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PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
purpose of giving to mankind a written revelation, not subject to the 
uncertainty of tradition, the Almighty was pleased to reveal to Moses 
the principle of alphabetic writing; and the Tables of the Law, written 
by the finger of God, were the first example of words expressed in 
writing by an alphabetic representation of their elementary sounds. 
In this primitive revelation of alphabetic writing, it is to be borne 
in mind, that it was the principle only that was revealed. With that 
economy of miracle which characterizes God’s dealings with man, the 
Almighty revealed to Moses, as Dr. Wall maintains, only this principle, 
—that, instead of pictorial objects to represent things, and arbitrary 
pictorial symbols to represent abstract ideas, the sounds of language might 
be analyzed into their elements, and writing made a representation, not 
of thoughts or objects, but of sounds. 
According to this theory the alphabetic principle was not revealed in 
its perfection, but in its elementary idea; and men were left to work out 
that idea, and to perfect their alphabetic systems for themselves. I can¬ 
not stop to attempt any account of Dr. Wall’s learned dissertations on 
the progress and defects of alphabets, and on the very curious subject of 
the ideagraphic system of writing still in use among the Chinese. I must 
hasten to the essential part of his theory, in its application to the Hebrew 
Bible. 
He maintains that the Book of Job was first written in hieroglyphics, 
and was translated by Moses into alphabetic writing. He supports this 
opinion by most ingenious arguments, and shows that this hypothesis 
explains in a remarkable way the obscurity of style complained of in 
that sacred book. 
He maintains that the letters of the Hebrew alphabet were originally 
the representatives of syllabic sounds, not of consonants or vowels; that 
the letter b , for instance, represented ba, be, bi, bo, bu, indifferently, ac¬ 
cording as the context required ; there was nothing in the alphabetical 
character (i) itself to determine which of these vowel sounds was to be 
connected with it. 
Hence the ancient Orientals had no vowels among their alphabetic 
characters, and it was not until they became dead, or partially dead, 
languages, that the necessity of something more than a syllabic alphabet 
was felt. When the Jews returned from the Babylonish Captivity, 
where a new generation had been born, and had consequently forgotten, 
in a great degree, the language of their forefathers, a difficulty was found 
n th e reading of their sacred writings. 
At this period, therefore, began that more ancient vocalization which 
Dr. Wall has discovered in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible. Cappel 
made the far easier discovery, that the points and accents could not be 
an original part of the orthography of the language; they bear on the 
very face of them evidences of gradual and of modern growth. We have 
the very Jews themselves confessing the fact. We find the Talmn A 
doctors ignorant of them, and making no mention of them, in aces 
where they must have been mentioned, if the system in its full perfect 
tion, as extant now, were known to those writers. But Dr. all maiffi- 
