OF THE SPIRIT. 



37' 



Reverting, however, to the subject before us, it may 

 be said that the dicussion in ' The Nineteenth Century ' 

 presented a variety of views and raised a number of 

 special questions which have occupied thinkers in this 

 country ever since. Some of these it may be useful to 



Martineau truly overwhelms us, 

 any distinctive or original idea 

 thrown by him into the fermenting 

 mass of religious thought, and I 

 regret this so much more as it was 

 through some of his writings that 

 I first became acquainted with the 

 deeper currents of modern British 

 thought at a time when my know- 

 ledge of German philosophy was 

 quite in its infancy. This early 

 admiration for Martineau came 

 through my father's friendship 

 with the Rev. J. J. Tayler, who 

 " during all his long life was re- 

 markable for his enlarged ideas and 

 practice of Christian Association, 

 apart from doctrinal subscription " 

 (Words spoken by R. D. Darbi- 

 shire), and it had the wholesome 

 effect of making me look out lor 

 other courses in recent philosophy 

 besides those represented in Ger- 

 many. In a sense we may say that 

 Martineau combines some promi- 

 nent traits peculiar in German 

 thouiiht to Schleiermaclier on the 

 one side and to Lotze on the other, 

 to whose works, however, his own 

 writings contain merely the scanti- 

 est reference. He was a great per- 

 sonality like Schleiermaclier and 

 tht* very opposite of Lotze, who 

 was extremely reserved. He was 

 supposed to be one of the most 

 distinguished members of the 

 "Metaphysical Society," in which 

 thinkers of the most opposite views 

 met in friendly debate ; a form of 

 utterance quite foreign to Lotze's 

 habits, who elaborated his system 

 in solitary thought, and of whose 

 influence many younger minds 



only became aware or appreciative 

 when persona] intercourse was no 

 longer possible. But Martineau was 

 in England as valiant as Lotze was 

 in Germany in combating the ma- 

 terialistic as well as the pantheistic 

 tendencies of his age. With both 

 religious beliefs were, as they 

 actually avowed, what might be 

 termed of the good old-fashioned 

 kind. The existence of a personal 

 Deity and a spiritual centre was a 

 settled conviction, not to saj^ a 

 postulate, and their philosophy 

 consisted to a great extent in de- 

 fining and defending the Christian 

 doctrine by arguments drawn from 

 two independent sources, the one 

 metaphysical, the other ethical. 

 Hence both tliinkers have been, 

 charged with dualism, but in both 

 cases a closer study of their works 

 reveals an underlying monism, 

 taking this term in its actual 

 and not in its modern perverted 

 sense. See Caldecott, Joe. cit., p. 

 357 : the " course we adopt " is 

 "to say that Martineau is incorrect 

 in describing his method of Theism 

 as only twofold, causality and mor- 

 ality, and to bring out that his 

 scheme includes a quite different 

 feature, namely, an Intuitive appre- 

 hension of the Divine Being." The 

 objection, perhaps we may say the 

 prejudice, against mysticism, be- 

 cause of its tendency to absorb the 

 human in the Divine, a strenuous 

 effort towards clearness of thought, 

 was common to both thinkers. 

 (See the quotation from Lotze^ 

 supra, p. 331.) 



