Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/86

 and wings, griffin-footed, made up, in short, of emblems of all real or imaginary living beings known to the ignorant idolater,—are in reality words of which these absurdly combined parts are the syllables, or rather are the expression of a sentiment of which these are the words. We smile or shudder in holy horror at these uncouth representations, forgetting, in the pride of our philosophy and theology, that the sentiment is the same—viz. the innate feeling of divine power; and perhaps not less intensely felt in the mind which expresses it in these shapes, than in the mind which expresses it in the shapes of written or spoken language. It is but the way of expressing it, not what is intended to be expressed, that is different. Idol-language and word-language have the same object—namely, to express the impression or sentiment of almighty power and divine existence innate in the human mind; and who shall say that we approach nearer to the understanding and expressing of this almighty power and divine nature, "which passeth understanding," with our alphabet, or written or spoken words, than the ignorant idolater, without words in his language to express his ideas, in his carved and painted idol-language? Each means may be the best adapted for different states and stages of the development of the human mind. It has a stage in its development at which, in a highly civilised country, a little black stroke with a dot over it presents to the philosopher, and as he believes in the most clear and distinct manner, all that mind knows or can express of self-existence, of individuality—of I. A wooden idol, representing something like to but different from man, presents to the mind of the pagan all that it can conceive, or with its means express, of superhuman divine existence. Is not this a mere defect in the alphabet used? Is not the real inward sentiment in the mind of man, with regard to the