shall soon see, have a great deal to answer for. They are, however, best considered in detail when we treat this part of the subject historically. The little that need be said about them, at present, applies to the general character of their demerits, which, in the great majority of cases, are referrable to two heads. 1. The common, indeed, the universal fault of the vowel system, in England, as in other countries, is its primary and original incompleteness. Of a and o there are the three sounds, allied, yet different; capable of being exemplified, described, and classified. They are, also, susceptible of being named; though there is so little uniformity and system in the terms applied to them that I hesitate to use them. The a and o in fat and not are called short; the a and o in fate and note are called long and these are words which are pretty generally adopted. But the difference between the a in father and aw in bawl, when compared with the a in fate and the o in note (with which it agrees in being long.) is not very uniformly denoted. Let us call it, for the present, the open sound of certain vowels; though the term is one which, in the French and Italian languages we must either abandon or use in a different sense. Now for each of these three modifications, a separate sign is required. It may be a wholly different letter, or it may be the original letter modified in form. We have, however, nothing nearer than eta and epsilon, and the omega and omicron of the Greek. This is as much as need be said about the original incompleteness of the vowel system. It is less deficient in some languages than in others, but, more or less, it is deficient in all. So far, then, as it occurs in English it is, by no means, a fault peculiar to that language. It is rather one which we share with the rest of the world. This is not the case with the faults of the second group. It is one thing to have no signs at all for a pair of allied sounds; it is another thing to have, and to misdistribute, them. Thus, the Greeks have the four signs η, ε, ω, and o for ē, ě, ō, and o, and they know how to use them. What, however, if n were treated as the long sound of o, and e as the short sound of w? This would be an abuse, a blunder; a blunder and an abuse arising out of a a misconception of their true affinities. Now some languages make this blunder, and some do not. What orthography is the freest from it, is doubtful. It is certain, however, that English is the most affected by it. The best example of it is our treatment of the sound in "fine." It is really a diphthong, as in the German feine. With us it is the long form of the i in fin. Now, in calling combinations like these orthographical expedients, I do not say that they are contrivances; or, at any rate, that they are always such. I hold that, in most cases, they were not framed with a definite sense of their future functions, or, that they were not consciously constructed as means towards an end. I merely state that their effect and operation is just what it would have been if they had been so constructed. They are expedients to all practical intents and purposes. They need not have been meant as such; they need not have been made at all. They seem to have grown: though how we get the results of design with nothing but the mere growth of a system of spelling as the designer I do not pretend to say: nor do I think anyone could explain it without getting within the region of abstractions. In like manner, I do not consider that in calling these expedients non-natural I make them artificial. In many cases their origin has been, as has just been stated, spontaneous. They developed themselves under certain conditions of language; rather than out of the conscious working of any particular individual; though of this they may be instances. The process by which letters become mute is one of a much simpler character, and the explanation of them may generally be found within the words wherein they occur. Most of the expedients are connected with the letter c. That part of our spelling which lies within the immediate and remote influence of this exotic and unn unnecessary letter we may liken to a tree of foreign origin and southern growth, transplanted on the soil of England: that has brought with it a parasite, by which it is encumbered. The parasite may not be without its uses; for it may indicate to the observer the original country of the tree. It may serve, too, for some subordinate purposes of ornament. But it checks the natural growth of the tree; warping, nipping and distorting both trunk and branch, and weakening their fibre till the whole tissue becomes fragile, corrupt and mouldering. On the other hand, the parts constituted by the original consonants, though neither undying, nor self-renewing, are free from such an incubus as this. The worst that can befall them are the ordinary evils of growth, -old age, and decay. Here and there a branch loses its vitality, and, so long as it remains in its place, encumbers the tree. The remedy, however, is occasional inspection; and a clearing away of the dead wood is all that is needed for a strong, healthy and natural revival of their true vitality. We have thus exhibited, in a general way, the characteristics of two classes of letters according to their use and power in the spelling of the English language, as illustrative of the principles of the present orthography; in doing which great stress has been laid upon the fact of each group being a natural one: inasmuch as the faults of each division not only differed in number and gravity according to the letters upon which they were charged, but were referrable to a different origin, and amenable to different remedies. There were degrees, then, of faultiness, and, in these degrees, varieties as to the extent to which the faults were more or less easily abated. Nevertheless, under the most favorable view of the more favored of the two classes there was a certain amount of deficiency, redundancy, and inconsistency, of which the best that could be said was that there were certain principles at the bottom of them; that, on these, certain rules could be constructed; and that, above all, there were connected with the system, certain secondary advantages which might be considered as a set-off to the admitted evils of the system. That there are some such advantages is admitted by the advocate of the Phonetic system; just as his opponent admits that there are some demerits in the existing system. The demerits are both numerous and important. Hence, the question is one of comparison. What is the price at which the advantages of the present system are bought? The phonetician insists that there is no equality, nor even an approach to it, between them. Now, however much it may be the case, that the complexity of the present system is different for the different parts into which it is divided, and that in one of them it may be much less than in the other, the phonetic system is wholly free from complexity of any sort. In this it differs from the existing orthography not merely in degree but in kind. The extent to which this is the case is so great that it almost degrades the Phonetic principle to a truism. It is too simple, and too natural, to be really a system at all. And, perhaps, such is actually the case. Yet it is purely, simply, and absolutely neither more nor less than the present system divested of its extension to secondary and subordinate purposes. It is simply a translation of the audible sounds of which the ear is the organ that takes cognizance, into the visible signs which appeal to the eye, and which, by so doing, are made permanent. Surely this is sufficient. Surely this is something that can be allowed to stand or fall by its own merits. Surely this is an aim and object which wants no recommendation from any secondary aims to which it may be made subservient. If it cannot stand alone it cannot, and ought not to stand at all., Let, then, the simplicity and singleness of this aim be the characteristic; and, as an expansion of this, let the utter absence of all secondary aims be taken as the result. Under these conditions spelling is reduced to the three following operations: 1. The resolution of any word, as the speaker utters it, to its elementary articulate sounds. This, however, as far as the speaker is concerned, is already done; and the signs which denote them are letters. 2. A familiar knowledge of the forms of them. 3. The way of putting them together. The result is a spelt word: the spelling of which is as pure a matter of certainty as the sum in a series of numbers in arithmetic. This process with letters as the symbols, is not, does not profess to be, easier than the corresponding process in arithmetic. It requires care, and a sustained attention; probably to the same degree. It is not learned with equal ease by every learner. But it is equally simple, and its results are equally sure. Does it then make bad spelling impossible? It does so in the way that bad addition is impossible. The operator may be careless ; or he may manage his tools in an unworkmanlike manner. This, however, is his fault; not that of the system: and for faults of this kind we must allow in our teaching just as we do in the teaching of the rule of addition. Can as much be said of the present system? But the learner may pronounce his words wrongly. Be it so. All that the phonetic system requires is that given the right pronunciation of a word, the right spelling of it shall follow as a matter of course. With a learner from the provinces there are many pronunciations, which, as a matter of standard orthoepy, are wrong. With the best educated men in England the pronunciation of a certain number of words is doubtful. Phonetic spelling does not profess to teach pronunciation or orthoepy. It merely professes to supply an orthography. It takes a certain pronunciation, whether right or wrong, and represents it. The present system does the same; but it misrepresents it. The difference between the two is a matter not of degree but of kind. SECTION XXXII. THE PHONETIC PRINCIPLE. We have hitherto considered the principles of phonetic spelling exclusively in respect to its opposition to the existing systems now prevalent, both in England and elsewhere: and it may, probably, have struck some of our readers that it is only so far as it is antagonistic to something else that it has any existence, or, at any rate, any claim upon our attention. This, however, is far from being the case. If phonetic spelling were as prevalent as it is now exceptional, indeed if it were dominant throughout the whole domain of language, and if the opposite systems were non-existent, there would still be more than one question of some practical importance connected with it. The rule that the representation of the sounds of language is not only the primary but the exclusive function of orthography, though it carries us far, does not carry us all the way. Upon the analysis of sentences into words, of words into syllables, and of syllables into their ultimate elementary articulations or breathings the whole basis of spelling and writing rests. No analy. sis, no letter. This is the rule. But analysis, wherever it occurs, or whatever it may be applied to, is essentially a matter of degree. It may stop after the first subdivisions of the subject matter, or it may be carried onwards and onwards, and farther and farther, until not only nothing remains to be separated from anything, but until the last sign of composition has disappeared. At the same time, it by no means follows that this extreme form of analysis is necessary: and, when this is needless, the extension of the phonetic notation is equally so. Now the reduction of a sentence into its constituent parts may stop at words; or it may go on to the analysis of the constitution of an elementary sound. How far, then, are we to follow it in our notation? There may be sounds that, while they vary from one another, vary so slightly as not to be worth the sign that should express their difference. There may be sounds that though manifestly compound have their parts combined with different degrees of closeness. In the one case there may be contact, and contact only. In another the contact may amount to continuity, unity, confluence, or fusion: so that when two sounds come into juxtaposition, the combination, to borrow an illustration from chemistry, may be either mechanical or chemical. There are limits, then, to the application of the principle under notice; and it is better that they should be indicated by an upholder of the system than by an impugner. We must not expect to get much out of any definition of the term phonetic; neither must we argue too much from its derivation. In ordinary conversation, in controversial discussion, and even in scientific investigation, the several derivatives of the Greek word φώνη =voice, have, by no means, exactly the same import. That such laxity should exist in the use of so important a series of words is, doubtless, a matter of regret: but such laxity throughout the whole length and breadth of both the English and the other languages of the civilized world is the rule rather than the exception. Those who merely think in a general way that the difference between the spoken and the written language of their countrymen is an evil which should be abated may use the word with the proper amount of generality, and call any alphabet which brings us nearer to the actual phonēsis of our language Phonetic. But if, besides doing this, he be familiar with the question from the controversial point of view, and, learn from it, as he cannot fail to do, the extent to which the English letters are forced to represent something other than the sounds of the English language; and that the chief reason for so forcing them is the supposition that certain etymological, historical, or grammatical facts are, thereby, obtained, he soons forms the habit of attaching to the word phonetic a meaning which is little more than the opposite to etymological. It is probable that when the term is applied to our orthography in general, and when we talk or write about phonetic spelling, this use of the word is the most usual one. Then, there are those who neither know nor care to know anything about either Phonēsis or Etymology; and these ignore both words. Their name is legion. On the other hand, there are the few who employing themselves in the study of the elementary sounds either of one language in particular or of language in general, look at the term from a purely scientific point of view. The relation which the elementary sounds bear to each other; their classification, the names applied to their divisions and subdivisions; the purely anatomical question of the conditions of the speech-forming organs required for the formation of each particular sound; and, higher still, the purely physical investigation of the nature of tone, pitch, and all that belongs to the theory of vibrations, all this suggests such a word as Phonetics; a word which is no adjective at all but a substantive; a substantive, too, in the same class with Mathemathics, Physics, and |