{"product_id":"2940013323155","title":"Chartism","description":"Scanned, proofed and corrected from the original edition for your reading pleasure.It is also searchable and contains hyper-links to chapters. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e***\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEarly in 1840 Carlyle put his book \"Chartism,\" evidently hastily written. Previously, he had appeared mainly as an ethical philosopher and historian.But now, he now took upon himself the character of a political philosopher, treating upon the rights and wrongs, the duties and obligations, of civil and political and social life. \"A feeling,\" he says, \"very generally exists that the condition and disposition of the working classes is a rather ominous matter at present ; that something ought to be done in regard to it.... To us individually, this matter appears, and has for many years appeared, to be the most ominous of all practical matters whatever; matter in regard to which if something be not done, something will do itself one day, and in a fashion that will please nobody. The time is verily come for acting in it; how much more for consultation about acting in it; for speech and articulate inquiry about it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"We are aware that, according to the Newspapers Chartism is extinct; that a Reformed Ministry has 'put down the Chimera of Chartism' in the most felicitoua effectual manner. So say the Newspapers;—and yet, alas, most readers of newspapers know withal that it is indeed the ' Chimera' of Chartism, and not the Reality, which has been 'put down.' The distracted incoherent embodiment of Chartism, whereby in late months it took shape and became visible, has been put down; or rather has fallen down and gone asunder by Gravitation and the Law of Nature: but the living essence of Chartism has not been put down. •\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Chartism means the bitter discontent, grown fierce and mad, the wrong condition of the Working Classes of England. It is a new name for a thing which has had many names, and which will yet have many. The matter of Chartism is weighty, deep-rooted, far-extending; did not begin yesterday; will by no means end this day or to-morrow. Reform Ministry, constabulary, rural police, new levy of soldiers, grants of money to Birmingham; all this is well, or is not well; all this will only put down the Embodiment or ' Chimera ' of Chartism. The Essence continuing, new and ever new embodiments, Chimeras madder or less mad, have to continue.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The melancholy fact does remain, that this thing known at present by the name of Chartism does exist; has existed; and either 'put down' into secret treason, with rusty pistols, vitriol-bottle and match-box, or openly brandishing pike and torch ( one knows not in which case more fatal looking ), is like to exist till quite other methods have been tried with it. What means this bitter discontent of the Working Classes? Whence comes it; whither goes it? Above all, at what price, on what terms, will it probably consent to depart from us and die into rest? These are the questions.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGrave questions these; and this other which is also asked: \"What are the Rights, what are the Mights of the discontented Working Classes of England at this epoch?\" And well may Carlyle aver that \" He were an Oedipus, and deliverer from sad social pestilence, who could resolve us fully.\" But one is sorry to say that the Chelsea Sage is not the Oedipus who has, even in any approximate degree, solved this Sphinx riddle. He, however, has got sure grasp of one of the elements of the solution: The right to work is the right of the working man. \"A man willing to work, and unable to find work,\" he says, \" is perhaps the saddest sight that Fortune's inequality exhibits under this Sun.\" But how to make this right into a might is the question. Of one other thing Carlyle is also sure: apropos of the English Poor-Law he says:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWORKING OR STARVATION.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Any law, however well-meant as a law, which has become a bounty on unthrift, idleness, bastardy, and beer-drinking, must be put an end to. In all ways it needs, especially in these times, to be proclaimed aloud that for the idle man there is no place in this England of ours. He that will not work, and save according to his means, let him go else whither; let him know that for him the Law has made no soft provision, but a hard and stern one; that by the Law of Nature, which the Law of England would vainly contend against in the long run, he is doomed either to quit these habits, or be miserably extruded from this Earth, which is made on principles different from these.","brand":"Leila's Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47165035512048,"sku":"2940013323155","price":1.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013323155_p0.jpg?v=1763579707","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013323155","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}