thought that they were
more human than other men. The evil side of the influence of Carlyle and
his religion of hero worship did not consist in the emotional worship of
valour and success; that was a part of him, as, indeed, it is a part of
all healthy children. Where Carlyle really did harm was in the fact that
he, more than any modern man, is responsible for the increase of that
modern habit of what is vulgarly called 'Going the whole hog.' Often in
matters of passion and conquest it is a singularly hoggish hog. This
remarkable modern craze for making one's philosophy, religion, politics,
and temper all of a piece, of seeking in all incidents for opportunities
to assert and reassert some favourite mental attitude, is a thing which
existed comparatively little in other centuries. Solomon and Horace,
Petrarch and Shakespeare were pessimists when they were melancholy, and
optimists when they were happy. But the optimist of to-day seems obliged
to prove that gout and unrequited love make him dance with joy, and the
pessimist of to-day to prove that sunshine and a good supper convulse
him with inconsolable anguish. Carlyle was strongly possessed with this
mania for spiritual consistency. He wished to take the same view of the
wars of the angels and of the paltriest riot at Donnybrook Fair. It was
this species of insane logic which led him into his chief errors, never
his natural enthusiasms. Let us take an example. Carlyle's defence of
slavery is a thoroughly ridiculous thing, weak alike in argument and in
moral instinct. The truth is, that he only took it up from the passion
for applying everywhere his paradoxical defence of aristocracy. He
blundered, of course, because he did not see that slavery has nothing in
the world to do with aristocracy, that it is, indeed, almost its
opposite. The defence which Carlyle and all its thoughtful defenders
have made for aristocracy was that a few persons could more rapidly and
firmly decide public affairs in the interests of the people. But slavery
is not even supposed to be a government for the good of the governed. It
is a possession of the governed avowedly for the good of the governors.
Aristocracy uses the strong for the service of the weak; slavery uses
the weak for the service of the strong. It is no derogation to man as a
spiritual being, as Carlyle firmly believed he was, that he should be
ruled and guided for his own good like a child--for a child who is
always ruled and guid