One other case occurred during my conduct of the Review, which similarly
illustrated the effect of taking a prompt initiative. I believe that
the early success and reputation of Carlyle’s French Revolution, were
considerably accelerated by what I wrote about it in the Review.
Immediately on its publication, and before the commonplace critics, all
whose rules and modes of judgment it set at defiance, had time to
pre-occupy the public with their disapproval of it, I wrote and
published a review of the book, hailing it as one of those productions
of genius which are above all rules, and are a law to themselves.
Neither in this case nor in that of Lord Durham do I ascribe the
impression, which I think was produced by what I wrote, to any
particular merit of execution: indeed, in at least one of the cases (the
article on Carlyle) I do not think the execution was good. And in both
instances, I am persuaded that anybody, in a position to be read, who
had expressed the same opinion at the same precise time, and had made
any tolerable statement of the just grounds for it, would have produced
the same effects. But, after the complete failure of my hopes of putting
a new life into radical politics by means of the Review, I am glad to
look back on these two instances of success in an honest attempt to do
immediate service to things and persons that deserved it.
Note from KBJ: Timing is everything. The best example of this is John Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971), which was published just after the turbulent 60s. This was a time when philosophy suffered from an identity crisis. Was philosophy merely the analysis of concepts, as was thought by many, or did it have something substantive to say about pressing moral issues, such as civil disobedience, war, capital punishment, the equality of women, euthanasia, abortion, the moral status of animals, and the distribution of wealth? Rawls showed restless egalitarians that it was possible to reason—and therefore to argue—about these things.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 