42 M. Arago on the Egyptian Hicroglyphical Writings. 



the infant state of the art. It is not true, however, as was for- 

 merly supposed, that even in China itself, the long life of a 

 studious mandarin must be spent in learning to read. Remusat, 

 whose name I cannot utter without recognising the severest loss 

 that literature for a long time has sustained, has established both 

 by his own experience, and by the scholars he annually reared by 

 his side, that the Chinese might be learned like any other lan- 

 guage. Nor is it, as at first view it might be thought, that the 

 hieroglyphic characters can represent only very simple ideas ; a 

 few pages of the romance Yu-Kiao-li, or of the Two Cousins, 

 will be sufficient to establish that the subtlest and most exqui- 

 site abstractions may be embodied in the Chinese writing. The 

 main fault of this kind of writing appears to be its inability, in 

 any way, to express new names. Thus, although a person at 

 Canton might be able to write word to Peking, that, on the 14th 

 day of June 1800, a most memorable battle saved France from 

 great danger ; yet he would not know how, in characters purely 

 hieroglyphic, to apprize his correspondent that the plain on 

 which this glorious event happened, was near the village of 

 Marengo, and that the victorious general bore the name of 

 Bonaparte. But a people among whom the communication of 

 proper names from place to place can be effected only by special 

 messengers, would scarcely have taken the first steps towards 

 civilization, and we are not therefore surprised to learn that this 

 is not the method with the Chinese. It is true the hieroglyphic 

 character forms the great mass of their writing, but sometimes, 

 and especially when they wish to write a proper name, they 

 strip these characters of their hieroglyphic signification, and 

 cause them to express sounds and articulations, in short, they 

 make them true letters 



These preliminary observations are far from being irrelevant. 

 The questions of priority, which the Egyptian modes of writing 

 have originated, may now be easily explained and comprehend- 

 ed. We shall find in the hieroglyphics of the ancient subjects 

 of the Pharaohs, all the methods which the Chinese employ at 

 the present time. 



Many passages of Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, and Clement 

 of Alexandria, have informed us, that the Egyptians employed 

 two or three different kinds of writing ; and that, at least, in one 



