' and gulled, with the most surprising profit. Towards 'any thing like a Statistics of Imposture, indeed, little 'as yet has been done: with a strange indifference, 'our Economists, nigh buried under Tables for minor

'Branches of Industry, have altogether overlooked the 'grand all-overtopping Hypocrisy Branch; as if our 'whole arts of Puffery, of Quackery, Priestcraft, King'craft, and the innumerable other crafts and mysteries of that genus, had not ranked in Productive Industry at 'all! Can any one, for example, so much as say, What

'monies, in Literature and Shoeblacking, are realised by 'actual Instruction and actual jet Polish; what by 'fictitious-persuasive Proclamation of such; specifying, ' in distinct items, the distributions, circulations, disbursements, incomings of said monies, with the smallest approach to accuracy? But to ask, How far, in all the 'several infinitely complected departments of social 'business, in government, education, in manual, com'mercial, intellectual fabrication of every sort, man's 'Want is supplied by true Ware; how far by the 'mere appearance of true Ware :-in other words, To 'what extent, by what methods, with what effects, in ' various times and countries, Deception takes the place ' and wages of Performance: here truly is an Inquiry big 'with results for the future time, but to which hitherto ' only the vaguest answer can be given. If for the present, in our Europe, we estimate the ratio of Ware to Appearance of Ware so high even as at One to a 'Hundred (which, considering the Wages of a Pope, 'Russian Autocrat, or English Game-Preserver, is prob'ably not far from the mark),—what almost prodigious saving may there not be anticipated, as the Statistics of 'Imposture advances, and so the manufacturing of Shams '(that of Realities rising into clearer and clearer dis'tinction therefrom) gradually declines, and at length 'becomes all but wholly unnecessary!

'This for the coming golden ages. What I had to ' remark, for the present brazen one, is, that in several 'provinces, as in Education, Polity, Religion, where so 'much is wanted and indispensable, and so little can as 'yet be furnished, probably Imposture is of sanative, 'anodyne nature, and man's Gullibility not his worst 'blessing. Suppose your sinews of war quite broken; I

mean your military chest insolvent, forage all but ex'hausted; and that the whole army is about to mutiny,

disband, and cut your and each other's throat, then were it not well could you, as if by miracle, pay them in 'any sort of fairy-money, feed them on coagulated water, ' or mere imagination of meat; whereby, till the real supply came up, they might be kept together, and quiet? Such 'perhaps was the aim of Nature, who does nothing without 'aim, in furnishing her favourite, Man, with this his so ' omnipotent or rather omnipatient Talent of being Gulled. How beautifully it works, with a little mechanism; 'nay, almost makes mechanism for itself! These Professors in the Nameless lived with ease, with safety, by ' a mere Reputation, constructed in past times, and then 'too with no great effort, by quite another class of persons. Which Reputation, like a strong brisk-going ' undershot-wheel, sunk into the general current, bade 'fair, with only a little annual repainting on their part, 'to hold long together, and of its own accord assiduously 'grind for them. Happy that it was so, for the Millers! 'They themselves needed not to work; their attempts at 'working, at what they called Educating, now when I 'look back on it, fill me with a certain mute admiration.

'Besides all this, we boasted ourselves a Rational 'University in the highest degree, hostile to Mysticism; 'thus was the young vacant mind furnished with much 'talk about Progress of the Species, Dark Ages, Prejudice, and the like; so that all were quickly enough blown ' out into a state of windy argumentativeness; whereby 'the better sort must soon end in sick, impotent Scepticism; the worser sort explode (crepiren) in finished 'Self-conceit, and to all spiritual intents become dead.— 'But this too is portion of mankind's lot. If our era is the

'Era of Unbelief, why murmur under it; is there not a 'better coming, nay come? As in longdrawn Systole ' and longdrawn Diastole, must the period of Faith 'alternate with the period of Denial; must the vernal 'growth, the summer luxuriance of all Opinions, Spiritual 'Representations and Creations, be followed by, and ' again follow, the autumnal decay, the winter dissolution. For man lives in Time, has his whole earthly being, ' endeavour, and destiny shaped for him by Time: only ' in the transitory Time-Symbol is the ever-motionless 'Eternity we stand on made manifest. And yet, in such 'winter-seasons of Denial, it is for the nobler-minded 'perhaps a comparative misery to have been born, and to 'be awake, and work; and for the duller a felicity, if like 'hibernating animals, safe-lodged in some Salamanca 'University, or Sybaris City, or other superstitious or ' voluptuous Castle of Indolence, they can slumber through, in stupid dreams, and only awaken when the 'loud-roaring hailstorms have all done their work, and to 'our prayers and martyrdoms the new Spring has been ' vouchsafed.'

That in the environment, here mysteriously enough shadowed forth, Teufelsdröckh must have felt ill at ease, cannot be doubtful. 'The hungry young,' he says, 'looked up to their spiritual Nurses; and, for food, were 'bidden eat the east wind. What vain jargon of con'troversial Metaphysic, Etymology, and mechanical 'Manipulation falsely named Science, was current there, 'I indeed learned, better perhaps than the most. Among ' eleven hundred Christian youths, there will not be want'ing some eleven eager to learn. By collision with such, 'a certain warmth, a certain polish was communicated; 'by instinct and happy accident, I took less to rioting