etchedly, of Idleness, Satiety, and Over-growth. The Highest in
rank, at length, without honour from the Lowest; scarcely, with a
little mouth-honour, as from tavern-waiters who expect to put it in
the bill. Once-sacred Symbols fluttering as empty Pageants, whereof
men grudge even the expense; a World becoming dismantled: in one word,
the CHURCH fallen speechless, from obesity and apoplexy; the STATE
shrunken into a Police-Office, straitened to get its pay!'

We might ask, are there many 'observant eyes,' belonging to practical
men in England or elsewhere, which have descried these phenomena; or is
it only from the mystic elevation of a German _Wahngasse_ that such
wonders are visible? Teufelsdroeckh contends that the aspect of a
'deceased or expiring Society' fronts us everywhere, so that whoso runs
may read. 'What, for example,' says he, 'is the universally-arrogated
Virtue, almost the sole remaining Catholic Virtue, of these days? For
some half century, it has been the thing you name "Independence."
Suspicion of "Servility," of reverence for Superiors, the very dogleech
is anxious to disavow. Fools! Were your Superiors worthy to govern, and
you worthy to obey, reverence for them were even your only possible
freedom. Independence, in all kinds, is rebellion; if unjust rebellion,
why parade it, and everywhere prescribe it?'

But what then? Are we returning, as Rousseau prayed, to the state of
Nature? 'The Soul Politic having departed,' says Teufelsdroeckh, 'what
can follow but that the Body Politic be decently interred, to avoid
putrescence! Liberals, Economists, Utilitarians enough I see marching
with its bier, and chanting loud paeans, towards the funeral-pile,
where, amid wailings from some, and saturnalian revelries from the
most, the venerable Corpse is to be burnt. Or, in plain words, that
these men, Liberals, Utilitarians, or whatsoever they are called, will
ultimately carry their point, and dissever and destroy most existing
Institutions of Society, seems a thing which has some time ago ceased
to be doubtful.

'Do we not see a little subdivision of the grand Utilitarian Armament
come to light even in insulated England? A living nucleus, that will
attract and grow, does at length appear there also; and under curious
phasis; properly as the inconsiderable fag-end, and so far in the rear
of the others as to fancy itself the van. Our European Mechanisers are
a sect of boundless diffusion, activity, and co-operati