e beheaded.

But though, in this symbolical mode of writing, a great many ideas and
events could be represented thus, by means of signs or symbols having
a greater or less resemblance to the thing signified, yet in many
cases the characters used were wholly arbitrary. They were in this
respect like the character which we use to denote _dollars_, as a
prefix to a number expressing money; for this character is a sort of
symbol, that is, it represents a thing rather than a word. Our
numerals, too, 1, 2, 3, &c., are in some respects of the character of
symbols. That is, they stand directly for the numbers themselves, and
not for the sounds of the words by which the numbers are expressed.
Hence, although the people of different European nations understand
them all alike, they read them, in words, very differently. The
Englishman reads them by one set of words, the Spaniard by another,
and the German and the Italian by others still.

The symbolical mode of writing possesses some advantages which must
not be overlooked. It speaks directly to the eye, and is more full of
meaning than the Phonetic method, though the meaning is necessarily
more vague and indistinct, in some respects, while it is less so in
others. For example, in an advertising newspaper, the simple figure of
a house, or of a ship, or of a locomotive engine, at the head of an
advertisement, is a sort of hieroglyphic, which says much more plainly
and distinctly, and in much shorter time, than any combination of
letters could do, that what follows it is an advertisement relating to
a house, or a vessel, or a railroad. In the same manner, the ancient
representations on monuments and columns would communicate, perhaps
more rapidly and readily to the passer-by, an idea of the battles, the
sieges, the marches, and the other great exploits of the monarchs
whose history they were intended to record, than an inscription in
words would have done.

Another advantage of the symbolical representations as used in ancient
times, was that their meaning could be more readily explained, and
would be more easily remembered, and so explained again, than written
words. To learn to read literal writing in any language, is a work of
very great labor. It is, in fact, generally found that it must be
commenced early in life, or it can not be accomplished at all. An
inscription, therefore, in words, on a Mexican monument, that a
certain king suppressed an insurrection, and beheaded the