TYPES OF ETHICAL THEORY. 107 



the indispensable postulates of ethical doctrine? If 

 morality demands freedom and an objective moral 

 law, we have passed out of psychology into meta- 

 physics and we must go farther. If the law is 

 moral can appeal to me as a moral being it 

 must be the appeal of a personality to my person- 

 ality. Therefore, says Dr. Martineau, morality 

 implies theism. And here he leaves us to face 

 the difficulties of the Parmenides and the criticism 

 of Herbert Spencer, that a Personal Infinite is a 

 contradiction in terms. We are compelled, then, 

 to make a further step, and ask, Is theism any 

 longer a tenable metaphysic ? Must it not declare 

 itself Christian on pain of lapsing into pantheism ? 

 If so, the doctrine of the Trinity becomes the true 

 and only safeguard of that theism which is the 

 postulate of the moral consciousness. 



This final chapter on the metaphysic of morals 

 Dr. Martineau has not written, but he has given us 

 a noble introduction to it. 



