Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh

by Thomas Carlyle

  CHAPTER IV. HELOTAGE.

  At this point we determine on adverting shortly, or rather reverting,to a certain Tract of Hofrath Heuschrecke's, entitled _Institute for theRepression of Population_; which lies, dishonorably enough (with tornleaves, and a perceptible smell of aloetic drugs), stuffed into the Bag_Pisces_. Not indeed for the sake of the tract itself, which we admirelittle; but of the marginal Notes, evidently in Teufelsdrockh's hand,which rather copiously fringe it. A few of these may be in their rightplace here.

  Into the Hofrath's _Institute_, with its extraordinary schemes, andmachinery of Corresponding Boards and the like, we shall not so much asglance. Enough for us to understand that Heuschrecke is a disciple ofMalthus; and so zealous for the doctrine, that his zeal almost literallyeats him up. A deadly fear of Population possesses the Hofrath;something like a fixed idea; undoubtedly akin to the more diluted formsof Madness. Nowhere, in that quarter of his intellectual world, is therelight; nothing but a grim shadow of Hunger; open mouths opening widerand wider; a world to terminate by the frightfullest consummation: byits too dense inhabitants, famished into delirium, universally eatingone another. To make air for himself in which strangulation, chokingenough to a benevolent heart, the Hofrath founds, or proposes to found,this _Institute_ of his, as the best he can do. It is only with ourProfessor's comments thereon that we concern ourselves.

  First, then, remark that Teufelsdrockh, as a speculative Radical,has his own notions about human dignity; that the Zahdarm palaces andcourtesies have not made him forgetful of the Futteral cottages. On theblank cover of Heuschrecke's Tract we find the following indistinctlyengrossed:--

  "Two men I honor, and no third. First, the toilworn Craftsman thatwith earth-made Implement laboriously conquers the Earth, and makesher man's. Venerable to me is the hard Hand; crooked, coarse; whereinnotwithstanding lies a cunning virtue, indefeasibly royal, as ofthe Sceptre of this Planet. Venerable too is the rugged face, allweather-tanned, besoiled, with its rude intelligence; for it is the faceof a Man living manlike. Oh, but the more venerable for thy rudeness,and even because we must pity as well as love thee! Hardly-entreatedBrother! For us was thy back so bent, for us were thy straight limbs andfingers so deformed: thou wert our Conscript, on whom the lot fell, andfighting our battles wert so marred. For in thee too lay a god-createdForm, but it was not to be unfolded; encrusted must it stand with thethick adhesions and defacements of Labor: and thy body, like thy soul,was not to know freedom. Yet toil on, toil on: _thou_ art in thy duty,be out of it who may; thou toilest for the altogether indispensable, fordaily bread.

  "A second man I honor, and still more highly: Him who is seen toilingfor the spiritually indispensable; not daily bread, but the bread ofLife. Is not he too in his duty; endeavoring towards inward Harmony;revealing this, by act or by word, through all his outward endeavors,be they high or low? Highest of all, when his outward and his inwardendeavor are one: when we can name him Artist; not earthly Craftsmanonly, but inspired Thinker, who with heaven-made Implement conquersHeaven for us! If the poor and humble toil that we have Food, must notthe high and glorious toil for him in return, that he have Light, haveGuidance, Freedom, Immortality?--These two, in all their degrees, Ihonor: all else is chaff and dust, which let the wind blow whither itlisteth.

  "Unspeakably touching is it, however, when I find both dignities united;and he that must toil outwardly for the lowest of man's wants, is alsotoiling inwardly for the highest. Sublimer in this world know I nothingthan a Peasant Saint, could such now anywhere be met with. Such a onewill take thee back to Nazareth itself; thou wilt see the splendor ofHeaven spring forth from the humblest depths of Earth, like a lightshining in great darkness."

  And again: "It is not because of his toils that I lament for the poor:we must all toil, or steal (howsoever we name our stealing), which isworse; no faithful workman finds his task a pastime. The poor is hungryand athirst; but for him also there is food and drink: he is heavy-ladenand weary; but for him also the Heavens send Sleep, and of the deepest;in his smoky cribs, a clear dewy heaven of Rest envelops him; and fitfulglitterings of cloud-skirted Dreams. But what I do mourn over is, thatthe lamp of his soul should go out; that no ray of heavenly, or even ofearthly knowledge, should visit him; but only, in the haggard darkness,like two spectres, Fear and Indignation bear him company. Alas, whilethe Body stands so broad and brawny, must the Soul lie blinded, dwarfed,stupefied, almost annihilated! Alas, was this too a Breath of God;bestowed in Heaven, but on earth never to be unfolded!--That thereshould one Man die ignorant who had capacity for Knowledge, this I calla tragedy, were it to happen more than twenty times in the minute, as bysome computations it does. The miserable fraction of Science which ourunited Mankind, in a wide Universe of Nescience, has acquired, why isnot this, with all diligence, imparted to all?"

  Quite in an opposite strain is the following: "The old Spartans had awiser method; and went out and hunted down their Helots, and speared andspitted them, when they grew too numerous. With our improved fashionsof hunting, Herr Hofrath, now after the invention of fire-arms, andstanding armies, how much easier were such a hunt! Perhaps in the mostthickly peopled country, some three days annually might suffice to shootall the able-bodied Paupers that had accumulated within the year. LetGovernments think of this. The expense were trifling: nay the verycarcasses would pay it. Have them salted and barrelled; could not youvictual therewith, if not Army and Navy, yet richly such infirm Paupers,in workhouses and elsewhere, as enlightened Charity, dreading no evil ofthem, might see good to keep alive?"

  "And yet," writes he farther on, "there must be something wrong. Afull-formed Horse will, in any market, bring from twenty to as highas two hundred Friedrichs d'or: such is his worth to the world. Afull-formed Man is not only worth nothing to the world, but the worldcould afford him a round sum would he simply engage to go and hanghimself. Nevertheless, which of the two was the more cunningly devisedarticle, even as an Engine? Good Heavens! A white European Man, standingon his two Legs, with his two five-fingered Hands at his shackle-bones,and miraculous Head on his shoulders, is worth, I should say, from fiftyto a hundred Horses!"

  "True, thou Gold-Hofrath," cries the Professor elsewhere: "too crowdedindeed! Meanwhile, what portion of this inconsiderable terraqueous Globehave ye actually tilled and delved, till it will grow no more? How thickstands your Population in the Pampas and Savannas of America; roundancient Carthage, and in the interior of Africa; on both slopes of theAltaic chain, in the central Platform of Asia; in Spain, Greece, Turkey,Crim Tartary, the Curragh of Kildare? One man, in one year, as I haveunderstood it, if you lend him Earth, will feed himself and nine others.Alas, where now are the Hengsts and Alarics of our still-glowing,still-expanding Europe; who, when their home is grown too narrow, willenlist, and, like Fire-pillars, guide onwards those superfluous massesof indomitable living Valor; equipped, not now with the battle-axeand war-chariot, but with the steam engine and ploughshare? Where arethey?--Preserving their Game!"