PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 129 



tercourse subsisting between the lonians and the Phoenicians. 4 * 

 According to the views which, since Champollitn's great dis- 

 covery, have been generally adopted regarding the earlier con- 

 dition of tne development of alphabetical writing, the Phoeni- 

 cian as well as the Semitic characters are to be regarded as a 

 phonetic alphabet, that has originated from pictorial writing, 

 and as one in which the ideal signification of the symbols is 

 wholly disregarded, and the characters are considered as mere 

 signs of sounds. Such a phonetic alphabet was, from its very 

 nature and fundamental character, syllabic, and perfectly able 

 to satisfy all requirements of a graphical representation of 

 the phonetic system of a language. " As the Semitic written 

 characters," says Lepsius, in his treatise on alphabets, " pass- 

 ed into Europe to Indo-Germanic nations, who showed through- 

 out a much stronger tendency to define strictly between vowels 

 and consonants, and were by that means led to ascribe a high- 

 er significance to the vowels in their languages, important and 

 lasting modifications were effected in these syllabic alphabets."! 

 The endeavor to do away with syllabic characters was very 

 strikingly manifested among the Greeks. The transmission 

 of Phoenician signs not only facilitated commercial intercourse 

 among the races inhabiting almost all the coasts of the Med- 

 iterranean, and even the northwest coast of Africa, by form- 

 ing a bond of union that embraced many civilized nations, 

 but these alphabetical characters, when generalized by their 

 graphical flexibility, were destined to be attended by even 

 higher results. They became the means of conveying, as an 

 imperishable treasure, to the latest posterity, those noble fruits 

 developed by the Hellenic races in the different departments 

 of the intellect, the feelings, and the inquiring and creative 

 faculties of the imagination. 



The share taken by the Phoenicians in increasing the ele- 

 ments of cosmical contemplation was not, however, limited 

 to the excitement of indirect inducements, for they widened 

 the domain of knowledge in several directions by independent 

 inventions of their own. A state of industrial prosperity, based 

 on an extensive maritime commerce, and on the enterprise 

 manifested at Sidon in the manufacture of white and colored 



* See the passages collected in Otfried Mttller's Minyer, B. 115, and 

 in his Dorier, abth. i., s. 129; Frariz, Elementa Epigraphices Graces, 

 1840, p. 13, 32, and 34. 



t Lepsius, in his memoir, Ueber die Anordnung *und Verwandtschaft 

 des Semitischen, Indischen, Alt-Persischen, Alt-sEgyplischen und sEthio- 

 pigchen Alphabets, 1836, s. 23, 28, und 57 ; Gesfiuius, Scriptures Phce- 

 nicice Monumenta, 1837, p. 17. 



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