important. The very title of his chief literary effort suggests/his dependence on Spinoza's doctrines, although as Miss Deakin says his "first definite advance to freedom came about on his reading Edwards's Inquiry into Freedom of Will". The doctrine of necessity is certainly the foundation of Edwards's doctrine but it is just as certainly the

35.

essence of Spinoza's philosophy. An examination of Bray's book shows

35. Lord Acton remarks, Nineteenth Century, March 1885, that "from Jonathan Edwards to Spinoza she went over at one step". As a

matter of fact only a very small step was necessary, philosophically the breach is narrow.

clearly its Spinozistic tendencie s. Not only is the general idea of the universal action of the law of cause and effect, the exaltation of causality into the very principle of substance, brought out in the introduction, but we get also a more specific doctrine, one directly borrowed from the ethical teaching of Spinoza. Instead, says Bray, of the recognition of Necessity's "ceasing to possess any interest or use", if the doctrine be accepted and logically used we get rid at once of Revenge, Remorse and Punishment except such as is for the good of the individual offending; for first, they would be absurd, and second, useless as the recognized and experienced consequences of our actions are sufficient for our future guidance, and "forgiveness" or remission of punishment that is for our good would be simply an injury.

Revenge, remorse and retributive punishment are sources of half the crime and misery in the 36. world. Bray's analysis of the passions is particularly Spinozistic in

36. Philosophy of Necessity, preface, vii.

37.

tone as is his attitude to evil.

Not evident in the Philosophy of

37. Philosophy of Necessity, 420.

Necessity but appearing in a later work. A Manual of Anthropology, 1871,

38.

is an idea most probably derived from Spinoza's view of mind and matter.

38. First enunciated in a paper in the Anthropological Review, 1869.

A writer in the Westminster Review for April, 1879, says

39

that Bray's

39. "Illusion and Delusion, the writings of Charles Bray", 233-242.

"most original idea" was his theory that matter has acted intelligently, but by repetition the action has become automatic so that conscious intelligence has become Natural Law. Original, no doubt, was the twist he gave it, but a student of Spinoza's Ethics would scarcely grant it freedom from the influence of that work. The Westminster article does not stress at all Bray's debt to Spinoza, but its analysis of his works suggests constantly that that debt was a real one, and the article closes with some significant statements:

"Suffice it to say that he is in the van

of that movement which one age is slowly but surely accomplishing, from a theistic to a pantheistic standpoint.... a serene content is his main characteristic, the outcome of his assurance that the universe is sacred, and that however queer things may look, 'all if God, and therefore all is good'." That Bray, in 1849, was undertaking a translation of Spinoza's Works is shown by a letter that George Eliot wrote him at that time from Geneva:

"I write at once to answer your questions about business. Spinoza and I have been divorced for several months... If you are anxious to publish the translation in question, I could, after a few months, finish the "Tractatus Theologico-Politicus" to keep it company; but I confess to you that I think you would do better to abstain from printing a translation. What is wanted in English is not a translation of Spinoza's works, but a 40. true estimate of his life and system" etc. Most of George Eliot's

40. Cross I, 198-9.