Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I | Page 7

spirit of charity, and the spirit of truth, and
where literature does not as a rule permit itself to discuss serious
subjects frankly and worthily[4]--a community, in short, where the
great aim of all classes and orders with power is by dint of rigorous
silence, fast shutting of the eyes, and stern stopping of the ears,
somehow to keep the social pyramid on its apex, with the fatal result of
preserving for England its glorious fame as a paradise for the
well-to-do, a purgatory for the able, and a hell for the poor--why, a man
born into all this with a heart something softer than a flint, and with
intellectual vision something more acute than that of a Troglodyte, may
well be allowed to turn aside and cry for moons for a season.
[4] Written in 1870.
Impotent unrest, however, is followed in Mr. Carlyle by what is
socially an impotent solution, just as it was with Rousseau. To bid a
man do his duty in one page, and then in the next to warn him sternly
away from utilitarianism, from political economy, from all 'theories of
the moral sense,' and from any other definite means of ascertaining
what duty may chance to be, is but a bald and naked counsel. Spiritual
nullity and material confusion in a society are not to be repaired by a
transformation of egotism, querulous, brooding, marvelling, into
egotism, active, practical, objective, not uncomplacent. The moral
movements to which the instinctive impulses of humanity fallen on evil
times uniformly give birth, early Christianity, for instance, or the
socialism of Rousseau, may destroy a society, but they cannot save it
unless in conjunction with organising policy. A thorough appreciation
of fiscal and economic truths was at least as indispensable for the life of
the Roman Empire as the acceptance of a Messiah; and it was only in
the hands of a great statesman like Gregory VII. that Christianity
became at last an instrument powerful enough to save civilisation.
What the moral renovation of Rousseau did for France we all know.
Now Rousseau's was far more profoundly social than the doctrine of
Mr. Carlyle, which, while in name a renunciation of self, has all its
foundations in the purest individualism. Rousseau, notwithstanding the
method of Emile, treats man as a part of a collective whole, contracting

manifold relations and owing manifold duties; and he always appeals to
the love and sympathy which an imaginary God of nature has
implanted in the heart. His aim is unity. Mr. Carlyle, following the
same method of obedience to his own personal emotions, unfortified by
patient reasoning, lands at the other extremity, and lays all his stress on
the separatist instincts. The individual stands alone confronted by the
eternities; between these and his own soul exists the one central
relation. This has all the fundamental egotism of the doctrine of
personal salvation, emancipated from fable, and varnished with an
emotional phrase. The doctrine has been very widely interpreted, and
without any forcing, as a religious expression for the conditions of
commercial success.
If we look among our own countrymen, we find that the apostle of
self-renunciation is nowhere so beloved as by the best of those whom
steady self-reliance and thrifty self-securing and a firm eye to the main
chance have got successfully on in the world. A Carlylean anthology,
or volume of the master's sentences, might easily be composed, that
should contain the highest form of private liturgy accepted by the best
of the industrial classes, masters or men. They forgive or overlook the
writer's denunciations of Beaver Industrialisms, which they attribute to
his caprice or spleen. This is the worst of an emotional teacher, that
people take only so much as they please from him, while with a
reasoner they must either refute by reason, or else they must accept by
reason, and not at simple choice. When trade is brisk, and England is
successfully competing in the foreign markets, the books that enjoin
silence and self-annihilation have a wonderful popularity in the
manufacturing districts. This circumstance is honourable both to them
and to him, as far as it goes, but it furnishes some reason for suspecting
that our most vigorous moral reformer, so far from propelling us in new
grooves, has in truth only given new firmness and coherency to
tendencies that were strongly marked enough in the national character
before. He has increased the fervour of the country, but without
materially changing its objects; there is all the less disguise among us
as a result of his teaching, but no radical modification of the sentiments
which people are sincere in. The most stirring general appeal to the
emotions, to be effective for more than negative purposes, must lead up

to definite maxims and specific precepts. As a negative renovation