The doing of it is not doubtful; only the method and the costs! Nay I will even mention to you an infallible sifting-process whereby he that has ability will be sifted out to rule among us, and that same blessed Aristocracy of Talent be verily, in an approximate degree, vouchsafed us by and by: an infallible sifting-process; to which, however, no soul can help his neighbour, but each must, with devout prayer to Heaven, endeavour to help himself.

It is, O friends, that all of us, that many of us, should acquire the true eye for talent, which is dreadfully wanting at present! The true _eye_ for talent presupposes the true reverence for it,--O Heavens, presupposes so many things! 'For example, you Bobus Higgins, Sausage-maker on the great scale, who are raising such a clamour for this Aristocracy of Talent, what is it that you do, in that big heart of yours, chiefly in very fact pay reverence to?
Is it to talent, intrinsic manly worth of any kind, you unfortunate Bobus?
The manliest man that you saw going in a ragged coat, did you ever reverence him; did you so much as know that he was a manly man at all, till his coat grew better?
Talent! I understand you to be able to worship the fame of talent, the power, cash, celebrity or other success of talent; but the talent itself is a thing you never saw with eyes.

Nay what is it in yourself that you are proudest of, that you take most pleasure in surveying meditatively in thoughtful moments?
Speak now, is it the bare Bobus stript of his very name and shirt, and turned loose upon society, that you admire and thank Heaven for; or Bobus with his cash-accounts and larders dropping fatness, with his respectabilities, warm garnitures, and pony-chaise, admirable in some measure to certain of the flunkey species?
Your own degree of worth and talent, is it of _infinite_ value to you; or only of finite,--measurable by the degree of currency, and conquest of praise or pudding, it has brought you to?
Bobus, you are in a vicious circle, rounder than one of your own sausages; and will never vote for or promote any talent, except what talent or sham- talent has already _got_ itself voted for!'-- We here cut short the _Indicator;_ all readers perceiving whither he now tends.
'More Wisdom' indeed: but where to find more Wisdom?
We have already a Collective Wisdom, after its kind,--though 'class- legislation,' and another thing or two, affect it somewhat! On the whole, as they say, Like people like priest; so we may say, Like people like king.

The man gets himself appointed and elected who is ablest--to be appointed and elected.

What can the incorruptiblest _Bobuses_ elect, if it be not some _Bobissimus,_ should they find such?
Or, again, perhaps there is not, in the whole Nation, Wisdom enough, 'collect' it as we may, to make an adequate Collective! That too is a case which may befall: a ruined man staggers down to ruin because there was not wisdom enough in him; so, clearly also, may Twenty-seven Million collective men!--But indeed one of the infalliblest fruits of Unwisdom in a Nation is that it cannot get the use of what Wisdom is actually in it: that it is not governed by the wisest it has, who alone have a divine right to govern in all Nations; but by the sham-wisest, or even by the openly not-so-wise if they are handiest otherwise! This is the infalliblest result of Unwisdom; and also the balefullest, immeasurablest,--not so much what we can call a poison-_fruit,_ as a universal death-disease, and poisoning of the whole tree.
For hereby are fostered, fed into gigantic bulk, all manner of Unwisdoms, poison-fruits; till, as we say, the life-tree everywhere is made a upas-tree, deadly Unwisdom overshadowing all things; and there is done what lies in human skill to stifle all Wisdom everywhere in the birth, to smite our poor world barren of Wisdom,--and make your utmost Collective Wisdom, were it collected and elected by Rhadamanthus, AEacus and Minos, not to speak of drunken Tenpound Franchisers with their ballot-boxes, an inadequate Collective! The Wisdom is not now there: how will you 'collect' it?
As well wash Thames mud, by improved methods, to find more gold in it.
Truly, the first condition is indispensable, That Wisdom be there: but the second is like unto it, is properly one with it: these two conditions act and react through every fibre of them, and go inseparably together.