where finds himself encompassed with Symbols, recognised as
such or not recognised: the Universe is but one vast Symbol of God;
nay if thou wilt have it, what is man himself but a Symbol of God; is
not all that he does symbolical; a revelation to Sense of the mystic
god-given force that is in him; a "Gospel of Freedom," which he, the
"Messias of Nature," preaches, as he can, by act and word? Not a Hut
he builds but is the visible embodiment of a Thought; but bears
visible record of invisible things; but is, in the transcendental
sense, symbolical as well as real.'

'Man,' says the Professor elsewhere, in quite antipodal contrast with
these high-soaring delineations, which we have here cut short on the
verge of the inane, 'Man is by birth somewhat of an owl. Perhaps, too,
of all the owleries that ever possessed him, the most owlish, if we
consider it, is that of your actually existing Motive-Millwrights.
Fantastic tricks enough man has played, in his time; has fancied
himself to be most things, down even to an animated heap of Glass; but
to fancy himself a dead Iron-Balance for weighing Pains and Pleasures
on, was reserved for this his latter era. There stands he, his
Universe one huge Manger, filled with hay and thistles to be weighed
against each other; and looks long-eared enough. Alas, poor devil!
spectres are appointed to haunt him: one age he is hag-ridden,
bewitched; the next, priestridden, befooled; in all ages, bedevilled.
And now the Genius of Mechanism smothers him worse than any Nightmare
did; till the Soul is nigh choked out of him, and only a kind of
Digestive, Mechanic life remains. In Earth and in Heaven he can see
nothing but Mechanism; has fear for nothing else, hope in nothing
else: the world would indeed grind him to pieces; but cannot he fathom
the Doctrine of Motives, and cunningly compute these, and mechanise
them to grind the other way?

'Were he not, as has been said, purblinded by enchantment, you had but
to bid him open his eyes and look. In which country, in which time,
was it hitherto that man's history, or the history of any man, went on
by calculated or calculable "Motives"? What make ye of your
Christianities, and Chivalries, and Reformations, and Marseillese
Hymns, and Reigns of Terror? Nay, has not perhaps the Motive-grinder
himself been _in Love_? Did he never stand so much as a contested
Election? Leave him to Time, and the medicating virtue of Nature.'

'Yes, Friends,' elsewhere ob