was
thus opened for the written symbol to enter into relation with oral
speech, which is also a form of symbolism. Articulate sounds are
simplified forms of experience capable through association with ideas of
expressing meanings not directly related to the sounds themselves. When
the written symbol began to be related to the sound symbol, there was at
first a loose and irregular relation between them. The Egyptians seem to
have established such relations to some extent. They wrote at times with
pictures standing for sounds, as we now write in rebus puzzles. In such
puzzles the picture of an object is intended to call up in the mind of
the reader, not the special group of ideas appropriate to the object
represented in the picture, but rather the sound which serves as the
name of this object. When the sound is once suggested to the reader, he
is supposed to attend to that and to connect with it certain other
associations appropriate to the sound. To take a modern illustration, we
may, for example, use the picture of the eye to stand for the first
personal pronoun. The relationship between the picture and the idea for
which it is used is in this case through the sound of the name of the
object depicted. That the early alphabets are of this type of rebus
pictures appears in their names. The first three letters of the Hebrew
alphabet, for example, are named, respectively, _aleph_ which means ox,
_beth_ which means house, and _gimmel_ which means camel.

The complete development of a sound alphabet from this type of rebus
writing required, doubtless, much experimentation on the part of the
nations which succeeded in establishing the association. The Phoenicians
have generally been credited with the invention of the forms and
relations which we now use. Their contribution to civilization cannot be
overestimated. It consisted, not in the presentation of new material or
content to conscious experience, but rather in the bringing together by
association of groups of contents which, in their new relation,
transformed the whole process of thought and expression. They associated
visual and auditory content and gave to the visual factors a meaning
through association which was of such unique importance as to justify us
in describing the association as a new invention.

There are certain systems of writing which indicate that the type of
relationship which we use is not the only possible type of relationship.
The Chinese, for examp