Atlantic, when Kaiser
Joseph pocketed their Iron Crown; an implement, as was sagaciously
observed, in size and commercial value little differing from a
horse-shoe? It is in and through _Symbols_ that man, consciously or
unconsciously, lives, works, and has his being: those ages, moreover,
are accounted the noblest which can the best recognize symbolical worth,
and prize it the highest. For is not a Symbol ever, to him who has eyes
for it, some dimmer or clearer revelation of the Godlike?

"Of Symbols, however, I remark farther, that they have both an extrinsic
and intrinsic value; oftenest the former only. What, for instance, was
in that clouted Shoe, which the Peasants bore aloft with them as ensign
in their _Bauernkrieg_ (Peasants' War)? Or in the Wallet-and-staff round
which the Netherland _Gueux_, glorying in that nickname of Beggars,
heroically rallied and prevailed, though against King Philip himself?
Intrinsic significance these had none: only extrinsic; as the accidental
Standards of multitudes more or less sacredly uniting together; in
which union itself, as above noted, there is ever something mystical and
borrowing of the Godlike. Under a like category, too, stand, or stood,
the stupidest heraldic Coats-of-arms; military Banners everywhere; and
generally all national or other sectarian Costumes and Customs: they
have no intrinsic, necessary divineness, or even worth; but have
acquired an extrinsic one. Nevertheless through all these there glimmers
something of a Divine Idea; as through military Banners themselves, the
Divine Idea of Duty, of heroic Daring; in some instances of Freedom, of
Right. Nay the highest ensign that men ever met and embraced under, the
Cross itself, had no meaning save an accidental extrinsic one.

"Another matter it is, however, when your Symbol has intrinsic meaning,
and is of itself _fit_ that men should unite round it. Let but the
Godlike manifest itself to Sense, let but Eternity look, more or less
visibly, through the Time-Figure (_Zeitbild_)! Then is it fit that men
unite there; and worship together before such Symbol; and so from day to
day, and from age to age, superadd to it new divineness.

"Of this latter sort are all true Works of Art: in them (if thou know a
Work of Art from a Daub of Artifice) wilt thou discern Eternity looking
through Time; the Godlike rendered visible. Here too may an extrinsic
value gradually superadd itself: thus certain _Iliads_, and the like,
ha