THE EVERLASTING NO

THE EVERLASTING NO, Carlyle's name for the spirit of unbelief in God, especially as it manifested itself in his own, or rather Teufelsdröckh's, warfare against it; the spirit, which, as embodied in the MEPHISTOPHELES of Goethe, is for ever denying, - ''der
stets verneint'' - the reality of the divine in the thoughts, the character, and the life of humanity, and has a malicious pleasure in
scoffing at everything high and noble as hollow and void.