SOURCE: "The Open Secret of Sartor Resartus: Carlyle's Method of Converting His Reader," in Studies in Philology, Vol. LXXXIII, No. 2, Spring, 1986, pp. 218-35.

In the following essay, Baker attempts to identify the questionable function of the British Editor in Sartor Resartus. Baker argues that the Editor's apparent skepticism, which seems to undermine Carlyle's goal of converting readers to the "Clothes Philosophy, " is actually irony needed to help the reader understand Carlyle's philosophy.

I

Carlyle's purpose in writing Sartor Resartus is to convert British readers to the Clothes Philosophy. He indicates his intention quite clearly when he writes to Jane that his "persuasion that Teufk is in his place and his time here grows stronger the more I see of London and its philosophy: the Doctrine of the Phoenix, of Nat. Supernaturalism and the whole Clothes Philosophy (be it but well stated) is exactly what all intelligent men...