Carlyle and Mill: An Introduction to Victorian Thought 9780231879330

Table of contents :
Preface
Contents
Chapter I. Two Representative Men
Chapter II. A Changing England
Chapter III. Benthamee Radicalism
Chapter I. Anti-Bentham
Chapter V. The Apprenticeship of a Prophet
Chapter VI. A Reasoning Machine
Chapter VII. An Aristocracy of Talent
Chapter VIII. The Dismal Science
Chapter IX. The Infinite Nature of Duty
Chapter X. Old Foes with New Faces
Appendix A: Notes
Appendix B: Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

CARLYLE AND MILL

CARLYLE AND MILL AN INTRODUCTION TO VICTORIAN THOUGHT BY

EMERY NEFF SECOND

EDITION

REVISED

iBteto fJorb COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 1926

C o p y r i g h t , 1926 B * COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS Printed trom type.

THE

Published June, 1026

PLIMPTON

FTP I W O O D

PRESS

MASS • U • S • A

To WANDA

PREFACE H E writer explains the quick exhaustion of the first edition of Carlyle and Mill by the greatly increased interest in Victorian England shown by the numerous significant monographs and general studies which have appeared since its publication in 1924. H e welcomes the opportunity to make use of this material in a revised edition. The passing of the fashion of belittling the Victorians makes it unnecessary to insist that they met courageously and resourcefully the first onslaught of problems which are still perplexing us, and proposed solutions upon which we have not notably improved. The purpose of this book is to make clearer and more vivid the relationship of the thought of the twentieth century to that of the nineteenth. A clue for guidance through the multitudinous and complex details involved in this undertaking has been found in a consideration of the relations of Thomas Carlyle and John Stuart Mill, whose representative character was abundantly recognized by their contemporaries. Explanation of the sympathies and antipathies of these leaders of thought necessitates consideration of the political, economic, religious, and literary background of the period. The addition of a classified and interpreted bibliography will, it is hoped, invite the reader of this introductory work to a more detailed study of British civilization since the French vu

viii

TRSFcJCe

and the Industrial Revolutions. To the American reader such study should be especially interesting and fruitful, for under somewhat unfamiliar dress he will find reenacted the drama of the intellectual and social history of the United States which is passing before his eye in the twentieth century. The writer wishes to express his especial obligation to Professor Ashley H . Thorndike, who suggested this study, and to Professors Graham Wallas and Louis Cazamian, who aided its progress with stimulating criticism. His debt is also great to Professor Wendell T. Bush, Dr. Roy F. Dibble, Mr. Henry K. Dick, Mr. Charles Everett, Professor Jefferson B. Fletcher, Professor Owen G. Groves, Mr. Roger Howson, Professor George B. Parks, Professor Rexford G. Tugwell, Mr. Gordon Wasson, Professor Raymond Weaver, and Professor Ernest Hunter Wright. E . N. March, 1926

CONTENTS CHAPTER I. II.

PAGE

TWO A

REPRESENTATIVE

MEN

CHANGING ENGLAND

54

III.

BENTHAMEE

IV.

ANTI-BENTHAM

122

THE

190

V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X.

A

A P P R E N T I C E S H I P OF A P R O P H E T

REASONING

AN THE

RADICALISM

I

MACHINE

A R I S T O C R A C Y OF T A L E N T DISMAL SCIENCE

76

222 261 296

T H E I N F I N I T E N A T U R E OF D U T Y

338

O L D FOES W I T H N E W FACES

388

APPENDIX A ,

NOTES

397

APPENDIX B,

BIBLIOGRAPHY

417

INDEX

429

ix

CARLYLE AND MILL CHAPTER TWO

I

REPRESENTATIVE

MEN

N E W MYSTIC! " exclaimed Thomas Carlyle in delighted surprise, as he read, in a lonely Scotch farmhouse, a series of articles in the London Examiner entitled The Spirit of the Age. At last, in the spring of 1831, he had found in a newspaper the intimation " that the age was not the best of all possible ages." The anonymous writer was boldly prophesying that " the nineteenth century will be known to posterity as the era of one of the greatest revolutions of which history has preserved the remembrance, in the human mind, and in the whole constitution of society. . . . Men are henceforward to be held together by new ties, and separated by new barriers} for the ancient bonds will no longer unite, nor the ancient boundaries confine. The cause of this impending revolution he found in cheap printing and marvelously improved means of communication, which had disseminated knowledge and the spirit of discussion and criticism widely among the people, and thereby made them aware that the feudal system, which made inheritance the sole passport to political and economic power, failed lamenti

2

CtARLYLS

¿MILL

ably to provide them with rulers who were wise and just. Weary of being governed by " fat, elderly gentlemen " who were opponents of all progress or change, the masses were now striving to become their own masters. Here was the danger point of the approaching social transformation. For the people, although intelligent enough to see the incompetence of the British aristocracy, were as yet too superficially educated to pilot the ship of state, and in blithe sciolism would run it upon the rocks. Government was an art which demanded the undivided attention of experts, not the scant leisure from.the desk, the factory, and the plow. And it was furthermore the misfortune of the present period of transition that the elder statesmen, who were ripe in experience of men and affairs, were incapable of adapting the social structure to the revolutions in science, industry, and education which were bursting the feudal barriers; and that the young men of ability, who were desirous of building anew, were still too inexperienced to competently carry out this infinitely difficult undertaking. But he did not therefore advise a clinging to outworn feudalism for fear of a future thus beset with dangers. H e unhesitatingly advised measures like the Reform Bill then before Parliament, calculated to transfer " worldly power . . . from the hands of the stationary part of mankind to those of the progressive p a r t " and " leave no man one fraction of unearned distinction or unearned importance " j for he was confident that steps toward democracy were not necessarily steps toward anarchy, but rather, after a few years of inevitable blundering

TWO

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