considering our present advanced state of culture, and how the torch of science has now been brandished and borne about, with more or less effect, for five thousand years and upwards; how, in these times especially, not only the torch still burns, and perhaps more fiercely than ever, but innumerable rushlights, and sulphur-matches, kindled thereat, are also glancing in every direction, so that not the smallest cranny or dog-hole in nature or art can remain unilluminated, — it might strike the reflective mind with some surprise that hitherto little or nothing of a fundamental character, whether in the way of philosophy or history, has been written on the subject of clothes.
our theory of gravitation is as good as perfect: lagrange, it is well known, has proved that the planetary system, on this scheme, will endure forever; laplace, still more cunningly, even guesses that it could not have been made on any other scheme. whereby, at least, our nautical logbooks can be better kept; and water-transport of all kinds has grown more commodious. of geology and geognosy we know enough: what with the labors of our werners and huttons, what with the ardent genius of their disciples, it has come about that now, to many a royal society, the creation of a world is little more mysterious than the cooking of a dumpling; concerning which last, indeed, there have been minds to whom the question, how the apples were got in, presented difficulties. why mention our disquisitions on the social contract, on the standard of taste, on the migrations of the herring? then, have we not a doctrine of rent, a theory of value; philosophies of language, of history, of pottery, of apparitions, of intoxicating liquors? man’s whole life and environment have been laid open and elucidated; scarcely a fragment or fibre of his soul, body, and possessions, but has been probed, dissected, distilled, desiccated, and scientifically decomposed: our spiritual faculties, of which it appears there are not a few, have their stewarts, cousins, royer collards: every cellular, vascular, muscular tissue glories in its lawrences, majendies, bichats.
how, then, comes it, may the reflective mind repeat, that the grand tissue of all tissues, the only real tissue, should have been quite overlooked by science, — the vestural tissue, namely, of woollen or other cloth; which man’s soul wears as its outmost wrappage and overall; wherein his whole other tissues are included and screened, his whole faculties work, his whole self lives, moves, and has its being? for if, now and then, some straggling broken-winged thinker has cast an owl’s glance into this obscure region, the most have soared over it altogether heedless; regarding clothes as a property, not an accident, as quite natural and spontaneous, like the leaves of trees, like the plumage of birds. in all speculations they have tacitly figured man as a clothed animal; whereas he is by nature a naked animal; and only in certain circumstances, by purpose and device, masks himself in clothes. shakespeare says, we are creatures that look before and after: the more surprising that we do not look round a little, and see what is passing under our very eyes.
but here, as in so many other cases, germany, learned, indefatigable, deep-thinking germany comes to our aid. it is, after all, a blessing that, in these revolutionary times, there should be one country where abstract thought can still take shelter; that while the din and frenzy of catholic emancipations, and rotten boroughs, and revolts of paris, deafen every french and every english ear, the german can stand peaceful on his scientific watch-tower; and, to the raging, struggling multitude here and elsewhere, solemnly, from hour to hour, with preparatory blast of cow-horn, emit his horet ihr herren und lasset’s euch sagen; in other words, tell the universe, which so often forgets that fact, what o’clock it really is. not unfrequently the germans have been blamed for an unprofitable diligence; as if they struck into devious courses, where nothing was to be had but the toil of a rough journey; as if, forsaking the gold-mines of finance and that political slaughter of fat oxen whereby a man himself grows fat, they were apt to run goose-hunting into regions of bilberries and crowberries, and be swallowed up at last in remote peat-bogs. of that unwise science, which, as our humorist expresses it,
“by geometric scale
doth take the size of pots of ale;”
still more, of that altogether misdirected industry, which is seen vigorously thrashing mere straw, there can nothing defensive be said. in so far as the germans are chargeable with such, let them take the consequence. nevertheless be it remarked, that even a russian steppe has tumult and gold ornaments; also many a scene that looks desert and rock-bound from the distance, will unfold itself, when visited, into rare valleys. nay, in any case, would criticism erect not only finger-posts and turnpikes, but spiked gates and impassable barriers, for the mind of man? it is written, “many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.” surely the plain rule is, let each considerate person have his way, and see what it will lead to. for not this man and that man, but all men make up mankind, and their united tasks the task of mankind. how often have we seen some such adventurous, and perhaps much-censured wanderer light on some out-lying, neglected, yet vitally momentous province; the hidden treasures of which he first discovered, and kept proclaiming till the general eye and effort were directed thither, and the conquest was completed; — thereby, in these his seemingly so aimless rambles, planting new standards, founding new habitable colonies, in the immeasurable circumambient realm of nothingness and night! wise man was he who counselled that speculation should have free course, and look fearlessly towards all the thirty-two points of the compass, whithersoever and howsoever it listed.
perhaps it is proof of the stunted condition in which pure science, especially pure moral science, languishes among us english; and how our mercantile greatness, and invaluable constitution, impressing a political or other immediately practical tendency on all english culture and endeavor, cramps the free flight of thought, — that this, not philosophy of clothes, but recognition even that we have no such philosophy, stands here for the first time published in our language. what english intellect could have chosen such a topic, or by chance stumbled on it? but for that same unshackled, and even sequestered condition of the german learned, which permits and induces them to fish in all manner of waters, with all manner of nets, it seems probable enough, this abtruse inquiry might, in spite of the results it leads to, have continued dormant for indefinite periods. the editor of these sheets, though otherwise boasting himself a man of confirmed speculative habits, and perhaps discursive enough, is free to confess, that never, till these last months, did the above very plain considerations, on our total want of a philosophy of clothes, occur to him; and then, by quite foreign suggestion. by the arrival, namely, of a new book from professor teufelsdrockh of weissnichtwo; treating expressly of this subject, and in a style which, whether understood or not, could not even by the blindest be overlooked. in the present editor’s way of thought, this remarkable treatise, with its doctrines, whether as judicially acceded to, or judicially denied, has not remained without effect.
“die kleider, ihr werden und wirken (clothes, their origin and influence): von diog. teufelsdrockh, j. u. d. etc. stillschweigen und cognie. weissnichtwo, 1831.
“here,” says the weissnichtwo’sche anzeiger, “comes a volume of that extensive, close-printed, close-meditated sort, which, be it spoken with pride, is seen only in germany, perhaps only in weissnichtwo. issuing from the hitherto irreproachable firm of stillschweigen and company, with every external furtherance, it is of such internal quality as to set neglect at defiance. . . . a work,” concludes the well-nigh enthusiastic reviewer, “interesting alike to the antiquary, the historian, and the philosophic thinker; a masterpiece of boldness, lynx-eyed acuteness, and rugged independent germanism and philanthropy (derber kerndeutschheit und menschenliebe); which will not, assuredly, pass current without opposition in high places; but must and will exalt the almost new name of teufelsdrockh to the first ranks of philosophy, in our german temple of honor.”
mindful of old friendship, the distinguished professor, in this the first blaze of his fame, which however does not dazzle him, sends hither a presentation-copy of his book; with compliments and encomiums which modesty forbids the present editor to rehearse; yet without indicated wish or hope of any kind, except what may be implied in the concluding phrase: mochte es (this remarkable treatise) auch im brittischen boden gedeihen!