A BIOGRAPHY AND STUDY

BY

Abraham Willard

A. W. JACKSON, A.M.

BOSTON

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY

1900

TO HORATIO STEBBINS.

Dear Friend, whose noble presence fails to show
The regal grandeur of thy inner plan,
Patrician mien, but an IMPERIAL MAN,

I link thy name with that of Martineau.
He sage; thou prophet. His the orient glow
Of one who all surveys from peak of Darien;
Thine, to call back dead souls to life again,
Isaiah's flame, the tones of Cicero.

He is the Phosphor of the coming day;

Awakener thou of those who dwell in night.

Through him men see the heights, through thee adore;

And they who write your epitaphs should say

Of him, "He touched the mountain crests with light;" Of thee, "He thrilling witness to its glory bore."

PREFACE

THOUGH the plan of this volume may be manifest in its pages, it may yet be not amiss to state it. Of course I could have prepared the narrative of Dr. Martineau's life and followed it with an analysis of his teaching, intent upon nothing more than a just account of his labors; and this is what I contemplated when I set about the task. As I meditated, however, the thought occurred to me that I might make the volume not only an account of Dr. Martineau, but also an utterance of my own mind; and these two aims have ruled my labor. In saying this, I hope I do not need to say that, save in love and reverence, the disciple does not place himself beside his master. I only imply that the disciple is other than his master, and interprets him from his own mind and heart.

This twofold aim may explain to some a frequent feature of the page, a mingling with exposition of much that is extra-expository. There is another feature, too, of which it is the explanation. In dealing with the problems of thought, it made necessary the treatment of them at first hand. This necessity brought me to the study of Dr. Martineau in his teachers, the masters of Tübingen, the great moralists, the great philosophers, who appear somewhat conspicuously in the perspective of these pages.