95 
THE ORIGIN OF PRINTING, AND ITS 
DEVELOPMENT—TO THE END OF 
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 
(Wirn Lantern Views.) 
By Mr. HENRY GUPPY, M.A., of the John Rylands’ Library. 
17th February, 1903. 

Modern research and criticism had demonstrated that the same 
law of evolution applied to mentai as to physical phenomena, and 
that in both cases what is, follows by fixed law what was. 
Looked at in this light, Printing, as indeed all other Arts, never 
had a beginning: they were successive results, as harvest 
followed seed time, and the acorn the oak. 
Printing, in its broadest sense, was as old as creation’ When 
did books begin? Did they all know what a book was? Metal, 
wood, bark, stone, clay, brick, papyrus, &c., and even rocks had 
been used for conveying information, as well as the modern 
volumes of paper sheets. Our own popular term takes us back to 
the time when men made use of wood and bark for preserving 
and conveying information. As to why books began to be made, 
there were two material cravings which assert themselves in 
every man: the wish to learn what had been done by those who 
had lived before them, and the wish on the other hand, to 
transmit their names and the memories of their deeds to those 
who should come after them. That was a worthy ambition, and 
part of the craving after immortality, which had never been 
absent from any human soul. 
Mechanical printing was only about 450 years old, and paper 
was not known in the western world till the Thirteenth Century. 
Before man could record his thoughts, two things were necessary 
—languages and the art of writing. Picture writing was first 
practised by the Esquimaux, the Chinese, and the Mexicans. 
The pointing hand (K") was a pictorial symbol, saying as 
plainly as words, ‘‘look there.” It was when writing was in 
this state that books were produced. The next step was the 
symbolic—the taking of a symbol to illustrate an idea, such as 
the example given by the Roman figures. We now have many 
mechanical arts by which writing is multiplied. The telegraph 
annihilated space, and enabled us to speak to our contemporaries, 
but the art of writing can speak to ages unborn. As someone 
had expressed it, ‘ Writing is the light which, so to speak, 
photographs every step of human progress for the benefit of all 
future generations.” 
