1820.] Invention of Alphabetic Writing. 369 



while others may have formed a new arrangement of the origi- 

 nal characters in support of some system, or for the purpose of 

 more easily instructing the ignorant. Yet when we look over 

 the generality of alphabets, nothing like system or arrangement 

 appears. Vowels and consonants, liquids and mutes, the repre- 

 sentatives of every sort of sound, whether labial, dental, palatine, 

 or nasal, are hustled together, without distinction or order, 

 apparently as they issued at first from the brain that conceived 

 them. Nor would this be an unimportant observation were we- 

 fortunate enough to possess many of the writings of the primi- 

 tive times ; because it would furnish a test for discovering the 

 most ancient production in which alphabetic writing was used if 

 it happened that sucli a production were still ia existence. For 

 if on an analysis of the first lines of the work into their element- 

 ary sounds, by the process which I have endeavoured to 

 describe, the characters representing those sounds should arrange 

 themselves in the order of the alphabet — I mean the alphabet of- 

 the language in which the work was composed — little doubt 

 could remain that alphabetic writing was used for the first time 

 in recording that very composition ; and was invented in the 

 anxiety of its author to snatch from dissolution the perishable 

 sounds of which it consisted. 



Such an expectation is not now to be entertained ; and even > 

 if it might, the investigation could scarcely be desirable, except 

 to a mere antiquarian. A similar remark, perhaps, may be made 

 upon the discussion that has already detained us so long. I 

 have nothing to say in its defence. It examines a question of 

 mere idle curiosity ; and is scarcely interesting even to a few. 

 It is useless and unnecessary to any purpose or end ; unless, 

 indeed, it may be supposed of advantage to open a more favour- 

 able view of the powers of the human mind, and that it shall be 

 considered, not altogether fruitless or unserviceable to convince 

 the unprejudiced, even by a single instance, that the best and 

 only mode of overcoming similar difficulties is to persuade our- 

 selves that they are not insurmountable ; and to encounter them 

 by patient discrimination, and gradual, slow, and circumspect 

 induction, satisfied that it is unphilosophic, inconsiderate, and 

 puerile to disentangle every perplexity, by resorting to mira- 

 culous interposition, where a little sagacity will reduce the 

 achievement to the exertions of that reason, and those ener- 

 gies with which the Creator in his munificence has endowed 

 mankind. 



Vol. XVI. N*' V. 2 A 



