Ch. 2 - Hero as Prophet

[May 8, 1840.]
LECTURE II.
THE HERO AS PROPHET. MAHOMET: ISLAM.


From the first rude times of Paganism among the Scandinavians in the North,
we advance to a very different epoch of religion, among a very different
people: Mahometanism among the Arabs. A great change; what a change and
progress is indicated here, in the universal condition and thoughts of men!

The Hero is not now regarded as a God among his fellowmen; but as one
God-inspired, as a Prophet. It is the second phasis of Hero-worship: the
first or oldest, we may say, has passed away without return; in the history
of the world there will not again be any man, never so great, whom his
fellowmen will take for a god. Nay we might rationally ask, Did any set of
human beings ever really think the man they _saw_ there standing beside
them a god, the maker of this world? Perhaps not: it was usually some man
they remembered, or _had_ seen. But neither can this any more be. The
Great Man is not recognized henceforth as a god any more.

It was a rude gross error, that of counting the Great Man a god. Yet let
us say that it is at all times difficult to know _what_ he is, or how to
account of him and receive him! The most significant feature in the
history of an epoch is the manner it has of welcoming a Great Man. Ever,
to the true instincts of men, there is something godlike in him. Whether
they shall take him to be a god, to be a prophet, or what they shall take
him to be? that is ever a grand question; by their way of answering that,
we shall see, as through a little window, into the very heart of these
men's spiritual condition. For at bottom the Great Man, as he comes from
the hand of Nature, is ever the same kind of thing: Odin, Luther, Johnson,
Burns; I hope to make it appear that these are all originally of one stuff;
that only by the world's reception of them, and the shapes they assume, are
they so immeasurably diverse. The worship of Odin astonishes us,--to fall
prostrate before the Great Man, into _deliquium_ of love and wonder over
him, and feel in their hearts that he was a denizen of the skies, a god!
This was imperfect enough: but to welcome, for example, a Burns as we did,
was that what we can call perfect? The most precious gift that Heaven can
give to the Earth; a man of "genius" as we call it; the Soul of a Man
actually sent down from the skies with a God's-message to us,--this we
waste away as an idle artificial firework, sent to amuse us a little, and
sink it into ashes, wreck and ineffectuality: _such_ reception of a Great
Man I do not call very perfect either! Looking into the heart of the
thing, one may perhaps call that of Burns a still uglier phenomenon,
betokening still sadder imperfections in mankind's