Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/49

 36 PEOF. H. SIDGWICK I they cannot be regarded as authoritative unless they are so conceived. To me, indeed, it is inconceivable that the authoritativeness or bindingness of moral rules should depend essentially on the fact that they emanate from " another Person". Dr. Martineau himself admits or I should rather say emphatically declares that it is not a Person regarded apart from moral attributes that can be conceived as the source of the authority of which we are speaking ; it is, he says, " an inward rule of Eight which gives law to the action of God's power . . . which first elevates into authority what else would only operate as a necessity or a bribe " (p. 113). If, then, moral rules, when conceived as Divine com- mands, are thought to have authority not because they emanate from an Omnipotent Person, but because they emanate from a person who wills in accordance with a rule of Right, I cannot conceive how they should lose this authority even if the " other person " is eliminated altogether, provided that the " rule of right " is left. I may perhaps make this clearer by referring to an analogy which Dr. Martineau elsewhere draws between mathematical and moral truth. " There is," he says, " as much ground, or as little, for trusting to the report of our moral faculty as for believing our intellect respecting the relations of number and dimensions. Whatever be the ' authority ' of Reason respect- ing the true, the same is the ' authority' of Conscience respecting the right and the good ' 51 (p. 114). Now I presume that Dr. Martineau does not maintain that the " authority of Reason respecting the relations of number and dimension in regard to time" cannot " really 1 In dealing with this point in my former article I quoted passages in which, as it appeared to me, Dr. Martineau committed himself to a " defi- nitely and confidently anthropomorphic conception of the Divine mind". In his reply, Dr. Martineau affirmed that in the passages quoted he intended to " explain an anthropomorphic habit " of which he had " exposed the error," not to adopt it as his own. I accept, of course, Dr. Martineau's account of his intentions ; but, having carefully re-read the passages from which I quoted especially p. 86 (1st ed.) with its context, which remains unaltered (as p. 92) in the present edition I feel bound to say that they are not calculated to convey to the mind of an ordinary reader what he now declares to be his meaning. Dr. Martineau writes throughout from an avowedly Christian point of view : hence, when he describes "Christianity" and "Christian feeling" as taking "naturally" a certain view of the Divine Nature, without which " the negative element requisite for every ethical conception, the antagonism to something resisted and rejected, would be wanting ; and the evangelical and the heathen Theism would be without further essential distinction" I do not think any ordinary reader will suppose that Dr. Martineau is intending to " expose the error " of the view in question.