42 
rnerical dreams of astrology^ and the frequent 
use of symbolic writings 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 dailv 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 hnman 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 
nauses 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 fijid 
so often repeated in the astrological paintings that 
have reached us. The genius of the American 
languages, which, like the Sanscrit, the Greek, 
