316 THOMAS YOUNG. 
glyphies ; they do not represent sounds or articulations, 
but zdeas. 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, 
&ce., 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- 
— ee a a —_ 
