of tree; _e.g._
[song] _sung_ "a fir tree," [sang] _sang_ "a mulberry tree"; and by
extension it points toward anything of wood, as [ban] _pan_ "a board,"
[zhuo] _cho_ "a table," [yi] _i_ "a chair," and so on.

So [yu] _yue_ "a fish" and [diao] _niao_ "a bird" are found in all
characters of ichthyological or ornithological types, respectively.

[ren] _jen_ "a man" is found in a large number of characters dealing
with humanity under varied aspects; _e.g._ [ni] _ni_ "thou," [ta] _t'a_
"he," [zuo] _tso_ "to make," [zhang] _chang_ "a weapon," [jie] _chieh_
"a hero," [ru] _ju_ "a scholar," "a Confucianist"; while it has been
pointed out that such words as [jian] _chien_ "treacherous," [mei] _mei_
"to flatter," and [du] _tu_ "jealousy," are all written with the
indicator [nu] _nue_ "woman" at the side.

The question now arises how these significant parts got into their
present position. Have they always been there, and was the script
artificially constructed off-hand, as is the case with Mongolian and
Manchu? The answer to this question can hardly be presented in a few
words, but involves the following considerations.

It seems to be quite certain that in very early times, when the
possibility and advantage of committing thought to writing first
suggested themselves to the Chinese mind, rude pictures of _things_
formed the whole stock in trade. Such were

[Illustration: Sun, moon, mountains, hand, child, wood, bending official,
mouth, ox, and claws.]

in many of which it is not difficult to trace the modern forms of
to-day,

[mi yue shan shiu zi mu chen kou niu zhao]

It may here be noted that there was a tendency to curves so long as the
characters were scratched on bamboo tablets with a metal stylus. With
the invention of paper in the first century A.D., and the substitution
of a hair-pencil for the stylus, verticals and horizontals came more
into vogue.

The second step was the combination of two pictures to make a third; for
instance, a mouth with something coming out of it is "the tongue," [gua];
a mouth with something else coming out of it is "speech," "words," [yan];
two trees put side by side make the picture of a "forest," [lin].

The next step was to produce pictures of ideas. For instance, there
already existed in speech a word _ming_, meaning "bright." To express
this, the Chinese placed in juxtaposition the two brightest things known
to them. Thus [mi] the "sun" and [yue] the "moon" were combined