the
ordinary things of a simple, wandering life. These symbols were
compounded to form ideographs, as _aleph_ = a, and _lamed_ = l,
being the first and last of the zodiacal circle, were employed for
the name of the Creator, the reverse of these, _la_, signifying
non-existence, negation, privation. In course of time a language
and a literature would be evolved, but from the simple elements
of a nomadic life. Knowledge came to them by action and the use
of the physical sense. They had no other or more appropriate
confession of this than is seen in the root [Hebrew letters] yedo--
knowledge, compounded of the three symbols _yod_, _daleth_, _oin_--
a hand, a door, an eye. The hand is a symbol of action, power,
ability; the door, of entering, initiation; the eye, of seeing, vision,
evidence, illumination.

Hence the ideograph formed by the collation of these symbols
signifies, opening the door to see, _i.e._ enquiry.

The Chinese alphabet of forms is entirely hieroglyphic and
symbolical in its origin, though it has long assumed a typal
regularity. What were once curved and crude figures have
become squared and uniform letterpress. But the names of these
forms bring us into touch at once with the early life of the
Mongolian race. We have, however, indications of a wider scope
than was enjoyed by the primitive Semites, for whereas we
find practically all the symbols of the Hebrews employed as
alphabetical forms, we also have others which indicate artifice,
such as _hsi_, box; _chieh_, a seal or stamp; _mien_, a roof;
_chin_, a napkin; _kung_, a bow; _mi_, silk; _lei_, a plough, and
many others, such as the names of metals, wine, vehicles, leather
in distinction from hides, etc. But further, we have a mythology
as part of the furniture of the primitive mind, the dragon and the
spirit or demon being employed as radical symbols.

Considered in regard to their origin, symbols may be defined as
thought-forms which embody, by the association of ideas,
definite meanings in the mind that generates them. They wholly
depend for their significance upon the laws of thought and the
correspondence that exists between the spiritual and material
worlds, between the subject and object of our consciousness, the
noumenon and phenomenon.

All symbols therefore may be translated by reference to the
known nature, quality, properties and uses of the objects they
represent. A few interpretations of symbols actually seen in the
mirror may serv