writers; the best known are Massey, 1763, The Origin
and Progress of Letters;" Astle, 1803, "The Origin
and Progress of Writing;" Silvestre, "Universal
Palaeography," Paris, 1839-41 ; and Humphreys, 1855,
"The Origin and Progress of the Art of Writing."
They, with others, have sought to record the origin
and gradual development of the art of writing from
the Egyptian Hieroglyphics of 4000 B. C.; the Chinese
Figurative, 3000 B. C. ; Indian Alphabetic, 2000 or
more B. C. ; the Babylonian or Cuneiform, 2000
years B. C.; and the Phoenician in which they include
the Hebrew or Samaritan Alphabet, 2000 or more
B. C., down to the writings of the new or Western
world of the Christian era.

The data presented and the arguments set forth,
deserve profound respect, and though we find some
favoring the Egyptians, or the Phoenicians, the Chaldeans,
the Syrians, the Indians, the Persians or the
Arabians, it is best to accept the concensus of their
opinion, which seems to divide between the Phoenicians
and the Egyptians as being the inventors of the
foremost of all the arts. "For, in Phoenicia, had
lived Taaut or Thoth the first Hermes, its inventor,
and who later carried his art into Egypt where they
first wrote in pictures, some 2200 years B. C."

The art appears to have been first exercised in
Greece and the West about 1500 or 1800 B. C., and
like all arts, it was doubtless slow and progressive.