III
Who can be
called a great man ? If asked of military heroes such as Alexander, Attila,
Caesar and Tamerlane, the question is not difficult to answer. The militarymen
make epochs and effect vast transitions. They appal and dazzle their
contemporaries by their resounding victories. They become great without waiting
to be called great. As the lion is among the deer, so they are among men. But
it is equally true that their permanent effect on the history of mankind is
very small. Their conquests shrink, and even so great a General as Napoleon
after all his conquests left France smaller than he found it. When viewed from
a distance they are seen to be only periodical, if necessary, incidents in the
world’s movement, leaving no permanent mark on the character of the society in
which they live The details of their career and their moral may be interesting,
but they do not affect society and form no leaven to transform or temper the
whole.
The answer
becomes difficult when the question is asked about a person who is not a
military general. For, it then becomes a question of tests, and different
people have different tests.
Carlyle
the apostle of Hero Worship had a test of his own. He laid it down in the
following terms :
“But of great man
especially, of him I will venture to assert that it is incredible he should
have been other than true. It seems to me the primary foundation of him,
this... No man adequate to do anything, but is first of all in right earnest
about it; what I call a sincere man. I should say sincerity, a deep, great genuine sincerity, is the first
characteristic of all men in any way heroic.”
Carlyle
was of course particular in defining his test of sincerity in precise terms,
and in doing so he warned his readers by defining what his idea of sincerity
was—
“Not the
sincerity that calls itself sincere : Ah no,” he said, “that is a very poor
matter indeed ; — a shallow, braggart, conscious sincerity ; oftenest self-conceit
mainly. The great man’s sincerity is of the kind he cannot speak of, is not
conscious of : Nay, I suppose, he is conscious rather of insincerity ; for what man can walk
accurately by the law of truth for one day ? No, the great man does not boast
himself sincere, far from that; perhaps does not ask himself if he is so : I
would say rather, his sincerity does not depend on himself ; he cannot help
being sincere!”
Lord
Rosebery proposed another test when dealing with Napoleon—who was as great an
Administrator as a General. In answering the question, Was Napoleon Great ?
Rosebery used the following language :
“If by ‘great’ be
intended the combination of moral qualities with those of intellect, great be
certainly was not. But that he was great in the sense of being extraordinary
and supreme we can have no doubt. If greatness stands for natural power, for
predominance, for something human beyond humanity, then Napoleon was assuredly
great. Besides that indefinable spark which we call genius, he represents a
combination of intellect and energy which has never perhaps been equalled,
never certainly surpassed.”
There is a
third test, suggested by the philosophers or, to be more accurate, by those who
believe in divine guidance of human affairs. They have a different conception
of what is a great man. To summarise the summary of their view, as given by
Rosebery, a great man is launched into the world, as a great natural or
supernatural force, as a scourge and a scavenger boon to cleanse society and
lead it on to the right path who is engaged in a vast operation, partly
positive, mainly negative, but all relating to social regeneration.
Which of
these is the true test ? In my judgment all are partial and none is complete.
Sincerity must be the test of a great man. Clemenceau once said that most
statesmen are rogues. Statesmen are not necessarily great men, and obviously
those on whose experience he founded his opinion must have been those wanting
in sincerity. Nonetheless no one can accept that sincerity is the primary or
the sole test. For sincerity is not enough. A great man must have sincerity.
For it is the sum of all moral qualities without which no man can be called
great. But there must be something more than mere sincerity in a man to make
him great. A man may be sincere and yet he may be a fool, and a fool is the
very antithesis of a great man. A man is great because he finds a way to save
society in its hours of crisis. But what can help him to find the way ? He can
do so only with the help of intellect. Intellect is the light. Nothing else can
be of any avail. It is quite obvious that without the combination of sincerity
and intellect no man can be great. Is this enough to constitute a great man? At
this stage we, must, I think, make a distinction between an eminent individual
and a great man. For I am certain that a great man is something very different
from an eminent individual. Sincerity and intellect are enough to mark out an
individual as being eminent as compared to his fellows. But they arc not enough
to rake him to the dignity of a great man. A great man must have something more
than what a merely eminent individual has. What must be that thing ? Here comes
the importance of the philosopher’s definition of a great man. A great man must
be motivated by the dynamics of a social purpose and must act as the scourge
and the scavenger of society. These axe the elements which distinguish an
ominent individual from a great man and constitute his titledeeds to respect
and reverence.
No comments:
Post a Comment