As the discussion divides naturally into two parts as to treatment—­ though a general synthesis must be the final result—­we will proceed to examine the first part—­namely, the charge that the Sanskrit alphabet is derived from the Phoenicians.  When a Western philologer asserts that writing did not exist before a certain period, we assume that he has some approximate certitude as to its real invention.  But so far is this from the truth, that admittedly no one knows whence the Phoenicians learned the characters, now alleged (by Gesenius first) to be the source from which modern alphabets were directly derived.  De Rouge’s investigations make it extremely probable that “they were borrowed, or rather adapted from certain archaic hieroglyphics of Egypt:”  a theory which the Prisse Papyrus, “the oldest in existence,” strongly supports by its “striking similarities with the Phoenician characters.”  But the same authority traces it back one step farther.  He says that the ascription (by the myth-makers) of the art of writing to Thoth, or to Kadmos, “only denotes their belief in its being brought from the East (Kedem), or being perhaps primeval.”  There is not even a certainty whether, primevally or archaically, “there were several original alphabetical systems, or whether one is to be assumed as having given rise to the various modes of writing in use.”  So, if conjecture has the field, it is no great disloyalty to declare one’s rebellion against the eminent Western gentlemen who are learnedly guessing at the origin of things.  Some affirm that the Phoenicians derived their so-called Kadmean or Phoenician writing-characters from the Pelasgians, held also to have been the inventors, or at least the improvers, of the so-called Kadmean characters.  But, at the same time, this is not proven, they confess, and they only know that the latter were in possession of the art of writing “before the dawn of history.”  Let us see what is known of both Phoenicians and Pelasgians.

If we inquire who were the Phoenicians, we learn as follows:—­From having been regarded as Hamites on Bible testimony, they suddenly became Semites—­on geographical and philological evidence(?).  Their origin begins, it is said, on the shores of the Erythrian Sea; and that sea extended from the eastern shores of Egypt to the western shores of India.  The Phoenicians were the most maritime nation in the world.  That they knew perfectly the art of writing no one would deny.  The historical period of Sidon begins 1500 B.C.  And it is well ascertained that in 1250 Sanchoniathon had already compiled from annals and State documents, which filled the archives of every Phoenician city, the full records of their religion.  Sanchoniathon wrote in the Phoenician language, and was mis-translated later on into Greek by Philo of Byblus, and annihilated bodily—­as to his works—­except one small fragment preserved by Eusebius, the literary Siva, the Destroyer of nearly all heathen documents that fell in his way.