bility that so important a fact would have been omitted by the sacred historian? There are various other arguments in this matter, but these form the hinge of the dispute; and we shall close this subject with a very satisfactory observation of Dr. Priestley, who remarks, that, the imperfections of all alphabets, the Hebrew by no means excepted, seems to argue them not to have been the product of divine skill, but the result of such a concurrence of accident and gradual improvement as all human arts, and what we call inventions, owe their birth to. For certainly, the alphabets in use bear no marks of the regularity and perfection of the works of nature: the more we consider the latter, the more reason we see to admire their beauty, just proportions, and consequent fitness to answer their respective ends; whereas, the more we examine the former, the more defects, superfluities, and imperfections of all kinds we discover in them. Besides, had there ever been a divine alphabet, it would certainly have established itself in the world by its manifest excellence, particularly as, upon this supposition, mankind were incapable of devising one themselves.
III. But whatever may be the origin of alphabetical writing, it is certain that all alphabets are, more or less, defective. In the orthography of modern languages, in particular, it
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