6

Utilitarianism flourished in high places of Thought, here among ourselves, and in every European country, at some time or other, within the last fifty years? If now in all countries, except perhaps England, it has 'ceased to flourish, or indeed to exist, among Thinkers, and sunk to Journalists and the popular mass,—w -who 'sees not that, as hereby it no longer preaches, so the reason is, it now needs no Preaching, but is in full universal Action, the doctrine every where known and ' enthusiastically laid to heart? The fit pabulum, in 'these times, for a certain rugged workshop-intellect and

heart, nowise without their corresponding workshop'strength and ferocity, it requires but to be stated in such 'scenes to make proselytes enough.-Admirably calcu'lated for destroying, only not for rebuilding! It spreads 'like a sort of Dog-madness; till the whole World'kennel will be rabid : then woe to the Huntsmen, with or without their whips! They should have given the quadrupeds water,' adds he,' the water, namely, of 6 Knowledge and of Life, while it was yet time.'

6

Thus, if Professor Teufelsdröckh can be relied on, we are at this hour in a most critical condition; beleaguered by that boundless Armament of Mechanisers' and Unbelievers, threatening to strip us bare! The World,' says he,' as it needs must, is under a process of devastation ' and waste, which, whether by silent assiduous corrosion, 'or open quicker combustion, as the case chances, will 'effectually enough annihilate the past Forms of Society; replace them with what it may. For the present, it is 'contemplated that when man's whole Spiritual Interests are once divested, these innumerable stript-off 'Garments shall mostly be burnt; but the sounder Rags

among them be quilted together into one huge Irish 'watch-coat for the defence of the Body only!'-This, we think, is but Job's news to the humane reader.

"Nevertheless,' cries Teufelsdröckh,' who can hinder ' it; who is there that can clutch into the wheel-spokes ́ of Destiny, and say to the Spirit of the Time: Turn 'back, I command thee?-Wiser were it that we yielded ' to the Inevitable and Inexorable, and accounted even this the best.'

Nay, might not an attentive Editor, drawing his own inferences from what stands written, conjecture that Teufelsdröckh individually had yielded to this same 'Inevitable and Inexorable' heartily enough; and now sat waiting the issue, with his natural diabolico-angelical Indifference, if not even Placidity? Did we not hear him complain that the World was a huge Ragfair,' and the 'rags and tatters of old Symbols' were raining down every where, like to drift him in, and suffocate him? What with those 'unhunted Helots' of his; and the uneven sic-vos-non-vobis pressure, and hard crashing collision he is pleased to discern in existing things; what with the so hateful 'empty Masks,' full of beetles and spiders, yet glaring out on him, from their glass-eyes, 'with a ghastly affectation of life,'—we feel entitled to conclude him even willing that much should be thrown to the Devil, so it were but done gently! Safe himself in that Pinnacle of Weissnichtwo,' he would consent, with a tragic solemnity, that the monster UTILITARIA, held back, indeed, and moderated by nose-rings, halters, foot-shackles, and every conceivable modification of rope, should go forth to do her work ;-to tread down old ruinous Palaces and Temples, with her broad hoof, till

1

the whole were trodden down, that new and better might be built! Remarkable in this point of view are the following sentences.

'Society,' says he, 'is not dead: that Carcass, which 'you call dead Society, is but her mortal coil which she 'has shuffled off, to assume a nobler; she herself, through * perpetual metamorphoses, in fairer and fairer developement, has to live till Time also merge in Eternity. 'Wheresoever two or three Living Men are gathered together, there is Society; or there it will be, with its ⚫ cunning mechanisms; and stupendous structures, overspreading this little Globe, and reaching upwards to Heaven and downwards to Gehenna: for always, under one or the other figure, it has two authentic Revelations, of a God and of a Devil; the Pulpit, namely, and 'the Gallows.'

6

Indeed, we already heard him speak of Religion, in unnoticed nooks, weaving for herself new Vestures;' Teufelsdrückh himself being one of the loom-treadles? Elsewhere he quotes without censure that strange aphorism of Saint-Simon's, concerning which and whom so much were to be said: "L'age d'or qu'une aveugle tradition a placé jusqu'ici dans le passé est devant nous; The golden age which a blind tradition has hitherto placed in the Past is Before us."-But listen again :

"When the Phoenix is fanning her funeral pyre, will there not be sparks flying? Alas, some millions of 'men, and among them such as a Napoleon, have already been licked into that high-eddying Flame, and like moths, consumed there. Still also have we to fear that 'incautious beards will get singed.

For the rest, in what year of grace such Phoenix

'cremation will be completed, you need not ask. The law of Perseverance is among the deepest in man: by ' nature he hates change; seldom will he quit his old 'house till it has actually fallen about his ears. Thus ' have I seen Solemnities linger as Ceremonies, sacred Symbols as idle Pageants, to the extent of three hun'dred years and more after all life and sacredness had evaporated out of them. And then, finally, what time 'the Phoenix Death-Birth itself will require, depends on ' unseen contingencies.-Meanwhile, would Destiny offer 'Mankind that after, say two centuries of convulsion ' and conflagration, more or less vivid, the fire-creation 'should be accomplished, and we find ourselves again ' in a Living Society, and no longer fighting but working, —were it not perhaps prudent in Mankind to strike the bargain?'

Thus is Teufelsdröckh content that old sick Society should be deliberately burnt (alas! with quite other fuel than spice-wood); in the faith that she is a Phoenix; and that a new heaven born young one will rise out of her ashes! We ourselves, restricted to the duty of Indicator, shall forbear commentary. Meanwhile, will not the judicious reader shake his head, and reproachfully, yet more in sorrow than in anger, say or think: From a Doctor Utriusque Juris, titular Professor in a University, and man to whom hitherto, for his services, Society, bad as she is, has given not only food and raiment (of a kind) but books, tobacco and gukguk, we expected more gratitude to his benefactress; and less of a blind Trust in the future, which resembles that rather of a philosophical Fatalist and Enthusiast, than of a solid. householder paying scot and lot in a Christian country.

CHAPTER VI.

OLD CLOTHES.

As mentioned above, Teufelsdröckh, though a Sansculottist, is in practice probably the politest man extant his whole heart and life are penetrated and informed with the spirit of Politeness; a noble natural Courtesy shines through him, beautifying his vagaries; like sun-light, making a rosy-fingered, rainbow-dyed Aurora out of mere aqueous clouds; nay, brightening London smoke itself into gold vapour, as from the crucible of an alchemist. Hear in what earnest though fantastic wise he expresses himself on this head:

Of a

'Shall Courtesy be done only to the rich, and only by the rich? In Good-breeding, which differs, if at all, 'from High-breeding, only as it gracefully remembers 'the rights of others, rather than gracefully insists on its own rights, I discern no special connexion with 'wealth or birth: but rather that it lies in human nature itself, and is due from all men towards all men. truth, were your Schoolmaster at his post, and worth any thing when there, this, with so much else, would be reformed. Nay, each man were then also his neighbour's schoolmaster; till at length a rude-visaged, un'mannered Peasant could no more be met with, than a Peasant unacquainted with botanical Physiology, or who 'felt not that the clod he broke was created in Heaven.