Howbeit, seeing that the common good urged them to speech, they went on, and told him in plain terms that he must be content to refer himself to order, and so much the rather because their meaning was not to seek either his deprivation or his resignation, but to urge him to qualify his government, and make use of a further council which they meant to join with him, as a thing likely to bear great fruit, and of good example in many such cases, since even great potentates and princes, for the general weal of their states, were very well content, upon humble suit made to them, to admit such a council, and use it in affairs: That the reasons which moved them to make this suit, and might also move him to admit the same, were of great importance: That because letters were first found only to express him, therefore they had given him alone the whole government therein, and were well contented with it, until they had espied, not his misgovernment, but their own mischoice: That the bare and primitive inventions, being but rude, and being ruled accordingly, and experience at the time affording no more growth in refinement, why should they not now yield to refinement, upon better cause, what they yielded to rudeness from mere necessity? That no man having any sense of the correctness in writing that is commended by experience would yield the direction to sound alone, which is always altering, and differs according as either the pronouncer is ignorant or learned, or the parts that pronounce are of clear or stop delivery, or as the ear itself has judgment to discern: That considering these defects, which crave reform, and the letter itself, which desires some assurance of her own use, it might stand with his good pleasure to admit to his council two grave and great personages, whom they had long thought of, and through whose assistance he might the better govern the province of the pen.
Since they praised the parties so much, he desired their names. They answered—Reason, to consider what will be most agreeable upon sufficient cause, and Custom, to confirm by experience and proof what Reason would like best, and yet not to do anything without conference with sound.
The personages pleased him for their own worthiness, but the very thing that recommended them to him for their own value made him dislike them for the danger to himself. For is not either reason or custom, if it please them to aspire, more likely to rule the pen than sound? said he to himself. Howbeit, after they had charged his conscience with all those reasons in one throng, which they had used individually before, urging that it were no dishonour to yield a little to those who had given him his whole rule: That they might have leave to amend their own error in overcharging him: That though they seemed to lower his rank, yet they did not seek to defraud him of his own: That the wrongs done to writing, which they indicated to him were matters worthy of redress: That the councillors whom they appointed were honourable and honest: That the common benefit of the whole province of writing earnestly sued for it, and they were very well assured that so good a father as he was to that poor estate would never be unwilling, but rather voluntarily condescend without any request, that he might not be half dishonoured in delaying the request from not knowing the grievances. After they had pressed him so closely, though he was very loth, after being once a sole monarch, to become almost a private person by admitting controllers, as it seemed to him, rather than councillors, as they meant, yet perceiving that their power was such that they might force him to grant what they begged of him if he should try to make terms with them, he was content to yield, though with some show of discontent in his very countenance, and to admit Reason and Custom as his fellow-governors in the correct method of writing.
For in very deed wise and learned people, whatever they may lend ignorance to play with for a time, reserve to themselves judgment and authority to exercise control, when they see unskilfulness play the fool too much, as in this same quarrel for the alteration of sounds according to a presumptuous rule they had very great reason to do. For as in faces, though every man by nature has two eyes, two ears, one nose, one mouth, and so forth, yet there is always such diversity in countenances that any two men may easily be distinguished, even if they are as like as the two brothers, the Lacedaemonian princes, of whom Cicero speaks; so likewise in the voice, though in everyone it passes through by one mouth, one throat, one tongue, one barrier of teeth, and so forth, yet it is as different in everyone, as regards the sound, by reason of some diversity in the vocal organs, as the faces are different in form, through some evident distinction in the natural cast of features. And this diversity, though it hinders not the expression of everyone’s mind, is yet too uncertain to rule every man’s pen in setting down letters.
And again, what reason had it to follow every man’s ear, as a master scrivener, and to leave every man’s pen to its own sound, where there were such differences, that they could not agree where the right was, everyone laying claim to it? Again, why should ignorance in any matter be taken for a guide in a case demanding knowledge? Because of the clamour of numbers? That were to make it an affair of popular opinion, whereas the subject is one of special difficulty, requiring wisdom. And therefore if any number, though never so few, deserve to be followed, it were only they who could both speak best, and give the best reason why. But that kind of people were too few at the first to find any place against a popular government, where the ear led the ear, and it was asked why sound should give over his interest, seeing letters were devised to express sound in every one of us, and not merely the fancy of a few wise fellows. And yet when corn was once introduced, acorns grew out of use though a fit enough meat in a hoggish world. For naturally the first serves the turn till the finer and better comes forward. And as something worthily took the place of nothing, so must that something again give place to its better; as sound did something to expel rudeness, though it may not set itself to keep out progress in refinement.
Wise men would stand no longer to that diversity in writing, which necessarily followed, when everyone spelt as his vocal organs fashioned the sound, or as his skill served him, or as his ear could discern. All these means are full of variety, and never in agreement, as appears by the example of whole nations, which cannot sound some letters that others can.
Owing to these discontentments, and by consent of those who could judge and pronounce best, they arrived at a certain and reasonable custom—or rather, truth to say, to a customary reason—which they held for a law, not inadvertently hit on through error and time, but advisedly resolved on by judgment and skill. Nor yet did they, contrary to their promise, deprive sound of all his royalty, which was like that of a dictator before, but they joined reason with him, and custom too, so as to begin then in acknowledged right, and not in corruption after, as a Caesar and a Pompey, to be his colleagues in a triumvirate. From that time forward sound could do much, but not at all so much as before, being many times very justly overruled by his well-advised companions in office. Thus ended the monarchy of sound alone.
We are now come to that government in writing which was under sound, reason and custom jointly, and which proceeded in this way. Reason, as he is naturally the principal director of all the best doings, and not of writing alone, began to play the master, but yet wisely and with great modesty. For considering the disposition of his two companions, first of sound, which the letters were to express in duty, being devised for that purpose, and then of custom, which was to confirm and pave the way to general approval, he established this for a general law in the province of writing—that as the first founders and devisers of the letters used their own liberty, in assigning by voluntary choice a particular character for the eye, to a particular sound in the voice, so it should be lawful for the said founders and their posterity, according as the necessity of their use and the dispatch in their pen did seem to require it, either to increase the number of letters, if the supply seemed not to satisfy the variety in sound, or to apply one and the same letter to diverse uses, if it could be done with some nice distinction, in order to avoid a multitude of characters, as we apply words, which are limited in number, to things which are without limit; and generally, like absolute lords in a tenancy at mere will, to make their own need the test of all letters, of all writing, of all speaking, to chop, to change, to alter, to transfer, to enlarge, to lessen, to make, to mar, to begin, to end, to give authority to this, to take it from that, as they themselves should think good. This decree being penned by reason, both sound and custom at once approved—sound, because there was no remedy, though his heart longed still for his former monarchy, which was now eclipsed; custom, because that served his turn best. For if necessary use and dispatch in the pen could have authority, which was given them in law, by consent of the men who were successors to those that first founded the letter (which were men of the most learned and wisest sort), then were custom indeed, having reason for a friend, and sound no foe, a very great prince in the whole province in both writing and speaking. And good reason why. For custom is not that which men do or speak commonly or most, upon whatsoever occasion, but only that which is grounded at the first upon the best and fittest reason, and is therefore to be used because it is the fittest. If this take place according to the first appointment, then is custom in his right; if not, then abuse in fact seems to usurp upon custom in name. So that I take custom to build upon the cause, and not to make the cause.
After reason had brought both sound to this order, and custom to this authority, then was there nothing admitted in writing but that only, which was signed by all their three hands. If the sound alone served, yet reason and custom must needs confirm sound; if reason must have place, both sound and custom must needs approve reason; if custom would be credited, he could not pass unless both sound supported him and reason ratified him.