' [now also admirably translated], the only one of which I can personally speak." That Dr. Martineau was not mistaken in his anticipa- tion of a coming turn in the philosophical tide is made probable from the fact that in Oxford, the chief centre of British Ilegelianism, the eminent scholar and preacher 155 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK Dr. Hastings Rashdall, of New College, whose work on " Doctrine and Development " exhibits close affinity with Dr. Martineau's philosophical views, says in " The Journal of Theological Studies" for January, 1902, p. 186: — " It is a pity that the philosophical equipment of so many of our thoughtful theologians should often be rather a slight tincture of Hegelianism than a serious study of the one origi- nal modern thinker of the very highest rank, whose thought is profoundly and without qualification Christian, — Hermann Lotze." In conversation Dr. Martineau, during the last few years of his life, expressed his conviction that Prof. An- drew Seth (now Pringle-Pattison) and his brother James (now Andrew's colleague in the University of Edinburgh) would more and more influence for good the religious and theological ideas in this country; and he thought very highly both of "Man's Place in the Cosmos," by Andrew, and of " A Study of Ethical Principles," by James Seth. He also expected that Prof. James Ward, of Cambridge, would do good work in the same direction. It is notice- able that all these thinkers are more or less disciples of Lotze. Before, then, attempting an outline of the leading ideas in Dr. Martineau's great work, I will briefly indicate the chief distinction between his system and that of Lotze; but I should premise that the distinction is much more in outward form than in inward spirit. Both writers reach the same " Belief in an Ever-living God, that is, of a Divine Mind and Will, ruling the Universe and holding moral relations with mankind," though perhaps there may be, as I shall presently explain, a certain difference in breadth and depth between Dr. Martineau's conception of a " Divine Mind and Will " and Lotze's conception of "The Perfect Personality of God." The most important distinction between these two philosophers of religion is 156 "A STUDY OF RELIGION" indicated by the fact that one would call himself a Monist, and the other declares himself a Dualist. In treating of Prof. S. S. Laurie's work " Metaphysica Nova at Vetusta," of which the second title is " A Return to Dualism," Dr. Martineau says : — " I perceive from his second title that I have the honour to stand beside him in the forloni hope against which all the batteries of modem philosophy are concentrating their fire." ^ In terming himself a Dualist, Dr. Martineau uo doubt refers to his belief in the eternal existence of Space and, possibly, of Matter in independence of God. Now if Lotze's Monism were pantheistic Monism, such as Hegelianism is, there could be no close affinity between his philosophy of religion and that of Dr. Martineau. But spiritualistic Monists fall into two classes, which, in refer- ence to ethics and religion, differ essentially from one an- other. The Hegelians are not only Monists, but their Monism is of a sort which does not admit the existence in man of a personality and will in any way distinct from, and independent of, God's being and causality. Lotze, on the other hand, and those who side with him, though they are Monists, inasmuch as they believe that there is only one substance in the Universe, viz.. Spiritual Life and Energy, yet at the same time believe that the Eternal God, who by the partial differentiation of his own essen- tial being calls into existence the world of nature and humanity, has also, while remaining immanent in all his creatures, given to these finite and dependent existences in progressive degrees a real selfhood; which selfhood culminates in that self-consciousness and moral freedom in man which enables him both to know and even to re- sist God.^ > Vol. I. p. 169. ' This relation between Dualism and the two forms of Monism is lucidly expressed in the following extract from a recent essay on " Die gcgenwartigcn PHILOSOPHICAL WORK According to this view, God is immanent and active both in the inorganic and in the organic world; and in the latter He, without the animal's consciousness of the purpose, controls and directs its instinctive life. And when, as Prof. John Fiske has so well explained, physical evolution reaches its acme and the all-important and un- ending process of psychical evolution takes its place, then for the first time the Creator begins to take the creature into His intimate confidence; and in man's rational, aes- thetic, moral, and spiritual nature makes an immediate but progressive revelation of His own presence and His own character. In so doing He confers on man that real freedom of will which enables him to enter into genuine moral and personal relations with the Father within him. It necessarily follows from this view that the most direct and satisfactory evidence of the existence and character of God is the intuitional and moral evidence, and that the cosmological and teleological arguments, immensely valuable as they are, only serve to confirm this imme- diate intuitive insight into God's essential being, and to harmonise that insight with man's scientific knowledge of the phsenomena of the cosmos.^ Hence is it, as Dr. Richtungen der Religionsphilosophie in England," by Newton H. Marshall (Berlin, 1902) : " Bradley erkl'arte den Gedanken des Selbst fiir eine Illusion, fiir blosse Erscheinung. Er ist sowohl erkenntnistheoretisch als metaphysisch ein Monist, und in dieser Beziehung vertritt er konsequent den objectiven Idealismus. Martineau im Gegentheil ist sowohl erkenntnistheoretisch als metaphysisch ein Dualist und behauptet, dass der Pantheist nacli seinem eige- nem Kriterium des Wissens keinen festen Grund unter den Fiissen hat. ' Du kannst sich selbst nicht einen Pantheisten nennen, ohne in einen Widerspruch zu gerathen.'" ("A Study of Religion," Band II. S. 137.) This writer then ex- plains that Lotze and his followers occupy an intermediate position, being Monists in their metaphysics, but Dualists in their views on epistemology and causation (p. 95). 1 Cf. Prof. William Knight's admirable article on " Theism : Desiderata in the Theistic Argument," "British Quarterly Review" for July, 1871, in which Professor Knight contends that Theism is most securely based on the soul's direct intuition of the self-revealing God. In writing to Professor Knight on July II, 1871, Dr. Martineau says: "I am greatly obliged by the oppor- tunity of reading your very interesting and searching article in the ' British 158 "A STUDY OF RELIGION" Martineau often pointed out, that man is religious long before he is philosophical. It is owing to this circum- stance that the views of Dr. Martineau concerning the mode of God's action in the physical cosmos, interesting and important as they are to the metaphysical student, do not, I venture to think, exert the same convincing force as do those immortal utterances of his, as profound in meaning as they are divinely eloquent, in which he speaks with the firm conviction of felt personal com- munion with the indwelling God. Such experiences as these have an ethical and also a spiritual character; and in both respects (but especially in the former) Dr. Mar- tineau's writings are instinct with truth and reality; they ner\'e the reader for nobler moral effort, and at the saine time respond to and satisfy the mystic longings of his soul. One of the most important chapters in the Idiopsycho- logical section of the *' Types of Ethical Theory " is that in which Dr. ^lartineau examines the various accounts which have been given of the " Nature of Moral Author- ity " ; and after rejecting as unsatisfactory both the He- donist and the Hegelian interpretations says : — "If the sense of authority means anything, it means the dis- cernment of something higher than zi'c, having claims on our Quarterly.' With its constructive part I find myself in entire accordance ; unless it be that I should hesitate as a matter of form to treat the appre- hension of God as an immediate intuition Rather does it seem to me the necessary interpretation of two or three confluent intuitions, — of Causality, of Obligation, of Beauty, — of which it finds the unity and repose. This is rather a difference of statement than of thought; and I do not know that there is any- thing to choose between the two modes of putting the case. But I fancy that the recognition of a plurality of sources enables us to give a better account of the broken lights of faith which gleam upon us in imperfect religions, short of the vision of the Living God." In like manner, in a letter to Mr. R. H. Hutton, which has been given in full in the fourth chapter. Dr. Martineau writes: "I have never regarded what is called religious jihilosopliy as anything but the attempt of the human mind to construe to itself as it best can the Divine Facts and Realities which anyhow enter the conscious life of Humanity." Cf. Dr. F. H. Hedge's " Ways of the Spirit " (p. 186-209) ; also Emerson's essay on the "Over-Soul." PHILOSOPHICAL WORK self, — therefore no mere part of it, — hovering over and tran- scending our personality, though also mingling with our con- sciousness and manifested through its intimations. If I rightly interpret this sentiment, I cannot therefore stop within my own limits, but am irresistibly carried on to the recognition of another than I. Nor does that ' other ' remain without further witness ; the predicate ' higher than I ' takes me yet a step beyond; for what am I? A person; 'higher' than whom no 'thing' assuredly — no mere pha^nomenon — can be; but only another Person, greater and higher and of deeper insight." ^ Now Lotze would probably have accepted this interpreta- tion, but he would have further explained that an important distinction must be made between the personality of God and that of man. The word " person '' as applied to man indicates a finite and dependent being in whose rational and moral nature God reveals Himself. It is evident that the word cannot, with this limitation attaching to it, be adequate to express our idea of God, Man does not feel himself to be a self-existent being; in the depths of his inner life he becomes aware that he is dependent for his existence on the Absolute or Self-Existent One. He is conscious, too, that the faculties of his personality are all limited. Man's individual being accordingly must be conceived as essentially imperfect; it cannot fully attain unto the ideal of personality. God must understand, — what man cannot understand, — viz., the ground of His own being; and further in God's nature all our progressive Ideals are com- pleted, and are no longer ideal but eternally Real. God, therefore, is the One Perfect Personality; all human per- sonalities are intrinsically defective, and they can only by degrees assimilate their character to the perfection of the self-revealing God.^ Though Dr. Martineau has not, I think, expressly dealt with this question, there is good reason to believe that he 1 " Types of Ethical Theory," Vol. II. p. 104- 2 Cf. Lotze's " Microcosmus," Book IX. Chap. IV. 160 "A STUDY OF RELIGION" would not have recognised any essential difference between Lotze's view and his own ; and that both philosophers would agjee that it is to a fainter or more vivid apprehen- sion of the immanence and self -revelation of the Perfect Personality of God in the human soul that the conscious- ness of Moral Authority is due. There is one rather important question on which the views of Dr. ^lartineau and those of Lotze appear to be really at variance, — the question, I mean, of the objective reality of Space. By Lotze's disciples Space is generally regarded not as objectively real, but as a symbolic represen- tation in human minds of the mode in which the several dynamic, or noiimenal, existences which constitute the uni- verse are related to and act upon each other. There can be little doubt, I think, that the doctrine of real Space exist- ing independently of God, in which He is omnipresent and ever putting forth volitional energies, is a perplexing feat- ure in Dr. Martineau's cosmical philosophy. The exist- ence, too, of the Soul in Space is hardly, I think, realisable in thought. In a letter written to Rev. R. A. Armstrong, in 1888, Dr. Martincau says: — " I am oblicfed to confess outright that to me Space is the condition of all existence ; not of body only, which shares its dimensions, but of Soul also, which, in being a cognitive sub- ject, must have its objects, and in its consciousness of a Self must live in antithesis to another than self. I cannot affect to rise above the ' common consciousness ' in this matter." On this statement Mr. Armstrong makes the following comment : — " For my own part, I can as little think of Soul as condi- tioned by Space as of Body not so conditioned." The question, however, is whether cither the Soul or the spiritual principles which constitute the Body can appro- I)riately be said to exist in Space; and for myself, I feel i6r L PHILOSOPHICAL WORK convinced that we must either agree with Dr. Martineau that both Soul and Body are in Space, or hold with Kant and Lotze that the idea of existence in Space is not appli- cable either to the human soul or to any other noiimenal reality. Probably, however, Mr. Armstrong, in the above re- mark, refers only to the phccnomenal manifestations of the elements of Body to our perceptive faculty; but it must be remembered that, as Dr. Martineau has conclu- sively shown, when Spirit, too, manifests itself in the physical realm, its manifestations also can only be spatially perceived. Having thus briefly indicated the relation of Dr. Mar- tineau's philosophy to the other living philosophy of reli- gion, which he regarded as most akin to his own, I turn now to the two volumes in which he embodied his ripest thought on the foundations of religious belief. " A Study of Religion" opens with an Introduction which is certainly not the least valuable part of the work. It discusses the two fundamental questions. What is Religion? and Why Ethics before Religion? The answer to the first of these questions reveals one of the most essential and effective principles of Dr. Martineau' s philosophy, the eloquent ex- pression of which, in his writings, has already done emi- nent service to contemporary thought, and cannot fail to exert powerful influence in the future; for it is a principle which lies at the very basis of all genuine and powerful religion. Dr. Martineau first points out that it has become custo- mary to water down the meaning of the term "Religion" to a degree which empties it entirely of every idea of personal and moral relationship between the human soul and God. In Sir John Seeley's brilliant volume on " Natural Re- ligion," we are told that in the conception of Religion formed by the man of Science, for whom the cosmos is 162 " A STUDY OF RELIGION " all in all, " the word ' God ' is only a synonym for * Na- ture ' " ; that in the field of nature " he feels himself to stand in the presence of an infinite and eternal being," nay, a " divine being " ; so that " he is as truly a theist as he who bends down in prayer." Sir John Sceley de- fines " Religion " as " Habitual and permanent admira- tion " ; thus every form of enthusiasm, be it of Science, of Art, or of Morals, suffices as a basis on which to found a claim to the use of this august word. In like manner the founder of Positivism, seeing the great value for ethi- cal purposes of the idea of a personality behind the phe- nomena of nature, to give them unity and to kindle warmth of interest in the universe, suggested that, though as a matter of fact there is no evidence of the existence of such a personality, nevertheless the idea of such a being might be cherished in the form of poetry; and he main- tained that in this way poetry might give us, by way of the imagination, an adequate equivalent for the theistic ideas which science and philosophy had banished from the region of the Real. In the same spirit Friedrich Lange, in his able " History of Materialism," endeavours to show that it has not been truth, but iHusicms, which have kindled spiritual enthusiasm and founded the great religions of the world. But Lange fails to see that even when religious enthusiasm was kindled by superstitions which were not consistent witli the highest culture of tlie age in which they arose, nevertheless the beliefs which kindled this religious fervour were regarded by the believers themselves as in complete accord with Reality ; and that the moment people begin to sec that the objects of their belief have no othor existence than in the imagination, the religious movement at once collapses. As Heinrich Lang of Ziirich replied to Lange : — " Religions have ever fallen when people no longer believe in them, that is, have come to sec that their doctrines are only 1^3 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK poems and not truth. Poems hold their own if they sesthetically satisfy ; religions fall if they are no longer believed in." Dr. Martineau, in that most powerful College Address, in 1879, on " Ideal Substitutes for God," administered a very keen, but very necessary, criticism to this enfeebling tendency of over-refined culture to substitute emotions awakened by merely subjective ideas for genuine reverence directed upon metaphysical and spiritual reality. In the present work he again teaches in eloquent and impressive words the same all-important lesson : — " Amid all the sickly talk about ' ideals/ which has become the commonplace of our age, it is well to remember that, so long as they are dreams of future possibility, and not faiths in present realities, so long as they are mere self-painting of the yearning spirit, and not its personal surrender to immedi- ate communion with an Infinite Perfection, they have no more solidity or steadiness than floating air-bubbles, gay in the sun- shine, and broken by the passing wind. You do not so much as touch the threshold of religion, so long as you are detained by the phantoms of your thought; the very gate of entrance to it, the moment of its new birth, is the discovery that your gleaming ideal is the everlasting Real; no transient brush of a fancied angel wing, but the abiding presence and persuasion of the Soul of souls; short of this there is no object given you, and you have not even reached the specific point of ' ad- mimtion.' Within the limits of pure sincerity no one can worship either a nature beneath him or an idea within him; however big may be the one, though it comprise all forces and all stars, if that be all, it will be venerable to no spirit that can comprehend it ; and however fine may be the other, if it be but a dreamer's image, a phaenomenon of perishable consciousness, it can never be more than the personality that has it, so as to make him its suppliant." ^ In answer to the second question, — Why Ethics before Religion? — Dr. Martineau shows that the ethical conscious- ness reveals the presence of an authority that is in us but not of us, and which we spontaneously feel has a right to 1 Vol. I. p. 12. 164 -A STUDY OF RELIGION" govern us. We may with unquestioning and childlike trust simply reverence and obey this authority; or we may, and, indeed, sooner or later we must, begin to think about it; then, according to the spirit in which we study this experi- ence, our spontaneous trust will pass either into divine in- sight, and thus rise into that true religious sentiment in which the source of the authority becomes an object of worship; or if we apply to it simply the critical under- standing, its sacred character may be explained away and we may come to believe that the consciousness of its divine authority which once possessed us was an illusion, and that in reality there was nothing more than our own disguised self-interest, or else the reflection upon us of the senti- ments of the society around us. Hence as Dr. Martineau tersely expresses it : — " Ethics must either perfect itself in Religion, or disinte- grate itself into Hedonism ; and there is an inevitable gravita- tion in all anti-theological thinkers to the 'greatest happiness' principle." As the deepest and truest religion thus springs out of and is founded on moral experience, it was logically neces- sary that the study of " Ethical Theories " should precede the study of " Religion." The development of the ethical consciousness as described in this introductory chapter is of the deepest interest, and well deserves most careful study. Dr. Martineau shows, for instance, how it natu- rally leads to a faith in personal immortality; for " if the moral relations revealed in our consciousness are ectvfjal miniatures of eternal realities in God, it is mipos- sibie not to raise the question of their duration in us; for there is something incongruous in supposing that a com- munion on our i^art with an eternal being, in respect of eter- nal verities central to his essence, should have just began to know itself for what it is, and then be extinguished." ^ » Vol. I. p. 29. 16; PHILOSOPHICAL WORK Now, leaving the Introduction, we find that the rest of the work falls naturally into four divisions. The First Book is an epistemological treatise, — that is to say, a study of the nature and limits of human intelligence, — with a view to ascertain whether man's cognitive faculties admit him to any real and satisfactory insight into the nature of God. The Second Book constitutes the substance of the work, for it establishes the two main principles on which Dr. Martineau's " Ethical Theism " is built. The first chapter of this book treats of " God as Cause," and reaches, through the examination of the idea of Causality, the con- clusion that God is the Eternal Will on whom the natural world depends for its existence. It is then shown, by an appeal to the evidences of design in natural phaenomena, that the actual facts of the universe abundantly confirm the theory of its origination in purposive personal voli- tion. In the second chapter (with which the second vol- ume opens) is established what is, after all, the chief indestructible foundation of Ethical Religion, viz., the immediate evidence through the conscience that the soul is dependent on and inspired by a Being in whose nature all conceivable moral perfections are realised. As then, the Power, which limits our activity in the outer world, must proceed from the same source as the Authority which we recognise in our inner life; the Metaphysics of the first chapter and the Ethics of the second converge to one centre and together establish the fundamental prin- ciple of Theism, viz., " Belief in a Divine Mind and Will ruling the Universe and holding moral relations with man- kind." The third chapter of this second book concludes the grand Theistic Argument by adducing clear evidence to prove that the Moral character of God as progressively revealed in man's ethical ideals is not at variance with the manifestation of His Causality as exhibited in the phae- nomena of the visible universe. i66 "A STUDY OF RELIGION" The Third Book reviews the philosophical theories which are. in Dr. Martineau's view, incompatible with the forego- ing doctrine of Theism; and the work concludes with a statement of the rational grounds of Personal Immortality. This brief summary- will, perhaps, enable the reader to grasp the dominant idea which unifies the work, and to see how the various lines of argument concur to establish and justify the central principle of all religious belief. To turn now to the examination of the several books; my opening remark will not seem a very encouraging one, for it is that the book which is first in order is also the hardest to thoroughly comprehend. The Theory of Know- ledge (Epistemolog}') is now engaging the attention of some of the ablest of living thinkers. The successful han- dling of this subject requires great power of psychological analysis, keen subtlety of thought, and, it may be added, the deepest ethical and spiritual experience of personal re- lationship and communion with the immanent Eternal One. In Dr. Martineau's gifted and deeply religious soul these high qualifications were happily combined, and the result is a reaJly valuable contribution to our insight into this profound subject. Still it is difficult reading, and if the thorough mastery of this book were absolutely indispen- sable to the clear comprehension of the other three, the average reader would, in most cases, be excluded from par- ticipation in the feast of reason which " divine philosophy " has here provided. If Dr. Martineau's epistemology^ re- sembled that of Hegel and resulted in what Sir William Hamilton describes as the Hegelian paradox " that the world of Common Sense and the world of Philosophy are, to each other, worlds upside down," ^ certainly this " Study of Religion " would be, what much of Hegel's writing is, a sealed book save to the few initiated spirits. 1 " Hamilton's Edition of Rcid," p. 707 IG7 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK Fortunately, however, the result of Dr. Martineau's in- vestigations into the limits of human knowledge is quite different from the above. He reaches the conclusion that the judgments of Common Sense are, in the main, perfectly reliable ; and therefore though the careful study of this book will give the reader more intelligent insight into what is in- volved in our ordinary judgments about the external world, about our own causality, about the exercise of our freedom of choice in moments of temptation, and our sentiment of dependence on and communion with the Father within us, it will not make any essential change in the conclusions which spontaneously suggest themselves to the unsophisticated mind. But while inability to fully comprehend Book I. will not disqualify the reader for a fair understanding of the rest of the work, a thorough grasp of it will be of essential service to those persons who have dipped enough into current scien- tific speculations to become agnostic, but have not penetrated to the deeper philosophy which restores and clarifies the in- tellectual and spiritual vision of the soul. To thinkers in this unsatisfactory condition this profoundly thoughtful dis- cussion opens a way of escape from mental darkness to where the light is gleaming. Since, then, Dr. Martineau's epistemology promises ef- fectual relief from the prevalent Agnosticism, and since also it lies at the foundation of all his philosophising, it is necessary to dwell at some length on the principles estab- lished in this somewhat abstruse section of the work. Nearly all recent philosophical thought, be it idealistic or realistic, has one feature in common, viz., that it denies all positive insight into anything else than the mere flow of phsenomena. Dr. Martineau submits to keen exam- ination the British empirical idealism of Hume and the two Mills, the philosophy of Kant and the German ideal- istic systems which sprang out of that philosophy, the i68 "A STUDY OF RELIGION" pessimistic systems of Schopenhauer and von Ilartmann, and the worship of " the Unknowable," as presented in Mr. Spencer's writings, and he finds that one and all, though in varying ways, either deny the possibility of any knowledge that God is personal or the possession of moral freedom by man. But as both of these prin- ciples axe absolutely essential to real worship and to the recognition of moral and spiritual relations between the Soul and God, this condition of things cannot be pas- sively acquiesced in by earnest thinkers of this or any other time; and Dr. Martineau only echoes the deepest senti- ments of the noblest souls when he says : — " This despair of religious knowledge must be encountered at the outset; for if it be well founded every step of advance can only take us farther astray ; and if it be unfounded it leaves us, like a victim of the black art, imprisoned within a magic circle which, though needing but a breath to blow it away, we cannot pass ; in a world whose chief relations are cut off in the midst and quenched in fatal darkness ; with mind adjusted to the finite, as if that were all, and heart that has no ideal except what is not real, with a clinging sense of dependence, and nothing but necessity to depend upon. We cannot afford either to enter a Paradise of fools or to miss any Heaven of the wise, and must pause and guard our steps where the ways divide.'' ^ Historians of philosophy admit that almost all the recent philosophical speculations and theories have sprung out of the original thought of Hume on the one hand, or of Kant on the other ; and Kant himself has told us that he was wak- ened from his dogmatic slumbers by the startling nature of Hume's plausible resolution of the relation of Cause and Effect into a mere time-relation of succession among sen- sible phacnomcna. Kant, on reflection, rightly judged that there was a necessary relation between causes and their » Vol. I. p. 36. 169 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK effects, and that as the senses perceive no such relation, there must be in our experience something which is con- tributed by the thinking mind itself. In this, argues Dr. Martineau, Kant was entirely right; the analysis of our experience reveals that knowledge of the universe has two distinct sources, — the senses, which give us insight into the order of phaenomena, and the intuitiotts of the mind through which we become acquainted with the metaphysi- cal causes, or noiimena, to whose activity phasnomena are due. The criterion of the phsenomenal side of knowledge is its conformity with the deliverance of our senses ; the cri- terion of the metaphysical side is its conformity with the pri- mary intuitions of the mind. Neither of these criteria can be substituted for the other ; each is authoritative in respect to those aspects of reality which belong to its own province. If, then, Kant was right in recognising these two distinct features in our experience, where did he go astray? It would be difficult, I think, to find in any philosophical work a more striking instance of acuteness and clear in- sight than that exhibited by Dr. Martineau in exposing Kant's basal error. Kant had been started on his career of original thought by his consciousness of the unsatisfactory character of that account of Cause which made it merely a contingent rela- tion between phsenomena. He felt sure that it was a neces- sary relation, but, still, he accepted Hume's idea that it was no more than a relation between phccnomena. He over- looked the fact that the essence of the idea involves metaphysical reality and activity, the notion of Cause being derived, as Dr. Martineau, Sir John Herschel, and a host of other psychologists and savants have pointed out, from our consciousness of personal volition and ef- fort. Hence no study of phsenomenal effects could ever give us an adequate account of Causation. Kant, hav- ing arrived at the conclusion that the human mind im- 170 "A STUDY OF RELIGION" poses the idea of Space upon all its sensations, maintained that by the study of the relations between these spatial ph^^nomena all the causality involved could be ascer- tained. Dr. Martineau, with very good reason, contends that Kant gives an erroneous account of the genesis of this intuition of Space. According to Dr. Martineau the experience of passive sensations would not awaken this idea, for it presents itself for the first time on the occasion of our putting forth causal activity, and feeling that our activity is checked by opposing energies. Hence, in his view, the experience of Causation is prior to the idea of Space. He contends, therefore, that Kant's method of ex- plaining physical Causation as simply a necessary thought relation between spatial phaenomena is utterly at variance with the psychological origin both of the idea of Cause and of that of Space. Dr. Martineau's epistemology, ac- cordingly, recalls the word " Cause " to its original meaning of a metaphysical activity; and he shows that, although all study of reality involves the study of phasnomena (for noiimenal entities and their phaenomenal effects are insep- arable), we must so explain the world of phaenomena, which the senses reveal, as not to violate the primitive intuitions of the mind. These intuitions assure us of our personal causality; they assure us also of our moral free- dom; and, therefore, no inferences drawn from pluxnom- enal sequences, whether in the physical or the psychical sphere, can avail to overrule these ultimate pronouncements of our rational and moral nature. If, says Dr. Martineau, we cannot prove the truth of these intuitions as we can prove scientific laws, we nevertheless accept them as au- thenticated by the very constitution of our minds. Thus does Dr. Martineau's epistemology vindicate the true cau- sality and the moral freedom of the human will ; and we shall find that in Book II. he proceeds to extend this idea of causal volition till it covers and explains the nature r/i PHILOSOPHICAL WORK and the activity of the Eternal Cause and Ground of the universe. Having thus justified belief in the reality of the external world as an aggregate of metaphysical causes which limit and resist our volitional activity, Dr. Martineau turns to the consideration of the idea of Space, and he accepts (what many eminent psychologists now decline to do) the Kantian account of its intuitional origin. But while Kant argues that, as we cannot help perceiving things as in Space, therefore the Space-idea is probably only a sub- jective form, or necessity of our human thinking; Dr. Martineau, on the contrary, maintains that the very cir- cumstance that we cannot think Space away is a valid reason for believing that it exists objectively there. While Dr. Martineau has clearly established that there are mental intuitions, such as the idea of our own causality and of the metaphysical reality of the universe, which cannot rea- sonably be impugned, it may be questioned, I think, whether the belief that Space is an objective reality falls into this category. And I mention this, because, as I have said in a pre.'ious chapter. Dr. Martineau did not regard this be- lief as absolutely essential to the stability of his philosophy of religion. The last section of the Epistemology deals with the fundamental question of " The Relativity of Human Knowledge." It contains a most forcible criticism and refutation of the now prevalent doctrine that " all we know is phsenomena." " If," says Dr. Martineau, " ' knowledge ' is to be defined to include only the phaenomenal or objective term, then, of course, noumena are unknown except as phasnomena cognis- able in our personality. . . . But none the less shall I rest and move with assured certainty upon them ; and if you will not let me say ' / know them,' I will be content to say ' / trust them.' That they are my given way of thinking is the best possible reason why I should listen to no proposals to think 172 "A STUDY OF RELIGION" otherwise. It only therefore amounts to this, — that the sub- jective postulates are accepted under one name, the objective data under another ; but the difference between ' trust ' in the one case and ' knowledg^e ' in the other marks no distinction of certainty ; simply tiie outer and the inner side of one in- divisible act of the intellect." ^ In criticising Mr. Spencer's doctrine of the *' Unknow- able," Dr. Martineau, while dissenting from his agnostic conclusion, does full justice to the great worth of the philosophical system which that life-long Truth-seeker has so elaboratively fashioned : — *' Mr. Spencer's testimony against the purely phaenomenal doctrine is of high value. The importance which he attaches to this characteristic of his, as relieving with a sense of rever- ence the hard self-confidence of special science or dogmatic materialism, is scarcely less so ; for it betrays his apprecia- tion of that outlook beyond the region of pha?nomena for the conditions of religion which cannot eventually be content to gaze into an abyss without reply. But men will not per- manently be persuaded by him that, while they may be sure there is more than phaenomena, they cannot tell what else there is." ' Leaving now the epistemological section of the work, we enter upon the Second Book ; in the first chapter of which Dr. Martineau expounds the first of his two great confirmations of Theistic Faith. This he does by unfold- ing the contents of that all-important metaphysical idea of Cause, wdiich his epistemology has rescued from the scep- ticism of the Phcenomenalists, and which he now makes use of to give a satisfactory answer to that basal ques- tion about the origin and cause of the universe which can- not fail to present itself to every thoughtful mind. Dr. Martineau directs attention first to the untenable character of the view of Causation taken by the empirical philosophers and by many scientists ; and in the course of ^ Vol. I. p. 123. * lb., p. 125. 173 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK this discussion he exhibits not only his great philosophical power, but also that extensive and exact knowledge of the physical sciences which enables him to combat scien- tific scepticism on its own ground. Prof. Otto Pfleiderer, in his interesting review of " A Study of Religion " in the " Jahrbiicher fiir Protestantische Theologie " for 1889, re- marks that some Germans were of opinion that Dr. Mar- tineau had introduced rather too much scientific matter into a treatise on the philosophy of religion; and he re- plies to this objection in the following striking passage: — " It must not be forgotten that to-day it is precisely from the scientific side that the most serious dangers threaten reli- gious faith, and these dangers cannot be warded off by ignor- ing them, or by causing faith to take refuge in the realm of subjective ideals while surrendering to scepticism the realm of reality. This method, too usual with us, is, it is true, the more convenient one; but we must not deceive ourselves about the fact that such a method is convincing only to those who were previously convinced, and that it can give no help and support to that large class of mankind who are familiar with the sciences, and who are wavering in painful uncer- tainty between doubt and belief. I cannot deny that the brave manner in which this octogenarian English theologian takes the bull by the horns, fights atheistic science with its own weapons and brings it back to faith, impresses me ten times more than the diplomatic arts of our apologists who try to get round this most dangerous enemy, and celebrate their victories only at those points where nobody attacks them " (p. 45)- In refutation of that conception of the causal relation which has obtained from the days of Hume and Kant up to the time of J. S. Mill and Comte, viz., that this relation in- dicates merely an order of succession among phsenomena, Dr. Martineau adduces several cases of uniform succession where no idea of cause is suggested, and refers to instances of causation, like that of gravitation, where the cause is simultaneous with the effect. In reference to J. S. Mill's 174 "A STUDY OF RELIGION" explanation that a cause is the assemblage of phrenomenal antecedents, Dr. ]\Iartineau agrees with Dr. W. B. Carpen- ter that it is only those antecedents which are conceived to have a dynamical character that really satisfy the demand for Causation. The result, then, of Dr. j\Iartineau*s inves- tigation is to confirm the deliberate judgment of Sir John Herschel, which, as Dr. ^lartineau remarks, has often been criticised but never shaken : — *' It is our own immediate consciousness of effort when we exert force to put matter in motion, or to oppose and neutralise force, which gives us this internal conviction of pozcer and causation so far as it refers to the material world, and compels us to believe that whenever we see material objects put in motion from a state of rest, or deflected from their rectilinear paths and changed in their velocities, if already in motion, it is in consequence of such an effort somehow ex- erted, though not accompanied with our consciousness." ^ At the close of an interesting sketch of Dr. Martineau's life by the late Prof. C. C. Everett, there is a brief esti- mate of Dr. Martineau's philosophy. It is written from the Hegelian standpoint, and one passage in it is very im- portant; for, if it could be substantiated, it would go far to undermine the first of the two principles on which Dr. Martineau's philosophy of religion mainly rests: — " In Dr. Martineau's philosophy," says Professor Everett, " we have what may be called a theology of will, and a sys- tem of the universe that is absolutely luminous. It is easy to understand how congenial this must have been to the keen intellect and the virile nature of Martineau. It might be of interest to discuss the question whether the basis thus laid is sufficient for the vast superstructure that was reared upon it. Our later psychology has, however, made such a discussion useless by taking away the basis itself. We now know that the ' sense of effort' is an illusion. The feeling to which we give the name results from the rigidity of the muscles occa- sioned by reaction against outside resistance. It is carried to * " Treatise on Astronomy," p. 370. PHILOSOPHICAL WORK the brain by the nerves of sensation, and the motor nerves have absolutely nothing to do with it. We know that thought tends to transform itself into deed. If we had in the mind only a single idea, and this represented some act, the act would at once be performed. The same would be true if the idea of the act were sufficiently intense to overpower all inhibiting ideas that might be present. The will addresses itself not to acts but to thoughts. It holds an idea before the mind until this idea becomes intense enough to carry itself into activity." ^ I have quoted the whole passage for fear of misrepre- senting Professor Everett's view. As to the latter part of this statement, it is probably true that, as many psycholo- gists of high repute hold, the action of the self, or will, is not directly on the brain, but on the idea of the movement to be performed. Dr. W. B. Carpenter, for instance, whose view of the "sense of effort" agrees with Dr. Mar- tineau's, maintains that it is by " attention to the idea " that the mind controls the muscular movements ; and more or less of effort is put forth and felt in this act of atten- tion. Now Professor Everett himself apparently takes this view, for he speaks of " holding an idea before the mind till the idea becomes intense enough " ; and surely this act itself must involve a mental " sense of effort." But evidently what he had in his mind when he spoke of the " later psychology " as removing the basis of Dr. Martineau's superstructure was the view held by Ribot, and some other empirical psychologists, that there is no- thing in the " sense of effort " but the sensation connected with the contraction of the particular muscles; that is to say, a passive sensation. Now this view has been far too eagerly assumed by some Hegelians to be correct, because it just fits in with their doctrine that there does not exist any metaphysical self in man to put forth causal activity; and therefore they would like to believe that there is no actual mental consciousness of effort thus exerted. It i " Atlantic Monthly," September, 1900, p. 326. 176 '*A STUDY OF RELIGION" would be difficult, probably, to find much " later psychol- ogy-," or much more justly authoritative psychology, than that taught by the two eminent American psychologists Professor James, of Harvard, and Prof. J. Mark Baldwin, of Princeton University. Now Professor James, after a most elaborate analysis of the " sense of effort," arrives at the conclusion that " muscular eflfort, properly so called, and mental effort must be distinguished ; and what is called * muscular exertion ' is a compound of the two." ^ And as to the particular idealistic form of the doctrine advo- cated by Professor Everett, Professor Baldwin thus refers to it, and shows how it unintentionally but inevitably plays into the hands of the sensationalists and the materialists: — " All that we know and do by volition, and never know or do without it, reinforces the claim of effort as a new agency. The current idealism makes the same mistake [as Ribot and Horwicz do] and throws away one of its keenest weapons against materialism — strange as the case may seem. The idealist (Green) says, 'All knowledge is through con- sciousness, therefore we can never get outside consciousness ; there are no differences between active and passive states of feeling.' 'Exactly,' replies the materialist (IMaudsley), 'your feeling of self is passive like everything else: the unity of mind is the unity of the nervous system, and consciousness is an epiphenomenon.' " ^ While Dr. Martineau's derivation of the idea of "Power" or " Causation " from the consciousness of personal effort is thus conclusively established by such eminent scientific men as Sir John Herschel, Dr. W. B. Carpenter and the two living psychologists just mentioned, it receives also support from some of the most distinguished philosophers. Kduard Zcller, for instance, thus emphatically expresses himself: — " We ourselves arc the one only cause of whose mode of action we have immediate knowledge through inner intuition. » •• Mind," Vol. V. p. 582. ' " Handbook of Psychology (FeelinR and Will)," p. 341. 177 M PHILOSOPHICAL WORK For his notion of causality, man is at the outset guided by- no other clue than the analogy of his own willing and doing." ^ From this insight into the true origin and nature of the idea of Cause we are enabled to analyse the scientific man's conception of Causation. This conception really involves two beliefs which, though they blend in his thought, are quite distinct from one another, and rest upon entirely dif- ferent foundations. One of these beliefs is that which Dr. Martineau has so fully and lucidly explained for us, that every phgenomenon must have a noiimenal or metaphysical cause; the other is the belief in the uniformity, as it is called, of nature. The first of these, as Zeller says, rests upon " an immediate intuition of the mind," and so cannot be got rid of; the second is shown by Dr. Martineau to be an induction from man's sentient experience; and hence, though it may be immensely probable, carries with it no absolute certainty. It is the first of these beliefs which compels the mind to ask for a non-phsenomenal cause for every phsenomenon, and as we know of only one kind of noiimenal cause, namely. Will, we naturally suppose, when we see a change, that either will or something analogous to will has caused it. Hence the child, when he personifies the objects around him, or the savage, when he attributes the events in nature to the agency of in- visible deities, are both of them proceeding on the right principle; but experience leads them to a wiser appli- cation of that principle. Observation of the uniformity of nature gradually turns the Polytheist into a Theist. The many wills are replaced by the one Supreme Will; Nature is seen to be explicable by certain universal laws; these laws must be the constant modes of the Divine Voli- tion. The conviction thus reached is further confirmed by the discoveries of Science. The principle of the Trans- i Vol. I. p. i88. 178 *'A STUDY OF RELIGION" formation of Energy supports the belief that all forms of force are in their essential character one and the same; and the reasonable presumption is that this essential char- acter is to be learned from the one sole form of energy whose inner nature is revealed to us in our personal con- sciousness. Present scientific theories about energy also powerfully confirm the belief in the metaphysical nature of Causation ; for it is utterly impossible to form a clear idea of such expressions as " Correlation of Forces " and " Tendencies to Motion " without introducing into the thought a noiimenal element. In Dr. Martineau's Cosmology there are no unconscious second causes. The sole causes in the universe arc God and rational beings. The inorganic world results from the direct volitional action of God in all the so-called material elements which constitute the universe. In the case of living beings, God, as it were, " plants out " and lends to the animals a certain measure of His infinite energ)-. The animals, however, are not, in Dr. Marti- neau's view, true causes; for they exercise no volitional choice between alternatives. When Dr. Martineau was asked how such true causes as human souls came into ex- istence, he said by God's self-individuation, which view closely resembles that of Lotze, and of that able thinker the late Prof. Joseph le Conte.^ Tn this Cosmology it is very necessary to distinguish between the essential and the non-essential factors. The essential elements in the doctrine — those, I mean, in which Dr. Martineau finds the intellectual basis of the- istic belief — appear to be as follows : The first prin- ciple is that all pha^nomena are the effects of " noiimena " or metaphysical causes, and these metaphysical causes are God himself and all human Personalities; the second principle is that these human Personalities are themselves » C/. " The Conception of God," p. 76. 179 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK in some way dependent for their existence upon God's causality. Hence follows the conclusion, which consti- tutes one of the foundations of Theism, viz., that all existences, including both the phaenomena which God di- rectly causes and the noiimena which he calls into being, owe their origin to the one Self-Existent Will. In regard to the other factors in Dr. Martineau's Cos- mology which I have referred to as " non-essential," I feel sure that he would willingly have allowed, and indeed did constantly allow, that there are some features in his theory of God, Man, and Nature, and their mutual rela- tions which are not self-evident, and therefore of a speculative character. Many competent philosophers, for instance, believe in the existence of Second Causes, and would not ascribe the visible cosmos to the direct action of God's causality. Thus Dr. W. G. Ward, of whose philosophical acumen Dr. Martineau had the highest opin- ion, says : — " Dr. Martineau holds that no substance can be a cause, even a secondary one, unless it possess intelligence. I feel great respect and gratitude to Dr. Martineau for his very valuable labours in the cause of true philosophy; but on this particular tenet I am obliged to dissent from him with much confidence." ^ In like manner Mr. R. H. Hutton, Dr. Martineau's old pupil, in a letter to the Rev. R. A. Armstrong, published in the second edition of this writer's admirable work on " God and the Soul," thus expresses himself : — " It seems to me that the moment you get to organisation, you get a portion of creative power alienated, as it were, from the centre of divine motive and character, and started for itself under the direction of anything but divine motives, to set forth the divine teaching as to what very limited lives, with very limited powers and instincts, really mean. The plant even is, I imagine, a preparation for an individuality cut off 1 "The Philosophy of Theism," Vol. I. p. 335. 180 *'A STUDY OF RELIGION" from the immediate life and character of God, a first step in the great staircase that leads up to man. ... I think individ- uality is a preparation for free-will, but that it exists long before will ; it exists even in the plant, and it is distinct enough in the animal, even though the animal has not yet risen to the stage of any kind of volition." ^ This is in general agreement with Lotze's view, but Lotze goes further, and thinks it most probable that even the elements of the physical world have a small measure of individuality, " so that all things really possess in dif- ferent degrees of perfection that selfhood by which an immanent product of the Infinite becomes what we call Real."=' But all these thinkers believe that such secondary meta- physical causes are not self-existent, and so require for their origin the creative causality of God. Their form of the Cosmological Argument, then, possesses the same validity as Dr. Martineau's form ; for whatever be the exact nature of the dependent and subsidiary' causation in the universe, in any case it must, by philosophical necessity, be referred for its origination and maintenance to the one Self-Existent Being, " the Cause of causes." Having thus reached by an a priori road this belief in ' a Self-Existent Will as the Ground and Cause of the Cosmos, Dr. Martineau now turns to the actual universe to ask whether it bears on the face of it marks of having derived its existence from Intelligent Volition. In the report of a striking Lecture on Dr. James ^lartineau, given by Rev. Philip H. Wicksteed, at the Passmore Edwards settlement, occurs the following interesting statement : — "At that time fin the 'sixties'] Dr. Martincau had not only departed from the orthodox theological position, but in his lectures he used to attack a great part of what was called natural theology. He was most contemptuous of the argu- 1 P 22. ^ " Microcosmus," Vol. II. p. 647. (English Tninslation.) 181 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK ment from design, and he (the lecturer) remembered him referring to those people who ' walked through the mysterious glades of nature with the elastic step of the connoisseur, and patronised the ingenuity of the Almighty.' But when the Darwinian theory of evolution was advanced, he deliberately turned round, and at the very moment when the argument from design seemed to have completely gone, he started and built it up into one of the most striking parts of his great book on religion." The same opinion is expressed in a somewhat milder form by Principal Gordon, in his article on Dr. Martineau in the " Dictionary of National Biography." My attend- ance on Dr. Martineau' s Lectures was earlier by two or three years than that of these gentlemen, and I distinctly re- member the tone of disparagement of which they speak ; but my impression is that it referred not so much to the argu- ment itself as to the use made of it by Paley and the authors of the " Bridgewater Treatises." These writers attempted to found their Theism on this teleological argument; but Dr. Martineau, though he, like Kant, considered the argu- ment to be a valuable ccnifirmation to a belief in a Per- sonal God independently obtained, never at any time thought that it was competent by itself to establish such a belief. It was the undue pretensions of these writers and their over-confidence in insisting on very doubtful indica- tions of design that awakened that feeling, somewhat akin to contempt, which Mr. Wicksteed mentions. But when the Darwinian form of the doctrine of Evolution claimed to have undermined and invalidated the argument altogether, and thus indirectly threw discredit on Dr. Martineau's theory that the Cause and Ground of the Cosmos is rational Will, then he bestirred himself; and there can be no doubt that in the course of the careful biological study into which he was led in his examination of the Darwinian theory, he discovered such manifest instances of evident intelligent purpose that the design argument 182 -A STUDY OF RELIGION" now appeared to him to be vastly stronger than he had before supposed it to be. In his case Darwin's writings, so far from weakening his teleological faith, intensified it ; and the result was the production of that masterly chapter on the '" Place of Teleology," in which Dr. JMartineau ad- duces such evident instances of intelligent purpose mani- fested by way of Selection, Combination, and Gradation, that as a contribution to the literature of Natural The- ology his work throws the writings of earlier tcleologists quite into the shade. It is neither possible nor needful for me to give here any of the many happily chosen illustra- tions and proofs of design ; for this section of Dr. JMar- tineau' s work is sure to draw readers, not only by its own great lucidity and attractions, but also from the fact that it contains a more thorough and effective treatment than can elsewhere be found of a subject to which no earnest mind in the present day can at all afford to be indifferent. Professors Huxley and Romanes had already admitted that the evolutionary process in its entirety could only be explained by assuming the immanent action of intelli- gence; and now Dr. Martineau has re-inspired into the old teleological argument more than its primitive vigour by adducing the clearest proof of rational purpose, not merely in Evolution as a whole, but in particular concrete instances as well. Dr. IMartineau also endorses by his own reasoning the conclusion reached by von Hartmann, who, after carefully calculating the chances against the actual progressive evolution of species, if no agencies save those assumed by Darwin were at work, found that the odds against such a happy result of fortuitous variations are immensely great. While this proves that some other prin- ciples must be operative in the process in addition to those of which the Darwinians take cognisance, other biologists, such as Professor Henslow, have shown that it is exceed- ingly probable that there exists a formative principle in i«3 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK organisms which prompts them to respond to the influ- ences of their environment; and this explains, what Dr. Martineau points out, the remarkable absence of any evi- dence of the existence of those ill-adapted and abortive forms of which, on purely Darwinian principles, we should expect to find a multitude. Thus the concluding sections of this chapter corroborate the conclusion arrived at in the earlier part that the activity of an Infinite Mind is mani- fested in the universe. In the second and third chapters of Book 11. we have, probably, the greatest and most characteristic product of Dr. Martineau's genius. At the beginning of the sixth chapter I expressed the opinion that it is as the exponent and interpreter of the ethical aspect of God's self -revelation in humanity that he may be regarded as the most represen- tive and impressive thinker of the present time; and these two chapters afford, I think, abundant confirmation of this judgment. In the previous chapter he has unfolded the con- tents of the Dualism of Perception, and shown how through the experience of resistance to our volitional energy we discern our relation to an objective world of metaphysical entities; and now, in this second chapter, he turns to a still more important source of spiritual insight, the Dual- ism of the Conscience. In the consciousness which we have of the presence of a rightful Authority, which judges and at times forbids the gratification of our strongest personal desires, we are admitted to the knowledge of another form of objective metaphysical reality. But whereas the Dual- ism of Perception reveals to us directly the presence of metaphysical energies lower than ourselves, the Dualism of the Conscience discloses a metaphysical reality altogether higlier than our own personal life. And just as in the case of the Dualism of Perception Dr. Martineau found it necessary to refute the empirical philosophers who declare that " all we know is Phae- 184 -A STUDY OF RELIGION" nomena,"' so now before he can develop the inexhausti- bly rich contents of our ethical insight, he has first to deal with those empirical moralists who endeavour to ex- plain the Categorical Imperative as no more than an illusory product of our egoistic desires and our sympathies combined with the pressure upon individual minds of social opinion and social force. With admirable clearness he points out that the authority which we assign to the higher over the lower of our conflicting springs of action cannot have its explanation in the interested preferences of men, but is " an order of claim which is seated in the constitution of things and belongs to them whenever they appear on the theatre of a voluntary nature." If our humanity were at the summit of self-conscious being, if there were no ap- peal to any higher Authority than the verdict of society, how are we to account, he asks, for the fact that this moral imperative at times opposes and forbids even our strongest personal and social affections? Surely these experiences all point to the presence of a Higher Person- ality in direct communion with our souls; it is here at last and here alone that " the objective authority of what the inward conscience tells finds its explanation and its home; and hither it is that we are brought, in proportion as our self-knowledge is deep, and our moral ideal is lofty and complete." * The unavoidable brevity of this sketch allows me sim- plv to indicate the grand central truth which this eloquent and profound chapter fully expounds and conclusively establishes. And now that we have learned that, as Kant so beauti- fully and truly expresses it, there are two forms of Causal Power which awaken our reverence. — the Causal Power which calls into existence the solid earth and the starry 5 Vol. II. p. 28. 18: . PHILOSOPHICAL WORK heavens, and the Causal Power which reveals its presence in the Moral Law, — the question arises, Are these Powers separate and distinct or are they but the two modes of action of one Supreme Causality? In the third chapter Dr. Martineau, by weighty considerations, confirms the spontaneous judgment of the human mind that the true answer is assuredly the latter one, and that it cannot rea- sonably be doubted that it is one Self-Existent Personality who is disclosing his presence and his causality through the different faculties of the soul of man. That these two Causalities emanate from one metaphysical centre is shown by many marks, but especially from the fact that the Physical Universe "is so far from being foreign to the system of moral laws that to a considerable extent it administers their retribution and enforces discipline, as is conspicuously exemplified in the ruined health of the intem- perate, and the repulsive stamp which selfishness and vice imprint upon the human countenance." But the chief value of this most impressive chapter con- sists in the effectual help which it furnishes towards the solution of that most difficult of problems, how to reconcile the presence of physical and moral evil in a universe, which, from the unmistakable deliverances of our rational and ethical consciousness, we have concluded to be the work of a Being not only of unlimited Intelligence and Power, but also of perfect Justice, Holiness, and Love. An able and distinguished member of the University of Oxford, who found much to admire, and also something to criticise, both in the " Types of Ethical Theory " and in " A Study of Religion," wrote a letter to Dr. Martineau, on the occasion of the publication of the latter work, in which occurs the following passage : — " When you discuss the moral difficulties of the Universe, your attitude seems to me (very likely I misunderstand you) to be: given a morally perfect author, how are we best to 1 86 "A STUDY OF RELIGION" account for the existence of evil ? not — which is the real question — given the immoral features of the Universe, what are we to think of its author ? " Now, in reply to criticisms of this character. Dr. Mar- tineau has repeatedly urged that there is a most adequate reason why we should assume the first of these two attitudes towards this formidable problem ; for, having gained from the immanent iMoral Ideal some insight into the essential character of that Eternal One, who is evi- dently also the author and governor of the world of nature, we cannot rationally enter upon the discussion of this question without bringing with us a strong presump- tion that in some way, though we may have but the faint- est glimpse of what that way is, the existence of these painful features in animal and human life can be harmon- ised with the presence of perfect Wisdom and Perfect Love in the Supreme Cause of nature and humanity. Of course, if the facts of nature and human experience gave no distinct indications of the existence of these attri- butes in their Author, then the problem would indeed be insoluble; or, at all events, would necessitate the as- sumed activity of Ahriman as well as of Ormazd in the constitution and evolution of the Universe. But when we see, as Dr. Alartineau's exposition enables us to do, and as even Mr. J. S. Mill at length acknowledged to be the fact, that cases of pain and evil, when thoroughly examined, never seem to be the real object aimed at in the Universe, but to be only incidental and perhaps in- dispensable accompaniments of a design predominantly benevolent, it is obvious that there remains no insur- mountable difficulty in the way of the presumption and the belief that the same immanent principle of Eternal Love, which claims de jure to dominate man's inner life, is also de facto the central animating spirit of the external universe. Nor must it be forgotten that, as Dr. Marti- 187 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK neau so lucidly and forcibly reminds us, it is inconceivable that even the Eternal God could fashion a universe which should not be conditioned by mathematical necessities, or one in which the laws of nature, which must be uniform and constant if science and morality are to exist, should not, when enacted, form self-imposed limitations upon God's own possibilities. The same consideration applies, of course, to the case of Moral Evil, which could not be eliminated without at the same time eliminating that inter-personal and moral relation between God and his rational offspring, which both Kant and Dr. Martineau and Prof. John Fiske have conclusively shown to constitute the ultimate and infinitely precious end for the sake of realising which the whole course of physical and psychical evolution has sprung into existence out of the causality and love of the Eternal. Another most valuable feature in this chapter is the clear demonstration it furnishes that human nature is so constituted that the good principles in different men ever tend to support and strengthen one another, while the evil principles are ever conflicting and thus tending to mutual destruction. With special clearness does Dr. Martineau show that, as the Greek proverb, which Emerson so aptly quotes, well puts it, " The Dice of God are always loaded," and goodness must ever in the long run win the victory. It would be difficult, I think, to find in English literature a more perfect combination of depth of thought with beauty of expression than is presented in that section of this chap- ter in which Dr. Martineau illustrates " The Triumphs of Force in History," and shows how rude strength always gives way at length before intelligence; how intelligence, when it chiefly subserves the ends of pleasure or of gain, is sure to be worsted in the struggle with moral princi- ple, and how in our present civilisation the unobtrusive elements of Christian faith and love are gradually over- i88 "A STUDY OF RELIGION" mastering all lower and coarser forces and tending to be- come, in the course of centuries, the dominating influence in the social and political life of humanity. After this all-important Book II., there follow two sub- sidiary but still very valuable ones. Book III. deals with the philosophical systems opposed to Ethical Theism. These are two in number, — Pantheism and Determinism, — but they are so closely allied in significance as to be little more than two aspects of one theory. As these sub- jects are closely related with that of Dr. Martineau's " Study of Spinoza," I will treat of them in connection with that book in the following chapter. The concluding section of this noble Theodicy sets forth the rational grounds which support the belief in " The Life to Come." There is a basal distinction between this subject and that which forms the text of Book II., and it is thus vividly depicted by Mr. R. A. Armstrong in his masterly ''Analysis and Appreciation of Martineau's Study of Religion " : — " The philosophical demonstration of human Immortality can, perhaps, never be so completely wrought out as that of God. God is; the life to come, so far as each one of us is con- cerned, is only to be. A fact extending through the present and the past has innumerable points of contact with experi- ence; a fact lying wholly in the future can have none." Absolute certainty is here, then, manifestly impossible, and Browning, in his profound philosophical poem " La Saisiaz," contends that such certainty would be a disad- vantage to the ethical and spiritual interests of the soul. But Hope may pass through various gradations up to con- fident assurance ; and in this book Dr. Martineau has done excellent service to Religion, both by weakening through the force of his philosophical and scientific arguments those physiological and metaphysical obstacles which for many persons, in the present day, bar the way to faith, and also 189 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK by voicing in most forcible and eloquent words that prophecy of Immortality which is implicit in the inexhaust- ible potentialities and yearnings alike of the Intellect, the Conscience, and the Heart. I will not venture to compress this book, so rich in thought and so glowing with spiritual warmth, into a poor and cold epitome ; and in place of this I will insert one of those luminous and consoling letters by which Dr. Martineau rekindled faith and hope in friends stricken down by sad bereavement. This letter is also of high philosophical interest, and is especially appropriate at the close of this chapter; for it gathers up into a focus those self-revelations of God in man's intellectual and moral nature which are so effectively expounded in " A Study of Religion," and shows how unmistakably these revelations indicate, and require for their rational completion, the unending development of man's spiritual life : — The Polchar, Aviemore, Oct. ii, 1885. My dear Sir, — I had noticed, and followed with great interest, the published reports of your excellent father's last days, and the well-merited tributes to his rare private virtues and public services. It is natural for us, last lingerers on the stage of life, to watch with a sad adieu the exit of one after another of the friendly band of like-minded contemporaries ; and though I had never the opportunity of intimately knowing your father, I always thought of him as continuing and ex- panding the admirable qualities of mind and character which I so much respected in your grandfather. It is, therefore, very grateful to me to know that, in the absence of living in- tercourse, he found something that was congenial to him in my written expression of thought and feeling. These silent friendships through the sincerest medium of communion be- tween mind and mind are a priceless blessing to those of us who say little and read much. It is only too easy to understand the blank and desolate feeling which is left with you by this near visitation of death. In one view, and that the most obtrusive, it is at all times the most startling shock to devout faith and love; and in our days the current drift of thought has swept us, by tem- porary deviation, away from the class of ideas which best 190 -A STUDY OF RELIGION" interpret the meaning of Death in its relation to our nature and lot. If we are to believe in nothing but the objects of perception and the observed order of pha^nomena, all reli- gious conceptions, in regard to either the Source or the issues of things, are non-suited by presupposition ; and that is the blind assumption of the present age, — the root of all its agnosticism. Such a rule, however, is fatal to Science itself, on whose behalf it is set up; for the very condition of per- ceived objects is infinite Space, of observed pha^nomena, in- finite Time, neither of which is known or believed through sensible experience ; both are the given ground on which that experience is bom. So it is with Causation, with Substance, with Pozvcr, — all of them essential to the Axioms of Science, and carried by it ah initio into its experience, not subsequently fetched out of it. Still more conspicuous are such necessary data of the Reason, when we come to the personal and moral Self-Consciousness, the whole language of which has gcnui- nated, ramified, and blossomed from the living root of an identical self-discriminating Subject, capable of alternative ac- tion, and responsible for it. Unless we may trust these pri- mary conceptions, we must be agnostic of all else as well as of religion. // we may trust them, our beliefs may be as secure in regard to religion as in regard to any matter amen- able to a balance of probabilities. In both instances we shall meet with many things which Reason must accept, though beyond the power of Imagination to represent. The Agnostic says, " I have no conception how the powers of Nature could come out of Mind." May wc not ask him whether he finds it any more conceivable how Mind should come out of no-Mind? Both sides of the alternative baffle imagination ; the latter is in defiance of Reason too. What place can be assigned to Death in a world under wise and righteous rule depends chiefly, as it seems to me, on the Scope of the living nature on which it falls. That it happens to the plant in its season, and to the simply ani- mal tribes, occasions us no perplexity ; we see in it the correlative of birth, — the indispensable concomitant of an economy of successive and progressive being. Not till we encounter it in human kind docs it startle us with a mystery of surprise and sorrow. What is the secret of this differ- ence? Does it lie in this, — that in the Scale of the nature which vanishes in death there is an infinite difference, whether it be a Christ or a sparrow that falls? In the mere animal creature the whole system of instincts and affections is in 191 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK obvious subservience to the bodily organism, whose needs — of food, shelter, reproduction, and care of young, etc. — it supplies ; the perfection of the physical structure is the end; the impulses and aptitudes of life are the iyistruments for se- curing it. When the end has been gained, and the body has fulfilled its term, it is a matter of course that the means should share its fate and lapse as well. We are, therefore, content to part with the whole creature — the visible form of the invisible life — at one stroke. In the case of man, this relation be- tween the bodily organism and the animating intelligence and will is plainly inverted. His capacities and affections are not measured out by the exigencies of his corporeal structure, but immeasurably transcend these, and, assuming the headship of his nature, claim the right to subordinate and use the whole animal outfit in the service of their own higher ends. True manhood is first realised in one who wields all his physical energies and resources as tools of ideal achievements, — know- ledge, right, and loving service of others, and growth towards Divine Perfection. These are the genuine ends in which we find the inspiration and development and fulfilment of our life. And because they are far reaching and indefinite in their demands of time, while the bodily term is spent ere they have well started on their way, we feel the incongruous combination of immense possibilities with fragile tools, and, at the grave of every noble man, mourn to part with the mere fragment of a life. This seems to me the reason why we can never be con- tent with human death, so long as we take it to be the same phenomenon — of actual extinction — that it is with the shot bird. The scale on which we are made is conspicuously too vast for the short reckoning of our mortal years. The ripe and practised mind, the large and tender affections, the re- fined and steadfast conscience, which are the last attainments of a faithful soul, need nothing hut time to realise the ulterior possibilities for which they sigh; their spiritual strength is not spent when their tools are broken ; but was never greater than when the paralysed arm lay helpless at their side. Are we to believe, then, in such a disproportion between the in- herent capabilities and inspirations of a self-directing nature and its material allowance of opportunity? Or, shall we not rather say, that we see at present only its first stage of oppor- tunity, and are assured of the rest from the transcending range of its aims and powers? The profoundest feeling which pos- sesses me at the end of life is, that I stand but little removed from its beginning, schooled only in the mere alphabet of its 192 "A STUDY OF RELIGION" attainable lessons. And when once we realise what is meant by the Moral constitution of our nature, with probation con- tinued to the end. we cannot fail to find in this alone a solemn augiiry of an accordant sequel. I admit that this would not hold if this w'orld were itself perfectly retributor>-. But in a state where justice is but inchoate, Conscience plainly .stands as sentinel in the fore-court of existence. These are the considerations which, amont^ many of similar tendency, most habitually sustain in me the immortal hope, and make me wonder at the weakened faith so evident and so pathetic in the present day. I have faith that a happy reac- tion is sure to come. Already, in America, the leading ex- ponent of Spencer, Professor Fiskc of Harvard, has avowed his return, in spite of Evolution, to his belief in personal im- mortality. Depend upon it, the nobler minds cannot Uve on the resources contained within the penfold of this life, and will reclaim their birthright. Excuse this awkward scrawl, written from bed, to which I have been confined for some days, by an ailment now passing away. With sincere sympathy. Ever faithfully yours, James Martin eau. Thomas R. Russell, Esq. The followM'ng portion of a letter, which gives Dr. Mar- tineau's estimate of the value of the metaphysical argument for personal immortality, forms an interesting pendant to the preceding : — Liverpool, Oct. 6, 1851. My dear Sir. — ... On the Necessarian Theory I see no way of disengaging separate personalities from the In- finite One without making liicm pha^nomenal and perishable ; and the only consistent resource seems to me that of Plato, viz., to make each soul in itself a little god, — an undcrivcd and independent entity, — and to maintain that the number (>{ them is a given quantity, unsusceptible of increase or diminution, and allowing only of transmigration. If our con- tinued personality, amid ever-varying sensations, implies that we are essentially ovra and not ytyvo'/xcvo, pre-existcncc is not less indicated by it than post-existence. Though I should feel no repugnance to accompanying you, if you were really to 193 N PHILOSOPHICAL WORK carry your doctrine to this extent, the strangeness of some of the conclusions involved would impair the effect of the argu- ment on most readers. For this reason, among others, I am disposed to rest the proof of immortality much more upon Moral than on Metaphysical grounds ; and I cannot but re- gret that you do not consider these more worthy of your regard, and are even precluded, by your necessarian convic- tions, from all reliance upon them. The sentiment of respon- sibility, — the experiences of conscience, — which are specially human, appear to me to be the living root of this great faith ; and as these are certainly the highest phaenomena of our na- ture, it seems only fit that they should furnish its highest truth. It seems to me an advantage that whatever argument they supply goes no further than the human race; while the metaphysical doctrine (except some modification of Plato's) cannot be hindered from taking in all organised beings. A few peculiarly constituted minds may be able to bear the doc- trine of wider scope; but I confess to such an insuperable weakness or pride, that an argument proving so much, and available no less for my cat than for myself, would fill me only with indifference or scepticism towards the future. The whole stress of the proof rests with me on the distinctive char- acteristics of man. However, it is an excellent thing that the argument should be so carefully elaborated for those who take a different view on this point. I venture to prophesy that, should these topics continue to engage your reflections for a few years more, the step you have taken out of James Mill's philosophy will be followed by others; that Space and Time will not always appear to you the mere attributes and relations of perceived things; and that Socrates's doctrine of primary ideas will make in- roads upon the theory of Abstraction which you now approve. And yet what vanity it is in me to think that the course on which I have been urged myself must be taken by everyone starting from the same point! Believe me ever, my dear Sir, Yours very faithfully, James Martineau. W. E. HiCKSON, Esq. 194 Chapter VIII "A STUDY OF SPINOZA." CRITICISM OF PANTHEISM AND DETERMINISM English students of Spinoza's writings are now aided in forming a true estimate of the merits of this eminent thinker by three accounts of his philosophy proceeding from very different, but all equally competent, writers. Sir Frederick Pollock's interest in Spinoza appears to be to a great degree due to his perception of the close affinity of Spi- noza's fundamental doctrine with modem scientific theo- ries, especially with that theory now popular with many scientists that matter and mind are but two aspects of one ultimate Reality. The motive which prompted Dr. John Caird's interesting treatise was evidently the conviction that notwithstanding Spinoza's erroneous conception of God as " Substance " rather than as thinking " Subject," and his distinction between the two basal attributes of Extension and Thought in God, he became in the working out of his system essentially an " idealist," and that, therefore, there was no essential difference between his theory and the Hegelian view of the Ultimate Reality. But while these two writers are drawn to Spinoza by some attrac- tion of sympathy and affinity, Dr. Martineau, on the other hand, as appears from the following letter to his friend Prof. F. W. Newman, was actuated by a very different consideration : — Nov. I, 1S82. My DEAR Newman, — Your surprise at my taking Spinoza in hand is hardly greater than my own ; nor can f quite divest myself of the feeling that the time spent upon him has not been 195 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK put to the best use. I was moved to the task, partly by the pressing entreaty of my friend William Knight, partly by ob- serving the great influence upon many minds of a mistaken conception of what Spinoza's philosophy really means. Hav- ing gained my own first impressions of him from Schleier- macher and Coleridge, I was myself misled, in my early study of his " Ethica," into an admiration of him resting upon wrong grounds. I credited his Theistic language with a meaning which, I now see, it did not contain. And the difference is so enormous between the imputed thoughts and the real ones, that I longed, if possible, to save others from repeating my illusions. On resuming my proper work, how- ever, and seeing how much its designed remainder exceeds the measure of my shortening days, I half regret the Ex- cursus, which has withdrawn me from the current text of life. If I have wasted my time in writing this book, all the more am I bound to warn you not to waste yours in read- ing it. Stop, at all events, with the biography. All the rest, I know, will only worry you with a just impatience, and yield no result except a confirmed distrust of the whole ap- paratus of Metaphysics. Ever yours affectionately, James Marti neau. But although Dr. Martineau thus depreciates Spinoza as a philosopher, he was evidently warmly interested in him as a man, and the charming biography which occupies the first hundred pages of " A Study of Spinoza " is, I believe, the best presentation we have of the life of this great representative of Pantheistic thought. Of the high excellence and acumen of Dr. Martineau's description of Spinoza's philosophy there can only be one opinion. Sir Frederick Pollock, in reviewing the book in '*Mind,"i says: — " I must confess to a certain agreeable surprise in finding how much ground we have in common, and how much of substantial agreement is possible between critics who set out, if not from opposite, yet from considerably different points. 1 Vol. viri. p. 104. 196 -A STUDY OF SPINOZA" The agreement is enough to show that modem philosophical studies are not the chaos of hopelessly discordant conjecture which they are often assumed to be, and even to suggest that our existing divergences may turn out. in the view of suc- cessors capable of a larger comprehension than our own, to be less than they seem to us " ; and " it is satisfactory to find that the attempts of one or two German critics to force upon Spinoza a doctrine of personal immortality in the popular sense meet with no favour at Dr. Martineau's hands." It is interesting to compare with this last statement that made by Professor Sorley, in his review of Dr. John Caird's Spinoza: — '■ Dr. Caird," says Professor Sorley, " shows how Spinoza passes from his view of the illusoriness of the individual to a conception of the individual mind as becoming free from the bondage of the passions and attaining immortality with the disappearance of the illusion of time." ^ The fundamental difference between Dr. Martineau and Spinoza, and also, I may add, between Dr. Martineau and the Hegelians, lies in the different significance given by him and by them to the idea of Causation. It is quite essential to Dr. Martineau's reasonings in " A Study of Religion " that the Supreme Being be regarded as the ef!icient Cause of the pha^nomena of the Universe. Spinoza, it is true, calls God the immanent " Cause " of the totality of finite things in the world, but gives to the word " Cause " here a meaning which it does not bear in any other philo- sophical writer, and which his admirers regard as a source of confusion in his exposition. The category of Cause and Effect and that of Substance and Attribute are used by him interchangeably, and explained by geometrical analogies which show that his use of the word neither agreed with that idea of " efficient Causation " which Dr. Martineau in " A Study of Religion " shows to be the appropriate signification of the word, nor with that view » "Mind," Vol. XIII. p r>:4. 197 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK of Cause as a relation among phaenomena which is ad- vanced by the followers both of Hume and Kant. His conception is that the relation which the Natura Naturans, or Gk)d, bears to the Natura Naturata, or the Universe, is analogous to that which the idea of a geometrical figure bears to the various inferences which can be drawn from it. But, as Dr. Martineau lucidly explains, the language of causality is wholly inapplicable to the reciprocal rela- tions between the properties of a geometrical figure : — " You may doubtless make some one characteristic of the circle, taken as its essence and put into its definition, yield others by inference; but it is not their cause; inasmuch as you can invert the order and deduce it from any one of them that may be substituted in the prior place. Their ratio essendi is a reciprocal one, by which they eternally co-exist ; and not a successive one, like the ratio Hendi, which, in causality, de- termines the order of events." ^ Dr. Martineau, accordingly, not only regards Spinoza's conception of the relation of God to the world as entirely erroneous, but he also maintains that the word " Cause " is quite unsuitable to express Spinoza's own idea of that relation. Spinoza's followers, on the other hand, as well as the Hegelian Idealists, assert that Spinoza's conception of the relation of God to the world is essentially correct, but they agree with Dr. Martineau that the word " Cause " is inapplicable to this relation. Thus Professor Land, of Leyden, in his striking lecture " In Memory of Spinoza," says : — " To Spinoza God and the world are correlates, as much as the equality of the angles and that of the sides, as much as the circle and the relations of magnitudes connected with it. It is possible in geometry to deduce the second from the first ; but the first may equally well be deduced from the sec- ond. The word Cause is not a fit one in this part of the system ; if it is to be used, the world may with equal correct- 1 "A Study of Spinoza," p. ii6. 198 "A STUDY OF SPINOZA" ness be called the cause of God. If we let the word go, with the whole logical apparatus connected with it, and hold fast simply the mathematical analog}', the conception of Spinoza will appear in clear daylight." ^ Hence Professor Land would have the word as well as the idea " Cause " dropped out in thinking of God's rela- tion to the phrenomenal universe, and he would confine the word to the expression of the relations of one finite mode of being to another. If, however, Spinoza's view of God's relation to the world, as explained by Professor Land, is accepted, then the whole argument for Theism which occupies the first half of " A Study of Religion " is to a great extent invalidated. And, further, as Dr. Mar- tineau clearly proves, Spinoza is not consistent in his use of words denoting Causality, for he speaks of " the dynamic order of physical nature whereby concrete objects and indi- vidual phsenomena are successively produced, one out of another in infinitum." ^ Still there can be no doubt that Professor Land correctly describes the idea of the relation between God and the cosmos which pervades the " Ethica," when he says that in Spinoza's view God is no more the efficient cause of the world than the world is the effi- cient cause of God. From this it evidently follows that Spinozism is essentially pantheistic in its idea of God, and deterministic in its idea of man. Having thus indicated this fundamental difference in the conception of Cause which completely separates Dr. Martineau's Theism from Spinoza's Pantheism, I must perforce leave the development of Spinoza's doctrine to be studied in Dr. Martineau's admirable monograph; and the rest of this chapter must be devoted to a brief account of Dr. Martineau's profound criticism of the Pantheism which undermines all causal interaction between the human 1 " Four Essays on Spinoza," edited by Professor Knight, p. 21. « "Types <;f Ethical Theorr," Vol. I. p. 392. 199 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK soul and the " Cause of causes," and of the Determinism which is equally fatal to all moral relation between men and the " Soul of souls." Dr. Martineau divides Pantheists into two general classes, one of which has little affinity with Theism, while the other is closely allied to it. The first class consists of those who found their theory of the universe on a study of particular cosmical phsenomena, and reason from them to the prin- ciple which unifies the whole; the second class begin with an idea of the Absolute Reality, and in the light of this idea interpret all physical and psychical existences. The first class, again, subdivides into those thinkers who, start- ing with a mechanical or chemical conception, claim to have, in the assumed self-existence of atoms in motion, data adequate to the evolution of all things; and those, on the other hand, who find the origin of the cosmos in some living power pervading the universal frame of things, but conceive of that power as not possessing the attributes of self-consciousness and intending mind. Only the latter can be fitly called pantheistic; the former is evidently atheistic. But the Pantheisms which really compete with Theism all fall into the higher class; they all base their theory of the cosmos on the assumed existence of an Absolute and Infinite Cause, out of whose central nature all the existences and phsenomena of the material and spiritual universe proceed. This conception of the Supreme Being must at least include the functions of mind and will, even if it is not identified with these. Such Pantheisms may be predominantly of an intellectual character, as Hegel- ianism is, or they may be emotional as most forms of pan- theistic Mysticism are. The Pantheisms which thus seek to interpret the universe from the idea of an Absolute Being, in whose essential nature all human ideals are al- ready realised, must display, in spite of their ethical and 200 -A STUDY OF SPINOZA" religious defects, ven- attractive and noble features; and it is generally supposed that Spinoza's Pantheism is of this fascinating character. But Dr. ]\Iartincau gives cogent reasons for revising this estimate. " Spinoza," he says, " certainly took the right direction of movement for the nobler Pantheism. And if, in effecting; it, he had started from a Real Being already charged with all divine predicates in their perfection, and carried this forward into the generated imiverse, to be the animating breath and actuating spring of the heavens and the earth, he would have fulfilled its promise, and planted us in a world ruled by thought and thrilled by love akin to ours, only unerring and supreme, and have left possible to us a sympathy between the mind of the part and the mind of the whole. But instead of this pleni- tude ready to flood all space with infused beauty and good, his ' Substance' out of which all is to come, is kept studiously clear of all predicates ; under the plea of not hurting its infini- tude, you are forbidden to say anything of it but that ' it exists ' : the moment you affirm anything further you define it by a mark, and shut it out from what was open to it before ; you limit it by exclusion, for ' omiiis dcterminatio est negatio.' it has nothing, therefore, to share in common with derivative natures but this indefinite and sterile blank called ' beinc: ' ; all properties or functions that seem to us to fill up the worth of this blank — life, intellect, will, aflfection — belong first and only to creatures that are born and die, and must on no account be ascribed to the Absolute God." ^ On this ground Dr. Martineau does not think the epithet " God-intoxicated " applied by Novalis to Spinoza was appropriate, nor does he share the enthusiasm which caused Schleiermacher to exclaim : " Join me in reverently offer- ing a chaplet to the shade of the rejected yet saintly Spi- noza ! Penetrated as he was by the sublime spirit of Nature, the Infinite was his Alpha and Omega, the universe his only and eternal love." ' So far was this from being the case, argues Dr. Mar- tineau. " that the system of Spinoza was the product of » " A Study of Religion," Vol. II. p. isa- "'' ^^•> V- 'SS- 20 1 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK a strictly scientific mind, intent much more on correctly reading the All than on finding its God." In the celebrated Fifth Part of the " Ethica," indeed, Spinoza's pages seem to glow with spiritual warmth, and in his description of " the intellectual love of God," and of the tranquillity it brings. Dr. Martineau admits that the great Pantheist " speaks in tones forgetful of his ' geometrical ' severity." But even here Spinoza expressly says that this Amor Dei is all on one side, without any answer from the object loved ; " the tranquillity is simply the absence of any jar between the order of thought and the order of things, — a coalescence be- tween their pulsations in which the individual is lost. No nature so luminous as Spinoza's was ever filled with drier light than his. Pure, veracious, unselfish as he was, he understood nothing but understanding; his mind was a limpid thinking element, the vehicle only of the true, and dissolving away the beautiful and good ; a perfect example of dp€Tr] hiavo-qTiK-q ; but fixed in a latitude too high and cold to feel the glow of even a temperate enthusiasm." ^ But even if Spinoza's system had been developed alto- gether on the nobler lines, it would not have escaped the defects which are inherent in all forms of real Pantheism. In his criticisms of Pantheism Dr. Martineau carefully dis- criminates between that gwavyz-Pantheism, so often found in great writers and poets, which is simply the expression in a somewhat extreme form of those mystical moods when the Over Soul so pervades and floods the inner life that the distinct consciousness of separate individuality seems for a time almost lost, and that genuine Pantheism which deliberately violates the ethical consciousness and denies to the soul the possession of any such delegated indepen- dence and causality as shall enable it to freely choose be- tween a self-seeking life and a life with God. 1 Vol. II. p. 157. 202 "A STUDY OF SPINOZA" It is, of course, only against this " crystallised " Panthe- ism that the powerful arguments in tliis section of Dr. Martineau's great work are dirccteil. And at the present time, when the inspiring doctrine of the Immanence of God in all nature and all souls is so deeply penetrating both religious and general literature, it behooves our leaders of thought to so interpret this grand doctrine that it may not degenerate into an unmoral Pantheism, and so illustrate, in its later developments, the well-known and true adage corruptio optimi pcssima est. For nothing. I feel assured, will posterity be more grateful to Dr. Marti- neau than for the lucidity and force with which he has shown that the facts of our ethical and religious experi- ence imply and demand that the voluntary nature of man must be saved from Pantheistic absorption, and be left standing as, within its sphere, a free cause other than the divine, yet homogeneous with it. And, as he well points out, there is no real difficulty in so saving it, for " in fact it saves itself, since no one can exercise his own will and believe it to be another's ; and try as he may to merge his own causality in the Divine, it is still he, and not God, that makes the sublime renunciation. Yon cannot even declare yourself a Pantheist without self-contradiction ; for in doing so you reserve your own personality as a thinking and asser- tive power, that deals with all else as objective." ^ But it may be objected that this ascription to the human personality of a certain delegated independence of God's causality excludes God's direct action from just that re- gion of being, viz., the moral life of man which is the sphere that is nearest to God, and would seem to l)e most congenial to him. The objector may say : " Are we, then, to find Him in the sunshine and in the rain and to miss Him in our thf)Ught, our duty, and our love?" » Vol. II. p. 167. 203 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK " Far from it," replies Dr. Martineau ; " he is with us in both; only in the former it is his immanent life, in the latter his transcendent, with which we are in communion. It is not indeed He that, under the mask of our personality, does our thinking, and prays against our temptations, and weeps our tears ; these are truly our own ; but they are in presence of a sympathy free to answer, spirit to spirit; neither merging in the other, but both at one in the same inmost preferences and affections." ^ To this distinction between the immanent and the tran- scendent reality and causality of God exception has been taken by two eminent critics, who are, nevertheless, on the whole, admirers of Dr. Martineau's philosophy. In "Mind" for October, 1888, Professor Flint, in a highly appreciative review of " A Study of Religion," says the distinction between God's Immanency and Transcendency is not a valid one, for " God, as infinite, cannot transcend his own immensity and eternity, His own being and per- fection." But Dr. Martineau does not assert that God transcends himself; he simply maintains that God, in the infinite fulness of his being, transcends his own actual mani- festations in the universe of finite physical and psychical entities which he has called into existence. In other words, the Perfect Personality of God is not exhausted in its cos- mical expression, but retains an infinite reserve of unmani- fested spiritual life, which renders possible personal relations between God and human beings. Dr. Schurman also, who once attended Dr. Martineau's Lectures and speaks with great respect of him, yet says, in his able book on " Belief in God," that " this feature of Dr. Martineau's teaching is an unconscious survival from the deistic con- ception of God's relation to the universe." ^ But in an- other passage he tells us " it is certainly possible that though nature and humanity are manifestations of God, they do not express his whole being any more than our 1 Vol. II. p. 179. 2 p. 176. 204 "A STUDY OF SPINOZA" words are an exhaustive expression of our personality. Yet it is equally conceivable that God has revealed his whole being, though man has read but part of the revelation." ^ So far as I can see, no actual universe could possibly give exhaustive expression to that perfection which is pro- gressively revealed in man's ideals, but which must be eter- nally real in God. And I believe that Dr. Martineau has conclusively shown that did there not exist in God's being something analogous to, but infinitely greater than, that distinction which we find in ourselves between our mani- fested life and our complete personality, it would be im- possible to give any intelligible rationale, either of human free-will, or of prayer, or of felt communion with God, or, indeed, of any of those interpersonal relations between the finite soul and the Eternal which constitute the very essence of man's ethical and spiritual life. No one interested in the fundamental religious ques- tion of the intercourse between God and mankind should omit a study of the very weighty considerations which Dr. Martineau adduces to prove that to deny to God the essen- tial features of Personality, and the power to institute a real moral and spiritual relationship between himself and his rational offspring, is, in effect, to detract from God's perfection. What greater contradiction can there be than to say in one breath that a being is infinite and omnipotent, and yet is unable to so limit his own causality that he may give existence to spirits who can intelligently respond to and commune with the Father within them? " For these reasons," concludes Dr. Martineau, " the modern scruples that are felt with regard to the personality of God ap- pear to me not less intellectually weak than they are morally deplorable. ... As the parts of our nature which thus enter » P. 175. 205 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK into relation with God are precisely those which make us Per- sons and distinguish us from other ' living things/ it is diffi- cult to see why the same term should not be given to the corresponding attributes of rational and moral Will in him; and where the idea is really present and craving expression, I believe that for the most part it will be glad enough of the word. At all events, its contents are just what we rescue from Pantheism. Here it is that the God, immanent through the universe besides, and operating by determinate methods alone, passes into transcendent existence still unpledged, and estab- lishes moral relations with beings whom he has endowed v^ith a certain scope of similar volitional causality. At this point, however, our conclusion, worked out from the causal intuition, encounters a difficulty raised from the moral side. It is said that the preferential power which we suppose ourselves to possess is illusory, and that, on close analysis of the process of volition, it turns out to be but an effect involving no alterna- tive, so that we are the creatures of our past and not otherwise the causes of our future. We are thus obliged, for the pro- tection of our position, to address ourselves to the most per- plexing of all questions, — the problem, as it is called, of Determinism and Free-will."^ So far as I know there is not to be found in any other treatise such a clear statement of the real questions at issue, in this perennial controversy between Determinism and Libertarianism, as that which is presented in the long and elaborate chapter on the subject in " A Study of Reli- gion." The doctrine of the Freedom of the Will means that the human Self can in seasons of temptation make a free alternative choice between its conflicting motives, and select either the one or the other of them as its principle of action. This doctrine has been called in question in two ways. In earlier times it was more commonly assailed on a priori lines, by what was called the " Law of Causality." It was asserted, first, truly enough, that it is a law of human thought that every phaenomenon must have a cause, and this was followed by another assertion that every cause 1 " A Study of Religion," Vol. II. p. 183. 206 "A STUDY OF SPINOZA" can under given circumstances produce only one definite effect ; the human will, accordingly, it was argued, must, in any particular case, take one definite direction. But this latter assertion Dr. Martineau shows to rest on no neces- sity of thought at all. The idea of Cause is, as we have seen, derived from our own experience of volition, and hence we have immediately, in the case of our own selves, or wills, instances of causes which, in seasons of tempta- tion, are felt to be capable of producing either of two equally possible effects. Recent determinists, however, prefer to attack the liber- tarian position from the empirical or psychological side, and it is more particularly against them that Dr. Marti- neau's powerful arguments are directed. Psychologists like Professor Bain attempt to explain voluntary action by saying that animals first make muscular movements largely at random, and that some of these being accompanied with pleasure increase the vitality of the creature, and so tend to prolong themselves, while the painful ones, by lower- ing the vitality, tend to grow weak and die away. The animal has not yet, however, reached the stage of " volun- tary action." Blit at length pleasure, having been experi- enced, becomes desired as an end. This desire tends to set in motion the muscular movements which have pre- viously been associated with it; and when resistance is made to this by some of the other impulses, there arises what is called the " sense of effort." The result of the conflict is determined, we are told, by the relative strength of the conflicting impulses. Dr. Martincau's examination of this necessarian theory of volition is certainly one of the most striking of the many instances of keen psychological analysis contained in his writings. He shows clearly that " Life is 7iot a mere wrig- gling into contact with something nice wliich thenceforth Ixxromes its master, but contains within itself its own di- 207 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK recting force." Will is not felt to be identical with the strongest spontaneity, but rather to be a principle which controls the spontaneities; and in our human conscious- ness, at all events, it takes the shape of determining an alternative between co-present and conflicting tendencies. It is very common now, both among empirical psycholo- gists and idealists, to say that the selection is determined by the character at the time; that, in fact, the Character is identical with the Self. This is, as Dr. Martineau clearly shows, the irpSirov i}/evSo Vol. II. p. 243. 21 1 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK they are of vital importance in the formation of our per- sonal characters, form but a very small fraction of our daily acts; and indeed in some natures are of very rare occurrence. Hence it is by no means surprising that on a superficial view many thinkers fall into the fallacy of sup- posing that if we had psychological insight enough we could foresee all human conduct. So, too, in reference to the statistical argument ; it is obvious that the moral characters of various members of a social organism under ordinary cir- cumstances change but slowly, and hence it is to be expected that the statistics of human action should exhibit no great difference from year to year. But in reply to this deter- minist argument, which Mr. Buckle founded on the " law of averages," Dr. Martineau adduces, in addition to the explanation just given, another consideration based on the " theory of probabilities," and contends that when a very large number of acts of Free-will are talvcn into account there is a great probability that the numbers of the sinful and of the righteous decisions will approximate to equality. As to the argument that human Free-will would limit God's foreknowledge. Dr. Martineau accepts the state- ment; but so far from admitting that this self-limitation of God's prescience at all detracts from his absolute Per- fection, he maintains that the Divine Perfection would be manifestly incomplete did it not include those interper- sonal relations between God and rational spirits which are only made possible by this voluntary limitation, to some small extent, both of God's causality and of God's omniscience. And by a similar course of reasoning to that so effec- tually employed by Prof. W. James, in his striking paper on "The Dilemma of Determinism,"^ Dr. Martineau shows ^ See especially the analogy, there indicated, between God's relation to man's free-will and that of an expert chess-player to a novice. " The Will to Beliere," p. i8i. 212 -A STUDY OF SPINOZA" that the Supreme Being, who knows " all the open possi- bilities " which man's possession of Free-will implies, and hence is able to provide for all events and combinations, can at length secure, notwithstanding man's exercise of his Moral Freedom, the realisation of that eternal purpose of Righteousness and Love which is inherent in His essen- tial life, and which is ever being more fully revealed in the progressive Moral Ideals of Society. Thus does Dr. Martineau give further confirmation to the argimient for Theism by showing that the Cosmos is so constituted, that while it contains enough of dctermin- ateness to meet all the needs of science and morality, there still is left a sphere of indeterminateness adequate for the existence of true moral responsibility, and of the highest and deepest spiritual communion between God and the Soul. This long discussion is brought to a close by an admi- rable section on " The Ethics of Necessity and Free-will," in which it is made abundantly clear that while the deter- ministic reading of the Universe will, in thoughtful minds, lead to a course of personal conduct, and of social usage and law which does not in outward form differ greatly from that which the libertarian theory enjoins, yet in regard to the inmost sentiment and spirit of human action the results of the two theories are entirely unlike each other ; for " the language of Ethics, when translated into necessarian formulas, parts with all conceptions distinctly moral, and be- comes simply descriptive of phenomena in natural history. It tells us what has been, what is, what probably will be; but not (unless in an altered sense) what ought to be. Respon- sibility, obligation, merit, guilt, remorse, forgiveness, justice, drop from its vocabulary, or remain there only to mislead." ' Nor can this fundamental divergence of belief concern- ing the origin of moral obligation and the nature of its > VoL II. p. 3CX5. = '3 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK authority fail to lead to different practical results. Dr. Martineau illustrates this in the case of the sentiments which prompt to educational and other social reforms; and points out that it is especially conspicuous in the dif- ferent views taken of Sin and Crime, and of the most effectual means of dealing with them. If all good and ill desert be denied to man, as by a consistent determinist it must be, and we agree with Professor Tyndall that the wickedness of men must be put in the same category with the devastations of nature, genuine moral condemnation becomes impossible, and punishment, being no longer able to appeal for its justification to the responsive conscience of the sinner or criminal, must inevitably lose much of its efficiency ; for " the motive force of Law and opinion is to be sought, not in its mere command over sentient pleasures and pains, but in its correspondence with the retributory awards of the com- mon moral sense; and wherever, from disbelief in justice and the substitution of management, this correspondence is disre- garded, it may be possible to organise some sort of a human menagerie, but not a civilised society great among historical States." ^ 1 Vol. II. p. 299. 214 Chapter IX APPRECIATIONS AND CRITICISMS The preceding chapters complete the general survey of Dr. Martineau's philosophical \vritings ; for the four chapters which form the First Book of the " Seat of Authorit}' in Religion," and which were previously pub- lished in " Old and New " in 1872-1873, simply present in a briefer and somewhat more popular form ideas which are more fully expounded in the two great philosophical works. In this final chapter I will briefly deal with the more important estimates and criticisms which Dr. Martincau's philosophical works have called forth; and in so doing I will attempt, though with no little diffidence, to explain the circumstance that in some of the many very high ap- preciations of Dr. Martincau's invaluable services to phil- osophy and religion there has mingled an undertone of partial dissatisfaction with certain features of his philo- sophical teaching. At the beginning of the sixth chapter I divided reli- gious philosophers into three classes, — Intellectualists, Ethicists, and Spiritualists or Mystics. In so doing I virtually followed the distinction drawn, in Dr. Marti- neau's admirable sermon on " The Three Stages in Uni- tarian Theology," between the Religion of Causation, the Religion of Conscience, and the Religion of the Sf^irit. I then stated the opinion that Dr. Martineau is pre-eminently 215 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK the representative of the Religion of Conscience, but added that the spiritual or mystic side of religious experience also finds distinct and glowing expression in his works. For instance, in the sermon in which the above distinction is made, he says : — " God is a Spirit, in so far as he is not locked up in the invariable order of the world; and there is a spirit in Man, in so far as he is not disposed of by his organism and his dwelling-place, but rises in thought and directs himself in affection to what is above them. Here, then, it is that there is room for true communion, — that Spirit may meet Spirit, and that the sacred silence may itself speak the exchange of love. . . . The life with God, then, of which saintly men in every age have testified, is no illusion of enthusiasm, but an ascent, through simple surrender, to the higher region of the Soul, the very watch-tower whence there is the clearest and the larsrest view." ^ ■•t)^ This mystical side of Dr. Martineau's thought is thus emphasised in the memorial article in the " Spec- tator." ^ "We doubt whether the historian of the English thought of our time will credit Martineau with any distinct modifica- tion of the theological or philosophical opinions of this age. It was something that went below opinion ; it was a revela- tion of spiritual character and power. That was the impres- sive thing in James Martineau. Holding this view, we should, perhaps, appraise differently from some the value of his writ- ings. Important as are such of his later works as the ' Types of Ethical Theory ' or the ' Seat of Authority in Religion,' we have no hesitation in saying that in his wonderful ser- mons known collectively as ' Hours of Thought on Sacred Things,' and in his ' Endeavours after the Christian Life,' the real Martineau, the spiritual teacher who will endure, has accomplished his greatest and finest work. . . . Spirit speaks to spirit in these pages, which are worthy of the finest mysti- cism of the Catholic Church at her best, while at the same time 1 " Essays, Reviews, and Addresses," Vol. IV. p. 579, 580. » Jan. 27, 1900. ^^^ APPRECIATIONS AND CRITICISMS manly, healthy, in harmony with human reason, and couched in a singularly noble and remarkable prose style." And in a similar strain Dr. Forsyth writes : — " Martineau's theolo^ was of the Greek and not the Latin type. He was Greek in his subtlety, in his grace, in his lucidity, in his ideality. But he was a very Christian Greek ; and he found the food of his soul among the great saints of Hebraism. Catholicism, and Evangelicalism. No man who so disowned the Catholic theology ever made so much use of the classics of Catholic and Evangelical devotion. He thought like a Socinian and prayed like a Pietist. His sermons, his prayers. his hymn-book arc treasuries of devotion, especially if we sup- plement them with a more adequate salvation and descend on them from a higher cross. He was a severe critic, but he was also a profound mystic." ^ With these two testimonies, however, must be compared that borne by the Rev. Stopford A. Brooke, in his striking Memorial Address, at the Meeting of the National Con- ference at Leicester in 1900. In that Address the benefi- cent result of Dr. Martineau's great influence over the thought of his time is thus admirably depicted : — " The victor)' which the ideas of God, and the Soul, and Immortality are now beginning to secure over their enemies is largely due to Martineau's stern and quiet leadership, under the banners of the intellect and the conscience, of the soldiers of religion. He taught, strictly within the realms of philoso- phy and criticism, that all science begins and ends in God ; and all ethics begin and end in God ; and that without the postulate of the soul in man akin to God and going to Him, science and ethic have no secure foundation. No other man has done this needful work so firmly or so clearly as he has done. Even the Church of England, with its cry * Can any good thing come out of the Unitarian Village,' has been goaded into dim confessions of his use. On the whole. I have no doubt that the battle is practically won against the forces of godless science and godless ethics, and that Martincau has been the best builder, among many others, of a religion, bound * "London Quarterly Review," April, iqco, p. 217. 217 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK up with Jesus Christ, rooted in the confession of the Father- hood of God, which is agreeable to reason, and in full accord- ance with the ethical progress of man in history." But Mr. Brooke's estimate of the mystic insight of Dr. Martineau's mind is different from that given in the former quotations. " I believe," he says, " that Dr. Martineau arrived at the close-fibred convictions he had concerning the predomniance of the things of the spirit by passing first through the things of the intellect and the conscience in their relation to God; but that is not the path the man takes to whom the things of the spirit are natural, and therefore expressed with ease and passion. Such a man, like the writer of the Gospel of St. John, first lives in the spirit, and then, from the spirit, realises God in the conscience and the intellect. Martineau, on the other hand, was led to the spiritual life by discovering where the conscience and the intellect failed in finding the last and high- est truths of God and man. It is for that reason, I think, that he had not, in his work, the spiritual world under his com- mand as fully as he had the intellectual and moral worlds. In fact, he was not born with a large and piercing imagina- tion, nor with the deep emotions of a mystic." It is not difficult to understand the grounds on which Mr. Brooke has reached the conclusion that Mysticism was not naturally congenial to Dr. Martineau's soul, for there assuredly are, both on the intellectual and ethical sides of his philosophy, certain modes of conception which are in a high degree unfavourable to the recognition and ade- quate appreciation of the mystical element in man's reli- gious experience; and if Dr. Martineau had allowed the spontaneous expression of his deepest religious feeling to be always restrained and moulded by the intellectual frame- work of his philosophy, the world would have lacked, I be- lieve, some of his divinest utterances. But the impression which is left on my mind by the study of his writings, and by personal intercourse with him, is not that he was devoid of the mystical temperament, — for, I think, on the con- 218 APPRECIATIONS AND CRITICISMS trar>-, he possessed it in abundance, — but that his peculiar epistemology on the one hand, and the exceptional inten- sity of his ethical consciousness on the other, rendered him unable to fully harmonise his warm and deep mysti- cal emotions with his formulated philosophy. I have already indicated, in the third and fifth chap- ters, features in Dr. ]\Iartineau's Epistemology (on that side of it, I mean, where it treats of man's knowledge of God) which appear open to question; and I will now describe more precisely where, I venture to think, his formal philosophy requires modification in order to bring it into full accord with the many profound passages in his writings, in which the deep spirituality of his nature found expression. The necessary limits of this closing chapter, however, will allow me only to touch the skirts of a deeply interesting subject, the full exploration of which would require the careful comparison of Dr. Martineau's views with those of the Rev. J. H. Thorn, Dr. F. II. Hedge, Prof. C. C. Everett, and other compe- tent expositors of man's religious experience. In the first place, then, I will endeavour to explain wh)' the intensity of Dr. Martineau's ethical sentiments tends, at times, to obscure the complete recognition and interpretation of his mystical experiences. No one has shown more lucidly than he has that in all our Ideals there is revealed a Divine Presence which, though felt in us, is also felt to be not of us, so that we can clearly distinguish between this self- revelation of the immanent God, which carries with it the sense of an objective reality, and those subjective desires, aflfections, and sympathies which pertain to us as separate individuals. But though the Divine Ideal is ever more or less vividly present in our consciousness, and is that which gives to our life all its highest features, and all its truest charms and blessedness, yet it first distinctly reveals itself and its authf>rity when it resists and condemtis our pcr- 219 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK sonal desires and aims. Now it is this aspect of the Ideal as opposing us, commanding us, obHging us which is the characteristic feature of our ethical consciousness; and it is this experience which is a continual warning to us against falling into the paralysing fallacy of supposing that our lives are nothing more than transient modes or phases of God's eternal life. Here it is we learn our true individuality, and learn also, what Kant so clearly saw, the quite infinite value of a " Good Will." It is evident, I think, that what mainly constitutes the incalculable worth of Dr. Martineau's writings, and renders them so season- able and needful at the present time, is the emphasis with which he insists on, and the clearness with which he ex- pounds, this essential truth in man's relationship with God. It is this which will make his philosophy live when the pop- ular pantheisms which now captivate so many minds shall have had their day and ceased to be; for this truth rests on the daily deliverance of our moral consciousness; it is the truth to which Judaism, through the mouth of its great prophets and singers, has borne and will bear im- mortal testimony. But while the Ideal at times resists us, it also ever abides with us, and its positive presence is a most real and influ- ential factor in all the divinest experiences of life. God is not only revealed in the stern voice of Conscience, in the " Categorical Imperative," but also in the apprehension of the Beautiful and in the sentiments of spiritual Love, in which man most deeply feels his intimate communion with God, and his fundamental spiritual unity with all his fellow- men. It is these experiences which the Mystic profoundly realises and cherishes; and no earnest student of Dr. Mar- tineau's writings can doubt that such experiences were very real and dear to him. This it was which prompted him to speak with enthusiasm of Tauler and the " Theologia Germanica," and to warmly appreciate the sacred songs 220 APPRECIATIONS AND CRITICISMS of Charles Wesley and the evangelical piety of Hannah More. Yet it must at the same time be admitted that he does not expressly give to this immediate apprehension of God its due place in his formulated philosophy. The ^Esthetic Ideal is not sufficiently recognised as an important phase in the self-revelation of God ; and in connection with this subject there occurs the statement (to which, I think, most poets and artists would demur) that the gradations of Beauty " remain upon the level of ideal facts, and do not rise into imperative Law subjecting us to a transcendent relation that asks the sacrifice of ourselves." ^ It is note- worthy, too, that though both in " A Study of Religion " and in the "Types of Ethical Theory" Dr. Martineau gives a most lucid and profound analysis of our moral conscious- ness, he does not recognise in that consciousness a direct apprehension of God's presence and character, but, on the contrary, by a process of inference reaches the idea of God as that of " another Person greater and higher and of deeper insight." ^ The truth appears to be that Dr. Martineau's writings present two modes of conceiving God ; one of which is Deistic or Hebraic, while the other is distinctly and in- tensely Christian. The first mode represents God as " an- other and higher Person " ; the second represents Him as " the Soul of souls." The former conception rests upon an inferential knowledge of God, derived either from the experience of God's resistance to our will through the forces of Nature, or from God's felt restraint upon us in the voice of Conscience. In both cases the Supreme Being is regarded as completely separated from the human soul, and his existence and character arc apprehended and dem- » " A Study of RcliKion," Vol. II. p. 27. « " Types of Kthical Theory," Vol. II. p. 104. C/. Dr. Mcllone's "Leaders of Religious Thought," p. 120. 221 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK onstrated by a process of reasoning. A Theism of this stamp is correctly designated RationaHsm; if it is reached by the argument from Causation it becomes " Intellectual Rationalism " ; if by way of the Conscience, " Ethical Rationalism," Now, as Dr. Caldecott ^ in his admirable exposition and criticism of Dr. Martineau's system points out, the first superficial impression which Dr. Martineau's philosophy of religion makes upon the reader is that it is a combination of Intellectual and Ethical Rationalism. And this impres- sion is, I believe, supported by Dr. Martineau's account of the principle of " Relativity of Knowledge " as applied to God. He justly distinguishes between Noiimena and Phco- nomena. " Noiimena," he says, " are objects of the Un- derstanding only, while Phsenomena are objects of Sensible Perception." ^ The human self is a noumenon ; so are the metaphysical substances and causes which underlie and effect the phcunomena of nature. It is evident that such noiimena are known, and can only be known, inferentially. The only noumenon we know directly is our own con- sciousness; and by this as our only clue we explain all other noiimena. Thus we gain a knowledge of our fellow- men by interpreting their actions and their words after the analogy of our own immediately felt inner life; and what we know, or speculate about, in respect to the energies of nature, all rests on an assumed analogy between the sub- stances and forces of nature and our personal self and its volitional efforts. Now the important matter is that in Dr. Martineau's formal Epistemology man's mode of know- ing the self-existent and immanent noiimenon, God, is not distinguished from his mode of knowing created noiimena; 1 " The Philosophy of Religion in England and America." By Alfred Caldecott, D.D., Professor of Logic and Mental Philosophy in King's College, London, p. 343 sqq. 2 " A Study of Religion," Vol. I. p- 115. 222 APPRECIATIONS AND CRITICISMS and it is distinctly stated that, like all other noiimena, He can be known only " as He is revealed to our cognitive faculties." ^ Hence the knowledge of God as thus ex- plained is an inferential kiwzvlcdgc; it is knowledge, there- fore, which necessarily consists in our interpretation of God's nature in tenns of our own consciousness; and con- sequently God can, in this way, be conceived of only as a magnified man, as " another and higher Person." If this were a complete account of Dr. Martineau's view of man's knowledge of God, I have no hesitation in saying that both his philosophy and his sermons would lose much of their characteristic depth and beauty. The idea of God as thus conceived can neither explain the divine authority of conscience, nor the soul's sense of real communion with the Father within. It is this " rational- istic " or Deistic side of Dr. Martineau's philosophy which lends some justification to the criticism that his Theism is but " his individualism writ large," and which explains why there is a certain truth in the following remark made by one of Dr. Martineau's warmest admirers and most frequent correspondents, the Rev. A. H. Crauford, M.A.,^ in a very thoughtful paper on " James Martineau as a Religious Teacher" : — " He dreaded all approaches to Pantheism, even though he habitually spoke of God as ' the Soul of all souls.' He never learnt to sympathise with that deep feeling of the mcagrcncss of our present sharply individualised personality which urges some deep and reflective spirits to seek for some satisfying partnership ; Solitude had no terrors for him. His was es- sentially a lonely and not a social religion, almost as lonely as that of the ascetic Pascal." ^ 1 "A Study of Religion," p. 117. ' Author of "Enigmas of the Spiritual Life" and "Christian Instincts and Modern Doubts." • With this view should be compared the following account of Dr. Martineau's " Ethical Individualism," by Dr. A. Caldecott : " Vet M;irtincau's view of the individual is not that man is a 'lonely' being who wakes all his 223 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK But such criticism does not do justice to Dr. Marti- neau's philosophy as a whole. The ethical rationalist in- evitably tends to become an "Intuitivist" or Mystic, just as Judaic Theism naturally developed into Christian Theism. It is impossible for the thinker whose moral conscious- ness is at all deep and intense to analyse that conscious- ness without becoming aware that in it we have a direct and immediate, and not merely an inferential, insight into God's nature. Hence, as Dr. Caldecott clearly shows, Dr. Martineau's Intellectual and Ethical Rationalism really rests on, and is illustrative and confirmative of, a fun- damental " Intuitive " apprehension of God's being and character; although this basal "Intuition" finds no ade- quate recognition in the formal philosophy. Mr. Crau- furd truly says that Dr. Martineau habitually spoke of God as the " Soul of all souls " ; and assuredly these words far more adequately express the central and vital principle of his philosophy of religion than does the description of God as " another and higher Person." Had he conceived of God only in this latter way, he might indeed have held, with some of the Deists, that men are united in society by their possession in common of rationality and a moral sense, but he would not have reached the deeper and truer conception that " the social union is no mere forensic abstraction, but a concrete though spiritual form of life, penetrating and partly constituting all persons belonging to it, so that only as fractions of it do they become human integers themselves." ^ It is this idea of the spiritual life of God holding all own echoes : society is the means of ' discovering us to ourselves ' ; but the inherent essence after all is a self -judgment made by every man as a type of human nature ; we are all members of a kind, ' my fellow is myself over again ' ; and he thinks that by taking this view our experiences enable us to 'sweep into the widest generality,' yet 'without asking a question of our fellow-men,' the 'revelation of authority to one mind being valid for all"* (p. 352). C/. also Dr. Mellone's " Leaders of Religious Thought," pp. 135, 183. 1 " Types of Ethical Theory," Vol. II. p. 403. 224 APPRECIATIONS AND CRITICISMS nature and humanity in its embrace and gradually mani- festing its essential character in and through them that in- spires two of his greatest chapters, — that on '* Conscience Developed into Social Consensus and Religion," in the " Types of Ethical Theory," and that on " Triumphs of Force in History," in " A Study of Religion." Such an insight into the immanent presence of God as the unifying principle which makes evolution intelligible and combines present and past history into one continuous and unfolding drama, is only possible to thinkers who clearly conceive of God as the " Soul of souls." Dr. Mar- tineau further distinctly teaches that such a conception could not arise did not the Eternal directly reveal Himself in the human consciousness, and did not man possess a power of immediately apprehending this revelation. " In the very constitution," he says, " of the human soul there is provision for an immediate apprehension of God." * Again, " All that we believe without us we must first feel within us ; and it is the one sufficient proof of the grandeur and awfulness of our nature that we have faith in God ; for no merely finite being can possibly believe the infinite." ^ In this apprehension, then, of God as the Infinite, in- cluding all finite existences, as the immanent Absolute on whom all Noiimena. whether physical or psychical, depend, and who progressively manifests his character in the Ideals of Truth, Beauty, Righteousness, and Love, we have the inmost essence of Dr. Martineau's religious philosophy; and this fundamental conception of God as the Soul of souls not only gives the rationale of all mystical experi- ences, but it also inspires and justifies that belief in the con-« substantiality and solidarity of the human race, which is the vital principle not only of Christianity but of all true sociological science. That Dr. Martincau really based his » " .Seat of Authority," p. 61,1. * " Endeavours after the Christian Life." Vol. I. p. 2. 225 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK religion and his philosophy on this immediate vision of the self-revealing God is clearly shown by the passages I have already quoted; but his writings abound in such evi- dences. Thus in one of his earliest works, the " En- deavours," he says : — " I pretend not to draw the untraceable line that separates his being from ours. The decisions of the Will, doubtless, are our own, and constitute the proper sphere of our personal agency. But in a region higher than the Will — the realm of spontaneous thought and emotion — there is scope enough for his ' abode with us.' Whatever is most deep within us is the reflection of himself. All our better love, and higher as- pirations, are the answering movements of our nature in har- monious obedience to his spirit. Whatever dawn of blessed sanctity, and wakening of purer perceptions, opens on our con- sciousness, are the sweet touch of his morning light within us. His inspiration is perennial ; and he never ceases to work within us, if we consent to will and to do his good pleasure. . . . Finding a Holy of Holies within us, we need not curi- ously ask whether its secret voices are of ourselves or of the Father. Christ felt how, within the deeps of our spiritual nature, the personalities of Heaven and earth might become entwined together and indissolubly blended : ' Thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee, and they also one in us.' And so the Holy spirit within us, the spirit of Christ, and the spirit of God are, after all, but one ; — a blessed Trinity, our part in which gives to our souls a dignity most humbling yet august."^ And in like manner, in his eightieth year, when speaking of God's self-revelation in the conscience : — " I care not whether this be called an immediate vision of God in the experiences of conscience, or whether it be taken as an inference drawn from the data they supply. It is the truth contained in them ; with one man it may be only im- plicitly felt in their solemn and mystic character ; with an- other, explicitly and immediately seen emerging from them as they come, and making him the Seer of God rather than the reasoner about him. In any case, the constitution of our moral nature is unintelligible, except as living in response to 1 " Endeavours after a Christian Life," Vol. II. p. 83, 84. 226 APPRECIATIONS AND CRITICISMS an objective Perfection pervading the universe with Holy Law.' ^ But perhaps the most adequate expression of this central principle of both his faith and his philosophy was given to the world when, in his ninetieth year, he penned his searching criticism of Mr. Balfour's " Foundations of Belief " : — " A secret feeling of this overflow of the Divine essence into humanity contributed, I believe, not a little to the inten- sity, at first view so strange, of the Arian controversy. Was the ' person ' of ' the Son ' of essence like the Father's ? or of the ver}' essence of the Father? According to the Arians, the former; for they ranked him as still among the ' creatures ' of the Divine hand, though of a high order; according to the Athanasians, the latter; for He was uncreated, not an organ- ised product brought into a certain grade, however eminent, of thinking and acting life on terminable lease, but spirit itself, with its creative and self-directing powers, commissioned freely to conduct the Divine administration of an appointed finite province of time and space. Is not this, then, a true con- ception that we see in the mind of Christ the very essence of the mind of God in what He loves and requires to see in us ; not the passiveness of an instrument or the obedience of a creat- ure, but the filial devotion, the self-renunciation, the enthusiasm of all righteous affections which must for ever constitute the ethics of all worlds? In opening to us this co-essentiality with God through His own personality, did He show us what is true of His own individuality alone? On the contrary. He stands, in virtue of it, as the spiritual head of mankind, and what you predicate of Him in actuality is predicablc of all in possibility. This interpretation of His life on earth carries the Divine essence claimed for Him into our nature as His brethren. In Him as our representative, we learn our summons and receive our adoption as children of God. The ' Incarnation,' thus extended from the person of Christ to the nature of man, may fitly be called * the central mystery of revealed religion.' " ^ 111 this doctrine of the co-essentiality of men with God and, therefore, with each other, when conjoined with the ' A Study of Religion," Vol. II. p. 28. " •' Nineteenth Century," April, 1895, p. 564. 227 PHILOSOPHICAL WORK doctrine of human Free-will which finds such complete ex- pression in Dr. Martineau's writings, we have a philosophy which accords with the general moral and religious expe- rience of mankind; and, therefore, for myself, I cannot but feel assured that it is in the direction to which the kindred metaphysical systems of Lotze and Martineau point that we must look for that much-needed interpreta- tion of the cosmos in which the Universal Spiritual Prin- ciple is so conceived as not to cancel the true personality and responsibility of man.^ The view taken in this chapter of Dr. Martineau's posi- tion in the realm of religious thought agrees in the main, I believe, with that expressed in Dr. Alfred Caldecott's elaborate analysis and estimate of Dr. Martineau's philos- ophy of religion; and I count myself fortunate that, in conclusion, I can present the result of this long survey of my revered teacher's philosophical work, not in the lan- guage, which might perhaps be thought too eulogistic, of a life-long and devoted disciple, but in the following well- weighed and wholly unbiassed words of a remarkably clear-sighted expositor and critic : — " But when these deficiencies are noted and allowed for, the student of the philosophy of religion will still feel that in Martineau we have one of the great masters of the subject, one of the men who have made contributions of permanent value to its literature in Great Britain. His treatment of Causality made the intelligent interpretation of the cosmos sauter aux yeux once more in an age when mechanical theory was enveloping men with mist. His emphasis on the authority of conscience marks him as the truest successor of Butler in the history of English Ethics, making us, children of Utili- tarianism as so many of us are, once more feel the ' law over us which is not of our making.' the obligation which is * un- derived from our will, independent of our idiosyncrasies,' and impressing once more that sense of moral objectivity which ^ Cf. Mr. W. L. Courtney's admirable essay on "Dr. Martineau's Theol- ogy," in " Studies at Leisure," p. 217. 228 APPRECIATIONS AND CRITICISMS has to so many been the fulcrum of religious conviction. In his dealing with the objections and difficulties in the way of belief in a Perfect Ruler, Martineau draws on a rich store of moral and spiritual experience and gives us a result of endur- ing value. Lastly, his insistence on the personal nature of re- ligious conviction, with the self-evidence and self-disclosure which are involved in it, and the necessity of substituting a Religion of Cofisciousncss for the Religion of Custom, — to use an early phrase of his own, — though pressed to exag- geration and consequent defect in other directions, brings into relief one aspect of religious faith which can never for a mo- ment be obscured without pernicious consequences to itself. If to these excellences we add the extraordinary profusion of delicate analyses of experience, of expressions of original thought and profound personal feeling, given to us in ner- vous, lucid, and most richly varied English, we can see that Martineau has secured one of the places of highest honour in the literature of our English Theism, and has given us many thoughts of the kind which raise the whole level of man's religious meditations." * 1 " The Philosophy of Religion in England and America," p. 352. 229 INDEX Tlu rtfertncu in Roman Numerals relate to Preface and Introductory Essay "Alexandria and her Schools," Kingsley's, 97, 99 Alger, the Rev. W, R., letters from Dr. Klartineau to, 112 "Alton Locke," Kingsley's, 41 America, 17, 40, 138, 154. " Analysis and Appreciation of Mar- tineau's Study of Religion," R. A. Armstrong's. i8g. " Analysis of the Human Mind," James Mill's, 2, 15 Aristotle, 32, 35, 66, 83, 131, 144 Ariiislrong, the Rev. R. A., letter from Dr. Martineau to, quoted, 161 ; his "Analysis and Appreciation of Mar- tineau's Study of Religion," 189 ; re- ferred to, 162, 180 Ashion, Walter, 39. Association, Laws of, the, 2 Atheism, 65, 66, 112 " Atheism," Dr. Morell's, viii, 33 Atheist, the word, Dr. Martineau's use of, 111-113 Aihenitum, the, 112 Atkinson, Henry George, his " Letters on the Laws of Man's Nature and De- velopment," 65, 67, 68 "Atlantic Monthly," the, 176. Aviemore, 190 Bacf.hot, Walter, 95 Bailey, Samuel, his "Theory of Reason- ing. "96; referred to, 32 Bain, Alexander, Dr. Martineau's article on, 97, 104 ; his " The Senses and the Intellect," 25; referred to, 29, 35, 104, 105, IJ3, 135, 207, 209 Baldwin, Prol. J. Mark, his " Handbook of Psychology," 177 Balfour, A. J.. ^^'^ "Foundations of Belief," c,4. 227 ; referred to, 121. Balfour, Gerald, 121 Balliol. 66 Barne?, Dr. Thomas, 4. 5 Bedford S3 Polchar, the (Aviemore), referred cO, 10, 200 Political Economy, Dr. Martineau's lectures on, 38-45 "Political Economy," Prof. W. F. New- man's, 66 Pollock, Sir Frederick, 116, 195, 196 Positivism, Dr. Martineau's attitude towards, 8 ; Comte's system of, 131 Poynting, the Rev. Charles T., 40 Poynting, Prof. J. H., 40 Poynting, the Rev. T. E., letter from Dr. Martineau to, 43-45 Price, Dr., his " Review of the Principal Questions and Difficulties in Morals," 17; referred to, 4, 9, 133 Prichard, Dr., 9 Priestley, Dr., Dr. Martineau's essay on, 9-10, 22; his "Treatise on Necessity," 15 ; his Works, 19 ; referred to, i, 3, 6, 7. 18, 37. 73 Princeton University, 177 " Principia," Newton's, 56 " Principles of Political Economy," J. S. Mill's, 45 " Principles of Political Economy," Ricardo's, 39 "Principles of Psychology," Spencer's, 33 Pringle-Pattison, Professor, see Setk, Prof. Andrew "Prospective Review," the, 40, 47, 49, 54, 60, 63, 64, 86, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 102 Psychological theories, 132-133 Rabelais, 134 Ranke, Professor, 76 Rashdall, Dr. Hastings, xxxvii ; his " Doctrine and Development," 156 ; referred to, 121 " Reflections on Materialism," Dr. Tyn- dall's, no " Regal Rome," Prof. F. W. Newman's, 71 Reid, his Works edited by Sir William Hamilton, loi, 167 ; referred to, 17, 25, loi, 102 Religion, the philosophy of. Dr. Marti- neau's lectures on, 36-37; the three systems of, 154-155 ; referred to, 45 Religion, revealed, referred to, 91 " Representative Men," Emerson's, 59, 73 " Republic," Plato's, 83, 130 " Retrospect of a Twelvemonth passed in Germany," Tayler's, 5 Revelation, Dr. Martineau's opinions on, 56, 124-126 " Revelation : What it is Not, and What it Is," 80 " Review of the Principal Questions and Difficulties in Morals," Dr. Price's, 17 Ribot, 176, 177 Ricardo, David, his " Principles of Political Economy," 39 Ritschl, Albrecht, 78 Robertson, Prof. G. Croom, referred to, 96 Rochester, the Bishop of, 122 Romanes, Professor, 183 Roscoe, W^illiam, 15 Royer-CoUard, 17, 25 Ruskin, John, 115 Russell, Thomas R., letter from Dr. Mar- tineau, 190-193 Russia, referred to, 18, 41 St. Andrews, the University of, 106, 126 238 INDEX "Saisiaz, La," Browning's, 191 Scafell Pike, \-i Schleiermacher, Friedrich, Dr. Marti- neau's notice of his ' ' Life and Times," 97 ; referred to, 78, 196, 201 Schop»enhauer, 169 Schurman, Dr., his "Belief in God," 204 Scotch school of philosophical thought, the, loi Scotland, 8, 24 " Second Travels of an Irish Gentleman," Blanco White's. Dr. Martineaus review of, 93 Seelcy.Sir John, his " Natural Religion, ' 162 ; referred to, 163 Selboume, Lord, 115, 116 "Sensesand the Intellect," the, Bain's, 25 Seth, Prof. Andrew, his " Man's Place in Cosmos," 33, 156; his " Hegelian ism and Personality, " 155; his criticism of Dr. Martineau's Libertarianism, x.xviii-xxxii; referred to, 155, 156 Seth, Prof. James, his "Freedom as Ethical Postulate," xxix, xxx, 155 ; his " .\ Study of Ethical Principles," xxx, 156; referred to, 156 Shaftesbury, 134 Sheffield, 34 Sidgwick, lYof. Henry, letters from Dr. Martineau to, 113, 142 ; his " Methods of Ethics," 48, 141, 210; his criticism of Dr. Martineau's " Types of Ethical Theory," 96; referred to, 115, 121, 123, 131. 137. 141. 147. 209 Sismondi, his " Literature of Southern Europe," 15 Smith, Adam, his " Wealth of Nations," 93 Socinians, the, 3 Socrates, 82, 194 Sorley, Professor, 197 "Soul, the," Newman's, 63-68; Dr. M;utineau's criticism of, 63-64 ; R. H. Hutton's criticism of, 64 '• Soul in Nature,'' Oersted's, 97, 102 Space, the idea of, 29, 30 " Spectator," the, 80, 90, 216 Spencer, Herbert, his "First Prin- ciples, 106, 109; his "Principles of Psychology," 33 ; his criticism of Dr. Martineaus philosophy, 108-110; his "Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative," 109, no; his "Synthetic System of Philosophy," 109, 149 ; his "Mr. Martineau on Evolution," 116; referred to, 36, 105, 106, 107, in, 112, 116, 133, 13s, 136, 137, 152, 169, 173, 193 Spencer, W.'V., 80 Spencerianism, i<^ Spinoz;i, his " f.thica," 196, 199, 202 ; Dr. Martineau's " Study of," 135, 189, 195-205 ; Dr. John Caird's volume on, 197; reierred to, 31, 35, 83, 129, 130, 131, 132 Steinthal, the Rev. S. A., letter from Dr. Martineau to, 79 Stephen, Leslie, 136 Stewart, Dugald, 17, 25, 101, 131 Stirling, Hutchison, 106 Strauss, referred to, 80 "Studies at Leisure,'* Courtney's, 228 " Study of Ethical Principles," a. Prof. J. Seth's, xxx, 156 Sweden, 40 Synthetic Society, the, description of, 120- 122 ; Dr. Martineau's connection with, 121-122 ; leferred to, 81 " Synthetic System of Philosophy," Her- bert Spencer's, 109, 149 " System of Logic," J. S. Mill's, 15, 86 Tal'ler, 220 Taunton .Academy, 4 Tsiyler, the Rev. John James, letter from Dr. Martineau to, 38 ; his ' ' Retro- spect of a Twelvemonth passed in Germany," 5 ; referred to, 63, 90 " Temple of Education," the, Poynting's, 42 Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, xxxi ; referred to, 114, 115, 117, 121 " Theism," 25, 61, 65, 108, iii, 112, 113, 139, 180, 182, 213 " Theism," Professor W. Knight's, 158 " Theism," F.W. Newman's, referred to, 72 " Theologia Gprmanica,' 220 " Theological Review," referred to, 95 "Theory of Reality," the, Professor Ladd's, 30 " Theory of Reasoning," Bailey's, Dr. Martineau's review of, 96 Thorn, the Rev. John Hamilton, his im- pression of Dr. Martineau's philosophy of the will, 2 ; referred to, 17, 62, 79, 94. 219 Thompson, Dr. W^illiam (Archbishop of York), referred to, 115, 117 Thomson, 35 Thornely, William, 15 Time, the idea of, 29-30 " Times," the, referred to, 121 "Tracts for Priests and People," Mau- rice's ^/ a/., Dr. Martineau's notice of, 91.97 Transcendental metaphysical systems, the, 129, 131 "Transcendentalism in New England," Frothingham's, 57 Transcendent.ilists, the, 25, 51, 61 Transfen-nce, the Law of, 2, 13 " TrcatibC on Astronomy," Sir John Her- schel's, 17S "Treatise on Necessity," Priestley's, 15 239 INDEX Trendelenburg, Professor, his " Logische Untersuchungen," 30; his " Elementa Logices Aristotelae Adnotata," 35 ; re- ferred to, 31, 35, 75, 'JJ Turner, the Rev. WiUiara, 5, 7 Turner, William, Jr., his philosophical views, 7 ; his Memoir, 7 "Two Kinds of Poetry," the, J. S. Mill's, 22 Tyndall, Prof. John, his Belfast Address, no ; his " Fragments of Science," no ; his " Reflections on Materialism," no ; referred to, 105, in, 114, 115, 117, 118, 120, 13s, 151, 214 Uniformity of Nature, the doctrine of, 118 Unitarianism, referred to, 18, 60 Unitarians, the, referred to, i, 17 United States, the, 41 University College (London), referred to, 22, 34. 35. 36. 62, 82, 102 University of London, the, see University College Utilitarianism, 8, 73, 147, 148 Vatke, 76, 78 Vera, Professor, 79 Veracity, Dr. Martineau's ideas on, 145- 146 Vere Street (London), 8g Virtue, the Obligation of, 7 Walker, the Rev. George, 4 Wallace, 79 Wallace, Dr. A. R., his "Darwinism," 151-152 Ward, Piof. James, 121, 156 ; his Gifford Lectures referred to, xxxvii Ward, W. G., his "The Philosophy of Theism," 180; referred to, 115, 116, 118, 180, 2og Ward, Wilfrid, his "William George Ward and the Catholic Revival," 115 ; letter from Dr. Martineau to, 121 ; re- ferred to, 115, 117, 121, 122 Ware, Henry, 58, 59 Warmbrunn, 82 Watson, Dr. John, his appreciation of Dr. Martineau's view of man's Moral Freedom, xxxiii " Ways of the Spirit," Dr. F. H. Hedge's, 159 Wesley, Charles, 221 "Westminster and Foreign Quarterly Review," the, 93 " Westminster Review," the, referred to, 54. 60, 93, 94 Whately, 35 Whewell, Dr., Dr. Martineau's essays on, 47-49, 95, 141, 142; referred to, 86 White, the Rev. Joseph Blanco, his "Second Travels of an Irish Gentle- man," 93 ; referred to, 21 Wicksteed, the Rev. Charles, letters from Dr. Martineau to, 120; referred to, 94 Wicksteed, the Rev. P. H., 181, 182 Will, the, the Rev. J. H. Thorn's impres- sion of Dr. Martineau's philosophy of, 2 ; referred to, 138, 206 Will, God's, 12 Will, idea of, the. Dr. Martineau's opinions on, 28, 29 " Will to Believe," the. Prof. W. James's, 212 " William George Ward and the Catholic Revival," Wilfrid Ward's, 115 Willis's Rooms (London), 116 Winkworth Catherine, her ' ' Lyra Ger- manica," 90 Worcester, the Bishop of, 121 Wundt, 79 Wyndham, George, 121 Yale University, 30 Yates, Ellen, 14 York, 3, 4, s York, the Archbishop of, see Thompson, Dr. William Zeller, Dr. Eduard, referred to, 80, 177, 178 Zeno, 32 Zurich, 163 Printed by Ballantyn'e, Hanson b' Co. Edinburgh 6^ London ,.}J.c..souTHfR^.RfG,o^i, ,,,„,„^ AA 000 282 249