CHAPTER IV.  GETTING UNDER WAY.

“Thus nevertheless,” writes our Autobiographer, apparently as quitting College, “was there realized Somewhat; namely, I, Diogenes Teufelsdrockh:  a visible Temporary Figure (Zeitbild), occupying some cubic feet of Space, and containing within it Forces both physical and spiritual; hopes, passions, thoughts; the whole wondrous furniture, in more or less perfection, belonging to that mystery, a Man.  Capabilities there were in me to give battle, in some small degree, against the great Empire of Darkness:  does not the very Ditcher and Delver, with his spade, extinguish many a thistle and puddle; and so leave a little Order, where he found the opposite?  Nay your very Day-moth has capabilities in this kind; and ever organizes something (into its own Body, if no otherwise), which was before Inorganic; and of mute dead air makes living music, though only of the faintest, by humming.

“How much more, one whose capabilities are spiritual; who has learned, or begun learning, the grand thaumaturgic art of Thought!  Thaumaturgic I name it; for hitherto all Miracles have been wrought thereby, and henceforth innumerable will be wrought; whereof we, even in these days, witness some.  Of the Poet’s and Prophet’s inspired Message, and how it makes and unmakes whole worlds, I shall forbear mention:  but cannot the dullest hear Steam-engines clanking around him?  Has he not seen the Scottish Brass-smith’s IDEA (and this but a mechanical one) travelling on fire-wings round the Cape, and across two Oceans; and stronger than any other Enchanter’s Familiar, on all hands unweariedly fetching and carrying:  at home, not only weaving Cloth; but rapidly enough overturning the whole old system of Society; and, for Feudalism and Preservation of the Game, preparing us, by indirect but sure methods, Industrialism and the Government of the Wisest?  Truly a Thinking Man is the worst enemy the Prince of Darkness can have; every time such a one announces himself, I doubt not, there runs a shudder through the Nether Empire; and new Emissaries are trained, with new tactics, to, if possible, entrap him, and hoodwink and handcuff him.

“With such high vocation had I too, as denizen of the Universe, been called.  Unhappy it is, however, that though born to the amplest Sovereignty, in this way, with no less than sovereign right of Peace and War against the Time-Prince (Zeitfurst), or Devil, and all his Dominions, your coronation-ceremony costs such trouble, your sceptre is so difficult to get at, or even to get eye on!”