1st, as to the Continuance.

The Greek Goddess of Wisdom gave continual increase of wisdom, as the Christian Spirit of Comfort (or Comforter) continual increase of comfort.  There was no question, with these, of any limit or cessation of function.  But with your Agora Goddess, that is just the most important question.  Getting on—­but where to?  Gathering together—­but how much?  Do you mean to gather always—­never to spend?  If so, I wish you joy of your goddess, for I am just as well off as you, without the trouble of worshipping her at all.  But if you do not spend, somebody else will—­somebody else must.  And it is because of this (among many other such errors) that I have fearlessly declared your so-called science of Political Economy to be no science; because, namely, it has omitted the study of exactly the most important branch of the business—­the study of spending.  For spend you must, and as much as you make, ultimately.  You gather corn:—­will you bury England under a heap of grain; or will you, when you have gathered, finally eat?  You gather gold:—­will you make your house-roofs of it, or pave your streets with it?  That is still one way of spending it.  But if you keep it, that you may get more, I’ll give you more; I’ll give you all the gold you want—­all you can imagine—­if you can tell me what you’ll do with it.  You shall have thousands of gold-pieces;—­thousands of thousands—­millions—­mountains, of gold:  where will you keep them?  Will you put an Olympus of silver upon a golden Pelion—­make Ossa like a wart?[219] Do you think the rain and dew would then come down to you, in the streams from such mountains, more blessedly than they will down the mountains which God has made for you, of moss and whinstone?  But it is not gold that you want to gather!  What is it? greenbacks?  No; not those neither.  What is it then—­is it ciphers after a capital I?  Cannot you practise writing ciphers, and write as many as you want?  Write ciphers for an hour every morning, in a big book, and say every evening, I am worth all those noughts more than I was yesterday.  Won’t that do?  Well, what in the name of Plutus is it you want?  Not gold, not greenbacks, not ciphers after a capital I?  You will have to answer, after all, “No; we want, somehow or other, money’s worth.”  Well, what is that?  Let your Goddess of Getting-on discover it, and let her learn to stay therein.

2d.  But there is yet another question to be asked respecting this Goddess of Getting-on.  The first was of the continuance of her power; the second is of its extent.

Pallas and the Madonna were supposed to be all the world’s Pallas, and all the world’s Madonna.  They could teach all men, and they could comfort all men.  But, look strictly into the nature of the power of your Goddess of Getting-on; and you will find she is the Goddess—­not of everybody’s getting on—­but only of somebody’s getting on.  This is a vital, or rather deathful, distinction.  Examine it in your own ideal of the state of national life which this Goddess is to evoke and maintain.  I asked you what it was, when I was last here;—­you have never told me.[220] Now, shall I try to tell you?