adth of the
land in a second of time; their rich and subtle souls can defy all
material impediment, whereas the souls of the poor are clogged and
hampered by matter, which sticks fast about them as treacle to the wings
of a fly, or as one struggling in a quicksand: their dull ears must take
days or weeks to hear what another would tell them from a distance,
instead of hearing it in a second as is done by the more highly organised
classes. Who shall deny that one who can tack on a special train to his
identity, and go wheresoever he will whensoever he pleases, is more
highly organised than he who, should he wish for the same power, might
wish for the wings of a bird with an equal chance of getting them; and
whose legs are his only means of locomotion? That old philosophic enemy,
matter, the inherently and essentially evil, still hangs about the neck
of the poor and strangles him: but to the rich, matter is immaterial; the
elaborate organisation of his extra-corporeal system has freed his soul.

"This is the secret of the homage which we see rich men receive from
those who are poorer than themselves: it would be a grave error to
suppose that this deference proceeds from motives which we need be
ashamed of: it is the natural respect which all living creatures pay to
those whom they recognise as higher than themselves in the scale of
animal life, and is analogous to the veneration which a dog feels for
man. Among savage races it is deemed highly honourable to be the
possessor of a gun, and throughout all known time there has been a
feeling that those who are worth most are the worthiest."

And so he went on at considerable length, attempting to show what changes
in the distribution of animal and vegetable life throughout the kingdom
had been caused by this and that of man's inventions, and in what way
each was connected with the moral and intellectual development of the
human species: he even allotted to some the share which they had had in
the creation and modification of man's body, and that which they would
hereafter have in its destruction; but the other writer was considered to
have the best of it, and in the end succeeded in destroying all the
inventions that had been discovered for the preceding 271 years, a period
which was agreed upon by all parties after several years of wrangling as
to whether a certain kind of mangle which was much in use among
washerwomen should be saved or no. It was at last ruled to be da