however now disguised, do yet betray their original to be from picture and images; as the reader may perceive by casting his eye on the specimen given us by Kircher; * for, that it is only a more contracted and refined hierogylphic, we have the concurrent testimony of the best writers on the arts and manners of this famous people; who inform us how their present writing was deduced, through an earlier hierogylphic, from the first simple way of painting the human conceptions.†

But it may be worth our while to consider more particularly, the origin and introduction of these ARBITRARY MARKS; the last advance of hieroglyphics towards alphabetic writing. We may observe, that substances, and all visible objects, were at first very naturally expressed by the images of the things themselves; as moral modes and other ideal conceptions of the mind were more aptly represented by marks of arbitrary institution: for it required variety of knowledge, and quickness of * China illustrata, p. 227, et Œdipi Ægyptiaci Theatrum Hieroglyphicum, p. 12. See Plate V.

↑ Primo siquidem ex omnibus rebus mundialibus primos Sinas characteres suos construxisse, tum ex chronicis ipsorum patet, tum ipsa characterum forma sat superque demonstrat; siquidem non secus ac Ægyptii ex animalibus, volucribus, reptilibus, piscibus, herbis, arborumque ramis, funiculis, filis, punctis, circulis, similibusque characteres suos, aliâ tamen et aliâ ratione dispositos formabant. Posteriores vero Sina rerum experientia doctiores, cum magnam in tanta animalium plantarumque congerie confusionem viderent, characteres kujusmodi variè figuratos, certis punctorum linearumque ductibus æmulati, in breviorem methodum concinnârunt, quâ et in hunc usque diem utuntur.-Porro litteras Sinæ nulla ratione in alphabeti morem, uti cæteris nationibus consuetum est, dispositas, neque voces ex literis et syllabis compositas habent, sed singuli characteres singulis vocibus et nominibus respondent; adeoque tot characteribus opus habent, quos res sunt, quas per conceptum mentis exponere volunt.-Kircheri China Illustrata, p. 226.

Au lieu d'alphabet ils se sont servis au commencement de leur monarchie, de hieroglyphes. Ils en peint au lieu d'ecrire; et par les images naturelles des choses qu'ils formoient sur le papier ils tâchoient d'exprimer et de communiquer aux autres leurs idées. Ainsi pour écrire un oiseau, ils en peignoient la figure; et pour signifier un forêt, ils representoient plusieurs arbres; un cercle vouloit dire le soleil, et un croissant la lune. Cette maniere d'ecrire étoit non seulement imparfaite, mais encore très incommode.-Ainsi les Chinois changerent peu à peu leur ecriture, composerent des figures plus simples, quoique moins naturelles, &c.-Le Comte, Nouv. Memoires sur l'Etat Present de la Chine, Tome prem. p. 256. Amst. 1698. 12mo.

Des le commencement de leur monarchie, ils communiquoient leurs idées, en formant sur le papier les images naturelles des choses qu'ils vouloient exprimer; ils peignoient, par exemple, un oiseau, des montagnes, des arbres, des lignes ondoyantes, pour exprimer des oiseaux, des montagnes, un forêt, et des rivieres. Cette maniere d'expliquer sa pensée étoit fort imparfaite, et demandoit plusieurs volumes pour exprimer assez peu des choses. D'ailleurs il y avoit une infinité d'objets, qui ne pouvoient étre representés par la peinture. -C'est pourquoi insensiblement ils changerent leur ancienne maniere d'ecrire: ils composerent des figures plus simples, et en inventerent plusieurs autres, pour exprimer les objets, qui ne tombent point sous les sens. Mais ces caracteres plus modernes ne laissent pas d'être encore de vrais hieroglifes. Premierement parce qu'ils sont composés de lettres simples, qui retiennent la même signification des caracteres primitifs: autrefois, par exemple, ils representoient ainsi le soleil par un cercle O et l'appelloient Gé; ils le representent maintenant, par cette figure qu'ils nomment pareillement Gé. Secondement, parce que l'institution des hommes a attaché à ces figures la meme idée, que ces premiers symboles presentoient naturellement, et qu'il n'y a aucune lettre Chinoise qui n'ait sa propre signification, lorsqu'on la joint avec d'autres. Tsai, par exemple, qui veut dire, malheur, calamité, est compose de la lettre mien, qui signifie maison, et de la lettre ho, qui signifie feu, parce que le plus grand malheur est de voir sa maison en feu. On peut juger par ce seul exemple, que les caracteres Chinois n'êtant par des lettres simples, comme les nôtres, qui separement ne signifient rien, et n'ont de sens que quand elles sont jointes ensemble; ce sont autant de hieroglifes, qui forment des images, et qui expriment les pensées.-Du Halde, t. ii. p. 227.

fancy, to design these latter ideas by analogic or symbolic figures; which therefore can be supposed no other than an after-thought of a people more than ordinary ingenious, as the Egyptians, and who, aiming to set a price upon their ingenuity, made their meaning mysterious and profound. We shall see presently, that as all nations, in their ruder state, had hieroglyphic images or analogic or symbolic figures for marking things; so had they likewise simple characters or notes of arbitrary institution, for mental conceptions. But, commonly, that sort only which they most cultivated, or for which they were principally famous, happened to be transmitted to posterity. Thus the Mexicans are remembered for their hieroglyphic paintings only; and the Peruvians for their knotted cords. But we are not therefore to conclude that the Mexican writing had no arbitrary marks,* or that the Peruvians had no hieroglyphic paintings. Real characters of both kinds had, at different periods, been cultivated in China, if we may credit the concurrent relations of the missionaries. In ancient Egypt, indeed, where hieroglyphic figures were so successfully cultivated as to give that general name to real characters, the use of marks by institution is more obscurely noticed. And for this a reason will be assigned. Martinus Martinius, in his History of China, tells us, they had two sorts of characters; the one, marks by institution, which had been substituted instead of knotted cords, once in use amongst them, as in Peru, but much more intricate than the Peruvian knots: their other characters were figures resembling the Egyptian hieroglyphics, and representing the things they were designed to express. Now as the Chinese improved in arts and empire, it is natural to suppose they would much increase their marks by institution. The growing number of these characters, the sciences to which they were applied, and their commodious and expeditious use, would tempt them even to change their analogic figures into marks by institution, till their whole writing became of this sort. It is now such: and that the change was produced in the manner here represented, we may collect from the words and scheme of Martinius on the other side. §

But to all this it may be said, How then came it to pass, that Egypt, which had the same imperial fortune in a long flourishing dominion, should be so far from changing their analogic figures into arbitrary. marks, that their arbitrary marks were almost lost and absorbed in analogic figures? For such arbitrary marks they had, as we may collect from their monuments, where we find them intermixed with proper hieroglyphics; and from Apuleius, where we see them described

Joseph Acosta, as we see above, expressly says, that "the Mexicans represented those things, which had bodily shape, by their proper figures, and those which had none, by other nignificative characters.” —las cosas que tenian figuras las ponian con sus proprias ymagines; y para las cosas que no avia ymagen propria tenian otros caracteres significativos de aquello. The same Acosta says expressly, that, besides their quippos or strings variously knotted and coloured, they had paintings like the Mexicans.-Lib. vi. c. 8.

Idem imperator [Fo-hi] Sinicos characteres reperit, quos loco nodorum adhibuit, sed ipsis nodis intricatiores.-Sin. Hist. lib. i.

§ See Plate VI.

in his account of the sacred book or ritual of the mysteries of Isis. "De opertis adyti profert quosdam libros, litteris ignorabilibus prænotatos: partim FIGURIS CUJUSCEMODI ANIMALIUM, Concepti sermonis compendiosa verba suggerentes; partim NODOSIS, ET IN MODUM ROTÆ TORTUOSIS, capreolatimque condensis apicibus, a curiositate profanorum lectione munita:" the very same species of writing with that of the Chinese, described by Martinius, and almost in the same words: "Fohius characteres reperit, quos loco nodorum adhibuit; sed ipsi nodis intricatiores."

Now this opposite progress in the issue of hieroglyphic writing, in Egypt and China, may, I think, be easily accounted for by the different genius of the two people. The Egyptians were extremely inventive: and, what is often a consequence of that humour, though here other things contributed to promote it, much given to secrecy and mysterious conveyance: while the Chinese are known to be the least inventive people upon earth; and not much given to mystery. This difference in the genius of the two nations would make all the difference in the progress of hieroglyphic writing amongst them. I have observed that the easiest, and most natural expression of the abstract conceptions of the mind, was by arbitrary marks: but yet the most ingenious way of representing them was by analogic or symbolic figures; as omniscience, by an eye; ingratitude, by a viper; impudence, by the river-horse. Now the Egyptians, who were of a lively imagination, and studious of natural knowledge, though at first, like the Chinese, they expressed mental ideas by arbitrary marks, yet, as they improved their inventive faculties by use, they fell naturally into this method of expressing them by analogic or symbolic figures ; and their love of mystery disposed them to cultivate it: for these figures necessarily make the character mysterious, as implying in the inventor, and requiring in the user, a knowledge of physics; whereas arbitrary marks lie open to all, as requiring no knowledge but that of the institution. Hence we have a plain reason how it happened, that the Egyptian hieroglyphics, from very early times, consisted principally of symbolic and analogic marks, and that those Chinese hieroglyphics were turned altogether into marks; by institution. For as the Egyptians had soon learned to express abstract ideas by analogic signs, so the Chinese were at last drawn to express even material things by arbitrary marks.

In a word, the Chinese method of thus conducting hieroglyphic writing through all its changes and improvements, from a picture to a simple mark, was the occasion that the missionaries, who considered the history of their writing only by parts, have given us such different accounts of it. Sometimes they represent it like the Mexican pictures; sometimes like the knotted cords of the Peruvians; sometimes as approaching to the characters found upon the Egyptian obelisks; and sometimes again as of the nature of the Arabic marks for numbers. But each man speaks only of the monuments of which he himself had got information; and these differed according to their age and place. He, whose attention was taken up with the most ancient only of the Chinese monuments, did not

hesitate to pronounce them hieroglyphics, like the Egyptian; because he saw them to be analogic or symbolic signs, like the Egyptian; he who considered only the characters of later use denied them to be like the Egyptian, because he found them to be only marks by institution.

These imperfect accounts have misled the learned into several mistakes concerning the general nature and use of hieroglyphics themselves. Some supposing it of their nature to be obvious marks of institution; and others, that it required a very comprehensive knowledge of physics to be able to compose them.

M. Freret, speaking of the Chinese characters, says, "Selon eux [les Chinois] ces anciens caractéres étoient tous fondés sur des raisons philosophiques. Ils exprimoient la nature des choses qu'ils signifioient: ou du moins la determinoient en désignant les rapports de ces mêmes choses avec d'autres mieux connues.' 3米 But he doubts whether entire credit is to be given to their accounts; for he observes, that "La construction d'une pareille langue demande une parfaite connoissance de la nature et de l'ordre des idées qu'il faut exprimer, c'est-à-dire, une bonne metaphysique, et, peut-être même une systeme complet de philosophie.-Les Chinois n'ont jamais eu rien de pareil." He concludes, therefore, that the Chinese hieroglyphics "n'ont jamais eu qu' en rapport d' INSTITUTION avec les choses qu'elles signifient." This is strange reasoning. To know whether the ancient Chinese characters were founded on philosophic relations, does not depend on their having a true system of physics and metaphysics, but on their having a system simply, whether true or false, to which to adapt those characters: thus, that part of the Egyptian physics which taught, that the viper tore its way through its mother's entrails, and that the skin of the hyæna preserved the wearer invulnerable, served full as well for hieroglyphical uses, as the soundest part of their astronomy, which placed the sun in the centre of its system. Again, others have denied the Chinese characters to be properly hieroglyphics, because they are arbitrary marks and not analogical. P. Parennin says, "Les caracteres Chinois ne sont hieroglyphes qu' improprement. Ce sont des signes arbitraires qui nous donnent l'idée d'une chose, non par aucun rapport qu'ils aient avec la chose signifiée, mais parce qu'on a voulu par tel signe signifier telle chose. -En est-il de même des hieroglyphes Egyptiens?" P. Gaubil says,"On voit l'importance d'une histoire critique sur l'origine et les changemens arrivés à plusieurs caractéres Chinois qui sont certainement hieroglyphes. D'un autre côté, il y a des caractéres Chinois, qui certainement ne sont pas hieroglyphes. Une histoire de ceux-ci seroit aussi importante." These fathers, we see, suppose it essential to hieroglyphic characters, that they be analogic or symbolic signs; and finding the more modern Chinese writing to be chiefly composed of arbitrary marks, or signs by institution, they concluded that the Chinese characters were

* Mem. de l'Acad. t. vi. p. 609.

not properly hieroglyphics. Whereas, what truly denotes a writin be hieroglyphical is, that its marks are signs for THINGS; what denot writing not to be hieroglyphical, is, that its marks are signs for wo Whether the marks be formed by analogy or institution, makes no alt tion in the nature of the writing. If they be signs for things, they be nothing but hieroglyphics; if they be signs for words, they may and I suppose always are, alphabetic characters; but never can be hi glyphics. However, it is but justice to these learned fathers to obse that one of them, from whom the others might have profited, appear have a much clearer conception of this matter.-"La nature des hi glyphes," says he, "n'est pas d'être des figures naturelles des ch qu'ils signifient, mais seulement de les representer ou naturellement, l'institution des hommes. Or tous les lettres Chinoises, ou sont figures naturelles, comme les anciennes, du soleil, de la lune, ou au semblables, ou sont des figures destinées pour signifier quelque ch comme sont toutes celles qui signifient des choses qui n'ont aucune figu comme l'ame, la beauté, les vertus, les vices, et toutes les actions hommes et des animaux."*

par

On the whole, therefore, we see that, before the institution of lett to express SOUNDS, all characters denoted only THINGS; 1. By repres tation. 2. By analogy or symbols. 3. By arbitrary institution Amongst the Mexicans, the first method was principally in use: Egyptians chiefly cultivated the second: and the Chinese, in course time, reduced almost all their characters to the third. But the empi of China and Egypt long flourishing in their different periods, had ti and inclination to cultivate all the three species of hieroglyphic writi only with this difference; the Egyptians beginning, like the Mexica with a picture, and being ingenious and much given to mystery, cultiv ed a species of hieroglyphics most abounding in signs by analogy, or sy bols; whereas the Chinese, who set out like the Peruvians with a knott cord,† and were less inventive, and without a secret worship, cultivat that species which most abounds in marks of arbitrary institution.

In a word, all the barbarous nations upon earth, before the inventi or introduction of letters, made use of hieroglyphics, or signs for thing to record their meaning: the more gross, by representation; the m subtile and civilized, by analogy and institution.

THUS we have brought down the general history of writing, by a gr dual and easy descent, from a PICTURE to a LETTER; for Chinese mar which participate of Egyptian hieroglyphics on the one hand, and alphabetic letters on the other (just as those hieroglyphics partook equa ly of Mexican pictures and Chinese characters) are on the very bord

* P. Magaillans, Relat. de la Chine.

Les premiers inventeurs de l'écriture Chinoise, en s'attachant à des signes, qui n'o qu'un rapport d'institution avec les choses signifiées, ont suivi le génie de la nation Chinois qui même avant Fo-hi, c'est à dire, dans la plus profonde antiquité, se servoit de cord lettes nouées en guise d'écriture.-Mem. de l'Acad. tom. vi. Freret.

See note S, at the end of this book.