ver, we must be on
our guard against the impetuosity of the revolutionary spirit and all
rash rupture with the past. To cast old clothes aside before new
clothes are ready--this does not mean progress, but sansculottism, or
a lapse into nakedness and anarchy.

* * * * *

The lectures "On Heroes and Hero-Worship," here printed with "Sartor
Resartus," contain little more than an amplification, through a series
of brilliant character-studies, of those fundamental ideas of history
which had already figured among Teufelsdroeckh's social speculations.
Simple in statement and clear in doctrine, this second work needs no
formal introduction. It may, however, be of service just to indicate
one or two points at which, apart from its set theses, it expresses or
implies certain underlying principles of all Carlyle's thought.

In the first place, his philosophy of history rests entirely on "the
great man theory." "Universal History, the history of what man has
accomplished in the world," is for him "at bottom the History of the
Great Men who have worked here." This conception, of course, brings
him into sharp conflict with that scientific view of history which was
already gaining ground when "Heroes and Hero-Worship" was written, and
which since then has become even more popular under the powerful
influence of the modern doctrine of evolution. A scientific historian,
like Buckle or Taine, seeks to explain all changes in thought, all
movements in politics and society, in terms of general laws; his habit
is, therefore, to subordinate, if not quite to eliminate, the
individual; the greatest man is treated as in a large measure the
product and expression of the "spirit of the time." For Carlyle,
individuality is everything. While, as he is bound to admit, "no one
works save under conditions," external circumstances and influences
count little. The Great Man is supreme. He is not the creature of his
age, but its creator; not its servant, but its master. "The History of
the World is but the Biography of Great Men."

Anti-scientific in his reading of history, Carlyle is also
anti-democratic in the practical lessons he deduces from it. He
teaches that our right relations with the Hero are discipular
relations; that we should honestly acknowledge his superiority, look
up to him, reverence him. Thus on the personal side he challenges that
tendency to "level down" which he believed to be one alarming result