ABSTRACT
Descartes introduced the idea of the body functioning like a machine, and therefore spoke of mechanisms. However, he exempted what we would call mind from this, proposing the existence of a spirit which did not have any material existence. The result was what is called dualism, or Cartesianism. The opposing philosophical position to dualism is monism, that the material body and mental identity are one. Fichte spoke of different starting points in a philosophical examination, one pure selfhood, which would lead to idealism, and the other pure "thing-hood" which would lead to dogmatism. Some among the nineteenth-century post-romantic proponents of soulfulness became antagonistic to mechanism and science, unlike their poetic precursors such as Coleridge and Wordsworth. Prominent among them was Thomas Carlyle, historical writer, philosopher, and pamphleteer.
