ORGANIC FILAMENTS
For us, who happen to live while the World-Phoenix is burning herself,
and burning so slowly that, as Teufelsdröckh calculates, it were a
handsome bargain would she engage to have done 'within two centuries,'
there seems to lie but an ashy prospect. Not altogether so, however,
does the Professor figure it. 'In the living subject,' says he,
'change is wont to be gradual: thus, while the serpent sheds its old
skin, the new is already formed beneath. Little knowest thou of the
burning of a World-Phoenix, who fanciest that she must first burn-out,
and lie as a dead cinereous heap; and therefrom the young one start-up
by miracle, and fly heavenward. Far otherwise! In that Fire-whirlwind,
Creation and Destruction proceed together; ever as the ashes of the
Old are blown about, do organic filaments of the New mysteriously spin
themselves: and amid the rushing and the waving of the
Whirlwind-Element come tones of a melodious Deathsong, which end not
but in tones of a more melodious Birthsong. Nay, look into the
Fire-whirlwind with thy own eyes, and thou wilt see.' Let us actually
look, then: to poor individuals, who cannot expect to live two
centuries, those same organic filaments, mysteriously spinning
themselves, will be the best part of the spectacle. First, therefore,
this of Mankind in general:
'In vain thou deniest it,' says the Professor; 'thou _art_ my Brother.
Thy very Hatred, thy very Envy, those foolish lies thou tellest of me
in thy splenetic humour: what is all this but an inverted Sympathy?
Were I a Steam-engine, wouldst thou take the trouble to tell lies of
me? Not thou! I should grind all unheeded, whether badly or well.
'Wondrous truly are the bonds that unite us one and all; whether by
the soft binding of Love, or the iron chaining of Necessity, as we
like to choose it. More than once have I said to myself, of some
perhaps whimsically strutting Figure, such as provokes whimsical
thoughts: "Wert thou, my little Brotherkin, suddenly covered-up within
the largest imaginable Glass-bell,--what a thing it were, not for
thyself only, but for the world! Post Letters, more or fewer, from all
the four winds, impinge against thy Glass walls, but have to drop
unread: neither from within comes there question or response into any
Postbag; thy Thoughts fall into no friendly ear or heart, thy
Manufacture into no purchasing hand: thou art no longer a circulating
venous-arterial Heart, that, taking and giving, circulatest through
all Space and all Time: there has a Hole fallen-out in the
immeasurable, universal World-tissue, which must be darned-up again!"
'Such venous-arterial circulation, of Letters, verbal Messages, paper
and other Packages, going out from him and coming in, are a
blood-circulation, visible to the eye: but the finer nervous
circulation, by which all things, the minutest that he does, minutely
influence all men, and the very look of his face blesses or curses
whomso it lights on, and so generates ever new blessing or new
cursing: all this you cannot see, but only imagine. I say, there is
not a red Indian, hunting by Lake Winnipic, can quarrel with his
squaw, but the whole world must smart for it: will not the price of
beaver rise? It is a mathematical fact that the casting of this pebble
from my hand alters the centre of gravity of the Universe.
'If now an existing generation of men stand so woven together, not
less indissolubly does generation with generation. Hast thou ever
meditated on that word, Tradition: how we inherit not Life only, but
all the garniture and form of Life; and work, and speak, and even
think and feel, as our Fathers, and primeval grandfathers, from the
beginning, have given it us?--Who printed thee, for example, this
unpretending Volume on the Philosophy of Clothes? Not the Herren
Stillschweigen and Company; but Cadmus of Thebes, Faust of Mentz, and
innumerable others whom thou knowest not. Had there been no
Moesogothic Ulfila, there had been no English Shakspeare, or a
different one. Simpleton! it was Tubalcain that made thy very Tailor's
needle, and sewed that court-suit of thine.
'Yes, truly; if Nature is one, and a living indivisible whole, much
more is Mankind, the Image that reflects and creates Nature, without
which Nature were not. As palpable life-streams in that wondrous
Individual Mankind, among so many life-streams that are not palpable,
flow on those main-currents of what we call Opinion; as preserved in
Institutions, Polities, Churches, above all in Books. Beautiful it is
to understand and know that a Thought did never yet die; that as thou,
the originator thereof, hast gathered it and created it from the whole
Past, so thou wilt transmit it to the whole Future. It is thus that
the heroic heart, the seeing eye of the first times, still feels and
sees in us of the latest; that the Wise Man stands ever encompassed,
and spiritually embraced, by a cloud of witnesses and brothers; and
there is a living, literal _Communion of Saints_, wide as the World
itself, and as the History of the World.
'Noteworthy also, and serviceable for the progress of this same
Individual, wilt thou find his subdivision into Generations.
Generations are as the Days of toilsome Mankind: Death and Birth are
the vesper and the matin bells, that summon Mankind to sleep, and to
rise refreshed for new advancement. What the Father has made, the Son
can make and enjoy; but has also work of his own appointed him. Thus
all things wax, and roll onwards; Arts, Establishments, Opinions,
nothing is completed, but ever completing. Newton has learned to see
what Kepler saw; but there is also a fresh heaven-derived force in
Newton; he must mount to still higher points of vision. So too the
Hebrew Lawgiver is, in due time, followed by an Apostle of the
Gentiles. In the business of Destruction, as this also is from time to
time a necessary work, thou findest a like sequence and perseverance:
for Luther it was as yet hot enough to stand by that burning of the
Pope's Bull; Voltaire could not warm himself at the glimmering ashes,
but required quite other fuel. Thus likewise, I note, the English Whig
has, in the second generation, become an English Radical; who, in the
third again, it is to be hoped, will become an English Rebuilder. Find
Mankind where thou wilt, thou findest it in living movement, in
progress faster or slower: the Phoenix soars aloft, hovers with
outstretched wings, filling Earth with her music; or, as now, she
sinks, and with spheral swan-song immolates herself in flame, that she
may soar the higher and sing the clearer.'
Let the friends of social order, in such a disastrous period, lay this
to heart, and derive from it any little comfort they can. We subjoin
another passage, concerning Titles:
'Remark, not without surprise,' says Teufelsdröckh, 'how all high
Titles of Honour come hitherto from fighting. Your _Herzog_ (Duke,
_Dux_) is Leader of Armies; your Earl (_Jarl_) is Strong Man; your
Marshal cavalry Horse-shoer. A Millennium, or reign of Peace and
Wisdom, having from of old been prophesied, and becoming now daily
more and more indubitable, may it not be apprehended that such
Fighting-titles will cease to be palatable, and new and higher need to
be devised?
'The only Title wherein I, with confidence, trace eternity, is that of
King. _König_ (King), anciently _Könning_, means Ken-ning (Cunning),
or which is the same thing, Can-ning. Ever must the Sovereign of
Mankind be fitly entitled King.'
'Well, also,' says he elsewhere, 'was it written by Theologians: a
King rules by divine right. He carries in him an authority from God,
or man will never give it him. Can I choose my own King? I can choose
my own King Popinjay, and play what farce or tragedy I may with him:
but he who is to be my Ruler, whose will is to be higher than my will,
was chosen for me in Heaven. Neither except in such Obedience to the
Heaven-chosen is Freedom so much as conceivable.'
* * * * *
The Editor will here admit that, among all the wondrous provinces of
Teufelsdröckh's spiritual world, there is none he walks in with such
astonishment, hesitation, and even pain, as in the Political. How,
with our English love of Ministry and Opposition, and that generous
conflict of Parties, mind warming itself against mind in their mutual
wrestle for the Public Good, by which wrestle, indeed, is our
invaluable Constitution kept warm and alive; how shall we domesticate
ourselves in this spectral Necropolis, or rather City both of the Dead
and of the Unborn, where the Present seems little other than an
inconsiderable Film dividing the Past and the Future? In those dim
longdrawn expanses, all is so immeasurable; much so disastrous,
ghastly; your very radiances and straggling light-beams have a
supernatural character. And then with such an indifference, such a
prophetic peacefulness (accounting the inevitably coming as already
here, to him all one whether it be distant by centuries or only by
days), does he sit;--and live, you would say, rather in any other age
than in his own! It is our painful duty to announce, or repeat, that,
looking into this man, we discern a deep, silent, slow-burning,
inextinguishable Radicalism, such as fills us with shuddering
admiration.
Thus, for example, he appears to make little even of the Elective
Franchise; at least so we interpret the following: 'Satisfy
yourselves,' he says, 'by universal, indubitable experiment, even as
ye are now doing or will do, whether FREEDOM, heavenborn and leading
heavenward, and so vitally essential for us all, cannot peradventure
be mechanically hatched and brought to light in that same Ballot-Box
of yours; or at worst, in some other discoverable or devisable Box,
Edifice, or Steam-mechanism. It were a mighty convenience; and beyond
all feats of manufacture witnessed hitherto.' Is Teufelsdröckh
acquainted with the British Constitution, even slightly?--He says,
under another figure: 'But after all, were the problem, as indeed it
now everywhere is, To rebuild your old House from the top downwards
(since you must live in it the while), what better, what other, than
the Representative Machine will serve your turn? Meanwhile, however,
mock me not with the name of Free, "when you have but knit-up my
chains into ornamental festoons."'--Or what will any member of the
Peace Society make of such an assertion as this: 'The lower people
everywhere desire War. Not so unwisely; there is then a demand for
lower people--to be shot!'
Gladly, therefore, do we emerge from those soul-confusing labyrinths
of speculative Radicalism, into somewhat clearer regions. Here,
looking round, as was our hest, for 'organic filaments,' we ask, may
not this, touching 'Hero-worship,' be of the number? It seems of a
cheerful character; yet so quaint, so mystical, one knows not what, or
how little, may lie under it. Our readers shall look with their own
eyes:
'True is it that, in these days, man can do almost all things, only
not obey. True likewise that whoso cannot obey cannot be free, still
less bear rule; he that is the inferior of nothing, can be the
superior of nothing, the equal of nothing. Nevertheless, believe not
that man has lost his faculty of Reverence; that if it slumber in him,
it has gone dead. Painful for man is that same rebellious
Independence, when it has become inevitable; only in loving
companionship with his fellows does he feel safe; only in reverently
bowing down before the Higher does he feel himself exalted.
'Or what if the character of our so troublous Era lay even in this:
that man had forever cast away Fear, which is the lower; but not yet
risen into perennial Reverence, which is the higher and highest?
'Meanwhile, observe with joy, so cunningly has Nature ordered it, that
whatsoever man ought to obey, he cannot but obey. Before no faintest
revelation of the Godlike did he ever stand irreverent; least of all,
when the Godlike showed itself revealed in his fellow-man. Thus is
there a true religious Loyalty forever rooted in his heart; nay in all
ages, even in ours, it manifests itself as a more or less orthodox
_Hero-worship_. In which fact, that Hero-worship exists, has existed,
and will forever exist, universally among Mankind, mayest thou discern
the corner-stone of living-rock, whereon all Polities for the remotest
time may stand secure.'
Do our readers discern any such corner-stone, or even so much as what
Teufelsdröckh is looking at? He exclaims, 'Or hast thou forgotten
Paris and Voltaire? How the aged, withered man, though but a Sceptic,
Mocker, and millinery Court-poet, yet because even he seemed the
Wisest, Best, could drag mankind at his chariot-wheels, so that
princes coveted a smile from him, and the loveliest of France would
have laid their hair beneath his feet! All Paris was one vast Temple
of Hero-worship; though their Divinity, moreover, was of feature too
apish.
'But if such things,' continues he, 'were done in the dry tree, what
will be done in the green? If, in the most parched season of Man's
History, in the most parched spot of Europe, when Parisian life was at
best but a scientific _Hortus Siccus_, bedizened with some Italian
Gumflowers, such virtue could come out of it; what is to be looked for
when Life again waves leafy and bloomy, and your Hero-Divinity shall
have nothing apelike, but be wholly human? Know that there is in man a
quite indestructible Reverence for whatsoever holds of Heaven, or even
plausibly counterfeits such holding. Show the dullest clodpole, show
the haughtiest featherhead, that a soul higher than himself is
actually here; were his knees stiffened into brass, he must down and
worship.'
Organic filaments, of a more authentic sort, mysteriously spinning
themselves, some will perhaps discover in the following passage:
'There is no Church, sayest thou? The voice of Prophecy has gone dumb?
This is even what I dispute: but in any case, hast thou not still
Preaching enough? A Preaching Friar settles himself in every village;
and builds a pulpit, which he calls Newspaper. Therefrom he preaches
what most momentous doctrine is in him, for man's salvation; and dost
not thou listen, and believe? Look well, thou seest everywhere a new
Clergy of the Mendicant Orders, some bare-footed, some almost
bare-backed, fashion itself into shape, and teach and preach,
zealously enough, for copper alms and the love of God. These break in
pieces the ancient idols; and, though themselves too often reprobate,
as idol-breakers are wont to be, mark out the sites of new Churches,
where the true God-ordained, that are to follow, may find audience,
and minister. Said I not, Before the old skin was shed, the new had
formed itself beneath it?'
Perhaps also in the following; wherewith we now hasten to knit-up this
ravelled sleeve:
'But there is no Religion?' reiterates the Professor. 'Fool! I tell
thee, there is. Hast thou well considered all that lies in this
immeasurable froth-ocean we name LITERATURE? Fragments of a genuine
Church-_Homiletic_ lie scattered there, which Time will assort: nay
fractions even of a _Liturgy_ could I point out. And knowest thou no
Prophet, even in the vesture, environment, and dialect of this age?
None to whom the God-like had revealed itself, through all meanest and
highest forms of the Common; and by him been again prophetically
revealed: in whose inspired melody, even in these rag-gathering and
rag-burning days, Man's Life again begins, were it but afar off, to be
divine? Knowest thou none such? I know him, and name him--Goethe.
'But thou as yet standest in no Temple; joinest in no Psalm-worship;
feelest well that, where there is no ministering Priest, the people
perish? Be of comfort! Thou art not alone, if thou have Faith. Spake
we not of a Communion of Saints, unseen, yet not unreal, accompanying
and brother-like embracing thee, so thou be worthy? Their heroic
Sufferings rise up melodiously together to Heaven, out of all lands,
and out of all times, as a sacred _Miserere_; their heroic Actions
also, as a boundless everlasting Psalm of Triumph. Neither say that
thou hast now no Symbol of the Godlike. Is not God's Universe a Symbol
of the Godlike; is not Immensity a Temple; is not Man's History, and
Men's History, a perpetual Evangel? Listen, and for organ-music thou
wilt ever, as of old, hear the Morning Stars sing together.'