SOURCE: "Signs of the Times," in Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, D. Appleton and Company, 1873, pp. 187-96.

In the following essay, originally published in 1829 in the Edinburgh Review, Carlyle describes what he observes to be the largely negative influence of modern technology on the action, thought, and feeling of nineteenth-century society.

It is no very good symptom either of nations or individuals, that they deal much in vaticination. Happy men are full of the present, for its bounty suffices them; and wise men also, for its duties engage them. Our grand business undoubtedly is, not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.

Know'st thou Yesterday, its aim and reason?
 Work'st thou well To-day, for worthy things?
 Then calmly wait the Morrow's hidden season,
 And fear not thou, what hap soe'er it brings!

But man's "large discourse of reason" will look...