Bot-S: Vol 25: The Classics

And thus is kept up a 
state of things very satisfactory to some minds, because, 
without the unpleasant process of fining or imprisoning any- 
body, it maintains all prevailing opinions outwardly undis- 
turbed, while it does not absolutely interdict the exercise of 
reason by dissentients afflicted with the malady of thought. 
A convenient plan for having peace in the intellectual world, 
and keeping all things going on therein very much as they 
do already. But the price paid for this sort of intellectual 
pacification, is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of 
the human mind. A state of things in which a large portion 
of the most active and inquiring intellects find it advisable 
to keep the genuine principles and grounds of their convic- 
tions within their own breasts, and attempt, in what they 
address to the public, to fit as much as they can of their own 
conclusions to premises which they have internally re- 
nounced, cannot send forth the open, fearless characters, and 



236 JOHN STUART MILL 

logical, consistent intellects who once adorned the thinking 
world. The sort of men who can be looked for under it, are 
either mere conformers to commonplace, or time-servers 
for truth whose arguments on all great subjects are meant 
for their hearers, and are not those which have convinced 
themselves. Those who avoid this alternative, do so by 
narrowing their thoughts and interests to things which can 
be spoken of without venturing within the region of princi- 
ples, that is, to small practical matters, which would come 
right of themselves, if but the minds of mankind were 
strengthened and enlarged, and which will never be made 
effectually right until then; while that which would strength- 
en and enlarge men's minds, free and daring speculation on 
the highest subjects, is abandoned. 

Those in whose eyes this reticence on the part of heretics 
is no evil, should consider in the first place, that in conse- 
quence of it there is never any fair and thorough discussion 
of heretical opinions; and that such of them as could not 
stand such a discussion, though they may be prevented from 
spreading, do not disappear. But it is not the minds of 
heretics that are deteriorated most, by the ban placed on 
all inquiry which does not end in the orthodox conclusions. 
The greatest harm done is to those who are not heretics, and 
whose whole mental development is cramped, and their rea- 
son cowed, by the fear of heresy. Who can compute what 
the world loses in the multitude of promising intellects com- 
bined with timid characters, who dare not follow out any 
bold, vigorous, independent train of thought, lest it should 
land them in something which would admit of being com- 
sidered irreligious or immoral? Among them we may occa- 
sionally see some man of deep conscientiousness, and subtile 
and refined understanding, who spends a life in sophisticat- 
ing with an intellect which he cannot silence, and exhausts 
the resources of ingenuity in attempting to reconcile the 
promptings of his conscience and reason with orthodoxy, 
which yet he does not, perhaps, to the end succeed in doing. 
No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize, that 
as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to what- 
ever conclusions it may lead. Truth gains more even by the 
errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks 



ON LIBERTY 237 

for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only 
hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think. 
Not that it is solely, or chiefly, to form great thinkers, that 
freedom of thinking is required. On the contrary, it is as 
much, and even more indispensable, to enable average hu- 
man beings to attain the mental stature which they are capa- 
ble of. There have been, and may again be, great individual 
thinkers, in a general atmosphere of mental slavery. But 
there never has been, nor ever will be, in that atmosphere, 
an intellectually active people. Where any people has made 
a temporary approach to such a character, it has been be- 
cause the dread of heterodox speculation was for a time sus- 
pended. Where there is a tacit convention that principles 
are not to be disputed; where the discussion of the greatest 
questions which can occupy humanity is considered to be 
closed, w^e cannot hope to find that generally high scale of 
mental activity which has made some periods of history so 
remarkable. Never when controversy avoided the subjects 
which are large and important enough to kindle enthusiasm, 
was the mind of a people stirred up from its foundations, 
and the impulse giyen which raised even persons of the most 
ordinary intellect to something of the dignity of thinking 
beings. Of such we have had an example in the condition 
of Europe during the times immediately following the Ref- 
ormation; another, though limited to the Continent and to 
a more cultivated class, in the speculative movement of the 
latter half of the eighteenth century; and a third, of still 
briefer duration, in the intellectual fermentation of Ger- 
many during the Goethian and Fichtean period. These 
periods differed widely in the particular opinions which they 
developed ; but were alike in this, that during all three the yoke 
of authority was broken. In each, an old mental despotism 
had been thrown off, and no new one had yet taken its place. 
The impulse given at these three periods has made Europe 
what it now is. Every single improvement which has taken 
place either in the human mind or in institutions, may be 
traced distinctly to one or other of them. Appearances have 
for some time indicated that all three impulses are well-nigh 
spent; and we can expect no fresh start, until we again 
assert our mental freedom. 



238 JOHN STUART MILL 

Let us now pass to the second division of the argtlitient, 
and dismissing the supposition that any of the received 
opinions may be false, let us assume them to be true, and 
examine into the worth of the manner in which they are 
likely to be held, when their truth is not freely and openly 
canvassed. However unwillingly a person who has a strong 
opinion may admit the possibility that his opinion may be 
false, he ought to be moved by the consideration that how- 
ever true it may be, if it is not fully, frequently, and fear- 
lessly discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma, not a living 
truth. 

There is a class of persons (happily not quite so numerous 
as formerly) who think it enough if a person assents un- 
doubtingly to what they think true, though he has no knowl- 
edge whatever of the grounds of the opinion, and could 
not make a tenable defence of it against the most super- 
ficial objections. Such persons, if they can once get their 
creed taught from authority, naturally think that no good, 
and some harm, comes of its being allowed to be questioned. 
Where their influence prevails, they make it nearly impossi- 
ble for the received opinion to be rejected wisely and con- 
siderately, though it may still be rejected rashly and igno- 
rantly ; for to shut out discussion entirely is seldom possible, 
and when it once gets in, beliefs not grounded on conviction 
are apt to give way before the slightest semblance of an 
argument. Waiving, however, this possibility — assuming 
that the true opinion abides in the mind, but abides as a 
prejudice, a belief independent of, and proof against, argu- 
ment — this is not the way in which truth ought to be held 
by a rational being. This is not knowing the truth. Truth, 
thus held, is but one superstition the more, accidentally 
clinging to the words which enunciate a truth. 

If the intellect and judgment of mankind ought to be cul- 
tivated, a thing which Protestants at least do not deny, on 
what can these faculties be more appropriately exercised by 
any one, than on the things which concern him so much that 
it is considered necessary for him to hold opinions on them ? 
If the cultivation of the understanding consists in one thing 
more than in another, it is surely in learning the grounds of 
one's own opinions. Whatever people believe, on subjects on 



ON LIBERTY 239 

which It is of the first importance to believe rightly, they 
ought to be able to defend against at least the common ob- 
jections. But, some one may say, " Let them be taught the 
grounds of their opinions. It does not follow that opinions 
must be merely parroted because they are never heard con- 
troverted. Persons who learn geometry do not simply com- 
mit the theorems to memory, but understand and learn like- 
wise the demonstrations ; and it would be absurd to say that 
they remain ignorant of the grounds of geometrical truths, 
because they never hear any one deny, and attempt to dis- 
prove them." Undoubtedly: and such teaching suffices on a 
subject like mathematics, where there is nothing at all to be 
said on the wrong side of the question. The peculiarity of 
the evidence of mathematical truths is, that all the argu- 
ment is on one side. There are no objections, and no 
answers to objections. But on every subject on which dif- 
ference of opinion is possible, the truth depends on a balance 
to be struck between two sets of conflicting reasons. Even 
in natural philosophy, there is always some other explana- 
tion possible of the same facts; some geocentric theory in- 
stead of heliocentric, some phlogiston instead of oxygen; 
and it has to be shown why that other theory cannot be the 
true one: and until this is shown and until we know how it 
is shown, we do not understand the grounds of our opinion. 
But when we turn to subjects infinitely more complicated, 
to morals, religion, politics, social relations, and the business 
of life, three-fourths of the arguments for every disputed 
opinion consist in dispelling the appearances which favor 
some opinion different from it. The greatest orator, save 
one, of antiquity, has left it on record that he always 
studied his adversary's case with as great, if not with still 
greater, intensity than even his own. What Cicero practised 
as the means of forensic success, requires to be imitated by 
all who study any subject in order to arrive at the truth. 
He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little 
of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have 
been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to 
refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so 
much as know what they are, he has no ground for pre- 
ferring either opinion. The rational position for him 



240 JOHN STUART MILL 

would be suspension of judgment, and unless he contents 
himself with that, he is either led by authority, or adopts, 
like the generality of the world, the side to which he feels 
most inclination. Nor is it enough that he should hear the 
arguments of adversaries from his own teachers, presented 
as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as 
refutations. This is not the way to do justice to the argu- 
ments, or bring them into real contact with his own mind. 
He must be able to hear them from persons who actually 
believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their 
very utmost for them. He must know them in their most 
plausible and persuasive form ; he must feel the whole force 
of the difficulty which the true view of the subject has to 
encounter and dispose of, else he will never really possess 
himself of the portion of truth which meets and removes 
that difficulty. Ninety-nine in a hundred of what are called 
educated men are in this condition, even of those who can 
argue fluently for their opinions. Their conclusion may be 
true, but it might be false for anything they know: they 
have never thrown themselves into the mental position of 
those who think differently from them, and considered what 
such persons may have to say; and consequently they do 
not, in any proper sense of the word, know the doctrine 
which they themselves profess. They do not know those 
parts of it which explain and justify the remainder; the con- 
siderations which show that a fact which seemingly con- 
flicts with another is reconcilable with it, or that, of two 
apparently strong reasons, one and not the other ought to 
be preferred. All that part of the truth which turns the 
scale, and decides the judgment of a completely informed 
mind, they are strangers to ; nor is it ever really known, but 
to those who have attended equally and impartially to both 
sides, and endeavored to see the reasons of both in the 
strongest light. So essential is this discipline to a real un- 
derstanding of moral and human subjects, that if opponents 
of all important truths do not exist, it is indispensable 
to imagine them and supply them with the strongest 
arguments which the most skilful devil's advocate can 
conjure up. 

To abate the force of these considerations, an enemy 



ON LIBERTY 241 

of free discussion may be supposed to say, that there is no 
necessity for mankind in general to know and understand 
all that can be said against or for their opinions by philos- 
ophers and theologians. That it is not needful for common 
men to be able to expose all the misstatements or fallacies 
of an ingenious opponent. That it is enough if there is 
always somebody capable of answering them, so that nothing 
likely to mislead uninstructed persons remains unrefuted. 
That simple minds, having been taught the obvious grounds 
of the truths inculcated on them, may trust to authority for 
the rest, and being aware that they have neither knowledge 
nor talent to resolve every difficulty which can be raised, 
may repose in the assurance that all those which have been 
raised have been or can be answered, by those who are 
specially trained to the task. 

Conceding to this view of the subject the utmost that can 
be claimed for it by those most easily satisfied with the 
amount of understanding of truth which ought to accom- 
pany the belief of it; even so, the argument for free 
discussion is no way weakened. For even this doctrine 
acknowledges that mankind ought to have a rational assur- 
ance that all objections have been satisfactorily answered; 
and how are they to be answered if that which requires to 
be answered is not spoken ? or how can the answer be known 
to be satisfactory, if the objectors have no opportunity of 
showing that it is unsatisfactory? If not the public, at least 
t'he philosophers and theologians who are to resolve the 
difficulties, must make themselves familiar with those diffi- 
culties in their most puzzling form; and this cannot be ac- 
complished unless they are freely stated, and placed in the 
most advantageous light which they admit of. The Catholic 
Church has its own way of dealing with this embarrassing 
problem. It makes a broad separation between those who 
can be permitted to receive its doctrines on conviction, and 
those who must accept them on trust. Neither, indeed, are 
allowed any choice as to what they will accept; but the 
clergy, such at least as can be fully confided in, may ad- 
missibly and meritoriously make themselves acquainted with 
the arguments of opponents, in order to answer them, and 
may, therefore, read heretical books; the laity, not unless 



242 JOHN STUART MILL 

by special permission, hard to be obtained. This discipline 
recognizes a knowledge of the enemy's case as beneficial to 
the teachers, but finds means, consistent with this, of deny- 
ing it to the rest of the world : thus giving to the elite more 
mental culture, though not more mental freedom, than it 
allows to the mass. By this device it succeeds in obtaining 
the kind of mental superiority which its purposes require; 
for though culture without freedom never made a large and 
liberal mind, it can make a clever nisi prius advocate of a 
cause. But in countries professing Protestantism, this re- 
source is denied; since Protestants hold, at least in theory, 
that the responsibility for the choice of a religion must be 
borne by each for himself, and cannot be thrown off upon 
teachers. Besides, in the present state of the world, it is 
practically impossible that writings which are read by the in- 
structed can be kept from the uninstructed. If the teachers 
of mankind are to be cognizant of all that they ought to 
know, everything must be free to be written and published 
without restraint. 

If, however, the mischievous operation of the absence of 
free discussion, when the received opinions are true, were 
confined to leaving men ignorant of the grounds of those 
opinions, it might be thought that this, if an intellectual, is 
no moral evil, and does not affect the worth of the opinions, 
regarded in their influence on the character. The fact, 
however, is, that not only the grounds of the opinion are 
forgotten in the absence of discussion, but too often the 
meaning of the opinion itself. The words which convey it, 
cease to suggest ideas, or suggest only a small portion of 
those they were originally employed to communicate. In- 
stead of a vivid conception and a living belief, there remain 
only a few phrases retained by rote; or, if any part, the 
shell and husk only of the meaning is retained, the finer 
essence being lost. The great chapter in human history 
which this fact occupies and fills, cannot be too earnestly 
studied and meditated on. 

It is illustrated in the experience of almost all ethical doc- 
trines and religious creeds. They are all full of meaning 
and vitality to those who originate them, and to the direct 
disciples of the originators. Their meaning continues to 



\ 

\ 

\ 



ON LIBERTY 243 

be felt in undiminished strength, and is perhaps brought out 
into even fuller consciousness, so long as the struggle lasts 
to give the doctrine or creed an ascendency over other 
creeds. At last it either prevails, and becomes the general 
opinion, or its progress stops; it keeps possession of the 
ground it has gained, but ceases to spread further. When 
either of these results has become apparent, controversy on 
the subject flags, and gradually dies away. The doctrine 
has taken its place, if not as a received opinion, as one of 
the admitted sects or divisions of opinion: those who hold 
it have generally inherited, not adopted it; and conversion 
from one of these doctrines to another, being now an ex- 
ceptional fact, occupies little place in the thoughts of their 
professors. Instead of being, as at first, constantly on the 
alert either to defend themselves against the world, or to 
bring the world over to them, they have subsided into ac- 
quiescence, and neither listen, when they can help it, to 
arguments against their creed, nor trouble dissentients (if 
there be such) with arguments in its favor. From this time 
may usually be dated the decline in the living power of the 
doctrine. We often hear the teachers of all creeds lament- 
ing the difficulty of keeping up in the minds of believers a 
lively apprehension of the truth which they nominally recog- 
nize, so that it may penetrate the feelings, and acquire a real 
mastery over the conduct. No such difficulty is complained 
of while the creed is still fighting for its existence : even the 
weaker combatants then know and feel what they are fight- 
ing for, and the difference between it and other doctrines; 
and in that period of every creed's existence, not a few 
persons may be found, who have realized its fundamental 
principles in all the forms of thought, have weighed and 
considered them in all their important bearings, and have 
experienced the full effect on the character, which belief in 
that creed ought to produce in a mind thoroughly imbued 
with it. But when it has come to be an hereditary creed, 
and to be received passively, not actively — when the mind 
is no longer compelled, in the same degree as at first, to 
exercise its vital powers on the questions which its belief 
presents to it, there is a progressive tendency to forget all 
of the belief except the formularies, or to give it a dull and 



244 JOHN STUART MILL 

torpid assent, as if accepting it on trust dispensed with the 
necessity of realizing it in consciousness, or testing it by 
personal experience; until it almost ceases to connect itself 
at all with the inner life of the human being. Then are seen 
the cases, so frequent in this age of the world as almost to 
form the majority, in which the creed remains as it were out- 
side the mind, encrusting and petrifying it against all other 
influences addressed to the higher parts of our nature ; mani- 
festing its power by not suffering any fresh and living con- 
viction to get in, but itself doing nothing for the mind or 
heart, except standing sentinel over them to keep them 
vacant. 

To what an extent doctrines intrinsically fitted to make 
the deepest impression upon the mind may remain in it as 
dead beliefs, without being ever realized in the imagination, 
the feelings, or the understanding, is exemplified by the 
manner in which the majority of believers hold the doctrines 
of Christianity. By Christianity I here mean what is ac- 
counted such by all churches and sects — the maxims and pre- 
cepts contained in the New Testament. These are consid- 
ered sacred, and accepted as laws, by all professing Chris- 
tians. Yet it is scarcely too much to say that not one Chris- 
tian in a thousand guides or tests his individual conduct by 
reference to those laws. The standard to which he does re- 
fer it, is the custom of his nation, his class, or his religious 
profession. He has thus, on the one hand, a collection of 
ethical maxims, which he believes to have been vouchsafed 
to him by infallible wisdom as rules for his government ; and 
on the other, a set of every-day judgments and practices, 
which go a certain length with some of those maxims, not 
so great a length with others, stand in direct opposition to 
some, and are, on the whole, a compromise between the 
Christian creed and the interests and suggestions of worldly 
life. To the first of these standards he gives his homage; 
to the other his real allegiance. All Christians believe that 
the blessed are the poor and humble, and those who are ill- 
used by the world; that it is easier for a camel to pass 
through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter 
the kingdom of heaven ; that they should judge not, lest they 
be judged; that they should swear not at all; that they 



ON LIBERTY 245 

should love their neighbor as themselves; that if one take 
their cloak, they should give him their coat also; that they 
should take no thought for the morrow; that if they would 
be perfect, they should sell all that they have and give it to 
the poor. They are not insincere when they say that they 
believe these things. They do believe them, as people be- 
lieve what they have always heard lauded and never dis- 
cussed. But in the sense of that living belief which regu- 
lates conduct, they believe these doctrines just up to the 
point to which it is usual to act upon them. The doctrines 
in their integrity are serviceable to pelt adversaries with; 
and it is understood that they are to be put forward (when 
possible) as the reasons for whatever people do that they 
think laudable. But any one who reminded them that the 
maxims require an infinity of things which they never even 
think of doing would gain nothing but to be classed among 
those very unpopular characters who affect to be better than 
other people. The doctrines have no hold on ordinary be- 
lievers — are not a power in their minds. They have an 
habitual respect for the sound of them, but no feeling 
which spreads from the words to the things signified, and 
forces the mind to take them in, and make them conform 
to the formula. Whenever conduct is concerned, they look 
round for Mr. A and B to direct them how far to go in 
obeying Christ. 

Now we may be well assured that the case was not thus, 
but far otherwise, with the early Christians. Had it been 
thus, Christianity never would have expanded from an ob- 
scure sect of the despised Hebrews into the religion of the 
Roman empire. When their enemies said, " See how these 
Christians love one another" (a remark not likely to be 
made by anybody now), they assuredly had a much livelier 
feeling of the meaning of their creed than they have ever 
had since. And to this cause, probably, it is chiefly owing 
that Christianity now makes so little progress in extending 
its domain, and after eighteen centuries, is still nearly con- 
fined to Europeans and the descendants of Europeans. Even 
with the strictly religious, who are much in earnest about 
their doctrines, and attach a greater amount of meaning to 
many of them than people in general, it commonly happens 



246 JOHN STUART MILL 

that the part which is thus comparatively active in their 
minds is that which was made by Calvin, or Knox, or some 
such person much nearer in character to themselves. The 
sayings of Christ coexist passively in their minds, producing 
hardly any effect beyond what is caused by mere listening to 
words so amiable and bland. There are many reasons, 
doubtless, why doctrines which are the badge of a sect retain 
more of their vitality than those common to all recognized 
sects, and why more pains are taken by teachers to keep 
their meaning alive; but one reason certainly is, that the 
peculiar doctrines are more questioned, and have to be 
oftener defended against open gainsayers. Both teachers 
and learners go to sleep at their post, as soon as there is 
no enemy in the field. 

The same thing holds true, generally speaking, of all tra- 
ditional doctrines — those of prudence and knowledge of life, 
as well as of morals or religion. All languages and litera- 
tures are full of general observations on life, both as to what 
it is, and how to conduct oneself in it; observations which 
everybody knows, which everybody repeats, or hears with 
acquiescence, which are received as truisms, yet of which 
most people first truly learn the meaning, when experience, 
generally of a painful kind, has made it a reality to them. 
How often, when smarting under some unforeseen misfor- 
tune or disappointment, does a person call to mind some 
proverb or common saying familiar to him all his life, the 
meaning of which, if he had ever before felt it as he does 
now, would have saved him from the calamity. There are 
indeed reasons for this, other than the absence of discussion : 
there are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be 
realized, until personal experience has brought it home. 
But much more of the meaning even of these would have 
been understood, and what was understood would have been 
far more deeply impressed on the mind, if the man had been 
accustomed to hear it argued pro and con by people who did 
understand it. The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off 
thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful, is the 
cause of half their errors. A contemporary author has well 
spoken of ^" the deep slumber of a decided opinion.'' 

But what! (it may be asked) Is the absence of unanimity 



ON LIBERTY 247 

an indispensable condition of true knowledge? Is it neces- 
sary that some part of mankind should persist in error, to 
enable any to realize the truth? Does a belief cease to be 
real and vital as soon as it is generally received — and is a 
proposition never thoroughly understood and felt unless 
some doubt of it remains? As soon as mankind have 
unanimously accepted a truth, does the truth perish within 
them? The highest aim and best result of improved intelli- 
gence, it has hitherto been thought, is to unite mankind more 
and more in the acknowledgment of all important truths: 
and does the intelligence only last as long as it has not 
achieved its object? Do the fruits of conquest perish by 
the very completeness of the victory? 

I affirm no such thing. As mankind improve, the number 
of doctrines which are no longer disputed or doubted will be 
constantly on the increase: and the well-being of mankind 
may almost be measured by the number and gravity of the 
truths which have reached the point of being uncontested. 
The cessation, on one question after another, of serious con- 
troversy, is one of the necessary incidents of the consolida- 
tion of opinion; a consolidation as salutary in the case of 
true opinions, as it is dangerous and noxious when the 
opinions are erroneous. But though this gradual narrowing 
of the bounds of diversity of opinion is necessary in both 
senses of the term, being at once inevitable and indispensa- 
ble, we are not therefore obliged to conclude that all its con- 
sequences must be beneficial. The loss of so important an 
aid to the intelligent and living apprehension of a truth, as 
is afforded by the necessity of explaining it to, or defending 
it against, opponents, though not sufficient to outweigh, is 
no trifling drawback from, the benefit of its universal rec- 
ognition. Where this advantage can no longer be had, I 
confess I should like to see the teachers of mankind en- 
deavoring to provide a substitute for it; some contrivance 
for making the difficulties of the question as present to the 
learner's consciousness, as if they were pressed upon him 
by a dissentient champion, eager for his conversion. 

But instead of seeking contrivances for this purpose, they 
have lost those they formerly had. The Socratic dialectics, 
so magnificently exemplified in the dialogues of Plato, were 



248 JOHN STUART MILL 

a contrivance of this description. They were essentially a 
negative discussion of the great questions of philosophy and 
life, directed with consummate skill to the purpose of con- 
vincing any one who had merely adopted the commonplaces 
of received opinion, that he did not understand the subject 
— that he as yet attached no definite meaning to the doc- 
trines he professed; in order that, becoming aware of his 
ignorance, he might be put in the way to attain a stable 
belief, resting on a clear apprehension both of the meaning 
of doctrines and of their evidence. The school disputations 
of the Middle Ages had a somewhat similar object. They 
were intended to make sure that the pupil understood his 
own opinion, and (by necessary correlation) the opinion 
opposed to it, and could enforce the grounds of the one and 
confute those of the other. These last-mentioned contests 
had indeed the incurable defect, that the premises appealed 
to were taken from authority, not from reason; and, as a 
discipline to the mind, they were in every respect inferior 
to the powerful dialectics which formed the intellects of the 
" Socratici viri : '' but the modern mind owes far more to 
both than it is generally willing to admit, and the present 
modes of education contain nothing which in the smallest 
degree supplies the place either of the one or of the other. 
A person who derives all his instruction from teachers or 
books, even if he escape the besetting temptation of con- 
tenting himself with cram, is under no compulsion to hear 
both sides ; accordingly it is far from a frequent accomplish- 
ment, even among thinkers, to know both sides; and the 
weakest part of what everybody says in defence of his 
opinion, is what he intends as a reply to antagonists. It is 
the fashion of the present time to disparage negative logic 
— that which points out weaknesses in theory or errors in 
practice, without establishing positive truths. Such nega- 
tive criticism would indeed be poor enough as an ultimate 
result; but as a means to attaining any positive knowledge 
or conviction worthy the name, it cannot be valued too high- 
ly; and until people are again systematically trained to it, 
there will be few great thinkers, and a low general average 
of intellect, in any but the mathematical and physical de- 
partments of speculation. On any other subject no one's 



ON LIBERTY 249 

opinions deserve the name of knowledge, except so far as 
he has either had forced upon him by others, or gone 
through of himself, the same mental process which would 
have been required of him in carrying on an active contro- 
versy with opponents. That, therefore, which when absent, 
it is so indispensable, but so difficult, to create, how worse 
than absurd is it to forego, when spontaneously offering it- 
self ! If there are any persons who contest a received 
opinion, or who will do so if law or opinion will let them, 
let us thank them- for it, open our minds to listen to them, 
and rejoice that there is some one to do for us what we 
otherwise ought, if we have any regard for either the cer- 
tainty or the vitality of our convictions, to do with much 
greater labor for ourselves. 

It still remains to speak of one of the principal causes 
which make diversity of opinion advantageous, and will con- 
tinue to do so until mankind shall have entered a stage of 
intellectual advancement which at present seems at an in- 
calculable distance. We have hitherto considered only two 
possibilities: that the received opinion may be false, and 
some other opinion, consequently, true ; or that, the received 
opinion being true, a conflict with the opposite error is es- 
sential to a clear apprehension and deep feeling of its truth. 
But there is a commoner case than either of these; when 
the conflicting doctrines, instead of being one true and the 
other false, share the truth between them; and the noncon- 
forming opinion is needed to supply the remainder of the 
truth, of which the received doctrine embodies only a part. 
Popular opinions, on subjects not palpable to sense, are 
often true, but seldom or never the whole truth. They are 
a part of the truth ; sometimes a greater, sometimes a smaller 
part, but exaggerated, distorted, and disjoined from the 
truths by which they ought to be accompanied and limited. 
Heretical opinions, on the other hand, are generally some 
of these suppressed and neglected truths, bursting the bonds 
which kept them down, and either seeking reconciliation with 
the truth contained in the common opinion, or fronting it 
as enemies, and setting themselves up, with similar exclu- 
siveness, as the whole truth. The latter case is hitherto the 



250 JOHN STUART MILL 

most frequent, as, in the human mind, one-sidedness has al- 
ways been the rule, and many-sidedness the exception. 
Hence, even in revolutions of opinion, one part of the truth 
usually sets while another rises. Even progress, which 
ought to superadd, for the most part only substitutes one 
partial and incomplete truth for another; improvement con- 
sisting chiefly in this, that the new fragment of truth is 
more wanted, more adapted to the needs of the time, than 
that which it displaces. Such being the partial character of 
prevailing opinions, even when resting on a true foundation ; 
every opinion which embodies somewhat of the portion of 
truth which the common opinion omits, ought to be con- 
sidered precious, with whatever amount of error and con- 
fusion that truth may be blended. No sober judge of human 
affairs will feel bound to be indignant because those who 
force on our notice truths which we should otherwise have 
overlooked, overlook some of those which we see. Rather, 
he will think that so long as popular truth is one-sided, it is 
more desirable than otherwise that unpopular truth should 
have one-sided asserters too; such being usually the most 
energetic, and the most likely to compel reluctant attention 
to the fragment of wisdom* which they proclaim as if it 
were the whole. 

Thus, in the eighteenth century, when nearly all the in- 
structed, and all those of the uninstructed who were led 
by them, were lost in admiration of what is called civiliza- 
tion, and of the marvels of modern science, literature, and 
philosophy, and while greatly overrating the amount of un- 
likeness between the men of modern and those of ancient 
times, indulged the belief that the whole of the difference 
was in their own favor; with what a salutary shock did the 
paradoxes of Rousseau explode like bombshells in the midst, 
dislocating the compact mass of one-sided opinion, and 
forcing its elements to recombine in a better form and with 
additional ingredients. Not that the current opinions were 
on the whole farther from the truth than Rousseau's were; 
on the contrary, they were nearer to it ; they contained more 
of positive truth, and very much less of error. Nevertheless 
there lay in Rousseau's doctrine, and has floated down the 
stream of opinion along with it, a considerable amount of 



ON LIBERTY 251 

exactly those truths which the popular opinion wanted; and 
these are the deposit v»^hich was left behind when the flood 
subsided. The superior worth of simplicity of life, the 
enervating and demoralizing effect of the trammels and 
hypocrisies of artificial society, are ideas which have never 
been entirely absent from cultivated minds since Rousseau 
wrote ; and they will in time produce their due effect, though 
at present needing to be asserted as much as ever, and to be 
asserted by deeds, for words, on this subject, have nearly 
exhausted their power. 

In politics, again, it is almost a commonplace, that a party 
of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are 
both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life; 
until the one or the other shall have so enlarged its mental 
grasp as to be a party equally of order and of progress, 
knowing and distinguishing what is fit to be preserved from 
what ought to be swept away. Each of these modes of 
thinking derives its utility from the deficiencies of the other ; 
but it is in a great measure the opposition of the other that 
keeps each within the limits of reason and sanity. Unless 
opinions favorable to democracy and to aristocracy, to prop- 
erty and to equality, to co-operation and to competition, 
to luxury and to abstinence, to sociality and individuality, to 
liberty and discipline, and all the other standing antagonisms 
of practical life, are expressed with equal freedom, and en- 
forced and defended with equal talent and energy, there is 
no chance of both elements obtaining their due; one scale 
is sure to go up, and the other down. Truth, in the great 
practical concerns of life, is so much a question of the 
reconciling and combining of opposites, that very few have 
minds sufficiently capacious and impartial to make the ad- 
justment with an approach to correctness, and it has to be 
made by the rough process of a struggle between com- 
batants fighting under hostile banners. On any of the great 
open questions just enumerated, if either of the two opinions 
has a better claim than the other, not merely to be tolerated, 
but to be encouraged and countenanced, it is the one which 
happens at the particular time and place to be in a minority. 
That is the opinion which, for the time being, represents the 
neglected interests, the side of human well-being which is in 



252 JOHN STUART MILL 

danger of obtaining less than its share. I am aware that 
there is not, in this country, any intolerance of differences of 
opinion on most of these topics. They are adduced to show, 
by admitted and multiplied examples, the universality of the 
fact, that only through diversity of opinion is there, in the 
existing state of human intellect, a chance of fair play to all 
sides of the truth. When there are persons to be found, 
who form an exception to the apparent unanimity of the 
world on any subject, even if the world is in the right, it 
is always probable that dissentients have something worth 
hearing to say for themselves, and that truth would lose 
something by their silence. 

It may be objected, ''But some received principles, espe- 
cially on the highest and most vital subjects, are more than 
half-truths. The Christian morality, for instance, is the 
whole truth on that subject and if any one teaches a morality 
which varies from it, he is wholly in error." As this is of 
all cases the most important in practice, none can be fitter 
to test the general maxim. But before pronouncing what 
Christian morality is or is not, it would be desirable to de- 
cide what is meant by Christian morality. If it means the 
morality of the New Testament, I wonder that any one who 
derives his knowledge of this from the book itself, can sup- 
pose that it was announced, or intended, as a complete doc- 
trine of morals. The Gospel always refers to a preexisting 
morality, and confines its precepts to the particulars in which 
that morality was to be corrected, or superseded by a wider 
and higher; expressing itself, moreover, in terms most gen- 
eral, often impossible to be interpreted literally, and possess- 
ing rather the impressiveness of poetry or eloquence than the 
precision of legislation. To extract from it a body of ethi- 
cal doctrine, has never been possible without eking it out 
from the Old Testament, that is, from a system elaborate 
indeed, but in many respects barbarous, and intended only 
for a barbarous people. St. Paul, a declared enemy to this 
Judaical mode of interpreting the doctrine and filling up the 
scheme of his Master, equally assumes a preexisting moral- 
ity, namely, that of the Greeks and Romans; and his 
advice to Christians is in a great measure a system of ac- 
commodation to that; even to the extent of giving an ap- 



ON LIBERTY 253 

parent sanction to slavery. What is called Christian, but 
should rather be termed theological, morality, was not the 
work of Christ or the Apostles, but is of much later origin, 
having been gradually built up by the Catholic Church of the 
first five centuries, and though not implicitly adopted by mod- 
erns and Protestants, has been much less modified by them 
than might have been expected. For the most part, indeed, 
they have contented themselves with cutting off the additions 
which had been made to it in the Middle Ages, each sect 
supplying the place by fresh additions, adapted to its own 
character and tendencies. That mankind owe a great debt 
to this morality, and to its early teachers, I should be the 
last person to deny; but I do not scruple to say of it, that 
it is, in many important points, incomplete and one-sided, 
and that unless ideas and feelings, not sanctioned by it, had 
contributed to the formation of European life and character, 
human affairs would have been in a worse condition than 
they now are. Christian morality (so called) has all the 
characters of a reaction; it is, in great part, a protest against 
Paganism. Its ideal is negative rather than positive; pas- 
sive rather than active; Innocence rather than Nobleness; 
Abstinence from Evil, rather than energetic Pursuit of 
Good: in its precepts (as has been well said) **thou shalt 
not " predominates unduly over " thou shalt." In its horror 
of sensuality, it made an idol of asceticism, which has been 
gradually compromised away into one of legality. It holds 
out the hope of heaven and the threat of hell, as the ap- 
pointed and appropriate motives to a virtuous life: in this 
falling far below the best of the ancients, and doing what 
lies in it to give to human morality an essentially selfish 
character, by disconnecting each man's feelings of duty 
from the interests of his fellow-creatures, except so far as 
a self-interested inducement is offered to him for consulting 
them. It is essentially a doctrine of passive obedience; it 
inculcates submission to all authorities found established; 
who indeed are not to be actively obeyed when they com- 
mand what religion forbids, but who are not to be resisted, 
far less rebelled against, for any amount of wrong to our- 
selves. And while, in the morality of the best Pagan na- 
tions, duty to the State holds even a disproportionate place, 



254 JOHN STUART MILL 

infringing on the just liberty of the individual; in purely 
Christian ethics that grand department of duty is scarcely 
noticed or acknowledged. It is in the Koran, not the New 
Testament, that we read the maxim — "' A ruler who appoints 
any man to an office, when there is in his dominions another 
man better qualified for it, sins against God and against the 
State." What little recognition the idea of obligation to the 
public obtains in modern morality, is derived from Greek and 
Roman sources, not from Christian; as, even in the morality 
of private life, whatever exists of magnanimity, high-mind-* 
edness, personal dignity, even the sense of honor, is de-» 
rived from the purely human, not the religious part of ouif 
education, and never could have grown out of a standard of 
ethics in which the only worth, professedly recognized, is 
that of obedience. 

I am as far as any one from pretending that these defects 
are necessarily inherent in the Christian ethics, in every 
manner in which it can be conceived, or that the many 
requisites of a complete moral doctrine which it does not 
contain, do not admit of being reconciled with it. Far less 
would I insinuate this of the doctrines and precepts of 
Christ himself. I believe that the sayings of Christ are all, 
that I can see any evidence of their having been intended to 
be; that they are irreconcilable with nothing which a com- 
prehensive morality requires; that everything which is ex- 
cellent in ethics may be brought within them, with no greater 
violence to their language than has been done to it by all 
who have attempted to deduce from them any practical sys- 
tem of conduct whatever. But it is quite consistent with 
this, to believe that they contain and were meant to con- 
tain, only a part of the truth; that many essential elements 
of the highest morality are among the things which are not 
provided for, nor intended to be provided for, in the re- 
corded deliverances of the Founder of Christianity, and 
which have been entirely thrown aside in the system of 
ethics erected on the basis of those deliverances by the 
Christian Church. And this being so, I think it a great 
error to persist in attempting to find in the Christian doc- 
trine that complete rule for our guidance, which its author 
intended it to sanction and enforce, but only partially to 



ON LIBERTY 255 

provide. I believe, too, that this narrow theory is becoming 
a grave practical evil, detracting greatly from the value 
of the moral training and instruction, which so many well- 
meaning persons are now at length exerting themselves to 
promote. I much fear that by attempting to form the mind 
and feelings on an exclusively religious type, and discarding 
those secular standards (as for want of a better name they 
may be called) which heretofore coexisted with and sup- 
plemented the Christian ethics^ receiving some of its spirit, 
and infusing into it some of theirs, there will result, and is 
even now resulting, a low, abject, servile type of character, 
which, submit itself as it may to what it deems the Supreme 
Will, is incapable of rising to or sympathizing in the concep- 
tion of Supreme Goodness. I believe that other ethics than 
any one which can be evolved from exclusively Christian 
sources, must exist side by side with Christian ethics to 
produce the moral regeneration of mankind; and that the 
Christian system is no exception to the rule that in an 
imperfect state of the human mind, the interests of truth 
require a diversity of opinions. It is not necessary that in 
ceasing to ignore the moral truths not contained in Christi- 
anity, men should ignore any of those which it does contain. 
Such prejudice, or oversight, when it occurs, is altogether an 
evil; but it is one from which we cannot hope to be always 
exempt, and must be regarded as the price paid for an in- 
estimable good. The exclusive pretension made by a part 
of the truth to be the whole, must and ought to be protested 
against, and if a reactionary impulse should make the pro- 
testors unjust in their turn, this one-sidedness, like the other, 
may be lamented, but must be tolerated. If Christians 
would teach infidels to be just to Christianity, they should 
themselves be just to infidelity. It can do truth no service 
to blink the fact, known to all who have the most ordinary 
acquaintance with literary history, that a large portion of 
the noblest and most valuable moral teaching has been the 
work, not only of men who did not know, but of men who 
knew and rejected, the Christian faith. 

I do not pretend that the most unlimited use of the free- 
dom of enunciating all possible opinions would put an end to 
the evils of religious or philosophical sectarianism. Every 



256 JOHN STUART MILL 

truth which men of narrow capacity are in earnest about, 
is sure to be asserted, inculcated, and in many ways ever 
acted on, as if no other truth existed in the world, or at all 
events none that could limit or qualify the first. I ac- 
knowledge that the tendency of all opinions to become sec^ 
tarian is not cured by the freest discussion, but is oftei] 
heightened and exacerbated thereby; the truth which ought 
to have been, but was not, seen, being rejected all the more 
violently because proclaimed by persons regarded as oppo- 
nents. But it is not on the impassioned partisan, it is on 
the calmer and more disinterested bystander, that this col- 
lision of opinions works its salutary effect. Not the violent 
conflict between parts of the truth, but the quiet suppression 
of half of it, is the formidable evil : there is always hope 
when people are forced to listen to both sides ; it is when 
they attend only to one that errors harden into prejudices, 
and truth itself ceases to have the effect of truth, by being 
exaggerated into falsehood. And since there are few 
mental attributes more rare than that judicial faculty which 
can sit in intelligent judgment between two sides of a 
question, of which only one is represented by an advocate 
before it, truth has no chance but in proportion as every 
side of it, every opinion which embodies any fraction of the 
truth, not only finds advocates, but is so advocated as to be 
listened to. 

We have now recognized the necessity to the mental well- 
being of mankind (on which all their other well-being de- 
pends) of freedom of opinion, and freedom of the expres- 
sion of opinion, on four distinct grounds; which we will 
now briefly recapitulate. 

First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion 
may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this 
is to assume our own infallibility. 

Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, 
and very commonly does, contain a portion of truth; and 
since the general or prevailing opinion on any object is 
rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision 
of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any 
chance of being supplied. 

Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, 



ON LIBERTY 257 

but the whole truth ; unless it is suffered to be, and actually 
is, vigorously and earnestly contested, it will, by most of 
those who receive it, be held in the manner of a prejudice, 
with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds. 
And not only this, but, fourthly, the meaning of the doctrine 
itself will be in danger of being lost, or enfeebled, and 
deprived of its vital effect on the character and conduct: 
the dogma becoming a mere formal profession, inefficacious 
for good, but cumbering the ground, and preventing the 
growth of any real and heartfelt conviction, from reason or 
personal experience. 

Before quitting the subject of freedom of opinion, it is 
fit to take notice of those who say, that the free expression 
of all opinions should be permitted, on condition that the 
manner be temperate, and do not pass the bounds of fair 
discussion. Much might be said on the impossibility of fix- 
ing where these supposed bounds are to be placed; for if the 
test be offence to those whose opinion is attacked, I think 
experience testifies that this offence is given whenever the 
attack is telling and powerful, and that every opponent who 
pushes them hard, and whom they find it difficult to answer, 
appears to them, if he shows any strong feeling on the sub- 
ject, an intemperate opponent. But this, though an impor- 
tant consideration in a practical point of view, merges in a 
more fundamental objection. Undoubtedly the manner of 
asserting an opinion, even though it be a true one, may be 
very objectionable, and may justly incur severe censure. 
But the principal offences of the kind are such as it 
is mostly impossible, unless by accidental self-betrayal, to 
bring home to conviction. The gravest of them is, to argue 
sophistically, to suppress facts or arguments, to misstate the 
elements of the case, or misrepresent the opposite opinion. 
But all this, even to the most aggravated degree, is so con- 
tinually done in perfect good faith, by persons who are not 
considered, and in many other respects may not deserve to be 
considered, ignorant or incompetent, that it is rarely pos- 
sible on adequate grounds conscientiously to stamp the mis- 
representation as morally culpable; and still less could law 
presume to interfere with this kind of controversial miscon- 
duct. With regard to what is commonly meant by intemperate 

Vol. 25—9 HC 



258 JOHN STUART MILL 

discussion, namely, invective, sarcasm, personality, and the 
like, the denunciation of these weapons would deserve more 
sympathy if it were ever proposed to interdict them equally to 
both sides; but it is only desired to restrain the employ- 
ment of them against the prevailing opinion: against the 
unprevailing they may not only be used without general 
disapproval, but will be likely to obtain for him who uses 
them the praise of honest zeal and righteous indignation. 
Yet whatever mischief arises from their use, is greatest 
when they are employed against the comparatively defence- 
less; and whatever unfair advantage can be derived by any 
opinion from this mode of asserting it, accrues almost ex- 
clusively to received opinions. The worst offence of this 
kind which can be committed by a polemic, is to stigma- 
tize those who hold the contrary opinion as bad and im- 
moral men. To calumny of this sort, those who hold any 
unpopular opinion are peculiarly exposed, because they are 
in general few and uninfluential, and nobody but them- 
selves feels much interest in seeing justice done them; 
but this weapon is, from the nature of the case, denied 
to those who attack a prevailing opinion: they can neither 
use it with safety to themselves, nor if they could, would 
it do anything but recoil on their own cause. In general, 
opinions contrary to those commonly received can only ob- 
tain a hearing by studied moderation of language, and the 
most cautious avoidance of unnecessary offence, from which 
they hardly ever deviate even in a slight degree without 
losing ground: while unmeasured vituperation employed on 
the side of the prevailing opinion, really does deter people 
from professing contrary opinions, and from listening to 
those who profess them. For the interest, therefore, of 
truth and justice, it is far more important to restrain this 
employment of vituperative language than the other; and, 
for example, if it were necessary to choose, there would 
be much more need to discourage offensive attacks on in- 
fidelity, than on religion. It is, however, obvious that law 
and authority have no business with restraining either, 
while opinion ought, in every instance, to determine its 
verdict by the circumstances of the individual case; condemn- 
ing every one, on whichever side of the argument he places 



i 



ON LIBERTY 259 

himself, in whose mode of advocacy either want of candor, 
or malignity, bigotry or intolerance of feeling manifest them- 
selves, but not inferring these vices from the side which a 
person takes, though it be the contrary side of the question 
to our own ; and giving merited honor to every one, whatever 
opinion he may hold, who has calmness to see and honesty 
to state what his opponents and their opinions really are, 
exaggerating nothing to their discredit, keeping nothing back 
which tells, or can be supposed to tell, in their favor. This 
is the real morality of public discussion; and if often vio- 
lated, I am happy to think that there are many controver- 
sialists who to a great extent observe it, and a still greater 
number who conscientiously strive towards it. 



CHAPTER III 

On Individuality, as One of the Elements of 

Wellbeing 

SUCH being the reasons which make it imperative that 
human beings should be free to form opinions, and 
to express their opinions w^ithout reserve; and such 
the baneful consequences to the intellectual, and through 
that to the moral nature of man, unless this liberty 
is either conceded, or asserted in spite of prohibition; let 
us next examine whether the same reasons do not require 
that men should be free to act upon their opinions — to carry 
these out in their lives, without hindrance, either physical 
or moral, from their fellow-men, so long as it is at their 
own risk and peril. This last proviso is of course indispen- 
sable. No one pretends that actions should be as free as 
opinions. On the contrary, even opinions lose their im- 
munity, when the circumstances in which they are ex- 
pressed are such as to constitute their expression a positive 
instigation to some mischievous act. An opinion that corn- 
dealers are starvers of the poor, or that private property 
is robbery, ought to be unmolested when simply circulated 
through the press, but may justly incur punishment when 
delivered orally to an excited mob assembled before the 
house of a corn-dealer, or when handed about among the 
same mob in the form of a placard. Acts of whatever kind, 
which, without justifiable cause, do harm to others, may be, 
and in the more important cases absolutely require to be, 
controlled by the unfavorable sentiments, and, when needful, 
by the active interference of mankind. The liberty of the 
individual must t)e thus far limited; he must not make him- 
self a nuisance to other people. But if he refrains from 
molesting others in what concerns them, and merely acts 
according to his own inclination and judgment in things 
which concern himself, the same reasons which show that 

260 



ON LIBERTY 261 

opinion should be free, prove also that he should be allowed, 
without molestation, to carry his opinions into practice 
at his own cost. That mankind are not infallible; that their 
truths, for the most part, are only half-truths; that unity 
of opinion, unless resulting from the fullest and freest com- 
parison of opposite opinions, is not desirable, and diversity 
not an evil, but a good, until mankind are much more ca- 
pable than at present of recognizing all sides of the truth, 
are principles applicable to men's modes of action, not less 
than to their opinions. As it is useful that while mankind 
are imperfect there should be different opinions, so is it 
that there should be different experiments of living; that 
free scope should be given to varieties of character, short 
of injury to others; and that the worth of different modes 
of life should be proved practically, when any one thinks 
fit to try them. It is desirable, in short, that in things which 
do not primarily concern others, individuality should assert 
Itself. Where, not the person's own character, but the tradi- 
tions of customs of other people are the rule of conduct, 
there is wanting one of the principal ingredients of human 
happiness, and quite the chief ingredient of individual and 
social progress. 

In maintaining this principle, the greatest difficulty to be 
encountered does not lie in the appreciation of means 
towards an acknowledged end, but in the indifference of 
persons in general to the end itself. If it were felt that the 
free development of individuality is one of the leading es- 
sentials of well-being; that it is not only a coordinate ele- 
ment with all that is designated by the terms civilization, 
instruction, education, culture, but is itself a necessary part 
and condition of all those things; there would be no danger 
that liberty should be undervalued, and the adjustment of the 
boundaries between it and social control would present no 
extraordinary difficulty. But the evil is, that individual spon- 
taneity is hardly recognized by the common modes of think- 
ing as having any intrinsic worth, or deserving any regard 
on Its own account. The majority, being satisfied with the 
ways of mankind as they now are (for it is they who make 
them what they are), cannot comprehend why those ways 
should not be good enough for everybody ; and what is more. 



262 JOHN STUART MILL 

spontaneity forms no part of the ideal of the majority of 
moral and social reformers, but is rather looked on with 
jealousy, as a troublesome and perhaps rebellious obstruc- 
tion to the general acceptance of what these reformers, in 
their own judgment, think would be best for mankind. Few 
persons, out of Germany, even comprehend the meaning of 
the doctrine which Wilhelm von Humboldt, so eminent both 
as a savant and as a politician, made the text of a treatise — 
that " the end of man, or that which is prescribed by the 
eternal or immutable dictates of reason, and not suggested 
by vague and transient desires, is the highest and most har- 
monious development of his powers to a complete and con- 
sistent whole;'' that, therefore, the object "towards which 
every human being must ceaselessly direct his efforts, and 
on which especially those who design to influence their 
fellow-men must ever keep their eyes, is the individuality 
of power and development ; " that for this there are two 
requisites, "freedom, and a variety of situations;" and 
that from the union of these arise " individual vigor and 
manifold diversity/' which combine themselves in "origi- 
nality." ' 

Little, however, as people are accustomed to a doctrine 
like that of Von Humboldt, and surprising as it may be to 
them to find so high a value attached to individuality, the 
question, one must nevertheless think, can only be one of 
degree. No one's idea of excellence in conduct is that people 
should do absolutely nothing but copy one another. No 
one would assert that people ought not to put into their 
mode of life, and into the conduct of their concerns, any 
impress whatever of their own judgment, or of their own 
individual character. On the other hand, it would be absurd 
to pretend that people ought to live as if nothing whatever 
had been known in the world before they came into it ; as if 
experience had as yet done nothing towards showing that 
one mode of existence, or of conduct, is preferable to an- 
other. Nobody denies that people should be so taught and 
trained in youth, as to know and benefit by the ascertained 
results of human experience. But it is the privilege and 

1 The Sphere and Duties of Government, from the German of Baron 
Wilhelm von Humboldt, pp. 11-13. 



ON LIBERTY , 269 

proper condition of a human being, arrived at the maturity 
of his faculties, to use and interpret experience in his own 
way. It is for him to find out what part of recorded ex- 
perience is properly applicable to his own circumstances and 
character. The traditions and customs of other people are, 
to a certain extent, evidence of what their experience has 
taught them; presumptive evidence, and as such, have a 
claim to this deference: but, in the first place, their experi- 
ence may be too narrow; or they may not have interpreted 
it rightly. Secondly, their interpretation of experience may 
be correct but unsuitable to him. Customs are made for 
customary circumstances, and customary characters: and 
his circumstances or his character may be uncustomary. 
Thirdly, though the customs be both good as customs, 
and suitable to him, yet to conform to custom, merely 
as custom, does not educate or develop in him any 
of the qualities which are the distinctive endowment of a 
human being. The human faculties of perception, judg- 
ment, discriminative feeling, mental activity, and even moral 
preference, are exercised only in making a choice. He 
who does anything because it is the custom, makes no 
choice. He gains no practice either in discerning or in de- 
siring what is best. The mental and moral, like the mus- 
cular powers, are improved only by being used. The facul- 
ties are called into no exercise by doing a thing merely 
because others do it, no more than by believing a thing only 
because others believe it. If the grounds of an opinion 
are not conclusive to the person's own reason, his reason 
cannot be strengthened, but is likely to be weakened by his 
adopting it: and if the inducements to an act are not such 
as are consentaneous to his own feelings and character 
(where affection, or the rights of others are not concerned), 
it is so much done towards rendering his feelings and char- 
acter inert and torpid, instead of active and energetic. 

He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose 
his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty 
than the ape-like one of imitation. He who chooses his 
plan for himself, employs all his faculties. He must use 
observation to see, reasoning and judgment to foresee, ac- 
tivity to gather materials for decision, discrimination to 



264 JOHN STUART MILL 

decide, and when he has decided, firmness and self-control 
to hold to his deliberate decision. And these qualities he 
requires and exercises exactly in proportion as the part of his 
conduct which he determines according to his own judgment 
and feelings is a large one. It is possible that he might be 
guided in some good path, and kept out of harm's way, with- 
out any of these things. But what will be his comparative 
worth as a human being? It really is of importance, not 
only what men do, but also what manner of men they are 
that do it. Among the works of man, which human life is 
rightly employed in perfecting and beautifying, the first in 
importance surely is man himself. Supposing it were pos- 
sible to get houses built, corn grown, battles fought, causes 
tried, and even churches erected and prayers said, by ma- 
chinery — ^by automatons in human form — it would be a con- 
siderable loss to exchange for these automatons even the 
men and women who at present inhabit the more civilized 
parts of the world, and who assuredly are but starved speci- 
mens of what nature can and will produce. Human nature 
is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do 
exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires 
to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the 
tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing. 
It will probably be conceded that it is desirable people 
should exercise their understandings, and that an intelligent 
following of custom, or even occasionally an intelligent de- 
viation from custom, is better than a blind and simply 
mechanical adhesion to it. To a certain extent it is ad- 
mitted, that our understanding should be our own : but there 
is not the same willingness to admit that our desires and 
impulses should be our own likewise; or that to possess im- 
pulses of our own, and of any strength, is anything but a 
peril and a snare. Yet desires and impulses are as much 
a part of a perfect human being, as beliefs and restraints: 
and strong impulses are only perilous when not properly 
balanced ; when one set of aims and inclinations is developed 
into strength, while others, which ought to coexist with 
them, remain weak and inactive. It is not because men's 
desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their con- 
sciences are weak. There is no natural connection between 



ON LIBERTY 26S 

strong impulses and a weak conscience. The natural con- 
nection is the other way. To say that one person's desires 
and feelings are stronger and more various than those of an- 
other, is merely to say that he has more of the raw material 
of human nature, and is therefore capable, perhaps of more 
evil, but certainly of more good. Strong impulses are but 
another name for energy. Energy may be turned to bad 
uses; but more good may always be made of an energetic 
nature, than of an indolent and impassive one. Those who 
have most natural feeling, are always those whose cultivated 
feelings may be made the strongest. The same strong sus- 
ceptibilities which make the personal impulses vivid and 
powerful, are also the source from whence are generated 
the most passionate love of virtue, and the sternest self- 
control. It is through the cultivation of these, that society 
both does its duty and protects its interests: not by rejecting 
the stuff of which heroes are made, because it knows not 
how to make them. A person whose desires and impulses 
are his own — are the expression of his own nature, as it has 
been developed and modified by his own culture — is said to 
have a character. One whose desires and impulses are not 
his own, has no character, no more than a steam-engine has 
a character. If, in addition to being his own, his impulses 
are strong, and are under the government of a strong will, 
he has an energetic character. Whoever thinks that indi- 
viduality of desires and impulses should not be encouraged 
to unfold itself, must maintain that society has no need of 
strong natures — is not the better for containing many per- 
sons who have much character — and that a high general 
average of energy is not desirable. 

In some early states of society, these forces might be, 
and were, too much ahead of the power which society then 
possessed of disciplining and controlling them. There has 
been a time when the element of spontaneity and individu- 
ality was in excess, and the social principle had a hard 
struggle with it. The difficulty then was, to induce men of 
strong bodies or minds to pay obedience to any rules which 
required them to control their impulses. To overcome this 
difficulty, law and discipline, like the Popes struggling against 
the Emperors, asserted a power over the whole man, claiming 



266 JOHN STUART MILL 

to control all his life in order to control his character— 
which society had not found any other sufficient means of 
binding. But society has now fairly got the better of indi- 
viduality; and the danger which threatens human nature 
is not the excess, but the deficiency, of personal impulses and 
preferences. Things are vastly changed, since the passions 
of those who were strong by station or by personal en- 
dowment were in a state of habitual rebellion against laws 
and ordinances, and required to be rigorously chained up to 
enable the persons within their reach to enjoy any particle 
of security. In our times, from the highest class of society 
down to the lowest every one lives as under the eye of a 
hostile and dreaded censorship. Not only in what concerns 
others, but in what concerns only themselves, the individual, 
or the family, do not ask themselves — what do I prefer? or, 
what would suit my character and disposition? or, what 
would allow the best and highest in me to have fair play, and 
enable it to grow and thrive? They ask themselves, what 
is suitable to my position? what is usually done by persons 
of my station and pecuniary circumstances? or (worse still) 
what is usually done by persons of a station and circum- 
stances superior to mine? I do not mean that they choose 
what is customary, in preference to what suits their own 
inclination. It does not occur to them to have any inclina- 
tion, except for what is customary. Thus the mind itself 
is bowed to the yoke: even in what people do for pleasure, 
conformity is the first thing thought of ; they like in crowds ; 
they exercise choice only among things commonly done: 
peculiarity of taste, eccentricity of conduct, are shunned 
equally with crimes: until by dint of not following their 
own nature, they have no nature to follow: their human 
capacities are withered and starved: they become incapable 
of any strong wishes or native pleasures, and are generally 
without either opinions or feelings of home growth, or 
properly their own. Now is this, or is it not, the desirable 
condition of human nature? 

It is so, on the Calvinistic theory. According to that, 
the one great offence of man is Self-will. All the 
good of which humanity is capable, is comprised in Obedi- 
ence. You have no choice ; thus you must do, and no other- 



ON LIBERTY 267 

wise ; " whatever is not a duty is a sin." Human nature be- 
ing radically corrupt, there is no redemption for any one 
until human nature is killed within him. To one holding 
this theory of life, crushing out any of the human faculties, 
capacities, and susceptibilities, is no evil: man needs no 
capacity, but that of surrendering himself to the will of 
God: and if he uses any of his faculties for any other 
purpose but to do that supposed will more effectually, he is 
better without them. That is the theory of Calvinism; and 
it is held, in a mitigated form, by many who do not con- 
sider themselves Calvinists; the mitigation consisting in 
giving a less ascetic interpretation to the alleged will of 
God; asserting it to be his will that mankind should gratify 
some of their inclinations; of course not in the manner 
they themselves prefer, but in the way of obedience, that 
is, in a way prescribed to them by authority ; and, therefore, 
by the necessary conditions of the case, the same for all. 

In some such insidious form there is at present a strong 
tendency to this narrow theory of life, and to the pinched 
and hidebound type of human character which it patronizes. 
Many persons, no doubt, sincerely think that human beings 
thus cramped and dwarfed, are as their Maker designed 
them to be; just as many have thought that trees are ^ 
much finer thing when clipped into pollards, or cut out 
into figures of animals, than as nature made them. But if 
it be any part of religion to believe that man was made by 
a good Being, it is more consistent with that faith to 
believe, that this Being gave all human faculties that they 
might be cultivated and unfolded, not rooted out and con- 
sumed, and that he takes delight in every nearer approach 
made by his creatures to the ideal conception embodied in 
them, every increase in any of their capabilities of com- 
prehension, of action, or of enjoyment. There is a different 
type of human excellence from the Calvinistic; a conception 
of humanity as having its nature bestowed on it for other 
purposes than merely to be abnegated. " Pagan self- 
assertion" is one of the elements of human worth, 
as well as "Christian self-denial."^ There is a Greek 
ideal of self-development, which the Platonic and Chris- 

2 Sterling's Essays. 



268 JOHN STUART MILL 

tian ideal of self-government blends with, but does 
not supersede. It may be better to be a John Knox than 
an Alcibiades, but it is better to be a Pericles than either; 
nor would a Pericles, if we had one in these days, be without 
anything good which belonged to John Knox. 

It is not by wearing down into uniformity all that is 
individual in themselves, but by cultivating it and calling 
it forth, within the limits imposed by the rights and interests 
of others, that human beings become a noble and beautiful 
object of contemplation; and as the works partake the char- 
acter of those who do them, by the same process human 
life also becomes rich, diversified, and animating, furnish- 
ing more abundant aliment to high thoughts and elevating 
feelings, and strengthening the tie which binds every in- 
dividual to the race, by making the race infinitely better 
worth belonging to. In proportion to the development of his 
individuality, each person becomes more valuable to himself, 
and is therefore capable of being more valuable to others. 
There is a greater fulness of life about his own existence, 
and when there is more life in the units there is more 
in the mass which is composed of them. As much com- 
pression as is necessary to prevent the stronger specimens 
of human nature from encroaching on the rights of others, 
cannot be dispensed with; but for this there is ample com- 
pensation even in the point of view of human develop- 
ment. The means of development which the individual 
loses by being prevented from gratifying his inclinations 
to the injury of others, are chiefly obtained at the expense 
of the development of other people. And even to himself 
there is a full equivalent in the better development of the 
social part of his nature, rendered possible by the restraint 
put upon the selfish part. To be held to rigid rules of 
justice for the sake of others, develops the feelings and 
capacities which have the good of others for their object. 
But to be restrained in things not affecting their good, by 
their mere displeasure, develops nothing valuable, except 
such force of character as may unfold itself in resisting 
the restraint. If acquiesced in, it dulls and blunts the 
whole nature. To give any fair play to the nature of each, 
it is essential that different persons should be allowed to lead 



ON LIBERTY 269 

different lives. In proportion as this latitude has been ex- 
ercised in any age, has that age been noteworthy to posterity. 
Even despotism does not produce its worst effects, so long 
as Individuality exists under it; and whatever crushes in- 
dividuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called, 
and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God 
or the injunctions of men. 

Having said that Individuality is the same thing with 
development, and that it is only the cultivation of individ- 
uality which produces, or can produce, well-developed human 
beings, I might here close the argument: for what more 
or better can be said of any condition of human affairs, 
than that it brings human beings themselves nearer to the 
best thing they can be? or what worse can be said of any 
obstruction to good, than that it prevents this? Doubtless, 
however, these considerations will not suffice to convince 
those who most need convincing; and it is necessary 
further to show, that these developed human beings 
are of some use to the undeveloped — to point out to 
those who do not desire liberty, and would not avail them- 
selves of it, that they may be in some intelligible manner 
rewarded for allowing other people to make use of it with- 
out hindrance. 

In the first place, then, I would suggest that they might 
possibly learn something from them. It will not be denied 
by anybody, that originality is a valuable element in human 
affairs. There is always need of persons not only to discover 
new truths, and point out when what were once truths 
are true no longer, but also to commence new practices, and 
set the example of more enlightened conduct, and better 
taste and sense in human life. This cannot well be gainsaid 
by anybody who does not believe that the world has already 
attained perfection in all its ways and practices. It is true 
that this benefit is not capable of being rendered by every- 
body alike: there are but few persons, in comparison with 
the whole of mankind, whose experiments, if adopted by 
others, would be likely to be any improvement on established 
practice. But these few are the salt of the earth; without 
them, human life would become a stagnant pool. Not only is 
it they who introduce good things which did not before 



270 JOHN STUART MILL 

exist; it is they who keep the life in those which already 
existed. If there were nothing new to be done, would 
human intellect cease to be necessary ? Would it be a reason 
why those who do the old things should forget why they 
are done, and do them like cattle, not like human beings? 
There is only too great a tendency in the best beliefs and 
practices to degenerate into the mechanical ; and unless there 
were a succession of persons whose ever-recurring origi- 
nality prevents the grounds of those beliefs and practices 
from becoming merely traditional, such dead matter would 
not resist the smallest shock from anything really alive, and 
there would be no reason why civilization should not die 
out, as in the Byzantine Empire. Persons of genius, it is 
true, are, and are always likely to be, a small minority; 
but in order to have them, it is necessary to preserve the 
soil in which they grow. Genius can only breathe freely 
in an atmosphere of freedom. Persons of genius are, ex 
vi termini, more individual than any other people — less 
capable, consequently, of fitting themselves, without hurt- 
ful compression, into any of the small number of moulds 
which society provides in order to save its members the 
trouble of forming their own character. If from timidity 
they consent to be forced into one of these moulds, and to 
let all that part of themselves which cannot expand under 
the pressure remain unexpanded, society will be little the 
better for their genius. If they are of a strong character, 
and break their fetters they become a mark for the society 
which has not succeeded in reducing them to common-place, 
to point at with solemn warning as " wild," " erratic," and 
the like; much as if one should complain of the Niagara 
river for not flowing smoothly between its banks like a 
Dutch canal. 

I insist thus emphatically on the importance of genius, 
and the necessity of allowing it to unfold itself freely both 
in thought and in practice, being well aware that no one 
will deny the position in theory, but knowing also that almost 
every one, in reality, is totally indifferent to it. People 
think genius a fine thing if it enables a man to write an 
exciting poem, or paint a picture. But in its true sense, 
that of originality in thought and action, though no one 



ON LIBERTY 271 

says that it is not a thing to be admired, nearly all, at 
heart, think they can do very well without it. Unhappily 
this is too natural to be wondered at. Originality js the 
one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of. 
They cannot see what it is to do for them : how should they ? 
If they could see what it would do for them, it would not 
be originality. The first service which originality has to 
render them, is that of opening their eyes: which being 
once fully done, they would have a chance of being them- 
selves original. Meanwhile, recollecting that nothing was 
ever yet done which some one was not the first to do, and 
that all good things which exist are the fruits of originality, 
let them be modest enough to believe that there is something 
still left for it to accomplish^ and assure themselves that 
they are more in need of originality, the less they are 
conscious of the want. 

In sober truth, whatever homage may be professed, or 
even paid^ to real or supposed mental superiority, the gen- 
eral tendency of things throughout the world is to render 
mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind. In ancient 
history, in the Middle Ages, and in a diminishing degree 
through the long transition from feudality to the present 
time, the individual was a power in himself; and if he 
had either great talents or a high social position, he was 
a considerable power. At present individuals are lost in the 
crowd. In politics it is almost a triviality to say that public 
opinion now rules the world. The only power deserving 
the name is that of masses, and of governments while they 
make themselves the organ of the tendencies and instincts 
of masses. This is as true in the moral and social relations 
of private life as in public transactions. Those whose 
opinions go by the name of public opinion, are not always 
the same sort of public: in America, they are the whole 
white population; in England, chiefly the middle class. But 
they are always a mass, that is to say, collective mediocrity. 
And what is still greater novelty, the mass do not now 
take their opinions from dignitaries in Church or State, from 
ostensible leaders, or from books. Their thinking is done 
for them by men much like themselves, addressing them or 
speaking in their name, on the spur of the moment, through 



272 JOHN STUART MILL 

the newspapers. I am not complaining of all this. I do 
not assert that anything better is compatible, as a general 
rule, with the present low state of the human mind. But 
that does not hinder the government of mediocrity from 
being mediocre government. No government by a democ- 
racy or a numerous aristocracy, either in its political acts 
or in the opinions, qualities, and tone of mind which it 
fosters, ever did or could rise above mediocrity, except in 
so far as the sovereign Many have let themselves be 
guided (which in their best times they always have done) 
by the counsels and influence of a more highly gifted and 
instructed One or Few. The initiation of all wise or noble 
things, comes and must come from individuals; generally 
at first from some one individual. The honor and glory of 
the average man is that he is capable of following that 
initiative; that he can respond internally to wise and noble 
things, and be led to them with his eyes open. I am not 
countenancing the sort of " hero-worship '' which applauds 
the strong man of genius for forcibly seizing on the govern- 
ment of the world and making it do his bidding in spite 
of itself. All he can claim is, freedom to point out the way. 
The power of compelling others into it, is not only incon- 
sistent with the freedom and development of all the rest, 
but corrupting to the strong man himself. It does seem, how- 
ever, that when the opinions of masses of merely average 
men are everywhere become or becoming the dominant 
power, the counterpoise and corrective to that tendency 
would be, the more and more pronounced individuality of 
those who stand on the higher eminences of thought. It 
is in these circumstances most especially, that exceptional 
individuals, instead of being deterred, should be encouraged 
in acting differently from the mass. In other times there 
was no advantage in their doing so, unless they acted not 
only differently, but better. In this age the mere example 
of non-conformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to 
custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of 
opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is 
desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that 
people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded 
when and where strength of character has abounded; and 



ON LIBERTY 273 

the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been 
proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and 
moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare 
to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time. 

I have said that it is important to give the freest scope 
possible to uncustomary things, in order that it may in time 
appear which of these are fit to be converted into customs. 
But independence of action, and disregard of custom are not 
solely deserving of encouragement for the chance they 
afford that better modes of action, and customs more worthy 
of general adoption, may be struck out; nor is it only per- 
sons of decided mental superiority who have a just claim 
to carry on their lives in their own way. There is no reason 
that all human existences should be constructed on some one, 
or some small number of patterns. If a person possesses 
any tolerable amount of common sense and experience, his 
own mode of laying out his existence is the best, not because 
it is the best in itself, but because it is his own mode. Hu- 
man beings are not like sheep; and even sheep are not un- 
distinguishably alike. A man cannot get a coat or a pair 
of boots to fit him, unless they are either made to his meas- 
ure, or he has a whole warehouseful to choose from : and is 
it easier to fit him with a life than with a coat, or are hu- 
man beings more like one another in their whole physical 
and spiritual conformation than in the shape of their feet? 
If it were only that people have diversities of taste that 
is reason enough for not attempting to shape them 
all after one model. But different persons also require dif- 
ferent conditions for their spiritual development; and can 
no more exist healthily in the same moral, than all the 
variety of plants can in the same physical atmosphere and 
climate. The same things which are helps to one person 
towards the cultivation of his higher nature, are hindrances 
to another. The same mode of life is a healthy excitement 
to one, keeping all his faculties of action and enjoyment in 
their best order, while to another it is a distracting burden, 
which suspends or crushes all internal life. Such are the 
differences among human beings in their sources of pleasure, 
their susceptibilities of pain, and the operation on them of 
different physical and moral agencies, that unless there is a 



274 JOHN STUART MILL 

corresponding diversity in their modes of life, they neither 
obtain their fair share of happiness, nor grow up to the 
mental, moral, and aesthetic stature of which their nature is 
capable. Why then should tolerance, as far as the public 
sentiment is concerned, extend only to tastes and modes of 
life which extort acquiescence by the multitude of their ad- 
herents? Nowhere (except in some monastic institutions) 
is diversity of taste entirely unrecognized; a person may 
without blame, either like or dislike rowing, or smoking, or 
music, or athletic exercises, or chess, or cards, or study, be- 
cause both those who like each of these things, and those 
who dislike them, are too numerous to be put down. But the 
man, and still more the woman, who can be accused either 
of doing " what nobody does," or of not doing " what every- 
body does," is the subject of as much depreciatory remark 
as if he or she had committed some grave moral delinquency. 
Persons require to possess a title, or some other badge of 
rank, or the consideration of people of rank, to be able to 
indulge somewhat in the luxury of doing as they like with- 
out detriment to their estimation. To indulge somewhat, I 
repeat: for whoever allow themselves much of that in- 
dulgence, incur the risk of something v/orse than disparag- 
ing speeches — they are in peril of a commission de lunatico, 
and of having their property taken from them and given to 
their relations.* 

'There is something both contemptible and frightful in the sort of evi- 
dence on which, of late years, any person can be judicially declared unfit 
for the management of his affairs; and after his death, his disposal of his 

f)roperty can be set aside, if there is enough of it to pay the expenses of 
itigation — which are charged on the property itself. All the minute details 
of his daily life are pried into, and whatever is found which, seen through 
the medium of the perceiving and describing faculties of the lowest of the 
low, bears an appearance unlike absolute commonplace, is laid before the 
jury as evidence of insanity, and often with success; the jurors being little, 
if at all, less vulgar and ignorant than the witnesses; while the judges, with 
that extraordinary want of knowledge of human nature and life which con- 
tinually astonishes us in English lawyers, often help to mislead them. These 
trials speak volumes as to the state of feeling and opinion among the vulgar 
with regard to human liberty. So far from setting any value on individu- 
ality — so far from respecting the rights of each individual to act, in things 
indiiferent, as seems good to his own judgment and inclinations, judges and 
juries cannot even conceive that a person in a state of sanity can desire such 
freedom. In former days, when it was proposed to burn atheists, charitable 
people used to suggest putting them in a madhouse instead: it would be 
nothing surprising now-a-days were we to see this done, and the doers 
applauding themselves, because, instead of persecuting for religion, they had 
adopted so humane and Christian a mode of treating these unfortunates, not 
without a silent satisfaction at their having thereby obtained their deserts. 



ON LIBERTY 275 

There is one characteristic of the present direction of 
public opinion, peculiarly calculated to make it intolerant of 
any marked demonstration of individuality. The general 
average of mankind are not only moderate in intellect, but 
also moderate in inclinations: they have no tastes or wishes 
strong enough to incline them to do anything unusual, and 
they consequently do not understand those who have, and 
class all such with the wild and intemperate whom they are 
accustomed to look down upon. Now, in addition to this 
fact which is general, we have only to suppose that a strong 
movement has set in towards the improvement of morals, 
and it is evident what we have to expect. In these days 
such a movement has set in^ much has actually been effected 
in the way of increased regularity of conduct, and discour- 
agement of excesses; and there is a philanthropic spirit 
abroad, for the exercise of which there is no more inviting 
field than the moral and prudential improvement of our 
fellow-creatures. These tendencies of the times cause the 
public to be more disposed than at most former periods to 
prescribe general rules of conduct, and endeavor to make 
every one conform to the approved standard. And that 
standard, express or tacit, is to desire nothing strongly. Its 
ideal of character is to be without any marked character; to 
maim by compression, like a Chinese lady's foot, every part 
of human nature which stands out prominently, and tends to 
make the person markedly dissimilar in outline to common- 
place humanity. 

As is usually the case with ideals which exclude one half 
of what is desirable, the present standard of approbation 
produces only an inferior imitation of the other half. In- 
stead of great energies guided by vigorous reason, and 
strong feelings strongly controlled by a conscientious will, 
its result is weak feelings and weak energies, which there- 
fore can be kept in outward conformity to rule without any 
strength either of will or of reason. Already energetic 
characters on any large scale are becoming merely tradi- 
tional. There is now scarcely any outlet for energy in this 
country except business. The energy expended in that 
may still be regarded as considerable. What little is left 
from that employment, is expended on some hobby; which 



276 JOHN STUART MILL 

may be a useful, even a philanthropic hobby, but is always 
some one thing, and generally a thing of small dimensions. 
The greatness of England is now all collective: individually 
small, we only appear capable of anything great by our habit 
of combining; and with this our moral and religious philan- 
thropists are perfectly contented. But it was men of another 
stamp than this that made England what it has been; and 
men of another stamp will be needed to prevent its decline. 
The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hin- 
drance to human advancement, being in unceasing antago- 
nism to that disposition to aim at something better than cus- 
tomary, which is called, according to circumstances, the spirit 
of liberty, or that of progress or improvement. The spirit 
of improvement is not always a spirit of liberty, for it may 
aim at forcing improvements on an unwilling people; and 
the spirit of liberty, in so far as it resists such attempts, may 
ally itself locally and temporarily with the opponents of im- 
provement; but the only unfailing and permanent source of 
improvement is liberty, since by it there are as many possi- 
ble independent centres of improvement as there are indi- 
viduals. The progressive principle, however, in either shape, 
whether as the love of liberty or of improvement, is antago- 
nistic to the sway of Custom, involving at least emancipation 
from that yoke; and the contest between the two constitutes 
the chief interest of the history of mankind. The greater 
part of the world has, properly speaking, no history, because 
the despotism of Custom is complete. This is the case over 
the whole East. Custom is there, in all things, the final 
appeal; justice and right mean conformity to custom; the 
argument of custom no one, unless some tyrant intoxicated 
with power, thinks of resisting. And we see the result. 
Those nations must once have had originality; they did not 
start out of the ground populous, lettered, and versed in 
many of the arts of life; they made themselves all this, and 
were then the greatest and most powerful nations in the 
world. What are they now? The subjects or dependents of 
tribes whose forefathers wandered in the forests when theirs 
had magnificent palaces and gorgeous temples, but over 
whom custom exercised only a divided rule with liberty and 
progress. A people, it appears, may be progressive for a 



ON LIBERTY 277 

certain length of time, and then stop: when does it stop? 
When it ceases to possess individuality. If a similar change 
should befall the nations of Europe, it will not be in exactly 
the same shape: the despotism of custom with which these 
nations are threatened is not precisely stationariness. It 
proscribes singularity, but it does not preclude change, pro- 
vided all change together. We have discarded the fixed 
costumes of our forefathers; every one must still dress like 
other people, but the fashion may change once or twice a 
year. We thus take care that when there is change, it shall 
be for change's sake, and not from any idea of beauty or 
convenience; for the same idea of beauty or convenience 
would not strike all the world at the same moment, and be 
simultaneously thrown aside by all at another moment. But 
we are progressive as well as changeable: we continually 
make new inventions in mechanical things, and keep them 
until they are again superseded by better; we are eager for 
improvement in politics, in education, even in morals, though 
in this last our idea of improvement chiefly consists in per- 
suading or forcing other people to be as good as ourselves. 
It is not progress that we object to; on the contrary, we flat- 
ter ourselves that we are the most progressive people who 
ever lived. It is individuality that we war against: we 
should think we had done wonders if we had made ourselves 
all alike; forgetting that the unlikeness of one person to 
another is generally the first thing which draws the attention 
of either to the imperfection of his own type, and the su- 
periority of another, or the possibility, by combining the 
advantages of both, of producing something better than 
either. We have a warning example in China — a nation 
of much talent, and, in some respects, even wisdom, owing 
to the rare good fortune of having been provided at an 
early period with a particularly good set of customs, the 
work, in some measure, of men to whom even the most en- 
lightened European must accord, under certain limitations, 
the title of sages and philosophers. They are remarkable, 
too, in the excellence of their apparatus for impressing, as 
far as possible, the best wisdom they possess upon every 
mind in the community, and securing that those who have 
appropriated most of it shall occupy the posts of honor and 



278 JOHN STUART MILL 

power. Surely the people who did this have discovered the 
secret of human progressiveness, and must have kept them- 
selves steadily at the head of the movement of the world. 
On the contrary, they have become stationary — have re- 
mained so for thousands of years; and if they are ever to 
be farther improved, it must be by foreigners. They have 
succeeded beyond all hope in what English philanthropists 
are so industriously working at — in making a people all alike, 
all governing their thoughts and conduct by the same 
maxims and rules; and these are the fruits. The modern 
regime of public opinion is, in an unorganized form, what 
the Chinese educational and political systems are in an or- 
ganized ; and unless individuality shall be able successfully to 
assert itself against this yoke, Europe, notwithstanding its 
noble antecedents and its professed Christianity, will tend 
to become another China. 

What is it that has hitherto preserved Europe from this 
lot? What has made the European family of nations an 
improving, instead of a stationary portion of mankind? Not 
any superior excellence in them, which when it exists, exists 
as the effect, not as the cause ; but their remarkable diversity 
of character and culture. Individuals, classes, nations, have 
been extremely unlike one another: they have struck out a 
great variety of paths, each leading to something valuable; 
and although at every period those who travelled in different 
paths have been intolerant of one another, and each would 
have thought it an excellent thing if all the rest could have 
been compelled to travel his road, their attempts to thwart 
each other's development have rarely had any permanent 
success, and each has in time endured to receive the good 
which the others have offered. Europe is, in my judgment, 
wholly indebted to this plurality of paths for its progressive 
and many-sided development. But it already begins to pos- 
sess this benefit in a considerably less degree. It is decidedly 
advancing towards the Chinese ideal of making all people 
alike. M. de Tocqueville, in his last important work, re- 
marks how much more the Frenchmen of the present day 
resemble one another, than did those even of the last gen- 
eration. The same remark might be made of Englishmen 
in a far greater degree. In a passage already quoted from 



ON LIBERTY 279 

Wilhelm von Humboldt, he points out two things as neces- 
sary conditions of human development, because necessary to 
render people unlike one another; namely, freedom, and 
variety of situations. The second of these two conditions is 
in this country every day diminishing. The circumstances 
which surround different classes and individuals, and shape 
their characters, are daily becoming more assimilated. For- 
merly, different ranks, different neighborhoods, different 
trades and professions lived in what might be called different 
worlds ; at present, to a great degree, in the same. Compara- 
tively speaking, they now read the same things, listen to the 
same things, see the same things, go to the same places, have 
their hopes and fears directed to the same objects, have the 
same rights and liberties, and the same means of asserting 
them. Great as are the differences of position which re- 
main, they are nothing to those which have ceased. And 
the assimilation is still proceeding. All the political changes 
of the age promote it, since they all tend to raise the low 
and to lower the high. Every extension of education pro- 
motes it, because education brings people under common 
influences, and gives them access to the general stock of 
facts and sentiments. Improvements in the means of com- 
munication promote it, by bringing the inhabitants of distant 
places into personal contact, and keeping up a rapid flow of 
changes of residence between one place and another. The 
increase of commerce and manufactures promotes it, by 
diffusing more widely the advantages of easy circumstances, 
and opening all objects of ambition, even the highest, to 
general competition, whereby the desire of rising becomes 
no longer the character of a particular class, but of all 
classes. A more powerful agency than even all these, in 
bringing about a general similarity among mankind, is the 
complete establishment, in this and other free countries, of 
the ascendancy of public opinion in the State. As the various 
social eminences which enabled persons entrenched on them 
to disregard the opinion of the multitude, gradually became 
levelled; as the very idea of resisting the will of the public, 
when it is positively known that they have a will, disappears 
more and more from the minds of practical politicians ; there 
ceases to be any social support for non-conformity — any sub- 



280 JOHN STUART MILL 

stantive power in society, which, itself opposed to the 
ascendancy of numbers, is interested in taking under its 
protection opinions and tendencies at variance with those 
of the public. 

The combination of all these causes forms so great a mass 
of influences hostile to Individuality, that it is not easy to see 
how it can stand its ground. It will do so with increasing 
difficulty, unless the intelligent part of the public can be 
made to feel its value — to see that it is good there should be 
differences, even though not for the better, even though, 
as it may appear to them, some should be for the worse. If 
the claims of Individuality are ever to be asserted, the time 
is now, while much is still wanting to complete the enforced 
assimilation. It is only in the earlier stages that any stand 
can be successfully made against the encroachment. The 
demand that all other people shall resemble ourselves, grows 
by what it feeds on. If resistance waits till life is reduced 
nearly to one uniform type, all deviations from that type 
will come to be considered impious, immoral, even monstrous 
and contrary to nature. Mankind speedily become unable to 
conceive diversity, when they have been for some time un- 
accustomed to see it 



CHAPTER IV 

Of the Limits to the Authority of Society Over the 

Individual 

WHAT, then, is the rightful limit to the sovereignty 
of the individual over himself? Where does the 
authority of society begin? How much of human 
life should be assigned to individuality, and how much to 
society ? 

Each will receive its proper share, if each has that which 
more particularly concerns it. To individuality should be- 
long the part of life in which it is chiefly the individual that 
is interested; to society, the part which chiefly interests 
society. 

Though society is not founded on a contract, and though 
no good purpose is answered by inventing a contract in 
order to deduce social obligations from it, every one who 
receives the protection of society owes a return for the ben- 
efit, and the fact of living in society renders it indispensable 
that each should be bound to observe a certain line of con- 
duct towards the rest. This conduct consists, first, in not 
injuring the interests of one another; or rather certain 
interests, which, either by express legal provision or by tacit 
understanding, ought to be considered as rights; and sec- 
ondly, in each person's bearing his share (to be fixed on 
some equitable principle) of the labors and sacrifices in- 
curred for defending the society or its members from injury 
and molestation. These conditions society is justified in 
enforcing, at all costs to those who endeavor to withhold 
fulfilment. Nor is this all that society may do. The acts of 
an individual may be hurtful to others, or wanting in due 
consideration for their welfare, without going the length of 
violating any of their constituted rights. The offender may 
then be justly punished by opinion, though not by law. As 

281 



282 JOHN STUART MILL 

soon as any part of a person's conduct affects prejudicially 
the interests of others, society has jurisdiction over it, and 
the question whether the general welfare will or will not be 
promoted by interfering with it, becomes open to discussion. 
But there is no room for entertaining any such question 
when a person's conduct affects the interests of no persons 
besides himself, or needs not affect them unless they like, 
(all the persons concerned being of full age, and the ordinary 
amount of understanding). In all such cases there should be 
perfect freedom, legal and social, to do the action and stand 
the consequences. 

It would be a great misunderstanding of this doctrine, to 
suppose that it is one of selfish indifference, which pretends 
that human beings have no business with each other's con- 
duct in life, and that they should not concern themselves 
about the well-doing or well-being of one another, unless 
their own interest is involved. Instead of any diminution, 
there is need of a great increase of disinterested exertion 
to promote the good of others. But disinterested benevo- 
lence can find other instruments to persuade people to their 
good, than whips and scourges, either of the literal or the 
metaphorical sort, I am the last person to undervalue the 
self-regarding virtues; they are only second in importance, 
if even second, to the social. It is equally the business of 
education to cultivate both. But even education works by 
conviction and persuasion as well as by compulsion, and it is 
by the former only that, when the period of education is 
past, the self-regarding virtues should be inculcated. Human 
beings owe to each other help to distinguish the better from 
the worse, and encouragement to choose the former and 
avoid the latter. They should be forever stimulating each 
other to increased exercise of their higher faculties, and 
increased direction of their feelings and aims towards wise 
instead of foolish, elevating instead of degrading, objects 
and contemplations. But neither one person, nor any num- 
ber of persons, is warranted in saying to another human 
creature of ripe years, that he shall not do with his life for 
his own benefit what he chooses to do with it. He is the 
person most interested in his own well-being, the interest 
.which any other person, except in cases of strong personal 



ON LIBERTY 283 

attachment, can have in it, is trifling, compared with that 
which he himself has; the interest which society has in him 
individually (except as to his conduct to others) is frac- 
tional, and altogether indirect : while, with respect to his own 
feelings and circumstances, the most ordinary man or woman 
has means of knowledge immeasurably surpassing those that 
can be possessed by any one else. The interference of 
society to overrule his judgment and purposes in what only 
regards himself, must be grounded on general presumptions; 
which may be altogether wrong, and even if right, are as 
likely as not to be misapplied to individual cases, by per- 
sons no better acquainted with the circumstances of such 
cases than those are who look at them merely from with- 
out. In this department, therefore, of human affairs, Indi- 
viduality has its proper field of action. In the conduct of 
human beings towards one another, it is necessary that gen- 
eral rules should for the most part be observed, in order that 
people may know what they have to expect; but in each per- 
son's own concerns, his individual spontaneity is entitled to 
free exercise. Considerations to aid his judgment, exhorta- 
tions to strengthen his will, may be offered to him, even 
obtruded on him, by others; but he, himself, is the final 
judge. All errors which he is likely to commit against advice 
and warning, are far outweighed by the evil of allowing 
others to constrain him to what they deem his good. 

I do not mean that the feelings with which a person is 
regarded by others, ought not to be in any way affected by 
his self -regarding qualities or deficiencies. This is neither 
possible nor desirable. If he is eminent in any of the quali- 
ties which conduce to his own good, he is, so far, a proper 
object of admiration. He is so much the nearer to the ideal 
perfection of human nature. If he is grossly deficient in 
those qualities, a sentiment the opposite of admiration will 
follow. There is a degree of folly, and a degree of what 
may be called (though the phrase is not unobjectionable) low- 
ness or depravation of taste, which, though it cannot justify 
doing harm to the person who manifests it, renders him 
necessarily and properly a subject of distaste, or, in ex- 
treme cases, even of contempt: a person could not have the 
opposite qualities in due strength without entertaining these 



284 JOHN STUART MILL 

feelings. Though doing no wrong to any one, a person may 
so act as to compel us to judge him, and feel to him, as a 
fool, or as a being of an inferior order: and since this judg- 
ment and feeling are a fact which he would prefer to avoid, 
it is doing him a service to warn him of it beforehand, as of 
any other disagreeable consequence to which he exposes 
himself. It would be well, indeed, if this good office were 
much more freely rendered than the common notions of 
politeness at present permit, and if one person could honestly 
point out to another that he thinks him in fault, without 
being considered unmannerly or presuming. We have a 
right, also, in various ways, to act upon our unfavorable 
opinion of any one, not to the oppression of his individuality, 
but in the exercise of ours. We are not bound, for example, 
to seek his society; we have a right to avoid it (though not 
to parade the avoidance), for we have a right to choose the 
society most acceptable to us. We have a right, and it may 
be our duty, to caution others against him, if we think his 
example or conversation likely to have a pernicious effect 
on those with whom he associates. We may give others a 
preference over him in optional good offices, except those 
which tend to his improvement. In these various modes a 
person may suffer very severe penalties at the hands of 
others, for faults which directly concern only himself; but 
he suffers these penalties only in so far as they are the 
natural, and, as it were, the spontaneous consequences of the 
faults themselves, not because they are purposely inflicted 
on him for the sake of punishment. A person who shows 
rashness, obstinacy, self-conceit — who cannot live within 
moderate means — who cannot restrain himself from hurtful 
indulgences — who pursues animal pleasures at the expense 
of those of feeling and intellect — must expect to be lowered 
in the opinion of others, and to have a less share of their 
favorable sentiments, but of this he has no right to com- 
plain, unless he has merited their favor by special excellence 
in his social relations, and has thus established a title to 
their good offices, which is not affected by his demerits 
towards himself. 

What I contend for is, that the inconveniences which are 
strictly inseparable from the unfavorable judgment of others, 



ON LIBERTY 285 

are the only ones to which a person should ever be sub- 
jected for that portion of his conduct and character which 
concerns his own good, but which does not affect the inter- 
ests of others in their relations with him. Acts injurious to 
others require a totally different treatment. Encroachment 
on their rights; infliction on them of any loss or damage 
not justified by his own rights; falsehood or duplicity in deal- 
ing with them ; unfair or ungenerous use of advantages over 
them; even selfish abstinence from defending them against 
injury — these are fit objects of moral reprobation, and, in 
grave cases, of moral retribution and punishment. And not 
only these acts, but the dispositions which lead to them, are 
properly immoral, and fit subjects of disapprobation which 
may rise to abhorrence. Cruelty of disposition; malice and 
ill-nature; that most anti-social and odious of all passions, 
envy; dissimulation and insincerity; irascibility on insufii- 
cient cause, and resentment disproportioned to the provoca- 
tion; the love of domineering over others; the desire to 
engross more than one's share of advantages (the TiXeoue^ia 
of the Greeks) ; the pride which derives gratification from 
the abasement of others; the egotism which thinks self and 
its concerns more important than everything else, and de- 
cides all doubtful questions in his own favor; — these are 
moral vices, and constitute a bad and odious moral charac- 
ter: unlike the self-regarding faults previously mentioned, 
which are not properly immoralities, and to whatever pitch 
they may be carried, do not constitute wickedness. They 
may be proofs of any amount of folly, or want of personal 
dignity and self-respect; but they are only a subject of 
moral reprobation when they involve a breach of duty to 
others, for whose sake the individual is bound to have care 
for himself. What are called duties to ourselves are not 
socially obligatory, unless circumstances render them at the 
same time duties to others. The term duty to oneself, when it 
means anything more than prudence, means self-respect or 
self-development; and for none of these is any one account- 
able to his fellow-creatures, because for none of them is it for 
the good of mankind that he be held accountable to them. 

The distinction between the loss of consideration which a 
person may rightly incur by defect of prudence or of per- 



286 JOHN STUART MILL 

sonal dignity, and the reprobation which is due to him for 
an offence against the rights of others, is not a merely nomi- 
nal distinction. It makes a vast difference both in our feel- 
ings and in our conduct towards him, whether he displeases 
us in things in which we think we have a right to control 
him, or in things in which we know that we have not. If he 
displeases us, we may express our distaste, and we may stand 
aloof from a person as well as from a thing that displeases 
us; but we shall not therefore feel called on to make his 
life uncomfortable. We shall reflect that he already bears, 
or will bear, the whole penalty of his error; if he spoils his 
life by mismanagement, we shall not, for that reason, desire 
to spoil it still further : instead of wishing to punish him, we 
shall rather endeavor to alleviate his punishment, by show- 
ing him how he may avoid or cure the evils his conduct 
tends to bring upon him. He may be to us an object of pity, 
perhaps of dislike, but not of anger or resentment; we shall 
not treat him like an enemy of society: the worst we shall 
think ourselves justified in doing is leaving him to himself, 
if we do not interfere benevolently by showing interest or 
concern for him. It is far otherwise if he has infringed the 
rules necessary for the protection of his fellow-creatures, 
individually or collectively. The evil consequences of his 
acts do not then fall on himself, but on others; and society, 
as the protector of all its members, must retaliate on him; 
must inflict pain on him for the express purpose of punish- 
ment, and must take care that it be sufficiently severe. In 
^he one case, he is an offender at our bar, and we are called 
on not only to sit in judgment on him, but, in one shape or 
another, to execute our own sentence: in the other case, it 
is not our part to inflict any suffering on him, except what 
may incidentally follow from our using the same liberty in 
the regulation of our own affairs, which we allow to him 
in his. 

The distinction here pointed out between the part of a 
person's life which concerns only himself, and that which 
concerns others, many persons will refuse to admit. How (it 
may be asked) can any part of the conduct of a member of 
society be a matter of indifference to the other members? 
No person is an entirely isolated being; it is impossible for a 



ON LIBERTY 287 

person to do anything seriously or permanently hurtful to 
himself, without mischief reaching at least to his near con- 
nections, and often far beyond them. If he injures his 
property, he does harm to those who directly or indirectly 
derived support from it, and usually diminishes, by a greater 
or less amount, the general resources of the community. If 
he deteriorates his bodily or mental faculties, he not only 
brings evil upon all who depended on him for any portion 
of their happiness, but disqualifies himself for rendering 
the services which he owes to his fellow-creatures generally ; 
perhaps becomes a burden on their affection or benevolence; 
and if such conduct were very frequent, hardly any offence 
that is committed would detract more from the general sum 
of good. Finally, if by his vices or follies a person does no 
direct harm to others, he is nevertheless (it may be said) 
injurious by his example; and ought to be compelled to con- 
trol himself, for the sake of those whom the sight or knowl- 
edge of his conduct might corrupt or mislead. 

And even (it will be added) if the consequences of mis- 
conduct could be confined to the vicious or thoughtless indi- 
vidual, ought society to abandon to their own guidance those 
who are manifestly unfit for it? If protection against them- 
selves is confessedly due to children and persons under age, 
is not society equally bound to afford it to persons of ma- 
ture years who are equally incapable of self-government? 
If gambling, or drunkenness, or incontinence, or idleness, or 
uncleanliness, are as injurious to happiness, and as great a 
hindrance to improvement, as many or most of the acts pro- 
hibited by law, why (it may be asked) should not law, so far 
as is consistent with practicability and social convenience, en- 
deavor to repress these also? And as a supplement to the 
unavoidable imperfections of law, ought not opinion at least 
to organize a powerful police against these vices, and visit 
rigidly with social penalties those who are known to prac- 
tise them? There is no question here (it may be said) about 
restricting individuality, or impeding the trial of new and 
original experiments in living. The only things it is sought 
to prevent are things which have been tried and condemned 
from the beginning of the world until now; things which 
experience has shown not to be useful or suitable to anjr 



288 JOHN STUART MILL 

person's individuality. There must be some length of time 
and amount of experience, after which a moral or prudential 
truth may be regarded as established, and it is merely de- 
sired to prevent generation after generation from falling 
over the same precipice which has been fatal to their prede- 
cessors. 

I fully admit that the mischief which a person does to 
himself, may seriously affect, both through their sympathies 
and their interests, those nearly connected with him, and in 
a minor degree, society at large. When, by conduct of this 
sort, a person is led to violate a distinct and assignable obli- 
gation to any other person or persons, the case is taken out 
of the self-regarding class, and becomes amenable to moral 
disapprobation in the proper sense of the term. If, for 
example, a man, through intemperance or extravagance, be- 
comes unable to pay his debts, or, having undertaken the 
moral responsibility of a family, becomes from the same 
cause incapable of supporting or educating them, he is de- 
servedly reprobated, and might be justly punished; but it is 
for the breach of duty to his family or creditors, not for the 
extra vagence. If the resources which ought to have been 
devoted to them, had been diverted from them for the 
most prudent investment, the moral culpability would have 
been the same. George Barnwell murdered his uncle to get 
money for his mistress, but if he had done it to set him- 
self up in business, he would equally have been hanged. 
Again, in the frequent case of a man who causes grief to 
his family by addiction to bad habits, he deserves reproach 
for his unkindness or ingratitude; but so he may for culti- 
vating habits not in themselves vicious, if they are painful 
to those with whom he passes his life, or who from personal 
ties are dependent on him for their comfort. Whoever fails 
in the consideration generally due to the interests and feel- 
ings of others, not being compelled by some more imperative 
duty, or justified by allowable self-preference, is a subject 
of moral disapprobation for that failure, but not for the 
cause of it, nor for the errors, merely personal to himself, 
which may have remotely led to it. In like manner, when 
a person disables himself, by conduct purely self-regarding, 
from the performance of some definite duty incumbent on 



ON LIBERTY 289 

him to the public, he is guilty of a social offence. No per- 
son ought to be punished simply for being drunk; but a sol- 
dier or a policeman should be punished for being drunk on 
duty. Whenever, in short, there is a definite damage, or a 
definite risk of damage, either to an individual or to the 
public, the case is taken out of the province of liberty, and 
placed in that of morality or law. 

But with regard to the merely contingent or, as it may be 
called, constructive injury which a person causes to society, 
by conduct which neither violates any specific duty to the 
public, nor occasions perceptible hurt to any assignable indi- 
vidual except himself; the inconvenience is one which so- 
ciety can afford to bear, for the sake of the greater good 
of human freedom. If grown persons are to be punished 
for not taking proper care of themselves, I would rather 
it were for their own sake, than under pretence of preventing 
them from impairing their capacity of rendering to society 
benefits which society does not pretend it has a right to 
exact. But I cannot consent to argue the point as if society 
had no means of bringing its weaker members up to its ordi- 
nary standard of rational conduct, except waiting till they 
do something irrational, and then punishing them, legally 
or morally, for it. Society has had absolute power over them 
during all the early portion of their existence: it has had 
the whole period of childhood and nonage in which to try 
whether it could make them capable of rational conduct in 
life. The existing generation is master both of the training 
and the entire circumstances of the generation to come; it 
cannot indeed make them perfectly wise and good, because 
it is itself so lamentably deficient in goodness and wisdom; 
and its best efforts are not always, in individual cases, its 
most successful ones; but it is perfectly well able to make 
the rising generation, as a whole, as good as, and a little 
better than, itself. If society lets any considerable number 
of its members grow up mere children, incapable of being 
acted on by rational consideration of distant motives, so- 
ciety has itself to blame for the consequences. Armed 
not only with all the powers of education, but with the as- 
cendency which the authority of a received opinion always 
exercises over the minds who are least fitted to judge for 

Vol. 25—10 HC 



290 JOHN STUART MILL 

themselves; and aided by the natural penalties which can- 
not be prevented from falling on those who incur the dis- 
taste or the contempt of those who know them; let not 
society pretend that it needs, besides all this, the power to 
issue commands and enforce obedience in the personal con- 
cerns of individuals, in which, on all principles of justice 
and policy, the decision ought to rest with those who are 
to abide the consequences. Nor is there anything which 
tends more to discredit and frustrate the better means of 
influencing conduct, than a resort to the worse. If there be 
among those whom it is attempted to coerce into prudence 
or temperance, any of the material of which vigorous and 
independent characters are made, they will infallibly rebel 
against the yoke. No such person will ever feel that others 
have a right to control him in his concerns, such as they have 
to prevent him from injuring them in theirs; and it easily 
comes to be considered a mark of spirit and courage to fly in 
the face of such usurped authority, and do with ostentation 
the exact opposite of what it enjoins; as in the fashion of 
grossness which succeeded, in the time of Charles II., to the 
fanatical moral intolerance of the Puritans. With respect to 
what is said of the necessity of protecting society from the 
bad example set to others by the vicious or the self-indulgent ; 
it is true that bad example may have a pernicious effect, 
especially the example of doing wrong to others with im- 
punity to the wrong-doer. But we are now speaking of 
conduct which, while it does no wrong to others, is supposed 
to do great harm to the agent himself: and I do not see how 
those who believe this, can think otherwise than that the 
example, on the whole, must be more salutary than hurtful, 
since, if it displays the misconduct, it displays also the pain- 
ful or degrading consequences which, if the conduct is justly 
censured, must be supposed to be in all or most cases at- 
tendant on it. 

But the strongest of all the arguments against the inter- 
ference of the public with purely personal conduct, is that 
when it does interfere, the odds are that it interferes 
wrongly, and in the wrong place. On questions of social 
morality, of duty to others, the opinion of the public, that 
is, of an overruling majority, though often wrong, is likely 



ON LIBERTY 291 

to be still oftener right; because on such questions they 
are only required to judge of their own interests; of the 
manner in which some mode of conduct, if allowed to be 
practised, would affect themselves. But the opinion of a 
similar majority, imposed as a law on the minority, on ques- 
tions of self-regarding conduct, is quite as likely to be 
wrong as right; for in these cases public opinion means, at 
the best, some people's opinion of what is good or bad for 
other people; while very often it does not even mean that; 
the public, with the most perfect indifference, passing over 
the pleasure or convenience of those whose conduct they 
censure, and considering only their own preference. There 
are many who consider as an injury to themselves any con- 
duct which they have a distaste for, and resent it as an 
outrage to their feelings; as a religious bigot, when charged 
with disregarding the religious feelings of others, has been 
known to retort that they disregard his feelings, by per- 
sisting in their abominable worship or creed. But there 
is no parity between the feeling of a person for his own 
opinion, and the feeling of another who is offended at his 
holding it ; no more than between the desire of a thief to take 
a purse, and the desire of the right owner to keep it. And 
a person's taste is as much his own peculiar concern as his 
opinion or his purse. It is easy for any one to imagine an 
ideal public, which leaves the freedom and choice of indi- 
viduals in all uncertain matters undisturbed, and only re- 
quires them to abstain from modes of conduct which uni- 
versal experience has condemned. But where has there been 
seen a public which set any such limit to its censorship? 
or when does the public trouble itself about universal ex- 
perience. In its interferences with personal conduct it is 
seldom thinking of anything but the enormity of acting or 
feeling differently from itself; and this standard of judg- 
ment, thinly disguised, is held up to mankind as the dictate 
of religion and philosophy, by nine tenths of all moralists 
and speculative writers. These teach that things are right 
because they are right; because we feel them to be so. 
They tell us to search in our own minds and hearts for 
laws of conduct binding on ourselves and on all others. 
What can the poor public do but apply these instructions. 



292 JOHN STUART MILL 

and make their own personal feelings of good and evil, if 
they are tolerably unanimous in them, obligatory on all the 
world? 

The evil here pointed out is not one which exists only in 
theory; and it may perhaps be expected that I should specify 
the instances in which the public of this age and country 
improperly invests its own preferences with the character 
of moral laws. I am not writing an essay on the aberra- 
tions of existing moral feeling. That is too weighty a sub- 
ject to be discussed parenthetically, and by way of illustra- 
tion. Yet examples are necessary, to show that the principle 
I maintain is of serious and practical moment, and that I am 
not endeavoring to erect a barrier against imaginary evils. 
And it is not difficult to show, by abundant instances, that 
to extend the bounds of what may be called moral police, 
until it encroaches on the most unquestionably legitimate 
liberty of the individual, is one of the most universal of all 
human propensities. 

As a first instance, consider the antipathies which men 
cherish on no better grounds than that persons whose re- 
ligious opinions are different from theirs, do not practise 
their religious observances, especially their religious ab- 
stinences. To cite a rather trivial example, nothing in the 
creed or practice of Christians does more to envenom the 
hatred of Mahomedans against them, than the fact of their 
eating pork. There are few acts which Christians and 
Europeans regard with more unajffected disgust, than Mus- 
sulmans regard this particular mode of satisfying hunger. 
It is, in the first place, an offence against their religion; 
but this circumstance by no means explains either the de- 
gree or the kind of their repugnance; for wine also is for- 
bidden by their religion, and to partake of it is by all Mus- 
sulmans accounted wrong, but not disgusting. Their aversion 
to the flesh of the "unclean beast" is, on the contrary, of 
that peculiar character, resembling an instinctive antipathy, 
which the idea of uncleanness, when once it thoroughly 
sinks into the feelings, seems always to excite even in those 
whose personal habits are anything but scrupulously cleanly 
and of which the sentiment of religious impurity, so intense 
in the Hindoos, is a remarkable example. Suppose now 



ON LIBERTY 293 

that fn a people, of whom the majority were Mussulmans, 
that majority should insist upon not permitting pork to be 
eaten within the limits of the country. This would be noth- 
ing new in Mahomedan countries/ Would it be a legitimate 
exercise of the moral authority of public opinion? and if 
not, why not? The practice is really revolting to such a 
public. They also sincerely think that it is forbidden and 
abhorred by the Deity. Neither could the prohibition be 
censured as religious persecution. It might be religious in 
its origin, but it would not be persecution for religion, since 
nobody's religion makes it a duty to eat pork. The only 
tenable ground of condemnation would be, that with the 
personal tastes and self-regarding concerns of individuals 
the public has no business to interfere. 

To come somewhat nearer home: the majority of Span- 
iards consider it a gross impiety, offensive in the highest 
degree to the Supreme Being, to worship him in any other 
manner than the Roman Catholic; and no other public 
worship is lawful on Spanish soil. The people of all South- 
ern Europe look upon a married clergy as not only irre- 
ligious, but unchaste, indecent, gross, disgusting. What do 
Protestants think of these perfectly sincere feelings, and of 
the attempt to enforce them against non-Catholics? Yet, 
if mankind are justified in interfering with each other's 
liberty in things which do not concern the interests of 
others, on what principle is it possible consistently to ex- 
clude these cases? or who can blame people for desiring 
to suppress what they regard as a scandal in the sight of 
God and man? 

No stronger case can be shown for prohibiting anything 
which is regarded as a personal immorality, than is made 
out for suppressing these practices in the eyes of those who 
regard them as impieties ; and unless we are willing to adopt 

^ The case of the Bombay Parsees is a curious instance in point. When 
this industrious and enterprising tribe, the descendants of the Persian fire- 
worshippers, flying from their native country before the Caliphs, arrived in 
Western India, they were admitted to toleration by the Hindoo sovereigns, 
on condition of not eating beef. When those regions afterwards fell under 
the dominion of Mahomedan conquerors, the Parsees obtained from them a 
continuance of indulgence, on condition of refraining from pork. What was 
at first obedience to authority became a second nature, and the Parsees to 
this day abstain both from beef and pork. Though not required by their 
religion, the double abstinence has had time to grow into a custom of their 
tribe; and custom, in the East, is a religion. 



294 JOHN STUART MILL 

the logic of persecutors, and to say that we may persecute 
others because we are right, and that they must not persecute 
us because they are wrong, we must beware of admitting 
a principle of which we should resent as a gross injustice the 
application to ourselves. 

The preceding instances may be objected to, although un- 
reasonably, as drawn from contingencies impossible among 
us: opinion, in this country, not being likely to enforce ab- 
stinence from meats, or to interfere with people for wor- 
shipping, and for either marrying or not marrying, accord- 
ing to their creed or inclination. The next example, however, 
shall be taken from an interference with liberty which we 
have by no means passed all danger of. Wherever the Puri- 
tans have been sufficiently powerful, as in New England, and 
in Great Britain at the time of the Commonwealth, they have 
endeavored, with considerable success, to put down all public, 
and nearly all private, amusements: especially music, danc- 
ing, public games, or other assemblages for purposes of 
diversion, and the theatre. There are still in this country 
large bodies of persons by whose notions of morality and 
religion these recreations are condemned; and those persons 
belonging chiefly to the middle class, who are the ascendant 
power in the present social and political condition of the 
kingdom, it is by no means impossible that persons of these 
sentiments may at some time or other command a majority 
in Parliament. How will the remaining portion of the com- 
munity like to have the amusements that shall be permitted 
to them regulated by the religious and moral sentiments 
of the stricter Calvinists and Methodists? Would they not, 
with considerable peremptoriness, desire these intrusively 
pious members of society to mind their own business? This 
is precisely what should be said to every government and 
every public, who have the pretension that no person shall 
enjoy any pleasure which they think wrong. But if the prin- 
ciple of the pretension be admitted, no one can reasonably 
object to its being acted on in the sense of the majority, or 
other preponderating power in the country; and all persons 
must be ready to conform to the idea of a Christian com- 
monwealth, as understood by the early settlers in New Eng- 
land, if a religious profession similar to theirs should ever 



ON LIBERTY 295 

succeed in regaining its lost ground, as religions supposed 
to be declining have so often been known to do. 

To imagine another contingency, perhaps more likely to 
be realized than the one last mentioned. There is confessedly 
a strong tendency in the modern world towards a democratic 
constitution of society, accompanied or not by popular po- 
litical institutions. It is affirmed that in the country where 
this tendency is most completely realized — where both so- 
ciety and the government are most democratic — the United 
States — the feeling of the majority, to whom any appearance 
of a more showy or costly style of living than they can hope 
to rival is disagreeable, operates as a tolerably effectual 
sumptuary law, and that in many parts of the Union it is 
really difficult for a person possessing a very large income, 
to find any mode of spending it, which will not incur popular 
disapprobation. Though such statements as these are doubt- 
less much exaggerated as a representation of existing facts, 
the state of things they describe is not only a conceivable 
and possible, but a probable result of democratic feeling, 
combined with the notion that the public has a right to a 
veto on the manner in which individuals shall spend their 
incomes. We have only further to suppose a considerable 
diffusion of Socialist opinions, and it may become infamous 
in the eyes of the majority to possess more property than 
some very small amount, or any income not earned by 
manual labor. Opinions similar in principle to these, already 
prevail widely among the artisan class, and weigh oppres- 
sively on those who are amenable to the opinion chiefly of 
that class, namely, its own members. It is known that the 
bad workmen who form the majority of the operatives in 
many branches of industry, are decidedly of opinion that 
bad workmen ought to receive the same wages as good, and 
that no one ought to be allowed, through piecework or other- 
wise, to earn by superior skill or industry more than others 
can without it. And they employ a moral police, which oc- 
casionally becomes a physical one, to deter skilful workmen 
from receiving, and employers from giving, a larger remu- 
neration for a more useful service. If the public have any 
jurisdiction over private concerns, I cannot see that these 
people are in fault, or that any individual's particular pub- 



296 JOHN STUART MILL 

lie can be blamed for asserting the same authority over his 
individual conduct, which the general public asserts over 
people in general. 

But, without dwelling upon supposititious cases, there are, 
in our own day, gross usurpations upon the liberty of private 
fife actually practised, and still greater ones threatened with 
some expectation of success, and opinions proposed which 
assert an unlimited right in the public not only to prohibit 
by law everything which it thinks wrong, but in order to get 
at what it thinks wrong, to prohibit any number of things 
which it admits to be innocent. 

Under the name of preventing intemperance the people 
of one English colony, and of nearly half the United States, 
have been interdicted by law from making any use what- 
ever of fermented drinks, except for medical purposes: for 
prohibition of their sale is in fact, as it is intended to be, 
prohibition of their use. And though the impracticability 
of executing the law has caused its repeal in several of the 
States which had adopted it, including the one from which 
it derives its name, an attempt has notwithstanding been 
commenced, and is prosecuted with considerable zeal by 
many of the professed philanthropists, to agitate for a simi- 
lar law in this country. The association, or '^Alliance " as 
it terms itself, which has been formed for this purpose, has 
acquired some notoriety through the publicity given to a 
correspondence between its Secretary and one of the very 
few English public men who hold that a politician's opinions 
ought to be founded on principles. Lord Stanley's share in 
this correspondence is calculated to strengthen the hopes 
already built on him, by those who know how rare such 
qualities as are manifested in some of his public appear- 
ances, unhappily are among those who figure in political life. 
The organ of the Alliance, who would " deeply deplore the 
recognition of any principle which could be wrested to jus- 
tify bigotry and persecution," undertakes to point out the 
" broad and impassable barrier " which divides such princi- 
ples from those of the association. " All matters relating to 
thought, opinion, conscience, appear to me," he says, *' to 
be without the sphere of legislation; all pertaining to social 
act, habit, relation, subject only to a discretionary power 



ON LIBERTY 297 

vested in the State itself, and not in the individual, to be 
within it." No mention is made of a third class, different 
from either of these, viz., acts and habits which are not 
social, but individual; although it is to this class, surely, 
that the act of drinking fermented liquors belongs. Selling 
fermented liquors, however, is trading, and trading is a 
social act. But the infringement complained of is not on the 
fiberty of the seller, but on that of the buyer and consumer; 
since the State might just as well forbid him to drink wine, 
as purposely make it impossible for him to obtain it. The 
Secretary, however, says, " I claim, as a citizen, a right to 
legislate whenever my social rights are invaded by the 
social act of another." And now for the definition of these 
** social rights." " If anything invades my social rights, cer- 
tainly the traffic in strong drink does. It destroys my primary 
right of security, by constantly creating and stimulating 
social disorder. It invades my right of equality, by de- 
riving a profit from the creation of a misery, I am taxed to 
support. It impedes my right to free moral and intellectual 
development, by surrounding my path with dangers, and by 
weakening and demoralizing society, from which I have a 
right to claim mutual aid and intercourse." A theory of 
" social rights," the like of which probably never before 
found its way into distinct language — being nothing short of 
this — that it is the absolute social right of every individual, 
that every other individual shall act in every respect 
exactly as he ought; that whosoever fails thereof in the 
smallest particular, violates my social right, and entitles me 
to demand from the legislature the removal of the grievance. 
So monstrous a principle is far more dangerous than any 
single interference with liberty; there is no violation of lib- 
erty which it would not justify; it acknowledges no right 
to any freedom whatever, except perhaps to that of holding 
opinions in secret, without ever disclosing them ; for the mo- 
ment an opinion which I consider noxious, passes any one's 
lips, it invades all the " social rights " attributed to me by 
the Alliance. The doctrine ascribes to all mankind a vested 
interest in each other's moral, intellectual, and even physical 
perfection, to be defined by each claimant according to his 
own standard. 



298 JOHN STUART MILL 

Another important example of illegitimate interference 
with the rightful liberty of the individual, not simply threat- 
ened, but long since carried into triumphant effect, is Sab- 
batarian legislation. Without doubt, abstinence on one day 
in the week, so far as the exigencies of life permit, from the 
usual daily occupation, though in no respect religiously bind- 
ing on any except Jews, is a highly beneficial custom. And in- 
asmuch as this custom cannot be observed without a general 
consent to that effect among the industrious classes, there- 
fore, in so far as some persons by working may impose the 
same necessity on others, it may be allowable and right that 
the law should guarantee to each, the observance by others 
of the custom, by suspending the greater operations of in- 
dustry on a particular day. But this justification, grounded 
on the direct interest which others have in each individuaFs 
observance of the practice, does not apply to the self-chosen 
occupations in which a person may think fit to employ his 
leisure; nor does it hold good, in the smallest degree, for 
legal restrictions on amusements. It is true that the amuse- 
ment of some is the day's work of others; but the pleasure, 
not to say the useful recreation, of many, is worth the labor 
of a few, provided the occupation is freely chosen, and can 
be freely resigned. The operatives are perfectly right in 
thinking that if all worked on Sunday, seven days' work 
would have to be given for six days' wages: but so long as 
the great mass of employments are suspended, the small 
number who for the enjoyment of others must still work, 
obtain a proportional increase of earnings; and they are 
not obliged to follow those occupations, if they prefer lei- 
sure to emolument. If a further remedy is sought, it might 
be found in the establishment by custom of a holiday on 
some other day of the week for those particular classes of 
persons. The only ground, therefore, on which restrictions 
on Sunday amusements can be defended, must be that they 
are religiously wrong; a motive of legislation which never 
can be too earnestly protested against. " Deorum injurise 
Diis curse." It remains to be proved that society or any of 
its officers holds a commission from on high to avenge any 
supposed offence to Omnipotence, which is not also a wrong 
to our fellow-creatures. The notion that it is one man's 



ON LIBERTY 299 

duty that another should be religious, was the foundation of 
all the religious persecutions ever perpetrated, and if ad- 
mitted, would fully justify them. Though the feeling which 
breaks out in the repeated attempts to stop railway travelling 
on Sunday, in the resistance to the opening of Museums, and 
the like, has not the cruelty of the old persecutors, the state 
of mind indicated by it is fundamentally the same. It is a 
determination not to tolerate others in doing what is per- 
mitted by their religion, because it is not permitted by the 
persecutor's religion. It is a belief that God not only abomi- 
nates the act of the misbeliever, but will not hold us guiltless 
if we leave him unmolested. 

I cannot refrain from adding to these examples of the 
little account commonly made of human liberty, the language 
of downright persecution which breaks out from the press 
of this country, whenever it feels called on to notice the 
remarkable phenomenon of Mormonism. Much might be 
said on the unexpected and instructive fact, that an alleged 
new revelation, and a religion, founded on it, the product 
of palpable imposture, not even supported by the prestige of 
extraordinary qualities in its founder, is believed by hun- 
dreds of thousands, and has been made the foundation of 
a society, in the age of newspapers, railways, and the elec- 
tric telegraph. What here concerns us is, that this religion, 
like other and better religions, has its martyrs; that its 
prophet and founder was, for his teaching, put to death by 
a mob; that others of its adherents lost their lives by the 
same lawless violence; that they were forcibly expelled, in 
a body, from the country in which they first grew up ; while, 
now that they have been chased into a solitary recess in the 
midst of a desert, many in this country openly declare that 
it would be right (only that it is not convenient) to send an 
expedition against them, and compel them by force to con- 
form to the opinions of other people. The article of the 
Mormonite doctrine which is the chief provocative to the 
antipathy which thus breaks through the ordinary restraints 
of religious tolerance, is its sanction of polygamy; which, 
though permitted to Mahomedans, and Hindoos, and 
Chinese, seems to excite unquenchable animosity when prac- 
tised by persons who speak English, and profess to be a kind 



300 JOHN STUART MILL 

of Christians. No one has a deeper disapprobation than I 
have of this Mormon institution ; both for other reasons, and 
because, far from being in any way countenanced by the 
principle of liberty, it is a direct infraction of that principle, 
being a mere riveting of the chains of one half of the com- 
munity, and an emancipation of the other from reciprocity 
of obligation towards them. Still, it must be remembered 
that this relation is as much voluntary on the part of the 
women concerned in it, and who may be deemed the suffer- 
ers by it, as is the case with any other form of the marriage 
institution; and however surprising this fact may appear, it 
has its explanation in the common ideas and customs of the 
world, which teaching women to think marriage the one 
thing needful, make it intelligible that many a woman should 
prefer being one of several wives, to not being a wife at all. 
Other countries are not asked to recognize such unions, or 
release any portion of their inhabitants from their own laws 
on the score of Mormonite opinions. But when the dissen- 
tients have conceded to the hostile sentiments of others, far 
more than could justly be demanded; when they have left 
the countries to which their doctrines were unacceptable, 
and established themselves in a remote corner of the earth, 
which they have been the first to render habitable to human 
beings; it is difficult to see on what principles but those of 
tyranny they can be prevented from living there under what 
laws they please, provided they commit no aggression on 
other nations, and allow perfect freedom of departure to 
those who are dissatisfied with their ways. A recent writer, 
in some respects of considerable merit, proposes (to use his 
own words,) not a crusade, but a civilisade, against this 
polygamous community, to put an end to what seems to him 
a retrograde step in civilization. It also appears so to me, 
but I am not aware that any community has a right to force 
another to be civilized. So long as the sufferers by the bad 
law do not invoke assistance from other communities, I can- 
not admit that persons entirely unconnected with them ought 
to step in and require that a condition of things with which 
all who are directly interested appear to be satisfied, should 
be put an end to because it is a scandal to persons some 
thousands of miles distant, who have no part or concern in 



ON LIBERTY 301 

it. Let them send missionaries, if they please, to preach 
against it; and let them, by any fair means, (of which silenc- 
ing the teachers is not one,) oppose the progress of similar 
doctrines among their own people. If civilization has got 
the better of barbarism when barbarism had the world to 
itself, it is too much to profess to be afraid lest barbarism, 
after having been fairly got under, should revive and con- 
quer civilization. A civilization that can thus succumb to 
its vanquished enemy must first have become so degenerate, 
that neither its appointed priests and teachers, nor anybody 
else, has the capacity, or will take the trouble, to stand up 
for it. If this be so, the sooner such a civilization receives 
notice to quit, the better. It can only go on from bad to 
worse, until destroyed and regenerated (like the Western 
Empire) by energetic barbarians. 



CHAPTER y 

Applications 

THE principles asserted in these pages must be more 
generally admitted as the basis for discussion of de- 
tails, before a consistent application of them to all 
the various departments of government and morals can be 
attempted with any prospect of advantage. The few ob- 
servations I propose to make on questions of detail, are 
designed to illustrate the principles, rather than to follow 
them out to their consequences. I offer, not so much appli- 
cations, as specimens of application; which may serve to 
bring into greater clearness the meaning and limits of the 
two maxims which together form the entire doctrine of this 
Essay and to assist the judgment in holding the balance be- 
tween them, in the cases where it appears doubtful which of 
them is applicable to the case. 

The maxims are, first, that the individual is not account- 
able to societv for his actions, in so far as these concern 
the interests of no person but himself. Advice, instruction, 
persuasion, and avoidance by other people, if thought neces- 
sary by them for their own good, are the only measures by 
which society can justifiably express its dislike or disappro- 
bation of his conduct. Secondly, that for such actions as 
are prejudicial to the interests of others, the individual is ac- 
countable, and may be subjected either to social or to legal 
punishments, if society is of opinion that the one or the 
other is requisite for its protection. 

In the first place, it must by no means be supposed, be- 
cause damage, or probability of damage, to the interests of 
others, can alone justify the interference of society, that 
therefore it always does justify such interference. In many 
cases, an individual, in pursuing a legitimate object, neces- 
sarily and therefore legitimately causes pain or loss to 

302 



ON LIBERTY 303 

others, or ifitercepts a good which they had a reasonable 
hope of obtaining. Such oppositions of interest between 
individuals often arise from bad social institutions, but are 
unavoidable while those institutions last; and some would be 
unavoidable under any institutions. Whoever succeeds in 
an overcrowded profession, or in a competitive examination ; 
whoever is preferred to another in any contest for an object 
which both desire, reaps benefit from the loss of others, 
from their wasted exertion and their disappointment. But 
it is, by common admission, better for the general interest 
of mankind, that persons should pursue their objects unde- 
terred by this sort of consequences. In other words, society 
admits no right, either legal or moral, in the disappointed 
competitors, to immunity from this kind of suffering; and 
feels called on to interfere, only when means of success have 
been employed which it is contrary to the general interest 
to permit — namely, fraud or treachery, and force. 

Again, trade is a social act. Whoever undertakes to sell 
any description of goods to the public, does what affects the 
interest of other persons, and of society in general ; and thus 
his conduct, in principle, comes within the jurisdiction of 
society : accordingly, it was once held to be the duty of gov- 
ernments, in all cases which were considered of importance, 
to fix prices, and regulate the processes of manufacture. 
But it is now recognized, though not till after a long 
struggle, that both the cheapness and the good quality of 
commodities are most effectually provided for by leaving the 
producers and sellers perfectly free, under the sole check 
of equal freedom to the buyers for supplying themselves else- 
where. This is the so-called doctrine of Free Trade, which 
rests on grounds different from, though equally solid with, 
the principle of individual liberty asserted in this Essay. 
Restrictions on trade, or on production for purposes of 
trade, are indeed restraints; and all restraint, qua restraint, 
is an evil : but the restraints in question affect only that part 
of conduct which society is competent to restrain, and are 
wrong solely because they do not really produce the results 
which it is desired to produce by them. As the principle of 
individual liberty is not involved in the doctrine of Free 
Trade so neither is it in most of the questions which arise 



304 JOHN STUART MILL 

respecting the limits of that doctrine: as for example, what 
amount of public control is admissible for the prevention o/ 
fraud by adulteration; how far sanitary precautions, or ar- 
rangements to protect work-people employed in dangerous 
occupations, should be enforced on employers. Such ques- 
tions involve considerations of liberty, only in so far as 
leaving people to themselves is always better, ccoteris pari- 
hits, than controlling them : but that they may be legitimately 
controlled for these ends, is in principle undeniable. On the 
other hand, there are questions relating to interference with 
trade which are essentially questions of liberty ; such as the 
Maine Law, already touched upon ; the prohibition of the 
importation of opium into China; the restriction of the sale 
of poisons; all cases, in short, where the object of the inter- 
ference is to make it impossible or difficult to obtain a par- 
ticular commodity. These interferences are objectionable, 
not as infringements on the liberty of the producer or seller, 
but on that of the buyer. 

One of these examples, that of the sale of poisons, opens 
a new question; the proper limits of what may be called the 
functions of police; how far liberty may legitimately be in- 
vaded for the prevention of crime, or of accident. It is one 
of the undisputed functions of government to take precau- 
tions against crime before it has been committed, as well as 
to detect and punish it afterwards. The preventive function 
of government, however, is far more liable to be abused, to 
the prejudice of liberty, than the punitory function; for 
there is hardly any part of the legitimate freedom of action 
of a human being which would not admit of being repre- 
sented, and fairly too, as increasing the facilities for some 
form or other of delinquency. Nevertheless, if a public au- 
thority, or even a private person, sees any one evidently pre- 
paring to commit a crime, they are not bound to look on 
inactive until the crime is committed, but may interfere to 
prevent it. If poisons were never bought or used for any 
purpose except the commission of murder, it would be right 
to prohibit their manufacture and sale. They may, how- 
ever, be wanted not only for innocent but for useful pur- 
poses, and restrictions cannot be imposed in the one case 
without operating in the other. Again, it is a proper office 



ON LIBERTY 305 

of public authority to guard against accidents. If either a 
public officer or any one else saw a person attempting to 
cross a bridge which had been ascertained to be unsafe, and 
there were no time to warn him of his danger, they might 
seize him and turn him back without any real infringement 
of his liberty ; for liberty consists in doing what one desires, 
and he does not desire to fall into the river. Nevertheless, 
when there is not a certainty, but only a danger of mischief, 
no one but the person himself can judge of the sufficiency 
of the motive which may prompt him to incur the risk : in this 
case, therefore, (unless he is a child, or delirious, or in some 
state of excitement or absorption incompatible with the full 
use of the reflecting faculty,) he ought, I conceive, to be 
only warned of the danger; not forcibly prevented from ex- 
posing himself to it. Similar considerations, applied to such 
a question as the sale of poisons, may enable us to decide 
which among the possible modes of regulation are or are 
not contrary to principle. Such a precaution, for example, 
as that of labelling the drug with some word expressive 
of its dangerous character, may be enforced without viola- 
tion of liberty: the buyer cannot wish not to know that the 
thing he possesses has poisonous qualities. But to require 
in all cases the certificate of a medical practitioner, would 
make it sometimes impossible, always expensive, to obtain 
the article for legitimate uses. The only mode apparent 
to me, in which difficulties may be thrown in the way of 
crime committed through this means, without any infringe- 
ment, worth taking into account, upon the liberty of those 
who desire the poisonous substance for other purposes, con- 
sists in providing what, in the apt language of Bentham, 
is called " preappointed evidence." This provision is fa- 
miliar to every one in the case of contracts. It is usual 
and right that the law, when a contract is entered into, 
should require as the condition of its enforcing performance, 
that certain formalities should be observed, such as signa- 
tures, attestation of witnesses, and the like, in order that in 
case of subsequent dispute, there may be evidence to prove 
that the contract was really entered into, and that there 
was nothing in the circumstances to render it legally invalid: 
the effect being, to throw great obstacles in the way of fie- 



/ 



306 JOHN STUART MILL 

titious contracts, or contracts made in circumstances whiclij 
if known, would destroy their validity. Precautions of 3 
similar nature might be enforced in the sale of articles 
adapted to be instruments of crime. The seller, for ex- 
ample, might be required to enter in a register the exact 
time of the transaction, the name and address of the buyer, 
the precise quality and quantity sold ; to ask the purpose for 
which it was wanted, and record the answer he received. 
When there was no medical prescription, the presence of 
some third person might be required, to bring home the fact 
to the purchaser, in case there should afterwards be reason 
to believe that the article had been applied to criminal pur- 
poses. Such regulations would in general be no material 
impediment to obtaining the article, but a very considerable 
one to making an improper use of it without detection. 

The right inherent in society, to ward off crimes against 
itself by antecedent precautions, suggests the obvious limita- 
tions to the maxim, that purely self-regarding misconduct 
cannot properly be meddled with in the way of prevention 
or punishment. Drunkennesses, for example, in ordinary 
cases, is not a fit subject for legislative interference; but I 
should deem it perfectly legitimate that a person, who had 
once been convicted of any act of violence to others under 
the influence of drink, should be placed under a special legal 
restriction, personal to himself; that if he were afterwards 
found drunk, he should be liable to a penalty, and that if 
when in that state he committed another offence, the punish- 
ment to which he would be liable for that other offence 
should be increased in severity. The making himself drunk, 
in a person whom drunkenness excites to do harm to others, 
is a crime against others. So, again, idleness, except in a 
person receiving support from the public, or except when it 
constitutes a breach of contract, cannot without tyranny be 
made a subject of legal punishment; but if either from idle- 
ness or from any other avoidable cause, a man fails to per- 
form his legal duties to others, as for instance to support his 
children, it is no tyranny to force him to fulfil that obliga- 
tion, by compulsory labor^ if no other means are available. 

Again, there are many acts which, being directly injurious 
only to the agents themselves, ought not to be legally inter- 



ON LIBERTY S07 

dieted, but which, if done publicly, are a violation of good 
manners, and coming thus within the category of offences 
against others, may rightfully be prohibited. Of this kind 
are offences against decency; on which it is unnecessary to 
dwell, the rather as they are only connected indirectly with 
our subject, the objection to publicity being equally strong 
in the case of many actions not in themselves condemnable, 
nor supposed to be so. 

There is another question to which an answer must be 
found, consisfent with the principles which have been laid 
down. In cases of personal conduct supposed to be blame- 
able, but which respect lor liberty precludes society from 
preventing or punishing, because the evil directly resulting 
falls wholly on the agent; what the agent is free to do, 
ought other persons to be equally free to counsel or insti- 
gate? This question is not free from difficulty. The case 
of a person who solicits another to do an act, is not strictly 
a case of self-regarding conduct. To give advice or offer 
inducements to any one, is a social act, and may therefore, 
like actions in general which affect others, be supposed 
amenable to social control. But a little reflection corrects 
the first impression, by showing that if the case is not 
strictly within the definition of individual liberty, yet the 
reasons on which the principle of individual liberty is 
grounded, are applicable to it. If people must be allowed, in 
whatever concerns only themselves, to act as seems best to 
themselves at their own peril, they must equally be free to 
consult with one another about what is fit to be so done; 
to exchange opinions, and give and receive suggestions. 
Whatever it is permitted to do, it must be permitted to ad- 
vise to do. The question is doubtful, only when the insti- 
gator derives a personal benefit from his advice; when he 
makes it his occupation, for subsistence, or pecuniary gain, 
to promote what society and the State consider to be an evil. 
Then, indeed, a new element of complication is introduced; 
namely, the existence of classes of persons with an interest 
opposed to what is considered as the public weal, and whose 
mode of living is grounded on the counteraction of it. Ought 
this to be interfered with, or not ? Fornication, for example, 
must be tolerated, and so must gambling; but should a per- 



308 JOHN STUART MILL 

son be free to be a pimp, or to keep a gambling-house ? The 
case is one of those which He on the exact boundary line 
between two principles, and it is not at once apparent to 
which of the two it properly belongs. There are arguments 
on both sides. On the side of toleration it may be said, that 
the fact of following anything as an occupation, and living 
or profiting by the practice of it, cannot make that criminal 
which would otherwise be admissible; that the act should 
either be consistently permitted or consistently prohibited; 
that if the principles which we have hitherto defended are 
true, society has no business, as society, to decide anything 
to be wrong which concerns only the individual; that it can- 
not go beyond dissuasion, and that one person should be as 
free to persuade, as another to dissuade. In opposition to 
this it may be contended, that although the public, or the 
State, are not warranted in authoritatively deciding, for pur- 
poses of repression or punishment, that such or such con- 
duct affecting only the interests of the individual is good or 
bad, they are fully justified in assuming, if they regard it as 
bad, that its being so or not is at least a disputable question : 
That, this being supposed, they cannot be acting wrongly in 
endeavoring to exclude the influence of solicitations which 
are not disinterested, of instigators who cannot possibly be 
impartial — who have a direct personal interest on one side, 
and that side the one which the State believes to be wrong, 
and who confessedly promote it for personal objects only. 
There can surely, it may be urged, be nothing lost, no sac- 
rifice of good, by so ordering matters that persons shall 
make their election, either wisely or foolishly, on their own 
prompting, as free as possible from the arts of persons who 
stimulate their inclinations for interested purposes of their 
own. Thus (it may be said) though the statutes respecting 
unlawful games are utterly indefensible — though all persons 
should be free to gamble in their own or each other's houses, 
or in any place of meeting established by their own subscrip- 
tions, and open only to the members and their visitors — yet 
public gambling-houses should not be permitted. It is true 
that the prohibition is never effectual, and that whatever 
amount of tyrannical power is given to the police, gambling- 
houses can always be maintained under other pretences ; but 



ON LIBERTY 309 

they may be compelled to conduct their operations with a 
certain degree of secrecy and mystery, so that nobody knows 
anything about them but those who seek them; and more 
than this, society ought not to aim at. There is considerable 
force in these arguments. I will not venture to decide 
whether they are sufficient to justify the moral anomaly of 
punishing the accessary, when the principal is (and must be) 
allowed to go free; of fining or imprisoning the procurer, 
but not the fornicator, the gambling-house keeper, but not 
the gambler. Still less ought the common operations of buy- 
ing and selling to be interfered with on analogous grounds. 
Almost every article which is bought and sold may be used 
in excess, and the sellers have a pecuniary interest in en- 
couraging that excess; but no argument can be founded on 
this, in favor, for instance, of the Maine Law; because the 
class of dealers in strong drinks, though interested in their 
abuse, are indispensably required for the sake of their legiti- 
mate use. The interest, however, of these dealers in promot- 
ing intemperance is a real evil, and justifies the State in 
imposing restrictions and requiring guarantees, which but 
for that justification would be infringements of legitimate 
liberty. 

A further question is, whether the State while it permits, 
should nevertheless indirectly discourage conduct which it 
deems contrary to the best interests of the agent; whether, 
for example, it should take measures to render the means of 
drunkenness more costly, or add to the difficulty of pro- 
curing them, by limiting the number of the places of sale. 
On this as on most other practical questions, many distinc- 
tions require to be made. To tax stimulants for the sole 
purpose of making them more difficult to be obtained, is a 
measure differing only in degree from their entire pro- 
hibition; and would be justifiable only if that were justifia- 
ble. Every increase of cost is a prohibition, to those whose 
means do not come up to the augmented price ; and to those 
who do, it is a penalty laid on them for gratifying a par- 
ticular taste. Their choice of pleasures, and their mode of 
expending their income, after satisfying their legal and 
moral obHgations to the State and to individuals, are their 
own concern, and must rest with their own judgment. These 



310 JOHN STUART MILL 

considerations may seem at first sight to condemn the selec- 
tion of stimulants as special subjects of taxation for pur- 
poses of revenue. But it must be remembered that taxation 
for fiscal purposes is absolutely inevitable; that in most 
countries it is necessary that a considerable part of that 
taxation should be indirect ; that the State, therefore, cannot 
help imposing penalties, which to some persons may be pro- 
hibitory, on the use of some articles of consumption. It is 
hence the duty of the State to consider, in the imposition of 
taxes, what commodities the consumers can best spare; and 
a fortiori, to select in preference those of which it deems 
the use, beyond a very moderate quantity, to be positively in- 
jurious. Taxation, therefore, of stimulants, up to the point 
which produces the largest amount of revenue (supposing 
that the State needs all the revenue which it yields) is not 
only admissible, but to be approved of. 

The question of making the sale of these commodities a 
more or less exclusive privilege, must be answered differently, 
according to the purposes to which the restriction is in- 
tended to be subservient. All places of public resort require 
the restraint of a police, and places of this kind peculiarly, 
because offences against society are especially apt to originate 
there. It is, therefore, fit to confine the power of selling 
these commodities (at least for consumption on the spot) 
to persons of known or vouched-for respectability of con- 
duct; to make such regulations respecting hours of opening 
and closing as may be requisite for public surveillance, and 
to withdraw the license if breaches of the peace repeatedly 
take place through the connivance or incapacity of the 
keeper of the house, or if it becomes a rendezvous for con- 
cocting and preparing offences against the law. Any fur- 
ther restriction I do not conceive to be, in principle, justi- 
fiable. The limitation in number, for instance, of beer and 
spirit-houses, for the express purpose of rendering them 
more difficult of access, and diminishing the occasions of 
temptation, not only exposes all to an inconvenience because 
there are some by whom the facility would be abused, but is 
suited only to a state of society in which the laboring classes 
are avowedly treated as children or savages, and placed 
under an education of restraint, to fit them for future ad- 



ON LIBERTY 311 

mission to the privileges of freedom. This is not the prin- 
ciple on which the laboring classes are professedly governed 
in any free country ; and no person who sets due value on free- 
dom will give his adhesion to their being so governed, unless 
after all efforts have been exhausted to educate them for 
freedom and govern them as freemen, and it has been defini- 
tively proved that they can only be governed as children. 
The bare statement of the alternative shows the absurdity of 
supposing that such efforts have been made in any case 
which needs be considered here. It is only because the insti- 
tutions of this country are a mass of inconsistencies, that 
things find admittance into our practice which belong to the 
system of despotic, or what is called paternal, government, 
while the general freedom of our institutions precludes the 
exercise of the amount of control necessary to render the 
restraint of any real efficacy as a moral education. 

It was pointed out in an early part of this Essay, that the 
liberty of the individual, in things wherein the individual is 
alone concerned, implies a corresponding liberty in any num- 
ber of individuals to regulate by mutual agreement such things 
as regard them jointly, and regard no persons but themselves. 
This question presents no difficulty, so long as the will of all 
the persons implicated remains unaltered ; but since that will 
may change, it is often necessary, even in things in which they 
alone are concerned, that they should enter into engagements 
with one another; and when they do, it is fit, as a general 
rule, that those engagements should be kept. Yet in the laws 
probably, of every country, this general rule has some excep- 
tions. Not only persons are not held to engagements which 
violate the rights of third parties, but it is sometimes con- 
sidered a sufficient reason for releasing them from an en- 
gagement, that it is injurious to themselves. In this and most 
other civilized countries, for example, an engagement by 
which a person should sell himself, or allow himself to be 
sold, as a slave, would be null and void ; neither enforced by 
law nor by opinion. The ground for thus limiting his power 
of voluntarily disposing of his own lot in life, is apparent, 
and is very clearly seen in this extreme case. The reason for 
not interfering, unless for the sake of others, with a person's 
voluntary acts, is consideration for his liberty. His volun- 



312 JOHN STUART MILL 

tary choice is evidence that what he so chooses is desirable, 
or at the least endurable, to him, and his good is on the whole 
best provided for by allowing him to take his own means of 
pursuing it. But by selling himself for a slave, he abdicates 
his liberty; he foregoes any future use of it, beyond that 
single act. He therefore defeats, in his own case, the very 
purpose which is the justification of allowing him to dispose 
of himself. He is no longer free; but is thenceforth in a 
position which has no longer the presumption in its favor, 
that would be afforded by his voluntarily remaining in it. 
The principle of freedom cannot require that he should be 
free not to be free. It is not freedom, to be allowed to 
alienate his freedom. These reasons, the force of which is 
so conspicuous in this peculiar case, are evidently of far 
wider application; yet a limit is everywhere set to them by 
the necessities of life, which continually require, not indeed 
that we should resign our freedom, but that we should con- 
sent to this and the other limitation of it. The principle, 
however, which demands uncontrolled freedom of action in 
all that concerns only the agents themselves, requires that 
those who have become bound to one another, in things 
which concern no third party, should be able to release one 
another from the engagement: and even without such volun- 
tary release, there are perhaps no contracts or engagements, 
except those that relate to money or money's worth, of which 
one can venture to say that there ought to be no liberty what- 
ever of retractation. Baron Wilhelm von Humboldt, in the 
excellent Essay from which I have already quoted, states it 
as his conviction, that engagements which involve personal 
relations or services, should never be legally binding beyond 
a limited duration of time; and that the most important of 
these engagements, marriage, having the peculiarity that its 
objects are frustrated unless the feelings of both the parties 
are in harmony with it, should require nothing more than the 
declared will of either party to dissolve it. This subject is 
too important, and too complicated, to be discussed in a 
parenthesis, and I touch on it only so far as is necessary for 
purposes of illustration. If the conciseness and generality 
of Baron Humboldt's dissertation had not obliged him in this 
instance to content himself with enunciating his conclusion 



ON LIBERTY 313 

without discussing the premises, he would doubtless have 
recognized that the question cannot be decided on grounds 
so simple as those to which he confines himself. When a 
person, either by express promise or by conduct, has encour- 
aged another to rely upon his continuing to act in a certain 
way — to build expectations and calculations, and stake any 
part of his plan of life upon that supposition, a new series 
of moral obligations arises on his part towards that person, 
which may possibly be overruled, but can not be ignored. 
And again, if the relation between two contracting parties 
has been followed by consequences to others ; if it has placed 
third parties in any peculiar position, or, as in the case of 
marriage, has even called third parties into existence, obli- 
gations arise on the part of both the contracting parties 
towards those third persons, the fulfilment of which, or at 
all events, the mode of fulfilment, must be greatly affected 
by the continuance or disruption of the relation between the 
original parties to the contract. It does not follow, nor can 
I admit, that these obligations extend to requiring the fulfil- 
ment of the contract at all costs to the happiness of the re- 
luctant party; but they are a necessary element in the ques- 
tion ; and even if, as Von Humboldt maintains, they ought to 
make no difference in the legal freedom of the parties to 
release themselves from the engagement (and I also hold 
that they ought not to make much difference), they neces- 
sarily make a great difference in the moral freedom. A per- 
son is bound to take all these circumstances into account, 
before resolving on a step which may affect such important 
interests of others; and if he does not allow proper weight 
to those interests, he is morally responsible for the wrong. 
I have made these obvious remarks for the better illustration 
of the general principle of liberty, and not because they are 
at all needed on the particular question, which, on the con- 
trary, is usually discussed as if the interest of children was 
everything, and that of grown persons nothing. 

I have already observed that, owing to the absence of any 
recognized general principles, liberty is often granted where 
it should be withheld, as well as withheld where it should be 
granted; and one of the cases in which, in the modern 
European world, the sentiment of liberty is the strongest, is 



314 JOHN STUART MILL 

a case where, in my view, it is altogether misplaced. A 
person should be free to do as he likes in his own concerns ; 
but he ought not to be free to do as he likes in acting for 
another under the pretext that the affairs of another are 
his own affairs. The State, while it respects the liberty of 
each in what specially regards himself, is bound to maintain 
a vigilant control over his exercise of any power which it 
allows him to possess over others. This obligation is almost 
entirely disregarded in the case of the family relations, a case, 
in its direct influence on human happiness, more important 
than all the others taken together. The almost despotic 
power of husbands over wives needs not be enlarged upon 
here, because nothing more is needed for the complete re- 
moval of the evil, than that wives should have the same 
rights, and should receive the protection of law in the same 
manner, as all other persons; and because, on this subject, 
the defenders of established injustice do not avail them- 
selves of the plea of liberty, but stand forth openly as the 
champions of power. It is in the case of children, that mis- 
applied notions of liberty are a real obstacle to the fulfilment 
by the State of its duties. One would almost think that a 
man's children were supposed to be literally, and not meta- 
phorically, a part of himself, so jealous is opinion of the 
smallest interference of law with his absolute and exclusive 
control over them; more jealous than of almost any inter- 
ference with his own freedom of action : so much less do the 
generality of mankind value liberty than power. Consider, 
for example, the case of education. Is it not almost a self- 
evident axiom, that the State should require and compel the 
education, up to a certain standard, of every human being 
who is born its citizen? Yet who is there that is not afraid 
to recognize and assert this truth? Hardly any one indeed 
will deny that it is one of the most sacred duties of the 
parents (or, as law and usage now stand, the father), after 
summoning a human being into the world, to give to that 
being an education fitting him to perform his part well in 
life towards others and towards himself. But while this is 
unanimously declared to be the father's duty, scarcely any- 
body, in this country, will bear to hear of obliging him to 
perform it Instead of his being required to make any ex- 



ON LIBERTY 315 

ertion or sacrifice for securing education to the child, it is 
left to his choice to accept it or not when it is provided 
gratis ! It still remains unrecognized, that to bring a child 
into existence without a fair prospect of being able, not only 
to provide food for its body, but instruction and training 
for its mind, is a moral crime, both against the unfortunate 
offspring and against society; and that if the parent does 
not fulfil this obligation, the State ought to see it fulfilled, 
at the charge, as far as possible, of the parent. 

Were the duty of enforcing universal education once ad- 
mitted, there would be an end to the difficulties about what 
the State should teach, and how it should teach, which now 
convert the subject into a mere battle-field for sects and 
parties, causing the time and labor which should have been 
spent in educating, to be wasted in quarrelling about educa- 
tion. If the government would make up its mind to require 
for every child a good education, it might save itself the 
trouble of providing one. It might leave to parents to obtain 
the education where and how they pleased, and content itself 
with helping to pay the school fees of the poorer classes of 
children, and defraying the entire school expenses of those 
who have no one else to pay for them. The objections which 
are urged with reason against State education, do not apply 
to the enforcement of education by the State, but to the 
State's taking upon itself to direct that education: which 
is a totally different thing. That the whole or any large part 
of the education of the people should be in State hands, I 
go as far as any one in deprecating. All that has been said 
of the importance of individuality of character, and diversity 
in opinions and modes of conduct, involves, as of the same 
unspeakable importance, diversity of education. A general 
State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to 
be exactly like one another: and as the mould in which it 
casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in 
the government, whether this be a monarch, a priesthood, 
an aristocracy, or the majority of the existing generation, in 
proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a 
despotism over the mind, leading by natural tendency to one 
over the body. An education established and controlled by 
the State, should only exist, if it exist at all, as one among 



316 JOHN STUART MILL 

many competing experiments, carried on for the purpose of 
example and stimulus, to keep the others up to a certain 
standard of excellence. Unless, indeed, when society in gen- 
eral is in so backward a state that it could not or would not 
provide for itself any proper institutions of education, unless 
the government undertook the task; then, indeed, the gov- 
ernment may, as the less of two great evils, take upon itself 
the business of schools and universities, as it may that of 
joint-stock companies, when private enterprise, in a shape 
fitted for undertaking great works of industry does not exist 
in the country. But in general, if the country contains a 
sufficient number of persons qualified to provide education 
under government auspices, the same persons would be able 
and willing to give an equally good education on the volun- 
tary principle, under the assurance of remuneration afforded 
by a law rendering education compulsory, combined with 
State aid to those unable to defray the expense. 

The instrument for enforcing the law could be no other 
than public examinations, extending to all children, and begin- 
ning at an early age. An age might be fixed at which every 
child must be examined, to ascertain if he (or she) is able 
to read. If a child proves unable, the father, unless he 
has some sufficient ground of excuse, might be subjected to a 
moderate fine, to be worked out, if necessary, by his labor, 
and the child might be put to school at his expense. Once in 
every year the examination should be renewed, with a grad- 
ually extending range of subjects, so as to make the universal 
acquisition, and what is more, retention, of a certain mini- 
mum of general knowledge, virtually compulsory. Beyond 
that minimum, there should be voluntary examinations on 
all subjects, at which all who come up to a certain standard 
of proficiency might claim a certificate. To prevent the 
State from exercising through these arrangements, an im- 
proper influence over opinion, the knowledge required for 
passing an examination (beyond the merely instrumental 
parts of knowledge, such as languages and their use) should, 
even in the higher class of examinations, be confined to 
facts and positive science exclusively. The examinations on 
religion, politics, or other disputed topics, should not turn 
on the truth or falsehood of opinions, but on the matter of, 



ON LIBERTY 317 

fact that such and such an opinion is held, on such grounds, 
by such authors, or schools, or churches. Under this system, 
the rising generation would be no worse off in regard to all 
disputed truths, than they are at present; they would be 
brought up either churchmen or dissenters as they now are, 
the State merely taking care that they should be instructed 
churchmen, or instructed dissenters. There would be noth- 
ing to hinder them from being taught religion, if their 
parents chose, at the same schools where they were taught 
other things. All attempts by the State to bias the conclu- 
sions of its citizens on disputed subjects, are evil; but it may 
very properly offer to ascertain and certify that a person 
possesses the knowledge requisite to make his conclusions, 
on any given subject, worth attending to. A student of phi- 
losophy would be the better for being able to stand an ex- 
amination both in Locke and in Kant, whichever of the two 
he takes up with, or even if with neither: and there is no 
reasonable objection to examining an atheist in the evidences 
of Christianity, provided he is not required to profess a be- 
lief in them. The examinations, however, in the higher 
branches of knowledge should, I conceive, be entirely volun- 
tary. It would be giving too dangerous a power to govern- 
ments, were they allowed to exclude any one from profes- 
sions, even from the profession of teacher, for alleged 
deficiency of qualifications: and I think, with Wilhelm von 
Humboldt, that degrees, or other public certificates of scien- 
tific or professional acquirements, should be given to all who 
present themselves for examination, and stand the test; but 
that such certificates should confer no advantage over com- 
petitors, other than the weight which may be attached to 
their testimony by public opinion. 

It is not in the matter of education only that misplaced 
notions of liberty prevent moral obligations on the part of 
parents from being recognized, and legal obligations from 
being imposed, where there are the strongest grounds for 
the former always, and in many cases for the latter also. 
The fact itself, of causing the existence of a human being, 
is one of the most responsible actions in the range of human 
life. To undertake this responsibility — to bestow a life 
which may be either a curse or a blessing — unless the being 



318 JOHN STUART MILL 

on whom it is to be bestowed will have at least the ordinary 
chances of a desirable existence, is a crime against that 
being. And in a country either over-peopled or threatened 
with being so, to produce children, beyond a very small num- 
ber, with the effect of reducing the reward of labor by their 
competition, is a serious offence against all who live by the 
remuneration of their labor. The laws which, in many 
countries on the Continent, forbid marriage unless the parties 
can show that they have the means of supporting a family, 
do not exceed the legitimate powers of the State: and 
whether such laws be expedient or not (a question mainly 
dependent on local circumstances and feelings), they are 
not objectionable as violations of liberty. Such laws are in- 
terferences of the State to prohibit a mischievous act — an 
act injurious to others, which ought to be a subject of repro- 
bation, and social stigma, even when it is not deemed 
expedient to superadd legal punishment. Yet the current 
ideas of liberty, which bend so easily to real infringements 
of the freedom of the individual, in things which concern 
only himself, would repel the attempt to put any restraint 
upon his inclinations when the consequence of their indul- 
gence is a life, or lives, of wretchedness and depravity 
to the offspring, with manifold evils to those sufficiently 
within reach to be in any way affected by their actions. 
When we compare the strange respect of mankind for lib- 
erty, with their strange want of respect for it, we might 
imagine that a man had an indispensable right to do harm 
to others, and no right at all to please himself without 
giving pain to any one. 

I have reserved for the last place a large class of questidpjs 
respecting the limits of government interference, which, 
though closely connected with the subject of this Essay, do 
not, in strictness, belong to it. These are cases in which 
the reasons against interference do not turn upon the princi- 
ple of liberty: the question is not about restraining the 
actions of individuals, but about helping them: it is asked 
whether the government should do, or cause to be done, 
something for their benefit, instead of leaving it to be done 
by themselves, individually, or in voluntary combination. 

The objections to government interference, when it is not 



ON LIBERTY 319 

such as to involve infringement of liberty, may be of three 
kinds. 

The first is, when the thing to be done is likely to be better 
done by individuals than by the government. Speaking gen- 
erally, there is no one so fit to conduct any business, or to 
determine how or by whom it shall be conducted, as those 
who are personally interested in it. This principle con- 
demns the interferences, once so common, of the legislature, 
or the officers of government, with the ordinary processes 
of industry. But this part of the subject has been sufficiently 
enlarged upon by political economists, and is not particularly 
related to the principles of this Essay. 

The second objection is more nearly allied to our subject. 
In many cases, though individuals may not do the particular 
thing so well, on the average, as the officers of government, 
it is nevertheless desirable that it should be done by them, 
rather than by the government, as a means to their own 
mental education — a mode of strengthening their active 
faculties, exercising their judgment, and giving them a 
familiar knowledge of the subjects with which they are 
thus left to deal. This is a principal, though not the sole, 
recommendation of jury trial (in cases not political) ; of 
free and popular local and municipal institutions; of the 
conduct of industrial and philanthropic enterprises by vol- 
untary associations. These are not questions of liberty, and 
are connected with that subject only by remote tendencies; 
but they are questions of development. It belongs to a dif- 
ferent occasion from the present to dwell on these things 
as parts of national education ; as being, in truth, the peculiar 
training of a citizen, the practical part of the political edu- 
cation of a free people, taking them out of the narrow circle 
of personal and family selfishness, and accustoming them 
to the comprehension of joint interests, the management of 
joint concerns — habituating them to act from public or semi- 
public motives, and guide their conduct by aims which unite 
instead of isolating them from one another. Without these 
habits and powers, a free constitution can neither be worked 
nor preserved, as is exemplified by the too-often transitory 
nature of political freedom in countries where it does not 
rest upon a sufficient basis of local liberties. The manage- 



320 JOHN STUART MILL 

ment of purely local business by the localities, and of the 
great enterprises of industry by the union of those who 
voluntarily supply the pecuniary means, is further recom- 
mended by all the advantages which have been set forth in 
tkis Essay as belonging to individuality of development, and 
diversity of modes of action. Government operations tend 
to be everywhere alike. With individuals and voluntary as- 
sociations, on the contrary, there are varied experiments, 
and endless diversity of experience. What the State can 
usefully do, is to make itself a central depository, and active 
circulator and diffuser, of the experience resulting from many 
trials. Its business is to enable each experimentalist to bene- 
fit by the experiments of others, instead of tolerating no ex- 
periments but its own. 

The third, and most cogent reason for restricting the 
interference of government, is the great evil of adding un- 
necessarily to its power. Every function superadded to those 
already exercised by the government, causes its influence 
over hopes and fears to be more widely diffused, and con- 
verts, more and more, the active and ambitious part of the 
public into hangers-on of the government, or of some party 
which aims at becoming the government. If the roads, the 
railways, the banks, the insurance offices, the great joint-stock 
companies, the universities, and the public charities, were all 
of them branches of the government; if, in addition, the 
municipal corporations and local boards, with all that now 
devolves on them, became departments of the central ad- 
ministration; if the employes of all these different enter- 
prises were appointed and paid by the government, and 
looked to the government for every rise in life; not all the 
freedom of the press and popular constitution of the legis- 
lature would make this or any other country free otherwise 
than in name. And the evil would be greater, the more 
efficiently and scientifically the administrative machinery 
was constructed — the more skilful the arrangements for ob- 
taining the best qualified hands and heads with which to 
work it. In England it has of late been proposed that all 
the members of the civil service of government should be 
selected by competitive examination, to obtain for those em- 
ployments the most intelligent and instructed persons jpro- 



ON LIBERTY 321 

curable ; and much has been said and written for and against 
this proposal. One of the arguments most insisted on by its 
opponents is that the occupation of a permanent official ser- 
vant of the State does not hold out sufficient prospects of 
emolument and importance to attract the highest talents, 
which will always be able to find a more inviting career in 
the professions, or in the service of companies and other 
public bodies. One would not have been surprised if this 
argument had been used by the friends of the proposition, as 
an answer to its principal difficulty. Coming from the op- 
ponents it is strange enough. What is urged as an objection 
is the safety-valve of the proposed system. If indeed all the 
high talent of the country could be drawn into the service of 
the government, a proposal tending to bring about that result 
might well inspire uneasiness. If every part of the business 
of society which required organized concert, or large and 
comprehensive views, were in the hands of the government, 
and if government offices were universally filled by the ablest 
men, all the enlarged culture and practised intelligence in the 
country, except the purely speculative, would be concen- 
trated in a numerous bureaucracy, to whom alone the rest 
of the community would look for all things: the multitude 
for direction and dictation in all they had to do; the able 
and aspiring for personal advancement. To be admitted 
into the ranks of this bureaucracy, and when admitted, to 
rise therein, would be the sole objects of ambition. Under 
this regime, not only is the outside public ill-qualified, for 
want of practical experience, to criticize or check the mode 
of operation of the bureaucracy, but even if the accidents 
of despotic or the natural working of popular institutions oc- 
casionally raise to the summit a ruler or rulers of reforming 
inclinations, no reform can be effected which is contrary to 
the interest of the bureaucracy. Such is the melancholy 
condition of the Russian empire, as is shown in the accounts 
of those who have had sufficient opportunity of observa- 
tion. The Czar himself is powerless against the bureaucratic 
body: he can send any one of them to Siberia, but he can- 
not govern without them, or against their will. On every 
decree of his they have a tacit veto, by merely refraining 
from carrying it into effect. In countries of more advanced 
Vol. 25—11 HC 



322 JOHN STUART MILL 

civilization and of a more insurrectionary spirit the public, ac- 
customed to expect everything to be done for them by the 
State, or at least to do nothing for themselves w^ithout ask- 
ing from the State not only leave to do it, but even how it 
is to be done, naturally hold the State responsible for all 
evil which befalls them, and when the evil exceeds their 
amount of patience, they rise against the government and 
make what is called a revolution ; whereupon somebody else, 
with or without legitimate authority from the nation, vaults 
into the seat, issues his orders to the bureaucracy, and every- 
thing goes on much as it did before ; the bureaucracy being 
unchanged, and nobody else being capable of taking their 
place. 

A very different spectacle is exhibited among a people 
accustomed to transact their own business. In France, a 
large part of the people having been engaged in military 
service, many of whom have held at least the rank of non- 
commissioned officers, there are in every popular insurrection 
several persons competent to take the lead, and improvise 
some tolerable plan of action. What the French are in mil- 
itary affairs, the Americans are in every kind of civil busi- 
ness; let them be left without a government, every body of 
Americans is able to improvise one, and to carry on that or 
any other public business with a sufficient amount of intel- 
ligence, order and decision. This is what every free people 
ought to be: and a people capable of this is certain to be 
free ; it will never let itself be enslaved by any man or body 
of men because these are able to seize and pull the reins 
of the central administration. No bureaucracy can hope to 
make such a people as this do or undergo anything that they 
do not like. But where everything is done through the 
bureaucracy, nothing to which the bureaucracy is really ad- 
verse can be done at all. The constitution of such countries 
is an organization of the experience and practical ability 
of the nation, into a disciplined body for the purpose of gov- 
erning the rest; and the more perfect that organization is 
in itself, the more successful in drawing to itself and edu- 
cating for itself the persons of greatest capacity from all 
ranks of the community, the more complete is the bondage of 
all, the members of the bureaucracy included. For the gov- 



ON LIBERTY 323 

ernors are as much the slaves of their organization and dis- 
cipHne, as the governed are of the governors. A Chinese 
mandarin is as much the tool and creature of a despotism 
as the humblest cultivator. An individual Jesuit is to the 
utmost degree of abasement the slave of his order though 
the order itself exists for the collective power and impor- 
tance of its members. 

It is not, also, to be forgotten, that the absorption of all the 
principal ability of the country into the governing body is 
fatal, sooner or later, to the mental activity and progressive- 
ness of the body itself. Banded together as they are — work- 
ing a system which, like all systems, necessarily proceeds in 
a great measure by fixed rules — the official body are under 
the constant temptation of sinking into indolent routine, or, 
if they now and then desert that mill-horse round, of rush- 
ing into some half-examined crudity which has struck the 
fancy of some leading member of the corps: and the sole 
check to these closely allied, though seemingly opposite, ten- 
dencies, the only stimulus which can keep the ability of the 
body itself up to a high standard, is liability to the watchful 
criticism of equal ability outside the body. It is indispensa- 
ble, therefore, that the means should exist, independently of 
the government, of forming such ability, and furnishing it 
with the opportunities and experience necessary for a cor- 
rect judgment of great practical affairs. If we would pos- 
sess permanently a skilful and efficient body of functionaries 
— above all, a l3ody able to originate and willing to adopt 
improvements ; if we would not have our bureaucracy degen- 
erate into a pedantocracy, this body must not engross all the 
occupations which form and cultivate the faculties required 
for the government of mankind. 

To determine the point at which evils, so formidable to 
human freedom and advancement begin, or rather at which 
they begin to predominate over the benefits attending the 
collective application of the force of society, under its recog- 
nized chiefs, for the removal of the obstacles which stand 
in the way of its well-being, to secure as much of the advan- 
tages of centralized power and intelligence, as can be had 
without turning into governmental channels too great a pro- 
portion of the general activity, is one of the most difficult 



324 JOHN STUART MILL 

and complicated questions in the art of government. It is, in 
a great measure, a question of detail, in which many and 
various considerations must be kept in view, and no abso- 
lute rule can be laid down. But I believe that the practical 
principle in which safety resides, the ideal to be kept in 
view, the standard by which to test all arrangements in- 
tended for overcoming the difficulty, may be conveyed in 
these words: the greatest dissemination of power consistent 
with efficiency; but the greatest possible centralization of 
information, and diffusion of it from the centre. Thus, in 
municipal administration, there would be, as in the New 
England States, a very minute division among separate of- 
ficers, chosen by the localities, of all business which is not 
better left to the persons directly interested ; but besides this, 
there would be, in each department of local affairs, a central 
superintendence, forming a branch of the general govern- 
ment. The organ of this superintendence would concentrate, 
as in a focus, the variety of information and experience de- 
rived from the conduct of that branch of public business in 
all the localities, from everything analogous which is done 
in foreign countries, and from the general principles of 
political science. This central organ should have a right 
to know all that is done, and its special duty should be that 
of making the knowledge acquired in one place available 
for others. Emancipated from the petty prejudices and nar- 
row views of a locality by its elevated position and compre- 
hensive sphere of observation, its advice would naturally 
carry much authority; but its actual power, as a permanent 
institution, should, I conceive, be limited to compelling the 
local officers to obey the laws laid down for their guidance. 
In all things not provided for by general rules, those officers 
should be left to their own judgment, under responsibility to 
their constituents. For the violation of rules, they should be 
responsible to law, and the rules themselves should be laid 
down by the legislature; the central administrative authority 
only watching over their execution, and if they were not 
properly carried into effect, appealing, according to the nature 
of the case, to the tribunal to enforce the law, or to the con- 
stituencies to dismiss the functionaries who had not executed 
it according to its spirit. Such, in its general conception, is 



ON LIBERTY 325 

the central superintendence which the Poor Law Board is 
intended to exercise over the administrators of the Poor 
Rate throughout the country. Whatever powers the Board 
exercises beyond this limit, were right and necessary in that 
pecuHar case, for the cure of rooted habits of mal-adminis- 
tration in matters deeply affecting not the localities merely, 
but the whole community; since no locality has a moral 
right to make itself by mismanagement a nest of pauperism, 
necessarily overflowing into other localities, and impairing 
the moral and physical condition of the whole laboring com- 
munity. The powers of administrative coercion and subordi- 
nate legislation possessed by the Poor Law Board (but 
which, owing to the state of opinion on the subject, are very 
scantily exercised by them), though perfectly justifiable in a 
case of a first-rate national interest, would be wholly out of 
place in the superintendence of interests purely local. But a 
central organ of information and instruction for all the locali- 
ties, would be equally valuable in all departments of adminis- 
tration. A government cannot have too much of the kind of 
activity which does not impede, but aids and stimulates, indi- 
vidual exertion and development. The mischief begins when, 
instead of calling forth the activity and powers of individuals 
and bodies, it substitutes its own activity for theirs; when, 
instead of informing, advising, and upon occasion de- 
nouncing, it makes them work in fetters or bids them stand 
aside and does their work instead of them. The worth of a 
State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals com- 
posing it; and a State which postpones the interests of their 
mental expansion and elevation, to a little more of adminis- 
trative skill or that semblance of it which practice gives, in 
the details of business; a State, which dwarfs its men, in 
order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands 
even for beneficial purposes, will find that with small men no 
great thing can really be accomplished; and that the perfec- 
tion of machinery to which it has sacrificed everything, will 
in the end avail it nothing, for want of the vital power which, 
in order that the machine might work more smoothly, it has 
preferred to banish. 



CHARACTERISTICS 

BY 
THOMAS CARLYLE 



r 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

Thomas Carlyle was horn at Ecclefechan in the south of 
Scotland, December 4, 1795. His father, a rigorous Calvinist be- 
longing to the seceding ^'Burgher Kirk'* was a stone-mason, a 
man of stern and upright character with a gift of fiery speech, 
Thomas began his education at home, went next to the village 
school, thence to the grammar school at Annan, and in iSog 
walked to Edinburgh, a hundred miles away, and entered the 
University with a view to preparing for the ministry. On fin- 
ishing his arts course, he was appointed mathematical usher at 
Annan and two years later at Kirkcaldy, where he formed an 
intimate friendship with Edward Irving. But he hated teaching, 
and, as he had abandoned his orthodox views and could no 
longer think of preaching, he returned to Edinburgh to study for 
the bar, supporting himself by private tutoring and writing for 
encyclopedias. These years, 1819-1822, he regarded as the most 
miserable of his life. Tormented with dyspepsia, torn with re- 
ligious perplexity, with no prospects and no profession, he found 
comfort only in the affection of his family. It was about this 
time that the study of German led him to Goethe, who proved 
his chief aid in his struggles to gain spiritual peace. 

Through Irving Carlyle obtained a position as tutor to Charles 
and Arthur Buller at a salary that enabled him to help his family 
in substantial ways. This engagement lasted for two years, dur- 
ing which he translated Legendre's '^Geometry" and Goethe's 
"Wilhelm Meister/' and wrote a "Life of Schiller,'' His rela- 
tion with the Bullers led him to London, and for a short time 
to Paris; and in his ''Reminiscences" we have a graphic picture 
of the unfavorable impression made on him by fashionable and 
literary society. 

He now retired to a farm near his father's house, and spent 
a peaceful year, chiefly in translating. In 1826 he married Jane 
Baillie Welsh, the brilliant and beautiful daughter of a doctor 
in Haddington, whom he had met through Irving, Miss Welsh 
was descended on one side from John Knox, on the other from 
the gipsies, and, it was claimed, William Wallace; and her tem- 
perament did not belie her ancestry. She had been much 
courted, and her wooing by Carlyle was as ominous as it was 

329 



330 INTRODUCTION 

extraordinary. Over their subsequent domestic relations there 
has been a vast amount of unseemly controversy, no one con- 
demning Carlyle more severely than he did himself. Yet it 
may be argued that they found in their marriage as much sat- 
isfaction as either of them was capable of finding in wedded 
life. Carlyle's absorption in his work and his career undoubt- 
edly led to much neglect and suffering on the part of his wife, 
but it is clear that the expressions of remorse in his writings 
after her death are not fairly to be taken as judicial evidence 
against him. 

For the first eighteen months after marriage, the Carlyles lived 
in Edinburgh, where they shared in the most distinguished in- 
tellectual society of the city, and where Carlyle formed with 
Francis Jeffrey a pleasant and useful relation. Jeffrey accepted 
articles for the "Edinburgh Review,'* and their success there 
opened to Carlyle the pages of other periodicals. The first two 
reviews were on Richter and on German Literature, which, with 
his translations and later writings in the same field, gained him 
recognition as a pioneer of German literature in England, and 
brought him generous personal acknowledgments from Goethe, 

In spite of these successes, the financial affairs of the Carlyles 
were still far from satisfactory, and to reduce expenses they re- 
treated to the farm of Craig enputtock, which belonged to Mrs, 
Carlyle, Here they lived for more than six years, in an isola- 
tion broken only by occasional visits from guests, notable among 
whom were the Jeffreys and Emerson, It was here that the 
quasi-autobio graphical ''Sartor Resartus" was written, and more 
German articles, the market for which, however, grew duller 
and duller, A visit to London in 1S31, for which he had to 
borrow money from Jeffrey, led to new relations with publishers 
and editors; and four months in Edinburgh broadened his range 
of subjects. But, finally, solitude and the need of money drove 
them to London, where they settled in 1S34 in the house in 
Cheyne Row, Chelsea, where they lived for the rest of their 
lives. 

The most important event of the earlier years of the London 
period was the ripening of Carlyle' s friendship with J. S, Mill. 
To this intercourse was due his undertaking his ''History of the 
French Revolution," published in 1S37. Meanwhile, he succeeded 
in getting sorely needed funds by lecturing, giving four courses 



INTRODUCTION 331 

in successive springs, the last of which was his well-known 
''Heroes and Hero-worship" These relieved him from pressing 
necessities^ and with the recognition of the brilliant qualities of 
his ''French Revolution" came the turn in his fortunes. He 
gained many friends, among whom were such men as John 
Sterling, whose life he afterward was to write with sympathy 
and charm; F, D. Maurice, J, G. Lockhart, R, M, Milnes, after- 
wards Lord Houghton, and the Barings; and he was often 
sought out by young inquirers. Emerson had introduced his 
works to America, with the result of both fame and profit. He 
was already becoming a noted figure in intellectual circles in 
London, 

His political ideas were put into definite shape in his "Chart- 
ism" (iSsg), and, if any one had ever doubted it, it now became 
clear that he was never to be classed with any of the established 
political parties. "Past and Present," a contrast between me- 
dieval monastic life and modern conditions, still further em- 
phasized his separation from both Tories and Radicals. While 
these shorter works were being put forth, he was laboring on his 
next great book, the "Life and Letters of Oliver Cromwell" ; 
and when this appeared in 1S45 his position as one of the lead- 
ing men of letters of the day was thoroughly established. 

After a year or two mainly occupied with political writing, 
most of it at once powerful in style and ineffective in result, he 
settled down to another great task, a life of Frederick the Great, 
which occupied his main energies till 1S65, and extended his 
reputation both on the Continent and at home. In this year he 
was elected Lord Rector of Edinburgh University, The In- 
augural Address, which constitutes the sole duty of this honor- 
ary office, he delivered the next year; and on his journey south 
after a triumphal reception he was met at Dumfries by the news 
of his wife's death. She was buried in the Abbey Kirk at 
Haddington; and the epitaph which her husband placed upon 
her grave tells what the blow meant for him. It runs thus: 
"In her bright existence she had more sorrows than are com- 
mon, but also a soft invincibility, a capacity of discernment, and 
a noble loyalty of heart which are rare. For forty years she was 
the true and loving helpmate of her husband, and by act and 
word unweariedly forwarded him as none else could in all of 
worthy that he did or attempted. She died at London, 21st April, 



332 INTRODUCTION 

iS66, suddenly snatched from him, and the light of his life as 
if gone out/* 

And, indeed, the light of his life had gone out. He was hence- 
forth a broken man. He revised his collected works, wrote his 
*' Reminiscences," but undertook no new tasks. He was now at 
the head of his profession, and surrounded by friends and ad- 
mirers; honors were showered on him at home and abroad; but 
he lived in a gloom that deepened to the end. He died on Feb- 
ruary 4, 1881, and was buried in the old kirkyard at Ecclefechan. 

Of the works by Carlyle here printed, *' Characteristics" is a 
condensed and telling statement of some of his most fundamental 
ideas; the essay on ''Sir Walter Scott" exhibits, both in its 
strength and in its shortcomings, the domination of ethical over 
esthetic considerations in his estimate of literature, and contains 
besides many characteristic generalisations on human life and 
conduct; the ''Inaugural Address," the subject of which is nomi- 
nally the "Reading of Books," summarises rapidly his own in- 
tellectual history, and digresses in true Carlylean fashion into 
religion, ethics, history, and a variety of other topics. It is 
written in an exceptionally simple and straightforward style, 
admirably suited to the occasion; the two other papers represent 
more truly his habitual manner of expression — often abrupt, 
often exaggerated, sometimes grotesque, but, to use his own 
words of his "French Revolution," coming "direct and flamingly 
from the heart of a living man." 

This style was, indeed, highly characteristic of its owner. The 
endless labor he put into his histories, the passion of his political 
convictions, the profound earnestness of his moral and religious 
preaching, were combined with a thirst for effective expression 
that led him to shatter any convention that stood in the way of 
truth, and gave a weight and edge to his utterance that make it 
a thing unique in English literature. Complex and inconsistent 
to the point of paradox, absolutely sincere yet exaggerated and 
over-emphatic, violent to brutality yet tender of heart, a Radical to 
the Tories and a Tory to the Radicals, Carlyle formed no school, 
yet was one of the most stimulating and potent influences of his 
century. Over his character and his message the voices of con- 
troversy have not yet died down, but whoever turns to his work 
finds coursing everywhere through it the red blood of a man* 



CHARACTERISTICS' 

[1831] 

THE healthy know not of their health, but only the sick: 
this is the Physician's Aphorism; and applicable in a 
far wider sense than he gives it. We may say, it 
holds no less in moral, intellectual, political, poetical, than 
in merely corporeal therapeutics; that wherever, or in what 
shape soever, powers of the sort which can be named vital 
are at work, herein lies the test of their working right or 
working wrong. 

In the Body, for example, as all doctors are agreed, the 
first condition of complete health is, that each organ perform 
its function, unconsciously, unheeded; let but any organ 
announce its separate existence, were it even boastfully, and 
for pleasure, not for pain, then already has one of those 
unfortunate * false centres of sensibility ' established itself, 
already is derangement there. The perfection of bodily well- 
being is that the collective bodily activities seem one; and 
be manifested, moreover, not in themselves, but in the action 
they accomplish. If a Dr. Kitchiner boast that his system is 
in high order, Dietetic Philosophy may indeed take credit; 
but the true Peptician was that Countryman who answered 
that, ' for his part, he had no system.' In fact, unity, agree- 
ment is always silent, or soft-voiced; it is only discord that 
loudly proclaims itself. So long as the several elements of 
Life, all fitly adjusted, can pour forth their movement like 
harmonious tuned strings, it is a melody and unison; Life, 

1 Edinburgh Review, No. io8. — i. An Essay on the Origin and Prospects 
of Afa«. By Thomas Hope. 3 vols. 8vo. London, 1831. 

2. Philosophische Vorlesungen, inshesondere iiber Philosophie der Sprache 
und des Wortes, Geschrieben und vorgetragen zu Dresden im December, 
1828, und in den erst en Tag en des Januars, 1829 (Philosophical Lectures, 
especially on the Philosophy of Langauge and the Gift of Speech. Written 
and delivered at Dresden in December, 1828, and the early days of January, 
1829). By Friedrich von Schlegel. 8vo. Vienna, 1830. 

333 



334 THOMAS CARLYLE 

from its mysterious fountains, flows out as in celestial music 
and diapason, — which also, like that other music of the 
spheres, even because it is perennial and complete, without 
interruption and without imperfection, might be fabled to 
escape the ear. Thus too, in some languages, is the state of 
health well denoted by a term expressing unity ; when we feel 
ourselves as we wish to be, we say that we are whole. 

Few mortals, it is to be feared, are permanently blessed 
with that felicity of ' having no system ' ; nevertheless, most 
of us, looking back on young years, may remember seasons of 
a light, aerial translucency and elasticity and perfect freedom ; 
the body had not yet become the prison-house of the soul, but 
was its vehicle and implement, like a creature of the thought, 
and altogether pliant to its bidding. We knew not that we 
had limbs, we only lifted, hurled and leapt; through eye and 
ear, and all avenues of sense, came clear unimpeded tidings 
from without, and from within issued clear victorious force; 
we stood as in the centre of Nature, giving and receiving, in 
harmony with it all ; unlike Virgil's Husbandmen, ^ too happy 
because we did not know our blessedness.' In those days, 
health and sickness were foreign traditions that did not con- 
cern us ; our whole being was as yet One, the whole man like 
an incorporated Will. Such, were Rest or ever-successful 
Labour the human lot, might our life continue to be : a pure, 
perpetual, unregarded music; a beam of perfect white light, 
rendering all things visible, but itself unseen, even because it 
was of that perfect whiteness, and no irregular obstruction 
had yet broken it into colours. The beginning of Inquiry is 
Disease: all Science, if we consider well, as it must have 
originated in the feeling of something being wrong, so it is 
and continues to be but Division, Dismemberment, and partial 
healing of the wrong. Thus, as was of old written, the Tree 
of Knowledge springs from a root of evil, and bears fruits of 
good and evil. Had Adam remained in Paradise, there had 
been no Anatomy and no Metaphysics. 

But, alas, as the Philosopher declares, 'Life itself is a 
disease ; a working incited by suffering' ; action from passion ! 
The memory of that first state of Freedom and paradisaic 
Unconsciousness has faded away into an ideal poetic dream. 
We stand here too conscious of many things: with Knowl- 



CHARACTERISTICS 335 

edge, the symptom of Derangement, we must even do our 
best to restore a little Order. Life is, in few instances, and 
at rare intervals, the diapason of a heavenly melody; oftenest 
the fierce jar of disruptions and convulsions, which, do what 
we will, there is no disregarding. Nevertheless, such is still 
the wish of Nature on our behalf; in all vital action, her 
manifest purpose and effort is, that we should be unconscious 
of it, and like the peptic Countryman, never know that we 
'have a system.' For, indeed, vital action everywhere is 
emphatically a means, not an end; Life is not given us for 
the mere sake of Living, but always with an ulterior external 
Aim: neither is it on the process, on the means, but rather 
on the result, that Nature, in any of her doings, is wont to 
intrust us with insight and volition. Boundless as is the 
domain of man, it is but a small fractional proportion of it 
that he rules with Consciousness and by Forethought: what 
he can contrive, nay, what he can altogether know and com- 
prehend, is essentially the mechanical, small; the great is 
ever, in one sense or other, the vital; it is essentially the 
mysterious, and only the surface of it can be understood. 
But Nature, it might seem, strives, like a kind mother, to 
hide from us even this, that she is a mystery: she will have 
us rest on her beautiful and awful bosom as if it were our 
secure home ; on the bottomless boundless Deep, whereon all 
human things fearfully and wonderfully swim, she will have 
us walk and build, as if the film which supported us there 
(which any scratch of a bare bodkin will rend asunder, any 
sputter of a pistol-shot instantaneously burn up) were no 
film, but a solid rock- foundation. Forever in the neighbour- 
hood of an inevitable Death,- man can forget that he is 
born to die; of his Life, which, strictly meditated, contains 
in it an Immensity and an Eternity, he can conceive lightly, 
as of a simple implement wherewith to do day-labour and 
earn wages. So cunningly does Nature, the mother of all 
highest Art, which only apes her from afar, ' body forth the 
Finite from the Infinite ' ; and guide man safe on his won- 
drous path, not more by endowing him with vision, than, 
at the right place, with blindness ! Under all her works, 
chiefly under her noblest work. Life, lies a basis of Darkness, 
which she benignantly conceals; in Life too, the roots and 



336 THOMAS CARLYLE 

inward circulations which stretch down fearfully to the 
regions of Death and Night, shall not hint of their existence, 
and only the fair stem with its leaves and flowers, shone on 
by the fair sun, shall disclose itself, and joyfully grow. 

However, without venturing into the abstruse, or too ea- 
gerly asking Why and How, in things where our answer must 
needs prove, in great part, an echo of the question, let us be 
content to remark farther, in the merely historical way, how 
that Aphorism of the bodily Physician holds good in quite 
other departments. Of the Soul, with her activities, we shall 
find it no less true than of the Body : nay, cry the Spiritual- 
ists, is not that very division of the unity, Man, into a 
dualism of Soul and Body, itself the symptom of disease; as, 
perhaps, your frightful theory of Materialism, of his being 
but a Body, and therefore, at least, once more a unity, may 
be the paroxysm which was critical, and the beginning of 
cure ! But omitting this, we observe, with confidence enough, 
that the truly strong mind, view it as Intellect, as Morality, 
or under any other aspect, is nowise the mind acquainted 
with its strength; that here as before the sign of health is 
Unconsciousness. In our inward, as in our outward world, 
what is mechanical lies open to us: not what is dynamical 
and has vitality. Of our Thinking, we might say, it is but 
the mere upper surface that we shape into articulate 
Thoughts; — underneath the region of argument and con- 
scious discourse, lies the region of meditation; here, in its 
quiet mysterious depths, dwells what vital force is in us; 
here, if aught is to be created, and not merely manufactured 
and communicated, must the work go on. Manufacture is 
intelligible, but trivial: Creation is great, and cannot be 
understood. Thus if the Debater and Demonstrator, whom 
we may rank as the lowest of true thinkers, knows what 
he has done, and how he did it, the Artist, whom we rank 
as the highest, knows not; must speak of Inspiration, and 
in one or the other dialect, call his work the gift of a 
divinity. 

But on the whole, 'genius is ever a secret to itself; of 
this old truth we have, on all sides, daily evidence. The 
Shakspeare takes no airs for writing Hamlet and the Tern- 
p^est, understands not that it is anything surprising: Milton, 



CHARACTERISTICS 337 

agair., is more conscious of his faculty, which accordingly is 
an inferior one. On the other hand, what cackling and 
strutting must we not often hear and see, when, in some 
shape of academical prolusion, maiden speech, review article, 
this or the other well-fledged goose has produced its goose- 
egg, of quite measurable value, were it the pink of its whole 
kind ; and wonders why all mortals do not wonder ! 

Foolish enough, too, was the College Tutor's surprise at 
Walter Shandy: how, though unread in Aristotle, he could 
nevertheless argue ; and not knowing the name of any dialectic 
tool, handled them all to perfection. Is it the skilfulest 
anatomist that cuts the best figure at Sadler's Wells? or 
does the boxer hit better for knowing that he has a flexor 
longus and a Hex or hrevisf But indeed, as in the higher 
case of the Poet, sc here in that of the Speaker and Inquirer, 
the true force is an unconscious one. The healthy Under- 
standing, we should say, is not the Logical, argumentative, 
but the Intuitive; for the end of Understanding is not to 
prove and find reasons, but to know and believe. Of logic, 
and its limits, and uses and abuses, there were much to be 
said and examined; one fact, however, which chiefly con- 
cerns us here, has long been familiar : that the man of logic 
and the man of insight ; the Reasoner and the Discoverer, or 
even Knower, are quite separable, — indeed, for most part, 
quite separate characters. In practical matters, for example, 
has it not become almost proverbial that the man of logic 
cannot prosper? This is he whom business-people call 
Systematic and Theoriser and Word-monger; his vital in- 
tellectual force lies dormant or extinct, his whole force is 
mechanical, conscious: of such a one it is foreseen that, 
when once confronted with the infinite complexities of the 
real world, his little compact theorem of the world will be 
found wanting; that unless he can throw it overboard and 
become a new creature, he will necessarily founder. Nay, 
in mere Speculation itself, the most ineffectual of all char- 
acters, generally speaking, is your dialectic man-at-arms; 
were he armed cap-a-pie in syllogistic mail of proof, and 
perfect master of logic-fence, how little does it avail him! 
Consider the old Schoolmen, and their pilgrimage towards 
Truth: the faithfulest endeavour, incessant unwearied mo- 



338 THOMAS CARLYLE 

tion, often great natural vigour; only no progress: nc/thing 
but antic feats of one limb poised against the other: there 
they balanced, somersetted, and made postures; at best 
gyrated swiftly with some pleasure, like Spinning Der- 
vishes, and ended where they began. So is it, so will it 
always be, with all System-makers and builders of logical 
card-castles ; of which class a certain remnant must, in every 
age, as they do in our own, survive and build. Logic is 
good, but it is not the best. The Irrefragable Doctor, with 
his chains of induction, his corollaries, dilemmas and other 
cunning logical diagrams and apparatus, will cast you a 
beautiful horoscope, and speak reasonable things; never- 
theless your stolen jewel, which you wanted him to find 
you, is not forthcoming. Often by some winged word, 
winged as the thunderbolt is, of a Luther, a Napoleon, a 
Goethe, shall we see the difficulty split asunder, and its 
secret laid bare; while the Irrefragable, with all his logical 
tools, hews at it, and hovers round it, and finds it on all 
hands too hard for him. 

Again, in the difference between Oratory and Rhetoric, as 
indeed everywhere in that superiority of what is called the 
Natural over the Artificial, we find a similar illustration. 
The Orator persuades and carries all with him, he knows not 
how; the Rhetorician can prove that he ought to have per- 
suaded and carried all with him: the one is in a state of 
healthy unconsciousness, as if he * had no system ' ; the 
other, in virtue of regimen and dietetic punctuality, feels 
at best that *his system is in high order.' So stands it, in 
short, with all the forms of Intellect, whether as directed 
to the finding of truth, or to the fit imparting thereof; to 
Poetry, to Eloquence, to depth of Insight, which is the basis 
of both these ; always the characteristic of right performance 
is a certain spontaneity, an unconsciousness ; * the healthy 
know not of their health, but only the sick/ So that the old 
precept of the critic, as crabbed as it looked to his ambitious 
disciple, might contain in it a most fundamental truth, ap- 
plicable to us all, and in much else than Literature : " When- 
ever you have written any sentence that looks particularly 
excellent, be sure to blot it out." In like manner, under 
milder phraseology, and with a meaning purposely much 



CHARACTERISTICS 339 

wider, a living Thinker has taught us: 'Of the Wrong we 
are always conscious, of the Right never/ 

But if such is the law with regard to Speculation and the 
Intellectual power of man, much more is it with regard to 
Conduct, and the power, manifested chiefly therein, which we 
name Moral. ' Let not thy left hand know what thy right 
hand doeth ' : whisper not to thy own heart. How worthy is 
this action ! — for then it is already becoming worthless. The 
good man is he who works continually in welldoing; to 
whom welldoing is as his natural existence, awakening no 
astonishment, requiring no commentary; but there, like a 
ihing of course, and as if it could not but be so. Self-con- 
templation, on the other hand, is infallibly the symptom of 
disease, be it or be it not the sign of cure. An unhealthy 
Virtue is one that consumes itself to leanness in repenting 
and anxiety; or, still worse, that inflates itself into dropsical 
boastfulness and vain-glory : either way, there is a self-seek- 
ing; an unprofitable looking behind us to measure the way we 
have made : whereas the sole concern is to walk continually 
forward, and make more way. If in any sphere of man's 
life, then in the Moral sphere, as the inmost and most vital 
of all, it is good that there be wholeness; that there be 
unconsciousness, which is the evidence of this. Let the free, 
reasonable Will, which dwells in us, as in our Holy of Holies, 
be indeed free, and obeyed like a Divinity, as is its right 
and its effort: the perfect obedience will be the silent one. 
Such perhaps were the sense of that maxim, enunciating, as 
is usual, but the half of a truth: To say that we have a 
clear conscience, is to utter a solecism; had we never 
sinned, we should have had no conscience. Were defeat 
unknown, neither would victory be celebrated by songs of 
triumph. 

This, true enough, is an ideal, impossible state of being; 
yet ever the goal towards which our actual state of being 
strives; which it is the more perfect the nearer it can ap- 
proach. Nor, in our actual world, where Labour must 
often prove ineffectual, and thus in all senses Light alternate 
with Darkness, and the nature of an ideal Morality be much 
modified, is the case, thus far, materially different. It is a 
fact which escapes no one, that, generally speaking, whoso 



340 THOMAS CAREYLE / 

is acquainted with his worth has but a little stock to cultivate 
acquaintance with. Above all, the public acknowledgment 
of such acquaintance, indicating that it has reached quite an 
intimate footing, bodes ill. Already, to the popular judg- 
ment, he who talks much about Virtue in the abstract, be- 
gins to be suspect; it is shrewdly guessed that where there 
is great preaching, there will be little almsgiving. Or 
again, on a wider scale, we can remark that ages of Heroism 
are not ages of Moral Philosophy; Virtue, when it can be 
philosophised of, has become aware of itself, is sickly and 
beginning to decline. A spontaneous habitual all-pervading 
spirit of Chivalrous Valour shrinks together, and perks itself 
up into shrivelled Points of Honour; humane Courtesy and 
Nobleness of mind dwindle into punctilious Politeness, 
* avoiding meats ' ; * paying tithe of mint and anise, neglect- 
ing the weightier matters of the law.' Goodness, which 
was a rule to itself, must now appeal to Precept, and seek 
strength from Sanctions; the Freewill no longer reigns un- 
questioned and by divine right, but like a mere earthly 
sovereign, by expediency, by Rewards and Punishments: or 
rather, let us say, the Freewill, so far as may be, has ab- 
dicated and withdrawn into the dark, and a spectral night- 
mare of a Necessity usurps its throne ; for now that mysteri- 
ous Self-impulse of the whole man, heaven-inspired, and in 
all senses partaking of the Infinite, being captiously ques- 
tioned in a finite dialect, and answering, as it needs must, by 
silence, — is conceived as non-extant, and only the outward 
Mechanism of it remains acknowledged: of Volition, ex- 
cept as the synonym of Desire, we hear nothing; of * Motives,* 
without any Mover, more than enough. 

So too, when the generous Affections have become well- 
nigh paralytic, we have the reign of Sentimentality. The 
greatness, the profitableness, at any rate the extremely orna- 
mental nature of high feeling, and the luxury of doing 
good; charity, love, self-forgetfulness, devotedness and all 
manner of godlike magnanimity, — are everywhere insisted 
on, and pressingly inculcated in speech and writing, in prose 
and verse ; Socinian Preachers proclaim * Benevolence ' to 
all the four winds, and have Truth engraved on their 
watch-seals: unhappily with little or no effect. Were the 



& 



CHARACTERISTICS 341 

limts in right walking order, why so much demonstrating of 
motion? The barrenest of all mortals is the Sentimentalist 
Granting even that he were sincere, and did not wilfully 
deceive us, or without first deceiving himself, what good 
is in him? Does he not lie there as a perpetual lesson of 
despair, and type of bedrid valetudinarian impotence? His 
is emphatically a Virtue that has become, through every 
fibre, conscious of itself; it is all sick, and feels as if it were 
made of glass, and durst not touch or be touched; in the 
shape of work, it can do nothing; at the utmost, by inces- 
sant nursing and caudling, keep itself alive. As the last 
stage of all, when Virtue, properly so called, has ceased 
to be practised, and become extinct, and a mere remembrance, 
we have the era of Sophists, descanting of its existence, 
proving it, denying it, mechanically 'accounting' for it; — ■ 
as dissectors and demonstrators cannot operate till once the 
body be dead. 

Thus is true Moral genius, like true Intellectual, which 
indeed is but a lower phasis thereof, * ever a secret to itself.* 
The healthy moral nature loves Goodness, and without 
wonder wholly lives in it : the unhealthy makes love to it, and 
would fain get to live in it; or, finding such courtship fruit- 
less, turns round, and not without contempt abandons it. 
These curious relations of the Voluntary and Conscious to 
the Involuntary and Unconscious, and the small proportion 
which, in all departments of our life, the former bears to the 
latter, — might lead us into deep questions of Psychology 
and Physiology: such, however, belong not to our present 
object. Enough, if the fact itself become apparent, that 
Nature so meant it with us ; that in this wise we are made. 
We may now say, that view man's individual Existence 
under what aspect we will, under the highest spiritual, as 
under the merely animal aspect, everywhere the grand vital 
energy, while in its sound state, is an unseen unconscious 
one; or, in the words of our old Aphorism, 'the healthy 
know not of their health, but only the sick/ 

To understand man, however, we must look beyond the in- 
dividual man and his actions or interests, and view him in 
combination with his fellows. It is in Society that man first 



342 THOMAS CARLYLE 

feels what he is; first becomes what he can be. In Society 
an altogether new set of spiritual activities are evolved in 
him, and the old immeasurably quickened and strengthened. 
Society is the genial element wherein his nature first lives 
and grows; the solitary man were but a small portion of 
himself, and must continue forever folded in, stunted and 
only half alive. ' Already,' says a deep Thinker, with more 
meaning than will disclose itself at once, 'my opinion, my 
conviction, gains infinitely in strength and sureness, the 
moment a second mind has adopted it.' Such, even in its 
simplest form, is association; so wondrous the communion 
of soul with soul as directed to the mere act of Knowing! 
In other higher acts, the wonder is still more manifest; as in 
that portion of our being which we name the Moral: for 
properly, indeed, all communion is of a moral sort, whereof 
such intellectual communion (in the act of knowing) is itself 
an example. But with regard to Morals strictly so called, 
it is in Society, we might almost say, that Morality begins; 
here at least it takes an altogether new form, and on every 
side, as in living growth, expands itself. The Duties of Man 
to himself, to what is Highest in himself, make but the First 
Table of the Law: to the First Table is now superadded a 
Second, with the Duties of Man to his Neighbour; whereby 
also the significance of the First now assumes its true impor- 
tance. Man has joined himself with man; soul acts and 
reacts on soul; a mystic miraculous unfathomable Union 
establishes itself; Life, in all its elements, has become 
intensated, consecrated. The lightning-spark of Thought, 
generated, or say rather heaven-kindled, in the solitary mind, 
awakens its express likeness in another mind, in a thousand 
other minds, and all blaze-up together in combined fire; 
reverberated from mind to mind, fed also with fresh fuel 
in each, it acquires incalculable new light as Thought, 
incalculable new heat as converted into Action. By and 
by, a common store of Thought can accumulate, and 
be transmitted as an everlasting possession: Literature, 
whether as preserved in the memory of Bards, in Runes 
and Hieroglyphs engraved on stone, or in Books of 
written or printed paper, comes into existence, and begins 
to play its wondrous part. Polities are formed; the weak 



CHARACTERISTICS 343 

submitting to the strong; with a willing loyalty giving 
obedience that he may receive guidance: or say rather, in 
honour of our nature, the ignorant submitting to the wise; 
for so it is in all even the rudest communities, man never 
yields himself wholly to brute Force, but always to moral 
Greatness; thus the universal title of respect, from the 
Original Sheik, from the Sachem of the Red Indians, down 
to our English Sir, implies only that he whom we mean to 
honour is our senior. Last, as the crown and all-supporting 
keystone of the fabric, Religion arises. The devout medita- 
tion of the isolated man, which flitted through his soul, like 
a transient tone of Love and Awe from unknown lands, 
acquires certainty, continuance, when it is shared-in by his 
brother men. ' Where two or three are gathered together ' 
in the name of the Highest, then first does the Highest, as 
it is written, * appear among them to bless them'; then first 
does an Altar and act of united Worship open a way from 
Earth to Heaven; whereon, were it but a simple Jacob's- 
ladder, the heavenly Messengers will travel, with glad tidings 
and unspeakable gifts for men. Such is Society, the vital 
articulation of many individuals into a new collective indi- 
vidual: greatly the most important of man's attainments 
on this earth; that in which, and by virtue of which, all 
his other attainments and attempts find their arena, and 
have their value. Considered well, Society is the standing 
wonder of our existence ; a true region of the Supernatural ; 
as it were, a second all-embracing Life, wherein our first 
individual Life becomes doubly and trebly alive, and what- 
ever of Infinitude was in us bodies itself forth, and becomes 
visible and active. 

To figure Society as endowed with life is scarcely a meta- 
phor; but rather the statement of a fact by such imperfect 
methods as language affords. Look at it closely, that mystic 
Union, Nature's highest work with man, wherein man's voli- 
tion plays an indispensable yet so subordinate a part, and the 
small Mechanical grows so mysteriously and indissolubly out 
of the infinite Dynamical, like Body out of Spirit, — is truly 
enough vital, what we can call vital, and bears the dis- 
tinguishing character of life. In the same style also, we can 
say that Society has its periods of sickness and vigour, of 



344 THOMAS CARLYLE 

youth, manhood, decrepitude, dissolution and new birth; in 
one or other of which stages we may, in all times, and all 
places where men inhabit, discern it; and do ourselves, in 
this time and place, whether as cooperating or as contending, 
as healthy members or as diseased ones, to our joy and 
sorrow, form part of it. The question. What is the actual 
condition of Society ? has in these days* unhappily become 
important enough. No one of us is unconcerned in that 
question; but for the majority of thinking men a true answer 
to it, such is the state of matters, appears almost as the one 
thing needful. Meanwhile, as the true answer, that is to say, 
the complete and fundamental answer and settlement, often 
as it has been demanded, is nowhere forthcoming, and indeed 
by its nature is impossible, any honest approximation towards 
such is not without value. The feeblest light, or even so 
much as a more precise recognition of the darkness, which is 
the first step to attainment of light, will be welcome. 

This once understood, let it not seem idle if we remark 
that here too our old Aphorism holds; that again in the 
Body Politic, as in the animal body, the sign of right per- 
formances is Unconsciousness. Such indeed is virtually the 
meaning of that phrase, * artificial state of society,' as con- 
trasted with the natural state, and indicating something so 
inferior to it. For, in all vital things, men distinguish an 
Artificial and a Natural; founding on some dim perception 
or sentiment of the very truth we here insist on: the arti- 
ficial is the conscious, mechanical ; the natural is the uncon- 
scious, dynamical. Thus, as we have an artificial Poetry, and 
prize only the natural; so likewise we have an artificial 
Morality, an artificial Wisdom, an artificial Society. The 
artificial Society is precisely one that knows its own struc- 
ture, its own internal functions; not in watching, not in 
knowing which, but in working outwardly to the fulfilment 
of its aim, does the wellbeing of a Society consist. Every 
Society, every Polity, has a spiritual principle; is the em- 
bodiment, tentative and more or less complete, of an Idea: 
all its tendencies of endeavour, specialties of custom, its laws, 
politics and whole procedure (as the glance of some Mon- 
tesquieu, across innumerable superficial entanglements, can 
partly decipher), are prescribed by an Idea, and flow nat- 



CHARACTERISTICS 345 

urally from it, as movements from the living source of mo- 
tion. This Idea, be it of devotion to a man or class of men, 
to a creed, to an institution, or even, as in more ancient 
times, to a piece of land, is ever a true Loyalty; has in it 
something of a religious, paramount, quite infinite character ; 
it is properly the Soul of the State, its Life; mysterious as 
other forms of Life, and like these v^orking secretly, and in 
a depth beyond that of consciousness. 

Accordingly, it is not in the vigorous ages of a Roman 
Republic that Treatises of the Commonwealth are written: 
while the Decii are rushing with devoted bodies on the ene- 
mies of Rome, what need of preaching Patriotism? The 
virtue of Patriotism has already sunk from its pristine all- 
transcendent condition, before it has received a name. So 
long as the Commonwealth continues rightly athletic, it 
cares not to dabble in anatomy. Why teach obedience to the 
Sovereign; why so much as admire it, or separately recog- 
nise it, while a divine idea of Obedience perennially inspires 
all men? Loyalty, like Patriotism, of which it is a form, 
was not praised till it had begun to decline; the Preux 
Chevaliers first became rightly admirable, when * dying for 
their king ' had ceased to be a habit with chevaliers. For if 
the mystic significance of the State, let this be what it may, 
dwells vitally in every heart, encircles every life as with a 
second higher life, how should it stand self-questioning? It 
must rush outward, and express itself by works. Besides, 
if perfect, it is there as by necessity, and does not excite in- 
quiry: it is also by nature infinite, has no limits; therefore 
can be circumscribed by no conditions and definitions; can- 
not be reasoned of; except musically, or in the language of 
Poetry, cannot yet so much as be spoken of. 

In those days, Society was what we name healthy, sound at 
heart. Not indeed without suffering enough; not without 
perplexities, difficulty on every side: for such is the appoint- 
ment of man; his highest and sole blessedness is, that he 
toil, and know what to toil at: not in ease, but in united 
victorious labour, which is at once evil and the victory over 
evil, does his Freedom lie. Nay, often, looking no deeper 
than such superficial perplexities of the early Time, his- 
torians have taught us that it was all one mass of contra- 



346 THOMAS CARLYLE 

diction and disease; and in the antique Republic or feudal 
Monarchy have seen only the confused chaotic quarry, not 
the robust labourer, or the stately edifice he was building 
of it. 

If Society, in such ages, had its difficulty, it had also its 
strength; if sorrowful masses of rubbish so encumbered it, 
the tough sinews to hurl them aside, with indomitable heart, 
were not wanting. Society went along without complaint; 
did not stop to scrutinize itself, to say, How well I perform ! 
or, Alas, how ill ! Men did not yet feel themselves to be ' the 
envy of surrounding nations ' ; and were enviable on that 
very account. Society was what we can call whole, in both 
senses of the word. The individual man was in himself a 
whole, or complete union; and could combine with his fel- 
lows as the living member of a greater whole. For all men, 
through their life, were animated by one great Idea ; thus all 
efforts pointed one way, everywhere there was wholeness. 
Opinion and Action had not yet become disunited; but the 
former could still produce the latter, or attempt to produce 
it; as the stamp does its impression while the wax is not 
hardened. Thought and the voice of thought were also a 
unison; thus, instead of Speculation, we had Poetry; Litera- 
ture, in its rude utterance, was as yet a heroic Song, perhaps 
too a devotional Anthem. 

Religion was everywhere; Philosophy lay hid under it, 
peaceably included in it. Herein, as in the life-centre of all, 
lay the true health and oneness. Only at a later era must 
Religion split itself into Philosophies; and thereby, the vital 
union of Thought being lost, disunion and mutual collision 
in all provinces of Speech and Action more and more pre- 
vail. For if the Poet, or Priest, or by whatever title the 
inspired thinker may be named, is the sign of vigour and 
well-being ; so likewise is the Logician, or uninspired thinker, 
the sign of disease, probably of decrepitude and decay. Thus, 
not to mention other instances, one of them much nearer 
hand, — so soon as Prophecy among the Hebrews had ceased, 
then did the reign of Argumentation begin; and the ancient 
Theocracy, in its Sadduceeisms and Phariseeisms, and vain 
jangling of sects and doctors, give token that the soul of it 
had fled, and that the body itself, by natural dissolution. 



CHARACTERISTICS 347 

* with the old forces still at work, but working in reverse 
order/ was on the road to final disappearance. 

We might pursue this question into innumerable other 
ramifications; and everywhere, under new shapes, find the 
same truth, which we here so imperfectly enunciate, dis- 
closed; that throughout the whole world of man, in all mani- 
festations and performances of his nature, outward and in- 
ward, personal and social, the Perfect, the Great is a mystery 
to itself, knows not itself; whatsoever does know itself is 
already little, and more or less imperfect. Or otherwise, we 
may say, Unconsciousness belongs to pure unmixed life; 
Consciousness to a diseased mixture and conflict of life and 
death: Unconsciousness is the sign of creation; Conscious- 
ness, at best, that of manufacture. So deep, in this existence 
of ours, is the significance of Mystery. Well might the 
Ancients make Silence a god; for it is the element of all 
godhood, infinitude, or transcendental greatness; at once 
the source and the ocean wherein all such begins and ends. 
In the same sense, too, have Poets sung ' Hymns to the 
Night'; as if Night were nobler than Day; as if Day were 
but a small motley-coloured veil spread transiently over the 
infinite bosom of Night, and did but deform and hide from 
us its purely transparent eternal deeps. So likewise have 
they spoken and sung as if Silence were the grand epitome 
and complete sum-total of all Harmony; and Death, what 
mortals call Death, properly the beginning of Life. Under 
such figures, since except in figures there is no speaking 
of the Invisible, have men endeavoured to express a great 
Truth ; — a Truth, in our Times, as nearly as is perhaps possi- 
ble, forgotten by the most ; which nevertheless continues for- 
ever true, forever all-important, and will one day, under 
new figures, be again brought home to the bosoms of all. 

But indeed, in a far lower sense, the rudest mind has still 
some intimation of the greatness there is in Mystery. If 
Silence was made a god of by the Ancients, he still continues 
a government-clerk among us Moderns. To all quacks, more- 
over, of what sort soever, the effect of Mystery is well 
known: here and there some Cagliostro, even in latter days, 
turns it to notable account : the blockhead also, who is ambi- 



348 THOMAS CARLYLE 

tious, and has no talent, finds sometimes in *the talent of 
silence/ a kind of succedaneum. Or again, looking on the 
opposite side of the matter, do we not see, in the common 
understanding of mankind, a certain distrust, a certain con- 
tempt of what is altogether self-conscious and mechanical? 
As nothing that is wholly seen through has other than a 
trivial character; so anything professing to be great, and yet 
wholly to see through itself, is already known to be false, 
and a failure. The evil repute your ' theoretical men ' stand 
in, the acknowledged inefficiency of ' paper constitutions,' 
and all that class of objects, are instances of this. Experi- 
ence often repeated, and perhaps a certain instinct of some- 
thing far deeper that lies under such experiences, has taught 
men so much. They know beforehand, that the loud is gen- 
erally the insignificant, the empty. Whatsoever can proclaim 
itself from the house-tops may be fit for the hawker, and for 
those multitudes that must needs buy of him; but for any 
deeper use, might as well continue unproclaimed. Observe 
too, how the converse of the proposition holds; how the 
insignificant, the empty, is usually the loud; and, after the 
manner of a drum, is loud even because of its emptiness. 
The uses of some Patent Dinner Calefactor can be bruited 
abroad over the whole world in the course of the first winter ; 
those of the Printing Press are not so well seen into for the 
first three centuries: the passing of the Select- Vestries Bill 
raises more noise and hopeful expectancy among man- 
kind than did the promulgation of the Christian Religion. 
Again, and again, we say, the great, the creative and en- 
during is ever a secret to itself; only the small, the barren 
and transient is otherwise. 

If we now, with a practical medical view, examine, by this 
same test of Unconsciousness, the Condition of our own Era, 
and of man's Life therein, the diagnosis we arrive at is 
nowise of a flattering sort. The state of Society in our days 
is, of all possible states, the least an unconscious one : this is 
specially the Era when all manner of Inquiries into what was 
once the unfelt, involuntary sphere of man's existence, find 
their place, and, as it were, occupy the whole domain of 
thought. What, for example, is all this that we hear, for the 



CHARACTERISTICS 349 

last generation or two, about the Improvement of the Age, 
the Spirit of the Age, Destruction of Prejudice, Progress of 
the Species, and the March of Intellect, but an unhealthy 
state of self-sentience, self-survey; the precursor and prog- 
nostic of still worse health? That Intellect do march, if 
possible at double-quick time, is very desirable ; nevertheless, 
why should she turn round at every stride, and cry: See you 
what a stride I have taken ! Such a marching of Intellect is 
distinctly of the spavined kind; what the Jockeys call *all 
action and no go/ Or at best, if we examine well, it is the 
marching of that gouty Patient, whom his Doctors had clapt 
on a metal floor artificially heated to the searing point, so 
that he was obliged to march, and did march with a venge- 
ance — no whither. Intellect did not awaken for the first 
time yesterday; but has been under way from Noah's Flood 
downwards : greatly her best progress, moreover, was in the 
old times, when she said nothing about it. In those same 
* dark ages,' Intellect (metaphorically as well as literally) 
could invent glass, which now she has enough ado to grind 
into spectacles. Intellect built not only Churches, but a 
Church, the Church, based on this firm Earth, yet reaching 
up, and leading up, as high as Heaven ; and now it is all she 
can do to keep its doors bolted, that there be no tearing of 
the Surplices, no robbery of the Alms-box. She built a 
Senate-house likewise, glorious in its kind ; and now it costs 
her a well-nigh mortal effort to sweep it clear of vermin, and 
get the roof made rain-tight. 

But the truth is, with Intellect, as with most other things, 
we are now passing from that first or boastful stage of Self- 
sentience into the second or painful one : out of these often- 
asseverated declarations that *our system is in high order,' 
we come now, by natural sequence, to the melancholy con- 
viction that it is altogether the reverse. Thus, for instance, 
in the matter of Government, the period of the ' Invaluable 
Constitution ' has to be followed by a Reform Bill ; to lauda- 
tory De Lolmes succeed objurgatory Benthams. At any 
rate, what Treatises on the Social Contract, on the Elective 
Franchise, the Rights of Man, the Rights of Property, Codi- 
fications, Institutions, Constitutions, have we not, for long 
years, groaned under! Or again, with a wider survey. 



350 THOMAS CARLYLE 

consider those Essays on Man, Thoughts on Man, Inquiries 
concerning Man; not to mention Evidences of the Christian 
Faith, Theories of Poetry, Considerations on the Origin of 
Evil, v^hich during the last century have accumulated on us 
to a frightful extent. Never since the beginning of Time 
was there, that v^e hear or read of, so intensely self-con- 
scious a Society. Our v^hole relations to the Universe and 
to our fellow-man have become an Inquiry, a Doubt ; nothing 
will go on of its own accord, and do its function quietly; but 
all things must be probed into, the whole working of man's 
world be anatomically studied. Alas, anatomically studied, 
that it may be medically aided ! Till at length indeed, we 
have come to such a pass, that except in this same medicine, 
with its artifices and appliances, few can so much as imagine 
any strength or hope to remain for us. The whole Life of 
Society must now be carried on by drugs: doctor after 
doctor appears with his nostrum, of Cooperative Societies, 
Universal Suffrage, Cottage-and-Cow systems. Repression of 
Population, Vote by ballot. To such height has the dyspepsia 
of Society reached: as indeed the constant grinding internal 
pain, or from time to time the mad spasmodic throes, of all 
Society do otherwise too mournfully indicate. 

Far be it from us to attribute, as some unwise persons do, 
the disease itself to this unhappy sensation that there is a 
disease ! The Encyclopedists did not produce the troubles of 
France; but the troubles of France produced the Encyclo- 
pedists, and much else. The Self-consciousness is the symp- 
tom merely; nay, it is also the attempt towards cure. We 
record the fact, without special censure; not wondering that 
Society should feel itself, and in all ways complain of aches 
and twinges, for it has suffered enough. Napoleon was but a 
Job's-comforter, when he told his wounded staff-officer, twice 
unhorsed by cannon-balls, and with half his limbs blown to 
pieces : '^ Vous vous ecoutez trop ! " 

On the outward, as it were Physical diseases of Society, it 
were beside our purpose to insist here. These are diseases 
which he who runs may read; and sorrow over, with or 
without hope. Wealth has accumulated itself into masses; 
and Poverty, also in accumulation enough, lies impassably 
separated from it; opposed, uncommunicating, like forces 



CHARACTERISTICS 351 

in positive and negative poles. The gods of this lower 
world sit aloft on glittering thrones, less happy than Epi- 
curus^s gods, but as indolent, as impotent; while the bound- 
less living chaos of Ignorance and Hunger welters terrific, 
in its dark fury, under their feet. How much among us 
might be likened to a whited sepulchre; outwardly all pomp 
and strength; but inwardly full of horror and despair and 
dead-men's bones ! Iron highways, with their wains fire- 
winged, are uniting all ends of the firm Land; quays and 
moles, with their innumerable stately fleets, tame the Ocean 
into our pliant bearer of burdens; Labour's thousand arms 
of sinew and of metal, all-conquering everywhere, from the 
tops of the mountain down to the depths of the mine and the 
caverns of the sea, ply unweariedly for the service of man : yet 
man remains unserved. He has subdued this Planet, his habi- 
tation and inheritance; yet reaps no profit from the victory. 
Sad to look upon : in the highest stage of civilisation, nine- 
tenths of mankind have to struggle in the lowest battle of 
savage or even animal man, the battle against Famine. 
Countries are rich, prosperous in all manner of increase, 
beyond example: but the Men of those countries are poor, 
needier than ever of all sustenance outward and inward; of 
Belief, of Knowledge, of Money, of Food, The rule. Sic vos 
non vohis, never altogether to be got rid of in men's Industry, 
now presses with such incubus weight, that Industry must 
shake it off, or utterly be strangled under it; and, alas, can 
as yet but gasp and rave, and aimlessly struggle, like one in 
the final deliration. Thus Change, or the inevitable approach 
of Change, is manifest everywhere. In one Country we have 
seen lava-torrents of fever-frenzy envelop all things; Gov- 
ernment succeed Government, like the phantasms of a dying 
brain. In another Country, we can even now see, in maddest 
alternation, the Peasant governed by such guidance as this: 
To labour earnestly one month in raising wheat, and the 
next month labour earnestly in burning it. So that Society, 
were it not by nature immortal, and its death ever a new- 
birth, might appear, as it does in the eyes of some, to be sick 
to dissolution, and even now writhing in its last agony. Sick 
enough we must admit it to be, with disease enough, a whole 
nosology of diseases; wherein .he perhaps is happiest that is 



352 THOMAS CARLYLE 

not called to prescribe as physician ; — wherein, however, one 
small piece of policy, that of summoning the Wisest in the 
Commonwealth, by the sole method yet known or thought 
of, to come together and with their whole soul consult for it, 
might, but for late tedious experiences, have seemed unques- 
tionable enough. 

But leaving this, let us rather look within, into the 
Spiritual condition of Society, and see what aspects and 
prospects offer themselves there. For after all, it is there 
properly that the secret and origin of the whole is to be 
sought: the Physical derangements of Society are but the 
image and impress of its Spiritual ; while the heart continues 
sound, all other sickness is superficial, and temporary. False 
Action is the fruit of false Speculation; let the spirit of 
Society be free and strong, that is to say, let true Principles 
inspire the members of Society, then neither can disorders 
accumulate in its Practice; each disorder will be promptly, 
faithfully inquired into, and remedied as it arises. But alas, 
with us the Spiritual condition of Society is no less sickly 
than the Physical, Examine man's internal world, in any of 
its social relations and performances, here too all seems dis- 
eased self-consciousness, collision and mutually-destructive 
struggle. Nothing acts from within outwards in undivided 
healthy force; everything lies impotent, lamed, its force 
turned inwards, and painfully * listens to itself,' 

To begin with our highest Spiritual function, with Re- 
ligion, we might ask. Whither has Religion now fled? Of 
Churches and their establishments we here say nothing; nor 
of the unhappy domains of Unbelief, and how innumerable 
men, blinded in their minds, have grown to Mive without 
God in the world ' ; but, taking the fairest side of the matter, 
we ask, What is the nature of that same Religion, which 
still lingers in the hearts of the few who are called, and call 
themselves, specially the Religious? Is it a healthy religion, 
vital, unconscious of itself; that shines forth spontaneously 
in doing of the Work, or even in preaching of the Word? 
Unhappily, no. Instead of heroic martyr Conduct, and in- 
spired and soul-inspiring Eloquence, whereby Religion itself 
were brought home to our living bosoms, to live and reign 
there, we have * Discourses on the Evidences/ endeavouring. 



CHARACTERISTICS 353 

with smallest result, to make it probable that such a thing 
as Religion exists. The most enthusiastic Evangelicals do 
not preach a Gospel, but keep describing how it should and 
might be preached : to awaken the sacred fire of faith, as by 
a sacred contagion, is not their endeavour; but, at most, to 
describe how Faith shows and acts, and scientifically distin- 
guish true Faith from false. Religion, like all else, is con- 
scious of itself, listens to itself; it becomes less and less 
creative, vital; more and more mechanical. Considered as 
a whole, the Christian Religion of late ages has been con- 
tinally dissipating itself into Metaphysics; and threatens now 
to disappear, as some rivers do, in deserts of barren sand. 

Of Literature, and its deep-seated, wide-spread maladies, 
why speak? Literature is but a branch of Religion, and 
always participates in its character: however, in our time, it 
is the only branch that still shows any greenness; and, as 
some think, must one day become the main stem. Now, apart 
from the subterranean and tartarean regions of Literature; 
— leaving out of view the frightful, scandalous statistics of 
Puffing, the mystery of Slander, Falsehood, Hatred and other 
convulsion-work of rabid Imbecility, and all that has ren- 
dered Literature on that side a perfect ' Babylon the mother 
of Abominations,' in very deed making the world * drunk ' 
with the wine of her iniquity ; — forgetting all this, let us look 
only to the regions of the upper air; to such Literature as 
can be said to have some attempt towards truth in it, some 
tone of music, and if it be not poetical, to hold of the poeti- 
cal. Among other characteristics, is not this manifest 
enough: that it knows itself? Spontaneous devotedness to 
the object, being wholly possessed by the object, what we 
can call Inspiration, has well-nigh ceased to appear in Litera- 
ture. Which melodious Singer forgets that he is singing 
melodiously? We have not the love of greatness, but the 
love of the love of greatness. Hence infinite Affectations, 
Distractions; in every case inevitable Error. Consider, for 
one example, this peculiarity of Modern Literature, the sin 
that has been named View-hunting. In our elder writers, there 
are no paintings of scenery for its own sake; no euphuistic 
gallantries with Nature, but a constant heartlove for her, 
a constant dwelling in communion with her. View-hunting, 

Vol. 25—12 HC 



354 THOMAS CARLYLE 

with so much else that is of kin to it, first came decisively 
into action through the Sorrows of Werter; which wonder- 
ful Performance, indeed, may in many senses be regarded as 
the progenitor of all that has since become popular in Litera- 
ture; whereof, in so far as concerns spirit and tendency, it 
still offers the most instructive image; for nowhere, except 
in its own country, above all in the mind of its illustrious 
Author, has it yet fallen wholly obsolete. Scarcely ever, till 
that late epoch, did any worshipper of Nature become en- 
tirely aware that he was worshipping, much to his own 
credit; and think of saying to himself: Come, let us make a 
description ! Intolerable enough : when every puny whipster 
plucks out his pencil, and insists on painting you a scene; so 
that the instant you discern such a thing as * wavy outline/ 
* mirror of the lake,' ' stern headland,' or the like, in any 
Book, you tremulously hasten on; and scarcely the Author 
of Waverley himself can tempt you not to skip. 

Nay, is not the diseased self-conscious state of Literature 
disclosed in this one fact, which lies so near us here, the 
prevalence of Reviewing ! Sterne's wish for a reader ' that 
would give-up the reins of his imagination into his author's 
hands, and be pleased he knew not why, and cared not where- 
fore,' might lead him a long journey now. Indeed, for our 
best class of readers, the chief pleasure, a very stinted one, is 
this same knowing of the Why; which many a Kames and 
Bossu has been, ineffectually enough, endeavouring to teach 
us: till at last these also have laid down their trade; and 
now your Reviewer is a mere taster; who tastes, and says, by 
the evidence of such palate, such tongue, as he has got. It is 
good, It is bad. Was it thus that the French carried out 
certain inferior creatures on their Algerine Expedition, to 
taste the wells for them, and try whether they were poi- 
soned? Far be it from us to disparage our own craft, 
whereby we have our living! Only we must note these 
things: that Reviewing spreads with strange vigour; that 
such a man as Byron reckons the Reviewer and the Poet 
equal; that at the last Leipzig Fair, there was advertised a 
Review of Reviews. By and by it will be found that all 
Literature has become one boundless self-devouring Review; 
and, as in London routs, we have to do nothing, but only to 



CHARACTERISTICS 355 

see others do nothing. — Thus does Literature also, like a sick 
thing, superabundantly * listen to itself/ 

No less is this unhealthy symptom manifest, if we cast a 
glance on our Philosophy, on the character of our speculative 
Thinking. Nay, already, as above hinted, the mere existence 
and necessity of a Philosophy is an evil. Man is sent hither 
not to question, but to v^ork : * the end of man,' it was long 
ago written, * is an Action, not a Thought.' In the perfect 
state, all Thought were but the picture and inspiring symbol 
of Action ; Philosophy, except as Poetry and Religion, would 
have no being. And yet how, in this imperfect state, can it 
be avoided, can it be dispensed with? Man stands as in the 
centre of Nature ; his fraction of Time encircled by Eternity, 
his handbreadth of Space encircled by Infinitude: how shall 
he forbear asking himself. What am I; and Whence; and 
Whither? How too, except in slight partial hints, in kind 
asseverations and assurances, such as a mother quiets her 
fretfully inquisitive child with, shall he get answer to such 
inquiries ? 

The disease of Metaphysics, accordingly, is a perennial 
one. In all ages, those questions of Death and Immortality, 
Origin of Evil, Freedom and Necessity, must, under new 
forms, anew make their appearance ; ever, from time to time, 
must the attempt to shape for ourselves some Theorem of 
the Universe be repeated. And ever unsuccessfully: for 
what Theorem of the Infinite can the Finite render com- 
plete? We, the whole species of Mankind, and our whole 
existence and history, are but a floating speck in the 
illimitable ocean of the All; yet in that ocean; indissoluble 
portion thereof; partaking of its infinite tendencies: borne 
this way and that by its deep-swelling tides, and grand ocean 
currents; — of which what faintest chance is there that we 
should ever exhaust the significance, ascertain the goings 
and comings? A region of Doubt, therefore, hovers for- 
ever in the background; in Action alone can we have cer- 
tainty. Nay, properly Doubt is the indispensable, inex- 
haustible material whereon Action works, which Action has 
to fashion into Certainty and Reality; only on a canvas of 
Darkness, such is man's way of being, could the many- 
coloured picture of our Life paint itself and shine. 



356 THOMAS CARLYLE 

Thus if our eldest system of Metaphysics is as old as the 
Book of Genesis, our latest is that of Mr. Thomas Hope, 
published only within the current year. It is a chronic 
malady that of Metaphysics, as we said, and perpetually re- 
curs on us. At the utmost, there is a better and a worse in 
it; a stage of convalescence, and a stage of relapse with new 
sickness: these forever succeed each other, as is the nature 
of all Life-movement here below. The first, or convalescent 
stage, we might also name that of Dogmatical or Construc- 
tive Metaphysics; when the mind constructively endeavours 
to scheme out and assert for itself an actual Theorem of 
the Universe, and therewith for a time rests satisfied. The 
second or sick stage might be called that of Sceptical or 
Inquisitory Metaphysics; when the mind having widened its 
sphere of vision, the existing Theorem of the Universe no 
longer answers the phenomena, no longer yields content- 
ment; but must be torn in pieces, and certainty anew sought 
for in the endless realms of denial. All Theologies and 
sacred Cosmogonies belong, in some measure, to the first 
class; in all Pyrrhonism, from Pyrrho down to Hume and 
the innumerable disciples of Hume, we have instances 
enough of the second. In the former, so far as it affords 
satisfaction, a temporary anodyne to doubt, an arena for 
wholesome action, there may be much good; indeed in this 
case, it holds rather of Poetry than of Metaphysics, might 
be called Inspiration rather than Speculation. The latter is 
Metaphysics proper; a pure, unmixed, though from time to 
time a necessary evil. 

For truly, if we look into it, there is no more fruitless 
endeavour than this same, which the Metaphysician proper 
toils in: to educe Conviction out of Negation. How, by 
merely testing and rejecting what is not, shall we ever attain 
knowledge of what is? Metaphysical Speculation, as it be- 
gins in No or Nothingness, so it must needs end in Nothing- 
ness; circulates and must circulate in endless vortices; 
creating, swallowing — itself. Our being is made up of Light 
and Darkness, the Light resting on the Darkness, and bal- 
ancing it; everywhere there is Dualism, Equipoise; a per- 
petual Contradiction dwells in us : ' where shall I place 
myself to escape from my own shadow?' Consider it well. 



CHARACTERISTICS 357 

Metaphysics is the attempt of the mind to rise above the 
mind; to environ and shut in, or as we say, comprehend the 
mind. Hopeless struggle, for the wisest, as for the foolish- 
est! What strength of sinew, or athletic skill, will enable 
the stoutest athlete to fold his own body in his arms, and, 
by lifting, lift up himself? The Irish Saint swam the Chan- 
nel, * carrying his head in his teeth ' ; but the feat has never 
been imitated. 

That this is the age of Metaphysics, in the proper, or 
sceptical Inquisitory sense; that there was a necessity for its 
being such an age, we regard as our indubitable misfortune. 
From many causes, the arena of free Activity has long been 
narrowing, that of sceptical Inquiry becoming more and more 
universal, more and more perplexing. The Thought conducts 
not to the Deed; but in boundless chaos, self -devouring, 
engenders monstrosities, phantasms, fire-breathing chimeras. 
Profitable Speculation were this: What is to be done; and 
How is it to be done ? But with *us not so much as the 
What can be got sight of. For some generations, all Philos- 
ophy has been a painful, captious, hostile question towards 
everything in the Heaven above, and in the Earth beneath: 
Why art thou there? Till at length it has come to pass 
that the worth and authenticity of all things seems dubitable 
or deniable : our best effort must be unproductively spent not 
in working, but in ascertaining our mere Whereabout, and so 
much as whether we are to work at all. Doubt, which, as 
was said, ever hangs in the background of our world, has 
now become our middleground and foreground; whereon, 
for the time, no fair Life-picture can be painted, but only 
the dark air-canvas itself flow round us, bewildering and 
benighting. 

Nevertheless, doubt as we will, man is actually Here; not 
to ask questions, but to do work : in this time, as in all times, 
it must be the heaviest evil for him, if his faculty of Action 
lie dormant, and only that of sceptical Inquiry exert itself. 
Accordingly whoever looks abroad upon the world, com- 
paring the Past with the Present, may find that the practical 
condition of man in these days is one of the saddest; 
burdened with miseries which are in a considerable degree 
peculiar. In no time was man's life what he calls a happy 



358 THOMAS CARLYLE 

one; in no time can it be so. A perpetual dream there has 
been of Paradises, and some luxurious Lubberland, where 
the brooks should run wine, and the trees bend with ready- 
baked viands; but it was a dream merely; an impossible 
dream. Suffering, contradiction, error, have their quite 
perennial, and even indispensable abode in this Earth. Is 
not labour the inheritance of man? And what labour for 
the present is joyous, and not grievous? Labour, effort, is 
the very interruption of that ease, which man foolishly 
enough fancies to be his happiness; and yet without labour 
there were no ease, no rest, so much as conceivable. Thus 
Evil, what we call Evil, must ever exist while man exists: 
Evil, in the widest sense we can give it, is precisely the dark, 
disordered material out of which man's Freewill has to 
create an edifice of order and Good. Ever must Pain urge 
us to Labour ; and only in free Effort can any blessedness be 
imagined for us. 

But if man has, in all ages, had enough to encounter, there 
has, in most civilised ages, been an inward force vouchsafed 
him, whereby the pressure of things outward might be with- 
stood. Obstruction abounded; but Faith also was not want- 
ing. It is by Faith that man removes mountains: while he 
had Faith, his limbs might be wearied with toiling, his back 
galled with bearing; but the heart within him was peaceable 
and resolved. In the thickest gloom there burnt a lamp to 
guide him. If he struggled and suffered, he felt that it even 
should be so ; knew for what he was suffering and struggling. 
Faith gave him an inward Willingness ; a world of Strength 
wherewith to front a world of Difficulty. The true wretch- 
edness lies here : that the Difficulty remain and the Strength 
be lost; that Pain cannot relieve itself in free Effort; that 
we have the Labour, and want the Willingness. Faith 
strengthens us, enlightens us, for all endeavours and endur- 
ances; with Faith we can do all, and dare all, and life itself 
has a thousand times been joyfully given away. But the 
sum of man's misery is even this, that he feel himself 
crushed under the Juggernaut wheels, and know that Jug- 
gernaut is no divinity, but a dead mechanical idol. 

Now this is specially the misery which has fallen on man 
in our Era. Belief, Faith has well-nigh vanished from the 



CHARACTERISTICS 359 

world. The youth on awakening m this wondrous Universe 
no longer finds a competent theory of its wonders. Time 
was, when if he asked himself, What is man, What are the 
duties of man? the answer stood ready written for him. But 
now the ancient * ground-plan of the All ' beUes itself when 
brought into contact with reality; Mother Church has, to 
the most, become a superannuated Step-mother, whose les- 
sons go disregarded ; or are spurned at, and scornfully gain- 
said. For young Valour and thirst of Action no ideal 
Chivalry invites to heroism, prescribes what is heroic: the 
old ideal of Manhood has grown obsolete, and the new is 
still invisible to us, and we grope after it in darkness, one 
clutching this phantom, another that; Werterism, Byronism, 
even Brummelism, each has its day. For Contemplation and 
love of Wisdom, no Cloister now opens its religious shades ; 
the Thinker must, in all senses, wander homeless, too often 
aimless, looking up to a Heaven which is dead for him, round 
to an Earth which is deaf. Action, in those old days, was 
easy, was voluntary, for the divine worth of human things 
lay acknowledged ; Speculation was wholesome, for it ranged 
itself as the handmaid of Action; what could not so range 
itself died out by its natural death, by neglect. Loyalty still 
hallowed obedience, and made rule noble; there was still 
something to be loyal to: the Godlike stood embodied under 
many a symbol in men's interests and business; the Finite 
shadowed forth the Infinite; Eternity looked through Time. 
The Life of man was encompassed and overcanopied by a 
glory of Heaven, even as his dwelling-place by the azure 
vault. 

How changed in these new days! Truly may it be said, 
the Divinity has withdrawn from the Earth ; or veils himself 
in that wide-wasting Whirlwind of a departing Era, wherein 
the fewest can discern his goings. Not Godhead, but an 
iron, ignoble circle of Necessity embraces all things; binds 
the youth of these times into a sluggish thrall, or else exas- 
perates him into a rebel. Heroic Action is paralysed; for 
what worth now remains unquestionable with him? At the 
fervid period when his whole nature cries aloud for Action, 
there is nothing sacred under whose banner he can act; the 
course and kind and conditions of free Action are all but 



360 THOMAS CARLYLE 

tindiscoverable. Doubt storms-in on him through every 
avenue; inquiries of the deepest, painfulest sort must be en- 
gaged with ; and the invincible energy of young years w^aste 
itself in sceptical, suicidal cavillings ; in passionate ' ques- 
tionings of Destiny/ whereto no answer will be returned. 

For men, in whom the old perennial principle of Hunger 
(be it Hunger of the poor Day-drudge who stills it with 
eighteenpence a-day, or of the ambitious Placehunter who 
can nowise still it with so little) suffices to fill-up existence, 
the case is bad ; but not the worst. These men have an aim, 
such .as it is ; and can steer towards it, with chagrin enough 
truly; yet, as their hands are kept full, without desperation. 
Unhappier are they to whom a higher instinct has been 
given; who struggle to be persons, not machines; to whom 
the Universe is not a warehouse, or at best a fancy-bazaar, 
but a mystic temple and hall of doom. For such men there 
lie properly two courses open. The lower, yet still an esti- 
mable class, take up with worn-out Symbols of the Godlike; 
keep trimming and trucking between these and Hypocrisy, 
purblindly enough, miserably enough. A numerous inter- 
mediate class end in Denial; end form a theory that there 
is no theory ; that nothing is certain in the world, except 
this fact of Pleasure being pleasant; so they try to realise 
what trifling modicum of Pleasure they can come at, and to 
live contented therewith, winking hard. Of those we speak 
not here; but only of the second nobler class, who also have 
dared to say No, and cannot yet say Yea; but feel that in 
the No they dwell as in a Golgotha, where life enters not, 
where peace is not appointed them. 

Hard, for most part, is the fate of such men; the harder 
the nobler they are. In dim forecastings, wrestles within 
them the ' Divine Idea of the World,' yet will nowhere visibly 
reveal itself. They have to realise a Worship for themselves, 
or live unworshipping. The Godlike has vanished from the 
world ; and they, by the strong cry of their souFs agony, like 
true wonder-workers, must again evoke its presence. This 
miracle is their appointed task; which they must accomplish, 
or die wretchedly: this miracle has been accomplished by 
such; but not in our land; our land yet knows not of it. Be- 
hold a Byron, in melodious tones, * cursing his day ' : he 



CHARACTERISTICS 361 

mistakes earthborn passionate Desire for heaven-inspired 
Freewill; without heavenly loadstar, rushes madly into the 
dance of meteoric lights that hover on the mad Mahlstrom; 
and goes down among its eddies. Hear a Shelley filling the 
earth with inarticulate wail; like the infinite, inarticulate 
grief and weeping of forsaken infants. A noble Friedrich 
Schlegel, stupefied in that fearful loneliness, as of a silenced 
battle-field, flies back to Catholicism; as a child might to its 
slain mother's bosom, and cling there. In lower regions, 
how many a poor Hazlitt must wander on God's verdant 
earth, like the Unblest on burning deserts; passionately dig 
wells, and draw up only the dry quicksand; believe that he 
is seeking Truth, yet only wrestle among endless Sophisms, 
doing desperate battle as with spectre-hosts; and die and 
make no sign! 

To the better order of such minds any mad joy of Denial 
has long since ceased: the problem is not now to deny, but 
to ascertain and perform. Once in destroying the False, 
there was a certain inspiration; but now the genius of De- 
struction has done its work, there is now nothing more to 
destroy. The doom of the Old has long been pronounced, 
and irrevocable; the Old has passed away: but, alas, the 
New appears not in its stead; the Time is still in pangs of 
travail with the New. Man has walked by the light of 
conflagrations, and amid the sound of falling cities ; and now 
there is darkness, and long watching till it be morning. The 
voice even of the faithful can biit exclaim: * As yet struggles 
the twelfth hour of the Night : birds of darkness are on the 
wing, spectres uproar, the dead walk, the living dream.— 
Thou, Eternal Providence, wilt cause the day to dawn ! '^ 

Such being the condition, temporal and spiritual, of the 
world at our Epoch, can we wonder that the world ' listens 
to itself,' and struggles and writhes, everywhere externally 
and internally, like a thing in pain? Nay, is not even this 
unhealthy action of the world's Organisation, if the symptom 
of universal disease, yet also the symptom and sole means of 
restoration and cure? The effort of Nature, exerting her 
medicative force to cast-out foreign impediments, and once 
more become One, become whole? In Practice, still more m 

1 Jean Paul's Hesperus (Vorrede). 



362 



THOMAS CARLYLE 



Opinion, which is the precursor and prototype of Practice, 
there moist needs be collision, convulsion; much has to be 
ground away. Thought must needs be Doubt and Inquiry, 
before it can again be Affirmation and Sacred Precept. In- 
numerable ' Philosophies of Man,' contending in boundless 
hubbub, must annihilate each other, before an inspired Poesy 
and Faith for Man can fashion itself together. 

From this stunning hubbub, a true Babel-like confusion of 
tongues, we have here selected two Voices; less as objects of 
praise or condemnation, than as signs how far the confusion 
has reached, what prospect there is of its abating. Friedrich 
Schlegel's Lectures delivered at Dresden, and Mr. Hope's 
Essay published in London, are the latest utterances of Euro- 
pean Speculation : far asunder in external place, they stand 
at a still wider distance in inward purport; are, indeed, so 
opposite and yet so cognate that they may, in many senses, 
represent the two Extremes of our whole modern system of 
Thought ; and be said to include between them all the Meta- 
physical Philosophies, so often alluded to here, which, of late 
times, from France, Germany, England, have agitated and 
almost overwhelmed us. Both in regard to matter and to 
form, the relation of these two Works is significant enough. 

Speaking first of their cognate qualities, let us remark, not 
without emotion, one quite extraneous point of agreement; 
the fact that the Writers of both have departed from this 
world; they have now finished their search, and had all 
doubts resolved: while we listen to the voice, the tongue 
that uttered it has gone silent forever. But the fundamental, 
all-pervading similiarity lies in this circumstance, well worthy 
of being noted, that both these Philosophies are of the Dog- 
matic or Constructive sort: each in its way is a kind of 
Genesis; an endeavour to bring the Phenomena of man's 
Universe once more under some theoretic Scheme: in both 
there is a decided principle of unity; they strive after a 
result which shall be positive; their aim is not to question, 
but to establish. This, especially if we consider with what 
comprehensive concentrated force it is here exhibited, forms 
a new feature in such works. 

Under all other aspects, there is the most irreconcilable 



CHARACTERISTICS 363 

opposition ; a staring contrariety, such as might provoke con- 
trasts, were there far fewer points of comparison. If 
Schlegel's Work is the apotheosis of SpirituaHsm; Hope's 
again is the apotheosis of MateriaHsm : in the one, all Matter 
is evaporated into a Phenomenon, and terrestrial Life itself, 
with its whole doings and showings, held out as a Disturb- 
ance (Zerruttung) produced by the Zeitgeist (Spirit of 
Time) ; in the other. Matter is distilled and sublimated into 
some semblance of Divinity : the one regards Space and Time 
as mere forms of man's mind, and without external existence 
or reality ; the other supposes Space and Time to be ' inces- 
santly created,' and rayed-in upon us like a sort of gravita- 
tion/ Such is their difference in respect of purport : no less 
striking is it in respect of manner, talent, success and all 
outward characteristics. Thus, if in Schlegel we have to 
admire the power of Words, in Hope we stand astonished, it 
might almost be said, at the want of an articulate Language. 
To Schlegel his Philosophic Speech is obedient, dexterous, 
exact, like a promptly ministering genius; his names are so 
clear, so precise and vivid, that they almost (sometimes 
altogether) become things for him: with Hope there is no 
Philosophical Speech; but a painful, confused stammering, 
and struggling after such; or the tongue, as in doatish for- 
getfulness, maunders, low, long-winded, and speaks not the 
word intended, but another; so that here the scarcely in- 
telligible, in these endless convolutions, becomes the wholly 
unreadable ; and often we could ask, as that mad pupil did of 
his tutor in Philosophy, *' But whether is Virtue a fluid, then, 
or a gas? '■ If the fact, that Schlegel, in the city of Dresden, 
could find audience for such high discourse, may excite our 
envy ; this other fact, that a person of strong powers, skilled 
in English Thought and master of its Dialect, could write 
the Origin and Prospects of Man, may painfully remind us 
of the reproach, that England has now no language for 
Meditation; that England, the most calculative, is the least 
meditative, of all civilised countries. 

It is not our purpose to offer any criticism of Schlegel's 
Book ; in such limits as were possible here, we should despair 
of communicating even the faintest image of its significance. 
To the mass of readers, indeed, both among the Germans 



364 THOMAS CARLYLB 

themselves, and still more elsewhere, it nowise addresses 
itself, and may lie forever sealed. We point it out as a 
remarkable document of the Time and of the Man; can 
recommend it, moreover, to all earnest Thinkers, as a work 
deserving their best regard ; a work full of deep meditation, 
wherein the infinite mystery of Life, if not represented, is 
decisively recognised. Of Schlegel himself, and his char- 
acter, and spiritual history, we can profess no thorough or 
final understanding; yet enough to make us view him with 
admiration and pity, nowise with harsh contemptuous cen- 
sure ; and must say, with clearest persuasion, that the outcry 
of his being * a renegade,' and so forth, is but like other such 
outcries, a judgment where there was neither jury, nor evi- 
dence, nor judge. The candid reader, in this Book itself, to 
say nothing of all the rest, will find traces of a high, far- 
seeing, earnest spirit, to whom ' Austrian Pensions,' and the 
Kaiser's crown, and Austria altogether, were but a light 
matter to the finding and vitally appropriating of Truth. Let 
us respect the sacred mystery of a Person ; rush not irrever- 
ently into man's Holy of Holies ! Were the lost little one, 
as we said already, found ^sucking its dead mother, on the 
field of carnage,' could it be other than a spectacle for tears ? 
A solemn mournful feeling comes over us when we see this 
last Work of Friedrich Schlegel, the unwearied seeker, end 
abruptly in the middle; and, as if he had not yet found, as if 
emblematically of much, end with an ' Aher — ,' with a 
* But — ' ! This was the last word that came from the Pen 
of Friedrich Schlegel: about eleven at night he wrote 
it down, and there paused sick ; at one in the morning. Time 
for him had merged itself in Eternity; he was, as we say, 
no more. 

Still less can we attempt any criticism of Mr. Hope's new 
Book of Genesis. Indeed, under any circumstances, criticism 
of it were now impossible. Such an utterance could only be 
responded to in peals of laughter; and laughter sounds 
hollow and hideous through the vaults of the dead. Of this 
monstrous Anomaly, where all sciences are heaped and 
huddled together, and the principles of all are, with a child- 
like innocence^ plied hither and thither, or wholly abolished 
in case of need; where the First Cause is figured as a huge 



CHARACTERISTICS 365 

Circle, with nothing to do but radiate ' gravitation ' towards 
its centre; and so construct a Universe, wherein all, from 
the lowest cucumber with its coolness, up to the highest 
seraph with his love, were but ' gravitation,' direct or reflex, 
' in more or less central globes,' — what can we say, except, 
with sorrow and shame, that it could have originated no- 
where save in England? It is a general agglomerate of all 
facts, notions, whims and observations, as they lie in the 
brain of an English gentleman; as an English gentleman, of 
unusual thinking power, is led to fashion them, in his schools 
and in his world: all these thrown into the crucible, and if 
not fused, yet soldered or conglutinated with boundless pa- 
tience ; and now tumbled out here, heterogeneous, amorphous, 
unspeakable, a world's wonder. Most melancholy must we 
name the whole business; full of long-continued thought, 
earnestness, loftiness of mind; not without glances into the 
Deepest, a constant fearless endeavour after truth ; and with 
all this nothing accompHshed, but the perhaps absurdest Book 
written in our century by a thinking man. A shameful 
Abortion; which, however, need not now be smothered or 
mangled, for it is already dead ; only, in our love and sorrow- 
ing reverence for the writer of Anastasius, and the heroic 
seeker of Light, though not bringer thereof, let it be buried 
and forgotten. 

For ourselves, the loud discord which jars in these two 
Works, in innumerable works of the like import, and gen- 
erally in all the Thought and Action of this period, does not 
any longer utterly confuse us. Unhappy who, in such a 
time, felt not, at all conjunctures, ineradicably in his heart 
the knowledge that a God made this Universe, and a Demon 
not! And shall Evil always prosper then? Out of all Evil 
comes Good? and no Good that is possible but shall one day 
be real. Deep and sad as is our feeling that we stand yet in 
the bodeful Night; equally deep, indestructible is our assur- 
ance that the Morning also will not fail. Nay, already, as 
we look round, streaks of a dayspring are in the east; it is 
dawning; when the time shall be fulfilled, it will be day. 
The progress of man towards higher and nobler develop- 
ments of whatever is highest and noblest in him, lies not 



366 



THOMAS CARLYLE 



only prophesied to Faith, but now written to the eye of Ob- 
servation, so that he who runs may read. / 

One great step of progress, for example, we should say, in 
actual circumstances, was this same; the clear ascertainment 
that we are in progress. About the grand Course oi Provi- 
dence, and his final Purposes with us, we can know fiothing, 
or almost nothing : man begins in darkness, ends in darkness : 
mystery is everywhere around us and in us, under our feet, 
among our hands. Nevertheless so much has become evident 
to every one, that this wondrous Mankind is advancing some- 
whither; that at least all human things are, have been and 
forever will be, in Movement and Change; — as, indeed, for 
beings that exist in Time, by virtue of Time, and are made 
of Time, might have been long since understood. In some 
provinces, it is true, as in Experimental Science, this dis- 
covery is an old one ; but in most others it belongs wholly to 
these latter days. How often, in former ages, by eternal 
Creeds, eternal Forms of Government and the like, has it 
been attempted, fiercely enough, and with destructive vio- 
lence, to chain the Future under the Past; and say to the 
Providence, whose ways with man are mysterious, and 
through the great deep : Hitherto shalt thou come, but no 
farther! A wholly insane attempt; and for man himself, 
could it prosper, the frightfulest of all enchantments, a very 
Life-in-Death. Man's task here below, the destiny of every 
individual man, is to be in turns Apprentice and Workman; 
or say rather, Scholar, Teacher, Discoverer: by nature he 
has a strength for learning, for imitating ; but also a strength 
for acting, for knowing on his own account. Are we not in 
a world seen to be Infinite; the relations lying closest to- 
gether modified by those latest discovered and lying farthest 
asunder? Could you ever spell-bind man into a Scholar 
merely, so that he had nothing to discover, to correct; could 
you ever establish a Theory of the Universe that were entire, 
unimprovable, and which needed only to be got by heart ; man 
then were spiritually defunct, the Species we now name Man 
had ceased to exist. But the gods, kinder to us than we are 
to ourselves, have forbidden such suicidal acts. As Phlogis- 
ton is displaced by Oxygen, and the Epicycles of Ptolemy by 
the Ellipses of Kepler; so does Paganism give place to 



CHARACTERISTICS 367 

Catholicism, Tyranny to Monarchy, and Feudalism to Rep- 
resentative Government, — where also the process does not 
stop. Perfection of Practice, like completeness of Opinion, 
is always approaching, never arrived ; Truth, in the words of 
Schille", immer wird, nie ist; never is, always is a-heing. 

Sad, truly, w^ere our condition did we know but this, that 
Change is universal and inevitable. Launched into a dark 
shoreless sea of Pyrrhonism, what would remain for us but 
to sail aimless, hopeless; or make madly merry, while the 
devouring Death had not yet ingulfed us? As indeed, we 
have seen many, and still see many do. Nevertheless so 
stands it not. The venerator of the Past (and to what pure 
heart is the Past, in that ' moonlight of memory,' other than 
sad and holy?) sorrows not over its departure, as one utterly 
bereaved. The true Past departs not, nothing that was 
worthy in the Past departs; no Truth of Goodness realised 
by man ever dies, or can die; but is all still here, and, 
recognised or not, lives and works through endless changes. 
If all things, to speak in the German dialect, are discerned 
by us, and exist for us, in an element of Time, and therefore 
of Mortality and Mutability; yet Time itself reposes on 
Eternity: the truly Great and Transcendental has its basis 
and substance in Eternity; stands revealed to us as Eternity 
in a vesture of Time. Thus in all Poetry, Worship, Art, 
Society, as one form passes into another, nothing is lost; 
it is but the superficial, as it were the body only, that grows 
obsolete and dies ; under the mortal body lies a soul which is 
immortal; which anew incarnates itself in fairer revelation; 
and the Present is the living sum-total of the whole Past. 

In Change, therefore, there is nothing terrible, nothing 
supernatural: on the contrary, it lies in the very essence 
of our lot and life in this world. Today is not yesterday: 
we ourselves change; how can our Works and Thoughts, if 
they are always to be the fittest, continue always the same? 
Change, indeed, is painful ; yet ever needful ; and if Memory 
have its force and worth, so also has Hope. Nay, if we look 
well to it, what is all Derangement, and necessity of great 
Change, in itself such an evil, but the product simply of 
increased resources which the old methods can no longer ad- 
minister ; of new wealth which the old scoffers will no longer 



368 THOMAS CARLYLE / 

contain? What is it, for example, that in our own day 
bursts asunder the bonds of ancient Political Systems, and 
perplexes all Europe with the fear of Change, but evea this: 
the increase of social resources, which the old social methods 
will no longer sufficiently administer ? The new omnipotence 
of the Steam-engine is hewing asunder quite other mountains 
than the physical. Have not our economical distressed, those 
barnyard Conflagrations themselves, the frightfulest madness 
of our mad epoch, their rise also in what is a real increase: 
increase of Men ; of human Force ; properly, in such a Planet 
as ours, the most precious of all increases? It is true again, 
the ancient methods of administration will no longer suffice. 
Must the indomitable millions, full of old Saxon energy 
and fire, lie cooped-up in this Western Nook, choking one 
another, as in a Blackhole of Calcutta, while a whole fertile 
untenanted Earth, desolate for want of the ploughshare, 
cries: Come and till me, come and reap me? If the ancient 
Captains can no longer yield guidance, new must be sought 
after : for the difficulty lies not in nature, but in artifice ; the 
European Calcutta-Blackhole has no walls but air ones and 
paper ones. — So too. Scepticism itself, with its innumerable 
mischiefs, what is it but the sour fruit of a most blessed 
increase, that of Knowledge ; a fruit too that will not always 
continue sour? 

In fact, much as we have said and mourned about the 
unproductive prevalence of Metaphysics, it was not without 
some insight into the use that lies in them. Metaphysical 
Speculation, if a necessary evil, is the forerunner of much 
good. The fever of Scepticism must needs burn itself out, 
and burn out thereby the Impurities that caused it; then 
again will there be clearness, health. The principle of life, 
which now struggles painfully, in the outer, thin and barren 
domain of the Conscious or Mechanical, may then withdraw 
into its inner sanctuaries, its abysses of mystery and miracle; 
withdraw deeper than ever into that domain of the Uncon- 
scious, by nature infinite and inexhaustible; and creatively 
work there. From that mystic region, and from that alone, 
all wonders, all Poesies, and Religions, and Social Systems 
have proceeded: the like wonders, and greater and higher, 
lie slumbering there; and, brooded on by the spirit of the 



CHARACTERISTICS 369 

waters, will evolve themselves, and rise like exhalations from 
the Deep. 

Of our Modern Metaphysics, accordingly, may not this 
already be said, that if they have produced no Affirmation, 
they have destroyed much Negation? It is a disease ex- 
pelling a disease: the fire of Doubt, as above hinted, con- 
suming away the Doubtful ; that so the Certain come to light, 
and agcin lie visible on the surface. English or French 
Metaphysics, in reference to this last stage of the speculative 
process, are not what we allude to here ; but only the Meta- 
physics of the Germans. In France or England, since the 
days of Diderot and Hume, though all thought has been of a 
sceptico-metaphysical texture, so far as there was any 
Thought, we have seen no Metaphysics ; but only more or less 
ineffectual questionings whether such could be. In the Pyrr- 
honism of Hume and the Materialism of Diderot, Logic had, 
as it were, overshot itself, overset itself. Now, though the 
athlete, to use our old figure, cannot, by much lifting, lift 
up his own body, he may shift it out of a laming posture, 
and get to stand in a free one. Such a service have German 
Metaphysics done for man's mind. The second sickness of 
Speculation has abolished both itself and the first. Friedrich 
Schlegel complains much of the fruitlessness, the tumult and 
transiency of German as of all Metaphysics; and with rea- 
son. Yet in that wide-spreading, deep-whirling vortex of 
Kantism, so soon metamorphosed into Fichteism, Schelling- 
ism, and then as Hegelism, and Cousinism, perhaps finally 
evaporated, is not this issue visible enough. That Pyrrhonism 
and Materialism, themselves necessary phenomena in Euro- 
pean culture, have disappeared; and a Faith in Religion has 
again become possible and inevitable for the scientific mind; 
and the word Fr^^-thinker no longer means the Denier or 
Caviller, but the Believer, or the Ready to believe ? Nay, in 
the higher Literature of Germany, there already lies, for him 
that can read it, the beginning of a new revelation of the 
Godlike; as yet unrecognised by the mass of the world; but 
waiting there for recognition, and sure to find it when the 
fit hour comes. This age also is not wholly without its 
Prophets. 

Again, under another aspect, if Utilitarianism, or Radi- 



370 THOMAS CARLYLE / 

calism, or the Mechanical Philosophy, or by whatever i/ame 
it is called, has still its long task to do ; nevertheless wi can 
now see through it and beyond it: in the better heads, even 
among us English, it has become obsolete ; as in /other 
countries, it has been, in such heads, for some forty or even 
fifty years. What sound mind among the French, for ex- 
ample, now fancies that men can be governed by ^ Constitu- 
tions ' ; by the never so cunning mechanising of Self-inter- 
ests, and all conceivable adjustments of checking and 
balancing; in a word, by the best possible solution of this 
quite insoluble and impossible problem. Given a world of 
Knaves, to produce an Honesty from their united action f 
Were not experiments enough of this kind tried before all 
Europe, and found wanting, when, in that doomsday of 
France, the infinite gulf of human Passion shivered asunder 
the thin rinds of Habit; and burst forth all-devouring, as in 
seas of Nether Fire ? Which cunningly-devised ' Constitu- 
tion,' constitutional, republican, democratic, sansculottic, 
could bind that raging chasm together? Were they not all 
burnt up, like paper as they were, in its molten eddies ; and 
still the fire-sea raged fiercer than before? It is not by 
Mechanism, but by Religion; not by Self-interest, but by 
Loyalty, that men are governed or governable. 

Remarkable it is, truly, how everywhere the eternal fact 
begins again to be recognised, that there is a Godlike in 
human affairs; that God not only made us and beholds us, 
but is in us and around us; that the Age of Miracles, as it 
ever was, now is. Such recognition we discern on all hands 
and in all countries: in each country after its own fashion. 
In France, among the younger nobler minds, strangely 
enough ; where, in their loud contention with the Actual and 
Conscious, the Ideal or Unconscious is, for the time, with- 
out exponent ; where Religion means not the parent of 
PoHty, as of all that is highest, but Polity itself; and this 
and the other earnest man has not been wanting, who could 
audibly whisper to himself : ' Go to, I will make a religion/ 
In England still more strangely; as in all things, worthy 
England will have its way: by the shrieking of hysterical 
women, casting out of devils, and other ' gifts of the Holy 
Ghost.' Well might Jean Paul say, in this his twelfth houc 



CHARACTERISTICS 371 

of the Night, 'the living dream'; well might he say, 'the 
dead walk/ Meanwhile let us rejoice rather that so much 
has been seen into, were it through never so diffracting 
media, and never so madly distorted; that in all dialects, 
though but half-articulately, this high Gospel begins to be 
preached: Man is still Man. The genius of Mechanism, as 
was once before predicted, will not always sit like a choking 
incubus on our soul; but at length, when by a new magic 
Word the old spell is broken, become our slave, and as 
familiar-spirit do all our bidding. * We are near awakening 
when we dream that we dream.' 

He that has an eye and a heart can even now say: Why 
should I falter? Light has come into the world; to such as 
love Light, so as Light must be loved, with a boundless all- 
doing, all-enduring love. For the rest, let that vain struggle 
to read the mystery of the Infinite cease to harass us. It is 
a mystery which, through all ages, we shall only read here a 
line of, there another line of. Do we not already know that 
the name of the Infinite is Good, is God? Here on Earth 
we are Soldiers, fighting in a foreign land; that understand 
not the plan of the campaign, and have no need to under- 
stand it ; seeing well what is at our hand to be done. Let 
us do it like Soldiers ; with submission, with courage, with a 
heroic joy. ' Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with 
all thy might* Behind us, behind each one of us, lie Six 
Thousand Years of human effort, human conquest : before us 
is the boundless Time, with its as yet uncreated and un- 
conquered Continents and Eldorados, which we, even we, 
have to conquer, to create ; and from the bosom of Eternity 
there shine for us celestial guiding stars. 

' My inheritance how wide and fair ! 
Time is my fair seed-field, of Time I'm heir.' 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS AT 
EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY 

BY 

THOMAS CARLYLE 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS AT 
EDINBURGH 

2nd APRIL 1866 
On Being Installed as Rector of the University There 

GENTLEMEN,— I have accepted the office you have 
-elected me to, and it is now my duty to return thanks 
for the great honour done me. Your enthusiasm 
towards me, I must admit, is in itself very beautiful, how- 
ever undeserved it may be in regard to the object of it. It 
IS a feeling honourable to all men, and one well known to 
myself when I was of an age like yours, nor is it yet quite 
gone. I can only hope that, with you, too, it may endure 
to the end, — this noble desire to honour those whom you 
think worthy of honour; and that you will come to be more 
and more select and discriminate in the choice of the object 
of it : — for I can well understand that you will modify your 
opinions of me and of many things else, as you go on 
[Laughter and cheers']. It is now fifty-six years, gone last 
November, since I first entered your City, a boy of not quite 
fourteen ; to * attend the classes ' here, and gain knowledge 
of all kinds, I could little guess what, my poor mind full 
of wonder and awe-struck expectation; and now, after a 
long course, this is what we have come to [Cheers'], There 
is something touching and tragic, and yet at the same time 
beautiful, to see, as it were, the third generation of my 
dear old native land rising up and saying, " Well, you are 
not altogether an unworthy labourer in the vineyard; you 
have toiled through a great variety of fortunes, and have 
had many judges: this is our judgment of you!" As the 
old proverb says, * He that builds by the w^ayside has many 
masters/ We must expect a variety of judges: but the 

375 



376 THOMAS CARLYLE 

voice of young Scotland, through you, is really of some 
value to me; and I return you many thanks for it, — though 
I cannot go into describing my emotions to you, and perhaps 
they will be much more perfectly conceivable if expressed in 
silence [Cheers'], 

When this office was first proposed to me, some of you 
know I was not very ambitious to accept it, but had my 
doubts rather. I was taught to believe that there were 
certain more or less important duties which would lie in my 
power. This, I confess, was my chief motive in going into 
it, and overcoming the objections I felt to such things: if it 
could do anything to serve my dear old Alma Mater and you, 
why should not I ? [Loud cheers,"] Well, but on practically 
looking into the matter when the office actually came into 
my hands, I find it grows more and more uncertain and 
abstruse to me whether there is much real duty that I can 
do at all. I live four hundred miles away from you, in an 
entirely different scene of things ; and my weak health, with 
the burden of the many years now accumulating on me, and 
my total unacquaintance with such subjects as concern your 
affairs here, — all this fills me with apprehension that there is 
really nothing worth the least consideration that I can do 
on that score. You may depend on it, however, that if any 
such duty does arise in any form, I will use my most faithful 
endeavour to do in it whatever is right and proper, according 
to the best of my judgment [Cheers], 

Meanwhile, the duty I at present have, — which might be 
very pleasant, but which is not quite so, for reasons you may 
fancy, — is to address some words to you, if possible not quite 
useless, nor incongruous to the occasion, and on subjects 
more or less cognate to the pursuits you are engaged in. 
Accordingly, I mean to offer you some loose observations, 
loose in point of order, but the truest I have, in such form 
as they may present themselves; certain of the thoughts that 
are in me about the business you are here engaged in, what 
kind of race it is that you young gentlemen have started on, 
and what sort of arena you are likely to find in this world. 
I ought, I believe, according to custom, to have written all 
that down on paper, and had it read out. That would have 
been much handier for me at the present moment [A laugh'\ ; 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 377 

— ^but on attempting the thing, I found I was not used to 
write speeches, and that I didn't get on very well. So I 
flung that aside; and could only resolve to trust, in all 
superficial respects, to the suggestion of the moment, as you 
now see. You will therefore have to accept what is readiest; 
what comes direct from the heart; and you must just take 
that in compensation for any good order or arrangement 
there might have been in it. I will endeavour to say nothing 
that is not true, so far as I can manage; and that is pretty 
much all I can engage for [A laugh']. 

Advices, I believe, to young men, as to all men, are very 
seldom much valued. There is a great deal of advising, and 
very little faithful performing; and talk that does not end 
in any kind of action is better suppressed altogether. I would 
not, therefore, go much into advising; but there is one 
advice I must give you. In fact, it is the summary of all 
advices, and doubtless you have heard it a thousand times; 
but I must nevertheless let you hear it the thousand-and-first 
time, for it is most intensely true, whether you will believe 
it at present or not: — namely, That above all things the 
interest of your whole life depends on your being diligent, 
now while it is called to-day, in this place where you have 
come to get education ! Diligent : that includes in it all 
virtues that a student can have; I mean it to include all 
those qualities of conduct that lead on to the acquirement 
of real instruction and improvement in such a place. If you 
will believe me, you who are young, yours is the golden 
season of life. As you have heard it called, so it verily is, 
the seed-time of life ; in which, if you do not sow, or if you 
sow tares instead of wheat, you cannot expect to reap well 
afterwards, and you will arrive at little. And m the course 
of years when you come to look back, if you have not done 
what you have heard from your advisers, — and among many 
counsellors there is wisdom, — you will bitterly repent when it 
is too late. The habits of study acquired at Universities are 
of the highest importance in after-life. At the season when 
you are young in years, the whole mind is, as it were, fluid, 
and is capable of forming itself into any shape that the 
owner of the mind pleases to allow it, or constrain it, to 
form itself into. The mind is then in a plastic or fluid state ; 



378 



THOMAS CARLYLE 



but it hardens gradually, to the consistency of rock or of 
iron, and you cannot alter the habits of an old man: he, as 
he has begun, so he will proceed and go on to the last. 

By diligence I mean, among other things, and very chiefly 
too, — honesty, in all your inquiries, and in all you are about. 
Pursue your studies in the way your conscience can name 
honest. More and more endeavour to do that. Keep, I 
should say for one thing, an accurate separation between 
what you have really come to know in your minds and what 
is still unknown. Leave all that latter on the hypothetical 
side of the barrier, as things afterwards to be acquired, if 
acquired at all; and be careful not to admit a thing as 
known when you do not yet know it. Count a thing known 
only when it is imprinted clearly on your mind, and has 
become transparent to you, so that you may survey it on 
all sides with intelligence. There is such a thing as a man 
endeavouring to persuade himself, and endeavouring to 
persuade others, that he knows things, when he does not 
know more than the outside skin of them; and yet he goes 
flourishing about with them [Hear, hear, and a laugh']. 
There is also a process called cramming, in some Universities 
[A laugh], — that is, getting-up such points of things as the 
examiner is likely to put questions about. Avoid all that, 
as entirely unworthy of an honourable mind. Be modest, 
and humble, and assiduous in your attention to what your 
teachers tell you, who are profoundly interested in trying to 
bring you forward in the right way, so far as they have been 
able to understand it. Try all things they set before you, 
in order, if possible, to understand them, and to follow and 
adopt them in proportion to their fitness for you. Gradually 
see what kind of work you individually can do; it is the 
first of all problems for a man to find out what kind of 
work he is to do in this universe. In short, morality as 
regards study is, as in all other things, the primary con- 
sideration, and overrules all others. A dishonest man cannot 
do anything real ; he never will study with real fruit ; and 
perhaps it would be greatly better if he were tied up from 
trying it. He does nothing but darken counsel by the words 
he utters. That is a very old doctrine, but a very true one; 
and you will find it confirmed by all the thinking men that 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 379 

have ever lived in this long series of generations of which 
we are the latest. 

I dare say you know, very many of you, that it is now some 
seven hundred years since Universities were first set-up in 
this world of ours. Abelard and other thinkers had arisen 
with doctrines in them which people wished to hear of, and 
students flocked towards them from all parts of the world. 
There was no getting the thing recorded in books, as you 
now may. You had to hear the man speaking to you, vocally, 
or else you could not learn at all what it was that he wanted 
to say. And so they gathered together, these speaking ones, 
— the various people who had anything to teach; — and 
formed themselves gradually, under the patronage of kings 
and other potentates who were anxious about the culture of 
their populations, and nobly studious of their best benefit ; and 
became a body-corporate, with high privileges, high dignities, 
and really high aims, under the title of a University. 

Possibly too you may have heard it said that the course of 
centuries has changed all this ; and that ' the true University 
of our days is a Collection of Books.^ And beyond doubt, 
all this is greatly altered by the invention of Printing, which 
took place about midway between us and the origin of Uni- 
versities. Men have not now to go in person to where a 
Professor is actually speaking; because in most cases you 
can get his doctrine out of him through a book ; and can then 
read it, and read it again and again, and study it. That is 
an immense change, that one fact of Printed Books. And 
I am not sure that I know of any University in which the 
whole of that fact has yet been completely taken in, and the 
studies moulded in complete conformity with it. Neverthe- 
less, Universities have, and will continue to have, an indis- 
pensable value in society; — I think, a very high, and it 
might be, almost the highest value. They began, as is well 
known, with their grand aim directed on Theology, — their eye 
turned earnestly on Heaven. And perhaps, in a sense, it may 
be still said, the very highest interests of man are virtually 
intrusted to them. In regard to theology, as you are aware, 
it has been, and especially was then, the study of the deepest 
heads that have come into the world, — ^what is the nature of 



380 THOMAS CARLYLE 

this stupendous Universe, and what are our relations to it, 
and to all things knowable by man, or known only to the great 
Author of man and it. Theology was once the name for all 
this; all this is still alive for man, however dead the name 
may grow! In fact, the members of the Church keeping 
theology in a lively condition [Laughter^ for the benefit of 
the whole population, theology was the great object of the Uni- 
versities. I consider it is the same intrinsically now, though 
very much forgotten, from many causes, and not so successful 
[A laugh'] as might be wished, by any manner of means ! 

It remains, however, practically a most important truth, 
what I alluded to above, that the main use of Universities in 
the present age is that, after you have done with all your 
classes, the next thing is a collection of books, a great library 
of good books, which you proceed to study and to read. 
What the Universities can mainly do for you, — what I have 
found the University did for me, is. That it taught me to 
read, in various languages, in various sciences; so that I 
could go into the books which treated of these things, and 
gradually penetrate into any department I wanted to make 
myself master of, as I found it suit me. 

Well, Gentlemen, whatever you may think of these his- 
torical points, the clearest and most imperative duty lies on 
every one of you to be assiduous in your reading. Learn to 
be good readers, — which is perhaps a more difficult thing 
than you imagine. Learn to be discriminative in your read- 
ing; to read faithfully, and with your best attention, all kinds 
of things which you have a real interest in, a real not an im- 
aginary, and which you find to be really fit for what you 
are engaged in. Of course, at the present time, in a great 
deal of the reading incumbent on you, you must be guided 
by the books recommended by your Professors for assistance 
towards the effect of their prelections. And then, when you 
leave the University, and go into studies of your own, you 
will find it very important that you have chosen a field, some 
province specially suited to you, in which you can study and 
work. The most unhappy of all men is the man who cannot 
tell what he is going to do, who has gor no work cut-out for 
him in the world, and does not go into it. For work is the 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 381 

grand cure of all the maladies and miseries that ever beset 
mankind, — honest work, which you intend getting done. 

If, in any vacant vague time, you are in a strait as to 
choice of reading, — a very good indication for you, perhaps 
the best you could get, is toward some book you have a 
great curiosity about. You are then in the readiest and best 
of all possible conditions to improve by that book. It is an- 
alogous to what doctors tell us about the physical health and 
appetites of the patient. You must learn, however, to dis- 
tinguish between false appetite and true. There is such a 
thing as a false appetite, which will lead a man into vagaries 
with regard to diet ; will tempt him to eat spicy things, which 
he should not eat at all, nor would, but that the things are 
toothsome, and that he is under a momentary baseness of 
mind. A man ought to examine and find out what he really 
and truly has an appetite for, what suits his constitution and 
condition; and that, doctors tell him, is in general the very 
thing he ought to have. And so with books. 

As applicable to all of you, I will say that it is highly 
expedient to go into History ; to inquire into what has passed 
before you on this Earth, and in the Family of Man. 

The history of the Romans and Greeks will first of all con- 
cern you ; and you will find that the classical knowledge you 
have got will be extremely applicable to elucidate that. There 
you have two of the most remarkable races of men in the 
world set before you, calculated to open innumerable reflec- 
tions and considerations; a mighty advantage, if you can 
achieve it ; — to say nothing of what their two languages will 
yield you, which your Professors can better explain; model 
languages, which are universally admitted to be the most per- 
fect forms of speech we have yet found to exist among men. 
And you will find, if you read well, a pair of extremely re- 
markable nations, shining in the records left by themselves, 
as a kind of beacon, or solitary m.ass of illumination, to light- 
up some noble forms of human life for us, in the otherwise 
utter darkness of the past ages; and it will be well worth 
your while if you can get into the understanding of what 
these people were, and what they did. You will find a great 
deal of hearsay, of empty rumour and tradition, which does 
not touch on the matter; but perhaps some of you will get 



382 THOMAS CARLYLE 

to see the old Roman and the old Greek face to face; you 
will know in some measure how they contrived to exist, and 
to perform their feats in the world. 

I believe, also, you will find one important thing not much 
noted, That there was a very great deal of deep religion in 
both nations. This is pointed out by the wiser kind of 
historians, and particularly by Ferguson, who is very well 
worth reading on Roman History, — and who, I believe, was 
an alumnus of our own University. His book is a very 
creditable work. He points out the profoundly religious 
nature of the Roman people, notwithstanding their ruggedly 
positive, defiant and fierce ways. They believed that Jupiter 
Optimus Maximus was lord of the universe, and that he had 
appointed the Romans to become the chief of nations, pro- 
vided they followed his commands, — to brave all danger, all 
difficulty, and stand up with an invincible front, and be ready 
to do and die; and also to have the same sacred regard to 
truth of promise, to thorough veracity, thorough integrity, 
and all the virtues that accompany that noblest quality of 
man, valour, — to which latter the Romans gave the name 
of ' virtue ' proper (virtus, manhood), as the crown and sum- 
mary of all that is ennobling for a man. In the literary ages 
of Rome this religious feeling had very much decayed away ; 
but it still retained its place among the lower classes of the 
Roman people. Of the deeply religious nature of the 
Greeks, along with their beautiful and sunny effulgences of 
art, you have striking proof, if you look for it. In the 
tragedies of Sophocles there is a most deep-toned recognition 
of the eternal justice of Heaven, and the unfailing punish- 
ment of crime against the laws of God. I believe you will 
find in all histories of nations, that this has been at the 
origin and foundation of them all ; and that no nation which 
did not contemplate this wonderful universe with an awe- 
stricken and reverential belief that there was a great un- 
known, omnipotent, and all-wise and all-just Being, superin- 
tending all men in it, and all interest in it, — no nation ever 
came to very much, nor did any man either, who forgot that. 
If a man did forget that, he forgot the most important part 
of his mission in this world. 

Our own history of England, which you will naturally take 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 383 

a great deal of pains to make yourselves acquainted with, 
you will find beyond all others worthy of your study. For 
indeed I believe that the British nation, — including in that 
the Scottish nation,- — produced a finer set of men than any 
you will find it possible to get anywhere else in the world 
[Applause']. I don't know, in any history of Greece or 
Rome, where you will get so fine a man as Oliver Cromwell, 
for example [Applause']. And we too have had men worthy 
of memory, in our little corner of the Island here, as well as 
others; and our history has had its heroic features all along; 
and did become great at last in being connected with world- 
history: — for if you examine well, you will find that John 
Knox was the author, as it were, of OHver Cromwell; that 
the Puritan revolution never would have taken place in 
England at all, had it not been for that Scotchman 
[Applause]. That is an authentic fact, and is not prompted 
by national vanity on my part, but will stand examining 
[Laughter and applause]. 

In fact, if you look at the struggle that was then going 
on in England, as I have had to do in my time, you will see 
that people were overawed by the immense impediments 
lying in the way. A small minority of God-fearing men in 
that country were flying away, with any ship they could get, 
to New England, rather than take the lion by the beard. 
They durst not confront the powers with their most just 
complaints, and demands to be delivered from idolatry. 
They wanted to make the nation altogether conformable to 
the Hebrew Bible, which they, and all men, understood to 
be the exact transcript of the Will of God ; — and could there 
be, for man, a more legitimate aim? Nevertheless, it would 
have been impossible in their circumstances, and not to be 
attempted at all, had not Knox succeeded in it here, some 
fifty years before, by the firmness and nobleness of his mind. 
For he also is of the select of the earth to me, — John Knox 
[Applause]. What he has suffered from* the ungrateful 
generations that have followed him should really make us 
humble ourselves to the dust, to think that the most excellent 
man our country has produced, to whom we owe everything 
that distinguishes us among the nations, should have been 
so sneered at, misknown, and abused [Applause]. Knox was 



384 



THOMAS CARLYLE 



heard by Scotland; the people heard him, believed him to 
the marrow of their bones : they took up his doctrine, and 
they defied principalities and powers to move them from it. 
" We must have it," they said ; " we will and must ! '' It 
was in this state of things that the Puritan struggle arose 
in England; and you know well how the Scottish earls and 
nobility, with their tenantry, marched away to Dunse Hill in 
1639, and sat down there: just at the crisis of that struggle, 
when it was either to be suppressed or brought into greater 
vitality, they encamped on Dunse Hill, — thirty-thousand 
armed men, drawn out for that occasion, each regiment 
round its landlord, its earl, or whatever he might be called, 
and zealous all of them ' For Christ's Crown and Covenant/ 
That was the signal for all England's rising up into un- 
appeasable determination to have the Gospel there also ; and 
you know it went on, and came to be a contest whether the 
Parliament or the King should rule; whether it should be 
old formalities and use-and-wont, or something that had 
been of new conceived in the souls of men, namely, a divine 
determination to walk according to the laws of God here, 
as the sum of all prosperity ; which of these should have the 
mastery: and after a long, long agony of struggle, it was 
decided — the way we know. 

I should say also of that Protectorate of Oliver Crom- 
well's, notwithstanding the censures it has encountered, and 
the denial of everybody that it could continue in the world, 
and so on, it appears to me to have been, on the whole, the 
most salutary thing in the modern history of England. H 
Oliver Cromwell had continued it out, I don't know what it 
would have come to. It would have got corrupted probably 
in other hands, and could not have gone on ; but it was pure 
and true, to the last fibre, in his mind; there was perfect 
truth in it while he ruled over it. 

Macchiavelli has remarked, in speaking of the Romans, 
that Democracy cannot long exist anywhere in the world; 
that as a mode of government, of national management or 
administration, it involves an impossibility, and after a little 
while must end in wreck. And he goes on proving that, in 
his own way. I do not ask you all to follow him in that 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 385 

conviction [Hear], — but it is to him a clear truth; he con- 
siders it a solecism and impossibility that the universal mass 
of men should ever govern themselves. He has to admit 
of the Romans, that they continued a long time ; but believes 
it was purely in virtue of this item in their constitution, 
namely, of their all having the conviction in their minds 
that it v^as solemnly necessary, at times, to appoint a Dic- 
tator; a man who had the power of life and death over 
everything, who degraded men out of their places, ordered 
them to execution, and did whatever seemed to him good in 
the name of God above him. He was commanded to take 
care that the republic suffer no detriment. And Macchiavelli 
calculates that this was the thing which purified the social 
system from time to time, and enabled it to continue as it 
did. Probable enough, if you consider it. And an extremely 
proper function surely, this of a Dictator, if the republic 
was composed of little other than bad and tumultuous men, 
triumphing in general over the better, and all going the 
bad road, in fact. Well, Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate, or 
Dictatorate if you will let me name it so, lasted for about 
ten years, and you will find that nothing which was con- 
trary to the laws of Heaven was allowed to live by Oliver 
[Applause], 

For example, it was found by his Parliament of Notables, 
what they call the ' Barebones Parliament/ — the most zeal- 
ous of all Parliaments probably [Laughter], — that the Court 
of Chancery in England was in a state which was really 
capable of no apology; no man could get up and say that 
that was a right court. There were, I think, fifteen-thousand, 
or fifteen-hundred [Laughter], — I really don't remember 
which, but we will call it by the latter number, to be safe 
[Renewed laughter] ; — there were fifteen-hundred cases lying 
in it undecided; and one of them, I remember, for a large 
amount of money, was eighty-three years old, and it was 
going on still ; wigs were wagging over it, and lawyers were 
taking their fees, and there was no end of it. Upon view of 
all which, the Barebones people, after deliberation about it, 
thought it was expedient, and commanded by the Author of 
Man and Fountain of Justice, and in the name of what was 
true and right, to abolish said court. Really, I don't know 

Vol. 25—13 HC 



386 THOMAS CARLYLE 

who could have dissented from that opinion. At the same 
time, it was thought by those who were wiser in their gen- 
eration, and had more experience of the world, that this 
was a very dangerous thing, and wouldn't suit at all. The 
lawyers began to make an immense noise about it [Laugh- 
ter], All the pubHc, the great mass of solid and well-dis- 
posed people who had got no deep insight into such matters, 
were very adverse to it: and the Speaker of the Parliament, 
old Sir Francis Rous, — who translated the Psalms for us, 
those that we sing here every Sunday in the Church yet; a 
very good man, and a wise and learned, Provost of Eton 
College afterwards, — he got a great number of the Parlia- 
ment to go to Oliver the Dictator, and lay down their func- 
tions altogether, and declare officially, with their signature, 
on Monday morning, that the Parliament was dissolved. 
The act of abolition had been passed on Saturday night ; and 
on Monday morning Rous came and said, "We cannot 
carry-on the affair any longer, and we remit it into the 
hands of your Highness." Oliver in that way became Pro- 
tector, virtually in some sort a Dictator, for the first time. 

And I give you this as an instance that Oliver did faith- 
fully set to doing a Dictator's function, and of his prudence 
in it as well. Oliver felt that the Parliament, now dismissed, 
had been perfectly right with regard to Chancery, and that 
there was no doubt of the propriety of abolishing Chancery, 
or else reforming it in some kind of way. He considered the 
matter, and this is what he did. He assembled fifty or sixty 
of the wisest lawyers to be found in England. Happily, 
there were men great in the law; men who valued the laws 
of England as much as anybody ever did; and who knew 
withal that there was something still more sacred than any 
of these [A laugh]. Oliver said to them, "Go and examine 
this thing, and in the name of God inform me what is 
necessary to be done with it. You will see how we may 
clean-out the foul things in that Chancery Court, which 
render it poison to everybody." Well, they sat down accord- 
ingly, and in the course of six weeks, — (there was no public 
speaking then, no reporting of speeches, and no babble of 
any kind, there was just the business in hand) — they got 
some sixty propositions fixed in their minds as the sum- 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 387 

mary of the things that required to be done. And upon 
these sixty propositions, Chancery was reconstituted and 
remodelled; and so it got a new lease of life, and has lasted 
to our time. It had become a nuisance, and could not have 
continued much longer. That is an instance of the manner 
of things that were done when a Dictatorship prevailed in 
the country, and that was how the Dictator did them. I 
reckon, all England, Parliamentary England, got a new 
lease of life from that Dictatorship of OHver's; and, on 
the whole, that the good fruits of it will never die while 
England exists as a nation. 

In general, I hardly think that out of common history- 
books you will ever get into the real history of this country, 
or ascertain anything which can specially illuminate it for 
you, and which it would most of all behoove you to know. 
You may read very ingenious and very clever books, by men 
whom it would be the height of insolence in me to do other 
than express my respect for. But their position is essentially 
sceptical. God and the Godlike, as our fathers would have 
said, has fallen asleep for them; and plays no part in their 
histories. A most sad and fatal condition of matters; who 
shall say how fatal to us all ! A man unhappily in that condi- 
tion will make but a temporary explanation of anything: — in 
short, you will not be able, I believe, by aid of these men, 
to understand how this Island came to be what it is. You 
will not find it recorded in books. You will find recorded 
in books a jumble of tumults, disastrous ineptitudes, and all 
that kind of thing. But to get what you want, you will 
have to look into side sources, and inquire in all directions. 

I remember getting Collinses Peerage to read, — a very poor 
performance as a work of genius, but an excellent book for 
diligence and fidelity. I was writing on Oliver Cromwell 
at the time [Applause]. I could get no biographical diction- 
ary available; and I thought the Peerage Book, since most 
of my men were peers or sons of peers, would help me, 
at least would tell me whether people were old or young, 
where they lived, and the like particulars, better than abso- 
lute nescience and darkness. And accordingly I found amply 
all I had expected in poor Collins, and got a great deal 



388 THOMAS CARLYLE 

of help out of him. He was a diligent dull London book- 
seller, of about a hundred years ago, who compiled out of 
all kinds of parchments, charter-chests, archives, books that 
were authentic, and gathered far and wide, wherever he 
could get it, the information wanted. He was a very 
meritorious man. 

I not only found the solution of everything I had expected 
there, but I began gradually to perceive this immense fact, 
which I really advise every one of you who read history to 
look out for, if you have not already found it. It was that 
the Kings of England, all the w^ay from the Norman Con- 
quest down to the times of Charles I., had actually, in a good 
degree, so far as they knew, been in the habit of appointing 
as Peers those who deserved to be appointed. In general, I 
perceived, those Peers of theirs were all royal men of a sort, 
with minds full of justice, valour and humanity, and all 
kinds of qualities that men ought to have who rule over 
others. And then their genealogy, the kind of sons and 
descendants they had, this also was remarkable: — for there 
is a great deal more in genealogy than is generally be- 
lieved at present. I never heard tell of any clever man 
that came of entirely stupid people [Laughter], If you look 
around, among the families of your acquaintance, you will 
see such cases in all directions ; — I know that my own expe- 
rience is steadily that way; I can trace the father, and the 
son, and the grandson, and the family stamp is quite dis- 
tinctly legible upon each of them. So that it goes for a 
great deal, the hereditary principle, — in Government as in 
other things; and it must be again recognised as soon as 
there is any fixity in things. You, will remark, too, in your 
Collins, that, if at any time the genealogy of a peerage goes 
awry, if the man that actually holds the peerage is a fool, — 
in those earnest practical times, the man soon gets into mis- 
chief, gets into treason probably, — soon gets himself and 
his peerage extinguished altogether, in short. [Laughter], 

From those old documents of Collins, you learn and ascer- 
tain that a peer conducts himself in a pious, high-minded, 
grave, dignified and manly kind of way, in his course through 
life, and when he takes leave of life: — his last will is often 
a remarkable piece, which one lingers over. And then you 



^ INAUGURAL ADDRESS 389 

perceive that there was kindness in him as well as rigour, 
pity for the poor; that he has fine hospitaHties, generosities, 
— in fine, that he is throughout much of a noble, good and 
valiant man. And that in general the King, with a beauti- 
ful approximation to accuracy, had nominated this kind of 
man ; saying, " Come you to me, sir. Come out of the 
common level of the people, where you are liable to be 
trampled upon, jostled about, and can do in a manner noth- 
ing with your fine gift; come here and take a district of 
country, and make it into your own image more or less; 
be a king under me, and understand that that is your func- 
tion/' I say this is the most divine thing that a human be- 
ing can do to other human beings, and no kind of thing 
whatever has so much of the character of God Almighty's 
Divine Government as that thing, which, we see, went on all 
over England for about six hundred years. That is the grand 
soul of England's history [Cheers']. It is historically true 
that, down to the time of James, or even Charles I., it was 
not understood that any man was made a Peer without hav- 
ing merit in him to constitute him a proper subject for a 
peerage. In Charles I.'s time it grew to be known or said 
that, if a man was born a gentleman, and cared to lay out 
10,000 /. judiciously up and down among courtiers, he could 
be made a Peer. Under Charles II. it went on still faster, 
and has been going-on with ever-increasing velocity, until 
we see the perfectly breakneck pace at which they are going 
now [A laugh], so that now a peerage is a paltry kind of 
thing to what it was in those old times. I could go into 
a great many more details about things of that sort, but 
I must turn to another branch of the subject. 

First, however, one remark more about your reading. I 
do not know whether it has been sufficiently brought home to 
you that there are two kinds of books. When a man is 
reading on any kind of subject, in most departments of 
books, — in all books, if you take it in a wide sense, — he will 
find that there is a division into good books and bad books. 
Everywhere a good kind of book and a bad kind of book 
I am not to assume that you are unacquainted, or ill ac- 
quainted, with this plain fact ; but I may remind you that it 
is becoming a very important consideration in our day. And 



390 THOMAS CARI^YLE 

we have to cast aside altogether the idea people have, that 
if they are reading any book, that if an ignorant man is 
reading any book, he is doing rather better than nothing at 
all. I must entirely call that in question; I even venture to 
deny that iLaughter and cheers]. It would be much safer 
and better for many a reader, that he had no concern with 
books at all. There is a number, a frightfully increasing 
number, of books that are decidedly, to the readers of them, 
not useful [Hear], But an ingenuous reader will learn, also, 
that a certain number of books were written by a supremely 
noble kind of people, — not a very great number of books, 
but still a number fit to occupy all your reading industry, do 
adhere more or less to that side of things. In short, as I 
have written it down somewhere else, I conceive that books 
are like men's souls ; divided into sheep and goats [Laughter 
and cheers]. Some few are going up, and carrying us up, 
heavenward; calculated, I mean, to be of priceless advantage 
in teaching, — in forwarding the teaching of all generations. 
Others, a frightful multitude, are going down, down; doing 
ever the more and the wider and the wilder mischief. 
Keep a strict eye on that latter class of books, my young 
friends ! — 

And for the rest, in regard to all your studies and readings 
here, and to whatever you may learn, you are to remember 
that the object is not particular knowledges, — not that of 
getting higher, and higher in technical perfections, and all 
that sort of thing. There is a higher aim lying at the rear 
of all that, especially among those who are intended for 
literary or speaking pursuits, or the sacred profession. You 
are ever to bear in mind that there lies behind that the 
acquisition of what may be called wisdom; — namely, sound 
appreciation and just decision as to all the objects that come 
round you, and the habit of behaving with justice, candour, 
clear insight, and loyal adherence to fact. Great is wisdom ; 
infinite is the value of wisdom. It cannot be exaggerated; 
it IS the highest achievement of man : ' Blessed is he that get- 
teth understanding.' And that, I believe, on occasion, may be 
missed very easily ; never more easily than now, I sometimes 
think. If that is a failure, all is failure! — However, I will 
not touch further upon that matter. 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 391 

But I should have said, in regard to book-reading, if it be 
ISO very important, how very useful would an excellent library 
be in every University! I hope that will not be neglected 
by the gentlemen who have charge of you ; and, indeed, I am 
happy to hear that your library is very much improved since 
the time I knew it, and I hope it will go on improving more 
and more. Nay, I have sometimes thought, why should not 
there be a library in every county town, for benefit of those 
that could read well and might if permitted? True, you 
require money to accomplish that; — and withal, what per- 
haps is still less attainable at present, you require judgment 
in the selectors of books; real insight into what is for the 
advantage of human souls, the exclusion of all kinds of clap- 
trap books which merely excite the astonishment of foolish 
people [Laughter~\y and the choice of wise books, as much as 
possible of good books. Let us hope the future will be kind 
to us in this respect. 

In this University, as I learn from many sides, there is 
considerable stir about endowments ; an assiduous and praise- 
worthy industry for getting new funds collected to encour- 
age the ingenuous youth of Universities, especially of this our 
chief University [Hear, hear]. Well, I entirely participate 
in everybody's approval of the movement. It is very desir- 
able. It should be responded to, and one surely expects it 
will. At least, if it is not, it will be shameful to the country 
of Scotland, which never was so rich in money as at the 
present moment, and never stood so much in need of getting 
noble Universities, and institutions to counteract many in- 
fluences that are springing up alongside of money. It should 
not be slack in coming forward in the way of endowments 
[A laugh] ; at any rate, to the extent of rivalling our rude 
old barbarous ancestors, as we have been pleased to call them. 
Such munificence as theirs is beyond all praise ; and to them, 
I am sorry to say, we are not yet by any manner of means 
equal, or approaching equality [Laughter], There is an 
abundance and over-abundance of money. Sometimes I can- 
not help thinking that probably never has there been, at any 
other time, in Scotland, the hundredth part of the money 
that now is, or even the thousandth part. For wherever I 



3^2 



THOMAS CARLYLE 



go, there is that same gold-nuggeting [A laugh], —that 'un- 
exampled prosperity/ and men counting their balances by 
the million sterling. Money was never so abundant, and 
nothing that is good to be done with it [Hear, hear, and a 
laugh']. No man knows, — or very few men know, — what 
benefit to get out of his money. In fact, it too often is 
secretly a curse to him. Much better for him never to have 
had any. But I do not expect that generally to be believed 
[Laughter]. Nevertheless, I should think it would be a 
beneficent relief to many a rich man who has an honest pur- 
pose struggling in him, to bequeath some house of refuge, 
so to speak, for the gifted poor man who may hereafter be 
born into the world, to enable him to get on his way a little* 
To do, in fact, as those old Norman kings whom I have 
been describing; to raise some noble poor man out of the dirt 
and mud, where he is getting trampled on unworthily by the 
unworthy, into some kind of position where he might ac- 
quire the power to do a little good in his generation ! I hope 
that as much as possible will be achieved in this direction; 
and that efforts will not be relaxed till the thing is in a 
satisfactory state. In regard to the classical department, 
above all, it surely is to be desired by us that it were properly 
supported, — that we could allow the fit people to have their 
scholarships and subventions, and devote more leisure to 
the cultivation of particular departments. We might have 
more of this from Scotch Universities than we have; and I 
hope we shall. 

I am bound, however, to say that it does not appear as if, 
of late times, endowment were the real soul of the matter. 
The English, for example, are the richest people in the world 
for endowments in their Universities; and it is an evident 
fact that, since the time of Bentley, you cannot name any- 
body that has gained a European name in scholarship, or 
constituted a point of revolution in the pursuits of men in 
that way. The man who does so is a man worthy of being 
remembered; and he is poor, and not an Englishman. One 
man that actually did constitute a revolution was the son 
of a poor weaver in Saxony; who edited his Tibullus, in 
Dresden, in a poor comrade's garret, with the floor for his 
bed, and two folios for pillow; and who, while editing his 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 393 

TibtiUus, had to gather peasecods on the streets and boil 
them for his dinner. That was his endowment [Laughter']. 
But he was recognised soon to have done a great thing. 
His name was Heyne [Cheers'], I can remember, it was quite 
a revolution in my mind when I got hold of that man's 
edition of Virgil. I found that, for the first time, I under- 
stood Virgil; that Heyne had introduced me, for the first 
time, into an insight of Roman life and ways of thought; 
had pointed out the circumstances in which these works were 
written, and given me their interpretation. And the process 
Has gone on in all manner of developments, and has spread 
out into other countries. 

On the whole, there is one reason why endowments are 
not given now as they were in old days, when men founded 
abbeys, colleges, and all kinds of things of that description, 
with such success as we know. All that has now changed; 
a vast decay of zeal in that direction. And truly the reason 
may in part be, that people have become doubtful whether 
colleges are now the real sources of what I called wisdom; 
whether they are anything more, anything much more, than 
a cultivating of man in the specific arts. In fact, there has 
been in the world a suspicion of that kind for a long time 
[A laugh]. There goes a proverb of old date, 'An ounce of 
mother-wit is worth a pound of clergy' [Laughter], There 
is a suspicion that a man is perhaps not nearly so wise as he 
looks, or because he has poured out speech so copiously 
[Laughter], When *the seven free arts,' which the old 
Universities were based on, came to be modified a little, in 
order to be convenient for the wants of modern society, — 
though perhaps some of them are obsolete enough even yet 
for some of us, — there arose a feeling that mere vocality, 
mere culture of speech, if that is what comes out of a man, 
is not the synonym of wisdom by any means ! That a man 
may be a * great speaker,' as eloquent as you like, and but 
little real substance in him, — especially if that is what was 
required and aimed at by the man himself, and by the com- 
munity that set him upon becoming a learned man. Maid- 
servants, I hear people complaining, are getting instructed 
in the * ologies,' and are apparently becoming more and more 
ignorant of brewing, boiling, and baking [Laughter] ; and 



394 THOMAS CARLYLE 

above all, are not taught what is necessary to be known, 
from the highest of us to the lowest, — faithful obedience, 
modesty, humility, and correct moral conduct. 

Oh, it is a dismal chapter all that, if one went into it, — 
what has been done by rushing after fine speech ! I have 
written down some very fierce things about that, perhaps 
considerably more emphatic than I could now wish them to 
be; but they were and are deeply my conviction [Hear, hear]. 
There is very great necessity indeed of getting a little more 
silent than we are. It seems to me as if the finest nations of 
the world, — the English and the American, in chief, — were 
going all off into wind and tongue [Applause and laughter']. 
But it will appear sufficiently tragical by and by, long after 
I am away out of it. There is a time to speak, and a time 
to be silent. Silence withal is the eternal duty of a man. 
He won't get to any real understanding of what is complex, 
and what is more than aught else pertinent to his interests, 
without keeping silence too. ' Watch the tongue,' is a very 
old precept, and a most true one. 

I don't want to discourage any of you from your Demos- 
thenes, and your studies of the niceties of language, and all 
that. Believe me, I value that as much as any one of you. I 
consider it a very graceful thing, and a most proper, for 
every human creature to know what the implement which he 
uses in communicating his thoughts is, and how to make the 
very utmost of it. I want you to study Demosthenes, and to 
know all his excellencies. At the same time, I must say that 
speech, in the case even of Demosthenes, does not seem, on 
the whole, to have turned to almost any good account. He 
advised next to nothing that proved practicable ; much of the 
reverse. Why tell me that a man is a fine speaker, if it is 
not the truth that he is speaking? Phocion, who mostly did 
not speak at all, was a great deal nearer hitting the mark 
than Demosthenes [Laughter]. He used to tell the Athe- 
nians, " You can't fight Philip. Better if you don't provoke 
him, as Demosthenes is always urging you to do. You have 
not the slightest chance with Philip. He is a man who holds 
his tongue; he has great disciplined armies; a full treasury; 
can bribe anybody you like in your cities here; he is going 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 395 

on steadily with an unvarying aim towards his object; while 
you, with your idle clamourings, with your Cleon the Tanner 
spouting to you what you take for wisdom — ! Philip will 
infallibly beat any set of men such as you, going on raging 
from shore to shore with all that rampant nonsense." Demos- 
thenes said to him once, " Phocion, you will drive the 
Athenians mad some day, and they will kill you." "Yes," 
Phocion answered, " me, when they go mad ; and as soon as 
they get sane again, you ! " [Laughter and applause.'] 

It is also told of him how he went once to Messene, on 
some deputation which the Athenians wainted him to head, 
on some kind of matter of an intricate and contentious 
nature : Phocion went accordingly ; and had, as usual, a clear 
story to have told for himself and his case. He was a man 
of few words, but all of them true and to the point. And so 
he had gone on telling his story for a while, when there 
arose some interruption. One man, interrupting with some- 
thing, he tried to answer; then another, the like; till finally, 
too many went in, and all began arguing and bawling in end- 
less debate. Whereupon Phocion struck-down his staff; drew 
back altogether, and would speak no other word to any man. 
It appears to me there is a kind of eloquence in that rap of 
Phocion's staff which is equal to anything Demosthenes ever 
said : " Take your own way, then ; I go out of it altogether " 
[Applause]. 

Such considerations, and manifold more connected with 
them, — innumerable considerations, resulting from observa- 
tion of the world at this epoch, — have led various people to 
doubt of the salutary effect of vocal education altogether. I 
do not mean to say it should be entirely excluded ; but I look 
to something that will take hold of the matter much more 
closely, and not allow it to slip out of our fingers, and re- 
main worse than it was. For, if a * good speaker,' never so 
eloquent, does not see into the fact, and is not speaking the 
truth of that, but the untruth and the mistake of that, — is 
there a more horrid kind of object in creation? [Loud 
Cheers.] Of such speech I hear all manner of people say 
" How excellent ! " Well, really it is not the speech, but the 
thing spoken, that I am anxious about! I really care very 
little how the man said it, provided I understand him, and it 



396 THOMAS CARLYLE 

be true. Excellent speaker? But what if he is telling me 
things that are contrary to the fact; what if he has formed 
a wrong judgment about the fact, — if he has in his mind 
(like Phocion's friend, Cleon the Tanner) no power to form 
a right judgment in regard to the matter? An excellent 
speaker of that kind is, as it were, saying, " Ho, every one 
that wants to be persuaded of the thing that is not true; 
here is the man for you ! " [Great laughter and applause.'] 
I recommend you to be very chary of that kind of excellent 
speech [Renewed laughter]. 

Well, all that sad stuff being the too well-known product 
of our method of vocal education, — the teacher merely oper- 
ating on the tongue of the pupil, and teaching him to wag 
it in a particular way [Laughter], — it has made various 
thinking men entertain a distrust of this not very salutary 
way of procedure; and they have longed for some less 
theoretic, and more practical and concrete way of working 
out the problem of education; — in effect, for an education 
not vocal at all, but mute except vi^here speaking was strictly 
needful. There would be room for a great deal of descrip- 
tion about this, if I went into it; but I must content myself 
with saying that the most remarkable piece of writing on it 
is in a book of Goethe's, — the whole of which you may be 
recommended to take up, and try if you can study it with 
understanding. It is one of his last books ; written when he 
was an old man above seventy years of age : I think, one of 
the most beautiful he ever wrote; full of meek wisdom, of 
intellect and piety; which is found to be strangely illumi- 
native, and very touching, by those who have eyes to discern 
and hearts to feel it This about education is one of the 
pieces in Wilhelm Meister's Travels; or rather, in a fitful 
way, it forms the whole gist of the book. I first read it many 
years ago ; and, of course, I had to read into the very heart 
of it while I was translating it [Applause] ; and it has ever 
since dwelt in my mind as perhaps the most remarkable bit 
of writing which I have known to be executed in these late 
centuries. I have often said that there are some ten pages 
of that, which, if ambition had been my only rule, I would 
rather have written, been able to write, than have written 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 397 

all the books that have appeared since I came into the world 
[Cheers]. Deep, deep is the meaning of what is said there. 
Those pages turn on the Christian religion, and the religious 
phenomena of the modern and the ancient world : altogether 
sketched out in the most aerial, graceful, delicately wise 
kind of way^ so as to keep himself out of the common 
controversies of the street and of the forum, yet to indicate 
what was the result of things he had been long meditating 
upon. 

Among others, he introduces in an airy, sketchy kind of 
way, with here and there a touch, — the sum-total of which 
grows into a beautiful picture, — a scheme of entirely mute 
education, at least with no more speech than is absolutely 
necessary for what the pupils have to do. Three of the 
wisest men discoverable in the world have been got together, 
to consider, to manage and supervise, the function which 
transcends all others in importance, — that of building up the 
young generation so as to keep it free from that perilous 
stuff that has been weighing us down, and clogging every 
step ; — which function, indeed, is the only thing we can hope 
to go on with, if we would leave the world a little better, 
and not the worse, of our having been in it, for those who 
are to follow. The Chief, who is the Eldest of the three, 
says to Wilhelm : " Healthy well-formed children bring into 
the world with them many precious gifts; and very 
frequently these are best of all developed by Nature herself, 
with but slight assistance, where assistance is seen to be 
wise and profitable, and with forbearance very often on the 
part of the overseer of the process. But there is one thing 
which no child brings into the world with him, and without 
which all other things are of no use.'* Wilhelm, who is there 
beside him, asks, " And what is that ? " " All want it," says 
the Eldest; "perhaps you yourself." Wilhelm says, "Well, 
but tell me what it is ? " " It is," answers the other, 
"Reverence (Ehrfurcht) ; Reverence!" Honour done to 
those who are greater and better than ourselves; honour 
distinct from fear. Ehrfurcht; the soul of all religion that 
has ever been among men, or ever will be. 

And then he goes into details about the religions of the 
modern and the ancient world. He practically distinguishes 



398 



THOMAS CARLYLE 



the kinds of religion that are, or have been, in the world; 
and says that for men there are three reverences. The boys 
are all trained to go through certain gesticulations; to lay 
their hands on their breasts and look up to heaven, in sign 
of the first reverence ; other forms for the other two : so they 
give their three reverences. The first and simplest is that of 
reverence for what is above us. It is the soul of all the 
Pagan religion; there is nothing better in the antique man 
than that. Then there is reverence for what is around us, — 
reverence for our equals, to which he attributes an immense 
power in the culture of man. The third is reverence for 
what is beneath us; to learn to recognise in pain, in sorrow 
and contradiction, even in those things, odious to flesh and 
blood, what divine meanings are in them ; to learn that there 
lies in these also, and more than in any of the preceding, a 
priceless blessing. And he defines that as being the soul of 
the Christian religion, — the highest of all religions ; * a 
height,' as Goethe says (and that is very true, even to the 
letter, as I consider), 'a height to which mankind was fated 
and enabled to attain ; and from which, having once attained 
it, they can never retrograde.' Man cannot quite lose that 
(Goethe thinks), or permanently descend below it again; 
but always, even in the most degraded, sunken and unbeliev- 
ing times, he calculates there will be found some few souls 
who will recognise what this highest of the religions meant; 
and that, the world having once received it, there is no fear 
of its ever wholly disappearing. 

The eldest then goes on to explain by what methods they 
seek to educate and train their boys; in the trades, in the 
arts, in the sciences, in whatever pursuit the boy is found 
best fitted for. Beyond all, they are anxious to discover the 
boy's aptitudes ; and they try him and watch him continually, 
in many wise ways, till by degrees they can discover this. 
Wilhelm had left his own boy there, perhaps expecting they 
would make him a Master of Arts, or something of the kind ; 
and on coming back for him, he sees a thunder-cloud of dust 
rushing over the plain, of which he can make nothing. It 
turns out to be a tempest of wild horses, managed by young 
lads who had a turn for horsemanship, for hunting, and 
being grooms. His own son is among them; and he finds 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 999 

that the breaking of colts has been the thing he was most 
suited for [Laughter'], 

The highest outcome, and most precious of all the fruits 
that are to spring from this ideal mode of educating, is what 
Goethe calls Art: — of which I could at present give no defi- 
nition that would make it clear to you, unless it were clearer 
already thaa is likely [A laugh], Goethe calls it music, 
painting, poetry: but it is in quite a higher sense than the 
common one ; and a sense in which, I am afraid, most of our 
painters, poets and music-men would not pass muster [A 
laugh]. He considers this as the highest pitch to which 
human culture can go ; infinitely valuable and ennobling ; and 
he watches with great industry how it is to be brought about 
in the men who have a turn for it. Very wise and beautiful 
his notion of the matter is. It gives one an idea that some- 
thing far better and higher, something as high as ever, and 
indubitably true too, is still possible for man in this world. — 
And that is' all I can say to you of Goethe's fine theorem of 
mute education. 

I confess it seems to me there is in it a shadow of what 
will one day be; will and must, unless the world is to come 
to a conclusion that is altogether frightful: some kind of 
scheme of education analogous to that ; presided over by the 
wisest and most sacred men that can be got in the world, 
and watching from a distance: a training in practicality at 
every turn; no speech in it except speech that is to be fol- 
lowed by action, for that ought to be the rule as nearly as 
possible among men. Not very often or much, rarely rather, 
should a man speak at all, unless it is for the sake of some- 
thing that is to be done ; this spoken, let him go and do his 
part in it, and say no more about it. 

I will only add, that it is possible, all this fine theorem 
of Goethe's, or something similar ! Consider what we have 
already ; and what ' difficulties ' we have overcome. I should 
say there is nothing in the world you can conceive so difficult, 
'prima facie, as that of getting a set of men g'athered together 
as soldiers. Rough, rude, ignorant, disobedient people; you 
gather them together, promise them a shilling a day; rank 
them up, give them very severe and sharp drill; and by 
bullying and drilling and compelling (the word drilling, if 



400 



THOMAS CARLYLE 



you go to the original, means ' beating/ ' steadily tormenting * 
to the due pitch), they do learn what it is necessary to learn; 
and there is your man in red coat, a trained soldier; piece 
of an animated machine incomparably the most potent in this 
world; a wonder of wonders to look at. He will go where 
bidden; obeys one man, will walk into the cannon's mouth 
for him ; does punctually whatever is commanded by his 
general officer. And, I believe, all manner of things of this 
kind could be accomplished, if there were the same attention 
bestowed. Very many things could be regimented, organised 
into this mute system; — and perhaps in some of the me- 
chanical, commercial and manufacturing departments some 
faint incipiences may be attempted before very long. For 
the saving of human labour, and the avoidance of human 
misery, the effects would be incalculable, were it set about 
and begun even in part. 

Alas, it is painful to think how very far away it all is, any 
real fulfilment of such things! For I need not hide from 
you, young Gentlemen, — and it is one of the last things I am 
going to tell you, — that you have got into a very troublous 
epoch of the world; and I don't think you will find your 
path in it to be smoother than ours has been, though you 
have many advantages which we had not. You have careers 
open to you, by public examinations and so on, which is a 
thing much to be approved of, and which we hope to see 
perfected more and more. All that was entirely unknown 
in my time, and you have many things to recognise as 
advantages. But you will find the ways of the world, I 
think, more anarchical than ever. Look where one will, 
revolution has come upon us. We have got into the age of 
revolutions. All kinds of things are coming to be subjected 
to fire, as it were : hotter and hotter blows the element round 
everything. Curious to see how, in Oxford and other places 
that used to seem as lying at anchor in the stream of time, 
regardless of all changes, they are getting into the highest 
humour of mutation, and all sorts of new ideas are afloat. 
It is evident that whatever is not inconsumable, made of 
asbestos, will have to be burnt, in this world. Nothing other 
will stand the heat it is getting exposed to. 

And in saying that, I am but saying in other words that 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 401 

we are in an epoch of anarchy. Anarchy plus a constable ! 
[Laughter,] There is nobody that picks one^s pocket with- 
out some policeman being ready to take him up [Renewed 
laughter']. But in every other point, man is becoming more 
and more the son, not of Cosmos, but of Chaos. He is a 
disobedient, discontented, reckless and altogether waste kind 
of object (the commonplace man is, in these epochs) ; and 
the wiser kind of man, — the select few, of whom I hope you 
will be part, — has more and more to see to this, to look vigi- 
lantly forward ; and will require to move with double wisdom. 
Will find, in short, that the crooked things he has got to pull 
straight in his own life all round him, wherever he may go, 
are manifold, and will task all his strength, however great it be. 

But why should I complain of that either? For that is 
the thing a man is born to, in all epochs. He is born to ex- 
pend every particle of strength that God Almighty has 
given him, in doing the work he finds he is fit for; to stand 
up to it to the last breath of life, and do his best. We are 
called upon to do that; and the reward we all get, — which 
we are perfectly sure of, if we have merited it, — is that we 
have got the work done, or at least that we have tried to do 
the work. For that is a great blessing in itself ; and I should 
say, there is not very much more reward than that going in 
this world. If the man gets meat and clothes, what matters 
it whether he buy those necessaries with seven thousand a 
year, or with seven million, could that be, or with seventy 
pounds a year ? He can get meat and clothes for that ; and 
he will find intrinsically, if he is a wise man, wonderfully 
little real difference [Laughter], 

On the whole, avoid what is called ambition; that is not 
a fine principle to go upon, — and it has in it all degrees of 
vulgarity, if that is a consideration. ' Seekest thou great 
things, seek them not : ' I warmly second that advice of the 
wisest of men. Don't be ambitious; don't too much need 
success; be loyal and modest. Cut down the proud tower- 
ing thoughts that get into you, or see that they be pure as 
well as high. There is a nobler ambition than the gain- 
ing of all CaHfornia would be, or the getting of all the 
suffrages that are on the Planet just now [Loud and pro^ 
longed cheers]. 



402 



THOMAS CARLYLE 



Finally, Gentlemen, I have one advice to give you, which 
is practically of very great importance, though a very humble 
one. In the midst of your zeal and ardour, — for such, I 
foresee, will rise high enough, in spite of all the counsels to 
moderate it that I can give you, — remember the care of 
health. I have no doubt you have among you young souls 
ardently bent to consider life cheap, for the purpose of 
getting forward in what they are aiming at of high; but 
you are to consider throughout, much more than is done at 
present, and what it would have been a very great thing for 
me if I had been able to consider, that health is a thing to 
be attended to continually; that you are to regard that as 
the very highest of all temporal things for you [Applause'\. 
There is no kind of achievement you could make in the 
world that is equal to perfect health. What to it are nuggets 
and millions ? The French financier said, " Why, is there 
no sleep to be sold ! " Sleep was not in the market at any 
quotation [Laughter and applause]. 

It is a curious thing, which I remarked long ago, and have 
often turned in my head, that the old word for ^ holy ' in 
the Teutonic languages, heilig, also means ' healthy.' Thus 
Heilbronn means indifferently ' holy-well ' or ' health-well.' 
We have in the Scotch, too, * hale,' and its derivatives ; 
and, I suppose, our English word 'whole' (with a 'w'), all 
of one piece, without any hole in it, is the same word. I find 
that you could not get any better definition of what ' holy ' 
really is than ' healthy.' Completely healthy ; mens sana in 
corpore sano [Applause']. A man all lucid, and in equilib- 
rium.. His intellect a clear mirror geometrically plane, 
brilliantly sensitive to all objects and impressions made on 
it, and imagining all things in their correct proportions; not 
twisted up into convex or concave, and distorting everything, 
so that he cannot see the truth of the matter without endless 
groping and manipulation: healthy, clear and free, and dis- 
cerning truly all round him. We never can attain that at all. 
In fact, the operations we have got into are destructive of 
it. You cannot, if you are going to do any decisive intellec- 
tual operation that will last a long while; if, for instance, 
you are going to write a book, — you cannot manage it (at 
least, I never could) without getting decidedly made ill by 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 403 

it: and really one nevertheless must; if it is your business, 
you are obliged to follow out what you are at, and to do it, 
if even at the expense of health. Only remember, at all 
times, to get back as fast as possible out of it into health; 
and regard that as the real equilibrium and centre of things. 
You should always look at the heilig, which means ' holy ' as 
well as 'healthy.' 

And that old etymology, — ^what a lesson it is against 
certain gloomy, austere, ascetic people, who have gone about 
as if this world were all a dismal prison-house ! It has in- 
deed got all the ugly things in it which I have been alluding 
to; but there is an eternal sky over it; and the blessed sun- 
shine, the green of prophetic spring, and rich harvests 
coming, — all this is in it too. Piety does not mean that a 
man should make a sour face about things, and refuse to 
enjoy wisely what his Maker has given. Neither do you 
find it to have been so with the best sort, — ^with old Knox, 
in particular. No ; if you look into Knox, you will find a beau- 
tiful Scotch humour in him, as well as the grimmest and 
sternest truth when necessary, and a great deal of laughter. 
We find really some of the sunniest glimpses of things come 
out of Knox that I have seen in any man; for instance, in 
his History of the Reformation, — ^which is a book I hope 
every one of you will read [Applause] , a glorious old book. 

On the whole, I would bid you stand up to your work, 
whatever it may be, and not be afraid of it; not in sorrows 
or contradictions to yield, but to push on towards the goal. 
And don't suppose that people are hostile to you or have 
you at ill-will, in the world. In general, you will rarely find 
anybody designedly doing you ill. You may feel often as if 
the whole world were obstructing you, setting itself against 
you: but you will find that to mean only, that the world is 
travelling in a different way from you, and, rushing on in its 
own path, heedlessly treads on you. That is mostly all: to 
you no specific ill-will; — only each has an extremely good- 
will to himself, which he has a right to have, and is rushing 
on towards his object. Keep out of literature, I should say 
also, as a general rule [Laughter], — though that is by the 
bye. If you find many people who are hard and indifferent 
to you, in a world which you consider to be inhospitable and 



404 THOMAS CARLYLE 

cruel, as often indeed happens to a tender-hearted, striving 
young creature, you will also find there are noble hearts 
who will look kindly on you ; and their help will be precious 
to you beyond price. You will get good and evil as you go 
on, and have the success that has been appointed you. 

I will wind-up with a small bit of verse, which is from 
Goethe also, and has often gone through my mind. To me 
it has something of a modern psalm in it, in some measure. 
It is deep as the foundations, deep and high, and it is true 
and clear: — no clearer man, or nobler and grander intellect 
has lived in the world, I believe, since Shakespeare left it. 
This is what the poet sings; — a kind of road-melody or 
marching-music of mankind : 

*The future hides in it 
Gladness and sorrow; 
We press still thorow. 
Nought that abides in it 
Daunting us,— onward. 

And solemn before us. 
Veiled, the dark Portal; 
Goal of all mortal : — 
Stars silent rest o'er us. 
Graves under us silent! 

While earnest thou gazest, 
Comes boding of terror, 
Comes phantasm and error; 
Perplexes the bravest 
With doubt and misgiving. 

But heard are the Voices, 
Heard are the Sages, 
The Worlds and the Ages: 
** Choose well ; your choice is 
Brief, and yet endless. 

Here eyes do regard you, 
In Eternity's stillness; 
Here is all fulness, 
Ye brave, to reward you; 
Work, and despair not.** * 

Work, and despair not: Wir heissen euch hoffen, 'We bid 
you be of hope ! ' — let that be my last word. Gentlemen, I 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 405 

thank you for your great patience in hearing me ; and, with 
many most kind wishes, say Adieu for this time. 

Finis of Rectorship. — 'Edinburgh University, Mr. Carlyle ex- 
Lord Rector of the University of Edinburgh, has been asked to 
deliver a valedictory address to the students, but has declined. The 
following is a copy of the correspondence. 

'2 S.-W. Circus Place, Edinburgh, 3d December 1868. 

* Sir, — On the strength of being Vice-President of the 
Committee for your election as Lord Rector of the Uni- 
versity of Edinburgh, I have been induced to write to you, 
in order to know if you will be able to deliver a Valedictory 
Address to the Students. Mr. Gladstone gave us one, and we 
fondly hope you will find it convenient to do so as well. Your 
Inaugural Address is still treasured up in our memories, and 
I am sure nothing could give us greater pleasure than once 
more to listen to your words. I trust you will pardon me 
for this intrusion; and hoping to receive a favourable an- 
swer, I am, etc., A. Robertson^ M. A. 

* T. Carlyle, Esq.' 

'Chelsea, 9th December 1868. 

* Dear Sir, — I much regret that a Valedictory Speech 
from me, in present circumstances, is a thing I must not 
think of. Be pleased to assure the young Gentlemen who 
were so friendly towards me, that I have already sent them, 
in silence, but with emotions deep enough, perhaps too deep, 
my loving Farewell, and that ingratitude, or want of regard, 
is by no means among the causes that keep me absent. With 
a fine youthful enthusiasm, beautiful to look upon, they be- 
stowed on me that bit of honour, loyally all they had; and 
it has now, for reasons one and another, become touchingly 
memorable to me, — touchingly, and even grandly and tragic- 
ally, — never to be forgotten for the remainder of my life. 

' Bid them, in my name, if they still love me, fight the good 
fight, and quit themselves like men in the warfare, to which 
they are as if conscript and consecrated, and which lies 
ahead. Tell them to consult the eternal oracles (not yet in- 
audible, nor ever to become so, when worthily inquired of) : 



406 INAUGURAL ADDRESS 

and to disregard, nearly altogether, in comparison, the tem- 
porary noises, menacings and deliriums. May they love 
Wisdom as Wisdom, if she is to yield her treasures, must 
be loved, — piously, valiantly, humbly, beyond life itself or 
the prizes of life, with all one*s heart, and all one's soul: — 
in that case (I will say again), and not in any other case, 
it shall be well with them. Adieu, my young Friends, a long 
adieu. — ^Yours with great sincerity, T. Carlyle. 

*A. Robertson, Esq/^ 

* Edinburgh Newspapers of December 12-13, i868. 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 

BY 

THOMAS CARLYLE 



SIR WALTER SCOTT^ 

[1838] 

A MERICAN Cooper asserts, in one of his books, that there 
l\ is * an instinctive tendency in men to look at any man 
-A^-^ who has become distinguished.' True, surely: as all 
observation and survey of mankind, from China to Peru, 
from Nebuchadnezzar to Old Hickory, will testify! Why 
do men crowd towards the improved-drop at Newgate, eager 
to catch a sight? The man about to be hanged is in a dis- 
tinguished situation. Men crowd to such extent, that Green- 
acre's is not the only life choked-out there. Again, ask of 
these leathern vehicles, cabriolets, neat-flies, with blue men 
and women in them, that scour all thoroughfares. Whither 
so fast? To see dear Mrs. Rigmarole, the distinguished 
female; great Mr. Rigmarole, the distinguished male! Or, 
consider that crowning phenomenon, and summary of mod- 
ern civilisation, a soiree of lions. Glittering are the rooms, ' 
well-lighted, thronged ; bright flows their undulatory flood of 
blonde-gowns and dress-coats, a soft smile dwelling on all 
faces; for behold there also flow the lions, hovering distin- 
guished : oracles of the age, of one sort or another. Oracles 
really pleasant to see ; whom it is worth while to go and see : 
look at them, but inquire not of them, depart rather and be 
thankful. For your lion-soiree admits not of speech; there 
lies the specialty of it. A meeting together of human crea- 
tures; and yet (so high has civilisation gone) the primary 
aim of human meeting, that soul might in some articulate 
utterance unfold itself to soul, can be dispensed with in it. 
Utterance there is not; nay, there is a certain grinning play 
of tongue-fence, and make-believe of utterance, considerably 

* London and Westminster Review, No. 12. — Memoirs of the Life of 
Sir Walter Scott, Baronet, Vols, i.-vi. Edinburgh, 1837. 

409 



410 THOMAS CARLYLE 

worse than none. For which reason it has been suggested, 
with an eye to sincerity and silence in such \ion-soirees. 
Might not each lion be, for example, ticketed, as wine-decan- 
ters are? Let him carry, slung round him, in such orna- 
mental manner as seemed good, his silver label with name 
engraved; you lift his label, and read it, with what farther 
ocular survey you find useful, and speech is not needed at all. 
O Fenimore Cooper, it is most true there is * an instinctive 
tendency in men to look at any man that has become distin- 
guished ' ; and, moreover, an instinctive desire in men to 
become distinguished and be looked at ! 

For the rest, we will call it a most valuable tendency this ; 
indispensable to mankind. Without it, where were star-and- 
garter, and significance of rank; where were all ambition, 
money-getting, respectability of gig or no gig; and, in a 
word, the main impetus by which society moves, the main 
force by which it hangs together? A tendency, we say, of 
manifold results ; of manifold origin, not ridiculous only, but 
sublime; — which some incline to deduce from the mere gre- 
garious purblind nature of man, prompting him to run, ' as 
dim-eyed animals do, towards any glittering object, were it 
but a scoured tankard, and mistake it for a solar luminary,' 
or even ' sheeplike, to run and crowd because many have 
already run ' ! It is indeed curious to consider how men do 
make the gods that themselves worship. For the most famed 
man, round whom all the world rapturously huzzahs and 
venerates, as if his like were not, is the same man whom 
all the world was wont to jostle into the kennels; not a 
changed man, but in every fibre of him the same man. Fool- 
ish world, what went ye out to see? A tankard scoured 
bright: and do there not lie, of the self-same pewter, whole 
barrowfuls of tankards, though by worse fortune all still in 
the dim state? 

And yet, at bottom, it is not merely our gregarious 
sheeplike quality, but something better, and indeed best: 
which has been called * the perpetual fact of hero-worship ' ; 
our inborn sincere love of great men ! Not the gilt farthing, 
for its own sake, do even fools covet; but the gold guinea 
which they mistake it for. Veneration of great men is per- 
ennial in the nature of man; this, in all times^ especially 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 411 

in tfiese, is one of the blessedest facts predicable of him. In 
all times, even in these seemingly so disobedient times, * it 
remains a blessed fact, so cunningly has Nature ordered it, 
that whatsoever man ought to obey, he cannot but obey. 
Show the dullest clodpole, show the haughtiest featherhead, 
that a soul higher than himself is actually here; were his 
knees stiffened into brass, he must down and worship/ So 
it has been written ; and may be cited and repeated till knowa 
to all. Understand it well, this of ' hero-worship ' was the 
primary creed, and has intrinsically been the secondary and 
ternary, and will be the ultimate and final creed of mankind; 
indestructible, changing in shape, but in essence unchange- 
able; whereon polities, religions, loyalties, and all highest 
human interests have been and can be built, as on a rock 
that will endure while man endures. Such is hero-worship; 
so much lies in that our inborn sincere love of great men ! — 
In favour of which unspeakable benefits of the reality, what 
can we do but cheerfully pardon the multiplex ineptitudes 
of the semblance; cheerfully wish even lion-soirees, with 
labels for their lions or without that improvement, all man- 
ner of prosperity? Let hero-worship flourish, say we; and 
the more and more assiduous chase after gilt farthings while 
guineas are not yet forthcoming. Herein, at lowest, is proof 
that guineas exist, that they are believed to exist, and 
valued. Find great men, if you can ; if you cannot, still quit 
not the search; in defect of great men, let there be noted 
men, in such number, to such degree of intensity as the pub- 
lic appetite can tolerate. 

Whether Sir Walter Scott was a great man, is still a 
question with some; but there can be no question with any 
one that he was a most noted and even notable man. In this 
generation there was no literary man with such a popularity 
in any country ; there have only been a few with such, taking- 
in all generations and all countries. Nay, it is farther to be 
admitted that Sir Walter Scott's popularity was of a select 
sort rather ; not a popularity of the populace. His admirers 
were at one time almost all the intelligent of civilised coun- 
tries; and to the last included, and do still include, a great 
portion of that sort Such fortune he had, and has continued 



412 THOMAS CARLYLE 

to maintain for a space of some twenty or thirty years. So 
long the observed of all observers; a great man or only a 
considerable man; here surely, if ever, is a singular circum- 
stanced, is a * distinguished ' man ! In regard to v^hom, 
therefore, the ' instinctive tendency ' on other men's part can- 
not be wanting. Let men look, where the world has already 
so long looked. And now, while the new, earnestly expected 
Life ' by his son-in-law and literary executor ' again sum- 
mons the whole world's attention round him, probably for the 
last time it will ever be so summoned; and men are in some 
sort taking leave of a notability, and about to go their way, 
and commit him to his fortune on the flood of things, — why 
should not this Periodical Publication likewise publish its 
thought about him ? Readers of miscellaneous aspect, of un- 
known quantity and quality, are waiting to hear it done. 
With small inward vocation, but cheerfully obedient to 
destiny and necessity, the present reviewer will follow a 
multitude : to do evil or to do no evil, will depend not on the 
multitude but on himself. One thing he did decidedly wish; 
at least to wait till the Work were finished: for the six 
promised Volumes, as the world knows, have flowed over 
into a Seventh, which will not for some weeks yet see the 
light. But the editorial powders, wearied with waiting, have 
become peremptory; and declare that, finished or not fin- 
ished, they will have their hands washed of it at this opening 
of the year. Perhaps it is best. The physiognomy of Scott 
will not be much altered for us by that Seventh Volume ; the 
prior Six have altered it but little; — as, indeed, a man who 
has written some two-hundred volumes of his own, and lived 
for thirty years amid the universal speech of friends, must 
have already left some likeness of himself. Be it as the per- 
emptory editorial powers require. 

First, therefore, a word on the Life itself. Mr. Lockhart's 
known powers justify strict requisition in his case. Our 
verdict in general would be, that he has accomplished the 
work he schemed for himself in a creditable workmanlike 
manner. It is true, his notion of what the work was, does 
not seem to have been very elevated. To picture-forth the 
life of Scott according to any rules of art or composition, so 
that a reader, on adequately examining it, might say to him* 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 413 

self, " There is Scott, there is the physiognomy and meaning 
of Scotf s appearance and transit on this earth ; such was he 
by nature, so did the world act on him, so he on the world, 
with such result and significance for himself and us": this 
was by no manner of means Mr. Lockhart's plan. A plan 
which, it is rashly said, should preside over every biography ! 
It might have been fulfilled with all degrees of perfection, 
from that of the Odyssey down to Thomas Ellwood or lower. 
For there is no heroic poem in the world but is at bottom a 
biography, the life of a man: also, it may be said, there is 
no life of a man, faithfully recorded, but is a heroic poem 
of its sort, rhymed or unrhymed. It is a plan one would 
prefer, did it otherwise suit ; which it does not, in these days. 
Seven volumes sell so much dearer than one; are so much 
easier to write than one. The Odyssey, for instance, what 
were the value of the Odyssey sold per sheet? One paper of 
Pickwick; or say, the inconsiderable fraction of one. This, 
in commercial algebra, were the equation: Odyssey equal to 
Pickwick divided by an unknown integer. 

There is a great discovery still to be made in Literature, 
that of paying literary men by the quantity they do not write. 
Nay, in sober truth, is not this actually the rule in all writing ; 
and, moreover, in all conduct and acting? Not what stands 
above ground, but what lies unseen under it, as the root and 
subterrene element it sprang from and emblemed forth, 
determines the value. Under all speech that is good for 
anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as 
Eternity: speech is shallow as Time. Paradoxical does it 
seem? Woe for the age, woe for the man, quack-ridden, 
bespeeched, bespouted, blown about like barren Sahara, to 
whom this world-old truth were altogether strange! — Such 
we say is the rule, acted on or not, recognised or not; and 
he who departs from it, what can he do but spread himself 
into breadth and length, into superficiality and saleability; 
and, except as filigree, become comparatively useless? One 
thinks. Had but the hogshead of thin wash, which sours in a 
week ready for the kennels, been distilled^ been concentrated ! 
Our dear Fenimore Cooper, whom we started with, might, 
in that way, have given us one Natty Leatherstocking, one 
melodious synopsis of Man and Nature in the West (for it 



414 THOMAS CARLYLE 

lay in him to do it), almost as a Saint-Pierre did for the 
Islands of the East; and the hundred Incoherences, cobbled 
hastily together by order of Colburn and Company, had 
slumbered in Chaos, as all incoherences ought if possible to 
do. Verily this same genius of diffuse-writing, of diffuse- 
acting, is a Moloch; and souls pass through the fire to him, 
more than enough. Surely, if ever discovery was valuable 
and needful, it were that above indicated, of paying by the 
work not visibly done ! — Which needful discovery we will 
give the whole projecting, railwaying, knowledge-diffusing, 
march-of-intellect and otherwise promotive and locomotive 
societies in the Old and New World, any required length of 
centuries to make. Once made, such discovery once made, 
we too will fling cap into the air, and shout, ^' lo Pcean! the 
Devil is conquered " ; — and, in the mean while, study to think 
it nothing miraculous that seven biographical volumes are 
given where one had been better; and that several other 
things happen, very much as they from of old were known 
to do, and are like to continue doing. 

Mr. Lockhart's aim, we take it, was not that of producing 
any such highflown work of art as we hint at: or indeed to 
do much other than to print, intelligently bound together by 
order of time, and by some requisite intercalary exposition, 
all such letters, documents and notices about Scott as he 
found lying suitable, and as it seemed likely the world would 
undertake to read. His Work, accordingly, is not so much a 
composition, as what we may call a compilation well done. 
Neither is this a task of no difficulty; this too is a task that 
may be performed with extremely various degrees of talent : 
from the Life and Correspondence of Hannah More, for in- 
stance, up to this Life of Scott, there is a wide range indeed 1 
Let us take the Seven Volumes, and be thankful that they are 
genuine in their kind. Nay, as to that of their being seven 
and not one, it is right to say that the public so required it. 
To have done other, would have shown little policy in an 
author. Had Mr. Lockhart laboriously compressed himself, 
and instead of well-done compilation, brought out the well- 
done composition, in one volume instead of seven, which not 
many men in England are better qualified to do, there can be 
no doubt but his readers for the time had been immeasurably 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 415 

fewer. If the praise of magnanimity be denied him, that of 
prudence must be conceded, which perhaps he values more. 

The truth is, the work, done in this manner too, was good 
to have: Scott's Biography, if uncomposed, lies printed and 
indestructible here, in the elementary state, and can at any 
time be composed, if necessary, by whosoever has a call to 
that. As it is, as it was meant to be, we repeat, the work is 
vigorously done. Sagacity, decision, candour, diligence, good 
manners, good sense: these qualities are throughout observ- 
able. The dates, calculations, statements, we suppose to be 
all accurate; much laborious inquiry, some of it impossible 
for another man, has been gone into, the results of which are 
imparted with due brevity. Scott's letters, not interesting 
generally, yet never absolutely without interest, are copiously 
given ; copiously, but with selection ; the answers to them still 
more select. Narrative, delineation, and at length personal 
reminiscences, occasionally of much merit, of a certain rough 
force, sincerity and picturesqueness, duly intervene. The 
scattered members of Scott's Life do lie here, and could be 
disentangled. In a word, this compilation is the work of a 
manful, clear-seeing, conclusive man, and has been executed 
with the faculty and combination of faculties the public had 
a right to expect from the name attached to it. 

One thing we hear greatly blamed in Mr. Lockhart: that 
he has been too communicative, indiscreet, and has recorded 
much that ought to have lain suppressed. Persons are men- 
tioned, and circumstances, not always of an ornamental sort. 
It would appear there is far less reticence than was looked 
for ! Various persons, name and surname, have * received 
pain ' : nay, the very Hero of the Biography is rendered un- 
heroic; unornamental facts of him, and of those he had to do 
with, being set forth in plain English : hence * personality,' 
* indiscretion,' or worse, * sanctities of private life,' etc., etc. 
How delicate, decent is English Biography, bless its mealy 
mouth ! A Damocles' sword of Respectability hangs forever 
over the poor English Life-writer (as it does over poor Eng- 
lish Life in general), and reduces him to the verge of paral- 
ysis. Thus it has been said ' there are no English lives 
worth reading except those of Players, who by the nature of 
the case have bidden Respectability good-day.' The English 



416 THOMAS CARLYLE 

biographer has long felt that if in writing his Man's Biog- 
raphy, he wrote down anything that could by possibility 
offend any man, he had written wrong. The plain conse- 
quence was, that, properly speaking, no biography whatever 
could be produced. The poor biographer, having the fear 
not of God before his eyes, was obliged to retire as it were 
into vacuum; and write in the most melancholy, straitened 
manner, with only vacuum for a result. Vain that he wrote, 
and that we kept reading volume on volume: there was no 
biography, but some vague ghost of a biography, white, stain- 
less; without feature or substance; vacuum, as we say, and 
wind and shadow, — which indeed the material of it was. 

No man lives without jostling and being jostled ; in all ways 
he has to elbow himself through the world, giving and receiv- 
ing offence. His life is a battle, in so far as it is an entity 
at all. The very oyster, we suppose, comes in collision with 
oysters: undoubtedly enough it does come in collision with 
Necessity and Difficulty; and helps itself through, not as a 
perfect ideal oyster, but as an imperfect real one. Some 
kind of remorse must be known to the oyster; certain 
hatreds, certain pusillanimities. But as for man, his conflict 
is continual with the spirit of contradiction, that is without 
and within; with the evil spirit (or call it, with the weak, 
most necessitous, pitiable spirit), that is in others and in 
himself. His walk, like all walking (say the mechanicians), 
is a series of falls. To paint man's life is to represent these 
things. Let them be represented, fitly, with dignity and 
measure ; but above all, let them be represented. No tragedy 
of Hamlet with the part of Hamlet omitted by particular 
desire! No ghost of a biography, let the Damocles' sword 
of Respectability (which, after all, is but a pasteboard one) 
threaten as it will. One hopes that the public taste is much 
mended in this matter ; that vacuum-biographies, with a good 
many other vacuities related to them, are withdrawn or with- 
drawing into vacuum. Probably it was Mr. Lockhart's feel- 
ing of what the great public would approve, that led him, 
open-eyed, into this offence against the small criticising pub- 
lic: we joyfully accept the omen. 

Perhaps then, of all the praises copiously bestowed on his 
iWork, there is none in reality so creditable to him as this 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 417 

same censure, which has also been pretty copious. It is a 
censure better than a good many praises. He is found guilty 
of having said this and that, calculated not to be entirely 
pleasant to this man and that; in other words, calculated to 
give him and the thing he worked in a living set of features, 
not leave him vague, in the white beatified-ghost condition. 
Several men, as we hear, cry out, " See, there is something 
written not entirely pleasant to me ! " Good friend, it is 
pity; but who can help it? They that will crowd about bon- 
fires may, sometimes very fairly, get their beards singed; 
it is the price they pay for such illumination ; natural twilight 
is safe and free to all. For our part, we hope all manner 
of biographies that are written in England will henceforth 
be written so. If it is fit that they be written otherwise, then 
it is still fitter that they be not written at all : to produce not 
things but ghosts of things can never be the duty of man. 

The biographer has this problem set before him: to de- 
lineate a likeness of the earthly pilgrimage of a man. He 
will compute well what profit is in it, and what disprofit; 
under which latter head this of offending any of his fellow- 
creatures will surely not be forgotten. Nay, this may so 
swell the disprofit side of his account, that many an enter- 
prise of biography, otherwise promising, shall require to be 
renounced. But once taken up, the rule before all rules is to 
do it, not to do the ghost of it. In speaking of the man and 
men he has to deal with, he will of course keep all his chari- 
ties about him; but all his eyes open. Far be it from him 
to set dov/n aught untrue; nay, not to abstain from, and 
leave in oblivion much that is true. But having found a 
thing or things essential for his subject, and well computed 
the for and against, he will in very deed set down such thing 
or things, nothing doubting, — having, we may say,, the fear of 
God before his eyes, and no other fear whatever. Censure 
the biographer's prudence; dissent from the computation he 
made, or agree with it ; be all malice of his, be all falsehood, 
nay, be all offensive avoidable inaccuracy, condemned and 
consumed; but know that by this plan only, executed as was 
possible, could the biographer hope to make a biography; 
and blame him not that he did what it had been the worst 
fault not to do. 

Vol. 25—14 HC 



418 THOMAS CARLYLE 

As to the accuracy or error of these statements about the 
Ballantynes and other persons aggrieved, which are questions 
much mooted at present in some places, we know nothing at 
all. If they are inaccurate, let them be corrected; if the 
inaccuracy was avoidable, let the author bear rebuke and 
punishment for it. We can only say, these things carry no 
look of inaccuracy on the face of them; neither is anywhere 
the smallest trace of ill-will or unjust feeling discernible. 
Decidedly the probabilities are, and till better evidence arise, 
the fair conclusion is, that this matter stands very much as it 
ought to do. Let the clatter of censure, therefore, propagate 
itself as far as it can. For Mr. Lockhart it virtually amounts 
to this very considerable praise, that, standing full in the face 
of the public, he has set at naught, and been among the first 
to do it, a public piece of cant; one of the commonest we 
have, and closely allied to many others of the fellest sort, as 
smooth as it looks. 

The other censure, of Scott being made unheroic, springs 
from the same stem; and is, perhaps, a still more wonderful 
flower of it. Your true hero must have no features, but be 
white, stainless, an impersonal ghost-hero ! But connected 
with this, there is a hypothesis now current, due probably to 
some man of name, for its own force would not carry it far : 
That Mr. Lockhart at heart has a dislike to Scott, and has 
done his best in an underhand treacherous manner to dis- 
hero him! Such hypothesis is actually current: he that has 
ears may hear it now and then. On which astonishing 
hypothesis, if a word must be said, it can only be an apology 
for silence, — " That there are things at which one stands 
struck silent, as at first sight of the Infinite.'' For if Mr. 
Lockhart is fairly chargeable with any radical defect, if on 
any side his insight entirely fails him, it seems even to be in 
this: that Scott is altogether lovely to him; that Scotfs 
greatness spreads out for him on all hands beyond reach of 
eye ; that his very faults become beautiful, his vulgar worldli- 
nesses are solid prudences, proprieties ; and of his worth there 
is no measure. Does not the patient Biographer dwell on his 
Abbots, Pirates, and hasty theatrical scene-paintings; affec- 
tionately analysing them, as if they were Raphael-pictures^ 
time-defying Hamlets, Othellosf The Novel-manufactory, 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 419 

With its 15,000/. a-year, is sacred to him as creation of a 
genius, which carries the noble victor up to Heaven, Scott 
is to Lockhart the unparalleled of the time; an object 
spreading-out before him like a sea without shore. Of that 
astonishing hypothesis, let expressive silence be the only 
answer. 

And so in sum, with regard to Lockhart's Life of Scott, 
readers that believe in us shall read it with the feeling that a 
man of talent, decision and insight wrote it ; wrote it in seven 
volumes, not in one, because the public would pay for it bet- 
ter in that state; but wrote it with courage, with frankness, 
sincerity; on the whole, in a very readable, recommendable 
manner, as things go. Whosoever needs it can purchase it, 
or purchase the loan of it, with assurance more than usual 
that he has ware for his money. And now enough of the 
written Life; we will glance a little at the man and his 
acted life. 

Into the question whether Scott was a great man or not, 
we do not propose to enter deeply. It is, as too usual, a 
question about words. There can be no doubt but many men 
have been named and printed great who were vastly smaller 
than he : as little doubt moreover that of the specially good, 
a very large portion, according to any genuine standard of 
man's worth, were worthless in comparison to him. He for 
whom Scott is great may most innocently name him so ; may 
with advantage admire his great qualities, and ought with 
sincere heart to emulate them. At the same time, it is good 
that there be a certain degree of precision in our epithets. 
It is good to understand, for one thing, that no popularity, 
and open-mouthed wonder of all the world, continued even 
for a long series of years, can make a man great. Such pop- 
ularity is a remarkable fortune; indicates a great adaptation 
of the man to his element of circumstances ; but may or may 
not indicate anything great in the man. To our imagination, 
as above hinted, there is a certain apotheosis in it ; but in the 
reality no apotheosis at all. Popularity is as a blaze of 
illumination, or alas, of conflagration, kindled round a man; 
showing what is in him; not putting the smallest item more 
into him; often abstracting much from him; conflagrating 



420 THOMAS CARLYLE 

the poor man himself into ashes and caput mortuum! And 
then, by the nature of it, such popularity is transient; your 
* series of years,' quite unexpectedly, sometimes almost all on 
a sudden, terminates ! For the stupidity of men, especially 
of men congregated in masses round any object, is extreme. 
What illuminations and conflagrations have kindled them- 
selves, as if new heavenly suns had risen, which proved only 
to be tar-barrels and terrestrial locks of straw ! Profane 
Princesses cried out, " One God, one Farinelli ! " — and 
whither now have they and Farinelli danced? 

In Literature too there have been seen popularities greater 
even than Scott's, and nothing perennial in the interior of 
them. Lope de Vega, whom all the world swore by, and 
made a proverb of; who could make an acceptable five-act 
tragedy in almost as many hours ; the greatest of all populari- 
ties past or present, and perhaps one of the greatest men 
that ever ranked among popularities. Lope himself, so 
radiant, far-shining, has not proved to be a sun or star of the 
firmament; but is as good as lost and gone out; or plays at 
best in the eyes of some few as a vague aurora-borealis, and 
brilliant ineft'ectuality. The great man of Spain sat obscure 
at the time, all dark and poor, a maimed soldier ; writing his 
Don Quixote in prison. And Lope's fate withal was sad, his 
popularity perhaps a curse to him ; for in this man there was 
something ethereal too, a divine particle traceable in few 
other popular men; and such far-sliming diffusion of himself, 
though all the world swore by it, would do nothing for the 
true life of him even while he lived: he had to creep into a 
convent, into a monk's cowl, and learn, with infinite sorrow, 
that his blessedness had lain elsewhere; that when a man's 
life feels itself to be sick and an error, no voting of by- 
standers can make it well and a truth again. 

Or coming down to our own times, was not August Kot- 
zebue popular? Kotzebue, not so many years since, saw 
himself, if rumour and hand-clapping could be credited, the 
greatest man going ; saw visibly his Thoughts, dressed-out in 
plush and pasteboard, permeating and perambulating civilised 
Europe; the most iron visages weeping with him, in all 
theatres from Cadiz to Kamtchatka; his own 'astonishing 
genius ' meanwhile producing two tragedies or so per month : 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 421 

he, on the whole, blazed high enough: he too has gone out 
into Night and Orcus, and already is not. We will omit this 
of popularity altogether; and account it as making simply 
nothing towards Scott's greatness or non-greatness, as an 
accident, not a quality. 

Shorn of this falsifying nimbus, and reduced to his own 
natural dimensions, there remains the reality, Walter Scott, 
and what we can find in him: to be accounted great, or not 
great, according to the dialects of men. Friends to precision 
of epithet will probably deny his title to the name 'great.' 
It seems to us there goes other stuff to the making of great 
men than can be detected here. One knows not what idea 
worthy of the name of great, what purpose, instinct or ten- 
dency, that could be called great, Scott ever was inspired with. 
His life was worldly ; his ambitions were worldly. There is 
nothing spiritual in him; all is economical, material, of the 
earth earthy. A love of picturesque, of beautiful, vigorous 
and graceful things; a genuine love, yet not more genuine 
than has dwelt in hundreds of men named minor poets : this is 
the highest quality to be discerned in him. 

His power of representing these things, too, his poetic 
power, like his moral power, was a genius in extenso, as we 
may say, not in intense. In action, in speculation, broad as 
he was, he rose nowhere high; productive without measure 
as to quantity, in quality he for the most part transcended 
but a little way the region of commonplace. It has been 
said, * no man has written as many volumes with so few 
sentences that can be quoted.' Winged words were not his 
vocation; nothing urged him that way: the great Mystery 
of Existence was not great to him; did not drive him into 
rocky solitudes to wrestle with it for an answer, to be an- 
swered or to perish. He had nothing of the martyr ; into no 
* dark region to slay monsters for us,' did he, either led or 
driven, venture down : his conquests were for his own behoof 
mainly, conquests over common market-labour, and reckon- 
able in good metallic coin of the realm. The thing he had 
faith in, except power, power of what sort soever, and even 
of the rudest sort, would be difficult to point out. One sees 
not that he believed in anything; nay, he did not even dis- 
believe ; but quietly acquiesced, and made himself at home in 



422 THOMAS CARLYLE 

a world of conventionalities ; the false, the semi-false and the 
true were alike true in this, that they were there, and had 
power in their hands more or less. It was well to feel so; 
and yet not well ! We find it written, * Woe to them that 
are at ease in Zion ' ; but surely it is a double woe to them 
that are at ease in Babel, in Domdaniel. On the other hand, 
he wrote many volumes, amusing many thousands of men. 
Shall we call this great? It seems to us there dwells and 
struggles another sort of spirit in the inward parts of great 
men ! 

Brother Ringletub, the missionary, inquired of Ram-Dass, 
a Hindoo man-god, who had set up for godhood lately. What 
he meant to do, then, with the sins of mankind? To which 
Ram-Dass at once answered, He had fire enough in his belly 
to burn-up all the sins in the world. Ram-Dass was right 
so far, and had a spice of sense in him; for surely it is the 
test of every divine man this same, and without it he is not 
divine or great, — that he have fire in him to burn-up some- 
what of the sins of the world, of the miseries and errors of 
the world : why else is he there ? Far be it from us to say that 
a great man must needs, with benevolence prepense, become 
a ' friend of humanity ' ; nay, that such professional self- 
conscious friends of humanity are not the fatalest kind of 
persons to be met with in our day. All greatness is uncon- 
scious, or it is little and nought. And yet a great man without 
such fire in him, burning dim or developed, as a divine behest 
in his heart of hearts, never resting till it be fulfilled, were a 
solecism in Nature. A great man is ever, as the Transcen- 
dentalists speak, possessed with an idea. 

Napoleon himself, not the superfinest of great men, and 
ballasted sufficiently with prudences and egoisms, had never- 
theless, as is clear enough, an idea to start with: the idea 
that Democracy was the Cause of Man, the right and infinite 
Cause. Accordingly he made himself ' the armed Soldier of 
Democracy ' ; and did vindicate it in a rather great manner. 
Nay, to the very last, he had a kind of idea ; that, namely, of 
' La carriere onverte aux talens. The tools to him that can 
handle them ' ; really one of the best ideas yet promulgated 
on that matter, or rather the one true central idea, towards 
which all the others, if they tend anywhither, must tend. 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 423 

XJnhappily it was in the military province only that Napoleon 
could realise this idea of his, being forced to fight for himself 
the while: before he got it tried to any extent in the civil 
province of things, his head by much victory grew light (no 
head can stand more than its quantity) ; and he lost head, as 
they say, and became a selfish ambitionist and quack, and 
was hurled out; leaving his idea to be realised, in the civil 
province of things, by others ! Thus was Napoleon ; thus are 
all great men : children of the idea ; or, in Ram-Dass's phrase- 
ology, furnished with fire to burn-up the miseries of men. 
Conscious or unconscious, latent or unfolded, there is small 
vestige of any such fire being extant in the inner-man of 
Scott. 

Yet on the other hand, the surliest critic must allow that 
Scott was a genuine man, which itself is a great matter. 
No affectation, fantasticality or distortion dwelt in him; no 
shadow of cant. Nay, withal, was he not a right brave and 
strong man, according to his kind? What a load of toil, 
what a measure of felicity, he quietly bore along with him; 
with what quiet strength he both worked on this earth, and 
enjoyed in it; invincible to evil fortune and to good! A 
most composed, invincible man; in difficulty and distress 
knowing no discouragement, Samson-like carrying off on his 
strong Samson-shoulders the gates that would imprison him: 
in danger and menace laughing at the whisper of fear. And 
then, with such a sunny current of true humour and human- 
ity, a free joyful sympathy with so many things; what of 
fire he had all lying so beautifully latent, as radical latent 
heat, as fruitful internal warmth of life; a most robust, 
healthy man ! The truth is, our best definition of Scott were 
perhaps even this, that he was, if no great man, then some- 
thing much pleasanter to be, a robust, thoroughly healthy and 
withal very prosperous and victorious man. An eminently 
well-conditioned man, healthy in body, healthy in soul; we 
will call him one of the healthiest of men. 

Neither is this a small matter: health is a great matter, 
both to the possessor of it and to others. On the whole, that 
humorist in the Moral Essay was not so far out, who deter- 
mined on honouring health only ; and so instead of humbling 
himself to the high-born, to the rich and well-dressed, in- 



424 THOMAS CARLYLE 

sisted on doffing hat to the healthy : coroneted carriages with 
pale faces in them passed by as failures, miserable and 
lamentable; trucks with ruddy-cheeked strength dragging at 
them were greeted as successful and venerable. For does 
not health mean harmony, the synonym of all that is true, 
justly-ordered, good; is it not, in some sense, the net-total, as 
shown by experiment, of whatever worth is in us? The 
healthy man is the most meritorious product of Nature so far 
as he goes. A healthy body is good; but a soul in right 
health, — it is the thing beyond all others to be prayed for ; the 
blessedest thing this earth receives of Heaven. Without 
artificial medicament of philosophy, or tight-lacing of creeds 
(always very questionable), the healthy soul discerns what is 
good, and adheres to it, and retains it ; discerns what is bad, 
and spontaneously casts it off. An instinct from Nature her- 
self, like that which guides the wild animals of the forest to 
their food, shows him what he shall do, what he shall abstain 
from. The false and foreign will not adhere to him; cant 
and all fantastic diseased incrustations are impossible; — as 
Walker the Original, in such eminence of health was he for 
his part, could not, by much abstinence from soap-and-water, 
attain to a dirty face ! This thing thou canst work with and 
profit by, this thing is substantial and worthy; that other 
thing thou canst not work with, it is trivial and inapt: so 
speaks unerringly the inward monition of the man's whole 
nature. No need of logic to prove the most argumentative 
absurdity absurd; as Goethe says of himself, * all this ran 
down from me like water from a man in wax-cloth dress.' 
Blessed is the healthy nature; it is the coherent, sweetly 
cooperative, not incoherent, self-distracting, self-destructive 
one! In the harmonious adjustment and play of all the 
faculties, the just balance of oneself gives a just feeling 
towards all men and all things. Glad light from within ra- 
diates outwards, and enlightens and embellishes. 

Now all this can be predicated of Walter Scott, and of 
no British literary man that we remember in these days, 
to any such extent, — if it be not perhaps of one, the most 
opposite imaginable to Scott, but his equal in this quality 
and what holds of it: William Cobbett! Nay, there are 
other similarities, widely different as they two look; nor be 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 425 

the comparison disparaging to Scott: for Cobbett also, ^s 
the pattern John Bull of his century, strong as the rhinoc- 
eros, and with singular humanities and genialities shining 
through his thick skin, is a most brave phenomenon. So 
bounteous was Nature to us; in the sickliest of recorded 
ages, when British Literature lay all puking and sprawling 
in Werterism, Byronism, and other Sentimentalism tearful 
or spasmodic (fruit of internal wind). Nature was kind 
enough to send us two healthy Men, of whom she might 
still say, not without pride, " These also were made in 
England ; such limbs do I still make there ! " It is one of 
the cheerfulest sights, let the question of its greatness be 
settlea as you will. A 'healthy nature may or may not be 
great; but there is no great nature that is not healthy. 

Or, on the whole, might we not say, Scott, in the new 
vesture of the nineteenth century, was intrinsically very 
much the old fighting Borderer of prior centuries; the kind 
of man Nature did of old make in that birthland of his? In 
the saddle, with the foray-spear, he would have acquitted 
himself as he did at the desk with his pen. One fancies 
how, in stout Beardie of Harden's time, he could have played 
Beardie's part; and been the stalwart buff-belted terrcB filius 
he in this late time could only delight to draw. The same 
stout self-help was in him; the same oak and triple brass 
round his heart. He too could have fought at Redswire, 
cracking crowns with the fiercest, if that had been the task; 
could have harried cattle in Tynedale, repaying injury with 
compound interest; a right sufficient captain of men. A man 
without qualms or fantasticalities; a hard-headed, sound- 
hearted man, of joyous robust temper, looking to the main 
chance, and fighting direct thitherward; valde stalwartus 
homo! — How much in that case had slumbered in him, and 
passed away without sign ! But indeed who knows how 
much slumbers in many men? Perhaps our greatest poets 
are the mute Miltons; the vocals are those whom by happy 
accident we lay hold of, one here, one there, as it chances, 
and make vocal. It is even a question, whether, had not 
want, discomfort and distress-warrants been busy at Strat- 
ford-on-Avon, Shakspeare himself had not lived killing 
calves or combing wool! Had the Edial Boarding-school 



426 THOMAS CARLYLE 

turned out well, we had never heard of Samuel Johnson; 
Samuel Johnson had been a fat schoolmaster and dogmatic 
gerundgrinder, and never known that he was more. Nature 
is rich: those two eggs thou art eating carelessly to break- 
fast, could they not have been hatched into a pair of fowls, 
and have covered the whole world with poultry ? 

But it was not harrying of cattle in Tynedale, or cracking 
of crowns at Redswire, that this stout Border-chief was 
appointed to perform. Far other work. To be the song- 
singer and pleasant tale-teller to Britain and Europe, in the 
beginning of the artificial nineteenth century; here, and not 
there, lay his business. Beardie of Harden would have found 
it very amazing. How he shapes himself to this new ele- 
ment; how he helps himself along in it, makes it to do for 
him, lives sound and victorious in it, and leads over the 
marches such a spoil as all the cattle-droves the Hardens 
ever took were poor in comparison to; this is the history of 
the life and achievements of our Sir Walter Scott, Baronet; 
— whereat we are now to glance for a little! It is a thing 
remarkable; a thing substantial; of joyful, victorious sort; 
not unworthy to be glanced at. Withal,, however, a glance 
here and there will suffice. Our limits are narrow; the 
thing, were it never so victorious, is not of the sublime sort, 
nor extremely edifying; there is nothing in it to censure 
vehemently, nor love vehemently; there is more to wonder 
at than admire; and the whole secret is not an abstruse 
one. 

Till towards the age of thirty, Scott's life has nothing in 
it decisively pointing towards Literature, or indeed towards 
distinction of any kind; he is wedded, settled, and has gone 
through all his preliminary steps, without symptom of re- 
nown as yet. It is the life of every other Edinburgh youth 
of his station and time. Fortunate we must name it, in many 
ways. Parents in easy or wealthy circumstances, yet unen- 
cumbered with the cares and perversions of aristocracy; 
nothing eminent in place, in faculty or culture, yet nothing 
deficient; all around is methodic regulation, prudence, pros- 
perity, kindheartedness ; an element of warmth and light, of 
affection, industry, and burgherly comfort, heightened into 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 427 

elegance; in which the young heart can wholesomely grow. 
A vigorous health seems to have been given by Nature ; yet, 
as if Nature had said withal, " Let it be a health to express 
itself by mind, not by body,'' a lameness is added in child- 
hood; the brave little boy, instead of romping and bickering, 
must learn to think ; or at lowest, what is a great matter, to 
sit still. No rackets and trundling-hoops for this young 
Walter; but ballads, history-books and a world of legendary 
stuff, which his mother and those near him are copiously 
able to furnish. Disease, which is but superficial, and issues 
in outward lameness, does not cloud the young existence; 
rather forwards it towards the expansion it is fitted for. The 
miserable disease had been one of the internal nobler parts, 
marring the general organisation; under which no Walter 
Scott could have been forwarded, or with all his other en- 
dowments could have been producible or possible. * Nature 
gives healthy children much ; how much ! Wise education 
is a wise unfolding of this; often it unfolds itself better of 
its own accord.' 

Add one other circumstance: the place where; namely, 
Presbyterian Scotland. The influences of this are felt inces- 
santly, they stream-in at every pore. * There is a country 
accent,' says La Rochefoucauld, ' not in speech only, but in 
thought, conduct, character and manner of existing, which 
never forsakes a man.' Scott, we believe, was all his days 
an Episcopalian Dissenter in Scotland; but that makes little 
to the matter. Nobody who knows Scotland and Scott can 
doubt but Presbyterianism too had a vast share in the form- 
ing of him. A country where the entire people is, or even 
once has been, laid hold of, filled to the heart with an infinite 
religious idea, has ' made a step from which it cannot retro- 
grade.' Thought, conscience, the sense that man is denizen 
of a Universe, creature of an Eternity, has penetrated to 
the remotest cottage, to the simplest heart. Beautiful and 
awful, the feeling of a Heavenly Behest, of Duty god-com- 
manded, over-canopies all life. There is an inspiration in 
such a people : one may say in a more special sense, ' the 
inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding.' 
Honour to all the brave and true; everlasting honour to 
brave old Knox, one of the truest of the true ! That, in the 



428 THOMAS CARLYLE 

moment while he and his cause, amid civil broils, in convul- 
sion and confusion, were still but struggling for life, he sent 
the schoolmaster forth to all corners, and said, " Let the 
people be taught " ; this is but one, and indeed an inevitable 
and comparatively inconsiderable item in his great message 
to men. His message, in its true compass, was, " Let men 
know that they are men ; created by God, responsible to God ; 
who work in any meanest moment of time what will last 
throughout eternity." It is verily a great message. Not 
ploughing and hammering machines, not patent-digesters 
(never so ornamental) to digest the produce of these: no, in 
no wise; born slaves neither of their fellow-men, nor of 
their own appetites ; but men ! This great message Knox 
did deliver, with a man's voice and strength; and found a 
people to believe him. 

Of such an achievement, we say, were it to be made once 
only, the results are immense. Thought, in such a country, 
may change its form, but cannot go out; the country has 
attained majority; thought, and a certain spiritual manhood, 
ready for all work that man can do, endures there. It may 
take many forms: the form of hard-fisted money-getting 
industry, as in the vulgar Scotchman, in the vulgar New 
Englander; but as compact developed force and alertness of 
faculty, it is still there; it may utter itself one day as the 
colossal Scepticism of a Hume (beneficent this too though 
painful, wrestling Titan-like through doubt and inquiry 
towards new belief) ; and again, some better day, it may 
utter itself as the inspired Melody of a Burns : in a word, it 
is there, and continues to manifest itself, in the Voice and 
the Work of a Nation of hardy endeavouring considering 
men, with whatever that may bear in it, or unfold from it. 
The Scotch national character originates in many circum- 
stances; first of all, in the Saxon stuff there was to work on; 
but next, and beyond all else except that, in the Presbyterian 
Gospel of John Knox. It seems a good national character; 
and on some sides not so good. Let Scott thank John Knox, 
for he owed him much, little as he dreamed of debt in that 
quarter ! No Scotchman of his time was more entirely 
Scotch than Walter Scott: the good and the not so good, 
which all Scotchmen inherit, ran through every fibre of him. 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 429 

Scott's childhood, school-days, college-days, are pleasant 
to read of, though they differ not from those of others in his 
place and time. The memory of him may probably enough 
last till this record of them become far more curious than it 
now is. " So lived an Edinburgh Writer to the Signet's son 
in the end of the eighteenth century," may some future 
Scotch novelist say to himself in the end of the tw^enty-first ! 
The following little fragment of infancy is all we can ex- 
tract. It is from an Autobiography which he had begun, 
which one cannot but regret he did not finish. Scott's best 
qualities never shone out more freely than when he went 
upon anecdote and reminiscence. Such a master of narra- 
tive and of himself could have done personal narrative well. 
Here, if anywhere, his knowledge was complete, and all his 
humour and good-humour had free scope: 

* An odd incident is worth recording. It seems, my mother had 
sent a maid to take charge of me, at this farm of Sandy-Knowe, that 
I might be no inconvenience to the family. But the damsel sent on 
that important mission had left her heart behind her, in the keeping 
of some wild fellow, it is likely, who had done and said more to her 
than he was like to make good. She became extremely desirous to 
return to Edinburgh ; and, as my mother made a point of her re- 
maining where she was, she contracted a sort of hatred at poor me, as 
the cause of her being detained at Sandy-Knowe. This rose, I sup- 
pose, to a sort of delirious affection ; for she confessed to old Alison 
Wilson, the housekeeper, that she had carried me up to the craigs 
under a strong temptation of the Devil to cut my throat with her 
scissors, and bury me in the moss. Alison instantly took possession 
of my person, and took care that her confidant should not be sub- 
ject to any farther temptation, at least so far as I was concerned. 
She was dismissed of course, and I have heard afterwards became a 
lunatic. 

* It is here, at Sandy-Knowe, in the residence of my paternal 
grandfather, already mentioned, that I have the first consciousness 
of existence ; and I recollect distinctly that my situation and ap- 
pearance were a little whimsical. Among the odd remedies recurred 
to, to aid my lameness, some one had recommended that so often as a 
sheep was killed for the use of the family, I should be stripped, and 
swathed-up in the skin warm as it was flayed from the carcass of 
the animal. In this Tartar-like habiliment I well remember lying 
upon the floor of the little parlour in the farmhouse, while my grand- 
father, a venerable old man with white hair, used every excitement 
to make me try to crawl. I also distinctly remember the late Sir 
George M'Dougal of Mackerstown, father of the present Sir Henry 
Hay M'Dougal, joining in the attempt. He was, God knows how, a 
relation of ours; and I still recollect him, in his old-fashioned mill- 



430 THOMAS CARLYLE 

tary habit (he had been Colonel of the Greys), with a small cocked- 
hat deeply laced, an embroidered scarlet waistcoat, and a light-col- 
oured coat, with milk-white locks tied in a military fashion, kneeling 
on the ground before me, and dragging his watch along the carpet 
to induce me to follow it. The benevolent old soldier, and the infant 
wrapped in his sheepskin, would have afforded an odd group to 
uninterested spectators. This must have happened about my third 
year (1774), for Sir George M'Dougal and my grandfather both died 
shortly after that period.'^ 

We will glance next into the ' Liddesdale Raids! Scott 
has grown-up to be a brisk-hearted jovial young man and 
Advocate: in vacation-time he makes excursions to the 
Highlands, to the Border Cheviots and Northumberland; 
rides free and far, on his stout galloway, through bog and 
brake, over the dim moory Debatable Land, — over Flodden 
and other fields and places, where, though he yet knew it 
not, his work lay. No land, however dim and moory, but 
either has had or will have its poet, and so become not un- 
known in song. Liddesdale, which was once as prosaic as 
most dales, having now attained illustration, let us glance 
thitherward : Liddesdale too is on this ancient Earth of ours, 
under this eternal Sky; and gives and takes, in the most 
incalculable manner, with the Universe at large ! Scott's 
experiences there are rather of the rustic Arcadian sort; the 
element of whisky not wanting. We should premise that 
here and there a feature has, perhaps, been aggravated for 
effect's sake: 

* During seven successive years,* writes Mr. Lockhart (for the 
Autobiography has long since left us), * Scott made a raid, as he 
called it, into Liddesdale with Mr. Shortreed, sheriff -substitute of 
Roxburgh, for his guide; exploring every rivulet to its source, and 
every ruined peel from foundation to battlement. At this time no 
wheeled carriage had ever been seen in the district; — the first, 
indeed, was a gig, driven by Scott himself for a part of his way, 
when on the last of these seven excursions. There was no inn nor 
publichouse of any kind in the whole valley ; the travellers passed 
from the shepherd's hut to the minister's manse, and again from the 
cheerful hospitality of the manse to the rough and jolly welcome of 
the homestead; gathering, wherever they went, songs and tunes, and 
occasionally more tangible relics of antiquity, even such a ** rowth 
of auld knicknackets " as Burns ascribes to Captain Grose. To these 
rambles Scott owed much of the materials of his Minstrelsy of the 
Scottish Border; and not less of that intimate acquaintance with 

2 Vol. i. pp. 15-17. 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 431 

the living manners of these unsophisticated regions, which consti- 
tutes the chief charm of one of the most charming of his prose 
works. But how soon he had any definite object before him in his 
researches seems very doubtful. *' He was makin' himsell a' the 
time," said Mr. Shortreed ; " but he didna ken maybe what he was 
about till years had passed : at first he thought o' little, I daresay, but 
the queerness and the fun." 

* " In those days," says the Memorandum before me, ** advocates 
were not so plenty — at least about Liddesdale ; " and the worthy 
Sheriff-substitute goes on to describe the sort of bustle, not unmixed 
with alarm, produced at the first farmhouse they visited (Willie 
Elliot's at Millburnholm), when the honest man was informed of 
the quality of one of his guests. When they dismounted, accord- 
ingly, he received Mr. Scott with great ceremony, and insisted upon 
himself leading his horse to the stable. Shortreed accompanied 
Willie, however ; and the latter, after taking a deliberate peep at 
Scott, ** out-by the edge of the door-cheek,'* whispered, ** Weel, 
Robin, I say, de'il hae me if I's be a bit feared for him now ; he's 
just a chield like ourselves, I think." Half-a-dozen dogs of all 
degrees had already gathered round ** the advocate," and his way 
of returning their compliments had set Willie Elliott at once at 
his ease. 

* According to Mr. Shortreed, this good man of Millburnholm was 
the great original of Dandie Dinmont.' * * * * They dined at Mill- 
burnholm ; and, after having lingered over Willie Elliot's punch- 
IBowl, until, in Mr. Shortreed's phrase, they were " half-glowrin'," 
mounted their steeds again, and proceeded to Dr. Elliot's at Cleugh- 
head, where (" for," says my Memorandum, " folk werena very 
nice in those days ") the two travellers slept in one and the same 
bed, — as, indeed, seems to have been the case with them throughout 
most of their excursions in this primitive district. Dr. Elliot (a 
clergyman) had already a large MS. collection of the ballads Scott 
was in quest of.' * * * * Next morning they seem to have ridden a 
long way for the express purpose of visiting one " auld Thomas 
o' Tuzzilehope," another Elliot, I suppose, who was celebrated for 
his skill on the Border pipe, and in particular for being in pos- 
session of the real lilf of Dick o' the Cowe, Before starting, that 
is, at six o'clock, the ballad-hunters had, "just to lay the stomach, 
a devilled duck or twae and some London porter." Auld Thomas 
found them, nevertheless, well disposed for " breakfast " on their 
arrival at Tuzzilehope ; and this being over, he delighted them with 
one of the most hideous and unearthly of all specimens of " riding 
music," and, moreover, with considerable libations of whisky-punch, 
manufactured in a certain wooden vessel, resembling a very small 
milkpail, which he called " Wisdom," because it " made " only a few 
spoonfuls of spirits, — though he had the art of replenishing it so 
adroitly, that it had been celebrated for fifty years as more fatal to 
sobriety than any bowl in the parish. Having done due honour to 
" Wisdom," they again mounted, and proceeded over moss and moor 

^ Loud tune : German, lallen. 



432 THOMAS CARLYLE 

to some other equally hospitable master of the pipe. "Ah me/* says 
Shortreed, " sic an endless fund o' humour and drollery as he then 
had wi' him ! Never ten yards but we were either laughing or roar- 
ing and singing. Wherever we stopped, how brawlie he suited him- 
sell to everybody ! He aye did as the lave did ; never made himsell 
the great man, or took ony airs in the company. I've seen him in 
a' moods in these jaunts, grave and gay, daft and serious, sober and 
drunk — (this, however, even in our wildest rambles, was rare) — but, 
drunk or sober, he was aye the gentleman. He lookit excessively 
heavy and stupid when he was foUj but he was never out o' gude 
humour." ' 

These are questionable doings, questionably narrated; but 
what shall we say of the following, wherein the element of 
whisky plays an extremely prominent part? We will say 
that it is questionable, and not exemplary, whisky mounting 
clearly beyond its level; that indeed charity hopes and con- 
jectures here may be some aggravating of features for 
effect's sake! 

* On reaching, one evening, some Charlieshope or other (I forget 
the name) among those wildernesses, they found a kindly reception, 
as usual; but, to their agreeable surprise after some days of hard 
living, a measured and orderly hospitality as respected liquor. Soon 
after supper, at which a bottle of elderberry-wine alone had been 
produced, a young student of divinity, who happened to be in the 
house, was called upon to take the " big ha* Bible," in the good old 
fashion of Burns's " Saturday Night " ; and some progress had been 
already made in the service, when the good-man of the farm, whose 
*' tendency," as Mr. Mitchell says, " was soporific,'* scandalised his 
wife and the dominie by starting suddenly from his knees, and, 

rubbing his eyes, with a stentorian exclamation of " By , here's 

the keg at last ! " and in tumbled, as he spoke the word, a couple of 
sturdy herdsmen, whom, on hearing a day before of the advocate's 
approaching visit, he had despatched to a certain smuggler's haunt, 
at some considerable distance, in quest of a supply of run brandy 
from the Solway Frith. The pious " exercise " of the household was 
hopelessly interrupted. With a thousand apologies for his hitherto 
shabby entertainment, this jolly Elliot, or Armstrong, had the wel- 
come keg mounted on the table without a moment's delay ; and gentle 
and simple, not forgetting the dominie, continued carousing about it 
until daylight streamed-in upon the party. Sir Walter Scott seldom 
failed, when I saw him in company with his Liddesdale companion, 
to mimic with infinite humour the sudden outburst of his old host 
on hearing the clatter of horses' feet, which he knew to indicate the 
arrival of the keg — the consternation of the dame — and the rueful 
despair with which the young clergyman closed the book.' * 

* Vol i. pp. I95-I99* 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 433 

From which Liddesdale raids, which we here, like the 
young clergyman, close not without a certain rueful despair, 
let the reader draw what nourishment he can* They evince 
satisfactorily, though in a rude manner, that in those days 
young advocates, and Scott like the rest of them, were alive 
and alert, — ^whisky sometimes preponderating. But let us 
now fancy that the jovial young Advocate has pleaded his 
first cause ; has served in yeomanry drills ; been wedded, been 
promoted Sheriff, without romance in either case; dabbling 
a little the while, under guidance of Monk Lewis, in trans- 
lations from the German, in translation of Goethe's Gots 
with the Iron Hand; — and we have arrived at the threshold 
of the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border^ and the opening of 
a new century. 

Hitherto, therefore, there has been made out, by Nature 
and Circumstance working together, nothing unusually re- 
markable, yet still something very valuable; a stout effectual 
man of thirty, full of broad sagacity and good humour, with 
faculties in him fit for any burden of business, hospitality 
and duty, legal or civic: — with what other faculties in him 
no one could yet say. As indeed, who, after lifelong inspec- 
tion, can say what is in any man? The uttered part of a 
man's life, let us always repeat, bears to the unuttered 
unconscious part a small unknown proportion; he himself 
never knows it, much less do others. Give him room, give 
him impulse; he reaches down to the Infinite with that so 
straitly-imprisoned soul of his; and can do miracles if need 
be! It is one of the comfortablest truths that great men 
abound, though in the unknown state. Nay, as above hinted, 
our greatest, being also by nature our quietest, are perhaps 
those that remain unknown ! Philosopher Fichte took com- 
fort in this belief, when from all pulpits and editorial desks, 
and publications periodical and stationary, he could hear 
nothing but the infinite chattering and twittering of common- 
place become ambitious; and in the infinite stir of motion 
nowhither, and of din which should have been silence, all 
seemed churned into one tempestuous yeasty froth, and the 
stern Fichte almost desired * taxes on knowledge* to allay 
It a little; — he comforted himself, we say, by the unshaken 
belief that Thought did still exist in Germany ; that thinking 



434 THOMAS CARLYLE 

men, each in his own corner, were verily doing their work, 
though in a silent latent manner.^ 

Walter Scott, as a latent Walter, had never amused all 
men for a score of years in the course of centuries and eter- 
nities, or gained and lost several hundred thousand pounds 
sterling by Literature; but he might have been a happy and 
by no means a useless, — nay, who knows at bottom whether 
not a still usefuler Walter ! However, that was not his 
fortune. The Genius of rather a singular age, — an age at 
once destitute of faith and terrified at scepticism, with little 
knowledge of its whereabout, with many sorrows to bear or 
front, and on the whole with a life to lead in these new cir- 
cumstances, — had said to himself: What man shall be the 
temporary comforter, or were it but the spiritual comfit- 
maker, of this my poor singular age, to solace its dead tedium 
and manifold sorrows a little? So had the Genius said, 
looking over all the world, What man ? and found him walk- 
ing the dusty Outer Parliament-house of Edinburgh, with 
his advocate-gown on his back ; and exclaimed. That is he ! 

The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border proved to be a well 
from which flowed one of the broadest rivers. Metrical 
^Romances (which in due time pass into Prose Romances) ; 
the old life of men resuscitated for us: it is a might}^ word! 
Not as dead tradition, but as a palpable presence, the past 
stood before us. There they were, the rugged old fighting 
men; in their doughty simplicity and strength, with their 
heartiness, their healthiness, their stout self-help, in their 
iron basnets, leather jerkins, jack-boots, in their quaintness 
of manner and costume; there as they looked and lived: it 
was like a new-discovered continent in Literature; for the 
new century, a bright El Dorado, — or else some fat beatific 
land of Cockaigne, and Paradise of Donothings. To the 
opening nineteenth century, in its languor and paralysis, 
nothing could have been welcomer. Most unexpected, most 
refreshing and exhilarating ; behold our new El Dorado ; our 
fat beatific Lubberland, where one can enjoy and do nothing ! 
It was the time for such a new Literature; and this Walter 
Scott was the man for it. The Lays, the Marmions, the 
Ladys and Lords of Lake and Isles, followed in quick suc- 

^Fichte, Uber das Wesen des Gelehrten, 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 43S 

cession, with ever-widening profit and praise. How many 
thousands of guineas were paid-down for each new Lay; 
how many thousands of copies (fifty and more sometimes) 
were printed off, then and subsequently; what compliment- 
ing, reviewing, renown and apotheosis there was: all is 
recorded in these Seven Volumes, which will be valuable in 
literary statistics. It is a history, brilliant, remarkable; the 
outlines of which are known to all. The reader shall recall 
it, or conceive it. No blaze in his fancy is likely to mount 
higher than the reality did. 

At this middle period of his life, therefore, Scott, enriched 
with copyrights, with new official incomes and promotions, 
rich in money, rich in repute, presents himself as a man in 
the full career of success. ' Health, wealth, and wit to guide 
them' (as his vernacular Proverb says), all these three are 
his. The field is open for him, and victory there; his own 
faculty, his own self, unshackled, victoriously unfolds itself, 
— the highest blessedness that can befall a man. Wide 
circle of friends, personal loving admirers; warmth of do- 
mestic joys, vouchsafed to all that can true-heartedly nestle 
down among them; light of radiance and renown given only 
to a few : who would not call Scott happy ? But the happiest 
circumstance of all is, as we said above, that Scott had in 
himself a right healthy soul, rendering him little dependent 
on outward circumstances. Things showed themselves to 
him not in distortion or borrowed light or gloom, but as they 
were. Endeavour lay in him and endurance, in due measure ; 
and clear vision of what was to be endeavoured after. Were 
one to preach a Sermon on Health, as really were worth 
doing, Scott ought to be the text. Theories are demonstrably 
true, in the way of logic ; and then in the way of practice 
they prove true or else not true: but here is the grand 
experiment. Do they turn-out well? What boots it that a 
man's creed is the wisest, that his system of principles is the 
superfinest, if, when set to work, the life of him does noth- 
ing but jar, and fret itself into holes? They are untrue in 
that, were it in nothing else, these principles of his; openly 
convicted of untruth; — fit only, shall we say, to be rejected 
as counterfeits, and flung to the dogs ? We say not that ; but 
we do say, that ill-health, of body or of mind, is defeat, is 



436 THOMAS CARLYLE 

battle (in a good or in a bad cause) with bad success; that 
health alone is victory. Let all men, if they can manage it, 
contrive to be healthy ! He who in what cause soever sinks 
into pain and disease, let him take thought of it; let him 
know well that it is not good he has arrived at yet, but 
surely evil, — may, or may not be, on the way towards good. 

Scott's healthiness showed itself decisively in all things, 
and nowhere more decisively than in this : the way in which 
he took his fame; the estimate he from the first formed of 
fame. Money will buy money's worth; but the thing men 
call fame, what is it? A gaudy emblazonry, not good for 
much, — except, indeed, as it too may turn to money. To 
Scott it was a profitable pleasing superfluity, no necessary of 
life. Not necessary, now or ever ! Seemingly without much 
effort, but taught by Nature, and the instinct which instructs 
the sound heart what is good for it and what is not, he felt 
that he could always do without this same emblazonry of 
reputation ; that he ought to put no trust in it ; but be ready 
at any time to see it pass away from him, and to hold on his 
way as before. It is incalculable, as we conjecture, what 
evil he escaped in this manner; what perversions, irritations, 
mean agonies without a name, he lived wholly apart from, 
knew nothing of. Happily before fame arrived, he had 
reached the mature age at which all this was easier to him. 
What a strange Nemesis lurks in the felicities of men ! In 
thy mouth it shall be sweet as honey, in thy belly it shall be 
bitter as gall ! Some weakly-organised individual, we will 
say at the age of five-and-twenty, whose main or whole talent 
rests on some prurient susceptivity, and nothing under it but 
shallowness and vacuum, is clutched hold of by the general 
imagination, is whirled aloft to the giddy height; and taught 
to believe the divine-seeming message that he is a great 
man: such individual seems the luckiest of men: and, alas, 
is he not the unluckiest? Swallow not the Circe-draught, 
O weakly-organised individual; it is fell poison; it will dry 
up the fountains of thy whole existence, and all will grow 
withered and parched; thou shalt be wretched under the 
sun ! 

Is there, for example, a sadder book than that Life of 
Byron by Moore ? To omit mere prurient susceptivities that 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 437 

rest on vacuum, look at poor Byron, who really had much 
substance in him. Sitting there in his self-exile, with a 
proud heart striving to persuade itself that it despises the 
entire created Universe; and far off, in foggy Babylon, let 
any pitifulest whipster draw pen on him, your proud Byron 
writhes in torture, — as if the pitiful whipster were a ma- 
gician, or his pen a galvanic wire struck into the Byron's 
spinal marrow ! Lamentable, despicable, — one had rather be 
a kitten and cry mew! O son of Adam, great or little, 
according as thou art lovable, those thou livest with will 
love thee. Those thou livest not with, is it of moment that 
they have the alphabetic letters of thy name engraved on 
their memory, with some signpost likeness of thee (as like 
as I to Hercules) appended to them? It is not of moment; 
in sober truth, not of any moment at all ! And yet, behold, 
there is no soul now whom thou canst love freely, — from 
one soul only art thou always sure of reverence enough; in 
presence of no soul is it rightly well with thee! How is 
thy world become desert; and thou, for the sake of a little 
babblement of tongues, art poor, bankrupt, insolvent not in 
purse, but in heart and mind ! ' The Golden Calf of self- 
love,' says Jean Paul, 'has grown into a burning Phalaris' 
Bull, to consume its owner and worshipper.' Ambition, the 
desire of shining and outshining, was the beginning of Sin 
in this world. The man of letters who founds upon his 
fame, does he not thereby alone declare himself a follower 
of Lucifer (named Satan^ the Enemy), and member of the 
Satanic school? 

It was in this poetic period that Scott formed his con- 
nexion with the Ballantynes; and embarked, though under 
cover, largely in trade. To those who regard him in the 
heroic light, and will have Vates to signify Prophet as well 
as Poet, this portion of his biography seems somewhat incon- 
gruous. Viewed as it stood in the reality, as he was and as 
it was, the enterprise, since it proved so unfortunate, may be 
called lamentable, but cannot be called unnatural. The 
practical Scott, looking towards practical issues in all things, 
could not but find hard cash one of the most practical. If 
by any means cash could be honestly produced, were it by 



438 -THOMAS CARLYLE 

writing poems, were it by printing them, why not? Great 
things might be done ultimately; great difficulties were at 
once got rid of, — manifold higglings of booksellers, and con- 
tradictions of sinners hereby fell away. A printing and 
bookselling speculation was not so alien for a maker of 
books. Voltaire, who indeed got no copyrights, made much 
money by the war-commissariat, in his time; we believe, by 
the victualling branch of it. St. George himself, they say, 
was a dealer in bacon in Cappadocia. A thrifty man will 
help himself towards his object by such steps as lead to 
it. Station in society, solid power over the good things 
of this world, was Scott's avowed object; towards which 
the precept of precepts is that of lago. Put money in 
thy purse. 

Here, indeed, it is to be remarked, that perhaps no literary 
man of any generation has less value than Scott for the 
immaterial part of his mission in any sense: not only for 
the fantasy called fame, with the fantastic miseries attendant 
thereon; but also for the spiritual purport of his work, 
whether it tended hitherward or thitherward, or had any 
tendency whatever; and indeed for all purports and results 
of his working, except such, we may say, as offered them- 
selves to the eye, and could, in one sense or the other, be 
handled, looked at and buttoned into the breeches-pocket. 
Somewhat too little of a fantast, this Vates of ours ! But so 
it was: in this nineteenth century, our highest literary man, 
who immeasurably beyond all others commanded the world's 
ear, had, as it were, no message whatever to deliver to the 
world ; wished not the world to elevate itself, to amend itself, 
to do this or to do that, except simply pay him for the books 
he kept writing. Very remarkable; fittest, perhaps, for an 
age fallen languid, destitute of faith and terrified at scepti- 
cism ? Or, perhaps, for quite another sort of age, an age all 
in peaceable triumphant motion? Be this as it may, surely 
since Shakspeare's time there has been no great speaker so 
unconscious of an aim in speaking as Walter Scott. Equally 
unconscious these two utterances: equally the sincere com- 
plete products of the minds they came from: and now if 
they were equally deep? Or, if the one was living fire, and 
the other was futile phosphorescence and mere resinous fire- 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 439 

work? It will depend on the relative worth of the minds; 
for both were equally spontaneous, both equally expressed 
themselves unencumbered by an ulterior aim. Beyond 
drawing audiences to the Globe Theatre, Shakspeare con- 
templated no result in those plays of his. Yet they have 
had results! Utter with free heart what thy own dcemon 
gives thee: if fire from heaven, it shall be well; if resinous 
firework, it shall be — as well as it could be, or better than 
otherwise ! 

The candid judge will, in general, require that a speaker, 
in so extremely serious a Universe as this of ours, have 
something to speak about. In the heart of the speaker there 
ought to be some kind of gospel-tidings, burning till it be 
uttered; otherwise it were better for him that he altogether 
held his peace. A gospel somewhat more decisive than this 
of Scott's, — except to an age altogether languid, without 
either scepticism or faith! These things the candid judge 
will demand of literary men; yet withal will recognise the 
great worth there is in Scott's honesty if in nothing more, 
in his being the thing he was with such entire good faith. 
Here is a something, not a nothing. If no skyborn mes- 
senger, heaven looking through his eyes; then neither is 
it a chimera with his systems, crotchets, cants, fanaticisms, 
and ' last infirmity of noble minds/ — full of misery, unrest 
and ill-will; but a substantial, peaceable, terrestrial man. 
Far as the Earth is under the Heaven does Scott stand 
below the former sort of character ; but high as the cheerful 
flowery Earth is above waste Tartarus does he stand above 
the latter. Let him live in his own fashion, and do honour 
to him in that. 

It were late in the day to write criticisms on those Metrical 
Romances: at the same time, we may remark, the great 
popularity they had seems natural enough. In the first 
place, there was the indisputable impress of worth, of 
genuine human force, in them. This, which lies in some 
degree, or is thought to lie, at the bottom of all popularity, 
did to an unusual degree disclose itself in these rhymed 
romances of Scott^s. Pictures were actually painted and 
presented; human emotions conceived and sympathised with. 
Considering what wretched Della-Cruscan and other vamp- 



440 THOMAS CARLYLE 

ing-up of old worn-out tatters was the staple article then, it 
may be granted that Scott's excellence was superior and 
supreme. When a Hayley was the main singer, a Scott 
might well be hailed with warm welcome. Consider whether 
the Loves of the Plants, and even the Loves of the Triangles, 
could be worth the loves and hates of men and women ! 
Scott was as preferable to what he displaced, as the substance 
is to wearisomely repeated shadow of a substance. 

But, in the second place, we may say that the kind of 
worth which Scott manifested was fitted especially for the 
then temper of men. We have called it an age fallen into 
spiritual languor, destitute of belief, yet terrified at Scepti- 
cism; reduced to live a stinted half-life, under strange new 
circumstances. Now vigorous whole-life, this was what of 
all things these delineations offered. The reader was carried 
back to rough strong times, wherein those maladies of ours 
had not yet arisen. Brawny fighters, all cased in buff and 
iron, their hearts too sheathed in oak and triple brass, 
caprioled their huge war-horses, shook their death-doing 
spears; and went forth in the most determined manner, 
nothing doubting. The reader sighed, yet not without a 
reflex solacement: "O, that I too had lived in those times, 
had never known these logic-cobwebs, this doubt, this sickli- 
ness ; and been and felt myself alive among men alive ! " 
Add lastly, that in this new-found poetic world there was no 
call for effort on the reader's part ; what excellence they had, 
exhibited itself at a glance. It was for the reader, not the 
El Dorado only, but a beatific land of Cockaigne and 
Paradise of Donothings ! The reader, what the vast majority 
of readers so long to do, was allowed to lie down at his ease, 
and be ministered to. What the Turkish bathkeeper is said 
to aim at with his frictions, and shampooings, and foment- 
ings, more or less effectually, that the patient in total idle- 
ness may have the delights of activity, — was here to a 
considerable extent realised. The languid imagination fell 
back into its rest; an artist was there who could supply it 
with high-painted scenes, with sequences of stirring action, 
and whisper to it. Be at ease, and let thy tepid element be 
comfortable to thee. * The rude man,' says a critic, ' requires 
only to see something going on. The man of more refine- 



SIR WALTER SCOTT .441 

ment must be made to feel. The man of complete refinement 
must be made to reflect.' 

We named the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border the foun- 
tain from which flowed this great river of Metrical Romances ; 
but according to som.e they can be traced to a still higher, 
obscurer spring ; to Goethe's Got^ von Berlichingen with the 
Iron Hand; of which, as we have seen, Scott in his earlier 
days executed a translation. Dated a good many years ago, 
the following words in a criticism on Goethe are found 
written ; which probably are still new to most readers of this 
Review : 

' The works just mentioned, Gots and Werter, though noble speci- 
mens of youthful talent, are still not so much distinguished by their 
intrinsic merits as by their splendid fortune. It would be difficult to 
name two books which have exercised a deeper influence on the sub- 
sequent literature of Europe than these two performances of a young 
author; his first-fruits, the produce of his twenty-fourth year. 
Werter appeared to seize the hearts of men in all quarters of the 
world, and to utter for them the word which they had long been 
waiting to hear. As usually happens too, this same word, once 
uttered, was soon abundantly repeated; spoken in all dialects, and 
chanted through all notes of the gamut, till the sound of it had" 
grown a weariness rather than a pleasure Sceptical sentimentality, 
view-hunting, love, friendship, suicide and desperation, became the 
staple of literary ware ; and though the epidemic, after a long course 
of years, subsided in Germany, it reappeared with various modifica- 
tions in other countries, and everywhere abundant traces of its good 
and bad effects are still to be discerned. The fortune of Berlichingen 
with the Iron Hand, though less sudden, was by no means less ex- 
alted. In his own country, Gotz, though he now stands solitary and 
childless, became the parent of an innumerable progeny of chivalry 
plays, feudal delineations, and poetico-antiquarian performances ; 
which, though long ago deceased, made noise enough in their day 
and generation : and with ourselves his influence has been perhaps 
still more remarkable. Sir Walter Scott's first literary enterprise 
was a translation of Gotz von Berlichingen: and, if genius could be 
communicated like instruction, we might call this work of Goethe's 
the prime cause of Marmion and the Lady of the Lake, with all that 
has followed from the same creative hand. Truly, a grain of seed 
that has lighted in the right soil ! For if not firmer and fairer, it 
has grown to be taller and broader than any other tree ; and all the 
nations of the earth are still yearly gathering of its fruit.* 

How far Gotz von Berlichingen actually affected Scott's 
literary destination, and whether without it the rhymed 
romances, and then the prose romances of the Author of 



442 THOiMAS CARLYLE 

Waverley, would not have followed as they did, must remain 
a very obscure question; obscure and not important. Of 
the fact, however, there is no doubt, that these two tend- 
encies, which may be named Gotisism and Werterism, cf the 
former of which Scott was representative with us, have 
made, and are still in some quarters making the tour of all 
Europe. In Germany too there was this affectionate half- 
regretful looking-back into the Past; Germany had its buff- 
belted watch-tower period in literature, and had even got 
done with it before Scott began. Then as to Werterism^ had 
not we English our Byron and his genus? No form of 
Werterism in any other country had half the potency; as 
our Scott carried Chivalry Literature to the ends of the 
world, so did our Byron Werterism. France, busy with its 
Revolution and Napoleon, had little leisure at the moment 
for Gotzism or Werterism; but it has had them both since, 
in a shape of its own : witness the whole ' Literature of 
Desperation ' in our own days ; the beggarliest form of 
Werterism yet seen, probably its expiring final form: witness 
also, at the other extremity of the scale, a noble-gifted 
Chateaubriand, Gotz and Werter both in one. — Curious: 
how all Europe is but like a set of parishes of the same 
county; participant of the self-same influences, ever since 
the Crusades, and earlier; — and these glorious wars of ours 
are but like parish-brawls, which begin in mutual igno- 
rance, intoxication and boastful speech ; which end in broken 
windows, damage, waste and bloody noses; and which one 
hopes the general good sense is now in the way towards 
putting down, in some measure! 

But leaving this to be as it can, what it concerned us here 
to remark, was that British Werterism, in the shape of those 
Byron Poems, so potent and poignant, produced on the lan- 
guid appetite of men a mighty effect. This too was a * class 
of feelings deeply important to modern minds; feelings 
which arise from passion incapable of being converted into 
action, which belong to an age as indolent, cultivated and 
unbelieving as our own ' ! The ' languid age without either 
faith or scepticism ' turned towards Byronism with an in- 
terest altogether peculiar: here, if no cure for its miserable 
paralysis and languor, was at least an indignant statement of 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 443 

the misery; an indignant Ernulphus' curse read over it, — 
which all men felt to be something. Half-regretful look- 
ings in the Past gave place, in many quarters, to Ernulphus' 
cursings of the Present. Scott was among the first to per- 
ceive that the day of Metrical Chivalry Romances was de- 
clining. He had held the sovereignty for some half-score of 
years, a comparatively long lease of it; and now the time 
seemed come for dethronement, for abdication: an unpleas- 
ant business; which however he held himself ready, as a 
brave man will, to transact with composure and in silence. 
After all, Poetry was not his staff of life; Poetry had 
already yielded him much money; this at least it would not 
take back from him. Busy always with editing, with com- 
piling, with multiplex official commercial business, and solid 
interests, he beheld the coming change with unmoved eye. 

Resignation he was prepared to exhibit in this matter; — 
and now behold there proved to be no need of resignation. 
Let the Metrical Romance become a Prose one; shake off 
its rhyme-fetters, and try a wider sweep ! In the spring of 
1814 appeared Waverley; an event memorable in the annals 
of British Literature; in the annals of British Bookselling 
thrice and four times memorable. Byron sang, but Scott 
narrated ; and when the song had sung itself out through all 
variations onwards to the Dan Juan one, Scott was still 
found narrating, and carrying the whole world along with 
him. All bygone popularity of chivalry-lays was swallowed 
up in a far greater. What ' series ' followed out of Waver- 
ley, and how and with what result, is known to all men; 
was witnessed and watched with a kind of rapt astonishment 
by all. Hardly any literary reputation ever rose so high in 
our Island ; no reputation at all ever spread so wide. Walter 
Scott became Sir Walter Scott, Baronet, of Abbotsford; on 
whom Fortune seemed to pour her whole cornucopia of 
wealth, honour and worldly goods ; the favourite of Princes 
and of Peasants, and all intermediate men. His ^Waverley 
series,' swift-following one on the other apparently without 
end, was the universal reading; looked for like an annual 
harvest, by all ranks, in all European countries. 

A curious circumstance superadded itself, that the author 
though known was unknown. From the first most people 



444 THOMAS CARLYLE 

suspected, and soon after the first, few intelligent persons 
much doubted, that the Author of Waverley was Walter 
Scott. Yet a certain mystery was still kept up; rather 
piquant to the public; doubtless very pleasant to the author, 
who saw it all; who probably had not to listen, as other 
hapless individuals often had, to this or the other long-drawn 
* clear proof at last,' that the author was not Walter Scott, 
but a certain astonishing Mr. So-and-so; — one of the stand- 
ing miseries of human life in that time. But for the privi- 
leged Author it was like a king travelling incognito. All 
men know that he is a high king, chivalrous Gustaf or 
Kaiser Joseph; but he mingles in their meetings without 
cumber of etiquette or lonesome ceremony, as Chevalier du 
Nord, or Count of Lorraine: he has none of the weariness 
of royalty, and yet all the praise, and the satisfaction of 
hearing it with his own ears. In a word, the Waverley 
Novels circulated and reigned triumphant; to the general 
imagination the * Author of Waverley ' was like some living 
mythological personage, and ranked among the chief won- 
ders of the world. 

How a man lived and demeaned himself in such unwonted 
circumstances, is worth seeing. We would gladly quote from 
Scott's correspondence of this period; but that does not 
much illustrate the matter. His letters, as above stated, are 
never without interest, yet also seldom or never very inter- 
esting. They are full of cheerfulness, of wit and ingenuity; 
but they do not treat of aught intimate; without impeaching 
their sincerity, what is called sincerity, one may say they do 
not, in any case whatever, proceed from the innermost parts 
of the mind. Conventional forms, due consideration of 
your own and your correspondent's pretensions and vani- 
ties, are at no moment left out of view. The epistolary 
stream runs on, lucid, free, gladflowing; but always, as it 
were, parallel to the real substance of the matter, never 
coincident with it. One feels it hollowish under foot. Let- 
ters they are of a most humane man of the world, even 
exemplary in that kind; but with the man of the world 
always visible in them ; — as indeed it was little in Scott's way 
to speak, perhaps even with himself, in any other fashion. 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 445 

We select rather some glimpses of him from Mr. Lockharfs 
record. The first is of dining with Royalty or Prince- 
Regentship itself; an almost official matter: 

* On hearing from Mr. Croker (then Secretary to the Admiralty) 
that Scott was to be in town by the middle of March (1815), the 
Prince said, " Let me know when he comes, and I'll get-up a snug 
little dinner that will suit him ;'* and after he had been presented 
and graciously received at the levee, he was invited to dinner accord- 
ingly, through his excellent friend Mr. Adam (now Lord Chief Com- 
missioner of the Jury Court in Scotland), who at that time held a 
confidential office in the royal household. The Regent had consulted 
with Mr. Adam, also, as to the composition of the party. " Let us 
have," said he, " just a few friends of his own, and the more Scotch 
the better;" and both the Commissioner and Mr. Croker assure me 
that the party was the most interesting and agreeable one in their 
recollection. It comprised, I believe, the Duke of York — the Duke 
of Gordon (then Marquess of Huntly) — the Marquess of Hertford 
(then Lord Yarmouth) — the Earl of Fife — and Scott's early friend. 
Lord Melville. *' The Prince and Scott," says Mr. Croker, ** were 
the two most brilliant story-tellers, in their several ways, that I have 
ever happened to meet; they were both aware of their forte^ and 
both exerted themselves that evening with delightful effect. On 
going home, I really could not decide which of them had shone the 
most. The Regent was enchanted with Scott, as Scott with him ; 
and on all his subsequent visits to London, he was a frequent guest 
at the royal table." The Lord Chief Commissioner remembers that 
the Prince was particularly delighted with the poet's anecdotes of 
the old Scotch judges and lawyers, which his Royal Highness some- 
times capped by ludicrous traits of certain ermine sages of his own 
acquaintance. Scott told, among others, a story, which he was fond 
of telling, of his old friend the Lord Justice-Clerk Braxfield ; and the 
commentary of his Royal Highness on hearing it amused Scott, who 
often mentioned it afterwards. The anecdote is this : Braxfield, 
whenever he went on a particular circuit was in the habit of visiting 
a gentleman of good fortune in the neighbourhood of one of the 
assize towns, and staying at least one night, which, being both of 
them ardent chess-players, they usually concluded with their favourite 
game. One Spring circuit the battle was not decided at daybreak ; so 
the Justice-Clerk said, " Weel, Donald, I must e'en come back this 
gate, and let the game lie ower for the present :" and back he came 
in October, but not to his old friend's hospitable house ; for that 
gentleman had in the interim been apprehended on a capital charge 
(of forgery), and his name stood on the Porteous Roily or list of 
those who were about to be tried under his former guest's auspices. 
The laird was indicted and tried accordingly, and the jury returned 
a verdict of guilty. Braxfield forthwith put on his cocked hat (which 
answers to the black cap in England), and pronounced the sentence 
of the law in the usual terms — " To be hanged by the neck until you 
be dead ; and may the Lord have mercy upon your unhappy soul ! ** 



446 THOMAS CARLYLE 

Having concluded this awful formula in his most sonorous cadence, 
Braxfield, dismounting his formidable beaver, gave a familiar nod to 
his unfortunate acquaintance, and said to him in a sort of chuckling 
whisper, ** And now, Donald my man, I think I've checkmated you 
for ance.'* The Regent laughed heartily at this specimen of Mac- 
queen's brutal humour ; and " I' faith, Walter," said he, *' this old 
big-wig seems to have taken things as coolly as my tyrannical self. 
Don't you remember Tom Moore's description of me at breakfast-*- 

** The table spread with tea and toast, 
Death-warrants and the Morning Post? " 

* Towards midnight the Prince called for " a bumper, with all the 
honours, to the Author of Waverley " ; and looked significantly, as he 
was charging his own glass, to Scott. Scott seemed somewhat puz- 
zled for a moment, but instantly recovering himself, and filling his 
glass to the brim, said, " Your Royal Highness looks as if you 
thought I had some claim to the honours of this toast. I have no 
such pretensions ; but shall take good care that the real Simon Pure 
hears of the high compliment that has now been paid him." He 
then drank-off his claret; and joined with a stentorian voice in the 
cheering, which the Prince himself timed. But before the company 
could resume their seats, his Royal Highness, " Another of the same, 
if you please, to the Author of Marniion, — and now, Walter my man, 
I have checkmated you for ance," The second bumper was followed 
by cheers still more prolonged : and Scott then rose, and returned 
thanks in a short address, which struck the Lord Chief Commissioner 
as *' alike grave and graceful." This story has been circulated in a 
very perverted shape.' * * * * Before he left town he again dined at 
Carlton House, when the party was a still smaller one than before, 
and the merriment if possible still more free. That nothing might 
be wanting, the Prince sang several capital songs/* 

Or take, at a very great interval in many senses, this 
glimpse of another dinner, altogether wwofficially and much 
better described. It is James Ballantyne the printer and 
publisher's dinner, in St. John Street, Canongate, Edin- 
burgh, on the birth-eve of a Waverley Novel: 

* The feast was, to use one of James's own favourite epithets, 
gorgeous; an aldermanic display of turtle and venison, with the 
suitable accompaniments of iced punch, potent ale, and generous 
Madeira. When the cloth was drawn, the burly prseses arose, with 
all he could master of the port of John Kemble, and spouted with a 
sonorous voice the formula of Macbeth, 

" Fill full ! 
I drink to the general joy of the whole table I" 

•Vol. ill. pp. 340-343. 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 447 

This was followed by " the King, God bless him ! " and second came 
— *' Gentlemen, there is another toast which never has been nor shall 
be omitted in this house of mine : I give you the health of Mr. 
Walter Scott, with three times three ! " All honour having been 
done to this health, and Scott having briefly thanked the company, 
with some expressions of warm affection to their host, Mrs. Ballan- 
tyne retired; — the bottles passed round twice or thrice in the usual 
way; and then James rose once more, every vein on his brow dis- 
tended ; his eyes solemnly fixed on vacancy, to propose, not as before 
in his stentorian key, but with " 'bated breath," in the sort of whis- 
per by which a stage-conspirator thrills the gallery, — '' Gentlemen, a 
bumper to the immortal Author of Waverley ! " — ^The uproar of 
cheering, in which Scott made a fashion of joining, was succeeded 
by deep silence; and then Ballantyne proceeded— 

*' In his Lord-Burleigh look, serene and serious, 
A something of imposing and mysterious '* — 

to lament the obscurity, in which his illustrious but too modest cor- 
respondent still chose to conceal himself from the plaudits of the 
world; to thank the company for the manner in which the nominis 
umbra had been received ; and to assure them that the Author of 
Waverley would, when informed of the circumstance, feel highly de- 
lighted — " the proudest hour of his life," etc., etc. The cool, demure 
fun of Scott's features during all this mummery was perfect; and 
Erskine's attempt at a gay nonchalance was still more ludicrously 
meritorious. Aldiborontiphoscophornio, however, bursting as he was, 
knew too well to allow the new Novel to be made the subject of 
discussion. Its name was announced, and success to it crowned an- 
other cup; but after that, no more of Jedediah. To cut the thread, 
he rolled out unbidden some one of his many theatrical songs, in a 
style that would have done no dishonour to almost any orchestra — 
The Maid of Lodi, or perhaps The Bay of Biscay, O I — or The sweet 
little cherub that sits uf. aloft. Other toasts followed, interspersed 
with ditties from other performers ; old George Thomson, the friend 
of Burns, was ready, for one, with The Moorland Wedding, or Willie 
brew'd a peck o' maut ; — and so it went on, until Scott and Erskine, 
with any clerical or very staid personage that had chanced to be 
admitted, saw fit to withdraw. Then the scene was changed. The 
claret and olives made way for broiled bones and a mighty bowl of 
punch ; and when a few glasses of the hot beverage had restored 
his powers, James opened ore rotunda on the merits of the forth- 
coming Romance. ** One chapter — one chapter only ! " was the cry. 
After "^ Nay by'r Lady, nay ! " and a few more coy shifts, the proof- 
sheets were at length produced, and James, with many a prefatory 
** hem,'* read aloud what he considered as the most striking dialogue 
they contained. 

* The first I heard so read was the interview between Jeanie Deans, 

the Duke of Argyle and Queen Caroline, in Richmond Park; and, 

> notwithstanding some spice of the pompous tricks to which he was 



448 THOMAS CARLYLE 

addicted, I must say he did the inimitable scene great justice. At all 
events, the effect it produced was deep and memorable ; and no won- 
der that the exulting typographer's one bumper more to Jedediah 
Cleishhotham preceded his parting-stave, which was uniformly The 
Last Words of Marmion, executed certainly with no contemptible 
rivalry of Braham.*^ 

Over at Abbotsford things wear a still more prosperous 
aspect. Scott is building there, by the pleasant banks of the 
Tweed; he has bought and is buying land there; fast as the 
new gold comes in for a new Waverley Novel, or even 
faster, it changes itself into moory acres, into stone, and 
hewn or planted wood. 

'About the middle of February* (1820), says Mr. Lockhart, 'it 
having been ere that time arranged that I should marry his eldest 
daughter in the course of the spring, — I accompanied him and part 
of his family on one of those flying visits to Abbotsford, with which 
he often indulged himself on a Saturday during term. Upon such 
occasions, Scott appeared at the usual hour in court, but wearing, 
instead of the official suit of black, his country morning-dress, green 
jacket and so forth, under the clerk's gown ' — ' At noon, when the 
Court broke up, Peter Mathieson was sure to be in attendance in 
the Parliament Close ; and, five minutes after, the gown had been 
tossed off; and Scott, rubbing his hands for glee, was under weigh 
for Tweedside. As we proceeded,' etc. 

' Next morning there appeared at breakfast John Ballantyne, who 
had at this time a shooting or hunting-box a few miles off, in the 
vale of the Leader, and with him Mr. Constable, his guest; and it 
being a fine clear day, as soon as Scott had read the church-service 
and one of Jeremy Taylor's sermons, we all sallied out before noon 
on a perambulation of his upland territories ; Maida (the hound) and 
the rest of the favourites accompanying our march. At starting we 
were joined by the constant henchman, Tom Purdie, — and I may 
save myself the trouble of any attempt to describe his appearance, 
for his master has given us an inimitably true one in introducing 
a certain personage of his Red-gauntlet : — " He was, perhaps, sixty 
years old; yet his brow was not much furrowed, and his jet-black 
hair was only grizzled, not whitened, by the advance of age. All his 
motions spoke strength unabated; and, though rather undersized, he 
had very broad shoulders, was square-made, thin-flanked, and ap- 
parently combined in his frame muscular strength and activity ; the 
last somewhat impaired, perhaps, by years, but the first remaining in 
full vigor. A hard and harsh countenance; eyes far sunk under 
projecting eyebrows, which were grizzled like his hair; a wide 
mouth, furnished from ear to ear with a range of unimpaired teeth 
of uncommon whiteness, and a size and breadth which might have 
become the jaws of an ogre, completed this delightful portrait." 

*Vol. iv. pp. 166-168. 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 449 

Equip this figure In Scott's cast-off green jacket, white hat and drab 
trousers; and imagine that years of kind treatment, comfort and the 
honest consequence of a confidential grieve^ had softened away much 
of the hardness and harshness originally impressed on the visage by 
anxious penury, and the sinister habits of a black-fisher ; — and the 
Tom Purdie of 1820 stands before us. 

* We were all delighted to see how completely Scott had recovered 
his bodily vigour, and none more so than Constable, who, as he 
puffed and panted after him, up one ravine and down another, often 
stopped to wipe his forehead, and remarked, that " it was not every 
author who should lead him such a dance." But Purdie's face shone 
with rapture as he observed how severely the swag-bellied book- 
seller's activity was tasked. Scott exclaimed exultingly, though, per- 
haps, for the tenth time, " This will be a glorious spring for our 
trees, Tom ! " — " You may say that, Sheriff," quoth Tom, — and then 
lingering a moment for Constable — " My certy," he added, scratching 
his head, ** and I think it will be a grand season for our hiiiks too.'* 
But indeed Tom always talked of our buiks, as if they had been as 
regular products of the soil as our aits and our birks. Having 
threaded first the Hexilcleugh and then the Rhymer's Glen, we 
arrived at Huntly Burn, where the hospitality of the kind Weird 
Sisters, as Scott called the Miss Fergusons, reanimated our exhausted 
bibliopoles, and gave them courage to extend their walk a little 
farther down the same famous brook. Here there was a small cottage 
in a very sequestered situation' (named Chief swood), * by making 
some little additions to which Scott thought it might be converted 
into a suitable summer residence for his daughter and future son-in- 
law.' ♦ * ♦ * As we walked homeward, Scott being a little fatigued, 
laid his left hand on Tom's shoulder, and leaned heavily for sup- 
port, chatting to his " Sunday pony," as he called the affectionate 
fellow, just as freely as with the rest of the party; and Tom put-in 
his word shrewdly and manfully, and grinned and grunted whenever 
the joke chanced to be within his apprehension. It was easy to see 
that his heart swelled within him from the moment the Sheriff got 
his collar in his gripe.' ' 

That Abbotsford became infested to a great degree with 
tourists, wonder-hunters, and all that fatal species of people, 
may be supposed. Solitary Ettrick saw itself populous: all 
paths were beaten with the feet and hoofs of an endless 
miscellaTiy of pilgrims. As many as * sixteen parties ' have 
arrived at Abbotsford in one day; male and female; peers, 
Socinian preachers, whatsoever was distinguished, whatso- 
ever had love of distinction in it ! Mr. Lockhart thinks 
there was no literary shrine ever so bepilgrimed, except 
Ferney in Voltaire's time, who, however, was not half SQ 

8 Overseer; German, graf, ® Vol. iv. pp. 349-353» 

Vol. 25—15 HO 



450 THOMAS CARLYLE 

accessible. A fatal species ! These are what Schiller calls 
the * flesh-flies ' ; buzzing swarms of bluebottles, who never 
fail where any taint of human glory or other corruptibility 
is in the wind. So has Nature decreed. Scott's healthiness, 
bodily and mental, his massive solidity of character, nowhere 
showed itself more decisively than in his manner of en- 
countering this part of his fate. That his bluebottles were 
blue, and of the usual tone and quality, may be judged. Hear 
Captain Basil Hall (in a very compressed state) : 

* We arrived in good time, and found several other guests at din- 
ner. The public rooms are lighted with oil-gas, in a style of ex- 
traordinary splendour. The ' etc. — * Had I a hundred pens, each of 
which at the same time should separately write down an anecdote, I 
could not hope to record one half of those which our host, to use 
Spenser's expression, *' welled out alway." ' — * Entertained us all the 
way with an endless string of anecdotes ;' — ' came like a stream of 
poetry from his lips;' — * path muddy and scarcely passable, yet I do 
not remember ever to have seen any place so interesting as the skill 
of this mighty magician had rendered this narrow ravine.* — * Im- 
posible to touch on any theme, but straightway he has an anecdote 
to fit it.' — * Thus we strolled along, borne, as it were, on the stream 
of song and story.' — * In the evening we had a great feast indeed. 
Sir Walter asked us if we had ever read Christabel.' — * Interspersed 
with these various readings were some hundreds of stories, some 
quaint, some pathetical.' — >' At breakfast today we had, as usual, some 
150 stories — God knows how they came in.' — * In any man so gifted 
— so qualified to take the loftiest, proudest line at the head of the 
literature, the taste, the imagination of the whole world ! ' — * For 
instance, he never sits at any particular place at table, but takes * 
etc. etc.^° 

Among such worshippers, arriving in 'sixteen parties a- 
day,' an ordinary man might have grown buoyant; have felt 
the god, begun to nod, and seemed to shake the spheres. A 
slightly splenetic man, possessed of Scott's sense, would have 
swept his premises clear of them: Let no blue bottle ap- 
proach here, to disturb a man in his work, — under pain of 
sugared squash (called quassia) and king's yellow ! The 
good Sir Walter, like a quiet brave man, did neither. He let 
the matter take its course; enjoyed what was enjoyable in 
it; endured what could not well be helped; persisted mean- 
while in writing his daily portion of romance-co/>y^ in pre- 
serving his composure of heart; — in a word, accommodated 

^ Vol. V. K>. 375-402. 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 451 

himself to this loud-buzzing environment, and made it serve 
him, as he would have done (perhaps with more ease) to a 
silent, poor and solitary one. No doubt it aftected him too, 
and in the lamentable way fevered his internal life, 
though he kept it well down; but it affected him less than it 
would have done almost any other man. For his guests 
were not all of the bluebottle sort; far from that. Mr. 
Lockhart shall furnish us with the brightest aspect a British 
Ferney ever yielded, or is like to yield : and therewith we will 
quit Abbotsford and the dominant and culminant period of 
Scott's life: 

* It was a clear, bright September morning, with a sharpness in 
the air that doubled the animating influence of the sunshine, and all 
was in readiness for a grand coursing-match on Newark Hill. The 
only guest who had chalked-out other sport for himself was the 
stanchest of anglers, Mr. Rose ; but he too was there on his shelty, 
armed with his salmon-rod and landing-net, and attended by his 
Hinves, and Charlie Purdie, a brother of Tom, in those days the 
most celebrated fisherman of the district. This little group, of 
Waltonians, bound for Lord Somerville's preserve, remained loung- 
ing about, to witness the start of the main cavalcade. Sir Walter, 
mounted on Sibyl, was marshalling the order of procession with a 
huge hunting-whip ; and among a dozen frolicsome youths and maid- 
ens, who seemed disposed to laugh at all discipline, appeared, each 
on horseback, each as eager as the youngest sportsman in the troop, 
Sir Humphry Davy, Dr. Wollaston, and the patriarch of Scottish 
belles-lettres, Henry Mackenzie. The Man of Feeling, however, was 
persuaded with some difficulty to resign his steed for the present to 
his faithful negro follower, and to join Lady Scott in the sociable, 
until we should reach the ground of our battue. Laidlaw, on a 
strong-tailed wiry Highlander, yclept Hoddin Grey, which carried 
him nimbly and stoutly, although his feet almost touched the ground 
as he sat, was the adjutant. But the most picturesque figure was 
the illustrious inventor of the safety-lamp. He had come for his 
favourite sport of angling, and had been practising it successfully 
with Rose, his travelling companion, for two or three days pre- 
ceding this ; but he had not prepared for coursing fields, or had 
left Charlie Purdie's troop for Sir Walter's on a sudden thought, 
and his fisherman's costume — a brown hat with flexible brim, sur- 
rounded with line upon line of catgut, and innumei-able fly-hooks — 
jack-boots worthy of a Dutch smuggler, and a fustian surtout dabbled 
with the blood of salmon, made a fine contrast with the smart 
jackets, white-cord breeches, and well-polished jockey-boots of the 
less distinguished cavaliers about him. Dr. Wollaston was in black ; 
and with his noble serene dignity of countenance might have passed 
for a sporting archbishop. Mr. Mackenzie, at this time in the 76th 
year of his age, with a white hat turned up with green, green spec- 



452 THOMAS CARLYLE 

tacles, green jacket, and long brown leathern gaiters, buttoned upon 
his nether anatomy, wore a dog-whistle round his neck, and had, all 
over, the air of as resolute a devotee as the gay captain of Huntly 
Burn. Tom Purdie and his subalterns had preceded us by a few 
hours with all the greyhounds that could be collected at Abbotsford, 
Darnick, and Melrose ; but the giant Maida had remained as his 
master's orderly, and now gambolled about Sibyl Grey, barking for 
mere joy like a spaniel puppy. 

* The order of march had been all settled, and the sociable was 
just getting under weigh, when the Lady Anne broke from the line, 
screaming with laughter, and exclaimed, " Papa, papa, I knew you 
could never think of going without your pet ! " Scott looked round, 
and I rather think there was a blush as well as a smile upon his 
face, when he perceived a little black pig frisking about his pony, 
and evidently a self-elected addition to the party of the day. He 
tried to look stern, ^nd cracked his whip at the creature, but was in 
a moment obliged to join in the general cheers. Poor piggy soon 
found a strap ' round its neck, and was dragged into the back- 
ground; — Scott, watching the retreat, repeated with mock pathos the 
first verse of an old pastoral song — 

" What will I do gin my hoggie die ? 
My joy, my pride, my hoggie I 
My only beast, I had na mae, 
And wow ! but I was vogie ! " 

«— the cheers were redoubled — and the squadron moved on. 

* This pig had taken, nobody could tell how, a most sentimental 
attachment to Scott, and was constantly urging its pretensions to be 
admitted a regular member of his tail along with the greyhounds and 
terriers : but, indeed, I remember him suffering another summer 
under the same sort of pertinacity on the part of an affectionate 
hen. I leave the explanation for philosophers ; — but such were the 
facts. I have too much respect for the vulgarly calumniated 
donkey, to name him in the same category of pets with the pig and 
the hen ; but a year or two after this time, my wife used to drive 
a couple of these animals in a little garden-chair, and whenever her 
father appeared at the door of our cottage, we were sure to see 
Hannah More and Lady Morgan (as Anne Scott had wickedly 
christened them) trotting from their pasture, to lay their noses over 
the paling, and, as Washington Irving says of the old white-haired 
hedger with the Parisian snuff-box, " to have a pleasant crack wi' 
the laird."" 

^ Vol. v. pp. 7-IO. 

On this subject let us report an anecdote furnished by a correspondent of 
our own, whose accuracy we can depend on : * I myself was acquainted with 
a little Blenheim cocker, one of the smallest, beautifulest and wisest of lap- 
dogs or dogs, which, though Sir Walter knew it not, was very singular in 
its behaviour towards him. Shandy, so hight this remarkable cocker, was 
extremely shy of strangers: promenading on Princes Street, which in fine 
weather used to be crowded in those days, he seemed to live in perpetual 
fear of being stolen; if any one but looked at him admiringly, he would 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 453 

*^ There ' at Chief swood * my wife and I spent this summer and 
autumn of 1821 ; the first of several seasons which will ever dwell 
on my memory as the happiest of my life. We were near enough 
Abbotsford to partake as often as we liked of its brilliant and con- 
stantly varying society ; yet could do so without being exposed to 
the worry and exhaustion of spirit which the daily reception of new- 
comers entailed upon all the family, except Sir Walter himself. 
But, in truth, even he was not always proof against the annoyances 
connected with such a style of open housekeeping. Even his temper 
sank sometimes under the solemn applauses of learned dulness, 
the vapid raptures of painted and periwigged dowagers, the horse- 
leech avidity with which underbred foreigners urged their questions, 
and the pompous simpers of condescending magnates. When sore 
beset at home in this way, he would every now and then discover 
that he had some very particular business to attend to on an out- 
lying part of his estate ; and, craving the indulgence of his guests 
over-night, appear at the cabin in the glen before its inhabitants 
were astir in the morning. The clatter of Sibyl Grey's hoofs, the 
yelping of Mustard and Spice, and his own joyous shout of riveilUe 
under our windows, were the signal that he had burst his toils, and 
meant for that day to " take his, ease in his inn." On descending, 
he was to be found seated with all his dogs and ours about him, 
under a spreading ash that overshadowed half the bank between 
the cottage and the brook, pointing the edge of his woodman's axe, 

draw-back with angry timidity, and crouch towards his own lady-mistress. 
One day, a tall, irregular, busy-looking man came halting by; the little dog 
ran towards him, began fawning, frisking, licking at his feet: it was Sir 
Walter Scott! Had Shandy been the most extensive reader of Reviews, he 
could not have done better. Every time he saw Sir Walter afterwards, 
which was some three or four times in the course of visiting Edinburgh, he 
repeated his demonstrations, ran leaping, frisking, licking the author of 
Waverley's feet. The good Sir Walter endured it with good humour; looked 
down at the little wise face, at the silky shag-coat of snow-white and chest- 
nut-brown; smiled, and avoided hitting him as they went on, — till a new 
division of streets or sorne other obstacle put an end to the interview. In 
fact, he was a strange little fellow, this Shandy. He has been known to 
sit for hours looking out at the summer moon, with the saddest, wistfulest 
expression of countenance; altogether like a Werterean Poet. He would 
have been a poet, I daresay, if he could have found a publisher. But his 
moral tact was the most amazing. Without reason shown, without word 
spoken, or act done, he took his likings and dislikings; unalterable; really 
almost unerring. His chief aversion, I should say, was to the genus quack^ 
above all, to the genus acrid-quack^ these, though never so clear-starched, 
bland-smiling and beneficent, he absolutely would have no trade with. Their 
very sugar-cake was unavailing. He said with emphasis, as clearly as bark- 
ing could say it: ** Acrid-quack, avaunt! ** Would to Heaven many a prime- 
minister and high-person In authority had such an invaluable talent! On 
the whole, there is more In this universe than our philosophy has dreamt 
of. A dog's instinct is a voice of Nature too; and farther, it has never 
babbled itself away In Idle jargon and hypothesis, but always adhered to 
the practical, and grown in silence by continual communion with fact. We 
do the animals injustice. Their body resembles our body, Buffon says; 
with its four limbs, with Its spinal marrow, main organs in the head, and 
so forth: but have they not a kind of soul, equally the rude draught and 
imperfect imitation of ours? It is a strange, an almost solemn and pathetic 
thing to see an Intelligence Imprisoned in that dumb rude form; struggling 
to express itself out of that; — even as we do out of our imprisonment; and 
succeed very imperfectly! * 



454 THOMAS CARLYLE 

and listening to Tom Purdie's lecture touching the plantation that 
most needed thinning. After breakfast he would take possession of 
a dressing-room upstairs, and write a chapter of The Pirate; and 
then, having made-up and despatched his packet for Mr. Ballantyne, 
away to join Purdie wherever the foresters were at work — and 
sometimes to labour among them as strenuously as John Swanston — 
until it was time either to rejoin his own party at Abbotsford, or 
the quiet circle of the cottage. When his guests were few and 
friendly, he often made them come over and meet him at Chiefswood 
in a body towards evening ; and surely he never appeared to more 
amiable advantage than when helping his young people with their 
little arrangements upon such occasions. He was ready with all 
sorts of devices to supply the wants of a narrow establishment; he 
used to delight particularly in sinking the wine in a well under the 
brae ere he went out, and hauling up the basket just before dinner 
was announced, — this primitive device being, he said, what he had 
always practised when a young housekeeper, and in his opinion far 
superior in its results to any application of ice : and in the same 
spirit, whenever the weather was sufficiently genial, he voted for 
dining out of doors altogether, which at once got rid of the incon- 
venience of very small rooms, and made it natural and easy for the 
gentlemen to help the ladies, so that the paucity of servants went 
for nothing.' ^^ 

Surely all this is very beautiful; like a picture of Boc- 
caccio's; the ideal of a country life in our time. Why could 
it not last? Income was not wanting: Scott's official per- 
manent income was amply adequate to meet the expense of 
all that was valuable in it ; nay, of all that was not harassing, 
senseless and despicable. Scott had some 2,oool. a-year 
without writing books at all. Why should he manufacture 
and not create, to make more money ; and rear mass on mass 
for a dwelling to himself, till the pile toppled, sank crashing, 
and buried him in its ruins, when he had a safe pleasant 
dwelling ready of its own accord? Alas, Scott, with all his 
health, was infected; sick of the fearfulest malady, that of 
Ambition ! To such a length had the King's baronetcy, the 
world's favour and ' sixteen parties a day,' brought it with 
him. So the inane racket must be kept up, and rise ever 
higher. So masons labour, ditchers delve ; and there is end- 
less altogether deplorable correspondence about marble-slabs 
for tables, wainscoting of rooms, curtains and the trimmings 
of curtains, orange-coloured or fawn-coloured : Walter Scott, 
one of the gifted of the world, whom his admirers pall the 

^Vol. V. pp. 123, 124. 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 455 

most gifted, must kill himself that he may be a country 
gentleman, the founder of a race of Scottish lairds. 

It is one of the strangest, most tragical histories ever en- 
acted under this sun. So poor a passion can lead so strong 
a man into such mad extremes. Surely, were not man a fool 
always, one might say there was something eminently dis- 
tracted in this, end as it would, of a Walter Scott writing 
daily with the ardour of a steam-engine, that he might make 
15,000/. a-year, and buy upholstery with it. To cover the 
walls of a stone house in Selkirkshire with nicknacks, an- 
cient armour and genealogical shields, what can we name it 
but a being bit with delirium of a kind? That tract after 
tract of moorland in the shire of Selkirk should be joined 
together on parchment and by ring-fence, and named after 
one's name, — why, it is a shabby small type edition of your 
vulgar Napoleons, Alexanders, and conquering heroes, not 
counted venerable by any teacher of men ! — 

* The whole world was not half so wide 
To Alexander when he cried 
Because he had but one to subdue, 
As was a narrow paltry tub to 
Diogenes ; who ne'er was said, 
For aught that ever I could read. 
To whine, put finger i' the eye and sob, 
Because he had ne'er another tub.' 

Not he! And if, 'looked at from the Moon, which itself is 
far from Infinitude,' Napoleon's dominions were as small as 
mine, what, by any chance of possibility, could Abbotsford 
landed-property ever have become ? As the Arabs say, there 
is a black speck, were it no bigger than a bean's eye, in 
every soul; which once set it a-working, will overcloud the 
whole man into darkness and quasi-madness, and hurry him 
balefully into Night ! 

With respect to the literary character of these Waverley 
Novels, so extraordinary in their commercial character, there 
remains, after so much reviewing, good and bad, little that 
it were profitable at present to say. The great fact about 
them is, that they were faster written and better paid for 
than any other books in the world. It must be granted, 
moreover, that they have a worth far surpassing what is 



456 THOMAS CARLYLE 

usual in such cases; nay, that if Literature had no task but 
that of harmlessly amusing indolent languid men, here was 
the very perfection of Literature ; that a man, here more em- 
phatically than ever elsewhere, might fling himself back, ex- 
claiming, '' Be mine to lie on this sofa, and read everlasting 
Novels of Walter Scott!'' The composition, slight as it 
often is, usually hangs together in some measure, and is a 
composition. There is a free flow of narrative, of incident 
and sentiment; an easy masterlike coherence throughout, as 
if it were the free dash ©f a master's hand, ' round as the O 
of Giotto.' ^ It is the perfection of extemporaneous writing. 
Farthermore, surely he were a blind critic who did not 
recognise here a (!:ertain genial sunshiny freshness and pic- 
turesqueness ; paintings both of scenery and figures, very 
graceful, brilliant, occasionally full of grace and glowing 
brightness blended in the softest composure; in fact, a deep 
sincere love of the beautiful in Nature and Man, and the 
readiest faculty of expressing this by imagination and by 
word. No fresher paintings of Nature can be found than 
Scott's ; hardly anywhere a wider sympathy with man. From 
Davie Deans up to Richard Coeur-de-Lion ; from Meg Mer- 
rilies to Die Vernon and Queen Elizabeth ! It is the utterance 
of a man of open soul ; of a brave, large, free-seeing man, 
who has a true brotherhood with all men. In joyous pic- 
turesqueness and fellow-feeling, freedom of eye and heart; 
or to say it in a word, in general healthiness of mind, these 
Novels prove Scott to have been amongst the foremost 
writers. 

Neither in the higher and highest excellence, of drawing 
character, is he at any time altogether deficient; though at 
no time can we call him, in the best sense, successful. His 
Bailie Jarvies, Dinmonts, Dalgettys (for their name is 
legion), do look and talk like what they give themselves out 

13 * Venne a Firenze ' (il cortigiano del Papa), *e andato una mattina in 
bottega di Giotto, che lavorava, gli chiese un poco di disegno permandarlo a sua 
Santita. Giotto, che garbatissimo era, prese un foglio, ed in quello con un 
pennello tinto di rosso, fermato il braccio al fianco per fame compasso, e 
girato la mano fece un tondo si pari di sesto e di i^rofilo, che fu a yederlo 
una maraviglia. Cio fatto ghignando disse al cortigiano, Eccovi il disegno/ 
, . . ' Onde il Papa, e molti cortigiani intendenti conobbero percio, quanto 
Giotto avanzasse d' eccelenza tutti gli altri pittori del suo tempo. Divolga- 
tasi poi questa cosa, ne ni^cque il proverbio, che ancora e in uso dirsi a gli 
uomini di grossa pasta: Tu sei piU tondo che V O di Giotto * "-N ^%2x'\t Vits 
(Roma, i759)> i- 46. 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 457 

for; they are, if not created and made poetically alive, yet 
deceptively enacted as a good player might do them. What 
more is wanted, then? For the reader lying on a sofa, 
nothing more; yet for another sort of reader, much. It were 
a long chapter to unfold the difference in drawing a charac- 
ter between a Scott, and a Shakspeare, a Goethe. Yet it is a 
difference literally immense; they are of different species; 
the value of the one is not to be counted in the coin of the 
other. We might say in a short word, which means a long 
matter, that your Shakspeare fashions his characters from 
the heart outwards ; your Scott fashions them from the skin 
inwards, never getting near the heart of them ! The one set 
become living men and women; the other amount to little 
more than mechanical cases, deceptively painted automatons. 
Compare Fenella with Goethe's Mignon, which, it was once 
said, Scott had ^ done Goethe the honour ' to borrow. He has 
borrowed what he could of Mignon. The small stature, the 
climbing talent, the trickiness, the mechanical case, as we 
say, he has borrowed; but the soul of Mignon is left behind. 
Fenella is an unfavorable specimen for Scott; but it illus- 
trates in the aggravated state, what is traceable in all the 
characters he drew. 

To the same purport indeed we are to say that these famed 
books are altogether addressed to the every-day mind; that 
for any other mind there is next to no nourishment in them. 
Opinions, emotions, principles, doubts, beliefs, beyond what 
the intelligent country gentleman can carry along with him, 
are not to be found. It is orderly, customary, it is prudent, 
decent; nothing more. One would say, it lay not in Scott 
to give much more; getting out of the ordinary range, and 
attempting the heroic, which is but seldom the case, he falls 
almost at once into the rose-pink sentimental, — descries the 
Minerva Press from afar, and hastily quits that course; for 
none better than he knew it to lead nowhither. On the whole, 
contrasting Waverley, which was carefully written, with 
most of its followers, which were written extempore, one 
may regret the extempore method. Something very perfect 
in its kind might have come from Scott; nor was it a low 
kind: nay, who knows how high, with studious self-concen- 
tration, he might have gone; what wealth Nature had im* 



458 THOMAS CARLYLE 

planted in him, with his circumstances, most unkind while 
seeming to be kindest, had never impelled him to unfold? 

But after all, in the loudest blaring and trumpeting of 
popularity, it is ever to be held in mind, as a truth remaining 
true forever, that Literature has other aims than that of 
harmlessly amusing indolent languid men : or if Literature 
have them not, then Literature is a very poor affair; and 
something else must have them, and must accomplish them, 
with thanks or without thanks; the thankful or thankless 
world were not long a world otherwise ! Under this head 
there is little to be sought or found in the Waverley Novels. 
Not profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for edification, for 
building up or el.evating, in any shape ! The sick heart will 
find no healing here, the darkly-struggling heart no guidance : 
the Heroic that is in all men no divine awakening voice. We 
say, therefore, that they do not found themselves on deep 
interests, but on comparatively trivial ones ; not on the peren- 
nial, perhaps not even on the lasting. In fact, much of the 
interest of these Novels results from what may be called 
contrasts of costume. The phraseology, fashion of arms, 
of dress and life, belonging to one age, is brought suddenly 
with singular vividness before the eyes of another. A great 
effect this; yet by the very nature of it, an altogether tem- 
porary one. Consider, brethren, shall not we too one day 
be antiques, and grow to have as quaint a costume as the 
rest? The stuffed Dandy, only give him time, will become 
one of the wonderfulest mummies. In antiquarian museums, 
only two centuries hence, the steeple-hat will hang on the 
next peg to Franks and Company's patent, antiquarians de- 
ciding which is uglier: and the Stulz swallow-tail, one may 
hope, will seem as incredible as any garment that ever made 
ridiculous the respectable back of man. Not by slashed 
breeches, steeple-hats, buff-belts, or antiquated speech, can 
romance-heroes continue to interest us; but simply and 
solely, in the long-run, by being men. Buff-belts and all 
manner of jerkins and costumes are transitory; man alone 
is perennial. He that has gone deeper into this than other 
men, will be remembered longer than they ; he that has not, 
not. Tried under this category, Scott, with his clear prac- 
tical insight, joyous temper, and other sound faculties, is 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 459 

not to be accounted little, — among the ordinary circulating- 
library heroes he might well pass for a demi-god. Not little, 
yet neither is he great; there were greater, more than one 
or two, in his own age: among the great of all ages, one 
sees no likelihood of a place for him. 

What, then, is the result of these Waverley Romances? 
Are they to amuse one generation only ? One or more ! As 
many generations as they can; but not all generations: ah 
no, when our swallow-tail has become fantastic as trunk- 
hose, they will cease to amuse ! — Meanwhile, as we can dis- 
cern, their results have been several-fold. First of all, and 
certainly not least of all, have they not perhaps had this 
result: that a considerable portion of mankind has hereby 
been sated with mere amusement, and set on seeking some- 
thing better? Amusement in the way of reading can go no 
farther, can do nothing better, by the power of man; and 
men ask, Is this what it can do? Scott, we reckon, carried 
several things to their ultimatum and crisis, so that change 
became inevitable; a great service, though an indirect one. 

Secondly, however, we may say, these Historical Novels 
have taught all men this truth, which looks like a truism, 
and yet was as good as unknown to writers of history and 
others, till so taught: that the bygone ages of the world 
were actually, filled by living men, not by protocols, state- 
papers, controversies and abstractions of men. Not abstrac- 
tions were they, not diagrams and theorems ; but men, in buff 
or other coats and breeches, with colour in their cheeks, with 
passions in their stomach, and the idioms, features and 
vitalities of very men. It is a little word this; inclusive of 
great meaning ! History will henceforth have to take thought 
of it. Her faint hearsays of ^philosophy teaching by ex- 
perience ' will have to exchange themselves everywhere for 
direct inspection and embodiment: this, and this only, will 
be counted experience ; and till once experience have got in, 
philosophy will reconcile herself to wait at the door. It is 
a great service, fertile in consequences, this that Scott has 
done; a great truth laid open by him; — correspondent in- 
deed to the substantial nature of the man ; to his solidity and 
veracity even of imagination, which, with all his lively dis- 
cursiveness, was the characteristic of him. 



460 THOMAS CARLYLE 

A word here as to the extempore style of writing, which 
IS getting much celebrated in these days. Scott seems to 
have been a high proficient in it. His rapidity was extreme; 
and the matter produced was excellent, considering that : the 
circumstances under which some of his Novels, when he 
could not himself write, were dictated, are justly considered 
wonderful. It is a valuable faculty this of ready-writing; 
nay, farther, for Scott's purpose it was clearly the only good 
mode. By much labour he could not have added one guinea 
to his copyright; nor could the reader on the sofa have lain 
a whit more at ease. It was in all ways necessary that these 
works should be produced rapidly; and, round or not, be 
thrown off like Giotto's O. But indeed, in all things, writing 
or other, which a man engages in, there is the indispensablest 
beauty in knowing how to get done, A man frets himself to 
no purpose; he has not the sleight of the trade; he is not a 
craftsman, but an unfortunate borer and bungler, if he know 
not when to have done. Perfection is unattainable: no car- 
penter ever made a mathematically accurate right-angle in 
the world; yet all carpenters know when it is right enough, 
and do not botch it, and lose their wages, by making it too 
right. Too much painstaking speaks disease in one's mind, 
as well as too little. The adroit sound-minded man will en- 
deavour to spend on each business approximately what of 
pains it deserves ; and with a conscience void of remorse will 
dismiss it then. All this in favour of easy-writing shall be 
granted, and, if need were, enforced and inculcated. 

And yet, on the other hand, it shall not less but more 
strenuously be inculcated, that in the way of writing, no 
great thing was ever, or will ever be done with ease, but with 
difficulty! Let ready-writers with any faculty in them lay 
this to heart. Is it with ease, or not with ease, that a man 
shall do his best, in any shape; above all, in this shape justly 
named of ^ soul's travail,' working in the deep places of 
thought, einbodying the True out of the Obscure and Possible, 
environed on all sides with the uncreated False? Not so, 
now or at any time. The experience of all men belies it; 
the nature of things contradicts it. Virgil and Tacitus, were 
they ready-writers ? The whole Prophecies of Isaiah are not 
equal in extent to this cobweb of a Review Article. Shak- 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 461 

speare, we may fancy, wrote with rapidity; but not till he 
had thought with intensity: long and sore had this man 
thought, as the seeing eye may discern well, and had dwelt 
and wrestled amid dark pains and throes, — though his great 
soul is silent about all that. It was for him to write rapidly 
at fit intervals, being ready to do it. And herein truly lies 
the secret of the matter: such swiftness of mere writing, 
after due energy of preparation, is doubtless the right method ; 
the hot furnace having long worked and simmered, let the 
pure gold flow out at one gush. It was Shakspeare's plan; 
no easy-writer he, or he had never been a Shakspeare. 
Neither was Milton one of the mob of gentlemen that write 
with ease; he did not attain Shakspeare's faculty, one per- 
ceives, of even writing fast after long preparation, but 
struggled while he wrote. Goethe also tells us he ' had noth- 
ing sent him in his sleep ' ; no page of his but he knew well 
how it came there. It is reckoned to be the best prose, ac- 
cordingly, that has been written by any modern. Schiller, 
as an unfortunate and unhealthy man, ' konnte nie fertig 
werden, never could get done'; the noble genius of him 
struggled not wisely but too well, and wore his life itself 
heroically out. Or did Petrarch write easily? Dante sees 
himself ' growing lean ' over his Divine Comedy; in stern 
solitary death-wrestle with it, to prevail over it, and do it, if 
his uttermost faculty may: hence, too, it is done and pre- 
vailed over, and the fiery life of it endures forevermore 
among men. 

No : creation, one would think, cannot be easy ; your Jove 
has severe pains, and fire-flames, in the head out of which an 
armed Pallas is struggling! As for manufacture, that is a 
different matter, and may become easy or not easy, accord- 
ing as it is taken up. Yet of manufacture too, the general 
truth is that, given the manufacturer, it will be worthy in 
direct proportion to the pains bestowed upon it; and worth- 
less always, or nearly so, with no pains. Cease, therefore, O 
ready-writer, to brag openly of thy rapidity and facility; to 
thee (if thou be in the manufacturing line) it is a benefit, an 
increase of wages; but to me it is sheer loss, worsening of 
my pennyworth: why wilt thou brag of it to me? Write 
easily, by steam if thou canst contrive it, and canst sell it; 



462 THOMAS CARLYLE 

but hide it like virtue,^ "Easy writing," said Sheridan, "is 
sometimes d — d hard reading." Sometimes ; and always it is 
sure to be rather useless reading, which indeed (to a creature 
of few years and much work) may be reckoned the hardest 
of all. 

Scott's productive facility amazed everybody; and set 
Captain Hall, for one, upon a very strange method of ac- 
counting for it without miracle; — for which see his Journal, 
above quoted from. The Captain, on counting line for line, 
found that he himself had written in that Journal of his 
almost as much as Scott, at odd hours in a given number of 
days ; * and as for the invention,' says he, * it is known that 
this costs Scott nothing, but comes to him of its own accord.' 
Convenient indeed ! — But for us too Scott's rapidity is great, 
is a proof and consequence of the solid health of the man, 
bodily and spiritual; great, but unmiraculous ; not greater 
than that of many others besides Captain Hall. Admire it, 
yet with measure. For observe always, there are two condi- 
tions in work: let me fix the quality, and you shall fix the 
quantity ! Any man may get through work rapidly who easily 
satisfies himself about it. Print the talk of any man, there 
will be a thick octavo volume daily ; make his writing three 
times as good as his talk, there will be the third part of a 
volume daily, which still is good work. To write with never 
such rapidity in a passable manner, is indicative not of a 
man's genius, but of his habits; it will prove his soundness 
of nervous system, his practicality of mind, and in fine, that 
he has the knack of his trade. In the most flattering view, 
rapidity will betoken health of mind: much also, perhaps 
most of all, will depend on health of body. Doubt it not, 
a faculty of easy-writing is attainable by man ! The human 
genius, once fairly set in this direction, will carry it far. 
William Cobbett, one of the healthiest of men, was a greater 
improviser even than Walter Scott : his writing, considered as 
to quality and quantity, of Rural Rides, Registers, Grammars, 
Sermons, Peter Porcupines, Histories of Reformation, ever- 
fresh denouncements of Potatoes and Paper-money, seems to 
us still more wonderful. Pierre Bayle wrote enormous folios, 
one sees not on what motive principle : he flowed-on forever, 
a mighty tide of ditch-water; and even died flowing, with 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 463 

the pen in his hand. But indeed the most unaccountable 
ready-writer of all is, probably, the common Editor of a Daily 
Newspaper. Consider his leading articles; what they treat 
of, how passably they are done. Straw that has been thrashed 
a hundred times without wheat; ephemeral sound of a sound; 
such portent of the hour as all men have seen a hundred times 
turn out inane: how a man with merely human faculty, 
buckles himself nightly with new vigour and interest to this 
thrashed straw, nightly thrashes it anew, nightly gets-up new 
thunder about it; and so goes on thrashing and thundering 
for a considerable series of years; this is a fact remaining 
still to be accounted for, in human physiology. The vitality 
of man is great. 

Or shall we say, Scott, among the many things he carried 
towards their ultimatum and crisis, carried this of ready- 
writing too, that so all men might better see what was in it? 
It is a valuable consummation. Not without results ; — results, 
at some of which Scott as a Tory politician would have 
greatly shuddered. For if once Printing have grown to be as 
Talk, then Democracy (if we look into the roots of things) 
is not a bugbear and probability, but a certainty, and event as 
good as come ! ' Inevitable seems it me.' But leaving this, 
sure enough the triumph of ready-writing appears to be even 
now; everywhere the ready-writer is found bragging 
strangely of his readiness. In a late translated Don Carlos, 
one of the most indifferent translations ever done with any 
sign of ability, a hitherto unknown individual is found assur- 
ing his reader, * The reader will possibly think it an excuse, 
when I assure him that the whole piece was completed within 
the space of ten weeks, that is to say, between the sixth of 
January and the eighteenth of March of this year (inclusive 
of a fortnight's interruption from over-exertion) ; that I 
often translated twenty pages a-day, and that the fifth act 
was the work of five days.'" O hitherto unknown individual, 
what is it to me what time it was the work of, whether five 
days or five decades of years? The only question is. How 
well hast thou done it? 

So, however, it stands : the genius of Extempore irresistibly 

^* Don Carlos, a Dramatic Poem, from the German of Schiller. Mann- 
heim and London, 1837, 



464 THOMAS CARLYLE 

lording it, advancing on us like ocean-tides, like Noah's 
deluges — of ditch-water ! The prospect seems one of the 
lamentablest. To have all Literature swum away from us 
in watery Extempore, and a spiritual time of Noah super- 
vene ? That surely is an awful reflection ; worthy of dyspep- 
tic Matthew Bramble in a London fog! Be of comfort, O 
splenetic Matthew; it is not Literature they are swimming 
away; it is only Book-publishing and Book-selling. Was 
there not a Literature before Printing or Faust of Mentz, and 
yet men wrote extempore? Nay, before Writing or Cadmus 
of Thebes, and yet men spoke extempore? Literature is the 
Thought of thinking Souls ; this, by the blessing of God, can 
in no generation be swum away, but remains with us to the 
end. 

Scott's career, of writing impromptu novels to buy farms 
with, was not of a kind to terminate voluntarily, but to ac- 
celerate itself more and more; and one sees not to what wise 
goal it could, in any case, have led him. Bookseller Consta- 
ble's bankruptcy was not the ruin of Scott; his ruin was, 
that ambition, and even false ambition, had laid hold of him ; 
that his way of life was not wise. Whither could it lead? 
Where could it stop? New farms there remained ever to 
be bought, while new novels could pay for them. More 
and more success but gave more and more appetite, more 
and more audacity. The impromptu writing must have 
waxed ever thinner ; declined faster and faster into the ques- 
tionable category, into the condemnable, into the generally 
condemned. Already there existed, in secret, everywhere a 
considerable opposition party; witnesses of the Waverley 
miracles, but unable to believe in them, forced silently to 
protest against them. Such opposition party was in the sure 
case to grow; and even, with the impromptu process ever 
going on, ever waxing thinner, to draw the world over to it. 
Silent protest must at length have come to words; harsh 
truths, backed by harsher facts of a world-popularity over- 
wrought and w^orn-out, behoved to have been spoken; — such 
as can be spoken now without reluctance, when they can pain 
the brave man's heart no more. Who knows? Perhaps it 
was better ordered to be all otherwise. Otherwise, at any 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 465 

rate, it was. One day the Constable mountain, which seemed 
to stand strong like the other rock mountains, gave suddenly, 
as the icebergs do, a loud-sounding crack; suddenly, with 
huge clangor, shivered itself into ice-dust ; and sank, carrying 
much along with it. In one day Scott's high-heaped money- 
wages became fairy-money and nonentity; in one day the 
rich man and lord of land saw himself penniless, landless, a 
bankrupt among creditors. 

It was a hard trial. He met it proudly, bravely, — like a 
brave proud man of the world. Perhaps there had been a 
prouder way still: to have owned honestly that he was un- 
successful, then, all bankrupt, broken, in the world's goods 
and repute ; and to have turned elsewhither for some refuge. 
Refuge did lie elsewhere; but it was not Scotfs course, or 
fashion of mind, to seek it there. To say, Hitherto I have 
been all in the wrong, and this my fame and pride, now 
broken, was an empty delusion and spell of accursed witch- 
craft ! It was difficult for flesh and blood ! He said, I will 
retrieve myself, and make my point good yet, or die for it. 
Silently, like a proud strong man, he girt himself to the 
Hercules' task of removing rubbish-mountains, since that was 
it; of paying large ransoms by what he could still write and 
sell. In his declining years, too; misfortune is doubly and 
trebly unfortunate that befalls us then. Scott fell to his 
Hercules' task like a very man, and went on with it un- 
weariedly; with a noble cheerfulness, while his life-strings 
were cracking, he grappled with it, and wrestled with it, 
years long, in death-grips, strength to strength; — and it 
proved the stronger; and his life and heart did crack and 
break: the cordage of a most strong heart! Over these last 
writings of Scott, his Napoleons, Demonologies, Scotch His- 
tories, and the rest, criticism, finding still much to wonder at, 
much to commend, will utter no word of blame ; this one word 
only. Woe is me! The noble war-horse that once laughed 
at the shaking of the spear, how is he doomed to toil himself 
dead, dragging ignoble wheels ! Scott's descent was like that 
of a spent projectile; rapid, straight down; — perhaps merci- 
fully so. It is a tragedy, as all life is; one proof more that 
Fortune stands on a restless globe; that Ambition, literary, 
warlike, politic, pecuniary, never yet profited any man. 



466 THOMAS CARLYLB 

Our last extract shall be €rom Volume Sixth; a very 
tragical one. Tragical, yet still beautiful; waste Ruin's havoc 
borrowing a kind of sacredness from a yet sterner visitation, 
that of Death ! Scott has withdrawn into a solitary lodging- 
house in Edinburgh, to do daily the day's work there ; and had 
to leave his wife at Abbotsford in the last stage of disease. 
He went away silently ; looked silently at the sleeping face he 
scarcely hoped ever to see again. We quote from a Diary 
he had begun to keep in those months, on hint from Byron's 
Ravenna Journal: copious sections of it render this Sixth 
Volume more interesting than any of the former ones: 

* Abbotsford, May ii (1826). — * * It withers my heart to think 
of it, and to recollect that I can hardly hope again to seek confidence 
and counsel from that ear, to which all might be safely confided. 
But in her present lethargic state, what would my attendance have 
availed ? — and Anne has promised close and constant intelligence. 
I must dine with James Ballantyne today en famille, I cannot help 
it; but would rather be at home and alone. However, I can go 
out too. I will not yield to the barren sense of hopelessness which 
struggles to invade me.' 

*" Edinburgh, — Mrs. Brown's lodgings. North St, David Street — 
May 12. — I passed a pleasant day with kind J. B., which was a 
great relief from the black dog, which would have worried me at 
home. He was quite alone.' 

* Well, here I am in Arden. And I may say with Touchstone, 
" When I was at home I was in a better place " ; I must, when there 
is occasion, draw to my own Bailie Nicol Jarvie's consolation — " One 
cannot carry the comforts of the Saut-Market about with one." 
Were I at ease in mind, I think the body is very well cared for. 
Only one other lodger in the house, a Mr. Shandy, — a clergyman, 
and, despite his name, said to be a quiet one.' 

^ May 14. — A fair good-morrow to you, Mr. Sun, who are shining 
so brightly on these dull walls. Methinks you look as if you were 
looking as bright on the banks of the Tweed ; but look where you 
will, Sir Sun, you look upon sorrow and suffering. — Hogg was here 
yesterday, in danger, from having obtained an accommodation of 
100/. from James Ballantyne, which he is now obliged to repay. I 
am unable to help the poor fellow, being obliged to borrow myself.' 

^ May 15. — Received the melancholy intelligence that all is over at 
Abbotsford.' 

'Abbotsford, May 16. — She died at nine in the morning, after 
being very ill for two days — easy at last. I arrived here late last 
night. Anne is worn out, and has had hysterics, which returned on 
my arrival. Her broken accents were like those of a child, the 
language as well as the tones broken, but in the most gentle voice 
of submission. " Poor mamma — never return again — gone forever 
— a better place." Then, when she came to herself, she spoke with 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 467 

sense, freedom and strength of mind, till her weakness returned. 
It would have been inexpressibly moving to me as a stranger — 
what was it then to the father and the husband? For myself, I 
scarce know how I feel ; sometimes as firm as the Bass Rock, some- 
times as weak as the water that breaks on it. I am as alert at think- 
ing and deciding as I ever was in my life. Yet, when I contrast 
what this place now is, with what it has been not long since, I 
think my heart will break. Lonely, aged, deprived of my family — 
all but poor Anne; an impoverished, an embarrassed man, deprived 
of the sharer of my thoughts and counsels, who could always talk- 
down my sense of the calamitous apprehensions which break the 
heart that must bear them alone. — Even her foibles were of service 
to me, by giving me things to think of beyond my weary self-reflec- 
tions. 

' I have seen her. The figure I beheld is, and is not, my Char- 
lotte — my thirty-years companion. There is the same symmetry of 
form, though those limbs are rigid which were once so gracefully 
clastic — but that yellow mask, with pinched features, which seems 
to mock life rather than emulate it, can it be the face that was once 
so full of lively expression ? I will not look on it again. Anne 
thinks her little changed, because the latest idea she had formed of 
her mother is as she appeared under circumstances of extreme pain. 
Mine go back to a period of comparative ease. If I write long in 
this way, I shall write-down my resolution, which I should rather 
write-up, if I could.' 

'May 1 8. — * * Cerements of lead and of wood already hold her; 
cold earth must have her soon. But it is not my Charlotte, it is not 
the bride of my youth, the mother of my children, that will be laid 
among the ruins of Dryburgh, which we have so often visited in 
gaiety and pastime. No, no.' 

'May 22. — * * Well, I am not apt to shrink from that which is 
my duty, merely because it is painful; but I wish this funeral-day 
over. A kind of cloud of stupidity hangs about me, as if all were 
unreal that men seem to be doing and talking.' 

'May 26, — * * Were an enemy coming upon my house, would T 
not do my best to fight, although oppressed in spirits ; and shall a 
similar despondency prevent me from mental exertion ? It shall not, 
by Heaven ! ' 

'Edinburgh, May 30. — Returned to town last night with Charles. 
This morning resume ordinary habits of rising early, working in the 
morning, and attending the Court. * * * I finished correcting the 
proofs for the Quarterly; it is but a flimsy article, but then the cir- 
cumstances were most untoward. — This has been a melancholy day 
— most melancholy, I am afraid poor Charles found me weeping. 
I do not know what other folks feel, but mth me the hysterical pas- 
sion that impels tears is a terrible violence — a sort of throttling sen- 
sation — then succeeded by a state of dreaming stupidity, in which 
I ask if my poor Charlotte can actually be dead.' ^ 

15 Vol. vi. pp. 297-307, 



468 SIR WALTER SCOTT 

This is beautiful as well as tragical. Other scenes, in that 
Seventh Volume, must come, which will have no beauty, but 
be tragical only. It is better that we are to end here. 

And so the curtain falls; and the strong Walter Scott is 
with us no more. A possession from him does remain ; widely 
scattered; yet attainable; not inconsiderable. It can be said 
of him, When he departed, he took a Man's life along with 
him. No sounder piece of British manhood was put together 
in that eighteenth century of Time. Alas, his fine Scotch 
face, with its shaggy honesty, sagacity and goodness, when 
we saw it latterly on the Edinburgh streets, was all worn 
with care, the joy all fled from it; — ploughed deep with 
labour and sorrow. We shall never forget it ; we shall never 
see it again. Adieu, Sir Walter, pride of all Scotchmen, take 
our proud and sad farewell. 



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7
Vol 25: The Classics - Part 2
