Abstract
I HAVE promised to speak to you to-night on a large subject, one which, to be treated adequately, would require, not a single lecture or a single hour, but many lectures and many days. The history of writing is in great measure the history of the human mind; just as anything like real abstract thought is impossible without language of some kind, so, too, without writing it is difficult to conceive of a progressive civilisation or a developed culture. The trained memory is no doubt able to accomplish marvellous feats, as we may learn from the Hindus, who have preserved by means of it, through long ocenturies, not only poems, but even scientific works as well; nevertheless, the memory has a limit, and I think most of us would be sorry to trust to it alone for the record of our own thoughts and discoveries, much less those of others. If language gave man the power of continuous thought, writing has enabled him to develop and make use of it.
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The History of Writing 1 . Nature 21, 378–380 (1880). https://doi.org/10.1038/021378a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/021378a0