Nor could any such spectator fail to know in
his own breast, that these men, through their very delusions, showed great
qualities, susceptible of being turned to the happiest and best account; and
that to pretend (on the strength of sweeping axioms, howsoever cut and dried)
that they went astray wholly without cause, and of their own irrational wills,
was to pretend that there could be smoke without fire, death without birth,
harvest without seed, anything or everything produced from nothing(138)
Hi Kasi, this is a really great quote. I like how you pointed out a quote that portrays the Hands as hindering society, just in an opposite way from the fact-based beliefs of the upper class. The repetition of impossible feats at the end of the quote suggest that Dickens wanted to emphasize that some facts are needed to understand the world. If the Hands had some facts or more information regarding their situation, they may have had the chance to be more successful with their uprising. The "smoke without fire" also leads me to believe that Dickens wanted to emphasize the connections between both the upper and lower classes and how they both have their own issues and neither is what people should look for in a model society.
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