130 Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 



to the most remote quarters of the globe and to the 

 most distant periods of time narratives of the events 

 which are passing around me.' How difficult would 

 the sages have found it to believe that so apparently 

 simple a contrivance should be capable of such results. 

 Probably no single individual ever did invent letters 

 or establish such a claim to the gratitude of man- 

 kind. The process was probably a gradual one ; 

 hieroglyphics or cuneiform characters would probably 

 among all nations be the more obvious method of 

 recording events ; a rude representation of the thing 

 to be recorded, a battle or the erection of a building, 

 would be loughly sculptured in some durable mate- 

 rial ; then perhaps some conventional signs might 

 connect different events ; but the idea of representing 

 them by characters, not resembling or bearing any 

 reference in form to the objects to be described, 

 would be a much later process. Then would come 

 the idea of connecting these characters with sounds, 

 and gradually by successive stages arriving at a 

 written language. But the superiority of this mode 

 of expression would not at first be recognised, and 

 probably it was long before hieroglyphics were insen- 

 sibly and gradually supplanted by written words ; it 

 seems, indeed, that the two co-existed during the 



