250 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



always some similitude with the things signified, and are in 

 reality emblems; whence we call them congruous marks 

 of things: but real characters have nothing of emblem, as 

 being no less mute than the elementary letters themselves, 

 and invented altogether at discretion, though received by 

 custom as by a tacit agreement. Yet it is manifest that a 

 great number of them is required in writing ; for they must 

 be as numerous as the radical words. This doctrine, there 

 fore, concerning the organ of speech, that is, the marks of 

 things, we set down as wanting; for although it may seem 

 a matter of little use, while words and writing with letters 

 are much more commodious organs of delivery; yet we 

 think proper here to mention it as no inconsiderable thing. 

 For while we are treating, as it were, of the coin of intel 

 lectual matters, it is not improper to observe that as money 

 may be made of other materials besides gold and silver, so 

 other marks of things may be invented besides words and 

 letters. 8 



Grammar holds the place of a conductor in respect of the 

 other sciences ; and though the office be not noble, it is ex 

 tremely necessary, especially as the sciences in our times 

 are chiefly derived from the learned languages. Nor should 

 this art be thought of small dignity, since it acts as an anti 

 dote against the curse of Babel, the confusion of tongues. 

 Indeed, human industry strongly endeavors to recover those 

 enjoyments it lost through its own default. Thus it guards 

 against the first general curse, the sterility of the earth, and 

 the eating our bread in the sweat of the brow, by all the 

 otner arts; as against the second, the confusion of languages, 

 it caiio in the assistance of grammar. Though this art is of 

 little use in any maternal language, but more serviceable 



8 On this foundation, Bishop &quot;Wilkins undertook his laborious treatise of a 

 real character, or philosophical language ; though Dalgarn published a treatise 

 on the same subject before him; viz., at London, in the year 1661. In the same 

 year, Becher also published another to the same purpose at Frankfort, entitled 

 &quot;Character pro Notitia Linguarum Universali. &quot; See more upon this subject in 

 Joachim Fritschii &quot;Lingua Ludovicea,&quot; Kircher s &quot;Polygraphia, &quot; Paschius s 

 &quot;Iriventa Nova- Antiqua, &quot; and Morhof s &quot;Polyhistor. &quot; Shaw. 



