1861.] 287 [Introduction. 



certainly true that the linguists have always evinced an interest in 

 that part of science which treats of the formation of sounds, but up 

 to the present day it cannot be said that they have heartily embraced 

 the facts revealed to them by physiology ; else they could not have 

 advanced such systems of sounds, in which not only the original re- 

 lationship existing between these sounds is disregarded, but even the 

 simple and the compound consonants are not strictly separated." 



In these remarks I perfectly agree with Dr. Briicke, and I am 

 firmly persuaded, that all laws regarding the interchange of vowels 

 and consonants, and thus also the laws of English pronunciation, can 

 only be explained on a physiological basis. 



§ 2. Of the history of phonology or the science of elementary 

 sounds Dr. Briicke gives us the following sketch : 



" To judge from the systematizing and the development of the 

 written characters among the Hindoos, the physiological part of pho- 

 nology seems to have reached among them, at an early time, a high 

 degree of perfection ; indeed, much more so than among the Greeks. 

 At a later period the Arabians made a frequent and close study of 

 the sounds of language, while in Europe, during the middle ages, 

 phonology was not cultivated at all. However, it is only in modern 

 times that the results of a physiological study of the sounds of lan- 

 guage were applied to life and tested by practice. For there was 

 still an immense difference between writing many things on the for- 

 mation of the sounds in language, and being so far acquainted with 

 their essential nature as to be able to instruct beings deprived of the 

 sense of hearing in language by their sense of sight and feeling, and 

 thus to make them participants of the blessing of language." 



" Pietro Ponce, a Spanish Benedictine monk, who must be re- 

 garded as the founder of the science of phonology, and the benefac- 

 tor of thousands of men, yea, their deliverer from a state of idiocy 

 like that of the brutes, was the inventor of the instruction of the 



deaf and dumb. He died at Ona A. D. 1584 His success, 



both as regards the intellectual development of his pupils and their 

 facility in speaking, seems to have been very remarkable, according 

 to the trustworthy testimony of contemporaries. He is said to have 

 written a book on this subject, which has been lost." 



"The oldest work extant on the instruction of the deaf and dumb 

 is written by Juan Pablo Bonet, ' Reduction de las letras y arte para 

 ensehar a hahlar los mutos: Madrid, 1620;' of which extremely 

 rare work there is a copy both in the Imperial and the University 

 libraries in Vienna. Its author was a secretary of the constable of 



