undane divine nature of Virtue existing in
each individual, could the moral judgment of a thousand or a thousand
thousand individuals avail us'? More picturesquely, Carlyle denounces
the utilitarian system in these words: 'What then? Is the heroic
inspiration we name Virtue but some passion, some bubble of the blood,
bubbling in the direction others profit by? I know not; only this I
know. If what thou namest Happiness be our true aim, then are we all
astray. With Stupidity and sound Digestion, man may front much. But what
in these dull, unimaginative days are the terrors of conscience to the
diseases of the Liver? Not on Morality, but on Cookery, let us build our
stronghold: there, brandishing our frying-pan as censer, let us offer
sweet incense to the Devil, and live at ease on the fat things _he_ has
provided for his Elect'! The exponent of such a theory of ethics will
have a natural distaste for the rational or calculating side of conduct.
He will depreciate the mechanical, and give undue emphasis to the
inspirational. His heroes will be not men of placid temperament,
methodical habits, and utilitarian aims, but men of mystical and
passionate natures, spasmodic in action, and guided by ideas not easily
justified at the bar of utility.

Just as in the sphere of speculative thought, he has profound contempt
for the Diderots and Voltaires, with their mechanical views of the
Universe, so in practical affairs Carlyle has contempt for the men who
endeavour to further their aims by appealing to commonplace motives by
means of commonplace methods. Specially opposed is he to the tendency of
the age to rely for progress, not upon appeals to the great elemental
forces of human nature, but upon organisations, committees, and all
kinds of mechanism. In his remarkable essay, 'Signs of the Times,' we
have ample verification of our exposition. After talking depreciatingly
of the mechanical tendency of the prevailing philosophies, Carlyle
comments upon the mechanical nature of the reforming agencies of
civilisation. The intense Egoism of his nature rebels against any kind
of Socialism or Collectivism. He says: 'Were we required to characterise
this age of ours by any single epithet, we should be tempted to call it,
not a Heroical, Devotional, Philosophical, or Heroic Age, but, above
all, the Mechanical Age. It is the age of machinery in every outward and
inward sense of that word.... Men are grown mechanical in head and
heart, as we