Hieroglyfic: A Grammatical Introduction to an Universal Hieroglyfic Language

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.