﻿374 THE SEVENTH DISCOURSE t 



We have ocular proof that the few radical charac- 

 ters of the Chinese were originally (like our astrono- 

 mical and chymical symbols) the pictures or outlines 

 of visible objects, or figurative signs for simple ideas, 

 which they have multiplied by the most ingenious 

 combinations and the liveliest metaphors ; but, as the 

 system is peculiar, I believe, to themselves and the 

 Japanese, it would be idly ostentatious to enlarge on , 

 it at present ; and, for the reasons already intimated, 

 it neither corroborates nor weakens the opinion which 

 I endeavour to support. The same m:y as truly be 

 said of their spoken language ; for, independently of 

 its constant fluctuation during a series of ages, it has 

 the peculiarity of excluding four or five sounds which 

 other nations articulate, and is clipped into monosyl- 

 lables, even when the ideas expressed by them, and 

 the written symbols for those ideas, are very com- 

 plex. This has arisen, I suppose, from the singular 

 habits of the people ; for, though their common 

 tongue be so musically accented as lo form a kind of re- 

 citative, yet it wants those grammatical accents, with- 

 out which all human tongues wdu-Jd appear monosyl- 

 labic. Thus Amitd) with an accent on the first syllable, 

 means, in thfe Sanscrit laifgiidge, immeasurable ; and 

 the natives of Bengal pronounce it Omito ; but when 

 the religion ol Buddha, the son of Maya, was carried 

 hence into China, the people of that country, unable 

 to pronounce the name of their new God, called him 

 Foe, the son otMo-ye^ and divided his epithet Amita 

 into three syllables O-mi-to, annexing to them certain 

 ideas of their own, and expressing them in writing 

 by three distinct symbols. We may judge from this 

 instance, whether a comparison of their spoken tongue 

 with the dialects of other nations can lead to any cer- 

 tain conclusion as to their origin ; yet the instance 

 which I have given, supplies me with an argument 

 from analogy, which I produce as conjectural only, but 

 which appears more and more plausible the oftener I 



i 



