istence of man in his rudest state, increasing also with the enlargement of his ideas, and the im Man, therefore, was provement of his mind. formed capable of speech. him with the necessary organs, and with ingenuity to render them subservient to his purposes. And, though at first his vocabulary was doubtless scanty, as his wants were simple, and his exigencies few, his language and his intellect would naturally keep pace. As the latter improved, the former would be enlarged. Oral language, we have reason to suppose, continued long to be the only medium, by which knowledge could be imparted, or social intercourse maintained. But, in the progress of science, various methods were devised, for attaining a more permanent, and more extensive vehicle of thought. Of these, the earliest were, as some think, picture-writing, and hieroglyphics. Visible objects, and external events, were delineated by pictures, while immaterial things were emblematically expressed by figures representative of such physical objects, as bore some conceived analogy, or resemblance to the thing to be expressed. These figures, or devices, were termed hieroglyphics. It is obvious, however, that this medium * Beattie seems to think that the antediluvians had an alphabet, and that hieroglyphical' was posterior to alphabetical writing. "The wisdom and simple manners of the first men," says he, "would incline me to think, that they must have had an medium of communication must not only have embarrassed by its obscurity, but must have also been extremely deficient in variety of expression. At length oral language, by an effort of ingenuity, which must ever command admiration, was resolved into its simple or elementary sounds, and these were characterized by appropriate symbols*. ፡፡ alphabet; for hieroglyphic characters imply quaintness and "witticism." In this reasoning I cannot concur. Alphabetic writing is indeed simple, when known; so also are most inventions. But, simple and easy as it appears to us, we have only to examine the art itself, to be fully convinced, that science, genius, and industry, must have been combined in inventing it. Nay, the learned author himself acknowledges, "that though of easy acquisition to us, it is in itself neither easy nor obvious." He even admits, "that alphabetical writing must be << so remote from the conceptions of those, who never heard of it, that without divine aid it would seem to be unsearchable "and impossible." I observe also that in passing from picture-writing to hieroglyphical expression, and in transferring the signs of physical to intellectual and invisible objects, fanciful conceits would naturally take place. It is true also that the manners of the antediluvians were simple; but it is not from prudence nor simplicity of manners, but from human genius gradually improved, that we are to expect inventions, which require the greatest efforts of the human mind. * Cicero regards the invention of alphabetic writing as an evidence of the celestial character of the soul; and many have ascribed its origin to the inspiration of the Deity. To resort to supernatural causes, to account for the production of any rare or striking event, is repugnant to the principles of true philo, sophy. And how wonderful soever the art of alphabetic writing may appear, there can be no necessity for referring its introduo, Words, the signs of thought, came thus to be represented by letters, or characters arbitrarily. formed, to signify the different sounds, of which the words were severally composed. The simplest elementary part of written language is, therefore, a letter; and the elements or letters, into which the words of any language may be analysed, form, the necessary alphabet of that language. In the English alphabet are twenty-six letters. ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXY Z. abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz. Of these there are six vowels, or letters, which tien to divine inspiration, if the inventive powers of man be not demonstrably unequal to the task. Picture writing is generally believed to have been the earliest mode of recording events, or communicating information by permanent signs. This was pro bably succeeded by hieroglyphical characters. How these pic tures and hieroglyphical devices would either through negli gence or a desire to abbreviate, gradually vary their form, and lose their resemblance to the objects which they represented, may be easily conceived. Hence that association, which existed between the sign and the thing signified, being founded in resemblance, would in process of time be entirely dissolved. This having taken place, hieroglyphical characters would naturally be converted into a mere verbal denotation, representative of words and not of things. Hence, as Goguet in his work, De l' Origine des Loix, &c. reasonably conjectures, would arise by a partial and easy analysis, a syllabic mode of denotation, which would naturally introduce a literal alphabet. This conjecture must seem highly probable, when it is considered, that both a verbal and syllabic mode of notation are still practised by some Eastern nations. by themselves make, every one a perfect sound. The remaining twenty are called consonants, or letters, which cannot be sounded without a vowel. This alphabet is both redundant and defective. It is redundant: for of the vowels, the letters i and y are in sound the same: one of them therefore is unnecessary. Of the consonants, the articulator c, having sometimes the sound of k, and sometimes of s, one of these must be unnecessary. Q, having in all cases the sound of k, may likewise be deemed superfluous. W appears to me in every respect the same with the vowel u (oo) and is therefore supernumerary*. The double con-sonant a might be denoted by the combination of its component letters, gs, or ks. It is to be observed also, that g, when it has the soft sound, is a double consonant, and performs the same office as the letter j; each having a sound compounded of the sounds of d, and the French j. Thus g in general has the same sound as j in join. J, however, is not, as some have supposed, resolvable into two letters, for we have no character to express the simple sound of the French j, of which with the consonant d, the sound of the English j is compounded. To resolve it into dg, as some have done, is therefore an error; as the I am aware, that in considering the letters y and w to be the same with i and u (o) I maintain an opinion, the truth of which has been disputed. The reasons, however, which have been assigned for rejecting it, do not appear to me satisfactory. 1 soft g, without the aid of the other consonant, is precisely identical, in respect to sound, with the consonant j. The letter h is no consonant; it is merely the note of aspiration. Our alphabet is likewise defective. There are nine simple vowel sounds, for which we have only six characters, two of which, as it has been already observed, perform the same office. The simple vowel sounds are heard in these words, Hall, Hat, Hate, Met, Mete, Fin, Hop, Hope, But, Full. Some of these characters occasionally perform the office of diphthongs. Thus, in the word fine, the vowel i has the diphthongal sound of the letters à è, as these are pronounced in French; and the vowel u frequently represents the diphthong cu (e-oo) as fume (fe-oom). There are, besides, four different consonants, for which we have no proper letters; namely, the initial consonant in the word thin, the initial consonant in then, the sibilating sound of sh, and the final consonant (marked ng) as in the word sing. Consonants are generally divided into mutes and semi-vowels. The mutes are those, which entirely, and at once, obstruct the sound of the vowel, and prevent its continuation. These are called perfect mutes. Those, which do not suddenly obstruct it, are called imperfect mutes. Semi vowels are those consonants, which do not entirely obstruct the voice; but whose sounds |