152 REPORT — 1851. 



source, are still open questions. Thus much, however, is certain, that all the 

 civilized nations with which we are acquainted in Asia and Europe, have 

 either passed through the various steps of the process which I have just 

 described, or have borrowed the Semitic syllabarium in some stage or other 

 of final development. 



It is by no means necessary that the use of alphabetic writing should 

 precede the formation of a national literature. On the contrary, the purely- 

 epic period in a national literature will generally, if not always, precede the 

 adoption of a mode of writing calculated to supersede the memory, especially 

 in the case of those languages which still retain their etymological structure, 

 and are thus calculated to meet the exigencies of uniform metre, and to pass, 

 by oral teaching, from one generation of bards to another in unbroken suc- 

 cession. It is pretty clear that the Pali literature of the Buddhists was 

 committed to writing long before the Brahmins borrowed from them the 

 means of writing down their old epic and religious poetry. So that although 

 the Sanscrit language is in a more perfect etymological condition than the 

 Pali, and though the Vedas and even the Mahdhhdrata are older than the 

 Pali inscriptions, the records of the Sanscrit literature are preserved in bor- 

 rowed characters of comparatively recent date. Notwithstanding all that 

 has been written on the Homeric question, it remains a fact that the epic 

 poetry of the Greeks is of earlier date than their adoption or familiar use of 

 the Semitic alphabet. The result has been, in both cases, that the forms of 

 the words in Greek and Sanscrit retain their exuberant fullness, which in 

 the former language is unaffected even by the existence of a perfectly logical 

 syntax. The converse cases are furnished by the Old Egyptian and Chinese 

 languages, which never entirely shook ofFthe symbolical and sensual reference 

 of their written characters. The Egyptian, indeed, did in the end arrive at 

 a purely phonetic use of its hieroglypliic signs; but the Chinese never lost 

 the point of departure suggested by their sidng-hing or " figurative images;" 

 the highest abstraction being that of the hing-ching or "figurative sounds," 

 which however were always combined with ideographic or pictorial signs. 

 The palaeography of the Semitic nations lies half-way between that of the 

 Greeks and Indians, who adopted no system of writing except the alphabetic, 

 and did not make use of this until their poetical literature had taken root 

 and began to flourish ; and tiiat of the Chinese and Egyptians, who employed 

 picture-writing instead of their memories from the very earliest period, and 

 who never attained to a perfectly abstract and simple alphabet. I believe 

 that the first Semitic alphabet was due to the Hebrews rather than to the 

 Phoenicians. The Sacred History of this nation tells us that their great 

 legislator was educated in Egypt at a time when the phpnetic hieroglyphs 

 were in general use, and there cannot be the least doubt that the Phoenician 

 and Hebrew characters may be traced to particular signs in the Egyptian 

 Byllabarium. Some very satisfactory specimens of this have been given by 

 Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood in the ' Transactions of the Philol. Soc' vol. v. 

 No. 101. It has always appeared to. me a most interesting fact, that we 

 should owe our first alphabet to the same race from which we derive the 

 foundations of our religion. Picture-writing and picture-worship are inti- 

 mately connected. Abstraction is anti-idolatrous, and is manifested in the 

 invention of an alphabet quite as much as in the adoption of a pure theism : 

 nor would I quarrel with any one, if he thought fit to ascribe to the same 

 inspiration, tiie Commandments written on the two tables of stone, and the 

 simple characters by Avhich they expressed their meaning. Be this as it may, 

 it seems pretty clear that the Hebrews never had any but an alphabetical 

 system of writing ; and it is also clear that they had no literature except that 



