Note 1 — INTRODUCTION.

Beattie seems to think that the antediluvians had an alphabet, and that hieroglyphical was posterior to alphabetical writing. “The wisdom and simple manners of the first men,” says he, “would incline me to think, that they must have had an alphabet; for hieroglyphic characters imply quaintness and witticism.” In this reasoning I cannot concur. Alphabetic writing is indeed simple, when known; so also are most inventions. But, simple and easy as it appears to us, we have only to examine the art itself, to be fully convinced, that science, genius, and industry, must have been combined in inventing it. Nay, the learned author himself acknowledges, “that though of easy acquisition to us, it is in itself neither easy nor obvious.” He even admits, “that alphabetical writing must be so remote from the conceptions of those who never heard of it, that without divine aid it would seem to be unsearchable and impossible.” I observe also that in passing from picture-writing to hieroglyphical expression, and in transferring the signs of physical to intellectual and invisible objects, fanciful conceits would naturally take place. It is true also that the manners of the antediluvians were simple; but it is not from prudence nor simplicity of manners, but from human genius, gradually improved, that we are to expect inventions, which require the greatest efforts of the human mind.