MARTINEAU, mer"ti-n5', JAMES: English Unitarian philosopher and educator; b. at Norwich Apr. 21, 1805; d. in London Jan. 11, 1900. He was educated at the Norwich grammar-school, at

Dr. Lant Carpenter's private school His Life. at Bristol, and at Manchester College, then at York (1827). He taught for a year in the school at Bristol; became in 1828 junior minister in the Eustace Street "Presbyterian" Church in Dublin; at the death of his colleague, in 1831, Martineau would have succeeded to the sole pastorate had he not entertained conscientious scruples concerning the regium donum (a bounty originating in a gift of Charles II. amounting to £100 a year) on account of which he resigned; he was immediately called as co-pastor to the Paradise Street Chapel, Liverpool, and was sole pastor 1835-57, with an interval of study in Germany (1848-49); and was minister of Little Portland Street Chapel, London, 1859-72. Meanwhile he had become professor of mental and moral philosophy in Manchester New College in 1840, and principal in 1869, resigning both posts in 1885, though during 1886-87 he was again principal. During all this time his literary activity had been great, a remarkable series of essays, criticisms and reviews

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from his pen appearing in several of the periodicals devoted to literary. and philosophical themes.

Martineau's intellectual and spiritual development began in his contact at school with the stimulating Lant Carpenter (q.v.). His youth was spent in close connection with Unitarian institutions and

amid the contest for full civil and reHis Phi- ligious rights waged by dissenters in losophy and Englaqd during the first third of the

Theology. nineteenth century, to the settlement

of which he contributed. He went to his first pastorate an ardent disciple of Joseph Priestley (q.v.), holding the normal doctrines of Unitarianism, believing in Christ as the' mediator between God and man who had opened by his life and death a new and living way of salvation. The doctrines of the Trinity and the Atonement were not rejected merely as contrary to reason but as unscriptural. Revelation was a communication of faith certified by miracles. At this time Martineau's view of the universe was necemarian and his test of character utilitarian. From this position, normal to the Unitarian, Martineau first dissented in his Rationale of Religious Enquiry (London, 1836), in which he insisted on the supremacy of reason in judging any statement: " No seeing inspiration can establish anything contrary to reason, . . . against whose judgments Scripture can not have any authority." In 1839, in lectures delivered at Liverpool, he placed the Fourth Gospel above the Synoptics in historic worth; in other lectures delivered in 1845 he gave up the apostolic authorship of this Gospel, holding it to be later in composition than the. time of Justin Martyr. By 1840, he had placed the power of Christ as a revealer of the divine character not in his precepts but in his person. His matured philosophy is expressed in: A Study of Spinoza (1882); Types of Ethical Theory (2 vols., Oxford, 1885); Study of Religion (2. vols., 1888); Seat of Authority in Religion (London, 1890); and Essays, Reviews and Addresses (4 vols., London, 1890-91). In these works he made large contributions to epistemology, exposed the weak points of sensational idealism, laid a firm basis for a philosophical theism, offered a thoroughgoing criticism of agnosticism and materialism as represented by Herbert Spencer and Professor Tyndall, and assailed with equal force irrational dogmatism in theology and antitheistic assumptions in science. His theism was built upon the idea that God is most intimately revealed in man's rational, moral, and spiritual nature, emphasis being laid upon the ethical. God is the eternal will on whom the natural world depends for its existence, and the sole causes in the universe are God and rational beings-unconscious second causes are excluded. In his opposition to pantheism (Study of Spinoza) Martineau admits the Immanence of God, but insists strongly that the divine Being transcends his manifestation in the universe. His philosophy involved an adequate spiritual cause for the cosmos and the ethical experience of a superhuman presence and authority in the conscience. Thus he wrought

between the relig out the statement Of the h-..n, ion of nature and the religion of conscience-both are expressions of an activity directed to cons

affairs of life, he said, morality is not always choice of a moral good over a natural good or between an absolute good and an absolute bad; it is often between better and not so good. The absolute depravity of man and his moral helplessness were held by him to be dogmas absolutely incompatible with man's intuitional nature.

The intense literary activity which he displayed, carried into his ninth decade, tells but,a part of his life story. He was intensely interested in the development of knowledge on the scien-

General tific as well as the philosophic side. Activities. His interest in total abstinence was vital and active, and he worked ardently in the early campaigns for international peace. He is a fine example of a man forced against his inclination into the leadership of thought by the virility of his mental processes; o£ a faithful pastor, giving to his congregation ungrudgingly his best efforts; of an inspiring teacher, kindly in his methods; withal so humble and sincere as to be surprised beyond measure yet sweetly proud when on his eighty-third birthday the leaders in the literary, academic, and even political circles of England, Europe, and America united in paying tribute to the services which he had rendered to religion and to the spirit of fellowship with all Christians exemplified in his personal life. Not the least memorable of his accomplishments are his contributions to hymnody in the two choice hymns " Thy way is in the deep, O Lord I "and" A voice upon the midnight air." Besides the works named above, he published three hymnals, one for his Dublin church (1831), Hymns for the Christian Church and Home (1840), and Hymns of Praise and Prayer (1874). In addition he wrote the larger part of Unitarianism Defended (Liverpool, 1839), s controversial work in reply to attacks on Unitarianism by clergymen of the Church of England; Endeavours after the Christian Life (2 vols., London, 1843-47), sermons; Miscellanies (ed. T. S. King, Boston, 1852); Essays, Philosophical and Theological (1866); and Hours of Thought on Sacred Themes (2 vols., 1876-80).

(Geo. W. Gilmore.)

Bibliography: J. Drummond, Life and Letters of James Martineau, Survey of his Philosophical Work by C. B. Upton. 2 vols., New York, 1902; A. W. Jackson, Dr. James Martineau, a Biography and a Study, London, 1900; A. H. Craufurd, Recollections of James Martineau, with an Essay on his Religion, Edinburgh, 1903; C. B. Upton, Dr. James Martineau's Philosophy, a Survey, London 1905; J. E. Carpenter, James Martineau, Theologian and Teacher, ib. 1905; A. Hall, James Martineau, ib. 1908.