VI
THE FRAMEWORK OF HEROIC ACTION
Looking backward on the claims of the social determinists, whether idealist or materialist, it would appear that all they have validly established as a universal generalization is that a great man cannot influence history until the times are “ripe” for him. This is a far cry from the thesis they set out to defend. For, like ripe fruit that may rot on the vine or be harvested, the times may wither unfulfilled or be plucked by a man of action. So much even Carlyle might have admitted, insisting only that the ripeness of to-day is the consequences of the heroic action of yesterday.
An arrogant claim tamed down to a commonplace truth, the reader may murmur. Yet it is not altogether a commonplace when we realize that it does more than set definite limitations upon heroic action. It suggests why such action can succeed in meeting the challenge of ripe conditions. This may be clearer if we contrast it with other views of Carlyle.
In some of his moods Carlyle seems to agree with the social determinists that the hero is limited by the kind of world into which he is born. But even here there is a difference. For Carlyle is vague about the nature of the limitations set by the world whereas the historical determinists, at least, are quite specific about the nature of the limitations. They are social, political, and economic.
Corresponding to this vagueness on Carlyle’s part is his notion that the capacity of genius is not specific but has, on the contrary, an unlimited power of creative adaptation to whatever world it discovers. “Napoleon,” says Carlyle, “has words in him which are like Austerlitz battles.” And again, “The hero can be prophet, poet, king, or priest or what you will according to the kind of world he finds himself born into. I confess I have no notion of a truly great man who could not be all sorts of men.”[1]
The social determinists usually have a more sober view of the specificity of talent and genius. For them social conditions are
- ↑ On Heroes, Hero-worship, and the Heroic in History, Everyman edition, p. 312.
