symbolical writing

This is the same rude symbolical writing which we find among other uncivilized nations, the Americans for example, and among these, the Mexicans in particular.

This is at least indicated by the tradition and mythology of all nations; and such a supposition is quite conformable to the spirit of those early ages; and I would here remind you that, in the primitive symbolical writing of the Chinese, the sign of a magician represents also a priest—a character which, as Remusat has observed, is not to be found in the narrow circle of their symbols.

Nature too, has her mute language and her symbolical writing; but she requires a discerning intellect to gain the key to her secrets, to unravel her profound enigmas; and, piercing through her mysteries, interpret the hidden sense of her word, and thus reveal the fulness of her glory.

We may call this metaphorical writing, but it is better to call it symbolical writing, because metaphors are not profound enough to be moving, when they are not symbols, and when they are symbols they are the most perfect, because the most subtle, outside of pure sound, and through them one can the best find out what symbols are.

If such were actually the case, the remains of symbolical writing would now be most discoverable in the radical, or elementary characters, of which we shall presently have occasion to speak, and especially in those which were employed to express some of the most remarkable objects in nature.