186 



had a similar origin. It might therefore be supposed that 

 long after the invention of a syllabic alphabet, it might have 

 served as a step to the invention of the other. But this 

 conjecture, though a natural one, seems not to be well 

 founded. The powerful mind that invented alphabetic writ- 

 ing could have derived but little assistance from so weak an 

 auxiliary — It would have been but an impediment to his 

 progress; and by furnishing him with the means, however 

 operose and unwieldy, of transmitting his verses to posterit3% 

 would have ^deprived him of the strongest incentive to the 

 attempt. 



This, however, must remain a doubtful question : but it is 

 easy to perceive that in refining on the discovery of the 

 original inventor, other ingenious persons may have contribut- 

 ed additional letters if other sounds should be detected which 

 he had omitted to note; or adopting the principle and re- 

 jecting the characters, applied a new set of those arbitrary 

 signs to represent some other language with which they har- 

 monised better; while others may have formed a new ar- 

 rangement of the original characters, in support of some sys- 

 tem, or for the purpose of more easily instructing the ignor- 

 ant. Yet when we look over the generality of alphabets, 

 nothing like system or arrangement appears. Vovvels and 

 consonants, liquids and mutes — the representatives of every 

 sort of sound, whether labial, dental, palatine, or nasal, are 



