which Mr. Carlyle in a dim manner had conceived as the central point of his history, was not immoral. Frederick the Great does differ from such monarchs as Louis XIV. and Gustavus Adolphus in this, that his victories had a real permanent result; they were the starting-point of a nation; and whereas France was ruined by Louis XIV., Prussia must date her career of solid and splendid development from the time of Frederick. This fact certainly points to Mr. Carlyle's conclusion; but it only points to it; it by no means proves it. And, indeed, there is very much to be said on the other side. It might plausibly be argued, that the spur and stimulus of victory was in any case much more likely to be beneficial to the slow German temper than to the quick eagerness of the French. But we are not called upon to argue the matter here; we need only observe, that whenever Mr. Carlyle gets beyond the mere battles of Frederick, his inadequacy is complete and surprising.

And yet this very History of Frederick the Great' supplies clear evidence that the deficiency of Mr. Carlyle in continuous and methodical reasoning results from choice, and not from inability. Nothing can be better, as a lucid summary of a long period of history, than his account of the gradual amalgamation of the intensely complex elements out of which the Prussian monarchy was founded. Nor do we know any history in which battles and military campaigns are so adequately described, with such power of seizing the salient points and impressing them on the reader. No words of praise can be too high for his description of such battles as those of Leuthen and Torgau. Having once read them, it is impossible to forget them. And it is clear, from Mr. Carlyle's character, why he shows this power of method in his military narrations, and nowhere else. Conquests and victories are brilliant and blazing things, and carry their results on the face of them; the region of doubt, of obscurity, of under-currents of purpose and character, of slow, scarce-recognised development, does not exist in respect of them; it is possible to apprehend them completely, and not partially. Political and social history is precisely the reverse of this: the historian, if he is to be just, cannot always be clear of his judgment; many points are necessarily uncertain; a nation, unlike an army, contains throughout its extent large tracts of utter darkness, large tracts of what is still more difficult to deal with, the twilight of semi-obscurity. And this is what Mr. Carlyle will not tolerate, will not even recognise, and therefore utterly fails in dealing with.

Nay, more; he is even angry that such is the case, and imputes

imputes it as a fault to the statesmen of his own day that they cannot take the command of a nation as a general does of his army, and lead it, with unwavering step, to some end, the nature of which he does not precisely specify, but which he dimly feels to be something divine and transcendental. And here we approach that doctrine which is the centre of his political teaching; a doctrine which he himself supposes to be very much more than this; which he gives us as the worthy outcome and perfect flower of the meditations of a lifetime. This is his celebrated doctrine of hero-worship, to which we, indeed, can by no means assign the rank claimed for it by its author. It seems to us a torso, wrought indeed by the hand of genius, and bearing the marks of a chisel that struck fire from the stone in its working, but rude, misshapen, maimed, deformed. And though we are aware that in this gigantesque image Mr. Carlyle intends something far beyond the bounds of mere politics, we shall for the present, for the sake of greater definition, confine ourselves to its political signification. We shall, in short, consider the hero as leading men not simply or chiefly by spiritual influence, but also by material force. It is thus that Mr. Carlyle has of late best loved to contemplate him—as the sword of God, in the splendour of outward action, ruling and chastising the nations.

Now we must guard ourselves against being supposed to assert that this doctrine of hero-worship is, on the political or any other side, untrue. That is not our charge against it. Let us, however, before going further, state as briefly as possible what it is. Mr. Carlyle's exposition of it may be put pretty much as follows:-He desires, first, that the action of a state should be resolute, and directed with clear purpose. But, next, he sees that it is impossible to have a perfectly clear purpose perfectly carried out, except under the guidance of one man, who both conceives and executes. Nothing can be more true; for though many men may nominally be actuated by a single purpose, there will always be differences in the way of conceiving that purpose which will blur and weaken the action. Hence Mr. Carlyle demands a head or governor of a state in whose mind the full purpose of the state, which by others is conceived imperfectly and inadequately, should represent itself completely, as in a mirror; he demands that the effort of all should persons be to recognise this man, or the man who comes nearest to this ideal, to set him at their head, obey him themselves, and provide him with sufficient force to put down those who, from their selfish and partial view, oppose themselves to his wiser plan. He is specially indignant with those who think that a Vol. 132.-No. 264. nation

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nation can be guided infallibly into the right course by the machinery of Parliaments or Congresses, or by any device which makes the final decision to rest with a majority of the nation, simply because they are the majority, without any effort to obtain the judgment of those who are most competent to decide. He demands that there shall be in every case a clear and wise design; and he insists that the wisest design can in its full compass be only comprehended by the one Wisest Man, whom all other men must call to the helm of the state. More than this; he would have, in every portion of society, the inferior natures avowedly guided by the higher, as these would be guided by those higher than themselves, till the whole culminated in that single man whom all the rest judged to be most eminent among them.

Now let it be observed that this theory is not, as it is often represented to be, a theory of mere despotism. There is a vast difference between saying that all nations should use their utmost endeavours to gain a Head, a Wisest Man, in whom they can trust; and saying that every nation which is governed by a single strong despot has a government which can be approved of. The theory does not even say that every nation should immediately choose for itself a single individual as its head; but only that this is the ideal state of things. Secondly, it is at the very farthest possible distance from any theory that would sanction castes, or the hereditary domination of an aristocratical class, or even the hereditary descent of a monarchy from a king to his descendants; for instance, take the following passage from the Latter-day Pamphlets':

"This question always rises as the alpha and omega of social questions, What methods the Society has of summoning aloft into the high places, for its help and governance, the wisdom that is born to it in all places, and of course is born chiefly in the more populous or lower places? For this, if you will consider it, expresses the ultimate available result, and net sum-total, of all the efforts, struggles and confused activities that go on in the Society; and determines whether they are true and wise efforts, certain to be victorious, or false and foolish, certain to be futile, and to fall captive and caitiff. How do men rise in your Society? In all Societies, Turkey included, and I suppose Dahomey included, men do rise; but the question of questions always is, What kind of men? Men of noble gifts, or men of ignoble? * -Stump Orator.

No republican could express more strongly that cardinal doctrine of republicanism-the essential equality of rights in men, born in whatever rank.

But, thirdly, in spite of Mr. Carlyle's sense of the importance

of

of unity of purpose in the head of the state, he is well aware that his Hero, or Wisest Man, will need the advice, information, and assistance of others who are inferior to himself. And thus Parliaments have a place in his system; for, though he has written much against Parliaments as they actually are, it is erroneous to imagine that he would assign them no function whatever. This will be apparent from the following passages in the 'Latter-day Pamphlets':

'To King Rufus there could no more natural method present itself, of getting his affairs of sovereignty transacted, than this same. To assemble all his working Sub-kings about him; and gather in a human manner, by the aid of sad speech and of cheerful, what their real notions, opinions, and determinations were. No way of making a law, or of getting one executed when made, except by even such a General Consult in one form or another. Naturally too, as in all places where men meet, there established themselves modes of proceeding in this Christmas Parliamentum. . . So likewise, in the time of the Edwards, when Parliament gradually split itself in Two Houses; and Borough Members and Knights of the Shire were summoned up to answer, Whether they could stand such and such an impost? and took upon them to answer, "Yes, your Majesty; but we have such and such grievances greatly in need of redress first "-nothing could be more natural and human than such a Parliament still was. And so, grant

ing subsidies, stating grievances, and notably widening its field in that latter direction, accumulating new modes, and practices of Parliament greatly important in world-history, the old Parliament continued an eminently human, veracious, and indispensable entity, achieving real work in the centuries.'-Parliaments.

And so in the following passage from the same pamphlet, which is one of the few pieces of long well-sustained argument in Mr. Carlyle's writings:

'Votes of men are worth collecting, if convenient. True, their opinions are generally of little wisdom, and can on occasion reach to all conceivable and inconceivable degrees of folly; but their instincts, where these can be deciphered, are wise and human; these, hidden under the noisy utterance of what they call their opinions, are the unspoken sense of man's heart, and well deserve attending to. Know well what the people inarticulately feel, for the Law of Heaven itself is dimly written there; nay do not neglect, if you have opportunity, to ascertain what they vote and say. One thing the stupidest multitude at a hustings can do, provided only it be sincere: Inform you how it likes this man or that, this proposed law or that. . . . Beyond doubt it will be useful, will be indispensable, for the King or Governor to know what the mass of men think upon public questions legislative and administrative; what they will assent to willingly, what unwillingly; what they will resist with superficial discontents and remonstrances, what with obstinate determination, with riot, perhaps with

armed rebellion. To which end, Parliaments, free presses, and such like, are excellent; they keep the Governor fully aware of what the people, wisely or foolishly, think. Without in some way knowing it with moderate exactitude, he has not a possibility to govern at all. For example, the Chief Governor of Constantinople, having no Parliament to tell it him, knows it only by the frequency of incendiary fires in his capital, the frequency of bakers hanged at their shop lintels; a most inferior ex-post-facto method!'

It will be seen that in spite of Mr. Carlyle's prepossession for his supreme ruler, he is well aware that parliaments and peoples have a power of their own, which on occasions they may justifiably use, even against their monarch. And with this admission Mr. Carlyle's theory may be said to close.

There is really nothing to be said against it. It is all true; it may all be granted at once. Let Mr. Carlyle proceed; we wait for his next step. He gives it. Take your hero, and put him at the head of affairs. Here we demur. We have accepted Mr. Carlyle's view as an ideal; but it is an ideal, as we shall immediately show, which, though it may indirectly guide us, cannot be taken as a direct aim for our efforts. There is one important preliminary necessity. Mr. Carlyle has surely forgotten the first sentence of Mrs. Glasse's invaluable receipt for cooking a hare,—' First catch your hare.' In giving us a receipt for the salvation of society, which receipt has a hero for its principal ingredient, he is bound, we submit, to give us information on this primary point: How we are to catch our hero. Should we elect him by a plébiscite? Is it to the Prime Minister that we must hand over the absolute command of the national forces? or, perchance, is it too bold a guess that it is in Chelsea that the hero is to be found? Will Mr. Carlyle accept the post himself?

To speak seriously; a hero, a man who reaches to the height and length and breadth of his generation; who dominates by right of genius the intellect and will of his contemporaries, is the gift of Heaven. It is not by our wishing that he will come, neither will he depart from us because we may be unwilling to accept him. The age, the nation, which has such a man is happy above other ages and nations; yet the age or nation that has him not may have much of honest worth, and may be loved by us equally, though admired less. And far better is it for the age or nation that has him not to acquiesce in its own inferiority, and not set up a spasmodic strain for a phantasm of heroism.

This is what is so pernicious in the practical result of Mr. Carlyle's teaching; he has forced himself and others to find a

hero