The ideal of the material interests has so far been presented as the desire for the rule of law, justice, stability and common sense. In other words it is an abstract form of idealism in which none of its powerful adherents desire personal rule (this is true even of Holroyd, who is not a government official of any sort). Compared to this modern idealism, the direct, personal power-hunger of a Montero has something both archaic and virile (compare his upright sabre with Charles Gould's asexuality). In Part One a State is being formed, which at its basic level means that the conditions for mass worship are being laid; inevitably, Conrad is saying, a Montero will appear.