An idol is an object, generally an image, worshipped for its own sake--being supposed to not only represent a god, but to have some immanent sanctity. The Catholic priest, and for that matter all Brahmins or bonzes, assure us that their sacred images are "only symbols, not regarded as really dwelling-places of divinity." They are not, so to speak, magnified amulets. Yet how is it that, if this be true, so many images and pictures are regarded and represented by priests as being able of themselves by the touch to cure tooth-ache, and all other ills which flesh and bones are heirs to. Why is one image especially good for tooth-ache, while another of the same person cures cramp? Why, if they are all only "symbols," is one more healing or holy than another? How can our Lady of Embrun be of greater aid than our Lady of Paris? The instant we ascribe to an image or a shell real power to act, we make of it an inspired being in itself, and all the sophistry in the world as to its being a means of faith, or a symbol, or causing a higher power to act on the suppliant, is rubbish. The devotee believes tout bonnement that the image works the cure, and if he did not, any other image of the Virgin or Saint would answer the same purpose. This chaff has been thrashed out a thousand times--or many tens of thousand times in vain,--as vain so far as effects go as is the remarkably plain First Commandment. And it will last, while one fetish endures, that the hierophant will call it a mere "symbol," and the ignorant worshipper, absolutely unable to comprehend him, will worship the symbol as the thing itself--as he is really expected to do. According to J. B. Friedrich, "Symbolik der Natur," the sea-shell, on account of its being a product of the sea, or of the all-generating moisture; and much more probably from its shape, is an emblem of woman herself. Therefore as "Venus, Love's goddess, was born of the sea," shells are dedicated to her. ("Museo Bourbonico," vol. vi. p. 10. Kugler, "Handbuch Geschichte der Malerei," Berlin, 1837, vol. iv. p. 311. Also translated by Sir H. Austin Layard). Being one of the great emblems of productive Nature, or of life and light, and opposed to barrenness, absence of pleasure, darkness, or negation, it was of course a charm against witchcraft or evil. That the gypsies have retained it as a powerful agent for "luck," is extremely interesting, showing to what a degree they are still influenced by the early symbolism which effectively formed not one but many mythologies. Among the Hungarian gypsies the virtue or magical power of a shell is in proportion to the degree of resemblance above mentioned, which it possesses, as Wlislocki expressly declares. This association of shells, with the mysterious and magical, is to be found among gypsies in the East, as is shown by the following: from my work entitled "The Gypsies." It describes something which I saw many times in Cairo:--