This method alone of crouding together all the Characters (how many soever go to make up the decompounded Character) into one square (which is of the same size for the most Simple and for the most Compound) seems to be the great singularity, by which the _Chinese_ Characters differ from those of all the rest of the World. And this I conceive has been the reason why all People, and possibly even the very _Chinese_ themselves have, and do believe it to be a real and not a literal Character: For if the primitive Language, or pronunciation of the Characters be lost (as I conceive it is) and that the disposition, order, method, texture, or manner of placing the more simple in the more compound Characters be also lost, forgotten, or not understood; then the whole Characters becomes a real and not a literal Character: And an immethodical one to such as want a method, that must be learned by rote, and depend wholly upon the strength of the Memory to retain it. But I conceive it might be at first either a literal Character, and so the whole square Character was composed of so many distinct Letters or Syllables, which composed the Word signified thereby; and so there might be a regular Order of placing these Letters in the Character, that is, that the whole square being divided into so many parts, there was a Rule which was the first, second, third and fourth place: so that there being placed in those the several Letters that made up the Word, according to the order they had in the Word, it was easie by that Rule to Decipher the said Character, and thence to find the Word and the Signification, as regularly as if the Letters had been written one after another, as most other literal Characters we know are at this Day written.