90 On the Origin of 
however imperfect, of communicating ideas, 
they degenerated into objects of superstition, 
and from their complexity and intricacy con- 
tributed to confine learning and knowledgeof 
every kind, to the priests or other privileged 
orders, who alone had leisure and opportu- 
nity. to make themselves masters of such com- 
plicated and laborious contrivances. 
It must be recollected that all these me- 
thods differ essentially from that of alphabeti- 
cal writing in their fundamental. principle. 
It is their object to furnish visible symbols to 
denote things or ideas immediately, without 
any relation to the audible signs already in 
use; whereas the various combinations of let- 
ters express ideas only by forming written 
words analogous to the words used in spoken 
language. Agreeably to this distinction we 
find that the written symbolical character of 
the Chinese bears no relation whatever to di- 
versities of language, but is equally .under- 
stood, (so far as it is intelligible at all), ,in 
Tongquin, Tartary and Japan, the languages 
of which countries are totally different; pre- 
cisely in the same manner as collections of 
Arabic numerals, tables of logarithms. for 
instance, express the numbers they are em- 
ployed to represent equally in all countries and 
tongues. 
