Paragraph No. 1 is devoted to a kind of clouding over of the subject matter, in anticipation of the Carlylian thunder to follow. We can see, however, that there are "three altogether new and very considerable achievements lying ahead of us;" and the first is, that Democracy is to complete itself, and run on till each man is "free to follow his own nose, by way of guide-post, in this intricate world." If the length of a man's nose indicates correct perception, and an ordinary power of separating wheat from chaff, then, though Mr. Carlyle's nose may be a post, it must be a very small one. The second "achievement" is the deliquescence and final evaporation of all religions. Such an "achievement" would be wonderful, but how it can be terrible to Mr. Carlyle we do not know; for he can have no concern about future damnation, having been born, it would seem, without a soul. The third "achievement" is, that "everybody shall start free, and everywhere under enlightened popular suffrage. The race shall be to the swift, and the high office shall fall to him who is ablest, if not to do it, at least to get elected for doing it." This is _the_ "achievement." Of all the cuts which the prescient genius of Carlyle has dealt his gushing heart, this is the "unkindest cut of all." _Hinc_ those tears, _hinc_ those thunders, _hinc_ all that follows. With the exception of a few hundred unimportant digressions, the slashing of these "achievements" is the object of Carlyle's endeavor. The commencement of paragraph two is characteristic of Mr. Carlyle, who never omits a chance of showing a knowledge of classic lore. He flings at once into your face the terrible Antoninus with the cry, "Who shall change the opinion of these people?" The quoted prophecy was certainly Greek to Mr. Carlyle, as he thinks it proves that what, individually taken, is the human face divine becomes, when collectively regarded, a cheese; and that, when the human head is regarded in the masses, it has about as much intellect as a cocoanut. In some of his paragraphs he tries to prove a point or so, but in this one he plainly shows that he cannot change the opinion of the masses, erroneous though it be. He asserts that delusions seize whole communities without any basis for their notions; he will not admit the possibility of there being even a false one. He asserts that the world reverberates with ideas eagerly made his own by each individual, and affects to believe that the original propagator had no arguments to enforce their adoption; nay, he seems to ignore the existence of the first propounder, and to admit that thoughts are, like cholera or any other pest, inhaled with the air. To be sure, as though he felt the absurdity of his position, he invents a _swarmery_ theory, in which he contends that ideas get into the masses by means of some "commonplace, stupid bee," who gets "inflated into bulk," and forms a swarm merely on account of his bulk.