人 _jen_ "a man" is found in a large number of characters dealing with humanity under varied aspects; _e.g._ 你 _ni_ "thou," 他 _t'a_ "he," 作 _tso_ "to make," 仗 _chang_ "a weapon," 傑 _chieh_ "a hero," 儒 _ju_ "a scholar," "a Confucianist"; while it has been pointed out that such words as 奸 _chien_ "treacherous," 媚 _mei_ "to flatter," and 妒 _tu_ "jealousy," are all written with the indicator 女 _nü_ "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, 日 月 山 手 子 木 臣 口 牛 爪 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," 舌; a mouth with something else coming out of it is "speech," "words," 言; two trees put side by side make the picture of a "forest," 林. 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 日 the "sun" and 月 the "moon" were combined to form 明 _ming_ "bright." There is as yet no suggestion of phonetic influence. The combined character has a sound quite different from that of either of its component parts, which are _jih_ and _yüeh_ respectively. In like manner, 日 "sun" and 木 "tree," combined as 東, "the sun seen rising through trees," signified "the east"; 言 "words" and 舌 "tongue" = 話 "speech"; 友 (old form [Illustration]) "two hands" = "friendship"; 女 "woman" and 子 "child" = 好 "good"; 女 "woman" and 生 "birth," "born of a woman" = 姓 "clan name," showing that the ancient Chinese traced through the mother and not through the father; 勿 streamers used in signalling a negative = "do not!"