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Thomas Carlyle

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The Spectre of Democracy

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Abstract

From the French aristocrat full of doubts and uncertainties we turn to the clear convictions of the Scottish stonemason’s son. Thomas Carlyle was born in 1795 in Ecclefechan, a small village in Dumfriesshire. His parents were strict Calvinists and wanted him, the oldest of their nine children, to enter the ministry. This opportunity he declined and soon came to believe that religious principles were easier found outside of churches than within. Yet in a broader than pulpit sense, preaching became his vocation, and though he wore no clerical garb, the hard theology of his parents provided the moral framework for his verbal assault on the modern world.

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Notes

  1. T. Carlyle, Sartor Resartus (Oxford, 1987), p. 149.

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  2. Ibid., p. 176.

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  3. Ibid., p. 179.

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  4. T. Carlyle, Essays in Two Volumes, Vol. 2 (London, 1964), p. 303.

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  5. T. Carlyle, Past and Present (Oxford, 1921), p. 197.

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  6. T. Carlyle, Essays in Two Volumes, Vol. 1 (London, 1964), p. 338.

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  7. T. Carlyle, Latter-Day Pamphlets (London, 1897), p. 44–5.

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  8. T. Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, p. 18.

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  9. T. Carlyle, Essays in Two Volumes, Vol. 1, p. 245.

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  10. T. Carlyle, Past and Present, pp. 160–1, 160.

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  11. T. Carlyle, Essays in Two Volumes, Vol. 2, p. 203.

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  12. T. Carlyle, Past and Present, pp. 231–2.

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  13. Marx Engels: Collected Works, Vol. 3 (London, 1975), p. 444.

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  14. T. Carlyle, Essays in Two Volumes, Vol. 2, p. 225.

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  15. T. Carlyle, The French Revolution. A History (London, 1891), Part One, p. 178.

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  16. T. Carlyle, Past and Present, p. 194.

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  17. See T. Carlyle, Latter-Day Pamphlets, pp. 35–6 and T. Carlyle, Essays in Two Volumes, Vol. 1, p. 299.

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  18. T. Carlyle, On Heroes and Hero-Worship (London, 1974), p. 264.

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  19. T. Carlyle, Past and Present, p. 244.

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  20. Ibid., p. 130.

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  21. T. Carlyle, The French Revolution, Part One, p. 30.

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  22. Ibid., p. 12. Also see p. 177.

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  23. Ibid., p. 115.

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  24. Ibid., p. 165.

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  25. Ibid., p. 105.

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  26. Ibid., Part Two, p. 248.

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  27. Ibid., Part Three, p. 370.

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  28. E. Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (London, 1964), PP. 5–6.

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  29. T. Carlyle, Latter-Day Pamphlets, pp. 32–3 and 37.

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  30. Ibid., p. 194.

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  31. Ibid., pp. 199 and 205.

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  32. Ibid., p. 211.

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  33. T. Carlyle, Essays in Two Volumes, Vol. 1, pp. 317, 316.

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  34. Ibid., pp. 301, 302.

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  35. Ibid., p. 311.

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  36. Ibid., pp. 312, 316, 337.

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  37. T. Carlyle, Past and Present, p. 226.

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  38. T. Carlyle, Essays in Two Volumes, Vol. 1, pp. 236–7.

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  39. T. Carlyle, Past and Present, p. 74.

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  40. T. Carlyle, On Heroes and Hero-Worship, p. 222.

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  41. T. Carlyle, Latter-Day Pamphlets, pp. 211 and 217.

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  42. Ibid., p. 209.

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  43. T. Carlyle, Past and Present, p. 62.

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  44. T. Carlyle, On Heroes and Hero-Worship, p. 168.

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  45. T. Carlyle, Essays in Two Volumes, Vol. 2, p. 220.

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  46. Ibid., Vol. 1, pp. 317, 316.

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  47. T. Carlyle, On Heroes and Hero-Worship, p. 284. Also see p. 241.

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  48. A.J. La Valley, Carlyle and the Idea of the Modern. Studies in Carlyle’s Prophetic Literature and its Relation to Blake, Nietzsche, Marx and Others (New Haven and London, 1968), p. 268.

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  49. H. Trevor-Roper, ‘Thomas Carlyle’s Historical Philosophy’, The Times Literary Supplement, 26 June 1981, p. 733.

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  50. T. Carlyle, History of Frederick II of Prussia called Frederick the Great, 8 vols, facsimile of 1897 edition (New York, 1969), Vol. 1, pp. 335, 337, 339.

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  51. Quoted in A.J. La Valley, Carlyle and the Idea of the Modern, p. 335.

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  52. Ibid., p. 214.

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  53. T. Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, p. 5.

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  54. Marx Engels: Collected Works, Vol. 10 (London, 1978), pp. 301 and 307; ibid., Vol. 4 (London, 1975), p. 579.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Goldsmiths’ College, University of London, UK

    Michael Levin (Senior Lecturer in Politics)

Authors
  1. Michael Levin
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© 1992 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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Levin, M. (1992). Thomas Carlyle. In: The Spectre of Democracy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-12547-0_6

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