376 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



bodied in language of unusual beauty and refinement, 

 would have, in due time, directed a new line of thought 

 had it not been that he came too late, when the empirical 

 school of higher thought had already been strenuously 

 and successfully attacked by what I called above the 

 Oxford Idealist School. In this respect his reputa- 

 tion and influence have suffered similarly to those of 

 Lotze in Germany, whose doctrine came too late to rank 

 among the classical idealistic systems of his country, and 

 too early to start a new movement, inasmuch as the re- 

 action against metaphysics and all systematic philosophy 

 had not yet spent its force. 1 



1 Students of Lotze's and Mar- 

 tiueau's writings will not fail to 

 find many important points of 

 agreement in the two thinkers, 

 and it is remarkable that they 

 should have remained unknown to 

 each other. With Lotze this is 

 hardly surprising, as he took no 

 notice of contemporary thought 

 outside of his own country ; but 

 this cannot be said of Martineau, 

 who himself confesses to have 

 " passed through a kind of second 

 education in Germany . . . under 

 . . . Trendelenburg " (1848 - 9 ; 

 'Types of Ethical Theory,' vol. i. 

 p. 12). It is difficult to assign the 

 right place to Martineau in a 

 history of European Thought. He 

 had a large number of admirers, 

 many of whom were attracted by 

 his impressive personality or by 

 the brilliancy of his style, which 

 forms as unique a specimen of 

 English prose as does that of Dr 

 Newman with quite a different 

 character. A history of recent 

 British philosophy, especially of 

 religious philosophy, would have to 

 contain a long and exhaustive 

 chapter on Martineau's teaching, 

 and already in the work of Prof. 



Caldecott (pp. 343-353) referred to 

 more space is devoted to Martineau 

 than to any other individual mod- 

 ern thinker except Newman. But 

 in the present History the absence of 

 an influence on continental thought, 

 added to the reasons stated in the 

 text, must suffice to excuse a very 

 inadequate and passing reference 

 to Martineau's systematic works. 

 Among his own admirers and dis- 

 ciples we meet with very different 

 verdicts on this point. Dr Upton 

 places Martineau alongside of Hegel 

 and Lotze as founder of one of " the 

 three philosophical systems most 

 likely to mould religious philosophy 

 in the twentieth century " ; whilst 

 R. H. Button wrote, "we doubt 

 whether the historian of English 

 thought of our time will credit 

 Martineau with any distinct modi- 

 fication of the theological and 

 philosophical opinions of this age. 

 It was something that went below 

 opinion ; it was a revelation of 

 spiritual character and power " ; see 

 Pringle - Pattison's article in ' The 

 Hibbert Journal,' vol. i. p. 445. 

 I, myself, am unable to find 

 amongst the abundance of illustra- 

 tions and suggestions with which 



