42 



merical dreams of astrology, and the frequent 

 use of symbolic writing-, appear to have singu- 

 larly contributed to perpetuate the barbarism of 

 the arts, and the taste for incorrect and hideous 

 forms. Those idols, before which the blood of 

 human victims daily flowed ; those first divini- 

 ties, the offspring of fear ; united in their attri- 

 butes all that is strange in nature. The linea- 

 ments of the human figure disappeared under 

 the load of their garments, helmets with heads of 

 carnivorous animals, and serpents twisted round 

 the body. A religious respect for the signs con- 

 ferred on every idol its individual figure, from 

 which it was not allowable to deviate ; and it 

 was by these means, that the incorrectness of the 

 figures was perpetuated, and the people accus- 

 tomed themselves to the assemblage of those 

 monstrous resemblances, which were however 

 disposed according to systematic ideas. Astro- 

 logy, and the complicated manner of graphically 

 marking the divisions of time, were the principal 

 causes of these aberrations of the imagination. 

 Each event seemed to be at the same time under 

 the influence of the hieroglyphics which presided 

 over the day, the half-decade or the year ; and 

 hence arose the idea of coupling signs, and creat- 

 ing those merely fantastic beings, which we find 

 so often repeatedin the astrological paintingsthat 

 have reached us. The genius of the American 

 languages, which, like the Sanscrit, the Greek, 



