Chapter I: Part I: Prophecy

THE FOUNDATIONS

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_By Symbols is man guided and commanded, made happy, made
wretched. He everywhere finds himself encompassed with Symbols,
recognized as such or not recognized: 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 Messiah of Nature, preaches, as he can, by
word and act? 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._

--THOMAS CARLYLE, _Sartor Resartus_
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