s in Parliament; but,
in the Reporters' Gallery yonder, there sat a _Fourth Estate_ more
important far than they all. It is not a figure of speech, or a witty
saying; it is a literal fact,--very momentous to us in these times.
Literature is our Parliament too. Printing, which comes necessarily out
of Writing, I say often, is equivalent to Democracy: invent Writing,
Democracy is inevitable. Writing brings Printing; brings universal
everyday extempore Printing, as we see at present. Whoever can
speak, speaking now to the whole nation, becomes a power, a branch
of government, with inalienable weight in law-making, in all acts of
authority. It matters not what rank he has, what revenues or garnitures.
the requisite thing is, that he have a tongue which others will listen
to; this and nothing more is requisite. The nation is governed by all
that has tongue in the nation: Democracy is virtually _there_. Add only,
that whatsoever power exists will have itself, by and by, organized;
working secretly under bandages, obscurations, obstructions, it will
never rest till it get to work free, unencumbered, visible to all.
Democracy virtually extant will insist on becoming palpably extant.--

On all sides, are we not driven to the conclusion that, of the things
which man can do or make here below, by far the most momentous,
wonderful and worthy are the things we call Books! Those poor bits
of rag-paper with black ink on them;--from the Daily Newspaper to
the sacred Hebrew BOOK, what have they not done, what are they not
doing!--For indeed, whatever be the outward form of the thing (bits
of paper, as we say, and black ink), is it not verily, at bottom, the
highest act of man's faculty that produces a Book? It is the _Thought_
of man; the true thaumaturgic virtue; by which man works all things
whatsoever. All that he does, and brings to pass, is the vesture of a
Thought. This London City, with all its houses, palaces, steam-engines,
cathedrals, and huge immeasurable traffic and tumult, what is it but a
Thought, but millions of Thoughts made into One;--a huge immeasurable
Spirit of a THOUGHT, embodied in brick, in iron, smoke, dust, Palaces,
Parliaments, Hackney Coaches, Katherine Docks, and the rest of it! Not
a brick was made but some man had to _think_ of the making of that
brick.--The thing we called "bits of paper with traces of black ink," is
the _purest_ embodiment a Thought of man can have. No wonder it is, in
all ways, the activ