328 Memoir of Dr. Thomas Young. 



Remusat, whose name I cannot mention without regret- 

 ting his death, as one of the greatest losses which literature 

 has for a long time experienced, has proved hoth hy his 

 own experience and that of his pupils, that the Chinese 

 may he learned like every other language. It is a mistake 

 to suppose that hieroglyphic characters can only he em- 

 ployed to express common ideas. Some pages of the Yu- 

 kiao-li or the Two Cousins are sufficient to shew, that the 

 most subtile matters do not escape mChinese writings. The 

 principal defect of this method of writing is, that it affords 

 no means for expressing new names. A letter written from 

 Canton to Pekin could have told that on the 14th of June, 

 1800, a very memorable battle saved France from great 

 danger ; but it could not tell in purely hieroglyphic 

 characters, that the plain where this glorious event took 

 place was near the village of Marengo, and that the 

 victorious general was Buonaparte. A people, among 

 whom the communication of proper names from one city to 

 another could only take place by means of messengers, 

 cannot have exceeded the rudiments of civilization. Such 

 is not the case, however, with the Chinese. Hieroglyphics 

 constitute the majority of their writings ; but sometimes, 

 and especially when it is wished to write a proper name, 

 they are deprived of their ideographic meaning in order to 

 express sounds and articulations, and to form true letters. 



The question of priority, which the Egyptian methods of 

 writing has originated, can be easily explained and com- 

 prehended. We find, indeed, in the hieroglyphics of the 

 ancient people of the Pharaohs, all the methods which the 

 Chinese at present make use of. 



Several passages in Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, and 

 Saint Clement of Alexandria shew that the Egyptians em- 

 ployed two or three kinds of writing, and that in one them, 

 at least, the symbolic characters or representations of 

 ideas bore a conspicuous part. Horapollon has preserved 

 the signification of a certain number of these characters. 

 Thus, we know that the sparrow-hawk represents the soul; 

 the ibis the heart ; the pigeon (which is remarkable) a vio- 

 lent man; a flute a madman ; the number sixteen, pleasure ; 

 a frog an imprudent man ; the ant, knowledge ; a slip-knot, 

 love; Sfc. 



