first or oldest, we may say, has passed away without return; in the history

of the world there will not again be any man, never so great, whom his
fellowmen will take for a god. Nay we might rationally ask, Did any set of

human beings ever really think the man they _saw_ there standing beside
them a god, the maker of this world? Perhaps not: it was usually some man

they remembered, or _had_ seen. But neither can this any more be. The
Great Man is not recognized henceforth as a god any more.

It was a rude gross error, that of counting the Great Man a god. Yet let
us say that it is at all times difficult to know _what_ he is, or how to

account of him and receive him! The most significant feature in the
history of an epoch is the manner it has of welcoming a Great Man. Ever,

to the true instincts of men, there is something godlike in him. Whether
they shall take him to be a god, to be a prophet, or what they shall take

him to be? that is ever a grand question; by their way of answering that,
we shall see, as through a little window, into the very heart of these

men's spiritual condition. For at bottom the Great Man, as he comes from
the hand of Nature, is ever the same kind of thing: Odin, Luther, Johnson,

Burns; I hope to make it appear that these are all originally of one stuff;
that only by the world's reception of them, and the shapes they assume, are

they so immeasurably diverse. The worship of Odin astonishes us,--to fall
prostrate before the Great Man, into _deliquium_ of love and wonder over

him, and feel in their hearts that he was a denizen of the skies, a god!
This was imperfect enough: but to welcome, for example, a Burns as we did,

was that what we can call perfect? The most precious gift that Heaven can
give to the Earth; a man of "genius" as we call it; the Soul of a Man

actually sent down from the skies with a God's-message to us,--this we
waste away as an idle artificial firework, sent to amuse us a little, and

sink it into ashes, wreck and ineffectuality: _such_ reception of a Great
Man I do not call very perfect either! Looking into the heart of the

thing, one may perhaps call that of Burns a still uglier phenomenon,
betokening still sadder imperfections in mankind's ways, than the

Scandinavian method itself! To fall into mere unreasoning _deliquium_ of
love and admiration, was not good; but such unreasoning, nay irrational

supercilious no-love at all is perhaps still worse!--It is a thing forever
changing, this of Hero-worship: different in each age, difficult to do

well in any age. Indeed, the heart of the whole business of the age, one
may say, is to do it well.

We have chosen Mahomet not as the most eminent Prophet; but as the one we
are freest to speak of. He is by no means the truest of Prophets; but I do

esteem him a true one. Farther, as there is no danger of our becoming, any
of us, Mahometans, I mean to say all the good of him I justly can. It is

the way to get at his secret: let us try to understand what _he_ meant
with the world; what the world meant and means with him, will then be a

more answerable question. Our current hypothesis about Mahomet, that he
was a scheming Impostor, a Falsehood incarnate, that his religion is a mere

mass of quackery and fatuity, begins really to be now untenable to any one.
The lies, which well-meaning zeal has heaped round this man, are

disgraceful to ourselves only. When Pococke inquired of Grotius, Where the
proof was of that story of the pigeon, trained to pick peas from Mahomet's

ear, and pass for an angel dictating to him? Grotius answered that there
was no proof! It is really time to dismiss all that. The word this man

spoke has been the life-guidance now of a hundred and eighty millions of
men these twelve hundred years. These hundred and eighty millions were

made by God as well as we. A greater number of God's creatures believe in
Mahomet's word at this hour, than in any other word whatever. Are we to

suppose that it was a miserable piece of spiritual legerdemain, this which
so many creatures of the Almighty have lived by and died by? I, for my

part, cannot form any such supposition. I will believe most things sooner
than that. One would be entirely at a loss what to think of this world at

all, if quackery so grew and were sanctioned here.
Alas, such theories are very lamentable. If we would attain to knowledge

of anything in God's true Creation, let us disbelieve them wholly! They
are the product of an Age of Scepticism: they indicate the saddest

spiritualparalysis, and mere death-life of the souls of men: more godless
theory, I think, was never promulgated in this Earth. A false man found a

religion? Why, a false man cannot build a brick house! If he do not know
and follow truly the properties of mortar, burnt clay and what else be

works in, it is no house that he makes, but a rubbish-heap. It will not
stand for twelve centuries, to lodge a hundred and eighty millions; it will

fall straightway. A man must conform himself to Nature's laws, _be_ verily
in communion with Nature and the truth of things, or Nature will answer

him, No, not at all! Speciosities are specious--ah me!--a Cagliostro, many
Cagliostros, prominent world-leaders, do prosper by their quackery, for a

day. It is like a forged bank-note; they get it passed out of _their_
worthless hands: others, not they, have to smart for it. Nature bursts up

in fire-flames, French Revolutions and such like, proclaiming with terrible
veracity that forged notes are forged.

But of a Great Man especially, of him I will venture to assert that it is
incredible he should have been other than true. It seems to me the primary

foundation of him, and of all that can lie in him, this. No Mirabeau,
Napoleon, Burns, Cromwell, no man adequate to do anything, but is first of

all in right earnest about it; what I call a sincere man. I should say
_sincerity_, a deep, great, genuinesincerity, is the first characteristic

of all men in any way heroic. Not the sincerity that calls itself sincere;
ah no, that is a very poor matter indeed;--a shallow braggart conscious

sincerity; oftenest self-conceit mainly. The Great Man's sincerity is of
the kind he cannot speak of, is not conscious of: nay, I suppose, he is

conscious rather of insincerity; for what man can walk accurately by the
law of truth for one day? No, the Great Man does not boast himself

sincere, far from that; perhaps does not ask himself if he is so: I would
say rather, his sincerity does not depend on himself; he cannot help being

sincere! The great Fact of Existence is great to him. Fly as he will, he
cannot get out of the awful presence of this Reality. His mind is so made;

he is great by that, first of all. Fearful and wonderful, real as Life,
real as Death, is this Universe to him. Though all men should forget its

truth, and walk in a vain show, he cannot. At all moments the Flame-image
glares in upon him; undeniable, there, there!--I wish you to take this as

my primarydefinition of a Great Man. A little man may have this, it is
competent to all men that God has made: but a Great Man cannot be without

it.
Such a man is what we call an _original_ man; he comes to us at first-hand.

A messenger he, sent from the Infinite Unknown with tidings to us. We may
call him Poet, Prophet, God;--in one way or other, we all feel that the

words he utters are as no other man's words. Direct from the Inner Fact of
things;--he lives, and has to live, in daily communion with that. Hearsays

cannot hide it from him; he is blind, homeless, miserable, following
hearsays; _it_ glares in upon him. Really his utterances, are they not a

kind of "revelation;"--what we must call such for want of some other name?
It is from the heart of the world that he comes; he is portion of the

primal reality of things. God has made many revelations: but this man
too, has not God made him, the latest and newest of all? The "inspiration

of the Almighty giveth him understanding:" we must listen before all to
him.

This Mahomet, then, we will in no wise consider as an Inanity and
Theatricality, a poor consciousambitious schemer; we cannot conceive him

so. The rude message he delivered was a real one withal; an earnest
confused voice from the unknown Deep. The man's words were not false, nor

his workings here below; no Inanity and Simulacrum; a fiery mass of Life
cast up from the great bosom of Nature herself. To _kindle_ the world; the

world's Maker had ordered it so. Neither can the faults, imperfections,
insincerities even, of Mahomet, if such were never so well proved against

him, shake this primary fact about him.
On the whole, we make too much of faults; the details of the business hide

the real centre of it. Faults? The greatest of faults, I should say, is
to be conscious of none. Readers of the Bible above all, one would think,

might know better. Who is called there "the man according to God's own
heart"? David, the Hebrew King, had fallen into sins enough; blackest

crimes; there was no want of sins. And thereupon the unbelievers sneer and
ask, Is this your man according to God's heart? The sneer, I must say,

seems to me but a shallow one. What are faults, what are the outward
details of a life; if the inner secret of it, the remorse, temptations,

true, often-baffled, never-ended struggle of it, be forgotten? "It is not
in man that walketh to direct his steps." Of all acts, is not, for a man,

_repentance_ the most divine? The deadliest sin, I say, were that same
supercilious consciousness of no sin;--that is death; the heart so

conscious is divorced from sincerity, humility and fact; is dead: it is