WRITING. 
is formed is often extremely obscure, and 
often erroneous. Their ancient principles of 
pliilosopliy furnished wide scope for combi- 
nation ; but these were generally ill found- 
ed. Other combinations acquire a know- 
ledge of their ancient customs and popular 
superstitions. Hence the ease which we 
shoidd in theory expect in iinderstauding a 
language so regularly formed vanishes ; and 
an acquaintance with their whole round of 
physical and religious dogmata, with the 
fleeting customs and opinions of preceding 
ages, is necessary for a tliorough acquaint- 
ance with the Chinese characters. This 
is not, however, entirely peetdiar to the 
Chinese language. In order to trace the 
origin of words, the same references are 
often necessary ; but we have more fre- 
quetrtly the requisite data. Candidate sig- 
nifies a person who offers himself to fill a 
lucrative or honottrable situation ; the ori- 
ginal meaning of the Latin candidatus is a 
person dressed in white. The two ideas 
seem to have no connection. The difficulty 
vanishes, however, when we learn that 
among the Romans all candidates wore 
white robes. In a similar manner we see 
no connection between running, and 
wrapping up the feet ; but pao, the Chinese 
ctiaracter for run, is composed of two, one 
for the act of wrapping, the other for feet. 
The probable connection is ascertained 
by the circumstance that the savages of 
Louisiana, when about to undertake long 
marches wrap up their feet to prevent their 
being torn. 
In the Chinese dictionaries the keys are 
placed in an invariable order which soon 
becomes familiar to the student. The dif- 
ferent compounds each follow one another 
according to the number of strokes of 
which each consists. The meaning and 
pronunciation are given by means of two 
words in common use. When no one com- 
mon word expresses the exact sound it is 
communicated by two connected, with 
marks to show that the consonant of the 
first word and the vowel of the second 
joined together form the precise sound 
wanting. Thus, to express the sound pien, 
pa and tnien, would be joined with marks 
to denote the elision of the a and the m. 
If the spoken language be scanty, this is 
not the defect of the written language. 
Their characters amount to 80,0C0. A 
considerable part of them however may be 
considered as synoriima ; thus age may be 
expressed by a hundred different charac- 
ters, and happiness may be traced into as 
many forms in expressing the general wish 
for it. Different sects have their own cha- 
racters ; so that when a proper allowance 
is made, abont 10,000 are sufficient for 
reading the best books of each literary pe- 
riod of their language. In alphabetical 
writing words may be read without the 
least knowledge of their meaning ; in the 
hieroglyphical the sound is less intimately 
connected with the visible sign, and the cha- 
racter is studied and best learned by be- 
coming acquainted with the ideas attached 
to it. But the terms of philosophy have 
been formed on that philosophy, so that a 
knowledge of the latter is necessary to a 
complete acquaintance with the former. 
These ideas we must call to mind when we 
hear that their most learned men are not 
acquainted with more than half of them. 
The knowledge of the whole round of Chi- 
nese science and literature must surely be 
sufficient to occupy the life of the longest 
liver. 
Transition to Letters. ^ 
Upon the principle that we ought not to 
suppose divine interposition merely from 
the difficulty of accounting for a phenome- 
non, we should argue d priori that no divine 
interposition took place in the origin of al- 
phabetical writing. As however some pre- 
sumptive arguments in favour of the affirma- 
tive side of the question have been advanced 
by men of the first eminence; we shall state 
the most important of them, and after en- 
deavohring to lessen the dhfficulty they may 
present to our admission of the human origin 
of letters. We shall point out what appears 
to be the most probable account of their in- 
vention. 
1. It is urged that in order to give any 
plausibility to the hypothesis of the human 
invention of letters, it must be shown to be 
simple. Now if it were simple and obvious, 
it is highly probable that we should find in- 
stances of independent invention. But the 
tact is, that alphabetical writing may be 
traced to one source. 
Two answers may be given to this argu- 
ment. First. There is such a great dissimi- 
larity among the Asiatic alphabets, that 
they cannot be proved to have issued from 
the same source. It must how'ever be re- 
marked, that the variations which we know 
to have taken place in numerous instances 
would destroy the force of any objection 
that might occur from this decided dissimi- 
larity, if positive arguments were adduced 
