Page:Repository of Arts, Series 1, Volume 01, 1809, January-June.djvu/17

Rh of navigation, accompanied by the advances made in marine astronomy, the knowledge of tides, winds, and currents, and in geography, that at present it is no more than a voyage of eighteen months. From Bombay and Madras to Falmouth, voyages have been frequently performed in less than four months. These circumstances, connected with the arts of writing and printing, facilitate the intercourse of men and minds, and account in a great degree tor the accelerated progress of knowledge at the present, beyond all former periods. These arts enable the learned of all countries to supply mutual deficiences [sic], to correct mutual errors, and, on subjects of common investigation, to enlarge the knowledge of facts, which, since the days of Bacon and Galileo, have converted the learned world from visionary theorists into rational enquirers. As these two important arts (writing and printing) are the means by which we are principally acquainted with all human knowledge, we shall say a little respecting them.

To write, or, in other words, to express the thoughts to the eye, was early attempted in Egypt, by means of hieroglyphics: these were figures of animals, parts of the human body, and even mechanical instruments; as the former were made choice of on account of the peculiar properties or quality of the animals, so they are said to have represented similar qualities in the gods, heroes, or others to whom they were applied. These images being placed in their temples, gave rise to a strange sort of worship ascribed to these people; and that homage and veneration which had first been paid to the heroes themselves, was insensibly transferred, without any great violation of propriety perhaps, to the animals by which they were represented. The meanings of some of these hieroglyphics are preserved. The Supreme Deity was represented by a serpent with the head of a hawk: the hawk was the hieroglyphic of Osiris; the river-horse, of Typhon; the dog, of Mercury; the cat, of the moon,. But these were not confined to Egypt: figures, composed of feathers, were employed to express ideas in Peru; and Montezuma received intelligence of the invasion of his kingdom by the Spaniards, in this way. In Peru, arithmetic was composed only of different coloured knots. The next step in the progress of writing, appears to be the expression of a word by a single mark or letter, which is the Chinese method of writing. They have upwards of sixty thousand of these marks, which they employ in matters of science. Instead of using marks to represent words, which are infinite, we employ letters to represent articulate sounds, which compose words. Their inferior and wretched mode of writing, readily accounts for the state of literature among the Chinese, and their relative superiority in respect to the arts, which being imitative, may be acquired by practice or oral instruction. The art of writing seems to have been known in Greece when Homer composed the Iliad and Odyssey; and cyphers, invented in Hindostan, were brought into France from Arabia about the end of the tenth century.

The mode of impressing figures upon silk and cotton, which (according to the accounts given us by the Jesuits) had been practised by the Chinese many centuries before