Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T00:13:11.146Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

David Hume Is Pontiff of the World: Thomas Carlyle on Epicureanism, Laissez-Faire, and Public Opinion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2017

Alexander Jordan
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) is well known as one of the earliest and most vociferous critics of Benthamite utilitarianism. However, Carlyle understood Benthamism as the culmination of a much longer eighteenth-century tradition of Epicurean thought. Having been an enthusiastic reader of David Hume during his youth, Carlyle later turned against him, waging an increasingly violent polemic against all forms of Epicureanism. In these later works, Carlyle not only rejected the pursuit of “pleasure” as an appropriate end for the life of the individual, but also took umbrage with Epicurean accounts of sociability as the philosophical underpinnings of laissez-faire, representative democracy, and “public opinion.” For Carlyle, self-interest, no matter how “enlightened,” balanced, or channeled by institutions, could never provide a stable foundation for a political community. Carlyle's contemporaries were aware that his work was intended as an attack on the Epicurean tradition. When John Stuart Mill attempted to defend Epicureanism against Carlyle, several of the latter's disciples and sympathizers responded by extending Carlyle's earlier censures on Epicureanism.

Keywords

CarlyleEpicureanismEpicurusHumeBenthamUtilitarianismVictorian19th CenturyIntellectual HistoryPolitical ThoughtSociability
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 56 , Issue 3 , July 2017 , pp. 557 - 579
Copyright
Copyright © The North American Conference on British Studies 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Carlyle, Thomas, “Wotton Reinfred: A Romance” (1826–1827), in The Last Words of Thomas Carlyle (Boston, 1892), 1–147, at 71Google Scholar.

2 Thomas Carlyle to John A. Carlyle, 12 March 1828, in The Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle, ed. Campbell, Ian, Christianson, Aileen, and Sorensen, David R., 42 vols. (Durham, 1970–), 4:339–44Google Scholar (hereafter CL); Thomas Carlyle, notebook entry dated March 1832, in Two Note Books of Thomas Carlyle, ed. Norton, Charles Eliot (New York, 1898), 256–57Google Scholar.

3 Thomas Carlyle to Ralph Waldo Emerson, 3 February 1835, CL, 8:36–43.

4 For Carlyle's early reading of Cicero, see Thomas Carlyle to Robert Mitchell, 25 March 1815, CL, 1:41–45; Thomas Carlyle to James Johnston, 26 June 1818, CL, 1:130–35; Thomas Carlyle to Robert Mitchell, 14 July 1819, CL, 1:188–92; and Two Reminiscences of Thomas Carlyle, ed. Clubbe, John (Durham, 1974), 32–33 Google Scholar. Carlyle received a copy of Lucretius's De rerum natura as a gift in 1822. See Catalogue of Printed Books, Autograph Letters, Literary Manuscripts … Formerly the Property of Thomas Carlyle (London, 1932), 14 Google Scholar.

5 Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), cited in Barbour, Reid, English Epicures and Stoics: Ancient Legacies in Early Stuart Culture (Amherst 1998), 70 Google Scholar. Carlyle read the work in January 1827. Carlyle, Two Note Books, 98–99. For the Temple-Swift controversy, see Steensma, Robert C., “Swift and Epicurus,” Bulletin of the Rocky Mountain Modern Languages Association 17, no. 1 (May 1964): 10–12 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In December 1826, Carlyle reported having read “Sir William Temple's works.” Carlyle, Two Note Books, 84. For Carlyle's references to A Tale of a Tub, see Thomas Carlyle to John A. Carlyle, March 1821, CL, 1:332–33; Thomas Carlyle to John A. Carlyle, 30 January 1822, CL, 2:23–26; and Thomas Carlyle to John A. Carlyle, 11 November 1823, CL, 2:465–69.

6 Rosen, Frederick, Classical Utilitarianism from Hume to Mill (London, 2003), 167–72Google Scholar.

7 Wilson, David Alec, Carlyle till Marriage (1795–1826) (London, 1923), 110 Google Scholar. The only attempt to develop this insight, Holmberg's, Olle David Hume in Carlyle's “Sartor Resartus” (Lund, 1934)Google Scholar, does not extend beyond Sartor (1833–1834), is extremely dated, and does not deal with Epicureanism.

8 Doubtless due to the heavy shadow cast by Froude, James Anthony, Thomas Carlyle: A History of the First Forty Years of His Life, 1795–1835, 2 vols. (New York, 1882)Google Scholar, in which Froude pronounced, “Of classical literature [Carlyle] knew little … He was not living in ancient Greece or Rome, but in modern Europe” (1:104). Cf. Flint, Thomas, “Carlyle as Classicist,” Classical Weekly 13, no. 7 (December 1919): 51–54 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 To cite only the book-length studies: Fleischmann, Wolfgang Bernard, Lucretius and English Literature 1680–1740 (Paris, 1964)Google Scholar; Jones, Howard, The Epicurean Tradition (London, 1989)Google Scholar; Osler, Margaret J., ed., Atoms, Pneuma, and Tranquility: Epicurean and Stoic Themes in European Thought (Cambridge, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bonacina, Giovanni, Filosofia ellenistica e cultura moderna: Epicureismo, stoicismo e scetticismo da Bayle a Hegel (Florence, 1996)Google Scholar; Force, Pierre, Self-Interest Before Adam Smith (Cambridge, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wilson, Catherine, Epicureanism at the Origins of Modernity (Oxford, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Leddy, Neven and Lifschitz, Avi, eds., Epicurus in the Enlightenment (Oxford, 2009)Google Scholar. There is no discussion of Epicureanism in Jenkyns, Richard, The Victorians and Ancient Greece (Oxford, 1980)Google Scholar; Turner, Frank M., The Greek Heritage in Victorian Britain (New Haven, 1981)Google Scholar; or Vance, Norman, The Victorians and Ancient Rome (Oxford, 1997)Google Scholar. The exceptions are Vaughn, Frederick, The Tradition of Political Hedonism From Hobbes to J. S. Mill (New York, 1982), chaps. 7Google Scholar; Scarre, Geoffrey, “Epicurus as a Forerunner of Utilitarianism,” Utilitas 6, no. 2 (November 1994): 219–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Rosen, Classical Utilitarianism, chaps. 7, 10–11, all of which focus on Bentham and J. S. Mill.

10 Young, Brian, The Victorian Eighteenth Century: An Intellectual History (Oxford, 2007), 25–26 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Collini, Stefan, Public Moralists: Political Thought and Intellectual Life in Britain, 1850–1930 (Oxford, 1991), 65 Google Scholar. See also 65–67, 185–89.

12 “Thomas Carlyle,” North British Review 4 (February 1846): 505–36, at 506Google Scholar.

13 Jones, Epicurean Tradition, 55–58, 50, citation in Vaughn, Tradition of Political Hedonism, 34–37.

14 See Strauss, Leo, Natural Right and History (Chicago, 1953), 109–11Google Scholar; Jones, Epicurean Tradition, 62–78; and Long, A. A., “Pleasure and Utility: The Virtues of Being Epicurean,” in From Epicurus to Epictetus: Studies in Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy (Oxford, 2006), 178–201 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 See generally Vaughn, Tradition of Political Hedonism; and Jones, Epicurean Tradition.

16 See Thomas Carlyle to John Fergusson, 25 September 1819, CL, 1:196–99; Thomas Carlyle to John A. Carlyle, 10 August 1824, CL, 3:120–24; and Catalogue of Printed Books, 14.

17 John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690); Burnet, Remarks upon An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1697), cited in Vaughn, Tradition of Political Hedonism, 83–84, 98, 144–45.

18 On Shaftesbury's anti-Epicureanism, see Klein, Lawrence E., Shaftesbury and the Culture of Politeness: Moral Discourse and Cultured Politics in Early Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge, 1994), 51–69 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Rivers, Isabel, Reason, Grace, and Sentiment: A Study of the Language of Ethics in England, 1660–1780 (Cambridge, 2000), 2:85–152CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In December 1826, Carlyle noted, “I have read Shaftesbury's Characteristics.” Carlyle, Two Note Books, 71–72.

19 Ashley-Cooper, Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury, Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, 6th ed., 3 vols. (London, 1737)Google Scholar, 2:232, 1:97, 1:116.

20 See Hundert, E. G., The Enlightenment's Fable: Bernard Mandeville and the Discovery of Society (Cambridge, 1994), 45–51 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Carlyle owned a copy of the 3rd ed. (London, 1742), as revealed in Tarr, Rodger L., “Thomas Carlyle's Libraries at Chelsea and Ecclefechan,” Studies in Bibliography, no. 27 (1974): 249–65, at 255Google Scholar. See also the reference to “Hutcheson” and the “moral sense” in Carlyle, “Wotton Reinfred,” 62. On Hutcheson's anti-Epicureanism, see Moore, James, “Hume and Hutcheson,” in Hume and Hume's Connections, ed. Stewart, M. A. and Wright, John P. (University Park, 1995), 23–57, at 33–35Google Scholar; and Robertson, John, The Case for the Enlightenment: Scotland and Naples, 1680–1760 (Cambridge, 2005), 286–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Hutcheson, Francis, An Essay of the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections, with Illustrations on the Moral Sense, 3rd ed. (London, 1742), 210 Google Scholar. See also ibid., 13.

23 See generally Hirschman, Albert O., The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph (Princeton, 1977)Google Scholar; Hamowy, Ronald, The Scottish Enlightenment and the Theory of Spontaneous Order (Carbondale, 1987), 3, 6, 10–13 Google Scholar; and Sebastiani, Silvia, “Beyond Ancient Virtues: Civil Society and Passions in the Scottish Enlightenment,” History of Political Thought 32, no. 5 (January 2011): 821–40Google Scholar.

24 For analyses of Hume as an Epicurean, see Alberti, Antonina, “Temi epicurei nella gnoseologia di Hume,” Annali dell'Istituto di Filosofia, Firenze, no. 5 (1983): 211–42Google Scholar; Belgrado, Anna Minerbi, “La ‘vecchia ipotesi epicurea’ nei Dialoghi sulla religione naturale di Hume,” Studi settecenteschi, no. 6 (1988–89): 35–100 Google Scholar; Moore, “Hume and Hutcheson,” 27; Force, Self-Interest, 214–15, 230–31; Rosen, Classical Utilitarianism, chap. 3; Robertson, Case for the Enlightenment, 293–96, 306–8, 317–18, 353–54; and Wilson, Epicureanism, 199–200. For some qualifications, see James A. Harris, “The Epicurean in Hume,” in Epicurus in the Enlightenment, ed. Leddy and Lifschitz, 161–81; Loptson, Peter, “Hume and Ancient Philosophy,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 20, no. 4 (July 2012): 741–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Tolonen, Mikko, Mandeville and Hume: Anatomists of Civil Society (Oxford, 2013), 6–7, 29–30, 74Google Scholar.

25 Carlyle noted that the “best book” he had recently read was “Hume's Essays.” Thomas Carlyle to Thomas Murray, 21 June 1815, CL, 1:52–56. He soon re-read it. Thomas Carlyle to Robert Mitchell, 16 February 1818, CL, 1:118–22.

26 Hume, David, A Treatise of Human Nature, 2 vols. (London, 1817), 1:279Google Scholar; Alberti, “Temi epicurei,” 211, 219–23, 242.

27 See Belgrado, “La ‘vecchia ipotesi epicurea,’” 61, 82–84.

28 Hume, Treatise, 2:300, 2:106.

29 For further discussion, see Pendelbaum, Terence, “Hume's Moral Psychology,” in The Cambridge Companion to Hume, ed. Norton, David Fate (Cambridge, 1993), 117–47Google Scholar.

30 Hume, Treatise, 2:106.

31 Ibid., 2:205–6, 241; Moore, “Hume and Hutcheson,” 43.

32 Hume, Treatise, 2:250, 207. See also ibid., 320–21.

33 Hume, David, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (London, 1751), 33 Google Scholar. For further discussion, see Haakonssen, Knud, The Science of a Legislator: The Natural Jurisprudence of David Hume and Adam Smith (Cambridge 1981), 15–21, 31–37 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Whelan, Frederick G., Order and Artifice in Hume's Political Philosophy (Princeton, 1985), 159–60, 171–79, 190–91, 212–18Google Scholar; Stewart, John B., Opinion and Reform in Hume's Political Philosophy (Princeton, 1992), 121–27, 167Google Scholar; and Magri, Tito, “Hume's Justice,” in The Cambridge Companion to Hume's “Treatise,” ed. Ainslie, Donald C. and Butler, Annemarie (Cambridge, 2015), 301–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, 63–64.

35 Hume, David, “Of the First Principles of Government,” in Essays and treatises on several subjects (London, 1758), 20–22, at 20Google Scholar.

36 Hume, “Of the Independency of Parliaments,” in Essays and treatises, 29–32, at 30.

37 Hume, “Of Commerce,” in Essays and treatises, 149–57, at 154. On Hume's rehabilitation of luxury, see Berry, Christopher J., The Idea of Luxury: A Conceptual and Historical Investigation (Cambridge, 1994), 144–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 Hume, Treatise, 2:273.

39 See Sagar, Paul, “The State without Sovereignty: Authority and Obligation in Hume's Political Philosophy,” History of Political Thought 37, no. 2 (January 2016): 271–305 Google Scholar.

40 See Forbes, Duncan, Hume's Philosophical Politics (Cambridge, 1975), 221–29Google Scholar; Moore, James, “Hume's Political Science and the Classical Republican Tradition,” Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique 10, no. 4 (December 1977): 809–39, at 821–22, 825CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Collini, Stefan, Winch, Donald, and Burrow, John, That Noble Science of Politics: A Study in Nineteenth-Century Intellectual History (Cambridge, 1983), 30–31 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 Force, Self-Interest, 214–15, 230–31.

42 Balfour, James, A delineation of the nature and obligation of morality, with reflexions upon Mr Hume's book entitled An Inquiry concerning the principles of morals (Edinburgh, 1753)Google Scholar, cited in Harris, James A., “The Early Reception of Hume's Theory of Justice,” in Philosophy and Religion in Enlightenment Britain, ed. Savage, Ruth (Oxford, 2012), 210–30, at 212Google Scholar.

43 On Ferguson's anti-Epicureanism, see Sher, Richard B., Church and University in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Moderate Literati of Edinburgh (Edinburgh, 1985), 199–201 Google Scholar; Bonacina, Filosofia ellenistica e cultura moderna, 142–43; and McDaniel, Iain, Adam Ferguson in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Roman Past and Europe's Future (Cambridge, MA, 2013), 9, 66–74 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For Carlyle's reading, see Thomas Carlyle to Jane Baillie Welsh, 18 November 1822, CL, 2:204–10; and Thomas Carlyle to Jane Baillie Welsh, 12 January 1823, CL, 2:265–70.

44 Reid, Thomas, Essays on the Active Powers of Man (Edinburgh, 1788), 458 Google Scholar. See also ibid., 410–11. On Reid's anti-Epicureanism, see Harris, “Epicurean in Hume,” 172–73; and Harris, “Early Reception,” 228. For Carlyle's reading, see Thomas Carlyle to Robert Mitchell, 24 May 1815, CL, 1:45–49; and Thomas Carlyle to John A. Carlyle, 10 August 1824, CL, 3:120–24. For a pioneering study of Carlyle's debts to Reid, which does not, however, deal with Epicureanism, see Jessop, Ralph, Carlyle and Scottish Thought (Basingstoke, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45 Stewart, Dugald, The Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers of Man, 2 vols. (Boston, 1828), 2:308, 1:217Google Scholar. See also ibid., 1:168–70, 210, 2:250–51, 300. On Carlyle's admiration for the works of Stewart, see Thomas Carlyle to John A. Carlyle, 10 August 1824, CL, 3:120–24; Thomas Carlyle to N. H. Julius, 15 April 1827, CL, 4:206–8; and Thomas Carlyle to John A. Carlyle, 25 August 1828, CL, 4:396–401. See also Carlyle, Thomas, “State of German Literature” (October 1827), in Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, 7 vols. (London, 1872), 1:22–73Google Scholar, at 67 (hereafter CME); Carlyle, “Burns” (December 1828), in CME, 2:1–53, at 17–18; and Carlyle, “Novalis” (July 1829), in CME, 2:183–229, at 202–3.

46 Edinburgh Review (July 1808), cited in Fontana, Biancamaria, Rethinking the Politics of Commercial Society: The Edinburgh Review, 1802–1832 (Cambridge, 1985), 89–90 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47 Carlyle, “Wotton Reinfred,” 71, 53–54, 23–24. See also ibid., 69–73, 102–3.

48 Ibid., 53–54.

49 Carlyle, “Characteristics” (December 1831), CME, 4:1–38, at 23–24, 27; Carlyle, “Death of Goethe” (June 1832), CME, 4:42–50, at 46.

50 Carlyle, Thomas, “Christopher North” (1868), in Reminiscences, ed. Norton, Charles Eliot (London, 1972), 366–81, at 370Google Scholar.

51 Cited in Schneewind, J. B., Sidgwick's Ethics and Victorian Moral Philosophy (Oxford, 1977), 78–80 Google Scholar. See also Dixon, Thomas, “Revolting against Reid: The Philosophy of Thomas Brown,” in Scottish Philosophy in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, ed. Graham, Gordon (Oxford, 2015), 24–41 Google Scholar.

52 Fontana, Rethinking the Politics, 4, 9.

53 On the concept of “public opinion” from Hume through the Edinburgh Review, see Gunn, J. A. W., Beyond Liberty and Property: The Process of Self-Recognition in Eighteenth-Century Political Thought (Kingston, 1983), 260–315 Google Scholar; Burrow, J. W., Whigs and Liberals: Continuity and Change in English Political Thought (Oxford, 1988), 54–56, 71Google Scholar; Wahrman, Dror, Imagining the Middle Class: The Political Representation of Class in Britain, 1780–1840 (Cambridge, 1995), 190–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem., “Public Opinion, Violence and the Limits of Constitutional Politics,” in Re-reading the Constitution: New Narratives in the Political History of England's Long Nineteenth Century, ed. Vernon, James (Cambridge, 1996), 83–122 Google Scholar, at 90–91, 104; Hawkins, Angus, Victorian Political Culture: “Habits of Heart and Mind” (Oxford, 2015), 73–75, 91, 98CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Plasart, Anna, The Scottish Enlightenment and the French Revolution (Cambridge, 2015), 163–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54 On the language of “interests,” see Tuck, Richard, Philosophy and Government, 1572–1651 (Cambridge, 1993), 222–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wahrman, Imagining the Middle Class, 90–96; and Hawkins, Victorian Political Culture, 86.

55 Thomas Carlyle to John A. Carlyle, 10 August 1824, CL, 3:120–24; Carlyle, “Boswell's Life of Johnson” (May 1832), CME, 4:67–131, at 129.

56 Thomas Carlyle to John A. Carlyle, 12 March 1828, CL, 4:339–44.

57 Fontana, Rethinking the Politics, 93.

58 Carlyle, “Wotton Reinfred,” 53–54.

59 Jeremy Bentham, A Fragment on Government (1776), cited in Rosen, Classical Utilitarianism, 49.

60 Cited in Everett, Charles Warren, The Limits of Jurisprudence Defined: Being Part Two of An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (New York, 1945), 116 Google Scholar.

61 See Rosen, Classical Utilitarianism, 15–16, 48–57.

62 Thomas Carlyle to Jane Baillie Welsh, 8 January 1824, CL, 3:8–11.

63 Schofield, Philip, Utility and Democracy: The Political Thought of Jeremy Bentham (Oxford, 2006), 15–16 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

64 Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789), cited in Schofield, Utility and Democracy, 29–30.

65 Jeremy Bentham, Codification Proposal (1822), cited in Schofield, Utility and Democracy, 34–35.

66 Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, cited in Schofield, Utility and Democracy, 33–34, and in Rosen, Classical Utilitarianism, 50–51.

67 Jeremy Bentham, Deontology (1826), cited in Schofield, Utility and Democracy, 48–49.

68 See Schofield, Utility and Democracy, 141–55.

69 Jeremy Bentham, Constitutional Code (1830), cited in Schofield, Utility and Democracy, 263–64.

70 See Rosen, Frederick, “The Origin of Liberal Utilitarianism,” in Victorian Liberalism: Nineteenth-Century Political Thought and Practice, ed. Bellamy, Richard (London, 1990), 58–70, at 61, 63–66 Google Scholar.

71 Westminster Review 8 (1827), cited in Nesbitt, George L., Benthamite Reviewing: The First Twelve Years of the Westminster Review, 1824–1836 (New York, 1934), 111 Google Scholar. For Carlyle's regular reading of the Westminster Review, see Thomas Carlyle to Henry Inglis, 17 June 1829, CL, 5:16–17; Thomas Carlyle to William Tait, 23 August 1830, CL, 5:147–48; and Thomas Carlyle to John Bowring, 8 February 1831, CL, 5:227–28.

72 Mackintosh, James, A General View of the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, Chiefly During the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Philadelphia, 1832), 31 Google Scholar. Carlyle met “Macintosh” in October 1831, judging him “a whig Philosopher and Politician … our best of that sort.” Carlyle, Two Note Books, 202–3.

73 On Carlyle and the Saint-Simonians, see generally Pankhurst, R. K. P., The Saint-Simonians, Mill and Carlyle (London, 1957)Google Scholar; Shine, Hill, Carlyle and the Saint-Simonians: The Concept of Historical Periodicity (Baltimore, 1941)Google Scholar; and Fielding, K. J., “Carlyle and the Saint-Simonians (1830–1832): New Considerations,” in Carlyle and His Contemporaries, ed. Clubbe, John (Durham, 1976), 35–59 Google Scholar. On the Saint-Simonians's reading of Bentham, see Spühler, Willy, Der Saint-Simonismus: Lehre und Leben von Saint-Amand Bazard (Zurich, 1926), 57–60, 123–29Google Scholar; Bellet, Michel, “Saint-simonisme et utilitarisme: Saint-Simon lecteur de Bentham,” in Bentham et la France: fortune et infortunes de l'utilitarisme, ed. de Champs, Emmanuelle and Cléro, Jean-Pierre (Oxford, 2009), 177–96Google Scholar; and de Champs, Emmanuelle, Enlightenment and Utility: Bentham in French, Bentham in France (Cambridge, 2015), 169–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

74 Laurent, P.-M., “Caractère de notre époque. 2ème article,” L'Organisateur 36 (18 April 1830), 2–3 Google Scholar. This was a review of Carlyle's essay “Signs of the Times” (1829).

75 Carlyle, “Wotton Reinfred,” 71.

76 Carlyle, “Schiller” (March 1831), CME, 3:65–110, at 87–90.

77 Rosen, Classical Utilitarianism, 167–72.

78 Thomas Carlyle to Ralph Waldo Emerson, 3 February 1835, CL, 8:36–43.

79 See Schneewind, Sidgwick's Ethics, 64–73, 75; Haakonssen, Knud, Natural Law and Moral Philosophy: From Grotius to the Scottish Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1996), 185–205 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Harris, James A., Of Liberty and Necessity: The Free Will Debate in Eighteenth-Century British Philosophy (Oxford, 2005), 183–84, 195, 219–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and idem, “Reid and Hume on the Possibility of Character,” in Character, Self, and Sociability in the Scottish Enlightenment, ed. Ahnert, Thomas and Manning, Susan (New York, 2011), 31–47 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 32–33, 41–42.

80 On Carlyle's debts to Reid and Stewart, see Schneewind, Sidgwick's Ethics, 168; and Jessop, Carlyle and Scottish Thought.

81 Carlyle, “Signs of the Times” (June 1829), CME, 2:230–52, at 236–40. See also ibid., 249–50.

82 Carlyle, Thomas, Lectures on the History of Literature (April–July 1838), ed. Greene, J. Reay (London, 1892), 204 Google Scholar. See also ibid., 214.

83 Carlyle, Thomas, On Heroes, Hero Worship, and the Heroic in History (1841) (London, 1904), 75–76 Google Scholar. See also Carlyle, Thomas, Sartor Resartus (1833–1834) (Oxford, 1987), 167 Google Scholar.

84 Carlyle, On Heroes, 172–73.

85 Carlyle, Lectures, 52, 173–75.

86 Carlyle, Thomas, Past and Present (1843) (London, 1912), 261, 274–75, 147–48, 150Google Scholar (hereafter PP).

87 Carlyle, Thomas, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850) (London, 1897), 281–82Google Scholar (hereafter LDP).

88 Carlyle, Lectures, 214.

89 Carlyle, “Signs of the Times,” CME, 2:245.

90 Carlyle, “Schiller” (March 1831), CME, 3:87–90. See also Carlyle, “Wotton Reinfred,” 23–24; Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, 124–25; Carlyle, Lectures, 203.

91 Thomas Carlyle to Geraldine Jewsbury, 26 April 1840, CL, 12:118; and Thomas Carlyle to Geraldine Jewsbury, 15 June 1840, CL, 12:163–66.

92 Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, 126; Carlyle, On Heroes, 75–76; Carlyle, PP, 106.

93 Carlyle, On Heroes, 57.

94 Carlyle, PP, 219, 265.

95 Many writers had begun to voice skepticism regarding “public opinion.” See Gunn, Beyond Liberty and Property, 298–99; Wahrman, Imagining the Middle Class, 305; and Wahrman, “Public Opinion,” 99, 104–5.

97 Ibid., 177–78.

96 Carlyle, “Voltaire” (April 1829), CME, 2:176.

98 Mackinnon, W. A., On the Rise, Progress, and Present State of Public Opinion, in Great Britain, and Other Parts of the World (London, 1828), 218–19, 19Google Scholar. On the Edinburgh Review’s substitution of “public opinion” for ancient virtue, see Plasart, Scottish Enlightenment, 173–75.

99 Carlyle, “Signs of the Times” (June 1829), CME, 2:240, 249.

100 Ibid., 239, 246.

101 Entry dated 11 October 1831, Carlyle, Two Note Books, 205.

102 Hume, “Of the Independency of Parliaments,” 30.

103 James Mill, Fragment on Mackintosh (1830), cited in Collini, Winch, and Burrow, That Noble Science, 113. See also Fenn, Robert A., James Mill's Political Thought (New York, 1987), 118–27Google Scholar.

104 Mill had recently blocked Carlyle's appointment to the new London University. Thomas Carlyle to Anna D. B. Montagu, 17 August 1828, CL, 4:388–92.

105 Carlyle, “Characteristics” (December 1831), CME, 4:36–37.

106 Carlyle, On Heroes, 229.

107 Carlyle, PP, 25.

108 Carlyle, Lectures, 182.

109 Ibid.

110 See Vivenza, Gloria, Adam Smith and the Classics: The Classical Heritage in Adam Smith's Thought (Oxford, 2001), 54–56, 79–80, 81CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rosen, Classical Utilitarianism, chap. 6; Neven Leddy, “Adam Smith's Critique of Enlightenment Epicureanism,” in Epicurus in the Enlightenment, ed. Leddy and Lifschitz, 195–201; Hont, Istvan, Jealousy of Trade: International Competition and the Nation-State in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, MA, 2010), 38–40, 50–51 Google Scholar; and idem, Politics in Commercial Society: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith (Cambridge, MA, 2015), 29–32 Google Scholar.

111 On Carlyle's relationship with McCulloch, see Alexander Jordan, “Thomas Carlyle and Political Economy: The ‘Dismal Science’ in Context,” English Historical Review (forthcoming).

112 Marshall, M. G., “Luxury, Economic Development, and Work Motivation: David Hume, Adam Smith, and J. R. McCulloch,” History of Political Economy 32, no. 3 (Autumn 2000): 631–48, at 633CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Searle, G. R., Morality and the Market in Victorian Great Britain (Oxford, 1998), 31 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

113 McCulloch, J. R., The Principles of Political Economy (Edinburgh, 1825), 54 Google Scholar.

114 [Thomas Perronet Thompson], “Saint-Simonism, &c.,” Westminster Review 16 (April 1832): 279–321, at 289. For Carlyle's reading, see Thomas Carlyle to John Stuart Mill, 16 October 1832, CL, 6:237–42.

115 Hancock, W. Neilson, On Laissez-faire and the Economic Resources of Ireland (Dublin, 1848), 10 Google Scholar. See also ibid., 3–4, 17. On Carlyle's relationship with Hancock, see Jordan, “Thomas Carlyle and Political Economy.”

116 Carlyle, PP, 161. See also Carlyle, “Chartism” (December 1839), CME, 6:109–86, at 139, 144, 152–53.

117 Carlyle, PP, 178.

118 Carlyle, LDP, 241.

119 Ibid., 266–67.

120 Carlyle, PP, 32–33. See also ibid., 179.

121 See Simpson, Dwight J., “Carlyle as a Political Theorist: Natural Law,” Midwest Journal of Political Science 3, no. 3 (August 1959): 263–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

122 Carlyle, PP, 18. See also ibid., 147–48.

123 Ibid., 27–29.

124 Carlyle, LDP, 54.

125 Ibid., 212–13.

126 Carlyle, “Chartism,” CME, 6:135, 144.

127 Carlyle, On Heroes, 199–200.

128 Carlyle, PP, 160–61. See also ibid., 204–6.

129 Carlyle, LDP, 98.

130 Garnett, Richard, Life of Thomas Carlyle (London, 1895), 100 Google Scholar.

131 Carlyle, “Voltaire,” CME, 2:120. See also ibid., 131.

132 Carlyle, “Signs of the Times,” CME, 2:247; Hume, David, “The Natural History of Religion,” in Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects, 2 vols. (Dublin, 1779), 2:422Google Scholar.

133 Carlyle, “Boswell's Life of Johnson” (May 1832), CME, 4:77, 89–90. The references to “Hume” are on 105, 119, 128, 129, and 130.

134 Carlyle, “Sir Walter Scott” (January 1838), CME, 6:40, 22–23.

135 Carlyle, On Heroes, 12, 15. As an example of a “hero,” Carlyle cited Cromwell, disagreeing with the “Hume theory” that he had been a “Fanatic-Hypocrite.” Ibid., 229.

136 Davis, James A., John Forster: A Literary Life (Leicester, 1983), 11–12, 105–7, 184–96, 295Google Scholar.

137 [Forster, John], “Socrates and the Sophists of Athens,” Foreign and Quarterly Review 60 (January 1843): 181–202, at 187Google Scholar.

138 [Forster, John], “The Dialogues of Plato,” Foreign and Quarterly Review 62 (July 1843): 260–76, at 276, 273Google Scholar.

139 “Latter-Day Pamphlets: By Thomas Carlyle,” English Review 16 (January 1852): 331–51, at 335–36Google Scholar.

140 Ibid., 340. On Carlyle's Stoicism, see Alexander Jordan, “Noble Just Industrialism: Saint-Simonism in the Political Thought of Thomas Carlyle” (PhD diss., European University Institute, 2015), chap. 1.

141 “Carlyle's Life of Sterling,” North British Review 16 (February 1852): 359–89, at 388–89Google Scholar.

142 [Martineau, James], “Personal Influences on our Present Theology: Newman – Coleridge – Carlyle,” National Review 3 (1856): 449–94, at 484Google Scholar. On Martineau's opposition to utilitarianism, see Schneewind, Sidgwick's Ethics, 237–43.

143 See Rosen, Classical Utilitarianism, chap. 10.

144 Diary entries dated 20 January 1854 and 8 April 1854, in The Letters of John Stuart Mill, ed. Elliot, H. S. R., 2 vols. (London, 1910), 2:361, 385Google Scholar.

145 See generally Neff, Emery, Carlyle and Mill: An Introduction to Victorian Thought, 2nd ed. (New York, 1926), 373–77Google Scholar; and Rosen, Classical Utilitarianism, chap. 10.

146 Mill, John Stuart, “Utilitarianism” (1863), in On Liberty and Other Essays (Oxford, 1991), 143–44Google Scholar.

147 Ibid., 147.

148 Ibid., 148.

149 Carlyle, Thomas, “A New (Old) Review of Mill's Liberty ,” Carlyle Newsletter 6 (1985): 23–27, at 24–25Google Scholar. See also Carlyle, “Shooting Niagara” (1867), CME, 7:200–41, at 223–24.

150 Graham, William, Idealism: An Essay, Metaphysical and Critical (London, 1872), 79 Google Scholar. Carlyle owned a copy. Tarr, “Thomas Carlyle's Libraries,” 255. He later provided Graham with a testimonial. William Graham to Thomas Carlyle, 20 January 1876, MS 1772/38, National Library of Scotland.

151 Lecky, W. E. H., History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne, 2 vols. (London, 1869), 1:3CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also ibid., 14, 180–86. On Lecky's “very long walks with Carlyle” and Carlyle's approval of the book, see A Memoir of the Right Hon. William Edward Hartpole Lecky … By His Wife (New York, 1909), 63, 67–68 Google Scholar.

152 Lecky, History, 1:1, 3, 5–6, 13, 102.

153 Cited in ibid., 1:58. The quote is from Carlyle, On Heroes, 71.

154 See Forschner, Maximilian, “Die Synthese epikureischer und stoischer Elemente in John Stuart Mills Utilitarianism,” in Stoizismus in der europaeischen Philosophie, Literatur, Kunst und Politik, ed. Neymeyr, Barbara, Schmidt, Jochen, and Zimmermann, Bernhard, 2 vols. (Berlin, 2008), 2:1105–40, at 1107, 1113–14, 1119–20, 1132–33Google Scholar.

155 Froude, Thomas Carlyle, 2:422.

156 Grote, John, An Examination of the Utilitarian Philosophy, ed. Mayor, J. B. (Cambridge, 1870), 15–16, 24, 46–47, 52–53 Google Scholar. See also ibid., 60, 62–63, 76, 98–100, 105. Grote writes “eudaimonia” and “pleasure” in ancient Greek.

157 Wallace, Stuart, John Stuart Blackie: Scottish Scholar and Patriot (Edinburgh, 2006), 7, 84–85, 164, 220Google Scholar.

158 Blackie, John Stuart, Four Phases of Morals: Socrates, Aristotle, Christianity, Utilitarianism (Edinburgh, 1871), 407 Google Scholar.

159 Ibid., 332, 401–3, 405–6. See also 374, 382, 400.

160 Caird, Edward, “The Genius of Carlyle,” in Essays on Literature and Philosophy, (Glasgow, 1892), 2:230–67, at 266Google Scholar.

161 The Life of Thomas Cooper. Written by Himself (London, 1875), 347–49Google Scholar.

162 Catalogue of Printed Books, 40.