350 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book I IT. 



which all the languages, that now are, or ever were, upon earth, 

 are derived. This, I think, is of itfelf a very great difcoverv, in 

 the hiftory of arts and faiences, and of man. But if it be likewife 

 true, what I have endeavoured to prove, that the native country of 

 this original language was Egypt, and that it was the parent country 

 of other arts and of fciences ; I think, I may fay, that I have com- 

 pleated the hiilorv of arts and fciences, v;hich I think a mofi; im- 

 portant part of the hiftory of man, as it is by thefe he is made an 

 intellectual creature in aSlualhy^ and not in capacity only, as he was 

 in his natural ftate. 



As there muft have been a progrefs in the art of language, as well as 

 in other arts, and I believe a longer and more difficult progrefs than 

 in any other, I will here obfcrve the firft ftep in the formation of a 

 language of art. Men, when they firft began to fpeak, would naturally 

 draw out the articulate lounds they had learned to a great length, re- 

 fembling their animal cries before they had learned to articulate, and 

 which we know is the cafe at this day of the barbarous languages. 

 But when they began to form a language of art, it was natural that 

 they fhould firft make words of one fyllable, before they made word's 

 of two or more; for the progrefs of all arts is from what is fimple to 

 what is complex. And this firft beginning of a language of art, is, as 

 r have elfewhere obferved*, ftill preferved in China, being imported to 

 that country from Egypt, before it was there brought to perfection. 

 And this, I think, is the only way that fo extraordinary a pheno- 

 menon, as the Chinefe language is, can be accounted for ; for I do 

 not think that, imperfedl as it is, it could have been invented by the 

 Chinefe themfelves, who are, I believe, what Dr Warburton calls 

 them, a dull uninventive people. And as M. de Guigues has pro- 

 ved that they got their hieroglyphical or fymbolical writing from 



Egypt, 



* Vol. 6th of Origin of Language, p. iq8. See alfo what I have faid, p. 276 ofl 

 Shis voUime. 



