calligraphically they were meant to represent the idea of a bird
or animal. In other words, the first stage of picture-writing did
not go beyond the mere representation of an eagle by the picture
of an eagle. But this, obviously, would confine the presentation
of ideas within very narrow limits. In due course some inventive
genius conceived the thought of symbolizing a picture. To him the
outline of an eagle might represent not merely an actual bird,
but the thought of strength, of courage, or of swift progress.
Such a use of symbols obviously extends the range of utility of a
nascent art of writing. Then in due course some wonderful
psychologist--or perhaps the joint efforts of many generations of
psychologists--made the astounding discovery that the human
voice, which seems to flow on in an unbroken stream of endlessly
varied modulations and intonations, may really be analyzed into a
comparatively limited number of component sounds--into a few
hundreds of syllables. That wonderful idea conceived, it was only
a matter of time until it would occur to some other enterprising
genius that by selecting an arbitrary symbol to represent each
one of these elementary sounds it would be possible to make a
written record of the words of human speech which could be
reproduced--rephonated--by some one who had never heard the words
and did not know in advance what this written record contained.
This, of course, is what every child learns to do now in the
primer class, but we may feel assured that such an idea never
occurred to any human being until the peculiar forms of
pictographic writing just referred to had been practised for many
centuries. Yet, as we have said, some genius of prehistoric Egypt
conceived the idea and put it into practical execution, and the
hieroglyphic writing of which the Egyptians were in full
possession at the very beginning of what we term the historical