122 FAMOUS SCOTS 



detraction of greater men than himself in mental 

 philosophy. His mind was swift to perceive analogies, 

 and such a type of mind, if it adds little to actual 

 knowledge, is at least valuable as a stimulus. Carlyle 

 in his political pamphlets has certainly not advanced 

 the lines of the ' dismal science ' ; he even contempt- 

 uously doubted its existence, and he has done harm to 

 it through the ready-reckoner school of d priori econo- 

 mists who refer everything with confidence to their own 

 internal consciousness. Yet Carlyle at his worst has his 

 value. He has the merit of showing that the problem 

 is in its very nature an everlasting one, and that the 

 plummet line of the mere profit-and-loss moralist will 

 never sound the depths of man and his destiny. Such 

 thinkers are, however, rare ; but in natural science they 

 are the salt. Such are Oken, Cuvier, Darwin; their 

 position is independent of the truth of their theories, 

 and they have the gift of a fused and informing imagina- 

 tion, by which their theories are landmarks. Much of 

 their work has already been recast, and some of their 

 once supposed safest generalisations have been aban- 

 doned. But the progress of science revolves round 

 them as central suns. Hardly one of Niebuhr's inter- 

 pretations of Roman history has stood the test of 

 subsequent investigations, any more than those of 

 Ewald in the field of Biblical criticism. Yet in historical 

 science no two men have a more assured rank. 



It is this informing power that keeps alive the geolo- 

 gist. Hume owes his position in metaphysics to this 



