This mode of writing is founded on resemblances per ceived or supposed; and as it is difficult to set limits to the power of imagination in discovering or figuring resem blances, it might be supposed that the symbolic mode of writing could be carried to an indeterminate extent. But in fact it has its limits ; it must be understood, if it is to' be useful at all ; the resemblance, therefore, must be either obvious and discerned by mere intuition, or so generally perceived and recognised, that the persons to whom it is addressed may easily pass from the sign to the thing signi fied. If the resemblance be very recondite and remote, if the analogy is traced from qualities not generally observed, the symbolic writing becomes proportionally obscure, and to the uninstructed not even intelligible.
It is 'thus, by a natural progress, that we can trace the origin of hieroglyphics.. Mere picture writing was an ob vious invention; contraction of picture writing was probably taught by necessity: symbols required the exercise of im agination; at first, probably, plain and perspicuous, they soon became more complicated and obscure.
Among a people who had no mode of representing their thoughts but by means of figures or characters of this de scription, the very progress of knowledge, or the extension of enquiry beyond the mere objects of sense or immediate observation, could not fail both to add to the number, and augment the obscurity of the symbolic signs made use of New discoveries, new truths, new subjects of thought, re quired appropriate and expressive symbols ; these might either be drawn from objects not hitherto delineated, or fi gures previously in use might he employed, arranged in forms and collocations remote from their former delinea tions. In either way it would follow, that to persons unac quainted with the very subjects to which the signs related, the symbols, until explained, would pres6nt confused and unintelligible groups. It was in this manner that the uni verse, or universal nature, came to be denoted by a winged globe, with a serpent issuing from it; and a serpent itself was made to represent the divine nature, on account of its supposed vigour and spirit, its great age, and the revere scence ascribed to it.
Hieroglyphics then are only an extension of picture writ ing, adapted to remote or mysterious objects. The first use, even of the simple hieroglyphic writing, was to record the history, the laws, and civil polity of the community; not, as Bishop Warburton justly observes, to conceal know edge, but in fact to preserve and communicate it. But afterwards hieroglyphics came to be employed for a very different use. From the very nature of such a mode of writ
ing, it is easy to see how conveniently, in the hands of a set of men aiming at pre-eminence by the reputation of supe rior wisdom, it might be used either to conceal their know ledge, or veil their ignorance from the people. Enigmatic figures, explained only to the initiated, were admirably fit ted for such an end ; and where the situation and circum stances of the people permitted this mode of concealment, we might expect to find it introduced and carried on. The extent, however, to which it could be carried, must be de termiticci by the character or by the peculiar institutions of a people. Where superiority in knowledge in any class of the community was small, and the separation of professions not very rigid, the opportunities of concealing knowledge would be few, and the use of enigmatic figures less fre quent; but where distinctions were strongly marked, parti cularly where a separate class of men were set apart to the conducting of religious rites and ceremonies, there, if no counteracting circumstance occurred; the occasions and means would be numerous and readily embraced.
Upon these principles it is not difficult to discover in the situation and character of the Egyptian priesthood, the circumstances which, though they did not indeed produce the invention of hieroglyphics, certainly occasioned a more extensive use of them than prevailed elsewhere. The Egyptian priests were a separate class of men, closely united among themselves, but sacredly distinct from the people, at a time when the only mode of writing in Egypt was by pictures or symbolic signs. Their retired life, joined with the objects about which they were chiefly employed, gave them the means and inclination of carrying their researches into abstract truths farther than the rest of their countrymen ; the fruits of these researches were denoted by peculiar, often by the most grotesque and ca pricious symbols, conveying a secret meaning only to the initiated. In no other community, probably, did the same opportunies occur. Among some communities the sepa ration of the different classes was neither wide nor per manent, and even where they were, yet as soon as alpha betic or even character writing was introduced, the use of symbolic writing would be in a great measure superseded. Hieroglyphics from that period, cultivated only for sacred purposes by the priests from the love of mystery and con cealment, would soon lose their meaning, and in time be come wholly unintelligible to all but the priests and their disciples.