THE REV. JAMES MARTINEAU. 515 
" The affluence of illustration," writes an able and 
sympathetic reviewer of this essay, in the New York 
Tribune, "in which Mr. Martineau delights often impairs 
the distinctness of his statements by diverting the atten- 
tion of the reader from the essential points of his discussion 
to the beauty of his imagery, and thus disminishes their 
power of conviction." To the beauties here referred to I 
bear willing testimony; but the reviewer is strictly just in 
his estimate of their effect upon my critic's logic. The 
"affluence of illustration," and the heat, and haze, and 
haste, generated by its reaction upon Mr. Martineau's 
own mind, often produce vagueness where precision is 
the one thing needful poetic fervor where we require 
judicial calm; and practical unfairness where the strictest 
justice ought to be, and I willingly believe is meant to be, 
observed. 
In one of his nobler passages Mr. Martineau tells us 
how the pupils of his college have been educated hither- 
to: " They have been trained under the assumptions 
(1) that the Universe which includes us and folds us 
round is the life-dwelling of an Eternal Mind; (2) that 
the world of our abode is the scene of a moral govern- 
ment, incipient but not complete; and (3) that the 
upper zones of human affection, above the clouds of self 
and passion, take us into the sphere of a Divine Commun- 
ion. Into this over-arching scene it is that growing 
thought and enthusiasm have expanded to catch their light 
and fire." 
Alpine summits seem to kindle above us as we read 
these glowing words; we see their beauty and feel their 
life. At the close of one of the essays here printed,* I 
thus refer to the "Communion" which Mr. Martineau 
calls "Divine:" "'Two things/ said Irnmanuel Kant, 
' fill me with awe 'the starry heavens, and the sense of 
moral responsibility in man.' And in his hours of health 
and strength and sanity, when the stroke of action has 
ceased, and the pause of reflection has set in, the scientific 
investigator finds himself overshadowed by the same awe. 
Breaking contact with the hampering details of earth, 
it associates him with a power which gives fullness and tone 
to his existence, but which he can neither analyze nor 
* " Scientific Use of the Imagination." 
