On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in HistoryCarlyle, Thomas
Philosophy
On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History
Carlyle, Thomas
Hero worship; Heroes
For observe one thing, a thing too often left out of view, or rather
altogether lost sight of in this controversy: That it is not necessary a
man should himself have _discovered_ the truth he is to believe in, and
never so _sincerely_ to believe in. A Great Man, we said, was always
sincere, as the first condition of him. But a man need not be great in
order to be sincere; that is not the necessity of Nature and all Time,
but only of certain corrupt unfortunate epochs of Time. A man can
believe, and make his own, in the most genuine way, what he has received
from another;--and with boundless gratitude to that other! The merit of
_originality_ is not novelty; it is sincerity. The believing man is the
original man; whatsoever he believes, he believes it for himself, not
for another. Every son of Adam can become a sincere man, an original
man, in this sense; no mortal is doomed to be an insincere man. Whole
ages, what we call ages of Faith, are original; all men in them, or the
most of men in them, sincere. These are the great and fruitful ages:
every worker, in all spheres, is a worker not on semblance but on
substance; every work issues in a result: the general sum of such work
is great; for all of it, as genuine, tends towards one goal; all of
it is _additive_, none of it subtractive. There is true union, true
kingship, loyalty, all true and blessed things, so far as the poor Earth
can produce blessedness for men.
Hero-worship? Ah me, that a man be self-subsistent, original, true, or
what we call it, is surely the farthest in the world from indisposing
him to reverence and believe other men's truth! It only disposes,
necessitates and invincibly compels him to disbelieve other men's dead
formulas, hearsays and untruths. A man embraces truth with his eyes
open, and because his eyes are open: does he need to shut them before he
can love his Teacher of truth? He alone can love, with a right gratitude
and genuine loyalty of soul, the Hero-Teacher who has delivered him
out of darkness into light. Is not such a one a true Hero and
Serpent-queller; worthy of all reverence! The black monster, Falsehood,
our one enemy in this world, lies prostrate by his valor; it was he that
conquered the world for us!--See, accordingly, was not Luther himself
reverenced as a true Pope, or Spiritual Father, _being_ verily such?
Napoleon, from amid boundless revolt of Sansculottism, became a King.
Hero-worship never dies, nor can die. Loyalty and Sovereignty are
everlasting in the world:--and there is this in them, that they
are grounded not on garnitures and semblances, but on realities and
sincerities. Not by shutting your eyes, your "private judgment;" no, but
by opening them, and by having something to see! Luther's message was
deposition and abolition to all false Popes and Potentates, but life and
strength, though afar off, to new genuine ones.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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