Whoever defends our present spelling on esthetic grounds must be prepared to uphold the principle that beauty of design should control the choice of letters in forming words. But as standards of taste ar constantly changing, and differ widely in individuals at all times, to admit the validity of such a principle would be to sanction orthografic caos.
Words Hav No Intrinsic Beauty
Few, however, would maintain that what they find pleasing in our present word-forms precedes from intrinsic beauty of design. If such exists, it must be entirely fortuitous, due to the agreeable association of certain letters in combinations made for another purpose. Accordingly, any change in the scheme of notation is likely to giv rize to as many pleasing combinations as it disturbs.
Those who have studid the principles of esthetics wil know, and others may be assured, that what appears pleasing, or to giv literary dignity or propriety to any word-form, is due, not to any intrinsic quality, but to visual habit and mental association.
Ghost and Gost
Take the word ghost, for example. Always having seen it speld in this way, we hav come to associate the feelings arousd by the idea ghost with its accustomd form of visual representation. To meet the word in our reading instantly and instinctivly excites those feelings in our minds. To meet the same word speld gost, shorn of its familiar h, shocks us, and causes a temporary mental inhibition of the idea. The word seems to hav lost, with the missing letter, something of the wierdness and mistery we hav always associated
