To Thomas Archer Hirst   Sunday morning Sept 1st 1850

Sunday morning Sept 1^st 1850

Churchtime!

My Dear Tom,

Your letter¹ reached me 10 minutes ago and I have read your remarks about Carlyle and about Stirling² – how I like to follow those gropings of that soul of yours! – There is a great difference between such men as Carlyle and such men as Stirling the one has faith and the other none – Stirling must see to believe, Carlyle is able to appreciate ‘the evidence of things not seen’³ – and however this faith may be decried if exhibited by our Contemporaries it must be confessed that it has formed the great substratum of achievements which even sceptics admire – Even in an intellectual view there must be something solid here. that principle is not to be slighted which enables a man to set hunger and cold at defiance and enable the martyr to rejoice amid the flames that are choking him – I confess to a certain obstinacy on this point – a willfulness, if you like to call it such, that will not listen to reason – I know all the intellectual men have to urge, and grant it what I conceive to be its proper value; but I know also that there are sources of power open to me which they have never fathomed – there is something in nature, name it I cant, but know it I do an habitual falling back upon which gives a man sinews of iron. This is a fact – a fact proved and reproved by a hundred experiences – Let the intellect make what it will of it there it lies as incontestable as the fact of my own existence – Shall I allow my logical faculty then to bamboozle me by a sneer – or if the said logical faculty weakly suffer itself to be bamboozled by the logic of another shall I cut myself adrift and follow it in its tossings? Not I faith. I confess to a certain stubbornness here and have after found its value –

There appears to be enough rude primal element of power rendered accessible to man by this thirst. But the intellect was not given for naught It must throw its torch light upon this power and guide it aright. It is the waggoner who by bit and rein guides the strong horse to his work – If the horse be wicked the waggoner must be brave – and if the power aforesaid be strong the guiding power must be proportionate – This constitutes what you yourself call a balanced mind. It is pitiful to hear the logical jibber of some people, but even more to witness the waste of force in other cases arising purely from want of balance between force and insight.

Carlyle is the begotten son of the Universe⁴ – and he knows it – Stirling is an alien guest and he knows it – The one is Isaac, the other Ishmael⁵ – ‘The son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman’.⁶

Your remarks upon the paper in the Literary Gazette⁷ have induced me to turn to it and to read it over. It strikes me that the reasoning is very fair, and if I had it to do over again I dont know where I should alter it. But you would not believe what [an] influence the simple reading of that paper has had upon my thoughts – turning from it the expression ‘Carlyle is the begotten son of the universe’ appears mere bombastic nonsense – why? Because I don’t see the truth of the expression. and all that about sinews of iron has no meaning simply because I don’t feel it – my intellect has been otherwise engaged it has been looking at other objects till the impression of the first mentioned has [become] dim – but it would be just as rational to accept this as an argument as to infer that there is no building called the exchange in Manchester because I dont just now see it – Is it not there to be seen any time I take the trouble of walking in to Manchester; and with the same perspicuity will my old experience arise if I only give myself the trouble of contemplating the matter – knowing this I do not call what I have written nonsense – I know that it had as good a right to be written as my scientific paper. The claims of both are recognized and thus a brotherly harmony is established between them – but I’m rambling Tom – I have written in a rigmarole style and it is a question whether you will extract anything from what I have written –

Your affectionate friend | John Tyndall

All the address necessary will be Thomas Hirst | Marburg | Hesse Cassel

Every little boy in Marburg will know you in a week! der grosse Englander!⁸ the expression will be the property of every household in 10 days –

I should have liked to see you and January – in fact I half expected you and told Ginty so and felt a kind of disappointment as the day past without any intelligence of you – the bag came safe⁹ –

RI MS JT/1/T/534