A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



thirty vowels sounds to indicate the pronunciation of 

 the words of our every-day speech, shows how we let 

 memory and guessing do the work that might rea- 

 sonably be demanded of a really complete alphabet. 

 But, whatever its defects, the existing alphabet is a 

 marvellous piece of mechanism, the result of thou- 

 sands of years of intellectual effort. It is, perhaps 

 without exception, the most stupendous invention of 

 the human intellect within historical times an achieve- 

 ment taking rank with such great prehistoric dis- 

 coveries as the use of articulate speech, the making 

 of a fire, and the invention of stone implements, of 

 the wheel and axle, and of picture-writing. It made 

 possible for the first time that education of the masses 

 upon which all later progress of civilization was so 

 largely to depend. 



