Philosophy, Politics, and Religion

InPast and Present, Thomas Carlyle accused the previous half century – what we now know as the ‘Romantic’ age – of scepticism, religious dissent, and atheism; he claims that the period of ‘liberty and equality’ was also a ‘Period of Ignorance’ (Carlyle 1850: 168, 243). The cultural work ofPast and Presentwas thus to repair the disintegrating effects of this ignorance with a renewed commitment to social cohesion. In the name of ‘God's justice', Carlyle's idealized captains of the world would inspire ‘noble loyalty in return for noble guidance', leading to a revived and re‐ordered national culture (ibid.: 275). Carlyle's account represented a predominant Victorian judgement on the Romantics; but even in this negative judgement, his account nevertheless illuminated some crucial aspects of Romantic prose writing on the subjects of philosophy, religion, and the politics attached to various configurations of the connection between those terms. For if the latter half of the nineteenth century sought to recover a lost set of spiritual values by combating spiritual ‘chaos’ with revived belief and superior spiritual ‘guidance', Romantic writers did not merely espouse atheism or scepticism – although this is certainly part of the late eighteenth‐century intellectual landscape (ibid.: 266, 275) – in addition, they questioned the degree to which a philosophical position on religion could be used to address political problems. On the one hand, in other words, it is possible for us to observe how Romantic writers fiercely pursued a position in relation to the sceptical epistemologies that they inherited from the earlier eighteenth century – either adopting them, modifying them, or contradicting them; these epistemological positions could occasionally be linked to political positions on the value or lack of value that inhered in religious belief as a basis for community. On the other hand, however, many prose writers of the period struggled against the more general idea – fundamental for Carlyle – that philosophy or religion should undergird a commitment to social cohesion. Rather than using philosophical or religious beliefs to advocate for communally shared values, Romantic prose writings frequently directed their inquiries to the political and aesthetic management of conflicting forces rather than to the disciplinary enforcement of uniformity.