NT, and is instinctually applied to the Consonant-Sounds in
accordance with their analogy with the _Skeleton_ of the Human or Animal
System.

By an easy and habitual slide in the meaning of Words, a term like
_Joint_ is sometimes used to denote the _break_ or _opening_ between
parts, and sometimes to denote one of the parts intervening between such
breaks; as when we speak of a _joint_ of meat, meaning thereby what a
Botanist would signify by the term _Internode_, the stretch or reach or
shaft of bone extending from one joint (break) to another, with the meat
attached to it.

Consonants have, in like manner, a double aspect as Articulations or
_Joints_. In a rigorous and abstract sense, the Consonant has no sound
of its own. It is simply a break or interruption of Sound.
Etymologically, it is from the Latin _con_, WITH, and _sonans_,
SOUNDING; as if it were a mere accessory to a (vowel) Sound; the Vowels
being, in that sense, the only sounds. In this sense, the Consonants are
analogous with the mere cracks or opening _joints_, which intervene
between the bones of the Skeleton. In other words, they are no sounds,
but mere nothings; the analogy, in that case, of _Abstract_ Limitation.

Practically, on the contrary, the Consonant takes to itself such a
portion of the vocalized or sounding breath which it serves primarily to
limit, that it becomes not merely a sound ranking with the Vowel; but
the more prominent and abiding sound of the two. It is in this latter
sense, that it is the Analogue of the Bone.

In Phonography, as in Hebrew and some other Languages, the letters
representing the Consonant-Sounds only are written or printed; the
Vowel-Sounds being either represented by mere points added to the
Consonant characters, or left wholly unrepresented, to be supplied by
the intelligence of the Reader. The written words so constructed,
represent the real words with about the degree of accuracy with which a
skeleton represents the living man; so that the meaning can be readily
gathered by the practised reader, by the aid of the context. In
Phonography, the Consonant-Sounds, which are simple straight or curved
lines, are joined together at their ends, forming an outline shape,
somewhat like a single script (written) letter of our ordinary writing.
These outline words are then instinctually and technically called
_Skeleton-words_, from the natural perception of a genuine Scientific
Analogy.

Consonants constitute, then,