Section IL, 1885. [ 23 ] Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada. 



II. — Vita sine Liter is. 



By John Keade. 



(Presented May 28, 1885.) 



lu an age to which the Preacher's words as to the endless making of books might 

 almost seem to haA^e prophetic reference, it is not easy to realize a state of society in which 

 there were no books at all. And yet, with our means of rapid communication, it would 

 not be difficult for one living in the very heart of civilization to be transported in a few 

 days to regions, which are as bookless as were the shores of the St. Lawrence when Jacques 

 Cartier sailed up that river. Prolific as is the modern press and varied as is its off- 

 spring, there is comparatively but a mere handful of humanity that either knows or cares 

 anything about its operations or its products. In some countries — Great Britain, France, 

 Germany, the United States — the proportion of the inhabitants who can read and write 

 is pretty large. But if we consider the totality of what is called civilization, it will still 

 be found that, in comparison, the number of readers is extremely small.' Much smaller, 

 if we contemplate the millions of humanity on the globe, will be the ratio of those to 

 whom the book is a thing of necessity. If, indeed, as has been said, life without letters 

 is death, then the vast mass of mankind has not yet begun to live. To imagine, then, 

 what the world was like, when there were no books, we have only to fancy what it 

 would be if it were altogether, as to tastes and opportunities for gratifying them, what 

 certainly more than nine tenths of its inhabitants still are. And for countless ages it 

 remained iu that condition — without books or any thought of books. 



The life of humanity is so long that, compared with its whole duration, that portion of 

 it, of which we have written or eA^eu monumental records, is entirely ephemeral. If w^e 

 wish to get at the beginning of any art or industry, we must antedate history by a great 

 many centuries. The Greeks, we know, had a fashion of cutting short the labour of research 

 by massing the sixccessiA'e striA'ings and experiments of many generations under a single 

 name, ^sculapius, Amphion, Dœdalus, Minos, stood for the achievements in medicine, or 

 music, or architecture, or law-making, of a great number of earnest workers and thinkers. 

 If we ask to Avhom -we are indebted for the boon of letters, the answer from many sources 

 will be Cadmus, the Phoenician. And in this, as in the other cases mentioned, there may 

 be something of truth. It Avas through the Phœnicians that the Greeks obtained their 

 alphabet. But many minds had set themselves to the problem before the Phœnicians or 

 other Semites had received the hint which they turned to such good account. Long 

 before their day of power, the inA^entive genius of the Egyptians had almost mastered the 



' " I don't Buppose that we who have tlie habit of reading, and at least a nodding at-quaintanco with literature, 

 can imagine the bestial darkness of the great mass of ]»ople. — even i)eoiJe whose houses are rich and whose linen 

 is purple and tine." The Rise of Silas Laphani, by W. D. Howells. 



