THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
passim, ib. 1900; J. Kostlin, Martin Luther, passim, 2 vols., Berlin, 1903 (important); Cambridge Modern History, vol. ii., The Reformation, passim, ib. 1904; Moeller, Christian Church, vol. iii. passim, especially pp. 27-35; Sehaff, Christian nhurch, vol. vi. passim. Consult also: G. ISauch, in ZKG, xi. (1890) 448 sqq. (on Carlstadt's scholasticism); D. Schafer, ib. xiii. (1S92) 311 (on the De legis litera).
CARLSTADT, JOHANN. See Draconites. CARLYLE, THOMAS: Historian, biographer, and essayist; b. at Ecclefechan (60 m. s. of Edinburgh), Dumfriesshire, Scotland, Dec. Life and 4, 1795; d. in London Feb. 5, 1881. Writings. He was early noted for his extraordinary memory, and for his love of reading. He entered the University of Edinburgh in 1S10, and distinguished himself as a mathematician, but declared that he owed nothing to the university but the miscellaneous reading afforded by its library. Having abandoned the study of theology, he taught mathematics in the high school at Annan for two years. In 1816 he was appointed rector of the Burgh School at Kirkcaldy. Here he devoted himself to the study of German, and translated Legendre's Geometry, adding an introductory essay on proportion.
Carlyle removed to Edinburgh in 1818, where he supported himself by literary work, pursued a large and varied course of reading, and devoted much time to the study of German. From 1820 to 1S23 he contributed a number of articles to the Edinburgh Encyclopedia and the Edinburgh Review. In 1824 he introduced Goethe to English readers by the translation of Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre, and in 1825 published the. Life of Schiller. He married Jane Welsh in 1826, and removed in 1828 to Craigenputtoch, where he wrote his Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, and Sartor Resartus, a philosophic romance in the form of a treatise on dress, containing his views on the problems of religion and life; it was published during 1833-34, in Fraser's Magazine.
In 1834 he removed to London, to the house in Cheyne Row, Chelsea, where he resided until his death. In 1837 appeared The French Revolution, the first of his works to which his name was formally attached. In the same year he began lecturing, and, during 1837-43, delivered courses on German Literature, The Periods of European Culture, the Revolutions of Modern Europe, and Heroes and Hero-Worship, besides publishing Chartism, a political treatise, and Past and Present.
One of his most important works, Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, was issued in 1845, and produced a great revolution, of sentiment in favor of Cromwell. In 1840 Carlyle inaugurated the movement which resulted in the London Library, of which he was afterward elected president. During 1848-50 he wrote a number of political and social treatises, notably The Latter Day Pamphlets, the ultimate and most violent expression of his political creed.
The Life of John Sterling, especially valuable as a partial expression of his own religious views, appeared in 18.51. His magnum opus, The History of Frederick the Great, was begun in 1858, and finished in 1805. It is a monument of patient
industry and minute research, and contains a complete political history of the eighteenth century. In 1866 Carlyle was chosen rector of the University of Edinburgh, and delivered an inaugural on The Choice of Books. Mrs. Carlyle died during his absence on this occasion (Apr. 21). A few newspaper articles, with Historical Sketches of the Early Kings of Norway, and The Portraits of John Knox, marked the next five years, and completed his literary labors.
Carlyle's life is marked by great unity of purpose and concentration of energy. He lived for literature. With his imaginative genius, his poetic insight, and his opulent diction, he was a poet by constitution; but his lack of the sense of form and proportion, and his impatience of measured expression, made him despise poetry. He is a preacher and a prophet rather than an artist. His keen sense of the grotesque, with the real depth of his nature, made him a humorist at once racy, subtle, and satirical; but this element developed itself disproportionately, and ran into cynicism as he grew older.
Notwithstanding the large admixture of ethics and philosophy in his writings, it is well-nigh impossible to define accurately his Ethics position as a philosopher, moralist, and or religionist. Veracity is the basis Philosophy, of his ethical conceptions, by which he means the disposition to go behind appearances to facts, and the assertion of reality as against mere symbols and conventionalities. His hatred of shams is intense, and often leads him into needless roughness of speech. His ethical ideal is defective from its identification of physical and moral order, of might and right. It is too subjective, lodging the test of right in each mans moral consciousness. Hence his fundamental fallacy, expounded in Hero-Worship, and applied in Frederick — the reverence for strength, regardless of moral quality. He is a dangerous guide, therefore, as a historian and political philosopher. His conception of history as only the record of the world's great men is radically false. He has no sense of the popular power in the solution of political problems. The moral teaching of his histories is unsound in blinding the reader to vice through the admiration of greatness. The logical outcome of his political philosophy is slavery and despotism. As a historian he is distinguished by exact and laborious attention to detail. He studies folios and pasquinades alike; and no detail of topography, feature, or costume escapes him. His histories are a series of striking portraits or pictures. He stands committed to no philosophical system. With much talk about the real and practical, his philosophy is intuitional and sentimental, emphasizing feeling above reason.
Theologically he can not be accurately placed.
The Life of Sterling throws most light upon his
religious views. He may fairly be
Religious regarded as a theist. He is mainly
Views. silent on the truth of creeds, always
reverential toward Christ, and, while
agreeing that Christianity is the supreme religion,
denies that it embraces all truth. He seems to hold