such as to be consistent with the religion of Noah. But, in progress of time, they underwent a considerable alteration; and, as the people departed from the purity and simplicity of the primitive religion, they were strangely perverted. But, although the several attributes of the Supreme Being were afterwards considered as so many gods and goddesses, and the symbols, or hieroglyphics, which originally had been invented and employed, as a representation of these attributes, became themselves the symbols and expressions of new gods and new goddesses; yet the names, by which these symbols or hieroglyphics had been signified, were not abolished. The circle still continued to be the symbol of the sun; the name of Rhe, by which he had been distinguished, as the first luminary, was still preserved in use, though he had been made a god. The goddess Neith and the god Phtha were still represented by the symbols which originally had been employed to denote the creative or rather the generative power of the Supreme Being. The import and meaning of the primitive hieroglyphics lost nothing of their original signification. This signification might be distorted by the perversion introduced by idolatry; but a name was still employed to denote and express their meaning, whatever might be the idea which had been and was still attached to each of them. The notions of the people might have been altered, the signification of the several symbols might have been changed, but they still con

tinued to express a sound, and to have a name, and in most cases the same name, although the ideas which they excited might no longer be the same; for, I imagine, and it is impossible to think otherwise, that before the invention of the alphabet, hieroglyphics were, and indeed must have been, ideographic.

That such must have been the fact is evident from the innumerable inscriptions engraved on the Egyptian monuments, which exhibit these different sorts of hieroglyphics, and sometimes so mixed together, as to perplex a reader not accustomed to them. The exact and elaborate figures of the object were invariably engraved on public monuments, and public buildings, whether symbolical or figurative; the simple outlines were used in exhibitions of a less remarkable character, and the arbitrary marks in manuscripts only. And although the grand elaborated style may be occasionally met with in buildings of inferior note, and even in manuscripts; yet the arbitrary marks are never to be seen, as far as I have been able to ascertain, but in manuscript writing, or on works comparatively insignificant; and this fact evidently shews, what I have endeavoured to establish, that the difficulty and labour attending picture writing was the cause, or at least one of the causes, why the use of outlines and symbols was adopted.

But if to these considerations, already powerful, we add others equally strong, arising from the peculiar state in which the primitive Egyptians

found themselves, when they first went to inhabit their country, we shall be able to understand the meaning of many other symbols, and the cause of their adoption. Most of these have a reference to the Nile, and to the annual inundation, which was in fact the principal reason of the prosperity of Egypt; others are connected with, or depending upon the habits, customs, and religion of the natives; not a few exhibit the peculiar speculations and religious practices of the Egyptians; although in their origin they undoubtedly belonged to the theology of mankind before the dispersion, because, with few alterations, they were substantially and fundamentally the same with the ceremonies and ritual of all the nations of the world.

All these alterations, however, must have preceded the invention of the alphabet, although some of them must have taken place after the Dispersion. For, if the invention of the alphabet had preceded the Dispersion, we should have found the use of it generally established amongst mankind, and hieroglyphics and picture writing entirely laid aside. But this is not the case. The Mexicans and the Peruvians, up to the fifteenth century, and, to this day, the Chinese have no knowledge of the alphabet. They all, like the Egyptians, made use of hieroglyphics, more or less abridged, more or less symbolical; or, if you please, more or less arbitrary; but they had no knowledge of the alphabet. The invention of letters, therefore, must have happened after the Dispersion, at a time

when picture or hieroglyphical writing was generally used; it was thus imported into the respective countries, by the primitive inhabitants, as they separated themselves from the common society, carrying in their migrations those partly true and partly false notions of the Deity, and of the great event which had submerged the world; notions which, in fact, are to be found in the theology and ritual of all the nations in the universe, although more or less disfigured and altered; as we shall see in a future Lecture.

Such, it appears to me, is the probable account of the origin, nature, and use of hieroglyphics previous to the invention of the alphabet. How that discovery happened, and what alterations took place, after it became generally known, in the mode of writing and in the meaning of hieroglyphics, we will shew in our next Lecture.

LECTURE VIII.

Continuation of the same subject-Simplicity of the original figures and language of mankind-Hebrew alphabet-Chinese characters-Words mostly monosyllables-Examples-Formation of dissyllabic and trisyllabic words-Examples-Similarity found in most of the Oriental alphabets-Mode by which figures became arbitrary marks-Their shapes-Specimens of the Chinese and Egyptian-Names attached to each, generally imitative-How expressed in writing-ExamplesDifference of hieroglyphics—Joining of sounds-Analysis of them-Discovery of the alphabet—Generally attributed to the Egyptians-Remarkable passage of Plato-Consequences arising from it-General remarks.

In my last Lecture I endeavoured to prove that the first method of writing employed by mankind, was the simple or full representation of the object. This, in fact, we found to have been the mode employed by the Mexicans; and although the specimens which I exhibited at the time belong to another sort of picture-writing, more settled and more complicated, and consequently in some measure inapplicable to our present inquiry; yet they were, in other respects, sufficiently conclusive to exemplify the mode of writing I was then describing.