'Of Man's Activity and Attainment the chief results are aeriform,
mystic, and preserved in Tradition only: such are his Forms of
Government, with the Authority they rest on; his Customs, or Fashions
both of Cloth-habits and of Soul-habits; much more his collective
stock of Handicrafts, the whole Faculty he has acquired of
manipulating Nature: all these things, as indispensable and priceless
as they are, cannot in any way be fixed under lock and key, but must
flit, spirit-like, on impalpable vehicles, from Father to Son; if you
demand sight of them, they are nowhere to be met with. Visible
Ploughmen and Hammermen there have been, ever from Cain and Tubalcain
downwards: but where does your accumulated Agricultural, Metallurgic,
and other Manufacturing SKILL lie warehoused? It transmits itself on
the atmospheric air, on the sun's rays (by Hearing and by Vision); it
is a thing aeriform, impalpable, of quite spiritual sort. In like
manner, ask me not, Where are the LAWS; where is the GOVERNMENT? In
vain wilt thou go to Schoenbrunn, to Downing Street, to the Palais
Bourbon: thou findest nothing there but brick or stone houses, and
some bundles of Papers tied with tape. Where, then, is that same
cunningly-devised almighty GOVERNMENT of theirs to be laid hands on?
Everywhere, yet nowhere: seen only in its works, this too is a thing
aeriform, invisible; or if you will, mystic and miraculous. So
spiritual (_geistig_) is our whole daily Life: all that we do springs
out of Mystery, Spirit, invisible Force; only like a little
Cloud-image, or Armida's Palace, air-built, does the Actual body
itself forth from the great mystic Deep.

'Visible and tangible products of the Past, again, I reckon-up to the
extent of three: Cities, with their Cabinets and Arsenals; then tilled
Fields, to either or to both of which divisions Roads with their
Bridges may belong; and thirdly----Books. In which third truly, the
last invented, lies a worth far surpassing that of the two others.
Wondrous indeed is the virtue of a true Book. Not like a dead city of
stones, yearly crumbling, yearly needing repair; more like a tilled
field, but then a spiritual field: like a spiritual tree, let me
rather say, it stands from year to year, and from age to age (we have
Books that already number some hundred-and-fifty human ages); and
yearly comes its new produce of leaves (Commentaries, Deductions,
Philosophical, Political Systems; or were it only Sermons, Pamphlets,