IMITATIVE AND SYMBOLICAL. 



hXone might be employed as a medium of communication ; and that, by 

 attaching an esoteric or concealed, instead of an exoteric or general, 

 meaning to each, it would form a language of impenetrable privacy^a 

 language from which every one would be shut out excepting those who 

 might be in possession of its key. 



The persons to whom we should chiefly look for learning and science 

 in the state of the world to which 1 am at present adverting, would be the 

 priesthood ; or that elevated order which, among all uncultivated nations, 

 concentrates in itself the three professions of law, medicine, and theology. 

 It is among this order, therefore, that we should chiefly expect to meet 

 with proofs of both these kinds of visible language ; and hence, both 

 kinds might also be fairly denominated hieroglyphic writing, or that of 

 SACRED IMPRESSIONS. Thus, indeed, they have been denominated gene- 

 rally ; the pure picture-writing being distinguished by the term curiologic 

 hieroglyphs : and the allegorical, tropical or symbolical hieroglyphs. 



Such kinds of picture-language, however, even with this improvement, 

 must be attended with very considerable labour ; and hence, from a desire 

 to abbreviate that labour, we may readily conceive that the pictures or 

 imitative characters would soon become simplified and contracted. 



The idea of a man, formerly represented by his whole figure, might 

 now be signified by his legs alone, as a simple acute angle, like a Greek 

 A, which is the written character for a man in the Chinese tongue, the 

 whole figure being supposed to have been employed at first ; that of hani>, 

 formerly represented by a perfect drawing of this organ, might be con- 

 tracted into a Greek n^, or rather the figure of which is the old Chi- 

 nese expression for this purpose, being a rude or rapid outline of the 

 wrist, palm, and fingers ; while the idea of union or friendship, at first 

 denoted by two such figures conjoined, as ^i^, might subsequently be ab- 

 breviated into ViJI^, which, in like manner, is the old Chinese written sign 

 for both these ideas. Ingenuity, thus set to work, would soon be able to 

 form a like device for the auxiliary parts of speech : concerning which it 

 ihay be suflicient to observe that most of the prepositions might be ex- 

 pressed by some simple mark, whose precise meaning should be deter- 

 mined by its relative situation. Thus a plain horizontal stroke, as — , 

 placed at the foot of a noun, might import under it, and at its head above 

 it ; which is, in fact, the very device had recourse to in the old written 

 language of China ; so that the sign for measure, with a horizontal line 

 over it, imports above measure ; and below it, under measure ; while, 

 in the ordinary mark for hand, as noticed above, the cross line is turned 

 to the left to express left-hand, and to the right to express right-hand, 

 for both which, however, a somewhat different forin is used in the present 

 day. 



In this manner picture-characters or images would insensibly become 

 converted into arbitrary characters ; which, to those acquainted with the 

 meaning of the different marks, would answer the purpose as well, and 

 would have an incalculable advantage in the facility of writing them. 



We have now reached the utmost pitch of perfection which the legible 

 language of things is, perhaps, capable of attaining. It has one supe- 

 riority over that of words^ or marks characteristic of sounds ; namely that, 

 when the pictures are drawn at full length, or, if abbreviated, where 

 the key of the abbreviation is known, it is a species of writing ad- 



