of reverence for Superiors, the very dog-leech
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 Teufelsdrockh, "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 Mechanizers are a
sect of boundless diffusion, activity, and co-operative spirit: has
not 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,--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 everywhere 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 calculated
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 Knowledge an