(.
JAMES MARTINEAU
JAMES MARTINEAU
' A BIOGRAPHY AND STUDT
BY
A. W. JACKSON, A.M.
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
AND BOMBAY *
1900
Copyright, /poo,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
rights reserved
UNIVERSITY PRESS JOHN WILSON
AND SON CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
TO HORATIO STEBBINS.
Dear Friend, whose noble presence fails to show
The regal grandeur of thy inner plan,
Patrician mien, but an IMPERIAL MAN,
/ link thy name with that of Martineau.
He sage ; thou prophet. His the orient glow
Of one who all surveys from peak of Darien;
Thine, to call back dead souls to life again,
Isaiah's flame, the tones of Cicero.
He is the Phosphor of the coming day j
Awakener thou of those who dwell in night.
Through him men see the heights, through thee adore;
And they who write your epitaphs should say
Of him, " He touched the mountain crests with light; "
Of thee, " He thrilling witness to its glory bore."
2066566
PREFACE
THOUGH the plan of this volume may be manifest in its
pages, it may yet be not amiss to state it. Of course I
could have prepared the narrative of Dr. Martineau's
life and followed it with an analysis of his teaching,
intent upon nothing more than a just account of his
labors ; and this is what I contemplated when I set about
the task. As I meditated, however, the thought occurred
to me that I might make the volume not only an account
of Dr. Martineau, but also an utterance of my own mind ;
and these two aims have ruled my labor. In saying this,
I hope I do not need to say that, save in love and rever-
ence, the disciple does not place himself beside his master.
I only imply that the disciple is other than his master, and
interprets him from his own mind and heart.
This twofold aim may explain to some a frequent
feature of the page, a mingling with exposition of much
that is extra-expository. There is another feature, too, of
which it is the explanation. In dealing with the problems
of thought, it made necessary the treatment of them at
first hand. This necessity brought me to the study of Dr.
Martineau in his teachers, the masters of Tubingen, the
great moralists, the great philosophers, who appear some-
what conspicuously in the perspective of these pages.
viii PREFACE
Conceiving my task thus, I was happily, in the general
bias of my mind, fairly well prepared to execute it without
controversy with my master. Indeed I am not sure that
my thought has not been too accordant with his for the
best result of a critical study of him. His admonition to
me, " Be sure that you do not spare me," has sometimes
come back to me almost as a reproof for not finding more
in him to dissent from. However, the Empirical type of
philosophy, never more than a tentative in my mind, long
ago ceased to be. even that; and Utilitarian ethics had
always seemed to me at best to provide only rules of con-
duct, never standards of character. Thus on the one hand.
On the other, the latter-day Idealism, though taught me
by a teacher whom I must always revere, and met in books
altogether admirable, had never laid a spell upon me.
Accordingly, I was prepared to receive as they came
the Types of Ethical Theory and the Study of Religion;
and, coming at length to the discussion of their problems,
I found their cardinal teachings my own working convic-
tions. In the domain of Christian Theology, too, Dr.
Martineau had long been a leader whom I was well content
to follow, while his peculiar ecclesiasticism was an ideal of
my mind before I met it in his pages. When I came to
the Seat of Authority in Religion, the cardinal features
of his New Testament criticism were too familiar to be
disturbing; and, though I had long wished for ample
assurance that John wrote the Fourth Gospel, my studies
had made me more and more doubtful if he could have
done so. On the Messianic question, however, I was
thrown for a time into an attitude of dissent: Dr. Marti-
neau's contention that Jesus did not claim to be the Messiah
PREFACE IX
for a time seemed incredible, and I girded myself for
something like a debate with him. Collating, however,
the Synoptic texts which bear upon this problem, I soon
found that my own affirmative position was not without
difficulties; and at length, meditating the great declara-
tion at Caesarea Philippi, the general truthfulness of Dr.
Martineau's theory was irresistibly borne in upon me.
Thus I have toiled on, as serenely satisfied with Dr. Mar-
tineau as was John Fiske with Herbert Spencer when he
wrote the eloquent volumes of his Cosmic Philosophy.
A work like this, dealing with a teacher of so vast a
range, must necessarily be selective in its character : it can
deal with but few of the themes that invite consideration.
In the present volume even of the themes selected and
studiously treated, by no means all are offered. Among
other discarded manuscripts my mind turns regretfully
to a lengthy and toilsome discussion of the Types of
Ethical Theory. My publishers, undoubtedly wiser than
I, conceived that it were better to compress the two
volumes I had prepared into one, and so this was left
out because it could be spared.
My thanks are due to Longmans, Green & Co., of
London, for their kind permission to quote according to
my need from the Seat of Authority and the Essays,
Reviews, and Addresses, of which they are the publish-
ers. The like grateful acknowledgment is also due the
Clarendon Press of Oxford for their permission to use
in like manner the Study of Religion and the Types of
Ethical Theory. I gratefully remember, too, a group of
ministers in Boston in the smile of whose sympathy and
most cordial helpfulness my task has been performed;
X PREFACE
also the children of Dr. Martineau for the valuable assist-
ance they have given me. There are others who have
variously aided me ; they will doubt not that I remember
their kindness, though I do not name them.
The labor that here closes has been the happiness of
many hours and the comfort of some pain ; and I send it
forth in the hope that it may draw some to the further
contemplation of the great intellect and soul to which it
is devoted.
A. W. JACKSON.
CONCORD, MASS., Feb. 20, 1900.
CONTENTS
THE MAN
CHAPTER PAGE
I. ANCESTRY, FAMILY, EARLY HOME . . ..... i
II. EDUCATION ............... 12
III. MINISTRY IN DUBLIN ........... 35
IV. MINISTRY IN LIVERPOOL ....... ... 50
V. MINISTRY IN LIVERPOOL (continued) ...... 72
VI. LONDON ................ 88
VII. LATER PUBLICATIONS ; A REMARKABLE TESTIMONIAL 107
VIII. His INTELLECT ............. 123
IX. PERSONAL FEATURES ........... 135
230ofc HE
THE RELIGIOUS TEACHER
I. THE PREACHER ............. 142
II. THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN ........ 162
III. THE NEW TESTAMENT CRITIC ........ 221
THE PHILOSOPHER OF RELIGION
I. KNOWLEDGE .............. 279
II. GOD AND COSMOS ............ 299
III. GOD AND CONSCIENCE ........... 358
IV. His CRITICISM OF PANTHEISM ........ 401
V. FREEDOM AND IMMORTALITY ........ 423
INDEX
449
JAMES MARTINEAU
BOOK I
THE MAN
CHAPTER I
ANCESTRY, FAMILY, EARLY HOME
LOUIS XIV. conferred incalculable benefit upon other
nations by acting the tyrant within his own. The Edict
of Nantes, their Magna Charta of religious privilege, had
given the Protestants within his realm a legal if precarious
exercise of their worship. The Revocation of this Edict
in 1685 made Protestantism an outlaw. The horrible
detail of persecution that followed, the demolition of
churches, the separation of children from their parents,
the galleys, the Dragonade, need not be recounted here.
The inevitable result was a flow of emigration which the
severest penalties and a ubiquitous police could not check.
The refugees went, availing themselves of every favorable
circumstance, in every manner of disguise, the arrest of
some only leading others to plot more skilfully ; and with
them went the bravest manhood, the sturdiest intelligence,
the most profitable industry. They recruited the armies
with which France was soon to be struggling, and carried
French manufactures into countries wherewith France
was competing. More than this, they carried the latent
intelligence that was destined to unfold in children and
i
2 JAMES MARTINEAU
in children's children, that should have added to the
triumphs of French art and letters and statesmanship
and philosophy.
Among these refugees was one in whom we have a
special interest, a certain Gaston Martineau, son of Elie
Martineau of Bergerac. There is also a tradition that
makes him a surgeon of Dieppe. Bergerac, as we know
from general history, was one of the places visited by the
Dragonade, and the Martineaus may therefore have wit-
nessed, perhaps experienced, its atrocities. After the
Revocation of the Edict, this Gaston, a young man and a
surgeon, came into England. On the ship that bore him
across the Channel was a family of Pierres, also refugees ;
and one of these, Marie Pierre, became afterwards his wife.
They settled first in London, afterwards in Nonvich,
where were already a considerable number of Huguenot
exiles, and here he practised his skill and reared his
family. Eight children were born to him. What was
his age when he came into England, or the date of
his coming, it is impossible to say; but the records of
the Walloon Church in Norwich, in which he and his
immediate descendants worshipped, show him to have
been the father of two children in 1695. This is all that
can now be told of one the full record of whose life we
should be so glad to know. 1
Of the children of Gaston Martineau, the third was
named David. He adopted the medical profession, and
blessed Norwich by walking in his father's footsteps. To
him was born a son, also named David, who became a
surgeon likewise. Though he died at the early age of
thirty-seven, he left seven children. The oldest of these,
Philip Meadows Martineau, fulfilled the family expectation
of a surgeon, and in the practice of that noble science
i Since writing the above I have learned that he was married at Spital-
fields in 1693, an d that his first child was baptized there in 1694.
ANCESTRY, FAMILY, EARLY HOME 3
advanced the family fame. The youngest of the seven,
Thomas, born after his father's death, became the father
of him whose life and work now engage our studious in-
terest. Of Thomas Martineau little need be said. He
settled in his ancestral Norwich, and engaged in the manu-
facture of bombazine, a species of cloth much in use in
those days, of which Norwich was the chief source of sup-
ply. From a notice of him published several years ago,
the impression has gone widely abroad that he was also a
wine-merchant. This is an error. His customers in other
countries would sometimes send him wine in recognition
of some business favor or from friendly regard. His wine
was consequently often of choicer flavor than that of his
neighbors and friends, who would therefore sometimes
ask him to secure a pipe for them. This he would do,
though not as business, but as accommodation.
Thomas Martineau married Elizabeth Rankin, of New-
castle-upon-Tyne, a woman of hardy Northumbrian stock,
vigorous, affectionate, and capable. She bore him eight
children. Of these the sixth was Harriet, born in 1802,
with whom the world has become well acquainted through
her large intelligence, broad sympathies, and heroic work ;
the seventh was James, born April 2 1, 1805, the lion of
this tribe of Judah. The other six sustained, perhaps not
less worthily, their less conspicuous part. Of these Eliza-
beth, the first born, and Ellen, the last, married each a
surgeon, and so imported into the fifth generation a native
product of the preceding four. Rachel never married, and
for many years conducted a boarding-school in Liverpool.
There were three brothers, Thomas, Henry, Robert. The
latter was a prominent manufacturer in Birmingham, and
at one time mayor of the city. His eldest son afterwards
twice held the same office, and in 1887 was knighted by
the queen. Ellen left also a son, who is now a noncon-
formist minister.
Of this large group James was for many years the sole
survivor. It was his fortune to enjoy far more than the
customary period of earthly life, and to be vigorously em-
ployed at an age when most must rest. It was not till
January II, 1900, then a little less than ninety-five, that
he put off mortality.
Of the early home life details are scanty, though such as
we have afford a tolerable picture. The father was a man
of fine taste and kindly spirit, and, as we shall see further
on, of unbending integrity. He was, however, immersed
in business, and his part in the home could be hardly more
than a wholesome and cheerful influence. The manage-
ment of the family, therefore, fell mainly on the mother.
A mother with eight children may be as a sun in the
domestic firmament, that shines on all alike ; but though
they may severally have all her love, they must of necessity
divide her care, and so early learn the useful lessons of self-
dependence and mutual helpfulness. It was thus in this
household. A portrait of her, taken in old age, shows a
strong and self-reliant character ; and her gifted son speaks
of her sympathies as " open and flexible to new admirations,
to new thoughts, to new virtues." He also tells us that
" Burns was the poet of her heart," and that " she would
repeat his lines with a mellow and racy simplicity, whose
tones ring in my memory to this hour." 1 She was, too, a
woman of large executive ability, also of unbending con-
scientiousness, braced and softened by religious sensibility.
As respects the general flow of family intimacy and
affection, it is fair to remember that this family were of the
early part of the present century, when ideas and standards
were very different from now. Dr. Martineau himself says :
" In old nonconformist families especially, the Puritan tra-
dition and the reticence of a persecuted race had left their
austere impress on speech and demeanour unused to be
i 1884.
ANCESTRY, FAMILY, EARLY HOME 5
free ; so that in domestic and social life there was enforced,
as a condition of decorum, a retinue of language and de-
portment strongly contrasting with our modern effusive-
ness." He adds: "In the process of change to more
genial ways, that Norwich home was in advance of the
average movement rather than behind ; and in few others
have I found the medium better observed between . . .
bidding high for profession of enthusiasm and quenching
its reality by coldness and derision." From this we get a
clear impression of a gentle hand that guided firmly, a
love less marked by profuseness of endearment than by
constancy of parental service. 1
The religious discipline of the home was probably graver
than is the wont in like households now. The traditions
of Puritan ancestry had not then had time to relax their
hold, as they since have done, and we can imagine the
compulsory Bible-readings, the severely decorous Sabbaths.
Yet, that the severity of that home was less than might be
looked for at that date, the following anecdote may show.
The mother, going to church one evening, left the children
at home alone with direction to read the Bible in her ab-
sence. On her return she asked James what he had read.
His answer was " Isaiah." " Why, no, you cannot have
read the whole of Isaiah." " Yes, mother, I have, skip-
ping the nonsense." Many of us whose birth was of
later date took our Bible as it came, not daring to skip the
nonsense or even find it. Further, in the bias of religious
opinion, the family had departed widely from the Calvin-
istic standard of their Huguenot ancestry ; indeed, they
represented the liberalism of the day. Their church stood
1 See two very interesting letters by Dr. Martineau in the London Daily
News, December 30, 1884, and January 8, 1885. These letters were drawn
out by some reflections on his mother by Mrs. Fenwick Miller in her biog-
raphy of Harriet Martineau. These reflections, as well as certain intima-
tions in Miss Martineau's Autobiography, should for all time be discredited
by his most finely tempered word.
6 JAMES MARTINEAU
for English Presbyterianism, the root whence English Uni-
tarianism sprang. A cardinal principle with English Pres-
byterians was the requirement of no creed, adopting for
their rule the maxim of Chillingworth, " To the Bible and
the Bible only the Christian shall subscribe."
In the earlier years the father prospered in business;
and though the family maintained no extravagant stand-
ard, their circumstances were very comfortable. There
came, however, an evil day of which, for the sturdy honor
and self-sacrifice it called forth, it is pleasant to tell. In
1823 France threw her armies upon Spain, which received
them almost without resistance. New commercial arrange-
ments were dictated to the advantage of France, but to the
grievous loss of England. Thomas Martineau's bomba-
zines had long gone to Spain in exchange for Spanish silks.
This trade was now cut off, and, despite his bravest efforts,
his business rapidly declined. At length his affairs reached
such a degree of embarrassment that he could honor-
ably keep silence no longer, and he laid them before his
creditors. They found his liabilities in the neighborhood
of 100,000, his assets not far from ^"75,000. Fifteen shil-
lings to the pound could have been paid, and thus release
secured. Fifteen shillings, however, could not pay a pound,
according to Martineau standards ; nor could war or any
other disaster release from an obligation that any toil or
sacrifice could cancel. Confident of his ability in time to
pay all, his creditors suffered him to undertake the struggle.
It was a long struggle, lasting beyond his life, and carried
on by his family. At length the goal was won ; the debt,
a maelstrom that had sucked in all their family fortune,
was discharged, and the family could face the world with
poverty and honor. Rachel and Ellen must needs take
service as governesses, and Harriet incur the hardships
of her brave early career, but no indulgence was purchased
with an unpaid debt.
ANCESTRY, FAMILY, EARLY HOME /
That this achievement left a legacy of pleasant memory
we may well believe ; and testimony is not wanting. In
the memoirs of Lord Brougham is a note which he once
addressed to Lord Grey, soliciting a pension for Harriet
Martineau, whom he felt to be overworked and much de-
serving. In it he referred, innocently enough, to her
father's failure, meaning, of course, the catastrophe that
swept away his fortune. On the appearance of the book
Harriet wrote to the London Daily News with the intensity
with which she might have repelled an insult : " My father
did not fail" Dr. Martineau also, in a later writing, speaks
of the " imputation " (of having failed in business) erro-
neously cast upon his father " in Lord Brougham's auto-
biography." Some years later still, speaking of this event
with the present writer, he said with a satisfaction his mod-
esty could not conceal : " There was no failure ; twenty
shillings to the pound were paid." If there had been fail-
ure, surely, according to the judgment of men, there had
been no dishonor. The war was none of Thomas Marti-
neau's, and he was powerless to avert its consequences;
and not a few may find at the root of his conduct an exag-
gerated sense of honor. Here, however, is the austere
ethics of such emergencies, as his son in later years pro-
claimed them : " Whatever be the practice of society with
respect to the insolvent, surely it is a mean perversion of
the natural moral sense to imagine that his temporary in-
ability, or length of delay, can cancel one iota of his obliga-
tion : these things only serve to increase its stringency ;
tardy reparation being a poor substitute for punctual
fidelity. I am far from denying that circumstances of
special and blameless misfortune may justify him in
accepting the voluntary mercy of friends willing to ' for-
give him all that debt.' But whoever avails himself of
mere legal release as a moral exemption, is a candidate for
infamy in the eyes of all uncorrupted men. The law
8 JAMES MARTINEAU
necessarily interposes to put a period to the controversy
between debtor and creditor, and prohibit the further
struggle between the arts of the one and the cruelty of the
other : but it cannot annul their moral relation. Obliga-
tion cannot, any more than God, grow old and die : till it
is obeyed, it stops in the present tense, and represents the
eternal now. Time can wear no duty out. Neglect may
smother it out of sight: opportunity may pass and turn
it from our guardian angel into our haunting fiend : but
while it yet remains possible, it clings to our identity, and
refuses to let us go." x
Beyond the home, the surroundings, if not the best con-
ceivable, were by no means unfavorable. Norwich was,
indeed, no Athens of poets and philosophers ; and neither
was she a Nazareth from which no good thing was to be
expected. Though a manufacturing city, it had in the
early part of the century an intellectual life which was
considerable, and with it the Martineaus were in touch.
William Taylor lived there, and was then doing his work,
which, if not great, as viewed in relation with the ages,
was yet not without value to his time. To the periodicals
of the day, he was a toilsome contributor on subjects of
foreign literature. He was among the first to introduce
German poetry to English readers. He translated the
Nathan der Weise, and gave a rendering of the ballad of
Ellenore which found favor in the eyes of Longfellow, and
from which Sir Walter Scott derived some inspiration. 2
He also wrote an Historic Survey of German Poetry, and a
work on English synonyms. His style was quaint, in-
volved, harsh, no mortal could read him now; but the
fact stands that he was read, and not without profit, then.
There was also a Dr. Frank Sayers who abandoned medi-
1 Sermon : Christian Doctrine of Merit, Endeavors after the Christian Life.
a Mrs. Barbauld wrote him : " Do you know that you made Walter Scott
a poet ? He told me the other day. It was, he says, your ballad of Lenore
that inspired him." Three Generations of English Women, Janet Ross.
ANCESTRY, FAMILY, EARLY HOME 9
cine for literature. He wrote Dramatic Sketches of Ancient
Northern Mythology; he brought out a volume of poems;
he was the author of a volume of Disquisitions, Metaphysi-
cal and Literary. None of these works reached the standard
that insures fame, yet they served their day. There was like-
wise a Dr. Rigby who wrote very elaborately on subjects of
medicine and agriculture ; also a Dr. Alderson, who wrote
on agriculture and geology ; and several others whose names
are recorded, and whose works the curious may still find,
not stars, yet very serviceable candles. There were two
others who stood in a somewhat different category : Amelia
Opie, whose novels, though not great, were yet wholesome,
and gained a popularity that lasted beyond her day ; and
Anna Laetitia Barbauld, intelligent, gentle, pure, who fell a
little short of popularity and just missed of fame. The
latter did not live in Norwich, but was a frequenter there,
and an occasional visitor in the Martineau household.
Indeed, the Norwich of Mr. Martineau's boyhood might
have filled an alcove of a public library with the works of
her contemporary authors.
Besides, the city was not without a record of strong men
in whose paths the growing boy must tread. There was
John Taylor, 1 teacher, author, and Presbyterian divine,
who wrote many works of a theological character, A
Hebrew Concordance, A Scheme of Scripture Divinity, The
Scripture Doctrine of the Atonement, A Paraphrase and
Notes on the Epistle to the Romans, A Free and Candid Ex-
amination of the Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin. The
latter was honored with a polemic cannonade both from
Edwards and John Wesley. Reaching somewhat farther
back, there were Archbishop Parker, Thomas Legge,
1 Born at Lancaster, 1694. Ordained by " dissenting ministers " at Derby-
shire in 1716. He moved to Norwich to become the colleague of another
minister in 1733. In 1754 he laid the first stone of the famous Octagon
Chapel, described by John Wesley as " perhaps the most elegant one in all
Europe," and too fine for the " old coarse gospel."
10 JAMES MARTINEAU
Bishop Cosin, Bishop Pearson, all Norwich born; also
Erpingham, Bishop Hall, and, best known of all, Sir
Thomas Browne, had found here their home. It was
surely no empty panegyric on the part of Lord Houghton,
when he said in an address at Norwich, not many years
ago : " I know no provincial city adorned with so many
illustrious names in literature, the professions, and public
life ; those of Taylor, Martineau, Austin, Alderson, Opie,
come first to my recollection, and there are many more
behind ; and there is this additional peculiarity of distinc-
tion, that these are for the most part not the designation
of individuals, but of families numbering each men and
women conspicuous in various walks of life." 1
In this period, too, flourished a somewhat famous school
of landscape painting, distinguished by the works of Crome
and Cotman and Vincent, far enough from Gainsborough
and Turner, yet awaking some admiration and enkindling
some incentives in their day.
Norwich is a venerable town, with its heirlooms of tradi-
tion and its historic monuments, a more marked feature
in the first quarter of our century, perhaps, than now. In
the first quarter of the eleventh century it was the home of
Canute ; in the first quarter of the twelfth century Henry I.
gave it a charter. Here are traces of the ancient wall,
which in the first half of the fourteenth century sur-
rounded whatever of city there then was, a circuit of four
miles. Here is a Cathedral, a Norman structure, some-
what more than four hundred feet in length, with a spire
of three hundred and fifteen feet. Here, too, is a Benedic-
tine monastery, completed before the middle of the twelfth
century. Here are numerous churches said to antedate
the discoveries of Columbus; and here is the Walloon
Church in which Mr. Martineau's ancestors worshipped.
Mrs. Chapman, in her Memorials of Harriet Marti-
1 Three Generations of English Women, Janet Ross.
ANCESTRY, FAMILY, EARLY HOME II
neau> writing of Norwich, speaks of its " uninteresting
antiquity." The antiquity may have been uninteresting to
Harriet, very likely to Mrs. Chapman. To James, how-
ever, who was of another order of mind, it may have been
not only interesting but profitable. Now it were pleasant
to tell how as a youth he explored crypt or churchyard,
or was lost in reverie as he gazed on some venerable
pile; of his thus doing, however, there has come to us
no tale. But from our knowledge of the man we may
come at least to some divination of the boy; and from this
we may be sure of a sensibility to which these traditions
and these associations had meaning. Silently, and perhaps
unconsciously, he must have received their influence.
James and Harriet were children of the same mother ;
yet the contrasts of their ruling characteristics were very
marked, and here we meet one of them. Harriet was a
child of to-day, who bravely looked to the future for
whose weal she toiled. She had, however, little reverence
for the past ; she was wanting in the sensibility by which
she should have seen that through the toils and strug-
gles of other generations had been handed to her the
very torch she bore. The institutions, the ideas, the
faiths of other times she was apt to treat as the dry stalks
and decayed herbage of her spring-time garden, which
she cleared away to give space for the fresh summer
blossoms. James, too, is a child of to-day, yet a Janus
that looks before him and behind, to the future with
prophetic hope, to the past with eye clear to the deep
meaning of its endeavors. His is the historic sense that
finds in to-day the unfolding of yesterday, and in yesterday
the interpretation of to-day. In his garden he is not so
much mindful of the dry stalks and decaying herbage as of
the hardy root from which they sprang, and from which
each season comes another and, by some miracle, a
different flower.
CHAPTER II
EDUCATION
AMONG the useful institutions of Norwich is a grammar
school, a foundation of the fourteenth century. To this
school James Martineau was sent from eight to fourteen
years of age as a day-scholar. The school was not without
reputation. It had had among its pupils not a few who had
won distinction ; Dr. Samuel Parr was at one time at its
head. When James was in attendance, Edward Valpy was
head-master. As a classical scholar Valpy had reputation,
nor is he yet forgotten. Before James entered the school,
he had published Elegantics Latincz, a text-book for such
as would teach an elegant Latinity, which he used. Some-
what later he brought out editions of the Greek Testament,
the Septuagint, and the Iliad. Under a teacher of such
marked classical accomplishment, the emphasis of the
school was naturally upon classical studies, and in these
James made rapid progress. He also learned the French
language. Mathematics, however, then as ever after a
favorite study, he was not permitted to pursue to an
extent commensurate with his abilities and his desires.
In a public school of two hundred and thirty pupils rude
elements are to be looked for ; and the sensitive boy who
has endured well, should have a tolerable martyrdom put
down to his credit. James was this kind of boy. He had
also a moral sensibility to which the hazing and hectoring
were moral affronts of serious proportion. Of course,
therefore, he was not entirely happy there.
EDUCATION 13
The way opened for his transfer to another school. His
sister Harriet, who had been visiting in Bristol, brought
home glowing accounts of Lant Carpenter, who was both
minister and teacher there. She does not speak of him
reverently in her Autobiography ; but her representation of
him then led her parents to place James under his care.
His school was a boarding-school; therefore it was not
large. It was intended to be, and doubtless was, select.
No proper account can be given of Dr. Martineau that
does not embrace an account of Lant Carpenter. Dr.
Martineau has never been stingy in his recognitions of the
friends of his intellect or spirit; but to no other of his
helpers has he confessed a debt so large as to him. Har-
riet Martineau speaks of him as " superficial in his knowl-
edge, scanty in ability, narrow in his conceptions." His
influence upon her brother, of which, after seventy years,
he kindled into eloquence when telling, makes her judg-
ment incredible. Writing of him in 1841 he said, and
never after saw reason to unsay : " So forcibly, indeed, did
that period act upon me, so visibly did it determine the
subsequent direction of my mind and lot, that it always
stands before me as the commencement of my present life,
making me feel like a man without a childhood; and
though a multitude of earlier scenes are still in view, they
seem to be spread around a different being, and to belong,
like the incidents of a dream, to some foreign self that
became extinct when the morning light of reality broke
upon the sight." If further testimony be needed, it may
be drawn from the action of the University at Glasgow in
which he studied. When yet but twenty-six years of age,
forecasting authorship, he conceived that the degree of
Master of Arts might be helpful to him ; and wrote to
his Alma Mater respecting it. The Faculty without dis-
senting voice sent him, not an M.A., but an LL. D. in-
stead. Was it thus that the Glasgow University treated
14 JAMES MARTINEAU
young men of " superficial knowledge and scanty ability and
narrow conceptions " ? Again, the class of minds on which
he acted, together with his ever-extending and lasting in-
fluence, makes the acceptance of this estimate impossible.
There are those, indeed, who mistake twinkle for star ; but
the wise navigators of life's ocean speedily detect the dif-
ference. Yet again, here are his writings, not wise with
the wisdom the last fifty years have gathered, but surely
reflecting the scholar's mind, the thinker's insight, and,
before all else, the Christian heart. Grant that he had less
than the large and solid erudition of Arnold, less ability,
also, to mould the opinions of his pupils after the fashion
of his own, a thing he would have religiously shrunk
from doing, we yet feel that we are here dealing with
one of those instances in which Miss Martineau's early
impressions were truer than her later retrospects. 1 Finally,
1 There is a view of Harriet Martineau, entertained in very high quarters,
which, in consideration of some of the judgments contained in her Autobi-
ography, seems in its nature charitable. She was an invalid a large portion
of her life ; she suffered from, extreme deafness, which is almost sure at last
to leave its trace upon mind or spirit. Besides, she experienced a spiritual
transition from a faith the most confiding, to a scepticism the most ultra.
The view is that she threw back, as it were, her later and poorer moods, and
so saw her past in the discoloring light of her present.
An illustrative instance is told at Oxford by a gentleman in very high
standing. In earlier life, as is well known, Miss Martineau wrote a book of
a devotional character. In later life, after she had become, as she supposed,
an atheist, she was visited one morning by a lady whom she took into her
garden, then profusely in blossom. Waving her hand over her flowers, she
said, " Who would n't be grateful for blessings such as these ? " " Grateful
to whom, Miss Martineau, on your theory ? " " Ah," said she, with a smile,
" you have me there." " Do you know," said the friend, " it has always been
a matter of great surprise to me that one who wrote those beautiful prayers
should have become an atheist ? " " What prayers ? " " Why, those you
wrote." " / never wrote any prayers." " Why, certainly you did, Miss
Martineau, and I have the book and prize it very highly." Miss Martineau
still persisted that there must be some mistake about it ; so the friend called
again the next morning and placed the volume in her hands. " Well," said
Miss Martineau, " I suppose I must have written it, but I had forgotten all
about it ; and I do not see how I could have done it."
Forgetting the authorship of a book seems an extraordinary lapse of
EDUCATION 15
while it is true that a Marcus may be the father of a
Commodus, and that to a John Shakespeare a William
Shakespeare may be born, still in these days a permanence
of high characteristics in a family is a suggestive circum-
stance. It seems in point to remember that Lant Carpenter
was the father of Mary Carpenter, also of William B. Car-
penter, whose fame two continents have proved not large
enough to hold ; that the latter became the father of Prof.
J. Estlin Carpenter, who promises to add to the lustre of
his line.
In his mental outfit he was not a specialist, nor yet a
congeries of specialisms, as that of the modern scholar is
apt to be. He knew the classics well, mathematics well,
the sciences well, mental and moral philosophy well. He
was also, by education and training, a theologian. His
knowledge, however, was an organism in which all parts
had vital relation. He had therefore the primary qualifi-
cation for imparting knowledge, a balanced appreciation
not likely to depreciate in one direction or exaggerate in
another. Indeed, so far as he went, he answered to Dr.
Martineau's own idea of an educator, as given in his address
on retiring from Manchester New College. Gently criti-
cising the tendency to specialisms by which the student is
handed along from master to master, he likens a mind so
formed to a ship put together in " water-tight compart-
ments " which is " not really at home in the element it
traverses, but treats it as an enemy against whose surprises
it must guard." On the other hand, he maintains that a
" learner of many subjects from one mind sees them in
their analogies and unity ; for they cannot well lie apart
from one another, unaided by agreement, unconscious of
memory ; and it is difficult to help feeling that the inability to see how she,
the atheist, could have done it, in part explains the phenomenon. The inci-
dent compels us to feel that, however zealously she may have been pressing
on to the things that were before, it is necessary to receive with caution her
testimony as to the things that were behind.
1 6 . JAMES MARTINEAU
contradiction, but must necessarily share the unity of the
personality they occupy." Of course this presupposes the
one mind, not large necessarily with the largeness of
Bacon's, but possessed of a certain assimilating and organ-
izing power, Baconian in character. Such a mind was
Lant Carpenter's.
He was, however, something more than a well-rounded
scholar; he was a well-rounded man. He was deficient,
his pupil tells us, in aesthetic sensibility; of art he had no
due appreciation. His moral sense, however, was of the
noblest order: if he could not adequately appreciate
Phidias' statues, he could enter into Aristides' justice ;
and if clouds and sunsets did not appeal to him, he knew
the look of Duty, and was responsive to her frown or smile.
Not that he was an austere man ; on the contrary, he was
a very gentle one. For religion too dwelt within him, and
softened into a Christian the stoic he might otherwise
have been. His one conspicuous departure from moral fair-
ness was probably in dealing with himself; he wore him-
self out in the pursuit of an exaggerated duty. Then, the
smile he could so freely give he could not appropriate.
He would turn from his toils, when perforce he must, not
with self-approval for the much he had done, but depressed
by a torturing consciousness of what he had failed to do.
Such a toiler we would have see in the skies he looks into
a considerateness equal at least to his own, and in his
nightly musing take account of the diligence with which
he has climbed as well as of the height he has not gained.
There was, too, a largeness in his view the want of which
has brought disaster to many a man of like austere con-
scientiousness. Detail and minutiae he required ; but he
saw through them, and made others see, the principle that
ennobled them. The order of his school-room was heaven's
order brought down to earthly relations ; and the triviali-
ties of behavior, or what we call such, were as snow-flakes
EDUCATION I/
or grains of dust in which the whole law of gravitation is
manifest.
As a theologian he was involved in much controversy ;
yet his zeal for the faith never supplanted his religious
tolerance ; a Protestant of Protestants, he could yet toil
for Catholic emancipation; a nonconformist of the Uni-
tarian type, he lifted religion out of all relation with sec-
tarianism. His convictions were reasonably intense ; yet
so far did he put by religious partisanship that parents of
the severer schools of religious opinion would place their
children under his tuition, that they might receive the
benefit of his religious instruction.
He was greatly helped in his work by a charm that
young people found in him. He could enter into their
sympathies and take hold of their affections. No mere
charmer, however, will leave the enduring impression that
he left; his work was guided by an aim which only a great
teacher and a holy man could realize. All are familiar
with the criticism of Montaigne upon the education prev-
alent in his day, that it made men learned, not good and
wise, taught how to decline virtus, not to love virtue ; and
the criticism would most likely apply to education in its
general scope in any time. With Mr. Carpenter the aim
was the reverse of this : his pupils should meet the commu-
nication of truth with answering reverence ; he grasped the
idea of a symmetry of culture in which intellect, the con-
science, and the heart should be nurtured together. To
this end he brought to bear upon them his stern and lofty
ideals, his intense and burning enthusiasm. The econo-
mies of time, the punctilios of behavior, were taken out of
drudgery by being lifted into moral relations. As for re-
ligion, it was as the sunshine and atmosphere, an element
in which they lived, a stimulus, a consecration, and a
joy. "There was something in his voice," writes his
pupil, " mellowed by the spirit within, that made the
1 8 JAMES MARTINEAU
reality of God felt; something that broke through the
boundary between the seen and the unseen, and opened
the secret place of the Almighty, whence sanctity descends
on all human obligations."
Such was the teacher to whom young James was com-
mitted. That the progress in his studies was rapid hardly
need be told. The value of tuition from such a teacher,
however, must be estimated, not in terms of measurable
attainment, but of immeasurable impulse. If in Dr. Car-
penter was the genius to give, in his pupil was the genius
to receive ; and under that stimulus his whole nature was
aroused. It was as dew and sunshine upon rich and fal-
low soil in which are germs of multifarious use and beauty.
In his long life of toil there was probably no period in
which he would not have confessed the still-abiding in-
fluence of his Bristol school-master.
Two years only of this high privilege were allowed him,
and with their termination he supposed his school-days to
be ended.
His father had decided on his career ; another was to be
added to the many attempts, some of them mournfully suc-
cessful, to make Apollo a farm-hand for Admetos. He
was to be an engineer, and was sent to Derby to learn his
profession. He was employed there in the works of- Mr.
Fox, and for a year was kept at the lathe or the bench of
the model-room. He had a positive liking for the work,
and ever after preserved a taste for mechanical construction.
Several circumstances were soon conspiring against this
mistaken enterprise. First, his master, in many ways a
capable man, was yet not able to give him that instruction
in mechanics which an accomplished engineer should have ;
and he found himself an apprentice learning a trade rather
than a pupil being taught a science ; and he was dissatis-
fied. Further, the spell of Lant Carpenter was upon him,
and powerfully influenced him. Again, the death of a
EDUCATION 19
distant kinsman, Henry Turner, a not highly gifted but
saintly young minister, deeply moved him. 1 Yet again,
and more significant than all other circumstances, the
vocation whereto he was called, while Henry Turner yet
lived,, and before he knew Lant Carpenter, was declaring
itself within him. At length the conviction took form that
iron and steel were not the materials in which he was to
work, but thought tempered in the fire of spirit.
The announcement of his desire to become a minister
brought disappointment to his father, who saw an exchange
of a profession that promised a comfortable livelihood for
one which, outside the Establishment, meant the crust of
well-nigh irremediable poverty. Too wise, however, to
attempt to thwart the wishes of his son in such a matter,
he offered to incur the expense of his needful education.
The year at Derby we may well believe not without
value to his future work ; the Pontifex Maximus who will
throw his arch from this world over to the other may be
helped by experience of terrestrial bridge-building. It
was, too, of great significance to him personally. He
boarded in the family of a dissenting minister, Rev. Ed-
ward Higginson, who had a daughter of about James' age.
The rest is the old story that is always new. They took
the situation somewhat too reasonably for ideal lovers.
Too young, as was thought, for engagement, they agreed
to leave the matter as it was, not seeing each other, or
corresponding save at distant intervals, until ' the years
of study were completed. Then, if their present mind
continued, all should be according to their hearts' desire.
The years of waiting only proved their constancy, and
their hope for each other was fulfilled in marriage.
At the time when James Martineau decided on college
training preparatory to the ministry, the great historic uni-
1 In his address on the occasion of his leaving Manchester New College
he speaks of " Henry Turner, whose death was my conversion."
2O JAMES MARTINEAU
versities of England were closed to such as would not sign
the articles of the Church of England. The expense, too,
of attending one of them might have been too severe a tax
upon the family exchequer. The college chosen was the
Manchester College, then at York. Historically this col-
lege succeeds the famous Warrington Academy, that
Priestley served, but which expired after a brief and bril-
liant career of twenty-nine years. These were the days of
heroic and disheartening struggle for " free learning " in
England. 1 Six institutions, succeeding one another, had
in less than a century borne aloft the torch ere Warrington
took it ; 2 and now Warrington had let it fall. With a faith
in the principle which defeat could not vanquish, the
friends of " free learning " founded at once the Manchester
College, or Manchester Academy, as it was at first called ;
which for more than a century has borne the torch success-
fully. This College, however, has been remarkable for its
peripatetic tendency. It received its first class at Man-
chester in 1786. In 1803 it was moved to York. Thence
it was returned to Manchester in 1840. In 1853 it was
moved to London; and in 1889 to Oxford. Here we will
hope that its peregrinations are over, and that it may long
diffuse its light. 3
1 The phrase "free learning" occurs very frequently in occasional ad-
dresses at this College, and it has a meaning to our English brethren which
we in America can scarce appreciate. It has tacit reference to the persistent
opposition of the State Church to whatever " university learning " she did
not foster and direct. And, as the enjoyment of this implied subscription
to her creed, her attitude meant the ban of ignorance upon such as could
not gather within her fold. The struggles for " university learning " in Eng-
land in the face of this opposition constitute one of the heroic chapters of
English history.
2 See a very interesting and instructive speech by Rev. Alexander Gor-
don on the occasion of the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of
the College; also an address by Dr. Martineau on the same occasion.
Both may be found in the volume entitled Theology and Piety Alike Free.
8 In its various changes the College has undergone corresponding
changes in its official designation. In its first Manchester period it was
EDUCATION 21
In all these various stages it has been true to one cardi-
nal principle, that of absolute religious freedom. Of creed
subscription as a condition of university learning it ha,s left
to the State institutions an ungrudged monopoly. 1
The purpose of the College, as quoted in an address of
its first Principal, was " to establish a plan affording a full
and systematic course of education for divines and pre-
paratory instructions for the other learned professions as
well as for civil and commercial life." It was thus a college
of divinity and of general culture in one. The number the
College has educated has never been large ; in its earlier
years the number that took courses in Theology was very
small. Yet not only has it filled a most important place
as an institution of learning in which the higher problems
of thought could be traversed without predetermined con-
clusion, but its record is a proud one. In a roll-call of its
students not a few of honored name and laurelled brow
should answer. In its professors it has had some of the
fairest ornaments of England's learning.
In its theology the freedom of its spirit has forbidden it
to be stationary. In its first Manchester period, under
Thomas Barnes, it represented the later development of
English Presbyterianism, mildly looking towards Arianism.
In the York period, under Charles Wellbeloved, we per-
haps may say that it accomplished the transition to the
older type of Unitarianism. In the second Manchester
period it represented that type of thought in its completer
unfolding. When the College reached London, it came
under the principalship of John James Tayler, and, follow-
simply Manchester Academy. At York it was Manchester College, York.
On its return to Manchester it became Manchester New College, Manchester.
At London it became Manchester, New College, London, and at Oxford,
Manchester New College, Oxford. Later its official designation was changed
to Manchester College.
1 Oxford and Cambridge have abandoned creed subscription save for
the theological professor.
22 JAMES MARTINEAU
ing the lead of his large thought and learning, it took on
Unitarianism of the more modern type, which anon under
Martineau it further unfolded, and now under Drummond
reflects in its fullest development. In its lecture-rooms for
many years Unitarianism as such has had but an incon-
spicuous place in truth's large inclusiveness. It is a school
of Divinity, not the arsenal of a. sect.
It was in the York period that young Martineau, in the
year 1822, sought admission. The course was five years;
the first three devoted to studies of a general character,
the last two to Theology. Hebrew was taken through the
entire course.
The college work was pressed with great earnestness ;
John Kenrick twice mentions his pupil's " intemperate
study; " also he speaks of his " care of research " and of his
" minute accuracy." He worked by a theory, oftener com-
mended than adopted, of which he spoke in later years.
" I remember," said he, " thinking that the use of educa-
tion was to correct the weakness of nature, rather than to
develop its strength, which would take care of itself; and
so I gave double time to whatever I disliked, and reserved
my favorite studies for spare moments of comparatively
tired will."
The College did not have the facilities deemed indispen-
sable in such institutions now. He found in it, however,
two essentials to rapid progress, to such a pupil the only
two, studies equal to his powers, and guidance equal to his
need. He was taught the Calculus by the fluxional rather
than the differential method, which he afterwards had rea-
son to regret ; and Hebrew without the vowel pointings,
which must have added to the toil of learning. 1 However,
1 A note from John Kenrick begets the suspicion that tracts of learning
were sometimes traversed rather than explored. He thought a year at Got-
tingen, where they went through only one evangelist, one prophet, three or
four epistles, or three centuries of ecclesiastical history, not equal to a year
at York, where Wellbeloved was in the habit of going through the Old or
EDUCATION 23
at the end of five years he stepped forth into life with
thoroughly disciplined faculties, together with a store of
mathematical and physical science, of classical languages
and literatures, of history, logic, philosophy, theology,
that gave him firm footing as an educated man, and ample
equipment for entering on his chosen career.
This summary, however, hardly conveys the full signifi-
cance of his college years. Like all deep natures, his was,
then and ever after, extremely susceptible to personal in-
fluence; and in college, as in the school at Bristol, he
was most fortunate in this. The number of students was
small, there were ten only in his class, and he had but
three comrades in Divinity; so that the pupil enjoyed a
closeness of contact with his teachers which a thronged
lecture-room makes impossible. The closeness of this
relation was further provided for by the smallness of the
number of teachers. Many years later, contrasting the
Manchester New College from which he retired as Princi-
pal with the Manchester College in which he studied, he
mentioned the fact that the subjects taught at the later
date by fourteen teachers were taught by three at the
earlier; and he was clearly of opinion that the advantage is
not wholly with the more extended division of labor which
is now prevailing. Then was the " pluralist " teacher, now
the " specialist; " and, for purely educational advantage, he
found much to urge in favor of the pluralist. Another
advantage, however, which he did not mention, but which
he surely would have recognized, is this : Where now the
student receives his instruction from many teachers, and
so meets them at but a single point, and feels their influence
but slightly, he then, in receiving his instruction in many
subjects from few teachers, met them at many points, and
so experienced from them the full weight of their intellect
the New Testament. On this basis of comparison modern views of learning
would certainly give to Gottingen the preference.
24 JAMES MARTINEAU
and character. Where the intellect was great and the
character was high, this was a circumstance not to be re-
garded lightly. Such were the intellect and character of
two of Dr. Martineau's teachers, John Kenrick and Charles
Wellbeloved.
John Kenrick, in the largeness of his attainments, must
have stood high among the first scholars of his day. Cer-
tainly in his line there was no institution in England whose
fame he would not have advanced, and any congress of
scholars would have applauded his erudition. His studious
and uneventful life has not called forth a biography, and
the encyclopaedias have for most part passed him by;
so that his record, save in the affectionate memories of
those who were near him, is somewhat dim. Nor had
he the genius for prolific book-making, such as charac-
terizes, for instance, Max Miiller; and so he failed of that
falat, sometimes rather cheap, which a voluminous author-
ship may win. Yet his volumes, though few, entitled him
to the student's gratitude and the scholar's admiration.
He was the translator of Zumpt's Latin Grammar ; he was
one of the earliest to undertake the preparation of popular
manuals for Greek and Latin study, which have made the
approaches to those languages in these modern days so
much more easy and delightful. He published two vol-
umes on Egypt, Egypt of Herodotus and Ancient Egypt
under the Pharaohs, of which the worst that can be said
is, that they are not enriched with the results of investiga-
tions that have followed them. He published a volume on
Persia, which for forty years has held its place without
serious challenge. His more important books were the
outcome of his college work; and it was the cause of
learning they were designed to serve, not popular favor
they were put forth to win. So, while written in a style
singularly clear and forcible, his matter is offered without
dilution or condiment, the solid meat of learning in
EDUCATION 2$
which healthy appetite may rejoice, not the beef-tea which
feeble stomachs can receive.
He studied theology with thought of the ministry, but
from this the needs of Manchester College drew him aside.
From such religious writings as he left, it seems clear that
in him a great theologian was sacrificed to a great pro-
fessor in another field. As already indicated, his special
lines of study were classical and historical. His ability to
enter into a language, to grasp its details and absorb its
spirit, was of the first order. When a young man he had
the privilege of a year in Germany, and availed himself of
an opportunity to practise Latin conversation with Zumpt.
Zumpt afterwards remarked of his German that it differed
from a native's only in its extreme purity, " correct
literary speech without a trace of local colouring." l A
student of language must deal much in the minutiae of
learning ; and for this reason the classic tongues have been
a field in which pedantry has prospered. Professor Kenrick,
however, brought to them the patient research of the in-
vestigator, together with the broad view and deep insight
of the philosopher. His was the order of mind to which
Comparative Philology owes its being; and, had not his
work led him in a somewhat different direction, it is
hardly to be doubted that he might have stood with the
Schlegels and Wilhelm von Humboldt among the leaders
of that noble science.
The same order of ability he brought to the study of
history. With untiring patience in the scrutiny of details
he combined the clearest perception of the forces by which
history is ruled. For this reason his books, even when
they need the correction of more recent knowledge, are
yet profitable : they are the kind of books from which we
gather wisdom as well as learning ; they are unambitious
in aim, modest in pretension, but wearing on every page
the impress of a master mind.
1 Martineau's Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. i. p. 404.
26 JAMES MARTINEAU
He was a sun that^did not need a solar system in which
to shine; for thirty-five years the little class-room at
Manchester College was his field of toil, and there is no
evidence that he was ever haunted by the consideration
whether his influence reached beyond or no. Mr. Mar-
tineau thinks that of his title to be heard in the high
debates of European scholarship, he could not have been
unconscious. He was, however, one of those rare souls
whose satisfaction in simple duty makes a small place
large ; and the " last infirmity of noble mind " was ever
far away from him. His great pupil bears witness to him
as " above ambition, incapable of pretence, eager to see
things as they are, and assured that, through the darkness
that sometimes enfolds them, the only guide is the un-
swerving love of truth; and, accepting life for service,
not for sway, he never measured his sphere to see whether
it was small or great, but deemed it enough to bear his
witness where he stood, and help, as he might, the com-
panions of his way." This will do for him ; but there is
another aspect of the matter respecting which satisfaction
is not so easy. How came it that he was so little known ?
That his name is not written beside the names of Boeckh
and Lachmann is easily explained : he did not measure
himself against their problems ; at any rate, did not par-
ticipate in their discussions. That his reputation, however,
was hardly insular suggests some fault in his environment.
To be sure, he had no Eiffel Tower from which to shine ;
but neither was his candle hidden under a bushel ; and
its pure white beam shone clear. The explanation at
once suggested, it is to be feared, is too obvious: he
represented that nonconformity which to English church-
dom is a Nazareth out of which no good thing is expected,
yet out of which how frequently have the best things
come. When Matthiae's Greek Grammar, very celebrated
in its day, after a considerable growth through several
EDUCATION 27
editions in Germany, needed a revise^ and complete Eng-
lish translation, the Bishop of London, who had the task in
hand, settled upon Professor Kenrick as one to be intrusted
with the labor. Accordingly the work was published
under his editorial care. The printer sent proof not only
to Professor Kenrick, but to the Bishop as well ; and in it
the editor's name appeared, " Rev. John Kenrick." The
Bishop erased the " Rev.," and at the same time wrote to
the printer explaining that it was impossible to concede
that title to one not in Holy Orders. 1 The Rt. Rev.
could see the scholar, but a nonconformist Rev. was
impossible. It is to be feared that the spirit that cannot
see the nonconformist Rev. will, save in rare exceptions,
fail also to see the nonconformist scholar; at least, will
but dimly discern his merit and stingily measure off his
fame.
As to the order of his mind, he was little speculative,
perhaps too little. The classic poets and orators and
historians stirred his enthusiasm, but not the classic phi-
losophers in like degree. A page of Demosthenes was
more congenial to him than a page of Aristotle, and the
Histories of Tacitus than the Disputations at Tusculum.
In all his investigations in whatever field it was objective
evidence he sought, and with which alone he was satisfied.
On one side this may imply limitation ; it was limitation,
however, that afforded the negative value of protection.
It saved him from illusions to which the theorizer is ever
liable, and spared his pupils the brilliant vagary. Whether
in the realm of myth, or legend, or ancient inscriptions,
or laws, or institutions, it was with feet he walked, never
with wings he flew. He was one, therefore, from whom
to derive solid erudition. Likewise he was one to set the
example and instil the spirit of patient, slow-footed, and
toilsome investigation.
1 Martineau's Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. i. p. 410.
28 JAMES MARTINEAU
As to his conduct in the class-room, we have hints here
and there, and Dr. Martineau has borne suggestive testi-
mony. There must have been something of severity in
his general tone ; possibly too little tenderness for strug-
gling stupidity ; for shiftlessness and laziness the manifest
impatience or the biting sarcasm that was their due. His
professor's chair was doubtless something of a judgment
seat to the student who had been undutiful. Yet one
of his pupils tells of a " courtesy that bent to every intel-
lectual need, a sympathy that went half-way to meet
every genuine intellectual aspiration." 1
He was a man of the severest literary taste, and the
bubbles the ambitious student might bring him were sure
to be delivered of the wind that had blown them. To
indelicacy of language he was sensitive, and a strained
and foolish pedantry was certain to meet a summary
judgment. Mr. Martineau tells of a student who, in read-
ing from Tacitus an account of some German tribes who
wore braccas, stopped at the word. "Well, what does
braccas mean?" The student blushingly replied, "A
species of habiliment for covering the lower part of the
body." " Humph, Mr. B., commonly called breeches"
Thus under his criticism was language ever brought down to
the dimensions of things and made correctly to name them.
With respect to his instruction Mr. Martineau's own
testimony had best be quoted. Speaking especially of
his classical instruction, he says : " In Mr. Kenrick's treat-
ment of every subject, there seemed to be one constant
characteristic, a comprehensive grasp of its whole out-
line, with accurate scrutiny of its separate contents. Noth-
ing fragmentary, nothing discursive, nothing speculative,
broke the proportions or disturbed the steady march of
his prearranged advance. His prolegomena to every
classical text furnished a compendium of its literary his-
1 Rev. Charles Beard.
EDUCATION 29
tory, and reproduced the conditions of ancient life, civic,
legal, domestic, personal, under which it arose. The read-
ing of it in class was marked by a similar completeness :
nothing was allowed to slip by without coming into
the full focus of elucidation: grammatical construction,
textual criticism, archaeology, dialect, geography, dates,
graces or defects of style, all were brought into distinct
view; yet without inducing any tedious slowness in the
progress, or killing out the spirit of the piece." His testi-
mony to his instruction in ancient and modern history is
not less emphatic. It seems not strange, therefore, that
fifty years after he left the class-room he should be able
to testify that he brought thence a " standard of philologi-
cal accuracy, of historic justice, of literary taste," that had
directed his " aspirations ever since."
The features of Charles Wellbeloved are less easy to
outline, though the materials at hand are sufficient to show
what manner of man he was. During the York period of
the College, a period of thirty-seven years, he was its
Principal. All this time he was pastor of a church to
which he gave the long ministry of fifty-four years. 1 Per-
haps he was not a man of Olympian mould, yet from the
magnitude of his work and the quality of his influence one
not to be passed indifferently.
Mrs. Catharine Cappe in her Memoirs speaks of his
" humility, his disinterestedness, his varied talents, his de-
sire for knowledge, especially religious knowledge, his
freedom from prejudice, and his manifold piety." Thus
he impressed her when, a young man of twenty-three, he
came to York to assist her husband in his pastoral office.
1 The ministry of his predecessor, Mr. Cappe, was forty-six years. John
Kenrick very well remarks : " It is not common to find a pastoral connec-
tion lasting even the shorter of these terms ; that two in succession should
fill up a century must be a very rare occurrence." Memoir of the Late
Charles Wellbeloved, p. 228.
30 JAMES MARTINEAU
She also quotes her husband, himself a saint and scholar,
as saying : " This, my dear, is the very young man I
wanted ; he will be eminent in his day." John Kenrick,
also, writing of him after his death and from many years
of intimate acquaintance, says : " The characteristic feature
of Mr. Wellbeloved's mind was benevolence. It beamed
in his eye; it spoke in his voice; it diffused itself over his
manner, which was kind and courteous to every one, of
whatever rank or condition, with whom he had intercourse.
It might truly be said of him that he was a ' man made to
be loved.' " l We learn from the same writer of an official
relation which he held with the York Lunatic Asylum.
He says of him that " his benevolence led him to feel a
lively interest in those who were suffering from this griev-
ous affliction; he was convinced of the power of gentleness
and kindness to remove what severity only tended to
aggravate. He felt none of that undefinable terror of the
insane which affects many persons of stronger nerves and
greater physical courage, but mixed freely and fearlessly
among them. His voice and manner were peculiarly suited
to soothe a troubled mind and win confidence, and his
sagacity pointed out to him how their delusions were most
effectually to be dealt with." 2 These touches bring before
us a man of peculiarly gentle mould, of sympathetic
nature, of winning grace. So constantly were these fea-
tures manifest, that those near him did not know until his
lips confessed, that he was naturally of a choleric temper
of which only through long and patient watchfulness had
he gained the mastery.
Such, however, was only one aspect of the man. Under
his soft glove was a hand that was capable of a grasp that
was strong ; he was ruled by the finest and most exacting
moral sense, to which no services were to be declined
1 Memoir of the Late Charles Wellbeloved, pp. 244-245.
2 Ibid. pp. 139-140.
EDUCATION 3 1
because onerous, and trifling duties were sacred. They
were taken, too, without apparent consciousness of aught
deserving in them, and with a modesty that looked upon
his best and utmost as the least that fidelity could render.
It may be doubted if students ever had before them a
more marked example of methodical and tireless and con-
secrated industry. In the earlier years of the College it
was not the teacher's privilege to have a single province
of learning over which he presided ; and we find Mr. Well-
beloved with one assistant, who rendered some service in
the classical and mathematical departments, doing the
entire work alone. That work embraced the work of an
ordinary college together with the courses in Theology.
Applying for an extra tutor, he writes : " I have, therefore,
seldom delivered less than four, generally five lectures a
day, each lecture occupying an hour. It is to be recol-
lected that the preparation for most of the lectures cannot
be made in so short a time as is occupied in their delivery.
The labour, therefore, which I have undergone, since the
Academy was removed to York, has been greater than is
consistent with other duties incumbent upon me as a min-
ister and as the father of a numerous family, and also with
a regard for my health." J With this labor he must con-
join the multifarious cares which the office of Principal
devolved upon him, and answer the calls of his church,
reserving only Saturdays for the preparation of his ser-
mons. Yet with this vast amount of routine work, he
managed to devote to tranquil study a daily period of
time which many a modern minister, with only his pas-
toral office, finds impracticable. This may be taken as a
sample of his devoted and strenuous life.
Probably he was not a scholar in the august sense in
which John KenrSck was ; yet his ready mind, through its
unrelenting application, gathered a stock of erudition that
1 Memoir, etc., p. 91.
32 JAMES MARTINEAU
was large. He read with ease the Greek and Latin
classics; he had a thorough acquaintance with Hebrew,
Chaldee, and Syriac ; he had a considerable acquaintance
with Arabic ; knew French and Italian well ; and " under-
stood German," his biographer tells us, " so far as to be
able to avail himself of translations and commentaries in
that language." Of course he was widely read in theol-
ogy; he was an accomplished botanist and an archaeolo-
gist of fame. Notwithstanding his life was so crowded, he
found time to enrich his mind with more genial letters.
His work done mainly in the first half of our century, it
goes without saying that he represented a type of theology
not now widely prevailing, and a certain vigor of theologi-
cal interest not common in his theological descendants.
Yet under his guidance the school was for nothing more
remarkable than for the breadth of its instruction. He
made it an institution of theological learning, not an
arsenal from which to draw the weapons of sectarian war-
fare. John Kenrick speaks of his theological lectures as
critical and philological, not dogmatic. In his curriculum,
indeed, one finds no dogmatic theology. The various
subjects of theology were laid upon, difficulties shown,
differing attitudes stated, copious references given, and
then the student was left to shape a conclusion for himself.
So he went forth from the school with conclusions he had
formed, not opinions he had learned. He was taught to
investigate ; and, to the end that he might more surely do
so, his teacher laid upon his mind no fashioning influence.
From this reserve on the part of the teacher there is
reason to suspect that there was sometimes discontent on
the part of those who wanted a judgment rather than data
from which to form one. It is easy enough to imagine
the complainings of the student whose indolent mind
asked a dogmatism rather than that supreme respect for
his intellect that made dogmatism impossible. Which, how-
EDUCATION 33
ever, on the whole must be productive of the nobler
results, and which was practically wiser for a mind like
Mr. Martineau's, we need not pause to consider.
Many are the notices scattered here and there of this
modest scholar and devoted instructor, whom the world
so little knows, and whom no university ever honored
itself by honoring; and their testimony is unanimous to
the richness of his intellect, the candor of his judgment,
the saintliness of his character, the nobleness of his aim,
and the success of his endeavors. One of these notices,
that of Dr. Martineau himself, there can be no error in
quoting. In an address at Manchester New College, soon
after Mr. Wellbeloved's death, he said: "Well do I re-
member the respectful wonder with which we saw, as our
course advanced, vein after vein of various learning mod-
estly opened out; the pride with which we felt that we
had a Lightfoot, a Jeremiah Jones, and an Eichhorn all in
one, yet no mere theologian after all, but scarcely less
a naturalist and an archaeologist as well ; the impatience
with which, out of very homage to his wisdom, we almost
resented his impartial love of truth in giving us the most
careful epitome of other opinions with scarce the sugges-
tion of his own. Many of us have found the notes taken
in his lecture-room our best Cyclopaedia of divinity during
the first years of our active ministry, when books were
forced aside by other claims; and when at last some
leisure for independent study has been won, and the
entrance of the theological sciences upon new phases has
taken us into untried fields, then most of all, if I may gen-
eralize from my own experience, have we been thankful
for our training under a master of the true Lardner type,
candid and catholic, simple and thorough, humanly fond
indeed of the counsels of peace, but piously serving every
bidding of sacred truth. Whatever might become of the
particular conclusions which he favoured, he never justi-
3
34 JAMES MARTINEAU
fied a prejudice; he never misdirected our admiration;
he never hurt an innocent feeling or overbore a serious
judgment; and he set up within us a standard of Christian
scholarship to which it must ever exalt us to aspire." l
Such was Dr. Martineau's education; in intimate rela-
tion with such minds did he receive it. From the contact,
too, came by far the most important part of it, the incen-
tives, not the lessons. The dryest pedantry that ever criti-
cised a text, and the dullest mechanism ever misnamed a
school would not have been able permanently to repress
an intellect so earnest ; but through this contact a quick-
ening had been given him, a standard had been shown him,
his possibilities had been revealed to him. The opportu-
nities he enjoyed have a meagre look when compared with
those of England's older universities, and for his depriva-
tion of these we may detect in him now and then a quiet
sigh, the utterance, we may believe, of his casual, not
his habitual mood. To President Garfield, to sit on a
log with Mark Hopkins was to attend a university; Mr.
Martineau had had intimate relation with three Mark
Hopkinses. He had received guidance equal to his need,
and inspirations such as only great and consecrated minds
can give ; and we see not how he could have been better
trained for the career that now opens before him.
1 Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. iv. p. 54
CHAPTER III
MINISTRY IN DUBLIN
IN 1827 Mr. Martineau, aged twenty-two, completed his
college studies. He was " admitted to preach," but did
not at once enter upon the clerical office. His friend and
former teacher, Lant Carpenter, in consequence of over-
work, was obliged for a time to suspend his labors, and for
a year Mr. Martineau took his place in the Bristol school.
It was a year of excessive toil for one so inexperienced.
Not only must he conduct the school, but he must assist
in the church in which Dr. Carpenter was wont to minister.
The pulpit was nominally supplied by a venerable clergy-
man ; but by reason of infirmities he was unequal to the
task of regular pulpit ministration, and Mr. Martineau was
called upon frequently, often at short notice, to take his
place.
At the close of the year, Dr. Carpenter's health not being
equal to the two offices of preacher and teacher, Mr. Mar-
tineau was asked to take the school. He had admirable
qualifications for a teacher, the relation would have been
pleasant and fairly remunerative, and the offer was in a
measure tempting. His mind, however, had been fixed
upon the ministry, and happily this had the stronger
drawing. Erelong the Eustace Street Presbyterian Church
in Dublin invited him to the co-pastoral office. The pas-
tor, Philip Taylor, grandson of the Dr. Taylor of Norwich
fame, after fifty years of service, while enjoying the ameni-
36 JAMES MARTINEAU
ties of his office, was to devolve its burdens upon younger
shoulders.
On going to Dublin he was attended by his sister Rachel,
who superintended the establishment of his home. He
planned to take pupils, and a house equal to his needs
could not be rented ; so, with the aid of a friend, he pur-
chased one at an expense of seven hundred pounds. A
few months later, at Christmas time, he crossed over to
England, and Helen Higginson returned with him his wife.
Anon another came to bless them, a baby Helen, an angel
visitant that stayed not long. Erelong a son, Russel, was
born to them, destined to the scholar's quiet toils and hon-
orable success. 1 In due time there was another daughter,
Isabella, now Mrs. Leyson Lewis, 2 of East Farleigh in Kent
County. Such, in brief, is the domestic story of those
Dublin years.
It was on Sunday, October 26, 1828, that he received
ordination. The service was according to Presbyterian
usage ; it was as a Presbyterian that he began his work.
His Presbyterianism, however, was English, not Scotch, a
distinction which, however apparent in England, needs to
be pointed out in America. In America the name Presby-
terian suggests John Knox and the Assembly's Catechism ;
while in England for the last three hundred years there
has been a Presbyterianism that writes its history from the
days of Baxter, whose broad and tolerant spirit it has re-
flected. A ruling principle with it has been, that there
shall be no binding dogma. With respect to creed sub-
scription its sentiment was voiced by Chillingworth, "To
the Bible only should a Protestant subscribe." It has
1 He was for several years professor of Hebrew in Manchester New
College, and for many years Assistant Keeper in the British Museum. He
was an Orientalist of fame and a user of twenty languages. He was also,
as is testified by those who knew him, and was apparent to those who met
him, one of the most modest, the most conscientious, and most lovable of
men. He died December 14, 1898.
2 Died January 5, 1900, after the above had been put in type.
MINISTRY IN DUBLIN 37
sought, that is, to build on the religious sentiment while
leaving opinion free.
Dating from the times of Baxter, it hardly needs to be
said that it has reflected the sterner types of doctrine ; but
by virtue of its ruling principle it has been ever reaching
forward to more liberal views ; until Unitarianism came
there was to be found within its rank the best advance
upon the standards of orthodox opinion in England.
Indeed it is the antecedent of English Unitarianism ; and
a large number of the Unitarian churches in England to-
day, and nearly all those of Ireland, are Presbyterian in
their history. In the pamphlet in which are preserved the
services of Mr. Martineau's ordination, printed in 1829, is
a note which tells of the " same spirit of religious freedom "
among the Unitarians of Boston and the Unitarians [Pres-
byterians] of Dublin. One year later suit was brought
against certain of the Unitarianized Presbyterians, indi-
rectly implicating all of them, to recover from them the
chapels and trust funds their expansive views were believed
to have forfeited.
The church, then, that ordained Mr. Martineau, although
Presbyterian, stood for the heresy of the day. It interests
us to come into the atmosphere of that ordination to learn
something of the spirit of that heresy. The sermon was
preached by Rev. Joseph Hutton ; and, aside from a slight
Presbyterian coloring, there was nothing in its prevailing
tone to distinguish it from the ordinary type of orthodox
discourse. His subject was " The Character, Duties, and
Privileges of Christians," which he illustrated not with far-
reaching thought, but in a spirit of most fervid loyalty to
his Master. " To be Christ's, implies that we have enlisted
under the banners of the cross that we are soldiers and
servants of the Lord Jesus that we have taken the oath
to be faithful to our Great Leader, the Captain of our Sal-
vation that we will perish rather than desert his standard,
38 JAMES MARTINEAU
or betray his cause that we have renounced the world,
and willingly forego its pomps and vanities, and pride
and pleasures, to be with Christ." " To be Christ's, is to
call no man master, spiritually speaking to acknowledge
no authority in religion, but the Bible ; no master but
Christ." " To be Christ's, we must adhere to him alone ;
alone, I say, for he admits no copartnership, nor hath
substituted any authority in his place." " And further, we
must take the holy Gospel, and search for ourselves, to find
its hidden treasures ; which we shall doubtless find, if we
search with humility, and sincerity, and faith." What must
have been the orthodoxy to which this was heresy?
But further, " I beseech you, brethren, examine for
yourselves often and closely, whether ye be in Christ. Is
your piety that of him, who passed whole nights in com-
munion with his God in prayer? . . . Consider, again and
again, the illustrious example of every virtue, which he hath
set before us ; and let it be our daily prayer to God, that
he would assist us by his divine grace to imbibe more and
more freely of this heavenly temper, . . . that so we may
be Christ's here, and his for ever." These passages fairly
illustrate. The sermon sounds no depths and soars to no
heights ; but it is charged with a sentiment in the exuber-
ance of which the most stalwart orthodoxy of to-day
would find superabundant proof of Christian discipleship.
Following the sermon, a long discourse was delivered
by Rev. James Armstrong on Presbyterian Ordination.
This was natural and appropriate in a Presbyterian church,
flanked on the one side by Episcopacy and on the other
by Congregationalism. There was no effort to show, as
would be shown to-day, that Presbyterianism is useful, jus-
tified by experience, a fair and practicable means to an
end that is most desirable ; it was rather shown to be of
divine appointment, which makes consideration of expedi-
ency a superfluity and an impertinence. He who said,
MINISTRY IN DUBLIN 39
" Let there be Light," also decreed, Let there be Presby-
ters. " We maintain," said he, " not only that the Bible is
an unerring rule of faith and conduct, but, also, that it con-
tains such regulations for order, and directions for worship
as are adapted to every state of the church. Therefore,
whatever is not either positively directed by the word of
God, or clearly warranted by the practice of our Blessed
Lord and his Apostles, we feel ourselves compelled to re-
ject as the invention of fallible uninspired men." He then
goes over the familiar ground of debate as to the meaning of
7rpe<r/3vTe/9o? and eV/cr/coTro?, buttressing his arguments with
Scripture texts, and explaining the usage of the Apostolic
Age. He brings his discussion to the climax with the
surely evangelical asseveration that " we aim at nothing
but the primitive purity of the apostolical constitutions,
the naked simplicity of evangelical truth, and that liberty
of conscience wherewith the Son of God hath made us
free. . . . We preach the Lord Jesus, and Him crucified
we believe that He alone is the way, the truth, and the
life ; and that there is none other name under heaven where-
by we may be saved we place our confidence in him as
our Saviour and Redeemer ; and we receive, without ques-
tion, whatever he has communicated with respect to the
nature of the Deity, and the purposes of the Divine will."
And now Mr. Martineau ; and here we read not only
the word spoken as he was crossing the threshold of the
ministry, but, so far as we know, his earliest printed word :
" Every Minister of the Gospel I conceive to be the ser-
vant of Revelation. . . . By the authority of this Revela-
tion I believe myself supported, when I assume, as primary
principles in the conduct of my ministry, that the first and
simplest religious truths are incomparably the most mo-
mentous that there is no being with whom we have so
much to do as God; and that as all religion begins, so
also does it end, with exhibiting the relation which man
4O JAMES MARTINEAU
bears to his Creator. To this infinite Being, and to Him
alone, do I ascribe every conceivable perfection. He is
the source of power, to whom all things are possible
he is boundless in wisdom, from whom no secrets can be
hidden He is love ; the origin of all good, himself the
greatest ; and the dispenser of suffering only that we may
be partakers of his holiness He is spotless in holiness ;
his will the only source of morality, and the eternal
enemy of sin He is self-existent and immutable, for ever
pervading and directing all things, and searching all hearts ;
the Being from whom we came, and with whom, in happi-
ness or woe, all men must spend eternity.
" From these views I infer that it is my first office, as a
Minister of Christ, to awaken the attention of my people to
the claims of this one infinite Jehovah upon their adora-
tion, obedience and love. As I believe him to be the only
scriptural object of worship, so do I conceive the affec-
tions implied in that worship to be the greatest glory of
the 'human soul, and to be absolutely essential to the
acceptable discharge of duty here, and to participation in
the felicities of heaven hereafter. I am conscious of
nothing but sincerity in saying, that to inspire in others
and in myself a devotion ever fervent and humble, which
shall have a bearing on every duty, purify every thought,
and tranquillize every grief, I desire to make the main
object not only of my ministry, but of my life.
" At the same time I believe, that of the will, the pur-
poses, perhaps even the existence of Jehovah, we should
have remained in ignorance, had he not revealed himself,
partially by patriarchs and prophets of old, and more
gloriously by Jesus Christ, his well-beloved Son. Him
I acknowledge as the Mediator between God and man,
who was appointed to produce by his life, and yet more
peculiarly by his death, an unprecedented change in the
spiritual condition of mankind, and to open a new and
MINISTRY IN DUBLIN 41
living way of salvation. No pledge of Divine love to the
human race impresses me so deeply, as the voluntary death
of Jesus Christ, and his exaltation to that position which
he now holds above all other created beings, where he
lives for evermore, and from which he shall hereafter judge
the world in righteousness. I receive and reverence him,
not merely for that sinless excellence, which renders him
a perfect pattern to our race; but as the commissioned
delegate of Heaven, on whom the Spirit was poured with-
out measure as the chosen representative of the Most
High, in whom dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
As authorities for our duties, as fountains of consoling and
elevating truth, Jesus and the Father are one : and, in all
subjects of religious faith and obedience, not to honour him
as we honour the Father, is to violate our allegiance to him
as the great Captain of our salvation. When Jesus com-
mands, I would listen as to a voice from heaven : when he
instructs, I would treasure up his teachings as the words of
everlasting truth : when he forewarns of evil, I would take
heed and fly as from impending ruin : when he comforts, I
would lay my heart to rest as on the proffered mercy of
God : when he promises, I would trust to his assurances as
to an oracle of destiny."
Then follows a statement of his duties, as he conceives
them, growing out of these convictions, and a confession of
the Jewish and the Christian Scriptures as successive reve-
lations of God, together with the obligations they devolve
upon him. He closes thus : " Full well do I know that I
must review hereafter, in the unveiled presence of God, the
ministry on which I have now entered ; and that I must
then meet those who surround me now, and whose spiritual
interests I bind myself to serve. That no one may then
appear to reproach me with unfaithfulness that there
may be no wanderer from the fold of Christ, whom my
neglect may have caused to stray, is the earnest and
42 JAMES MARTINEAU
solemn desire which I now profess before God and my
brethren."
Brave words which the life shall qualify as to the letter,
but intensify as to the spirit.
Such was Mr. Martineau's theological temper at the time
of ordination, and such that of the ministry that ordained
him. The prayer, the charge, are in like tone. Under
these so orthodox conceptions were, indeed, departures
from the standards of orthodox opinion of which only the
coming years should reveal the significance. Yet here and
there in the service we meet a word, a phrase, which be-
trays dissatisfaction with the relative position, which shows
that these almost orthodox, to whom the Bible was an in-
spired volume, and Christ the Lord and Master, chafed at
orthodox objection to them. Yet in the light of ultimate
issues the objection was, as it ever has been, rightly taken ;
and the chafe, then as ever since, as unphilosophical as
unmanly. " If you go thus far," said John Henry New-
man to his brother, " you will go farther." It may be at a
trifling angle that one railway branches from another.
Passengers wave salute as they glide on side by side;
through many miles they have experience of the same
climate and look out upon the like sceneries ; they disem-
bark after the day's journeying and find the like life around
them and the same constellations above them; but con-
ceive the lines extended far enough and it is plain that, in
due time, they must look out upon most widely contrasted
conditions, the haze of tropic sunsets, the blaze of
auroral skies.
The settlement of Mr. Martineau was in its outward as-
pects a happy one. His church, born of the Act of Uni-
formity, had behind it more than a hundred and fifty years
of honorable and inspiring history. It had been ministered
to by a long succession of able and devoted pastors, and
so had gained in strength, rather than contracted infirmity,
MINISTRY IN DUBLIN 43
from age. It had local standing and its influence was wide.
The congregation was a superior one, both in numbers
and intelligence. It had wealth, of which it was not illib-
eral in the use; it supported an almshouse for twelve
widows ; it had a school for boys, another for girls. It
was organized, earnest, appreciative, harmonious. Mr.
Martineau was emphatically the minister of their choice,
and admiration deepened into affection as they knew him
better. We may doubt not there were troublesome spirits
enough to keep a minister in discipline, but on the whole
he seems to have entered into a pastoral felicity of which
most ministers dream, but which very few attain.
His income was equal to his needs ; his clerical labors
not excessive. Work, however, to the utmost of his
strength he must have, and for this he had provided. His
purpose to take pupils had been met by a desire on the
part of pupils to be taken ; the school at Bristol had broken
up on his leaving it, and half its inmates had followed him.
He took into his family some students of the Dublin Uni-
versity whom he tutored. He taught Hebrew, also the
higher mathematics. In the Calculus, as we have seen, he
had been taught the fluxional notation ; to meet the needs
of his pupils he now taught himself the differential.
The hymn-book of his church was old and poor ; so he
compiled a new one, which was published in 1831, under
the title of Hymns for Christian Worship. It was a small
collection, numbering only two hundred and seventy-three
hymns, and was prepared from very scanty material. In
1830 he delivered a sermon on Peace in Division} which
is the earliest of his published works. We read it now not
only for the interest it awakens, but more than this, for the
view it gives us of the Martineau of twenty-five. Certainly
it does not seem a great effort, when set beside some of
the mighty productions of his riper years ; yet the author
1 See Studies of Christianity.
44 JAMES MARTINEAU
of the Endeavors and the Hours of Thought is here. The
elaborate and rhythmic style, the profuse yet careful met-
aphor, the gleaming insights, show the more youthful
photograph of our maturer friend.
Those Dublin years, in a word, were pleasant and pros-
perous. In the pulpit, indeed, he had no Whitefield popu-
larity; his quiet delivery, together with the severity of his
intellectual demands, were likely to incline the crowd to
follow after other attractions. For the serious, earnest,
thoughtful, however, he had the magnetizing word. So-
cially, though the least obtrusive of men, for his breadth,
purity, earnestness, he could but command a large respect.
Personally he had his attractions : his manners were ruled
by an interior courtesy, his temper was serene, his con-
versation agreeable. The freshness of youth was upon his
features ; the maturity of wisdom was on his lips ; the light
of genius was in his eye.
A long and prosperous ministry here we should natur-
ally forecast for him. A difficulty, however, was in his
path which, alas ! to most had been quite the opposite of
a difficulty. The venerable pastor died, and Mr. Martineau
came by natural succession to his place. To his surprise
he found that the change brought an addition of 100 to
his salary. To this of itself we may presume he would not
have objected ; but the source whence it came raised
scruples which tore him from his charge, and gave a new
direction to his career.
The ;ioo he thus succeeded to was his share of the
Regium Donum. Of this he had not heard before.
The Regium Donum, though at this time a parliamentary
grant, was originally, as the name implies, a royal bounty.
It was first bestowed by Charles II. upon the Presbyterians
of Ireland, a sum of 600 annually in order to secure their
loyalty. Discontinued for a time, it was renewed and in-
creased by William III., and yet again by George I. And
MINISTRY IN DUBLIN 45
not to Presbyterians of Ireland alone was it given; the
Presbyterians of England and some other nonconformist
bodies were smiled upon in like manner, though less
bountifully.
In its intent this Bounty was at first of the nature of a
bribe, and in this aspect there is evidence of some wincing
at receiving it. Baxter would have nothing to do with it,
and returned it when sent to him. It was given, however,
ostensibly for the support of poor ministers 1 or their
widows, though in Ireland it seems to have been used in a
more general way for the support of the ministry. It had
gone on with brief interruptions for more than a hundred
years ; 2 custom had established it ; it was taken as the
rain and the sunshine, the more approved as it did not
imitate the bounty of heaven, which sends rain and sun-
shine on all alike. It supported a needy ministry, why
should it not ? It did not support the Quaker or the
Catholic, why should it? That it was a good thing for
the government to support Presbyterians, Presbyterians
were not unnaturally agreed.
Mr. Martineau, however, took a different view of it. It
was customary, yes, but custom can consecrate no wrong.
It has been long continued ; many an error we are fight-
ing is hoarier still. The best and worthiest have received
it and thought no wrong, among them your venerated
predecessor. Alas ! the holiest are not infallible ; and even
plodding virtue cannot be helped by saintly blindness.
But it is the State that gives it ; let the State take care of
its own affairs. It is indeed the State that gives it, but it
is I that am supposed to receive it ; and to my own mas-
ter must I be true or false in the matter. In recounting
his emotions at this exigency when fourscore and five, the
1 See Skeats' Free Churches in England, pp. 319-321, 671.
2 The English Regium Donum was discontinued in 1850; the Irish in
1870.
46 JAMES MARTINEAU
event sixty years behind him, there was more than the
usual kindling in those mild blue eyes.
He quickly decided on his course. He might indeed
refuse to receive the money; but that might ultimately
mean refusing it for his church, which his fine ethical sense
forbade. One of two things must be: the church must
itself surrender the Bounty or he and they must part
company.
He made known his scruple to his friends. He was well
satisfied to go on with his present income, but even were
it otherwise this fund he could not receive, and he must
make his most emphatic protest against it. At length he
addressed a letter to the church in which the grounds of
his objection were fully and earnestly stated.
Receiving the Royal Bounty he conceived to be placing
him in a relation with the State to which the objections
were insurmountable. First, the Bounty was of the nature
of a " religious monopoly." It was a fund belonging to
the whole people diverted to the benefit of a few. For
what all the people contribute to the benefit of the State,
all the people, he argued, should receive an equivalent in
the blessings of good government. The governors, he de-
clared, are simply trustees of the governed, and when
they divert from the common fund for the benefit of a few,
they violate their trust. The Royal Bounty he showed to
be an instance of such misappropriation. The people
gave ; only Presbyterians received. Quakers, Free Think-
ers, Catholics, were taxed with the rest, and for the sup-
port of a worship in which they did not participate and
with which they had no sympathy. Were the question
brought to those who pay this fund whether they would
subscribe for the maintenance of Presbyterian worship,
there could be no doubt of their refusal. It was not,
therefore, a "free-will offering," but an "exaction upon
reluctant consciences." Any of us, he pleads, would con-
MINISTRY IN DUBLIN 47
sider it a hardship to be compelled to aid in the support
of the Catholic church ; surely, then, we depart from the
Golden Rule when we inflict upon the Catholic a hard-
ship not less grievous. The system was inherently unjust ;
and though the government might be the author, yet by
receiving the Bounty he should feel himself an abetter, of
the injustice.
Such was his first objection ; his second was not less
weighty. The Bounty made a sinecure of his office. The
clergyman labors, but the labor is for one party, the con-
gregation ; the remuneration is from another, the State.
He thus is made to sustain a twofold relation, to the
people for whom he works, to the government for which
he does not. Relatively to his people indeed the office is
no sinecure ; but relatively to the State it is. To entitle
one to receive this fund it is not enough that he be a good
citizen ; in some specific way he must be in the employ of
the government. In short, he is in the employ of the
State or not. If he is, then his office is that of a State
priesthood, and his religion is thereby made a matter of
State selection, a secularization to which he, Mr. Martineau,
could not be a party. If he is not, then he has remu-
neration without duty, and so far his office is a sinecure.
Thirdly, State remuneration seemed to him to hinder the
circulation and impede the progress of religious thought.
That religion may bring forth its fairer fruits, it must be
unfettered in its thought and utterly free in its utterance.
To these ends, anything that tends to call forth profession
where belief is wanting, makes it for one's interest to be-
lieve this rather than that, or to smother the utterance of
the latest and fullest conviction, is to be deprecated and
resisted. To just this is there a natural and inevitable
temptation where State emolument is given in consequence
of some particular connection and forfeited by departure
from it. There is a constant and persuasive appeal to self-
48 JAMES MARTINEAU
interest, to which he does not say it, but it is plain that
he thinks it even clerical virtue is not safe in exposure.
The free utterance and natural circulation and change of
religious opinion, there is a constant bribe to stay.
Fourthly, alliance with the State he holds to be inimical
to the " credit and influence of Christianity." He gives it
as his firm conviction that more unbelievers have been
made by " establishments than by all the speculations
which friends of establishments deem so dangerous."
Wherever it is known that there is personal interest in
religious profession there is sure to be widespread distrust
of religious sincerity. It will be suspected that you " hold
for pay the faith you are paid merely for holding."
These were the reasons that convinced him that in prin-
ciple the Royal Bounty was wrong. " And if the principle
is wrong," he asks, " how can I believe the practice right? "
" I am not blind," says he, " to the inconveniences of any
general plan for relinquishing it; but if in its abandonment
I see difficulty, in keeping it I see wrong."
Thus was the issue defined. What should have been
the decision seems clear enough. The Bounty, however,
was of long standing ; this view of it was novel ; interest
was persuasive, very likely blinding. Abstract right must
usually fare hard in its first encounter with a wrong that is
defended by custom and advantage ; and the measure of
Mr. Martineau's success is eloquent testimony to his hold
upon his people. The younger members rallied to his
side, and the contest was earnest. In the final decision
Mr. Martineau's party were defeated by one vote. The
letter was sent to the congregation the last of October,
and he resigned on the thirteenth of November.
As a matter of fact, it was the thought of the Catholics
about him that most deeply moved him ; they practically,
with respect to Ireland, the national church, owing indeed
with all others a loyalty to the common nation, but entitled
MINISTRY IN DUBLIN 49
with all to a common benefit; yet taxed to support a
worship in which they could not participate and which
their consciences abhorred ! Our minds wander back to
Mr. Martineau's ancestors, driven from France by the
terrors of a Catholic persecution. We remember that this
persecution was consecrated by the Pope and applauded
by Bossuet; and here was Mr. Martineau throwing him-
self into the breach in defence of the rights of Catholics !
It was a moral contest into which he entered to his
cost in either issue. If he won, it would be at the forfeiture
of ;ioo annually; if he lost, it would be at the sacrifice of
his church to which he was strongly attached. This was
not all the cost. He had purchased a house, as we have
seen, by the aid of a friend. Valuations for some reason
had seriously declined, and he must part with it at a great
sacrifice. The consequence was that he had now to face
the future with a young family and a heavy debt. Young
life is brave, but it seems reasonable to suspect that for
a time the sun did not rise as cheerily as usual, and that
the evening damps were peculiarly depressing.
CHAPTER IV
MINISTRY IN LIVERPOOL
BY his attitude towards the Regium Donum, Mr. Martineau
had practically disqualified himself for further ministry
among the Presbyterians of Ireland, and, as a minister,
he was little known in England. Or rather, we perhaps
should say, he was better known than he supposed. Some
one once said of Gladstone that he could not whisper so
low in London as not to be overheard in Edinburgh ; Mr.
Martineau's voice even then had something of the like
reaching power. Visitors in Dublin had listened to his
preaching; visitors from Dublin had told of the new man
that had come. Very soon after his resignation in Dublin
he was invited to become the colleague of Rev. John
Grundy, who was settled over the Paradise Street Chapel
in Liverpool. Charles Wicksteed, writing in 1877, re-
membered how " the circular staircase of the somewhat
conspicuous pulpit was quietly ascended by a tall young
man, thin, but of muscular frame, with dark hair, pale but
not delicate complexion, a countenance full in the repose
of thought, and in animation of intelligence and enthu-
siasm, features belonging to no regular type or order of
beauty, yet leaving the impression of a very high kind of
beauty, and a voice so sweet and clear and strong with-
out being in the least loud, that it conveyed all the inspira-
tion of music without any of its art or intention." He
also tells us that "when this young man with the back-
ground of his honour and his courage rose to speak of the
MINISTRY IN LIVERPOOL 51
inspiration that was not of the letter but of the soul, and
[for that time of day] boldly distinguished between the
inspiration of the Old Testament books and the Old Testa-
ment heroes, he completed the conquest of his hearers."
He had exchanged the generous income of Dublin for
a salary scarce equal to his needs, and he took pupils
to eke out a maintenance. About this time he began to
exercise his hand as a reviewer. In 1833 he contributed
to the Monthly Repository an article on Joseph Priestley,
which very properly leads in the first volume of Essays,
Reviews, and Addresses. In 1835 he appeared in The
Christian Reformer with an essay on Bentham's Deontology,
to which in his collected works it is to be regretted that he
gave no place. Not only is it a very able paper, but it
has a biographical interest. In those days he followed
with Mill and Bentham, and so championed the doctrines
of Necessity and Utility. This article was a proclamation
of Utilitarianism. We read it now with vivid memory of
his later teaching, and see how completely were the ethical
doctrines of his school lived through and abandoned in the
mumps-and-measles period of his intellectual manhood.
In 1835 Mr. Grundy died, and Mr. Martineau became
sole pastor. It can hardly be said that the change added
to his labors, which were always to the utmost. He con-
tinued to take pupils; teaching was not only a source
of income but a congenial occupation. He took great
interest in the religious education of the young, and con-
ducted them through long courses of Biblical instruction.
At one time he gave a nine months' course of weekly
lectures on the Eucharist, its history, its doctrines, its
forms. ., This was very appropriately followed by a " self-
dedication service " preparatory to the next communion.
He bore an active part in more general outside work,
especially that of an educational character. In 1833 he
delivered a course of ten lectures on Chemistry before the
52 JAMES MARTINEAU
Mechanics' Institution in Liverpool, of which the syllabus
is still to be seen. A few years later his sister Rachel
came to Liverpool and opened a girls' boarding-school ;
and for ten years Mr. Martineau aided her by giving
instruction in some of her classes. He was much in
demand on public occasions, a speech here, an address
there, and all those multifarious services which are likely
to be asked of an intelligent, an interesting, and a willing
man.
New domestic experiences were before him. In 1833 a
daughter, Mary Ellen, was born to him. Two years later
another son, Herbert, 1 " born for the future, to the future
lost," came to gladden him. Three other children were
yet to enrich him : Gertrude, now an artist, Basil, a Lon-
don solicitor, and Edith, his latest born, also an artist.
Upon Mary Ellen, with Gertrude and Edith, devolved in
his later years the care of his home, in his old age, of
himself.
In 1836 appeared his first original book, The Rationale of
Religious Inquiry, a thin volume, a little larger than Emer-
son's Nature, and, like that, a proclamation of original power.
It had done service as a course of six lectures, discussing
various aspects of Christian thought, and cogently plead-
ing for Rationalism against Orthodoxy. It was written
in a style possibly less winning than that of later years,
but concise, strong, earnest, elevated. It was character-
ized by great polemical dexterity, but also by a fearless and
invincible candor. What could be fairer or nobler than
this testimonial to the Roman Catholic church, at whose
1 He died at ten years of age. On his headstone is this touching epitaph :
" O Life too fair ! Upon thy brow
We see the light where thou art now.
O Death too sad ! In thy deep shade
All but our sorrow seemed to fade.
O Heaven too rich ! not long detain
Thine exiles from the sight again."
MINISTRY IN LIVERPOOL 53
dogma of Infallibility he is about to deal a trenchant
blow? "Long and far was this Church the sole vehicle
of Christianity, that bare it on over the storms of ages, and
sheltered it amid the clash of nations. It evangelized the
philosophy of the East, and gave some sobriety to its
wild and voluptuous dreams. It received into its bosom
the savage conquerors of the North, and nursed them
successively out of utter barbarism. It stood by the
desert fountain, from which all modern history flows, and
dropped into it the sweetening branch of Christian truth
and peace. It presided at the birth of art, and liberally
gave its traditions into the young hands of Colour and
Design. Traces of its labours, and of its versatile power
over the human mind, are scattered throughout the globe.
It has consecrated the memory of the lost cities of Africa,
and given to Carthage a Christian, as well as a classic,
renown. If in Italy and Spain, it has dictated the decrees
of tyranny, the mountains of Switzerland have heard its
vespers mingling with the cry of liberty, and its requiem
sung over patriot graves. The convulsions of Asiatic
history have failed to overthrow it; on the heights of
Lebanon, on the plains of Armenia, in the provinces of
China, either in the seclusion of the convent, or the stir
of population, the names of Jesus and of Mary still ascend.
It is not difficult to understand the enthusiasm which this
ancient and picturesque religion kindles in its disciples.
To the poor peasant who knows no other dignity it must
be a proud thing to feel himself a member of a vast
community, that spreads from Andes to the Indus ; that
has bid defiance to the vicissitudes of fifteen centuries,
and adorned itself with the genius and virtues of them
all ; that beheld the transition from ancient to modern
civilization, and itself forms the connecting link between
the old world in Europe and the new; the missionary of
the nations, the associate of history, the patron of art, the
54 JAMES MARTINEAU
vanquisher of the sword." 1 What should we say, were we
to meet the like testimonial to Protestantism from a Wise-
man or Capel?
The book won immediate recognition, and in sixteen
years it reached a fourth edition. Among our older
liberal divines there is vivid recollection of the bright day
when it first shone upon them. It treated familiar themes,
yet with the freshness of original thought, and with some-
thing of prophetic boldness. It, indeed, was quite in
advance of the time; and there are perhaps to-day few
books that should do better service in guiding the groping
intellect from the old faith to the new.
The purpose of the book is to exhibit the rational
method by which he would deal with the problems of
religion. Imagination has its place and value ; but " how-
ever much imagination there may be in our belief, there
must at least be some logic." 2 Say what we will of Author-
ity, on the throne of final judgment we meet Reason. We
plead the probability of an inspired Authority; he an-
swers : " It cannot lead me to renounce a tenet which is
equally probable ; and if the evidence against any doctrine
appears greater than that for the Authority which recom-
mends it, it has no conceivable claim to my belief. A
divine right, therefore, to dictate a perfectly unreasonable
faith cannot exist." 3 We are told that belief should sub-
mit; he answers : " Belief cannot submit; belief is an act of
the understanding, submission an act of the will ; belief is
perfectly involuntary, and is determined by evidence ; sub-
mission perfectly voluntary, and determined by motives" 4
There is but one way in which a renunciation of belief can
be won from me, and that is by showing me its falsity. If
you " wish me to relinquish a credible doctrine, the nature
which God has given me leaves you but one method : you
1 pp. 19-20. 3 p. 21, 3d edition.
8 pp. 26-27. * p. 25.
MINISTRY IN LIVERPOOL 55
must present me something contradictory to it which is
more credible." l He furthers his argument by exposing
in the ordinary Christian apologist a prevalent and pal-
pable inconsistency : " When a Christian advocate wishes
to prove the divinity of his religion, he does not content
himself with the external proofs, but proceeds to make
reference to the doctrine so worthy of God, the morality
so pure and sanctifying, the views of human nature so just
and elevated, the hopes of futurity so rational and fitted
to our nature, the demeanour of Christ so majestic and
yet so tender. In this he does perfectly right; and the
argument is to my mind decisive. But surely he here
assumes that human understanding is capable of perceiv-
ing the worth and tendency of Christian doctrine, the
adaptation to our wants of Christian hopes, the dignity
and excellence of Christian virtue. And when an oppo-
nent, following the same course, says, here is a notion
absurd and unreasonable, here a sentiment that tends
to evil, here a representation of God which violates the
analogies of nature, with what justice can the Christian
turn round and declaim against the weakness and pre-
sumption of human reason and the depraved judgments
of the human heart?" 2
The denial of this principle leads to manifold confusion
and absurdity. The free and natural impression of the
Gospels cannot be indulged; for the faculty by which
alone it can be realized is superseded and discredited.
You could turn to them as the works of men, earnest,
truthful, making the best report possible of things they
saw, of events in which they participated, yet ignorant
from the prevailing ignorance of their day, in their
ethics, in their philosophy, erring as other mortals err;
but you are told that these men did not write as other
men, that they were the passive agents of a higher Reason.
1 p. 25. 2 p . 6?i
56 JAMES MARTINEAU
To test their work by human reason, therefore, is imperti-
nent and profane. These writings are to be " approached
with divine awe," not " embraced with human sympathy."
Understand and believe, these are the only functions
allowed us ; and whatsoever is more than this cometh of
presumption in dealing with writings from a source so
high. " Interpret a portion of history, and you have a
narrative perfect from the memory of God," respecting
which it, of course, were blasphemy to raise question ;
" a piece of argument, and you have the reasoning of the
Infinite intellect; an expression of expectation, and you
have a prediction from the prescience of the Most High." 1
In consistency with such view reason can but dumbly
disown its function, and any natural relation of mind and
Gospels is impossible. " To praise their simplicity, to
admire their beauty, to judge of their moral excellence,
to point out the ingenuity and adroitness of their argu-
ments, is as presumptuous and absurd as to question their
accuracy, and discover in them traces of erroneous thought.
What kind of critics are we of the ability of the Holy
Spirit for narration, for precept, or for the exercise of
logical art?" 2
These passages show the trend and temper of a volume
that stimulated much thought and awoke some raptures
sixty years ago, and which still has magnetism in its
pages.
In the preface to the third edition is a passage over
which the reader should be indulged a smile : " Soon
after the publication of the first edition of this book, the
Author was asked by a friend, whether he thought that the
opinions which characterized the volume could be regarded
as ' ultimate' As no one can foresee the changes of his
own mind, he answered with an affirmative." He had
found a bivouac for the night, and thought to build his
1 p. ii. 2 p. ii.
MINISTRY IN LIVERPOOL 57
home and his temple there. Ultimate opinions are for
stationary intellects. The Martineau of this volume and
the Martineau we know seem in comparison like the little
lake in the mountain and the lower Mississippi flooded with
a thousand streams and rolling ever and ever gulfward.
In 1839 an event took place which brought Mr. Marti-
neau into a good deal of prominence. Itwas the Liverpool
Controversy, whereof the echoes have not wholly died
away. He had then two comrades in Liverpool, John
Hamilton Thorn, a hoary octogenarian recently gathered
to his fathers, then thirty-three years of age, winning in
spirit and in manner, with mind well stored and disciplined,
no Titan of unruly might, and likewise no Adonis of effem-
inate grace ; and Henry Giles, long since gone over to
the silent majority, then in the vigor of his manhood, an
intense believer, and, though by temperament literary
rather than polemical, a champion not lightly to be en-
countered. All were then engaged in pulpit and pastoral
work; Mr. Thorn was likewise editor of the Christian
Teacher; and Mr. Martineau was not only heavily bur-
dened with outside teaching, but in the quiet of his library
was engaged in work whereof anon we shall see the fruits.
In the midst of such cares they threw themselves into a
contest which alone should have taxed the strength of men
who are accounted strong. On the twenty-first of January
there appeared in print a circular invitation " To all who
call themselves Unitarians in the town and neighbourhood
of Liverpool " to attend a course of lectures in which the
errors of Unitarianism were to be exposed. The tone of
the missive was popish ; and it abounded in phrases in
which Orthodox dislike of Unitarianism was plainly rather
than delicately shown. The motive of the enterprise was
set forth as "our solemn impression of the value of souls,
and of the peril to which the false philosophy of Unitarian-
ism exposes them." They were told that Unitarians were
58 JAMES MARTINEAU
sunk in the most blasphemous and deadly error, and
wholly unworthy of being considered Christians in any
proper sense of the word. The spirit of the invitation, they
were assured, was that of " the tenderest charity, of the
purest love, of the most affectionate sympathy with those
in the extreme of peril, and that an eternal peril." " Shall
he who, unwittingly, totters blindfold on the edge of a
precipice, deem it a rude or an uncharitable violence which
would snatch him with a strong and a venturous hand, or
even it may be with a painful grasp, from the fearful ruin
over which he impends ? " The missive closed with the
announcement of the intention of the reverend gentlemen
undertaking this work, to come together, on the day pre-
ceding its commencement, " for the purpose of solemn
humiliation before God, and earnest prayer for the blessing
of our Heavenly Father." It was signed by Fielding Ould,
minister of Christ Church. At the same time there was
published a syllabus of a course of lectures, thirteen in
number, to be given by thirteen clergymen of the Church
of England. The subjects were to traverse the entire line
of difference between Unitarian and Orthodox faith.
Whether or not these worthy gentlemen expected to
carry on this enterprise and receive no challenge, we do
not know. That they were hardly looking for the challenge
they received seems probable ; that they did not duly esti-
mate the antagonists they were to encounter seems certain.
With good courage one may poach his neighbor's preserves
when they are guarded by a docile mastiff that will only
bark, or at worst snarl at the intruder ; but if there be an
armed and watchful guard there, it is another matter. The
above missive was promptly answered in polished but
sometimes pungent phrases, and the correspondence that
followed should beguile the dullest hour.
The answerers expressed great interest in the enterprise ;
and, while doubting whether a public audience was the
MINISTRY IN LIVERPOOL 59
best tribunal before which to try questions so grave, yet
felt it their duty to co-operate, that from a comparison of
views no merely one-sided impression might be imparted.
" Deeply aware," said they, " of our human liability to form
and to convey false impressions of views and systems from
which we dissent, we shall be anxious to pay a calm and
respectful attention to your defence of the doctrines of your
church. We will give notice of your lectures, as they suc-
ceed each other, to our congregations, and exhort them to
hear you in the spirit of Christian justice and affection ;
presuming that, in a like spirit, you will recommend your
hearers to listen to such reply as we may think it right to
offer. We are not conscious of any fear, any interest, any
attachment to system, which should interfere with the sin-
cere fulfilment of our part in such an understanding; and,
for the performance of yours, we rely on your avowed zeal
for that Protestantism which boldly confides the interpreta-
tion of Scripture to individual judgment, and to that sense
of justice which, in Christian minds, is the fruit of cultiva-
tion and sound knowledge." Then followed the announce-
ment, that to the lectures given on the Orthodox side there
would each week be given a lecture in reply. That the
lectures might meet the larger audience, they proposed
that abstracts of them be printed side by side in some
paper. Or, if this arrangement did not please, they would
undertake a newspaper discussion of the points at issue.
Reviewing other parts of the missive, they use language
which, though most polite in itself, we fear must have
been the opposite of soothing to Orthodox sensibilities :
" You ask us, reverend sir, whether it is not a * sweet and
pleasant thing,' to ' tell and hear together of the great
things which God has done for our souls.' Doubtless,
there are conditions under which such communion may be
most ' sweet and pleasant; ' . . . but such conference is not
' sweet and pleasant ' where, fallibility being confessed on
60 JAMES MARTINEAU
one side, infallibility is assumed on the other ; where one
has nothing to learn and everything to teach ; where the
arguments of an equal are propounded as a message of
inspiration ; where presumed error is treated as unpardon-
able guilt, and on the fruits of laborious and truth-loving
inquiry, terms of reprobation and menace^ of everlasting
perdition are unscrupulously poured."
Referring to the announced meeting for humiliation and
prayer, the letter reads : " Permit us to say, that we could
join you in that day's prayer, if, instead of assuming
before God what doctrines his Spirit should enforce, you
would, with us, implore him to have pity on the ignorance
of us all : to take us all by the hand and lead us into the
truth and love, though it should be by ways most heret-
ical and strange ; to wrest us from the dearest reliances
and most assured convictions of our hearts, if they hinder
our approach to his great realities. A blessed day would
that be for the peace, brotherhood, and piety of this Chris-
tian community, if the ' humiliation ' would lead to a rec-
ognition of Christian equality, and the 'prayer' to the
recognition of that spiritual God whose love is moral in
its character, spiritual, not doctrinal in its conditions, and
who accepts from all his children the spirit and the truth
of worship."
Thus in most polished phrases was the issue accepted,
but in a temper which showed a more than willingness to
wield the sword of the spirit, in an emergency, to ex-
change it for a more carnal weapon.
The hope of fair and candid comparison of opinion, if
such was entertained, Mr. Quid's reply did not encourage.
The plan of publishing together abstracts of lectures he
would not agree to ; a newspaper discussion he did not
approve. To the question whether he would recommend
his congregation to hear the Unitarian lectures, he replied
unequivocally that he would not. " Were I to consent to
MINISTRY IN LIVERPOOL 6 1
this proposal," said he, " I should thereby admit that
we stood on terms of a religions equality, which is,
in limine, denied. As men, citizens, and subjects, we are
doubtless equal, and will also stand on a footing of equality
before the bar of final judgment. I therefore use the term
' religious equality,' in order to convey to you the distinc-
tion between our relative position as members of the com-
munity and as religionists. Being unable ... to recognize
you as Christians, I cannot consent to meet you in a way
which would imply that we occupy the same religious
level." " To you," he adds, " there will be no sacrifice
of principle or compromise of feeling, in entering our
churches ; to us there would be such surrender of both, in
entering yours, as would peremptorily prohibit any such
engagement." He closed his letter by congratulating his
correspondents on their expressed purpose to attend the
lectures with their congregations, to hear what was fatally
false in their system, and with a prayer that the Great
Head of the Church would prosper the effort about to be
made for the promotion of his glory, through the instruc-
tion of those who were " ignorant and out of the way." In
applying this italicized phrase to Mr. Martineau and Mr.
Thorn, Mr. Ould certainly betrayed a want of the sense of
humor, the best office of which is often to save us from
being ridiculous.
Whether in thrust or parry, Mr. Ould was a bungling
fencer in comparison with his lithe and dexterous antag-
onists ; and the reply he drew from them was his humili-
ating discomfiture : " You deny our religious equality with
you. Is it as a matter of opinion, or as a matter of certainty,
that such equality is denied? If it is only as an opinion,
then this will not absolve you from fair and equal discus-
sion on the grounds of such opinion. If it is with you not
an opinion, but a certainty, then, Sir, this is Popery. Popery
we can understand, we know, at least, what it is, but
62 JAMES MARTINEAU
Protestantism erecting itself into Romish infallibility, yet
still claiming to be Protestantism, is to us a sad and
humiliating spectacle, showing what deep roots Roman
Catholicism has in the weaker parts of our common
nature."
In his first missive Mr. Ould had imputed to Unitarians,
if sound theologians, the belief that their Trinitarian
neighbors were guilty of the " most heinous of all sins
idolatry," a belief which, of course, he knew they did
not entertain, but which it served the purposes of his argu-
ment to charge. The imputation was now turned upon
him with a significance he could not have anticipated.
" In reference to your repugnance to enter our chapels we
say no more, reserving our right of future appeal in this
matter to those members of your church who may be
unable to see the force of your distinction between religious
and social equality. But we are surprised that you should
conceive it so easy a thing for us to enter your churches :
and should suppose it ' no sacrifice of principle and com-
promise of feeling' in us to unite in a worship which you
assure us must constitute in our eyes ' the most heinous
of all sins Idolatry.' Either you must have known that
we did not consider your worship an idolatry, or have
regarded our resort to it a most guilty ' compromise of feel-
ing ; ' to which, nevertheless, you give us a solemn invita-
tion ; adding now, on our compliance, a congratulation no
less singular." That there was no wincing at this most
palpable thrust, they may believe who can.
Two days after the above letter, there appeared an in-
vitation "To the Trinitarians of this Town and Neigh-
bourhood who may feel interested in the approaching
Unitarian Controversy," and they were addressed as
" Christian Brethren." It recapitulated the correspond-
ence, and appealed to them to give that " equal audience "
which their clergymen had refused. Three days later,
MINISTRY IN LIVERPOOL 63
there appeared another address " To the [so-called] Uni-
tarians of Liverpool ; " in which Mr. Ould made a lame
attempt to justify his attitude.
The next move was from Mr. Ould, in the offer of a
platform discussion, which was promptly declined, extem-
pore debate before a miscellaneous assembly not being
considered the proper mode of treating themes that need
the most critical and careful statement. To this Mr. Ould
made hasty reply that he could but " hope a secret con-
sciousness of the weakness " of their cause " prompted
their determination ; " a most unfortunate remark, which
his keen adversary turned upon him : " Sir, it is not a
little mournful to find a Christian Minister expressing the
hope that other men are hypocrites, that they are secretly
conscious of the weakness of the cause which they habitu-
ally defend. To hope that we secretly know our errors,
whilst publicly preaching them as truth, is indeed strange
preference of faith before works."
Meanwhile, on second thought, the offer of a newspaper
discussion was accepted in a letter signed by Mr. Ould and
two of his brother clergymen. The consideration of the
preliminaries to this led to some statements of theological
attitude which revealed the fact that on the Unitarian side
there was dissent from the doctrine of plenary inspiration,
and a denial that even miracles were a guaranty of infal-
libility. At the revelation of these heresies the Orthodox
party withdrew from the controversy. " While, therefore,"
said they, " we shall continue to use all lawful methods of
argument and persuasion, in the hope of being useful to
those who, though called Unitarians, are not so entirely
separated from the common humanity as you seem to be,
we have no hesitation in saying that, with regard to your-
selves as individuals, there appears to be a more insur-
mountable obstacle in the way of discussion than would be
offered by ignorance of one another's language; because
64 JAMES MARTINEAU
the want of a common medium of language could be sup-
plied by an interpreter, but the want of a common medium
of reason cannot be supplied at all." To this came the
sharp rejoinder, that " Theology appears in this instance to
have borrowed a hint from the ' laws of honour ; ' and as in
the world a ' passage at arms ' is sometimes evaded, under
the pretence that the antagonist is too little of a gentleman,
so in the church a polemical collision may be declined,
because the opponent is too little of a believer"
The last letter was written March 25, but some seven
weeks earlier than this the pulpit contest had to be girded
for. As their adversaries had done, the Unitarians pub-
lished a syllabus of their lectures, thirteen against their
thirteen. Of the thirteen subjects Mr. Martineau took five ;
Mr. Thorn and Mr. Giles each four. When we bear in
mind that the thirteen chose their subjects, each according
to his special interest or strength, and that the three had
thus their subjects practically appointed to them, the odds
seem fairly Thermopylsean. Theological sympathies will
incline the reader to one side or the other independently
of any consideration of weight of learning or cogency of
argument. But the readers are surely few who will not
say that if the odds were Thermopylaean the polemic
victory was Spartan.
On Wednesday evening of February 6, Mr. Ould gave
the opening lecture, in which he stormed the Unitarian line
with plagiarized thunder. 1 The crowd that gathered was
immense; the three Unitarian clergymen found it difficult
to gain admission to the church. A pew was afterwards
assigned them, from their occupancy popularly known as
the " condemned pew ; " and here, under the fulminations
of the pulpit and amid the responsive amens of the faithful
1 As was afterwards conclusively shown, he took a large part of his
lecture from Andrew Fuller's Calvinistic and Sodnian Systems Examined
and Compared.
MINISTRY IN LIVERPOOL 6$
about them, they sat out every lecture. Mr. Thorn replied
in the Paradise Street Church on the evening of the fol-
lowing Tuesday, and the crowd was not less great. The
Trinitarian clergymen, however, true to their word, stayed
away, and used their best endeavors to keep their flocks
away also. Through thirteen weeks the strife continued.
Liverpool was stirred as communities rarely are by con-
flicts of religious opinion, and the noise of the fray travelled
far.
If there was hope, however, of making proselytes, the
result was disappointing. Two families brought over to
the Unitarian rank were the sum total of conversions.
The lectures on either side were promptly printed in
pamphlets with appropriate prefaces and appendices, and
thus sent forth to enlighten as they might. At the close
of the discussion they were gathered into two volumes,
respectively entitled Unitarianism Confuted and Unitari-
anism Defended ; and from their pages he who cares to
read them now can judge the controversy.
Unitarianism Confuted expresses a desire, possibly a
belief, but hardly a fact. It may confute Unitarianism with
those to whom it is already confuted ; but from its temper,
method, and low range of ability, it is poorly calculated to
confute Unitarians.
With respect to temper, the plea may be made that the
standard should not be too exacting ; in the heat of con-
troversy, as in the grip of battle, phraseology will not be
always nice. But we open to the general preface, and there
read that Unitarians are " men wise in their own conceits
and fervent idolaters of their own unhallowed reason ; "
that " this glorious transcript of the Divine Mind origi-
nated in the counsels of Triune Deity from all eternity
promulgated to fallen man in the shades of Paradise," they
" have endeavored and are daily endeavoring to pull down
and destroy ; " that " the existence and agency of the
5
66 JAMES MARTINEAU
Tempter, as Satan is emphatically styled by way of bad
eminence, is regarded as allegorical and visionary by men,
unthinking that it is one of the depths of Satan, one of his
most subtle devices, to make them deny and ridicule the
idea of his existence, that he may thus throw a dreaming
and deluded world off its guard and lead it captive to his
will." The belief of Unitarians is described in Milton's
picture of Death, " If form it may be called that form
hath none," quoting, or rather misquoting, from mem-
ory most likely. Unitarian polemic is alleged to be char-
acterized by " hardy misquotations," " inconsequential
reasonings," "the perversion of obvious meanings."
" Unitarians," we are told, " have borne some such pro-
portion to the Christian church, as monsters bear to the
species of which they are the unhappy distortions." It
informs us that " unwearied hostility is waged by Unitarians
against the mind of God." In closing it quotes from the
Collect for Good Friday, " Have mercy upon all Jews,
Turks, Infidels and Heretics." All this within the scope
of a brief preface. In the pages that follow, the like
expressions are scattered with less plentiful profusion, but
they are there ; and they give the volume a tone of which
the nobler passages do not neutralize the impression ; they
are of the bitterness that alienates, not the charity that
wins.
The method of argumentation, too, considered with
reference to Unitarians, is singularly mistaken. It is a
continuous appeal to authority, the decretals of church,
texts of Scripture, precisely what Unitarians had lived
through, wearied of, and cast aside. Unitarians were then
somewhat nearer to Orthodox standards than now; but
then, as now, it was needful to show them, not what Moses
and Athanasius said, but what Reason and Conscience say.
The Unitarian may not be wiser than other men, he may
be less wise ; but in general he has a characteristic way of
MINISTRY IN LIVERPOOL 67
seeing things, and by this way you must approach him if
you will win him. Here these advocates made a capital
mistake; original Greek they flung at him; proof texts
they showered upon him; creeds were quoted and ex-
plained to him; but the presentation of the Orthodox
view in such manner as to show that it answered to the
deepest and truest within him was not offered him ; and so
failure was decreed from the beginning.
Judged by the common, intellectual standard, too, the
book, as a whole, seems hardly worthy the occasion that
called it forth. Some of the lectures were apparently given
off-hand; and, among their marked characteristics, just
discrimination and careful scholarship are not conspicuous.
The lecturers spoke as to those who would make no reply,
and as if in forgetfulness or disdain of the fact, that in their
audience sat three at least who were following them into
whatever highways or byways of learning ; who would ex-
pose the fallacies of their ungirt logic, and call their care-
less words into judgment. Even in the better portions of
the volume, the occasion seems hardly met. Among the
thirteen were men of academic honors, who in scholarly
and thoughtful speech declared their convictions ; but there
was not at that day a learned prelate in all England who
would not have added to his fame by a polemic victory
over Martineau and Thorn; indeed there were very few
who could have risked their fame in such an encounter.
All along the line the contest seems unequal, the squires
of the church doing battle where her best trained and most
valorous knights were demanded. This is only to be re-
gretted ; for in polemic contests truth prospers from the
equal match, and even party faith is too cheaply vindicated
where the combat is one-sided.
If this seems severe judgment, it may be shown that the
studious public have judged the volume yet more severely.
The book has passed out of sight, is unread and unhonored.
68 JAMES MARTINEAU
Yet does it contain pages of earnest thought and brave
sincerity, and incidental discussions not lightly to be
pondered.
In Unitarianism Defended we enter another atmosphere.
Occasionally the old Adam gets in a word, and there are
certainly pages that would wear a more dignified look after
a considerable excision. Yet in its prevailing tone the
book is perhaps as near to the model of a polemic as ever
issued from a debate so earnest. With especial emphasis
may this be said of the part borne by Mr. Martineau. In
the letters from which we have quoted, the evidence is
plain enough that his hand held the pen that wrote them ;
and under those polished sentences there lurks at times a
tone of irony that may suggest Izaak Walton's instruction
for the use of the frog : " Put your hook . . . through his
mouth and^ out at his gills ; and in so doing use him as
though you loved him." In his lectures, however, he lifts
himself into the atmosphere of knowledge and of thought,
where the loftiest aim and the noblest feeling rule him.
Only once does he make a personal reply, and that reply
from its uniqueness should be quoted. A venerable and
much esteemed but over-earnest lecturer had indulged in
something like a tirade against him, in answer to which
he may have read : " As to that excellent man who, on
Wednesday last, treated in this way our most cherished con-
victions and most innocent actions, I have said nothing in
reply to his accusations ; for I well know them to have failed
in benevolence, only from excess of mistaken piety. Had he
a little more power of imagination, to put himself into the
feelings and ideas of others, doubtless he would understand
both his Bible and his fellow-disciples better than he does.
Meanwhile, I would not stir, with the breath of disrespect,
one of his gray hairs ; or by any severity of expostulation
disturb the peace of an old age, so affectionate and good
as his. He and we must erelong pass to a world where
MINISTRY IN LIVERPOOL 69
the film will fall from the eye of error, and we shall know,
even as we are known."
In the discussion of the various problems the Unitarians
drew prevailingly from three sources, Nature, the Moral
Consciousness, and the Bible. From their use of the Bible
one would hardly suspect that they read it on their knees,
as was once the practice of a famous theologian ; yet it is
clear that they held it up to the light in studious and rev-
erent scrutiny of its page. To them it was a Revelation
from God, no less a Revelation because given through
men from whom it received a human element. But if the
Bible is a Revelation, Nature is that too, and Conscience like-
wise, when its oracle is distinctly heard. These three reve-
lations, alike from God, cannot contradict, but must rather
supplement and explain one another, their concurrent
testimony to any doctrine, our certitude of its truth, the
clear remonstrance of any one, a not-to-be-doubted proof
that we have misconceived the other two. Hence a large-
ness in their reasonings and a strength in their conclusions,
quite in contrast with those of their adversaries, who of
these grounds of argument knew only one, and from this
limitation were denied the essential condition of knowing
even that. In one of Mr. Martineau's most earnest passages
he protests against the " infidel rejection " of Nature's
ancient oracle. It was something to him well-nigh incred-
ible, the scepticism that denied two Words of God to the
misunderstanding and even perversion of a third. And
those who pronounce against Unitarianism as a negative
faith he asks to justify the positive character of a system
that " disbelieves reason, distrusts the moral sense, dislikes
science, discredits nature."
Not only were these defenders strong men ; it is evident
that of their strength they were not sparing. They did
not aim merely to repulse assaulting arguments, but to give
their faith the noblest presentation. Their themes were
7<D JAMES MARTINEAU
worn and hackneyed, yet they seized upon them as though
they had never before been treated ; and by the vigor of
their thought and their ample learning they gave them a
statement remarkable for nothing more than its freshness.
In the main, they answered their opponents, not by re-
joinder, but by implication, building a structure of doc-
trine over against which the Orthodox doctrines seem
incredible. Thus peculiarly it was with Mr. Martineau.
Three of his lectures were reprinted in America, in Studies
of Christianity ; and of the many who have read and ad-
mired them, probably not one to whom the fact was not
told has ever suspected that they came out of the hottest
of controversies. They suggest the scholar and thinker
coming from his study with his most careful, albeit his most
fervid word. He discredits the Orthodox doctrines some-
what as Newton in his Principia discredits the mediaeval
astronomy, which, without noticing, he annihilates. Surely
on the lines which he traversed no one who heard him or
who read him needed afterwards to ask the positive atti-
tude of the Unitarian mind. The only qualification to this
statement might be in the fact that his presentations were
somewhat in advance of the Unitarianism of the time. In-
deed, with slight touches here and there, they might do
service as Unitarian tracts even now ; nor have Unitarians
in their theological literature discussions of a similar char-
acter more nobly or more reverently toned.
Among the marvellous features of this controversy was
the vast labor it implied in a period so brief. Taken in
connection with the many other duties that engaged, it
was an exhibition of intellectual prowess not often paral-
leled. The first lecture was given on the Orthodox side
on the sixth of February ; the last was given by Mr. Mar-
tineau on the seventh of May. Between these dates the
whole labor must be compressed. Yet the shortest of
Mr. Martineau's lectures, if given in full, could fall but
MINISTRY IN LIVERPOOL 71
little short of three hours in average pulpit delivery, and
one of them would reach four. His discussion of the
Atonement, together with preface and appendix, reaches
nearly to one hundred quarto pages. Mr. Thorn's presen-
tation of the Trinity is nearly as long. Mr. Martineau's
five lectures with their prefaces and appendices would
make a quarto volume of a little less than four hundred
pages; and this, it should be remembered, not thought
and learning crudely thrown together, but thoroughly
organized, nobly elaborated and adorned.
CHAPTER V
MINISTRY IN LIVERPOOL (continued}
IT is safe to affirm that Mr. Martineau emerged from this
controversy with a glad sense of relief. We can enter into
the satisfaction with which he resumed the less distracted
exercise of his regular and more congenial offices, the new
delight of unhurried study and intercourse with friends.
But neither in his own consciousness nor in general
esteem could he come forth from such a contest as he
went into it. As well might he think to turn his dial back,
as to be again the man that he had been. Shape it to his
thought however modestly he might, there was the con-
sciousness of powers which, though severely tried, had
not failed ; powers, therefore, that to other arduous tasks
could be confidently applied. Abroad there was on the
one side the new admiration of his friends and followers
for the manifest splendor of his genius ; on the other side
a sort of admiration by inversion of the brilliant and
powerful heresiarch that Satan had let loose for a
season. It was, in a sense, a new attitude in which he
stood ; there was a new part that he must bear. A new
part was, indeed, not far before him, in which his proved
powers should be brought to other and severer proof,
in which expectation should again be distanced by
achievement.
Meanwhile there were sermons to preach, the young
people to instruct, his parishioners to visit, the sorrowing
MINISTRY IN LIVERPOOL 73
to comfort, the morally lame and blind to heal and restore
as he might. With these offices, together with his books
and his pen, we take courage to hope that he did not suffer
from ennui.
Our next meeting with him outside his appointed walk is
in the September following the controversy, at the open-
ing of a new chapel in Manchester, on which occasion he
preached a sermon on The Outer and the Inner Temple,
which they who heard surely did not soon forget. He
drew his lesson out of the Messianic idea, which, divested
of its Jewish coloring, he showed to be not especially Jew-
ish, but the property of mankind. It is involved in the
great trust in Providence that ever looks for a better that
shall come. Ignorance and sin shall pass; where now is
strife the dove of Peace shall hover; and whatever power
works to this end is the Messiah of God's appointing. But
over against the Messiah that God in his wisdom appoints,
we meet the Messiah which man in his foolishness expects
and insists on having; and the two come into sorrowful
collision. And the error being not national but human, it
is ours to-day as it was theirs with whom Jesus walked and
suffered. Then, turning to the times of Jesus, and placing
the expectations that met him in contrast with the
reality he was, God's Messiah and man's, he draws
out the impressive lesson :
" See, first, how the great Father rebukes every plan of
partial and exclusive deliverance ; and declares that any
rescue of his must fold the earth in its embrace. The
Hebrews would have had a divine Emancipator to be theirs
alone ; the child of a nation ; the property of a class ; the
personal concentration of their collective peculiarities ; the
punisher of other men's hatred and contempt, by adopting
and indulging their own. . . . He takes a village Christ,
whose soul is human, and not Hebrew; whose spirit has
become acquainted with men in the retreats of families,
74 JAMES MARTINEAU
not in the schools of Priests and Pharisees ; and felt the
presence of God in the stainless breath of his native hills,
and the lilies of his native fields, more than in the smoke
of altars, and the withered fragrance of incense ; one who
would neither strive nor cry, who had no scorn except for
narrow affections and mean pretences ; from whose voice
hearers, listening for denunciation, receive the tones more
piercing far, of a divine forgiveness ; and whose eye, when
spectators look for the flash of resentment, fills only with
silent tears. Nor was this all ; for when his countrymen,
enraged that his mind is not exclusively theirs, led him
away to Calvary, God does but take the occasion to wrest
from them his person too; permits his executioners to
destroy the only part of his nature in which he resembled
them, and then redeems the everlasting elements of his
humanity for a blessing to all people and all times ; and
says to Death, ' Take now the son of David, but leave
the son of Man ; the Israelite is thine, but I suffer not my
holy one to see corruption.' And so, the cross, which was
to disown him as the Messiah of Jerusalem, made him the
Messiah of mankind." x
The following year, 1840, he did great service by bring-
ing out a second hymn-book. It was entitled Hymns for
the Christian Church and Home. It was a careful and toil-
some collection of six hundred and fifty-one hymns. The
book contained, besides the ordinary conveniences for its
special use, a reference to Scripture texts, of which the
hymns are the designed or unpremeditated utterance, and
a preface which no student of Hymnology can afford to
pass. It attracted wide attention, and came into very
general use in the Unitarian churches in England. It ran
through a large number of editions, was in use, indeed, for
a third of a century, till he himself superseded it with
another collection.
1 Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. iv. pp. 375~377-
MINISTRY IN LIVERPOOL 75
A discussion of this book, though very tempting, must
not be indulged in here ; it contains two hymns, however,
which we must note for their peculiar interest. They are
widely known now, but their first appearance was in this
volume. One, uttering in verse the deep sentiment of the
Scripture, " with his stripes we are healed," begins with the
familiar stanza,
" A voice upon the midnight air,
Where Kedron's moonlit waters stray,
Weeps forth in agony of prayer,
' O Father ! take this cup away ! ' "
The other, a song of trust, drawn out of the text
" Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him," sings to
the experience of how many hearts,
" Thy way is in the deep, O Lord !
E'en there we : 11 go with thee :
We '11 meet the tempest at thy word,
And walk upon the sea 1 " *
Both these hymns are entered as anonymous; yet was
their author well known to the compiler, for he was none
other than Mr. Martineau himself.
We come now to the "new part" he was to bear; this
year, 1840, he was appointed Professor of Mental and
Moral Philosophy and Political Economy in Manchester
New College. This event determined his life to Philoso-
phy conjointly with Theology. Here for forty-five years
he was to toil at the deep problems of the sages, subject-
ing their doctrines to the severest analysis, and dropping
his plummet into deeps they did not sound.
1 This hymn has been widely appropriated, and prevailingly with a
departure from Mr. Martineau in the first line by the use of the preposition
" on " instead of " in," " on the deep " rather than " in the deep."
Whether this is from mistake, or through the exercise of that very ques-
tionable right, which many compilers claim, to reconstruct hymns, I cannot
say ; but the sense is materially different.
76 JAMES MARTINEAU
It is with peculiar interest that we look back from the
nonagenarian sage to the thinker of thirty-five. It was at
the opening of the October session of the College that he
gave his introductory lecture, in which we may divine
something of the spirit of Sir Galahad going forth in search
for the San Greal. Easily and naturally, but with a sus-
tained eloquence, he told his hearers how Philosophy arose,
outlined the vast tracts it was his hope to explore, enjoined
the severe method by which alone philosophical studies can
be successfully pursued, and justified the claim of Philoso-
phy to be the promoter of man's higher welfare. " Com-
plaints," says he, " are often made of the uncertain and
shadowy results from all speculative science : and certainly
it will construct no docks ; lay down no railways ; weave
no cotton ; and,' if civilization is to be measured exclusively
by the scale and grandeur of its material elements, we can
claim for our subject no large operation on human im-
provement. To use the words of Novalis, . . . ' Philosophy
can bake no bread ; but it can procure for us God, freedom,
and immortality.' " He makes his own the question of
the German, " Which, now, is more practical, philosophy
or economy?" Still further does he press claim for its
dignity and usefulness : " What periods could be least
well spared from the progress of civilization? Surely,
the golden ages of philosophy in Greece, and its revival
in modern England, France, and Germany. What are
the names, whose loss from the annals of our race would
introduce the most terrible and dreary changes in its sub-
sequent advance? Those of Plato and Aristotle in the
ancient world ; of Bacon, Locke, and Kant in more recent
times : and it is surely easier to conceive what we should
have been without Homer, than without Socrates." J
Mr. Martineau had now vocation and avocation, and to
both he brought a consecrated genius. The toiling pro-
1 Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. iv. p. 17.
MINISTRY IN LIVERPOOL //
fessor would leave in his church no duty unperformed ;
the hard-worked minister would go with no slipshod prep-
aration to the professor's chair. The College had just
returned to Manchester after its thirty-seven years in
York, and he was here one day each week for the delivery
of his lectures. These must perforce be freshly prepared ;
and under any circumstances they could have cost him no
trifling toil. There was, too, a feature of his situation that
must have added not slightly to his labors. The keeper of
a lighthouse knows always where he is, and with ready
tongue can name the headlands and islands he looks out
upon ; but a sailor on the deep must take frequent and care-
ful reckonings if he will know his longitudes. Mr. Marti-
neau was on the deep, and, as a pilot to other mariners, he
had now a peculiar interest in his reckonings. The truth
was that he was somewhat out of his reckoning, and was em-
barrassed in consequence. He had early settled, as we have
seen, on the creed of philosophical Necessity, and this he
supposed himself to hold ; but somehow preparation such
as he had did not satisfy, and former opinions needed to be
qualified. The fact was that, without clearly seeing it, he
was in process of transition : the faith to which he thought he
was leading others, he was himself abandoning. Curiously,
but not unnaturally, the true status of his mind was shown
him by another rather than discovered by himself. The
syllabus of his first course of lectures came into the hands
of his friend, John Stuart Mill, 1 whose searching glance
measured his departure from the Necessarian standards,
and detected the direction in which his mind was moving.
Mr. Martineau pleasantly remarks : " Though he saw to
the bottom of my apostasy, he did not cut me off as a lost
soul. On the contrary, his manifestation of friendly inter-
est in my future work at old problems on new lines was
gracious and respectful."
1 Preface to Types of Ethical Theory, p. xi.
78 JAMES MARTINEAU
Thus doubly occupied as minister and professor, it is
not surprising that during the next five years he did little
outside critical labor. In 1841 he printed an essay, which
had evidently done service as a lecture, on Five Points of
Christian Faith} a very eloquent presentation of his
attitude as a Unitarian theologian. During the same year
he wrote the letter on Lant Carpenter published in the
Memoirs prepared by Dr. Carpenter's son, one of the
fairest tributes a pupil ever bore his master.
The next year he printed nothing of importance ; the
year following, 1843, dates a blessing to many minds and
hearts, the first series of Endeavors after the Christian
Life, a selection from his pulpit discourses. Hitherto his
printed words had been mainly critical or polemical ; here
was the message of the religious teacher, spoken to the
faiths and hopes of men.
This book we shall meet again when we shall linger over
its pages. To-day we place it on our library shelves with
the classic literature of devotion, different enough from
the Theologia Germanica, yet rightfully in its companion-
ship ; not at all like Holy Living and Holy Dying, yet
worthy to stand beside it ; yet at its coming those in the
judgment-seats of criticism betrayed no special enthusiasm.
To English Churchdom it was a light that did not shine
through cathedral windows ; hardly, therefore, to be seen ;
and those who from their position might have been sup-
posed to see, apparently saw rather dimly. The Christian
Reformer smiled dubiously; the Christian Examiner was
critical rather than cordial ; the prevailing approval was
the faint praise that damns. A good book, however, is a
magnet that attracts its own ; and neither critical indiffer-
ence nor critical disparagement can permanently annul its
influence. This book found readers, and after more than
fifty years it finds them still. The edition now selling in
America is printed from the eighth English edition.
1 See Studies of Christianity, edited by William R. Alger.
MINISTRY IN LIVERPOOL 79
In 1845 h e resumed those critical studies by which he
was to become so widely known. The Prospective Review
of that year was enriched with elaborate and eloquent dis-
cussions of the Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold,
Church and State, Whewell's Morality. The following
year he contributed to the same magazine a discussion of
Whewell 's Systematic Morality and Theodore Parker's Dis-
course on Matters Pertaining to Religion)- In 1847 a P"
peared the second series of Endeavors, too like the first to
need special comment, and in the Westminster Review a
paper on Strauss and Theodore Parker. In 1848 the
readers of the Prospective Review met articles from his
pen on William E. Channing and Philosophical Christianity
in France, and thence on such, in the main, is the story !
Such, in the main, the story ! Alas for his biographer
who would fain give the charm of variety to his narrative
that it is such ! Were there only some conspicuous intel-
lectual gyrations of which to tell, some striking eccen-
tricities to explain, a few wrong deeds for which to
apologize, how might they add interest to these pages !
Just the labors of the Christian teacher and scholar,
that is all ; and of these how monotonous the tale ! This
day-by-day sunshine is very well ; but it is in the narrative
of simooms and cyclones and thunder-storms that we are
interested. Very possibly some one who has lived near
that life, in the record of personal incidents and experi-
ences, joys, pains, friendships, may find a variety these
pages cannot offer. But even here, from the prevailing
evenness and decorum there must be limitations. In a
Bentley not even a Boswell should have found a Johnson.
We do, however, approach here an incident of interest
and importance. Under his faithful and able ministry his
church had prospered ; but the rapid growth of Liverpool,
1 All these papers are reprinted in the four volumes of Essays, Reviews^
and Addresses,
8O JAMES MARTINEAU
by enlarging the business quarter, had sent the residents
farther away, and the Paradise Street Chapel had become in-
conveniently distant from the congregation that worshipped
within it. It was determined, therefore, to build a new
chapel in Hope Street ; and of this the foundation stone
was laid in May, 1848. Worn from excessive toil, Mr.
Martineau seized upon the opportunity for a period of rest
and study in Germany. He took with him his entire
family ; his eldest son, then at University College, London,
he transferred for the time to the University at Berlin.
In May he assisted in laying the corner-stone of the
new chapel. In July he went to Dresden, where in the
art galleries he found both profit and recreation. Thence
he went in October to Berlin, where he settled down to
study. Trendelenburg was then there, and of him he
took lectures in logic and the history of philosophy.
Trendelenburg was an able expounder of the Stagirite,
and this circumstance brought Mr., Martineau to Greek
philosophical studies, the effect of which was, in his own
language, a " new intellectual birth." " I seemed to pierce,
through what had been words before, into contact with
living thought, and the black grammatical text was aglow
with luminous philosophy." 1 He also bestowed a good deal
of attention upon German Philosophy, and his friend, R. H.
Hutton, who was with him, tells how in the depths of a
German winter they toiled in a fruitless chase after Hegel's
" pure being and pure nothing." Together also they bent
over the more luminous page of Plato. He found it of
great advantage to pursue Greek and later German thought
together, for the light they shed upon each other. He once
told a friend that he never understood Aristotle's Ethics
till he translated it into German in Trendelenburg's class-
room ; and in the preface to the Types he tells us that the
" new way of entrance upon ancient literature . . . lifted
1 Preface to Types of Ethical Theory, pp. xii-xiii.
MINISTRY IN LIVERPOOL 8 1
the darkness from the pages of Kant and even Hegel."
The effect of these studies, however, was something more
than enlarged knowledge ; from their influence the deflec-
tion from the Necessarian view which Mill had detected
reached to conscious and complete repudiation. He was
converted to that spiritual philosophy of which, through all
his toilsome life he was to be a fervid apostle. In the pref-
ace to the Types he tells us : " The metaphysic of the world
had come home to me, and never again could I say that
phenomena, in their clusters and chains, were all, or find
myself in a universe with no categories but the like and
unlike, the synchronous and successive. The possible also
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 realization, whatever
centuries lapse ere they appear." l
This vacation period was not without its distractions.
He had illness in his family, the excitement of war was in
Germany. It was, however, a period of intellectual activ-
ity of which the results were of great significance. It
brought him also somewhat of diversion. There was the
kindling spectacle of the Bavarian Alps ; there was a resi-
dence of six weeks in the secularized convent of St. Zeno ;
a sail in a private boat down the Danube, a brief stay in
Vienna. There was also inspiring intercourse with great
minds, among them Trendelenburg, the Zumpts, Von Ranke.
He returned in October, 1849, after an absence of fifteen
months. The beautiful Hope Street Church was ready for
him. In his opening discourse he remembered those who
had died in his absence, in a passage of tenderest signifi-
cance : " Those close-filled ranks cannot hide from me the
vacancies in their midst ; and I miss here the sweet atten-
tive look of maidenly docility, there the dear and venerable
1 p. xiii.
6
82 JAMES MARTINEAU
form of one from whose eyes age had exhausted the vision
but not the tears." This dear and venerable one was his
mother.
The church and the college labors were both renewed
with the wonted tireless industry. To the College he must
carry the new light ; and to this end his lectures, labori-
ously prepared, must be superseded by new ones, or re-
constructed into congruity with the " metaphysic of the
world." His critical labors were renewed, if, indeed, they
had been intermitted. In 1849 he printed a second paper
on Channing. The following year he wrote the noble
papers on Letter and Spirit and F. W. Newman's Phases
of Faith and the Church of England. The year following
came the essays on The Creed of Christendom, The Battle
of the Churches, Europe since the Reformation^ and the
sadly famous essay on Mesmeric Atheism. These were all
notable papers.
We come now to a passage in his life of which we would
willingly be silent, did it not seem cowardly to be so ; I
mean the estrangement between him and his sister Harriet ;
or, perhaps I might better say, her estrangement from
him ; for through all the dismal years of banishment from
her sympathy he preserved for her the fraternal heart. 1
Besides, simple right seems to require that the story
be told again. All the world has heard it, but, in the
main, they have heard but one version of it ; and here, as
ever,
" One man's word is no man's word,
Justice asks that both be heard."
The name of Harriet Martineau is one to be spoken
1 I never reciprocated the alienation from which I suffered, and should
have escaped a real sorrow, had the efforts to remove it been successful. It
has simply counted for me as an instance more of my sister's liability to
oscillate between extremes of devotedness and sympathy, and has in no way
disenchanted the old affection, or impaired my estimate of her high aims,
her large powers, and her noble private virtues. (Dr. Martineau in the London
Daily News, December 30, 1884.)
MINISTRY IN LIVERPOOL 83
with admiration. She was a woman of large powers and
generous sympathies, and through toilsome and suffering
years she consecrated both to the service of humanity.
Her intellect had not the penetration of her brother's, but
it was more versatile ; and though we would rather meet
him on the judgment-seat where ethical justice must be
given voice, in her was the more cosmopolitan sympathy.
While he would wage unrelenting battle with the wrong that
smites, she would meet the sufferer with the readier smile.
She was a great and noble woman, but to all their limi-
tations. Her devotion to truth was unquestionable; the
patience that searches for the simple verity of things was
not so marked in her. She was of the stuff of which mar-
tyrs, not philosophers, are made. Her judgment, whatever
it was, she would stand by at any cost, but she was not
sure to come to it by the way of careful discrimination.
Hence her opinions, whether of men or of doctrines, wear
often a per saltum and even a capricious look.
She had a twofold physical affliction, ill-health and deaf-
ness. In spite of these she achieved her brave and brilliant
career; but none the less it is difficult not to believe
that they gave a color to her spirit by which things and
people were sometimes ^colored to her apprehension.
Such extenuation it is easy to exaggerate, and she would
be the last to ask it ; and few who have suffered as much
have needed it so little. But few spirits are so stoical or
so Christian as to be lifted above a rasping pain or a tor-
menting malady. Emerson with Carlyle's dyspepsia very
likely had not scolded like Carlyle, but we fear he had
been a different Emerson.
She had a will whose servant she was, and others who
would prosper with her must needs be ; her conscientious-
ness was absolute, but needed now and then to be toned
with " sweet reasonableness ; " her charity was large, But
cf the kind that sometimes faileth.
84 JAMES MARTINEAU
As is known to all the world, she experienced a great
change in her religious and philosophical attitude. She
began life a very devout Unitarian, mildly shading off from
the Presbyterianism of her family. She became the dis-
ciple and translator of Auguste Comte ; later she sat down
at the feet of the phrenologist and mesmerist, Henry George
Atkinson.
Though it was from her relation with Atkinson that the
estrangement culminated, they mistake who suppose it
began there. The relations between her and her brother
in earlier years had been peculiarly sympathetic ; in all her
heroic struggle he had braced her with his counsel and en-
couragement. Correspondence had flowed on between
them, unreserved, fraternal, tender; domestic interests,
financial perplexities, literary aims, personal ambitions,
religious doubts and hopes, they had laid before each
other with a freedom which only the warmest sympathy
can make possible. At length she issued a mandate to
her correspondents that they should destroy her letters.
The penalty of disobedience was that they should receive
no more. Her brother remonstrated. The letters he had
were the record of a brave struggle which should not
be lost ; they were besides very dear to him, and he could
not part with them. Her threat was not at first executed
in full ; but her " letters became notes, ever fewer and
more far between, limited to matters of fact, comparatively
dry and cold." They ceased altogether before the Atkin-
son episode to which now we come.
Henry George Atkinson was a man not without intelli-
gence of a certain order. He seems to have studied
Bacon; he had acquaintance with physiology; he had
given special attention to phrenology and mesmerism;
from the only writing we have from him one may gather
many illustrations of the mentally strange and abnormal.
But one who may astonish in a drawing-room may be
MINISTRY IN LIVERPOOL 85
quite out of place in a congress of sages ; and the efforts
to sustain him in the role of unappreciated genius have
been wholly abortive. The one thing he did discredits
such an estimate of him, and the fact that he did nothing
else still further discredits it. Men with doctrines as un-
popular as his have conquered admiration ; yet, in culti-
vated English society, inquire for Henry George Atkinson,
and there may be remembrance of him as one who had a
little cheap notoriety many years ago, which a peculiar re-
lation with Miss Martineau gave him, and little more is
known of him. Left to himself, he sank to a natural ob-
scurity, out of which she had lifted him for a brief period.
Yet this man Harriet Martineau, immeasurably his superior,
whom they of regal intellect most justly honored, accepted
as her philosopher ! At his feet she sat down as a learner !
The result of this intellectual mesalliance was a book on
The Laws of Man's Nature and Development. It com-
prised a series of letters that passed between them, in
which Mr. Atkinson assumed the tone of the most confi-
dent of masters, and Miss Martineau that of the most
docile of disciples. It was in large part a crude and super-
ficial handling of man's deepest and dearest faiths. " Phi-
losophy finds no God in nature," it tells us, " no personal
being or creator, nor sees the want of any ; nor has God
revealed himself miraculously." The belief in another life
is a harmless delusion " so long as it does not interfere with
our conduct in this." " Free will ! the very idea is enough
to make a Democritus fall on his back and roar with laugh-
ter, and a more serious thinker almost despair of bringing
men to their reason." The doctrine of moral responsibility
is declared " untrue and immoral." The outlook for man's
better condition is not in allegiance to a high and Holy
One, not in incentives enkindled by the hope of immor-
tality, not in obedience to the sense of obligation, not in
all together; but in the study of the laws of man's nature,
86 JAMES MARTINEAU
which in their last statement are physical laws. The clue
to this study, the light among lights of superlative bright-
ness, is mesmerism.
The book, bearing simply the name of Henry George
Atkinson, had surely fallen flat. Had the name of Harriet
Smith or of Harriet Jones been coupled with his, its fate
had been no better. It bore, however, with his the name
of Harriet Martineau, at that time the most prominent
woman in England. The attention that it received and
the impression that it made were, therefore, out of all
proportion to its interior significance. In such cases, too,
names do not stand for individuals alone, but for family
and affiliations also. Miss Martineau was not merely Miss
Martineau ; she was the sister of James Martineau, who
was fast becoming one of the most potent forces in Eng-
lish thought and letters ; she was a member of a circle ;
she had come out from a sect of which, or of whose
tendencies, however absurdly, she was held to be repre-
sentative. These circumstances gave significance to her
position and weight to her words.
Mr. Martineau was at that time one of the editors of the
Prospective Review, and the book required notice in its
pages. Thoroughly to have reviewed the book could
not have been a labor of love to any one of his editorial
associates. Besides, in the general division of labor,
the treatment of books and subjects of a speculative
character was peculiarly his office. Most unwillingly,
therefore, he sat down to the task it seemed ignoble to
shirk, and the result was the article on Mesmeric Atheism.
It was a trenchant and searching review, certainly within
the requirements of polemical morality, but remorseless
in the exposure of flimsy logic and shallow sophistry.
It was not merely an answer to the book ; it was its com-
plete annihilation. Of his sister he spoke most gently,
but Atkinson fared somewhat hardly at his hands. He
MINISTRY IN LIVERPOOL 8/
had offered himself as a philosopher ; his credentials had
been examined and he was dismissed as a charlatan. At
this treatment of her hero Miss Martineau was deeply
offended, and to the end of her life repelled all offers of
reconciliation.
Such is the story of that estrangement which, with various
coloring and distortion, is known as widely as the suffer-
ers from it. It suggests questions of mental peculiarity and
moral temperament for which I will not pause. I will here
only remark that the measure of offence conceived seems
far beyond any rational estimate of the offence committed.
A brother's refusal to destroy a sister's letters because they
are dear to him may be a mistake ; but surely it would
oftener give pleasure than provoke resentment. A few
passages in the criticism might have been more gently
toned, though the admirers of Miss Martineau could hardly
plead her example in asking it. To the plea sometimes
put forth that the criticism did violence to private affec-
tion, the answer is obvious : Truth, like the Christ, knows
no private affection, a dictum which Harriet Martineau
surely would have allowed. And I cannot help feeling that
she would have been truer to herself and to her great intel-
lect and heart, if, instead of thus resenting, she had kin-
dled with admiration for the brother whose affection, often
tried and always true, could not deflect him from that
unsparing truth which his conscience summoned him to
declare.
CHAPTER VI
LONDON
THE decade of the fifties was with Mr. Martineau a period
of great literary activity, and in it he brought forth some
of the noblest of his essays. The papers on Hamilton,
Mill, Mansel, Comte, Lessing, Schleiermacher, the remark-
able paper on Personal Influences on Present Theology,
were all within this period. He wrote for the National
Review, the Prospective, and the Westminster, commonly
three or four papers yearly, elaborate and brilliant discus-
sions of great problems of thought. This writing alone
would seem task sufficient for high talent when ordinarily
industrious. In his case it was the by-play of one who
kept regular appointment with the pulpit and the pro-
fessor's chair.
As has often been the case with distinguished English
men of letters, he won his first more emphatic recognition
in America. In 1852 Crosby and Nichols of Boston
brought out a volume of his essays with the title of Mis-
cellanies, under the editorial care of Thomas Starr King.
In 1858 the American Unitarian Association brought out
another and fuller volume entitled Studies of Christianity,
edited by William R. Alger. A little later he was invited
to visit Boston and give a course of lectures before the
Lowell Institute, and had he come these profound and
brilliant books would have prepared for him a flattering
welcome. He gave the invitation a favorable answer; but
the first interest of our people was drafted into the stern
LONDON 89
issues of the Civil War, Mr. Martineau, like many another
Englishman, was of South-side sympathy, and the engage-
ment was postponed to another day that never dawned.
There came a change. University College had been
established in London on that broad principle of " free
learning " which Manchester New College had struggled
so long and so heroically to make secure. To a cer-
tain extent the two institutions became competitors, and
Manchester New College suffered from the competition.
Lay students were attracted to the younger and better
equipped institution. The decision was made to make
the rival an ally; and in 1853 Manchester New College
was moved to London. She here gave up in the main
her secular courses, for which the confederate institution
could the better care, and confined herself to theology and
allied studies.
This change brought extra tax upon Mr. Martineau.
Manchester was one hour from Liverpool; London was
six hours ; and this long journey must be taken to keep
appointment with his classes. He was obliged to make
longer and less frequent visits, compressing into a day
or two days work that would better have been distributed
through four or five. Of course the arrangement was
wearisome and unsatisfactory.
For four years, however, it continued, until 1857, when
he was invited to come to London and devote all his time
to the College. The invitation was accepted ; and the
relations with his church, which twenty-five years of faith-
ful toil had consecrated, were sundered. On the second of
August he gave his parting sermon, in which he told his
people that the one deep faith that had determined his
word and work among them was the " living union of God
with our Humanity." This further passage for its touch of
mental history should be quoted : " Long did this faith
pine obscurely within me, ere it could find its way to any
90 JAMES MARTINEAU
clear joy. It was not enough for me that God should,
as they say, 'exist;' it was needful to have assurance
that he lives. It was a poor thought that he was the be-
ginning of all, if he stood aloof from it in its constancy. It
withered the inmost heart to believe that he dwelt and
never stirred in the universal space, and delegated all
to inexorable ' Laws ; ' laws that could never hear the
most piercing shriek, and looked with stony eyes on the
upturned face of agony. It seemed to stain the very
heaven to charge him with the origin of human guilt, and
represents him as first moulding men into sin, and then
punishing them out of it. A mere constructing and legis-
lating God, satisfied to adjust ' co-existences ' and estab-
lish * successions ; ' who filled the cold sky, and brooded
over the waste sea, and watched upon the mountain-
head, and embraced the waxing and waning moon, and
suffered the tide of history to sweep through him without
heeding its most passionate and surging waves ; a God
who wrung from us a thousand sighs that never touched
him, who broke us in remorse for ills that are not ours,
who drew to him, day and night without ceasing, moans of
prayer he never answered ; such a One it was a vain
attempt really to trust and love. At times the faith in him
appeared but to turn the darkness of atheism into flame ;
and, in its light, the face of this blessed life and universe
lost its fostering look, and seemed twisted into an Almighty
sarcasm. Nor could I ever feel that the permanent
stillness and personal inaccessibility of God was at all com-
pensated by exceptional miracle. An occasional ' message '
rather serves to render more sensible and undeniable the
usual absence and silence ; nor can the ' sender ' well say
to his servant, ' You go there ' without implying, ' I stay
here.' Merely to fling in to the Deist's ' God of nature '
an historical fragment of miracle does little to meet the
exigencies of human piety. It is not ' once upon a time/
LONDON 91
it is not ' now and then,' nor is it on the theatre of
another's life to the exclusion of our own, that we sigh
to escape from the bound movements of nature into the
free heart of God. We pine as prisoners, till we burst
into the air of that supernatural life which He lives eter-
nally : we are parched with a holy thirst, till we find con-
tact with the running waters of his quick affection. Him
immediately ; him in person ; him in whispers of the day,
and eye to eye by night ; him for a close refuge in temp-
tation, not as a large thought of ours but as an Almighti-
ness in himself; him ready with his moistening dews for
the dry heart, and his breathings of hope for the sorrow-
ing ; him always and everywhere living for our holy trust,
do we absolutely need for our repose, and wildly wander
till we find." 1
The invitation to move to London was attended by an
incident that should not be passed unnoticed. English
Unitarianism was then, as ever, of old school and new ; and
at the head of the College was John James Tayler. Against
Mr. Tayler it was possible to allege a wide departure from
Orthodox opinion ; but even theological animosity could do
no more. His learning was large, his insight profound, his
candor unflinching. Few have ever met their fellow-men
with gentler spirit or looked to God in sincerer worship.
At this time he had not written in support of the Tu-
bingen view of the Fourth Gospel, but he was known to be
in sympathy with German culture, and through him more,
perhaps, than through any other man was the influence of
Germany being felt in the liberal churches of England.
In fact, while as a worshipper he was of all schools, as a
scholar and thinker he was emphatically of the new.
Mr. Martineau was of the new school also, and known of
all men to be so ; hence an old-school panic. By the
side of such a man as Mr. Tayler shall we place such a
1 Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. iv. pp. 516-517.
92 JAMES MARTINEAU
man as Mr. Martineau? Will it not be giving to new-
school opinions too preponderant an influence? Should
not Mr. Tayler be counterpoised by a representative of
less radical views? In pursuance of this feeling a protest
was circulated against Mr. Martineau's appointment. It
was signed numerously and by some of the best of men,
friends and even relatives of Mr. Martineau, who knew the
difference between truth and affection, and could be faithful
to both without confounding their offices. Indeed, if we may
judge from the prints of the time, a considerable feeling
was stirred, and the measure of Mr. Martineau's departure
from the standards of orthodox Unitarianism was freely
and even earnestly canvassed. The flurry passed like a
summer squall, after which all nature beams again.
Though the beginning of Mr. Martineau's connection
with the College in London was not free from anxiety, yet
on the whole his relations with it were exceedingly pleas-
ant. At its head and in the chair of Biblical and Historical
Theology was one of the most personal of his personal
friends, a brother of his heart; in the chair of Hebrew
Language and Literature was his own gifted son. Happy
the council of wisdom to which affection brings a grace !
The number of students was not large, in fact it was
very small. The catalogue, however, of those years bears
names that have since been widely mentioned, among them
Alexander Gordon, R. A. Armstrong, J. Estlin Carpenter,
Philip H. Wicksteed, men who must have met him with
receptive and appreciative mind. In the work of instruc-
tion it was his custom to begin in Ethics with annotating
Paley and Butler ; and where lay the emphasis of his dis-
sent from the one and of approval of the other, it is not
difficult to divine. For more advanced students he wrote
elaborate courses, blending a discussion of principles with
an account of systems that stood for them ; in which who
will may see the incipient form of the great Types of Ethical
LONDON 93
Theory. In the Philosophy of Religion it is easy to divine
what the instruction was from the mighty Study of Religion
it grew into. His lectures were revised and revised so as
to give due recognition to the last discovery and the latest
thought.
In logic he did not give himself the like laborious prep-
aration. Here text-books would serve him. He used not
one but many, Hamilton, Mill, Mansel, Bain, that the
student from " familiarity with several nomenclatures might
be the slave of none." 1 For its great value as discipline he
brought his classes to the page of Aristotle.
Some of his pupils tell with special satisfaction of read-
ings with him from the Greek, mainly, if not wholly, of
Plato. It was an informal exercise, and for that reason the
more enjoyed. They tell of an accurate yet poetic ren-
dering, and a fine classical appreciation.
His lectures were read slowly, so that a student with
nimble fingers might take them very nearly as given. His
manner was grave and unimpassioned ; where great themes
are discussed before an audience of four or five the word
of wisdom may be spoken, but eloquence would look
quite foolish on the wing.
Yet another period of service as a minister was before
him. In 1858 Edward Taggart, for thirty years the min-
ister in Little Portland Street Chapel, died. Little Portland
Street Chapel, under his ministry, had stood for the older
and more dogmatic type of Unitarianism ; and the action
of the congregation at this juncture was a matter of denom-
inational surprise. The two men who more than any others
in England represented the newer and more elastic views
were J. J. Tayler and Mr. Martineau ; and to each the pul-
pit was offered. Neither, however, in connection with col-
lege duties was willing to undertake it alone ; and so both
were called to a joint pulpit service. In the terms of
1 Charles Wicksteed.
94 JAMES MARTINEAU
settlement there was the stipulation that there should be
expected of them no pastoral labors.
Little Portland Street Chapel should satisfy the most
austere demands for modesty and simplicity. As one
measures it with the eye, five hundred should fill it, and it
is plain almost to rudeness. When, however, one might
be sure of finding Mr. Tayler or Mr. Martineau in the
pulpit, there was no question where in London the largest
and loftiest word would be spoken ; and those seeking this,
in indifference to any standard of faith, were apt to find
their way thither. They came from far, not the many but
the chosen. Unitarianism, however, is not a favored faith in
London, and the great word without popular accessories
draws the masses nowhere. Mr. Tayler with his great intel-
lect and great soul had yet a feeble voice ; Mr. Martineau had
voice enough, but in his utterance there was no declamation;
and it required the alert intellect to keep pace with him.
It was, however, a remarkable audience. Not unnaturally
the students of the College came to hear their professors ;
in one part of the assembly sat Charles Dickens ; in another
Frances Power Cobbe, who found the place with all its bald-
ness a fitting one " for serious people to meet to think in ; "
in yet another Sir Charles Lyell, who spoke with bitterness
of the place where England hid her greatest preacher ; and
withal there was a very plentiful sprinkling of those toiling
at the higher tasks of thought and learning.
This arrangement continued till 1869, when Mr. Tayler
died. Mr. Martineau succeeded to his place as Principal
of the College, and at the same time took the pulpit charge
alone. In the two offices he continued till 1872, when,
from the strain of unrelaxing labor, his health was begin-
ning to give way ; and he laid down the pulpit burden.
During the sixties and seventies the busy pen toiled on
as heretofore, and many a page of the National and the
Theological reviews he ennobled and adorned. In 1860
LONDON 95
came the splendid paper on Nature and God, also a search-
ing review of Bain's Cerebral Psychology. In 1862 he
published the tremendous paper on Science, Nescience, and
Faith, a challenge of certain aspects of the philosophy of
Evolution, as presented in the newly published First Prin-
ciples. In 1863 he put forth a critique of Kenan's Vie de
Je"sus, in which we meet the first distinct avowal of his
affiliation with Tubingen. During this and the following
year he printed two papers on Early Messianic Ideas,
which the reader will find profit in comparing with his
treatment of the same theme in the Seat of Authority.
In 1866 and 1867 W. V. Spencer of Boston brought out
two volumes of Mr. Martineau's magazine papers under
the title of Essays, Theological and Philosophical. These
won, from thinkers of all ranks, a grateful recognition.
The subject of Hymnology was ever near his mind ; and
in 1874 he brought out another hymn-book under the title
of Hymns of Praise and Prayer. His mind had undergone
many changes in the thirty-four years since the last hymn-
book was published, and Hymnology had been enriched by
the writing of many hymns of great value. The new book
was the old one revised to date by excisions and additions.
In the English Unitarian churches it had mainly the old
one to supplant, which it has very largely done, but not en-
tirely. In 1876 he published the first series of Hoitrs of
Thought on Sacred Things, and in 1879 the second series.
These are collections of sermons of his later years, not
stronger than those in the volumes of Endeavors, but riper,
and surpassing them in mystic glow. In 1882 came the
volume on Spinoza, embracing the pleasantest account of
his life and the toughest analysis of his doctrine.
It was his biennial wont to open the college year with
an address to the students and alumni and friends. The
address opening the session of 1874 was notable both for
itself and what followed it. His subject was Religion as
96" JAMES MARTINEAU
Affected by Modern Materialism; and his treatment of it
embraced a review of certain evolutionary doctrines then
much in vogue. His strictures upon these doctrines were
weighty, and Professor Tyndall, knight ever ready to do
battle for his faith, took up the gauntlet. It was a con-
flict of the bull and the steam-engine : the engine the same
after as before, the bull nowhere in particular. Mr. Mar-
tineau's reply, under the subject of Modern Materialism:
its Attitude towards Theology, was a smiling annihilation.
To follow his career in close detail is perhaps not de-
sirable. One day at the College was much like another ;
the occasional address or essay was but a variation of a
familiar nobleness ; his domestic peace and social intima-
cies were too beautiful to be eventful.
In the main, his days passed in quiet joys and ennobling
labors. In 1866, however, he became the centre of a con-
tention which was earnest, and not unattended with ill
feeling. The chair of Logic and Mental Philosophy in
University College was made vacant, and Mr. Martineau
was put in nomination for the place. The professorial
body, the senate of the College, were unanimous in his
favor; and with their indorsement his name went to the
Council, with whom was the final decision. Here opposi-
tion was encountered, led by none other than George Grote.
Nobody questioned Mr. Martineau's ample attainments ;
and no one would more surely than he have restricted
himself to his appointed tasks, and held aloof from his
lecture-room all themes that were irrelevant. There are
names, however, that are a red flag in themselves, and Mr.
Martineau's in this issue was such. University College
was founded on a secular basis; Mr. Martineau was a
theologian, bearing a very active part in a theological
institution; he was also a pronounced and influential
Unitarian. Neither nor both these objections could satisfy
pure reason; but the latter alone was enough to satisfy
LONDON 97
a theological, the former an anti-theological^ antipathy;
and both were here. Mr. Martineau's friends urged that
the principle of secularization did not require that a man
be held disqualified for the position because of his the-
ology, but that he should receive appointment without
regard to it; nay, that to deny appointment because of
one's religious faith was to set aside that principle. The
point was well taken ; but Mr. Grote wanted no theologian,
and there were others who wanted no Unitarian, who felt
that Unitarian influence in the College was already suffi-
ciently great, or who feared that the appointment of a
Unitarian so prominent as Mr. Martineau would be the
occasion of popular suspicion from which the College
would suffer. The debate was taken up by the press, and
language was used too emphatic to be inoffensive. Some
of the best men in England were on Mr. Martineau's side,
among them Mr. Gladstone. In the Council the vote was
a tie, and the issue was decided against Mr. Martineau by
the chairman. In indignation at the result, one of the
most distinguished professors in the College, Mr. De
Morgan, threw up his position.
The position of itself was not one for which Mr. Marti-
neau could have greatly cared ; it would have added little
to his income and nothing to his honor. The loss was
clearly with the institution whose custodians had denied to
it his splendid powers. That the contest, however, gave
him a transitory pain there is reason to believe ; and not
unlikely, with him as with so many others, the keener re-
gret was that an institution so great should have so failed
of the nobler standard.
A little later, in 1869, Mr. Martineau had a good deal
to do with the formation of a Metaphysical Club which
gained a wide celebrity. The origin of the Club is inter-
esting. The plan seems originally to have arisen in the
mind of Tennyson, though it owed much to the further-
7
98 JAMES MARTINEAU
ance of Mr. Knowles, editor of the Nineteenth Century}
Its purpose, as originally conceived, was to combat agnos-
ticism. Several had been found willing to join it, among
them Archbishop, afterwards Cardinal, Manning, when Mr.
Martineau was invited. Looking into the plan, he de-
murred. He was willing to join a club to combat agnos-
ticism, but it must not exclude agnostics whose doctrines
were to be combated. He would meet them in a tourna-
ment of thought, knight against knight, but on no other
plan could the Club interest him.
This revision of the plan seemed at first impracticable.
As it was mentioned abroad, however, it met a favorable
response, and on this basis the Club was founded. It was
a society of leading metaphysicians, theologians, scientists,
and men of literary pursuits, selected without respect to
philosophical or theological bias. Archbishop Manning
was of it ; also the Archbishop of York, and the Bishops
of Bristol and Peterborough. Professor Maurice was of
the number, and Dean Stanley, likewise Sir John Lubbock,
William B. Carpenter, Thomas Huxley, Professor Clifford,
Frederic Harrison, with many others of not less celebrity.
1 Of this Club Mr. Martineau wrote Mr. Alger, November 25, 1869 : " A
project, suggested I believe by Mr. Tennyson, has been started here, of a Meta-
physical Society for the thorough discussion of the ultimate grounds of in-
tellectual, moral, and religious belief. The scheme originated in a desire to
bring together from different sides the scattered representatives of a theisti-
cal philosophy, and present a strong front of resistance to the advance of
Positivism and the dogmatic Materialism of the newer science. On being
asked to join, I urged the absolute reciprocity of inviting the heads of the
negative party into the Society from the very first, and making the Society
unreservedly one of philosophical search, for patient and impartial com-
parison of ideas among differing equals. This principle has been adopted,
and Mill, Bain, and Tyndall have been asked to join, with what result I
have not yet heard. Already Tennyson, Browning, Archbishop Manning,
Ward [Ultramontane editor of the Dublin Rez'iew], Dean Stanley, F. D.
Maurice, R. H. Hutton, Sir John Lubbock, Knowles [author of the King
Arthur legend, and friend of Tennyson], and, I believe, the Archbishop of
York, Dean Mansel, and the Duke of Argyll have given in their adhesion."
LONDON 99
These representatives of most diverse schools of thought
became friendly and even sympathetic. "This," writes
Professor Huxley, " was a great surprise. We thought at
first it would be a case of Kilkenny cats. Hats and coats
would be left in the hall before the meeting, but there
would be no wearers left after it was over, to put them on
again. Instead we came to love each other like brothers.
We all expended so much charity that had it been money
we should have been bankrupt." The same picturesque
pen also describes the society as " that singularly rudder-
less ship, the stalwart oarsmen of which were mostly en-
gaged in pulling as hard as they could against one another,
and which consequently performed only circular voyages
all the years of its commission."
The earliest meeting of the Club was June 2, 1869, and
the last, May 12, 1880. After the first year they met
quite regularly once a month; August, September, and
October being always excepted. A dinner was served ; a
short paper was read, which was then made a bull's-eye
for target-practice. Some of the subjects are suggestive.
Professor Carpenter presents the Common-Sense View of
Causation ; Professor Huxley, the Views of Htune, Kant,
and Whately upon the Logical Basis of the Immortality of
the Soul ; also another paper in which he raises the ques-
tion whether the Frog has a Soul. Mr. Martineau brings
inquiry whether there is an Axiom of Causality. Mr.
Harrison discusses the Relativity of Knowledge; Mr.
Froude, Evidence; Mr. Clifford, the Scientific Basis of
Morality. Professor Huxley rises again to present his
views as to the Evidence of the Miracle of the Resurrection.
Mr. Harrison and Cardinal Manning both offer papers on
The Soul before and after Death. Such are samples of
the setting forth at this feast of reason.
Academic honors were slow in coming, but they came.
In 1872 Harvard University crowned him with an LL.D.
100 JAMES MARTINEAU
In 1874 the University at Leyden gave him an S.T.D.
Somewhat later Edinburgh made him a D.D. Later still
Oxford honored him with a D.C.L. Last of all Dublin
University conferred upon him a Litt.D. Honors enough
surely to satisfy a reasonable ambition; and, if late in
coming, they were the more indisputably earned.
In 1872 there came to him another testimonial, which,
if not adding to the laurels of the scholar, was most
gratifying to the man. At the close of the college session,
as he was about leaving London, an interview was sought
with him, and, after a little explanation, a cheque for 5000
guineas was placed in his hand, with the intimation that
there was more to come. The sums that flowed in later
swelled the amount to ^5900. With his approval, a por-
tion of this was devoted to the purchase of two pieces of
silver plate for domestic use. On these was inscribed the
following memorial:
PRESENTED
WITH
FIVE THOUSAND GUINEAS
TO THE
REVEREND JAMES MARTINEAU
BY A LARGE NUMBER OF
HIS ENGLISH FRIENDS
AS A
MEMORIAL OF PERSONAL AFFECTION
AND IN
GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF HIS SERVICES
IN THE MAINTENANCE OF
SPIRITUAL FREEDOM,
IN THE PROMOTION OF
CHRISTIAN TRUTH,
AND IN THE INCULCATION OF THAT
PURE MORALITY
WHICH IS THE FOUNDATION OF
PRIVATE AND PUBLIC VIRTUE
AND THE SAFEGUARD OF
NATIONAL LIBERTY.
JUNE, 1872.
LONDON IOI
Accompanying the gift was an address from which I
quote the following: "Originating in a desire that the
shortcomings of the past may be repaired, however in-
adequately, in the case of one distinguished example of
the material injustice usually sustained in England by the
instructors of the intellect, and especially by men who
become pioneers and leaders of thought and opinion, this
movement nevertheless owes its force to mingled motives
of gratitude, respect, and admiration. Some of the con-
tributors belong to a generation older than your own, . . .
many among them are your contemporaries; who have
striven hard to keep near you in the struggle of Endeavor
after the Christian Life, in which you have helped and led
them."
To this Mr. Martineau replied: " You speak of mingled
motives of this splendid gift. So far as it springs from
personal friendship and generous affection it can bring me,
however J may wonder at it, only the sincerest joy. But
to accept it as an arrears of justice over-due would be to
charge a wrong upon the past which I can in no way own.
Far from having any claim to plead, I am conscious that,
in account of services exchanged, I am debtor to the
world, and not the world to me ; and am half ashamed
to have escaped so many of the privations on which I
reckoned when I quitted a secular profession for the
Christian ministry. My deepest disappointment has been
from myself and not from others, from whose hands I have
suffered no grievance I did not deserve, and received kind-
ness far beyond the measure of my boldest hopes. Who-
ever dedicates himself to bear witness to divine things is
the least consistent of men, if he does not lay his account
for a modest scale of outward life, and a frequent conflict
with resisting interests and opinions. Such incidents of
wholesome difficulty attending the study and exposition
of moral and religious truth are an essential guarantee that
IO2 JAMES MARTINEAU
its service shall be one of disinterested love." Wholesome
words these, which it may not be in vain to commend to
the whiners over the ingratitude of the world ! A little
later, on his retirement from the Little Portland Street
Chapel, the flock to whom he had ministered presented
him the sum of ^3500, likewise a testimonial of "grati-
tude, respect, and admiration."
The ebbing strength, because of which he gave up the
pulpit, did not speedily flood again; and as the years
advanced, his friends became anxious respecting him.
Still he kept to his appointed tasks, but the old vigor and
spirit were not there. The cause may have been in part
within himself, but it was more in a shadow that was hover-
ing near, and a chilling anxiety and sorrow it was casting
on his heart. The fact was that the companion of these
many years, the sympathizer in his struggles, the com-
forter of his pains, and the sharer of his joys, was fading
before him. At length, in 1877, after a lingering malady,
she died.
After her death health gradually came back to him,
seeming to show that by taxing his sympathies she was
drawing him after her. For eight years more he held to
his customary routine. At length eighteen hundred and
eighty-five had come ; the sands of eighty years were run
down.
In full vigor of health and intellect, he yet realized that
the octogenarian is not a young man ; the feeling, too,
pleaded persuasively within him that the time yet allowed
him could be none too much to put in order the results of
his long years of study. That year brought out one of the
greatest of his works, the Types of Ethical Theory ; but
there were yet other tasks that required his undistracted
attention. He, therefore, signified to the trustees of the
College that at the end of the college year he should
resign.
LONDON IO3
The announcement was not unexpected, yet regret was
profound. For forty-five years he had given the institu-
tion the most faithful toil; it had been uplifted by his
genius; it had become famous through his fame. All
recognized the reason for his action, and, without vain
remonstrance, yielded to a decision which must be " wise
because it was his." One thing they would fain do : his
name, even without his official service, was valuable ; they
would retain him as their Principal, yet relieve him of all
toil and responsibility, a proposition to which he would
not for a moment listen. He suffered himself, however, to
be made president of the board of directors, in which
capacity he served for three years.
Accordingly, at the close of the college year, the last
of the following June, he laid down his office. The stu-
dents' dinner was made an occasion of which the chil-
dren of the young men present will surely tell the story.
Various speeches were made, bearing testimony to Mr.
Martineau's long and inestimable service to the College
and to the faith. A letter was handed him, signed by a
large number of his former pupils, testifying their gratitude
and affection. As is not known to all, there is a consider-
able Unitarian body in Hungary with an Episcopal organi-
zation. From this came a most appreciative address,
signed by their bishop. In it was this touching sentence :
" Your greatness is great because you were great in little
things." He also received an address from several former
students from Hungary who had been in attendance at the
College.
The address of Mr. Martineau on this occasion, evidently
impromptu, was one of great tenderness and beauty. He
spoke humorously of his long connection with the College ;
he went back to his own education and marked the many
changes that the years had wrought; he compared the
earlier with the more modern methods of education, in a
104 JAMES MARTINEAU
vein of smiling disapproval of some aspects of latter-day
improvement. At length he got to himself, and thus
poured out his heart :
" Though I speak no more within the old lecture halls, I
carry away with me a garland of hope that will never fade ;
and when I count the group which I trust to rejoin, not
of parents, brethren, children only, but the guides and
quickeners of a later spiritual life ; Henry Turner, whose
death was my conversion, and sent me into the Christian
ministry; my fellow students, Franklin Haworth, John
Hugh Worthington, Francis Darbishire, bound to me in
common vows of duty and devotion ; the venerated John
Kenrick, who alone of my teachers lived on into my ma-
turest reverence; Samuel Dunkinfield Darbishire, whose
Grecian calm, like a lake sleeping on a volcanic bed,
covered the ignes snppositos of a noble enthusiasm ; my
predecessor, John James Tayler, in whom the amplest
learning was steeped in purest sympathy, and held in de-
vout simplicity; with others no less congenially present
in that sacred light ; death softens the shadows of its
partings here, and meets me with a mild countenance
of welcome.
" But meanwhile, I have not yet quite done with the
world, or lost one jot of my interest in its persons and
affairs. Nor do I wish to turn the remainder of my days
into a siesta or a holiday. That, indeed, would be but a
graceless return for immunity from the infirmities of age ;
the strength unspent it would be unfaithful to leave idle or
unused. Some feeling of this kind, at least, it is that com-
mends to me Cicero's advice, Resistendum est senectnti,
resist it, that is, not with rebel pride as against a wrong,
but with delayed acceptance of a privilege. Welcome the
disability of age, when come it must, but do not invite it
by a lazy will."
To the Consistory of Hungarian Unitarians he wrote a
LONDON 105
touching reply. Speaking of the profound impression
made by their address upon the audience, he goes on to
say : " If this was the feeling of an audience personally
unconcerned, how much more deeply moved must I have
been, to whom your words of tender greeting and benedic-
tion were addressed. I thank you for them with all the
fervor of a heart which age has not yet chilled, and with
the surprise of one who has earned no such distinguished
recognition at your hands.
" True it is that from youth the history of your venerable
Church has attracted me with all the interest of romance,
and served as a favorite example of reverent freedom and
heroic conscience, upheld and blended in the love of God.
But in thus directing my admiring gaze to the far East of
Europe, little did I dream that my look thitherward would
ever be returned, and that you would find out and meet
the quiet eye that wondered at your past and watched
your present life.
" It is without anxiety, therefore, that I quit the stress of
life and turn to the few possibilities that await my finish-
ing hand. That they are small and final brings me no
sadness. The merest remnants of the ' Great Taskmaster's '
service are sacred, like the rest, and may still be wrought
out in love and prayer."
To the group of Hungarian students he wrote : "Towards
all other doctrines of the schools I have honestly tried
to maintain the expositor's attitude of impartial sus-
pense, till a position has been gained for final, critical
judgment. But one thing I have deemed it imperative
to assume and hold exempt from doubt, viz., that Truth
is to be found, and that the instinctive prayer of the human
soul for vision is not itself the only gleam in an Eternal
darkness. Intellect itself would be an illusion, unless the
faculty to seek were the pledge and measure of the
faculty to learn, and in the catechism of the Reason no
106 JAMES MARTINEAU
question stood without an answer. . . . The faith which,
as prior to all reasoning, no reasoning can impair, is the
condition of all intellectual enthusiasm. . . .
" What can I add but an old man's blessing? My sym-
pathy is with you all ; your callings are without exception
worthy and noble ; though of deepest interest to me, from
personal experience, is the mission of those who bear the
message of Christ to men. His faith, his love, his self-
sacrifice, his life eternal, are to me the sanctifying crown of
all philosophy, the secret of union with God for the indi-
vidual soul, and the hope of redemption from the sins and
sorrows of mankind. My race is nearly run; the fire
given me to bear flickers between dark and light ; but if,
ere its last spark drops into the stream, it should have
sufficed to kindle any torch of yours, and send it aglow
through its appointed stage, the prayer of my heart will be
fulfilled, though my name should but touch the water with
that momentary trace to be seen no more."
Thus answering applause with benediction, he laid down
his academic toils.
CHAPTER VII
LATER PUBLICATIONS; A REMARKABLE TESTIMONIAL
WE have noticed, as our narrative has brought us to them,
his various books : the Rationale of Religious Inquiry, his
hymn-books, the Endeavors after the Christian Life, the
three collections of essays brought out by American pub-
lishers, the two volumes of Hours of Thought on Sacred
Things, the Study of Spinoza. These in their appearance
belong to the period of his activity, all noble and useful,
yet none except the Spinoza representing long-sustained
and elaborate work. They were fruits wanting nothing of
ripeness, but dropped from the tree in advance of the har-
vest. With these alone he had been known abroad as the
noblest of preachers, the most studious of hymnologists,
the most incisive of critics ; but, save within the favored
circle of his immediate acquaintance, he had not been
known for the vast range of his scholarship and his great
powers of thought. The harvest through which these
were to be made known, was for the period of his retire-
ment. It began with the publication of the Types of
Ethical Theory, which was in 1885, and very nearly syn-
chronous with his sundering of his college relations.
The work was brought out by the Clarendon Press in
two heavy volumes, and at once drew attention as a great
contribution to ethical thought. Considered not as a sys-
tem but with reference to its scholarship and range, the
century has hardly produced another ethical treatise that
is its equivalent. As a preparation for dealing with the
108 JAMES MARTINEAU
great ethical problems, there is probably no better work
in the English tongue than this, and its publication placed
him in the front rank of moral philosophers.
It is the work of many years ; in the main it had been
proved in the college lecture-room, and that year after
year, its judgments tested, its learning enriched, its
statements chastened. While its logic is the severest, yet
on every page it glows with ethical enthusiasm. Then its
scope ! Of course it presents Dr. Martineau's own ethical
doctrine; but this in relation with many other doctrines,
and all in one vast organism of thought. His primary
classification shows ethical systems to take their origin
from the study of the universe or from the study of man.
He first deals with those drawn from the study of the uni-
verse. These he distinguishes as Physical or Metaphysical,
according as they build upon the outward and phenomenal
aspect of the universe or the metaphysical and real. Of
the former, or Physical type of doctrine, he finds a con-
sistent representative in Auguste Comte, and devotes to
him a searching and copious page. The latter, or Meta-
physical type, he finds divided into two branches, accord-
ing as man is conceived as a pre-existent entity, or as a
modal presentation of the Eternal Essence and Only
Reality. The first of these he distinguishes as Transcen-
dental, the second as Immanential. The Transcendental
type of doctrine, Plato by his genius has for all time
stamped as his own ; and to his teaching Dr. Martineau
devotes an exhaustive exposition. The Immanential, of
course, takes us to Spinoza. Spinoza's roots, however,
are in the movement of thought he brought to a conclu-
sion, and so the better to exhibit him the great Cartesians
are severally reviewed. This section is not easy reading,
but he who masters it has made his own, not only the
ethical outcome of the doctrine, but the cardinal features
of the Cartesian philosophy.
LATER PUBLICATIONS J A REMARKABLE TESTIMONIAL 1 09
To these types of doctrine, the Physical and the Meta-
physical, the first volume is devoted. Its aim is to show
that, making the point of departure some aspect of the
universe, no satisfactory ethic can be won.
With the second volume he changes his point of depart-
ure ; instead of an aspect of the universe he begins with the
study of man ; and here we are introduced to a system of
intuitive doctrine which is Mr. Martineau's own. Of the
wealth of thought and the sustained eloquence of this sec-
tion of his work it were vain to attempt to tell. It is not
merely a thinker's conclusion; it is a prophet's burden.
Completing his exposition, he passes critically upon mod-
ern systems of Hedonistic and Utilitarian doctrine, espe-
cially as set forth by Bentham and Mill and Spencer ; and
these great thinkers were perhaps never brought to a more
searching arraignment These, too, take their departure
from man ; but instead of recognizing in the " springs of
action" a guiding principle, as Conscience, they put all
these " springs " under the rule of one dominant end, which
is Pleasure or Utility. His doctrine is strictly Psychologi-
cal, theirs he distinguishes as Hetero-psychological ; and
in his struggle with them he fights the good fight for
the Sovereign whose voice he hears within him. But
the Hedonistic and Utilitarian are not the only forms of
Hetero-psychological doctrine; there is the Dianoetic
doctrine of Cudworth and Clarke and Price, and the
Esthetic doctrine of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson ; and to
these he devotes the last quarter of the volume. Such is
the scope of this great work. In this vast tract of dis-
cussion there is hardly an important phase of ethical
theory, whether of the ancient schools or the modern ones,
if we may except the Hegelian, which is not exhibited
either directly or by implication. To know this work is
to know ethical philosophy, as it can be learned probably
from no other single treatise.
110 JAMES MARTINEAU
The preface to this work has attracted special interest
for a passage or two of mental history which it contains,
and in which the general bearing of the work is incidentally
shown. " When," says he, " I first woke up, before and
during my College life, to the interest of moral and meta-
physical speculations, I carried into them, from previous
training for the profession of civil engineer, a store of ex-
clusively scientific conceptions, rendered familiar in the
elementary study of mathematics, mechanics, and chem-
istry. Small as it was, it was my all, and necessarily dic-
tated the only rules of judgment which I could apply. I
had nothing to take with me into logical and ethical prob-
lems but the maxims and postulates of physical knowledge ;
and as the instructions of the philosophical classroom, ex-
cellent of their kind, moved strictly within the same limits,
I was inevitably shut up in the habit of interpreting the
human phenomena by the analogy of external nature.
Steeped in the ' empirical ' and ' necessarian ' mode of
thought, I served out successive terms of willing captivity
to Locke and Hartley, to Collins, Edwards, and Priestley,
to Bentham and James Mill ; and though at times I was
driven to disaffection by the dogmatism and acrid humours
of the last two of these philosophers, my allegiance
was restored and brightened by literary and personal
relations with the younger Mill. His vast knowledge, his
intellectual conscientiousness, his analytical skill, his sin-
cere humanity, presented the excellences of his school in
so finished a form as to proclaim him its undisputed cory-
phaeus, and reanimate the confidence of its disciples."
A little further on he writes : " It was the irresistible
pleading of the moral consciousness which first drove me
to rebel against the limits of the merely scientific concep-
tion. It became incredible to me that nothing was pos-
sible except the actual; and the naturalistic uniformity
could no longer escape some breach in its closed barrier
LATER PUBLICATIONS ; A REMARKABLE TESTIMONIAL 1 1 1
to make room for the ethical alternative. The secret mis-
givings which I had always felt at either discarding or
perverting the terms which constitute the vocabulary of
character ' responsibility/ ' guilt,' ' merit,' ' duty '
came to a head, and insisted upon speaking out and
being heard ; and to their reiterated question, ' Is there
then no ought to be other than what is?' I found the
negative answer of Diderot intolerable, and all other
answer impossible. This involved a surrender of deter-
minism, and a revision of the doctrine of causation : or
rather, I should say, a recall of the outlawed causes from
their banishment and degradation to the rank of antece-
dents ; and constituted therefore a retrograde movement
on the line of Comte's law, back from physics to meta-
physics ; terminating in the definition that a cause is that
which determines the indeterminate." The full signifi-
cance of this transition even these two great volumes are
not enough to show.
In his letter to the Consistory of Hungarian Unitarians, he
spoke of the " small and final " " possibilities " that awaited
his " finishing hand." Can it be possible that in these
terms he refers to the Study of Religion ? This was the
next work, and appeared in two volumes in 1888. It was
welcomed by leaders of all schools of religious thought as
one of the mightiest defences of fundamental truth. As
the Types of Ethical Theory brought him to a leading
place among Moral Philosophers, so this placed him in
the foremost rank of Philosophers of Religion. In the
main, it is laborious reading; there are portions of it over
which even the trained student must linger, and sometimes
long. The statement lacks nothing of clearness ; illustra-
tion is felicitous ; but the severities of style, the profound
analyses, the deep insights, the vast marshalling of knowl-
edge, impose exactions which only the alert and patient
intellect can meet.
112 * JAMES MARTINEAU
To give a detailed account of the work in a notice so
brief is, of course, impossible. It traverses the great
themes with which the Philosophy of Religion must deal,
Knowledge, Cause, the Intellectual and Moral Aspects
of the Universe, Personality, Pantheism, Freedom, Immor-
tality, with a scope too large and a presentation too
deep for brief and intelligible summary. There is, how-
ever, a brief section of the work in which the spirit and
general philosophy of the whole are compressed, and
from which a few quotations may be made; and that is
the invaluable Introduction, by common consent one of
the most eloquent passages of all his writings.
He begins by defining Religion as " belief in an Ever-
living God, that is, a Divine Mind and Will ruling the
Universe and holding Moral relations with mankind."
It is, he tells us, " at once a mode of thought and a mode
of feeling; nor does it matter to their indissoluble union
which of the two you put into the prior place ; whether
you trust first the instinct of intuitive reverence, and see
the reality of God emerge as its postulate; or whether,
having intellectually judged that He is there, you sur-
render yourself to the awe and love of that infinite pres-
ence. These intense affections, rich in elements of wonder,
admiration, reverence, culminate in worship ; and, break-
ing thus into visible expression, reveal to others the
invisible faith to which they inseparably belong. It is
only our artificial analysis that separates the two, and
insists on calling the intellectual side of the fact a theology,
the affectional a religion." 1
An Ever-living God, a Divine Mind and Will ! a Personal
Creator and Ruler ! for the validity of this conception,
and its supreme significance in any religion worthy the
name, he rises to the great argument.
The conception is an old one, it is the widely prevalent
LATER PUBLICATIONS ; A REMARKABLE TESTIMONIAL 113
one ; but it has been fiercely challenged in recent years,
and its absolute importance to religion has been called in
question by men held great and wise. Among these is J.
R. Seeley, who in his Natural Religion, " waters " Religion
down to " habitual and permanent admiration" Consist-
ently with this definition he makes devotion to art or
science or letters or morals a form of Religion, though in
the outlook upon the universe there be recognized only
the "sequences" and "coexistences" of phenomena, no
Causal Intelligence being discerned within them or behind
them. This devotion he dignifies with the name of Theism.
To a man of science to whom, as to Comte and Laplace,
the " cosmos is all in all," God is a " synonym for nature ; "
and, contemplating it, he is as if in the " presence of an in-
finite and eternal being." This extraordinary " watering
down," Dr. Martineau meets early in his page, and honors
with reply : " There might be some excuse for this para-
doxical statement, if its author were dealing with the
Poets personification of nature as an infinite organism,
looking with deepest expression into the human soul ; for
the conception does really, for the moment, both unify
and animate the world, and brighten up its face as with a
flash of inner meaning from beneath its form ; and, while
this vision lasts, there is a transient immanence of mind
with which the seer may commune. But, the assertion is
expressly made of that lowest view of nature which, like
Comte's, rids the observer of all ideas of causality or
power, and resolves the All into phenomena, related only
in time and place, in resemblance and difference, and
simply grouped into sets under these heads. The deifica-
tion of such bundles of facts [and ' laws ' are nothing else],
the transference of the name God to the sum of them,
the recognition of their study as Theism, involve a deg-
radation of language and a confusion of thought, which
are truly surprising in the distinguished author of ' Natural
114 JAMES MARTINEAU
Religion.' The subversion of established meanings for
familiar terms is already begun in the very title of his
book : by ' Natural Religion ' has hitherto been under-
stood ' what may be known of the invisible God through the
things which he has made, even his everlasting poiver and
divinity ; ' but here it means, instead of the teachings of
nature about God, the substitution of nature for God, the
actual dispensing from thought of everything but nature,
and the attempt to concentrate upon it the affections
previously reserved for him : in other words, nature-wor-
ship in place of divine worship" 1
Mr. Seeley's mind is drawn to the familiar alternative of
miracle and law, with a decided bias in favor of the latter,
as the exponent of the ultimate truth of the universe ; and
he seems to feel, as careless thinkers have often done, that
where all is ordered there can be no supernatural. To
this Dr. Martineau makes answer : " If we were simply
classifying phenomena, certainly the author's bifurcate
division would hold good : they must come about either
conformably, or inconformably, with some given rule : they
would be either natural, or extra-natural : the affirmation
of the one would be the negation of the other. But the
question whether ' Nature ' [in the sense of all that happens'}
is indeed the totality of existence, is a question not between
one mode of happening and another, but between all hap-
penings and the never-happening whence they come, be-
tween the time event and its eternal ground, between the
phenomenal sum, from end to end, and the non-phenom-
enal presence without which they cannot emerge into
thought at all. Change has no meaning, and no possibil-
ity, but in relation to the permanent, which is its prior
condition ; and pile up as you may your ' co-existent and
successive' mutabilities, that patient eternal abides behind,
and receives an everlasting witness from them, whether
1 PP- 5-6-
LATER PUBLICATIONS ; A REMARKABLE TESTIMONIAL 1 1 5
heeded or unguessed. Here it is, in this intellectual pre-
supposition of any emerging world, this prior condition of
the natural, that we meet a persistent ' supernatural,' in the
idea of which the very essence of the religious problem
lies, and without reference to which the order of nature
can tell us of nothing but itself; for God is not there.
Nature therefore can never swallow up the supernatural,
any more than time can swallow up eternity : they subsist
and are intelligible only together; and nothing can be
more mistaken than to treat them as mutually exclu-
sive. . . . But though there is no antagonism between
them, antithesis there certainly is; and nothing can be
more misleading than to say that ' God is merely a synonym
for nature.' The attributes of nature are birth, growth,
and death; God can never begin or cease to be: nature
is an aggregate of effects; God is the universal cause:
nature is an assemblage of objects; God is the infinite
Subject of which they are the expression : nature is the
organism of intelligibles ; God is the eternal intellect itself.
Cut these pairs asunder; take away the unchangeable, the
causal, the manifesting Subject, the originating Thought ;
and what is left is indeed ' Nature,' but, thus bereft and
alone, is the negation and not the ' synonym ' of God." 1
It is the manifest aim of Natural Religion, by broaden-
ing the conception of Religion, to mitigate its contentions.
By embracing art and science within its demesne the author
would bring an end to the antagonism between it and them.
This aspect of the book draws from Dr. Martineau the fol-
lowing eloquent passage : " Heartily as I would welcome the
enthusiasms for knowledge and for art, as well as for Right,
into the circle of religious affinities, and recognize in their
noblest representatives an inspiration akin to that of genu-
ine piety ; emphatically therefore as I deny that there is
any uncongeniality between the modern culture and the
1 pp. 7-8-
Il6 JAMES MARTINEAU
ancient sanctities, I yet must hold that, in the order of de-
pendence, these minor forms of devoutness hang upon the
major; and that if we are to give them a home in the
widened category of Religion, it must be as children of
the house and not as wielding its supreme authority.
Their functions are sacred, because concerned with a uni-
verse already consecrate by a Divine presence, gleaming
through all its order and loveliness : suppose its inner mean-
ing gone, let its truth be only useful and its beauty only
pleasant, and would any lofty genius be taken captive by
them, and bow before them? Rightly enough are the man
of science and the true artist called ministering priests of
nature : but this they could not be, unless nature were a
temple filled with God. If there be no sanctuary and no
Shekinah there, there is no inner meaning for them to inter-
pret ; and the account of it is complete in the measure of its
proportions and the inventory of its contents. If you place
me face to face, not with an infinite living spirit, but only
with what is called ' the Great Necessity' what enthusiasm
do you expect the vision to excite ? Can there be a more
paralyzing spectacle? and shall I fling myself with passion-
ate devotion into the arms of that ghastly physical giant?
It is impossible : homage to an automaton-universe is no
better than mummy-worship would be to one who has
known what it is to love and trust, and embrace the living
friend. In short, a human soul so placed would itself be
higher than aught it knows within th, immensity, and
could worship nothing there without idolatry." *
Thus the wonderful page goes on, philosophy enrap-
tured with the poet's vision and touched by the prophet's
fire. Towards the close he consecrates the universe in
these words : " The rule of right, the symmetries of char-
acter, the requirements of perfection, are no provincialisms
of this planet: they are known among the stars: they
1 pp. 11-12.
LATER PUBLICATIONS ; A REMARKABLE TESTIMONIAL
reign beyond Orion and the Southern Cross: they are
wherever the universal Spirit is ; and no subject mind,
though it fly on one track for ever, can escape beyond
their bounds. Just as the arrival of light from deeps that
extinguish parallax bears witness to the same ether there
that vibrates here, and its spectrum reports that one chem-
istry spans the interval, so does the law of righteousness
spring from its earthly base and embrace the empire of
the heavens, the moment it becomes a communion between
the heart of man and the life of God." l
With the publication of this great work it was generally
supposed that his labors were ended. He was eighty-three
years of age, time, as we ordinarily think, not to " take
in sail," but to cast anchor in the harbor. Astonishment
was wide when two years later appeared the Seat of Author-
ity in Religion. Several years before he had published a
series of theological papers in the Old and New, a maga-
zine of noble promise that died ere the fulfilment of its
expectation ; and these we were pleased to meet again in
the earlier section of the volume. The remaining portion,
however, more than five hundred ample pages, had been
written since the publication of the Study.
That in range of knowledge, keenness of insight, vigor
of statement or nobility of feeling, this volume falls behind
its predecessors, no competent critic could maintain. It
traverses themes, however, in dealing with which the aver-
age Christian mind is more sensitive, the nature of
Religious Authority, the Authority of Scripture, the Gen-
uineness of the Canon, the Person and Work of Jesus,
Union with God ; and in the treatment there is a peremp-
tory challenge of prevalent modes of thought. Not un-
naturally, therefore, it brought upon him a tempest of
criticism, though for most part of the feebler sort. In
reading it over it is astonishing to find how prevailingly it
1 p. 26.
Il8 JAMES MARTINEAU
is partisan depreciation rather than a valiant grappling
with his teachings.
Though written so late in life, it shows his intellect at
full vigor ; it has the freshness of new enterprise. Of all
his works it is the most variously learned, and of no other
is the style so popular.
Another important task was before him : soon after the
publication of the Seat of Authority he set about bringing
together a selection of his literary papers. These appeared
in four goodly volumes, under the title of Essays, Reviews,
and Addresses. Next came a volume of Home Prayers, his
Pax Vobiscum.
We have passed an incident which it were hardly par-
donable not to narrate. We have noticed very significant
testimonials to his worth and service ; here is another testi-
monial of which it were not easy to find a parallel. Soon
after the appearance of the Study of Religion a movement
was set on foot, under the guidance of Prof. William
Knight of the University of St. Andrews, to greet him
on his eighty-third birthday with an appropriate tribute.
The form conceived was that of an address, signed by lead-
ing scholars and thinkers of Europe and America, without
distinction of sect or party. The time was short, and so
the intent was not realized in the fulness of its scope ; yet
was the enterprise a most notable success. The Address,
drawn up and sent to various friends for criticism, received
its final revision at the hand of Benjamin Jowett. After
the introductory paragraph it went on to say : " We thank
you for the help which you have given to those who seek
to combine the love of truth with the Christian life : we
recognize the great services which you have rendered to
the study of the Philosophy of Religion : and we congratu-
late you on having completed recently two great and im-
portant works, at an age when most men, if their days are
prolonged, find it necessary to rest from their labours.
LATER PUBLICATIONS; A REMARKABLE TESTIMONIAL 119
" You have taught your generation that, both in politics
and religion, there are truths above party, independent of
contemporary opinion, and which cannot be overthrown,
for their foundations are in the heart of man ; you have
shewn that there may be an inward unity transcending the
divisions of the Christian World, and that the charity and
sympathy of Christians are not to be limited to those who
bear the name of Christ; you have sought to harmonize
the laws of the spiritual with those of the natural world,
and to give to each their due place in human life; you
have preached a Christianity of the spirit, and not of the
letter, which is inseparable from morality; you have
spoken to us of a hope beyond this world ; you have given
rest to the minds of many.
" We admire the simple record of a long life passed in
the strenuous fulfilment of duty, in preaching, in teaching
the young of both sexes, in writing books of permanent
value, a life which has never been distracted by contro-
versy, and in which personal interests and ambitions have
never been allowed a place.
" In addressing you we are reminded of the words, of
Scripture, ' His eye was not dim, nor his natural force
abated,' and we wish you yet a few more years both of
energetic thought and work, and of honoured rest."
It bore between six and seven hundred signatures of
those whose " praise was fame." The first signature was
that of Tennyson ; the next was that of Robert Browning,
followed by the names of Benjamin Jowett, G. G. Bradley,
Dr. E. Zeller of Berlin, F. Max Miiller, W. E. H. Lecky,
Edwin Arnold, E. Renan, Otto Pfleiderer ; a long list of
Professors of St. Andrews, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen,
Oxford ; of the Universities of Jena, Berlin, Groningen,
Amsterdam, Leiden ; of Harvard University, the Andover
Theological School its entire board of instruction, of
Johns Hopkins University ; of members of Parliament in
I2O JAMES MARTINEAU
long array; of distinguished Americans, James Russell
Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Frederic H. Hedge,
Phillips Brooks, Philip Schaff; a great number of clergy-
men, of England, France, Germany, Holland, America,
the leaders of all schools of Protestant Christian thought.
Party distinctions were lost to view in the common recog-
nition of a common benefactor. As one scans the list
of names and marks the many that are the lustre of our
age, leaders in letters, science, philosophy, theology, and
public service, he is likely to query whether a nobler
tribute could have been offered. The only names con-
spicuously absent are those of men of science, espe-
cially of those of agnostic tendencies ; and some of these,
unable to subscribe to all the terms of the Address, sent
him their personal acknowledgment. The Address and
signatures were offered him in a book of surpassing
elegance.
Dr. Martineau's reply was characteristically modest;
and whoever can, may believe the free movement of his
pen was not interfered with by a throbbing of his heart :
" You will not wonder that the Address which you sent to
me on the 2ist ult. has overwhelmed me and put me to
silence for some days, rendering as it does my eighty-third
birthday the most memorable of my life. But I must not
longer wait for what can never come, the power of fitly
expressing the wondering gratitude with which I read, in
its paragraphs and signatures, assurances of respect and
affection impressive from their number and priceless from
their source. To be held of any account by the lite of
those to whom I have habitually looked up, including rep-
resentatives from the foremost ranks of literature, science,
philosophy, religion, and personal character, is an honour
simply mysterious to me. ' Ea esl profecto jucunda latts,
qua ab Us proficiscitur, qui ipd in laude mxerunt! To
such an escort down the declining path of life, what can
LATER PUBLICATIONS ; A REMARKABLE TESTIMONIAL 121
an old man do but throw out a few faltering words of
thanks, and love, and reverence?
" The studies and duties of my life have centered upon
subjects which at once draw men into closest union, and
part them in widest severance, and so render the due com-
bination of intensity with catholicity of affection, one of
the rarest of human excellences. All the more striking is
the abounding evidence of its presence in the list of names
attached to your Address names, not only supplied
from variously contrasted schools of thought and faith,
but even sent in by the very authors whom I have had
occasion to criticize and - controvert. Deeply as I am
touched by this as a trait of personal generosity, I honour
it no less as an insight into the philosopher's secret that,
often, differing conceptions, if in one direction opening
into divergencies of opinion, converge in the other and
close upon the truth.
" To those who, though unable to subscribe to every
clause in the Address, have yet signified their wish to be
associated with its general purport of sympathy and con-
gratulation, I cannot refrain from tendering my cordial
acknowledgments, not only for what they express, but for
the solid guarantee for its serious meaning and sincerity
in what they withhold. Such residue of approval as, in
hearts thus scrupulously honourable, can still be spared to
me, is all the more precious from its fidelity to truth.
"Among the signatures from foreign lands are some
names dear to me as those of former pupils, now occupy-
ing posts of honourable service, whether for Church or
University, in the East of Europe. But I also see the
autographs of many distinguished scholars and philoso-
phers whom I have long regarded with the homage due to
intellectual benefactors. In several instances the appear-
ance of their names is the more grateful to me because, as
I know it does not imply philosophical agreement, it can
122 JAMES MARTINEAU
only mean that, in what they have seen of my writings,
they find something to approve in the matter or the spirit
of the discussions. To no ampler encouragement do I
aspire than such witness from such men."
The life had yet other years before it; but here the
story of the labor endeth. With his last book his task
was performed, his message was delivered ; and there now
awaited that period of " honoured rest " which the Address
prayed for him. Not, indeed, a period of idleness ; offices
of love and blessing he was still to find and to discharge.
Yes, and something of the old service too : when the
newly discovered Gospel of Peter was a dominant interest,
his eager mind plunged into its study, and his facile pen
enriched the Nineteenth Century with a critical judgment
of it. When Balfour's Foundations of Belief was a fresh
wonder, though at the great age of ninety, he appeared in
the same magazine with an elaborate discussion of its con-
tents, which showed nothing more clearly than that " his
eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated." For a
volume of sermons 1 by his friend and early comrade, John
Hamilton Thorn, he furnished a Memorial Preface of great
interest and tenderness. Still the strenuousness of life was
past; the sunrise could bear him cheer, and not at the
same time a summons to an exigent and relentless service.
He had opportunity for the greetings of love and the testi-
monies of appreciation ; opportunity, too, to note in its
trace upon other minds the significance of his labors, and
to gain some foretaste of the fame that posthumously
awaited him.
1 A Spiritual Faith.
CHAPTER VIII
HIS INTELLECT
AMONG the impressions derived from the preceding pages
must surely be that of unusual work, unusual both in
amount and in variety. By his labors must one prove
himself a Hercules or no ; and here we come to a provi-
sional estimate of Mr. Martineau's powers. For twenty-
eight years he discharged all the offices of a metropolitan
clergyman, answering, too, the numberless calls which con-
spicuous ability and acknowledged leadership brought him.
For ten other years, alternating with a colleague, he kept
regular appointment with a pulpit ; and for yet four other
years he bore the burden of pulpit toil alone. We thus
foot up forty-two years of clerical service. Taking into
account the severe standard to which he held himself, here,
according to our common way of thinking, is a very fair
life's work ; and one should pass unchallenged to the king-
dom of Rest who has this record for credential. But we
have to add forty-five years as college professor, during
eleven of which he was also college principal. His de-
partment, too, was one that laid upon him the severest
exactions : he was surrounded by inquisitive young men
who must be instructed in the lore of Plato and Aris-
totle, who must be led in paths hewn out by Descartes
and Hume, and to whom the vast regions of German
Philosophy and Theology must be laid open. From his
position, also, he must keep a watchful eye on contem-
porary movements of thought, ready to meet any Mill or
124 JAMES MARTINEAU
Mansel with critical challenge or approval. Through this
long period worthily to have filled this office and done no
more, filled it as he filled it, had been to perform the life-
work of an able and industrious man. He had then left a
memory rather than a record, but it had been a memory
of faithful and laborious years. But we have now to add
his literary labors, which, as measured by his published
works, are in amount not less than the score of volumes it
taxed the great powers of Carlyle to bring forth. His
writings, too, wear never a slipshod and extempore look,
but show always the thinker's toil, the scholar's diligence,
the rhetorician's care. A part of this work is, indeed, the
outcome of pulpit and professorial labors ; yet a complete
collection of his printed writings should show a dozen
goodly volumes, produced without reference to either.
Hardly a theological movement, hardly a philosophical
problem, during the last sixty years has broadly engaged
human thought, to the discussion of which he did not
contribute. The names of a few of those with whose
work he critically dealt Comte, Bentham, Mill, Whewell,
Spencer, Tyndall, Bain, Mansel, Grote, Hamilton, Strauss,
Renan, Parker, Newman, Lessing, Schleiermacher, Cole-
ridge, Carlyle indicate the latter-day problems, how many
and of what scope, which his tireless mind toiled to eluci-
date. This literary labor alone would seem enough to en-
title him to a conspicuous place among the workers of the
world.
To have performed any one of these services had been
to acquit himself worthily ; to have performed any two of
them had been enough to challenge our admiration and
gratitude; the fact that he performed them all places him,
of course, among the phenomenal men. In the presence
of such achievement, question as to the greatness of his
powers were like question as to the strength of Atlas while
poising the globe on his shoulders.
HIS INTELLECT 125
Such estimate, however, is somewhat gross ; it is like
giving account of the Corliss engine by telling the number
of its horse-power, whereas it is the interior structure
of its wonderful machinery of which men want to learn.
What account can be given of the powers of that intellect
through the toils of which such marvellous labors were
accomplished?
i. The portrait of such a mind, however faithfully
taken, is likely to satisfy not many ; it wears such different
aspects according to the position from which it is studied.
All, however, will allow to Mr. Martineau an acquisitive
power remarkably great and varied. The diverse fields in
which this faculty seemed at its best especially impresses us,
as setting aside, or rather, by a notable exception, proving,
the current theory that will not allow us to expect a many-
sided cleverness. That Prescott and Macaulay should find
no joy in mathematics, that Spencer should be an indiffer-
ent linguist, and that Darwin in his later years should lose
all relish for poetry and music, seems natural enough;
while a mind that can pass from deep absorption in the
differential calculus to an absorption no less deep in a
Greek chorus, and turn without a sigh from ^Eschylos or
Sophocles to the logic of Hamilton or Mill; take up in
turn with no less interest the details of any science that a
Carpenter or Youmans or Lockyer may offer ; meet as if
the one and only enthusiasm the reasonings of Pascal or
Butler, the dialectic of Plato or Kant, the generalizations of
Comte or Spencer ; that is at home in the minutiae of Bibli-
cal learning, happy in ethnological research or historical
investigation, finds problems of political or social economy
exhilarating, turns with joyful appreciation to art or music,
draws quickening and solace from Tintern Abbey and In
Memoriam, seems to us a splendid anomaly. The com-
pensation which experience teaches us to look for, whereby
the man is sacrificed in one direction that he may be mag-
126 JAMES MARTINEAU
nified in another, seems happily put by. And this de-
scription illustrates the intellect of Mr. Martineau in its
wonderfully varied capacities. In his native aptitudes na-
ture made provision for a universal scholar. And when we
turn from the range of his aptitudes to the mass of his ac-
quirements, the spectacle is even more suggestive. We
hear, indeed, of none of those prodigious achievements
which astonish us now and then, as of Theodore Parker,
who would absorb the contents of a heavy volume at a
single sitting ; his powers seem natural rather than preter-
natural, large, facile, ready, and to their tireless applica-
tion we must refer the amazing amplitude of his learning.
All readers remark the ease with which he draws from
mathematics, as if the calculus and analytical geometry were
a pleasant substitute for Addison or Montaigne, for the di-
version of his leisure. His linguistic attainments were large
and profound, and justify the feeling that he might have be-
come the companion and peer of Whitney and Max Muller
had he not chosen rather to wrestle with the problems of
Plato and Spinoza. In the domain of physical science he
was widely at home, and to the last revelation any Proctor
brought from the stars, the last discovery of any Lyell,
the last experiment of any Faraday, the last fact of any
Darwin, one was almost certain to find his quick mind
adjusted. He had a firm grasp upon history, its details
and forces ; political and social systems were given large
scope in his studies ; in political economy he read exhaust-
ively; religious institutions, ancient, mediaeval, modern,
he explored to their foundation-thought; of schools of
Biblical criticism, theological systems, in their genesis,
history, substance, he spoke with expert authority ; while
in ethics and philosophy he had travelled all the mean-
dering way from the Athens of Plato to the Concord of
Emerson. He found place also for more genial letters:
from the essayists and poets and novelists he drew solace
HIS INTELLECT 1 27
and inspiration. He wrote so much, it is difficult to see
how with the burden of his most onerous duties he ever
found time to read ; yet he read so much that it is matter
of simple wonder how he ever wrote at all. Over a con-
gress of sages no other of his time could more fittingly
have presided ; a dozen specialists might have been
equipped out of his vast erudition.
The strength of the strong man is seen not merely in
the burden that he carries, but also in the manner of the
carrying. Such a mass of erudition may make one simply
one of the " asses of Parnassus," a not valueless, but a
comparatively ignoble animal, which of all things Mr. Mar-
tineau was not. This weight of learning he carried with
an ease that suggests that it might have been his toy had
it not been his tool. While no burden, neither was it
a hindrance to his movement His treasures, gathered
always for use, his quickly organizing mind distributed to
their several places to await their call. Here we reach
the supreme proof of a great scholar, in that a vast and
multifarious learning is never impedimenta. Turn for
comparison to that wondrous scholar, Theodore Parker,
who, like Bacon, seemed to take all knowledge for his
province, but who certainly failed in the test of his powers
here provided. His mind was not unlike some vast mu-
seum, on whose shelves are indeed many specimens duly
classified and labelled, but on whose floor are heterogene-
ous piles, specimens of many genera confusedly mixed, a
learned litter which the master's hand has not yet disposed
to order. Mr. Martineau's museum, not less rich in accu-
mulation, is yet always in order. His specimens are always
in their place, and never an obstruction.
2. Behind Mr. Martineau the scholar was Mr. Martineau
the thinker. This vast power of acquisition was associate
with the genius of patient and toilsome meditation. Learn-
ing, much as he loved it, was subsidiary, torch, com-
128 JAMES MARTINEAU
pass, telescope, to light him and guide him in the arcana
of ideas. No beauty of flowers could blind him to the
botany that organizes them, and no glory of stars, to the
astronomy that explains them. There was in him, indeed,
that of which, left to itself, the pedant is made : an ex-
treme care for the trivialities of learning, or what we call
such, like that which Professor Agassiz once humorously
drew to himself, when, asked by a lyceum committee to lec-
ture on fishes, he declared it a thing impossible ; he could
not give a lecture on fishes, but he would like to give a
" course of lectures on a scale." In Mr. Martineau's case,
however, it was like the care of the mathematician for his
formulae, mindful of the eclipses he must calculate and the
planetary orbits he must measure. As of learning, so of
the very lords of thought and knowledge. He had many
teachers, but never a master. He gathered the regal of
all time at his board ; yet was he ruler of the feast, and,
with whatever deference in his tone, he firmly directed,
" Aristotle, sit thou here ; " " Spencer, sit thou there."
As the discourse ^owed on, and one after another held
attention, the issue was the host's predetermined conclu-
sion ; as in the Platonic dialogues, Socrates may question
and Glaucon answer and Adeimantus join in the argu-
ment, yet in the end it is only Plato that we hear.
With respect to the order of his mind he was logician,
that is to say, he was not diviner. He held affinity with
Mill rather than with Emerson ; he was philosopher, not
seer. This is not saying that visions were not given him ;
it is noting the nature of the receptacle into which they
came. He deduced conclusions; he did not announce
oracles. Indeed, there is chance to suspect that from the
strength of his logical sensibility it was possible for him to
fail in appreciation where there was conspicuous want of
it. Thus, of his great contemporaries, Emerson seems
least of all to have moved him. He had a smile for Emer-
HIS INTELLECT 129
son, but he had applause for Parker. Recognizing his
genius, it is yet doubtful if he was entirely happy in that
no-method by which our seer reached stars indeed, but
left no orderly track by which to follow after him. He be-
lieved in feet and careful and toilsome climbing, but the
winged kind were to him the children of Icarus and heirs
to his fate.
There is a peculiar charm in his logic; it seems not an
instrument that he uses, but an instinct that rules him. It
is his life, not his rule ; by it his structure grows rather
than is builded. The works of the great logicians are apt
to suggest the carpenter whose edifice may be imposing,
but the careful jointings of which are none the less plainly
apparent. Mr. Martineau's edifice suggests an immanent
reason that works thus and not otherwise. Of its range, too,
a word should be spoken. There is one power which we
look for in a telescope, another in a microscope ; and
among logicians there is an analogous contrast. The two
powers Mr. Martineau's logic combines ; it is equal to
solar systems of thought and the finest reticulations of
argument. Behind it, too, is an intrepid daring and an in-
tense conviction, from which it becomes " logic on fire,"
which Demosthenes defined eloquence to be.
He was strong in induction ; his ability to scrutinize facts
and detect the law that binds and interprets them, sedu-
lously cultivated, should have enrolled him with the Lyells
and Faradays, as a master of inductive knowledge. He
was, however, more characteristically deductive. Indeed
he seemed never quite at his best save when his feet were
planted on a priori ground. Here he was a mailed and
dauntless knight ready for any tournament of thought.
To apply a fundamental truth to diverse problems of
human interest, to prove systems by their congruity with
it, to build by it so that his structure in all its parts should
be like the tree whose roots, trunk, branches, twigs,
9
I3O JAMES MARTINEAU
leaves, are informed by one life, was the aim by which his
noblest labors were accomplished.
3. Whoever reads him is sensible of the strength of his
imagination, and how it co-operates with his clear thinking
to give vividness to his thought. And not only vividness,
but definiteness. He had a genius for outline and bound-
ary. He was a surveyor who traced the border line between
contiguous provinces of thought, and, through whatever
wilderness, left a Via Appia behind him.
We touch here upon that quality which some have
called his cleverness, and others have named perhaps
less happily but not without good reason his Frenchiness ;
a quality which his peculiarly vivid imagination must ex-
plain. In some of his mental characteristics he seemed 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. He once spoke of his friend, J. J. Tayler,
as the English Schleiermacher, a designation which the
admirers of both would the rather give to Mr. Martineau.
Yet were the designation improved by a significant addition.
Schleiermacher, yes; but Schleiermacher with an infu-
sion shall we say ? of Bossuet The combination may
be illustrated thus: The German rolls down a mighty
stream, but, like the Mississippi, its waters are apt to be
murky ; there are snags to vex the navigator ; the channel
is inconstant; the banks open into bayous; and the un-
practised sailor may often be in doubt whether it is river
or bottom-land over which he is sailing. The Frenchman's
river may be somewhat less in volume, but its waters are
clear ; its channel is not to be mistaken ; and its banks
after whatever rains are sure to restrain the flood. Mr.
Martineau's river is a Mississippi, but a Mississippi of
clear water. Its channel is constant; its banks are never
broken. It bends, too, in many a curve of beauty ; and
HIS INTELLECT 131
where it rolls through realms of metaphysic darkness, as
to many a sailor metaphysic realms must be, there is no
want of guiding lights that gleam upon the headlands.
4. He had a genius for criticism, and that of the nobler
sort that honors while it disapproves and creates while it
destroys. It was, indeed, no trifling circumstance to be
brought before his tribunal, and one who sustained there
his examination well needed to have no dread of Rhada-
manthus. There was a justice that gave the full meed of
recognition, but which with the feeble theory or the incon-
sequential reasoning dealt inexorably. Often his criticism
suggested the glacier, radiant in sunshine and sending
irrigating streams down the valleys, yet grinding the very
boulders into powder.
In his critical labors he aimed at two results: a clear
presentation of an author's teaching in which its limitations
must of course appear, and a large view of its relations.
With respect to the former his method was simple : he
seized upon some pivotal idea, and by that, its absolute
worth and the success of its application, was the work jus-
tified or no. Such criticism, executed in his thorough
fashion, is most helpful, and after following the ramifica-
tions of some treatise, the student may turn to him as the
ship out of reckoning may hail a passing voyager. A
venerable sage once testified that of all his reading of
Plato, the Platonic writings included, Mr. Martineau's dis-
cussion in the Types of Ethical Theory had yielded the
most luminous view of him. It is, however, in the rela-
tions he opens before us that most have found his criticism
especially helpful. The average Briton, type of human
nature in more senses than one, easily magnifies his island
to the proportions of a continent, to all intents and pur-
poses he may think it the world ; and dwellers in Nepaul
may doubt whether above their Himalayas is any height
worth mentioning. Our infinite is apt to be practically
132 JAMES MARTINEAU
that beyond the limits of which we do not see. Mr. Mar-
tineau never minimized his islands, but he had the knack
of embracing island and embosoming ocean in one view.
He never depreciated his mountains, but, at whatever
height, saw the blue dome above them, and the measure-
less vacancy around them. When the Philosophy of evo-
lution first beamed upon us, and to our bewildered sight
seemed to take all things within its embrace, Mr. Mar-
tineau, surveying its boundaries, showed us a bordering
infinity which its very genius excluded from its embrace. 1
Perhaps we still believed in Evolution, but he verily com-
pelled us, in seeing it, to see also more. Turn to his
splendid critique of Sir William Hamilton, a planetary
man, shown in all his planetary proportions ; yet shown
in a heaven of ideas in which is space for a million orbs as
large.
5. He was a born polemic, and there was in him a for-
ward eagerness in this kind of warfare. He was apt at
fence ; his attack, had it not been of the kind to be coveted,
had certainly been dreaded. In intellectual combat no
man was ever more observant of the chivalrie^ ; indeed he
was in controversy our knightly Bayard.
6. But how of his literary style? for while royalty in
homespun is royal, we yet like to meet our king in kingly
attire. And it is in kingly attire that we meet Mr. Marti-
neau. We may like to vary the cut in some particulars,
and change a decoration here and there, yet the material
of the robe is unmistakably Tyrian purple.
It is a unique style, and a passage of Shakespeare is
hardly more easy to distinguish than a passage of Marti-
neau. Not only is it unique, it is profoundly personal.
As Schopenhauer would say, it is a " physiognomy," not
a " mask." Respecting no other can be more safely
1 " Science, Nescience, and Faith," in Essays, Reviews, and Addresses,
vol. iii.
HIS INTELLECT 133
quoted the dictum, " The style is the man." As a unique
style is almost sure to do, it has drawn the reproach of
being far sought and artificial. Yet its characteristic fea-
tures, as met in sermon or essay, appear also in his letters,
his extempore talk, his conversation; and whoever will
give adequate account of it must take his very soul into
the reckoning. , As a " physiognomy " it is only luminous
from an inward light.
It is not the grand style, like that of Frederic H.
Hedge. It is, however, a full style; his sentence is a
golden beaker flowing to the brim. What he aims to
express may be the smaller part of what he conveys;
allusion, metaphor, open how many side-lights of detain-
ing suggestion. He is not especially sententious ; he does
not deal largely in aphorisms; yet few writers tell so
much that they do not say.
It is, too, a poetical style. The " faculty divine " was
not given him, but the " vision " was ; and in no meagre
degree it ruled his utterance. All readers of him
observe an habitual cadence in his sentence, as if dic-
tated by an interior rhythm. Within him was a sensi-
bility that felt an inharmonious structure as a poet feels
a faulty measure, or a musician a discord. His language
and illustration, too, make it plain that a beauty haunted
him ; yet is the poet within him severely ruled by the
artist. In his loftiest flights he indulges in no rhapsody.
It is prose that he writes, prose that his naive poetry
animates, decorates, illuminates, but leaves always prose.
He is elaborate, but not diffuse ; not lavish in language
nor yet parsimonious ; every figure is organic, every word
is vital. His page betrays ever a painstaking accuracy;
yet there are those who complain that he is obscure.
Such might often well recall the saying of Goethe, " In
the dark the plainest writing is illegible," and ask whether
the obscurity is in Mr. Martineau or in themselves. To
134 JAMES MARTINEAU
scale his heights or to descend into his depths no ordering
of the pathway can make always easy. However plain
the statement, there are yet thoughts that tax our think-
ing; and Mr. Martineau's are apt to be of them. His
page is for the studious, not the indolent hour. Yet in a
single aspect the complaint is not without reason ; there
is an obscurity that comes from his exuberance of meta-
phor. His metaphors are most admirable in themselves,
never commonplace and always luminous, but they are
sown upon his page in such profusion ! They come like
flashes of heat lightning, and bewilder from excess of
light.
Though the most serious of writers, yet not infrequent
gleams of humor relieve his page. He deals little in inci-
dent, is sparing in anecdote ; but a happy turn in a sen-
tence will provoke a smile, likewise call forth a tear.
He has, too, resources of satire which he draws from not
frequently. He is strong in antithesis, and his words have
a knack of running together into golden sayings, which
cling to the memory like passages of Emerson.
It is a style wonderfully varied to express a many-sided
man, the scholar and thinker who must feel the rock
beneath him as he builds, and see his walls reared true ;
the man, too, of aspirations that want a temple and of
affections that want a home ; so different from that, for
instance, of Herbert Spencer, also a " physiognomy," but
which expresses only a clear and passionless intellection.
The latter we might liken to the Bank of England, solid,
massive, but on whose granite cubes we see no suggestion
of a heaven or a soul. The former we might liken to the
dear and venerable Abbey, built on granite foundations
and its walls reared true, but also with towers and arches
which tell of a various aspiration and rapture and ideal.
CHAPTER IX
PERSONAL FEATURES
IN his figure Dr. Martineau was tall and spare. Of adi-
pose tissue he had no superfluity. One meeting him in
later years observed a slight stoop, though it seemed
rather the stoop of the scholar than of the octogenarian.
His features were thin, his complexion delicate. His
eyes, which were " changeful blue," were not particularly
noticeable until he became animated; and then his very
soul seemed shining through them. His head was not
much beyond the average in size, but compact, and per-
fect in its poise. His perceptive organs were large; his
hair, always remarkable for its abundance, in later years
was bleached almost to whiteness. Grace Greenwood,
writing of him in 1854, spoke of his head as wearing
a " classical and chiselled look," and of his features as
" finely and clearly cut ; " a description as true at eighty-
five as at forty-nine.
His personal habits were always natural and healthful.
So far from being self-indulgent, his general conduct was
mildly suggestive of asceticism. He was indeed no John
the Baptist, to make a diet of locusts and wild honey ; yet
one to rule his breakfast by consideration of his morning
toils, and in dining not to forget the evening hours of
study and of thought. And while in his conduct we may
see here the ruling of prudence, it is not difficult to be-
lieve that his simple tastes were thus satisfied. A dinner
with a few friends, with moderate abandonment to its
136 JAMES MARTINEAU
enjoyment, he may have found agreeable ; a revel he would
have found unendurable. He had no artificial appetites:
tobacco he never used ; without being pledged to total
abstinence, his use of wines and liquors was almost wholly
medicinal. His only intemperance was intemperate work,
if that can be called intemperate which, though vast
in amount, he sustained to extreme age unfalteringly.
All his pleasures were of the rational and ennobling sort.
Good art afforded him agreeable diversion; he enjoyed
music and sought its solace ; he delighted in conversation
with the wise and good. His home was the magnet of his
heart ; and in the shelter of its domesticities was his rest,
his solace, his joy.
He had a fondness for mountain scenery, and a favorite
diversion was walking. His summer home in Scotland
afforded him special delight for the wild and rugged coun-
try he could there explore. In his seventy-eighth year he
wrote of the " annual delight " not yet forbidden him of
" reaching the chief summits of the Cairn Gorm moun-
tains." They tell in England of his achieving twenty miles
of mountain rambling in a day. There is a story of an
American visiting him in his Scottish home. One morn-
ing there arose a question of diversion : should they walk
or drive? Something was said of a walk, and Dr. Marti-
neau, pointing to a mountain eleven miles away, proposed
a walk thither and return. Those mindful of our ways
hardly need be told that the American, who as guest had
the determining vote, gave it in favor of a drive.
His hospitality was most cordial ; his manners, sugges-
tive of the older and more elaborate style, were charmed
by a spirit that would make any style, or even want of
style, delightful. His voice, not loud, was admirably focal-
ized and melodious ; his enunciation was leisurely though
not slow, and perfectly distinct; he had a vein of humor;
he laughed heartily but not noisily. His conversation,
PERSONAL FEATURES 137
more it is said in later than in earlier years, tended to
monologue, and this for two reasons: first, from the
amplitude of his knowledge, approaching him with al-
most any subject was like taking a line of verse to one
who holds the whole poem in memory, and who needs
only the prompting of the one line to go on to the end ;
and secondly, ninety-nine out of a hundred, sitting
down with him, were likely to act as if on the reflec-
tion, If he will talk, why should I? That reverend look,
that gracious manner, that quiet and melodious speech, fit
vehicle of the noblest wisdom, were almost sure to banish
all inclination save to listen. But then, in the sequel some-
thing happened which you scarce understood, which you
doubted if he did, and which the fitness of things seemed
hardly to warrant. As you rose to go, he expressed to
you his gratitude for the favor you had done him; which,
if of ordinary sensibility, made you only more sensible of
the nothing you had done except to receive from his im-
measurable store. You received the due of an Esau who
had brought a kid, and went your way with the feelings
of a Jacob who had purloined a blessing.
His general manner was one of calmness slightly verging
upon severity. With a friend, or one who had rightful
dealing with him, the severity dropped away and left a
smiling affability. Against the intruder, however, it may
have been a defensive armor. And from another class it
may have protected him, the destitute, the wretched, from
whom, for the great sympathy of his heart, he could not
always have wished to be protected. A patient ear he
might give to the tale, a thoughtful consideration of what
was expedient ; but of the effusive sympathy, the uncon-
sidered aid, for which such are likely to be looking, they
could have seen little promise in that grave and austere
countenance. And it may as well be said, that what was
thus apparent at the surface was probably true of the
138 JAMES MARTINEAU
depths of his nature. That is to say, this large class of
needy ones he could feel for more easily than with. In
other words, the possible union of Plato and Father Taylor
was not realized in him.
Friends and pupils, the latter with especial emphasis, tell
of his severe regard for minutiae ; and illustrative of this
they dwell affectionately upon special incidents that have
fallen under their observation. Trust their report, and you
conclude that he ruled his life by Michael Angelo's maxim :
"Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle."
Whether in the niceties of scholarship, the care for his in-
tellectual judgments, the discharge of official duties, the
regulation of private affairs, in his appointments, in his
courtesies, they maintain that it was the same, nothing
slighted, nothing forgotten. Like Thoreau, he might have
" left a Greek accent slanting the wrong way to right up a
fallen man ; " but, the man fairly set upon his feet, he would
have returned at the earliest moment to his Greek accent,
whose mistaken slant could not have left his memory.
And the casual observer saw something of this in the little
nameless touches of personal conduct ; in his conversation,
which in his lightest moods was faultless ; in his letters,
which, however hasty or however brief, were never care-
less. Most men, though scrupulous enough in dealing
with the matters that especially engross them, hold yet
their realm of order within an unconquered chaos ; so that
the slovenly scholar, the boorish philosopher, the states-
man who forgets appointments, and the saint who does not
answer his letters, are characters with whom we are all ac-
quainted. They keep their planets under exact regula-
tion, but leave their asteroids outside the controlling law.
Dr. Martineau, on the contrary, illustrated a unity of char-
acter in which large and little, planets and asteroids, were
subject to the same rule ; so that he answered his letters as
he wrote his books, and was the same where affection laid
PERSONAL FEATURES 139
light exaction as in the courtliest circle he was invited to
adorn. And this trait was apparent in all about him. As
these words are written, there floats into memory an illus-
trative contrast. I recall a pleasant hour in the study of a
London man of letters, whom a grateful world recognizes
among its benefactors. The library, rich in the lore of
many tongues, stood on the shelves in utter disregard of
order. Bacon was flanked by Douglas Jerrold and Henry
George, Homer was crucified between Akenside and Martin
Tupper, and Plato was standing on his head beside Jouf-
froy. Books and pamphlets were on the floor, in the
chairs, upon the sofa. The study table was a confusion of
letters, cuttings from newspapers, books, pamplets, maga-
zines, sheets of manuscript scattered like the Sibyl's leaves,
a pipe or two, a pouch of tobacco, the stumps of several
cigars. That room was a Teufelsdrockh's lair, which many
studious men with good reason may forgive, but which
none would have the courage to commend. An hour later
I was in Dr. Martineau's study, which, in comparison,
seemed heaven's first law in miniature.
No feature of the man was more apparent than his
modesty. Of the guerdon he had won he had seemingly
no appreciation. That on the battle-fields of thought he
had been more than a faithful soldier, that he had been a
leader and a conqueror, seemed never to occur to him.
The encomiums that came to him impressed him with a
sense of the generosity of others, not a greatness that was
his own. With this modest self-estimate he combined, as
was but natural, the most generous appreciation of others.
Differences of opinion could not blind him to the reality
of merit, and the very knight he might unhorse he would
thank for the example of his prowess. The teachers he
confessed were often those whom he had taught, very
likely accrediting to their originality a wisdom that was
first his own. A lifelong friend, speaking of earlier days,
140 JAMES MARTINEAU
once humorously illustrated this aspect of his character.
He would meet, said the friend, some commonplace
woman, and, in a half-hour's talk, fill her mind with ideas
of which she had never dreamed before. Three months
later he might meet her again, and she would in some
measure give him back the thoughts he had lavished on
her; and he, never suspecting the sun she was reflecting,
would go his way telling of her wonderful intelligence.
Temperamentally he was not always on the heights.
Readers of his sermons, notwithstanding the exultation
and the joy that are in them, are likely to feel an under-
tone of sadness. It is there, and those who were nearest
to him know that it does not misrepresent him. In such
as he, too, it is peculiarly natural. A heart so large and
tender, while quickened by the gladness, must also feel
the sorrow, of the world; and one who at intervals is
caught up into the heavens must be sensible of the transi-
tion to earth's damps and shadows. On the other side of
life, however the practical as distinguished from the
ideal his serenity was worthy of Seneca himself. What-
ever volcanoes might boil within him, at the surface there
was no eruption. His wishes might be thwarted, critics
might misrepresent him, partisans disparage, yet still was
he cheerful, dignified, reasonable.
Of the general atmosphere of the man, the impression
that came from the blending of these various qualities,
how tell ? All readers of him know the clearness and the
nobleness of his ethical judgments ; in his presence one
was simply sure that he was worthy of them. In his won-
derful sermons we are familiar with the mystic heights to
which he climbed ; in his presence we felt their reflected
sunshine. To him as to all men were the " tides of the
Spirit," its ebbs as well as floods ; yet failing to meet him
on the Mount of Beatitudes, we should have looked for him
on the slopes of Sinai, and wondered not to find him there.
PERSONAL FEATURES 14!
It was my privilege to form acquaintance with him in
extreme age,
" When the soul declares itself, to wit,
By its fruit, the thing it does."
Of course I expected to meet a scholar; but a scholar
may be a Johnson. I knew I was to confront a thinker ;
but a thinker may be a Schopenhauer. I held him a man
of genius ; but a genius may be a Byron or a Carlyle. I
hardly need say that from these endowments acquaintance
demanded no abatement, and that these examples could
only serve for contrast. Over against the coarseness of
Johnson one saw in him refinement refined. In contrast
with the selfishness of Schopenhauer one saw in him
consideration for others that was almost self-effacement.
In place of the cynicism of Byron we met in him the
serenest charity; instead of the rudeness of Carlyle the
soul of courtesy and grace.
The thought of meeting one so crowned with honors
was attended with natural anxieties. Two hands extended
in welcome, a gracious smile, a cordial word, and all
anxieties were gone. The happy discovery was made that
his greatness was of the kind that lifts but does not over-
power. Of the quiet hours spent with him I need not tell.
Suffice that they fixed in my mind the impression of a
sage, a hero, and a saint ; of one who might converse with
Plato, and dare with Luther, and revere with Tauler; an
habitu/ of the Academy, who thrilled to the Categorical
Imperative, and who knelt at the Cross.
BOOK II
THE RELIGIOUS TEACHER
CHAPTER I
THE PREACHER
FROM the account of the man, we come to the severer
task of exhibiting the religious teacher and philosopher.
Dr. Martineau began his career as a preacher; and it
seems fitting that to his work as such we devote a few
pages.
When our minds are drawn to a noted preacher, our
first thought is likely to be of his pulpit effectiveness ; and
this is likely to be estimated, not in terms of thought, but
of magnetism and manner. Three-fourths of the gossip
about Channing relates to how he talked rather than what
he said ; and Beecher's wise words are forgotten while
men tell of the look, tone, gesture, with which he uttered
them. Indeed, the substance of doctrine may be obscured
by the grace of its proclamation, and the very Gospel
be eclipsed by the histrionics of the apostle. There are
preachers, however, with whom thought and manner are
so blended in a composite effect, that any account of the
effect must linger largely on the thought; and of such
was Dr. Martineau. Certainly we know preachers who
from their graceless and spiritless utterance could make
little impression, even with sermons like Dr. Martineau's in
manuscript before them ; which is another way of saying
THE PREACHER 143
that he was never such as they. At the same time, it is
probably true that he owes his fame as a preacher to the
greatness of his message. A Talmage, talking whatever
emptiness, will have thronging audience; Dr. Martineau
had hardly been a marked figure in the pulpit but for the
intellectual and spiritual quickening he gave.
Few school- boys read far into Cicero's Orations with-
out speculating as to their probable impressions, could
they have sat in the Senate or stood in the Forum on
some momentous occasion when the great orator was
speaking. Readers of the Endeavors or the Hours of
Thought may have indulged the like speculation as to
their impressions in the church where Dr. Martineau was
ministering. Of course these would vary according to the
period of his life; but in general such as should come
from an ensemble like this : A tall, spare figure robed in
the scholar's gown, and wearing the dignities of his office
as a natural grace ; a thin face, suggestive of the cloister,
and traced with deep lines of thought ; a voice not loud,
but musical and reaching; an enunciation leisurely but
not slow, and perfectly distinct. The opening services
are somewhat long, but informed by a spirit that lifts
them above tedium. The hymn is read in tones that
reveal a soul that vibrates to its melody and thrills to its
joy. There is reverent reading of the Scriptures, reading
not obtrusive as to its emphasis, but which reveals their
meaning and conveys their power. The prayer is quiet,
tender, appealing, a strain of rapture and love and long-
ing. And now the sermon; from the beginning it is
plain that it is to serious thought, yes, and hard think-
ing that you are invited. The preacher has .taken the
philosopher into service; at need, the scholar's stores
are brought into requisition; rhetoric contributes of its
strength and grace. In his manner there is calmness:
gestures are few, speech is quiet. It is, however, a calm-
144 JAMES MARTINEAU
ness at the surface combined with fervors in the depths,
which kindle the eye, light the countenance, and which
the tones reveal. Here is no logic-grinder, but a soul
swayed by a holy passion ; and these thoughts so severely
stated are a prophet's burden. The theme is laid open ;
the awful sanctities are made plain ; the moral depths are
explored ; the mystic heights are gained. In America a
preacher is sometimes told that his service has been en-
tertaining; and often that word describes it well. Dr.
Martineau, as a preacher, never entertains ; he has serious
business with you, and to the consideration of that he
holds you with little thought whether he entertain or no.
You have been living in some castle of worldliness or
pride; there it is a hopeless debris around you, and
you a shivering and unsheltered soul in the bleak desert
of the world. You are suffocated with the dust of life;
you are borne away to some Alpine summit where the
air is free and a glory thrills you. You came hither, as
you felt, deserted and alone ; you go home with God !
Such the preacher, and such the natural effect of his
great message. Yet this effect, however provided for in
the sermon, was only for such as could receive it, who,
we fear it must be admitted, were the comparatively few.
Dr. Martineau never drew large congregations. That
manner, so wholly undramatic, was little calculated to
lay a spell upon the popular mind. Then, even with the
manner and tones of Whitefield, he could hardly have
drawn the multitude with such sermons as he habitually
gave. The clever interpreter may gather hearers from
country farms or city streets, and beguile them with
passages of Longfellow ; but Dante with whatever acces-
sories of elocution only the trained intellect can receive ;
and Dr. Martineau in heights and depths may fairly be
called our Dante of preachers. To some, who read that
the common people heard Him gladly, and remember how
THE PREACHER 145
common and uncommon people have since found life in
His word, this may carry the force of an adverse criticism.
In the experience of His apostles, however, common and
uncommon have needed to be treated differently. Cer-
tainly the discourses in the Endeavors and the Hours of
Thought would have been ill-suited to the hillside where
Whitefield preached ; and the exhortations that brought
the colliers to repentance would have evoked but a feeble .
reponse in the Hope Street Church or the Little Portland
Street Chapel.
We will take a closer scrutiny of the sermon. Of its
style, considered as a composition and with reference to
pulpit effectiveness, it is possible to entertain two opin-
ions. A student of divinity, in an American school,
opened for the first time a volume of the Endeavors.
Presently he was in a realm of wonder. Vision opened
upon vision. The sentences seemed but translucent media
for stars to shine through. On the current of thought he
was borne almost as resistlessly as if afloat on the whirl-
pool of Niagara River. That hour's reading brought him
in contact with one of the master influences of his life.
He closed the volume with a feeling not unlike that of
General Wolfe, floating down the St. Lawrence River,
reciting the immortal Elegy. A few days later the student
was turning over a sermon of his own with the homiletical
professor, when conversation led to the general subject
of sermon style. The student asked, " What do you think
of the style of Dr. Martineau ? " The prompt answer was,
" The worst in the world." The student went his way
doubtful for once of his professor's infallibility. Now,
if we take into consideration the two attitudes of mind,
that of the student and that of the professor, there is in
Dr. Martineau's sermon sufficient reason for these diverse
judgments. The student, in daily contact with studious
books, welcomed a challenge to his thought which the
10
146 JAMES MARTINEAU
ordinary sermon was not sure to offer; was well pleased,
indeed, to drink the wine of life without watery dilution.
Then, being of an imaginative mind and mystic tempera-
ment, the imaginative and mystic features he everywhere
met in Dr. Martineau's discourse awoke in him responsive
raptures. If the beauty was bewildering, why, it was a
bewildering beauty ; if the heights were ethereal, to breathe
ether in exchange for common air he found exhilarating !
The professor, however, mindful of the common life which
the preacher must somehow reach, of men who must come
to the altar from the plane, the forge, the farm, the shop,
the office ; of women who must be the Marthas of domes-
tic arrangement before as Marys they can sit down at the
feet of Jesus, might well caution his pupil against a style
which would be often to them, at best, a beautiful bewilder-
ment; and if the caution was in terms the strict truth
would not warrant, why, error, like wisdom, may some-
times be justified of her children. It may as well be said
that Dr. Martineau's style, even for people of high intelli-
gence, would have been more effective if something less
imaginative, before all things, could he have restrained his
exuberant use of metaphor. His beauties are exceedingly
beautiful, but their profusion is excessive. You linger to
admire a pearl and a shower of diamonds is falling around
you. Even the reader, and how much more must have
been the listener, is often bewildered by the splendors that
in swift succession burst upon him. You encounter a pas-
sage like this : " The soul, as it sings, cannot both worship
and beat time. The rainbow, interpreted by the prism, is
not more sacred, than when it was taken for the memoran-
dum of God's promissory mercy, painting the access and
recess of his thought. The holy night, that shows how
much" more the sunshine hides than it reveals, and warns
us that the more clearly we see what is beneath our feet
the more astonishing is our blindness to what is above our
THE PREACHER 147
heads, is less divine, when watched from the observatory
of science, than when gazed at from the oratory of private
prayer ; " 1 you are surely a veteran reader if you are not
drawn by the splendor of the illustrations from the thought
they illustrate. Two or three such passages in a sermon
were certainly enough for the trained and attentive lis-
tener ; and even he would hardly fail to find it difficult to
turn at once from such a series of pictures to resume the
thread of the argument. Passages such as this are met
everywhere in the pages of Dr. Martineau's sermons. To be
lost amid such joys may not be without compensations ; yet
in thought, as in life, to lose the way is to fail of the destiny.
Lost in a garden is lost. Lost amid Sierra glories is lost.
Another aspect of his discourses calls for notice. For
the ordinary hearer or reader they are found difficult, not
only because of their highly imaginative style, but also
because of a uniqueness in their structural principle. In
an important respect they are unlike most other sermons,
and the rules of the commonly received homiletics cannot
be applied to them. You ask respecting them, with what
aim were they preached, what motive ruled his mind in
the preparation of them? You see very clearly why
Edwards preached his terrible sermons : there before him
were souls to save from the hell that was gaping for them.
You do not need to be told why Channing preached his ser-
mon on " Unitarian Christianity most Favorable to Piety ; "
it is sufficiently manifest that he would vindicate a form of
doctrine which was dear to his heart. So, in general, upon
the sermon of almost every preacher is impressed the pur-
pose that called it forth. With Dr. Martineau's sermons,
however, it is otherwise. They are not doctrinal : what
may be his Christology, what his attitude towards the
Bible, how he views miracles, why he is a Unitarian, one
must be a sharp-eyed critic to detect in his pulpit utter-
1 Endeavors, pp. 446-447, American edition.
148 JAMES MARTINEAU
ances. While not doctrinal, neither are they, in the ordi-
nary sense of the word, practical. Practical, indeed, they
are, as fresh air and sunshine, as art and music and poetry
are practical ; but not practical as addressed to the specific
needs of men, to move their will or instruct their under-
standing for instant action. They lead into the realm of
elevated thought, which may be to our souls as a holy
enchantment; yet, however they may nourish, stimulate,
comfort, constrain us, we hardly feel that they are spoken
to us. This is their distinguishing characteristic : In the
intent of the preacher they are not spoken to us. Their
aim is not address, but self-utterance ; not primarily to
move another's soul, but to tell the visions, raptures, long-
ings, and imperatives within his own. Spiritual communi-
cation in the deep and literal meaning of the word, that
is what they are intended to be. He looks not about his
congregation to discover what they have need to hear, but
within himself to find what God has given him to say.
There is hope, indeed, that the word whispered in his soul,
through his utterance may reach the soul of another ; it is
the hope, however, of the artist who traces his beauty on
the canvas, trusting that another may thrill to its joy.
He uses the ordinary form and method of discourse, and
so makes into a sermon what were otherwise a psalm.
This is not merely a characteristic traced upon his sermon ;
it is his theory as to the method in which a sermon should
be brought forth. In the preface to the second series of
Endeavors he writes : " In virtue of the close affinity, per-
haps ultimate identity, of religion and poetry, preaching is
essentially a lyrical expression of the soul, an utterance of
meditation in sorrow, hope, love and joy, from a represent-
ative of the human heart in its divine relations. In pro-
portion as we quit this view, and prominently introduce
the idea of a preceptive and monitory function, we retreat
from the true prophetic interpretation of the office back
THE PREACHER 149
into the old sacerdotal: or [what is not perhaps so
different a distinction as it may appear] from the prop-
erly religious to the simply moral. A ministry of mere
instruction and persuasion, which addresses itself prima-
rily to the understanding and the will, which deals mainly
with facts and reasonings, with hopes and fears, may fur-
nish us with the expositions of the lecture-room, the com-
mandments of the altar, the casuistry of the confessional ;
but it falls short of that ' true testimony of God,' that per-
sonal effusion of conscience and affection, which distin-
guishes the reformed preaching from the catholic homily"
This conception of the true nature of the sermon raises
in his mind an objection to extemporaneous preaching,
" which may be the vehicle of admirable disquisitions,
convincing arguments, impressive speeches; but is as
little likely to produce a genuine sermon, as the prac-
tice of improvising to produce a great poem." " The
thoughts and aspirations which look direct to God, and
the kindling of which among a fraternity of men con-
stitutes social worship," he declares to be " natives of
solitude." Such is his theory both as stated and exem-
plified. There comes of it a tendency to soliloquy, to
rhapsody, beautiful and ennobling indeed, but quite the
opposite of that directness of speech by which attention
is easiest won and held.
There is another result of which it is impossible not
to be sensible. In the sermons of few preachers is there
so little lecturing ; few indeed there are whose organized
thought is so completely a vessel in which the spirit is
offered us. Sermons, like men, must have the defects of
their qualities ; and it is doubtful if they can be the oracles
of the soul and at the same time always easy for the intel-
lect to grasp. Pouring out the heart is something other
than addressing the understanding ; psalm and homily have
different qualities. There are preachers who deftly blend
I5O JAMES MARTINEAU
them, as Charming usually, as Dewey frequently, as Beecher
occasionally. But so far as the homily is obtrusive the
psalm will be sacrificed ; so far as the psalm is overpower-
ing the homily will falter. This brings us to the doubt
whether, save by Dr. Martineau's method, sermons can or-
dinarily be produced so profoundly and loftily religious as
his. We give them place with the classic literature of de-
votion ; with the volumes of Tauler and Taylor and the
Theologia Germanica. We pass from any of these to the
Hours of Thought or the Endeavors, sensible of no decline
in spiritual altitude. The manner is different, the tone is
different; but through these, as those, the like heights
gleam, the like raptures thrill. By spiritual consanguinity
he is the kinsman of Eckhart and Thomas a Kempis, and
draws his sermons from the like spring as they their medi-
tations. In him, as in them, is the mystic soul, out of
which alone the mystic utterance can come. The under-
standing can offer what is understood, the reason can fur-
nish reasons ; and thus the intellect may be guided into
ways that shall please it well ; but whoever will speak the
oracular word must retire within the shrine where oracles
are given. This secret of his office, Dr. Martineau, beyond
all contemporary preachers, seemed to know; and hence
the well-nigh incomparable appeal with which his words
speak home to us.
From the general character, we pass to the more special
features of his discourse. Drawing ever from the deepest
deeps, he naturally seeks utterance through the treatment
of those feelings and experiences that give utterance to them,
the faiths, dreads, longings, raptures, of men. His char-
acteristic themes are suggestive : " The Besetting God,"
" Christian Peace," " The Tides of the Spirit," " The Sor-
rows of Messiah," " Where is thy God," " The Discipline
of Darkness," " Christ the Divine Word." They are
themes, indeed, on which the mere polemic might exer-
THE PREACHER 151
cise his dexterity, and the priest expound his homily ; but
which are peculiarly suited to the mystic contemplation
which Dr. Martineau brings to them.
His theory of a sermon implies a theory of man : his
competency to know God. Not merely to know of him,
but to have immediate acquaintance with him ; not merely
to know His word, but to hear His voice. This is an initial
truth with him, the implications of which are manifold and
vast. As a preacher, he dwells much on the immanence
of God, but before God is seen in his manifestations he
must be known at home. Until met in consciousness
nature cannot reveal him, prophets speak to little purpose,
Bible records are a tale of old. And this immediate ac-
quaintance is for the diligent seeking, not with the lamp
of science, which would restrict it to the learned ; not with
the eye of philosophy, which would make it the special
privilege of the wise; but in the silent retreats of holy
meditation, which are accessible to all. Here we may come
" eye to eye with the saints, spirit to spirit with God, peace
to peace with Heaven." 1 Like one of the old mystics come
again, he maintains that if one, putting by all worldliness
and self-assertion and pride, will enter the silent confes-
sional within his breast, he shall meet and know his God. 3
The earnestness with which he enjoins this impels the con-
viction that it is out of his experience that he enjoins it.
Thus a clue to a truly theistic world is realized. God a direct
and first-hand acquaintance in the breast ; every sod of
earth reveals him, and the heavens tell his glory. You
are dealing then, not with a cosmic force, but with a liv-
ing God, known within yourself and therefore recognized in
the thrilling life, the glowing beauty, the unvarying order,
the unbending righteousness of the world. You spend with
him the cloistered hour, then, looking out upon the uni-
verse, you are prepared to say, " Lo, these are his ways."
1 Endeavors, p. 164. 3 Ibid. pp. 164-165.
152 JAMES MARTINEAU
Let the order be ever held in view: first the interview in
the confessional, then the vision of a transfigured world ;
first within the soul the great Name whispered, then stars
flame it, winds quire it, waters murmur it; first the assur-
ance born of mystic communion, then for every pain its
comforter, for every sorrow a consoler close at hand. This
again and again he urges, lingering in eloquent warning on
the truth, that if the inward eye be darkened to His light
the outward eye shall not behold His glory. You shall see
no transfiguration till acquainted with the light that trans-
figures, or even read your Bible wisely till you know your
God. Our light, such as we have, we carry within us; and
he who in his soul knows not God is still in darkness,
though, " like the angel of the Apocalypse, he were standing
in the sun." Hence in his discourse there is often a tone
of severity towards those who, neglecting the easy and
obvious means, do thereby forfeit so great a joy. Their
God, such as they have, is a cosmic force, an issue of a
syllogism, a record in history, a priest's report, a propriety
of belief, not a present and living and loving Friend.
Hence he remonstrates : " You say, He is everywhere : then
show me anywhere that you have met him. You declare
him everlasting : then tell me of any moment that he has
been with you." * With the thought of thus meeting God
in the confessional there comes also the thought of spirit-
ual fitness, which he presses with solemn earnestness. To
be ready for that august interview, what is required of us?
A mind with habitual intent upon the trivialities of life
does not turn with ease to its more serious concerns, and
with the spirit it is the same. It is only the disciplined eye
that shall behold the Invisible Presence ; it is only the dis-
ciplined ear that shall hear the Silent Word. An indolent,
careless, drifting soul, a soul from which all earnestness has
oozed away, whose meditation is but a disordered reverie or
1 Hours of Thought, second series, p. 107.
THE PREACHER 153
a vacant dream, what fitness can it have to hold con-
verse in the Holy of Holies ? For that mystic meeting it
is utterly without preparation. So he tells us that " the
heavens, with their everlasting faithfulness, look down on
no sadder contradiction than the sluggard and the slattern
at their prayers."
This thought of the immediateness of God's presence,
and the possibility of immediate knowledge of him, ever
hovers near his mind ; and he iterates it and reiterates it
with great power. His labor is to bring men to a first-
hand acquaintance with the Father of their spirits. To
this end he strives to show them that God is here, not
merely there; that He is as well as was. Not that he
doubts of earlier inspirations, but that he is so sensible of
the need of new ones. He sees a prevailing tendency to
put the meeting of the human and the Divine far off in the
past, " there, in old Palestine, we think, the august voice
broke for a moment the eternal silence," a tendency
which means for the present an atheistic divorce from
God. We live, indeed, "in the house He built; but we
work in it alone, for He has gone up among the hills and
will only come to fetch us by-and-by." Our worship,
therefore, is not " bathed in the flowing tides of Deity,
but keeps dry upon the strand from which he has ebbed
away." " It has become a commemoration telling what
once He was to happier spirits of our race, and how grate-
ful we are for the dear old messages that faintly reach our
ear, . . . the fragile and consecrated links between his
sphere and ours." 1
Thus he pleads for what is with him the ground of all
conviction ; and thus he expostulates with those the
many, not the few who fail of its assurance.
But let us note his application of his truth to the prob-
lems of the interior life; and, first, that of duty. It is
1 Endeavors, p. 310.
154 JAMES MARTINEAU
evident that with such thought in the background, he will
find for duty's supreme imperative something other than
an earthly origin. Neither the utilities of life, nor any
inferences men may draw from them, speak to him the
ultimate word. Nor will he receive it from any Moses
coming down from Sinai ; but only at first-hand in the
temple where the Divine Voice declares it. So persistent
is this Voice, so constant its iterations, that even the inat-
tentive ear cannot wholly miss its tones. In the pleadings
of virtue, in the exaltations of self-sacrifice, in the remon-
strances of conscience, there it is. Whoever will explore
his thought on the great problems of moral obligation in
their profounder and larger statement may turn to the
Types of Ethical Theory ; but whoever will see how in his
daily conduct his weak surrenders, his victorious sacri-
fices, the virtues that attract no notice and the faults he
tries to think are of no consequence he has directly
to deal with God, may turn to his sermons. Your duty,
simple and lowly as men may regard it, in the last account
of it, is a mandate .from the Universal Throne. The sense
of obligation that stirs within you is a " piercing ray of
the great Orb of souls."
To what heights he will raise duty, with what sanctities
he will clothe it, is sufficiently clear from this. Rendered
to such an one, its lowlier as its lordlier offices are sacred,
and they who dust the chambers, or carry the brick and
mortar of the world, kindled by his word, should feel their
humble service consecrate.
From duty we pass to worship. As the former in its
ultimate spring is a mandate from God, so the latter is our
free offering to him. In its nobler conception it is not
addressed to a heavenly Dispenser of Favor, but to a
Righteousness and Love, whom we meet in the cloistered
seclusion of our souls. Here, not merely manifest but in
very essence known, we contemplate him and adore.
THE PREACHER 155
Perhaps there is no other theme on which he is so sure
to kindle as this. Worship is the soul's " surrender of
her narrow self-will, her prayer to be merged in a life
diviner than her own." Of all attitudes that which it
implies is at once our lowliest and our loftiest. " We
never hide ourselves in a ravine so deep ; yet overhead
we never see the stars so clear and high." There are two
promptings to it: the one the vision of Perfect Holiness;
the other the sense of sin. Hence it is marked by a two-
fold aspect, " breaking into strains, now penitential and
now jubilant," " pale with weeping, flushed with joy."
" Were we haunted by no presence of sin and want, we
should only browse on the pasture of nature : were we
stirred by no instinct of a holier kindred, we should not
be drawn towards the life of God." A little deeper does
he sink his plummet. Speaking of the communion of the
human spirit with the Divine, he says : " If communion,
then sympathy and resemblance too : for like only can
commune with like : when eye meets eye and knows it,
the same fire is alive in both : when affection answers to
affection, there is a common language of intelligence
between them ; and something in us there must be, some
possible love or thought or goodness, akin to the Infinite
Perfection and flowing forth to meet it." And " this it is
this best element of us, that asserts its rights and strug-
gles to its place in every expression of religion." " Devo-
tion " and here is the final statement "instinctively
tries to lay down whatever separates from God, and to pass
wholly into what unites with him." 1 Thus it is the soul seek-
ing her own, contemplating the Supreme Beauty and yearn-
ing for its embrace. It asks no special favors, ease,
comfort, the poor utilities men are wont to pray for; it
asks only to be merged and lost in God. As the legend
tells us, St. Thomas Aquinas once wrestling in prayer be-
1 Hours of Thought, second series, pp. 334-335.
156 JAMES MARTINEAU
fore the crucifix, the imaged Saviour spoke down to him :
"Thou hast written well of me, Thomas; what reward
wilt thou receive from me?" The ecstatic saint replied,
"Lord, only thee."
But the sense of sin and of its guilt, how of this? Of all
liberal preachers of modern days he has perhaps dwelt
most upon this dark theme; and he has taxed his won-
drous rhetoric to make his lesson vivid. In his tone on
this theme, he often reminds one of the older theologians.
It is much the wont of our modern liberals to view sin
from the outlook of earth, from which it often seems much
like the mistakes of ignorance, the blunders of immaturity.
He, on the contrary, is wont to view it from the outlook
of heaven, where it is seen over against a perfect holiness
which it has affronted. "If I had not come and spoken
unto them, they had not had sin." But for the holiness
that confronts us our sin were not revealed to us. In that
confrontation, however, we are like the lying Peter under
the eye of Jesus, whose pure presence is a mirror to our
shame, in the dark consciousness of which we are only
capable of a biting and burning remorse, never mitigated,
all the more poignant, for the sorrow and tenderness with
which Jesus looks on Peter. Useless to plead that we
could not have done otherwise ; the soul by its very grief
and humiliation refuses to entertain the plea. However
the intellect may sophisticate, in the presence of that
Holiness, the soul is sensible of the dark disparity, wrought
by surrenders it has not made, admonitions it has not
heeded, beauties within its reach which it has not put on.
So Dr. Martineau is wont to preach. 1 First the Holiness
into whose presence you are brought; next, by contrast,
the approximations to it which you have not made. Here
the Perfect Mirror ; out of it reflected to you the warts and
1 See especially " Christ's Treatment of Guilt," Endeavors, p. 129; "The
Soul's Forecast of Retribution," Hours, second series, p. 132.
THE PREACHER 157
wens that disfigure you. Over against you, the Father
robed in compassion and benignity, which make you sensi-
ble of the unseemliness of the rags you wear. In such con-
frontation what more natural than the cry : " Oh wretched
man that I am ! " Hence the interpretation he gives to
those protestations of unworthiness in which all higher
literature abounds, and which are characteristic, not of the
weakest, but of the best and bravest. Modern liberalism is
wont to treat them as exaggerated self-depreciation, in less
enlightened days quite the vogue of religious utterance, now
happily gone out of fashion. Dr. Martineau sees in them
the spontaneous and natural utterance of the soul in the
contemplation of the Supreme Excellence, and is awed
into humiliation before it.
But the problem of human pain how of that? It is
one Dr. Martineau recurs to perhaps more frequently than
any other, as if the burden of human suffering were heavy
on his heart. His tone is not one of extravagant op-
timism ; he does not commend the stoic's endurance ; his
endeavor ever is to lift the suffering into " conscious affilia-
tion with God." Thus, " as he pervadeth all things, a unity
is imparted to life and a stability to the mind which put
not happiness, indeed, but character and will above the
reach of circumstance." He draws illustration from the
example of the Christian's exemplar : " What difference
did it make to Christ, whether in the wilderness he did
fierce battle with temptation or sat on the green slope to
teach the people, and send them home as if God had
dropped upon their hearts amid the shades of evening :
whether he stood over the corpse, and looking into the
dark eyes, said, ' Let there be light,' ... or saw the angel
of duty approach himself in the dress of the grave, and on
the mournful whisper, ' Come away,' tendered his hand
and was meekly led: whether his walk was over strewn
flowers, or beneath a cross too heavy to be borne ; amid
158 JAMES MARTINEAU
the cries of ' Hosanna ' or the murderous shout? The
difference was all of pain ; none was there of conscience,
of trust, of power, of love." 1 It is to the like self-poise,
won through the consciousness of the Infinite Presence,
that he would lead the suffering ; not to any mere com-
fort of their sorrows, but to a strength through him who
alone can impart it, serenely and patiently to bear them.
His ideal is not the unsuffering, but the unshaken man ;
and such he may be with whom there is direct and per-
sonal intimacy with God.
Of fear, too, when the crisis comes, the same preventive.
In his sermon on "Faith the Deliverance from Fear," is a
remarkable passage, it can surely be no mistake to quote
in full : " When, for instance, the ship has struck and
broken up, and its human shriek has gurgled away into
the relentless splash of waters ; and a single voyager, by
some marvel of escape, finds himself adrift in a boat alone ;
when the night settles down upon him and shuts him in
between the darkness above and the black deep below;
when the bursting wind and the slanting hail and the
plunging waves show that he is but reserved from the com-
mon fate to perish deliberately and in the private wilds of
nature: what, think you, has been the history of his
thought in such an hour? There may be many who
might await the moment with outward steadfastness ; but
only one, I suppose, who would sit there with a real light
of inward calm ; namely, he to whom that solitude was
not absolute ; who could converse with a Presence be-
hind the elements, and listen to a voice other than the
wind's ; who knew the night to be but a seeming darkness,
and, though the stars were blotted out, felt the pure eye
of the Infinite upon him ; who could welcome the terror,
not as the end, but as a beginning, the pangs of an ever-
lasting birth. Such a one is but flung by the wildest
1 Endeavors, p. 103.
THE PREACHER 159
delirium of nature into the closer embrace of the eter-
nal God."
Thus, as preacher, may we illustrate his aim and
show the trend of his influence. By such preaching it is
plain that he could hardly have grounded men in the
dogmatics of his school ; in fact, in his preaching days,
he was sometimes criticised for failure in this direction.
The priestly homily of daily behavior, likewise, you will
not frequently look for in one who is the enthralled oracle
and bard of such truth. His leading, rather, is to a con-
templative and mystic piety. The atmosphere you breathe
with him is most elastic, the views he opens before you
are most expansive ; yet he leads you to live directly from
the Supreme Source of life. Under his spell you become
an habitut of the cloister; you learn the significance of
meditation, of communion, of prayer.
Of course it is not thought that the lesson thus empha-
sized by him is in form any novelty in the Christian pulpit.
It may, however, be most confidently said, that the per-
suasiveness and intense and burning reality with which
he presents it give his sermon a place which probably
that of no other modern preacher may claim. In doubt,
sin, loss, pain, fear, grief, his thrilling admonition is, Seek
the presence of your God.
Seeking, too, you shall ever find him. No, not ever;
for there are times and seasons when that high joy is
denied us. The movements of the spirit are tidal. We
repair to our Bethesda, but the angel that is wont to
trouble the waters has not come, or has gone. " In every
earnest life, there are weary flats to tread, with the heavens
out of sight, no sun, no moon and not a tint of light
upon the path below; when the only guidance is the
faith of brighter hours, and the secret Hand we are too
numb and dark to feel." 1
1 " Tides of the Spirit," Hours of Thought, first series.
I6O JAMES MARTINEAU
Frances Power Cobbe pleasantly tells how many of the
congregation that listened to him in the Little Portland
Street Chapel sat with open note-books to jot down the
brilliants of thought that fell from his lips, and which they
could not suffer to float away upon the air. Certainly, if
they caught them all, they toiled with nimble pencils.
The language of no other preacher we can recall has such
frequent trick of running into poetic aphorisms. Emer-
son himself is scarcely more quotable ; and the quotations
that cling to us as we read him are pregnant, not with the
wisdom of the intellect alone, but of the conscience and
the soul. In the pursuit of our gains or pleasures a voice
solemn and authoritative commands, " Take up thy free-
will, and come along." Is there a cruel cynicism within
you? "No grief deserves such pity as the hopeless
privations of a scornful heart." Elsewhere and further on
are you looking for associations that are holy? "Those
to whom the earth is not consecrated will find their heaven
profane." For the proper ordering of the humblest
duties, great principles are needed ; " to keep the house
of the soul in order due and pure, a god must come down
and dwell within, as servant of all its work." The great
achievements which we honor come forth from vicissitude,
without which history were a dreary commonplace ; a truth
which he states in brief, " There is no Epic of the cer-
tainties." Are you haunted by a pessimistic misgiving?
" Be it ours to doubt the glooms and not the glory of
our souls." Are you troubled by the inconstancy of your
better moods? Be comforted. He who gave to the
moon her phases and its summer and winter to the year,
in all the provinces of our nature has appointed the like
alternations. " God has so arranged the chronometry of
our spirits that there shall be thousands of silent moments
between the striking hours." Such are specimens of the
jewels that everywhere adorn his page.
THE PREACHER l6l
Miss Cobbe likens his discourse, not to an " Alpenstock,"
but to a beautiful, inlaid " crozier." An Alpenstock it
rather seems to us, strong to lean upon in the most ven-
turous climbing, yet with ruby and pearl and jasper for
accessories. The strength is surely nowise impaired by
the beauty that adorns it. Where it ceases to be Alpen-
stock for climbing it becomes wings for flying, on which
without conscious effort we gain summits far more than
Alpine.
ii
CHAPTER II
THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN
FROM the preacher we turn to the theologian. Dr. Marti-
neau's theological attitude was always Unitarian ; and the
history of English Unitarianism on its doctrinal side is
almost ideally reflected in the history of his mind. He
received it as its earlier prophets, Priestley and Belsham,
left it; and early became the pioneer of its advance.
From the Liverpool Controversy to the publication of the
Seat of Authority, asking where Mr. Martineau stood was
very nearly the same as asking in what direction Unita-
rian thought was moving. It was rarely up with him, but,
often with manifest impatience, following after him.
I. The history of a moving intellect, and none other
can have a history, must be a record of changes. Of Dr.
Martineau, the theologian, therefore, our task requires
that we undertake such a record. We have seen where
he began. The services of his ordination reflect the atti-
tude of the church that ordained him ; and his own address
on the occasion was an explicit declaration of an accordant
mind. The conservatism that would fain hold liberal views
under ban at Andover or Columbia would be more than
satisfied could the out-going students make confessions as
orthodox in their tone. There was a God, the Creator of
all things, infinitely powerful, wise, and holy; and if the
close student may see reason to suspect that eighteenth-
century Deism colored the general conception of him,
why, so it does that of many an orthodox preacher even
THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN 163
now. The Bible was given by inspiration, and, rightly
interpreted, an unerring guide. Christ was a divinely
appointed teacher, whose commission was authenticated
by miracles ; who came by his teaching, life, death, pre-
eminently by his death, to provide salvation for mankind.
Christian discipleship could be allowed to those only who
could thus receive him. There was also a judgment to
come, of which heaven and hell were the issues. To read-
ers who have orthodox traditions these statements look
familiar enough, and they are likely to ask how they who
could consistently make them could have been held unortho-
dox. The point of departure from the orthodox standards
in the declarations of this hour, which the trained theolo-
gian may detect but scarce any other, was in the concep-
tion of Christ This departure was not on the view of his
character, his powers, his office, or the reverent and loving
fealty due him; but, in the supreme and metaphysical
meaning of the word, of his nature. What say you of Christ,
was he simply man? Had this question been asked
him by the council, Mr. Martineau would have answered
unequivocally no. Was he very God ? Again the answer
would have been no. There was for him, then, only a mid-
way conception of a nature more than man, yet a created
nature, and so, far less than God : a divine nature poised
between the two. Mr. Martineau has himself told us that
the " departure from the orthodox Confession of Faith
went no further than Arianism ; " and he adds that " so
resolute was the aversion to any further step, that, on let-
ting fall an expression implying the simple humanity of
Christ, I had lost in Dublin the most attached friend I had
among my hearers, who took his household away from me
with lamentation and tears." J Now, Arianism, though
1 A Spiritual Faith , Memorial Preface, p. viii. It may be well to remem-
ber that the pioneers of English Unitarianism Lindsey, Lardner, and Priest-
ley had several years before this event reached a Humanitarian view.
1 64 JAMES MARTINEAU
often enough embraced, has never been a stable doctrine.
The being more than man, less than God, is reasonably
sure to be surrendered to one or the other. Either he will
be lifted into Deity, and so orthodox faith be triumphant,
or he will be brought down to man, with the surrender of
everything distinctively orthodox. Reasoning from expe-
rience, we should say that Mr. Martineau and his fellow-
believers must either retreat from their Arianism or go
forward to Humanitarianism, with the probabilities much
in favor of the latter.
But there is another feature of their case that needs to
be kept in mind. These Presbyterians we have already
noticed that it was as an English Presbyterian that -Mr.
Martineau was ordained were without a creed. As their
doctrinal standard they accepted simply the Bible ; and
they adopted with it, in the broadest meaning of the word,
the Protestant principle of free interpretation. To be sure,
there was an understanding that the free mind would " orb
about " within the Bible ; that while searching for its con-
tents it would never question its authority. The free mind,
however, cannot stipulate thus to behave. Freedom to
find truth in Matthew must imply freedom to detect error
in Paul ; freedom to inquire with result in any sense pre-
determined : freedom to find the contents of a book, yet
freedom only to find them true, may be to some a pleasant
ideal, but it is one on which experience has bestowed no
continuous smile. So much freedom is always perilous to
such limitation. The Mississippi is only kept to its channel
as the banks are high or the levees strong. The Protes-
tant principle has a noble sound ; yet Protestant wisdom
has prevailingly imposed upon it the restraints of creeds,
that its rising floods may not spread too wide. It is not
probable that an intellect so restless and so virile as Mr.
Martineau's could have been held long within any barriers,
and the stronger they had been the more disaster in their
THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN 165
breach. As it was, not only was the central doctrine of
the faith an unstable one, but, save in a prevailing senti-
ment of those about him, there was no restraint at all upon
his intellectual movement. As was natural, therefore, fol-
lowing his own self-directing, he very early began at
first we may well believe insensibly to depart from the
standard of his ordination confession. How much was
really conveyed in the " expression implying the simple
humanity of Christ " cannot now be shown ; and it is not
difficult to see how to his own mind it may not have seemed
dissonant with the Arianism of his church. But it is also
possible that his friend detected in him a real departure
from the faith unsuspected by himself, just as several years
later his greater friend, John Stuart Mill, detected his de-
parture from the Necessarian philosophy to which he still
supposed himself a faithful adherent. Our initial aposta-
sies we are by no means sure to be the first to discover.
Other evidences are not wanting that his mind was
early in motion. The doctrines of the faith he took up
as fresh problems, of which, not content with received
opinion, he would achieve a first-hand conviction; and
the vigorous intellect that does thus is reasonably sure to
depart somewhere from the standards. Very early, too,
a new and peculiar influence flowed into his life, which,
in any adequate account of his mental history, would
require an ample page. It was the influence of Chan-
ning. We of later birth sometimes wonder how Chan-
ning's influence could have been so regal. We look into
his books; there indeed is the quiet and transparent
style, fit vehicle of the noblest wisdom ; there is the
organism of thought, in its wholeness so complete, so
articulated part with part; there are the moral impera-
tives, the spiritual insights, the spiritual raptures, all cal-
culated in their immediate effect to constrain, to comfort,
to awaken and inspire. But the thought is so old that it
1 66 JAMES MARTINEAU
is difficult to realize that it once was new ; it is with effort
that we remember that it is now so familiar and every-day,
only because it has so permeated and leavened the think-
ing of our time ; because newspaper, essay, sermon, novel,
poem, read in its light, too, the New Testament and the
Old, reflect it to us. To the contemporaries of Channing,
however, it came with the glory of a fresh inspiration.
It lifted them into another plane of feeling, in which the
past lay in another perspective and the future glowed
with another prophecy. Of this influence no one was
more profoundly sensible than Mr. Martineau. The
memorable discourses, preached at Baltimore in 1819
"and in New York in 1826, reached Ireland just before he
entered upon his ministry. Writing of his friend, John
Hamilton Thorn, then a young clergyman at Belfast, he
quotes from him words that might do quite as well for him-
self: " Others had taught me much ; no one before had un-
sealed the fountain in myself. He was the first to touch
the spring of living water, and make me independent even
of himself." l Like testimony to his own measureless debt
to Channing Dr. Martineau bore to the present writer,
when from the summit of his octogenarian years he helped
him to a survey of that bright morning of his career.
From his ordination confession he hardly comes dis-
tinctly before us as a theologian until 1835, the year
before the appearance of the Rationale of Religious In-
quiry. In the January of that year he preached a sermon
on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Manchester
New College, 2 near the close of which he says : " The
plenary inspiration of the Scriptures was once an admitted
tenet among our Churches. It was supposed that the
evangelical authors performed only the mechanical process
1 A Spiritual Faith, Memorial Preface, p. x.
2 " Need of Culture for the Christian Ministry." Reprinted in Essays,
Reviews, and Addresses, vol. iv.
THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN 1 67
of writing, and were, in fact, but amanuenses to the dic-
tation of the Holy Spirit. . . . All this is now changed.
The tendency among us [a tendency not, I think, likely
to be arrested] is towards the belief that the Sacred Writ-
ings are perfectly human in their origin, though recording
superhuman events; that the Epistles abound in the dis-
cussion of questions now obsolete ; that the Gospels, with
one exception, were constructed from earlier documents,
whose origin it is impossible to trace, and whose fidelity
rests upon their internal character ; that even their precep-
tive parts will not yield the Christian morality pure to our
hands, till a mass of local and temporary elements have
been withdrawn." The cast of this passage makes it plain
that while the more orthodox view had once prevailed in
the liberal ranks, it had not recently done so, which is of
course nearly the same as saying that it was not prevail-
ing at the time of the ordination confession. Indeed,
Unitarians, while very stoutly maintaining inspiration,
very early conceived it to be found in the deeper mean-
ing of the Sacred Writings, not in the form of their struc-
ture. They held it to be spiritual, not mechanical. And
when we come to the Rationale we only meet in more
elaborate statement the same general attitude. Its judg-
ment of the New Testament books is that " they are
perfectly human, though recording superhuman events;
that they were written by good and competent men, who
reported from their own memory, reasoned from their
own intellect; who received impressions modified by
their own imagination; who interpreted the ancient
scriptures by their own rules, and retained the notions of
philosophy which they had been taught, and of morals
which approved themselves to their own conscience.
They saw and felt what they wrote, and they wrote truly." 1
During the eight years since his ordination he has grown
1 Third edition, p. 10.
1 68 JAMES MARTINEAU
much, but his faith has undergone no marked transition.
He is bold and aggressive, and given to extreme compari-
sons ; yet he is safely within the lines of earlier and more
conservative Unitarianism. His attitude towards the Bible,
if that of a freeman, is yet most reverent ; Christ is the
central orb of his system; title to the Christian name
implies, not merely acceptance of him, but acceptance
of him as a supernatural being, together with the wonders
accredited to him. 1 This position, called in question by
some of more radical mind, he defends in the preface
to the second edition, and qualifies rather than departs
from in the preface to the third edition, which appeared
in 1845. The ruling contention of the book is for Ration-
alism against Orthodoxy, against Orthodoxy in that it
" makes belief a duty of the Will, and judges men by their
creed ; " for Rationalism in that it makes belief an " invol-
untary act of the Understanding, and judges them by
their character," 2 and in this contention he is fervid,
cogent, and convincing. Reply, however, might have
been made to him, which his own later experience should
have verified, that the reason that assumes to judge in-
spiration will anon usurp the throne of authority.
We come now to the period of the Liverpool Contro-
versy, an event that summoned him to declare his mind on
a variety of themes in a somewhat careful and elaborate
manner. The preliminary correspondence, as we have
seen, came to a sudden termination in consequence of the
Unitarian party's refusal to justify their position by the
whole Bible as the " Word of God." " We all drew our
religious faith," says he, " from the Word of Christ" 8
This was a very marked departure from the standard of
the confession ; and while there are passages in the Ra-
1 Rationale of Religious Inquiry, p. 70.
2 Preface to second edition, pp. viii-ix.
1 A Spiritual Faith, Memorial Preface, p. xiii.
THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN 169
tionale that may foreshadow such an attitude, it is not
probable that he would have taken it, had the like exi-
gency arisen at the time that book was printed. But
personally he had gone further than this. All drew their
religious faith from the " Word of Christ; " but what was
that " Word "? " While," says he, " Mr. Thorn found that
Word in every saying which any Evangelist ascribed
to him, I could not refer the Johannine discourses to the
speaker of the Sermon on the Mount, or help feeling, in
the very differences of the Synoptic reports, limits to their
authenticity, not without traces of later thought." 1 How
long he has been coming to this position he does not tell
us, nor by what influences he has been guided ; but it is
plain that he has entered upon the way of which the
Tubingen school and the Seat of Authority will be the
issue.
To fix his attitude at this time more definitely, we will
briefly follow him through his several contributions to this
Controversy. His first theme was " The Bible : What it is,
and What it is not." In this discussion the conception of
a spiritual inspiration as opposed to a plenary and mechan-
ical, " as much higher than your cold, dogmatical, scien-
tific inspiration, as the intuitions of conscience are higher
than the predications of logic, and the free spirit of God,
than the petty precision of men," 2 rules all his reasoning.
This " great autobiography of human nature " such he
calls the Bible is the " Word of God," but a distinc-
tion at which spirits were troubled sixty-one years ago,
not the " Words of God." His teaching was that while the
spirit of God moved upon the souls of the Bible writers,
their understandings were left uncontrolled to use such
language as they would, to group events as they might, to
1 A Spiritual fait A, p. xiii.
2 Letter to Rev. H. McNeile and others, " Unitarianism Defended,"
Correspondence, p. 41.
I/O JAMES MARTINEAU
weave their own moral sentiments into the narrative of
them, to draw their own inferences from them, to give
them a color, not always of exactest verisimilitude, from
what was local and peculiar to their time. The inspiration
is met in the constant yet progressive lesson of the infinite
power, the unerring wisdom, the unbending righteousness,
the constant providence, the unvarying love of God. This
it is that the Word of God proclaims, but through the
words of men. But in this record of inspirations where is
the culminating point? Why, in him of Nazareth. "He
is the central object, around whom all the ages and events
of the Bible are but an outlying circumference ; and when
they have brought us to this place of repose, to return
upon them again were but an idle wandering." J To Christ
he looked in the spirit of most reverent discipleship as one
whom God had endowed with a far surpassing grace, and
in whose utterance his Word became articulate as in that
of none other. It had for him, too, this peculiarity, that it
" plunges us into the feeling, that God acts not there, but
here; not was once, but is now ; dwells not without us, like
a dreadful sentinel, but within ns as a heavenly spirit, be-
friending us in weakness, and bracing us for conflict."
" The inspiration of Christ," he goes on to say, " is not
any solitary, barren, incommunicable prodigy; but dif-
fusive, creative, vivifying as the energy of God : not
gathered up and concentrated in himself, as an object of
distant wonder; but reproducing itself, though in fainter
forms, in the faithful hearts to which it spreads." 2 He
surely is wanting in sensibility who, reading these words,
detects no heart-throbs in them.
His evidence of inspiration is thus even at this early day
not external, but internal ; not in the letter of the Sacred
Volume, whose inaccuracies he points out in long detail,
but in its spirit. But how of miracles? Mr. Martineau
i p. 4. 2 p. 7-
THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN I /I
believed in miracles, at any rate the miracles of Christ.
From the prevailing view of them, however, he takes a wide
departure. The miracle, as he holds, can prove nothing
true that is intrinsically incredible. " If, before your
eyes," says he, " a person were to multiply five loaves
into five hundred, and then say ' this is to prove the doc-
trines which I teach, that God is malignant, and that there
is no heaven after death,' should you be converted, and
follow him as a disciple? Certainly not; the statement
being incredible, the miracle would be powerless. And
the inference I would draw is this : that the primitive
force of persuasion lies in the moral doctrine as estimated
by our reason and conscience, not in the preternatural act
displayed before our senses." 1 What then is the signifi-
cance of Christ's miracles? In answer he says, and his
language conveys a doctrine that early Unitarians struggled
hard to establish, " His miracles, surely, sprung from com-
passionate, not proselytizing impulses ; had a practical, not
a didactic air; were not formally wrought as preliminaries
to a discourse, but spontaneously issued from the quietude
of pity; they were not syllogisms, but mercies." 2 Another
very current conception of miracles calls forth his protest.
A year and a half earlier, Emerson had spoken of them as
" one with the blowing clover and the falling rain ; " and
somewhat thus Mr. Martineau regarded them. A preva-
lent habit of thought then, and we should not need to look
far to find it now, placed them in another category, and
gave them another sanctity. " The falling rain " ? Why,
that follows upon the laws of nature, decreed when the
world began. This miracle, on the contrary, is the
immediate action of God, and is a token of his presence
and his will. Against this Mr. Martineau inveighs : " In
whatever form it is expressed, it rests upon a postulate
which I hold to be false and irreligious; viz., that the
i p. 25. 3 pp. 24-25.
1/2 JAMES MARTINEAU
supernatural is Divine, the natural not Divine ; that God
did the miracles, and since the creation has done nothing
else ; that Heaven gave a mission to those whom it thus
endowed, and has given no mission to those who are
otherwise endowed. All peculiar consecration of miracle
is obtained by a precisely proportioned desecration of
nature." 1 Here is obviously no attempt to depreciate
miracle, but a desire to give to the operations of nature the
like sanctity. His was not at all the deistical doctrine which
divorces God from immediate relation with the universe,
but the theistic conception that makes him immanent in
its life, and so regards the miracle but the peculiar exer-
cise of an Energy of which " blowing clover and falling
rain " are manifestations. He does not question the
exceptional, but would consecrate the familiar. It seems
difficult to detect a heresy here, yet meditated in relation
with a later attitude, it is difficult not to feel that the " way
which they call heresy " is entered upon. He would hold
the familiar as sacred as the strange ; but before the publi-
cation of the second series of Endeavors, seven years later,
he will prefer the " customs of heaven " to the " anoma-
lies," " the dear old ways, of which the Most High is never
tired," to the " strange things which he does not love well
enough ever to repeat." 2 One more stadium, and from his
preference for the " customs of heaven " he will discard the
" anomalies."
Mr. Martineau's second contribution to this Controversy
was an elaborate disproof of the proposition that " Christ
was God." Here his attitude is negative, and his own
view of Christ is not made prominent. Towards the close,
however, he makes this striking statement : " Jesus Christ
of Nazareth, God has presented to us simply in his inspired
humanity. Him we accept, not indeed as very God, but
1 p. 24.
2 Endeavors after the Christian Life, p. 311, American edition.
THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN 173
as the true image of God, commissioned to show what no
written doctrinal record could declare, the entire moral
perfections of Deity. We accept, not indeed his body,
not the struggles of his sensitive nature, not the travail of
his soul, but his purity, his tenderness, his absolute devo-
tion to the great \idea of right, his patient and com-
passionate warfare against misery and guilt, as the most
distinct and beautiful expression of the Divine mind." J
Enough surely for spiritual affinity, but too fluid and
indefinite for dogma.
His third lecture dealt with the " Scheme of Vicarious
Redemption." This was perhaps his crowning effort in
this Controversy. Of course all turns on the interpreta-
tion of the death of Christ ; so with a few vivid strokes he
places before us the scene of the Crucifixion, and then asks
what this means. The first impression is that it " requires
no interpretation, but speaks for itself; that it has no mys-
tery, except that which belongs to the triumphs of deep
guilt, and the sanctities of disinterested love ; " and with
this view he is content. He conceives the death of Christ
as " manifesting the last degree of moral perfection in the
Holy One of God ; " and believes that " in thus being an
expression of character, it has its primary and everlasting
value." He conceives it as "immediately procuring the
universality and spirituality of the Gospel ; by dissolving
those corporeal ties which give nationality to Jesus, and
making him, in his heavenly and immortal form, the Mes-
siah of humanity." 2 The natural features of the Cruci-
fixion, however, he is told present only the " mere outside
aspect ; " that they are " wholly insignificant compared
with the invisible character and relations of the scene ;
which, localized only on earth, has its chief effect in Hell ;
and though presenting itself among the occurrences of
time, is a repeal of the decretals of Eternity." Thus he
1 P- 57- 2 PP- 5-6-
174 JAMES MARTINEAU
glides into the doctrine of the Atonement, summoning
philosophy and Scripture to testify against it ; and in his
powerful exposition they testify as they have seldom testi-
fied. His philosophical argument is the most impressive,
as probably the most congenial to his mind, but his Bibli-
cal is remarkable for its completeness. There is not a
prominent consideration ever deduced from the Sacred
Text in support of the doctrine, that he does not frankly
challenge. The issue is such as we should anticipate : the
death of Christ is spoiled of its dogmatic significance.
Here is no God enduring an infinite penalty, but a man
divinely appointed to show forth the measureless love of
God, and so win human souls to his embrace. It does not
placate the Divine, but lifts up and redeems the human.
His next theme is the " Christian View of Moral Evil."
At this time he had not attained to the ethical doctrine of
his later years ; yet he is certainly a careless reader who
does not find in this discourse germs of which the Types of
Ethical Theory is the unfolding.
To exhibit the Christian view he does not exhibit it
alone, but passes in review the doctrine of two principles
that were held in Greece, the philosophical doctrine
which, giving God an absolute monarchy, makes evil an
instrument in his hands for the furtherance of good ; and
the doctrine which theologians have drawn from the Bible,
which teaches a created spirit of evil or devil to which
moral evil is ultimately referred. These he discusses,
the first two briefly, the last fully, and discards as un-
tenable. Of course, under the latter head he reviews the
doctrine of the Fall with its manifold implications. Neither
God directly nor " through his dependant Satan," neither
" by his general laws " nor by " vitiating the constitution of
our first parents," J is he willing to conceive the ultimate
source of sin ; rather he holds God, in his essential nature,
1 P- 33-
THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN 1/5
its enemy. Where, then, is its source? The New Testa-
ment, reflecting the moral consciousness with its " pro-
found sense of individual responsibility," guides to it.
Christianity he finds pre-eminently a " personal " religion,
" establishing the most intimate and solitary dealings
between God and every human soul." " It is a religion
eminently natural ; eradicating no indigenous affection of
our mind, distorting no primitive moral sentiment; but
simply consecrating the obligations proper to our nature,
and taking up with a divine voice the whispers, scarce
articulate before, of the conscience within us." x This
sense of personal responsibility he finds impaired by " all
reference of the evil that is in us to any source beyond our-
selves" " To look for a remoter cause than our own guilty
wills . . . bewilders the simple perceptions of conscience,
and throws doubt on its distinct and solemn judgments." 2
The practical result of this scheme of doctrine he finds
to be false views and fictitious feelings with respect both
to our own characters and to those of our fellow-men.
" That which can be vicariously incurred, or vicariously
removed, cannot be guilt; cannot, therefore, be sincerely
felt as such ; can awaken no true shame and self-reproach,
and draw forth no burning tears when we meet the eye of
God. It is a shocking mockery to call sorrow for an ances-
tor's sin by the name of penitence, and to confound the
perception [or, as it is termed, ' application,'] of Christ's
holiness with the personal peace of conscience: the one
can be nothing else than moral disapprobation, attended
by the sense of personal injury ; the other, moral approval,
attended by the sense of personal benefit ; and mean and
confused must be the sentiments of duty in a mind which
can mistake these for the private griefs of contrition, and
1 P- 34-
2 PP- 34~3S- I* ma Y be worthy of remark that in this lecture Mr. Marti-
neau reaches his first statement of the freedom of the will.
1/6 JAMES MARTINEAU
the serenity of a self-forgetful will." 1 Thus he maintains
against the dominant theology, the fundamental principle
of a true ethic, which makes man ever the ultimate source
of his deed, and honors or abases him according to the
measure of his obedience. This he finds the verdict of
conscience, whose oracles the New Testament records and
consecrates. He uses throughout the language of the
philosopher, but he bears home upon the dominant creed
the imputation of being fundamentally dissonant with a
sound morality. At the same time he shows that the
canons of righteousness, the ultimate judge of creeds and
Scriptures, are within; that it must be a false creed and
a spurious Scripture that a healthy conscience cannot
ratify.
His concluding lecture was of " Christianity without
Priest and without Ritual." He opens with a contrast of
prophetic with priestly and ritualistic religion which it is
still profitable to contemplate. The priest, as all cults
present him, is the representative of man before God.
He stands between the worshipper and his Deity ; without
his mediation there is no access to the grace of Heaven.
His office no one else can exercise ; there are interces-
sions that are only prevailing when he makes them ;
rites, ceremonies, incantations that are efficacious only
when he employs them ; and their aim is not to superin-
duce a healthier state within the worshipper, a penitent
heart, a surrendered will; but to win the favor of an
unmindful or offended Deity. The Ritual, that is, is a
" system of consecrated charms ; and the Priest, the great
magician who dispenses them." This system, indeed, is
capable of great refinement as well as great grossness, yet
in its better as in its poorer ministration the same essen-
tial features cling to it. It always implies an idea of God
and his relation with humanity on which the nobler senti-
1 p- 37- 3 P- 6.
THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN 1 77
ments cannot prosper. Human nature is presented to
us, " in contrast, not in alliance, with the divine ; " and
ever the tendency is to those arguments and appeals that
impart a sense of widest separation. Man, instead of
being consecrated by the immediate fellowship of God, is
demeaned into an outcast from his presence.
In strongest contrast with the purely priestly religion is
the prophetic. While the Priest is the representative of
men before God, the " Prophet is the representative of
God before men." Instead of carrying a petition up, he
brings a message down ; " instead of carrying the foulness
of life to be cleansed in Heaven, he brings the purity of
Heaven to make life divine. Instead of interposing him-
self and his mediation between humanity and Deity, he
destroys the whole distance between them; and only
fulfils his mission, when he brings the finite mind and the
infinite into immediate and thrilling contact, and leaves
the creature alone with the Creator." 1 As is the differ-
ence in end, so is the difference in means. While the
Priest performs his rites or mutters his incantations, the
Prophet speaks the burning and the cleansing word.
The former is without forward vision: the sacerdotal
system from its very nature is stationary; to the latter
there is ever a fairer truth, a new obedience, a more
radiant ideal. The latter cares not for the instituted, but
for the true ; not for rites, but for living worship ; not
for the temple, but for the temple's God ; and the practical
working of the two it is easy enough to see. The former
involves a " distant Deity, a mean humanity, a servile
worship, a physical sanctity, and a retrospective rever-
ence ; " 2 the latter, " an interior Deity, a noble humanity,
a loving worship, an individual holiness, and a prospec-
tive veneration." 3
1 pp. lo-ii. Also Studies of Christianity, p. 42.
2 Ibid. p. 40. 3 Ibid. p. 45.
12
1 78 JAMES MARTINEAU
Mr. Martineau, while making his contrast, has hovering
near his mind the Church of England, whose sacerdotal
tendencies it was easy to expose, though they are in
union with a prophetic spirit he might in justice have
more fully recognized. But how of Christianity? Is it a
religion of the priestly or of the prophetic type? His
answer is unequivocal and strong. " Christianity, then,"
he says in closing, " is without Priest and without Ritual.
It altogether coalesces with the prophetic idea of religion,
and repudiates the sacerdotal. Christ himself was tran-
scendently THE PROPHET. He brought down God to this
our life, and left his spirit amid its scenes. The Apostles
were prophets ; they carried that spirit abroad, revealing
everywhere to men the sanctity of their nature, and the
proximity of their heaven." 1 Such was his view of Chris-
tianity, with all that it implies. It was intended to lift up
man, not to reconcile God ; to redeem from sin, not to save
from hell ; to awaken, encourage, comfort, rebuke ; to win
to the recognition of the Eternal Beauty and the embrace
of the Infinite Love.
Such is the attitude of his mind during this memorable
Controversy, which closed in the spring of 1840. Certainly
he has moved far from the ordination confession ; but,
judged by the standards of to-day, he has reached no ex-
treme of radicalism. His mind is most elastic, and it is
restrained by no dogmatic barriers ; but he holds to the
moral, though not the plenary inspiration of the Bible ; he
still believes in miracles ; the person of Christ is his cen-
tral light ; and in essentially this attitude he will for some
time remain. In 1841, discussing Five Points of Christian
Faith, he enumerates " Faith in the Moral Perceptions of
Men," in the " Moral Perfection of God," in the " Strictly
Divine and Inspired Character of our own Highest De-
sires and Best Affections," in " CHRIST " as God's "perfect
1 Studies of Christianity, pp. 68-69.
THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN 1/9
and transcendent outward revelation" in " Human Immor-
tality." Against what counter-theses these several points
are maintained, there is no need here to state. In 1845,
in a sermon on " The Bible and the Child," he disturbed
the peace of more conservative spirits by urging that the
Bible should not be crowded into the child's mind en
masse, but should be offered him with discrimination.
" This indiscriminate use of the Bible, as an infallible
whole," he tells his hearers, " fills the mind with a system
of confused and self-contradictory ideas, both of religion
and morals." 1 In another passage he tells of three systems
of morals which he finds in the Bible, " most at variance
with each other in their general spirit and tendency."
They are those of Moses, of Solomon, of Christ; "respec-
tively perfect representations of the sacerdotal, the Epicu-
rean, and the spiritual type of human duty; " 2 and he can
see only moral bewilderment resulting from offering them
to the child as on an equal footing of divine authority.
Yet his attitude here is clearly implied in his Controversy
lecture of a year before. In 1846 he records dissent from
Theodore Parker's saying that if Christianity be true at all,
it would be just as true if "Herod or Catiline had taught" it.
The combination of a " true Christianity " with a " wicked
Christ," " he finds no less absurd than revolting." On
this principle, " the moral perfectness of Christ is not an
essential, but a subsidiary, support to Christianity; a
delightful confirmation of his mission," but not a condi-
tion of our faith in him. The very contrary Mr. Marti-
neau finds true. " Prove what you will against his life,"
Mr. Parker might be supposed to say, " his attested
doctrine remains." " Prove what you will against his doc-
trine," Mr. Martineau would reply, "his divine life re-
mains ; and with more truth in it than in any proposition
1 Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. iv. p. 394.
a Ibid. p. 397.
I SO JAMES MARTINEAU
in the Bible or out of it" J In 1850, in a searching review
of Francis W. Newman's Phases of Faith, he maintains the
moral perfection of Jesus, a view which in 1853, in a re-
view of New Phases, he more elaborately defends. In the
latter paper, too, he maintains the view that upon the per-
son of Jesus Christendom furnishes an " indispensable
commentary ; " that a scrutiny of his lineaments as they
were first offered to the world yields not the person that
we know. " As Plato thought it needful, in his investiga-
tion of Morals, to study their embodiment in the magnified
scale and conspicuous orders of the State, so it is impossi-
ble to apprehend aright the person of Jesus without watch-
ing the spread of his shadow over the ages, and throwing
back upon him the characteristics of the Christian faith." 2
The same year, reviewing R. W. Greg's Creed of Christen-
dom, with subtler and fuller statement, he maintains the
like thesis respecting Christianity. We cannot know it in
its seed, that is, the written word of evangelist or apostle,
but only in its unfolding. " Inspiration" says he, " in giv-
ing the intensest light to others, may have a dark side turned
towards itself. There is no irreverence in saying this, and
no novelty: on the contrary, the idea has ever been
familiar to the most fervent men and ages, of Prophets
who prepared a future veiled from their own eyes, and
saintly servants of heaven, who drew to themselves a trust,
and wielded a power, which their ever-upward look never
permitted them to guess." 3 This truth he copiously
illustrates from the Christian record by showing how
Christianity, though realizing far more grandly, yet failed
to realize the expectations of its founders. His conclusion
is that the "primitive Gospel is not in its form, but only
in its spirit, the everlasting Gospel." In all this we see a
mind reverently dealing at first hand with the problems of
1 Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. i. pp. 182-183.
2 Ibid. vol. iii. p. 6l.
8 Studies of Christianity, p. 286.
THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN l8l
the faith ; not emancipate from the past, nor seeking to be ;
yet calling no man and no creed master, and in the love of
truth earnestly but serenely following its light.
II. Thus we have surveyed what we may call the tentative
period of his theology. We meet in it no radical changes,
but rapid modifications, and always away from the domi-
nant standards of faith. The distance from the ordination
confession to the essays of the earlier fifties is long, but
the line of travel is a reasonably straight one.
We will now undertake to state his more settled and
characteristic doctrine. Preliminary to this, however, we
may observe that what we have called his tentative period
reaches just a little past the time when the "metaphysic
of the world " came home to him in Trendelenburg's class-
room. One who carries to the study of Dr. Martineau's
earlier theology a firm grasp upon his earlier philosophy
must sometimes be sensible of a dissonance between them.
Convictions deep as his life surge for utterance, which,
placed beside the doctrines of Hartley and the Mills, wear
an incongruous look. This conversion brought him to
himself, and gave him that spiritual philosophy without
which he could scarcely have known an intellectual har-
mony. We may venture to affirm even more than this.
There is a connection, often enough observed, between a
mechanical philosophy and a vigorous dogmatism, and
a spiritual philosophy and intellectual freedom. Given the
former, the soul seeks through conventional and appointed
ways the God that otherwise it is not allowed to find.
Given the latter, and in the security of immediate knowl-
edge, the appointed ways book, creed, ritual lose
their importance. In a strange country one takes the
paths that are pointed out to him; but
" He needs a guide no longer who hath found
The way already leading to the Friend."
1 82 JAMES MARTINEAU
That Mr. Martineau's philosophical conversion yielded
him another theological creed we could not say; but
another theological temper it surely yielded him. In a
sermon already quoted, speaking of the " living union of
God with our humanity," he said, referring to the earlier
period, "Long did this faith pine obscurely within me,
ere it could find its way to any clear joy." After his con-
version, however, it pined no more, but became his ever
haunting and enthralling conviction. At the same time
he turned to the problems with which he had been
accustomed to deal, with correspondingly altered spirit.
Before there had been an apparent willingness to save
what he might: while ready to dare anything for the
truth, he was somewhat more than willing that certain
things should be true. Now he faces his problems with
scarce a prejudice as to the issue, concerned only that his
facts shall be indisputable, his postulates sound, his in-
ferences just. Meeting God as a daily friend, questions of
miracle and inspiration, of the date of the Pentateuch
or the authorship of John, may be tranquilly left to the
issues of learning and sound reasoning.
The basal principle of Mr. 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. Mr. Martineau, on the contrary, is a Christian be-
cause he is a Theist He believes in Christ, for he artic-
ulates a divine word which he has also heard. His
conception of God is not of an infinite Somewhat beyond
him, or of a Moral Ideal within him, but of a " Divine Mind
and Will," distinctly that; and he meets with peremp-
tory challenge whatever " substitutes " for this. Especially
stern is he in dealing with pantheistic dissipations of it.
Most Theists pantheize 1 at times; Mr. Martineau never
pantheizes; and even the unsuspected tentatives towards
pantheism, be sure he will detect and unmask. Thus in his
1 See note, p. 403.
THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN 183
criticism of Theodore Parker in 1845, while giving him
amplest recognition as a Christian thinker, he yet brings
him to judgment for his pantheizing. The American,
without due thought it may have been, was willing to
merge all inferior causes in one Supreme Cause, a view
which, rigorously followed, should have taken him quickly
to the plane, if not the orbit, of Spinoza. To this Mr.
Martineau replies that there is " one thing that must not
be overwhelmed, even by an invasion of the Infinite 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 ... to preserve the Hu-
man Will from annihilation : for if this sink too, the divine
irruption designed to purify, does but turn creation into a
vast Dead Sea, occupied by God." * The like reservation is
one of the characteristic features of the great Study of Re-
ligion? and is implied in his multifarious writings through
all the forty years between. All causes operating in nature,
in the last century called second causes, he is willing to lose
in the First Cause ; but the human will he must reserve as
itself a spring of causal power. To the pantheizing flood
this is a dyke that he always opposes. Gravitation may
express a divine volition, but human activities have no
remoter spring than the human personality. But there
is another aspect of the problem which it is important
to notice : many forget, but Mr. Martineau never forgets,
that there is a doctrine of man that is essential to any
doctrine of God that is not pantheistic. They may stoutly
deny pantheism, but the view they present of man as mode
or phenomenon anything but substantive and real
makes pantheism the only tenable doctrine. In his essay on
" Nature and God " Mr. Martineau, brought to this theme,
1 Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. i. p. 170.
2 See vol. ii. pp. 170-171.
1 84 JAMES MARTINEAU
remarks in his pregnant way : " It is not enough that you
save the Divine personality, if you sacrifice the Human ;
without relation to which lesser, as substantive moral
object, the greater, left to shed affections only on its own
phenomenal effects, cannot sustain itself alive." l That is
to say, without a real man you have no support for the
conception of a real God. Yet another aspect of the
problem he is called to notice. In these latter days
the tendency of thought is much towards the Immanence
of God, which it is possible so to conceive as to obliterate
His personality. Observing in nature how all her opera-
tions are necessitated, not free, how can we think of the
immanent Source as free, not necessitated ? He comes to
this consideration in 1851, in his critique of Greg's Creed
of Christendom. " With an intellect," says he, " entirely
overridden by the ideas of Law and Necessity, no man can
escape the force of the common objections to any doctrine
of prayer, or of forgiveness of sin ; and if those ideas pos-
sess universal validity, the very discussion of such doctrine
is, in the last degree, idle and absurd. But what if some
mediaeval schoolman, or some impugner of the Baconian
orthodoxy, were to suggest that, though Law is coextensive
with outward nature, Nature is not coextensive with God,
and that beyond the range where his agency is bound by
the pledge of predetermined rules lies an infinite margin,
where his spirit is free? And what if, in aggravation of
his heresy, he were to contend that Man also, as counter-
part of God, belongs not wholly to the realm of nature,
but transcends it by a certain endowment of free power in
his spirit?" 2 Thus together with the Immanence of God
he maintains his Transcendence : beyond the realm of the
ever conditioned, the realm of the ever free. This view is
also a dominant feature of the Study of Religion ; 3 and
1 Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. iii. p. 169.
* Studies of Christianity, p. 280.
8 See vol. ii. pp. 138-142. Dr. Schurman sees in Dr. Martineau's doctrine
THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN 185
through all the years between, it was one of the constants
of his thought. In all dealing with the theistic problem,
he guards the idea of personality, no champion of theistic
faith more valiantly. His man is a living soul, no sequent
in an order of phenomenal succession, or modal apparition
of another nature; his God is a living, a righteous, and
a loving God ; and the latter he would hold untenable
without the former.
The Immanence of God provides for the stability of the
cosmic order : the various law of the outward universe is
the decree of the Immanent Will. At the same time His
Transcendency provides for His free communion with the
spirit in man. The fuller statement of this doctrine must
be reserved for a later page ; J enough to note here that
while on the one hand it consecrates the universe with the
Divine Presence, and yields that order which makes sci-
ence possible, on the other hand it provides that possibility
of personal relationship which religion ever asks. Thus it
becomes the basal provision for a second doctrine which
he maintains with great cogency and fervor, that of inspi-
ration. We have seen how, in his tentative period, he
wrestled with the prevailing standards of this doctrine, how
against the theory of plenary inspiration, which made
prophet or apostle but the passive agent of the Holy Spirit,
he maintained an inspiration that left the prophet free to
use language as he had learned it, to report facts as he
had observed them, to reason according to his natural
skill ; an inspiration that moved the soul, but did not dic-
tate to the tongue or pen. In his earlier tentatives
towards this view, his teaching wears an indefinite look,
of Transcendency " an unconscious survival from the deistic conception of
God's relation to the universe." (Belief in God, p. 176.) Dr. Schurman is
a writer who weighs his words ; but one who places beside typical deism the
theism of Dr. Martineau will surely be impressed, not by resemblance, but
by contrast.
1 See book iii., " Pantheism."
1 86 JAMES MARTINEAU
it needs must wear such when placed beside the old me-
chanical theory which he repudiated. He was brought,
however, to a more definite statement through a challenge
he was compelled to make of the indefiniteness of another,
and that, again, Theodore Parker. Inspiration, says the
latter, "is the light of all our being; the background
of all human faculties ; the sole means by which we gain
knowledge of what is not seen and felt, the logical con-
dition of sensual knowledge; our human way to the world
of Spirit." This is perfectly consistent with the pantheiz-
ing tendency we have already marked in him ; and it is as
an expression of this tendency that his speculation draws
from Mr. Martineau the criticism in which his own maturer
views of inspiration are first distinctly outlined. If so
much is inbreathed by the Divine, what then, we may ask,
is achieved by the human? If in such measure we are
dependent upon God, our own resource is nothing, a view
which no consistent theist could allow. " Were we to
attempt a solution," says Dr. Martineau, " we should com-
mence from the division of all Agency into the two cate-
gories of the Human Will, and the Divine Will : we should
endeavor to determine the circle of the former ; and what-
ever lay wholly beyond it, though still within the limits of
Consciousness and of Law, we should refer to the latter.
Not everything, however, that must be ascribed immedi-
ately to God, can be called Inspiration. He acts out of
the Spirit, or in Nature, as well as within the Spirit, or in
our Soul ; and we must, therefore, again exclude the
whole of the former sphere, and reserve only the charac-
teristic faculties of man. If it were maintained that there
were a plurality of these, a further reduction might be
allowed, till the attribute alone remained which manifests
itself in worship, the consciousness of moral distinctions,
and reverence for moral excellence and beauty. What-
1 Discourse of Matters Pertaining to Religion, fourth Am. edition, p. 205.
THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN 187
ever gifts are found in this province of the soul, which are
not the produce of human will ; which have been neither
learned nor earned; which, without the touch of any
voluntary process, appear in mysterious spontaneity; are
strictly the Inspiration of God." l The like dissent from
our American prophet, and the like affirmative doctrine,
he puts forth again in the Study of Religion. "A reason"
says he, " that does no thinking for itself, a conscience that
flings aside no temptation and springs to no duty, affec-
tion that toils in no chosen service of love, a ' religious
sentiment ' that waits for such faith as may ' come in ' to
it," all conclusions fairly drawn from Parker's teaching,
"negative their own function and disappear." 2 Again,
in his wonderful discussion of " God in History," 3 he says :
"In order to save t\iQ personal power in man, and to leave
him any real partnership in history, we must concede him
a mental constitution of his own, a trust of both intel-
lectual faculty and moral will ; and must limit the divine
part to the intuitive data, from which every activity of our
inner nature must start." " Each power of the soul," he
maintains, " has its own appropriate object to which it
feels its way, reason to truth, imagination to beauty,
conscience to right. The presentation of these to us is not
our own doing; the regular pursuit of them is"* This
thesis, as he is writing of history, he illustrates in a large
way by reference to the Greek, the Hebrew, and the Teu-
tonic mind. To the Greek there was " a haunting feeling
of an indwelling' divineness embodied in the cosmos, and
interfused through all its parts, including man as one of
them ; for, to the Greek, the universe and human life never
appeared as in their essence antithetic to the divine, but
rather a clothing and manifesting it, and moulded by its
1 Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. i. pp. 180-181.
2 Vol. ii. p. 170.
8 Seat of Authority, p. 116. * Ibid.
1 88 JAMES MARTINEAU
inner thought;" 1 the Jew, ruled by a moral conception,
bore witness to the "moral government of the world;"
and, as the Greek " interfused the divine essence through
the cosmic space" followed the " divine footsteps down the
tracks of historic time" and made the " course of history
a highway for his God ; " 2 while to the Teuton belongs
peculiarly that " sense of personal relation between the
single soul and the Spirit of God, which is the mainspring
of private sanctities, and releases the heart from the con-
straint of law into the freedom of love." 3
Thus he finds a threefold divine initiative, in the
sense of that glory that transfigures the universe, of a
Righteousness that bends the curves of history, of per-
fection in the individual soul. These are given, not found.
Herein, not in a mechanical controlling of men's faculties,
he finds the truth of inspiration ; and by a conviction of
this, as firmly held as was the older doctrine by Melanch-
thon or Calvin, his own work is done.
Here then we have a relation of persons, always that :
a giver and a receiver ; an upturned eye, a down-flowing
light, the light of the eternal Sun. Of persons, be it again
emphasized, not of Essence and mode, not of Reality and
appearance, but of Soul and soul.
But more than inspiration is provided for in this rela-
tion. Between persons there may be communion, mind
responsive to mind, affection answering to affection; and
though one be infinite and the other finite, the disparity
makes the grace no less possible. Still
" The spirit of the worm beneath the sod,
In love and worship, blends itself with God."
This theme is much dwelt upon by Mr. Martineau, though
less in the way of doctrirfal exposition than of mystic con-
templation. The truth is avouched to him by experience ;
1 Seat of Authority, p. 117. 2 Ibid. p. 119. 8 Ibid. p. 123.
THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN 189
in the private confessional he has met his God too often
to allow question as to the possibility of the interview.
Rather he would contend that of all persons in the uni-
verse, God is the most easily accessible. Herein, we
hardly need say, is involved his view of prayer. A super-
ficial scepticism, instructed only by natural law, cavils at
prayer. It does not avail to feed the hungry, stay the
storm, hold aloof the canker-worm, keep the pestilence
at bay. No, Mr. Martineau would say, what the decrees
of the Infinite Will have fixed, prayer cannot avail to
unfix. The laws of physical nature relent not in their
sway, and man, so far as a physical nature, is subject to
them. But in the realm transcending nature which as a
spiritual being is his home, and where God in His tran-
scendency is, the two meet on other terms. 1 Here is not
fixity, but freedom. Here the soul meets not decrees,
but admonitions; is shown not an order, but a beauty;
and here it may pour out its needs and God dispense his
grace, while all the functions of the physical nature go on.
The pantheist who allows God and man to meet only in
nature, and the deist who, banishing God wholly from
nature, leaves man wholly within it, may find no easy
reconciliation of law and prayer. But a theist of the
type of Mr. Martineau finds no call for reconciliation,
for there is not even an apparent dissonance between
them ; and he can say, as Mr. Martineau has said, " I
know of nothing in the constitution of the universe at all
at variance with our natural faith in a personal inter-
course with God, in his openness to our appeal and our
susceptibility to his spirit." 2 Man so far as he belongs
to nature must experience according as God has decreed ;
as a spiritual being he may receive as God may give.
1 $tt Study cf Religion, vol.ii. pp. 179-181.
2 Sermon, " The Prayer of Faith," Hours of Thought on Sacred Things,
second series.
JAMES MARTINEAU
Prayer may not avail to neutralize the malaria's poison,
or to float the shattered vessel to the haven; it may,
however, bring strength to the tempted, courage to the
fearful, comfort to the sorrowing, resignation to the rebel-
lious, faith to the doubting, peace to the troubled; and
these through God's answering grace.
But more yet is implied. A relation of persons opens
the way to a relation of ruler and subject, and hence,
through the self-ordering of our conduct, obedience or
disobedience. We can submit to a fate, we can yield to a
law, but we can obey only a person.
We must defer to a later page Mr. Martineau's justifi-
cation of the supreme holiness of God ; suffice it here to
say that in the presence of that holiness we recognize the
rightful disposer of our lives. It is ours, indeed, through
the august prerogative of freedom, to elect the disposal ;
His will, as communicated to us, we may make our guide
unto righteousness, or we may repudiate it unto sin ; but
there is the alternative, offered to every one to whom a
vision of right has been given. This or that, this betted
or that poorer, soul, which wilt thou? and according to
our choice is our spiritual alignment. Sin, that is Mr.
Martineau's oft-used word, and he speaks it with an impres-
sive solemnity. Liberal preachers have been wont to shun
it. Man they have treated as half-educated, over-tempted,
a blunderer; Mr. Martineau says plainly sinner; and, like
Wesley or Whitefield whose example he often recalls, he
directs his burning speech to the awakening of a sinning
nature to the saving sense of its condition. His sin, in-
deed, is not like that of Calvinism, corruption through
another's transgression ; it is a defilement or disease self-
incurred, and for which no extenuating plea can be offered.
Long practice of disobedience may numb us to the sense
of its enormity ; for " it is of the essence of guilty declen-
sion to administer its own anaesthetics ; " and so the soul
THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN 19 1
may suffer less the deeper is its ignominy; but the down-
ward way was entered when first, a nobler and a baser
offered, choice was made of the baser, and the deeper and
deeper turpitude was only incurred as the like choice was
repeated. In another feature too he departs from the cus-
tomary tone of many liberal theologians : in disobedience
he allows no gradations. As spiritual beings we are judged
not by the thing we do, but by the service we render,
whether it be to God or devil ; and this he holds that the
unhardened soul, by its sense of guilt and remorse, con-
fesses. In a vivid picture of Peter's anguish 1 after the
denial of his Master, he imagines the customary palliatives
addressed to him : This, indeed, Peter, is very bad, but
take heart; you could have done much worse. To be
sure, you told a lie, but you did not tell two. You only
denied your Master, you did not traduce him, you did not
kill him. There is Judas now; think of his betrayal and
how much worse was that. To this, Peter, speaking true to
the witness within him, can only reply, and these words
Mr. Martineau puts upon his lips : " Go to, thou fool and
blind ; Satan gave me the lie to tell ; but he put no mur-
derer's dagger in my hand ; what more then could I do for
him than I have done? " A little further on he says : " Ap-
pealed to by the actual competitors for our will, we well
know which is the higher, expressing the will of God ; and
which the lower, representing his aversion. There is no
third thing present ; and the difference between the two is
all that there can be : it is something infinite, being beyond
all quantity, and giving an antithesis of quality, contrasted
as beauty with horror, as the zenith with the nadir, as the
smile of heaven with the frown. There is then no second
best in Duty ; and the remorse which makes us feel, when
we have fallen, as traitors and accursed, flying from the
tempestuous face of God, reports to us the awful truth :
1 Hours of Thought, second series, p. 142.
192 JAMES MARTINEAU
had we been devils, we could have done no worse ; we did
the whole evil we were bid to do." l
But if sin, there may be pardon ; on the placability of
God he delights to dwell. Sins forsaken are the Father's
smile regained. But there is also punishment: and this
not mere consequences of wrongdoing such as we daily
experience, poverty from wasteful indulgence, loss of
confidence from dishonest dealing, impaired health from
dissipated habit, it is something more strictly penal, more
retributive. Though sin may administer its " anaesthetics,"
and the drugged soul become insensible to its shame, yet
it shall somehow and somewhere be awakened from its
torpor ; its dark record it shall read ; its evil deeds it shall
confront, and have full and clear experience of the holi-
ness it has insulted. The doctrine of the older Universal-
ists which, after the experience of this life, allowed saint and
sinner to begin all over again on equal terms in another
one, is none of Mr. Martineau's ; rather the inevitable
workings of sin, the fact that " guilty declension administers
its own anaesthetics," so that deeper guilt may make well-
nigh insensible to guiltiness, and remorse at last may lose
its fang, carries his mind to the future for the experience
of that justice which in this life is not executed. Future pun-
ishment, that he teaches. How that may be in the future
which cannot be now he does not affirm with definiteness,
but he has his visions. The "transition of Death" he
holds to be large enough to " open free play for many a
penalty that has remained only potential here." With the
changes of " body, mind, society and scene " that it brings,
" the old resources for slighting contrition and evading the
misery of wrong may well have come to an end." To
this thought he recurs again and again, and his vivid elo-
quence carries it home with a power that is sometimes
terrible. R. H. Hutton, recounting Mr. Martineau's ser-
1 Hours of Thought, second series, pp. 142-143.
THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN 193
vices to himself, said that he had inspired him, as the Cal-
vinists had failed to do, with the " fear of hell." " There
are passages in his writings," said he, " which have filled
me in moments of temptation and trial, with a dread which
hardly any living writer could have produced." He made
special reference to the vivid picture of the " maniac of
remorse" at the close of the sermon on "Christ's Treat-
ment of Guilt," l a passage which it cannot be amiss to
quote in full :
" It is remarkable how slight a suggestion is occasionally
sufficient to bring back vast trains of emotion. There are
cases in which some particular function of the memory ac-
quires an exquisite sensibility : and usually, as if God would
warn us what must happen when our moral nature is di-
vorced from the physical, it is the memory of conscience that
maintains this preternatural watch. In many a hospital of
mental disease [as it is called] you have doubtless seen a mel-
ancholy being, pacing to and fro with rapid strides, and lost
to every thing around ; wringing his hands in incommuni-
cable suffering, and letting fall a low mutter rising quickly
into the shrill cry ; his features cut with the graver of sharp
anguish; his eyelids drooping [for he never sleeps], and
showering ever scalding tears. It is the maniac of re-
morse ; possibly indeed made wretched by merely imagi-
nary crimes ; but just as possibly maddened by too true a
recollection, and what the world would esteem too scrupu-
lous a conscience. Listen to him, and you will often be
surprised into fresh pity, to find how seemingly slight are
the offences, injuries perhaps of mere unripened thought,
which feed the fires, and whirl the lash, of this incessant
woe. He is the dread type of hell. He is absolutely se-
questered [as any mind may be hereafter], incarcerated
alone with his memories of sin ; and that is all. He is un-
conscious of objects and unaware of time : and every guilty
1 See Endeavors after the Christian Life,
13
194 JAMES MARTINEAU
soul may find itself, likewise, standing alone in a theatre
peopled with the collected images of the ills that he has
done ; and turn where he may, the features he has made sad
with grief, the eyes he has lighted with passion, the infant
faces he has suffused with needless tears, stare upon him
with insufferable fixedness. And if thus the past be truly
indestructible ; if thus its fragments may be regathered ; if
its details of evil thought and act may be thus brought
together and fused into one big agony, why, it may be
left to ' fools ' to ' make a mock at sin.' "
Whoever lingers over this passage sufficiently to take
home its meaning will surely feel that the punishment it
implies lacks nothing of severity. The older theologians
used different terms, but, a few lurid spirits excepted, it
may be doubted if they provided a hell more terrible than
this. For an evil soul to awaken out of a spiritual torpor,
and with clear vision see the evil it has done ; to become
vividly conscious of low appetites that have been given
rein, of passions that have not been restrained, of griefs that
have been cruelly inflicted, of perfidies that have been
practised, of lies that have been told, the compunctions
that should have saved from them being smothered for the
while ; for the seducer to realize the baseness of his deed,
the traitor the enormity of his offence, the murderer the
horror of his crime ; the veil of forgetfulness so securely
drawn over the past suddenly lifted, the turpitude all plain,
and the soul seeing itself in its revealing blackness, is
there other torture it would not take in exchange for its
utter self-loathing and remorse? With this punishment in
its moral aspect also there is absolutely no fault to find ;
it is only right : it is the soul's own record that it contem-
plates ; it is itself it sees mirrored in its own deed, itself
as it is, but did not need become. The old doctrine of
retribution offends the moral consciousness, and so clouds
the righteousness of the universe; this one the moral
THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN 195
consciousness ratifies, and so sees in it a manifestation of
that righteousness. Between the two there is another
difference : the older doctrine stipulates the suffering as a
finality; to Mr. Martineau, here as there, it has an insep-
arable relation with remedy. The doctrine of Plato, that
the wise transgressor will seek, not shun, his punishment,
has seemed to many rather ideal than practical; to Mr.
Martineau, suffering for sin if dreadful is yet altogether
desirable, not to be asked reprieve from, but to be prayed
for, Smite, Lord, for thy mercy's sake spare not.
Through the punishment a sense of the soul's estate is
borne in upon it; the truth and right of the universe,
otherwise trampled and discredited, are vindicated. The
soul, forever denied such suffering, he would hold, indeed,
not favored, but defrauded. But more and deeper, in the
nature of things, suffering must ever attend the awaken-
ing of the soul to its ill estate, the realization of the purity
and high joy it has put by. As one numbed by cold and
at length become insensible, awakened by medicinal arts
from stupor nigh to death, has experience of a searching
agony, the attendant and the witness of returning life, so
with the sinning soul, aroused to a consciousness of its
estate : its contrition and its shame are incident to the way
of recovery. They imply that at least a thrilling glimpse
of the higher beauty has been given it, in contrast with
which its unseemliness is manifest. That beauty is its
possible attainment; but its via sacra, for a period, at
least, must be a via dolorosa. Before it hard and dark
looms the mount of Purgatory, and only up its steep
ascent and through its cleansing fires can the forsaken
Paradise be regained.
Thus these several items of doctrine, inspiration, com-
munion with God, prayer, sin, forgiveness, punishment,
flow from that relation of persons which he maintains so
strenuously.
196 JAMES MARTINEAU
It needs not to be shown that these doctrines, though
philosophically maintained, are Christian ; in their ultimate
thought, however unique in their explication, they are the
staple of Christendom. But what in its later stages is his
view of Christ? The Arianism of his ordination con-
fession went, and a Humanitarian view strictly that
came to its place. Christ became to him distinctly man,
not a celestial somewhat between man and God. With the
change of nature there was a corresponding change of
office : Christ ceased to be Lord and Saviour ; he became
teacher, exemplar, guide, brother, friend.
Was this change attended with a lower tone of feel-
ing? Did it make Jesus less dear to him, his word less
persuasive, his example less inspiring? The contrary
were the rather true: the critic and philosopher experi-
enced the ever-intensifying ardor of the disciple's loy-
alty. Settle the question of Christ's nature as you may,
and define his office as you will, the personality that
transfigures the Gospels had ever the homage of his
heart.
Those who have been troubled by his arraignments of
prevailing forms of theology have often had but dim per-
ception of the hold that Jesus had upon him. In 1850,
in his review of Phases of Faith, he fervidly maintained
Jesus' moral perfection. " We must persist," says he, " in
presuming Jesus to be perfect till shown to be imperfect.
We derive our estimate of him wholly from the picture
presented in the Gospels, . . . and so long as this picture
presents no moral imperfections, we must decline supply-
ing them out of the resources of fancy. In presuming 1
Christ to be perfect, we simply refuse to suppose a draw-
back on what we see from what we do not see, and insist
on forming our judgment from the known, without arbi-
trary modification from the unknown. No doubt Jesus, as
a being open to temptation, was intrinsically capable of
THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN 197
$in : but this, as a set-off against the positive evidence of
holiness, no more proves acttial imperfection, than the
mere capacity for goodness in the wicked proves their
actual perfection." A little further on he adds : " Christ
had thl liability to sin, not because he was hitman, but
because he was free ; and whatever presumption of imper-
fection arises hence, would have arisen no less, had he
been an angel of the highest rank. All souls are of one
species : or rather, are lifted above the level where diver-
sity of species prevails, so as to range, not with Nature,
but with God." 1 Three years later, in reviewing a second
edition of Phases, he maintains the same attitude, but
wishes to form judgment, not alone from the lineaments
of Jesus as shown in the New Testament, but also from his
grace as manifest in Christian history. " We admit," says
he, " and maintain that to the Person of Christ Christen-
dom supplies an indispensable commentary ; and that to
judge of him as of a private neighbour by puzzling out
his lineaments beforehand, instead of observing the action
of his individuality upon mankind and the mingling of his
influence with the currents of time, is not unlikely to lead to
an estimate of him other than that which we defend. But
the measure of the grandest beings cannot be taken by
any private standards or contemporary memoirs : and his-
tory is their biography writ large. ... As Plato thought
it needful, in his investigation of Morals, to study their
embodiment in the magnified scale and conspicuous orders
of the State, so it is impossible to apprehend aright the
person of Jesus without watching the spread of his shadow
over the ages, and throwing back upon him the character-
istics of the Christian faith." 2 In his review also of Renan,
ten years later, the like august moral estimate, if less speci-
1 Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. iii. pp. 38-39.
2 Ibid. p. 61. See also essay by Edward Caird, " Christianity and the
Historical Christ," New World, vol. v.
198 JAMES MARTINEAU
fkally emphasized, is yet implied; l and yet again in 1890,
in the Seat of Authority, though the language is not so
unqualified, it is plain that Jesus wears to him a moral
grace that lifts him to a peerless height. 2 This attitude
does not imply the belief that all moral insights were
given Jesus, nor that all moral issues lay clear before him ;
it does not imply the absence of temptation and struggle;
nay, these limitations may be conditions of being, in the
strict sense, moral at all. It does imply, however, that
whether insights were clear or dim, in whatever struggle or
whatever pain, he was faithful to the Higher Will. This
aspect of his character held the heart of Dr. Martineau in
steadfast discipleship. No critic has dealt with the Chris-
tian record more unsparingly than he ; and no cloistered
saint was ever more responsive to its central light.
Some of the more special and individual attitudes of his
mind respecting Christ are very interesting. A few years
ago there was undertaken a revision of the Common
Prayer in use among English Unitarians, a book first
published in 1862, and of which "insensible changes" of
sentiment made desirable some " changes " in the text.
Naturally Dr. Martineau's views were solicited, and he
wrote out in full the changes he would have made. In
transmitting them to the clergyman who had the enter-
prise in hand, he wrote, " I can take no interest in any
book of common prayer that does not recognize the
u-nique place of Jesus Christ." When eighty-six years of
age, he was asked if this language was still true to his
mind, and he answered that it was. That " unique place,"
however, must be such as Dr. Martineau could give, and
that was quite definitely shown in his critical emenda-
tions. It is no very uncommon circumstance to meet a
Unitarian clergyman who dislikes the name Christ; it
1 Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. iii. p. 333.
8 See especially p. 651.
THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN 199
designates an office which he feels that Jesns did not
hold. Dr. Martineau r on the contrary, though he long
ago repudiated the Messiahship of Jesus, and was anxious
to relieve him of all pretence to it, yet held on to the
name, and used it freely and reverently. In the case of
one so scrupulous as he in the use of terms, this cannot
be thought to follow as mere habit from the usage of an
earlier day ; and had he been questioned, he not improb-
ably would have claimed, that while Jesus was not at all
the Christ of Old Testament prediction, he yet holds, by
a holier anointing, the office of Christ in the trust and
affection and reverence of Christendom. The name Son,
too, as applied to Jesus, is one that he very frequently
used, and for which he had a very evident liking. He
had, indeed, a profound conviction of universal Sonship,
as he who reads his sermon on " The Finite and the
Infinite in Human Nature" 1 may learn. The Pauline
distinction between "creature" and "sons," a created
nature seen in all structures around us and in the physi-
cal organism of man, and a begotten nature, met in
man's inmost spirit, he accepted and illuminated and
glorified. But of this latter he, like Paul, found in
Christ the supreme illustration ; nay, as he taught, it
is the penetrating radiance of his life that awakens us to
its more vivid realization. On the other hand the terms
" Lord " and " Saviour " he disliked and would not use ;
they were impregnated with a meaning that was not true
to him. His critical changes in the Common Prayer are
mainly illustrative of these attitudes. For " in Christ
Jesus our Lord," he substitutes " by thy beloved Son."
Instead of " everlasting joy and felicity, through Jesus
Christ our Lord," he would say "the everlasting joy to
which thy glorified Son hath led the way." "For thy
mercy's sake in Jesus Christ our Lord," he transforms
1 Hours of Thought on Sacred Things, first series.
20O JAMES MARTINEAU
to " of thy compassion, shown in the tender mercies of
Jesus Christ." " We bless thee for ... the redemption
of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ," he cancelled in
favor of " we bless thee for ... sending thy Son to be
the light of the world." " Everlasting joy and felicity,
through Jesus Christ our Lord," he changed to " ever-
lasting joy and felicity to which thy glorified Son hath
led the way." For " through our Lord Jesus Christ "
he wrote " nearer the spirit of thy Son." " Grant us
every blessing in Christ Jesus our Lord" he would ex-
punge in favor of " make us joint heirs with Christ as
children of God." Where the text reads "we beseech
thee, O God, to hear and to accept us as true disciples
of thy Son, Jesus Christ our Lord," he would have peti-
tions offered " with the submission of children, and the
perfect trust of thy beloved Son." For the phrase
" Our Saviour " he sometimes substituted " Jesus Christ,"
and sometimes " Forerunner." " Through him whom
thou hast exalted to be unto us a Prince and Saviour,"
he changed to " As we look unto him who was tempted
as we are, and yet without sin." These changes indi-
cate with sufficient clearness the " unique position." It
is not that of an outward potentate, nor that of an
official Saviour, but that of the supreme prophet of the
soul; of one endowed with eye clear to the Beatific
Vision, and with power to magnetize unto its joy.
III. Interesting as are his attitudes as a theologian,
there is a spirit behind them that interests us even more.
This controversialist who stood so valiantly for his truth,
yet believed in a unity of spirit, and strove to show the
way to it. An absolutely free intellect was indeed indis-
pensable to him, and he would have held dearer any lone-
liness and isolation with this, than any fellowship without
it; but this allowed him, as he would religiously have
THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN 2OI
allowed it to any other, the differences that should have
made fraternal worship impossible would have needed to
be very radical indeed. Of course where there is united
service there must be points of intellectual sympathy : no
group of people can come together in the worship of God
unless there be a common belief that there is a God ; or in
discipleship of Christ, unless in some sense they, in com-
mon, recognize him as their master. But the difference is
incalculable between ultimates of belief such as these and
requirements of doctrine such as the sects impose; and
Dr. Martineau dreamed his dream the foolishness of
his day, but possibly the blessed reality of a wiser fu-
ture of a worship in approaching which these require-
ments shall not be required ; when theological animosities
shall no longer keep apart those whom a common love
should otherwise unite. ' He also dreamed his dream of
a Church deeply based upon the religious sentiment, toil-
ing on from age to age, changing its doctrines as new
light comes, yet without breach in the continuity of its
life. Here are two distinct conceptions, though they
express one spirit. The former deems it possible to find
points of union amid existing diversities; the latter
dreams of an organization of which doctrinal features
shall not be dominant and obtrusive. No abatement of
the profound research, no rest for the restless mind,
no truce even to polemic strife. You need not make
your zeal for truth the less because you magnify your
love.
The former was borne in upon him, as it has been borne
in upon so many others, by contemplating sectarian divi-
sions in contrast with the common truth out of which they
spring. Scattered through his various writings are many
tentatives towards reconciliation, but one stands out con-
spicuously before all others, a remarkable paper entitled
" A Way out of the Trinitarian Controversy," first pub-
2O2 JAMES MARTINEAU
lished in the Christian Reformer in I886. 1 If he could
show Unitarian and Trinitarian a basal truth in which both
agree, it would seem possible to bring to an end one of
the most stubborn and bitter antagonisms of Christian his-
tory. This he does in a manner unique, noble, persuasive,
worthy of his great intellect and his great heart ; though
one which neither Trinitarian nor Unitarian has as yet
shown any marked interest to embrace ; and it is probable
that the wearisome and profitless contention must go on
many years longer. It is something, however, that the
way is laid open ; the manifest possibility may yet tempt
to the beautiful achievement.
Looking into the depths of the problem of the Divine
Nature, whence only any worthy conception of it is to be
drawn, he finds Unitarian and Trinitarian strangely misun-
derstanding each other. The cardinal Unitarian affirma-
tion is what? Why, " One God in one Person." But
what is the Unitarian's working conception of this one
Person? The Unitarian genius has been, prevailingly,
little speculative, little mystical. It has an impatience of
whatever doctrine cannot be presented with distinctness of
outline. Accordingly the Unitarian has conceived his
God rather practically, and as he is met in his relation
with the universe, as its Creator and Sustainer. With
what God is in himself, or was before the creative fiat
went forth, he gives himself but slight concern. His God
is not an abstract essence, but an active agency. He is
the " Source of nature, Soul of souls, Lord of the earth,
and Fountain of Grace, appears under every aspect that is
divine, and fills to our thought the whole space that is
accessible to affection, trust, and adoration." 2
1 To be found also in Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. ii. See also an
admirable paper on the same subject by James M. Whiton, in the New
World, vol. ii.
2 Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. ii. p. 529.
THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN 203
Such is the Unitarian's one God in one Person. Over
against this the Trinitarian offers the conception of one
God in three Persons. Here to many minds is a source of
confusion: One God, three Persons. It contradicts arith-
metic ; and while it is fiercely maintained on one side
that arithmetic must stand, it is maintained as fiercely on
the other side that arithmetic must stand contradicted.
Many Trinitarians and most Unitarians might well thank
Dr. Martineau for his luminous exposition of this riddle.
If we use the word " person" here in the distinct and defi-
nite sense in which we are accustomed to employ it, the for-
mula undoubtedly yields us three natures whose oneness it
is quite impossible to conceive ; and that multitudes un-
equal to the subtleties of Greek speculation so use it, and
thus find in their Trinity a Tritheism, is apparent enough.
But this, though a misconception to which the doctrine is
peculiarly liable, is not at all its meaning. To come to its
meaning, our idea of personality must part with its clear
distinctness; "we must melt, as it were," says Dr. Marti-
neau, " its edges away, till the sharp outline is gone, and
we can no longer tell where one ends and another begins,
for both merge in a common ground. We must think of
the three persons as so many nuclei of intenser light,
[what figure could be happier?] distinguishable amid the
universal element of divine thought, around which the
attributes cluster with a certain preferential affinity, with-
out, however, ceasing to exist in the same essence, of which
all are alike affirmable. In short, the ground colour of the
doctrine is laid in the Greek Pantheism, which" conceived
God as the thinking power of the universe. In compari-
son with this infinite element, Personality, implying con-
centration and distinction of qualities, appeared finite and
inadequate. To reconcile the two, to retain the mystic
breadth of the one, with the human intensity of the other,
personal differences were superinduced upon a Divine
204 JAMES MARTINEAU
essence that underlies them ; and the absolutely One is
revealed as relatively Three." l If Trinitarian apologist
has ever offered a more satisfactory account of his doc-
trine, we have not met it.
From this account of the doctrine it is easy to see that
distinct predicates respecting the First Person should be
difficult to form. He may be vaguely conceived like
space without worlds, or like life without living beings;
but of him little can be said. Accordingly, while multi-
tudes of Trinitarians talk of the doings of the Father as
familiarly as of those of the " elder Lord Shaftesbury," the
Trinitarian creed deeply studied gives them no warrant
for so doing. The creed indeed speaks of the First Per-
son as " Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things
visible and invisible ; " but this does not distinguish him
from the Second Person, of whom it is affirmed that " by
him all things were made" A harmony of these two
statements is easily realized by remembering that the
creative act is peculiarly the Son's; that only as acting
through the Son is it referred to the Father. And accord-
ant with the creed is the teaching. The fashioning of the
world, the creation of man, the shaping of the long drama
of history, the redemption, the final judgment, are not of
the Father, but of the Son. Whatever is done is through
the agency of the Son. " The one fundamental idea by
which the two personalities are meant to be distinguished
is simply this; that the first is God in his primeval
essence, infinite meaning without finite indications ; the
second is God speaking out in phenomena and fact, and
leaving his sign, wherever anything comes up from the
deep of things, or merges back again." 2
The reason, then, why the First Person yields so few
predicates is plain enough : " The moment anything arises,
1 Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. ii. p. 530.
3 Ibid. p. 532.
THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN 2O$
it is the Son." Around him, therefore, as their natural
centre cluster all events: all phenomena of nature, life,
history, through which an impression of the Divine is
borne in upon us. The firmament showeth the handiwork
and the heavens tell the glory of the Son; and since all dis-
tinctive tokens of the Divine are thus of him, the Father is
but a " blank of infinite possibility, the occult potency of
all perfection, but the realized stage of none ; " and though
we may say he is " the abyss how deep," or " the heaven
how high," he yet offers no peculiar power or grace by
which the mind can lay hold upon him. He is necessary
as a background to our thought, but presents no outline
in the foreground. He is as the vault that holds the stars,
yet were itself inscrutable and unguessed but for them.
This most fruitful exposition it is not needful to follow
further. The way out of the Trinitarian Controversy, as
he would show it, is through the recognition of a common
conception under different names. The Trinitarian's Son is
essentially the Unitarian's Father. The Unitarian's Father
is anything but a colorless and metaphysical Absolute;
he is the creating, sustaining, guiding power of the uni-
verse, its manifest wisdom, life, and love ; and the Trinita-
rian's Son is just that. When the Unitarian says Father,
the Trinitarian, understanding him from his own mind,
supposes him to refer to that impalpable abstraction, the
First Person of his Trinity, in whom the Unitarian, as
such, has scarcely any interest at all. Not unnaturally,
therefore, the Trinitarian conceives a coldness and love-
lessness fundamental in the Unitarian faith, a misjudg-
ment scarcely intelligible to the Unitarian. On the other
hand, when the Trinitarian says Son, the Unitarian is
almost sure to limit his view to the Jesus Christ of history,
and he is quite aggrieved that a man should thus be lifted
to a God. To the Trinitarian, however, the historic char-
acter is only the earthly apparition of a power and grace
206 JAMES MARTINEAU
that know no time limitations, but are coexistent with the
life of God. " The ' Son ' comes before his mind, not as an
historical personage at all, but as God's eternal expression
of himself, the thought he puts forth in all his works
and ways, manifested through all ages by nature and
history; but concentrated with unique brilliancy in the
character and existence, the holy life and redeeming work
of Jesus." In short, it is the like power, the like wisdom,
the like grace that under different names they both con-
template ; the Father of the one is the other's Son ; and
on the basis of this recognition, the two may come
together, not indeed throughout, but on the common
" under-truth " of their faiths. Dr. Martineau concludes
with a reflection which multitudes can but approve, but
which few are likely soon to embrace : " Let the advo-
cates of each compare them together from this point of
view, with mind open, not to words only, but to the real
thoughts they contain, with temper sensitive to sympathy
rather than to divergency, and there is hope that we may
yet all come into the unity of faith, and true knowledge
of the Son of God." l
Such is his attitude on this divisive problem, and in
these profound and reconciling words we may see a pre-
vailing temper of his mind in dealing with the beliefs of
men. Living so much in relation with the " under-truth
that feeds the roots of all our faiths," he found bases of
agreement there scarce credible to less thorough minds.
So while on critical grounds none were more exacting in
their demands than he, he was yet haunted by the sense
of an underlying unity of faith which it grieved his great
heart that so few others should recognize. Indeed it may
be doubtful if there was a Protestant communion that he
could not have joined, if the prescribed conditions had
been only the root convictions. He could have wor-
1 Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. ii. p. 538.
THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN 2O/
shipped with those whose doctrinal attitude was farthest
from his own, and then labored to show them the better
way, as he would have rejoiced also to be shown. In
fact, while his theological affiliations were Unitarian, his
religious affiliations were with the deep souls of Christen-
dom ; and it was an open secret that his religious affilia-
tions counted with him for more than his theological.
This brings us to a second conception. " The under-
truth that feeds the roots of all our faiths," he could com-
mend to the attention of the great religious bodies, hoping
it might charm them to a broader sympathy. Within
his own religious fellowship, however, he could at least
attempt to legislate in its behalf; and this he did. Doing
it, however, he found that the sympathies of the great
majority of his brethren were not with him; and for
many years, on the practical application of the " under-
truth," he and they were not of accordant mind. Thus
it happened that while theologically the prophet of the
more advanced Unitarianism, ecclesiastically, in his deep
mind and heart, he was not Unitarian. This attitude,
which to some has seemed peculiar, should at least be
explained.
What shall we make basal in religious organization?
Shall it be some rapture of the soul or some conception
of the intellect? Shall it be worship or dogma? Suppose
a group of people who may be able to say, " We love
God " and " We believe in the Unity of the Divine
Nature," which shall they put forward as expressing
their cardinal interest and invite men to co-operate with
them in cultivating and extending, the love or the belief?
Shall the basis of their organization be religious or shall
it be theological? The practical difference, whether one
or the other, is very great. If they organize on the
belief in the Divine Unity, make dominant, that is, the
fact that they are Unitarians, however tolerant may be
208 JAMES MARTINEAU
their professions, they make impossible the approach of
any sincere soul that is not Unitarian; if on the love of
God, they put forward a principle to which all aspiring
souls may respond. Trinitarians are quite as likely as
Unitarians to love God, and, agreeing to disagree, they
can kneel one beside the other at a common altar. Here,
however, in the far prevailing judgment of men, is an
insuperable difficulty: they cannot agree to disagree.
Unless they believe alike, they cannot pray together.
Dr. Martineau did not so hold ; he deemed it possible,
and held it wise, to organize on the love and not the
dogma. Allowing that some measure of agreement is
necessary in the religious grouping of men, the necessary
extent of this he yet held to be greatly exaggerated ; and
he dreamed his dream of a church in which indeed the
Unitarian shall have a place, but which shall be primarily
and declaredly Christian rather than Unitarian. He never
indeed overlooked the fact that intellectual sympathies will
inevitably have much to do with the bringing of men to-
gether ; that men will, to a wide extent, differentiate them-
selves on lines of belief; but this fact he held not to make
necessary a theological dominance in a body organized
for the nurture of religion.
The intensity of his feeling on this point is related to two
or three matters of history to which he frequently refers.
English Presbyterianism, into whose ministry he was
ordained, would, as we have already seen, impose no
doctrinal tests. Beginning with the severer type of doc-
trine of Baxter's time, it had taken new light as it had
come, had advanced and meliorated and expanded, until
at length it reached the confines of Unitarianism ; or
rather we might more accurately say, while yet prevailingly
Trinitarian, Unitarianism had become quite common within
its rank. Then indeed an effort was made to bring the
organization to a declaredly Trinitarian basis ; and at the
THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN 209
Salter's Hall Convention in London, in 1819, the debate
was earnest. But these Presbyterians, however prevail-
ingly they may have disliked Unitarianism, refused to part
with their liberty; they would consent to no doctrinal
test whatever. Here was to Dr. Martineau a model
that he liked to contemplate "a living church with
changing creed," and one which he never wearied of
commending.
But now another incident. Six years after the Salter's
Hall Convention, the British and Foreign Unitarian Asso-
ciation was formed. Here was a contrast: the conven-
tion at Salter's Hall, though preponderantly Trinitarian,,
for the sake of fellowship of those of another mind, refused
to declare itself so ; the convention at Essex Hall declared
the organization that it formed Unitarian. Which offered
the more marked example of tenderness for intellectual
conviction, the Trinitarians who would take no stand that
should banish Unitarians from their fellowship, or the
Unitarians who took a stand that made the fellowship of
any but Unitarians impossible? It should be possible for
the candid Unitarian to see how Dr. Martineau might see
that more conspicuous example in the former. It ought
to be said that the form in which the question came
before these respective bodies was different, and that
therefore there was not an exact parallelism in their con-
duct. At Salter's Hall the question was, Shall the minis-
ter coming to our rank be required to subscribe to the
doctrine of the Trinity? and the answer, after long debate,
was no. At Essex Hall they found themselves Unitarian
and named themselves accordingly, and why should they
not? Certainly no ethical objection is to be urged against
their conduct, and many felt that the action was practi-
cally wise. But however unlike the circumstances of the
two bodies, and however dissimilar the things they re-
spectively did, it is difficult to disown the fact that
210 JAMES MARTINEAU
the Unitarians turned away from the large inclusiveness
which Presbyterianism from first to last proclaimed and
exemplified.
Yet another incident, of painful but illuminating sugges-
tiveness, was soon to occur. In England, as in America,
the largest liberty and the most catholic sympathy have
been the profession and even the boast of Unitarians;
their ability to maintain this noble claim with the Uni-
tarian flag ever in the van, was brought to a proof that
proved it wanting. In the time of Charles II., a benevo-
lent woman, Lady Hewley, of Presbyterian affiliation, be-
queathed certain funds for religious and charitable uses.
These, placed in the care of those in religious sympathy
with her, at length came into the hands of Unitarians.
The question arose among the enemies of Unitarianism,
whether Unitarians could be the lawful custodians of funds
given by one who was not a Unitarian, and who never con-
ceived their being administered in the interest of Unita-
rianism. But if these funds could be taken away from
Unitarians, why not also the chapels which Presbyterian
money had built, and which had come into Unitarian hands
through the fact that their congregations had become
Unitarian? In less than a decade after their organization,
the British and Foreign Unitarian Association was called to
meet this twofold issue before a legal tribunal. The plea it
needed to impress upon the court was that the Presby-
terians were an undogmatic and purely Christian body
which, unrestrained by creed, had through the slow modi-
fication of opinion come to the Unitarian attitude, and that
the Unitarians, also an undogmatic and purely Christian
body, were their natural successors and heirs; that one
with Lady Hewley in the deep fellowship of the spirit,
they only differed from her as, after an interval of two
hundred years, it was inevitable that they should differ.
But at once it was seen that the name Unitarian which
THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN 211
they had taken made impossible the claim that they were
an undogmatic body. It said, by the clearest implication,
that the large fellowship of the spirit which was the all-
ruling feature of Lady Hewley's worship had been put
by, and that, too, in the interest of a dogma that was none
of Lady Hewley's. To meet the exigency, therefore, the
Association within its own committee-room formed a new
organization under the Presbyterian name, to make in
court the contention impossible to itself. 1 This series of
incidents, the noble action of the Salter's Hall conven-
tion, the adoption of the Unitarian name, and with it a
dogmatic standard at Essex Hall, an act that brought the
Unitarians into the sharpest contrast with the Presby-
terians, the action to which the Association was driven in
the Lady Hewley suit, together made a deep impression
upon the mind of Dr. Martineau. 2
The contention turns on the employment of a name;
and some earnest spirit asks, Why not employ it? If
you are Unitarian, why not call yourself such? Indeed,
why not? Dr. Martineau not only concedes your right,
but urges it upon you as a duty so to do. No man has
more earnestly pressed the importance of distinctly formed
and frankly declared religious conviction than he, and no
man has taken to himself the Unitarian name by more
fervid proclamation. But if an individual should do thus,
why not a group of individuals to whom Unitarianism is
1 The case was decided against the Unitarians. The funds were trans-
ferred to Trinitarian custody, and the chapels were lost. The latter, how-
ever, were restored to the Unitarians by act of Parliament in 1844.
2 On this subject he has left a considerable record. See " Address, on
Occasion of Laying the Foundation Stone of a New Church in Hope
Street," Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. iv. ; also " The Unitarian Posi-
tion," vol. ii., and " Church-Life ? or Sect-Life ? " and " New Affinities of
Faith," in the same volume. In the Theological Review, April, 1866, he
printed an article on "The Living Church through Changing Creeds,"
and at the National Conference held at Leeds, April, 1888, he gave an
address, afterwards printed in pamphlet, on " Church Organization."
212 JAMES MARTINEAU
a common conviction? Again why not? If the cardinal
and all-directing purpose be to persuade men of the
Unity of the Divine Nature, why, take name accordingly.
A Unitarian society is thus as legitimate as a temperance
society, or an historical society. Like these it stands for
a distinct and definite purpose that may be very wise, but
to the subordination of all else. These illustrations may
guide our thought to the point at issue, as Dr. Martineau
conceives it. Is your church but as a temperance or an
historical society? He answers no. "A man's ' Church'
must be the home of whatever he most deeply loves,
trusts, admires, and reveres, of whatever most divinely
expresses the essential meaning of the Christian faith
and life." 1 Does the doctrine of the Divine Unity em-
brace all this under its shelter? As one takes reckoning
of whatever he most deeply loves, trusts, admires, and
reveres, of whatever most divinely expresses to him the
essential meaning of the Christian faith and life, how little
of it does he find in association with this dogma ! So far
as the dogma is divisive, and the limits of permissible
fellowship under it are the narrowest, in insisting that
his ecclesiastical structure shall be built upon it, he turns
from the home with which so many affections are asso-
ciated, and elects an isolated hermitage. Instead of the
spiritual and universal and eternal, he builds upon the
speculative and the individual. The contrast is empha-
sized by a further distinction on which it is profitable to
meditate : On the former a church may be builded ; on
the latter only at most and best, a sect. "It is the con-
scious sameness of spiritual relations," says Dr. Martineau,
"that constitutes a Church; it is the temporary concur-
rence in theological opinion that embodies itself in a creed
and makes a Sect in the proper sense." " The very life
and soul of the former," he continues, " so far as we are con-
1 Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. ii. p. 376.
THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN 213
cerned, is in the feeling and proclamation of unity in spite
of difference. The essence of the latter is in the accen-
tuation of difference amid unity, in the imitative accep-
tance of the very principle and mode of thought whence
other sects arise." He adds, " We are bound, I must
think, to hold our particular form of personal opinion on
a very different tenure from the spiritual affections which
bring successive generations to kneel in our churches ; to
treat the former as a life interest, the latter as a freehold
in perpetuity ; and to beware of fixing upon worshipping
assemblies and an ecclesiastical body whose life runs on
through centuries, the mutable types of thought special
to our own time." 1 From this point of view we can
surely understand him when he adds, "To a Unitarian
Society, just as to a Reform Society, I would willingly
belong, but of a ' Unitarian Church ' I could never be a
member." z
That utterance such as this should draw upon him some
severities of criticism, especially from those who mistake
sectarian zeal for Christian steadfastness, was doubtless
inevitable ; 3 but the thoughtful Unitarian, out of his own
experience, should at least understand him. Where is
there such an one who does not realize that his spiritual
affinities run wide of his theological relations? The books
he turns to, not for theological instruction, but for reli-
gious nurture, which most arouse him, elevate him, com-
fort him, strengthen him, how prevailingly are they the
production of other than Unitarians ! The heroes of the
faith whose example most enkindles, and of whose deeds
of love and sacrifice he most likes to tell, wandering back
from heaven as they went thither, he knows could only
1 Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. ii. pp. 372-373.
2 Ibid. p. 374.
8 If any one wishes to see specimens of such criticism, let him turn to
the Christian Reformer for 1859, and the files of the Inquirer for the same
period.
214 JAMES MARTINEAU
disown the fellowship that implied acceptance of his
dogma. He looks upon illustrious contemporaries, toil-
ing with a devotion he can but reverence, and diffusing a
life which he is sure is the light of men ; and he knows by
unmistakable tokens that in the deeps of the spirit he is
one with them :
" One in the freedom of the truth,
One in the joy of paths untrod,
One in the soul's perennial youth,
One in the larger thought of God ; "
yet the hand-clasp which this oneness should make spon-
taneous and glad is rendered impossible through a name
he has assumed and a flag he carries. For while in a
beautiful sense it is true that
" Stone walls do not a prison make,"
and that spiritual sympathies may roam free whatever the
restrictions of dogma; yet is it also true, that no other
restrictions so isolate, no other separations so separate, as
dogmatic ones. To men of shallow natures this situation
may be satisfactory : they may live within a sectarian en-
closure and yearn for no larger love ; but to a susceptible
and fervid nature like Dr. Martineau's, it is scarce toler-
able. Any such can feel with him when he writes, " that
I find myself in intellectual accordance with the Socini, or
Blandrata, or Servetus in one cardinal doctrine, and that
a doctrine not distinctively Christian, but belonging also
to Judaism, to Islam, and to simple Deism, is as nothing
compared with the intense response wrung from me by
some of Luther's readings of St. Paul, and by his favorite
book, the ' Theologia Germanica.' " l Such also can
understand how, to be torn away from the great company
of devout souls, in which Wesley and Keble and Pascal
and St. Augustine are enrolled, and with whom his spirit
1 Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. ii. p. 376.
THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN 21$
is most deeply affiliated, he should regard " an unnatural "
and " an inadmissible fate." His attitude, if some had not
apparently found it incomprehensible, we should say was
the clearest possible. Be faithful to your intellect, he
would say, always that ; seek the truth with all earnest-
ness, and proclaim it with all fervor. But building a
church, the central feature of which should be an altar,
not a doctrine, make basal and prominent the truth that
unites, not the speculation that divides. You hold to the
Love of God and the Divine Unity ; hold fast to the Divine
Unity, but rear your church to the Love of God. Let the
doctrine be your personal conviction; let the Love be
your public confession. In the one you hold to a theory
in which a few shall agree with you, in the other to a sen-
timent in which Christendom is at one with you. Others
by dogmatic barriers keep you away from them, see to it
that by no dogmatic barrier do you hold them away from
you. They may not come at your invitation, none the
less let yours be the open door and the proffered welcome.
Bring yourself, not merely into mystic sympathy, but into
open relation with all reverent and aspiring souls. Let
there be one church however small and feeble, theological
indeed in the privileges of its members, but religious in its
aim, and in all the features of its organization. Thus has
he pleaded with his brethren, shut out from the dominant
churches by a Trinitarian orthodoxy, yet bent on estab-
lishing a Unitarian orthodoxy over against it. This lan-
guage, it must be said, speaks true to the conscious purpose
of few Unitarians : in England, as in America, they have
proclaimed the largest liberty. Come with us, they have
said, believing what you must, and no question shall be
asked you ; and they have sometimes been quite troubled
in spirit that an invitation so cordial should be received so
coldly. The Trinitarian might say, Your invitation has a
generous sound, but I cannot ignore the fact that you
2l6 JAMES MARTINEAU
organize on a view of the Divine Nature the very opposite
of mine. However you talk of the worship that unites,
you have drawn with unmistakable distinctness the line
that divides. Your temple door stands hospitably open,
but over it is inscribed Unitarian. Dr. Martineau puts
himself in the Trinitarian's place, and clearly sees that by
that inscription the Unitarian makes his own pretension
impossible ; that by making the way of approach a
dogma, he bars away from the large fellowship of the
spirit; and this, vividly conscious of spiritual affinities and
eager to place their claims before every other, he felt to
be an unnecessary and a sad mistake. 1
The ecclesiastical ideal of Dr. Martineau, expressed
in the happy title of one of his essays, was a " Living
1 It is pleasant to find that others looking across the line of sectarian
division from the opposite direction may reciprocate his feeling. Thus
A. H. Craufurd, in his Christian Instincts and Modern Doubt, speaking of
Dr. Martineau says : " I cannot help feeling painfully that a church which
has no room in it for the devoutly Christian genius of Dr. Martineau is a
national church only in a very defective way. It does indeed seem strange
that we should exclude from our worship and our fellowship that saint and
seer who has in our time been by far the best and noblest exponent of the
essential verities of our Master's religion. To claim for ourselves that we
are nearer to Jesus than he is would indeed be a thing most absurd and im-
pudent. To put, or even seem to put, a stigma on the greatest religious
teacher of our age is a thing from which we may well shrink. We grateful
and devoted followers do indeed know well that ' the disciple is not above
his master,' but immeasurably below him. All the present nominal leaders
of our church taken collectively would not make one James Martineau.
How, then, can we presume to banish from the fold of Christ this His
greatest and most faithful servant and son ? How can we hurl at him the
harsh and unchristian anathemas of the Athanasian Creed ? For my part I
will freely own that, when I am supposed to be declaring that he shall
' without doubt perish everlastingly ' by reason of his Unitarian errors, I find
myself instinctively exclaiming as I see him soaring upwards into the divine
presence, ' He has outsoared the shadow of our night ; ' ' My Father, my
Father ! the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof.' It will indeed be
well for us if only a small portion of his sacred spirit shall descend upon
us. We do not even dare to hope, as Elisha hoped concerning Elijah, ' that
a double portion ' of his sublime spirit may descend upon us. When he goes
his mantle is not likely to fall on any successor." (pp. 259-260.) This in
some points may seem an exaggeratiou ; but the attitude is noble.
THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN 217
Church through Changing Creeds ; " or, what means the
same thing, a " Progressive Theology amid sameness of
Spiritual Relations." 1 But this can obviously never be save
where " spiritual relations " are the ever dominant ones.
The weakness that has been the evil genius of Protes-
tantism, which makes necessary a new church as the
organ of a new religious conviction, must surely pursue
it, while, recognizing free inquiry, we yet build upon
dogmatic foundations. Continuity of life there can be
none for the church that does not build upon the deeper
love and diviner aspiration. The fathers may conceive
that they are building for the sons, but the sons must
excommunicate the fathers. The " changing creed," where
creed is the fundamental fact, makes impossible the " liv-
ing church." This consideration, brought before the vivid
imagination of Dr. Martineau, has counted for much.
Very early his stand was taken. In 1848, in an address
on the occasion of the laying of the foundation stone of
his new church in Liverpool, he spoke these eloquent
words : " We know what we believe ; we love what we
believe; we plainly tell what we believe; I am a Uni-
tarian ; you, who meet here from week to week, are
doubtless Unitarian too ; but the society of worshippers,
of which we are only the living members, and the Church
erected here, of which we shall be but transient tenants,
these are not to be defined as Unitarian. To stamp them
with such a doctrinal name, would be to perform an act of
posthumous expulsion against many noble dead whom it
is an honour to revere; and perhaps to provoke against
ourselves, from a future age, the retribution of a like ex-
communication. In refusing to commit our churches to a
determinate system, we protest against the imputation of
the least indifference to truth. We simply carry out, in
affairs of religion, the rule which is followed in all wise
1 Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. ii. p. 372.
2l8 JAMES MARTINEAU
endowments for the advancement of knowledge. . . . In-
stitutes of Science and halls of learning are created, not
to sustain the theories of their day, however earnestly
adopted by the first founders ; but in the assurance that
Nature and the human intellect will ever seek to converse
together, and that a place that aids their meeting will be
a welcome heritage to any age. . . . And why may not
our Churches rise, not in blind expectation of perpetuity
for the present types and classifications of theology, but
in pure faith that God and the human soul will ever seek
each other ; and that, so long as Heavenly Mercy shall
stoop, and earthly aspiration rise, a court of audience for
trust and prayer cannot be obsolete." x
The glance here is mainly backward ; he is not willing
to excommunicate the fathers. But there is also a forward
look ; true and vital as he may hold his beliefs, he would
not fasten them upon the sons as a condition of entering
on their churchly heritage. An academy dedicated to
science, the ever progressive interpretation of nature, is
ideal in its conception ; but an academy reared in other
times to perpetuate and diffuse the theory of phlogiston,
or of cataclasms, or the corpuscular theory of light, all
once believed and expounded by the best minds of the
world, would wear to-day a singular look. So far as suc-
cessful in its aim it could only perpetuate an anachronism,
as churches reared in the interest of dogma have surely
done. This to Dr. Martineau is an intolerable thought.
That truth may freely unfold, the problems of thought
must be met by the unpledged mind. The Unitarian
objection to creeds, he holds never to have been so suc-
cessful on the intellectual side disproving their truthful-
ness, as on the moral side challenging their rightfulness.
To his fellow-believers he says : " In clearing your con-
science and uttering your truth to-day, respect the con-
1 Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. iv. pp. 439-440.
THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN 2 19
science and the truth of to-morrow. You are mortal ; the
Church is immortal ; your own portion of it counts, and is
to count, by centuries. In your personal action on your
own time, use without stint the right, discharge without
fear the duties, of an ingenuous Christian soul. But in
providing for the Future, which belongs to other con-
sciences and not to yours, in speaking for the Church
into which you were born and from which you will die,
remember that your concern with it is not discretion-
ary, but fiduciary; beware of entailing upon it a perma-
nent tribute to your own opinions ; and see to it, that you
close not against another age any door which you found
open for your own." 1
Such was his attitude, and such the difference, long
continued and sometimes earnest, between him and his
Unitarian brethren. They would establish a Unitarian
Church; he pleaded for a Church of God and Christ.
They would build upon a doctrine, he upon a reverence
and a love. They would organize to fight down an error,
he to build up a faith. They would take to themselves a
dogmatic designation, he would have found a religious
one, or at least one carrying no dogmatic suggestion.
The regret on both sides was considerable: on theirs,
that their theological leader could not be also in the
broadest sense their ecclesiastical co-laborer ; on his, that
the close fellowship of his brethren was not quite com-
patible with the larger fellowship of his heart.
That the same religious societies, organized as Dr.
Martineau would have organized them, would have done
better religious work, any one has a right to believe or to
disbelieve ; but one thing is certain, that Unitarianism as
a counter-orthodoxy, whether in England or America, has
had no marked success. Its Unitarian proclamation has
been rather a gauntlet it has thrown down, than an invita-
1 Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. ii. pp. 383-384.
22O JAMES MARTINEAU
tion it has put forth ; it has been driven to much self-
explanation; its tone has been critical, its temper cold.
This may not have been because its emphasis was on the
wrong interest, the dogma from which it takes its name
rather than the love that it should serve, but many have
thought so, and among them Dr. Martineau.
In recent years too, especially in England, Unitarianism
has shown a marked tendency to secularization, the prob-
lems of society winning from the interest once given to the
profounder problems of the faith, than which no tendency
could have been more foreign to the spirit of Dr. Martineau.
In this tendency, too, the Unitarian is not sharply distin-
guished from other bodies; it only conspicuously illus-
trates a spirit that is abroad, which Dr. Martineau, watchful
of all phases of religious phenomena, viewed with a regret
which only his profound trust could comfort. In a letter to
the present writer, in answer to a question as to the out-
look from the summit of his years, he replied : " You
ask me in what light old age presents to me the world I
am so soon to quit. Often do I wish that I could see it
dressed in such a radiant sunshine of immediate promise
as cheers the nonagenarian vigor of our dear friend, Dr.
Furness. 1 But did I not 'live by faith,' had I to 'live
by sight ' of the social and spiritual tendencies preponder-
ating now, I should breathe my parting word in tune more
with Jeremiah than with Isaiah. For our little Israel's
participation in the future of English religious history, I
have less and less hope every year. But all the Divine
possibilities remain locked in our humanity, and sure,
either here or there, to free themselves into realization.
Resting in this, I can lay to sleep all impatient haste, and
wait His time."
1 This letter was written in 1892.
CHAPTER III
THE NEW TESTAMENT CRITIC
BEHIND belief is a reason for believing. What is the ' seat
of authority,' or the ultimate support of religious belief?
Keeping ourselves within Christian boundaries, and dis-
carding mere eccentricities of opinion, we find three answers
to this question.
First, there is that of the Roman Catholic. His ulti-
mate authority is his Church. Its origin is divine : it is
the earthly embodiment of a heavenly ideal ; its head is
the vicegerent of Christ and speaks in his name. The
natural attitude before it, therefore, is one of reverent sub-
mission. To question is irreverence, to doubt is impiety.
The second is that of the evangelical Protestant. His
appeal is to an infallible Bible. The Scriptures, Jewish and
Protestant, are a message by which heaven makes known
its will to man. Theories of inspiration have differed ;
was it only an illumination of the intellect? or did the
Holy Spirit subdue the mind of prophet and apostle to
its thrall, and make them the amanuenses of its word?
These questions suggest divergent theories on which con-
tention has sometimes been earnest; but under both alike
the doctrine of inerrancy has been maintained. The reve-
lation has, indeed, been allowed to have been progressive,
more primitive when the law was given by Moses, more
fully unfolded when the prophets spoke ; but in this pro-
gressive feature we have been shown a divine economy
which adapts the lesson to the learner. By such consider-
222 JAMES MARTINEAU
ation, together with rules of interpretation which explain
the obscure by the clear, the morally doubtful by the
morally indubitable, which see in seeming discrepancies
but surface denials of profounder harmonies, is the august
thesis maintained. Here, says the apologist, is the oracle
of Heaven's will. Here is wisdom without alloy of error,
light and no darkness at all, beauty and no blemish any-
where. To one who holds the Bible thus there is no ques-
tion of authority. Will he learn respecting God, his
nature, his will? of man, his origin or destiny? of sin, per-
dition, redemption? the ethics that are unerring, the wor-
ship that will be accepted, the faith that will save?
why, he will open this book and learn.
These two forms of authority we distinguish as outward.
They speak to man as from the skies, whose depths his
unaided vision may not penetrate. Listen to the apologist
of either, and the supreme and only assurance is in its
word. Man only guesses till it instructs, and is ever a
wanderer without its light.
The third answer is that of the philosopher, who finds
the ultimate warrant of conviction, not without, but within.
Grant truth offered from without, still, he will argue, it
must be received within ; and receiving implies, not pas-
sive acquiescence, but active embrace. Merely granting a
teaching true, as the unlettered man may grant the for-
mula of the asymptote, is surely not a receiving to which
we can attach a religious value ; but only that in which
the teaching is met with responsive embrace. But this
implies what? Simply that the mind shapes its judgment
according to criteria of its own. It is not enough that a
dictum be true ; in order that I may receive it, it must be
true to me. If dissonant with my intellect or conscience,
however I may assent to it outwardly, I inwardly repudi-
ate it; and it is rather luggage that I carry than light upon
my path. As respects truth in general, so as respects
THE NEW TESTAMENT CRITIC 223
the distinction between truth in its human proclamation
and its divine. Telling me this is divine truth, made
known through inspiration, that is mere human truth,
reached through investigation, is to little purpose unless
there be that within me which marks the difference : some
deep sense that discerns the peculiarities of the divine
speech or the intonations of the divine voice. Such sense
our philosopher will claim. The soul, he will say, not
only proves all oracles but discriminates them as of earth
or of heaven.
Thus the ultimate warrant of religious belief he finds,
not without, but within. He does not, indeed, claim for
all men the ability to find this warrant, but that it is within
the range of human faculty. He finds it in the " summit
minds," which, through the unity of the race, represent the
unfolded possibilities of all. From the mountain crest
they report the vision to those upon the slopes below.
Herein is the element of just thought in the claim of out-
ward authority. Human society is not an association of
equals; everywhere is the relation of dependence, those
of dimmer upon those of clearer vision. The parent must
be authority to the child, the teacher to the pupil, the
statesman to those that follow him. The fundamental
truths of science, the great principles of social organiza-
tion, met and dealt with in all the practical relations of
life, how many can render an ultimate account of them?
Men may be found who claim to put by outward author-
ity; yet their social ethics, their business rules, their
political maxims, their literary judgments, their philo-
sophical opinions, closely examined, confute them. These
illustrations, however, hardly illustrate the authority
claimed for Church and Bible. The child gives up the
parent's guidance at last, and walks wisely in ways of his
own selecting ; the pupil outstrips his master ; the states-
man maybe forsaken for another leader; the science we
224 JAMES MARTINEAU
learn from an Agassiz we may surrender with a Darwin,
and the Social Physics of a Comte we may give up for the
Sociology of a Spencer. In all these cases the mind acts
freely, following by natural attraction what seems to it the
clearer light. Not thus, however, are we permitted to
treat Church or Bible, which, speaking from above reason,
demands its surrender rather than seeks its persuasion.
The Catholic and Protestant, while most fiercely con-
tending with each other, unite in common abhorrence of
such a philosopher. He is rationalist, infidel, mere theist,
or whatever other bad thing, according to the time and
tenor of debate, it is most convenient to call him. He is
apt, too, to intensify the dislike of both by holding either
under the like adverse judgment. Whether on easier
terms with the followers of Luther or of Hildebrand,
whether for practical use he may prefer the Bible or the
Hierarchy, he finds no better warrant in one than in the
other for the tremendous claim of infallibility, and so of
ultimate outward authority; and in the argument with
which he exposes the pretensions of either, the other may
see the indictment of his own. He has, not unlikely, a far
kindlier feeling for either than either cherishes towards the
other; both he may allow to be depositories of divine
truth and to convey the monitions of the Divine Spirit;
and here again either is displeased at seeing the other
allowed to be the almoner of a grace of which it claims
to be the sole dispenser. These attitudes may wear a
very human look, but they are not without deep reason.
Neither could allow the claim of the other without the
destruction of itself. To an infallible authority any rival
must be a pretender. It discredits its own title when it
admits the legitimacy of another. In another aspect, too,
the common objection to the philosopher may be seen to
be well taken. On the assumption that there is an out-
ward authority that is the ultimate support of religion, the
THE NEW TESTAMENT CRITIC 22$
structures of Catholic and Protestant dogma are reared ;
in this transfer of the seat of authority from without to
within, a new departure is undertaken than which no other
could be more revolutionary. Our philosopher may be
one of ready sensibility and most generous appreciation ;
to the noble work of the Catholic Church he may bear
most willing testimony ; the great lessons of Holy Writ he
may ponder with surrendered heart. His, however, is just a
natural response to a truth or a divineness that has beamed
upon him. He embraces it for no other reason than
because it justifies itself to his interior nature. His theol-
ogy will be no system of dogma supported by Scripture
texts or the decrees of councils, but a body of convictions,
won it may be through divine provocation, but with the
soul for its central light.
Undoubtedly the predilection of most men is for an out-
ward authority, a voice that speaks to them a decisive
word. It is not strange, therefore, that, accustomed to its
tone, they do not surrender it with glad alacrity, and that
they look with a prevailing distrust upon a competing
doctrine that implies a transition so momentous. An in-
ward authority, that suggests to them mere personal
opinion, personal idiosyncrasy, a hazy talk of intuitions, a
vaporing of ideals ; where, they ask, is the all-persuad-
ing and unifying truth? That a wide acceptance of an
inward authority would involve difficulties is very proba-
ble, though it might prove with respect to this, as with so
many other matters, that " the evils from which we suffer
most are those that never come." It may be that man, by
nature a religious being, would find his way to a proxi-
mate unanimity of thought; that his worship, while in
spirit more real, would be no more multifarious than now.
In ethics there is no prevailing appeal to an outward
standard, yet the Moral Philosophy of the world is classi-
fied on two or three lines of thought. Men who must
15
226 JAMES MARTINEAU
have an outward authority in religion are very apt to
be intuitionalists in their ethics, and while looking to the
Bible for their faith, find in conscience their criterion of
right ; yet on a wide survey, with minor differences, noth-
ing is clearer than their large ethical agreement. How
should it be otherwise with religion under the like rule?
But while a prevailing recognition of an inward authority
would involve difficulties, the outward authorities present
difficulties far more grave, because pertaining, not to their
working, but to their inmost nature. Are they what they
are claimed to be? They are fervidly proclaimed infal-
lible ; are they so ? The Protestant is reasonably sure of
the absurdity of the Catholic pretension, but is his own
more secure ? That, reasoning a priori, we should find
sounder presumption in favor of an infallible book than of
an infallible church, it were hard to say; while, dealing
with facts after the wont of men, it is doubtful if a more
formidable bill of particulars can be offered against the
Catholic pretension than the Protestant. Possibly, too, if
Protestants were as eager to see their faith through Catho-
lic eyes as they are to exhibit the Catholic faith through
their own, they might see in one important point the logical
superiority of the Catholic doctrine. The Catholic teach-
ing that inspiration was not given once for all, but is ever
continued to the Church, is of great practical significance.
When the Catholic urges that, granted an infallible Scrip-
ture, we have yet no infallible guidance without an infal-
lible interpretation, how can we confute him? When he
further urges that through the help of the Holy Spirit the
Church is able to supply this, though we may be sceptics
as to the fact, how can we fail to see that its assertion
gives a consistency to his scheme of doctrine which the
Protestant is not allowed to boast? Infallible guidance!
How do the warring sects of Protestantism bear out the
Catholic contention of the impossibility of this !
THE NEW TESTAMENT CRITIC 22 7
I. Still, however, the Protestant doctrine demands to be
dealt with on its' own merits. The recoil from the Catholic
claim of authority led the reformers to their tremendous
emphasis of a counter-authority. An infallibility was
appealed to, to counterpoise an infallibility. Here was no
blending, as Dr. Martineau would say, of divine and un-
divine elements, which, in order to read the Bible wisely,
we must learn to distinguish; in every feature it was
divine, and so to be received without discrimination, as
Luther would have had Carlstadt "swallow the Holy
Ghost, feathers and all." Its various writings were but
varieties of a common inspiration, a Chronicle as truly as
a Psalm, a Proverb as a Beatitude. The consequence was
a critical study of the Bible such as was never devoted to
any other literature. It may be easy to " call spirits from
the vasty deep," but who can forecast what they will do
when we have called them? The spirit of critical inquiry
thus invoked was destined to achieve results unlocked for
and unwelcome. The view of the New Testament with
which the reformers began was about that which the un-
critical reader receives from its cursory reading. Here, said
they, is a message of one who came from God, Messiah,
Logos, Second Adam, who authenticated his divine com-
mission by miracles ; who dying rose again and went back
to his native heaven. For the record of his wonderful words
and deeds we are indebted to two biographers who were of
a group of twelve immediate disciples, and yet two other
biographers who were companions, one of an immediate
disciple, the other of a great thirteenth disciple. Follow-
ing these biographies, and written by one of these biog-
raphers, is an account of the formation of the early
Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, together
with its constitution, the conversion, labors, travels, suffer-
ings, of the great thirteenth ; next a series of twenty -one
letters, one written by a brother of the Divine One, six by
228 JAMES MARTINEAU
immediate disciples, and fourteen by the thirteenth disciple,
all conveying a varied exposition of the faith, and the
practice consistent with it. Such was the picture, so easy,
so natural. The intense study of the text, however, of
necessity brought to light what was there: remarkable
agreements indeed of the Gospels one with another, yet
also remarkable differences between them, differences
which reverent faith might be willing to ignore, but which
a reverent reason could not possibly reconcile ; a gulf no
arch could span between the first three Gospels and the
fourth, inconsistencies in the Acts, anachronisms in the
Epistles. One after another these manifold difficulties
appeared, forcing the inevitable questions : Are these
writings one and all of apostolic origin? Are Matthew
and John, with measureless differences between them, both
the work of immediate disciples? The claim is that they
were written under the guidance of the Holy Spirit; can
the Holy Spirit be held chargeable with manifold dis-
crepancies? The sequel, were it not known, might easily
be guessed : an exploration, intense in its eagerness, of
whatever documents might yield a fact or a suggestion.
There was a plunge into textual criticism ; granting the
original manuscripts inspired, copyists may have committed
errors, interpolations even may have crept in ; a plunge
into the earlier literature of the Christian age to wring from
it its testimony ; the severest analyses of the New Testa-
ment writings, and collation of part with part ; the most
rigid comparison of language, the most careful scrutiny of
peculiarities of literary style. Dealing with such con-
siderations, there appeared a line of critics, Reimarus,
Lessing, Paulus, Bretschneider, De Wette, who were com-
pelled to repudiate the accepted doctrine, met by an array
of Orthodox apologists, eager to maintain the traditional
faith, and yielding nothing that noble scholarship and
dexterous reasoning and profound conviction could hold.
THE NEW TESTAMENT CRITIC 229
At length appeared the school of Tubingen under the lead
of Strauss and Baur, which was destined to fix the vogue
of nineteenth-century rationalism, and on which accord-
ingly all Orthodox batteries were to concentrate their fire.
The peculiarities of this school are too widely diffused to
need rehearsal ; enough for us to know that Dr. Martineau
early studied and embraced it. In his writings his affilia-
tion with this school does not distinctly appear, though
variously hinted, until his celebrated review of Renan 1 in
1863. It was then, however, a matter of not less than
fifteen years' standing, as a letter 2 to the writer testifies.
In this letter he remarks : " Baur's masterly handling
of his historical materials had impressed me so much
before my year's visit, with my family, to Germany in
1848-49, that I had hesitated whether to take up our abode
[for study and education] at Tubingen or in Berlin." 3
From this time to the publication of the Seat of Author-
ity in 1890, the general features of the Tubingen criticism
held the allegiance of his mind.
To this volume we now come. In dealing with the New
Testament writings the first question is, Do they come
from the sources they purport to come from? Are they
1 Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. iii.
2 Dated June 12, 1897.
8 It may be fitting that I should say here that it was his sympathy with
Tiibingen that rallied the opposition of his fellow-sectaries to his appoint-
ment to the college professorship of which the story is told on an earlier
page. On that page the color may have been laid somewhat too lightly.
The course of the opposition amounted almost to a trial for heresy ; and to
his sensitive spirit was well-nigh unendurable. In case it accomplished its
end he had serious thought of seeking a field of labor in America ; for
knowledge of which fact I am indebted to a letter from Mr. Martineau to
Rev. William R. Alger, bearing date of April 3, 1857, which Mr. Alger
kindly lets me use. There was among English Unitarians at that time a very
prevalent and quite violent " Germanophobia," a rabies quite prevalent in
America also, and which is now occasionally met. On the principle similia
similibus curantur, it can usually be soothed by a treatment that provides a
little more knowledge of German.
23O JAMES MARTINEAU
of apostolic origin? The familiar headings, "according
to Matthew," " according to John," carry no affirmative
weight ; " according to " does not necessarily mean by ; it
may as easily mean, Such is the tradition handed on to us in
association with the name of Matthew, or with the name of
John ; to many it might more easily mean this. To the
Epistles, indeed, a name, as of Paul or Peter, is attached ;
but in settling the question of the authorship of an ancient
writing an associated name can signify little against an
incongruous internal evidence. Should there, for instance,
be brought to light a brief biography of some ancient
worthy, purporting to be the work of Plutarch, we should
have not the slightest hesitation in repudiating its preten-
sions to Plutarchan authorship if its style was incongruous
with Plutarch's ; if it gave support to ideas the opposite of
those we know to have been Plutarch's; if it contained
allusions to events that have occurred since the time of
Plutarch. Of course, in dealing with this kind of evidence
there may be scope for differences of opinion : character-
istics may not be so pronounced as to be at once decisive ;
but this order of criticism would be of itself objected to by
no mind competent to appreciate its value. Dr. Marti-
neau, applying it to the New Testament Epistles, arrives at
the conclusion that but six of them, I Thessalonians,
Galatians, Romans, I and 2 Corinthians, and Philippians,
are of apostolic origin. " The other epistolary writings,"
says he, " which set themselves forth under an apostolic
name, remain unattested till the fourth generation from
the death of Christ, and in nearly all of them there are
such evident traces of a post-apostolic time, so many
thoughts unsuited to the personality of the reputed author,
that the ordinary favourable presumption is broken down ;
and, however excellent the lesson which they contain, we
must confess, as we receive them, that we listen to an
unknown voice." *
1 Seat of Authority, pp. 180-181.
THE NEW TESTAMENT CRITIC 231
This seems destructive criticism: fifteen of the twenty-
one Epistles denied apostolic authorship. Enough there
are, scholars with laurelled brows, who take a different
view from this; comparatively few would coincide with
this judgment in its fulness ; yet one need not look further
than the encyclopaedias in familiar use to find weighty
reasons why the fifteen are severally rejected, together
with names of men accounted wise who consider those
reasons valid. The peculiarity of the attitude of Dr.
Martineau and his school is that they hold in gross a nega-
tive view which many others hold distributively. Few will
go as far as he ; many will meet him at some points with
critical sympathy; and in none of his judgments is he
without the support of illustrious authority.
We come now to the Gospels. The interest here is, of
course, intense ; and a line of reasoning or a literary dis-
covery that should put their authenticity beyond dispute
would be greeted with a rapture that could be evoked by
scarce any other.
For most obvious reasons the Gospels are commonly
discussed under two divisions, the first three, called the
Synoptics, and the Fourth Gospel.
i. Synoptics. Of none of these have we autograph
manuscripts, and the names associated with them are
merely traditional. On the line of external criticism, the
most that the Orthodox theologian can hope is to find
definite traces of them at a date sufficiently early to
make the tradition probable. Now the Apostles were
men, not boys, and at the death of Jesus must have
been close upon, if not beyond, maturity ; and age
must erelong dim their vision. To make the Orthodox
contention secure, it has been held necessary to show
beyond reasonable doubt the emergence of these Gos-
pels out of the first century. This, however, has not
been achieved. There is no reasoning that makes the
232 JAMES MARTINEAU
hypothesis more than speculatively tolerable; and there
are no circumstances, the tradition itself excepted, not
explainable on the reverse supposition.
Dr. Martineau begins his discussion of the authenticity
of these Gospels by comparing the " vestiges " of their
use in two periods of time. In the last quarter of the
second century references to them are accompanied by
their names, which " are absent from all prior citations of
words now extant in them." 1 The significance of this
fact he draws from a comparison of Irenaeus and Justin
Martyr. The former, writing probably between 180 and
193, quotes the Gospels by their names, and gives reasons
why there should be four of them and no more.
Here all is plain. No one doubts that Irenaeus knew
the four Gospels that we use. Turn back now a genera-
tion to the writings of Justin Martyr. He makes numer-
ous citations which carry our minds to equivalent passages
in our Gospels. But observe that he never quotes them
by number or by name, but refers to " Memoirs of the
Apostles." Now, Orthodox apologists fervidly contend
that the " Memoirs " used by Justin were the Gospels
Irenaeus knew, a contention which Dr. Martineau and his
school find irreconcilable with the facts : First, the fact
already referred to, that Justin gives no hints of the
authors or the numbers of the Gospels, but quotes always
as if from a " single anonymous production." Secondly,
the fact that while his quotations easily suggest equivalent
passages in our Gospels, they are scarce ever identical
with them. Indeed, while his quotations are very many,
only five are " exactly true to Matthew and Luke." It has
been frequently urged that Justin quoted from memory,
and, sure that he was right as to the substance, was indif-
ferent to verbal accuracy; and support for this view is
claimed from inaccuracies in his quotations from the Old
1 Seat of Authority, p. 181.
THE NEW TESTAMENT CRITIC 233
Testament as well. Dr. Martineau, however, feels that this
will not do, for the reason that " the same differences
are constant through repeated quotations of the same
passage," and that " they differ, both in frequency and
character, from concomitant inaccuracies " in quoting the
Old Testament. 1 Thirdly, and to many probably the
most significant fact of all, Justin quotes from his " Me-
moirs " matter which is not in our Gospels. " Compar-
ing these phenomena," says Dr. Martineau, " with the
citations of Irenaeus, we seem to be in contact, at an
earlier date, with the unfashioned materials of Christian
tradition, ere yet they had set into their final form, . . .
tradition called indeed ' apostolic,' but by the vagueness
of that very phrase betraying its impersonal and unac-
credited character." He further remarks that " historical
memorials which are to depend for their authority on the
personality of their writer cannot afford to wait for a
century ere his name comes out of the silence." 2
But does their internal character ratify this judgment?
Do they not of themselves bear out the claim that they
proceed at first and second hand from eyewitnesses and
independent writers? To Dr. Martineau's close scrutiny
they yield precisely the opposite conclusion. We all
know how we should treat two or more writings convey-
ing the same material in the like or in identical phrase ;
we should say that, granting one to be original, the others
were taken from it; or that all the writers must have
received from a common source. The contrary judg-
ment, that all wrote independently, we should pronounce
psychologically incredible. Yet we meet precisely this
phenomenon in the study of these Gospels ; " the same
recitals repeated in either two, or all of them, with such
resemblance in substance, in arrangement, and even in
language, as totally to exclude the possibility of original
1 Seat of Authority, p. 183. 2 Ibid. pp. 183-184.
234 JAMES MARTINEAU
and separate authorship." 1 Dr. Martineau makes a very
suggestive comparison of these Gospels with the Fourth
Gospel. The Fourth Gospel all agree is no compilation :
it wears all the characteristics we should look for in the
creation of an independent mind. It affords Dr. Martineau,
therefore, a standard of judgment of what we may expect
in an independent account of the ministry of Christ.
Two-thirds of its matter he finds peculiar to itself; while
the remaining third, though dealing with events reported
by the synoptists, " presents them under aspects so new,
that the identity is often difficult to trace, or is even open
to doubt." z Dividing these Gospels into one hundred
and seventy-four sections, he finds fifty-eight of these
common to them all ; " twenty-six, besides, to Matthew
and Mark ; seventeen, to Mark and Luke ; thirty-two, to
Matthew and Luke." Thus the unshared elements are
but forty-one, of which thirty-one are in Luke, seven in
Matthew, three in Mark.
This is a telling consideration to one who weighs it well.
There is another, however, which to many may be more sig-
nificant. The casual and uncritical reader of the Synoptics
is likely to be little aware how small a portion of the story
of the life of Jesus is told. From the Jordan to Calvary
is a period of about four hundred and fifty days. Of these,
the events of not more than thirty-five are narrated. A
silence respecting whole months together, "now three, now
two," breaks the continuity of the sacred story. A record
of only thirty-five days, or only one-thirteenth of the brief
period, is furnished us by the synoptists. What can be the
meaning of this fact? three records made by independ-
ent narrators, yet twelve-thirteenths of the great ministry
passed over in total silence ! Dr. Martineau raises the
question how this could possibly be. If these Gospels are
in any sense the work of attendants of Jesus, how is it
l Seat of Authority, p. 184. a Ibid. p. 184.
THE NEW TESTAMENT CRITIC 235
that all keep within the narrow circle of one-thirteenth of
his ministry? How is it that none afford us a glimpse
of any portion of the labor or the rest of the twelve-
thirteenths ? Why this fulness of detail respecting thirty-
five days and this silence respecting four hundred and
fifteen? The natural inference from this fact is hard to
parry : we are mistaken in supposing these writings to be
the record of eyewitnesses of the work of Jesus. " Even
if," says Dr. Martineau, these writings " were independent
selections from a mass of contemporary memorials, pre-
serving fragments only of the life of Christ, they could not
all alight upon materials lying within such narrow range ;
for the flying leaves, scattered by the winds of tradition,
would be impartially dropped from the whole organism of
that sacred history, and, when clustered by three disposing
hands, could never turn out to be all from the same branch."
He adds the reflection that the " vast amount of blank
spaces in which they all have to acquiesce betrays a time
when the sources of knowledge were irrevocably gone ;
and their large agreement in what remains, that they were
only knitting up into tissues, slightly varied, the scanty
materials which came almost alike to all." * Such are
specimen considerations of his profound and eloquent
argument. His conclusion is that these Gospels are " com-
posed of mixed materials, aggregating themselves through
three or four generations." As such they are, of course,
anonymous writings; and the mighty claim for them as the
records of eyewitnesses is gone. Are they, then, to be
discarded ? Not so ; only an untenable theory respecting
them is to be put by. Their native value is still very great,
after all deduction of disputable theory respecting them.
In their inmost kernel " we approach, no doubt, the cen-
tral characteristics of the teaching and the life of Christ.
But the evidence of this is wholly internal, and has nothing
1 Seat of Authority, p. 185.
236 JAMES MARTINEAU
to authenticate it except our sense of the inimitable beauty,
the inexhaustible depth, the penetrating truth, of the living
words they preserve and the living form they present. Of
our witnesses we know nothing, except that, in such cases,
what they tell as reality, it was plainly beyond them to
construct as fiction." 1
2. The Fourth Gospel. Great as has been the interest
in the " synoptic problem," the controversy over the Fourth
Gospel has been the more earnest. Without disparaging its
companion Gospels, there is no denying the fact, the pre-
vailing Christian consciousness being our witness, that the
Fourth Gospel has, through its mystic heights and depths,
a religious value beyond any of them ; and multitudes there
are who, brought to the necessity of choice, would, like
Luther, surrender the Synoptics and hold fast to John.
The more widely prevailing conception of the person of
Jesus, and one of the leading doctrines of the Church are
drawn from its page. Besides, in its literary structure it
wears a character to which the New Testament critic at-
taches great significance. While even a cursory reading
of the Synoptics bears in upon us the impression, which
critical study makes wellnigh irresistible, that they are
largely a recast of previously existing material, not so the
Fourth Gospel. It is surely an organism, conceived and
brought forth by one mind. It wears the indisputable
features of independent authorship, a matter of supreme
moment with those who would establish its apostolicity.
From the urgency of so many considerations it would have
been surprising indeed had not the Orthodox contention
for its genuineness been both stubborn and fervid.
But the logic of facts, however obscured, can never be
controverted ; and while it is true that the Johannine issue
as shaped to-day is not precisely as Baur left it, it is by no
means as he found it; and where the Gospels are most
1 Seat of Authority, pp. 188-189.
THE NEW TESTAMENT CRITIC 237
profoundly and dispassionately studied, the general fea-
tures of his criticism were never more widely recognized. 1
How stands the external evidence of the genuineness of
this Gospel? So far as quotations or references can bear
testimony, it is only a question whether it was first used
somewhat after or somewhat before the middle of the sec-
ond century. Dr. Martineau examines a great number of
citations of writers both orthodox and heretical, and adopts
the later date. The earliest citation which he is willing to
recognize as from our Gospel he finds in a fragment of
Apollinaris about 175. The earliest citation from the
Fourth Gospel together with its author's name he finds in
a defence of Christianity by Theophilus, who could have
written but little before the year 180. The John whom
Theophilus mentions, however, is not designated as one of
the Twelve; that designation is not met till we come to
Irenseus ; 2 and the fact that he used our Gospel his numer-
ous citations place beyond doubt. Its use in the seventh
decade of the century, and from thence a spreading famil-
iarity with it, is thus reasonably plain. Stepping back from
this date, however, he finds no satisfactory indication of
acquaintance with it, rather facts that suggest the reverse
conclusion. He finds that it was known by the Valentinians
(about 1 80), but not by Valentinus (about 160) ; known
by the Marcionites (about 170 to 180), not by Marcion
(about 150). Such are his judgments after a critical
examination of all known data; and the fact that this
Gospel was not known by these masters and was known
by their disciples is at least accordant with the judgment
1 See essay on " The Fourth Gospel " by Emil Schiirer, Contemporary
Review, vol. Ix.
2 In estimating the testimony of Irenaeus, Dr. Martineau is led to a dis-
cussion of the question whether the John of whom Irenaeus tells on the
authority of Polycarp is not John the Presbyter confounded with John the
Apostle, both of whom, according to Eusebius, dwelt at Ephesus. For this
discussion, which is extremely interesting, I have no space, and must be
content with referring the reader to the Seat of Authority, pp. 192 seq.
238 JAMES MARTINEAU
that it came into use between their dates. The critical
battle is hottest, however, over Justin Martyr. Dr. Marti-
neau, examining his citations, comes to the conclusion
that this Gospel was probably not known by him. He
quotes one passage that has been much debated : " For
Christ said, unless ye be born again, ye will not enter into
the kingdom of heaven. But that it is impossible for those
who have once been born to enter into the wombs of those
who bare them, is plain to all." Of course this carries us
to the earlier verses of the third chapter of John, which
Dr. Martineau translates, " Jesus answered and said unto
him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, unless a man be born
from above [a rendering to which the Revised Version
gives a marginal support], he cannot see the kingdom of
God." The points of Justin's departure from the Gospel
are plain. But may they not be accounted for by the
supposition that he indulges in memoriter quotation, in
which, faithful to the sense, he is careless of the letter?
So many have thought, and Justin's Old Testament quota-
tions make it plain that verbal accuracy was not a consid-
eration that weighed heavily upon him. But it happens
that in the Clementine Recognitions Dr. Martineau finds
the same passages quoted with these identical variations ;
and he concludes that " this concurrence of two independ-
ent writers in a set of variations on the same text must be
due to some common cause ; " and he asks, " What else can
it be than the use by both of them of a source deviating
from the fourth Gospel in these points?" He finds it
impossible to doubt " that that source embodied an earlier
tradition, on which the Johannine version afterwards re-
fined." 1 This hypothesis doubtless harmonizes the con-
ditions, and under the spell of Dr. Martineau's eloquent
reasoning many may feel that Orthodox oppugnance to it
must spring solely from interest in a rival one. Such may
1 Seat of Authority, p. 202.
THE NEW TESTAMENT CRITIC 239
well fortify their candor by remembering that the reverse
view, that Justin used our Gospel, is held, not to mention
a host of others, by Ezra Abbott, by Schiirer, and by Keim.
The judgment of the last two is especially significant, since,
while they allow that Justin used the Gospel, they deny
that an Apostle wrote it.
The conclusion of Dr. Martineau, based on notices of
the early use of the Gospel, therefore, is that it could not
have originated earlier than the fifth decade of the second
century. This judgment implies an allowance of a rea-
sonable time for its distribution " from the place of its
nativity to the literary centres of the church and of the
Gnostic sects." l
But turn now to the Gospel itself; does its internal
character ratify this judgment of its late origin? Have we
not a reasonable guarantee of an eyewitness in the veri-
similitude of its narratives? So Schleiermacher held, and
so multitudes of the good and wise still hold. This con-
sideration is undoubtedly very persuasive, but it is only to
be surrendered to in the absence of irreconcilable facts.
We can easily see how an American Defoe, placing him-
self by the side of Bunyan, might so delineate his career
that the first impression even of careful readers would be
that the work was the record of an eyewitness and com-
panion. But did a more careful scrutiny detect words that
have come into our language within the last century ; did
we find in it an allusion, however covert, to the Declara-
tion of Independence, or the Transcendental Philosophy,
we should say that while verisimilitude is to be praised as
art, it is quite possible that it may be a source of illusion.
An early tradition, that later times have not been will-
ing to part with, referred the Fourth Gospel and the
Apocalypse to the same author, the Apostle John. If,
however, the latter-day view, which Harnack received
1 Seat of Authority, p. 208.
240 JAMES MARTINEAU
from a pupil and published with his own great support, 1
shall prevail, this is no longer a relevant consideration.
This view regards the Apocalypse as a Christian recen-
sion of an originally Jewish document; and Dr. Marti-
neau's analysis of it reveals elements which may be as
early as A. D. 66, and other elements that cannot be of
earlier date than A. D. I36. 2 This view Orthodox con-
servatism can hardly like ; but that it relieves the Fourth
Gospel of an incubus rather than takes from it a support
may be fairly argued. For those who have been zealous
to maintain the tradition have had to deal with the embar-
rassing question, how two writings in all respects so dis-
similar could have been the product of. the same mind.
The contention has usually been that the Apocalypse was
the earlier writing, and that the Apostle after its com-
position, through a mellowing of sentiment and growing
familiarity with the Greek language and contact with
Greek culture, achieved his preparation to write the
Fourth Gospel. The reasonings, however, by which this
thesis is supported are likely to bear in upon the mind
the feeling that they are all but indefensible; while the
search for analogies only succeeds in making their ex-
istence scarce credible. Leaving behind all other con-
siderations, take account of the contrast of language and
literary form. The Greek of the Fourth Gospel is of the
best in the New Testament; that of the Apocalypse is
simply barbarous; while, as respects the peculiarities of
style by which the workings of a mind are shown, com-
parison of the two reveals only contrast. As to the date
of the Apocalypse, the most orthodox criticism has rarely
placed it earlier than about the middle of the seventh
decade of the first century, a time when the son of
1 For Harnack's account of this interesting incident, see Seat of Author-
ity, p. 225.
3 Ibid. p. 227.
THE NEW TESTAMENT CRITIC 241
Zebedee must have been well past the more vigorous
period of life, and have entered into the stage when
habits of mind are not easily modified. The supposition
that between this date and that stadium in life to which
tradition assigns the production of the Fourth Gospel he
could have achieved the marvellous change which the
later writing must imply, a change obliterating all trace
of the mind that brought forth the earlier one, is little
short of psychologically incredible. The conviction of
Dr. Martineau, as that of many another profound scholar,
is that " never will the same mind and hand produce two
such books, till ' all things are possible to men ' as well as
' to God.' " l
Undoubtedly the apostolic origin of this Gospel is more
easily defended when it stands alone than when it is asso-
ciated with the earlier writing. But now, another con-
sideration. Grant that the literary features of the Gospel
make the supposition that it could have been written by
the author of the Revelation incredible, will they allow us
to think of it as the work of a Palestinian Jew? and we
may make the consideration more significant by remem-
bering that the son of Zebedee was not by vocation a
scholar but a fisherman, " unlearned and ignorant," when
he accepted his call to be an apostle. Again the literary
aspects of the Gospel come before us. It is not to be
pretended that the Greek of the Fourth Gospel is up to
the standard of the classic age; yet it is good Greek,
fluent, graceful, as of one long familiar with its use. Only
the exigencies of a theory could ever lead to the thought
of it as the late acquisition of one whose birthright was an-
other tongue. So strongly has this consideration weighed
with some, as Ewald and Bunsen, that, while believing
the Apostle to have been substantially the author of the
1 Seat of Authority, p. 218. This point is very fully discussed by
J. J. Tayler in his book on the Fourth Gospel.
16
242 JAMES MARTINEAU
Gospel, they have conceived that he must have employed
literary help from the more learned around him. The
tradition that John wrote the Revelation, which is Hebrew
turned into Greek, has, from its literary features, provoked
no challenge, the composition being such as would naturally
be expected of him. Were the Gospel represented as com-
ing to us, not merely from some centre of Greek culture, but
from one well known to represent that culture, no surprise
would be excited ; the composition would be held worthy
such a source. As the case stands, while we are hardly com-
petent to say that the Gospel could not have been writ-
ten by such a Jew, we are in a position to require that
whatever collateral testimony there may be shall favor
this assumption. Unfortunately for it, however, the testi-
mony favors the reverse assumption. When Dr. Marti-
neau says, " No companion of Jesus could have placed the
scene of the Baptist's testimony to Jesus in 'Bethany
beyond Jordan,' 1 a place unknown to geography ; or have
invested Annas as well as Caiaphas with the preroga-
tives of high priest; or have represented that office as an-
nual ; or have so forgotten Elijah and Nahum as to make the
Pharisees assert that ' out of Galilee ariseth no prophet,' " 2
possibly he states the case rather strongly. Grant, how-
ever, these errors in geography and history possible to one
born and reared and long active in Palestine, it is surely
more easy to think them of a stranger to its scene and life.
Barely credible in a " companion of Jesus," they were quite
credible in a companion, say, of Clement of Alexandria.
But another consideration buttresses the foregoing. The
attitude of the writer, as shown alike in the letter and the
spirit of his teaching, is that of a foreigner, not a com-
patriot or friend. The manner of speaking of " the Jews,"
1 The King James Translation reads " Bethabara ; " but the Greek is
" Bethany."
2 Seat of Authority, p. 212.
THE NEW TESTAMENT CRITIC 243
" the Jews' passover," " the passover, a feast of the Jews,"
shows the disdainful appraiser of a life in which he could
never have participated. As far as we are able to trace
the Apostle John, he represents a Judaic Christianity ; he
is one of the founders of the Church of Jerusalem, and
views with no friendly mind the apostolate of Paul, and
his freer Gospel; yet the writer of the Fourth Gospel
gives no hint that he is of the Jewish race, that he ever
thrilled with a Judaic sympathy, that the " feasts of the
Jews" were the feasts of his fathers, and within recent
memory his own. Dr. Martineau very forcibly remarks :
" No Israelite, sharing the memory of the Xao? Oeov, could,
like the evangelist, place himself superciliously outside
his compatriots, . . . and reckon the Jews among the
common e&vr) of the world." He brings this spirit the
more distinctly to view by placing it in contrast with that
of Paul, Paul in all the years of his apostolate pursued
by the unrelenting malice of his countrymen ; yet neither
his " heart nor faith was ever so alienated from the tradi-
tions and inheritance of his people as we find the spirit
of the fourth Gospel to be." On the contrary, " so far
as he was an exile from them, he grieved at the separa-
tion; he looked back on them with regretful affection,
and forward to reunion with yearning hope. The univer-
sal religion which' he had gained was not opposed to
theirs, but its proper consummation, if they would only
take it all." He adds : " That, while the Gentile mission-
ary speaks of his brethren in this tender voice, one of the
elder apostles should set his face as flint against them,
and treat their place in the world as the stronghold of all
that is 'earthly and undivine, is hard to conceive ; and the
contrast suggests rather the suspicion that we are trans-
ported into the age of Marcion and the anti-Jewish
Gnostics, whose Christianity was not a development but a
defiance of the Israelite religion." 1
1 Seat of Authority, pp. 212-213.
244 JAMES MARTINEAU
The argument, however, that is weighty beyond all others
against the Johannine origin of this Gospel is drawn from
a comparison of it with the Synoptics. Doubtless the
far prevailing conviction is, that the Synoptics, whether
written by their reputed authors or no, transmit to us the
Palestinian tradition. But this being the case, such are
the differences between them, it seems clearly impossible
to maintain the like for the Fourth Gospel. The thesis wont
to be put forth by reconcilers is, that the Fourth Gospel
was written after the Synoptics and with intent to fill out
their narrative. Where outside the brain of the apologist
the suggestion of this is found, in what aspect of the nar-
rative itself, it were difficult to say. We should say that
the most obvious characteristics of this Gospel make this
thesis utterly untenable. An actor in this world's affairs,
surveying the records of others, may write to complete
their incompleteness, to correct details that have been
misreported, or to draw from events another meaning.
But " in executing this purpose," says Dr. Martineau, " he
will necessarily work upon their main program, and find
room within its outline for filling in the forgotten details,
and retouching the faded or mistaken colours. The story
will act itself out on the same field and in the same period :
only it will be enriched by new episodes, and gain some
varieties of light." But when we ctfme to the Fourth
Gospel we find nothing of this. Its writer, " totally
disregarding the organic scheme of his predecessors, con-
structs the history afresh; so that the sparse points of
contact . . . are but tantalizing concurrences, that supply
no links of consecution, and leave the new story com-
pletely outside the old." 1
The more salient features of this comparison need not
here be presented in fulness of detail, so wide is the famil-
iarity with them. Did we not know that what men see
1 Seat of Authority, pp. 215-216.
THE NEW TESTAMENT CRITIC 245
depends very often upon the point from which they look,
the fact that men can face the contrast between the
Synoptics and John, and believe both to be authentic his-
tories of Jesus, would seem strange enough. We know
that the same events may convey very different impres-
sions, that the same truth may be offered in most diverse
aspects, and that outside the Providence of God we no-
where meet such bewilderments as in the phenomena of a
great life. These facts may well teach us caution in our
judgments upon the Gospel records, than in dealing with
which the apparent is never less likely to be the measure
of the true. But however such considerations may save
us from the hasty and superficial judgment, they only
blind or warp us if they prevent us from drawing from
facts their natural inference ; and that they are likely to do
this, especially when they buttress a theory we would like
to see prevailing, experience only makes too evident. To
apply this reflection to the noble rank of scholars who
to-day maintain the Johannine authorship of the Fourth
Gospel may seem scarce respectful. The liability, how-
ever, to construe facts by predilections, to see, that is,
according to the point from which we look, is one from
which intellectual acquirements however great are not
a sure protection, or Bacon and Agassiz would have
another record.
In dealing with the Johannine problem let us change the
point of view, and note what might then be reasoning
on a basis of probability the Orthodox attitude towards
it. Let us suppose the Christian Church built upon the
Synoptic records alone, the Fourth Gospel, though writ-
ten, lost to sight, buried in some ancient library, and now,
in the closing years of the nineteenth century, like the
Gospel of Peter, first brought to view. We can imagine
the acclaim with which it would be put forth: Here is
another Gospel, written by John, the disciple whom Jesus
246 JAMES MARTINEAU
loved ; the original it must be that, whence Justin
Martyr drew those strange quotations, the fourth of Ire-
naeus, who held that there should be four, neither more nor
fewer; it is surely the document of which we find so many
traces in the Christian literature of the latter part of the
second century, and which we have so long wanted to see ;
which the Marcionites and the Valentinians knew, which
Apollinaris cited and Theophilus refers to by its name. It
is nobly written, it is rich in the profoundest spiritual in-
sights. More important than anything else, its portrait
presents other features of the great Person, its narrative
other details of the great story. Let the canon long closed
be opened to receive it, that Christian faith and worship
may be instructed from the record of our Lord in its
completeness.
The interest of Christendom would be at once aroused,
and the Gospel would speedily be translated into all Chris-
tian tongues. Its literary completeness would be at once
apparent; its mystic heights and depths would be dis-
cerned ; the sage would ponder it with delight and the
saint with ecstasy ; but the proposition to open the canon
to give this new-found Gospel place beside the long famil-
iar Three would certainly be a grave one, and, unless
summarily and widely repudiated, would prompt to the
most animated discussion. The great divines of the
Church, Protestant and Catholic, swayed by reverence for
the canon, and with as yet only a literary interest in this
candidate for a place in it, would weigh with jealous mind
all arguments favorable to its reception, and meet with
forward interest every opposing consideration. The line
of study, it is needless to say, would be that of comparison
of this Gospel with those already recognized; and this
could not fail to bring into view the vast differences
between them. The intrinsic value of this document is
indeed very great, some Lightfoot would argue, but not
THE NEW TESTAMENT CRITIC 247
on that ground alone can we allow it canonicity. Allow-
ing that the three Gospels so long in use are still to be of
the canon, it is clear that any fourth that shall stand beside
them must in its more general features be in accord with
them. Now here is an invincible difficulty in the way of
admitting this Fourth Gospel to the companionship of the
Three, the difference between them ; difference in aim,
in the central Personality, in style of teaching, in detail of
events ; the biography of the latter cannot possibly be
cast in the mould of the former. The aim of the Three is
simply narrative. While the critical may detect in the
several writings the individuality of the writer, find Mat-
thew, for instance, the more national in his interests, Luke
the more universal, and Mark the least doctrinal, there is
no mistaking the fact that their purpose is to set down in
due order the details of Christ's ministry. The ruling fea-
ture of this Gospel on the other hand is argument; its
distribution of material is to illustrate a thesis, not to
exhibit a career. It is a philosophical disquisition, and
though the writer treats of the Christ, it is from the feet of
Plato. The great Personality how different in the two?
In the Three he is the Messiah of Jewish hope ; there is
the most studious care, especially in Matthew, to show in
him the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy. He comes
through the gate of mortal birth; and whatever may be
said of the discrepancies in the genealogies of Matthew
and Luke, it is perfectly plain that they aim to connect
him with the line of David. In this Gospel there is noth-
ing of this at all. He is the Logos come out of heaven
and become incarnate. Of ancient Scripture there is
scarce the suggestion that he is the fulfilment ; of the line
of David it conveys no hint ; of birth, of childhood, that
he grew in years or in wisdom, there is nothing in the
record to indicate. In short, with only this record before
us we should conceive him without yesterdays, without
248 JAMES MARTINEAU
to-morrows, as befits the Eternal Word. And, consonant
with this contrast, there is a difference in their early his-
tory. The Messiah comes to John for baptism, for thus
it became him to fulfil all righteousness ; but the Word,
so far as the record shows, was not baptized. The Mes-
siah is tempted of the devil ; the Word should experience
no temptation, and this Gospel shows none. The conven-
tional usages of earth and the seductions of Satan, what
have they to do with this Radiance of God? The style
of teaching is wholly different. In the Three the far
prevailing method is the parable, without a parable
spake he not unto them. In this writing this style is
wholly wanting. In its stead we find long discourses
which it cannot be supposed were reported from the
Teacher's lips, and which it is scarce possible to believe
that memory could have treasured. A comparison of the
miraculous in either brings us face to face with another
contrast. In the Three the miracles most frequently met
are cures of demoniacs ; from the prevalence and the
vividness of the belief in demons in the Palestine of this
period, this is but natural. In this John, however, there
is not a single example of this miracle. How is it that
it should make such impression upon Matthew and none
upon a fellow-disciple? The last miracle of this Gospel
is the stupendous miracle at the grave of Lazarus ; yet
this is known to the writer of this Gospel only. How
could such an event fail to impress all who witnessed it
and all who heard of it? Was it known to the writers of
the Three ? how could they then have preserved silence
respecting it? But the difficulty deepens. This miracle,
as this Gospel tells us, was the impulse to the plotting
against Jesus that led to his arrest and crucifixion ; and it
is past comprehension how the writers of the Three could
severally tell the story of the crucifixion and know noth-
ing of its immediate cause, or, knowing, suppress it in
THE NEW TESTAMENT CRITIC 249
their narrative. 1 In the distribution of events, too, we
meet an irreconcilable difference. According to Matthew
and Luke, the expulsion of the traffickers from the temple
was at the close of the Teacher's ministry ; according to
this Gospel it was at the beginning. The scene of the
ministry as offered by the two is unmistakably different.
According to the Three the Teacher devotes his labors
almost wholly to Galilee, going up to Jerusalem near
their close to bear his testimony and receive his martyr-
dom. According to this Gospel he labors chiefly at
Jerusalem, making only excursions into Galilee. As
respects the period over which the ministry extended, we
meet also a difference that it is impossible to harmonize.
Turn over the narratives of the Three as you will, you can
make out from them a ministry of but little more than a
year. This writing extends it to nearly three years.
Finally, a difference, in statement brief but in significance
overpowering, in the date of the last supper of Jesus and
his disciples. According to the Three this supper was
the Jewish passover; according to this writing it could
not have been the passover at all. The date of the
passover was definitely fixed; it was always the I4th
of the month Nisan, and any Jewish child could have
given it. According to the Three the meal was taken
on the evening of that day, and Jesus was crucified on
the day following. But according to this writing the
meal must have been taken on the evening of the I3th
Nisan, for Jesus died on the passover day. Here is
irreconcilable contradiction where mistake on the part of
a disciple had been scarcely possible. These differences,
none of them unimportant, taken together are of great
significance ; and they make the proposal to receive this
writing into the canon utterly untenable. If the Three
possess the elements requisite to canonicity, among which
1 See Keim, _/<?j-.r of Nazara, vol. i. pp. 179-180.
250 JAMES MARTINEAU
must surely be a faithful record of our Lord's ministry,
this writing, then, cannot do so; and to give it a place
with them is to imperil all, through its dissonance with
them. On the canon as it is, the Church is securely
builded; in thrusting under it this writing we must im-
peril its foundations. By all of the sense of sacredness in
which we hold the Three, and by all of conservative in-
stinct we must resist this proposal. Is this a fancied issue?
None the less it illustrates our thesis, that what men see
often depends, not alone on the facts they contemplate,
but also upon the direction in which they look. That
under these circumstances such would be the Orthodox
attitude towards the Johannine problem there cannot be a
doubt. Orthodoxy, in this issue, would be anti-Johannine.
They would be heretics who would receive the Gospel
into the canon. We return to Dr. Martineau to say that
the facts which under such circumstances would array
Orthodoxy against this Gospel are a portion of the facts
on which he bases his argument against its apostolic
origin. In view of them he holds it impossible to main-
tain that the Synoptics and the Fourth Gospel both come
out of the apostolic circle.
But are there any internal features of this Gospel that
especially accord with the external evidence of its late
origin ? To Dr. Martineau the fact is all but indisputable.
As respects the origin of the Logos doctrine, which the
Proem states and the subsequent narrative is arranged to
illustrate, there has been on the one side a more than will-
ingness to find it the utterance of a Jewish thought, on the
other a conviction unshadowed by a doubt that its root is
in the Alexandrian type of Neo-Platonism. With the
champions of the latter view is Dr. Martineau. With a
brief statement of the doctrine, first, as presented by Philo,
and, secondly, of the incarnation of the Logos in Jesus
Christ as taught by Christian philosophers, he goes on to
THE NEW TESTAMENT CRITIC 251
say : " In this form it did not come upon the stage until the
middle of the second century ; when Christianity, released
from its first enemy by the destruction of the Jewish State,
turned round to face and to persuade its Pagan despisers,
and searched the philosophic armoury for weapons of
effective defence; and most of all when converts from
heathenism, as Justin Martyr and Athenagoras, addressed
themselves on behalf of their adopted faith to those whom
they had left behind. From the apostolic age this concep-
tion was entirely absent : not a trace of it is to be found in
the Pauline letters, which work their way to similar issues
by other tracks of thought; and not till we listen to the
Apologists in the time of the Antonines does this new lan-
guage fall upon the ear. It was borrowed from the Greek
<yvw(Ti,s, so fruitful of speculative systems in that age of
peace and letters, and was compelled to take up into its
meaning the Christian facts and beliefs. The fourth Gos-
pel breathes the very air of that time : it weds together the
ideal abstractions of the Gnostic philosophy, and the per-
sonal history of Jesus Christ ; and could never have been
written till both of them had appeared upon the scene. It
is, indeed, itself a Gnosticism, only baptized and regen-
erate ; no longer lingering aloft with the divine emanation
in a fanciful sphere of aeons and syzygies, but descending
with it into a human life transcendent with holy light, and
going home into immortality." 1
By another pathway of thought he comes to the like
conclusion. Religious opinions, as we view them in his-
tory, wear often a transitory look, but viewed on the scale
of a human life the most evanescent of them have a consid-
erable endurance. The Christian doctrine of the Nature
of Christ passed through various stages, yet it was more
than three centuries before it reached a final statement.
Three of these stages Dr. Martineau finds within the Gos-
pel narrative.
1 Seat of Authority, p. 237.
252 JAMES MARTINEAU
The frequent designation of Jesus in the Gospels is Son
of God. When did he become such? Grant him in any
sense an earthly nature, such as it was supposed that the
Messiah would be, when did the higher nature take up its
abode in him ? This question, " never contemplated, in-
deed, by those who first used it [the designation] in its
stereotyped Jewish sense," was " sure to be started as soon
as it came with the surprise of freshness upon hearers who
had to construe it for themselves." x The earliest answer
Dr. Martineau finds to have been, at the baptism. In illus-
tration of this view he goes behind the Synoptists, to the
Gospel according to the Hebrews, which he holds to embody
an earlier tradition. Here at the baptism of Jesus the
voice from heaven speaks in the language of the Psalmist,
" Thou art my Son ; this day have I begotten thee." At
the consummation of the rite the Spirit descends upon
him, and he who before was but the son of David becomes
the Son of God. Dr. Martineau also calls attention to the
fact that this view was long held by the Ebionites, who
through the second and third centuries stood fast by the
faith of the first ; and he holds what most readers will un-
doubtedly confess, that the first chapter of Mark, with whom
" the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of
God," is with the baptism, conveys the like impression;
and he feels that nothing can be plainer than that " the
genealogies which give the pedigree of Joseph, and are in-
tended through him to link Jesus with the house of David,
must have been drawn up under the influence of this belief
as to the conditions that were to meet in Messiah, an
earthly lineage and a heavenly investiture." 2
Here is a distinct type of doctrine, the sway of which
we have warrant for believing was considerable.
But sooner or later the question must arise, was sure to
arise as the new faith pushed out into wider fields, How
1 Seat of Authority, p. 238. 2 Ibid. p. 239.
THE NEW TESTAMENT CRITIC 253
can sonship be conferred ? Filiation is not a gift ; it holds
by an immediate title. If it is not, it cannot be. Probably
through the working of some such thought as this, the
union of the divine nature with the Messiah's human na-
ture was next conceived to have been at his birth. Hence
appeared the stories of miraculous conception of which
those in Matthew and Luke are probably the earlier.
This is the second type of doctrine, and now the third:
Birth brings upon the theatre of this world a nature that
was not here before, but " can the divine be born ? " Grant
that at Messiah's birth a divine nature mingled with his
human nature, was it generated then? Did it not come
down from heaven, where it had a pre-existent life? Pre-
existent! was it ever non-existent? Can we think of it
otherwise than as expressing the life of God in the mystery
of eternal generation? " It was inevitable, that, under the
influence of this mode of thought, the sonship to God
should yet retreat back another step beyond all temporal
limits, and become pre-existent to the whole humanity of
Jesus ; so that nothing in him should be new to this world,
except the corporeal frame and mortal conditions which
were needful to his relations with men." 1 This is the
doctrine of the Fourth Gospel.
Here are three types of doctrine, each opening into the
wider ranges of speculation, and capable of an interest
that is profound and a hold that is strong. Their several
periods of ascendant interest it is impossible now to show;
but that the first two ran their course and the third reached
its blossom within the first century is to Dr. Martineau an
incredible supposition. Yet if the Orthodox view be the
true one, this course was run and this blossom attained
within the active period of one man.
We need not follow this line of study further. For these
insurmountable reasons, Dr. Martineau cannot allow the
1 Seat of Authority, p. 241.
254 JAMES MARTINEAU
Gospels, in the structure in which we know them, to be the
product of the apostolic age. Neither in the Synoptics
nor in John do we find a disciple's record of the great
ministry. The records that we read come to us from a
later age, in the light of whose beliefs and hopes and
sufferings and struggles they must be interpreted, and he
thus interprets them. Of the greatest intrinsic value,
they are thus none the less discredited as to the primary
contention respecting them ; and the claim for them as an
ultimate outward authority is no longer tenable.
II. This wears to some a destructive look, but what is
destroyed ? Dr. Martineau deals a heavy blow at accepted
theories, and shocks a reverence that subsists upon them.
It is but fair, however, to remember that his too is a
reverent spirit, and only just to believe that it is in the
spirit of reverence that his blows are given.
Let the critic suspend his function and the philosopher
speak for a moment. You believe in inspiration, you say ;
you are assured that God could not have been so in-
different to the spirits he has created as to leave them to
grope in the dark, vouchsafing them no beam of his great
light; and that through these New Testament records a
beam of that light has been borne to them. It may sur-
prise some earnest soul to be told that the above state-
ments only fail to convey Dr. Martineau's mind as they
fail in fulness. He too believes in inspiration, and that
through these records a beam of the divine light has been
imparted. But he also believes that it is through another
beam cast on your own soul that you distinguish it; that
it is only through the divine in you that the divine is
apprehended by you. But here is a point on which you
and he radically differ : you will have this record divine
not only in its spirit, its prompting, its awakening light
and its vitalizing power, but in its letter too ; its cast of
THE NEW TESTAMENT CRITIC 255
thought, its detail of narrative, its moral reflections, its
historical allusions. Paul's metaphor of the treasure in
earthen vessels you cannot, in dealing with this problem,
allow to give you guidance ; you " want not the treasure
only, but the casket too, to come from above, and be of
the crystal of the sky." To Dr. Martineau, not only does
the record fail to satisfy this want, but the want is intrin-
sically impossible of satisfaction. For "whatever higher
inspiration visits our world must use our nature as its
organ, must take the mould of our receptive capacity, and
mingle with the existing life of thought and affection.
How then can it both assume their form and escape their
limitations ? how flow into the currents of our minds with-
out being diluted there ? how dissolve itself in them with-
out any taint from their impurity? You cannot receive the
light on a refracting surface, and yet expect it to pursue
its way still straight and colourless. And the soul of a
man, especially of one fit to be among the prophets of the
world, is not like a crystal, a dead medium of transmission,
which once for all deflects what it receives, and has done
with it ; but a living agent, whose faculties seize on every
influence that falls upon them, with action intenser as the
appeal is more awakening." 1
Thus, then, we are brought to this: In the achieve-
ment of the higher work of the world God and man co-
operate. In the complete result, however fair, divine and
human elements are commingled. Grant with God the
initiative, with man is the elaboration. It follows that the
discrimination of the two, to him who will think justly, is
a matter of paramount interest. But how may this be?
Not without effort on our part ; to be " carried blindfold
into the Eternal Light " is not allowed us. But where are
the tests by which we may mark the distinction? The
answer is, Not without, but within, " in the methods of
1 Seat of Authority, p. 289.
256 JAMES MARTINEAU
just thought, the instincts of pure conscience, and the as-
pirations of unclouded reason. These are the living pow-
ers which constitute our affinity with God, and render
what to Him is eternally true and good, true and good
to us as well; and their selecting touch alone can part
asunder the entangled crowd of acts and things, and from
their conflicting meanings single out for us the idea which
is His, and the spirit which He loves." l
Thus your claim for the New Testament record, which
the critic finds such various and such weighty reason to
set aside, the philosopher finds incongruous with just
thought. It implies that you have received from God
what it were impossible for God to give. Here, then, you
say, is the end of Revealed Religion. Better so, in calm
sincerity be it said, than that your claim should be valid.
Men with nature and human experience before them, and
their own unaided reason within, have found their way to
the soul's Alpine summits where the air was free and a
glory thrilled them ; and when you sigh over the hardness
of their lot, the reply may be, Better their lot than yours,
with a revelation that enables you to dispense with the
laborious discrimination of true from false, and right from
wrong ; and so far as the New Testament has been held to
do this, it has only blessed mankind in spite of it. As the
non-use of any faculty or power means its enfeeblement
and decay at last, the revelation that should supersede the
hard exercise of reason and conscience in the determina-
tion of ultimate truth were not God's blessing, but his
curse; and while in this stricture upon the doctrine we
go beyond its widely prevalent application, we do not go
beyond legitimate inference. But is it so certain that
Revealed Religion has no longer any tenure if the preva-
lent view of inspiration be untenable? One thing is cer-
tain, that Dr. Martineau thinks otherwise; no Orthodox
1 Seat of Authority, p. 297.
THE NEW TESTAMENT CRITIC 257
divine stands more insistently for Revealed Religion than
he. He is drawn much to the study of Natural Religion,
but to Revealed Religion he gives the prior place; foi:
without it, as he holds, Natural Religion were without
a guiding light. His comparison of the two is full of
suggestion : " Natural Religion is a human elaboration
which sets more or fewer steps between ourselves and
God. It is a method of mediate knowledge, carrying us,
by successive stages of advance, out of the finite into the
infinite : there are media without, as we pass the facts of
the world in review before us, and move from the narrower
through the wider order to the cause which embraces all :
there are media within, as our own reason weaves up
feeling and perception into its premisses, and so marshals
its premisses as to conquer its conclusion." But what
then? Clearly this: So far as "God nattiralizes himself
in order to be discerned, constructs a cosmos to be the
mirror of his thought, covers it with greater and lesser
circles of intersecting laws, executed by a delegated physi-
ology from within, he is not presented, but represented" *
Here, if you please, is his manifestation, but not himself; a
witness of his wisdom and his power, but not his person-
ality ; and through the study of this is Natural Religion
won. Revealed Religion, on the other hand, finds its
possibility, not as God is "represented" but as he is "pre-
sented" Its knowledge is not mediate, but immediate,
Spirit present with spirit, living God with living soul.
And this is possible, not as man ascends into the Divine
Presence, but as God comes with revealing light into the
human. " Where," he tells us, " the Agent is Divine, and
the recipient human, there can be nothing for the mind to
do but let the light flow in, and by the lustre of its pres-
ence turn each common thought to sanctity : the disclo-
sure must be self -disclosure ; the evidence, self-evidence ;
1 Seat of Authority, p. 304.
17
258 JAMES MARTINEAU
the apprehension, as we say, intuitive ; something given,
and not found." l This, as is more than once brought out
in the preceding pages, is Dr. Martineau's initial truth.
Religion begins with it, and in its light runs its career.
While the common phrase gives us Natural and Revealed
Religion, Dr. Martineau, true to the order of his concep-
tions, would reverse the terms, and tell of Revealed Reli-
gion and Natural. Until the soul has apprehension of a
God, the eye cannot discern his tokens.
Thus is Dr. Martineau a prophet of Revealed Religion,
though it must be confessed that his utterances have not
the familiar sound of those who have been held the special
custodians of this. But let us see through his inferences
the more special features of his thought, (i) The condi-
tions of revelation being two, God and a human soul, it
follows that between them can be no mediator. Immediate
divine knowledge can never be at second hand. As many,
therefore, as " know him at first hand, so many revealing
acts have there been ; and as many as know him only at
second hand are strangers to revelation." They may hold
what has been given to another, but, " in passing through
media to them," it has lost its character as Revealed, and
has become Natural Religion. " Take away the fresh
Divine initiative, and the immediate apprehension which
it gives cannot pass laterally from man to man : no one, in
the absence of God's living touch, can put us into com-
munion with him, and make him known to us as his own
spirit would. Nothing spiritual, nothing Divine, can be
done by deputy ; and the prophets are no vicars of God,
to stand in His stead among alien souls, and kindle in them
a flame unfed by the Light of lights." 2 But (2) is there,
then, no part which the prophet may bear in revelation?
Grant that he alone is immediately enkindled, can he in
no sense communicate the sacred fire? Yes, in a most
1 Seat of Authority, p. 305. 2 Study of Religion, pp. 307-308.
THE NEW TESTAMENT CRITIC 259
important sense he may do this. For the order of depend-
ence of feebler upon mightier natures here finds illustra-
tion. Under the rule of Providence the higher is ever for
the lower, and the prophet of God for the service of all.
There is no mistaking the fact that when the prophet
speaks a sense of the divine may be experienced where it
was scarce known before. It is, however, only awakened
where before it slumbered. The impulse " gives no new
reality : it only interprets what is already there ; flinging a
warm breath on the inward oracles hid in invisible ink, it
renders them articulate and dazzling as the hand-writing on
the wall. There is no change in the object within sight;
only the film is wiped away that concealed or confused
what was close at hand. The divine Seer does not convey
over to you his revelation, but qualifies you to receive
your own." Dr. Martineau goes on to tell us that this
"mutual relation is possible only through the common
presence of God in the conscience of mankind ; " that the
fact " that the sacred fire can pass from soul to soul is the
continuous witness that He lives in all ; " and that " were
not our humanity itself an Emmanuel, there could be no
Christ to bear the name." " Take," says he, " this Divine
ground away, . . . and no inspiration given to one can
avail to animate another. He may indeed tell others what
has been revealed to him, and they may take it on his
word, and pass the report on; but this is not repeating
his experience: it is believing testimony, not seeing
God." *
But the substance of revelation what is that ? Is it the
history of the cosmos, the origin of man, the Israelites
in the wilderness, the conquests of Joshua, the Levitical
priesthood, the exploits of Samson, the deeds of Saul?
Does it forecast the future ; tell of a kingdom that shall
pass away, of a deliverer that shall come? Does it
1 Seat of Authority, pp. 308-309.
26O JAMES MARTINEAU
announce the end of the world, a final judgment, an
ultimate salvation and reprobation? Do we read it literally
in the texts of Judges and Isaiah and Ezekiel, in the
genealogies of Matthew and Luke, in the colloquy of
Mary and Elizabeth, in the rhapsody of Zacharias, in the
arguments of Paul, in the visions of the Apocalypse?
Such has been the teaching ; but such is not the teaching
of Dr. Martineau. " In virtue of its immediate or intuitive
character," says he, " Revelation must always open our
eyes to what really is or ought to be, not to what has hap-
pened, is happening, or will happen'' He illustrates by
reference to space and time, the contents of which are
won through the senses, the memory, the understanding,
while space and time themselves are intuitively given.
He adds : " The immediate self-disclosure of God to the
human spirit, similarly carries in it the consciousness of a
present Infinite and Eternal, behind and above as well as
within all the changes of the finite world. It brings us
into contact with a Will beyond the visible order of the
universe, of a Law other than the experienced consecution
of phenomena, of a Spirit transcending all spirits, yet com-
muning with them in pleadings silently understood. But
it recites no history ; it utters no Sibylline oracles ; it
paints no ultramundane scenes; it heralds neither woes
nor triumphs of ' the latter days.' " He concludes with a
judgment which to some may seem severe, but from which
the consistency of his mind forbids him to flinch : " So
foreign are such apocalyptic things from the essence of
' revelation,' that they exemplify the lowest aberrations of
' natural religion.' " x
"The Bible, then, is no revelation, is it?" asks some
offended spirit. "These rhythmic sentences, seeming so
logical and fair, bring us to the abyss of infidelity at last."
Undoubtedly the difference between your judgment of the
1 Seat of Authority, p. 311.
THE NEW TESTAMENT CRITIC 26l
Bible and his is very great, though your language hardly
speaks true to him. He tells as fervidly as you of divine
quickenings that thrilled the hearts of Hebrew seers, and
through them awoke their people to a vivid consciousness
of God ; of one who out of communion with heaven spoke
in tones that, reverberating across the abyss of eighteen
centuries, are still the world's chief melody. You find its
inspiration in the meaning of its texts, he in the fire of the
prophet's soul. Hence follows the difference between you
and him, as he would state it. While with him revelation
implies the soul and God in the simplest and most normal
relations, with you it is " apocalyptic " in its gift. No con-
trast could be clearer than this, or in the broad survey of
religion more frequently presented. To great multitudes
the apocalyptic concomitant seems indispensable. A rev-
elation from God, surely some portent must attend it.
It cannot be the burden of a common soul, some super-
natural messenger must bring it. How shall we distin-
guish it, if its communication be attended by no marvel?
To Dr. Martineau and always there are those like him
the apocalyptic does not signify, or, so far as it does,
offends rather than assures. While you must have in
some sense the wind and the earthquake and the light-
ning, he is well content with the still small voice. His
feeling, indeed, is stronger than this : he places " Apoca-
lyptic Religion "and "Revealed" in contrast as mutually
exclusive types : if revealed then not apocalyptic, if apoca-
lyptic not revealed. For the soul only can receive reve-
lation, and nothing apocalyptic can appeal to it. The
apocalyptic can only be addressed to the senses or the im-
agination ; and, while it may overwhelm as a wonder, it can-
not penetrate as a light. Its place, if it have any, is within
the embrace, not of Revealed, but of Natural Religion.
But again the question, How in the absence of apocalyptic
accessories can a revelation be known to be such? Dr.
262 JAMES MARTINEAU
Martineau's answer is that the Divine Word authenticates
itself, and needs no apocalyptic witness to its origin.
This rich field we need not explore further. Dr. Marti-
neau's attitude is plain, likewise his wide departure from
prevailing standards. These Scriptures he would explore
under the guidance of natural reason, while prevailingly
they are read in apocalyptic light. He rejoices to receive
the heavenly treasure they convey, and to that very end is
eager to discriminate the terrestrial vessel that contains it.
Prevailingly they are seen through a haze of marvel in
which treasure and vessel are indiscriminately blended. It
is enough for him to receive the spiritual illumination that
they bring, and, from the inspiration they impart, to be
assured of inspiration at their source. Prevailingly their
inspiration is an a priori assumption, which, reasoned
however it may be, the text according to its letter cannot
satisfy. To him, inspiration is illumination of the spirit
through immediate contact with God. Prevailingly it
is miraculous dictation. As of the Christian records,
so of their central figure. To him, he is a human friend
and brother, who, living in the consciousness of God,
became the oracle of his grace. Prevailingly he wears
an apocalyptic halo, his beauty not a blossom of earth,
but a marvel from the skies. In his treatment of the New
Testament presentation of this person we now follow him.
III. The New Testament offers us three conceptions of
Christ, the simply Jewish, the Pauline, and the Johan-
nine. They are of the Messiah, the Second Adam, and
the Incarnate Logos. To all of these Dr. Martineau de-
votes a copious and fruitful page. The earlier, however,
is the root of the other two, and a conclusion respecting it
is by implication a conclusion as respects them. We shall,
therefore, follow him only through his discussion of the
Messianic claim.
THE NEW TESTAMENT CRITIC 263
Though Jesus Christ may be the same yesterday, to-day,
and forever, his features have differed from age to age
according to the eyes that have contemplated them. To
the Jews with whom his ministry began it was inevitable
that he should be looked upon in the light of the Messianic
expectation. Grant that " Messiah was but the figure of
an Israelitish dream," yet was he the master light of Israel's
seeing, the comfort of his griefs, the fulfilment of his un-
extinguishable hope. A great one should come of the
line of David, who should regenerate his people and rule
the world. Measured by this expectation, Jesus was re-
pudiated by the great mass of his countrymen ; to them
he did not fill out this august figure. By his few immediate
followers, however, he was believed to be Messiah; and
on their proclamation of this belief the Christian Church
began its career. So much is certain; but now a ques-
tion : What was the attitude of the mind of Jesus towards
this hope? That, a growing boy, he received it from his
parents, is most probable; that, entering upon manhood,
it was a haunting assurance, we need not doubt ; and that,
when he began to preach, " The time is fulfilled, and the
kingdom of God is at hand," his language reflected this
great expectation, is reasonably certain. But thrilling to
the vision of Messiah's kingdom, did he conceive himself
the Messiah ? This, too, is the all but universal conviction,
both of believers who would magnify him and of doubters
who would discredit him. It is preached throughout
Christendom ; a recent author, treating of Christ's knowl-
edge of the Old Testament, pleasantly tells how his interest
in its pages was enhanced by seeing in them glowing fore-
casts of himself. Beyond a doubt, too, his Messianic claim
is on the surface of the Synoptic narratives. Dr. Mar-
tineau, however, treats it as made, not by Jesus for himself,
but as foisted upon him by his followers ; and devotes his
learning and acumen to relieving Jesus from what he con-
264 JAMES MARTINEAU
ceives an unwarranted and so derogatory pretension. Dr.
Martineau is not alone in this view ; but his arguments are
sufficiently novel to give them more than ordinary atten-
tion ; and not a few even of those most friendly to his gen-
eral scheme of thought have hesitated to embrace them. 1
Admittedly a Synoptic teaching, why doubt the record ?
To evangelical faith this, of course, is impossible. To one,
however, to whom the laws of criticism apply to the New
Testament, as to all other writings, a doubt may be sup-
ported by considerations that are not slight. The charac-
ter of the books yields a tentative suggestion of great
weight. They are not in their ruling purpose narrative,
but argument. Their aim is, not to furnish a biography
of Jesus, but to set forth this very thesis respecting him.
Look, for instance, at the first of the three in the order of
the canon. "It is," says Dr. Martineau, "compiled through-
out in a dogmatic interest. . . . The position which it aims
to establish, viz., that the life it relates is that of the future
Messiah, is present everywhere : it supplies the principle
of selection with which the writer passes through the tradi-
tions and records ready to his hand : he drops as irrelevant
whatever does not help his thesis : he weaves together ex-
clusively the incidents and sayings which admit of being
turned to its support. ... If here and there, in the inter-
vals of the compiler's logical vigilance, words that transcend
his theory or incidents that contradict it lie embedded in
his story, the truth is betrayed by the only signs of which
the case admits ; and such rare instances, like the solitary
organic form detected in rocks that never showed such
traces before, may tell a story of the past significant out
of all proportion to their size. It is only by reasoning
from such internal marks, that we can ever hope to recover
the simple outline of the truth." 2
~ See especially essay by J. Estlin Carpenter, Unitarian Review, voL
xxxvi.
8 Seat of Authority, pp. 330-331.
THE NEW TESTAMENT CRITIC 265
This is unsparing criticism ; and many, embracing it as
a just account of these writings, would summarily reject
them as without historic value. Not so Dr. Martineau.
Criticism to him is not merely a surgeon's lance, but a rod
of divination also ; and he applies it to these writings to
see what positive conclusion it will draw from them.
Grant that the attitude and manifest purpose of the com-
pilers should make us wary of their conclusion, does a
scrutiny of their materials yield any facts that justify a
different conclusion ? While beyond a doubt these writ-
ings reflect the conviction of the age out of which they
come, are they faithful to the age of which they treat, and
especially to him in whom centres all their interest? Dr.
Martineau holds otherwise; and as a newly discovered
fossil in the rocks may rule the construction of wide
ranges of scientific inference, so from certain " slight but
speaking indications " he draws from the Synoptics a con-
clusion exactly the reverse of that which they were severally
written to justify.
He draws his first critical inference from a study of the
names by which Messiah is designated. These are three :
the Son of David, the Son of Man, the Son of God. In
the age that brought forth the Synoptic writings these
were undoubtedly interchangeable terms ; they meant one
and all Messiah. But in the prior age when Jesus walked
among men, were they so? Dr. Martineau finds uncon-
scious testimony that they were not in an unequal use of
them that could not have been accidental. 1
By his countrymen Jesus was spoken to and spoken of
as the Son of David. "Is not this the Son of David?"
" Thou Son of David, have mercy on us." " Hosanna to
the Son of David." Their startled inquiry, their appeal
for help, their wondering exclamation, employ always this
designation. Of course it was appropriate to Messiah, as
1 Seat of Authority, p. 333.
266 JAMES MARTINEAU
to any one of David's line. The point to notice is, that
they knew him by no higher title. Put against this the
title Son of God, and you vault from earth to heaven.
Did we meet as coming from their lips, " Is not this the
Son of God?" "Jesus, thou Son of God," " Hosanna to
the Son of God," we should need no other evidence that
this supreme title was current with them. Their non-use
of it is the clearest possible negative testimony that it had
no currency with them. Dr. Martineau holds the designa-
tion " Son of God " to have been given its Messianic mean-
ing by the Christians themselves, as it is not used in any
pre-Christian literature in this sense ; while in the earliest
of our Gospels, that of Mark, it is only so used " by the
demons he cast out, and the Satan who tempted him," 1
who through their supernatural and devilish nature were
supposed to have special discernment of him as their divine
and invincible antagonist. Indeed Dr. Martineau holds
that the title " Son of God " was bestowed upon Jesus " in
virtue, not of the Messianic office, but of the heavenly
nature, discovered in his person : and was, therefore, first
freely given to him by his disciples after his passage to
immortal life." 2 He draws support for this conclusion
from a distinction made by Paul, who speaks of Christ
1 There are two apparent exceptions which he notes. One is the ques-
tion of the High Priest, " Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed ?
And Jesus said, I am." [Mark xiv. 61, 62.] Dr. Martineau finds it hard
to reconcile this open avowal with repeated shrinking from and even pro-
hibition of the claim ; and made, according to the narrative, within the
hearing of no friendly ear, he gravely doubts if dependence can be placed
upon so exceptional a detail ; and this especially when he remembers that
" ere it could be set down as matter of history, it had become the equal wish
of Jewish accusers and of Christian disciples to fasten upon the crucified
the highest Messianic pretensions, the one as proof of imposture, the other
as a warrant for their faith." The other seeming exception is the exclamation
of the centurion at the Cross [Mark xv. 39], " Truly this man was the Son
of God." Coming from a Roman, Dr. Martineau holds that this language
can have no Messianic meaning, but only one compatible with a heathen's
conception of divine things. Seat of Authority, pp. 333-334.
a Ibid. p. 334. ;
THE NEW TESTAMENT CRITIC 267
as " of the seed of David according to the flesh ; and de-
clared to be the Son of God with power, according to the
Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." 1
This was in harmony with a ruling idea that " it was the
spiritual constitution of beings more than human " which
brought their nature " into antithesis with the animal life
and affinity with the essence of God." Accordingly, until
the exigencies of a theory required it, this august title
could hardly have been applied to the Son of David here
on earth ; but only to his spiritual essence, free of incarna-
tion and lifted into heaven.
Neither then in the title " Son of David," nor in the su-
preme title " Son of God," do we find evidence that Jesus
was regarded by those around him as the Messiah ; evi-
dence that should be held assured in the face of more gen-
eral and opposing considerations. We come next to the
Son of Man. It is by this title that Jesus designates him-
self, and from its meaning as he uses it we must judge
whether he claims the Messiahship or no. The phrase was
not of his inventing : it was current in his time ; the Scrip-
tures that he read were full of it. Its meaning, too, far
from being fixed, was extremely fluid. " Behold even the
moon, and it shineth not ; yea, the stars are not pure in his
sight. How much less man, that is a worm? and the son
of man, which is a worm ? " 2 " What is man, that thou
art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest
him? " 3 " Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of
man, in whom there is no help." 4 In these passages and
many others like them it is plainly the human species that
is contemplated. The Scriptures say " son of man " where
we say simply " man." There are, however, other passages
that show another use. " Son of man, stand upon thy feet,
and I will speak unto thee." 5 " Then said he unto me,
1 Rom. i. 3-4. 2 Job xxv. 5-6. 8 Ps. viii. 4.
* Ps. cxlvi. 3. 6 Ezek. ii. i.
268 JAMES MARTINEAU
Hast thou seen this, O son of man ? " 1 " Understand, O
son of man." 2 Here it is applied in the form of address to
the individual, and is equivalent to our phrase, " O man ; "
though as this use of it is met in only one passage outside
of Ezekiel, where it occurs eighty-nine times in the address
of Jehovah to the prophet, Dr. Martineau conceives that it
may have a tacit reference to the Seer's office. There is
yet one other use of this title, met in one passage only :
" I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son
of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the
Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.
And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a king-
dom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve
him." 3 This passage has attracted a good deal of atten-
tion, not alone for its striking imagery, but also for the
suggestion of a person to whom this title peculiarly be-
longs ; and not a few have been anxious to maintain that
here is contemplated a'personal Messiah. A little careful
reading, however, should make it plain that we are not
dealing here with a person but with a personification. As
the Seer has conceived successive heathen nations under
the figure of the lion, the bear, the leopard, and another
"beast" to which he gives no name, so now he personifies
humanity under the image of the Son of man.
Such were the uses of the phrase in the Old Testament.
We come now to the New Testament. With the support
of current usage Jesus co.uld easily draw the title to him-
self; he could apply it to another; after the analogy of its
address to the Seer in Ezekiel, or instructed by the mystic
imagery of Daniel, he could apply it to the anticipated
Messiah. Using it in any of these ways, he would have
been intelligible to those about him ; and examples from
his sayings that to the unprepossessed reader would sug-
gest two of these uses would not be difficult to find. But
1 Ezek. viii. 15. a Dan. viii. 17. 8 Dan. vii. 13-14.
THE NEW TESTAMENT CRITIC 269
now the question presses : Did he give the title a new use
by drawing it to himself as Messiah ? Are the two titles,
as we meet them in the New Testament, of equivalent
meaning? Where he says " Son of man," could we with-
out violence to his meaning substitute " Messiah " ? Such
is the traditional view, which the Synoptic writings seem
clearly to support, but which in their very text Dr. Mar-
tineau finds reason for referring to the prepossession of
their compilers.
At the threshold of this study a question obtrudes itself:
Did Jesus in his speech use language with a view to intel-
ligent impression, or did he consciously use it in such
manner as to mystify those who heard him? If we recoil
from the latter supposition as unworthy of him, we seem
driven to interpret his words in harmony with the former.
We turn now to his earliest use of this title in our canon :
" The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests ;
but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." 1 Is
this equivalent to saying, The foxes have holes, and the
birds of the air have nests ; but I, Messiah, have not where
to lay my head ? In theological treatises it would not be
difficult to find exposition to this tenor. Yet so far as
the record shows, this utterance is responded to by no
surprise, no challenge of incredulity, no exclamation of
wonder, such as must surely have been in any group of
Israelites of that period to whom it had been declared that
the Messiah was among them. The Messiah, the great
Deliverer of whom prophets told and for whom Israel
longed, can we imagine how the word would have passed
from lip to lip, and countenances lowered with anger or
glowed with exultation, according as they saw a blasphe-
mous pretender or him who should fulfil their hope? The
evangelist's silence as to any such effect of this language is
unconscious testimony that it bore home no such meaning.
1 Matt. viii. 20. .
270 JAMES MARTINEAU
If, then, " Son of man " here means " Messiah," Jesus uses
a phrase which has one meaning to his hearers of which
he is certainly aware, and another to himself which he
makes no effort to make plain.
As we read on, we meet the phrase in a series of pas-
sages, scattered through the larger portion of the active
ministry. " But that ye may know that the Son of man
hath power on earth to forgive sins." * " Ye shall not
have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be
come." 2 "The Son of man came eating and drinking." 3
"For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day." 4
" He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man." 6
" The Son of man shall send forth his angels." 6 All these
passages, notwithstanding the Messianic sense we find in
them, apparently conveyed none to Jesus' hearers. There
seems no reason to suppose that they attached other mean-
ing to the phrase as it fell from his lips than when they
read it in their Scriptures or heard it in the synagogue.
Of the fifteen months which, as Dr. Martineau reads, is
the utmost scope which the Synoptics allow to the minis-
try of Jesus, the above citations are drawn from the record
of more than fourteen. It must be an acute eye that can
detect any growing explicitness as to the significance of
this title ; in them all alike Jesus uses it as if speaking to
those familiar with it, and with no apparent effort to trans-
form their meaning of it. Yet by comparison of texts the
theory has been ingeniously worked out that Jesus made a
progressive disclosure of his Messiahship. Dr. Martineau
examines this, but cannot accept it. There is, indeed, in
all these Gospels from first to last an intensification of the
Messianic idea, of that all readers are sensible. But the
question may be asked whether this is due to progressive
revelation on the part of the Master or growth in the mind
1 Matt. ix. 6. 2 Matt. x. 23. 8 Matt. xi. 19.
* Matt. xii. 8. 5 Matt. xiii. 37. 6 Matt. xiii. 41.
THE NEW TESTAMENT CRITIC 2/1
of the disciples, and " retrospectively read back between
the lines of his reported life." 1 In the consideration of
this question Dr. Martineau is brought to Peter's con-
fession in the region of Caesarea Philippi.
The refutation of Dr. Martineau's thesis, most will agree,
is here if anywhere ; let us, therefore, read the passage
through his eyes, not neglecting to use our own. Galilee
and its triumphs have been left behind ; Jerusalem with its
new experiences and its undoubted perils is before. Dr.
Martineau we may well believe not wrong when he con-
ceives the disciples and the Master to be in different
moods : they in the exultation of anticipated triumph, he
in pensive meditation upon the coming struggle. In a
pause upon the way he asks the judgment of others and of
themselves respecting him. " Whom do men say that I,
the Son of man, am ? " They answer John the Baptist
or one of the prophets. " But whom say ye that I am ? "
The answer is, " Thou art the Christ." z Dr. Martineau is
not to be disputed when he says : " If the term, ' Son of
Man,' was only a synonym for ' the Christ,' and Jesus had
been habitually applying it to himself through the previous
year or years, there is no room for his question addressed
to them, and their answer was a mere tautology." 3 It seems
perfectly clear, if this is authentic language, that to within
seventeen days of his death he drew this title to himself in
no Messianic sense whatever. Further, if the question,
" Whom say ye that I am ? " is asked with a view to elicit-
ing a confession of his Messiahship, it is hardly less clear
that up to this time he had not been known, even in the
inmost circle of his friends, as the Messiah at all. Thus
the evangelists unconsciously make plain the fact that the
Messiahship of Jesus, which from first to last is on the sur-
face of their writing, up to this date had not been learned
1 Seat of Authority, p. 347. * Matt. xvi. 13-16.
8 Seat of Authority, p. 339.
2/2 JAMES MARTINEAU
in any walks with Jesus ; and compel us to think of it as
cast back from later years when theories were wrought out
respecting him.
Another consideration presses : When the question nar-
rows to "Whom say ye that I am?" and Peter answers,
"Thou art the Christ," does Jesus accept the title? So
evidently the evangelists would have us believe, but here
again their unconscious testimony bears the other way.
He meets the confession by peremptorily enjoining
silence. 1 The common interpretation of this is: Yes, I
am Messiah, but do not mention it. Why not mention it?
Shall the ambassador of God withhold his credentials?
If indeed the Messiah, what was there to do but mention
it? "Was then the Messiahship a private prerogative,
which could be clandestinely held ? Was it not rather the
ultimate national test which he was forced to offer for the
judgment of Israel ? " 2 The reasons that are wont to be
assigned for silence, set over against the reasons that
should have impelled proclamation, are incredible for
their weakness; and it is easier to doubt the evangelist
than to think such trifling of the Master. If all is not
made plain, yet none the less light breaks upon us when
we conceive the command not to report that he was Mes-
siah a posthumous refashioning of a repudiation of the
claim: "Silence! to not a creature are you to say such
a thing again ! " 3 Does this seem a charge of literary
dishonesty? I see rather the influence of prepossession,
which in honest intellects has more than once played
pranks as grave as this. But is the context consistent
1 I do not forget the blessing of Simon Bar-jona and the gift of the
keys. The fact, however, that this striking passage is found only in
Matthew, that Mark and Luke while giving all other details of this inter.
view yield no hint of anything like it, compels me to hold with those who
doubt its genuineness.
2 Seat of Authority, p. 352.
8 Ibid. p. 349.
THE NEW TESTAMENT CRITIC 273
with this view? "From that time forth began Jesus to show
unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem,
and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and
scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day." 1
Killed and raised again the third day ! Unless we are
dealing in these words with that to which criticism cannot
apply, we have surely an order of events thrown back
upon lips that could not possibly have told of them. But
grant to Jesus a presage of suffering and death, what
significance could its announcement have to the mind of
Peter? Was any idea further from the Jewish mind than
that of a slain Messiah ? To Peter such a forecast on the
part of his Master must mean the utter rejection of his
confession. In their significance to his mind, the com-
mand that he tell no man the great truth of his Messiah-
ship together with intelligence that he was about to die
could only be hopeless contradictories; and the most
hopeful reconciliation of the two passages seems clearly
to be through Dr. Martineau's transformation of the first
one. But when Peter is told of death, is he not told of
resurrection too? If the former bears in upon him the
thought of defeat, should not the latter mean to him a
surpassing triumph? So clearly it would seem. He,
however, reads with other eyes than Dr. Martineau's to
whom this record, taken at its surface value, bears no
insuperable difficulty. Peter's rebuke, " Be it far from
thee, Lord : this shall not be unto thee," 2 makes it per-
fectly plain that if anything was said about resurrection
he did not hear it; that his mind is ruled by thought of
defeat and ignominy alone. Here, too, we need to take
account of the conduct of Jesus. Does he comfort by
correcting his disciple, as so easy for him to do? Does
he say, " Peter, you mistake ; I told you of my death,
indeed, but did I not speak of resurrection also ? Would
1 Matt. xvi. 21. * Matt. xvi. 22.
IS
274 JAMES MARTINEAU
you withhold me from a temporary darkness which shall
be the prelude to such matchless light? restrain me from
the contest which, because the hardest of all, shall prove
me the supreme of conquerors " ? His stern language
rather is, " Get thee behind me, Satan : thou art an of-
fence unto me." 1 Nothing seems plainer than that he
takes the apostle's attitude, than that he forecasts the
hard issue at Jerusalem and nothing beyond it. " If,"
asks Dr. Martineau, " Jesus knew and had just said that
he should ' lay down his life that he might take it again,'
if, having explained that this was the Divine gateway to
the Messiahship, he was going to Jerusalem on purpose
to pass through it, how is it possible that he should meet
the apostle's suggestion as an alternative, and thrust it
away as a temptation ? " He adds : " It is only in the deep
darkness of the soul, where nothing is clear but the nearest
duty and its instant anguish, and the issue is shut out by
the midnight between, that any Satan can slink in with
pleas of ease and evasion." 2 The testimony, therefore,
though unconscious seems irrefutable, that no resurrection
forecast could have had place in this interview, that we
here deal with a later faith woven into the structure of
earlier memorials; and that Jesus and the apostle are
alike contemplating a martyrdom unrelieved by vision of
aught beyond it.
Of course this inference is irreconcilable with the
Messianic claim ; but is not the traditional view of this
passage supported elsewhere in the sacred narrative?
However unsatisfactory its impression when we study it
alone, may we not draw confidence of its genuineness
from later utterances of the Master? After the Transfig-
uration, did he not charge his disciples that they tell no man
of this "until the Son of man be risen from the dead" t*
1 Matt. xvi. 23. 8 Seat of Authority, p. 350.
8 Matt. xvii. 9.
THE NEW TESTAMENT CRITIC 275
In forecast of his Passion does he not tell how the chief
priests and scribes " shall condemn him to death, and
shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge,
and to crucify him: and the third day he shall rise
again " ? * At the close of the last meal with his disciples
did he not comfort them with the assurance, " After I am
risen again, I will go before you into Galilee " ? 2 So testi-
fies the record surely ; and if the assurance is to be held
genuine because clearly " written in the book," faith may
ask no more, and we may dismiss our difficulties with
the passage we have reviewed as pertaining to its rhetoric
only. But change the point of view. Allowing these
assurances to have come from the lips of Jesus, did the
after conduct of the disciples in any manner reflect them ?
What should have been their conduct? What were
ours, for instance, if in earnest talk with a friend about
to die he should bear in upon us assurance, " I go away
indeed, but on the third morning after I will return ; per-
haps in other form and lineament, and with other eyes
than look upon you now, yet in my inmost reality the
same " ? Should we not comfort his lingering pain, and
with a smile turn away to make ready for his welcome?
Yet the ordeal finds the disciples totally unprepared.
The assurance so often breathed yields them no support;
of the promise to go before them into Galilee a thing
impossible to forget they have no remembrance until
an angel at the open sepulchre brings it back to them. 3
Their conduct, in short, was precisely such as had been
most natural had no such word of cheer been spoken to
them. How explain this failure of the Master's word
even to gain lodgment in the disciples' memory? Were
resurrections such ordinary occurrences at Jerusalem that
a promise of one might be crowded out of mind by the
1 Matt. xx. 19. 2 Matt. xxvi. 32.
8 See Matt, xxviii. 7, 8, 9, 10, II. Compare John ii. 22.
2/6 JAMES MARTINEAU
press of other interests, like the letters or the invitations
of a busy man? Could they think him dead and not
remember? Could they sorrow for him and not recall?
We are here dealing with a difficulty of which the standard
theories of the New Testament provide no reconciliation.
Dr. Martineau's statement may not be the final word;
but he seems in accord with human nature and the laws
of the human mind and the literary methods of the time
when he says : " Every feature of the tragedy, as it
occurred, took them by surprise ; and not till they after-
wards discovered that just these things ' the Christ ought
to suffer and to enter into his glory,' did they feel sure
that he must have known and voluntarily met it all, and
have said enough to let them know it too, had they not
been ' slow of heart to believe, what the prophets had
spoken.' " 1
The conclusion, then, drawn from unconscious testi-
mony, is that the Messiahship of Jesus has anything but
the sure support that is claimed for it ; that his application
to himself of the title " Son of man " does not necessarily
imply it; that the Messianic claim, in short, though put
forth by the evangelists, may be none of his. Nor for
support of this judgment are we left to unconscious testi-
mony alone. There are sayings attributed to Jesus that
seem strained and unnatural if we suppose him conscious
that he was the Messiah. Dr. Martineau dwells on the
fact, which others besides him have discerned, that in
his forecasts of the downfall of Jerusalem and of the con-
vulsions of the world, events prelusive to the coming of
the Son of man, not one of the evangelists makes him
speak of the drama as " belonging to himself." Always
he speaks in the third person of the Son of man. 2 " Then
shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven." 3 " So
1 Seat of Authority, p. 351. a Ibid, p. 354.
8 Matt. xxiv. 30.
THE NEW TESTAMENT CRITIC
shall also the coming of the Son of man be." l " Ye know
neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man
cometh." 2 "When the Son of man shall come in his glory,
and all the holy angels with him." 3 Regarding these
passages as forecasts of the Messiah, as one yet to appear,
they would have been as to their form as appropriate to
the lips of John or Peter as his own. To another pecu-
liarity of Jesus' use of language Dr. Martineau calls atten-
tion: He always speaks of the coming of the Son of
man ; never of his coming back. If Jesus draws the title
to himself as Messiah, and contemplates death as a far
country through which he will travel ere entering upon his
office, the same personality that is with them now to be
with them once more, his language is wholly inappropriate.
He was here then ; his future coming should be a coming
again or a returning,
These considerations have critical weight, but there is
clearly another of more vital significance to Dr. Martineau :
His profound reverence for the person of Jesus is troubled
at the thought of him as drawing to himself the fulfilment
of that " Israelitish dream." The Messianic claim to his
mind does not befit the lowly yet trusting and self-sur-
rendered brother of his heart. Jesus of Nazareth is most
dear to him ; the Messiah of Jerusalem repels rather than
draws him. Descent from heaven, miraculous powers, which
so enrapture others, to him are harmful and grotesque
accessories to the spirit of the Beatitudes and Calvary.
To discredit the former is to relieve the latter of that which
bedizens and dishonors it. This, indeed, is not woven into
the structure of his argument, but it is clearly one of the
under-considerations that most deeply move him.
It is a long way we have travelled, and the end is
what? Prevalent theories of inspiration have been dis-
carded, the apostolic origin of the Gospels has been de-
1 Matt. xxiv. 39. 2 Matt. xxv. 13. 8 Matt. xxv. 31.
2/8 JAMES MARTINEAU
nied, the cardinal doctrine of the person of Jesus on which
the Church is reared has been shown untenable. Some
troubled spirit asks, What have we left? Dr. Martineau
answers God ; and with him everything essential. While,
too, in his investigations he has been guided by the love of
truth, and the desire before all things to proclaim it, any
reader of him may see that it is in the cause of God and
to promote His purer and more spiritual worship that he
toils, yes, and destroys. In his view, and in that of multi-
tudes besides him, miraculously given Scriptures and an
apocalyptic Christ are not unqualified helps to spiritual
religion ; rather they carry hindrances that are grave, and
if ever they were of high service to this end, that day is
passed. In the Scriptures taken in their simplicity, soul
seeking in them what speaks to soul, there is bread of life ;
while in the daily walk to have him of Nazareth for com-
panion is to experience the light of God upon the path ;
but that this measure of blessing may remain it seems
imperatively demanded that infallibilities and apocalyptic
Christologies should pass. The signs of the times, reflect-
ing the trend and temper of the human mind, yield support
to this judgment. The defence of these to-day is too
labored to be persuasive, and, instead of strengthening faith,
they extend and intensify scepticism. Do you say that
without these the Church will crumble, that in the teach-
ings of Martineau is the potency of this dark consequence?
Then I differ. As I ponder these teachings the vision that
haunts me is of a deeper conviction, a more vital piety, a
more confident trust, a closer walk with God. But if
crumble it must, then for truth's sake let it. Let the temple
fall, and amid its ruins we will take comfort from the
thought that the walls of the firmament still stand : and
with the lights gone out and all voices silent, we will fix
our gaze upon the sheltering and enfolding heaven.
BOOK III
THE PHILOSOPHER OF RELIGION
CHAPTER I
KNOWLEDGE
WE come now to Dr. Martineau's contribution to the phi-
losophy of religion. In the forefront of all inquiries in this
field is the question of knowledge: What can we know?
What themes are within the range of human faculty? Dr.
Martineau's thesis is a " Divine Mind and Will ruling the
universe." The first question is not whether this thesis is
true, but whether it is one with which the mind is com-
petent to deal. Phenomena I am allowed to say I know.
Through all my senses they are borne in upon me ; I group
them in their orders, I discover their relations, I detect
their laws; but through them alone I do not come to a
Divine Mind and Will. Here clearly is assumption of
something other than phenomena, and which he must press
beyond their confines to justify ; and the question of our
times is whether these confines do not fix the limit beyond
which human intellect may not go. Time was when this
question could have awakened no anxiety ; when he who
would investigate the higher problems of human interest
approached them nothing doubting that in the human
mind was capacity for dealing with them. The era of this
happy confidence passed when men saw the significance of
Kant's philosophy.
28O JAMES MARTINEAU
For from Kant we date the prevailing trend of modern
agnosticism. I say Kant, not forgetting Hume, who has'
been held by some the master of those who do not know.
In recent years his views have been the ward of men of
science. Professor Huxley calls him the " protagonist of
Agnosticism," from his pen a generous but candid praise.
He was, however, too near to being the despair of thought
to fix its vogue even in the domain of agnostic theory.
Agnosticism, while denying us the certainty we call
knowledge, may yet leave us the certitude we call faith,
and in some measure must do so in order to establish
an ascendency with us. Hume conducts to scepticism,
and leaves us but its hopeless blank.
It will help us to see these two agnosticisms together.
Hume finds the origin of all our ideas in sensations. The
organism receives impressions ; the ideas of the mind are
copies of these ; and this view unfolded and applied is his
doctrine. But there are ideas which we cannot refer to
individual impressions. Yes, impressions occur in definite
relations, and the mind takes ideas from these. They
occur, for instance, in succession, a fact that passes into
the mind as the idea of time ; they occur simultaneously,
and hence the idea of space. Time and space are the
mental presentation of these two orders of impressions ;
and other meaning they have none with which the phi-
losopher need concern himself. But there are other ideas
which thinkers had supposed to come out of the mind it-
self, as identity and causality, and which we are able to
trace to no impressions. For instance, identity. It seems
to me the tree I look upon from my window is the object
I saw standing there yesterday, and that the man who read
Hume's Essays last week was the very man who is thinking
about them this morning. The tree may have greener or
browner leaves to-day, may have lost a number or put
forth a few ; yet it seems to me I use language the natural
KNOWLEDGE 28 1
and unforced meaning of which is true when I say it is the
same tree. Likewise the thinker of this morning may be
in some particulars other than the reader of a week ago ;
but the difference seems to me to lie on the surface of a
fundamental identity. Every such consideration Hume
meets with the comprehensive denial that any interior
principle of things or of ourselves can be known. What
we have in either case is a close resemblance of impressions,
which, however close, are really different. The congeries
of impressions received to-day is so like the congeries of
impressions received yesterday that the mind conceives
them the same. Identity, that is, is an illusion. So the
relation of cause and effect which seems to rule the world.
We see the sun shine and the ice melt, medicine given and
pain relieved ; and so ever a prior event and a sequent one,
and regard the sequent event as contingent upon the prior,
and as occurring through its agency. Here Hume breaks
with us. Sequences of events may be plain enough, but
causal law he will allow none. In the sequences that pass
before us it is just the sequences that we see, not any bond
between them. There is what we call antecedent, and
there is what we call consequent ; but that unity between
them that makes them two aspects of a composite phe-
nomenon he will not suffer us to affirm. Events, he would
say, are conjoined, but how can we say they are united?
The origin of the causal idea he thus explains: Certain
impressions always occur in pairs and in the same order.;
and so from multiplied experience of these there results a
subjective cohesiveness between them, which compels us,
discerning one member of the pair, to look for the other
one. The idea of cause means nothing more than a habit
of the mind which results from long experience.
The issue of this we need no deep insight to discover.
Identity denied me, I am with respect to my interior nature
but a congeries of fleeting impressions ; causality discred-
282 JAMES MARTINEAU
ited, I can pass, by no reasoning, from the appearances
with which I deal to a reality out of which they spring. I
am thus doubly doomed to ignorance, from a limitation of
my faculties which will allow me to know nothing real and
from the constitution of things which will allow nothing
real to be known. A congeries of impressions is obviously
incapable of a knowledge of realities ; and, given whatever
phenomena, if the causal clue be wanting, an angel's intel-
ligence should find in them no meaning. Real knowledge
implies a persistent Ego and an intelligible order ; Hume
yields us a congeries of phantasms and a universe of phan-
tasmagoria. And the final result? The sensible, yes,
but no gleam of a supersensible ; phenomena, but no abid-
ing ground of them ; the oscillating wave of appearance,
but no changeless deep ; stars rolling and burning, but no
heaven that holds them ; order and beauty, reverence and
wonder, but no soul, no God.
Kant proved Hume's doctrine and found it wanting.
He found that the mind did not merely register impres-
sions, but also contributed to impressions somewhat from
itself. From myriad sources impressions are received ; the
mind construes them in the relations of space and time,
which are moulds within it, not realities beyond it. Here
is a most radical departure from Hume's doctrine. The
latter teaches that space and time are learned by experi-
ence, the former that the mind brings them to experience
out of its own nature as mind. In the perceptive act these
are the mind's contribution. In the cognitive act the mind
brings its contribution likewise. Outwardly there is offered
us the accidental, the phenomenal ; the mind furnishes the
substantive, the noumenal. Attribute we cannot divorce
from entity ; yet entity is not offered to the senses, but is
brought by the mind itself to what were phantasm with-
out it. So of causality. All I perceive, indeed, is a prior
event and a sequent one. Were I merely a registry of
KNOWLEDGE 283
impressions, the order of events here, antecedent and con-
sequent, would be all that would impress me ; and, though
from repetition of this order the appearance of one might
suggest the other, I should discern no closer relation be-
tween them. But a closer relation, the relation of cause
and effect, I do discern; and, as I cannot receive this
through the senses, the mind must contribute it. It must
be a part of the a priori equipment with which I meet and
construe the world. t
Thus, then, the images and conceptions of my mind I
may not refer to sensuous experience alone, for the mind
has part in them. Experience furnishes the raw material
of which they are formed ; the mind fashions them. They
are shapeless bullion as the mind receives them ; it moulds
them into coin, and stamps them with Caesar's image and
superscription. But, observe, with this result: since they
are formed within my mind I can affirm for them no out-
ward validity. Were the mind a camera, the image within
it might be a faithful counterpart of the object before it;
but since the mind is not a camera but a die, the features
of the image are such as the mind has given it. Had I
one a priori endowment more, or one less, the difference
would be confessed in the structure of my world. The dog
follows in the path of his master ; he receives impressions
as his master receives them. Yet that his world and his
master's are very different worlds, is probable; and the
difference should find explanation in the different moulds
in which their worlds are respectively fashioned. All of
which illustrates the Kantian doctrine that my world is
only my world. It is his oft quoted dictum that " Mind
makes Nature ; " which is his way of saying that we project
out from ourselves the sceneries we look upon. To this
result we come: The impressions we receive from the
outer world are fashioned by the mind into an ideal
structure, which, because ideal, cannot be real.
284 JAMES MARTINEAU
But this is not all. Of the 'three departments of the
mind, the perception, the understanding, the reason, there
remains the last. The question is whether, through this,
we may not reach the object of our quest. He studies it,
but to the like negative result. The reason, as he con-
ceives it, is as the sky over our heads, the seat of the un-
conditioned, to which the judgments of the understanding
are ever pressing, and in which their unity is realized. We
need not follow the steps of his analysis. He finds in the
reason three ineradicable ideas, of an Immortal Soul, an
Infinite Universe, an extramundane God. Here they are,
and because of them, the belief in realities answering to
them is natural if not irresistible. But from idea to reality
can we cut out a logical pathway ? Kant says no ; and,
one after another, he pulverizes every argument that main-
tains the contrary. With earlier philosophers these ideas
had been an arch by which they crossed over to the
country of their heart and hope. Kant blew up the arch.
Thus the mind was entirely insulated. Its world was wholly
within. Mountains towered, oceans heaved, suns glowed,
God was, eternity hovered on the view, in idea and in idea
only.
Such, as seen against Hume's, is Kant's agnosticism.
The two philosophers are perhaps as far apart in their
influence as in the fundamentals of their doctrine. While
religion has recoiled from Hume as a speculative Mephis-
topheles, it has found in Kant an ally and a friend. On
the a priori foundation which he laid but on which he
could not build, others have builded, and felt their temple
resting on the granite pillars of the world. Yet with re-
spect to the great problem of knowledge they were in about
like measure agnostic. The latter locks you up at home
with a priori semblances; the former sends you abroad
amid empiric phantoms, yourself a phantom. Kant will
allow no converse with realities, though he finds in the mind
KNOWLEDGE 285
the ineradicable forms of them ; Hume will grant no reali-
ties with which to converse. The former finds no highway ;
the latter dreams no whither. Hume is the spirit that
denies ; Kant is suggestive of baffled hope. To the seeker
of Elysian Fields Kant says, This route is impossible;
Hume offers conduct to an abyss yawning and black, which
no bridge may span, no sail or wing may cross.
The foregoing sketch shows agnosticism in two aspects,
that which will not let me know a world around me and
that which denies me knowledge of a soul and God. Dr.
Martineau pronounces judgment upon both. First, as logi-
cally first in order, he deals with the question whether the
images of the mind must necessarily be thought dissonant
with the objects and relations around us.
I. In his general philosophy Dr. Martineau sets out with
Kant. The Kantian doctrine that the mind gains percep-
tion of an outer world through space and time, regarded as
a priori forms, mended in some of its details, he makes his
own by adoption. Time and space, whether objectively
real or no, are subjective means by which the mind takes
the world into itself. They give form to the other-
wise formless impressions. Time arranges them in their
sequences, space spreads them in their co-existences, and
thus the orderly picture is furnished us. The categories
of the understanding, too, while in some details he mends
the Kantian exposition of them, his intellect, by its strongly
marked a priori tendency, is prepared to welcome. No
writer of modern times has looked more confidently within
himself for the fashioning principles of philosophic judg-
ment. Here, however, he diverges from his philosopher.
As set over against the Kantian idealism, his attitude is
that of unflinching realism. One concession to it he
makes, if the admission of a fact so obvious can be called
a concession : the outer world of our psychology " comes
286 JAMES MARTINEAU
to us as postulated, not as demonstrated." 1 The forms
within the mind we can correctly study without respect to
its postulates, whether they be true or no. These forms
may be the mental presentations of objective realities or
they may be subjective illusions, and " either supposition
is compatible with assent to the psychology of the critical
philosophy." z It seems to me the picture world within
me has a counterpart in an actual world outside of me ;
yet, speaking with the fear of logic before my eyes, it
need not be so. Very likely Orion hangs above me, a
real object answering faithfully to my vision ; but possibly
" some god paints the image in the firmament of the
soul ; " and possibly, and this is the ideal theory, the mind
is the demiurge of its own constellations. The presence
in thought of these alternatives there is no denying; and
if Kant's speculation proceeded on the assumption that
neither of them can be logically removed, Dr. Martineau
declares that the position would be " unassailable." To
balance, however, between two unprovable and irrefutable
hypotheses was not of Kant ; rather he set forth the claims
of one with an emphasis that meant the repudiation of the
other. Because in the forming of experience the mind is
a factor, his contention is that we can know only our ideas ;
nay, more, that between the object of my contemplation
as something beyond me and the form of it as presented
within me there is a hopeless contrariety. There seems
to many students an arbitrariness in thus urging the claims
of one alternative with scarcely a provisional recognition
of the equally valid claims of the other. Accordingly Dr.
Martineau, as the critic of Kant's agnosticism, brings for-
ward the alternative hypothesis as at least entitled to a
hearing. It is barely possible that things may be pre-
sented truly. The form within the mind may correspond
with the object beyond it ; the supposition that it does
1 Study of Religion^ vol. i. p. 66. a Ibid. p. 67.
KNOWLEDGE 287
so is at least worth trying. It is true that we cannot set
the form within against the thing without, and so prove an
agreement between them ; but neither, in like manner, can
we prove a disagreement. The theory of disagreement is
an inference from an ingenious doctrine of the working of
the human mind ; the theory of agreement is supported
by the general faith of the intellect, which Dr. Martineau
sees no clear need to surrender. Nor does he find it diffi-
cult to convict Kant of inconsistency here; for the faith
which his doctrine repudiates he yet acts upon. Kant
always affirmed external realities, however he might fasten
upon us the doom of ignorance respecting them. But
what is the warrant of his belief in them? Why, the
general faith of the intellect, or, as Dr. Martineau states
it, " confidence in an intuitive necessity of thought." 1
When asked, however, to allow objective validity to their
mental representation this faith is not sufficient. It will do
for the things in themselves, of which, apart from the bald
fact of their existence, he allows no knowledge ; but for
the validity of the images of them it will not do. They
are fashioned within the mind according to forms or
moulds of its own, so they can be in the likeness of
nothing beyond them. The dilemma here to all except
the most transcendental of transcendental philosophers is
serious ; for belief in the harmony of these representations
with the things about us it is impossible to surrender.
That is to say, we are compelled to believe it, and yet it
cannot be true. And with the like reasoning Dr. Martineau
deals with the root doctrine of the Kantian agnosticism,
that of space and time. According to that doctrine these
4 are inward forms, not outward realities ; like griefs or joys
they pertain to the mind, and with it pass away ; were all
minds to vanish, space and time would be no more. The
whole external scene, therefore, is clothed in illusion. Dr.
1 Study of Religion, vol. i. p. 69.
288 JAMES MARTINEAU
Martineau very pertinently asks, "If the 'forms' and
' categories ' of the mind are good authority for ' never
doubting ' existences beyond it, why will they not serve as
guarantee for the externality of Space and the continuity
of Time irrespective of our senses? " l The things in them-
selves, transcendental objects of which no predicates can
be named, how is it that we believe in them ? Through
" an intuitive necessity of thought." Why do we deny the
reality of space and time ? On the ground that they are
only an " intuitive necessity of thought." Dr. Martineau
holds with respect to these parallel beliefs that by the like
necessity of thought both should be justified or both dis-
credited ; in other words, that, through the faith by which
Kant held to his realism, he should have enlarged its
border, or that, through the scepticism by which he limited
it, he should have gone forward to its repudiation.
We come to his most radical departure from his philoso-
pher. While Kant holds space and time to be merely a
priori forms of perception, and therefore, so far as seem-
ingly objective to us, illusory, Dr. Martineau holds that
the fact of their being subjective does not imply the im-
possibility of their being objective also; and so, while lay-
ing tribute to their subjectivity for the great service that
it yields, he maintains that we may still hold fast to our
natural trust in the " veracity of our faculties." This is
departure from the critical philosophy in one of its most
characteristic features. Time does not, like a pleasure or
a grief, cease when we cease to be conscious of it ; space
spreads out its co-existences whether there are eyes that
behold them or no. Professor Caird thinks it most absurd,
on Kantian principles, to suppose the forms of consciousness
to represent things as they are. Of course it is, for on
Kantian principles what seems beyond me is thrown out
from within me ; and belief in its reality can only follow
1 Study of Religion, vol. i. p. 69.
KNOWLEDGE 289
from illusion. Not thus with Dr. Martineau, to whom
space, while as to its apprehension a priori, is yet empiri-
cally real: and the categories that organize the world
within him are mental presentations of relations that pre-
vail around him.
This criticism we will pursue no further. While accept-
ing Kant's psychology in its more general features, we see
on what line of cleavage he yet departs from him, and the
position that he gains from which to repudiate his agnos-
ticism. Kant finds no exit by which thought can go out
into relation with the outer world; to Dr. Martineau a
door is ever open. Kant draws his philosophy wholly
from within : that fields blossom or stars burn is without
significance to his speculation. Dr. Martineau goes out
into the universe, seeking light as to its mystery in its laws
and forces. Kant, because of the assumed dissonance of
the world of consciousness with the realities of things, can
have no dealing with the latter ; Dr. Martineau, from their
assumed harmony, construes the latter by principles drawn
out of the former. The thesis that the senses show things
as they are cannot indeed be proven; but the " bona fides
of our intuitive witnesses" which the unphilosophical
world accepts, he though a philosopher accepts also ; and
assured through this that he has access to " fellow beings
and an external scene," he feels himself within reach of
" other truth than the mere self-consistency of our ideas ; "
and that " our judgments may be tested by the agreement
of their affirmed relation with the real one." 1
II. But allow that we have found our way out of the
prison-house of idealism, and have come into the presence
of objects " not made by our consciousness," still the prob-
lem of knowledge is not settled. Grant that the world we
contemplate is not an illusion, can we affirm that we see it
1 Study of Religion, vol. i. p. 75.
19
JAMES MARTINEAU
rightly? I cannot get past the fact that between the sub-
ject and the object of knowledge there must be " copart-'
nership ; " and that the aspect in which it will be presented
to me will depend not alone on what it is, but also on what
I am. Were I a dog, it would be a dog's world that I
should know; were I an angel, an angel's world. As I am
a man, my world must be a man's world, neither less nor
more. The point of contention, of course, is as to the
man's world. To the dog my account of the world, could
he understand it, might seem very exaggerated ; to the
angel, very inadequate : yet within my human range may
it not be true? The question, though very interesting,
were hardly vital, were it not for the dual aspect in which
my world comes before me. As I contemplate it, it is not
merely a scene of fleeting appearances, but is construed irt
the relations of cause and effect, finite and infinite, that
which appears and that which is. The spiritual factors
here, however, encounter objection from a prevalent em-
piricism which is not lightly to be put by. Its objection is
commonly put forth in the doctrine of the relativity of knowl-
edge, in an examination of which Dr. Martineau meets it.
This doctrine is probably far less frequently doubted
than the conclusion that is drawn from it. Its meaning,
stated in its fulness, is that only as man comes into rela-
tion with the universe can he know it. As thus stated, it
wears no bodeful look ; yet it is seized upon by scientists
like Huxley and theologians like Mansel as barring away
from that higher knowledge which man has ever striven
most zealously to win. After all your brave speculations,
say they, it is only the relative you can know. Granted ;
but precisely what does this signify? To Dr. Martineau,
instead of implying a doom of ignorance, the doctrine of
relativity has seemed to set forth the very law by which
knowledge is won. Gaining knowledge is establishing re-
lations. Telling me, therefore, that I know only the rela-
KNOWLEDGE 29 1
tive is simply telling me that I do not know what I do not
know. But we are told that the implication is that we can-
not know the absolute; but what is that? The absolute is
the unrelated. The doctrine, then, comes to this, that
with that with which I cannot be related I cannot enter
into relation. Further, if I could become related with it,
then ipso facto it would become related with me ; and then
it would cease to be absolute. That I cannot be related
with the unrelated is undoubtedly true ; but what knowl-
edge this truth shuts me away from it is not easy to see.
To know the absolute would imply knowing without the
condition of knowledge, seeing without light, hearing
where there is no sound, breathing and living and moving
in vacua, the aim, not of sane, but of insane ambition.
My vision of realities no doubt a deeper wisdom might im-
prove ; and under the scrutiny of
"the crowning race
Of those that eye to eye shall look
On knowledge,"
they may seem inadequate enough; yet they may be
something other than ignorance hopeless and entire. The
ancient Gaul, peering over the water, saw banks of fog for
the most part ; yet through their rifts gleamed now and
then a crag which revealed to him England, not, indeed,
the England of the geographer and the geologist, but an
England that did at least interrupt the vacancy of ocean ;
an England, too, of which his descendants were destined
to know much, yet of which, after whatever conquests of
knowledge, there should be ever a measureless residuum
unknown.
This may seem a summary way of disposing of an ob-
jection so frequently met, and the courtesy of debate may
require that we look a little further. Of the two forms of
knowledge which the intuitionalist claims, the empiricist is
JAMES MARTINEAU
willing to allow only one. When, therefore, against the
apparent and phenomenal, the intuitionalist places the real
and the causal, he opposes the objection that we can know
only the relative. The pertinence of this objection is the
point to consider. Is the assumption of other than em-
pirical knowledge, knowledge through the intellectual as
through the perceptive faculties, made untenable by the
law of relativity? Of course knowledge of the thing in
itself of nature in itself, soul in itself, God in himself
we may not claim ; for the phrase is coined to denote that
which, though in the " sphere of being," is not in the
" sphere of thought ; " and of which, therefore, knowledge
cannot be assumed without a manifest contradiction. But
why may not the intellectual faculties do their work under
the law of relativity, establishing relations in the realm of
the supersensible, as the perceptive faculties in the realm
of the sensible ? This the intuitionalist strenuously claims,
surrendering without ceremony the pretence of knowing
things out of relation ; but maintaining, in Dr. Martineau's
language, that the " relativity of cognition imposes upon
us no forfeiture of privilege, no humiliation of pride," and
that " there is not any conceivable form of apprehension
from which it excludes us." A little further we will quote
him: "The intellectual relations into which different
natures may enter with a given object may be more or
fewer ; and the remembrance of the paucity open to us
and the numbers that may be out of reach, though within
the range of richer capacities, is fitted to adapt our temper
to our place : but to dispense with all intellectual relations
in the act of intellection can be no object of ambition to
any waking man : the very statement is like one of the
senseless knots of some nightmare dream." 1
Dr. Martineau points out what may often be forgotten,
that the law of relativity must apply to all our faculties,
1 Study of Religion, vol. i. p. 113.
KNOWLEDGE 293
not a part of them only; and that all must share in the
limitations it implies. If because of it I must distrust my
intellectual apprehensions, I should likewise be doubtful of
my sensible perceptions. Eyes and ears are under the
sovereignty of this law as really as the intuitions of the
reason. The misgiving, therefore, with which, because of
this law, I regard the latter should weaken my confidence
in the former ; and the confidence which, notwithstanding
this law, I feel in the former should brace my assurance of
the latter. The man of science believes in eyes and ears,
notwithstanding relativity ; why then so doubtful of our in-
tellectual cognitions because of it? But does not philoso-
phy deal with the ultimates of thought? Indeed it does;
but how in doing so it necessarily departs from the law of
relativity is not, from our present point of view, apparent.
Contemplating the supersensible on the one side as the
sensible on the other, man may receive according to his
measure, which is precisely what the law of relativity
allows. The philosopher indeed tells of infinite and
eternal, as the man of science tells of the indestructibility
of matter, the indestructibility of force, infinite time, space,
power. Herbert Spencer declares both orders of concep-
tion inconceivable, and we may grant them so. This fact,
however, does not prevent our establishing under one
as under the other those ever widening relations which
progressive knowledge implies. The truth is that to the
mind as to the eye it is given to discern in miniature what
may not be grasped in immensity. There is given me just
a point of light, and I tell of Jupiter or Sirius. There is
an image bounded by the periphery of my retina, but it
bears in upon me the sweep of the Milky Way. So while
I can receive space and time and power only according to
the measure of my faculty, it is given me to perceive that
the measure of my faculty is not the measure of them.
Empirical observation alone can affirm what it can itself
294 JAMES MARTINEAU
embrace: space enough for the stars to float in, time
enough for whatever record, power equal to what power is
seen to accomplish; but such measured language ex-
presses the mind of no man; and the empiricist, off his
guard, will use the dialect of the a priori philosopher.
Within him is a certitude that the space that enfolds
the stars has no boundary beyond them, and that the
stream of power that flows before him is no measure of
the fountain. The analogy may be suggestive rather than
exact ; let it stand, then, for what it suggests, viz., that the
measure of our receiving is not the measure of our appre-
hending. The cause that works its effects before me,
meeting the causal principle within me, becomes the
miniature of a universal causality. Without that prin-
ciple, it were but a sensible appearance, limited, fleeting,
isolated ; meeting that principle, it is seen to be a mani-
festation of the ever-constant and universal.
Another form of the agnostic doctrine is presented in
the Comtean dictum that all we know is phenomena. To
which, in Dr. Martineau's philosophy, the obvious reply
is that without noumena we cannot know phenomena.
Were it laid down that we can know nothing without
phenomena, the doctrine would be indubitable. Until
appearances are offered I suspect no realities ; until ef-
fects are seen I suspect no causes. The converse, also,
with slight modification of language, can be maintained.
Grant that the initial awakening is with effects, they are yet
only fortuitous events till I discern a cause in relation with
them; and appearances are without meaning till I see
them on a background of reality. These correlates Dr.
Martineau likens to the Siamese twins, always met together,
and not to be separated without the destruction of both.
In short, to know one thing we must needs know two
things : knowing only phenomena, we know nothing. Till
I see a background I discern no foreground ; a dynamic
KNOWLEDGE 295
without a static, the finite without the infinite, matter with-
out spirit, effect without cause, of these how is concep-
tion possible? "Mental action is dualistic, not monistic."
In his critique of Mansel, Dr. Martineau, treating of these
correlates, says : " They come into existence before our
thought together, and have their living meaning only in
fairs; one of the two giving us the constant and ontologi-
cal ground, the other the phenomenal manifestation. The
attempt to think away the finite from the presence of the
infinite, or vice versa, must inevitably fail; and of the
two schemes to which the attempt gives rise, viz., that
which says ' entities only can be known,' and that which
says ' phenomena only can be known,' both are to be un-
hesitatingly rejected. Two other possibilities remain, viz.,
the Idealism which, treating all ' relation ' as a subjective
economy of ours, pronounces that we know neither ; and
the Realism which, taking relations in the mind as ex-
ponents of relations out, decides that we know both. It
is on this last alone that, in our view, a sound philosophy
can take its stand." l
What, then, is the explanation of this doctrine so fre-
quently and so dogmatically put forth : all we know is phe-
nomena? This: Of the two elements of knowledge which
we hold all knowing to imply, that of the variable and the
constant, the phenomenal and that of which phenomena
are, the former only, in the common meaning of the term,
is learned ; the latter is the prime condition of learning.
The one I roam the fields of space and time to gather,
the other I take with me as I go. Other distinctions are
apparent enough. The latter from age to age is quanti-
tatively the same ; the former is infinitely cumulative. Of
our gatherings from the fields of space and time we can
definitely tell : we can classify them, analyze them, organ-
ize them, generalize them. Of soul, however, there are
1 Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. iii. pp. 135-136.
296 JAMES MARTINEAU
few predicates; substance defies analysis; the infinite we
cannot classify. Here we deal with that which comes
before us only in our meditations, and then as a presence
that we apprehend, and not a form that we discern. And
of these contrasts is born the habit of regarding knowledge
as of that only which we can learn, accumulate, define,
classify; which we can record in histories, build into
sciences, utilize in our arts, weave into the multifarious
web of our literatures. And here, of course, Dr. Marti-
neau joins issue. Substance, he maintains, is not less
really known because we cannot analyze it, nor the infinite
because we cannot classify it. As truly as the sensible
forms, these come before the mind ; and are of all sensible
knowledge the condition. Our fullest account of them
may be brief, but they pervade our thought and interpene-
trate our every conception. "The unity and simplicity
and unchangeableness of a cognition do not identify it
with ignorance. And since to the correlative of phenom-
ena this permanence must from its very function belong,
and otherwise it would itself become phenomenal and
demand its own permanent behind, any disparagement of
its intellectual claims on this ground forgets the very
conditions of human knowledge." 1
In yet another form is agnostic doctrine brought us in
the teachings of Herbert Spencer. Certain noumena he
also recognizes, as Cause and Power. These are implied
alike in our scientific and in our religious conceptions.
They introduce us, however, not to a reality we can know,
but to a reality impossible to be known. His ultimate truth,
climbed to by whatever stairway of thought, is the Unknow-
able. From the borders of phenomena he looks out, not
upon a blank, but upon a mystery. Over against the relative
he meets an absolute the existence of which he must con-
fess, but knowledge of which is impossible. If he simply
1 Study of Religion, vol. i. p. 122.
KNOWLEDGE 297
meant that it cannot be fully known, known as we know
the forms around us, or as the truths we inductively es-
tablish, he would be in accord with the seers and bards
and prophets from Isaiah to Tennyson. This, however,
is not his meaning. He would rather maintain that be-
yond knowing that it is, we have no possible knowledge
of it. That it is, we may affirm with certainty ; what it
is, we have no faculty to tell.
Dr. Martineau raises the question whether this is a " ten-
able distinction." " Is it possible," he asks, " to have as-
surance of a real existence, which yet remains to the end
an utter blank? Do we know the fact by a vacuum in
thought, or by a thought itself? If the former, how can a
subjective nothing tell us of an objective something? If
the latter, how can there be a thought with nothing think-
able ? " l And with all his carefulness of thought and all
his skill of expression, Mr. Spencer does not save himself
from inconsistency. This Unknowable he describes as a
" Power." A Power ? if he knows it to be this, then it is
not wholly unknowable. But of this Power he has the
courage to shape affirmations. It is " eternal ; " if eter-
nal, then not temporal. It is " omnipresent ; " then it
is never absent. It is one ; then not many. It is the
cause of all phenomena; then not itself an effect. His
language is not only that of affirmation, but also that of
differentiation. Dr. Martineau finds this " list of predi-
cates," though " scanty indeed when measured by the
requisites of religion, too copious for the plea of nes-
cience." And he adds, " Wherever I can distinguish, there
I know ; and do I not distinguish this ' absolute ' from all
that is related to it, and thus get it, as counter term, into
relative apprehension? Is it not, among noumena, differ-
ent from Space, from Time, from Substance? If I can say
all these things about it, it is no longer competent to me
1 Study of Religion, vol. i. p. 124.
298 JAMES MARTINEAU
to designate it as the absolutely Unknowable. To know
that an object is, yet know nothing that it has, is impos-
sible, because contradictory. This negative Ontology,
therefore, which identifies ' the supreme reality ' with total
vacuity, and makes the infinite in Being, the zero in
thought, cannot permanently poise itself in its precarious
position : it must either repent of its concessions to real-
ism [which it is too philosophical to do], and lapse into
the Scientific commonplace ' all we know is phenomena ; '
or else advance, with what caution and reserve it pleases,
into ulterior conceptions of the invisible cause, sufficient
to soften the total eclipse into the penumbra of a sacred
mystery." l
Thus, reviewing the several forms of agnostic doctrine,
Dr. Martineau finds them wanting. The Idealism that
insists that our conceptions, because formed within our-
selves, are without objective validity, he finds postulated,
not proven; and he renounces it in the name of the " bona
fides of our intuitive faculties." For agnostic pretensions
derived from the doctrine of relativity he finds no warrant,
since the establishing of relations is the method of attain-
ing knowledge, not a checkmate to its quest. The doc-
trine that all we know is phenomena he finds suicidal;
while the doctrine of the Unknowable, which teaches that
we may know there is a reality, yet know nothing about it,
he finds self-contradictory.
Thus, agnosticism in all its forms failing to make good
its pretensions, he comes confidently back to the free use
of his faculties, the senses reaching into the world without
and the moulding forms within. Through these, co-oper-
ating in his conceptions, he is given appearance, playing
upon a deep of reality ; a stream of effects, a fountain of
cause ; a world of shadows with a sun behind.
1 Study of Religion, vol. 5. pp. 124-125.
CHAPTER II
GOD AND COSMOS
THUS does Dr. Martineau assure himself of the com-
petency of the human mind to attain knowledge that is
not borne in through the senses, and which cannot be
reached through inductions: knowledge of the substan-
tive as against the accidental, of the real as against the
phenomenal.
In doing thus, however, he acts the part of a bridge-
builder who solidly constructs his abutment ere he throws
his arch. His aim is to connect earth and heaven : to
reach, that is, on lines of human reasoning, a full assurance
of the reality of God. These lines are two, a strictly in-
tellectual and a moral; their postulates he finds in the
reason and the conscience. It is the inferences from the
moral consciousness which stir him most; and Professor
Upton is undoubtedly right in regarding this, " with its
progressive ethical ideal and its unconditional imperative,
as the main source of that form of theism which vital
religion always tends to assume as men become civilized
and distinctly recognize the paramount authority of Con-
science and the transcendent worth of moral character." 1
Still, in no period in which man is capable of speculative
inquiry, can the vast question whether it is possible to
construe the universe in relation with an Intelligent
Creator, be other than an enthralling one ; and no one has
it ever more enthralled than Dr. Martineau. His contribu-
1 The Hibbert Lectures, 1893, p. 194.
30O JAMES MARTINEAU
tion to it, too, is a unique page. Living in the nineteenth
century, and not only learned in its philosophy, but steeped
in its science, he has constructed an argument on this high
theme, which prior to the middle of our century would
have been hardly possible. Of all his multifarious writings,
too, it is probably the crowning page. Though his thought
ramifies widely, its salient features may be shown in our
answers to two questions: (I.) Do we draw from the
causal idea the conclusion that there is an Intelligent
Cause? If so, (II.) Does the universe in its intellectual
aspects ratify or discredit this conclusion?
I. The Causal Idea.
i. With cause as a fact we are on the easiest possible
terms. When we bring it seriously before our thought, how-
ever, how many problems start up ! In every manifestation
of cause there are two terms, a prior and a sequent one.
The latter may be any change within us or without, and is
suggestive of little speculation. When we inquire, how-
ever, as to the agency that produces the change, we take
hold on one of the crucial problems of philosophy ; and a
modern teacher hardly exaggerates when he claims that
the attitude of one's mind towards this problem " shows
whether he be idealist or materialist, positivist or tran-
scendentalist, fatalist or believer in free will, theist or
atheist." J
There are two prevalent theories of the origin of the
causal idea: one refers it to experience, the other to
intuition. The former maintains that through the order
of events we are led to it ; the latter, that to the order of
events we bring it. From these theories of the origin of
the idea, there follow two theories of the nature of cau-
sality To the experience philosopher, there is an antece-
i Francis Bowen, Princeton Review, January-June, 1879, p. 615.
GOD AND COSMOS 301
dent followed by a consequent, and more than this he will
not suffer us to affirm ; to the intuitionalist, there are an an-
tecedent and consequent and a link that binds them together.
The one sees a constant relation ; the other sees this and
also an indissoluble bond. These theories are respectively
known as the theory of phenomena and of force. They
have not the field entirely to themselves ; but they alone
require recognition in the discussion now before us.
The phenomenal doctrine what is it? In its modern
form it dates from Hume ; and in his writings may still be
found its strongest and most winning presentation. Up to
his time the necessary connection between the terms of
the causal relation was secure, and philosophers reasoned
as common people talked. The antecedent did not merely
go before, it was efficient; the consequent did not merely
follow after, it was effect. The emphasis of necessity
should be felt here. Not only did the consequent follow
upon the antecedent, but it must. Water, brought into
contact with heat, not only will be converted into steam,
it must be. The tides do not merely follow the moon,
they must do so. There was held to be not merely the
uniformity which experience shows, but a necessity that
compelled it. The two terms of the relation, indeed, were
held to be but different phases of a composite phenome-
non. Hume, however, dislocated them. He is moving, it
should be borne in mind, upon lines of empirical thought,
pressing Locke's sensationalism to the last conclusion.
Nothing in the mind that was not first in the senses,
was Locke's dictum. But, says Hume, the link between
phenomena, in which the causal principle is supposed to
be found, is not offered to the senses. I am sensible of
the wind's blowing and the leaves' rustling, of the sun's
shining and the snow's melting; but an intimate con-
nection through which one term follows upon the other, I
do not see. That events are conjoined, my experience
302 JAMES MARTINEAU
teaches me ; but it does not teach me that they are united.
But how explain, then, the practically universal conviction
that they are united? Hume finds the explanation in a
habit of thought, born of a uniform experience. In our
experience thunder follows lightning; so after the flash
we look for the thunder; or, hearing the thunder, we
doubt not that it has lightened ; and so in all relations in
which we are accustomed to meet the like antecedent
attended by the like consequent. There is implied here
in Hume's reasoning, not a fact without, but an illusion
within ; a cohesiveness of ideas, not a link between phe-
nomena. Whatever knowledge we have is wholly through
experience; a priori element he allows none; and expe-
rience, while recording what is, has no oracle as to what
must be. Better work has doubtless many times been
done, but work has rarely been better done than this. In
the development of thought it perhaps was needed, and
Hume did it once for all. Even now, after a century's
debate, few who read him, however braced by an antago-
nistic philosophy, can be insensible of the persuasiveness
of his clear and subtle and dignified argument. Lan-
guage can scarcely tell the antagonism he provoked. All
our doing and all our thinking imply the union of the
terms of the causal relation; and dissolving it was, in
Hutcheson Stirling's figure, like " drawing the linchpin
out of existence." Scepticism could achieve a no more
paralyzing result than must follow a distrust of the neces-
sary constancy of cause and effect; and no wonder men
who cannot depart from the lines of experience still strive
to reach through experience that necessary bond, which
Hume's impervious logic shows that no experience can
find. Literally and vividly accepted, Hume's doctrine
should mean, not the end of philosophy only, but the
collapse of science as well. And yet how near at hand
was the very possible experience which should have in-
GOD AND COSMOS 303
clined him to suspect [if, indeed, he ever doubted] that
there was somewhat not embraced in his speculation.
From his study where he meditated, suppose him to
have gone to the kitchen where his cook was preparing
his dinner, and there seen the familiar spectacle, a fire
with water boiling over it ; and suppose the cook, not an
expert in empirical philosophy, to have spoken of the
fire as making the water boil, emphasizing that necessity
which the contents of every teakettle seems to confess un-
der pressure of 212 Fahrenheit. "No," the philosopher
should have said ; " you use language without discrimina-
tion. What you can affirm is antecedent and consequent :
a fire and water boiling over it. In affirming that the fire
makes the water boil you imply a necessary bond between
the two phenomena, which observation does not show;
and which empirical doctrine, therefore, cannot allow."
" But," we may suppose the cook to argue, " the water
never boils save when there is a fire under it, and it al-
ways boils when I make a fire under it, if I keep it over
the fire long enough." " Yes," the philosopher we may
suppose to reply, " no doubt such is your uniform ex-
perience ; and that, by the way, is the explanation of the
idea of cause that so strongly possesses you. By long
association in the mind the thought of boiling water has
come to suggest that of heat as its essential condition ;
and so by a very natural illusion a link between the ideas
is mistaken for a necessary bond between the phenomena."
The cook had no doubt marvelled at the wonders of phi-
losophy, and replenished the fire to keep the water boiling.
Comte, building on the basis of Hume's scepticism his
structure of Positive Philosophy, extended the influence of
his master, if he did not add to the significance of his
teaching. Hume was no scientist ; by the keenest of meta-
physical arguments he discredited the grounds of meta-
physics. Comte was no metaphysician, but was eminent
304 JAMES MARTINEAU
in science ; and he had both the strength and the weakness
of an exclusively scientific mind. Facts he wanted, and he
had the genius to gather them and to organize them. At
the same time, speculation was peculiarly offensive to him.
Hume's teachings voiced an antipathy he could not have ut-
tered so persuasively, and he requited the service he found
in them by making science their custodian. His compre-
hensive dictum was, "All we know is phenomena;" and
in the letter that he sends us, he allows no reading between
the lines. " Every proposition which is not reducible, in
the last resort, to a simple statement of fact, particular or
general, must be without real and intelligible sense." Our
knowledge he severely restricts to the observed contents
of space and time, grouped in their relations of succession
and resemblance. While others talk of cause and effect,
he, with his master, knows only antecedent and consequent.
All inquiry into causes he holds to be utterly futile. Of the
word " cause," together with others of dynamic import, he
would reform or discontinue the use ; and in his later writ-
ings the word " cause " is consistently avoided. Whatever
is more than phenomena, in their sensible and ordered
presentation, he refers to metaphysics, always with him a
realm of spectres.
John Stuart Mill, the great Positivist's greater disciple,
explains his master by telling us that it is " efficient, as
distinguished from physical causes, that he rejects ; " that
the causes he thus dogmatically repudiates are such as are
" not themselves phenomena." " Like other people," he
adds, " he admits the study of causes in every sense in
which one physical fact can be the cause of another. But
he has an objection to the word cause ; he will only con-
sent to speak of Laws of Succession, and depriving him-
self of the use of a word which has a Positive meaning, he
misses the meaning it expresses." 1 In thus explaining
1 Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte, pp. 53-54.
GOD AND COSMOS 305
and criticising his master he tells us of himself. The word
"cause" he wishes to retain " for the purpose of distinctly
designating . . . the relations of succession which so far as
we know are unconditional." * On another page he tells us
that when he speaks of the cause of a phenomenon he does
not " mean a cause which is not itself a phenomenon." 2
He is shaping the canons of inductive research; and the
causation which he expounds is, he tells us, without preju-
dice to the conception of efficient cause. Yet it would be
plain, even if he did not tell us, that he considers the re-
vived interest in this a remarkable illustration of what
has been aptly called the " peculiar zest which the spirit
of reaction against modern tendencies gives to ancient
absurdities." 8
That is to say, underneath the various dynamic changes,
he allows no dynamic constant. Heat he knows, and light,,
electricity, magnetism; but the presence in the universe
of a power of which these are manifestations, he has no
mind to perceive. As with him, so also with his school.
They tell of an order of succession of which they have
learned through observation, but nothing of a power which,
since it is not revealed through observation, can only be
discerned through a deeper faculty. The nexus nalura,
therefore, which the intuitional philosophy always main-
tains, they do not find. In its place they affirm and it is
plain that they can affirm no more an unconditional uni-
formity; unconditional, that is, as far as observation can
show. Mr. Mill speaks in disapproving tones of the
" many who do not believe . . . that there is nothing in
causation but invariable, certain, and unconditional se-
quence." 4 The language of necessity he does not like to
use ; enough for him that, the " sum of conditions " being
prepared, an event will occur. According to this view the
1 Logic, bk. iii. chap. v. p. 209. 2 Ibid. p. 196; Ibid. p. 209.
* Logic, Harper & Brothers, 1870, p. 522.
2O
3O6 JAMES MARTINEAU
antecedent is not, in the accepted meaning of the word,
cause, but forerunner. It is prophetic, not mandatory ; it
declares what is to be, not what must be. The consequent
is its faithful attendant, not its necessitated vassal. It is
punctual, and so, according to all experience, calculable ;
and this is all that we can say. The sun, returning from
his winter solstice, announces that summer is coming, it
does not declare that summer must come. The moon gives
intelligence that the tides are following her ; but affirms no
necessity that conditions them unalterably upon her move-
ments. The exploding cannon thunders a warning of the
speeding missile, but we may not refer to it an impelling
force. This last illustration suggests one employed by a
distinguished master of this school whom Dr. Martineau
summons to judgment. Dr. Bain is displeased with the
common language which tells us that a flying cannon-ball
has " power to batter walls," regarding the word " power "
a " pure expletive or pleonasm whose tendency is to create
a mystical or fictitious agency." Flying cannon-ball fol-
lowed by battered wall is enough for him. 1 Thus in the
occurrence of events all we can affirm is a time order.
Causation is reduced to a uniform succession, phenomenon
following upon phenomenon. By such a track, if track it
may be called, it is vain to think of reaching an Ultimate
Cause ; and with phenomenalism for our only light, a the-
istic interpretation of the world is impossible. By a thread,
however fine, we may find our way out of whatever laby-
rinth at last ; with no thread at all, we wander and go " no
whither." This doctrine, indeed, leaves upon the mind the
feeling that there is no out to which to find the way, that
the universe we have been wont to think intelligible is but
a Cretan maze of matter and its properties.
What is there, then, in this doctrine that wins it so con-
siderable a favor? This : It is precisely the doctrine which
1 Study of Religion, vol. i. p. 155.
GOD AND COSMOS 3O/
the scientist can safely work by. The succession of phe-
nomena, and the fact that they are always calculable, are all
he needs to know ; and beyond this, on scientific lines, it is
futile to inquire. That atom acts on atom or body on body,
we may believe ; but he has no scientific need to ask or
warrant for believing. There is also no denying the fact
that considerations of ultimate cause have not gone well
with scientific investigation ; that, dominating the mind de-
voted to science, they have had a vitiating influence. The
scientific thinker is, therefore, only to be commended for
holding fast to the canons by which scientific work is done
and taking cognizance of no others. In recent years, how-
ever, he not only has held fast to his own canons, but he
has tried to make them canons for all thinkers. Hence his
conflict with the metaphysician and the theologian. For,
however the unconditional sequence of events may satisfy
the demands of science, it really satisfies no mind: the
august question of cause is too obtrusive to be put by.
The empiricist, just a little off his guard, finds it difficult to
be true to his empiricism, but in his use of language often
betrays a haunting sense of that which his empiricism
should make it impossible for him to say. Dr. Martineau
has collected numerous examples of this, expressions
natural enough in themselves, but absurdly contradictory
of the empirical standards of the minds that coined them. 1
Given a theory which does violence to a natural faith of
the intellect, and pen or lips will rarely fail of its betrayal.
There is another consideration that gives this doctrine
favor. It is the aim of the thinker to find a working prin-
ciple of thought which he may safely use in dealing with
all possible problems, he, of course, being the judge as to
what problems are possible. The proof of a path is not
alone its easy entrance, but also the jungle into which it
leads. There are those to whom the speculations of meta-
1 Study of Religion, vol. i. pp. 153-154. Also Seat of Authority, pp. 23-24.
308 JAMES MARTINEAU
physics are but a jungle, and who therefore put up at the
entrance of the paths leading into them, No passage here.
That is to say, they withhold an interpretation that may
seem suitable for a particular order of phenomena by rea-
son of the mazes into which it may conduct them. When
Mill's Logic first appeared, his friend, W. B. Carpenter,
calling attention to a passage in which he defines the
" cause of a phenomenon to be the antecedent, or the con-
currence of antecedents, upon which it is invariably and
unconditionally consequent," * pointed out that " when this
assemblage of antecedents is analyzed, it is uniformly found
resolvable into two categories, which may be distinguished
as the dynamical and the material ; the former supplying
the force or power to which the change must be attributed,
whilst the latter affords the conditions under which that
power is exerted." Mr. Mill replied that the distinction
was " one of metaphysics, not of logic." 2 Certainly he had
easy warrant for holding his logic apart from metaphysics ;
any careful thinker would do that. Knowing a little of Mr.
Mill, however, we can see how the force of the eminent
scientist may at once have suggested to him the jungle,
the intellectual perils of which had led Comte to expurgate
the very word from his vocabulary. We may prefer to see
one plunge into the jungle, doubting not that he may find his
way through at last. Yet to Mill and his school the jungle
has that impenetrable look that forbids the plunge ; and
beyond question they can tell of many a brave intellect
that has been hopelessly entangled there. Two men were
once somewhat warmly discussing a problem of thought,
when one reminded the other of the dubious consequences
to which his doctrine would lead him. " Consequences ! "
replied the friend ; " talk to me of consequences ! I will
go to hell for the consistency of my intellect ! " The calm
1 Logic, Harper & Brothers, 1870, bk. iii. chap. v. p. 204.
a Nature and Matt, p. 350.
GOD AND COSMOS 309
rejoinder was, " When I find my thought leading me in that
direction, I will revise my premises." On thought's battle-
field many a warrior, fearless and true, shall be found in
like manner prudent. The jungle we now come to, and,
taking counsel of our courage rather than our prudence,
we will dare the plunge.
What, however, we call the jungle may not be such to
all : the metaphysics, to a Comte or Mill so hopeless, to a
Martineau may look garden-like and clear. All the ex-
perience on which the empiricist builds, the intuitionalist
may also have; but he combines it with data peculiarly
his own, without which philosophy were an impossibility,
an absurdity to him. The eye that sees antecedent and
consequent he holds to be not the eye that sees cause;
and when he finds cause the issue of an empirical argu-
ment it wears to him an alien look. It is apt, too, to
suggest to him a native and a priori conviction, which the
sturdiest empiricism may find it hard to suppress, and
which has stolen into the argument to the enrichment of
its conclusion and the confusion of its logic. Or, if not
this, he is sure to find it cut down to an empirical signifi-
cance ; and he is likely to approve the stalwart consistency
of a Comte, who rejects a name when the conception for
which it stands is not provided for in the cardinal postu-
lates of doctrine, and to be critical of those who, like Mill,
retain the name while they eviscerate its meaning. The
cause of which the empiricist tells, "invariable ante-
cedence," " sum of conditions," and whatever else, is no
cause at all to him, only the outward and sensible method
by which the cause accomplishes its work. His cause
is not a condition, but an agent ; not a means, but a power
that uses means. But this, while its manifestations may
be plain to the senses, can in itself only be known through
intuitive discernment.
We here come to a view of causation with which every
310 JAMES MARTINEAU
modern discussion of it must settle before proceeding far,
that of Kant. Hume, as we have seen in the previous
chapter, found in antecedent and consequent only a pair
of uniformly related experiences ; the causal link between
them he did not find ; and in this, as an empiricist, he was
true to the canon of his thought. In the supposed argu-
ment with his cook we may think the cook to have the
better side; yet, speaking strictly from experience, the
philosopher is right : all the senses take note of is fire and
boiling water. And now Kant : The events that pass be-
fore us, whether in nature or in human life, we learn only
from experience; through the senses they enter into us.
But, entering into us through the senses, the mind meets
them with certain elements of knowledge which it contrib-
utes out of its own nature as mind ; and of these elements
the idea of cause is one. In the act of giving our experi-
ences intelligible construction it brings this to them. The
idea is not before the mind until the experiences are
offered ; but it comes at their summons. Every event
must have a cause; so says, not experience, which were
incapable of an affirmation so sweeping, but the mind
uttering its own oracle. With this dictum an inwrought
principle of its constitution, it meets and organizes our
otherwise fugitive and chaotic experiences. This view Dr.
Martineau reflects when he speaks of causality as the
" noumenal interpretation of empirical existence." Be-
tween him and Kant, however, there is this important
difference to which, though pointed out in the pre-
ceding chapter, we can but once more recur: While
Kant, according to the genius of his system, holds the
causal principle only subjectively, regarding the causal
nexus as necessary to the intelligibleness of our concep-
tions, but refusing to go out beyond them, Dr. Martineau
finds it a subjective counterpart of what is objectively true.
While Kant finds our conceptions moulded by the causal
GOD AND COSMOS 311
category, and so, while necessarily true to us, not necessarily
true to things, Dr. Martineau finds in the causal category
a discernment of a nexus between the events which are the
data of our conceptions. The former says, Our intelligi-
ble world is organized by causal relations ; the latter, The
world is intelligible, first, because a causal principle rules
it, and, secondly, because in man is an eye that discerns
that principle. Without the latter the scene I look upon,
however related part with part, were unintelligible because
incoherent to me; without the former I should have
within me only a fictitious impression of a relation that
does not prevail without me. As Dr. Martineau expounds
the doctrine, it gives to events an orderly relation which
the senses lay hold upon ; but it links them by a causal tie
which the mind perceives intuitively. Its distinguishing
feature is the mental discernment of a dynamic equal to
whatever change. It does not tell where the real seat
of change may be ; that must be sought through obser-
vation; but having found it, the dynamic bond between
it and the phenomenon that is conditioned upon it is
avouched to us a priori.
Thus do the phenomenal and the dynamic theories of
causation stand before us. The one relies wholly upon
empirical observation; the other makes no quarrel with
observation, but rests ultimately on a dictum which the
mind puts forth a priori. The one identifies cause with
invariable antecedence; the other maintains a constant
dynamic. On which side is the weightier reason compari-
son only can show. Here we come more directly on the
trail of Dr. Martineau's thought.
Dr. Martineau opens his presentation of the dynamic
theory by calling attention to the necessity which, in all
minds not preoccupied by a countervailing theory, cau-
sality seems to involve. " The blow of the steam-hammer
which welds two masses of iron, the combustion of the
312 JAMES MARTINEAU
furnace which runs the metal out of the ore, the rush
of the torrent which buries a homestead in gravel, the
gale which drives the ship upon the rocks, the summer
warmth which decks the earth with foliage and flowers,"
he declares to be " hardly reducible, even in the imagi-
nation of an empirical philosopher, to mere pioneers of
the phenomena they announce." 1 In the antecedent he
reads decree, not prophecy; it is Olympian, not Delphian
in its tone. The consequent he maintains to be, not a
"new item of fact," but implicated with the antecedent
as one side of a composite phenomenon. He brings the
attitude of his mind into strong relief by a series of ques-
tions. He asks, " Which order then gives the more rea-
sonable account of our mode of thinking that for us
causation owes its ' necessity ' to customary succession ?
or, that in itself it owes its customary succession to its
necessity? In other words, Is our belief in causation
identical with our belief in Law? or with our belief in
Power? or, to vary the expression once more, does it
mean belief in the uniformity of nature ? or in the deriva-
tive origin of phenomena? " 2 This latter alternative we
may cling to as the most characteristic, and say that in
Dr. Martineau's philosophy cause implies the " derivative
origin of phenomena." Here blend two conceptions which
it is important that we discriminate. We may think of phe-
nomenon as ' derived* from phenomenon, or we may think
of the source whence the phenomenal as such is ' derived.'
The latter is, of course, the ultimate of inquiry, in which
alone religion is interested. But here is a point of which
it is well to take cognizance : while through the former
inquiry we seek a key to the latter, it is not until we
answer the latter that we reach more than a provisional
answer to the former. A Laplace, looking into the starry
heavens in inquiry as to their origin, may find scientific
1 Study of Religion, vol. i. p. 146. 3 Ibid. p. 147.
GOD AND COSMOS 313
satisfaction in the conception of a fire-mist, through the
interaction of whose forces those glowing orbs rolled into
being. But the final answer is not gained until there is
answer to the further question, how " out of the bosom
of eternal rest" originated the infinite movement which
fire-mist transformed into stars illustrates. This particular
phenomenon I may proximately explain by reference to
another; but the phenomenal as such I can only derive
" from that which is other than phenomena." Other than
phenomena, however, " is presentable in thought only
under the form of Being or of Power, of which the latter
alone can do what is wanted." x So, then, the physical
event that passes before my observation I must refer at
last to an ultra-physical agency. In these terms we state
in advance the conclusion to which we hope to come.
Let us extend our comparison of the empirical and the
metaphysical doctrines a little further. Mr. Mill maintains
a uniform succession of events, and with this leaves the
problem of causality. Dr. Martineau sees this as clearly
as he, but looks beyond it. The cause he seeks is not
found until a principle is reached which is not merely
the occasion of phenomena, but their producing agency ;
and this principle can be only a force or power. Cus-
tomary succession, uniformity of nature, law, these af-
ford him no ultimate account of anything. They show
him a method, but of efficiency they tell no tale. Law,
which in common speech many are wont to endow with
such potentialities, attracts no masses, combines no mole-
cules, darts no sunbeams, hurls no lightning, sends no
rain, is ultimate account of no movement of matter, no
function of life, no activity of mind. Rightly conceived,
it shows only the how of things, not at all the why ; its
significance is fully stated when we say, Thus works the
dynamic of the world, and not otherwise ; or, everything
1 Study of Religion, vol. i. p. 149.
3 14 JAMES MARTINEAU
according to law, but nothing by it. 1 And this qualifica-
tion, which clears the way for a dynamic of which law
only declares the method, leaves to our inductive inquirers
all they want. Science, dealing only with phenomena,
reaches its ultimate aim with the determination of their
law of succession, and whether the determining principle
is held to be the properties of matter, or the investigator
may make his own the ecstatic cry of Kepler, " I think
thy thoughts after thee, O God," it is neither more as-
sured nor less so. The angel which Kepler conceived
so to guide the movement of the planet that its radius
vector should describe equal areas in equal times was
nothing to science; but the law these terms enunciate
was of measureless significance. It is an unfaltering con-
stancy upon which science builds, and with this assured
the man of science works his problems, leaving it to others
to settle whether there be any agency in events beyond
the power of crucibles and microscopes to find.
But another consideration. The uniformity of nature
we learn only by experience. But what we learn by ex-
perience, by further experience we may unlearn ; and the
cautious scientist is likely to accompany his forecasts with
the proviso, " no undiscovered fact disturbing my calcula-
tions," or, " the constitution of things remaining as it is."
So, if the causal principle were indeed nothing more than
invariable antecedence, then were it, as Mr. Mill teaches,
empirically learned, with need of the ever amended state-
ment which advancing knowledge is likely to bring to all
our empiricisms. But herein is the very point at issue.
Dr. Martineau's causal principle, though seen through uni-
formity, is an efficiency. The uniformities of nature are
not without significance in the study of causality : we read
1 " Laws of order are not yet causes ; and if we know anything of causes,
we know more than Laws." From essay, " Is there an Axiom of Causality ?
Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. iii. p. 574.
GOD AND COSMOS 315
off from them a lesson of method ; we infer from them, not
merely an agency, but a steadfast agency behind them.
But suppose the uniformities all away, and in place of
order, disorder wherever we turn ; suppose events fortui-
tous, abnormal, or with no antecedent in sight, should we
conceive them as occurring without power? Men have
believed in marvels enough, charm, magic, miracle ; the
sick healed by a touch, the dead called from the grave,
heroes without human mothers, saviours virgin-born ; but
have they ever believed the more stupendous miracle, an
event without producing agency? An event that passes
before me may often enough seem unaccountable, but it is
only so because I do not see the source of an agency that
I am sure is there. I may conceive it occult, magical,
supernatural, and thus render a mistaken account of it;
but will it ever occur to me, or can sophistry ever per-
suade me, that no producing power is there? This con-
sideration Dr. Martineau presses with great vigor and
clearness. " What we learn from experience, from experi-
ence we may unlearn ; and if B, which we had regarded
as the effect of A, surprises us by dispensing with this
antecedent, we shall have no difficulty in looking out for
another to which it may be credited. But, however long
we might be baffled in our search, would it ever occur to
us that the event was not only without this cause, but
without any ? that the originating power which was not
here, was nowhere ? On the contrary, the very eagerness
of curiosity which ensues on our surprise is but the pres-
sure of the axiom of causation, reasserting the derivative
origin of all phenomena : we know the missing power to
be somewhere ; but where is it then ? Nay, more : were
phenomena released, not only from this order or that
order, but from all perceptible order, and turned from a
regiment into a rabble, did they defy prediction, and
startle us every instant like a flash of lightning or a shoot-
316 JAMES MARTINEAU
ing star, they would none the less be to us the expression
of some power. . . . Belief which would thus cleave to us
alike in a chaos as in a kosmos, can be no induction from
the observed uniformity of nature, but must be an a priori
law of thought brought by us to the interpretation of the
world." 1
His doctrine concisely summarized, is this : To the study
of nature causality is brought ; through the study of nature
uniformity is found.
In the foregoing pages the language of necessity has
been frequent ; the fact is that it is utterly unavoidable in
any intelligent discussion of causation; and this for the
reason that to the unsophisticated intellect necessity clings
undivorcibly to the idea of cause, a fact with yet further
implications which we need to notice. Every effect, we
say, must have a cause. The emphatic word here is must,
implying necessity unvarying and absolute. This empiri-
cists have striven hard to educe from their doctrines ; but
however ingenious in construction, the argument which is
consistently empirical cannot proclaim necessity. Through
experience we may affirm the results of experience, and a
rule of probability that is derived from its oft repetition ;
but beyond this what? Mr. Mill tells us that "What-
ever has been found true in innumerable instances, and
never found to be false after due examination in any, we
are safe in acting upon as universal provisionally, until an
undoubted exception appears ; provided the nature of the
case be such that a real exception could scarcely have
escaped our notice;" 2 and this seems to offer us the canon
of inductive inquiry in the fulness of its scope and with its
obvious limitation. But whatever else it may provide, the
necessity we are contemplating is clearly not within its
provisions. A provisional necessity, indeed, were a bewil-
1 Study of Religion, vol. i. pp. 148-149.
3 Logic, Harper & Brothers, 1870, bk. iii. chap. xxi. p. 342.
GOD AND COSMOS 317
dering thought. The truth is that the causal apprehension
far outruns any knowledge of causes given by experience.
Events I may meet on the right hand and on the left of
which no cause is discernible. From any morning's walk
I may bring home a score of observations of events which
I cannot set in order of causal relation. Do I, therefore,
believe the events uncaused? Not so. Though I see no
cause I know there must be one, must, affirming a
necessity which the widest dealing with empirical logic
cannot eradicate from within me. Where experience has
no word, or where, indeed, its oracles are discredited, this
must yet dominates my mind. Is it said that from familiar-
ity with the causal relation I acquire a habit of mind which
I carry to experiences in which I do not find that relation,
and mentally supply an undetermined antecedent, assured
through my experience that an antecedent must be there,
interpret, that is, the chaos in which occasionally I wander
by the rules of the cosmos in which I habitually move ?
Then is it necessary to show that such account is true not
merely of my mind, educated in this century of science,
but that it is true also of the human mind in its origin and
history? Did that apprehension dawn with the discovery
of the relation of antecedent and consequent, and was its
growth attained through repeated observation of this rela-
tion ? The contrary would seem to be true. The primi-
tive man lived practically in a world of phantasmagoria.
The orderly sequences of events, so plain to us, he had no
eye to see ; but against the supposition that he was with-
out the causal apprehension his very superstitions bear
witness. The nereids with which he peopled the sea, the
naiads he found in the fountains and streams, the genii of
forests and mountains, the demons that rode on the storm,
the smiling divinities of health and plenty, the fiends of
famine and of pestilence, all tell of a causal sense which
meant behind events the presence of an executing power.
3l8 JAMES MARTINEAU
The doctrine of the scientific school is but a latter-day
disputer of a race-old conviction. The conclusion is re-
sistless that the belief in efficiency behind effect is not
merely a well-reasoned judgment, but comes from the mind
out of its a priori store. Here we find explanation of the
necessity we link with the causal idea : the mind cannot
conceive the limitation of its own principles ; therefore the
causal principle it must hold to be unconditional and uni-
versal. Hence to what it learns empirically it applies this
principle as a constructive rule, doubting it no more than
it doubts the mathematics which it draws from the same
source, and applies with absolute confidence in their truth.
Every event must have a cause, no space, no time, no
eternity, can negative this broad affirmation.
Thus the phenomenalism of the scientific school, Dr.
Martineau, speaking for the causal sense, refuses to indorse.
While the former maintain only a succession of events,
the latter is obliged to maintain also the derivative origin
of phenomena. Phenomena, however, can only be derived
from a power that is other than phenomenal ; a dynamic
constant, behind all change yet immanent in it.
Manifest in all change, yet its unchanging source, inv
manent in nature, yet a " Force behind Nature " ! I quote
the language of an eminent scientist, 1 whose illustration,
too long to appropriate, I yet may paraphrase. We enter
some vast factory and study its heaving and bewildering
machinery. This machine, which we first study, is plainly
connected with another, on whose movement its movement
is conditioned. But the second machine we soon discover
to have a like relation with a third, the third with a fourth ;
and, having found the clue, we may follow from one ma-
chine to another throughout an apartment, and there at
length find a belt which seems to connect all these machines
with something out of sight, seeking which we find our-
1 W. B. Carpenter, Nature and Man, p. 350.
GOD AND COSMOS 319
selves in another apartment devoted to different machines
all connected in like manner. So through apartment after
apartment we find movement conditioned upon movement,
one machine through a hundred intermediaries responsive
to another ; and there is a conceivable order of mind to
which this language should convey the explanation ; indeed
the phenomenalism we have reviewed has in these machines
a not unfitting illustration. To us, however, further in-
vestigation is permissible, and passing down beneath the
factory, we find a wheel to whose swift revolutions all this
complex movement is due, and this driven by a cataract
foaming and thundering there. The movement within the
factory is thus explained by a force outside of it and yet
immanent within it. In like manner to the intuitionalist
the fact that explains the complex movement of nature
is a force beyond it or behind it, yet immanent in it.
Without the sensible the supersensible were not offered to
our thought ; as without the supersensible the sensible were
incoherent and unintelligible. For the understanding of
each and the hope of ulterior problems we grasp them
as correlates. The factory and the cataract outside of it,
nature and the force behind it, would be the one incompre-
hensible, the other never dreamed of, but for the relation
in which we meet them. Having thus met them, however,
we may, if our minds so incline us, turn to the machinery
of the factory to study its adjustments, nature in her
countless phenomena, with light shed from a knowledge
of the source of its mighty energy ; or we may follow up
the stream, the force behind nature, to the headland
whence it flows. It is the latter enterprise that now invites
us.
2. But before we come to the consideration of the " force
behind nature " it may be well to bestow a closer scrutiny
upon force in nature. A few years ago we had knowledge,
as we supposed, of forces. Mechanical force we knew,
320 JAMES MARTINEAU
gravitation, heat, light, electricity, magnetism, we were
on easy terms with all of them. Their look was familiar ;
with their habits we were well acquainted; and though
they surprised us now and then with some undiscovered
virtue, and though we could not tell whence they came nor
whither they went, yet from their honest appearance and
regular behavior, we could not doubt that such as they
appeared to be, in very truth they were. At length,
about the middle of the century, an eye, turned upon them,
saw, as it were, a little behind them ; and lo, an astonishing
discovery ! Where we had supposed was plain and obvious
dealing with us was really an endless masquerade. These
forces which seemed so honest were really of the nature of
faeries, constantly putting off their own and putting on one
another's graces ; and all so deftly done that though car-
ried on, not in any green-room, but on the very proscenium
of nature, the most searching eyes, from Aristotle to Sir
Humphry Davy, did not detect the secret. The discovery
was made that the chemical action that paints my portrait
is in other dress the familiar agent through whose smiling
presence I may use my eyes; that the electricity that
flames and startles, clothed in different attributes, is the
servant that cooks my food, and that the unerring pilot
that in all weathers tells the sailor what his bearings are,
is in other guise my errand boy, not like the nimble Puck,
promising to " put a girdle round about the earth in forty
minutes," but stipulating to run round it at the speed of
eight times in one minute. This discovery, in which was
the potency of revolution, came too late for Comte, and was
young science when Mill was mature philosopher.
Illustrations of this truth are on every hand. Every one
knows that hammered iron becomes hot, every-day illus-
tration of mechanical action converted into heat. The
same thing is seen again when a man by threshing his
hands succeeds in warming them, or an Indian, by rubbing
GOD AND COSMOS 321
dry sticks together [if he ever does], produces fire. The
sailor tells us that by the churning of the sea in a storm
the water becomes warmer, and Professor Tyndall accepts
his testimony. Illustration takes wider range. The energy
of falling water, transformed into electricity, lights the
streets and homes and shops of Buffalo, does service by
the smelting of iron at her forges, and drives the complex
machinery of her industry. Here at the beginning is the
energy of a falling mass; it is converted into heat, into
electricity, into light, into mechanical energy, whence it
comes forth heat again. Every noisome sink-drain, every
swamp from which malaria rises, every decaying vegetable
or putrefying animal, tells of chemical action which is heat
lost to its identity. Of light transformed into chemical
action every photograph bears witness. Magnetism is
convertible into electricity, electricity into magnetism.
Further, an exact mathematical equivalence prevails here,
so that the dynamic value expressed in foot-pounds of one
mode of energy may be written down in degrees centi-
grade of another, and in amperes of another.
Strange this ceaseless process of transformation, which
yields us " fairy tales of science " in comparison with
which the most poetic folk-lore is dullest prose ! But are
we dealing with distinct forces? The conclusion of science
rather is that these are not several forces, but only modes
of Force. They are manifestations, not essences ; phe-
nomena, not dynamic permanents. Plurality is abolished ;
we have no longer forces, but Force. The dynamic of the
world is one !
But Force, 1 we come now to the supreme question,
what, in its ultimate essence, is it? We know its manifes-
1 I am aware that the term preferred in these days is " Energy." Having
taken " Force," however, from Dr. Carpenter's illustration, I have thought it
best to hold on to it. Further, it is the word Dr. Martineau uses through-
out his discussion.
21
322 JAMES MARTINEAU
tations ; in its inmost nature, is it like any of these ? This
is one of Dr. Martineau's questions. With the dynamic
permanent before his mind he asks : " Which of its phases
represent it most truly? Does it resemble a universal
elasticity, like steam ; or a universal quivering, like light ;
or a universal conscious mind, like thought in man? or
must we say that probably it is like none of these, and that
all its phases misrepresent it? " l This seems a reasonable
question ; but bringing it to these manifestations severally,
however you may press it, they return no answer. But
though severally they are thus uncommunicative, perhaps
through some grouping of them we may attain a clue to
the answer that we seek. These modes of Force Dr. Mar-
tineau finds it possible to arrange in a scale of higher and
lower. He says : " It is impossible, on looking at the
faces of these assembled forces, to assign the same rank to
all, or miss the traits of graduated dignity which make
them rather a hierarchy than a committee. The delicate
precision with which chemical affinity picks its selecting
way among the atoms, is in advance upon the indiscrimi-
nate grasp of gravitation at them all. The architecture
of a crystal cannot vie with that of a tree. The sentiency
of the mollusk is at an immeasurable distance from the
thought which produces the MJcanique Celeste. Hence,
in the company of powers that conduct the business of
nature, a certain order of lower and higher establishes
itself, which, without settling every point of precedency, at
least marks a few steps of ascent, from the mechanical at
the bottom to the mental at the top. All equally real, all
equally old, they are differenced by the work they have to
do." 2
The dignity may be obvious ; but here, as in human life,
dignity may be climbed to or descended from. Could
1 Seat of Authority, p. 22.
8 Essays, Reviews, and Addresses^ vol. iv. pp. 236-237.
GOD AND COSMOS 323
we scientifically bridge the gulf between chemical and
vital, between vital and mental phenomena, we should
embrace in ascending and descending scale all zones of
terrestrial existence within the correlations of the one
dynamic, the working idea of Evolution, which we ten-
tatively embrace. Could we now find the order by which
these correlations succeed one another, we might come
through this to the manifestation that is initial to all the
rest, and see in that at least a suggestion of the reality
that it manifests. Did this order proceed ever from me-
chanical action up, then in mechanical action we should
see that nearer resemblance ; if from mind down, then that
nearer resemblance would be in mind. Unfortunately for
any hope in this direction, however, the order of succes-
sion can be made out in either direction; and if from
mind at the top we may trace the correlations to mechani-
cal action at the bottom, so may we trace them also in
the reverse direction. Hence there may be two schools
of thought, to one of which, mind, and to the other, me-
chanical action, is the phenomenon through which the
causal agency is earliest manifest. The one may argue up
from mechanical action and the other down from mind ; and
we are as yet in no position to adjudicate between them.
There is, however, yet another aspect of the problem
which calls for notice. We have treated the correlations
as up the scale or down ; given the initial movement at
either end of the scale, are all forms of energy then
pledged to follow from it? Yes, if the conditions of all
are provided, a truth that carries an interesting implication.
If we arrange our scale with physical force at the bottom,
and above it the chemical, the vital, the mental, it requires
no deep insight to perceive that while each lower may
make shift without the higher, each higher implies the
lower. For instance, while there can be no chemical
change without heat, heat may have a vast range of
324 JAMES MARTINEAU
phenomena without the conditions of chemical change.
In a world of one substance, as gold, in which, of course,
chemical change were impossible, heat might play its part
with only one order of function less than now. So, while
life may not be where there is no chemical change, chemi-
cal change may have vast range where there is no life;
given the inorganic realm alone, it will never promote
itself into the higher one. This is said in remembrance of
the many claims of a way found open from the simply
chemical to the vital, claims always brought to confusion
by the finding that the " living thing was on the wrong side
to begin with." Finally, while thought may imply life as
its condition, life may have a vast career without any rela-
tion with thought; and research and speculation have
utterly failed to show or guess how the former can blos-
som into the latter. It seems clearly impossible, therefore,
to work the evolution from the base up without a series
of gifts the need of which is the paralysis of evolution.
Begin at the top, however, and with mind all below it
is given by implication. Grant the presence of thought
and will, and be sure " they will appropriate vital power ;
as life, once in possession, will ply the alembics and the
test-tubes of its organic laboratory ; and chemical affinity
is no sooner on the field than it plays its game among the
cohesions of simple gravitation." To the claim, therefore,
often put forth, that given one type of Force we have with
it all others, the answer is that that depends on which one ;
a conclusion to which Dr. Martineau gives utterance when
he says, " If all force is to be conceived as One, its type
must be looked for in the highest and all-comprehending
term; and Mind must be conceived as there, and as di-
vesting itself of some specialty at each step of its descent
to a lower stratum of law, till represented at the base
under the guise of simple Dynamics." 1
1 Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. iv. p. 600. Also same vol. pp.
237-239.
GOD AND COSMOS . 325
Thus much, at last, we come to as mere observers of
the phenomena of Force : Of these, mind is the all-com-
prehending phenomenon. This indeed is something, but
let us take care not to magnify it unduly. Still we are
dealing only with phenomena ; the Power they represent
comes as yet with no distinctness before our vision.
Though the supremacy of mind may be suggested, obser-
vation finds for it no verification. Still it is the phenomena
of the unitary Power that we have before us, not its ulti-
mate nature. Its manifestations are plain, but its essence
is still illusive. This is as it should be ; for in our study
we have been using only the observing and classifying
faculty, to which, as already shown, the reality of Force
is not revealed. Where its reality is given, there, if any-
where, should its nature be made plain; and here we
turn from outward observation to the testimony of the
interior man.
In seeking within myself for light upon the ultimate
nature of Force, my first study must be of Force as it is
given me to exercise it. Suppose for a moment my only
apprehension of Force to be drawn from my exercise of
it, what account of it should I render? My various activi-
ties my work, study, play we will suppose the same
as now. An observer without community of nature with
me would see in them no more than I see in the conduct
of the bee or the beaver ; and we can easily conceive him
to arrive at some such theory of them as I of the doings
of the animals or insects I may study. But however he
might explain them, / should know them to issue from
my will. So far as other than automatic or zoological,
this would inevitably be my account of them. Force I
should know, and know only, through the execution of
my will. Will-directed force, will-causality, no other
would be conceivable by me. This supposition, however,
while serving well enough for a tentative illustration, is
326 JAMES MARTINEAU
inherently impossible. Of my own force, unantagonized
by force other than mine, I can know nothing. Were I
simply passive, the force that on every hand assails me
would simply stream through me ; I should be like the
sponge in the endless wash of the sea. So, were I active,
if my activities encountered no resistance, then they would
be like sunbeams shot out into a perfectly transparent
atmosphere; and I should be unconscious of effort be-
cause acting through an unresisting medium. As through
simple passivity I could not know of aught around me,
so through unchallenged activity I could not know my-
self. That is to say, through resistance to my will is con-
sciousness of it awakened. The causal power within me
is countermated by a causal power beyond me; and to
know either I must have experience of their antagonism.
Now, since I could have no apprehension of causality in
the universe but for causality at home, it is evident that
from myself as a centre I carry it abroad. From my own
experience as an agent I gain my conception of an agency
everywhere. But cause at my own centre is Will; will-
causality is all the causality I know. The ultimate sig-
nificance of cause beyond me, found within me or not
found, is will. Force, as an ultimate essence, then, is Will.
In the antagonism of self and not-self there is simply will
opposed to will; will within, expressed in activities of
body and brain; will without, expressed in the order of
the world ; will within, flowing out in contest with the
elements, in the subduing of nature, in the creation of arts,
in the building of civilization ; will without, guiding planets,
flashing sunbeams, immanent in chemical combinations
and in vital functions. Cause in the sense of efficient
simply must mean this to us.
The form of argument here, however, is that of analogy,
and there is another, which, if to the ordinary mind not
more persuasive, to the logician may be more satisfactory.
GOD AND COSMOS 327
The moulding principles of our knowledge, causality with
the rest, come, as we have seen, from the mind at the call
of experience. Even the correlations of physical forces
are to empirical observation only successions of phenom-
ena; the unitary Force they represent is not manifest
to the eyes, and is only intuitively discerned. But cause,
as it is given us to know it, is of the will; in the very
mould, therefore, where our experiences are formed the
volitional stamp is set upon them. Ordinarily we may
not think this ; when we contemplate an event, we refer
it to a cause unqualified by any epithet. But when we
reflect on the ultimate nature of cause, we find will impli-
cated in the very idea. To the relation of events this is
brought by the mind, and because of the mind we must
think it, and what we must think we must believe true.
To Dr. Martineau the reasoning from analogy may be
persuasive, but in these terms we come nearer to his
characteristic thought. On a point of so much signifi-
cance, though in a passage of considerable length, it is
better that he speak for himself. In his crushing rejoinder
to Professor Tyndall he says : " To witness phenomena,
and let them lie and dispose themselves in the mere order
of time, space, and resemblance, is to us impossible. By
the very make of our understanding we refer them to a
Power which issues them: and no sooner is perception
startled by their appearance than the intellect completes
the act by wonder at their source. This ' power,' how-
ever, being a postulate intuitively applied to phenomena,
and not an observed function found in them, does not
vary as they vary, but mentally repeats itself as the needed
prefix to every order of them: and though it may thus
migrate, now into this group, now into that, it is the dwell-
ing alone that changes, and that which is immanent is
ever the same. You can vary nothing in the total fact,
except the collocations of material conditions; out of
328 JAMES MARTINEAU
which, as each new adjustment emerges, the persistent
Power elicits a different result. Instead of first detecting
many forces in nature and afterwards running them up
into identity, the mind imports one into many collocations :
never allowing it to take different names, except for a
moment, in order to study its action, now here, now there.
If this be true, if causality be not seen, but thought, if
the thought it carries belongs to a rule of the understand-
ing itself, that every phenomenon is the expression of
power, two consequences follow: the plurality of forces
disappears : and, to find the true interpretation of the One
which remains, we must look not without but within ; not
on the phenomena presented, but on the rational relations
into which they are received. Power is that which we
mean by it; nor have we any other way of determining
its nature than by resort to our own self-knowledge. The
problem passes from the jurisdiction of natural science
to that of intellectual philosophy." l He then, after much
the same fashion as that employed in the preceding pages,
finds his way to the conclusion that the universe is per-
vaded by a Will.
The One Force so variously manifest is Will. Elusive
when studied in its outward manifestations, it reveals its
identity to the eye wisely directed to interior self-scrutiny.
Is this anthropomorphism? Such it has been the fashion
to call it; and in its character as such, scientific thinkers
like Tyndall and Huxley have seen the last reproach of
the faith of Martineau. Yet Professor Tyndall finds in
matter the " promise and potency of all terrestrial life,"
which looks much like Martineau's anthropomorphism
taken in reverse; and whether with better reason on its
side it need not take long to see. What is matter? Be-
tween the Epicureans, who wanted nothing more than its
ultimate atoms to build a universe, and Bishop Berkeley,
1 Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. iv. pp. 240-241.
GOD AND COSMOS 329
who denied its reality, the accounts of it are how many
and how divergent ! Certainly, if spiritualism is a creed of
perplexities, materialism, as judged by its history, is not
less such. The existence of matter what warrant of it
have we? The last word we can say of it is that it is
an affection of our minds. Is spiritualism to be held un-
trustworthy because it is reasoned from ourselves, and
materialism, resting ultimately upon the like reasoning, to
be received with unquestioning faith? With certainty may
I affirm that matter is such and such because I must think
it, and must the conception of mind, born of an analogous
necessity, be repudiated as baseless? Is the former so
brave a philosophy? Is the latter so feeble a puerility?
" The existence of a Universal Will," says Dr. Martineau,
" and the existence of Matter stand on exactly the same
basis, of certainty if you trust, of uncertainty if you dis-
trust, the principia of your own reason." 1 And with
respect to anthropomorphism in its larger features, we
may appropriate from his titanic wrestle with Professor
Tyndall this weighty deliverance : " If I am to see a ruling
Power in the world, is it folly to prefer a man-like to a
brute-like power, a seeing to a blind? The similitude to
man means no more and goes no further than the suprem-
acy of intellectual insight and moral ends over every
inferior alternative: and how it can be contemptible and
childish to derive everything from the highest known
order of power rather than the lowest, and to converse
with Nature as embodied Thought instead of taking it as a
dynamic engine, it is difficult to understand. Is it absurd
to suppose mind transcending the human? or, if we do so,
to make our own Reason the analogical base for intellect
of wider sweep ? How is it possible to look along any line
of light traced by past research, and, estimating the con-
tents which it reveals, and leaves still unrevealed, to
1 Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. iv. p. 247.
330 JAMES MARTINEAU
remember that along all radii to which we may turn, a
similar infinitude presents itself to any faculty that seeks
it, and yet to conceive that this mass of truth to be known
has only our weak intelligence to know it? And if two
natures know the same thing, can they be other than
like?" 1
Thus through a long pathway of thought he reaches his
conclusion ; and with it the great postulate of theistic faith
is gained. The world expresses an Infinite Will ; its laws
are decrees ; in deciphering its hieroglyphic we follow up
a Divine Intelligence on lines by which it issued forth.
The dictum of the French savant, " The heavens declare
the glory of Herschel and Laplace," yields to the refrain of
the Psalmist which it travesties; and philosophy, grown
jubilant, breaks into rhapsody.
" Thou visitest the earth and waterest it :
Thou greatly enrichest it,
The river of God is full of water:
Thou providest them corn, when thou hast prepared the earth :
Thou waterest the furrows abundantly,
Thou settlest the ridges thereof.
Thou makest it soft with showers,
Thou blessest the springing thereof,
Thou crownest the year with thy goodness,
And thy paths drop fatness."
3. It hardly needs to be said that Dr. Martineau means
by Will what we mean by it, the executive function of In-
telligence. In heaven as in earth, it discriminates and
determines. There comes before our minds the blind im-
pulse which Schopenhauer called Will. To Dr. Martineau
a blind impulse, acting but not discriminating, were
Fatalism, not Will. Causing implies willing, but " aimless
force, force that cannot define its own path, but may fly
off in any radius without prejudice to its identity, misses
1 Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. iv. pp. 247-248.
GOD AND COSMOS 331
the essence of causality." 1 That essence, as the will
declares it, is in having an aim, and choosing a pathway,
and declining " all radii but one." The objection to the
argument from Design, that designing means choosing and
choosing implies limitation, has no favor in his eyes. To
select always from ever present alternatives is of the Infi-
nite Will, and is involved in an infinite prerogative. Power
to do is not infinite unless there go with it the power not
to do. In the denial of choice Omnipotence is denied.
A question of method here arises. Where do we find
the types of Divine volition ? The rain nourishes the corn,
but spreads devastation through the river's overflow ; water
slakes my thirst, but it may also drown me ; I could not
live without the sunshine, yet it may generate a miasma
that shall cut short my life ; the conditions that make the
harvest bountiful bring forth the pests that destroy it ; and
where nature is most affluent in smiles man is most exposed
to the fever's breath, the wild beast's ravage, and the ser-
pent's fang. These contrasts, contemplated with reference
to the Supreme Will, have yielded conclusions how diverse !
Scepticism has found in them justification of its doubt;
simple faith has explained them by the alternation of his
moods, the kindlier experience telling of his grace, the
harsher of his wrath. There is yet another, which we may
perhaps call the stoic temper, which finds utterance in the
words of the prophet Isaiah: " I am the Lord, and there is
none else. I form the light, and create darkness : I make
peace, and create evil : I the Lord do these things."
Our personal vicissitudes are so engrossing to ourselves
that it is often hard for us to think of them as not a matter
of immediate concern in the legislation of the universe ; and
it is sometimes felt to be a cold philosophy that refuses to
see the direct agency of Heaven in the exigencies of our
travel, or the issues of our pathology ; yet such negative
1 Study of Religion, vol. i. p. 244.
332 JAMES MARTINEAU
conclusion is essential in Dr. Martineau's philosophy, which
finds the types of Divine volition not in the details of ex-
perience, but in the ruling forces of the world. In his own
language, " Every law represents one thought and is the
explicit unfolding of one comprehensive and standing
volition." 1 The single volition, that is, is represented
by one law with all it carries. When the decree went
forth, Let there be light; it was not stipulated that it
should not dazzle my eyes, or be unattended by other
inconvenience to me and to other sublunary creatures. In
light we have a " single genus of power," a " dynamic
constant," that holds its course and works its effects in
apparent indifference to particular grievances that may be
laid to its charge. So in the appointment that the rains
fall, the convenience of my journey is not taken into con-
sideration. Heat seems appointed to its tasks without
respect to the myriad seemingly unfriendly contingencies
that hang upon its action ; chemical action holds on its
way regardless of the pestilence it may generate ; electri-
city I must handle circumspectly, or while serving me it
may kill me. A law with its full budget of consequences,
changeless and passionless, this is what the volition
seems to signify. In its origin a decree of Will, it is left
to be one of the fixed and ever calculable habits of nature.
And despite all our incidental inconveniences and even
suffering, how much better so ! The problem of wisdom
and goodness in the universe belongs to later pages ; but
we may here wander from our path so far as to remark
that through this invariableness the discipline of man and
the possibility of his knowledge of the universe are pro-
vided. But something more than this is wanted, something
this fixity, if carried up through all the zones of our moral
and spiritual nature, would render it impossible to believe ;
and Dr. Martineau finds a way to it. In his critique of
1 Study of Religion, vol. i. p. 222.
GOD AND COSMOS 333
Professor Tyndall is a remarkable passage in which he
asks: "Does anything forbid us to 'conceive similarly of
the cosmical development ; that it started from the freedom
of indefinite possibilities and the ubiquity of universal con-
sciousness ; that, as intellectual exclusions narrowed the
field, and traced the definite lines of admitted movement,
the tension of purpose, less needed on these, left them as
habits of the universe, and operated for higher and ever
higher ends not yet provided for ; that the more mechan-
ical, therefore, a natural law may be, the further is it from its
source ; and that the inorganic and unconscious portion of
the world, instead of being the potentiality of the organic
and the conscious, is rather its residual precipitate, formed
as the Indwelling Mind of all concentrates an intenser
aim on the upper margin of the ordered whole, and espe-
cially on the inner life of natures that can resemble him? " *
The purpose of this passage is to exhibit a very possi-
ble relation of volitions left to be the laws of matter with
higher and more elastic operations of the Divine Will. This
is a thought never far from the mind of Dr. Martineau.
Whatever constraints the Divine Mind may impose upon
nature, higher up, where he deals with conscience and the
soul, the constraint relaxes. With whatever confidence we
may calculate, we still may pray. While science, from the
divineness that pervades its field, may well be devout, it
does not follow that devotion, at its altitude, should be
scientific. Rather here is a place where the free spirit of
man meets the free spirit of God.
Like other speculators of like tendencies of mind, Dr.
Martineau braces his intuitionalism by a survey of Nature,
gathering up the accordant notes she offers him. Of them-
selves alone they might not satisfy him ; bringing to their
study, however, an a priori warrant for his faith, they serve
most admirably as illustration. The notes of purpose in
1 Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. iv. pp. 249-250.
334 JAMES MARTINEAU
nature, reasoning on the basis of human analogy, are
neither few nor insignificant. " If they are apparent in the
structure of a cottage," he asks, " are they absent from the
hut of the beaver and the nest of the wasp ? Does the gran-
ary of the farmer provide for the future any better than the
storehouse of the squirrel? Is there more skill in a pair of
spectacles, than in a pair of eyes? in a guitar, than in the
vocal chords of a Malibran or a Stanley? in the hunter's
snare, than in the spider's web? in the lover's serenade,
than in the nightingale's song? in the oars of a boat,
than in the fin of a fish?" 1 That here is adaptation to
ends which squirrel and bee and beaver could not have fore-
seen, is plain. Originality is ours ; it is not theirs. We can
plan and build for the future : of foresight and intention
they cannot do so. To us is reason ; to them is instinct.
Through the possession of reason we are fitted for our
province, and are left in charge of it ; they, a part of na-
ture, are directed by its Indwelling Spirit. Through our
reason we purpose and perform; through their instinct
works the Reason of Reason.
One result of this doctrine of causation is evident : the
old distinction between First Cause and second causes dis-
appears. Save as man in the exercise of his free will is a
second cause, there is no cause in the universe but God.
Material causes, so called, are only material conditions,
physical forces but physical means, man's free will but the
unnecessitated agent of a Power that is over all, and in all,
and through all. The universe is enchanted by an Infinite
Will, through which suns blaze and civilizations blossom ;
and whose purposes unfold in the issues of history.
II. The Intellectual Aspects of the Universe
The consideration incidentally touched upon in the
closing paragraph of the above statement must now be
1 Study of Religion, vol. i. p. 247.
GOD AND COSMOS 335
more explicitly dealt with. Does the universe ratify the
result reached by the study of the causal intuition ? In its
processes, widely surveyed, do we trace the presence of
Mind? With these questions the argument from Design
or Final Causes is before us. The argument stands not
where it stood in the times of Paley and Bridgewater Trea-
tises; though they mistake who suppose that these writ-
ings have lost their persuasiveness ; and they more gravely
mistake who suppose the interest in this argument is mate-
rially less than a century ago. The philosophy of Evolu-
tion, indeed, presented the universe in another aspect;
and some of the writings of its earlier expounders, as the
Lay Sermons, the Belfast Address, and the First Principles,
were certainly disquieting to the teleologist. If mecha-
nism could do so much, what need of God ? The net result
as seen in the mind of to-day, however, is probably not
less faith, but more caution. We turn to the universe not
with less confidence that Design is there, but with the
sense of the need of a deeper insight and a broader out-
look. This is well; for we were acquiring a facility for
tracing Design which was bringing the argument into dis-
repute through a cumbersome mass of puerilities. The
illustration of Paley, a watch picked up on a heath, digni-
fied and masterful as he used it, imitated by feebler minds,
brought into literature a multitude of supposed Designs,
which might often be looked upon as ingenious parody
were it not for their evident sincerity; and there was
appositeness as well as humor in the remark of Hegel that
" though wine be useful to man, neither religion nor
science is profited by supposing the cork-tree to exist for
the sake of the corks which are cut from its bark to serve
as stoppers for wine-bottles." 1
There are two ways in which the marks of intelligence
in nature may be used in theistic arguments. The one is
1 Quoted from Schurman's Belief in God.
33^ JAMES MARTINEAU
as proof: Here is Design, it is argued, therefore there
must be a Designer. Alike in a watch and in a world,
intelligent adaptation implies intelligence. The orderly
arrangement of words that results in ah In Memoriam or a
Sordello is no chance affair ; the orderly detail of nature
that brings forth an eye or an ear no more such. This is
the Paleyan argument, though of date far earlier than
Paley.
The second use of it is as illustration. Having the con-
viction that there is a God, the believer may see in the
order of the universe the tokens of His wisdom. Knowing
God already, he looks abroad and says, These are His
ways. With his faith the aspect of the universe is accord-
ant. What he carries to it, that he finds.
Now the former of these, the Design argument proper,
has had illustrious recognition. Socrates used it in his
way, Plato also, and Cicero ; Kant treated it with respect ;
Mill coldly confessed its validity. Yet there have never
been wanting those who could not feel its persuasiveness;
who, though willing enough to confess the universe the
handiwork of God, have yet felt the human mind unequal
to the divination of its meaning: have found its scope too
vast, or its symbolism too mysterious. Thus Descartes,
who, as he believed, proved to absolute certainty the being
of God, would have nothing to do with Final Causes.
" We must not be so presumptuous," says he, " as to think
God has taken us into his counsels." Also, while for this
reason many earnest theists have been unwilling to use the
argument, there have been theists not less earnest who
have doubted its absolute validity. For instance, Dr. F. H.
Hedge, while allowing to it " great theological value,"
could not find in it that complete demonstration which its
prophets claim for it. 1 " The truth of an hypothesis," says
he, " which seems to solve a given problem is not estab-
1 See " Critique of Proofs of the Being of God " in Ways of the Spirit.
GOD AND COSMOS 337
lished by that solution, unless the solution is complete ; "
and he adds, " If it fails to satisfy that condition, it is sim-
ply the best hypothesis, nothing more." To this rigorous
requirement he finds the argument unequal. With what-
ever array of facts it may be justified, still he holds that
the opposite contention has not been logically invalidated ;
that still it may be maintained that the necessities of exist-
ence are such, rather than that thus a Divine Intelligence
appointed. Of the two hypotheses the latter may seem
the more reasonable, but that does not make the former
untenable. The argument may comfort belief; but, in
effect he asks, did it ever win a Comte or a Laplace from
unbelief? Further he points out the significant circum-
stance that the great expounders of the argument have
gone to Nature " not to ascertain an unknown fact, but to
justify an assumed one." Believers when they sought her,
they were simply better assured believers after their inter-
view with her. Had they gone to this interview with minds
blank to the idea of God, he is very doubtful if they would
have returned from it with the radiant faith they have illus-
trated. In this we should certainly agree with him. The
Deity we find in Nature we first meet within ourselves;
and the Hebrew prophet had surely not admonished, Lift
up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these
things, had he not known, had he not heard, had it not
been told him from the beginning. Dr. Hedge further
says that Paley and the Bridgewater writers " have brought
to view the exquisite adaptations of Nature, and, on the
supposition of a God for its author, have abundantly illus-
trated the wondrous skill of the Creator." It was, then,
the second or illustrative use of Design that he would
recognize. Though it may not suffice to establish the
existence of God, it may show the wisdom of God, if
already known. With this view Dr. Martineau is in clear
accord. He betrays, indeed, an interest in the Paleyan
22
338 JAMES MARTINEAU
doctrine which his American contemporary does not
reflect ; but in the structure of his brilliant argument it is
God that shows him Nature, not Nature that shows him
God. His inquiry is to " ascertain whether the world
answers, in its constitution, to our intuitive interpretation of
it as the manifestation of intellectual purpose" * So plain
is this relation of thought in his argument that it is simply
astonishing that his doctrine should ever have been mis-
taken for the Paleyan. Like most other profound students
of Natural Theology during the last century, he has given
very evident attention to Paley's writings : yet the attitude
of the two minds is entirely different. While Paley would
say to the atheist, See these marks of Design; either
discredit them or, for consistency's sake, be an atheist no
more, Dr. Martineau would say, See these marks of
Design ; how beautifully they ratify the intuition of an
Intelligent Cause. For the security of the primary pos-
tulate of his faith Dr. Martineau does not need Final
Causes ; like Descartes, he could have maintained it, as
he achieved it, by philosophic insight alone. The form,
however, which it takes in his speculation, that of Intelli-
gent Will, makes its justification by Nature especially
desirable; and the two placed over against each other,
Will as philosophically found and Will as traced in the
processes of Nature, together make a course of doctrine
both weighty and impressive.
The line of contention of the advocate of Final Causes is
Intelligence versus Automatism. Are the adaptations we
meet in nature the happy hit of unintelligent forces, or did
an Intelligence direct them? Or, more accordant with Dr.
Martineau's attitude, an Intelligent Being granted, do we
find in nature the tokens of His action ?
What are the tokens of intelligent action? Dr. Mar-
tineau specifies three: selection, combination y gradation.
1 Study of Religion , vol. i. p. 258.
GOD AND COSMOS 339
Through these, intelligence, as we know it, ever executes
its tasks. Of many possibles it selects one ; various selec-
tions it brings together into a harmonious whole; and
throughout the structure it subordinates minor ends to
larger ones. These features are ever met in the works of
men, as a watch, a house, a railway, a book, a statue, a
picture, a school, a creed, a government. For instance,
a book. Of many possible lines of thought or groupings
of fact the author selects a few; these few, through suc-
cessive chapters, he brings into harmonious relation ; and
throughout the whole he is ruled by a law of gradation by
which minor matters open the way to those of larger im-
portance. From works of human intelligence these marks
are never absent ; and meeting them in nature, it is reason-
able to say, Either Intelligence has been here, or unin-
telligent forces have blindly simulated its methods.
In the presence of these alternatives, one of course may
embrace either, but which he will embrace will depend, so
teaches Andrew Seth, 1 on whether the philosophical or
the strictly scientific spirit rules him. Science can hardly
be teleological ; but philosophy, however variously it may
conceive, cannot permanently give up, teleology. The
aim of philosophy is to rationalize the universe ; and, out-
side the crudest materialism, that is not likely to be con-
ceived as having a rationale which is not in some sense the
offspring of Reason and ruled to its ends. The signifi-
cance of this consideration is so prevailing that, however
an occasional philosopher may decline teleological judg-
ment, philosophy, true to the principle of its life, will yet
dare it. The difference between Dr. Martineau and the
schools now in the ascendant is not one of teleology and
no teleology, but turns on the question where the war-
rant of teleological judgment may be found. They find
it in what they conceive to be the great end of Crea-
1 Man's Place in the Cosmos, pp. 56-58.
340 JAMES MARTINEAU
tion ; he sees it here, and also in many a detail by which
that end is being furthered. Let us follow him in his
illustrations.
i. Selection. Do we find this in nature? We know
how man dealing with the products of nature may select :
how a florist, finding a rose of peculiar tint, by a process
of selection may propagate and improve it; how the
poultry fancier will in like manner improve his brood, and
how the experimenter upon domestic animals may pro-
duce sheep of finer wool, and cows of richer milk, and
horses of fleeter foot. We know also what naturalist, after
contemplating this kind of selection, turned to nature with
the question whether she also selected; and how, in
answer to his question, she flashed upon him, with all its
measureless implications, the great law of Natural Selec-
tion. There is, then, selection in nature; and the denial
of it would require that our latter-day natural history be
rewritten. It is divined from the intelligent action of man ;
shall we say it is of nature's automatic action merely, or
shall we refer it to an Intelligence that, using nature as its
instrument, directs the choice?
Illustrations of this law any student can easily supply
for himself. There is one, however, on which Dr. Marti-
neau especially dwells; which through the ingenuity of
his presentation has gained considerable attention. It is
drawn from a study of the anterior limbs of vertebrate
animals. In skeletons we find in them a unity of plan,
and a like relation of this part to the whole ; and yet what
possibilities! "The changes," says he, "that might be
rung upon them by extension or contraction of size, by
altered proportions of their members, by readjustment of
weight, by shifting their leverage, by modifying their
muscular apparatus, are endlessly in excess of all actual
types." 1 Now what has limited the number of these
1 Study of Religion, vol. i. pp. 259-260.
GOD AND COSMOS 341
actual types ? We cannot think of them as " accidental
variations ; " on the contrary, all agree that the limits of
variation have strict " reference to the medium in which
the creature is to live ; reducing it to the pectoral fin of
the fish and the paddle of the seal ; or extending it into the
wing of the bird, itself elongated by the primary feathers
which grow from the fingers; and in terrestrial animals
terminating it with the hoof or toe for progression, the
claw for battle, the hand for prehensile use." 1
How shall we explain this adaptation of the organ to the
conditions of the creature's existence ? Why in its form is
it so strictly relative to the creature's environment? There
are those who answer that it is the environment itself
which equips the creature for life within it. Now environ-
ment can undoubtedly do many things, but are there not
limits to its achievements? However fishes may leap into
the air, the fin shows no tendency to become a wing ; and
though semi-aquatic birds are much in water, they show
no tendency to take on the structure of its finny inhabi-
tants. " Except in mythologic tales," says Dr. Martineau,
" no fisherman, like Glaucus of Anthedon, can betake him-
self to his own element and become a marine inhabitant
indistinguishable from the fish, even though he has an im-
mortality to do it in. Nor could any air that blows help the
arms that beat it to grow into wings ; whatever force was
called into action by incipient attempts to fly would work
in opposition to such direction of development and sweep
away its first beginnings." His reason for this conclusion
seems plain : " The waters and the atmosphere can never set
up instruments of resistance to themselves"* However,
then, the environment may be a foster nurse to develop
an organ incipiently provided, its absolute provision is not
within its possibilities. For this, then, we must turn from
the environment to the organism. Dr. Martineau dwells
1 Study of Religion, p. 260. a Ibid.
342 JAMES MARTINEAU
at length upon two views of the genesis of this : one the
pre-formation theory of the earlier physiologists who held
that the organism was potential in the egg or germ, so
that in its production there was only needed the course of
development. That is to say, the structure is in its every
part pre-formed in the embryo, which unfolds according
to a " directing and organizing idea " or " vital design," a
view which, of course, only pushes the selection back to the
source of that " vital design" The other view is that of
epigenesis, and is far in the ascendant in our time. The
embryos of man and of many of the animals below him are
at an early stage indistinguishable one from another. The
theory is that the distinguishing features which appear
later are not developed but added on. According to the
former view, the whole precedes the parts ; according to
the latter, the parts precede the whole. Now it is held by
some that this latter view is inimical to the Design argu-
ment. Dr. Martineau, however, conceives the reverse.
" For," says he, " if we want to conceive of development
within a purely physical circle of processes, with a mini-
mum of temptation to enquire beyond, surely the gradual
increase of a given form in all its dimensions at once
leaves us less to ask, than the successive aggregation of
heterogeneous organs of which no hint had before been
given." * Also so valiant an advocate of Design as Janet
would, in the interest of his doctrine, adopt this view in
preference to the earlier one. 2 Surely a ship is none the
less a work of Design because not pre-formed in the
1 Study of Religion, vol. i. p. 261.
2 "Given," says he, "an organism in miniature, I could easily compre-
hend that the growth and enlargement should take place by purely mechani-
cal laws. But what I do not comprehend is that a juxtaposition or addi-
tion of parts, which only represents external relations between the ele-
ments, should be found, little by little, to have produced a work which I
would call a work of art if a Vaucauson had made it, but which is much
more complicated and delicate than one of Vaucauson's automata." Final
Causes, p. 139.
GOD AND COSMOS 343
timber, but brought together part by part. With one of
these theories as with the other the hypothesis of Design
will work equally well ; and to a Huxley or a Haeckel we
may say that finding out how a thing is done is not the
same as proving that God did not do it. 1
Thus there is selection in nature ; and such seems its
meaning. But (2) is there combination also ? The student
of Darwin is familiar with correlation of growth, a truth
recognized by Cuvier a half-century before Darwin, and
made his guiding light in his wonderful reconstructions of
extinct animals from fossil remains. Every part so implies
another part that, given any bone, a " person who possesses
an accurate knowledge of the laws of organic economy may
reconstruct the whole animal." Here within the organism,
correlation is, of course, but another word for combination ;
but combination, in Dr. Martineau's use of the word, has a
much wider application. Here is combination of part with
part; there is also combination of " organic change " with
a " special direction of muscular activity." At approach
of winter the frog, the snake, the tortoise, seek a fitting
place for their winter's sleep ; at the approach of the birth
season the smelt in the lake seeks the brook ; the salmon
ascends the river ; the bird builds its nest ; the caterpillar
weaves its web ; the stirring of the reproductive impulse,
which none will pretend that these creatures understand,
is synchronized by these acts of preparation. A woman
approaching maternity gets ready a cradle ; and her action
we say is intelligent. Can we then say that the like action
1 In the above sentence I detect myself borrowing from Miss Cobbe.
The passage is so apposite that I cannot err in quoting it entire : " It is a
singular fact that, whenever we find out how anything is done, our first con-
clusion seems to be that God did not do it. No matter how wonderful, how
beautiful, how infinitely complex and delicate has been the machinery that
has worked, perhaps for centuries, perhaps for millions of ages, to bring
about some beneficent result, if we catch a glimpse of the wheels its
divine character disappears. The machinery did it all. It would be alto-
gether superfluous to look further." Darwinism in Morals, p. 5.
344 JAMES MARTINEAU
on the part of these lower creatures is merely automatic ?
We grant these creatures without intelligence ; but is intel-
ligence wholly unrelated with their conduct? It must be
so, or the intelligence of nature, which is the intelligence
of a Mind that ordains nature, must work through them
and direct them.
There is another combination of organism with nature,
and of this illustration is endless. Seasonal for the child's
need is the flow of its mother's milk, and in the art of
appropriating it the child needs no instruction ; and the
human babe, as Dr. Martineau remarks, is here on terms
of exact equality with the young of other mammalia
whether of the earth or the sea. But more suggestive
than this is the provision of far lower creatures for their
offspring. Every spring the caterpillar weaves its web
upon our apple trees, never upon our beeches or maples,
guided by a foresight surely not its own to the tree
whose leaves will yield food for its young. The burying
beetle seeks the carcass of some small animal, as a frog
or a mouse, with the aid of its fellows covers it with
sand, and then deposits its larvae within it ; which thus find
right about them their appropriate aliment. The case of
the pompoles is perhaps more striking. When mature,
the insect lives on flowers. Its larvae, however, are carniv-
orous ; and so the mother places in the nest where her eggs
are deposited the body of a spider or caterpillar, thus pro-
viding for her young a food suited to them, but which she
could not eat. Not less suggestive is the phenomenon of
migration. That other creatures should like to change
their abode with the season, to man seems natural enough ;
but in the manner of their doing so there is food for reflec-
tion. Dr. Martineau quotes the example of shoals of tur-
tles that " regularly swim from the bay of Honduras to the
Cayman islands, near Jamaica, a favorable spot for laying
their eggs, and make this distance of four hundred and
GOD AND COSMOS 345
fifty miles with such precision, that in thick weather ships
can sail under the guidance of their rustling in the water." 1
Then there is the flight of birds through hundreds of miles
of trackless space, yet ruled by an accuracy which the cal-
culations of the mariner cannot surpass. " We can ima-
gine readily enough," says Dr. Martineau, " how changes
of temperature might awaken in these birds a desire to
secure perpetual summer by keeping a second country
house not deserted by the sun ; but by what mysterious
sympathy between their nature and the latitudes and lon-
gitudes of the earth their lines of flight are directed, by
what magnetic needle within them they trace their unerr-
ing path, by what secret chronometry they hit upon the
date of passage and keep the appointment with their
old habitat, is inexplicable except as part of the intel-
lectual combinations of the world." 2
There is another combination on which Dr. Martineau
lingers with very evident interest : it is that provided for
in the complete absence of one of the related elements.
A hearing-trumpet invented by one totally deaf, or a mi-
croscope by one totally blind, would not be thought of as
produced without intelligence; rather they would be re-
ferred to an intelligence that was preternatural. But the
ear is an instrument for hearing, in complexity and delicacy
infinitely beyond any of man's devising, and the eye an in-
strument for seeing, compared with which our microscope
or telescope is but clumsy apprentice work. Yet both are
formed in entire insulation from the medium in which they
are to act : the ear where are no aerial vibrations, the eye
where is no light. When, however, they emerge into the
" element " in relation with which they are to perform their
office, this wondrous adaptation ! Certainly the philoso-
pher may be entitled to respectful consideration who sees
here something akin to a pre-established harmony. Now
1 Study of Religion, vol. i. p. 293. 2 Ibid. p. 294.
346 JAMES MARTINEAU
there are those who will argue that though the ear and the
eye are formed in insulation from their element, they are
yet formed within the matrix of a being who has them in
perfect adjustment with that element. Be it so : we are
given a point in their genealogy, but are told nothing of
their genesis. Here the evolutionist brings forward his
explanation : Light forms the eye, sound forms the ear ;
and hence the harmony. Given a clot of protoplasm, light
acting upon it will call forth an incipient eye and sound
waves an incipient ear ; and from this beginning, which is
next to nothing, Natural Selection will carry on the pro-
cess to completion. Again be it so; yet myriad objects
are beaten upon by these twofold vibrations, and no nerve
of sight or of hearing appears in them. That thus they
may be formed within the protoplasm, they must be poten-
tially there. Ability to awaken on the one side implies
ability to be awakened on the other. In the protoplasm
must be eye and ear of earlier date; and the fact that
light and sound perform a part in their development is not
in the slightest degree dissonant with our thesis. Again it
is legitimate to urge that finding out how a thing is done
is not the same as proving that God did not do it.
3. We come next to gradation. In nature do we find
this? Indeed we do. Without entering into the study
of the vegetable or animal economy, which we could not
pursue without recognizing a system of means and ends,
which to many a thinker has borne sufficing testimony,
we may draw our illustrations from the larger features of
the evolutionary story. Saying nothing of the earlier
chapters, a molten and a frozen world, which, if we took
note of nothing else, we might leave to the rule of unde-
signing forces, we come to life, and it is difficult not to see
in the prior processes a preparation for this. Allow that
there were only elements before; now they have found
an end in an organism which they support. All the myr-
GOD AND COSMOS 347
iad forms of vegetable growth are simply the chemicals
of nature organized; and in the organization is the first
stage in the upward gradation manifest.
The chemical, then, for the vital; but the vital is not
the final. Beyond merely organized is conscious exist-
ence. The vegetable has clearly a raison d'etre in the
support of the animal.
But beyond conscious life is self-conscious; we reach
another and a higher stage when we come to man. With
him, too, terrestrial being culminates; and for him, in
some sense, all below him. On this point language needs
to be guarded. It is not pretended that the lower forms
of existence have no end save the service of man, that
the world is ordered in contemplation of him alone ; and
the satire of Montaigne, who supposes a gosling to reason :
" All the parts of the universe regard me ; the earth serves
me for walking; the sun to give me light; the stars to
inspire me with their influence ; . . . there is nothing this
vault so favorably regards as me; I am the darling of
nature," deals fairly with such pretension. Yet it is true,
and surely no Darwinian should dispute it, that in the
hierarchy of terrestrial being man stands at the summit,
and hence, in the providence of nature, all below him
must be for him.
These are the cardinal stages of gradation. Probably
few feel that it ends here; indeed his vision must be
strangely defective who does not see the tokens of its
continuance. It well may be that it does not contem-
plate a transition to another and higher form of terrestrial
being ; but the perfection of the highest that now is, the
progressive realization of the idea of a divine humanity,
perfection of the social organism, the achievement of that
kingdom of man which is the kingdom of God.
Compared with the amplitude of our resources these
illustrations seem meagre. However, the method of in-
34^ JAMES MARTINEAU
telligent action is shown through them; and the easily
gathered volume of the like illustrations could only show
it more fully, not more clearly. To show this method,
too, is of great practical importance. The causal argu-
ment, though never so fair, would fail to persuade mul-
titudes of minds could some Cuvier or Agassiz declare :
Useless to appeal to Nature ; in her processes is no selec-
tion, no combination, no gradation ; so far as can be seen
she works without method and to no end. Dr. Martineau,
indeed, would not be discomfited; he could still require
us to accept the causal argument on its logical validity,
maintaining, like Descartes, that the methods of God are
too deep, and his purposes too vast, for human compre-
hension. But these features, met so widely in organic
nature, he can but regard as ratifying the judgment he
has reached independently of them. A weakness of the
old Paleyan doctrine was its want of metaphysic; it is
the peculiar strength of Dr. Martineau's that for his meta-
physic he finds objective verification. The argument from
the causal intuition may be good, and the marks of Intelli-
gence may be plain ; but both together and in harmony
are better than either.
But though the central principle of Dr. Martineau's
doctrine is safe without Design, he thinks enough of
Design, not only to illustrate it, but to defend it against
latter-day objections. These objections are various, but
they may be grouped under two considerations, drawn
respectively from the aspect in which they present the
Divine Nature, and certain troublesome features of the
outward universe.
i. The aspect of the Divine nature, (i) It is charged
that the Design argument is again that word of terror
anthropomorphic. It assumes the action of God after the
methods of our own: it makes God man; and against
this what fervid protestations ! There is an element of
GOD AND COSMOS 349
truth in this: I can form no judgment of anything save
from myself; and the conception of any nature must
be outlined from my own. Try any other conception
of the Ultimate Principle than that of mind, and see
if we escape this necessity. " There are," says Dr. Mar-
tineau, " but three forms under which it is possible to
think of the ultimate or immanent principle of the
Universe, Mind, Life, Matter : given the first, it is
intellectually thought out: the second, it blindly grows:
the third, it mechanically shuffles into equilibrium." l
The question presses, How much more liable am I to a
vitiating twist from my own nature in dealing with one
of these conceptions than with another? It is because I
am a thinking being that I am led to think of the
Ultimate Principle as thinking ; but so it is because I am
a living being that I think of it as living ; and only be-
cause I am a material being that I can think of it as
material. " Man is equally your point of departure,
whether you discern in the cosmos an intellectual, a phys-
iological or a mechanical system : and the only question
is whether you construe it by his highest characteristics,
or by the middle attributes which he shares with other
organisms; or by the lowest, that are absent from no
physical things." 2 He might have added that if, because
its conception is formed from ourselves, the basal princi-
ple of theology must be given up, science for the same
reason should be judged untenable ; and a Huxley, de-
crying Design on this ground, is eaten up by his own
logic. Theological conceptions, like all others, should be
judged by their inherent strength, and not be discredited
in advance by the fact that it is a human mind that forms
them.
(2) But again, it is held that this encode of action, essen- '
tial though it be to the human mind, when affirmed of
l Study of Religion, vol. i. p. 316.
350 JAMES MARTINEAU
God, contradicts his attributes. He is the universal
source, we say; he is infinite; he is eternal; he is
absolute. But as universal source, there can be no power
beyond him ; as infinite, all is embraced in him ; as
eternal, the conditions of time do not apply to him ; as
absolute, he is out of all relation. Designing, on the
other hand, implies selecting and contriving, which is
transitive action and implies a datum objective to the
selector or contriver. But a " datum objective to God "
implies that all is not embraced in him, and therefore that
he is not infinite ; as a designer, he enters into relations,
so he cannot be absolute. Design seems to imply a dual-
ism, God and a datum which is the theatre of his
activity; while these attributes call for one Essence to
which, since in itself all, nothing can be objective ; and
what seems its datum can be only its phenomenon.
Whether we are dealing here with the supreme problem
of philosophy or with a metaphysical conundrum, there
may be difference of opinion. On both sides, however,
the dilemma has been taken seriously. On one side
pantheism is felt to annihilate teleology; on the other
teleology is saved by making reservations from pantheism.
A profound and learned writer remarks in a recent book :
" Christian theology, and Jewish also, have been as pan-
theistic as reverent reason and devout common sense
would permit them to be." 1 This we may accept as true,
and still be confronted by the question, What limits to
pantheism do reverent reason and devout common sense
prescribe? For answer to this question, we may quote
a few compressed sentences from Dr. Martineau : " There
are two ways of taking these wonder-working words : the
Infinite, the Absolute, the All-acting, may be construed
monistically, as embracing and absorbing the finite, the
relative, the passive ; or dualistically, as antithetic to them
1 Thomas B. Hill, Postulates of Theology and Ethics, p. 6l.
GOD AND COSMOS 351
and implying them as their opposing foci. It is in the
latter form alone . . . that they are given to our thought :
the infinite which we cognize as the background of a finite
is all except the thing: the absolute is the sphere of the
relation we contemplate, so far forth as exempt from it :
and the universal causality is apprehended by us only as
that which is other than our own, and planted out in the
non-ego, without displacing our personal activity. In all
these cases, our thought holds on to a definite locus
whence its survey is taken of all else : it sails in its little
skiff and looks forth on the illimitable sea and the great
circles of the sky, and finds two things alone with one
another, the universe and itself: the metaphysicians who,
in their impatience of distinction, insist on taking the sea on
board the boat, swamp not only it but the thought it holds,
and leave an infinitude which, as it can look into no eye
and whisper into no ear, they contradict in the very act of
affirming. Now, when kept true to their antithetic mean-
ing, these terms no longer lend themselves to the easy
magic of negation. If we have causality as well as God,
there is room for saying, this sin is ours, that rebuke is his.
If for him, as Omniscient subject, there are objects of knowl-
edge that have been, are, and will be, they must be present
to his mind in their distinctions, their connexions, their con-
sequences : and that which in us is memory and foresight,
and apprehension of rational relations, must have some
intellectual equivalent in him. If, besides himself, there
exist, in a sphere left free, living persons for his Love,
there are innumerable definite and variable lines of selec-
tive movement on which that love may go forth; nor
need we scruple to think of it as carrying shadows as
well as lights, and as hid in eclipse from our unfaith-
fulness, though ready to warm us again when we emerge.
An infinite of which these attributes must be denied
would only be inferior to a finite being of whom they
352 JAMES MARTINEAU
might be affirmed ; and where the boundary between the
human and the Divine so gradually fades, an intellectual,
moral, and affectional fulness of conception will secure
more truth than the most spacious metaphysical void,
where names alone can float without a meaning or a
home." 1 This weighty judgment let him answer who
is able.
(3) But objection takes another form. It is urged that
Design not merely abridges the infinitude of God, but
otherwise carries a denial of his perfection. Designing
implies discriminating and contriving ; the laborious pro-
cesses of intelligence, not spontaneity of action. Spinoza
held that working for an end was confession of need ;
Mill contended that the use of means implied a want of
power: the engineer, whether constructing a railway or
a universe, confesses the difficulties of his task by the
expedients he employs. How much worthier of God is
the thought of the world as unpremeditated and simply
unfolding from him.
This has a specious sound; but reverent reason and
devout common sense have reply: As the heavens are
higher than the earth, so are his ways higher than our
ways, and his thoughts than our thoughts ; and this truth
must rule our conception of the Divine activity. It can-
not imply, however, that his ways are not ways, in some
sense congruous with our sense, nor that his thoughts
are not thoughts. Though infinitely beyond ours, ours
may be a means by which we may analogically con-
ceive them. Grant our conception inadequate, yet not
for that reason need we think it untrue. But change
the point of view, and bestow a closer look upon this
Being who thinks not, wills not, but ever acts from his
own centre, not freely but as he must, is such a being
so far exalted above one who designs and executes? Is
1 Study of Religion, vol. i. pp. 320-321.
GOD AND COSMOS 353
the being of whom this universe is the only possible uni-
verse more august than a being to whom it is only one of
infinite possibilities? Is the absolutely perfect being one
who can do no other than he does ? Strange inversion of
the natural order of estimate, this placing of the non-intel-
ligent above the intelligent, the necessitated above the
free, adding to the glory of God by discrowning him !
If this inversion of natural estimate be necessary in order
that we may not be anthropomorphic, let us be content
with anthropomorphism.
The objection that Design is irreconcilable with ac-
knowledged attributes of God is thus variously answered.
It is not pretended that all is plain ; we have before us a
transcendent problem, in dealing with which only he who
thinks little shall be sensible of no difficulties. But this
seems clear, that the conception of a God of whom Design
is predicable leads into difficulties far less grave than any
competing one. There is one structure of the argument
from Design in which the implied Designer is not so easy
to receive, that built upon the conception of a God outside
of and apart from the universe. The doctrine itself we
should probably find it easier to surrender than to em-
brace its Deistical implication. But while this objection
may be valid as against the teachings of the earlier Paley-
ans, it has no relevancy in a consideration of Dr. Marti-
neau. Edward Caird speaks of Dr. Martineau as in accord
with Jacobi when he affirms that " a God immanent in the
world is no God at all," l which is a complete inversion of
Dr. Martineau's clearest teaching. " Why not inside? " he
asks. " What hinders a ubiquitous indwelling power from
consciously taking such lines of direction, such modes and
proportions of activity, as may realize a system of pre-
conceived ends ? " 2 He quotes from Aristotle : " Plant
1 The Evolution of Religion, vol. ii. p. 8. I find that Professor Caird with-
drew this statement in the second edition of his work.
2 Study of Religion, vol. i. p. 328.
23
354 JAMES MARTINEAU
the ship-builder's skill within the timber itself, and you
have the mode in which Nature produces." " Theism " he
declares to be " in no way committed to the doctrine of a
God external to the world," but " at liberty to regard all
the cosmical forces as varieties of method assumed by his
conscious causality, and the whole of Nature as the evolu-
tion of his thought." l His presence is the consecration
of the universe ; and as reverently as Wordsworth might
he tell of One
" Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns."
Of this view there is something yet to be said. Enough
for the present to show that the Deistical conception of an
" absentee God " is wholly foreign to his thought.
2. Troublesome features of the outward universe. These
Dr. Martineau considers in elaborate detail. Alphonso,
King of Castile, wished he had been present at the Crea-
tion that he might have given good advice; critics of
Design seem often in a like attitude of mind. If there
was a Creator, to their minds he bungled badly. Select
specimens of Nature, they say, may suggest Intelligence ;
but phenomena in a wide survey bear in upon us the
reverse conclusion.
Even the more general features of the earth invite their
criticism. They are displeased with the polar regions ; of
what use those icy realms ? They are dissatisfied with the
equator; to what end its blasting heats? They are criti-
cal of deserts and mountain systems; why Mohave and
Sahara? why Alps and Himalaya? In what aspect of
these phenomena is Intelligence manifest? To take the
critic's attitude and give specific answers might often be
difficult. Both polar and equatorial regions are unsuit-
able for human habitation, and deserts and mountains
are barriers to the intercourse of men. Still in the
1 Study of Religion, vol. i. p. 328.
GOD AND COSMOS 355
vast economy of the earth they may have their place.
Could we warm the poles, cool the equator, grade the
mountains, and make the desert blossom, should we surely
work improvement? Had we been present at the Crea-
tion with these suggestions, should we certainly have
given good advice? Is it not possible that the Creator
might have successfully maintained that a world upon his
plan were preferable ; that in a law-ruled system, such as
he had in view, poles and tropics and mountain and
desert were quite indispensable? The critics, too, of
the solar system, who want a full moon all the time,
and find the nights of Saturn much too long, and space
too sparsely populated with stars, and the sun wastefully
casting his heat where are no worlds to warm, and ether
undulating where are no eyes to see, might perhaps be
met with the like consideration. Could they, present
at the Creation, have seen the scope of the Creator's
purpose, perhaps they would have felt no need to revise
his plan.
But pass to organic nature. Are there no facts en-
countered here irreconcilable with our thesis? The Intel-
ligence we maintain will do nothing without purpose ; how
account, then, for rudimentary organs which have clearly
no use in the animal economy? The opponents of De-
sign have made much of these, too much by far. We
grant the dictionary a work of intelligence ; how explain
the silent letters in such multitudes of words? You say
there was a time when they were not silent, that it was only
as language changed and developed that they became so.
The silent letter, then, is charged with the history of the
word, showing its origin in some foreign or some ancient
tongue. Rudimentary organs may well be as these silent
letters, witnesses of an earlier stage in the unfolding life of
the organism. Spelling reformers would have us drop all
silent letters ; and critics of Design would hold the Intelli-
356 JAMES MARTINEAU
gence of nature to an analogous procedure ; cancel, that
is, an organ when it ceases to be of use to the organism.
But thus one of the records of its history would be de-
stroyed, and how in this procedure the clearer intelli-
gence would be manifest it is difficult to see. When Dr.
Martineau tells us that " Nature, far from being utilitarian
only, is ideal too ; and in setting up each single life takes
but one step of a long history, and pursues an old type
into new and modified exemplifications," 1 he describes a
method of action seemingly not dissonant with, but clearly
accordant with, Intelligence. On the supposition of Intel-
ligence, wherefore should it be otherwise ?
But we are told not only of useless organs, but of very
imperfect ones. The bee in the use of its one weapon may
kill itself: its sting is so constructed that in endeavoring to
withdraw it from a body into which he has thrust it he may
tear it from his own. Some one suggests that a war vessel
whose guns could not be fired without the shattering of its
hull would hardly win our admiration for the intelligence
of its construction; and the case of the bee may be
analogous. However, all things for their use; and Dr.
Martineau shows very plainly that however the bee may
lose its sting in the more solid flesh of men and animals, it
does not follow that it does so in plunging it into the bodies
of other bees with which its chief warfares are conducted.
No one disparages his fist because it cannot serve the pur-
poses of a sledge-hammer, nor his head because for a cer-
tain peculiar use a he-goat's were the better ; and the war
vessel that should shatter its prow in an effort to ride down
Gibraltar would witness, not the non-intelligence of its
builder, but of its commander. Though it fail in manifold
misapplications, it is enough to show the intelligent con-
struction of an organ that it serves its intended uses.
Further than this we have no space to illustrate. Two
1 Study of Religion, vol. i. p. 335.
GOD AND COSMOS 357
other considerations, often pressed by critics of Design,
(i) excessive birth-rate, so marked in all lower organisms
and rarely absent from the higher, involving (2) a corre-
sponding death-rate with the cutting off of such multitudes
of all species ere the fulfilment of their promise, have been
pressed with much earnestness by thinkers unfriendly to
teleology. These Dr. Martineau reviews cogently and
triumphantly ; but we must be content to refer the reader
to his illuminating page. 1
No teleologist pretends that organic nature opposes no
difficulty to his theory, that turn where he may all is lumi-
nous with purpose. On the contrary, he is like one stand-
ing under a clouded sky, to whom only a rift here and
there makes manifest a light beyond. The marks of intel-
ligence that he finds give full assurance that Intelligence is
there ; and where he cannot see a meaning he is assured
that it is because its scope is too vast or the hieroglyph too
intricate. Of the much light he seeks there is but little he
can gain ; but a little is how much when a 'little of God !
So he turns from his assurance that the world of his philos-
ophy and the world of his experience are in harmony.
1 Study of Religion, vol. i. pp. 346-357.
CHAPTER III
GOD AND CONSCIENCE
THUS far Dr. Martineau studies the theistic problem in the
light of the intellectual categories only. His question is
the race-old question as to the origin of things. He seizes
upon the idea of cause, and in this finds his clue to the
great argument. Cause is only possible through the exer-
cise of force ; force is only interpretable in terms of will ;
will is the executive function of intelligence. Thus by a
purely metaphysical argument he shows that the system of
things has no rational explanation that does not imply a
Divine Intelligence. Having done this, however, he casts
his glance abroad, and the Intelligence his philosophy de-
mands is manifest in the structure of the world.
Thus he establishes the first part of his great thesis, " a
Divine Mind and Will ruling the Universe." This conclu-
sion, however, we might reach were we well developed
Calibans only, beings of a high order of intelligence but
without moral sensibility. There is, however, in man a
moral sensibility, which makes him something widely dif-
ferent from a well-developed Caliban ; and this sensibility
Dr. Martineau accords an independent hearing in the settle-
ment of the theistic problem. Through this he reaches a
justification of the second part of his thesis, " a Divine
Mind and Will holding Moral relations with mankind"
That is to say, he finds not only a Supreme Mind in the
universe, but a Supreme Righteousness. His method of
procedure in the second stadium of his argument is the
GOD AND CONSCIENCE 359
same as in the first : as in the earlier investigation he first
sought the significance of the causal idea, and then its rati-
fication in the universe, so in the later he unfolds the tes-
timony of the moral consciousness, and then asks if the
constitution of nature and the experience of man are ac-
cordant with it. This order of study we will make our
own.
I. The Moral Intuition
In the presentation of his ethical doctrines Dr. Mar-
tineau compares two criteria of judgment. They are
Prudence and Conscience. Prudence, as he shows, is our
regulative principle in deciding upon the utilities of con-
duct ; Conscience, our light and guide in settling between
conflicting motives. The former appoints for our welfare ;
the latter for our character. Prudence decides : This
course were wiser, more useful, more expedient, than that.
It is the monitor of merchant, teacher, statesman, of min-
ister, moralist, and philanthropist, in the choice of means
for the realization of desired ends. Conscience decides:
This course were higher, worthier, nobler than that. It is
a goad to the duty our indolence might shirk, our stay
when a seductive evil hovers near us. The contrast be-
tween them may be more clearly seen through illustration.
Shall I buy a piece of land? This question I answer
rightly enough by reference to my circumstances, my
tastes, my future aims. Shall I pay my debts, right a
wrong, speak the truth, be just, charitable, humane? Here
I am called to another judgment. I clearly see that hon-
esty is higher than dishonesty, that righting the wrong
is nobler than leaving it unrighted, that truthfulness is
worthier than untruthfulness, and charity than unchari-
tableness, and humanity than cruelty. Seeing this higher,
too, I recognize myself as bound to it. Within me is a
voice that says, " Thus do, thus do." This voice has not
360 JAMES MARTINEAU
the tone of Prudence. Though I could see that the lower
deed would enhance my welfare, and involve no forfeit of
esteem, still were there that solemn admonition. It is not
the Categorical Imperative, as commonly stated : " Act as
if the maxim of thy will were to become, by thy adopting
it, a universal law of nature ; " it is more solemn, more
imperative than this. It bears in upon me the sense of an
Eternal Rectitude, my allegiance to which I am summoned
then and there to witness.
Moreover, in the consequences that follow upon disobe-
dience of this admonition there is pertinent suggestion.
In purchasing the land it is possible that I may act un-
wisely, but at worst my error brings me only regret, my
self-accusation is only that I was improvident or a fool ;
and through the misadventure my Prudence may gain a
sharper eye. When, however, in the presence of a higher
part I have chosen a lower, the feeling is far other. Then
it is shame, guilt, remorse, a feeling appropriate to con-
scious offence against a majesty that has rightful command
of me. Further, the terms in which I judge myself when,
self-sophistication put by, I review my conduct with judi-
cial mind, are accordant only with this order of feeling.
Do I see that mine has been an act of treachery, that I
have been unfaithful to a trust, abused a confidence, be-
trayed a friend ? I cannot say that I was mistaken ; I can
but say I was base. However forgiveness may be prof-
fered me, and however sympathy may bring palliatives to
my smart, the sense of ignominy persistently and defiantly
abides. Even time, which heals so many wounds, is not
gentle with us here, but stamps a record where we would
invoke oblivion. The improvidences of youth we look back
upon complacently enough ; the memories of even graver
blunders and mistakes may bring a smile upon our lips,
and in the circle of our friends we may lightly tell the tale
of them. But if there lie in memory a shameful deed ; if
GOD AND CONSCIENCE 361
at any time we have been dishonest, false, selfish, vile,
cruel, tyrannical; in proportion as our nature is unper-
verted, it comes back to us with a sense of degradation.
In all such cases it is not my judgment I disparage, but my-
self I condemn. Our feeling and our language alike imply
the distinction which Dr. Martineau is wont to make so
impressive, that in the " issues " of conduct we are wise or
foolish ; in its " springs " we do righteously or sin. Again,
the reaction of our conduct upon ourselves ratifies the
solemn distinction. In the triumphs of our Prudence we
win success and good reputation, in its defeats we experi-
ence discomfiture and chagrin ; but in the one case there
is no exaltation, in the other no humiliation of our nature ;
and how often through the tuition of our blunders we learn
the way to our nobler successes. In our obedience and
disobedience, however, it is wholly otherwise. While we
obey, choosing in every alternative the higher, albeit the
harder part, new strength accrues to us ; our way is one of
dignity and composure ; however we may be frowned upon
without, there is approval within; and we gain a nobler
poise from the very cross we bear. But, on the other
hand, is there anything that so overturns and demoralizes
and destroys as disobedience? Not only does it entail a
sense of shame and guilt, which in earlier stages may be
remedial, but the tension of the upward wing is relaxed ;
the resisting power of the will is enfeebled; ideals are
dimmed. Human experience is illustrated in the fortunes
of the soul of Plato's speculation, which, victorious in its
struggles with the lower passions and desires, was rewarded
with strains of music low and soft and ravishing, floating
down from the spheres, its preincarnate abode ; and grow-
ing ever distincter and more ravishing as the soul went on
from victory to victory, until, its earthly conquests ended,
it reascended to its spheral home. Suffering itself, how-
ever, to be defeated, the spheral music was denied it, the
362 JAMES MARTINEAU
memory of its home became less distinct, and it sunk down
into lower and lower incarnations, lost to its beauty and its
joy. This varied experience, too, we should take care to
remember, is in the largest sense human. Were it peculiar
to a race or nation, were it the flower of culture or the
blossom of civilization, our view of it would be entirely
different. It may be narrower or broader in its range as
life has fewer or more relations ; but as the loftiest natures
are never above it, so the lowliest, provided they are dis-
tinctly human, are never below it. In the natural order of
things this sense of nobler and baser, with its implied
moral allegiance, develops as man develops, penetrates his
being more profoundly, and takes hold upon him more
enthrallingly the higher he rises. Accordingly, our chief
moral revulsion is not experienced when we contemplate
the barbarisms of mining camps or the brawls of city
alleys, but that corruptio optimi pessima presented us in a
drunken Webster, a treacherous Bacon, a licentious Goethe ;
the height from which they have plunged witnessing the
clearer light that they have disowned.
Whence comes this inward voice? There pertains to
the nature of man no profounder truth ; and a just account
of it must be of weighty significance both to morals and to
faith. The answers to our question are various and plausi-
ble. It may be useful for us to examine them one by one,
casting out such as are found untenable. By thus reduc-
ing the number of hypotheses, we may at length come to
one which, all competitors discredited and itself not in-
congruous with the facts of experience, may claim our
acceptance. This is the method of Dr. Martineau in
his wonderful chapter on God in Humanity} which we
shall somewhat irregularly follow; also in his exposition
of the same theme in the great Study of Religion?
1 Seat of Authority in Religion, chap. ii.
3 Vol. ii. pp. 1-39.
GOD AND CONSCIENCE 363
I. While, to discriminate its function, we have placed
Conscience in contrast with Prudence, we are brought
now to remember that there are those who hold that these
twain are one, and that that one is Prudence. Conscience,
that is, they explain as a reflection of Prudence. Man
ever acts, as they maintain, with reference to ends ; which
must always be in some form his pleasure, happiness, wel-
fare. This fact they hold no more patent in the quest
of money or fame than in the discharge of duty or the
pursuit of character or holiness. The inward monition
which we have described, they explain as a reaching after
a nobler pleasure, or, what comes to the same thing, a
desire for exemption from a bitterer pain. This is Ben-
tham's doctrine. " Nature," he tells us, " has placed
mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters,
pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what
we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.
On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the
other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their
throne." l John Stuart Mill also tells us that " happiness is
the sole end of human action, and the promotion of it the
test by which to judge all human conduct; " also that
" those who desire virtue for its own sake, desire it either
because the consciousness of it is a pleasure, or because
the consciousness of being without it is a pain, or for both
reasons united." 2 This Hedonism might almost persuade,
and very likely has persuaded many, by the vigor of its
proclamation. Considering its high sources, however, it
1 Quoted by Dr. Martineau, Seat of Authority, p. 58.
2 Ibid. Over against this doctrine there is temptation to place the dictum
of John Henry Newman : " All virtue and goodness tend to make men
powerful in this world ; but they who aim at the power have not the virtue.
Again, virtue is its own reward, and brings with it the truest and highest
pleasure ; but they who cultivate it for the pleasure's sake are selfish, not
religious, and will never gain the pleasure, because they can never have the
virtue."
364 JAMES MARTINEAU
is simply astonishing that it should be put forth so unquali-
fiedly. Grant that considerations of pleasure and pain
have much to do with our conduct ; it is psychologically
absurd to say that they rule us in the instinctive period of
life, ere a distinction of ends has dawned upon us. During
this period we simply act from inner incentives, with no
perception whatever of the consequences to which they
urge us. Doubtless the infant finds pleasure in its activi-
ties, as the kitten in its frolic and the colt in its gambol ;
but this is simply because to act from an interior impulse
gives pleasure, and not at all because pleasure is the aim
of its action. Thus, in the beginning of life our sovereign
is within, and he admits no rival and takes no counsel.
When we come to the self-conscious stage, does he ab-
dicate his throne? Because a perception of ends is now
possible to us, do the " springs " of conduct cease from
their initiatives? Not so to the observant mind of Dr.
Martineau; rather, they treat the wisdom that has now
come as a servant to execute their behests. " Pleasure is,
in fact," says he, " the fruit, and not the germ, of the
several types of natural activity: it is simply the satis-
faction of reaching their various ends, and, but for their
existence first, could never itself arise afterwards." l Else-
where, meeting the same issue, he writes : " Neither in
human consciousness, nor in the phenomena of animal life,
is there the slightest ground for assigning priority to the
self-seeking desires, and treating all extra-regarding affec-
tions as derivative from them. Instead of admitting that
pleasure sets up all our springs of action, I affirm that the
springs of action set up all our pleasures." 2 But when,
beyond the instinctive period, we begin to forecast and
select our way,- then considerations of pleasure and pain
have an extensive sway with us. So far, however, as ruled
1 Seat of Authority, p. 58.
2 Study of Religion, vol. ii. pp. 12-13.
GOD AND CONSCIENCE 365
by them, we simply act from Prudence, such as we might
manifest were we simply wise, all sense of moral dis-
tinction being denied us. Here Dr. Martineau holds to
be the limit beyond which the " governance " declared by
Bentham to be universal " can never be carried ; " and
he declares that unless character is "without any higher
region where self-regards can breathe no more, the
sceptre of pleasure meets here the frontier of its sway, and
carries no prerogative into the proper territory of duty" l
For this' reason this branch of the utilitarian argument he
dismisses as utterly untenable. Consciousness pronounces
against it with an emphasis that cannot be discarded. The
voice that speaks through it is sovereign, not ministerial,
in its tone; it comes from the Sinai within the breast,
not with admonition, This were inexpedient and that
were wise, but with solemn command, Thou shalt not
and Thou shalt. There is, however, another application
of utilitarian doctrine, which demands a word. It is that
associated with the name of Paley. It has an eye to
consequences, but those consequences are heaven and
hell. Without the emphasis of these, so Paley argues,
pledging to holiness its reward and to sin its penalty, this
inward voice would speak with no authority. Though the
doctrine is Paleyan, it is also very modern, and is pro-
claimed from many a pulpit. Arguing from the analogy
of human government, it is maintained that the Righteous-
ness of the universe is without authority unless there is
provided for disobedience a penal retribution. What
significance would attach to law without a prison, or to
the moral law without hell? This Dr. Martineau finds a
thoroughgoing misapprehension of authority, " dispensing
with its essence, and insisting on its appendages." " Are
we, then," he asks, " to say, that if there were no pains of
hell, and joys of heaven, there would be no duty binding
l Seat of Authority, p. 59.
366 JAMES MARTINEAU
upon men? and that, while the call and the compunctions
of conscience remain, duty can cease to be?" His conten-
tion rather is that " it is the external sufferings, wherever
placed in time, which it rests with us, in simple prudence
or imprudence, to meet or to decline ; and it is the internal
appeal for preference, and remorse for rejection, which it
may be in our power, but is never in our right, to tamper
with by likings of our own. Whatever impressiveness there
is in the prospective retribution belongs to it, not as a
sentient expectation, but as a moral award. Strip it of its
ethical significance, and reduce it to a naked affection of
the sensitive nature; turn it from an emblem of justice
to an arbitrary, though calculable, physical experience,
and all its solemnity is gone." 1
Thus the utilitarian explanation of moral authority fails.
Utilitarianism speaks in terms of pleasure and pain, of
wisdom and foolishness, of advantage and disadvantage ;
this voice speaks in terms of right and wrong: it uses
the great words " ought," " duty," " obligation ; " and, strive
as we may, we cannot deduce the latter from the former.
Though the problem has been attempted by some of the
best intellects of the world, no safe passage has ever yet
been opened from the prudential to the ought. Even
Mill, whose splendid essay on Utilitarianism is the most
persuasive exposition of this doctrine, repudiated it ut-
terly in his memorable outburst : " I will call no being
good, who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet
to my fellow-creatures ; and, if such a being can sentence
me to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go." 2 Cer-
tainly it is wise to do right, and he plays the fool who
does wrong ; but this is because the constitution of things
is such that our better destiny is involved with our
obedience.
1 Seat of Authority, pp. 60-61.
2 Examination of Hamilton, vol. ii. p. 131.
GOD AND CONSCIENCE 367
2. But grant that in utility we cannot find the source
of this authority, may we not find it in ourselves ?
" Our little lives are held in equipoise
By opposite attractions and desires,
The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,
And the far nobler instinct that aspires."
That is, there is within us a higher and a lower ; and may
it not be that through the higher as rightful lawgiver to
the lower the moral rule is given? This consideration
is often and variously met ; and in one sense we hold it
true, and Dr. Martineau so holds it. It is within us and
at our supreme height that this voice is heard, and it is
within us that we heed it or otherwise. " But," argues
Dr. Martineau, " though the authority of the higher incen-
tive is self-known, it cannot be self-created; for, while it
is in me, it is above me. Its tones thrill through my
chamber where I sit alone : but it was not my voice that
uttered them : they came to me, but not from me. . . .
I resist the claims of the right ; I wrestle with them ; I am
beaten by them : or, I surrender to them ; I follow them ;
I triumph with them : and how, then, can you say that
they are but the shadow of myself? The authority which
I set up I am able also to take down; yet, do what I
may, I cannot discharge my compunctions, and shut the
door on them as on troublesome creditors who have
nothing to show against me, and depend upon my will
for any claim they have. No act of repeal on my part
avails to release me from the obligations which turn up
within my consciousness ; nor, by any edict of clemency
to my own moral bankruptcy, can I say to myself, ' I for-
give thee all that debt.' " x There is, however, a difficulty
that lurks in this conception of higher and lower which
exacts a word. Though the conception is true enough
as denoting the contrast between the lower passions and
1 Seat of Authority, p. 63.
368 JAMES MARTINEAU
the higher reason, it will not bear a moment's investiga-
tion when it conveys the suggestion of source and recip-
ient of the moral rule. What is it within me that can
receive such a rule? Only the person that I am, whose
functions are my reason and my will: this may, indeed,
receive such rule and then apply it to the control of my
passions and the regulation of my desires. But above
this, what is there within me by which this august rule
can be declared? No fact can be plainer than that the
recipient agency is here the highest within me. For this
supreme gift, then, I am driven to look beyond and above
me.
3. This view of the source of moral authority might
be easily tested in other fields ; the tests, however, would
only still further discredit it, and we may as well dismiss
it here. But there is a third explanation that has been
pressed with great earnestness. We are not insulated
beings ; our life is in society ; each is one of many, a part
of all. May it not be, then, that this sense of obligation
comes out of society : the whole dominating the individ-
ual, humanity in lordship over man? To poetic tempera-
ments this view has often great weight: and to scientific
minds, also, that can hazard a speculation where they
cannot build an induction. It is variously reflected in
all ethics of Positivist tendency, and is fundamental in
that strange Religion of Humanity in which Comte would
substitute for the worship of God a worship of man.
It is true that our moral sentiments, in the main, do
not appear save in social relations. This, however, may
mean no more than that, like other things, they must
have their conditions; that mother love, for instance,
could not be without motherhood, nor human sympathy
save in contact with a human need that invokes it. That
these conditions are the source of moral authority by no
means follows. But come directly to the question : What
GOD AND CONSCIENCE 369
do we mean when we say this sense of obligation comes
from society? Do we indeed mean that the whole domi-
nates the individual? How, then, is the "whole" to be
conceived by us ? Is it an " aggregate of separate persons,
taken one by one, without any consciousness of moral dis-
tinctions, and combined simply for the greater strength
of associated will?" Then, as Dr. Martineau maintains,
the dominance of the " whole over the part " is the " rela-
tion of force to weakness, which has nothing whatever to
do with the relation of right to wrong." " Magnitude of
scale carries no moral quality." " Such as the natures
are, separately taken, such will be their collective sum." l
A million rats might bring us to serious extremities ; but
their numbers would not promote them in our esteem,
only increase our disgust With Swift, conceive our
fellow-men as yahoos, and their aggregate, however vast,
could not break the force of the Brobdingnagian judgment
which pronounced them the " most pernicious race of
odious little vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl
upon the face of the earth ; " and any superior nature,
however coerced by their numbers, could stand to them
in no relation in which they could be to it a source of
moral authority. The dark view of the great satirist may
not be ours, and human nature may be noble in our eyes ;
still the argument holds, that in its mass, simply as mass,
however large, it sustains no relation to me whence it can
speak to me in that oracular tone. Its vast constraint
may impose on me a must, but how can it impose an
ought ? It speaks to me of its interests and its welfare ;
but morally it speaks to no purpose unless to a Duty that
is already within me. Shall I sacrifice for society, toil,
suffer, die ? Yes, indeed ; but my doing so is only enforced
and perfunctory, it has absolutely no moral quality, unless
the command to do so is met and ratified by an antece-
1 Seat of Authority, p. 67.
24
370 JAMES MARTINEAU
dent obligation in my breast. Through law or institution
or custom does it say ought to me? Then it simply
speaks out of a common sentiment to the like sentiment
in me. In any sense implying moral authority as original
in itself, it cannot speak to me that august word. Con-
gruous with this truth and illustrative of it, is our feeling
in contemplating some great ordeal where chief priests
and rabbis are all on one side, and one buffeted yet truth-
sustained son of man on the other. Transport ourselves
into the Diet of Worms, and to whom shall we look for
the purer moral light? Not to the emperor and the vast
concourse of princes and nobles and church dignitaries,
but to the one defiant hero there.
There is, however, another way of treating the relation
with society, one that takes account, not of mass, but of
duration; and which affirms, in effect, that the spon-
taneous response to her rules which society cannot at
once command she can secure through the drill of genera-
tions. I, who sum up in myself some thousands of years
of hereditary dealing with her, have her utilities organ-
ized as moral prepossessions within me. Thou shalt not
lie ; thou shalt not steal ; thou shalt not kill ; be just ; be
temperate ; be humane ; the moral response I make to
these commands I am bidden to account for by the many
centuries of her tuition. To this Dr. Martineau replies
that "the highest capital of human wishes, paid up
through all the ages, . . . can make nothing just that was
not just before. At best, it can only enforce obligations
already there, obligations which it cannot cancel, and
did not create." l This is a brief and summary dealing
with a doctrine of which the vogue is wide. Its clearness,
however, makes exposition superfluous, and from its in-
herent strength it needs to be buttressed by no argument.
While admitting, therefore, that through the tuition of
1 Seat of Authority, p. 67.
GOD AND CONSCIENCE 3/1
generations man may acquire a more steady obedience,
we must deny that in that tuition originated the righteous-
ness he obeys. It well may be that through the evo-
lutionary process the right becomes clearer and more
dominating ; but this is almost the same as saying that by
it that process is directed, which implies that in its source
it is extra-evolutionary.
But grant that Conscience is something other than a
" Right by Social Vote," and that it does not come from
society as an hereditary reflection of its prudence, may we
not yet regard it as a certain standard of feeling that de-
scends from those of loftier nature to those below them?
A saint in a neighborhood may redeem its life ; a nation
is something other for a Pericles or a Washington ; Soc-
rates and Marcus Aurelius are suns in whose fostering
warmth we thrive : by such there is created a moral at-
mosphere, from breathing which we more truly live. Con-
science, may we not then say, is the result of consciences?
By others' strength we are strong ; by others' ideals we
form our own. The standard of courage, how often is it
but the chieftain's example, short of which it is ignominy
to fall ! Consecration, why not settle with it at once as
the devotion of Paul and Savonarola glorified? To the
vast majority, if not to all, the significance to moral stand-
ards of commanding example is measureless. Why not
say, then, that the canons of moral judgment are the
happy hits of a few exalted natures, whence they have de-
scended as a grace to those below them ? This view has
to many minds a persuasive look ; and with it before him
Dr. Martineau remarks that if we take society to mean the
" common council of responsible men, then it is most true
that the moral authority which we acknowledge is brought
to an intense focus in our minds by the reflected lights of
theirs ; and we should but dimly own it, did they not own
it too." " But," he asks, " how is it that they thus work
3/2 JAMES MARTINEAU
upon us, and mould us to a new docility? Is it that they
are principals in command, and we subordinates in ser-
vice, that, accepting their will as sovereign, we are content
to do their bidding? No: their function in this matter is,
not to fill the post of authority, but to join us on the steps
of submission below it ; to confess their fellow-feeling with
us, and accept their partnership under the same law.
Instead of being our masters, they are but bondsmen, with
us, of a higher righteousness, which opens its oracles and
seeks its organs in us all." *
Thus all these hypotheses, critically examined, fail to
render a satisfactory account of this haunting sense of
obligation. It is not born of the consideration of pleas-
ure and pain, whether present or prospective; it does
not come out of ourselves ; it does not come from society,
either through the weight of its present authority, or its
organized and hereditary discipline ; and while our nobler
fellow-men, through their submission to it, may help our
own, it is as they help in the attainment of any virtue or
any grace in which they surpass us. At whatever height
they may stand above us, it speaks to them as to us,
and they bow to it as we bow. These hypotheses we
may now dismiss as not entitled to further hearing.
4. There is another hypothesis, which suppose we try.
Suppose we assume that the authority which seems so
real is so in very fact ; that the voice which speaks as from
above is indeed that of one who is rightful lawgiver to us ;
why, then we seem to give this authority a perfectly nat-
ural explanation, albeit the one that all the others have
been put forward to supplant. It is such account as the
needle, if endowed with consciousness, might give of the
attraction that holds it: unseen, yet felt, and through
the feeling, its objective validity certified. Obligation
means a due; ought signifies relation; authority implies
l Seat of Authority, pp. 67-68.
GOD AND CONSCIENCE 373
not merely one who is sensible of its imperative, but also
one who issues its decree. In other words, the moral
consciousness implies a dualism, a sense of right within
responding to a Righteousness without, of which our
hypothesis renders an intelligible account. But suppose
for a moment this hypothesis not to be true; that the
inward sense responds to no outward reality ; that this is
an atheistic world in which man stands supreme. Then
there is one term of a dual relation without the other one :
a voice where no voice speaks ; a sense of duty where there
is no due ; an allegiance inwardly required, but no soverr
eign to whom to render it ; in a word, all the peculiar sen-
timents appropriate to one standing in the presence of a
God, and yet no God. The inevitable result of this, so far
as accepted, must be a sense of the utter untrustworthiness
of our deeper faculties. They then demand an obedience
where there is none to obey; and report to us as from
beyond the stars a voice which is but the muttering of
opinion around us or the whispering of fancy within us.
If there be anything that more than anything else makes
necessary the belief in God, it is the moral sense within
us; and if there be any delusion that surpasses every
other, it is that of which this sense makes us the victim
if God be no reality. Let that supposition stand, and
man may still be the " glory," but he is also the " jest and
riddle of the world."
A distrust of our deeper faculties, however, can never
be of long continuance. However they may be bewil-
dered for a time, we cannot sophisticate ourselves into a
permanent doubt of them. The universe that enters into
us through them is the only one that we can receive, and
before this trust in them the atheistic hypothesis vanishes.
The dual relation is not between Conscience and a blank,
but between Conscience and a reality. The duty within me
implies One who demands of me his due. The righteous-
374 JAMES MARTINEAU
ness that thrills me is the inward oracle of a Righteousness
that presses upon me. The ought I feel is of sovereign
command. The voice of Conscience is the voice of God.
This, in other statement, is the mind of Dr. Martineau.
As through Perception we are shown " another than our-
selves," so, he reasons, through Conscience there is re-
vealed to us a " higher than ourselves ; " and to the report
of either he attaches a like validity. He is not surer of a
world around him than of a Righteousness above him.
Our confidence in either rests ultimately, indeed, upon
faith in our faculties ; but this granted, he holds the infer-
ence in the one case as in the other to be necessary
and resistless. To the impressions borne in upon us,
whether through Perception or Conscience, there must
be an objective counterpart : the sense of Duty, like the
sense of touch or sight, implies a " dual relation ; " it " can-
not belong to a soul in vacuo, but must be for ever a dis-
consolate and wandering illusion, till it rests with Him to
whom the allegiance is due." l
Thus through the Moral Sense or Conscience we reach
the conception of a Divine Righteousness. We pause in
our course for a moment to ask what righteousness the
righteousness of God implies. We must dare to be an-
thropomorphic yet again, and say that what it implies in
God must be divined from what it is found to imply in
man. In any system of religious thought a parallelism
between Divine and human righteousness must appear.
Thus under Jewish legalism, man's righteousness was in
the keeping of the Law, its tithes and its offerings, its
new moons and Sabbath days; God's righteousness, on
the other hand, was seen in the appointment of this
Law, in his smile upon obedience, his frown upon dis-
obedience. In the systems of Christian doctrine, too,
1 Study of Religion, vol. ii. p. 27,
GOD AND CONSCIENCE 3/5
associated with the names of St. Augustine and Calvin,
we meet the like parallelism again. The righteousness of
man consisted in the acceptance of certain conditions of
salvation ; that of God in providing these conditions and
in reprobation of such as did not embrace them. These
systems, however, were founded on a supposed revelation,
in surrender to which the moral sense was given little
hearing ; rather, attempts on its part to interpret the moral
universe by its own light were treated as superfluous and
questionable enterprise. Whenever the moral sense makes
this attempt, however, something other than a parallel-
ism is reached ; there is divined a relation as of wavelet
and Deep, of ray and Sun. The righteousness of man,
the conduct, that is, which the moral sense in its noblest
exercise requires, becomes the analogical base from which
we rise to our conception of the righteousness of God.
The integrity which I demand, the justice for which I
plead, the benevolence which I know should rule my
life, I must find in him or I am hopelessly bewildered.
Nay, in the last account, I see that they must be of him,
his light shed abroad in me. To our limited vision,
though justice and judgment are the habitation of his
throne, clouds and darkness must be round about him.
Many of his appointments I cannot understand. But
when, turning within my moral consciousness, I find that
while faithful to that I could not inflict a needless hurt
upon any creature, then 1 am simply sure that his right-
eousness must be one with his goodness, and that the
darker phases of existence, rightly understood, do not
contradict his benevolence.
II. The Moral Aspects of the Universe
A grave problem, however, is yet before us. The faith
so confidently affirmed above must now be brought to
3/6 JAMES MARTINEAU
proof in the broad field of experience. We found our
deduction from the causal intuition ratified by Nature ; do
we find like ratification for our deduction from the moral
intuition? Nature reflects an Intelligence; does it also
reflect a Righteousness? Is the Being whose voice I
recognize in Conscience identical with the Being to whom
I refer the structure and order of the world ? Shall I say
the God of Nature is one and the God of Conscience
another? To state this as a thesis and then attempt to
defend it would lead into bewilderments of thought that
would be ludicrous if they were not so grave. But to
adopt the opposite thesis, and maintain that they are only
different aspects of one; that the All-Wise is the All-
Righteous and the All-Righteous the All-Wise, involves
difficulties more familiar, but hardly less grave.
For when we affirm that the Author of Nature is right-
eous, we meet the solemn challenge that comes from the
experience of evil, from which no sentient nature is
granted immunity. How can the All-Righteous decree or
suffer evil? How can we reconcile this manifold pain
with a Divine Perfection? We recall the terrible indict-
ment of John Stuart Mill : " Nature impales men, breaks
them as if on a wheel, casts them to be devoured by wild
beasts, burns them to death, crushes them with stones
like the first Christian martyr, starves them with hunger,
freezes them with cold, poisons them with the quick or
slow venom of her exhalations, and has hundreds of other
hideous deaths in reserve, such as the ingenious cruelty of
a Nabis or a Domitian never surpassed," 1 and what answer
can we make? Though in the case of man we may con-
struct a defence of this, taking account of his needful pun-
ishment and discipline and education, how of the lower
animals which deserve no punishment, and can profit by
no discipline, and which Nature yet makes the prey of
1 TTiru Essays on Religion, p. 29.
GOD AND CONSCIENCE 377
other animals, afflicts with disease, crushes, freezes, burns,
drowns, starves? Did we wish to maintain the sover-
eignty of an evil deity, what a bill of particulars would
be possible ! Pleasant pictures of Nature we often in-
dulge: her sunshine, her breezes, her grass, her flowers;
the bird's carol, the lamb's frolic, the colt's gambol, the
sweet domesticities of the nest and the lair. But there are
also the pestilence, the blizzard, the inundation, the earth-
quake, the tiger's claws, the vulture's beak, the snake's
venom. The difficulties of this problem are manifold and
grave. " With the critic," says Dr. Martineau, " who
arraigns the creative skill and thinks the solar system or
the human eye a bungling piece of work, it is easy to
be simply amused without disturbance : but whoever asks
us about the problem of evil, and especially of sin, touches
a chord of secret sorrow, and subdues us to a grave anx-
iety." He adds the concession which the strength of his
theistic feeling makes the more significant, that " in various
ways the phenomena of life are disappointing to our ideal
of a moral administration of its affairs." l It is undeni-
able, too, that the studies of recent years, especially on
evolutionary lines, have deepened the gravity of this theme.
The struggle for life, which is only another name for the
struggle for food, and which is a basal truth in Darwinian
doctrine, presents to us organic nature as a scene of cease-
less and pitiless foray. On the ethical side the darkness
may be somewhat lightened by the struggle for the life of
others, of which Henry Drummond discourses so elo-
quently, 2 showing an altruism against the otherwise unre-
lieved egoism of nature. There all the same is the struggle,
not less insistent or attended with less suffering because
altruistic. The truth casts a look of cruelty upon Nature
which even her summer exuberance and beauty cannot
1 Study of Religion, vol. ij. pp. 53-54.
8 The Ascent of Man, chap. ii.
378 JAMES MARTINEAU
hide, and prepares not a few to embrace the solemn judg-
ment of Professor Huxley, that " cosmic nature is no
school of virtue, but the headquarters of the enemy of
ethical nature ; " 1 and that the " ethical progress of society
depends, not on imitating the cosmic process, . . . but in
combating it." 2
However, though the difficulties of this problem are
very great, it may not be absolutely necessary that we
surrender our faith before them ; at any rate, it is fair to
investigate them before we do so. The sufferings of the
lower animals our human sensibilities may exaggerate;
and seeing them in their true proportions will so far
lighten our problem. There may be pain that is quite
indispensable to the welfare of sentient natures, and which,
therefore, we must write down, not as bane, but as bless-
ing. There may be pain incident upon a system of things
which in its largeness our reason pronounces good, and
which, therefore, for that system's sake we would have
the world endure. It might be instructive sometimes,
when disparaging the world because of its evil, to select
some special evil, in thought banish it from the world,
working as we do so all the myriad transformations its
banishment should imply, and then calmly contemplate
the result. Possibly it might look surpassingly fair to
us ; but the probabilities the rather are that the world thus
made over we would not accept in exchange for the world
we know ; that the system of things that makes provision
for that evil would be fairer to our eyes than the system
of things that would not suffer it. We recall the dream of
Theodorus as the imagination of Leibnitz has constructed
it. The oracle has made known to Sextus Tarquinius that,
following his heady will, for the wrongs he shall do he
shall be driven forth in poverty and exile. Theodorus, a
1 Romanes Lecture, Collected Essays, vol. ix. p. 75.
3 Ibid. p. 83.
GOD AND CONSCIENCE 379
priest of the temple, asks of Jupiter that he explain to him
the hard fate of Sextus : why a different will, which should
conduct him through other paths to a different issue, has
not been given him. In a vision he is taken in hand by
Minerva, who shows him the plan of several possible
worlds. In one is Sextus rich and happy and honored,
yet, as he surveys it, it does not suit him. He is shown
another in which is Sextus great and powerful, yet he turns
from it dissatisfied. Finally he is shown one that fills him
with delight; and is then told that it is the plan of the
very world in which he lives, which cannot be without its
Sextus.
Of these three considerations the latter shall engage us
first. In some form or other we have our Sextus, and we
are not pleased with him ; yet our ideal world must contain
him; for it cannot be ideal without the conditions that
imply him. Of the Divine Perfection we demand a world
without evil: Sextus it should not suffer. To Omnipo-
tence, we say, this should be possible; infinite resource
should be equal to conditions that imply no pain. Suppose
we grant it. Still we may urge that to Omnipotence this
and at the same time that which is incompatible with it is
not possible. We must not ask contradictories, even of
God. The fact that he does not at the same time provide
for his creatures mutually exclusive conditions does not
discredit his goodness. We may see this better by illus-
tration. The one aspect of the universe that we are most
wont to celebrate is its order ; but with this is implicated
a very large portion of the evils of which we seek explana-
tion. Without these evils how, then, that order? Take
in hand a familiar case : Of the fluidity of water we never
hear complaint ; without this how should it serve its multi-
farious uses ? Of the service of the sun's heat in occasion-
ing chemical changes, whence the world's bloom and
fruitage, we surely think well; and of gravitation which
380 JAMES MARTINEAU
holds the mountain in its place and the heavens at their
poise we need the poet properly to tell. Yet you com-
plain of malaria: because of your chill and your fever,
God, you conceive, must be feeble or unkind. But in
the production of this poison these several laws are joint
agents. Because water is fluid, gravitation conducts it
ever from the hilltops to the valleys, and holds it there ;
and the sun's rays falling upon it work the chemical
change whence malaria comes. If water were not fluid,
if gravitation would not conduct it to the valleys or
would suffer it to flow to the hilltops, if the sun's rays
would work no chemical change, why, then there would
be no malaria; and these laws must be suspended in
their operation, that living creatures may enjoy this happy
exemption. And this supposed case may illustrate
universal nature. The flood, the drouth, the hail, the
frost, the lightning, the avalanche, the tornado, are all
incident upon laws we would not ask to have annulled,
without which, indeed, this system of things could not be.
But you plead that if only they were so regulated that
there should be no flood where there is anything to drown,
or drouth where men have sown or where cattle graze, or
frost where there is anything to suffer chill, if the lightning
could be forbidden to smite anything but the unfeeling
rocks, and the tempest be held back till the commerce is
safely harbored, and the avalanche be diverted from its
course in consideration of the thoughtless bear that is
climbing before it, what incalculable loss and suffering
would be spared. Be it so; but thus, in place of the
order you celebrate, you would introduce a reign of mir-
acle. Suffering might thus indeed be spared, but the con-
stancy of nature would be gone. Let it be presumed that
we might have the constancy or might have the miracle ;
yet, since they are mutually exclusive, we cannot stipu-
late for both. Possibly you may think the reign of mir-
GOD AND CONSCIENCE 381
acle would be better ; but were it left to the suffrage of
mankind the Vote would undoubtedly be for the order.
In this multifarious evil is our Sextus, to whom a law-
governed and orderly world must give place.
The alternative presented us in thought, then, is a world
whose more general features we approve, with Sextus, or
a world without Sextus^ whose more general features we do
not approve. It is not, however, in this large way that
most men wrestle with the problem : it is not with evil
but with evils that they struggle, the special pains they
experience or see. Here, however, on a smaller field it
is still an alternative of better condition with Sextus or
poorer without him. We have mentioned pains that seem
clearly necessary to welfare, and these come now before
us. They are such as are experienced from hunger, thirst,
heat, cold, fatigue. They have a monitory office, and
the greater evil would surely be, not in experiencing them,
but in not being able to experience them. Consider for a
moment hunger and thirst. They express the demand of
the organism for food and drink, without which it Would
perish ; and the longer they are denied the more insistent
is this demand. Of this the critics of the moral legislation
of the universe have complained, but what would they
have? In a matter so exigent as this, would they leave
the animal or even man to the rule of wisdom or sagacity
to select nourishment and determine the times for taking
it, uninstructed by any sense of want? Dr. Martineau
well asks, " If each creature had to study its own case,
and, like an outside physician, prescribe its diet and its
meals . . . how long would it be before it slipped into
some fatal forgetfulness, like a patient kept alive by art,
and blundering among his medicines?" 1 The sufferings
of heat and cold, too, are in like manner monitory. Each
tells the creature that its conditions are not suited to itself
1 Study of Religion, vol. ii. p. 76.
382 JAMES MARTINEAU
and urges that it change them. Imagine a creature to
which tropic heats and polar frosts were indifferent and so
left to choose its latitudes without sensible realization of
any contrast between thefn ! The sufferings of fatigue,
also, rightly claim a word in their behalf. Were the animal
only a machine, it might run on and on, until at length,
entirely spent, it could run no longer. Being, however,
not a machine, but an organism, there comes at last the
realization that its force is getting spent, which is also an
admonition that it pause till its vigor be renewed. In like
manner, too, we must treat the pain that attends physical
injury or disease. It tells of something wrong with the or-
ganism, and asks relief. A particle of dust impinges upon
the eye, and how keen is the suffering ! The suffering
is Nature's way of telling of the presence in the eye of that
which would soon destroy it. However we may dislike
our pain, surely our human wisdom would elect that where
our injury is, there an ache may be. From what multi-
tudinous forms of peril do we snatch ourselves at the
beneficent prompting of our pain ! A work on physiology
recounts an instance of a man who, his lower limbs being
partially paralyzed, was ordered to hold ' them in tepid
water. Feeling no sense of warmth, he plunged them
into boiling water. He never had the use of feet there-
after. The pain that normally attends a scald was not
present to save him.
Here, again, we give our vote for a world with Sextus.
There are other forms of evil, however, with which it is
not so easy to deal. Dr. Martineau instances the pains
of decline ; and these, after careful dealing with them, he
seems to turn from with mind not wholly satisfied. In
them there is no discipline for any future, no provision for
the welfare of the organism. They are attendant upon a
slow and irremediable degeneracy, a declining sun which
yields at last only twilight, which soon fades into night.
GOD AND CONSCIENCE 383
In man this decline is more marked than in other animals,
as it is also more prolonged ; but no animal is exempt
from it. Age dims the eyes of the lion, takes its supple-
ness from the limbs of the tiger, its strength from the
eagle's wing. With its approach the wolf and the panther
become incapable of the hunt, and at length, unless re-
prieved by the merciful ferocity of other animals, they lie
down in some lonely spot and whine and starve. We
mark its encroachment upon our domestic animals, and,
from sympathy for their sufferings, first, perhaps, admin-
istering some gentle anaesthetic, discharge them from
further service.
It is useless to attempt to minimize this evil, or to ex-
plain its purpose. It can hardly be said to have a pur-
pose ; rather it foreshadows the fulfilment of purpose, so
far as the organism is concerned. We may see, however,
what the absence of it would mean, what, by asking re-
prieve from it, we by implication ask in place of it ; and
this may have for us a profitable suggestion. To all
higher organisms the hill of life slopes gradually up ; from
the summit, would we have no sloping down on the other
side? The full maturity of powers once gained, and
further continuance implying the first stages of decline,
would we have the organism vanish? Would we have it
written in the constitution of animal or man, On the day
when thou reachest the fulness of thy powers, thou shalt
surely die? Whoever will follow out this alternative in
practical application will be quite as sensible of the happi-
ness and usefulness it would curtail as of the misery it
would shorten. The horse should drop under his rider ;
the deer should be snatched from her fawn, the lioness
from her whelps, the robin from her nestlings, that the
downhill of life might not be trodden. The father and
mother should be taken from their children when resource
was fullest and need was greatest, the scholar forbidden to
384 JAMES MARTINEAU
gather up the results of his labors, the statesman to apply
his experience, the philanthropist to bestow his blessing.
Who can fail to see the paralyzing shadow such a change
would hang over self-conscious existence? The period of
maturity would be the dreaded period ; the disciplines
that hasten the unfolding of human powers would be
renounced for the indolence that defers it. The growing
strength of youth, which we watch with such pleasure now,
would be to us as the prophecies of the hectic flush and
the hastening pulse. But the question may be pressed,
Why not the prolongation of years and at the same time
exemption from decrepitude and decay? Why not till
threescore and ten a continually expended, yet unwasted
strength, and then a departure provided through some
happy euthanasia? Again asking contradictions : forage,
the vision and the enterprise of youth; for the runner,
panting near the goal, the unspent vigor of the start.
" With what face," asks Dr. Martineau, " can any creature
ask that, living being so pleasant, unliving should be so
no less? That it feels the cold on going out does but
prove how warm its house has been. You cannot have
opposites giving you the same experience : if it be sweet
to behold the light, sweet it cannot be to lose it : if to
thirst be a distress, to drink will be relief. The uneasi-
ness of death is the necessary correlative to the happiness
of life." 1
Another form of evil by which many minds are troubled
is met in the law of prey. Large classes of animals
subsist on other animals; man hunts for his larder;
alas, for his sport as well ! Nor can we say that under
this law there is always a sacrifice of the lower to the
higher. The bird eats the worm, it is true ; but the croco-
dile carries off the calf, and the tiger devours the man.
The spectacle of one creature taking the life of another is
1 Study of Religion, vol. ii. p. 83.
GOD AND CONSCIENCE 385
abhorrent to our sensibilities ; and, from the frequency of
this, " we are tempted," says Dr. Martineau, " to say that
the sweet face of nature is hypocritical, and that the calm
loveliness of the woods and ravines does but hide innumer-
able torture-halls and battle-fields." He adds: "From
such impressions I own that I cannot always entirely
free myself." 1
However, our human sentiments may here, as so often
in other relations, mislead us. All that begins in time
must end in time; the born must die; and with death
itself we are ceasing to quarrel. Death of itself is benefi-
cent ; and of the many modes of death, that by violence is
among the easiest. Among the lower animals it is prob-
able that the victim scarce suffers at all. The testimony
of men who have been nigh to the victim's experience,
that of the explorer Livingstone, for instance, once in the
jaws of a lion, makes this judgment all but certain. As
creatures of this world, the animals must leave it, and by
the law of prey Nature makes provision for their easiest
exit. " Sharp and quick extinction may shock the ob-
server by its startling contrasts : but, to the sufferer, the
surprise is an economy of pain. To imaginative creatures
it might be otherwise : they might torture themselves with
life-long dread of the last struggle : and such ideal dif-
fusion of possible calamity it is, that makes the human
measure of pain so different from the merely sentient.
But where there is no anticipation, and the unsuspecting
victim strolls at ease, or keeps merrily on the wing, up to
the moment of its fate, the sensibility is spared to the
uttermost. I believe that, in our shrinking from this law,
we illegitimately import into our conception of the case
elements, which are indeed inseparable from any analo-
gous human experience, but which have no entrance into
the history of the lower terrestrial races." 2
1 Study of Religion, vol. ii. p. 88. 3 Ibid. p. 89.
25
386 JAMES MARTINEAU
If we look at this mode of death from a practical and
utilitarian point of view, its wisdom is certainly approved.
But for it the world would be scarce habitable by the
higher races. The animal left to decay where it died, the
atmosphere would become tainted, the streams polluted, to
such extent that only the lower forms of life would be
possible. In some Southern States the buzzard is pro-
tected by law because of the health it preserves by
devouring the carrion that would be pestilential. All
animals and birds of prey perform the like office by
making carrion to a large extent impossible. " Nature, in
her predatory tribes," says Dr. Martineau, " has appointed
a sanitary commission, and in her carrion-feeders a burial-
board, far more effective than those which watch over our
villages and cities ; " and he adds a suggestion which
gentle sensibilities may recoil from, that " one of the great
difficulties in our crowded civilization is due to the fact,
that there is nobody to eat us." 1
Thus far we have contemplated mainly the lower ani-
mals. We now turn to man. As an animal, he suffers as
other animals suffer ; as other than animal he has sufferings
peculiarly his own. As related to the sensitive organism
merely, his sufferings from like misfortune may not be
greater than those of the more highly developed animals
about him. Hunger and thirst and fatigue we may
fancy very similar experience to him and to the horse;
a wounded soldier may not suffer intenser pain than a
wounded deer; and the murrain that destroys the cattle,
though less prolonged, may be for its period as hard to
bear as the consumption that afflicts man. But in addition
to the sufferings of his sensitive organism he experiences
a suffering through the action of his higher faculties of
which language cannot adequately tell. A being who can
carry the thought of contingency must have the dread of
1 Study of Religion, vol. ii. p. 90.
GOD AND CONSCIENCE 387
vicissitude ; in that he is able to forecast, it is impossible
that he should not apprehend. The horse takes the food
of to-day without concern for to-morrow; to man is the
shivering dread of old age and penury. The dog is satis-
fied with the health that is; man is concerned for the
illness that may be. The bird which the fowler has missed
flies to another tree-top, and pours out its song; man,
from experience of danger, may live in an enervating
dread of perils that he does not see. The wounded deer
takes suffering as it comes ; the wounded soldier contem-
plates the family for whom he can no longer toil, looks
forward to to-morrow as the dread continuance of the
suffering of to-day, or to a prolongation of life in weakness
and decrepitude. Nor is forecast the only mental gift by
which man suffers ; memory is enjoyed by him on the like
hard tenure. With ills that have been, the animal is
wholly done ; man perpetuates in himself the pains of
neglect and failure, of injuries received and wrongs com-
mitted. These are grave considerations; and Dr. Marti-
neau is clearly right when he tells us that " all sorrow is
certainly loss that refuses to go away into the past : all
anxiety, privation that will not wait for the future: and
we should be spared both, did we forget everything and
anticipate nothing." 1 But again, what would we have ?
To be without Sextus would we away with the fair con-
ditions that make him necessary, give up our memory to
be spared our regrets, our vision to escape our dreads?
Lives there a man who would abdicate his higher fac-
ulties and go down to the beast, that like the beast he
might enjoy the comfort of to-day without a sigh and
without anxiety? take the ill he must, provided only
it be unattended by dark retrospects and gloomy appre-
hensions? " Would you quit your many-chambered mind,
and shut yourself up in a single cell, and draw down its
1 Study of Religion, vol. ii. p. 92.
388 JAMES MARTINEAU
blinds, that you may suspect no storms and see no lightning,
and know nothing till you are struck?" No: reason still
holding her throne, you could not do thus. The dog has
probably no evil memories and no anxious apprehensions,
but can you fix the terms on which you would exchange
your manhood for his doghood? Besides, as Dr. Marti-
neau takes pains to point out : " This is less than half the
tale: the ideal suffering which is added to our nature
is balanced and over-balanced by an ideal happiness of
which it alone is made susceptible. The capacity of
thought takes up into it all the elements of our experi-
ence, and gives them a boundless spiritual extension : and
if, in this enlargement, there is any change of their pro-
portions, it is that the ideal forms rather soften the shad-
ows and glorify the lights : so that the inner life is sweeter
than the outer, and supplies the truest balm for the wounds
of the actual." 1 Though memory writes some pages we
could wish unwritten, yet how ample a volume is her
happier record ; and though the future holds our dreads,
yet what brave achievements, what realized ideals, what
radiant hopes are there ! In the one direction we look
back to the morning, in the other " lieth our Italy."
But man is a moral being, and has experience of suffer-
ing known only through his moral sensibility. We recall
from Dr. Martineau's analysis of the "springs of conduct,"
the primary passions? which he shows to be simply an
equipment with which to meet a manifold affront and in-
jury and peril, also a compassionate affection which sends
us to mitigate the sufferings around us. We are given,
that is, a constitution which presupposes a dealing with
suffering; which we are commissioned, not passively to
accept, but to combat and meliorate as we can. The eyes
do not more clearly imply the light and the lungs the
1 Study of Religion, vol. ii. pp. 92-93.
2 Types of Ethical Theory, vol. ii. pp. 130 seq.
GOD AND CONSCIENCE 389
air than does the moral constitution an evil with which it
is to wrestle. Without the evil it would scarce have a
raison d'etre. In the wrestle, too, not only are our chief
moral duties performed, but our higher crowns are won.
The school in which our patience is disciplined must be
that of self-denial and suffering; our heroism must be
gained on a battlefield ; our nobler sympathy, through a
dealing with need and pain. The evil " holds a place
therefore among the data of the moral life, and is essential
to this highest term in the ideal of humanity." Dr. Mar-
tineau quotes from Rothe the impressive saying : " In this
world all Good, even the fairest and noblest, as Love,
rests upon a ' dark ground,' which it has to consume with
pain and convert into pure spirit."
In one aspect this wears an ungentle look, but what then?
Our sufferings as moral beings, personal and sympathetic,
are very great ; but who would put off his moral constitu-
tion to escape them : part with sympathy that he may be
sensible of no sorrow, part with courage that he may meet
no peril, part with endurance that he may bear no cross?
The higher faculties are none of them without their cost ;
to have them is necessarily to experience whatever trial and
heart-ache they imply. But who will say that in bestowing
gifts so great, though involving suffering so considerable,
the Creator of our being either blundered or was unkind?
From evil incident to a moral nature we pass to moral
evil. Of the consequences of this, the sufferings it entails,
no extended exhibition need be made. Great, indeed, is
the complaint of such suffering, the blight which follows
vice, the woes of treachery, malice, cruelty, tyranny;
and from none is the complaint more dolorous than from
those most critical of the moral legislation of the universe.
But what would they have as the consequence of these
orders of conduct? Admitting them to be wrong, as of
course they do, would they have happiness follow them?
39O JAMES MARTINEAU
Would they have Peter deny his Master and shed no
tears afterwards? Judas betray him and spend his thirty
pieces with untroubled conscience? Would they have
devious paths lead to the same issue as straight ones,
the way of obedience the way of peace, the way of disobe-
dience the way of peace no less : philanthropist and ex-
tortioner, saint and profligate, holy woman and harlot,
travel by opposite roads to a like felicity: under a com-
mon heaven a common smile for all? Under such a rule
as this, woe, only woe to the world ! However hard the
penalty may look in a particular case, the most persuasive
argument the optimist can offer for his faith is drawn from
the suffering which inevitably follows wrong. If the law
of the Lord is perfect, evil must follow infraction of it.
Out of the light must be into the darkness ; out of the
warmth must be into the cold. The sufferings for sin of
which the complaints are so fervid, bear unmistakable tes-
timony that the core of things is true. " All is well," says
an American preacher, " for if there is anything that is not
well, it is well that it is not well." It is well that falsity
and hate are not well ; that malice and envy and cruelty
are not well. What hope for the world or what trust in
God if they were well ?
But granting it not inconsistent with the benevolence of
God that penalty should be linked with transgression, there
is yet the further question : " How does it consist with the
holiness of God to admit so much unholiness in human
life?" 1 This is Dr. Martineau's question, and in dealing
with it he remarks first on the contrast between the attitude
here taken, and that which is common when the course of
nature is under consideration. The moral censors of nature
are wont to dwell upon her apparent fatalism : her storm
and flood and pestilence know no relenting. Here the
complaint rather is the excessive scope of contingency.
1 Study of Religion, vol. ii. p. 100.
GOD AND CONSCIENCE 391
Why was not man so made that he could only choose to
be good ? The necessity of nature, how dark a fact !
The freedom of man, how bodeful its consequences !
In both cases most true ; but as we found reason for the
steadfastness of nature, there may be justification of the
freedom of man. Provisionally there is this to observe,
that could man choose only the good, he were incapable of
moral choice at all. His truthfulness and kindliness were
as unmoral as the sunshine and the blossoms. In the ne-
cessity of nature, as we have seen, there is provision for her
stability ; in the freedom of man is provision for his mo-
rality ; and to this Dr. Martineau feels that the very right-
eousness of God must lead him. " A universe," says he,
" which no sin could invade, neither could any character
inhabit : and, in insisting that every access be shut against
moral evil, we ask the holiness of God to cancel its own
conditions, and take away the alternatives which reveal and
reproduce it. It is because He is Holy and cannot be con-
tent with an unmoral world where all the perfection is given
and none is earned, that he refuses to render guilt impos-
sible and inward harmony mechanical : were he only be-
nevolent, it would suffice to fill his creation with the joy of
sentient existence; but, being righteous too, he would
have in his presence beings nearer to himself, determining
themselves by free preference to the life which he ap-
proves : and preference there cannot be, unless the double
path is open. To set up therefore an absolute barrier
against the admission of wrong, is to arrest the system of
things at the mere natural order, and detain life at the stage
of a human menagerie, instead of letting it culminate in a
moral society." *
This is a pregnant passage, but its meaning cannot be
obscure. The lady perhaps affirmed too much when she
said, " Take away my total depravity and you take away
1 Study of Religion, vol. ii. pp. 101-102.
392 JAMES MARTINEAU
everything." She could, however, most justly have said :
Take away my capacity for sin, and my capacity for holi-
ness were gone. In thus saving me you would discrown
me ; in thus releasing me from the liability of hell you
would make heaven impossible. It does not enter into
the conception of man how God could call into being a
moral nature that should not be free. But with the free-
dom there must be freedom to sin ; the consequences we
deplore, it must be possible to incur. A freedom to
choose only one thing is determinism wrongly spelled.
But again and finally, what would you? Become a thing
to avoid the liabilities of a person? To escape conse-
quences which in the exercise of freedom you need not
elect, give up the august prerogative of a child of God ?
In the face of this alternative most of us would surely
decide to endure Sextus for a yet longer period.
Thus it may be shown that a multifarious evil may not
be incompatible with an infinite Goodness. It may be
implicated with a legislation which, with all the smarts
it brings, we would not change. Given a law-ruled world
tenanted by sensitive organisms, and the conditions of
suffering are provided. Given a nature endowed with
the high prerogative of moral freedom, and sin must be
possible. The suffering and the sin are linked with these
conditions, and if we would not change these conditions,
it hardly becomes us as rational beings to impeach the
Universal Throne because of the consequences that re-
sult from them. Indeed, the only consistent complainer
is the pessimist, who, since he conceives all sentient ex-
istence evil, would cancel it entirely. But the pessimist,
however acute his reasoning and however sincere his
proclamation, the suffering multitude do not take seri-
ously. They conceive him a melancholy jester. Human
nature repudiates his creed ; and the deed that should
witness its consistent acceptance is held to be the supreme
GOD AND CONSCIENCE 393
proof that reason is dethroned. And where is pessimism
found? Not in the cottages of the poor: the laborer
returning weary at night to his scarce comfortable home
and scanty meal, will rarely hold even a passing dalliance
with this creed of despair ; not in the chamber of the
suffering : here, where pain racks the body, how often the
soul makes its own the promise, " When thou passest
through the waters, I will be with thee ; and through the
rivers, they shall not overflow thee ; " you may not look
for it in the wife whose husband has dishonored her, nor in
the mother whose son has brought anguish to her heart.
It is beyond peradventure true that where, according to
earth's common judgment, a faith in the Divine Goodness
is most needed, there it is most surely found. Strange
fact! This dark doctrine is met scarce anywhere but in
books, a product of the minds of the Schopenhauers and
the Hartmanns, men of lettered ease, who, amid surround-
ings of comfort, evolve a theory of a universe without rela-
tion with a personal God, and then wail out its threnody.
But ceasing to contemplate the evil of the world, let us
turn briefly to the good, which, in considering the Divine
Perfection, is held to count for something. To the happi-
ness of the lower creatures, to the happiness and higher
welfare of man, is the administration of the world favora-
ble? To these ends rather than to their opposites is it
really ordered? Consider for a moment the lower ani-
mals. Their range is narrow: physical happiness with
a brief enjoyment of their young [if not too low for this],
and the company of their kind [if they are gregarious] ;
and is not this range, barring vicissitude which we have
noticed, secured to them? As for physical happiness,
the normal exercise of every function brings that. It is
impossible to observe the cattle grazing on the hillsides,
or the birds skimming through the air, or the fishes dart-
394 JAMES MARTINEAU
ing through the water, and not feel that they are happy.
Their happiness, too, from the limitation of their nature,
is unalloyed by anxiety. The deer that escaped the
hunter yesterday browses in unconcern to-day, and the
bird, forgetting experience of hunger, feeds as on crumbs
dropped from the eternal tables. For most part in the
life of the creature there is happiness till the time of its
taking off has come, and then how soon all is over ! Even
the sufferings of that taking off it is probable that our
human sympathies greatly exaggerate. Dr. Martineau
asks what harm were done if nature prescribed some
anaesthetic to her victims. A modern writer, teaching
that God is ever kind to the victim of the inevitable, main-
tains that he has provided a " universal anaesthetic," that
in the clutch of death there is no pain.
As regards the gregarious life of animals, it is possible
to exaggerate the tranquillity ; and probably Dr. Martineau
does so when he tells us that "the herbivorous families
have no victims, and but for their enemies would live at
peace with all." If they carry on no foreign wars, it is
certain that they have their internal strifes which are often
quite as serious. Yet their enjoyment of one another's
society is very real, and in a state of nature it is seldom
denied them. The enjoyment of their young, too, is given
to all creatures capable of it. However ferocious the
nature, in the lair of the tigress and the nest of the eagle
there is peace.
Look next to man. To his happiness and welfare is
the order of the world favorable? True, he has intenser
and more varied suffering than the animal; but this
follows upon provision for intenser and more varied joy.
Unlike the animal he dreads, but unlike the animal he
hopes. The greater difficulties and the greater perils are
his portion; but likewise the consciousness of victory,
which they can never know. For his keener suffer-
GOD AND CONSCIENCE 395
ing, too, there are compensatory privileges: beauty, art,
song, delight in nature, sympathy of friends. How many,
smitten with infirmity from which the beast could only
suffer, have found a solace in some wisely directed activity
of intellect. I have known a man whose somewhat unique
story is beautifully illustrative. His life was active, but
his interests ran wide of his calling into the nobler litera-
ture. Early he became blind; but he had stored his
mind with the richer poetry which was his resource when
other resource was denied him. To the help he found in
this he once bore unconscious testimony. He must have
his eyes operated upon ; and after the operation he was
lying in great pain. " It looked very dark to me," said
he, " but I struck into Browning 's Saul, and it was all
right!' Other infirmity came upon him; he became
helpless. Yet with his great companions he lived in light.
He must sit apart ; but at will he could have the solace of
Shelley's music, or Browning's song, or Emerson's starry
wisdom. As the years deepened, he set about the prep-
aration of a book, good in itself to have, but simply
precious as a memento of the heroism out of which it
came. Meeting him, too, was like going out into a June
morning. The bruised turned to him for comfort, the
doubting for renewal of their faith. Of course all have not
the measure of his resource ; but neither have many the
measure of his misfortune. In any aspect his story is that
of a man, and so tells of human possibilities ; and probably
there are few who, according to their need, might not find
a like support if they would in like manner appropriate
the means which the grace of God has made accessible.
Concede what we must to the ills that flesh is heir to ; still
human experience sufficiently testifies that the legislation
of the world is friendly to human happiness.
But man's higher welfare, does nature also favor this ?
Man is a moral being; does nature favor morality? Of
JAMES MARTINEAU
two men with conditions otherwise equal, suppose one
industrious and the other lazy; on which will nature
smile? Or one temperate and the other drunken; which
will she approve ? Or one clean and the other licentious ;
which will be on the best terms with her? Few would
deny that so far as man is industrious, temperate, and
chaste, he has nature on his side.
Mr. Froude tells us that " the tower of Siloam fell, not
for any sins of the eighteen who were crushed by it, but
through bad mortar probably." Nature has such prefer-
ence for the honest structure that she pulls down what-
ever we dishonestly build upon her. All sham and
pretence she brings to judgment at last. Lay your bridge
on honest piers if you would have nature hold it up;
build your ship of honest timber if you would have her
float it to the haven. The lesson of integrity, by smile
and frown she enforces that. The books and homilies on
this subject are only weaker repetitions of her lesson.
The discipline, too, through which the nobler man-
hood is attained, it is undeniable that she provides this
through much of the very evil of which we complain. We
want the hero's heart, but are aggrieved at the battle that
proves it; we want patience, but are critical of the suffer-
ing that evokes it; we want sympathy, but not the kind
of world in which it is possible. Strange we do not oftener
see that our complaints of nature are based on the fact
that she refuses to favor the indolence we like but dis-
approve, rather than the high service we shrink from but
revere. For its cogent and eloquent presentation of this
truth we will appropriate the following passage from Dr.
Martineau : " For many men, the school of action fairly
serves to purify and invigorate their will, though they ride
through life on the crest of the world's wave and never
sink into the hollows. But, though some can do without
it, and others do nothing with it, yet it is true that, for the
GOD AND CONSCIENCE 397
greatest and best, you must seek among those who have
abounded in hardships and been passed through the fire.
Ease and prosperity may supply a sufficient school for the
respectable commoners in character: but without suffer-
ing is no man ennobled. Every highest form of excellence,
personal, relative, spiritual, rises from this dark ground,
and emerges into its freedom by the conquests of some
severe necessity. In what Elysium could you find the
sweet patience and silent self-control of which every nurse
can testify? or the fortitude in right, which the rack can-
not crush or the dungeon wear out? or the courage of the
prophet, to fling his diviae word before the wrath of
princes and the mocking of the people? I know it is said,
that these would be superfluous virtues there, their worth
being wholly relative to the evils which they minimize.
But is this true ? Is the soul which has never been sub-
dued to patience, braced to fortitude, fired with heroic
enthusiasm, as harmonious, as strong, as large and free, as
that which has been schooled in martyrdom? No, the
least part of these conquests is in their immediate mastery
of the besetting ill : they add a cubit to the moral stature :
they clear the vision : they refine the thought : they ani-
mate the will : so that there is not a duty, however simple,
that does not win from them a fresh grace, or a mood,
however common, to which they do not give a richer
tone." 1 Indeed, without the trials of which we tell so
plaintively, noble character were at best only a nascent
possibility. Nature is a stern schoolmaster, but what
other can educate so well?
But grant that nature educates; the being whom she
thus favors does she otherwise favor? Are the wise, the
brave, the just, the gentle, especially cared for in her legis-
lation? Certainly, for just and unjust alike are heat and
cold and storm and pestilence; and what do we read in
1 Study of Religion, vol. ii. pp. 94-95.
398 JAMES MARTINEAU
history if not of the rebuffs of the wise, the exile of the
patriot, the stake of the martyr?
Growth in excellence is not escape from vicissitude;
nor is there pledge to any excellence that in the inevitable
conflicts it shall conquer without struggle. It is often said
that the rule of the world is to superior force, a proposi-
tion which Dr. Martineau declares to be true of all possible
worlds, like the statement, the warmer you are the less
cold you will be. " By the weakest," says he, " we mean
that which goes to the wall : by the strongest, that which
prevails." On the same page he adds : " Alter the world
as you will, . . . still that which prevails will be the
strongest, and all things will go by might." x Might, how-
ever, is various in kind, and we hardly know what this
judgment means until kinds of might are scrutinized. We
cannot say the superior force is always physical, for then,
in the encounter with man, the bear or the buffalo would
always be invincible. Nor can we say it is physical in
co-operation with mental, for then to a preponderance of
these there should always be victory; whereas with the
odds, as we reckon, in their favor, how often and igno-
minious has been their failure. For there is another force
called moral force, which springs from the conscious ser-
vice of right or truth, and this, especially when supported
by religious faith, may make weakness invincible. " Prov-
idence is on the side of the heaviest battalions," said
Napoleon; yet even he did not neglect to appeal to his
soldiers with whatever sentiment should enkindle them.
There were as brave men in the armies of Charles I. as in
those of Cromwell, and the weight of material advantage
was on their side ; but they lacked the deeper inspiration
that made the Ironsides invincible. That Spain with the
best army in Europe would crush the Netherland revolt
must have seemed probable enough to those who could
1 Study of Religion, vol. ii. p. in.
GOD AND CONSCIENCE 399
not reckon on the faith, inspiring what devotion and dar-
ing, of William of Orange and his followers. When an
American woman in Italy .plunged between two duellists
who were stabbing at each other, and awed them into
desistance, where was the superior force? When at
Worms a solitary monk flung defiance to a Church and
an Empire, where was it?
It is not pretended that the true or the right, become an
enthralling sentiment, meets no reverses. Often, indeed,
it seems defeated, as in the case of the Huguenots or the
Waldenses. But wait. The battle of French Protestantism
was not fought out when the Edict of Nantes was revoked,
nor when the last refugee fled before the brutalities of the
Dragonade. Which at this day does the world approve,
Bossuet, applauding the most cruel trampling upon Prot-
estant liberties, or Martineau, throwing himself into the
breach in defence of Catholic rights? Dr. Martineau's
own judgment should be given place here : " Can anyone
name a good cause which, not locally, but in the world
at large, has perished and had no resurrection? Inter-
vals of suspended animation there may be : but the final
mortality of the ' better part ' I must utterly disbelieve.
When we say of the baffled reformer, ' he was born before
his time? we confess our assurance that his time must
come, and betray the fact that, for us at least, it has
already come." l
Further illustration of this theme may not be needful.
That there are yet grave considerations we know ; that our
reasoning can yield more than a tentative satisfaction we
have no confidence to suppose ; to deal adequately with
the problem, we are probably some millenniums too soon.
Our light is not yet clear ; but if unequal to the needs
of sight, it may satisfy the needs of faith. Dr. Martineau's
laborious contention is that the order of the world does
1 Study of Religion, vol. ii. p. 122.
400 JAMES MARTINEAU
not in its moral features contradict the oracle in the breast ;
so much assured, we may hold in confidence the convic-
tion that the God who imposes a righteous law upon us
does all things in righteousness, though perhaps only to
those who
" watch, like God, the rolling hours
With larger, other eyes than ours,"
can the truth ever be clearly manifest.
CHAPTER IV
HIS CRITICISM OF PANTHEISM
BUT however satisfactory the conclusions we have reached,
there is a problem yet before us the consideration of which
will ratify them or nullify them according to the issue of
our study of it. We deal now with the more general
conception of the Divine Nature. There are three forms
which this has taken, and yet takes :
i. The first, met now only in the lower ranges of intel-
ligence, was once the ascendant doctrine through one of
the fairest sections of the world. It affirmed a God wholly
transcending the universe, which he had created at a defi-
nite time and given over to the governance of second
causes. This God was infinite, eternal, omnipotent, all-
wise, but "absentee." He so appointed the cosmic
mechanism that it might run on without friction, but he
himself dwelt afar. His Providence was here; the light
of nature made it plain. It was, however, a grace given
once for all, not one that was immediately and personally
exercised.
This, of course, was Deism, the doctrine that in the
England and France of the eighteenth century held the
high places of thought. With this Dr. Martineau's teach-
ing, though the system as a whole no one would repudiate
more earnestly than he, is not wholly dissonant. He also
teaches the Divine Transcendency ; while the Infinite Cause
and the Infinite Righteousness he so eloquently proclaims
were earnestly taught by the deists likewise. Their cause,
however, had accomplished the grand effect, the cosmos
we look out upon, and ever since had rested from causal
26
4O2 JAMES MARTINEAU
labors ; which is the inversion of Dr. Martineau's teaching.
Their Righteousness was a legacy of a departed Deity, not
an ever-flowing and insistent oracle : a difference that places
him and them at opposite poles of thought.
2. Over against the conception of Divine Transcendency
is that of Divine Immanence, which, pushed to its extreme,
is Pantheism. As the former, deistically interpreted, makes
God wholly extra-mundane, so the latter, pantheistically
conceived, makes him wholly intra-mundane. The God of
Pantheism is an enchanting Presence within the universe,
extending throughout its extent, Life of its life, Soul of its
soul. He is the only reality; matter and mind are but
phenomena of him. This is one form of the doctrine, and
there is another. The word Pantheism, while naming the
conception of all things in God, also names a conception
that maintains that all things are God. While, according
to the one, God is the soul of things, according to the
other, he is the sum of things. Professor Howison in-
geniously marks the distinction by varying the emphatic
syllable of the word, Pan-theism and Pan-//zm;;z, using
the former to designate the thesis that all is God, and the
latter, the reverse contention that God is all. Pantheism
of the former type, however, seems atheism with less ob-
jectionable name. While, too, this type of Pantheism is
strictly atheistic, the other is as strictly acosmic. The
former loses God in the universe; the latter loses the
universe in God.
Before stating the third conception of the Divine Nature,
it may be well to inquire how, in strength and weakness,
Pantheism may compare with Deism. The Pantheism we
shall hold before us will be the spiritual type.
It is clear that Pantheism may yield a sense of the Di-
vine Presence that Deism from its very nature could not
give. Deism was not the creed of feeble intellects; and
that it yielded intellectual satisfactions is plain enough.
HIS CRITICISM OF PANTHEISM 403
Its failure, however, to minister to the deeper needs of the
spirit was most signal. From its contact the altar fires
died down to the flickering, and a chill crept upon the
souls of men. Devotion asks a God, not listening from
the skies, but present at its altar ; and is well pleased to
think of him as inbreathing the prayer it offers. The char-
acteristic longing of devotion, not to be reconciled to, but
to commune with and be swallowed up in God, is met, as
Deism could not meet it, by that conception of Divine
Immanence on which Pantheism builds. Our more rever-
ent meditations, in proportion as they are rapturous and
exalted, though we may not be pantheists, are likely to be
pantheistic. Theodore Parker was not a pantheist; yet,
speaking out of the fervors of his heart, how often did he
pantheize ! 1 Many hold that Emerson was not a pantheist,
yet what comforting quotations the pantheist may gather
from his page ! The great mystics are continually putting
forth sayings which, interpreted from the intellect and
not the spirit, should tell us of one Essence or Substance
by which this glowing universe and we ourselves are per-
vaded, the Reality and Unity of all. Thus Eckhart says :
" The words / am none can truly speak but God alone.
He has the substance of all creatures in Himself." " He is
a Being that has all Being in himself." " All things are in
God, and all things are God." To like tenor we may quote
from William Law : " Everything that is in being, is either
God, or nature, or creature ; and everything that is not God
is only a manifestation of God." Let us hear also Emer-
son : " From within or from behind, a light shines through
.us upon things and makes us aware that we are nothing, but
the light is all. A man is the fagade of a temple wherein
all wisdom and all good abide." " Ineffable is the union
1 I find that pantheize is not a dictionary word. It was, however, used by
Dr. F. H. Hedge, once my teacher, and from whose lips I caught it. It is
also to be found in his writings. See Ways of the Spirit, p. 254.
404 JAMES MARTINEAU
of man and God in every act of the soul. The simplest
person who in his integrity worships God, becomes God :
yet for ever and ever the influx of this better and universal
self is new and unsearchable." The same feeling again
throbs in the sweet lines of Madame Guyon,
" I love the Lord but with no love of mine,
For I have none to give ;
I love the Lord but with a love divine,
For by thy love I live.
I am as nothing, and rejoice to be
Emptied and lost, and swallowed up in Thee."
To like tenor might we illustrate indefinitely. The mystic
may be given wide range as to his faith or his philosophy :
he may be Protestant or Catholic ; he may be Jew, Mo-
hammedan, Brahman ; but he can hardly be Deist. The
like contrast of influence, too, we mark in the higher liter-
ature. Poetry, for instance, in what other age or coun-
try was it so soulless and mechanical as in the England
of deistic ascendency? Good intellect and good taste we
find in it, but how rarely the higher joy ! From Pope and
Johnson we gather marble and millinery blossoms ; from
Spenser and Wordsworth the flowers of Hesperides. To
the former something is wanting, a dulness is in the
vision, a frost in the air, the meaning of which the phil-
osophic student of letters will not look far to find. To
the latter this something is given in rich measure. The
subtle appropriations of the spirit we may not clearly
understand, but we are sensible of them ; and, to a nature
so sensitive as the poet's, we can easily see that, whether
the universe shall seem a mechanism or a theophany, may
make inestimable difference. Goethe voiced not himself
alone, but the poet of whatever time whose genius calls
him to the loftier themes, when he wrote,
" No ! such a God my worship may not win,
Who lets the world about his finger spin
A thing extern ; my God must dwell within."
HIS CRITICISM OF PANTHEISM 405
This various illustration shows that whatever satisfaction
deistical conceptions may furnish the intellect, the mystic
and poetic sensibilities they do not favor. The intenser
fervor and the loftier meditation and the more rapturous
vision are not of their inspiring.
But on the intellectual side Deism will not bear the
closest scrutiny. It teaches that God a potter, a car-
penter created the universe at a definite time. Grant
that since that time God and the universe have been two
facts ; prior to that time there must have been an eternity
in which God was all. But how out of his all-inclusive
unity did he establish a duality? How out of himself,
without abridgment of himself, could he furnish that
which should be antithetic to himself? Is he indeed
infinite? How, then, can the universe be outside of him?
Is it contained in him? Then it is manifestation of him:
its power his power, its life his life; with which con-
clusion Deism is no more. But other queries: From
eternity God was sole Essence; was he, then, self-con-
scious? It is commonly held that self-consciousness is
only possible in the presence of another than self, admit-
ting which, we seem driven to the conclusion that this
lonely occupant of eternity, since unable to say of another
nature, It is, could not say of himself, I am. But he was
conceived as Intelligence and Will. The intelligence, then,
must have been self-centred, since there was nothing
beyond self on which to direct it ; and for the like reason
the will must have been potential, not active. We are
given, then, a God throughout an eternity, self-contempla-
tive and inert ; a conception that may provoke our wonder
but hardly kindle our raptures. But come to the creative
act. Following a determination of his will, he evolves
out of himself a cosmos. To what end? Did he need it
for his perfection? Then why for an eternity did he do
without it? Was he without need? Why, then, the
406 JAMES MARTINEAU
stupendous superfluity? Turning from the creation to the
government of the world, the deistic attitude is not less
unsatisfactory. The God of Deism being an " absentee "
God, the government of the world is devolved upon
second causes. These are the great forces of nature,
appointed to their several provinces and working to an
appointed end, yet entirely insulated from the First Cause.
While there is scope here for the conception of occasional
Divine visitations in order to adjust some disturbed rela-
tions or to inaugurate some new departure, the general
impression is that of mechanism, and that only. The
second causes take the place of the First Cause ; we deal
with his agents, not with God. All goes so well without
him that if he were to go to sleep what would it signify?
Whatever we may say of its need or its beauty, worship
will be without ardor when God is superfluous. To em-
brace atheism in place of belief in such a God implies no
sad transition. The second causes may no doubt chal-
lenge our wonder, but they yield not the satisfactions of an
Immanent Will with which we immediately deal.
But has the deistic view no features that commend it?
Yes, it has two, the worth of which appears in the mere
statement of them. First, it gives to the supreme object
of religious feeling a distinctness of conception, which to
the average mind is very satisfying. Indeed, it is easy to
see that the doctrine is the natural and prevailing one
with those who toil and pray, but do not meditate.
Secondly, though suggestive of an " elder Lord Shaftes-
bury," the God of Deism is always a person. But from
Pantheism, as set over against Deism, are there no deduc-
tions to be made? Indeed, there are. While there are
individual minds that can find in it all content, to the
great majority its conception of God is nebulous and
vague. A spirit diffused through the universe is easily
blended with, and so lost in, the forces of the universe, and
HIS CRITICISM OF PANTHEISM 407
thus personality is lost. On the spiritual side it has short-
comings also. While in its warmer presentation Pantheism
is capable of the inspirations we have referred to it, there is
another presentation of it, which in its general influence
is quite otherwise. When the devout soul communes
with a mystic Presence, the life, soul, love of all, then
the wilderness becomes a garden and the poorest flowers
are passion-flowers. But when the mystic Presence yields
to the philosophical One Substance, contemplation seems
rather to take hold upon an Alpine crest, dazzling in the
light it may be, yet on whose icy surface only the pale
and struggling edelweiss can blossom. At a later stage
of our discussion we shall come to other and more signifi-
cant deductions.
3. While one of these conceptions maintains the Tran-
scendency and the other the Immanence of the Divine
Nature, there is a third that combines the two. God tran-
scends the universe, it says, yet is immanent in it ; is
immanent in it, yet transcends it; is above all, yet in
all ; the soul of the world, yet infinitely more. This is Dr.
Martineau's Theism. We say Dr. Martineau's ; for while
he maintains the common theistic attitude, which pro-
claims a personal God in immediate relation with the
universe and with man, the Transcendency which he holds
somewhat resolutely is not common to all theists. Its
special significance in his thought we shall see.
Theism as defined above is the successor of Deism ; in
what aspect is it the preferable faith? It comes into the
field as the foe of Pantheism; what fairer view has it to
offer?
For the far-off God of Deism it gives us a God ever
nigh. Deism gave God a heaven to dwell in; Theism
finds the earth consecrated by his Presence. This
change brings relief from a difficulty not slight. The
conception of a God infinite, yet not present in the uni-
408 JAMES MARTINEAU
verse; infinite, yet an "elder Lord Shaftesbury" sitting in
state beyond the stars, is inherently untenable. Accord-
ingly it is a view that representative deists were ever
slipping away from. Thus Thomas Morgan, often ranked
with the deists and in certain aspects of his doctrine no
doubt belonging with them, held as atheists those who
denied God's immediate influence in the world. Toland,
too, one of the chief figures among the deists, coined the
very word " Pantheism," in order to set forth his own atti-
tude of mind as one who believed in a God who was the
"Mind and Soul of the universe." Sir Isaac Newton also
was a deist; yet he speaks of a God as omnipresent,
" non per virtutem solam, sed etiam per substantiam" Such
lapses from the cardinal deistic doctrine are not uncom-
mon in the deistic writers ; and they illustrate, we may
dare to say, not Theism gained, but Deism not firmly
held. The embarrassment involved here is escaped when
the transition to Theism is accomplished, and heaven and
earth alike are made God's dwelling-place and temple.
The transition brings a spiritual satisfaction likewise.
Dr. Martineau remarks that " if anything, in the Natural
Religion of the last century, could lay strong hold of the
devout imagination, it was the idea of the Omnipresence
of God." * The reason for his specifying the last century
is plain enough: the prevailing conditions of thought
were then such as to make it by contrast especially im-
pressive; it was like a gleam of sunshine through arctic
night. He also remarks that " were the experiences of
early life laid open, during its years of growing fervour and
self-discipline, it would probably be found that, both in
the orisons of the closet and in the encounter with temp-
tation, the attempt to realize this thought played a great
part and wielded the chief power." Yet a little further on
he says : " Hence it is that, except in an apathetic age, or
1 Study of Religion, vol. ii. p. 161.
HIS CRITICISM OF PANTHEISM 409
among persons of level temperament, the Deistical con-
ception fails to satisfy, and scarcely passes into a religion :
once flung into awakening vicissitudes or more impas-
sioned natures, it breaks its bounds and seeks a nearer
God." x He might have added, only that it was the pan-
theistic view that he had before his mind, that all the
mystic raptures that Pantheism enkindles have their con-
dition in Theism. The mystic and poetic utterances we
have quoted as of pantheistic inspiration might as easily
have flown from an exuberance of theistic joy. Theism
enchants the universe : it gives to the hills a Presence that
consecrates them, and to the stars that glorifies them. It
is the faith of Paul when he tells of one who is above all,
and through all, and in you all ; and of David when he
sings, If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there : if I make
my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
Thus, through its doctrine of Divine Immanence, does
Theism surpass Deism in the satisfactions that it yields.
But the Transcendency which Dr. Martineau maintains so
earnestly what gain from that? Before answering we
should see more definitely what transcendency means.
He takes pains to tell us that the terms " transcendent "
and " immanent," as applied to the Divine Nature, should
not be used, as they often are, as equivalent to external
and internal, " as if the contrast in question had reference
only to position here or there" 2 While Immanence means
the Divine Presence in every part of the universe, Tran-
scendency implies " transcending the universe in every
way, as infinite, as eternal, as source, as perfection."
It tells us that the sum of things, however vast, cannot be
commensurate with his infinity; that, grant the universe
his theophany, God is not to be measured by his manifes-
tation. However we may see him in it, he yet was before
it, and could it perish, he would survive it. The signifi-
1 Study of Religion, vol. ii. p. 162. * Ibid. p. 141.
410 JAMES MARTINEAU
cance of this consideration to the theistic problem we may
now discern. Theism, in maintaining the Divine Imma-
nence, may be on undeniable ground, but there is a line
of danger towards which it is ever pressing. Starting
with a theistic assumption of the presence of God in the
universe, one may at length identify him with its interior
life, and then see him unfolding in its evolution. With
this the brink of Pantheism has been dared. While not
affirming the logical necessity of this, experience shows
its liability where Immanence is held and Transcendency
disowned. Where, however, Transcendency is held to,
this result is obviously impossible : however the universe
may manifest God, it cannot enfold him ; though pervading
it with his spirit, he cannot be submerged in it as to his
personality ; though the ultimate explanation of all worlds,
all worlds do not explain him.
God in all and above all, source of all and more than all,
such is the larger aspect of Dr. Martineau's Theism.
In all as Will, working through the multifarious dynamic
of the world, soul of its order and pledge of its constancy ;
above all, like the star in sweet and immediate influence,
not less here because poised afar ; like the sun to whose
effluent rays, poured down from the deeps of heaven, we
refer the bloom and beauty of the world. In all, the
strength of the hills his strength, the life of the world
his life, the glory of the heavens his glory; yet above
all, and out of that infinite reserve a grace which sun and
star may not reflect, but which a free and communing
spirit may receive ; and to such, an assurance of a Wis-
dom that cannot err, a Justice that cannot fail, and a
Goodness that cannot be unkind : a smile to gladden, a
refuge to which to flee, a breast on which to lean.
With Pantheism we must now come to closer quarters.
Between it and Theism the battle rages. Of the field of
contention let us seek a broader survey.
HIS CRITICISM OF PANTHEISM 411
By reason of its Protean aspects, Pantheism is difficult
to define save in the broadest terms. The Malebranche
type is far indeed from that of Spinoza, and neither will
do for the Hegelian. Through all its variables, however,
there is this constant: an Essence or Principle which is
the source of all things, is present in all things, and unifies
all things. In star and flower, in soul and clod, it is iden-
tical. Mind and matter are its manifestations : the world
of mountain and sea and city and civilization, the universe
of planet and sun and star, are simply fleeting aspects of
this Principle. They come and go ; this comes not, goes
not, but eternally abides.
" The One remains, the many change and pass."
It is real ; to them, save in it, there is no reality. It is
their ground; they its phenomena. Coleridge, though
with mind intent upon a special aspect of the doctrine,
gave it a summary as cogent as it is striking,
"God World = God.
The World God = 0."
In God alone, that is, all reality ; in the world apart from
God only appearance, which, he withdrawn, would vanish.
Of course in a monism such as this our ordinary dis-
tinctions are lost. Creator and creation are one. Cause
and effect, save in the relations of phenomena, are one.
God and nature are one. God and man are one. The
consciousness that asserts an Ego antithetic to God blos-
soms of him. His nature is an infinite Deep, and I a
bubble of its wave. Further yet illustration may be
pressed. Do I pray? Not exactly; the One yearns
towards itself through me. Do I love? For convenience
of speech we may be allowed to say so ; but speaking
with philosophical seventy, the One the rather loves it-
self in me. One Principle, one Reality, all details of
412 JAMES MARTINEAU
conduct should draw their meaning from this One; a
conclusion nowhere better stated than in Emerson's
Brahma,
" They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings."
This to many wears a bewildering look, but that to cer-
tain temperaments it yields a mystic satisfaction there is
evidence enough. In Hunt's volume on Pantheism are
some lines of great impressiveness, drawn from a Persian
poet, which may be quoted in evidence,
" I looked above and in all spaces saw but One ;
I looked below and in all billows saw but One ;
I looked into its heart, it was a sea of worlds;
A space of dreams all full, and in the dreams but One.
Earth, air and fire and water in Thy fear dissolve ;
Ere they ascend to Thee, they trembling blend in One.
r
All life in heaven and earth, all pulsing hearts should throb
In prayer, lest they impede the One.
Nought but a sparkle of Thy glory is the sun ;
And yet Thy light and mine both centre in the One.
Though at Thy feet the circling heaven is only dust,
Yet is it one, and one my being is with Thine.
The heavens shall dust become, and dust be heaven again,
Yet shall the One remain and one my life with Thine."
However, the mystics are not a numerous clan, and in
their intellectual temperament they are somewhat excep-
tional. Hence it is that a region that to their view may
be radiant with the flowers of Paradise may wear to other
eyes a Sahara look. To most minds the significance of
the One must be read off from its predicates. The All
in All does it live, does it think, does it will, does it
HIS CRITICISM OF PANTHEISM 413
love? Is the One It or He? Is the universe the result
of free activity of the One ? May we refer its order to
intelligence of the One, working on lines of preference?
Do its laws in any sense express volitions of the One?
Within this All in All is the thought of other entity per-
missible? Am I really I? or am I a phantom with a
delusive sense of personal identity and foolishly dreaming
of immortality? Between me and the One are there
personal relations? Has the language of affection, obli-
gation, dependence, surrender, as interpreted with refer-
ence to the One, a natural and unforced meaning? These
are vital questions ; and though the hierophant of modern
Pantheism bans them with the dictum omnis determinatio
est negatio, the insatiable mind will yet press them ; and
on their answer depends our faith, our ethics, and our
civilization. Fortunately for us some of these questions
can be answered by implication as we proceed.
It may be well to indicate the measure of concession we
will make to the claims of Pantheism. We are not panthe-
ists, we will say ; where, then, shall we fix a limit to the
Divine inclusiveness ? We will go out into the universe to
make reply. Allow his presence here ; that he dwells in
the planets and bends the curve of their parabolas, that of
him the sunlight glows, that we trace him in the complex
order of a fructifying and unfolding world ; still may not
the universe be in some sense a dwelling which he inhabits,
or a datum on which he acts ? Surely, you say, somewhat
here is other than he; if nothing else, at any rate the
matter of which the sensible universe is composed. Well,
what is matter? We have all smiled at Dr. Johnson's
refutation of Berkeley's doctrine that matter has no sub-
stantive existence: stamping his foot upon a rock, the
great Doctor exclaimed, " / refute him thus" Yet it is
undeniably true that his attitude of mind is a persistent
one : even in these better instructed days, the non-reality
414 JAMES MARTINEAU
of matter, if the wisdom of philosophy, is the foolishness
of common sense. Impatient of speculation, you will go
to science, you say, which if it conduct through less ethe-
real realms, will at least give definite answers to your ques-
tions. Go then to science; take this question to some
physicist and learn that the answer is wholly beyond him.
While, however, he cannot tell you what matter is, he
may tell you some strange things about it. A block of
granite has a very substantial look ; listen while he tells
you that, solid as it seems, its ultimate atoms are not in
contact, but stand off from one another as really as the
planets of the solar system do. Listen further while he
tells you that these atoms are not at rest, but, like motes
in a sunbeam, are in perpetual dance. Beyond these state-
ments he will give no hint as to the ultimate nature of these
atoms, but only elaborate upon their behavior; show, in
other words, under given conditions, what force they mani-
fest. If now, suspecting that the ultimate nature of force
may throw light upon your question, you ask him what
this is, in his capacity as physicist he is dumb. You must
appeal your question from physics to metaphysics if you
will get even the hint of an answer. Now Dr. Martineau,
as we have seen, resolving all forces into modes of Force,
and drawing the ultimate nature of this from the human
consciousness, declares it to be Will. Force must be in-
terpretable in terms of will, or it can have no meaning to
man. But Force is not more clearly manifest in the move-
ment of a planet than of an atom of hydrogen ; and the
query will obtrude itself whether this atom is anything but
force, a monad of force ; in other words, if what we call
matter is other than a mental correlate by means of which
the conception of Force is made possible. Grant that this
is not a demonstrable conclusion, yet undoubtedly it is the
prevailing conviction of those on whose judgment we most
rely. The inference is clear : Regarding Force as the ex-
HIS CRITICISM OF PANTHEISM 415
pression of Will, and Will as a function of Mind, the seem-
ingly material universe is really crystallized Intelligence.
This is Dr. Martineau's conclusion : " The whole external
universe, then (external, I mean, to self-conscious beings),
we unreservedly surrender to the Indwelling Will, of which
it is the organized expression." J
The outward universe we thus surrender to the panthe-
ist. With him we hold it to be not real in itself, but to
have its reality in God. But how of human personality?
Shall we concede this also? Shall we submerge man in
God ? This brings us to the battle-line of Theism and Pan-
theism. However the theist may conceive God and man
related, he never loses the latter in the former. He is
ever ready to say, God is in me, but he cannot bring him-
self to say, His Being comprehends me. As a consistent
theist I may well maintain that God loves me, but I cannot
allow that he loves himself in what by courtesy is called
me. Grant all the infinite disparity between me and God,
still I must insist that we are two and not one. I am not a
wavelet of his deep, nor a ray of his sun. He is not con-
scious in my consciousness, nor is my meditation his solilo-
quy, nor my prayer his rhapsody. I am I, as he is he ;
real as he is real, person as he is person. Self-conscious-
ness is a dyke against which the pantheistic flood beats
only to be broken. While man holds fast to this, a few
may find Pantheism an interesting speculation, but it will
never be a vital faith to many.
Here, though all along we have reflected him, we come
more distinctly on the trail of Dr. Martineau's thought. It
is remembered how he reaches his doctrine of causation :
through experience of cause within himself he gains dis-
cernment of a cause beyond himself. But cause within
himself is will ; will causality, therefore, is all the causality
he knows. Two wills he thus finds in the universe, his own
1 Study of Religion, vol. ii. p. 166.
416 JAMES MARTINEAU
and another. The other holds the universe in sway, its
exercise limited only at the confines of human personality.
But why this limitation? Why not surrender this tri-
fling demesne, and so have one will, one cause in the uni-
verse? The answer is, (i) The human consciousness, as
above illustrated, puts forth unceasing protest against the
surrender. Save as we do violence to this, the surrender
cannot be. Consciousness permits me ever to say / am /,
but never, though speaking into the ear of God, / am
Thou. (2) In merging the human personality the Divine
is sacrificed ; for the former is the basis of our belief in the
latter. If the former is an illusion, the latter is wholly un-
tenable. Instead of a personal God we may then perhaps
affirm an impersonal Somewhat, a thought, as it were,
where no thinker is, a spring of power to which there is no
conscious direction of its flow ; and this impersonality is
held before us as the more philosophical and the sublimer
conception of a God. This indeed is the conclusion, if not
the postulate, of all Pantheisms ; and we are bound to re-
member also that it is the vogue of thought with many not
reckoned in the schools of pantheists. Thus Herbert
Spencer, turned preacher for the nonce, and fervidly re-
proving the " impieties of the pious," speaks of a choice
between " personality and something higher." 1 This some-
thing higher, to be sure, he tells us is inconceivable ; but
this is not reason for disbelieving its existence, " rather the
reverse." In faith he comes little short of the standard of
him who said, " Credo quia impossibile est." The answer,
reflecting Dr. Martineau and reason alike, is that the teach-
ing implies an inherent contradiction. Higher than per-
sonality is lower ; beyond it is regression from its height.
From the equator we may travel northward, gaining ever
higher and higher latitudes ; but if ever the pole is reached,
pressing on from thence will be descending to lower lati-
1 first Principles, p. 109.
HIS CRITICISM OF PANTHEISM 417
tudes, not gaining higher. So when we study gradations
of being, we may pass through every zone from inorganic
to conscious and intelligent, and thence climb through all
ranges of intelligence, till at thought's impassable height
we can only name the infinite. But the infinite is an
infinite what? Unconsciousness? Impersonality? The
terms suggest, not thought's upward flight, but her down-
ward plunge. An intelligence and personality beyond my
conception my theistic attitude implies. When I speak of
an infinite God, this is involved in my meaning. But a
non-intelligence that is higher than intelligence, an imper-
sonality that transcends personality, discards an attribute
ideally supreme with stipulation that a nature without it
shall vault up to heights transcending the ideal. Such is
our conclusion when we contemplate in itself this imper-
sonal First Principle. When we contemplate it in relation
with man, we are even more impressed with its failure to
answer to our conception of what should be highest. The
personal God of Theism, however the conception of him
may suggest difficulties, may at any rate take cognizance
of our needs and be a very present help in time of trouble ;
this impersonal Somewhat, however it may unify a cosmos,
can decree no justice, is capable of no love, can extend no
help, can hear no prayer. (3) The consequence to man
of a full acceptance of this doctrine would be a surrender
of freedom and moral accountability; the deprivation,
too, of any proper object of reverence and praise. Is it
objected that we should judge a doctrine by its inherent
strength and not by its consequences? The answer is that
the inherent strength of a doctrine is often determined by
its consequences, by the consideration whether it is true to
the nature of man and the great needs of life ; and there is
no juster ground for the repudiation of a doctrine than the
fact that from its contact the religious instincts are clouded
or the moral consciousness bewildered. Some may chal-
27
41 8 JAMES MARTINEAU
lenge this judgment as applied to Pantheism by reference
to the saintly pantheists whom previous pages have noticed.
Grant all that may be claimed for them, it is yet simply
true that in a wide survey Pantheism has rarely justified it-
self as in the best sense friendly either to piety or to
morals.
The question, Why withhold the demesne $>f human per-
sonality from the rule of the Divine Will ? may in reverse
form be asked respecting the Divine Will itself: Why does
it arrest itself at the demesne of human personality? In an-
swer, the questioner may be shown that did the Higher Will
usurp the province now held by the human, knowledge of
itself would be impossible. In that unity there could be
no apprehension. Self and other than self must stand
over against each other, that either may be known. Make
real the identity of which Pantheism tells, and the result
would be a blank to human consciousness. This consider-
ation is developed by Dr. Martineau in a passage which
we will quote in full : " The very same principle which
establishes a Unity of all external causality makes it anti-
thetic to the internal, and establishes a Duality between
our own and that which is other than ours : so that, were
not our personal power known to us as one, the cosmical
power would not be guaranteed to us as the other. Here,
therefore, at the boundary of the proper Ego, the absorb-
ing claim of the supreme will arrests itself, and recognizes
a ground on which it does not mean to step. Did it still
press on and annex this field also, it would simply abolish
the very base of its own recognizable existence, and, in
making itself all in all, would vanish totally from view.
It is precisely by not being unitary that causation is acces-
sible to thought at all ; and if our own will does not ex-
ercise it, we are excluded from even the search for it
elsewhere. By self we mean the will internal : by ' God,'
we mean the will external : by cause we mean either : and
HIS CRITICISM OF PANTHEISM 419
as the two former come into our knowledge as terms of
a relation under the category of the latter, it is impossible
for either extreme to lapse into the other. It would be a
parricidal doctrine of causality that should thus lay violent
hands on the conditions of its own existence." 1 Indeed
it would seem such; and when we shift the argument
about and reason from the necessary self-assertion of the
nature, the conclusion is even more emphatic. The unity
we maintain we confute in that we maintain it. The saint
at the gate of Paradise who, in answer to the challenge
from within, had been chastened to the reply, " It is Thou,
dear Lord," illustrated by his self-abnegation the selfhood
he verbally disowned. Do I say, I am a pantheist? Then,
ipso facto, I deny Pantheism ; for in the very assertion of
the Ego I imply all else as objective to me. Here, quot-
ing Dr. Martineau again, " we touch the ultimate and irre-
movable ground of all certainty ; whence alone we look
forth and discover either the Trav or the 0eo?: and to
negative this position on behalf of what it shows us would
be like the fanaticism of a fire-worshipper who should put
out his eyes to glorify the light." 2
But is there not implied here an abridgment of the
Divine infinitude? If man exercises a causal preroga-
tive, then there seems to be a realm from which the
Divine Agency is excluded. This consideration has drawn
a good deal of attention, and it has been urged alike by
pantheists, from their jealousy for the Divine Immanence,
and by necessarians, who would discredit human freedom.
If there is with man a causal initiative, the Divine Will
does not rule within its domain; and though it may bend
the curves of history, the details of the record must be left
to man's free origination. The theistic doctrine sets a
limit to the Divine Power, in the face of which who can
longer maintain that it is infinite?
1 Study of Religion, vol. ii. pp. 166-167. 2 Ibid. p. 167.
420 JAMES MARTINEAU
Theists have recognized this difficulty, and have wrestled
with it often with deep longing for clearer light. But
before we seek the significance of the theist's reservation
from the Divine Power, let us see if the pantheist really
maintains its infinity. This impersonal First Principle
is the exercise of all power allowed it? On the contrary,
power of choice, "preferential power" as Br. Martineau
would say, pantheism always denies. Its God can do
no other than he does ; all in the fields of space and time
is an evolution of him, and follows from a necessity of his
nature. This preferential power the theist maintains ; and
draws light from the preference of God in dealing with this
phase of the theistic problem. Here once more we will
turn to Dr. Martineau's page : " Is there any reconcilia-
tion of these contradictory aspects of personality? There
is none, if you assume that infinite Will can never abstain
from appropriating all its causality, or divest itself of a
portion, in order to fit up another and resembling nature.
But surely one who assumes this has already committed
the fault which he charges, and discovered something
to which his ' rigorous infinitude ' is incompetent ! If
we drop this assumption, then our allowance of independ-
ence is itself the result of our dependence : it is conceded
to us by the author of our being, and, though entrusted for
awhile with a certain free play of causality, is referable in
the ultimate resort to the Supreme cause: it is included
in what he has caused, though excepted from what he is
causing. It takes therefore nothing from his infinitude,
but what he himself renounces; and what is thus relin-
quished is potentially retained. The self-abnegation of
infinity is but a form of self-assertion, and the only form
in which it can reveal itself. Whether by setting up other
minds with a range of command over alternatives, or by
instituting a universe under law without alternative, the In-
finite Cause foregoes something of his absolute freedom ; in
HIS CRITICISM OF PANTHEISM 421
the one case admitting partners of his liberty ; in the other,
establishing for himself a sphere of necessity : and in the
latter case, the more comprehensive the sphere, the vaster
is the renunciation : and if it extends to the All, so as to
leave no margin of transcendency, the limitation reaches its
maximum, no possibility but one being anywhere left open.
If therefore 'there be any force in this objection, the
Pantheist who brings it is himself exposed to it in a
superlative degree. What greater contradiction can there
be than to say, in one and the same breath, that a being
is infinite and omnipotent, yet cannot put forth preferen-
tial power? And if we are jealous of his infinitude, which
shall we be more afraid to grant, that he lends to a
derivative being a little preferential power; or that he
is forever incapable of exercising it himself? " l
But the Causal Will immanent in the universe, is he
not man's cause too ? We were not always here, was
not our origin from him ? Is he not implicated with our
lives, our heart-throbs and our soul-throbs, is he aloof
from them? He is our cause indeed. A pervasive pres-
ence within us, too, it is our joy to think him ; and with
just discrimination to draw
" the mystic line,
Severing rightly his from thine,
Which is human, which divine,"
we may confess most difficult. But while we claim him as
cause we cannot deny that we are causes ; and that while
" there is one Will in nature there are two that meet in man."
The suggestion that lurks here seems at first rather
startling: my will meeting his will; my impotence hold-
ing a province against his omnipotence ! Rather should
we say, his will granting autonomy to mine ; for some
wise purpose appointing to me a principality within his
universal kingdom.
What that purpose is should be seen in the different
1 Study of Religion, vol. ii. pp. 182-183.
422 JAMES MARTINEAU
nature, and so the entirely other relation with the Divine
which that autonomy makes possible. Did the Divine
Will occupy the field of our will, we should conform to it
'as winds and seas and stars now do, but we could not
proffer it our surrender. We should involuntarily yield to
it, but we should not voluntarily obey it. Resignation, as-
piration, free affection, the crowning graces of the human,
by that ever determining Divine Will would be made
impossible. We should be another species of automata,
exercising no causality, and so knowing none. The recog-
nition of the Divine Will would be made impossible by its
constancy and pervasiveness. The feeling is irresistibly
borne in upon us that in calling man into existence God
intended that there should be one being in the universe
that might render him a free obedience ; and that to this
end he placed him over against himself outside the scope
of his immanent volition. Is it objected that in this view
God favors the lower ranges of being with his immediate
guidance, but takes his Holy Presence from the higher?
gives to planets no choice but to obey him, and leaves
man to the possibility of sin? That possibility is essential
to man's distinguishing glory. Because the Higher Will
does not rule through our struggle a victor's crown may
be won by us. Besides, as Dr. Martineau urges, this ab-
sence is in only one aspect, and to the end that, in another,
he may bestow his Presence. Absent is he as a con-
straint, but present as a personal sympathy and affection.
While through his Immanence he deals with all else,
from the sphere of his Transcendence he bends to man.
It is our aspirations that go upward, our prayers that we
pray ; it is we ourselves that are tempted and strive for the
higher joy. Yet in all our aspiring and wrestling we are
not apart from him. Withdrawn from us as a law, he
meets us as a friend to reinforce our courage, to comfort
our griefs, and to woo us upward.
CHAPTER V
FREEDOM AND IMMORTALITY
I. Freedom
THERE are many arguments against Free Will; for it
there is one. With Calvin and Edwards we may main-
tain its incompatibility with Divine Decrees; with Hart-
ley and Priestley we may surrender it before the Law of
Association ; with Comte and the positivists we may find
no place for it in the sequences of phenomenal causation ;
with Spinoza and the pantheists we may conceive man
but a mode of a universal Substance, and what he mis-
calls his freedom to be ruled by its necessity. All these
doctrines may be so presented as to make the affirmation
of Free Will look quite foolish. On the other hand the
apostle of freedom has one argument which he deems
conclusive, and which three words can state: Conscious-
ness declares it. Here in consciousness, where we gain
a first-hand acquaintance with the will, and receive its
testimony respecting itself, its freedom is unmistakably
avouched to us. " If bound," it says, " I know nothing
of the gyves." That we exercise a preferential part,
determine upon this as against that, in the presence of
alternatives choose, rather than are constrained to, one of
them, accepting the testimony of consciousness, we can
but say we know. Accordingly, while the advocate of
Free Will contents himself with maintaining the necessary
trustworthiness of consciousness, and with showing how the
experiences of life may be harmonized with its oracle, the
424 JAMES MARTINEAU
determinist puts forth the arguments of his school, and
then undertakes to discredit consciousness. Discrediting
consciousness, however, is serious business; for, being our
witness to many things besides freedom, on the principle,
falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, doubting its testimony
as to freedom involves us in a paralyzing scepticism.
Further, it is perfectly plain that the doctrine of Neces-
sity, however cogently argued, cannot, since it is out of
accord with consciousness, carry the full force of a prac-
tical conviction. In the toil, study, play of life, in its
right doing and its wrong doing, we have the certitude
that we act, not as we must, but as we will ; and by no
inference from any theory of the universe can the sig-
nificance of this certitude be destroyed.
The controversy being thus one of theory versus con-
sciousness, there pertains to it this further aspect: The
oracles of consciousness are to be asserted rather than
argued ; the theories by which we will confute them are
to be argued rather than asserted. The former are self-
evident until discredited ; the latter, in that they are
arrayed against consciousness, are discredited until proven
to the overthrow of consciousness. Were I, giving ac-
count of myself, to say / am well, and another to contra-
dict me, No, you are not well, I might think him trifling
with me ; or, if a physician, I might suspect him to see in
my eyes, or in my breathing, or in the expression of my
countenance, some incipient ill. Beyond the general
assertion, however, that I feel well, I obviously could not
go; and it would be for him to show the latent disease
my feelings up to date have not allowed me to suspect.
Were one calling himself a prophet to appear, proclaiming
a universal bad health, and teaching that the general feel-
ing of good health is an illusion, very likely he would
win converts ; indeed, the Invalidinarians might speedily
become a numerous sect among us. Probably, however,
FREEDOM AND IMMORTALITY 425
there would be doubting ones who would query how the
conditions and feeling peculiar to good health can coexist
with an ever-present and all-pervading invalidism ; and
who would be so unreasonable as not to call the doctor
till their consciousness of health had been shown to be
delusive? So where the universal consciousness of free-
dom is challenged, the burden of proof, or rather of dis-
proof, is on the determinist side. It is in full recognition
of this feature of the discussion that Dr. Martineau bears
his part in it. The consciousness that affirms freedom he
holds should be trusted until its veracity has been success-
fully impugned; which he has no suspicion that it ever
has been, and clearly doubts if it ever can be. Accord-
ingly, in his wonderful discussion of this problem he
assumes Free Will, and devotes his great thought and
learning to shattering antagonistic doctrines. If any one
thinks he has an unanswered argument against Free Will,
if he will turn to this discussion 1 he may probably find
himself mistaken. Not that Dr. Martineau's attitude is
wholly defensive : he has made many a sally into the en-
emy's camp with no end of destruction of the machinery of
argumentative war; but his general method is to expose
the weakness of necessarian doctrines rather than to but-
tress the alternative one. He holds that until the latter
is discredited, it must stand; that no mere plausibility
of theory can be allowed to prevail against a clearly
authenticated fact of consciousness.
But the question is asked, What signifies the endless
controversy over this insoluble problem? So far as we
can see, like wisdom is found on either side; and whether
with freedom or necessity, virtue and depravity seem to
prosper. If we were to judge its significance thus, by the
personal and average worth of those who take sides upon
it, we might indeed be tempted to call truce to the strife ;
1 Study of Religion, vol. ii. pp. 184 seq.
426 JAMES MARTINEAU
though still it would be gravely doubted whether charac-
ter could indefinitely prosper on a doctrine that gives the
lie to the clearest dictum of the interior nature. The
bearings of the discussion, however, run wide of the ques-
tion of personal character: the outlook upon the universe,
the mental construction which it yields to libertarian and
necessarian, is entirely different. Grant to each the like
certificate of good morals, we must yet discriminate be-
tween the worlds they live in. While to the latter freedom
is a conclusion he cannot draw out of his postulates, to
the former it is a datum which his postulates imply.
While the one subordinates the inner life to a rule of
necessity which he finds abroad, the other carries abroad
a freedom found at home and interprets the world in its
light. Of the preceding pages, there are few indeed
that would not need to be rewritten to make them the
consistent utterance of a necessarian. Let alone his
Ethics, of which freedom is a constitutive principle, he
must be a superficial reader who does not see that
Dr. Martineau's firm conviction of freedom signifies
greatly even in the domain of Critical Theology. It is
not too much to say, indeed it is clearly obvious, that
prior to his conversion from the determinism which he
early held, he could not have written the Seat of Authority
in Religion, could all the learned data have been given
him. To the apostle of freedom the Bible cannot yield
the same meaning as to the apostle of necessity, and
Christ must be a different teacher. The great themes of
Christian doctrine, in any thorough treatment of them,
will surely reflect the thinker's attitude on this vexed
problem. When we set aside the testimony of conscious-
ness, man becomes another being, and his record has
another meaning. In wrestling with this problem, there-
fore, the theologian is settling with a consideration, and
that a very important one, by which his judgments must
FREEDOM AND IMMORTALITY 427
be influenced. So when we come to the vast considera-
tions of the Philosophy of Religion, the significance of our
attitude on this problem can hardly be exaggerated. Few
are the pages of Dr. Martineau's great Study of Religion
that would not need to be transformed to make them
even tolerable in the eyes of a necessarian ; and with the
complete triumph of necessarian doctrine, his type of The-
ism, which is that of Paul and of Jesus, should disappear.
In relation to the supreme question of philosophy note
its bearing. In his study of Causation we have seen that,
like Schopenhauer, Dr. Martineau comes to the concep-
tion of Will as the ultimate source of the universe. His
Will, however, is not, like Schopenhauer's, a blind and
restless impulse, but the executive function of an Intelli-
gence. In other words, it is not only Will, but free Will.
But it is only through will in man that we arrive at the
conception of Will beyond him; and if we must conclude
that man's will, though coalescing with an intelligent
principle, is necessitated and not free, how shall we escape
the same conclusion respecting the Divine Will? If intel-
ligence carries freedom in heaven, then on earth ; if it is
under necessity on earth, then, for aught we can reason
to the contrary, so also in heaven. God wills not as he
will, but as he must; and rules by appointments he
cannot help but make. The logic of necessity, therefore,
by this path leads to Fatalism; and Dr. Martineau, in
vindicating freedom, fights a battle for the supreme doc-
trine of religious faith. On this point Dr. Martineau
should himself be heard. Speaking of a phase of the
necessarian argument, he says: "If it holds of mind as
well as matter, and is co-extensive with causality itself, it
applies no less to God than to us ; and all that has begun
to be in his eternal life, the thoughts and acts that have
written themselves out in the history of the universe, have
been without alternative, the sole possibility of things.
428 JAMES MARTINEAU
He could neither have withheld creation, nor created any-
thing else. If in its immensity his nature is exempt from
external constraint, it is because it swallows up and
embraces all necessity within itself: he does not prefer,
he does not choose, he does not divide and judge; he
thinks what must be thought, he does what must be done,
and perceives neither better nor worse that might be. Pes-
simism and optimism are alike a vain jangle : the world
had to be what it is, and stands in no degrees of compari-
son: there is no margin of the possible beyond the actual:
they are identical. I never like to press the consequences
of a doctrine from which I dissent, knowing well the happy
ingenuity with which its dangerous tendencies are evaded
by men's better affections : but, without some regard to
them, it cannot be estimated as a logical whole : and if
here a conclusion is legitimately drawn from the necessa-
rian premises which he does not desire to admit, it is but
a fair invitation to him to carry a fresh scrutiny to his first
principles. He usually resents the imputation of fatalism:
and with some reason, so long as the question is detained
on the field of human life : for the fatalist imagines it to
make no difference whether he bestirs himself or not :
the necessarian, that it is just this that does make the
difference, only that with the end the means also are no
less ordained, and that God will not act for him but
through him. But when the doctrine is carried into the
Divine nature, does it leave anything there that is dis-
tinguishable from Fate? How can we call that a Mind,
from which the alternatives, the problems, the compari-
sons, of thought are absent? and how, that a character
which has no choice, and cannot help being and doing
precisely what it is and does? Goodness cannot exist
except under possibility of evil, or love except under
conditions of preference, or perfection except as the
superlative and crown of a better and a worse : and from
FREEDOM AND IMMORTALITY 429
an infinitude embracing nothing but necessities such
predicates must be withheld." 1
There is another theme in the consideration of which
our attitude on the problem of the will has great signifi-
cance. We recall the fine saying of Novalis : " Philoso-
phy can bake no bread; but she can procure for us God,
Freedom, and Immortality." It may not have occurred
to all that the middle conception here is a key to the
other two. We have seen how freedom is related to the
theistic doctrine, but how to immortality? Undoubtedly
there is a type of determinism with which the belief in
immortality is not untenable, as, for instance, that of
Edwards and the earlier Calvinists, who held the will
of the natural man to be enslaved by sin, though the func-
tion of a nature constitutionally immortal. When we
affirm, however, a constitutional necessity, we embrace
a philosophy with which belief in immortality does not
easily coalesce. For an immortal nature, as it is easy to
see, must be an entity, not an appearance merely ; that is
to say, a self-subsistent nature. A necessitated nature,
on the contrary, must be a dependent one: it has its
reality in another nature of which it is a manifestation.
Try the issue with reference to modern Naturalism, which,
whether on its more strictly Positive or on its Evolution-
ary side, has shown freedom little favor. Is man but a
flower of nature? The comfortless but unanswerable
answer is, No flower is immortal. Does he come in any
sense through the determination of Nature's law, her latest
and fairest phenomenon? We can only repeat the last
conclusion and say, There is no immortal phenomenon.
What comes by law, by law may go ; that which is in-
tegrated may be resolved. Unless there be that in man
which is not the product of nature and which law does
not rule, it is useless to talk of immortality. Or try the
1 Study of Religion t vol. ii. pp. 232-233.
430 JAMES MARTINEAU
issue with reference to Pantheism. Though the forms of
this are Protean, there is one cardinal conception from
which it cannot depart: all reality is in God, and the
universe and man are submerged in him. Of course the
freedom which would be an invincible dyke against this
submergence is not here ; for there is no proper personal-
ity, only a mode of the One Essence.
Thus, one defending the doctrine of freedom may well
have in view a basal principle which must rule his criticism
of theology, his judgments of history, his construction of
ethical theory, his religious philosophy, his view of human
destiny; and all depends on whether the simple dictum
within us shall be received or no. Though there are
many incidental arguments in favor of freedom, and
though the consequences to which we argue on determin-
ist lines in their ugly aspects remonstrate against deter-
minism, we come for ultimate settlement to consciousness
at last.
II. Immortality
Dr. Martineau settles with the problem of freedom be-
fore he approaches that of immortality. He carries, how-
ever, the result of that settlement over to the consideration
of the latter problem: it is a free nature of which he
maintains the immortality. With his usual thoroughness,
however, he reviews the salient doctrines by which in
these latter days immortality is often held to be dis-
credited : in a discussion of the " physiological aspects "
of death he shows the utter irrelevancy of the objections
of modern Naturalism; and in a like discussion of the
" metaphysical aspect " of death he shows against Schleier-
macher and his school how groundless is the pantheistic
doctrine of absorption. He then turns upon the inner
nature itself, and asks if the vaticinations of the intellect
FREEDOM AND IMMORTALITY 431
and conscience favor belief in immortality; and here we
will take up his argument.
i. The Intellect. In these days when Natural His-
tory is so assertive an interest, the lower animal, long
neglected, is often brought forward to challenge man's
claim to the exclusive possession of the faculties com-
monly regarded as peculiarly human. Man reasons ; but
the horse is detected in conduct so suggestive of reason
that it seems almost an intellectual perversity not to allow
it to him ; incipient reason, indeed, but reason. The
fleeing criminal is hardly more fertile in devices to escape
the constable than the fox or deer to outwit the hunter;
shrewd observers have little doubt of the cogitations of
the elephant; as an example of maternal affection, see the
hen gathering her chickens under her wings; while one
contemplating the special friend and companion of man,
his steadfastness and fidelity, may often be willing to make
his own the saying of Dio Lewis : " The best part of man
is the dog that is in him." Thus, in observing the feat-
ures in which the conduct of brute natures resembles our
own, very interesting parallelisms may be made out, quite
satisfying to those who, from apparent similarity of nature,
are disposed to give both a like place in their philosophy ;
and so implicate both in the same destiny.
These parallelisms we will pause neither to discredit
nor to explain. Let them be admitted to whatever extent
there may be warrant for admitting them ; still it may be
maintained that between brute and man there is a differ-
ence that is fundamental and not to be ignored. This
difference, following Dr. Martineau, we may dare to state
thus : While what we call the inward life of the animal is
for the outward life, with man the relation is the reverse :
the outward life is for the inward. With the former the
physical life is the all-predominant consideration ; with the
latter the psychical and moral. To the animal are the pro-
432 JAMES MARTINEAU
pensions through which it seeks food and propagates its
kind, the passions that resist injury and flee from danger,
the brief period of maternal affection, all for the individ-
ual's safety and the support and the perpetuation of the
race. When we turn, too, to the more curious instincts,
shown in the civic habits of the ant and the bee, the
architecture of the bird and the beaver, the web-weaving
of the caterpillar and the spider, we find it the same, the
wisdom of the universe working through them and direct-
ing them to the conditions of their existence ; just as it
works through the plant, directing its root to shoot down-
ward and its stock to shoot upward, and its leaves to
spread out into the air. So always whatever light is given
to the animal it is for the guidance of its purely animal
existence. To adopt with man, however, the like order of
preference we feel to be a departure from the rule ap-
pointed to him, and thus unnatural and dishonoring.
While we may adopt as our working maxim, metis sana in
corpore sano, we forgive and even applaud the disregard of
it which fidelity to the higher claims of the higher nature
may ask of us. The true relation of the physical is that
of subordination to the spiritual ; it is designed to be the
instrument of its progress, the servant of its work. Robert
Browning states our thesis well :
" To man propose this test
Thy body at its best,
How far can it project thy soul on its lone way ? "
The recognition of this relation is implied in our character-
istic judgments. While we look very tolerantly on the
rigors through which the higher faculties are honored, the
enfeeblement of the intellect in any degree through phys-
ical excess is revolting in our eyes. The truth is more
clearly seen in extreme illustrations. We might not be
willing to commend the austerities of St. Jerome; but
FREEDOM AND IMMORTALITY 433
they are beautiful to contemplate beside the gluttonies of
Charles V. ; and every healthy nature would say, Better
locusts and wild honey with John the Baptist than to
participate in the orgies of the " hog Vitellius ; " and at all
degrees between, it is plain where the emphasis of our
truer appreciation lies. On the other hand the scholar
whose severe application has brought dimness to his eyes ;
the philosopher the vigils of whose thought are traced in a
stooping form and a sallow countenance, we gently dis-
approve and deeply admire. Bodily strength and grace
we need not esteem lightly ; bringing the physical to its
fairer and more robust development may be honoring the
Creator of it ; and the Greeks, in that they sought it, were
wiser than the Christian anchorites in that they despised
it ; yet to gain a sage we would gladly sacrifice an athlete.
This difference, so markedly shown in the contrast
between the animal, subject to no change save in the
way of animal improvement and deterioration, and man,
advanced through all the measureless ranges of psychical
progress, is implicated in yet another contrast of great
significance. The outfit of the animal seems an ideal pro-
vision for the purely terrestrial sphere appointed to it;
that of man, if the terrestrial sphere be all that is
appointed for him, seems clearly a vast over-provision.
The scope of the animal's life, the range, that is, of its
possible interest, is the immediate and present. Its space
is here ; around it bends the circle of the horizon, but it
is incurious as to what lies beyond ; under it is the earth,
but it looks down in no inquiry ; over it hang the heavens,
but it looks up in no wonder. Its time is now ; behind
it is a past that invites to no retrospect; before it is a
future that beckons with no vision. In this we see an
ideal fitness. Allowing that to the animals this is the only
world, it is enough that they fit into it as it comes.
When we come to man, however, if we still grant this
28
434 JAMES MARTINEAU
life to be all, this ideal has apparently no recognition.
We deal here indeed with incommensurable terms ; and
Dr. Martineau asks, " How can we compare capacity of
reason with decades of years?" Yet a proportion he
recognizes, and all recognize, between the endowment of
a nature and its persistency and range of achievement.
You do not give to the pleasure boat the outfit of a ship
to the Indies, nor to an ephemeron that lives but a day the
equipment of a being of threescore and ten. Yet if the
terrestrial period be all there is for man, something like
this disproportion, only far more marked, is forced upon
us. Few there are who, the fact of immortality being
granted, would see any incongruity between the powers of
man and the career thus appointed him. If this life, then,
be all, we have before us the bewildering thought of a
being equipped for eternity and doomed to perish in
threescore and ten.
The outfit of man as a purely terrestrial being what
should it be? What more could he stipulate than that he
be treated as other animals are treated? which, of course,
would mean that he be provided with other faculties than
theirs as his special and human needs were to be other.
The full range of this claim few might venture to specify
off-hand ; but it would seem to imply, beyond the range
of other animals, the ability to draw food from the earth ;
to provide clothing for his protection, and arms for his
defence, and medicine for his ills, and surgery for his
hurts ; to find out fire and iron and the manifold uses of
the forge ; to pile wood and stone into dwellings ; to
expand the footpath into the highway; to grade the hill,
and clear the forest, and drain the swamp ; to find out
what servants he may have in wind and heat and water; to
construct an alphabet and organize a language ; to found
a home, and build up a social and civic structure. All
this taken together is very much indeed ; but allow it all
FREEDOM AND IMMORTALITY 435
embraced in our stipulation, and add to it whatever else a
human being with only a terrestrial outlook may require,
and what approximation will it make to the sum total of
endowment that man possesses? Take from him all not
embraced in this provision, and would he be the being
that he is? The obvious answer is that the scope of his
powers is immeasurably beyond all this ; that man's ca-
pacities cut down to these proportions, the features that
are his distinguishing glory, were gone. Here is con-
templated only the near and the practical, while the hu-
man range embraces the far and ideal.
Dr. Martineau remarks in his characteristic way that
while other creatures live in Time, Time lives in man
alone ; and the same also he finds true as respects Space.
His thought is not recondite ; it is a truth all recognize
that to man alone is a past with its glories and its shames,
a future with its dreads and its hopes, a field of vision
stretching around him in ever-widening horizon. To one,
however, at all conversant with the Critical Philosophy,
the truth is capable of being borne home more profoundly
and impressively. However we may define Space and
Time, it is simply true that what we may dare to call their
laws are laws of the human mind. On the perception of
these laws the mazy structure of our mathematics is
reared; and our celestial calculations are made by a
science wholly a priori in its origin. We draw it from
within ourselves and apply it to the computations of the
moons of Jupiter and the measurement of the orbit of
Saturn, with no doubt whatever that if accuracy rules our
processes truth will be the issue of them. That is to say,
two infinities meet in man, and he runs backward and for-
ward on the one, and out on all radii of the other, drawing
ever out of himself a knowledge of their laws. This is an
impressive truth, man not naturalized, but freeborn into
these infinities. And what shall we say to the further
436 JAMES MARTINEAU
truth that at will he leaps out of both, and roams free in
a supersensible and metaphysic world?
This endowment of a purely terrestrial nature, destined
for the brief period of threescore and ten, seems an im-
measurable over-endowment. If our scope is thus indeed
restricted, the question as to this over-endowment is a
most bewildering one. Grant that we need yesterday for
its experience and to-morrow for its foresight; yet, with
relations thus restricted to our own period, what need
have we of these immeasurable reaches beyond it? What
need of the record of Pharaonic dynasties, or of the story
told by the monuments of Thebes and Karnak? For the
practical guidance of to-day are we helped in any measure
by what we have learned of the Aryan migrations or the
wars of the Pelasgi? Is our political economy furthered
by what we may know of the trade of Tyre, or our states-
manship instructed by our knowledge of the decrees of
Sennacherib? What need of research into geological
antiquities? Or, changing the direction of our glance,
what need of millennial forecasts? Of what advantage is
it to know when the pole star will stand in our zenith, or
when the sun will reach the Constellation of Hercules?
With relations in space so restricted, what need of an ever-
expanding horizon? What need of the stellar infinitude
and the astronomer's free life in it? Further, while en-
gaged in practical estimates we may ask what need of
the Analytical Geometry and the Differential Calculus?
What need of knowledge of the ultimate elements of mat-
ter, or of the chemistry of light, or of the revelations of
the microscope and spectroscope, the correlation of forces,
the derivative origin of species, the specific gravity of
Jupiter, the periodicities of Uranus? What need to add
to all these the domain which philosophy opens to our
contemplation? What need of the mystic realm of Bee-
thoven's music, and Goethe's drama, and Dante's poetry?
FREEDOM AND IMMORTALITY 437
Of endowment equal to the achievement of these things,
and the impulse to achieve them, for a being thus re-
stricted, what need ? Why in the case of man this incalcu-
lable departure from the manifest ideal met in all the lower
kingdoms of animal existence? Making our estimate on
the strictly utilitarian basis, stipulating for man, according
to his nature, such equipment only as other terrestrial
natures have, there is no need. The provision for his
brief earthly life far surpasses the earthly requirement
Even though we make our own the saying of Coleridge,
" We construct our earthly charts from celestial observa-
tions," still our contention is unshaken. Still may it be
successfully shown that for the purely earthly guidance
the nearer luminaries are sufficient for our needs. In the
days of Athens' glory Plato's thought was of small con-
sequence in the Agora, and the archons had little use for
Aeschylos. The vast structure of the Roman Empire
shows nothing more plainly than how the common needs
may be supplied, power established and preserved, civiliza-
tion built up and extended, without the higher intellectual
endowments. Its characteristic great man was the soldier,
not the sage; the lawgiver, not the philosopher; the
architect, not the scientist; the engineer, not the poet.
Indeed, considering the period of its duration and the ex-
tent of its sway, its conquests in the higher realms of
intellect were singularly slight. It produced not a poet,
not a philosopher, of the first class ; and were the volume
of its literary creation suddenly to be blotted from exist-
ence, with here and there a regret for Seneca, a grief for
Cicero, a sigh for Horace, a tear for Virgil, and a lament
for Tacitus, the world would go on with no sense of
irreparable loss. Good work here surely, but none of
those vast achievements which date epochs in our intel-
lectual advance. Of Rome it was peculiarly true that her
kingdom was of this world ; and if it were whispered to us
438 JAMES MARTINEAU
that henceforth we must get on without the higher ener-
gies of intellect we might take comfort from the example
of her success. Yet the common judgment is right in
seeing the more representative man in him of wider and
higher intellectual relations : in Aristotle, not Alexander ;
in Plato, not Pericles ; in Dante, not Cosimo de' Medici ; in
Goethe, not Frederick; in Montesquieu, not Louis XIV.;
in Milton, not Cromwell; in Newton, not William III.;
in Wordsworth, not Wellington; in Emerson, not Grant.
There is the philosopher, Kant, and there beside him is
his servant, Lampe. Into the vast speculations of the
former the latter may not enter ; yet in the philosopher
the valet may see his own possibilities, not transcended,
but illustrated. The philosopher with all his greatness has
only the common human faculties; and so exhibits in
himself what, though undeveloped, is yet nascent in us
all.
Now the perplexity we encounter here draws all its
significance from the supposition that to man as to all
other terrestrial natures there is a terrestrial life only.
Reverse, then, the supposition ; allow that the here is but
a prelude to a there, that " we have vaster relations than
our immediate surroundings," and the perplexity vanishes.
The disproportion we have contemplated between outfit
and scope of existence yields to a sense of the fairest
proportion. This transient tenant of the world, that
finds his range too narrow, is really a destined citizen of
the universe, awaiting his fuller " enfranchisement." In
the " excursions " he makes, he feels " the outskirts
of a problem that is to engage larger meditations and
maturer powers ; " and the " Science that transcends the
demands of one life " he is permitted to feel to be the
" propylaeum of another." J
This contrast of outfit, with only the light of Natural
1 Study of Religion, vol. ii. p. 351.
FREEDOM AND IMMORTALITY 439
History in which to study it, enfolds perplexities which
only deepen as we meditate upon them. Of him who
allows no light but that of Natural History we have a
right to ask its explanation. Why is the ideal of nature
as shown in the endowment of the lower animals so
markedly departed from in the case of man? As their
endowment is measured off to them according to terres-
trial needs, why not his also, if only a terrestrial nature
has been given him? Nor is this question here raised
for the first time, nor was Dr. Martineau the first to raise
it. Early in the century Lord Erskine wrote : " When I
reflect that God has given to inferior animals no instincts
nor faculties that are not immediately subservient to the
ends and purposes of their beings, I cannot but conclude
that the reason and faculties of man were bestowed upon
the same principle, and are connected with his superior
nature." From this conclusion he draws the same infer-
ence as Dr. Martineau. " When I find him," he goes on,
" endowed with powers to carry, as it were, the line and
rule to the most distant worlds, I consider it as conclu-
sive evidence of a future and more exalted distinction,
because I cannot think that the Creator of the universe
would depart from all the analogies of the lower creation
in the formation of the highest creature by gifting him
with a capacity not only utterly useless but destructive of
his contentment and happiness, if his existence were to
terminate in the grave." Where this inference is repudi-
ated it is difficult to see what possible explanation can be
given of this break in the analogy, in passing from the
lower orders of existence to the higher. The inference
granted, however, the analogy is obviously unbroken.
Man has his larger endowment as a provision for the
ampler range yet before him.
The consideration of the scope of man's powers counts
for much with Dr. Martineau. There is another consider-
44O JAMES MARTINEAU
ation, however, which, as conveyed in his impressive
language, probably counts with his readers for not less :
it is of man's power as a creator. In the possession of
this he feels man to be " above the measure of his present
lot." " The reflective mind of man, it has been said, alone
is the mirror of nature ; but more than this, it is a retain-
ing mirror, whereon the images, once left, remain, and
shine in the dark ; and, most of all, it is a redisposing, a
beautifying, a quickening mirror, that drops the matter
and keeps the meaning of things, freshens their colours,
deepens their expression, and so shifts their scenery
as to shape a drama from a chronicle. Well may the
poet be called by the half-sacred name of Vates ; for the
ideal transformation of the actual is as divine a miracle
as the turning of dust into dew-drops ; and the moulding
of language into an instrument for this end, that its
rhythm and its fire may sweep through the ages, still
waking up wrath and love and pity wherever it alights,
is a marvel surpassed only by our blindness to it." l If
valued for nothing else, this language might well be treas-
ured as a wonderful account of an unaccountable wonder.
There are two orders of creation that endure. One is
illustrated in the coral reef, in the bridge, the aqueduct,
the highway, the structure of a language, society, or gov-
ernment ; in a church, a university, in all of which many
co-operate, and a succeeding generation may carry for-
ward what a previous one begins. " Such monuments
record the power of the social spirit, and measure for us
the greatness of nations." The other order is altogether
personal, the embodied conception of one mind, its very
genius excluding all participation. We meet it in the
transcendent achievements of art and song and letters:
in the dome of St. Peter's, in the Campanile at Florence,
in the wonderful delineations of Raphael, Angelico, Da
1 Study of Religion, vol. ii. pp. 352-353.
FREEDOM AND IMMORTALITY 441
Vinci, in the sonatas of Beethoven and the Messiah of
Handel, in the Iliad, the Agamemnon, the Divina Corn-
media, Job, Faust, Hamlet, Saul. These are publica-
tions of the solitary soul. To add to them is to outrage
them ; to mend them is to destroy them. Their reality
is in the unity of the one mind that brought them forth.
From age to age they experiment upon individual souls,
leaving upon them the priceless impress of wisdom,
holiness, beauty. They are stars in our intellectual
firmament ; and no orb in all the galaxy above us more
truly witnesses a creative mind than they.
It is such creations that Dr. Martineau is contemplating
in the passage above quoted. Whither may they lead
our contemplation? I cast my eyes upon my book-
shelves where my chief treasures are, not costly and yet
priceless. There is Plato, and beside him Goethe, and
beside him Pascal, and Dante is close by, and Kant
and Hume and Berkeley just a little further away. There,
too, are Shakespeare and Milton and Browning and
Emerson ; and before me is an open volume wherein I
read, " Lo, I am with you alway." These words seem
spoken to me ; and from all these great ones I turn with
the sense of personal interview. Their page when most
impersonal is as a letter they have written me. This
sense of personal relation with the great artist or the
great poet or the great teacher is certainly the common
one. But the two terms of the relation, what and
where are they? The second is indubitably here; "is
the first of them nothing and nowhere? and is the homage
it wrings from me paid to a blank? or to a dead book
only, to blotted paper, or coloured canvass, or an
orchestral score? Heart-worship, like God, is not of
the dead, but of the living; and that, in the thought-
glance with which we look up to a Homer, a Dante, a
Shakespeare, there should be no reciprocity possible,
442 JAMES MARTINEAU
that in reverencing the prophets, we do but decorate
their tombs, that the touch which wakes such fires
within us should be that of a quenched torch, would
expel their chief meaning from the noblest relations
subsisting among human minds. A great creative per-
sonality may be lonely and neglected in his day; and
only when the reflection which he leaves of himself travels
down the ages, does he select ~and gather together his
natural associates and lovers: and shall he never hear
the chorus of that great company, or know of that life
which began for him when life had ended?" 1
Through another and related aspect we come to another
and related consideration. In our philosophizing it is
not our wont to think of an effect as more enduring than
its cause, when the real and ultimate cause has been
found. Phenomena pass, but not their originating spring.
You hold audience with Emerson? Oh no, there is no
Emerson. There was an Emerson once, a phantom, that
is, to which we gave the name, which flitted here and
there across our path, and left this imperishable record.
His visions, his heart-beats, he built into this enduring
memorial and vanished! The creation abides; the
creator is no more / Here are his phenomena ; he
where? The stream flows on its fountain long since
gone ! The light abides ; the sun extinguished ! The
suggestion seems almost to carry its own refutation.
Not only does it bewilder our sense of what is inherently
fitting, but it inverts one of the primary conceptions on
which our philosophy is founded. " Can a word that is
immortal come from a speaker that is ephemeral ? "
Yet another consideration puts in a persuasive plea.
Though mind as we know it is related with a physical
organism, and therefore, when that organism perishes,
ceases from that mode of activity with which we are
1 Study of Religion, vol. ii. pp. 353-354-
FREEDOM AND IMMORTALITY 443
acquainted, who can say that with the decay of the or-
ganism its possibilities have been surely realized? Very
especially in the case of great men is the significance of
this question borne in upon us. The great things they
achieve are they more than hints of greater achieve-
ments that were possible, were opportunity given them ?
The intellect that brought forth the Divina Commedia
who can feel that its capacities were exhausted with this
consummate production? What lament of great minds
is more common than that they have not time to make
real the ideals which mental faculty alone, and apart
from physical decay, should make so possible to them?
But for this limitation, what conquests in science might
Agassiz have made ! What songs might Tennyson have
sung ! With this consideration in mind Dr. Martineau
remarks that the fact that one sees " what he must relin-
quish, and resigns it with regret, shows that he could
conquer it, if he had a chance ; and it is precisely at the
end of life, that, from the vantage-ground of a lofty ele-
vation and a large survey, he most intently turns to the
horizon and best discerns the outline of the promised
land on which his eyes are about to close." This he
follows with the impressive statement : " I do not know
that there is anything in nature (unless indeed it be the
reputed blotting-out of suns in the stellar heavens) which
can be compared in wastefulness with the extinction of
great minds: their gathered resources, their matured
skill, their luminous insight, their unfailing tact, are not
like instincts that can be handed down; they are abso-
lutely personal and inalienable ; grand conditions of future
power, unavailable for the race, and perfect for the ulterior
growth of the individual. If that growth is not to be, the
most brilliant genius bursts and vanishes as a firework in
the night. A mind of balanced and finished faculties is
a production at once of infinite delicacy and of most
444 JAMES MARTINEAU
enduring constitution; lodged in a fast perishing organ-
ism, it is like a perfect set of astronomical instruments,
misplaced in an observatory shaken by earthquakes or
caving in with decay." l
Here again we need to remember that great and small,
as applied to minds, have reference to range of develop-
ment, not difference of constitution. Were the great
fundamentally other than the small, endowed, that is,
with capacities of which in the less favored there are no
germs, then immortality might be conceived, as some
have conceived it, as the exclusive privilege of the great.
But it is not so : the great are only the most representa-
tive ; in them we see in fairer proportions what is true
of all. However modestly I may estimate myself, I yet
may say that there was not a faculty in the august intel-
lect of Plato that is not also in mine. The fact that he
can speak to me and I can understand him, that I can
explore his depths and scale his heights, shows that
however in power he may surpass me he is not funda-
mentally unlike me. It is not likely that I shall ever
write a Lycidas ; but I cannot doubt that I am at least
a " mute, inglorious Milton." The claim, then, that we
put forward for the great is true for all. We argue not
the immortality of sages, but of the soul.
So much do we find in the prophecies of the intellect.
2. The Conscience. After God, conscience is the most
solemn word. It. is the oracle of the moral law within ;
in listening to it we hear a judgment from the Universal
Throne. Its decisions are ever respecting the motives
of conduct, This is worthier, that less worthy; and
with the decision an obligation is laid upon us. With
the ever possible obedience, we are in harmony with the
Power that asks it ; with the ever possible disobedience,
we are at variance with that Power. Now the issue. With
1 Study of Religion, vol. ii. p. 356.
FREEDOM AND IMMORTALITY 445
the freedom to obey or not to obey, we are put upon a
trial that depends upon ourselves. " The alternatives of
a trust have a sequel in the alternatives of a reckoning.
So that wherever Conscience is, there we stand only
in the forecourt of existence ; and a Moral world cannot
be final, unless it be everlasting." l This pregnant sen-
tence may be pondered long.
But, admitting that alternative consequences must ever
follow these alternatives of conduct, it is yet often doubted
whether it is necessary to look to another world for them.
Here and now, it is argued, men may reap as they sow ;
blessing for their blessing, evil for their sin. In illustra-
tion of this, appeal is often made to the peace of the un-
sullied conscience, and to the twinges of guilt and shame
that attend unfaithfulness. In the presence of these, it is
maintained that there is no need to ask a future in which
a harvest appropriate to the sowing shall be gathered.
This view is not Dr. Martineau's ; and by way of con-
troverting it he calls attention to the workings of con-
science in two very significant aspects:
Ideal justice, what does that stipulate? In a specific
case, what blessing should follow upon this virtue, what
bane should be the issue of that transgression, it would be
impossible for man to give more than a proximate judg-
ment. We applaud the brave and the self-denying; we
condemn the drunkard and the liar. But the deeper con-
siderations, motive, temptation, organized predilection,
without reference to which just praise or blame cannot be
awarded, can be duly estimated only by the mind of God.
But while we may be unable in the specific case to make
the absolutely just award, we all recognize a principle by
which just awards are made, and which requires that the
" greater excellence should have the ampler recognition,
and the deeper guilt should have the most to bear." 2 In
1 Study of Religion, vol. ii. p. 361. * Ibid. p. 363.
446 JAMES MARTINEAU
our earthly relations this principle rules our judgments.
In our courts the lighter sentence is for the first offence,
and penalties become severer as transgressions are re-
peated. On the other hand we smile upon the toiler after
higher excellence in his earlier successes, applaud his yet
nobler achievement ; but withhold from him his crown till
some distinguished triumph has been won. This rule may
not be always consistently followed, yet it is our rule;
and we are sure that neither in heaven nor among men
can there be justice apart from it.
Now this rule, however recognized in outward judgment,
in inward experience is practically inverted. The young
man, encountering temptation, may be conscious of moral
elation in his earlier victories ; but as he goes on,
"'Still treading each temptation down,
And battling for a brighter crown,"
as by repetition of victories he rises, and his vision of duty
becomes larger and his insight into its meaning clearer
and deeper, his triumphs cease to elate him ; the height
that is won is forgotten in contemplation of the height
that is above him. While to others he may seem so far
from earth, he is only conscious that heaven is so distant ;
and so, though few may deserve better, few are less con-
scious of desert than he. Hence it is that at the moral
summits of humanity we hear a Channing complaining of
the hardness of his heart, a Wesley bewailing his unbelief,
a Luther lamenting his want of steadfastness, and Paul
crying, " Oh wretched man that I am ! " Looking in the
other direction, we find it correspondingly the same. In
the punishments of conscience there is ever the sharper
pang for the earlier sin; and suffering is ever less as
transgression is repeated. So he may suffer least whose
guilt is greatest; and the sinning soul may indurate itself
beyond the scorchings of retribution.
FREEDOM AND IMMORTALITY 447
For these reasons it seems impossible to admit that
" our Moral nature runs through its own cycle, and fulfils
its own klea, in our experience here. It announces a
righteous rule which again and again it brings to mind
and will not suffer to be forgotten, but of which it does
not secure the execution. It is a prophecy, carrying its
own credentials in an incipient foretaste of the end, but
holding its realization in reserve ; and if Death gives final
discharge alike to the sinner and the saint, we are war-
ranted in saying that Conscience has told more lies than it
has ever called to their account." 1
Thus he finds the Intellect and Conscience, both plead-
ing for immortality, the one for the exercise of its powers,
the other for the realization of its justice, and he admits
their plea. The fact that these may not be here, is to him
sufficient warrant that there must be a there.
Here we leave him. The faith which Positivism must
disown, and Pantheism cannot encourage, and Evolution
can barely allow, supported by Dr. Martineau's philoso-
phy, may be strong and buoyant. A dogma he does not
offer us; the warrant of a science he does not claim.
Through his intense believing, however, and his lofty
thinking, he bears in upon us a certitude that is clear and
strong and sufficing. It must be a stubborn scepticism
that, emerging from the deeps of this great Study, cannot
say with the Emperor Marcus, " What springs from earth
dissolves to earth again, and heaven-born things fly to
their native seat."
1 Study of Religion, vol. ii. p. 365.
INDEX
A.
Abbott, Ezra, 239.
Aberdeen, University of, 119.
Academy, The, 141.
Acosmism and atheism, 402.
Act of Uniformity, The, 42.
Addison, Joseph, 126.
Address to James Martineau, eighty-third
birthday, 118-120; reply to, 120-122.
Admetos, 18.
Aeschylos, 125, 437.
Affection, Compassionate, 388.
Agamemnon, Aeschylos, 441.
Agassiz, Louis, 128, 224, 245, 348, 443.
Agnosticism, Club to combat, 97-99 ;
Kant's and Hume's, compared, 280-
285.
Akenside, Mark, 139.
Alderson, Dr., 9, 10.
Alexander, 438.
Alger, William, R., 78 n., 88 ; letterxto,
from Dr. Martineau, 98 n., 229 n. X^
"All we know is phenomena," 294,
304.
Alphonso of Castile, 354.
Altruism in Nature, 377.
Amsterdam, University of, 119.
Ancient Egypt under the Pharaohs, J.
Kenrick. 24.
Andover Theological School, 119, 162.
Andrews, St., University of, 118.
Angelico, Fra, 440.
Angelo, Michael, 138.
Animal, The, outfit of an ideal provision
for a terrestrial sphere, 433.
Annas, 242.
Anomalies vs. Customs of Heaven, 172.
Anthedon, 341.
Anthropomorphism, 348.
Antonines, The, 251.
29
Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius, 371, 447.
Apocalypse, The, 239 ; authorship of,
240-241.
Apollinaris, 237, 246.
Apollo, 18.
Apostles, The, 39, 178, 231.
Aquinas, Thomas, 155-156.
Argyll, Duke of, 98 n.
Arianism, 21, 163-164, 165, 196.
Aristides, 16.
Aristotle, 27, 76, 80, 93, 123, 128, 320,
353-354. 438-
Armstrong, Rev. James, 38.
Armstrong, Rev. R. A., 92.
Arnold, Sir Edwin, 119.
Arnold, Thomas, 14, 79.
Aryans, 436.
Assembly's Catechism, 36.
" Asses of Parnassus," 127.
Association, Law of, 423.
Athanasius, St., 66.
Atheism and acosmism, 402.
Athenagoras, 251.
Atkinson, Henry George, 84-85, 86.
Atonement, The, 71, 173-174.
Augustine, St., 214, 375.
Austin, 10.
Authority in Religion, 54; Catholic view
of, 221 ; Protestant view of, 221-222 ;
philosophic view of, 222-225 ; internal
and external, 225-226.
Automatism vs. Intelligence, 338.
Axiom of Causality, 99, 314 n.
B.
Bacon, Francis, 76, 127, 139, 245, 362.
Bain, Alexander, 93, 98 n., 124, 306.
Balfour, Arthur J., 122.
Bank of England, 134.
Baptist, John the, 135.
INDEX
Barbauld, Anna Laetitia, 8 n., 9.
Barnes, Thomas, 21.
Battle of the Churches, The, 82.
Baur, Ferdinand Christian, 229, 236.
Baxter, Richard, 36, 37, 45, 208.
Beatitudes, Mount off 140.
Beecher, Henry Ward, 142, 150.
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 436, 441.
Belfast, 1 66.
Belfast Address, The, John Tyndall,
335-
Belsham, Thomas, 162.
Bentham, Jeremy, 51, no, 124, 363.
Bentley, Richard, 79.
Bergerac, 2.
Berkeley, Bishop, 328, 413, 441.
"Besetting God," The, 150.
Bethany, 242.
Bible, The, 168, 178, 260.
" Bible and the Child," The, 179.
" Bible, The : What it is and What it is
not," 169.
Birth-rate, Excessive, 357.
Blandrata, Giorgio, 214.
Boeckh, August, 26.
" Bona Fides of our intuitive witnesses,"
289.
Bossuet, Bishop, 130.
Boswell, James, 79.
Bounty, Royal, 45, 46, 47, 48.
Bowen, Francis, 300.
Bradley, G. G., 119.
Bretschneider, Karl Gottlieb, 228.
Bridgnvater Treatises, The, 335, 337.
Bristol, Bishop of, 98.
British and Foreign Unitarian Associa-
tion, The, 209, 210, 211.
British Museum, The, 36 n.
Brobdingnag, 369.
Brooks, Phillips, 120.
Brougham, Lord, 7.
Browne, Sir Thomas, 10.
Browning, Robert, 98 n., 119, 141, 432,
441.
Bunsen, Baron, 241.
Bunyan, John, 239.
Butler, Joseph, 92, 125.
Byron, Lord, 141.
c.
Caesar, Julius, 283.
Cassarea Philippi, Declaration at, 271-
274.
Caiaphas, 242.
Caird, Prof. Edward, 288, 353.
Cairn Gorm Mountains, 136.
Calculus, The, 43, 436.
Caliban, 358.
Calvary, 234.
Calvin, John, 375, 423.
Calvinism, 190.
Calvinists, 429.
Campanile, at Florence, 440.
Canon, Genuineness of, 117.
Canute, 10.
Capel, Thomas J., 54.
Cappe, Catherine, 29-30.
Cappe, Newcome, 29 n.
Carlstadt, A. R. Bodenstein, 227.
Carlyle, Thomas, 83, 124, 141.
Carpenter, J. Estlin, 15, 92, 264 n.
Carpenter, Lant, 13-19, 35, 78.
Carpenter, Mary, 15.
Carpenter, W. B., 15, 98, 99, 125, 308,
318 n.
Cartesians, 108.
Categorical Imperative, The, 141, 360.
Categories, The, Kant's inferences from
them criticised, 288.
Catholic, The, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49.
Catholic Church, The, 52, 225.
Catholic Emancipation, 17.
Catiline, 179.
Causal Idea, The, 300.
Causation, Two theories of, 300-301 ;
phenomenal theory of, 301 seq. ; dy-
namical theory of, 311 seq.\ Hume's
view of, 281, 301-303 ; Comte's, 303-
304 ; Mill's, 304-305 ; Kant's, 310-
311 ; Martineau's, 311 seq. ; reduced
to uniform succession, 306; empirical
and metaphysical doctrines of, com-
pared, 313.
Cayman Islands, 344.
Cerebral Psychology, Bain, 95.
Channing, W. E., 82, 142, 147, 150, 165,
166, 446.
Chapman, Mrs. Maria W., 10, n.
Charles I., 398.
Charles II., 44, 210.
Charles V., 43^.
Chillingworth, William, 6, 36.
Christ Church, Liverpool, 58.
"Christ's Treatment of Guilt," 156 n.,
193-
"Christ the Divine Word," 150.
Christian Examiner, The, 78.
INDEX
451
Christian Instincts and Modern Doubt,
A. H. Craufurd, 216 n.
"Christian Peace," 150.
Christian Reformer, The, 51, 78, 202,
213 n.
Christian Teacher, The, 57.
" Christian View of Moral Evil," 174.
"Christianity without Priest and with-
out Ritual," 176.
Church and State, 79.
Church of England, 20; Sacerdotalism
in, 178.
Church of England, 82.
Church vs Sect, 212.
Cicero, 104, 143, 437.
Civil War in America, 89.
Clarendon Press, 107.
Clarke, Samuel, 109.
Clement of Alexandria, 242.
Clementine Recognitions, 238.
Clifford, Prof. W. K., 98, 99.
Cobbe, Frances Power, 94, 160, 161,
343 n -
Coleridge, S.T., 124, 411, 437.
Collins, Anthony, no.
Columbia Theological School, 162.
Columbus, Christopher, 10.
Combination in Nature, 343 seq.
Commodus, 15.
Common Prayer, 198.
Comte, Auguste, 84, 88, 108, 113, 124,
125, 224, 303-304. 38, 309, 368,
423-
Congregationalism, 38.
Conscience, its function, 359-362; not a
reflection of Prudence, 363 ; its oracle
not from the higher nature in man,
367-368 ; not a reflection of social
sentiment, 368-372 ; the voice of God,
372-374 ; a forecast of immortality,
444 seq.
Contemporary Review, 237 n.
Corinthians, Epistles to, 230.
Correlation of growth, 343.
Cosin, Bishop, 10.
Cotman, John S., 10.
Craufurd, A. H., 216 n.
Creed of Christendom, The, W. R. Greg,
82, 180, 184.
Crome, John, 10.
Cromwell, Oliver, 398, 438.
Crosby and Nichols, 88.
Cudworth, Ralph, 109.
Cuvier, Georges, 343, 348.
D.
Daily News, London, 5 n., 7, 82 n.
Dante Alighieri, 144, 436, 438, 441.
Darbishire, F., 104.
Darbishire, S. D.)io4.
Darwin, Charles, 125, 126, 224, 343.
Darwinism in Morals, F. P. Cobbe,
343 n.
David, Son of, 74, 247, 265.
Davy, Sir Humphry, 320.
De Wette, Wilhelm M. L., 228.
Death, the transition of, 192.
Declaration of Independence, The, 239.
Deism, cardinal features of, 401-402 ;
maintained Divine Transcendency,
401 ; its God always a person, 406 ;
criticised, 405-406.
Democritus, 85.
Demosthenes, 27, 129.
Deontology, Bentham, 51.
Derby, 18, 19.
Derbyshire, 9 n.
" Derivative origin of phenomena," 312.
Descartes, Ren6, 123, 336, 338, 348.
Design, objections to the argument
from, 331, 335-354-
Development of organs, two theories of,
342.
Dewey, Rev. Orville, 150.
Dickens, Charles, 94.
Diderot, Denis, in.
Dieppe, 2.
" Discipline of Darkness," The, 150.
Discourse on Matters Pertaining to Re-
ligion, Theodore Parker, 186.
Divina Commedia, Dante, 441, 443.
Domitian, 376.
Dragonade, The, i, 2, 399.
Drummond, Henry, 377.
Drummond, James, 22.
Dublin, Mr. Martineau's call and settle-
ment there, 35-37 ', his life there, 44 ;
moral issue that severed him from his
congregation, 44-49 '> losses from his
congregation, 163.
Dublin University, 43 ; honors Dr. Mar-
tineau, 100.
E.
Early Messianic Ideas, 95.
Ebionites, The, 252.
Ecclesiastical organization, basis of, 207
seq.
452
INDEX
Eckhart, Johannes, 150, 403.
Edict of Nantes, i ; Revocation of, i, 2,
399-
Edinburgh University, honors Dr. Mar-
tineau, 100 ; 119.
Edwards, Jonathan, 9/110, 423.
Efficient and Effect, 301.
Egypt of Herodotus, John Kenrick, 24.
Eichhorn, Johann Gottfried, 33.
Elegantics Latince, Edward Valpy, 12.
Elegy, Thomas Gray, 145.
Emerson, R. W., 52, 83, 126, 128, 134,
160, 171, 403, 438, 442.
Endeavors after the Christian Life,
7-8 ; first series published, 78 ; second
series, 79 ; 95, 107, 143, 145, 148-149,
150, 172.
Epicurean Morality, 179.
Epicureans, The, 328.
Epistles, The, 167, 228; genuine, 230.
Erpingham, Sir Thomas, 10.
Erskine, Lord, 439.
Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, 51 ;
their publication, 118 ; 180, 183, 184,
187, 197, 202, 203-204, 206, 212, 213-
214, 217, 218, 219, 314 n., 322, 328,
3 2 9, 330, 333-
Essays, Theological and Philosophical,
95-
Essays, Hume's, 280.
Essex Hall, Convention at, 209, 211.
Eucharist, The, 51.
Europe since the Reformation, 82.
Eusebius, 237 n.
Everlasting Gospel, The, not the Primi-
tive, 180.
Evidence, J. A. Froude, 99.
Evolution of Religion, The, Prof. Ed-
ward Caird, 353.
Evolution, Philosophy of, 96, 132.
Ewald, Heinrich Georg August von, 241.
Examination of Hamilton, J. S. Mill
366.
Ezekiel, The Book of, 260 ; the Seer in,
268.
F.
" Faith the deliverance from Fear," 158.
Fall, Doctrine of, reviewed, 174-175.
Faraday, Michael, 126.
Fatalism, Necessity implies it, 427-428.
Father Taylor, 138.
Faust, Goethe, 441.
Filiation, not a gift, 253.
Final Causes, 336 seq.
Final Causes, Paul A. R. Janet, 342 n.
Finite and the Infinite in Human
Nature, The, 199.
First Principles, Herbert Spencer, 95,
335-
Five Points of Christian Faith, 78, 178.
Florence, Campanile at, 440.
Force, behind Nature, 318 ; in Nature,
319 , Unity of, 321 ; ultimate nature
of, not revealed to the senses, 321-325 ;
resolved into Will, 325-326.
Forces, Correlation of, 319-321.
Forgiveness, 192.
Foundations of Belief, Arthur J. Bal-
four, 122.
Fourth Gospel, The, 231 ; compared with
the Synoptics, 234 ; date and origin of,
236-253.
France, her losses from the Revocation
of the Edict of Nantes, i.
Frederick the Great, 438.
" Free learning," 20 n.
Free Will, 423 seq.
Freedom, involves liability to sin, 391 ;
how related to immortality, 429.
Froude, J. A., 99, 396.
Fuller, Andrew, 64 n.
Furness, W. H., 220.
Future Punishment, 192-195.
G.
Gainsborough, Thomas, 10.
Galahad, Sir, 76.
Galatians, Epistle to the, 230.
Galilee, 242, 249, 275.
Garfield, James A., 34.
George I., 44.
George, Henry, 139.
Giles, Rev. Henry, 57, 64.
Gladstone, W. E., 50, 97.
Glasgow, University of, 13, 119.
Glaucus of Anthedon, 341.
Gnosticism, 251.
God in History, 187.
Goethe, 133, 362, 404, 436, 438, 441.
Gordon, Rev. Alexander, 20 n., 92.
Gospel according to the Hebrews, 252.
Gospel of Peter, The, 122.
Gospels, The, 55, 167, 232, 233 ; agree-
ments and disagreements of, 228 ;
significance of their headings, 230.
INDEX
Gradation in Nature, 346-348.
Greek Grammar, Matthiae, 26.
Grant, U. S., 438.
Greenwood, Grace, 135.
Greg, W. R., 180, 184.
Grote, George, 96, 124.
Grundy, Rev. John, 50, 51.
Guyon, Madame, 404.
H.
Haeckel, Ernest, 343.
Hall, Bishop, 10.
Hamilton, Sir William, 88, 93, 124, 125,
132.
Hamlet, Shakespeare, 441.
Handel, George Frederick, 441.
Harnack, Dr. Adolf, 239.
Harrison, Frederic, 98, 99.
Hartley, David, no, 181, 423.
Hartmann, Eduard von, 393.
Harvard University 99, 119.
Haworth, F., 104.
Hedge, F. H., 120, 133,336, 337, 403 n.
Hedonism, 363.
Hegel, G.W. F., So, 81, 335, 411.
Herod, 179.
Herschel, Sir John, 330.
Hewley, Lady, 210, 211.
Hibbert Lectures, Charles B. Upton, 299.
Hierarchy, The, 224.
Higginson, Rev. Edward, 19.
Higginson, Helen, 36.
Hildebrand, 224.
Hill, Rev. Thomas B., 350.
Holmes, O. W., 120.
Holy Livin an Holy Dying, Jeremy
Taylor, 78.
Home Prayers, 118.
Homer, 76, 139, 441.
Honduras, Bay of, 344.
Honors to Dr. Martineau, 99-106.
Hope Street Church, Si, 145.
Hopkins, Mark, 34.
Horace, 437.
Houghton, Lord, 10.
Hours of Thought on Sacred Things, 44,
95, i7, 143, T 45, 15-
Howison, Prof. George H., 402.
Huguenots, The, 1-2, 5, 399.
Humanitarianism, 164, 196.
Humboldt, Wilhelm von, 25.
Hume, David, 123; agnosticism of, 280-
t 282 ; his agnosticism compared with
Kant's, 284-285 ; 301, 302, 303, 310,
441.
Hungary, Unitarians of, 103-106.
Hunt, John, 412.
Hutton, Rev. Joseph, 37-39.
Hutton, R. H., 80, 192-193.
Huxley, Thomas, 98, 99, 280, 290, 328,
343, 349, 378.
Hymns for the Christian Church and
Home, 74.
Hymns 0} Praise and Prayer, 95.
I.
Iliad, The, 441.
Immanence, Divine, 402, 407-410, 422.
Immortality, Freedom essential to, 430;
testimony of the intellect to, 431 seq. ;
testimony of conscience to, 444 seq.
In Metnoriam, Tennyson, 125.
Inquirer, The, London, 213 n.
Inspiration, spiritual, not mechanical,
169-170; full significance of, not sure
to be seen by him who brings it, 180 ;
nature and scope of, 185-188.
Intellect in man and the lower animals,
431 seq.
Irenaeus, 232, 237 n.
Isaiah, 5, 220, 260, 331.
Islam, 214.
Israelites, The, 259.
J-
Jacob, 137.
Jacobi, Karl Heinrich Friedrich, 353.
Jamaica, 344.
Janet, Paul A. R., 342.
Jena, University of, 119.
Jeremiah, 220.
Jerome, St., 432.
Jerrold, Douglas, 139.
Jerusalem, 74 ; Church of, 243 ; 249,
274, 275, 276, 277.
Jesus of Nazara, Dr. Theodor Keim,
249.
Jews, The, 243, 404.
Job, 441.
John the Apostle, 239, 240, 243, 245.
John the Baptist, 135, 271, 433.
John the Presbyter, 237 n.
Johns Hopkins University, 119.
Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 79, 141, 404; re-
futes Berkeley, 413.
Jones, Jeremiah, 33.
454
INDEX
Jordan, The, 242.
Joshua, 259.
Jouffroy, Theodore-Simon, 139.
Jowett, Prof. Benjamin, 118, 119.
Judaism, 214.
Judas, 191.
Judges, Book of, 260.
K.
Kant, Emanuel, 76, Si, 125, 279 ; source
of prevailing agnosticism, 280; tests
Hume's doctrine, 282; finds an a
priori element in all knowledge, 283 ;
his agnosticism vs. Hume's, 284-285 ;
his doctrine of causation, 309-311 ; Dr.
Martineau sets out with, 285 seq. ; de-
parts from, 310-311; 336, 438, 441.
Keble John, 214.
Keim, Dr. Theodor, 239.
Kempis, Thomas &, 150.
Kenrick, John, 22 n., 24, 27, 28, 30, 31,
32, 104.
Kepler, Johann, 314.
King, Rev. Thomas Starr, 88.
Knight, Prof. William, 118.
Knowles, James, 98.
Knox, John, 36.
L.
Lachmann, Karl, K. F. W., 26.
Lampe, 438.
Laplace, Pierre Simon, 113, 312, 330,
337-
Lardner, Nathaniel, 163 n.
Law, the function of, 313.
Law, William, 403.
Laws of Man's Nature and Develop-
ment, The, G. H. Atkinson and Har-
riet Martineau, 85.
"Laws of Succession," Comte's substi-
tute for Cause, 304.
Lay Sermons, Huxley, 335.
Lazarus, his resurrection narrated only
in the Fourth Gospel, 248.
Lecky, W. E. H., 119.
Leeds, Address at, 211 n.
Legge, Thomas, 9.
Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 378.
Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 88, 124, 228.
Letter and Spirit, 82.
Lewis, Dio, 431.
Lewis, Mrs. Leyson, daughter of Dr.
Martineau, 36.
Leyden, University at, 100, 119.
Life and Correspondence of Thomas
Arnold, 79.
Lightfoot, John, 246.
Lindsey, Theophilus, 163 n.
Little Portland Street Chapel, its earlier
type of doctrine, 93 ; calls Dr. Marti-
neau and J. J. Tayler to a joint pas-
torate, 93-94 ; its outward features,
94 J i45r 160.
Liverpool Controversy, The, 57 seq.,
162, 168, 172, 178.
Living Ckrtrch throughChanging Creeds,
The, 211 n., 217.
Livingstone, David, 385.
Locke, John, 76, no, 301.
Lockyer, J. Norman, 125.
Logic, Mill's, 308.
Logos, Johannine, 227, 247-248 ; of the
Alexandrine type of doctrine, 250-259 ;
weds Gnostic philosophy with the
human history of Jesus Christ, 251;
262.
London, Bishop of, 27.
Longfellow, H. W., 8, 144, 367.
Longfellow, Samuel, 214.
Louis XIV., i, 438.
Lowell, J. R., 120.
Lowell Institute, 88.
Lubbock, Sir John, 98.
Luke, Gospel of, 232, 234, 253, 260.
Lunatic Asylum, York, 30.
Luther, Martin, 141, 214, 224, 227, 446.
Lycidas, Milton, 444.
Lyell, Sir Charles, 94, 126.
M.
Macaulay, T. B., 125.
McNeile, Rev. H., 169 n.
Malebranche, Nicolas, 411.
Malibran, Maria Felicia, 334.
Man, his outfit for more than his terres-
trial sphere, 434-439; as a creator,
440.
Manchester New College, history of, 20 ;
its several designations, 20 n. ; its car-
dinal purpose, 21 : types of doctrine
which it has reflected, 21-22; 23, 25,
26, 1 66.
Manning, Archbishop, 98.
Man's Place in the Cosmos, A. Seth,
339-
Mansel, H. L., 88, 93, 124, 290.
455
Mardon, 237, 243.
Marcionites, knew the Fourth Gospel,
237 ; 246.
Mark, Gospel of, 234, 247.
Martineau, Basil, son of James Martineau,
5 2 -
Martineau, David, son of Gaston Marti-
neau, 2.
Martineau, David, son of the above
David, 2.
Martineau, Edith, daughter of James
Martineau, 52.
Martineau, Elie, of Bergerac, 2.
Martineau, Elizabeth, sister of James
Martineau, 3.
Martineau. Ellen, sister of James Marti-
neau, 3, 6.
Martineau, Gaston, son of Elie Marti-
neau, and founder of the English
line, 2.
Martineau, Harriet, sister of James Mar-
tineau, 3, 5 n., n, 14 n., 82-87.
Martineau, Helen, daughter of James
Martineau, 36.
Martineau, Henry, brother of James Mar-
tineau, 3.
Martineau, Herbert, son of James Marti-
neau, 52.
Martineau, Isabella, daughter of James
Martineau, 36.
Martineau, James : ancestry, 1-3; birth,
3; early home, 4-11 ; at school in
Norwich, 8-12; in Lant Carpenter's
school at Bristol, 13-18 ; studies civil
engineering at Derby, 18; decides to
become a minister, 19 ; at college, 19-
34; " admitted to preach," 35 ; teaches
in school at Bristol, 35 ; called as
co-pastor to the Eustace Street Pres-
byterian Church in Dublin, 35 ; mar-
riage, 36; ordination, 36-42 ; combines
preaching with teaching, 43 ; prepares
a hymn-book, 43 ; becomes sole pastor
of his church, 44; makes an issue
with his congregation, on the Regium
Bonum, 44; becomes co-pastor of the
Paradise Street Chapel in Liverpool,
50; begins work as a reviewer, 51 ;
becomes sole pastor, 51; publishes the
Rationale of Religious Inquiry, 52 ;
bears a part in the Liverpool Contro-
versy, 5 7-7 1 ; publishes a second hymn-
book, 74 ; a writer of hymns, 75 ; be-
comes Professor of Mental arid Moral
Philosophy and Political Economy in
Manchester New College, 75 -76 ; un-
conscious divergence from English
Sensationalism, 77 ; his apostasy shown
him by John Stuart Mill, 77 ; pub-
lishes first series of Endeavors after
the Christian Life, 78 ; continues criti-
cal labors, 79 ; publishes second series
of Endeavors, 79; goes to Germany
for rest and study, So-Si; his conver-
sion from an empirical to a spiritual
philosophy, 80-8 1 ; essay on Mesmeric
Atheism, 82 ; difficulty with his sister
Harriet, 82-87 ; two collections of his
essays, Miscellanies and Studies of
Christianity, brought out in Boston,
88 ; invited to London to become resi-
dent professor in Manchester New
College, 89 ; resigns his pastoral charge
at Liverpool, 89 ; farewell sermon, 89-
91; contest over his appointment to
the College, 91-92 ; his work in the
College, 92-93; takes with J. J. Tay-
ler the pulpit charge of Little Portland
Street Chapel, 93 ; on the death of
Mr. Tayler conducts the pulpit service
alone, 94; becomes Principal of Man-
chester New College, 94 ; publication
of Essays, Theological and Philo-
sophical, 95; two series of Hours of
Thought on Sacred Things, 95 ;
volume on Spinoza, 95 ; publishes
a third hymn-book, 95 ; rejoinder to
Prof. Tyndall, 95-96 ; candidate for
the chair of Logic and Mental Philoso-
phy inUniversity College, 96 ; opposed
and defeated by George Grote, 96-97 ;
becomes a member of a Metaphysical
Club, 97-99 ; Academic honors, 99-
100; other testimonials, 100-103;
death of his wife, 102; severs his con-
nection with Manchester New College,
102-106; publishes Types of Ethical
Theory, 107; publishes Study of
Religion, in; publishes Seat of Au-
thority in Religion, 117; collects and
publishes four volumes of Essays, Re-
views, and Addresses, 118; publishes
Home Prayers, 1 1 8 ; address from the
scholars and thinkers of Europe and
America on his eighty-third birthday,
118-120; his reply, 120-122; critically
reviews the Gospel of Peter and Bal-
four's Foundations of Belief, 122;
456
INDEX
death, 4; analysis of his intellect,
123-134; personal features, 135-141.
Martmeau, Mary Ellen, daughter of James
Martmeau, 52.
Martineau, Philip Meadows, son of
David Martineau, 2d, 2.
Martineau, Rachel, sister of James Mar-
tineau, 3, 6.
Martineau, Robert, brother of James
Martineau, 3.
Martineau, Russell, son of James Marti-
neau, 36.
Martineau, Thomas, father of James
Martineau, 3, 6.
Martineau, Thomas, brother of James
Martineau, 3.
Martyr, Justin, his use of our Gospels,
232-233 ; comparison of one of his
citations with corresponding passage
in the Fourth Gospel, 238.
Matthew, Gospel of, 234, 260.
Matthiae's Greek Grammar, 26.
Maurice, F. D., 98.
Mecanique Celeste, Laplace, 322.
Medici, Cosimo de', 438.
Melanchthon, Philip, 188.
" Memoirs of the Apostles," 232.
Memoirs of Catharine Caffe, by herself,
29.
Memoir of the Late Charles Well-
beloved, John Kenrick, 29 n.
Mesmeric Atheism, 82 seq.
Messiah, God's and man's, 73-74 ; com-
parison of, in Synoptics and in John,
247-248 ; conditions that were to meet
in him, 252; that Jesus was Messiah
a Synoptic teaching, 263 ; indications
that Jesus did not claim the Messiah-
ship himself, 264-277.
Messiah, Handel, 441.
Metaphysical Club, its origin and work,
97-98.
Mill, James, 51, no, 181.
Mill, J. S., detects Mr. Martineau's de-
fection from the Necessarian philoso-
phy, 77; 88, 93, 123, 124, 125, 128,
165, 181, 304-305, 308, 309, 313, 314,
316, 320; admits the validity of the
argument from Design, 336; dislikes
the argument, 352; his happiness the-
ory, 363 ; 366, 376.
Miller, Mrs. Fenwick, 5 n.
Milton, John, 438, 441, 444.
Miracle and Law, 379-381.
Miscellanies, edited by Thomas Stan-
King, 88.
Modern Materialism : its Attitude to-
wards Theology, 96.
Montaigne, Michel de, his ideal of edu-
cation, 17 ; 126, 347.
Montesquieu. Baron de 438.
Monthly Repository, The, 51.
Moral Evil, Christian view of, 174-176,
389 seq.
Morgan, Thomas, 408.
Moses, 154, 179, 221.
Miiller, Max, 24, 119, 126.
Mystics, The, their tendency towards
pantheism, 403-404.
N.
Nabis, 376.
Nahum the prophet, 242.
Nantes, Edict of, i, 2, 399.
Nathan der Weise, Lessing, 8.
National Review, The, 88, 94.
Natural Religion, ]. R. Seeley, criti-
cism of, 113 seq.
Nature, R. W. Emerson, 52.
Nature and God, 95, 183.
Necessity, philosophical doctrine of,
early held by Dr. Martineau, 77 ; he
was converted from, 80-8 1 ; illustrated
and criticised, 424-430.
Neo-Platonism, the Alexandrian type
of, reflected in the Proem of the Fourth
Gospel, 250-251.
Newman, F. W., 82, 180.
Newman, J. H., 42, 124, 363 n.
Newton, Sir Isaac, 408, 438.
Nineteenth Century, 98, 122.
Nisan, the month of, 249.
Norwich, early home of the Martineaus,
2, 3 ; outward features of, 8-10.
Novalis, F. von Hardenberg, 76, 429.
O.
Octagon Chapel, Norwich, 9 n.
Old and New, The, 117.
One, The, 412.
Opie, Amelia, 9, 10.
Organs, rudimentary, 355-356 ; imper-
fect, 356.
Ould, Rev. Fielding, 58 seq.
Outer and Inner Temple, The, 73.
Oxford University, honors Dr. Marti-
neau, 100, 119.
INDEX
457
P.
Pain, of hunger and thirst, 381 : of heat
and cold, 381-382; of decline, 382-
384 ; of apprehension and memory,
387 seq.
Paley, Bishop, 92 his illustration of de-
sign, 335~336 ! his argument compared
with Dr. Martineau's,338; his doctrine
of future rewards and punishments,
36S-
Pantheism, compared with Deism, 402-
405 ; compared with Theism, 407-
410; definition of, 411; concession to,
413-415; reservation from, 415-419;
final objection to, 418-421; considered
with reference to immortality, 430.
Paradise Street Chapel, 80.
Pardon, Divine, 192.
Parker, Theodore, 124, 126, 127, 129,
179 ; criticised by Dr. Martineau, 183,
186, 187; not a pantheist, 403.
Parr, Dr. Samuel, 12.
Pascal, Blaise, 125, 214, 441.
Paul, St., 214, 243, 260, 371, 427, 446.
Paulus, Heinrich E. G., 228.
Pericles, 371, 438.
Personal Influence on Present Theology,
88.
Pessimism, repugnant to human nature,
392-393-
Peter, his declaration at Philippi, 271 seq,
Peter, Gospel of, 122.
Peterborough, Bishop of, 98.
Pfieiderer, Otto, 119.
Pharisees, The, 242.
Phases of Faith, F. W. Newman, 82 ;
criticised, 196.
Philippians, Epistle to the, 230.
Philo Judzus, 250.
Philosophical Christianity in Prance, 79.
Pierre, Marie, 2.
Plato, 76, 80, 93, 108, 123, 125, 126, 128,
131, 138, 139, 141, 180, 195, 197, 336,
437, 438, 44i-
Plutarch, 230.
Polycarp, 237 n.
Pope, Alexander, 404.
Positive Philosophy, The, 303.
Presbyterianism, English, doctrine of
Dr. Martineau's early home, 6 ; his
doctrine when ordained, 36, 164 ; its
spirit compared with that of English
Unitarianism, 209-211.
Prescott, W. H., 125.
Prey, the law of, 384-386.
Price, Dr. Richard, 109.
Priestley, Joseph, 20, no, 162, 163 n.,
423-
Proctor, Richard, 126.
Prospective Review, 79, 86, 88.
Prudence, its function in morals, 359 sty.
R.
Ranke, Leopold von, 81.
Rankin, Elizabeth, 3.
Raphael, 440.
Rationale of Religious Inquiry, The,
publication of, 52 ; 53 ; analysis of, 54-
57 ; 107, 166, 167.
Regium Donum, The, 44 seq., 50.
Reimarus, Hermann Samuel, 228.
Relativity of Knowledge, Frederic Har-
rison, 99.
Religion, Revealed and Natural, com-
pared, 257-259.
Religion, Revealed and Apocalyptic, com-
pared, 261-262.
Renan, Ernest, 119, 124, 197, 229.
" Right by Social Vote," 371.
Roman Catholic, The, 221, 224.
Romans, Epistle to the, 230, 267.
Rothe, Richard, 389.
Rudimentary Organs, 355.
S.
St. Andrews, University of, 118, 119.
St. Peter's, 440.
Salters Hall, convention at, 209.
Samson, 259.
San Greal, The, 76.
Saul, 259.
Saul, Robert Browning, 395, 441.
Savonarola, Girolamo, 371.
Sayers, Dr. Frank, 8.
Schaff, Dr. Philip, 120.
" Scheme of Vicarious Redemption,"
The, 173.
Schleiermacher, F. E. D., 88, 124, 130,
239, 43-
Schopenhauer, Arthur, 132, 141, 427.
Schiirer, Emil, 237 n., 239.
Schurman, Dr. J. G., 184-185 n., 335.
Science, Nescience, and Faith, 95, 132 n.
Scott, Sir Walter, 8.
Seat of Authority in Religion, 95, 117,
458
INDEX
118, 162, 169, 187, 198, 230, 232,233,
2 34, 235, 236, 238, 239, 242, 243, 244,
245> 251, 252, 253, 255, 256, 257, 258,
259, 260, 264, 265, 266 n., 271, 272,
274, 276, 322, 364, 365, 366, 367, 369,
37, 372, 426.
Seeley, J. R., criticism of, 113 seq.
Seer in Ezekiel, The, 268.
Selection in Nature, 340 seq.
Seneca, 140, 437.
Sennacherib, 436.
Servetus, Michael, 214.
Sextus Tarquinius, 378 seq.
Seth, Andrew, 339.
Shaftesbury, Earl of, 109.
Shakespeare, John, 15.
Shakespeare, William, 15, 132, 441.
Sin, Dr. Martineau's treatment of, 190-
192 ; punishment for, 192-195.
Skeats, Herbert S., 45 n.
Socini, The, 214.
Socrates, 76, 128; uses the argument
from Design, 336; 371.
Solomon, his ethics Epicurean, 179.
Son of David, Jesus so designated by his
countrymen, 265.
Son of God, 265 ; when Jesus became
such, 252-253; use of the designation,
266.
Son of Man, 265 ; significance of the des-
ignation, 267 seq. ; Second Coming
of, 276-277.
Sophocles, 125.
Sordello, Browning, 336.
Space, its laws the laws of the human
mind, 435.
Spencer, Herbert, 124, 125, 128, 134,
224, 293 ; Agnosticism of, 296-297 ;
416.
Spencer, W. V., 95.
Spenser, Edmund, 404.
Spinoza, Baruch de, his type of ethical
doctrine, 108; 126, 183, 352, 411.
Spiritual Faith, A, 122 n., 163 n., 166,
168, 169.
Stagirite, The, So.
Stanley, Dean, 98.
Stanley, 334.
Stirling, Hutcheson, 302.
Strauss, David F., 124, 229.
Strauss and Theodore Parker, 79.
Studies of Christianity, 70, 78; first pub-
lished, 88.
Study of Religion, The, 93 ; analysis of,
111-117; the Address it called forth,
118 ; the dyke it opposed to pantheism,
183 ; 187, 258, 286, 287, 288, 289, 292,
296, 297, 298, 312, 313, 315-316, 330-
33 1 . 33 2 334. 33S, 34. 34*, 342, 344,
345. 349) 35-35 2 > 353, 354, 35^, 357,
364, 374, 377, 3 8l > 384, 3 s8 , 39, 39i,
396-397, 398, 399, 48-409,4i5i 4 l8 ~
419, 420-421, 425, 428-429, 438, 440,
441-442, 443-444, 445, 447-
Study of Spinoza,^, 107.
Swift, Dean, 369.
Synoptics, The, general features of, 231
seq. ; compared with the Fourth Gos-
pel, 244 seq .
T.
Tacitus, Histories of, 27 ; 437.
Taggart, Rev. Edward, 93.
Talmage, Thomas De Witt, 143.
Tauler, Johann, 141, 150.
Tayler, J. J., Principal of Manchester
New College, 21 ; 91-92, 93, 94, 104,
130, 241 n.
Taylor, Jeremy, 150.
Taylor, Rev. John, 9.
Taylor, Rev. Philip, 35.
Taylor, William, 8.
Tennyson, Alfred, 97, 98 n., 119 ; quoted,
400, 443.
Theism, 113 ; contrasted with Deism
and Pantheism, 407 seq.
Theodorus, dream of, 378-379.
Theologia Gerntanica, 78, 150, 214.
Tlieolog'ical Review, The, 94.
Theophilus, first to quote the Fourth
Gospel with its author's name, 237,
246.
Thessalonians, Epistle to the, 230.
Thorn, Rev. J. H., 57, 64, 65, 67, 71, 166,
169.
Thoreau, H. D., 138.
" Tides of the Spirit," The, 150, 159.
Tintern Abbey, W. Wordsworth, 125.
Toland, John, 408.
Transcendency, Divine, 401 ; contrasted
with Divine Immanence, 402-404.
Transfiguration, The, 274-275.
Trendelenburg, Friedrich Adolf, 80, 81,
181.
Trinitarian Controversy, A Way out
of, 201.
Tubingen, school of, 91, 95, 229.
Tupper, Martin, 139.
INDEX
459
Turner, Henry, 19, 104.
Tusculum, Disputations at, 27.
Tyndall, John, 124, 321 ; Dr. Marti-
neau's rejoinder to, 327-328.
Types of Ethical Theory, 80, 81, 92 ;
publication of, 102, 107; analysis of,
108-109; in, 131, 154, 174-
U.
Unitarian Chapels in England, their loss
and their recovery, 211 n.
Unitarian Society and Church, Dr. Mar-
tineau's contrasted attitudes towards,
213.
Unitarianism at Manchester New Col-
lege, 21-22.
Unitarianism Confuted, Clergymen of
the Church of England, 65-68.
Unitarianism Defended, James Mar-
tineau and others, 68-71.
Unitarianism, English, descended from
English Presbyterianism, 37; its his-
tory reflected in Dr. Martineau's
career; inconsistency of, in the Lady
Hewley suit, 210-211; its seculariza-
tion, 220.
Unitarians, their attitude towards Inspi-
ration, 167, towards miracles, 171 ;
their ecclesiastical temper, 215.
Unitarians, Hungarian Consistory of,
104.
Universe, Moral aspects of the, 375 seq.
Universities, English, closed to such as
could not sign the creed of the Estab-
lished Church, 20.
University College, 80 ; becomes the ally
of Manchester New College, 89; Dr.
Martineau a candidate for the chair of
Logic in, 96-97.
University of Berlin, Dr. Martineau
studies there, 80.
Upton, Prof. C. B., 299.
Utilitarianism, 363-366.
V.
Valentinians knew the Fourth Gospel,
237-
Valentinus did not know the Fourth
Gospel, 237.
Vie de Jesus, E. Renan, 95.
Vinci, Leonardo da, 440.
Virgil, 437.
Vitellius, 433.
W.
Waldenses, The, 399.
Walton, Izaak, 68.
Warrington Academy, 20.
Washington, George, 371.
Way out of the Trinitarian Controversy,
A, 201-206.
Ways of the Spirit, F. H. Hedge, 336 n.
Webster, Daniel, 362.
Wellbeloved, Charles, Principal of Man-
chester New College, 21, 24; account
of, 29-34.
Wellington, Duke of, 438.
Wesley, John, 9 n., 214, 446.
Westminster Abbey, 134.
Westminster Review, 88.
Whewell, William, 124.
WheweWs Morality, 79.
WhewelPs Systematic Morality, 79.
Whitefield, George, 144, 145.
Whitney, W. D., 126.
Whiton, Rev. James M., 202 n,
Wicksteed, Charles, 50.
Wicksteed, Rev. Philip H., 92.
William of Orange, 399.
William III., 44, 438.
Wolfe, Gen., 145.
Wordsworth, William, 354, 404, 438.
Worthington, J. H., 104.
Y.
York, Archbishop of, 98.
Youmans, E. L., 125.
Z.
Zacharias, 260.
Zebedee, 241.
Zeller, Dr. E., 119.
Zumpt, Karl Gottlob, 25.
Zumpt's Latin Grammar, 24.
Zumpts, The, 81.
H Classified Catalogue
OF WORKS IN
GENERAL LITERATURE
PUBLISHED BY
LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, E.G.
91 AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, AND 32 HORNBY ROAD, BOMBAY,
CONTENTS.
BADMINTON LIBRARY (THE), .-to
BIOGRAPHY, PERSONAL ME-
MOIRS, &c. - - - - - 7
CHILDREN'S BOOKS - 25
CLASSICAL LITERATURE, TRANS-
LATIONS, ETC 18
COOKERY, DOMESTIC MANAGE-
MENT, &c. .- - - - - 28
EVOLUTION, ANTHROPOLOGY.
&c. 17
FICTION, HUMOUR, &c. - - 21
FUR, FEATHER AND FIN SERIES 12
HISTORY, POLITICS, POLITY,
POLITICAL MEMOIRS, &c. - - 3
LANGUAGE, HISTORY AND
SCIENCE OF - - - - - 16
MANUALS OF CATHOLIC PHIL-
OSOPHY ....... 16
MENTAL, MORAL, AND POLITICAL
PHILOSOPHY
MISCELLANEOUS AND CRITICAL
WORKS ......
MISCELLANEOUS THEOLOGICAL
WORKS
POETRY AND THE DRAMA -
POLITICAL ECONOMY AND ECO-
NOMICS
POPULAR SCIENCE ....
SILVER LIBRARY (THE)
SPORT AND PASTIME -
TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE, THE
COLONIES, &c.
VETERINARY MEDICINE, &c.
WORKS OF REFERENCE -
14
29
32
i6
24
26
IO
8
10
INDEX OF AUTHORS AND EDITORS.
Page
Page
Page
Page
Abbott (Evelyn)
3, iS
Balfour (A. I.) - 11,32
Buckle (H. T.) - - 3
Corder (Annie) - m
(T. K.) - -
14
(Lady Betty) - 5
Buckton (C. M.) . 28
Coutts (W.) - - 18
(E. A.) - -
H
Ball (John) - 8
Bull (T.) - - - 28
Coventry (A.) - - 11
Acland (A. H. D.) -
3
Baring-GouldfRev. S.)27,2g
Burke (U. R.) - - 3
Cox (Harding) - u
Acton (Eliza) -
28
Barraud (C. W.) - 19
Burrows (Montagu) 4
Crake (Rev. A. D.) - 55
Adeane (J. H.) -
7
Baynes (T. S.) - - 29
Butler (E. A.) - - 24
Creiehton (Bishop)- 3,4
vEschylus
18
Beaconsfield (Earl of) 21
(Samuel) - 18, 20, 29
Crozier (J. B.) - - 7, 14
Ainger (A. C.) -
12
Beaufort (Duke of) - n
Curzon of Kedleston
Albemarle (Earl of) -
II
Becker (W. A.) - 18
CalderfJ.) - - 30
(Lord) - - - 4
Allen (Grant) -
24
Beddard (F. E.) - 24
Cameron of Lochiel 12
distance (Col. H. - ia
Amos (S.)
3
Beesly (A. H.) - - 7
Campbell(Rev.Lewis) 18,32
Cults (Rev. E. L.) - 4
Anstey (F.)
21
Bell (Mrs. Hugh) - 19
Camperdown (Earl of) 7
Aristophanes' -.
18
Bent (J. Theodore) - 8
Cawthorne (Geo. Jas.) 13
Dallinger (F. W.) - 4
Aristotle -
14, 18
Besant (Sir Walter)- 3
Channing (F. A.) - 17
Davidson (W. L.) 15, 16, 32
Armstrong (G. F.
Bickerdyke (J.) -11,13
Chesney (Sir G.) - 3
Davies (J. F.) - - 18
Savage)
'9
Bicknell (A. C.) - 8
'Chola' - - 21
Dent (C. T.) - - n
(E.J. Savage) 7,
19,29
Birt (A.) --- 21
Cholmondeley-Pennell
Deploige (S.) 17
Arnold (Sir Edwin) -
8,19
Blackburne (J. H.) - 13
(H.) - - u
De Salis (Mrs.) - 28
(Dr. T.) -
3
Bland (Mrs. Hubert) 20
Churchill(W. Spencer) 3,21
De Tocqueville (A.) - 4
Ashbourne (Lord) -
3
Boase (Rev. C. W.) - 4
Cicero - 18
Devas (C. S.) - - 17
Ashby (H.)
28
Boedder (Rev. B.) - 16
Clarke (Rev. R. F.) - 16
Dickinson (G. L.) - 4
Ashley (W.J.)-
17
Boevey(A. W. Crawley-)7
Climenson (Emily J.) 8
- (W. H.) - - 30
Atkinson (C. T.)
3
Bosanquet (B.) - 14
Clodd (Edward) - 17
Diderot - - - 21
Avebury (Lord)
17
Boyd (Rev. A. K. H.) 29, 32
Clutterbuck (W. J.)- 9
Dougall(L.) - - 21
Ayre (Rev. J.) -
25
Brassey (Lady) - 9
Coleridge (S. T.) - 19
Dowden (E.) 31
(Lord) 3, 9, 12, 17
Comparetti (D.) - 30
Doyle (A. Conan) - 21
Bacon -
7, 14
Brav (C.) 14
Conington (John) - 18
Du Bois (W. E. B.)- 4
Baden-Powell (B. H.)
1
Bright (Rev. J. F.) - 3
Conway (Sir W. M ) n
Dufferin ( Marqu is of) 12
Bagehot (W.) - 7, 17, 29
Broadfoot (Major W.) u
Conybeare (Rev. W. J .)
Dunbar (Mary F.) - 20
Bagwell (R.) -
3
Browning (H. Ellen) 9
& Howson (Dean) Vj
Bain (Alexander)
14
Buck (H. A.) - - 12
Coolidtje (W. A. B.) 8
Eardley-Wilmot (Capt.
Baker (Sir S. W.) -
8, 10 Buckland (Jas.) - 25
Corbett (Julian-S.) - 3
S.) - - - 8
INDEX OF AUTHORS AND EDITORS continued.
Page | Page Page \ Pace
Ebrington (Viscount) 12
Ingelow (Jean) - 10 Moore (T.) - - 25 Stanley (Lady) - - 7
Ellis (J.H.) - - 13
(Rev. Edward) - 14 i Statham (S. P. H.) - 6
(R. L.) - - 14
James (W.) - - 15 Morgan (C. Lloyd) - 17 Stebbing (W.) - - 8. 21
Evans (Sir John) - 30
Jefferies (Richard) - 30 Morris (Mowbray) - n
Steel (A. G.) - - ii
Jekyll (Gertrude) - 30 (W.) 18, 20, 22, 31
(I.H.) - - 10
Farrar (Dean) - - 16, 21
Ierome (Jerome K.) - 22 Mulhall (M. G.) - 17 ! Stepfien (Leslie) - 9
Fitzwygram (Sir F.) 10
ohnson (J. & J. H.) 30 Stephens (H. Morse) 6
Folkard (H. C.) - 13
ones (H. Bence) - 25 1 Nansen (F.) - - 9 (W. W.) - - 8, 17
Ford (H.) 13
' ordan (W. L.) - 17 Nesbit (E.) - - 20 i Stevens (R. W.) - 31
(WJf.) - 13
owett (Dr. B.) - 17 Nettleship (R. L.) - 14 , Stevenson (R. L.) - 23, 26
Fowler (Edith H.) - 21
oyce (P. W.) - 5,22,30 Newman (Cardinal) - 22 j Stock (St. George) - 15
Foxcroft (H. C.) - 7
ustinian : 15 'Stonehenge' - - 10
Francis (Francis) - 13
Ogle(W.)- - - 18
Storr (F.) - - - 14
Francis (M. E.) - 21
Kant (I.) - - - 15 Onslow (Earl of) - 12
Stuart- Wortley (A. J .) 1 1, 12
Freeman (Edward A.) 4
Kaye(SirJ. W.) - 5
Osbourne (L) - - 23 Stubbs (J. W.) - - 6
Freshfield (D. W.) - u
Kelly (E.)- - - 15
Suffolk & Berkshire
Frothingham (A. L.) 30
Kent (C. B. R.) - 5
Palgrave (Gwenllian F.) 8
(Earl of) - - ii
Froude (James A.) 4, 7, 9, 21
Kerr (Rev. J.) - - 12 Park (W.) - - 13
Sullivan (Sir E.) - 12
Furneaux (W.) - 24
Killick(Rev. A. H.) - 15 Payne-Gallwey (Sir
Sully (James) - - 16
Kingsley (Rose G.) - 30 R.) - - - 12, 14
Sutherland (A. and G.) 6
Gardiner (Samuel R.) 4
Kitchin (Dr. G. W.) 4 Pearson (C. H.) - 8
(Alex.) - - 16, 31
Gathorne-Hardy (Hon.
Knight (E. F.) - - 9, 12 Peek (Hedley) - - 11
Suttner (B. von) - 23
A. E.) - - 12
K6stlin(J-) - - 7 Pembroke (Earl of) - 12
Swinburne (A. J.) - 16
Gibbons (J. S.) - 12
Gibson (Hon. H.) - 13
; Phillipps-Wolley(C.) 10,23
Ladd (G. T.) - - 15 Phillips (Mrs. Lionel) 6
Symes (J. E.) - - 17
(C. H.) - - 14
Lang (Andrew) 5, 10, n, 13, Pitman (C. M.) - n
Taylor (Meadows) - 6
(Hon. W.) - 32
17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 26, 30, 32 Pleydell-Bouverie (E. O.) 12
(Una) - - 23
Gleig (Rev. G. R.) - 8
Lapsley (G. T.) - 4 Pole (W.) - - - 14
Tebbutt (C. G.) - 12
Goethe - - - 19
Lascelles (Hon. G.) n, 12 Pollock (W. H.) - 11,31
Terry (C. S.) - 7
Gore-Booth (Eva) - 19
Laughton (J. K.) - 8 Poole(W. H.and Mrs.) 29
Thornhill (W. J.) - 18
(Sir H. W.) - u
Lawley (Hon. F.) - n ! Poore (G. V.) - - 31
Todd(A.)- - - 6
Graham (P. A.) - 12, 13
Layard (Nina F.) - 19
Potter (J.) - - 16
Toynbee (A.) - - 17
(G. F.) - - 16
Lear (H. L. Sidney) - 29
Powell (E.) - - 6
Trevelyan (Sir G. O.) 6, 7
Granby (Marquis of) 12
Lecky (W. E. H.) 5, 15, 19
Powys (Mrs. P. L.) - 8
(G. M.) - - 6
Grant (Sir A.) - - 14
Lees (J. A.) - - 9
Praeger (S. Rosamond) 26
Trollope (Anthony)- 23
Graves (R. P.) - - 7
Leslie (T. E. Cliffe) - 17
Prevost (C.) - - n
Turner (ri. G.) - 31
Green (T. Hill) - 15
Levett- Yeats (S.) - 22
Pritchett (R. T.) - 12
TyndalHJ.) - -7,9
Greene (E. B.)- - 4
Lillie (A.)- 13
Proctor (R. A.) 14, 24, 28
Tyrrell (R. Y.) - - 18
Greville (C. C. F.) - 4
Lindley (j.) - - 25
Grose (T. H.) - - 14
Lodge (H. C.) - - 4
Raine (Rev. James) - 4
Upton(F.K.and Bertha) 26
Gross (C.) - - 4
Loftie (Rev. W. J.) - 4
Rankin (R.) - - 20
Grove (F. C.) - - n
Longman (C. J.) 10, 12, 30
Ransome (Cyril) - 3, 6
Van Dyke (J. C.) - 31
(Mrs. Lilly) - n
(F. W.) - - 13
Raymond (W.) - 23
Verney (Frances P.
Gurdon (Lady Camilla) 21
(G. H.) - -11,12
Reader (Emily E.) - 23
and Margaret M.) 8
Gurnhill (J.) - - 15
Lowell (A. L.) - - 5
Rhoades (J.) - - 18
Virgil - - - 18
Gwilt (J.) - - - 25
Lubbock (Sir John) - 17
Ribblesdale (Lord) - 14
Vivekananda (Swami) 32
Lucan - - - 18
Rich (A.) - - - 18
Vivian (Herbert) - 9
Haggard (H. Rider)- ai, 30
Lutoslawski (W.) - 15
Richardson (C.) - 11
Hake (O.) 12
Lyall (Edna) - - 22
Richter (J. Paul) - 31
Wagner (R.) - - 20
Halliwell-Phillipps(J.) 8
Lyttelton (Hon. R. H.) n
Rickaby (Rev. John) 16
Wakeman (H. O.) - 6
Hamlin (A. D. F.) - 30
(Hon. A.) - - ii
(Rev. Joseph) - 16
Walford (L. B.) - 23
Hammond (Mrs. J. H.) 4
Lytton (Earl of) - 5, 19
Ridley (Sir E.) - - 18
Walker (jane K ) - 29
Harding (S. B.) - 4
Riley (J. W.) - - 20
Wallas (Graham) - 8
Harte (Bret) - - 22
Macaulay (Lord) - 5, 19
Roget (Peter M.) - 16, 25
Walpole (Sir Spencer) 6
JHartingU. E.)- - 12
Macdonald (G.) - 9
Romanes (G. J.)
Walrond (Col. H.) - 10
Hartwig (G.) - - 24
(Dr. G.) - - 20, 32 ; 8, 15, 17, 20, 32
Walsingham (Lord) - 12
Hassall(A.) - - 6
Macfarren (Sir G. A.) 30 (Mrs. G. J.) - 8
Walter (J.) 8
Haweis (H. R.) - 7, 30
MackaiKJ. W.) - 7, 18
Ronalds (A.) 14
Ward (Mrs. W.) - 23
Heath (D. D.) - 14
Mackinnon (J.) - 6
Roosevelt (T.) - - 4
Warwick (Countess of) 31
Heathcote(J. M.and
Macleod (H. D.) - 17
Rossetti (Maria Fran-
Watson (A. E.T.) 10,11,12
C. G.) - - 12
Macpherson (Rev. H. A.)i2
cesca) - - - 31
Webb (Mr. and Mrs.
Helmholtz (Hermann
Madden (D. H.) - 13
Rowe (R. P. P.) - ii
Sidney) - - 17
von) - - - 24
Magnusson (E.) - 22
Russell (Rev. M.) - 20
(T. E.) - - 16, 19
Henderson (Lieut-
Maher (Rev. M.) - 16
Weber (A.) - - 16
Col. G. F.) - 7
Malleson (Col. G. B.) 5
Saintsbury (G.) - 12
Weir (Capt. R.) - n
Henry (W.) - - 12
Mann (E. E.) - - 29
Samuels (E.) - - 20
Weyman (Stanley) - 23
Henty(G.A.)- - 26
Marbot (Baron de) - 7
Sandars (T. C.) - 14
Whately(Archbishop) 14, 16
Herbert (Col. Kenney) 12
Marquand (A.) - 30
Schreiner (S. C. Cron-
(E. Jane) - - 16
Herod (Richard S.) - 13
Marshman (I. C.) - 7
wright) 10
White (W. Hale) - 20, 31
Hiley (R. W.) - - 7
Martineau (Dr. James) 32
Seebohm (F.) - - 6, 8
Whitelaw (R.) - - 18
Hill (Sylvia M.) - 21
Mason (A. E. W.) - 22
Selous (F. C.) - - 10
Wilcocks (J. C.) - 14
Hillier (G. Lacy) - n
Maskelyne (J. N.) - 13
Senior (W.) - - 12
Wilkins (G.) - - 18
Hime (H. W. L.) - 18
Maunder (S.) - - 25
Sewell (Elizabeth M.) 23
Willard (A. R.) - 31
Hodgson (Shadworth)i5, 30
Hoenig (F.) - - 30
Max Miiller (F.)
7,8,15, 16, 22, 31, 32
Shakespeare - - 20
Shand (A I.) - - 12
Williamson (W.) - 32
Willich (C. M.) - 25
Hogan (J. F.) - - 7
May (Sir T. Erskine) 6
Sharpe (R. R.) - - 6
Witham (T. M.) - 12
Homer - - - 18
Meade (L. T.) - - 26
Shaw (W. A.) - - 6
Wood (Rev. J. G.) - 25
Hope (Anthony) - 22
Horace - - - 18
Melville (G.J.Whyte) 22
Merivale (Dean) - 6
Shearman (M.) - 10, ii
Sinclair (A.) - - 12
Wood-Martin (W. G.) 6
Wordsworth (William) 20
Houston (D. F.) - 4
Mernmin ^H. S.) - 22
Smith (R. Bosworth) 6
Wright (C. D.) - 17
Howell (G.) - - 16
Mill (lames) 15
(T. C.) - - 4
Wylie (J. H. - 6
Howitt (W.) - 9
(Juiin Stuart) - 15, 17
(W. P. Haskett) 9
Hudson (W. H.) - 24
Milner (G.) 31
Somerville (E.) - 23 Youatt (W - 10
Hullah(J.) - - 3
Hume (David) - - 15
Moffat (D.) - - 13
Monck (W. H. S.) - 15
Sophocles - - 18
Soulsby (Lucy H.) - 31 Zeller (E.) - - 16
Hunt (Rev. W.) - 4
Montague (F. C.) - 6
Southey (R.) - - 31
Hunter (Sir W.) - 5
Montagu (Hon. John
Spedding(J.) - - 7, 14
Hutchinson (Horace G.)
Scott) 12
Sprigge(S. Squire'
11,13
Moon (G. W.)- - 20
Stanley (Bishoo) - 24
MESSRS. LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS.
History, Polities, Polity, Political Memoirs, &e.
Abbott. A HISTORY OF GREECE.
By EVELYN ABBOTT, M.A., LL.D.
Part I. From the Earliest Times to the
Ionian Revolt. Crown 8vo., IDS. 6d.
Part II. 500-445 B.C. Crown 8vo., los. 6d.
Part III. From the Peace of 445 B.C. to
the Fall of the Thirty at Athens in 403
B.C. Crown 8vo., IDS. 6d.
Acland and Ransome. A HAND-
BOOK IN OUTLINE OF THE POLITICAL HIS-
TORY OF ENGLAND TO 1896. Chronologically
Arranged. By the Right Hon. A. H. DYKE
ACLAND, and CYRIL RANSOME, M.A. Crown
8vo., 65.
Amos. PRIMER OF THE ENGLISH
CONSTITUTION AND GOVERNMENT. For
the Use of Colleges, Schools, and Private
Students. By SHELDON AMOS, M.A. Cr.
8vo., 6s.
Annual Register (The). A Review
of Public Events at Home and Abroad, for
the year 1899. 8vo., i8s.
Volumes of the ANNUAL REGISTER for the
years 1863-1898 can still be had. iSs.each.
Arnold. INTRODUCTORY LECTURES
ON MODERN HISTORY. By THOMAS AR-
NOLD, D.D., formerly Head Master of Rugby
School. 8vo., ys. 6d.
Ashbourne. PITT : SOME CHAPTERS
ON His LIFE AND TIMES. By the Right
Hon. EDWARD GIBSON, LORD ASHBOURNE,
Lord Chancellor of Ireland. With n Por-
traits. 8vo., 2is.
Atkinson. MICHEL DE L 1 HOSPITAL:
being the Lothian Prize Essay for 1899. By
C. T. ATKINSON, Fellow of Exeter College,
Oxford ; formerly Demy of Magdalen Col-
lege. Crown 8vo., 45. net.
Baden-Powell. THE INDIAN
VILLAGE COMMUNITY. Examined with
Reference to the Physical, Ethnographic,
and Historical Conditions of the Provinces ;
chiefly on the Basis of the Revenue-
Settlement Records and District Manuals.
By B. H. BADEN-POWELL, M.A., C.I.E.
With Map. 8vo., i6s.
Bagwell. IRELAND UNDER THE
TlfDORS. By RICHARD BAGWELL, LL.D.
(3 vols.) Vols. I. and II. From the first
invasion of the Northmen to the year 1578.
8vo., 325. Vol. III. 1578-1603. 8vo., 185.
Besant. THE HISTORY OF LONDON.
By Sir WALTER BESANT. With 74 Illus-
trations. Crown 8vo., is. gd. Or bound
as a School Prize Book, 2s. 6d.
Brassey (LORD). PAPERS AND AD-
DRESSES.
NAVAL AND MARITIME. 1872-1893.
2 vols. Crown 8vo., IQJ.
Brassey (LORD) PAPERS AND AD-
DRESSES continued.
MERCANTILE MARINE AND NAVIGA-
TION, from 1871-1894. CrownSvo., 55.
IMPERIAL FEDERATION AND COLON-
ISATION FROM 1880-1894. Cr. 8vo., 5s.
POLITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS.
1861-1894. Crown 8vo., 55.
Bright. A HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
By the Rev. ]. FRANCK BRIGHT, D. D.
Period I. MEDIAEVAL MONARCHY: A.D.
449-1485. Crown 8vo., 45. 6d.
Period II. PERSONAL MONARCHY. 1485-
1688. Crown 8vo., 55.
Period III. CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.
1689-1837. Crown 8vo., 75. 6d.
Period IV. THE GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY.
1837-1880. Crown 8vo., 6s.
Buckle. HISTORY OF CIVILISATION
IN ENGLAND, FRANCE, SPAIN, AND SCOT-
LAND. By HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE. 3 vols.
Crown 8vo., 245.
Burke. A HISTORY OF SPAIN,
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE
DEATH OF FERDINAND THE CATHOLIC.
By ULICK RALPH BURKE, M.A. Edited
by MARTIN A. S. HUME. With 6 Maps.
2 vols. Crown 8vo., 165. net.
Chesney. INDIAN POLITY: a View of
the System of Administration in India. By
General Sir GEORGE CHESNEY, K.C.B.
With Map showing all the Administrative
Divisions of British India. 8vo., 2 is.
Churchill (WINSTON SPENCER).
THE RIVER WAR : an Historical
Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan.
Edited by Colonel F. RHODES, D.S.O.
With 34 Maps and 51 Illustrations, also 7
Portraits. 2 vols. Medium 8vo., 365.
THE STORY OF THE MALAKAND
FIELD FORCE, 1897. With 6 Maps and
Plans. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
LONDON TOLADYSMITH VI&PRE TORI A .
With 3 Folding-out Maps and i Map and
4 Plans in the Text. Crown 8vo., 6s.
Corbett. DRAKE AND THE TUDOR
NAVY, with a History of the Rise of Eng-
land as a Maritime Power. By JULIAN S.
CORBETT. With Portraits, Illustrations and
Maps. 2 vols. Crown 8vo., i6s.
Creighton (M., D.D., Lord Bishop
of London).
A HISTORY OF THE PAPACY FROM
THE GREAT SCHISM TO THE SACK OF
ROME, 1378-1527. 6 vols. Cr. 8vo., 6s. each.
QUEEN ELIZABETH. With Portrait.
Crown 8vo., 6s.
MESSRS. LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS.
History, Polities, Polity, Political Memoirs, &e. continued.
Curzon. PERSIA AND THE PERSIAN \
QUESTION. By the Right Hon. LORD
CURZON OF KEDLESTON. With 9 Maps, 96
Illustrations, Appendices, and an Index. 2
vols. 8vo., 425.
De Tocqueville. DEMOCRACY IN
AMERICA. By ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE.
Translated by HENRY REEVE, C.B., D.C.L.
2 vols. Crown 8vo., i6s.
Dickinson. THE DEVELOPMENT OF
PARLIAMENT DURING THE NINETEENTH
CENTURY. ByG. LOWES DICKINSON, M.A.
8vo., 75. 6d.
Froude (JAMES A.).
THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND, from the
Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the
Spanish Armada. 12 vols. Crown 8vo.,
35. 6d. each.
THE DIVORCE OF CATHERINE OF
ARAGON. Crown 8vo., 3*. 6d.
THE SPANISH STORY OF THE AR-
MADA, and other Essays. Cr. 8vo., 35. 6d.
THE ENGLISH IN IRELAND IN THE
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 3 vols. Cr. 8vo.,
ios. 6d.
ENGLISH SEAMEN IN THE SIXTEENTH
CENTURY. Cr. 8vo., 65.
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT. Crown
8vo., 35. 6d.
.SHORT STUDIES ONGREA T SUBJECTS.
4 vols. Cr. 8vo., y. 6d. each.
CMSAR : a Sketch. Cr. 8vo, 35. 6d.
Gardiner (SAMUEL RAWSON, D.C.L.,
LL.D.).
HISTORY OF ENGLAND, from the Ac-
cession of James I. to the Outbreak of the
Civil War, 1603-1642. 10 vols. Crown
8vo., 6s. each.
A HISTORY OF THE GREAT CIVIL
1^^,1642-1649. 4 vols. Cr.8vo.,6s. each.
A HISTORY OF THE COMMONWEALTH
AND THE PROTECTORATE. 1649-1660.
Vol.1. 1649-1651. With 14 Maps. 8vo.,2is.
Vol. II. 1651-1654. With 7 Maps.
8vo., 2is.
WHAT GUNPOWDER PLOT WAS.
With 8 Illustrations. Crown Svo., 55.
CROMWELL'S PLACE IN HISTORY.
Founded on Six Lectures delivered in the
Universitv of Oxford. Cr. 8vo., 35. 6d.
Gardiner (SAMUEL RAWSON, D.C.L.,
LL.D.) continued.
THE STUDENT'S HISTORY OF ENG-
LAND. With 378 Illustrations. Crown
Svo., 12s.
Also in Three Volumes, price 45. each.
Vol. I. B.C. 55 A.D. 1509. 173 Illustrations.
Vol. II. 1509-1689. 96 Illustrations.
Vol. III. 1689-1885. 109 Illustrations.
Greville. A JOURNAL OF THE REIGNS
OF KING GEORGE IV., KING WILLIAM IV.,
AND QUEEN VICTORIA. By CHARLES C. F.
GREVILLE, formerly Clerk of the Council.
8 vols. Crown 8vo., 35. ftd. each.
HARVARD HISTORICAL STUDIES.
THE SUPPRESSION OF THE AFRICAN
SLAVE T^ADE TO THE UNITED STATES OP
AMERICA, 1638-1870. By W. E. B. Du
Bois, Ph.D. 8vo., 75. 6d.
THE CONTEST OVER THE RATIFICATON
OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION IN MASSA-
CHUSETTS. By S. B. HARDING. A.M.
8vo., 6s.
A CRITICAL STUDY OF NULLIFICATION
IN SOUTH CAROLINA. By D. F. HOUSTON,
A.M. 8vo., 6s.
NOMINATIONS FOR ELECTIVE OFFICE
IN THE UNITED STATES. By FREDERICK
W. DALLINGER, A.M. 8vo., js. 6d.
A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF BRITISH MUNI-
CIPAL HISTORY, INCLUDING GILDS AND
PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATION. By
CHARLES GROSS, Ph.D. 8vo., 125.
THE LIBERTY AND FREE SOIL PARTIES
IN THE NORTH WEST. By THEODORE C.
SMITH, Ph.D. Svo, js. 6d.
THE PROVINCIAL GOVERNOR IN THE
ENGLISH COLONIES OF NORTH AMERICA.
By EVARTS BOUTELL GREENE. Svo., -js. 6d.
THE COUNTY PALATINE OF DURHAM:
a Study in Constitutional History. By
GAILLARD THOMAS LAPSLEY, Ph.D. 8vo.,
ios. 6d.
* ^ Other Volumes are in preparation.
Hammond. A WOMAN'S PART IN
A REVOLUTION. By Mrs. JOHN KAYS
HAMMOND. Crown Svo., 2s. 6d.
Historic Towns. Edited by E. A.
FREEMAN, D.C.L.,and Rev. WILLIAM HUNT,
M.A. With Maps and Plans. Crown 8vo.,
3s. 6d. each.
Bristol. By Rev. W. Hunt. ! Oxford. By Rev. C. 'V.
Carlisle. By Mandell
Boase.
Creighton, D.D.
Winchester. By G. W.
Cinque Ports. By Mon-
Kitchin, D.D.
tagu Burrows.
Colchester. By Rev. E. L.
York. By Rev. James
Raine.
Cutts.
New York By Tneodore
Exeter. By E. A. Freeman.
Roosevelt.
London. By Rev. W. J.
Boston (U.S.) By Henry
Loftie. i Cabot Lodge.
MESSRS. LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS.
History, Politics, Polity, Political Memoirs, &c. continued.
Hunter. A HISTORY OF BRITISH
INDIA. By Sir WILLIAM WILSON HUNTER,
K.C.S.I., M.A., LL.D. Vol. I. Introduc-
tory to the Overthrow of the English in the
Spice Archipelago, 1623. With 4 Maps.
8vo., i8s.
Joyce (P. W., LL.D.).
A SHORT HISTORY OF IRELAND,
from the Earliest Times to 1603. Crown
8vo., los. 6d.
A CHILD'S HISTORY OF IRELAND.
From the Earliest Times to the Death
of O'Connell. With specially constructed
Map and 160 Illustrations, including
Facsimile in full colours of an illumi-
nated page of the Gospel Book of Mac-
Durnan, A.D. 850. Fcp. 8vo., 35. 6d.
Kaye and Malleson. HISTORY OF
THE INDIAN MUTINY, 1857-1858. By Sir
JOHN W. KAYE and Colonel G. B. MALLE-
SON. With Analytical Index and Maps and
Plans. 6 vols. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d. each.
Kent. THE ENGLISH RADICALS : an
Historical Sketch. By C. B. ROYLANCE
KENT. Crown 8vo., 75. 6d.
Lang. THE COMPANIONS OF PICKLE:
Being a Sequel to ' Pickle the Spy '. By
ANDREW LANG. With 4 Plates. 8vo., i6s.
Lecky (The Rt. Hon. WILLIAM E. H.)
HISTORY OF ENGLAND IN THE EIGH-
TEENTH CENTURY.
Library Edition. 8 vols. 8vo. Vols. I.
and II., 1700-1760, 365. ; Vols. III. and
IV., 1760-1784, 365. ; Vols. V. and VI.,
1784-1793,365.; Vols. VII. and VIII.,
1793-1800, 365.
Cabinet Edition. ENGLAND. 7 vols.
Crown 8vo., 6s. each. IRELAND. 5
vols. Crown 8vo., 65. each.
HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS
FROM AUGUSTUS TO CHARLEMAGNE. 2
vols. Crown 8vo., i2s.
HISTORY OF THE RISE AND INFLU-
ENCE OF THE SPIRIT OF RATIONALISM IN
EUROPE. 2 vols. Crown 8vo., 125.
DEMOCRACY AND LIBERTY.
Library Edition. 2 vols. 8vo., 36$.
Cabinet Edition. 2 vols. Cr. 8vo., I2S.
Lowell. GOVERNMENTS AND PAR-
TIES IN CONTINENTAL EUROPE. By A.
LAWRENCE LOWELL. 2 vols. 8vo., 2is.
Lytton. THE HISTORY OF LORD
LYTTON'S INDIAN ADMINISTRATION, FROM
1876-1880. Compiled from Letters and
Official Papers. Edited by Lady BETTY
BALFOUR. With Portrait and Map. 8vo., 185.
Macaulay (LORD).
COMPLETE WORKS.
' Albany ' Edition. With 12 Portraits.
12 vols. Large Crown 8vo., 35. 6d. each.
' Edinburgh ' Edition. 8 vols. 8vo., 6s.
each.
Cabinet Edition.
16 vols. Post 8vo.,
HISTORY OF ENGLAND FROM THE
ACCESSION OF JAMES THE SECOND.
Popular Edition. 2 vols. Cr. 8vo., 5$.
Student's Edition. 2 vols. Cr. 8vo., I2s.
People's Edition. 4 vols. Cr. 8vo., i6s.
' Albany ' Edition. With 6 Portraits. 6
vols. Large Crown 8vo., 35. 6d. each.
Cabinet Edition. 8 vols. Post 8vo., 485.
' Edinburgh ' Edition. 4 vols. 8vo., 6s.
each.
Library Edition. 5 vols. 8vo., 4.
CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL ESSAYS,
WITH LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME, etc., in i
volume.
Popular Edition. Crown 8vo., 2s. f>d.
Authorised Edition. Crown 8vo., 2s. 6d.,
or gilt edges, 35. 6d.
' Silv.er Library ' Edition. With Portrait
and 4 Illustrations to the ' Lays '. Cr.
8vo., 35. 6d.
CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL ESSAYS.
Student's Edition, i vol. Cr. 8vo., 6s.
People's Edition. 2 vols. Cr. 8vo., &s.
' Trevelyan ' Edition. 2 vols. Cr. 8vo., gs.
Cabinet Edition. 4 vols. Post 8vo., 245.
' Edinburgh ' Edition. 3 vols. 8vo., 6s.
each.
Library Edition. 3 vols. 8vo., 365.
Ess A YS, which may be had separately,
sewed, 6d. each ; cloth, is. each.
Addison and Walpole.
Crolcer's Boswell's Johnson.
Hallam's Constitutional
History.
Warren Hastings.
The Earl of Chatham (Two
Essays).
Frederick the Great.
Ranke and Gladstone.
Lord Bacon.
Lord Clive.
Lord Byron, and The
Comic Dramatists of
the Restoration.
MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.
People's Edition, i vol. Cr. 8vo., 45. 6d.
Library Edition. 2 vols. 8vo., 2is.
MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS,
SPEECHES AND POEMS.
Popular Edition. Crown 8vo., 2s. 6d.
Cabinet Edition. 4 vols. Post 8vo., 245.
SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF
LORD MACAULAY. Edited, with Occa-
sional Notes, by the Right Hon. Sir G. O.
Trevelyan, Bart. Crown 8vo., 6s.
MESSRS. LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS.
History, Politics, Polity, Political Memoirs, &c. continued.
Mackinnon. THE HISTORY OF
EDWARD THE THIRD. By JAMES MAC-
KINNON, Ph.D., Lecturer on History in the
University of St. Andrews. 8vo., i8s.
M ay. THE CONS TI TUT ION A L HIS-
TORY OF ENGLAND since the Accession
of George III. 1760-1870. By Sir THOMAS
ERSKINE MAY, K.C.B. (Lord Farnborough).
3 vols. Cr. 8vo., 185.
Merivale (CHARLES, D.D.).
HISTORY OF THE ROMANS UNDER THE
EMPIRE. 8 vols. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d. each.
THE FALL OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC:
a Short History of the Last Century of the
Commonwealth. i2mo., 75. 6d.
GENERAL Hi STORY OF ROME, from
the Foundation of the City to the Fall of
Augustulus, B.C. 753-A.D. 476. With 5
Maps. Crown 8vo, 75. 6d.
Montague. THE ELEMENTS OF
ENGLISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. By
F. C. MONTAGUE, M.A. Crown 8vo., 35. fid.
Phillips. SOUTH AFRICAN RECOL-
LECTIONS. By FLORENCE PHILLIPS (Mrs.
Lionel Phillips). With 37 Illustrations from
Photographs. 8vo., 75. 6rf.
Powell and Trevelyan. THE
PEASANTS' RISING AND THE LOLLARDS:
a Collection of Unpublished Documents,
forming an Appendix to ' England in the
Age of Wycliffe '. Edited by EDGAR POWELL
and G. M. TREVELYAN. 8vo., 6s. net.
Ransome. THE RISE OF CONSTI-
TUTIONAL GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND.
By CYRIL RANSOME, M.A. Crown 8vo., 6s.
Seebohm. THE ENGLISH VILLAGE
COMMUNITY Examined in its Relations to
the Manorial and Tribal Systems, etc. By
FREDERIC SEEBOHM, LL.D., F.S.A. With
13 Maps and Plates. 8vo., ifis.
Sharpe. LONDON AND THE KINGDOM:
a History derived mainly from the Archives
at Guildhall in the custody of the Corpora-
tion of the City of London. By REGINALD
R. SHARPE, D.C.L., Records Clerk in the
Office of the Town Clerk of the City of
London. 3 vols. 8vo. TOS. 6d. each.
Shaw. A HISTORY. OF THE ENGLISH
CHURCH DURING THE CIVIL WARS AND
UNDER THE COMMONWEALTH, 1640-1660.
By WILLIAM A. SHAW, Litt.D. 2 vols.
8vo., 365.
Smith. CARTHAGE AND THE CARTH-
AGINIANS. By R. BOSWORTH SMITH, M.A.,
With Maps, Plans, etc. Cr. 8vo., 35. 6d.
Statham. THE HISTORY OF THE
CASTLE, TOWN AND PORT OF DOVER. By
the Rev. S. P. H. STATHAM. With 4 Plates
and 13 Illustrations. Crown 8vo., IDS. 6d.
Stephens. A HISTORY OF THE
FRENCH REVOLUTION. By H. MORSE
STEPHENS. 8vo. Vols. I. and II. i8s. each.
Stubbs. HISTORY OF THE UNIVER-
SITY OF DUBLIN, from its Foundation to
the End of the Eighteenth Century. By J.
W. STUBBS. 8vo., ias. 6d.
Sutherland.-- THE HISTORY OF AUS-
TRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND, from 1606-
1890. By ALEXANDER SUTHERLAND, M. A.,
and GEORGE SUTHERLAND, M.A. Crown
8vo., 2s. 6d.
Taylor. A STUDENT'S MANUAL OF
THE HISTORY OF INDIA. By Colonel MEA-
DOWS TAYLOR, C.S.I., etc. Cr. 8vo., 75. 6d.
. - PA RLIAMENTARY GOVERN-
MENT IN THE BRITISH COLONIES. By
ALPHEUS TODD, LL.D. 8vo., 305. net.
Trevelyan. THE AMERICAN REVO-
LUTION. Parti. 1766-1776. By the Rt. Hon.
Sir G. O. TREVELYAN, Bart. 8vo., i6s.
Trevelyan. ENGLAND IN THE AGE
OF WYCLIFFE. By GEORGE MACAULAY
TREVELYAN. 8vo., 155.
Wakeman and Hassall. ESSAYS
INTRODUCTORY TO THE STUDY OF ENGLISH
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. Edited by
HENRY OFFLEY WAKEMAN, M.A., and
ARTHUR HASSALL, M.A. Crown 8vo., 6s.
Walpole- HISTORY OF ENGLAND
FROM THE CONCLUSION OF THE GREAT
WAR IN 1815 TO 1858. By Sir SPENCER
WALPOLE, K.C.B. 6 vols. Cr. 8vo., 6s. each.
Wood-Martin. PAGAN IRELAND :
ANARCHMOLOGICALSKETCH. A Handbook
of Irish Pre-Christian Antiquities. By W.
G. WOOD-MARTIN, M.R.I.A. With 512
Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 155.
Wylie QAMES HAMILTON, M.A.).
HISTORY OF ENGLAND UNDER
HENRY IV. 4 vols. Crown 8vo. Vol.
I., 1399-1404, ios. 6d. Vol. II., 1405-
1406, 155. (out of print). Vol. III., 1407-
1411, 155. Vol. IV., 1411-1413, 2is.
THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE TO
THE DEATH OF JOHN Hus: Being the
Ford Lectures delivered in the University
of Oxford in Lent Term, 1900. Crown
8vo., 6s. net.
MESSRS. LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS.
Biography, Personal Memoirs, &e.
Armstrong. THE LIFE ANDLETTERS
OF EDMUND J. ARMSTRONG. Edited by
G. F. SAVAGE ARMSTRONG. Fcp. 8vo.,js.6d.
Bacon. THE LETTERS AND LIFE OF
FRANCIS BACON, INCLUDING ALL HIS OC-
CASIONAL WORKS. Edited by JAMES SPED-
DING. 7 vols. 8vo., 4 45.
Bagehot. BIOGRAPHICAL STUDIES.
By WALTER BAGEHOT. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
Boevey. ' THE PERVERSE WIDOW'' :
being passages from the Life of Catharina,
wife of William Boevey, Esq., of Flaxley
Abbey, in the County of Gloucester. Com-
piled by ARTHUR W. CRAWLEY-BOEVEY,
M.A. With Portraits. 410., 425. net.
Carlyle. THOMAS CARLYLE: A His-
tory of his Life. By JAMES ANTHONY
FROUDE.
1795-1835. 2 vols. Crown 8vo., 75.
1834-1881. 2 vols. Crown 8vo., 75.
Cellini. CHISEL, PEN, AND POIG-
NARD ; or, Benvenuto Cellini, his Times
and his Contemporaries. By the Author of
' The Life of Sir Kenelm Digby,' ' The Life
of a Prig,' etc. With 19 Illustrations.
Crown 8vo., 55.
Crozier. MY INNER LIFE : being a
Chapter in Personal Evolution and Auto-
biography. By JOHN BEATTIE CROZIER,
Author of ' Civilisation and Progress,' etc.
8vo., 145.
Dante. THE LIFE AND WORKS OF
DANTE ALLIGHIERI : being an Introduction
to the Study of the ' Divina Commedia'.
By the Rev. J. F. HOGAN, D.D., Professor,
St. Patrick's College, Maynooth. With
Portrait. 8vo., 125. 6d.
Danton. LIFE OF DANTON. By A.
H. BEESLY. With Portraits of Danton, his
Mother, and an Illustration of the Home of
his family at Arcis. Crown 8vo., 6s.
Duncan. ADMIRAL DUNCAN. By
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN. With 3 Por-
traits. 8vo., 1 6s.
Erasmus. LIFE AND LETTERS OF
ERASMUS. By JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE.
Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
Faraday. fAR AD Ay AS A DIS-
COVERER. By JOHN TYNDALL. Crown
8vo, 35. 6d.
Foreign Courts and Foreign
Homes. By A. M. F. Crown 8vo., 6s.
Fox. THE EARLY HISTORY OF
CHARLES JAMES Fox. By the Right Hon.
Sir G. O. TREVELYAN, Bart.
Library Edition. 8vo., i8s.
Cheap Edition. Crown 8vo., 3$. 6d.
Halifax. THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF
SIR GEORGE S A VILE, BARONET, FIRST
MARQUIS OF HALIFAX. By H. C. FOXCROFT.
2 vols. 8vo., 365.
Hamilton. LIFE OF SIR WILLIAM
HAMILTON. By R. P. GRAVES. 8vo. 3 vols.
155. each. ADDENDUM. 8vo., 6d. sewed.
Havelock. MEMOIRS OF SIR HENRY
HAVELOCK, K.C.B. By JOHN CLARK
MARSHMAN. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
Haweis. MY MUSICAL LIFE. By
the Rev. H. R. HAWEIS. With Portrait of
Richard Wagner and 3 Illustrations. Crown
8vo., 6s. net.
Hiley. MEMORIES OF HALF A
CENTURY. By the Rev. R. W. HILEY,
D.D., Vicar of Wighill, Tadcaster. With
Portrait. 8vo., 155.
Jackson. STONEWALL JACKSON AND
THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR. By Lieut.-Col.
G. F. R. HENDERSON. With 2 Portraits and
33 Maps and Plans. 2 vols. 8vo., 425.
Leslie. THE LIFE AND CAMPAIGNS
OF ALEXANDER LESLIE, FIRST EARL OF
LEVEN. By CHARLES SANFORD TERRY,
M.A. With Maps and Plans. 8vo., i6s.
Luther. LIFE OF LUTHER. By
JULIUS KOsTLiN. With 62 Illustrations
and 4 Facsimilies of MSS. Cr. 8vo., 35. 6d.
Macaulay. THE LIFE AND LETTERS
OF LORD MACAULAY. By the Right Hon.
Sir G. O. TREVELYAN, Bart.
Popular Edition, i vol. Cr. 8vo., 2s. 6d.
Student's Edition i vol. Cr. 8vo., 6s.
Cabinet Edition. 2 vols. Post 8vo., 125.
' Edinburgh' Edition. 2vols. 8vo. ,6s. each
Library Edition. 2 vols. 8vo., 365.
Marbot. THE MEMOIRS OF THE
BARON DE MARBOT. Translated from the
French. 2 vols. Crown 8vo., 75.
Max Miiller. AULD LANG SYNE.
By the Right Hon. F. MAX MULLER.
First Series. With Portrait. 8vo, IDS. 6d.
CONTENTS. Musical Recollections Literary Recol-
lections Recollections of Royalties Beggars.
Second Series. MY INDIAN FRIENDS.
8vo, zos. 6d.
Morris. THE LIFE OF WILLIAM
MORRIS. By J. W. MACKAIL. With 6 Por-
traits and 16 Illustrations by E. H. NEW
etc. 2 vols. 8vo., 325.
MESSRS. LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS.
Biography, Personal Memoirs, &e. continued.
Palgrave. FRANCIS TURNER PAL-
GRAVE: His Journals, and Memories of his
Life. By GWENLLIAN F. PALGRAVE. With
Portrait and Illustration. 8vo., IDS. 6d.
Pearson. CHARLES HENRY PEAR-
SON, FELLOW OF ORIEL, AND EDUCATION
MINISTER IN VICTORIA ; Author of ' Na-
tional Life and Character '. Memorials by
Himself, his Wife, and his Friends. Edited
by W. STEBBING, Hon. Fellow of Worces-
ter College, Oxford. With Portrait. 8vo., 145.
Place. THE LIFE OF FRANCIS PLACE,
1771-1854. By GRAHAM WALLAS, M.A.
With 2 Portraits. 8vo., 125.
P O w y S. PASSAGES FROM THE
DIARIES OF MRS. PHILIP LYBBE POWYS,
of Hardwick House, Oxon., 1756-1808.
Edited by EMILY J. CLIMENSON, of Shiplake
Vicarage, Oxon. With 2 Pedigrees (Lybbe
and Powys) and Photogravure Portrait.
8vo., i6s.
Ramakr/sh/ia : Hts LIFE AND
SAYINGS. By the Right Hon. F. MAX
MULLER. Crown 8vo., 55.
Reeve. MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE AND
CORRESPONDENCE OF HENRY REEVE, C.B.,
late Editor of the ' Edinburgh Review,' and
Registrar of the Privy Council. By JOHN
KNOX LAUGHTON, M.A. With 2 Portraits.
2 vols. 8vo., 285.
Romanes. THE LIFE AND LETTERS
OP GEORGE JOHN ROMANES, M.A., LL.D.,
F.J?.S. Written and Edited by his WIFE.
With Portrait and 2 Illustrations. Cr. 8vo., 65.
Seebohm. THE OXFORD REFORMERS
JOHN COLBT, ERASMUS, AND THOMAS
MORE : a History of their Fellow- Work.
By FREDERIC SEEBOHM. 8vo., 14$.
Shakespeare. OUTLINES OF THE
LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE. By J. O. HALLI-
WELL-PHILLIPPS. With Illustrations and
Fac-similes. 2 vols. Royal 8vo., 2 us.
Shakespeare's TRUE LIFE. By
JAMES WALTER With 500 Illustrations by
GERALD E. MOIRA. Imp. 8vo., 21 s. net.
Stanley (Lady).
THE GIRLHOOD OF MARIA JOSEPH A
HOLROYD (Lady Stanley of Alderley}.
Recorded in Letters of a Hundred Years
Ago, from 1776-1796. Edited by J. H.
ADEANE. With 6 Portraits. 8vo., iSs.
THE EARLY MARRIED LIFE OF
MARIA JOSEPHA, LADY SIANLEY, FROM
1796. Edited by J. H. ADEANE. With
10 Portraits and 3 Illustrations. 8vo., 185.
Turgot THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
OF TURGOT, Comptroller-General of France,
1774-1776. Edited for English Readers by
W. WALKER STEPHENS. With Portrait.
8vo, js. 6d.
Verney. MEMOIRS OF THE VERNEY
FAMILY. Compiled from the Letters and
Illustrated by the Portraits at Clayden
House.
Vols. I. & II.. DURING THE CIVIL WAR.
By FRANCES PARTHENOPE VERNEY. With
38 Portraits, etc. Royal 8vo., 425.
Vol. III., DURING THE COMMONWEALTH.
1650-1660. By MARGARET M. VERNEY.
With 10 Portraits, etc. Royal 8vo., 2is.
Vol. IV., FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE
REVOLUTION. 1660 to 1696. ByMARGARET
M. VERNEY. With n Portraits, etc.
Royal 8vo., 2is.
Wellington. LIFE OF THE DUKE
OF WELLINGTON. By the Rev. G. R.
GLEIG, M.A. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
Travel and Adventure, the Colonies, &e.
Arnold. SEAS AND LANDS. By Sir | Baker (SiR S. W.).
EDWIN ARNOLD. With 71 Illustrations.
Crown 8vo. , 35. 6d.
Ball GOHN).
THE ALPINE GUIDE. Reconstructed
and Revised on behalf of the Alpine Club,
by W. A. B. COOLIDGE.
Vol. I., THE WESTERN ALPS: the Alpine
Region, South of the Rhone Valley,
from the Col de Tenda to the Simplon
Pass. With 9 New and Revised Maps.
Crown 8vo., 125. net.
HINTS AND NOTES, PRACTICAL AND
SCIENTIFIC, FOR TRAVELLERS IN THE
ALPS: being a Revision of the General
Introduction
Crown 8vo.,
the
net.
Alpine Guide
EIGHT YEARS IN CEYLON. With 6
Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
THE RIFLE AND THE HOUND IN
CEYLON. With 6 Illustrations. Crown
8vo., 35. 6d.
Bent. THE RUINED CITIES OF MA-
SHONALAND : being a Record of Excavation
and Exploration in 1891. By J. THEODORE
BENT. With 117 Illustrations. Crown
8vo., 35. 6d.
Bicknell. TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE
IN NORTHERN QUEENSLAND. BY ARTHUR
C. BICKNELL. With 24 Plates and 22 Illus-
trations in the Text. 8vo., 155.
MESSRS. LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS.
Travel and Adventure, the Colonies, &e. continued.
Brassey. VOYAGES AND TRAVELS
OF LORD BRASSEY, fC.C.B., D C.L., 1862-
1894. Arranged and. Edited by Captain S.
EARDLEY-WILMOT. 2 vols. Cr. 8vo., los.
Brassey (THE LATE LADY).
A VOYAGE IN THE ' SUNBEAM' ; OUR ,
HOME ON THE OCEAN FOR ELEVEN
MOXTHS.
Cabinet Edition. With Map and 66
Illustrations. Crown 8vo., js. 6d.
' Silver Library ' Edition. With 66 Illus-
trations. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
Popular Edition. With 60 Illustrations.
4to., 6d. sewed, is. cloth.
School Edition. With 37 Illustrations.
Fcp., 25. cloth, or 35. white parchment.
SUNSHINE AND STORM IN THE EAST.
Cabinet Edition. With 2 Maps and 114
Illustrations. Crown 8vo., -js. 6d.
Popular Edition. With 103 Illustrations.
4to., 6d. sewed, is. cloth.
IN THE TRADES, THE TROPICS, AND
THE ' ROARING FORTIES '.
Cabinet Edition. With Map and 220
Illustrations. Crown 8vo., js. 6d.
Browning. A GIRL'S WANDERINGS
IN HUNGARY. By H. ELLEN BROWNING.
With Map and 20 Illustrations. Crown 8vo.,
35. td.
Froude (JAMES A.).
OCEANA : or England and her Col-
onies. With 9 Illustrations. Cr. 8vo., 35. 6d.
THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES:
or, t'-e Bow of Ulysses. With 9 Illustra-
tions. Crown 8vo., 2s. boards, 25. 6d. cloth.
Howitt. VISITS TO REMARKABLE
PLACES. Old Halls, Battle-Fields, Scenes,
illustrative of Striking Passages in English
History and Poetry. By WILLIAM HOWITT.
With So Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
Knight (E. F.).
THE CRUISE OF THE ' ALERTE ' : the
Narrative of a Search for Treasure on the
Desert Island of Trinidad. With 2 Maps
and 23 Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
WHERE THREE EMPIRES MEET: a
Narrative of Recent Travel in Kashmir,
Western Tibet, Baltistan, Ladak, Gilgit,
and the adjoining Countries. With a
Map and 54 Illustrations. Cr. 8vo., 35. 6d.
THE ' FALCON' ON THE BALTIC: a
Voyage from London to Copenhagen in
a Three-Tonner. With 10 Full-page
Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
Lees. PEAKS AND PINES : another
Norway Book. By J. A. LEES. With
63 Illustrations and Photographs by the
Author. Crown 8vo., 6s.
Lees and Clutterbuck. B.C. 1887 :
A RAMBLE IN BRITISH COLUMBIA. By J. A.
LEES and W. J. CLUTTERBUCK. With Map
and 75 Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
Macdonald. THEGOLDOAST:PAST
AND PRESENT. By GEORGE MACDONALD,
Director of Education and H.M. Inspector
of Schools for the Gold Coast Colony and
the Protectorate. With 32 Illustrations.
Crown 8vo., 75. 6d.
Nansen. -THE FIRST CROSSING OF
GREENLAND. By FRIDTJOF NANSEN. With
143 Illustrations and a Map. Crown 8vo.,
3s. 6d.
Smith. CLIMBING IN THE BRITISH
ISLES. By W. P. HASKETT SMITH. With
Illustrations by ELLIS CARR, and Numerous
Plans.
Part I. ENGLAND. i6mo., 3s. 6d.
Part II. (VALES AND IRELAND. i6mo.,
3s. bd.
Stephen. THE PLAY-GROUND OF
EUROPE (The Alps). By LESLIE STE-
PHEN. With 4 Illustrations. Crown 8vo.,
3S. 6d.
Three in Norway. By Two of
Them. With a Map and 59 Illustrations.
Crown 8vo., 2s. boards, 2s. 6d. cloth.
Tyndall. (JOHN).
THE GLACIERS OF THE ALPS : being
a Narrative of Excursions and Ascents.
An Account of the Origin and Phenomena
of Glaciers, and an Exposition of the
Physical Principles to which they are re-
lated. With 6 1 Illustrations. Crown 8vo.,
6s. 6d. net.
HOURS OF EXERCISE IN THE ALPS.
With 7 Illustrations. Cr. 8vo., 6s. 6d. net.
Vivian. SERBIA : the Poor Man's
Paradise. By HERBERT VIVIAN, M.A.,
Officer of the Royal Order of Takovo.
With Map and Portrait of King Alex-
ander. 8vo., 155.
io MESSRS. LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS.
Veterinary Medicine, &e.
Steel QOHN HENRY, F.R.C.V.S.,
F.Z.S., A.V.D.), late Professor of Veterin-
ary Science and Principal of Bombay
Veterinary College.
A TREATISE ON THE DISEASES OF
THE DOG; being a Manual of Canine [
Pathology. Especially adapted for the use '
of Veterinary Practitioners and Students. '
With 88 Illustrations. 8vo., IDS. bd.
A TREATISE ON THE DISEASES OF\
THE Ox ; being a Manual of Bovine j
Pathology. Especially adapted for the i
use of Veterinary Practitioners and j
Students. With 2 Plates and 117 j
Woodcuts. 8vo., 155.
A TREATISE ON THE DISEASES OF
THE SHEEP; being a Manual of Ovine
Pathology for the use of Veterinary Prac-
titioners and Students. With Coloured
Plate and 99 Woodcuts. 8vo., 125.
OUTLINES OF EQUINE ANATOMY ; a
Manual for the use of Veterinary Students
in the Dissecting Room. Cr. 8vo., 75. 6d.
Fitzwygram. NORSES AND
STABLES. By Major-General Sir F. FITZ-
WYGRAM, Bart. With 56 pages of Illustra-
tions. 8vo., 2S. 6d. net.
Schreiner. THE ANGORA GOAT
(published under the auspices of the South
African Angora Goat Breeders' Association),
and a Paper on the Ostrich (reprinted from
the Zoologist for March, 1897). With 26
Illustrations. By S. C. CRONWRIGHT
SCHREINER. 8vo., IDS. 6d.
' Stonehenge.' THE DOG IN
HEALTH AND DISEASE. By ' STONE-
HENGE '. With 78 Wood Engravings.
8vo., 75. 6d.
Youatt (WILLIAM).
THE HORSE. Revised and Enlarged
by W. WATSON, M.R.C.V.S. With 52
Wood Engravings. 8vo., 75. 6d.
THE DOG. Revised and Enlarged.
With 33 Wood Engravings. 8vo., 6s.
Sport and Pastime.
THE BADMINTON LIBRARY.
Edited by HIS GRACE THE LATE DUKE OF BEAUFORT, K.G., and A. E. T.
WATSON. Complete in 29 Volumes. Crown 8vo., Cloth, Price xos. 6d. each Volume.
%* The Volumes are also issued half-bound in Leather, with gilt top.
from all Booksellers.
The price can be had
ARCHER Y. By C. J. LONGMAN and
Col. H.WALROND. With Contributions by
Miss LEGH, Viscount DILLON, etc. With
2 Maps, 23 Plates and 172 Illustrations in
the Text. Crown 8vo., IDS. 6d.
ATHLETICS. By MONTAGUE
SHEARMAN. With Chapters on Athletics
at School by W. BEACHER THOMAS ; Ath-
letic Sports in America by C. H. SHERRILL ;
a Contribution on Paper-chasing by W. RYE,
and an Introduction by Sir RICHARD WEB-
STER, Q.C., M.P. With 12 Plates and 37
Illustrations in the Text. Cr. 8vo., IDS. 6d.
BIG GAME SHOOTING. By
CLIVE PHILLIPPS-WOLLEY.
Vol. I. AFRICA AND AMERICA.
With Contributions by Sir SAMUEL W.
BAKER, W. C. OSWELL, F. C. SELOUS,
etc. With 20 Plates and 57 Illustrations
in the Text. Crown 8vo., IDS. 6d.
Vol. II. EUROPE, ASIA, AND THE
ARCTIC REGIONS. With Contribu-
tions by Lieut.-Colonel R. HEBER
PERCY, Major ALGERNON C. HEBER
PERCY, etc. With 17 Plates and 56 Illus-
trations in the Text. Cr. 8vo., IDJ. 6d.
MESSRS. LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS.
Sport and Pastime continued.
THE BADMINTON LIBRARY continued.
BILLIARDS. By Major W. BROAD-
FOOT, R.E. With Contributions by A. H.
BOYD, SYDEXHAM Dixox, W. J. FORD, etc.
With n Plates, ig Illustrations in the Text,
and numerous Diagrams. Cr. 8vo., IDS. 6d.
COURSING AND FALCONRY.
By HARDING Cox, CHARLES RICHARDSON,
and the Hon. GERALD LASCELLES. With
20 Plates and 55 Illustrations in the Text.
Crown 8vo., IDS. 6d.
CRICKET. By A. G. STEEL and
the Hon. R. H. LYTTELTON. With Con-
tributions by ANDREW LANG, W. G. GRACE,
F. GALE, etc. With 13 Plates and 52 Illus-
trations in the Text. Crown 8vo., IDS. 6d.
CYCLING. By the EARL OF ALBE-
MARLE and G. LACY HILLIER. With 19
Plates and 44 Illustrations in the Text.
Crown 8vo., ios. 6d.
DANCING. By Mrs. LILLY GROVE,
F.R.G.S. With Contributions by Miss
MIDDLETON, The Hon. Mrs. ARMYTAGE,
etc. With Musical Examples, and 38 Full-
page Plates and 93 Illustrations in the Text.
Crown 8vo., xos. 6d.
DRIVING. By His Grace the late
DUKE of BEAUFORT, K.G. With Contribu-
tions by A. E. T. WATSON the EARL OF
ONSLOW, etc. With 12 Plates and 54 Illus-
trations in the Text. Crown 8vo., 105. 6d.
FENCING, BOXING, AND
WRESTLING. By WALTER H. POLLOCK,
F. C. GROVE, C. PREVOST, E. B. MITCHELL,
and WALTER ARMSTRONG. With 18 Plates
and 24 Illust. in the Text. Cr. 8vo., IDS. 6d.
FISHING. By H. CHOLMONDELEY-
PENNELL.
Vol. I. SALMON AND TROUT. With
Contributions by H. R. FRANCIS, Major
JOHN P. TRAHERNE, etc. With 9 Plates
and numerous Illustrations of Tackle,
etc. Crown 8vo., IDS. 6d.
Vol. II. PIKE AND .OTHER COARSE
FISH. With Contributions by the
MARQUIS OF EXETER, WILLIAM SENIOR,
G. CHRISTOPHER DAVIS, etc. With
7 Plates and numerous Illustrations of
Tackle, etc. Crown 8vo., IDS. 6d.
FOOTBALL. By MONTAGUE SHEAR-
MAN, W. J. OAKLEY, G. O. SMITH, FRANK
MITCHELL, etc. With 19 Plates and 35
Illustrations in the Text. Cr. 8vo., IDS. 6rf.
GOLF. By HORACE G. HUTCHINSON.
With Contributions by the Rt. Hon. A. J.
BALFOUR, M.P.,SirWALTERSiMPSON,Bart.,
ANDREW LANG, etc. With 32 Plates and 57
Illustrations in the Text. Cr. 8vo., los. 6d.
HUNTING. By His Grace the late
DUKE OF BEAUFORT, K.G., and MOWBRAY
MORRIS. With Contributions by the EARL
OF SUFFOLK AND BERKSHIRE, Rev. E. W.
L. DAVIES. G. H. LONGMAN, etc. With 5
Plates and 54 Illustrations in the Text.
Crown 8vo., los. 6d.
MOUNTAINEERING. By C. T.
DENT. With Contributions by the Right
Hon. J. BRYCE, M.P., Sir MARTIN CONWAY,
D. W. FRESHFIELD, C. E. MATTHEWS, etc.
With 13 Plates and 91 Illustrations in the
Text. Crown 8vo., los. 6d.
POETRY OF SPORT (THE).
Selected by HEDLEY PEEK. With a
Chapter on Classical Allusions to Sport by
ANDREW L\NG, and a Special Preface to
the BADMINTON LIBRARY by A. E. T.
WATSON. With 32 Plates and 74 Illustra-
tions in the Text. Crown 8vo., IDS. 6d.
RACING AND STEEPLE-CHAS-
ING. By the EARL OF SUFFOLK AND
BERKSHIRE, W. G. CRAVEN, the Hon. F.
LAWLEY, ARTHUR COVENTRY, and A. E. T.
WATSON. With Frontispiece and 56 Illus-
trations in the Text. Crown 8vo., los. 6d.
RIDING AND POLO. By Captain
ROBERT WEIR, J. MORAY BROWN, T. F.
DALE, THE LATE DUKE OF BEAUFORT, THE
EARL OF SUFFOLK AND BERKSHIRE, etc.
With 1 8 Plates and 41 Illustrations in the
Text. Crown 8vo., los. 6d.
ROWING. By R. P. P. ROWE and
C. M. PITMAN. With Chapters on Steering
by C. P. SEROCOLD and F. C. BEGG ; Met-
ropolitan Rowing by S. LE BLANC SMITH ;
and on PUNTING by P. W. SQUIRE. With
75 Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 105. 6d.
SEA FISHING. By JOHN BICKER-
DYKE, Sir H. W. GORE-BOOTH, ALFRED
C. HARMSWORTH, and W. SENIOR. With
22 Full-page Plates and 175 Illustrations in
the Text. Crown 8vo., IDS. 6d.
12 MESSRS. LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS.
Sport and Pastime continued.
THE BADMINTON LIBRARY continued.
TENNIS, LA WN TENNIS,
RACKETS AND FIVES. By J. M. and
C. G. HEATHCOTE, E. O. PLEYDELL-BOU-
VERIE, and A. C. AINGER. With Contributions
by the Hon. A. LYTTELTON, W. C. MAR-
SHALL, Miss L. DOD, etc. With 12 Plates and
67 Illustrations in the Text. Cr. 8vo., los. 6d.
SHOOTING.
Vol. I. FIELD AND COVERT. By LORD
WALSINGHAM and Sir RALPH PAYNE-
GALLWEY, Bart. With Contributions by
the Hon. GERALD LASCELLES and A. J.
STUART-WORTLEY. With ii Plates and
95 Illusts. in the Text. Cr. 8vo., IDS. 6d.
Vol. II. MOOR AND MARSH. By
LORD WALSINGHAM and Sir RALPH PAYNE-
GALLWEY, Bart. With Contributions by
LORD LOVAT and Lord CHARLES LENNOX
KERR. With 8 Plates and 57 Illustrations
in the Text. Crown 8vo., IDS. 6d.
SKATING, CURLING, TOBOG-
GANING. By J. M. HEATHCOTE, C. G.
TEBBUTT, T. MAXWELL WITHAM, Rev.
JOHN KERR, ORMOND HAKE, HENRY A.
BUCK, etc. With 12 Plates and 272 Illus-
trations in the Text. Crown 8vo., 105. 6d.
SWIMMING. By ARCHIBALD SIN-
CLAIR and WILLIAM HENRY, Hon. Sees, of the
Life-Saving Society. With 13 Plates and 112
Illustrations in the Text. Cr. 8vo., 105. 6d.
YACHTING.
Vol. I. CRUISING, CONSTRUCTION
OF YACHTS, YACHT RACING
RULES, FITTING-OUT, etc. By Sir
EDWARD SULLIVAN, Bart., THE EARL OF
PEMBROKE, LORD BRASSEY, K.C.B., C.
E. SETH-SMITH, C.B., G. L. WATSON, R.
T. PRITCHETT, E. F. KNIGHT, etc. With
21 Plates and 93 Illustrations in the Text.
Crown 8vo., los. 6d.
Vol. II. YACHT CLUBS, YACHT-
ING IN AMERICA AND THE
COLONIES, YACHT RACING, etc
By R. T. PRITCHETT, THE MARQUIS OF
DUFFERIN AND AVA, K.P., THE EARL OF
ONSLOW, JAMES MCFERRAN, etc. With
35 Plates and 160 Illustrations in the
Text. Crown 8vo., IDS. 6d.
FUR, FEATHER, AND FIN SERIES.
Edited by A. E. T. WATSON.
Crown 8vo., price 55. each Volume, cloth.
The Volumes are also issued half-bound in Leather, with gilt top.
front all Booksellers.
The price can be had
THE PARTRIDGE. Natural His-
tory, by the Rev. H. A. MACPHERSON ;
Shooting, by A. J. STUART-WORTLEY ;
Cookery, by GEORGE SAINTSBURY. With
ii Illustrations and various Diagrams in
the Text. Crown 8vo., 55.
THE GRO USE. Natural History, by
the Rev. H. A. MACPHERSON; Shooting,
by A. J. STUART-WORTLEY; Cookery, by
GEORGE SAINTSBURY. With 13 Illustrations
and various Diagrams in the Text. Crown
8vo., 55.
THE PHEASANT. Natural History,
by the Rev. H. A. MACPHERSON ; Shooting,
by A. J. STUART-WORTLEY ; Cookery, by
ALEXANDER INNES SHAND. With 10 Illus-
trations and various Diagrams. Crown
8vo., 55.
THE HARE. Natural History, by
the Rev. H. A. MACPHERSON ; Shooting,
by the Hon. GERALD LASCELLES ; Coursing,
by CHARLES RICHARDSON ; Hunting, by J.
S. GIBBONS and G. H. LONGMAN ; Cookery,
by Col. KENNEY HERBERT. With 9
Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 55.
RED DEER. Natural History, by
the Rev. H. A. MACPHERSON ; Deer Stalk-
ing, by CAMERON OF LOCHIEL ; Stag
Hunting, by Viscount EBRINGTON ;
Cookery, by ALEXANDER INNES SHAND.
With 10 Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 55.
THE SALMON. By the Hon. A. E.
GATHORNE-HARDY. With Chapters on the
Law of Salmon Fishing by CLAUD DOUGLAS
PENNANT; Cookery, by ALEXANDER INNES
SHAND. With 8 Illustrations. Cr. 8vo., 55.
THE TROUT. By the MARQUESS
OF GRANBY. With Chapters on the Breed-
ing of Trout by Col. H. CUSTANCE ; and
Cookery, by ALEXANDER INNES SHAND.
With 12 Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 55.
THE RABBIT. By JAMES EDMUND
HARTING. With a Chapter on Cookery by
ALEXANDER INNES SHAND. With 10 Illus-
tions. Crown 8vo., 55.
PIKE AND PERCH. By W.
SENIOR, JOHN BICKERDYKE and ALEXANDER
INNES SHAND. [Nearly ready.
MESSRS. LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS.
Sport and Pastime continued.
Bickerdyke. DA YS OF MY LIFE ON
WATERS FRESH AND SALT, AND OTHER
PAPERS. By JOHN BICKERDYKE. With
Photo-etching Frontispiece and 8 Full-page
Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 6s.
Blackburne. MR. BLACKBURNE s
GAMES AT CHESS. Selected, Annotated
and Arranged by Himself. Edited, with a
Biographical Sketch and a brief History of
Blindfold Chess, by P. ANDERSON GRAHAM.
8vo., ~js. 6d. net.
Cawthorne and Herod. ROYAL
ASCOT: its History and its Associations.
By GEORGE JAMES CAWTHORNE and RICH-
ARD S. HEROD. With 32 Plates and 106
Illustrations in the Text. Demy 410.,
315. 6rf. net.
Dead Shot (The) : or, Sportsman's
Complete Guide. Being a Treatise on the Use
of the Gun, with Rudimentary and Finishing
Lessons in the Art of Shooting Game of all
kinds. Also Game-driving, Wildfowl and
Pigeon-shooting, Dog-breaking, etc. By
MARKSMAN. With numerous Illustrations.
Crown 8vo., IDS. 6d.
Ellis. CHESS SPAXKS ; or, Short and
Bright Games of Chess. Collected and
Arranged by J. H. ELLIS, M. A. 8vo., 45. 6d.
Folkard. THE WILD-FOWLER : A
Treatise on Fowling, Ancient and Modern,
descriptive also of Decoys and Flight-ponds,
Wild-fowl Shooting, Gunning-punts, Shoot-
ing-yachts, etc. Also Fowling in the Fens
and in Foreign Countries, Rock-fowling,
etc., etc., by H. C. FOLKARD. With 13 En-
gravings on Steel, and several Woodcuts.
8vo., 125. 6d.
Ford. THE THEORY AND PRACTICE
OF ARCHERY. By HORACE FORD. New
Edition, thoroughly Revised and Re-written
by W. BUTT, M.A. With a Preface by C.
J. LONGMAN, M.A. 8vo., 145.
Ford. MIDDLESEX COUNTY CRICKET
CLUB, 1864-1899. Written and Compiled
by W. J. FORD. With Photogravure Portrait
of V. E. Walker. 8vo., IDS. net.
Francis. A BOOK ON ANGLING : or,
Treatise on the Art ot Fishing in every
Branch ; including full Illustrated List of Sal-
mon Flies. By FRANCIS FRANCIS. With Por-
trait and Coloured Plates. Crown 8vo., 155.
Gibson. TOBOGGANING ON CROOKED
RUNS. By the Hon. HARRY GIBSON. With
Contributions by F. DE B. STRICKLAND and
' LADY-TOBOGANNER '. With 40 Illustra-
tions. Crown 8vo., 6s,
Graham. COUNTRY PASTIMES FOR
BOYS. By P. ANDERSON GRAHAM. With
252 Illustrations from Drawings and
Photographs. Crown vo., 35. 6d.
Hutchinson. THE BOOK OF GOLF
AND GOLFERS. By HORACE G. HUTCHIN-
SON. With Contributions by Miss AMY
PASCOE, H. H. HILTON, J. H. TAYLOR, H.
J. WHIGHAM, and Messrs. SUTTON & SONS.
With 71 Portraits, etc. Large crown 8vo.,
75. 6d. net.
Lang. ANGLING SKETCHES. By
ANDREW LANG. With 20 Illustrations.
Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
Lillie (ARTHUR).
CROQUET: its History, Rules and
Secrets. With 4 Full-page Illustrations
by LUCIEN DAVIS, 15 Illustrations in the
Text, and 27 Diagrams. Crown 8vo., 6s.
CROQUET UP TO DATE. Contain-
ing the Ideas and Teachings of the
Leading Players and Champions. With
19 Illustrations (15 Portraits), and numer-
ous Diagrams. 8vo., IDS. 6d. net.
Longman. CHESS OPENINGS. By
FREDERICK W. LONGMAN. Fcp. 8vo., 25. f>d.
Madden. THE DIARY OF MASTER
WILLIAM SILENCE : a Study of Shakespeare
and of Elizabethan Sport. By the Right
Hon. D. H. MADDEN, Vice-Chancellor of the
University of Dublin. 8vo., 165.
Maskelyne. SHARPS AND FLATS : a
Complete Revelation of the Secrets of
Cheating at Games of Chance and Skill. By
JOHN NEVIL MASKELYNE, of the Egyptian
Hall. With 62 Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 6s.
Moffat. CRICKETYCRICKET: Rhymes
and Parodies. By DOUGLAS MOFFAT, with
Frontispiece by the late Sir FRANK LOCK-
WOOD, and 53 Illustrations by the Author.
Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.
Park. THE GAME OF GOLF. By
WILLIAM PARK, Jun., Champion Golfer,
1887-89. With 17 Plates and 26 Illustra-
tions in the Text. Crown 8vo., 75. 6d.
14 MESSRS. LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS.
Sport and Pastime continued.
Payne-Gallwey (Sir RALPH, Bart.).
LETTERS TO YOUNG SHOOTERS (First
Series). On the Choice and use of a Gun
With 41 Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 75. 6d.
LETTERS TO YOUNG StfOOTjts(Second
Series). On the Production, Preservation,
and Killing of Game. With Directions
in Shooting Wood-Pigeons and Breaking-
in Retrievers. With Portrait and 103
Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 12s. 6d.
LETTERS TO YOUNG SHOOTERS.
(Third Series.) Comprising a Short
Natural History of the Wildfowl that
are Rare or Common to the British
Islands, with complete directions in
Shooting Wildfowl on the Coast and
Inland. With 200 Illustrations. Crown
8vo., 1 8s.
Pole THE THEORY OF THE MODERN
SCIENTIFIC GAME OF WHIST. By WILLIAM
POLE, F.R.S. Fcp. 8vo., 25. 6d.
Proctor. How TO PLAY WHIST:
WITH THE LAWS AND ETIQUETTE OP
WHIST. By RICHARD A. PROCTOR. Crown
8vo., 35. 6d.
Ribblesdale. THE Q UEEN'S Ho UNDS
AND STAG- HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS. By
LORD RIBBLESDALE, Master of the Buck-
hounds, 1892-95. With Introductory
Chapter on the Hereditary Mastership by
E. BURROWS. With 24 Plates and 35 Illus-
trations in the Text. 8vo., 255.
Ronalds. THE FLY- FISHER'S ENTO-
MOLOGY. By ALFRED RONALDS. With 20
coloured Plates. 8vo., 145.
Wilcocks. THE SEA FISHERMAN:
Comprising the Chief Methods of Hook and
Line Fishing in the British and other Seas,
and Remarks on Nets, Boats, and Boating.
By J. C. WILCOCKS. Illustrated. Cr. 8vo.,6s.
Mental, Moral, and Political Philosophy.
LOGIC, RHETORIC, PSYCHOLOGY, &-C.
Abbott. THE ELEMENTS OF LOGIC.
By T. K. ABBOTT, B.D. i2mo., 35.
Aristotle.
THE ETHICS: Greek Text, Illustrated
with Essay and Notes. By Sir ALEXAN-
DER GRANT, Bart. 2 vols. 8vo., 325.
AN INTRODUCTION TO ARISTOTLE'S
ETHICS. Books I. -IV. (BookX. c.vi.-ix.
in an Appendix). With a continuous
Analysis and Notes. By the Rev. E.
MOORE, D.D. Crown 8vo. xos. 6d.
Bacon (FRANCIS).
COMPLETE WORKS. Edited by R. L.
ELLIS, JAMES SPEDDING and D. D.
HEATH. 7 vols. Svo., 3 135. 6d.
LETTERS AND LIFE, including all his
occasional Works. Edited by JAMES
SPEDDING. 7 vols. 8vo., ^4 45.
THE ESSA YS : with Annotations. By
RICHARD WHATELY, D.D. 8vo., 105. 6d.
THE ESSAYS: with Notes. By F.
STORR and C. H. GIBSON. Cr. Svo, 3$. 6d.
THE ESSAYS: with Introduction,
Notes, and Index. By E. A. ABBOTT, D.D.
2 Vols. Fcp. 8vo.,6s. The Text and Index
only, without Introduction and Notes, in
One Volume. Fcp. 8vo., 2s. 6d.
Bain (ALEXANDER).
MENTAL AND MORAL SCIENCE : a
Compendium of Psychology and Ethics.
Crown 8vo., IDS. 6d.
Or separately,
Part I. PSYCHOLOGY AND HISTORY OF
PHILOSOPHY. Crown 8vo., 6s. 6d.
Part II. THEORY OF ETHICS AND ETHICAL
SYSTEMS. Crown 8vo., 45. 6d.
SENSES AND THElNTELLECT. 8vO.,I55.
EMOTIONS AND THE WILL. 8vo., 155.
LOGIC. Part I. DEDUCTION. Crown
8vo., 45. Part II. INDUCTION. Crown
8vo., 6s. 6d.
PRACTICAL ESSAYS. Cr. 8vo., 25.
Bray. THE PHILOSOPHY OF NECES-
SITY: or, Law in Mind as in Matter. By
CHARLES BRAY. Crown 8vo.. 55.
Crozier (]OHN BEATTIE).
CIVILISATION AND PROGRESS : being
the Outlines of a New System of Political,
Religious and Social Philosophy. 8vo.,i4S.
HISTORY OF INTELLECTUAL DE-
VELOPMENT : on the Lines of Modern
Evolution.
Vol. I. Greek and Hindoo Thought ; Grasco-
Roman Paganism ; Judaism ; and Christi-
anity down to the Closing of the Schools
of Athens by Justinian, 529 A.D. 8vo., 145.
MESSRS. LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 15
Mental, Moral and Political Philosophy continued.
LOGIC, RHETORIC,
Davidson. THE LOGIC OF DEFINI-
TION, Explained and Applied. By WILLIAM
L. DAVIDSON, M.A. Crown 8vo., 6s.
Green (THOMAS HILL). THE WORKS
OF. Edited by R. L. NETTLESHIP.
Vols. I. and II. Philosophical Works. 8vo.,
165. each.
Vol. III. Miscellanies. With Index to the
three Volumes, and Memoir. 8vo., 2is.
LECTURES ON THE PRINCIPLES OF
POLITICAL OBLIGATION. With Preface
by BERNARD BOSANQUET. 8vo., 55.
Gurnhill. THE MORALS OF SUICIDE.
By the Rev. J. GURNHILL, B.A. Crown
8vo., 6s.
Hodgson (SHADWORTH H.),
TIME AND SPACE : A Metaphysical
Essay. 8vo., i6s.
THE THEORY OF PRACTICE : an
Ethical Inquiry. 2 vols. 8vo., 245.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF REFLECTION.
2 VOls. 8VO., 2IS.
THE METAPHYSIC OF EXPERIENCE.
Book I. General Analysis of Experience ;
Book II. Positive Science; Book III.
Analysis of Conscious Action ; Book IV.
The Real Universe. 4 vols. 8vo., 365. net.
Hume. THE PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS
OF DAVID HUME. Edited by T. H. GREEN
and T. H. GROSE. 4 vols. 8vo., 28s. Or
separately, ESSAYS. 2 vols. 145. TREATISE
OF HUMAN NATURE. 2 vols. 145.
James. THE WILL TO BELIEVE, and
Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. By
WILLIAM JAMES, M.D., LL.D., etc. Crown
8vo., 75. 6d.
Justinian. THE INSTITUTES OF
JUSTINIAN: Latin Text, chiefly that of
Huschke. with English Introduction, Trans-
lation, Notes, and Summary. By THOMAS
C. SANDARS, M.A. 8vo., i8s.
Kant (IMMANUEL).
CRITIQUE OF PRACTICAL REASON,
AND OTHER WORKS ON THE THEORY OF
ETHICS. Translated by T. K. ABBOTT,
B.D. With Memoir. 8vo., i2s. 6d.
FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF THE
METAPHYSIC OF ETHICS. Translated by
T. K. ABBOTT, B.D. Crown fcvo, 3*.
INTRODUCTION TO LOGIC, AND HIS
ESSAY ON THE MISTAKEN SUBTILTY OF
THE FOUR FIGURES.. Translated by T.
K. ABBOTT. 8vo., 6s.
Kelly. GOVERNMENT OR HUMAN
EVOLUTION. JUSTICE. By EDMOND
KELLY, M.A., F.G.S. Cr. 8vo., 75. 6d. net.
PSYCHOLOGY, &>C.
K i 1 1 i c k. HANDBOOK TO MILL'S
SYSTEM OF LOGIC. By Rev. A. H.
KILLICK, M.A. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
Ladd (GEORGE TRUMBULL).
A THEORY OF REALITY: an Essay
in Metaphysical System upon the Basis of
Human Cognitive Experience. 8vo., i8s.
ELEMENTS OF PHYSIOLOGICAL PSY-
CHOLOGY. 8VO., 2IJ.
OUTLINES OF DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHO-
LOGY: a Text-Book of Mental Science for
Colleges and Normal Schools. 8vo., tas.
OUTLINES OF PHYSIOLOGICAL PSY-
CHOLOGY. 8VO., I2S.
PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY. Cr. 8vo.,
55. 6d.
Lecky. THE MAP OF LIFE: Con-
duct and Character. By WILLIAM EDWARD
HARTPOLE LECKY. 8vo., IDS. 6d.
Lutoslawski. THE ORIGIN AND
GROWTH OF PLATO'S LOGIC. With an
Account of Plato's Style and of the Chrono-
logy of his Writings. By WINCENTY
LUTOSLAWSKI. 8vo., 2is.
Max Miiller (F.).
THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 8vo.,
2IS.
THE Six SYSTEMS OF INDIAN PHIL-
OSOPHY. 8vo., 1 8s.
Mill. ANALYSIS OF THE PHENOMENA
OF THE HUMAN MIND. By JAMES MILL.
2 vols. 8vo., 285.
Mill (JoHN STUART).
A SYSTEM OF LOGIC. Cr. 8vo., 35. 6d.
ON LIBERTY. Crown 8vo., is. ^d.
CONSIDERATIONS ON REPRESENTA-
TIVE GOVERNMENT. Crown 8vo.. 2s.
UTILITARIANISM. 8vo., 25. 6^.
EXAMINATION OF SIR WILLIAM
HAMILTON'S PHILOSOPHY. 8vo., i6s.
NATURE, THE UTILITY OF RELIGION,
AND THEISM. Three Essays. 8vo., 55.
Mo nek. AN INTRODUCTION TO
LOGIC. By WILLIAM HENRY S. MONCK,
M.A. Crown 8vo., 55.
Romanes. MIND AND MOTION AND
MONISM. By GEORGE JOHN ROMANES,
LL.D., F.R.S. Cr. 8vo., 45. 6d.
Stock. LECTURES IN THE LYCEUM ;
or, Aristotle's Ethics for English Readers.
Edited by ST. GEORGE STOCK. Crown
8vo., 75. 6d.
16 MESSRS. LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS.
Mental, Moral, and Political Philosophy continued.
Sully QAMES).
THE HUMAN MIND : a Text-book of
Psychology. 2 vols. 8vo., 2 is.
OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. Crown
8vo., gs.
THE TEACHER s HANDBOOK OF PSY-
CHOLOGY. Crown 8vo., 6s. 6d.
STUDIES OF CHILDHOOD. 8vo.,
ios. 6d.
i
CHILDREN'S WAYS: being Selections
from the Author's ' Studies of Childhood '.
With 25 Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 45. 6J.
Sutherland. THE ORIGIN AND
GROWTH OF THE MORAL INSTINCT. By
ALEXANDER SUTHERLAND, M.A. 2 vols.
8vo, 285.
Swinburne. PICTURE LOGIC : an
Attempt to Popularise the Science of
Reasoning. By ALFRED JAMES SWINBURNE,
M.A. With 23 Woodcuts. Cr. 8vo., 2s. 6d.
Webb. THE VEIL OF Is is : a Series
of Essays on Idealism. By THOMAS E.
WEBB, LL.D., Q.C. 8vo., ios. 6d.
Weber. HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY.
By ALFRED WEBER, Professor in the Uni-
versity of Strasburg. Translated by FRANK
THILLY, Ph.D. Svo., i6s.
Whately (ARCHBISHOP).
BACON'S ESSAYS. With Annotations.
8vo., ios. 6d.
ELEMENTS OF LOGIC. Cr. 8vo., 45. 6d.
ELEMENTS OF RHETORIC. Cr. 8vo.,
4$. 6d.
Zeller (Dr. EDWARD).
THE STOICS, EPICUREANS, AND
SCEPTICS. Translated by* the Rev. O. J.
REICHEL, M.A. Crown 8vo., 155.
OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF
GREEK PHILOSOPHY. Translated by
SARAH F. ALLEYNE and EVELYN ABBOTT,
M.A., LL.D. Crown 8vo., ios. 6d.
PLATO AND THE OLDER ACADEMY.
Translated by SARAH F. ALLEYNE and
ALFRED GOODWIN, B.A. Crown 8vo.,
1 8s.
SOCRATES AND THE SOCRATIC
SCHOOLS. Translated by the Rev. O.
J. REICHEL, M.A. Crown 8vo., ios. 6d.
ARISTOTLE AND THE EARLIER PERI-
PATETICS. Translated by B. F. C. Cos-
TELLOE, M.A., and J. H. MUIRHEAD,
M.A. 2 vols. Crown 8vo., 245.
MANUALS OF CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHY.
(Stonyhurst Series.)
A MANUAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. MORAL PHILOSOPHY (ETHICS AND
By C. S. DEVAS, M.A. Crown 8vo., 6s. 6d.
FIRST PRINCIPLES OF KNOWLEDGE.
NA TURAL LA w). By JOSEPH RICKABY, S.J.
Crown 8vo., 55.
By JOHN RICKABY, S.J. Crown 8vo., ss. * T T-
GENERAL METAPHYSICS. By JOHN NATURAL THEOLOGY.
RICKABY, S.J. Crown 8vo.,
By BERNARD
BOEDDER, S.J. Crown 8vo., 6s. 6d.
LOGIC. By RICHARD F. CLARKE, S.J. PSYCHOLOGY. By MICHAEL MAKER,
Crown 8vo., 55. S.J. Crown 8vo., 6s. 6d.
History and Science of Language, &e.
Davidson. LEADING AND IMPORT-
ANT ENGLISH WORDS : Explained and Ex-
emplified. By WILLIAM L. DAVIDSON,
M.A. Fcp. 8vo., 3s. 6d.
Farrar. LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGES.
By F. W. FARRAR, D.D., Dean of Canter-
bury. Crown 8vo., 6s.
Graham. ENGLISH SYNON\ -MS,
Classified and Explained : with Practical
Exercises. By G. F. GRAHAM. Fcp. 8vo., 6s.
Max Muller (F.).
THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. Found-
ed on Lectures delivered at the Royal In-
stitution in 1861 and 1863. 2 vols. Crown
8vo., ios.
BIOGRAPHIES OF WORDS, AND THE
HOME OF THE ARYAS. Crown 8vo., 55.
Roget. THESAURUS OF ENGLISH
WORDS AND PHRASES. Classified and
Arranged so as to Facilitate the Expression
of Ideas and assist in Literary Composition.
By PETER MARK ROGET, M.D., F.R.S.
With full Index. Crown 8vo., ios. 6d.
Whately. ENGLISH SYNONYMS. By
E. JANE WHATELY. Fcp. 8vo., 35.
MESSRS. LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL. WORKS. 17
Political Economy and Economics.
Ashley. ENGLISH ECONOMIC His- \ Mill. POLITICAL ECONOMY. By
TORY AND THEORY. By W. J. ASHLEY,
M.A. Cr. 8vo., Part I., y. Part II., xos. 6d.
Bagehot. ECONOMIC STUDIES. By
WALTER BAGEHOT. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
Brassey. PAPERS AND ADDRESSES
ox WORK AXD W AGES. By Lord BRASSEY.
Edited by J. POTTER, and with Introduction
by GEORGE HOWELL. Crown 8vo., 55.
Charming. THE TRUTH ABOUT
AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION; an Econo-
mic Study of the Evidence of the Royal
Commission. By FRANCIS ALLSTON CHAN-
NING, M. P., One of the Commission. Crown
8vo., 6s.
Devas. A MANUAL OF POLITICAL
ECONOMY. By C. S. DEVAS, M.A. Cr. 8vo.,
6s. 6d. (Manuals of Catholic Philosophy.)
Jordan. THE STANDARD OF VALUE.
By WILLIAM LEIGHTON JORDAN. Cr.8vo.,6s.
Leslie. ESSAYS ON POLITICAL Eco-
.YCM/r. By T. E. CLIFFE LESLIE, Hon.
LL.D., Dubl. 8vo., IDS. 6d.
Macleod (HENRY DUNNING).
ECONOMICS FOR BEGINNERS. Crown
8vo., 2s.
THE ELEMENTS OP ECONOMICS. 2
vols. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d. each.
BIMETALISM. 8vo., 55. net.
THE ELEMENTS OF BANKING. Cr.
8vo., 35. 6d.
THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF
BANKING. Vol. I. 8vo., 125. Vol. II. 145.
THE THEORY OF CREDIT. 8vo.
In i Vol., 305. net; or separately, Vol.
I., IDS. net. Vol. II., Part I., IDS. net.
Vol II., Part II. IDS. net.
JOHN STUART MILL.
Popular Edition. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
Library Edition. 2 vols. 8vo., 305.
Mulhall. INDUSTRIES AND WEALTH
OF NATIONS. By MICHAEL G. MULHALL,
F.S.S. With 32 Diagrams. Cr. 8vo., 8s. 6d.
Stephens. HIGHER LIFE FOR WORK-
ING PEOPLE : its Hindrances Discussed. An
attempt to solve some pressing Social Pro-
blems, without injustice to Capital or
Labour. By W. WALKER STEPHENS. Cr.
8vo., 35. 6d.
Symes. POLITICAL ECONOMY. With
a Supplementary Chapter on Socialism. By
J. E. SYMES, M.A. Crown 8vo., 2S. 6d.
Toynbee. LECTURES ON THE IN-
DUSTRIAL REVOLUTION OF THE 18rn CEN-
TURY IN ENGLAND. By ARNOLD TOYNBEE.
With a Memoir of the Author by BENJAMIN
JOWETT, D.D. 8vo., IDS. 6d.
Webb (SIDNEY and BEATRICE).
THE HISTORY OF TRADE UNIONISM.
With Map and full Bibliography of the
Subject. 8vo., i8s.
INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY: a Study
in Trade Unionism. 2 vols. 8vo., 255. net.
PROBLEMS OF MODERN INDUSTRY :
Essays. 8vo., 75. 6d.
Wright. OUTLINE OF PRACTICAL
SOCIOLOGY. With Special Reference to
American Conditions. By CARROLL D.
WRIGHT, LL.D. With 12 Maps and
Diagrams. Crown 8vo., gs.
Evolution,
Clodd (EDWARD).
THE STORY OF CREATION: a Plain
Account of Evolution. With 77 Illustra-
tions. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
A PRIMER OF EVOLUTION: being a
Popular Abridged Edition of ' The Story
of Creation '. With Illustrations. Fcp.
8vo., is. 6<7.
Lang (ANDREW).
CUSTOM AND MYTH: Studies of
Early Usage and Belief. With 15
Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
MYTH, RITUAL, AND RELIGION. 2
vols. Crown 8vo., js.
MODERN MYTHOLOGY : a Reply to
Professor Max Miiller. 8vo., gs.
Lubbock. THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISA-
TION, and the Primitive Condition of Man.
By Sir J. LUBBOCK, Bart., M.P. (LORD
AVEBURY). With 5 Plates and 20 Illustra-
tions. 8vo., i8s.
Anthropology, &c.
, Romanes (GEORGE JOHN).
DARWIN, AND AFTER DARWIN: an
Exposition of the Darwinian Theory, and a
Discussion on Post-Darwinian Questions.
Part I. THE DARWINIAN THEORY. With
Portrait of Darwin and 125 Illustrations.
Crown 8vo., los. 6d.
Part II. POST- DARWINIAN QUESTIONS:
Heredity and Utility. With Portrait of
the Author and 5 Illustrations. Cr. 8vo.,
tos. 6d.
Part III. Post- Darwinian Questions :
Isolation and Physiological Selection.
Crown 8vo., 55.
AN EXAMINATION OF
ISM. Crown 8vo., 6s.
WEISMANN-
Ess A YS. Edited by C. LLOYD
MORGAN, Principal of University College,
Bristol. Crown 8vo., 6s.
i8 MESSRS. LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS.
Classical Literature, Translations, &c.
Abbott. HELLENICA. A Collection
of Essays on Greek Poetry, Philosophy,
History, and Religion. Edited by EVELYN
ABBOTT, M.A., LL.D. Crown 8vo., 75. 6d.
. EUMENIDES OF SSCHY-
LUS. With Metrical English Translation.
By J. F. DAVIES. 8vo., 75.
Aristophanes. THE ACHARNIANS
OF ARISTOPHANES, translated into English
Verse. By R. Y. TYRRELL. Crown 8vo., is.
Aristotle. YOUTH AND OLD AGE,
LIFE AND DEATH, AND RESPIRATION.
Translated, with Introduction and Notes,
by W. OGLE, M.A., M.D. 8vo., -js. 6d.
Becker (W. A.), Translated by the
Rev. F. METCALFE, B.D.
GALLUS : or, Roman Scenes in the
Time of Augustus. With Notes and Ex-
cursuses. With 26 Illustrations. Crown
8vo., 35. 6d.
CHARICLES: or, Illustrations of the
Private Life of the Ancient Greeks.
With Notes and Excursuses. With 26
Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
Butler. THE AUTHORESS OF THE
ODYSSEY, WHERE AND WHEN SHE WROTE,
WHO SHE WAS, THE USE SHE MADE OF
'IHE ILIAD, AND HOW THE POEM GREW
UNDER HER HANDS. By SAMUEL BUTLER,
Author of 'Erewhon,' etc. With 14 Illus-
trations and 4 Maps. 8vo. , IDS. 6d.
Campbell. RELIGION IN GREEK LI-
TERATURE. By the Rev. LEWIS CAMPBELL,
M.A., LL.D., Emeritus Professor of Greek,
University of St. Andrews. 8vo., 155.
Cicero. CICERO'S CORRESPONDENCE.
By R. Y. TYRRELL. Vols. I., II., III., 8vo.,
each 125. Vol. IV., 155. Vol. V., 145.
Vol. VI., 125.
Hime. LUCIAN, THE SYRIAN SA-
TIRIST. By Lieut.-Col. HENRY W. L. HIME,
(late) Royal Artillery. 8vo., 55. net.
CONTENTS. i. Life of Lucian 2. Classification of
Lucian's Works 3. The Limits of Satire 4. Lucian's
Philosophy and Religion 5. Characteristics. Ap-
pendix : Lucian's Knowledge of Latin.
Homer.
THE ILIAD OF HOMER. Rendered
into English Prose for the use of those
who cannot read the original. By
SAMUEL BUTLER, Author of 'Erewhon,'
etc. Crown 8vo. , 75. 6d.
THE ODYSSEY OF HOMER. Done
into English Verse. By WILLIAM MOR-
RIS. Crown 8vo., 6s.
Horace. THE WORKS OF HORACE,
RENDERED INTO ENGLISH PROSE. With
Life, Introduction and Notes. By WILLIAM
COUTTS, M.A. Crown 8vo., 55. net.
Lang;. HOMER AND THE EPIC. By
ANDREW LANG. Crown 8vo., 95. net.
Lucan. THE PHARSALIA OF Luc AN.
Translated into Blank Verse. By Sir
EDWARD RIDLEY. 8vo., 145.
Mackail. SELECT EPIGRAMS FROM
THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. By J. W. MAC-
KAIL. Edited with a Revised Text, Intro-
duction, Translation, and Notes. 8vo., i6s.
Rich. A DICTIONARY OF ROMAN AND
GREEK ANTIQUITIES. By A. RICH, B.A.
With 2000 Woodcuts. Crown 8vo., 6s. net.
Sophocles. Translated into English
Verse. By ROBERT WHITELAW, M.A.,
Assistant Master in Rugby School. Cr. 8vo.,
8s. 6d.
Tyrrell. DUBLIN TRANSLATIONS
INTO GREEK AND LATIN VERSE. Edited
by R. Y. TYRRELL. 8vo., 6s.
Virgil.
THE ALNEID OF VIRGIL* Translated
into English Verse by JOHN CONINGTON.
Crown 8vo., 6s.
THE POEMS OF VIRGIL. Translated
into English Prose by JOHN CONINGTON.
Crown 8vo., 65.
THE ^NEIDS OF VIRGIL. Done into
English Verse. By WILLIAM MORRIS.
Crown 8vo., 6s.
THE &NEID OF VIRGIL, freely trans-
lated into English Blank Verse. By
W. J. THORNHILL. Crown 8vo., 6s. net.
THE SNEID OF VIRGIL. Translated
into English Verse by JAMES RHOADES.
Books I. -VI. Crown 8vo., 55.
Books VII.-XII. Crown 8vo., 55.
THE ECLOGUES AND GEORGICS OF
VIRGIL. Translated into English Prose
by J. W. MACKAIL, Fellow of Balliol
College, Oxford. i6mo., 55.
Wilkins. THE GROWTH OF THE
HOMERIC POEMS. By G. WILKINS. 8vo.,6s.
MESSRS. LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS.
Poetry and the Drama,
Armstrong (G. F. SAVAGE).
POEMS : Lyrical and Dramatic. Fcp.
8vo., 6s.
KING SA UL. (The Tragedy of I srael,
Part I.) Fcp. 8vo., 5*.
KING DAVID. (The Tragedy of Israel,
Part II.) Fcp. 8vo., 65.
KING SOLOMON. (The Tragedy of
Israel, Part III.) Fcp. 8vo., 6s.
UGONE : a Tragedy. Fcp. 8vo., 65.
A GARLAND FROM GREECE : Poems.
Fcp. 8vo., 7*. 6d.
STORIES OF WICKLOW: Poems. Fcp.
8vo., ys. 6d.
MEPHISTOPHELES IN BROADCLOTH :
a Satire. Fcp. 8vo., 45.
ONE IN THE INFINITE: a Poem.
Crown 8vo., 75. 6d.
Armstrong. THE POETICAL WORKS
OF EDMUND J. ARMSTRONG. Fcp. 8vo., 55.
Arnold. THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD :
or, The Great Consummation. By Sir
EDWIN ARNOLD. With 14 Illustrations
after HOLMAN HUNT. Crown 8vo., 6s.
Barraud. THE LAY OF THE
KNIGHTS. By the Rev. C. W. BARRAUD,
S.J., Author of ' St. Thomas of Canterbury,
and other Poems '. Crown 8vo., 45.
Bell (MRS. HUGH).
CHAMBER COMEDIES : a Collection
of Plays and Monologues for the Drawing
Room. Crown 8vo., 6s
FAIRY TALE PLAYS, AND How TO
ACT THEM. With 91 Diagrams and 52
Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
Coleridge. 5 ELECTIONS FROM.
With Introduction by ANDREW LANG.
With 18 Illustrations by PATTEN WILSON.
Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
Goethe. THE FIRST PART OF THE
TRAGEDY OF FAUST IN ENGLISH. By
THOS. E. WEBB, LL.D., sometime Fellow
of Trinity College ; Professor of Moral
Philosophy in the University of Dublin,
etc. New and Cheaper Edition, with THE
DEATH OF FAUST, from the Second Part.
Crown 8vo., 6s.
Gore-Booth. POEM s. By EVA
GORE-BOOTH. Fcp. 8vo., 5S.
Ingelow QEAN).
POETICAL WORKS. Complete in
One Volume. Crown 8vo., 6s. net.
LYRICAL AND OTHER POEMS. Selec-
ted from the Writings of JEAN INGELOW.
Fcp. 8vo., 2s. 6d. cloth plain, 35. cloth gilt.
Lang (ANDREW).
GRASS OF PARNASSUS. Fcp, 8vo.,
2s. 6d. net.
THE BLUE POETRY BOOK. Edited
by ANDREW LANG. With 100 Illustrations.
Crown 8vo., 6s.
Layard and Corder. SONGS IN
MANY MOODS. By NINA F. LAYARD ; THE
WANDERING ALBATROSS, etc. By ANNIE
CORDER. In One Volume. Crown 8vo., 5$.
Lecky. POEMS. By the Right Hon.
W. E. H. LECKY. Fcp. 8vo., 55.
Lytton (THE EARL OF), (OWEN
MEREDITH).
THE WANDERER. Cr. 8vo., 105. 6d.
LUCILE. Crown 8vo., IDS. 6d.
SELECTED POEMS. Cr. 8vo., 105. 6d.
Macaulay. LA YS OFANCIENT ROME,
WITH ' IVRY' AMD ' THE ARMADA '. By
Lord MACAULAY.
Illustrated by G. SCHARF. Fcp. 410., IDS. 6d.
Bijou Edition.
i8mo., 2s. 6d. gilt top.
Popular Edition.
Fcp. 410., 6d. sewed, is. cloth.
Illustrated by J. R. WEGUELIN. Crown
8vo., 35. 6d.
Annotated Edition. Fcp. 8vo., is. sewed,
is. 6d. cloth.
20 MESSRS. LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS.
Poetry and the Drama
MacDonald (GEORGE, LL.D.).
A BOOK OF STRIFE, IN THE FORM OF
THE DIARY OF AN OLD SOUL : Poems.
i8mo., 6s.
-continued.
N esbit. LA YS A ND LEGENDS . B y E .
NESBIT (Mrs. HUBERT BLAND). First
Series. Crown 8vo., 3$. 6d. Second Series.
With Portrait. Crown 8vo , 55.
RA MPOLLI : GRO WTHS FROM A LONG-
PLANTED ROOT: being Translations, New
and Old (mainly in verse), chiefly from the
German ; along with ' A Year's Diary of
an Old Soul '. Crown 8vo., 6s.
Moffat. CRICKETYCRICKET: Rhymes
and Parodies. By DOUGLAS MOFFAT.
With Frontispiece by the late Sir FRANK
LOCKWOOD, and 53 Illustrations by the
Author. Crown 8vo, as. 6d.
Moon. POEMS OF LOVE AND HOME,
etc. By GEORGE WASHINGTON MOON,
Hon. F.R.S.L., Author of ' Elijah,' etc.
i6mo., 2s. 6rf.
Morris (WILLIAM).
POETICAL WORKS LIBRARY EDITION.
THE EARTHLY PARADISE. 4 vols.
Crown 8vo., 55. net each.
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF JASON.
Crown 8vo., 55. net.
THE DEFENCE OF GUENEVERE, and
other Poems. Crown 8vo., 55. net.
THE STORY OF SIGURD THE VOLSUNG,
AND THE FALL OF THE NIBLUNGS. Cr.
8vo., 5$. net.
POEMS BY THE WAY, AND LOVE is
ENOUGH. Crown 8vo., 55. net.
THE ODYSSEY OF HOMER. Done
into English Verse. Crown 8vo., 55. net.
THE ^ENEIDS OF VIRGIL. Done
into English Verse. Crown 8vo., 55. net. j
THE TALE OF BEOWULF, SOMETIME '
KING OF THE FOLK OF THE WEDERGEA TS. \
Translated by WILLIAM MORRIS and A. j
J. WYATT. Crown 8vo., 55. net.
Certain of the POETICAL WORKS may also be
had in the following Editions :
THE EARTHLY PARADISE.
Popular Edition. 5 vols. i2mo., 255.;
or 55. each, sold separately.
The same in Ten Parts, 255.; or 2s. 6d.
each, sold separately.
Cheap Edition, in i vol. Crown 8vo.,
6s. net.
POEMS BY THE WAY. Square crown
8vo., 6s.
%* For Mr. William Morris's Prose
Works, see pp. 22 and 31.
Riley (JAMES WHITCOMB).
OLD FASHIONED ROSES: Poems.
i2mo., 5$.
THE GOLDEN YEAR. From the
Verse and Prose of JAMES WHITCOMB
RILEY. Compiled by CLARA E. L\UGH-
LIN. Fcp. 8vo., 55.
Romanes. A SELECTION FROM THE
POEMS OF GEORGE JOHN ROMANES, M.A.,
LL.D., F.R.S. With an Introduction by
T. HERBERT WARREN, President of Mag-
dalen College, Oxford. Crown 8vo., 45. 6d.
Russell. SONNETS ON THE SONNET :
an Anthology. Compiled by the Rev.
MATTHEW RUSSELL, S.J. Crown 8vo.,
3 s. 6d.
Samuels. SHADOWS, AND OTHER
POEMS. By E. SAMUELS. With 7 Illus-
trations by W. FITZGERALD, M.A. Crown
8vo., 35. 6d.
Shakespeare.
BOWDLER ' s FAMILY SHAKESPEARE.
With 36 Woodcuts, i vol. 8vo., 145.
Or in 6 vols. Fcp. 8vo., 2is.
SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. Recon-
sidered, and in part Rearranged, with
Introductory Chapters and a Reprint of
the Original 1609 Edition, by SAMUEL
BUTLER, Author of ' Erewhon '. 8vo.,
IDS. 6d.
THE SHA KESPEA RE BIR THDA Y BOOK.
By MARY F. DUNBAR. 321110., is. 6d.
Wagner. THE NIBELUNGEN RING.
Done into English Verse by REGINALD
RANKIN, B.A. of the Inner Temple, Barris-
ter-at-Law. Vol. I. Rhine Gold and Val-
kyrie. Fcp. 8vo., 4S. 6d.
Wordsworth. SELECTED POEMS.
By ANDREW LANG. With Photogravure
Frontispiece of Rydal Mount. With 16
Illustrations and numerous Initial Letters.
By ALFRED PARSONS, A.R.A. Crown 8vo.,
gilt edges, 35. 6d.
Wordsworth and Coleridge. A
DESCRIPTION OF THE WORDSWORTH AND
COLERIDGE MANUSCRIPTS IN THE POS-
SESSION OF MR. T. NORTON LONGMAN.
Edited, with Notes, by W. HALE WHITE.
With 3 Facsimile Reproductions. 4to.,
i os. 6d.
MESSRS. LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS.
Fiction, Humour, &e.
Anstey. VOCES POPULI. Reprinted
from ' Punch '. By F. ANSTEY, Author of
' Vice Versa '. First Series. With 20 Illus-
trations by J. BERNARD PARTRIDGE. Crown
8vo., 35. >d.
Beaconsfield (THE EARL OF).
NOVELS AND TALES. Complete
in ii vols. Crown Svo., is. 6d. each.
Vivian Grey.
The Young Duke, etc.
Alroy, Ixion, etc.
Sybil.
Henrietta Temple.
Venetia.
Coningsby.
Contarini Fleming,
etc. Lothair.
Tancred. Endymion.
Birt. CASTLE CZVARGAS : a Ro-
mance. Being a Plain Story of the Romantic
Adventures of Two Brothers, Told by the
Younger of Them. Edited by ARCHIBALD
BIRT. Crown Svo. , 65.
' Chola.' A NEW DIVINITY, AND
OTHER STORIES OF HINDU LIFE. By
'CHOLA'. Crown 8vo., 2s. 6d.
Churchill. SAVROLA : a Tale of the
Revolution in Laurania. By WINSTON
SPENCER CHURCHILL. Crown 8vo., 65.
Diderot. RAMEAU'S NEPHEW: a
Translation from Diderot's Autographic
Text. By SYLVIA MARGARET HILL. Crown
8vo., 35. 6d.
Dougall. BEGGARS ALL. By L.
DOUG ALL. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
Doyle (A. CONAN).
MICAH CLARKE: A Tale of Mon-
mouth's Rebellion. With 10 Illustra-
tions. Cr. 8vo., 35. 6d.
THE CAPTAIN OF THE POLESTAR,
and other Tales. Cr. 8vo., 35. 6d.
THE REFUGEES: A Tale of the
Huguenots. With 25 Illustrations. Cr.
8vo., 35. 6d.
THE STARK MUNRO LETTERS, Cr.
8vo, 3S. 6d.
Farrar (F. W., DEAN OF CANTER-
BURY).
DARKNESS AND DAWN: or, Scenes
in the Days of Nero. An Historic Tale.
Cr. 8vo., 6s. net.
GATHERING CLOUDS : a Tale of the
Days of St. Chrysostom. Cr. 8vo., 6s. net.
Fowler (EDITH H.).
THE YOUNG PRETENDERS. A Story
of Child Life. With 12 Illustrations by
Sir PHILIP BURNE-JONES, Bart. Crown
8vo., 6s.
THE PROFESSOR'S CHILDREN. With
24 Illustrations by ETHEL KATE BURGESS.
Crown 8vo., 6s.
Francis. YEOMAN FLEETWOOD. By
M. E. FRANCIS, Author of ' In a North-
country Village," etc. Crown 8vo., 6s.
Froude. THE Two CHIEFS OF DUN-
BOY: an Irish Romance of the Last Century.
By JAMES A. FROUDE. Cr. 8vo., 35. 6d.
Gurdon. MEMORIES AND FANCIES :
Suffolk Tales and other Stories ; Fairy
Legends ; Poems ; Miscellaneous Articles.
By the late LADY CAMILLA GURDON, Author
of ' Suffolk Folk-Lore '. Crown 8vo., 55.
Haggard (H. RIDER).
BLACK HEART AND WHITE HEART,
AND OTHER STORIES. With 33 Illustra-
tions. Crown 8vo., 6s.
SWALLOW : a Tale of the Great Trek.
With 8 Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 6s.
DR. THERNE. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
HEART OF THE WORLD. With 15
Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
T OAN HASTE. With 20 Illustrations.
Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
THE PEOPLE OF THE MIST. With
1 6 Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 3s. 6d.
MONTEZUMA'S DAUGHTER. With 24
Illustrations. Crown Svo. , 35. 6d.
SHE. With 32 Illustrations. Crown
8vo., 35. 6d.
ALLAN QUATERMAIN. With 31
Illustrations. Crown Svo., y. 6d.
MAIWA'S REVENGE. Cr. 8vo., is. 6d.
COLONEL QUAXITCH, V.C. With
Frontispiece and Vignette. Cr. 8vo., 35. 6d.
CLEOPATRA. With 29 Illustrations.
Crown 8vo., 3$. 6d.
BEATRICE. With Frontispiece and
Vignette. Cr. 8vo., 35. 6d.
ERIC BRIGHTEYES. With 51 Illus-
trations. Crown 8vo., 3s. 6d.
NADA THE LILY. With 23 Illustra-
tions. Crown 8vo., 3$. 6d.
ALLAN'S WIFE. With 34 Illustra-
tions. Crown 8vo.. 3$. 6d.
THE WITCH'S HEAD. With 16
Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
MR. MEESON'S WILL. With 16
Illustrations. Crown 8vo., y. 6d.
DAWN. With 16 Illustrations. Cr.
8vo., 35. 6d.
Haggard and Lang. THE WORLD'S
DESIRE. By H. RIDER HAGGARD and
ANDREW LANG. With 27 Illustrations.
Crown 8vo., 3$. 6d.
22 MESSRS. LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS.
Fiction, Humour, &e. continued.
Harte. IN THE CARQUINEZ WOODS.
By BRET HARTE. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
Hope. THE HEART OF PRINCESS
OSRA. By ANTHONY HOPE. With g Illus-
trations. Crown 8vo., 3$. 6d.
-SKETCHES IN LAVENDER:
BLUB AND GREEN. By JEROME K. JEROME.
Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
Joyce. OLD CELTIC ROMANCES.
Twelve of the most beautiful of the Ancient
Irish Romantic Tales. Translated from the
Gaelic. By P. W. JOYCE, LL.D. Crown
8vo., 3$. 6d.
Lang. A MONK OF FIFE; a Story
of the Days of Joan of Arc. By ANDREW
LANG. With 13 Illustrations by SELWYN
IMAGE. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
Levett- Yeats (S.).
THE CHEVALIER D'AURIAC. Crown
8vo., 35. 6d.
THE HEART OF DENISE, and other
Tales. Crown 8vo., 65.
Lyall (EDNA).
THE A UTOBIOGRA PHY OF A SLA NDER.
Fcp. 8vo., is., sewed.
Presentation Edition. With 20 Illustra-
tions by LANCELOT SPEED. Crown
8vo., 2s. 6d. net.
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A TRUTH.
Fcp. 8vo., is., sewed ; is. 6d., cloth.
DOREEN. The Story of a Singer.
Crown 8vo., 65.
WAYFARING MEN. Crown 8vo., 65.
HOPE THE HERMIT : a Romance of
Borrowdale. Crown 8vo., 6s.
Mason and Lang. PARSON KELLY.
By A. E. W. MASON and ANDREW LANG.
Crown 8vo., 6s.
Max Miiller. DEUTSCHE LIEBE
(GERMAN LOVE) : Fragments from the
Papers of an Alien. Collected by F. MAX
MULLER. Translated from the German by
G. A. M. Crown 8vo., 5$.
Melville (G. J. WHYTE).
The Gladiators.
The Interpreter.
Good for Nothing.
The Queen's Maries.
Holmby House.
Kate Coventry.
Digby Grand.
General Bounce.
Crown 8vo., is. 6d. each.
Merriman. FLOTSAM: A Story of
the Indian Mutiny. By HENRY SETON
MERRIMAN. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
Morris (WILLIAM).
THE SUNDERING FLOOD. Cr. 8vo.,
75. 6d.
THE WATER OF THE WONDROUS
ISLES. Crown 8vo., js. 6d.
THE WELL A T THE WORLD'S END.
2 vols. 8vo., 285.
THE STORY OF THE GLITTERING
PLAIN, which has been also called The
Land of the Living Men, or The Acre of
the Undying. Square post 8vo., 55. net.
THE ROOTS OF THE MOUNTAINS,
wherein is told somewhat of the Lives of
the Men of Burgdale, their Friends, their
Neighbours, their Foemen, and their
Fellows-in-Arms. Written in Prose and
Verse. Square crown 8vo., 85.
A TALE OF THE HOUSE OF THE
WOLFINGS, and all the Kindreds of the
Mark. Written in Prose and Verse.
Square crown 8vo., 6s.
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL, AND A
KING'S LESSON. i2mo., is. 6d.
NEWS FROM NOWHERE; or, An
Epoch of Rest. Being some Chapters
from an Utopian Romance. Post 8vo.,
is. 6d.
THE STORY OF GRETTIR THE STRONG.
Translated from the Icelandic by EIRIKR
MAGNUSSON and WILLIAM MORRIS. Cr.
8vo., 55. net.
*,* For Mr. William Morris's Poetical
Works, see p. 20.
Newman (CARDINAL).
Loss AND GAIN : The Story of a
Convert. Crown 8vo. Cabinet Edition,
6s. ; Popular Edition, 35. 6d.
CALLISTA : A Tale of the Third
Century. Crown 8vo. Cabinet Edition,
6s. ; Popular Edition, 35. 6d.
MESSRS. LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS.
Fiction, Humour, &c. continued.
Phillipps-Wolley. SNAP: a Legend
of the Lone Mountain. By C. PHILLIPPS-
WOLLEY. With 13 Illustrations. Crown
8vo. , 35. 6d.
Raymond (WALTER).
Two MEN d 1 MEN DIP. Cr. 8vo., 6s.
No SOUL ABOVE MONEY. Cr. 8vo.,6s.
Reader. PRIESTESS AND QUEEN:
a Tale of the White Race of Mexico ; being
the Adventures of Ignigene and her Twenty-
six Fair Maidens. By EMILY E. READER.
Illustrated by EMILY K. READER. Crown
8vo., 6s.
Sewell (ELIZABETH M.).
A Glimpse of the World Amy Herbert
Laneton Parsonage. Cleve Hall.
Margaret Percival. Gertrude.
Katharine Ashton. Home Life.
The Earl's Daughter. After Life.
The Experience of Life. Ursula. Ivors.
Cr. 8vo., is. 6d. each cloth plain. 2s. 6d.
each cloth extra, gilt edges.
Somerville and Ross. SOME EX-
PERIENCES OF AN IRISH R.M. By E. CE.
SOMERVILLE and MARTIN Ross. With
31 Illustrations by E. CE. SOMERVILLE.
Crown 8vo., 6s.
Stebbing. PROBABLE TALES.
Edited by WILLIAM STEBBING. Crown
8vo., 45. 6d.
Stevenson (ROBERT Louis).
THE STRANGE CASE OF DR.JEKYLL
AND MR. HYDE. Fcp. 8vo., is. sewed,
is. 6d. cloth.
THE STRANGE CASE OF DR.
JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE; WITH OTHER
FABLES. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
MORE NE w ARA BIA N NIGH TS THE
DYNAMITER. By ROBERT Louis STEVEN-
SON and FANNY VAN DE GRIFT STEVEN-
SON. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
THE WRONG Box. By ROBERT
Louis STEVENSON and LLOYD OSBOURNE.
Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
Suttner. LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS
(Die Waff en Niedcr) : The Autobiography
of Martha von Tilling. By BERTHA VON
SUTTNER. Translated by T. HOLMES.
Cr. 8vo., is. 6d.
Taylor. EARLY ITALIAN LOVE-
STORIES. Taken from the Originals by
UNA TAYLOR. With 13 Illustrations by
HENRY J. FORD. Crown 410., 155. net.
Trollope (ANTHONY).
THE WARDEN. Cr. 8vo., is. 6d.
BARCHESTER TOWERS. Cr.8vo.,is.6^.
Walford (L. B.).
MR. SMITH: a Part of his Life.
Crown 8vo., as. 6d.
THE BABY'S GRANDMOTHER. Cr.
8vo., 2s. 6d.
COUSINS. Crown 8vo., as. 6d.
TROUBLESOME DAUGHTERS. Cr.
8vo., 2s. 6d.
PAULINE. Crown 8vp., 2s. 6d.
DICK NETHERBY. Cr. 8vo., 2s. 6d.
THE HISTORY OF A WEEK. Cr.
8vo. 2s. 6d.
A STIFF-NECKED GENERATION. Cr.
8vo. 2s. 6d.
NAN, and other Stories. Cr. 8vo.,
2s. 6d.
THE MISCHIEF OF MONICA. Cr.
8vo., 2s. 6d.
THE ONE GOOD GUEST. Cr. 8vo.
23. 6d.
' PLOUGHED,' and other Stories.
Crown 8vo., 2s. 6d.
THE MA TCHMAKER. Cr. 8vo. , 2s. 6d.
THE INTRUDERS. Crown 8vo., 2s. 6d.
LEDDY MARGET. Crown 8vo., 2s. 6d.
IVA KILDARE : a Matrimonial Pro-
blem. Crown 8vo., 2s. 6d.
Ward. ONE POOR SCRUPLE. By
Mrs. WILFRID WARD. Crown 8vo., 6s.
Weyman (STANLEY).
SOPHIA. With Frontispiece. Crown
8vo., 6s.
THE HOUSE OF THE WOLF. With
Frontispiece and Vignette. Crown 8vo.,
3s. 6d.
A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE. With
Frontispiece and Vignette. Cr. 8vo., 6s.
THE RED COCKADE. With Frontis-
piece and Vignette. Crown 8vo., 6s.
SHREWSBURY. With 24 Illustra-
tions by CLAUDE A.
8vo., 6s.
24 MESSRS. LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS.
Popular Science (Natural History, &e.).
Beddard. THE STRUCTURE AND
CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS. By FRANK E.
BEDDARD, M.A., F.R.S., Prosector and
Vice-Secretary of the Zoological Society
of London. With 252 Illustrations. 8vo.,
2is. net.
Butler. OUR HOUSEHOLD INSECTS.
An Account of the Insect-Pests found in
Dwelling- Houses. By EDWARD A. BUTLER,
B.A., B.Sc. (Lond.). With 113 Illustra-
tions. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
Furneaux (W.).
THE OUTDOOR WORLD; or The
Young Collector's Handbook. With 18
Plates (16 of which are coloured), and 549
Illustrations in the Text. Crown 8vo.,
6s. net.
BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS (British).
With 12 coloured Plates and 241 Illus-
trations in the Text. Crown 8vo.,6s. net.
LIFE IN PONDS AND STREAMS.
With 8 coloured Plates and 331 Illustra-
tions in the Text. Crown 8vo., 6s. net.
Hartwig (DR. GEORGE).
THE SEA AND ITS LIVING WONDERS.
With 12 Plates and 303 Woodcuts. 8vo.,
75. net.
THE TROPICAL WORLD. With 8
Plates and 172 Woodcuts. 8vo., js. net.
THE POLAR WORLD. With 3 Maps,
8 Plates and 85 Woodcuts. 8vo., 75. net.
THE SUBTERRANEAN WORLD. With
3 Maps and 80 Woodcuts. 8vo., js. net.
HEROES OF THE POLAR WORLD. With
19 Illustrations. Cr. 8vo., 2s.
WONDERS OF THE TROPICAL FORESTS.
With 40 Illustrations. Cr. 8vo., zs.
WORKERS UNDER THE GROUND.With
29 Illustrations. Cr. 8vo., 2s.
MARVELS OVER OUR HEADS. With
29 Illustrations. Cr. 8vo., 2s.
Hartwig (DR. GEORGE) continued.
VOLCANOES AND EARTHQUAKES.
With 30 Illustrations. Cr. 8vo., zs. 6d.
WILD ANIMALS OF THE TROPICS.
With 66 Illustrations. Cr. 8vo., 35. 6d.
Helmholtz. POPULAR LECTURES ON
SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS. By HERMANN VON
HELMHOLTZ. With 68 Woodcuts. 2 vols.
Cr. 8vo., 3s. 6d. each.
Hudson (W. H.).
NATURE IN DOIVNLAND. With 12
Plates and 14 Illustrations in the Text by
A. D. MCCORMICK. 8vo., los. 6d. net.
BRITISH BIRDS. With a Chapter
on Structure and Classification by FRANK
E. BEDDARD, F.R.S. With 16 Plates (8
of which are Coloured), and over 100 Illus-
trations in the Text. Cr. 8vo., 6s. net.
BIRDS IN LONDON. With 17 Plates
and 15 Illustrations in the Text, by BRYAN
HOOK, A. D. MCCORMICK, and from
Photographs from Nature, by R. B.
LODGE. 8vo., 125.
Proctor (RICHARD A.).
LIGHT SCIENCE FOR LEISURE HOURS.
Familiar Essays on Scientific Subjects.
Vol. I. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
Ro UGH WA YS MA DE SMOG TH. Fam i -
liar Essays on Scientific Subjects. Crown
8vo., 35. 6d.
PLEASANT WAYS IN SCIENCE. Crown
8vo., 35. 6d.
NATURE STUDIES. By R. A. PROC-
TOR, GRANT ALLEN, A. WILSON, T.
FOSTER and E. CLODD. Crown 8vo.,
3 a. 6d.
LEISURE READINGS. By R. A. PROC-
TOR, E. CLODD, A. WILSON, T. FOSTER
and A. C. RANYARD. Cr. 8vo. , 35. 6d.
* f * For Mr. Proctor's other books see pp. 13
and 28, and Messrs. Longmans <& Co. 's
! Catalogue of Scientific Works.
SA MONSTERS AND SEA BIRDS. \ , , . ,.,
With 75 Illustrations. Cr. 8vo, 25. 6d. ' Stanley. -A FAMILIAR HISTORY OF
BIRDS. By E. STANLEY, D.D., formerly
DENIZENS OF THE DEEP. With 1 17 Bishop of Norwich. With 160 Illustrations.
Illustrations. Cr. 8vo., 2s. 6d. Cr. 8vo., 35. 6d.
MESSRS. LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS 25
Popular Science (Natural History, ^continued.
Wood (REV. J. G.). Wood (REV. J. G.) continued.
HOMES WITHOUT HANDS: A Descrip-
tion of the Habitations of Animals, classed
according to the Principle of Construc-
tion. With 140 Illustrations. 8vo.,
75. net.
INSECTS AT HOME : A Popular Ac-
count of British Insects, their Structure,
Habits and Transformations. With 700
Illustrations. 8vo., 75. net.
OUT OF DOORS; a Selection of
Original Articles on Practical Natural
History. With n Illustrations. Cr. 8vo.,
35. 6d.
STRANGE DWELLINGS: a Description
of the Habitations of Animals, abridged
from ' Homes without Hands'. With 60
Illustrations. Cr. 8vo., 35. 6d.
PETLAND REVISITED. With 33
Illustrations. Cr. 8vo., 35. 6d.
BIRD LIFE OF THE BIBLE. With 32
Illustrations. Cr. 8vo. , 35. 6d.
WONDERFUL NESTS. With 30 Illus-
trations. Cr. 8vo., 35. 6d.
HOMES UNDER THE GROUND. With
28 Illustrations. Cr. 8vo., 35. f>d.
WILD ANIMALS OF THE BIBLE. With
29 Illustrations. Cr. 8vo., 35. 6d.
DOMESTIC ANIMALS OF THE BIBLE.
With 23 Illustrations. Cr. 8vo., 35. 6d.
THE BRANCH BUILDERS. With 28
Illustrations. Cr. 8vo., 25. 6d.
SOCIAL HABITATIONS AND PARASITIC
NESTS. With 18 Illustrations. Cr.8vo.,2J.
Works of Reference.
Gwilt. AN ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF AR-
CHITECTURE. By JOSEPH GWILT, F.S.A.
With 1700 Engravings. Revised (1888),
with Alterations and Considerable Addi-
tions by WYATT PAPWORTH. 8vo., 215. net.
Maunder (Samuel).
BIOGRAPHICAL TREASURY. With
Supplement brought down to 1889. By
Rev. JAMES WOOD. Fcp. 8vo., 6s.
TREASURY OF GEOGRAPHY, Physical,
Historical, Descriptive, and Political.
With 7 Maps and 16 Plates. Fcp. 8vo., 6s.
THE TREASURY OF BIBLE KNOW-
LEDGE. By the Rev. J. AYRE, M.A. With
5 Maps, 15 Plates, and 300 Woodcuts.
Fcp. 8vo., 6s.
TREASURY OF KNOWLEDGE AND LIB-
RARY OF REFERENCE. Fcp. 8vo., 6s.
HISTORICAL TREASURY. Fcp.8vo,65.
Maunder (Samuel) continued.
SCIENTIFIC AND LITERARY TREA-
SURY. Fcp. 8vo., 6s.
THE TREASURY OF BOTANY. Edited
by J. LINDLEY, F.R.S., and T. MOORE,
F.L.S. With 274 Woodcuts and 20 Steel
Plates. 2 vols. Fcp. 8vo., 125.
Roget. THESA UR us OF ENGLISH
WORDS AND PHRASES. Classified and Ar-
ranged so as to Facilitate the Expression of
Ideas and assist in Literary Composition.
By PETER MARK ROGET, M.D., F.R.S.
Recomposed throughout, enlarged and im-
proved, partly from the Author's Notes, and
with a full Index, by the Author's Son,
JOHN LEWIS ROGET. Crown 8vo., IDS. 6d.
TABLES for giving
information for ascertaining the value of
Lifehold, Leasehold, and Church Property,
the Public Funds, etc. By CHARLES M.
WILLICH. Edited by H. BENCE JONES.
Crown 8vo., IDS. 6d.
Children
Buckland. TWOLITTLERUNA WA YS.
Adapted from the French of Louis DES-
NOYERS. By JAMES BUCKLAND. With no
Illustrations by CECIL ALDIN. Cr. 8vo., 6s.
Crake (Rev. A. D.).
EDWY THE FAIR ; or, The First
Chronicle of ^Escendune. Cr. 8vo. , as. 6d.
ALFGAR THE DANE ; or, The Second
Chronicle of jEscendune. Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d.
's Books.
Crake (Rev. A. D.) continued.
THE RIVAL HEIRS : being the Third
and Last Chronicle of ^Escendune. Cr.
8vo., as. 6d.
THE HOUSE OP WALDERNE. A Tale
of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days
of the Barons' Wars. Crown 8vo., 2s. 6d.
BRIAN FITZ- COUNT. A Story of
Wallingford Castle and Dorchester
Abbey. Cr. 8vo., 2s. 6d.
26 MESSRS. LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS.
Children's Books continued.
Henty (G. A.). EDITED BY.
YULE LOGS : A Story-Book for Boys.
By VARIOUS AUTHORS. With 61 Illus-
trations. Crown 8vo., 6s.
YULE TIDE YARNS: a Story-Book
for Boys. By VARIOUS AUTHORS. With
45 Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 6s.
Lang (ANDREW). EDITED BY.
THE BLUE FAIRY BOOK. With 138
Illustrations. Crown Svo., 6s.
THE RED FAIRY BOOK. With 100
Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 6s.
THE GREEN FAIRY BOOK. With gg
Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 6s.
THE YELLOW FAIRY BOOK. With
104 Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 6s.
THE PINK FAIRY BOOK. With 67
Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 6s.
THE BLUE POETRY BOOK. With 100
Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 6s.
THE BLUE POETRY BOOK. School
Edition, without Illustrations. Fcp. 8vo.,
2S. 6rf.
THE TRUE STORY BOOK. With 66
Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 6s.
THE RED TRUE STORYBOOK. With
100 Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 6s.
THE ANIMAL STORY BOOK. With i
67 Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 6s.
THE RED BOOK OF ANIMAL STORIES.
With 65 Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 6s.
THE ARABIAN NIGHTS ENTERTAIN-
MEI\ TS. With 66 Illustrations. Cr. 8vo., 6s.
Meade (L. T.).
DADDY'S BOY. With 8 Illustrations.
Crown 8vo., 35. fid.
DEB AND THE DUCHESS. With 7
Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
THE BERESFORD PRIZE. With 7
Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
THE HOUSE OF SURPRISES. With 6
Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 35. 6d.
Praeger (ROSAMOND).
THE ADVENTURES OF THE THREE
BOLD BABES: HECTOR, HONORIA AND
ALISANDER. A Story in Pictures. With
24 Coloured Plates and 24 Outline Pic-
tures. Oblong 410., 35. 6d.
THE FURTHER DOINGS OF THE
THREE BOLD BABIES. With 24 Coloured
Pictures and 24 Outline Pictures. Oblong
4to., 35. 6d.
Stevenson. A CHILD'S GARDEN OF
VERSES. By ROBERT Louis STEVENSON.
Fcp. 8vo., 55.
Upton (FLORENCE K. AND BERTHA).
THE ADVENTURES OF Two DUTCH
DOLLS AND A ' GOLLIWOGG\ With 31
Coloured Plates and numerous Illustra-
tions in the Text. Oblong 410., 6s.
THE GOLLIWOGG'S BICYCLE CLUB.
With 31 Coloured Plates and numerous
Illustrations in the Text. Oblong 410.,
6s.
THE GOLLIWOGG AT THE SEASIDE.
With 31 Coloured Plates and numerous
Illustrations in the Text. Oblong 410. , 6s.
THE GOLLIWOGG IN WAR. With 31
Coloured Plates. Oblong 410., 6s.
THE VEGE-MEN'S REVENGE. With
31 Coloured Plates and numerous Illus-
trations in the Text. Oblong 410., 6s.
The Silver
CROWN 8vo. 35. 6d.
Arnold's (Sir Edwin) Seas and Lands. With
71 Illustrations. 3-f. 6d.
Bagehot's (W.) Biographical Studies, y. 6d.
Bagehot's (W.) Economic Studies, y. <>./.
Bagehot's ( W.) I iterary Studies. With Portrait.
3 vols, y. 6d. each.
Baker's (Sir S. W.) Eight Years in Ceylon.
With 6 Illustrations. 35. 6d.
Baker's (Sir S. W.) Rifle and Hound in Ceylon.
With 6 Illustrations, y. 6d.
Baring-Gould's (Rev. S.) Curious Myths of the
Middle Ages. y. 6d.
Baring-Gould's (Rev. S.) Origin and Develop-
ment of Religious Belief. 2 vols. y. 6d. each.
Becker's ( W. A.) Callus : or, Roman Scenes in the
Time of Augustus. With 26 Illus. y. 6d.
Library.
EACH VOLUME.
Becker's (W. A.) Charicles: or, Illustrations of
the Private Life of the Ancient Greeks.
With 26 Illustrations. 3*. 6d.
Bent's (J. T.) The Ruined Cities of Mashona-
land. With 117 Illustrations. 3*. 6d.
Brassey's (Lady) A Voyage in the ' Sunbeam '.
With 66 Illustrations, y. 6d.
Churchill's (W. S.) The Story of the Malakand
Field Force, 1897. With 6 Maps and Plans.
3^. 6d.
Clodd's (E.) Story of Creation : a Plain Account
of Evolution. With 77 Illustrations. 3^. 6d.
Conybeare (Rev. W. J.) and Howson's (Very
Rev. J. S.) Life and Epistles of St. Paul.
With 46 Illustrations. 3^. 6d.
Dougall's (L.) Beggars All : a Novel, y. 6d.
MESSRS. LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 27
The Silver Library continued.
Doyle's (A. Conan) Micah Clarke. A Tale of
Monmoutn's Rebellion. With lolllusts. 35.6^.
Doyle's (A. Conan) The Captain of the Polestar,
and other Tales. 3.5. 6d.
Doyle's (A. Conan) The Refugees: A Tale of
the Huguenots. With 25 Illustrations. y>d.
Doyle's (A. Conan) The Stark Munro Letters.
y. 6d.
Froude's (J. A.) The History of England, from
the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the
Spanish Armada. 12 vols. y. 6d. each.
Froude's (J. A.) The English in Ireland. 3 vols.
105. 6d.
Froude's (J. A.) The Divorce of Catherine of
Aragon. 35. 6d.
Froude's (J. A.) The Spanish Story of the
Armada, and other Essays, y. 6d.
Froude's (J. A.) Short Studies on Great Sub-
jects. 4 vols. y. 6d. each.
Froude's (J. A.) Oceana, or England and Her
Colonies. With 9 Illustrations, y. 6d.
Froude's (J. A.) The Council of Trent. 3.5. 6d.
Froude's (J. A.) The Life and Letters of
Erasmus, y. 6d.
Froude's (J. A.) Thomas Carlyle : a History of
his Life.
1795-1835. 2 vols. js. 1834-1881. 2 vols. js.
Froude's (J. A.) Caesar : a Sketch, y. 6d.
Froude's (J. A.) The Two Chiefs of Dunboy : an
Irish Romance of the Last Century, y. 6d.
Gleig's (Rev. G. R.) Life of the Duke of
Wellington. With Portrait. y. 6d.
Greville's (C. C. F.) Journal of the Reigns of
King George IV., King William IV., and
Queen Victoria. 8 vols. , y. 6d. each.
Haggard's (H. R.) She : A History of Adventure.
With 32 Illustrations. 35. 6d.
Haggard's (H. R.) Allan Quatermain With
20 Illustrations. 35. 6d.
Haggard's (H. R.) Colonel Quaritch, V.C. : a
Tale of Country Life. With Frontispiece
and Vignette, y. 6d.
Haggard's (H. R.) Cleopatra. With 29 Illustra-
tions, y. 6d.
Haggard's (H. R.) Eric Brighteyes. With 51
Illustrations, y. 6d.
Haggard's (H. R.) Beatrice. With Frontispiece
and Vignette, y. 6d.
Haggard's (H. R.) Allan's Wife. With 34 Illus-
trations, y. 6d.
Haggard (H. R.) Heart of the World. With
15 Illustrations, y. 6d.
Haggard's (H. R.) Montezuma's Daughter. With
25 Illustrations. 35. 6d.
Haggard's (H. R.) The Witch's Head. With
16 Illustrations. 35. 6d.
Haggard's (H. R.) Mr. Meeson's Will. With
16 Illustrations, y. 6d.
Haggard's (H. R.) Nada the Lily. With 23
Illustrations, y. 6d.
Haggard's (H.R.) Dawn. With i6Illusts. y. 6d.
Haggard's (H. R.) The People of the Hist. With
16 Illustrations, y. 6d.
Haggard's (H. R.) Joan Haste. With 20 Illus-
trations, y. 6d.
Haggard (H. R.) and Lang's (A.) The World's
Desire. With 27 Illustrations, y. 6d.
Harte's (Bret) In the Carquinez Woods and
other Stories, y. 6d.
Helmholtz's (Hermann von) Popular Lecture*
on Scientific Subjects. With 68 Illustrations.
2 vols. y. 6d, each.
Hope's (Anthony) The Heart of Princess Osra.
With 9 Illustrations. 3.?. 6d.
Hornung's (E. W.) The Unbidden Guest. y. 6d
Howitt's (W.) Visits to Remarkable Places.
With 80 Illustrations, y. 6d.
Jefferies' (R.) The Story of My Heart: My
Autobiography. With Portrait. y. 6d.
Jefferies' (R.) Field and Hedgerow. With
Portrait, y. 6d.
Jefferies' (R.) Red Deer. With 17 Illusts. y. 6d.
Jefferies' (R.) Wood Magic: a Fable. With
Frontispiece and Vignette by E. V. B. y. 6d.
Jefferies (R.) The Toilers of the Field. With
Portrait from the Bust in Salisbury Cathedral.
y. 6d.
Kaye (Sir J.) and Malleson's (Colonel) History
of the Indian Mutiny of 1857-8. 6 vols'.
35. 6d. each.
Knight's (E. F.) The Cruise of the 'Alerte':
the Narrative of a Search for Treasure on
the Desert Island of Trinidad. With 2
Maps and 23 Illustrations, y. 6d.
Knight's ( E. F.) Where Three Empires Meet : a
Narrative of Recent Travel in Kashmir,
Western Tibet, Baltistan, Gilgit. With a Map
and 54 Illustrations. y. 6d.
Knight's (E. F.) The ' Falcon ' on the Baltic : a
Coasting Voyage from Hammersmith to
Copenhagen in a Three-Ton Yacht. With
Map and n Illustrations. y. 6d.
Kbstlin's (J.) Life of Luther. With 62 Illustra-
tions and 4 Facsimiles of MSS. 3^. 6d.
Lang's (A.) Angling Sketches. With 20 Illustra-
tions, y. 6d.
Lang's (A.) Custom and Myth : Studies of Early
Usage and Belief, y. 6d.
Lang'sf A.)Cock LaneandCommon-Sense. y. 6d.
Lang's (A.) The Book of Dreams and Ghosts,
35. &i.
Lang's (A.) A Monk of Fife: a Story of the
Days of Joan of Arc. With 13 Illustrations.
y. 6d.
Lang's (A.) Myth, Ritual, and Religion. 2 vols. 75.
Lees (J. A.) and Clutterbuck's (W. J.) B. C.
1887, A Ramble in British Columbia. With
Maps and 75 Illustrations, y. 6d
Levett-Veats' (S.) The Chevalier D'Auriac.
y. 6d.
Macaulay's (Lord) Complete Works. ' Albany '
Edition. With 12 Portraits. 12 vols. 35. 6d.
each.
Macaulay's (Lord) Essays and Lays of Ancient
Rome, etc. With Portrait and 4 Illustrations
to the ' Lays '. y. 6d.
28 MESSRS. LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS.
The Silver Library continued.
Hacleod's (H. D.) Elements of Banking. 3*. 6d.
Marbot's (Baron de) Memoirs. Translated.
2 VOlS. 7J.
Marshman's (J. C.) Memoirs of Sir Henry
Havelock. y. 6d.
Merlvale's (Dean) History of the Romans
under the Empire. 8 vols. y. 6d. each.
Merriman's (H. S.) Flotsam : A Tale of the
Indian Mutiny. y. 6d.
Mill's (J. S.) Political Economy, y. 6d.
Mill's (J. S.) System of Logic, y. 6d.
Milner's (Oeo.) Country Pleasures : the Chroni-
cle of a Year chiefly in a Garden, y. 6d.
Nansen's (F.) The First Crossing of Greenland.
With 142 Illustrations and a Map. y. 6d.
Philllpps-Wolley's (C.) Snap : a Legend of the
Lone Mountain With 13 Illustrations, y. 6d.
Proctor's (R. A.) The Orbs Around Us. y. 6d.
Proctor's (R. A.) The Expanse of Heaven. 35. 6d.
Proctor's (R. A.) Light Science for Leisure
Hours. First Series, y. 6d.
Proctor's (R. A.) The Moon. 35. 6d.
Proctor's (R. A.) Other Worlds than Ours. y.6d.
Proctor's (R. A.) Our Place among Infinities :
a Series of Essays contrasting our Little
Abode in Space and Time with the Infinities
around us. y. 6d.
Proctor's (R. A.) Other Suns than Ours. 35. 6d.
Proctor's (R. A.) Rough Ways made Smooth.
y. 6d.
Proctor's(R.A.)PleasantWaysin Science. y.6J.
Proctor's (R. A.) Myths and Marvels of As-
tronomy, y. 6d.
Proctor's (R. A.) Nature Studies, y. 6d.
Proctor's (R. A.) Leisure Readings. By R. A.
PROCTOR, EDWARD CLODD, ANDREW
WILSON, THOMAS FOSTER, and A. C.
RANYARD. With Illustrations, y. 6d.
Rossetti's (Maria F.) A Shadow of Dante. 35. 6d.
Smith's (R. Bosworth) Carthage and the Cartha-
ginians. With Maps, Plans, etc. y. 6d.
Stanley's (Bishop) Familiar History of Birds.
With 160 Illustrations, y. 6d.
Stephen's (L.) The Playground of Europe (The
Alps). With 4 Illustrations. 35. 6d.
Stevenson's (R. L.) The Strange Case of Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; with other Fables. 3.5.60'.
Stevenson (R. L.) and Osbourne's (LI.) The
Wrong Box. y. 6d.
Stevenson (Robert Louis) and Stevenson's
(Fanny van de Grift) More New Arabian
Nights. The Dynamiter, y. 6d.
Trevelyan's (Sir G. 0.) The Early History of
Charles James Fox. 3.?. 6d.
Weyman's (Stanley J.) The House of the
Wolf : a Romance, y. 6d.
Wood's (Rev. J. G.) Petland Revisited. With
33 Illustrations. y. 6d.
Wood's (Rev. J. G.) Strange Dwellings. With
60 Illustrations. 3^. 6d.
Wood's (Rev. J. G.) Out of Doors. With n
Illustrations. y. 6d.
Cookery, Domestic
Acton. MODERN COOKERY. By j
ELIZA ACTON. With 150 Woodcuts. Fcp.
8vo., 45. 6d.
Ashby. HEALTH IN THE NURSERY. \
By HENRY ASHBY, M.D., F.R.C.P., Physi- i
ciantothe Manchester Children's Hospital, j
With 25 Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d. J
Buckton. COMFORT AND CLEANLI-
NESS : The Servant and Mistress Question.
By Mrs. CATHERINE M. BUCKTON. With
14 Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 2s.
Bull (THOMAS, M.D.).
HINTS TO MOTHERS ON THE MAN-
AGEMEU T OF THEIR HEALTH DURING THE
PERIOD OF PREGNANCY. Fcp. 8vo., is. 6d.
THE MATERNAL MANAGEMENT OF
CHILDREN IN HEALTH AND DISEASE.
Fcp. 8vo., is. 6d.
De Salis (MRS.).
CAKES AND CONFECTIONS A LA
MODE. Fcp. 8vo., is. 6d.
DOGS: A Manual for Amateurs.
Fcp. 8vo., is. 6d.
DRESSED GAME AND POULTRY A LA
MODE. Fcp. 8vo., 6rf.
Management, &e.
De Salis (MRS.). continued.
DRESSED VEGETABLES A LA MODE.
Fcp. 8vo., is 6d.
DRINKS A LA MODE Fcp. 8vo., is.6d.
ENTREES A LA MODE. Fcp. 8vo.,
is. 6d.
FLORAL DECORATIONS. Fcp. 8vo.,
is. 6d.
GARDENING A LA MODE. Fcp. 8vo.
Part I., Vegetables, is. 6d. Part II.,
Fruits, is. 6d.
NATIONAL VIANDS A LA MODE. Fcp.
8vo., is.- 6d.
NEW-LAID EGGS. Fcp. 8vo., 15. 6d.
OYSTERS % LA MODE. Fcp. 8vo.,
is. 6d.
SOUPS AND DRESSED FISH A LA
MODE. Fcp. 8vo., is. f>d.
SAVOURIES A LA MODE. Fcp. 8vo.,
is.6d.
PUDDINGS AND PASTRY A LA MODE.
Fcp. 8vo., is. 6d.
SWEETS AND SUPPER DISHES A LA
MODE. Fcp. 8vo., is. 6d.
TEMPTING DISHES FOR SMALL IN-
COMES. Fcp. 8vo., is. 6d.
WRINKLES AND NOTIONS FOR
EVERY HOUSEHOLD. Crown 8vo. , is. 6d.
MESSRS. LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 29
Cookery, Domestic Management, &e. continued.
COOKERY. By H. L. Walker. - A BOOK FOR EVERY Wo-
SIDNEY LEAR. i6mo., 25.
Mann. MANUAL OF THE PRINCIPLES
OF PRACTICAL COOKERY. By E. E. MANN.
Crown Svo. is.
Poole. COOKERY FOR THE DIABETIC.
\' By W. H. and Mrs. POOLE. With Preface
; by Dr. PAVY. Fcp. 8vo., zs. 6d.
MAN. By JANE H. WALKER.
Part I., The Management of Children
in Health and out of Health. Crown
8vo., 2s. 6d.
Part II. Woman in Health and out of
Health. Crown 8vo., 2s. 6d.
Miscellaneous and Critical Works.
Armstrong. Ess A YS AND SKETCHES.
By EDMUND J. ARMSTRONG. Fcp. 8vo., 55.
Bagehot. LITERARY STUDIES. By
WALTER BAGEHOT. With Portrait. 3 vols.
Crown 8vo., 35. 6d. each.
Baring- Gould. CURIOUS MYTHS OF
THE MIDDLE AGES. By Rev. S. BARING-
GOULD. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
Baynes. SHAKESPEARE STUDIES,
and other Essays. By the late THOMAS
SPENCER BAYNES, LL.B., LL.D. With a
Biographical Preface by Professor LEWIS
CAMPBELL. Crown 8vo., js. 6d.
Boyd (A. K. H.) ('A.K.H.B.').
And see MISCELLANEOUS THEOLOGICAL
WORKS, p. 32.
AUTUMN HOLIDAYS OF A COUNTRY
PARSON. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
COMMONPLACE PHILOSOPHER. Cr.
8vo., 35. 6d.
CRITICAL ESSAYS OF A COUNTRY
PARSON. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
EAST COAST DAYS AND MEMORIES.
Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
LANDSCAPES, CHURCHES, AND MORA-
LITIES. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
LEISURE HOURS IN TOWN. Crown
8vo., 35. 6d.
LESSONS OF MIDDLE AGE. Crown
8vo., 35. 6d.
OUR LITTLE LIFE. Two Series.
Crown 8vo., 35. 6d. each.
OUR HOMELY COMEDY: AND TRA-
GEDY. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
RECREATIONS OF A COUNTRY PAR SON.
Three Series. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d. each.
Butler (SAMUEL).
EREWHON. Crown 8vo., 55.
THE FAIR HAVEN. A Work in De-
fence of the Miraculous Element in our
Lord's Ministry. Cr. 8vo., 75. 6d.
LIFE AND HABIT. An Essay after a
Completer View of Evolution. Cr. 8vo.,
75. 6d.
EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. Cr.
8vo., IDS. 6d.
ALPS AND SANCTUARIES OF PIED-
MONT AND CANTON TICINO. Illustrated.
Pott 410., IDS. 6d.
LUCK, OR CUNNING, AS THE MAIN
MEANS OF ORGANIC MODIFICATION?
Cr. Svo., 75. 6d.
Ex VOTO. An Account of the Sacro
Monte or New Jerusalem atVarallo-Sesia.
Crown 8vo., 105. 6d.
SELECTIONS FROM WORKS, with Re-
marks on Mr. G. J. Romanes' ' Mental
Evolution in Animals,' and a Psalm of
Montreal. Crown 8vo., "js. 6d.
THE AUTHORESS OF THE ODYSSEY,
WHERE AND WHEN SHE WROTE, WHO
SHE WAS, THE USE SHE MADE OF THE
'ILIAD, AND HOW THE POEM GREW UNDEP
HER HANDS. With 14 Illustrations.
8vo., i os. 6d.
THE ILIAD OF HOMER. Rendered
into English Prose for the use of those
who cannot read the original. Crown
8vo., 75. 6d.
SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. Recon-
sidered, and in part Rearranged, with
Introductory Chapters and a Reprint of
the Original 1609 Edition. Svo.
30 MESSRS. LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS.
Miscellaneous and Critical Works continued.
Calder. ACCIDENT IN FACTORIES :
its Distribution, Causation, Compensation,
and Prevention. A Practical Guide to the
Law and to the Safe-Guarding, Sate-
Working, and Safe-Construction of Factory
Machinery, Plant, and Premises. With 20
Tables and 124 Illustrations. By JOHN
CALDER. Crown 8vo., 75. 6d. net.
Charities Register, The Annual,
AND DIGEST: being a Classified Register
of Charities in or available in the Metropolis.
With an Introduction by C. S. LOCH, Sec-
retary to the Council of the Charity Organi-
sation Society, London. 8vo., 45.
Comparetti. THE TRADITIONAL
POETRY OF THE FINNS. By DOMENICO
COMPARETTI. Translated by ISABELLA M.
ANDERTON. With Introduction by ANDREW
LANG. 8vo., i6s.
Dickinson. KING ARTHUR IN CORN-
WALL. By W. HOWSHIP DICKINSON, M.D.
With 5 Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 45. 6d.
Evans. THE ANCIENT STONE IM-
PLEMENTS, WEAPONS AND ORNAMENTS OF
GREAT BRITAIN. By Sir JOHN EVANS,
K.C.B., D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., etc.
With 537 Illustrations. Medium 8vo., 285.
Haggard. A FARMER'S YEAR :
being his Commonplace Book for 1898.
By H. RIDER HAGGARD. With 36 Illus-
trations by G. LEON LITTLE. Crown 8vo.,
75. 6d. net.
Hamlin. A TEXT-BOOK OF THE
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. By A. D. F.
HAMLIN, A.M. With 229 Illustrations.
Crown 8vo., 75. 6d.
Haweis. Music AND MORALS. By
the Rev. H. R. HAWEIS. With Portrait of
the Author, and numerous Illustrations,
Facsimiles, and Diagrams. Cr. 8vo., 6s. net.
Hodgson. OUTCAST ASSAYS AND
VERSE TRANSLATIONS. By SHADWORTH
H. HODGSON, LL.D. Crown 8vo., 8s. 6d.
Hoenig. INQUIRIES CONCERNING
THE TACTICS OF THE FUTURE. Fourth
Edition, 1894, of the ' Two Brigades'. By
FRITZ HOENIG. With i Sketch in the Text
and 5 Maps. Translated by Captain H. M.
BOWER. 8vo., 155. net.
Hullah. THE HISTORY OF MODERN
Music. By JOHN HULLAH. 8vo., 8s. 6d.
Jefferies (RICHARD).
FIELD AND HEDGEROW: With Por-
trait. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
THE STORY OF MY HEART: my
Autobiography. With Portrait and New
Preface by C. J. LONGMAN. Cr. 8vo., 35. 6d.
Jefferies (RICHARD) continued.
RED DEER. With 17 Illustrations.
Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
THE TOILERS OF THE FIELD. With
Portrait from the Bust in Salisbury
Cathedral. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
WOOD MAGIC : a Fable. With Fron-
tispiece and Vignette by E. V. B. Crown
8vo. , 3s. 6d.
Jekyll (GERTRUDE).
WOOD AND GARDEN: Notes and
Thoughts, Practical and Critical, of a
Working Amateur. With 71 Illustrations
from Photographs by the Author. 8vo.
los. 6d. net.
HOME AND GARDEN : Notes and
Thoughts, Practical and Critical, of a
Worker in both. With 53 Illustrations
from Photographs by the Author. 8vo.,
IDS. 6d. net.
Johnson. -THE PATENTEE'S MAN-
UAL : a Treatise on the Law and Practice
of Letters Patent. ByJ. & J. H.JOHNSON,
Patent Agents, etc. 8vo., IDS. 6d.
Joyce. THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY
OF IRISH NAMES OF PLACES. By P. W.
JOYCE, LL.D. 2 vols. Crown 8vo., 55. each.
Kingsley. A HISTORY OF FRENCH
ART, 1100-1899. By ROSE G. KINGSLEY.
8vo., i2s. 6d. net.
Lang (ANDREW).
LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS. Fcp.
8vo., as. f>d. net.
BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. With 2
Coloured Plates and 17 Illustrations.
Fcp. 8vo., as. 6d. net.
OLD FRIENDS. Fcp. 8vo., 25. 6d. net.
LETTERS ON LITERATURE. Fcp.
8vo., 2s. 6d. net.
ESSAYS IN LITTLE. With Portrait
of the Author. Crown 8vo., 25. 6d.
COCK LANE AND COMMON-SENSE.
Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
THE BOOK OF DREAMS AND GHOSTS.
Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
Macfarren. LECTURES ON HAR-
MONY. By Sir GEORGE A. MACFARREN.
8VO., I2S.
Marquand and Frothingham. A
TEXT-BOOK OF THE HISTORY OF SCULP-
TURE. By ALLAN MARQUAND, Ph.D., and
ARTHUR L. FROTHINGHAM, Junr., Ph.D.,
Professors of Archaeology and the History
of Art in Princetown University. With 113
Illustrations. Crown 8vo. , 6s.
MESSRS. LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 31
Miscellaneous and Critical Works continued.
Max Miiller (The Right Hon. F.).
INDIA : IV HA r CAN IT TEACH Us ?
Crown 8vo., 55.
CHIPS FROM A GERMAN WORKSHOP.
Vol. I. Recent Essays and Addresses.
Crown 8vo., 55.
Vol. II. Biographical Essays. Crown
8vo., 55.
Vol. III. Essays on Language and Litera-
ture. Crown 8vo., 55.
Vol. IV. Essays on Mythology and Folk
Lore. Crown 8vo., 55.
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SCIENCE of
MYTHOLOGY. 2 vols. 8vo., 325.
Milner. COUNTRY PLEASURES : the
Chronicle of a Year chiefly in a Garden.
By GEORGE MILNER. Crown 8vo., 35. bd.
Morris (WILLIAM).
SIGNS OF CHANGE. Seven Lectures
delivered on various Occasions. Post
8vo., 45. 6d.
HOPES AND FEARS FOR ART. Five
Lectures delivered in Birmingham, Lon-
don, etc., in 1878-1881. Cr 8vo., 45. 6d.
AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE
DISTRIBUTION OF PRIZES TO STUDENTS
OF THE BIRMINGHAM MUNICIPAL SCHOOL
OF ART ON 2isT FEBRUARY, 1894. 8vo.,
2s. 6d. net.
ART AND THE BEAUTY OF THE
EARTH: a Lecture delivered at Burslem
Town Hall, on October 13, 1881. 8vo.,
2s. 6d. net.
SOME HINTS ON PATTERN-DESIGN-
ING : a Lecture delivered at the Working
Men's College, London, on loth Decem-
ber, 1881. 8vo., 2s. 6d. net.
ARTS AND CRAFTS ESSAYS. By
Members of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition
Society. With a Preface by WILLIAM
MORRIS. Crown 8vo., 2s. 6d. net.
Pollock. JANE AUSTEN: her Con-
temporaries and Herself. An Essay in
Criticism. By WALTER HERRIES POLLOCK.
Crown 8vo., 35. 6d. net.
Poore (GEORGE VIVIAN, M.D.,
F.R.C.P.).
ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE. With
13 Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 6s. 6d.
THE DWELLING HOUSE. With 36
Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
Richter. LECTURES ON THE NA-
TIONAL GALLERY. By J. P. RICHTER.
With 20 Plates and 7 Illustrations in the
Text. Crown 410., 95.
Rossetti. A SHADOW OF DANTE :
being an Essay towards studying Himself,
his World and his Pilgrimage. By MARIA
FRANCESCA ROSSETTI. With Frontispiece
by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. Crown
8vo., 35. 6d.
Soulsby (Lucv H. M.).
STRAY THOUGHTS ON READING.
Small 8vo., 2s. 6d. net.
STXA r THO UGHTS FOR GIRLS. 1 6mo.,
is. 6d. net.
STRA Y THOUGHTS FOR MOTHERS AND
TEACHERS. Fcp. 8vo., 2s. 6d. net.
STRAY THOUGHTS FOR INVALIDS.
i6mo., 2s. net.
Southey. THE CORRESPONDENCE OF
ROBERI SOUTHEY WITH CAROLINE BOWLES.
Edited, with an Introduction, by EDWARD
DOWDEN, LL.D. 8vo., 145.
Stevens. ON THE STOWAGE OF SHIPS
AND THEIR CARGOES. With Information re-
garding Freights, Charter- Parties, etc. By
ROBERT WHITE STEVENS, Associate-Mem-
ber of the Institute of Naval Architects.
8vo., 2is.
Turner and Sutherland. THE DE-
VELOPMENT OF AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE.
By HENRY GYLES TURNER and ALEXANDER
SUTHERLAND. With Portraits and Illustra-
tions. Crown 8vo. , 55.
Van Dyke. A TEXT-BOOK ON THE
HISTORY OF PAINTING. By JOHN C. VAN
DYKE, Professor of the History of Art in
Rutgers College, U.S. With no Illustra-
tions. Crown 8vo, 65.
Warwick. PROGRESS IN WOMEN'S
EDUCA TIONIN THE BRITISH EMPIRE : being
the Report of Conferences and a Congress
held in connection with the Educational
Section, Victorian Era Exhibition. Edited
by the COUNTESS OF WARWICK. Cr. 8vo. 6s.
White. AN EXAMINATION OF THE
CHARGE OF APOSTACY AGAINST WORDS-
WORTH. By W. HALE WHITE, Editor of
the ' Description of the Wordsworth and
Coleridge MSS. in the Possession of Mr.
T. Norton Longman '. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
Willard. HISTORY OF MODERN
ITALIAN ART. By ASHTON ROLLINS
WILLARD. With Photogravure Frontis-
piece and 28 Full-page Illustrations. 8vo.,
i8s. net.
32 MESSRS. LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS.
Miscellaneous Theological Works.
f * For Church of England and Roman Catholic Works see MESSRS. LONGMANS & Co.'s
Special Catalogues.
Balfour. -- THE FOUNDATIONS OF
BELIEF : being Notes Introductory to the
Study of Theology. By the Right Hon.
ARTHUR J. BALFOUR, M.P. 8vo., 125. 6d.
Boyd (A. K. H.)
COUNSEL AND
CITY PULPIT.
CA.K.H.B.').
COMFORT FROM A
Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
SUNDAY AFTERNOONS IN THE PARISH
CHURCH OF A SCOTTISH UNIVERSITY
CITY. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
CHANGED ASPECTS OF UNCHANGED
TRUTHS. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
GRAVER THOUGHTS OF A COUNTRY
PARSON. Three Series. Crown 8vo.,
35. 6d. each.
PRESENT DAY THOUGHTS. Crown
8vo., 35. 6d.
SEASIDE MUSINGS. Cr. 8vo., 35. 6d.
f To MEET THE DAY' through the
Christian Year : being a Text of Scripture,
with an Original Meditation and a Short
Selection in Verse for Every Day. Crown
8vo., 45. 6d.
Campbell. RELIGION IN GREEK LI-
TERATURE. By the Rev. LEWIS CAMPBELL,
M.A., LL.D., Emeritus Professor of Greek,
University of St. Andrews. 8vo., 155.
Davidson. THEISM, as Grounded in
Human Nature, Historically and Critically
Handled. Being the Burnett Lectures
for 1892 and 1893, delivered at Aberdeen.
By W. L. DAVIDSON, M.A., LL.D. 8vo., 155.
Gibson. THE ABBE DE LAMENNAIS.
AND THE LIBERAL CATHOLIC MOVEMENT
IN FRANCE. By the Hon. W. GIBSON.
With Portrait. 8vo., 125. 6d.
Lang. MODERN MYTHOLOGY : a
Reply to Professor Max Muller. By
ANDREW LANG. 8vo., gs.
MacDonald (GEORGE).
UNSPOKEN SERMONS. Three Series.
Crown 8vo., 35. 6d. each.
THE MIRACLES OF OUR LORD.
Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
10,000/7/00.
Martineau (]AMES).
HOURS OF THOUGHT ON SACRED
7^HINGS : Sermons, 2 vols. Crown 8vo.,
35. 6d. each.
ENDEAVOURS AFTER THE CHRISTIAN
LIFE. Discourses. Crown 8vo., 75. 6d.
THE SEAT OF AUTHORITY IN RE-
LIGION. 8vo., 145.
Ess A YS, REVIEWS, AND ADDRESSES.
4 Vols. Crown 8vo., js. 6d. each.
HOME PRAYERS, with Two SERVICES
for Public Worship. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d.
Max Muller (F.).
THE Six SYSTEMS OF INDIAN
PHILOSOPHY. 8vo., i8s.
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SCIENCE OF
MYTHOLOGY. 2 vols. 8vo., 325.
THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF RELI-
GION, as illustrated by the Religions of
India. The Hibbert Lectures, delivered
at the Chapter House, Westminster
Abbey, in 1878. Crown 8vo., 55.
INTRODUCTION TO THE SCIENCE OF
RELIGION : Four Lectures delivered at the
Royal Institution. Crown 8vo., 55.
NATURAL RELIGION. The Gifford
Lectures, delivered before the University
of Glasgow in 1888. Crown 8vo., 55.
PHYSICAL RELIGION. The Gifford
Lectures, delivered before the University
of Glasgow in 1890. Crown 8vo., 55.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL RELIGION. The
Gifford Lectures, delivered before the Uni-
versity of Glasgow in 1891. Cr. 8vo., 55.
THEOSOPHY, OR PSYCHOLOGICAL RE-
LIGION. The Gifford Lectures, delivered
before the University of Glasgow in 1892.
Crown 8vo., 55.
THREE LECTURES ON THE VEDANTA
PHILOSOPHY, delivered at the Roya)
Institution in March, 1894. 8vo., 55.
RAM A KRISHNA : If is LIFE AND SAY-
INGS. Crown 8vo., 55.
Romanes. THO UGHTS ON REL IGION.
By GEORGE J. ROMANES, LL.D., F.R.S.
Crown 8vo., 45. 6d.
Vivekananda. YOGA PHILOSOPHY :
Lectures delivered in New York, Winter of
1895-96, by the SWAMI VIVEKANANDA,
on Raja Yoga ; or, Conquering the Internal
Nature ; also Patanjali's Yoga Aphorisms,
with Commentaries. Crown 8vo, 35. 6d.
Williamson. THE GREAT LAW:
A Study of Religious Origins and of the
Unity underlying them. By WILLIAM
WILLIAMSON. 8vo., 145.