We find it difficult to under-
stand how men could think and act thus, but if we are a little
patient we find it becoming intelligible, and finally we see it not
as wholly unnatural and abnormal, but as representing a phase
of social and development which lies indeed behind us,
but whose conditions we can understand, and we shall see
that in a measure these apparently strange principles have a
continuing significance even among ourselves.
stand how men could think and act thus, but if we are a little
patient we find it becoming intelligible, and finally we see it not
as wholly unnatural and abnormal, but as representing a phase
of social and development which lies indeed behind us,
but whose conditions we can understand, and we shall see
that in a measure these apparently strange principles have a
continuing significance even among ourselves.
Thomas Carlyle
