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Heroes and Hero Worship-Part9_Thomas Carlyle(1795-1881)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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his native country, since unjust men had not only given no ear to his

earnest Heaven's-message, the deep cry of his heart, but would not even let



him live if he kept speaking it,--the wild Son of the Desert resolved to

defend himself, like a man and Arab. If the Koreish will have it so, they



shall have it. Tidings, felt to be of infinite moment to them and all men,

they would not listen to these; would trample them down by sheer violence,



steel and murder: well, let steel try it then! Ten years more this

Mahomet had; all of fighting of breathlessimpetuous toil and struggle;



with what result we know.

Much has been said of Mahomet's propagating his Religion by the sword. It



is no doubt far nobler what we have to boast of the Christian Religion,

that it propagated itself peaceably in the way of preaching" target="_blank" title="n.说教 a.说教的">preaching and conviction.



Yet withal, if we take this for an argument of the truth or falsehood of a

religion, there is a radical mistake in it. The sword indeed: but where



will you get your sword! Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely

in a _minority of one_. In one man's head alone, there it dwells as yet.



One man alone of the whole world believes it; there is one man against all

men. That _he_ take a sword, and try to propagate with that, will do



little for him. You must first get your sword! On the whole, a thing will

propagate itself as it can. We do not find, of the Christian Religion



either, that it always disdained the sword, when once it had got one.

Charlemagne's conversion of the Saxons was not by preaching" target="_blank" title="n.说教 a.说教的">preaching. I care little



about the sword: I will allow a thing to struggle for itself in this

world, with any sword or tongue or implement it has, or can lay hold of.



We will let it preach, and pamphleteer, and fight, and to the uttermost

bestir itself, and do, beak and claws, whatsoever is in it; very sure that



it will, in the long-run, conquer nothing which does not deserve to be

conquered. What is better than itself, it cannot put away, but only what



is worse. In this great Duel, Nature herself is umpire, and can do no

wrong: the thing which is deepest-rooted in Nature, what we call _truest_,



that thing and not the other will be found growing at last.

Here however, in reference to much that there is in Mahomet and his



success, we are to remember what an umpire Nature is; what a greatness,

composure of depth and tolerance there is in her. You take wheat to cast



into the Earth's bosom; your wheat may be mixed with chaff, chopped straw,

barn-sweepings, dust and all imaginable rubbish; no matter: you cast it



into the kind just Earth; she grows the wheat,--the whole rubbish she

silently absorbs, shrouds _it_ in, says nothing of the rubbish. The yellow



wheat is growing there; the good Earth is silent about all the rest,--has

silently turned all the rest to some benefit too, and makes no complaint



about it! So everywhere in Nature! She is true and not a lie; and yet so

great, and just, and motherly in her truth. She requires of a thing only



that it _be_ genuine of heart; she will protect it if so; will not, if not

so. There is a soul of truth in all the things she ever gave harbor to.



Alas, is not this the history of all highest Truth that comes or ever came

into the world? The _body_ of them all is imperfection, an element of



light in darkness: to us they have to come embodied in mere Logic, in some

merely _scientific_ Theorem of the Universe; which _cannot_ be complete;



which cannot but be found, one day, incomplete, erroneous, and so die and

disappear. The body of all Truth dies; and yet in all, I say, there is a



soul which never dies; which in new and ever-nobler embodiment lives

immortal as man himself! It is the way with Nature. The genuine essence



of Truth never dies. That it be genuine, a voice from the great Deep of

Nature, there is the point at Nature's judgment-seat. What _we_ call pure



or impure, is not with her the final question. Not how much chaff is in

you; but whether you have any wheat. Pure? I might say to many a man:



Yes, you are pure; pure enough; but you are chaff,--insincere hypothesis,

hearsay, formality; you never were in contact with the great heart of the



Universe at all; you are properly neither pure nor impure; you _are_

nothing, Nature has no business with you.



Mahomet's Creed we called a kind of Christianity; and really, if we look at

the wild rapt earnestness with which it was believed and laid to heart, I






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