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bishop Wilkins proposed a universal language, not phonetic, but ideographic 
— an idea suggested by the analogy of the mathematical, chemical, and astro- 
nomical symbols ; we know that the most complicated problems connected 
with the integral and differential calculus, for instance, can be read by the 
people of all nations. He conceived the idea, then, of inventing an ideo- 
graphic language ; but, had he been acquainted with the Chinese language, 
he would have found one which had been in use for many generations, 
probably the oldest of the languages we have. All these things tend to 
prove that man has not originated from a state of barbarism, and then 
risen to civilization ; but that, wherever man has been found in a state 
of barbarism, it is barbarism arising from degenerated civilization. This 
is confirmed by the fact that we find no traces of any people possessing 
a literature and having any knowledge of their past history who have 
not some tradition amongst them of their having been raised from bar- 
barism by a people more civilized than themselves. The Greeks admitted 
that they were taught by the Egyptians and Indians, and you find the same 
thing among the Mexicans. There is another curious thing which ought 
to be pointed out. Many of what we would suppose to have been 
the most extraordinary inventions of modern times have an antiquity 
which goes beyond all historical knowledge. For instance, the dis- 
covery of the compass goes beyond all historical recollection in China. 
The use of a needle suspended by a thread for guiding men across 
the steppes of Tartary has been known to be in existence in China 
beyond the date of all historical testimony. A great deal has been 
said with regard to the stone age, the bronze age, and the iron age, as having 
been successive stages in the progress of civilization. But, as Mr. Titcomb 
has pointed out, we have the same things contemporaneously now, and 
because they are found, it is not at all a proof that one was anterior to the 
other. The art of obtaining iron from the ore — requiring a considerable 
knowledge of chemistry and metallurgy — dates back beyond all historical 
knowledge. It has existed time out of mind. In the interior of Africa, only 
a few hundred miles from the Cape, men have been found doing in miniature 
all our most complex metallurgical processes for the production of iron, to 
obtain iron from the ore. Again, *the art of converting iron into steel has 
been known time out of mind. This is one of the most recondite things 
in the whole range of chemistry, scarcely understood yet — The art of sub- 
mitting two substances to an intense heat, and incorporating them in order 
to produce another substance different from either of the other two — this has 
been known in India time out of mind. It may be asked, How, then, do 
you account for the fact that while all this has been known throughout Asia 
and Africa, it should never have penetrated into America? In answer 
just suppose this case for a moment : — Suppose fifty or sixty English sailors, 
born and brought up in a purely agricultural district, were shipwrecked on 
a desert island. How many of them would have the most remote idea, in 
the first place, that the ore which they might find contained iron, or if they 
knew that, how many of them would know how to extract the iron from 
