Abstract
In spite of the controversy regarding his biography of Carlyle, no one would doubt Froude’s depiction of Carlyle’s religion as a ‘Calvinist without Theology’.1 Even less controversial are Carlyle’s own words. Carlyle, for instance, nowhere expresses a belief in a ‘supernatural’ Deity. ‘He based his faith’, stresses Froude, ‘not on a supposed revelation…. Experienced fact was to him revelation, and the only true revelation. Historical religions, Christianity included, he believed to have been successive efforts of humanity, loyally and nobly made in the light of existing knowledge’ (Froude, ii, pp. 2–3).
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Notes and References
See Ian Campbell, ‘Carlyle’s Religion: The Scottish Background’ in CHC, pp. 3–20; A. A. Ikeler, Puritan Temper and Transcendental Faith (Columbus: Ohio State UP, 1972);
and Fred Kaplan, Thomas Carlyle: A Biography (Cornell University Press, 1983), esp. pp. 357–60.
Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, Conversations with Carlyle (London: Sampson Low, Marston, 1892), pp. 92–3; my italics.
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© 1988 Michael Timko
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Timko, M. (1988). Prophetic Utterance: Nature, Human History, Divine Justice and the Universe. In: Carlyle and Tennyson. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-09307-6_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-09307-6_5
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