WRITING. 
to establish their identity of origin. But 
tlioiigh these are apparently sufficient to 
render it probable, yet this probability is 
not great enough to give much weight to 
the argument in question. But even ad- 
mitting its certainty, we may observe, se- 
condly, that this can prove no more than 
the high antiquity of the invention. That 
it originated before mankind were much 
separated from each other; and that the 
ground-work, laid by those who had made 
the greatest advances in cultivation, was 
built upon in different ways by those who 
afterwards penetrated to the remoter parts 
of the Continent. But it is urged, 
2. That we not only have no instance of 
independent discovery, but have even the 
example of a nation which had no commu- 
nication with those among whom it was 
first known, remaining in total ignorance of 
it, and employing a procedure which now 
incapacitates them for the adoption of 
alphabetical writing. And the force of this 
objection is materially increased by the 
circumstance that their writing equally with 
the alphabetical, originated in the hierogly- 
phics, and actually went through the same 
stages, viz. from the simple picture to the 
arbitrary mark. The grand weight of the 
controversy appears to rest here. The 
difficulty this argument presents may pro- 
bably be obviated by the following consi- 
derations : 
First, The written language of China 
was cultivated more for the purposes of 
literature and philosophy than for those of 
common life ; the combinations were form- 
ed by the literati, and if probably would 
not have been in their power to have car- 
ried these combinations into the oral lan- 
guage of the vulgar. They might indeed 
have invented an oral language correspond- 
ing to their characters ; but the genius of 
the Chinese seems rather to direct them to 
■study than to conversation. In order to 
render probable a transition from hierogly- 
phics to letters, we must suppose the spoken 
and the written language to have been con- 
nected with each other, and to have had 
similar combinations. Now we may ob- 
serve. 
Secondly, That the spoken language of 
China did not at all favour the plan of 
making their characters representative of 
sound, for being all monosyllables, and not 
very numerous, there would not be the 
same call for attention to the elementary 
sounds ; and what would still more pievent 
this direction of tlie attention, they did not 
vary the articulation but the tone, in order 
to express a variation of meaning. Add to 
this. 
Thirdly, The great extent of the empire 
of China and its dependencies, would cause 
a great variety in the dialect. This would 
contribute to increase the attention of their 
literati to their written language, since this 
(as we have seen it actually is) might b« 
understood independently of their words. 
Fourthly, If we admit the very probable 
hypothesis of De Guignes, that the Chi- 
nese characters were brought from Egypt, 
and that they had originally no connection 
with the spoken language of the country 
into which they were imported ; — that, in 
fact, they were applied to denote names 
different from those with which they had 
been before connected ; — we shall perceive 
at once the reason why the combinations of 
the characters were originally unaccompa- 
nied with corresponding combinations of 
sounds. After this there is no difficulty in 
admitting that the written must continue 
independent of the spoken language, espe- 
cially among people so little addicted to 
innovation as the Chinese. 
3. It is urged that the invention of letters 
is ascribed to the gods by several of th« 
ancients ; that Pliny asserts the use of let- 
ters to have been eternal ; and that the 
Jewish doctors maintain that God created 
alphabetical writing. 
We say, in reply, that the Jews had no 
other records than our own. The ancients 
were accustomed to ascribe to a divine 
origin every thing for which they could not 
account. As for Pliny he expressly says 
that the Phenicians were famed as the in- 
ventors of letters. 
It must be remarked that these facts are 
adduced to prove that no records of the 
invention remain ; indirectly therefore they 
favour the hypothesis of the divine origin 
of letters. If, however, the transition were 
.simple and gradual, perhaps the era of 
invention could not have been fixed even 
by the nation in which it occurred. We 
have no more reason to expect records ot 
the invention of letters than of the Egyp- 
tian hieroglyphics, or of the Chinese cha- 
racters. 
The arguments d priori for the divine ori- 
gin of letters, remain to be considered. 
These are, the difficulty of the invention 
in any stage of human progress, and its 
antiquity, which very much increases the 
improbability of its human origin. 
1. As to the difficulty of the invention, 
Q q 2 
