The Religion of Thomas Carlyle.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3849, 30 April 1881, Page 1

The Religion of Thomas Carlyle.

The death of the greatest English man of letters of the nineteenth century has' called forth many obituary notices which have appeared in London journals. One of--the most thoughtful of these essays, and dealing with a phase of Thomas Carlyle's life that has given rise to much interesting speculation, is to be found in the Sfc. James?s Gazette. Space; is. wanting to.reprint the whole article,:and. we must be content with extracting the following quotations :i—" In the first place, it must be obvious to everyone who reads his books with the least attention that from an early age Mr Carlyle entirely ceased to believe, in its only true sense, the creed he had been taught. He never affected to believe it in any other sense, for he was far too manly aud simple minded to care to frame any of those Bemi-honest transmutations of the old doctrines into new-fangled mysticism which had so great a, charm for many of hi« weaker contemporaries. On the other hand, it is equally true that he never avowed his unb.elief. The line lie took up was that Christianity, though not true • in. fact, bad a right to be regarded as the noblest #aspiration after a theory of the universe and of human life ever formed ; and that the Calvinistic version of Christianity was, on the whole, the best it ever assumed, and the one which represented the largest proportion of truth and the least amount of error. He also thought that the truths which Calvinism tried to express,, and succeeded in expressing in an imperfect and partially mistaken manner, were the ultimate governing principles of morals and politics; adherence to which is the indispeusible condition of all that is great and good both in nations and individuals. Lastly, he thought, with increasing emphasis as time went'on, that these truths were systematically neglected or denied by the age iv which he lived—that they were being more and more neglected, and- that nothing but evil would come of it." After. rWuir. the reasons why FSad he done so sixty years aeo he would not only have starved, but lost all his influence, the writer goes on to say —'' What, then was his creed r What were the doctrines which in his view Calvinism shadowed forth, SSSk were so inanitely true, soennobhng rhuroan life ? First, he believed mGpd; • AAW he believed in an absolute oppo- : Sv and evil-life being ?hf^^ i« mysterious struggle S/eTtbe two he believed that all men do, in fact, take sides more or less decisively in this great struggle, and ultimately turn out to be either good or bnd; fourthly, he believed that good is stronger than evir, and by infinitelys low degrees gets the better of it, but that; tibia process is so Slow as to be continually obscured and thrown back bj; cv.l influences of various ti^s-one ot wb oh he believed to be specially powerfu in the was not, indeed, a personal being hke the Christian God-stiU less was he in any sense identified with Jesua Christ -who, though always spoteen of with rather?

does not apraaKto have.specially influenced him/ Tte 'God in;which Mr Cariyle "believed is, as for as can he ascertamed, a Being possessing, in some sense or other, wifi and consciousness, and perHHiriine rthe f elementary principles of morala--Jattiee,; Benerolence (towards eood people), fortitude and temperance -rto s«ch> a pitch that they may be regarded, «o to speak, as forming colleclirely the will of God, or the laws imposed upon or the standard proposed to, human life by God. But there is some one who— whether by the earthquake or the fire, or the still Ismail yoi'ce-^is continually calling to mankind, "JDiscile ju'stitiam roo'niti:' »nd that this 1 Being is the ultimate fact at which we. can' arrive—the Supreme Being in the etymological sense pt the words-is what Mr C-rJyle seems to hare meant by believing ls± God- And if any one will take the trouble to refer to the first few sentences of the Westminster Confession, and to direst them ot their references to Christiamtyand to tbe Bible, he will find-that between the o*od of Calvin and the God "of Cariyle there is the closest possible similarity. Calvin •poTte in tbe terms ot that theology which he supposed to be the science of sciences. Cariyle had to betakchimself to metaphor and poetry.'; But-tnrt intensely strong conception of moral virtue in the form of an ultimate omnipotent person,' br.'some* thing -if possible transcending personal existence, is common to both. It is wresi nt everywhere in Mr Carlyle's earlier books• in " Sartor Eesartus," in " Past "MmV'Tresent," in the "History of the French Revolution," in' " Heroes and .Hero Worship," and in many others ; in all of which it Las something of the effect of an electric light in a Londtin fog— intense, impressive, flickering and uncertain. . This doctrine involves the other doctrines above, stated. If there be a God such as this, the great fact about each particular man is the relation, whether of friendship or enmity, in which he stands^to God.- In the one case he is on the side which must ultimately prevail: be is united by the strongest of ties to God and to all good men. In the other cave he is the enemy of all that is good, and will in due time be crushed and destroyed. Moreover, each particular man being what he is, his true relation to the universe in which he lives can be ascertained only by experiment. We »«"hav.e to live out our lives, every detail of which results from the interaction of character and circumstance; just as the polish on a stone depends on the relation between the structure of the jtoneand the hardness of the wheel on which it is ground. Our lives show us in our true colour. One , man is a Cromwell, another a Frederick, another a Goethe, a fourth a Louis XT, God hates Louis XV., and loves Cromwell. Why, if bo, he made Louis. X%, and indeed, whether he made him or not, are idle questions which cannot be answered and should not be asked. There are good men and bad men: ail pass alike through this mysterious Hall of Doom called life ; most .show themselves in their true colours under pressure. The' good are blessed here and hereafter ; the bad are accursed. Let us bring out as far as may be possible such good as a man has in him, and has had in him since his origin. Let us strike down the bad to the hell that gapes for him. Let us if we can, land "aßxfar v as we, can, 1 establish -•and uphold the dominion of right over all things and people, especially over those who are easy-going and indifferent.' This, we think, or something like this, was Mr Carlyle's translation of election and predestination into politics and morals. There is a strong resemblance between the two.- There is not much pity and no salvation worth speaking of in either body of doctrine ; but there is a strange and what some might regard as a terrible parallelism between these doctrines and the inferences that may be drawn from physical science. The survival of the fittest has much in common with the doctrine of election ; and philosophical necessity, as summed up in what we now call evolution, comes practically to much the same result as predestination. 'Mr Carlyle's dogmatic turn may be traced much more distinctly in his earlier than in his later and more elaborate works. The creed he held is one which it is easier to point at, to illustrate, and to assume, than to expound in a systematic form; nor was systematic exposition ever Mr Carlyle's" forte. His quickness,, his brilliancy, and extraordinary gifts of perception and conjecture made him impatient of the labor of systematic thought; and there can, we think, be little doubt that one of the great attractions which ultimately led him to devote himself principally, if not entirely, to history, was the opportunity it gave for hinting at, assuming, and illustrating the truth of bis - favorite doctrines."—-S. Advertiser.