Carlyle, Thomas (1795–1881)

Although widely influential as a historian, moralist and social critic, Carlyle has no real claim to be considered a philosopher. He does have some importance as one of the transmitters of the ideas of the German Idealists, such as Kant and Fichte, to Britain, and as one of the chief British spokesmen for the Romantic exaltation of the imagination above the understanding; but his grasp of philosophical issues is vague. His later writings are dominated by the idea, derived from his childhood Calvinism, of a divine justice working in history through the medium of great men (‘heroes’) who are its conscious or unconscious instruments.