ON THE CHINESE SYSTEM OF WRITING. H 



considers it to be a gigantic effort of human genius, and as performing what 

 we should have deemed impossible.* For my part, I confess that I cannot 

 see it in that exalted light. The invention of writing, generally, may be, and 

 is still every where, and, probably, with justice so considered. Almost all 

 nations have attributed that invention to their gods, or to their heroes, but 

 when comparing the Chinese system with the syllabic and elementary alpha- 

 bets, I do not think that its invention is to be attributed to a greater effort of 

 human genius. It was naturally pointed out by the peculiar structure of the 

 spoken language. The analysis of sounds, separated from any meaning, 

 required, indeed, an effort of the human mind; but when a language consisted 

 only of a small number of monosyllables, each of which was a word, the most 

 natural method that presented itself was to appropriate a written sign to each 

 word, first by rude pictures of visible objects, afterwards by metaphorical 

 images, and when these failed, then some new method, still founded on the 

 system of a character or group of characters to each word, was gradually 

 adopted, and at last methodized, when civilization had made sufficient prooress 

 to require it. For we must not believe that the Chinese system of writing was 

 originally invented by philosophers, and came out complete, like Minerva from 

 the head of Jupiter; it is more probable that it was the work of ages; and, 

 indeed, the ancient illegible inscriptions that still exist are sufficient to con- 

 vince us of it. The method that, in the end, has been adopted, to wit, the 

 grouping of two or three words in their appropriate characters, to recall to the 

 memory another word by something more or less connected with the idea that 

 it represents, and the classing those groups under a certain number of keys or 

 radicals is, indeed, ingenious; but I cannot see in it such an effort of the human 

 mind as the analysis of unmeaning sounds which produced the syllabic and 

 elementary alphabets. I believe, however, that the Chinese lexigraphj (as I 

 have taken the liberty to call it) is well suited to the language for which it 

 was made, and that it would be no improvement to substitute for it a common 

 syllabary or an elementary alphabet. The reason is in the great number of 

 hemophonous words in the Chinese language, which could not be so w^ell dis- 

 tinguished, in writing, from each other, as by the system now in use. This 

 ocular discrimination is the great advantage of the Chinese characters, which 



* Hist, of China, c. iii. 



