Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present

Nathan Uglow (Trinity All Saints, Leeds)
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The opening pages of

Past and Present

describe a moment of sudden insight. A “picturesque Tourist”, out to admire “this bounteous realm of England”, finds only the St. Ives Union Workhouse, surrounded by workhands, ready and willing to work, but for all that unable to do so. What, he demands, is the “Enchantment” that can compel such work-ready men to languish, reducing potentially productive bodies to such a state of needy dependency? The answer, of course, was “the invisible hand” of . The first law of Laissez-faire economics, or what Carlyle here renames the “cash-nexus”, has it that if it is not immediately profitable to have work done, then no work shall be done until sufficient demand for the relevant product of that work can reassert itself. Somehow between the…

1996 words

Citation: Uglow, Nathan. "Past and Present". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 March 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=2915, accessed 19 March 2024.]

2915 Past and Present 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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