The period from 1840 to 1848 was full of stress
and strain. Considerable family trials accompanied continual work. He, however, steadily developed the doctrine of an inward base development of character. Conscience is the revealer of the Spirit of God, and thus God and man are immediately related. It is not possible to attempt a criticism of such a position. Whether true or not, it was a legitimate stage in Martineau's course of development. Yet we may doubt whether it was logically sound to discard "the legal conception of morality, as dependent on the Divine Will," for such a position appears to clash with Martineau's own special doctrine that Will is the interpreter of Cause, both in the physical and the moral world. An " activity consciously directed to an end " must lie behind the concepts of morality; and it would seem, if " truth is the correspondence between the mind within and the fact without," that these concepts are dependent on the Divine Will. The relationship of man and God, Martineau declared, is a relationship of personalities in each case con- ditioned by time and space. If that is so, we cannot distinguish between moral and physical " laws " with respect to their fount of origin.
Martineau's philosophical outlook was completed by his annus mirabilis in Germany. When he returned in 1849 to his Liverpool ministry " the foundations of his theology and philosophy had been securely laid ; he never again needed to change his general interpretation of human experience." Certainly be did not leave Germany with any cheerful feeling as to the future of the country in which he had been com- pleting his theological armoury. " He declared emphatically that the influence of Christianity on the political future and social condition of Germany was extinct." The Tiibingen school had not served to keep it alive.
We must conclude this notice with Mr. Carpenter's admirable summary of Martineau's general position at this time. It is not possible within our limits to deal with the details of the fruitful later work of Martineau's long life. His work at Liverpool ended in 1857. He ministered in London from 1859 to 1872. As Principal of Manchester New College from 1869 to 1885, and as a member of the Metaphysical Society, he was enabled to give forth to the world and to the company of his intellectual peers the ripe development of the philosophic doctrines the origin of which we have indicated.
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