man's philosophies are usually
the 'supplement of his practice;' some ornamental Logic-varnish,
some outer skin of Articulate Intelligence, with which he strives
to render his dumb Instinctive Doings presentable when they are
done. Such philosophies will arise; be preached as Mammon-
Gospels, the ultimate Evangel of the World; be believed, with
what is called belief, with much superficial bluster, and a kind
of shallow satisfaction real in its way:--but they are ominous
gospels! They are the sure, and even swift, forerunner of great
changes. Expect that the old System of Society is done, is dying
and fallen into dotage, when it begins to rave in that fashion.
Most Systems that I have watched the death of, for the last three
thousand years, have gone just so. The Ideal, the True and Noble
that was in them having faded out, and nothing now remaining but
naked Egoism, vulturous Greediness, they cannot live; they are
bound and inexorably ordained by the oldest Destinies, Mothers of
the Universe, to die. Curious enough: they thereupon, as I have
pretty generally noticed, devise some light comfortable kind of
'wine-and-walnuts philosophy' for themselves, this of Supply-and-
demand or another; and keep saying, during hours of mastication
and rumination, which they call hours of meditation: "Soul, take
thy ease, it is all _well_ that thou art a vulture-soul;"
--and pangs of dissolution come upon them, oftenest before they
are aware!

Cash-payment never was, or could except for a few years be, the
union-bond of man to man. Cash never yet paid one man fully his
deserts to another; nor could it, nor can it, now or henceforth
to the end of the world. I invite his Grace of Castle-Rackrent
to reflect on this;--does he think that a Land Aristocracy when
it becomes a Land Auctioneership can have long to live? Or that
Sliding-scales will increase the vital stamina of it? The
indomitable Plugson too, of the respected Firm of Plugson, Hunks
and Company, in St. Dolly Undershot, is invited to reflect on
this; for to him also it will be new, perhaps even newer.
Bookkeeping by double entry is admirable, and records several
things in an exact manner. But the Mother-Destinies also keep
their Tablets; in Heaven's Chancery also there goes on a
recording; and things, as my Moslem friends say, are 'written on
the iron leaf.'

Your Grace and Plugson, it is like, go to Church occasionally:
did you never in vacant moments, wi