In the ordinary communication of our thoughts we employ arbitrary signs and sounds to which we have universally agreed to fix a definite meaning.  Thus, our entire spoken language is made up of a great variety of sounds or words with which by long practise we have become familiar.  We call a certain object a horse, not because there is any similarity between the sound and the animal designated, but because we have agreed that that sound shall represent that object.  So, also, we have agreed that the characters h-o-r-s-e shall represent the same thing; and by the use of twenty-six characters, called the alphabet, placed together in various combinations, we are able to write our entire spoken language.

The incidents connected with the introduction of written language among a barbarous people are worthy of remark in this connection.  That thought can be conveyed to persons at a distance by the use of certain cabalistic characters seems to them incredible, and when compelled to believe it, they look upon the person that can accomplish such wonders as embodying something supernatural.  These things I mention merely to call attention to the fact that spoken and written language is a curious and wonderfully complicated affair.  This is brought forcibly to our minds when we hear persons conversing in a foreign tongue, or when we pick up a book the characters of which are wholly unlike those of our own language.  To us an English book is full of instinctive beauty, every letter or mark possessing a definite meaning that is instantly conveyed to our minds, because we have become familiar with them by diligent study and practise.

There are other ways of transferring thought besides the complicated system just mentioned—­ways which are much more natural and simple.  Thus, a simpler way to represent a certain object would be to draw a picture of it; or, better still, to represent a certain character or quality by exhibiting, not the object itself, but an analagous one whose peculiar character that property is; for examples:  the quiet, peaceful, gentle disposition of a child, by a lamb; a man of cunning, artful, deceptive disposition, by a fox; or a cruel, bloodthirsty, vindictive tyrant, by a tiger, etc.  This is hieroglyphical or symbolic language.  This language takes precedence over every other for naturalness and simplicity, being common to a greater or less extent among all nations and intelligible to all.

Spoken language was undoubtedly a gift from God originally, while written language is probably a mere human invention.  We are not to suppose that the first attempts to convey thought in writing would be by an alphabetical system, but by the symbolic, it being, as before stated, the most natural and within reach of the ordinary ingenuity of man.  This is proved by the fact that the inscriptions on the ancient monuments of Egypt and the inscriptions of other nations of antiquity are of this character.  It is also a fact worthy of notice that, four thousand years later, men of other countries and of other languages have, by much study and a careful comparison of the symbols, been able to decipher with accuracy those hierographical representations.[1] This of itself is sufficient to establish the point that definiteness can be attached to the use and the interpretation of carefully-selected symbols, when the principles that governed their original selection are discovered.