Chapter IV: Magic and Religion (3)

It is a pity that Mr. Goodyear has pledged himself so fully as in the statement just quoted, as it is apt to make critics more captious as to his main thesis. If the fylfot is a detached intersection of the meander pattern, why did not the Egyptians hit on it? Granting that the meander may have had an indirect origin from a natural object in the Mediterranean countries, there is no proof that any religious or magical meaning was attached to it. The manner in which the fylfot was employed proves that it certainly had a symbolic signification. The strongest argument adduced by Professor Goodyear is in the case of some “geometrically” decorated Greek vases, in which between solar geese and other symbols occurs a small panel, which is variously decorated with a fylfot, or an element or varietal detail of the meander pattern.[194] But this, after all, may prove to be nothing more than that the Greeks noticed that the fylfot occurred in certain varieties of the meander pattern which had been arrived at from quite a different source. This occurrence of the fylfot in these patterns was quite accidental; it would be better to say that a fylfot design could be picked out from these patterns rather than to suggest that it was inherent in them. Granting the sacred associations of the fylfot, the fact that it could be separated from a pattern which itself may have had a recognised association with the symbolic lotus would probably appeal to a symbol-loving people. If they recognised that the fylfot on the one hand, and the lotus on the other, were sun-symbols, the isolation of the associate of a sun-symbol into another sun-symbol would be a pleasing exercise of ingenuity. I do not pretend to say that this has occurred, but it is to me quite a possible alternative. The sequence which Professor Goodyear seeks to establish appears to me to be nothing more than the birth of an analogy.

[194] _Loc. cit._, p. 353.

Before a judgment upon the Chinese meander pattern can be pronounced it would be necessary to make a detailed study of that pattern on objects from that part of the world, and I have not access to the requisite data.

We now come to the interesting question of the birthplace of this important symbol.

It was long ago remarked that the fylfot is almost exclusively an Aryan symbol. It is completely absent among the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, the Assyrians, and even the Phœnicians, although these middle-men traded useful objects and sacred symbols indiscriminately. The Semites did not employ it.

Although widely spread and venerated among the Tibetians (Fig. 130, R), the Chinese (Fig. 130, L), and the Japanese, it can be proved that these Mongolian peoples have adopted it along with Buddhism from India.

As a recognised religious symbol it is unknown among all the other peoples of the globe.

The conclusion is evident that the fylfot was a symbol before the swarming-off of the Aryan hordes. There seems little doubt that it was originally an emblem of the sun. It may, in certain combinations, have come to symbolise the apparent daily movement of the sun, and perhaps also the annual change of seasons. Some see in it the symbol of a sun-god, others believe it to be the god of the sky, or air, who in the course of time was variously known as Indra, Zeus, Jupiter, Thor, etc. Lastly, it has been promoted to signify “the emblem of the divinity who comprehended all the gods, or, again, of the omnipotent God of the universe.” This latter is certainly not a primitive conception, and we have no evidence that this meaning was ever read into the symbol.

Count Goblet d’Alviella points out that in Europe the geometric style of ornamentation embraces two periods, that of painted and that of incised decoration. “Now in this latter period, which is everywhere the most ancient, the gammadion is only found on the whorls of Hissarlik and the pottery of the Terramares. We have, therefore, two early homes of our symbol, one on the shores of the Hellespont, the other in the north of Italy.

“Was it propagated from one country to another by the usual medium of commerce? It must be admitted that at this period the relations between the Troad and the basin of the Po were very doubtful. Etruria certainly underwent Asiatic influences; but whether the legendary migration of Tyrrhenius and of his Lydians be admitted or not, this influence was only felt at a period subsequent to the ‘palafittes’ [pile dwellings] of Emilia, if not to the Necropolis of Villanova.

“There remains, therefore, the supposition that the gammadion might have been introduced into the two countries by the same nation.

“We know the Trojans came originally from Thrace. There is, again, a very plausible tradition to the effect that the ancestors, or predecessors, of the Etruscans, and, in general, the earliest known inhabitants of northern Italy, entered the peninsula from the north or north-east, after leaving the valley of the Danube. It is, therefore, in this latter region that we must look for the first home of the gammadion. It must be remarked that when, later on, the coinage reproduces the types and symbols of the local religions, the countries nearest the Danube, such as Macedon and Thrace, are amongst those whose coins frequently exhibit the gammadion, the traskele, and the triskele. Besides, it is especially at Athens that it is found on the pottery of Greece proper, and we know that Attica is supposed to have been primitively colonised by the Thracians. ‘The nations who had invaded the Balkan peninsula and colonised Thrace,’ writes M. Maspero, ‘crossed, at a very early period, the two arms of the sea which separated them from Asia, and transported there most of the names which they had already introduced into their European home. There were Dardanians in Macedon, on the borders of the Axios, as in the Troad, on the borders of the Ida, Kebrenes at the foot of the Balkans, and a town, Kebrene, near Ilium.’[195] Who will be astonished that these emigrants had taken with them, to the opposite shore of the Hellespont, the symbols as well as the rites and traditions which formed the basis of their creed in the basin of the Danube?

[195] G. Maspero, _Histoire ancienne des peuples de l’Orient_,
1886, p. 241, quoted by Count G. d’Alviella.

“Even when it occurs in the north and west of Europe, with objects of the bronze period, it is generally on pottery recalling the vases with geometric decorations of Greece and Etruria, and later, on coins reproducing, more or less roughly, the monetary types of Greece. It seems to have been introduced into Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland, in the same manner as that in which the runic writing was brought from the Danube valley to the shores of the Baltic and the ocean. It may have penetrated into Gaul, and from there into England and Ireland, either through Savoy, from the time of the ‘palafittes,’ or with the pottery and jewelry imported by sea and by land from the East, or, lastly, with the Macedonian coins which represent the origin of Gallic coinage.

“We have already seen how it was brought among the islands of the Mediterranean, and into Greece proper, then from Greece to Sicily and even Southern Italy. It must be observed that even at Rome it seems to have always been connected with the traditions of the East. We must not forget that the Christianity of the Catacombs was likewise a religion of Oriental origin.”

So much for the western fylfot. The oriental form even in the extreme east of Asia can be traced without difficulty to the svastika of India. There can be no doubt that the fylfot and the svastika are genetically allied, but it is not at present very easy to demonstrate all the links of the chain. Here again I quote from Count Goblet d’Alviella.

“The svastika does not appear on the coins struck in Bactriana, or in India, by Alexander and his Indo-Greek successors. Even amongst the Indo-Scythians, whose coinage copies the Greek types, it is only visible on barbarous imitations of the coins of Basu Deva. On the other hand, as we have shown, it adorns the coins of Krananda and the most ancient monetary ingots of India. Moreover, Panina, who already makes mention of the svastika, is sometimes considered to have lived in the middle of the fourth century B.C. It might therefore be possible that the Hindus had known the svastika before feeling in their arts, and even in their symbolism, the influence of the Greek invasion.

“Yet, for the best of reasons, it is neither the Chaldæans, the Assyrians, the Phœnicians, nor even the Egyptians, who can have imported the gammadion to Hindustan.

“There only remain, then, the Persians, whose influence on the nascent arts of India was certainly felt before Alexander. But in Persia itself the gammadion only appears as an exception on a few rare coins approaching our era.

“Perhaps we would do well to look towards the Caucasus, where the antique ornaments with gammadions, collected by M. Chantre, lead us back to a civilisation closely enough allied, by its industrial and decorative types, to that of Mycenæ.

“Until new discoveries permit us to decide the question, this gap in the genealogy of the svastika will be equally embarrassing for those who would like to make the gammadion the common property of the Aryan race, for it remains to be explained why it is wanting amongst the ancient Persians. It is right, too, to call attention to its absence on the most ancient pottery of Greece and the Archipelago, where it only appears with geometric decoration.

“If the gammadion is found amongst none of the nations composing the Egypto-Semetic group; if, amongst the Aryans of Persia, it never played but a secondary and obliterated part, might it not be because the art and symbolism of these different nations possess other figures which discharge a similar function, whether as a phylactery, or else as an astronomical, or a divine symbol? The real talismanic cross of the countries stretching from Persia to Lybia is the _crux ansata_, the key of life of the Egyptian monuments. As for their principal symbol of the sun in motion, is it not the Winged Globe? There would seem to be between these figures and the gammadion, I will not say a natural antipathy, but a repetition of the same idea. Where the gammadion predominates—that is to say, in the whole Aryan world, except Persia—the Winged Globe and the _crux ansata_ have never succeeded in establishing themselves in good earnest. Even in India, granting that these two last figures really crossed the Indus with the Greek, or the Iranian symbolism, they are only met within an altered form, or with a new meaning.

“In brief, the ancient world might be divided into two zones, characterised, one by the presence of the gammadion, the other by that of the Winged Globe as well as of the _crux ansata_; and these two provinces barely penetrate one another at a few points of their frontier, in Cyprus, at Rhodes, in Asia Minor, and in Lybia. The former belongs to Greek civilisation, the latter to Egypto-Babylonian culture.

“As for India, everything, so far, tends to show that the svastika was introduced into that country from Greece, the Caucasus, or Asia Minor, by ways which we do not yet know. However that may be, it is owing to its adoption by the Buddhists of India that the gammadion still prevails amongst a great part of the Mongolian races, whilst, with the exception of a few isolated and insignificant cases which still survive amongst the actual populations of Hindustan, and, perhaps, of Iceland, it has completely disappeared from Aryan symbolism and even folk-lore.”

~TABLE ILLUSTRATING THE MIGRATIONS OF THE FYLFOT (AFTER GOBLET D’ALVIELLA.)~

? ? ?
~Centuries B.C. & A.D.~ ................
. .
Anterior to XIIIth . Troas
. |
. +---+----+
. | |
About XIII or XII. . <-- Mycenæ --> |
+----------+--------+-----+
Villanova Greece | |
From XI to VI. <-- | (Pottery) ..... Caucasus
+-----+------+----+--+ <-- | .
| | | | +-----------+ .
| | | | Etruria | .
| | | | | Greece (Coins) .
To VI. | | | | | +-----+------+ . ?
| | | | | Thrace and| | .
To V. | | | | | Macedonia | Asia Minor .
| | | | +-----+-----+ . .
To IV. | | | | Sicily | . ? .
| | | +--------+ ..........
To III. | | | Gaul | <-- ? .. . ? | |India
+-----+------+----+-----+ ... .......+-+
From II. B.C. Scandi- Ger- British N. | ... . | |
to II. A.D. navia mania Isles Africa|... Persia | China
| | | |
To III. A.D. | Rome (Catacombs) | |
+-+ | +-+
from III to VIII. | +-+ |
| | |
To IX. Iceland Thibet Japan

B. _The Psychology of Symbolism._

Signor G. Ferrero[196] has investigated the psychological laws of symbolism, using that term in its widest aspect. After giving a sketch of the history of the Fylfot, which is largely borrowed from that by Count Goblet d’Alviella, he proceeds to give its psychological interpretation in the following words (p. 148):—

[196] Guillaume Ferrero, _Les Lois Psychologiques du
Symbolisme_, 1895. (Translated from the Italian.) I am indebted
to my friend Havelock Ellis for the reference to and loan of
this book.

“I believe that this symbol of the motion of the sun became transformed into a mystic symbol, precisely because it was a metaphorical symbol. The signification of a pictographic symbol can not be forgotten, for the sensation of the symbol directly recalls the image or the idea of the object; there are not in that case intermediate states of consciousness which can be eliminated. But when it concerns a metaphorical symbol, these intermediate states of consciousness exist, for the symbol must be interpreted, especially if a very imperfect and rude delineation is in question, whose relation to the object represented is of the slightest. The figure of a tree directly recalls to me the idea or image of the tree; but a circle drawn with three or four legs does not directly suggest to me in itself the precise idea of the motion of the sun; there is at least the possibility of different interpretations, and at all events there must be an original and independent act of interpretation. The significance of the symbol, finally, can only be known if one undertakes an investigation of induction and interpretation, or if one associates with an inspection of the symbol the remembrance of an explanation which has been given, or of an interpretation which we had formerly discovered for ourselves.

“Now this state of consciousness, which serves for the interpretation of the symbol, would have been necessary if the symbol of the cross had ministered to the needs of existence, to commerce or politics, for example; but as it was a religious symbol whose use did not vary according to the truth and the exactness of its interpretation, it is evident that this state of consciousness would become useless in the long run, and the brain would relieve itself of it in a short time. The _croix gammée_ (fylfot) was, like genuflexions and the other mimic symbols of ceremonial, a symbol employed in relation with the divinity; accordingly, the same cause which rendered useless in the ceremonial the state of consciousness, which we have called γ,[197] has rendered useless the state of consciousness which could interpret the solar signification of the cross. It was, in short, a religious symbol employed in relation to God; rightly or wrongly interpreted as it may be, prayer and other propitiations tended to the same result; the state of consciousness which served for its interpretation was then not necessary, and the brain little by little relieved itself from it. This state of consciousness being eliminated, it was forgotten that the sign of the cross represented the sun, because this was a metaphorical symbol too vague to directly recall the idea of solar movement.

[197] See note on next page.

“When the state of consciousness which served for the interpretation of the design was gradually eliminated, all the religious sentiments which had the sun and its cult for their object were addressed to the cross; that is why it has become the object of so profound a veneration, without any one knowing its signification or origin; the cross reaps for its profit the inheritance of the solar cult of which it has ceased to be a symbol, in order to become almost a divinity by itself. The cross thus became a mystic symbol of which the applications became very numerous, and even very confused.

“All this, I repeat, is only a supposition, but it may enable us to affirm that, whatever may be the origin of the cross, its evolution, very probably, can only be explained from the point of view of the theory of the ideo-emotional arrest.”

A. _Note on Mental Inertia._

Signor G. Ferrero has studied what he terms “mental inertia” and “the law of least effort,” as applied to the mind, and he finds that the mental operation may stop short at certain points; thus he distinguishes (1) _mental arrest_, (2) _emotional arrest, and_ (3) _ideo-emotional arrest_.

(1.) The first is due to a deficiency in logic; as, for example, when machinery was first introduced, the workmen smashed the machines, regarding them as the cause of the fall in wages, and being ignorant of the fact that the altered conditions were caused by complicated economic conditions, and not by the machines.

(2.) An analogous phenomenon occurs in the domain of the emotions. An emotion is not isolated, it is always one link of a chain. The emotions are always associated with a more or less great number of images or ideas which define them. But the image or the idea of the thing which should define the emotion sometimes dwindles or entirely disappears; it then follows that the emotion, instead of being associated with the image or with the idea of this thing, is associated with the symbol which represents this thing; it stops short at the symbol instead of projecting itself beyond the symbol towards the thing represented.

This is the _emotional arrest_. It is notorious that in religion the adoration which should be paid to God in heaven is often arrested at the images which represent the divinity, as when the elders of Israel said, “Let us fetch the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of Shiloh unto us, that, when it cometh among us, it may save us out of the hand of our enemies ... and the Philistines were afraid, for they said, God is come into the camp.”[198]

[198] 1 Samuel iv. 3, 7.

(3.) There is yet a third psychological process by which the confusion between the symbol and the thing symbolised is possible; it is the _ideo-emotional arrest_. In an analysis of the mental state of a man who performs acts of social ceremonial, this author finds (p. 133) that “to each completed act there corresponds, in the spirit of man, three states of consciousness, quite distinct and associated:—

“1. The desire to cause the man to be favourable to him in whose
presence the ceremonial act is accomplished (α);
“2. The idea that the ceremonial act can serve this purpose (β);
“3. The idea that the act can serve this purpose because the
suppliant understands that he who has put himself in the
position where he is unable to do harm cannot have any
dangerous intention (γ).

“The mental state of those who entreat the gods was, in this primitive period, composed of the same three states of consciousness, quite distinct but inter-related:—

“1. The desire to make the divinity favourable to oneself (α);
“2. The idea that certain acts or practices (prayers, visits,
etc., etc.) conduce to this result (β);
“3. The idea of the reason for which these acts have this
power—that is to say, the conviction that they are adapted to
the character attributed to the divinity (γ).

“It is evident that if we compare the mental state of men who are in harmony with ceremonial observances in this primitive period of ceremonial with the mental state of civilised men who still observe ceremonial, social, and religious rules, we find that in the mental state of civilised men the third state of consciousness—that is to say γ, has been eliminated. In fact, we have remarked that, among civilised man, the performance of a ceremonial act is determined by the desire to render himself favourable to, or at least not to offend another person or a God (α), and from the idea that these acts can produce this effect (β); without knowing why (that is to say that γ has been eliminated).

“We have seen that by the law of mental inertia, a state of consciousness—image, idea, emotion—cannot last for ever, after the exciting cause has ceased to act, for a state of consciousness is a transformation of energy, and it finishes when it has exhausted its initial quantity of force.

“Only the states of consciousness which, being necessary for the needs of existence, are preserved by permanent excitation,—be this excitation simple and direct or complex and indirect—can have an apparently eternal persistence; the duration of useless states of consciousness is limited.

“This is true for individuals or bodies of men. To each institution, to each custom, etc., there correspond in the mind of man a certain number of associated ideas, which have determined alike its birth and transformation; but, according to this law, only the ideas which are necessary should be preserved in this association of ideas; the others should be gradually eliminated.

“This interesting psychological phenomenon of _ideo-emotional arrest_ concludes by profoundly modifying ideas and feelings. It modifies ideas, for it induces what I have termed a _mental arrest_; the ideation, in fact, by the loss of the state of consciousness γ, is arrested at β; and the mind is contented to know that a certain act will produce a certain effect, or will express a certain sentiment, without troubling itself with the cause, without seeking for an explanation. It modifies, and, so to speak, displaces the feelings, for it produces that what I call an _emotional arrest_: in fact, when the idea of the true character of the ceremonial act is lost, the act is no longer a sign of certain inclinations of sentiment, but itself becomes an object of veneration. We see men who pay attention only to ceremonial and who neglect the feelings on which it should be based ... they believe they have fulfilled their religious duties, even if love and devotion are wanting, if they have not neglected the ceremonies. It is the same with the social ceremonial; for the majority of men, social duty does not consist in loyalty, in mutual affection, in a spirit of justice towards others, but in ceremonial observances; and when the ceremonial code is not violated they are persuaded that they have nothing for which to reproach themselves. It is a true _emotional arrest_, for the sentiments of social and religious duty are, so to speak, arrested midway in purely external acts.”[199]

[199] _Loc. cit._, p. 139.

THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD OF STUDYING DECORATIVE ART.

There are two ways in which art may be studied—the æsthetic and the scientific.

The former deals with all manifestations of art from a purely subjective point of view, and classifies objects according to certain so-called “canons of art.” These may be the generally recognised rules of the country or race to which the critic belongs, and may even have the sanction of antiquity, or they may be due to the idiosyncrasy of the would-be mentor.

In criticising the art of another country it must be remembered that racial tendencies may give such a bias as to render it very difficult to treat foreign art sympathetically. Western Europe and Japan are cases in point. Dogmatism in æsthetics is absurd, for, after all, the æsthetic sense is largely based upon personal likes and dislikes, and it is difficult to see what sure ground there can be which would be common to the majority of people.

The æsthetic study of art may very well be left to professional art critics.

We will now turn to a more promising field of inquiry, and see what can be gained from a scientific treatment of art. This naturally falls into two categories, the physical and the biological.

I am not aware that much has been done towards establishing a physical basis for art. The pleasurable sensations which line, form, and colour may give rise to are doubtless analogous to those caused by musical sounds, but with this difference, that the latter are caused by the orderly sequence of particular vibrations, whereas the vibrations of the former are synchronous. It is possible that not only must the character of these vibrations be taken into account, but that the structure of the human eye and personal equation must be allowed for in an analysis of the pleasurable sensations caused by any work of art. These remarks necessarily refer only to the forms of things; their meaning and the sensations thereby evoked belong to the domain of psychology.