Under his penetrating gaze the "earthly hulls and garnitures" of existence melt away.

Men's habit is to rest in symbols.

But to rest in symbols is fatal, since they are at best but the "adventitious wrappages" of life.

Clothes "have made men of us"-- true; but now, so great has their influence become that "they are threatening to make clothes-screens of us." Hence "the beginning of all wisdom is to look fixedly on clothes ...

till they become transparent." The logical tendency of such teaching may seem to be towards utter nihilism.