350 MEMOIB OF AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN, 



1866. sophical views which ought to have recommended his appoint- 

 ment, points out triumphantly that they are opposed on various 

 points to the opinions of Hobbes, and Locke, and Hume, and 

 Paley, and Bentham, and Mill, and Austin, to say nothing of 

 Aristotle. Now it might have occurred to this writer upon his 

 own showing, that some thinkers might, whether rightly or 

 wrongly, at least honestly, think Mr. Martineau's philosophy 

 unsound ; and when it is considered from what class of thinkers 

 many of the original founders and many of the late supporters of 

 University College have proceeded, it becomes exceedingly pro- 

 bable that members of the present Council did sincerely and 

 honestly believe that his teaching would be at variance with 

 philosophical truth. 



"When this explanation of the strange phenomenon was 

 suggested, another argument was set up. We were told that 

 ' the principle ' of considering the truth or falsehood of the 

 philosophical opinions of a teacher of philosophy ' is monstrous,' 

 and is a kind of ' philosophical intolerance ' almost as bad as 

 religious intolerance. ' The truth of a philosophical doctrine 

 cannot be settled with the same certainty as the truth of a pro- 

 position in Euclid Mental philosophy is at least as 



valuable for the intellectual exercise it affords as for the conclu- 

 sions to which it leads ; and the duty of the Council is to choose 

 a particular teacher of the subject, not because he belongs to 

 one or other of the two great metaphysical schools, but because 

 he is the ablest candidate that can be got.' If it were acknow- 

 ledged on all hands that Mental Philosophy is a subject on which 

 no truth or certainty has yet been arrived at, it would be the 

 duty of the Council to appoint no teacher at all. It would be a 

 subject most worthy of the exertions of the trained student, who 

 still hoped against hope to arrive at truth ; but it would be no 

 study for a place of education. It continues to be a branch of 

 education because it is believed that truth and genuine know- 

 ledge are involved in it. The directors of a place of education 

 may be mistaken in their estimate of philosophical truth ; but 

 surely they are not to be blamed for acting conscientiously on 

 their convictions. 



But although it cannot reasonably be doubted that the decision 

 of the Council was determined, in the case at least of some of its 

 members, perhaps of many, by their estimate of Mr. Martineau's 

 philosophical merits, there is ground also for believing that it 

 was affected by a consideration of his position as a leading 



