imagine things which would feel, and smell, and taste, and look some
like an apple, but it falls to the lot of more abstruse reasoners to
make their suppositions, and then account for them--to imagine things,
and then treat of them as realities. We are content with the knowledge
of things as they do exist, and think there is little danger of
mistaking a potato for an apple, or a squash for a pear. Tho in the dark
we may lay hold of the Frenchman's _pomme de terre_--apple of the earth,
the first bite will satisfy us of our mistake if we are not too
metaphysical.

The same idea may be called up in your minds by a picture of the apple
presented to your sight. On this ground the picture writing of the
ancients may be accounted for; and after that, the hieroglyphics of
Egypt and other countries, which was but a step from picture writing
towards the use of the alphabet. But these signs or vehicles for the
conveyance or transmission of their thoughts, compared with the present
perfect state of language, were as aukward and uncomly as the carriages
employed for the conveyance of their bodies were compared with those now
in use. They were like ox carts drawn by mules, compared with the most
splendid barouches drawn by elegant dapple-greys.

A similar mode would be adopted now by those unacquainted with
alphabetical writing. It was so with the merchant who could not write.
He sold his neighbor a grindstone, on trust. Lest he should forget
it--lest the _idea_ of it should be obliterated from the mind--he, in
the absence of his clerk, took his book and a pen and drew out a _round
picture_ to represent it. Some months after, he dunned his neighbor for
his pay for a cheese. "I have bought no cheese of you," was the reply.
Yes, you have, for I have it charged. "You must be mistaken, for I never
bought a cheese. We always make our own." How then should I have one