86 The Rev. Dr. Wall on the Nature, Age, and Origin of the 



four or five and twenty consonants and vowels of which those syllables are com- 

 posed. While, on the other hand, the Abyssinian was forced to recollect all 

 through, the two hundred and two signs of his system, together with their 

 powers. 



The errors which have in the foregoing pages been exposed respecting the 

 essential nature of alphabetic writing, it may be here by the way noticed, were 

 committed in a capital which affords, by its libraries and learned societies, the 

 greatest assistance to studious investigation ; and are those, not merely of a man 

 of some talent and research, but also of one who devoted particular attention to 

 a branch of the very subject in question. Now when, under such circumstances, 

 an author has betrayed ignorance of the essential principles of alphabetic con- 

 struction, is it to be supposed that they are discoverable by men of the lowest 

 grade in the scale of intellect, and destitute of all external aid, such as those to 

 whom the independent invention of alphabets has been attributed ? But although 

 a knowledge of what is essential to an alphabet is not necessary to the making 

 use of one already formed, or to the deriving from that one others by imitation ; 

 yet it is obviously requisite to the original and independent formation of any such 

 system. 



Still further I have to remark, that with human inventions there is always 

 connected something subject to external observation, which consequently leaves 

 room for the operation of what is called accident or chance in their production ; 

 and that it is only from small beginnings that they ascend by gradual improve- 

 ment to great and noble specimens of art. But in the Imaginary case of the 

 independent contrivance of an alphabet, there is nothing external upon which 

 observation can act, till after some system of phonetic signs is constructed ; and 

 the getting at the first principle of the construction is by far the most difficult 

 part of the entire problem. The articulate sounds of language are much too 

 numerous and too fleeting to form of themselves an immediate subject for classi- 

 fication ; and no remedy can be derived from the substitution of signs, unless they 

 be chosen in such a manner as to avoid the use, to any considerable extent, of 

 homophones or diaphones, that is, of different signs for the same sound or of the 

 same sign for different sounds. But experience shows that mankind are quite 

 incapable of attending to this caution till they are acquainted with the reason for 

 it, or till they have the advantage of an example to follow, which latter aid is 



