As well as continuing to write articles for the Monthly Repository , Harriet published two religious books: Devotional Exercises for the Use of Young Persons and Addresses for the Use of Families She then turned to the ambitious project of writing illustrative tales on the new science of political economy.
Presented as a series of stories aimed at the ordinary reader, the tales revealed both her passion for social reform and the influence on her of intellectuals such as Jeremy Bentham, James Mill, Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith and David Ricardo. She chose to visit America rather than Europe because she was interested in seeing how the new democratic principles was working. Known as an abolitionist on the strength of her political economy tale, Demerara , she was immediately drawn into the anti-slavery cause, which remained a lifelong passion.
On her return she published Society in America She also used her American experiences in the more popular travel book, Retrospect of Western Travel In Harriet Martineau produced her first novel, Deerbrook.
Harriet was travelling in Europe in when she fell ill and was brought to Newcastle to be treated nearby, by her medical brother-in-law, Thomas Michael Greenhow. Moving to lodgings in Tynemouth, she spent five years as an invalid, suffering from a prolapsed uterus and ovarian cyst. Fully expecting to die, she claimed to have been cured by mesmerism, on the basis of which she eagerly resumed work.
What is knowable about a First Cause is simply this—as any disciple of positive philosophy is fully aware—that our mental constitution compels us to suppose a First Cause, and that First Cause cannot be the God of theology. III, —7. In her letter, she uses the strongest possible terms to clarify her position:. The belief was no doubt of use in its proper day, like every general belief, but its proper date is past; that which was a substantial faith as when the early Christians looked for the Millenium is now whenever it goes beyond a limited dogma a personal fancy, a bastard conception of unchastened imagination, and a sentimental egotism.
As for the sense of general health, intellectual and moral, the full and joyous liberty under the everlasting laws of nature, and the disappearance of incongruity, perplexity, and moral disturbance such as every theory of the government of the universe must cause to thoughtful minds, we can only enjoy these blessings in sympathy with our fellow- disciples. We are healthier in mind, higher in views and conduct, and happier in life and the prospect of death, than we were before.
Freely Translated and Condensed by Harriet Martineau. My strongest inducement to this enterprise was my deep conviction of our need of this book in my own country, in a form which renders it accessible to the highest number of intelligent readers.
We are living in a remarkable time, when the conflict of opinions renders a firm foundation of knowledge indispensable, not only to our intellectual moral, and social progress, but to our holding such ground as we have gained from former ages. Her conviction is very clearly voiced in her Preface.
To her, positivism is the modern form of belief allowing a new vision of human life, restoring to individual minds a sense of certainty and direction towards the ultimate goal of happiness for all men:. The supreme dread of every one who cares for the good of the nation or race is that men should be adrift for want of an anchorage for their convictions.
I believe that no one questions that a very large proportion of our people are now so adrift. With pain and fear we see that a multitude, who might and should be among the wisest and best of our citizens, are alienated for ever from the kind of faith which sufficed for all in an organic period which has passed away, and they cannot obtain for themselves, any ground of conviction as firm and clear as that which sufficed for our fathers in their day.
The moral dangers of such a state of fluctuation as has thus arisen are fearful in the extreme, whether the transition stage from one order of convictions to another be long or short. The work of M. Comte is unquestionably the greatest single effort that has been made to obviate this kind of danger; and my deep conviction is that it will be found to retrieve a vast amount of wandering, of unsound speculation, of listless or reckless doubt, and of moral uncertainty and depression.
The theological world cannot but hate a book which treats of theological belief as a transient state of the human mind. Comte treats of theology and metaphysics as defined to pass away, theologians and metaphysicians must necessarily abhor, dread and despise his work.
Henceforth, evolution could be seen as an endless movement, opening the way to political and social reforms based on sound, scientifically justified grounds.
Man could now see himself as one in a long chain of creatures, as part of an organic whole, in which permanent evolution conveyed a sense of continuity and progress as a never-ending process. The aspect in which it presents Man is as favourable to his moral discipline, as it is fresh and stimulating to his intellectual taste. We find ourselves living, not under capricious and arbitrary conditions, unconnected with the constitution and movements of the whole, but under great, invariable laws which operate on us as a part of the whole.
But unlike many Victorians, she did not experience a painful crisis of faith, but rather a boundless enthusiasm over her new condition as an agnostic. As she wrote in her testimony to those of her friends who felt estranged from one they considered as an atheist, she said:. III, — The parallel must stop here. Martineau considered herself as a journalist and popular educator only, never claiming to be a successful novelist or philosopher.
Her audacity and rash enthusiasm sometimes led her to transgress her own limits. In spite of the occasional exaggerations and contradictions which her radical discourse had caused her to be liable to, she contributed to the enlargement of the views held by many Victorians over more than forty years. Ashton Rosemary, Strand. London, Virago Press, Harriet Martineau By Riva Berleant Biography Harriet Martineau's sense of her own remarkable life led her to recount it and to arrange that the autobiography be published after her death in Martineau was born of Huguenot ancestry in Norwich, England, in Her father was a manufacturer, and her mother's family were, ironically, sugar refiners.
The progressive Unitarian Martineaus saw to it that all their children, boys and girls alike, were well and equally educated. Martineau By the time she was fifteen Martineau was, in her own words, 'becoming a political economist without knowing it' She had already read Thomas Malthus and had begun to think seriously in sociological and political modes. She was, in fact, among the first sociologists, though not much recognized in standard histories of that discipline.
By the time she was sixteen, she was forced to face and deal with increasing deafness, which she described as 'very noticeable, very inconvenient, and excessively painful. After her father died in Martineau supported herself by writing, mostly popular journalism with a political economy cast.
Her first successes were her Illustrations of Political Economy Thomas owned a textile mill, and Elizabeth was the daughter of a sugar refiner and grocer, making the family economically stable and wealthier than most British families at the time.
They were practicing Unitarians and instilled the importance of education and critical thinking in all of their children. However, Elizabeth was also a strict believer in traditional gender roles , so while the Martineau boys went to college, the girls did not and were expected to learn domestic work instead.
This would prove to be a formative life experience for Harriet, who bucked all traditional gender expectations and wrote extensively about gender inequality. Martineau was a voracious reader from a young age, was well read in Thomas Malthus by the time she was 15, and had already become a political economist at that age, by her own recollection.
This piece was a critique of her own educational experience and how it was formally stopped when she reached adulthood. She wrote for the Monthly Repository, a Unitarian publication, and published her first commissioned volume, Illustrations of Political Economy, funded by publisher Charles Fox, in These illustrations were a monthly series that ran for two years, in which Martineau critiqued the politics and economic practices of the day by presenting illustrated tellings of the ideas of Malthus, John Stuart Mill , David Ricardo , and Adam Smith.
The series was designed as a tutorial for the general reading audience. Martineau won prizes for some of her essays, and the series sold more copies than did the work of Dickens at the time. Martineau argued that tariffs in early American society only benefited the rich and hurt the working classes both in the U.
She also advocated for the Whig Poor Law reforms, which shifted assistance to the British poor from cash donations to the workhouse model. In her early years as a writer, she advocated for free market economic principles in keeping with the philosophy of Adam Smith.
Later in her career, however, she advocated for government action to stem inequality and injustice, and is remembered by some as a social reformer due to her belief in the progressive evolution of society. Martineau broke with Unitarianism in and adopted the philosophical position of freethinking, whose adherents seek truth based on reason, logic, and empiricism, rather the dictates of authority figures, tradition, or religious dogma. This shift resonates with her reverence for August Comte's positivistic sociology and her belief in progress.
From there she continued to write her political economy series until When the series was completed, Martineau traveled to the U. While there, she became acquainted with Transcendentalists and abolitionists , and with those involved in education for girls and woman.
She later published Society in America, Retrospect of Western Travel, and How to Observe Morals and Manners—considered her first publication based on sociological research—in which she not only criticized the state of education for women but also expressed her support for the abolition of enslavement due to its immorality and economic inefficiency as well as its impact on the working classes in the U.
As an abolitionist , Martineau sold embroidery in order to donate to the cause and also worked as the English correspondent for the American Anti-Slavery Standard through the end of the American Civil War.
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