By Thomas Inman, M.D.
Consulting Physician To The Royal Infirmary, Liverpool; Late Lecturer
Successively On Botany, Medical Jurisprudence, Materia Medica And
Therapeutics, And The Principles And Practice Of Medicine, Etc.; In The
Liverpool School Of Medicine; Author Of "Foundation For A New Theory And
Practice Of Medicine;" A "Treatise On Myalgia;" "On The Real Nature Of
Inflammation," "Atheroma In Arteries," "The Preservation Of Health,"
"The Restoration Of Health," "Ancient Faiths Embodied In Ancient Names,"
Second Edition,
Revised And Enlarged,
WITH AN ESSAY ON BAAL WORSHIP, ON THE ASSYRIAN SACRED "GROVE," AND OTHER
ALLIED SYMBOLS.
By John Newton, M.R.C.S.E., Etc.
The woodcuts in the present volume originally appeared in a large work,
in two thick volumes, entitled Ancient Faiths embodied in Ancient Names.
It has been suggested to me by many, that a collection of these Figures,
and their explanation, are more likely to be generally examined than a
very voluminous book. The one is, as it were, an alphabet; the other, an
essay. The one opens the eyes; the other gives them opportunities to
use their vision. The one teaches to read; the other affords means for
practice. As the larger work endeavours to demonstrate the existence
of a state of things almost unknown to the British public, so it
is necessary to furnish overwhelming proof that the allegations
and accusations made against certain nations of antiquity, and some
doctrines of Christianity, are substantially true. Consequently, the
number of witnesses is greater than is absolutely necessary to prove the
point.
12, Rodney Street, Liverpool,
July 1869.
The demand which has sprung up for this work has induced the Author to
make it more complete than it was originally. But it could not be
made perfect without being expanded into a volume whose size would be
incompatible with cheapness. When every Figure would supply a text for a
long discourse, a close attention is required lest a description should
be developed into a dissertation.
In this work, the Author is obliged to confine himself to the
explanation of symbols, and cannot launch out into ancient and modern
faiths, except in so far as they are typified by the use of certain
conventional signs.
A great many who peruse a book like this for the first time, and find
how strange were the ideas which for some thousands of years permeated
the religious opinions of the civilised world, might naturally consider
that the Author is a mere visionary--one who is possessed of a hobby
that he rides to death. Such a notion is strengthened by finding that
there is scarcely any subject treated of except the one which associates
religion, a matter of the highest aim to man, with ideas of the most
intensely earthly kind. But a thoughtful reader will readily discern
that an essay on Symbolism must be confined to visible emblems. By no
fair means can an author who makes the crucifix his text introduce the
subject of the Confessional, the Eucharist, or Extreme Unction. Nor can
one, who knows that Buddha and Jesus alike inaugurated a faith which was
unmarked by visible symbolism, bring into an interpretation of emblems a
comparison between the preaching of two such distinguished men. In
like manner, the Author is obliged to pass over the difference between
Judaism, Christianity as propounded by the son of Mary, and that which
passes current for Christianity in Rome and most countries of Europe.
All these points, and many more, have been somewhat fully discussed in
the Author's larger work, so often referred to in this, and to that he
must refer the curious. The following pages are simply a chapter taken
from a book, complete perhaps in itself, but only as a brick may be
perfect, without giving to an individual any idea of the size, style, or
architecture of the house from which it has been taken. If readers will
regard these pages as a beam in a building, the Author will be content.
8, Vyvyan Terrace,
Clifton, Bristol,
August, 1874.