PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 127 



alphabet in which the ideal signification of the pictured 

 signs is wholly disregarded, and these signs or characters 

 are treated exclusively as signs of sound. Such a phonetic 

 alphabet, being in its nature and fundamental form a syllabic 

 alphabet, was suited to satisfy all the requirements of a 

 graphical representation of the phonetic system of a language. 

 S( When the Semitic writing," says Lepsius, in his treatise 

 on the alphabet, " passed into Europe to Tndo-Germanic 

 nations, who all shew a much stronger tendency to a strict 

 separation between vowels and consonants (a separation to 

 which they could not but be led by the much more significant 

 import of vowels in their languages), this syllabic alphabet 

 underwent very important and influential changes." ( l67 ) 

 Amongst the Greeks, the tendency to do awa^ with the 

 syllabic character proceeded to its full accomplishment. 

 Thus not only did the communication of the Phoenician 

 signs to almost all the coasts of the Mediterranean, and even 

 to the north-west coast of Africa, facilitate commercial in- 

 tercourse and form a common bond between several civilised 

 nations, but this system of written characters, generalised 

 by its graphic flexibility, had a yet higher destination. 

 It became the depository of the noblest results attained by 

 the Hellenic race in the two great spheres of the intellect and 

 the feelings, by investigating thought and by creative imagina- 

 tion ; and the medium of transmission through which this im- 

 perishable benefit has been bequeathed to the latest posterity. 

 Nor is it solely as intermediaries, and by conveying an 

 impulse to others, that the Phoenicians have enlarged the 

 elements of cosmical contemplation. They also inde- 

 pendently, and by their own discoveries, extended the 

 sphere of knowledge in several directions. Industrial 



