Thomas Fuller, an English theologian, was reportedly the first to set this phrase down in writing, in 1650: "It is always darkest just before the Day dawneth."

This is a very interesting idea. Kind of brings to mind the ideas of nature vs. nurture, in a way: how much of a person's personality, and morality, is dictated by inherent traits, and how much is dictated by the conditions and events around him or her?

Sir Hudibras is a character from a satirical poem written by Samuel Butler in the 17th century. He is a pretentious Presbyterian knight who sets out to right the sinners of the world --- and fails spectacularly.

Is that true? There was still a great deal of religion in the 1800s, and there still is today. The presence of technology doesn't completely stamp out the presence of religion. The two can definitely coexist. I think Carlyle is a bit unfair to say that there is no longer any worship at all in the world. He sounds like a bitter old grandfather at Christmas dinner complaining about how the young'uns don't know how to appreciate anything that isn't on their phones.

Interesting contrast. Overall, the work seems to be fairly critical of the rise of Mechanism, but he does note here that it's 'fruitbearing' and not all terrible.

It would be very interesting to look at E. M. Forster's 'The Machine Stops' and how it relates to Carlyle's ideas about man's increasing dependence on machines. Very interesting story.

Is this a quote from some other source? The quotations around it would seem to indicate so, but in searching online, I couldn't find anything about it. If it's not from another source, I'd be curious to know why Carlyle set it in quotation marks.

John Locke: English philosopher from the 1600s. Widely regarded as one of the most influential Enlightenment thinkers of his time. 'Metaphysics' is a branch of philosophy.

Possibly indicating a departure from the ideas of Romanticism --- moving away from 'grander' thoughts and observations to more rational and precise inspection of immediate surroundings.

In my AP Computer Science class in high school, our teacher showed us a video called 'Humans Need Not Apply.' It focused on the idea that computers will, at some point, be able to do every job that humans can do. It's very interesting to see this same sort of idea expressed by a writer in the early 1800s.