Language ...

Language : noises accepted as means of conveying the impulses arising in one human mind to another—mutual agreement to interpret certain sounds each time uttered as of the same significance the grunt of fear or warning—the roar of rage—the coo of love—and so to the names of objects—to phrases— to orders like "come", "go", "fetch", "run" and finally to abstractions, concepts, ideas, projects, worship of the forces controlling capricious nature.

With language, social living and so true civilization came to birth. When signs were accepted as representing the arbitrary sounds that represented ideas, prehistory emerged into written history. Prehistory is traced from vestiges and evidences dug up and inter­preted. History starts when there are written records to consult. This invention of writing was the most revolutionary stroke of genius.

It started with inventories of property, bills of exchange, composed by drawing pictures of the objects (sheep, cattle, vessels, grain-measures) then with a series of dashes to indicate number; then with symbols to indicate the nature of the transaction—the names and addresses of parties to it— and so gradually to symbols for every observed phenomenon, for relationships between them, and, finally, for abstractions like color, shape and concept.

Some races like the Chinese stayed in the pictographic stage, like the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic. Other races moved on to analyses the sounds which composed words and to adopt signs to represent always the same sound regardless of its meaning. It is these which carry all we know of the past 6 millennia of humanity's history. Meantime masonry also made great advances. Exact measurement became possible.

Men learnt to extract ores from rocks by smelting, and then to mound and temper them — at first the softer metals like tin and copper and their alloy bronze. When the same arts were applied to the harder iron, the Bronze gave way to the "Iron Age" — the true start of modern times. Four thousand years ago true religion dawned through the obedience of the Patriarch Abraham to the call of Almighty God in Babylonian territory.

The world's Creator charged Abraham with the task of leading Babylon's society out of darkness. His was the first apostolate as God's spokesman to rally mankind out of superstition and wrongdoing. Naturally he met with opposition and resistance from those with vested interests in falsehood and evil.