an inflamed nervous-system to be looked for. What is the use of health, or
of life, if not to do some work therewith? And what work nobler than
transplanting foreign Thought into the barren domestic soil; except indeed
planting Thought of your own, which the fewest are privileged to do? Wild
as it looks, this Philosophy of Clothes, can we ever reach its real
meaning, promises to reveal new-coming Eras, the first dim rudiments and
already-budding germs of a nobler Era, in Universal History. Is not such a
prize worth some striving? Forward with us, courageous reader; be it
towards failure, or towards success! The latter thou sharest with us; the
former also is not all our own.


BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.
GENESIS.

In a psychological point of view, it is perhaps questionable whether from
birth and genealogy, how closely scrutinized soever, much insight is to be
gained. Nevertheless, as in every phenomenon the Beginning remains always
the most notable moment; so, with regard to any great man, we rest not
till, for our scientific profit or not, the whole circumstances of his
first appearance in this Planet, and what manner of Public Entry he made,
are with utmost completeness rendered manifest. To the Genesis of our
Clothes-Philosopher, then, be this First Chapter consecrated. Unhappily,
indeed, he seems to be of quite obscure extraction; uncertain, we might
almost say, whether of any: so that this Genesis of his can properly be
nothing but an Exodus (or transit out of Invisibility into Visibility);
whereof the preliminary portion is nowhere forthcoming.