Alphabetical Characters. 95 
might lead towards the desired point. Nor, 
in order to prove that any invention was the 
fruit of the unassisted efforts of the human 
understanding, is it necessary to point out 
exactly the steps of the enquiry which led to 
the device in the mind of the original inven- 
tor. If we could not point out one of these 
steps, it would not follow that the human 
powers were unequal to the discovery. Nor 
would this circumstance, singular as to some 
it may appear, be at all peculiar to the inven- 
tion of letters. The whole history of the 
arts abounds with examples of it. Who can 
pretend to point out the circumstances which 
led Guttemberg, or whoever invented print- 
ing, to the discovery of that art? Who can 
delineate the progress of that man’s mind who 
devised the application of water to machinery 
for the purpose of grinding corn? To point 
out with precision in either of these cases the 
successive steps of the progress so imperi- 
ously demanded, will perhaps be found no 
very easy undertaking ; but no one, I appre- 
hend, ever supposed on that account that the 
art of constructing water ec was a divine 
revelation. 
> Having thus’ atupled of the principal ar- 
guments which have been ty forward in 
support of this hypothesis, I’ shall now pro- 
