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David Hume Is Pontiff of the World: Thomas Carlyle on Epicureanism, Laissez-Faire, and Public Opinion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2017

Alexander Jordan
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Abstract

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) is well known as one of the earliest and most vociferous critics of Benthamite utilitarianism. However, Carlyle understood Benthamism as the culmination of a much longer eighteenth-century tradition of Epicurean thought. Having been an enthusiastic reader of David Hume during his youth, Carlyle later turned against him, waging an increasingly violent polemic against all forms of Epicureanism. In these later works, Carlyle not only rejected the pursuit of “pleasure” as an appropriate end for the life of the individual, but also took umbrage with Epicurean accounts of sociability as the philosophical underpinnings of laissez-faire, representative democracy, and “public opinion.” For Carlyle, self-interest, no matter how “enlightened,” balanced, or channeled by institutions, could never provide a stable foundation for a political community. Carlyle's contemporaries were aware that his work was intended as an attack on the Epicurean tradition. When John Stuart Mill attempted to defend Epicureanism against Carlyle, several of the latter's disciples and sympathizers responded by extending Carlyle's earlier censures on Epicureanism.

Keywords

CarlyleEpicureanismEpicurusHumeBenthamUtilitarianismVictorian19th CenturyIntellectual HistoryPolitical ThoughtSociability
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 56 , Issue 3 , July 2017 , pp. 557 - 579
Copyright
Copyright © The North American Conference on British Studies 2017 

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References

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90 Carlyle, “Schiller” (March 1831), CME, 3:87–90. See also Carlyle, “Wotton Reinfred,” 23–24; Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, 124–25; Carlyle, Lectures, 203.

91 Thomas Carlyle to Geraldine Jewsbury, 26 April 1840, CL, 12:118; and Thomas Carlyle to Geraldine Jewsbury, 15 June 1840, CL, 12:163–66.

92 Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, 126; Carlyle, On Heroes, 75–76; Carlyle, PP, 106.

93 Carlyle, On Heroes, 57.

94 Carlyle, PP, 219, 265.

95 Many writers had begun to voice skepticism regarding “public opinion.” See Gunn, Beyond Liberty and Property, 298–99; Wahrman, Imagining the Middle Class, 305; and Wahrman, “Public Opinion,” 99, 104–5.

97 Ibid., 177–78.

96 Carlyle, “Voltaire” (April 1829), CME, 2:176.

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99 Carlyle, “Signs of the Times” (June 1829), CME, 2:240, 249.

100 Ibid., 239, 246.

101 Entry dated 11 October 1831, Carlyle, Two Note Books, 205.

102 Hume, “Of the Independency of Parliaments,” 30.

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104 Mill had recently blocked Carlyle's appointment to the new London University. Thomas Carlyle to Anna D. B. Montagu, 17 August 1828, CL, 4:388–92.

105 Carlyle, “Characteristics” (December 1831), CME, 4:36–37.

106 Carlyle, On Heroes, 229.

107 Carlyle, PP, 25.

108 Carlyle, Lectures, 182.

109 Ibid.

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116 Carlyle, PP, 161. See also Carlyle, “Chartism” (December 1839), CME, 6:109–86, at 139, 144, 152–53.

117 Carlyle, PP, 178.

118 Carlyle, LDP, 241.

119 Ibid., 266–67.

120 Carlyle, PP, 32–33. See also ibid., 179.

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125 Ibid., 212–13.

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127 Carlyle, On Heroes, 199–200.

128 Carlyle, PP, 160–61. See also ibid., 204–6.

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131 Carlyle, “Voltaire,” CME, 2:120. See also ibid., 131.

132 Carlyle, “Signs of the Times,” CME, 2:247; Hume, David, “The Natural History of Religion,” in Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects, 2 vols. (Dublin, 1779), 2:422Google Scholar.

133 Carlyle, “Boswell's Life of Johnson” (May 1832), CME, 4:77, 89–90. The references to “Hume” are on 105, 119, 128, 129, and 130.

134 Carlyle, “Sir Walter Scott” (January 1838), CME, 6:40, 22–23.

135 Carlyle, On Heroes, 12, 15. As an example of a “hero,” Carlyle cited Cromwell, disagreeing with the “Hume theory” that he had been a “Fanatic-Hypocrite.” Ibid., 229.

136 Davis, James A., John Forster: A Literary Life (Leicester, 1983), 11–12, 105–7, 184–96, 295Google Scholar.

137 [Forster, John], “Socrates and the Sophists of Athens,” Foreign and Quarterly Review 60 (January 1843): 181–202, at 187Google Scholar.

138 [Forster, John], “The Dialogues of Plato,” Foreign and Quarterly Review 62 (July 1843): 260–76, at 276, 273Google Scholar.

139 “Latter-Day Pamphlets: By Thomas Carlyle,” English Review 16 (January 1852): 331–51, at 335–36Google Scholar.

140 Ibid., 340. On Carlyle's Stoicism, see Alexander Jordan, “Noble Just Industrialism: Saint-Simonism in the Political Thought of Thomas Carlyle” (PhD diss., European University Institute, 2015), chap. 1.

141 “Carlyle's Life of Sterling,” North British Review 16 (February 1852): 359–89, at 388–89Google Scholar.

142 [Martineau, James], “Personal Influences on our Present Theology: Newman – Coleridge – Carlyle,” National Review 3 (1856): 449–94, at 484Google Scholar. On Martineau's opposition to utilitarianism, see Schneewind, Sidgwick's Ethics, 237–43.

143 See Rosen, Classical Utilitarianism, chap. 10.

144 Diary entries dated 20 January 1854 and 8 April 1854, in The Letters of John Stuart Mill, ed. Elliot, H. S. R., 2 vols. (London, 1910), 2:361, 385Google Scholar.

145 See generally Neff, Emery, Carlyle and Mill: An Introduction to Victorian Thought, 2nd ed. (New York, 1926), 373–77Google Scholar; and Rosen, Classical Utilitarianism, chap. 10.

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147 Ibid., 147.

148 Ibid., 148.

149 Carlyle, Thomas, “A New (Old) Review of Mill's Liberty ,” Carlyle Newsletter 6 (1985): 23–27, at 24–25Google Scholar. See also Carlyle, “Shooting Niagara” (1867), CME, 7:200–41, at 223–24.

150 Graham, William, Idealism: An Essay, Metaphysical and Critical (London, 1872), 79 Google Scholar. Carlyle owned a copy. Tarr, “Thomas Carlyle's Libraries,” 255. He later provided Graham with a testimonial. William Graham to Thomas Carlyle, 20 January 1876, MS 1772/38, National Library of Scotland.

151 Lecky, W. E. H., History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne, 2 vols. (London, 1869), 1:3CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also ibid., 14, 180–86. On Lecky's “very long walks with Carlyle” and Carlyle's approval of the book, see A Memoir of the Right Hon. William Edward Hartpole Lecky … By His Wife (New York, 1909), 63, 67–68 Google Scholar.

152 Lecky, History, 1:1, 3, 5–6, 13, 102.

153 Cited in ibid., 1:58. The quote is from Carlyle, On Heroes, 71.

154 See Forschner, Maximilian, “Die Synthese epikureischer und stoischer Elemente in John Stuart Mills Utilitarianism,” in Stoizismus in der europaeischen Philosophie, Literatur, Kunst und Politik, ed. Neymeyr, Barbara, Schmidt, Jochen, and Zimmermann, Bernhard, 2 vols. (Berlin, 2008), 2:1105–40, at 1107, 1113–14, 1119–20, 1132–33Google Scholar.

155 Froude, Thomas Carlyle, 2:422.

156 Grote, John, An Examination of the Utilitarian Philosophy, ed. Mayor, J. B. (Cambridge, 1870), 15–16, 24, 46–47, 52–53 Google Scholar. See also ibid., 60, 62–63, 76, 98–100, 105. Grote writes “eudaimonia” and “pleasure” in ancient Greek.

157 Wallace, Stuart, John Stuart Blackie: Scottish Scholar and Patriot (Edinburgh, 2006), 7, 84–85, 164, 220Google Scholar.

158 Blackie, John Stuart, Four Phases of Morals: Socrates, Aristotle, Christianity, Utilitarianism (Edinburgh, 1871), 407 Google Scholar.

159 Ibid., 332, 401–3, 405–6. See also 374, 382, 400.

160 Caird, Edward, “The Genius of Carlyle,” in Essays on Literature and Philosophy, (Glasgow, 1892), 2:230–67, at 266Google Scholar.

161 The Life of Thomas Cooper. Written by Himself (London, 1875), 347–49Google Scholar.

162 Catalogue of Printed Books, 40.