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212 been rejected if offered in an abstract or didactic form; they insinuate themselves insensibly, while the mind is pleased in tracing the resemblance of the shadow to the substance. It is a very ancient notion, that all things have been created, as it were, in series, each of which is, in all its members, a representation or counterpart of all the rest. Or, as the Platonists expressed it, that "the Creator having conceived in Himself the exemplars of all things, produces them from Him in images." The whole system of Scriptural parabolism and typology depends on this analogy, which assuredly exists, though perhaps not to the extent assumed in the above notion.

Examples of this use of natural objects are numberless in the Holy Scriptures, and will occur to every thoughtful reader. Often the resemblance is confined to a single point, and is alluded to in a simile or comparison; as when the effect of a single indiscretion upon character is likened to a dead fly in a pot of ointment (Eccl. x. i); the state of a sinner wandering from God, to that of a sheep going astray (Isa. liii. 6); and the inveterate love of sin, to the incorrigible filthiness of the dog and the swine (2 Peter ii. 22). The Book of Proverbs and the Song of Songs are full of these similes, those of the latter poem often running into the more elaborate allegory.

Somewhat like this is the adoption of natural objects to form types, emblems, or symbols. These commonly suggest many points of parallelism, though they are not always expressed. The various types of the ritual law illustrate this use; as do also the