11. As useful as to confound the sounds that the letters of the alphabet stand for.
These learned men did equally
instruct men's understandings, and profit their lives, as he who should alter the signification of known characters,
and, by a subtle device of learning, far surpassing the capacity of the illiterate, dull, and vulgar, should in his
writing show that he could put A for B, and D for E, etc., to the no small admiration and benefit of his reader. It
being as senseless to put black, which is a word agreed on to stand for one sensible idea, to put it, I say, for
another, or the contrary idea; i.e., to call snow black, as to put this mark A, which is a character agreed on to stand
for one modification of sound, made by a certain motion of the organs of speech, for B, which is agreed on to
stand for another modification of sound, made by another certain mode of the organs of speech.
