some authors as regular annals of the empire; but they might have some significancy by agreement; it is probable that, without oral interpretation, they would denote nothing more than that something was to be remembered, like the twelve stones in Joshua, iv 21, 22. Robertson, with more probability, supposes that they were a device for rendering calculation more expeditious and accurate: that by the various colours, different objects were denoted; and by each knot a distinct number. This is rendered still more probable by the circumstances, that picture-writing was used by the Peruvians; and, as the names of numbers must be denoted by arbitrary signs to render calculation at all extensive, this species of arbitrary sign might be more convenient for their rude arithmetic than any other. Picture-writing, such as was adopted by the Mexicans, is the first step of the progress towards letter-writing. The simplest species was a mere delineation of the object to be denoted. Thus the North American Indians, when they went to war, painted some trees with the figures of warriors often of the exact number of the party; and if they went by water, they delineated a canoe. Thus, too, the Mexicans, at the arrival of the Spaniards, sent large paintings on cloth, as dispatches to Montezuma. The Mexicans had made some progress beyond simple delineations; but of these their paintings are principally composed, and by a proper disposition of their fi gures they could exhibit a more complex series of events in historical order. Some very curious specimens of this picturewriting are preserved: the most valuable one has been published, and may be found in Purchas's "Pilgrim," or in Thevenot's "Collection of Voyages." It is divided into three parts: the first is a history of the Mexican Empire; the second is a tribute roll; and the third a code of their institutions.

The defects of this mode of communication must have been early felt. Where applicable, it was tedious, and was confined to objects of sense. The human intellect, stimulated by the necessity of improvement, would have proceeded through the same course in the New World as in the Old: but a stop was put to this progress by the destruction of the most cultivated empires Picture-writing, then the simple hieroglyphic, then the symbolical hieroglyphic, then the arbitrary character for words, and, lastly, for let

ters, was the evident progress of the mind. The Mexicans had actually, in some instances, passed through all the intermediate stages; though the short duration of their empire prevented them from extending these rudiments to a regular system. In the simple hieroglyphic, the principal part or circumstance of a subject is placed for the whole. In the historical painting before mentioned, towns are uniformly denoted by the rude delineation of a house, to which was added some distinguishing emblem; these emblems were denotements of their names, which were generally significant compounds. Kings and generals were in like manner denoted by heads of men, with similar emblematic marks conjoined. They also used the symbolical hierogly phic to denote a conqueror: they placed a target with darts between the characters, for the king, and the cities which he had subdued. Their marks for months and other portions of time, for the air, the earth, &c. were symbolical; and their ciphers are arbitrary characters; they painted as many small circles as there were units to 20, which had its proper mark; by the successive addition of these marks, they denoted numbers to 20 times 20, or 400, which again had its proper mark; then, by the successive addition of these, they denoted as far as 20 times 400, or 8000, which had a new character Whatever their advances, however, annals so conveyed must have been very imperfect; and accordingly they took great pains to instruct the young to supply the deficiencies, and to remove the ambiguities, by means of traditionary explanations. See Robertson's "America," vol. iii. p. 173180; from whom, and Clavigero, this account is derived.

Picture-writing, and its contraction, which is denominated the simple hieroglyphic, must be very inadequate for the purposes of communication. The figura tive hieroglyphic would soon be adopted; for oral language must have made some progress, before the use of permanent visible communication would be found necessary, and, consequently, must have given metaphorical meanings to the names of sensible objects. We here speak of hieroglyphics as intended for the purpose of communicating, not of conceal ing, knowledge. It was long thought that the latter was the first and only purpose. Warburton has proved that this was not their first use, but that which was made of them in a later period, particularly

'when the invention of letters had rendered the former purpose unnecessary. The simple hieroglyphic was, where the delineation of part of the object or action represented the whole. Thus the ancient Egyptians painted a man's two feet in water, to denote a fuller; smoke ascending, to denote fire; two hands, one holding a buckler, the other a bow, to denote a battle. The figurative hieroglyphic was of two kinds: one, where the instrument, real or supposed, was used to denote the performer, or the thing performed: the other, where one object was used to represent another, which had some real or suppose resemblance to it. Egyptian examples of the first kind are, an eye, and a sceptre, to signify a king; a sword, a bloody tyrant; the mouth, to denote speech or voice; the sun and moon, as a symbol for succession of time; an eye placed in an eminent position, for the omniscience of God. Examples of the second are, a dog's head (as among the Chinese a dog's voice,) to denote sorrow; dew falling from heaven, to denote science. To these may be added, as a mixed example, the inscription on the temple of Minerva at Sais; where are found, engraved on the vestibule, the figures of an infant, an old man, a hawk, a fish, and a river horse; the hawk and fish were the symbol for hatred, and the river horse for impudence: so that the literal translation would be, " young and old hate iinpudence," or, still more literally, "old man, infant, hatred, impudence." The Scythian king sent to Darius, a mouse, a frog, a bird, a dart, and a plough: if he had sent their delineations, it would have formed a similar specimen of the hieroglyphic.

Hieroglyphics would frequently be founded on the figures to which use had given currency in oral language. The procedure of the mind is the same in both; and they would mutually influence each other. With respect to the simple hieroglyphic, as that was a mere contraction of the full delineation in picturewriting, the only similarity we must expect to find in language is the contrac tion of words. Both were intended for the purpose of facilitating communication, by increasing its rapidity.

The first use of hieroglyphics was, to preserve the memory of events and institutions; such symbols, therefore, would first be adopted as were of obvious interpretation; viz those which were founded on prevailing opinions; as, the hyena, for a man bearing his distresses with for.

titude, and rising superior to them, because the skin of that animal was supposed to render the wearer dauntless and invulnerable; on those founded on oral language, which would be intelligible, when the analogies which gave rise to them were forgotten. By degrees they were employed for the more refined purposes of philosophy; and the analogies on which they were founded would require an acquaintance with the sciences from which they were deduced. Still nothing was done for concealment : at last superstition appropriated their use; and after the invention of letters, they were employed to keep the mysteries of the priesthood from the eyes of the profane vulgar. Their symbols were now formed of far-fetched resemblances; a cat was used to denote the moon, from the C pposed contraction or dilatation of the pupil of her eye, at different parts of the lunation. In common hieroglyphics, Egypt was denoted by a crocodile; in the sacred, by a heart on a burning censor. One animal, or other sensible object, was used to denote a variety of qualities; and the same idea was denoted by various hieroglyphics. This has attached to the whole hieroglyphical system the character of mystery when we trace the progress of the Chinese language, we shall have additional proofs of the injustice of this opinion.

The exact manner of delineation would be tedious and voluminous. The more use was made of visible communication, the more we may expect to find the character, originally insignificant, become a mere arbitrary mark. In the early stages of the Egyptian hieroglyphics, considera. ble attention was paid to the outline and filling up of their figures. Afterwards a rude outline was sufficient; and this was changed, for the convenience of the writer, till it lost every resemblance to the object it originally represented. Many changes in our own written character might be adduced, illustrative of this change from the delineation to the cursive hieroglyphic. The mark for and, for instance, was once the correct picture of et; some forms show its origin, as &; at present, in writing at least, it bears no features of resemblance to its original. The use of the cursive hieroglyphic would take off the attention from the symbol, and fix it upon the thing signified: a progress which we equally observe in oral language, where words, originally denotements of sensible objects, became the names for mental qualities

ments of science. Whatever be the justness of this idea, it is certain that these trigrams and hexagrams are not the ori

Visible characters having become arbitrary marks for ideas or words, two processes were pursued by different districts of Asia and Africa: the one was, to consider these characters as signs for sounds, and, by their intervention, of ideas; the other, as signs for ideas, without any reference to sounds. The latter was the procedure of the Chinese; the former, of all nations who used alphabetical characters.

On the Chinese Language.

We come now to the consideration of a language singular in all its parts, and possessed of such peculiar features, that it well deserves our attention. The written language of the Chinese has passed through all the gradations which we have described: and from their pictures, characters have become mere arbitrary marks; these are employed, not as signs for sounds, but for ideas; and their combinations and changes have no corresponding combinations and changes in the spoken language of China. Before the time of their first emperor, Fohi, the Chinese are supposed to have employed knotted cords, like the Peruvians. Fohi introduced in their place horizontal lines; (see Plate Miscel. fig. 14.) some whole, others divided; and by their combination in threes, formed the text of the most ancient Chinese work, called "Ye King." On these trigrams numerous commentaries have been written, some as early as 1100 years before Christ: they are supposed to contain, in a few lines, the most sublime truths, and are employed in divination; but they are still unintelligible. By Xin-nung, the successor of Fohi, sixty-four hexagrams (like those in fig. 15.) were invented, which are supposed to contain the whole circle of human knowledge. It is thought that these characters were taken from the knotted cords, and it seems to us probable that they expressed no more. The time of their invention, (which is carried back to the age of Noah,) and their apparent inadequacy to represent more than numbers, renders it highly improbable that they were intended to denote the mysteries of philosophy. The present numerals of the Chinese have an equal right to be esteemed the mysterious denote

numerous instances, the progress can be traced from pictures or symbols to the present form; in some the connecting steps are lost, but the general inference is still a just one. The present form seldom presents any traces of its original. Tien (fig. 16.) heaven, has no longer a natural or symbolical resemblance to the object; but it was first represented by three curved lines, (as in fig. 17.) and, through the various changes in fig. 18, it has arrived at its present form. Several other examples are given in the Philos. Trans, vol. lix.

Before we advance further respecting the written language of the Chinese, it will be proper to attend a little to their oral language. This, as was observed in LANGUAGE, is entirely monosyllabic; and all the words may be expressed by an European consonant and a vowel, with the exception of about one-third, which end with n, either simple or nasal. A monosyllabic language cannot be copious; and we expect to find it less so when the number of simple sounds are small. The Chinese have not the b, d, and r, of the Europeans; and the number of their words is only 330. The capabilities of their oral language are, however, much extended by the variation their words undergo, by means of tone and other inflexions of the voice. These changes require a very discriminating ear to perceive, and very flexible organs to express them; but we know the power of habit, and can readily admit that thus the meaning of their words may be extended, without confusion, even to things very opposite in their nature. When, however, we find (as Hagar informs us,) that the same word often answers to six hundred different significations, according to the tone with which it is pronounced, the place which it occupies, or the character by which it is expressed, we must suppose it it impossible to avoid frequent ambiguity.

Notwithstanding, however, all their changes in tone, &c. they have not more than 1,500 distinct sounds. Most nations have improved their oral languages; the Chinese have directed all their attention to the improvement of their written language, and they have formed combinations in their characters without any corresponding combinations in their sounds. Their changes are totally inde

pendent of each other; and the former are understood, where the sounds corresponding to them are different from those of the Chinese. In this respect they may be compared to the arithmetical ciphers, &c. The character for tsai, calamity, is an example of this independent combination; it is composed of mien, a house, and bo, fire. Our process is to join the oral words expressing the ideas we wish to combine: and we should use mienbo. We cannot easily and fully enter into this independency of character or sound, because all our words are more or less pictures of sound, and are so strongly associated with sound, that it is difficult to separate them completely, even in imagination. The Chinese, on the other hand, have no immediate connection between their words and their characters, so that it cannot be necessary in using their characters, to use the sounds at all.

All the Chinese characters are composed of 214 clefs or keys. These represent the most obvious and simple ideas; and by their combinations are produced expressions for the more refined and complex ideas. All these clefs were probably simple paintings, or symbols, and hence the whole written language may be fairly considered as deducible from the more obvious writing of the Mexicans and Egyptians. Indeed the resemblance between the ancient Chinese characters and the Egyptian hieroglyphics is so striking, and this in cases where the analogy on which both were founded is not an obvious one, that De Guignes considers them as certainly derived from the same source. These keys are at present formed from six simple strokes; a horizontal line, two perpendicular (the one pointed, the other blunt at bottom) a point, a line curved to the right, and another to the left. The greater part of the keys have from two to seven strokes; six only of one, and some have sixteen or seventeen. We are not however to suppose that the inventors of the Chinese characters fixed upon these six elements, and composed from them methodically. As the characters lost their correctness of delineation,the object was, to facilitate the labour of writing. Art by degrees reduced all the characters to the simple strokes we have mentioned.

These keys are either employed alone, as a character serving to express an idea; or differently combined in a group, forming a phrase expressive of the idea it is in tended to communicate. Thus the character for night is composed of three characters; one signifying darkness, another

the action of covering, the third signifying man, which, rendered literally, signifies darkness covering man; a phrase perfectly expressive, and similar to the language of poetry. Both in fact issued "from the cradle of the human race." Figurative language of this kind is much employed in the scriptures: we admire it; for it "comes home to our business and our bosoms." It paints to our minds, and calls up their conceptions forcibly and correctly. Hence, though the offspring of necessity, it is justly esteemed a beauty, and, wherever the language of feeling is employed, will generally be found a prevailing trait.

ous.

We might suppose that, all the characters being thus composed, nothing more would be necessary, in order to understand them, than to know the elementary characters; but the analogy on which the composition is formed is often extremely obscure, and often erroneTheir ancient principles of philosophy furnished wide scope for combination; but these were generally ill founded. Other combinations require a knowledge of their ancient customs and popular superstitions. Hence the ease which we should in theory expect in understanding a language so regularly formed vanishes; and an acquaintance with their whole round of physical and religious dogmata, with the fleeting customs and opinions of preceding ages, is necessary for a thorough acquaintance with the Chinese characters. This is not, however, entirely peculiar to the Chinese language. In order to trace the origin of words, the same references are often necessary; but we have more frequently the requisite data. Candidate, signifies a person who offers himself to fill a lucrative or honourable situation; the original meaning of the Latin Candidatus is, a person dressed in white. The two ideas seem to have no connection. The difficulty vanishes, however, when we learn that among the Romans all candidates wore white robes. In a similar manner we see no connection between running, and wrapping up the feet; but pao, the Chinese character for run, is composed of two, one for the act of wrapping, the other for feet. The probable connection is ascertained by the circumstance, that the savages of Louisiana, when about to undertake long marches, wrap up their feet, to prevent their being torn.

In the Chinese dictionaries the keys are placed in an invariable order, which soon becomes familiar to the student. The

different compounds each follow one another, according to the number of strokes of which each consists. The meaning and pronunciation are given by means of two words in common use. When no one common word expresses the exact sound, it is communicated by two connected, with marks to show that the consonant of the first word and the vowel of the second, joined together, form the precise sound wanting. Thus, to express the sound pien, pa and mien would be joined,with marks to denote the elision of the a and the m.

If the spoken language be scanty, this is not the defect of the written language Their characters amount to 80,000. A considerable part of them, however, may be considered as synonyma; thus age may be expressed by a hundred different characters, and happiness may be traced into as many forms in expressing the general wish for it. Different sects have their own characters; so that when a proper allowance is made, about 10,000 are sufficient for reading the best books of each literary period of their language. In alphabetical writing, words may be read without the least knowledge of their meaning; in the hieroglyphical, the sound is less intimately connected with the visible sign, and the character is studied and best learned by becoming acquainted with the ideas attached to it. But the terms of philosophy have been formed on that philosophy, so that a knowledge of the latter is necessary to a complete acquaintance with the former. These ideas we must call to mind, when we hear that their most learned men are not acquainted with more than half of them. The knowledge of the whole round of Chinese science and literature must surely be sufficient to occupy the life of the longest liver.

Transition to Letters.

Upon the principle that we ought not to suppose divine interposition, merely from the difficulty of accounting for a phenomenon, we should argue à priori that no divine interposition took place in the origin of alphabetical writing. As, however, some presumptive arguments in favour of the affirmative side of the question have been advanced by men of the first eminence, we shall state the most important of them, and after endeavouring to lessen the difficulty they may present to our admission of the human origin of letters, we shall point out

what appears to be the most probable account of their invention.

1. It is urged that, in order to give any plausibility to the hypothesis of the human invention of letters, it must be shown to be simple. Now if it were simple and obvious, it is highly probable that we should find instances of independent invention. But the fact is, that alphabetical writing may be traced to one source.

Two answers may be given to this argument. First, There is such a great dissimilarity among the Asiatic alphabets, that they cannot be proved to have issued from the same source. It must, however, be remarked, that the variations which we know to have taken place in numerous instances would destroy the force of any objection that might occur from this decided dissimilarity, if positive arguments were adduced to establish their identity of origin. But though these are apparently sufficient to render it probable, yet this probability is not great enough to give much weight to the argument in question. But even admitting its certainty, we may observe, secondly, that this can prove no more than the high antiquity of the invention. That it origi. nated before mankind were much separated from each other; and that the groundwork, laid by those who had made the greatest advances in cultivation, was built upon in different ways by those who afterwards penetrated to the remoter parts of the Continent. But it is urged,

2. That we not only have no instance of independent discovery, but have even the example of a nation, which had no communication with those among whom it was first known, remaining in total ignorance of it, and employing a procedure which now incapacitates them for the adoption of alphabetical writing. And the force of this objection is materially increased by the circumstance, that their writing, equally with the alphabetical, originated in the hieroglyphics, and actually went through the same stages, viz. from the simple picture to the arbitrary mark. The grand weight of the controversy appears to rest here. The difficulty this argument presents may probably be obviated by the following considerations.

First, The written language of China was cultivated more for the purposes of literature and philosophy than for those of common life; the combinations were formed by the literati, and it probably would not have been in their power to