<P> To this the little old lady crowed triumphantly . "It's no use, Mr. James--it's turtles all the way down ." </P> <P> The explicit reference to infinite regression ("all the way down") cannot be shown to predate the 19th century, but in the 17th and 18th centuries, there are references to the story in the form of a World Elephant standing on a World Turtle claimed, without good evidence, to come from Hindu mythology . </P> <P> Henry David Thoreau, in his journal entry of 4 May 1852, writes: </P> <P> 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 . </P>

Where does the saying bear with me come from