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HIEROGLYFIC: OR, A Grammatical Introduction TO An Universal Hieroglyfic Language; CONSISTING OF ENGLISH SIGNS and VOICES.

WITH

A Definition of all the Parts of the ENGLISH, WELSH, GREEK, and LATIN Languages;

Some Physical, Metaphysical, and Moral cursory Remarks on the Nature, Properties, and Rights of Men and Things.

And Rules and Specimens for composing an Hieroglyfic Vocabulary of the Signs or Figures, as well as the Sounds of Things, upon rational and philosophical Principles, and the primitive Meaning of Names.

"Expatiate free o'er all this Scene of Man, A mighty Maze! yet not without a Plan."

LONDON: Printed by JOHN HUGHS, near Lincoln's-Inn-Fields; And sold by Messrs. DODSLEY, in Pall-Mall; DAVIS, in Piccadilly; SHROPSHIRE, in Bond-Street; ELMSLEY, late VAILLANT, in the Strand; OWEN, at Temple-Bar; and CROWDER, in Pater-Noster-Row. Of whom may be had, the Origin of Language and Nations, by the same Author; Price 5s. and his Postscript 1s. in Sheets. 1768.

PREFACE

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.

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.

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.

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.

GRAMMAR.

Grammar is the right method of expressing the ideas of things by signs and sounds adapted for the sensation of the eye and ear, according to their hieroglyfic nature, forms, and modes, and that ?????????? or intelligent echo, with which man was originally endued by his Creator.

It consists of three parts or sorts of names, viz. letters, considered as characters or the figures of things, and as signs of articulate sounds; their combination into particles and nouns; and their construction into phrases, propositions, and sentences. And, according to the present state of languages, etymology may be admitted as a fourth division of grammar.

LETTERS.

Letters, as ???????? or characters, either really or emblematically personate, and represent things and ideas; and as notes of articulate sounds signify internal conceptions, and express them to others. They consist of various sorts, such as simple characters to denote elements or principles; compounds to express complex ideas, and things; the dividers of parts; actives, energies, and affirmatives; and privatives, and negatives. These are the smallest or elementary parts of language, as atoms are of matter and action of motion; an assemblage thereof form particles, as of atoms do those of matter; and a combination of either form more sensible bodies, and so on to the construction of larger forms, masses or sentences; letters having been formed in their shapes and sounds, agreeable to ideas and things, and having a natural connection therewith; and length and breadth affecting the eye in the same manner as their vibrations do the ear, and a combination of both the human will and perception.

Eng. Welsh. Greek. Greek names. and Roman.

a, ?. ?. Alpha, the call upon parts.

b. ?, ?. Beta, upon the beasts of the fields.

c, k, q. ?. Kappa, the action upon parts.

d, dd. ?. Delta, the division or race of things.

e, ?, h, ?. ?, ?, ?, ?. Epsilon and Heta, the clitoris, erectors, and all the interjectory generative springs.

f, ff. ?. Phi, the penis in action and generative qualities.

g. ?, ?. Gamma, the testicles, or an action about the mother.

i, j. ?. Jota, the rays of the sun upon things.

l, ll. ?. Lamda, things extended or place.

m. ?. Mv, man's body, and things about as surrounding man.

n, ng. ?. Nv, in man, or betwixt his thighs, human will and the negatives.

o. ?, ?, ?. Omicron and Omega, the little and great circle of space, place, and motion.

p. ?, ?, ?. Pe and Psi, the penis not in action, and animal and other dead parts.

r. ?, ?. Rho, the eccho or sound of animals, &c.

s, s, z. ?, ?, ?. Zigma and Zeta, sounds in general.

t, T, th. ?, ?. Tau and Theta, man's possessions, properties, extension, &c.

v, u, U, w. ?, ?. Upsilon, the upper springs, as man's face, &c.

Transcriber's Note: This table is included as an image in the HTML version, as some of the characters in it may have more than one interpretation.

This alphabet consists of seven vowels or voices, which in their own nature, actively, and without any super-addition, yield compleat articulate sounds, particles, or names, and hieroglyfically represent the elementary or active parts of the human body, and nature, as similar thereto, namely, a, e or h, i, o, u, w or ?, ?; and of other characters or letters, which are called consonants from their yielding articulate sounds only in company with vowels. Of these b, c, d, f, g, l, m, p, t, are also hieroglyfic representations of the various parts of the human body and other things as similar thereto; and they are mutable and inflectory in the pronominal cases, from the less animate, slow, and almost silent radical state, both as to the sense and sound, to the rougher, louder, and more animate and active sounds and things; as for instance, c, p, ?, the most silent, as expressive of material or passive substances or local inanimate actions inflect into g, b, d, which are somewhat louder and rougher, as being expressive of the higher and more active things and actions of men and animals; and those again into the still louder and rougher sounds of ch, ff, th, as those are expressive of the most energic actions or modes of motion; but when g, b, d, are the radicals of inflection, they again inflect into ng, f, m, dd, n, and in some dialects the l and r have the aspirates ll and rh for the radicals, as has been shewn in my former treatises. To the loss of these inflections may in a great measure be imputed the great variety and confusion of languages; new dialects having been formed by changing the radicals and misapplying the inflectories, as father for pater, brother for frater, and mother for mater. b, c, d, j, k, p, q, t, as yielding little or no sounds, without the assistance of vowels, are called mutes; l, m, n, r, f, s, as having imperfect obscure sounds without the company of vowels, have been distinguished as semivowels; and l, m, n, r, also as liquids from their flowing in particles, as in, ?f, ?l, ?m, ?n, ?r, the flow of the sun's rays, light, motion, liquid, and life or qualities upon the lower world of beings and things; but the distinctions of mutes and semivowels seem trifling, as most letters seem to be vowels in some degree.

Here, before we proceed to explain the figures and powers of letters, it may not perhaps be improper to observe that the parts, affections, and ideas of the human pair, incorporated, as in the figures at the end of this essay, were the archetypes or patterns of the original characters, whose figures and sounds are descriptive of the universe; that letters and particles have two sounds, the masculine and feminine, the active and passive, or the short and long; that a particle or syllable cannot in the genuine sense of language consist of more than two letters; and that there are not in fact any such things as dipthongs; those now supposed to be such, being two or three particles of one vowel each, which formerly was a common method of composition, as appears by the following piece of ancient poetry; in which there is no consonant made use of, the r being only a letter of sound.

Oer iu yr eira ar yr yri, Oi riu or awyr i rewi; Oer iu yr ia oi riu ri Ar eira oer iu yr yri.

Thus Englished.

From its high hill cold is ice, Cold is the snow on Snowden; Its nature from the sky to freeze On snow so cold is Snowden.

?, L, ?, are T or man's legs, once put together, separated, and as divisors of T, which signifies space or extension, are expressive of particular lengths and breadths, and their places, qualities, &c. The L or ? is sounded as eel or ?l and ? has an aspirate hissing sound in the Welsh, Spanish, and some other dialects.

Of Particles and Syllables.

A Particle is a simple articulate sound and sign of one or two characters or letters; but a syllable sometimes by the cutting off of vowels, becomes a combination of more letters, which is yet commonly pronounced as a simple articulate sound; there being a natural relation and agreement betwixt the signs and sounds of letters, and ideas and things. Particles and syllables were originally framed according to their hieroglyfic shape, the natural sounds of ideas and things, and the sense and value of letters, as has been already explained; and therein the quantity of the action of sound was measured and proportioned to the motion, action, or energy of the thing to be expressed, as the high, loud, acute, or short accent, for an active or energic particle, and the low, grave, and long, for a passive, substantive, or a negative one.

And altho' some letters, as a, e, y, p, t, and some particles in words are so fixed by the addition of y, ty, ive, and other terminations, as of themselves to be always substantive and long, as to quantity and accent; yet those passive and long letters and particles, by the addition of an active vowel, consonant, or particle, will become active and short. Hence the best way of spelling or pronouncing must be to divide the particles of compound names according to the original manner of their combination, sense, and sounds, and when a vowel is cut off, its consonant, with the remaining vowel, or with the most valuable, if there should be any doubt, as in the following examples, ex-ec-ra-ble, co-re-spond-ing, pro-ble-m-at-ic-al-ly, un-ec-spect-ed-ly, prin-ce, o-af, o-ther, o-ver, ub-iqu-i-ty. Those sorts of names and their compounds according to their significations and nature in language, are distinguishable into the following sorts, viz. Articles to substantive and identify names; nouns substantive, or the names of substances; pronouns, which collectively express nouns and antecedent parts of sentences; adjectives, which are added to the names of substances, to express their qualities and accidents; actives, or the names of actions, verbs, energies, and affirmatives of being, acting, and feeling; adverbs or additional words, to express quantities, qualities, distances, modes, and energies of actions and things, with their degrees; prepositions to denote and connect situations, and conjunctions or connectives of names, proportions, and sentences.

As the right apprehension of the hieroglyfic primitive language very much depends on a clear illustration of particles, which as sorts of compound letters, together with the primitive hieroglyfic letters, comprehend all the materials of the first universal language, the following addition is here made to what has been already published on the etymology of particles; the radicals being placed in each class before their inflections and transponents. Ab, eb, af, ef; ba, be, fa, fe. These express the generas and species, as well as causes and effects of animal life, beings, and growth of the earth and water, both male and female, as in ab-ba, eb-riety, af-ect, ef-ect, ba-by, be-an, fa-ther, fe-male, fa-ar-am-er, ba-ar-en-ess.

Ib, if, bi, fi. These are expressive of the qualities flowing from above, like the sun's rays upon man and inferior beings, and their return of life, as in l-ib-eral, l-?f, bi-le, fi-eld.

Ub, uf, bu, fu. These are the springs or returns of the above qualities in man and other beings, as in ub-erty, h-uf, bu-d, fu-el, ub or springing upwards.

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