THE EVOLUTION OF THE ALPHABET. 247 



The profane crowd to whom the initiated explained the meaning 

 of an inscription may have been equally astonished, and would 

 attribute a miraculous virtue to the written word. In the Edda 

 Brynnhild teaches Sigurd the supernatural power of the runes : 

 "Write the runes of victory if you would have victory; write 

 them on the hilt of your sword ; write others on the blade, speak- 

 ing Tyr's name twice ; write the runes of the storm if you wish 

 to save your ship amid the roaring of the breakers ; write the 

 runes of thought if you wish to become wiser than others. Odin 

 himself invented these runes." 



It was not in northern countries only that men persuaded 

 themselves that the word signifying power was powerful by 

 nature, and the one giving the idea of God was divine. It was 

 held as an article of faith in all countries that a written prayer 

 had a sovereign efficacy, and that a curse engraved on stone had 

 infallible effects. There are few epigraphic texts among those 

 cited by M. Berger that do not end with a curse. It has been re- 

 marked that nothing is rarer than a proclamation of police that 

 authorizes anything; not less rare is an ancient inscription in- 

 tended to bless any one. 



If the human race had never employed writing except to en- 

 grave inscriptions on stone, it would never have needed the alpha- 

 bet. The prime merit of writing on stone was to be architectural, 

 and unite mystery with majesty. But when commerce sought to 

 utilize the art to facilitate business transactions it was necessary 

 to simplify it, and place the occult science within reach of the 

 multitude. The object was no longer to perpetuate sentences and 

 memorable events, but to write in the easiest way the day's 

 thoughts, for which posterity would not care. Paper and the 

 calamus were substituted for stone and the chisel-point, and the 

 cursive writing appeared, which is favorable, as M. Berger re- 

 marks, to idleness of the hand, inasmuch as it permits it to make 

 with a single running line what had been made with many dis- 

 tinct lines, and is conformable to the law of the least effort. 



Of the systems of writing derived from the Phoenician alphabet 

 the most cursive found most favor, and made the most rapid 

 progress abroad. The Aramaic system held this place in the Ori- 

 ental world, and was accepted by all the Semitic peoples. The 

 Egyptians, though not a commercial people, felt the need of an 

 easier way of writing than by hieroglyphics for the common af- 

 fairs of life, and formed a current hand from the hieroglyphics, 

 which is called the hieratic. This was further simplified between 

 the twenty-first and twenty-fifth dynasties, and the popular or 

 demotic hand was invented for contracts and documents, for com- 

 mon use. But the Egyptians did not abandon their syllabic signs 

 and ideograms, their homophones and polyphones, and the sim- 



