Proceedings of the Liverpool Literary & Philosophical Society (Volume 30-31)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1876. Excerpt: ... mon of nature, with firm ground underfoot and unfathomable light overhead. I might retort upon this bold and telling credo that it is positive sciolists, not positive philosophers, who leave out of their reckonings the laws of mind and the proved necessities of the conscience. But I confine myself to the observation that, even if sound in itself, Miss Martineau's new faith in ultimate human knowledge could not entitle her in the mean time to placard her blank wall of human ignorance with lampoons and libels on the more religious beliefs of others. A woman of such candour--as we are well instructed by the example of John Mill, who arrived at far healthier sensibilities from a less likely starting-point--should have felt no temptation to describe actual Christianity as representing God as an unmitigated tyrant and spontaneous torturer, and the sweeter and nobler attributes of Jesus as only deepening the opprobrium of the divine cruelty; and she lived long enough to read in Mill's last essays how even in the absence of dogmatic faith in immortality the doctrines and hopes of Christianity presented to the greatest intellect of her time the ideal spiritual state which it was most tempted to covet. Unbelief one can respect, but where was the philosophy of this inveteracy against a faith which, as a matter of fact, yields to millions a peace passing understanding as greatly as that, which Miss Martineau derived from hers? At one time--when her book on Household Education was well received by Christian parents--she was on the verge of discovering that such persons could enjoy all her pen had to offer them without parting with their religion; but she passes the incident by with a sigh of egotistical gratulation, and gets no glimpse of the lesson it should h...