EXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST 



certainly very similar, and it is equally myste- 

 rious. Why this curious alteration of sounds 

 should have occurred so systematically, and on 

 so great a scale, no one has ever succeeded in ex- 

 plaining. It is none the less to the purpose, how- 

 ever, that it has occurred. Although an empirical 

 rule, Grimm's law is nevertheless a well-estab- 

 lished rule, and in the study of Aryan etymology 

 it has to be taken into account at every step. It 

 is easy to see what a revolution the establishment 

 of this law has worked in our methods of com- 

 paring words. Formerly the etymologist looked, 

 though in a vague, indiscriminate way, for mere 

 resemblances ; and this was natural enough. But 

 now a too strict resemblance sometimes becomes 

 a suspicious circumstance. The Greek word for 

 " whole " is 0X0?, and what could be more plausi- 

 ble than to suppose it identical with the English 

 word ? But here Grimm's law makes us suspi- 

 cious. We ought not to expect a Greek to pro- 

 nounce " whole " like an Englishman, any more 

 than we ought to expect to hear a cockney say 

 "horse." What the cockney says is "orse," 

 and what the Greek would naturally say is not 

 oXos, but /coXos ; and in point of fact it has been 

 otherwise proved that our suspicion is here well 

 grounded, the resemblance between the Eng- 

 lish and Greek words is purely accidental. Mere 

 resemblance is thus a very treacherous guide in 

 etymology. In French we have louer, " to hire," 

 104 



