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.”