284 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS 
down into ever worse distress towards final ruin; —all this I 
liken to dry dead fuel, waiting for the lightning out of heaven that 
shall kindle it. The great man, with his free force direct out of 
God’s own hand, is the lightning. His word is the wise healing 
word which all can believe in. All blazes round him now, when 
he has once struck on it, into fire like hisown. The dry moulder- 
ing sticks are thought to have called him forth. They did want 
him greatly; but as to calling him forth! — Those are critics of 
small vision, I think, who cry: ‘ See, is it not the sticks that made 
the fire?’ . .. There is no sadder symptom of a generation 
than such general blindness to the spiritual lightning, with faith 
only in the heap of barren dead fuel.” ! 
Refreshing indeed is this glowing appreciation of the power of 
personality, — this veneration of the great personality after our 
many excursions into those types of social philosophy which see 
only the great cosmic machine with man but a cog! 
Carlyle makes practical application of the above thesis to his 
own time in England, — England suffering from a dearth of great 
men,— England but “dry mouldering sticks” awaiting the 
kindling touch of genius. He finds an analogy to the political 
and social condition of his day and a key to the solution of the 
problem in the condition of the monastery of St. Edmundsbury 
in the twelfth century and the reconstructive work of Abbot 
Samson as portrayed in the Chronicles of Jocelin. 
Abbot Samson, we are told, was not a high dignitary but only 
sub-Sacrista; that he had learned during many years of faithful 
service the great lesson of obedience thus being supremely quali- 
fied to command; a man “ whom no severity would break to 
complain, and no kindness soften into smiles or thanks.” There 
is something in his selection to the high office of Abbot, too, as 
told by our author, which is significant of Carlyle’s own ideal of 
selection to public office. He was not chosen by popular vote 
of any group of people but by a process of “ winnowing.” 2 
1 Heroes and Hero Worship, Lecture I. 
2 The Chapter selects twelve monks who with the Prior are to confer with 
the King, the Bishop of Winchester, and the Chancellor, and secure the appoint- 
ment of an abbot, if possible from their own convent. The thirteen are ordered 
to nominate three from their monastery and these names are given to the King, — 
