At the beginning of chapter three of The Secret Agent, Michaelis, “the ticket-of-leave apostle,” expounds his deterministic view of history:

Like Dr. Moynihan in Nostromo, Michaelis looks upon a world in which “material interests” direct people and determine events; man has no real control over the conditions of his existence.

Michaelis's speech is beset with ironies. For one thing, the anarchist professes allegiance to the complex dynamics of “real” material existence and denounces “idealization,” but his own philosophy is extremely idealized. Evolved in the isolation of his prison confinement, Michaelis's vision seems utterly incommensurable with the dark and grimy everyday London of the novel. Furthermore, as the narrator slyly notes, Michaelis's philosophy cannot even withstand the vicissitudes of ordinary conversation. Any interruption confuses him, shattering “that sentiment of isolation necessary for the continuity of his thought” (49). Even more ironically, Michaelis's beatific vision is in a way nothing more than a defense of his own slothfulness.