The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1897-10-28

future generations his ideas or cOncep.
tiOns. This is not wonderful, it is
mysterious. The ant was just as in
telligent, seemingly, 5000 years ago as
now. But man. Man alone has, of all
creation risen from one common level.
Why should he forge to the front-far
outstrip other intelligences? Or do
we but arrogate to ourselves this adj
vancement, having no adequate knowl
edge of the intelligence of other
living forms? Or is there some law of
nature yet unknown, the influence of
which tends to distribute intelligence
proportionately to the ability of the
living form to seize and apply it?
Like the magnetic influence displayed
in the various metals, one receiving
and retaining, the other simply a
medium for it's transmission.
Man, previous to his social grouping
had little need of a system to record
his ideas or communicate them to
others. His life was simple; his wants
few and easily satisfied; his ideas, also
few, communicated orally. But as
his ideas accumulated, his intelligence
expanded; names would be given to
familiar objects; attempts made to
represent the objects observed. Thus
it was short step from the spoken
word to the rude drawing; to that of
symbol to convey the thought of the
familiar, and then to use the same
method to convey the idea of the un-
! familiar. So we find that literature
originated from mans attempts to
convey ideas by pictorial art; hence
the intimate relation that existed be-
tween art and literature in mans early
social life. So intimate was the rela-
tiOn that it becomes exceedingly diff
cult to define their divisional lines.
The method of conveying ideas or
speech pictorially is known as the
Geographic systems. The principle
underlying all of these systems was
the same, yet different races originated
different forms. Thus we have the
Geographic literature of the Incas of
Peru, and the Aztecs Of Mexico.
as found existing at their conquest by
PiZZaro and COrtez. The vast cumber-
some system of ideographs so familiar
to us in Chinese literature, dating
back twenty, thirty, or more centuries
before the Christian era.
The Hebrew and PhHncian systems
seemingly sprung from SOME remote
parent form, as the sanscrit of the
| lndo- Aryan race. The hieratic and
Geographic forms Of Egypt, as pre-
served on tablets, monuments. tOmbs
and sarcophagi, and papyri contained
therein reaching to the far distant
period of 1904 BIC. the date assigned
by ManethO to Manis, the first king of
the first dynasty, whose tomb was un-
covered but few weeks ago. But in
the light of recent discoveries the most
remote period is assigned to the litera-
tlre of ancient Chaldea, originally an
topographic system of unique FORM
known as the cuneiform, of wedge-like
characters.
Professor Petrie has uncovered writ
ten records dating to at least 5000 IS. c.
Layanard in his explorations at Nineva
has thrown open the view of the past,
to the time of Sargon l., $500 B. c.
While HaneS has found inscribed tab
lets of brick beneath the ancient city
of Ur Our of the Chaldea) bearing the
seal of Narim-sin, king reigning
about five or six thousand years before
the present era. When we reflect that
the archaic form of these inscriptions,
even, required long periods for their
development, we will not be amiss in
giving to the first literary attempts of
early man probable period by re-
1ecting that long time would be re-
quired to enable them to reach the
perfection certainly existing 5000 B. c.,
we may then grasp the remote age of
literatures birth.
To the Ph9nicians is due the credit
for originating the alphabet based on
the elemental sounds used in articu-
latei speech. By them it is said,