This account of a medieval monastery had taken Carlyle's fancy, and he drew upon it in order to contrast the monks' reverence for work and heroism with the sham leadership of his own day.

Carlyle wrote on 27 October 1841 that he had thought of editing a journal, asking James Garth Marshall,Is it not now that we are to sing and act the great new Epic, not "Arms and the Man," but "Tools and the Man";—to preach and prophesy in all ways that Labor is honorable, that Labor alone is honorable; that Idleness shall and must move out of its way, or be frightfully thrown into the howling dog-kennel?

[4]In the first week of September, Carlyle made a trip to East Anglia for research on Cromwell, in which he observed both the workhouse of St Ives, about which there was "something that reminded me of Dante's Hell", and the ruins of Bury St. Edmunds Abbey, "the Heaven's- Watchtower of our Fathers, the fallen God's-Houses, the Golgotha of true Souls departed".

[8] Carlyle expresses his ideas about the Condition of England question in an elevated rhetorical style invoking classical allusions (such as Midas and the Sphinx) and fictional caricatures (such as Bobus and Sir Jabesh Windbag).

Carlyle complains that despite England's abundant resources, the poor are starving and unable to find meaningful work, as evinced by the Manchester Insurrection.

Carlyle describes Samson as a lowly monk with no formal training or leadership experience who, on his election to the abbacy, worked earnestly and diligently to overcome the economic and spiritual maladies that had befallen the abbey under the rule of Hugo, the former abbot.

Carlyle concludes from this history that despite the monks' primitive knowledge and superstitions (he refers to them repeatedly as "blockheads"), they were able to recognize and promote genuine leadership, in contrast to contemporary Englishmen: Here he is discovered with a maximum of two shillings in his pocket, and a leather scrip round his neck; trudging along the highway, his frock-skirts looped over his arm.

Carlyle ends the book in proposing what must be done to remedy the faults he sees in society, which he boils down to the problem of governing men and relates closely to the matter of organizing labour.

He notes that some combination of aristocracy and priesthood must be restored in society to give it guidance, with the force of a radical rejuvenation of spirit to elevate the working man from his wretched existence and away from the 'anarchy of supply and demand'.

New Moral World, the official newspaper of the Owenite movement, published a six-part review by then-editor George Fleming between August and November 1843, further issuing an additional excerpt two months afterwards.

Fleming believed that a "new, unexpected, and powerful ally to our cause has come into the field", finding in the work "identical principles with those of [Robert Owen]", portraying Carlyle as a covert socialist that has infiltrated the "charmed circle" of high society.

[15] He wrote that Carlyle's acute analysis of the social question in England made it the only book by a contemporary educated Englishman worth reading.