To take, then, a German word for our example. The word _Leben_ (life) would be signified by its three principal characters. Now, the first letter would be indicated by _Licht_ (a flaming light), because this word also begins with L, _Baum_ (a tree) would stand for B, while N would be represented by any kind of _Nass_ (fluid), by a rapid waterfall, for instance, or by a waving line, as a type of its moving and undulating surface. A light, then, a tree, and an undulating surface, will, by means of the initial letters of our German terms for them (_L_icht, _B_aum, _N_ass), stand for the word _Leben_, _i.e._, life. Now, from this example, which I have purposely chosen, it will appear that this hieroglyphical mode of notation and writing, while it was fundamentally alphabetical, had, nevertheless, at the same time, a symbolical significance. For a light, or light-giving flame, the tree with its growth, as well as the flowing stream with its waves or ripples, aptly express and typify the intrinsic character of life, with its several characteristics and elements. And it is even this addition of symbolical coloring and signification which in the otherwise equivocal, and, consequently, inconvenient, representation of objects by an hieroglyphical alphabet, constitutes the peculiar difficulty, but, at the same time the mental attraction of this kind of writing. This mode of hieroglyphical representation is not, however, the most difficult to be understood. Another, so far as it has as yet been found out, and as progress has been made toward deciphering it, appears to be far more abstruse and enigmatical. For to understand or to interpret the latter in any degree, it is almost indispensable to know beforehand what is the object indicated or intended. In this mode of hieroglyphical notation the image of an object is made to stand for any other whose name begins with the same letter, as the word does that designates the former. Thus, to employ the same instance as before, the picture of a flaming light would by itself stand for the word and idea of life. This is, if we may so say, a bold play with algebraic equations, between enigmatical emblems, which are at most but imperfectly indicated, and which nothing but the intelligence of one well versed in the system can ever hope to comprehend. Any other, even with the greatest pains, will scarcely be able to decipher it with any degree of certainty. And this leads me back again to our former and still unsolved equation, involving the riddle of human life, and which this simile of the hieroglyphics was intended to help us to solve.