supplying work to the idle inmates of the workhouse, and insisting, by force if need be, on it being done, was his panacea. It had been Abbot Samson's way in his strong government of the Monastery of St. Edmunds, and he resolved, half in parable, half in plain sermon, to recommend it to the Ministers Peel and Russell. In this mood, the book was written off in the first seven weeks of 1843, a _tour de force_ comparable to Johnson's writing of _Rasselas_. Published in April, it at once made a mark by the opposition as well as by the approval it excited. Criticism of the work--of its excellences, which are acknowledged, and its defects as manifold--belongs to a review of the author's political philosophy: it is enough here to note that it was remarkable in three ways. _First_, the object of its main attack, _laissez faire_, being a definite one, it was capable of having and had some practical effect. Mr. Froude exaggerates when he says that Carlyle killed the pseudo-science of orthodox political economy; for the fundamental truths in the works of Turgot, Smith, Ricardo, and Mill cannot be killed: but he pointed out that, like Aristotle's leaden rule, the laws of supply and demand must be made to bend; as Mathematics made mechanical must allow for friction, so must Economics leave us a little room for charity. There is ground to believe that the famous Factory Acts owed some of their suggestions to _Past and Present_. Carlyle always speaks respectfully of the future Lord Shaftesbury. "I heard Milnes saying," notes the Lady Sneerwell of real life, "at the Shuttleworths that Lord Ashley was the greatest man alive: he was the only man that Carlyle praised in his book. I daresay he knew I was overhearing him." But, while supplying arguments and a stimulus to philanthropists, his protests against philanthropy as an adequate solution of the problem of human misery became more pronounced. About the date of the conception of this book we find in the Journal:-- Again and again of late I ask myself in whispers, is it the duty of a citizen to paint mere heroisms? ... Live to make others happy! Yes, surely, at all times, so far as you can. But at bottom that is not the aim of my life ... it is mere hypocrisy to call it such, as is continually done nowadays.... Avoid cant. Do not think that your life means a mere searching in gutters for fallen figures to wipe and set up.