A Human Chaos in which there is no light, you vainly attempt to irradiate by light shed on it: order never can arise there.
 Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present (1843). copy citation

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Author Thomas Carlyle
Source Past and Present
Topic light order
Date 1843
Language English
Reference
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Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/13534/pg13534-images.html

Context

“by those who themselves work and preside over work. Of all that can be enacted by any Parliament in regard to it, the germs must already lie potentially extant in those two Classes, who are to obey such enactment. A Human Chaos in which there is no light, you vainly attempt to irradiate by light shed on it: order never can arise there. But it is my firm conviction that the 'Hell of England' will cease to be that of 'not making money;' that we shall get a nobler Hell and a nobler Heaven! I anticipate light in the Human Chaos, glimmering, shining more and more;” source