Carlyle was the
greater genius; but the question which was the greater mind must be
decided by the conflict between logic and emotion. They were related
proximately as Plato to Aristotle, the one saw what the other missed, and
their hold on the future has been divided. Mill had "the dry light," and
his meaning is always clear; he is occasionally open to the charge
of being a formalist, allowing too little for the "infusion of the
affections," save when touched, as Carlyle was, by a personal loss; yet
the critical range indicated by his essay on "Coleridge" on the one side,
that on "Bentham" on the other, is as wide as that of his friend; and
while neither said anything base, Mill alone is clear from the charge of
having ever said anything absurd. His influence, though more indirect,
may prove, save artistically, more lasting. The two teachers, in their
assaults on _laissez faire,_ curiously combine in giving sometimes
undesigned support to social movements with which the elder at least had
no sympathy.
Carlyle's best, because his most independent, friend lived beyond the
sea. He has been almost to weariness compared with Emerson, initial
pupil later ally, but their contrasts are more instructive than their
resemblances. They have both at heart a revolutionary spirit, marked
originality, uncompromising aversion to illusions, disdain of traditional
methods of thought and stereotyped modes of expression; but in Carlyle
this is tempered by greater veneration for the past, in which he holds
out models for our imitation; while Emerson sees in it only fingerposts
for the future, and exhorts his readers to stay at home lest they should
wander from themselves.
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