movement, more recently influenced by the Classic reaction, the
Pre-Raphaelite protest, the Aesthetic _mode,_--followed various, even
contradictory, standards. But, in one line of progress, there was no
shadow of turning. Over the road which Bacon laid roughly down and
Newton made safe for transit, Physical Science, during the whole period,
advanced without let and beyond the cavil of ignorance. If the dreams
of the _New Atlantis_ have not even in our days been wholly realised,
Science has been brought from heaven to earth, and the elements made
ministers of Prospero's wand. This apparent, and partially real, conquest
of matter has doubtless done much to "relieve our estate," to make life
in some directions run more smoothly, and to multiply resources to meet
the demands of rapidly-increasing multitudes: but it is in danger of
becoming a conquest of matter over us; for the agencies we have called
into almost fearful activity threaten, like Frankenstein's miscreated
goblin, to beat us down to the same level. Sanguine spirits who

throw out acclamations of self-thanking, self-admiring,
With, at every mile run taster, O the wondrous, wondrous age,

are apt to forget that the electric light can do nothing to dispel the
darkness of the mind; that there are strict limits to the power of
prosperity to supply man's wants or satisfy his aspirations. This is a
great part of Carlyle's teaching. It is impossible, were it desirable,
accurately to define his religious, social, or political creed. He
swallows formulae with the voracity of Mirabeau, and like Proteus escapes
analysis. No printed labels will stick to him: when we seek to corner him
by argument he thunders and lightens. Emerson complains that he failed
to extract from him a definite answer about Immortality. Neither by
syllogism nor by crucible could Bacon himself have made the "Form" of
Carlyle to confess itself. But call him what we will--essential Calvinist