ORGANIC FILAMENTS.
For us, who happen to live while the World-Phoenix is burning herself, and
burning so slowly that, as Teufelsdrockh calculates, it were a handsome
bargain would she engage to have done "within two centuries," there seems
to lie but an ashy prospect. Not altogether so, however, does the
Professor figure it. "In the living subject," says he, "change is wont to
be gradual: thus, while the serpent sheds its old skin, the new is already
formed beneath. Little knowest thou of the burning of a World-Phoenix, who
fanciest that she must first burn out, and lie as a dead cinereous heap;
and therefrom the young one start up by miracle, and fly heavenward. Far
otherwise! In that Fire-whirlwind, Creation and Destruction proceed
together; ever as the ashes of the Old are blown about, do organic
filaments of the New mysteriously spin themselves: and amid the rushing
and the waving of the Whirlwind element come tones of a melodious
Death-song, which end not but in tones of a more melodious Birth-song.
Nay, look into the Fire-whirlwind with thy own eyes, and thou wilt see."
Let us actually look, then: to poor individuals, who cannot expect to live
two centuries, those same organic filaments, mysteriously spinning
themselves, will be the best part of the spectacle. First, therefore, this
of Mankind in general:--
"In vain thou deniest it," says the Professor; "thou art my Brother. Thy
very Hatred, thy very Envy, those foolish Lies thou tellest of me in thy
splenetic humor: what is all this but an inverted Sympathy? Were I a
Steam-engine, wouldst thou take the trouble to tell lies of me? Not thou!
I should grind all unheeded, whether badly or well.
"Wondrous truly are the bonds that unite us one and all; whether by the
soft binding of Love, or the iron chaining of Necessity, as we like to
choose it. More than once have I said to myself, of some perhaps
whimsically strutting Figure, such as provokes whimsical thoughts: 'Wert
thou, my little Brotherkin, suddenly covered up within the largest
imaginable Glass bell,--what a thing it were, not for thyself only, but for
the world! Post Letters, more or fewer, from all the four winds, impinge
against thy Glass walls, but have to drop unread: neither from within
comes there question or response into any Post-bag; thy Thoughts fall into
no friendly ear or heart, thy Manufacture into no purchasing hand: thou
art no longer a circulating venous-arterial Heart, that, taking and giving,
circulatest through all Space and all Time: there has a Hole fallen out in
the immeasurable, universal World-tissue, which must be darned up again!'
"Such venous-arterial circulation, of Letters, verbal Messages, paper and
other Packages, going out from him and coming in, are a blood-circulation,
visible to the eye: but the finer nervous circulation, by which all
things, the minutest that he does, minutely influence all men, and the very
look of his face blesses or curses whomso it lights on, and so generates
ever new blessing or new cursing: all this you cannot see, but only
imagine. I say, there is not a red Indian, hunting by Lake Winnipeg, can
quarrel with his squaw, but the whole world must smart for it: will not
the price of beaver rise? It is a mathematical fact that the casting of
this pebble from my hand alters the centre of gravity of the Universe.
"If now an existing generation of men stand so woven together, not less
indissolubly does generation with generation. Hast thou ever meditated on
that word, Tradition: how we inherit not Life only, but all the garniture
and form of Life; and work, and speak, and even think and feel, as our
Fathers, and primeval grandfathers, from the beginning, have given it
us?--Who printed thee, for example, this unpretending Volume on the
Philosophy of Clothes? Not the Herren Stillschweigen and Company; but
Cadmus of Thebes, Faust of Mentz, and innumerable others whom thou knowest
not. Had there been no Moesogothic Ulfila, there had been no English
Shakspeare, or a different one. Simpleton! It was Tubal-cain that made
thy very Tailor's needle, and sewed that court-suit of thine.
"Yes, truly, if Nature is one, and a living indivisible whole, much more is
Mankind, the Image that reflects and creates Nature, without which Nature
were not. As palpable lifestreams in that wondrous Individual Mankind,
among so many life-streams that are not palpable, flow on those main
currents of what we call Opinion; as preserved in Institutions, Polities,
Churches, above all in Books. Beautiful it is to understand and know that
a Thought did never yet die; that as thou, the originator thereof, hast
gathered it and created it from the whole Past, so thou wilt transmit it to
the whole Future. It is thus that the heroic heart, the seeing eye of the
first times, still feels and sees in us of the latest; that the Wise Man
stands ever encompassed, and spiritually embraced, by a cloud of witnesses
and brothers; and there is a living, literal _Communion of Saints_, wide as
the World itself, and as the History of the World.
"Noteworthy also, and serviceable for the progress of this same Individual,
wilt thou find his subdivision into Generations. Generations are as the
Days of toilsome Mankind: Death and Birth are the vesper and the matin
bells, that summon Mankind to sleep, and to rise refreshed for new
advancement. What the Father has made, the Son can make and enjoy; but has
also work of his own appointed him. Thus all things wax, and roll onwards;
Arts, Establishments, Opinions, nothing is completed, but ever completing.
Newton has learned to see what Kepler saw; but there is also a fresh
heaven-derived force in Newton; he must mount to still higher points of
vision. So too the Hebrew Lawgiver is, in due time, followed by an Apostle
of the Gentiles. In the business of Destruction, as this also is from time
to time a necessary work, thou findest a like sequence and perseverance:
for Luther it was as yet hot enough to stand by that burning of the Pope's
Bull; Voltaire could not warm himself at the glimmering ashes, but required
quite other fuel. Thus likewise, I note, the English Whig has, in the
second generation, become an English Radical; who, in the third again, it
is to be hoped, will become an English Rebuilder. Find Mankind where thou
wilt, thou findest it in living movement, in progress faster or slower:
the Phoenix soars aloft, hovers with outstretched wings, filling Earth with
her music; or, as now, she sinks, and with spheral swan-song immolates
herself in flame, that she may soar the higher and sing the clearer."
Let the friends of social order, in such a disastrous period, lay this to
heart, and derive from it any little comfort they can. We subjoin another
passage, concerning Titles:--
"Remark, not without surprise," says Teufelsdrockh, "how all high Titles of
Honor come hitherto from Fighting. Your _Herzog_ (Duke, _Dux_) is Leader
of Armies; your Earl (_Jarl_) is Strong Man; your Marshal cavalry
Horse-shoer. A Millennium, or reign of Peace and Wisdom, having from of
old been prophesied, and becoming now daily more and more indubitable, may
it not be apprehended that such Fighting titles will cease to be palatable,
and new and higher need to be devised?
"The only Title wherein I, with confidence, trace eternity is that of King.
_Konig_ (King), anciently _Konning_, means Ken-ning (Cunning), or which is
the same thing, Can-ning. Ever must the Sovereign of Mankind be fitly
entitled King."
"Well, also," says he elsewhere, "was it written by Theologians: a King
rules by divine right. He carries in him an authority from God, or man
will never give it him. Can I choose my own King? I can choose my own
King Popinjay, and play what farce or tragedy I may with him: but he who
is to be my Ruler, whose will is to be higher than my will, was chosen for
me in Heaven. Neither except in such Obedience to the Heaven-chosen is
Freedom so much as conceivable."
The Editor will here admit that, among all the wondrous provinces of
Teufelsdrockh's spiritual world, there is none he walks in with such
astonishment, hesitation, and even pain, as in the Political. How, with
our English love of Ministry and Opposition, and that generous conflict of
Parties, mind warming itself against mind in their mutual wrestle for the
Public Good, by which wrestle, indeed, is our invaluable Constitution kept
warm and alive; how shall we domesticate ourselves in this spectral
Necropolis, or rather City both of the Dead and of the Unborn, where the
Present seems little other than an inconsiderable Film dividing the Past
and the Future? In those dim long-drawn expanses, all is so immeasurable;
much so disastrous, ghastly; your very radiances and straggling light-beams
have a supernatural character. And then with such an indifference, such a
prophetic peacefulness (accounting the inevitably coming as already here,
to him all one whether it be distant by centuries or only by days), does he
sit;--and live, you would say, rather in any other age than in his own! It
is our painful duty to announce, or repeat, that, looking into this man, we
discern a deep, silent, slow-burning, inextinguishable Radicalism, such as
fills us with shuddering admiration.
Thus, for example, he appears to make little even of the Elective
Franchise; at least so we interpret the following: "Satisfy yourselves,"
he says, "by universal, indubitable experiment, even as ye are now doing or
will do, whether FREEDOM, heaven-born and leading heavenward, and so
vitally essential for us all, cannot peradventure be mechanically hatched
and brought to light in that same Ballot-Box of yours; or at worst, in some
other discoverable or devisable Box, Edifice, or Steam-mechanism. It were
a mighty convenience; and beyond all feats of manufacture witnessed
hitherto." Is Teufelsdrockh acquainted with the British constitution, even
slightly?--He says, under another figure: "But after all, were the
problem, as indeed it now everywhere is, To rebuild your old House from the
top downwards (since you must live in it the while), what better, what
other, than the Representative Machine will serve your turn? Meanwhile,
however, mock me not with the name of Free, 'when you have but knit up my
chains into ornamental festoons.'"--Or what will any member of the Peace
Society make of such an assertion as this: "The lower people everywhere
desire War. Not so unwisely; there is then a demand for lower people--to
be shot!"
Gladly, therefore, do we emerge from those soul-confusing labyrinths of
speculative Radicalism, into somewhat clearer regions. Here, looking
round, as was our hest, for "organic filaments," we ask, may not this,
touching "Hero-worship," be of the number? It seems of a cheerful
character; yet so quaint, so mystical, one knows not what, or how little,
may lie under it. Our readers shall look with their own eyes:--
"True is it that, in these days, man can do almost all things, only not
obey. True likewise that whoso cannot obey cannot be free, still less bear
rule; he that is the inferior of nothing, can be the superior of nothing,
the equal of nothing. Nevertheless, believe not that man has lost his
faculty of Reverence; that if it slumber in him, it has gone dead. Painful
for man is that same rebellious Independence, when it has become
inevitable; only in loving companionship with his fellows does he feel
safe; only in reverently bowing down before the Higher does he feel himself
exalted.
"Or what if the character of our so troublous Era lay even in this: that
man had forever cast away Fear, which is the lower; but not yet risen into
perennial Reverence, which is the higher and highest?
"Meanwhile, observe with joy, so cunningly has Nature ordered it, that
whatsoever man ought to obey, he cannot but obey. Before no faintest
revelation of the Godlike did he ever stand irreverent; least of all, when
the Godlike showed itself revealed in his fellow-man. Thus is there a true
religious Loyalty forever rooted in his heart; nay in all ages, even in
ours, it manifests itself as a more or less orthodox _Hero-worship_. In
which fact, that Hero-worship exists, has existed, and will forever exist,
universally among Mankind, mayest thou discern the corner-stone of living
rock, whereon all Polities for the remotest time may stand secure."
Do our readers discern any such corner-stone, or even so much as what
Teufelsdrockh, is looking at? He exclaims, "Or hast thou forgotten Paris
and Voltaire? How the aged, withered man, though but a Sceptic, Mocker,
and millinery Court-poet, yet because even he seemed the Wisest, Best,
could drag mankind at his chariot-wheels, so that princes coveted a smile
from him, and the loveliest of France would have laid their hair beneath
his feet! All Paris was one vast Temple of Hero-worship; though their
Divinity, moreover, was of feature too apish.
"But if such things," continues he, "were done in the dry tree, what will
be done in the green? If, in the most parched season of Man's History, in
the most parched spot of Europe, when Parisian life was at best but a
scientific _Hortus Siccus_, bedizened with some Italian Gumflowers, such
virtue could come out of it; what is to be looked for when Life again waves
leafy and bloomy, and your Hero-Divinity shall have nothing apelike, but be
wholly human? Know that there is in man a quite indestructible Reverence
for whatsoever holds of Heaven, or even plausibly counterfeits such
holding. Show the dullest clodpoll, show the haughtiest featherhead, that
a soul higher than himself is actually here; were his knees stiffened into
brass, he must down and worship."
Organic filaments, of a more authentic sort, mysteriously spinning
themselves, some will perhaps discover in the following passage:--
"There is no Church, sayest thou? The voice of Prophecy has gone dumb?
This is even what I dispute: but in any case, hast thou not still
Preaching enough? A Preaching Friar settles himself in every village; and
builds a pulpit, which he calls Newspaper. Therefrom he preaches what most
momentous doctrine is in him, for man's salvation; and dost not thou
listen, and believe? Look well, thou seest everywhere a new Clergy of the
Mendicant Orders, some barefooted, some almost bare-backed, fashion itself
into shape, and teach and preach, zealously enough, for copper alms and the
love of God. These break in pieces the ancient idols; and, though
themselves too often reprobate, as idol-breakers are wont to be, mark out
the sites of new Churches, where the true God-ordained, that are to follow,
may find audience, and minister. Said I not, Before the old skin was shed,
the new had formed itself beneath it?"
Perhaps also in the following; wherewith we now hasten to knit up this
ravelled sleeve:--
"But there is no Religion?" reiterates the Professor. "Fool! I tell thee,
there is. Hast thou well considered all that lies in this immeasurable
froth-ocean we name LITERATURE? Fragments of a genuine Church-_Homiletic_
lie scattered there, which Time will assort: nay fractions even of a
_Liturgy_ could I point out. And knowest thou no Prophet, even in the
vesture, environment, and dialect of this age? None to whom the Godlike
had revealed itself, through all meanest and highest forms of the Common;
and by him been again prophetically revealed: in whose inspired melody,
even in these rag-gathering and rag-burning days, Man's Life again begins,
were it but afar off, to be divine? Knowest thou none such? I know him,
and name him--Goethe.
"But thou as yet standest in no Temple; joinest in no Psalm-worship;
feelest well that, where there is no ministering Priest, the people perish?
Be of comfort! Thou art not alone, if thou have Faith. Spake we not of a
Communion of Saints, unseen, yet not unreal, accompanying and brother-like
embracing thee, so thou be worthy? Their heroic Sufferings rise up
melodiously together to Heaven, out of all lands, and out of all times, as
a sacred _Miserere_; their heroic Actions also, as a boundless everlasting
Psalm of Triumph. Neither say that thou hast now no Symbol of the Godlike.
Is not God's Universe a Symbol of the Godlike; is not Immensity a Temple;
is not Man's History, and Men's History, a perpetual Evangel? Listen, and
for organ-music thou wilt ever, as of old, hear the Morning Stars sing
together."