"Turtles all the way down" is an expression of the problem of infinite regress. The saying alludes to the mythological idea of a World Turtle that supports a flat Earth on its back. It suggests that this turtle rests on the back of an even larger turtle, which itself is part of a column of increasingly larger turtles that continues indefinitely. The exact origin of the phrase is uncertain. In the form "rocks all the way down", the saying appears as early as 1838. References to the saying's mythological antecedents, the World Turtle and its counterpart the World Elephant, were made by a number of authors in the 17th and 18th centuries. The expression has been used to illustrate problems such as the regress argument in epistemology.
History
Background in Hindu mythology
Early variants of the saying do not always have explicit references to infinite regression (i.e., the phrase "all the way down"). They often reference stories featuring a World Elephant, World Turtle, or other similar creatures that are claimed to come from Hindu mythology. The first known reference to a Hindu source is found in a letter by Jesuit Emanuel da Veiga (1549–1605), written at Chandagiri on 18 September 1599, in which the relevant passage reads:
Veiga's account seems to have been received by Samuel Purchas, who has a close paraphrase in his Purchas His Pilgrims (1613/1626), "that the Earth had nine corners, whereby it was borne up by the Heaven. Others dissented, and said, that the Earth was borne up by seven Elephants; the Elephants' feet stood on Tortoises, and they were borne by they know not what." Purchas' account is again reflected by John Locke in his 1689 tract An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, where Locke introduces the story as a trope referring to the problem of induction in philosophical debate. Locke compares one who would say that properties inhere in "Substance" to the Indian who said the world was on an elephant which was on a tortoise, "But being again pressed to know what gave support to the broad-back'd Tortoise, replied, something, he knew not what". The story is also referenced by Henry David Thoreau, who writes in his journal entry of 4 May 1852: "Men are making speeches ... all over the country, but each expresses only the thought, or the want of thought, of the multitude. No man stands on truth. They are merely banded together as usual, one leaning on another and all together on nothing; as the Hindoos made the world rest on an elephant, and the elephant on a tortoise, and had nothing to put under the tortoise."
Modern form In the form of "rocks all the way down", the saying dates to at least 1838, when it was printed in an unsigned anecdote in the New-York Mirror about a schoolboy and an old woman living in the woods:
"The world, marm," said I, anxious to display my acquired knowledge, "is not exactly round, but resembles in shape a flattened orange; and it turns on its axis once in twenty-four hours." "Well, I don't know anything about its axes," replied she, "but I know it don't turn round, for if it did we'd be all tumbled off; and as to its being round, any one can see it's a square piece of ground, standing on a rock!" "Standing on a rock! but upon what does that stand?" "Why, on another, to be sure!" "But what supports the last?"
"Lud! child, how stupid you are! There's rocks all the way down!" Another version of the saying appeared in an 1854 transcript of remarks by preacher Joseph Frederick Berg addressed to Joseph Barker:
My opponent's reasoning reminds me of the heathen, who, being asked on what the world stood, replied, "On a tortoise." But on what does the tortoise stand? "On another tortoise." With Mr. Barker, too, there are tortoises all the way down. (Vehement and vociferous applause.)
Many 20th-century attributions claim that philosopher and psychologist William James is the source of the phrase. James referred to the fable of the elephant and tortoise several times, but told the infinite regress story with "rocks all the way down" in his 1882 essay, "Rationality, Activity and Faith":
Like the old woman in the story who described the world as resting on a rock, and then explained that rock to be supported by another rock, and finally when pushed with questions said it was "rocks all the way down," he who believes this to be a radically moral universe must hold the moral order to rest either on an absolute and ultimate should or on a series of shoulds "all the way down." The linguist John R. Ross also associates James with the phrase:
The following anecdote is told of William James.... After a lecture on cosmology and the structure of the solar system, James was accosted by a little old lady. "Your theory that the sun is the centre of the solar system, and the earth is a ball which rotates around it has a very convincing ring to it, Mr. James, but it's wrong. I've got a better theory," said the little old lady. "And what is that, madam?" inquired James politely. "That we live on a crust of earth which is on the back of a giant turtle." Not wishing to demolish this absurd little theory by bringing to bear the masses of scientific evidence he had at his command, James decided to gently dissuade his opponent by making her see some of the inadequacies of her position. "If your theory is correct, madam," he asked, "what does this turtle stand on?" "You're a very clever man, Mr. James, and that's a very good question," replied the little old lady, "but I have an answer to it. And it's this: The first turtle stands on the back of a second, far larger, turtle, who stands directly under him." "But what does this second turtle stand on?" persisted James patiently. To this, the little old lady crowed triumphantly,
"It's no use, Mr. James—it's turtles all the way down."
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