Page:Observations on Man 1834.djvu/230

 of his chronology be admitted, it does not appear to me, that any rationale can be given of ancient times, the inventions that rose up in them, the establishment and duration of kingdoms, their mutual intercourses, &c.

For, first, If alphabetical writing was known upon the continent of Asia and Africa six hundred years before Cadmus, how could it be kept from the Greeks till his arrival amongst them, and then accommodated to the Greek tongue only very imperfectly? For the Greeks received but sixteen letters from him. The Greek tongue came itself perhaps from Egypt, in some measure; and they who brought the language two generations before Cadmus, would have brought an exact method of writing it alphabetically, had they been possessed of any such. For it is not probable, that Inachus, and the colonies of Egyptians that came with him, and after him, should change their language entirely for that of the poor wandering Cimmerians, whom they found in Greece, since we see in fact, that the colonies of Europeans do sometimes teach the barbarous natives, where they go, an European language; but never change it for theirs.

Secondly, If alphabetical writing was given to Moses miraculously, it is easy to be conceived, that it should not arrive at Greece sooner than the time of Cadmus. For the Jews were a separate people, their priests kept the writings of Moses in the ark, i.e. the only alphabetical writings in the world; and must be some time before they could be ready and expert either in reading or writing; in their attempts to copy, it is probable they would make some mistakes so as to fall short of the purity and perfection of the art, as communicated by God; the neighbouring nations feared and hated the Israelites, their religion, and their God; they had probably a picture-writing, or perhaps some imperfect method of denoting words, agreeably to what has been remarked above, which answered all purposes that seemed necessary to them; and thus the art of alphabetical writing might not transpire to any of the neighbouring nations till the time of Eli, when the ark, with the writings of Moses in it, was taken by the Philistines. For since the writings of Moses were not in the ark, when it was put in the temple by Solomon, it may be, that the Philistines kept them, and learnt from them the art of writing alphabetically, being now sufficiently prepared for it by such notions concerning it, as had transpired to them previously in their former intercourses with the Israelites. And thus the Phœnicians, or Philistines, will have appeared the inventors of letters to the Greeks; and Cadmus may well be supposed to have been able to accommodate the Phœnician method of writing, in an imperfect manner, to the Greek language, about two generations after the taking of the ark. Thus also, when Samuel put the writings of Moses together, as they had been copied by the priests, or others, in the order in which they now stand in the Pentateuch, there would be some