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On the whole it is probable that, as at the beginning of the century, the 'liberals' in New England Congregationalism were somewhat shocked at some of the daring views of the Priestleyan Unitarians in England, so even towards its close the general position of thought was more conservative there than was the rule here.
How was it that so good and shrewd a man as Andrew Fuller should not have seen, that the difference between a Calvinist and a Priestleyan Materialist-Necessitarian consists in this: The former not only believes a will, but that it is equivalent to the 'ego ipse', to the actual self, in every moral agent; though he believes that in human nature it is an enslaved, because a corrupt, will.
Now the latter, the Priestleyan, uses the word will, not for any real, distinct, correspondent power, but, for the mere result and aggregate of fibres, motions, and sensations; in short, it is a mere generic term with him, just as when we say, the main current in a river.
It is only fair to say, there was even in this Priestleyan school room for a mystical mood; but on the whole it appeared dry and intellectual, lacking the warm and operative forces of a deeper devotion. It is interesting to find that Martineau himself confessed that the freshening touch upon his own inner life came in a closer contact with evangelical piety.
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