invest them with the forms and members of the human body. We speak of
the head, shoulder, back, or foot of a mountain, of an arm of the sea, a
tongue of land, the mouth of a sea-port, of a cave, or crater. So again
we ascribe teeth to mountains, a front (_fronte_, forehead) to a house;
there is the eye-brow (_ciglio_) of a ditch, the eye of heaven, a vein
of metal, the entrails of a mountain. The Alps are bald or bare, the
soil is wrinkled, objects are sinister or the reverse (_sinistra,
destra_),[24] and a mountain is gigantic ox dwarfish.

In like manner we ascribe our own functions to nature. The river eats
into the land; the whirlpool swallows all which is thrown into it, and
the wind whistles, howls and moans; the torrent murmurs, the sun is born
and dies, the heavens frown, the fields smile. This habit is also
transferred to moral questions; and we speak of the heart of the
question, the leading idea, the body of doctrines, the members of a
philosophic system; we infuse new blood into thought. Truth becomes
palpable, a theme is eviscerated, thought is lame, science is childish.
History speaks clearly; there is an embryo of knowledge, a vacillating
science; the infancy, youth, maturity, and death of a theory; morality
is crass, the spirit meagre or acute; the mind adapts itself, logic is
maimed; there is a conflict of ideas, the inspiration of science,
truncated thoughts. Again we talk of the head of the mob, of the foot of
the altar or the throne, of the heart of the riot, of the body of an
army, of a phalanx, of trampling under foot, duty, decency, and justice.

From these examples, and indeed we might say from the whole of speech,
especially if we go back to the primitive value of words and to their
roots, it appears to what a vast extent man originally projected
himself, his consciousness, emotions, and purposes into inanimate
things; and how, even under the historical conditions of civilization,