Symbolism attained its apogee in the Middle Ages, when animals, colors, plants, lines and attitudes had their hieratic significance. Candles, sytnbolic of the Light of the World, found ubiquitous use in all rituals; the vest ments of the clergy, besides the ritual itself, were symbolic. The Church also had its repre sentation in a woman crowned and majestic, bearing the banner of victory and the chalice, while Judaism, as unbelieving, took the form of an aged woman holding a cracked staff, the tables of the law falling to earth, her eyes bandaged and her crown toppling from off her head. Art was fond of depicting the uni versality of life's uncertain tenure by illustrat ing, under the title of °The Dance of Death,) a human skeleton calling, as unwelcome visitor, on king, queen and humble peasant. The books of ((Bestiaries" afford us an in.sight into the allegorical or mystical significance of the most grotesque mythical animal creations of those days of superstitions. They figure on the gargoyles and in the moldings of Romanesque and Gothic structures. Much of the beauty of Gothic architectural traceries is found in the disposition of the trefoil and quatrefoil, having their symbolic intent of the Trinity and the four Evangelists. And the four Evangelists themselves enter the language of symbolism either as the °four rivers,D or Matthew being represented as an angel, Mark as a lion, Luke as a winged ox and John as an eagle. The 12 Apostles were given each their symbol for recognition in art depiction; Saint Peter bear ing a key, Saint Jude a cross, Saint Matthew a wallet, Saint Thomas a spear, Saint Simon Zelotes a saw, and so on. Alchemy, from which our science of chemistry arose, was largely a saence of mysticism and symbolism. It waa probably derived from the Egyptians, not the Arabs as was. formerly supposed, wAd Hcrmes is. after all, likely tp have been the originator.
At first the view evidently was that metals in their changeable forms (reactions) had body and soul like human beings, hence lead was called Osiris and considered by the Egyptians as the soul, or °prima material' of all metals. Later it was supposed that quicksilver (mer cury) was the soul of metals. And in the final determining the alchemists (probably through the Babylonians) used the planetary names for the metals thus: And from the hermetic books sprang our first knowledge of chemistry, in which the chemical contcnts wrap up in philosophy and religion the search for gold and the philoso pher's stone. And we learn from these students that the stone was °the world in little, micro cosm, man: one, a unity; three, mercury, sul phur and salt, or spirit, soul and body." And we find the alchemists speaking of men as metals and reading such an ancient authority as Isaak Hollandus, it is difficult to differentiate be tween mankind and lead (which is called Saturn), but we are told by his interpreters that he must not be understood to speak of common lead but the lead of the philosophers.
Great symbolists were the Rosicrucians, if we may believe what we read about them. From those who claim the origin and existence of the Rosicrucian fraternity as a probable existence of the past we are informed that the writings, (Fama' and (Confessio,' of the early 17th century in mentioning therein the gold which they alchemistically created it was °not the gold of the multitude but it is the living gold, the gold of God." Symbolism, therefore, pure and simple. And later the brotherhood (in Eng land) under Frizius and Fludd transform the ritual into Freemasonry and its symbolism is stated in the aSummum Bonum.) The Re naissance and Reform arrested the science of symbolism.
The science of heraldry is largely one of symbolism and the numerous crosses have in past days had authorities who deciphered the symbolic intent of their variants, as well as the meaning of many other acharges.) Symbolism has been applied to a language of flowers, as well as to colors, numbers, etc. And each of these fields of application have been more or less adopted by the Christian Church in its symbolism.
The term ((symbolism') is used in the tech nique of psychoanalysis to define a certain brain reflex action, as in dreams, etc. In the science of psychoanalysis there are two spheres or states of the mental process; they are desig nated the "preconscious" and the °unconscious.) Much of the un.conscious brain action is what the psychoanalyst terms aarchaic,) meaning what is known to the lay world primitilie or animal. Symbolism in this teaching has a very broad aspect as is disclosed by such an authority as Wm. A. White in the following expression: ((For what after all is a word but a symbol of an idea and an idea but the symbol of a thine or not we see the symbolism of a given expression, for example, depends upon the closeness of analogy between the sign and the thing signified. The closer the analogy the less the symbolism and the less evident the analogy the more pronounced the symbolism.° "Ferenczi uses the term symbol to apply only to likenesses that have one mem ber of the equation repressed in the uncon scious.° The idea symbolizes in mental imagery the thing in the outside world and the word symbolizes the idea. From this point of view our thinking takes place by the use of symbols.° In its action, we are told, the sym bolism of a word may assume dynamic force (energy). In such dynamic symbol words are included flag, patriotism, etc. This medical con ception and theory of symbolism is claimed to be of assistance in indicating the true inward ness of certain neuroses, as hysteria. etc.