Before revision: 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: A version of the saying in its "turtle" form appeared in an 1854 transcript of remarks by preacher Joseph Frederick Berg addressed to Joseph Barker: upWilliam James Many 20th-century attributions claim that philosopher and psychologist William James is the source of the phrase.Robert Anton Wilson (1983).
After revision: 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: Another version of the saying appeared in an 1854 transcript of remarks by preacher Joseph Frederick Berg addressed to Joseph Barker: upWilliam James Many 20th-century attributions claim that philosopher and psychologist William James is the source of the phrase.Robert Anton Wilson (1983).