by a stranger at the door of Andreas Futteral (Fodderbag) in the village of Entepfuhl (Duckpuddle). He was kindly cared for, educated at the school in Hinterschlag (Spanking), and at the university of Weissnichtwo (Don'tknowwhere), where he came to be professor, without, however, having any pupils, of Hodge-podge Philosophy (Allerlei Wissenschaft). These strange proper names are no more burlesque than Bunyan's "City of Destruction" or "Vanity Fair," "Mr. Facingboth-ways" or "Lord Hategood."

The philosophy of the imaginary Professor Teufelsdröckh's imaginary book on "Clothes" ir in brief, that all forms, habits, and institutions, which man has fashioned, are but the garments in which he has from time to time arrayed himself for his own decoration, comfort, or protection; that these garments, like all other of man's works, grow old, decay, become useless, and, in spite of all patching and retailoring, must sooner or later be thrown away, and be replaced by new ones; and that many of the garments which the men of our days are wearing have wellnigh reached the last stage of dilapidation. From this pregnant text are preached discourses upon the loftiest topics of human thought-such, for instance, as the following:

ON MIRACLES.

"Deep has been, and is, the significance of Miracles; far deeper than we imagine. Meanwhile, the question

of questions were: What specially is a miracle? To that King of Siam an icicle had been a miracle; whoso had carried with him an air-pump and vial of vitriolic ether, might have worked a miracle. To my horse again, who unhappily is still more unscientific, do I not work a miracle and magical Open sesame! every time I please to pay twopence, and open for him an impassable Schlagbaum, or shut Turnpike?

"But is not a real Miracle simply a violation of the Laws of Nature?' ask several. Whom I answer by this new question: What are the Laws of Nature?' To me perhaps the raising of one from the dead were no violation of these Laws, but a confirmation; were some far deeper law now first penetrated into, and by Spiritual Force, even as the rest have all been, brought to bear on us with its Material Force. Here too some may inquire, not without astonishment, 'On what ground shall one, that can make Iron swim, come and declare that therefore he can teach Religion?' To us, truly of the Nineteenth Century, such declaration were inept enough; which nevertheless to our fathers, of the First Century, was full of meaning.

666 "But is it not the deepest Law of Nature that she be constant?' cries an illuminated class. 'Is not the Machine of the Universe fixed to move by unalterable rules?' Probable enough, good friends: nay, I too must believe that the God, whom ancient inspired men assert to be 'without variableness or shadow of turning,' does indeed never change; that Nature, that the Universe, which no one who pleases can be prevented from calling a Machine, does move by the most unalterable rules. And now of you too I make the old inquiry: 'What those same unalterable rules, form

ing the complete Statute-Book of Nature, may possibly be.'

"They stand written in our Works of Science,' say you, 'in the accumulated records of man's Experience.' -Was man with his Experience present at the Creation, then, to see how all went on? Have any deepest scientific individuals yet dived down to the foundations of the Universe, and gauged everything there? Did the Maker take them into His counsel; that they read His ground-plan of the incomprehensible All; and can say, 'This stands marked therein, and no more than this? '— Alas! not in any wise. These scientific individuals have been nowhere but where we also are; have seen some handbreadths deeper than we see into the Deep that is infinite, without bottom as without shore.

ON THE SYSTEM OF NATURE.

"System of Nature! To the wisest man, wide as is his vision, Nature remains of quite infinite depth, of quite infinite expansion, and all experience thereof limits itself to some few computed centuries, and measured square miles. The course of Nature's phases, on this little fraction of a Planet, is partially known to us: but who knows what deeper causes these depend on; what infinitely larger Cycle (of causes) our little Epicycle revolves on? To the Minnow every little cranny and pebble, and quality, and accident of its native Creek may have become familiar; but does the Minnow understand the Ocean Tides and Periodic Currents, the Trade-winds and Monsoons and Moon's Eclipses; by which the condition of its little Creek is regulated, and may from time to time (unmiraculously enough) be quite overset and reversed?-Such a Minnow is Man; his Creek this Plan

et Earth; his Ocean the immeasurable All; his Monsoons and periodic Currents the mysterious Course of Providence through Eons of Æons.

แ

"We speak of the Volume of Nature: and truly a volume it is,—whose Author and Writer is God. To read it! Dost thou, does man, so much as well know the Alphabet thereof? With its Words, Sentences, and grand descriptive Pages, poetical and philosophical, spread out through Solar Systems and Thousands of Years, we shall not try thee. It is a Volume written in celestial hieroglyphics, in the true Sacred-writing; of which even Prophets are happy that they can read here a line and there a line."

ON CUSTOM.

"Custom doth make dotards of us all. Consider well, thou wilt find that Custom is the greatest of Weavers, and weaves airy raiment for all the Spirits of the Universe; whereby indeed these dwell with us visibly as ministering servants, in our houses and workshops; but their spiritual nature becomes, to the most, for ever hidden. Philosophy complains that Custom has hoodwinked us, from the first; that we do everything by Custom, even believe by it; that our very Axioms, let us boast of Free-thinking as we may, are oftenest simply such Beliefs as we have never heard questioned.

"Innumerable are the illusions and legerdemain tricks of Custom: but of all these perhaps the cleverest is her knack of persuading us that the Miraculous, by simple repetition, ceases to be Miraculous. True, it is by this means that we live; for man must work as well wonder; and herein is Custom so far a kind nurse, guiding him to his true benefit. But she is a fond foolish nurse, or ra

ther we are fond foolish nurslings, when, in our resting and reflecting hours, we prolong the same deception. Am I to view the Stupendous with stupid indifference because I have seen it twice, or two hundred, or two million times? There is no reason in Nature or in Art why I should: unless, indeed, I am a mere Work-machine, for whom the divine gift of thought were no other than the terrestrial gift of Steam is to the Steam-engine; a power whereby Cotton might be spun, and money and money's worth realized."

ON NAMES.

"Notable enough too wilt thou find the potency of Names; which, indeed, are but one kind of such Custom-woven, wonder-hiding Garments. Witchcraft, and all manner of Spectre-work, and Demonology, we have named Madness and Diseases of the Nerves: seldom reflecting that still the new question comes upon us: 'What is Madness; what are Nerves?'-Ever, as before, does Madness remain a mysterious-terrific, altogether infernal boiling up of the Nether Chaotic Deep, through this fair painted Vision of Creation, which swims thereon, which we name the Real. Was Luther's Picture of the Devil less a Reality, whether it were formed within the bodily eye or without it? In every the wisest soul lies a whole world of internal Madness, an authentic Demon-empire, out of which, indeed, this world of Wisdom has been creatively built together, and now rests there, as on its dark foundations does a habitable flowery Earthrind."

The speculations of the supposititious Professor of Hodge-Podge Philosophy rise sometimes to even loftier heights of transcendentalism, as in this: