Hieroglyfic

The subject of this inquiry, tho’ of that importance as to demand the care and attention of the ablest writers, is perhaps the least understood of any branch of science. This being in a great measure owing to the present corrupt state of languages, and the wrong course and direction of lexicographers in the investigation of them, the Writer of this essay, therefore, without presuming to instruct his readers in any common track of literature, only submits to their perusal some discoveries, which perhaps may be of service towards the restoration of language and primitive knowledge, and excite the curiosity of those of greater learning and penetration, and engage them, if possible, in a research worthy of their contemplation, the restoration of the first universal language of mankind. For although the ground-work, which chiefly depends on the author’s own discoveries, may be sketched out by himself, without the parts and learning of an Aristotle, yet it must be confessed that the finishing strokes in any new abstruse branches of literature deserve a more masterly hand. However, since we are here indiscriminately permitted a decent exercise of our faculties upon the most serious subjects, it is to be hoped no unpardonable offence has been committed, in submitting the following sheets to the judgment and decision of men of candor and learning. If they should in any degree approve of the writer’s labours, he will then be justified this intrusion into the province of the literati, with all his defects and inaccuracies. But should the contrary happen after an impartial and candid examination, he must then acquiesce with the common fate of his fellow-labourers, and impute his errors or mistakes to the intensity of his zeal for the service of mankind, more particularly Britons of all denominations. But to be condemned unheard, in a country that boasts so much of its liberties, especially those of the press, must be without a precedent.

However customary it has been for writers to take notice of the performances of former authors upon the like subjects, in order to shew the necessity or utility of their own; yet, as no person ever treated this subject upon the present plan, and the author is not so vain as to imagine that any thing he could have advanced might have been sufficient


 to attract those that have been long accustomed to the clod-cutting traces, and the voice of prejudice or mere sounds, and he presumes not to teach any particular language or doctrine, it shall be declined as useless in the present case; and we shall proceed here to what seems to be more proper and necessary for the illustration of the subject in hand, namely, to transcribe some notes taken in the course of these inquiries, introductory to a rational grammar. And first of the nature and state of man.

Man, in the sense of language, is to be considered as a compound of all beings, a microcosm in his form, and a general intelligent echo of the divine fiat by his speech; a vegetable, by his manner of growth and nourishment; an animal by his motion, respiration, and feeling; and a spiritual being from his thinking or intelligent faculties; his animal part being probably formed with the other animals, out of the dust of the earth, and his intelligence in its first state, that tree of life, breath, or superaddition breathed into his nostrils by the creator, by which he became a living soul. The essence of this celestial and terrestrial system or compound being will probably remain indefinable, until man shall recover his primitive existence, as the tree of life; tho’ the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the mean time furnish him with sufficient means for his happiness here, and existence hereafter as the tree of life; for his organs of sensation, in contact with external objects and impressions, form in the sensory the various modes of feeling, and those images are perceived by the will; which has not only a nilling power of permitting those images to remain without any additional light, as the mere images of sensation fit only for the government of animal bodies; but also of willing or presenting them to the reflecting faculty of the soul for the formation of sentimental ideas, to be registered in the memory, and employed by the mind in its intelligent, rational, wise and virtuous operations, for the illumination and conduct of a reasonable being, appointed by Providence lord of the creation.

The human will being the sole energy of all voluntary motions in man, and motions continuing in direct lines or courses, if not diverted therefrom, most probably would have continued its pure intuitive course and direction towards goodness, virtue, and true happiness, without the power of nilling or depravely contradicting its original nature, as the tree of life, had not the serpent interposed and put the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil in its way. And as man in his state of innocence, before his fall, must, as the tree or


 breath of life, have been furnished with the knowledge of good, so it seems probable that Moses by the tree of knowledge of good and evil, meant the generative powers, or certain characters or letters representing them, engraved on the bark of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, furnishing the first pair, in their state of innocence, with two sorts of ideas or knowledge, and the means of gratifying their lust, as well as pride or curiosity of knowing good and evil, like their superiors; mankind before their fall being probably capable of seeing each others ideas, without the use of sounds; and of propagation after the manner of the second Adam.

Since those animals, which are endued with the organs of speech, are incapable of articulating any conceptions, it is reasonable to suppose that the animal part of man alone, without the assistance of the intelligent or rational, must be so likewise. It is therefore probable that the human will, agreeable to the notes or ideas impressed on the memory, plays upon the fibres, the simple tones of articulation; which in their passage, with respiration, thro’ the lungs, stomach, windpipe, larynx, and mouth, are by the glotis, tongue, lips, muscles, and other organical powers, which assume literal figures, modulated into articulate sounds, both simple and compound, agreeable to the nature of things and their ideas, as impressed in the human sensory. And as man is furnished with ideas chiefly by the means of speech, the tree of knowledge of good and evil seems to be no improper metaphor of the human voice or person, or the Dryades and Hamadryades, nor the tree of life, of man’s intuitive state of knowledge and virtue.

It is yet the general opinion that human speech derives its origin solely from the arbitrary composition or invention of man, without any connexion with nature or the intervention of Providence. However true such bold and presumptuous doctrines may be with respect to some of the corrupt compounded parts, which chiefly occasioned the great variety and confusion of languages, yet articulate sounds, the materials of speech, clearly appear to have been the gift of Providence, and always the same in all countries; as for instance, an Indian, as well as an European, in expressing the idea of length, will contract and lengthen the organs of articulation, so as to form an acute sound, and the shape of the letter i; and to express breadth they will alike extend them, like the letter o, to express a broad or grave sound; and so in other


cases, though they differ as to the manner of compounding those sounds; more especially on account of the great loss of primitives amongst the Indians. And it cannot be otherwise, since the scripture proves that Adam named things agreeable to their nature, under the inspection and direction of Providence.

Again, to suppose man of himself, without the intervention of Providence, capable of forming the materials of his own speech, must be as absurd as to imagine that he formed the materials of his own ideas or himself, since speech depends on the original frame of man, and the shape of his organs, and abstract and complex ideas on names, as the means of forming and registering them in the memory. Nor does it appear to be less so, to imagine dumb men, without inspiration, capable of fixing upon arbitrary signs of language, or advancing in knowledge, or at least, of forming so perfect a system, without being previously taught the use of letters and characters, the elements and principles of languages; more especially such of the sounds and figures, as were not to be met with in any other parts of nature, and the unintuitive, vicious, privative, and negative parts both of knowledge and language, which depend on the hieroglyfic, sacred, or secret characters. And, whatever may be the disguise of arbitrary or corrupt dialects, they will all appear upon due examination to derive their origin from the original tree of knowledge; and was it not for the difference of climates, constitutions, habits, manners, and other accidents, which demand the aid of grammar, it seems probable, since characters represent the figures of things, and letters, or natural articulate sounds subsist in the very frame of man, the very ideas causing vibrations in the speaker, are felt by the hearer, and the elements of speech are universally the same, that languages would naturally fall, or at least, like the English, incline to their primitive universal state, and the same combination and construction of particles into words and sentences, if the particles of all languages were precisely defined according to their primitive meaning; there being in man an innate potency of recurring to, as well as an impotency of erring or deviating from the original modes of speech, as well as perceptions, and of becoming virtuous and vicious by turns.

Languages, it is true, have been fluctuating, and in particular the English; which was originally the Celtic or Phrygian, brought by our ancestors, the Titans, in the first westward migration, from the lesser Asia, thro’ Greece and Italy


 into ancient Celtica; and which on the arrival of the Romans in Italy partook of the Greek dialects, and furnished the Romans with a considerable part of the Latin tongue. Some of the Aborigines of Italy, Spain, and Gaul, having afterwards fled from the Roman yoke into Germany, without their priests and druids, who had before retired into Britain, their language as well as knowledge received an ebb, though no foreign admixture. But their priests and bards denominated in the writings of the British poets, the Luchlin colony, and in Germany and Italy, by the names of Longobards, and Lombards, the great bard nation, and speaking the British language in Germany, being drove by the Romans out of Britain, into Germany and Denmark, their language as well as knowledge received some increase from the mother tongue; which then in its turn began to sink in Britain. And thus all the dialects of ancient Celtica are but different dialects of the old Celtic language, which first made its way into Europe, and so they ought to be deemed by lexicographers in their definition of vocables. But of all those dialects, the English in respect to the copiousness, strength, and simplicity both of its vocables and construction, seems to be the best fund for an universal language of any upon earth.

It may not perhaps seem improper here to explain some other abstruse principles in physics and metaphysics, from the meaning of vocables, as they too seem to explain the principles of rational grammar. There are, it seems, in physics, discoverable by the signification of words, three universal principles or genusses of things, namely, space, matter, and motion; which, as to their essences, if essence, nature, and quality differ in ought but form, are indefinable. But with respect to their modes, properties, and forms, space is distance every way, whether with or without body; with it, it is extension or capacity; without it, a vacuum; quantity, mensuration, number, place or matter extended, a continent, an island, length, breadth, figure, thickness, an inch, a foot, a yard and such things being its modes. Matter, whatever its essence may be, is an indivisible impenetrable atom or corpuscule; of which two or more assembled or cohered, form a particle, and larger cohesions or combinations of those form sensible bodies, which are chiefly distinguishable in language by their forms; though they have such properties and modes, as length, breadth, and thickness, or extension, solidity, or an assemblage excluding all other bodies from its place,


 divisibility or the separation of its quantity, mobility, passiveness, and figure, or that length and breadth without thickness, which present themselves to the eye. And as to the active qualities of matter, they seem to be all intentional, as fluidity, softness, rarity, heat, and other modes of motion; all the rest being passive, and arising merely from the different texture, disposition, and combination of bodies; or a privation of the former; as, firmness, hardness, density, coldness, dryness, and rest. Motion is the successive passage or change from once place or state to another. Of which there are three sorts expressible by language, viz. the energic, generative, and local; which with their various modes or actions are expressible by verbs.

The metaphysical part of man, which derives its origin from the Creator’s impression, or the essence of the thinking soul, altho’ it has no more consciousness or knowledge of its own essence, than those of other beings; nor perhaps the means of its present modes of conception, without the use of those bodily organs, to which the all-wise Creator was pleased to confine it for a time, and the presence of internal objects, any more than the organs of sensation feel the touch without the contact of external objects, is still in the fool, as well as philosopher, when furnished with proper organs, equally capable of that innate potency of expressing its own qualities and actions, as is evident from our universal acknowledgement of a creator, and the different powers of those fools who are capable of lucid intervals. And however different our reasonings may be concerning the attributes of the infinite Creator, from the variousness of objects and different degrees of volition, there can be nothing more absurd than to affirm that the human soul cannot be impressed with the image of its Creator, because at times it expresses or affects no consciousness of it; consciousness being rather an energic affirmation or quality of the soul, than its essence, as an involuntary animal or vegetable motion is an act, rather than the cause of motion. Such perceptions however as it does express of spiritual beings, have privative, energic, or moral names; which are formed by the symmetry, and just measures and proportions of parts and modes of motion; from whence moral notions also derive their origin, as shall be shewn in the course of the following work, as shall also as to our mistaking infinite duration for time.


Tho’ metaphysics aid the moral plan,

“The proper study of mankind is man;”

His language part we now presume to scan,

A mighty maze to be without a plan;

‘A wild where weeds promiscuous shoot,

Or garden tempting with forbidden fruit;’

The tree of life, once, branches, stem, and root,

Of knowledge too, since vices on it shoot.

The garden cleared of the tares and weeds,

Gives willing force, and cogitation speeds.

‘Then, as life can little more supply,

Than just to look about us, and to die;

Expatiate free o’er all this scene of man,

A mighty maze! yet not without a plan.’

Plain truth, not person, is my utmost hope,

I tell you truly in the sense of Pope.

Wild signifies a wood, or the place of the higher growth, and is an emblematical expression for the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the Υλη, matter or sound of human speech, as ειδος seems to be of its ideal property.

Person is a compound of pêr-son, sweet sound; pêr also signifies any sweet ripe fruit, as figs or figes, according to the Welsh; which perhaps resembles that which gave man the denomination of person, the sound of the apple or afal, and to the fallen angel that tempted Eve, the name of di-afal or devil, the apple God; and figes and vices signify the same thing; the v consonant and digamma being the same, and g being an inflection of the radical c. See person, wood, &c. in the vocabulary.

The fall of man has laid us under a sort of charm, which nothing can remove but a thorough taste of the tree of knowledge, and avoiding its vicious branches as much as possible. Had that great reasoner Mr. Lock been so happy as to attend a little more to the tree of knowledge, instead of intirely rejecting the divine origin of human speech, and innate principles of thinking, he might have reasoned well upon right principles, instead of misleading and confirming us in our errors, as without doubt was his intention.


The learned Hermes, the very best of modern grammarians, whose ingenious performance, had it sooner come to my perusal, might have charmed me out of my present labours, to acquiesce with his opinions, seems to be a little affected by this fort of charm, and perhaps is as much deluded from his subject by the language, learning, and beauties of the Greeks and Romans, as the late author of the short introduction to the English language, by some of our modern barbarisms, the very exceptionable parts of our language.