The Religious Sentiment / Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and / Philosophy of Religion

by Daniel G. Brinton

The word Symbolism has a technical sense in theological writings, to wit, the discussion of creeds, quite different from that in which it is used in mythological science. Here it means the discussion of the natural objects which have been used to represent to sense supposed supernatural beings. As some conception of such beings must first be formed, the symbol is necessarily founded upon the myth, and must be explained by it.

A symbol is closely allied to an emblem, the distinction being that the latter is intended to represent some abstract conception or concrete fact, not supposed to be supernatural. Thus the serpent is the emblem of Esculapius, or, abstractly, of the art of healing; but in its use as a symbol in Christian art it stands for the Evil One, a supernatural being. The heraldric insignia of the Middle Ages were emblematic devices; but the architecture of the cathedrals was largely symbolic. Both agree in aiming to aid the imagination and the memory, and both may appeal to any special sense, although the majority are addressed to sight alone.

Symbolism has not received the scientific treatment which has been so liberally bestowed on mythology. The first writer who approached it in the proper spirit was Professor Creuzer.[200-1] Previous to his labors the distinction between pictographic and symbolic art was not well defined. He drew the line sharply, and illustrated it abundantly; but he did not preserve so clearly the relations of the symbol and the myth. Indeed, he regarded the latter as a symbol, a “phonetic” one, to be treated by the same processes of analysis. Herein later students have not consented to follow him. The contrast between these two expressions of the religious sentiment becomes apparent when we examine their psychological origin. This Professor Creuzer did not include in his researches, nor is it dwelt upon at any length in the more recent works on the subject.[201-1] The neglect to do this has given rise to an arbitrariness in the interpretation of many symbols, which has often obscured their position in religious history.

What these principles are I shall endeavor to indicate; and first of the laws of the origin of symbols, the rules which guided the early intellect in choosing from the vast number of objects appealing to sense those fit to shadow forth the supernatural.

It may safely be assumed that this was not done capriciously, as the modern parvenue makes for himself a heraldric device. The simple and devout intellect of the primitive man imagined a real connection between the god and the symbol. Were this questioned, yet the wonderful unanimity with which the same natural objects, the serpent, the bird, the tree, for example, were everywhere chosen, proves that their selection was not the work of chance. The constant preference of these objects points conclusively to some strong and frequent connection of their images with mythical concepts.

The question of the origin of symbols therefore resolves itself into one of the association of ideas, and we start from sure ground in applying to their interpretation the established canons of association. These, as I have elsewhere said, are those of contiguity and similarity, the former producing association by the closeness of succession of impressions or thoughts, the latter through impressions or thoughts recalling like ones in previous experience. When the same occurrence affects different senses simultaneously, or nearly so, the association is one of contiguity, as thunder and lightning, for a sound cannot be like a sight; when the same sense is affected in such a manner as to recall a previous impression, the association is one of similarity, as when the red autumn leaves recall the hue of sunset. Nearness in time or nearness in kind is the condition of association.

The intensity or permanence of the association depends somewhat on temperament, but chiefly on repetition or continuance. Not having an ear for music, I may find it difficult to recall a song from hearing its tune; but by dint of frequent repetition I learn to associate them. Light and heat, smoke and fire, poverty and hunger so frequently occur together, that the one is apt to recall the other. So do a large number of antithetical associations, as light and darkness, heat and cold, by inverse similarity, opposite impressions reviving each other, in accordance with the positive and privative elements of a notion.

This brief reference to the laws of applied thought,—too brief, did I not take for granted that they are generally familiar—furnishes the clue to guide us through the labyrinth of symbolism, to wit, the repeated association of the event or power recorded in the myth with some sensuous image. Where there is a connection in kind between the symbol and that for which it stands, there is related symbolism; where the connection is one of juxtaposition in time, there is coincident symbolism. Mother Earth, fertile and fecund, was a popular deity in many nations, and especially among the Egyptians, who worshipped her under the symbol of a cow; this is related symbolism; the historical event of the execution of Christ occurred by crucifixion, one of several methods common in that age, and since then the cross has been the symbol of Christianity; this is coincident symbolism. It is easy for the two to merge, as when the cross was identified with a somewhat similar and much older symbol, one of the class I have called “related,” signifying the reproductive principle, and became the “tree of life.” As a coincident symbol is to a certain extent accidental in origin, related symbols have always been most agreeable to the religious sentiment.

This remark embodies the explanation of the growth of religious symbolism, and also its gradual decay into decorative art and mnemonic design. The tendency of related symbolism is toward the identification of the symbol with that for which it stands, toward personification or prosopopeia; while what I may call the secularization of symbols is brought about by regarding them more and more as accidental connections, by giving them conventional forms, and treating them as elements of architectural or pictorial design, or as aids to memory.

This tendency of related symbolism depends on a law of applied thought which has lately been formulated by a distinguished logician in the following words: “What is true of a thing, is true of its like.”[204-1] The similarity of the symbol to its prototype assumed, the qualities of the symbol, even those which had no share in deciding its selection, no likeness to the original, were lumped, and transferred to the divinity. As those like by similarity, so those unlike, were identified by contiguity, as traits of the unknown power. This is the active element in the degeneracy of religious idealism. The cow or the bull, chosen first as a symbol of creation or fecundity, led to a worship of the animal itself, and a transfer of its traits, even to its horns, to the god. In a less repulsive form, the same tendency shows itself in the pietistic ingenuity of such poets as Adam de Sancto Victore and George Herbert, who delight in taking some biblical symbol, and developing from it a score of applications which the original user never dreamt of. In such hands a chance simile grows to an elaborate myth.