466 Professor Renwick on 



And so in Diodorus Siculus*: * He first distinguished the 

 articulate sounds of language, and gave a name to many 

 things before destitute of name ; he invented letters ; pre- 

 scribed sacrifices and the worship of the gods ; he first ob- 

 served the course of the stars, and the nature and harmony of 

 sounds.' 



' Letters,' says Pliny f , c I think always existed among the 

 Assyrians ; but others, as Gellius, think they were discovered 

 among the Egyptians by Mercury ; others again among the 

 Syrians. Anticlides says that they were invented in Egypt by 

 a person of the name of Meno, fifteen years before the time of 

 Phoroneus, the most ancient king of Greece, and endeavours 

 to prove it from monuments.' In the last passage we find 

 attributed to Menes the father, what was due to the son. 



This extract from Pliny derives considerable interest from 

 modern discoveries. He states the discrepancy of opinion, by 

 which it seems, on the one hand, that the Assyrians had always 

 possessed letters, while, on the other, they were ascribed to the 

 Egyptians as inventors. We now know that the writing of the 

 Nile and Euphrates, if, perhaps, equally ancient, were founded 

 upon totally distinct principles ; the former being composed of 

 the resemblance of physical objects, originally extremely nu- 

 merous ; the latter of but two arbitrary and simple symbols, 

 made to express varieties of sound by their position in respect 

 to the horizon. It has so happened that the former, happily 

 simplified, seems to have extended its influence throughout 

 the greater part of the world, while the latter, although ob- 

 viously preferable, has sunk into such entire oblivion, that 

 even to decypher it mocks the industry and patience of the 

 most learned. From the Egyptians, the Hebrews and Phe- 

 nicians obviously borrowed the principle on which their alpha- 

 bets were founded ; hence proceeded the Greek, the Roman, 

 and the alphabets of modern Europe. Hence also, on the 

 other hand, diverged the Arab, and all the characters of the 

 present civilized nations of Asia, except the Chinese. Thus, 

 then, if in days of ignorance and debasement, the elevation of 

 the creature to honours due only to the Creator could be pal- 



* Diodori, lib, i. t Plinii lib, vii v 



