-hood constitutes greatness; and
Zoroaster, Cromwell, Julius Caesar, and Frederic the Great; heroes of any
creed or no creed, Pagan or Jew, are the world's worthies, its great
divinities. Men need not be conscious that they are doing great deeds
while in the act, nor, when the work is accomplished, that they have
performed anything worthy a school-boy's notice. On the other hand,
worth is tested by actual unconsciousness, "which teaches that all
self-knowledge is a curse, and introspection a disease; that the true
health of a man is to have a soul without being aware of it,--to be
disposed of by impulses which he never criticises,--to fling out the
products of creative genius without looking at them."

Man is the centre of the universe, which is everywhere clothed with
life. His is a spiritual power capable of effecting the great
transformations needed by his fellows. Let him be earnest, then, and
evolve the fruits of his wonderful strength. Since his mission is work,
here is Carlyle's gospel which calls him to it: "Work is of a religious
nature; all true work is sacred; in all true work, were it but true
hand-labor, there is something of divineness. Labor, wide as the earth,
has its summit in heaven. Sweat of the brow; and up from that to the
sweat of the brain, sweat of the heart; which includes all Kepler
calculations, Newton meditations, all sciences, all spoken epics, all
acted heroisms, martyrdoms,--up to that 'Agony of bloody sweat,' which
all men have called divine! O brother, if this is not 'worship,' then I
say the more pity for worship; for this is the noblest thing yet
discovered under God's sky." Work implies power, and power in the
individual is what society needs to keep it within proper bounds. Social
life requires the will of the single mind and hand; republicanism is
therefore the dream of fanatics, and ought not to be tolerated anywhere.
Popular rights are a fiction which the strong hand ought to dissipate at
a thrust. The greatest men are the greatest despots, and the exercise of
their unlimited authority is what entitles them to our worship. Napoleon
III. preaches the pure gospel of politics in his _Life of Julius Caesar_.
Absolute subjection--call it slavery, if you please--is the proper state
of large bodies of helpless humanity, who are absolutely dependent upon
some master of iron will for guidance and development.

Such being Carlyle's view of human rights, it is not surprising that he
has app