Democracy, take it where you will, is found a
regulated method of rebellion, it abrogates the old
arrangement of things, and leaves zero and vacuity. It is the
consummation of no-government and _laissez faire_.
Alongside of this train of thought there runs a constant protest against
the spirit of revolt. In _Sartor_ we find: "Whoso cannot obey cannot be
free, still less bear rule; he that is the inferior of nothing can be the
superior of nothing"; and in _Chartism_--
Men who rebel and urge the lower classes to rebel ought to
have other than formulas to go upon, ... those to whom
millions of suffering fellow-creatures are "masses," mere
explosive masses for blowing down Bastiles with, for voting
at hustings for us--such men are of the questionable
species.... Obedience ... is the primary duty of man....
Of all "rights of men" this right of the ignorant to be
guided by the wiser, gently or forcibly--is the
indisputablest.... Cannot one discern, across all democratic
turbulence, clattering of ballot-boxes, and infinite
sorrowful jangle, that this is at bottom the wish and prayer
of all human hearts everywhere, "Give me a leader"?
The last sentence indicates the transition from the merely negative
aspect of Carlyle's political philosophy to the positive, which is
his HERO-WORSHIP, based on the excessive admiration for individual
greatness,--an admiration common to almost all imaginative writers,
whether in prose or verse; on his notions of order and fealty, and on a
reverence for the past, which is also a common property of poets.
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