SARTOR RESARTUS: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh
By Thomas Carlyle.
[1831]




BOOK I.

CHAPTER I.
PRELIMINARY.

Considering our present advanced state of culture, and how the Torch of
Science has now been brandished and borne about, with more or less effect,
for five thousand years and upwards; how, in these times especially, not
only the Torch still burns, and perhaps more fiercely than ever, but
innumerable Rushlights, and Sulphur-matches, kindled thereat, are also
glancing in every direction, so that not the smallest cranny or dog-hole in
Nature or Art can remain unilluminated,--it might strike the reflective
mind with some surprise that hitherto little or nothing of a fundamental
character, whether in the way of Philosophy or History, has been written on
the subject of Clothes.

Our Theory of Gravitation is as good as perfect: Lagrange, it is well
known, has proved that the Planetary System, on this scheme, will endure
forever; Laplace, still more cunningly, even guesses that it could not have
been made on any other scheme. Whereby, at least, our nautical Logbooks
can be better kept; and water-transport of all kinds has grown more
commodious. Of Geology and Geognosy we know enough: what with the labors
of our Werners and Huttons, what with the ardent genius of their disciples,