Fig. 362. “ To this belong the Enchorial, Demotic, or Epistolographic characters of Egypt, detached
fear of misapprehensions, let ns also note that the above
ancient characters are entirely distinct in age from those on the
modem and rabbinical “ Bowls ” (249) from Babylonia "which
Mr. Ellis’s remarks might lead others than archaeologists to
invest with the halo of antiquity. They cannot attain even to
the third century after C.; and, indeed, may deaoend to days
after the Mohammedan conquests. Until we can resume the
subject, the reader will find a place assigned to them in our
Table under the heading of “ Hebrew Babylonish.”
2d. MONGOLIAN ORIGIN. — We give this designation to a system of writings distinct
organically, chronologically, linguistically, geographically, pal®ographically, ethnologically
jn short, aborigmally— from any affinity "with Semitic streams, or with the latter’s common
H am itic source. To comprehend us, the reader need but open the works of Pan-
thier; (250) without perplexing himself with other definitions, until he finds the former
inconsistent with .science, history, reason, and probability.
It is, however, from his Sinico-JEgyptiaca that the principles and examples of our author’s
critical results must be gathered; and, having advocated them on a former occasion, (261) j
we return to them with pleasure increased by subsequent verifications of their accuracy.
P a u th ier ’s T h r e e A ges oe Wr it in g s .
««1st A ge . —-The figured representation of objects and ideas; otherwise the pictorial age.
<< o f this age we possess nothing that can be safely referred to primeval antiquity. All
barbarous nations, like the tribes of North America, still strive to perpetuate their simple
traditions by pictures. . , ,
“ To this age, with a probable infusion of the symbolical element (although, as yet,
whether of their lost languages, undeciphered writings, or chronology, it may be said that
we literally know nothing), may perhaps be referred the pictures and so-called hieroglyph
of the ante-Columbian monuments of Mexico, Central America, and Peru.
“ 2d A g e . The altered and conventional representation of objects; otherwise the transitionperiod;
when the pictorial signs pass into the symbolical, and thence gradually into the
syllabico-^? honetic. . . - ■ ■
“ To this age belong the ideographic writings of the Chinese secondary period, classified
as follows: (252) 1st. — H ig h A n t i q u i t y ; b . c. 2637 to 3369 — according to the Ohm
annalists, the KOU-WEN, or antique writing. 2d. Zr- M ed ium A n t iq u i ty ; B. o. 820 the
TA-TCHOUAN, or altered image of objects. 3d. — Low A n t i q u i t y ; b . o. 227r--the RlAU-
TCHOUAN, or image still more altered of objects. _ 4th.—M o d e r n T im e s ; b . o . 2UU to a . d.
1123, and still in use—four kinds of current writing and typography. _
“ The above are formed upon principles presenting some f6w analogies, but m the SH
remarkable differences, when compared with the Egyptian.yeftoraeiw system. (253) U n d e r tie
same age may be classed the hieroglyphical and hieratic system of Egypt, the latter being
tackygraphy or short-hand of the former. h . . . , ,,
“ Albeit that we have but very vague data in this respect, it is e x c e e d i n g l y probable that
all writings began by being figurative and syllabic before they became purely alphabetim.
Manyfelphabets, such as the Sanscrit alphabet, the Ethiopic alphabet the Persepom i
(without speaking of the Japanese and Corman alphabets), are stall almost complete!)
syllabic, and bear evident traces of a figurative origin. (254)
“ 3d A g e .—The eetely-phonelic expression of the articulations of the human voice. other
wise the strictly alphabetical a g e ; to which belong all writings which ^represent no inor
than the vocal elements of human articulations, reduced to their simplest expressio ,
i. e., A, B, C, D, &c. 1 ____
(249) Op. cit.; pp. 509-526; figs. 1, 3, 5, 6.
(250) 1st. Sinico-Ægyptiaca — Essai su r l’Origine e t la Formation Similaire des Ec ritu re s Figuratives »
e t É gyptienne ; Paris, 1842. 2d. Systèmes d? Écritures Orientales et Occidentales ; 1838. 3d. Chine Ancienne, d ap 8
les documents ’chinois ; 1837. 4th. CmUisatim Chinoise— containing th e Chinese Books, Çnou-Krao, Y-K*
T a -h io , T c h o u n g -Y o u n g , IiUN-yü, and M e n g - t s e g ; 1843.
(251) Otia; pp. 100-102. H
(252) P a u t h i e r : Sinico-Ægyp. ; p. 24.
(253) Op. cit.: pp. 98 to 110.
(254) Op. cit. : p. 34 ; and on each alphabet, consult h is “ Orig, des Alphabets,” passim.
from occasional figurative and symbolical signs.”
Nothing to the student of Pauthier’s work'can be more clear than that the primeval type
of Mongol man, whose centre of creation lies along the banks of the Hoang-ho, and that
other (organically distinct) Hamitic type whose centre is the Nile, after each one in its own
region had passed through all preliminary phases of its individual development, reached,
at an age on either side equally beyond traditions, the power of recording things by pictures;
just as the American Indian around us, spurning every inducement to profit by our graphical
art, still traces on the bark of trees, on rocks, on buffalo-robes, those rude designs
whereby he hopes to annihilate space and time in the transmission of his thoughts.
If it be granted that an Egyptian, or a Chinese, could singly arrive at the discovery of
this the humblest stage of letters for himself, why refuse the same capacities to the other?
One nation of the two, at least, must have discovered this pictorial art for itself, most certainly:
how then attribute tuition of another world of man to either, when the graphical
systems of both are radically different ?
Nearly a century ago, after applying vigorous strictures to the theories of Needham and
De Guignes (we might add Kircher, De Pauw, Paravey, Wiseman, indeed orthodoxy generally),,
who claimed that either China taught Egypt, or Egypt China, Bishop Warburton
thus emphatically placed the question in its only philosophical light :—
“ Tp conclude, the learned world abounds with discoveries of this kind. They have all
one common original; the old inveterate error; that a similitude of customs and maimers,
amongst the various tribes of mankind the most remote from one another, must needs arise
from some communication. Whereas human nature, without any help, will, in the same
circumstances, always exhibit the same appearances.” (255)
How, it may be asked, do we know that the pictorial wo.s the first, or rather the anterior,
age of writing in Egypt, or in China ? Aside from all arguments of analogy that pictures
are the rudimental writings of semi-barbarism at this day—already a vast step higher than
the savage Bosjesmap, Papuan, or Patagonian, has ever attained—it is proved, in Egyptian
hieroglyphics of the most ancient and pure style, (256) by their being, as far as perfection
of sculpture and vivid coloring can make each thing, the exact representatives of natural
and artificial objects, every one indigenous in nature to the valley of the Nile: and utterly
foreign elsewhere. In China, the pictorial epoch is reached by tracing backwards each
mutation of characters, age by age, to the primitive K ou-.w e n ; which is a tachygraph, or
abridgement, of natural or artificial productions, all autocthonous to the region of the
Hoang-ho.
Of course, copies however rude of the same things must present certain identities,
whether delineated in China, Egypt, or America; but just as a parent instinctively detects
which of his children has scrawled a given form ; or that a man betrays to others his individuality
by his handwriting ; so archaeological practice enables an observer to point out
the distinctive peculiarities of a given people’s designs. The latter, moreover, tell whence
they came by the very subjects figured. Thus, if, in a series of characters called “ Egyptian
of the IYth Memphite dynasty,” a camel, a horse, a cock, were designed, the presence of
either of these animals would prove the document to be a forgery; because camels, horses,
and cocks, were unknown in the valley of the Nile for a thousand and more years later.
In China, cocks and horses (257) were indigenous, like the silkworm, from the commencement
of creation in this geological period; but, in her primitive pictures,there are no Egyptian
ibises, nor .papyrws-plants. No rattlesnakes, magnolias, or bisons, can be discovered in
(255) The D ivine legation o f Moses demonstrated; 1766; 5 th ed .; iii. p. 99.
(256) Lepsiùs : Denkmdler ; for illustrations.
(2 5 7 ) There seems to he some doubt about th e horse in C hina proper a t a n early period, because, ab o u t b . c .
00, this animal w a s imported from Tartary (Chine, p. 1 0 0 ) . Nevertheless, Fo-hi is said to have t a u g h t h is
People to j a i s e th e six domestic animals — horse, ox, fow l, pig, dog, and sheep ; an d u n d e r th e th ree my th ical
oangs,” h is antecedents, th e re was a period o f time called th e horse (P a tjth ie r: Temps A ntérieurs a u Choitr
n9> Liv. Sac. ; pp. 2 0 , 83). We cite th e pictorial horse merely by way of p opular illu rtratio n .