myth-making, as they have in interpreting the Scriptures.
Few people have an adequate appreciation of this lost principle—the art, that is, of working symbolically. To us, who have now nothing to conceal, such a practice has naturally gone out of fashion, and the symbol, as a means of concealing rather more than it was intended to explain, has become gradually obsolete. We still write or paint symbolically, but only to make that, which is obscure, more plain. In the hands of the old priest, or artist, on the contrary, the symbol was a veil for concealment, beautiful or grotesque, as the case might be. A myth or parable, in their hands, subtly conveyed a hidden truth, by means of a more or less obvious fiction; but it has come to pass, that the crude and childish lie on its surface is ignorantly believed for the whole truth, instead of being recognized, as the mere clue to its inner meaning. All theology is composed in this way, and her two-fold utterances must be read with a double mind. Thus, when we read in the Scriptures of the Church, or in the saintly legends, a fiction showing more than ordinary exuberance of fancy, we may be sure, that our attention is being specially arrested. When miraculous events are related of the gods, or when they are depicted in marvellous shapes, the author gives us to understand, that something uncommon is being conveyed. When singular and unearthly beasts are described, such as Behemoth and Leviathan, the unicorn, or the phœnix, it is intended, that we should search deeply into their meaning: for such are some of the artifices, by which the ancients at once concealed and explained their hidden mysteries.
When everything was mystical and metaphorical, it was only natural that numbers should have
