This assumption is confirmed by the fact that the oldest monuments of Egypt--and they are also the oldest in the world--exhibit the Egyptians in possession of the art of writing. All writing proceeds from pictures. The writing of the Egyptians and Babylonians, like that of the Chinese, Mexicans, and the tribes of North America, was in the first instance no more than speaking pictures. The Egyptians engraved on the stone of their rocks pictures of the objects and events of which they wished to preserve the remembrance. As this use of pictures to assist the memory became more common and more regular, from external no less than internal reasons, it quickly acquired certain abbreviations and combinations. The frequent repetition of a picture led to its abbreviation. The picture of a house dwindled into a square; water is not so much sketched as indicated by waved lines; instead of a forest we have the outline of a tree--in Egypt we find the sycamore, the most common tree in the country. Thus from actual imitative pictures we arrive at indicatory pictures. But how could the various kinds of fluid, for instance, be represented in these indicatory pictures? The three waved lines indicating water were retained, but beside them was sketched a wine-jar or water-pot, and thus the desired end was attained. By adding the picture of a god to the square, a temple was distinguished from a house. By such means the objects of the visible world could be reproduced in pictures more or less abbreviated. Even the actions and conditions of men which do not come immediately under the eye could be represented in this abbreviated metaphorical manner. Giving could be represented by an outstretched arm with a loaf; opening, by a door; going, by a road planted with trees; travelling, by a walking bird; battle, by an arm equipped with shield and lance; binding and fastening, by a coiled rope; destruction, by a prostrate man. It was more difficult to represent conditions which do not show themselves to the eye, as, for instance, hunger and thirst. To express thirst the Egyptians chose the symbol of water and a calf running to it; hunger they represented by a hand conveyed to the mouth, and this was also the symbol of eating. But the most difficult task for this picture-writing was the description of objects transcending sense, and abstract ideas. For the gods, it is true, popular notions and the fancy of the priests had supplied fixed forms which only required to be abbreviated for the picture-writing. The picture of the sky-goddess served as a symbol for the sky. The Egyptians regarded the sky as arched over the earth; the feet of the goddess rested on one extremity, and her hands on the other. Instead of the complete figure of the goddess in this arched attitude, they drew a line of a similar kind, and this was the abbreviated picture of the sky. If the sun or a star was combined with this line, the picture represented the day and the night. But the abstract ideas of law and justice, truth, protection, good, evil, life, &c., could only be represented in this picture-writing by sensuous images. In Egypt power was represented by a brandished whip, or poleaxe; justice, by the cubit, or symbol of equal measurement; good, by the symbol of sound, in order perhaps to indicate harmony; evil, by the picture of an unclean fish; truth, by an ostrich feather--the feathers of this bird are said to remain unchanged; protection, by a soaring vulture, &c., &c.