THE MIGRATION OF SYMBOLS. 673 



After this there are no reasons why we should not reach as posi- 

 tive results in the study of symbols as in the study of myths. The 

 comparative examination of myths long ago assumed a scientific 

 phase, both with Mr. Max Muller and the linguistic school that is 

 correlating the traditions of nations speaking allied languages, and 

 with Mr. Andrew Lang and his fellow ethnographers who are 

 comparing the mythologies of all known peoples. Now, the myth, 

 which we may define as a dramatization of natural phenomena 

 or of abstract events, offers more than one common trait with the 

 symbol. Both rest on reasoning by analogy, which in the one 

 case creates a figurative story, and in the other a material image. 

 There is, however, the difference that in the symbol we are aware 

 of a distinction between the image and the being or object repre- 

 sented by it, while an essential character of the myth is that the 

 story shall be supposed to be conformable to the reality. But it 

 is easy to see that both are frequently formed by the aid of the 

 same processes and are transmitted by the same ways. 



At all events, there are religions that we can not explain unless 

 we endeavor to supplement the insufficiency of the texts by the 

 study of the figured monuments ; and there is an increasing dis- 

 position among students of particular religions to make use of 

 the texts to prove the symbols, and of the symbols to prove the 

 texts — as in M. Senart's recent works on the history of Buddhism ; 

 MM. Gaidoz's and Al. Bertrand's on the symbols of ancient Gaul ; 

 those of M. J. Menant on the engraved stones of upper Asia ; and 

 those of M. Ch. Lenormant, Clermont-Ganneau, Ledrain, and Ph. 

 Berger on the figured representations of the Semitic religions. 

 These labors are the best demonstration of the services which the 

 interpretation of symbols can render to the history of religions, 

 provided we observe all the rigor of scientific methods. 



It is not necessary to insist here upon the interest which the 

 study of symbolism offers, aside from the services which it may be 

 called upon to render to archaeological science. Representation 

 by symbolism is, in literature, religion, and art, a necessity of 

 the human mind, which has never been able to content itself with 

 pure abstractions, or to restrict itself to the external shape of 

 things. Under the material and often incoherent forms by 

 which past generations have expressed their aspirations and 

 their faith, we can discern the beating of a heart, the appeal of a 

 soul to other souls, a mind that seeks to embrace the infinite in 

 the finite, to objectize, under features furnished by Nature or the 

 imagination, its conceptions most approaching a reality indis- 

 cernible in its plenitude. The symbols which have attracted in 

 the highest degree the veneration of multitudes have often been 

 indeed absurd and gross representations of gods ; but what have 

 the gods themselves ever been, except symbols more or less imper- 



vol. xxxvii. — 49 



