-strikes, Corn-Laws, Toryisms, and
the general downbreak of Laissez-faire in these days,--may we not
regard it as a voice from the dumb bosom of Nature, saying to us:
"Behold! Supply-and-demand is not the one Law of Nature; Cash-payment
is not the sole nexus of man with man,--how far from it! Deep, far
deeper than Supply-and-demand, are Laws, Obligations sacred as Man's
Life itself: these also, if you will continue to do work, you shall
now learn and obey. He that will learn them, behold Nature is on his
side, he shall yet work and prosper with noble rewards. He that will
not learn them, Nature is against him, he shall not be able to do work
in Nature's empire,--not in hers. Perpetual mutiny, contention,
hatred, isolation, execration shall wait on his footsteps, till all
men discern that the thing which he attains, however golden it look or
be, is not success, but the want of success."

Supply-and-demand,--alas! For what noble work was there ever yet any
audible 'demand' in that poor sense? The man of Macedonia, speaking in
vision to an Apostle Paul, "Come over and help us," did not specify
what rate of wages he would give! Or was the Christian Religion itself
accomplished by Prize-Essays, Bridgwater Bequests, and a 'minimum of
Four thousand five hundred a year'? No demand that I heard of was made
then, audible in any Labour-market, Manchester Chamber of Commerce, or
other the like emporium and hiring establishment; silent were all
these from any whisper of such demand;--powerless were all these to
'supply' it, had the demand been in thunder and earthquake, with gold
Eldorados and Mahometan Paradises for the reward. Ah me, into what
waste latitudes, in this Time-Voyage, have we wandered; like
adventurous Sindbads;--where the men go about as if by galvanism, with
meaningless glaring eyes, and have no soul, but only a beaver-faculty
and stomach! The haggard despair of Cotton-factory, Coal-mine
operatives, Chandos Farm-labourers, in these days, is painful to
behold; but not so painful, hideous to the inner sense, as that
brutish godforgetting Profit-and-Loss Philosophy and Life-theory,
which we hear jangled on all hands of us, in senate-houses,
spouting-clubs, leading-articles, pulpits and platforms, everywhere as
the Ultimate Gospel and candid Plain-English of Man's Life, from the
throats and pens and thoughts of all-but all men!--

Enlightened Philosophies, like Moliere Doctors, will tell you:
"Enthusiasms, Self-sacrif