in the main, derived from Hartley; but it was Hartley as expurgated by Priestley, Hartley with the physiology left out.' Bain reinstated the physiological factor, not in Hartley's rather speculative manner, but by introducing facts of nerve and muscle whenever they could serve to elucidate mental process. That came to be, as a rule, whenever the mental process itself was obscure or difficult. The result is sometimes confusing, because it mixes two different orders of scientific conceptions. But Bain's work is wonderfully complete as a treatment of the principle of the association of ideas; and, perhaps, he has said the last word that can be said in favour of this principle as the ultimate explanation of mind. His range of vision may have been narrow, but he had a keen eye for everything within that range. He was persistent in his search for facts and shrewd in examining them; and he had no illusions-except the great illusion that mind is a bundle of sensations tied together by laws of association. It is interesting to note how this clear-sighted and unimaginative writer made observations which suggest doctrines, different from his own, which have gained prominence later. His observations on spontaneous movement and his teaching as to fixed ideas strike at the roots of the analysis of volition to which he adhered, and might lead naturally to a view of mind as essentially active and no mere grouping of sensations or feelings. He offered, also, a new analysis of belief (though he subsequently withdrew it) which resolved it into a preparedness to act; and, here, the latent "activism" in his thinking might have led, if developed, to something of the nature of pragmatism.

George Croom Robertson, professor in University college, London, was in general sympathy with Mill's school of thought, tempered, however, by wide knowledge and appreciation of other developments, including those of recent philosophy. Circumstances prevented his producing much literary work beyond a few articles and an admirable monograph on Hobbes (1886). He is remembered not only for these, and for his lectures, some of which have been published (1896), but, also, for his skilful and successful work as editor of Mind during the first sixteen years of its existence. Mind was the first English journal devoted to psychology and philosophy,

Cf. ante, p. 6.

and its origin in 1876 is a landmark in the history of British philosophy.

In Mill's day and afterwards there was an active, though not very widespread, propaganda of the positive philosophy of Comte. The study of Comte's system was greatly facilitated by the admirable condensed translation of his Positive Philosophy issued by Harriet Martineau in 1853. The chief teachers of positivist doctrine in England were a group of writers who had been contemporaries at Oxford; but a serious disagreement arose amongst them regarding the prominence to be given to the inculcation of Comte's "religion of humanity. Their activity was shown in lectures and addresses and in many translations of Comte's works. The Catechism of positive religion was translated by Richard Congreve in 1858; Comte's General View of Positivism by John Henry Bridges in 1865; and System of Positive Polity by Bridges and Frederick Harrison in 1875. Their independent writings were inspired by the positivist spirit, even when they did not add much to its defence on philosophical grounds. In The Unity of Comte's Life and Doctrine (1866), Bridges replied to the criticisms of J. S. Mill. He published, also, Five Discourses on Positive Religion in 1882; and his Essays and Addresses (1907) were collected and edited after his death.

V. RATIONAL AND RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHERS

Although Mill's fame overshadowed the other philosophers of his day, there were a number of contemporary writers who were not merely his followers or critics, but independent thinkers. Of note among these was John Grote, younger brother of the historian, who held the chair of moral philosophy at Cambridge from 1855 to 1866. Grote himself issued only one volume on philosophy-Exploratio Philosophica, Part 1 (1865). After his death three volumes were compiled from his manuscripts: An Examination of the Utilitarian Philosophy in 1870, A Treatise on the Moral Ideals in 1876 and the second part of Exploratio in 1900. They are all "rough notes"-as the author himself describes the first on its title-page. They have no place in literature. Grote thought and wrote simply to get at

the truth of things and without any view of impressing the public. A "belief in thought" upheld him: "a feeling that things were worth thinking about, that thought was worth effort." He did not seek reputation as a philosophical writer, and he has not gained it. His direct influence has been restricted to a limited number of other thinkers, through whom it has passed to wider circles without any definite trace of its origin. His books are largely filled with criticism of contemporary writers. But none of the criticism is merely destructive: it aims always at elucidating the core of truth in other men's opinions, with a view to a comprehensive synthesis. Often it leads to bringing out important doctrines which, if not altogether new, are set in a new light. An instance of this is his whole doctrine of "the scale of sensation or knowledge," and, in particular, the elaboration and application of the distinction of two kinds of knowledge or, rather, the twofold process of knowledge, which he formulated as the distinction between acquaintance with a thing and knowing about it. He sought to assign its due value to phenomenalism or positivism, at the same time as he contended for the more complete view-"rationary" or idealist-which recognised in positivism "an abstraction from the complete view of knowledge.' Similarly, in moral philosophy, there was a science of virtue, or "aretaics," existing side by side with "eudaemonics," or the science of happiness. Fundamentally, his theory is a doctrine of thought: "the fact that we know is prior to, and logically more comprehensive than, the fact that what we know is." To be known, things must be knowable, or fitted for knowledge. "Knowledge is the sympathy of intelligence with intelligence, through the medium of qualified or particular existence.”

I

Religious philosophy in England was stimulated and advanced by the work of three men all born in the year 1805. These were Maurice, Newman and Martineau. Frederick Denison Maurice had already an ecclesiastical career behind him when, in 1866, he succeeded Grote as professor at Cambridge. Of his numerous works only a few deal with philosophy; the most important of these, Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy, 'See, ante, Vol. XII, Chap. XIII.

originally appeared in the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana in 1847 and is a historical sketch which is chiefly devoted to ancient thought. Maurice's influence was due to his personality more than to his books; and he was a social reformer and religious teacher rather than a philosopher. But his work, both in social reform and in religion, derived stimulus and direction from philosophical ideas. John Henry Newman' was still less of a philosopher, though his Grammar of Assent propounds a theory of the nature and grounds of belief. More significant, however, is the appearance in Newman's work of the idea of development, which was beginning to transform all departments of thought; for the quasi-mechanical view with which he started of a fixed norm of belief existing in the past, he substituted the view of the church as an organism whose life and doctrine were in process of growth. The only philosopher among those who joined the Roman church about the same time as Newman was William George Ward, who, in various articles, carried on a controversy with Mill concerning free-will and necessary truth. These and other articles were collected after his death and published as Essays on the Philosophy of Theism (1884).

Of much greater importance than these, in a philosophical regard, was James Martineau. His philosophy, also, was essentially religious philosophy; individual freedom and the being and presence of God were his fundamental certainties, and these he defended in many writings during his long life. His earlier works were mainly religious rather than philosophical, though, in a series of essays, he showed his power as a critic of materialism and naturalism, and gave an outline of the ethical views which he afterwards worked out in detail. He was eighty years old, or upwards, when his chief books appeared-Types of Ethical Theory (1885), A Study of Religion (1888), and The Seat of Authority in Religion (1890). The first of these is the most notable, and works out the original view of the moral criterion which had been previously indicated by him. It suffers from faulty arrangement, from the undue prominence given to the psychological factor in moral judgment and from the incompleteness of the psychological analysis. As a whole it does not impress the reader. But, taken in detail, it is seen to be full of penetrating criticism, and to be inspired by insight See ante, Vol. XII, Chap. XII.

into the spiritual meaning of life. Traces of age are to be found only in its defective order and, perhaps, in its diffuseness; its style shows no marks of weariness: it is brilliant, pellucid, eloquent, rhetorical sometimes and coloured by emotion, but never falls below the dignity of his theme. Martineau did not make any important advance in speculative construction; he was not in sympathy with the idealist metaphysic that had risen to the ascendant in England even before his books were published; the ideas which he elucidated and defended were those which had been distinctive of spiritual thought for many centuries. In his criticisms, on the other hand, he did not restrict himself to the older forms of materialist and sensationalist doctrine; he was prompt to recognise the difference made by more recent scientific views, and he showed no lack of power or effectiveness in dealing with the claims of the philosophy of evolution.

VI. HERBERT SPENCER AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF

EVOLUTION

The publication of Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859 marks a turning-point in the history of thought. It had a revolutionary effect upon the view of the world held by educated men similar to that which had been produced, more slowly, three centuries before, by the work of Copernicus; on philosophical ideas its influence may, perhaps, be better compared with that of the theory of mechanics chiefly due to Galileo. The latter contributed to philosophy the conception of nature as a mechanical system; Darwin contributed the conception of evolution and, owing largely to his influence, biological ideas gained greater prominence than mathematical in philosophical construction.

The acknowledged leader of the new movement in philosophy was Herbert Spencer. He was born at Derby on 27 April, 1820, and his early training was an engineer. This profession he relinquished at the age of twenty-five. He had previously, in 1842, contributed a series of letters on "the Proper Sphere of Government" to The Nonconformist, and, from 1848 to 1853 he acted as sub-editor of The Economist. In these years he wrote his book Social Statics (1850) and began the publication