But if no world exist in the man; if nothing but continents of empty vapour, of greedy self-conceits, commonplace hearsays, and indistinct loomings of a sordid chaos exist in him, what will be the use of 'light' to show us that?
1850 May 1, Thomas Carlyle, “No. V. Stump-Orator.”, in Latter-Day Pamphlets, London: Chapman and Hall, […], page 155