3. And now this contracted manner of hieroglyphic writing, called hierographical, will lead us, by an easy step, to the third species, called by Porphyry and Clemens the EPISTOLIC: for now we are come to one of those links of the chain which served to connect hieroglyphic marks and alphabetic letters; the first of which contained curiologic or symbolic signs of things; the other comprised signs of words by arbitrary institution. For those hieroglyphic marks which were SIGNS OF THINGS BY ARBITRARY INSTITUTION, partook of the proper hieroglyphics in being signs for things, and of alphabetic letters in being signs by institution. And the contrivance of employing these arbitrary marks to design all the primitive sounds of the human voice was inventing an alphabet. This was what the Egyptians called their EPISTOLIC writing. And, this, let me observe, the ancients agree, was invented by the SECRETARY OF AN EGYPTIAN KING. A circumstance which will much conduce to the discovery of the cause of its original.

Now, as it is evident that every kind of hieroglyphic writing, when employed in public business to convey the royal commands to leaders of armies and distant governors, must be unavoidably attended with the inconveniencies of imperfect and obscure information, it was natural for our secretary to set himself upon contriving a remedy: and this he found in the invention of the letters of an alphabet; serving to express words, not things; whereby all the inconveniencies of imperfect information, so fatal in nice conjunctures, were avoided, and the writer's mind delivered with the utmost clearness and precision: which too had this further advantage, that as the government would endeavour to keep their invention to themselves, LETTERS OF STATE were, for some time, conveyed with the security of our modern ciphers:* and thus, being at first appropriated to the use of the cabinet, literary writing naturally acquired the name of EPISTOLARY;† which if you will not allow, no reasonable account, I think, can be given of its title.

That this was, indeed, the fact, appears from Plato's account of Theuth's INVENTIONS. He tells us that when Theuth came to consult his master, king Thamus, about communicating his discoveries to the people, παρὰ τοῦτον ἐλθὼν ὁ Θεὺθ τὰς τέχνας ἐπέδειξε, καὶ ἔφη δεῖν διαδοθῆναι τοῖς ἄλλοις Αἰγυπτίοις, the king declared particularly against communicating the invention of LETTERS. But the reason he gives for the prohibition, we see, was not the principal and more immediate, as it rarely is amongst politicians, but only a secondary, and more remote; namely, a regard to the interests of hieroglyphic learning; for the king tells his secretary, that, if this secret should be divulged, men's attention would be called away from THINGS, to which hieroglyphics, and the manner of explaining them, necessarily attached it, and be placed in exterior and arbitrary

It was an ancient custom, as Diodorus tells us, for the kings of Egypt to read all the letters of state, themselves.—Εωθιν μὲν γὰρ ἐγερθέντα λαβεῖν αὐτὸν ἴδιο πρῶτον τὰς πανταχό δεν ἀπεσταλμένας ἐπιστολὰς, ἵνα δύναται πάντα κατὰ τρόπον χρηματίζειν καὶ πράττειν εἰδὼς ἀκριβῶς ἕκαστα τῶν κατὰ τὴν βασιλείαν συντελουμένων.—Ρ. 44.

+ See note Q Q, at the end of this book,

SIGNS, which would prove the greatest hinderance to the progress of knowledge. What is still more pleasant, and in the true genius of politics, even the reason given was thought fit to be disguised: for though there might be some truth in this; yet, without doubt, the chief concern of the Egyptian priests was to continue themselves useful; which they would be, while science lay concealed in hieroglyphics.

Thus the reader finds, that the very contrary to the common opinion is the true; that it was the first literary writing, not the first hieroglyphical, which was invented for secrecy. In the course of time, indeed, they naturally changed their use; letters became common, and hieroglyphics hidden and mysterious.

But now it may be said, that though the progress from a picture to a simple mark hath been traced out, step by step, and may be easily followed, till we come to that untried ground where ART takes the lead of nature, the point where real characters end, and the literary begin; yet here, art seeing a precipice before her, which seems to divide the two characters to as great a distance as at first setting out, she takes so immense a leap as hath been thought to exceed all human efforts: which made Tully say, Summæ sapientiæ fuisse sonos vocis,† qui infiniti videbantur, paucis literarum notis terminare ;‡ and many of the ancients to believe that LITERARY WRITING was an invention of the gods.

However, if we would but reflect a little on the nature of sound, and its unheeded connexion with the objects of sight, we should be able to conceive how the chasm closed, and how the passage from a real to a literary character was begun and smoothed out.

While the picture, or image of the thing represented, continued to be objected to the sight of the reader, it could raise no idea but of the thing itself. But when the picture lost its form, by being contracted into a mark or note, the view of this mark or note would, in course of time, as naturally raise, in the mind, the sound expressing the idea of the thing, as the idea itself. How this extension, from the idea to the sound, in the use of the real character first arose, will be easily conceived by those who reflect on the numerous tribe of words in all languages, which is formed on the sound emitted by the thing or animal. §

Yet the use to which this new connexion might be applied, would never be thought of till the nature of human sounds had been well studied. But when men had once observed (and this they could not but observe early and easily, by the brute and inarticulate sounds which they were perpetually hearing emitted) how small the number is of primitive sounds,

Τοῦτο γὰρ τῶν μαθόντων λήθην μὲν ἐν ψυχαῖς παρέξει, μνήμη; ἀμελετησίᾳ; ἅτε διὰ πίστιν γραφῆς ἔξωθεν ὑπ' ἀλλοτρίων τύπων οὐκ ἔνδοθεν αὐτοὺς ὑφ ̓ αὐτῶν ἀναμιμνησκημένους· οὔπουν μνήμης, ἀλλ ̓ ὑπομνήσεως φαρμακὸν εὗρες, σοφίας δὲ τοῖς μαθηταῖς δόξαν οὐκ ἀλήθειαν πόρίζεις.— Phaed.

See note RR, at the end of this book.

Tusc. i. 25.

For example, (to use the words of St Austin) when we say in Latin, æris tinnitum, equorum kinnitum, ovium balatum, tubarum clangorem, stridorem catenarum, perspicis hæc verba ita sonare, ut res que his verbis significantur. This class of words the Greeks designed by the name of ὀνοματοποιΐα,

and how infinite the words are which may be formed by varied combinations of those simple sounds, it would naturally and easily occur to them, that a very few of those marks, which had before casually excited the sensation of those simple sounds, might be selected and formed into what has been since called an alphabet, to express them all: and then, their old accustomed way of combining primitive sounds into words, would as naturally and easily direct them to a like combination of what were now become the simple marks of sound; from whence would arise LITERARY

WRITING.

In the early language of men, the simple, primitive sounds would be used, whether out of choice or necessity, as significative of words or terms, to denote the most obvious of those things with which they perpetually conversed. These sounds, without arbitrary institution, would incite the idea of the thing, sometimes, as its audible image, sometimes, as its natural representative. Therefore the old marks for things, to which words of this original belonged, would certainly be first thought of for the figures of those alphabetic letters by the ingenious inventor of this wonderful contrivance. And, in fact, this which appears so natural has been found to be actually the case: the most early alphabets being framed from the outlines of those figures in the real characters, which, by use, in their hieroglyphic state, had arrived at the facility of exciting, in the mind, the SOUND as well as THING.*

4. But this political alphabet, as at first it was, soon occasioned the invention of another called SACRED: for the priests having a share in the government, must have an early communication of the secret; and being now immerged in deep philosophy, they would naturally employ, in their hidden doctrines, a method so well adapted to convey abstract speculations with exactness and precision. But the various uses of an alphabet in civil business not permitting it to continue long a secret, when it ceased to be so, they would as naturally invent another alphabetic character for their sacred use: which from that appropriation was called

HIEROGRAMMATICAL.

That the Egyptian priests had such a sacred alphabetic character, we are informed by Herodotus:-" The Greeks," says he, "write their letters, and make their computations with counters, from the left to the right; the Egyptians, on the contrary, from the right to the left.-They use two sorts of letters, one of which they called sacred, the other popular." Diodorus is yet more express; "the PRIESTS," says he, "taught their sons two sorts of letters, the one called sacred, the other, the common and popular."‡ Clemens Alexandrinus goes still farther, and describes the very books in which this sacred alphabet was principally

*Plate VIII.

* Γράμματα γράφουσι καὶ λογίζονται ψήφοισι, Ελληνες μὲν, ἀπὸ τῶν ἀριστερῶν ἐπὶ τὰ δεξιὰ φέροντες τὴν χεῖρα, Αἰγύπτιοι δὲ, ἀπὸ τῶν δεξιῶν ἐπὶ τὰ ἀριστερά.-διφασίαισι δὲ γράμμασι χρέωνται καὶ τὰ μὲν αὐτῶν, ὁρὰ, τὰ δὲ, δημοτικὰ καλευταί. Lib. ii. cap. 36.

† Παιδεύουσι δὲ τοὺς υἱοὺς οἱ μὲν ἱερεῖς γράμματα διττά, τὰ τε ἱερὰ καλούμενα, καὶ τὰ κοινοτέραν ἔχοντα τὴν μάθησιν. - Ρ. 51.

employed: and as the place, where he explains this matter, is very curious, and contributes to the farther illustration of the subject, I shall consider it more at length. It hath been shown that Clemens, in the passage quoted above, understood what he called the sacerdotal, 'IEPATIKHN, to be an alphabetic character. Now the same writer speaking in another place of the forty-two books of Hermes, which contained all the civil and religious science of the Egyptians, informs us, that ten of these books were called sacerdotal, and were the particular study of the chief priest, —προστάτης τοῦ ἱεροῦ τὰ ̔ΙΕΡΑΤΙΚΑ καλούμενα ι β.βλα ἐκμανθάνει. These ten, therefore, were written in a sacred alphabetic character; though, as we learn from him in the same place, all the various kinds of sacred characters were employed in the composition of these forty-two books; for some were written in hieroglyphics; as he tells us, where he speaks of the sacred scribe, whose business it was to study those called hieroglyphical,—τοῦτον τά τε ̔ΙΕΡΟΓΛΥΦΙΚΑ καλούμενα And, what is very remarkable, we find the subject of these to be of a popular and civil nature, such as cosmography, geography, the simple elements of astronomy, the chorography of Egypt, the description of the Nile, † &c. conformable to what has been laid down concerning the use and application of the most early hieroglyphics. Others again of these books were written in symbols, particularly those two which the chanter had in care:—ó dòs äv τι τῶν τῆς μουσικῆς ἐπιφερόμενος ΣΥΜΒΟΛΩΝ· τοῦτον φασὶ δύο βίβλους ἀνειλη Είναι δεῖν ἐκ τοῦ ̔Ερμού. Here then we have all the three species of sacred writing, the hieroglyphic, the symbolic, and the hierogrammatic or sacerdotal; the last of which, as we hold, was by letters of an alphabet.

But an ALPHABET for secrecy, and consequently different from the vulgar, was a thing in use amongst the priesthood of almost all nations. Philo Biblius, in Eusebius, speaking of Sanchoniatho's history, tells us, that the author composed it by the assistance of certain records which he found in the temples written in AMMONEAN LETTERS,‡ not understood by the people: these Ammonean letters Bochart explains to be such as the priests used in sacred matters. § Diogenes Laertius informs us, from Thrasyllus, that Democritus wrote two books, the one of the sacred letters of the Babylonians, the other of the sacred letters of the city Meroë: and concerning these last, Heliodorus saith, that the Ethiopians

Strom. lib. vi. pp. 633, 634, edit. Colon. 1688.

+ - περί τε τῆς κοσμογραφίας, καὶ γεωγραφίας, τῆς τάξεως τοῦ ἡλίου καὶ τῆς σελήνης, καὶ περὶ τῶν οὐ πλανωμένων χωρογραφίαν τε τῆς Αἰγύπτου, καὶ τῆς τοῦ Νείλου διαγραφῆς. -Ibid.

* — ὃ δὲ συμβαλὼν τοῖς ἀπὸ τῶν ἀδύτων εὑρεθεῖσιν ἀποκρύφοις 'Αμμουνίων γράμμασι συγκε pírais, à dì oùx ň› mão, gráęsμa.—Præp. Evang. lib. i. cap. 9.

Ammoneorum, i. e. Ammanim-Abenezra in Levit. xxvi. 30. Templa facta ad cultum solis. Quod verissimum; sol enim Hebræis est amma, unde amman templum solis, quem solum cœli dominum crediderunt prisci Phonices. Sanchoniathon, roūrov yàg (TÒU Adur) Diò inépuŝor pórov ovgavoù núgiov. Itaque hic præcipuè cultus. Tamen, crescente superstitione, crediderim nomen Ammanim etiam ad alia delubra pertinuisse. Itaque literæ Ammoneorum seu Ammanim sunt literæ templorum, literæ in sacris receptæ.-Geogr. Sacr. par. ii. lib. ii. cap. 17.

See note S S, at the end of this book.

had two sorts of letters, the one called regal, the other vulgar; and that the regal resembled the sacerdotal characters of the Egyptians.* Theodoret, speaking of the Grecian temples in general, says that they had certain forms of letters for their own use, called sacerdotal; and† Fourmont, and others, suppose that this general custom prevailed among the Hebrews also. Which opinion, a passage in Irenæus seems to support. § And now we shall know how to deal with a strange passage of Manetho in Eusebius. This historian assures his reader, "that he took his information from pillars in the land of Seriad, inscribed by Thoyth the first Hermes, with hierographic letters in the sacred dialect; and translated, after the flood, out of the sacred dialect, into the Greek tongue, with HIEROGLYPHIC letters, and deposited in volumes by Agathodæmon, the second Hermes, father of Tat, in the Adyta of the Egyptian temples." The original is in these words: 'Ex Tãv Mavedã ToŨ ZECEVνύτου, ὃς ἐπὶ Πτολεμαίου τοῦ Φιλαδέλφου ἀρχιερεὺς τῶν ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ εἰδώλων χρηματίσας ἐκ τῶν τῇ Σηριαδικῇ γῇ κειμένων στηλῶν ἱερᾷ, φησί, διαλέκτῳ καὶ ἱερογραφικοῖς γράμμασι κεχαρακτηρισμένων ὑπὸ Θωϋθ τοῦ πρώτου Ερμοῦ καὶ ἑρμηνευθεισῶν μετὰ τὸν κατακλυσμὸν ἐκ τῆς ἱερᾶς διαλέκτου εἰς τὴν ̔Ελληνίδα φωνὴν γράμμασιν ΙΕΡΟΓΛΥΦΙΚΟΙΣ καὶ ἀποτεθεισῶν ἐν βιβλοῖς ὑπὸ τοῦ ̓Αγαθοδαίμονος τοῦ δευτέρου ̔Ερμοῦ, πατρὸς δὲ τοῦ Τὰτ ἐν τοῖς ἀδύτοις τῶν ἱερῶν AlyvTTí.¶ Stillingfleet objects, with reason, to the absurdity of translating into the Greek tongue with hieroglyphic characters: and the author of the Connections well seeing that by γράμμασιν ἱερογλυφικος must be understood an alphabetic character, says the words should not be translated hieroglyphics, but, sacred letters:** he might as well have said Gothic letters, legoλvà being always used by the ancients to denote characters for things, in opposition to alphabetic letters, or characters, composing words. It is certain the text is corrupt; as may be seen, 1. From the word yęάμμaon (which in strict propriety signifies the letters of an alphabet) its being joined to iɛgoyλuqizois, which denotes a species of marks for things. 2. From the mention of a sacred dialect, işçà dianexTos (of which more hereafter); for if these records were written in a sacred dialect, it is plain the character employed must be alphabetic; and so indeed it is expressed to be in the words ἱερογραφικοῖς γράμμασι, which immediately follow; and if, out of this dialect, it were translated into another, must not alphabetic characters be still employed? And

Επιλεγόμην τὴν ταινίαν γράμμασιν Αιθιοπικοῖς, οὐ δημοτικοῖς, ἀλλὰ βασιλικοῖς ἐστιγμένην,

ἅ δὴ τοῖς Αἰγυπτίων ΙΕΡΑΤΙΚΟΙΣ ΚΑΛΟΥΜΕΝΟΙΣ ὁμοιοῦνται. Lib. iv.

† Ἐν τοῖς Ελληνικοῖς ναοῖς ἴδιοι τινὲς ἦσαν χαρακτῆρες γραμμάτων, ο", ΙΕΡΑΤΙΚΟΥΣ προσο nyoguer.-In Genes. Qu. 61.

Cette coûtume de la plupart des nations orientales, d'avoir des characteres sacres, et des caracteres profanes ou d'un usage plus vulgaire, étoit aussi chez les HEBREUX.-Reflex. Crit. vol. i. p. 36.

Antiquæ et primæ Hebræorum literæ, quæ SACERDOTALES nuncupatæ, decem quidem fuerenumero.-Adver. Hær. lib. ii. cap. 41.

See Stillingfleet's Orig. Sacr, book i. chap. ii. sect. 11. and Mr Shuckford's Connections, vol. i. ed. 2. p. 247.

Euseb. Chron. ed. Scal. Amst. 1658. p. 6.

** Connection of the Sacred and Profane History, vol. i. p. 274, and vol. ii. p. 294.