88 ON THE DATE AND ORIGIN 
We shall, therefore, adopt a more general method of inquiry, and, 
commencing with the indisputable age of letters in Greece and other 
countries, shall ascend with caution to the earliest writer of whom 
probable record remains. 
Our inquiry, then, in ascending into the obscurities of time, will be 
directed, as far as is practicable, by the following assumptions :—I st, 
That the date of an extant or recorded author will prove the inven- 
tion of letters by, or prior to, such author. 2nd, That where records 
of authors cease, letters had but a short, if any, prior existence; and 
that such records may be supposed to have ceased where the succes- 
sion or continuity of writers has ceased for many centuries. 3rd, 
If the first recorded authors of all known nations appear to be poste- 
rior to one author of one country, the date (and country) of that au- 
thor will be the date (and country) of the invention of letters. 
The rhetoric of Demosthenes, the metaphysics of Plato, the social 
philosophy of Socrates, the manly narratives of Xenophon and Thu- 
cydides, attributing the actions to the passions of men, without the 
admixture of divine agency ; the highly-wrought dramas of Sophocles, 
of Euripides, and of Aeschylus, are sufficient evidence of the existence 
of phonetic letters during and prior to the fourth and fifth centuries 
before the age of christianity; and it might appear as sceptical to 
suppose that such productions were unaided by the contemplation of 
anterior authors, as that they were addressed to a people unpolished 
by the prior reception of letters. The simplicity of Herodotus (the 
most ancient Grecian historian extant, as we ascend nearer to the 
days of darkness) is characterized by the credulity of those days ; his 
probable histories of humanity are disfigured by his ready admission 
of mythologies ; and a long blank of authentic history lies behind the 
middle of the fifth century before christianity, which has been filled 
and embellished by the imagination of bards and legendaries. The 
works of Acusilaus of Argos, of Hellanicus of Lesbos (who complet- 
ed a real or imaginary history of the ancient kings of the earth), of 
Pherecides of Syros, of Dionysius and Hecatzus, both of Miletus, 
have perished amidst the wreck of time and the flagitious rancour of 
sectaries, or survive in the questionable form of extracts in posterior 
authors. The learned and eloquent Dr. Gillies, in denominating these 
latter historians (the earliest of whom flourished about 520 3.c.)+® 
48 Jt is not, however, to be supposed, because no literary author existed 
prior to this date, that therefore letters had hot antecedently been in use.— 
The probability is, that, for purposes of utility, they had been some time 
