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SEA FABLES EXPLAINED. 



creatures of imagination and tradition and certain aquatic 

 animals is not sufficient to account for that belief. It 

 probably had its origin in ancient mythologies; and in the 

 sculptures and pictures connected with them, which were 

 designed to represent certain attributes of the deities of 

 various nations. In the course of time the meaning of 

 these was lost ; and subsequent generations regarded as 



FIG. I. NOAH, HIS WIFE, AND THREE SONS, AS FISH-TAILED DEITIES. 

 From a Gem in the Florentine Gallery. After Calmet. 



the portraits of existing beings effigies which were at first 

 intended to be merely emblematic and symbolical. 



Early idolatry consisted, first, in separating the idea of 

 the One Divinity into that of his vari9us attributes, and of 

 inventing symbols and making images of each separately ; 

 secondly, in the worship of the sun, moon, stars, and 

 planets, as living existences ; thirdly, in the deification of 

 ancestors and early kings ; and these three forms were 

 often mingled together in strange and tangled confusion. 



