CHAPTER VIII CARLYLE AS A SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THINKER

In his essay on Carlyle, Mr John Morley utters a protest against the habit of labelling great men with names. After making every allowance for the waywardness of the men of intuitive and poetic insight, it remains true that between the speculative and the practical sides of a great thinker's mind there is a potent, though subtle, connection. For those who take the trouble of searching, there is discoverable such a connection between the speculative ideas of Carlyle and his practical outlook upon civilisation. Given a thinker who lays stress upon the emotional side of progress, and we have a thinker who will take for heroes men of mystical tendencies, of strong dominating passions, a thinker who will value progress not by the increase of worldly comfort, but by the increase in the number of magnetic, epoch-making personalities. Naturally, we hear Carlyle remark that the history of the world is at bottom the history of its great men.

Carlyle's fanatical adoption of intuitionalism has told banefully upon his work in sociology. Trusting to his inner light, to what we might call Mystical Quakerism, Carlyle has dispensed with a rational theory of progress. Before a sociological problem, his attitude is not that of the patient thinker, but of the hysterical prophet, whose emotions find outlet in declamatory denunciation. Like the prophets of old, Carlyle tends towards Pessimism. His golden age is in the past. 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. Of what value is such writing as this, taken from the introduction to his Cromwell?:—'Here of our own land and lineage in English shape were heroes on the earth once more, who knew in every fibre and with heroic daring laid to heart that an Almighty Justice does verily rule this world, that it is good to fight on God's side, and bad to fight on the Devil's side! The essence of all heroism and veracities that have been or will be.' This is simply a reproduction of Jewish theocratic ideas; indeed, except for the details, Carlyle might as readily have written a life of Moses as of Cromwell. In the eyes of Carlyle, human life was what it was to Bunyan, a kind of pilgrim's progress; only in the Carlylean creed it is all battle and no victory, all Valley of Humiliation and no Delectable Mountain. Naturally, where no stress is laid upon collective action, where individual reason is depreciated, progress is associated with the rise of abnormal individualities, men of strong wills like Cromwell and Frederick. With Rousseau, Carlyle appears to look upon civilisation as a disease. In one of his essays, Characteristics, he goes near the Roussean idea when he declaims against self-consciousness, and deliberately gives a preference to instinct. The uses of great men are to lead humanity away from introspection back to energetic, rude, instinctive action. 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. Out of his idealistic way of looking upon life there flowed a curious result. As early as Sartor Resartus we find Carlyle anticipating the evolutionary conception of society. Spencer has familiarised us with the idea that society is an organism. The idea which he received from the Germans that Nature is not a mere mechanical collection of atoms, but the materialised expression of a spiritual unity—that idea Carlyle extended to society. As he puts it in Sartor Resartus: 'Yes, truly, if Nature is one, and a living indivisible whole, much more is Mankind, the Image that reflects and creates Nature, without which Nature were not.... 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 has also work of his own appointed him. Thus all things wax and roll onwards.... 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 waste involved in the process. Society being an organism, a thing of development, the duty of thinkers is to demonstrate the nature of sociological laws, and allow them free scope for operation. To this is due much of the apparent hardness of Eighteenth Century political speculation, which, beginning with the French Physiocratic School, culminated in the works of Adam Smith, Ricardo, Bentham, and the two Mills. 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. In fact, to Carlyle's attack upon those institutions, beliefs and ceremonies which had no better basis than mere unreasoning authority, most of the Radicalism of the early 'forties' was due. Conceive what effect language like this must have had upon thoughtful, high-souled young men: 'Call ye that a Society, where there is no longer any Social Idea extant; not so much as the Idea of a common Home, but only of a common overcrowded Lodging-house? Where each, isolated, regardless of his neighbour, turned against his neighbour, clutches what he can get, and cries "Mine!" and calls it Peace because, in the cut-purse and cut-throat Scramble, no steel knives, but only a far cunninger sort, can be employed? 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; the Rich, still more wretchedly, of Idleness, Satiety, and Overgrowth. The Highest in rank, at length, without honour from the Lowest; scarcely, with a little mouth-honour, as from tavern-waiters who expect to put it in the bill. Once sacred Symbols fluttering as empty Pageants, whereof men grudge even the expense; a World becoming dismantled: in one word, the CHURCH fallen speechless, from obesity and apoplexy; the STATE shrunken into a Police-Office, straitened to get its pay!'

It was when suggesting a remedy that Carlyle's Idealistic Radicalism parted company with Utilitarian Radicalism. Failing to see that society was in a transition period, a period so well described by Herbert Spencer as the movement from Militarism to Industrialism, in which there was a severe conflict of ideals, opinions, and interests, Carlyle sought for the remedy in a return to a form of society which had been outgrown. 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. Equally irrelevant was the attempt in Past and Present to get reformers to model modern institutions on those of the Middle Ages. 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. Lacking clear views of social evolution, they overlooked the relativity of political terms. 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. We have changed all that. 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. To Carlyle is largely due the higher ethical conceptions and quickened sympathies which now exist in the spheres of social and industrial relationships. Unhappily his implicit faith in intuitionalism led him to deride political economy and everything pertaining to man's material life. Much there was in the writings of the economists to call for severe criticism, and if Carlyle had treated the subject with discrimination he would have been a power for good; but he chose to pour the vials of his contempt upon political economy as a science, and upon modern industrial arrangements, with the result that many of the most intelligent students of sociology have been repelled from his writings. In this respect he contrasts very unfavourably with Mill, who, notwithstanding the temptations to intellectual arrogance from his one-sided training, with quite a chivalrous regard for truth, was ever ready to accept light and leading from thinkers who differed from him in temperament and methods. There may be conflicting opinions as to which of the two men was intellectually the greater, but there can be no doubt that Mill dwelt in an atmosphere of intellectual serenity and nobility far removed from the foggy turbulence in which Carlyle lived, moved, and had his being. Between the saintly apostle of Progress and the barbaric representative of Reaction there was a great gulf fixed.

As was natural, the Latter-day Pamphlets were treated as a series of political ravings. For that estimate Carlyle himself was largely responsible. He deprived himself of the sympathy of intelligent readers by the violence of his invective and the lack of discrimination in his abuse. Much of what Carlyle said is to be found in Mill's Representative Government, said, too, in a quiet, rational style, which commands attention and respect. Mill, no more than Carlyle, was a believer in mob rule. He did not think that the highest wisdom was to be had by the counting of heads. 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. His writings are largely responsible for the evils he predicted.

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? In these democratic days, he can only proceed by ruling despotically with the popular consent; in other words, there will follow a regime of paternalism and fraternalism, the practical outcome of which would be Socialism. Carlyle himself never suspected how childish was his conception of national life. He wrote of his Great Man theory as if it was a discovery, whereas the most advanced races had long since passed through it, and those which were not advanced were precisely those which had not been able to shake themselves free of paternal despotism. On this point the criticism of the late Professor Minto goes to the heart of the matter: 'Carlyle's doctrines are the first suggestions of an earnest man, adhered to with unreasoning tenacity. As a rule, with no exception, that is worth naming, they take account mainly of one side of a case. He was too impatient of difficulties, and had too little respect for the wisdom and experience of others to submit to be corrected: opposition rather confirmed him in his own opinion. Most of his practical suggestions had already been made before, and judged impracticable upon grounds which he could not, or would not, understand. His modes of dealing with pauperism and crime were in full operation under the despotism of Henry VII. and Henry VIII. His theory of a hero-king, which means in practice an accidentally good and able man in a series of indifferent or bad despots, had been more frequently tried than any other political system; Asia at this moment contains no government that is not despotic. His views in other departments of knowledge are also chiefly determined by the strength of his unreasoning impulses.'

In his interesting Recollections Mr Espinasse states that during the time that Carlyle was writing on the labour question, not a single blue-book was visible on his table! To Carlyle's influence must be traced much of the sentimental treatment of social and industrial questions which has followed the unpopularity of political economy. It is only fair to Carlyle to note, that at times he had qualms as to the superiority of his paternal theory of government over Laissez Faire. In one place he admits that even Frederick could not have superintended the great emigration movement to such good effect as was done by the spontaneous efforts of nature. In the social sphere Carlyle was false to his doctrine of spontaneity. In his early essays he was perpetually condemning mechanical interference with society, and contending that free play should be given to the dynamic agencies. 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. In the Pamphlets Carlyle declaims against democratic methods, and in Frederick and Cromwell we are presented with incarnations of autocratic methods.

Of all the critics of Carlyle, no one has surpassed Mr Morley in indicating the mischievous effects which flow from the elevation of mere will power and emotional force into guides in social and political questions. As Mr Morley says: 'The dictates of a kind heart are of superior force to the maxims of political economy; swift and peremptory resolution is a safer guide than a balancing judgment. If the will works easily and surely, we may assume the rectitude of the moving impulse. All this is no caricature of a system which sets sentiment, sometimes hard sentiment, above reason and method. In other words, the writer who in these days has done more than anybody else to fire men's hearts with a feeling for right, and an eager desire for social activity, has, with deliberate contempt, thrust away from him the only instruments by which we can make sure what right is, and that our social action is effective. 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. Many of his remedies were too vague to be of use; where they were specific, they were so Quixotic as to be useless. His proposals for dealing with labour and pauperism never imposed on any sensible man on this side of cloud-land.