Past And Present — Thomas Carlyle

Past and Present, a novel by Thomas Carlyle, compares the life of a medieval abbot with that of men from the 1800's. The book opens with a tourist in an English pastoral setting and then focuses on the St. Ives Union Workhouse. Nothing is being done. The land and the men are ready, but no work is done. Why? If there is no profit in work, then work will not get done. Carlyle examines the relationship between man's need to be productive and the need for the work to have value.