But when they came to shape the model, Not one could fit the other's noddle.--BUTLER.
Meanwhile, the last course, and the dessert, passed by. When the ladies had withdrawn, young Crotchet addressed the company.
MR. CROTCHET, JUN. There is one point in which philosophers of all classes seem to be agreed: that they only want money to regenerate the world.
MR. MAC QUEDY. No doubt of it. Nothing is so easy as to lay down the outlines of perfect society. There wants nothing but money to set it going. I will explain myself clearly and fully by reading a paper. (Producing a large scroll.) "In the infancy of society--"
REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Pray, Mr. Mac Quedy, how is it that all gentlemen of your nation begin everything they write with the "infancy of society?"
MR. MAC QUEDY. Eh, sir, it is the simplest way to begin at the beginning. "In the infancy of society, when government was invented to save a percentage; say two and a half per cent.--"
REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. I will not say any such thing.
MR. MAC QUEDY. Well, say any percentage you please.
REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. I will not say any percentage at all.
MR. MAC QUEDY. "On the principle of the division of labour--"
REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Government was invented to spend a percentage.
MR. MAC QUEDY. To save a percentage.
REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. No, sir, to spend a percentage; and a good deal more than two and a half percent. Two hundred and fifty per cent.: that is intelligible.
MR. MAC QUEDY.--"In the infancy of society--"
MR. TOOGOOD.--Never mind the infancy of society. The question is of society in its maturity. Here is what it should be. (Producing a paper.) I have laid it down in a diagram.
MR. SKIONAR. Before we proceed to the question of government, we must nicely discriminate the boundaries of sense, understanding, and reason. Sense is a receptivity -
MR. CROTCHET, JUN. We are proceeding too fast. Money being all that is wanted to regenerate society, I will put into the hands of this company a large sum for the purpose. Now let us see how to dispose of it.
MR. MAC QUEDY. We will begin by taking a committee-room in London, where we will dine together once a week, to deliberate.
REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. If the money is to go in deliberative dinners, you may set me down for a committee man and honorary caterer.
MR. MAC QUEDY. Next, you must all learn political economy, which I will teach you, very compendiously, in lectures over the bottle.
REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. I hate lectures over the bottle. But pray, sir, what is political economy?
MR. MAC QUEDY. Political economy is to the state what domestic economy is to the family.
REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. No such thing, sir. In the family there is a paterfamilias, who regulates the distribution, and takes care that there shall be no such thing in the household as one dying of hunger, while another dies of surfeit. In the state it is all hunger at one end, and all surfeit at the other. Matchless claret, Mr. Crotchet.
MR. CROTCHET. Vintage of fifteen, Doctor.
MR. MAC QUEDY. The family consumes, and so does the state.
REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Consumes, air! Yes: but the mode, the proportions: there is the essential difference between the state and the family. Sir, I hate false analogies.
MR. MAC QUEDY. Well, sir, the analogy is not essential.
Distribution will come under its proper head.
REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Come where it will, the distribution of the state is in no respect analogous to the distribution of the family.
The paterfamilias, sir: the paterfamilias.
MR. MAC QUEDY. Well, sir, let that pass. The family consumes, and in order to consume, it must have supply.
REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Well, sir, Adam and Eve knew that, when they delved and span.
MR. MAC QUEDY. Very true, sir (reproducing his scroll). "In the infancy of society--"
MR. TOOGOOD. The reverend gentleman has hit the nail on the head.
It is the distribution that must be looked to; it is the paterfamilias that is wanting in the State. Now here I have provided him. (Reproducing his diagram.)
MR. TRILLO. Apply the money, sir, to building and endowing an opera house, where the ancient altar of Bacchus may flourish, and justice may be done to sublime compositions. (Producing a part of a manuscript opera.)
MR. SKIONAR. No, sir, build sacella for transcendental oracles to teach the world how to see through a glass darkly. (Producing a scroll.)
MR. TRILLO. See through an opera-glass brightly.
REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. See through a wine-glass full of claret; then you see both darkly and brightly. But, gentlemen, if you are all in the humour for reading papers, I will read you the first half of my next Sunday's sermon. (Producing a paper.)
OMNES. No sermon! No sermon!
REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Then I move that our respective papers be committed to our respective pockets.
MR. MAC QUEDY. Political economy is divided into two great branches, production and consumption.
REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Yes, sir; there are two great classes of men: those who produce much and consume little; and those who consume much and produce nothing. The fruges consumere nati have the best of it. Eh, Captain! You remember the characteristics of a great man according to Aristophanes: [Greek text]. Ha! ha! ha! Well, Captain, even in these tight-laced days, the obscurity of a learned language allows a little pleasantry.
CAPTAIN FITZCHROME. Very true, sir; the pleasantry and the obscurity go together; they are all one, as it were--to me at any rate (aside).
MR. MAC QUEDY. Now, sir -
REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Pray, sir, let your science alone, or you will put me under the painful necessity of demolishing it bit by bit, as I have done your exordium. I will undertake it any morning; but it is too hard exercise after dinner.
MR. MAC QUEDY. Well, sir, in the meantime I hold my science established.
REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. And I hold it demolished.
MR. CROTCHET, JUN. Pray, gentlemen, pocket your manuscripts, fill your glasses, and consider what we shall do with our money.
MR. MAC QUEDY. Build lecture-rooms, and schools for all.
MR. TRILLO. Revive the Athenian theatre; regenerate the lyrical drama.
