Alphabetical Characters. " Gt 
- It has been supposed* not altogether incon- 
ceivable that when such characters were im- 
proved to all that variety aud muitiplicity 
whichis necessary for representing all kinds 
of objects, they might be capable of resolu- 
tion into their simple component parts, and 
rendered pronunciable, by affixing some sim- 
ple or short sound to each of these parts, and 
that thus an association, being established 
between the sound and the mark, the sound 
would at length become the name of the 
mark ; and the mark the picture of the sound. 
But it would seem more probable that a set 
of arbitrary characters (expressing, it must 
be always remembered, not words but ideas), 
would be found not merely difficult of analysis, 
but absolutely incapable of it, since from the 
very mode of their formation, they could not 
be supposed to present those elementary con- 
stituent parts, which are necessary for this 
purpose. At any rate, it is obvious that the 
marks being formed upon entirely different 
Views, and in consequence of different analo- 
gies from those which regulated the formation 
of words, they would bear totally different 
relations of resemblance from those subsist- 
ing among the corresponding sounds. Hence 
* See Hartley on Man, Vol. 1. p, 301. 
