For us, who happen to live while the World-Phoenix is burning herself,
and burning so slowly that, as Teufelsdrockh 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 Death-song, which end not but in tones of a more melodious
Birth-song. 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 humor: 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 Post-bag; 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 Winnipeg, 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
Tubal-cain 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 lifestreams 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 Teufelsdrockh, "how all high Titles
of Honor 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. _Konig_ (King), anciently _Konning_, 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
Teufelsdrockh'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 long-drawn 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, heaven-born 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 Teufelsdrockh 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
Teufelsdrockh, 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 clodpoll, 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 barefooted, 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 Godlike 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."