On" Geometrical And Other Symbols.

I shall now endeavour to show that the very same concentro-radiative princip les , thus deduced from mythological and other religious doctrines , are scientially and readill y deducible from a consideration of human life itsell , apart altogether from such doctrines ; and that these psychological and pneumatological princip les involve a reason for precisely such symbolical

forms as those of which I have just been treating . Before attempting to do so , however , I must here note the corroborative and somewhat remarkable circumstance that a coincident mythological and symbolical conclusion , closely analogous to my own psychological and guiding one , has been drawn from an exclusive consideration of " Symbolism as a Science , " by Dr . Barlow ; who , in the Builder of 17 th March , I 860 , says : —

"In tho remarks which I hope to have the honour of reading oa Monday evening before the Institute of British Architects , I have endeavoured to give a scientific character to symbolism in art by tracing it up to its first principles in the theologies of ancieht nations , the Chinese , the Indians , and others . " In this way I have arrived at two principles or agents

in nature which do not admit of further analysis—Life and Sight : these , I find , will furnish or rather explain the most recondite symbolism with which we are acquainted , "

The conclusion and corroboration here occurring , I say , are remarkable , inasmuch as " Life and Li g ht " deduced by Dr . Barlow from a consideration of symbolism per se , as a science , are clearly identical Avith those two princi ples , the Concentrate ( or Life ) , and the Radiative ( or Light ) , psychologically considered ,

of which I am about to offer a few indicative hints ; —principles which have guided me , as by a sciential and extrinsic as well as a , priori light , to kindred symbolical and religious conclusions , without any pretension , on my part , to any legitimate and exclusive induction , based solely on a consideration of symbolism

itself as a science , to which Dr . Barloiv alone can ¦ fairl y lay claim . And if I have been enabled to develope these common principles further than Dr . Barlow has yet done , it is to psychology and not to mythology that I am chiefly indebted ; my mythological , or at least symbolical , knoAvledge being very limited by comparison with his . The mind of man may be regarded as threefold in

more aspects and senses than one . It has three phases ¦ or aspects—potential ,- sentient , and sciential ; and each of these is also threefold—the potential comprising the propensities , the desires , and the will ; the sentient comprising the corporeal feelings or senses , the affections , and the conscience , convictions , beliefs , or faiths ;

and the sciential , comprising the concretiA'e , constructive , or compositive ; the connective , relative , or comparative ; and the identitive or contemplative faculties . By the concretive , constructiA'e , or compositive , so far as regards the mental phenomena , I would wish to denote that faculty , power , or force , by

which the elements of the senses are concreted , constructed , or composed into mental objects of comparison , identification , & c . A kind of microcromic world is th us concentrated , as it were , around the circumference of the mental sphere . This microcosm , however , is not so much a world of mere images as it is one of estimations . The mind of man is an estimator of forces , and a measuring rule , as it were , for all creation .

Light and colours , for example , are subtle radiative forces , whose intensity is estimated by the seeing force or poAver , or the concentrative agent , in the eye and the brain . So it is with all the senses ; and all we actually know of the nature of the outer world is , that is a congeries of forces , concentrative and radiative . By the mind ; or in the mind rather , and by

the soul and spirit , —or , as I shall endeavour to show , the concentrative and radiative , —as the estimating forces ; the infinitude without is converted into relative units in the concentrative faculy of conception ; and these relative units are collected , by the further concentrative operations of the faculty of comparison ,

into classes , kinds , or species , whose similitudes approximate , move or less , towards identity ; but the identitive faculty is the central or superlative one , as the conceptive , concretive , or compositive is the superficial or circumferential ; indeed I have been in . the habit of ranking these three mental regions as the positive , the comparative , and the superlative ; and I consider ( with Coleridge and others , it may here be

incidentally remarked ) that the faculty of learning is one relating more especially to the positive ; that of talent to the comparative ; and that of genius to the superlative . Now , from the multip licities—the infinities—without , to the identities and unities within ; through the ' compositiveor conceptiveand the

comparativecon-, , , nective , or relative , we can trace the manifest operation of a concentratit e principle , whose tendencies are from the circumference , as it were , of a sphere of force or action to its centre . The very terms conception , comparison , contemplation , and such like , imply the operation of a concentrative principle . It

manifests itself in the ocular field , as we may call it , of the comparative faculty , or the understanding ; as well as in the microscopic field of the conceptive or concretive faculty ; and in the telescopic eye of the contemplative or identitive centre . In the comparative for example , we find relations reared upon subjective terms ; two or more conceptive elements ever being reduced to one relative element , in a way which may be thus symbolized : —

Fia . 1 . the two extremities of the angle denoting the subjective terms , and the apex , or point , the one common relation reared upon these tAVO as its bases . The same concenbrative process , in its threefold and completive form , is still more clearly indicated in the lower or concentrative moiety of the following symbol : —

FIG . 2 . the base , a b , indicating a series of subjective terms , or relational elements , of the lowest order ; and c the one common principle of identity deducible from then *