“Thus, too,” continues he, “does an observant eye discern everywhere that saddest spectacle:  The Poor perishing, like neglected, foundered Draught-Cattle, of Hunger and Overwork; the Rich, still more wretchedly, of Idleness, Satiety, and Overgrowth.  The Highest in rank, at length, without honor from the Lowest; scarcely, with a little mouth-honor, as from tavern-waiters who expect to put it in the bill.  Once-sacred Symbols fluttering as empty Pageants, whereof men grudge even the expense; a World becoming dismantled:  in one word, the STATE fallen speechless, from obesity and apoplexy; the STATE shrunken into a Police-Office, straitened to get its pay!”

We might ask, are there many “observant eyes,” belonging to practical men in England or elsewhere, which have descried these phenomena; or is it only from the mystic elevation of a German Wahngasse that such wonders are visible?  Teufelsdrockh contends that the aspect of a “deceased or expiring Society” fronts us everywhere, so that whoso runs may read.  “What, for example,” says he, “is the universally arrogated Virtue, almost the sole remaining Catholic Virtue, of these days?  For some half-century, it has been the thing you name ‘Independence.’  Suspicion of ‘Servility,’ 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