that they can read here a line and there a line.
As for your Institutes, and Academies of Science, they strive bravely;
and, from amid the thick-crowded, inextricably intertwisted hieroglyphic
writing, pick out, by dexterous combination, some Letters in the vulgar
Character, and therefrom put together this and the other economic
Recipe, of high avail in Practice. That Nature is more than some
boundless Volume of such Recipes, or huge, well-nigh inexhaustible
Domestic-Cookery Book, of which the whole secret will in this manner one
day evolve itself, the fewest dream.

"Custom," continues the Professor, "doth make dotards of us all.
Consider well, thou wilt find that Custom is the greatest of Weavers;
and weaves air-raiment for all the Spirits of the Universe; whereby
indeed these dwell with us visibly, as ministering servants, in our
houses and workshops; but their spiritual nature becomes, to the most,
forever hidden. Philosophy complains that Custom has hoodwinked us, from
the first; that we do everything by Custom, even Believe by it; that
our very Axioms, let us boast of Free-thinking as we may, are oftenest
simply such Beliefs as we have never heard questioned. Nay, what
is Philosophy throughout but a continual battle against Custom; an
ever-renewed effort to _transcend_ the sphere of blind Custom, and so
become Transcendental?

"Innumerable are the illusions and legerdemain-tricks of Custom: but of
all these, perhaps the cleverest is her knack of persuading us that the
Miraculous, by simple repetition, ceases to be Miraculous. True, it is
by this means we live; for man must work as well as wonder: and herein
is Custom so far a kind nurse, guiding him to his true benefit. But she
is a fond foolish nurse, or rather we are false foolish nurslings, when,
in our resting and reflecting hours, we prolong the same deception. Am I
to view the Stupendous with stupid indifference, because I have seen
it twice, or two hundred, or two million times? There is no reason in
Nature or in Art why I should: unless, indeed, I am a mere Work-Machine,
for whom the divine gift of Thought were no other than the terrestrial
gift of Steam is to the Steam-engine; a power whereby cotton might be
spun, and money and money's worth realized.

"Notable enough too, here as elsewhere, wilt thou find the potency of
Names; which indeed are but one kind of such custom-woven, wonder-hiding
Garments. Witchcraft, and all manner of Spectre-work, and Dem