SYMBOLS. 545 



group of ideas and sentiments, if these associations do not come 

 the symbol passes into the condition of reality, because the emo- 

 tion is arrested by it and does not rise to what it represents. This 

 is why idolatry is always repugnant to great intellects, from 

 Moses and Mohammed to Pascal and Matthew Arnold, who pro- 

 test always, but often in vain, at least from the plebeian point 

 of view, against the worship of images." 



Another phenomenon of emotional arrest is the banner, sub- 

 stituted for the fatherland, for whose sake are created honors 

 and feuds. Thus, in politics, parties are designated by colors 

 black, blue, red, according as men hold to one set of ideas or 

 another. Thus also in parliaments there are the Right, the Left, 

 and the Center ; so, at the time of the rise of the new Italy, there 

 was a fierce struggle over the emblems of the three colors, to 

 display which every opportunity was seized. So, again, the name 

 of Verdi, at the same epoch, served as a symbol for the patriotic 

 cry " Viva Vittorio Emmanuele, Re d' Italia ! " The toga, like the 

 flag, is a mystic symbol, and it symbolizes in the tribunals the 

 majesty of justice. Nor does the bureaucracy disdain the use of 

 symbols. 



In his chapter on the pathology of the symbol, Ferrero nar- 

 rates how it had been adopted by criminals, and is the hinge of 

 such secret societies as the "Maffia" and the "Camorra." Our 

 author relates how even madmen adopt symbols, as well as the 

 sick, concluding : " Certainly we are here treating of disease, but 

 the extraordinary intensity of the phenomenon proves how pro- 

 found is the tendency of the human soul to reduce sensations, 

 images, sentiments ; to exchange the whole for a part ; to con- 

 centrate all its energies upon some particular, which thus becomes 

 more potent in its action. Certainly in those normal processes of 

 reduction whence the symbol proceeds, this absorption of every- 

 thing into itself of the particular, is not so intense as in these 

 morbid cases, precisely because these are an exaggeration. But 

 in any case the phenomenon of symbolism by reduction, and 

 these phenomena of moral pathology, throw light upon each 

 other." 



The second part of Ferrero's essay is entitled Symbolism in 

 Modern Law. This chapter contains precious and useful obser- 

 vations with regard to the manner in which the letter and the 

 spirit of the code are applied. The greater part of the juridic ideas 

 consecrated in our codes, and the manner in which they are ap- 

 plied almost everything, in short, known as justice is nothing 

 but one gigantic mystic symbol, the effect of a fatal confusion of 

 the sign with the thing, a spring of infinite evil to society, and 

 above all of that greatest of evils: the possession, that is, of a 

 justice which causes more torment, perhaps, than benefit. In 



VOL. XL VI. 39 



