Trail and Writing

Before the invention of writing the range of one man’s influence over another was limited to the range of sight, sound and scent; besides this there was trail, of many kinds. Trail unintentionally left is, as it were, hidden sight. Left intentionally, it is the unit of literature. It is the first mode of writing, from which grew that power of extending men’s influence over one another by the help of written symbols of all kinds without which the development of modern civilisation would have been impossible.