第167章 Chapter VI(31)

The great movements,then,of modern times correspond to the blind 'animal instincts'of the 'dumb flock.'They are good as the Utilitarians were good,or as the French revolutionists were good,so far as their blind action leads to the deposition of the false leaders and the destruction of their effete systems.The French Revolution is 'the crowning phenomenon of our modern time;the inevitable stern end of much:the fearful but also wonderful,indispensable,and sternly beneficent beginning of much.'(207)This is a brief summary of the great prose epic,than which no book,as he truly declared,had for a hundred years come more direct and flamingly 'from the heart of a living man.'(208)The passage from which I have quoted,however,indicates a further point.The French Revolution,he holds,was essentially part of the revolt of the oppressed classes of Europe against their oppressors.But the positive doctrine of the 'rights of man,'theories which denied the need of government or demanded simply to throw the reins upon the neck of the governed,could lead only to chaos.The reconstruction must be by a new government;by a government of wisdom or,what to him stems the same thing,a government by the wise.The 'new Downing Street,'as he puts it,is to be a Downing Street inhabited by the 'gifted of the intellects of England.'(209)Nothing therefore could seem more contemptible.than the doctrine of laissez faire.That is simply to leave the fools to themselves.Modern parliaments,with twenty-seven millions mostly fools listening to them,fill him with amazement.(210)A definition of 'right,'then,which makes it ultimately depend on the wishes of the fools,is simply absurd.Not the 'animal instinct'but the conformity to the divine law is the test of morality;and therefore not obedience to the majority but loyalty to the 'hero.'But how is the hero to be known?Could he tell us that,he replies,he would be a Trismegistus.No 'able editor'can tell men how 'to know Heroism when they see it that they might do reverence to it only,and loyally make it ruler over them.'(211)Here is,however,the difficulty.Obedience to the hero is our only wisdom,and obedience to the quack is the road to destruction.One is,it may be said,obedience to right,and the other obedience to might.

How are we to tell right from might?The statement that Carlyle confused the two,that he admired might in reality,while professing to admire right simply,was the most popular and effective criticism of his opinions.He is constantly accused of approving mere brute-force.Nothing could less correspond to his intention;but he is puzzled in particular cases.He declares again and again that they coincide in a sense.'Might and right do differ frightfully from hour to hour;but give them centuries to try it in,they are found to be identical.'(212)'That which is just endures,'is an edifying statement,and one which he constantly emphasises;but may we not infer that that which endures is right,and be led to admire very questionable proceedings?Does the success of a Cromwell for his life-time,or the more permanent success of a Frederick,justify their proceedings?Carlyle may have often begun at the wrong end;but the curious point is that this part of Carlyle's teaching approximates so closely to a doctrine which he first detested.

Froude tells us that he fought against Darwinism,but apparently 'dreaded that it might turn out true.'(213)Yet is not the doctrine of the 'survival of the fittest'just the scientific version of Carlyle's theory of the 'identity of Right and Might'?

Was not evolution really in harmony with his conclusion?To him,according to Froude,it seemed that Science led to 'Lucretian Atheism.'He still believed in God,but when Froude once said that he could only believe in a God who did something,Carlyle replied,with a cry of pain which I (Froude)shall never forget,He does nothing!'The reconstruction which was to follow the destruction was indefinitely delayed.The hero did not come;and Carlyle was a prophet who had led his followers into the desert,but found that the land of promise always turned out to be a mirage.Carlyle held that hypocrisy was still worse than materialism;but,as he grew older and watched modern tendencies,he became less hopeful of the 'Exodus from Houndsditch,'and sometimes wished the old shelter to remain standing.He shrank even from the essayists and reviewers and from Colenso,though he had rejected historical creeds far more summarily than they had done.

Carlyle,then,and Maurice might both be called 'mystics'in the sufficiently vague sense used by Carlyle himself.They object to logic on principle.They appeal to certain primitive instincts which can be overridden by no logical manipulations or by any appeal to outward facts.Both,after all,are forced in the end to consider the plain,simple,'objective'test.Maurice finds that he must answer the question of the historical critic:are the statements of fact true or false?Carlyle,not seeking for a base to support any particular creed,can throw the Thirty-nine Articles overboard,but finally comes into conflict with scientific conceptions in general.He finds himself opposed to the scientific view of historical evolution,and sees in the most conspicuous tendencies of modern thought the disappearance of all the most ennobling beliefs.The 'supernatural'and 'transcendental'have,after all,to conform to the prosaic matter of fact understanding.Accepting,as I do,what I suppose to be the scientific view,I fully believe that Carlyle's method is erroneous;that in denouncing scientific methods as simply materialistic,he is opposing the necessary logic of intellectual development,and that his hero-worship and theory of right really lead to arbitrary and chaotic results.