t that the creeds and
formulas which have come down to them from the past are no longer
living for them, no longer what they need for the embodiment of their
spiritual life. Two mistakes are now possible, and these are, indeed,
commonly made together. On the one hand, men may try to ignore the
growth of knowledge and the expansion of thought, and to cling to the
outgrown symbols as things having in themselves some mysterious
sanctity and power. On the other hand, they may recklessly endeavour
to cast aside the reality symbolised along with the discredited symbol
itself. Given such a condition of things, and we shall find religion
degenerating into formalism and the worship of the dead letter, and,
side by side with this, the impatient rejection of all religion, and
the spread of a crude and debasing materialism. Religious symbols,
then, must be renewed. But their renewal can come only from within.
Form, to have any real value, must grow out of life and be fed by it.

The revolutionary quality in the philosophy of "Sartor Resartus"
cannot, of course, be overlooked. Everything that man has woven for
himself must in time become merely "old clothes"; the work of his
thought, like that of his hands, is perishable; his very highest
symbols have no permanence or finality. Carlyle cuts down to the
essential reality beneath all shows and forms and emblems: witness his
amazing vision of a naked House of Lords. Under his penetrating gaze
the "earthly hulls and garnitures" of existence melt away. Men's habit
is to rest in symbols. But to rest in symbols is fatal, since they are
at best but the "adventitious wrappages" of life. Clothes "have made
men of us"--true; but now, so great has their influence become that
"they are threatening to make clothes-screens of us." Hence "the
beginning of all wisdom is to look fixedly on clothes ... till they
become transparent." The logical tendency of such teaching may seem to
be towards utter nihilism. But that tendency is checked and qualified
by the strong conservative element which is everywhere prominent in
Carlyle's thought. Upon the absolute need of "clothes" the stress is
again and again thrown. They "have made men of us." By symbols alone
man lives and works. By symbols alone can he make life and work
effective. Thus even the world's "old clothes"--its discarded forms
and creeds--should be treated with the reverence due to whatever has
once played a part in human development. Thus, moreo