BOOK EIGHTH.


INITIAL CHAPTER.

THE ABUSE OF INTELLECT.

There is at present so vehement a flourish of trumpets, and so prodigious
a roll of the drum, whenever we are called upon to throw up our hats, and
cry "Huzza" to the "March of Enlightenment," that, out of that very
spirit of contradiction natural to all rational animals, one is tempted
to stop one's ears, and say, "Gently, gently; LIGHT is noiseless: how
comes 'Enlightenment' to make such a clatter? Meanwhile, if it be not
impertinent, pray, where is Enlightenment marching to?" Ask that
question of any six of the loudest bawlers in the procession, and I'll
wager tenpence to California that you get six very unsatisfactory
answers. One respectable gentleman, who, to our great astonishment,
insists upon calling himself "a slave," but has a remarkably free way of
expressing his opinions, will reply, "Enlightenment is marching towards
the seven points of the Charter." Another, with his hair /a la jeune
France/, who has taken a fancy to his friend's wife, and is rather
embarrassed with his own, asserts that Enlightenment is proceeding
towards the Rights of Women, the reign of Social Love, and the
annihilation of Tyrannical Prejudice. A third, who has the air of a man
well-to-do in the middle class, more modest in his hopes, because he
neither wishes to have his head broken by his errand-boy, nor his wife
carried off to an Agapemone by his apprentice, does not take
Enlightenment a step farther than a siege on Debrett, and a cannonade on
the Budget. Illiberal man! the march that he swells will soon trample
him under foot. No one fares so ill in a crowd as the man who is wedged