CHAP 7.] SIGNS OP THINGS WITHOUT WORDS. 217 



painted, durable. AVhen Periander, being consulted how to 

 preserve a tymnny newly usurped, bid the messenger repoi-t 

 what he saw ; and going into the garden, cropped all the tallest 

 flowers ;S he thus used as strong an hieroglyphic as if he had 

 drawn it upon paper. 



Again, it is plain that hieroglyphics and gestures have 

 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 in- 

 vented 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, therefore, 

 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, whilst words and writing with letters are much 

 more commodious organs of deliveiy ; yet we think proper 

 here to mention it as no inconsiderable thing. For whilst 

 we are treating, as it were, of the coin of intellectual 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.^ 



Grammar holds the place of a conductor in respect of the 

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

 extremely 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 

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

 Indeed, human industry strongly endeavours to recover those 



» Arist, Polit. iii. 13. The person who sent to consult Periander was 

 Thrasybulus of Miletus. Herodotus (v. 92) gives the opposite version of 

 the story, making Periander consult Thrasybulus. Compare the story 

 of Tarquin, told by Ovid, Fast. ii. 701. 



^ On this foundation. Bishop Wilkins undertook his laborious treatise 

 of a real character, or philosophical language ; though Dalgam pub- 

 lished a treatise on the same subject before him ; viz. at London, in the 

 year 1661 In tlie same year, Becher also published another to the 

 «ame purpose at Frdnkfort, entitled " Character pro Notitia Linguarum 

 Universali." See more upon this subject in Joachim Fritschii "Lingxia 

 Ludovicea," Kircher's "Polygraphia," Paschius's " luven^ Nov^i- An- 

 tique/* and M<'rhprs " PolyhisWr." Shan, 



