316 THOMAS YOUNG. 



glyphics ; they do not represent sounds or articulations, 

 but ideas. Thus a house is represented by a unique and 

 special character, which does not change even when the 

 Chinese have come to call a house, in their spoken lan- 

 guage, by a name totally different from that which they 

 formerly pronounced. Does this result appear surpris- 

 ing ? Imagine the case of our cyphers, which are also 

 hieroglyphics ; the idea of one added to itself seven times 

 is expressed everywhere in France, in England, in Spain, 

 &c., by the aid of two circles placed vertically one over 

 the other, and touching in one point ; but in looking at 

 this hieroglyphic sign (8) the Frenchman pronounces 

 "huit," the Englishman "eight," the Spaniard "ocho." 

 No one is ignorant that it is the same with compound 

 numbers. Thus, to speak briefly, if the Chinese idio- 

 graphic signs were generally adopted, as the Arabic 

 numerals are, every one would read in his own language 

 the works which they presented to him, without the need 

 of knowing a single word of the language spoken by the 

 authors who have written them. 



It is not so with alphabetical writing : 



" He who first taught us the ingenious art 

 To paint our words, and speak them to our eyes," 



having made the capital remark that all words of a spoken 

 language, even the most rich, are compounded of a very 

 limited number of elementary articulate sounds, invented 

 artificial signs or letters to the number of twenty-four 

 or thirty to represent them. By the aid of these signs 

 differently combined he could write every word which 

 struck his ear even without knowing the meaning 

 of it. 



The Chinese or hieroglyphic writing seems to be the 

 infancy of the art. It is not always, as has been some- 



