Of other systems of writing, chiefly pictorial, known in the ancient world, such as the Hittite and the Cypriot--or, again, of the picture-writing of many other savage tribes beside the North American Indians, it is not necessary to speak. For we are not writing a history of alphabets, but of the acquisition of the _art_ of writing by mankind.
At this point, where we are bringing our inquiries to a conclusion, we would fain look a little nearer into the mists which shroud the past, and descry, were it possible, the actual dawn of history for the individual nations; would see, not only how the larger bodies of men have travelled through the prehistoric stages of their journey, but how, having reached its settled home, each people begins to emerge from the obscurity that surrounds its early days. What were the exact means, we ask, whereby a collection of nomadic or half-nomadic tribes separated, reunited, separated again, and developed upon different soils the qualities which distinguish them from all others? What _is_, in fact, the beginning of real national life?
The worlds which circle round the sun, or rather, the multitudinous systems of orbs which fill space, might pose a like inquiry. There was a time when _these_ which are now distinct worlds were confounded as a continuous nebula, a thin vapour of matter whirling round in one unchanging circle. In time, their motion became less uniform, vortices--as the word is--set in, smaller bodies of vaporous matter which, still obeying the universal movement, set up internal motions among themselves, and cooling, separated into separate orbs. How like is all this process to the history of nations! These, confounded once together in one unstable mass of wandering tribes, have in like manner separated from their nebulous brethren, and, setting up their internal vortices, have coalesced into nations. And yet as a system of planets, albeit with their own distinctive motions, do all revolve in one direction round one central force, so the different families of nations, which we may call the planets of a system, seem in like manner compelled by a power external to themselves in one particular course to play a particular part in the world’s history. The early stone-age Turanians, the Cushite civilizers of Egypt and Chaldæa, the Semitic people, may all be looked upon as different systems of nations, each with its mission to the human race. Thus, too, the Aryan people, after they had once become so separated as to lose all family remembrance, are found working together to accomplish an assigned destiny, migrating in every direction, and carrying with them everywhere the seeds of a higher civilization.