Alphabetical Characters. 109 
similarity of sound in the words themselves. 
Of these they would be much more likely to 
adopt the latter than the former; both be- 
cause it is more consistent with the rest of the 
scheme, and because the circumstances of 
resemblance between objects of sense are 
more obvious, simple and determinate than the 
analogies subsisting among objects presented 
only to the mind. 
Again, when in the course of time the gra- 
dual developement of new ideas and new dis- 
coveries led to the introduction of additional 
words, characters would be appropriated to 
them upon the same principles, according as 
their sounds appeared to- have an affinity or 
resemblance to those of other words already 
provided for. 'Thus they would be led to ob- 
serve the minuter shades of difference be- 
tween the sounds of words, and to attend to 
the operation of the different organs of speech 
‘in giving utterance to the various articulate 
sounds which they had occasion to make use 
of in language. When once men were in- 
duced to pay this degree of attention to the 
subject, the rest of the process seems to me 
perfectly easy and obvious. That a man of 
only ordinary sagacity and penetration, when 
he had arrived at this point should think of 
analysing the words he made use of in lan- 
