xviii INTRODUCTION. 



gested to Lenormant the idea that the genius was 

 * mesmerizing ' the king, if such an expression may 

 be used, by pointing the cone close to his back hair. 



Those archaic scientists and philosophers must 

 have been as much astonished as we are at the 

 universe in which they were placed, if not more 

 so ; and as much puzzled as we are to account for 

 the worlds within and without us. 



By these studies we try to make out some con- 

 sistent and connected story or stories, regarding 

 what they thought of it all, and how they, in their 

 beginnings, accounted for what they saw and felt. 



Each archaic philosopher and poet, just as 

 we do, brought to bear on the study of nature 

 his own 'personal equation,' so that he saw things 

 a good deal as they struck him ; but in those 

 days traditions, dreams, inspirations by gods, and 

 whisperings by devils, fears, hope, etc., undoubt- 

 edly had something to do with the direction of their 

 thoughts. 



It is certain that man, before he wrote, pictured, 

 and so we must look upon ideas translated into 

 pictures, as much more archaic in origin than any 

 words, which may have afterwards been used to 

 account for the things those pictures represented. 



Count d'Alviella has noticed the facility with 

 which one symbol fuses with another of a totally 

 different origin. The facility originates in the 

 artist's mind, whose object is not that of preserving 



