Past and Present: Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII.Carlyle, Thomas
Philosophy
Past and Present: Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII.
Carlyle, Thomas
Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Social problems
Alas, how many causes that can plead well for themselves in the Courts
of Westminster; and yet in the general Court of the Universe, and free
Soul of Man, have no word to utter! Honourable Gentlemen may find this
worth considering, in times like ours. And truly, the din of
triumphant Law-logic, and all shaking of horse-hair wigs and
learned-serjeant gowns having comfortably ended, we shall do well to
ask ourselves withal, What says that high and highest Court to the
verdict? For it is the Court of Courts, that same; where the universal
soul of Fact and very Truth sits President;--and thitherward, more and
more swiftly, with a really terrible increase of swiftness, all causes
do in these days crowd for revisal,--for confirmation, for
modification, for reversal with costs. Dost thou know that Court; hast
thou had any Law-practice there? What, didst thou never enter; never
file any petition of redress, reclaimer, disclaimer or demurrer,
written as in thy heart's blood, for thy own behoof or another's; and
silently await the issue? Thou knowest not such a Court? Hast merely
heard of it by faint tradition as a thing that was or had been? Of
thee, I think, we shall get little benefit.
For the gowns of learned-serjeants are good: parchment records, fixed
forms, and poor terrestrial Justice, with or without horse-hair, what
sane man will not reverence these? And yet, behold, the man is not
sane but insane, who considers these alone as venerable. Oceans of
horse-hair, continents of parchment, and learned-serjeant eloquence,
were it continued till the learned tongue wore itself small in the
indefatigable learned mouth, cannot make unjust just. The grand
question still remains, Was the judgment just? If unjust, it will not
and cannot get harbour for itself, or continue to have footing in this
Universe, which was made by other than One Unjust. Enforce it by never
such statuting, three readings, royal assents; blow it to the four
winds with all manner of quilted trumpeters and pursuivants, in the
rear of them never so many gibbets and hangmen, it will not stand, it
cannot stand. From all souls of men, from all ends of Nature, from the
Throne of God above, there are voices bidding it: Away, away! Does it
take no warning; does it stand, strong in its three readings, in its
gibbets and artillery-parks? The more woe is to it, the frightfuler
woe. It will continue standing for its day, for its year, for its
century, doing evil all the while; but it has One enemy who is
Almighty: dissolution, explosion, and the everlasting Laws of Nature
incessantly advance towards it; and the deeper its rooting, more
obstinate its continuing, the deeper also and huger will its ruin and
overturn be.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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