Symbol

“ In another respect, however, there is a great deal to choose between them: and here the visionary, not the philosopher, receives the palm. The greater the suggestive quality of the symbol used, the more answering emotion it evokes in those to whom it is addressed, the more truth it will convey. A good symbolism, therefore, will be more than mere diagram or mere allegory: it will use to the utmost the resources of beauty and of passion, will bring with it hints of mystery and wonder, bewitch with dreamy periods the mind to which it is addressed. ”

“ In the Symbol proper, what we can call a Symbol, there is ever, more or less distinctly and directly, some embodiment and revelation of the Infinite; the Infinite is made to blend itself with the Finite, to stand visible, and as it were, attainable there. ”

“ Critique of the symbol and of the allegory.
Continuing to correct these errors, or to make clear equivoques, we will note that the symbol has sometimes been given as essence of art. Now, if the symbol be given as inseparable from the artistic intuition, it is the synonym of the intuition itself, which always has an ideal character. There is no double-bottom to art, but one only; in art all is symbolical, because all is ideal. ”

“ We have examples of such ideas in symbols. A symbol, I take it, is always itself, existentially, a particular object. A word, an algebraic sign, is just as much a concrete existence as is a horse, a fire-engine, or a flyspeck. ”

“ The arising sun; the setting sun! There we have the symbol and the type of humanity, and all things with which humanity has to do. The symbol and the type, yes, and the earthly beginning, and the end also. ”

“ We enjoy the symbol, but we also penetrate to the meaning. The symbols do not create their meaning: the meaning, in the form of actual effective beings reacting upon us, exists for us in its own right. ”

“ But it is not like modern Symbolism, which is often content to gaze ecstatically on the symbol itself, instead of using it dramatically to flood a situation with the light that is hidden in the heart of Time. ”

“ Nearer to Thee, not by delusion led,
Though there no house fires burn nor bright eyes gaze,
We rise, but by the symbol charioted,
Through loved things rising up to Love's own ways
By these the soul unto the vast has wings
[20] And sets the seal celestial on all mortal things. ”

“ A symbol is an indication of an object, in opposition to a direct description of the same; it arouses the idea of it in the awakened soul; rings a bell, for we may almost put it so, which at once rouses the spirit and reminds it of some special event or imminent service. ”

“ A symbol is a material object, a transaction in the material world, or sometimes a number, to represent some higher spiritual truth. {555} Ritual symbols, like the ark of the covenant, the high-priest's dress, the sacrifices, and, in general, the whole tabernacle and temple service, will be considered hereafter under the head of types. We speak of symbols now, only so far as they belong to the human side of interpretation. ”

“ We are symbols and inhabit symbols; workmen, work, and tools, words and things, birth and death, all are emblems; but we sympathize with the symbols, and being infatuated with the economical uses of things, we do not know that they are thoughts. The poet, by an ulterior intellectual perception, gives them a power which makes their old use forgotten, and puts eyes and a tongue into every dumb and inanimate object. He perceives the independence of the thought on the symbol, the stability of the thought, the accidency and fugacity of the symbol. ”

“ A symbol is a comparison between things belonging to the physical and things belonging to the immaterial world. Now, these two worlds are in perfect harmony with each other. To each phenomenon of the moral order there corresponds exactly a phenomenon of the visible order. If we compare these two facts with each other, we have a symbol. There is a life, a breath, a whiteness, which are material. ”

“ Language, written or spoken, is such a symbolism. The mere sound of a word, or its shape on paper, is indifferent. The word is a symbol, and its meaning is constituted by the ideas, images, and emotions, which it raises in the mind of the hearer. ”

“ A symbol is properly a representation of any moral thing by the images or properties of natural things. Thus a circle is a symbol of eternity, as having neither beginning nor end; an eye is a symbol of wisdom; a lion, of courage; a lamb, of meekness and gentleness. This general idea of symbols is found in types, enigmas, parables, fables, allegories, emblems, hieroglyphics, &c. ”

“ You know nothing about symbolism; and yet, if you have any inner life, those who understand symbolism can read your inner life in you symbol. That is because symbolism is a universal science, real, and with nothing arbitrary about it ”

“ Yet the man who composed it was a vibrant personality, and whether knowingly or unwittingly, he made the book a symbol,—a symbol of uncomprehending persecution, of human fanaticism, of religious origins, of man’s instinctive seeking after something higher. ”

“ There is ever a marked difference between a symbol and the thing which it symbolizes. Words are the symbols of ideas; ideas, as they exist in the mind, are the symbols of eternal verities as they exist in the consciousness of the Logos of the universe. There may be a wide diversity of symbolic forms which represent one single idea ”

“ But if the symbol be looked upon as separable—if on the one side can be expressed the symbol, and on the other the thing symbolized, we fall back again into the intellectualist error: that pretended symbol is the exposition of an abstract concept, it is an allegory, it is science, or art that apes science. ”

“ Every symbol should have seven meanings of principal value, and out of every one of those we have been considering can be drawn that number of significations. Intelligent study of them will be beneficial, for when a consistent symbol, embodying many ideas is found and meditated upon, the thought or view of the symbol brings up each idea at once before the mind. ”

“ The dictionary defines a symbol as "something that stands for something else and serves to represent it, or to bring to mind one or more of its qualities." Now this world is a reflection of a higher world, and that of a higher world still, and so on. Accordingly, everything is a symbol of something higher, since by reflecting, it "stands for, and serves to represent it," and the thing symbolized, being itself a reflection, is, by the same token, itself a symbol. ”

“ A symbol stands for the supernatural, an emblem for something known. The elucidation of symbolism is in the laws of the association of ideas. Associations of similarity give related symbols, of contiguity coincident symbols. Symbols tend either toward personification (iconolatry) , or toward secularization. ”

“ But if a symbol is to serve any purpose of communication between one mind and another it must be a symbol accepted and understood by both minds. If an artist is to choose his symbols to suit himself, and to make them mean anything he chooses, who is to say what he means or whether he means anything? ”

“ We cannot be long familiar with a symbol without becoming intimate with that which it expresses. Let the public mind, then, be in the habit of associating these and similar expressions with passages of poetical power, let the ideas they import be imbedded in their hearts and glorified in their imaginations, and the fairest results may with confidence be anticipated. ”

“ That the poet should have supposed the symbol would be understood at once, marks the nature of his mind, a mind which soars in the creative element, and can only be understood by those who are in a state of congenial activity. ”

“ It is in and through Symbols that man, consciously or unconsciously, lives, works, and has his being: those ages, moreover, are accounted the noblest which can the best recognise symbolical worth, and prize it the highest. For is not a Symbol ever, to him who has eyes for it, some dimmer or clearer revelation of the Godlike? ”

“ Referring to the words symbol, image, and allegorical figure as well as attribute, he says, “Their shades of difference are so slight that it would be most convenient to regard them all under the general term symbol.” [6] I may add these remarks of Tiele: “A symbol is a simple or complex thought clothed in a sensuous form. A myth is a phenomenon of nature represented as the act of a person. Usually symbols originate in myths, and in every case mythology is antecedent to symbolism.” ”

“ That which I have sometimes called symbolism and that which I have sometimes called association are the same thing. When a sensation which is the result of a sense impression caused by one attribute of a body, is taken as a symbol of the body itself with all its attributes, it becomes a symbol of all with which it is associated. ”

“ Thus the spoken word is a sound impression upon the organ of hearing; the written word a light impression upon the organ of vision, and the impression becomes a symbol for sensation, or a symbol for perception, or a symbol for apprehension, or a symbol for reflection, or a symbol for ideation. So all words are symbols for ideation, but the symbols are conventional—invented by mankind for the purpose as an addition to the natural symbols. ”

“ The symbols that have lost their power, and the symbols incessantly suggested which fail to take root, remind us that if we were patient enough to study in detail the circulation of a symbol, we should behold an entirely secular history. ”

“ A symbol is the manifester of the thing signified, and if the thing signified has already an existence, and if, by experience, we know that the symbol has expressed that thing many times, then we are sure that there is a real relation between them. ”

“ A symbol is a trait of actuality that for the sensuously-alert man has an immediate and inwardly-sure significance, and that is incommunicable by process of reason. The detail of a Doric or Early-Arabic or Early-Romanesque ornament ”

“ Finally, it is affirmed that Symbolism connotes ‘the inscribing of a symbol in human form.’ Expressed unmystically, this means that in the poems of the Symbolists the particular human form should not only exhibit its special nature and contingent destiny, but also represent a general type of humanity, and embody a universal law of life. ”

“ I fancy some of my little friends will exclaim. Well, then, a symbol is merely a sign, or mark, by which one knows a thing. When you see an umbrella in a man's hand, it is a symbol, or sign, that he expects a shower. ”

“ To the etymological eye every sentence is full of metaphor, of symbol, of images that, strictly and originally, express sensory impressions of one order, but, as we use them to-day, express impressions of a totally different order. Language is largely the utilisation of symbols. ”

“ Here also we have a Symbol well-nigh superannuated. Alas, move whithersoever you may, are not the tatters and rags of superannuated worn-out symbols (in this Ragfair of a World) dropping off everywhere, to hoodwink, to halter, to tether you ”

“ To present a visible symbol to the eye of another is not to inform him of the meaning which that symbol has to you. Hence the philosopher soon superadded to these symbols, explanations addressed to the ear, susceptible of more precision, but less effective, obvious, and impressive than the painted or sculptured forms which he despised. Out of these explanations grew by degrees a variety of narratives, whose true object and meaning were gradually forgotten. ”

“ Thus, a good symbol is the best argument, and is a missionary to persuade thousands. ”

“ And the mystic must be steadily told,—All that you say is just as true without the tedious use of that symbol as with it. Let us have a little algebra, instead of this trite rhetoric,—universal signs, instead of these village symbols,—and we shall both be gainers. The history of hierarchies seems to show that all religious error consisted in making the symbol too stark and solid, and was at last nothing but an excess of the organ of language. ”

“ It seems probable that in any ceremonial which has lasted through many epochs, the symbolic interpretation, so far as we can obtain it, varies much more rapidly than does the actual ceremonial. Also in its flux a symbol will have different meanings for different people. ”

“ Symbols are thought-forms which convey, by the association of ideas, a definite meaning in regard to the mind that generates them. They depend wholly upon the laws of thought, and the correspondence that exists between the spiritual and material worlds, between the subject and the object of our consciousness. ”

“ Symbolism is the language of the Mysteries; in fact it is the language not only of mysticism and philosophy but of all Nature, for every law and power active in universal procedure is manifested to the limited sense perceptions of man through the medium of symbol. Every form existing in the diversified sphere of being is symbolic of the divine activity by which it is produced. By symbols men have ever sought to communicate to each other those thoughts which transcend the limitations of language. ”

“ Every natural thing which is made the sign or representation of a moral idea is a symbol.
SYMBOL, COMPOUND. A species of symbol not unusual in Freemasonry, where the symbol is to be taken in a double sense, meaning in its general application one thing, and then in a special application another.
SYMBOLISM, SCIENCE OF. To what has been said in the text, may be added the following apposite remarks of Squier: "In the absence of a written language or forms of expression capable of conveying abstract ideas, we can readily comprehend the necessity, among a primitive people, of a symbolic system. ”

“ But what is symbolism? Vulgarly speaking, saying the opposite to what you mean. For example, you want to say that music which is the new art, is replacing the old art, which is poetry. First symbol: a house in which there is a funeral, the pall extends over the furniture. The house is poetry, poetry is dead. Second symbol: "notre vieux grimoire," grimoire is the parchment, parchment is used for writing, therefore, grimoire is the symbol for literature, "d'où s'exaltent les milliers," thousands of what? ”