words. But there seems to be no intelligent determination of where and how far the reform shall be applied, except as it appears in the indicated cases. The selections seem to be of the most vague and accidental character and to have been made without any principle or method. The changes proposed are numerous enough and broad enough to be cataclysmic; but how many such cataclysms are to follow and at what intervals? Again and again have lists of words to be reformed been set forth from phonetic sources-each succeeding list more numer ous than the preceding-what are to be the coming changes? When is the end to be? It is utterly improbable that the characteristic common sense of the English-speaking people will ever be brought to accept such an indefinite and such an indefinitely lasting scheme of amending its speech. They would infinitely prefer the docking of the whole uncouth, uncomely tail away to this long protracted agony of piecemeal mutilation. There would be an utter chaos in spelling and writ ing. Spelling books, pronouncing books, and all teaching of spelling if not of reading would be banished from our schools; printing offices would print and authors would write as each should please, or as should seem right in his own eyes, for all orthographic rule would have perished. One word in reformed attire, and its neighbor unreformed, one part of a word reformed while another part is left anomalous, would be perpetually charging unreason on the whole movement of reform. Gradual reform proceeding within the limits of an unflinching life, may be suffered; but going so far as to mutilate living members, cutting the language to the quick, and threatening to go on with these painful excisions and twistings through indefinite periods of time, all rational orthography lying stranded and bleeding meanwhile-this can hardly be expected. Yet the questions press, how much, how far, and what shall be reformed. They need to be considerately weighed and rationally adjudicated before even the beginnings of reform shall be accepted.

THE FUTURE OF ENGLISH ORTHOGRAPHY.

The outlook for reform at present is far from encouraging. For over forty years the Fonetik Journal has labored with earnest zeal and much self-sacrifice, and yet it does not appear that the great reform has reached a single word or made the least sensible impression on the knotty old oak of English spelling. Corrections of the grossest vices in orthography are resisted by the great English-speaking people with a most wonderful unanimity of opposition or indifference. The aspect of things might well prompt from the earnest and learned advocate of reform, Max Müller, the despairing cry that he has "little doubt that it will be put off for many generations and that a real reform will probably not be carried except concurrently with a violent social convulsion." It is consoling to think that we can wait. English speech will live if spelling reform should die. The evils of our faulty alphabet are not beyond endurance. Spelling exercises will still prove, if rightly conducted, a good intellectual discipline, as they have in the generations past. If the great mass of our old spellers should be rejected, and text-books should be substituted that are constructed on true principles of phonology, in scientific methods. that shall by mere force of the wisely planned exercises themselves impregnate the young mind with the principles that gov ern in orthography, andin the origin and growth of words, under the silent sway of reason and rule even when conflict and consequent exception come in, the lessons in English spelling will not be misspent time. Then it may well be asked, what great calamity would befall us if the English language should come to be recognized as one that preeminently addresses the eye rather than the ear; and that, as the voices of speakers float away like the wind and are lost in the vacant air, no phonotype yet availing to conserve them, while the tracings of the writer abide indelibly in original or in faithful copy-what great calamity if the ear should yield up its sovereignty to the eye and the written rather than the spoken element become the dominant?

"Every body admits," says Max Müller, "the practical advantages of phonetic spelling; but after that, all exclaim

that a reform of spelling is impossible." "Whether it is impossible or not," he leaves to "men of the world to decide." Alas for reform, men of the world are likely to act as if they had decided that it is impossible. But if it be impossible, English will still live, and the people will prosper using it. Nay, "men of the world" have decided that English, the very English which learned reformers pronounce "effete," is destined to be the language of the world. With all its ugliness and weakness, it commands the respect and deference of the nations and the communities emerging from their barbarism are springing up with eager desire to participate in its beauty and grandeur and wealth of blessing.

It should be remembered, also, that there is a rectification of evils in our orthography lying within the limits of the sound and healthy life of the language, that is accordingly possible and hopeful. With the awakened sense of the vices existing and a corresponding desire to correct them, beginnings can be hopefully made here and there by any true genius in language which the attentive and docile people shall readily take up and carry through. The alphabetic sounds and characters-the phonology and the phonotypy-must of course remain unchanged; but reforms in pronunciation and in answering orthography may be started with probably successful results, provided the changes proposed do not strike against established principles in the language. There are cases of words the spelling of which can be justified by no principle. These anomalies may be corrected. There are others sustained by no principle, but only by inconsiderate usage which yet violate some settled rule; words of this class may be reformed. And so elsewhere reforms may be freely proposed; the genius of the language may approve and adopt them. Many of the diseases or the defects at least, the strong life of the language may heal or supply. In this way a reform to an indefinite extent may be carried on.

The thorough rectification of all that is now esteemed faulty in our orthography, may, however, be the strong purpose of many, who may think it not only desirable but also possible, to bring our language up to the ideal phonetic standard. We have endeavored to set forth to some degree the conditions indispen

sable to success. The phonology must be perfected; the pronunciation be examined and healed of its vices; the phonotypy, in all its departments of print, script, and punch, be reformed by careful labor of artist and mechanic joined in coöperation with the scholar; the etiology of linguistic disease be submitted to careful investigation and study; the modes and degrees of reformation be determined and every step in advance be in clear sight of goal and path. Above all, union is indispensable-union on a scale so large and comprehensive that the entire diversified life of the people speaking the language shall be enlisted in the work with fair representative authority, so that the reform shall be not the isolated, sporadic leaps of individuals and local communities and seasons, but the strong, steady, conspiring and persistent work of the whole vast body of the English-speaking people.

ARTICLE IV.-QUALITIES OF MATTER AS RELATED TO PERCEPTION.

WHEN I look at an object, say for the sake of simplicity a piece of iron, what do I see? Simply a piece of iron; not its qualities, nor its properties; not its form, nor the light reflected from it, nor the sensation which it occasions in my mind, nor the impression which it makes on my sense-organs. The popular word "see" cannot be twisted to mean any of these things without ambiguity and confusion. It may be said to include them all, but it is as the word "bread" may be said to include oxygen and hydrogen and potassium and phosphorus. No one means such things in actually using the word. Thus when

Sir W. Hamilton said that every man sees a different sun, he unwarrantably twisted a popular word into a scientific meaning, giving the effect of an untrue statement. We all see the same sun; but we each have a different sensation occasioned by it, and we each perceive in it whatever we are enabled to perceive by the nature and condition of our eyes and our glasses, the state of our brains and our minds.

But when I see a piece of iron, what do I perceive? This cannot be answered so briefly; the word perceive, besides its popular meaning in the phrase "to perceive an argument, or a truth," has at least two distinctly scientific uses. One is, to perceive by the senses; to express this it would be well if usage permitted us to use the word "to sense," and to say, "I sense the color of the bit of iron." But we are obliged to use the word perceive both of this immediate, direct, incomplete knowledge through one sense, and also for the compounded, acquired knowledge, in which association, memory, judgment, etc., all play their part. When I see a piece of iron I perceive, in the first sense, only what the rays of light can convey to me, that is, nothing but color. In order to perceive color I must see a colored surface, and this involves some knowledge of space. Next, I perceive this colored patch as having form, that is, as bounded by definite outline separating it from other