Part 10

If we were to hazard a generalization which should sum up the nineteenth century, might we not affirm that the chief business of the century has been to establish a basis of conduct in harmony with what we actually know of the laws governing the universe? Hitherto, for ages together, men have not consciously done this, but they have accepted standards handed down to them by earlier men, who compounded these standards out of little knowledge, much ignorance, legend, and hearsay. Skeptics there have always been, but usually, like the skeptics who flourished in the last century, they have differed from the doubters in ours by the degree of their moral intensity. Whether we turn to Carlyle or to George Eliot, we find each tirelessly busy in substituting for the worn-out tenets of the past, springs of belief and conduct worthy to satisfy a more enlightened conscience.

Here, then, we have the corner-stone of Carlyle’s influence. Our world is a moral world; conscience and righteousness are eternal realities, independent of the vicissitudes of any church. If we seek for a definite statement of Carlyle’s creed, we shall be disappointed; he never formulated any. After breaking loose from one prison, he would have scoffed at the idea of voluntarily locking himself up in another. He held that to possess a moral sense is to possess its justification; that conscience is a fact transcending logic just as consciousness or life itself does. In the presence of this supreme fact he cared little for its genealogy. The immanence of God was to him an ever-present, awful verity.

Likewise, when we come to examine his philosophy, we discover that he constructed no formal system. He absorbed the doctrine of Kant and his followers, and may be classed, by those who insist that every man shall have a label, among the transcendentalists: but his main interest was the application of moral laws to life, the trial of men and institutions in the court of conscience, rather than the exercise of the intellect in metaphysical speculations. The mystery of evil may not be explained for some ages, if ever; while we argue about it, evil grows: the one indispensable duty for all of us, he would say, is to combat evil in ourselves and in society now and here. The stanch seaman, when his ship founders, does not waste time in meditating why it should be that water will sink a ship, but he lashes together a raft, if haply he may thereby come off safe.

In these respects we behold Carlyle a true representative of his time. Before the vast bulk of sin and sorrow and pain he did not cower; he would fight it manfully. But the smoke of battle darkened him. The spectacle of mankind, dwelling in Eternity, yet ignorant of their heritage, pursuing “desires whose purpose ends in Time;” of souls engaged from dawn to dusk of their swift-fleeting existence, not on soul’s business, but on body’s business, worshiping idols they know to be false, deceiving, persecuting, slaying each other,--confirmed a tendency to pessimism to which his early Calvinism had predisposed him. But Carlyle’s pessimism must not be confounded with Swift’s misanthropy, or with Leopardi’s blank despair, or with the despicable Schopenhauer’s cosmic negation of good. Carlyle was neither cynic nor misanthrope. He might exclaim with Ecclesiastes, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!” but he would mean that the ways and works of man are vain in comparison with his possibilities, and with the incalculable worth of righteousness. “Man’s unhappiness, as I construe,” he says, “comes of his greatness; it is because there is an Infinite in him which, with all his cunning, he cannot quite bury under the Finite. Always there is a black spot in our sunshine: it is even the _Shadow of Ourselves_.”

These being the elements of Carlyle’s moral nature, let us look for a moment at the world which he was to test by his “unborrowed principles of conviction.” He came on the scene during the decade of reaction which followed the battle of Waterloo. Official Europe, confounding the ambition of Napoleon with the causes underlying the Revolution, supposed that in crushing one it had destroyed the other. The motto of the Old Régime had been _Privilege_, of the New it was _Merit_. The revived political fashions of the eighteenth century, though cut by such elegant tailors as Metternich, Castlereagh, and Polignac, chafed a generation which had grown used to a freer costume. At any time there yawns between the ideals and the practices of society a discrepancy which provokes the censure of the philosopher and the sarcasm of the cynic; but in a time like the Restoration, when some men consciously repudiated and none sincerely believed the system thrust upon them, the chasm between profession and performance must open wider still, revealing not only the noble failures born of earnest but baffled endeavor, but also all the hideous growths of hypocrisy, of deceptions, insincerities, and intellectual fraud. And in very truth the Old Régime resuscitated by Europe’s oligarchs was doubly condemned,--first, as being unfitted to the new age; and, secondly, as having marked in the eighteenth century, when it flourished, the logical conclusion of a political and social epoch. In 1820 the trunk and main branches of the tree of Feudalism were dead: he was not a wise man who imagined that the still surviving upper branches would long keep green.

Not alone in the political constitution of society were momentous changes operating. They but represented the attempt of man to work out, in his civic and social relations, ideas which had already penetrated his religion and his philosophy. Distil those ideas to their inmost essence, its name is _Liberty_. The old Church, whether Roman or Protestant, lay rotting at anchor in the land-locked bayou of Authority; and the pioneers of the new convictions, abandoning her and her cargo of antiquated dogmas, had pushed on across intervening morasses to the shore of the illimitable sea; yea, they were launching thereon their skiffs of modern pattern, and resolutely, hopefully steering whither their consciences pointed. Better the storms of the living ocean than the miasma of that stagnant, scum-breeding pool! But a church is of all institutions that to which men cling most stubbornly, paying it lip-service long after its doctrines have ceased to shape their conduct or to lift their aspirations; trying to believe, in spite of their unbelief, that it will continue to be to them a source of strength as it once was to their fathers; preserving forms, but veneering them with contradictory meanings; coming at last to declare that an institution must be kept, if for no other reason than because it once fulfilled the purposes for which it is now inadequate. The aroma of association has for some minds the potency of original inspiration. Who can ponder on life without perceiving that whereas in their business, their possessions, their love, and their hate, men resent dictation; in matters beyond the scope of experience, and consequently beyond proof,--as the conditions of a future life,--men credulously accept the guidance of others quite as ignorant as themselves, from whom in their business or their passions they would submit to no interference?

Needless to say the revived Old Régime intrenched itself behind whatever church it found standing,--in Prussia the Lutheran, in England the Anglican, in Scotland the Calvinist, in the Latin countries the Roman. The ecclesiastical institution might not humanize the masses, but at least it held them in check; it might not spiritualize the classes, but it taught them that in rallying to its support they were best guarding their own privileges. Metternich, whom we call the representative of the Restoration, did not scruple to announce that, as the dangers which threatened Church and State were identical, the Church could be saved only by upholding the State. Not for the first time in history was the priest a policeman in disguise.

Into this world of transition Thomas Carlyle strode with his store of unborrowed principles. Right or wrong, his convictions were his own; therefore they were realities that need not fear a conflict with ghosts of dead convictions and insincerities.

Naturally, one of the first facts that amazed him was the monstrous unreality in that transitional society. By the census the people of Great Britain were rated as Christians; by their acts they seemed little better than barbarians. What availed the Established Church, in which livings were assigned at the pleasure of some dissolute noble, fox-hunting parsons were given the cure of souls, and worldlings or unbelievers rose to be bishops? Could the loudest protestations explain the existence of great, gaunt, brutalized masses, beyond the pale of human charity; every _horse_ sleek, well lodged, and well fed, but innumerable _men_ dying of hunger or lodged in the almshouse? Can that be true civilization in which the various constituents recognize no interdependence, and only a few usurp benefits which are pernicious unless they be free to all? Respectability, and not virtue,--that, Carlyle declared, was John Bull’s ideal, and he opened fire upon its chief allies, Sham and Cant. He spared no prejudices, he respected no institutions. With sarcasm until then unknown in English, he unmasked one artificiality after another, disclosing the cruelty or the hypocrisy which lurked behind it, and setting over against it the true nature of the thing it pretended to be. To interpret such conditions by the criterion of conscience was to condemn them.

But Carlyle’s mission was not merely to destroy: he shattered error in order that the clogged fountain of truth might once more gush forth. Before eyes long dimmed with gazing on insincerity, he would hold up shining patterns of sincerity; souls groping for guidance, he would stay and comfort by precedents of strength; hearts pursuing false idols, he would chasten by examples of truth. Men talked--and nowhere more pragmatically than in the churches--as if God, after having imparted his behests to a few Hebrews ages ago, had retired into some remote empyrean, and busied himself no more with the affairs of men. But to Carlyle the immanence of God was an ever-present reality, manifesting itself throughout all history and in every individual conscience, but nowise more clearly than in the careers of great men.

Thus he made it his business to set before his contemporaries models worthy of veneration, for he recognized that worship is a primary moral need. “Great men,” he says, “are the inspired (speaking and acting) Texts of that divine _Book of Revelations_, whereof a Chapter is completed from epoch to epoch, and by some named _History_.” In this spirit he introduced Goethe, the latest of the heroes, to English readers, as the man who, from amid chaos similar to that which bewildered them, had climbed to a position where life could be lived nobly, rationally, well. “Close your Byron, open your Goethe,” was his advice to those in whom Byron’s mingled defiance and sentimentality found an echo. He showed in Cromwell how religious zeal is something very different from a phantom faith. He laid bare the truth in Mahomet. He made Luther live again. And all to the end that he might convince his dazed contemporaries that in no age, if we look deeply, shall we look in vain for concrete, living examples of those qualities which are indispensable to right action; that salvation--the purging of the character--is won by exercising virtues, and not by conforming to a stereotyped routine; that the authority of conscience is a present fact, not a mere mechanism which God wound up and gave to the Hebrews, and has been transmitted in poor repair by them to us. As an antidote to sterilizing doubt, Carlyle prescribed the simple remedy which sums up the wisdom of all the sages: “Do the Duty which lies nearest thee, which thou knowest to be a Duty! Thy second Duty will already have become clearer.” In this fashion did Carlyle discharge his mission as a moral regenerator. We live as individuals, and to the individual conscience he made his appeal, caring little for the organization of principles into institutions. Rather, like every individualist, did he incline to deprecate the numbing effect of institutions. Let each unit be righteous, in order that whatever the collective units shall establish may be righteous too.

Bearing this in mind, we shall understand Carlyle’s attitude toward the great social and intellectual movements of his time. The watchword which had inspired generous minds at the end of the last century was _Liberty_, and after the thunders of the Napoleonic wars that had drowned it died away, it rang out its summons more clearly than before, never again to be quite deadened, despite all the efforts of the Old Régime. The application of the theory of Liberty to government resulted in setting up Democracy as the ideal political system. Since every citizen in the State bears, directly or indirectly, his fraction of the burden of taxation, and since he is affected by the laws, and interested, even to the point of laying down his life, in the preservation of his country, Democracy declares that he should have an equal part with every other citizen in determining what the taxes and policy of his State shall be; and it thrusts upon him the responsibility of choosing his own governors and representatives. To Carlyle this ideal seemed a chimera. Honest, just, and intelligent government is of all social contrivances the most difficult: by what miracle, therefore, shall the sum of the opinions of a million voters, severally ignorant, be intelligent? As well blow a million soap-bubbles, each thinner than gossamer, and expect that collectively they will be hard as steel! Or, admitting that the representatives Demos chooses be not so incompetent as itself, how shall they be kept disinterested? Their very numbers not only make them unmanageable, but so divide responsibility that any individual among them can shift from his own shoulders the blame for corrupt or harmful laws. Moreover, popular government means party government, and that means compromise. To Carlyle, principles were either right or wrong, and between right and wrong he saw no neutral ground for compromise. Party government cleaves to expediency, which at best is only a half-truth; but half-truth is also half-error, and any infinitesimal taint of error vitiates the truth to which it clings. Finally, Democracy substitutes a new, many-headed tyranny--more difficult to destroy because many-headed--for the tyranny it would abolish.

Such objections Carlyle urged with consummate vigor. He foresaw, too, many of the other evils which have accompanied the development of this system to impair its efficacy, such as the rise of a class of professional politicians, of political sophists, of corrupt “bosses,” expert in the art of wheedling the ignorant many, and thereby of frustrating the initial purpose of the system. His opposition did not spring from desire to see the masses down-trodden, but from conviction that they need guidance and enlightenment, and that they are therefore no more competent to choose their own law-makers than children are to choose their own teachers. In knowledge of public affairs Demos is still a child, innocent, well-intentioned, if you will; but ignorant, and by this system left to the mercy of the unscrupulous.

This brings us to consider the charge that Carlyle, in his exaltation of the Strong Man, worshiped crude force. Let us grant that on the surface the accusation seems plausible; but when we seek deeper, we shall discover that he exalts Cromwell and Frederick, not because they were despots, but because, in his judgment, they knew better than any other man, or group of men, in their respective countries, how to govern. Their ability was their justification; their force, but the symbol of their ability. “Weakness”--Carlyle was fond of quoting--“is the only misery.” What is ignorance but weakness (through lack of training) of the intellect? In the incessant battle of life,--and few men have been more constantly impressed than Carlyle by the battle-aspect of life,--weakness of whatever kind succumbs to strength. Evil perpetually marshals its forces against Good,--positive, aggressive forces, to be overcome neither by inertia, nor indifference, nor half-hearted compromise, but by hurling stronger forces of Good against them. Interpreting Carlyle’s views thus, we perceive why he extolled the Strong Man and distrusted the aggregate ignorance of Democracy. Furthermore, we must not forget that he never considered politics the prime business of life: first, make the masses righteous, next, enlightened, and then they will naturally organize a righteous and enlightened government. When Carlyle rejoined to the zealots of Democracy or other panaceas, “Adopt your new system if you must, will not the same old human units operate it? Were it not wiser to perfect them first?”--he antagonized the spirit of the age: wisely or not, only time can show. Those of us who would reject his arguments would nevertheless admit that Democracy is still on trial.

With equal fearlessness he attacked the cheap optimism based on material prosperity, which brags of the enormous commercial expansion made possible by the invention of machinery; which boasts of the rapid increase in population--so many more million mouths to feed and bodies to clothe, and so much more food and raiment produced--from decade to decade. These facts, he insisted, are not of themselves evidences of progress. Your inventions procure greater comfort, a more exuberant luxury; but do comfort and luxury necessarily build up character?--do they not rather unbuild it? Are your newly bred millions of bodies more than bodies? Take a census of souls, has _their_ number increased? Though your steam-horse carries you fifty miles an hour, have you thereby become more virtuous? Though the lightning bears your messages, have you gained bravery? Of old, your aristocracy were soldiers: is the brewer who rises from his vats to the House of Lords--is any other man owing his promotion to the tradesman’s skill in heaping wealth--more worshipful than they? Let us not say that this amazing industrial expansion may not conduce to the uplifting of character; but let us strenuously affirm that it is of itself no indication of moral progress, and that, if it fail to be accompanied by a corresponding spiritual growth, it will surely lead society by the Byzantine high-road to effeminacy, exhaustion, and death.

A different gospel, this, from that which Carlyle’s great rival, Macaulay, was preaching,--Macaulay, who lauded the inventor of a useful machine above all philosophers! Different from the optimism--which gauges by bulk--of the newspapers and the political haranguers! Different, because true! Yet, though it sounded harsh, it stirred consciences,--which smug flatterings and gratulations can never do; and it gave a tremendous impetus to that movement which has come to overshadow all others,--the movement to reconstruct society on a basis, not of privilege, not of bare legality, but of mutual obligations.

Any inventory, however brief, of Carlyle’s substance, would be incomplete without some reference to his quarrel with Science. To Science a large part of the best intelligence of our age has been devoted,--a sign of the breaking away of the best minds from the cretinizing quibbles of theology into fields where knowledge can be ascertained. It is a truism that Science has advanced farther in our century than in all preceding time. By what paradox, then, should Carlyle slight its splendid achievements? Was it not because he revolted from the materialistic tendency which he believed to be inseparable from Science, a tendency which predominated a generation ago more than it does to-day? Materialism Carlyle regarded as a Gorgon’s head, the sight of which would inevitably petrify man’s moral nature.

Moreover, Carlyle’s method differed radically from that of the scientific man, who describes processes and investigates relations, but does not explain causes. Pledged to his allegiance to tangible facts, the man of science looks at things serially, pays heed to an individual as a link in an endless chain rather than as an individual, lays emphasis on averages rather than on particulars. To him this method is alone honest, and, thanks to it, a single science to-day commands more authenticated facts than all the sciences had fifty years ago. But there are facts of supreme importance which, up to the present at least, this method does not solve. The mystery of the origin of life still confronts us. Consciousness, the Sphinx, still mutely challenges the caravans which file before her. The revelations of Science seem, under one aspect, but descriptions of the habitations of life from the protoplasmic cell up to the human body. Immense though the value of such a register be, we are, not deceived into imagining that it explains ultimates. How came life into protoplasm at all? Whence each infinitesimal increment of life, recognizable at last in the budding of some new organ? And when we arrive at man, whence came his personality? Each of us is not only one in a genealogical series stretching back to the unreasoning, conscienceless _amœba_, but a clearly defined individual, a little world in himself, to whom his love, his sorrow, his pain and joy and terror, transcend in vividness all the experiences of all previous men: a microcosm, having its own immediate relations--absolute relations--with the infinite macrocosm. Science, bent on establishing present laws, measures by æons, counts by millions, and has warrant for ignoring your brief span or mine; but to you and me these few decades are all in all. However it may fare with the millions, you and I have vital, pressing needs, to supply which the experience of the entire animal kingdom can give us no help. Upon these most human needs Carlyle fastened, to the exclusion of what he held to be unnecessary to the furtherance of our spiritual welfare. He busied himself with ultimates and the Absolute. Not the stages of development, but the development attained; not the pedigree of conscience, but conscience as the supreme present reality; not the species, but the individual,--were his absorbing interests.

Thus we see how Carlyle approached the great questions of life invariably as a moralist. Mere erudition, which too often tends away from the human, did not attract him. Science, which he beheld still unspiritualized, he undervalued: what boots it to know the “mileage and tonnage” of the universe, when our foremost need is to build up character? In politics, in philosophy, in religion, likewise, he set this consideration above all others: before its august presence outward reforms dwindled into insignificance.

Such was the substance of Carlyle’s message. Remarkable as is its range, profound as is its import, it required for its consummation the unique powers of utterance which Carlyle possessed. Among the masters of British prose he holds a position similar to that of Michael Angelo among the masters of painting. Power, elemental, titanic, rushing forth from an inexhaustible moral nature, yet guided by art, is the quality in both which first startles our wonder. The great passages in Carlyle’s works, like the Prophets and Sibyls of the Sixtine Chapel, have no peers: they form a new species, of which they are the only examples. They seem to defy the ordinary canons of criticism; but if they break the rules it is because whoever made the rules did not foresee the possibility of such works. Transcendent Power, let it take whatever shape it will,--volcano, torrent, Cæsar, Buonarotti, Carlyle,--proclaims: “Here I am,--a fact: make of me what you can! You shall not ignore me!”