And now from without, what mystic influences does it not send inwards, even
to the centre; especially in those plastic first-times, when the whole soul
is yet infantine, soft, and the invisible seedgrain will grow to be an all
overshadowing tree! Names? Could I unfold the influence of Names, which
are the most important of all Clothings, I were a second greater
Trismegistus. Not only all common Speech, but Science, Poetry itself is no
other, if thou consider it, than a right _Naming_. Adam's first task was
giving names to natural Appearances: what is ours still but a continuation
of the same; be the Appearances exotic-vegetable, organic, mechanic, stars,
or starry movements (as in Science); or (as in Poetry) passions, virtues,
calamities, God-attributes, Gods?--In a very plain sense the Proverb says,
_Call one a thief, and he will steal_; in an almost similar sense may we
not perhaps say, _Call one Diogenes Teufelsdrockh, and he will open the
Philosophy of Clothes_?"


"Meanwhile the incipient Diogenes, like others, all ignorant of his Why,
his How or Whereabout, was opening his eyes to the kind Light; sprawling
out his ten fingers and toes; listening, tasting, feeling; in a word, by
all his Five Senses, still more by his Sixth Sense of Hunger, and a whole
infinitude of inward, spiritual, half-awakened Senses, endeavoring daily to
acquire for himself some knowledge of this strange Universe where he had
arrived, be his task therein what it might. Infinite was his progress;
thus in some fifteen months, he could perform the miracle of--Speech! To
breed a fresh Soul, is it not like brooding a fresh (celestial) Egg;
wherein as yet all is formless, powerless; yet by degrees organic elements
and fibres shoot through the watery albumen; and out of vague Sensation
grows Thought, grows Fantasy and Force, and we have Philosophies,
Dynasties, nay Poetries and Religions!