Note 22 — LETTER VIII.

[The more extended our acquaintance with ancient monuments or ancient writings becomes, the more simple and human do we find their signification to be. It has been the case with Egypt, Assyria, with Mexico, and indeed with most of those monuments that occur in connexion with the ancient world, in the popular acceptation of the word. If mystery and types possess a home anywhere, it must be in India, for even in Yucatan, the hieroglyphics seem very simple and the reverse of mysterious, when properly examined, as I hope to prove one day, in an extended investigation into Mexican antiquities, upon which the labour of some years has been bestowed. Instead of seeking for such remote causes, the reader will do well to consider the simple opinion of Gliddon, in his Otia, Lecture VIII. Burke’s Ethnological Journal, No. IX. p. 395, regarding the origin of animal worship. I should not have been led to this lengthy note if I did not feel that, while the earliest tenets of worship were indeed veiled in types (the result, however, as much of accident as design), animal worship is too recent to conceal any such mysterious dogmas. I do not wish to place my notion in competition with that of Lepsius; this is a mere suggestion.—K. R. H. M.]