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THE EVOLUTION OF SYMBOLISM.
SECTION I.
Symbolism and Ideographs.
Is not a symbol ever, to him who has eyes for it, some dimmer or clearer revelation of the Godlike
. . . Through all . . . there glimmers something of a Divine Idea. Nay, the highest
ensign that men ever met and embraced under, the cross itself, had no meaning, save an accidental
extrinsic one.
Carlyle.
The study of the hidden meaning in every religious and profane
legend, of whatsoever nation, large or small, and preeminently in the
traditions of the Kast, has occupied the greater portion of the present
writer's life.
She is one of those who feel convinced that no mythological
stor5', no traditional event in the folk-lore of a people, has ever,
at any time, been pure fiction, but that every one of such narratives
has an actual historical lining to it. In this the writer disagrees with
those symbologists, however great their reputation, who find in everymyth
nothing more than additional proof of the superstitious bent of
mind of the Ancients, and who believe that all mythologies sprang
from, and are built upon, solar myths. Such superficial thinkers have
been admirably disposed of by Mr. Gerald Massey, the poet and
Eg>^ptologist, in a lecture on "Luniolatry, Ancient and Modern." His
pointed criticism is worthy of reproduction in this part of our work, as
it echoes so well our own feelings, expressed openly so far back as
1875, when Jsis Unveiled ^zs. written.
For thirty years past Professor Max Miiller has been teaching in his books and
lectures, in the Times, Saturday Review, and varioiis magazines, from the platform