Note (return) — Chapter III

By 1870 Carlyle's lesson was already well started on its course from paradox to platitude. The most important single influence in that course had been the growth of Natural Science. It was, for instance, in 1870 that Huxley's Lay Sermons were collected and published. People who could not in 1850 understand Carlyle's distinction between the Delusive and the Eeal, could not help understanding Huxley's comparison of life and death to a game of chess with an unseen opponent who never makes a mistake.[92] And Huxley's impersonal Science seemed a more present aid in the voyage round Cape Horn than Carlyle's personal and impossible Hero.