ay when it comes to _her_
to speak, eternally No! Nations cease to be befriended of the
Law-Maker, when they walk _not_ according to the Law. The
Sphinx-question remains unsolved by them, becomes ever more insoluble.

If thou ask again, therefore, on the Morrison's-Pill hypothesis, What
is to be done? allow me to reply: By thee, for the present, almost
nothing. Thou there, the thing for thee to do is, if possible, to
cease to be a hollow sounding-shell of hearsays, egoisms, purblind
dilettantisms; and become, were it on the infinitely small scale, a
faithful discerning soul. Thou shalt descend into thy inner man, and
see if there be any traces of a _soul_ there; till then there can be
nothing done! O brother, we must if possible resuscitate some soul and
conscience in us, exchange our dilettantisms for sincerities, our dead
hearts of stone for living hearts of flesh. Then shall we discern, not
one thing, but, in clearer or dimmer sequence, a whole endless host of
things that can be done. _Do_ the first of these; do it; the second
will already have become clearer, doabler; the second, third and
three-thousandth will then have begun to be possible for us. Not any
universal Morrison's Pill shall we then, either as swallowers or as
venders, ask after at all; but a far different sort of remedies:
Quacks shall no more have dominion over us, but true Heroes and
Healers!

* * * * *

Will not that be a thing worthy of 'doing;' to deliver ourselves from
quacks, sham-heroes; to deliver the whole world more and more from
such? They are the one bane of the world. Once clear the world of
them, it ceases to be a Devil's-world, in all fibres of it wretched,
accursed; and begins to be a God's-world, blessed, and working hourly
towards blessedness. Thou for one wilt not again vote for any quack,
do honour to any edge-gilt vacuity in man's shape: cant shall be known
to thee by the sound of it;--thou wilt fly from cant with a shudder
never felt before; as from the opened litany of Sorcerers' Sabbaths,
the true Devil-worship of this age, more horrible than any other
blasphemy, profanity or genuine blackguardism elsewhere audible among
men. It is alarming to witness,--in its present completed state! And
Quack and Dupe, as we must ever keep in mind, are upper-side and under
of the selfsame substance; convertible personages: turn up your dupe
into the proper fostering element, and he himself can become a quack