III. The artist-Idea of pure art-Wherein satire injures art-Whereir it diminishes the interest-Wherein it falsifies the characters-Comparison cf Thackeray and Literature is a definition of man-The definition according to Thackeray-Wherein 6a1 His Essays-Agreeable character and utility of the style-Opinions-Philosophy. Wherein it is English and practical-His Essay on Bacon-The true object, according to him, of the sciences-Comparison of Bacon with the ancients.. 627 His criticism-Moral prejudices-Comparison of criticism in France and England- Why he is religious-Connection of religion and Liberalism in England- Macaulay's Liberalism-Essay on Church and State.... His passion for political liberty-How he is the orator and historian of the Whig party-Essays on the Revolution and the Stuarts..... His talent-Taste for demonstration-Taste for development-Oratorical character of his mind-Wherein he differs from classic orators-His estimation for par- ticular facts, experiment on the senses, personal reminiscences-Importance of decisive phenomena in every branch of knowledge-Essays on Warren Has- English marks of his talent-Rudeness-Humor-Poetry. His work-Harmony of his talent, opinion, and work-Universality, unity, interest of his history-Picture of the Highlands-James II. in Ireland-The Act of Toleration-The Massacre of Glencoe-Traces of amplification and rhetoric. 640 VIII. Comparison of Macaulay with French historians-Wherein he is classical-Wherein he is English-Intermediate position of his mind between the Latin and the ECCENTRIC AND IMPORTANT POSITION OF CARLYLE IN ENGLAND. IV. Humor-Wherein it consists-It is Germanic-Grotesque and tragic pictures- Dandies and Poor Slaves-The Pigs' Catechism-Extreme tension of his mind Barriers which hold and direct him-Perception of the real and of the sublime.... 654 His passion for exact and demonstrated fact-His search after extinguished feel- -Grandeur and sadness of his visions-How he represents the world after his Every object is a group, and every employment of human thought is the reproduc tion of a group-Two principal modes of reproducing it, and two principal modes of mind-Classification-Intuition-Inconvenience of the second process -It is obscure, hazardous, destitute of proofs-It tends to affectation and ex- aggeration Hardness and presumption which it provokes-Advantages of this kind of mind-Alone capable of reproducing the object-Most favorable to INTRODUCTION OF GERMAN IDEAS IN EUROPE AND ENGLAND-GERMAN Appearance of original forms of mind-How they act and result-Artistic genius Wherein consists the modern and German form of mind-How the aptitude for How each nation may reforge them-Ancient examples: Spain in the sixteenth By what roads these ideas may enter England-Exact and positive mind-Im §3.-PHILOSOPHY, Morality, AND CRITICISM. Sensible things are but appearances-Divine and mysterious character of existence How we may form into one another, positive, poetic, spiritualistic, and mystical ideas-How in Carlyle German metaphysics are altered into English Puri- 56: Moral character of this mysticism-Conception of duty-Conception of God.. Criticism-What weight it gives to writers-What class of writers it exalts-What class of writers it depreciates-His æsthetics-His judgment of Voltaire...... 667 Future of Criticism-Wherein it is contrary to the prejudices of the age and of its Supreme importance of great men-They are revealers-They must be venerated.. 669 Connection between this and the German conception-Wherein Carlyle is imitative His history of Cromwell-Why it is only composed of texts connected by a commentary-Its novelty and worth-How we should consider Cromwell and the Puritans-Importance of Puritanism in modern civilization — - Carlyle His judgment of modern England-Against the taste for comfort and the lukewarm- Criticism of these theories-Dangers of enthusiam-Comparison of Carlyle and Philosophy in England-Organization of positive science-Lack of general ideas 675 Why metaphysics are wanting-Authority of religion.... Indications and splendor of free thought-New exegesis-Stuart Mill-His works -His order of mind-To what school of philosophers he belongs-Value of Object of logic-Wherein it is distinguished from psychology and metaphysics..... 677 The system based on this view of the nature of our knowledge.. Theory of definitions-Its importance-Refutation of the old theory-There are no definitions of things, but of names only.. Theory of proof-Ordinary theory-Its refutation-What is the really funda- 684 Theory of axioms-Ordinary theory-Its refutation-Axioms are only truths of experience of a certain class.. Theory of induction-The cause of a fact is only its invariable antecedent- Comparison of the methods of induction and deduction-Ancient employment of the first-Modern use of the second-Sciences requiring the first-Sciences requiring the second-Positive character of Mill's work-His predecessors.... 698 Limits of our knowledge-It is not certain that all events happen according to laws Theory of definitions-They explain the abstract generating elements of things.... Theory of proof-The basis of proof in syllogism is an abstract law.. Theory of axioms-Axioms are relations between abstract truths-They may be Agreement of this philosophy with the English mind-Alliance of the positive and religious spirits-By what faculty we arrive at the knowledge of causation..... 694 There are no substances or forces, but only facts and laws-Abstraction-Its Theory of induction-Its methods are of elimination or abstraction.. The two great operations of the mind, experience and abstraction-The two great manifestations of things, sensible facts and abstract laws--Why we ought to pass from the first to the second-Meaning and extent of the axiom of causa- It is possible to arrive at the knowledge of first elements-Error of German meta- Talent and work-First attempts-Wherein he was opposed to preceding poets- Wherein he carried on their spirit...... First period-Female characters-Delicacy and refinement of sentiment and style -Variety of his emotions and of his subjects-Literary curiosity and poetic dilettantism-The Dying Swan-The Lotos-Eaters.. Second period-Popularity, good fortune, and life-Permanent sensibility and virgin freshness of the poetic temperament-Wherein he is at one with nature -Locksley Hall-Change of subject and style-Violent outbreak and personal Return of Tennyson to his first style-In Memoriam-Elegance, coldness, and Its pleasures-Display-Conversation-Boldness of mind-Wherein Alfred de Musset suits such a society-Comparison of the two societies and of the two ........... ....... 704 INTRODUCTION. the lustorian might place himself for a given period, say a series of ages, or in the num soul, or with some particular people; he might study, describe, relate, all the events, all the transformations, all the revolutions which had been accomplished in the interna. man; and when he had finished his work, he would have a history of civilization amongs the people and in the period he had selected.-Guizot, Civilization in Europe, p. 25. HISTORY has been transformed, within | into existence all alone. It is but a a hundred years in Germany, within sixty years in France, and that by the study of their literatures. It was perceived that a literary work is not a mere individual play of imagination, the isolated caprice of an excited brain, but a transcript of contemporary manners, a manifestation of a certain kind of mind. It was concluded that we might recover, from the monuments of literature, a knowledge of the manner in which men thought and felt centuries ago. The attempt was made, and it succeeded. Pondering on these modes of feeling and thought, men decided that they were facts of the highest kind. They saw chat these facts bore reference to the most important occurrences, that they explained and were explained by them, that it was necessary thenceforth to give them a rank, and a most important rank, in history. This rank they have received, and from that moment history has undergone a complete change in its subject-matter, its system, its machinery, the appreciation of laws and of causes. It is this change, such as it is and must be, that we shall bere endeavor to exhibit. I. What is your first remark on turning over the great, stiff leaves of a folio, the yellow sheets of a manuscript,- -a poem, a code of laws, a confession of faith? This, you say, did not come mould, like a fossil shell, an imprint, like one of those shapes embossed in stone by an animal which lived and perished. Under the shell there was an animal, and behind the document there was a man. Why do you study the shell, except to bring before you the animal? So you study the document only to know the man. The shell and the document are lifeless wrecks, valuable only as a clue to the entire and living existence. We must get hold of this existence, endeavor to recreate it. It is a mistake to study the document, as if it were isolated. This were to treat things like a simple scholar, to fall into the error of the bibliomaniac. Neither mythology nor languages exist in themselves; but only men, who arrange words and imagery according to the necessities of their organs and the original bent of their intellects. A dogma is nothing in itself; look at the people who have made it,—a portrait, for instance, of the sixteenth century, say the stern powerful face of an English archbishop or martyr. Nothing exists except through some individual man; it is this individual with whom we must become acquainted. When we have established the parentage of dogmas, or the classification of poems, or the progress of constitutions, or the transformation of idioms, we have only cleared the soil: genuine history is brought into exist ence only when the historian begins to unravel, across the lapse of time, the 1 living nan, toiling, impassioned, en- their genealogies on their fingers i trenched in his customs, with his voice order to obtain the right of sitti and features, his gestures and his dress, down in the presence of the King o distinct and complete as he from whom Queen. On that head consult St. S we have just parted in the street. Let mon and the engravings of Pérelle, as us endeavor, then, to annihilate as far for the present age you have consulted as possible this great interval of time, Balzac and the water-colors of Eugène which prevents us from seeing man Lami. Similarly, when we read a with our eyes, with the eyes of our Greek tragedy, our first care should be head. What have we under the fair to realize to ourselves the Greeks, that glazed pages of a modern poem? A is, the men who live half naked, in the modern poet, who has studied and gymnasia, or in the public squares, travelled, a man like Alfred de Musset, under a glowing sky, face to face with Victor Hugo, Lamartine, or Heine, in the most beautiful and the most noble a black coat and gloves, welcomed by landscapes, bent on making their the ladies, and making every evening bodies lithe and strong, on conversing, his fifty bows and his score of bon- discussing, voting, carrying on patri mots in society, reading the papers in otic piracies, nevertheless lazy and tem the morning, lodging as a rule on a perate, with three urns for their furni second floor; not over gay, because he ture, two anchovies in a jar of oil for has nerves, and especially because, in their food, waited on by slaves, so as this dense democracy where we choke to give them leisure to cultivate their one another, the discredit of the dig- understanding and exercise their limbs, nities of office has exaggerated his pre- with no desire beyond that of having tensions while increasing his impor- the most beautiful town, the most tance, and because the keenness of his beautiful processions, the most beauti feelings in general disposes him some-ful ideas, the most beautiful men. what to believe himself a deity. This is what we take note of under modern Meditations or Sonnets. Even so, under a tragedy of the seventeenth century we have a poet, like Racine for instance, elegant, staid, a courtier, a fine talker, with a majestic wig and ribboned shoes, at heart a royalist and a Christian, who says, "God has been so gracious to me, that in whatever company I find myself I never have occasion to blush for the gospel or the xing; "* clever at entertaining the prince, and rendering for him into good French the" old French of Amyot; very respectful to the great, always 'knowing his place; as assiduous and reserved at Marly as at Versailles, amidst the regular pleasures of polished and ornate nature, amidst the salutations, graces, airs, and fopperies of the braided lords, who rose early in the morning to obtain the promise of being appointed to some office in case of the death of the present hoider, and amongst charming ladies who count this subject, a statue such as the Meleager or the Theseus of the Parthenon, or still more, the sight of the Mediterranean, blue and lustrous as a silken tunic, and the islands that stud it with their massive marble outlines: add to these twenty select phrases from Plato and Aristophanes, and they will teach you much more than a multitude of dissertations and commentaries. And so again, in order to understand an Indian Purana, begin by imagining to yourself the father of a family, who, "having seen a son on his son's knees," retires, according to the law, into soli tude, with an axe and a pitcher under a banyan tree, by the brook-side, talks no more, adds fast to fast, dwells naked between four fires, and under that ter rible sun, which devours and renews without end all things living; who, for weeks at a time, fixes his imagination first upon the feet of Brahma, next upon his knee, next upon his thigh, next upon his navel, and so on, unti, beneath the strain of this intense medi tation, hallucinations begin to appear, Mary Wollstonecraft, in her Historical until all the forms of existence, mingled and Moral View of the French Revolution, p: and transformed the one with the other, 25, says, in quoting this passage, "What could be expected from the courtier who could write quaver before a sight dazzled and gid in these terms to Madame de Maintenon.-TR. | dy, until the motionless nan, catching |