om the principles of minimum
muscular action and harmonic excitation. Such laws make themselves felt
unconsciously from the commencement of life, with greater or less power,
dependent on the susceptibility of the nervous system. They go far
toward explaining the recurrence and permanence of symbols, whether of
sight or sound. Thus I attribute the prevalence of the serpentine curve
in early religious art largely to its approach to the "line of beauty,"
which is none other than that line which the eye, owing to the
arrangement of its muscles, can follow with the minimum expenditure of
nervous energy. The satisfaction of the mind in viewing symmetrical
figures or harmonious coloring, as also that of the ear, in hearing
accordant sounds, is, as I have remarked, based on the principle of
maximum action with minimum waste. The mind gets the most at the least
cost.

The equilateral triangle, which is the simplest geometrical figure which
can enclose a space, thus satisfying the mind the easiest of any, is
nigh universal in symbolism. It is seen in the Egyptian pyramids, whose
sides are equilateral triangles with a common apex, in the mediaeval
cathedrals, whose designs are combinations of such triangles, in the
sign for the trinity, the pentalpha, etc.

The classification of some symbols of less extensive prevalence must be
made from their phonetic values. One class was formed as were the
"canting arms" in heraldry, that is, by a rebus. This is in its simpler
form, direct, as when Quetzalcoatl, the mystical hero-god of Atzlan, is
represented by a bird on a serpent, _quetzal_ signifying a bird, _coatl_
a serpent; or composite, two or more of such rebus symbols being blended
by synecdoche, like the "marshalling" of arms in heraldry, as when the
same god is portrayed by a feathered serpent; or the rebus may occur
with paronymy, especially when the literal meaning of a name of the god
is lost, as when the Algonkins forgot the sense of the word _wabish_,
white or bright, as applied to their chief divinity, and confounding it
with _wabos_, a rabbit, wove various myths about their ancestor, the
Great Hare, and chose the hare or rabbit as a totemic badge.[212-1]

It is almost needless to add further that the ideas most frequently
associated with the unknown object of religion are those, which,
struggling after material expression, were most fecund in symbols. We
have but to turn to the Orphic hymns, or those of the Vedas or the
Heb