126 ANTI ENT M ET AP H YSICS. Book II, 



which words are conneded together in the found as well as the 

 fenfe, men have contrived to make five millions of words, the num- 

 ber fuppofed to be in the Latin language *, comprehenfible in their 

 memories and of ready ufe. This muft appear very extraordinary to 

 a man who compares the Chinefe written language with fuch a lan- 

 o-uage as the Latin. The number of Chinefe charaders is computed 

 to be no more than 80,000. ; and though they have the diftindion of 

 radical or elemental charaders, and of charaders derived from thefe t? 

 yet it is a certain fad, that the learned among the Chinefe fpen<] a great 

 part of their lives in learning their charaders ; whereas a boy, in 

 the fpace of feven or eight years, may make himfelf fo much raafter 

 of the Latin language, as to be able readily to underftand any au- 

 thor in it, and even to fpeak it, if he pradife that alfo. 



And, here I conCiUde what I have to fay of the matter and form 

 of a language of ait : And, I hope, the reader will not think it im- 

 proper, that in treating of fo important a part of the hiftory of man, 

 as the invention of arcs, I fhould have dwelt fo long upon the in- 

 vention of the firft and greateft art among men, and which is the 

 foundation of all the other arts of civil life, and of civility itfelf. 

 It is the mod univerfal art among men, as well as the moft an- 

 tlent ; and, by means of the writing art, it is made the moft 

 lading. The knowledge of it alfo leads to the knowledge of 

 many other things concerning our fpecies, particularly our migra- 

 tions from one country to another, fuch as that of the Ma- 

 jars, or Hungarians, as they are now called, from a country fi- 

 tuated betwixt the Euxine and Cafpian Seas to Hungary and Lap- 

 land X, and the migration of our anceftors, the Goths, from Crim 



Tartary 



• This is a computation of Bifliop Wilkins, in his moft curious work upon language, 

 which he gives us from Varro. See vol. H. of Origin of Language, p, 482. 



+ Pare Du Halde, Tom. 2. p. 226. See alio the book I have quoted above, Mif- 

 tiUatisous Pieces relating to the Chinefe, vol. I. p. 18. 



X See vol. VI. of Origin of Language, p. 138. ; and vol. I. p. 594. 



