THE GREAT MAN IN HISTORY
By PAUL F. BLOOMHARDT
You will agree with me that credit is
due Mr. Overman and
those who have arranged today's program,
for their alertness in
recognizing the centennial of Carlyle's
famous dictum. The idea
for his "Hero" lectures seems
to have taken shape in his mind
between February 27 and March 2, 1840.
The first of this series
of addresses is dated "Tuesday, 5th
May 1840." Expanded to
about double the size of the lectures,
the essays appeared in an
initial edition of 1000 copies during
the first quarter of 1841.
The publisher was Fraser and the price
per copy was 10s. 6d.
In the same year a pirated edition was
published in New York by
Appletons, and New York newspapers
printed it serially. Before
the end of 1841, an American "third
edition" appeared in Cin-
cinnati as the work of U. P. James, No.
26 Pearl Street.1
Carlyle's American friend, Ralph Waldo
Emerson, was
chagrined at these piracies as he had
planned for the publication
of an authorized edition.
Parenthetically it may be remarked
that Emerson's interest in biography
dates from the correspond-
ing period of the last century. His
lecture on "Great Men" was
delivered in Boston in 1835 and his
essays on "Representative
Men" appeared in 1850. To him
likewise, "there is properly no
History; only Biography."2
In the fourth sentence of Carlyle's
first lecture he states the
opinion that "as I take it,
Universal History . . . is at bottom the
History of Great Men" and a dozen
pages later he repeats that
"the History of the World . . . was
the Biography of Great Men."
Nevertheless it would be a mistake to
assume that this is the
thesis which he set out to establish. As
a matter of fact, these
sentences and a few adjacent ones which
bear upon them, could
have been omitted without impairing the
train of his discourse.
The subject which he announced for this
series of lectures
1 Archibald MacMechan, Carlyle on
Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in
History, Athenaum Press Series (Boston, 1901), Introduction.
2 Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, First Series, "History."
(233)
234
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
was, "On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and
the Heroic in History."
His theme was, Hero-Worship as a social
force. "Society is
founded on Hero-Worship." The
passages devoted to the heroes
themselves are for the most part
subordinated both in extent and
significance to the discussion of the
social movements with which
they were associated. He saw his heroes
less as agents con-
sciously directing the course of history
than as symbols which
have motivated their own and later
generations to achievement.
For instance, "The Nation that has
a Dante is bound together as
no dumb Russia can be." "The Great Man [Mahomet] was
always as lightning out of Heaven; the
rest of men waited for him
like fuel, and then they too would
flame."
We may be as impatient with the
limitations of Carlyle's social
philosophy when he insists on
hero-worship as the ratio omnium
of history, as with his bald statement
that history is the biography
of great men. He is capable of saying,
"Society, everywhere is
some representation, not insupportably
inaccurate, of a graduated
Worship of Heroes." We are led to
inquire how he came by such
a concept. I am inclined to find at
least a partial explanation in
the religous cast of his thinking. His
reverence for his typically
Scottish Calvinist father led him as a
youth to seek an education
for the ministry. He was diverted from
this by intellectual dif-
ficulties which arose from his reading.
But in his twenty-fifth
year he experienced a spiritual crisis
which involved three weeks
of sleeplessness, in which his atheism
yielded to a positive appre-
ciation of religious impulses. It can be
understood from this, how
Carlyle was led to say, "a man's
religion is the chief fact with re-
gard to him," and how he was led to
subordinate economic and
other mundane interests in human life.
This accounts for the
choice of most of the heroes on which he
lectured:
The Hero as Divinity: Odin.
The Hero as Prophet: Mahomet.
The Hero as Poet: Dante; Shakespeare.
The Hero as Priest: Luther; Knox.
The Hero as Man of Letters: Johnson;
Rousseau; Burns.
The Hero as King: Cromwell; Napoleon.
It may be noted that religious minds, at
least as compared
OHIO HISTORY CONFERENCE, 1941 235
with scientific or economic minds,
afford congenial soil for the
acceptance of hero-worship as the
main-spring of social action
and hence as the core of the
interpretation of history. A survey
of the names of the principal religions,
Mosaism, Buddhism,
Christianity, Mohammedanism, reveals the
prevalence of this con-
cept. An habitual attitude of worship
towards the deity is easily
transferred to human relationships. In
this connection, it is in-
teresting to note that recent studies in
primitive religion recognize
that side by side with a belief in
impersonal magic, fetishism, and
animism, there existed the concept of
"higher gods," cosmic
deities, and heroes among the gods, even
approaching a mono-
theism.3
Not only mythology but also the classic
religious writings on
the whole exhibit a philosophy of
personalism. Historic Chris-
tianity, with its Christo-centric
theology, its saints on the one
hand, and its Antichrists on the other,
and the exaltation of
denominational founders, reveals a
similar tendency which the
postulate of an overruling Providence
and a belief in a divine
plan of salvation operating through the
ages, does not modify.
Nor should we neglect to observe that
ever since religion divorced
itself from fertility cults, notably at
the time of the Hebrew
prophets, it has tended to subordinate,
even to deny any lasting
place in history to such social forces
as the biologic urge, economic
incentives, and the insatiable curiosity
of the human intellect. Of
geographic factors it has been concerned
only with the cata-
clysmic, and it regards these as of
passing significance.
Carlyle's thinking is colored by these
conceptions and we may
be justified in viewing both his great
man theory of history and
his hero-worship explanation of social
action as characteristic of
the romantic school of history in which
mysticism predominates
and the religious interpretation of
history has been most prevalent.
As might be expected, Carlyle felt a
strong distrust of the
tide of democracy which was arising in
his nineteenth century.
He placed his hope on an
"Aristocracy of Talent" whose powers
of social control should be exercised
through their control of the
3 Wilhelm Schmidt, Der Ursprung der
Gottesidee (Munster, 1926-35); W. F.
Albright, From the Stone Age to
Christianity (Baltimore, Md., 1940), 124f.
236
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
land. In an unpublished essay, my son,
Fred Bloomhardt, calls
attention to the military aspect of the
Utopia which Carlyle sug-
gests in his "Past and
Present" (IV, 3).
Pointing to the army he [Carlyle]
declares that there is the one really
efficient institution in the country.
"Who can despair of Governments, that
passes a Soldier's Guard-house, or meets
a red-coated man on the streets."
True, the army is organized for a
militant purpose . . . murder to Carlyle.
Yet it is the organization that Carlyle
is now observing. Here, he says, still
is reality and success. Here is more
justice than in the Chancery law
courts. Here is no weak-kneed
blundering, but effective action. No long-
winded Parliamentary speeches are made,
but the needful actions are taken
more quickly and effectively than any
Parliament could possibly do. Why
not, asks Carlyle, apply the same
principle to civil life? "I could conceive
an Emigration service, a Teaching
service, considerable varieties of United
and Separate services, of due thousands
strong, all effective as this Fighting
service is; all doing their work like
it;--which work, much more than
fighting, is henceforth the necessity of
these New Ages we are got into."
(IV, 3.) This borders very closely upon
the totalitarianism of our own
age. Certainly it was almost a complete
about face from the prevailing
democratic tendencies.--It is more than
possible that Carlyle got a large
part of this idea from the
Saint-Simonian literature which came into his
hands.
In passing from this notice of Carlyle
and his Heroes, I
have not considered it pertinent to
refer to the well-known
characteristics of his work--his
prejudices, his inadequate use
of sources, his neglect of the critical
method, and the shallow-
ness of his analysis. Only the sheer brilliance of his literary
skill can account for the vogue which he
has enjoyed.
II
Carlyle wrote a hundred years ago. He
was obviously out
of tune with his own century. Might he
have felt more at home
in our own times when vast millions of
men share his attitude
towards democracy and believe implicitly
in das Fuehrer Prin-
zip as exemplified by Mussolini, Mustapha Kemal, Hitler,
Riza
Khan, and the Kodo philosophy of
Japanese emperor-worship?
Professor Joseph E. Baker (Northwestern
University) has sug-
gested that Carlyle is the man to
interpret Hitler and his movement
to us since many of Hitler's ideas can
be expressed in familiar
OHIO HISTORY CONFERENCE, 1941 237
old phrases from Carlyle and there are
parallels in the funda-
mental doctrines of the two men.4
Were Carlyle living, he would also hear
an echo of his
ideas in the writings of eminent
historians who use his own
tongue.
Sir Charles Oman, Professor of Modern History at
Oxford, brought out his On the
Writing of History in 1939.
As summarized by Allan Nevins in an
excellent review, Sir
Charles holds that "History is
simply a series of happenings
of highly mixed and various tendency;
not so much a stream
as a set of eddies and counter-eddies.
While some of it moves
logically from cause to effect, a huge
part of it is merely acci-
dental, and is constantly affected by
unforeseeable and 'cataclys-
mic' occurrences. Sir Charles believes with Carlyle that the
chief of the cataclysmic forces,
unrelated to any conceivable
pattern of cause and effect, is the
intermittent occurrence of
great men." Among these he singles
out for mention Alex-
ander, Augustus, Mahomet, and
Charlemagne. Allan Nevins'
comment on all of this is,
"convincing as far as it goes."5
A fundamental consideration in dealing
with the problem
of the great man in history is the
relative importance, even the
existence of the personal element in the
milieu of history. Pure
determinists would interpret the course
of history solely as the
result of impersonal forces--geographic,
climatic, economic.
For instance, it is held that the entire
life process, including the
political, social and religious, is
determined by material condi-
tions of production. The existence of
these factors in human
affairs is irrefutable but with the
whole intricate pattern of
human behavior spread before us it may
well be asked whether
those who represent any one or all of
them as the unifying
principle of history, have not shared
Carlyle's tendency to over-
simplification. To ask this question is
by no means to disclaim
the value of the contribution which
materialists have made to
the interpretation of history. Their contribution in the main
has been the strengthening of the
concept of continuity. The
reaction to this mechanistic view has
been extensive. Skepticism
4 Joseph Ellis Baker, "Carlyle
Rules the Reich," Saturday Review of Literature
(New York), X (1933), 291.
5 New York Herald-Tribune, Dec.
31, 1939.
238
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
with regard to it has arisen from an
inability to conceive of
human society differing only in degree
from a herd of cattle,
breeding blindly, nibbling inch by inch
towards greener pas-
tures, sniffing the air for the smell of
a water-hole, and dumbly
facing the hazards of nature.
Somewhat parallel is the
scientific-technological school
which correlates human progress with the
development of
natural science. In this group you will recognize Comte,
Buckle, J. S. Mill, and Spencer. This,
of course, reduced his-
tory to the determinism of natural law
since such was the
concept of impersonal natural science. A
distrust of this in-
terpretation has grown out of the fact
that this correlation with
natural science is based on a series of
analogies, some of which
are unwarranted, and which in any case
is less than soundly
scientific, and out of the confusion
into which natural science
has been thrown by the discovery of the
principle of indeter-
minacy in nuclear physics.
The essential difference between these
views and others
may be designated as the awareness of
the element of human
personality. Other schools of historical interpretation include
this relatively unpredictable element
within their perspective.
The causal forces of history are found
in the human spirit. The
material factors serve in part to direct
these forces in the mass,
and also to challenge men either as
individuals or as societies
to oppose and rise above the controls
which environment tends
to establish.
One such school, known as the spiritual
and represented by
Eucken, Matthews, H. O. Taylor, and W.
R. McLaughlin, de-
clares, "The spiritual
interpretation of history must be found in
the discovery of spiritual forces
cooperating with geographic
and economic to produce a general
tendency towards conditions
which are truly personal. And these conditions will not be
found in generalizations concerning
metaphysical entities, but
in the activities of worthful men
finding self-expression in social
relations for the ever more complete
subjection of physical nature
to human welfare."6
6 Shailer
Mathews, The Spiritual Interpretation of History (Cambridge, Mass.,
1916).
OHIO HISTORY CONFERENCE, 1941 239
Both the sociological, defined as an
attempt to account for the
origin, structure, and activities of
society by the operation of
physical, vital, and psychical causes,
working together in a process
of evolution, and the "collective
sociological" interpretation seem
at least to leave room for the personal
element. This is definitely
true of recent representatives of the
sociological interpretation, for
one type of which sometimes the term organismic
is used. In
Arnold Toynbee's A Study of History (1934),
his principles of
"Challenge and Response" and
"Withdrawal and Return" are
illustrated mainly from biographical
sources. Sorokin in his Social
and Cultural Dynamics (1937) tends to minimize the place of the
individual in trying to base his
"logico-meaningful" method of
ordering the chaos which seems to
prevail among the variable ele-
ments of any social complex or organism,
on extensive statistical
and analytical surveys. His theory is
criticized by Albright in pre-
senting the following interesting thesis
whose implications for the
subject of this discussion are obvious:
Every cultural complex is itself a
microcosm, in which opposing fac-
tors are constantly meeting and
clashing, so that sometimes one, sometimes
its opposite, prevails.... It cannot be
too strongly insisted that integration
of a culture is not necessarily a good
thing. Perfect integration of a per-
sonality leads to stagnation of that
personality. Practically all great men,
and certainly all geniuses have been
very poorly integrated. It is precisely
the friction and conflict between
imperfectly balanced or harmonized ele-
ments in a man's mental make-up which
may lead to innovations and dis-
coveries. Real greatness often emerges
from profound spiritual or intel-
lectual travail. A placid, bovine mind
may be exceedingly well integrated
at a low level; a gifted demagogue may
enjoy perfect nervous and mental
health, with few conscientious scruples
or intellectual struggles to prevent
him from employing his talents to
personal advantage and to public dis-
aster--in other words, he is well
integrated at a higher level. The same is
true, mutatis mutandis, of groups
and nations. A group may be so com-
pletely integrated that it exhibits
little internal friction, a high degree of
efficiency in accomplishing its
purposes, together with self-sufficiency and
smugness--but it will accomplish little
of value for the world. The early
Christians were certainly not well
integrated as a group, since it required
centuries for them to come to a
temporary agreement on normative theologi-
cal doctrines and social policies--yet
few will dispute their potential capac-
ities for good. Modern Jewish
intellectual circles are generally as fine ex-
amples as can be found in history of
lack of integration, yet they are
240
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
producing an astonishingly high
proportion of the significant intellectual
achievements of our age. It is even
possible that the greatest advances of
any group are made when that group is in
the highest state of excitation
that can be attained without disaster to
the group. All this obviously means
that there is most likely to be progress
within a group when that group
contains an optimum number of polar
elements, i. e., of elements standing in
real or potential opposition to
one-another.7
As a philosophy, personalism raises
certain questions into
which we are not called upon to enter
here, namely, whether per-
sonality alone is reality and material
environment is but phe-
nomena; and whether the only causal
force in history of which we
have a strictly empirical knowledge, i.
e., our own inner awareness
of ourselves as active beings, is
volitional personality.8
In those who hold, as for instance
Shotwell,9 that life itself
escapes materialistic analysis, and that
the problem of historical
interpretation is to establish the
relations between the psychic
element and the material element in
human affairs, this philosophy
of personalism is implicit.
At this point the social psychologist
enters. Acknowledging
the infinite variety of personalities,
he yet finds, as Sorokin, that
the material, social, and mental
characteristics of a given culture
are relatively stable and can generally
be fixed with a decreasing
margin of error as social organization
becomes more primitive and
less self-conscious or sophisticated.
Nevertheless there is a margin
of error. There is a difference in
historic certainty in interpreting
the actions of groups and of
individuals. There is no way of tell-
ing how an individual will act and his
action will be more eccentric
as he approaches the stature of genius.
Moreover, the reaction
of a group cannot be predicted if too
many or too elusive variable
factors are involved, or if a group is
under the influence of a
superior personality of unpredictable
character.10
If the psychologists should succeed in
explaining the sum of
human behavior on naturalistic grounds,
the significance of unique
individuals will be seriously impaired.
Yet such studies of genius
7 An excellent criticism of Arnold
Joseph Toynbee and Pitirim Aleksandrovich
Sorokin, and a presentation of the
organismic philosophy of history is found in
Albright, Stone Age to Christianity, 60-87.
8 Cf. Albert C. Knudson, The Philosophy of Personalism (New
York, 1927).
9 James T. Shotwell, An Introduction
to the History of History (New York,
1836), 332.
10 Cf. Albright, Stone Age to
Christianity, 78f.
OHIO HISTORY CONFERENCE, 1941 241
as have appeared seem to be concerned
only with groups of
superior individuals, an intellectual haute
bourgeoisie. (Terman,11
following Ellis and Galton, rejects as
an unscientific concept, the
use of the word genius to
designate some kind of mystical gift
which cannot be explained by the
ordinary laws of human nature.)
The possibility is not shown that a
child can be chosen on the
basis of eugenic and psychological tests
and surrounded by any
known educational environment so that he
will unquestionably
emerge as a person of heroic size either
as a directive force in
society or as a creative genius. To some
extent, therefore, the
emergence of great men seems to
introduce a degree of the cata-
clysmic in history which is unique in
the orderly processes of
nature.
Into the phase of individualism which is
represented by
Nietzsche's "Superman," it is
not necessary for us to enter since
in the first place history knows no such
man, and in the second
place its discussion belongs in the
realm of ethics.
III
As a kind of appendix, we may consider
the place of the
great man in the writing of history.
From a great mass of in-
formation the writer is constrained to
select and arrange what
he or his age views as significant for
the closest possible approxi-
mation of historical truth. His goal
like that of the teacher, must
be the establishment and retention of
this approximation to true
concepts in the minds of his readers and
students. The degree
to which he achieves this purpose will
depend in large part upon
the artistry with which he employs his
materials. Painters and
cinema directors know well that
attention must be centered upon
individual figures if comprehension is
to be conveyed. In a battle
scene or mob action, one or more
individuals are pictured strongly
in the foreground and the hundreds or
thousands of others are
represented less distinctly in the
background, leaving it to the
viewers' imagination to think of them as
engaged in the same
action. In magazines of recent weeks we
have seen a large picture
of a mass of thousands of people on the
beach of Coney Island.
11 Science (New York), XC (1940), 293.
242
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
It leaves an impression of chaos and its
significance escapes us.
One feels an impulse to look at it more
closely and try to pick
out some individuals whose postures and
expressions may tell a
story of some kind. Thucydides,
Polybius, Xenephon, Tacitus,
Sallust, and Suetonius among the
ancients, whatever their limita-
tions may have been, did not fail to
appreciate this characteristic
of human comprehension. And modern
history writers have ob-
viously followed this lead with their
Augustan Age, the Age of
Charlemagne, Elizabethan Era, the Age of
Louis XIV, the French
Revolution and Napoleon, the Era of
Metternich, Jacksonian
Democracy, etc. Like the artificial
make-up which actors in the
cinema wear before the Klieg lights in
order to produce a truer
picture on the screen for the film
followers, it is possible that
history written on this pattern, when
strictly considered, over-
draws the part which the great man has
played in his time. Such
a view may leave the impression that the
historiographer is merely
a popularizer but Egon Friedell
definitely claims that the salient
characteristics of any age can best be
comprehended in the person
of its outstanding man or men.12 In a somewhat parallel way,
Professor Roy F. Nichols advocated the
use of biography as a
"case method" in order to
achieve "a clearer and more accurate
understanding of the process of social
change and development."13
Such a work as the Chronicles of
America exhibits the biograph-
ical element to an unusual degree.
On the other hand, I have the impression
which I am unable
to demonstrate, that in spite of
Friedell, much of the modern
"culture history" gives less
space to the significance of great men
in the development of institutions,
manners, social classes, and
other interests to which men have given
their attention. In some
special fields there has been a lag in
this respect. Many of us have
on our shelves histories of medicine,
literature, preaching, art,
philosophy, science, some of relatively
recent date, which are little
more than "Who's Whos" in
their respective fields, arranged
chronologically instead of
alphabetically, and attempting little more
than a classification by
"schools." It may even contribute to our
12 Egon Friedell, A Cultural History of the Modern
Age (New York, 1930-32),
I, 24-7.
13 Historical Outlook (Philadelphia), VII (1926), 270.
OHIO HISTORY CONFERENCE, 1941 243
own humility to look into the histories
of history. This will pass,
as it is clearly beginning to pass in
the histories of literature, art
and science.
IV
From the foregoing we may be tempted to
conclude that the
significance of the great man in history
is to be found specifically
within his own period; later ages are
influenced rather by some
institution (used in the widest sense)
which lives after him.
Many instances to support this
conclusion arise in our minds;
thus Hammurabi, Ikhnaton, Pheidias,
Aurelius, Justinian, Attila,
Henry II (Plantagenet), Isaac Watts,
Edward Jenner, and maybe
Henry Ford. As our perspective expands
geographically to em-
brace world history, and chronologically
to view the whole story
from the Stone Age to the present, and
culturally to include all
the varied interests that have engaged
the attention of men, we
may expect to find proportionately less
occasion to magnify great
men except as a means to be used in
effective historiographic
presentation. However, I am little
inclined to agree with such
generalizations. It has also been
suggested14 that some individ-
uals seem to stand out in bolder
perspective as the details of their
age are lost, and that men of thought,
as compared with men of
action, sometimes take on a richer
significance as they are digested
by later ages. The recent deluge of
biographies may be considered
as a response to a deep-seated desire
not only to know of men's
achievements, but also to feel directly
the impact of their lives on
our own.
14 In a personal communication by
Prof. C. A. Clausen of Wittenberg College.