In these works Carlyle states his views regarding the source and character of the evils afflicting the British nation, and the means by which they may be mitigated and removed. “Past and Present” is the most splendidly written and carefully meditated of the two. It contains many sentences of remarkable force and beauty, with numerous touches of that savage humor peculiar to Carlyle. The tone of the work, however, is one of perfect discontent. The style bristles with the author’s usual extravagance about society and government, declaring both to be shams and unveracities, and sneering at all plans for improvement which the ingenuity or benevolence of others have framed. If we understand Carlyle aright, he considers that the constitutional government of England is a humbug; that William the Conqueror, and Oliver Cromwell were the best governors that England has ever had; that since Cromwell’s time the country has been governed by Sir Jahesh Windbag, strong in no faith but that “paragraphs and plausibilities will bring votes;” and that everybody is a fool or a flunkey except Thomas Carlyle. He hates every form of government which it is _possible_ to establish in this world—democracy among the rest. If his work may be said to have any practical bearing on politics, it is this—that a governor is wanted with force enough to assume arbitrary power, and exercise it according to the dreams of mystics and sentimentalists. His system is a compound of anarchy and despotism. His ideal of a governor is of a man, with an incapacity or indisposition to explain himself, who rises up some day and cries—“the government of this country is a lie, the people cannot make it a reality, but I can and will.” His notion of the wretched condition of society is disheartening enough. Man, he tells us, has lost all the soul out of him. “This is verily the plague-spot—centre of the universal social gangrene, threatening all modern things with frightful death. You touch the focal-centre of all our disease, of our frightful nosology of diseases, when you lay your hand on this. There is no religion; there is no God; man has lost his soul, and vainly seeks antiseptic salt. Vainly: in killing kings, in passing Reform Bills, in French Revolutions, Manchester Insurrections, is found no remedy. The foul elephantine leprosy reappears in new force and desperateness next hour.” Sad condition of poor depraved humanity! A whole generation, except one man, without souls, and that one exception without his senses! It is curious to notice the illusions of an understanding so powerful when governed by a sensibility so tempestuous. It would be unjust, however, to deny the depth of many detached thoughts, and truth of some of his speculations in this volume.