Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh Read online

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  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 Torchof Science has now been brandished and borne about, with more orless effect, for five thousand years and upwards; how, in these timesespecially, not only the Torch still burns, and perhaps more fiercelythan ever, but innumerable Rushlights, and Sulphur-matches, kindledthereat, are also glancing in every direction, so that not the smallestcranny or dog-hole in Nature or Art can remain unilluminated,--it mightstrike the reflective mind with some surprise that hitherto little ornothing of a fundamental character, whether in the way of Philosophy orHistory, has been written on the subject of Clothes.

  Our Theory of Gravitation is as good as perfect: Lagrange, it is wellknown, has proved that the Planetary System, on this scheme, will endureforever; Laplace, still more cunningly, even guesses that it could nothave been made on any other scheme. Whereby, at least, our nauticalLogbooks can be better kept; and water-transport of all kinds has grownmore commodious. Of Geology and Geognosy we know enough: what with thelabors of our Werners and Huttons, what with the ardent genius of theirdisciples, it has come about that now, to many a Royal Society, theCreation of a World is little more mysterious than the cooking of adumpling; concerning which last, indeed, there have been minds to whomthe question, _How the apples were got in_, presented difficulties. Whymention our disquisitions on the Social Contract, on the Standard ofTaste, on the Migrations of the Herring? Then, have we not a Doctrineof Rent, a Theory of Value; Philosophies of Language, of History, ofPottery, of Apparitions, of Intoxicating Liquors? Man's whole life andenvironment have been laid open and elucidated; scarcely a fragmentor fibre of his Soul, Body, and Possessions, but has been probed,dissected, distilled, desiccated, and scientifically decomposed: ourspiritual Faculties, of which it appears there are not a few, have theirStewarts, Cousins, Royer Collards: every cellular, vascular, muscularTissue glories in its Lawrences, Majendies, Bichats.

  How, then, comes it, may the reflective mind repeat, that the grandTissue of all Tissues, the only real Tissue, should have been quiteoverlooked by Science,--the vestural Tissue, namely, of woollen orother cloth; which Man's Soul wears as its outmost wrappage and overall;wherein his whole other Tissues are included and screened, his wholeFaculties work, his whole Self lives, moves, and has its being? For if,now and then, some straggling broken-winged thinker has cast an owl'sglance into this obscure region, the most have soared over it altogetherheedless; regarding Clothes as a property, not an accident, as quitenatural and spontaneous, like the leaves of trees, like the plumage ofbirds. In all speculations they have tacitly figured man as _a ClothedAnimal_; whereas he is by nature a _Naked Animal_; and only in certaincircumstances, by purpose and device, masks himself in Clothes.Shakespeare says, we are creatures that look before and after: the moresurprising that we do not look round a little, and see what is passingunder our very eyes.

  But here, as in so many other cases, Germany, learned, indefatigable,deep-thinking Germany comes to our aid. It is, after all, a blessingthat, in these revolutionary times, there should be one country whereabstract Thought can still take shelter; that while the din and frenzyof Catholic Emancipations, and Rotten Boroughs, and Revolts of Paris,deafen every French and every English ear, the German can stand peacefulon his scientific watch-tower; and, to the raging, struggling multitudehere and elsewhere, solemnly, from hour to hour, with preparatory blastof cow-horn, emit his _Horet ihr Herren und lasset's Euch sagen_; inother words, tell the Universe, which so often forgets that fact, whato'clock it really is. Not unfrequently the Germans have been blamed foran unprofitable diligence; as if they struck into devious courses, wherenothing was to be had but the toil of a rough journey; as if, forsakingthe gold-mines of finance and that political slaughter of fat oxenwhereby a man himself grows fat, they were apt to run goose-hunting intoregions of bilberries and crowberries, and be swallowed up at lastin remote peat-bogs. Of that unwise science, which, as our Humoristexpresses it,

  "By geometric scale Doth take the size of pots of ale;"

  still more, of that altogether misdirected industry, which is seenvigorously thrashing mere straw, there can nothing defensive be said.In so far as the Germans are chargeable with such, let them take theconsequence. Nevertheless be it remarked, that even a Russian steppehas tumult and gold ornaments; also many a scene that looks desert androck-bound from the distance, will unfold itself, when visited,into rare valleys. Nay, in any case, would Criticism erect not onlyfinger-posts and turnpikes, but spiked gates and impassable barriers,for the mind of man? It is written, "Many shall run to and fro, andknowledge shall be increased." Surely the plain rule is, Let eachconsiderate person have his way, and see what it will lead to. For notthis man and that man, but all men make up mankind, and their unitedtasks the task of mankind. How often have we seen some such adventurous,and perhaps much-censured wanderer light on some out-lying, neglected,yet vitally momentous province; the hidden treasures of which he firstdiscovered, and kept proclaiming till the general eye and effort weredirected thither, and the conquest was completed;--thereby, in thesehis seemingly so aimless rambles, planting new standards, foundingnew habitable colonies, in the immeasurable circumambient realm ofNothingness and Night! Wise man was he who counselled that Speculationshould have free course, and look fearlessly towards all the thirty-twopoints of the compass, whithersoever and howsoever it listed.

  Perhaps it is proof of the stunted condition in which pure Science,especially pure moral Science, languishes among us English; and howour mercantile greatness, and invaluable Constitution, impressing apolitical or other immediately practical tendency on all Englishculture and endeavor, cramps the free flight of Thought,--that this,not Philosophy of Clothes, but recognition even that we have no suchPhilosophy, stands here for the first time published in our language.What English intellect could have chosen such a topic, or by chancestumbled on it? But for that same unshackled, and even sequesteredcondition of the German Learned, which permits and induces them to fishin all manner of waters, with all manner of nets, it seems probableenough, this abtruse Inquiry might, in spite of the results it leadsto, have continued dormant for indefinite periods. The Editor of thesesheets, though otherwise boasting himself a man of confirmed speculativehabits, and perhaps discursive enough, is free to confess, that never,till these last months, did the above very plain considerations, on ourtotal want of a Philosophy of Clothes, occur to him; and then, by quiteforeign suggestion. By the arrival, namely, of a new Book from ProfessorTeufelsdrockh of Weissnichtwo; treating expressly of this subject,and in a style which, whether understood or not, could not even by theblindest be overlooked. In the present Editor's way of thought, thisremarkable Treatise, with its Doctrines, whether as judicially accededto, or judicially denied, has not remained without effect.

  "_Die Kleider, ihr Werden und Wirken_ (Clothes, their Origin andInfluence): _von Diog. Teufelsdrockh, J. U. D. etc. Stillschweigen undCognie. Weissnichtwo_, 1831.

  "Here," says the _Weissnichtwo'sche Anzeiger_, "comes a Volume of thatextensive, close-printed, close-meditated sort, which, be it spoken withpride, is seen only in Germany, perhaps only in Weissnichtwo. Issuingfrom the hitherto irreproachable Firm of Stillschweigen and Company,with every external furtherance, it is of such internal quality asto set Neglect at defiance.... A work," concludes the well-nighenthusiastic Reviewer, "interesting alike
to the antiquary, thehistorian, and the philosophic thinker; a masterpiece of boldness,lynx-eyed acuteness, and rugged independent Germanism and Philanthropy(_derber Kerndeutschheit und Menschenliebe_); which will not, assuredly,pass current without opposition in high places; but must and will exaltthe almost new name of Teufelsdrockh to the first ranks of Philosophy,in our German Temple of Honor."

  Mindful of old friendship, the distinguished Professor, in this thefirst blaze of his fame, which however does not dazzle him, sends hithera Presentation-copy of his Book; with compliments and encomiums whichmodesty forbids the present Editor to rehearse; yet without indicatedwish or hope of any kind, except what may be implied in the concludingphrase: _Mochte es_ (this remarkable Treatise) _auch im BrittischenBoden gedeihen_!