This fact however, though sufficient to show how ineffectual the scheme of phonetic spelling would prove, even for the removing of those inconveniences which it proposes to remedy, is only the smallest objection to it. The far more serious charge which may be brought against it is, that in words out of number it would obliterate those clear marks of birth and parentage, which they bear now upon their fronts, or are ready, upon a very slight interrogation, to reveal. Words have now an ancestry; and the ancestry of words, as of men, is often a very noble possession, making them capable of great things, because those from whom they are descended have done great things before them; but this would deface their scutcheon, and bring them all to the same ignoble level. Words are now a nation, grouped into tribes and families, some smaller, some larger; this change would go far to reduce them to a promiscuous and barbarous horde. Now they are often translucent with their inner thought, lighted up by it; in how many cases would this inner light be then quenched! They have now a body and a soul, the soul quickening the body; then oftentimes nothing but a body, forsaken by the spirit of life, would remain. These objections were urged long ago by Bacon, who characterizes this so-called reformation, 'that writing should be consonant to speaking,' as 'a branch of unprofitable subtlety;' and especially urges that thereby 'the derivations of words, especially from foreign languages, are utterly defaced and extinguished.' [Footnote: The same attempt to introduce phonography has been several times made, once in the sixteenth century, and again some thirty years ago in France. What would be there the results? We may judge of these from the results of a partial application of the system. 'Temps' is now written 'tems,' the _p_ having been ejected as superfluous. What is the consequence? at once its visible connexion with the Latin 'tempus,' with the Spanish 'tiempo,' with the Italian 'tempo,' with its own 'temporel' and 'temporaire,' is broken, and for many effaced. Or note the result from another point of view. Here are 'poids' a weight, 'poix' pitch, 'pois' peas. No one could mark in speaking the distinction between these; and thus to the ear there maybe confusion between them, but to the eye there is none; not to say that the _d_ in poi_d_s' puts it for us in relation with 'pon_d_us,' the _x_ in 'poi_x_' with 'pu_x_,' the _s_ in 'poi_s_' with the Low Latin 'pi_s_um.' In each case the letter which these reformers would dismiss as useless, and worse than useless, keeps the secret of the word. On some other attempts in the same direction see in D'Israeli, _Amenities of Literature_, an article _On Orthography and Orthoepy_; and compare Diez, _Romanische Sprache_, vol. i. p. 52. [In the form _poids_ we have a striking example of a wretchedly bad spelling which is due to an attempt to make the spelling etymological. Unfortunately the etymology is erroneous: the French word for weight has nothing in the world to do with Latin _pondus_; it is the phonetic representative of the Latin _pensum_, and should be spelt _pois_.]]