INCARNATIONS. 335 



sand ideas arise when nature is the source, for one that can come 

 from the closet-cudgeled brain. Hence the mercy that has still 

 incarnated our poor metaphysical minds in dresses of such everlast- 

 ing suggestions. 



We will try to illustrate one other philosophical idea — to embody 

 another of the ghosts in which philosophers believe — and it shall 

 be the idea of progress, of which the limbs of man are the essential 

 emblem. Here first the feet are proper progress, to which the 

 ankles are speed, the emblem of which is the talare or winged 

 sandal ; for the feet are the measure of advance, and they twinkle 

 with swiftness as they run, by virtue of the nimble ankles. The 

 legs are straightness, the shaft of direction, keeping the line of the 

 object in the midst of the rush of joints and muscles. The thighs 

 are effort, or the brawniness of progress ; and the hips are motion 

 itself, globe-jointed ; while the trunk which they bear is weight, 

 pressure, or necessity, the incumbence of all man's vitals and wants 

 to generate his progress ; as the same trunk determined to the arms 

 is the by-play of all to produce his skill ; and carried to the head, 

 is the coronation of all in his will and intelligence. If now it be 

 asked, What is progress ? we say it is all advancement, upon this 

 model : walking and running are in its definitions in every sphere. 

 No writer has ever talked of it for many sentences together, without 

 falling into the symbolism of the legs. Such an one " makes a 

 stride in advance" of his age ; such another is a rearward spirit, 

 and slow in the movements of his mind : this one leaps to a conclu- 

 sion, and that other goes rather backwards than forwards. If these 

 terms are metaphors, it is because the soul inhabits a metaphor in 

 dwelling in the human body (p. 21:2 — 244). 



It may be evident from these sketches, that our organization (con- 

 taining us, as it does) has the power to take up, and arrange on its 

 plan, the various abstract terms which hover over the philosophical 

 world. For intuitions may be put into eyes, and reason into brains; 

 and philosophers may become seers, when they get these organs of 

 which they have mutilated themselves so long. In common human- 

 ity let us pray for this consummation. For the cripples of thought 

 are painful objects to us. It is sad to see the philosophers of pro- 

 gress leaving their own good legs behind, and hobbling along 



