84 On the Origin of 
tain at least, that all the modern European 
nations except the Russians, who probably 
received them direct from the Greeks, derived 
their knowledge of letters from the Romans. 
The Romans obtained them from the Greeks, 
who if we are to credit tradition, received 
them by the hands of Cadmus from the Phe- 
nicians.* The Coptic, Ethiopic, and Ara- 
* Dr. Hartley, who is a zealous, and for the most part 
an able, advocate of the opinion we are now examining, 
supposes that the Phenicians learnt the use of letters from 
the Philistines, and must needs have it that these and all 
the other neighbouring nations continued in complete igno- 
rance of the art, till the taking of the ark by the Philis- 
tines, put them in possession of the copy of the law there 
deposited, which Dr. Hartley, upon what grounds I know 
not, seems to think was the only specimen of alphabetical 
writing at thattime in the world; although according to his 
own account, the art had then been in existence among the 
Israelites for some centuries. But this way of accounting 
for the communication of the method, seems to me very 
strange and unnecessary. Surely it isnot at all likely that 
two nations should remain so long in the same country as 
the Philistines and the Israelites, between whom there 
seems to have been a constant intercourse going on, of one 
kind or another, without the communication of so remark- 
able an invention as this. If the Philistines had not learnt 
the use of letters before the taking of the ark, they were 
not likely to be induced to study them from such an occur- 
rence. The true state of the case, I have no doubt, is, that 
long before this time, the practice of alphabetical writing 
was become very general among all the nations who inha~ 
bited this district. 
