"Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question" is an essay by the Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher Thomas Carlyle. It was first published anonymously in Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country of London in December 1849, and was revised and reprinted in 1853 as a pamphlet entitled "Occasional Discourse on the Nigger Question". The essay was the spark of a debate between Carlyle and John Stuart Mill. It was in this essay that Carlyle first introduced the phrase "the dismal science" to characterize the field of economics.

Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish essayist, historian, and philosopher from the Scottish Lowlands. A leading writer of the Victorian era, he exerted a profound influence on 19th-century art, literature, and philosophy.