A drudge’s bargain: Thomas Carlyle on Christian Epicureanism

This article analyses Carlyle’s polemic against Christian Epicureanism, particularly as expressed by William Paley. This consisted of first a utilitarian morality, second an emphasis on the pleasures of heaven and the pains of hell, and finally a commercial theodicy of self‐love, whereby God was held to work through market competition. In opposition, Carlyle advocated a disinterested virtue reminiscent of Stoicism, rejecting any system of divine rewards and punishments, and arguing that economic life ought to be regulated by the State. Although contemporaries objected to Carlyle’s ‘Stoicism’ and ‘Pantheism’, they acknowledged the need to purge Christian theology of its Epicurean admixtures.