Chapter XXXVI: Canto XII

REIGN OF DWARFS. The approaching rule of clever little trades-people, whose turn it will soon be if democracy progresses as at present. Compare Nietzsche's "Zarathustra," Part III, 49, "The Bedwarfing Virtue": "I pass through this people and keep mine eyes open: they have become _smaller_, and ever become _smaller: the reason thereof is their doctrine of happiness and virtue_."

THIS CONCLUSION. "Lo, I kiss, therefore I live"--a witty travesty of Descartes' "Cogito, ergo sum."