amuse or interest the rest, if only it could be made articulate. But none can read, and none can write, and language is in its infancy. How then can he find a way to tell it, and they perceive his meaning, and all _remember_? By means of proverbs; not the neat epigram of later ages, but yet sayings which for all their simplicity were embryonic proverbs. Earliest and easiest type of all was the bare comparison--_this is like that_--a type which, it is interesting to note, may be illustrated by one of the oldest phrases in the Bible: _Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the Lord_ (Gen. 10^{9}). And the method of comparison never ceased to be a favourite mould for the formation of proverbs, as some polished examples from _Proverbs_ will serve to show: _As the swallow ever flitting and flying, so the curse that is groundless alighteth not_ (Pr. 26^{2}). _The way of the wicked is like the darkness: they know not whereon they stumble_ (Pr. 4^{19}). Another device for communicating thought and storing wisdom was the riddle, and this also, under slight disguise, has its lineal descendants in the Biblical proverbs. Thus Pr. 16^{14}, _Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body_, was once most probably a reply to the question, _What is sweet as honey?_ Another example is Pr. 22^{1}: someone would ask, _What is worth more than gold?_ and when the listeners had guessed in vain give his answer, _A good repute_. But better than any one comparison, more memorable than the single question, was the _numerical_ riddle; for instance this--_What four things are beyond our power to calculate?_ _There be three things too wonderful for me, Yea, four which I do not comprehend-- The way of an eagle in the air; The way of a serpent upon a rock; The way of a ship in the midst of the sea; And the way of a man with a maid._--(Pr. 30^{18, 19}). By sayings such as these were thought and experience acquired and transmitted in forgotten years. When complex thinking was impossible, when minds were dull and expression feeble, these primitive proverbs by the barb of their wit or fancy, fixed themselves deep in the memories of men. (2). The last quotation has in early Indian literature a close parallel beginning thus: _The paths of ships across the sea, The soaring eagle’s flight, Varuna knows_.... and another of the numerical sayings from the same chapter of _Proverbs_ has an even closer parallel: _There be three things unsatisfied, Yea, four that say not “Enough”: Death, and the barren womb, Earth, never sated with water, And fire that says not “Enough.”_ (Pr. 30^{15, 16}), compared with: _Fire is never sated with fuel; Nor Ocean with streams; Nor the God of death with all creatures; Nor the bright-eyed one (i.e., woman) with man._ (Hitopadeça 2, 113).