CRITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS CORRECTED AND REPUBLISHED (FIRST TIME, 1839; FINAL, 1869). BY THOMAS CARLYLE IN SEVEN VOLUMES. VOL. IV. LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, LD. THE SHILLING EDITION OF THOMAS CARLYLE'S WORKS COMPLETE. SARTOR RESARTUS, 1 Vol. With Portrait of Thomas Carlyle. FRENCH REVOLUTION. A History. 3 Vols. PAST AND PRESENT, 1 Vol. ON HEROES AND HERO WORSHIP, AND THE HEROIC IN HISTORY, 1 Vol. THE LIFE OF SCHILLER, AND EXAMINATION OF HIS WORKS, 1 Vol. OLIVER CROMWELL'S LETTERS AND SPEECHES, 5 Vols. With Portrait of Oliver Cromwell. CRITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS, 7 Vols. LIFE OF JOHN STERLING. HISTORY OF FREDERICK THE GREAT, 10 Vols. TRANSLATIONS FROM MUSÆUS, TIECK, AND RICHTER, 2 Vols. THE EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY; Essay on the Portraits of Kuox, and General Index. MISCELLANIES. CHARACTERISTICS.1 THE healthy know not of their health, but only the sick: this is the Physician's Aphorism; and applicable in a far wider sense than he gives it. We may say, it holds no less in moral, intellectual, political, poetical, than in merely corporeal therapeutics; that wherever, or in what shape soever, powers of the sort which can be named vital are at work, herein lies the test of their working right or working wrong. In the Body, for example, as all doctors are agreed, the first condition of complete health is, that each organ perform its function unconsciously, unheeded; let but any organ announce its separate existence, were it even boastfully, and for pleasure, not for pain, then already has one of those unfortunate 'false centres of sensibility' established itself, already is derangement there. The perfection of bodily wellbeing is, that the collective bodily activities seem one; and be manifested, moreover, not in themselves, but in the action they accomplish. If a Dr. Kitchiner boast that his system is in 1 EDINBURGH REVIEW, NO. 108.-1. An Essay on the Origin and Prospects of Man. By Thomas Hope. 3 vols. 8vo. London, 1831. 2. Philosophische Vorlesungen, insbesondere über Philosophie der Sprache und des Wortes. Geschrieben und vorgetragen zu Dresden im December 1828, und in den ersten Tagen des Januars 1829 (Philosophical Lectures, especially on the Philosophy of Language and the Gift of Speech. Written and delivered at Dresden in December 1828, and the early days of January 1829). By Friedrich von Schlegel. 8vo. Vienna, 1830. VOL. IV. |