sounds, that is, these precede and their delineation follows. The combination of meaning and sound is not the product of this visible representation. There is no means of investigating the origin of mankind, but we may reasonably infer that men at first were naked and unkempt. They killed wild animals, skinned them and tore up their carcases for food and clothing. Their emotional natures were fierce like those of birds and beasts, and their intellects were undeveloped like those of infants. They could only by howling and shouting then make known to each other their likings and dislikings, their joys and angers. Then as their intellects developed they gradually acquired the ability to give names to things, and so they had a supply of sounds for shouting and calling. Writing had not yet arisen, and as classes of objects increased and their arrangement became more complicated, men could not do without some evidential record. So in time there arose the institution (or arrangement) of knotted cords. Then as cunning increased and regulations became more complicated, engravings were made on bamboo and wood to form records. At the present time, barbarians (蠻夷) and rustics ignorant of characters apparently use such engravings, which are called ch‘i (契), that is, tallies or indentures. When these proved insufficient for all the vicissitudes of affairs the forms of material objects were pictured and the essential features of immaterial objects were indicated. Thus engravings were made for the names of all objects material and immaterial, and thence arose the knife-inscribed tablets called Writings (書). The author goes on to shew how the first writing, which was only pictorial and indicative (or suggestive), came to be followed by other developments until the wealth of characters equalled human demands. The whole of this introduction, in spite of not a few faults, is interesting and worthy of perusal.[1]
It was necessity, the Chinese own, which first struck out the art of recording, the necessity of aiding memory and keeping
- ↑ 六書故, introduction, p. 14. Mr. Hopkins in "the Six Scripts" has given an excellent translation of the whole of this introduction. His rendering of the text from which the above passage is taken will be found at p. 5. Mr. Hopkins will see that his remarks on the rendering given in the "China Review" have led to some alterations for the translation given in the text here.
