Page:Sussex Archaeological Collections, volume 6.djvu/117

 a Philosophy of Heraldry that has yet to be written. Like Philology, Zoology, Ethnology, and other sciences, it illustrates the sublime law of Development. Investigated in the spirit of Geology, combining the discovery of isolated facts with speculations as to their relation and common origin, it will render no small service in contributing to prove the connection of families and races up to remote and obscure periods, and thus throw a light on the history of mankind that might be obtained from no other source. The studies and tastes of the age happily tend to advance this kind of knowledge, and they could have received no grander homage than is presented in that magnificent temple of heraldry, the New Palace of Westminster.

Many of the arms blazoned have not the colours given, for authorities differ about many of them so much, that it would be very difficult to give them accurately ; and in the derivation of arms it is the charges and not the tinctures which prove the affinity.