Here we want to confine ourselves to saying that representation through the medium of a symbol is one of the indirect modes of representation, but that all sorts of indications warn us against indiscriminately lumping symbolic representation together with other types of indirect representation without having a clear conceptual understanding of such distinguishing characteristics. In some cases, what the symbol has in common with the actual thing for which it stands is obvious; in others it is hidden, making the choice of symbol appear puzzling.
