Are not all dialects "artificial"? Artificial
things are not all false;--nay every true Product of Nature will infallibly
_shape_ itself; we may say all artificial things are, at the starting of
them, _true_. What we call "Formulas" are not in their origin bad; they
are indispensably good. Formula is _method_, habitude; found wherever man
is found. Formulas fashion themselves as Paths do, as beaten Highways,
leading toward some sacred or high object, whither many men are bent.
Consider it. One man, full of heartfelt earnest impulse, finds out a way
of doing somewhat,--were it of uttering his soul's reverence for the
Highest, were it but of fitly saluting his fellow-man. An inventor was
needed to do that, a _poet_; he has articulated the dim-struggling thought
that dwelt in his own and many hearts. This is his way of doing that;
these are his footsteps, the beginning of a "Path." And now see: the
second men travels naturally in the footsteps of his foregoer, it is the
_easiest_ method.
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