Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 8.djvu/20

6 were subsequently applied as Phonetic symbols, or symbols of sounds, and as Emblems, or symbols of ideas; that these three modes of conveying meaning, by Direct Representation, by Phonetic symbols, and by Emblems, existed co-ordinately for a while, and were finally absorbed into, and commuted for the one fixed conventional Alphabetic method.

If we apply this theory to the classification of the systems of writing which remain to us, it will be seen that, though not of course admitting of arrangement in chronological sequence, they exhibit the art in various stages of its development. The Mexican will present to us a system in which the Pictorial is predominant; the Egyptian hieroglyphics will enable us to trace the gradual extension of the Phonetic and Emblematic, the abbreviation of both forms in the more cursive Hieratic, and the decay of the Pictorial system: the Chinese, and perhaps the Assyrian Cuneiform, will bring us one step nearer the purely conventional system; and the perfection of the Alphabetic method will be found in the Phœnician, as it has been adapted by the Hellenic race.

I will not attempt here to illustrate more fully, or to justify more in detail, this theory as to the origin of writing; nor do I ask you, on the present occasion, to admit more than the general fact, which the most superficial examination of the Egyptian or Mexican hieroglyphics will show, that there have been ages and nations when the Alphabetic system was as yet undeveloped, and the Pictorial was its substitute, and consequently that there was a period when art and writing were not divorced as they are at present, but so blended into one, that we can best express the union by such a compound as Picture-writing.

This original connection between two arts which we are accustomed to consider as opposed, obliges us to regard the elements of writing as part of the history of imitative art generally. Thus the inscribed monuments of Egypt are neither art nor literature, but rather the elements out of which both sprang, just as early poetry contains the germ both of history and philosophy.

It is this first stage in the history of writing which peculiarly claims from the Archaeologist thought and study. The art of which he has to trace the progress, as it has, perhaps, more contributed to civilisation than anv other human inven-