r the like emporium and hiring establishment; silent were
all these from any whisper of such demand;--powerless were all
these to 'supply' it, had the demand been in thunder and
earthquake, with gold Eldorados and Mahometan Paradises for the
reward. Ah me, into what waste latitudes, in this Time-Voyage,
have we wandered; like adventurous Sindbads;--where the men go
about as if by galvanism, with meaningless glaring eyes, and have
no soul, but only a beaver-faculty and stomach! The haggard
despair of Cotton-factory, Coal-mine operatives, Chandos Farm-
labourers, in these days, is painful to behold; but not so
painful, hideous to the inner sense, as the brutish god-
forgetting Profit-and-Loss Philosophy, and Life-theory, which we
hear jangled on all hands of us, in senate-houses, spouting-
clubs, leading-articles, pulpits and platforms, everywhere as the
Ultimate Gospel and candid Plain-English of Man's Life, from the
throats and pens and thoughts of all but all men!--

Enlightened Philosophies, like Moliere Doctors, will tell you:
"Enthusiasms, Self-sacrifice, Heaven, Hell and such like: yes,
all that was true enough for old stupid times; all that used to
be true: but we have changed all that, _nous avons change tout
cela!"_ Well; if the heart be got round now into the right side,
and the liver to the left; if man have no heroism in him deeper
than the wish to eat, and in his soul there dwell now no Infinite
of Hope and Awe, and no divine Silence can become imperative
because it is not Sinai Thunder, and no tie will bind if it be
not that of Tyburn gallows-ropes,--then verily you have changed
all that; and for it, and for you, and for me, behold the Abyss
and nameless Annihilation is ready. So scandalous a beggarly
Universe deserves indeed nothing else; I cannot say I would save
it from Annihilation. Vacuum, and the serene Blue, will be much
handsomer; easier too for all of us. I, for one, decline living
as a Patent-Digester. Patent-Digester, Spinning-Mule, Mayfair
Clothes-Horse: many thanks, but your Chaosships will have the
goodness to excuse me!

Chapter X

Plugson of Undershot

One thing I do know: Never, on this Earth, was the relation of
man to man long carried on by Cash-payment alone. If, at any
time, a philosophy of Laissez-faire, Competition and Supply-and-
demand, start up as the exponent of human relations, expect that
it will soon end.

Such philosophies will arise: for