The same inconsequence in politics. We have _Chartism_ preached by one not a Chartist--by one who has no more his _five points_ of Radicalism than his five points of Calvinistic divinity--who has no trust in democracy, who swears by no theory of representative government--who will never believe that a multitude of men, foolish and selfish, will elect the disinterested and the wise. Your constitution, your laws, your "horse-haired justice" that sits in Westminster Hall, he likes them not; but he propounds himself no scheme of polity. Reform yourselves, one and all, ye individual men! and the nation will be reformed; practise justice, charity, self-denial, and then all mortals may work and eat. This is the most distinct advice he bestows. Alas! it is advice such as this that the Christian preacher, century after century, utters from his pulpit, which he makes the staple of his eloquence, and which he and his listeners are contented to applaud; and the more contented probably to applaud, as, on all hands, it is tacitly understood to be far _too good_ to be practised. In fine, turn which way you will, to philosophy, to politics, to religion, you find Mr Carlyle objecting, denouncing, scoffing, rending all to pieces in his bold, reckless, ironical, manner--but _teaching_ nothing. The most docile pupil, when he opens his tablets to put down the precious sum of wisdom he has learned, pauses--finds his pencil motionless, and leaves his tablet still a blank. Now all this, and more of the same kind, which our astute and trenchant critic might urge, may be true, or very like the truth, but it is not the whole truth. "To speak a little pedantically," says our author himself, in a paper called _Signs of the Times_, "there is a science of _Dynamics_ in man's fortune and nature, as well as of _Mechanics_. There is a science which treats of, and practically addresses, the primary, unmodified, forces and energies of man, the mysterious springs of love, and fear, and wonder, of enthusiasm, poetry--religion, all which have a truly vital and _infinite_ character; as well as a science which practically addresses the finite, modified developments of these, when they take the shape of immediate 'motives,' as hope of reward, or as fear of punishment. Now it is certain, that in former times the wise men, the enlightened lovers of their kind, who appeared generally as moralists, poets, or priests, did, without neglecting the mechanical province, deal chiefly with the dynamical; applying, themselves chiefly to regulate, increase, and purify, the inward primary powers of man; and fancying that herein lay the main difficulty, and the best service they could undertake."--_Misc_. vol. ii. p. 277.