What are the Mechanical Arts?

Those in which the hand and body are more concerned than the mind, and
which are chiefly cultivated for the sake of the profit attending
them. To this class belong those which furnish us with the necessaries
of life, and which are commonly called trades, as carpentry, weaving,
printing, &c. There are also many other arts, as the art of writing,
&c.


When was the art of Writing invented?

It is supposed that the art was invented before the Deluge: it was
certainly practised long before the time of Moses. There were,
doubtless, many steps taken in slow succession before the invention of
alphabetic writing. Perhaps the earliest method might have been that
which is still employed among the untutored tribes of North American
Indians, who record events by picture-painting of the rudest
description. Picture-painting was afterwards gradually converted into
the hieroglyphical system, which is still the only kind of writing
among the Chinese. It is not known who invented the alphabetic system
of writing.

_Deluge_, a flood: the term used in particular to denote
that mighty flood of water with which God swept away the
first nations of the earth for their wickedness.

_Alphabetic_, from alphabet, the series of written signs of
language called letters. The word is formed from _alpha_,
_beta_, the names of the first two letters of the Greek