130 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 



incessant use, as ships drag their anchors in a 

 gale. Those words that are exposed to common 

 use undergo the most rapid changes, while words 

 sheltered from the rush of human affairs, like 

 harboured ships, hold to their moorings forever. 

 Let, for instance, once meant * hinder ' ; now it 

 means ' allow.' Bisect, on the other hand, a 

 word of rare and technical use, has remained 

 unaltered in significance for twenty centuries. 



Even our alphabet has been evolved. The 

 twenty-six symbols composing it have been eroded 

 into the peculiar forms in which they appear at 

 present by the various peoples through whose hands 

 they have come to us. The originals were picto- 

 graphs such as are still found on the aged monu- 

 ments of earth's earliest civilisations. The English 

 got their alphabet from the Romans, who obtained 

 it, along with almost everything else they had, 

 from the Greeks. The Greeks received it from the 

 Phenicians, and the Phenicians from the papyrus 

 writers of Egypt, who in turn procured it from 

 those hierc^lyph chiselers who carved their curious 

 literature? the granite tombs of the Nile in the 

 remotest dawn of human history. A, the first 

 letter of our alphabet, is a figure which has been 

 evolved, as the result of long wear and tear, from 

 the picture of an eagle; B was originally the 

 picture of a crane ; C represents a throne ; D a 

 hand ; F an asp ; H a sieve ; K a bowl ; L a 

 lioness ; M an owl ; N a water-line ; R a mouth ; 

 S a garden ; T a lassoo ; X a chairback ; and Z 

 a duck. 



