Hector Macpherson

“ Hegelianism as much as Naturalism leaves man a prisoner in the hands of Fate. The only difference is, that while Naturalism puts round the prisoner's neck a plain, unpretentious noose, Hegelianism adds fringes and embroidery. If there is no appeal from Nature's dread sentence, the less poetry and embroidery there is about the doleful business the better.
In Sartor Resartus, Carlyle talks finely but vaguely, of the peace which came over his soul when he discovered that the universe was not mechanical but Divine. ”

“ Men are grown mechanical in head and heart, as well as in hand. They have lost faith in individual endeavour, and in natural force of any kind.... We may trace this tendency in all the great manifestations of our time: in its intellectual aspect, the studies it most favours, and its manner of conducting them; in its practical aspects, its politics, art, religious work; in the whole sources, and throughout the whole current of its spiritual, no less than its material, activity.' With Carlyle the secrets of Nature and Life were discoverable, not so much by the intellect as by the heart. ”

“ But science is as anthropomorphic as theology. We have no guarantee that the great facts of Nature are as we think them. We talk of Force, but our idea of Force is taken from experiences which may have no counterpart in Nature. It is well known, for example, that the secondary qualities of objects, colour, &c., do not exist in Nature. Our personality is so inextricably mixed with the material universe that it is impossible to formulate a philosophy like Naturalism, which makes mind a product of Nature, and which sharply defines the provinces of the two. ”

“ When humanity will not listen to the voice of the prophets, it must be treated to whip and scorpion. It never dawned upon Carlyle that the highest life, individual and collective, has roots in physical laws, that politico-economic forces must be reckoned with before social harmony can be reached.
Just as Carlyle's Idealism drove him into opposition to the utilitarian theory of morals, so it drove him into opposition to the utilitarian theory of society. ”

“ When Past and Present appeared, many earnest-minded men, captivated by the style and spirit of the book, hailed Carlyle as a social reformer. As an attempt to solve the social problem, Past and Present is not a success. Carlyle could do no more than tell the modern to return to the spirit of the feudal period, when the people were led by the aristocracy. It showed considerable audacity on Carlyle's part to come to the interpretation of history with no theory of progress, no message to the world beyond the vaguely declamatory one that those nations will be turned into hell which forget God. ”

“ He steered an even course between the stern moralists, whose indignation at the sins of Burns the man blinded them to the genius of Burns the poet, and the flippant Bohemians, who thought that by bidding defiance to the conventionalities and moralities Burns proved his title to the name of genius, and whose voices are yet unduly with us in much spirituous devotion and rhymeless doggerel at the return of each 25th of January. While laying bare the springs of Burns' genius, Carlyle, with unerring precision, also puts his finger on the weak point in the poet's moral nature. ”

“ There was surely something pathetically absurd in the spectacle of a great teacher endeavouring to cure social and political diseases by preaching the resuscitation of Puritanism at a time when the intellect of the day was parting company with theocratic conceptions. Equally absurd was it to offer as a remedy for social anarchy the despotism of ambitious rulers at a time when society was suffering from the effects of previous despotism. ”

“ Men like James Carlyle were essentially stern, self-centred, unemotional. Fighting like the Jews, with sword in one hand and trowel in the other, they had no time for cultivating the softer side of human nature. ”

“ To readers wearied with the facile criticism of conventional reviewers, it was a revelation to come into contact with a writer like Carlyle, who not only gave to the mind{63} great inspirational impetus, but also a larger critical outlook; it was like stepping out of a museum, or a dissecting-room into the free, fresh, breezy air of Nature. ”

“ His face had not yet lost the country bronze which he brought up with him from Dumfriesshire as a student, fifty-six years ago. His long residence in London had not touched his Annandale look, nor had it—as we soon learned—touched his Annandale accent. His countenance was striking, homely, sincere, truthful—the countenance of a man on whom "the burden of the unintelligible world" had weighed more heavily than on most. His hair was yet almost dark; his moustache and short beard were iron-grey. His eyes were wide, melancholy, sorrowful; and seemed as if they had been at times a-weary of the sun. ”

“ Let universal Paris, universal France, as with the throat of the whirlwind, sound only: To arms!—"To arms!" yell responsive the innumerable voices; like one great voice, as of a Demon yelling from the air: for all faces wax fire-eyed, all hearts burn up into madness. ”

“ There are many who think it an act of piety to hide the faults or failings of their friends, even when they can no longer suffer by their detection; we therefore see whole ranks of characters adorned with uniform panegyric and not to be known from one another, but by extrinsic and casual circumstances. If we have regard to the memory of the dead, there is yet more respect to be paid to knowledge, to virtue, and to truth.' When Johnson's own biography came to be written, Boswell, in spite of the expostulation of friends, resolved to be guided closely by the literary ethics of his great hero. ”

“ What are the leading conceptions of the German form of salvation? The answer to this will give the key to Sartor Resartus, and to Carlyle's whole mental outlook. In the eyes of thinkers like Carlyle, the great objection to Christianity was the breach it made between the natural and the supernatural. Between them there was a great gulf which could only fitfully and temporarily be bridged by the miraculous. Students who were being inoculated with scientific ideas of law and order, were bewildered by a theory of life which had no organic relation to the great germinal ideas of the day. ”

“ A born poet, only wanting perhaps a clearer feeling for form and a more delicate spiritual self-possession to have added another name to the illustrious band of English singers, he has been driven by the impetuosity of his sympathies to attack the scientific side of social questions in an imaginative and highly emotional manner.'
Had Carlyle confined himself to description of social, industrial, and political diseases, he would have had an unsullied reputation in the sphere of spiritual dynamics, but flaws immediately appeared when he endeavoured to prescribe remedies. ”

“ Time is done, and all the scaffolding of Time falls wrecked with hideous clangour round thy soul: the pale Kingdoms yawn open; there must thou enter, naked, all unking'd, and await what is appointed thee!... ”

“ Just as distasteful to Carlyle, and equally mechanical in spirit, was the Deistical conception of Nature as a huge clock, under the superintendence of a Divine clock-maker, whose duty consisted in seeing that the clock kept good time and was in all respects thoroughly reliable. The Germans attacked the problem from the other side. They did not abolish the supernatural with the materialists, or seek it in another world with the theologians; they found the supernatural in the natural. ”

“ In his view, it was more consistent with human dignity to trust for inspiration to a light within than painfully to piece together fragments of human experience and ponder the inferences to be drawn therefrom. ”

“ The 7th of August found Carlyle among his 'ain folk' at Scotsbrig, and this was his soliloquy: 'Thank Heaven for the sight of real human industry, with human fruits from it, once more. The sight of fenced fields, weeded crops, and human creatures with whole clothes on their back—it was as if one had got into spring water out of dunghill puddles.' Mrs Carlyle{100} had also gone to Scotland, and 'wandered like a returned spirit about the home of her childhood.' Of her numerous lively letters, room must be found for a characteristic epistle to her brother-in-law, John Carlyle. ”

“ What consolation Carlyle derived from Idealism did not appear in his life. What a contrast between the poetic optimism of Sartor and the heavily-charged pessimism of old age, when Carlyle, with wailing pathos, exclaims that God does nothing. ”

“ Untrue to himself and his creed, Carlyle in his later books was constantly denouncing Government for neglecting to apply mechanical remedies for social diseases. In his view, the duty of a ruler was not to work in harmony with social impulses, but to cut and carve institutions in harmony with the ideas of great men. Puritanism under Cromwell failed because it was forgotten that society is an organism, not a piece of clay, to be moulded according to the notions of heroic potters. Strictly speaking, Frederick and Cromwell should be classed with the Latter Day Pamphlets. ”

“ The critic who would realise his ideal does not go about with literary and ethical tape-lines: he seeks to understand the spirit which animated the author as shewn in his works and his life, and then studies the influence of his environment. ”

“ Ignorant of the conception of human nature to which Spencer has accustomed us, the old Radicals treated it as a constant quantity which only needed liberty for its proper development. In their eagerness to discard theology, they discarded the truth of man's depravity which finds expression in the creed of the Churches. ”

“ It is curious to notice how, with all his belief in individualism, Carlyle, in political matters, was unconsciously driven in the direction of socialism. Get your great man, worship him, and render him obedience—such was the Carlylean recipe for modern diseases. Suppose the great man found, how is he to proceed? ”

“ Thinkers like Mill and Spencer did not deem it necessary to pour contempt on modern tendencies. They suggested remedies on the lines of these tendencies. They did not try to put back the hands on the clock of time; they sought to remove perturbing influences. Much of the evil has arisen from men trying to do by political methods what should not be done by these methods. Carlyle's idea that Government should do this, that, and the other thing has wrought mischief, inasmuch as it has led to an undue belief in the virtues of Government interference. ”

“ In the highest social state the only Might that will survive will be the Might which is rooted in Right. Carlyle's contemptuous attitude towards science is deeply to be deplored. He waged bitter warfare against the evolution theory, quite oblivious of the fact that by means of it there was revealed a deeper insight into the Power behind Nature, and into the ethical constitution of the universe, than ever entered into the minds of transcendental philosophers.'
It is taken for granted that Carlyle's thoughts have no organic unity. ”

“ The philosophy of the heart is far better than that of the understanding. She loves me with her whole soul, and this one sentiment has taught her much that I have long been vainly at the schools to learn.... On the whole, what I chiefly want is occupation; which, when the times grow better, or my own genius gets more alert and thorough-going, will not fail, I suppose, to present itself.... ”

“ We now realise the fact that political institutions are good or bad, not as they stand or fall when tested by the first principles of a rationalistic philosophy, but as they harmonise or conflict with existing phases of human nature.
If in the sphere of industrialism Carlyle as a guide is untrustworthy, great is his merit as an inspirer. His influence was needed to counteract the cold prosaic narrowness of the Utilitarian teaching. He called attention to an aspect of the economic question which the Utilitarian Radicals ignored, namely, the inadequacy of self-interest as a social bond. ”

“ Carlyle's remedy for the evils of liberty was a return to the apron-strings of despotism. Carlyle, in fact, forgot his conception of society as a developing organism; he endeavoured to arrest progress at the autocratic stage, because of his ignorance of the laws of progress and his lack of sympathy with democratic ideas. Still, the value of Carlyle's political writings should not be overlooked. The Utilitarian Radicals laid themselves open to the charge of intellectual superstition. They worshipped human nature as a fetish. ”

“ Find mankind where thou wilt, thou findest it in living movement, in progress faster or slower; the Phœnix soars aloft, hovers with outstretched wings, filling Earth with her music; or as now, she sinks, and with spheral swan-song immolates herself in flame, that she may soar the higher and sing the clearer.'
Philosophies of civilisation have a tendency to beget Fatalism. Bent upon watching the resistless play of general laws, philosophers, in their admiration of the products, are apt to ignore the frightful suffering and{142} waste involved in the process. ”

“ Where Friendship, Communion, has become an incredible tradition; and your holiest Sacramental Supper is a smoking Tavern Dinner, with Cook for Evangelist? Where your Priest has no tongue but for plate-licking; and your high Guides and Governors cannot guide; but on all hands hear it passionately proclaimed: Laissez faire; leave us alone of your guidance, such light is darker than darkness; eat your wages and sleep. Thus, too, must an observant eye discern everywhere that saddest spectacle: the Poor perishing, like neglected, foundered Draught-Cattle, of Hunger and Overwork ”

“ Because in it, especially in the Psalms, Job, and the writings of Isaiah and his brother prophets, serious people are brought face to face with the great mysteries, God,{153} Nature, Man, Death, etc.—mysteries, however, which only rush in upon the soul of man in full force on special occasions, in hours of lonely meditation, or by the side of an open grave. In the hurly-burly of life the sense of what Carlyle calls the Immensities, Eternities, and Silences, become so weak that even good men have sorrowfully to admit that they live lives of practical materialism. ”

“ Strangely vivid are some twelve or twenty of those old faces whom I used to see every Sunday, whose names, employments or precise dwellingplaces I never knew, but whose portraits are yet clear to me as in a mirror. ”

“ Noteworthy also, and serviceable for the progress of this same individual, wilt thou find his subdivisions into Generations. Generations are as the Days of toilsome Mankind; Death and Birth are the vesper and the matin bells, that summon Mankind to sleep, and to rise refreshed for new advancement. What the Father has made, the Son can make and enjoy ”

“ But he had been shy of Carlyle, and Carlyle had resented it, and now this April the news came that Wilson was gone, and Carlyle had to write his epitaph. 'I knew his figure well,' wrote Carlyle in his journal on April 29; 'remember well first seeing him in Princes Street on a bright April afternoon—probably 1814—exactly forty years ago.... A tall ruddy figure, with plenteous blonde hair, with bright blue eyes, fixed, as if in haste towards some distant object, strode rapidly along, clearing the press to the left of us, close by the railings, near where Blackwood's shop now is. ”

“ In his 'Data of Ethics,' Herbert Spencer shows the hollowness of Carlyle's distinction between Blessedness and Happiness. As Spencer puts it: 'Obviously the implication is that Blessedness is not a kind of Happiness, and this implication at once suggests the question, What mode of feeling is this? If it is a state of consciousness at all, it is necessarily one of three states—painful, indifferent, or pleasurable.... If the pleasurable{59} states are in excess, then the blessed life can be distinguished from any other pleasurable life only by the relative amount or the quality of its pleasures. ”

“ With those thinkers, the one palpable lesson of the past was the duty of abstaining from interference with the general process of social development. Give man liberty, said the Utilitarian Radicals, and he will work out his own salvation: from the play of individual self-interest, social harmony will result.
Carlyle is frequently thought of as a Conservative force in politics. In some respects he was more Radical than the Benthams and the Mills. His deeper ideal conception of society intensified his dissatisfaction with society as it existed. ”