dence in it; is not material for us to know, However, 'tis certain each People did form a Set of different Characters, that is, each differing in Figure from thofe difcovered. by God, most or all differing in Pofition or Order of Succeffion; fome in Number, by omitting feveral; others by adding, or compounding feveral; and each and each gave each Letter, or moft of them, a different Power or Sound from that it was intended to reprefent in the Alphabet of the Ifraelites; and fo many of them in each Nation different from thofe in others. And several of those Alphabets will fhew, that the first were formed by Conjecture, and that they aimed at imitating thofe of the Hebrew; and that the Letters were alfo formed by Guefs, from them; and thence their Languages, in the Manner affigned, and not by an immediate Miracle, at Babel, And it may be fhewed, by the Scraps remaining of the Beginning of fome of the following Languages, that they were neither writ by Rules of Grammar, or any Rule whatever, but by Guess. For when the Neighbours fift began to ufe Letters, by the Mifapplications of the Sounds, they writ that which none now can understand, nor even know the Letters, of which many Samples are preferved; 'till in length of Time they

came

came to fettle Sounds differently, compound Words, and formed different Languages. When they began to compound Words, Prefixes could be of no Ufe; thence they were forced to form Particles; nor Affixes, so forced to form Pronouns, fo &c: It appears, that thofe who formed Laws, put them into Writing before they could write to be understood, partly from the mistaking of the Letters, and partly because the Languages were but forming, the one depending upon the other; and thofe Laws stood in Force long after their Languages were polifh'd, as we have done with Old French And fome Infcriptions of fuch Stuff are found preferved. I do not suppose that this was done all at once in each Place or Country; but that they each, from Time to Time, chopped, changed, intermixed, and fometimes reduced feveral into one, fome early, fome at vaft Distance of Time, as low as the writing of the Alcoran.

The Effect of Confufion did not follow from the Difference of the Figures of the Letters, or of each Letter in each Set of Letters, or the Alphabet of each Nation, nor from the different Order of Succeffion in each, nor by turning the Letters, and writing from Left to Right; but from the Difference

D 4

Difference in the Power or Sound they gave to each Letter or Vowel which they form'd in each Country, from that which was given to each in the Hebrew Alphabet, it fhould have answered; and alfo from each of thofe in the Alphabet of other Nations, which each of them intended to answer that in the Hebrew; and alfo form omitting any of the Letters or Vowels which the Ifraelites had, and fo lofing the Power or Sounds out of the Words which are preferved by the Ifraelites; or, &c. and of Course ufing Letters or Vowels with other Powers or Sounds, in their Steads; from miftaking each initial and its final from two Letters, and fo framing Two for each one of fuch, with different Powers and alfo from adding the fingle or compound Letters or Vowels, which the If raelites, or, &c. had not: And fo of Courfe, introducing them with their Powers or Sounds into their Words.

All thefe

Differences from each other, no doubt, at fift Beginning, would be vaftly wider than they would be in a few Ages after, when they would be forced by Degrees, in each Country, to come under fome Regulation which might methodize each of their new Languages, but could never retrieve the old one.

We

We are in the Dark about the Powers or Sounds which the Antients gave to their Letters or Vowels, when the Knowledge of that, by feveral Accidents hereafter mentioned was loft. Many Attempts were made, by Pointing and other Rules, to retrieve them; but neither those, nor the Sound affix'd to each Letter in each Alphabet, nor any Pronunciation now in Ufe can fet them right: To attempt it, would begin an endless Conteft; we can determine what concerns this Affair without that, fo I fhall not enter into Examples of the Comparisons of particular

Sounds.

If all and every Nation at the Time of this Discovery ufed the fame Language, and the fame Pronunciation or Dialect as the Ifraelites did, and each other Nation that had a Copy of the fame Alphabet given, as there were none but fallible Men among them, if they had but err'd ever fo little in this Point, fome had now and then changed a Letter, and inferted one which was the nearest in Sound to that which the Ifraelites used in that Word, but not the very fame, the Language written would be widely different; nay even changing Confonants into Vowels, or Vowels into Confonants, irregularly, would

make

make a vaft Variation, and the Roots, Ideas, and Certainty, would have been loft. And as thofe which came neareft, had fome Difference in their Powers or Sounds, then easily distinguishable to the Natives, tho' uncertain or difficult now to us, muft then create fuch a Difference in the Pronunciation of each Word which had thofe Letters, as would at first Hearing, make them difficult to be understood. And if they gave the Power of one Letter to another, in a few of fuch of the Letters as differ widely, it would make it impoffible for an Ifraelite to understand their Words with thofe Letters at first, either spoken or written.

If a Nation who fpake the fame Language with the Ifraelites, and differ'd only in the Pronunciation of their Words, or, as 'tis call'd in Dialect, and had had a Copy of the Hebrew Letters given, that Difference in Dialect would of Course, make them mifapply the Letters, ufe one or more Letters or Vowels in a Word differing from thofe the Ifraelites used in the fame Word, and by fuch a Series of Mistakes, one by one Hand, another by another, the Whole would be confounded; which would produce the Effects aforefaid, and in each Country which dif

fer'd