ABSTRACT
Carlyle’s social conscience was born of a deep conservatism and a nationalistic romanticization of the past. His political views were deeply illiberal, and he viewed industrialization as just one facet of liberal modernizing ‘progress’ ruining the country he loved. Hence, Carlyle also railed against democracy, free trade and individual rights for eroding the natural order of rule by elites and particularly heroic strongman figures. Mark, too, how every machine must have its moving power, in some of the great currents of society; every little sect among us, Unitarians, Utilitarians, Anabaptists, Phrenologists, must have its Periodical, its monthly or quarterly Magazine; – hanging out, like its windmill, into the popularis aura, to grind meal for the society. The French Revolution, as is now visible enough, was not the parent of this mighty movement, but its offspring. Political freedom is towards a higher freedom than mere freedom from oppression by his fellow-mortal, that man dimly aims.
