PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 491 



a long period. Although the whole mythical relation of the 

 colony of Cadmus in Boeotia remains buried in obscurity, it is 

 not the less certain that the Hellenes obtained the alphabeti- 

 cal characters long known as Phoenician symbols, by means of 

 the commercial intercourse subsisting between the lonians and 

 the Phoenicians.* According to the views which, since 

 Champollion's great discovery, have been generally adopted 

 regarding the earlier condition of the development of alphabe- 

 tical writing, the Phoenician as well as the Semitic characters 

 are to be regarded as a phonetic alphabet, that has originated 

 from pictorial writing, and as one in which the ideal significa- 

 tion of the symbols is wholly disregarded, and the characters 

 are considered as mere signs of sounds. Such a phonetic 

 alphabet was, from its very nature and fundamental character, 

 syllabic, and perfectly able to satisfy all requirements of a gra- 

 phical representation of the phonetic system of a language. 

 " As the Semitic written characters," says Lepsius in his 

 treatise on alphabets, " passed into Europe to Indo-Germanic 

 nations, who showed throughout a much stronger tendency to 

 define strictly between vowels and consonants, and were by 

 tliat means led to ascribe a higher significance to the vowels 

 in their languages, important and lasting modifications were 

 effected in these syllabic alphabets."! The endeavour to do 

 away with syllabic characters, was very strikingly manifested 

 amongst the Greeks. The transmission of Phoenician signs not 

 only facilitated commercial intercourse amongst the races 

 inhabiting almost all the coasts of the Mediterranean, and 

 even the north-west coast of Africa, by forming a bond of 

 union that embraced many civilised nations, but these alpha- 

 betical characters when generalised by their graphical flexibi- 

 lity were destined to be attended by even higher results. They 

 became the means of conveying as an imperishable treasure to 

 the latest posterity, those noble fruits developed by the Hellenic 

 races in the different departments of the intellect, the feelings, 

 and the enquiring and creative faculties of the imagination. 



* See the passages collected in Otfried Mliller's Minyer, s. 115, and 

 in his Dorier, abth. i. s. 129; Franz, JElementa Epigraphices Grcecce, 

 1840, pp. 13, 32, and 34. 



t Lepsius, in his memoir, Ueber die Anordnungund Verwandtschaft 

 des Semitischen, Indischen, Alt- Per slacken, A U-^Egyptischen undMikio- 

 pischen Alphabets, 1836, s. 23, 28, und 57; Gesenius, Scriptura Phoe- 

 nicia Monumenta, 1837, p. 17. 



