“The three syllables, he writes, “which Abel Rémusat considered as purely phonetic and foreign to the Chinese language, have a very clear and intelligible meaning, and have been fully explained by Chinese commentators. The first syllable, I, means without color; the second, Hi, without sound or voice; the third, Wei, without body. The proper translation therefore is:—”
“You look (for the Tao, the law) and you see it not: it is colorless.
“You listen and you hear it not: it is voiceless.
“You wish to touch it and you reach it not: it is without body.”
Until, therefore, some other traces can be discovered in Chinese literature proving an intercourse between China and Judæa in the sixth century B. C., we can hardly be called upon to believe that the Jews should have communicated this one name, which they hardly trusted themselves to pronounce at home, to a Chinese philosopher; and we must treat the apparent similarity between I-Hi-Wei and Jehovah as an accident, which ought to serve as a useful warning, though it need in no way discourage a careful and honest study of Comparative Theology.
IV.
On Spelling.
The remarks which I venture to offer in these pages on the corrupt state of the present spelling of English, and on the advantages and disadvantages connected with a reform of English orthography, were written in fulfillment of a promise of very long standing. Ever since the publication of the Second Volume of my “Lectures on the Science of Language,” in 1863, where I had expressed my sincere admiration for the courage and perseverance with which Mr. Isaac Pitman and some of his friends (particularly Mr. A. J. Ellis, for six years his most active associate) had fought the battle of a reform in English spelling, Mr. Pitman had been requesting me to state more explicitly than I had done in my “Lectures” my general approval of his life-long endeavors. He wished more particularly that I should explain why I, though by profession an etymologist, was not frightened by the specter of phonetic spelling, while such high authorities as Archbishop Trench and Dean Alford had declared that phonetic spelling would necessarily destroy the historical and etymological character of the English language.