strength of humanity is in its strong men, the natural leaders, equipped to
rule by power of intellect, of spirit, and of executive force. Control by
them is government by the fit, whereas modern democracy is government by
the unfit. Carlyle called democracy 'mobocracy' and considered it a mere
bad piece of social and political machinery, or, in his own phrase, a mere
'Morrison's pill,' foolishly expected to cure all evils at one gulp. Later
on Carlyle came to express this view, like all his others, with much
violence, but it is worthy of serious consideration, not least in twentieth
century America.

Of Carlyle's numerous later works the most important are 'Past and
Present,' in which he contrasts the efficiency of certain strong men of
medieval Europe with the restlessness and uncertainty of contemporary
democracy and humanitarianism and attacks modern political economy; 'Oliver
Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,' which revolutionized the general opinion
of Cromwell, revealing him as a true hero or strong man instead of a
hypocritical fanatic; and 'The History of Frederick the Great,' an enormous
work which occupied Carlyle for fourteen years and involved thorough
personal examination of the scenes of Frederick's life and battles. During
his last fifteen years Carlyle wrote little of importance, and the violence
of his denunciation of modern life grew shrill and hysterical. That society
was sadly wrong he was convinced, but he propounded no definite plan for
its regeneration. He had become, however, a much venerated as well as a
picturesque figure; and he exerted a powerful and constructive influence,
not only directly, but indirectly through the preaching of his doctrines,
in the main or in part, by the younger essayists and the chief Victorian
poets and novelists, and in America by Emerson, with whom he maintained an
almost lifelong friendship and correspondence. Carlyle died in 1881.

Carlyle was a strange combination of greatness and narrowness. Like