the word "faith" so often upon his eloquent lips,
has he himself a living faith in man and in God, and
in the co-operation of man with God?

It is the problem of this book to answer these
questions if possible, and to answer them as far as
possible in Carlyle's own words. The task will jus-
tify itself as we proceed, and perhaps there is no
need of foreshadowing the result in this preliminary
chapter. Yet there would be little excuse for an-
other book about Carlyle if it were not fairly cer-
tain, at the outset, that we are dealing with a writer
who perceived in an extraordinary way, the worth
of the individual man, and who had an overwhelm-
ing sense of the infinite background of human life;
and who therefore, in spite of his pessimism, became
a seer and a prophet of idealism.

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