He believed in God _and_ Collective Humanity. Humanity in God. He
said: "We cannot relate ourselves to the Divine, but through
collective humanity. Mr. Carlyle comprehends only the individual; the
true sense of the unity of the race escapes him. He sympathises with
men, but it is with the separate life of each man, and not their
collective life."[3]
Collective labour, according to an educational plan, designed by
Providence, was, Mazzini believed, the only possible development of
Humanity.
He could never have trusted in any good and effective development from
Humanity alone.
Nationality, he reverenced, and widened the idea, until it embraced
the whole world. He said it was the mission, the special vocation of
all who felt the mutual responsibility of men. But nationality of
Italy meant to Carlyle, only "the glory of having produced Dante and
Columbus," and he cared for them not for the national thought they
interpreted, but as gigantic men. Mazzini cared for "the progressive
history of mankind," Carlyle for "the Biography of great men."
Carlyle's sadness "unending sadness," came, Mazzini thought from
looking at human life only from the individual point of view. And a
poem by Browning, "Cleon" would have afforded him another example of
"the disenchantment and discouragement of life," from individualism.
Browning was as great an individualist as Carlyle; he stood as far
apart from belief in Collective Humanity, and Democracy as Carlyle
did, though in Italy, he felt the thrill of its nationality, as
Carlyle did not. But Mazzini might have said also truly of Browning,
that, with the exception of Italy, "he sympathised with the separate
life of each man and not with their collective life." The sadness
Mazzini attributed to Carlyle's strong individualistic point of view,
ought logically then to have been the heritage of Browning also. _If_
Mazzini's explanation was the true one, it is another proof of the
difficulty of tabulating humanity, or of making a science of human
nature. For the Individualist Browning, far from being remarkable for
sadness, was the greatest of optimists amongst English poets. He had a
far wider range of sympathies, than Carlyle, for failure attracted
him, as much as victory, the Conquered equally with the Conqueror,
indeed every shade of character interested him. Perhaps he expresses
through "Cleon" some of his own strongest feelings, his insistence on
the worth of individuality, his craving for deeper joy, fuller life
than this world gives, and his horror of the destruction of
personality. Cleon, the Greek Artist, is indeed "the other side" to
the poetic altruism of "The Pilgrims" and "The Choir Invisible." Never
was the yearning for Personal Continuance more vividly and more
humanly presented. The Greek Artist, without any knowledge of, or
belief in Immortality, hungers after it. Browning represents him as
writing to and arguing with the King, who has said:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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