Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/153

IX. NOTES AND COKEESPONDENCE. DR. MARTINEAU'S DEFENCE OF "TYPES OF ETHICAL THEORY". In a review of Dr. Martineau's Types of Ethical Theory in MIND, Vol. x. 425, while endeavouring to do justice to his positive merit- as an expositor of the history of philosophy, I found it my duty to draw attention to certain errors and oversights sometimes of a rather fundamental kind into which he had fallen. Dr. Martineau made an elaborate reply to my criticism in the last Number of MIND ; and the reader if he has had any experience of philosophical controversy will have seen without surprise that Dr. Martineau declines to admit that he is in the wrong in any single point. The experienced reader will be no more surprised to learn that a ,-tudy of Dr. Martineau's defence has led me to form, on the whole, a more unfavour- able judgment of his historical work than I expressed in my review ; >ince I find that his misapprehensions of the thinkers whom he has undertaken to expound are more profound than I originally supposed. I scarcely think that further controversy, under these circumstances, is likely to be profitable ; at the same time, having undertaken the task of criticising Dr. Martineau's book, I feel bound to state and therefore to justify the unfavourable impression which his reply has made upon me. In this difficulty, my best course seems to be to take one of Dr. Martineau's studies, and, confining myself to the points to which my original criticism wa> directed which were only a selection of the erroneous or misleading statements that I might have noticed to examine Dr. Martineau's reply on these points. I shall then ask the reader "crimine ab uno disceie omnia". I will take the study of Plato, with which the book opens. Here the first statement of Dr. Martineau's which I characterised as erroneou>, vas the following (p. 105) : " Equally repugnant to all just valuation of character is Plato's preference of voluntary pravity to involuntary a preference openly defended by him against the protest of natural feeling". In the note to this passage, the only reference given was to the Hippias Minor, 375 D. It was evident, therefore, that Dr. Martineau relied on this passage aa ; justification of liis statement. Now, in the first place, I consider that no one writing about Plato ought to refer to the Hippias Minor as an authority for a serious criticism on Plato's doctrines, without at least letting his readers know that the genuineness of this dialogue has been disputed by several eminent commentators, and is still treated as doubtful by critics, like Mr. Jowett, who maybe described as conservative in theii general tendencies. I did not call attention to this omission in my review, as I myself regard the dialogue as genuine ; still, the omission is noteworthy as illustrating the defects of Dr. Martineau's critical work. But his misinterpretation of the drift of the dialogue is more serious. I certainly think that any reader who is familiar with the dialectical method and manner of Socrates ought to see that the argument to which Dr. .Mar- tineau refers is not intended to lead up to a positive com lusimi M-riously held. The very words of the concluding passage of the dialogue ,-hov this plainly : "(Boer.) 'Then, Hippias, he who voluntarily errs and does disgraceful and unjust things, if there be such a man, can be no other than the good man.' "(Hipp.) 'There I am unable to agree with you, Socrates.' "(Socr.) 'Nor can I agree with myself, Hippias ; but yet this seems to be a necessary inference at the present moment from our argument."' Even if we did not know from other sources the fundamental importance