On an Universal Character. 93 
duced to no discovery at all; and is only the effect 
of a very moderate stretch of reasoning. 
This fact, respecting the Chinese language, has 
been long known in Europe; but as mankind al- 
ways depreciate the acquirements of others who ex- 
ceed them in knowledge, so our European philoso- 
phers have been liberal in their abuse of the Chinese 
mode of writing; representing it as an unwieldy 
chaos of crude materials, which the life of a manis — 
not sufficient to unravel. I have found only one 
European (M. de Guignes) who had made himself 
perfectly master of the Chinese writing, in Europe; 
and another (M. Freret), who had made very con-. 
siderable progress in it before he died; but, so far 
were these men from complaining of the defects al- 
leged against that mode of writing, that they admir- © 
ed it exceedingly. 
Still, however, when I contemplated the subject 
at a distance, it appeared to be environed with dread- 
ful difficulties. The number of characters that would 
be wanted seemed to be so great, that there would be 
difficulty in forming them so distinct from each 
other, as to be in no danger of being confounded; 
—and to retain all these in the mind so as to use 
them readily, appeared to be a still more difficult task. 
But provided these two difficulties were surmounted, 
how would it be possible to reduce such characters 
to the form of a dictionary of easy reference? or 
how could printers acquire a facility in using such 
