Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh

by Thomas Carlyle

  CHAPTER VII. 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 ahandsome 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, "changeis wont to be gradual: thus, while the serpent sheds its old skin, thenew is already formed beneath. Little knowest thou of the burning of aWorld-Phoenix, who fanciest that she must first burn out, and lie as adead cinereous heap; and therefrom the young one start up by miracle,and fly heavenward. Far otherwise! In that Fire-whirlwind, Creation andDestruction proceed together; ever as the ashes of the Old are blownabout, do organic filaments of the New mysteriously spin themselves: andamid the rushing and the waving of the Whirlwind element come tones ofa melodious Death-song, which end not but in tones of a more melodiousBirth-song. Nay, look into the Fire-whirlwind with thy own eyes, andthou wilt see." Let us actually look, then: to poor individuals, whocannot expect to live two centuries, those same organic filaments,mysteriously spinning themselves, will be the best part of thespectacle. First, therefore, this of Mankind in general:--

  "In vain thou deniest it," says the Professor; "thou art my Brother. Thyvery Hatred, thy very Envy, those foolish Lies thou tellest of me inthy splenetic humor: what is all this but an inverted Sympathy? Were Ia Steam-engine, wouldst thou take the trouble to tell lies of me? Notthou! I should grind all unheeded, whether badly or well.

  "Wondrous truly are the bonds that unite us one and all; whether by thesoft binding of Love, or the iron chaining of Necessity, as we liketo choose it. More than once have I said to myself, of some perhapswhimsically strutting Figure, such as provokes whimsical thoughts:'Wert thou, my little Brotherkin, suddenly covered up within the largestimaginable Glass bell,--what a thing it were, not for thyself only, butfor the world! Post Letters, more or fewer, from all the four winds,impinge against thy Glass walls, but have to drop unread: neither fromwithin comes there question or response into any Post-bag; thy Thoughtsfall into no friendly ear or heart, thy Manufacture into no purchasinghand: thou art no longer a circulating venous-arterial Heart, that,taking and giving, circulatest through all Space and all Time: therehas a Hole fallen out in the immeasurable, universal World-tissue, whichmust be darned up again!'

  "Such venous-arterial circulation, of Letters, verbal Messages,paper and other Packages, going out from him and coming in, area blood-circulation, visible to the eye: but the finer nervouscirculation, by which all things, the minutest that he does, minutelyinfluence all men, and the very look of his face blesses or curseswhomso 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 redIndian, hunting by Lake Winnipeg, can quarrel with his squaw, but thewhole world must smart for it: will not the price of beaver rise? It isa mathematical fact that the casting of this pebble from my hand altersthe centre of gravity of the Universe.

  "If now an existing generation of men stand so woven together, not lessindissolubly does generation with generation. Hast thou ever meditatedon that word, Tradition: how we inherit not Life only, but all thegarniture and form of Life; and work, and speak, and even think andfeel, as our Fathers, and primeval grandfathers, from the beginning,have given it us?--Who printed thee, for example, this unpretendingVolume on the Philosophy of Clothes? Not the Herren Stillschweigen andCompany; but Cadmus of Thebes, Faust of Mentz, and innumerable otherswhom thou knowest not. Had there been no Moesogothic Ulfila, therehad been no English Shakspeare, or a different one. Simpleton! It wasTubal-cain that made thy very Tailor's needle, and sewed that court-suitof thine.

  "Yes, truly, if Nature is one, and a living indivisible whole, much moreis Mankind, the Image that reflects and creates Nature, without whichNature were not. As palpable lifestreams in that wondrous IndividualMankind, among so many life-streams that are not palpable, flow on thosemain currents of what we call Opinion; as preserved in Institutions,Polities, Churches, above all in Books. Beautiful it is to understandand know that a Thought did never yet die; that as thou, the originatorthereof, hast gathered it and created it from the whole Past, so thouwilt 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 thelatest; that the Wise Man stands ever encompassed, and spirituallyembraced, by a cloud of witnesses and brothers; and there is a living,literal _Communion of Saints_, wide as the World itself, and as theHistory of the World.

  "Noteworthy also, and serviceable for the progress of this sameIndividual, wilt thou find his subdivision into Generations. Generationsare as the Days of toilsome Mankind: Death and Birth are the vesper andthe matin bells, that summon Mankind to sleep, and to rise refreshed fornew 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, androll onwards; Arts, Establishments, Opinions, nothing is completed, butever completing. Newton has learned to see what Kepler saw; but thereis also a fresh heaven-derived force in Newton; he must mount to stillhigher 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 likesequence and perseverance: for Luther it was as yet hot enough to standby that burning of the Pope's Bull; Voltaire could not warm himself atthe glimmering ashes, but required quite other fuel. Thus likewise, Inote, the English Whig has, in the second generation, become an EnglishRadical; who, in the third again, it is to be hoped, will become anEnglish Rebuilder. Find Mankind where thou wilt, thou findest it inliving movement, in progress faster or slower: the Phoenix soars aloft,hovers with outstretched wings, filling Earth with her music; or, asnow, 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 thisto heart, and derive from it any little comfort they can. We subjoinanother passage, concerning Titles:--

  "Remark, not without surprise," says Teufelsdrockh, "how all high Titlesof Honor come hitherto from Fighting. Your _Herzog_ (Duke, _Dux_) isLeader of Armies; your Earl (_Jarl_) is Strong Man; your Marshal cavalryHorse-shoer. A Millennium, or reign of Peace and Wisdom, having from ofold been prophesied, and becoming now daily more and more indubitable,may it not be apprehended that such Fighting titles will cease to bepalatable, and new and higher need to be devised?

  "The only Title wherein I, with confidence, trace eternity is that ofKing. _Konig_ (King), anciently _Konning_, means Ken-ning (Cunning), orwhich is the same thing, Can-ning. Ever must the Sovereign of Mankind befitly entitled King."

  "Well, also," says he elsewhere, "was it written by Theologians: a Kingrules by divine right. He carries in him an authority from God, or manwill never give it him. Can I choose my own King? I can choose my ownKing Popinjay, and play what farce or tragedy I may with him: but he whois to be my Ruler, whose will is to be higher than my will, was chosenfor me in Heaven. Neither except in such Obedience to the Heaven-chosenis Freedom so much as conceivable."

  The Editor will here admit that, among all the wondrous provinces ofTeufelsdrockh's spiritual world, there is none he walks in with suchastonishment, hesitation, and even pain, as in the Political. How, withour English love of Ministry and Opposition, and that generous conflictof Parties, mind warming itself against mind in their mutual wrestlefor the Public Good, by which wrestle, indeed, is our invaluableConstitution kept warm and alive; how shall we domesticate ourselvesin this spectral Necropolis, or rather City both of the Dead and of theUnborn, where the Present seems little other than an inconsiderable Filmdividing the Past and the Future? In those dim long-drawn expanses, allis so immeasurable; much so disastrous, ghastly; your very radiances andstraggling light-beams have a supernatural character. And then withsuch an indifference, such a prophetic peacefulness (accounting theinevitably
coming as already here, to him all one whether it be distantby 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 toannounce, or repeat, that, looking into this man, we discern a deep,silent, slow-burning, inextinguishable Radicalism, such as fills us withshuddering admiration.

  Thus, for example, he appears to make little even of the ElectiveFranchise; at least so we interpret the following: "Satisfy yourselves,"he says, "by universal, indubitable experiment, even as ye are now doingor will do, whether FREEDOM, heaven-born and leading heavenward, andso vitally essential for us all, cannot peradventure be mechanicallyhatched and brought to light in that same Ballot-Box of yours; orat worst, in some other discoverable or devisable Box, Edifice, orSteam-mechanism. It were a mighty convenience; and beyond all feats ofmanufacture witnessed hitherto." Is Teufelsdrockh acquainted with theBritish constitution, even slightly?--He says, under another figure:"But after all, were the problem, as indeed it now everywhere is, Torebuild your old House from the top downwards (since you must live init the while), what better, what other, than the Representative Machinewill serve your turn? Meanwhile, however, mock me not with the nameof Free, 'when you have but knit up my chains into ornamentalfestoons.'"--Or what will any member of the Peace Society make of suchan assertion as this: "The lower people everywhere desire War. Not sounwisely; there is then a demand for lower people--to be shot!"

  Gladly, therefore, do we emerge from those soul-confusing labyrinthsof speculative Radicalism, into somewhat clearer regions. Here, lookinground, as was our hest, for "organic filaments," we ask, may not this,touching "Hero-worship," be of the number? It seems of a cheerfulcharacter; yet so quaint, so mystical, one knows not what, or howlittle, 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 notobey. True likewise that whoso cannot obey cannot be free, still lessbear rule; he that is the inferior of nothing, can be the superior ofnothing, the equal of nothing. Nevertheless, believe not that man haslost his faculty of Reverence; that if it slumber in him, it has gonedead. Painful for man is that same rebellious Independence, when it hasbecome inevitable; only in loving companionship with his fellows does hefeel safe; only in reverently bowing down before the Higher does he feelhimself exalted.

  "Or what if the character of our so troublous Era lay even in this: thatman had forever cast away Fear, which is the lower; but not yet riseninto perennial Reverence, which is the higher and highest?

  "Meanwhile, observe with joy, so cunningly has Nature ordered it, thatwhatsoever man ought to obey, he cannot but obey. Before no faintestrevelation of the Godlike did he ever stand irreverent; least of all,when the Godlike showed itself revealed in his fellow-man. Thus is therea true religious Loyalty forever rooted in his heart; nay in allages, 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 discernthe corner-stone of living rock, whereon all Polities for the remotesttime may stand secure."

  Do our readers discern any such corner-stone, or even so much as whatTeufelsdrockh, is looking at? He exclaims, "Or hast thou forgotten Parisand 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 asmile from him, and the loveliest of France would have laid their hairbeneath his feet! All Paris was one vast Temple of Hero-worship; thoughtheir Divinity, moreover, was of feature too apish.

  "But if such things," continues he, "were done in the dry tree, whatwill be done in the green? If, in the most parched season of Man'sHistory, in the most parched spot of Europe, when Parisian life wasat best but a scientific _Hortus Siccus_, bedizened with some ItalianGumflowers, such virtue could come out of it; what is to be looked forwhen Life again waves leafy and bloomy, and your Hero-Divinity shallhave nothing apelike, but be wholly human? Know that there is in man aquite indestructible Reverence for whatsoever holds of Heaven, or evenplausibly counterfeits such holding. Show the dullest clodpoll, showthe haughtiest featherhead, that a soul higher than himself is actuallyhere; were his knees stiffened into brass, he must down and worship."

  Organic filaments, of a more authentic sort, mysteriously spinningthemselves, 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 stillPreaching enough? A Preaching Friar settles himself in every village;and builds a pulpit, which he calls Newspaper. Therefrom he preacheswhat most momentous doctrine is in him, for man's salvation; and dostnot thou listen, and believe? Look well, thou seest everywhere anew Clergy of the Mendicant Orders, some barefooted, some almostbare-backed, fashion itself into shape, and teach and preach, zealouslyenough, for copper alms and the love of God. These break in piecesthe ancient idols; and, though themselves too often reprobate, asidol-breakers are wont to be, mark out the sites of new Churches,where the true God-ordained, that are to follow, may find audience, andminister. Said I not, Before the old skin was shed, the new had formeditself beneath it?"

  Perhaps also in the following; wherewith we now hasten to knit up thisravelled sleeve:--

  "But there is no Religion?" reiterates the Professor. "Fool! I tellthee, there is. Hast thou well considered all that lies in thisimmeasurable froth-ocean we name LITERATURE? Fragments of a genuineChurch-_Homiletic_ lie scattered there, which Time will assort: nayfractions even of a _Liturgy_ could I point out. And knowest thou noProphet, even in the vesture, environment, and dialect of this age? Noneto whom the Godlike had revealed itself, through all meanest and highestforms of the Common; and by him been again prophetically revealed: inwhose inspired melody, even in these rag-gathering and rag-burning days,Man's Life again begins, were it but afar off, to be divine? Knowestthou 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 peopleperish? Be of comfort! Thou art not alone, if thou have Faith. Spake wenot of a Communion of Saints, unseen, yet not unreal, accompanying andbrother-like embracing thee, so thou be worthy? Their heroic Sufferingsrise up melodiously together to Heaven, out of all lands, and out of alltimes, as a sacred _Miserere_; their heroic Actions also, as a boundlesseverlasting Psalm of Triumph. Neither say that thou hast now no Symbolof the Godlike. Is not God's Universe a Symbol of the Godlike; is notImmensity a Temple; is not Man's History, and Men's History, a perpetualEvangel? Listen, and for organ-music thou wilt ever, as of old, hear theMorning Stars sing together."